by gekko at 9:57 AM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

How many times in your life have you kind of fucked up because, in your ignorance, you made a decision that pissed people off? Then, when the shit hit the fan, you got all red in the face and looked for someone else to blame for it?

"We will be talking to the supplier with regard to how the branding came about."
 -- Shop pulls Lolita bed for young girls | U.S. | Reuters

That's the final line in a news article about the Woolworth's retail store chain in Great Britain that was marketing a brand of beds meant for six year olds. You and I know about the literary character Lolita, and what that name symbolizes to the educated among us. We've read the novel, we've seen the movies, we've heard the references in other literature, in conversations. But a generation of Brits apparently did not know that the name "Lolita" signifies pre-teen quasi-incestuous sex and had no worries about advertising a bed for little girls called "The Lolita". After parents started expressing a little outrage, they used Wikipedia to find out more.

I'm not sure what is more amusing in this. That an entire department store chain full of people had no knowledge of classic literature, or that they're looking around to see who they can blame for their faux pas.

I'm wondering if I can sell licenses to use Murphy as a handy fall dog.

(Hat tip to Sal's misc.writing post)

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by gekko at 7:15 AM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

The company I work for has a habit of mucking about with the holidays it gives US employees. We used to have 10 paid holidays, scattered across the calendar. Then they removed "Good Friday" in the US, because it wasn't politically correct to give a day that's so very specific to the numerous Christians and the handful of non-Christians were grumbling. Instead, they created a "personal, floating holiday" that people could schedule to coincide with a day that was special to them.

I get that. I even liked it, because my own Christian faith does not require me to spend all of Good Friday in mourning, or whatever. Being at work is sufficient penance. So I had a day I could choose and it didn't have to be bound up in some churchy obligation. Kind of neat.

Then they took away Presnuts Day, leaving us with 9 paid holidays and they fixed the "floating" day to one specific calendar day. Yup. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day.

I'm not wholly against a day honoring a guy who did good things. It goes against my political morals that it was made into such a big frickin' deal because his skin is black and people thought we absolutely had to have a day to honor a black skinned guy, but whatever. Done is done and we have a day to honor a great man and that's good. And my company wants me to take that day off, and that's okay by me.

Except.

Why the fuck couldn't Marty have been born in March or April, hmmm? Because in my company have all our holidays all clustered in the coldest months. Two days for Thanksgiving, two for Christmas, one for New Year's, and now this MLK day. Then nothing until Memorial Day at the end of May. A day for Fourth of July, and one for Labor Day. In fact, MLK day is the only holiday my company celebrates in honor of a specific US person. The only other day that's s'posed to honor a person is, well, Christmas.

Here's what I figure. They took the Presidents' birthdays and crammed 'em together into one. They moved other days from the day they're normally celebrated and put 'em on Mondays. And back in the darkest of ages, they even moved Jesus' birthday from October to December!!!

So if it's good enough for Jesus, it ought to be good enough for the Reverend King. I say we move his birthday to March 31.

Who's with me?

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by gekko at 9:22 AM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

During lunch the other day, a buddy of mine had been thinking out loud, muttering "waived the activation fee ..." as he went through his cellphone contract. Yeah, when he bought the phone and the plan, the perky sales chick, hoping to cement the sale, gave him all kinds of enticements, free phone, first month free, waive the activation, yadda.

That got me to thinking.

What does an "activation fee" really do?

Cell phone providers want you to sign up with them, take a two year contract, etc. They want your business. Part of them doing that business has to involve them entering your phone's identifying information into their database to "activate" the phone on their network. If they didn't do that, your phone would not work, and you would be unlikely to want to use their services. So it's in their interests as well as your own for them to activate your phone. When you lose your phone, buy a new one, they "activate" that new one, free of charge.

Yet, they charge an "activation fee" for a new contract. UCAN (Utility Consumers' Action Network) lists the fees the big providers charge you. Thirty to forty bucks to have someone who's being paid regardless of the amount work they do type a number into a database field?

I decided to try something. What the hell, I was bored. I pretended I was in the market for a new phone, new plan. I walked up to a cell phone provider's kiosk in the mall where I had been lunching.

"I want a phone and a plan. Whaddaya got?"

We picked out one of their free phones and one of their plans and then she went through the contract.

"What's this thing?" I pointed to the activation fee.

"That's the standard activation fee."

"Get it out of there. I don't want to pay it."

"Oh, I can't do that. It's a standard part of the contract."

"Nonsense. When you guys are hooking for my business, the very first thing to go is that activation fee. It's frosting on your cupcake. Pure over-the-top profit."

