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Humble Pie my ass
[reply]
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03/31/04 04:02 PM EST
posted by JER email web |
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A few weeks ago I remarked that the cover of TIME magazine had a blatant typo, "Just Deserts For Martha". I'd thought "dessert" was the word they'd meant to use, but the American Heritage Dictionary says otherwise. TIME has a very smug response to the 550 readers who wrote to the magazine pointing out the typo:
"We answer all these criticisms with some satisfaction, defending our correct use of the noun desert, which, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is "Something that is deserved or merited, especially as a punishment. Often used in the plural." Humble pie, anyone?"
I answer all this smugness with some immaturity: Suck my balls, TIME letter department, suck my balls. |
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Better than Air Bud and Air Bud II
[reply]
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03/31/04 01:39 PM EST
posted by JER email web |
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| Air America is here. |
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Finally I can get that copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader 2.0!
[reply]
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03/29/04 07:50 PM EST
posted by JER email web |
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| Kazaa Lite is a pretty cool application, but don't you think that OldVersion.com would have all the crappy old versions of Netscape & IE? I guess Kazaa doesn't have the legal muscle of Microsoft or AOL. |
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"Broadband for some, miniature American flags for others..."
[reply]
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03/29/04 05:44 AM EST
posted by JER email web |
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George W. Bush wants broadband internet access available to everyone by 2007. This seems like a bad move for the Republican party, though -- spreading broadband access would mean that the inventor of the internet would make a lot of money from all of his internet stock...
In a related story, John Kerry said that while he's not opposed to broadband, it's important to remember that he served in Vietnam. |
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Et tu, Jody?
[reply]
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03/28/04 09:42 AM EST
posted by JER email web |
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| Jody Gerut's weblog has a new post about the MLB steroid policy and how we should all just give it a chance to work before getting so worked up. I understand his fear of being woken up for a random drug test at 4 AM while on vacation in Mexico (seriously, read the post) but how realistic is this REALLY? And even if they DID do that, isn't it worth a few minor inconveniences to protect the integrity of the sport? |
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What Happens in Reno
[reply]
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03/27/04 03:30 PM EST
posted by JER email web |
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| Renew 911! has been renewed for a 2nd season! The press release is pretty old, but I hadn't seen a new episode in so long I'd assumed the show was cancelled. |
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Please add a 0 for the Bull Ratings
[reply]
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03/26/04 10:59 AM EST
posted by jake |
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 .... the "Desert Island Bull" deserves it.
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Hey, How's Your News?
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03/26/04 09:27 AM EST
posted by jake |
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 Um... yeah. This is.... um.... yeah. Listen to the music.
The guys from South Park sponsor this? One word.... wow. |
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| The next CD you buy has to be Franz Ferdinand's new self-titled album. If you'v never heard of them, they're a bit like The Strokes except that not all of their songs sound alike. "Take Me Out" is one of the best songs I've heard in years... |
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Behind the Bull
[reply]
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03/25/04 06:14 AM EST
posted by JER email web |
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When I was putting together the "Hello My Future Girlfriend" mini-site last month, I did 5 different takes to try to get "the Bull voice" just right. I ended up going with Take #2. It probably sounds least like the real Bull, but it was my favorite.
Take #1 was messed up by fuzz, but here are the 4 other takes for you listening pleasure:
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Amazon wish lists give wonderful gift ideas
[reply] [4 comments]
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03/24/04 11:11 AM EST
posted by alex email |
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| Seems Bull has updated his site. It appears he is getting everyone ready for his birthday this June. Rumor has it that his third leg is throwing him a surprise birthday party. He doesn't want people to go through the awkwardness of not knowing what to get him, so he is giving us a hand. Check out Bull's site to see. |
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I love Southpark!!! Protect My Balls!!!
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03/24/04 10:33 AM EST
posted by alex email |
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Southpark was awesome, simply awesome this past week. Tonight's episode promises to be excellent as well, with Cartman attempting to compete against Jimmy in the Special Olympics. Cartman feels he can defeat Jimmy in athletics hands down, and will don a protective helmet and some horribly stereotypical mannerisms for the disabled to convince the judges he too is handicapped. Jimmy is ready to win at any cost, even with the use of performance enhancing steroids.
I just wanted to post a message here to point out that SouthParkStudios.com has posted the videos from the most recent episode. In my opinion, the latest episode was perhaps the best episode ever. The boys bought ninja weapons and turned into Anime versions of themselves. Check out the great music from the episode "Let's Fighting, Let's Fighting Love!" |
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I know what I'm getting you for Christmas
[reply]
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03/24/04 06:18 AM EST
posted by JER email web |
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Mike Newdow, the devoted atheist who is fighting to remove the words "Under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, has released a CD of original music to help promote his message (or cash in on his 15 minutes).
