Why do people use windows for embedded applications?
Coincidently I was waiting in line at the supermarket and saw a magazine with an article on how to seem young – rule 1: never leave a voice message; then a friend wrote about how her phone wasn’t logging calls and her friends would call and not leave a message thinking the voice log sufficed to suggest their call was sufficient information to warrant a follow up.
This is indicative of a total collapse of good sense into the chaos of mindless stupidity. If someone calls my phone and doesn’t leave a message it says either that the call wasn’t important or it was so timely that a return call would come too late to be useful, so I won’t bother. Indeed, even if someone leaves a message, only if they specifically ask for a call back would I ever bother. If you called me and thought you were being hip and with it by not leaving a message, then I was being even hipper and wither by further reducing communication to zero.
Another stupid thing the kidz have taken to these days is using facebook messaging as a substitute for email. It is not. There is no fucking way I’m going to respond to a message notification in my EMAIL by launching a browser, visiting facebook.com, and waiting for it to open just to answer a message from somebody who can’t manage a normal email client. It isn’t like someone’s avatar icon enhances the content of their message. I realize there are people who for various reasons don’t have the resources to set up a real email account or don’t own a computer and have to rely on ersatz email like Yahoo or gMail, and for them a facebook message seems like the same thing, but it isn’t. Ignorance is no excuse.
There are many problems with facebook as a messaging medium, not the least of which is the transience of the messages there, the fact that you don’t own the content, that you can be denied access at any time without recourse, that it is slow and tedious to deal with more than a message or two, and, of course, it is a huge pain in the ass to read and respond to. Because I actually use email for things that matter, rather than just teenage chatter, I have live archives back to 2000 and nearline archives back to 85, longer than most of these youngsters have been alive.
So just because kidz think it is cool to cheese cat urine doesn’t make it so. We’re all old enough to know not to huff pee or paint and we’re all old enough to know how to leave a message like a grown up or know the difference between email and the social messaging flavor of the week.
After the while OJ thing tainted Ford with the low speed Bronco chase, they dropped the Bronco from their line and replaced it with something to help shed the whole fleeing fugitive image: the Escape.
Rumor has it there will be an Arrested Development movie!
It’s a pretty mediocre SUV. Squishy, soft, fairly comfortable. It’s a little loud inside. These small SUV’s seem to combine the disadvantages of a truck (noisy, gas consumptive, big, slow) with the disadvantages of a car (fragile, not off-road worthy). This one was even two wheel drive only, what’s the point of that?
On Saturday, Mike Wehner and I went to the NIMBY party. It turned out really well, a good crowd and fun entertainment despite the anomalous efforts of the OPD to embargo the party. It was something I’ve never seen before: the police blocked access to the building thus locking out a few thousand would-be-party-goers.
They did not interfere with the party with respect to those people who found a way in or were already in attendance. They were polite and didn’t give anyone a hard time. They just did what they could to keep anyone from getting in. There was a rumor going around that an edict had been issued by a politician to the OPD to shut down the party.
A solid 500-1,000 people (it seemed to me) did get to enjoy the event including a therm demonstration, a very impressive stunt riding demonstration, and, of course, the boxing.
I’m not a fan of spectator sports of any kind, and have never actually watched a complete boxing match before, but this was particularly entertaining. Really drunk bikers knocking each other around (safely supervised, with gloves and mouthguards) was sometimes pretty hilarious, and sometimes a good excuse for a drink. A few of the men I saw get up there were technically pretty good and fun to watch.
By far though, the most entertaining fighters were the women. Some wrestled instead of boxed, which was awfully sexy from an oogling perspective (the most vociferous ooglers were other women, by far, who were the only one’s calling out for clothing removal moves I heard). What was most surprising was that some of the female bouts were actually really good boxing – far better than the men. They stayed clean for three rounds, fought well, had good form, and were just technically better fighters and had the most interesting bouts even from a purely athletic perspective.
UAL notified me that Secure Flight is about to be rolled out by the TSA. EFF has had a lot to say about this program, which is worth reviewing (donate to EFF, help them defend your rights!).
Practical issues to watch out for:
- You need to present your full name exactly as it appears on your ID. – You will need to give your birthdate and gender while making a reservation – Do you have a redress number?
There is now a mechanism to apply for redress when you have been penalized by bureaucratic mixup and have been flagged for special scrutiny or denied the right to fly without due processes or judicial oversight.
Map It
