David's Journal
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
David's LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Wednesday, July 20th, 2011 | | 12:47 am |
Random mac questions
Yes, posting here because it's more satisfying to whing than google. If my Chrome icon on the dock has a '1' on top of it, what does that mean? If I have two chrome windows open, how do I tab between them? Command tab switches apps but not windows of the same app. Control tab switches tabs, but not windows. Is there some way to remap control tab so that it's readily typable? There is no good way to hit that with lazy laptop typing. | | Sunday, February 13th, 2011 | | 1:25 am |
My Brain
So, part of the load screen in Wing Commander is dudes running down a hallway with an alert klaxon going off. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbzioZBTUIU&t=43sIn my brain, this scene is *much* longer, and is the standard shot that my dreams use to represent trouble. My brain is also really good at turning my alarm clock into that klaxon. So if I'm ever late for work, you know why - I'm running down a corridor preparing to launch fighters. Seriously. In my head. God I'm a dork. | | Saturday, February 12th, 2011 | | 9:14 pm |
Mac Day 4
Day of awesome and awesome: I got samba on my win7 box fixed! I feel like such a huge idiot for this one. Problem turned out to be that I normally run peerblock, and it was of course blocking the traffic. Ooooops. Permitting the local network in peerblock has everything happy again. (I have no idea if the ntlm registry tweaks or various reconfigurations of file sharing I did were necessary or not. It works now and I'm not touching it.) I also got an ipod touch and it is AWESOME. I have apps now! Star Walk is my favorite so far. I feel about a decade behind, but it's exciting for me, and now you all can welcome me to the 20th century. I am buying into the 'retina display' hype - it really is a fantastic display, i really can't see the pixels. Wow, just wow. | | Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 | | 12:11 am |
Mac Day 3
2 finger scrolling is awesome. Awesome awesome awesome. Clicking by pushing on the mouse pad is awesome. Solid state hard drive is awesome. I sort of miss page up and page down, but gesture scrolling is replacing it just fine. I particularly like how if you scroll down with a quick flick it has a bit of inertia and glides to a stop. This is brilliant, and so far it just *works* in all the apps I've been using. Computer kept going to sleep while trying to get xcode downloaded; eventually installed 'Caffeine' app to be able to change its mind about that. Goal next week: Figure out what is wrong with smb for me. I'm going to use Ye Olde Sneakernet and just carry an external drive between computers for now. I also need to learn if there are any more gestures I need to learn / can't live with out / as cool as 2 finger scrolling. | | Saturday, January 29th, 2011 | | 12:47 pm |
Mac Day 2
* I can't say enough nice things about the touchpad. It's truly a pleasure to use. I have a ton of trouble switching back to the touchpad on my Gateway; I want to push it to click, and that doesn't work. The 'tap' feature on the Gateway is horrible and results in constant misclicks no matter how it is adjusted so it has to be turned off. It turns out the Gateway has gestures, but they are slow and clunky and unreliable. Two-finger scrolling on the mac is is utterly brilliant and fixes my main previous objection to touchpads. It's great. * Safari is disappointing. I've switched to Chrome. * I ignored my moral objections to Steam and DRM to spend $3 on Penny Arcade's Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness Episodes 1 & 2. Steam works great, and Rain Slick Precipice plays great, and it's really altogether quite pleasant. * I decided to try giving up on Windows file sharing for now and switch to attaching an external hard drive to my d-link router. This appears to have been a giant mistake and/or a trap. D-link uses some crummy program called 'SharePort' that has to be installed on the client machines. First I applied a firmware update to the router that d-link's "check for updates" lied and said didn't exist, but was available by manually going to the site. Then I installed SharePort 3 on my PC, connected to the usb drive, and copied some files - no problem. Then I disconnected from the PC (yes, only 1 computer can be attached at a time. Lame.) and tried installing SharePort on the Mac. D-link's site linked me to an old version whose installer would quietly just exit when launched. Google eventually pointed me to a new version, which installed fine, and claimed to run, and claimed to connect to my drive - but I can't find the drive. I assume there is some secret I don't know. After giving up and going to bed, waking back up today, Shareport now refuses to connect to the drive, presenting a useless error message. Google suggests a tool called 'USB Prober' might help and it's on a developer disk. I'm not