10.26.07
Posted in politics at 11:38 pm by kevin
Fema sorry for ‘fake’ conference
The US Federal Emergency Management Administration has apologised for having its employees pose as reporters at a hastily arranged news conference.
No actual reporters were able to attend Fema’s televised briefing on the fires in California on Tuesday because they were only been given 15 minutes notice.
Instead, press officers asked questions many described as soft and gratuitous.
Uh-huh.
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10.17.07
Posted in technology at 10:00 am by kevin
Debunking GROUP BY Myths
Summary (with some editorializing by me):
Actually, SQL-99 and beyond only require functionally dependent columns (i.e. keys) to be in the GROUP BY, so we’re not as wrong as you think we are. We just settled on the other extreme - letting you do whatever you want and maybe getting completely arbitrary values once in a while; what’s the big deal? Hey, MySQL isn’t your mommy, so it’s on you to make sure your queries make sense. Besides, if you’re really such a baby, you can change the sql_mode server setting to include ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY, which will emulate the behavior you expect (well, sort of - the bug tracker suggests some issues may be still outstanding).
Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh.
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10.16.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:56 pm by kevin
We’re Carboholics. Make Us Stop.
Notable because:
[The author] is chief executive of Princeton, N.J.-based NRG Energy Inc., a wholesale power generator.
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10.14.07
Posted in politics at 7:18 pm by kevin
Former CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm
There’s not one, but two reasons for outrage here:
1) The NSA punishing Qwest for not acceding to the warrantless wiretapping? Really?
2) The warrantless wiretapping that started a month after Bush took office, rather than in the “post-9/11″ world? Really?
Now, to be fair, this story is coming out as part of Nacchio’s defense in his insider trading trial, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to apply a generous helping of salt to these claims. However, the documentary evidence seems to suggest that he’s not lying - and the government’s zeal in resisting declassification of documents that could definitively prove the point isn’t helping the NSA’s case.
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10.13.07
Posted in technology, politics at 3:34 pm by kevin
Unserved by banks, poor Kenyans now just use a cellphone
This is exactly the kind of revolutionary, yet concrete, change that technology has promised to bring to development.
In short: traditional banks don’t see a lot of value in serving the poor, because the transaction and administrative costs tend to exceed potential profits. Along comes M-PESA, a cell-banking service run by Safaricom (Kenya’s largest cellphone company), and lo and behold - administrative costs are reduced to the point where the business model is economically worthwhile.
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10.10.07
Posted in politics at 1:12 pm by kevin
‘Dear Abby’ says she’s for gay marriage
Good for her - I wonder how many of her readers will take this to heart, how many will suddenly boycott the heretofore-revered column, and how many will simply take the advice they like and leave the advice they don’t (which is, certainly, their prerogative).
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10.07.07
Posted in politics at 3:55 pm by kevin
Democracy in a Chinese classroom
Those of you that know me personally are probably well aware of my ambivalence toward children. (Yeah, I said it - I don’t like kids; take that, social convention). My horror at this article, however, has nothing (well, little) to do with that.
After all, it’s not the intrinsic qualities of the kids profiled in the piece that make them such conniving little bastards, but rather the system that makes everyone want to be a corrupt bureaucrat. It’s not a long piece, so I’ll just suggest you read about the little would-be apparatchiks rather than reading my recap.
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10.01.07
Posted in entertainment at 10:49 pm by kevin
Anderson to marry Paris Hilton ex
Really? How is this real and not an Onion joke?
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09.30.07
Posted in entertainment, technology at 4:07 pm by kevin
Two (obviously related) comments:
1) The new[-ish] Spoon album is awesome. In particular You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb and The Underdog have been on pretty much constant repeat on my playlist the past two days.
2) The Amazon MP3 store is awesome as well. As a few folks have pointed out, it might be a short-lived experiment, as either labels might balk or prices might rapidly rise. That said, while it lasts, it’s absolutely the right model - the selection is surprisingly good, the prices are reasonable, the interface is well done, and - key, to a control freak like me - no obnoxious DRM. So, follow the links above and buy the Spoon tracks - they’re worth it, and the Amazon store doesn’t insult you by locking your purchases down.
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09.21.07
Posted in politics at 10:44 pm by kevin
Mandela still alive after embarrassing Bush remark
Despite the fabulous headline, I have to - shockingly - defend El Presidente here. What he said, specifically was:
I heard somebody say, Where’s Mandela?’ Well, Mandela’s dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas,
It’s fairly obvious that Bush was referring to an archetypal figure, and not Nelson Mandela literally. He was making the - reasonably defensible - claim that Iraq doesn’t have a Mandela-like unifying figure because Saddam killed most or all of the potential aspirants. I’m not sure how the quote could be seriously interpreted as Bush claiming that Saddam actually killed Nelson Mandela. I mean, would it be clearer if Bush had said - complete with “air quotes”:
Well, “Mandela” [motion air quotes] is dead…
Or, for the hard-of-analogy:
Well, all the potential inspirational and unifying figures resembling South Africa’s still very much alive Nelson Mandela are dead…
Really, this guy says plenty of stupid shit - this is the best you could do?
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