August 2008
282 posts
Freedom of Speech and Michael Savage
As the father of a wonderful nine year old autistic boy (PJ), I cringed when a dear friend of mine (who adopted autistic twins) told me about a miscreant that was spewing uneducated filth against autistic children and their parents.
The miscreant is one Michael Savage.
My original reaction was that this is the kind of crap that we have to put up with because we live in the greatest democracy in...
Watching Our Lady of the Assassins.
Turtle Leads to Arrest of Marijuana-grower →
This is just too awwesome. A park ranger was tracking the turtle for a research project, then found the patch of plants by accident.
“The U.S. auto industry passed another bleak milestone Thursday as Chrysler...”
– Leasing takes a lashing as Detroit cuts costs - The Driver’s Seat- msnbc.com
In Memoriam: Philips Senseo (red) coffee maker
Today we mourn the untimely passing of my second Philips Senseo coffee maker, which survived a grueling half-year (give or take) of keeping me caffeinated. I say untimely since the machine had been working OK until about a week ago, when it started losing yield strength and would not improve by recycling/priming the steam loop.
Whatever the hell that means.
To add insult to injury, the closest...
July 2008
97 posts
Watching Becoming Jane (against my will). Cricket? For real?
“Han, mah bukee, keel-ee caleya ku kah. Wanta dah moole-rah? Wonkee chee sa...”
– Jabba the Hutt
X-37b: Air Force to Launch Military Orbital... →
Watching The Messengers.
Perfect Stranger was a hell of a lot better than what I expected. Let’s see how Hollywoodland goes.
Watching Perfect Stranger.
Just finished I Know Who Killed Me. It was not the worst movie I have seen.
DNS attack writer a victim of his own creation →
Talk about poetic justice…
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we...”
– Albert Einstein
The 7 Hamburgers of the Apocalypse →
I started drooling when I saw #4.
OMG.
Then I realized it also has a fried egg on top. Screw it, it still looks fantastic.
Watching The Recruiter.
Nintendo At School →
PJ showed zero interest in video games until some two years ago I showed him Marble Blast on the Xbox 360. He played it for nine hours straight.
The next day he would not let me touch the Xbox (which had been MY toy until then). I complained (jokingly) to my boss that PJ had taken the only stress relief I had,
A couple of weeks later my boss showed up at my door with a second Xbox 360 as an...
“I am, as I’ve said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that...”
– Billy Joel
Watching Dead Mary. I need to balance out the two good movies I watched today.
Consistency
How come every time I call Comcast because something is broken, or I need to downgrade service, it takes multiple half-hour calls?
Yet if I call them to upgrade (upgrade: to make one’s monthly bill bigger) everything can be settled in minutes?
Earlier today I called Comcast, told them I wanted to upgrade my channel lineup to full premium. Even if the guy did not bother with trying to...
Bennigan's and Steak & Ale restaurants file for... →
Oh man.
If Bennigan’s goes down, where will geeks go to do their insincere goodbye lunches for coworkers that found a better deal working for a competitor? Oh yeah, Chili’s, Ruby Tuesday’s and TGI Friday’s are still open.
Whew!
Watching Apocalypse Now since I already got a migraine.
Watching Psychomania while trying to push another set of customer revisions. Cool customer deserves a cool movie.
“Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, “Certainly, I...”
– Theodore Roosevelt
Software Price Gap Between the US and Europe →
It could easily be two things: import tariffs, or simple greed. Or maybe it is both.
Less driving means drop in highway funds →
As usual, you can’t make everyone happy.
The Best (and Worst) Tech Support in America: VoIP →
Sunrocket? Shut down on me. Comcast? It takes more than a week to get a voicemail ticket resolved, and then they turn around and break it again! Vonage? Good luck getting a straight answer through email.
Watching Generation Kill, Episode 3. Hopefully this will help me bleach out of my head how much did Prom Night sucked.
Watching Prom Night.
How to Take Portraits →
(via selahdream)
The best of all the hints is buried into the comments section: use telephoto. When you shoot too close to a subject at wide angle, they get what we call the “dog nose closeup” effect: their noses grow!
If instead you use a telephoto, or crank up the zoom, it will flatten the face a little bit and avoid that distortion.
CalDAV support comes to Google Calendar →
Finally!
Getting it to work is a bit of a pain in the ass because each of your Google calendars has its own URL, and only the main one has your email address, the rest use a hashed address. It’s one of those cases where you really have to RTFM.
I am happy, this means my Google and iCal will always match. Well, almost, but it is better than what I had before.
GM slashes another 117,000 vehicles →
All of them SUVs:
Chevrolet Trailbrazer (GMT 360)
Isuzu Ascender (GMT 360)
Saab 9-7x (GMT 360)
GMC Canyon (GMT 360)
Chevrolet Colorado (GMT 355)
Hummer H3 (GMT 345)
Most of this is no surprise, except somehow I missed (by 6 years, ouch) that Saab was on the GM reusable platforms bandwagon.
Bad news for the UAW, but good news for GM stockholders. They’ve cut production by...
All about Eve →
White Knight Two is out, and her name is Eve. And yes, she is gorgeous.
Ex-Google workers launch rival search engine →
Too bad their name is not web 2.0 compliant. They should have called it “Cuilr” or “Searchr” or something like that.
What’s going to be fun is to see what happens if you invest $33 million in Google stock today, then compare that investment to whatever Cuilr is doing a couple of years down the road.
“O sleep, O gentle sleep, nature’s soft nurse, how have I frightened thee,...”
– William Shakespeare
“I admire Apple. I love its products. But this is bullshit.”
– Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive Imagine if any other CEO pulled bullshit like this «
D.C. to Try ShotSpotter Technology →
You just can’t make everyone happy. I would love to have the Fairfax County Police deploy these around here.
People need to see it for what it is: one more tool available to law enforcement, not as a magic bullet that will immediately eliminate crime in their neighborhood.
For more details on this technology check out ShotSpotter, Inc. and Wikipedia.
6 tags
Alvin and the ^%$#^& Chipmunks
VP|bofh: morgajel, you damn fool
dev_null: it's a trap
VP|bofh: he's letting Ian watch Alvin and the fucking Chipmunks
VP|bofh: my kid is addicted to that shit
VP|bofh: it's funny in a meta way, PJ is watching youtube videos of Ian watching Alvin and the Chipmonks
dev_null: hahah
dev_null: thats called recursion
VP|bofh: yeah
dev_null: now you need to send a pic of that back to morg
dev_null: who then needs to take of pic of his kid with th pic
Nukes Are Not the Best Way to Stop an Asteroid →
Can’t we just send Bruce Willis?