 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
The Magpie Developer
Jeff Atwood is one of the best programmer/writers around. I love reading his stuff, some I agree wholeheartedly with, other stuff we disagree, but this post is about a dead-on as they come. This idea has been floating in my head for a long time, but it is hard for me to conceptualize it in words, Atwood does a brilliant job at it. Must read for any developer. |
|
|
|
Andy Olmsted's Last Blog Entry.
(Warning: Pretty rough) No matter how you feel politically about the war, this reminds you that each number people throw around as statistics is a human life. This is extremely well written, and pretty rough on your soul towards the end, but something everyone should read. Its a shitty situation all around, but there is always a human face behind the statistics and I want to make sure I never forget that. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Drinking stories that put yours to shame
Via Keith
To preserve his body during the voyage home, the second-in-command stored Nelson's body in the ship's vat of rum and halted all liquor rations to the crew. Not a bad idea, but when the ship reached port, officials went to retrieve Nelson's body and found the vat dry.
Disregarding good taste (in every sense), the crew had been secretly drinking from it the entire way home. After that, naval rum was referred to as Nelson's Blood. |
|
|
|
making vodka pills in 24 hours
Recently, Chef Fabian was experimenting further with the Adria/Torreblanca technique of making 'vodka pills.' I use this word to describe the process of making liquid-filled candies by pouring flavored alcohol syrups into cornstarch and letting it set until a hard outer shell forms. |
|
|
|
Strategy Letter VI - joelonsoftware.com
As a programmer, thanks to plummeting memory prices, and CPU speeds doubling every year, you had a choice. You could spend six months rewriting your inner loops in Assembler, or take six months off to play drums in a rock and roll band, and in either case, your program would run faster. Assembler programmers don’t have groupies.
Entire Article is Dead On. A must read for anyone in the software biz. |
|
|
|
 |
| |
| |
| |
| |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
 |
(Sunday, February 27)
Vodka and Music
You try to go legit, and this is what happens. I used to download music via Napster/eMule/Bit Torrent all that jazz and about a year ago, I figured that with all the hoopla the RIAA was throwing against downloaders that I would try to only download purchased music or live music that was legal (a lot of bands I listen to allow live recordings and tape trading which is legal (from what I understand). So I kicked in an iTunes account and a allofmp3 account to download and purchase music. I sank about $60 into allofmp3 and there is no telling how much I have spent on iTunes probably upwards of a $1G or so. So it really sucked when I came across this article today (link below) talking about how allofmp3 might not actually be legal either. Well damn. I admit allofmp3 didnt really have a great selection of music (unless you dig Russky music) but man just sucks that they will probably be shut down soon. Looks like the Moscow City Police Computer Crimes division checked the place out, AllofMp3 has said that what they do is legal via some law. /throws hand in the air. If it does turn out that what they were doing was not legal, I am sure the site will be down soon, I am pretty impressed with the site looks very good and legit and has great search options. Other sites could learn from it.
AllofMP3.com headed for a fall? - Engadget - www.engadget.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gannon/Guckett Gate
I have been trying to keep up with "GannonGate" the best I can as of late. (If anyone doesn't have a clue what GannonGate is, a good synopsis is located here and here (Little more graphic (AKA FOR THE LADIES)) ) From what I understand some "journalist" [admitingly, the guy says he has written over 500 articles for the Talon News] usually throws GW a bunch of softball questions (read "Easy To Answer/Explanation of your views on the topic for the press all up in here") at press conferences that the left *could* construe as "pre-setup" questions from the Bush Admin. [To be fair I am sure there were elements of the media that did this with Clinton and every other Dem President before him] Upon asking a specific question, Rush Limbaugh (Very -> ) remarked about it and created a (far <- ) section of the blogosphere (who says Blogs don't have an effect on politics?) that wanted to do a little research on Jeff Gannon. It turns out that Jeff Gannon is actually Jeff Guckett and a whole mess of other things (things = images on gay porn sites) and some other stuff turned up from his past. To be fair Guckett/Gannon has explained that this stuff is in his past on his blog.