quite sure where to get said disk - I go to Apple's developer site, and they want me to sign up for a $99 developer program, but you can download xcode without signing up, so maybe it's that. I start a download which is going to take a while. I decide that maybe the problem is that the machine went to sleep and woke back up overnight and maybe SharePort is dumb and can't handle that, so I rebooted the router. No dice. Then I rebooted the mac. And now I have this ugly blue screen with a spinning wait thingy for the past 10 minutes and my computer is refusing to boot and I don't know how to get more than the ugly blue screen or change its mind and suggest that perhaps it would be nice to finish booting. All the nice touchpads in the world aren't worth a thing if you can't run the computer, so right this minute I remain frustrated and disappointed. I take comfort in the knowledge that a) I have three windows machines that all work fine that I can use to Google possible solutions, and b) If I truly get stuck I believe I can drive to an apple store and somebody can help me get unstuck. I'm hoping I don't have to take option b because I'm an antisocial stubborn twit, but, well, it's nice that it's there. -David | | Friday, January 28th, 2011 | | 12:55 pm |
I Haz A Mac
So I got a MacBook Air yesterday, with zero mac experience or background and a lifetime of PC use. Initial impressions, compared to when I bought a Gateway laptop from Fry's previously: Initial goal: Replace my normal hulu/netflix/youtube/video watching laptop in the living room. a) Beautiful unboxing / initial setup experience. It's pleasant and friendly and nice. It even came with a charged battery. There are so many nice touches - even the battery charger is the nicest battery charger I have ever seen. The touchpad is actually a joy to use. Apparently I need to learn gestures now, but they are apparently fantabulous. * Apple 1, Windows 0 b) Hit up the Apple Store to get a mini displayport to HDMI adapter. It feels like a magical place with some sort of secret that I don't know. What are all those people doing in there? Should I be one of them? What is a genius bar? I feel on the outside looking in; I snuck to the adapters wall to get what I needed, eventually found the laptops with credit card readers to pay, and snuck out, feeling like I was intruding on a domain of cool where I didn't quite belong. * No clue how to score this one. It might just be me, feeling odd and left out. c) Spent half an hour of unplugging, replugging, rebooting, power cycling, installing OS updates, and googling to get HDMI adapter to work. What finally worked was either an OS update, or else the following ritual: Plug in HDMI adapter but not HDMI cable to laptop, turn on TV, plug in HDMI cable to TV, once everything is on and plugged in, plug in HDMI cable to adapter. From google, other people were not as lucky as me. In contrast, the Gateway just worked. Plug in HDMI cable, done. * Apple 1, Windows 1 d) Spent an hour trying to learn how to maximize one window (2nd screen) while using another window (1st screen), so that I could devote the second screen to watching stuff. Macs have a 'zoom' button, but no standard-across-the-OS concept of 'Maximize' or 'Fullscreen'. Nothing like 'Alt-Enter' on Windows. So, you get to learn app specific tricks. Netflix is somewhat easy: There is a 'maximize' button. When you hit it, Silverlight is supposed to prompt you if you would like to stay maximized. It did not do this prompting for me at first; I suspect it is related to silverlight having just installed itself? Eventually closing the browser and re-opening the browser got the full screen prompt, but oddly enough I didn't think to try that until after I had googled unsuccessfully for half an hour. Hulu is much harder: There is no maximize button. Google says command-F goes full screen, and it does, but Flash loses fullscreen the instant you click on another window. On windows you have two options: Use Chrome or Firefox, Pick the 'pop out' mode on the site, and hit F11 so you are technically running in windowed mode but taking up the full screen; or else hex edit the Flash binary to remove the lose-fullscreen-when-you-lose-focus feature. On Mac... I can't find a link to tell me how to hex edit the mac binary. I googled a bit and found Hulu has a desktop app, and command-F goes full screen in that (although I can't find it on a menu anywhere) - but for some reason it overexpands a bit and runs part of the video off the bottom of my screen. I'm going to try Chrome and pop out and F11 next. This was frustrating. Eventually I got Netflix right, but Hulu is still not perfect, and I haven't even made it to Youtube yet. * Apple 1, Windows 2 e) Tried to load a file from my windows box on my Mac. This is -hard-. The mac has to be reconfigured to use smb file sharing, and networking has to be configured for WINS, and I think you have to pull tricks like entering your PC's IP address as the WINS server for names to work right (instead