Tag rant (35)

Got a Wii U, a bit irritated at Fry's
Mood: irritated
Posted on 2012-11-18 11:56:00
Tags: rant wii u
Words: 260

I was happy after we were able to preorder our Wii U yesterday at Fry's to pick up today. However, I possibly should have read the fine print a little better.

The Wii U comes in 2 versions - the "basic" for $300 and the "deluxe" for $350. The deluxe is clearly the better option - it comes with Nintendo Land (a game that costs $60) and the console itself has 32 GB of storage instead of 8, and a vertical stand, and maybe some other stuff. (spoiler alert: I don't know exactly what you get with the deluxe version!)

So when we ordered yesterday, we got a bundle that came with a Wii U, Nintendo Land, the new Mario game (which we were going to get anyway) and a "Wii Wand pack", which we don't really need since we already have 4 Wii controllers, but if it was rechargable that would be a nice bonus.

It turns out that they sold us the basic package, and added the two games at full price. And the "Wii Wand pack" is a third-party controller that is not rechargable. (I have a strong aversion to third-party controllers, for historical reasons)

I guess I haven't bought a console on launch day...umm, ever? I assume it's standard practice to bundle it, but it seems a bit cheeky to sell us the cheaper bundle so they could charge us more for the game. Sigh.

(and I'm patching now! What a wonderful world we live in, in that everything video game related requires patches before you can play...)

2 comments

Mitt Romney and the 47%
Posted on 2012-09-24 21:13:00
Tags: rant essay taxes politics
Words: 611

(yes, I realize I'm late on this, but dang it I was out of town when this happened and I'm not going to miss it!)

So! Mitt Romney said some things about people who don't pay income taxes last week. From the article:

Fielding a question from a donor about how he could triumph in November, Romney replied:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

Romney went on: "[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

0 comments

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!)

4 comments

Windows Phone 7 App Hub - my complaints
Mood: irritated
Posted on 2012-05-16 19:52:00
Tags: rant essay windowsphone programming
Words: 479

In the wake of complaining about background tasks in Win 8 (that was later rescinded), here are my complaints about the Windows Phone 7 App Hub, where you submit new apps and look at download numbers, etc.

Before I begin: I rant because I care :-) I'm still very happy with Windows Phone 7 (and Windows 8!) development, and plan on sticking around it for a while, unless of course Microsoft pulls a webOS like HP did. (dear Microsoft: please don't do this!) But there is some serious need for improvement here.

(Had I been writing this a few months ago, my number one complaint would be that the page itself was dog slow, but Microsoft seems to have fixed that. Yay!)

--

When I load the App Hub page, 95% of the time I have a simple question: How many copies did my app sell today? For webOS and Android, their consoles answer an equivalent question: how many copies has the app sold over its lifetime? Let's count the number of clicks it takes to answer that question:

First I load the page (I won't count this as a click), and I see something like this:


You might think the answer to my question is right by the word "FlightPredictor": 101. Or at least you might think that's the total number of sales. Sadly, it is the number of downloads in the last 30 days. This is interesting information (as is the graph at the bottom), but it doesn't answer my question. So click 1 is to click on the "101" number, which by the way does not do the same thing as clicking "FlightPredictor".

That takes us to this screen:

Here we can see a nice pretty graph, which is again interesting, but it only covers the last thirty days. So clicks 2-4 are setting the Start date to March 1, which is before FlightPredictor was released. (for bonus fun: this will take one more click every month!) Then click 5 is clicking Refresh Report, which shows me the full graph. But the numbers include trial downloads, which I am interested in, but I don't get paid for. To see the paid numbers, click 6 is clicking on Details, which takes me to this screen:

and then click 7 is advancing to page 2, where I can see the paid downloads for the US. If other countries had any paid downloads, I guess I'd have to add those up.

--

So...yeah. In theory I could get by with not resetting the date range and use the "export details" button to look at an Excel spreadsheet and look at just the most recent daily numbers that way, but most of the time I'd much rather be able to see the numbers in a browser, rather than firing up Excel. It would be really nice if this information was more easily accessable!

0 comments

just some grousing about North Carolina, and Obama endorses gay marriage!
Mood: sad
Posted on 2012-05-09 14:03:00
Tags: rant gay politics
Words: 95

North Carolina voted to ban same-sex civil unions and marriage last night...and it wasn't even close. Amendment 1 passed 61-39%, and the map gets redder. Le sigh.

