Eclecticity: Dan Shafer's Web Log : Where author, poet, sports fanatic, spiritual teacher, and dabbler in things Pythonesque and Revolution(ary) Dan Shafer holds forth on various topics of interest primarily to him
Updated: 11/13/02; 1:50:02 PM.

 

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Wednesday, October 9, 2002

Just an idea about where to play the World Series

As it is now, when the World Series is played, the "home team" alternates from year to year. That's fine but sort of arbitrary and meaningless.

Here's an idea.

Let's give interleague play some meaning by making the home team dependent on the overall outcome of those games through the season. If the American League teams win more games than the NL teams, then start the series in the AL city.

It would give some meaning and value to what are otherwise not very important games that are also somewhat inequitable.
7:31:07 PM    Add your viewpoint [ comments so far]


You can have my TiVo when you pry it from...

Slate has a think piece predicting the demise of TiVo. The company has apparently burned through $400 million, has about $26 million in reserves and could be dust by January, according to this analyst.

I think he's all wet. I sure hope he is. I bought my TiVos back when they were fairly new and I knew I was taking a risk that the company that supplied the service (I'm a lifetimer on the system) might disappear into the techno-ether. And I must admit that if it did go away, I'd probably buy a Replay or a PC-software combo.

But I'd miss it.

I hope they don't go away.
1:15:41 PM    Add your viewpoint [ comments so far]


Why not? We had an actor playing a real-life President once!

Dave Winer points out that Law & Order has a sitting US Senator playing the DA for the new season. I suspect this is the first time a national political figure held a regular role in a TV series. But it's only fair. After all, for eight years the White House was occupied by a professional actor who played the role of Chief Executive with aplomb and wit if not always intelligence!

(BTW, I love my TiVOs. Yeah, I have two of them. Long story. One's a 30-hour model and one's a 15-hour model. Great product, really.)

Thanks to TiVO I was able to catch up on the season premiere of Law and Order. The new District Attorney is played by a sitting US Senator from Tennessee, Fred Thompson. A real politician playing the role of a politician. Hmmmm. [Scripting News]

11:26:03 AM    Add your viewpoint [ comments so far]

Help! I've Become a Blog Addict

I woke up this morning with the sudden realization that I've become a blogging addict. And I don't care. I love it. I don't want to join a 12-step program for it (unless, of course, it meets online and I can blog the meetings).

Here's my story.

Can you identify with me? Offers of help politely but firmly refused.
11:17:38 AM    Add your viewpoint [ comments so far]


This is perhaps Microsoft's most outrageous conduct

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I'm no fan of Microsoft. Their recent admission that Word:X isn't compatible with Jaguar and won't be for some unspecified future time has me seeing red. But that's a minor pimple on the ass of computing compared to this admission.

Microsoft: Does it pay to be safe?. An executive says the software maker is considering charging for extra security options and admits that the company didn't move on security until customers were ready to pay for it. [CNET News.com]

This is the functional equivalent of telling a car buyer, "Oh, if you want a car that you can lock so nobody can steal it, that's going to cost you extra." I can't believe that even MS has this much audacity. And it's just further evidence that Microsoft needs to be dealt with much more harshly than it has been by the government and by the marketplace.

Every IT manager in the United States who has locked his company into MS should be up in arms. Maybe we need a new policy in corporate America: IT managers who can't find a way to get their companies out of the MS fatal embrace should be fired and replaced with those who can think past the end of their Redmonds.
10:02:21 AM    Add your viewpoint [ comments so far]


Python Cookbook review is fair

The Python Cookbook. Nice2Cats writes "Python is something of a programmer's dream and an author's ... [Slashdot]

I've worked through some of this book and looked over its entirety. I agree with Nice2Cats (though I am canine-preferred myself) that this is a useful book if you've learned enough Python to do more than toy stuff.

I found the Text chapter particularly fascinating and helpful and I'm about to tackle the one on OOP where Python's implementation is just different enough from my accustomed OO language, Smalltalk, that I need to twist my head about a bit and slam it into a well to get its attention focused.
9:57:41 AM    Add your viewpoint [ comments so far]


Aristotle. "Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way...you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
1:08:31 AM    Add your viewpoint [ comments so far]

© Copyright 2002 Dan Shafer.



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