Gerard Vanderleun writes about the decline of Florida, both the Keys and the mainland. It’s funny, as someone who is currently living here, and has never particularly liked the place, he makes it sound much worse than the reality seems to me. But then, he’s writing as someone who apparently did love it once upon a time, which I never have. I haven’t been diving down in the Keys yet (though we still plan to), but he certainly makes it sound uninviting, and I hadn’t realized that the deer were in such deep trouble.
The Fool’s Golden State
Gerard Vanderleun writes about the decline of Florida, both the Keys and the mainland. It’s funny, as someone who is currently living here, and has never particularly liked the place, he makes it sound much worse than the reality seems to me. But then, he’s writing as someone who apparently did love it once upon a time, which I never have. I haven’t been diving down in the Keys yet (though we still plan to), but he certainly makes it sound uninviting, and I hadn’t realized that the deer were in such deep trouble.
No Surprise
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You scored as Serenity (Firefly). You like to live your own way and don’t enjoy when anyone but a friend tries to tell you should do different. Now if only the Reavers would quit trying to skin you.
Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) |
There’s a problem with the quiz, though (as there often are with these things).
I wasn’t quite sure how to answer the very first question:
“Peace is achieved through large single government rule (agree, disagree).
Well, I agree that this is certainly a way to achieve peace, but there seems to be a presumption to this (or at least an implication) that peace is an unalloyed good. As some anti-war types are fond of pointing out, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was largely at peace (if you don’t count the random murders and torture that he occasioned on his own people), but it was hardly a desirable state. So I answered yes, but I’m not sure how that answer was interpreted by the test creators.
Also, interestingly, I see that when I go back to look at the quiz, the order of the questions is different. They must randomize it.
[Via Alan Henderson]
[Late morning update]
The more I think about it, the more I suspect that the “peace” question lowered my Firefly score. I think that whoever wrote the question did assume that a) peace is a desirable thing, per se and b) everyone would agree with that–the only issue is how it’s best achieved. What’s the flip side of that question? “Peace is achieved through multiple government rule?” “Peace is achieved through minimalist government?” “Peace is achieved through a well-armed citizenry?” This was a really unuseful question, as posed.
Bellsouth’s Broken Promise
Glenn has been having problems.
Tell me about it.
I’ve given up on them, as far as Usenet service goes. In fact, I gave up and subscribed instead to a dedicated Usenet service, and paid extra for it, even though I’m supposed to get one with my Bellsouth DSL.
I’m about to do it for email as well (though both of these are supposed to be provided as part of my basic, and high-priced service). All week, I’ve been unable to send email on their smtp server (though I’ve been receiving it regularly). The only way I’ve gotten anything out is on my employer’s Microsoft Exchange server (which should be an indication of how bad things are).
The only service that they’ve been able (or willing) to provide me reliably is bandwidth.
Bellsouth’s Broken Promise
Glenn has been having problems.
Tell me about it.
I’ve given up on them, as far as Usenet service goes. In fact, I gave up and subscribed instead to a dedicated Usenet service, and paid extra for it, even though I’m supposed to get one with my Bellsouth DSL.
I’m about to do it for email as well (though both of these are supposed to be provided as part of my basic, and high-priced service). All week, I’ve been unable to send email on their smtp server (though I’ve been receiving it regularly). The only way I’ve gotten anything out is on my employer’s Microsoft Exchange server (which should be an indication of how bad things are).
The only service that they’ve been able (or willing) to provide me reliably is bandwidth.
Bellsouth’s Broken Promise
Glenn has been having problems.
Tell me about it.
I’ve given up on them, as far as Usenet service goes. In fact, I gave up and subscribed instead to a dedicated Usenet service, and paid extra for it, even though I’m supposed to get one with my Bellsouth DSL.
I’m about to do it for email as well (though both of these are supposed to be provided as part of my basic, and high-priced service). All week, I’ve been unable to send email on their smtp server (though I’ve been receiving it regularly). The only way I’ve gotten anything out is on my employer’s Microsoft Exchange server (which should be an indication of how bad things are).
The only service that they’ve been able (or willing) to provide me reliably is bandwidth.
