Slightly More Polite - Not Much More Useful

I'd read a while back on Consumerist that large companies are watching twitter for their name and then occasionally doing something about it. So I put a link to the "Dorks" post below on my twitter stream along with "Comcast could not be less helpful."

This morning this comment appeared with the post:

Hello David,

I apologize for any frustrations we caused. Please let me know if you are still experiencing problems with your guide channel. I'd be happy to assist in getting this matter resolved. Please email us at We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com.

Regards,
-snip-
Comcast Customer Connect
National Customer Operations

Which is unexpected and kinda useful. I emailed them a link back to the "Life's Little Annoyances" post, and then I got this:

Good Afternoon David,

I apologize for any issues you have experienced while using our DVR and On Screen Guide. We receive this information from a third party. The programming times, lineup and detail can change without notification or enough time to update our guide. You are correct; ‘booting’ the box will not correct this issue. We are continually working with our third party and our own teams to prevent these types of experiences from happening. I will share your feedback, blog and experience with additional members of our team for further review. If you have any further questions, or if I may offer any additional help, please feel free to contact me at anytime.

-snip-
Comcast Corporate Office
Comcast Customer Connect

Which is cool because they cop to the fact that the earlier advice about unplugging will have no effect. It does sound a little grade school when they say this is a problem with a third party, but I guess the we'll look into it tone is alright. Although I think I would feel much better about it if along with the I apologize and it's not our fault they also said please accept this $10 credit toward next month's service as a token of goodwill.

A man can dream can't he?

Oops

DBoevers (4:18:47 PM): can you see my package in this pic?

DBoevers (4:18:49 PM): https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIBUepxvaXBJ4Vi3L7ZJp721R6B-GwUOJxCE793zTkye8cKtwvjGsNwUkl2atzetf-Xj2jH33VH-D7qDSoMmSgUPx-CshgZPKqmxGr3z87TgvtTNDsmcJb1AtL3FNh5jYACp6E/s1600-h/Panorama.jpg

Mrs.TANBI (4:19:07 PM): no

Mrs.TANBI (4:19:12 PM): can you?

DBoevers (4:19:16 PM): are you sure?

DBoevers (4:19:46 PM): I think is DAMN close - but no

Mrs.TANBI (4:19:58 PM): where?

DBoevers (4:20:16 PM): if you look at the inside edge of the mandalay bay sign

DBoevers (4:20:21 PM): but in the reflection in the glass

DBoevers (4:20:33 PM): I think the image cuts off just above the danger zone

DBoevers (4:21:03 PM): almost VERY embarrassing

Mrs.TANBI (4:21:25 PM): have you posted this on the internet?

DBoevers (4:21:44 PM): http://mydaddidntliketheurl.blogspot.com/2008/10/not-yet-up-to-speed.html

DBoevers (4:23:14 PM): don't see myself here:

DBoevers (4:23:15 PM): http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ynlm4u-_Y0T4etSC_ytelQ

DBoevers (4:23:26 PM): but that panorama shot is less discreet

DBoevers (4:23:35 PM): have to remember that when shooting around windows

Mrs.TANBI (4:24:42 PM): maybe don't take pictures while naked

DBoevers (4:24:44 PM): right

DBoevers (4:24:46 PM): check

DBoevers (4:25:00 PM): or, I have to become hotter

DBoevers (4:25:03 PM): one or the other

DBoevers (4:25:07 PM): or maybe both

Mrs.TANBI (4:25:32 PM): hot has nothing to do with not posting pictures of your package

Mrs.TANBI (4:25:38 PM): that's just indecent

DBoevers (4:26:14 PM): I guess

DBoevers (4:26:28 PM): the dangers of blogging

Shorties

• 14:17 @renelae I hear that #
• 14:18 @bpeoples that would be a Ben Carter question and to the best of my knowledge he doesn't tweet #
• 14:18 Technical Design II - budget the show again #
• 16:04 Getting things together for the SketchUp Workshop #
• 18:19 Google Sketchup Workshop with Heather Wells - who says twitter isn't good for anything #
• 22:31 One workshop down. Darn computer kept overheating - not very on brand for CMU #
• 22:31 @renelae I got a whole rack of those - come get one whenever you want. #
• 00:57 Comcast could not be less helpful: mydaddidntliketheurl.blogspot.com/2008/10/dorks.html #

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Dorks

David sends this to Comcast:

The cable guide shows SpikeTV latenight as "shop at home" when in fact it isn''t that but two star trek shows and seven days.  Can''t set the DVR for that though.  Would be nice if the guide actually showed what was on.

