Archive for the 'sad' Category

SFist: Fatal Shooting On 280

Published at April 10, 2008 in sad, criminal, san francisco and outrage. 0 Comments

I wondered what the hell this was… I was hitting the 101/280 North/South split at 730 and it was clear 280 South was stopped cold. Effing freaky.

Last night a 27-year-old man was shot and killed while driving on the 280. This is the second freeway killing in less than a week. 37-year-old Luis Solari of Richmond was driving his Honda car at around 6 p.m. going southbound between the Alemany and Monterey boulevards exits when the shooting occurred. So far no arrests have been made, but according to the Gate:

San Francisco police Sgt. Neville Gittens said the suspect vehicle was a small red four-door car of unknown make. He said initial reports that the suspect’s car was gold or tan were incorrect.
Two children were also in the car Solari was driving, a seven- and eight-year-old. None of the kids were injured. Investigators are still trying to figure out what sparked the rush hour attack.

(Read More)

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Back up your hard drive. Now… or this could be you

Published at March 30, 2008 in irritating, sad, geek and mac. 3 Comments

I used to sorta kinda back up. Every once in awhile I would think “jeez I should do something about all that data” and I sometimes would.

But lo: The mac. It never breaks. Ever. Nor has a hard drive ever failed on me. So I got lazy.

Yesterday my 750GB Barracuda stopped mounting. Worse yet, it doesn’t appear even register on the bus. Not even spining up as far as I can tell (Though its hard to tell on a G5, which has enough fans to levitate the 50lb box)

This puppy has all my burned music, iTunes purchases, TiVo downloads, pictures, design portfolio extras, the works. I think there’s about 300GB or so worth of stuff I really want. More than is convenient to back up so I never bothered, because hard drive failures happen to other people.

Drivesavers wants $200 if they are unable to recover it, and a range from $900-$3500 depending on what they can recover (’/m assuming this is about $1/MB for recovery. Ouch.)

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More facebook+yahoo social ads

Published at February 14, 2008 in sad, interesting, internets, yahoo!, geek and funny. 0 Comments

200802141954

PlanetOut Looking For Highest Bidder / Queerty

Published at January 15, 2008 in sad, death of old media, anti-logic, internets and queer. 0 Comments

PlanetOut’s still struggling! Despite selling RSVP Vacations and splitting its stocks, the gay publishing company - which brings us Out and The Advocate [and gay.com, hello], among others - simply can’t find the cash to stay afloat.

In an effort to keep from going under completely, the company’s reportedly looking for a sugar daddy: · (Read More)

I still own all my PlanetOut stock - I think it was about 500 shares or so that I bought when I left the company—now about 50 after their recent 10-1 reverse split. I’ve kept it because it’s the only time I received an actual stock certificate, and having one with a tricker of LGBT is a cool piece of queer interweb history.

One of the comments on the linked post said “OUT once spoke to all gay men, it now speaks to a small percentage who buy Gucci and other fashion brands that have nothing to do with an average or successful gay consumer.”

I beg to differ that Out ever spoke for all gay men. For a period of time time, those magazines had the benefit of being novel and unique against a landscape of other lifestyle mags, but that time has passed. The changing landscape of queer politics and lifestyle have fractured and commodotized into a thousand different groups. Just like there is no monolithic “black vote” supporting Obama, queers are more diverse than a single, static, unpersonalized sheaf of pages can speak to.

With the web, they have the ability to behaviorally target the specific and varied interests of the reader, providing advertising and content that is relevant to different demographics, rather than just Guccigays. Sadly, PNO (and by extension out and the advocate) did not invest in their technology infrastructure to flex into this new mode of content delivery. They rested on the laurels of the gay.com domain, assuming that would bring in the eyeballs, while their competition became nimble and microtargeted their audiences… and as such, PNO continues its tailspin.

I want to see them survive - partly because of the staggering number of once prestigious brands that could go down with it, partly for the cool people who still work there, and partly because I can see a cool future for them, but they’ll need a massive infusion of strategy and cash in order to do so.

[dupe/repost with a different slug, since i linked to my blog from queerty’s comments and broke the link. duh.]

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PlanetOut Looking For Highest Bidder / Queerty (my response)

Published at January 15, 2008 in death of old media, sad, anti-logic, internets, work and queer. 1 Comment

PlanetOut’s still struggling! Despite selling RSVP Vacations and splitting its stocks, the gay publishing company - which brings us Out and The Advocate [and gay.com, hello], among others - simply can’t find the cash to stay afloat.

In an effort to keep from going under completely, the company’s reportedly looking for a sugar daddy: · (Read More)

I still own all my PlanetOut stock - I think it was about 500 shares or so that I bought when I left the company—now about 50 after their recent 10-1 reverse split. I’ve kept it because it’s the only time I received an actual stock certificate, and having one with a tricker of LGBT is a cool piece of queer interweb history.

One of the comments on the linked post said “OUT once spoke to all gay men, it now speaks to a small percentage who buy Gucci and other fashion brands that have nothing to do with an average or successful gay consumer.”

