Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/12/05/early-retirement/
I think my mom once said that she tried to send money to one charity a week. I thought “hey, that’s a neat idea.” So, I tend to cut checks . . .
. . . but, honestly, I’m sick and tired of the massive volumes of direct mail I receive as a consequence of my good intentions. My favorite are the environmental charities that send me mailing labels . . . I have like 6zillion mailing labels already, right? So, let’s kill s’more trees.
Well, here’s the final straw: (more…)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/12/02/google-recuiting-secret/
Well, I have heard time and time again, and experienced myself, that getting a job at Google is a long, slow, frustratingly mysterious process that takes weeks, if not months, in most cases. Typically, you’ll submit a resume for a position, get called two months later for an entirely different position, get a phone screen, then two weeks later get another phone screen, or maybe an on-site, but they’re still not sure, so you’ll get another interview, and each time there’s a week or two delay until the recruiters and hiring managers can complete their meetings, and before they can send you a job offer, your case will be reviewed by Larry and Sergey.
They are very very careful to hire only the very best and brightest. I think it was Marc Andreeson who said that if you start hiring sucky people, they will go and hire more sucky people, and ultimately they will all conspire to destroy your organization. Back at Tellme, we were told to only ever hire people we thought were smarter than ourselves, but that seemed problematic, given that a lot of the first few employees were from MIT. (more…)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/11/19/television/
I have not had a consistent supply of Television since I left home for college . . . ten years ago. And lately I have been thinking that while it was a lonely time, 1996-2002 or so was also something of a “Golden Age” for me, at least in terms of learning stuff, because I ran only FreeBSD on my computers and could only play very few games. (That’s a seperate reflection for another time, and may just be reactionary nostalgia.)
Anyway, I’ve been thinking lately that watching good shows, especially without commercials, is nice stuff. TiVo is bigger than just a “smart VCR” . . . before TiVo I used to worry about whether I could catch a show at a certain time . . . after TiVo, I couldn’t care less when a show aired, if I wanted to watch it, it would be there, a few days later, and when I wanted to unwind, I could fire up the show. (more…)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/11/15/history-aint-changed/
The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that’s all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain’t changed
Remember how Iraq used to be run by a brutal tyrant who did nasty things to minority elements? Until American troops came in and liberated the place, and ran the jails, except after awhile the American troops got crazy again? (more…)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/11/14/pro-life/
“Ramatou Issoufou is lucky to be alive,” said Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times. I recently witnessed the 37-year-old Nigerian woman and her baby son survive a treacherous childbirth, after Issoufou nearly slipped into a coma from eclampsia, a complication of pregnancy that kills 50,000 women a year in the developing world. The maternity hospital where the birth took place was filthy, bug-ridden, and poorly equipped, and her husband had to pay $42 for an emergency surgical kit supplied by the U.N. Population Fund. Thanks to that effort, “two more lives” were saved. But last month, President Bush cut off U.S. contributions to the fund, due to pressure from Christian conservatives. They don’t like the U.N. agency because it promotes contraception. They also object to the fact that the Population Fund operates in China, which has an appalling policy of forced sterilizations and abortions. But the Population Fund has been pressuring China to end the coercion, and besides, “the solution isn’t to let African women die.”
Every year, more than 500,000 women die worldwide during pregnancy and childbirth. Through both contraception and medical supplies, the Population Fund is making a dent in that appalling statistic, but each day, hundreds of women perish because it can’t do more. “Call me naive, but I think if Mr. Bush came here and saw women dying as a consequence of his confused policy, he would relent.” Surely, letting women die isn’t what America stands for.
Nicholas Kristof
The New York Times
The Week, November 4, 2005
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/11/13/japanese-gaming-chic/
“Right now Asian fans really like the Japanese products and culture. They want the package in Japanese, manual in Japanese, they want everything to be in Japanese, or Japanese style. Japan is cool and popular in China, and right now it seems like they don’t want anything else.”
Takeshi Kimura
SNK Playmore
Game Devloper Magazine, November 2005
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/11/09/universal-time-dammit/
Yayoi has heard me quote this bit from The Simpsons a dozen times now, but:
“Welcome to Japan, where the local time is tomorrow.”
