"Potato...potato...grenade!!!"
(a lesser known version of "Baby...baby...lemon!")
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Coherence
Although I am a terminal, hopeless nerd, it takes a lot to get me excited about a piece of software. A _lot_.
With that said, having now used Coherence, it is officially the coolest thing ever. For the uninitiated, Coherence is a feature of the latest release of the Parallels virtual machine software for Macs that allows you to use Windows application windows as if they were native mac windows. So, in other words, instead of having your virtual machine look like a single window on your desktop in which all the Windows applications running in the virtual machine are caged, you can move them around, play with them, minimize them, and otherwise do anything you would do with a normal window in your _Mac_ desktop. Think running IE (or Outlook, or both) right next to Safari, each in its own window.
Once Boot Camp comes out of beta and you can run Windows games natively on Intel-based macs, there is officially absolutely no reason whatsoever to buy a Windows PC ever again.
Note to self: dump all remaining Microsoft stock.
With that said, having now used Coherence, it is officially the coolest thing ever. For the uninitiated, Coherence is a feature of the latest release of the Parallels virtual machine software for Macs that allows you to use Windows application windows as if they were native mac windows. So, in other words, instead of having your virtual machine look like a single window on your desktop in which all the Windows applications running in the virtual machine are caged, you can move them around, play with them, minimize them, and otherwise do anything you would do with a normal window in your _Mac_ desktop. Think running IE (or Outlook, or both) right next to Safari, each in its own window.
Once Boot Camp comes out of beta and you can run Windows games natively on Intel-based macs, there is officially absolutely no reason whatsoever to buy a Windows PC ever again.
Note to self: dump all remaining Microsoft stock.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Americans prefer fags to atheists
Not surprising, but still angering. Not, of course, the part about gay people being preferred to atheists...just the mere fact that they don't trust atheists. Apparently they'd rather trust an under-qualified former drunk from Texas who believes the world was created in 7 days about 6000 years ago.
And we wonder why the world is all fucked up...*grumble*
And we wonder why the world is all fucked up...*grumble*
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Twilight Princess
I am an idiot. I just stayed up until 5:30 am finishing Twilight Princess. You know that thing where you know you're close to the end so you just can't stop playing? Yeah...yeah. Sigh.
I really liked Twilight Princess. It was a fantastic game. No, the graphics were not ground-breaking, but the artistry of it in many places was breath-taking (particularly the Twilight World), and it was Zelda. It was consciously trying to tie itself very closely to the theme and spirit of Ocarina of Time, and it did so admirably. I think I might even like it better than Ocarina simply because the game play was so smooth in most of it, and because I adore the idea of the Twili (especially Midna, who is perhaps my favorite video game character of all time).
...and now my life has no purpose any more. :)
I really liked Twilight Princess. It was a fantastic game. No, the graphics were not ground-breaking, but the artistry of it in many places was breath-taking (particularly the Twilight World), and it was Zelda. It was consciously trying to tie itself very closely to the theme and spirit of Ocarina of Time, and it did so admirably. I think I might even like it better than Ocarina simply because the game play was so smooth in most of it, and because I adore the idea of the Twili (especially Midna, who is perhaps my favorite video game character of all time).
...and now my life has no purpose any more. :)
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Random thoughts on right now
Only two, actually. Okay, actually, there are sub-parts to 2. Christ, I really need to stop making PowerPoint presentations...
- On HD theater, there is currently a show where they are applying the story of Romeo and Juliet to monkeys. Yes, monkeys. There's a Romeo monkey, and there's a Juliet monkey. And a narrator. In HD.
Just goes to show you that just because something is in HD, it doesn't mean it's any better. - I'm watching Jesus is Magic (the latest Sarah Silverman special). I have very mixed feelings on her. On the one hand, she is clearly very clever, and she doesn't give a shit about boundaries. She'll go where the funny is. For that, I admire her. On the other hand, there are things that bother me about her:
- She's a one-liner comic, which to me is cop-out comedy. Granted, her one-liners are good, and at least it's not puns (usually), but still...she usually doesn't seem to be able to follow a train of thought. Now, rarely, there are comics who can pull off the one-liner. I like Richard Wright, who is the quintessential one-liner comic, but still...after a while it gets on my nerves.
