Tuesday, January 22, 2002

Couldn't agree more (as usual) with Tom Tomorrow [Salon] 9:54:08 PM      comment [] More on Tyson/Lewis I: The Press Conference.  The word among the press now is that it was staged, but I agree with this cat from ESPN: it smells like a way for Tyson to back out of the fight by guaranteeing that Nevada won't restore his boxing license. 9:53:08 PM      comment [] The BBC reports that Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis got into it during a press conference to announce their April 6 fight.  I have to agree with Sir Henry Cooper: "Tyson is just a nutcase. He is out of control and has been for years. He has been having a go at Lennox for ages and I am not surprised Lennox retaliated as he did." This has to just be Tyson's stupidity/insanity; it's concievable that he's trying to "get into Lewis' head", as Hasim Rahman did before their rematch, but I should think the results of that bout would speak for themselves. ESPN has a great quote: "What do Mike Tyson and sanity have in common? The answer: nothing!" 2:40:46 PM      comment [] Programmatically detecting Netscape on Windows is a pain in the ass.  First, Opera (among other programs) installs Netscape keys in the Registry, so you have to carefully examine them to make sure that yes, indeed, Netscape really is installed.  Then, to make things even more fun, Netscape 6 has to be detected in a slightly different way from every other version of Netscape.  Argh. 1:24:53 PM      comment [] A new post in the Radio.root updates channel messed up my news aggregator until I deleted it. 1:23:19 PM      comment [] Team Jordan displays the new EJ12 which will carry the hopes of Jordan Honda racing this year in F1.  It'll be interesting to see if Fisichella will finally have a car worthy of his skills, and whether Takuma Sato can impress the F1 world the way he did F3000. 11:43:46 AM      comment [] When I first saw this I thought to myself: "Ha ha, UltimateTV is dead, one more hackneyed MS attempt to kill my beloved TiVo bites the dust."  However, actually reading the article shows that MS is moving the UltimateTV hardware team into the XBox unit.  I wonder if this is another sign that XBox 2 may just be a compelling device?  (I can't think of a single reason why I'd want an XBox 1 right now... all the games I want to play are on the PS2, and the hardware is way nerdier too)  Of course, I'm still not convinced of the applicabilty of the all-in-one-gaming-digital-cable-networked-tv-recorder box.  I like separate components... I guess it's the PC lover and audiophile in me. [CNET News.com] 11:04:18 AM      comment [] Back to work reading: How to create Radio themes Radio macros Tracking hits and referers I'm Certain Sex With A Redhead Will Be More Fulfilling Than Other Sex Infographic: the new iMac http://www.theonion.com/onion3801/black_gospel_choir.html Profiling in Radio 10:39:48 AM      comment [] PeopleSoft hopes to end numbers flap.[CNET News.com] No way, you mean PeopleSoft might have cooked their books too?  Anyone who's seen this company's business practices should not be terribly surprised; while they have a reputation for treating employees very well, I've never met a customer who thought all that much of them.  PeopleSoft has always seemed to me like a seagull company: you give them lots of money and they fly in, crap some APIs and documentation all over your IT department, then flap off, leaving you to actually implement your solution, only now with less money. 10:33:08 AM      comment [] New on my list of things that fucking suck: ads that are not only embedded in the middle of articles, but which actually start talking through my sound card about IT infrastructure blah blah blah rightsizing my zap quotient blah blah blah buy some stuff.  HP is rapidly going from a company that I really respected to one that I loathe.  First the layoffs, then the Compaq merger (I already hated Compaq for destroying DEC), now these ads??? hp (pop) carly fiorina (equals) something for me to poop on 10:30:21 AM      comment [] My favorite part of Not My Desk, a site about temping, is the following quiz question (since it's happened to myself and practically everyone I know): "7. Your supervisor, whom you like and respect very much but who thinks you never do any work, doesn't come by your cubicle for days at a time.  When he/she actually does stop by, you have just completed a long stretch of demanding work and have only just started to: flip through a magazine make a personal call play computer solitaire eat a candy bar remove your pants stuff petty cash into a sack This is a trick question:  I have never worked for anyone I've liked or respected"   10:20:06 AM      comment [] From the NY Times (free subscription required), Amazon kindly removes a book cover that some find offensive.  I don't want to get off on a rant here, but it's pretty frightening that a book cover with a skyscraper, an aircraft, and Arabic lettering is considered "obviously offensive" (according to an Amazon spokeswoman).  Is the implication here that all Arabs with airplanes are clearly destined to crash into skyscrapers? 10:12:42 AM      comment [] Originally discovered through Slashdot, this article in the San Francisco Chronicle makes me sick to my stomach.  It's not surprise, but rather sadness.  Apparently the "HP Way" is to subcontract out the oppression of labor to companies that aren't afraid to do the dirty work. Even many who identify themselves as "liberals" often spout the party line that unions are a bad thing; when I talk to friends in this industry about unions for programmers, they often have a powerfully negative knee-jerk reaction.  While I recognize that labor unions in this country have drawbacks, they are the only force that can prevent the kind of manipulation and mistreatment that Raj Jayadev describes in his article.  I think it'll be far easier to deal with the corruption of unions than the single-minded selfishness of corporations. 10:07:39 AM      comment []

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