Comcast sends this to David:

I understand that you are currently having issues with your Guide on your cable box. I apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you.  
If you have not tried to reset your cable converter please do so at this time to see if this will assist in resolving your issue. To reset your  cable converter, turn the cable box off then unplug the converter from  the electrical outlet. Let sit for 10 seconds, then plug it back in.  

A more direct example of their total disregard for customer satisfaction I cannot think of. Dorks.

Life's Little Annoyances

I have a DVR from Comcast. I also enjoy Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The show used to be on during the day on SpikeTV and somewhere back in the day I added it to the list of series subscriptions to record. Very briefly after that the show disappeared from my drive and from the daily SpikeTV schedule. Or so I thought.

Turns out that at 2am when the guide I get from Comcast says "shop at home" there's something completely different on: DS9! And here's a situation that the DVR is born to serve, show on in the middle of the night. But, it won't record it because the guide says something else:


Interestingly SpikeTV doesn't appear to be confused:

and, even more interestingly, Comcast doesn't appear to be totally clueless either:


So isn't this swell, I have to be the dweeb to call Comcast and complain because my box won't let me DVR my Cardasians and Bajorans. What do you want to bet the guy asks "Sir, is this the box in your mother's basement?"

Shorties

• 10:23 slow flurries on the way to work today. that time already? #
• 10:23 Technical Direction - Materials choices #
• 15:20 @aerdin hey, is there a word for drawing a word in the style of what the word says, like a rainbow shaped like a rainbow? #
• 15:40 Finalizing the ZFX Flying workshops #
• 16:21 @pegele03 that's not every day? #
• 20:00 for some reason plowing through work mail at home. I might need a rule #
• 22:36 @bpeoples I can do 48x96 CNC routing #

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Speak True Melissa

My Typical 'Homo' Family - The Daily Beast: "Prop 8 is a blatantly hateful, and fearful proposition that I believe the great citizens of California can see through. The proponents of it have run the most fearful of television ads telling the people that if this doesn’t pass they will have to teach about homos to small grade school children. I can’t seem to recall any relationships ever being taught in school and I can’t find anything about that in this proposition. Now, I know my preference of life mate freaks some people out. Maybe it is just their fear of sex or intimacy. I know that they hold up the bible and say that it’s wrong. Fine, let me stand before my creator and take any consequences there might be to living my life in truth and balance with my spirit."

Suburban Renewal

So there's this space in downtown Highland Park. Ages ago it used to be a store called Chestnut Court that sold books, although I don't think I ever bought a book there. They also sold stickers and notebooks and other stuff that I was more likely to blow money on.

After that it was a GAP. I never spent any money at the GAP.

Now it's an Uncle Dan's; they moved up the street. I used to by secondhand 501's at the Uncle Dan's in Evanston. This store does not appear to have secondhand jeans. Recently Mrs. TANBI and I looked at what they did have. We go there inevitably each trip home to look and see if there's a jacket for her.

This time we tried on a hat.


I'm not sure it's her style.

SHITSHITSHIT

Shorties

• 11:59 Tech Design II - mid course correction #
• 19:08 Missed my head search exit meeting, drat #
• 22:39 Man o man do I ever need a beer #

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SHARKVISION!!!

So here's something cool I didn't know about the Mandalay Bay Hotel: Mandalay Bay has Sharkvision:

The hotel has this Shark Reef attraction. I'd been back in the day when I lived out there. It's a fairly cool aquarium. I'm not sure it's worth the ticket, but there's plenty of stuff out there that isn't. The gimmick here is that you can "pet a shark." Of course by "pet" they mean touch with the very end of your finger and by "shark" they mean tiny tiny variety of shark, so the petting a shark thing might not be all you hope it could be.

But I digress.

So in your room on like channel 87 or something there's a constantly running feed from the shark reef. Should you choose to do so you could lay in your tub in the bathroom while watching the sharks swim on the TV - I chose not to do that, but even just kicking back in bed and watching the sharks swim laps is fairly relaxing.

If you have the opportunity you should definitely partake.

