Wilde thoughts

gapingvoid - sage brush advice

Twitter / Search - gapingvoid: "gapingvoid I've got to get better at following my own advice: 'IGNORE EVERYBODY'

Bare arms

LETTERSTREAM — LetterCult

Global Warming

Kawano Takeshi | Fubiz™: "kawanotakeshi_3"

Sam Jinks - Artist

Sam Jinks - Artist: (Caution: NSFW - hyper-realistic sculptures may be disturbing to some viewers.)

You cannot legislate common sense.

Carriers Respond To Bans On Texting While Driving -- Texting -- InformationWeek:

"Carriers Respond To Bans On Texting While Driving

The four major wireless operators agree that the practice is dangerous, but not all believe national legislation is the best way to solve the problem."
. . .
"We've got to figure out a way to stop this behavior because it's irresponsible and reckless," Taylor said of texting while driving. "You would think anyone with common sense would know that, but obviously that's not the case."

Throw AT&T under the bus.

The Camel's Back Broke: 1984 Days of Bad PR for Apple:

"Throw AT&T under the bus.

That's all we ask. Here's how it works: Apple can save face here. All they have to do is release the Google voice app (and not cancel GV Mobile) and announce that they had been getting pressure from AT&T..."

I can haz a cookie

Carabaas

Gonna be ona dem days...

AC is out at the office - servers shut down out of self-defence... Waiting for the repairman.

Hunting gutter snipes

If you know what this is then you have a good idea what I did for my Saturday "Honey-Do" project. This odd thing-a-ma-bob is one well engineered little machine. So much so that I feel compelled to acknowledge it here. So here goes...

A couple of weeks ago, just before dark, the wind commenced to blow. Not your gentle kite-flying breeze but rather your precursor-to-a-wicked-storm gale force wind. It did blow. Then all of a sudden there were thunderous crashing sounds - obviously right on the roof over the kitchen. Said gale force wind had torn one end of the gutter loose and was proceeding to just beat it against the roof. Why it didn't come off completely I will never know. The flailing 14' section of gutter eventually folded up the incline of the roof and became lodged under the lip of one of the roof vents.

So I knew I needed some form of attaching device to reconnect the loose end of the gutter. Off to research my choices at Lowes. I looked at plastic brackets. I looked at 10-packs of Ferrule and Gutter screws. Then I spied the Amerimax 5-1/4" Aluminum Hidden Gutter Hanger. It was gutter love at first sight.

After a half hour of drill motor and right-sized-socket, extension cord and ladder logistics I was ready to scale the heights and do battle with the errant gutter. I gently eased it from beneath the roof vent lip. To my great surprise, like an extended tape measure rotated and bent, the gutter simply 'snapped' back into position. Only a very slight amount of adjusting was necessary to straighten out the kink. Even the proper slope was intact to insure the run-off runs off in the right direction.

Now all I had to do was fit these Hidden Gutter Hangers and screw them in. It took longer to go up and down and move the ladder six times than it did to re-secure the gutter. Ahhhhh... now I have plenty of time to do some real snipe hunting. Ha! Get your mind out of the gutter. I would never kill a snipe.

Externalities - The hidden costs...

True Cost

• Kalle Lasn | 15 Jul 2009

What is the real cost of shipping a container load of toys from Hong Kong to Los Angeles? Or a case of apples grown in New Zealand to markets in North America? And what is the true cost of that fridge humming in your kitchen, that car purring on the road or that steak sizzling on the grill? Practically every one of the products we buy in the global marketplace is undervalued because the environmental costs haven’t been taken into account. As a result, every one of the billions of purchases we make every day pushes the world a little deeper into the cosmic red.

But what if we were to implement this simple idea: true cost?

We calculate the hidden costs associated with products – what the economists nonchalantly refer to as “externalities” – and incorporate them. We force the price of every product in the global marketplace to tell the ecological truth. [More...]

