I used to subscribe to the CNN RSS feed. That was until this morning. But since their news tactic is to report very little useful in the headline, but sensationalize it to get reader attention, I’m done. For example take the twenty-eight inches they reported in Denver. And by Denver they don’t mean Denver, they mean up in the foothills. Because in Denver proper it was much less snow than that. After subscribing to the feed for some time now I’m determined to find another news source, temporarily I’ve subscribed to the BBC’s feed. Are there other alternative news sources online worth keeping up with? I don’t trust the local Denver Post because they’re just in-line with CNN with their business and reporting practices.
Category Archives: Opinion
Why I Can’t Recommend Friends and Family Upgrade to Windows Vista
If you’re one of the readers of this blog who has ever asked me for technical advice, then this post is for you. Microsoft, next month, is releasing Vista, the next version of its operating system series, Windows. Vista has been touted as the next big thing from Microsoft. Its big already. Its a rhinoceros. Its horned, its blind, and its dumb – and it wants to take over your computer. After doing some reading and some research I can’t recommend anyone upgrade from Windows 2000 or Windows XP to Windows Vista. Windows Vista is advertised as a Porsche, but instead delivers the performance of a 1980’s Ford Taurus. Which to bring things into a more feminine perspective would be like being advertised marble counters but arriving to find painted countertops.
Windows Vista will require a degrading of performance because everything that is multi-media based will have to be reduced in quality. If you get a Blu-Ray disc and are excited to watch that blu-ray movie on your home computer on your flat pannel hi-def monitor – forget it. The quality will be degraded in an attempt at keeping the Digital Rights (as in you don’t have any) Managed. All sorts of encryption goes on within the processes of Windows Vista so that the data can be ‘protected’. To clarify about encryption think of it this way: your computer processes become slower because data has to be encrypted [modified to not represent itself plainly], sent somewhere else on the comuter, decrypted [modified to represent itself plainly again] and then possibly sent back in another encryptiong/decryption process. That means that the computer you have now will have to work harder just to get the same things done in Windows Vista that it has been doing in Windows XP or 2000.
Furthermore Microsoft can revoke a driver at any time which means that you could run a Windows Update to patch any number of security holes and then suddenly find yourself the proud owner of something that doesn’t work because Microsoft also slipped in a ‘patch’ that made the hardware you’re using not work because they ‘revoked’ support for it. Nice.
As a Non-Fear and Uncertainty guy I do want to add this: A new computer that ships with Vista will more than likely handle all of the things I’ve described above just fine. But know that the manufacturers are going to work hard to sell you on ‘Intel Inside’ or any number of other features that maks you think that the computer is powerful, but running Windows Vista will mean that you won’t get as much power out of it as you would running an older version of Windows or possibly a flavor of Linux [I recommend ubuntu]. Don’t be afraid of Vista, but be aware that your choice to upgrade on a current computer could be annoying and bring an older machine that’s barely Windows Vista compatible to its knees.
The one other thing to be aware of is that Windows Vista is reported to have a huge number of ‘confirmation boxes’. Those are boxes that pop up and ask if you want to do something, then ask again just in case, “Do you really, really, really want to do that?” Every review I’ve read has mentioned this. Be forewarned 🙂
But otherwise, if you’ve got a great graphics card and a monster machine, you should be able to have a pleasant Windows Vista experience 🙂 I just wouldn’t call it an upgrade. The best single-source review of Vista for computer owners is here. Thanks to Matt for that particular link.
Update: Here’s a terrific review of Windows Vista for those looking for a good, detailed review: Windows Vista Super Site.
The Collective Buttocks of the Music Industry Have Spoken
In what can only be described as either insane or completely normal for insane people the Major music labels of America, AKA:” The people who would sue your grandma if they found out she had MP3’s on her computer – even if she didn’t know how they got on there,” are suing the Russian MP3 sharing site AllOfMP3.com for 1.65 trillion dollars. In case that sounds like a lot of money, you’d be wrong. Because in Russian Rubles it would be 43.378995 trillion rubles. OK, that’s the same amount of a lot of money.
