Heath Non-tech

The Google Plus Invite Workflow Sucks

2011-07-06T22:14:00.001-07:00

Google Plus' invite workflow was bad for what I'm sure is a common case among us early adopters: inviting people who are already in our circles but not Google Plus members (because we couldn't invite them when we initially added them to our circles). In order to invite someone who was already in circles, I had to add them to another circle, or remove from and re-add them to one of their existing circles.

The Title Text Was True

2011-05-24T21:10:00.000-07:00

In the title text, Randall says:

Wikipedia trivia: if you take any article, click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and then repeat, you will eventually end up at "Philosophy".

So, I took him up on his challenge:

Random Wikipedia Article

Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company

David Borden

Minimalist music

Experimental music

John Cage

Composer

Music

Sense

Organism

Biology

Natural science

Science

Knowledge

Fact

Information

Sequence

Mathematics

Quantity

Property (philosophy)

Modern philosophy

Philosophy

In Defense of the Darkest of Dark Comedy

2009-07-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

A humorless feminist scold spends a lot of time being wrong in the following article a friend shared with me on Google Reader today. This is my response.

Humor is by definition going to offend someone. The "chef" (double-quotes for double-sarcasm) that invested time to create Hot Pockets might well be offended by the Hot Pockets skit. She actually stumbles upon why the darkest of dark comedy is funny here:

Call me a humorless feminist scold (I know you will!) [Edit: I did!], but I find it remarkably pathetic that Herring defends his material with an expectation that people too fucking ignorant to understand the basic concepts of "equality" or "consent" be sophisticated enough to discern the subtle nuances of privileged wankers ostensibly laughing at bigots/rapists because they find bigots'/rapists' expression of their hatred funny, but not bigotry/rape itself.

Basically, mocking bigots/rapists is so dangerous that it should be banned from the comedic lexicon. Certainly we wouldn't want to risk people taking parody and satire literally. I must be some kind of Irish holocaust denier because I don't think any babies actually died as a result of Jonathan Swift's influential pamphlet.

Great Sprint Experience

2009-01-12T13:36:00.000-08:00

I had to replace the battery in my Sanyo M-1 yesterday, and the manager at the Sprint store gave me a demo battery for free.

Thanks Sprint!

It is Art

2008-12-20T20:29:00.000-08:00

A friend emailed me a commentary on the artistry of video games in the london review of books. Since they didn't have comments immediately available, this is my review. Perhaps my friends will continue their commentary here.

First off, this guy obviously doesn't understand objectivism! :)

I'm glad to see the perspective of video games from a supposedly educated outsider (I have no idea who this reviewer guy is). He does correctly identify some genius video game luminaries, but he's missed whole genres that are much more interesting to investigate than first person shooters. Where is his review of WoW?

I really don't get how he can say that creations in little big planet are not creative. Simply because you are bound by rules doesn't mean that you are not being creative. The painter is limited by the physics of paint and the canvas. The little big planet level maker is limited by the physics of the level system. These limits are not difficult to push into realms completely unforseen by the developers.

Further, he limits his survey of the gaming world to consoles of the big three. Many more game titles are published for free on the web using flash and java. These are obviously not the same in scope and detail, but they can be nonetheless thought-provoking.

First post!

2008-12-20T20:28:00.001-08:00

This is my blog for topics non-technical. I run a few other sparsely-updated technical blogs, but I assume this will be updated even less often.