Shorties

• 09:09 maybe too glad to have my gerber back in my pocket #
• 09:09 Drama Head Search Meeting - new candidate #
• 09:52 Prepping for Technical Direction class - been so long I kinda forgot where we are #
• 13:14 plowing through 8 days of email that wasn't "Inbox Zero"d #
• 17:02 Head candidate reception #
• 18:25 If today were 10/6 I would be right on schedule #

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My Mom at the Jeff's

Slowly but surely getting through the backlog. Here are a couple of videos from the Jeff Awards last week in Chicago. Mom received a lifetime achievement award.

Here's the introduction:



and here's her acceptance speech:



She sure spent a lot of time talking about me and Jessica. but then we ARE pretty cool.

Shorties

• 18:14 Back in Yinzburg and glad to not have any more travel on the near horizon. So sorry if I missed you at LDI #

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Not Yet up to Speed

Here's some stuff to tide you over...

Shorties

• 13:30 brunch? pool? #
• 19:09 good pool #
• 02:43 wrapping up in Vegas, time to go home #

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Shorties

• 13:52 LVCC, yeah, I think LVCC #
• 20:14 home from the CC, I saw Christina and Mannie and Megan and Todd #
• 05:15 Really, really surprised by my surprise birthday dinner in Vegas - thanks Mrs. Boevers #

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Shorties

• 10:59 alrighty, off to rigging class at the Mirage #
• 19:55 aerial rigging class over, not what I wanted but still ok - next: Mario Batali dinner #
• 03:04 won $10, really good dinner, long walk #

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Las Vegas Ellipses...

It's a long walk from The Venetian to Mandalay Bay... The Aerial Rigging Workshop was more of a Cirque Rigging Seminar. I'm not sure anyone but me cared... We saw Mario Batali tonight but were too slow to get a picture... I was down twenty, but now I am up five... The hotel has a channel that shows the fish in their aquarium... The cab driver tonight wanted to give us drink coupons for a naked club... Mrs. TANBI had a hot stone massage today, she'd like you to know you should be jealous... By the time I am through here the cabs are going to be about a gazillion dollars... Getting off the plane here is not like coming home anymore... We can now add Mandalay Bay to Luxor, Rio, MGM, Monte Carlo, Mirage, and Bally's... Arriving on a Wednesday night must be the easiest time there is... There's a TV on the vanity and a phone by the toilet... We finally got a room that looks over the strip... After hearing about the Mystere line shaft winches for 13 years, I finally saw them today. Not what I expected... I need to remember to look up "superlocks." Might even be the piece of gear I have been looking for... Kieth is going to blow a gasket when he sees the bill from dinner. Some type of compromise might be in order... Two days left...

Shorties

• 12:50 jamming through the office trying to batten things down before jetting #
• 14:59 ok, thats it, headin west! #
• 17:27 Greater Pittsburgh International Airport #
• 01:54 Vegas baby, unpack, buffet, lose $20 #

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Shorties

• 15:47 Back to Yinzburg - BRIEF stop at the office #
• 18:27 Home - cleared the front yard - 15 minute break #
• 22:02 laundry, packing #

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Jeff Awards

Here are some photos from Monday night's Jeff Awards in Chicago. Mom got herself a lifetime achievement award.



I have some video, but that will have to wait to get posted.

Shorties

• 18:07 Off to the Jeff Awards #
• 01:37 Home from the Jeff's - packing for Pittsburgh #

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Shorties

• 12:29 @renelae I wonder if "really?" wouldn't be just as effective without being difficult #
• 18:06 Family outing - W #

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Shorties

• 18:07 Chicago #

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No, no, not three "Shorties"

