I see the "Linux Sucks" video made the front page (a few days late) here on slashdot today. Along with many others, I chimed in that the trend of videos instead of text is fucking stupid (and honestly an insult to our intelligence). I was happy to see that many others made similar complaints over the matter.

Not that I expect it to make a difference, as people still seem to get jollies posting videos of themselves saying crap on youtube regardless, but it is good to see that I'm not alone on the matter. I'm just waiting now to see if this hack is running for office and got the shitty idea that way.

A good umbrella is always appreciated. I've gone through a few, and lately purchased my second Shedrain umbrella from Amazon to replace the first that i had lost.

Somehow, this one managed to break before i could lose it. It worked perhaps once, but then would no close properly and was broken on one part. So, i sent an email to Shedrain asking for help:

I bought item 2052-CHAR on 3/19/14. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007NDTFGM/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01)

Starting with the second use, one of the metal joints that extend the canopy detached from the rest and the umbrella no longer open or closes properly. ( i apologize for the poor explanation, i do not know how to explain it.) I can send a picture if you would like,

Is there a way to fix something like that? I would like my umbrella to work again. It's a pretty neat umbrella.

That same day, i received a reply:

Hello,

Please send a few pictures and I will see how we can help.

Thank you,

I responded with

Sure, attached are pictures taken from my phone.

And here's a video on Youtube: http://youtu.be/Ll96m4v99ng

I love my mac. :)

If you want any other images, just ask.

And attached 7 images. To which he responded:

Hello,

Thank you for the pictures. I do not think you would be able to repair the umbrella. Please send it to the address below and we will repair/replace it and ship it back to you.

ShedRain Corp
Attn: Dept W
8303 NE Killingsworth
Portland, OR 97220

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you,

I sent it in a little bit later and received back a fixed umbrella. Not only was the broken part fixed, they added a number of hooks between the two coverings. So far, it is working nicely. My only cost was the price of shipping it to them.

It seems they gave back the same umbrella because my name, address, and phone number were still on the handle (taped on sheet of paper).

--

When i post the emails i send, i am "afraid" that i sent something silly, or feel apprehensive about sharing the personality i add to my emails, which can change by whom i am sending it to or simply the mood i am in. I know it's not a problem (until someone proves me wrong in the comments :) ).

--

Unrelated side note Started Book 5, Chapter 9 in LoTR.

Smitty has recently linked to a Heritage Foundation page trying to distance itself from the mandate in the health insurance act of 2010. It isn't a surprise that they would want to try to make it look like the mandate wasn't their idea, as it is wildly unpopular with their base. What is surprising, though, is how epically they failed in distancing themselves from it.

For example (from the actual article):

That rather plainly shows that indeed people in the Heritage Foundation wanted a mandate. Reading on...

Isn't that the same kind of "herd mentality" that they are demonizing the democrats over right now?

And the supreme court ruled that the mandate in the 2010 bill is, indeed, a tax. The stick analogy does not hold here.

... same as above.

So in other words, the Heritage Foundation acknowledges that the mandate in the Health Insurance Industry Bailout Act of 2010 is a facsimile of what they wanted. They can pretend that they somehow did not have a role in the crafting of this lousy bill, but they cannot show that they have not advocated for what it does.

I found Storium from it's Kickstarter page , via a write up on MakeUseOf's rss feed. (As an aside, i just saw makeuseof's homepage, wow that's ugly!)

In short, one user makes a story and at least one user plays it. The story is in a world and presents challenges, the players decide how to respond and can play some cards defining their strength sand weaknesses. That is, the storyteller does not have complete control of the story, perhaps just the direction. More information can be seen on the How to play page.

I pledged the $10 for the beta access to check out what it is, and i am thinking of becoming a member. The only benefit of member is that the first year is $20 instead of the expected $25. Truthfully, the $5 saved doesn't justify the gamble, but i am enjoying the game.

As of right now, the Kickstarter project has only 12 hours left. Doe this form of storytelling interest you?

Update: Changed "at least two users play it" to "at least one user plays it".
Changed "i just saw the homepage, " to "i just saw makeuseof's homepage"

The GOP is succeeding in ramping up silly rhetoric and wasteful spending on Benghazi. Yet roughly 30 years ago we faced multiple terrorist attacks in Beirut. As the New Yorker Points out the situation is rather similar; the white house belonged to the opposite party of who held the US house, amongst other things. In Beirut, far more people died, including diplomats, CIA employees, and marines. One CIA analyst was tortured and murdered.

But was Reagan - dear, St. Ronnie - threatened with impeachment? Were members of his cabinet subpoenaed? Was there a whole series of "investigations" launched when the party in the house didn't get what they wanted from the ones released?

No. As the author of the article put it:

... because, you know, it's all exactly the same, right?

The only surprise is that this isn't on the front page here on slashdot ... yet.

