May 16, 2009 · 2:59 am

Apple: Crash Different

Picture 14We’ve all heard apple fanboys go on and on about how great macs are. From the way they talk, you’d think that Macintosh computers were magical or something. You will hear anything from things like: the internet runs faster and smoother on macs, there is no such thing as viruses for macs, you will get no pop-ups on macs, you don’t have to worry about annoying updates, they never crash, etc, etc.

Sometimes Apple fans sound like members of a cult.

I can’t take it anymore! My laptop is a mac and I do really enjoy it, but it has had its fair share of problems. A lot of problems. Macs are not in the least bit free of annoyances or crashes.

Here is a dose of reality:

Many of them run HOT, MacBook Pros especially. Like so hot that you could fry an egg on this thing. Seriously.spinning_ball_of_death

There are no blue screens of death, but you do get spinning beach balls when applications aren’t responding, which is far more regularly then I’d like. Every now and again, you get the dreaded Kernel Panic. This is the most severe crash a mac can have and a scary looking prompt pops up asking you to manually restart your computer.

Kernel_Panic-1p0fApplications quit unexpectedly, sometimes causing you to lose everything that you’d been working on. When they freeze up you have to force quit. When your whole computer gets all frozen, you have to manually reboot.

Macs do not run the Internet any faster than any comparable PC. There certainly are pop-ups on macs and there would be viruses too, if it were worth virus programmers’ while. The lack of viruses isn’t because macs are immune, but because the vast majority of viruses are created to mess with Windows computers, since that is what the majority of people are using. As the mac market share increases, so will viruses.

There certainly are software and firmware updates for macs – you are prompted quite frequently to install various system or program updates.

Keyboard shortcuts are a great feature of macs, but they also have a downside. It is very easy to accidentally hit a shortcut that completely screws up whatever it was that you were doing.

I had an apple mouse. It broke. I had to return 2 iPods before the 3rd finally worked. I’m on my second hard drive. I’m on my second or third power cord. I’m on my second optical drive and bottom plate. I am on my second battery. My laptop’s hinges are loose, and this cannot be repaired.

I treat my mac well, but it is my workhorse. I’ve had it for more than 2 ½ years and my next computer will definitely be a mac.

It is no wonder why there are so many blind mac haters though – they can’t stand all the distortions that mac lovers spew! Let’s get real – macs are lovely, but they have their faults. PLENTY of them.

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May 15, 2009 · 2:02 am

Coke – not quite the real thing

Did you know that virtually all soft drinks in the United States are not made with real natural sugar? If you are American, chances are that you either don’t know or don’t care. They are made with something called high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and have been since the early 80s. It’s not just soda – it’s in all sweetened drinks like juice and many foods too.

But you should care! You should be outraged! There are a ton of studies that show that high fructose corn syrup causes a whole slew of health problems when drunk in high quantities. It messes with metabolism, aging, liver processing, and fattens you up more than regular sugar, among other things. Many believe it to be a major cause of obesity. Who thinks of sugar when they look at a cornfield? It’s just not natural!

But forget all that – soda just tastes so much better with real sugar!

An ice cold Coca Cola made with real cane sugar in a glass bottle is just indescribable! They are available in every other country except for the United States. Sodas are made with mostly real sugar everywhere but here. South of us, sugar is a major export, so it is cheap to make soda with the real stuff. Europe has really strict regulations on HFCS and the people there won’t stand for it.

It’s all about money.

As sugar prices increased in the late 1970s and early 1980s while serving sizes kept increasing, it just became more cost-effective for sodas to be made with HFCS. The standard serving of soda used to be 8 ounces. Now it is typical for the “small” size at restaurants to be 12-20 ounces. Large ranges anywhere from 30-42 ounces! That is a lot of soda!

HFCS is cheap because of huge governments subsidies to corn growers and overproduction. This is how that 32 ounce drink is so cheap.

