The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Rant

Vitriolic Diatribes

  • Comcast Does not Like Us

    If it did, it would make our web browsing experience more usable, not less.

    For example, if you’re a corporation looking to steal browsing by unethically redirecting traffic to your own search page, you might use your monopoly of the cable network to force people to do so. Perhaps, for example, when they mistype a URL in the address bar.

    “Not so!” you exclaim. “Surely Comcast wouldn’t do such an annoying thing?”

    Alas, they are. Comcast is participating in DNS hijacking. Read about it here.

    I’ve found a way around it, though. The problem arises when you mistype a URL, not when you mistype key words. Those key words still get processed by your search provider of choice, in my case Google. However, if instead of typing “Best Blog EVAH” into your address bar, you type “eveileyebrow.com” (note the misspelling) you’ll get shoved to a Comcast Search engine (powered by Yahoo!) instead of Google.

    You can instead type in “eveileyebrow com” (note the lack of a “.” in the address) and google will handily sent you to the blog, or to the google search engine if it can’t find it. No Comcastic crap to worry about.

    For the record, this is a hack and not a solution. Typing in a long URL with spaces instead of dots will just get you to a search page rather than your actual URL

    I am not a fan of the Comcast right now. As evidenced by my twitter posting of a few minutes ago. When I’m dropping F-bombs on line, you know I really mean it.

  • On "Journalism" and "Science Education"

    This is a rant post.

    I “read” the cnn.com article today about the Alaska “Volcano” that might go “kablooie” soon. The second sentence “annoyed” the crap out of me.

    Why? Here’s the “quote”:

    The Alaska Volcano Observatory said in a statement Friday “volcanic tremor” has increased in “amplitude.”

    Why, oh why, do we have to quotate things like “volcanic tremor” and “amplitude”. Especially “volcanic tremor”. Shit, people. Everybody knows what a volcano is and everybody knows what a tremor is, and if they don’t they can bloody well figure it out from context! I’ll give them a bit of leeway for quotating “amplitude” but not much. We’re reading the science section on an internet website. If a person doesn’t know what “amplitude” means, they can google it. This is not 1899 anymore.

    Grrr. Seriously, those quotes say to me, “our readers are too dumb to know what these words mean. We better use quotes because we’re not using the words as a part of the science article, we’re quoting a really smart dude who knows way more than us.”

    If journalists want to write for the lowest common denominator, they need to read this first, and then start writing accordingly.

  • Reason Number 1032 that iTunes just Sucks

    I think iTunes is a piece of crap. My reasons are legion. One of the main ones is the sever use of DRM through the iTunes Store. There are ways around that, but it’s still a pain.

    Likewise, if you rip a disc to your hard drive and don’t change any settings, the album is imported in an Apple-proprietary format, the AAC format. This is only useful so long as you stay with apple products. Again, not a friendly thing. You can get around this by setting iTunes to import using MP3 format.

    But! Something I just learned. When you update the iTunes software, it automatically resets your setting back to AAC. So all those discs you’ve spent time ripping are in AAC rather than MP3, therefore entirely un-portable.

    Bite me, Apple, inc. Bite me, Steve Jobs. You guys are not nearly all that.

  • Why I Despair Sometimes for Technology

    I nearly shot Mozilla Thunderbird with my imaginary ray cannon this morning. This is why.

    I am a hip, with-it, capable-of-adapting, technology person. I am a beneficiary of a middle class American upbringing and a private engineering college education. I have self selected myself into a realm of (moderate) computer skills which assist me in carrying out my daily tasks, including this blog post.

    But sometimes, it feels like banging my head on a wall.

    I remember back in the day of MS-DOS 3.0 when I sat down with a manual and started playing the “what does this command do?” game. That was when I first learned about paths and command line interfaces. Every computer geek that I’ve ever been associated with has at one time or another spent days figuring out how to do something; a lot of learning is packed into that process. Undertaking a daunting computer task is a good way to learn all the ins and outs. I respect this method of learning and do it myself (although less these days) especially now that the web has provided a wealth of resources to help, literally at your finger tips.

