The social network?

Well, when Google+ launches I will be annoying you again live, from the comfort of my living room. 'bout time FB had a competitor.

~Nic

Google: I <3 you.

I've been an outspoken lover of Google for a long time. I easily saw past the "scandal" of collecting information when driving around for street view (just fucking google it). Their explanation made a shitload of sense, and they were recording APs they found for location information. S.L. at work is just a paranoid libertarian. I've blogged before about how I cautiously love Google, and their pushing of open source for the good of the internet community is in itself a good goal (and lucrative. One day I will explore the link between socialism, capitalism, mixed economies and the open source "movement".) But anyhow, I wanted to mention this a while ago and forgot:
Technology-Driven Philanthropy. It came up on NPR today, and that reminded me.

Oh, and,

~Nic

It won't be long now...

I give it a year tops. The republicans will be howling how the liberals never wanted gay people to get married, and the libs hate gays. On we march.

~Nic

"You may say that I’m a dreamer..."

Yeah, well fuck you.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the state's marriage equality bill hours after it passed the Republican-controlled Senate on Friday night, making it the sixth state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage.

I stand by my naive stance that we'll just keep chugging forward, "progressively". Of course, there will be setbacks. So what?

~Nic

**Edit: fixed a subjective quote.

The International Space Station

I just watched the ISS flyby.. from the NW. I've watched it many times. Every time I watch it it makes me smile a really big smile. I think to myself "WE did that". Not the "Nic and X" we (obviously I really had nothing to do with it), but the collective we. "There's so much more we can and will do". I remind myself of this every time I hear the Palins and Gingrichs talk. Keep your faith in god. I have faith in us.

~Nic

I know, I am not a real programmer anymore

So some of you may recall my diatribe regarding frameworks. I've done a full flop, and am completely behind Ruby on Rails (and jQuery). I love them. However, some of my reasons for not using them are starting to come true in my everyday experience with RoR: Every FUCKING time I upgrade, or change ANYthing on any of my servers that has to do with RoR, or Ruby in general EVERYTHING GETS ALL KINDS OF FUCKED UP! It's getting obnoxious.. I have hours into tracking down stupid shit problems that are NOT documented any-fucking-where. RoR 3.1 is coming out, with some anticipated (at least for me) changes. I went to install the "edge" version (beta of 3.1), and I couldn't even get it off the ground, so I reverted back, but I had reverted back to 3.09 (coming from 3.03) and that got all kinds of fucked up, but not because I installed the 3.1rc gem, but because my 3.03 shit wanted to install mysql2 v 0.3.x which is apparently not compatible with any RoR v3.x.. so TWO FUCKING HOURS LATER, after finally reverting back to 3.03, and THAT NOT WORKING EITHER, I canned the entire fucking install, re-installed.. and NOTHING! FUCK YOU ROR! And then I solved it.. a workaround I was using for 3.03 was fucking fixed when some gem got updated, and removing that workaround allowed 3.03 AND 3.09 to work. Apparently I won't need mysql2 anymore with 3.1, but I wouldn't know that from my SHIT experience today.

BUT for every hour I spend tracking down these OBNOXIOUS problems, I save 5 in raw development time. Tradeoffs. Sorry for the long drawn out shit that you don't care about. This is really just so I have a record of what I did when I end up having to do it again.

~Nic

Failin' with Palin 2.0

So Bristol's "memoir" came out yesterday. I have no desire to read it, but I had to do a little bit of research to pacify my curiosity of what in the fuck that person could possibly write about. Well, of course, denial, victim-hood, and other staples of the conservative American:

Bristol starts off her story with the night her virginity was "stolen" by Johnston, saying she had succumbed for the first time in her life to the "woozy charms" of wine coolers while on a camping trip with friends. She woke up the following morning next to Johnston's empty sleeping bag in a tent and found out that the two had slept together–an event, she writes, she couldn't recall.

OK - a few things I have to point out here: wine coolers don't actually contain alcohol. They just piggyback the placebo effect. At least - the few times I've drank them, I couldn't even get a headache. Also, at that age I couldn't blackout if I tried, that apparently comes later. I was forced to remember, in vivid detail, every drunk-beyond-imagination stupidity I found myself doing. This -- Palin 2.0 -- is pure bullshit, and a dodge of responsibility. If it's true, it sounds like rape, but since the [nice young woman] already claimed she can't remember anything, she'd find herself hard-pressed to prove that she didn't actually say "fuck me please" the whole night.

Bristol writes, concluding that she immediately felt obligated to marry Johnston, a boy she had a crush on since the seventh grade.

Now, it's not my place to say this, but this is, after all, the internet; sounds like dude was set-up. ..just sayin'.

"Let's just say Track was an 'abstinence only' advocate when it came to his sisters, and he was ready to enforce that philosophy with his fists," Bristol writes, although she doesn't fully disclose what happened at Johnston's house.

The book describes Johnston as a disloyal boyfriend who had "occasional romps with other girls."

This family has no credibility. They stand for all the hypocrisy that is conservative America. No wonder they're stars -- 50% or so of the population sees themselves on TV, and riding across the country in a goddamn bus, only to bail when no one pays attention.

It'll be fun watching her/them self destruct in the coming years.

~Nic

Windows 8

Fuck. We're moving to cloud-only applications. Yeah, it will run legacy stuff, but for how long?

~Nic

"I'm only here to spread some fear"...

The Target workers in New York who voted yesterday to organize rejected unionization. No real surprise there, I've heard reports of mandated new-hire anti-union videos.  No surprise then:

The United and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500 says it's contesting the results and asking the federal government to order a new election. The union says Target management illegally threatened and intimidated the workers.