Have to write something so as not to be over-run with tweets.
-----------------------
Air travel today was uneventful, which in this day in age I guess means "fucking outstanding." Everything came and went on time without problems and really without undue lines. If you take out the ritual removing of the shoes the only real aggravation was parking at Greater Pitt. They raised the lot rates again. Long term is up to $11/day and extended is nearly $7 - if my recollection is correct $7 is what long term used to be when extended was $4.25 (yes and you had to walk both ways in the snow uphill in those days too). Surprisingly the construction on both the Parkway East and the Parkway West was a huge no factor in our trip - who knew?
------------------------
What do you do when an entire class misses the point, cops to it, and doesn't care? This is the struggle of the week at work. We have this real innovative course concept (I've talked about it before) that was real successful its first time out but the second time, well, less so. It's been rough on the kids and devastating to the instructors and now that we're at the end we don't know what to do - give lousy grades and get on with our lives, fail everyone and make them do it again, quit and get that job hanging drywall... There are people involved with North of 20 years teaching that have never seen anything like this. We'll have to come up with something, but I don't think it will do anything to assuage the feeling of foreboding we're all carrying around right now.
------------------------
Mid semester grades are due Monday and I think I am getting a C. Gonna have to meet with my advisor and come up with a plan to get back on track. All the tenure stuff at the top of the semester really overwhelmed my capacity and while the semester really has been going well - I think Technical Direction has been great, and Tech Design II has been interesting and worthwhile - well I keep feeling like there's more. The integration between classroom and theatre (lab) this semester is tighter than it has ever been. It's working great at the middle level, but needs some tweaking at the top level where it feels like the classroom is a little overwhelmed - although maybe at the top level the lab work ought to overwhelm the classwork. Have to give that some more thought.
-------------------------
I still can't get connected to my folk's wireless network. It's security enabled and they don't know the password. It isn't thier name, the cat's name, their address, the phone number, "password" or any of the text strings on the bottom of the router. That pretty much cashes out my hacker skilz (or total lack thereof). Anyone know how to find the password for an Apple Airport? At home I think I could do some kind of 192.168.1.1 while connected through a cable and find - something. Here that doesn't appear to work. It's killing us that there's wireless in the house but we can't use it. rrrrrrr.
-------------------------
I saw Caribou Barbie on SNL. Alec Baldwin was remarkably well controlled. I hadn't really heard that name for her before - just "Sarah Baracuda." I think I like CB much better.

Shorties

• 09:42 School of Drama Faculty Meeting #
• 09:43 Faculty Meeting - Dean of CFA Q&A #
• 09:55 Faculty Meeting - CMARC #
• 10:21 Faculty Meeting - External Relations #
• 10:44 Faculty Meeting - Business Office Update #
• 11:00 Faculty Meeting - Search Update #
• 11:04 Faculty Meeting - Marianne Weems #
• 11:10 Faculty Meeting - Student Exchange to Turkey #
• 11:15 Faculty Meeting - Faculty Work Load #
• 11:15 Faculty Meeting - Rauh Seating Configuration #
• 11:17 Faculty Meeting - Misc. Items #
• 11:48 Faculty Meeting - Staff Council Canned Food Drive #
• 11:53 Faculty Meeting - Faculty/Staff Accomplishments #
• 12:23 Faculty Meeting - Lunch #
• 13:24 More grading - woohoo #
• 18:34 punting, having achieved nothing #
• 21:40 Home, packing #

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Shorties

• 11:34 Technical Design II - Shop biographies #
• 13:53 Grading #
• 18:50 xoption meeting - lab review progress #
• 18:57 xoption meeting - TV Project set #
• 19:02 xoption meeting - capital equipment #
• 19:10 xoption meeting - those amazing sophomores #
• 19:50 xoption meeting - head search #
• 19:51 xoption meeting - spring schedule #
• 19:59 xoption meeting - fall 09-10 schedule #
• 20:06 xoption meeting - "collaboration document" #
• 20:23 xoption meeting - crew grading #

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Another One

Shorties

• 09:26 Technical Direction - Schedules and scheduling issues #
• 15:56 Cheney went to the hospital with an irregular heartbeat - they heard one! #
• 22:51 Well, that was even a little bit painful. #
• 00:50 thinking its nice to know McCain now thinks $250,000 is rich. Now if only he knew a 1% tax raise wouldn't stop Joe from buying a business #

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Shorties

• 11:40 Technical Design II - Structure Interface #
• 14:47 waiting for the tree guy tinyurl.com/4ljugr #
• 19:31 Head Search meeting, good list #
• 20:25 Maybe when they are saying "kill him" they really just mean "I hope you beat the pants off him!" #

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Sarah Palin Not Welcome at The Ministry of Silly Walks

Wonders Never Cease

Shorties

• 12:12 Technical Direction - departmental scheduling priorities #

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Timecrash

So I have been seeing all these references to a Doctor Who episode last season called Timecrash. It sounded really cool because it featured 5th doctor Peter Davison - a personal favorite. Trouble was I don't remember seeing it and really I don't think I missed it. So what's up with that?