Yearly music sales for the major labels is only $40 billion worldwide or roughly one fortieth of the sought reimbursement. Granted that the attorneys in this case, if their pipe dreams come true, will get a large chunk of that. So maybe a handful of attorneys join the world’s wealthiest billionaires, displacing Bill Gates as most hated human being because everyone else is jealous, or maybe this silly site is going to disappear, the Russians will not pay a ruble, and the RIAA will go about suing grandmas, teenagers, and complaining that music sales keep dropping because of the Internet. Surely no one could possibly be buying less music because they don’t want another Britney Spears album, they never wanted a Paris Hilton album, and they also did not want another new album for the asking price of $18.00 a disc. Oh, and nobody even whispered in dark rooms or in back alleys that they wanted a Kevin Federline album.
I of course keep knocking out number one hits like there’s no tomorrow. Like this.
Snow Storm Samba
Do you ever watch the news? Why? Woops, that was a bit negative 🙂 We’re having a snow storm here in Denver, you may know this. Its not a big surprise, it happens a couple times a winter and yet every time it happens the local news goes into full coverage. Full coverage goes like this:
Anchor: “Well, [insert weather person’s name here], what’s it look like out there?”
Weather Entity: “Its a blizzard out there! Snow is falling fast and hard.”
Anchor: “I hope we can get home!”
Weather being: “Lets check-in with one of the poor saps that we sent out there to stand in the snow so you can feel like you’re getting live coverage as a viewer. Leslanda, can you hear us?”
Leslanda: “Weather Person, I’m getting blown around here, there’s lots of frozen water that is forming puddles of frozen snow mass.”
Weather entity: “Leslanda, how are the roads? Are they clear?”
Leslanda: “There are many accidents because pretty much everyone around here forgets that snow is slick.”
And so they go forth with this nonsense like a scripted replay. Its like Dancing With the Stars only its a newscast.
It happens over and over every year. Because weather is news. And news sells commercials. And commercials sell sex. And sex sells pretty much everything – which means storms are good for business – if you can get out of your driveway.
I Think I Really Screwed Up
We took Abby to go see the ‘Nutcracker’. It was Jessica’s idea, but I consented. I think I’ve violated my girl’s sense of decency. The moral failure I have now committed is something I apologize for. Some of you may be thinking about men dancing in tights as being the problem. And you’d be right. But I’m not upset about their fronts, they wore cups or some sort of male-front-part-ambiguizer. But their bums were totally and completely emphasized by the tights. One dancer’s bum was so completely overly-emphasized that I thought it was possible that the crack of his mass went all the way to the other side. Fortunately it did not because I would have had difficulty explaining that to Abby. “Daddy, why does his bottom go all the way through to his front?” They could have called it, “The Buttcracker.” It was wrong.
However, Abby was amazed by some non-anatomical things (and actually didn’t mention the tights) like the Christmas tree growing. She loved the mice dancing around. She liked some of the dances a lot. I just hope that she doesn’t want to go again with me. I can’t watch another round of men in tights. I just can’t.
WWJD? VCR is Bustinated
So our VCR is officially borked. Evelyn worked her little one year old magic and the tape is destroyed as well as the VCR being confused as to what its job in the universe is (it won’t even boot up to show us the time). We have some VHS tapes that we don’t watch with any regularity but that Jessica and I have collected. Jessica brought to our marriage a whole slew of Disney kids tapes (Cinderella, Winnie the Pooh, Dancing with the Stars, etc.) but we don’t watch those and neither do the kids. Do we buy a new VCR (Sony only, I’m going to keep a unified branding for my electronics) for the few VHS tapes we own or not? What Would’Jou Do? [sorry for the bad play on words – sort of]
Whipped Up to a Froth
If you go into a service oriented food supplier (AKA Starbucks) and you order something should the employees question you on your order? If I went into Burger King and ordered a squirt of chocolate milkshake on top of my fries and was fully willing to pay for a small milkshake to achieve the nasty sugar-salty-soggy conglomeration I’m after… then squirt the stinking milkshake on top of a basket of fries and send me to my grave. Quietly. Once I leave your whole store can roll on the floor laughing at the weirdo. But wait until I’m gone.
This morning as a treat to my bride I went to Starbucks and called her from there to ask what she wanted. She told me that she wanted a Pumpkin Spice Mocha. Which, as you may know, involves a large quantity of chocolate syrup, and a smaller quantity of Pumplin Spice syrup followed by a smaller quantity of coffee. Its kind of like a coffee beverage, but more like a sugar beverage. This is the drink my wife requested and so with confidence and certainty I ordered one. And the gal who took my order was shocked. How dare I order my wife a booger and scotch coffee drink. Was I sure? Yes, I did want a pumpkin spice mocha. But what she heard sounded like the worst coffee choice possible. Begrudgingly she wrote on the side of the cup the order.
