Posts with mood angry (19)
links that made me angry
Mood: angry
Posted on 2012-10-02 11:36:00
Tags: politics links
Words: 185
So I read this month's The Atlantic magazine and there was this long article about Jim Bopp who believes the problem with money in politics is that there's not enough. Somehow it's even more frustrating that the guy seems to honestly think that unlimited contributions from anonymous sources is a good thing for democracy. And, post-Citizens United, he's totally winning! (other depressing articles in the issue: gerrymandering and voter suppression. Whee.)
Then I read this article about how the very rich feel "victimized" by Obama. A few of the people quoted compare Obama to an abusive spouse or, say, Hitler. My favorite sentence:
In 2010, the private-equity billionaire Stephen Schwarzman, of the Blackstone Group, compared the President’s as yet unsuccessful effort to eliminate some of the preferential tax treatment his sector receives to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.
Silly season re Batman/Bane/Bain (a rant)
Mood: angry
Posted on 2012-07-18 22:46:00
Tags: rant
Words: 265
Recently some have said (I'm not going to point any fingers, but his name starts with "R" and ends with "ush Limbaugh") that Bane, the villain in The Dark Knight Rises, is meant to evoke Mitt Romney, because "Bain Capital" sounds the same as "Bane".
People. This may be, literally, the stupidest thing I've ever heard. To think this is all some sinister Obama plot requires that you believe:
- Back in early 2011 (when they announced Bane was going to be the villain in the next Batman movie), someone realized that not only was Mitt Romney going to win the nomination (this being back in the days of Trump and Cain and Palin), but Bain Capital would become a big story - it may seem obvious now, but hindsight is 20/20
- Even though Bane is a supervillain who hates the rich (as I understand it), this would still make voters associate Bain Capital with Bane
- ANYONE would be convinced by this to not vote for Romney
Bane is not Mitt Romney. Batman in The Dark Knight is not George W. Bush. The Joker is not Ron Paul. Robin is not Joe Biden. The Riddler is not Paul Wolfowitz. Commissioner Gordon is not Rudy Giuliani. Mr. Freeze is not Dick Cheney. Catwoman is not Nancy Pelosi. Alfred is not Dennis Kucinich.
I understand it's only four months until the election, but when we throw around stupid comparisons to Batman movies the terrorists win!
(now Limbaugh has clarified: he just thinks the Democrats will take advantage of the movie, somehow...and to be clear Batman is NOT ROMNEY. Grrrr!)
Mitt Romney's neoconservative foreign policy spokesman resigned for being gay
Mood: angry
Posted on 2012-05-02 17:50:00
Tags: politics
Words: 183
Set the wayback machine to last week. The Romney campaign hired an openly gay foreign policy spokesman, and as the linked article mentions, some saw it as a turning point that someone openly gay (and a public support of same-sex marriage!) could work in a public role on a Republican presidential campaign.
Well, that didn't last long - he resigned this week after an anti-gay backlash in the Republican party. To be clear, the Romney campaign didn't ask him to resign, but they didn't let him actually make any statements for fear of angering the base.
Keep in mind: nobody doubts his conservative credentials, as he was John Bolton's spokesman (as Andrew Sullivan points out). The objections were all because he supported same-sex marriage, although part of me wonders if they would have objected if he was straight and supported same-sex marriage. (of course, then he probably wouldn't have been a Republican anyway. Zing!)
Just a reminder that, even though neither Romney nor Obama support same-sex marriage, there's still a huge difference between the parties when it comes to gay rights. That is all.
trying to learn Android and missing webOS
Mood: angry
Posted on 2011-08-22 21:53:00
Tags: rant essay programming android
Words: 596
So, here's my plan: try to port FlightPredictor to Android and Windows Phone 7. Hopefully this will lead me toward which platform I'd rather own. Note: I am definitely not abandoning webOS, but I need a new phone and since the Pre3 is only being released in Europe and the European Pre3's will work on AT&T or T-Mobile but won't get 3G service, that's not gonna work.
So! First up is Android, mostly because I can develop for it on Linux. But it's not off to a good start. I'm reading through the mounds of documentation and not getting much of anywhere.
The very first screen in FlightPredictor shows a list of flights with their status and such. So I need to define a list in the UI and each list item I want to display certain properties of the Flight object.