Dish Problems
So we decided to upgrade to the HD version of DirecTV, which involves (of course!) replacing, or at least supplementing our current satellite dish. It has a triple horn on it, and looks at three birds simultaneously, instead of just the one, as the standard dish does. This means that not only are azimuth and elevation important, but there’s a third axis adjustment, that they call “tilt,” to make sure that you’re seeing all three of them.
I put up a new mast, got it plumb, set the settings on the tilt and elevation to what they’re supposed to be for southeast Florida (45 degrees for both), hooked up the cable, pointed it in the general azimuthal direction (about thirty degrees south of west), and got nada, bupkis, no signal.
Is the cable good? Yup, and here’s the weird thing. When I drop the elevation to thirty degrees or so (fifteen below where it’s supposed to be), I get a reasonably strong signal on the upper transponders of Satellite A, starting with number 22. No signal on transponders 1 and up (which are the ones you’re supposed to use to align the dish). Also no signal on either of the other two birds.
So something’s happening, but not what should be happening. What are the chances that this is an LNB problem? The first dish I ever installed, years ago, had a bad LNB right out of the box (which drove me crazy trying to figure out what was wrong–fortunately, part of the deal was a free upgrade to a dual LNB, and when I put in the new unit, I got the signal right away).
Is there anyone out there familiar with the situation who could diagnose this, so I can just take the LNB back to Circuit City and exchange it? Or are these symptoms of something else that I’m doing wrong (though I’m wracking my brains at this point trying to figure out what else it could be).
Bring On The Fatwah
From “Rusty,” a stalwart over at sci.space.history:
Muhammad
(((:~{>Muhammad playing Little Orphan Annie
(((8~{>Muhammad as a pirate
(((P~{>Muhammad on a bad turban day
))):~{>Muhammad with sand in his eye
(((;~{>Muhammad wearing sunglasses
(((B~{>Muhammad giving the raspberry.
(((:~{P>Giving Muhammad the raspberry.
;-P
My great-great-grandfather came to America from Denmark in the 1840’s.
[Friday afternoon update]
OK, equal time:
Jehovah.
Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!
(I know, I’m just making it worse for myself…)
Amateurs
Glenn asks if blogging is going to lose its freshness as more (though still not many) bloggers start to make a living at it. He’s not worried, though:
…why are so many people doing it? Because it’s fun! And fun is good.
That’s a good reason to do all sorts of things. Press accounts tend to focus on making money (perhaps because many journalists dream of walking away from their day jobs, and editors?) but money is only one reason we do things, and usually not the most important. As people get richer, and technology gets more capable, I think we’ll see a lot more people doing for fun things that previously were done only for money. And I think that’s a good thing.
Speaking of journalists, it’s easy to see why they’re both fascinated by, and frightened of blogs and bloggers. I suspect that it’s because journalism is something that doesn’t seem to take much skill to do well (at least as well as its largely done), or if it is, most journalists don’t seem to be up to the job. It’s kind of like Hollywood (or has been, up to now)–it’s not so much what you know, or how much talent you have, but who you know, and how lucky you are. But the days in which a clueless journalism major could (by whatever means) get a job in the industry, and not have to worry about competition are coming, or have come, to an end.
The problem is that journalists, as a class, are rarely experts in any particular field. We always used to say in the tech proposal business that it was easier to take an engineer and teach her to write, than to take an English major and teach him engineering (there are exceptions, of course, particularly when the English major took some science classes on the side). Same applies to journalism, and any sort of expertise. The best journalists, particularly those who specialize in certain areas, such as science, or finance, are generally people who came from those fields to journalism, as opposed to being journalism majors.
It’s been noted that the blogosphere is chock full of people who know things (not to mention lawyers and law professors who know how to make logical arguments, against which many journalists are utterly helpless, at least to go by the Cory Peins, not to mention Mary Mapes of the world), and this was dramatically demonstrated to journalism’s detriment in the Rathergate affair. And now that bloggers have pulled the curtain from the journalism wizard, many journalists’ dreams (to whatever degree they exist) of “walking away” and just making money blogging will probably go unfulfilled, because it’s not at all clear what they will bring to the table.
For these reasons, if there is a flow of talent between blogging and professional journalism, I expect it to be largely in one direction–from the former to the latter–because that’s the direction that the osmotic pressure of the talent and knowledge will dictate.
Is That A Lobster In Your Pants?
Or are you just happy to see me?
He’s lucky–the Australian bugs don’t have claws.