"Thursday in the square" written by Paul on estrip.org

09/04/08 08:23 - ID#45575

Thursday in the square

I am so fed up with work today. After one of the worst work days
ever, I managed to check out the last Thursday in the Square.
Unfortunately, it is messing with my gym schedule, which is making me
angry.

Why don't they just make Lafayette square a concrete square if it ends up looking like this every year.

Permalink: Thursday_in_the_square.html
Words: 66
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: buffalo

09/04/08 07:25 - ID#45567

The oldest tree in buffalo on frankin

It's not dead like earlier this year. (E:matthew) says they gave it
steroids.

Permalink: The_oldest_tree_in_buffalo_on_frankin.html
Words: 19
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: environment

09/04/08 11:07 - ID#45562

Fuck the environment, says Roswell

Is what I hear everytime I look in the dumpster at Roswell Park Cancer
Institute's IT building. The official reason they told me why they
throw out so much cardboard,"they don't have a truck to bring it
somewhere for recycling. "

It so irresponsible. I say hire a service. I hate it when the
cleaning lady asks if she can breakdown my cardboard and throw it
out. I take it home and recycle it.

jim writes at 04:02:48 09/04/08 - Comment #38565: STUPID TREES I HATE YOU

dcoffee writes at 02:32:36 09/04/08 - Comment #38562: If you want to get the word out more, you can always post something on WNYmedia.net :::link::: they have good Alexa ratings and a lot of local viewers, anyone can post, and it could get picked up by local media. I agree with you, that's really bad. Changing the behavior of an institution like this is huge, it would eliminate a lot of waste. Finally my college SUNY Fredonia started a recycling program.

libertad writes at 01:51:41 09/04/08 - Comment #38560: So innaporpriate for me to be viewing at my desk! Seriously, I am put off that they made no response to our suggestions for the cafeteria. You should make a suggestion too since they ignored me and tinypliny.

heidi writes at 01:27:10 09/04/08 - Comment #38558: Where does the computer/electronics waste go? If they order 150-ish computers a week, there's a LOT of stuff being replaced...

tinypliny writes at 11:36:13 09/04/08 - Comment #38550: oops, didn't meant to post that empty. An IT person told me that they order 150 PC/Comp units every week and I suppose all the cardboard packaging is thrown away. :/ That is environmental homicide.

tinypliny writes at 11:34:38 09/04/08 - Comment #38549

tinypliny writes at 11:33:46 09/04/08 - Comment #38548: I feel SO STRONGLY about all this non-recycling havoc that A CANCER CARE institute is wrecking on WNY. I think we should start a site called "Roswell DOES NOT Recycle" and post pictures of wanton non-recycling behaviour on it, daily. Since Roswell cares so much about its image, people would be forced to sit up and take notice. I am sick of writing letters to random people in authority every month. In response to (e:libertad)'s cafeteria call to action, I wrote a well-reasoned (I think) long letter to the comments box, and signed it so they would send me a response. But they never bothered!

Permalink: Fuck_the_environment_says_Roswell.html
Words: 79
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: politics

09/03/08 10:58 - ID#45558

Tackiest jewlery ever

I could talk about how riddled with ridiculousness their whole
convention is but I just can't get over this diamond navy/usmc broche.

Okay that and the fact that Sarah Palin's son is being deployed to
Iraq on September 11th. How dramatic. Can't they finally end the
September 11th/Iraq connection. I hope he discovers to weapons of
mass destruction.

jason writes at 05:03:20 09/05/08 - Comment #38615: (e:Ajay), you should really slow down, especially after that AIP debacle from just yesterday.

:::link:::

jim writes at 04:39:20 09/05/08 - Comment #38614: And for McCain, 39 million, even more then Obama: :::link:::

jim writes at 04:07:22 09/04/08 - Comment #38567: 37 million, almost as much as Obama: :::link:::

Everyone I know tuned in to see it.

ajay writes at 01:02:56 09/04/08 - Comment #38557: So hey, (e:joshua) : was she for the "bridge to nowhere" or against it?