The songs are pretty great ("Establi-Rap" & "Old Religion Blues" are sure #1s) and according to the website, "Mike Newdow has composed, played, and sung songs about church-state separation for years." Finally, a bold new voice for a genre that has so deservedly been ignored... |
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If you haven't seen it yet, please give this article a read. To paraphrase, it is a Q&A session with a Cleveland PD (Plain Dealer) reporter about Dennis "The Crazy Man" Kucinich's never ending quest for the Maison Blanc (I call it that since, if elected, his Health Care platform would quickly begin our transformation to accepting all culture that is French). My favorite quote from the article is:
Reporter: But you're not in to get the nomination, to be president of the United States?
Candidate Crazy: I'm not going to answer your question in the way you posed it. What I am going to say is I acknowledge that Sen. Kerry has achieved the 2,162 delegates which are required to be able to be successful at the convention. I could count. . . . [But] I'm not declaring that it's over by any means. By any means.
I think it is hysterical that he does and says what he pleases when he pleases. I think he would not be a good president for our nation, but from the looks of it, it appears that we will get to see him every four years running for the democratic nomination from here until the election of the year 3000. I can just picture his head in a tank full of water on a galaxial televised debate:
George Bush the XXVIIth: Dennis Head, what is your stance on the interstellar tariff agreement that has been supporting our civilization as a whole since the black hole threat of 2650?
Dennis Kucinich's Head: Your question holds no merit and I shall ignore it as if it was never asked. Instead I will talk about the pudding pops I saw walking around in a dream I had last night. These pudding pops represent the people of our world and the people of our world believe you are out to destroy them, therefore I am the candidate of choice.
Well, for a little more funny reading, check out Dennis the Political Menace's Top 10 List from Late Night the other night. It is very funny, but what is even more funny is how possible it actually appears that his #1 is. Chew on that one folks.
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| Here's my new genius idea: Blog-A-Thon |
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New MiniSite ideas
[reply]
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03/23/04 07:19 AM EST
posted by JER email web |
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| The current mini-site (a bull-style "Hello My Future Girlfriend" spoof) still makes me laugh, but I'd like to put up something new. Any suggestions (preferably non-Bull related)? I want it to be a 1-2 page site w/ "hilarious" content. |
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So is the XML feed still broken for some of you guys? It looks ok to me.
And yes, I realize that if your feed is broken you may not be able to read this message... |
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I had a series of 6-10 long integers and wanted a simple, inline command to calculate the minimum value. I assumed Math.Min() would allow me to pass 2 to n values, but it only seems to accept 2 values. If any of you knows of a preferred .NET Framework way to do this, please post let me know. If not, the following code allows you to pass 0 to n values and calculates the minimum value.
public long GetMinimum(params long[] series){
long minValue = long.MaxValue;
foreach(long i in series){
if(i < minValue){
minValue = i;
}
}
return minValue;
}
My method can be called like so:
GetMinimum(3, 2000, 9482248);
GetMinimum(13);
GetMinimum(); //This should return long.MaxValue |
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Are the Indans turing into "Major League"?
[reply] [3 comments]
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03/22/04 08:26 AM EST
posted by alex email |
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So I was looking around ESPN.com and Indians.com, getting ready for the 2004 MLB season and I started to notice something. I barely know anyone on the Tribe's staff. Sure I live in DC now and can't keep the same day to day tabs on my team, but what happened to the mid 90's when the team was going to be dominant year in and year out? I've gotta believe here, they are my team, but the years of previous mediocrity and crappity that preceded them make me scared for the future of our team. It just feels a lot like the way watching the movie Major League feels. You keep seeing these new faces, all of which you will hardly recognize now or ever because most will never amount to anything unless a fluke occurs or some ex-con pitcher comes out of the woodwork and starts throwing cheddar once he gets some badass Drew Carey glasses. I have hope that the Indians are this year’s Dark Horse, as in if a few other teams in the division implode, this could be a fun year, but just as easily as they won 11 of their first 12 in 2002, but ended up just ahead of Detroit, it could be a bad bad year. I guess we will know once we get to May.
