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bloodnok
Interests: lechery, medical charts, MONEY!, miss minnie bannister
Recent Activity
another vote for the 13" retina macbook pro. also, you can use the imac as a monitor rather than having to acquire a dedicated one. that way you can extend its life way beyond your applecare period (something i've never bought for a desktop machine, by the by).
Computers Don't Need Lenses
TOP is unfortunately overdue for a new computer. My AppleCare ran out last February, and that's what sets the pace for my computer replacements. I don't know when I'll actually be able to buy a new computer, but I do know that I haven't really liked trying to write and post from the road using ...
it's unfortunate that t.o.p. is dependent on amazon to survive. amazon is evil. amazon will destroy the rest of retail and then it'll finally be able to justify its obscenely ridiculous p/e to the vultures on wall street.
also mobiles make really awkward cameras even if the picture quality is almost as good.
Re Cellphone Cameras
Z by me and me by Z, Father's Day dinner, his treat. Camera used: none David Vestal used to warn people not to tell him things he was supposed to keep secret. He gave a reason for not signing non-disclosure agreements: "I'm in the disclosure business." Even though I'm in the disclosure business...
i like "sized for regular guys". i've a ford focus with recaro chairs. it's a nice secure fit for me. went to a special lunch with my peers and i was the driver. the guy who took the passenger seat isn't obese by any stretch but he's wider than me. he complained the chair was too tight.
a data point on ford chairs ....
Yr. Hmbl. Ed. Goes to the Car Show
[This week is Off-Topic Week at TOP. This is just a temporary interlude, not a permanent change of direction. Please join us next Monday morning when we'll resume normal programming. —Ed.] Continuing "Off-Topic Week" here at TOP, yesterday I unchained my leg from the leg of the desk, popped a n...
i've been using cyberpower ups devices for years and have had too many power failures with which to test their effectiveness. passed with flying colours.
whereas a previous apc ups failed me - too long of a delay between the mains failing and it taking over meant the computer had already crashed. plus its battery life was pathetic.
UPS Is Your Friend
This week's column by Ctein I don't mean the package delivery service, although I always look forward to the appearance of the big brown boxy truck on my block. UPS stands for Uninterruptible Power Supply, and if you're at all dependent upon your computer(s) it's cheap insurance and peace of min...
phew! after all the digital ink wasted on that daft sir jonny camera, your rant was a wonderful breath of fresh air. many thanks for that!
Posts I'm Forced to Write
Every now and then I have to write a certain post, because so many people are sending me links to the same news item. Everybody seems to agree that it's something I ought to be excited about. Unfortunately, I'm not excited about the Leica "designed" by Apple's renowned Jon Ive along with Marc...
given i'm highly active and for most of my life very skinny, i was taken aback when i started dramatically gaining weight a few years ago. similar to dr wittig, i found monitoring my input/output helps. being the retentive type also helps.
acquired a fitbit dongle. can't unreservedly recommend it as there are some really annoying flaws in both the device and the app/webapp that support it. but obsessively tracking my weight, exercise, and caloric intake have pushed my weight back to a reasonable range.
i'm also attempting to follow taube's more fat less starch recommendations. difficult for a vegetarian. but not impossible.
Open Mike: The Gruelandgrass Diet
This isn't going to be a long post, I hope. And please—I'm not lecturing to anyone. I'm merely describing what I'm doing. A personal matter, for me as it is for you. If I sound terse, it's only because I'm trying to cover a lot of ground in few words. (I didn't even get into the behavioral issues...
always found the claim that scratching a diamond across a grooved piece of vinyl sounds better than decoding a pcm bitstream to be a tad dubious. major reason is a transfer function called the riaa curve. this compensates for the fact that you can't cut those grooves wide enough to record the lower frequencies as they were actually played. thus an important aspect of any analogue amplifier is the accuracy of its riaa filter. so how's that different than any of the digital filters required to make 16bit pcm data listenable? it's still a transfer function. it's still possible to error when you build it. or when the components drift from age ....
Open Mike: Is Vintage Audio Any Good?
My Audio Adventures Part I My Audio Adventures Part II This is Part III Nice, but seriously? Well, "Open Mike" is back. Last week I tried to write about climate change. That's why there was no "Open Mike" last week. Abort! Abort! Danger, Will Robinson. This week, a mild and friendly question:...
your article and the new yorker piece both suggest i should look into what my health plan offers in the way of sleep therapy cuz i sleep poorly and function badly in a rather demanding tetchy job ....
doesn't help that our idiot government has inflicted jetlag on us all this weekend. i loath dst - what a stupid concept!