of IPs) but I'm not absolutely sure because I can't get names working reliably yet. Then you enter smb://IPAddress/, but it doesn't work, so you go reconfigure your Windows box, but it's Windows Home so group policy isn't an option so you have to edit the registry to set LmCompatibilityLevel to 1. Then, finally, your mac can see your PC, and you happily open your media directory and load a picture as a quick test, and then you see an SMB error dialog and file sharing quits working and you have no idea how to fix it or troublshoot it and you want to throw things and you give up and you go to bed. So far, I have successfully viewed one picture of me being silly at Halloween served from Windows to the Mac, but trying for a second picture was pure kaboom. To be fair, if I was upgrading from a Mac, the installer has a nice copy-your-files option and I'm sure it would have been a grand experience. Also, setting up networking on Windows is not the easiest of things. But, on Windows, I am at least able to do it, and once I get it done, it works and doesn't get stuck with error message windows that don't even pop to the foreground and get hidden behind other windows. * Apple 1, Windows 3 Apparently I have different goals from your average user - wanting to replace your livingroom TV-and-web-browsing Windows laptop with a livingroom TV-and-web-browsing Mac laptop does not seem to have been an intended use case. I'm sure if I just wanted to hook up a camera and edit photos and make movies and play with an ipod the mac would be a pleasant satisfying experience. But, well, so far, it's frustrating. Very, very frustrating. I'm hoping it will grow on me, and I can figure out the file sharing, and once I hook up an ipod and a camera it will be lovely. I hope. | | Sunday, December 19th, 2010 | | 2:25 pm |
Favorite song
It sounds like a simple question - what's your favorite song? I sat down to try to answer it yesterday. Because I am often accused of hyperbole when I declare "omg this is my favorite song!" I thought I'd do a proper answer. I have to admit that I can't pick just one favorite. So below is the shortest list I can possibly make, in no particular order, these are all my favorite song (Youtube playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4BF574139D6C2FAC ): Want You Bad - Offspring http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g19fCJotPc A guilty pleasure. "Someone almost just like you" is one of the best lines ever. Became a fan of Offspring while playing Crazy Taxi in the arcade at the University of Edinburgh. Erasure - Sometimes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga4h0L6RKKE This was basically the first music in my life that wasn't Jimmy Buffet. We didn't really listen to music in my house. I had a mod file named "Erasure.mod" and I loved it and had to learn what this Erasure thing was. Jukebox Hero - Foreigner http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8GX7Y5Mz9c Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Top Gun Anthem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCTJmXrgsFg This is *the* go-to song when you absolutely have to be amazing at something. Fill Me In - Craig David http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdcmM9T8vD4 An ex said she loved the video. I concur. Dream a Little Dream http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-xzfwDAn1I Have always loved every version of this song Amazing Grace http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkLXOWimMY8 Just beautiful. Favorite version is by Eve Gallagher, she performed as the opening act for Boy George a decade ago. Play Something Sweet - Three Dog Night http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bjX9-DtI5s Angela. Sultans Of Swing - Dire Straits http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SEULZIHru0 I actually first heard this as a test track while shopping for my stereo. Get a better source than youtube, you can't hear the hi hat properly in this at all. Don't Go There - 24K http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kZvXBasZSQ Karen and I used to sing this in the car. It's just bloody fun. Information Society - Mirror Shades http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftfRzYYOg9U God I've always been a geek. Dresden Dolls - Night Reconnaissance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yC6xftLzrY I dearly love everything this band does, but I made myself pick one. "Steal flamingos and gnomes from the dark side of the lawn" Dresden Dolls - Astronaut http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8B2nBM0jFg Ok I lied about picking one. Just listen to the piano and you'll forgive me and understand. Random Frantic Action indeed. Crazy Little Thing Called Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO6D_BAuYCI A friend of mine is in a cover band and I'm ashamed to admit that's where I first heard this - clearly my musical background is lacking. Loved it. Tracked down every version I could find since, and