Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/01/20/women-provide-condoms/
From a recent conversation on IRC: (more…)
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/01/17/how-exchanges-powerloader/
Last week I was working in Washington, DC. Before I left, I had to write up instructions for other staff to exchange a tape robot, called a “Powerloader.” The instructions were pretty straightforward and I was fully confident that the staff could do the work without any trouble. So, in case they wanted a challenge, I produced another set of instructions by running the document through Babelfish to translate from English to Chinese, and then back to English. Every time I read these instructions I giggle, so I share with others who may have a similarly perverse sense of humor: (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/01/02/2005-good-start-fags/
The site godhatesfags.com has been hacked and shut down by Swedish hellbound faggot defenders, “in cooperation with Activist JudgesTM.” For future viewing pleasure, I have archived the page.
Thanks for the tip, Adam. (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/12/30/google-groups-gripes/
I don’t like the new Google Groups. There’s a smaller reason and then there is a bigger reason.
The smaller reason is that the “old” Google Groups has worked well for several years. The new Google Groups, it is a wee bit harder to navigate, but even more than that, it is frequently broken. See http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=gmirror — as of this writing, 9/10 of the hits from this search yield a message that says:
Topic not found.
We’re sorry, but we were unable to find the topic you were looking for.
Perhaps the URL you clicked on is out of date or broken?
Yes, perhaps google Groups is broken. I e-mailed them about it yesterday.
But this points to the bigger reason, which is that I use Google because it is the best search engine, hands-down, and it is the best search engine, because they focus, not on the “interactive portal” thing, like Yahoo!, but on search. (more…)
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/12/29/passing-thought/
You know, it must be weird, working for Yahoo!‘s branding department, to be re-writing grammar rules around the use of an exclamation mark mid-sentence.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/12/28/married-geek/
How to tell I am a geek.
I am forsaking my employer-provided mobile phone for the latest and greatest Sidekick II deal on Amazon.com. That the phone costs -$50 after rebates helps. I got spoiled by my previous two sidekicks, and I just can not get to grips with a conventional mobile phone.
How to tell I am married.
I am purchasing two of these devices. One for me and one for Yayoi. Awww!!
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/12/27/ron-avitzur/
What do you do when you enjoy the project that you are working on so much that you want to see it completed even after it is cancelled by your employer and your position has been terminated? If you’re Ron Avitzur working on a graphing calculator program for Apple in 1993, then you start sneaking in to the office to keep working.
I asked my friend Greg Robbins to help me. His contract in another division at Apple had just ended, so he told his manager that he would start reporting to me. She didn’t ask who I was and let him keep his office and badge. In turn, I told people that I was reporting to him. Since that left no managers in the loop, we had no meetings and could be extremely productive.
A funny, and interesting story. This was just before the Internet boom so I suppose in those days they could get away with living in the Bay Area without income.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/12/19/spanglish-sideways-oceans12-closer/
I have seen four movies in the past two weekends. The modus operandi has been to pay for one full-price admission at the Walnut Creek megaplex, and then sneak in to a second movie. Each week I have seen a very good movie and a not so good movie. (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/12/14/morality-police-pagan-ritual/
Responding to complaints from vigilant, God-fearing Christians, praise God, the Federal Public Broadcasting Morality Police (FCC) have requested a tape from NBC of the Opening Ceremonies of the pre-Christian ritual known as the “Olympic Games,” which were this year hosted by Greece.
The opening ceremony, as staged in Athens, this year, featured a long parade of actors portraying Pagan Gods, choreographed to modern “interpretive” dance. Some of these actors, clad in bikinis and grey body paint, sported prosthetic genitalia. The Federal Public Broadcasting Morality Police will review the tape to ensure that the most degenerate segments of this heathen performance did not profane the airwaves of the United States of America, God help us.
If such images may have been broadcast in Cristendom, during a broadcast popular among broad-minded Christian families who seek to expose their youth to barbarian cultures, they pose a serious risk to our Christian Republic of spreading sexual degeneracy and moral turpitude, as well as the sin of homosexuality, among our youth.
Vigilance has been raised since the atrocity breached during the last Super Bowl, in which a woman’s teat was exposed to our youth for nearly two seconds during a sports event. President George Bush has recently been re-elected by the Right-Thinking Christian American people, not only because of his ongoing, successful crusade to bring Christian democracy to Arabia, but based on his solemn pledge to protect the fundamentantal Chstian values of our land from those the likes of Kerry the Papist. All Praise to Jesus!
Source: New York Post: “NO NUDES MADE IT TO OLY OPENING”
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/12/09/buy-blue/
Frustrated that your guy lost the election last month? Well, you can still do a little something — let politics help guide your brand choices:
Interesting, Costco and Shell are more Democrats than not.
I think this might actually, to a degree, encourage people to shop at stores where the employees have more money and time to devote to politics. At least, if you can assume that wealthy doners trend Republican while working class donors trend Democrat. Well, that is a stretch, sure . . . but I would like to think that progressive employment policies help you trend blue.
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/12/06/geek-envy/
I drove down to Mountain View to lunch with Brian this weekend. He mentioned that Amazon.com has Free Sidekick IIs these days. I checked it out this morning, and after some discussion, found that I can not get this through work because we already have a bunch of cell phones under contract with Verizon.