And what about pork? Did she hire a lobbyist in Washington so that the metropolis of Wassilla got more pork, or not?

I could go on...

Nice to see that you're marching in line with the Repuglican line about "biased media". Read my earlier link: an independent study has shown that media has been biased against Obama more than against McCain. But you already knew that; you just wanted to whine about it.

jason writes at 11:16:41 09/04/08 - Comment #38547: (e:Jim) - insinuating that community organizers don't have a real job, or don't have any responsibility is clearly wrong. That's the one criticism that's been made that I think is over the top. Of course, it ain't executive experience, and it isn't even a close substitute, but apparently people can't leave it at that. And you're right, that is serving the country as well.

joshua writes at 11:13:03 09/04/08 - Comment #38546: Forgot the Atlantic link - internet rumor mongering at its worst. :::link:::

joshua writes at 11:11:25 09/04/08 - Comment #38545: For (e:ajay) regarding the debunked AIP lie the media perpetrated - :::link:::

CBS running with a lie - nahh, no bias. This was actually echo chamber material from Washington Monthly and The Atlantic. :::link:::

The source, if you can bear to read it. At least the guy from The Atlantic sourced where he got the news from - DailyKos "muckrakers." Note the "note" at the end.

:::link:::

Gotta love this seeming coordination between Kos, print media such as the Washington Monthly and The Atlantic, and finally with the alphabet networks.

jim writes at 11:00:53 09/04/08 - Comment #38544: !!!

joshua writes at 10:58:05 09/04/08 - Comment #38543: ...

jim writes at 10:41:11 09/04/08 - Comment #38542: Oops, that's Tuesday never mind.

jim writes at 10:40:59 09/04/08 - Comment #38541: Actually these are the numbers I found on Drudge:

TUESDAY NITE CONVENTION RATINGS, 10 PM ET

FOXNEWS 6,179,000
NBC 4,468,000
CNN 3,220,000
ABC 3,098,000
CBS 2,928,000
MSNBC 1,590,000

(Total: 21,483,000)

dcoffee writes at 10:36:36 09/04/08 - Comment #38540: Politics, the best show on Television!

jim writes at 10:32:05 09/04/08 - Comment #38539: Biden is super boring in comparison.

jim writes at 10:31:41 09/04/08 - Comment #38538: Makes sense, we all wanted to see her :)

joshua writes at 10:21:27 09/04/08 - Comment #38537: I found the answer to my question - 30 million viewers, the most ever to have watched a VP acceptance speech.

paul writes at 10:01:19 09/04/08 - Comment #38536: Oh and as for viewership/rating. Its not really that surprising. I watched it and so did (e:matthew) and (e:terry) and I can assure you we only watched it to make fun of them and entertain ourselves the way we would watch George Bush speak - only sadly less entertaining as he is the ultimate idiot.

I don't want to give the wrong impression - I am not all that pro Obama/democrat. I really once again just don't like anyone so much - although then again I might vote for him unlike Kerry who I refused to vote for.

paul writes at 09:58:14 09/04/08 - Comment #38535: Just to explain myself, I did not mean it was an empty or fake gesture sending her kids to kill people in Iraq for oil. I just thought it was overly dramatic referring to that fact that he was being deployed on sept 11th to reinforce the fictitious Iraq/Sept 11 link.

jon writes at 09:57:35 09/04/08 - Comment #38533: Hillary vs Obama
now...
Palin

...so very entertaining. I doubt we'll have this much drama in an election year for decades to come.