"I don't have the authorization ..."

"Oh. Okay. Well, goodbye then."

"Wait, um let me talk to my supervisor. Hold on while I call ... "

"Puh-lease. Even my dog has the authorITY," I paused after stressing the syllable, "to waive activation fees. Every business pretends they have to charge that little extra, then they graciously 'give' us back the money to entice us. Entice me, or I'm outta here."

She stammered a bit more. I walked away.

It was satisfying.

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by gekko at 12:10 PM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

As if having the most golf courses per capita is not enough for Arizona -- the land that may be running with milk 'n honey, but doesn't exactly corner the market on water.

"Developers plan to build a massive new water park that would offer surf-sized waves, snorkeling, scuba diving and kayaking - all in a bone-dry region that gets just 8 inches of rain a year. "

The park will presumably use up to 100 million gallons of water a year.

I'm being asked to install low flow shower heads and waterless toilets, to rip out my small lawn and replace it with rocks, to plant "native" plants, and to replace the water in my swimming pool with those plastic balls you see at kiddie amusement centers. Okay, maybe not that last. I'd always thought, however, that the purpose behind these "earth-friendly" requests was to conserve a precious resource in these drought-ridden days and I'm actually happy to do some of that. 'Specially the plastic balls. Kinky sex, innit.

I did not realize that I was supposed to save water so that some ersatz beach butthead who wants to carve a chunk of desert into yet another playground could have it.

Waveyard's developer, Mladick, who is 39, says he wants to create the kind of lush environment he remembers from growing up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and surfing in Morocco, Indonesia, Hawaii and Brazil.

"I couldn't imagine raising my kids in an environment where they wouldn't have the opportunity to grow up being passionate about the same sports that I grew up being passionate about," he said.
-- "Ocean" To Be Built In Arizona Desert, As Part Of Water Sports Theme Park That May Use 60 Million To 100 Million Gallons A Year - CBS News

It's called "move" dumbass. If you can't imagine your crib monkeys growing up in a fucking desert, then move your crotch fruit out of the fucking desert, is what I'm saying.

Or, he could wait until Cali breaks away, and the ice caps melt in this global warming thinger.

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by gekko at 1:05 PM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

Maybe it's a failure to really focus. Maybe she's ADD. Maybe she flunked reading. Maybe the animal rescue peeps failed to do what every animal rescue peep I've ever encountered do routinely: verbally underscore the key points in the contract. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that because Ellen DeGeneres did not understand her contract, she fucked over her hairdresser's little girls, but good.

From Entertainment Times Online:

The 49-year-old explained she had adopted a puppy named Iggy from an animal rescue centre on September 20, but, despite training and neutering, Iggy failed to impress the comedian's cats. On hearing her hairdresser was looking for a family pet, and to prevent her feline friends suffering further distress, DeGeneres gave the dog away.

When pet rescue agency Mutts and Moms heard of Iggy's new domestic arrangements, it informed DeGeneres that giving away the Brussels Griffon terrier cross was a breach of the adoption contract she had signed. The agency reclaimed the dog, leaving the hairdresser's two young daughters distraught.

She went on to beg Mutts and Moms to return the dog to her hairdresser's family. "Well, I guess I signed a piece of paper that says if I can't keep Iggy, it goes back to the rescue organisation, which is not someone's home, which is not a family. These two little girls had bonded to the dog. I thought I did a good thing. I tried to find a loving home for the dog because I couldn't keep it. I was trying to do a good thing.

"Because I did it wrong, those people went and took that dog out of their home, and took it away from those kids. I feel totally responsible for it and I'm so sorry. I'm begging them to give that dog back to that family. I just want the family to have their dog. It's not their fault, it's my fault. I shouldn't have given the dog away. Just please give the dog back to those little girls. I'm sorry I didn't call you. I'm sorry I did the wrong thing. Just give it back to the family. Please, please, please."

I hear the Mutts and Moms dudes are getting death threats and have had to fill out a police report..

I mean, come ON. All rescue groups make you sign that pretty basic, easily understood contract because they don't want to have you go dumping the dog in the street, or giving it to inappropriate people. They take doggy things very seriously. They interview you. They visit your home, sometimes. They make sure you understand how much trouble a dog can be. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised they didn't do a trial with Iggy, knowing DeGeneres had cats. Cats are particular about who they permit to be their slaves, after all.

So I guess I'm not understanding why the hairdresser couldn't go to Mutts and Moms and fill out their own contract and get Iggy back. Can't be that difficult.

