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And, again. - 19 November 2007
Nov. 20th, 2007 12:40 amI just realized I did something stupid today, and even worse, I realize that I’d have to go back several days in time to fix this particular error if I were going to catch it before it occurred. Thus, tomorrow, I will go fix the error, now that I have realized it, and all will be right with the world again. Theoretically. *sigh* It’s bad that I don’t notice these things until after they’ve happened. I have to keep in mind other things as well, and depending on how I fix the mistake, I should hopefully not be making similar mistakes of that nature any time soon. The repercussions for this shouldn’t be too horrible. Or so I hope. Might mean a little delay, that’s all. I just wish I had caught this sooner, rather than later. Argh.
One can have a small shout of “Thank Prime!” on the following article, UNAIDS says that it overestimated the amount of AIDS cases by millions. It’s still 30 million plus, but the number’s going to have about six million knocked off it. Further good news says that the rate of new infections has been dropping for quite some time, now. We’re not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination, but it looks like there’s some good news going on.
Red Hot Chili Peppers sue Showtime over the name "Californication". Chili Peppers song (although not so good) and Showtime show (haven’t seen), same name, but let the lawsuits fly, because you just can’t duplicate names willy-nilly anymore.
Here’s a lead volley in the political opinions - should he be elected, Senator McCain intends to take no Secret Service protection, which might practically reduce to “as little as needed”. Totally unrelated to that, the Homeland Security adviser has resigned, looking for work in the private sector. Those holding to the rats fleeing theory may have another feather for their cap.
So much for “no news is good news” - several explosives detonated and mortar rounds were fired yesterday in Baghdad. Progress punctuated by these sorts of counterexamples proves that there’s still a ways to go before any declarations of victory. In addition, and not related to explosions, Iraqi Kurds have signed contracts to exploit their oil fields, without the assent of Baghdad.
Donald Lambro thinks Americans should focus on (perceived) positives, saying that the deficit is going down, income is going up, Iraq is going well, and that the American populace goes and works hard and gets along. So we’re obviously happy about most things, unlike what the people in Washington, D.C. and in the media believe. Umm... right. So we’re unhappy, but possibly resigned, and only prone to venting to pollsters or our friends. At work, we may be forbidden from politics, for everyone’s sanity. Yes, things are different outside of the District of Columbia, but I don’t think that everyone out here is all smiles and rainbows, even if we project it. Peter Baker agrees with Lambro, but doesn't see approval with what he sees as advances. I still think that the American populace has seen sufficient asshaberdashery in the time that Mr. Bush has been in office that even if he manages to get Iraq (somewhat) right, it will be seen as “Even a blinking clock is right twice a day”. Or that America succeeded in spite of its leaders.
Democrats continue to push for Iraq withdrawals, even knowing they're going to fail. Which could help them in the upcoming elections, if they can point out that they keep stalling out because the Republicans or the President say no, rather than because members of their own party don’t believe in it enough. The Republicans continue to claim the Dems are wasting time and attempting to overstep their bounds on control.
John Fund certainly wants to demonize Nancy Pelosi, by painting her as someone who believes that requiring employees to speak English is discrimination. The opinion is, however, unclear as to whether the employees fired did, in fact, learn English and just preferred to speak Spanish between themselves. The opinion sounds remarkably like “If you don’t speak English, then you can leave.” Hardly a welcoming opinion to a country that prides itself on accepting peoples of all nations and backgrounds.
Letters sent by Comcast to anime donwloaders on behalf of unnamed copyright holders. This was eventually going to happen, I suspect, once it became too easy to distribute fansubs of great quality quickly. So the anime market and the fansub culture will contract, I suspect, with the increased pressure on copyright.
Servers may imitate bees, if new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology is taken to heart. By using a bee dance-like sequence, resources can be shifted in allocation dynamically, according to how sweet the Web traffic nectar is at the time.
In Slate, Chad Lorenz watches the youth of the country sailing past e-mail, just at the point that almost everyone has gotten familiar and comfortable with it. Heh. Society’s always one-step behind, I guess. E-mail is now the long form, with IM, Twitter, Facebook, SMS, and other such things being the preferred method of communication among the fast-moving young.
A significantly bigger lag appears to have been between teenage trends and the chaperones’ noticing the trend. After seeing what they claim was their first experience with "freak dancing", the Argyle school banned suggestive dancing and skimpy clothes. By doing so, they alienated much of the audience, and many of the teenagers left after the forbidding. The fallout has been along fairly predictable lines - the parents look at it and say “It’s sex with clothes on, and demeaning to the girls”, the kids say “We’re dancing. There’s no sexual connections.” Supposedly the school’s even hired dance instructors to teach and provide alternatives to freak dancing. Maybe they should learn the quiche-strike samba.
The National Endowment for the Arts released a statistical compilation today that said reading for pleasure is a dying pastime in young people, and worse, it's impacting their test scores and employability. I haven’t waded through the statistics and methods yet to see whether everything holds up in this manner or not. Perhaps as a counter to that, though not intentionally released in response to that, Jeff Bezos of Amazon is releasing a book reader that looks like a paperback book and will have a significant part of Amazon’s library and several additional functions added on to it. It will be retailing at $399, and so we’ll have to see whether it catches on, drops in price and increases the library to something that people want.
