Saturday, December 26, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
What's behind that door?
"Private, some day you'll have a chance to find that out. And on that day, you'll remember this conversation and say to yourself "Well, Sarge was right, I didn't want to know what's behind that door."."
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Recovering
Friday, November 20, 2009
Down sick
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Presumptuous boss
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Comic Con sold out
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Instrument calibration
Monday, November 9, 2009
When did I become Cassandra?
I warned them that we'd modified the FAX-modem code.
I warned them that we probably didn't want to upgrade it unless something was actually broken.
I warned them that, if they upgraded to the new Hylafax code, they'd need to figure out exactly what we'd changed in the old code and make sure we either made the same changes to the new code or didn't need to make them.
I warned them this wouldn't be trivial, and it wasn't something to be handed to someone who wasn't willing or able to get intimate with the internals of our app and Hylafax.
They assigned the work to the outsourced devs in India anyway.
And those devs ignored my warnings.
You can probably guess what's broken. And while you can probably guess how badly, your guess is probably far short of the reality.
And I'm not even going to estimate how long it'll take to fix things. It's Not My Problem. I have a full plate of my own, let the India dev clean up his own mess. And if it screws up the schedule, well, that's Not My Problem either.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Computer assembly
So far the Antec 300 case is working well. Fairly easy to work in, bottom-mounted power supply, 5x 120mm fans (2 front and a side intake, top and rear exhaust) and cheap. I'll see how it works once the machine's powered up and all the fans are running.
Outdated as it is, it'll out-power my current desktop. Hopefully not for long.
Addendum: mount the CPU heatsink before installing the motherboard.
Addendum 2: the case is done. All that's left is to get one more fan for the side intake, and get a cheap LCD monitor. Then I have to bring it up without blowing a circuit breaker, and rearrange the network to move the cable-modem drop out to the living room so I don't have all the computers on one electric circuit.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
see more Lol Celebs
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Printers
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
The effect of Windows on computer prices
Yes, I know, OEM copies of Windows are cheaper. But then, OEMs can get better prices on the hardware too.
Falling over
Monday, September 28, 2009
Computer parts
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Plans for the weekend
Second, assemble the new gateway box. It's all sitting there except for the display, it's high time it got put together and gotten ready to go. If I do have to go out, I'm going to stop by Fry's and pick up the cheapest display I can lay my hands on. Otherwise I'll get the display Monday evening.
Third, start pricing parts and assembling a shopping list for the new computers. Priority #1 is getting 3 copies of XP SP3 before Newegg has to stop carrying them.
Tonight is Fire & Ice, followed hopefully by a shard instance or two.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Computer builds
I've decided to go with the Antec 300 case for the systems. It's shorter so it'll fit better, it's got a bottom-mounted power supply, and it's cheaper. With a little appropriate arranging of where to put the boxes, the filters shouldn't be too hard to get at.
I also need a laptop. I've pretty well settled on the HP dv7, but desktop boxes are a higher priority. Now to start arranging the money.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Definition of gun control
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Filksongs
Typically, the "easy beginner's" software that's supposed to make things simple fails to work at all. The "advanced, don't use this unless you're an expert" software, by comparison, is dead simple to use and records without a hitch. I'll have to enter all the album and track information by hand, but then I didn't expect Gracenote to know diddly about Bayfilk tapes anyway.
Next item to get: one of the USB-interface turntables so I can copy some of my old LPs (including a bunch of Kiss albums from their first incarnation, and some C.W. McCall) over.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Funny Republicans and the stock market
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Lost day
Monday, August 3, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Printer
Friday, July 31, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Wicked, the musical
Monday, July 6, 2009
Brasse's new home
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Sarah Palin resigns
Either that or she's decided that she just can't face the constant digging into her personal and professional life that goes along with a political career these days and is quitting politics entirely. Up until her vice-presidential candidacy she's had mostly to deal with local politics in a state where even state-wide politics more resembles small-town politics than anything else. It's entirely possible she simply had no clue what getting into national politics would entail, and once she'd gotten some experience with it just decided she wanted no part of this.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Michael Jackson scandal
Eyeglasses
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Lightsabers
Monday, June 29, 2009
Rover astronomy
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Republicans know all about foreign affairs
The real kicker, though, is why he went missing. It turns out he was having an affair with a woman in Argentina. I find this amusing, because for all their preaching about morality we seem to be seeing far more Republicans than Democrats caught having affairs. At least in this case the affair was with a woman, not another man. I think the Republicans need to take a long hard look at themselves and why they seem so prone to doing exactly what they condemn in others.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Back home from PA
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Things I won't work with
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/
Things that make nitroglycerin look downright tame. You know those old leather coats they show steampunk chemists wearing? There's a reason for those, OK? They weren't just made-up, real chemists wear those when working with reactions that sane people don't work with. This collection of stuff goes downhill from there.