Why exactly are civil rights up for a popular vote again?

As @thinkprogress points out, the last time NC amended their constitution about marriage it was to ban interracial marriage. Similarly gloomy reaction from Andrew Sullivan.

This cool gay rights visualization from the BBC is already out of date!

Wow - minutes ago President Obama says he supports same-sex marriage! While this has no practical effect it's certainly encouraging.

0 comments

Windows 8 Metro background task restrictions are way too strict (even versus Windows Phone 7!)
Mood: confused
Posted on 2012-05-08 13:43:00
Tags: windows rant essay windowsphone programming
Words: 548

Edit: See the followup post on why this isn't a big deal, and the right way to do updating live tiles in Windows 8 Metro.

I've been working on porting FlightPredictor to the shininess of Windows 8 Metro. One of the key features of FlightPredictor is the ability to pin a live tile for a flight, and have that live tile update periodically in the background.

On Windows Phone 7, there are a lot of restrictions on background agents like the one in FlightPredictor that updates the live tiles. The agent can't run more frequently than every 30 minutes (and when it actually gets called is not that regular), if it runs longer than 25 seconds it gets killed, and most importantly there's a limit to how many you can have active on the phone - Microsoft says phones must allow 6, but my Lumia 900 allows a maximum of 9. I've actually hit this limit, because live tiles that are always up to date are cool.

So, I've started to work on this for Windows 8 Metro, and I found this whitepaper about Metro background tasks. There are a bunch of new ways to trigger running tasks (when you have internet access, for example, or when a user logs in), but you can also trigger them every 15 minutes, which is nice. There are also CPU requirements (now they're measured in CPU-seconds instead of wall time that the task runs) as I would expect.

Unfortunately, you can't use the TimeTrigger unless you display information on the lock screen. This requires extra user permission, which is OK enough, I guess. I wasn't planning on looking into showing flight info on the lock screen, but if that's necessary for my app to work the way I want it to I'm fine with that.

But here's the kicker: a user can only have seven apps show information on the lock screen. And three of these (Mail, Calendar, Messaging) are builtin! So this leaves four slots for apps to run based on a TimeTrigger in the background.

Now for the rant-y part: this is crazy. I have a bunch of apps that run in the background on my phone - as I said, having auto-updating live tiles is one of my favorite features of Windows Phone. To drastically cut the number of apps that can do this on an OS that's designed for a tablet (so presumably better battery life, etc. than on a phone) is way too strict and a step backwards.

It is possible I've missed something here, and I'd love to hear feedback on it. This is just a policy decision - what I would really like is the ability to run based on a TimeTrigger even if my app isn't on the lock screen, with reasonable limits.

Addendum: one way around the limit on Windows Phone 7 is to use push notifications - then your app doesn't have to run in the background and doesn't count against the limit. But it looks to me from reading the Metro whitepaper is that even apps that want to run based on a push notification have to be on the lock screen. Or is there a way to use a push notification to update a tile without having an app run? I'm not sure...

3 comments

More irritations with developing for Android
Mood: irritated
Posted on 2011-11-05 16:32:00
Tags: rant programming android
Words: 593

I'm nearing completion of my port of FlightPredictor for Android. While things aren't as bad as they seemed when I started learning Android development and I'm able to make progress at a reasonable rate, two things popped up over the last few days:

- One of the activities in the app is choosing an airport. There are more than 900 to choose from, so I put them in a big list with a TextView on top so you can type to filter. On the emulator, filtering is very very slow (it takes around 5 seconds from typing something until the results change), and while it won't be that slow on an actual device (please?), it will probably be noticeable. So I wanted to put up a loading indicator that goes away when it's done.

Calling the filter to do its filter-y thing is pretty simple, something like

adapter.getFilter().filter(s);

4 comments

jumping on the complaining bandwagon (re Netflix)
Mood: irritated
Posted on 2011-09-19 10:50:00
Tags: rant essay
Words: 243

I woke up this morning and got this email from Netflix. I rubbed my eyes and wondered if I had forgotten about April Fools Day or something.

But no - apparently Netflix is splitting the DVD by mail business into "Qwikster" (note that they don't own the twitter handle, although there is a "coming soon" page at qwikster.com), and the queues between the two services will be totally separate.

