Monthly Archives: May 2007

The WaPo fails us, again

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In an unsigned editorial, they opine that candidates like Ron Paul and Mike Gravel ought not be in the debates, because they’re just “clutter:”

If you tuned in to the recent Republican and Democratic presidential debates, you may have had the same reaction as many viewers looking at the crowded stages: Who’s that? The Democratic debate in South Carolina featured eight candidates, while 10 crammed into the GOP debate in California last Thursday. Voters trying to sort out their presidential choices aren’t helped by debates cluttered with the likes of Mike Gravel (hint: he’s a former senator from Alaska) on the Democratic side and Ron Paul (hint: he’s a libertarian House member from Texas) among the Republicans.

Of course, they’re also the only candidates on either side with substantial divergence from their respective party lines. Reason delivers a well-earned spanking to the Post for this absurd and anti-democratic position:

[T]here were plenty of candidates on those stages who really were clutter: They don’t have a chance to win and their messages are indistinguishable from the people who do have a shot. But it’s telling that the Post didn’t single out, say, Chris Dodd or Jim Gilmore. It singled out the two most anti-war and anti-establishment figures in the race, two men who clearly are alternatives to the frontrunners. Unlike the clutter candidates, Gravel and Paul said things at the debates that actually generated some buzz afterwards, on talk radio and online if not in the Post or with the Sunday-morning dinosaurs. I don’t know if they won any votes, but they did more than anyone else to add ideas to the conversation.

Word.

Weddings are insane

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We’re so glad ours was cool, fairly cheap, and nearly 2 years ago:

Advice books warn brides not to reveal that they are shopping for a wedding, if possible, Ms. Mead said; vendors know that “if it’s wedding, you’re going to spend more.” So her suspicion is immediately aroused when the woman at East Coast Limousine asks, “Is it for a wedding?” when the question of a 22-passenger excursion in a long, white stretch limousine comes up. The wedding special is $720 for 3-1/2 hours and includes an aisle runner, Champagne, bar and “horns” that play a recording of “Here Comes the Bride” when the car stops. Ever the experienced shopper, Ms. Mead asks how much the regular rental would be, if there were no wedding.

“A four-hour minimum is $576.” So you could spend $144 less and receive a half-hour more? Why not do that instead?

“You can’t,” the saleswoman replies. If it’s a wedding, you must do the wedding special. “If the bride and groom are in the car, you can’t do it. We’ve pulled in, and there is a woman in a wedding dress, and they can’t do it. The car had to leave.”

After taking a few steps away, Ms. Mead said, “This is the kind of thing that I’m really interested in — that mentality: you’re going to get the horns whether you want them or not.”

She imagines the scene: “They won’t let you in,” she repeats, picturing the bride, groom and 20 other passengers stranded on a street as the limo driver slams the door and pulls away. “That’s the one you need the videographer for.”

From NYT.

Using π when getting pie

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Over at Binary Dollar, we here the tale of how πR2 saves money at the pizza parlor.

We do this all the time, Mrs Heathen’s teasing notwithstanding. How else can you know whether two 8″ pizzas are a better deal than one 12″? (Note for Aggies: Do not count slices.)

Following their stunning success with DRM, the RIAA finds another target

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They’re now pushing hard for laws that will restrict the sale of used CDs, which strongly suggests they’d like very much to dismantle the whole “doctrine of first sale” thing entirely. From Ars:

New “pawn shop” laws are springing up across the United States that will make selling your used CDs at the local record shop something akin to getting arrested. No, you won’t spend any time in jail, but you’ll certainly feel like a criminal once the local record shop makes copies of all of your identifying information and even collects your fingerprints. Such is the state of affairs in Florida, which now has the dubious distinction of being so anal about the sale of used music CDs that record shops there are starting to get out of the business of dealing with used content because they don’t want to pay a $10,000 bond for the “right” to treat their customers like criminals.

The legislation is supposed to stop the sale of counterfeit and/or stolen music CDs, despite the fact that there has been no proof that this is a particularly pressing problem for record shops in general. Yet John Mitchell, outside counsel for the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, told Billboard that this is part of “some sort of a new trend among states to support second-hand-goods legislation.” And he expects it to grow.