I adore my own pups and have bonded very deeply with them, but they are dogs. Not humans. While it would break my heart to lose them, I know it's more likely I will outlive them anyway. As I've so far outlived all of my previous pets. I can and will get another dog. If re-adopting Iggy is out of the question for some bizarre reason, the hairdresser can get another dog for her girls. Not the optimal solution, but better than pining, innit.

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by gekko at 3:13 PM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

In my father's working career, he wore a business suit and a tie. He addressed his boss as Mr. Slate, not "Rocky" and his boss called him "Rockford", not "Jim."

Women in his work world were secretaries or factory floor assemblers and testers.

I did not break new ground for women when I decided to become an engineer, but I was a rarity. Even so, the work place I entered had already shifted significantly. Men were not in business suits, and women were wearing slacks -- oh, sure, there were pants suits, dresses, skirts, and "uniforms", but it was a lot more relaxed.

The biggest change, though, was that we no longer addressed people by their last names. My boss was not "Mr. Stevens." I called him "Durwood." Even the CEO would sign his memos and reports as "Elvis." Okay, that was weird since his name was "Joe," but whatever.

My point is that the work place had become warmer and more personal than it had been in my father's Brave New World. It had moved away from rigid, nearly militarized formality where a person was known by their father's or husband's name. People were recognized as being individuals.

I don't know if the introduction of women into a formerly male-dominated work place was responsible for that softening, that added level of familiarity, comfort, and family-feeling or not. I just know that being addressed by a personal name is a lot cozier than being addressed by a tribal name.

You're probably going "huh?" round about now, so let me elaborate a bit further.

On the Usenet newsgroup I use to sharpen my sticky little claws is a doofus who has decided that calling a certain female US Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate by her first name constitutes sexism. It's a part of the diminution of womanhood, akin to calling a black man "boy." Or "articulate."

Yah, I'm talking about calling Hillary "Hillary."

Is it?

Sexist?

Not specifically in Hillary's case, because, hello, it's pretty much how she's been marketing herself. But is there something dark, something wrong with using the familiar when addressing a person? Or is that notion something that's still all stone age and part of the militarized machismo crap we've been moving away from?

When you get right down to it, I don't like being called "Mrs. Rubble." It makes me feel like I'm supposed to be Barney's property. Or old.

Maybe it IS sexist, but I think that if it is, then bring on more of that kind of sexism.

Oh, and let's put some floral drapes on that window, while we're at it and do you REALLY think your feet belong up on that table? PICK UP THOSE BEER CANS NOW, MISTER!!!

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by gekko at 12:26 PM as a "Jesus Lurves Me" poast

Hey. Don't get me wrong. I am aligned with the teachings of Christ. I am also aligned, for the most part, with the political philosophy that drives Big L Libertarians and I am more Right-leaning than Left.

But I've got issues with the message in the latest bit of e-mail spam I got from a friend. I'm quoting it below -- I have had mercy on you in that I cleaned up the pretentious fluffy formatting and added a link to Snopes tracking the veracity of the authorship of this piece. My commentary follows.

Since the Pledge of Allegiance and The Lord's Prayer are not allowed in most public schools anymore because the word "God" is mentioned.... a kid in Arizona wrote the attached NEW School prayer. I liked it.

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That's no offense; it's a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God's name is prohibited by the state.

We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.
They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the 'unwed daddy,' our Senior King.
It's "inappropriate" to teach right from wrong,
We're taught that such "judgments" do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.

It's scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school's a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!

Amen

If you aren't ashamed to do this, please pass this on.
Jesus said, "If you are ashamed of me,
I will be ashamed of you before my Father."

First, and foremost: smarmy, sniffy, uber-superior life-style comparisons on the part of self-righteous anybodies leave me cold. Sad to say we seem to see it more often from Christians than from other demographic groups, which is a smudge if you ask me.

I agree to an extent with the overall sentiment: I have long argued that outright banning any student from praying aloud at any time he or she feels like praying aloud (within certain social norms or classroom needs, mind) is wrong, wrong, wrong. I don't really care if Myrna gets upset because Kathleen mutters a prayer in her hearing. I could give a fuck if Lenny, whose father is a hardcore atheist, has to understand that other people do believe in a vast invisible meddling force from beyond. And, really, c'mon Moonspirit. You can argue that the deity is really Goddess all you like, but it's okay that Chris thinks God is the father, 'k?

And, really, if we can study the spiritual practices of other cultures, then permitting people to practice theirs (within, again, the boundaries of propriety) in an unobtrusive manner should be fine.