This is INSANE. What problem is this solving? The blog post goes on about how businesses are unlikely to move into new markets successfully, and splitting into two companies will help this. But Reed Hastings, the author of the blog post, is the flippin' CEO of Netflix! Is it really so impossible that he couldn't make it happen?

And besides, people were complaining because the price went up, not because you had to pay "extra" for streaming - if they had managed to keep the total price the same, I doubt many people would have complained. I understand that it's harder for them to get good deals on streaming and such, so the price increase didn't bother me that much.

But now I have to manage two different services, and it will cost the same as the new plan that people complained about, and (because I don't care enough to rate movies on both services) my ratings will suffer, and I'll have to check two different places to see if a movie's available. WHO WANTS THIS??

4 comments

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: ''},

        ]},

    ]},

    ...

    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);

    }

    ...

4 comments

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!

11 comments

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?

2 comments

"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.

6 comments

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)

1 comment

meh links
Mood: tired
Posted on 2010-05-07 10:36:00
Tags: rant links
Words: 461

Honestly, these links aren't that great. Fair warning:

- The Onion AV Club previews movies coming out this summer and how they compare to Marmaduke.

- Bruce Schneier on why there haven't been more terrorist attacks - the short answer is that they're harder than they look to pull off, and not that many people interested in doing them. Which is comforting, I guess.

- Star Wars pregnancy announcement

- So there's this bill that would strip people of their citizenship if they have suspected ties to terrorists. First of all, what happens to someone who has no other citizenship or ties? Secondly, the bar seems way too low here - the Secretary of State can deem anyone (as far as I can tell) to have provided material support, no need for a trial or anything. Sheesh.

This strikes me as a very strange sort of attitude to adopt. There's no question that Flash is useful and popular, and it has a large and committed user base. There's also no question that it's often convenient to be able to program for different platforms using environments one already knows. And likewise, there's a long history of creating OS stubs or wrappers or other sorts of gizmos to make it possible to run code "alien" to a platform in a fashion that makes it feel more native.

But what does it say about the state of programming practice writ large when so many developers believe that their "rights" are trampled because they cannot write programs for a particular device in a particular language? Or that their "freedom" as creators is squelched for the same reason?

I wonder if it doesn't amount to an indictment of the state of computational literacy.

0 comments

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!)

2 comments

sigh
Mood: melancholy
Posted on 2009-12-04 11:06:00
Tags: rant
Words: 21

Maaaaybe a little bit jealous of all the people who are on vacation/working from home today. And it's not even snowing!

0 comments

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.

3 comments

An open letter to my phone
Mood: irritated
Posted on 2009-07-16 21:52:00
Tags: rant wedding
Words: 176

Phone:

Hi! How's it going? It's me, your owner. I mention this because it seems like we've lost touch. I was kinda busy today, and got no fewer than 3 phone calls and one text message. Does that ring a bell? I'm guessing no, because I didn't hear about any of these when they happened. The text message I didn't get until hours later! And thank goodness the people calling left a voicemail, otherwise who knows when I would have heard about it?

We've had some good times, you and me, but there's this new phone out called the Palm Pre. Actually, calling it a "phone" doesn't do it justice, but I'm willing to wager it still does such banal things like ringing when it's being called. And today they released an SDK for it which means I can write cool programs and stuff.

So enjoy our time together while it lasts, phone. We're taking this trip to Hawaii soon and I'm thinking the bottom of the ocean might be an appropriate resting place for you...

3 comments

post-birthday blues
Mood: stressed
Posted on 2009-04-21 13:01:00
Tags: health rant birthday work wedding politics
Words: 297

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes! I had a nice dinner and post-dinner Rock Band session (we're Rock Immortals now!) and caught up a bit with my family. And we're making really good progress on wedding stuff, so that's gotten a lot less stressful. Also, now I'm 27, which is 3³, and next year I'll be 28 which is a perfect number! (after that, it's all downhill, I'm sure)

That notwithstanding, things kinda suck right now. Let me run down why, because I'm sure you're all dying to know!

Torture - So when Ex-President Bush said "We don't torture", apparently what he meant was "We don't torture, except when we do". This is not terribly surprising, but it is a little depressing. (we waterboarded one guy 183 times in a month even after he had given up intelligence) I haven't had the heart to read the memos, but I applaud Obama for releasing them.

Work - The last week of work has been the worst week in at least a year. (I wish I had some sort of device where I recorded how work went that day, then I could track the data over time and say definitively how bad last week was!) This week is shaping up to be somewhat better, but it looks like I'm going to be generally stressed for at least another month and a half.