In Enyo (the newest webOS framework), this is pretty easy. My list item code looks like:
{kind: 'HFlexBox', name: 'downTarget', components: [
{kind: 'VFlexBox', components: [
{kind: 'HFlexBox', className: 'flightsList info', components: [
{name: 'flightAirlineNameAndNum', allowHtml: true, content: ''},
{name: 'flightSummary', allowHtml: true, className: 'summary', content: ''},
]},
{kind: 'HFlexBox', name: 'cities', className: 'flightsList cities', components: [
{name: 'flightOriginCity', allowHtml: true, content: ''},
{allowHtml: true, content: ' to '},
{name: 'flightDestinationCity', allowHtml: true, content: ''},
]},
{kind: 'HFlexBox', name: 'times', className: 'flightsList cities', components: [
{name: 'departureTime', allowHtml: true, content: ''},
{allowHtml: true, content: ' - '},
{name: 'arrivalTime', allowHtml: true, content: ''},
]},
]},
...
and so forth.this.$.flightAirlineNameAndNum.setContent(flight.airline.name + ' ' + flight.num + ' ');
if (flight.category == FlightPredictor.FlightCategories.Current) {
this.$.flightSummary.setContent(flight.summary);
this.$.flightSummary.setClassName('summary ' + flight.summaryClass);
}
if (this.showCities && flight.category == FlightPredictor.FlightCategories.Current) {
this.$.cities.setShowing(true);
this.$.flightOriginCity.setContent(flight.originAirport.city);
this.$.flightDestinationCity.setContent(flight.destinationAirport.city);
} else {
this.$.cities.setShowing(false);
}
...
webOS: the day after - on to anger!
Mood: angry
Posted on 2011-08-19 09:55:00
Tags: palm essay palmpre
Words: 248
I think I'm working my way through the five stages of grief here. Today I'm angry at HP for repeatedly saying that it was a marathon not a sprint, etc., and then deciding to kill the TouchPad less than 50 days after it launched. And the Pre3 launched like two days ago in Europe!
(to be clear, no anger at Palm GBU employees - they've been great and it sounds like everyone was blindsided yesterday...and obviously there's a lot of uncertainty for them. Good luck, guys and gals!)
My plans for now are this: keep working on apps, because it sounds like they really do want to license webOS even though the rational thing to do would be to line up a suitor before announcing they're shutting down webOS hardware. This is not rocket science. I'm guessing Apotheker wanted to announce the shutdown during the conference call to convince shareholders things will get better, but man, talk about the worst thing possible for the platform.
So I'll keep at it, with a bit less fervor than before. If I look at mobile OS's that I would want to develop for and can on a Linux machine, that narrows it down to...Android and QNX as far as I can tell. QNX seems to have very little future, and Android doesn't really excite me that much. So, who knows!
I'm not sure what to do about my next phone, given that I don't know what's going to happen with the Pre3.
webOS developer situation: unacceptable
Mood: angry
Posted on 2011-07-23 16:57:00
Tags: palm rant palmpre
Words: 340
I develop software for a living, so I tend to be more tolerant of bugs, realizing that even though it seems simple to fix, that isn't necessarily the case. And I've cut HP/Palm a lot of slack in the past from a developer standpoint, but things have recently gotten to a ridiculous point and I have to throw up my hands and rant about it.
Since the TouchPad launched on July 1, the sales numbers for apps have been wrong. And not even wrong in an obvious way - one app has gotten exactly 2 sales per day, while every other (paid) app has gotten zero. There's no notice on the page that things are messed up, although there is a thread on the developer forums. Yesterday, after we were told they had identified the problem and a fix was in the works, the sales numbers dropped dramatically, and now we're told not to trust the numbers until we hear otherwise. And last week, the June app payments were sent out, but for the wrong amount.
I've cut Palm developer relations a lot of slack, since the people are very friendly, their policies are much nicer than Apple's (no fee to join the program or submit apps, no arbitrary rules for rejection, quick turnaround times on reviewing apps), and they seem to realize that the webOS platform needs as many good apps as possible and as such, treat us pretty well. But when I say things like it seems they're chronically understaffed, this is the sort of thing that I'm talking about. And I haven't even touched on the tiny screenshots in the App Catalog and the inconsistent "For TouchPad" labels on apps.
Palm has been a part of HP for over a year now, and I know they've been in a mad frenzy to get the TouchPad out, but the time for excuses is over. I'm not leaving the platform anytime soon but things like this sap my will to work on apps. Please get this taken care of soon!
rant: debt ceiling, auto theft
Mood: angry
Posted on 2011-07-13 10:52:00
Tags: rant politics
Words: 413
The continuing debate over the debt ceiling is really starting to piss me off. Given that the alternative of not raising the debt ceiling, it is widely agreed, would mean a giant fiscal crisis and probably another recession. If you're concerned about having too big a deficit, then address that in the budget, not in the "we have to pass this to keep paying our bills" vote. (why do we even need that vote since we already passed the budget?)
