March 31st 2005
Sectarians: “Would you rather have beer or complete and utter contentment?”
Homer: “What kind of beer?”
–The Simpsons, “The Joy of Sect” episode
Archive for March, 2005
March 27th 2005
Fox News is running scared
Wow, even Fox News, the “What To Think Network”, is running scared of the Terri Schiavo story now. Great quotes:
“Fox finally found an issue it couldn’t brainwash the public into supporting.” “All of the fanatics where handed a new scapegoat on a silver platter, Jeb Bush. Goes to show how fickle and dangerous fanatics can be.”
March 27th 2005
Tom DeLay’s hypocrisy
Tom DeLay, who called the judge and Michael Schiavo “terrorists”, took his own father off life support 16 years ago and asked the doctors to not resuscitate his father, even though he could have lived, albeit in a vegetative state because his father “wouldn’t have wanted to live like that”.
Moreover, Tom DeLay sued (and won) the company that made the coupling that caused his father’s injury. And Tom DeLay has since spearheaded legislation to protect corporations from such lawsuits.
Do as I say, not as I do.
March 26th 2005
Transparent desktop
Inspired by these, I made my own transparent desktop. It’s a fun thing to do on a rainy Seattle saturday.
Update: So Slashdot gets around to talking about this (remember when Slashdot was first? Now they seem to be last). And the overriding criticism is that people “have too much time on their hands”. From the time I first saw this til the time I had mine up was 15 minutes. And I did it twice (the first one sucked). And I had to run downstairs to find the camera and scrounge around for our tripod (which isn’t needed). And I had to charge the battery.
March 25th 2005
The Tsunami kill 3-4x more women than men
The BBC reports that the tsunami killed three- to four-times as many women as men.
March 24th 2005
Decemberists video: 16 Military Wives
The Decemberists posted the video for 16 Military Wives. La-di-da-di-da Da-di-di-di-di-da…
March 23rd 2005
The Decemberists
The new Decemberists album, Picaresque, is great. It’s a bit early, maybe, but I think this will be their masterpiece album, their Boy with the Arab Strap or their OK Computer, the album they’ll be spending the rest of their career trying to match.
Cheer them on to their rivals,
’cause America can, and America can’t say no.
And America does if America says it’s so, it’s so.
And the anchorperson on TV goes
“La-di-da-di-da.”
– 16 Military Wives
Speaking of Radiohead and Belle & Sebastian… Radiohead are starting their next album and Belle & Sebastian are releasing a “best of” CD — I remember when they were so prolific they couldn’t make CDs fast enough, now they’re just making compilations?!
March 23rd 2005
Wednesday news
That racist kid in the Minnesota school shooting had a LiveJournal blog.
John Edwards has a podcast feed. His wife, Elizabeth, talks about how she is doing from her cancer treatment too.
The Seattle Sounder commuter train has free WiFi, provided by a customer, not the company.
The iPod Shuffle is the “just enough” music player. It’s also a USB drive.
Amazon is giving a $35 rebate on pre-orders of OS X 10.4 (”Tiger”).
March 23rd 2005
Wednesday news
That kid in the Minnesota school shooting had a LiveJournal blog.
John Edwards has a podcast feed. His wife, Elizabeth, talks about how she is doing from her cancer treatment too.
The Seattle Sounder commuter train has free WiFi, provided by a customer, not the company.
The iPod Shuffle is the “just enough” music player. It’s also a USB drive.
Amazon is giving a $35 rebate on pre-orders of OS X 10.4 (”Tiger”).
March 22nd 2005
There is No Such Thing as Free Parking
One of my biggest pet peeves is having to pay for parking. As Troy can attest, I am a master at finding a free space rather than having to pay. It is a stupid principal for a liberal to cling to, especially after reading how we spend more on creating free parking than we do on Medicare in this country. As of right now, I am relinquishing my need for free. The more we pay, the more attractive paid parking becomes and the market will take over.
For example, cities typically require the construction of four off-street parking spaces for every 1,000 square feet of office space, Shoup said. Since each parking space takes up about 300 square feet, the net result is 20 percent more space for cars than people, he said. Parking requirements reduce the land available for housing and drive up the cost of housing, Shoup said.