Teeth - As I mentioned, my filled tooth still hurts, and my mom and djedi convinced me to see the dentist again. And they took an X-ray and it looks like I need yet another root canal, to the tune of $1200 out of pocket. I'm going to get a second opinion, which means more work and stress and time away from work, which means more work stress. Argh.

1 comment

a cool toy and some anger
Mood: okay
Posted on 2009-04-15 13:21:00
Tags: rant politics links
Words: 204

Cool toy: This ToneMatrix thingy. Note that if you right-click, you can copy and paste music in. My two quick compositions:
0,512,0,256,0,1024,0,0,0,17476,0,0,0,0,0,168
65536,32768,16384,8192,256,0,128,0,320,0,1056,0,4112,0,32776,0

The scale is a pentatonic one (do, re, mi, so, la) which means that basically any combination of notes sounds good. The lack of dissonance gets a little...creepy? after a while, but it's fun to play with. There's actually a real instrument called the tenori-on that does something similar, and an iPhone version. (as well as another iPhone version by Brian Eno that looks even cooler)

Now. Today is Tax Day, and some conservative-types are holding tea parties to protest government spending. (and presumably the deficit?) Let me just say this - if you disliked Bush's expansion of government spending (specifically the Iraq war, Medicare expansion, etc.) and you're protesting, at least you're consistent. If you just hate Obama and everything he stands for, well at least you're being honest. But if you cheerleaded everything Bush did and started worrying about government spending and the deficit on January 20th, then you're not being serious. If you have no suggestions for what you want to cut, you're not being serious. If you favor tax cuts and lower deficits, you're really really deluding yourself.

1 comment

BSG and Lost
Mood: happy
Posted on 2009-03-19 10:00:00
Tags: rant essay
Words: 595

(spoilers abound if you haven't seen the most recent episode of either!)
Lost is awesome.

Season 4 was pretty good - we learned a lot of interesting things about the island and the Oceanic 6's life after they left. The whole flash-forward structure was pretty neat at first, but eventually it seemed to rob the show of its stakes. We know Jack isn't going to die on the island because we can see him in the future! And there were certainly unanswered questions, like what happened to all the people who weren't in the Oceanic 6, but that wasn't enough for me to stay fully engaged. I thought the season finale in particular tied together some loose ends, but just wasn't that compelling. Interesting, sure, but I wasn't on the edge of my seat. And the whole dramatic tension of having to lie is something that is probably stronger in real life than it is to watch. After all, we're used to watching people lie on TV...

I had the same sort of problem with the beginning of Season 5 - we had a pretty good idea the Oceanic 6 were going to end up back on the island, so just showing why they arrived at that conclusion wasn't really that interesting to me. But the last two episodes of Season 5 have really kicked it up a notch. I feel like we're back in the heyday of Seasons 1 and 2 (which I watched on DVD and so didn't have the delayed gratification of waiting weeks between episodes) where we have no idea what's going to happen. Yeah, "Namaste" (the episode that aired last night) was kinda about resolving a bunch of loose ends about the Oceanic 6 arriving back on the island, but it did it in a very compelling way. I was on the edge of my seat watching LaFleur come up with a plan for Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid to integrate them into the Dharma Initiative. Even though the Purge is coming at some point we don't know what's going to happen to our folks.


And now a quick Battlestar Galactica rant, which you may have heard if you've been around me since last Friday:

I cannot believe they're at literally the second to last episode (bolding makes me sound angry!) and doing flashbacks back to before the series began...and these flashbacks kinda suck. So Roslin was happy go lucky! And had sisters! And then they and her father were randomly killed in a car crash, but she's stoic, see! Nevermind the fact that they would have all probably died when the Cylons attacked anyway...what is this supposed to tell us about her? We already know she's a tough person. I suppose the whole car crash was supposed to be shocking but I couldn't help but think the writers were just using a cheap device to make me feel sorry for her. Also, so help me if the person she's about to see on this blind date is the person who was driving the other car I'm going to jump up and down and scream "I don't care!" because I really really don't.

In other news, Baltar is still a jerk in the past. Two problems:
- I get that he's a jerk and I'm supposed to hate him. This has been emphasized basically any time he opens his mouth. Not news!
- There are three (now two) hours left to show the fate of humanity and I really really really don't care about Baltar compared to that.


