Posted 8 days ago
what the hell is the deal with the casino?
in Pittsburgh
user:
toddname:
todd underwoodabout me:
A curious sort, mostly harmless. I work for Renesys, the company that makes this site.
Recent Responses by todd
Posted 21 days ago
if they only have 35 calories they cannot be any good.
in 35 Calorie Pumpkin Cookies
Posted 44 days ago
interesting results here. wondering how this thing is going to turn out, but i'm sick and tired of this election and just want it to be over.
in CNN/Time: Obama Makes Gains In NC, OH, WI, IN, NH
Posted 51 days ago
in puerto rico we call this a 'chiste mongo' (bad joke? cheesy joke?)
in joke of the week
Posted 52 days ago
http://electoral-vote.com has the best mapping of many, many polls onto the electoral vote map.
in Obama increases lead over McCain slightly since debate
Posted 53 days ago
credit unions have been awesome for a long time but they also have serious scale problems. they don't operate their own ATM networks, they dont' have great websites, etc. etc. they need to have a better-funded national association that does that kind of stuff for them to compete directly with national-scale banks
in Why Choose a Credit Union Over a Bank [Banking]
Posted 55 days ago
heh. all the way up to 20 mpg. what a joke.
in Lincoln bumps up fuel economy on Navigator
Posted 55 days ago
this is like the wild, wild west. holy cow. what the hell is going on?
in Senate Republicans block economic stimulus bill
Posted 55 days ago
facebook is a design catastrophe due to how it grew up (and how caranky and inflexibile its user base is). it's almost impossible to find anything on facebook under either design.
in Facebook Users: You Get Until Next Week To Complain About The New Design
Posted 56 days ago
this phone look sgreat on functionality, but nowhere near as 'slick' and 'sleek' as the iphone. in fact, it's downright thick and clunky in comparison. looks more like HTC's windows mobile phones. i don't see this being a serious consumer competition to start with
in T-Mobile uncaps data plan ahead of Google phone - Yahoo! News
Posted 56 days ago
weird that mccain has been *so* untrustworthy that people would trust the junior senator from illinois more with this catastrophe than the experienced senior senator from arizona. mccain has *really* messed with his own credibility to get to this place.
in Obama surges during the market crisis.
Posted 57 days ago
this is incoherent, jim. user-generated content complaining about user-generated content. and badly written. :-)
in Better -- Merlin Mann
Posted 57 days ago
'how to eat fried worms' was one of my favorite books
in Mill Creek librarian keeps word, eats worms
Posted 58 days ago
where were you when i needed my new house in pittsburgh cleaned!??!?!
in Move In/Out Cleaning Service
Posted 59 days ago
cindyhewy: this item is posted on seattle.craigslist.org. you should click the title link and contact the seller over there. i don't think they're reading messages here.
in Vera Bradley RARE zebra pattern backpack (Poulsbo) $30
Posted 59 days ago
so we all normally ignore these stories, because they are uncomfortable (and mostly propagated by conspiracy nuts). but this is the army times.
in Army Ready to Enforce Martial Law in USA Starting October 1st
Posted 60 days ago
we are going v. v. deep down the rabbit hole. there's no way to figure out where it ends.
in Financial Crisis Legislation May Give Government Veto Power over Management Decisions at Financial Institutions
Posted 60 days ago
i love the failblog. most of it is rehashed, but occasionally i'll see something new there.
in failblog
Posted 60 days ago
*this* is why equipment-specific training and qualifications exist. because this crew clearly had no idea what the hell they were doing with this plane. if they had training and passed it, i would blame the training program.
in Etihad Airways FAIL
Posted 60 days ago
leave it to the NY Post to put Marlon Brando up there in the graphic. Subtle. Nice.
in ALMOST ARMAGEDDON - New York Post
Posted 62 days ago
it *is* pretty suspicious that she said she smoked weed but didn't like it. :-)
in The Ballad of Sarah Palin
Posted 62 days ago
i'm not positive that the weird PR around this won't outweigh the value of any money they raise.
in Members of the Dead to play fundraiser for Obama (AP)
Posted 62 days ago
the new york times is on a multi-year kick to find new visualization tools. they're doing a nice job of it.
in A Year of Heavy Losses (via NY Times)
Posted 62 days ago
*this* is what gives the US it's weird and unrepresentative national politic (we are a prochoice nation with anti-choice laws; we favor withdrawal from iraq nationally but not int he congress or presidency; we support equal rights for gays in civil matters nationally by population, but not in law).
in Population of various states projected onto New York City map
Posted 62 days ago
let's all jointly buy all the bad debt and spread it all over the whole country, rather than trying to concentrate it a bit in the hands of the f*ckwits who made this mess.
in Paulson, Bernanke Seek Support for an Agency to Buy Bad Debt
Posted 63 days ago
this crisis creates real credibility problems for the US economy. empire is over. people simply won't trust us anymore in the same way.
in Crisis Exposes Flaws in U.S. Economy, Tarnishes Image
Posted 63 days ago
all that being said, i still think that the new interface is somewhat better.
in Facebook confidently faces design change backlash
Posted 63 days ago
all the time. sometimes i reread books because i have genuinely forgotten what they were about, or some of the details of theme, plot and development. Other times I reread books because I remember a state of mind they provoked or a way that they made me feel and I want to recreate that.
in Open Question: Do You Re-Read Books?