All that is missing is a reality TV show staring the above.

jim writes at 09:43:23 09/04/08 - Comment #38532: How can you mock community organizing the day after making a big deal out of service? As much as this speech pumped up Republicans, it's energizing Democrats just as much. Net-wash in the long term is my thinking, although of course I wish she'd flamed out.

joshua writes at 09:22:31 09/04/08 - Comment #38531: Palin was extremely effective and served her purpose, which was to reassure the base and introduce herself to the country. I'll tell you the one thing I was most surprised about - not last night, but Tuesday night's overall viewership was only 3 or 4 million shy of the DNC convention nationally. I had assumed that the viewership would have been much lower... I was wrong. I'm curious as to what the ratings were for last night - I expect that they were very good.

re: the jewelry. I can't commentate on what makes good jewelry (this fact petrifies me if I ever pick a ring out for a girl one day) but (e:jason) pointed out the purpose behind it.

(e:ajay) - yeah, that stuff was debunked.

brit writes at 09:00:47 09/04/08 - Comment #38530: haha, I like the jewels dude, the price of them probably could have bought some body armour for a platoon in Iraq but hey..

anyway, I thought Palin did a good job with what she had to work with. I thought Guiliani came over as childish and jeering...like when he started laughing at community organizers. He should have just said 'he has no executive experience' then perhaps he wouldn't have insulted the millions of people who work for their communities in America. guy is a douche of epic proportions

I had an awesome class last night with one of the more respected forecasters in the country who is a die hard Republican and he is expecting his post convention model to project an Obama win. It was fascinating with regard to what affects an election and what goes into a model

btw, did anyone else notice that the baby daddy chewed gun in the most vile manner when he was onstage and shaking hands with McCain...I mean rep or Dem if he was your kid you would thrash his ass

jason writes at 08:46:59 09/04/08 - Comment #38529: I don't know anything about jewelry, but I do know Cindy McCain supports her kids. Jack McCain is in the Naval Academy, and Jimmy McCain is a Marine. That ain't an empty gesture on her part, and people who are familiar with this stuff don't think it strange, but as I said I can't comment on the tackiness aspect because I don't know what makes a good piece of jewelry.

(e:Ajay), that was an A+ rant, and others here have made that same case. Of course, the lies have already been exposed, Sarah Palin's voter registration records have been released, and the network bloggers who propagated the smear have already corrected themselves. This is called the "Anatomy of the Death of a Smear" - but the precedent has long been set that the truth doesn't matter, only the extent to which you can damage someone. I hear that Conservatives are still talking about the "fake birth certificate" and the "secret muslim" stuff as well.

This is from two days ago, just so everyone knows and accepts the facts as it pertains to her being a member of the party. It also gives a link to TPM, so you can get your next version of the company line.

:::link:::

Here is the link to the original ABC blogger:

:::link:::

mrmike writes at 08:33:33 09/04/08 - Comment #38528: yeah, the whole double standard thing is troubling. She opens the door to her family with the son's deployment then wonders why the media covers the prego daughter.

Cindy McCain is looking like what if the GOP was in charge of Barbie Doll production.

dcoffee writes at 08:09:44 09/04/08 - Comment #38527: haha, paul you are so right. I couldn't read the pin until now, that makes it even stranger. It's funny how John McCain has taken off his tie and jacket to appear like a man of the people, then he stands next to his billionaire wife with her couple thousand dollar outfits. it makes me chuckle.

libertad writes at 07:31:51 09/04/08 - Comment #38526: She has classic white woman lips. I could go on an on about why McCain should not be president just because of her alone.

ajay writes at 12:44:16 09/04/08 - Comment #38524: Giuliani the idiot set the stage with his "9/11" references. That guy has absolutely no shame.

And the contrived links to 9/11 by Palin? Puhleeze.

This is a woman who was a member of, and spoke at, the "Alaska Independence Party" convention; whose founder said, on the record: "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government", and who refused to be buried in Alaska under the American flag.

