Just after typing up some BS in a conversation with a friend, I decided to search for a phrase I’d used.
There are, however, no Google matches for “enhanced synergistic outcomes”.
That should change shortly.
Archive for the 'General' Category
I just updated a bunch of stuff on the Portfolio section of my site – check it out here.
Obviously there’s still a lot more to be added, but that should happen fairly soon.
I consider myself a reasonable kind of guy. Nonetheless, when I try to play a move in Scrabulous on Facebook, and I see this… well, I kind of lose it.
I mean, seriously? I don’t think randomness has failed me that much since I got a Super 7 ticket with 4 consecutive numbers.
Recently, it seems someone in Illinois was detained at a computer store for not showing their receipt on exit, as many stores want you to do. They were detained by the security personnel. They were smart enough to call the cops rather than blow up at the employees, and the cop who did arrive made sure they were let go.
Here’s the article I read at the Consumerist
What’s truly disheartening is not this ridiculous and illegal behaviour by the store, but some of the raging idiots in the comments. I don’t even know where to begin:
- The main issue is the forcible, illegal detainment. It’s, um, illegal, and is definitely one of those rights that is held sacred in the US
- Comparisons to movie theatres don’t count – when you show your ticket at the theatre, it’s to gain entry, not to leave
- Innocent until PROVEN guilty
- “Just show your papers and get on with it” is a dangerous attitude
- It’s not overly litigious is you were DETAINED AGAINST YOUR WILL. THAT’S ILLEGAL AND WRONG.
- Shoplifting prevention is not my job, it’s the store’s.
- As should be common sense by now, most stores cannot enforce a “you must show your receipt to leave” policy – you need to provide prior notice. Costco and Sam’s Club are exceptions, because they’re a club that requires you to sign an agreement before you leave.
I could go on, but I’d only get too angry. One person even went so far as to suggest that without showing your receipt, the store should be able to hold onto your purchases until you show it! Property laws be damned, I guess.
My biggest fear is that the people who advocate giving up rights because, in their mind, keeping them makes you “a dick”, can vote, reproduce and generally participate in society just like the rest of this. Worse, roughly half the comments on a site about looking out for the consumer are of this nature. I’m really scared about what the rest of the population has deluded themselves into thinking.
Three things have come of me reading this:
- Don’t expect me to show my receipt on the way out anymore
- I’m not doing business with the chain in question ever again (mostly because of this, partially because of the ineptitude of their retail employees)
- Best Buy is now in my good books. Several stories in the comments show the overzealous security employees being fired on the spot, with THE MANAGER calling the cops if they were belligerent, and apologizing profusely to the customers for the treatment (One door guy went so far as to push a guy carrying a big TV, causing the TV to break… not smart, considering the TV wound up coming out of his pay, and the guy he pushed was ex-Military. Spitting on him was especially stupid…)
I’ve just managed to finish reading the new Harry Potter book, before anyone could spoil the ending for me. I’m thus somewhat elated – last time, a drunken jerk who, for the sake of argument, we’ll call Geoff Fogden, let slip one of the larger plot twists of The Half-Blood Prince whilst we celebrated somethingorother at the former Casa di Turnbull. My downfall that time was waiting for my sisters to be done with our copy.
This did not occur this time, and as I said at that point, shall not happen again. Muhaha…
It seems that the tinfoil hats I’ve often felt would be our one last refuge against Big Brother may not be that useful after all:
On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study
Unless, of course, that’s just what they want us to think.
The cafeteria downstairs got this newfangled Coke C2 today, and being a man of science (applied science, but science nonetheless) I opted to try it out.
We begin by opening the cap, which is silver, and perhaps slightly translucent.
Hmmm… smell… like Coke, but slightly sweeter.
Dark in colour, of course. Quite cold, though this is likely not a result of the beverage formulation itself. Viscosity appears normal (though it occurs to me that testing such would probably have been better prior to opening)
And now, taste…
It tastes very similar to regular Coke, but I do detect a hint of aspartame. Nowhere near as offensive as Diet Coke. Drinking also feels less like dipping my tongue in strong HCl as regular Coke often does – decreasing the exam-time utility of C2. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that like Alberta, it’s almost flat, while being rather distinguishable from complete flattitude.
