10.28.07 Miracle in Mississippi
Football Rugby at its finest:
10.26.07 Post Barn Dance Calamity!
Okay, calamity is a bit too strong of a word. Mishap would perhaps be more apropos.
On my way back from the annual Cornerstone Barn Dance (which was quite a lot of fun) my beloved Auto Von Bismarck (ie the car) was t-boned. There was a slight impact while the girl who hit me was attempting to cross the street (in her car). She admitted fault, the cops were called, pictures taken, etc. etc. She hit my passenger-side rear wheel well, which I think is pretty much surfacey (unless the axle got crunched … )
I fought off the urge to yell and be angry and left all that ugliness to the plaintiff’s father, who hopefully has been called by now.
No one was hurt thankfully but it was pretty annoying to be sure. I hope that there isn’t an issue getting her insurance to pay out. My insurance company, Progressive is taking pretty good care of me in the mean time. They gave me the option to fast-track my repairs by going to a pre-selected repair shop. After that, they’ll handle shaking the dollars out of the other company (which is my least favorite part of being in an accident—this hopefully reveals that I’ve never been in any serious automobile accidents).
The lesson here: don’t cross busy streets in the rain if you can avoid it, merge onto traffic and go around the frickin’ block!
10.16.07 Yay for competition!
iTunes Plus (that’s the non-DRM iTunes music downloads for those not in the know) are getting cheaper!
This is surely due to the competition from Amazon’s excellent MP3 store.
Go capitalism! Show those pro-monopolists what for!
My remaining question: will I be able to still switch to iTunes Plus for the cost difference (now $0.00)?
Update: according to Christ Adamson via O’Reilly’s MacDevCenter the cost to upgrade is still the same. Bummer. Oh well, total cost of freedom is worthwhile.
White House To Telecomms: Talking to Congress Is Illegal!
How have we gotten so far away from the checks-and-balances upon which our nation was founded? The executive branch has the responsibility and prerogative to enforce the laws that Congress writes. It is the judiciary’s responsibility and prerogative to interpret the laws. The executive has little place giving legal counsel to private corporations. If anything the executive branch should be sicced on Verizon to do the bidding of Congress.
Congress seriously needs to get over its fear of impeachment. Nancy Pelosi, get your ass in gear, stop waiting for a better time and find an offense to nail them on. It doesn’t have to be much: any misdemeanor or crime will do. I can only assume that the House of Representatives fears future retribution so much that it is paralyzed. If that is the case it is high time to get rid of the whole thing; our system is failing and there is no recourse. Approval is in the 20-30% range across the board but we’re too lazy to revolt.
Why is our country failing itself?
10.12.07 Lazyweb Request
Dear Internet,
I would like a way to use a TCP service through my user account. I don’t wanna bind to localhost:nnnn I want localUser:nnnn that is only accessible by the user that opened the port.
Thank you.
Josh Peters
10.10.07 Those Interface21 Folks Are Smart!
At work we’ve been doing a lot of Java code and I’m knee-deep in SpringMVC.
I really like how Spring does its validation (you create a separate validator class for a class you want to ensure is good for processing). One really smart thing I read about today (from the documentation no less!) is how the Spring framework looks out for you and anticipates possible useful patterns to follow.
When I reject a value of a field named “foo” for being null with the rejectValue() method using an error named “error.null” Spring anticipates that I may want to refer to a message “error.null.foo” as well. So if I provide a localization message of “error.null” SpringMVC will show that unless there is one of “error.null.foo”.
Too cool!
10.09.07 There’s Terror Sympathizers In Washington?
Looks that way, why else would you blow the cover of an intelligence agency ferreting out al-Quaida for over a year?
Oh yeah, total incompetence, that’s why.
So government of the country I love, which is it: are you incompetent or secretly helping our enemies? Some of us really wanna know.
Great video, sadly edited
Why this isn’t the full lecture I have no idea, but I found it inspiring.
Good quote:
Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.
10.04.07 Street View on the Moon?
Yep, thanks to a new version of Google Moon.
Where’s Neil Armstrong picking his nose?