Some Coca Cola bottlers still used real sugar in the 80s and early 90s, but once they all switched back to “Classic Coke” after the whole “New Coke” disaster, they were all forced to use HFCS. So it was not really the original formula. Coke really never tasted the same again. Many believe that the whole New Coke thing was really a plot to get rid of sugar. They may be right.

But something interesting is happening in society. Michelle Obama has declared that she won’t allow her girls to drink anything with HFCS in it. Guests are coming onto the Colbert Report to talk about how bad HFCS is. Awareness is very slowly, but surely, spreading.

image_pepsithrowback_can_final1Pepsi just released what they call “Pepsi Throwback” – Pepsi made with real sugar cane! It has been pretty poorly advertised and Target has already placed it on clearance and will no longer be stocking it. But it is a step in the right direction.

When I bought a pack of Pepsi Throwback, the cashier at Walmart asked me: Throwback? “What do you think they mean by throwback?” I explained to her that they mean that it is made with real sugar. “What are sodas made with then?” I explained that they are made with HFCS, and that this is a “throwback” to a time when soda was made with actual sugar. She seemed really impressed.

As soon as I left, she called out to her fellow cashier and asked if he had tried any yet.

Do your part and go out and try some soda with real sugar in it! Your mouth and body will thank you!

The corn lobbies – like the Corn Refiners-Association are ruthless and will stop at nothing to ensure that HFCS continues to be used.

You can buy Pepsi Throwback at Walmart or many grocery stores. You can get Dr. Pepper with real cane sugar from Dublin Doctor Pepper.

Tell them that I sent you. And who knew that you get could better health through better soda? It’s worth the extra effort I promise.

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May 13, 2009 · 2:24 am

At least I didn’t get eaten

I was up close and personal with large tigers the other week, volunteering at a carnivore preservation compound. This had the potential to be one of the most exotic, fun and different volunteer experiences I had ever partaken in. I mean who doesn’t like being near huge fluffy cats that can maul you to bits? Unfortunately, it turned out to be one of the worst volunteer experiences I had ever had.

I was seriously considering writing a harshly worded email when I realized that that was silly; I have a rant blog. Why write an email that would likely fall on deaf ears (so to speak) when I can complain to the whole world about my awful experience that most can relate to.

I spent over four hours laboring out in the blistering sun in large fenced in open-air tiger cages. And what did I get to show for it? I got soreness in my arm muscles for days after and fire ant bites on my ankles, which are only now healing.

Did any of the staff members thank me or the group I was with? No – quite the contrary. While my group was pulling vines off the fence, one of our assigned tasks, a staff member or regular volunteer approached us and called us “lazy fuckers.”

I was tasked with using a plow-rake thingy to cut down on big weeds and other huge growths. This was extremely difficult, and required swinging the thing like a golf club rapidly. I did this for hours. Needless to say, every now and then I took breaks when I could swing no more. Whenever I took a break, a staff member would scold me harshly for not working! I wanted to scream at him that I am a VOLUNTEER, giving up my time to be there to do what I can.

In addition to being rude, they were pretty sexist. The men had to do the labor-intensive jobs, while the girls were given clippers to cut back vines. After hours of swinging, I tried to switch out with a girl, but I was not allowed to do so.

It is great to volunteer somewhere where the people are grateful, like my wonderful experience volunteering in the Dominican Republic building a house, but this is not always the case.

Is the work still worthwhile if it’s offered in good faith but unappreciated? I suppose in this case, I was really doing it for the tigers, who can’t thank me, but can’t live if they don’t have an acceptable place.

You’re welcome, tigers.

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April 30, 2009 · 8:02 am

Sick of hearing about swine flu

This whole week the swine flu has been played up in the media as the next plague; a global pandemic the likes of which we have never seen is just moments away. All of the media has been characterizing the swine flu (or H1N1 virus) as “deadly.” It is rapidly spreading and we have no vaccine, nor natural immunities.

Correspondents and contributors across the cable news spectrum have been wildly speculating about how tens of millions of people could be at risk and quite possibly die, with extremely scary graphics.

