insignificant thoughts

Ya gotta love it. PC has so permeated the world that now we take offense for people before they even tell us that they’re offended. Check this one out:

SHANGHAI — Companies looking to reach China’s consumer market with pig images during Year of the Pig celebrations next month will have to adjust [...]

DALLAS (AP) – Authorities at Tarleton State University said they plan to investigate a Martin Luther King Jr. Day party that mocked black stereotypes by featuring fried chicken, malt liquor and faux gang apparel.

“I feel like there is no excuse for this type of ignorance,” said Donald Ray Elder, president of the Stephenville school’s chapter [...]

An Arizona restaurant called The Heart Attack Grill is under fire (no pun intended… maybe…) for dressing its waitresses in sexy nurse costumes. The Center for Nursing Advocacy has been trying to get them to stop by petitioning the Arizona State Attorney General and so on.

“Nurses are the most sexually fantasized-about profession,” said [...]

Yet another day, and yet another over-hyped Mac security vulnerability. Alastair’s Place trashes the current flavor of the week, the .DMG “exploit.” They disassembled the code of this terrible exploit and found the following…

So, what have we learned:

1. It is not a memory overwrite bug.
2. [...]

I’ve long defended schools’ rights to enforce their dresscodes however arbitrary and silly they might be. This time, however, I have to say the school is just stupid.

LONG BEACH, N.Y. — Captain Underpants may be a superhero, but he isn’t welcome at one suburban New York school.

Three 17-year-old girls were told to leave Long [...]

I love Google. When they come out with a new product, I’m one of the first to check it out and soak it in. I had a Gmail account very early (as evidenced by the excellent and short address I got). I love Picasa. I use Google Docs and Spreadsheets regularly.

You [...]

Saw the movie last Saturday. Had goosebumps the entire time. In the car on the way home the signif and I came to the conclusion that the “Me Decade” and consumerism of the 80s could not have come about had John Lennon been there to remind us that all we really need is love and [...]

So much for the end of the Retention Department. Apparently they’ve just changed the name of the call from a retention call to a “Member Relationship Management” call.

Yawn.

How Ben keeps getting this stuff is beyond me…

Technorati Tags: consumerist, aol, mrm, retention, customer service

“While we have great respect for Microsoft, we are frankly underwhelmed by the much-hyped Zune device,” Wu said in a research note today. “Microsoft had hinted of an all-new design from the ground up, but from our analysis, it appears that the Zune is essentially a repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat that has seen limited success. Moreover, [...]

Gothamist parrots a NY Times fear that blacks and hispanics (and dammit Gothamist, those don’t get capitalized unless someone is named Black or Hispanic) aren’t getting into specialized schools. It’s a tragedy! Black and hispanic enrollment is down!

And for Gothamist (as well as the NY Times) that seems to be the only story.

In [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) — AOL is preparing to dig for buried gold and platinum on property in Massachusetts owned by the parents of a man it sued for sending millions of unwanted spam e-mails to its customers.

AOL said Tuesday it intends to search for gold and platinum bars the company suspects are hidden near the home [...]

I’ve seen much worse in video games, but for some reason this game seems to be setting people into a frothing frenzy. Maybe it hits too close to home for some of these folks…

Technorati Tags: video games, geeky, gaming

The Apple Blog had an interesting angle today on Apple’s not-so-nice banners at WWDC 2006:

But after seeing multiple banners at WWDC taking direct jabs at Microsoft, I feel like Apple might be pushing it. It’s one thing to make a comment in a keynote, and it’s another to have huge banners at the APPLE Developer [...]

I worked for Software Etc. (now known as Gamestop) and I can tell you our video was just as horrible, but in a different way. We had a bunch of over-enthusiastic tools going “Never forget, GSA! That’s G for greet, S for show the product, and A for ask for the sale. [...]

A couple of days ago, on Geek News Central, I read an article. On it, whichever member of the team was writing it was bemoaning the fact that in Hawaii, he only had one choice for broadband internet, and the speed wasn’t up to snuff.

A quote:

Ever wonder why we are falling so far behind [...]

Normally I’m right in there with Forever Geek. I find myself nodding often when reading the stories they post.

This is not one of those times.

While Griffith does concede that the DS is the winner of the portable console wars, he makes this statement which does not make one lick of sense to me:

One thing [...]

Good thing we don’t live in a country like China where they arrest photographers for doing the…

Wait…

WTF?

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia family said they are outraged over the arrest of one of their family members.

The family of Neftaly Cruz said police had no right to come onto their property and arrest their 21-year-old son simply because [...]

When you write a post with this money shot, you have to expect a reaction:

On top of that, I haven’t found anything that Thunderbird can’t do that Outlook can (things that I would use anyways).

The post in question was about how much greater Thunderbird is than Outlook. Should I yawn now or yawn later? [...]

No buying these red white and blue wingtips in stores:

I know. You’re devastated.

Technorati Tags: bush, shoes, red white and blue

This just boggles my mind…

The president of the Semiconductor Industry Association recently visited the country to learn more about how it is encouraging the development of its own chip industry. He and his staff came away impressed with the gleaming new universities and research facilities that are springing up in various parts of China.

The SIA, [...]