• Pirates of the Mediterranean: “IN the autumn of 68 [BCE, Rome] was dealt a profound blow by a terrorist attack. [In the] aftermath, the Roman people made decisions [leading to] the destruction of their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itse
  » history liberty news politics
• iTunes 7 is a giant steaming pile of crap.» apple crapware eat-your-dogfood software video
• Cato » The Case for the Libertarian Democrat: I prefer “Progressive Libertarian,” but whatever.
  » politics thetwopartysystemsucks

• In Case I Disappear - The Smirking Chimp: A succinct explanation of why we are all fucked.
  » americanfascism

Hallelujah. Myspace is finally going to die. Die, Myspace, die. This is how it will go:

Once enough people have the experience of using a site that isn’t broken and ugly, users will migrate in droves. The implosion, following so closely the highly publicized and highly overvalued acquisition, will shake the market’s faith in News Corp so much, the stock will take a tumble it won’t recover from. All of ol’ Rupert’s horrid rags and his ‘news’ channel full of gas bags will be shuttered overnight. Additionally, the rights to continue producing Arrested Development will be picked up in the fire sale, and Murdoch will be reduced to selling his dignity in the street (”punch a former billionaire in the face, $1″).

Or maybe not. A boy can dream, though. While the rest would be nice, I’ll be happy if someone finally puts a nail through myspace. I was basically forced to create a profile by a number of friends that I would have no other way to keep up with, despite the fact that several of them live in the same city as me. It’s just that their entire social life is planned — and in some cases, prosecuted entirely — through the site. Almost a year later, I still have to degrade my eyeballs with that crappy site on a regular basis if I want to keep in touch — and that’s when I can actually sign on.

I’m loving facebook so far, even discounting the it’s-not-myspace factor. It has a lot of features that just make sense and work. I keep noticing little details, like the smaller and less prominent friends list on profile pages (I’m convinced myspace’s profile design led directly to the problem of “whoring” — i.e. users with thousands of so-called friends), that make me happy.

I learned something about myself while waiting at the window for my McDonald’s Big Breakfast™ this morning. (It’s an occasional indulgence, and yes, I know, I am contributing to the collapse of the american medical system and putting money in the pockets of a company that is basically evil and generally helping to bring about the death of all that is holy and right. But it’s sooo tasty.)

So I’m sitting there, about 45 seconds after I first pulled up to the order stand, and the lady walks up with my bag in her hand. This expediency in itself is remarkable, but this franchise was just remodeled, doing away with the playground and most of the dining room. It’s basically one big kitchen now.

But anyway, as she is putting the bag in my hand, I see a cup fall out of the little cup-dispenser thing, plop, right onto the counter without even a wobble. Like it had jumped. This is weird enough for me at this point, as I’ve been up all night playing Morrowind and drinking coffee, and I’m wondering if I’m having my first-ever hallucination. Then the cup starts moving. It slides itself over underneath the soda fountain, and then some concoction of water and corn syrup begins to dispense itself into said cup. I’m staring at this whole process while the lady is holding the bag out to me—wondering, I’m sure, if this guy in the purple Altima is a little bit special. She soon seems to realize what it is I’m staring at, grins, and actually chuckles a bit. I grin also, albeit a bit sheepishly, take my bag and go.

It occurs to me only later how truly problematic the whole thing was. That little gadget was probably designed just as much to shave a few employee hours off the payroll as it was to save a few seconds at the drive through. I’d also be willing to bet there’s nobody within a two hour drive who would know what to do with the thing when it inevitably breaks.

None of this entered my mind while I was there at the drive through. All I thought, at that moment, was “Oh. How cool is that.” This is what I have learned: technophilia trumps all of that social responsibility claptrap. If I had been born a few decades earlier, and been a nuclear physicist, and been attached to the Manhattan Project, I would not have been able to come up with any poignant words from hindu scripture. I would have been too busy thinking “Oooh. Coool.“

• Morrowind - UESPWiki: The power of the wiki is amazing, if it has a community behind it that is obsessive enough to make it work. This one does.
  » games reference wiki

• xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - COMPLY
  » dreams funny life philosophy society

• YouTube - Betty White Roasting William Shatner: Ol’ Betty is foul. And it’s great.
  » comedy probably-will-get-yanked-by-viacom-soon shatner video

I’ve turned my attentions back to Greasemonkey of late, mostly little things to squash some annoying misfeature or otherwise make a website less cumbersome to use, but I haven’t been publishing these scripts. Most of them are too simple to bother, but it seems to me the two I wrote earlier this evening might actually be useful to someone else.

The problem I had was that I needed to get my 800+ ratings out of Netflix because I’m canceling my account. (There’s lots of good reasons, there have been whole articles written in respected news outlets, but the fact of the matter is that even after going back to the one-at-a-time plan, I can’t justify the expense seeing as I’ve had the same movie for two months.) I decided to put them in AllConsuming because, unlike NetFlix, all the data you put into AllConsuming can be easily exported again. Here are the scripts:

• allConsumingInNetFlix.user.js - After every movie title on any NetFlix page, this script adds a link to an AllConsuming search for that title. It also adds a floating link (top left) to open a search window for all movie links on that page, for exporting your queue or your ratings.
• AllConsumingWorthIt.user.js - This replaces the select box on an AllConsuming item page with a series of radio buttons. This reduces the number of mouse clicks required to rate something from two to one. Believe me, when inputting over 800 ratings, those clicks add up.

It struck me as I was doing this that the first greasemonkey scripts I wrote, almost a year and a half ago, were to overcome shortcomings of the NetFlix site. Now, after DVD throttling and Netflix guilt, I’m writing scripts to free my data from them. Here’s hoping other sites I’ve lavished scripting attention on don’t meet similar ends.

Diana Newton, 51, sued the J.C. Penney Co. after she was allegedly […] ambushed by a legless female mannequin at the company’s Westminster Mall store, a skirmish that left her with a bloodied scalp, a cracked tooth, recurring shoulder pain and numbness in her fingers.

I told you mannequins are creepy.

• How well do you hear?: Remember that story about the ringtone that only teenagers can hear? The truth is, naturally, more complicated. Use the mp3 samples on this page to check your own hearing. (I heard up to 16,000 Hz)
  » reference science sound via:mathowie weird

• PortForward.com: PortForward.com is proud to offer help setting up port forwarding on your router or firewall.
  » help networking router support

• Techcrunch » Deleting Online Predators Act: “An incredibly vague law, DOPA will require schools and libraries to block access to a potentially huge range of sites on the internet.” More dumb laws in the making. Most of our elected legislature is *staggeringly* unqualified to legislate.
  » USHOR dumblaws savethechildren
• Faggoty Ass Faggot: Burning a few more bridges: Brian lays the smack down on the one-issue gays. Good readin’.
  » politics society thegay

• VoxRichEdit.user.js: I think we all know the deal at this point.
  » 6a greasemonkey userscript vox

• Waiter, there’s a fly in my studio [dive into mark]: Mark is doing videos now, and it’s great: “I need to implement some sort of CAPTCHA based on Strunk & White. If you can’t tell me the difference between ‘continual’ and ‘continuous,’ I don’t want to talk to you.”
  » diveintomark grammar greatquotes vlogging

• “Apple iPod Nano won’t turn off? Help!”: I was freaking right the hell out, and then boom, problem solved with a quick search. Blogs + Google = Yay!
  » help ipod support