This is infuriating me. It is nothing but crazy hype to scare the living crap out of us in order to drive up ratings! It is one thing to inform, but quite another to report endless wild speculation and fear-mongering that could only result in widespread panic.

It is not that big of a deal. I repeat: it is not that big of a deal. Allow me to filter through the hype.

Approximately 36,000 people die of the regular flu in the United States annually, with several million people infected. With the swine flu so far, 1 person has died in the United States and there have been 70 confirmed cases of infection. Which sounds more deadly and life threatening?

300,000 to 500,000 people die of the regular flu worldwide annually. Approximately 170 people have been confirmed dead due to the swine flu. They were all in Mexico, save for 1 in the United States (incidentally, a sick visiting Mexican toddler). Again, which sounds more deadly and life threatening?

There is absolutely no evidence that the swine flu is any more severe or deadly than the regular flu. In actuality, the majority of the confirmed cases in the United States and elsewhere in the world have been quite mild. People are getting the swine flu and recovering fully within 5-10 days.

Mild regular flu-like symptoms and full recoveries don’t sound much like the apocalyptic impression given by the media.

So why the high death toll in Mexico and virtually no other deaths anywhere else in the world? My guess is that people waited too long to seek out treatment, if at all, and by that time it was too late. I’m also assuming that Mexico’s facilities to treat the flu in general are not all that great. I can’t find the data on how many people in Mexico die of the flu annually, but it is highly like that it is far greater than the number of deaths in the United States.

The rising death toll is highly misleading. It gives the impression that people are dying every day of this new deadly swine flu. In actuality, the rising death toll is almost entirely from people who have died within the past month and not within the past several days. People who were thought to have died of the regular flu or other respiratory related deaths within the past month or so are now being re-tested for swine flu. This is where the deaths are coming from.

The Mexican toddler who died, as far as I understand it some 2 and a half weeks ago now, in the United States of swine flu is thus far the only confirmed death here. I would say that he almost definitely arrived in the United States already infected and then his parents waited days until taking him to a hospital. It was too late by that point.

A death in the United States more than two weeks ago is no cause for alarm. Let us put this into perspective: last flu season 86 children died of the regular flu in the US and already this season 55 children have died of the regular flu in the US (as of April 18th).

This is SARS, bird flu and west nile scare tactics all over again. The swine flu situation is definitely something to be vigilant about, but not something to go crazy over. Situations like these demonstrate the flaws of 24-hour cable news networks. In the absence of new information, wild speculation is made. Dozens of pundits and “experts” are brought out. The air-time must be filled.

If you don’t freak out about the possibility of getting the regular flu every year, I see absolutely no reason to freak out over this.

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April 20, 2009 · 2:45 am

Bambi They Ain’t

I was a passenger in my friend’s car going down I-40 East in North Carolina at around 2 am in the morning when all of a sudden a deer hopped out into the road. We had to swerve to avoid hitting it, losing control of the car in the process. The car slammed right into the guardrail and did a 360-degree turn upon impact. We all immediately got out of the now wrecked car after putting the hazard lights on. It was stuck almost diagonally partly in the right lane. Several cars stopped who saw it happen, and they too started flashing their lights to try to warn drivers from hitting the car.

About 20-25 minutes later, before any police had arrived, another car slammed into ours. The police finally showed up a few minutes after this. My friend’s car is completely totaled. Only a hubcap remains.

This all happened because of a deer in the road. It just leaped away. Would it have been better to not swerve and just hit it? I don’t think so. I saw a car literally flip several times after hitting a deer two years ago.

Deer are menaces to our society. They are really just over sized rodents that cause over a million accidents a year! On average, there are about 1.5 million reported deer vehicle collisions a year in the United States, causing over a billion dollars worth in damage. There are probably even more that are not reported.

The deer often just walk or leap, as the case may be, away, often barely injured.