Posted 63 days ago
This is a big, big deal. The only way the wheels are keeping on this thing is that the treasury can keep borrowing money at amazingly great rates. if that stops because people doubt the federal government's commitment to repay or the value of the dollars repaid (due to inflation) the economy will go into a sudden and deep depression.
in S&P says pressure building on U.S. AAA rating
Posted 63 days ago
i *hate* that you have to register in advance in most states. it's really hard to get used to. in new hampshire (where i used to live) you could do same-day registration and vote in any primary as long as you were registered as an independent.
in Do You Want To Vote For Change? Make Sure To Get Registered First!
Posted 63 days ago
this is really, really not going well. a coworker was asking earlier what people thought individuals should do to protect their assets, families, and livelihoods. there was no good answer forthcoming from any of us. any of you know?
in Bailout Fails to Stem Global Stock Slump
Posted 64 days ago
Mishi: that he's not a muslim (not that there's anything wrong with that) :-)
in Letterman: Top 10 Interesting Facts about Barack Obama
Posted 70 days ago
decent quick summary of the fashion sources of various retail chains.
in A Cheat Sheet for Chain Stores
Posted 70 days ago
i'll grab the first episode and see how it seems. this violates my rule of only watching shows that have two full seasons in the can, though. i am sick and tired of studios cancelling stuff i like just as i'm getting into it. now *that* would be a problem worth fixing.
in On the Fringe Of Another X-Files
Posted 71 days ago
omg. this sounds disgusting. or delicious. actually for me it oscillates between the two. :-) i could do without the sausage, but the tomato gravy sounds fascinating.
in Creamed Tomatoes Aka Tomato Gravy
Posted 71 days ago
this conversation is getting more and more intriguing to those of us following along at home.
in Cary Grant's daughter gives birth to ... Cary Benjamin Grant
Posted 71 days ago
the point of this discussion seems to be as follows: traffic data and mapping data can come at a cost of advertising: sell Point of Interest (POI) placement to gas stations and restaurants and hotels and the like. these businesses will be featured more prominently and users will get free traffic data. what's not to love?
in Garmin's Free Lifetime Traffic Alerts Come at a Price
Posted 71 days ago
jhota: understood. in general, i agree. the problems are when other people's choices overlap with *my* safety. modern society creates lots of that and it causes problems for any minarchist or libertarian who wants to be consistent.
in Should teachers be allowed to carry guns?
Posted 71 days ago
Also, I didn't realize it when I posted this, but Harvey Milk was killed on Nov 27, 1978, almost exactly 30 years before the movie's opening date.
in Milk, The Movie, Opening Nov 26, 2008
Posted 71 days ago
It seems weird to "support" the liquidity crisis :-) . Mostly it's just an expression of interest.
in Liquidity Crisis
Posted 71 days ago
Lehman does not look like it will survive this. I'm not an expert at all, but I don't see an easy way out. Creating a separate "bad bank" to get the bad stuff off their balance sheet is fine, but who the hell is going to capitalize that bank?
in Lehman Takes Huge Loss, Does Nothing
Posted 71 days ago
prescient, jim cowie, posted 2 months ago!
in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Insolvent; Await Government Bailout
Posted 71 days ago
This is what seems to be happening. The unsurprising result is that Palin has a *lot* of dirt about her. Troopergate is a problem for sure. Trying to get a man fired by abusing her government office. The fact that she was *for* the bridge to nowhere before she was against it. Claiming government money to pay her for living in her own home... All of those are going to cause her problems. The thing i worry about is that there are *so* many scandals about Palin that people will start to disbelieve them.
in Democrats drill…for dirt
Posted 71 days ago
who doesn't hate bulgaria? :-)
in Slovakia's women's ice hockey pummels Bulgaria 82-0
Posted 71 days ago
Maudhuit: this was posted over on seattle craigslist. you should click the link through to contact the original poster. they probably aren't following the conversation here.
in Lots of Stampin' Up! For Sale (Bothell/Mill Creek)
Posted 73 days ago
i'm not sure that a single NFL quarterback having a knee injury is really comparable to the president of the US getting assassinated, colby. hyperbole, much? dude, it's just a game.
in Patriots QB Brady hurt in opening win over Chiefs
Posted 73 days ago
This is a big, big deal. It's funny that it was during a sharp uptick in prices. I guess system load knows not whether prices are up or down, just that the volume is too high to handle. :-)
in London halts trading after shares surge on US bailout
Posted 73 days ago
what makes him so bad?
in Tim Kant and Dean Mosher to face one another in Fairhope, Alabama runoff
Posted 74 days ago
that last fact alone is startling: as much mortgage-backed securities as the entire national debt. and this is after bush and congress have been spending like drunken sailors. there appears to be no real end to this nightmare.
in US Treasury Nationalizes Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
Posted 74 days ago
stony8: this story was posted over on craigslist. you should talk to the poster there.