On a related note, I saw that the Tribe renewed the contract of Jody Guret, the all singing all dancing rookie from 2003. This got me excited, Jody went to school in Stanford and led the Indians in Home Runs during the 03 season. He was 4th in ROY voting, and he has a lot of potential to develop as a player as years go by. Why was I excited, because he has something that so many major leaguers lack, no matter how much raw talent the other players have, he has a lot of intelligence. My excitement soon waned when I saw the details of the contract. Now, why is it that a rookie player, making the league minimum of 300K, who is very smart and has a lot of potential, would get a contract renewal of only 1 year for a slight raise from a club that is rebuilding? Especially when the player was interested in a multiyear deal?!?! You would think that they would at least give him a few year deal, begin building their core or add him to their core. I see this as more of a deal to keep the talent around long enough to let them get noticed by a team that will deal for them in the big dollars, give the tribe 1 scrub old dude who is well past his prime, and 2 2nd round picks for the 2009 season. Then year after year the Indians suck while they deal away any potentially quality young guys to build around. The fact that you can make more money by having a poor to mediocre team in a good market, than you can if you are fielding a winning team year after year, makes it a sad situation for the Cleveland Indians fan. Hopefully we will see a resurgence of the glory days of Indians baseball, but I won’t be holding my breath. |
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"I support your right to discriminate against me..."
[reply] [2 comments]
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03/20/04 09:26 PM EST
posted by JER email web |
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The PC police are pretty silly sometimes, but why in the #*$&$ would the Gay & Lesbian Alliance support 50 Cent after he admitted he refers "to gay people as faggots, as homos. It could be disrespectful, but that's the facts." (read all about it).
Not only did GLAAD applaud his "honesty," but their sunshiny reaction to his homophobia seems to be based on the assumption that he's just a dumb street thug. If Rush Limbaugh said "faggot," it would be a big deal because he's a rich, white intellectual who ought to know better. But 50 Cent is just a rich, black hood from the streets....
Too many words describe GLAAD's reaction (condescending, racist, insulting, hypocritcal) to list here. |
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| No money? No job? Don't worry, you'll always have your imaginary girlfriend... |
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Rumsfeld Hosts No-Holds-Barred Martial Arts Tournament At Remote Island Fortress
[reply]
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03/19/04 08:29 AM EST
posted by jake |
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From The Onion...
Rumsfeld Hosts No-Holds-Barred Martial Arts Tournament At Remote Island Fortress:
"Warriors of the world, hear me," said Rumsfeld, seated on the onyx throne overlooking the fighting arena at the island's central volcano, surrounded by a phalanx of exotic but murderous beauties and his seven-foot-tall guard Omarra. "I declare the Eagle Fist all-styles, hand-to-hand combat world championship open once more. For the next 10 days, the world's mightiest fighters will come together here at Fang Island to compete for a prize of $1 million and the post of Associate Secretary Of Full-Contact Defense!"
Rumsfeld then declared the tournament open by symbolically shattering a block of obsidian with his prosthetic dragon's claw—the powerful weapon grafted onto his right wrist after 2003 champion Li severed his hand with manji butterfly swords.
"Who can deny that conflict is a purifying flame which sears away cowardice, hesitation, sentiment—all that which is unworthy in Man?" Rumsfeld said, stroking his albino cheetah. "And my fighting arena is the crucible which concentrates that fire into the refined white heat of invincibility. The victor of my Eagle Fist Tournament shall be, by nature and definition, unsurpassed in the ways of the warrior. Such a fighter is fit to be the instrument of Rumsfeld."
Above: Rumsfeld's Fang Island headquarters.
The defense secretary then described the plan for the tournament—a single-elimination series of bouts in which two fighters, matched by drawn lots, will remain locked in combat until one is physically unable to continue. Once the round concludes, the victor will be given a night and day to rest before the next match. At no time will a fighter be free to roam Fang Island's sealed areas.
"I do not forget last year's incident with Li," Rumsfeld said, fingering the jagged scar on his neck that he received in an ambush last year. "He was an enemy of freedom, and he dishonored us with his treachery. I regret that I was only able to give him a scar to match mine, and not the death he so richly deserved. Though he escaped in cowardice, he cannot hide forever."
According to Rumsfeld, the finest students of every martial philosophy traveled from around the globe to take part in the tournament. While some come only to pursue the honor of the title of King Of Eagle Fist, others see the event as a chance to pursue shadowy motives of personal gain, ambition, and revenge.
"I'm six months worth of gambling debt in the hole with the L.A. Syndicate,'" said Steele Saxon, 33, a blond, powerfully built seventh-degree black belt from Los Angeles. "Guy says to me, 'Hey, pal, it's the dough or we break something. Rumsfeld's got the dough if I've got the muscle. You just watch. Together, we've got the juice to put those Syndicate types in the rear-view mirror of history."
"Man, they ain't seen unorthodox-but-effective until they seen me," said the languid Jack "Chocolate Lightning" Garrison, the two-time East Coast Freestyle Kung-Fu champion once described by SuckaPunch magazine as "six feet of stone-cold brotha and 10 inches of afro barely contained in a fly lemon-yellow jumpsuit."