The point in time that put me over the edge was when Obama basically agreed to a $4 trillion deficit reduction package, 80% of which was spending cuts and 20% was tax hikes. And the Republicans said no, that increasing taxes at all, even on the richest 1% that's done much much better than the middle class over the past decade. I thought I heard the reason was that this would hurt the economy, which seems like an absurd point to make when the alternative is defaulting on our debts.
Anyway, McConnell proposed this crazy scheme where Congress would vote to give the authority to Obama to raise the debt limit, then pass a bill to say "no don't do that" that Obama could veto. It sounds like it has a shot at getting enough support, but it just makes me sad that this is the way we solve our problems.
--
There's a new campaign to prevent auto theft (can't find links, so you'll have to take my word for it). The billboard goes something like "Insurance premiums have gone up $x billion in Texas because of auto theft, so don't let your car be stolen". The radio ad has a guy talking about hoping somebody steal his piece of junk car, then a friend explaining that that would make his insurance rates go up.
Honest question: what?? I would think on the list of "Reasons I don't want my car to be stolen", "Insurance rates will go up" is somewhere around #57. You know what's #1? "Because then I won't have a car, and even if it's insured I'm probably not going to get full value for it and then I have to go through the hassle of buying a car, etc., etc." Who the heck thinks that "Well, I would have let my car be stolen, but I don't want everyone's insurance rates to go up a tiny bit"??
Am I crazy? Do people like having their cars stolen or something?
"It Gets Better" and Republicans
Mood: angry
Posted on 2011-05-09 14:55:00
Tags: rant gay politics
Words: 269
In September, after a rash of teen suicides, Dan Savage started the It Gets Better project to tell bullied youth (especially LGBT) that it does, in fact, get better, and that high school is probably the low point of your life. Basically, the message is: don't commit suicide.
The project kinda took off and now there are thousands and thousands of videos. Google is even showing a TV ad about it. (although the ad is technically for Chrome) Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi have all made videos, among other Democratic senators and representatives.
You know who hasn't made any videos? Elected Republican officials. The only candidate for president who has is Fred Karger who is marginal even among the marginal candidates. As far as I can tell, no Republican senators or representatives have made one. (please, correct me if I'm wrong!)
Now, I don't think that all the Republican senators/representatives actually _want_ gay kids to commit suicide. But what kind of message does it send when an entire party is silent on the issue, or thinks that speaking up against suicide will anger their voters? (hint: it is terrible)
Yet more evidence that Republicans and Democrats are not the same. (although, does anyone really think that anymore? I think that kind of thinking expired in the 2000s...)
--
Marginally related - this headline speaks for itself: Tea Party Leader: We'll Take The Debt Ceiling Hike If You Put Gay Troops Back In The Closet. I thought the Tea Party was neutralish on social issues?
Anyway, I'm going to go have a root beer float and un-angry myself.
politics: shuttin' down the gubmint
Mood: angry
Posted on 2011-04-08 12:37:00
Tags: politics links
Words: 92
The proposed Republican budget: here is the problem. Or, in graphical form: 
Apparently the Democrats have agreed to $38 billion of spending cuts (more than before), but the Republicans are now insisting on a rider that defunds Planned Parenthood, which the Democrats (rightly) will not agree to. Planned Parenthood provides lots of services including birth control (which, hey! reduces the number of abortions), and government money isn't used to fund abortions per the Hyde amendment. So, yeah. This is what the government of the US is going to shut down over. Whee.
rant: wisconsin, libya
Mood: angry
Posted on 2011-03-17 10:54:00
Tags: rant essay
Words: 317
I support the public workers' rights of unionization and collective bargaining. But Democratic senators fleeing the state to avoid passing the bill seems to be going a bit far. Protests, demonstrations, all these are good ways of expressing opposition. Even recalling some of the Republicans - that's what the recall law is there for. (and this isn't a California-type situation; they still need plenty of signatures) Effectively shutting down the government because you disagree with a bill is not. They were out of the state for three weeks(!) before the Republicans were able to use tricks to pass the bill. It's hard to have the moral high ground when you're not present to vote, though...
Yes, I'm aware that the Texas Democrats did this back in 2003, but that was to protest a highly-unusual out of season redistricting. It's more justified when you're protesting a bill with how the government works.
