When I saw an article stating that Metra isn’t renewing their contract for their bar vendor on their trains my first thought was, “Metra has a bar vendor?” But don’t worry apparently you will still be able to drink on the train. Who knew? Now I want to start commuting.
In fact the first major study done on them concluded that they are a hidden tax on drivers. Study after study shows that red light cameras cause an increase in accidents. So the tax is paid out to: city governments, auto body repair shops, and insurance companies. Interestingly the only body that generated studies that believed that red light cameras did any good were funded by the insurance companies which stand to profit from them. So they do not work.
Or do they….
Tin foil theory: the government in its infinite wisdom is trying to wean us off of automobiles as early as possible in anticipation of peak oil, and red light cameras are just another way of making car ownership more prohibitive. Ok, probably not, but I like it.
The Trib recently ran an excellent five part article on the zoning situation in Chicago. It is a bit long, containing way too many personal anecdotes for my preferences, but it does go into a good amount of detail on how the zoning process is supposed to work, and how it actually does work. Some of the Rogers Park bloggers show up in the final part. One of the most elucidating quotes from the entire series though, points out what I think the real problem with the zoning situation in Chicago is:
City officials in the Zoning and Planning Departments review proposals and issue recommendations before aldermen vote. That review involves determining if new construction would be an “intrusion” to the neighborhood.
But aldermen pay little heed. City staff objected to about 40 percent of the zoning changes that the council approved over the last three years, city records show.
If the city’s zoning department actually managed to form official objections to 40% of the zoning changes, but only 10 or so didn’t go though, there is a real problem in this city. We pay professionals to determine the proper city planning, but then they are simply ignored. If the aldermen are just going to have the final say, why do we even bother with the city planners in the first place? Save some money and get rid of the whole department.
XKCD once again comes to the rescue with a clear and concise explanation of the problem. First of all the company felt the need to change their name because the old one had been so tarnished. And they really expect us to trust them with our votes? And yes the analogy really is a good one. Something has gone horribly awry if a virus can get on your voting machine.
My wife and I have been laughing our behinds off at the Phelps “perfect human specimen” spots that NBC has been airing this past week. They talk about his (completely mutant) physique as if his mother decided that that is what he was going to look like. So when my wife ran across a similar account in Gawker this morning, she had to point it out to me. I took a quick look, and while the article itself isn’t particularly interesting, the comments are hilarious. A few of them are simply old Chuck Norris jokes rehashed, but there are a bunch of new ones in a similar vein. Including: “Michael Phelps is the new Chuck Norris… and Chuck Norris is OK with that.”
IANAL, IJLS: “Once again probability proves itself willing to sneak into the back alley and service Drama as would a copper piece harlot.”
I have GOT to remember that for the next time something breaks the odds in real life. Something with a 10% chance of happening is really unlikely something with a one in a million chance is a sure thing. Just awesome.
When Musharraf first took over in Pakistan I was pretty pleased with that particular change of government. Pakistan seemed to need a stronger hand than the existing government was able to provide. The problem with dictators though is that once they are in place they very seldom give up power. Given the fact that he already broke a number of promises to step down my opinion of him has gradually declined over the years. It appears that following the latest challenge to his power however, he stepped down as president which was his last piece of power in government. Pakistan is such a large diverse country there are no silver bullets to its problems and this certainly won’t fix everything, but hopefully it is a step in the right direction. Also, hopefully after so many years of working with Pakistan we have developed good working relationships with people and institutions besides Musharraf.
In any case, a nice little independence day present for Pakistan.
People often ask me computer questions. One question that I regularly get is “do I need to upgrade my computer?” I personally like to keep computers around for a while, and due to upgrades and whatnot probably hold on to them longer than others in my field. (Though perhaps about as long as non computer types.) Thus my general advice is that a computer should last for about 5 years. Do I eat my own dog food?