in Painting (South Austin)
Posted 75 days ago
i agree with you, though, chuck, the iphone is *not* open.
in Blog: Apple tries open-source defence in ad case
Posted 75 days ago
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/05/google.mediabusiness has the whole story of google's 10th, 11th or 13th birthday, celebrated now. or something. :-)
in Google's movable 10th birthday, celebrated
Posted 75 days ago
oh, that's kind of interesting. i *just* saw my neighbor carrying one out to the car with her dad. there is definitely a market for this, although maybe not 1,000,000 of them.
in One Laptop signs up with Amazon
Posted 78 days ago
are you interested in this article? are you in canada?
in Canada's Government Supports Local Community Organization Delivering Real Action on the Environment
Posted 78 days ago
she's inexperienced and unprepared, i get it. she's a bit of a reglious nut. i get that, too. but none of these revelations seemed "terrifying" to me. this was clearly a bad pick by mccain, though.
in 8 More Shocking Revelations About Sarah Palin | Election 2008 | AlterNet
Posted 78 days ago
it is sheer poetry. god bless america.
in Cheeky George Bush works up a sweat getting to know the women's volleyball team
Posted 78 days ago
with all the craziness about google chrome, it's interesting to find some concrete comments from real users. this one is my favorite, though. i would think that it would be pretty fast to hang on facebook, but what do i know? :-)
in Chrome in the wild
Posted 79 days ago
obama's response was pure political poetry. *first* he demanded that the press stop covering the issue (by making a statement about it, he almost required the press to cover the issue longer by quoting him and then by describing the issue he was talking about). but in doing so he made himself look good. *then* he commented on the fact that his mother was 18 when he was born. making himself look sympathetic and more human. finally he slammed the mccain camp for insinuating that he had anything to do with the story breaking. this guy has clearly not read the "roll over and play dumb" democratic field politics handbook.
in Veep Candidate Palin’s 17-Year-Old Daughter Is Pregnant
Posted 79 days ago
all of these craigslist postings seem to just be spam for fling.com, a porn site. all of them include some URL that goes to that. shockingly enough, Ben Marsh, it may be true that Jade isn't a "real" woman that is risque and wants you. so sad.
in Risque Jade (austin) 29yr
Posted 80 days ago
that blog posting has some cool visualizations of gustav hitting the us gulf coast.
in Hurricane Gustav Hits Louisiana's Internet
Posted 80 days ago
every labor day i get as many of my closest friends and family together as i can. and then i complain as loudly as possible about how fricking *stupid* it is that americans celebrate labor day in september, rather than may 1, the day everyone else celebrates workers. sigh.
in What's your Labor Day tradition?
Posted 80 days ago
natalikei: just as i mentioned with the previous poster, you really should head over to the original craigslist posting and contact the poster there. they may not be reading chat about this over here.
in We need your help- Egg donor (San Antonio)
Posted 80 days ago
that looks like a ton of fun. seems like a kid could cause a lot of damage with that. :-)
in KIDS PLAYGROUND RIDE ON BACKHOE (MSP) $89
Posted 84 days ago
that's just cruel. but the 'mccain is too old to be president' meme is certainly gaining traction
in Daily Kos: McCain's birth certificate
Posted 84 days ago
and if you go do the 'java girls' search, you get: "Sexpresso with Gourmet Espresso beans and sexy Baristas - Java Girlsfine gourmet espresso and fun & sexy girls to serve you. Featuring Sexy Costume Themes with a different theme 7 days a week." awesome
in Google: Are you kidding me?
Posted 84 days ago
fortunately, i have loads of olympics stuff left to watch. cause this convention is horrible.
in DNC: I already miss the Olympics
Posted 84 days ago
i cannot believe the clueless quality of mccain's campaign staff. did he so alienate all of the spanish speakers that no one knew what this song was about? shocking! a reggaeton song that's about *sex*. who could have guessed?
in “A ella le gusta la gasolina. Dame mas gasolina.”
Posted 84 days ago
speeches at conventions positive?!?!? shocking. sigh.
in Presidential Party Conventions Speeches Mostly Positive, Says Benoit
Posted 84 days ago
mininut: this was posted on boston.craigslist.com. you should probably click the title link and head over there to contact the poster. they might not be reading chat here.
in Dollhouse Miniatures Magazine (21 back issues) (Brookline) $2
Posted 86 days ago
this is shocking and surprising. who would have thought that brits would be unruly tourists. i'm not even sure i believe this.
in Some Britons Too Unruly for Resorts in Europe - NYTimes.com
Posted 86 days ago
that's the trick, isn't it: to get coupons for stuff you were going to buy anyway. that seems difficult.
in Thrift
Posted 88 days ago
as this thread becomes one of the most popular threads of all time on babbledog, one starts to wonder: why? sure, the urge for sex is powerful and for many (lonely, isolated) men on computers, the illusion of easy, consequence-free sex is even more powerful. but the internet is *swimming* in such information/illusion/fantasy. so why come to babbledog to find it?
in glamorous natalie hungry to have no strings sex - w4m
Posted 88 days ago
the real story here is how syndication and resyndication might just give *me* a headache. this story is babbledog->topix->propeller.com->idiggweed.com where the story is mysteriously missing. four levels of indirection and no payoff. thanks, syndication!
