This is an old page from Rod Begbie's blog.
It only exists in an attempt to prevent linkrot. No new content will be added to this site, and links and images are liable to be broken. Check out begbie.com to find where I'm posting stuff these days.
Who would have thought that having three different voting systems (First past the post, regional list, and STV) on one ballot paper would cause confusion? Gah!
Kid phones a school hotline an hour before someone phones in a bomb threat. Unfortunately, the school hadn’t adjusted for the new DST switch, so he got hauled into juvenile detention for twelve days. “County juvenile detention officials wanted to keep Webb in custody, Andrews said. “They wanted him to have a mental health evaluation because he wouldn’t admit to making the call.” ” Frightening.
Diebold is suing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts because it chose a competing firm’s voting machines. “Weisberg said the company is not alleging any improprieties by the secretary of state’s office. Instead, it is saying the office acted in good faith but made a mistake in the selection.” Just when you think Diebold can’t get any more evil/corrupt/incompetent, they’re (ab)using the courts to screw with the rolling out of competitors’ technology.
A British online music store is being banned from purchasing cheap (legal) CDs in Hong Kong and selling them to British people cheaper than the “official” British release. How in the name of sodding fucksticks is this “copyright infringement”?!
“The league has sought to forbid advertisers from saying things like “Get a new color TV in time for the Super Bowl!”, so instead they have to use euphemisms like “The Big Game” instead. […] But advertisers may have to come up with some new euphemisms next year because now the NFL is seeking a trademark on “The Big Game”“
“Federal prosecutors counted immigration violations, marriage fraud and drug trafficking among anti-terror cases in the four years after 9/11 even though no evidence linked them to terror activity, a Justice Department audit said Tuesday.”
Throwies shut down Boston — I-93 North and big chunks of the MBTA were shut down today due to “suspicious objects that looked like circuit boards, found attached to bridges”. Turns out they were promotional throwies for Adult Swim. Somebody at Time Warner’s about to get fired, I imagine.
Our Attorney General: “The Constitution doesn’t say, ‘Every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas.’ It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended”
Because logging you out of your banking website is clearly less important than trying to sell you another credit card.
Good bloody grief. Damn that 2.4Ghz band, and all its illness-causing ways. Hope the schools also removed all cordless telephones and, erm, microwave ovens. Won’t somebody think of the children?!
I’m playing with Vista on my laptop, and this “improvement” from Microsoft was pissing me off. Thankfully there is a “solution”. One that is a usability nightmare waiting to happen (drag a folder too close to the edge of the screen, and it becomes a toolbar that is hard to work out how to close).
Microsoft’s “you must buy points in $5 increments” makes sense if you consider credit-card transaction costs (I’m sure Apple loses money if you only buy one 99 cent song at a time — that’s why they batch up your transactions), but the user experience of “1.25 cents per point” is ridiculous, and probably going to bite MS.
Proof that Massachusetts don’t need no stinking electronic voting machines to disenfranchise its citizens. We can disenfranchise them the good ol’ fashioned way: with paper.
Hooray! It’s the first fucking idiotic, easily-gamable, pyramid-scheme, AllAdvantage-style “We’ll pay you to watch ads” business model of the new bubble.
Diebold voting machines are found to be easily re-flashable by anyone wanting to invisibly rig an election. Diebold spokesman: “I don’t believe these evil elections people exist.” I have not the words.
Palm’s first Windows Mobile handheld gets horribly confused and shuffles around your calendar appointments by an hour when daylight savings kicks in. Well I mean, obviously. Who could ever predict such an unusual event as clocks being moved forward an hour? It’s madness, I tells ya. Madness!
Oh, fucking hell. Dave Winer’s started another dick-swinging war about RSS, this time claiming that a group he started no longer exists, which came as something of a surprise to the nine members.
As a Rhapsody subscriber, I’m able to listen to only nine out of fourteen tracks from the Beck album ‘Midnite Vultures’ without forking out another $10. What idiot in charge of licensing decided that ‘Mixed Bizness” was fine for free download, but that the excellent “Debra” is blocked? Record companies: You’re morons, and this is why no-one uses your crappy “legal” alternatives to file-sharing.
I’ve spotted this too. I download a lot of TV, but Safe Peer only goes bezerk stopping nastiness when I’m downloading “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, another HBO show
Tube station shut down because of man “acting suspicously” (wearing an overcoat and sending text messages, apparently). Police arrest him and confiscate lots of computer/electronics equipment from his house. They eventually drop charges (although they don’t return his property). Unfortunately for them, said man has the skill and contacts to get his story told on the front page of The Guardian. Feeling safer, Britain?
Number of button presses required to see/change the rating of a track on the iPod nano: Three, Four or Five, depending on whether you have Lyrics and Cover Art attached to the track. Hey Apple! Remember “consistency”?
Excellent article by Malcolm Gladwell explaining just how horrendously fucked-up the US health industry is. “Because the uninsured are sicker than the rest of us, they can’t get better jobs, and because they can’t get better jobs they can’t afford health insurance, and because they can’t afford health insurance they get even sicker.”
This is an archive of groovmother.com, the old blog run by Rod Begbie — A Scottish geek who lives in San Francisco, CA.
I'm the co-founder of Sōsh, your handy-dandy guide for things to do in San Francisco this weekend.