Pennsylvania trip 2
- The house and the trailer where we lived. Word is the trailer's pretty much collapsed though.
- The old Bottorf place.
- The rail yards in Renovo where Dad worked.
- Hyner Run bridge. Good fishing there.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Pennsylvania trip
I hope this all goes OK. There's a bunch of paperwork about the farm to deal with, and the memorial. Some of the family have been real twits, it may take some work to avoid telling them off.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Chrysler
The portion sold to Fiat is going to take at least a year to pick up steam. Fiat isn't a well-known brand in the US, and the kind of sub-compact they make is smaller than the popular size here too. It's going to take them a year to get the factories re-tooled, ramp up production and start actually getting cars into showrooms, with no guarantee people'll buy them over more well-known brands. The portion that remains Chrysler is in even worse shape. It's line-up is still heavily skewed towards large trucks and vans and SUVs, exactly what's not selling well anymore. It's going to take them at least a year, maybe two, to get new designs more in line with consumer demand into production. And both of them will be competing with GM's new models, with Ford's existing line-up, and with Toyota, Mazda, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Acura, Nissan et. al..
Normally I'd consider a bail-out of a company in this bad a shape as an all-around bad deal. But to be honest the point of the bail-out isn't to save Chrysler the company. It's to keep the majority of it's employees on the payroll, to keep the factories open and buying parts from suppliers, to generally stave off the complete dissolution of a major US auto manufacturer until the stock market isn't wavering and economy isn't ripe for any small push to send it tanking further.
I'd note that this is something the Republicans seem to be forgetting. The choice here isn't between good and bad choices. 8 years of Republican policies has left us with choosing between bad and horrible. It's like a tourniquet: it's a horrible idea, one of the worst things you can do as first aid, topped only by letting the patient bleed out. So when you can't stop the bleeding any other way you put the tourniquet on anyway, knowing you're likely costing the patient their leg but at least he'll be alive long enough to worry about that.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Laptop
Two US automakers down
That leaves Ford as the only US automaker still in full operation. And even they're paring things down quite a bit, eliminating lines that aren't selling well and cutting dealerships with overlapping territories.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Foreclosures moving on up
The bottom ain't here yet, folks.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Family
Not that that's new. Case in point was some relatives down in Mill Hall ages ago. The whole bunch of them worked at the same paper mill. Mill isn't doing well, and finally tells everyone "We can't stay in business. We figure we can keep running for 9 more months, so come March of next year we'll be closing the doors.". Come January they told everyone "We've managed to stretch it a bit, we can keep you on until June but that's the final date.". And come June, those relatives to the last one were complaining about how the lay-offs were so sudden and they'd never expected anything like this to happen, and there's no jobs to be had now 'cause everybody else from the mill already took them. And they aren't unusual for back there, everybody has that kind of attitude.
You can see why I don't care to ever move back there.
Monday, May 18, 2009
David vs. Goliath
Friday, May 15, 2009
Padres
Feh.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Stupid mob
By the time we called it, I was getting seriously into J's attitude: "Right. His health or my armor, one of them's hitting 0% before this is over."