"I won't waste my time with defeat," Garrison added. "I'll be too busy looking good."
The biggest X-factor in this year's Eagle Fist may be the mysterious masked and hooded Nameless One, a fighter of feline grace who practices "the technique of no-technique."
Above: Sun Chang (right) fights Ebony Avalanche for Rumsfeld's amusement.
"I do not think—I feel," the Nameless One said, a sliver of light illuminating only his smoldering eyes. "The technique of your opponent is like a finger pointing at the moon. Concentrate on the finger, and you will miss all that heavenly glory. That is the secret, to fight without fighting. At the last, Rumsfeld shall know what I know. I will share my victory with this... Don."
The Eagle Fist Tournament has come under fire from critics in America who characterize the fortress, purchased at taxpayers' expense, as a grandstanding ploy to divert attention from Iraq and the stalled war on terrorism.
"What exactly is this meant to achieve?" reporter James Snyder asked, hours before he disappeared from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram building. "Why does the Department of Defense need to determine who the world's premier open-hand fighter is and then retain his or her services for the next year? And why did Rumsfeld have the Guantánamo Bay prisoners chained and placed in the labyrinthine caverns below Fang Island? And how on earth does 'conflict sear away cowardice'? Patriot Act or no, we have a right to some answers."
Rumsfeld, wandering among his collection of antique torture implements and feeding candied figs to his golden langur, said he remains unmoved.
"See here," Rumsfeld said, indicating a gold-encrusted Minoan iron maiden. "It is difficult to associate horrors with the proud civilizations that created them: Sparta, Rome, the knights of Europe, the Samurai. They worshipped strength, because strength is the fundament for all other values. I shall find the strongest of all, and together, we shall shake the world to its very foundations." |
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Worst Bull Ever
[reply]
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03/18/04 02:47 PM EST
posted by JER email web |
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I would have thought Desert Island Bull would be the most hated Bull ever, but so far the drawing that consistently gets the worst reaction is Suicide Bull. Since I know at least a few of you want Bull dead, it begs the question: is it because he shot himself? Maybe "Hanging By His Neck In A F***ing Closet Bull" would be more popular?
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Dead end job? Hate your life? Why not rate a Bull today and turn that frown upside down! |
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Capturing/forcing a Timeout
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03/17/04 03:26 PM EST
posted by JER email web |
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I've been looking for a good way to force timeouts in .NET for a while and have a working solution that I consider "meh" at best. Does anyone know of a better way to do this other than the code below? Basically, I instantiate a new class that contains one void, parameterless method and launch the method in a new Thread. Any parameters that I would have passed are sent through the object's constructor. Likewise, any return values are properties that can be referenced after the method's Thread is stopped.
For demonstration purposes, imagine you want to call a third party API that is known to contain infinite loops, so its entirely possible that making a call to this API will cause your program to block forever when it makes the call to he third party code. The example below demonstrates my way of doing this. The third party method is called "GetStockTips(string myName)"
//MAIN block of code
string myName = "Jerry";
ClugeClass myCluge = new ClugeClass(myName);
System.Threading.Thread t = new System.Threading.Thread(new System.Threading.ThreadStart(m.GetData));
t.Start();
DateTime tStart = DateTime.Now;
//force timeout after 1 minute
while(t.ThreadState != System.Threading.ThreadState.Stopped && tStart > DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(-1)){
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(5000);
}
if(t.ThreadState != System.Threading.ThreadState.Stopped){
t.Abort();
throw new Exception("Third Party API method never returned");
}
string myResult = myCluge.Result;
//More code, yada yada....
//Define new class to handle third party API
private class ClugeClass{
private string someonesName;
private string result;
public ClugeClass(string name){
this.someonesName=name;
}
public void GetData(){
result = ThirdPartyAPIMethod(someonesName);
}
public string Result {
get { return result; }
}
}
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| But Shiny Donkey could still use a few more touches. There's an article that I just read about Track Backs, and they seem to hint that it's easy to add to your codebase, and has a good return on investment. |
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Has Bull moved to Maine and started working weekends again?
[reply] [2 comments]
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03/16/04 10:31 AM EST
posted by alex email |
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Man treated after attempting to nail himself to cross
Lt. Pierre Boucher said the man took two pieces of wood, nailed them together in the form of a cross and placed them on the floor. He attached a suicide sign to the wood and then proceeded to nail one of his hands to the makeshift cross using a 14-penny nail and a hammer.
"When he realized that he was unable to nail his other hand to the board, he called 911," Boucher said.
