'Cause I'll throw you off the line. I'll break you and destroy you, given time.
This site is turning into all OLPC news all the time. But I can't help it if it seems to stay in the limelight.
These fuckers think they can run roughshod over OLPC! First Microsoft attempts to re-design Windows to fit on the ultralight and ultra-hot OLPC XO, and realizes it for the fool's errand it is. My guess is someone finally told the boss MISSION IMFUCKINGPOSSIBLE in no uncertain terms. Such as, you know, yelling "MISSION IMFUCKINGPOSSIBLE" right in their face.
But wait, there's more! Microsoft, showing audacity levels never before seen, has asked OLPC to help them. "Can you redesign the whole fucking thing so we can play, too?"
If Negroponte has any stones whatsoever, and I bet he does, he will send back this message: "Nuts!"
Apologies for this profane rant. It has been tagged accordingly.
During my final few months at UNH, I have been taking a class by the name of "History of the Modern World" which UNH, in its infinite wisdom, decreed I should take to make sure I don't come out of college completely ignorant of the past. On the surface, it is an entry-level history major class; however, lurking beneath the surface is its true function, at least in my eyes: showcase of the stupidity of UNH students.
Now let's get some stuff clear. I'm going to berate two groups of people here: UNH students and history majors. I love history: it is one of my favorite things to read about. I hate history majors: they are lumped in with pysch majors and communications majors in a group I like to call "My Future Cashiers". UNH is a decent enough state school, which I ended up at after a year at WPI completely wiped out my savings.* I like UNH: clean, quiet campus. Wonderful professors (in CS, anyway). And above all: cheap.
However, because it is a state school, it often reminds me more of a high school than a university. The amount of popped collars exceeds the physical number of people on campus.** The goal of most of these kids seems to be nothing more than to get laid, with alcohol a close second. These are fine pursuits to be sure, but when your hung over ass almost throws up on me while I try to dodge your stumbling attempt to cross the street at 9 am on a Wednesday, I may grow a little irked at your dedication to your craft.
However, I have mostly high-level CS courses, notably devoid of this stereotype. The only gen ed I take this semester is the aforementioned history class, which is full to the brim of people that remind me of high school, and why it fucking sucked. One kid in particular's insistence that Communism worked perfectly really took the life out of me today. It seems like everyone has this kid in history class at some time in their life: fat, strident, ill-washed, and smugly sure of his superiority over the rest of these sheep who think capitalism is the bee's knees. His stained Che shirt, which he wears without a trace of irony (slightly distorted by his massive gut), is as much a symbol of his stupidity as it is any resistance against The Man.
Now, I remember in WPI this kind of kid existed as well. For some reason, I took a Shakespeare class there, and a version of this blob manifested himself in that classroom as well, often loudly opining that we were idiots and dolts beyond measure for thinking that Shakespeare existed. He was OBVIOUSLY a group of different authors working as a collective!***
The difference at WPI is that the professor fucking called him out, asking for evidence that that was true, and citing his own opinion that Shakespeare was quite real with well-reasoned arguments. Clue entire class chuckling at cookie-cutter nonconformist getting owned.
But at UNH, this never happens. The professor thanks him for his valuable contribution, and I groan and slouch down in my chair. Is this worth it? What the hell am I getting out of this exchange? Truth be told, I spend the vast majority of time in that class thinking about startups. They hold more interest for me these days than anything UNH has to offer.
* Thank you, three consecutive tuition hikes over the course of one year! You made my already 40K a year education completely unattainable!
** Seen crossing commuter parking lot: A kid with no less than three popped collars: two shirts, one fashionably rumpled black blazer. And a tan no one in New England could ever have.
*** Cue lecture on the uses of collectivism, with frequent interjections about how much he wishes he could suck Lenin's preserved dick. Or maybe I'm just reading between the lines there.
Time for a departure from my normally scheduled crap concerning lame-ass web startups* and stuff I like on the internet. This post is about COFFEH!
This post is also going to be profane. Watch those sensitive ears, ladies.
Coffee, as a rule, is delicious. I don't care how you imbibe it, be it lattes, cappuccinos, espressos, regular fucking coffee, whatever. It all tastes good and it all has a fucking stranglehold on my brain. It has gotten to the point now where a day without caffeine input (preferably coffee) leaves me incredibly irritable and with a skullsplitting headache.
As addictions go, this is a pretty tame one. I'm not sucking dick for coffee in alleys, or mugging people from the Midwest on vacation for coffee money. I should be glad that I am addicted to such a readily available substance. However, I am dismayed, probably just like any cocaine/heroin/janjaweed addict, by the vastly varying quality of my substance of choice.
