redtopquark

I believe the temperature in my office at the moment is just above 'Frikking Hot', and just below 'Flambé'

Teh awesome.   I've been listening to it for the last couple days, and I likey.  I'm not especially good at telling that the melodic harmonies are whatever whatever and the technical interplay of the whatchamathing and the lead vocals are doohickeythingy...

Basically:

1. Some songs sound like Weezer, some don't, but I think that's mostly because Rivers isn't the lead singer for every song, this album they had some of the other band members take on lead vocals.
2. The Greatest Man That Ever Lived == Stuck in my damn head.
3. Thought I Knew  - Sounds like a different band, but I can't remember who...  good song though.
4. I really dig the driving feeling of the bass and drums on tracks like Troublemaker and Automatic.

Favorite Songs:

• Troublemaker
• Pork and Beans
• Thought I Knew
• Automatic

Verdict:

• Buy it dumbass, I thought I told you to preorder it...

And if you haven't seen the Pork and Beans music video, what are you waiting for?

also check out some bonus clips the band put up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Loi731aUYrQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQnT3psRi7Q

Learn how to speaka the english people, FFS, it's Vista, not Veesta.

That's "Vista"! Vista! I'll kill you! I'll kill all of you, especially those of you in the jury!

Pete is a total asshole, I'm glad he doesn't have a link to this blog...

http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-swing-voters

Come on Democrats, get it together and quit fucking around...  You had this election handed to you on a silver platter, and just like every single other opportunity that you've been given in the last 8 years, you've fucked it up.

People are sick and tired of the Primaries, get it over with already...

My favorite part is this:

...while their views of Barack Obama have improved though less impressively than McCain's.

That's like saying, since I took a cooking class last month my cooking has improved more than Chef Ramsay's in the last month.  While technically true, the entire premise of the statement is highly ridiculous...


Hillary, drop out and let Obama take it, you are too divisive a character to win in this election.  The fact that you are a woman running for President is great, but too many people are associating you with your husband, and will continue to do so no matter how far you distance yourself from him, or how clearly you differentiate yourself from him.  He is your greatest strength, and simultaneously, your fatal flaw. 

Just finished watching a live feed of Obama's Philly speech.  I feel sorry for Hillary because, even when reading from a teleprompter, Barack is about 10 times more charismatic.  Interesting speech, I think he did a pretty good job.

I don't really wonder whether or not Steve Jobs uses iTunes.  I know.  He doesn't.

How do I know this?  Because he seems to like his programs to work fast and work well, and if he'd ever used iTunes he'd know that benchmark wasn't being met.  It's not as bad on a Mac as it is on the PC.  On the PC, running iTunes is like trying to edit photos in Photoshop on a Pentium 90.  Sure, theoretically you could do it, but it'll take you 10 years to open that file.  As an example, I'm at work, iTunes is open, the library on this computer is completely empty, except for 2 podcasts that I have subscribed to.  iTunes is currently using 53.5 MB of memory.  53.5 megs!!!  And it's not even doing anything, just sitting there in the background.  On my home computer, where I have a library of approximately 40GB, plus a dozen podcasts, iTunes regularly uses over 200MB of memory, even when it's just sitting in the background.

Things I want fixed in iTunes:

1. Get rid of the bloat.  Just cause I have lots of memory doesn't mean you can use it all up.  Slim down and stop hogging resources.
2. Speed it up.  I shouldn't have to wait 15 seconds for the list to move down when I'm trying to scroll through songs, in the text list view.
3. See requests 1 and 2.

Don't get me wrong, I like iTunes, I love how it organizes my music library and lets me search, and all the other crap.  But I know Apple can do better, so get on it already.  WinAmp does a large number of the same playing and organizing tasks, and they manage to do it very quickly and with a very small memory footprint.

Oh, and stop making me update every 5 minutes, I just frikking updated yesterday... and the fucking day before.  I thought this was an Apple program, not Microsoft.

I.  Thou shalt not fuck with the data stream.

II.  If something is in the data file in the first revision, it better be there in the second.

III.  Said thing better be in the same fucking place.

IV.  Thou shalt notify the person in charge of processing the data, in writing and verbally, as far in advance of the change as possible.  5 minutes before it goes live does not count, two weeks is acceptable, barely.