I looked into the data for deer related crashes in North Carolina and I was a bit shocked by the data. For the past 15 years, the number of deer related crashes in North Carolina has steadily gone up, while the deer population has only slightly increased in that time. Every year a new all time high record is set.

In 1994, there were 8,000 reported deer related collisions in North Carolina. In 2007 there were nearly 20,000 deer vehicle related collisions. The deer data is not organized very well on the Internet, so I had to gather the data from each year myself.

Here is a line graph assembled by me showing the increase in deer related collisions from 1994 to 2007, with a few years missing (because I simply could not find the data):

99e570d6-2e94-11de-8538-000255111976Blog_this_captionClick on the graph to explore it in more detail.

Eleven people died from deer vehicle collisions in 2007.

Something needs to be done to get the deer off our roads! Lengthen the deer-hunting season perhaps? Those hunters who killed Bambi’s mother may have been doing us all a favor.

And for those of you who have been thinking: wow I really enjoyed reading that, but I really wish that I could see a blog entry wordled, you are in luck! Here is this entry wordled:
03b9831a-2e9c-11de-95ba-000255111976 Blog_this_caption

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April 11, 2009 · 9:57 pm

Canceled Prematurely

I had just discovered a new TV show that had been getting a lot of buzz online and with my friends – NBC’s Kings. It is based loosely on the biblical story of David, set in modern times. It is set in an alternate reality in a country very similar to the United States but with a ruling monarch. David (Christopher Egan), a lowly foot soldier in the King’s army, takes down an enemy Goliath tank and saves the King’s son. The King (Ian McShane) is so impressed that he makes David an integral new part of his government.

After the first twenty minutes of the pilot I was hooked. Kings creates such an intricate world. It is extremely well shot, produced, and acted. Ian McShane is brilliantly gripping as King Silas. I found the show to be so compelling that I couldn’t stop watching. I watched all four episodes that had aired in one day. I even stayed up a little bit later than I should have with early morning classes the next day.

And what do I find out the next day? I find out that the show has been canceled! Unfortunately, it is not at all unusual for TV shows to be canceled part way through seasons. If a show isn’t performing as the network would like ratings-wise, it will just get yanked with little to no warning. The final episodes may or may not ever be aired.
Fox used to be the biggest culprit of this, but now all the networks do it equally.

A handful of shows were unceremoniously yanked this TV season, most notably Pushing Daisies on ABC, a quirky comedy about a pie maker named Ned who can bring dead people back to life with a touch. It was extremely well written, acted, and silly. ABC canceled it in its second season with just three episodes left to air. Instead of letting the season play out, it was just yanked. The final three episodes are now finally scheduled to air starting May 30th – six months after the previously aired episode.

Looking back on past great TV shows, I see the trend that they didn’t hit their sweet spot until seasons 2, 3, or sometimes even 4. Shows need time to develop, hit their groove, and attract their audience. New shows shouldn’t be expected to be huge ratings successes within the first few episodes. A perfect example is Seinfeld, considered to be one of the best television shows ever, which took several years to attract an audience. Unfortunately now, a show is in serious risk of being canceled if it isn’t immediately a ratings success.

What does get the ratings is reality shows like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars, CSI and its many clones, and inane comedies like Two and a Half Men.

But how exactly are these ratings determined? Nielsen, the ratings company, uses a sampling size of 5 thousand households when there are around 1.15 million households in the United States. I’m no statistics expert, but how can that small a sampling size be representative of anything? Nielsen now takes into account DVR viewings, but is the percentage of Nielsen households with DVRs the same as overall households with DVRs?

Quality shows are heavily watched online on Hulu and downloaded on iTunes, and yet these numbers barely even have any weight in the decision to axe a TV show.

It will be a long time before I watch another new show. More often then not, they are canceled prematurely, their final episodes never aired.

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April 4, 2009 · 2:33 am

No good pizza and too much pepperoni

As I type partly delirious from a long week and some mysterious bacteria from the Caribbean I wonder about pizza.