So that’s it for tonight. Now, I’m going to go to bed and curse out whatever demon it was that invented usury, and then the other demon that thought college should be so expensive as to require you to borrow.
One can have a small shout of “Thank Prime!” on the following article, UNAIDS says that it overestimated the amount of AIDS cases by millions. It’s still 30 million plus, but the number’s going to have about six million knocked off it. Further good news says that the rate of new infections has been dropping for quite some time, now. We’re not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination, but it looks like there’s some good news going on.
Red Hot Chili Peppers sue Showtime over the name "Californication". Chili Peppers song (although not so good) and Showtime show (haven’t seen), same name, but let the lawsuits fly, because you just can’t duplicate names willy-nilly anymore.
Here’s a lead volley in the political opinions - should he be elected, Senator McCain intends to take no Secret Service protection, which might practically reduce to “as little as needed”. Totally unrelated to that, the Homeland Security adviser has resigned, looking for work in the private sector. Those holding to the rats fleeing theory may have another feather for their cap.
So much for “no news is good news” - several explosives detonated and mortar rounds were fired yesterday in Baghdad. Progress punctuated by these sorts of counterexamples proves that there’s still a ways to go before any declarations of victory. In addition, and not related to explosions, Iraqi Kurds have signed contracts to exploit their oil fields, without the assent of Baghdad.
Donald Lambro thinks Americans should focus on (perceived) positives, saying that the deficit is going down, income is going up, Iraq is going well, and that the American populace goes and works hard and gets along. So we’re obviously happy about most things, unlike what the people in Washington, D.C. and in the media believe. Umm... right. So we’re unhappy, but possibly resigned, and only prone to venting to pollsters or our friends. At work, we may be forbidden from politics, for everyone’s sanity. Yes, things are different outside of the District of Columbia, but I don’t think that everyone out here is all smiles and rainbows, even if we project it. Peter Baker agrees with Lambro, but doesn't see approval with what he sees as advances. I still think that the American populace has seen sufficient asshaberdashery in the time that Mr. Bush has been in office that even if he manages to get Iraq (somewhat) right, it will be seen as “Even a blinking clock is right twice a day”. Or that America succeeded in spite of its leaders.
Democrats continue to push for Iraq withdrawals, even knowing they're going to fail. Which could help them in the upcoming elections, if they can point out that they keep stalling out because the Republicans or the President say no, rather than because members of their own party don’t believe in it enough. The Republicans continue to claim the Dems are wasting time and attempting to overstep their bounds on control.
John Fund certainly wants to demonize Nancy Pelosi, by painting her as someone who believes that requiring employees to speak English is discrimination. The opinion is, however, unclear as to whether the employees fired did, in fact, learn English and just preferred to speak Spanish between themselves. The opinion sounds remarkably like “If you don’t speak English, then you can leave.” Hardly a welcoming opinion to a country that prides itself on accepting peoples of all nations and backgrounds.
Letters sent by Comcast to anime donwloaders on behalf of unnamed copyright holders. This was eventually going to happen, I suspect, once it became too easy to distribute fansubs of great quality quickly. So the anime market and the fansub culture will contract, I suspect, with the increased pressure on copyright.
Servers may imitate bees, if new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology is taken to heart. By using a bee dance-like sequence, resources can be shifted in allocation dynamically, according to how sweet the Web traffic nectar is at the time.
In Slate, Chad Lorenz watches the youth of the country sailing past e-mail, just at the point that almost everyone has gotten familiar and comfortable with it. Heh. Society’s always one-step behind, I guess. E-mail is now the long form, with IM, Twitter, Facebook, SMS, and other such things being the preferred method of communication among the fast-moving young.
A significantly bigger lag appears to have been between teenage trends and the chaperones’ noticing the trend. After seeing what they claim was their first experience with "freak dancing", the Argyle school banned suggestive dancing and skimpy clothes. By doing so, they alienated much of the audience, and many of the teenagers left after the forbidding. The fallout has been along fairly predictable lines - the parents look at it and say “It’s sex with clothes on, and demeaning to the girls”, the kids say “We’re dancing. There’s no sexual connections.” Supposedly the school’s even hired dance instructors to teach and provide alternatives to freak dancing. Maybe they should learn the quiche-strike samba.
The National Endowment for the Arts released a statistical compilation today that said reading for pleasure is a dying pastime in young people, and worse, it's impacting their test scores and employability. I haven’t waded through the statistics and methods yet to see whether everything holds up in this manner or not. Perhaps as a counter to that, though not intentionally released in response to that, Jeff Bezos of Amazon is releasing a book reader that looks like a paperback book and will have a significant part of Amazon’s library and several additional functions added on to it. It will be retailing at $399, and so we’ll have to see whether it catches on, drops in price and increases the library to something that people want.
So that’s it for tonight. Now, I’m going to go to bed and curse out whatever demon it was that invented usury, and then the other demon that thought college should be so expensive as to require you to borrow.
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