Friday, May 8, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Maine allows same-sex marriages
Friday, May 1, 2009
Court reforms
1. An acknowledgement of the inequality of the two sides financially. The plaintiff always has control over when they file suit, what allegations they make, and who they pull in. The defendant has no control over who sues them, when they're sued, or what they're sued for. The awarding of costs and fees should reflect this. If the defendant in a case prevails, all fees and and costs incurred should be awarded to them unless the plaintiff can show exceptional circumstances that weigh against such an award. If the plaintiff prevails, court fees should normally be awarded but costs should not be awarded unless plaintiff can show that defendant had no reasonable basis for holding out. IOW if you sue someone you bear your own costs unless you can show defendant was solidly in the wrong and knew it, and if you're sued and win you normally won't be out-of-pocket anything.
2. A "put up or shut up" deadline. Once discovery's over, the judge asks one question of both sides: "Are you prepared to go to trial?". The only acceptable answers are "Yes." and "No.". No equivocation, either you are or you aren't. If you answer "Yes.", then that's it. You will be appearing in court. After this point settlement isn't allowed, the only options are a ruling on the merits by the judge or a jury, or a dismissal of the case with prejudice. But be careful, because if you answer "No." then the judge will end the matter right then and there. He can dismiss the case with prejudice or, if one party's ready and the other isn't, he can rule in favor of the party that answered "Yes.".
3. Once a lawsuit's filed, the first thing the plaintiff has to do is go before the judge and present evidence supporting their case. They don't have to have enough to win, but they do have to have enough to convince a judge that they've got at least the beginnings of a case. If you can't even do that much, the judge can dismiss your case on the spot. Defendant only has to answer your allegations once you've convinced a judge you have actual evidence to back them up.
All three are intended to make it harder for parties to use the courts as a bludgeon to coerce other parties into giving in upon pain of the massive expense of actually defending yourself in court.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
FreeRealms
Flu pandemic
The SEC and naked short-selling
Naked short-selling doesn't work that way. When shorting naked, the seller sells shares that don't exist, that he doesn't have. If the stock price goes down far enough, he buys cheap and delivers to the buyer. If the stock price doesn't go down, he shrugs and walks away from the deal. He never delivers the shares to the buyer, and the buyer's broker unwinds the transaction leaving the buyer with his money back and no shares. If you think this is harmless, think about this: you've sold a put option to someone and made a purchase of shares to cover that option because the price is good and you'll make a profit. The guy you bought the shares from was naked-shorting the stock, and since the market price isn't below what he sold for he walks away from the deal. You don't lose your purchase price, but you also don't have the shares you need to have to cover your option contract. Now you're faced with two bad choices: buy at the now-higher market price and see your profit on the options contract turn into a loss, or default on that contract yourself. Your wallet or your reputation, one or the other takes a major hit. Still think the naked short sale was harmless? I don't. Just because you got your money back doesn't mean you avoided all the costs of a failed purchase.
IMO naked short-selling should be banned entirely. If you want to short, you should be required to make arrangements to guarantee delivery at the time you initiate the sale. You can purchase the shares, you can purchase an options contract, you can borrow from a willing lender, but one way or another you have to have something in hand to guarantee delivery before you can sell. Along with that I'd put in a rule saying that if you default on any sale your broker is then required for 1 year to refuse to initiate any sale for you unless you own actual shares to cover it. No borrowing, no options contracts, if you fail to deliver you're on shares-on-the-barrelhead until you prove you're reliable again. Now the whole problem's eliminated.
I'm sure certain traders who like to gamble won't like that, but I fail to see why they should be allowed to gamble in ways that leave other people unwittingly holding the bag.
Lottery
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
FreeRealms
Arlin Specter, Democrat
If the Republicans don't soon start grokking the concept of "Pyrrhic victory", they're going to render themselves a non-player in the political arena. Their shift towards the radical right cost them control of the House in 2006, it cost them control of the Oval Office and very nearly the Senate in 2008, and it's going to cost them the last shreds of control (the filibuster) they have in the Senate in 2010 if they don't change course soon.
