I just picked up the new Dixie Chicks album. I can't say it's the first pop/country album I liked - that honor goes to Step Inside this House by Lyle Lovett, but it's probably the second. I'm really enjoying it. The promoting of the band as progressive country was a master stroke.
May 2006 Archives
Wells Fargo is introducing new ATMs that can scan the checks (and cash) that you deposit. This eliminates the need for envelopes and it shows the check that it scanned on the screen as well as printing it on the receipt. Seems pretty cool.
Try not to cry. When should we start worrying?
In yet another crackdown on MySpace some school district near Chicago is going to "monitor" student blogs. This is fricken stupid. We don't have schools so they can monitor our students 24/7. The purpose of schools is to teach, so teach already.
Lame.
God Myspace sucks. It is the example of why we don't let kids play with css. I finally revised my myspace page. The css is better, but still needs a lot of work. Check it out at http://www.myspace.com/aspenjonah.
Good Article by Ronald Bailey debunking the Peak Oil Panic.
Ok, so is anybody else getting annoyed at being a "guest" everywhere? When did I stop being a customer?
Definitions:
customer
1. a patron; one who purchases or receives a product or service from a business or merchant, or plans to
guest
1. a recipient of hospitality, specifically someone staying by invitation at the house of another
2. a patron or customer in a hotel etc.
3. an invited visitor or performer to an institution or to a broadcast
Unless I'm sleeping there, I'm a customer. Stop calling me a guest. While we're on the subject GameWorks is an arcade, and I am an employee of Gemini Mobile Technologies not a crewmember.
So, I don't know if this pisses everyone else off as much as it does me, but I've been forced to use Windows XP for some work related tasks and one thing that drives me nuts is these stupid baloons that pop up from the system tray. It would be ok if they pop'd up and then went away, but I'm sick of having to click that stupid "X" every time to get them to go away. Particularly because they rarely provide information that I need or even want.
Fortunately, someone has figured out how to get rid of them. Instructions here.
I am now a huge JetBlue fan. I went to see my family over the past weekend in Fort Lauderdale, FL. JetBlue now has direct flights from Oakland to Fort Lauderdale and they are really convenient. They have a red-eye that leaves from Oakland at 11:30pm and arrives Fort Lauderdale at 8:00am and then to return you leave Ft. Lauderdale at 7:15pm and arrive Oakland at 11:00pm. I had the added bonus of having the whole row to myself in both directions, but I have a feeling that is going to change as more people notice this particular route. Right now JetBlue has a special $129 each way sale going on.
I also have to thank my little brother Yuri for hooking us up on this one. He got us discounted rooms at the Westin Diplomat Resort in Ft. Lauderdale. Really amazing place.
So, great 3 days in southern Florida.
Now back to work...
This post was in response to this article on slashdot.
Quoted in full:
Look, who gives a flying fuck if the government knows? I certainly don't. In fact, I'd rather they didn't.
This government is getting way to nosy, IMHO. I don't care what the reason is, I'm sick and fucking tired of being saved from myself. Let me smoke my cigarette in my bar, and masturbate the Islamic terrorist porno, leave me ALONE.
Hey old white bastards, how about a law that requires me to be informed when my companies data has been hacked? Or better yet, why don't you worry about things like maintaining roads. Why is it that the NSA knows what sort of hemorrhoid creme I prefer, and when my girlfriend's periods are, but I can't drive down I-20 for more than 3 hours without needing a new wheel alignment for my car?
How about a fucking law that says I get to be informed every single time my personal information is accessed by the government? Every time I turn on the news I seem to be reading about how the Department of Homeland Security is making sure I'm following the latest terror alerts and that I'm not cooperating with al-Qaida via Xbox Live. I mean, Jesus, what the hell.
Even better, the slashdot summary makes it sound like they can circumvent state legislation. Um, my constitutional skills may be a little rusty, but I'm pretty sure that's what the 10th Amendment was all about.
While we're on the subject, what about the 9th Amendment? I'm pretty sure that that one said that we have rights that may not be explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights, and thus, we reserve those rights. It seems like America is serving up it's rights like a Shoney's smorgasbord. It's like 8.99 all-you-can-give-away at the Patriot Act Red Lobster. Jesus.
Douglas Adams once said (forgive my horrible paraphrasing, as I don't have my copy of Salmon of Doubt with me) that Australians often say "We're the last place left mate," and it made him nervous because of the confidence with which he said it. Makes me wanna see if they're right, cuz quite frankly I'm sick of this place. It's not just the politicians, it's the people. How can my vote count if I realize for every vote I cast with some knowledge of the issues, there's fifty people are are being exploited by like-minded zealots whose sole purpose is to acquire power, and seek to retain that power.