Seriously, this is by far the worst thought out suicide attempt I have ever seen. Lets say he was even able to nail his other hand to the cross, perhaps with his third leg, how would he have then stood the cross on end? Sure you are delusional and depressed, but let's not use that as an excuse for a truly pitiful attempt at your own crucifixion. |
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Bull Rating System
[reply]
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03/15/04 08:07 PM EST
posted by JER email web |
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| Muchas disculpas, but if you went to the Upcoming Bulls Page & tried to rate a Bull, you may have seen someone else's rating if they voted from the same IP. I've fixed the problem so that as long as you're logged in, you'll see your rating. This really only applies to people who work at the same office (Kearns & Samjeer) or live in the same house (Doug II & Alex). Sorry for the confusion, I'm well aware this is Kearns' favorite feature. |
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First we lose Al Gore, now Al Sharpton.
Mew. |
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| I went to read an article on the Washington Post's website and was asked to enter an e-mail address & password. I could just enter my own, but isn't there a known bogus login that slashdot-ers use? Anyone? |
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I was working on a Windows application last week which used a notify icon in the system tray. The icon worked as expected, but just wouldn't vanish after I closed my app (unless I moused over it). The only way I could get the notify icon to go away on its own was to set my main Form's visible property to "true" just before disposing of the notify icon the main window's Controls.
This "form1.Visible=true" approach works very consistently, but I have a hunch that there's a much better way to do this. I know Alex & Kearns have both overcome this issue in the past and would like to know if there is a "right" way to kill the notify icon. |
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The Passion of The Red Sox
[reply]
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03/15/04 06:52 AM EST
posted by JER email web |
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BREAKING NEWS:
Jesus of Nazareth returns from the dead, inks 4 year deal with Red Sox
Stunned Steinbrenner: "I guess the Yankees really are Satan's team..."
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You Got It, Dude!
[reply]
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03/15/04 06:37 AM EST
posted by JER email web |
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| Finally, a site for the rest of us. Danny, Unca Jesse & Unca Joey may have gone off the air years ago, but the disturbing memories live on (and on and on and on). |
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As if the loss of 200 lives in Spain weren't horrible enough, anger has shifted the vote just enough to put the Socialists in power over the weekend. And not anger at Al Qaeda or the ETA, but at the Spanish government for allying with the US and provoking their anger.
Hate the US government all you want, but the US didn't plant bombs on trains. Neither did the Spanish government. In fact, we don't even know who's responsible. But whoever did was clearly hoping to influence the elections and the public allowed murderers them to do so.
Those who take the position that "Al Qaeda's not my enemy" or "This is the US's problem" had a credible argument until last week. The day they attacked Spain, everything changed -- at least, that's how I would feel if the situation were reversed.
The instinct to take all their toys and go homeis a natural reaction, but all it does is make things worse. By showing that one can be intimidated, it encourages terrorists to try this again.
Who's next? |
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Well, well, well. I logged into SD.com today and saw a post with comments AND a subject. It's good to see that someone is taking an interest in their site.
Now...about Spy vs. Bull. I was expecting something more obviously Bull, but I can enjoy the subtle touches that nevertheless make it a Bull cartoon. Tastefully played Jerry, tastefully played. |
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Two Silly Billies
[reply]
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03/12/04 11:38 AM EST
posted by JER email web |
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| Bush vs. Kerry is supposed to be nasty, but so far its pretty silly, says Jonah Goldberg. |
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Terrorism + Honesty = Credibility....
The two really go hand in hand, however, Al Qeada has abused this fragile relationship and they have thus lost a good deal of credibility with me. You see, I WAS afraid of every time they would shake a long extremist finger our direction and say "America, you see, this bad stuff happened, you are next," but not really any more.
Last year, New York had their power outage. While the Gov said that terror networks were not involved, everyone had that sneaking feeling that maybe, just maybe, it was terror related. As a result, people had to be assured it wasn't. Well, Al Qeada took responsibility and when asked how they did it, they said "Oh, we can't tell you cause we might have to do it again in the future." Then it happened in California, and again they took credit. Now I just couldn't buy that but I was waiting for the report to come out that they were responsible in some way. Well it didn't. Not only did a report not come out blaming a terror network, a report did come out blaming Ohio's own First Energy. The same company that had a massive problem with a Nuclear Reactor in Toledo that caused a huge shut down. This tells me that most likely First Energy was to blame, mostly because they just suck.
Now the latest tragedy in Spain. 911 days and 2 1/2 years to the day since 9/11/01, and these massive bombs rip commuter trains. There was a van found with detonators and arabic tapes, and with all of this I just can't believe that it is Al Qeada related. Why you ask?