 This doesn't surprise me.  Target can easily deny this, and no doubt they will.  But we all know, their biggest fear, in the whole wide world, is paying their people "on the ground" a wage that can support at least a family of three.  I boycotted Target with the whole Emmer/PAC thing, and I will continue to (besides the cookies I bought for my class Thursday night at Target with the store's money.  I know I know).  But maybe all those made in China stickers will one day not make me think of 10 year olds at sewing machines slaving away for $5 a day or something.

~Nic

**EDIT

To keep the theme (and ignore nuance) from Orwell's Animal Farm:

"Mollie," she said, "I have something very serious to say to
you. This morning I saw you looking over the hedge that
divides Animal Farm from Foxwood. One of Mr. Pilkington's
men was standing on the other side of the hedge. And I was a
long way away, but I am almost certain I saw this; he was
talking to you and you were allowing him to stroke your
nose. What does that mean, Mollie?"

Goddamn startribune

Since the site overhaul, NONE of my comments get approved.. no swearing or anything! So I spent the time, I'll put them here. Links to some data included here, since I can.  I should have been keeping this shit bookmarked, it's hard to re-find the specific stuff I am thinking of when I post.

jrock612 "Because I'm the one stuck with the bill! I have to work harder and longer hours to support your family members. And do I get a thank you? No! They feel entitled."

Harder and longer hours than what?  Last year?  The year before?  State income taxes have gone down over the past decade.  This adds up to complete nonsense.. just like a lot of these other comments. 


kinghibernia "WOW!!! One out of every ten people in the State of Minnesota is receiving some type of government assistance!!! Is this correct? Thanks to the DFL majority that has controlled the House and Senate for the last previous forty years!!"

...Or for the "last previous forty years"  wages have stagnated (Adjusted for inflation, the lower income brackets are flat for a long time).

A quick look at cencus data for Minnesota tells us that 10.9% of Minnesotans live below the poverty line, which is $22,350 for a family of 4.  The 1 in 10 seems in line with income.  Interestingly, Texas, the land of the free, has 17.1% of it's population below the poverty level.

~Nic

Snowtocrh

Sorry I had to, I love it (Phideaux is fucking ROCK SOLID prog rock). I almost considered, tonight, a "drunk blog" (in the spirit of my drunk kitchen) something like "drunken redhead political bullshit".. I took it into serious consideration (I mean, drunk = stupid = awesome) but I suppose I'd like to find a job one day, so fuck that.

HELIX
Tell me, when the planet was formed
Was it easy to believe there was more
Were we learning to expand and explore
Did we weather the storm?
Or get lost in the dust of disturbance and cloud
Caught in the force of the shadow of doubt
Feel the helix alive, feel it inside
So tell me how to lose the regret
The glass sits more than half empty yet
Salvation in one last cigarette
I might want to forget
Or get lost in the rush of distraction and lust
Take one little step
To the end where you must
Everything depends on a moment of trust
Come and be seen
And you’re saved from the dust
So come now and let’s settle the debt
It’s a wager I don’t want to accept
I’ll keep looking, maybe this is a test
To get up from the sloth and face what I see
In for the kill that is coming for me
All it feeds on is pleasure
All it values is crass
It’s depraved beyond measure
But it’s top of the class
Every god is a letdown
All heroes are false
So there ends the lesson
It’s a hell of a course

~Nic

Thirsty?

Via: Pharyngula:

Click to view it larger.


~Nic

Xbox or Grandma?

Re AZ fires (On the bright side, our sunsets have been really drawn out and red lately)

But not everything fit, forcing them to make tough decisions. The Xbox made the cut, but family photos stayed behind.

From here

~Nic

Online poker breadwinners?

Families Face Dire Straits After Online Poker Shutdown WTF?  There is way too much wrong with that, and none of it involves criticism of gambling.  I am going back to bed.
~Nic

Don't know how I missed this..

"Some businesses like Broadway Liquor are fully insured."

OK, so then really - shut the fuck up dude.

~Nic

Poor poor broadway liquor

This guy is such a victim... not only of the people who have no respect for the family who single-handedly opened a liquor store.. in a city, but of the tornado which also had no respect.

Fuck this guy.  I keep seeing this victim asshole everywhere.  Meanwhile, there's people who've lost everything they own.  And no, I don't know anything about him other than that he's a whiny bitch.  Shit happens.  (Isn't that the mantra when it's NOT you?)  .. AND since you didn't bitch about the injustices of the insurance company, I am going to go ahead and assume that pretty much everything is going to be covered.

Fuck you dude.

~Nic

**EDIT I added a link, and a few other things, and removed captain victim's name.

So there I am..

For some reason I decided to go through the Minnesota Republican Party platform from 2010.. I went in looking for a laugh, so I wouldn't get too pissed off going through it.  It's worked pretty well so far (there's a lot to laugh about), and I am keeping at bay the realization that "it'd be funny if it wasn't the cause of so much idiocy," or something like that.  Anyhow.. a lot of shit caught my eye as being very stupid, or strange.  This one stood out:

We should continue to encourage the voluntary expression of religious beliefs and traditions of students. Specifically, educators who discuss creation science should be protected from disciplinary action and science standards should recognize that there is controversy pertaining to the theory of evolution.

 Lately I am on an anti-religion kick.  I suspect it will probably last for the rest of my life.. Anyhow: The only controversy about the "theory of evolution [by means of natural selection]" is that these (you?) people are too afraid of it to accept it.  If we've really been intelligently designed..well, someone's got a lot of 'splainin' to do.

~Nic