Soylent Green is the economists answer to ever rising population numbers and ever diminishing natural resources. Processed field corn and soybeans provide most of the "delicious and nutritious meals" that we can afford. Monied interests and mega-corporate farms have convinced us that the only economical way to feed the nation is by offering "New and Improved" Soylent Green.

Bon Appetit

Haute Dogs!

10 Off-the-Wall Hot Dogs

Check out the most formidable findings between a bun (or on a stick)

By Brynn Mannino
Posted June 17, 2009 from WomansDay.com

The Chihuahua

Crif Dogs, the popular New York City eatery located in the

East Village, is beloved for its variety of wrapped and overloaded
franks. This particular culinary explosion contains a hot dog blanketed
in bacon then capped with sour cream and avocado. Photo courtesy of Chelsea Peretty/chelseaperetti.blogspot.com

Everything is as it should be.

Image by Plamoe via Flickr

Everything is as it should be.

Everyone is doing what they should be doing.

1000 Words to celebrate freedom

Michelle and Barack Obama

Shaving your palms

Blogging about blogging is a lot like sending yourself e-mail. Both practices I have engaged in for a number of reasons. Testing out a new e-mail addy, making sure the new mail proggy works correctly, even double checking filter rules. But blogging about blogging is something I really try to avoid at all costs - except for today. Today I am going to engage in the tradition of link-love under the guises of telling rendering a great adventure analytical tale observation about blogging. In any event it will not be a long one, tail that is.

Two distinct philosophies of blog publishing are typified in the works of Humorlessbitch (Zo) and Listics (Frank). Now I am not here to offer deep contextual reviews of respective expressed world views(Weltanschauung ( [ˈvɛlt.ʔanˌʃaʊ.ʊŋ] (help·info)) . (See also Life-world (Lebensveld). Derived from phenomenology (q.v.), it refers to the taken-for-granted universe of daily social activity-- the forms of life (Wittgenstein).) Rather I am here to amplify certain nuances in blogging styles.

I wonder, for instance, if Zo gets to see how her blog is presented in different readers. Publishing only the 'teaser' looks like this in Google Reader.

One Split Second Before Sex

from HUMORLESSBITCH

rabbit blog: You’re craving that one split second BEFORE you fuck the guy, and nothing more. Most of us are hung up on that moment, thanks to being flooded with its supreme significance through every minute of our waking hours on earth. Well, yes … it represents everything. The moment at birth when your gaze locks onto [...]

"The moment at birth when your gaze locks onto ... " Yeah, you got me clicking on the headline link looking for the next phrase. An endearing reflection of grandson's first breath and love.

... someone to whom you’d just become the center of all existence.

Never mind that it isn’t true. Obviously, we are meant, in order to thrive, to believe it for a while. To live in the center of her love, in order to learn. In order to become a human child. Obvious, too, that the craving of that moment, anticipating it, is way easier than growing up.

A wonderful roller-coaster ride that takes a sudden left turn and drops you squarely into the rabbit hole blog... who in turn sends you head-spinning off to
"Poets and Writers." Poets and Writers and rabbits, oh my.

Frank on the other hand lays his meat, maintenance and a cherry pie right on the table in his Saturday Farm Report. In his usual style Frank seasons the offering with a slight spicy aside ... " that’s (J)erry Garcia on the pedal steel on the cut above." referring to Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers, The Farm ... eliciting fragmented memories of a hot summer day in East Lansing on the campus of Michigan State University... it was a day long happening...hippies and blankets, insence smoke and music...bellbottoms and tie-dyed t-shirts...and music. All contained in a hastily erected cyclone fence corral. The guy at the gate insisted on the $5.00 admission fee that I didn't have...so I and hundreds of others watched from the periphery...until the inevitable happened. The promoters abandoned their economic pursuit in deference to the pressing crowd. The fence came down and Jefferson Airplane took the stage. Grace Slick belted out...