Their basic problem is that the majority of conservatives are not religious conservatives, nor "corporate interests above all else" neocons. They aren't opposed, for instance, to unemployment and welfare and the whole "safety net for people in trouble" thing. They look at it as a benefit for themselves too if they happen to get caught in somebody else's mess, say being laid off because the people who run the company they work at were greedy, unprincipled and/or stupid bastards who bankrupted their companies, an assurance that while things will be tight they won't have to worry about putting basic food on the table while they scramble to find a new job. They don't want the government to over-do it to the point where people are better off on the dole than working, but they don't want the government to completely remove the net. And they're getting increasingly fed up with ranting that sounds more and more like that annoying street preacher who won't leave you alone.
Dynamic DNS
Monday, April 27, 2009
FreeRealms
It does have a few problems, though. One is the lack of a true world-wide chat channel. You can speak locally, and you can send messages to your friends, but there's no generic chat channels as in other games where everyone in the world can speak and be heard. That'll make it a bit harder to get like-minded people together if they aren't already friends. Of course it also limits the amount of asshattery in chat, so the lack isn't all bad. The other major thing you'll notice is that a significant portion of the content, particularly at the higher levels, is either members-only or purchaseable only with Station Cash. Certain jobs are also members-only. The membership is cheap so that's not IMO a major problem, but more stuff requires Station Cash than you might expect from the advertising. And like all SOE games the game and the Station Wallet are tied together through the Station account. If you have kids and want to give them accounts, DO NOT do the obvious and give them their own independent account. Set up your own account first, even if you don't intend to play. Then create their accounts as "child" accounts linked to your parent account, and use the parental controls to lock them down. That way you can use your credit card to pay their membership without giving them an unlimited ability to tap that credit card for Station Cash.
The game hasn't really caught my interest so far. It's fun, though, and a good change of pace. It's perfect for casual futzing around with a few of your friends, and it'll probably be much more interesting for the younger crowd than an old fogey like me.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
RIP Geocities
Yeah, I know, the cobwebs are thick back in that corner, but it's really still around. Well, until summer at least. Yahoo is shutting it down. It lasted for 15 years, and if you were one of the ones who created pages there you might want to retrieve anything still useful from it before it all gets trucked to the curb along with the servers.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
GM financial woes
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Republican outrage at the "bailout"
No, what outrages the Republicans is that Obama has the temerity, the audacity to put conditions on the bailout. To say "We'll loan you the money to keep you in business, but you're expected to pay it back with market-rate interest just like any other loan.". To say "We'll help you out, but we won't let you use the money to give rewards and bonuses to the executives whose fuck-uppery got you into this mess.".
They're outraged because Obama is expecting business to man up, admit that they screwed up by the numbers and accept the consequences instead of playing Uncle Sugar and shovelling money at them no strings attached like they want.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
EQ2 shard mission quests
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
April Fool's as a schedule date
April Fool's
Sunday, March 29, 2009
New chair
Thursday, March 26, 2009
A really bad week
And if you think that's bad luck, apparently there were 8 other people unlucky enough to have been in both places at exactly the wrong times.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Machine migrations
Friday, March 13, 2009
Motorcycle crash
Multiple-car crash kills motorcyclist on Route 163
2:00 a.m. March 13, 2009
A pickup swerved out of control on southbound state Route 163 and struck a motorcyclist, who was hurled into northbound lanes and suffered fatal injuries yesterday afternoon, authorities said.
The motorcyclist, whose name was not released, died at a hospital.
Traffic slowed to a crawl for two hours past the scene that involved four vehicles. The motorist who was thought to be responsible for the crash by cutting off a green Ford Ranger pickup did not stop, the California Highway Patrol said.
CHP officials said a witness saw a pickup change lanes abruptly in front of the Ranger south of Kearny Villa Road about 4:45 p.m. The Ranger driver veered onto the right shoulder, then steered left across the lanes and broadsided a white Ford sport utility vehicle.
The white Ford flipped onto its roof, causing minor injury to one occupant. The Ranger then struck the motorcycle, which burst into flames. Its rider flew over the center divider and was hit by a northbound compact car, the CHP said.
The two left lanes in each direction were closed until nearly 7 p.m. The entire southbound freeway was blocked for several minutes while CHP officers took measurements related to their investigation. –P.R.