love them all. Etta James - At Last http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVI254QGSQ4 Wow, just wow. Andrews Sisters - Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfCFU3Mqww A college roommate played this for me. It's essentially impossible not to love it. Alizee - Jen ai marre http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=240S04eCCC0 Found Alizee because they used her dance for night elves in World Of Warcraft. The rest should be obvious. Northern Pikes - Believe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cGSpNU7h5o My sister had a friend in high school who was from Canada and we used to listen to Northern Pikes in the car. Has always stuck with me since. Dune - Who Wants to Live Forever http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swMTl9WKNiI Don't recall how I first heard Dune. Loved it, though. First heard Who Wants To Live Forever done by Queen on Highlander. Obviously loved it. I'm a sap, this can make me cry. Paul Gross - Ride Forever http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4lWGIlGZCY I used to enjoy the heck out of Due South. This is the actor from that show. Somehow I decided to buy this album based on that, and dear God am I glad I did. Everything on it is fantastic. This and Two Houses are my favorites. I'm really a sap, this *always* makes me cry. Paul Gross - Two Houses http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIPBa88C0lE Dearly love this. Mack the Knife http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qrjtr_uFac I love happy upbeat songs about terrible things, like this jolly romp about a serial killer. Jonathan Coulton - Skullcrusher Mountain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duS7q95540w Heard his lounge singer version of Baby Got Back randomly somehow (I think on the radio?) and immediately fell in love with everything he has ever sung. Portal later cinched it for life. Britney Spears - Stronger http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJWtLf4-WWs A guilty pleasure. Fun sing along driving music. Chess - Nobody's Side http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jB07PIXap0 Another ex-girlfriend introduced me to this, and I ended up loving this musical. So glad I was able to catch it at the Alliance Theater years ago. Elaine Page's version is good, but I like a few other versions better. Tim McGraw - Don't take the girl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-TXBniRz1g Did I mention I'm a sap? One day I had to pull over and stop driving because I cried too much to see safely when this came on the radio. There is a special place in my heart for a hundred other songs - Mad World, Bleeding Love on SYTYCD ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaHM9J5pXSU ), Cheeseburger in Paradise by Jimmy Buffet, What Happens Now from Evita, Life is a Highway, Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie, and probably a hundred more... but I only ask for a free pass on "this is my favorite song!" for the above list. :) Cheers, David | | Tuesday, September 28th, 2010 | | 8:13 pm |
| | Saturday, September 11th, 2010 | | 3:31 pm |
Angry Me
The AP gets credit for announcing they won't show any photos of burning books - but no criticism for arbitrarily drawing the line at photos. Either it's news and deserves a story (tip: it's not), or it is a disgusting publicity stunt and deserves ignoring. Taking a "principled" stand of leaving their cameras off only deserves scorn for not being willing to support their own damned principles and policy. (Allegedly their policy is “not to provide coverage of events that are gratuitously manufactured to provoke and offend.” - but they are happy to cover this event.) Apparently the media has no choice but to cover every wack job, lest somebody with a camera phone beat them to it. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Election-2010/Vox-News/2010/0910/Could-the-media-have-ignored-Terry-Jones-and-his-Koran-burning-planI don't buy it. I don't buy the 50/50 theory, I don't believe that mainstream things and fringe nutjob things are the same just because you can divide them into two groups. I don't believe that the odds of an asteroid landing on my head tomorrow are 50/50 because either it will happen or it won't, and I don't believe that some publicity stunt deserves to be taken seriously and reported about alongside the weather just because it has achieved a sufficient level of shock value. But, all that being said, when people decide to riot just because some asshole burned a book - those people are wrong. I want to live in a world where every asshole has the right to burn whatever book he feels like burning. I just don't want the national news to reward him for being an asshole. There should not be a right to not be offended, and I worry that the world is headed in that direction. "I'm offended" should not be some magic trump card that can stop anything. That way madness lies. | | Thursday, August 12th, 2010 | | 11:39 pm |
The future?
