i swear, watching this guy

i feel like freakin' cliche of a tourettes syndrome person

asl;kjavhua[pzjvkazjiwa[iefsknvZ

there are people who will say it in a much more technically analytical fashion, deal more with specific issues, and be more articulate -
but this fucking bush guy makes me want to break everything and then vomit all over the debris.

saw the shins last night

and you know a habit that i'm trying to get out of?

spelling 'night' like 'nite'


and the shins were totally good. they really pull it off. i have to say though, that my favourite song they played was a magnetic fields cover, strange powers.

and tonight, i'm really excited about seeing this band dirty on purpose. really good.

if you are in new york and have a chance to see them or this other band, au revoir simone, you should

don't drink anything before flying

so this is out of chronological order from my last post, but i have to get it out....

flying to providence on friday afternoon, flight's delayed.
first, for over an hour waiting in the airport, then we finally get on the plane.

i sit down, and being i'm in the A group to board (southwest style - if you're there early, you get a better seat basically), i sit in the very front row, aisle seat. about 3 feet from the bathroom.
everyone is sitting down, the attendants are going through the plane making sure everyone is all good to go. i ask the ground crew guy who is walking around if i can take a quick piss..."no", he says,"we're about to take off, and you dont want to be the one who delays the flight."
ok, i hear that so, assuming we're about to be airborne i don't push the issue.

over the next hour and a half (!) while we're sitting on the ground waiting to take off, i ask a few more times, not wanting to be the obnoxious passenger guy, but really having to piss.
the answer each time, is 'sorry, we're about to take off.'

ok. so we take off finally, and we're way up in the sky, and still i can't get up, walk 3 feet, piss for 30 seconds and sit back down.
at this point, other passengers around me are telling me that it's so not cool of them
not to mention (though i am) the freakin' flight attendants are all using the bathroom, passing out drinks etc - talk about adding insult to injury.

finally, i ask the F.A. and she's like, "well, i can't tell you that you can go, but i'm walking down the aisle and my back will be to you, so do whatever you want"

hm. ok, so i get up and go piss, back in my seat in about a minute. after having to hold it in for literally 2 and a half hours!!

now, i understand security and all that shit, but this just wasn't right.

as a kind of side point, the length of the actual flight from philly to providence is 37 minutes.

my new monitor!!

20 inches of widescreen goodness.
and it matches my new dual G5 desktop.

booyah

seders was good

was nice to see most of my family, my nephew, nieces, etc.

hanlons razor

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

airport waiting...

for sooooo long

how long was it??

it was so long that i had to go to the bathroom twice!!

i'm off to providence..

for the passover holiday.

joy of joys, going to the ol'homestead, daddy singing bass, mama singing tenor (to herself of course) and me and my brothers will join right in

sometimes theres a man...

sometimes people who you know are totally cool shock you with a dimension that brings their cool to a whole 'nother level.
i work in a job where i get a limited amount of vacation days (yes, like everyone).
the thing is that i do practice some relative observance of jewish holidays - the main one being that i dont work on them. some, i observe more or less in various ways, but as Big Gedaliah Goomber said, "ain't gonna work on saturdays (and other holidays)"

so back to our story. this is the first job i've had where having the jew-days off wasn't set in the work schedule, mainly because i've always worked at jewish places. easy.
starting at my current job, i had to tell them that theres all these days that i can't work, and the snap-solution on their part was to tell me that i would have to take them as vacation days.
that sucked. really sucked, cause it meant that i would now have about 2 vacation days for this entire year.
then, recently, i found out that rather than take them as vacation days, i could take them as "unpaid leave" days. ok. so i wouldn't get paid, but at least i wouldn't have to sacrifice my vacation. great.
moving on.
my new manager, in talking to hr in order to figure out how to process the "unpaid leave" days, made his feelings known that it just doesn't seem right/cool to 'punish' someone for observing a religous holiday, by either forcing them to lose vacation or pay.
i will interject here, and say that i have never ever ever heard of a manager or the like who expressed this sentiment when they were dealing with someone i know who was in a similar situation. that is, the original idea of losing vacation days or money seems to be standard.

