Sunday, June 14, 2009
Oh the Irony
A DVD in the player in the computer... a little clip from Casablanca, complete with split screens with words on them... here's my thought train:
What the hell, why does Windows Media Player that piece of shit start playing the fucking DVD's every time I stick one in there? What's this crap... it's Casablanca. And the subtitle things? ... hmmm... he's mad because she's pirating DVD's... cute.
And then it hits me. I stuck that disc in there so I could burn it to the hard drive. Hnnh.
What the hell, why does Windows Media Player that piece of shit start playing the fucking DVD's every time I stick one in there? What's this crap... it's Casablanca. And the subtitle things? ... hmmm... he's mad because she's pirating DVD's... cute.
And then it hits me. I stuck that disc in there so I could burn it to the hard drive. Hnnh.
Monday, June 1, 2009
I'd have called it "Twatter". Imagine the mascot.
Apparently, there's a cat on Twitter than has a bazillion followers. I didn't know that until I read about it in my TechCrunch email, and I really didn't care because I think Twitter is for ijits. Proof of my belief is that I keep reading comments and remarks around the web by people bitching about that cat and wanting to impose limits on how many Twitter followers a cat can have.
I'm stunned (or not, depending on which side of the cynical bed I rolled out of that morning) that someone would measure themselves against a human attempting to impersonate a cat on Twitter, and then find themselves so lacking in comparison that they cry foul and actually whine and moan in public about how unfair it is for a cat to have that many followers. Read that as "...for a cat to have more followers than YOU."
Wow. Give me a call, I'd be happy to help you look for your self-esteem.
Twitter is another one of those things that seems like a great idea and a boon to the social graph but in reality all it does is serve to make people either brim with unfounded and undeserved smugness for having a shitload of followers, or wallow in unfounded and undeserved depression because they don't have a shitload of followers.
To paraphrase that Techcrunch post (which I won't link to because it was stupid - Twitter signs TV Deal! - and the last fucking thing I need to watch is Twitter TV. Although it would be cool if no character could say anything throughout the entire series that was longer than 140 characters. Talk about a writing challenge.)
We may not like to admit it, but it’s still just not considered very cool to use any of these services rather than say, actually meeting up with a group of friends in person.
Face it - it is cooler (not to mention, safer) to have actual friends as opposed to thousands of strangers following you.
The point that I find most people miss these days is that technology is supposed to enhance your life, not define it. Early on people saw the potential for the web to facilitate interaction with other people. But what actually happened is more people spent more time alone in front of a computer.
For some people, this technology destroyed their real relationships. When you think of that, you think of the unwashed guy sitting in the dark typing with one hand because the other is busy. But it's not about him - it's not about how far down the perpetrator fell. It's about how one person's behavior affects another person's perceptions.
The people texting or tweeting at a dinner with friends see nothing wrong with that, because they're rude and self-absorbed. (And I'm not talking about taking a call from your babysitter because your child's head is on fire or something.) Unless you're showing me how to use your cell phone, put the fucker away! It's also an indicator of how far afield society has drifted from basic manners and courtesy. It's behavior that's only going to get worse because today's teenagers exist in a world where it's okay to do that. Can you imagine these kids in the middle of their first job interview?
Scary.
I'm stunned (or not, depending on which side of the cynical bed I rolled out of that morning) that someone would measure themselves against a human attempting to impersonate a cat on Twitter, and then find themselves so lacking in comparison that they cry foul and actually whine and moan in public about how unfair it is for a cat to have that many followers. Read that as "...for a cat to have more followers than YOU."
Wow. Give me a call, I'd be happy to help you look for your self-esteem.
Twitter is another one of those things that seems like a great idea and a boon to the social graph but in reality all it does is serve to make people either brim with unfounded and undeserved smugness for having a shitload of followers, or wallow in unfounded and undeserved depression because they don't have a shitload of followers.
To paraphrase that Techcrunch post (which I won't link to because it was stupid - Twitter signs TV Deal! - and the last fucking thing I need to watch is Twitter TV. Although it would be cool if no character could say anything throughout the entire series that was longer than 140 characters. Talk about a writing challenge.)
We may not like to admit it, but it’s still just not considered very cool to use any of these services rather than say, actually meeting up with a group of friends in person.
Face it - it is cooler (not to mention, safer) to have actual friends as opposed to thousands of strangers following you.
The point that I find most people miss these days is that technology is supposed to enhance your life, not define it. Early on people saw the potential for the web to facilitate interaction with other people. But what actually happened is more people spent more time alone in front of a computer.
For some people, this technology destroyed their real relationships. When you think of that, you think of the unwashed guy sitting in the dark typing with one hand because the other is busy. But it's not about him - it's not about how far down the perpetrator fell. It's about how one person's behavior affects another person's perceptions.
The people texting or tweeting at a dinner with friends see nothing wrong with that, because they're rude and self-absorbed. (And I'm not talking about taking a call from your babysitter because your child's head is on fire or something.) Unless you're showing me how to use your cell phone, put the fucker away! It's also an indicator of how far afield society has drifted from basic manners and courtesy. It's behavior that's only going to get worse because today's teenagers exist in a world where it's okay to do that. Can you imagine these kids in the middle of their first job interview?