    But again, sometimes computer problems are like pulling the nails off those tips.

    Case in point: I have recently switched from POP mail to IMAP mail for all my normal email communications. This allows me to a) access my messages wherever I go rather than having to wait ’til I get home and b) retain easy access to encrypted communications. I’m using Mozilla Thunderbird for various reasons, the trump of which was that it easily allows GnuPG through its extension of Enigmail. All good and simple. As long as you’re familiar with how to set up an email account on a mail program, Thunderbird will give you no issues.

    Unless, for some reason (say) you can’t send mail because Thunderbird insists on using your login ID as “nematode” rather than “nematode@roundworm.org”. It so happens that the “@roundworm.org” is a critical part of the login of your mail server and Thunderbird just won’t send it! You mess with the settings. You delete and reload the account. You pore over the server variables. You delete and reload the account again. You stare at the screen until your eyes bleed. You go three whole fucking weeks without being able to send email from this account.

    Then you notice the little scrolly bar on the left side of the account set up window.

    nematode

    Yes, ladies and gentleman, I agonized for three weeks because I couldn’t figure out that I should scroll down to the bottom where it helpfully says “Outgoing Server (SMTP)”. This is where all those settings I’d been looking for were hiding. This was the root of my despair. Why wasn’t this placed with all the other account settings? Why why why!?

    I’m a bit upset by this, as you can probably tell.

    Technology is a wonderful thing. Good design is also a wonderful thing. Good design isn’t just making things look good (and I praise Thunderbird for having a simple and attractive display), it’s about making things usable, and my wife will probably agree.

    I’ll be forwarding this comment to the Thunderbird developers. While not everyone probably has a horror story like this one, it’s the exceptions that create the largest amounts of grief.

  • Why We Don't Trust Mechanics

    My vehicle was making some distressing new noises this week. They seemed to originate from the front end (front wheel drive) during acceleration and cornerning, which is not a good combination. I was thinking CV joint or axle. It turns out to be the right half axle, which is being replaced.

    However, when I called yesterday to make an appointment, the lady who took it asked me to summarize the symptoms, and I said, “Funny sounding vibration, in front.” She asked, “at highway speeds?” to which I responded, “Yes.”

    Fast forward to the call from the mechanic. They recommended a replacement axle, and a few other things which I know are problems (but am ignoring), plus they strongly recommended I rotate and balance the tires, to remove the “vibration at highway speeds.” The kicker here is that there is no vibration at highway speeds that is attributable to my tires. Furthermore, my tires were newly bought and balanced less than two months ago. I know they tacked this on as a silly way to milk my wallet with unecessary work. This does not make me happy, and I plan to tell them about it when I get there.

    Grr.

  • L.Ron Hubbard to the RESCUE!

    Did you know that L.Ron Hubbard (why the ‘L’? Can’t I call him Ronny Hubbard?) created the first and only technology that allows people to truly study? Neither did I. Did you know that things are so simple that it’s merely the addition of mass to the current level of sigificance that allows one to study?

    Students of any age can run into this barrier. Let us say that little Johnny is having an awful time at school with his arithmetic. You find out that he had an arithmetic problem that involved apples, but he never had any apples on his desk to count. Get him some apples and give each one of them a number. Now he has a number of apples in front of him – there is no longer a theoretical number of apples.

    Wow. But wait, there’s better yet.

    When one hits too steep a gradient in studying a subject, a sort of confusion or reelingness (a state of mental swaying or unsteadiness) results. This is the second barrier to study.

    I wonder if you need to clear the word reelingness? If you read the linked page for How To Clear A Word, you will see that it advocates having a dictionary by your side while studying. So far so good, but it also advocates Clearing (understanding by looking up in the dictionary until full meaning is attained) every word in the definition of the original word you don’t quite understand, ad infinitum. This could go on for quite some time for a mildy complicated word.

    L.Ron is such a dope. I really wish his brand of psychobabble “theology” would go away. Maybe if I send them some money, they’ll clear out my thetans.