(who says Blogs don't have an effect on politics?) as per usual everyone is calling each other a hypocrite and blah blah blah (ever wonder why stuff doesn�t get done for the common man in DC?) Well to keep a long story short, both sides (the <- and the ->) have taken a pretty predictable stance, up until I read this (what appears to be a US House Memo (looks legit form what I can tell) For me this looks like the reps might be deciding to end this with a swift clean cut and try to pin that CIA operative (yellow cake mess) name drop on Gannon/Guckett. Man talk about a change in strategy. Jeez. After looking at some Star Wars Episode III spoilers today (you can see here (SPOILERS) from what the person who put these pics together into chronological order, it looks like there is a scene where Dooku is fighting Anakin and Anakin beats back Dooku to the cheering of the Emperor. Anakin somehow grabs Dooku's lightsaber and has both at Dooku's neck and instead of Dooku's envision of the emperor letting him go, the emperor cheers on Anakin (ready to turn into Vader) on and tells him to kill Dooku. In Astonishment, Dooku looks at the Emperor and purportedly says: "You promised me Amnesty" and then his head get cleanly shaved by a light saber via Anakin. For some reason the situations seem closely tied to me. it's hard to imagine the press as trying to help the common citizen now a days with crap like this. Cut your TV off, and Cut off your Radio. Choose your media; luckily our generation has that ability. Nothing scares them more. (Both the media (<-) and big business that advertises on it (->)).
"A free and independant press is essential to the health of a functioning democracy. It serves to inform the voting public on matters relevant to its well-being. Why they've
stopped doing that is a mystery. I mean, 300 camera crews outside a courthouse to see what Kobe Bryant is wearing when the judge sets his hearing date, while false information used to send our country to war goes unchecked?
What the fuck happened? These spineless cowards in the press have finally gone too far. They have violated a trust. "Was the president successful in convincing the country?" Who gives a shit? Why not tell us if what he said was true? And the excuses. My God, the excuses! "Hey, we just give the people what they want." "What can we do, this administration is secretive." "But the last season of Friends really is news." The unmitigated gall of these weak-willed...You're supposed to be helping us, you indecent piles of shit! I...fuck it. Just fuck it..."
John Stewart, America pg 131
US Memo (PDF) (application/pdf Object)
|
|
|
(Thursday, February 24)
Suburban Guerrilla
Very Very interesting read if you have some time today. Raises a few questions in my mind. I know it is bad. But how bad is it?
Suburban Guerrilla
|
|
|
(Wednesday, February 23)
VicDamone.net
The Great Vic Damone is doign a little graphical remix.
VicDamone.net
UPDATE: AWWWWWwwwww shite, TJ's gone .Net, break out da butta knives.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
John Battelle's Searchblog: About The New York Times: Deep Into Web 2.0 Now
The Times saw About as an opportunity to get into the search game, certainly - lord knows news is not a very profitable business when it comes to paid search. But there's more. About provides the Times a platform to explore microcontent without having to - necessarily - extend the Times' brand to everything. And as I've told anyone who will listen to me, I think microcontent is key to winning in the Web 2.0 publishing world. When publishing folks from mainstream newspapers tell me that blogging is far too small to possibly impact their businesses, I often ask this question: Would you rather have scores of microsites with a combined revenue of $15 million, profits of $3-5 million, and a double digit growth rate, or a newspaper group with revenues of $50 million, profits of $5 million, but declining growth?
Interesting Read.
John Battelle's Searchblog: About The New York Times: Deep Into Web 2.0 Now
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Now Playing....
One of the goals of my redesign of this blog was to not only bring you up to date status deliveries of my life, times, and opinions but to also to start sharing a lot of the music that I listen to, so that I can do my part and show that radio stations and major record labels are not who decides what is good music, but the listener collective does. One thing that I really wanted to do from the beginning of this redesign is provide, literally, and up to the minute display of what is running through my ear canal. As a programmer I am entranced in code for about 9-10 hours a day at work and I am fortunate it is my passion and I love it. I also love the fact that I am able to listen to music and voice my opinion on it throughout the day, and hopefully get other people to try new bands instead of the same old Clear Channel/infinity Broadcasting top 40 "we cater to record companies and what media conglomerates" want you to listen to. Hence forth I am happy to anounce that the tie in with my current mp3 player app is now live on the site. To the right you will now see album art (where there is album art, usually this excludes live recordings) and song info of what I am currently listening too which is literally only 10 seconds behind my player, you may care littler or a lot about this, but check it out everynow and then you may find some gems. The next step is a very cool graphical information parlay of my iPod stats, and then my own radio stream. All in good time readers, all in good time. By the way, amazingly for the last 4 weeks I have had over 1,000 average unique visitors per day to the site, about a 2/3 of which are continuous readers. I cannot deduct from my stats what exactly is keeping your interest, but whatever it is I hope I keep it up, and for that one small percent of Google/MSN/Y! users who keep getting to this site by Search Engine Queries of 'Gretchen Wilson Sucks A Man Off' (there are atleast 4 or 5 of you each day), unfortunaly I rank well in Google for "Gretchen Wilson Sucks" I am sorry to let you down. But she does.
|
|
|
(Thursday, February 17)
Train
So let me get this strait, this guy just "happened" to set up his camera at this crossing 2 mins before, this truck carrying strawberries "happened" to straddle the railroad track and no one knows why? Something sounds fishy to me.
