Archive for the ‘bitching’ Category

Weekly roundup

Saturday, April 19th, 2008

(1) a 5.4 earthquake in southern ill. wow.  In other news, a recent study reported that there is a 99% chance of a 6.7 quake in CA in the next 30 years.  Given Californian’s laziness, this was met with derision instead of preparedness.  (For those unfamiliar with decade-math, a 6.7 is 20 times stronger than a 5.4.)

(2) racist cubbies - not cool. maybe they can blame the earthquake for disrupting their sense of right and wrong?

(3) Red Sox pitchers are cheaters!  clearly they have taken some weird potion to turn themselves into Mr. Stretch.

  

A Rant about Hard Drive Space

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

Last night I was backing up my computers and I came to a realization that any hard drive smaller than 500 GB is a waste. I have a collection of cute little bus-powered 20, 30, and 60 GB portable drives that are too small to back up any of my computers. Even the 200 GB drive that I bought when I was finishing writing my thesis is now too small to back up all the pictures that I have.

Even worse, if I want to do fancy Time Machine backups using the features in MacOS X 10.5, I really need 3 times the space of the hard drive being backed up just to ensure that incremental backups are kept well into the future. For my iMac, this means that I need to get a 1 TB drive.

Luckily, those drives are for sale now and don’t actually cost any more than the 200 GB drive did 2 years ago.

  

The creepy side of wireless

Friday, February 29th, 2008

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.

  

back in blog land

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

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 …

  

Save Ben & Jerry’s!

Friday, February 8th, 2008

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.

  

Great News! Stock Tanks!

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

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.

  

Macworld

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

Macbook Air
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!

  
Mood : pissed off