  • Legalisms

    “What do you call 1,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea?”
    “A good start”

    “Why won’t sharks eat lawyers?”
    “Professional courtesy”

    “Why are there so many lawyers in the United States?”
    “Because St. Patrick rid Ireland of all the snakes”

    I received an email today with the following disclaimer. I’m sure you’ve all seen it, or something very similar to it.

    This e-mail and any attachments are confidential. If you receive this message in error or are not the intended recipient, you should not retain, distribute, disclose or use any of this information and you should destroy the e-mail and any attachments or copies.

    I’m probably violating some legal code outside of copyright by reprinting it here, but these disclamiers bug the crap out of me. If you are so silly as to send something confidential to the wrong person, that’s just too bad. It isn’t my problem outside of my obligation not to do anything illegal. You have violated your own rules, so deal with it. Hasn’t Enron, Scooter Libby, or Alberto Gonzales taught you to keep sensitive material out of emails?

    I’ve seen numerous examples of these disclamiers ranging from, “Please alert us if you received this in error,” to three-paragraph dissertations about consequences and state codes. If you have any particular favorites laying around, by all means, put them in the comments.

  • Fred Phelps and The Westboro Band of Shitheads

    The Westboro Baptist Church, led by Fred Phelps and famous for picketing military funerals (because the U.S. Military is a vast gay-love association), blaming the Columbia diaster on the United States’ support of homosexuals and abortion ,and blaming 9-11 on God’s punishment of the U.S., etc., will be attending the funerals of the students killed at Virginia Tech.

    This angers me to a degree that is very unlike me. I makes me want to drive to Blacksburgh with a hockey stick and beat that evil man within a inch of his life. However, that would be immoral, and illegal.

    I have a suggestion, though.

    About 1,000 counter protesters should show up whereever WBC arrives, surround them, hem them in (peacefully!) and not let them move for the entirety of the funerals. I don’t care if it’s 24 hours, they should be penned into one tiny spot and not allowed to leave without trying to cause physical harm to the couter-protesters. Let them sing their “God Hates Fags” songs while the families, students, faculty, and administrators attend to their grieving. We’ll keep the vicious haters away.

    Alerted by Pandagon via Pharyngula

  • Book Reviews redux

    19 book reviews on the 14th of January. 315 pages per book(taken from the Amazon.com statistics, which admittedly, contain blank pages and title pages, etc.) 5,984 pages in one day. I’m impressed, as always, by Ms. Harriet Klausner.

    Useless crap.

  • There Is No Hope…

    …as long as journalists use phrases like this: (from the NY Times)

    Referring to a new test rocket by Blue Origin (an experimental spaceflight company).

    When the company performed the first test launching on Nov. 13, it made no announcement.

    And that was it, pretty much, until last week, when the Blue Origin Web site (www.blueorigin.com) showed the first pictures and video of a gumdrop-shaped test craft, dubbed Goddard, rising from the West Texas launch site to 285 feet and then, eerily, returning gently to the pad.

    [emphasis added]

    Eerily? Why is it “eerie” to see something go up, then come down under control? Helicopters do it. Birds do it. Planes do it. Parachutes do it! Hell, the Russians have been doing it since the late 60’s!

    Blah blah blah. Here’s another good quote from this article:

    The Goddard has a science-fiction sleekness. Videos show the craft taking off and landing again with a loud whooshing sound.

    Science fiction sleekness? Whooshing sound?! Does anyone at the NY Times actually watch science fiction? Did they pay any attention to the moon race, because I’m not seeing any extraordinary features on this image. Blue Origins Rocket on its Lauch Pad in West Texas I agree that it’s sleek, but “science-fiction sleekness?” And don’t get me started on “whooshing sound.” That’s ridiculous.

    At least the article mentions that this craft looks similar to the DC-X which was a government funded project to develop an uncrewed single-stage-to-orbit vehicle. Probably because some of the same engineers working on the DC-X were hired by Blue Origins.

    When will space enthusiasts stop getting second tier columnists? Of course, John Schwartz of the NY Times has been covering space and technology for a while, but that does not excuse him for using such trite phrases as are in this article.