- Her entire act relies on the tension between her innocent, glitter-eyed, naive tone and the bizarre, wrong shit that she's saying. All of it. It's character comedy. The comedy is almost entirely dependent upon the character she has created. Again, that's a cop-out, and it gets monotonous after a while. Colbert is the same way, but at least he actually follows a thread of comedy instead of relying on a build-up to a single punchline.
- She's crude for no reason. This is another pet peeve. I'm all in favor of profanity and otherwise totally wrong shit, but it has to be in support of the humor. But the profanity itself isn't interesting. It's fucking 12-year-old, "I-just-said-a-bad-word-tee-hee-hee" immature shit.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Goodbye, Tivo
Dear Tivo,
It's been a good several years, but I think it's time we went our separate ways. You served me well, and you were there to soothe me when I stupidly tried to use the profoundly shitful DVR that DISH gives you. You recorded my Daily Shows, my Colbert Reports, and most especially my Battlestar Galacticas. You let me transfer shows to my old laptop to watch while on planes. Perhaps most importantly, you let me skim over the commercials. For this, I will be forever grateful for your cartoon-sounding servitude.
But lately, well, we seem to have been growing apart. We're just in different places, you and I. I upgraded to HDTV, and you wanted $800 to be able to record HD shows. And as if that weren't bad enough, you wouldn't let me transfer those shows to my laptop any more. I was hurt. Betrayed. And to top it all off, I discovered you petulantly refused to let me transfer shows to my mac. You started insisting that I buy Roxio software in order to do the same thing on my mac that I did for free on a PC.
Deep down, I know you still care about me. Somewhere in there is still the upstart little box that wanted to help me subvert the advertisers. But you've changed. Now you sell viewing information to those same advertisers. And, well, I...I just can't be with you any more. So, I've canceled my service.
I wish you well. I really do. I hope you find success and happiness, but honestly, I think you're doomed if you follow your current path. I'm with another DVR now...one that will do HD. For $10 a month. We met through Millenium. Sure, it's not as good...a sad imitation of you, really. But, it treats me with respect. And that's important to me. Some day you'll understand that.
So, this is goodbye. Thanks for all the good times. I will think of you often.
Love,
Nick
It's been a good several years, but I think it's time we went our separate ways. You served me well, and you were there to soothe me when I stupidly tried to use the profoundly shitful DVR that DISH gives you. You recorded my Daily Shows, my Colbert Reports, and most especially my Battlestar Galacticas. You let me transfer shows to my old laptop to watch while on planes. Perhaps most importantly, you let me skim over the commercials. For this, I will be forever grateful for your cartoon-sounding servitude.
But lately, well, we seem to have been growing apart. We're just in different places, you and I. I upgraded to HDTV, and you wanted $800 to be able to record HD shows. And as if that weren't bad enough, you wouldn't let me transfer those shows to my laptop any more. I was hurt. Betrayed. And to top it all off, I discovered you petulantly refused to let me transfer shows to my mac. You started insisting that I buy Roxio software in order to do the same thing on my mac that I did for free on a PC.
Deep down, I know you still care about me. Somewhere in there is still the upstart little box that wanted to help me subvert the advertisers. But you've changed. Now you sell viewing information to those same advertisers. And, well, I...I just can't be with you any more. So, I've canceled my service.
I wish you well. I really do. I hope you find success and happiness, but honestly, I think you're doomed if you follow your current path. I'm with another DVR now...one that will do HD. For $10 a month. We met through Millenium. Sure, it's not as good...a sad imitation of you, really. But, it treats me with respect. And that's important to me. Some day you'll understand that.
So, this is goodbye. Thanks for all the good times. I will think of you often.
Love,
Nick
Hot or Not composites
I was wondering how long it was going to take someone to do this...very interesting to try to tease apart what's different about them.
Fox News tries to do the Daily Show...and fails spectacularly
Wow. I made the mistake of watching a clip. It hurt me. Deeply. It's not a matter of ideology. It's just _bad_. Nay, terrible. It's like 12-year-olds are writing the show. Actually, that's pretty much an insult to 12-year-olds everywhere.