Notice that the cause of the crash drives off scot-free. His driving record won't be affected. He won't lose his license, or even have his insurance rates increased. He'll remain a threat to everybody else on the highway. Meanwhile his victims will have to pay the price. Worse, the driver of the Ranger will probably be ruled to be at fault simply because the police have to pin the responsibility on someone. It'll probably be "failed to maintain a safe following distance" behind the pickup that cut him off. As if you can read the other guy's mind and know he's going to cut off your following distance before he does it. Faugh.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Hard drive prices
Karnor's Castle
Until last night. We went in with 5 people, including a level 72 paladin. We burned our way through to the very back to get the drolvarg L&L book with no problems. Even on bad pulls with 3 mobs, we didn't have any deaths. And we got a nice set of legs for the paladin off the boss near the book. Then we went downstairs and almost got to Xalgoz. The last mob was a nasty pull, it's a 3-group that flies around high up, hard to spot and hard to keep track of when it comes in. Our healer got caught right in the middle and AOEd to death, and that was that. We're going to have to go back in and clear that place.
It did demonstrate why we need new computers, though. Major chunkage and 3-4FPS frame rates the whole way make it hard to pull cleanly. Our computers are just old and need upgraded to the current generation. My plan is to buy motherboards with the most current AMD socket on them, then buy CPUs with fewer cores but higher clock speeds (EQ2 doesn't take great advantage of multiple cores, it needs clock cycles) with the plan being to upgrade to CPUs with more cores as clock speeds on them climb.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Computer parts prices
I seriously need to build new computers. Primary desktops are single-core Athlon XP 3200 class, at least 3 generations behind the curve. AGP video. Need new machines.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Proposition 8 and the CA Supreme Court
I'd argue on two different grounds.
First, that while Proposition 8 defines marriage to be between a man and a woman, it doesn't remove the language elsewhere in the constitution that requires the state to treat all citizens equally. As long as that other language stands, Proposition 8 can't simply handwave that requirement away. If two men show up wanting to be married by the state, the state has to treat them the same as it would a man and a woman until a constitutional amendment removing that requirement is passed. And Proposition 8 doesn't remove that requirement.
Second, Proposition 8 is an infringement on freedom of religion and is barred by the US Constitution. No state is allowed to have provisions in it's state constitution that violate the US Constitution, after all. Religions do define marriage, that's what the Religious Right is in an uproar about here. But not all religions define marriage as being only between a man and a woman. By writing that definition into the constitution, Proposition 8 interferes with the right of those religions to marry couples according to their beliefs. You can only do that if you can show an overriding societal need for that interference and that there is no less intrusive way of meeting that need. Proposition 8 doesn't demonstrate that there's any overriding need to bar same-sex marriages, so it fails the test.
Development frustrations
You'd think the business analysts could get things like this straight, figure out what's actually going to be wanted before development starts.
Monday, March 2, 2009
The economy
Oh, and OPEC wanting oil at $70/barrel? Not happening, guys. Not unless they cut production by 100%, and maybe not even then. And they aren't going to shut themselves down to force the price of oil up. OPEC needs to accept that, given the current economy, their desires are just unrealistic.
Stock market
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The Norse pantheon
On pain
My father went through idiots who wouldn't follow that advice after his accident. His right arm was numb, painful and showing all the signs of nerve damage. All the tests they ran confirmed nerve damage. But since none of the X-rays showed any physical cause for the damage, the doctors kept insisting there couldn't be any nerve damage. Until finally Mom brow-beat the insurance into getting an opinion from the surgeon who all the other doctors named as the guy they wanted if they had to have work done on their necks. He looked at everything and said "OK, all the tests show there's damage, if we can't see the cause from the X-rays we'll just have to open it up and poke around and see what the X-rays aren't showing.". And when he opened my father's neck up, there was a nice loud clatter as a vertebrae fell out in about 3 pieces, to which the surgeon commented "Well, that's the problem right there.". No sign on the X-rays, but the insurance couldn't argue with the bits of vertebrae on the desk. And Mom made a point of rubbing the noses of all those other doctors in the photos of the shattered vertebrae that they refused to look for.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Peanut Corp. of America - RIP
More Peanut Corp. problems
No raises this year
OTOH, I'm watching the company's financials. When the economy and the company's profitability picks up again, follow-through will be expected.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Republican inanity
Well, Roosevelt and the Great Depression are history, that's true. However, that's about all of his statement that has any connection to reality. The Great Depression began in 1929. Roosevelt didn't become president until 1933, 4 years later. Keynes didn't write his book on economics until 1936, 3 years after that.
