Rogue SUV’s
Apparently, SUV’s have now become sentient. An SUV almost hit a house here in Columbus. It was going 70 mph, and from the way the article is worded, it was doing so completely on its own: “the SUV was going at least 70 miles-per-hour before it stopped in the front yard.”
Here’s how it should be worded: “some dopey kids go on a joy ride and almost crash into a house.” Which…wait…why is this even a news story?
The rules of cricket
I’ve always been intrigued by the game of cricket. Baseball has its roots in cricket, but watching cricket matches always confuse and bewilder me. I found this guide to cricket from the perspective of an American baseball fan. It’s still a bit confusing, but I think if I watched a couple more matches, I would have a solid grip on the rules.
I guess what baffles me the most is that a complete game of cricket (a “test”) can take five 8-hour days to complete. Wow.
Opie and Anthony to CBS
It looks like CBS finally wised up and gave David Lee Roth the boot after an admirable, but doomed try. Opie, Anthony, and li’l Jimmy Norton will be featured on CBS and XM every morning for 3 hours doing a “clean” (as far as the FCC is concerned show), and then for 2 exclusive hours on XM (without FCC regulation).
This means that XM and Opie and Anthony will get huuuge exposure to the unwashed non-XM owning masses while still being able to feature naughty radio bits like the Pat O’Brien sex tapes (which they did weeks before Stern even tried) and God-knows-whatever-else that falls out of Jim Norton’s filthy mouth.
And the icing on the cake: they will be doing it in Howard’s old time slot, with probably most of Howard’s old listeners. Howard, meanwhile, is locked into Sirius with a burned bridge to CBS/Infinity, and about 10% of his old listener base now on board with Sirius. Howard has burned a lot of bridges with terrerstrial radio networks (Citadel, CBS/Infinity, NBC, Clear Channel, etc), so don’t look for him to make a similar move anytime in the near future. I’d say that about wraps it up for old Howard, and pretty much relegates Sirius to permanent #2 status.
Theaters: Part 2
Tycho from Penny Arcade seems to share at least a small measure of my disdain for theaters:
Ironic Movie Laugh Comic Store Owner and his choir of sycophants felt it absolutely necessary to detail their ignorance on every human topic and make observations that were no doubt “hilarious” to the throng. You … aren’t Joel, or Crow, or Tom Servo, you’re not even Mike. You’re not even Gypsy! All you are – breath heavy with synthetic butter, slick fingers slipping on the waxed cup – is the burning ruin of first-run cinema.
Agreed. My silent strike against theaters continues unabated.
Saved by the Bell?
Why did I watch this show so much? Adult Swim has been running classic Saved by the Bell episodes all week. Right now I’m watching the famous “pep pills” episode, which features the worst music video ever and Jessie’s drug freak-out.
This episode partially fueled my fear of caffeine pills which continues to this day. In my crazy mind, caffeine pills are equivalent to heroin. Thanks, Saved by the Bell!
Cock fighting
Cock-fighting is not illegal in New Mexico. I did not know that.
Some controversial topics were discussed, but the tone of the meeting was civil. There were questions and answers that often went back and forth between Richardson and the audience.
How is it we can have a civil debate on stupid cock-fighting but not about more important things like abortion and foreign policy and what not? I wonder if the cock-fighting industry has any lobbyists. Yes, hello, my name is Stan Perkins, I’m a lawyer, and I work for the National Poultry Combat Coalition. Nice to meet you Stan, I’m Tom Reynolds and I’m the director of the Chicken On Chicken Kombat Society.
The governor added the arguments for and against cock fighting have been strong on both sides.
I would really, really love to hear these “strong” arguments for cock-fighting. Seriously. How isn’t it an abhorrent abuse of animals? Would anyone really suffer all that much if cock-fighting was outlawed? If cock-fighting was outlawed, then only outlaws would have cock-fights? Are we training chickens to guard people and property or something?
Working at Microsoft: an inside look
This article from a former Microsoft employee pretty much confirms my views of Microsoft and large corporations in general.
Companies (countries, races, etc.) are not “evil” or “good”, and they do not have “intentions.” Star Trek is science fiction – there is no Borg mind. Companies, countries, races, and other groups are made up of individuals like you and me, who make individual decisions that determine the group’s direction. People who speak of companies (or countries, or races, or other groups) as being good or evil are at best ignorant, and at worst bigots.
I’m not saying corporations are infallible pillars of righteousness, but I think big companies get a bad wrap, mostly because they are the biggest and easiest targets. Even if you don’t share my views, the article is a very interesting inside perspective of Microsoft.
That’s rich
Chalk this one up in the “not gonna happen” category:
Then there were the unexpected comments of Griffey, who confided this week that, at the World Baseball Classic, he had told Roger Clemens how good the great pitcher would look in red; and talked hopefully of playing well enough in May to “put some pressure” on ownership to “get us over the hump.”
Clemens in Cincinnati? Only if he’s starting for the visiting team. The Reds have nowhere near the money it would take to pick up Clemens, even if he did want to play for a small market like Cincy. This one is about as likely as me tuning into the Al Franken radio show on purpose.
Full video and sound on the first PC
This is just a cool video of an 8088 running a demo featuring full motion video and sound. For those of you who don’t know what an 8088 is, it was the CPU featured on the very first IBM PC. At most it reached 10mhz with 640k of RAM. They came with CGA video, which was 4 colors in video mode, 16 colors in text mode. The only sound is an internal speaker which was typical used to make “beep” noises for errors.
This video is run on a stock 8088–nothing fancy. It doesn’t even look like it has a hard drive (the first PCs didn’t). The video is done in text mode, for maximum colors and (I assume) maximum drawing speed. This puts the video resolution somewhere around 80×25 with 16 colors.
Religious maps of the US
Here’s some very interesting maps of the US: religious maps. For each selected religion, the maps show a “heat map” based on the “total number of adherents” for that particular religion/denomination.
Some interesting notes:
- Michigan and the Michigan Upper Peninsula are very very different in terms of religion. This is apparently also true of Michigan culture in general
- The Baptist denomination dominates in the South, but is basically nonexistent elsewhere. This may seems obvious to a lot of people, but seeing the actual map is quite elucidating.
- Jews really are only in New York City and Florida–there also seems to be a significant dab of Judaism right here in Central Ohio, and Las Vegas for some reason
- Muslims look surprisingly spread out
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