Because the same idiot group that claimed responsibility for the power outages last year is also claiming responsibility for this attack, and of course, saying "America you are next." The thing is, they even have a code name for this terror attack, they said they called it, "Operation Death Train" or something like that. To me that just sounds like a bunch of guys sitting around trying to claim responsibility and one says "But it has to have a code name" and the other is like "How about Operation Train Bomb", and the other is like "No no, that’s stupid" and then the next is like "ooh ooh, how about Deadly Train Operation" and after the next several minutes of stupidity they came up with the 7th grade level code name for their alleged terror attack.
I hope they find whoever did this and they are put to a timely end, however, I doubt it will be the morons who are actually attempting to claim responsibility. If I am proven wrong, then you got me. Al Qeada has officially cried wolf too many times to be taken seriously. I'm sorry, they suck.
I think this group should start a 1-800 number. Call it, 1-800-Al-Qeada, whenever anything happens, you can call them at this number. You can tell them what has just transpired and they can take responsibility for it. If you get into a car accident, have the police officer to call them. When you fail a test, have your teacher call. If you get your underage girlfriend pregnant, have her parents call. If you miss a deadline at work, have your boss call. No matter what, they will hear what has just transpired, and in some way, take responsibility for the sabotage or accident that had just occurred, no matter if it is related to them or now.
Al Qeada, you are officially on notice, you have lost all credibility with me. |
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Today, NPR's Morning Edition featured a representative for the Kerry campaign agonizing over how the Kerry team is struggling against the Conservative Media Juggernaut. According to her analysis, it's a three step process:
- The right-wingers start rumors online in weblogs & certain types of news sites (meaning DRUDGE).
- These wild allegations are then picked up by the conservative radio "Echo Chamber."
- From there, certain political roundtable shows (on FOX?) take these stories and the slander becomes part of the collective subconscious.
Aside from Drudge losing some credibility by alluding that Kerry had an affair, I can't recall a single instance of this ever happening. And the affair story gained momentum not because of a vast right-wing conspiracy, but because the media loves scandals and, if true, it would have reshaped the dialogue of the entire campaign. Kerry would have lost the nomination, so it was worth investigating. But it remains unproven and no one's talking about it any more.
It's worth mentioning that Bush didn't make any sassy comments about Kerry bopping interns, because it was just hearsay, yet Kerry is falling into Kucinich mode and grasping any possible rumor to use in his assault on Bush (AWOL on National Guard duty, Leaning on the CIA to exaggerate the Iraq threat, etc.). It's pretty shocking that Kerry's comments about "crooked" Republican "liars" is making so much news. The man has said much worse throughout the campaign and no one has batted an eyelash.
For the sake of argument, let's ignore common sense and assume that Kerry's representative is right, and there is a powerful movement built on a foundation of conservative bloggers. If so, one has to wonder why the horde of Deaniac bloggers or mega-rich online organizations like moveon.org are unable to fight back. If conservative bloggers & Drudge are working hard to destroy Kerry, surely their counterparts are doing the same to attack Bush. So what she's REALLY saying is that there is a drastic shortage of liberal radio (note the irony that she was making these comments on the radio). If it weren't for Limbaugh & O'Reilly, the playing field would be even. Conservatives would be unable to hurt her candidate from the safety of their powerful talk radio "Echo Chamber."
Air America, the all-liberal talk radio station, is launching March 31. So in light of all the whining, the launch of this station seems like good news for Republicans because one of two things will happen:
- The station will fail, proving there is no market for liberal talk. Liberals can no longer whine about not having unequal radio presence because there is no market for it.
- The station will succeed, giving voice to liberals on talk radio. Liberals can no longer whine about not having unequal radio presence because now they do.
Both options lead to less whining, which is great news for everyone. Option 2 assumes that the success of the station will have little or no impact on the political dialogue, which could be a bad assumption. But in light of the many, many liberal voices present in every other form of media, it seems reasonable to assume that any impact felt will be minor.
So less whining w/ few repercussions? Air America, I have three words for your liberal talk radio crusade:
Bring It On. |
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| In regard to the AP's Lincoln bedroom "story" that I mentioned yesterday, at least one liberal has it right. I hope to have the same non-partisan clarity when Kerry announces he "accidentally" hired a homeless man and hunted him for sport 2 years ago. |
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Teresa Heinz Kerry distributes "Asses of Evil" buttons to people? And this woman could be our first lady?
Mew... |
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The long anticipated liberal radio network, Air America, is coming soon. FINALLY, we have someone to take on Limbaugh, O'Reilly & FOX News...