Look whats happening out in the streets
Got a revolution got to revolution
Hey Im dancing down the streets
Got a revolution got to revolution
Aint it amazing all the people I meet
Got a revolution got to revolution
One generation got old
One generation got soul
This generation got no destination to hold
Pick up the cry
Hey now its time for you and me
Got a revolution got to revolution
Come on now were marching to the sea
Got a revolution got to revolution
Who will take it from you
We will and who are we
We are volunteers of america

And if you don't mind my saying Zo, you remind me of her.

Headline Questions - a cheap journalist ploy.

It would appear that we have become a society of questions.

Russia: Which way with the WTO?

Is Instant-On Chrome OS's Killer App?

QOTD: Are You Going 32 or 64-bit for Windows 7?

Israel: Does Violence Pay?

Chrome OS to Bring More Linux IT Jobs?

Azerbaijan: Overzealous minions?

Microsoft Window 7: Is New OS The Beginning Of XP's End?

Journalism or what passes for it these days is little more than reiteration of sound bytes and cut&paste press releases. What seems to be the objective is to entice the reader into rereading the pablum. To this end authors or more probably editors try to shift the responsibility from the writers to the readers.

I have written before that when I am asked a question the onus of the responsibility shifts from the asker to the askee. I have become increasingly uncomfortable with this shift. I find myself in the onerous position of either ignoring the question - and as such becoming the "Bad Guy". All too often the plaintive whimper issues forth, "I was only asking a question."

Or, should I pay attention to the question, I am faced with the ever present threats of dealing with a rhetorical question or even worse an inane (go-google-your-own-answer-question). The worst by far is the "I can ask you a question to remind you that I have the power to ask such questions." In all three cases I must accept the onus of responsibility (and do the work) of answering counter-productive questions.

For supposed journalists to rely on such a questionable practice speaks to their lack of initiative. The News should be reported as statements of fact - as best be determined by diligent research. Editorial content should be equally reported with straight forward declaration instead of whining attempts to garner interest or agreement.

Politkovskaya laureate murdered

Russia: Politkovskaya laureate murdered

from Global Voices Online by Vilhelm Konnander

This morning, prominent Russian Human Rights activist Natalya Estemirova was abducted from her home in Ingushetia by armed men. She was later found dead, a bullet through her heart. As mainstream media reports just another death of an activist - even when it comes to the assassination of one of the country's leading Human Rights' adovcates - some bloggers react with abhorrence.

Estemirova and Kovalev receive the Robert Schuman Medal

(Read more)

Because no one is above the Law!

Send and e-card: Demand a Special Prosecutor

Why my teenager doesn't twitter

1. Twitter doesn't belong to us. Like, Zanga was ours and so was, like, MySpace. For sure lately Facebook is becoming cool but only because, like, I know a bunch of college kids since I became a Junior.
   
2. Twitter only works good if everyone is, like, on at the same time an' half of us are at the Mall, duh!
3. And speaking of "Duh!" I really, like, don't want Jane to know exactly, like, what I am saying about Dick. Sheeeesh, that's like really dumb.
4. Oh yeah, and like, did I mention that Twitter is just, like, dumb. S'like soooo many rules and stuff.
5. Mostly I just don't wanna hear, like, you are always griping 'cause I am sitting in front of your computer. Like, that is all you do, like, all day long, is sit in front of your computer.

Like, gimme a break, Twitter is for dweebs...

What's good for GM...

Image via Wikipedia

Thomas Claburn writing for InformationWeek offered this observation about the recent announcement by Google of their forthcoming Chrome OS...

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Windows represents slightly less than 90% of the personal computer operating system market, a position it has held for years.

I assume that Mr. Claburn was suggesting that MSFT has a lock on OSs and that Google might do well to direct their efforts in a more profitable direction. Well, I have one observation to make about MSFT's lock on the market...

What's good for GM is good for the country.