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Monday, December 20, 2004
Person Of The Year
Monday, December 13, 2004
Feeling Minnesota
Today when that woman came over the hill to find a man relieving himself by the roadside, she probably saw the license plates and commented to her passenger that Minnesotans are so ill-mannered that they piddle along the road like stray dogs. What can I say? I really had to go!
Anyway, since I picked up the car before selecting music for the trip, the Minnesota plates had a big influence on my choices. I started out with several Soul Asylum CDs, plus Dave Pirner's solo disc. Then I added Semisonic and Bob Mould. Alas, I didn't bring along any Husker Du, Trip Shakespeare, or Bob Dylan. I'll save those for a trip to Minnesota. Since this is a central and southern Illinois trip, I brought along Jason Ringenberg (frontman of cowpunk legends Jason & The Scorchers) and Uncle Tupelo.
I've also been speaking in that Northern Plains accent that I learned from my (formerly) North Dakotan relatives. But only to myself. I'd probably burst into laughter if I tried talking to anyone else that way.
Thursday, December 02, 2004
The Return Of King Tut
On the topic of Tutmania, I was shocked that the article didn't mention the first person I thought of when I saw the headline: Steve Martin. After all, how many historical/cultural/art exhibits have spawned a #17 hit single like "King Tut?" Of course, the second thing I thought of came nearly a decade later: the Bangles' hit "Walk Like An Egyptian." My third thought was of a friend who went to Egypt with a college archeology class--and that the instructor wanted her to be his mistress.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Some Consolation - This Won't Last Forever
And why do social conservatives loom so large in our politics today? The best historical parallel for them may be the Luddites who terrorized Britain two centuries ago, the workers who traveled around the country smashing machines for fear that the Industrial Revolution would destroy their jobs and way of life. They were loud, and their tenacity gave the impression that they represented more Britons than they actually did, when in fact they were merely acting out their despair and outrage at a world that was passing them by. Today's social conservatives are our cultural Luddites.So as we watch the Bush administration take its mandate off the deep (right) end, the best we can hope is that America isn't destroyed (and I'm not talking about the terrorism bogeyman) before younger generations get a chance to put the nation back on track.
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Will McCartney Do A Morrison?
If John Lennon were still alive, I doubt that they would invite him to perform. In a time of war, I think he would have to make some sort of statement that would probably offend the pro-establishment NFL bigwigs.
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Giving Thanks
Anyway, in the midst of this predictably painful experience, I found something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving: the Internet. Without it, I'd have to spend more time at the malls.
Sunday, November 21, 2004
A Lesson For You Youngsters Out There
Before my last post, I had a glass of Scotch and let one of the dogs outside. Then I picked out my New Miserable Experience CD, took it upstairs to my office, and blogged as I listened to it. Forty-six minutes later, as the CD ended, I heard a dog bark. Oops. Sure enough, he was standing out on the porch waiting for me to let him in. So don't drink when you're taking care of dogs or children because you just might forget them outside. (And people wonder why I don't have kids.)
Ice Cream, Scotch, And Gin
Right now I'm listening to one of my favorite drinking albums, the Gin Blossoms' New Miserable Experience. Of course, this is not an inspirational record--Doug Hopkins, who wrote half of the songs, was an alcoholic who got kicked out of the band before they hit it big. He committed suicide in 1993. Songs of his like "Lost Horizons," "Hey Jealousy," "Hold Me Down," "Found Out About You" and "Pieces Of The Night" speak of a certain sad, isolated, often intoxicated existence. It's anything but "happy" music, although readers have probably noticed that most of the music I like isn't happy (with Devo being a notable exception).
I first heard New Miserable Experience when my brother gave me his cassette. I think he said it wasn't "heavy enough." I upgraded to a CD around the time I moved out of the house (I always hated prerecorded cassettes--I went straight from LPs to CDs), so this album always reminds me of the first few months I lived in my apartment. While I never drank that much (thank God), I had similar luck in relationships, so it was an appropriate soundtrack (along with the Offspring's "Self Esteem"). A couple years ago, I bought a special 10th anniversary "Deluxe Edition" at a store closing sale. Unfortunately, the bonus disc is comprised of mostly weak material and live versions, plus a particularly lame "alternate" version of "Pieces Of The Night" with an unnecessary piano ending. The Deluxe Edition is on the right below.
By the way, the Gin Blossoms are one of very few rock acts to hail from Arizona. Alice Cooper and the Meat Puppets are a couple of others.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Tribune's Annoying Marketing Ploy
I politely told the marketer that I did not want the Wednesday and Friday newspapers. He replied, "You're already getting them. We signed you up for this free gift as a thank-you..." But I don't want them, I replied angrily. "You'll have to call 1-800-TRIBUNE to cancel it." Why can't you cancel it? "You'll have to call 1-800-TRIBUNE."
What kind of customer service is that? Why should I have to take the initiative to stop getting something I didn't ask for and don't want?
This isn't the first time the Tribune Company has used the unwanted free newspaper tactic. They gave us RedEye, a silly paper not even thick enough to use for bird cage liner (not that we have a bird anyway), for several weeks. That was a little different, though. It was a brand new paper, we only got it for a short time, and no intrusive telemarketer called to tell us all about our "free gift."
If it wasn't for the ads and coupons in the Sunday paper, I would cancel my entire subscription just to spite them. I suppose I should give the Tribune Co. a little credit, though. At least they are trying to increase ad revenue by giving away free papers, as opposed to the rival Sun-Times, which scandalously overstated its circulation instead.
Update 11/17/04: I e-mailed Tribune customer service, and they said that my account has no record of those days that the telemarketer said I was already signed up for.
Update 12/05/04: As I expected, I started getting the unwanted newspapers the week after I contacted customer service. I e-mailed them again, and they stopped delivering those days. I also had them remove me from their marketing lists.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Preying On The Handicapped
Monday, November 08, 2004
Movies I Just Don't Understand
Lost In Translation was just goofy. Sure, the slices of Japanese culture were amusing, and Bill Murray was funny sometimes. On the other hand, it was just a sad and pathetic picture about unhappy people. If I wanted to see unhappy people, I would have taken a picture of myself on Wednesday morning. I won't complain about all the scenes of Scarlett Johansson in her underwear, though--I'll give it at least two stars for that and the cool song that was playing in the "gentleman's club" scene. Anyway, the worst part was the end. Without giving anything away, I'll say that Murray whispers something. We rewound the tape twice (no point having a DVD player to watch a dozen flicks a year), but we still couldn't figure it out. Perhaps more frustratingly, I could figure out the first few words and the last few words, but obviously the "meat" of his statement was the part in between. That was the icing on this absurd cake. It wasn't a bad movie, but I just didn't "get" it.
After a break to watch some depressing news on TV, it was time for Mystic River. When that movie was over, all I could say was, "Man, that's f***ed up!" I'll grant that the movie was shot well, and the characters were believable and well-developed. There were a number of interesting twists, although I figured out "whodunnit" long before my wife (which may not bode well for her chances of being a detective someday, but that's another story). Mystic River was "a tragedy of errors"--there were so many times when I expected a character to say something that would have cleared everything up, but those lines were never spoken. There were also some holes in the movie, places where I could have written the screenplay better. While I predicted the end result of the film, well, it was just f***ed up. It left me with a lot of questions and difficulty falling asleep.
I told my wife she should rent Mystic Pizza next time.
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Suspicious Timing
The Bush administration might tell you it's only because of increased violence over the past few days. Then why was an emergency declared for the next two months? A couple days of unrest do not merit such a long-term expectation of trouble. Clearly things have been going badly for some time. Besides, the latest violence is likely in part a reaction to Bush's re-election, so they can't spin their way out of it. They either suppressed it, delayed it, or caused it.
Friday, November 05, 2004
Blue City, Red State
Then I looked at the county-by-county tallies from CNN. Cook County was the only county in the state to come out "strong Kerry," with 70% of the vote going to the Democrat. Kerry got 1,389,631 votes to Bush's 583,774, a margin of 805,857 votes. Kerry won Illinois by 513,342 votes. That means that if not for Cook County, Bush would have won with over 54% of the vote. I don't live in a blue state; I live in a blue city. No wonder my dad and others view Illinois politics as Chicago versus the rest of the state.
The only thing most of us could all agree on was that Obama would be a better senator than that nutcase Alan Keyes. However, CNN's county map shows that Keyes actually won a cluster of counties in southeastern Illinois, including Clay (57%), Edwards (60%), Effingham (57%). Jasper (55%), Wabash (54%), and Wayne (57%). Is there something in the water down there? He also won upstate Iroquois County with 51%. Nonetheless, Obama set a record for margin of victory in a U.S. Senate race in Illinois, with 70% to Keyes' 27% for a margin of 43%. Not bad for a non-incumbent, eh?
