Thursday, December 10, 2009

Hey Google: whatever happened to "don't be evil"?

From boingboing: Google CEO says privacy doesn't matter. Google blacklists CNet for violating CEO's privacy. Disclaimer: This here blog is courtesy of Google's Blogger service. If they were really evil, they wouldn't let me

---[signal lost] ---

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Feline dietary preferences

Sure, I can blog about cats. Why? I'm not an old lady. Stop it.

song chart memes
see more Funny Graphs

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Alice Cooper setlist - Sept 22, 2009 - Scranton, PA

So it only took me a month to post this:
  • School's Out (part only)
  • Eighteen
  • Wicked Young Man
  • Ballad of Dwight Fry
  • Go To H*ll
  • Guilty
  • Welcome To My Nightmare
  • Cold Ethyl
  • Poison
  • The Awakening
  • From The Inside
  • Nurse Rozetta
  • Is It My Body
  • Be My Lover
  • Only Women Bleed
  • I Never Cry
  • The Black Widow (instrumental)
  • Vengeance Is Mine
  • Devil's Food
  • Dirty Diamonds
  • Billion Dollar Babies
  • Killer
  • I Love The Dead (part only)
  • No More Mr. Nice Guy
  • Under My Wheels

Encore:

  • Schools Out (full version)

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Logan's Run: Last Day covers

The MTV website has a look at all four covers from the new Logan's Run comic being put out by BlueWater. Looks like the release has been pushed back to January.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Some fun sites for today

My gift to you, InterWeb denizens.

Friday, August 21, 2009

The artist behind the Flash, Star Wars, Adam Strange

Here's an interview with comics great Carmine Infantino, a former teacher of mine (really!) and a wonderful artist. I still love his work on Marvel's Star Wars adaptions (with Gene Day inking). He of course also had the great runs on Adam Strange and the Flash.

Health care stories

Health care horror stories collected by a blogger at The Atlantic. The system is in serious need of reform. Hopefully the Obama administration gets it, and doesn't just give in to the insurance companies like they did with the drug companies.

Friday, August 07, 2009

Pencils review?

I recently purchased some Pencils at Staples. Specifically, Staples(R) number 2, Yellow pencils, Dozen. A few days later, Staples sent me an e-mail, thanking me for my purchase of said pencils, maybe I'd be interested in some pink erasers (as if they foresee many mistakes ahead...)? They also wondered if I would care to write a review -- I can even check off such things as "Easy to sharpen" and "Great lead capacity" (what?!).

Shades of Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz...

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

How Internet Gatekeepers Stifle Progress

Here's a great article by Cory Doctorow on monopolies and copyright, DRM, and the like. Basically, a few "gatekeepers" make the rules, even on the Internet, and once again, the creatives get screwed.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Drug company deal with White House

Does anyone else get the feeling when reading of a deal like this -- where the drug companies are only going to make ten trillion dollars instead of eleven trillion dollars (by overcharging poor people) -- that the drug companies are laughing at us as they get richer and richer while pretending to be good guys? Is everything spin anymore?

Thursday, June 18, 2009

New Logan's Run comic!

Bluewater Productions is making a new Logan's Run comic starting this fall. Logan's Run was a novel (first of a trilogy that included Logan's World and Logan's Search, plus a later short story) about a dystopian future where the law proscribed death at 21 (a 70's movie adaption changed that age to 30; a remake has been talked about for years, but doesn't seem to be able to get off the ground).

Monday, June 15, 2009

Handling charge for website

DailyINK is a website that offers access to daily comics, among other things such as interactive puzzles, from King Features Syndicate. The annual access cost of $15.00 includes a $3.00 handling charge. Does that strike anyone else as strange -- a handling charge for a website?

Great Simon and Kirby comic: "The Woman in the Tower"

Thanks to boingboing, who reprint a neat Joe Simon and Jack Kirby interpretation of a woman's dream, from the 1950's series Strange World of your Dreams.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Today's topic

Today's topic is
apophenia. Discuss.
I'll be here, waiting.

Monday, June 01, 2009

Frog haiku

Came across this list
of many translations of
frog haiku. Enjoy!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Senator Ben Nelson is angry

Via Mr. Lessig. When public figures, like Senator Nelson from Nebraska, receive a ton of money from special interests, you gotta question their motives, hold them accountable for their actions, and put the pressure on. Remember, government exists to serve the people, not corporations.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Classic XKCD SQL injection

This is a classic XKCD, which despite it's stick figure drawings is one of the funniest web comics out there (but only if you're a computer geek).

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve?

