The mysteries of the universe revealed... one boring detail at a time.
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2007.
Summertime!
Hit the nineties this weekend. I don’t envy the guys who are ripping shingles off the roof. And then it’s supposed to rain later this week, so I hope they finish pronto!
I may have found a yoga studio within 15 minutes of work. But I have no idea what iyengar(?) yoga is. I may go in for a class and find out.
YouTube - Stop, Look and Listen (1967)
LOL, the skid marks. It’s a Warner Bros cartoon without Roadrunner & Wile Coyote.
When you just have to do something mindless for a while, try this game
I just got one of those privacy notices from some foundation in another state that I am certain I have nothing to do with. They have the right mailing address with incomplete information on it, but it got to me anyway. All legitamite contacts would have correct info on them.
So I’m scratching my head at the PO Box return address in New York and the return mail address in Texas, and staring at the information they want me to include on the form — my name, address AND social security number? — and decide that I don’t care to tell them how to use my information if they can’t explain to me adequately who they are, how much they know about me, HOW they know about me, and why I should acknowledge to them that I exist. These privacy notices supposedly determine how they use my information. Well, I don’t know what they know. I’m not giving them something they may not know.
There is no phone number on this. I remain dubious. I do not like this, Sam I am, I would not like to be part of a scam. I would not like it in a box, I would not like it wearing socks. I do not like your little scam, Sam.
I love the headline. The actual incident is an eye-roller. If you saw it on tv, you’d scoff at the implausibility, but truth is truly stranger than.
Drink two glasses of wine, before eating.
Pay bills online.
Discover a decimal placement error that will slap you in the poorhouse, several hours later.
Panic.
Panic again, with visions of eviction.
Figure out how to cancel payment and reissue.
Stop panicking.
Fall into bed in a dead stupor.
And to think tomorrow will be a twelve hour day, if I’m lucky.
… it’s raining again.
I have an urge to go out and do a Snoopy dance in the driveway, but as I’m in my pajamas until I do laundry that would probably not be a good idea.
I, as a pet parent who spoils her children to the nth degree, got a water fountain for my cat that constantly recirculates the water, as kitties like that and stop trying to stick their head in people’s water glasses rather than drink from stale standing water. When it runs low it makes a sort of grinding noise. I awoke last night to a sound I mistook for the fountain. Standing blearily under the vent in the hall, I realized the rain was coming down hard enough to make a dull roar through the vent system. So I went back to bed.
What a great Sunday. Might venture to the library later.
Last October, I moved in. Unpacked. Began to clean out the filing cabinet to make room for Important Papers Related To Internship. This resulted in piles and piles of random paper, receipts and things I generally want kept private. So I began to shred, but the cheap shredder is only supposed to be used five minutes at a go, as continual use (according to the instructions) will end badly with a burnt-out shredder.
Me, six months ago: shredshredshredshredshred *ding* five minutes up. Same time tomorrow.
.
.
.
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Me, nearly six months later: shredshredshredshred *looks at remaining piles of paper* hmmmm. I miss having a fireplace.
{visualize with me}
all the papers, piled in the fireplace
A dollop of lighter fluid
a match
*whoomp!*
Privacy maintained, no shredder needed.
I actually had burnt a whole bag of papers prior to moving. It could have been worse! I really need a better set of protocols regarding what to dispose of when.
Like, how do you react when a 10 year old spontaneously bursts into song and serenades you with “I bring sexay ba-aack” complete with interprative dance?
It’s a good thing I can keep a straight face.
That kid will show up on YouTube yet. And of course I won’t be able to tell you about it.
… are fifty kinds of awesome. I helped a friend install XP via Boot Camp and Parallels. I like both ways, it’s kinda fun to see the whole display spin about and turn into Windows as it has never been before - it runs! Fast! It doesn’t access hardware directly in Parallels, there are issues with USB drives and with cd based copy protection, but if you’re attempting to be compatible with work as my friend is, that’s about the least painless way to do it. It’ll even share a wireless internet connection with OS X so you can run update and patch XP until it’s sorta okay.
Me, I’d dual-boot Linux and learn it, in preparation for the eventual popularization of OS X. The mundanes will no doubt end up with Vista and be mightily stymied by the copy protection that will cripple your PC. Peter Gutmann wrote an analysis of Vista’s true cost that has been blogged and re-blogged, but outlines some of the issues at stake. To quote: In July 2006, Cory Doctorow published an analysis of the anti-competitive nature of Apple’s iTunes copy-restriction system that looked at the benefits of restrictive DRM for the company that controls it. The only reason I can imagine why Microsoft would put its programmers, device vendors, third-party developers, and ultimately its customers, through this much pain is because once this copy protection is entrenched, Microsoft will completely own the distribution channel. In the same way that Apple has managed to acquire a monopolistic lock-in on their music distribution channel (an example being the Motorola ROKR fiasco, which was so crippled by restrictions that a Fortune magazine senior editor reviewed it as the STNKER), so Microsoft will totally control the premium-content distribution channel. In fact examples of this Windows content lock-in are already becoming apparent as people move to Vista and find that their legally-purchased content won’t play any more under Vista (the example given in the link is particularly scary because the content actually includes a self-destruct after which it won’t play any more, so not only do you need to re-purchase your content when you switch from XP to Vista, but you also need to re-purchase it periodically when it expires. In addition since the media rights can’t be backed up, if you experience a disk crash you get another opportunity to re-purchase the content all over again. This is by design: as Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, put it, “If you buy a DVD you have a copy. If you want a backup copy you buy another one”). It’s obvious why this type of business model makes the pain of pushing content protection onto consumers so worthwhile for Microsoft since it practically constitutes a license to print money.
Vista itself is reported to require you to re-purchase it, should you ever have a need of installing it more than the 2-3 times they allow. You will never own Vista. You will lease it until your hard drive crashes, until spyware and viriii cripple you and make it more financially feasible to start over with a wiped drive, until some piece of software wrecks up the OS and you end up reinstalling. And then you will lease it again. This is actually nothing new. It’s just now they’re really coding the OS to enforce it strictly. No more calling M$ to beg them to let you have an ungodly-long string of numbers to re-activate XP.
If you read nothing else of Gutmann’s piece, scroll down and read the final comments, and the quotes from people buying thousands of dollars of equipment that won’t work as advertised.
My next computer will be a Macbook, if I can ever find a reason to give up on my Powerbook. You?