the hr person and my manager went over all the relevant documents together and found that the rules in question could (and in the spirit of this workplace, should) be read to say that as long as it can be worked out in a fair fashion, taking religious days should not be a punishable offense.
well. he called me in his office, told me this, and i obviously said that i'm more than happy to come in early, do extra stuff as needed to make up for the hours as much as possible.

i know that this may not be interesting to anyone, and indeed is not 'cool stuff for people', but this is one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me.
someone went out of his way for me to fix something that was truly wrong.
when this happens, it should be recognized, and now i have done so.

little white balls

so i left work in the early afternoon today, just not feeling up to par

my stroke was off and my cleats needed tightening

i had a divot to fill and my damn caddy was nowhere to be seen with my drink

this stupid glass has no ice and now, the battery on my rented golf cart is dead


obviously you're not a golfer

a singular image message

walking the streets of philly and wondering - why

the reporters response..?

don't ask me! - he says

well, maybe i should ask the sheriff, but.....

well, whatever.
i couldn't find the sheriff's email....

his email:

I know April 20 is Hitler's birthday, along with the anniversary of the
shootings at Columbine High School and I'm sure it's a day of
remembrance
for many things. The 420 remark was in a quote. I didn't say it, the
sergeant did. Why don't you e-mail him? 

i just cant see it...nazis and pot?

this link is to an article in the tahoe daily tribune that talks about some defacing of public property that was done using lots of nazi imagery such as swastikas and the like.
along with the swastikas were the numbers 420.
the sheriff is quoted as saying that it likely refers to "national smoke marijuana day".
As i wrote the reporter in the text of the email below, had he done the smallest amount of research, he would have found that 420 actually most likely refers to the fact that it is Hitlers birthday - April 20.

maybe any chance "they" get, "they" like to associate pot with violence, not unlike the hilarious anti-pot commercials we see all the time on tv.


my email to 'journalist' who wrote the article:

with regards to the article about hate-graffiti and swastikas, you quoted someone from the sheriff's office as saying that the "420" is likely in reference to the 'national smoke marijuana day'.

had you done a small amount of research (on google for example), you would have found that 4/20 is actually the birthday of Hitler, and likely the source of the graffiti.

a correction or at least a note would be nice.

if you have ever smoked, or otherwise ingested marijuana, you would realize how unlikely it is to be connected to nazi-ism/violence and what it stands for.

thanks

zack

hate having to sign up just to read an article?

and how apropos to my last post...

be sure to use this killer website
where you can look up user names and passwords that are for use by all

if you are a firefox user, and i certainly hope you are, you can this great extension
its a right-click access to bugmenot
awesome

for those blogros out there (is bloggers offensive you think? or is blogros?), you should check out this extension for firefox also....it gives you right-click fun!
any site you are on, you just right click, select blogthis, and a little window pops up with the blank blog entry screen !
you can stay logged in all the time, and when the window opens, it has the link of the site youre on already there!!

happy blog fun red tanker!!

a rabbi and a neo-nazi walk into an airport....

and then they fight!!

call me old fashioned, but i like to see a jew being tough.

Kansas City Star | 04/19/2005 | Rabbi, Olathe man cited in KCI dispute

well, i got the haircut

and now its really short.

shorter than a screw that keeps a laptop case together.

now thats short!

what else. ummmm

the thing about zims crazy adventure is totally blowing my mind. so crazy

love?

that wasnt supposed to be the title, but who am i to mess with love.

so it stands.

love

boy o boy.

so i had my first little showcase yesterday. for anyone who cares, i do this improv stuff and for the first time in my life, i was on a 'stage' performing.
very nerve-racking.
i plan on being better at this.


what else.
had a good weekend, weather was nice, blah blah blah.

oh. you noticed i'm bored?


how awkward


maybe i'll get a haircut.
my only problem with getting a haircut, is that i never know what to tell the person. it was much easier when it was my mom, and she couldnt do more than cut it short. i had it short for my first 25 years or so.
i guess i tend to stick with something, when the alternative gives me any kinds of stress whatsoever.
so now i have to get out of this longhair rut. i'll get to wear a baseball hat again, so happy days.

haircut haircut haircut. see, with my hair, being so thick, its a bitch to deal with.

haircut.