Today I noticed that my blog timestamps were now one hour off, because WordPress does not support the abomination that is Daylight Saving Time. So I went in and said “stick with Universal Time,” which I think should be the standard time zone for everything anyway. Standard Time zones are an inaccurate fiction, invented as a convenience to schedule trains. Daylight Saving is a silly kludge built on that fiction. When I’m elected dictator, we’ll all use Universal Time for coordinating schedules, and everyone’s time-keeping device will also accomodate local solar time, so you can coordinate pre-industrial activites like eating lunch around noon, or heading home from work some time before sunset.
I am a crackpot who is fifty years ahead of his time, so don’t mind me.
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/11/09/sidekick-upgrade-nice/
Hello world!
This is a test post from the bus via my Sidekick II. They recently updated the software on this device and things are nice. Timestamps in my AIM logs and the web browser is now noticeably faster, and prettier. There’s support for JavaScript, at least enough that the Flickrbar appears on my web site, which loads up with full color backgrounds and pleasing-to-me fonts.
Nice job, T-Mobile and Danger! Now, if only I could have per-account e-mail ringtones, so I could check my normal e-mail on the device without the loud “system pager” ring that is my default for email sent to my mobile . . .
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/11/08/abovenet-rocks/
I am a picky customer. And I have at least one vendor to bitch about once some of the dust settles, but I have to say, Abovenet has always been great. They are honest, they have good sales support, their data centers are nice enough . . . and any time I file a ticket to take care of network trouble or something like a server reboot, they have always taken care of business. Their networking people in particular do an excellent job of offering to help, to the point of offering to take a look at my BGP configs to offer pointers.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/11/02/comptroller/
So, I’m not looking at the blogs so much lately, but sometimes after I sublimate the animosity I’m feeling at a vendor into a very polite “but I need you guys to stop screwing me or else” missive I need a little chill.
The Banterist delivered giggles. You don’t have to live in New York City, I certainly don’t, to deeply appreciate and giggle heartily at this:
Superficial Voter’s Guide – NYC 2005
It’s fricking hilarious because . . . well, at least my mind works that way, especially when you ask yourself “Comptroller? What’s that? I have to pick one?”
Frazz induced a grin a well.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/11/01/civ4/
As posted on Skirv’s blog:
Overall, I think it is an excellent game.
I tried one game on easy level … quit after an hour or so … too easy.
In my second game I’m in 1902 on the almost-balanced level, but still feeling a little too easy to be interesting. But I want to use my panzers . . . and I just trained a spy, which sounds a lot more useful and intresting than in the older games. (more…)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/10/21/smashmyipodcom/
A couple weeks back I was walking behind some grammar school kids, and as we passed the Apple Store, one of them started going on at length about how much various iPods cost for various features, and which, in his opinion, was the best buy, and the girl he was talking to pointed out that they were somewhat cheaper at Target.
And I had this cranky old man moment.
Like . . . grammar school kids should not be expert consumers.
http://smashmyipod.com/
God Bless Canadians.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/10/19/martin-luther-king-quotes/
We happened by the Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco this weekend, visited the Zeum, which was cool, and caught the Wallace and Gromit movie, which rocked, and also checked out this cool monument to Martin Luther King, and brought back some good words that seem to apply to the present day: (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/10/12/intelligently-designing-teeth/
<dogmeat-> i think if intelligent design were true, we’d have self-cleaning teeth
<saul> we do =)
<saul> it’s just not perfect
<saul> also, some people claim that our dental problems are made much worse by consuming simple sugars and processed foods
<SmooveB> plus, most long term dental problems occur after what would have been a normal lifespan.
<saul> concur
<dannyman> AND (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/10/10/darpa-ulterior-motives/
For those less dorky than I, the DARPA Grand Challenge was a held last Saturday to see which autonomous vehicle could drive itself on a challenging 125-mile obstacle course through the desert first. Stanford’s Touareg, named “Stanley” came in first, just ahead of a Hummer and a Humvee from CMU, followed by a Ford Escape hybrid, and five hours later, Frankenstein.
I had of course, been rooting for Team Underdawg, but after some accidents and bugs, they did not make it through the Qualifier. So, I rooted for Cajunbot, a cute little six-wheel ORV from Louisiana, but that vehicle did not get so far either . . . in the end, at least, the Hummer didn’t win, so there’s one less reason for assh!les with small penises to buy ginormous SUVs. Yay Stanley! (more…)
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