Bad Branding
2.) The Balance Bar company has a new line of bars called "Balance Carb Well." Lots of food manufacturers are bringing out low carb products these days, but isn't there something wrong with this? The company's products are based on the nutritional theory that the proper caloric balance of nutrients is 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat. A low carb product undermines the company's entire premise. While they may regain some former Balance Bar consumers who have gone low carb, they may confuse a lot of potential customers, too.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
A Loss For America, A Loss For Common Sense
Kerry may not have been the greatest candidate, but Bush clearly has so many problems, both in character and as a leader, that I cannot fathom how anyone could vote for him. It would be redundant for me to give reasons today. That's what this blog's archives are for, in case you are more intellectually curious than our commander in chief. I just fear that in four years, it will be painfully obvious why he shouldn't have been re-elected. Maybe even the red states will get the message by then.
The only good thing about this result is that now the Repugnicans can't blame Democrats when the war in Iraq drags on for years. Of course, it isn't in their nature to blame themselves, either. Heck, Dubya won't even admit he made a single mistake in the past four years. With Republicans in control of every branch of government, it should be interesting to see who does get the blame. I suppose they'll have to scapegoat one of their own.
So where do we go from here as a country? Bush seems to view his victory as a mandate, which means he has not learned from the past. After eking out a win in 2000 by the skin of his teeth, he ruled as if everyone supported him. That only enraged and polarized the opposition. Bush's "uniter not a divider" shtick proved to be so wrong that he couldn't even say it during the 2004 campaign, at least not without snickering. While he won clearly this time, 51% is not an overwhelming majority. Also, an LA Times exit poll shows how strongly people feel on both sides. For example, 79% of Bush voters think his economic policies have made the country better off, while 90% of Kerry voters think they have made us worse off. The numbers are similar in regard to Iraq and Bush's overall performance. Very few voters were doing eeny-meeny-miny-mo in the booths on Tuesday. This nation is still divided from the wounds of the 2000 election and the war with Iraq, and those wounds have festered instead of healing. Quite frankly, a large portion of the populace hates him and all he stands for.
There should be riots in the streets, and maybe someday soon there will be. I'll keep my shoes by the door.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Instead of watching TV, I decided to track the results online as I worked on other things. Multi-tasking helped me keep my sanity. I made it to 12:30 AM before I had to open the liquor cabinet. With Bush frighteningly close to re-election, I cracked. I didn't even use a snifter; I just picked out the least favorite single malt in my collection (Tomatin--never buy whisky based on the unique shape of the bottle) and drank a healthy serving from a plain glass. This wasn't about savoring a fine malt--it was all about dulling my senses. I chased it with half a shot of 12-year Highland Park just for good measure. It worked. I'm ready for the next few hours, as long as I don't fall asleep. I just hope I don't have to do this for the next four years.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
This Is It... VOTE FOR CHANGE
Saturday, October 30, 2004
Bruce Springsteen & John Kerry
Speaking of "Born In The U.S.A.," one of the best things about Springsteen supporting Kerry is that this year the Republicans can't use his music out of context like they have used that song and others in the past. Of course, the campaign managers aren't the only ones guilty of this. I was driving through the Texas panhandle and listening to the radio the day Bush started the war with Iraq (incidentally, I had been caught in the middle of a political argument at breakfast). Seemingly out of nowhere (it didn't fit their "format"), the radio station started playing "Born In The U.S.A." It turned out to be a mix of that song with some ominous, threatening quotes from Bush directed at Saddam Hussein. It was the typical jingoistic, knee jerk, redneck stuff that some Americans pass off as "patriotism" these days. Omigod, these people have no clue, I thought. Imagine the irony of using a song about Vietnam (not to mention a bad economy) as the background for Bush talking about Iraq. How prophetic!
Springsteen... strode down the street to meet up with his wife, singer Patti Scialfa. The couple stopped in front of a house full of college students gathered on a second-floor deck. "Bruce, come up for a beer," said a sign hanging from the railing.
Springsteen and Scialfa walked up to the house and emerged on the upper deck, each taking a bottle of Capitol Amber, a local brew, and watching as Kerry paid homage to the man who made the working people of Asbury Park, N.J., famous. "He sings about real people. It's poetry, it's beautiful, about life and struggles and what's important," said Kerry, who plays classical guitar. "And the people he sings about are the people I think we ought to be fighting about and having representation in the White House that's worthy in this country." Still, said Kerry, as he acknowledged the obvious, "I may be running for president of the United States, but we all know who the real boss is! Right?"
As the crowd roared, Springsteen doubled over, laughing at the return tribute.
By the way, Springsteen isn't the only musician the Bush campaign will be excluding from their greatest hits album. In news that must make my mom happy, the writer of "Still The One" by the band Orleans asked them to stop using his song.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Al Gore
"Wait a minute," I said. "Gore is still fairly young, isn't he?" He's only 56. I continued, "Richard Nixon was vice president, ran for president, lost, and came back eight years later to win." I'm not saying that Gore should do this, or that he would be the best choice for the Democrats in a future election (after all, if he had been a great candidate, he would have defeated Bush by a bigger margin), but it's not only possible--it's been done before.
He would be a better choice than Hillary Clinton. I don't mind her, but too many people hate her enough that they would never change their minds and vote for her, regardless of her platform. People are already talking about Barack Obama, at least for vice president, but I think it's a little premature. He gave a great speech at the convention, but let's wait and see how he fares in Washington.
Incidentally, I ran into a couple of former co-workers on the El this afternoon. They recognized me immediately despite my Al Gore disguise.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Endorsements For Bush
For some reason, a number of Chicago Tribune readers are up in arms over the paper's endorsement of President Bush. These readers sadly demonstrate a lack of historical knowledge. The Tribune's Republican roots run deep--to the founding of the party 150 years ago. From the web site of Cantigny, the estate of former Tribune editor and publisher Colonel Robert R. McCormick:
As editors and publishers of the Chicago Tribune, Joseph Medill and Robert Rutherford McCormick (Medill's grandson) used the newspaper as a forum for advocating their own political points of views. On a national scale, Joseph Medill was instrumental in helping to establish the Republican National Party and in securing Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presidency of the United States.So while I do not agree with the editorial board's choice, I certainly wouldn't cancel my subscription over it, as some readers have. This endorsement was a foregone conclusion. Indeed, as Eric Zorn wrote in his blog, "...The next time [the Tribune] endorses a Democrat for president will be the first."
The second endorsement is much more interesting and amusing to me: Iran. Although Bush called them part of "the axis of evil," they figure that a Republican president is better since, as the article says, "Democrats tend to press human-rights issues."
Again, a little historical perspective helps to explain this. Remember the Iran-Contra affair that Dubya's daddy was involved in (yet somehow didn't hang for)? Come to think of it, in light of that treasonous Republican scheme (the U.S. sold arms to the country that sponsored the 1983 truck bombing in Lebanon that killed 241 American soldiers), how can so many Americans trust the GOP to fight the "war on terror?" Then again, the American people elevated vice president Bush to the presidency despite his involvement (he proceeded to pardon the others on his way out of office in 1992). If you aren't familiar with Iran-Contra, please visit this site; it is chilling in light of our current world.
Alas, the Bush administration isn't quite ready to embrace the axis of evil: "It's not an endorsement we'll be accepting anytime soon," spokesman Scott Stanzel said.
Monday, October 18, 2004
Political Vandalism
In Gurnee, Simpson said, someone got out of a car and ripped up a Bush-Cheney sign in a front yard as two young children played outside.Oh no! Not in front of the children! I'm sure they'll be traumatized for life.
State Senator Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) said, "We're talking about something that is a federal and state hate crime." The Tribune reported this without noting that he is wrong. According to my police officer wife, "hate crime" laws only cover crimes based on race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. Maybe tearing down the Cheney sign is a hate crime because his daughter is a lesbian? Dillard could argue that this is a free speech issue, but it is not a hate crime. People just love to throw that term around, as if there is such a thing as a "love crime."
Incidentally, Democrats reported similar cases regarding Kerry-Edwards signs, but they didn't see any need to call a press conference to whine about it.
I am surprised that the GOP didn't mention the vandalism on stop signs in my neighborhood: "BUSH" stenciled in white paint below the word "STOP." No, it wasn't me.
Saturday, October 16, 2004
I'm The Lucky Winner!
Friday, October 15, 2004
This was not an "attack" against Mary Cheney. What Alan Keyes said at the convention was, but this was not. Kerry was simply using her as an example of a person who did not "choose" to be a lesbian, but was born as one. Scientific evidence generally supports this theory, not that Bush cares much about science. Kerry's point in mentioning Mary Cheney was that we are not talking about a conceptual thing, we are talking about real people. He did not say anything against her lifestyle, and he did not reveal anything that people don't already know. It's as if he had been talking about women's rights and mentioned that, oh-my-gosh, Laura Bush is a woman, too!
It just amazes me how the Repugnicans blow things like this out of proportion. Maybe they should replace their elephant mascot with a molehill that morphs into a mountain. They are just upset that Kerry was the better debater. Now they're up against the ropes, and they'll do anything to try to make the Dems look bad, regardless of what Kerry actually says.