Well what's up is that it was a special promo episode, only 8 minutes and not part of the show package aired on SciFi. But - it's on YouTube. Have the big fun:

In Case You Really Wanted to Know

Gas Prices: Why Is Gas So Expensive?: "Conclusion
Most of the above draws on the excellent work of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which produced a 324 page report that makes for a fascinating read. Direct links to the report sections are below:
Executive Summary
Introduction
The Production and Marketing of Gasoline
The Effects Of Market Structure And Concentration On Gasoline Prices
How Gasoline Prices Are Set"

Don't Get (Great) Depressed

Alan Schram: Why this is NOT The 1930's: "And this was not completely unexpected, either. We had market crashes in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1901, 1907, 1929, 1946, 1961, 1968, 1973, 1980, 1987, and 2000. We had 13 recessions since the 1930's. This is the nature of the business cycle. Yes, this one is more violent than most but it would be foolish to expect that every bear market will turn into a Great Depression. And even if you did assume that, we are already at a point where the scales of crisis in the stock market, albeit not in the economy, are not far off from the precedent of the Great Depression."

Call Them Out

A little while back they were discussing the election on This Week and Snufalupagous brought up the idea that there "were still a significant number of Americans that just couldn't get themselves to vote for a black man."

Why such soft language George?

We're two generations past when it might have maybe been excusable, although still - you know - wrong to hold that kind of opinion. Almost 50 years later this sort of thing ought not be treated so politely by the media. I guess maybe the Obama people themselves can't make anything out of it for fear of touching off some kind of explosion of ignorance, but main-stream media ought to be, well, main stream; and unless the issue isn't just "a significant number" but more like "an embarrassing majority" then perhaps instead of saying "couldn't get themselves" we ought to use the word we have in our language we have for such instances: bigot.

were still a significant number of Americans too bigotted to vote for a black man

Different tone I think, and closer to the mark. Think "bigot" is too strong, well then you won't want to use "racist" either. How about "ignorant" or "prejeduced?" Seems like we have a whole lot of language available to describe this behavior in a negative way, we ought to use it.

The description of this should be perjorative. The behavior is small minded and really just inexcusable. Letting people be comfortable with it by giving it the same level of energy and morality as "can't bring themselves to eat broccoli" is letting people off the hook. They ought to hear themselves being discussed in front of the world as backward.

With black and white soldiers dying overseas and black and white home buyers being put on the street and black and white stock holders seeing their nest eggs crumble and black and white tax payers being made to foot the bill for wealthy indescretions I think we owe it to ourselves to present these candidates not as the black and the white candidate but as the this and the that policy candidate; and someone that can see themself voting for a black man isn't progressive, they are a modern American.

Someone that can't, they are a bigot.

Shorties

• 10:39 Parents weekend - information meeting #

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The Great Purnell Mill-Off

So each year in Technical Direction class the whole group has to estimate an entire show. For the last couple of years I have been using a set of drawings I have from Maine State Music Theatre. They are for a production of Secret Garden that was designed by Joe Varga. I use them because Joe does some really excellent drafting, very specific and very detailed.

Two of the plates for the show are for the "Picture Gallery" unit. Here's a production shot:

and here are the draftings:


Notice that all of the frames have a custom profile. When we built the show we had to mill all of these shapes to make the individual pieces. For my students, estimating this manufacturing is a fairly significant part of the assignment, and after some discussion it seemed like they really didn't know how long it would take.


So in keeping with the "lab" notion of our curricular work, and considering that most of the shapes are very small I thought I would give them an opportunity to build some context for the assignment by actually prototyping 12 inches of each of the moulding profiles. There are nine people in the class and 24 patterns, I figured that with a short moulding-head demo at the top of a class session they would be able to get the work done with the balance of that class and one other.

In the end they did finish, but it took a wee bit longer. Before we were through they had used up the majority of four class sessions.

Here's one of my favorites from their effort:


One of the pieces is seamed, another component has a nasty knot in the middle and looks as if it was cut out with a matte knife - and there are lots of brad holes; lot's of fill and sand for this one.

Anyway, fast forward a couple of days and I am sitting with my seniors talking about the project the juniors had finally completed when it occurred to me to say "now if you really wanted to show them up, the four of you would crank out all these shapes in a single class period."