[**RECORD SCRATCH NOISE**]
Wait... have these guys ever watched CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, etc.? Is FOX News so amazingly conservative that it overwhelms all these other channels combined?
That's cable, though -- maybe this is a radio thing. But isn't the reliably liberal NPR broadcast on the radio?? We have two feeds here in DC, so I'd say our market is plenty saturated with liberal talk.
There is one bright spot in all of this: Every day from 12 - 3 pm I'll be able to relax in my electric car, eating sprouts and vegan cheese, listening to The O'Franken Factor... |
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My new issue of TIME magazine came yesterday and there was a blatant, Journalism 101 typo on the front cover:
"JUST DESERTS FOR MARTHA?"
The other cover story was a feature on Iraq, so maybe the editors wanted to type "just [the] deserts [of Iraq] for Martha" but had to paraphrase for space considerations? |
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RSS Aggregation...
My RSS aggregation is rolled right into my homepage, and therefore did keep track of which I had read, and which I hadn't. But I didn't like the interface much, so now:
My RSS aggregation is still rolled right into my homepage, but emails me a copy of each item, I then read them right on my phone. |
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Here's a good article comparing the 3 crappy ways the .NET framework supports the concept of Timers. If you've never used them before, or have only used one approach, it's worth a look.
Having written primarily web-based applications, I hadn't realized how amazingly lame the Windows.Forms.Timer class is (it shares the same thread w/ the UI!!!). |
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John Kerry's network administrator or spokesman or something affiliated with the website is a complete idiot. This is in regards to the fact that John Kerry's website would return several pages when one would search for fuck or shit or cock. As a result, there has been a recent flurry of stupiditiy surrounding this item. The most recent quote I read was from http://thetrack.bostonherald.com/moreTrack/view.bg?articleid=437 and read:
"A spokesman for Kerry said he believed the Web site was struck by ``a virus'' yesterday. He then promised to get back to us with a better story, but never did."
Now, I consider myself computer literate and have never heard of a virus that can strike a website and place obscenities in news releases within quotes of presidential candidates where the presidential candidate actually did swear in the interview. If this is the case, well, virus makers have gone the way of Hollywood and we should be concerned that terminators are going to be coming to kill us all shortly. In other words, whoever made that comment about the virus has done a huge bit of damage to the Kerry campaign, affecting any computer literate person that reads this article who was going to vote for Kerry (so about 5 people). |
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Bull sent me a random e-mail pointing out that Enum has a bunch of really useful static methods.
They're really helpful if you want to list all the possible values of an Enum (Enum.GetValues(Type)), list all the available names of an Enum (Enum.GetNames(Type)) or convert a string value into its Enum value (Enum.Parse(Type, string)).
As you may be able to guess from the method signatures, the IL of these methods reveal that they're each doing something very similar to the Reflection (using Type) approach that I would normally take -- but the upside is that these methods have a much simpler syntax. You still have to wrap them in a try/catch to trap the errors, but this approach may seem more straightforward. Thanks to Bull for the info... |
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So Bush has been hosting friends at the White House & Camp David. And this is newsworthy because...?
Wasn't the big deal w/ Clinton that he was "renting out" the Lincoln bedroom to campaign contributors from China, people with whom he had no personal relationship other than as campaign contributors? And even that was a lame thing to use against Clinton, shady as it may have been. |
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| I'm currently writing an RSS Aggregator for Windows and am looking for any good ideas for functionality. Please send suggestions for things that your current aggregator does or that it should do to rss@shinydonkey.com. |
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 ... I never thought I'd weep for the loss of a punter, but Chris Gardocki has signed with the Steelers. For those who don't know, the Browns have pretty much been horrible & excruciating to watch for the past 4 years, but the one silver lining was that we had the best punter in the league (who we used about 60 times per game).
On the bright side, the last starter from the '99 Browns is gone (other than the soon-to-go Couch). So the future is a little brighter... |
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The DOW & NASDAQ are both in total freefall today amidst rumors that Nar may be going on a diet this week.
Zing! |
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But how is the frequency of the @Temp vs. the NewID() methods of randomness.
After pulling about 60,000 random numbers over a table of 60 rows, neither seems to be any less random than the other.
DECLARE @X int
SET @X = 0
WHILE (@X < 20000)
BEGIN
SET @X = @X + 1
EXEC INC
END
I have a big nasty spreadsheet where I've determined this, but no real way to push that up here, so an HTML view, the spreadsheet that I used, and a script to create the database that I used can be found on K34rnz.com |
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I posted a message on 03/03/04 saying that I'd found a new way to get a random row from tables that might be faster. Since I'd done no actual testing of this, I was met with scorn (and envy).