in Programming: You're Doing It Completely Wrong
Posted 88 days ago
xavier: i remain unconvinced. whether the ad was considered racist in spain or not, it was a racist ad. mocking exaggerated physical differences certainly qualifies as racist behavior. it reduces a whole group of other people to "different" or "other", which is one of the key characteristics of racist behavior. xavier: many people also believe that "oriental" is not racist in english. they are also wrong, just as i think you are. "oriental" also means "eastern" in english, but it has historically been used to gloss over the differences among all of the peoples from palestine to the philipines. as such, it is part of the sames strategy of reinforcing "otherness".
in Lithuanian basketball players or bull fighters…
Posted 90 days ago
it bugged me that it was so clearly just a "viral" marketing video paid for by samsung.
in Samsung Omnia Unboxing Beats Apple To The Core
Posted 90 days ago
I don't understand the linked article: "Almost any publisher can now add a Buzz Up button to its Web site, Yahoo said. If a Web site doesn't have a button, users can also submit a link to the content via Yahoo." Was there previously some restriction on who could submit content to buzz or add a buzz up button? why? that seems crazy.This headline could be rewritten as "Yahoo fixes obvious foolish weakness in its Buzz application".
in Yahoo opens Digg rival to all publishers
Posted Aug 21, 2008
somehow i missed that brad fitzpatrick went to work for google. i guess he just didn't dig working at 6 apart after they bought livejournal.
in One Year.
Posted Aug 21, 2008
Also, looking into this i just found: http://www.treadmill-desk.com/2007/06/anders-burvall.html which is an interestingly detailed design and implemenation.
in The Treadmill Desk: Exercise for the Sake of Hacking
Posted Aug 20, 2008
this is a bizarre (and hopefully untrue) story. it is true that facebook has a massive audience but is struggling to turn that into anything like a massive amount of money.
in Mormons to buy facebook?
Posted Aug 20, 2008
busted by the Baidu cache would be a more accurate headline. Clearly this is blatant fraud by the Chinese Olympic committee.
in China Olympic Committee Busted by Google Cache?
Posted Aug 20, 2008
i'm confused by this posting because i saw this presentation over a week ago on the internet. was it supposed to be secret?
in MBTA Court Documents from the "Subway Hack"
Posted Aug 20, 2008
this is only going to cause *more* confusion. which bags? with nothing else in them? so where do you put your camera and camera charger and ethernet cable and headphones and paper notebook and pens and keys and business cards and *all* the other crap you carry in your laptop bag now. yet another expected display of incompetence from the TSA. security theater evolves and endures and no one is any safer.
in Starting today, TSA will let you leave your laptop in certain bags when going through airport screening
Posted Aug 19, 2008
to be honest, i'm not a big chocolate fan, either. sorry, pinky!
in InstaCake: Make a single-serving cake in a few minutes
Posted Aug 19, 2008
looks like it's heading south of $4 even in seattle. jim's prediction of $4 nationwide by june, back below $3 by september is looking shockingly prescient right now.
in Gas at $5.00 in the U.S. - betting pool open
Posted Aug 19, 2008
this is so, so sensible. a 21 drinking age with an 18 join-the-army and vote age never made any fricking sense. end it, finally.
in College presidents seek drinking age debate
Posted Aug 19, 2008
jessica: that's just naive. the MBTA has been caught with a crappy system and it will be very expensive to fix. the natural (and cost-effective) reaction is to shoot the messenger and burn the message. problem solved. this is just the legal version of how one accomplishes that. of course, it won't work because the exploits and analysis will leak out (or someone else will redo the same analysis) because the problems are there and will not go away. but for the bureaucrat who staves off that day even for a little while with a bit of legal maneuvering, call it a win.
in MIT student defends MBTA hacking research
Posted Aug 19, 2008
what will they do with their newfound power? i suspect we are one, short-but-powerful step from dominion by the penguins. i, for one, welcome our new flightless avian overlords!
in the latest Norwegian knight... is a penguin.
Posted Aug 18, 2008
the LED technology is supposed to be brighter, more even, use less energy and last longer, right? sounds like a win to me.
in RUMOR: Apple prepping new LED-backlit Cinema Displays
Posted Aug 18, 2008
ok, but aside from that. i mean, come on! everyone has their downsides. :-)
in 300-pound violent boy unwanted on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Posted Aug 18, 2008
i also really disagree with the "attend in person" strategy. it's almost impossible to get tickets to almost anything. the only way to really watch the olympics is to download (or stream from nbc.com) the stuff you want to see.
in Are we losing perspective by only seeing the best?