There are two pizza facts that I find extremely frustrating:

1. You can’t get good pizza outside of the New York area. Even in the New York area, finding a really good pizza joint is a challenge.
2. Toppings are over done, especially pepperoni, and are killing the chance of good pizza ever to be able to travel to the rest of the world.

The cheese pizza is how pizza is meant to be eaten. Adding toppings doesn’t enhance the taste; it masks it. The majority of people order pizza with toppings – this explains how mediocre pizza is so wildly accepted.

Toppings lovers also love to order what they like for everyone, something I hate. I’ve seen people order 5 whole pizzas for an entire group of people, without a single cheese pizza.

As someone who not only loves the taste of a good cheese pizza but also does not eat pigs for personal reasons, I always cringe whenever I see multitudes of pepperoni, sausage, or ham pizza meant for a group of people. If I’m lucky there will at least be 1 or 2 cheese pizzas (that disappear immediately), but unfortunately it is not uncommon for there to be none at all.

When you order for yourself or a group where you know everyone’s individual pizza tastes, that’s one thing. But ordering for a large group of people with pizza tastes unknown, it is extremely selfish to just order the toppings that you like. There should always be as much cheese pizza as the total of all others offered at an event.

If you enjoy pizza, you most certainly will enjoy cheese pizza. Why subject the world to your toppings? In fact, a good cheese pizza is much much better than any with toppings.

So I implore everyone to try pizza without toppings, to not force their toppings taste on everyone else by having simple pizza etiquette, and for Italians expand out of the New York area so we can get good pizza globally!

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March 17, 2009 · 9:29 am

More gray and silver DVDs sold to the public! Stop screwing us studios!

As I build up my DVD collection, one thing more than anything else has irritated me to no end: gray and silver DVDs. There is no disc art, there is only a bland gray coating on the disc with lettering in silver (the natural color of an uncoated disc). As far as I can tell, these were developed for and quite possibly by rental companies such as Netflix about 3-5 years ago.

Netflix discs typically look like variations of the silver and gray disc:

Typical Netflix Disc

Even I don’t care what a disc that I rented looks like, but studios are now selling gray and silver discs to the public with no warning and no explanation. Paramount and DreamWorks are the biggest culprits. Not only are new releases being released like this, but new printings of older releases are as well.

I first noticed this about 2 months ago, upon opening my newly purchased Star Trek Nemesis 2-disc collector’s edition. Both discs were the bland silver and gray. Was this a mistake? All the previous movies had colorful disc art.

I did a little digging. Apparently it did come with colorful disc art when it was released in 2005, but very recently, they are printing it as a silver and gray disc. EVERY Star Trek movie is now printed this way, in addition to probably hundreds of more titles.

Here is a friend’s copy of the discs with the artwork and mine without. Interest in Star Trek aside, which would you rather own and watch?

Nemesis Disc Art

OR?

Nemesis No Disc Art

I complained to Paramount Home Video to no avail. They completely ignored my email.

That was the first of many to come. I now own at least a dozen or more of these awful silver and gray discs. When I buy the “Special Limited Edition” of Saving Private Ryan, I don’t expect the disc to look like this:

"Special Limited Edition"

In my DVD binder, gray and silver discs are an eyesore! They make even classics such as Forrest Gump, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and The Truman Show look like they might be horrible movies.

Eye Sore

Hey studios, stop it! This must be saving you what, 20 cents per disc if even that much? Stop producing this crap and give us the quality disc that we paid for!

Take note Paramount and DreamWorks: this is how to make disc art!

Great Disc Art

Ticked off about this too? Let me know about it!

And be sure to read my previous rant: Is that really your favorite movie?

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March 17, 2009 · 9:28 am

Is that really your favorite movie?

Asking a person his or her favorite movie is a pretty common way to get to know someone better. I personally hate this question because I take it very seriously and I could never narrow such a thing down to one film. The best I can answer with is a handful of various movies that I am currently really digging at the time, as my moods and phases are ever changing. This drives people nuts. What drives me nuts are the answers which I receive.