In Florida, Utah, and soon in Rhode Island and Wisconsin, selling your used CDs to the local record joint will be more scrutinized than then getting a driver’s license in those states. For retailers in Florida, for instance, there’s a “waiting period” statue that prohibits them from selling used CDs that they’ve acquired until 30 days have passed. Furthermore, the Florida law disallows stores from providing anything but store credit for used CDs. It looks like college students will need to stick to blood plasma donations for beer money.

John McCain is an enormous douchebag

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He’s now claiming “not to know” if condoms help prevent HIV, presumably in accordance with the sayings of Chairman W.

We’re pretty sure we’ve run off any actual Republicans, but, seriously, who’s running for the GOP nod who doesn’t suck? All we see are nutbird fundies, authoritarian fascists, or craven powermongers like McCain, and we’re pretty sure the electorate isn’t going to swallow any of them. Maybe the electable candidates are sitting out, on the theory that running for ’08 gives the winner an excellent chance of winning the Dole Award (also known as the Mondale Award on the left side of the aisle).

Mrs Heathen will hate us for this

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We’ve been calling it the “horny whiney doctor show,” but frankly Ms Stanley at the NYT provides even better snark:

Thursday’s two-hour episode of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” in which Addison (Kate Walsh) has an emotional meltdown and flees Seattle Grace Hospital for a fancy wellness clinic in Los Angeles, serves as a prelude to a new, still untitled series centered on Addison and her new life in Southern California. It also suggests that the spinoff is doomed to be even sillier and more sex-obsessed than the original. And that is an achievement, considering that “Grey’s Anatomy” managed to squeeze in love scenes for a disfigured, pregnant disaster victim with amnesia.

Rudy Has Weird Ideas About Freedom

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From remarks made by the former Mayor, as transcribed by the NYT here:

We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don’t see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

[ Interruption by someone in the audience. ]

You have free speech so I can be heard.

Um. (emph. added.)

Holy Crap

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The Bush administration is pushing for retroactive immnunity for all telcos in this whole illegal wiretapping thing. If you haven’t been keeping up, this means they’re saying (a) you can’t sue over this, because to do so will expose state secrets and now (b) and you can’t sue over this because the telcos are immune to such claims because they’re helping the government.

WTF?

Certain numbers are now illegal

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The number in question is the 16-digit decryption key to the new HD DVD copy protection scheme. The MPAA is having fits about the crack, and is issuing takedown notices very widely. However, since information wants to be free, it’s a little late for that. The geek world has made it pretty clear that they intend to disseminate the number as widely as possible no matter what the lawyers say. Follow the BB link and read the whole bit from the EFF on how absurd — and sad — this situation is.

How can a number become illegal?

Geek Cred

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We just got 88% on the Spidey Villain Quiz over at MSNBC, which means we missed only 2: the show James Franco was originally on, and which Spidey nemesis alter-egos have made cameos in the films so far.

The quiz rewards knowledge of the mid-80s Secret Wars storyline (and subsequent events) a bit heavily, but that’s understandable based on the current Spider-context.

Also, we’re particularly amused by question 15 and its potential answers:

In the movie, Sandman’s name is Flint Marko. But in the comics, “Flint Marko” is only an alias that Sandman began using so that his mother would never know he had turned to a life of crime. What is his real name?

A. Wesley Dodds

B. Mark Sandman

C. Neil Gaiman

D. William Baker

Rule of Law? What Rule of Law?

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Bush maintains his contempt for laws in this backpedaling over FISA:

Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.

Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.

As a result of the January agreement, the administration said that the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program has been brought under the legal structure laid out in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for the wiretapping of American citizens and others inside the United States.

But on Tuesday, the senior officials, including Michael McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said they believed that the president still had the authority under Article II of the Constitution to once again order the N.S.A. to conduct surveillance inside the country without warrants.

Needless to say, every non-hack non-idiot lawyer and judge in the country disagrees with Bush’s interpretation here. In fact, Bush has admitted ON TELEVISION that he’s a multiple felon, since every act of wiretapping without a FISA warrant is a crime. For some reason, his craven party is untroubled by this, and the Dems lack the cohesion of message to make the case publicly. This doesn’t change the facts, though: Bush is an admitted criminal, still sitting in the Oval Office, and still insisting he need not submit to any checks on executive power even when black letter law says otherwise.