Here's my beef (apologies to my Hindu buddies):

a) There is nothing wrong with unnaturally colored hair, and how the fuck DARE you insinuate otherwise you sanctimonious little fart.
b) Ditto mode of dress. If someone wants to do the tacky emo or goth motif, or saggy jeans with more holes than cloth, or even if they're a muffin-top and insist on wearing low-riders and crop tops, there's nothing morally wrong with that. Jesus did not say "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Vogue and GQ", right.
c) ditto piercing/tattoos
d) pregnant whatevers. Societally difficult. Unwed 'rents aren't a good idea no matter what your religious beliefs. But, hello, the Bible itself warns about making judgments. Geddit? Can you say "WWJD"? Ya?
e) so first you bitch about the pregger peeps, now you think dispensing birth control and acknowledging that we're all imperfect is a bad idea. 'k. Guess everyone has to be perfect like you.

That's pretty much it. I am impatient with the unChristian stance so many Christians adopt.

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by gekko at 1:03 PM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

A friend of mine wants his name on his vanity plate. He lucked out when the last guy to have the name on a plate in his state died and his widow decided not to renew the plate, relinquishing the four letters back into the bin. The state DMV notified my friend that the plate was now available (he put himself on a wait list for it). He applied. The rep initially approved it.

Then it was turned down.

Why?

Because his name is, apparently, offensive. See, it's a variation of the name "Richard." The guy's a Dick. He has been known by that name his entire life, does business with that name, appears on television using that name, ran for local office with that name and shares that name with many politicians and celebrities. Why, one dick is first in line to lead our country if the bush becomes incapacitated. The media unabashedly prints and speaks that foul word many times a day.

Of course, every Peter, Willie and Wang knows that "Dick" isn't a name at all, but a slang word for male genitalia, right?

Vermont's DMV has decided to crack down on these important matters following a lost case in which a religious rights group took up arms in a suit in federal court over the "right" to use a reference to a bible verse on a vanity plate.

Shawn Byrne tried to get JOHN316, was turned down, appealed, turned down, sued and the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative organization that states it defends religious liberty as represented by attorney Joshua Carden took up his case. This is old news, but it is the one that has the state of Vermont looking to ensure no one offends anyone with their license plate.

Carden said his client is only seeking to uphold his rights to free expression on his license plate.

"We're not seeking big money damages," he said.

According to the lawsuit, Byrne applied to the state DMV for a vanity plate on April 20, for his Ford pickup.

The application asked for Byrne to list three choices for his vanity plate. Byrne listed, "JOHN316," "JN316" and "JN36TN." The application also asked Byrne what each selection represented, and in each case he wrote, "Bible passage."
[...]

A month after applying for the plate Byrne received notice from the state DMV stating that all three requests had been turned down.

"It has been deemed to be a combination that refers to deity and has been denied based on that reason," the letter read.

Byrne appealed, but an administrative judge upheld the denial, the lawsuit stated.

The law allows DMV to reject a word or phrase considered offensive or confusing to the general public.

The regulations state that license plates are not be allowed to have a combination of letters or numbers that refer to any language to race, religion, color, deity, ethnic heritage, gender, sexual orientation, disability status or political affiliation.

-- Driver sues state for rejecting religious license plate: Rutland Herald Online

The Feds disagreed that it was a First Amendment issue. He doesn't have a fundamental right to "speak" via his license plate. So it's really up to the states to make a list of things they don't like and then stick to that list. And Vermont is very much sticking Dick.

I wonder, though, if maybe these bureaucratic nanny types don't go too far overboard. A vanity plate is, after all, something special to the individual. Its intent is to garner extra income to the state while permitting people to uniquely identify themselves. Some attempts are intended to shock or offend -- like I wouldn't see a non-offensive use of the word "cunt", would you? Yet the whole notion that the same driver who can put a fish on his car will suddenly offend someone if his plate refers to God is a bit extreme. Is the state promoting religion because they took money in order to print something to the specification of the customer? A guy everyone in the community calls "Dick" to his face is going to be offended if his car says "Dick" on it?

Does that not seem a bit over the top to you?

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by gekko at 12:19 PM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

I found it elegant. Synergistic, maybe. I was listening to a podcast on my iPod. It was one from back in July. I enjoy NPR's Talk of the Nation "Science Friday", and July 13's show had a segment on simplicity and complexity, featuring John Maeda, MIT technologist/artist and author of "The Laws of Simplicity." The elegance was this: the iPod is one of the simplest user designs masking a fairly complex system and I was enjoying the fruits of a lifetime of complexities made simple. From capturing radio waves to storing their payload and accessing them with minimal effort, maximal enjoyment.

