soapbox

Not to sound like some grumpy old man, but RFID just scares me.   It just seems so vulnerable to hacking while simultaneously too convenient for Big Brother-style monitoring; not a combo I like.  (Then again, I guess it’s better for it to be easily hackable in that case, beats the alternative.)  And plus, you can get the animal rates for pay-access public beaches!

[RFID implant]

Anyway, it’s probably silly, but there’s no way I’m getting a speedpass anytime soon.

So, after a stint away where I forgot my login pwd, I’m back in blog land because I realized that my work PC remembers my login. So it is now something I remember, and I am now able to post again. Now to try to remember all those things I had hope to post …

I don’t know of any official forum for complaints, but if you feel so moved I’m sure that letters to your congerzman would be appreciated: Monsanto is attacking the RBGH-free labels used by virtually all non-bad-for-you dairy products. Happily, that bastion of all that is good and holy (and tasty) is fighting back.

I like blockquotes, so I’ll go with these two:

A newly formed farmers’ group, backed by Monsanto, is pushing for labeling changes, saying the hormone-free labels imply that the milk is safer than other milk, when they say it’s not.

Well no shit dummies. They imply the crap about of the subject, but if you read the details they very clearly say “we can’t say anything other than our products don’t have any hormones in them.”

and

The hormone, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration to boost production in dairy cows in the early 1990s, was not approved in Canada, Japan or the European Union, largely out of concerns it may be harmful to animals.

And “there are unanswered human questions with it. It probably should never have been approved,” said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist with Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports.

Here’s the funny thing about the stock market: it makes no sense. Apple just released their earnings report after the market closed today and it’s huge. Earnings are up 58% and it was a record profit.

So what is the stock doing? Well, it’s already down $18 a share in after hours trading. Add in the almost $6 that it lost in trading today. All in all, it’s down over $50 a share from the peak just a few weeks ago.

Apple just announced Macbook Air. But no MBP update??? I was so waiting for today to finally replace my Powerbook. The screen of my powerbook is broken and basically I have to use it as a desktop. Roberto and Paul both once didn’t understand why I prefer using a bulky scratched old external monitor and keep the laptop lid half open and type awkwardly -_-b. The new MBA has very cool multi-touch trackpad and I would assume the next MBP will also have this. I guess I’ll have to wait longer. I hate apple!

So, I was supposed to be with CPete and Ethan in Vegas this weekend, but thanks to the fact that my job search is still ongoing (instead of being done) it wasn’t fiscally responsible.  So, instead of getting the full experience that y’all will hear about soon, thanks to a two-day late phone call that solved nothing, I got to watch a few games of beer pong and a couple first-years who couldn’t hold their liquor.

Without going into too much detail, there’s a company (we won’t name it, but rhymes with Ess Ayy Eye See) that I interviewed for back in last October/early November.  And I know that the interview process takes a while, and especially so during the holidays, but I’ve now been sitting without a paycheck, in limbo, for over two months, waiting for some kind of decision.

Really, as I told a buddy of mine (Davin, you really should drop a post here now and then) it’s really like waiting for a girl to call you, y’know?  If you screw up and don’t get her number (which is really a sign that nothing is going to happen, anyway) then how long do you wait for a call?  I would say that you can wait until the next Friday/Saturday, basically; if you meet in a bar on Friday through Wednesday, then she’d better call you the next Friday or Saturday.  If you guys meet on Thursday or Friday night, then it’s okay if she waits until the next weekend to call, but really that’s not a good sign.  In this case, I HAVE to wait for her to call since she’s calling the shots, but after a certain number of excuses when do you just cut your losses?

So, apologies to the guys (and girls) involved, congratulations on your exploits (term used loosely) and  I’ll definitely join you next time.

With the results of Sen. George Mitchell’s investigation into steroids-in-baseball set to be made public in a little less than an hour (2 pm Eastern), what better to do than speculate without factual basis?  (On that subject, check out this great column from ESPN’s ombudsman, Leanne Schreiber.)

First of all, I have to confess that I’m pretty curious, in a train-wreck/Lindsay Lohan/Brittany Spears/Rich Ankiel sort of way.  Who is guilty?  Who is the biggest surprise?  Who, in hindsight, makes sense?

And that’s where I start to get irritated, because if that was the end of the story, if the Mitchell report consisted of a set of tablets from Heaven, with a full and complete list of every player who absolutely used steroids (and if you weren’t named on the list, you were completely innocent), then great.

However, I’m afraid that this is going to more like a Michael Moore film: mostly correct on the big stuff, and on the right track, but the opposition will focus on process errors and “producer bias” such that the credibility of the entire message is seriously damaged.  For example, it’s bad to say, but there really needs to be a decent-caliber Red Sox player on the list or else everyone will accuse Mitchell of favortism (he’s in the ownership group of the Sox).  More seriously, some interviewees are saying that they felt pressured to  ”guess” about a player’s steroid use - who knows if that’s a legit concern or if they’re just covering their butt after squealing on a teammate/client.

In the end, I blame Bud Selig.  Maybe that’s too easy to do, and he’s a popular whipping boy, but the fact is that had MLB actually wanted to find out what happened, they would have supported the Mitchell investigation and given Mitchell the support he needed to actually get people to testify.  Instead they help him at arm’s length.  The result is perhaps what MLB brass wanted; confusion and uncertainty instead of clear demonstration of guilt.  This is, of course, not good for baseball, but that hasn’t stopped them in the past, so why start now?