Palin is a hypocrite of the highest order. But, what else should we expect from the Repuglicans, the party of hypocrites.

james writes at 12:13:57 09/04/08 - Comment #38521: That is so tacky.

tinypliny writes at 12:12:38 09/04/08 - Comment #38520: Hehehehe... I remember my high school English teacher. She was maybe 150 years old and she had flabs of skin hanging over her neck. That would have been okay had she not insisted on wearing multiple stacks of tight pearl "chokers" around all those skin flaps. It was most hypnotic - but not in a soothing way. More like a "OMG, I want to die now, having seen the face of ugliness" way.

Permalink: Tackiest_jewlery_ever.html
Words: 65
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: death

09/03/08 07:24 - ID#45553

Dead rabbit

I pretty much have isolated myself from everything in this giant
surebert flashgate in AS3 via flex rewrite. Anyways, I was thinking
about it intensely on the way to work and I managed to step in gum.
Luckily, I did not step in this rabbit.

Oh and I finished the flex thing.

Permalink: Dead_rabbit.html
Words: 57
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: web

09/02/08 03:06 - 82ºF - ID#45539

Just Testing Chrome

Looks like file uploads work with surebert and flash via chrome

. That was the one thing I was worried about the most. Cnan you tell I am on a windows machine. look, this is only one of four pictures I have on it, lol.

Seems like it uses a lot more memory than firefox. From what I can see in the task manager it has four open processes between 20-30MB and only two tabs are open.

You know what it does not have is full page (media and all) zoom. I freakin love that. Oh, and a mac client ;(

Permalink: Just_Testing_Chrome.html
Words: 107
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: web

09/01/08 07:41 - 78ºF - ID#45533

New Google Chrome Browser

According to macrumors.com

Google announced today that they would be releasing a new open source web browser called Google Chrome. The new browser will be available for download as a beta starting tomorrow.

All I can say is fuck - i hate the idea of dealing with yet another new browser. With IE 8 coming along, and the new html 5 safari and firefox - did we really need yet another browser. Its weird because I am usually all about diversity. And I love the idea of standards. If all of the groups adhere to the standards or make thing similar it will be fine. Unfrotunatrly, each of the players involved - microsoft, apple, mozilla, and now google - is not only going to want to support the standards - they are also going to want to differentiate in order to offer new features and seem gain market share. To me it just makes Flex development all that much more appealing. Luckily, it is abased on webkit - like safari so at least there will be something in common. Unfortunately, they are using their own javascript engine. That means that every browser will have a unique javascript engine and that various version of the browsers will have different engines. Should be fun. Really what it means is that all the libraries are going to get bigger. Which sucks but then again broadband is broader and the new engines will be faster.

I wonder if the world will switch to chrome all at once.

Permalink: New_Google_Chrome_Browser.html
Words: 257
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: programming

09/01/08 12:35 - 78ºF - ID#45530

Flash Debug Player

I have been doing a lot of flash/javascript interface development and am using the flash debug player for development. It is funny what type of messgaes that other sites send to the debug console.

At somepoint today I found this in the logs

1
NO YOU SUCK! DON'T TAKE THE LORD'S NAME IN VAIN
Stop All Animation
Stop All Animation

I also found that javascript was sending my location was being sent a bunch.

var tf_partner_attributes={122: ['','',''],107: ['','','']};
var tf_zip = '14263';
var tf_city = 'Buffalo';
var tf_state = 'NY';
var tf_pub_attributes = ['#F78200',false,1,true,false,true,2,5,true,'1.0em' ];
var tf_on_fly_flag=0;
tf_show_fly_ads(tf_ads);

Permalink: Flash_Debug_Player.html
Words: 126
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: birthdays

09/01/08 11:16 - 72ºF - ID#45528

Three Meat Birthday for Mike

We celebrated (e:mike)'s birdthay dinner at my parents house. My mom made a delcious three meat meal consisting of shrimp, chicken and steak.

For the first time I decided to try all three in one forkfull, which was quite delicious.