I am a techno-geek. I love gadgets. I am an engineer by trade and training, an artist deep in my heart, and, above all, someone who gets royally peeved when taking a gadget out of its box and finding I must spend hours or even days pouring through the user documentation to figure it all out.

Car stereo systems are like that. They try to cram tons of functionality into a relatively simple interface, reducing the number of knobs and buttons, but you end up with complex instructions for performing some of the simplest tasks. To tune into this station, push this knob in, then tilt it to the right until the number you want comes up. To scan radio signals, pull out that knob, then press this button. To set your clock, use your left hand to press and hold that knob, then use your right hand to tilt the other knob to the left for hours, right for minutes, and use your foot (either one) to punch this button for AM/PM.

Cell phones -- let us not go there. A company I like because they, well, provide my paycheck is chief among the offenders, creating user interfaces that require advanced degrees in glyphs and codices, deep arcane knowledge. I consider the iPhone a breakthrough -- like its sibling the iPod -- that combines the abstract, the artistic, and the deeply complex functions we Americans are demanding. Of course, both of those products are sitting on the shoulders of the MacIntosh computer which pioneered simple, elegant, and intuitive computing.

I value simplicity. When I pick up my new gadget, I want to just use it, right out of the box. Turn it on (do NOT make me look for the on switch!) and do the most obvious thing to make it perform its primary function(s).

But I also like to hack and customize my toys.

I've always found that the best, most elegant design of any software application or gadget was one that had a simple, intuitive user experience on the surface, but would support "power users", the peeps like me who wanted to make it do everything it could do. Layers of simplicity over oodles of complexity.

Pure elegance.

It seems, though, that for designers of products and software to accomplish that, they have to, well, think out(side) of the box.

I'm waiting for Apple, those masters of elegant simplicity, to provide me with the ability to really play with my toys.

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by gekko at 9:24 AM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

The erudite sneer at those who rely on Wikipedia for authoritative source material. Wikipedia is an Internet "encyclopedia" that taps into the collective mass of knowledge by letting anyone author articles or make changes. The sneerage focuses on the notion that if anyone can alter the info, then how accurate can it really be? Wiki's founders believe people who know better will quickly correct inaccurate or misleading information.

To an extent, that works. I don't recall the details of my personal experience -- what it was I was looking up -- but I found an article where some curious bit of information seemed wrong to me. I sent the link to a friend to ask if he agreed. By the time he got to Wiki, he could find no trace of the information to which I referred. The article was correct. Oddly, the cached page on my computer still showed the errors. We investigated and discovered the article had been edited not even an hour prior. Someone else had seen it. Someone else had corrected it.

But as news articles all over have been indicating for years, notables and not-so-notables alike have been abusing their ability to edit Wiki articles by changing things to suit their own views or whacked senses of humor. Congresscritters or their staff have been whitewashing articles about themselves. Others have altered President Bush's middle name. Many put left-leaning or right-leaning spin in various articles. Some changes are so subtle, it's doubtful that the vigilant can catch them all.

Now a Cal Tech grad student and self-described hacker named Virgil Griffith has created software he calls "Wikiscanner" that pinpoints origins of Wikipedia edits. Now we can see that the computers of various corporations, US political party headquarters, heads of worldwide church organizations, and even the CIA are being used to whitewash, insult, or spin information.

The CIA? If I had had substantial faith in the ability of that behemoth spy organization to operate well, it would be shaken. I mean, surely they of all organizations ought to know how to mask their IP addresses and go through anonymous proxy servers. <g>

Then again ... maybe it's a different spy organization that's masked its IP address to make it only seem like it's coming from the CIA ...

Hmmmmm.

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by gekko at 12:38 PM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

Chocoholics all over are in an uproar. The industry assholes want to fuck with our chocolate!!!

It all began in October, when a dozen industry groups filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration to amend the [way listed products contain the right amount of key ingredients and are both properly made and not deceptively packaged] for how nearly 300 foods can be produced, from canned cherries to evaporated milk.

[...] For example, chocolate in its purest state - the "liquor" made from ground, processed cacao beans - must contain between 50 percent and 60 percent cocoa butter, also known as cocoa fat.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association, Chocolate Manufacturers Association and 10 other food industry groups seek broad permission to add ingredients, use different techniques, employ new shapes and substitute ingredients - something the standards currently don't allow.

[...] Tucked between requests to allow antifungals on bulk cheese and powdered milk in yogurt is what has people riled up most: a proposal to "use a vegetable fat in place of another vegetable fat named in the standard (e.g. cacao fat)."

Manufacturers already can use vegetable fats instead of cocoa butter - they just can't call it "chocolate."