And then it - as they say - was "on!"

That's the intrepid seniors working on their pwnage.

Here's one of my favorites from their set:

Some of pattern on the left part wanders considerably, and some of the right part looks like it was milled by some Flintstones device involving hedgehogs.

But overall not bad from either group. Here's the whole spread:

Seniors -
4 guys, 1 Class period + 90 minutes =
12 working hours total

Juniors -
9 guys, 4 class periods =
36 working hours total

1/3 the time counts as pwnage, yes?

More fun though to compare some of the corresponding pieces. These guys are supposed to be the same:


Clearly they didn't use the same tape measure, or the same drawing, or the same level of QC. These are supposed to be identical too:

Close, but no cigar. Man that milled plywood is NOT sexy, and for the record the one on the left - the Junior's - is correct, or "correcter" anyway.

In the end I am not sure it was really worth four class sessions for Technical Direction class, but aside from the time investment I do think it was a good project, and a nice validation for the Seniors too. I wonder if I do it again next year if this year's Juniors will shellac next year's Juniors as well.

Shorties

• 09:24 StudioCraft - Drawing primitives in 2D #
• 11:24 Capital equipment requests. Anyone know what a genie supertower costs? #
• 17:36 841? Eight forty one? Combined 841 on the SAT and running for Vice President? That's just what I needed to hear. #
• 22:47 Just back from Religulous - I guess I'm done #

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Shorties

• 11:22 I cannot understand how to fix a "crisis of confidence" - it's a lot like a "war on terror" in that way #
• 21:22 all set for another year #

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Duh

Note to McCain: Overhead projector is not a planetarium projector - Boing Boing: "My friends, during last night's presidential debate, McCain took That One to task for approving funding for an 'overhead projector.' Howard Covitz, who used to work at Chicago's Adler Planetarium, prepared this helpful graphic for McCain to show the difference between an overhead projector and a planetarium projector."

Shorties

• 22:57 I'm not impressed by the rhetoric #

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Dear Senator Specter

Senator Casey,
& Congressman Doyle:

I just had to write something simple and to say that I cannot understand how the system is set up in such a way that corporate execs can tank their company to such an extent that we the people have to bail them out and concurrently anyone with any management authority of that company walks away with any money at all.

There are people out there being ruined by proxy. They have no standing to sue the people that really did it to them to recover their loss. We ought to do it for them legislatively.

Execs walking away from bankrupt or effectively bankrupt companies with multi-million dollar compensation packages is embarrassing enough when the only people being hurt are shareholders. When their customers are being hurt and the public is footing the bill it's just unacceptable.

Shorties

• 14:00 Tech Direction - finish that moulding already #
• 00:12 Really why did we give them all that money? #

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Shorties

• 23:35 ok, back on your heads. #

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Ellipses...

The tree hasn't fallen, and I haven't done anything about it, but I have made at least one bidder angry... If Tina Fey weren't so much like Sarah Palin those sketches would be even more pointed... I am tired of being sick, sick and tired... Clone Wars was alright, it's a solid DVR add... My pile of work has become formidable, even with it taking the Juniors more than two weeks to make 24 feet of moulding... Cubs, lose, world, yawns. I wish I could say I was surprised, but really after Steve Garvey it's all been the same for me... New gadgets on the green page, and over 30 posts today, if only I that were really my job... I think, I am pretty sure I'm going to the Jeffs. Mom's getting a lifetime achievement award. Going to make for a lot of travel that week... More and more often its begining to sound like "my dog ate my homework" - could be time for a policy change... They don't have fried chicken at Fridays. I guess the country is passed fried chicken... The Steelers game put a real crimp in my Sunday TV. At least they won... Mrs. TANBI and I came up with a fairly cool gift for a friend today... The cats now wait anxiously to play with the laser. They really like laser... I think I am getting passed my bank angst, and I think it has little or nothing to do with the federal bailout... It's very nearly time for the next large show to be out of scope. I can't wait... I now have four possible plans for Playground week next semester. One of them is even a playground piece... What am I going to do about my folks? This is an unpleasant place to be in so many ways... I think we ought to give away more t-shirts... I watched the first three episodes of Fringe. I guess I will hang with it a while longer... Just where did September go? I got to pay more attention...