Can you tell a person's gender by their video game avatar?

the male gamers with female avatars ultimately gave themselves away: they moved backwards more often and stayed further away from the group than women playing with female avatars.

Men playing with a female avatar also jumped an average of 116 more times than their female counterparts.

All i can say is: Wow.

Yawning to cool the brain The study seems dubious, but it does remind me of a Simpson's episode where the reason given is "to keep brain from freezing".

This is worth bringing attention to . Bill Dog, you used to do much better than that.

I just realized that the underlying joke my friend was making was actually about faith. Some people like to make decisions based on what can be proven, while others prefer to run by what they know cannot be proven. We have seen the results of the latter for a long time in this country, I really wish we could try for the former for a change.

Just imagine if the federal government - specifically those elected or appointed by those elected- actually reflected the spiritual diversity of our country.

I believe that in an English if statement, using then and a comma is redundant. I have been challenged on this, told i am incorrect, and shown many examples otherwise.

Strunk and White's Elements of Style (PDF) does not use "then" after a comma. For example

If the interruption to the flow of the sentence is but slight, the writer may safely omit the commas.

While the book does not list the rule, the style of the book itself shows its application. I feel vindicated...and terribly ashamed at my egregious use of commas.

Trying to use perl to connect via https with WWW::Mechanize and then LWP::UserAgent, the script returned an error that the server closed the connection. That "server" meant the proxy server. I finally figured that one out that one after telnetting to the proxy server myself. It was a simple test, but not so simple to figure out that it was the test to do.

To make a not so long story even shorter, it's a decade-old bug with complicated solutions already fixed in Debian

Now's a good time to go back to Linode and try that $50 off coupon again. (Instead of applying those patches and whatnot.) It'd either get me a month and some of really easy access to a server, or, perhaps, use hourly billing. If hourly allows me to easily setup an environment, that $50 would last qwuite some time. :)

This is not counting fakes.

• Won't share their sources or read yours - this type will insist that the sources they use are "so obviously available" that they don't need to offer them to you for reading, regardless of how nicely you ask for them.
• Will share sources, but won't read yours - this type will share sources (albeit from only a very short list of sources) but has no interest in any sources beyond the ones they find acceptable, so don't bother giving them yours. Similarly, they aren't interested in discussing the sources they share.
• Will share sources, won't read them, won't acknowledge yours - this type likes headlines and doesn't care if their interpretation of the headline matches the text of the source. Forget about sharing your source with them as they likely won't read your reply anyways.
• Only one source period - this person adheres to conservatism as a religion that defines all truth. They will quote their one source endlessly and provide you links to unhelpful un-transcribed youtube videos to support their claims. Suggesting that their source is in any way less than 1000% accurate is blasphemy that leads to immediate excommunication, so don't even bother replying to them.

I'm not aware of any currently extant types on slashdot that I have missed. We had some earlier varieties in past years that seem to have since gone extinct, including:

• Will share their own and read others' sources - last seen in the wild around 2010 or so. Rumored to still exist though no record exists to support that notion.

I must say, I am impressed at how thoroughly at least one fake has infiltrated the camps of at least the first three types. I would not have expected that to be possible.

Reading Wikipedia's articles without the Talk section is like basing purchasing decision from Amazon without reading the reviews.

Although i left Wikipedia some time ago it contiuosly comes up in Google searches. Recently, i saw an article listing myths within which was listed the Tongue Map. Wikipedia has an entry which is refuted in the Talk section. I eventually got to Common Misconceptions (and its own interesting Talk section) which can be an amusing read.

Just now i was looking up Vinculum as a possible name for the fraction bar. The Talk section points out there is no source for it.

Wikipedia being inaccurate is old news, obvious to anyone who knows a subject. But if you do not know the subject and accuracy matters, be sure to read the Talk section.

A completely unrelated side note: While writing this i glanced at the clock which said "1:01:01" and did a double-take.

A side note related only in that it is unrelated: Started Book 3, Chapter 9 in LoTR

Call for ideas

#raspeberrypi #sip

So, a friend made a typo in a message changing "of" to "oe". Looking to make a witty response and remembering that oe is on the Scrabble two-letter word list, i went to check it's definition on Google by searching for define oe.

OE "is" a word "&" IS in the official scrabble players' dictionary. MAking it aq LEGAL WORD for use in SCRABBLE, As well. --- So, do u think sCRABBLE allows u to "CHEAT" as well?? smh!!! NO ABBREVRIATIONS are ALLOWED in SCRABBLE "or" words with friends.

Seeming a bit odd, i followed the link to Merriam-Webster, which has it as an abbreviation for oersted and biographical name for Kenzaburo Oe.

Trying to find the word brought me to scrabblefinder.com which has

Is oe a scrabble word?

No Definition of 'oe' Found - It's still good as a Scrabble word though!

Who knows, maybe i'll look it up in The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (Third Edition) when i get home. (There is a Fourth Edition out there, but it's not what i happen to have.)