So what's the big deal? Sez a protestor:

"To me, it's a delicacy. I don't eat it every day - I don't want the calories. But when I do enjoy it, I do want real chocolate. I don't want any change in flavor by cheapening the product," said Avanele Bush, 83, of Malibu, Calif., who counts chocolates made by See's Candies Inc. and Ghirardelli Chocolate Co. as her favorites. -- http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.chocolate12aug12,0,1102792.story

It's obvious why the chocolate industry wants to be able to slap the label "chocolate" on something they can make much more cheaply. It's also obvious why the purists would object. Yet, it seems a bit arbitrary to me. I mean, they already came up with a standard for what can be labeled "chocolate", and it can have as little as 50% cocoa fat. I am going to assume that that cheap, icky, waxy, nasty stuff they flood the stores with on Chocolate Holidays like Easter is at the lowest end of the cocoa-fat scale. So we already have agreed that chocolate can be called chocolate and still be crap, right?

If I buy something that looks like chocolate, and is labeled "chocolate" and I discover I really intensely dislike it, I'm going to never buy that stuff again. If I discover I like it, am I bovvered if the fat in it comes from the soy plant instead of the cacao bean?

I'm sure there are political and political-economical stakes in there that have people all flustered, like how many farmers in Africa have banked their lives on being able to sell their beans and soon they're going to be screwed because we'll only buy half the beans and then get soy and corn from some other starving nation, but, ya know, I don't really hear that outcry. All I'm hearing is the "you can't call it chocolate unless the arbitrary standard set up a bazillion years ago is adhered to!"

Pardon me while I go off in search of some Godiva, 'k?

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by gekko at 1:50 PM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

People
1) whose primary job is to interact with others via telephone and
2) who speak with an accent (with respect to the established "norm" of the region/language they are speaking)

should do their utmost to speak clearly, slowly, and with crisp enunciation.

I absofuckinglutely could NOT understand what the woman was saying! I have no idea what mixture of accents she was using. At times it had a British feel to it, but it also sounded a bit like the deep American south and had overtones of something Caribbean. She spoke so rapidly and slurred so many words together I had to listen to the message three times and I'm still not sure I got it all.

[UPDATE] Here's the message.

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by gekko at 5:44 PM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

It's light reading, that's for sure. The Harry Potter series, I mean. I don't have to think while reading it. I can just submerge myself, lose myself, and let the words -- some of them quite clever -- and phrases and characters and ideas wash over me without much analysis. I can ponder the fates of the characters without stopping to wonder about the realism of it. I can find sympathy for some, and antipathy for others. I can scoff, wrinkle my nose, giggle, or smile fondly. It takes me away from things in my life that sometimes seem to want to devour me and leave nothing behind. It's Calgon© for the soul.

I am an adult. My kids, however, grew up with the bespectacled young wizard. They spent their coming-of-age years devouring the books -- staying up all night to read the entire thing, cover to cover, standing in lines at midnight to see the movies. They were part and parcel of Potter-mania. And now as young adults, on their own, they've done the same with the seventh and final book in the series. They express deep regret that the series is over, that they swallowed the books so quickly.

Potter did not teach my children to read. Their father and I did that. Potter did not teach them to love books. Potter-mania, the hype and ecstasy of it, did not lure them from their computers and televisions and video games into books. They already had a love for books when Potter came along. My son obsessed over The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and both kids were often seen with their noses in award winning novels that were beyond their presumed reading level. They continue to read to this day.

But there exist among us those who have always scoffed at Potter, or outright declared the books a form of evil. And their antitheses -- those who claimed that these books alone were responsible for luring the young into the world of reading.

Now, ten years after the first Potter book, along comes a sort of Death Eater of editorialists, who brings with him some numbers and facts that suggest that reading in general is on the decline, regardless of age. Potter did not keep youngsters, he says, reading. And Potter or no, people are just plain not going to the libraries. His words suggest that the money spent hyping Potter should've been better spent hyping more diverse works.

Maybe the trend is there; I haven't done my own number crunching.

I do know that in my youth, I was an aberration and even in my adulthood, what set me and my few friends apart was that we were lured toward books and reading, while so many around us had other pursuits. I could be found consuming almost anything readable. My peers were mostly out playing games, or watching TV. Adult peers who asked me what I enjoyed looked at me pityingly when I said I loved to read; they preferred skiing or camping or shopping. When I asked what they read, they pointed to a magazine or maybe a best-seller that they'd picked up to read on the airplane.

A small number of us, though, exchanged loved books and met new authors, and had -- and continue to have -- up to date library cards.

