-
Interesting. I had a commenter/correspondent from a while back. I’ll have to look into this a little more closely.
Month: January 2008
invincible ignorance
Rather than a depiction of a pious missionary (I don’t get that by looking at the picture), it’s an illustration of a horse thief trying to outrun a lynch mob.
In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: “Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught.â€
This is the hallmark of a tragically bad executive. But in this case, it couldn’t be more precious. The president of the United States has identified closely with a man he sees as a mythic, heroic figure. But in fact he’s a wily criminal one step out in front of justice. It perfectly reflects Bush the man. . . and Bush the president.
[From “The Illustrated President” by Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine) ]
What a great story. Rather than a depiction of a pious missionary (I don’t get that by looking at the picture), it’s an illustration of a horse thief trying to outrun a lynch mob.
In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: “Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught.”
The full explication is here.
bonus quote of the day
As I like to say, elite American news outlets are best understood not as journalistic organizations, but as the church newsletters for an extremely unpleasant religion.
As I like to say, elite American news outlets are best understood not as journalistic organizations, but as the church newsletters for an extremely unpleasant religion. [From More From The Our Lady Of Strangling Brown People Newsletter]
quote of the day
Alex Tabarrok posts the best short definition of the law of unintended consequences I’ve seen:
The law of unintended consequences is what happens when a simple system tries to regulate a complex system.
Alex Tabarrok posts the best short definition of the law of unintended consequences I’ve seen:
The law of unintended consequences is what happens when a simple system tries to regulate a complex system.
A clearer explanation of why libertarianism won’t work I have yet to see.
links for 2008-01-24
-
“Consider how Apple takes full advantage of this phenomenon with products like the iPod Nano (and, before, the iPod Mini) and, now, the MacBook Air. Next, consider a hypothetical $249 iPhone Nano.”
so what starts the MIDIServer in CoreAudio? [found]
hoosgot a clue why GarageBand is hanging on a midi conflict (when I have no [other] MIDI components). /Applications/GarageBand.app/Contents/MacOS/GarageBand: CoreMIDI: timeout waiting for MIDIServer to start\n I have to start it by hand, which seems a little goofy to say the least, especially ’cause first I have to find it.
[update]
In this directory [
/Users/paul/Library/Audio/MIDI Configurations], I found a file calledDefault.mcfg, and just for grins, moved it aside. Now I have no more of these annoying problems.
hoosgot a clue why GarageBand is hanging on a midi conflict (when I have no [other] MIDI components)?
A dialog is displayed that tells me GBand has found some conflicting MIDI services. Neither true nor accurate: the problem is that the MIDIserver isn’t running. And not because it’s blocked.
/Applications/GarageBand.app/Contents/MacOS/GarageBand: CoreMIDI: timeout waiting for MIDIServer to start\n
I have to start it by hand, which seems a little goofy to say the least, especially ’cause first I have to find it. /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreMIDIServer.framework/Versions/A/MIDIServer
And that looks unhelpful. 
Aha. launchd should start it but isn’t. At least the existence of a .plist file suggests that would be the case.
launchctl load -w /private/etc/mach_init_per_user.d/CoreMIDIServer.plist was the solution that seems to have worked.
But why would that have changed? It used to work just fine. What also seems odd is that while MIDIserver is now running, the plist doesn’t show up in launchctl’s list of things it knows about. And launchctl doesn’t seem to be the solution either.
Hmm, still flaky. I found a page that claims running the Audio MIDI Setup utility will make this go away. But it’s not permanent.
bonus quote of the day
Finally, Rumsfeld managed to be the first secretary of defense in history not just to botch two wars, but to botch two wars simultaneously…. He should be legally obligated to end of all his sentences with, “…but, on the other hand, I’m a total jackass.”
Finally, Rumsfeld managed to be the first secretary of defense in history not just to botch two wars, but to botch two wars simultaneously. For that, no one should ever listen to this man ever again. Whatever he says is discredited by the sheer fact that he’s the one saying it. He should be legally obligated to end of all his sentences with, “…but, on the other hand, I’m a total jackass.” [From old man, take a look at your life]
presented without comment
quote of the day
I’ll readily admit that math is not my forte and stipulate that it is difficult to reckon the total number of deaths attributable to the war in what remains a chaotic war zone. However, using sources such as the US military, the respected British medical journal Lancet and others, I did a quick tally of the reported deaths so far (civilian, military, journalists, aid workers, contractors, etc.) and arrived at this number: 670,163.
I’ll readily admit that math is not my forte and stipulate that it is difficult to reckon the total number of deaths attributable to the war in what remains a chaotic war zone. However, using sources such as the US military, the respected British medical journal Lancet and others, I did a quick tally of the reported deaths so far (civilian, military, journalists, aid workers, contractors, etc.) and arrived at this number: 670,163.
If you divide that number by the total lies told (935) and round up to the nearest whole number, you get 717. Remember the “Bush lied, people died” bumper sticker? Well, now we know approximately how many people died per lie. So far.
He’s not done lying and people aren’t done dying, either.
short answers to simple questions
But some guy in the Catholic League (whatever that is) and a bunch of fundamentalist churches appear to be castigating the film having never read the books or seen the advance screenings.
…Or more precisely, they suspect that the faith of their flock is that weak.
But some guy in the Catholic League (whatever that is) and a bunch of fundamentalist churches appear to be castigating the film having never read the books or seen the advance screenings. What are they afraid of? Is their faith so weak ? [From His Dark Materials]
Yes, to the last question. Or more precisely, they suspect that the faith of their flock is that weak.