Overall, scientific rating: It don’t suck.
So I’m watching this TLC show “Clean Sweep”. For those of you fortunate to have never seen it, here’s how it breaks down:
- People who have far too much crap in their house get a team of carpenters, a designer and an organizer to come out to their house
- They take all the crap out of the rooms in question and put it on a tarp in the back yard
- While the designer and carpenters work on the rooms without input from the owners, the homeowners work with the organizer to sort the crap from the one tarp into a Sell tarp, a Toss tarp, and very small Keep tarp.
It should be noted that at this stage, the wife usually gets to keep many of her collectibles, dresses she will never wear again, crappy, ugly furniture her father made, etc. while the husband has to throw out half of his 2 lego sets that basically define his posessions. As a whole.
- In the final stage before The Reveal, there’s a garage sale. Just prior to the garage sale, one item that has great meaning to each person is chosen FROM THE KEEP PILE and whoever sells the most gets to keep their item.
Yes: Let’s just introduce marital strife by adding uncertainty to the Keep process.
- After all is said and done, the Wife usually sells the most, and is not very concillatory to the husband, who just lost a prized posession.
Should I ever find myself married, I think I’d rather divorce first than find out how little someone cares about me and my likes.
In an effort to provide a distraction from some recent controversy I’ve seen (I find myself more or less agreeing with Scoble btw), I’ve decided to focus on what, for most, is one of the happier parts of Christmas.
Here’s what I got (highlights only):
- Simpsons Clue from my brother and sister
- Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash from my other sister
- Leatherman Squirt, MCP750A CompactPCI computer board (hey, I asked for it) and a drill from my parents
- Mini fridge for my room from Santa
And, thanks to generous contributions to the Omigod-My-Computer-SuxX0rz! fund (I really do love my grandparents), I’ve upgraded my computer. Massively.
The old:
- Celeron 466
- Asus P299 motherboard
- 2×128MB PC100 (running at PC66 thanks to the craptacular Celery proc)
- Maxtor 120GB HD (recent upgrade)
- ATI All-In-Wonder 128 32MB (first card with the Rage Theatre chip)
- Pioneer slot-load DVD from 1999
- Lite-On 12×10×32 CD burner
- SoundBlaster Live 5.1 OEM
The new:
- Athlon XP 2500+ Barton Core
- Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard (sound, dual LAN, IEEE1394, 6x USB2, SATA on board)
- 512 MB DDR400 Corsair Value RAM
- Same HDD
- Sapphire Radeon 9200 128MB (hey, I had a budget)
- Same Optical drives
- WinTV PCI TV Tuner (IBM OEM package)
Total cost was a little over $600 – I kept the old (nicely modded) case. It absolutely SCREAMS now!
Planned upgrades / related purchases for summer:
- Flat panel display. Prices are coming down, and as nice as my Nokia 17” Trinitron FD is, it’s pretty damned big.
- New video card. New GPUs are coming out this spring, so the current high end should get cheaper Real Soon Now
- New TV tuner. The one in there is somewhat cheap, and the audio quality (mono only!) sucks.
- DVD burner. The 5-year-old Pioneer drive, bless it, is dying and needs to be retired. 8x burners should be reasonably priced this summer
- Digital Camera. Ours is basically dead (no matter what my dad thinks) so I’ll need one (at least 2MP, with optical zoon)
- New MP3 player. Maybe. My Compaq PA-1 has taken quite a beating and is still ticking, but I don’t know for how much longer. Flash player of course – with the number of times I’d drop it, I’d be lucky if an iPod or similarly HD-equipped unit lasted more than an hour after being unpacked.
- New cellphone. My Panasonic TX-210 is going through antennae rather quick, and more importantly, I’m starting to get funny looks for having what feels like the oldest, least featured phone in the faculty. This one is not likely, but possible.
That’s about it. Figure $600 for the screen, $150 for the video card, $100 for the tuner, $150 for the burner, $250 for the camera, $100 for the MP3 player… and you have me needing a job to cover $1500 in technology upgrades and tuition and possibly actually moving into a house near campus next year. I think I’ll send out a couple resumes tomorrow…