Success

Recently I've had several discussions, mainly at work, about tech companies and how they measure success. The former CEO of HP is running for public office, touting her successes at HP as part of her credentials, and while the company did turn a profit with her at the helm they also managed to become one of the least reliable manufacturers of technology out there today. While some might argue that for the CEO's job is to run a profitable company, shouldn't they also have some expectation that they would include objective quality in measuring true success? I feel like too often we are willing to overlook incompetency and laziness so long as there is money coming. But shouldn't we hold ourselves, our country, and certainly those we rely upon to deliver the tools we use in our daily lives to a higher standard? Simply being profitable is not a true measure of success, only a measure of wealth. But I guess that's why they call it the almighty dollar.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.3.7

Rolling Stone?

MPR's News Cut blog has a very cool interview with Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, along with a small blurb explaining the current place of Rolling Stone in our society.

Soccer, "summer", and the need to constantly talk

So I happen to remember that the USA is playing in their 3rd and final game of the first round this morning and go pull up the live broadcast on ESPN3. Not at all surprisingly the game is tied 0-0. I've been ranting for the past couple weeks about how tying in sports is a giant waste of time and how it completely takes the excitement out of a game. All set to write a snarky FB status update about how this sport will never catch on in the US, I suddenly start to feel my heart rate increase as time approaches the 90 minute marker. Algeria has just missed a shot and it looks like there are 4 Americans racing down the field with very little resistance. A pass, a blocked shot, and then some guy named Donovan runs right up the middle and taps it back in and I can't believe that I'm excited about all this. Maybe it's the bandwagon, or maybe it's that part of all of us that gets excited when a band says the name of your hometown, but I'm pretty sure I'll be chanting USA and actually caring about the game this coming Saturday.

Is it just me or is this summer a constant battle between rain and ridiculous humidity? Didn't we used to have pleasant days in June?

As anyone reading this may have noticed, it's been a very long time since I posted anything here. For a while I was trying to use the tiny little FB status updates and link sharing to fulfill my need to always have someone listening to me, but it just isn't enough. So I'm back, ready to rant and rave and most likely say at least one stupid thing that I regret per post.

Facebook

I finally caved and signed myself up for Facebook. We'll see how it goes, but for now I would expect that this blog will be used quite a bit less than before.

Hi, I'm Mark, and I'm an idiot.

I finally got so frustrated with my DVD drive not working (I just wanted to watch a movie!) so I booted back into XP, and lo and behold, it doesn't work there either. The drive shows up, but won't recognize a disk. Already sensing that I've made a grade A fool of myself, I shut down the computer and what do you know, the IDE cable has somehow come loose. I pop it back in, boot into 7 Beta and voila! there's my DVD drive. Funny thing is, it still thinks I have a floppy drive as well, so I'm really not sure where that came from. Just goes to show you that the first question should always be: "is it plugged in?"

Windows 7 Beta Update

I've discovered my first major issues with the beta. One of them is a minor inconvenience, the other is bizarre and annoying.

First of all, every time I boot I get a blank screen, the taskbar is a strange textured blue color (but is devoid of any icons and the system tray) and the start menu button is surrounded by black. I can fix this issue by closing and reopening explorer. Not a big deal, easy to work around.

Secondly, after 2-3 boots of working totally fine, my DVD drive disappeared. It was replaced by a floppy drive in the device manager. I've tried uninstalling the floppy drive, floppy controller, IDE controllers, ATA controllers, but each time the end result is that Windows reinstalls them all again with my DVD drive showing up as an unusable floppy drive. It asks me to format the drive and then fails if I try and click format (for obvious reason.) I haven't been able to find any solutions online yet, just a bunch of people who think they're super cool cause they've heard of the UpperFilters optical drive bug. That is not my problem. Anyway, I'll keep researching it and see what happens.

Other than these issues, I love this OS. It runs smooth, fast, and it makes sense. Games run great; I've tested Fallout 3, WoW, and HL2:2 all with no problems and very good framerates. All in all, it still gets a thumbs up from me.

P.S. I used that semi-colon in honor of the late Kurt Vonnegut. I've been reading Apocalypse in Retrospect, a series of writings published after his death by his son Mark.

Moving Forward

I've loaded up the Windows 7 beta on my main machine as of this morning. I did load it on a second harddrive as I'm not entirely willing to wipe out everything I have setup previously, but so far it is treating me well. The UI changes are somewhat minor, although the new taskbar is pretty slick. The ability to easily disable both the UAC and notifications regarding the UAC was very nice, as well as the ability to tweak the notifications you get from the UAC. With my job I have plenty of clients who find the UAC as obnoxious as I do, but also quite a few clients who will benefit from having something in place to make sure they aren't unwittingly destroying their computers on a weekly basis. Aside from the initial setup taking a bit longer than I expected (not really that long, but there was about a 10 minute period where I was just looking at a pretty wallpaper with no windows or text anywhere on the screen) everything has been very smooth. All of my drivers were installed right off the bat, including the up-to-date graphics drivers from Nvidia. So far so good, I'll write more once I've given it more of a test drive.