TL;DR version: Lost good, BSG bad.

2 comments

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.

12 comments

"heroes" but not about "heroes"
Mood: annoyed
Posted on 2008-09-23 10:01:00
Tags: rant essay
Words: 411

While watching "Heroes" at the Drafthouse last night, two things pissed me off entirely unrelated to the show.

1. KXAN (our NBC affiliate) kept shrinking the screen to warn us that, after October 2 Time Warner customers won't be able to see their station because they won't pay the reasonable price of less than one cent per customer per day (this happened like 10 times over the two hours). Here's KXAN's side of the story. They also (playing hardball) say you can sign up with Dish TV or AT&T U-Verse to ensure that you can still see everything, etc.

One cent per customer per day doesn't sound like much, but if every channel charged that much...let's see, there are around 150-200 channels in the basic Digital package, and that would be $45-$60 a month when the package itself only costs $65. (obviously Time Warner has a lot of infrastructure to pay for, plus they have to make a profit somewhere in there) So that's a little high. Not to mention the fact that KXAN is available for free over-the-air! I can understand a nominal fee to Time Warner, I guess, but asking for more money for something that anyone in the Austin area can get for free seems a little cheeky.

Time Warner's side of the story (yes, they bought thetruthhurtskxan.com on September 17th!) points this out, although that's mostly their only argument other than KXAN is trying to negotiate through the public, etc.

I would imagine that KXAN has more power here - while switching from cable to Dish or something else is a pain and not always possible, there are no substitutes for watching NBC shows (except for viewing them online or illegally downloading them or something) - Time Warner has better substitutes than KXAN does.

In the end, they had better figure this crap out and I better not miss my Heroes and Chuck and 30 Rock.


2. What is it with stupidly-titled shows? Last night we saw a preview for Yes Man which is about a Man who decides to say Yes to everything. There was also Sex Drive which is about a guy who Drives to California to have Sex. It makes me think they started with the title and came up with the lamest, most straightforward interpretation of it and then made a movie. Cut it out! (yeah, yeah, Yes Man is based on a book, but the book has the same stupid and literal title)

6 comments

things that, upon further reflection, really piss me off and have come up recently
Mood: annoyed
Posted on 2008-09-03 15:19:00
Tags: rant essay
Words: 364

Abstinence-only education
This is in the news because Sarah Palin supports it, but it really didn't make me angry until I thought about it for a while. I understand teenagers having sex is bad (in a relative sense) and abstinence is a good thing and all that, but the fact is that around 60% of high school seniors will have had sex at least once before they graduate. (saw this recently, although I can't find a reliable citation at the moment)

If you think condoms are immoral (looking at you, Catholic Church) then I can at least understand the objection here (not that I agree), but imagining that not telling kids anything else except "don't have sex, it's horrible, etc." will make them (teenagers! the most rebellious age group?) just decide not to have sex, despite the fact that hormones are raging.

Not telling these kids about how to protect themselves is irresponsible. Only 15 percent of Americans support only teaching abstinence.

"Traditional" gender roles
This weekend, there were some books and movies and stuff in the beach house we rented, one of which was "Husbands Who Won't Lead and Wives Who Won't Follow". This really grinds my gears (I read like half a page over breakfast and couldn't continue). Firstly, the existence of gay couples is brushed aside with no explanation or anything, which almost makes me more upset than if one were arguing against us directly.

But even beyond that, this is flat out sexism. And what is the justification for this? I know that's the way it was in the past, because men were slightly stronger so they could go kill the mammoths while the women cared for the children, but I don't see anything fundamentally good or bad about that. Why is sex supposed to determine our role, and not personality and the particular relationship we're in or whatever? This is a conservative point of view ("conservative" in the this-is-how-things-were-done-in-the-past-so-we-better-keep-doing-them-because-the-past-was-awesome-compared-to-now) but why is it pushed by religions as well? I know there are a few small examples of this in the Bible ("Wives, be submissive to your husbands") but I just don't get how this fits in with anything else.

13 comments

best day ever
Mood: happy
Posted on 2008-06-17 09:16:00
Tags: movies rant links
Words: 288

You can download Firefox 3 starting at noon our time. (you might be able to Help->Check for Updates... as well - not sure when that will be turned on)

Gays can marry in California today! Here's an interactive map of the legal status of gay marriage/civil unions in all 50 states.

