The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Random

  • This Week in Traffic: 20 April 2007

    Stamford Times Can’t Format an Article

    This article from the Stamford Times demonstrates two things: They shouldn’t let their IT folks set up the online newspaper because, really, who uses center formatting for a newspaper article and, oh yeah, there’s some traffic calming information in there.

    16 Students Killed in Egypt

    Two days after the Viriginia Tech shootings, 16 teenage students were killed, and 8 injured in a head-on collision in Egypt. Why didn’t this make the national news?

    Keokuk, Iowa is REMOVING Traffic Signals

    If you know anything about small towns, you know that their traffic signals are sources of community pride. However, when it goes overboard, traffic delays skyrocket, maintenance costs soar, and people start to realize that signals are not a fix-all. Keokuk is experimenting with a more rational approach to their signalization, and getting rid of their ancient unwarranted electromechanical signal controllers in the process.

    If you See a Girl, Alone on the Highway…

    She might have lost her soccer game

  • Lamers!

    Seen from my hotel window as I prepared for the day.

    Lamers

    I’m glad I’m not part of that group. “Lamers!”

  • Blogger Code of Conduct and the Rhetorical use of Fuck

    The NY Times reports today on a movement to enhance civility in the blogosphere. This code is based partly on the BlogHer community guidelines and a draft is delineated here and here.

    This code was founded directly or indirectly due to a flamewar on a blog posting that was interpreted as misogynistic with threatening overtones (For details, follow any of those links above). I, personally, feel that a level of civility should be adhered to in any public forum where your words can be resurrected in later years, if only for your own protection. You don’t want to be twenty years down the line, running for mayor, and have someone dig up your old MySpace pages. Not good. Personal protection aside, the golden rule is always good to follow. Public discourse is not enhanced by crazy flaming.

    This brings me to a small point I’ve been meaning to write about for a while:

    Why the fuck to people write f*ck?

    I see this often in the blogosphere. It seems a bit silly. It’s not like the most harebrained 8 year old can’t figure out what f*ck means. I don’t tend to use much profanity on my blog, but I feel that a well-timed expletive has some rhetorical value in a less formal setting (which most of my blog postings are). Putting an asterisk in a swear-word is a cop out. Use it, or don’t; half measures don’t get my respect.

  • New JibJab

    The geniuses at JibJab have published their next animated political commentary entitled What We Call The News. You may remember This Land from the 2004 election season, which made a huge splash, deservedly so. Go check out the new one.

  • Favorite Photo of the Week

    Squirrel Print in Pollen

    It is pollen season in Georgia right now. It’s the time of year where no one washes their car for three weeks. We’re all hoping for some rain this weekend to make everything a bit less yellow. The image above is from my front porch, where evil squirrels regularly case my house.

  • Clear Instructions

    I’ve had a persistent cough since a few weeks ago. Today, under nurse-practitioner’s orders, I filled my antibiotics prescription. I got home and opened the package to find the most clear drug instructions of all time.

    Drug Instructions

    This is much easier than “twice daily as needed.”

    Of course, they’re also clear about the side effects.

    Drug Side Effects

    Let me dig out my D20 and try not to roll a one…

  • J.K. Rowling Set to Cash In

    It’s no surprise to anyone that J.K. Rowling is positioned to make a great deal of money from the 7th installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. USA Today had an article concerning the initial print run of 12 million copies for HPaDH, which is freaking huge! The same article says that the sixth book (Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) had an initial run of 10.8 million and sold 6.9 million in the first 24 hours. I’m going to go out on a limb and project that HPaDH will sell 10 million copies on the first weekend, which conservatively means she’ll rake in $30M by Monday.

    That’s a damn good pay rate.

    Two months ago, author Brandon Sanderson had some thoughts about the publishing industry and why most authors don’t make much money.

    But back to Ms. Rowling. I wish her all the best with the proceeds from her franchise. I hope that it does not quell the creative spirit that she has displayed with Harry Potter et al and that she manages to write more novels of equal quality for us all to enjoy.

  • Peter Hamilton; Void Trilogy

    For anyone who cares, Peter Hamilton is supposed to be publishing the first novel of the Void Trilogy in summer ’07. Yay for us.

    Hopefully, he will have scaled back a bit from the grand overarching craziness that was Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained. They were both wayyyyy too long and complex. I believe that people who complain about world building have Peter Hamilton in mind.

    Don’t get me wrong, I like his writing. It is original and interesting, but sometimes you just have to cut to the chase. Tad Williams has the same problem. And don’t get me started about Terry Goodkind and his inability to finish a story.

    If you want to read some good stuff by Hamilton, stick with the Night’s Dawn Triology, and the first two Greg Mandel books.

  • Operational Battlemech

    Beware my 1.0 mph speed and sponge-bullet fury!

    No Space Invader will be safe.

    Battlemech firing sponges at a Space Invader

  • Horrible Website

    It’s 2007. People should know better than to do things like this with the mouse pointer.

    Never never never never never…