| crazy as a rocket, nothin' in my pocket, i keep it at the rainbow's end |
 5 Comments
|
|
Novelty News of the Moment I saw this on CNN before it got boingboing'd: Bush's pockets are darn near empty. Nothing but a handkerchief, 'cause he has underlings to take care of all that stuff. Now, I have no idea if that's pretty much par for the course for man in his role or not, but it highlights the difference between "them" and "us", much like when his father expressed wonderment at a supermarket scanner back in the early '90s. (Though that may have been greatly exagerated.) Grassroots Action of the Moment So I guess this guy sued Netflix because the "unlimited rentals" they advertise are actually capped in the fine print...so they have this bogus upgrade program, where everyone who was a member gets bumped up one simultaneous rental. But it seems like the bump (which people have to pay for after the first month if they forget to put it back) is mostly to help Netflix pay for the outrageous $2.5-frickin'-million the lawyers are getting from this. Two and a half million! I guess if enough people opt-out, like 5%, the thing is cancelled, which is what NetflixSettlementSucks is trying to promote. I'd suggest eligible people opt-out, it seems like a deal that stinks like diseased whale carcass. FoSO pointed out the non-automatic cancel would be pretty evil, but I think it's Netflix just disseminating the evil of the lawyers who set this up. Burn in hell, scumbags, you're what makes the system break down. |
| feh |
19 Comments
|
|
Feh.
I can't believe how segregated the nation is, red and blue wise. And of course, having fairly close elections doesn't push a politician to be a centrist, like you'd hope. Hell no, it just makes them kiss the ass of the extreme edges of their political base. Assuming this is a win for Bush...yeesh. I can't believe the Dems couldn't come up with a stronger candidate than Kerry...I've said that before, I think for shallow reasons Edwards would have been a better choice. You would think that a middling economy along with the Vietnam feel of Iraq would have made this a walk in the park. And with stronger Republican control of House and Senate....jimminy frickin' crickets, having one party with the triple threat has never been great for our contry, whether it was Republican or Democrat. The Republicans are a scary, weird alliance of fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. I'm more or less ok with the fiscal guys but the social ones scare the hell out of me. Scariest News Quote of the Moment More exit poll respondents -- about 22 percent -- called "moral values" the election's most important issue then cited the economy, terrorism or Iraq. Those expressing this sentiment backed the president overwhelmingly, 79 percent to Kerry's 18 percent. Bush did similarly well among the 19 percent who identified terrorism as their top issue. Kerry won overwhelmingly among the 20 percent who pointed to the economy and jobs as the most important issue -- taking this group 80 percent to the president's 18 percent. The 15 percent who named the Iraq war as the race's top issue backed the senator by a 3-1 margin. --CNN...moral issues...prolife as a litmus test comes to mind. Article of the Moment Slate piece by William Saletan Simple but Effective: Why you keep losing to this idiot. George W had a simple message. Kerry had a complex one. That's why George W won. Incidentally, he suggests Edwards would be a good choice for the Democrats to unite behind, just like Republicans got behind W in 1998. Frankly, I think most of the Red States are full of anti-intellectual, gut-feeling shmucks. They vote on a few issues and on general karma, not on record. Unfortnately their gutfeeling doesn't extend to thinking "hmm...Iraq is a bad, bad idea". Great weather for quagmire fans, however. |
| rambling ambition |
4 Comments
|
|
I've been navel-gazing lately, and I realized that one of
my defining characteristics is "lack of big ambitions"--but
figuring out the root of that, and what the implications
are, has been a bit enlightening.
Spun one way, I think the "lack of ambition" comes from this tendency to not want to play when I think I'm unlikely to win (which isn't the same as its inverse) I don't even like setting goals unless I have a handle on what the risk factors are. This goes way back, come to think of it...I remember strongly objecting when my mom would suggest academic goals along the lines of "X number of A's, no more than Y B's". I'm much happier with an approach of putting in a good, honest effort and seeing where I end up. I have enough confidence in my abilities that I tend to assume I'll end up in a good position...and so far it seems to have worked out pretty well. Another facet of this outlook, and I don't know if it's a cause or effect, is that I have an almost Zen-like (or maybe more properly "Taoist") materialistic acceptance of most situations I'm in. I sometimes attribute this to "moving around a lot when I was a kid", that I've learned to be content wherever I am...which isn't to say I can't judge my circumstances, or make adjustments and improvements, but I don't have aspirations to, say, a bigger house and a better car. I mean, I know I'd like to be wealthy, and achieve immortality through my work (or by not dying, like Woody Allen suggests,) but I think those are pretty long odds, and I don't want to get worked up worrying about them; I'd rather spend my time and energy and resources on the things I find important to me here and now: Mo, my websites, good books, programming, spending time with friends, playing games. I dunno. Is everyone like that? How typical is this outlook? On another, completely unrelated note: fractions. Lately I've been thinking how "1/2" doesn't sound like that much, exactly as much yes as no, but "2/3" sounds like a lot, a clear majority. But broken down into decimals, there's only a 16 or 17% difference between them, which sounds like practically nothing, statistical error almost. So something must be slightly broken in my intuition about fractions, or about decimals. Maybe 16.66666....% is more than I give it credit for. Maybe 2/3 isn't that much. I'm not sure. Vietnam of the Moment Number of U.S. troops who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last two years : 354 Number who died in Vietnam in 1963 and 1964 : 324 --Harper's Index, October 2003. I remembered that little statistic this morning after reading a Salon piece on Oiling Up the Draft Machine (subscription or day pass required for the whole thing)--there aren't active draft plans yet, but they might be quietly gearing up so that it would be an easier thing to turn to if needed. The funny thing is I've previously liked the idea of making young people do military service or volunteer work; though of course I formed that opinion in a different political environment, assuming it'd be more like Germany (where they have it but it would be political suicide to use it) and less like Russia (where they have, and used it, ala Afghanistan and Kashmir.) With these guys in office though... Article of the Moment Slate says Stop calling firefighters "heroes"--they're brave men with a dangerous job that helps our society...but it's a less dangerous job than many others (including pizza delivery) and the men (and women) aren't above emphasizing and getting perks from their heroic perception. (I know at WTC, there was some under-reported resentment at the treatment remains of fallen firefighters got, relative to other victims. And that's further complicated by the way a communication failure was responsible for a large number of the deaths.) |
| east anglia under snow |
1 Comment
|
|
Quote of the Moment "A lock of hair touches one's eyes in a plane with East Anglia under snow, and one is in love." --Graham Green in a letter to his paramour Catherine Walston Link of the Moment 
Yet another wacky patents article, this one from the UK Patent Office. "For every 100 applications lodged, I'd say that 10 are a bit whacky." Like this one here, a hat mounted rifle...with recoil that broke a poor tester's neck during early testing trials.Link of the Moment The November edition of the Blender of Love Digest is here. Guess I'm still getting more (boingboing related?) traffic here than the Blender's usual fairly high numbers. |
| not down-to-earth |
1 Comment
|
Image of the Moment
Backlog Piece of the Moment Did you know I sing to my car? I do. It's kind of a spoken singsong and it goes Funky little car, gonna go real far. Gonna go real in my funky little car. Funky little car, gonna go real far. Gonna go real in my funky little car. I tell myself that the car senses the good vibes and is going to give me many more miles of trouble-free driving because of this song. Maybe it was good I had driven Mo's car instead of mine to get eggs this morning, because I pulled right up next to my car's twin at the supermarket, and I worry that my car would be jealous. ("There can be only one (cute little springlike kermity car)!", that kind of thing.) |