Scary.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Who says I don't enjoy the classics
Didn't I just buy a book for my Kindle called " Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!"
Whee!
Whee!
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Peanut Gallery
As in, no comments from. (I'll figure out how to make comments soon.)
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Touring Idiotville
It's fun now and then to take a tour of a laptop belonging to the technologically retarded.
This morning I'm installing my Logitech QuickCam onto my neighbors laptop because their daughter is on some post-college-graduation job/tour/whatever of Germany and Saudi Arabia, and she wants to use Skype to phone home with video. But the neighbors laptop doesn't have a camera built in - and that should tell you how old the thing is. At least a couple years, right?
When I turn it on, it says "Your computer comes with a 30 day subscription to McAfee, click here to register, or click there to register later."
From this we can conclude that for well over a year now my neighbor has been seeing that annoying screen and clicking "register later" without ever giving a thought to the fact that they have no anti-virus.
Scary. Good thing this laptop can reach their network from here on my desk and isn't diligently working on giving my network the clap.
This morning I'm installing my Logitech QuickCam onto my neighbors laptop because their daughter is on some post-college-graduation job/tour/whatever of Germany and Saudi Arabia, and she wants to use Skype to phone home with video. But the neighbors laptop doesn't have a camera built in - and that should tell you how old the thing is. At least a couple years, right?
When I turn it on, it says "Your computer comes with a 30 day subscription to McAfee, click here to register, or click there to register later."
From this we can conclude that for well over a year now my neighbor has been seeing that annoying screen and clicking "register later" without ever giving a thought to the fact that they have no anti-virus.
Scary. Good thing this laptop can reach their network from here on my desk and isn't diligently working on giving my network the clap.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Faster than a speeding bullet
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Brazenly stolen from Ars Technica
So I don't have to keep posting "test post!!" over and over again.
The first thing that stands out as you peruse the Federal Communications Commission's latest report on rural broadband is that it reads like it was actually written by somebody.
"As long as a grade-school child living on a farm cannot research a science project, or a high school student living on a remote Indian reservation cannot submit a college application," the 78 page document begins, "or an entrepreneur in a rural hamlet cannot order spare parts, or a local law enforcement officer cannot download pictures of a missing child without traveling to a city or town that has broadband Internet access, we cannot turn back from these challenges."
Who penned these words? If you guessed William Booth of the Salvation Army, you are getting warm. Bringing Broadband to Rural America is the first big FCC published survey that I've come across that is signed by the head of the agency, in this case interim Chair Michael Copps. It definitely has the senior Democrats' crusading tone, and turns an otherwise dreary list of bureaucratic recommendations into a Rooseveltian call to arms.
"Infrastructure deployment is something Americans do well; it plays to our national strengths," the report notes. "We have built out canals, bridges, electricity, telephone service, roads, and highways. Now, with much history to learn from and with an array of technological resources at our disposal, we can and will do it again."
Thank you, Dr. Win-the-War.
The first thing that stands out as you peruse the Federal Communications Commission's latest report on rural broadband is that it reads like it was actually written by somebody.
"As long as a grade-school child living on a farm cannot research a science project, or a high school student living on a remote Indian reservation cannot submit a college application," the 78 page document begins, "or an entrepreneur in a rural hamlet cannot order spare parts, or a local law enforcement officer cannot download pictures of a missing child without traveling to a city or town that has broadband Internet access, we cannot turn back from these challenges."
Who penned these words? If you guessed William Booth of the Salvation Army, you are getting warm. Bringing Broadband to Rural America is the first big FCC published survey that I've come across that is signed by the head of the agency, in this case interim Chair Michael Copps. It definitely has the senior Democrats' crusading tone, and turns an otherwise dreary list of bureaucratic recommendations into a Rooseveltian call to arms.
"Infrastructure deployment is something Americans do well; it plays to our national strengths," the report notes. "We have built out canals, bridges, electricity, telephone service, roads, and highways. Now, with much history to learn from and with an array of technological resources at our disposal, we can and will do it again."
Thank you, Dr. Win-the-War.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
This title was missing
There's no title here!
Friday, March 27, 2009
For safety reasons, I won't be imagning that.
"In a laptop scenario, imagine Flickr using geolocation to tag photos that lack coordinates when passed through a browser or a Flickr-specific application that has an embedded browser with JavaScript support."
Uh, not before my first cup of coffee...
Uh, not before my first cup of coffee...
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Nevermind
By now you've seen all the continuing Internet chatter claiming Avatar is The Most Expensive Movie Ever Made. It all started with a recent Time magazine report in an article about 3-D. Expectedly, a Fox insider claims, "it's not near that ...yet." So the Fox powers-that-be were relieved when James Cameron's rep complained, and Time altered its article which mentioned the pricetag not once but twice: "The original version of this story misstated the cost of the film Avatar as being in excess of $300 million. The correct figure is in excess of $200 million." Amazing since news outlets usually hate being humiliated by issuing corrections. But I say to Fox: what's the big deal?