I remain unconvinced that Potter lured kids to become readers, but I also remain unconvinced that there is a death knell to be sounded for reading at all.

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by gekko at 8:46 AM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

PJ, who no longer blogs, posted this on Usenet and I'm using excerpts from it to introduce my topic:

I just learned about a Web site called "Don't Date Him Girl" that women can join and post warnings to other women about men they perceive to be slime. They post names, pictures, email addresses, cities/states, and lengthy descriptions of why these men should be avoided [...] What's really dangerous about this is that the women remain completely anonymous, but they can (and do) provide a ton of information about the men.

From the DDHG website:

Don't Date Him Girl, until you've checked him out first! DDHG is a social networking site where women from around the world can share their dating experiences with each other. Share your story of inspiration, hope and determination with other women around the world. Learn about how you can date safer and smarter, build your self-esteem, find true love and empower yourself to become the powerful woman you really are!

The perception is that women are vulnerable and men are scoundrels. Everyone knows that, right?

The truth of life is that humans are vulnerable and humans are scoundrels, each in their own ways and turns. Men typically take the upper hand in things and women are usually taught to be victims, but both find ways to hurt one another. Men cheat. Women cheat. Men abuse. Women abuse. Relationships suck when they don't work well. People don't talk to one another, and when the relationship goes sour, each is likely to want to lash out at the other, find a way to hurt the other. This sort of site promotes the one-sided view of female victimhood and is, therefore, less helpful than it could be.

Said Peej:

So basically, these guys are guilty because the women SAY they're guilty. Period. Where's the justice in that? Isn't this an open and shut case of libel? Sometimes I hate the Internet.

I was curious about it. I don't intend to use it, but I did register to become a member (user name "lizarddreams") just to see what's permitted, what's not. Their terms of service spell out how they protect themselves from lawsuits. They log the member's IP address and let the member know they're tracking it.

Knowing what I do about websites like this, they quickly roll over for court orders -- as they should. If a man finds his name and particulars up there, and the information is damaging enough, he can get the site to pull it and he can pursue the poster via the court system.

The site also provides a "He said/She said" forum where the man can rebut the woman's statements and offer information about her, then lets people vote on believability. Guys can register, too, and offer comments, posts about the men they know who may have hurt people.

I looked at a few more of the posts warning about these slime-dog evil-doing men. The posts are gossipy and filled with conjecture. One says "rumour has it that this guy has slept with 40 girls and he's not even 20 yet!" Another talks about a man who has children by different mothers, leverages the children to get the women to continue sleeping with him, etc. It pleads with readers who know him to comment to confirm (or, presumably, refute) that he's a bucket o sputem. <-- my term.

I tend to agree with PJ's sentiment: this is a kangaroo court of a website. They do offer all kinds of advice and support forums for women who have been hurt, and recommend books and such. It might be a useful resource in that community fashion, but the notion of ratting out guys who're dirtier than dirt without requiring the poster to offer proof of his slimedness is, well ... nasty.

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by gekko at 12:01 PM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

If you don't smoke, or if you police your butts, then move on.

If you do smoke, and you're one of those cretins who thinks "oh, it's just one eensy little bit of cotton and paper, who's gonna care?" then read on.

If you're someone who smokes and then carelessly tosses your saliva-coated filthy butt wherever you happen to be, and you happen to be on or near my property at the time and I happen to see you doing this disgusting activity, I will find out where you live.

When I do find out where you live, I will collect my dogs' excrement (plural on the "dog") and dump it all over your yard.

I promise you this.

But, of course, I support your "right" to smoke, etc. Have a lovely day!

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by gekko at 5:56 PM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

I saw the fifth Harry Potter movie, "The Order of the Phoenix."

* * *  S P O I L E R    W A R N I N G  !  * * *

Eh.

In general, I've been less than impressed with the movie versions of the books. I think that the way they cut them to pack the humongous books into the beensy little movie length left out some pretty keen stuff and the acting is a bit wooden in places.

But in Book 5, the coolest scene of all was one they chose not to reproduce in the film. They were all hot on the inky coal-dust-esque apparations of the Death Eaters and the silvery blinding white smokey apparations of the members of the order, and they cast Umbrage and Luna perfectly, but ... they missed out on animating the big statues at the Ministry. They could've done a Transformer coup, man!

Another irritation: had the movie peeps and the book peeps been really clever, they'd've released the movie on 7/5/07 and the seventh book on 7/7/07.

Morons.

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by gekko at 10:41 AM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

Two things, in rapid succession, irritated me this morning, and they both had to do with a simple design decision that could have made the difference between delighting a customer, and causing, well, irritation.