MSNBC - Reality video: Train seen smashing truck
|
|
|
|
First Full HHGTG Trailer
It's Here (Click Play, yes its at amazon) The First HHGTG Trailer is out. I am extremely excited about this movie as this was one of my favorite books growing up. Exciting trailer, really makes me have a lot fo faith in this adaption. Mos Def is the man.
|
|
|
(Monday, February 14)
Working.
This is a great commercial. The sad thing is it is no longer 1 it is 4 (and might soon be 6)
|
|
|
|
Grammy Thoughts.
As I said in my previous post from early December about the Grammy Nominations I have always felt like out of all the craptacular award shows that the RIAA and it's included Record Companies puts on I actually think they do a pretty decent job at the Grammy's. I think as a whole it isn't the most spectacular award show but I think the greater mass of America gets introduced to at least 2 or 3 artists they might enjoy by watching the award show. Here are my thoughts on tonight's show which I watched in entirety:
1. Over all great show considering the live performances. Hands down best Grammy show I personally have ever seen, all because of the live performances.
2. With the exception of Keith Urban and Elvin Bishop (Wis +2) the southern rock tribute sounded like shit. Didn't they kick Dicky Betts outta the Allman Bros for smacking up his wife? I guess he owned the rights to Ramblin' Man. I will say Keith Urban's guitar playing was impressive and with the exception of Urban/Bishop combo song, the best part of that part of the show was Matthew McConnnahay introducing them with a toothpic in his mouth. That's the kinda guy I would like to drink with. Just don't let him ask me to play bongos.
3. Gretchen Wilson Sucks.
4. Kanye West part of the show was amazing. John Legend is my new hero.
5. Joss Stone is very tall.
6. Alicia Keys is amazingly hot.
7. Lance Armstrong has got Sheryl Crow on his workout's it looks like. Talking about how you made your dress outta lance's jerseys, next time he is in the Tour De Ga I am gonna ask him to ride shirtless from here on out.
8. I actually enjoyed the Beatles cover for the Tsunami Benefit. I think Stevie did it for me. I really wonder what it would be like for Stevie Wonder as a master muscian who can't see. They should make an award called the Stevie Wonder Award that only he presents, because honestly he is only going to be able to hear the music which cuts through a lot of that commercial bullshit.
9. "Daughters" by John Mayer really is not a great song. There are much better songs on that CD. The monogram coat was lame.
10. Best Speech: Hands Down Kanye West.
11. I don't like any of Usher's music personally, but the man CAN sing and CAN dance.
12. Tim McGraw sounded like he molested "Ramblin Man" with a pseudo country twang.
13. WTF is that on the back of Jamie Fox's head?
14. Personally I think Green Day or Kayne West should have took home Best Album. But if you are going to lose, losing to someone like Ray Charles for Album of the Year is still a mighty impressive feat. I would consider it lucky to even have people think I had a chance.
15. The Manager that accepted Ray Charles sounded like a very sincere man. Much more sincere that 90% of the other managers and producers that accepted awards.
16. Maroon 5 best New artist? I liked "Songs About Jane" it was by no means bad, but man Kayne West changed some things around, that had his name on it.
|
|
|
(Saturday, February 12)
Fishing.
Me and My Dad went fishing for most of the day today, I didn't catch anything, but my dad caught what was probably the biggest spotted bass I have ever seen.
The state record spotted bass was 8 pounds, 0.5 ounce, caught from Lake Sidney Lanier in 1985. The average Georgia spotted bass weighs about a pound and anything more than 4 pounds is considered a trophy.
(Source)
He was right at 4 pounds on the bogagrips scale. I have a feeling that he will not end up a trophey though but lightly salted in my parents oven sometime in the next few days.
|
|
|
(Friday, February 11)
Lohan Product Placement
Check out bottom right hand corner.
"Houston, We have confirmation on a Blue Dildo, over"
|
|
|
|
Truth held hostage
Truth held hostage
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
It's difficult to decide which is more outrageous -- federal aviation officials' failure to follow through on intelligence reports before Sept. 11, 2001, that warned of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden using airliner hijackings and suicide operations, or the Bush administration's refusal to let the American public know about it before the November election.
The administration has for five months blocked public release of the full version of the 9/11 commission report, even though former commission members insist that it provides what The New York Times calls a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system that contributed to the atrocities.
