Big News

You might want to sit down for this. It is very important and it will change the way you look at the world. It turns out you can use Hungry Jack Complete Buttermilk Pancake and Waffle Mix AND Aunt Jemima Buttermilk Complete Pancake and Waffle Mix in the SAME BATCH OF PANCAKE BATTER!

The ratio of mix to water (4:3) is the same for both brands, so if you don't have enough left in one box to make a full batch you can use mix from the other brand. They are completely compatible. I know it is a lot to take in, but you are now much better off for knowing this.

Maritime History of the Bright Family

Three Sailboats on King Lake over the past 40 years.

My Dad in his sailboat sometime in the 1960s.

The sailboat we had when I was a teenager.

The boat I built last summer.

Unnecessary Information

I was looking at the company intranet web site at work yesterday and in the area of the page dedicated to propaganda there was a warning about Social Networks which linked to the company information policy.  Like most corporate policies found in employee handbooks and their ilk it was mostly common sense stuff about keeping company information secure.  It seemed to be lacking in some respects and their was one bullet point that I thought was disturbing.

What was blatantly absent was a policy that said "don't make an ass of yourself on the Internet."  It is quite possible to guard client and company information, but still get yourself into all sorts of trouble when your co-workers and managers discover all your racist friends, your essay on why LSD should be legalized, or those pictures of you blind drunk at that party 15 years ago.  The Internet really does present a new and exciting problem in the employer-employee relationship in these days of "respect my privacy, but please read about my darkest feelings in my blog."

I am somewhat careful about what content I put out into public, often to the detriment of my personal entertainment value.  You never know when there will be a room full of managers huddled around a laptop reading your web site.  I withhold for the most part any little stories that could be construed as putting my employer in a bad light.   What you are reading now is probably the most subversive public statement of my opinions I have allowed myself in years.  One has to use some common sense and restraint in all aspects of life, but I think that overall the employer's intrusion into personal life is far too invasive.  When you work for a big company, you are effectively waving your right to free speech.  The constitution protects you from the government, not from your employer's ability to take away your livelihood at his discretion.  I feel stifled when I think about that.

The other item, which disturbed me was a bullet point in the Information Policy which read "Do Not collect unnecessary information."  I don't need to know how cheese is made, but am I forbidden from finding out?  Can I still watch the discovery channel and PBS?  Am I allowed to read books not directly related to my job?  Yes, I am taking it a little out of context, but I still don't like the way they framed it in the official policy.  You never know what a lawyer would do with language like that. 

Too Much Cheese

I decided to get the weekly trip to the grocery store out of the way tonight rather than wait to do it at my usual time on Saturday.  Cheese was on my list.  I intended to only buy Sargento Provolone cheese, a cheese that has served me well in the past.  I was a little disappointed that it was on sale.  Not only was it on sale, but it was $5.99 for one package or $6.00 for two packages.  I had no choice but to buy two.

That's way more cheese than I need to own at one time.  Why am I buying $6.00 cheese anyway?

Book Report

I did a book report on a book I recently finished called Glut. The book is fairly consise and entertaining history of Information Science. I'm not sure I wrote the book report with the intent of another person actually reading it, ike most of what I write outside of work. I have been trying to make more of an effort to study books more, as opposed to just reading them. I feel like I haven't been retaining information from books like I used to. I think that's because I wasn't using the information.

When I read this book I took some notes in the margins and underlined passages. Then I transfered my notes to paper and added to them. Then I wrote the book report. At first I thought I was going to write it as a formal academic looking sort of thing but midway through I decided that was just going to make it long and boring so I went a more casual and superficial route. Ironically one of the things I was thinking about while reading the book was the vanishing art of formal writing.