Now, admittedly, after being presented with the historical record, Austria did backtrack: "I did not mean to imply in any way that President Roosevelt was responsible for putting us into the Depression, but rather was trying to make the point that Roosevelt’s attempt to use significant spending to get us out of the Depression did not have the desired effect."
Again, not exactly correct. The GDP had declined from $103.6 billion in 1929 to $56.4 billion in 1933, and started rising in 1934 to $66.0 billion and continued to rise through the start of WWII with only one drop in 1938 (the year FDR cut funds from a large part of the New Deal to help balance the budget). You can find detailed numbers at the BEA's web site.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Jury duty
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Dow Jones Industrial Average
IOW the current crash has wiped out a decade's worth of gains in the market.
That's a scary thought.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Second Life annoyance
Daschle nomination withdrawn
Now, personally I don't consider tax "errors" to be a killer simply by existing. The plain fact is, most of those "errors" haven't been found to be errors. They're cases where either the IRS or an auditor disagrees with the original preparer as to how to classify a particular item. This isn't anything odd on a moderately complex tax form. Besides the IRS regulations there's a huge body of administrative and case law government what can be considered how, and even IRS agents aren't familiar with it all (one reason good tax accountants are in such demand is that they know that body of law better than the IRS agents and, when the IRS wants to disallow a deduction, they can point to a ruling that says it is too allowable). For instance, take a home office. Expenses related to it are deductible, however if it's also used for personal use some things are deductible and some aren't. For instance, if it's mixed-use you can't deduct a portion of the utility bills. You can, though, deduct business calls on a mixed-use phone. And not all mixed-use disqualifies it. The IRS will try to argue it, but occasional and incidental personal use has been ruled to not disqualify the office. The personal use has to be regular and consitute a not-insignificant portion of the use to disqualify the office. You can have endless arguments with the IRS over this if you aren't careful. Get into investments or foreign earnings and it gets really fun. Eg. you were paid $50,000 for work done in a foreign country, the money was deposited into a bank in that country and used only in that country, and taxes were paid on it in that country per their rules. How much of that money must be reported as US income, how much of it is taxable as US income and how much of a credit against US taxes paid are you entitled to? What if the foreign country says you owed $20,000 in taxes to them on that money but the IRS says only $10,000? Note that in that last case, if you paid $20,000 to the foreign country for taxes and claim $20,000 in foreign taxes paid, you have an error on your return even though you're in compliance with what the rules say simply because the IRS disputes your (and the foreign country's tax people's) interpretation of the foreign tax laws.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Peanut salmonella outbreak, new discovery
There's a new development in the salmonella-contaminated peanut-product case. Apparently the FDA caught a (badly) contaminated shipment from Peanut Corp. coming back into the country after having been rejected abroad. They refused to allow the shipment back in and ordered it destroyed. They didn't order any inspection of the plant that was the source of the shipment, and didn't do any testing of their own despite having heartburn over the company's in-house testing methods. And apparently the company had a history of problems being found during inspections.
Methinks that, given the new administration and their lack of abject worship of the glory of corporate ultra-capitalism, there's going to be a few changes in FDA policies and procedures going forward. Increased inspections and decreased taking companies at their word, at the very least.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
E-mail at work
What it gives me: Nothing. It does exactly what it did before. It doesn't add any new features that I use. It doesn't improve anything I was already doing. It leaves me exactly where I was before the "upgrade".