--
I meant to write this a week ago, and apparently the US now supports a no-fly zone and airstrikes in Libya. But I wish people would step back and carefully consider whether we want to get militarily involved in another country. Yes, Qaddafi is bad and toppling him would probably be an improvement. But it's a huge step for the US to even enforce a no-fly zone - it's essentially an act of war. (since we have to take out ground defenses as well as shoot down any planes) So what happens if Qaddafi's forces beat the rebels anyway? Do we bring troops in on the ground?
Again, Qaddafi is bad, etc., but we can't compare the situation now versus the ideal (Qaddafi toppled, Libya goes into a friendly democracy with little bloodshed) - we have to look at what effect our actions are going to have. There has to be more thought behind it than this guy is bad, so we should get rid of him. (see: Iraq)
Congresswoman shot in head at public event
Mood: angry
Posted on 2011-01-08 14:45:00
Tags: politics
Words: 156
I'm just going to quote from John Gruber:
Sarah Palin’s political action committee placed ads which put a gunshot target over Giffords.
Her opponent in last year’s election held a campaign event at a gun range, to “get on target” to “remove Gabrielle Giffords from office”.
Apple now more evil
Mood: angry
Posted on 2010-04-10 15:23:00
Tags: rant essay gay
Words: 424
I've always been a kind of fan of Apple - back during my technology "coming of age" days (college), Microsoft was dominant and Apple was the little guy struggling to stay alive. They put out the iPod, which was cool, and Mac OS X was UNIX-based which was exciting. Since then I've owned three iPods and a MacBook Pro, all of which I've been happy with.
But, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, now that Apple has had a lot of success, they've started doing a lot of things that make me uncomfortable. The iPhone being such a closed environment should have been a bigger canary in the coal mine.
Apple announced the new features in iPhone OS 4, coming out this summer. Now they've got some sort of multitasking and some other neat stuff. But it turns out there are some seriously restricting changes to the license.
Exhibit A: Apple is requiring that iPhone (and iPad) applications be "originally written" in one of the languages that runs on the iPhone/iPad. Basically, they're saying that you can't use an intermediate layer (like, say, the iPhone compiler in Adobe CS5, which is going to release next week) to write your programs. I can understand why they might want to do this, but regardless it puts a lot of apps out of business and is a big restriction on how people can develop for the iPhone/iPad. Apple may think that apps are "better" that are developed with their tools, etc., but the market should decide this.
So I'm pretty much at the point where I'm rooting against Apple. It makes me sad, because they do make nice products, but the whole closed ecosystem is just too much to bear. Unfortunately, even developers leaving the iPhone platform in droves may not have any real impact on iPhone sales.
(obligatory: Palm's WebOS phones allow you to install even apps that Palm hasn't approved, pretty much the polar opposite of Apple. Go Palm!)
up yours, Maine
Mood: angry
Posted on 2009-11-04 09:35:00
Tags: rant gay politics
Words: 383
Same-sex marriage lost in Maine 47-53%. Angry profanity-laden rant behind the cut:
That makes the 31st state same-sex marriage has lost a vote in - still looking for our first victory. Here's who I'm mad at, in rough order:
DNC/Obama: The No on 1 campaign asked for DNC funds and didn't get any. Obama didn't lift a finger to help - he campaigned for (now-)former Governor Corzine in New Jersey, and even sent out a special email to people on his email list to vote for him. Maine got a generic "go out and vote" email with no indication of what they should vote on. He couldn't even be bothered to tell people to vote No on 1! Andrew Sullivan makes this point as well, more on the DNC not helping No on 1 in the slightest, more on Obama not helping.
Honestly, if they're not going to support the things I care about, that puts things in a whole new light. I don't support health-care reform because it would help me (because I doubt much would change for me), and if Obama's not going to lift a finger to support my causes, why should I support his? I will probably lay off giving money to the DNC for a while (or at least until I calm down) and give to candidates that support my values.
National Organization for Marriage/the Catholic Church: These were by far the largest contributors to Yes on 1. The Catholic Church gave more than half a million dollars while, at the very same time, closing parishes for lack of funds. NOM gave at least $1.1 million.
Maine voters: Seriously, guys? What the hell?
Governor Baldacci: Not mad at all - he had a change of heart and signed the gay marriage bill, and encouraged his supporters to vote No on 1.
The No on 1 Campaign: Obviously results are what matter, but they seemed to run a good campaign - this was no botched California Proposition 8-type scenario.
Hmm, not as profanity-laden as I had thought. Still, I'm mad.
