flatearthscience dot com

Yes, this is linked off of slashdot, and I know we were just Vista-bashing last week, but you must read this, for it is utterly horrifying. Having just loaded Mythdora 3.1 the other night on a spare collection of junk parts I slapped together (and man, is MythTV kool BTW) I feel sorry for the regular joe consumer out there that’ll know no better than to buy into the monstrosity that M$ is trying to create, and a little sickened by the prison-bitch ease with which Microshaft has bent over for the content industry.
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I don’t feel fine.

Just.   Say.   NO.

This is where I’d normally put a “Merry Christmas” because the political correctness of “Happy Holidays” rubs me the wrong way, however, the rudepundit has convinced me otherwise. Since the rednecks have laid exclusive claim to “Merry Christmas,” I’m afraid I’m going to have to go with “Ecstatic Yuletide to the planetary constituency, and to that self same assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn.”

Propz to nicfit

If you live along the Front Range and like Linux and/or Libertarianism and have never heard of Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen, then I am here to set things right. As a fan of more than just those two L-words, I’m thinking the whole flat earth needs to know that Ed has sublimely enlightened us yet again.

I’m talking about his column for 11/24/06, We’re in the MyDecade, and here’s a quote to get you to read it:

I know, the modern computer interface has you pointing at icons, rather than typing commands. This is not progress.

Historians say the alphabet was a great improvement on hieroglyphics as a way to communicate, and here we are going backwards.

What I want to know about Vista is, will one of Redmond’s products finally know when a directory is empty when you try to delete it? Why would I not want to move the directory “and all of its contents” to the recycle bin, when I know it’s empty? Are you saying it’s not empty? But I just deleted everything, it should be good to go…?!?! Bad OS, playing dumb about something as important as directory contents, bad bad bad!!

Trying to get online access to my card, I was stymied by this while creating an account:

Your Password should contain 6 to 8 characters . at least one letter and one number (not case sensitive), contain no spaces or special characters (e.g. &, >, *, $, @) and be different from your User ID.

Case insensitive? Special characters not allowed? Now I remember why I never signed up for this before. It gets better. I checked out their online help. They actually recommend passwords that look like they wouldn’t survive a dictionary attack:

Examples of a valid password are: snowman4, 810main, and year2k.

Has anyone seen a more questionable password policy form a financial institution?

They do everything but recommend “pencil.”

This one has been around for a while, but it’s a classic.

Nanaca Crash.

Never heard the man speak before.

Note to the esteemed presumed geniuses over at the “International High IQ Society” regarding your multiple-choice Trivia Challenge game:

1. The questions are a bit easy.

2. If you’re going to make a multiple-choice trivia game, you might want to mix up the right answers a little bit. That is to say, you might want to have the right answer be the 3rd or 4th selection instead of putting them all first. Just sayin’.

Line Rider.

The kids are all over this.

Check out the amazing amounts of free time this one guy had.

I’ll admit that like most gen-Xers I affected a smarmy, cynical air of detached irony back in the days of my youth. As I mentioned in a previous post, this had a lot to do with how my young psyche reacted to the defeat of the rebels in The Empire Strikes Back. So I blame Hollywood in general and George Lucas in particular. (Just kidding, George. At least you still have American Graffiti, the best movie about baby-boomers ever made, before they got all self-important and started talking about how they “changed the world, man!” No one will ever take that one away from you, no matter how many crappy Star Wars movies you make).

But those days are behind me now. And they should be behind you too. What does cynicism buy you but a chance to say “I told you so” all the time. Booooring. That’s a pretty crappy payback in exchange for never getting psyched about anything.

Anyway, I’ve been telling people for years that 80s supergroup Journey (the lineup with Steve Perry — I am told that they had a lesser frontman in a previous incarnation) never deserved the kitsch label that was foisted on them.

Well it looks like people are finally coming around. Quoth Hooper X at POEtv.com:

This song has passed being kitsch and gone all the way back around to being awesome again.

He’s right about the awesome part. I dare you to listen to “Don’t Stop Believing” and not get fired up, especially in light of the recent election — or my favorite “Separate Ways.”

Yes, I’m aware of the irony of posting this under the 1337ness category.

Disappointing

It’s all but offical. Folks in Colorado aren’t really sure what the homos are up to, but it can’t be any good.

Amendment 43 approved, referendum I defeated. It’s the same mentailty that made us “The Hate State” back in ‘92. (Remember amendment 2?)

Ironically, the homophobes have totally gayed up the state constitution with this marriage definition crap. What next? An amendment defining dirt as brown?

All you tokers out there had better hide your stashes. Amendment 44 bit the dust. Totally cashed. Heh heh .. uh .. heh.

And we can look forward to the feds building a wall around our lovely rectangle of a state thanks to the passing of referendum H.

Sadly, the governor and sheriff may no longer be entitled to “a pig and two comely lasses of virtue true” thanks to the passing of referendum G.

Sunny Side

On the plus side, we did raise the minimum wage — barely. I want to know who voted agianst this. Seems kind of mean to keep sticking it to poor folks all the time.

And Democrat Bill Ritter took it in a landslide, but voters decided to saddle him a with Republican secretary of state and attorney general. Probably a good idea.

Tip of the Hat to My Homies in District 7

Perlmutter kicked O’Donnell’s ass.

w00t fux0rs!

The big news is that nationally the Dems did even better than predicted (which was a lot). They have taken the House and it looks like they’ll take the Senate too, assuming there are no recount shenanigans in Virginia and Montana. When the euphoria wears off, I can go back to remembering that these are the same Dems who sat around with their thumbs up their asses while Bushco raped the country. Sigh.