Random Bits

As sometimes happens, nothing worthy of its own post, so here's some lesser fare:

• This is post#200... whee.
• Whitehouse.gov tried out an "open for questions" app today, with the President answering some of the most popular questions. Some of the news coverage focused on the abuse of the intended question categories by pot-proponents, sometimes in a downright derogatory way. From this I take two things... first, I hope the White House learns from this run, and includes suitable categories next time for the concerns people brought up this time, even if it's just in the form of "other". Second, it sure is interesting how news reporting can get nasty when "the people" start getting the least bit uppity.
• Got lunch at Jack in the Box today. Since I ordered something other than a burger, it took a while to get my food ready, so they did the standard "pull around, please" on me. Fair enough, I understand the occasional need for something like that... but, in the process, they gave me one of those "antenna balls" that they normally charge for. So, what, I'm supposed to be mollified about your slow service by your gift of a cheap corporate tchotchke, whose ultimate purpose is to further advertise your business?
  

Internet Explorer 8 - my first headache

Internet Explorer 8 came out today... so, being the forward-thinking type that I am, I went ahead and installed it on my home Windows box, to get a taste of what hell I'm in for when the machines at work update. Surprisingly, nothing I've tested so far has broken outright... but that doesn't mean IE8 gets a clean bill of health, oh no.

One thing I was curious about was how this "compatibility mode" switch thing would work... and, sadly, it's another case of Microsoft being just a little to "helpful" for my tastes. Of course, this particular issue will likely only affect one person (me), so I guess that's some small comfort.

You see, Microsoft realized that some websites use things other than "www" in front of their domain name for web-based content... so, being the "helpful" sorts that they are, they didn't limit their compatibility mode setting to any single server, but to the entire domain. That's all fine and well, if you have www.microsoft.com for your main content, and ads.microsoft.com for advertising, etc., etc... but I have www. as a web server (which I pride myself on keeping standards-compliant) and pds. for the administration site for a service I maintain, which is provided by a third party and coded to IE7. So, unless I want to futz about with the compatibility mode setting every time I switch between sites, I just have to pretend IE8 is broken when I visit my real website.

I sincerely hope that I stumble across, or Microsoft comes out with, some sort of "advanced" compatibility settings tool, to let me be more specific when I want to. Not holding my breath...

Spokane "justice"... damn scary!

OK, for anybody just stumbling across this post... no, I don't hate cops. The vast majority of them are just like anybody else, doing the best they can with the tools they have. But, again, just like any group of people, there's always a few who are stupid, evil, or both, and should, at a minimum, be downgraded to a position of less authority/threat to society.

So, with that obligatory bit out of the way, what's up with the title on this post? Simply this: a couple of years back, an off-duty cop was drinking in a bar while carrying a concealed gun (bad idea in general, against departmental regulations, but not illegal in and of itself). Something happened (the details of which vary depending on which side you want to listen to), resulting in the cop chasing a man on foot through a residential area, shooting at the other man repeatedly, hitting him in the back of the head, after which he not only doesn't call 911 or get anybody else on the scene, but actively avoids on-duty police when they do show up. Today, the verdict came down... not guilty on all counts, by reason of self-defense.

Of course, I've left a fair amount of detail out so far... the cop was drinking in a gay bar, which is why he says he was avoiding his fellow officers. The cop says he was chasing the other guy because he stole his truck... in spite of forensics not being able to find a trace of the guy inside the cab of the truck for that guy's trial earlier. Not that that stopped a dispatcher from piping up about a confession at this second trial, but not at the first, that's conveniently not recorded. Oh, and of course, the guy being chased supposedly turned around and acted like he had a weapon, which is why he was shot... in the back of the head... in self-defense.

No, I don't hate cops. What I hate is that our criminal justice system is so brain-damaged that we can process two individuals through separate trials and decide, in effect, that there was no criminal problem, despite a drunken gent chasing and shooting at somebody else, with or without cause, resulting in the guy being chased getting shot in the back, in the head or otherwise. Even more so, I hate that such court idiocy could happen in any number of places, not just slightly-backwards Spokane.

I wish I had the clarity of thought to come up with a "foolproof" fix to the system to avoid problems like this... the best I can come up with at the moment is that, in any criminal "event" involving more than one person, the entire event should be handled at one trial, and the job of the jury should not simply be an up-or-down guilty/not guilty verdict, but the construction of a timeline of events, as best they can tell, that supports their verdicts. All I know is that there has to be something better than... this.

New iPod Shuffle... another Apple swing-and-a-miss

I know I'm one of the last few people on the planet for whom this is true, but... I don't have a portable MP3 player of any sort yet. The fact is, I don't have much in the way of a music library, and am generally content with what I can pull off the radio. Of course, that's not always an option, so I've been keeping an eye on players, capacities, interfaces and the like... and the old iPod Shuffle was almost right for me, just lacking a bit in the storage space arena.

So, now Apple has released a new Shuffle, with 4GB of storage space... but, they went and did something stupid, moving the controls off the device proper onto the cord of the ear buds. Oh, and of course, they'll offer a "control dongle" if you want to use some other headphones with their new toy.

Here's my problem... one of the main uses I would get out of my Shuffle would be... in my car. I have an auxiliary jack on my stereo, specifically for plugging audio bits in. So, there I would have to have this control dongle and a patch cable to plug in the player (and have to figure out how to seat both the player and controls reasonably safely in the passenger compartment)... and then, if I want to use the player anywhere else, I have to either remember to bring the control dongle along with, or use only the ear buds included with the player... and since I can see myself using this player in more than one "non-car" location regularly, I would pretty much have to carry headphones with me wherever I went with the player, rather than caching headphones at work, at home, etc.

Oh well, again, I guess I'll wait for Apple's next revision... unless some other mini-MP3 player catches my eye first, of course.

Mac Mini revamp... meh.

So, Apple got around to updating their desktop product line today. I took a look at the new base-model Mac Mini and... was underwhelmed. OK, a little speed boost on the processor, more hard drive space, improved energy efficiency, and a more modern graphics chip... for my purposes, all that really translates into is that I could probably play Spore on that Mini if I were so inclined. Unfortunately, that just doesn't translate into a $600 purchase for me.

Oh well, we'll see what fun there is to be had in later product turns... I kind of doubt that anything in the next OS X will stress my current Mini any more than it would this new Mini, so, odds are, I'll be waiting for the next Mac Mini revision, if any.

Remember your scientific method

OK, time for a little sheepish admission of guilt. Last post, I castigated Nintendo for misleading error messages... which, it turns out, were likely actually right. But in the process, I found a new target for my ire: Sony.

It turns out that my spotty Wi-Fi connectivity with my Wii correlates nicely with the powered-up status of my PS3, which sits about 6" below the Wii. If the PS3 is on, the Wii connects with no problems, otherwise there's no network joy to be had. I now suspect that the Wi-Fi antenna in the PS3 is left in a state that parasitizes the Wii's signal when the Wii is turned off. If true, the next experiment is simple enough... move the Wii further away from the PS3 and see what happens. Of course, that's a lot of work to go through to fix a problem that currently impacts me once a week, when I vainly check for new, worthwhile downloadable games for the Wii. Maybe when my play patterns change again...