I beg to differ that Out ever spoke for all gay men. For a period of time time, those magazines had the benefit of being novel and unique against a landscape of other lifestyle mags, but that time has passed. The changing landscape of queer politics and lifestyle have fractured and commodotized into a thousand different groups. Just like there is no monolithic “black vote” supporting Obama, queers are more diverse than a single, static, unpersonalized sheaf of pages can speak to.

With the web, they have the ability to behaviorally target the specific and varied interests of the reader, providing advertising and content that is relevant to different demographics, rather than just Guccigays. Sadly, PNO (and by extension out and the advocate) did not invest in their technology infrastructure to flex into this new mode of content delivery. They rested on the laurels of the gay.com domain, assuming that would bring in the eyeballs, while their competition became nimble and microtargeted their audiences… and as such, PNO continues its tailspin.

I want to see them survive - partly because of the staggering number of once prestigious brands that could go down with it, partly for the cool people who still work there, and partly because I can see a cool future for them, but they’ll need a massive infusion of strategy and cash in order to do so.

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AOL Pulls Plug on Netscape Web Browser - Technology on The Huffington Post

Published at December 28, 2007 in sad, internets and work. 0 Comments

Netscape Navigator, the world’s first commercial Web browser and the launch pad of the Internet boom, will be pulled off life support Feb. 1 after a 13-year run. (Read More)

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Nabaztag rage

Published at December 27, 2007 in irritating, sad, geek, work and funny. 0 Comments

Not really… perhaps just bunny irritation.

nabaztagI bought a nabaztag. It’s cute and cuddly (ok its shiny and plastic, but cuddly all the same). I took it to work and have him speak the time every hour, and do occasional random things. Stupid, expensive, and utterly delightful.

I took him home for a few weeks to see if I could do some hacky damage, but then lost interest when I discovered I needed a newer version of PHP (over. my. head.) After those few weeks, several folks in my group started asking “Where’s the bunny? We miss him!” … so I brought him back, and he has been spouting the time ever since.

miltonWell, it finally happened. Someone decided my bunny is not nearly as cute as we think it is. A fellow that sits in the aisle next to ours sent me a very polite note asking me to shut the distracting device off. It really was as nice as could be, but still. It’s a bunny. That talks. And wiggles his ears. And is hackable!

I responded saying we would be sad, but ok with turning him down–not muting or shutting him down. It’s cruel and unusual punishment to silence his golden warble.To be fair, the bunny is a bit shrill, and can stand to be hushed, which I absolutely will. Hopefully I have not made an enemy for life. I feel like Milton mumbling under my breath about staplers, reasonable volume, and setting things on fire.

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vod:pod all breaky

Published at December 26, 2007 in irritating, sad, funny and user experience. 1 Comment

Weirdly, the vodpod widget (in my right hand bar) is still displaying correctly and clips I’ve collected will still show, but I can’t add any, and, well, this is the homepage:

Vodpod Page Not Found - Mozilla Firefox (Build 2007112718)

Hopefully, this is just a “We’re a two man shop, and both of us are away for the holidays” thing, and not a n “Uh oh, the copywrite trolls just ate our baby” thing.

What I was TRYING to collect is this lil gem from AOL, a spoof mashup of don’t tase me bro, Chris Crocker, and Miss Teen USA:

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Tiger kills San Francisco Zoo patron, injures two others

Published at December 25, 2007 in sad and san francisco. 0 Comments

Holy WTF! This is one of those “I heard this happened in [some city that isn’t mine]” incidents. I haven’t been to the SF zoo one in the 11 years I’ve been here.

One San Francisco Zoo visitor was killed and two others injured early this evening after a tiger escaped from its cage. (Read More)

Updated with much better info from sf.metblogs.com.

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An early christmas present from kringlebush: EPA Denies Calif. Greenhouse Gas Waiver

Published at December 19, 2007 in war, wake up, sad, anti-logic, shitlist, outrage, absurd and politics. 0 Comments

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday slapped down California’s bid for first-in-the-nation greenhouse gas limits on cars, trucks and SUVs, refusing the state a waiver that would have allowed those restrictions to take effect.

“The Bush administration is moving forward with a clear national solution — not a confusing patchwork of state rules,” EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson told reporters on a conference call. “I believe this is a better approach than if individual states were to act alone.” (Read More)

There you have it: delicious greasy lumps of war-coal for everyone.

That EPA admin’s comments stink of a Karen Hughes’ condescending 3-word bumpersticker bullshit campaign. I’m reminded of commercials for as-seen-on-tv products, trying to sell me a solution for a problem that never existed in a tone that actually makes me question my sanity:

[Narrator]: “The Vac-u-stick 3000. How often has this happened to you?”

Cut to…

[Scene of woman trying to get one of those clunky, old fashioned 300 lb. canister vacuums out of closet, only to get tangled up in the cord and hoses, fall into a tank full of pirhana, break the glass, and stab her eyes out]

Cut to…

[Mysteriously resurrected woman reading from cue cards]: “WHY… … … DOES. VACUUMING… … … HAVE. TO. BE… … SO COMPLICATED. AND. DANGEROUS? … … … … … OW.”

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