Author Archives: brad

Rumbly

According to official research at the University of California at San Francisco, people eat when they’re stressed: Now, scientists have developed a model for a biological link between stress and the drive to eat: Food with lots of sugar, fat and calories appears literally to calm down the body’s response to chronic stress.

Hey, no crap! Nice work here, really. For crying out loud…

Whisper to a Scream

Bill wondered why I didn’t post anything about Robert Palmer’s death, instead mentioning George Plimpton. I don’t know. Palmer’s death really saddens me.

I really enjoyed his music. His was one of the first rock concerts I ever went to (the first being INXS (come on, cut me a break, it was the 80s)); my friend Glenn and I saw him play at, I believe, F&M University back in 1987 or 1988. He was backing up his album Heavy Nova.It was a great show, and not at all what I expected. Glenn and I really only knew Palmer’s 80s music, from Riptide and Heavy Nova, songs like “Addicted to Love”, “Simply Irrestible”, and “I Didn’t Mean To Turn You On”. We had no idea he was also behind “Bad Case of Loving You”, and of course we’d never even heard of “Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley”. But we learned that night.

Of course, the biggest disappointment that night was his band. Don’t get me wrong: musically, they were first rate, very impressive. But they didn’t look the way we’d hoped. I mean, this man’s music videos fueled our adolescent fantasies. We expected a much more attractive band. More like this:

But, alas, that wasn’t meant to be. I guess deep down inside I knew that those women weren’t chosen for the musical ability.

Other great Palmer songs include “From a Whisper to a Scream” from Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley, “Get It Through Your Heart” from Riptide, “It Could Happen To You” from Heavy Nova, and perhaps the most original cover ever of The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” on the album Double Fun.

So, I guess I didn’t write anything earlier because I was trying to figure out what to say, other than “Here’s to the best dressed man in rock’n’roll.”

PS: BBC News reported that one of Palmer’s best known hits was “Some Guys Have All The Luck”. Don’t be fooled; that was Rod Stewart.

More Linkage

Bruce Green of Death.

Unwise Microwave Oven Experiments.

“Thieves, con artists, terrorists, and hacker” are out to get Microsoft. So says Steve Ballmer. Now, this may or may not be true, but I think it’s embarassing for everyone when the biggest software company in the world has paranoid rants in public.

The 404 Research Lab.

10 Things Every New Parents Needs to Know. This was a pretty good list.

Opus is coming back! Yes!!!

No Apple for These Teachers

Looks like teachers in the Pinellas County schools in Tampa will be reverse switchers. The directive came from Pinellas County superintendent Howard Hinesley, who wants to the district to use one type of computer instead of two. It always saddens me to see school districts and companies dumping all Macs as a matter of policy because “one platform is cheaper.” One platform is cheaper, but it’s the Mac. Windows is more expensive to maintain. Trust me: I do both. I think it’s very telling that I manage Windows2000 Servers at work and come home to a Mac.

Howard Troxler of the St. Petersburg Times wrote a great follow up article. Here’s a sample:

I totally endorse the decision of Howard Hinesley, the school chief in Pinellas County, to eliminate Apple computers from the public schools and switch to Windows-based computers.

ERROR: THE FILE “WHATSIS.DLL’ HAS UNEXPECTEDLY DISAPPEARED FROM THE HARD DRIVE.

Beautiful.

Maybe the administration at that school should read this article: Reliance on Microsoft called risk to U.S. security. Bad for U.S. security, good for I.T. job security.

But What Will Ken Do?

Barbie has been outlawed by Saudi Arabia’s religious police.

“Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures, accessories and tools are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let us beware of her dangers and be careful.” Way to anthropomorphize, guys. Seriously.

Other items listed as violations on the site included Valentine’s Day gifts, perfume bottles in the shape of women’s bodies, clothing with logos that include a cross, and decorative copies of religious items – offensive because they could be damaged and thus insult Islam.

This is so messed up.

Dang

Apple has apparently pulled the 10.2.8 update that I installed this morning.

The company’s entire statement was: We have temporarily removed the Mac OS X v10.2.8 software update while we resolve an issue affecting Ethernet networking on small number of Power Mac G4 desktop systems. We anticipate that the issue will be resolved soon.

Thankfully, I haven’t had any problems, aside my Finder needing to be relaunched an hour ago. Hmmmmm…

The thing that bothers me most about this is that now all the Macintouch naysayers will have a reason to gloat. Bleah.