Madison, in Federalist 9 & 10, argued that mutual self-intrest will keep the 'factions' in line, draw them towards a central, middle ground, and thus make decisions that are best for everyone. The problem seems to be that no all 'factions' are allowed into the game. At this point, I've got to request that I be allowed to collect my chips and move to another table, cuz I think I'm getting screwed, and all I see is more Dick coming. ~a
A new NYTimes/CBS Poll.
What surprised me is how well the Democrats do on the "share my values" question. Hopefully these numbers will hold up into November.
So, for people outside California, we've implemented a graduation requirement for high school students here. They started testing kids several years ago. California is one of several (24 I think?) states to require passing an exit exam to get a diploma.
This is the first year where passing the exit exam is mandatory. Turns out about 10% of high school seniors can't pass the exam. This seems like a good rate to me. If the exam is going to be worth anything then there should be a portion of students that can't pass it. Actually, it only tests students at a 9th grade level, so, it's probably too weak. There's lots of debate, I think it's stupid. If you can't pass the exam you can't graduate. You can stay in school longer and try again. You can get remedial education. If the exam was easy enough for everyone to be able to pass it then it would be useless.
So, I somehow let someone talk me into watching this David Blane spectacle on tv last night. Ugh, I want my 2 hours back.
An interesting, if long article on contraception in the NYTimes.
Their tagline: "We create scenes"
What happens when 80 people dress like best buy employees and go hang out in a Best Buy?
Click on the link below to go find out.
http://www.improveverywhere.com/mission_view.php?mission_id=57
Important post on ArsTechnica (of all places) regarding the new UN Broadcasting Treaty. This is a major issue and I think sneaking it through the UN instead of through normal legislative channels is downright unseemly.
...to talk about.
According to Marketplace (the radio show) when Bush and Merkel meet this week one of the things on their agenda is the increase in the number of prostitutes working in Germany because of the World Cup.
Seriously, that is like Merkel wanting to talk to Bush about the price of parking tickets in Miami. You'd think they'd talk about meaningful things that might affect our lives, ya know, Oil, Iran, Russia, Iraq...
Then again this is obviously just one of those things that a lobbying group got Bush to put on the agenda. They might not even talk about it. Some people (the lobbyists here) have way too much time on their hands.
I've got a lot of politics rambling around in my head, and I haven't gotten around to posting them so here goes:
1 - Gas Prices
Get over it. We still pay less than 1/2 what they pay in most of Europe for gas. Oh and don't believe anything coming out of Washington. There isn't anything whatsoever that they can do about the high prices. It's simple market forces. Supply and demand, anyone out there take Econ 101?
2 - Immigrants
We're a nation of immigrants. Immigrants don't come here so they can burden our social state. They come here for jobs. If there weren't any jobs they would go home. They might be depressing the bottom 10% of the labor market by as much as 5%. Boo hoo. They want to work and we should let them. Personally I look forward to the day when anyone can go anywhere to work, kind like one giant EU. It's probably a few hundred years off though.
3 - Feinstien
We seriously need to get rid of this woman. Anyone want to run against her? At this point I'm voting for anyone but. She is so clearly on the payroll of the big movie and music companies. So much so that she should be donating her salary as a senator back to the people because she obviously doesn't represent us.
Argh! That's it for now. Bedtime for me.
Ok. One of the most f**ked up movies I've seen in a really long time. My roommate rented it.
*shudder*
That's a movie that got into my head.
So, I can't review the whole movie. Pretty In Pink is just one of those classics. I just want to make the comment that wow, that scene at the end when Ducky tells her to go after the boy, I can empathize with him. I can just imagine how that would feel. I'm always the friend who watches as the girl follows her heart to someone else *sob*. I can just imagine how much it would crush the heart to be Ducky in that moment.
I know it's just a movie and all, and most of it was pretty lame, but that one moment. Whew.
Ok, so I never read movie reviews. It's really hypocritical that I pretend to write them. Still writing them here is more fun than writing them on Netflix.
Speaking with a representative from Ohio:
"22 Astronauts were born in Ohio, what is it about your state that makes people want to flee the planet?"
Hm... someone should look into that.
An intersting SFGate.com articlediscussing the topic. Of course the author surprisingly (or maybe not) completly ignores the most probable source of hydrogen, Nuclear Power, but it's still worth a read.
Link from SFGate.com Article which has the full video.