2009 Wishlist

There are a number of things I would love to see happen this year, especially things that would substantially differentiate it from 2008. Here they are, in no particular order:

•Joe Mauer hits 20 homeruns
I could wish more broadly for the Twins to win the division/league/series but honestly I think that if Mauer turns up the power a bit we should be in a pretty good position to do any of those other things.

•Brad Childress plays Madden
This may sound strange, but I feel like if he would only learn some very basic play calling and strategy that he would be a great coach. He clearly has some skill interacting with the players and seems to be well liked in the locker room, but the talent on our team would benefit greatly from just a little more of an understanding of situational play-calling.

•National health care plan
Although it hasn't effected me negatively in the last few years due to being lucky enough to have a decent job, family and friends alike have suffered due to a lack of modern, civilized health care. Money should not be a factor when it comes to our citizens being able to be healthy.
So long as we at least make it easier for self-employed persons and small businesses at least it would be a step in the right direction.

I guess that's all for now (I could throw in the obvious things: a beautiful woman, world peace, a billion dollars, but those seem pretty obvious.) More posts to come as I can now easily blog from my blackberry. I heart gadgets.

Dumb People Are Funny

Over at ESPN.com I found this hilarious article listing the top 25 stupid things said by those in the sports world this past year. I'm not sure about the order, but they are all definitely stupid things. My personal favorites are numbers 15 and 25. I think that Roger Clemens should probably not be included because cumulatively everything he says is WAY stupider than anything the other jerks could ever come up with.

Take that you corporate loyalty douchebags!

If anyone has not seen last Sunday's episode of the Simpsons (entitled Mypods and Boomsticks) I strongly urge you to do so. Not only is it the best episode I've seen this season (which isn't saying much, but trust me, it's very good) but it also manages to eloquently describe just some of the many problems with the "Apple Person" culture. Oh, also, Moe starting a cult to get out of jury duty: priceless.

Yes We Did.

I'm not really sure how to express my feelings right now, but HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!! I haven't felt like this about politics ever. Ever. Ok, I'm going to try and sleep but I'm reasonably sure I'll just end up lying in bed thinking about how fucking awesome this is.

New Post!!!

I really don't have anything groundbreaking to say, other than I'm not dead and even though the end of baseball season always leaves me a little down (at least every baseball season since '91) I'm still alive and do eventually plan on writing something else here.

1st Place

I don't know how else to explain my feelings about tonight. I just got home from celebrating the victory and I still feel wide awake. I can't wait to watch us clinch the division and hear Ozzie Guillen come up with even more stupid reasons why his team fails. Seriously, tonight was amazing. I would go so far as to say this was the most exciting Twins game I have been to since Game 7 in '87. Absolutely amazing, electrifying energy in the dome, the whole place felt like a 50,000 person party. After the game everyone was singing and chanting in the streets. Random people passed us on the sidewalk and everyone would start cheering and yelling. I love being a part of a city filled with that kind of joy.

The best description of the night: on Baseball Tonight the #1 Webgem tonight wasn't given to a player, it was The Minnesota Twins. Baseball is a team sport and nowhere is that more true than here. I love this game.

Twins 3 White Sox 2

All I can say is that after going to this game I plan on trying to go to every game from here til the end of the year, regardless of the results. I love this team, I love the way the stadium feels when 40,000 people are screaming in unison. I love the way I get nervous about every single pitch and the way that the 9th inning seems like the most important thing ever. I love the way it feels to beat a hated rival, and I love to hate Ozzie Guillen.

If anyone will be there tomorrow I'll be there with you. Go Twins!!!

What happened to the 1st Amendment?

Warning: Political Rant

In the past month I've seen example after example of how our 1st Amendment rights only apply in certain situations. Censored language, blocked protests, and punishment for speaking one's mind seem to pop up on the news on a daily basis.

First off, the protests. The 1st clearly states that we have a right to freedom of assembly. Why is it that the government is allowed to enforce a restriction on this right by requiring permits for most protests? If I have a right to assemble with others who share my point of view how is it that a city or state can interfere and it is somehow legal?

Secondly, censorship. I understand that the general public does not want there to be rampant foul language, nudity, and violence (well, I guess violence isn't really censored) in the mainstream media, but does the government really have a right to penalize someone for using a word or showing some T&A? Somewhere along the line we let religious ideals amend the amendment to include exceptions.

