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{ Category Archives } Rant

lawd amighty, I feel my temperature risin’

Flat is the new black

Astrophysics takes a $63M cut, but there's $133M for the literally insane idea of bringing an asteroid back to earth.

2014 03 05 Brent Science Comments Off on Flat is the new black

Nothing

There is basically nothing you can do if you’re not little people that will get you fired.

2014 02 12 Brent Because linking is an intrinsic good Comments Off on Nothing

Old skool

They replaced all the old POTS phone with VoIP phones, which are basically digital. Except they look pretty much just like the old phones. And sadly, have the same crappy user interface. Make a mistake dialling, and you have to hang up and start over. There's no delete button – why not? It's skeumorphism in […]

2014 01 16 Brent Comments Off on Old skool

X of the year 2013

Climbing: El Chontacoatlan, Taxco del Alarcon, Guerrero, Mexico, Thanksgiving. I sent Mantis, the first pitch of Mala Fama, and Procopio, all third try. Great climbing, fun partners, one of the best trips ever. This is my favorite kind of climbing. Close second: Maple, May and September. Sent ZT and 49, several one-fall burns on Dry […]

2013 12 27 Brent Because linking is an intrinsic good
Bicycle
Climbing
Comment
Dogs
Photography
Review
Science Comments Off on X of the year 2013

A nation of laws, not men

Unless you’re the head of national intelligence, or a major bank. Then you can commit perjury or launder billions in drug money with absolute impunity. God forbid you hit a few home runs or win a few TdFs or have more than a few thousand dollars in cash while driving through Texas or have a […]

2013 12 27 Brent Comments Off on A nation of laws, not men

Wrong assumptions

So I’ve been catching up on my reading, which is to say, I might have picked up a bit of the breakbone fever down in Taxco. On one of the semi-regular trots to the back of the house, I managed to pluck one of the climbing rags from the stack [1]. The saddest thing is […]

2013 12 16 Brent Climbing Comments Off on Wrong assumptions

Blu-ray is dead

to me anyway. I just got 45 minutes into a movie, paused it while I did something else for a bit, then came back and hit start. And it did. At the beginning. With the unskippable FBI warning not to pirate. Which obviously I did not, as if I had, I’d not be watching the […]

2013 12 15 Brent Comments Off on Blu-ray is dead

Marked to market

Putting more lie to the “shocked, shocked” meme. Collaboration with the spies is being marked to market. Chickens are coming home to roost. Pick your metaphor. I think it’s unlikely these will get very far in the courts, but it means I’m not the only one having these thoughts.

2013 12 15 Brent Comment Comments Off on Marked to market

Wrong company

So Evil Megacorp bought a robotics company. Clearly I’m not a mega-evil-genius (though I’m open to offers), but it seems to me that scary robots are something that pretty much anyone with a few million dollars can build. Patents are expired, the field is open to anyone. Boston Dynamics built some cool tech, but people […]

2013 12 14 Brent Comment Comments Off on Wrong company

And you kids get off my lawn

I get an insane number of emails, texts, and phone calls every day. Toss in notifications from calendars, applications, WWF, etc., and the desktop, laptop, tablet, and both phones would be ringing constantly and simultaneously if I let them. I got tired of that on about day two of the iPhone 3G. And I'm an […]

2013 12 09 Brent Comments Off on And you kids get off my lawn

When your employees can’t afford a Model T

Henry Ford realized this a long time ago, whatever his other faults. He both made the car cheap enough, and wages high enough, that his own employees could afford one. Those days are gone, however, and we’re not talking about cars, we’re talking about food. Walmart employees aren’t paid enough to afford food at their […]

2013 11 18 Brent Comments Off on When your employees can’t afford a Model T

Gravity: review

Aside from the minor orbital mechanics impossibilities and the Spielbergian dead kid tear-jerking, why did she keep taking off her helmet? If you were entering a spacecraft you had never been inside in the middle of a debris storm that had caused every one else to abandon ship, would you take your helmet off? I […]

2013 11 17 Brent Comment
Review
Science Comments Off on Gravity: review

The invisible hand writes, and having written, moves on

There are two competing pro-NSA and anti-whistleblower [1] narratives out there. The most obvious one is that Snowden is a traitorous flake (pole-stripper girlfriend! bad employee review!) who’s just waiting for the highest bidder (China! Russia!) to sell the NSAs secrets, worse than Manning’s data-dump [2]. The second is, secrets?!? What secrets? Everyone knows we […]

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2013 11 16 Brent Comments Off on The invisible hand writes, and having written, moves on

Updates

You know, every morning when I wake, there are seven $0.99 apps on my phone telling me that they have updates. iOS gets large updates once a year, with many bugfixes and incremental updates. I’m told that Android gets regular updates, although not everyone gets to install them. OS X and Windows on my $3k […]

2013 11 14 Brent Photography Comments Off on Updates

I give it six months

Back in the 90s, a Yosemite Park ranger claimed he was shot by someone he stopped acting suspiciously. Turns out, he shot himself and made up a story about a deranged gunman to cover it up. A manhunt ensued, the usual (innocent) suspects rounded up, and about six months later, park rangers everywhere had gone […]

2013 11 03 Brent Comments Off on I give it six months