Open Mike: Sleep, Baby
It's curious that right after I underwent sleep testing, The New Yorker would have an article about it. I hope you can see the whole article at the link; it appears to be up on the open Web, but I'm a subscriber so I don't know what kind of special privileges are buried in my computer's protocol...
yup, that maser is a handsome car. but many of its stable mates are not, especially the sedans. to my eye, they look like chrysler products with a lovely exhaust burble (something only the italians seem to do well).
have to agree with your take on the new stingray. it has potential as a good-looking car from certain views but overall isn't. it's a beast, too, which could be a good thing except too many boyracers will end up pranging the thing.
Open Mike: Cheap Criticism
Clean lines, graceful proportions, and restraint. After having written about the new Corvette the other day, I wanted to take a different tack...and be positive. If the Corvette isn't a particularly good-looking car, what is? Well, here's what I think is the best-looking car you can buy new in...
i like prof krugman too much to impose such a repulsive job on him.
'Why Paul Krugman should be President Obama's Pick for US Treasury Secretary'
I took three days to drive down the coast of Oregon and California on the way to the ASSA meetings in San Diego -- sort of a needed break that seemed to only put me further behind -- but I only have one day to get back, today. It's going to be a long, long day, so just a few quick posts before h...
bartlett repeats one of the great anti-canadian healthcare tales: "And although American conservatives are fond of pointing to cases where Canadians come to the United States for treatment, ..."
thing is, in most cases where canadians ventured south for heathcare, the canadian medicare system still paid for that treatment. this is what american conservatives ignore. also, there are centres of excellence in canada where american patients venture north to get better care than is available in the united states.
there's nothing wrong with specialisation and cross-border medical care.
'A Conservative Case for the Welfare State'
Bruce Bartlett argues conservatives should support the welfare state: A Conservative Case for the Welfare State, by Bruce Bartlett, Commentary, NY Times: At the root of much of the dispute between Democrats and Republicans over the so-called fiscal cliff is a deep disagreement over the welfare...
oh well .... "oh well" was my favourite track from "then play on". so sad to hear it turned into a dirge by a zed-zed ....
OT: Music Notes: Oh Well
Billy Gibbons in Finland, 2010. Photo by Antti Salonen. Remember my post in 2010 about cover songs? I've got another one for you covers mavens—Bill Gibbons of ZZ Top performing a cover of the 1969 Fleetwood Mac hit "Oh Well" off a new Fleetwood Mac tribute album called "Just Tell Me That You W...
why? it was yet another of his leveraged buyouts (per taibbi http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829). willard contributed a paltry sum of his own then piled debt on the repuglicant teatards. too bad they hadn't a reasonable alternative.
too bad they're not reasonable ....
Why Oh Why Did the Republicans Nominate This Clown?
ObamaCare allows parents to keep their young-adult children on their insurance, requires insurers to offer guaranteed issue and community rates, and imposes an individual mandate to purchase insurance on individuals. Now comes Mitt Romney: >Romney says he won't repeal all of Obamacare: Mitt Romne...
curses: i now own a gx1 (once it gets here). hope you get your cut from the clickthru ....
Great 'Deal of the Day' Today!
Amazon's 'Deal of the Day' today is a 16-MP Panasonic GX1 body for only $395! 'While supplies last' of course. Nice. That's $304 less than list price and $144 off the everyday street price. Click here to find out more about it. [UPDATE Fri., July 13th: deal has ended now.] Mike Send this post...
i'm offended!
frankly, it matters not how neutral a tone you take on any topic: someone somewhere will be offended. there are plenty of aphorisms about how you can please some of the people some of the time and that's about it. and good luck with it ....
Open Mike: Nefarious Blogger Confesses
I get accused a lot. So I think I should probably confess. As a blogger whose sole reason for existence is to entertain a far-flung and widely divergent audience of individuals, not every one of whom agrees with everything I say in every particular, I regularly get accused of having distorted vi...
meandering slightly off topic: i rode by a stable this morning. saw a number of young women/girls riding or otherwise mucking about with the large odoriferous mammals. never see any young men/boys. just girls. wondering if my sample set is just too small or is obsessing over horses a girl thing?
Open Mike: Off to the Races
King of sports I sometimes think there really is only one natural sport: racing, in all its many guises, whether it's horses, humans, sailboats, or various motorized and non-motorized conveyances on land, sea, or air. If you haven't ever seen this, prepare to be...thrilled. There's really no oth...
wrong coast, mike. california is the place ya oughta be, so load up that truck and move to beverley ....