Point in case: I am drinking a Dunkin' Donuts** coffee right now. It tastes like pee. But it is still much, much better than some coffee you can get. While it dismays me that this coffee is the best available to me on my way to UNH, it also makes me glad I am not drinking coffee from Cumby's, a disgusting gas station chain whose radio ads constantly shrill how awesome and trendy they are for serving Bengal Trader coffee ("ANY SIZE JUST 99 CENTS! YOU BETTER GET TO CUMBY'S!"). After some thought (not a lot, though), I decided to rank my coffee options:
1) Taste The Golden Spray
This is the highest ranking, reserved for the best indie coffee shops and other fine places where you can get some exotic shit to placate the monkey on your back. Also Illy, which I consider to be some of the tastiest mass produced coffee, unless you can get some Zabar's. The finest uncut Colombian.
2) I'd Buy THAT For A Dollar
This is my ranking for the best chains. I'd say stuff like Starbuck's and Seattle's Best rank in here somewhere. China white: it's been stepped on a little, but it's better than what everyone else is getting.
3) Mean Bean Machine
Dunkin' Donuts and all their ilk. Semi-decent coffee if you are in a hurry and don't need anything but a fix. Compare to Mexican Brown: tastes a little weird, still gets you where you need to go.
4) Cleveland Steamer In A Paper Cup
Gas station coffee. Any kind. It's all gross. Green Mountain is the best of this group, but still shitty. Badly stepped on Mexican Brown. Cut with Ajax.
5) SANKA TIME
Any decaf, anywhere. Hardware store complimentary coffee. ANY complimentary coffee. You're bootin' black tar heroin now.
And that's all I got today. Maybe tomorrow I will make fun of how useless Open Social is so far. Or maybe write about my amigo John's blog, which is so far even more content-free than my own, which is a feat indeed.
* Seriously, WTF. Like Amazon is impossible to use or some shit. Also their site design looks like one of those linkjack shitholes. As Ted Dziuba has been known to say, WARP FACTOR FAIL.
** Those of you from somewhere other than New England may not know what Dunkin Donuts is. I don't care.
Before I get rolling here, I need to insert a disclaimer. Wikipedia is one of the best things ever to happen to the internet. If I could figure out some way to have a neural implant that could search Wikipedia, it seems unlikely that I would ever talk to anyone again. As Randy of xkcd fame suggests, it has become sort of a consciousness extension, for better or for worse.
Which is why stuff like this makes me mad enough to decapitate babies. Veropedia may seem like a good idea on the surface. Who could argue with an independently verified version of Wikipedia? Only the cream of the crop: pristine, informative articles! And all verified by "experts"! "Why Sean," you'll say, "people have been suggesting this for years. It's great that someone finally made it happen!"
No it fucking well isn't. These people have a horrible idea for any number of reasons, and I am only going to mention a few, but I think if you start considering this on your own you will notice that this is an awful idea, too.
Point the First: "Experts?!"
What kind of "experts" do they have lined up here? Some jackasses with history degrees who couldn't find teaching jobs close enough to let them keep living in Mom's basement? Anyone with enough knowledge to verify an article I want to read about that knowledge probably has a job directly centered around that knowledge, and not proofreading shit for some goofy website.
Point the Second: "Pokemon Should Not Be In Encyclopedia Brittanica."
I agree one hundred percent. But it should be in Wikipedia. That's the whole point of Wikipedia. Anything can be added! While I may not agree with 47 page articles about Sonic the Hedgehog, I think that Wikipedia's agile knowledge aggregation model is a key proponent of its success. More than once I have logged in to look up some arcane piece of Star Wars trivia -- and it always had the answer. God bless those indoor kids.
Point the Third: "It's all about the Hamiltons, baby."
Veropedia is a for-profit company. They have ads on their site. Nothing like making money off the hobby and passion of others!
Okay, end of rant for today. Maybe later tonight I will post something less vitriolic, like a story abouts kittens or whatever.
Says Microsoft.
The nerve of these idiots never ceases to amaze me. The plan is to bootstrap the whole of Africa by dragging them screaming into computer literacy. I think this is one of the best uses of charity I have ever seen, and not just because I am a rabid computer nerd. Tito Negroponte is to be commended for both his vision and his execution.
But wait! Microsoft needs to shit all over little kids! Again, for those too colorblind or lazy to click the orange text, Microsoft is trying to slim down their OS enough to work on the OLPC. While this adds a long-needed whiff of legitimacy to the OLPC project, I think they never factored the cost of a SOFTWARE LICENSE into their $200 target price.
Windows, to me, is a piece of waste. And an expensive piece of waste to boot. To foist it onto children in Africa or any other developing continent(s) is akin to a business war crime. I'd be even more enraged if I thought they could make that fat fuck of an OS lose enough weight to run on the OLPC. The chance of that is about the same as the chance of me suddenly being able to excrete solid uranium: painfully unlikely.
And to any of you with sensitive ears (eyes?), I apologize for my profane post.
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