So I’m pouring in heart stopping amounts of half & half into my large plain coffee and hear, “Mocha… pumpkin spice?!” As if someone had ordered that the froth be generated by beating the dairy with a used rag. For goodness sakes, this is Starbucks. The place took off as a national chain because consumers discovered that they could have what felt like infinite customization over something as simple as a coffee. And they coudl feel snobby and proud of it. They liked their fat-free-decaf-sugar-free-vanilla-latte and Starbucks was proud to charge them $4.53 for it. But I guess that’s changing now. Soon I will have to go in with a bag over my head, and once the employees calm down from thinking its a robbery and realize that I’m embarrassed by their conjectures and so I hide my face like the Phantom of the Coffra.
Strive for Five – or – How to Irritate Customers
I just got back from a run to the grocery store. Yes, it was 5:00 AM when I left. Evie wasn’t sleeping and so I ran to the store to get something. Upon trying to check out I went to the ‘express’ self checkout. I pushed the start button on the screen.
“Please remove the last item from the bag and scan it,” began the monologue. Its a monologue because the computer talks to you in a somewhat friendly voice. Forget that! I haven’t even put anything in the bagging area. I pushed start. So I moved to a different self checkout venter next to the first one. I hesitantly pushed the start button.
“Please remove youor hair in frustration as I also fail you in begining the self checkout process,” chimed the second computer. This was going to be irritating. So I moved to a third station where I began praying – I remembered that if I was Catholic it would have been at this time that I would have called on Saint Earnest who is the patron saint of grocery stores – I remembered that if I was Muslim I would declare jihad on this checkout station if it failed me – I also remembered that if I was superstitious I might have checked more carefully for black cats upon approaching the self checkout area of the store. Gingerly I pressed the start button.
“Please shoplift because this register is also a ticking time bomb of insanity,” cried the tiny, tinny speaker! Just then an employee walked up to the command center for the express checkout area and hit a few buttons. The computer reset the psychological profile settings and began working for me. As I checked out my two items I noticed stickers in front of the bags: “Strive for Five!” they declared. In small print they asked me to put five items per bag. Five items per… interruption: the employee is now walking to the other self-inflicted-mockery machines and having to manually cancel out of the transactions I just started. Offset by about 1.75 seconds they begin a litany describing what was wrong with cancelling out of the orders that they had failed to execute moments before. 1.75 seconds isn’t a long time except for when the sound of voices is correcting you and jumbling together in a cacophony of computerized trauma.
Back to the five: In my life I strive for various things. Striving is a word I would use to describe intense athletic challenge type effort. Striving is a word I would use to describe an energetic exertion pushing to achieve a deadline for work. Striving doesn’t enter my mind at the grocery store. Perhaps customers would put more than 2 items per bag in the self checkout station bags if the bags that the grocery store provided were not booby-trapped so that as soon as I walked out of the store with them they would rip down the side spilling the contents I had self-bagged at the self-checkout stand after self-selecting them as I walked by myself through the store. Or, I could double-bag my groceries and feel somewhat better about striving for five. Maybe next time I’ll quadruple-bag, put five items in the bags (96 oz. of Lactaid milk, 96 oz. of Orange Juice, two boxes of crackers on the ends so their sharp corners can stress the plastic film, and of course some eggs on top) and then begin the Russian roulette based walk to my vehicle. That would be striving.
An Economic Theory Worth Reading
I just read a very interesting article on economic theory: Mind the Gap by Paul Graham. Nick Bradbury linked to it from his blog. Give it a read and do leave a comment here if you agree or disagree. Think it through and re-read it. Its worth pondering. I figure that the worst case scenario is that you’ll come out liking tractors more than horses… or something like that.
RSS is the Bomb
Its been a while since I’ve mentioned RSS here. Mostly so that my parents will continue to read this blog. They’re probably tired of me telling them to buy an Apple computer and that they should use RSS. RSS is like speed for your web browsing if you keep track of many, many sites. Anyhow, Nick Bradbury announced on his blog that FeedDemon is $10.00 off right now: read the post, then buy the software.