This strategy of distraction has been used ad nauseum over the last four years. The main reason the gay marriage constitutional amendment issue was resurrected was to take Iraq out of the headlines (and to a lesser extent to rally the fundamentalist Christian wing of the party). It's obvious that every day the media spend covering the manufactured "controversy du jour" is a day that the media aren't talking about the failings of the Dubya administration.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Presidential Hubris
We cannot win the war on terror. First of all, we would have to please all of the people all of the time. I don't see how Bush could think that our nation could do that internationally when he personally has aroused so much resentment just within our borders. Second, there is no way to deter someone from carrying out a terrorist act. If someone is willing to pay with his or her life, then what threat of punishment could we use to stop that person? Third, it is impossible to watch everyone all the time. No matter how many troops, police, video cameras, etc. the U.S. deploys, we cannot watch or catch every potential terrorist. The small and highly militarized country of Israel has been unable to eliminate terrorist acts within its borders, so how could we? If we can't eradicate gangs in the U.S., how could anyone presume that we could control the entire world? For an example of a similarly international and unmanageable controntation, look at the "war on drugs."
The Neo-Cons might compare the war against terror to the Cold War against communism, but they are completely different. To change a government, we don't have to convince everyone in a nation, just the "right people" (whether by persuasion or force). To "win" the war on terrorism, we would have to control every person in every nation--it only takes one dissenter to terrorize the world. There has always been terrorism in the world (for example, one could argue that our founding fathers were terrorists in the eyes of the British), and there always will be. No arrogant, self-righteous president can change that with bombs and soldiers. Bush is telling people what they want to hear, not the truth.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
How About A Write-In Campaign?
Great Moments In Product Placement
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Liberated And Terrified
By the time I shut off my computer and walked out the door, I felt liberated yet terrified. On one hand, I was not only leaving behind an assignment that caused me a lot of inner turmoil (let me note that the client's people were not at fault--they've been friends for a long time, as much as 11 years), but I had also declared my intentions to start anew as a freelance copywriter. And that is what terrifies me. I didn't burn any bridges, but by declaring my intention not to return, I will feel like a failure if I do. As I told my wife, I'll have to walk in with a big "F" on my forehead! As I walked toward the train, I was torn between excitement and fear. I've been contemplating this for so long that I had almost forgotten how foreign and scary the idea of striking out alone is to most people.
The End Of An Era
While these few months have been lucrative, I have been miserable. I've never been a shiny, happy person, but my mood has darkened considerably. I don't think my wife could bear another month of me like this. Certain family members haven't helped--they insinuate that I'm doing this because I failed in my new career when in fact, I had yet to really begin.
My body has suffered, too. For the first few weeks, I maintained and even intensified my exercise regimen, but that soon went down the tubes. And while I haven't abandoned my diet completely, I'm eating larger portions more frequently, and I've gained ten pounds. Incidentally, I never considered myself to be much of a "stress eater" before. The nail-biting habit that I had kicked has returned with a vengeance, too. The thing is, my client hasn't really put me under a lot of stress--it's all coming from within. I haven't been true to myself.
The only good thing to come out of this is that it strengthens my resolve to do something else. I've been talking the talk about being a freelance copywriter long enough; it's time to walk the walk. My client wants me to come back in 2005, but I won't make this mistake a second time. Today is my last day of earning a living as a computer programmer.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Martha Stewart And Squeaky Fromme
Martha is upset that she didn't get her first or second choice of prison. Choice? Since when do we give convicted criminals a choice of where to serve time? Sheesh, isn't it enough that she gets to serve her time in a minimum security facility? Maybe she should have chosen not to lie to investigators. Then she wouldn't have to worry about any of this.
Kerry Endorsed By Crawford, TX Newspaper
The editorial's writer, Publisher W. Leon Smith, argues that no one would have voted for Bush in 2000 if he had promised to drain funding from Social Security, raise oil prices and give tax cuts to businesses shipping jobs overseas--or "involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war."As typical knee-jerk Republicans, several local business owners already say they won't advertise in the Iconoclast anymore.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Analysis Of Kerry's Iraq Statements
Yet an examination of Kerry's words in more than 200 speeches and statements, comments during candidate forums and answers to reporters' questions does not support the accusation.
As foreign policy emerged as a dominant issue in the Democratic primaries and later in the general election, Kerry clung to a nuanced, middle-of-the road -- yet largely consistent -- approach to Iraq. Over and over, Kerry enthusiastically supported a confrontation with Saddam Hussein even as he aggressively criticized Bush for the manner in which he did so.
Kerry repeatedly described Hussein as a dangerous menace who must be disarmed or eliminated, demanded that the U.S. build broad international support for any action in Iraq and insisted that the nation had better plan for the post-war peace.The article takes on my favorite GOP lie, wherein they imply that Kerry flip-flopped on funding the Iraq war and therefore doesn't support the troops:
Kerry voted for a measure that paid for the $87 billion by reducing tax cuts for those who earn more than $300,000. He voted against a measure that paid for the $87 billion by adding to the deficit.Every time I hear Bush, Cheney, et al try to use that against Kerry, my blood boils, and not just because those chicken hawks dare to question the commitment to the military of a guy who actually fought. The supposedly fiscally conservative Republicans have been screwing our nation for a quarter of a century by growing the deficit to fund the military (usually starving domestic programs) while giving their wealthiest constituents tax cuts. Kerry didn't want to run up our national credit card to fund this war, but the Bush people eschew fiscal responsibility.
The real genius of the Reagan Revolution was the way the Republicans used Reagan's deficit spending to handcuff Clinton and force him to reduce the deficit their party had created. Clinton managed to get us into a budget surplus, but then America (or rather, the Supreme Court) handed the reins over to another Republican who uses Reagan's exact same tactics. If we don't elect Kerry, we're just going to keep on getting deeper into debt. Since so many Americans are up to their eyeballs in debt themselves, they don't see the problem with this. Of course, if we do elect Kerry, the Republicans will hold his feet to the fire to reduce the deficit they created. And so it goes.
Keyes Gets Zinged
One Small Calorie
Now you see it, now you don'tI always wondered how that bottle had one calorie, no more and no less. I pictured a guy dropping a single calorie into each bottle just for the sake of marketing. Whatever the case, I thought it was a pretty memorable ad campaign that distinguished the product from others. In the past week, however, I have heard two other diet colas mistakenly described as having "one calorie."
Here you have it, here you won't
Oh Diet Pepsi one small calorie
Now you see it now you don't
First, I overheard a woman saying that she likes Diet Coke because it only has one calorie. As far as I know, it has always had zero, or as their web site says, "less than one calorie," attributed to traces in "aspartame, caramel color and citric acid" (the label says zero because of FDA rounding). For more than you ever really wanted to know about this topic, check out the Diet Coke Product FAQ. I quizzed my wife last night about which drink had "just one calorie," and she said Diet Coke, too.
Then yesterday a co-worker was complimenting my choice of beverage, Diet Rite: "That's good stuff. My mom drinks it. And it's got just one calorie, you know." Well, actually, Diet Rite doesn't have any calories. Technically, the presence of caramel color and citric acid means it probably has a tiny amount, so I'd put it in the "less than one" range like Diet Coke.
I always thought Diet Pepsi had an effective and memorable ad campaign. Now I wonder, have people confused the ads for these diet drinks over time? Or did the old Diet Pepsi ads make people think that all diet drinks have one calorie? The kicker is that nowadays, even Diet Pepsi doesn't have one calorie--it has zero, too!
Monday, September 27, 2004
The Only Question About The Senate Race
Keyes Does The Inevitable
Lo and behold, he was a good candidate, and now he's running against Alan Keyes. And leave it to a desperate candidate like Keyes (trailing Obama by 51% in the polls) to make use of that nefarious name association. From a story in the Quincy Herald-Whig:
Keyes later led the crowd in a series of chants where they answered his questions with the refrain "Obama been lyin'."Eric Zorn followed up with the reporter, Doug Wilson, who verified that "Obama been lyin'" was indeed intended to sound like "Osama Bin Laden:"
"I'm certain that's what they're doing," he said. "They're trying to equate (Obama) to a really, really bad man."I do believe Dr. Keyes has reached a new low. Meanwhile, Obama is collecting money from people in Keyes' home state of Maryland who don't want to see him become a U.S. Senator from any state.
Congratulations, Charlie!!!
Making Hell A Nicer Place
He has worked for years to clean up Hell to capitalize on its name as a tourist attraction. "More people have told you to come to our town that any other on earth," Colone said.You can't fault a guy for trying to clean up Hell. I've been to Hell (and back) twice. Most recently, I rode a bicycle there last year. To see some pictures of what Colone has accomplished so far, click here. It's a nice start, but you can see that there is lots more potential there.
Saturday, September 25, 2004
Heroin And Sterner Stuff
Carmelita, hold me tighterThere's nothing like starting the day with an upbeat tune like that! My regular readers (hi Mom!) may recall that I wrote about this song during the second last day of my cross-country bike tour. I recently heard Flaco Jimenez's excellent version with Dwight Yoakum. An online review amusingly notes that Yoakum fans will have to buy Jimenez's album to hear it since country radio wouldn't dare play it.