More Evil

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Bush’s Justice Department is trying to make Gitmo even more illegal:

Last week, the Justice Department quietly filed a motion with the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that would cap the number of visits by civilian defense lawyers to their clients at Guantanamo at three. Ever. Attorney-client mail would no longer be private. These requests are grounded in the brazen claim that civilian attorneys foment unrest at the prison. Perhaps if the detainees were to be completely isolated and ignored, they would realize how happy they are.

WTF? How can we be letting this happen? Via Slate. It gets worse:

And the real problem at Gitmo, adds Karen J. Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security at NYU law school, is that even after you funnel all 60 or so prisoners who are still awaiting their not-yet-begun “trials” through to their quite inevitable findings of guilt, you still have at least 160 more “who will most likely never be charged, never be tried, and may nonetheless never be sent home.” These are the folks whom, no matter how thin the evidence and how cooked the proceedings, the government still can’t make a case against, yet doesn’t want to release. The Bush administration has absolutely no clue what to do with these people, and they aren’t going to figure it out. So, the new legal strategy seems to be: Stop them from embarrassing us. That means no contact with attorneys who might tell your stories of torture and abuse to the outside world. It means no awkward hunger strikes that might garner world sympathy. It means doing everything you can to make even the “black hole” there disappear. What the government really needs is for the folks down at Guantanamo to stop complaining, stop talking, and stop trying to kill themselves.

Someone explain this to us, or, SEKRITS of the Home Network Gurus!

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On an online forum we frequent, someone just posted about a frustrating time they had trying to get a Linksys home router working for a friend. The writer is a Mac person through-and-through, but had been convinced to spend half the cash and get a Linksys router instead of a fancy Airport Extreme, since they do effectively the same jobs. (Actually, the Linksys is typically more capable, but that’s irrelevant for most users.)

Well, there’s a complication now to this whole affair that is clearly the work of pointy-haired jerkoff marketing drones: the instructions to Linksys routers (and, we presume, D-link and NetGear) now include a step to install software, which of course naive and nontechnical users attempt to do. And that’s where the problem surfaces.

Routers like these have, since their initial introduction in the home market, included very full-featured (and simple!) web-based configuration tools. Anyone on the router’s network with the router’s address and the password (both printed on the documentation) can configure it to behave any way they want. No software is required at the PC level at all to configure the router, and no router-specific software is ever be required at the PC level to simply USE a given network. You DO need a network card and drivers for said, but for the last 10 years or so these have typically been included with every PC and Mac sold. It’s an industry standard, and this interoperability is a key part of why networks have become so popular and pervasive.

What this means is that for pretty much every router on the market, a user can unbox it, throw the CD away without unsealing the envelope, plug it in, and start using it immediately. They would be well served to adjust the router to improve security — changing the password to the web console is mandatory; setting the router so that only users connected by wire can use the management console is also a great idea — but the baseline function and factory configuration of pretty much every consumer router we’ve seen since 2000 has been such that “plug it in and go” will work just fine. A simple sheet of instructions walking the user through the advisable configuration changes is really all the “installation” such a machine needs.

Instead of embracing this altogether tremendous boon — really, how common is this sort of ease in technology? — Linksys, et. al., have added a wholly useless step that, in our experience, is the cause of 90%+ of all home-network configuration problems. (And we get calls. Trust us.) We’ve fixed innumerable home network setups by ignoring the “setup” program, going straight to “New Network Connection,” and accepting the defaults.

Oddly, the one home router we can think of that actually DOES require special software for administration comes from an unlikely source: Apple. The Airport doesn’t, at last count, have a web console, and therefore requires the Airport Administration Utility for configuration and control. This is a pretty huge misstep for Apple that for some reason they have yet to correct. It’s pretty bizarre when hardcore nerd companies like Linksys can present a better out-of-box experience than the masters in Cupertino. (It’s also still funny that Airports do less and cost more than the other-brand equivalents from the geek triumvirate of Linksys/DLink/Netgear, and probably justify this price bump on “usability” grounds.)

So, can anybody tell us just exactly what the hell these companies are thinking with this bullshit install step? Seriously, why shoot themselves in the foot like this? Whisky Tango Foxtrot, people?

Update: RN from Portland writes:

A native app can configure your machine’s networking so that it can find the network device. That’s a good reason to have to install something from a CD.