Posted Aug 12, 2008
i don't love legos. and now i will run and hide from the wrath of chuck.
in Question of the Day: Do You Say "Lego" or "Legos?" [Question Of The Day]
Posted Aug 06, 2008
i'm heading to vancouver, b.c. on sunday. i'll sort this thing out and report back. :-)
in Sixth human foot found in Pacific Northwest
Posted Aug 06, 2008
i love the olympics, but this olympics is a tragedy. china's ridiculous polution problems, crazy restrictions on reporters and athletes, the algae in the ocean all make china fundamentally unsuited to host the olympics. the IOC should *never* have approved china's bid.
in Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
Posted Aug 05, 2008
what the hell kind of a rule is that? is this just a scheme to make the interminable baseball games actually come to an end? it'll never work. the essence of baseball is boredom. this ruins everything!
in Olympic Baseball's Wacky New 11th Inning Rule
Posted Aug 01, 2008
this just seems like annoying spam. wth is cheerypal ?
in CherryPal For Everyone
Posted Aug 01, 2008
smckenzie23: i frequently have to google up your political references. i guess i just don't spend enough time reading about american politics.
in What's the best diaper rash cream if you have reeeeeaaally bad diaper rash?
Posted Jul 31, 2008
i can't believe that the IOC is caving to stupid china internet/reporter censorship after they repeatedly promised to not pull this kind of crap. i am personally in favor of them cancelling the olympics at this point.
in IOC admits internet censorship deal with china
Posted Jul 31, 2008
this is the first really substantive good news about alzheimer's in a long time. it's hard not to get over optimistic, but this looks so, so promising.
in Methylene Blue: Miracle Alzheimer's drug?
Posted Jul 30, 2008
seems like a lot of the web is that way. that's why i love that two of my credit cards (bank of amercia and citibank) both offer one-time use credit card numbers in an automated system. cuts down on the worry.
in (www.cnbbiz.com)supply 2008 sunglasses,prada,gucci,POLICE,LV,D&G
Posted Jul 28, 2008
amanda: joke and all, but heart disease is the biggest killer of american women, so it's not just a man's problem.
in Blogging’s Glass Ceiling - NYTimes.com
Posted Jul 28, 2008
in all seriousness, democracy is hard. dumb people (all of us) vote for candidates based on our prejudices and fears as opposed to their (our) best judgment about who is honest, and who can lead the country. democracy is hard. let's go shopping. :-)
in World writes open letter to McCain
Posted Jul 28, 2008
i've watched hulu before. it's good for people who can't be bothered to just download stuff with bittorrent. the network at panera this morning isn't good enough for me to catch up on my "smarter than a 5th grader", though. :-)
in Kiss a couple of hours good bye...
Posted Jul 28, 2008
digg can't catch a break. the story implies that there was either (1) a serious technology/IP problem or (2) a serious cultural mismatch in the team. (2) doesn't seem unlikely since google are hardcore geeks and digg founders are technically savvy but more much media-oriented than technology-oriented. i don't know what (1) would be.
in Google In Final Negotiations To Acquire Digg For “Around $200 Million”
Posted Jul 28, 2008
it's only slightly beyond the language that was actually on dawson's creek. and i *loved* dawson's creek. y'all will hate me but i wish this show were real. i would watch it.
in PBS falls on hard times
Posted Jul 28, 2008
seems like a natural outcome of the critical mass ethos which highlights the existing conflicts between bikes and cars in most cities. i'm not sure what a better method might be. cities seem unwilling to promote safe biking commute infrastructure and motorists are angry and entitled and dangerous. CM is still needed, therefore.
in Critical Mass Mess
Posted Jul 27, 2008
iphones are great. they're going to be even better when they get tactile response technology (sometimes called 'buttons'). :-)
in Babbledog t-shirt spotted at Apple Store opening!
Posted Jul 18, 2008
the watchmen truly is one of the great graphic novels of all time. and the movie *looks* at first glance to capture a lot of what is great about the look and feel and vision of the novel. what worries me more is the deeper texture of the story--the concern about vigilante/freedom/fascism/safety issues and the way that we all struggle with tradeoffs among them. our political climate is ripe for such a story, but movies are bad at making textured, difficult characters and stories.
in Here is the ‘WATCHMAN’ TRAILER! - GeekTyrant
Posted Jul 18, 2008
i thought profit was step 3. this really needs to be streamlined.
in Step one: torture foreigners. Step two: torture your own citizens, but only the criminals. Step three: widen the definition of 'criminal' to include "hostile intentions" toward the state.
Posted Jul 15, 2008
terrible UI but very nice machine animations if you can find them.
in Kinematic Models for Design (Geometry of Pure Motion)
Posted Jul 15, 2008
I read that this list was leaked. Does anyone have a reference to the FDIC problem list of likely-to-fail banks?
in Back in business: IndyMac reopens Monday - CNN.com
Posted Jul 15, 2008
arkansan: what don't they get? that this goes too far for satire? that this will be damaging to obama because americans actually think obama is a terrorist or a muslim or something?
in Obama slams Muslim portrayal - Mike Allen - Politico.com
Posted Jul 15, 2008
"war of northern agression" my ass.
in i don't expect anyone but me to get this, but it's brilliant.
Posted Jul 15, 2008
colby: price will probably go *down* given the exchange rate. :-)
in Anheuser-Busch no longer American owned. What are we gonna sell next? Freedom?