I think I'm sinking down
And I'm all strung out on heroin
On the outskirts of town
I've also had Procol Harum's "In The Wee Small Hours Of Sixpence" going through my head:
And if grief is not the reasonI was introduced to Procol Harum in high school by a friend who had great taste in sixties music but deranged taste in everything else (in particular, he was fascinated with Charles Manson). The band is best known, of course, for the intriguing "A Whiter Shade Of Pale." I was pleasantly surprised to find an extensive fan site about the band (including pages and pages about their biggest hit). Procol Harum's lyrics were mostly written by a poet (Keith Reid) rather than a musician, which explains why many of them are challenging to explicate (Matthew Fisher, whose Hammond organ was an integral part of "A Whiter Shade Of Pale," considers this an especially American pursuit). "Sixpence" is somewhat obscure; it was a single available in the U.S. on only The Best Of Procol Harum for many years. The song is described there as "a vigorous, imaginative view of some of life's mysteries," which doesn't really explain anything. I haven't listened to that record (yes, I have it on vinyl) in years, but I have a feeling I'll be playing it this weekend.
He must be of sterner stuff
And his sword though old and rusty
Must be blunt as sharp enough
Friday, September 24, 2004
Okay, I'm A DEVO Dork
While passing out water cups at the start, I met another volunteer named Desiree (cursed to go through life reminding people of a Neil Diamond song). She was very friendly, and we ended up hanging out together most of the night. After we ran out of water bottles to pass out at the race finish, we headed toward the concert area. There we were in for a rude surprise: only runners were allowed, not volunteers. The main reason I volunteered was to see the concert, and now I was denied. I suppose I was better off than Desiree, though. She came to see A Flock Of Seagulls, but they only played on the course so she missed them entirely (we both wondered if they still had the same hair). At least I could hear DEVO, even if I couldn't get close enough to see much of them. As we stood outside the concert area, Desiree said, "All they had was that one song, 'Whip It,' right?"
"Oh, no," I replied, proving that I am indeed a DEVO dork. "They had lots of other songs." I proceeded to sing a few of them ("Peek-A-Boo," "Jocko Homo," "Mongoloid," "The Girl U Want"). Not one was remotely familiar to her. In fact, she said they all sounded kind of the same, but I assured her it was just that I am a very bad singer.
Barred from the concert area, we sat on the grass off to the side where we could just barely make out the awkwardly moving figures onstage that were DEVO. The sound system was lousy; the volume went up and down randomly. I have never felt so detached at a concert. It was like we were talking over the jukebox at a bar. In fact, they were halfway through "Whip It" when Desiree pointed out that this was their big hit and we were missing it. When the song ended, we watched hordes of runners head for the exit--that was all they wanted to hear. I felt sorry for DEVO. In a normal DEVO concert, they were just getting started ("Whip It" comes in the middle of the show), but here, the uninitiated audience was abandoning them. Alas, that is the curse of having one big hit.
As DEVO continued with their unique interpretation of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," Desiree incredulously asked, "Oh no, now they're going to play the Rolling Stones?"
"Hey, this is one of their hits!" said DEVO dork Dave. As a child of the eighties, I considered anything with a music video to be a "hit," regardless of whether it made the charts.
After a couple more songs, Desiree decided to go home. She said I should stay, but I just wasn't into it; it was like watching a concert from a high-rise balcony. As we walked north on Columbus Drive, DEVO began playing "Mongoloid." I started singing along. She must have thought I was nuts.
The Brown Line trains have been painfully slow for the past few nights because of track work, so I happily accepted her generous offer to drive me home. Wouldn't you know it, ten minutes after she dropped me off, it hit me: surely she's heard "Beautiful World!" Yep, I'm a DEVO dork. Actually, the correct term is spud. And if you understand that, you're a DEVO dork, too.
Damn, That's Fast!
Thursday, September 23, 2004
New Help For The Under-Endowed
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Da Coach Gets Dissed
Chicagoans love Ditka. The big story in August was whether Ditka would run for senator in place of Jim "Sex Club" Ryan. Ditka wisely declined, and the GOP foolishly chose Alan Keyes to run instead.
Tribune sports columnist Rick Morrissey wrote today about Ditka's exclusion, placing the blame squarely on the personal biases of the McCaskey family.
The Bears say Ditka didn't fit the concept of the sculpture, which, in part, focuses on the lineage of great running backs and linebackers in team history. They say they already had two players from his era, Butkus and Sayers. They also say that most of the players on the sculpture played their entire careers for the Bears. Ditka played six of his 12 seasons in Chicago, then went to Philadelphia and Dallas. The only way they could have narrowed their criteria anymore would have been by saying that anyone with the initials "M.D." was ineligible.For what it's worth, only four players in Bears history have had those initials (don't ask me why I look up such things). The bottom line is that if Halas himself had chosen the players for the sculpture, Ditka would be there. Ditka would never admit it, but I'll bet he's disappointed to be left out. If he were running for the U.S. Senate, this flagrant dissing would probably be worth 10% in sympathy votes. One can only hope that Ditka will get his own statue once Michael McCaskey is gone.
Nominee For Worst Cover Song Of 2004
But songwriter Townshend got slighted worst of all. Duff destroyed the whole meaning of "My Generation" with a simple lyric change. Disney corporate product that she is, Duff couldn't dare sing "Hope I die before I get old." People might think she was suicidal, or a bunch of 14-year-old girls might jump off a bridge singing it. Instead, she says, yep, "Hope I don't die before I get old." Wasn't Daltrey singing that he didn't want to get old and become part of the Establishment? I guess Duff already is a part of the Establishment, so she just hopes she doesn't die and keeps on raking in the bucks for tripe like this. That's the most destructive lyric rewrite I've heard since Keb' Mo' changed "Folsom Prison Blues" from "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die" to "they say I shot a man in Reno but that was just a lie" (isn't the singer's guilt and paying his debt to society a critical element to that song?).
I'm being hard on the girl, but all she had to do was perform a different song. "My Generation" is a monument of rock 'n' roll, the sixties, and indeed, a generation. When it comes to covers, she should stick to stuff like "Our Lips Are Sealed." While her version of that song isn't exactly groundbreaking, at least it isn't offensively corrupted.
I hereby nominate "My Generation" for this year's "Landslide" award, named for the awful butchering of the Fleetwood Mac classic rendered by the Dixie Chicks a few years ago (the Smashing Pumpkins did it much better, by the way). One can only hope that Duff's mistake doesn't become a new trend. What's next, Britney Spears singing "Behind Brown Eyes?"
"Seven Days" by Bob Dylan
"Seven Days" wasn't officially released by Dylan until The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 in 1991, but he wrote it years earlier. Ron Wood recorded it on his 1979 solo album Gimme Some Neck with an appropriately Dylanesque voice. It's the best song on the album, although a few others are pretty good, too (overall much better than the follow-up 1 2 3 4). Wood also performed "Seven Days" for Bob Dylan - The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration, an exceptional all-star concert album.
The reason this song is on my mind is that I have only seven days left in this consulting gig. As for why I am so glad to be leaving, that will have to wait for a later post...
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
The Next Generation Of Bicycle Tourists
Most are driven to school in SUVs until they reach the age where they can buy their own cars... For the generation growing up today, the bicycle is something you put on top of your Ford Explorer until you reach a recreational trail. It is a toy, not a viable means of transportation.Then he tells a great story about a class of third graders who were fascinated by his bike trip through India. Weir says that we are responsible for inspiring the next generation of bicycle tourists by sharing our stories. He's right. I have been pleasantly surprised by how my cycling web site has motivated others to start riding again. Interacting with these people has been almost as rewarding to me as touring itself. So after you read his article (a heartwarming tale that even non-cyclists should enjoy), check out my cross-country bike trip.
Monday, September 20, 2004
Fines For Marijuana
Sgt. Tom Donegan said he has long been fed up with making arrests for possession of small amounts of the drug, only to see judges later drop the charges. He said that court records from last year indicate that 94 percent of the 6,954 Chicago cases involving marijuana amounts smaller than 2.5 grams were dismissed, as were 81 percent of the cases involving from 2.5 to 10 grams. Donegan said assessing fines of $250 for possession of 10 grams or less would have raised $5 million for the city's coffers in 2003.This proposition was announced the same day that City Hall suggested raising taxes on gasoline and natural gas. The problem with a gasoline tax is that people leave the city to buy gas (the city already charges an extra five cents). As for natural gas, since most Chicagoans heat their homes with it, an added tax there would be like a back-door real estate tax increase. The marijuana proposal is a better alternative. Not only would it increase city revenue (and cut the expense of paying police to go to court for cases that are thrown out), but it would take a burden off the courts, too, to the tune of 27-28 cases a day (6,954 cases divided by 250 weekdays). One addition I would suggest to prevent this from being abused by those who can afford the fines is a limit similar to speeding tickets: after a certain number of tickets, the offender should be arrested. Theoretically, a judge would be less likely to throw out a case knowing that the offender has violated the law several times to even end up in court.
Of course, as someone who uses lots of natural gas, some gasoline, and no marijuana, I could be biased. The city would never approve of it anyway. I predict that this is the first and last we will ever hear of this proposal.
I guess I was wrong. The Sun-Times has a front page story today about Mayor Daley's support for "pot tickets."