V.  Thou shalt maintain the same time formats across all revisions.  Military time, AM/PM, I don't give a fuck, but it better not change, ever.

VI.  Shouldest thou need to add more data to the line, thou shalt place new data at the end of the line.  See II. and III.

VII.  Thou shalt not fuck with the data stream!

VIII.  When in doubt, Thou shalt not fuck with the data stream! (noticing a theme yet?)

IX.  Thou shalt notify the data processor of necessary changes, and consult with them on how said changes shall happen.  Their word shall be the gospel, and thou shalt do what they fucking say.

X.  THOU SHALT NOT FUCKING CHANGE THE FUCKING DATA STREAM MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!!!



Thusly it was written and thusly shall it be.  You fuck with the data stream from here on out at your own peril.  I don't own a gun...yet.  Don't make me go buy one.  Every single teensy-tiny-oh-this-doesn't-really-change-anything modification you make generates an hour of work for me to clean up your shit.  These hours are not concurrent, they are fucking cumulative.  1 change, 1 hour.  5 changes, 5 fucking hours.  You want me to work on something for you?  Sorry, I'm busy fixing the shit you fucked up.

I passed a professor talking to a student on campus today, didn't catch anything of the conversation except part of one sentence from the professor.

"...and everyone goes to college now.  College is the new high school."


Sadly, I think pound for pound, a high school graduate from 1965 is probably as well, if not better educated than the average Bachelor's graduate today...

No wonder Bush thinks he's doing so well...

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=406

Apparently this week is "save the babies" week on campus, the pro-lifers are having their yearly display down on Dexter Lawn.

Just a tip, if you want me to consider your position, shock is not the best way to go.  That ugly ass aborted fetus picture you've got up?  Yeah, go ahead and incinerate that fetus, it's disgusting and (shocker) it's already dead.  You want me to consider your position?  Bring me some arguments that aren't derived from religious teachings.  I'm a man of science, I can be persuaded to take up any belief if I'm presented with well reasoned arguments, supported by scientifically acceptable evidence. 

Just saying "Well, god* says he knew you before you were born."  Yeah, not gonna cut it.

*lack of capitalization intentional

Is it possible that Bush and Cheney are actually Democratic operatives?  They infiltrated the Republican party and got elected to the White House.  Once there, they proceeded to run the country off the rails and as far into the ground as they could, merely to ensure that we would elect a Democrat in the next election?  hmmm....  

Today Gary Gygax failed his saving throw and died at the age of 69.  Mr. Gygax was one of the founders of TSR, and published the original Dungeons & Dragons in 1974.  

Monday, at a press conference in Phoenix, esteemed scientist and Nobel Laureate John McCain, Ph.D. said, "It's indisputable that autism is on the rise among children. The question is, what's causing it? And we go back and forth, and there's strong evidence that indicates that it's got to do with a preservative in vaccines."

Now of course John McCain is not a Nobel Laureate, neither does he have a Ph.D. He was in fact, trained as a navy pilot, with whatever basic science they were taught (back in 1958). What makes him even remotely qualified to offer an opinion on the subject of autism and vaccines? Fuck if I know.

I used to like McCain, he seemed like a stand-up guy, and even if I didn't agree with everything he did, I would have still supported him over other Republicans because of it. But then the 2008 election rolls around, and he basically flip-flops on everything he stood for before, turning into just another Bush yes-man, all to appeal to the Republican base. That's when he lost my support. Then Monday he stepped into the autism debate. That's when he lost my respect.

His comments in the press conference are, at best, half-truths. Yes, reported autism rates among children are on the rise, due in no small part to much better screening and diagnosis procedures than in years past. Nobody, to my knowledge, has yet done the work to determine whether or not there is an actual increase in autism rates. When McCain states that "there's strong evidence that indicates that it's got to do with a preservative in vaccines", I believe what he meant to say is: "in several large scale, scientific studies there has been no causal link found between the use of thiomersal as a vaccine preservative and increased rates of autism. There has, in fact, been a strongly negative correlation." At least, I think that's what he meant to say, dumbass.