Annoyances: Appearance. It doesn't look anything like any other program on my desktop. It doesn't follow the desktop theme, it doesn't use the standard Windows appearance. It's a jarring out-of-place window that looks completely alien on my desktop. I'm a programmer, I'd rather these programs blended in and didn't distract me from what I'm doing with a radically different appearance. It also changes the flagging scheme for messages to something more complicated. Before it was just a set of colored flags, and I just chose a color. Now there's two parallel tracks: the color code and the date it's flagged for. I don't need the extra track, I just need to flag messages so I can distinguish a couple of categories.
All in all I'd've preferred not to upgrade. I get nothing but annoyances from this. Not major ones, but IMO you need to get something positive and there isn't anything here.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Treasury appointment
I'm minded of advice my tax instructor gave: "Never go into an audit or IRS hearing aiming to justify why you can take that deduction. Be ready to do that, but start off by making the IRS justify why they think you can't take it. And if they can't come up with a reason, dig your heels in and make them explain clearly why they're trying to disallow something without any justification."
Thursday, January 22, 2009
FOIA policy changes
This is the way government should work.
I'd also note that it's a practical advantage. If a President builds up a track record of being open, and a record of having a good reason for it on those occasions when he's secretive, people are going to cut him some slack and assume that, when he's got to keep something secret and can't discuss it, he's got a good reason for it this time too.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Zookeepers and Presidents
Quotes
"Aches, pains, stiffness. Ah, the joys of aging. Consider the alternative, and enjoy the fact that you've lived long enough to not be as young as you used to be."
Friday, January 16, 2009
Circuit City bankruptcy
Hint to the brick-and-mortar stores: you can't compete with Newegg and Amazon on price. And you can't compete with them on quality, they're selling the same items you are. There's only two things you've got left: convenience and customer service. Convenience only works for small-ticket items, you can't make a large business out of that. And customer service requires hiring salesmen who have a clue about what they're selling and are willing to sell the customer what they need, not what brings in the biggest commission. You've a big advantage over on-line in that I can walk in to your store and see the actual item, look it over, check things and make absolutely sure it's what I want. I can explain to a salesman what I want and get advice. But you seem bound and determined to make it as hard as possible for me to deal with you. Change your ways, or you'll be joining CompUSA and Circuit City before a bankruptcy judge.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Violence and competence
Further Confusion plans
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Chargers... done
And along with their hopes for a Superbowl ring, this also ends the owner's hopes for getting someone else to pay for a new stadium for them. With the economy tanking and municipal budgets taking the hit, the team isn't going to find anyone willing to sink public money into them.
Really absent-minded tenants
Friday, January 9, 2009
Senate appointment
"Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members,"
and and then in paragraph 2 says:
"Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.".
So, it's not the Illinois Supreme Court, or even the US Supreme Court, that gets to decide whether a Senatorial appointee meets the qualifications. The Constitution gives that authority to the Senate itself. And if their rules require the approval of the state's Secretary of State before allowing an appointee to take his seat, only the Senate has the authority to make and change those rules. And articles of impeachment have been voted in against Blagojevich. The trial hasn't happened yet, but the articles have been entered. That means it's very much a question of whether Burris meets the qualification of having been appointed by the executive authority of the state of Illinois. So, in the hands of the Senate again to decide.
One wonders now whether all those neo-cons who were ranting about "activist judges" will be demanding that the courts follow the Constitution here, or will they be demanding that the courts read in the requirement that the Senate defer to someone else as to the qualifications of an appointee.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
LJ being moved to Russia
The fact is, I expected this. That's why I stopped using LJ for posts and made sure I had a backup of all posts and comments, why I switched to BlogSpot for my journals, and why I started using RSS to aggregate my own feeds of posts without needing to depend on a service. A lot of LJ users are going to learn a hard lesson: when you outsource to someone else, you place yourself at the mercy of their business interests. And for LJ, those business interests no longer include maintaining an expensive service for the benefit of a user base that doesn't want to pay enough to justify keeping them.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Browser changes
I'll also have to update Dean and Lia to the latest FireFox, and install AdBlock Plus and NoScript on their machines and show them how to enable scripts as needed and when and why not to enable them.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Good-bye 2008, let's see what 2009 holds
Work is being fun. First problem today: "Why are you generating an E099 error? That's not a valid code" "... because your CR says to generate an E099 error, maybe?"