Classic II 1991, upgraded once with (10 MB RAM) and once (80 MB HD). (It still runs and has all the original packaging. Anyone want it?) That lasted for 4 years until I got my Power Mac 7500 in 1995. That was one of the most expandable (Mac) machines ever (ram twice, a graphics card, a processor upgrade, and probably something else that I am forgetting) and got me all the way to my first “real” programming job lasting 5 years. Although I did keep using it as a gaming, desktop, and server(!) machine for another three years. It was eventually replace by the Pismo in 2000. That was another awesome and expandable machine, but by this point my care and feeding of macs skills had improved, so it might not actually be all that expandable. In any case it holds a special place because it transitioned me from OS 9 to OS X, which was a beautiful thing. Also it let me surf in the living room which was a nice ability to have when working from home. In any case, it eventually got a little long in the tooth for doing some of the work I was doing (what do you mean you can’t do interactive SVG rendering development on a laptop??) and I got a Dual G5 tower in 2005. This machine (that I am writing on now) absolutely screams. And it still does. The graphics card is a bit out of date at this point, but less than you would think, and any apps that are vector unit aware will blow the pants off of anything else out there still. The main problem is that somewhere between there and now Apple decided to switch over to the crufty (but regularly upgraded) Intel chipset.
So what does all this introspection have to do with anything? Well two items really. First is makes me realize that I’ve only been using this desktop machine for well on three years, and I really have no right to get one of those laptops that I have been drooling over. The one problem is, I don’t have the ability to upgrade this machine like I should since the chipset changed over. No swapping out processors for me. (Ram and disk I could do though…)
The other item is that I am not as cool as I think I am about using older machines. Holy crap! He is using a 13 year old computer and asking advice on how to hook a network computer up to it! That is making me want to break out with the old 7500 and boot it up as a server again. I wonder if YDL is still around?
Nasa’s lander sampled water on Mars results from last week show. I forgot to post this earlier. While not unexpected, it is still exciting to get the confirmation that, yes, water is in the dirt. People are making more of this than they should of course, but it is an exciting first step. Some of the making more of it comes in the form of articles being published and retracted. The latest news appears to be that peroxide may have been found in the ground. If true that would put the kibosh on any possible life. It also appears to get them the 90 day extension that they need to finish running the suite of tests that they sent up there. I mean really, how many millions to get this thing there and they have a couple delays and you are going to skimp out on the extra 90 days they need? At least they got it.
It looks like NASA has at least two more major press conferences coming up though, so who know what the verified results will actually be?
It appears that the federal marshals shut down a fake diploma ring. I am personally excited about this because it should make a significant dent in my junk e-mail. But the article is great. They not only shut down the ring, they also have a list of 10,000 people who bought the fake degrees. I am personally hoping for a nice housecleaning coming the Chicago direction. Plenty of government jobs pay according to the degree you have. I could see lots of demand for fake degrees in our state, county and city governments.
Branson has finally unveiled the mothership for his new space flight venture. That in and of itself isn’t so exciting, especially given the state of the economy and where I believe we are headed in the near future, however the technologies being improved for this venture are potentially extremely valuable. The lightweight banded composites, and more efficient lifting designs will certainly be useful as fuel becomes more and more expensive.
I will be much more excited when they have the Space Ship 2 ready to go.
There was a recent attempt to repeal the Cook County tax hike. It failed of course (same people same time, not sure how they expected it to go through), but we got a great Stroger quote out of the deal: “Until this place falls apart, then I’ll step up and say ‘I screwed that up.’ Until then, I’m doing a damn good job.” There is a world of difference between “good job” and “screwed up”. Couldn’t he at least say he is doing ok? A damn good job though. The man is completely deluded.
Edited to add: And the hits keep on coming.
The Atlantic has a great article on the background of the chevy Volt. It is a really great article and spends as much time talking about the politics and advertising behind it as it does the engineering. I really hope it does succeed and that GM is really able to back it and not wimp out like it did with the Saturn. GM and the US need this car to succeed.
Apparently the Society for Creative Rock Anachronism is a real band. !! Who knew?
Just…. wow.
(Spoilers for Iron Man and The Dark Knight.)
Comparing Iron Man to Batman, two of the most testosterone induced movies ever, which is more feminist? Ha, ok, neither. Comic books have a well known problem, women in refrigerators. For those who don’t know it basically means that it sucks to be a woman in a comic book. You don’t get agency (true in much of pop culture anyway) and you end up motivating the hero or villain with your death. This translates regularly into the movies as well. Given that we have two of the more … womanizing? … heros this summer I have amused myself doing a compare and contrast.