We disagree. First, configuring one’s own machine is distinct from configuring the router, which is what we’re really talking about here.

Second, even if local configuration is the router company’s bag, including instructions to create a new network profile, or use your machine’s “automatic” setting, is a far better plan than insisting on some baroque package that requires installation, together with all the bullshit that entails on Windows (it’s merely annoying and unnecessary on Macs).

In the Apple world, finding a new basic networking device is bone simple — Macs all have an “Automatic” profile included by default in the Network locations list. Even if the user isn’t set to use it when they install the router, making the change requires only 3 clicks.

A bit late, but still funny

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From the Onion back in March: Unreleased Jimmy Page Guitar Riff To Be Retrieved From Secret Vault To Save Rock And Roll:

The Guardians said recent developments in the music world, such as the unaccountable popularity of the Dixie Chicks and Sufjan Stevens, have created a “perfect storm of lameness” from which rock might never recover. While Iommi refused to say when the vault would be opened, hard rock sources believe it will take place just prior to next month’s Fall Out Boy-Honda Civic tour, which many fear will suck the remaining lifeblood from all that still rocks.

“Citizens of Rock, we refuse to stand idly by any longer,” ZZ Top founder and Protectorate High Elder Billy Gibbons said. “When a puss like James Blunt is allowed to rule the airwaves, we must respond by exposing this monster riff, and blowing minds into the stratosphere.”

[…]

Members of the Protectorate were each given only partial information about the location of the vault, which they were instructed to open in unison only in the event of a total Rockopalypse. While some believed the vault was buried in Boston, Chicago, Kansas, Europe, or Asia, others claimed it could be found in the Court of the Crimson King.

However, after piecing together clues hidden in Yes album covers and Pink Floyd liner notes, rock historians now believe the riff is locked away deep beneath the Welsh countryside house known as Bron-Yr-Aur, at rock-grid coordinates SH735026. British weather satellites have also photographed an enormous cloud, shaped like a hybrid of an upside-down question mark and cross, forming above these exact coordinates.

The vault’s Key, regarded as too staggering a burden for any one man to bear, was divided in two parts, with half entrusted to Eddie Van Halen and half to David Lee Roth, shortly after Roth left the rock supergroup Van Halen. The two men, who have refused to work together for 20 years, recently announced plans for a historic reunion tour.

“Before we shake Heaven and Earth with the vicious power of this riff, we of the High Council of Elders of the Guardians of the Protectorate of Rock ask you: Are you about to rock?” AC/DC guitarist Angus Young said. “If so, we salute you.”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

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Peace out, H-dawg. We know you be balancin’ mad books in heaven:

POYNETTE, WI—Foul play is suspected in the death of an accounts receivable supervisor for a regional office-supply company, sheriff’s deputies reported Tuesday.

Herbert F. Kornfeld, 34, was an alleged accounting gang leader considered by law enforcement to be a key player in a series of ongoing office worker turf wars. He was found dead Monday morning in the third-floor copy room of Midstate Office Supply, his employer of 12 years.

Sigh. Take a moment to read Kornfeld’s first major work, “Keep Your Fucking Shit Off My Desk.”

Dept. of Hens’ Teeth

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On Sunday, Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki — a rookie! — did something that has only happened 12 other times in the history of major league baseball: he managed an unassisted triple play.

There’s video at the link, but a reply (included) is really required. It goes like this:

  1. 3-2 pitch, and the batter hits a line drive. Tulowitzki catches it for out #1 within a stride or two of 2nd base.
  2. The runners had already started, but because the ball had been caught, they’d need to tag up their original bases. Tulowitzki makes the obvious play and steps on the 2nd base bag to doom the runner who started for 3rd a bit early, thereby notching out #2.
  3. The first base runner, unaware of the growing drama, it still en route to 2nd. Still on the bag, Tulowitzki reaches out from 2nd and tags him for out #3.
  4. For reasons known but to God, Tulowitzki then threw the ball to first. Even if the first catch hadn’t scratched the batter, a 4th out is not typically required.

The whole thing took not much more than a second.

Such plays are, as we noted, rare: this is the first since 2003. Prior to that, they happened in 2000, 1994, 1992, 1968, two in 1927, 1925, two in 1923, 1920, and 1909.