Posted Jul 15, 2008
i guess i'm just not a radiohead fan. this song is seriously boring and that overwhelms the value of a gimmicky music video + gimmicky online release.
in Google -- Yes, Google -- Premiers Radiohead's 'House of Cards'
Posted Jul 10, 2008
i cannot, for the life of me, figure out why people watch golf on TV. at least when you play it you get to walk around and be frustrated. when you watch it on tv, you're just frustrated at home on the couch. (insert joke about teenagers dating here)
in Woods will become world's first billionaire athlete by 2010
Posted Jul 10, 2008
i guess i don't understand why it's a problem.
in Hairy hybrid: Half grizzly, half polar bear
Posted Jul 10, 2008
i thought this was going to be left-wing anti-mccain kookiness. instead i get a well-reasoned, sensible, intelligible legal argument why mccain just was not a natural born citizen and cannot be president legally. they even acknowledge that due to politics that an inelibible candidate might become president anyway, but that does not change the law. it's interesting to see the contradiction with lawrence tribe's opinion.
in Eleven Months and a Hundred Yards Short of Citizenship
Posted Jul 10, 2008
i was hoping to download this now that i missed it, but i can't find a good torrent. anyone?
in Click & Clack's As the Wrench Turns
Posted Jul 09, 2008
i must just be ignorant. i don't understand how any of this invalidates the 'no ex-post-facto law' part of the constitution.
in Senate Joins House in Caving to White House Immunity Demands
Posted Jul 07, 2008
oh, interesting. i did think that that was turned off a long time ago. it was a weird business model for sprint. i wonder how this dovetails with sprint's odd dalliance with 802.16 (wimax)
in Sprint Broadband Direct Goes Offline July 31 - Service you thought died long ago finally does...
Posted Jul 07, 2008
i have to admit that i am baffled by the whole "speculation driving prices" meme. it's incoherent on its face. speculators take contracts that have risk based on price moves. if they are right they make money. if they are wrong, they lose money. the provide valuable indicators of risk in the market. russ nelson did an excellent write-up of this issue years ago.
in Let's Tell the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Where to Go
Posted Jul 03, 2008
I have been running gentoox with mythtv on my xbox for a few years. i'm interested to see what i might do with this distro. the main issue is: i'd love to see this work on my xbox. probably not going to happen. :-(
in See what LinuxMCE can do for you.
Posted Jul 03, 2008
jessica: no. they sent out reports about it but they have not arrived yet. :-)
in Real Snail Mail
Posted Jul 03, 2008
or just for some?
in "We're sorry, this video is no longer available." YouTube error
Posted Jul 03, 2008
chuck: doesn't nvidia have closed source drivers? ati has been a bit crap but amd bought them and they recently announced a completely open source driver (no binary firmware anything) that they contracted suse (novell) to write for them. that's not available yet, but it is v. interesting.
in I hate Linux Graphics (Linux Hater's Blog)
Posted Jul 01, 2008
jessica: why does that make a difference? why did the guy have to go outside at all?
in Want to get away with shooting 2 people because you think they are doing something wrong?? Move to Texas!
Posted Jul 01, 2008
this is actually interesting. for those who don't read french: teleatlas and google entered into a 5 year deal that gives google the right to use the teleatlas geographic information, but licenses *back* to teleatlas the geographic modifications that googles users produce. google has been rapidly rolling out the ability of people to 'mark-up' maps with information about points of interest and with personal photos taken at various sites. now all of this will be licensed back to teleatlas. wikimaps are clearly the future. this centralized stuff is not tenable.
in Accord strat gique entre Google et TeleAtlas (TomTom)
Posted Jul 01, 2008
no soy borinquen, pero fui criado en puerto rico (de familia norteamericana y argentina)
in The Evolution of Fear
Posted Jul 01, 2008
the clinton camp have been ranting about conspiracies this whole primary season. it's so annoying.
in Google and the Anti-Obama Bloggers - New York Times
Posted Jul 01, 2008
what a bizarre and intriguing idea. now i want to see the documentary. baseball never really caught on outside of the US, japan and parts of the caribbean. it's interesting to think about why that is and whether baseball makes any sense at all in israel.
in Holy Land Hardball
Posted Jun 30, 2008
tornado lover: you still alive?
in When Tornadoes Attack: What a Tornado Taught Me About Our Stupid Obsession With Gadgets (And Why We Still Love Them)
Posted Jun 30, 2008
They went through 50 prototypes. This has got to be good.
in The Brown Corporation
Posted Jun 30, 2008
gothicnation79: what?!?! if you think that there really are women with teeth in their vaginas you may need to do a little bit more biology and anatomy reading. either that, or i'd like to see a reference cited to support your claim that this is real.
in Myth of 'Vagina Dentata' Becomes Horror Film
Posted Jun 30, 2008
i've never seen this before. at first glance it's beautiful and compelling.
in Mr. Fooster – Travelling on a Whim celebrates its launch at Art of Navigation in San Francisco!
