Category: The slush pile

trapped

I re-upped my subscription to NetFlix (sorry, no link: I’m annoyed with them) and have been catching up on stuff: I took the two-at-a-time option, one for me, one for the young’uns.

Things have been proceeding nicely, as I finally got to start watching the Lord of the Rings series. I had seen the first a while back, so I reviewed it, then watched the second, and was all prepared to see the Return of the King [DVD][book] this weekend.

But no. The fine print is that I get two-at-a-time, with a maximum of four in a month. Now, they were either gracious or deceptive in comping us several titles this month: we saw a lot more than four. I’m not sure if this is a miscue on their part (in sending out too many DVDs) or a clever ploy to get me to upgrade, since they see I have not rated the last of the trilogy and can deduce I haven’t seen it.
<grumble>

[composed and posted with ecto]

so people will buy music even if they’ve heard it?

about radiohead:

Three months prior to the release of Kid A MP3 tracks of the entire album made their way onto the file sharing service. As Richard Menta of MP3 Newswire detailed in his essay Did Napster Take Radiohead’s New Album to Number 1?, millions of fans had possession of this music by the time the CD hit stores. The record industry assumed the album was now doomed to failure since fans already had the music for free. Instead the opposite happened and the band, which had never hit the US top 20 before, captured the number one spot in Kid A’s debut week. With the record’s absence of radio airplay, big time marketing, and any other factor that may have explained this stunning success, Menta declared this was proof of the promotional powers of file trading and of word-of-mouth generated by the Net.

Who’da thunk it?

Interesting piece: if you’re not familiar with the above anecdote or the Offspring’s attempt to pre-release an album via the net (nixed by their label: what if it worked and they couldn’t blame Napster for their failures anymore?), check it out.

[composed and posted with ecto]

how is this not spam?

Part-time, 10 hours weekly, virtual job to find and post messages to blogs, forums, chats, bulletin boards and websites about [redacted].com. Your job would be to identify appropriate outlets and craft messages and comments about [redacted].com that fits in with the attitude and vibe of the site you are visiting. This is NOT SPAM but rather a considered and thoughtful way to introduce [redacted].com to people who would enjoy sending a stylish and witty eCard.

Looking for some way to augment my income and found this on craigslist.

Seems pretty spammy to me.

[composed and posted with ecto]

Well, it’s official

Apple’s OS X will run on some unnamed (at least I can’t find it) Intel chip.

I had to re-read this post and comment thread from almost three years ago. So it’s running on x86, as many of us have assumed, and we’ll see where the roadmap takes us.

Bottomline? Who cares what it runs on? Even the so-called tech press is making this into something more than it really is: Apple has never sold the PowerPC architecture as the main draw. The user experience is the selling point, and this is a bid to improve that.

<update> It was Pentium 4 in the onstage demo, apparently. I’m trying to get my mind around the supposedly aging x86 family being considered a replacement for the future-proof Power CPU family.


[composed and posted with ecto]

as good a reason as any

Backup Brain:

I use Macs for a simple reason: even though I’m very technical and *can* generally convince any computer to shut up and do what I want, I feel life is too short, and I’d rather work on the task at hand instead of beating on a computer ot get it to let me work on the task. Macs are very good at just getting out of my way and not causing problems. And one could only wonder how much more productive other geeks would be if they got away from the “I like hacking my windows box” mentality and actually put that time into finishing things. But that’s their choice, and they’re welcome to it. Me, I have higher aims in life than having my obituary read “he finally got his Registry” cleaned out”, you know?

One gets the feeling the fanboys are more in love with the computer as a fetish object than as a tool.

[composed and posted with ecto]

three way tie

Not sure how this worked out . . .

You scored as Existentialist. Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Mankind is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility.

Idealist
75%

Existentialist
75%

Cultural Creative
75%

Modernist
50%

Materialist
50%

Romanticist
50%

Postmodernist
44%

Fundamentalist
31%

What is Your World View? (corrected…hopefully)
created with QuizFarm.com

killing your own baby

I tried to post some comments to a local weblogger’s site this AM and my comment was rejected:

Crunk

Apparently MT-Blacklist is blocking spam words like “I” and “he.”
Comments broken by questionable content:

Update: Ted told me this is a problem with MT-Blacklist. I won’t have time to resesarch it until tonight.

__________________

I don’t know what has happened in the past two days but it seems now my blog is rejecting comments based on content, any content at all.

Comment Submission Error
Your comment submission failed for the following reasons:

Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: he

Please correct the error in the form below, then press Post to post your comment.

I was not aware that this blog had a filter for comment content so I am surprised. Ted is busy preparing for an upcoming conference and neither one of us knows what is wrong.

So in the meantime, two options for feedback are:
1) write it up and post it with a link (create a blog at blogger.com)
2) write it up and send an email to harrowme AT yahoo.com

Sorry for the inconvenience.
Thanks to those who have let me know it was broken and sent comments by email.
Thanks for understanding.

Why does anyone use MT anymore, besides inertia? If it’s not plagued with spam (still an issue in the payware releases, I hear), its performance issues are enough to make high-profile sites (3341)migrate away. Do they — the cuddly bunch at 6A — care at all?

Bah. It’s hard to take them seriously, given how the end-users have fared post investment.

time to do some good

Tour de Cure::
Tdc

Join us for an exciting day of cycling! The Puget Sound area Tour de Cure features scenic routes designed for every level of cycling expertise with 25, 50, 70 and 100 mile options. The 25 mile route contains a few rolling hills along Lake Samammish. Cyclists opting for the 50, 70 and 100 mile loops will enjoy some challenging climbs and exhilarating descents during a beautiful ride in the countryside. All route options are well marked and fully supported with rest stops, SAG support, great food and a finish line celebration. Each mile you ride and every dollar you raise helps in the fight to prevent and cure diabetes.

Watch this space for opportunities to sponsor and motivate America’s Worst Cyclistâ„¢ in the Tour de Cure . . .

no silver bullet

Kids in the City

Yglesias says: (3)

Having been raised in Manhattan, I firmly believe that it’s not only a good place to raise children, it’s a fantastic place to raise children. If you can afford it, that is. Which is, needless to say, a very big if.

I don’t have any wee ones, but one thing I will never understand is why suburban America is almost universally considered to be the ideal place to raise children. Yes, the money issue in cities is real, so I understand why people choose the suburbs over the city, but the money isn’t the reason which is usually given. The entire suburban aesthetic is thought to be good for kids. Don’t get it.

This and the followup remind how glad I am we stayed in the city. The idea that city life == high risk of victimhood is bogus. Crime happens in the same places in every city, in and around taverns, in low-income or housing projects, and in the homes of the victims and perpetrators. That’s not to claim that there’s no risk in a city, but the the good things that kids (and adults) can be exposed to and be part of far outweigh the perceived risks. And that can’t be said for the exurbs.

But then, I still labor under the delusion that I have a lot of parental control and influence over what goes on in my house. I’m not letting MTV or Nintendo raise my kids . . . .