Shorties

• 13:28 waterfront #
• 18:57 blogging, blogging, hosing out email #

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Fourth Anniversary Post

So this post is actually more than a month and a half overdue. Sometimes I guess life just gets in the way and we don't have all the time we might need for things like blogging. Plus I spend an awful lot of time maintaining the other blog, I average about 1500 articles a day coming in through my Google reader account - something for my own edification although it also generates this feed and the Green Page, and then there's Twitter, and most recently Facebook. It's a lot of computer time for one guy. Add Xeno Tactic and there's pretty much no time for CivIV, let alone StumbleUpon.

The RSS feeds thing has really changed the blog. I spend more time reading and less time writing, and when before I might see something on TV or hear something on the radio and then write about it; now I am more likely to read about it online and post a link. It's pretty much done away with the "Link of the Day" idea, although there are still occasionally that type of post. Posting in general had dropped way down until July when LoudTwitter started shipping batches of tweets as a daily post. Now the numbers are way up although contentwise we're still down.

The numbers:

TANBI 07-08
351 Posts
17 Ellipses

I'm back down under a post per day, but the automatic posts will jump it up again soon, and when you figure all the other activity, well, I am posting well above "hermit/loser" on the scale of unpaid online posting. Various data sources show around 700ish distinct viewers and roughly 100 page views each day. The counter rolled over 70,000 this year and is nearly already to 75k.

The whole idea of "most" photos or videos has sort of fallen apart because of the use of other sites for embed, and the meme thing is just so over - so we won't be counting those this year.

Best pic:

From Halloween2k7

Worst pic:

From There are no bad ideas

I don't know what I was on that day, but clearly I needed a nap.

Top 10 posts, as chosen by me - the guy that did them:

1. I CAN HAS DYNASAAR - 2008
2. .sig War
3. LOL Commencement
4. Reasonable Stopping Point
5. Why Barak? Why?
6. I've Had an Idea
7. What the Financial Markets Could Learn From Industrial Motion Control
8. Food Adventure
9. Last Minute PTM Type Gift Ideas
10. Cam-pain

They are in no particular order. It's hard to compare being funny to being serious to home projects to work, but I think overall they're a good group. And representative of a decent year.

Perhaps That's Her Achilles Heel

Sarah Palin's college daze. - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine: "Was she really unsure about the meaning or proper pronunciation of the word caricature? Had she truly failed to notice that John McCain jumped down Barack Obama's throat when Obama publicly proposed attacking al-Qaida in Pakistan's ungoverned tribal regions? Why couldn't she name a single newspaper or magazine that she read on a regular basis before being tapped for the national ticket? Why couldn't she name a single Supreme Court decision she disagreed with apart from Roe v. Wade?* In an earlier (2007) interview with Charlie Rose on PBS, why did Palin, after mentioning C.S. Lewis ('very, very deep') as a favorite author, go on to cite George Sheehan, a onetime columnist for Runner's World?"

Shorties

• 15:47 3D CAD today. Everyone draw a chair, yes the instructions do work. #
• 23:45 Sanctuary was eh. I'll watch again, but then I watched all of Flash Gordon too #

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Shorties

• 12:00 soldiering into the day even though I'm really not up to it #
• 18:55 thinking I was going to vote Obama - then he spent Springsteen to Philly while us Yinzers got "Vampire Weekend"? - now less so. #
• 22:21 Biden shoulda said "my Achilles heel is when someone asks me a question I answer it" #

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It's Really Not My Country

ABC News: Batons Stilled After 'Girl Kissing' Song Flap: "Three Texas high school students are being disciplined after performing a baton routine to the popular Katy Perry song 'I Kissed a Girl' during a pep rally last week."

Shorties

• 17:40 @thespophile Sure there is, but not in a four year footprint - but that's not about Drama, that's about college. #
• 20:24 @thespophile observations of past participants would indicate that the investment is not wasted, although that may be difficult to see now #

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Just About Sums it Up

Shorties

• 15:59 @aerdin giant secret job - congrats #
• 16:01 @thespophile that's overstating it, yes? there've been a lot of people that have changed direction - although maybe that's not backing out #
• 16:02 thinking how the Rabbi's "be an Angel" message had me hearing "1000 points of light" #
• 20:57 wondering if the facebook wall is a decent place to have a complex discussion #
• 21:07 is it possible that when hammered on earmarks the McCain/Palin people should respond "don't hate the player, hate the game?" #

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