Dear Thermal Coffee Cup Designers. If you're too fucking cheap, or "cutting costs", or whatever, to use a tenth-of-a-cent blob of sealant on your trendy little coffee cups, making them "non-dishwasher-safe", then for fuck's sake make the interior large enough for an adult human hand to be able to get in there and scrape off the old coffee residue!

Sincerely yours, disgruntled coffee drinker

and

Dear Dishwasher Designers. If you're going to go to the trouble to put a "cleaning cycle completed" indicator on your high end dishwashers, then, hello. Make it fucking visible, not some pin-sized dot. Further, if I open the door to remove a fork, then close the door again, turning off the indicator makes it about as useful as using a spaghetti strainer for a birth control device, you know what I'm saying?

love and kisses, curmudgeonly home owner

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by gekko at 2:46 PM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

Yes, anything this hyped, this complex, this big-huge-gigantic-super-duper is going to have <air quotes>issues</air quotes>.

So it failed to actually do phone calls during The Today Show. 's'okay. It still looks sharp, and does lotsa cool stuff.

So you paid beau coup bucks for a paper weight, at least until AT&T gets caught up with the (could've anticipated this) huge backlog of activations on their (should've beefed these up, hello) servers. At least it's a pretty paper weight!

The thing is, while everyone's drooling over, screaming about, and laughing at the Apple iPhone, no one, but no one is paying attention to what really matters:

Transformers is out!

'course, even that will pale when Harry Potter 7 finally makes it to the book stores!

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by gekko at 12:06 PM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

The concept of service has had all of the life sucked from it.

I've ranted about corporate-based "Customer Service" and phone 'bots and such like. This is along those same lines, but taken to ridiculous new lows.

There was a water spill in the building where I work. It was in a break area. Lots of people walk into and out of that break area. I discovered it an early morning hour, before there were too many people. I found the source of the leak and stopped it. I found wads of paper towels and threw them on the floor. I found a marker, a piece of paper, and a handy trash can and penned "CAUTION WET FLOOR DO NOT SLIP" and taped the sign to the can and placed it in front of the wads of paper towels.

Then I went in search of custodial service.

I found a sign with a 1-888 number to call for custodial service in the place where there used to be a person. I used my personal cell phone to call the 1-888 number, and a person in a distant part of the world answered. His name might have been Rajeev. I related my issue. He asked for my phone number. I gave him my desk phone number, expecting that he would then ask for where the spill had occurred. You know. Part of the world, state, building code, area number, etc.?

Nope. He said, "Someone will get in touch with you" and he hung up.

I was on a teleconference using my desk phone. How, exactly, would someone get in touch with me? Why could he not have taken down the information and dispatched a person with a mop as soon as possible?

I went to the web site that the sign had also indicated, and saw that I could open a trouble ticket using the web. I filled in all the information, including the fact that I had just called someone and was not able to provide location information during the call. The web site cheerfully informed me the service call would be routed and my department would be billed $1000.

When my teleconference meeting ended, I got up and went to the break room. There were more sodden paper towels on the floor, and lots of wet footprints, but no sign of clean-up. No sign of a person with a mop. I tossed even more towels on the floor and went back to my desk.

I called the 1-888 number again. I ranted about how no one seemed to be mopping up the spill, someone might slip and sue the company and then the company would sue them for failing to provide contracted services. I ranted about how no one had taken the proper information down and how they were attempting to charge us $1000 for a mop-up. Pavarthy assured me that the $1000 was just an estimate and apologized and assured me, also, that she would have the work order routed very quickly.

Three hours later, a woman called me.

"Choo khav espill?"

"Yes, in the break room near me."

"Where es espill?"

I gave her the location for the break room.

"Where thees pliss?"

I gave her directions to the break room.

"Hokay. I go mop espill."

A few moments later, I saw a woman with a bucket and a mop. She picked up all the sodden paper towels, but there was nothing left to mop up.

"Espill all gone!"

I nodded.

"I choos get teeket for work. I be here fast, but they not give teeket until chess now."

I nodded.

"Hokay." She rolled her bucket out of the room. A few moments later she joined the now very large crowd of custodial persons who were taking their break in a different break room.

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by gekko at 8:59 AM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

Grab your three-year-old's hand BEFORE you step off the curb into heavy traffic.

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by gekko at 7:37 AM as a "Eruditus Opinionatus" poast

Saying "I'm sorry you feel that way" is in no way an apology for a wrongful action.

Let me make it clear that I understand and believe in that.

However. And you know that there must be a "however" because, hello, I'm writing a blog entry so