The October Surprise
Another thing to look out for in October, of course, would be a terrorist attack like Al Qaeda used in Spain to influence the elections. A new attack could have the opposite effect here, as I predict that undecided voters would rally around the president (rather than throw out the ruling party, as the Spanish did). The Republicans have also been working on a plan to delay the elections if such a thing occurs. Conspiracy theorists go further, predicting an indefinite postponement of the election coupled with martial law.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
Tribune Ponders Blogging
A University of Chicago law professor weighs in to say that people get distorted views from reading only blogs on one side. And I suppose people don't get distorted views watching Fox News or reading the Chicago Tribune. There is a funny thing about alleged "media bias"--people only see it when it doesn't match their own beliefs. That's why Alan Keyes thinks the Tribune has a liberal bias -- because he is further to the right than the newspaper is -- while I see it as having a conservative bias because I am more to the left. And as another person notes in the article, a biased source isn't necessary wrong, either. Even Rush Limbaugh tells the truth sometimes, if only by accident.
As for the Dan Rather issue that inspired this article, here is a thought that I haven't heard mentioned (although I admit that I haven't followed the story closely). The littlegreenfootballs.com guy said that he typed a letter with Microsoft Word's default settings, and it exactly matched the letter CBS claimed was typed in the early 1970s. Has anyone talked to the people who designed Microsoft Word? I ask because word processors are designed to imitate typewriters. If the designers used an IBM Selectric as a model for Word, then a document typed with Word's default settings should look the same as one typed on a Selectric--that would merely be proof that the designers did a good job. Just because the Word document matches the memo, that does not mean that Word was used to create the memo.
What has been glossed over is that the officer's former secretary said that although she questions the authenticity of the documents, the allegations within them are essentially true. In an editorial on Friday, the Tribune said it is old news that Bush got preferential treatment and that the "new news" is the documents. It galls me that the Republican spinmeisters are trying to use Vietnam against Kerry when Bush didn't even show up for his gravy assignment. Bush's neglect of duty may be old news, but if Kerry's service is suddenly an issue, then Bush's non-service should be as well. The truth is that the memo controversy isn't so much "new news" or real news at all, as it is "B.S. news," a red herring that distracts the media and the nation from what is really at stake in this election. All of the stories about Vietnam and the national guard are irrelevant distractions. The media get suckered into this again and again by the political parties (I'd say particularly the Republicans, but only because I'm biased). Is "Rathergate" really more important than American soldiers dying in a war started under false pretense? Is anything that happened thirty years ago more important than choosing the direction of this nation for the next four years?
Saturday, September 18, 2004
Tracking The Fringe Candidates
And what's up with the Socialist Workers Party? Their candidate, Roger Calero, is constitutionally ineligible for the presidency because he wasn't born here. Why would you nominate someone who couldn't be president? Isn't that a way of acknowledging that you don't have a prayer? Do socialists pray? Oh well, I suppose they wouldn't release Peltier if he won, so that makes two "impossible" candidates regardless of how many votes they get.
Speaking of spoiler candidates, I recently found an old quote from Ralph Nader regarding the Republicans' beloved Saint Ronnie: "Reagan is the most ignorant president since Warren Harding." And now the Republicans are trying to help him get on the ballot. Politics certainly makes strange bedfellows!
Fortunately for Kerry, Nader probably won't draw as many voters away from the Democratic Party this time around. It was nice to be idealistic when Clinton was the president and everything was going well, but now people are seeing where Bush & Co. have taken this country and deciding that it is more important to defeat him than to make some sort of a statement by voting for a candidate who can't win. At least I hope people realize that.
Friday, September 17, 2004
Meth: The Secret To A Productive Economy
Here's an interesting tidbit: "It is popular with workers in overachieving, highly productive economies such as those in Japan and South Korea." It sounds like Bush should be promoting meth labs to jump start the economy!
#1 B.S. statistic in this story: "Although there are no government or private statistics on meth use in the workplace, a major national survey in 2002 found that an estimated 77% of people who use drugs of any type are employed." This is so meaningless that I am disgusted that an editor let this eat up a column-inch of newsprint, even with the disclaimer in front. I guess I'm glad to hear that only 23% of drug users rely on mugging people like me to support their habits, but it has nothing to do with whether people use the stuff at work. That's like saying, "We don't know how many people work in their homes, but 77% of homeowners are employed."
Wal-Mart sponsored a study in their home county in Arkansas that found that "meth use cost area employers $21 million last year — about $42,000 per affected worker — in higher absenteeism and health costs." Maybe if Wal-Mart paid their employees more, they would be able to buy better drugs that didn't cause as many problems. Or maybe those employees wouldn't feel that their lives were so miserable that they needed drugs to escape them.
I do not mean to make light of the meth problem. Unlike other drugs, this one has hit even small town America pretty hard, and illicit meth labs have caused who-knows-how-many explosions, sometimes in apartment buildings with lots of innocent victims. It has become established enough in our culture over the last decade to pop up in songs by Bruce Springsteen and James McMurtry (three times on one album!), among others. On the other hand, it is hard to read an article like this, then look around the office and imagine a bunch of my co-workers speeding on meth.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Americans In Spain
Since today is the first rest day of the Vuelta and we're still riding the patriotic crest of Olympic fervor, let's review what Americans have done. The race started with a team time trial which was won by the best time trialing team in the world, US Postal Service. They won the time trial at the Tour as well, and what's really impressive is that the Vuelta team includes only two of the nine riders from the Tour team. Their victory is a testament to the team's depth. One of the riders who helped Armstrong win the Tour, American Floyd Landis, became the first leader of the Vuelta.
After passing the leader's gold jersey around to a few teammates, Landis got back on top with a strong ride in stage eight, an individual time trial. Landis was third, eighteen seconds behind another American, Olympic time trial champion Tyler Hamilton. Hamilton, my favorite rider, showed that he still has the form that won him the gold in Athens a month ago, riding a steady 31.5 mph over the flat 25-mile course (I could do that, but only if it was downhill!). Taking the victory on September 11, Hamilton dedicated the win to those who died that day in 2001. Landis will be joining Hamilton's Swiss Phonak team next year, as will the second place rider sandwiched between them, US Postal's Victor Hugo Pena.
Landis has held onto the gold jersey through some difficult, mountainous terrain. His lead is shrinking, but he has fought valiantly. Yesterday, however, Landis was overshadowed by the incredible riding of American teammate Dave Zabriskie. Zabriskie attacked just two miles into the race and stayed away for 100 miles to win. Such breakaways rarely succeed, but the US time trial champion managed to win by more than a minute. According to procycling.com, he had a little help from Axl, Slash, & co.:
When asked what [he] was thinking about [during] the time off the front, he added, "I had a Guns N' Roses song in my head. I'm not sure which one, though. It's the one where he says, 'They can't catch me, I'm innocent.'"That song is "Out Ta Get Me" from Appetite For Destruction, of course (one of my all-time favorite records). I could imagine Zabriskie quoting Axl as he crossed the finish line: "Take that one to heart!"
W. Isn't For Women
Republicans are real men. Democrats are gay. President Bush is a resolute he-man who will keep us safe from terrorists; Sen. John Kerry is a flip-flopper who wants to take a more "sensitive" approach to the war on terror and who, as Vice President Dick Cheney sneered, seems to think "Al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side." Conservatives are not just tough, they're compassionate too; as for the Christian right, what Christian right? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! That's really all you need to know about the Republican National Convention...
Through clever stage-managing and endless iteration of the discredited Saddam Hussein-Al Qaeda connection, the RNC managed to attach to the reckless and inept Bush presidency the qualities Americans admire in men--optimism, confidence, fun, resolve, determination, single-mindedness, strength, will, foresight. Kerry and the Dems were the opposite--pessimistic, weak, indecisive, effeminate Breck girls and girlie men. You'd think Kerry, not Bush, had been the cheerleader in prep school. In the contest between real men and girlie men, women don't exist. The few female speakers were there to underline Bush's heterosexual credentials: Elizabeth Dole said Bush would protect us from gay marriage; Laura, Barbara and the twins testified to his Dadness. And don't forget Barney, the Scottish terrier. Real men have dogs. Women, gays, Democrats--have cats.
You wouldn't think so, though, if you'd watched the militaristic extravaganza that was the Democratic National Convention: the swift boat band of brothers, the saluting candidate "reporting for duty." I cringed, I really did. It was such a blatant manipulation of imagery, so patronizing, such a kick in the teeth to the Democratic base. Quien es mas macho? Maybe they could just wrestle--or better yet, take a leaf from Zell Miller and have a duel. At this rate, we won't have a woman President until the year 3000, and she'll have to be a five-star general.
I gagged when I saw those "W. is for Women" signs at the Republican convention. Pollitt notes, "Bush has done so little for women--and so much against them--that Laura had to reach all the way to Afghanistan to find some women whose lives have arguably been bettered by her husband." Pollitt goes on to criticize Kerry for saying little about women in his campaign. I, too, wonder whether women realize what is at stake in this election and who really represents their interests. This isn't just about abortion, either--it's about economic issues like the wage gap and Social Security privatization as well. I hope Kerry doesn't keep neglecting the female majority. This election is too close and too important to take anything for granted.


