Monthly Archives: July 2008

Psystar: Forward Into the Death [Thursday Linkdome]

  • Psystar Fights Back
    I don’t envision any way Psystar can not lose this case Apple has brought against them. Also, is there someone backing Psystar financially in this matter who has some other motive? Hmm.
  • Hooray for Librarians

    I fully appreciate that you, and some of your friends, strongly disagree with its viewpoint. But if the library is doing its job, there are lots of books in our collection that people won’t agree with; there are certainly many that I object to. Library collections don’t imply endorsement; they imply access to the many different ideas of our culture, which is precisely our purpose in public life.

  • Packers float $20 million offer to keep Favre retired
    The Packers are fucking this up very, very royally, all because Ted Thompson is an arrogant douchenozzle. I expect many 4-12 seasons in the immediate future. Thanks, Ted.
  • Zimbabwe Dollars!
    Zimbabwe will revalue its currency tomorrow, exchanging Z$10 billion (with a B) for one. Their inflation rate is currently estimated at somewhere between ten and fifteen million (with an M) percent annually (10,000,000% for those who like to look at that in number form). They just introduced a Z$100 billion (with a B) note last week (currently worth $5.35) will not even allow you to buy a loaf of bread. Get them while they’re hot!

Rejoice and Be Gay

Massachusetts finally got its act together about something and repealed that law from 1913 that prohibited couples from marrying in the Commonwealth if their union would not be legal in their home state. (Though I gotta tell ya, I’m curious who those 36 assholes are who voted against.) This law was originally intended to prevent interracial couples from marrying here, which tells you a lot about the statue’s value. And mostly, it was pretty much forgotten about, just like all those other goofy laws like “no lady may walk her leashed moose on a street on tuesday mornings” or “it shall be illegal to dance without shoes in any yard not enclosed by a fence”, until The Gays were allowed to marry and Governor Crazypants decided this particular goofy law applied to them.

Technically, the law’s repeal is not official until Governor Patrick signs off on it, but he already said he wanted to so that seems like a no-brainer.

Let the Massachusetts economy flourish with the massive influx of wedded unigendered couples! Or something.

Friday Linkdome

Today in the Linkdome:

  • Rush take on themselves
    Behold as Rush attempt to play their own song “Tom Sawyer” in Rock Band… on expert!
  • Man Stole Miami-Dade Buses, Drove Them On Routes
    “Harris would take the buses from several Miami-Dade Transit bus depots in the county and drive the buses on their routes, picking up and dropping off passengers along the way. He would then return the buses at the end of the day. Police said he also didn’t steal any bus fare.” Someone should do this in Boston; at least then the buses would be running.
  • Yankees ban sunblock to fight terrorism
    I told you last year about my trip to Yankee Stadium and how the team’s management actually believes that they, a baseball team, are a legitimate terrorist target. Now they also think they’re an airport. Oh, they’ll also sell you one ounce of sunblock inside the stadium for $5 to replace the sunblock they just stole from you… just like the airport! Fuckers.
  • The Process: What if there were no stop signs and a major corporation was charged with inventing one?
    “The fire department kind of owns red so we’re going to have to lighten it up on the Pantone scale.”

Fannie Mae Bailout

Let it be known that the government bailing out Fannie Mae is utter bullshit. The employees and executives at Fannie Mae doctor their books and even then can’t run a business properly (someone gave out a lot more money in mortgages than they should have been). Other companies in their situation are left to crash and burn, but Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are deemed “too important” so the government gives them money pulled out of the Federal Reserve’s thin air, which will in turn increase inflation and reduce the value of the dollar even more, decimating our economy even more than it already has been. All this to benefit a bunch of rich assholes.

Philip Greenspun has a very nice post about this topic. Read it here.

In Roman times the employees of Fannie Mae would be decimated, i.e., they would draw lots and 90 percent of them would beat the unlucky 10 percent to death with clubs. What would be a modern equivalent? At the very least taxpayers should have the satisfaction of seeing the highest paid 100 Fannie Mae employees fired with two weeks of severance pay (it can’t be that hard to find replacements given that the current staff’s primary achievements have been accounting fraud and then insolvency).

In Wiener Veritas

The Wieners Circle, the hot dog stand around the corner from the hotel we stayed at in Chicago a few weeks ago, was apparently featured on the TV version of This American Life last year. Check it: clicky link

Ketchup

It’s been a little while, I know. I spent a weekend in Maine recording with my band, and I went on vacation in the Midwest to visit my family and knock four more Major League Baseball parks off my list, including Wrigley Field which it has been my dream to visit since I was about 6. There are a lot of pictures of these things on my flickr page.

Now that I’m back in Boston, it’s time to hunker down and study for my upcoming exam, and do other regular things. But I should be updating again. So I will soon.