Last night at Kung Fu Panda (which is still good, by the way, I'd probably even see it again) we saw a trailer for Fly Me to the Moon which is about three stupid flies that tag along on the first moon landing. This makes me angry. The graphics quality looks meh, it's filled with bad and stupid and pointless puns and the smart fly is named "Iq". Judging by the trailer, you're supposed to think that the idea of the fly on the moon is just so awesome, we'll have a bunch of characters say "Nat's going to the moon!", "Your boy is going to the moon!", "We're going to the moon!", etc.

Also, (and here's where I go off a bit) apparently there's some problem with the capsule and the flies have to save the day. This (aside from being stupid) I find offensive - it took years and years of hard work and dedication and lost lives to get us to the moon, not some stupid-ass flies fixing some problem or whatever. Next up: some scorpions are going to Normandy! And the Allies can't win the battle without them! So they go around and sting some Nazis or something! After that: well, you get the idea.

Maybe the 3D will make it way more awesome but somehow I doubt it.

In the vein of bad movies, a review of The Happening that contains all the spoilers.

8 comments

this is the beginning of the end (of moving)
Mood: worried
Posted on 2008-03-12 09:53:00
Tags: moving rant smashbros wii
Words: 423

Last night we got our stuff ready to pack, which means the whole moving thing is happening soon. People are coming over tonight to help us pack (thanks, people!) and we'll be living out of boxes for a while...the movers come for real on Saturday. Until we get settled in at the house we may be somewhat incommunicado, so call me on my cell phone (or better yet, call djedi on his since mine seems a bit unreliable). Moving brings out the worst in me, so I will likely be crabby and irritable and unhelpful for a while, so being incommunicado isn't the worst thing in the world. (sorry, people around me!)

Played a little Smash Bros last night - did the easy job of unlocking (spoiler alert: highlight to read)       Snake      , and then djedi got up to 29% in Subspace Emissary (the adventure mode). Next up to unlock I think will be (spoiler) Captain Falcon  , so I might do that tonight. (Just kidding! Tonight is packing)


We've been trying to get cable/internet set up at the new place for a while now. We scheduled Time Warner to come out February 29 to hook it up, and the contractor guy said that the signal coming into the house was too weak and a supervisor would have to come out and look at it. Last Friday I called Time Warner to see what the deal was (the contractor said someone would call me to schedule an appointment), and luckily the woman was able to schedule an appointment for that day. So someone did come out to the house, did the same stuff as the contractor, and verified that that was indeed the problem. (not sure what the deal was there) He said engineers (I'm an engineer!) would have to work on the problem outside but I didn't need to be there or set up an appointment or anything.

So yesterday I call Time Warner to see if they know if the work's been done or when the work will be done, since we're getting awfully close to moving in. Using their nifty callback feature, I get a call 10 minutes later, and the woman said that in fact the last guy hadn't scheduled anything to be done and that someone did need to be at the house. Le sigh. So that's scheduled for Friday along with hot tub stuff.

But it's annoying to have to always call after anyone does anything to confirm what they said/actually get the next step of the process to happen.

2 comments

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.

1 comment

I do not heart huckabee
Mood: annoyed
Posted on 2008-01-18 10:19:00
Tags: rant politics
Words: 237

Dear Mike Huckabee,

Hi! How's it going? Is it OK if I call you Mike? Great. Anyway, Mike, I read you had something to say about marriage. Something like this:

Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal.

16 comments

some interface complaints
Mood: annoyed
Posted on 2008-01-14 10:39:00
Tags: rant house
Words: 134

So I'm getting quotes on homeowner's insurance. Called up USAA and it was pretty easy (and cheap!) but I wanted to compare with someone. State Farm doesn't do online quotes for our area, so GEICO it is.

- It asks the distance to the nearest fire department. How am I supposed to know this in general? Can't they figure it out since I gave them the address?

- Who thinks that selecting years (or dates for that matter) from a drop down box is easier than typing in four digits?

- Now they're asking if I've purchased the home within the last 12 months...but if I say yes and put in our scheduled closing date, it complains since it's in the future. I guess I'll say no, but I think the most accurate answer is yes. Gah.

7 comments

big day
Mood: nervous
Posted on 2008-01-09 09:18:00
Tags: rant work mortgage house
Words: 89

Big work meeting today after lunch.

We met with our mortgage guy yesterday and everything seems to be in order, so bully for that. After work we're gonna view the house again and then, in all likelihood, make an offer, which is exciting! This just in: the house was not used previously to manufacture methamphetamines (yes, this question is on the seller's disclosure).

