Category Archives: Rants ‘n’ Whines

Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. – George Orwell, “1984” I just finished listening to Lawrence Lessig’s keynote speech at Oscon, titled free_culture. It’s huge (9 MB), and it’s over 30 minutes … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I realize that newspapers have to make money, but headlines like these just fan the flames of ignorance: Starved for Food, Zimbabwe Rejects U.S. Biotech Corn (washingtonpost.com). On the surface, it looks like corrupt, stupid leaders of a Third World … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Since ten monkeys on drugs could have picked a better list by throwing their feces on the wall and trying to figure out what character it looked like (oh, wait, that’s how TV Guide did it, sorry), we figured we … Continue reading → Continue reading →

TV Guide has come up with another useless list–though it’s nothing compared to those moronic things from E! (the 25 Funniest People with no Carol Burnett?? puh-leeze!). It is the TV Guide 50 Greatest Cartoons. First of all, the big … Continue reading → Continue reading →

It’s been a while since I was an installer/trainer/troubleshooter for my company. Thank, God! Gone are the days of getting up at 3am every Monday, flying to a client site somewhere between Hawaii and Maine, working a week, then getting … Continue reading → Continue reading →

You’ve probably seen this bit of investment advice passed around the Internet, but I like it: “If you had bought $1000.00 worth of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00. With Enron, you would have $16.50 … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Sign up today! Make sure your neighbor’s not a terrorist! War is Peace! Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! We don’t have to have terrorists take away our freedom and way of life. We’re going to do it ourselves: Operation … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Personally, I don’t give a rat’s posterior if Screen Savers host Patrick Norton ever wears a kilt on the air again. What I do care about is the apparent homogenization of the show. I first tuned in because I loved … Continue reading → Continue reading →

In spite of the fact that every automaker lobbyist has been out to kill it, and in spite of Bush’s pro-oil company stance, the fuel cell powered car is finally on its way (Wired 10.08: GM’s Billion-Dollar Bet). While other … Continue reading → Continue reading →

So, you think you paid your outrageous cable TV bill in order to get 200 channels of your favorite shows? Foolish consumer! Didn’t you know that the TV was designed as a delivery medium for advertisements? The shows are filler … Continue reading → Continue reading →