Scanners - Yeah -- wait'll the TSA gets hold of these puppies. "Your brainwaves indicate you were intrigued by the idea of something happening to your plane. You are under arrest."
The Bubble - It's remarkable that the Christian groups who want to keep any possibly unholy or belief-contradicting word away from themselves, their kids, their families -- and, by extension, all the rest of us -- are no better than any other media-controlling, information-restraining organization, such as the government of North Korea. Ah, but they're not Saved ...
Official Google Mobile Blog: My Location: smaller is better! - The quasi-GPS abilities of some mobile phones and Google (triangulating location by cell tower reception) is actually pretty keen. I've made use of it on my Blackberry with Google Maps. If they've improved it further, that'd be keen.
Phony Excellence - I enjoy good wine (and even not-so-good wine), but while I appreciate a large wine list, it's hardly what drives me to a restaurant. This story is, though, quite amusing.
It may seem I've been on a Holy Warpath re the GOP, etc., the last few days. Well, I sort of have been. But I can appreciate humorous criticism of all political ideologies. To wit, this, via Randy (who commented, "Heh. Ouch."): Whatever: I Hate Your Politics
No, I don't know what they are. And no, I probably don't know who you are, either. Really, those two points are immaterial (no offense). As it turns out about, about 46% of you are liberal, 46% of you are conservative, and the rest of you just want your guns, drugs and brothels (here in the US, we call them folks "libertarians").
Each of you carries baggage from your political affiliation, and all of that baggage has a punky smell to it, like one of your larger species of rodent crawled in and expired in your folded underwear. Listening to any of you yammer on about the geopolitical situation is enough to make one want to melt down one's dental fillings with a beeswax candle and then jam an ice pick into the freshly-exposed nerve, just to have something else to think about. It's not so much that politics brings out the worst in people than it is that the worst in people goes looking for something to do, and that usually ends up being politics. It's either that or setting fires in trashcans.
In the spirit of fairness, and of completeness, let me go down the list and tell you what I hate about each major branch of political thinking.
Followed by a very amusing dissection of Liberals, Conservatives, and Libertarians. Worth reading in these troubled times.
Jesus - The Awkward Years -- Jesus' life (well, not really) as a goofy Archie comic, complete with lame laugh lines and bad puns (and a bit of sacrilege, if that sort of thing upsets you). Now if only its RSS feed weren't frelled.
Outlook vs. Gmail—The Definitive Comparison [Lifehacker... -- This actually deserves a full post, but no time at the present. So, in the meantime, check out this review of using Outlook vs Gmail for your Internet mail client. I can't imagine using a resource hog like Outlook for that, but clearly some people find it useful.
The Pope's interest in Lambeth -- You'd think that the Catholic Church would be salivating over snatching up all sorts of dissident conservatives from the current Anglican brouhaha, but evidently the Pope gets along well with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and has an interest in stability more than upping the Catholic rosters. Plus, y'know, folks who make lots of disturbance and question how the denomination is run and teaches aren't exactly high on the list of people the Pope wants to see ...
Pocket watch gun -- TSA to ban all pocketwatches on airline flights -- film at 11.
Dadburn gub’mint regulations! -- The free market is a great way, by and large, to encourage innovation and maximize net profit in a society. But just like Darwin's natural selection means you can end up with dangerous monocultures -- not to mention lots of dead bunnies and burnt-down forests and mass extinctions -- so too is it a Good Idea to have regulatory checks on the market to protect things that aren't included in "net profit," like health and safety and pollution and labor practices.
Electrocuted -- As an example of the previous bullet ... As someone who works for an engineering firm with a strong safety culture, and someone who has a lot of respect for electricity, I find this apalling.
He Said What? -- Evidently John McCain has forgotten all he once knew about operational security.
Woman credits God for allowing bullet to hit only... -- I have my own theological problems with requests for intercessory prayer. I have more problems with ex post facto "God protected me" attributions, especially when it's a matter of a bad outcome that's "good" because it could have been worse.
DeMint: Freedom of Speech Threatened by Disagreement -- Sorry, but having your speech criticized, objected to, or ridiculed is not "censorship" or "stifling" of your Freedom of Speech, unless it's the government that's doing it to you. If people think you're being a cretinous bigot (or even that your points are poorly stated and have many counter-arguments to them), that's what free speech is all about.
Watch Over Your Gmail Account Activity - New feature in Gmail will show where your account is signed in from, in case you left it running on more than one machine. Doesn't seem to detect Gmail from my Blackberry, but it's an easy way to track your IPs, and to secure yourself.
GOP Convention Platform Stokes Conflict - Usually nobody pays any attention to the party platform. But some of the folks worried about McCain's conservative creds are worried that me might modify with some of his wacky ideas.
McCain's Economists - Well, if 300 economists have signed onto McCain's economic plan, it must be a good one, right? Well, maybe ... if they really signed onto the plan.
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