This is verrrry scary. The Federal Reserve has been looted, and the level of incompetence displayed by the Federal Reserve Inspector General is shocking. Spread this far and wide. Every person in this country who isn't distracted by Britney, Paris, and whatever other diversions are being thrown your way: someone is stealing from you. Our government is evidently colluding with thieves; I'm not sure how else to explain it. Why this isn't the top story on every news station and newspaper in this country, I'm at a loss to explain.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

The Big Takeover: Why We're Screwed

This Rolling Stone article has already made the rounds of the blogosphere but is definitely worth a read for those of you who want to understand how we got into this bailout mess. Warning: you will be outraged after reading this.

Another great explanation of the scenarios that caused the crisis can be found in a PBS This American Life show from May 2008 called The Giant Pool of Money.

Friday, April 03, 2009

1 in 50 U.S. children face homelessness

Key quote: "As we bail out the rest of our nation, it is also time to come to their aid." Link.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

George Thorogood and the Destroyers setlist - House of Blues, Atlantic City - March 21, 2009

The usual overpriced drinks and some annoying drunks, but overall a good show. Setlist follows:
  • House of Blue Lights
  • Who Do You Love?
  • The Fixer
  • Night Time
  • I Drink Alone
  • One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
  • Born Lover
  • Bad to the Bone
  • Gear Jammer
  • Move It On Over
Encore I:
  • What a Price
  • You Talk Too Much
Encore II:
  • Treat Her Right
  • Madison Blues

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Prelude to the Road Warrior scenario

There's an interesting post over at boingboing entitled "How are you coping with collapse-anxiety?" We live in interesting times (like the old Chinese curse says) and it is an anxiety-ridden moment in history. How did we get here? Did the military-industrial complex spiral out of control, much too large for any one person, group, or country to manage? Or was it simply the bad policies of George Bush post-9/11, when he took an enormous amount of political momentum and used it to run the country into the ground, looting the treasury for his buddies on the way out the door?

Sorry if I sound cynical. Hopefully Mr. Obama can use his political momentum to take us in the other direction, but the critical mass of extremism in Washington looks to be a serious impediment to real progress.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Does Visual Studio rot the mind?

If you're not a programmer, stop reading now.

Everyone who's still with me, this article, while a little dated, is a fascinating read. The premise is how some tools dictate how you approach a problem (like the old adage "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"). Taken a step further, if you learn to think a certain way because you've been using a certain tool for a long time, it can change your way of thinking so that you can't see other ways of tackling the problem. And that's dangerous.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

State of the Union

"The New Hampshire state legislature took an unbelievably bold step Monday by introducing a resolution to declare certain actions by the federal government ... totally void and warning that certain future acts will be viewed as a 'breach of peace' with the states themselves that risks 'nullifying the Constitution.'" link (via digg).

As for the latest bailout: Let the Wall St. "Talent" Walk.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Evidently the universe may be a hologram

Evidently the universe may be a hologram. Huh. And I thought we were living in the Matrix (or is it the same thing)?

The myth of "clean coal"

The disingenuously-named American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity spent $45 million last year touting "clean coal," while in just nine months, coal and energy companies spent $125 million lobbying against federal regulations promoting clean energy. Something doesn't pass the smell test. More....

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Would big pharmaceutical companies choose profits over human lives?

A scientist believed he'd found a possible cure for Diabetes and asked pharmaceutical companies to sponsor clinical trials. From the article:
One example is Weissman’s mid-’90s research on type I diabetes, in which he demonstrated the ability to fully cure type I diabetes in mice using stem cells ... Weissman implied that the pharmaceutical companies had put profit over principle, preferring to keep diabetes sufferers dependent on costly insulin than to cure them once and for all.
Via digg.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Notes From the Chairman, in the High Life

Reading Bono's guest column for the New York times entitled Notes from the Chairman. Am struck by Bono's observation on listening to two versions of My Way: one, recorded when Sinatra was a younger man, full of bravado, the spit and vinegar of youth, "embodying all the machismo a man can muster about the mistakes he’s made on the way from here to everywhere." And then the version recorded when Sinatra was much older, now a song of defeat, and the duality this implies.

It made me remember Steve Winwood's Back in the High Life Again, a song brimming with optimism. A few years back, Warren Zevon did a cover of High Life on his Life'll Kill Ya album. Zevon turned this wildly optimistic song into a moving dirge by a defeated man. I'm still amazed that this song can go through these extremes, from optimism to defeat without changing a lyric. That's the brilliance of these artists, bringing that duality to the song.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Geek proof

This may prove that I'm a geek, but I found this hilarious.