Rogan vs. Mencia
If you haven't been following this, Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia had this big onstage fallout at the laugh factory, and it was caught on tape. Granted, I don't necessarily know the full story, but the fact that multiple people have accused Carlos Mencia of stealing jokes and that Mencia has now given takedown notices to YouTube relating to the video (what the fuck legal basis he has to do so is beyond me), I think Mencia is the douchebag here.
It's a shame. As Rogan says, Mencia is a great performer...apparently of other people's jokes. Which is the cardinal sin of comedy, and I don't plan on watching him any more for that reason.
It's a shame. As Rogan says, Mencia is a great performer...apparently of other people's jokes. Which is the cardinal sin of comedy, and I don't plan on watching him any more for that reason.
Onion Point-Counterpoint
God, I do so love Point-Counterpoint. Every so often I forget it, but then I remember again. A few gems:
It Was Then That I Carried You vs. Bullshit, Jesus, Those Are Obviously My Footprints
According To The Economist, NASA Is An Industrial Subsidy In Disguise vs. Oooh, Look At Me, I Read The Economist!
Life Begins At Conception vs. Life Begins At 40!
You The Man vs. No, You The Man
I Will Love You Until The Stars Fall From The Sky vs. Please Stop Calling Me
Sexual Harassment In The Workplace Must Stop vs. I Love The Way Your Tits Bounce When You Type
Darling, I Will Give You The Moon And The Stars vs. Giving Me The Moon And Stars Would Have Disastrous Effects On Our Galaxy
It's All About The Benjamins vs. Actually, The Benjamins Are Only A Small Part Of A Larger Set of Concerns
No Blood For Oil vs. Exactly How Much Oil Are We Talking About?
U.S. Out Of My Uterus vs. We Must Deploy Troops To Jessica Linden's Uterus Immediately
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Why you ignore people
Fascinating study on inherent human stubbornness, or perhaps even vindictiveness. Raises interesting issues for economics, methinks. Economics always assume rational self-interest. Turns out that people are neither rational nor self-interested (in the sense that they seem to be more interested in dicking over other people than promoting themselves).
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
1500 pictures of cats
Not really much else to say beyond the title. It's, well, 1500 pictures of cats.
Friday, February 09, 2007
The math of fugly
Shit...there's a formula for beer googles??
| β = | √L x (Vo)2 |
- where:
- An is the number of servings of alcohol
- S is the smokiness of the area on a scale of 0 - 10
- L is the lighting level of the area, measured in candelas per square meter, in which 150 is normal room lightning
- Vo is Snellen visual acuity, in which 6/6 is normal and 6/12 is the lower limit at which someone is able to drive
- d is the distance between the observer and the observed, measured in meters
Thursday, February 08, 2007
The Kentucky Fried Hooker bites it
Dude! Anna Nicole Smith is dead! What is America to do without an iconic gold-digging pair of giant knockers?
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Tired of One Laptop Per Child
Just because I have time to kill and don't feel like doing actual work...
I'm actually really sick of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. I'm tired of hearing about it. Every time I read anything about it, that quote about the road to hell being paved by good intentions bounces around in my brain.
Fundamentally, I don't like it because it won't work. $100 for a laptop sounds like a cheap price tag, but in fact it's way, way too expensive to accomplish what they want it to (i.e., laptop availability for education purposes for children in the developing world). Remember these are places where people live on a dollar a day. But even if it weren't too expensive, it's the wrong model. Specifically, laptops are the wrong model. It's just too fucking expensive to give every child their own laptop, and you don't need to. What you want is to have some kind of computing terminal to be a shared by some group of people, and then a way for each child to individualize the terminal when they use it. Having a simple cell phone with some added functionality that would allow it to support a roaming profile would be nice since you probably _do_ want each child to have a simple communication device, but if that's too expensive as well (and it very well might be), you could get away with a simple keychain flash drive. Those things are already cheap as dirt.
Plus, why pay the money to have a display on the laptop (which, I'm guessing, is a significant part of the cost)? Hook the fucker up to a tv, for fuck's sake! Maybe a significant portion of the families in question don't even have a television, but my point remains: the way you save money is by using hardware for multiple purposes. There is a reason that the world used mainframes when computers were ridiculously expensive, people! Sharing expensive resources drives down per-person costs! This isn't that hard, damnit.
It's not that these are bad people. They are just going about things in a bass-ackwards manner, and my concern is that money will get blown on this type of project that should be going towards more useful endeavors.