Posted Jun 30, 2008
quebec's system is very different from the rest of canada's, chuck. overall, the canadian system works very well and *much* better than the US system. the quebequois system did, indeed, have a prohibition against all private health insurance that was struck down by the canadian supreme court last year. since then it has been getting better, too.
in Second Thoughts About Socialism
Posted Jun 28, 2008
things are going to be so great when we have no idea what valid domain names are. reminds me of the clownpenis.fart skit on saturday night live.
in New Rules Could Mean Hundreds of New Domains
Posted Jun 27, 2008
The evidence of the failures of the justice system seem to be adding up. When the republican governor of illinois pardoned all death row prisoners you know that the system itself is indefensible.
in Artificial brain predicts death-row executions
Posted Jun 27, 2008
yeah. dirty sanchez. that's what we all come to babbledog for.
in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Orgy : Sexual hypocrisy and the Internet.
Posted Jun 27, 2008
i think this is a terrible idea. it's going to make the internet dramatically more difficult to use for most users and increasee the power of google, as users give up completely on trying to remember domain names other than a select few.
in Internet overhaul wins approval
Posted Jun 27, 2008
this story about civet coffee makes the rounds every year or so. i'm not sure why it's such a compelling idea, but clearly it is.
in Weasel Coffee
Posted Jun 27, 2008
you're not a kindle or sony reader fan?
in Dual-Screen Ebook Developed, Navigates in Real Page-Turn Style [Ebooks]
Posted Jun 25, 2008
Laura Esquivel wrote a truly mediocre book a while ago called La ley del amor that included a CD of opera music. It wasn't just that the book was kind of bad. it was that the music was weirdly disconnected and irrelevant to the story. Also the music was opera, a genre of which I am not fond.
in Neal Stephenson's new book, Anathem, will come with a CD of music.
Posted Jun 25, 2008
intersting. i wonder why this "bump" from winning the primaries has taken so long to show up in the polling.
in Who Do You Believe: CW Or The Polls? Obama By 12 in The LA Times Poll
Posted Jun 25, 2008
We've been waiting for this to happen for some time. It's painfully obvious that the only reason for google to do the analytics product is that they wanted the http logs of all those sites. And this is probably only the first product that they're going to build with them.
in Google Sells Your Analytics Data (finally)
Posted Jun 25, 2008
heh. what is the connection between the segway and medical marijuana? i don't think i'd like to ride a segway stoned.
in NY Assembly Passes Medical Marijuana Bill
Posted Jun 25, 2008
totally worth watching. the cop one is the funnier of the two: "people are inherently stupid."
in Don't Talk To The Police
Posted Jun 24, 2008
chuck: anytime someone says that i'm thinking something through too hard, my reaction is usually that they're not thinking about it hard enough. :-) this is about art. and what's the basis for the art? a tag cloud. and what is a tag cloud? a really, really bad user interface design practice that is confusing and hard to use. the art is *designed* to evoke reactions based on the idea of tag clouds. so it is totally appropriate for amand and me to talk about our reactions to tag clouds.
in Cryptonomicon via tag cloud
Posted Jun 24, 2008
mabrown: the article fails to deliver. in the end they decide that the idea isn't that feasible at all.
in Victoria's Circuit: Harnessing the untapped power of breast motion
Posted Jun 23, 2008
did this guy go through with it? i read about this a while ago and never saw the end of the story.
in Markets in everything: lives for sale
Posted Jun 23, 2008
It's not that god was mad so he sent floods. It's that he is merciful so he sent volunteers and made the floods end. Clearly.
in Midwest Worshippers Hear Good News: River Cresting
Posted Jun 22, 2008
this is actually a nice writeup of citizenship laws in the context of another stupid internet rumor. the meta question is: 'are human beings just too stupid to use the internet?' since we seem to just believe any crap we read on it, it's possible that the memes have won. they have created a meme propagation facility without precedent and the truth doesn't matter any more. cable news is a joke compared to the internet's ability to spread lies.
in Native Son
Posted Jun 21, 2008
questions: 1) why would anyone buy any telco in this day and age?; 2) why would they do it in a *leveraged* transaction? 3) *especially* why would a teachers' pension fund buy a telco in a leveraged transaction; 4) in Canadia? that is all. :-)
in Canadian court lets pension fund buy Bell Canada
Posted Jun 21, 2008
what qualifies this as "odd news"? this probably happens 5000x per day across the US.
in Ex-cook pleads guilty to putting hair in steak (AP)
Posted Jun 21, 2008
Interesting history of the andre the giant and obey giant art phenomena of the 90s. And it's also a really well done documentation of what looks like an obvious case of plagerism.
in Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey
Posted Jun 20, 2008
yeah, i'm not sure. in particular, the thing that people *really* use flash for is streaming video (youtube, et. al.). i don't see how srpoutcore does that. http://vaughanknight.com/blog/2008/06/sproutcore-vs-silverlight-vs-f.html even says "Sproutcore might have some shiny features out of the box, but true open standards are already being offered in many forms, including Google's GWT. How one would do video streaming via Javascript starts to hurt my brain."
in Apple looks to SproutCore to kill Flash
Posted Jun 20, 2008
What do babbledoggers say? Do y'all care if we drop support for IE6?
in Movement in the death of old browsers and IE 6
Posted Jun 20, 2008
is this the third sign of the coming apocalypse?