Thiomersal (commonly known in the U.S. as thimerosal) was removed from all routine childhood vaccines in 2001. Since that time autism rates have continued to rise at the same rates. In early 2008 a study examined the toxicity of ethylmercury in humans (ethylmercury is created by the degradation or metabolism of thiomersal), and found that the half-life of blood mercury after vaccination averages 3.7 days in newborns and infants, previously the statistics for methylmercury had been used (a half-life of 44 days), because it was thought that the two were similar. Obviously they're not.

Next time you want to talk about health issues John, maybe you should check in with the CDC, the World Health Organization, the FDA, the Institute of Medicine (part of the National Academy of Sciences), and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Preferably before you open your mouth and give unnecessary credence to the same type of bullshit paranoid conspiracy theorism that brought us such classics as Loose Change.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/politics/04autism.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal_controversy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/12/AR2008021202778.html

Go read that article...  I'll wait...

<begin=rant>
Ok, back now?  Total Bullshit.  That's what it is...  "temporary delays" my ass...

Comcast needs to get off it's ass and upgrade it's network.  This is the same problem that plagues every service provider in the US, and many other industries.  Do we spend the dough to upgrade our networks/product to the latest and greatest technology, insuring quality service to our customers?  Or do we patch things up with bailing wire and duct tape, hoping nothing fails spectacularly, in a desperate bid to maximize our profits for our share-holders?  Naturally, everything is about profit.  Don't be bothered to spend the money to insure the network is capable of handling the ever increasing load of our ever increasing multimedia heavy web, just slow them all down so that they fit onto the current network.

"Comcast compared its practices to a traffic-ramp control light that regulates the entry of additional vehicles onto a freeway during rush hour. "One would not claim that the car is 'blocked' or 'prevented from entering the freeway; rather it is briefly delayed," the company's statement said." 

Ummm, actually, the car is blocked from entering the freeway for a time (and having sat through one at the peak of rush hour, I can personally vouch that the delay is anything but brief), the only difference is in web traffic, particularly video and music streaming, after a minute or two the car gives up and drives back home...  Compound that with the fact that Comcasts own video and music services are cached on servers at or near the base of each node, so their own services aren't impacted by the filtering.  Now that's just low. 

And it doesn't stop there, they filter all BitTorrent traffic.  Why?  Because it's very difficult to see what is being streamed in a torrent, you have to sit and listen to it for a while, put together the pieces and hope there's a big enough piece that you can take an educated guess at what is in the stream.  Now consider that most Linux distributions have an option to download over BitTorrent, World of Warcraft distributes its patches and updates via BitTorrent, Valve uses BitTorrent in it's Steam client, Amazon.com uses BitTorrent in it's S3 client.  Do you really want to be blocking another companies traffic on your network?  At what point did Comcast honestly think that no one would notice?  And think that no one would sue the crap out of them for it?

Comcasts filtering also had an adverse affect on Lotus Notes users for some reason, not that there's many of them, but that has the potential to seriously interfere with the function of someones business and livelihood. 

A brief note to Representative Markey:  "...an Internet policy that would prohibit network operators from unreasonably interfering with consumers' right to access and use content over broadband networks."  Define unreasonably for us will you?  Better yet, take the word out.  Internet Service Providers are obligated to do precisely that, provide me service that allows me to access the internet.  ISP's should not ever be involved in any way, shape, or form, with filtering content.  Much like the sewer system, they take all the shit and bring it to where it's supposed to go.  It doesn't matter what is in the pipe, it better get there.  Particularly if you're going to offer "unlimited" internet access.  According to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary:

un·lim·it·ed /ʌnˈlɪmɪtɪd/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[uhn-lim-i-tid]

1.	not limited; unrestricted; unconfined: unlimited trade.

2.	boundless; infinite; vast: the unlimited skies.

3.	without any qualification or exception; unconditional.

There is no "4. not limited, except for the shit we decide on.",  there is only Zuul, I mean, unlimited, unrestricted, unfettered access.  Anything else would be false advertising, would it not?

</rant>

I log into livejournal this morning, and on my start page it says "You've only made 3 friends." Followed by a link to "Find friends and groups"...  I'm sorry, I'm sad and pitiful, I only have 3 friends, I shall endeavor to do better in the future...  :-P

blah blah, blog, blah, words, blah, blah.