Also for the first time ever (e:mike) ate with a big fork! Since he was a child he always insisted on eating with the little fork. Even at 6'3" he still ate with a mini fork. Now that he is 25 my parents said it is time to eat with a big boy fork. I don't think he was ready, lol. Here is looking sad when confronted with the big fork situation.

And we also ate the bacon chocolate I got back in vegas (e:paul,45426) It was very delicious chocolate, sprinkled with bacon bits inside.

Permalink: Three_Meat_Birthday_for_Mike.html
Words: 143
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: politics

08/31/08 11:36 - 74ºF - ID#45522

Sarah Palin and Wikipedia

Okay, I totally don't care about Sarah Palin but I did find this story from boingboing.net

about an NPR story by Yuki Nogushi of interest because it involves the use of technology, specifically wikipedia, to shape peoples ideas about the candidate. How many of you looked her up on wikipedia

after you found out she was announced? Probably a lot of people.

Well, it turns out:

Someone - and apparently it was just one person - felt like the existing biography wasn't appropriate for a vice-presidential candidate. On Friday, 15 minutes before the rumor that John McCain had picked Palin as his running mate, a Wikipedia editor discovered 30 mostly favorable changes had been made to the Alaska governor's profile.

She was called "a politician of eye-popping integrity" and sections on her participation in a beauty pageant and her alleged use of influence to get her former brother-in-law fired were diminished.

The same person editing McCain. That was probably the most affective way of shaping people ideas without spending a dime.

However, damn that thing is busy. Look at the history on it

It seems like everytime you look at it, it is different.

jim writes at 08:47:19 08/31/08 - Comment #38405: And she has foreign policy experience because she's adjacent to Russia!

I don't really care except it makes the Republicans look like hypocrites defending her after attacking Obama.

heidi writes at 08:45:42 08/31/08 - Comment #38404: Grrrrr... She governs a state with an estimated population of 663,661 :::link::: the 47th smallest state by population, above Vermont, Wyoming and North Dakota. :::link:::

So it's easier to compare her with mayors of large cities... :::link::: which puts her around Memphis, Tenn., Fort Worth, Texas, Charlotte, N.C., and Baltimore, Md. These aren't impressive credentials no matter how you look at them.

ajay writes at 12:48:38 08/31/08 - Comment #38392: (e:paul) , it looks like the Republican Distortion Field isn't having the desired effect on you. Please report to the nearest WalMart.

You see, things that you think are negative about Palin are only negative when applied to a Democrat; if it's a Republican, then those same negatives become positives. It may seem like a bizarro world, but it really is not. (waives hand).

So she hasn't traveled much abroad? OK, since she's a Republican, that means she's untouched by conventional thinking and will bring fresh ideas to the table. (A Democrat would have been called a rookie and without experience).

So she governs out in the boonies, and got elected by just 115,000 votes (our County Exec Chris Collins got more votes in his election) ? Since she's a Republican, that means she's a maverick who will shake up the Establishment. (A Democrat, on the other hand, would be considered inexperienced and "out of touch with mainstream America").

Glad I could clear that up for you...

tinypliny writes at 11:50:59 08/31/08 - Comment #38390: I know some people might take offence but to me she seems like a woman whose ideologies are very medieval and retrogressive. I was speaking to my parents back home and I got this strong impression that as a whole, this nomination is not being viewed favourably abroad. :(

paul writes at 11:47:21 08/31/08 - Comment #38388: I think the part that scares me most is that she has only been abroad twice and she could be president. She also lives in a land that is pretty much nothing like the rest of the country. I would think those factors combined would put her pretty out of touch with Americans and definitely with the world at large.

tinypliny writes at 11:43:44 08/31/08 - Comment #38385: I probably shouldn't care about her as well since I don't even have a franchise. But I can't help shuddering at the thought that she has even a miniscule of chance at being the president of this country. *shudder shudder, double, triple shudder*

Permalink: Sarah_Palin_and_Wikipedia.html
Words: 221
Location: Buffalo, NY