This revelation perhaps would not have changed the outcome of the presidential election. But that could not have been clear to the administration in the months between the report's completion and the resolution at the polls of what was widely presumed to be a very tight race with Sen. John Kerry.
In April last year, President Bush said, 'Had I any inkling whatsoever that the people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to save the country. ...' The 9/11 commission report apparently found that there were indeed such inklings, which should have 'raised alarms about the growing terrorist threat to civil aviation throughout the 1990s and into the new century.'
We're left with a pretty good inkling as to why the president moved heaven and earth to keep it quiet before the election.
I am sure half of America probably didn't know that the book they saw printed in Barnes & Noble was even censored by the government, much less what was not allowed to be in it until 'after the election'. Pitiful.
Truth held hostage:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CNN.com - Professor sticks with comparison of Nazis, 9/11 victims - Feb 9, 2005
In an essay, Churchill wrote that workers in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who ensured the smooth running of the Nazi system. Churchill also spoke of the "gallant sacrifices" of the "combat teams" that struck America.
The ethnic studies professor said Tuesday his essay was referring to "technocrats" who participate in what he calls repressive American policies around the world.'
Everyone has a right to say things like this. No matter how disgusting. Everyone also has the right to beat this gray/black haired guy till his scalp is bloody and the police officers investigating it might not find anything wrong. I welcome free speech, I welcome any one to criticize the Gov't in any manner, that is what soldiers have died for. This right is dedicated to all citizens, even those that make comments like this. I belive this man will accidentally be "hurt" sometime soon. The funny thing is that his remarks are so distraut that it will not be the Gov't who hurts him. Thats the debit for saying such remarks. But I support your choice to say them :) Keep talking man, keep inviting the ass kick.
CNN.com - Professor sticks with comparison of Nazis, 9/11 victims - Feb 9, 2005
|
|
|
(Wednesday, February 9)
Wal-Mart to Close Union-Targeted Store -- Report
The company plans to close the store in Jonquiere, Quebec, because it says union negotiators are making unreasonable demands that threaten the store's business.
Rise Up My Children! Rise Up!
They were probably asking for *gasp* fair pay and not to be held right under 40 hours a week to be counted for full time benefits. If only American Walmart employees were smart enough to ask for Union status. Walmart does not get any of my money, nor will it any time in the near future.
Wal-Mart to Close Union-Targeted Store -- Report
|
|
|
(Tuesday, February 8)
Google Maps
I mentioned a couple articles ago that even 600 lb gorrilaz need to inovate. Well It looks like they still do.
Google Maps
|
|
|
|
CNN.com - The once and future 'Karate Kid' - Feb 8, 2005
" 'Wax on, wax off' -- [it] comes every day. Well, maybe not every day, but every week," says Macchio. "And everyone yells out the phrase as if they'd just come up with the idea, thinking, 'Whoa, isn't that genius? Hey Ralph, wax on, wax off!' "
I bet he still get chicks.
CNN.com - The once and future 'Karate Kid' - Feb 8, 2005
|
|
|
|
Google blogger has left the building | CNET News.com
Looks like Mark Jen got canned. On one hand I agree with Google that there is a right to privacy for a company and thier information and a blogger, but also I think it depends on what the blogger is blogging about. Was Jen blogging about how it sucked to walk a long ways becuase of non-construction of an additional parking lot, or was he giving away stuff that could be viewed as trade secrets. Its a thin line. Probably better to play on the safe side.
Google blogger has left the building | CNET News.com
|
|
|
|
foxreno.com - News - Bush Budget Cuts Already Dividing Congress
"I hope Congress will improve on the presidents budget, to enforce more fiscal responsibility and ensure greater accountability to American taxpayers," he said.
I personally am all for Bush's cuts on social spending. Most of these (even the environment ones) just can't be paid for right now. Now what pisses me off though is the quote above. My answer to Jeb Hensarling (R.-Tex) is to shut the fuck up. If GW did not get us into an a war that cost us 1 billion per week we would not be having this problem. We are in debt. There is no bones about it. Stuff has to be cut so that we can get out of it (Hence adding another 2 trillion for SS is asinine) . BUT DO NOT TRY TO TELL ME ABOUT FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY after you supported the war we are trying to bail us out of. Don't try to act like a self righteous senator that knows we have to "ensure greater accountability to American taxpayers".
foxreno.com - News - Bush Budget Cuts Already Dividing Congress
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Photo Gallery
Reinforced Toilets for Fat People. I never knew somthing could be funny and pathetic at the same time. Thanks to the JRod for this one.
Photo Gallery
|
|
|
(Friday, February 4)
Military Jokes
From a military friend:
Q: How do you know if there is a fi | | |
