Archive for September, 2010
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »The Terrorists Have Finally Won
[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 9, 2010 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Thursday, September 9th, 2010Jesus America, you really blew it on this one.
It’s hard to believe it’s been almost ten years since those airliners crashed into the World Trade Center. Harder still to believe that America’s psyche still seems to be reeling from the events. I like to think that we’re not a bunch of Chickenshit Crybabies, but I never seem to see evidence to the contrary. Don’t tell me again about the tragedy of the nearly 3,000 people that died that day. Over 100,000 people have died as a result of the bizarre and poorly conceived invasion of Iraq that was made possible only through the perverse manipulation of American sentiment and ignorance in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001. Whenever I think about the symbolic hole of sorrow and tragedy in New York City that is slowly becoming a building once again, I think of Warsaw, and how in spite of the fact that the Nazis wiped out more than 85% of the city, the Poles chose to restore as much of it as possible, in some cases completely recreating entire buildings, and using as much of the original material as possible. Here in America, we spent as long debating what to do and duking out the details in court as the Polish did rebuilding an entire city. The recent debates about the “mosque at ground zero” and the attention the press is giving that fucktard in Florida are in my opinion simply more evidence that America needs to get up off its collective ass, wipe the tears from its eyes, and show some dignity. Until then, I’m sad to say that those 19 Sauds achieved much of their goal, and bumpkins like Terry Jones are only helping wave the flag of their victory.
Dear Google: Please Stop Finishing My Sentences For Me
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on September 8, 2010 by admin in Technology
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010I personally find Google Instant more annoying than useful. But I have 786,240,000 seconds to kill.
When a friend of mine’s two year old son doesn’t like something, he uses an expression which I find handy. He says “I can’t like it“. That’s my reaction to Google Instant. As googletastically amazing as I’m obliged to say that it is – for fear of being perceived as a Luddite – it mostly just gets on my nerves. There are a number of reasons I’ll probably keep the feature disabled, but primary amongst them is the fact that it mimics one of my few pet peeves, which is when people try to finish my sentences for me. My thinking is far too erratic most of the time for people to ever get it right. I mean, it wouldn’t bother me if they did get it right, but they almost never do. And since Google’s results have become so blogjammed anyway, I feel like I’m just getting often mediocre results faster. Which I don’t find all that gratifying. One of Google’s biggest sell points is that since they’ve determined that it saves you 2-5 seconds per search, they can make the cute claim that “If everyone uses Google Instant globally, we estimate this will save more than 3.5 billion seconds a day. That’s 11 hours saved every second“. Personally, I have the time to waste. If I live to the age of 75, I have about 786,240,000 seconds left. And if I did 50 searches a day for the rest of my life, that would only be about 456,250 searches, which – with the cantankerously slow “old school” method, clocking in at around 9 seconds per search – would only take me about 4 million seconds. I’ll wait. For the record, I have other objections that have to do with tools that control us rather than the other way around. A few of them are summarized nicely in this piece, which points out not only how much control the feature gives Google over word usage, but how the new feature affects how ads are displayed. I think Google Instant is more about creating Buzz than a good user experience. What about you? By the way. Thanks for not interrupting. Read the rest of this entry »
The iPad As A Musical Instrument?
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on September 7, 2010 by admin in Music
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010Well, maybe not quite yet, but here’s a roundup of some tools that are available that point to a cool future for multitouch musical instrument controllers.
Way back in November of 2008, we took a look at the state of innovative tactile controllers for music. At the time, the coolest cutting edge tools were mostly research projects, certainly not something you’d pick up at the local music store. Well, this is finally beginning to change. For professional work, and for about two grand, there’s the JazzMutant Lemur, which is probably beyond what a lot of musician/songwriters or dabblers need. And if you have the brains and can get your hands on the hardware, there’s the Töken multitouch screen running Emulator (video below). But the iPad – in spite of being an annoyingly closed platform – is coming into its own as a somewhat interesting tool as more sophisticated apps become available. And the overall cost of working with an iPad can’t be beat. After the initial purchase of the iPad
Let Me Tell You ’bout The Bats And The Bees
[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 6, 2010 by admin in Clean & Green
Monday, September 6th, 2010Because this is one environmental topic that should bee generating more buzz.
 Yes, bats pollinate too. Source |
You may have heard about the massive die-off of bees caused by Colony Collapse Disorder, or the possible extinction of a number of species of bats caused by White Nose Syndrome. But have you thought about the ramifications or kept up to date on the causes? Depending on the source, the cost to agribusiness resulting from continued bee die-offs ranges from $14 billion to $92 billion annually. And if the bats continued dying? Some species of bats can eat as many as 3,000 insects nightly, mosquitoes being common prey. To frame that more dramatically: the colony of approximately 20 million free-tailed bats at Bracken Cave, Texas, eats up to a quarter-million pounds of insects in a single night. Or put another way, the weight of 462,962 6oz cans of Deep Woods Off
Osama Bin Laden Captured
[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 5, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Sunday, September 5th, 2010On film, in a campy Bollywood comedy called Tere Bin Laden, with a fun Desi soundtrack
It appears that just in time for September 11, Osama Bin Laden has finally been captured. On film. In India. In spite of rumors earlier this year that Osama was alive and well and enjoying a relaxing life in Iran with his falcons, it turns out he’s actually happily surrounded by cocks in Pakistan. At least that’s the basis of the premise for a new Indian comedy called Tere Bin Laden