Just about the most common answer right now is The Dark Knight. Really? A movie released last July is their favorite movie of all time? I will often press for what their favorite movie was BEFORE The Dark Knight. A common response? Iron Man, a movie released several months before The Dark Knight.

If I try to rake their brains for their favorite movie before the existence of Iron Man – before Summer 2008, I often get someone like the Bourne Ultimatum, one of the previous summer’s biggest blockbusters.

I’ve found that the latest Will Ferrel, Adam Sandler, or Ben Stiller are equally used as answers to peoples’ favorite films as action flicks are. It’s just that The Dark Knight is extraordinarily popular at the moment.

Why is this? What meaning, if any, does “favorite film” have if you just give that title lazily to the latest summer popcorn flick?

I think it is sadly because people just don’t care. They have short memories. They live for new thrills and highs. The latest big name comedy or action movie is just their latest high.

To me, a movie has to have been out for a while (at least a year but likely more) before I even consider it to be one of my all time favorites.

If you now or ever have listed movies such as The Dark Knight, Step Brothers, Don’t Mess With The Zohan, or Iron Man stop and ask yourself: “Is that really my favorite movie?”

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March 6, 2009 · 2:20 am

Just quit facebook? No one cares!

I can’t even imagine the mindset here. You’ve just quit Facebook because you’ve wasted away countless hours of your life on it. So what do you do now with your newfound freedom? Well, write a long article or blog about your quitting Facebook of course!

One of latest “cool” things to do online is to publicly quit the popular social networking site, and I’m sick of it! Instead of talking about their own faults, they vilify Facebook and its users. It’s not their fault that they got addicted to Facebook – it’s Facebook’s! (oh and society).

These articles and blogs often say that Facebook users have no dignity, and that they use Facebook to gloat and to play the voyeur. They say that Facebook is one of the major ills of modern society. These writers are hypocrites – they complain that Facebook users are nothing but attention seekers, and then they write provocative articles with the sole purpose to attract attention and gain as many hits and comments as possible. And it’s working. Articles on quitting Facebook often get a ton of replies and get forwarded around – even sent around on Facebook itself.

These articles are often characterized by an “I’m better than everyone using Facebook” attitude.

One such recent article really annoyed me entitled: You Can’t Friend Me, I Quit! by Steve Tuttle over at Newsweek.com. Tuttle is painfully trying to be as witty and pithy as possible and in doing so fails to write anything substantive. It reads as a “look how clever I am” article more than anything. He even throws in a line about how he wouldn’t have been able to the story about quitting Facebook if he hadn’t already quit because he wouldn’t have had the time.

He goes on to liken status updates to inane cell phone chatter and calls the site the “emptiest place on Earth.” With his newfound free time he plans to frequent a local bar more. That’s pretty productive.

In addition to be really irritated by Tuttle’s irritating writing, I’m really embarrassed for his teenaged daughter, who he claims literally cried when he first joined the site. Disclosing your daughter’s emotional instabilities to the whole world isn’t very cool.

Look you public quitters and haters – Facebook is what it is – a social networking site! It is as advertised! What did you expect?

And you do realize that YOU and YOU ALONE control how much time you spend on Facebook. It is not society’s fault – it is YOURS. You don’t have to constantly update your status, nor must you look at others’. You control whom you friend; it’s not important, be as selective as you choose.

Some have called status and other updates from Facebook friends spam, and that the more Facebook spams you get, the more inundated you will be with said spam.

First – The whole point of Facebook is to stay connected with a group of friends – if you don’t want information from certain people, then why did you friend them in the first place?

Second – Facebook is increasingly becoming more customizable. You can already largely control what information you see from which users, but it looks like an update around the corner to the Facebook homepage will make this fully customizable.

If Facebook is guilty of anything, it is of being designed too well. Let those who enjoy Facebook enjoy it in peace.

Just quit quietly please. No one will miss you. I certainly won’t.

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