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There's something fishy about this
MMDE: Capricorn is a goat
Current: Capricorn is a goat-fish
Many people are certain the animal representing the Zodiac symbol for Capricorn is a goat, and are surprised to find it's actually a weird goat-fish creature. In fact some are so sure it was just a goat once that they are claiming this is a Mandela Effect.
In Petronius' Cena Trimalchionis, which was written in the Neronian age, there is a scene in which a dish is brought out marked with the Zodiac, and above each sign is a (vaguely) matching food - so over Ares, there are ram's head peas, over Taurus, steak, etc. Over Capricorn is a lobster, so clearly there is a long running association between Capricorn and the sea.
Hard to climb a mountain when you're half fish
It's been pointed out the Capricorn-goat connection comes from the type of person the sign is supposed to reporesent. That is, down to earth, hard working, realistic - certainly nothing mystical like a half fish, or as is often seen climbing a mountain.

subset: commoncrawl


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January 11, 2001--Researchers are getting closer to understanding how the brain is able to hold a moving image on the retina, yielding smooth, relatively stable images of the moving object. Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have discovered that a region of the brain that was formerly believed to control eye movement is actually involved in the high-level planning of movement.
Their findings offer new insight into how the area in the brain's motor cortex adjusts eye movement to track objects, say the researchers. And their experimental approach--which involves measuring and altering via electrical stimulation the tiny eye movements by which rhesus monkeys track a spot of light--provides a precise, quantitative approach to studying the basic mechanism by which the brain plans muscle movement.
HHMI investigator Stephen G. Lisberger and colleague Masaki Tanaka, both at the University of California, San Francisco, reported the results of eye-movement studies in an article published in the January 11, 2001, issue of the journal Nature.
Their experiments were designed to find out whether the frontal pursuit area (FPA) of the motor cortex is involved in "gain control" of the tiny eye movements that animals use to adjust how their gaze to track moving objects.
"Gain control--that is, changing how large the response is to a given stimulus--is fundamentally important to all motor control," said Lisberger. "It's part of the brain's feedback system that people use every day. For example, when you take a shower, you stick your hand in the stream of water to determine the temperature and adjust the controls back and forth until it's just right. Without a gain-control system, you'd make the same adjustments back and forth, oscillating from hot to cold. You'd never achieve 'just right.'"
Even walking would be impossible without gain control, said Lisberger, because muscles normally react to stretching by contracting. The brain compensates for this natural tendency by adjusting gain control of muscle contraction to allow the legs to take steps without activating a reflexive contraction.
"In smooth pursuit eye movement, the visual system's objective is to get the eye moving at the speed of a target," said Lisberger. "And the eye does this by sensing how fast a target is moving across the retina and trying to correct its tracking speed so eventually the eye is moving at the same speed as the target."
In their experiments to study how gain control fits into this smooth-pursuit system, Lisberger and Tanaka trained rhesus monkeys to fix their gaze on a spot of light, whether stationary or moving, in return for a juice reward. One characteristic of gain control in this arrangement, said Lisberger, is that briefly perturbing a stationary spot during eye fixation causes tiny eye movements, whereas the same perturbation of a moving spot when the eye is actively pursuing the spot causes larger eye movements.
Lisberger and Tanaka sought to pinpoint the regions of the brain responsible for gain control by using hair-thin electrodes to stimulate different regions of the monkeys' brains, in an attempt to alter this normal gain control as the animals' gaze fixed on the target.
They knew that the FPA was involved in gain control when they discovered that stimulating the FPA when the monkeys' gaze was fixed on a stationary spot produced the larger eye movements that are characteristic of the eye adjusting to a moving target that is being perturbed.
"Neurobiologists have traditionally thought of the frontal cortex as being involved in planning and decision-making, but the frontal pursuit area--which is part of the more primitive primary motor cortex--is also the place that represents the movement that will be made," said Lisberger. "This finding changes the way we think about the frontal pursuit area, taking it out of the realm of controlling movement and putting it into the realm of motor planning." More broadly, said Lisberger, the experimental approach he and Tanaka used opens the way to new studies to understand the basic strategy by which the brain plans movement.
"With this approach, the frontal pursuit area can become an exemplar area for studying motor planning," said Lisberger. "We now have a way of controlling the plan that the system is making, by using electrical stimulation to adjust gain. And eye movement is a precisely quantifiable, reproducible measurement." Using such a quantifiable phenomenon method will allow precise understanding of neural processes that are now only generally defined, he emphasized.
"It is one thing to use general descriptive terms like 'planning,' 'perception,' or 'attention,'" said Lisberger. "But the real scientific challenge is to define those terms rigorously and quantitatively. Eye-movement studies provide a way to achieve that definition."


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Ad Blockers
I've been thinking a lot about ad blockers. I have always resisted using an ad blocker on the view that I value the web and mobile services I use and they need to make money somehow.
But there is a view that ads are unwanted and by opting out of them, you are forcing web and mobile services to come up with a better business model. Of course, I also wonder how many people that use an ad blocker would come out of pocket a couple bucks a month to pay for an ad-free version of the services they use. Pandora has had an ad-free version of its music service for years and I believe (not sure) that only about 5% of its users opt for that.
The idea of taking the business model decision out of the service's hands and putting it into the user's hands is interesting. If an ad blocker came with a micro-payments service that automatically paid the web or mobile service the same average revenue per user (ARPU) it was making via ads, that would be cool. That is quite possible with bitcoin and I am expecting we will see something like that emerge in the coming years.
I also think we will see browsers and possibly even mobile phones come with ad blockers built in. Would you swap browsers to get built in ad blocking? Would you swap mobile phones to get built in ad blockers?
One thing is for sure, ad blocking is not going away. If anything, it is growing appreciably.
So, let's end this with a poll? Do you use an ad blocker, and if so, where?
do you use an ad blocker and if so, where?
— Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) February 16, 2016


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B ags on R12
Was checking out your saddlebags on the R12. Was told the brown ones were used by the couriers
and the black the police. Seems there was another but slipped my mind.
Do you have any idea what the couriers bags are worth?
Black Bags
I believe that the brown bags turn almost black over time with aging and oiling and dirt. Those old black and white war time photos maybe just make the old leather bags look black.
My R12 has Metal boxes.. The hurt when you walk into them or have the bike lean on your leg. I prefer the Leather for that. I think the metal boxes work better when a side car is attached.
Very cool pictures. BMW R12
Very cool pictures. BMW R12 has got all the tough features of a military bike. Please post the features associated with this bike. Am a huge admirer of BMW bikes and would love to know about BMW R12 as well. Looking forward to get more such nice posts from you. Please keep posting.
Nice references!
Hi I used this photographs for references while I was modeling the BMW R12. After finishing the modeling part I need to star texturing and that is why I need some detailed pictures so I can use them as texture files. Is there any chance that you can point out someone who owns this kind of motorbike in London area, please, so I can goo and take some pictures of the different details.
Thanks in advance and here you can see the model I did so far.


text:
Rockbox mail archiveSubject: Re: Queries reagarding Cook Decoder Std
Re: Queries reagarding Cook Decoder Std
From: vikas gupta <vikas.iet_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 06:45:13 -0700
On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 12:23 AM, Mohamed Tarek <mtarek16_at_gmail.com> wrote:
I want floating point as i have a hardware floating point unit. Since
Can you help let me know if now my question make sense?
Page was last modified "Jan 10 2012" The Rockbox Crew


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|Mortal Kombat II
|Midway Games
|Acclaim (home conversions)
|Release date(s)
|Arcade, Commodore Amiga, Game Boy, SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega Game Gear, Sega 32X, MS-DOS, Sega Master System, PlayStation, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable
|Mortal Kombat
|Neoseeker Related Pages
|Mortal Kombat II Channel
Mortal Kombat II is the sequel to the well-known arcade game Mortal Kombat. Essentially, Mortal Kombat II is an extension of the original fighting system, adding new moves (such as a close high punch and a crouching low punch) as well as new special moves for returning characters. On top of this, multiple fatalities were given to characters, even brand new stage fatalities and amusing finishing moves such as babalities and friendships. Each character still shared generic attributes - speed, power, jump height and airtime - and all normal moves were similar between each character. Mortal Kombat II also dropped the original system of points, adding a win tally meter instead.
The game features twelve playable characters, each of them with different special moves and fighting styles. Each fighter still shares a common pool of regular moves (e.g. down and high punch performs an uppercut for every character) as well as attributes. Once the player chooses a character, he or she must face twelve other combatants (including yourself) until they reach the two bosses (a sub-boss named Kintaro and the final boss: Shao Khan).