Currently I am slowly reading a book that was referenced in Glut, Orality and Literacy by Walter J. Ong. It is definitely a more academic volume. Although it is very short, it might take me a little while to get through. It seems the sort of book that is written more for people to site in their own books and papers. You can tell right away because it is so dense with references in keeping with the demands of academic writing. That is necessary for the work that forms the basis of our knowledge, but it can make for dull reading

The Linux Keeps Wisconsin Woman off of the Internet

This is absolutely hilarious. A TV station in Madison, Wisconson reports on a woman's experience with her new laptop which came loaded with Ubuntu. This has got to be one of the most poorly researched news stories I have seen in any medium. It is also proof that many (sometimes I think most) people shouldn't even own a computer.

"Then she decided that Ubuntu doesn't always work like Windows. Her Verizon internet wouldn't load. She couldn't install Microsoft Word. And she said without Word and the internet, she couldn't take online classes at Milwaukee Area Technical College."

I just hope she's not studying Systems Administration or anything to do with computers at the Milwaukee Area Technical College.

As Seen on TV

What the hell is this?

I mean seriously, you need this ridiculous device to make little hamburgers? A meat patty is some sort of grandiose sculpture requiring years of professional training?

Oh it is so easy with the Big City Slider.

WTF?

The commercial shows obvious idiots failing miserably at cooking hamburgers the old fashioned way in a skillet.

Oh my God, the skillet, it is so hard to use, so complicated. Which end of the spatula is the handle? I just can’t figure this stuff out, I am a klutz in the kitchen.

This is as bad as that pancake flipper thing.

Remember that contraption? It was another device for the spatula impaired. How many people sat at home thinking “I like pancakes, but flipping a pancake is the HARDEST THING IN THE WORLD.”

In case you don’t have a TV, you can watch the commercial (and buy one if you're insane) here.

Tough Times For A Beard

When a full bearded man orders chicken wings, the little hand wipes are not nearly enough. They should provide you with shampoo.

Oh Obama, You Used to be Cool

There is nothing hip, cool or changerific about giving a fist bump to the RIAA. I was sad to read today that the President Elect has named one of the RIAA's "favorite lawyer," Tom Perrelli to a top level Justice department job. His technology policies (and the fact that he had technology policies) caught my interest before he was elected. Maybe he is beholden to the entertainment industry for campaign contributions. Hopefully this won't set the tone for the next four years.

First, Kill All The Lawyers

My parents are being sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act. They own four not particularly profitable store fronts on Hillsborough Avenue built long before the ADA. A serial litigator is suing them for not having the proper parking space, a ramp, etc. According to my parents' lawyer, an attorney teamed with a little old man in a wheel chair (who is a registered sex offender) is suing nearly every commercial property owner in Tampa. Although the "damages" the disabled man can get are very limited, he gets compensation for "reasonable attorney's" fees which the attorney shares with the disabled registered sex offender. That's how the racket works.

My parents might not legally have to comply with the ADA in their tiny, pre-ADA parking lot, but the way justice works in our country, it is cheaper to give in to extortion than it is to defend yourself. So they will probably be out $5,000 for "reasonable attorneys' fees" for the plaintiff, at least $5K for their own lawyer and another $5,000 or more to install ramps and re-stripe their parking lot. This is not chump change for my parents, they aren't real estate moguls. They're two 60 year old middle class people who will be working well into their 70s because of shit like this.

Lawyers, especially plaintiff's attorneys disgust me. How is this even a matter for civil litigation? Why isn't this covered by some comparatively simple administrative process, like building codes? If you are disabled and really want to use that parking lot that is not compliant, you should be able to call the government office of parking lots (or cripples or whatever), and they should investigate and then the responsible person should have to comply if the law indeed applies, with perhaps a reasonable fine. Litigation should only be there when that reasonable process breaks down. The expense becomes astronomical as soon as lawyers are involved, and the lawyers are the only ones who always win, because they always get paid.

The system will never change though because it is created by lawyers, for lawyers. Judges are lawyers and the elected officials and lobbyists who write the laws are also mostly lawyers. They have no interest in changing the system to serve the public good because it would weaken their profession.