For the first time ever, I have found a tasty convenient frozen microwaveable food that I can find absolutely no objection to. Clearly I'm an old fart now because I actually found this exciting. When I looked at the nutrition facts and could find literally nothing to worry about, I became worried, and immediately googled because clearly I must be missing something... but no, near as I can tell, it's totally ok to eat Birds Eye Steamfresh Super Sweet corn. http://www.foodfacts.com/food/Corn/Birds%20Eye%20Steamfresh%20Super%20Sweet%20Corn/33135Also available in super-lazy-man single serve pouches. The very fact that a frozen food doesn't have 912% of your daily value of sodium is absolutely boggling my mind, to the point that I'm actually taking the time to share a thought about eating vegetables. The. Mind. Boggles. | | Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 | | 1:28 pm |
Disappointed
Geeking out a bit: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/perfect404/ struck me as wonderful and beautiful and fantastic, it basically is advice on having your 404 page take a look at the referrer code and present different info to the user depending on whether it was a bad search engine link, bad internal link, stale link from a browser, etc. Plus various other suggestions about what to do, like declutter the screen by getting rid of your extra nav, avoid “404” jargon, make the search box prominently available, etc. Sure, it’s an old article, but still, seemed like great advice. To see it in action, it suggests you go to http://www.alistapart.com/err.asp or http://www.accessify.com/err.aspBoth sites appear to have had their 404 pages replaced with bog-standard 404 pages that follow essentially none of this advice. | | Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 | | 12:54 pm |
Amazon sells more ebooks than hardcovers. The sky is falling. I mourn the loss of the used book, and despise the abuse of technology to steal basic freedoms. Books are *sold*, not licensed. | | Friday, July 16th, 2010 | | 1:17 pm |
Laggggg
I have jet lag. I have a cold, from screwing up my sleep schedule to make early morning flights and switching time zones twice times in three days. I feel loopy, from Dayquil. But, I am happy. When delirious, might as well be happy. :) | | Monday, June 28th, 2010 | | 12:56 am |
7 point scale
I have decided that I dislike 5 point scales - I really am reluctant to give something a 5, declaring it the best thing ever, but then something really quite good gets the same 4 as something just better than average, which is downright lousy. But 10 point scales are too fine grained a distinction to use well, and the new "like/dislike" "thumbs up/thumbs down" isn't nearly fine grained enough and you hit that thumb a few times and then your Tivo thinks you are gay. I want a 5+ and a 1-. Best thing evar and worst thing imaginable. But not a 7 point scale, because "What's the difference between 5 and 6?". Average, above average, great, and great++ best thing EVER. And then Netflix will achieve sentience and we'll need a 5+- scale and also terminators to stop Skynet. 5+ on that. | | Friday, June 25th, 2010 | | 11:22 pm |
Garden State
Watched the movie Garden State last night. I think I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure, which I find weird. I guess I feel a bit uncomfortable. I don't really want to identify with these characters. But it's a good movie. But maybe I expected more scrubs laughs? And also I kept forgetting that Natalie Portman is really a fantastic actress. Wow. But I find it particularly interesting that they shot it for $2.5 million. I couldn't tell anywhere in the movie that it was done on the cheap, it seemed completely professionally well done. Which leaves me wondering what other movies get for the extra 20, 40, or 80 million they spend. I get it when they're busy blowing stuff up, but how does Gangs of New York cost 100 freaking million? Sea Biscuit was 85 million. How expensive can one horse be? It's also odd that spending $2.5 million over the course of 25 days can be considered cheap. In conclusion, money is weird and confusing. | | Saturday, June 12th, 2010 | | 8:36 pm |
| | Saturday, June 5th, 2010 | | 2:39 am |
Today's example of horrid reporting
Today's example of horrid reporting goes to CNN.com for "GOP votes for spending boondoggle". The thought that spending half a billion now could save billions later is written off in one hand-waving line and labelled "crony capitalism" and "diet hucksters". The GAO's opinion isn't mentioned, presumably because actual research would interfere with the mud slinging. Other benefits or concerns, such as disappointments with the Pratt & Whitney engine on the F22 (which this JSF engine is based on), aren't brought up. The fact that the F-16 has seen real benefits from just such an engine competition is ignored ("Block x0" F-16s were given GE engines; "Block x2" got Pratt & Whitney; the GAO says the engine competition yielded "Total savings of about 21 percent in overall life cycle costs."). Speaking on just the numbers, the GAO said this JSF single engine decision was a false economy back in 2007: "DOD's decision to cancel the JSF alternate engine program was driven by the need to identify sources of funding in order to pay for other priorities within the department. . . In supporting the decision to cancel, officials focused only on the potential up-front savings in engine procurement costs. They did not, however, consider the full long-term savings that might accrue from competition for providing support for maintenance and operations over the life cycle of the engine. " This year, the GAO says that if the engine competition can realize a 10% savings, it's worth spending $5 billion more to do it. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10478t.pdf. But John P. Avlon, writing for CNN, doesn't think it's worth reporting this right, because that would ruin his opportunity to "get your blood up". Why am I just citing the GAO? Because the point is, 20 minutes of Googling can yield a respectable source that could turn this into a real story instead of just a Republicans-are-bad political grandstanding mudslinging piece. Imagine what a real reporter could do with more than a single source. It makes me sad that preaching to the choir has replaced reporting. | | Saturday, May 29th, 2010 | | 1:34 am |