In my opinion Iron Man from the comics is historically the more of the womanizing testosterone fest. I mean they have always both been playboy millionaires, but Tony Stark always seemed to get around more than Bruce Wayne. In the movie rendition or Iron Man he certainly still gets around, however the women are (mostly) all self motivated, not just scenery. The one who sleeps with him does it for her own purposes and gets what she wants out of it (modulo a catty back and forth with Pepper). And Pepper not only manages to NOT end up in bed with her boss (I TOTALLY thought they were going twist her around to have her end up with Stark in the end) but she is excellent at her job and even saves the day. Mind you, she is still the side kick, but she is the one who gets the SHIELD good squad, and who operates the Deus Ex Machina. Also, stark is driven by his own past crimes, not a dead woman.
In The Dark Knight on the other hand, all the women do is motivate the men by being held captive or killed. (Or going out with another man and having their own plans thwarted by “well meaning” men.) In my (probably incorrect) memory Batman always had a bit more gender equality than Iron Man, but here the only thing they do is get dangled off of buildings or have knives held to their throats. Or lain out on a boat in almost no clothing to be ogled by dirty old men. No, really. But back to the main characters, a quote from Gyllenhaal herself sort of describes it[1], “Of course, if you’re the girl in Batman, you’re going to be a damsel in distress to some extent but she’s a really great character.” Sad thing is, in the comics, it was just the acid burns that drove Dent insane in the comics as IIRC Rachel didn’t even exist.
Having said all of that, Batman was the much better movie, while Iron Man was a rollicking good time. The acting was amazing, and the tropes didn’t get in the way for me, but these particular issues are not my issues, so YMMV. (Aaaaaand… they appear to have made the Watchmen into a movie!!!)
[1] Totally stolen from Wikipedia, I so do not read that website.
Let me start by saying that I love our new car. We were on this waiting list that was supposed to go until November, but apparently since we wanted the less expensive version, and were more open to all the different choices (color etc) we got pushed way up front in the line and ended up getting our car in July. Pretty awesome.
(… picture here forthcoming …)
Having gotten that out of the way, allow me to expound on the problem with car dealers[1]. The problem is that they spend so much time screwing with you, that when they actually do make a real mistake (as opposed to just messing with your head) you immediately look for the way in which they are trying to squeeze more money out of you. Like a lemon. A money lemon.
The thing about it is, it has to make their job more miserable as well. I mean I am a pretty even keeled person who is pretty easy to roll (personally, not professionally) but when I get a call from them claiming that I didn’t pay enough money FOR THE CAR I ALREADY BOUGHT, I immediately am yelling at the guy “DUDE NOT COOL!”. Idiots.
Turns out the slip they gave the service department had a different number than the actual receipt we had. I suppose this is better than them not installing the correct feature. I really do think it was a clerical error on their part. But still. Maybe look into it a little before calling the customer.
[1] This is a long, but extremely well written account of life as a car salesman. I really enjoyed reading it, and it actually made me feel a bit better towards car salesmen. (And yes it is men. If there was ever a more testosterone induced job, I don’t know what it is. Arms dealers maybe?) The article also armed me to deal a bit better with this most recent purchase experience. (Heh, hunting down the dealer while he was killing time to make us sweat was pretty fun. In retrospect.)
You can go back, but you can’t go back home. I don’t know how many Infolabbers still read this blog, but it looks like they are tearing down the old 1890 Maple, and putting up a Trader Joe’s. Not quite swapping paradise for a parking lot, but it still does kind of make me sad.
Honeybees are disappearing. Watch this video to learn about how bees communicate with each other through their special dances, and how they are disappearing.
Wil Shipley, programmer of awesomeness like Delicious Library had a recent post about a truly impressive crasher and data loss bug. The article is worth it in and of itself, however, the real beauty of this article is in his opinion of computer science PhD students.
These are, in my opinion, probably from computer science PhD students who believe in a perfect world of provable programming and the Easter Bunny. Here in the realm of actually making money, if running your program causes a user’s computer to crash, she doesn’t care if it’s Apple’s “fault” — she’s going to post all over the interwebs that your program sucks, and ask you for her money back. Now, since you’re not a PhD student, you like money, so this is bad.
This is SO TRUE. This is everything that was wrong with grad school wrapped up into one nice little nugget.
Also, the article has a pretty good analysis of how to diagnose and treat software bugs. Triage, backup, reproduce, before even looking at code. (Admittedly I normally reproduce in unit tests, but that is generally before looking at the suspect code.)
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