Also, $32 per month is a ridiculous sum of money to pay to a homeowner's association, for use of a pool that we'll probably never use.

17 comments

Dear router,
Mood: irritated
Posted on 2007-11-28 18:47:00
Tags: rant
Words: 43

Yes, I know you cut out occasionally even though I haven't complained about it. Please stop. Lines like this:

Nov 28 18:22:31 cantor kernel: r8169: eth0: link down
Nov 28 18:22:33 cantor kernel: r8169: eth0: link up

are pretty darn indicative you're rebooting.

2 comments

Dear internet,
Mood: irritated
Posted on 2007-11-28 18:44:00
Tags: rant
Words: 65

If you have a "Remember me" box to log in, please do so. It makes me more irritated to have it not work (and therefore wonder "Am I even at the right site?") than to not have it at all.

P.S. Yes, I know that these things work on cookies that can be deleted. I, however, am lazy and don't clean through mine. Excuse rejected.

0 comments

united way iPhone giveaway - bleck
Mood: blah
Posted on 2007-11-26 14:18:00
Tags: rant
Words: 113

I just got a second email reminding me that if you donate to the United Way now, you're entered to win an 8GB iPhone. Color me unimpressed. Doesn't it seem kinda backwards to entice people to donate money with a prize? Maybe McElroy Translation (who donated the prize) should have just donated the money it cost to buy it - it's not like Apple donated it or anything.

Worse yet, this sets up the idea that you're not donating; you're buying a chance at the iPhone. Will you be so eager to donate when there's no possible reward?

(I understand this is a cranky attitude about it, and probably it's not a big deal)

6 comments

number of boxes left: 30ish?
Mood: relaxed
Posted on 2007-09-29 00:05:00
Tags: rant
Words: 537

We're making real progress here - furniture is set up, and we have most of the essentials (toiletries, a sleeping bag to sleep on the bed, computers, TiVo, etc.), but there are still lots of boxes to unpack. It is starting to feel more like home, though. Pictures will come (as will some sort of party) when the boxes are gone.

Allergies have been hitting me hard for the last few days. They come and go seemingly randomly throughout the day. Nose running is bad, although feeling sweaty all over is much worse. The dust with the boxes isn't helping, I'd imagine.

We used Bekins for the move. Our stuff got here Wednesday which was really fast, much faster than we had expected. (only a week after they packed and loaded it!) We lost a table lamp along the way, and an alarming number of mugs were broken. The boxes weren't in great shape - a few had been torn open and such, worse than normal wear and tear that I would expect. (and worse than on the move up there) The couch got a little scratched up (how did this happen when it was wrapped in tape?), the desks are a little more flimsy (the entertainment center, which we're getting rid of, borders on dangerous), and the washer was apparently resting on the washer hoses because they're both bent out of shape and don't seal. Maybe this is more in line with a "normal" experience...it's just that on the move up (with the same company), everything seemed in the same condition that we left it in. Oh well.

djedi shipped his car with Dependable Auto Shippers and arrived quickly, without scratches, and they were even washing it when we pulled up!

As I was driving around over the past few days, I saw the following billboard:

We think rush hour is a misleading term.
We think like you think. Time Warner Cable

0 comments

(no subject)
Mood: calm
Posted on 2006-08-15 10:01:00
Tags: pictures rant terrorism
Words: 206

Pictures from this weekend are up. There are some good ones of the nephews :-)

No! Liquids!

I have a great link at home that I don't have in front of me about how the goal of terrorism is to terrorize. If we get worried and upset and scared and stop flying every time a terrorist plot is revealed, isn't that what they want? If this is really a "war on terror" (yeah, yeah, I know), we can't be surprised when plots are revealead and so forth.

Other things that make me mad: people who have no concept of risk. In 2004, 42636 people died in car accidents. Right now you're 10-200 times safer (depending on what metric you use) flying than driving. And yet people will get panicy about flying (to be fair, it can be a little scary) but then speed in their car, not pay attention to the road, drive while buzzed/drunk, etc. Really, this is even worse because you could hurt/kill not only yourself but others if you're in a car crash.

So I guess my point is - drive safely! (and I mean this as a directive, not a "hope nothing happens"-type statement) Don't talk on your cell phone too much, etc., etc.

13 comments

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