Completely OT: Hatching a Plot
I've been hatching a plot recently to move to Florida sometime in the next five years. Just mulling it over—after all, my golden years are coming on like a freight train, and even this last ultra-mild winter has seemed long. Does anybody within the sound of my voice live in the Florida panhandle...
contacted my local subaru dealer about arranging a test drive of a brz when the car is available. got an obnoxious reply saying test drives were right out - all cars were already allocated to buyers and would i like to get on the wait list. cripes. i won't buy a car under those circumstances, no matter how much the filthy hacks in the motor trade laud the damned thing. i try driving every car i consider buying. no exceptions.
thus no brz for me ....
Open Mike: Coffee 'n' the Car
Coffee I won't be writing a lot more on coffee, and there's a reason for that. I've raised my game considerably when it comes to my morning cup: I'm now roasting all my own coffee; I got myself a good burr grinder (the #1 most important purchase if you want good coffee), and I've put together a...
encountered a problem on initial landing at gov.uk: they apparently failed to consider really large viewports. thus the satellite view of portsmouth gets tiled on my scope. alistapart had a great piece about dealing with this very issue.
Secrets and Lines (of code)
(If you're in the UK) Are you following the development of GOV.UK? So far, it's been great. I think the most impressive aspect of it has been how open the development is. The blog is really good: vibrant, busy, has multiple contributors each with their own angle and area of focus. Then there's...
dunno, from a quick perusal of his blog (assuming newmonetarism.blogspot.com is the right williamson) he appears to have sneer down to a fine art. good luck dealing with him.
Someone Needs to Work on His Communications Strategy
It's weird to get email from Stephen Williamson calling me names. Not much else, just name calling. How childish is this guy?
although that citroën concept is about as repulsive an eyesore as you say, it's exempt from the ugliest car awards as it's not a production machine. pontiac and their hideous aztec still rule the roost ....
OT: There's Ugly, There's Butt-Ugly, Then There's...
As regular readers know, I'm casually a car buff. Love beautiful cars. Occasionally am appalled by ugly ones. Well, I think we have a new contender in the "ugliest car ever" contest. The Citroën Tubik MPV Concept. (I used a link to give you a choice—if you have delicate sensibilities you might n...
ignoring the trolls, where did krugman address the bit about the evil miracle?
Paul Krugman: Failure Is Good
The failure to do a bad thing is a good thing: Failure Is Good, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a complete turkey! It’s the supercommittee! By next Wednesday, the so-called supercommittee, a bipartisan group of legislators, is supposed to reach an agreemen...
never did understand the art market, even after carefully reading "the painted word" (http://www.amazon.com/Painted-Word-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0312427581/). understand it even less now that charlatans like damien hirst waded into that marketplace. i'm hoping it's merely something in the nature of a fool and his money and not some taste malfunction on my part ....
Flipperoo
Clyfford Still, 1949-A-No. 1. 93x79 inches. In the Comments to John's post yesterday, I wrote: Isn't there a section in The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art where the author notes that, historically, contemporary works were less valued than traditional ones...
i used to have a collection of about 1,000 vinyl lps, mostly british and japanese imports. after acquiring my first cdplayer (1982 or thereabouts), i started replacing my lps with cds. i've managed to find about 90% of my old collection in digital format. the other 10%? well who cares?
the thing i miss the most about those scratchy old vinyl disks is the covers. the rest ....
took the lps to bert's on yonge street or the record peddlar on queen or gave them to friends and eventually reduced the collection to zero. mp3/aac didn't really come along until long after my lps were already in someone else's possession.
however, i've ripped all my cds to mp3/aac and carry them around in my various ipods. i still have ALL the source cds. wondering why as they take up a fair amount of space. maybe because i still don't really trust the hard drive(s) that hosts my collection.
by the way, ip law and the desires of the record companies are only vaguely in sync. there's lots of room for fair use and format shifting whereas the record companies would like you to pay them over and over again for the same old stuff in order to keep them from a well-deserved bankruptcy.
The Not-So-Slippery-Slope of Piracy
By Ctein Okay, this time I'm going to make you guys do the heavy lifting. I have a serious essay question for you. Please, no flip answers. Don't worry, it won't determine your final grade...but it might re-determine your outlook. When I wrote my columns about converting vinyl to digital couple ...
a bit rich of jowly warmongering elitist friedman lecturing anyone on morality. like politicians, the filthy hacks who pollute our discourse need to have patches indicating who bought and paid for them. the hacks are just as corrupt as our politicians, especially the grey lady's frontline hacks, friedman, dowd, collins, &c.
"It Doesn’t Get Any More Immoral Than This"
Yesterday, Ross Douthat argued that "higher taxes on America’s richest 1 percent" won't solve the problems with government. Thomas Friedman explains why that's wrong, and why a more equitable distribution of income is essential to stripping the ability of those at the top to control government: ...
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