Part 3: my morning so far: gooogle video, blogs and lifehacker

his email to me:

> everything else, is pretty relative, but in this
> case...i think youre misreading the ToS.
> they say they reserve the right to charge a fee if
> the bandwidth gets to be too much. they DONT say they
> are charging YOU a fee, as the the uploader.

Completely true -- but it's ambiguous, and
that's never good in a
contract.

> the system works like this:
> you upload.
> if you want, you charge a fee to anyone who wants to
> view.
> if you dont want to charge you dont have to.
> if you dont charge, and the video is slashdotted, then
> google has the right to set a fee on their on - for
> viewers. not for you, as the original uploader...


If it worked that way, I would indeed be happy; this
is a service I
want to use.

I'm waiting for them to get back to me on the email
I sent them; when
they do I'll post it to my site. If I've misread
things, I'd happily
eat my words.

Jacob

Part 2: my morning so far: gooogle video, blogs and lifehacker

jacobs email to me:

Hey Zack --

Thanks for your feedback.  I certainly may be misreading the TOS -- I'm
not a lawyer by any stretch of the imagination -- but I do think I have
some legitimate concerns with the TOS.  I've sent a 
letter to Google
asking the questions I have directly (also posted at
http://jacobian.org/recipes/archives/2005/04/14/open-letter-to-
google/), and I think that clarifies most of my objections.

I don't really have any problems with the searching, 
indexing, or in
any way using my content in aggregate, but their TOS 
allow them to, for
example, splice their own commercials into your video.  
Now, if I've
made a movie then has some really killer pacing, I'm 
not going to be
very happy with a 30 second ad for mouthwash halfway 
through the
pivotal scene.

Ads being shown *along side* the content are par for
 the course these days, but the TOS is vague about 
exactly what types of advertising will be used.

There's a similar amount of vagueness in the clauses
about revenue sharing and bandwidth.  You're right that it's perfectly reasonable for
them to try to defray their costs, but there's no indication about what
constitutes "exceptional" bandwidth consumption, or how much they'd
charge.  If I upload a video that gets slashdotted, for example, Google
is allowed to bill me -- but nowhere do they indicate what they're
allowed to charge.  If my video is popular, I could end up with a bill
for *any amount* that I would be obligated to pay *just because I
agreed with the TOS!*

Do you really not see the problem with that?

As for the reverse engineering clause: first off, it's may be illegal
-- see, for example, "The Law & Economics of Reverse Engineering" at
http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~scotch/re.pdf.  Secondly, I'm not
sure of your level of technical expertise, but as a programmer myself
let me assure you that the only way for someone outside of Google to
create a third-party version of the uploader will be to reverse
engineer the program or protocol.  I'm one of those weirdoes who
doesn't have a Windows machine, so even if I figure out how to write my
own version of the uploader (hint: it's not a very difficult task), I
could get sued if I use said program, and probably would if I
distributed it.

As for "spamming wont be stopped by being pissy about what site does
what with the info" -- you're completely right, but I'm not going to
voluntarily give my information to a company that explicitly states it
won't protect my privacy.  You're also right that Google's usually
pretty good about this sort of thing; the Google Video TOS is really
the first departure from very strict privacy policies.  That's why it's
important.

