August, 2013 archive
Vast Wasteland 0
If you have not realized how much television is unmitigated unadulterated untreated sewage, spend a bit of time at alt.binaries.teevee.
Driving while Black, You Can’t Make This Stuff Up Dept. 0
Sixty-year-old three-star Chief Douglas Zeigler, head of the NYPD’s Community Affairs Bureau, gets stopped and frisked by two NYPD officers who refused to believe his police identification credentials.
Via Zandar at TWIB.
Post-Racial 0
novaSlim sticks his tongue firmly in his cheek and writes a prescription for ending racism, to be implemented by its targets.
Via Contradict Me.
Colbert Has Had His Filner 0
If you’ve been noticing the story of San Diego Mayor “All Hands on Deck” Filner, there’s nothing new here, but this is still a hoot.
Below the fold, because, on one of my computers, it autoplays.
Scam Artists 0
We are living in a corporate kleptocracy.
Marketable Skills 0
Well, at least someone is learning a trade.
The ring was led by two roommates who provided door-to-door services, the Athens Banner-Herald (http://bit.ly/13z1yQU) reported Thursday.
Campus couriers were used to take customers’ photos in their dorm rooms, collect personal information for the IDs and deliver the finished products for between $50 and $100, investigators said.
Theft of Services 0
Scott Maxwell looks at Florida’s “school reform” efforts, most recent marked by the resignation of the Florida Commissioner of Education for cheating.
A nugget:
Honest brokers would admit the current, test-obsessed system isn’t working.
But the reformers actually claimed the higher failure rates were fine and dandy — simply the result of higher standards.
It’s a fascinating little world these reformers have created for themselves — one where they claim success when scores rise or fall.
That’s why I neither celebrate nor lament Bennett’s resignation Thursday. He wasn’t our main problem. He was merely a figurehead for it — a high-profile cog in a machine hellbent on undermining public schools.
He’s right, you know.
The schools have not been “reformed.” They’ve been deformed.
For the Love of the Game 0
It’s telling that a college basketball game is no longer a game, but a “product.” From an article in my local rag about the ACC’s plans to have its own cable channel (emphasis added):
Wingnut Wambos 0
Living their fatal fantasies.
The Same Old Song and Dance 0
I’ve heard this tune so many times before.
Freshman Patrick Sharp said he started the club so that students of European and Euro-American descent can celebrate their shared history and culture and discuss issues that affect white people, such as immigration and affirmative action.
These groups are always about “white culture,” (where culture = supremacy).
(And I see no way how pulling this at an HBCU is anything other than deliberately provocative.)
As Elon James White would say, I call shenanigans.
Searing Reality 1
I once had a neighbor lady who worked at a store owned by a major national retail chain (I won’t say who it is, but it’s the same outfit into whose door I shall not traverse again because of the incompetence of the management–decidedly not of the techs, but of the management–of its appliance repair business).
She had a special transparent plastic purse for work.
It was part of the outfit’s “anti-inventory-shrinkage” initiative.
Regular purses were verboten.
Her employer had decided that all employees were, more than anything else, potential thieves.
The NFL has decided that it digs that scene and can share that space.
Make TWUUG Your LUG 0
Super special super-fantastic summer Linux/Unix extravaganza!
Door prizes! Eats!
Geeky discussions and demos by and for geeky people!
Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source.
When: Saturday, August 3, starting at noon.
Where:
Employee Cafeteria, Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital
1309 Kempsville Road
Norfolk, Va. 23502 (Map)
Learn more about TWUUG.
Sponsored in part by: O’Reilly Media, Inc. and The Linux Foundation.
Many Happy Returns 0
The Regent continues his give-back tour.
The Parable of the File:
Once there was a file on a computer.
The file stopped doing what it was supposed to do.
Instead, it did things it was not supposed to do.
Selfish things.
Stupid things.
The operator determined that the file was corrupt.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not un-corrupt the file. so it was “removed” from the public indexes (or, as some would say, “deleted”).
As happens when a file is “removed,” the file itself remained for a long, long time, but all public references to it were expunged and it was never noticed again . . . .
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Somewhat better, still well over 300k.
(snip)
The less-volatile four-week moving average declined to 341,250 last week, a two-month low, from 345,750.
The number of people continuing to collect jobless benefits dropped by 52,000 to 2.95 million in the week ended July 20. That doesn’t include the number of Americans receiving extended benefits under federal programs.
Bloomberg’s experts maintain their streak.