To answer my critics, I ran 1000 iterations of each approach and repeated this 6 times to insure that the runs were consistent.
| | @Temp TABLE approach | NewID() approach | | Run 1 | 12563 ms | 4596 ms | | Run 2 | 15406 ms | 2280 ms | | Run 3 | 12593 ms | 3076 ms | | Run 4 | 13970 ms | 2293 ms | | Run 5 | 12610 ms | 2170 ms | | Run 6 | 13250 ms | 2296 ms | | Avg. 1000 runs | 13399 ms | 2785 ms | | Avg. 1 run | 13.40 ms | 2.79 ms |
To get truly accurate numbers, these runs would have to be run repeatedly during various times of day with varying numbers of records in the main table. It's entirely possible that NewID() works great for less than 1000 rows, then starts to go south.
But these preliminary tests show that for now, using NewID() is probably the best option |
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| You can now rate Bulls more quickly and strategically with the new Insta-Bull rating system. Let me know if you experience any technical difficulties, especially those of you using non-Microsoft browsers. |
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The Browns have finalized a 4 year deal with QB Jeff Garcia. They continue to ignore their offensive line, but hopefully that's next on the list. Otherwise, those are going to be a painful 4 years for Garcia in Cleveland.
Weird donkey-related fact: Cleveland Indians' first baseman Travis Hafner is nicknamed "Pronk", which stands for "Half Project, Half Donkey." |
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Message edit function coming soon, but only for posts made in the last 30 minutes. Beyond that, it's in stone. I'd like to extend it, but must prevent the following scenario:
Alex posts: Bull sucks
Bull responds: I hate Alex
Alex edits his first message to make Bull look like a jerk: Bull is my best friend |
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| This site really needs an edit function. |
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OK. The J-Hole thing is weird, but ridonkulous is clearly a concept that many have come up with. Even when it's use first started propagating around Doceus, there were many examples of its use around the net.
But I'll see what Blina says when I hang out with her this weekend... |
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According to the Plain Dealer, The Browns have offered a 2 year deal to former San Fransisco 49ers quarterback Jeff Garcia.
Whether or not Garcia accepts the deal, it looks like the Tim Couch "era" is over. I always respected the way Couch conducted himself as a person and took his side 100% during the whole Holcomb debate. But for 2004, his departure would be good news for the Browns. |
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As if Tina Fey's use of "ridonkulous" on Saturday Night Live a few weeks ago wasn't bizarre enough, this past Saturday she called Jimmy Fallon a J-hole!!!!!
For those who are unaware, J-hole is a word I first used to insult my brother a few years ago, telling him the "J" stood for "Jeff." After I said it, he was laughing for about a week at what a poor excuse "J-hole" was for an insult (and rightly so). For some reason, I used the word a week later to jokingly insult someone else and it spread like wildfire amongst my co-workers.
So, with that background in mind, one of several things is happening:
- This is an amazing coincidence w/ no relation to my social circles. Like ridonkulous, it is conceivable that "J-hole" could have been "invented" by several people independently.
- Only a few degrees of separation exist between ex-workers of my old company and the writers at SNL, causing a slow bleed of bad jokes up to NYC.
- Alex has started dating Tina Fey and is spreading our lame lingo.
If this is the last time she references one of our bizarre words, I may settle on #1.
But I have a strange feeling that next week she'll be starting all of her words with "Bl" (e.g. "Goodnight and have a bleasant blomorrow") or she'll be making a bunch of inside jokes about Bull (e.g. "Bull's pretty cool but Ram is such a d*ck"). |
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I must apologize to Jerry. I made fun of his site the other day for not supporting Titles or Comments. While I'd still like to see titles on each of these, threaded comments can lead to all sorts of trouble. Witness my site: http://davidkearns.com/CommentView,guid,82811675-6c76-497d-93b7-6fbda646a6a2.aspx. People just take it over and write up dissertations regarding who-knows-what with no regard for the original post.
Of course the comments are a bit funny, so maybe comments are good after all. |
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 This image is from a Yahoo! Personals ad that I see all the time when I check my e-mail.
Now, this picture is so bizarre that I can only imagine they're targeting one of two markets. Either it's aimed at creepy curly-haired guys w/ bug eyes or beautiful women named Sylvia. My money is on #1. |
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Yes, NewID() returns a UUID, so it behaves differently than the temp table in terms of sorting.
I definitely haven't done any performance testing on it, I was just going by the "1 command is faster than 5 commands" assumption -- which could be completely dumb. Especially since having NewID() in a where clause is kinda like adding a function call for each row...
But if it is faster, this is another trick to add to the old T-SQL bag |
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