I'm actually really sick of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. I'm tired of hearing about it. Every time I read anything about it, that quote about the road to hell being paved by good intentions bounces around in my brain.
Fundamentally, I don't like it because it won't work. $100 for a laptop sounds like a cheap price tag, but in fact it's way, way too expensive to accomplish what they want it to (i.e., laptop availability for education purposes for children in the developing world). Remember these are places where people live on a dollar a day. But even if it weren't too expensive, it's the wrong model. Specifically, laptops are the wrong model. It's just too fucking expensive to give every child their own laptop, and you don't need to. What you want is to have some kind of computing terminal to be a shared by some group of people, and then a way for each child to individualize the terminal when they use it. Having a simple cell phone with some added functionality that would allow it to support a roaming profile would be nice since you probably _do_ want each child to have a simple communication device, but if that's too expensive as well (and it very well might be), you could get away with a simple keychain flash drive. Those things are already cheap as dirt.
Plus, why pay the money to have a display on the laptop (which, I'm guessing, is a significant part of the cost)? Hook the fucker up to a tv, for fuck's sake! Maybe a significant portion of the families in question don't even have a television, but my point remains: the way you save money is by using hardware for multiple purposes. There is a reason that the world used mainframes when computers were ridiculously expensive, people! Sharing expensive resources drives down per-person costs! This isn't that hard, damnit.
It's not that these are bad people. They are just going about things in a bass-ackwards manner, and my concern is that money will get blown on this type of project that should be going towards more useful endeavors.
Senator Coburn
R-Oklahoma. After reading the GQ profile of him, I have a lot more respect for him. He's an asshole, and I think he's wrong about a lot, but he at least seems to be a vaguely principled asshole, which is more than I can say for most of Congress.
Also highlights the terrifying state of the federal budget. As Paul Krugman has pointed out, the state of US finances look a lot like Argentina's prior to their financial collapse, and the only reason ours hasn't collapsed yet is because we are who we are. Pretty soon, however, the rest of the world is going to stop giving us the benefit of the doubt.
Also highlights the terrifying state of the federal budget. As Paul Krugman has pointed out, the state of US finances look a lot like Argentina's prior to their financial collapse, and the only reason ours hasn't collapsed yet is because we are who we are. Pretty soon, however, the rest of the world is going to stop giving us the benefit of the doubt.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Useless Account
Dude...have you heard? It's all the rage. The truly hip early-adopters all have their accounts set up with Useless Account. Do you? It's awesome...you can edit your account features and everything!
Monday, February 05, 2007
2007 Phallic Logo Awards
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I give you...the 2007 Phallic Logo Awards!
(I just wrote "some great entries this year," and then I realized the pun, felt ill, and erased it...)
(I just wrote "some great entries this year," and then I realized the pun, felt ill, and erased it...)
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Your daily douchebag (2/4/07)
Today's Daily Douchebag: Jack Thompson.
Now, granted, Jack Thompson is kind of a pervasive, ambient douchebag, but I feel it important to occasionally re-raise the point. Just to refresh your memory, Jack Thompson is the ambulance chaser bar-none who gets his jollies by claiming that every time some crazy-fuck kid offs somebody, it's because he played Grand Theft Auto.
His latest set of stunts may earn him a disbarment. Among other gems is this comment sent to Alabama judge James Moore, the judge hearing the case:
Now, granted, Jack Thompson is kind of a pervasive, ambient douchebag, but I feel it important to occasionally re-raise the point. Just to refresh your memory, Jack Thompson is the ambulance chaser bar-none who gets his jollies by claiming that every time some crazy-fuck kid offs somebody, it's because he played Grand Theft Auto.
His latest set of stunts may earn him a disbarment. Among other gems is this comment sent to Alabama judge James Moore, the judge hearing the case:
"You’re the guy who wants to give (Grand Theft Auto publisher) Take-Two my scalp. You chose to believe people that you knew were thieves and liars, and now you are their useful SLAPP Bar complainant… These are your corporate criminal buddies, Judge Moore. These are the folks with whom you made your bed, the folks whom your good friend said he could fix the case."For this, good sir, you earn today's Daily Douchebag.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Why you should never, ever feel bad for the RIAA
They're fuckers, and they serve absolutely no purpose other than to absorb money.
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