On the good news front, Washington's domestic partnerships vote is looking good (they vote by mail so it takes a few days to get final numbers), and Annise Parker (an open lesbian) is in a runoff for Houston mayor. But Maine really stings.
angry links!
Mood: angry
Posted on 2009-03-04 11:01:00
Tags: weight links
Words: 67
Ugh, even my links are disappearing!
Sign of the times - Austin layoff database
Updated my weight chart to show a rolling average of 5 days (in dark blue). The bottom graph is a graph of my body fat weight (weight * body fat percentage) - it's pretty noisy but trending downward, which is good.
There's now a free Kindle reader for the iPhone.
Jon Stewart on Limbaugh and Steele.
ok, guys
Mood: angry
Posted on 2009-01-28 16:26:00
Tags: rant
Words: 51
I just answered a phone call that started "This is the second..." to which I immediately hung up, enraged, because I have literally gotten at least 50 calls for the past...3 months? 6 months? telling me that my automobile warranty has expired. What is wrong with you people?? STOP CALLING ME.
thanks a lot, someone
Mood: angry
Posted on 2008-03-07 17:03:00
Tags: rant
Words: 304
Someone is to blame for this.
I called Time Warner, and they said they could come out today to fix the cable (yaaaay!). They said they'd call 30 mins. beforehand and djedi volunteered to wait for them.
At 4:30 I get a call on my cell phone, no caller ID, and when I pick up I hear nothing. I let djedi know that that was probably Time Warner and he heads up there while I wait for another call.
When he gets there he calls my cell phone and he can't hear me. Calls back again, still no heary. So I call him back on the work phone, and we figure the Time Warner guy must have called, not heard anything, and given up. Craap.
So I call Time Warner and after 5 minutes (most of which spent locked in a stupid phone tree...luckily I remembered where I went before to talk to a human ("0" didn't work)) I get a hold of a friendly person and he sends a message to the tech that "I'm" at the house and to call djedi's cell number.
Then I call djedi back (on the work phone) to let him know, and we chat for a minute. Then my cell phone rings again so I hang up hurriedly and pick up. It's the tech, but he can't hear me. I rush over to the windows, call him back, still can't hear me. I rush downstairs, get out of the building in the open air. Call him back, still can't hear me. Finally I go back upstairs and call him on the work phone, he can hear me, then pass on the news to djedi.
Synopsis: Time Warner kinda good, my cell phone is at least partially and I'm guessing mostly dead, I am extremely angry and irritable.
T-Mobile blocking Twitter. Egads!
Mood: angry
Posted on 2007-12-15 12:42:00
Tags: phone
Words: 100
So, apparently T-Mobile is blocking Twitter. Confirmed from my phone (I get a "Service is temporarily down. Please, try again later." response) and sent in a customer service request. If this in fact the case, then I'll just switch to AT&T, since they're the other major carrier that uses GSM so my SIM card will work in their phone. Also, it looks like I can get a free RAZR when I sign a contract with them.
Grr. Argh.
Edit: Or maybe Twitter has scheduled downtime now. Or maybe this was happening earlier too.
Edit again: false alarm, sorry sorry sorry
Gore coverage in 2000
Mood: angry
Posted on 2007-12-11 10:49:00
Tags: politics links
Words: 29
Excellent article about media coverage of Gore in 2000. (via kottke) It may make you angry. Remember this when the inevitable trivial stories start coming out about the nominees.
urgh
Mood: angry
Posted on 2006-03-17 08:59:00
Tags: phone music computer links
Words: 238
So originally this post was going to be about how angry I am that my new hard drive is dying, which I am. Although the upside is that I can return the new hard drive I got because presumably the old one will still work with a new motherboard, which is almost certainly the culprit. But, upon further reflection, meh. I'll fix it, it'll keep working eventually, and all that jazz.
Things that cheered me up:
- My new phone is out for delivery and should be arriving any minute now!
- Wednesday morning, as I drove to destroyerj's house to let him in, I was listening to KUT. Since this week is SXSW, they have lots of good live music on, and I listened to Sonya Kitchell, whose new CD I will be buying when it comes out (maybe I'll buy it at Starbucks just for fun!). I've been listening to the two songs from it that are available from the website quite a few times.
- This article "Who Can Name the Bigger Number" is interesting.
- The wikipedia article on recurring parts in the Colbert Report gave me a laugh. I should watch more of it!
- This site (NSFW, although it's not dirty, and only the sound is important) that destroyerj pointed me to is hilarious! -50 DKP for my motherboard.
- This SNL segment about a pirate convention is good stuff, although I may have linked to it before....
This backup was done by LJBackup.