Table of Contents
- Mortal Kombat(Moves)
- Mortal Kombat II(Moves)
- Mortal Kombat 3 (Moves)
- Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3(Moves)
- Mortal Kombat Trilogy(Moves)
editMortal Kombat series
Fighting: Mortal Kombat · MKII · MK3 (Ultimate MK3 · Trilogy) · MK4 (MK Gold) · Deadly Alliance (Tournament Edition) · Deception (Unchained) · Armageddon · vs. DC Universe · Mortal Kombat (2011) · X · 11
Action/Adventure: Mythologies: Sub-Zero · Special Forces · Shaolin Monks
- Guides at completion stage 4
- Arcade
- PlayStation 3
- 1993
- June 25
- Sega Genesis
- 1994
- September 9
- Sega Game Gear
- November 11
- Game Boy
- October 27
- Sega 32X
- 1995
- May 19
- Commodore Amiga
- Sega Master System
- Windows
- May 16
- Sega Saturn
- 1996
- March 28
- March 29
- PlayStation
- August 2
- 2007
- April 12
- June 8
- Games
- Mortal Kombat
- PlayStation Network
- PlayStation Portable
- Fighting
- Single player
- Multiplayer
- Midway Games
- Acclaim Entertainment


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mar roxas defeat : wrong reading & strategic error or dropping of support?
found this article at PDI. roxas supporters are blaming aquino supporters dropping their support on mar roxas as the reason for the mar roxas losing this election. that was their conclusion.
but going through the article, that does not seem to be the reason for the loss. as they themselves said, they had misread the competitive landscape and made strategic errors in identifying who their key competitor is in this election.
based on this article, rather than aquino supporters dropping their support on roxas as the reason for roxas' loss, these were the strategic errors they committed that led to roxas losing the election:
- they became over-confident when they saw loren legarda unable to catch up. they gave too much focus on legarda.
- shifting resources away from roxas to support aquino was a big mistake. you never leave your candidate unattended to.
- they were unable to see the resurgence of jejomar binay and were unable to launch a counter attack at the right time
competitive analysis and competitive watching is very important in marketing and apparently also in a vice presidential election. this is where the roxas campaign failed. they made very critical errors in reading the competitive set and dynamics.
Roxas supporters blame VP defeat on Aquino backers
By Nestor P. Burgos Jr.
Inquirer Visayas
First Posted 07:01:00 06/10/2010
ILOILO CITY—Some supporters of Sen. Manuel "Mar" Roxas II here blamed the defeat of the Liberal Party (LP) vice presidential candidate on supporters of President-elect Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III who allegedly junked Roxas in favor of Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay.
"It hurt us that Aquino supporters were sleeping with the enemy," an LP leader on Panay Island told the Inquirer on condition of anonymity for lack of authority to speak on the issue.
The "Noy-Bi (Aquino-Binay)" factions, which included several core groups in the Aquino camp, tipped the balance in favor of Binay, who was running under the rival Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino party.
Caught off guard
The LP insider said Roxas' supporters in Panay were caught off guard by Binay's surge, saying they were focused on keeping Sen. Loren Legarda of the Nacionalista Party at bay.
"We were confident of victory against Loren so we shifted the focus of the campaign and concentrated on Aquino in the last few weeks before the May 10 elections," he said.
"We saw (Sen. Manuel Villar) inching up on Aquino and decided to re-channel our efforts to Noynoy. We did not anticipate Binay surging ahead," the LP insider admitted.
He said the Roxas machinery practically shouldered the campaign and funding of the LP campaign on Panay Island, including the campaign for Aquino.
"We dedicated our machinery and resources for Aquino and ended up being junked by some of Aquino's supporters. That was disappointing," the party insider said.
But he acknowledged that Binay's last-minute but aggressive campaigning among mayors on Panay Island dented Roxas' hometown lead.
Binay's people approached mayors, even those aligned with the LP, offering money and trying to win them over to an Aquino-Binay tandem, the LP leader claimed.
The junking of Roxas by Aquino supporters and the last-minute campaign of Binay supporters are seen as the reason Roxas did not lead by as large a margin as expected even in his supposed bailiwicks.
In Capiz, Roxas won over Binay with a margin of 116,526 votes—204,839 votes for Roxas against 88,313 votes for Binay.
final count: jejomar binay wins by 727T votes, 41.6% of the vote
bad news for mar roxas – both SWS and Pulse Asia exit polls show a Jejomar Binay win
the current COMELEC and GMA7 unofficial partial tally of votes put jejomar binay and mar roxas to close to call with a spread of only 800T votes with binay leading but 6 million votes still uncounted. binay has claimed victory, saying only an electronic garci can change the outcome while roxas says he will win by a squeaker when the votes from visayas are counted, roxas' bailiwick. both are saying these are based on reports from their supporters who are in the field.
however, both SWS and Pulse Asia exit polls point to a binay win with pulse asia giving it to binay with a 5.3% points margin. with a 1% sampling error, that puts binay a slight winner. SWS gives it to binay a 2.4% points margin.
roxas saying the visayas as his bailiwick is being confirmed by the pulse asia exit poll where he dominates with 54.7% versus binay's 25.4%. however, binay dominates roxas almost with the same large margin in all other areas – NCR, Luzon and Mindanao.
source: http://pulseasia.com.ph/pulseasia/story.asp?ID=720
source: http://www.sws.org.ph/
at 90%, binay still leads with 802T: partial unofficial tally
why the loren legarda campaign collapsed – the drama queen factor
loren legarda's ratings in the poll to begin with was bad,, mar roxas dominating the polls for vice-presidentiables from the very beginning, with mar enjoying double the ratings that legarda was getting.
recent movements in the polls for the vice-presidential race show dramatic changes – with jejomar binay resurgent, roxas softening while legarda collapsing badly.
what? jejomar binay?
that is the question most have been asking, binay has not done anything spectacularly different and attention calling in the recent weeks., how did binay manage to now be in the running in the election?
first, it's the halo effect from a resurgent erap estrada. estrada and binays poll results rose at about the same time. estrada gaining in the polls had a positive effect on binay.
more than that, binay's poll ratings went up as he gained supporters from the collapse of legarda in the polls. it appears a large part of those who abandoned legarda went to binay and much less to roxas. binay was the biggest beneficiary of the collapse of the legarda campaign.
we think advertising has a lot to do with it as well. from what we have seen, legarda have had a lot more tv ads aired over binay. but a look at the ads of legarda tells us these were ads that she should have not aired at all.
the ads of legarda depicted her as the essential drama queen with her melodramatic, pa-drama effect delivery of her lines, the slow motion camera movements (or at least that is how it seems) and the ho-hum messages. the legarda tv ads was just too personal and intimate – the idea of loren legarda taking care of everyone, the mother hen who will fix everything.
what makes these ads worst is the way she delivered her lines. she delivered all of them in a hushed, slow paced, tear jerky type of delivery that it makes the whole ad insincere, fake and we are sure to many very funny. it was just too much on the emotions. or at least a trying hard effect on tugging at the hearts of voters.
we have written about legarda here before the election and we called her the drama queen for keeping us in so much in suspense if first will she run for president, then next as vice-president, then with what political party. in every interview during that time, she kept on the drama of suspending for all of us to watch the number of times she changed her mind and the length of time she needed to decide what to do with here political career.
we think in theses ads legarda simply carried true what she really is – a drama queen.
The 2010 Presidentiables Blog Poll For Vice-Presidentiables – bayani fernando is #1
January 2, 2010, 7pm – yasay surges to 3rd place with 10%. fernando keeps dominance at 48%, followed by roxas at 19% at 3rd.
December 10, 2009, 7am – bayani fernando takes an early and commanding lead at 45%, followed by mar roxas at 25%. the rest of the vice-presidentiables are very far behind with binay at 8%. "none of the above" in this poll is high at 9%.
December 2, 2009 – we are opening a fresh poll for the vice-presidential election that includes only the official list, those candidates who filed their Certificate Of Candidacy the deadline of submission of which was yesterday.
Please vote. The software will allow to to vote only once.
jejomar binay on a miracle ride, ties mar roxas in May 2010 SWS survey
where did all of this come from? what just happened?
those are the exact questions we asked ourselves when we read the news. we saw the rise of binay in the polls, but we did not expect his meteoric rise in the polls. we don'r remember seeing new tv ads or new statements made by binay to explain the movements on binay's ratings. we thought it was just a halo effect coming from the rise of estrada in the polls.
for sure, the fall of loren legarda has a lot to do on this one. together with manny villar, loren legarda has been showing weak ratings. we think the supporters of legarda are abandoning him and binay is the beneficiary of that movement, not roxas.
now we have a real competition in the VP race. it will be an interesting run until election day.
Binay ties Roxas; Noynoy widens lead in new SWS survey
The vice presidential race continued to heat up as the elections draw nearer, with Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay tying Senator Manuel Roxas II, who previously dominated pre-election surveys.
In the latest survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) last May 2 to 3, Binay and Roxas received a voting preference of 37 percent each. The results were posted on Thursday by television personality Kris Aquino-Yap on her official Twitter account.
Kris is the youngest sister of presidential front runner Sen. Benigno Aquino III.
The survey was supposedly commissioned by BusinessWorld. The results are expected to be made public on Friday. BusinessWorld refused to comment on the matter, even as sources from the Aquino camp confirmed the results.
Roxas' rating was two points lower, while Binay picked up 12 points from the poll conducted last April. [See: Roxas rating drops as Binay's picks up]
Sen. Loren Legarda, who previously ranked second, dropped by 12 points to score 12 percent.
In the presidential derby, meanwhile, Aquino has widened further his lead, getting 42 percent.
Former President Joseph Estrada, who obtained 20 percent, zoomed past former second placer Senator Manuel Villar Jr., who received a 19-percent voting preference.