Again, thanks for your feedback,

Jacob

And then, my email back to him. as i say in the email, i feel like most of his arguements are pretty relative. but he is misreading something, and thats whats important. to me at least.

my email:

> There's a similar amount of vagueness in the clauses
> about revenue
> sharing and bandwidth. You're right that it's
> perfectly reasonable for
> them to try to defray their costs, but there's no
> indication about what
> constitutes "exceptional" bandwidth consumption, or
> how much they'd
> charge. If I upload a video that gets slashdotted,
> for example, Google
> is allowed to bill me -- but nowhere do they
> indicate what they're
> allowed to charge. If my video is popular, I could
> end up with a bill
> for *any amount* that I would be obligated to pay
> *just because I
> agreed with the TOS!*
>
> Do you really not see the problem with that?
>

hey -

everything else is pretty relative, but in this case...i think youre misreading the ToS.
they say they reserve the right to charge a fee if the bandwidth gets to be too much. they DONT say they are charging YOU a fee, as the the uploader.
the system works like this:
you upload.
if you want, you charge a fee to anyone who wants to view.
if you dont want to charge you dont have to.
if you dont charge, and the video is slashdotted, then google has the right to set a fee on their on - for viewers. not for you, as the original uploader...

could i be wrong? sure.

do i answer my own questions? sometimes.

thanks

zack

my morning so far: gooogle video, blogs and lifehacker

ok, so first, he said..
http://jacobian.org

and then she said...
http://www.lifehacker.com
so then I says...

that's astute??
>
> his criticism clearly is reflective of his mis-reading
> the ToS.
>
> "In other words, “we can do anything we want with your
> content.”"
>    - well, no shit. these are things they need to be
> able to do in order for it to be searchable. for them
> to allow and uploads and not have it be available
> would be pretty useless.
>
> "In other words, “we can make money from advertising
> your content.”"
>    - has this astute blogger ever used google before?
> when you search for content, ads are shown based on
> that content...and that content obviously belongs to
> someone somewhere. this is nothing new.
>
> "In other words, “If you create your own version of a
> video upload that runs on Linux or Mac, we’ll sue
> you.”"
>    - the idea that a new piece of software for a
> specific pupose can only be created through
> reverse-engineering seems pretty rigid to me.maybe
> not.
>
> "In other words, “you get 70% of revenues, unless we
> decide it cost us too much, then you get less. By the
> way, we decide what ‘too much’, and ‘less’ means. Oh,
> and if your free video is popular, we’ll bill you for
> the bandwidth.”"
>    - what's so shocking about this?  they'll host your
> video, and pay you for it. if your video is so great
> and popular that it takes up extraordinary amounts of
> bandwidth, the money has to come from somewhere. they
> arent charging you, rather they reserve the right to
> charge a fee to VIEWERS of the video, in the even you
> havent set a fee on your own. seems pretty fair to me.
>
> as for selling your name to spammers...while i won't
> say that no spammer will ever get your info from
> google, this paragraph says pretty specifically what
> they mean to do. in order to approve the video, etc.
> truth is, spamming wont be stopped by being pissy
> about what site does what with the info. especially a
> company like google, who does tend to be good with
> privacy issues.
>
> anyway, this is my rant.
>
> and now i'm off to have coffee.
>
> thanks
>
> zack

to which she answers...

Zack -

I really like your rants.  Seriously - I'd call you astute as well.  :)
 Did you send this to Jacob?

Either way, thanks - as always - for the feedback (and keeping me on my
toes!),
Gina

so i sent it off to jacob.

i'll let you know what HE says..

You have received a Image Message from a Cingular subscriber

nalgene bad for your personal environment

hippys everywhere stare at each other in shock:


CALIFORNIA / Legislature considers bill to ban chemical from kids' products / Bisphenol A found in pacifiers, toys and baby bottles

YaGoohoo!gle and I mean no disrespect

to any ooglers-gay, but check this out:

YaGoohoo!gle

it searches both google and yahoo and gives the results in side by side frames.