Spin spin spin
Talk radio today on the drive home was going nuts about Sestak supposedly having been offered a job in exchange for him dropping out of the race, and how government officials bribing people is a felony. So I checked what the newspapers said: New York Times very carefully called it an "unpaid presidential appointment"... but it's interesting that the law appears to expressly identify appointments as illegal, without regard to the unpaid issue, so it's not clear why the NY Times is so hung up on that detail. Sestak called it a "job". Jobs have a habit of being paid, but he didn't carefully delve into the exact definition. White House called it “uncompensated advisory board options.” Fox calls it a "Job Offer". ABC News calls it a "bid" and "prestigous but unpaid" I guess I can appreciate a reporter not wanting to go beyond established facts - if the white house swears it's not a job, and is unpaid, maybe it's best not to headline it as a job - but I don't get how the Times can do an entire article without mentioning once that Sestak flat out said it was a job, on tape, at least twice, or that even if it isn't a job, offering appointments is illegal too. Meanwhile Fox manages to do an entire article without mentioning once that the White House says it isn't a job. One would think that such details were perhaps worth reporting. Neither of them dug up this interesting article from 1981, which I found in the Kansas City Star: "Sen. S.I. Hayakawa on Wednesday spurned a Reagan administration suggestion that if he drops out of the crowded Republican Senate primary race in California, President Reagan would find him a job." http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=19811126&id=ibcsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HhQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5060,5317656Between the two, I think the Fox article did more relevant reporting - they quoted the law that is at the heart of the matter, and at least mentioned both sides positions, and got some interesting comments from professionals, including: "Former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Fox News it appears the White House gambit, while sordid, did not look like a criminal inducement to alter the course of an election. "That's a stretch. It really is a stretch. I think that it would have to be something much more direct than what we have here in order for it to violate the statute," he said." Now, I don't get how trying to bribe somebody to drop out of an election isn't an attempt to alter that election. But what do I know. Apparently I even am willing to give more credence to Fox News than the NY Times, I must be crazy. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/28/white-house-report-sestak-job-offer-raises-legal-questions-critics-say/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/us/politics/29sestak.html | | Monday, May 24th, 2010 | | 12:04 am |
It's a world gone mad
The "Lost" season finale is currently the main story on the New York Times. America's newspaper of record. Thinks the most important news in the world. Is the end of a particular piece of scripted insanity, which will be replaced with more scripted insanity. Yes, yes, I know, it's not like the newspapers are off trying to start the Spanish American War again... but still. Lost. Front page news. Really? I guess nothing happened this weekend. The BBC thinks that S Korea freezing trade with North Korea and a US-China summit in Beijin are more newsy than Lost. WSJ agrees with them, despite how Rupert Murdoch was supposed to ruin reporting. CSMonitor wants to tell us about Rand Paul and the "Tea Party" (ever noticed how the Republican Party is not ever referred to as a party? They're the Republicans. I am looking forward to the same labelling standard resulting in the new guys getting labelled the Tease.) CNN thinks we should hear about Louisiana wanting federal action. I've promised myself I would quit reading the NY Times at least twice now, but always came back under the "I should know what everyone else is thinking" argument, plus their stories display really well on my phone and they're conveniently in Opera Mini's default bookmarks after my phone turns into a monster and eats all its Java settings once a week. But I think I'm done with the excuses now. Lost is not headline news, and America's newspaper of record is no longer worth bothering with. | | Sunday, January 10th, 2010 | | 12:09 pm |
Car frustration
Been looking at cars lately. It seems like the latest trend in small SUVs is to have a really tiny small triangle shaped rear side window with ginormous roof pillars surrounding it, guaranteeing a huge blind spot where you can't see jack. If they can do this while making an unreliable gas guzzling car, that's even better. Also, 2nd row seats for midgets 4tw, and 3rd row seats that feature 'checklist compliance' whereby even a midget won't fit but darnit they have that 3rd row. I loved the Toyota FJ. Until I realized there are about 3 inches of leg room on the 2nd row seating, and it has the worst visibility of anything I've ever been in. They slapped the spare tire right in the middle of the rear window and did 3-foot wide pillars where rear side windows should be. The car dealer told me I just wasn't used to how cars are made these days because my ancient Jeep is nothing but a box with windows. What's WRONG with a box with windows, I ask you? Isn't that actually a really, really good thing for what amounts to a 3000+ pound battering ram? So far the only cars I've seen that seemed to stick with the box-with-windows idea are the Subaru Forester and Ford Flex. Forester looks sorta weird and I'm still trying to like it. Flex is much more money than I want to spend right now. Man, I really wish the FJ had more rear sear leg room and real side rear windows and the tire somewhere else... |
[ << Previous 20 ]
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
friedfly's journal