in Cubs, White Sox putting Chicago on top
Posted Jun 20, 2008
I just finished listening to the audiobook of Oscar Wao. It was, quite possibly, the best book i've ever read. It has a particular and hilarious mix of "modern decent literature", latino magical realism, sci fi themes, historial fiction, and modern urban experience. I hear that even non-spanish speakers have loved it, in spite of how much spanish is in the book. Also notable: i believe this book will be the definitve historical novel on the subject of trujillo, the infamous dictator of the dominican republic. and on that subject, the novel is devastating.
in Authors@Google: Junot Díaz
Posted Jun 20, 2008
arkansan: that may be where we diverge. i thought that one was funny, too :-). but i have family from the southern midwest and south ('bama, arkansas, the state of misery, KY) so i guess i would find it funny. they're probably all cousins. :-)
in 6th foot found on B.C. south coast
Posted Jun 20, 2008
the answer of the article: "it depends". shocking. i should really go into the personal financial advice business. i think i could do a really nice job.
in Should You Pay Off Your Mortgage Before You Retire?
Posted Jun 20, 2008
I love the related link: "should you pay off your mortgage before you retire." mostly babbledog has really good related links, but sometimes they are hilariously bad. was it the "off" (as in the foot was cut off, the mortgage was paid off ?) i supposed we'll never know.
in The Canadian Severed Foot Mystery
Posted Jun 20, 2008
that's a funny typo. :-)
in Mother pleads not guilty in cyber-bullying suicide test case
Posted Jun 19, 2008
I found absolutely nothing new in this piece.
in A little bit of Google's secret sauce
Posted Jun 19, 2008
Nice to see a picture of what the cars actually look like. It's funny they're using a prius in this case.
in Google Street View Car Stopped By Police
Posted Jun 19, 2008
neat idea, Ren.
in Carnegie Mellon system estimates geographic location of photos
Posted Jun 19, 2008
ac: problem with what? i don't have a problem at all. i was just curious. i know almost nothing about archicad and am surprised to constantly see so many people finding this post.
in ArchiCAD 12 - Sneak Preview
Posted Jun 18, 2008
i predict this will be a very short-lived cause. What more is there to say? stinkhorns are scary, stinky things.
in No Stinkhorns
Posted Jun 18, 2008
this has a very chuck norris feel about it. i'm looking forward to what else people can do with it.
in Rumors the Obama campaign shouldn't try to correct.
Posted Jun 18, 2008
I don't really know why i think it is awesome. I just do. Sulu is gay and getting married. I feel really good about the way that things are going in this respect in the US. I will admit now that I *totally* underestimated the importance of legalizing gay marriage. I thought it was kind of dumb and I was totally wrong.
in Sulu to Marry His Boyfriend
Posted Jun 18, 2008
Ummm. Ummm. OK. You have now reached the end of the Internet. There's nothing more to see here.
in Little Girl Defines YouTube
Posted Jun 18, 2008
this is fascinating. computer security people all deride security through obscurity, but they frequently ignore the fact that it works really, really well. it cannot save you against a concerted attacker, but it can prevent a concerted attacker from focusing on you in the first place.
in Security through obscurity
Posted Jun 18, 2008
i'm starting to think this makes sense, given some of the other names that have been floated.
in Why Obama should pick Hillary Clinton as veep
Posted Jun 18, 2008
race is more textured and more complicated on a global basis than one might expect.
in S Africa Chinese want black rights
Posted Jun 18, 2008
13 things i learned about reading american sports coverage: it's jingoistic. From the lead: "Europeans are weenies. The play of Gasol, Vujacic and Rachmoninov was softer than John Tomase's muffin tops. Collectively they played like the kind of worthless, slimy Eurotrash that only gets aggressive with drunken American tourist chicks. They showed all the willingness to help out defensively that their countries showed in Bosnia."
in 13 Things I Learned From the Celtics Championship
Posted Jun 18, 2008
chuck: you should take the badass recommendations system from babbledog and bolt it onto reddit.
in Reddit releases source code?
Posted Jun 18, 2008
I *hate* it when people get 1970s art deco confused with 1930s art deco. It's just such a classless mistake to make.
in Mark Simonson notes that the period typography in the Indiana Jones...
Posted Jun 18, 2008
Only unedited mail headers will suffice. This is clearly just another instance of the Obama campaign exagerating his credentials. Now we're supposed to believe that he is some kind of a computer genius, too? Sending email by himself without help in the middle of the night. Come on! It's just not credible.
in Barack Obama Can Use a Computer
Posted Jun 18, 2008
Gore is just the guy to say "elections matter". :-)
in In Endorsing Obama, Gore Says, "Elections Matter"
Posted Jun 17, 2008
Quoting wikipedia: "In October 2002, Hagel voted in favor of authorizing the use of military force against Iraq."
in And Obama's veep is ... a Republican?
Posted Jun 17, 2008
nice. classy. seriously, though, it will be interesting to see if the obama camp has the kind of manipulative, devious, backstabbingness that seems to be required for modern politics. the clintons certainly do.
in Obama hires Patti Solis Doyle
Posted Jun 17, 2008
and the complaint is that he should have wanted to be ordinary? i don't even understand what some of the complaints about politicians are these days.
in The Trains, The Trains
Posted Jun 17, 2008
hilarious.
in