Finally, persecution. There have been several stories in the past couple years about students being suspended, expelled, and in some cases prosecuted for comments they have made in various online media. I'm not talking about the ones who made threats on the lives of others, obviously when someone threatens to harm others there is sufficient reason to act to prevent violence. But when a student is punished for making a website critical of school administration during her own time, not on school grounds, there is something wrong. Expressing an opinion (even if it is something as juvenile as calling your principal a dickhead) certainly should not fall within the jurisdiction of the school. If the student said these things in class it would be different. When a teacher makes a rule against chewing gum, they certainly don't expect students to refrain from chewing gum at home. A student may have to act a certain way while in the school lunchroom, but the school does not make the rules for the family's dinner table.

As far as I can tell the only way to change these problematic attitudes towards our freedoms is to continue to challenge them. Pushing the envelope when it comes to the FCC, protesting whether or not the city council says it is ok, blogging about your teacher being a douche bag, these are all ways to keep people thinking about this issue. I'm not really sure where I plan on starting, but I know that I do not plan on censoring myself when it comes to something so basic as the freedom of speech.

Chronophage

I recently discovered THIS on slashdot. I'm too lazy to post all of the information as links here, but I encourage everyone who read this to look up more information regarding the clock and read up on it. I want one. Badly. If anyone has some extra thousands of dollars and wants to buy me one, I'd be delighted.

And yes, the demon grasshopper is continuing to eat time away. Once a second has passed it is gone forever.

Go Gus Go!

Those of you who've spent any amount of time with me in the last couple weeks have probably heard me rant about firing Childress and benching Tarvaris. Well, today I got half of my wish. Hopefully having Frerotte start at QB for us will at least give our offense some semblance of multidimensionality (yes, that is a word even though Firefox didn't think so.)

Since Childress actually appears to be trying something new, I'd like to back off on some of the criticism I've thrown his way recently. Yes, he is still a horrible play caller and I'm still ready to hate on him at the drop of a hat. But for now, I figure he's at least earned himself another week before I start calling for his head again.

As for the Twins, I'm currently watching us fall behind the Indians, again, and I have nothing to say. My sadness is too overwhelming to comment on the situation.

Rage Against the Machine

Best. Concert. Ever.

I know that sounds like hyperbole, but honestly I have never enjoyed a show as much as I enjoyed last night's Rage concert. Anti-Flag was the opener, getting the crowd all stirred up with lines like "Across the river there is a convention of mother-fuckers who got us into this illegal war. Let's show them that on this side of the river there's a convention of mother-fuckers who won't stand for this shit anymore!"

Just before Rage went on about 100-200 people started jumping over the railings from the bleachers onto the floor, running past security guards and in a couple cases knocking them down. I only saw 2 people actually get caught by security as they were far outnumbered.

Once the band took the stage the entire place was louder than the Metrodome during a sold out Vikings game. They played several songs before Zach finally spoke up in the middle of "Bulls on Parade" saying "Did you guys know that Sarah Palin has a pregnant 17 year old daughter?" In the bass interlude during "Wake Up" he gave about a 10 minute speech denouncing the illegal war, asking for people to get involved, and telling everyone in the crowd that it was time for us to wake up and do something about it.

After ending the encore with "Killing in the Name Of" Zach had one last piece of wisdom for the evening. He told the crowd that the riot police outside were just waiting for a reason to get physical and make some arrests and that we shouldn't give them any reason to get violent. "Let's show them that we have more discipline than they do."

The GOP Convention vs. 1st Amendment Rights

In the last 2 days there have been over 300 arrests in the Twins Cities related to the GOP convention. Now, I'm not defending the idiots who broke the windows at Macy's or the jerks deflating peoples tires. That is immature bullshit and it makes us all look bad. What I'm pissed about are the hundreds of people who have been arrested or otherwise detained without having committed a crime. I've even heard about a news team that was arrested and when they pointed to their convention badges the police took the credentials and told them they were operating without a permit. A documentary crew had its cameras seized before they had a chance to even start filming. A billboard was blocked from being put up because our GOP Lt. Gov. thought it "could possibly pose a serious safety risk to commuters on I-94."

Honestly, I'm a little surprised. I know people always complain about the cops being dicks and doing stupid shit like this but I've never seen it happen so close to home on such a grand scale. I guess what it boils down to is that the 1st amendment only applies when it doesn't interfere with someone's political agenda. As the quote goes: "You can have the Model-T in any color, so long as its black."

Everyday?

Honestly, I'm excited about having Guardado back. Sure, he was never the lights-out guy that Nathan is, but we don't need that from him, all we need is a solid 8th inning now, something that I think Eddie should be able to do for us on a regular basis.

Almost more importantly, this move is a sign that we won't just sit here and do nothing when our bullpen is performing inconsistently.