So, I e-mailed my predecessor, who has to return his old phone yet anyway, asking if maybe he wouldn’t mind taking his contract with him? He writes back that his new employer just gave him his new Sidekick II and it is sweet, so, no thanks. I’ll have his old phone, which is nicer than the loaner I’m on right now, pretty darn soon.
I could potentially get one for Yayoi, and then trade phones with her. But then it is her turn to have the awesomer cell phone anyway, so … hey, free Christmas present for someone not wedded to Verizon! :)
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/21/walnut-creek-nightlife/
Yesterday, I took the BART. I got off at Oakland City Center, and began to wander. I first found a gaming store — what a fortuitous start! And the rest of it was Oakland Chinatown, which I told Yayoi about later … Asianania is just a BART ride away!
The highlights were:
- Bananas for 40c/pound. This is Devon Avenue prices. Walnut Creek is 80c. I bought some Bananas just because.
- A black lady taking a break from her salon complimented me on my hat. Actually, on Thursday, Bill remarked that it looked like an old Italian guy’s hat, and I told him that actually I did buy it in Italy.
- I had a decent cheeseburger in a Korean-run, downtown lunch cafe.
I made my way back to Walnut Creek, and still had a Saturday Evening to kill. I wandered downtown, where there is a movie theater. Unfortunately, it is mostly crap. They were playing “Ray” on one screen but I would have to wait two hours. I settled on “The Grudge” which was a horror movie in the “Lost in Translation” genre, meaning it was about Americans in Tokyo — I think the Japanese government must be promoting this stuff — and it was with the hard-to-follow a-linear plot format. The nice thing about that, from the producer’s point-of-view, is that you can hide the problems with the plot that way. Anyway, it was a fairly scary mess of a movie. I watched it because Yayoi might enjoy it, except it would probably be too scary for her, so it is okay if she missed it, if that makes any sense. Really I was just bored and lonely.
After the movie I walked past crowded bars that revealed to me the awful flip-side of Walnut Creek’s Soccer Mom Weekdays — Frat Boy Nightlife! That was creepier than monsters running around a suburban Tokyo house. One drunkish guy eyed me and my old Italian guy’s hat and French sweater and muttered “fag” . . . I could only take that as a compliment. (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/16/hello-world/
Back … online … at least at work.
The new company is a bit thrifty, and I have had much to learn, so it is only in the past few hours that I have a graphical web browser at my disposal. On a nice nice laptop. DSL arrives at home in the next two weeks. I’ll have 6Mb down! Dang!
But now it is time to head home and see if I can get online via modem there. Darned apartment doesn’t have any jacks wired up to SBC.
For the most part though, these past several days have been wonderful!
-danny
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/03/last-election-thread/
As posted by me an a mailing list:
I really liked Kerry. I think he is a great leader, but he failed to
pick a message and stick to it, which is what Bush did. Bush also tried
to paint Kerry as an unprincipled flip-flopper, and because Kerry kept
changing his motto, it kind of worked.
I like Kerry because I read a lot about him, most notably a long article
in the New Yorker. But then, when you’re trying for mass appeal, that’s
not the way to get it.
People like Bush becuase if nothing else, he is a known quantity who
doesn’t seem to waste his time trying to be agreeable. That’s why
Howard Dean was so sexy. But the candidate was picked by mild-mannered
midwestern folk scared of offending rednecks with the hint of a
possibility of civil unions, which Americans don’t really object to.*
And for a while, as it came down to the wire, back in Iowa again, of all
places, Kerry’s careful strategy of inoffensive inclusiveness seemed
like it would work. Except that there is a lot of uncertainty these
days, and Americans admire some certainty, even if it is a touch
dishonest and dumb.
And its not a post-9/11 mentality. Bob Dole ran the same way against
playboy Bill Clinton. It might have worked but Dole was so careful not
to show too much enthusiasm that Americans stuck with their dishonest
sex fiend of a Commander in Chief. John Kerry is George Bush’s Bob
Dole. It makes me sad.
-danny
* Polls would seem to indicate that Americans don’t want gays getting “married” but that they should have the rights that married people have. Taking a principled stand against defining marriage as anything, even arguing that it is best left to people’s churchs, and the states can move more toward legal licensing . . . I think that is the right solution. But Democrats, unlike Republicans, are too cowardly to challenge popular opinion.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/03/four-more-years/
As seen on IRC, Kerry Calls Bush To Concede.
Personally, I would wait until all those provisional ballots in Ohio were counted . . . I have been trying to get to grips with this. I was really upset at first, but the United States has a long history of being slow to get its shit together in times of change. Our challenge now will be to figure out how to engineer a better Democratic Party.
But my challenges right now have to do with backing up data and altering messed up tables in our ticketing system.
There goes safe, legal abortions, the environment, any hopes of health care. The national debt will balloon, and taxation will be shifted even more on to poor people. We will probably be hit by Terrorists again, because we are neglecting our National Security in the interests of looking tough and taking the easy reactionary path . . .
But like I said, my more pressing problems today are more virtual that all of that.
Feedback Welcome
« Newer Stuff . . . Older Stuff »
Site Archive