Administration bet Gilberto Teodoro Jr. scored 9 points. — LBG, GMANews.TV


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Something dramatic is happening in Iran – And it has nothing to do with sanctions or missiles. The Iranian people are taking to the streets and making their voices heard to demand change – To demand an end to the autocratic regime which has denied them their rights for decades. These public displays of discontent are especially dramatic in a country which severely punishes dissent. They are desperate voices begging to be heard. Sadly, it appears that few media outlets are listening.
Instead, coverage from Iran this week has been dominated by geo-political developments. In The Guardian, Patrick Wintour reports on the fallout from an Iranian missile test, which US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said violates a United Nations resolution. Wintour claims that the missile test could prompt the UK and France to conclude "Iran's broader behaviour as so dangerous that their support for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal can no longer be justified." The aftermath of Tehran's missile test is also a focus in Reuters, which quotes Iran's military spokesman vowing to continue such behaviour "for defence and the country's deterrence."
Further examples of Iranian aggression have also made international headlines this week. Another Reuters report notes that Iran's navy launched a new destroyer, liable to exacerbate tensions "with arch-enemy, the United States." Meanwhile, in the UK's Telegraph, Con Coughlin reports that "Iran is using teams of hit squads in Iraq to silence critics of Iranian attempts to meddle in Iraq's new government." And in the Washington Post, Erin Cunningham reports that Iranian anti-corruption courts established recently to stave off popular criticism of the government, has handed down several death sentences.
There is clearly an enthusiastic interest in reporting Iranian military posturing, domestic brutality and similarly reprehensible behaviour. Yet, at the same time, the global media appears to be suffering from a case of cognitive dissonance. Because while Iranian violations make headlines, their inevitable consequence, the desperate public calls for change, have apparently fallen on deaf ears.
The task of reporting these brave protests taking place in Iran seems to have fallen almost solely to Sam Stevenson in UK's Daily Express, who leads with the stark headline, "THOUSANDS of Iranians stage 'DEATH TO ROUHANI' protests in defiance of 'ROTTEN' regime." Stevenson reports that mass demonstrations have taken place following walk-outs at steel and sugar works, and now in schools, sparked by unpaid salaries and poor conditions. Most interestingly of all, the virulent target of the protesters' anger is clear. Crowds have chanted "down with Khamenei" and "death to Rouhani," going as far as to proclaim "Even if we die, we will get our rights." This is the voice of an angry and desperate people, clearly prepared to go to extreme lengths to replace the despotic theocracy in Tehran.
And the protests reported by Stevenson are no isolated event. The local Al-Arabiya reported recent protests by steel workers in Ahwaz, which lasted for weeks. Again, the target of these demonstrations was clear, with crowds chanting "Leave Syria and think about us" and "death to this deceitful government." And the Ahwaz protests followed hot on the heels of demonstrations at the Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Mill, which have been equally vociferous and critical of the government. In short, there is a clear pattern, an unmistakable trend – It is a popular call for regime change.
The only question is, when will the global media give it the coverage it deserves? What will it take? Will it need pitched street battles for the media scribes and cameras to turn their heads and acknowledge what is unfolding? Certainly, there is every chance that Iran's leaders will resort to violence if necessary. In Stevenson's Daily Express piece, head of Iran's judiciary Sadegh Larijani, made a not-so-veiled threat, saying "We must deal with those who want to disrupt the order of the country, under the pretext of pursuing the demands of workers." Tehran would surely think twice about such tactics if the full force of the media glare were focused on Iran.
This week was another reminder that there is a real media appetite to cover Iranian aggression, whether it is missiles, hit squads or beheadings. But the time has surely come for journalists and editors to connect the dots. They must begin to acknowledge that the Iranian public is angry, despairing and demands change. Failure to give voice to these cries of desperation could have equally desperate consequences.


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You can use Time Slicing to examine behaviors between certain periods. Each Segment Variable can be time sliced meaning that you can classify an individual's behavior by examining activity during certain periods.
A Segment Condition has the following format:
- Segment Variable <"Qualifier">, [TIME], TEST "Value"
- e.g. Percent of Spend on Category <"Shoes">, [Since "1st January 2015"], Is Greater Than '20%'
The available [TIME] time slices are:
- Total– for all time available in the data
- Last Visit– considers only activities in the last visit
- Since– since a specific date up until today. You can set the value to "Today", "<'X'> O'clock today," "Yesterday" or a specific date (DD/MM/YYYY)
- Between– between 2 dates (DD/MM/YYYY) to (DD/MM/YYYY)
- Last– Last "Month", Last "Year", Last "MM" - e.g. Last January, Last "DD" - e.g. Last "Monday", Last <'X'> Years – e.g. Last 2 Years, Last <'X'> Months, Last <'X'> Days, Last <'X'> Hours.
- Prior– Prior to <'X'> Years, Months, Days, Hours – e.g. Prior to 2 years ago
- In– In Month, e.g. In January (This Year), Month of Year – e.g. In August 2014, Year – e.g. In 2013
This gives you a very powerful segmentation tool. So for example, you may want to target people who spend a lot of their money with you on shoes recently, and offer them related promotions.


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Do You Have the 1 Percent?
Nutrition can seem terribly complicated, and when people shift from the Standard American Diet to a plant-based diet, they can be worried about "doing it right." In fact, there are entire websites designed to make you worry! It can seem so complicated that it hardly seems worth the effort.
Today, I'm going to boil it all down to the 1% that you really need to know, and then you can explore the other 99% when you get around to it.
First, I just want to say I've invested a lot of time learning nutrition, and I don't want to downplay the value of learning the details. However, knowing these details isn't terribly important in terms of choosing your food on a daily basis. In fact, it's often a case of losing sight of the forest for the trees — or should I say losing sight of the garden for the kale.
Okay . . . enough of the preamble. Are you ready? Here comes the 1 percent!
Eat plants. Eat only plants. Eat a variety of different plants. Eat them raw and cooked. And eat them as close to how they came out of the garden (or orchard) as possible. (And supplement with Vitamin B12.) * (see note below)
That's it!
Could it really be that simple?
That's all you need to know to choose a healthy, life-supporting diet.
The other 99% is just about explaining why that's all you need to do. But it can sound so complicated that we lose the simple message — eat plants!
Here's a very quick summary of the other 99 percent, just to help you feel reassured about the 1 percent.
Plants contain ALL the nutrients our bodies need, in a form that supports great health. They have protein (yes, they do!), fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytochemicals, and fiber. The largest land animals get all the nutrition they need from eating plants, and so can we.
You can study which plants are higher in which nutrients, and how these nutrients protect your health is which ways, but the bottom line is, we do best when we eat a variety of plants because we get the whole symphony of nutrients. Do you need to know how an oboe is made to enjoy hearing the orchestra?
Animal products do NOT have all the nutrients we need, and, in fact, animal products are very damaging to our health. There is a lot of research describing the type and extent of this damage. However, you can understand the importance of not stepping in front of a speeding truck without knowing exactly which organ is first to die because of the impact.
Processed foods have most of their nutrients removed (not good) and lots of other, unhealthy things added (not good). You can study the research showing how chemical additives wreak havoc with our health, and which ones are worst. But do yout really need to know whether Drano or ammonia is worse for you to understand that they should NOT be consumed?
So, I actually recommend that you learn a few things to support your awareness that the 1 percent is all you need to know to choose a healthy diet. One place to start is at www.nutritionfacts.org. Dr. Greger provides a short, entertaining, daily video about the latest nutrition research that supports the wisdom of the 1 percent.
You can also get a very good grasp of the scope of great plant-based nutrition in my online course, The Yes to Life Nutrition & Cooking Course or if you prefer a live class check out, The Yes to Life Solution to Get Slim & Healthy.
But PLEASE, in all the fascinating details you'll learn, don't lose sight of the simplicity of eating a plant-based diet. It really does boil down to:
Eat plants. Eat only plants. Eat a variety of different plants. Eat them raw and cooked. And eat them as close to how they came out of the garden (or orchard) as possible. (And supplement with Vitamin B12.)*
[*Vitamin B12 is not made by plants or animals — it is made by bacteria. In the "old days" we consumed this bacteria while eating wild plants. Now that we wash our food, we need to take a B12 supplement.]
I'm curious — does getting clarity about this 1% help you know what to eat and feel comfortable with it?
Please share in the comments section below.
Leave a Reply.
Delisa is a plant-based nutrition and cooking instructor in Alaska. She believes that we are designed to be slim and healthy.
February 2020


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text: You can have a smooth career transition at any age with the help of a career coach! A career coach has the expertise to assist you in achieving satisfying work and life roles which are in line with your interests and skills. Download Jenni Proctor's latest e-book, "New Job for Older Workers: A Practical Guide to a Rewarding Career Change" on Amazon now!


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Peach Week! Lafayette Peach Festival Cobbler Recipe
Lafayette Peach Festival Cobbler
The Lafayette Peach Festival is 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 18. More info: Lafayette Chamber, 303-666-9555. Adapted from the now-closed Karen's in the Country, this recipe serves 10-12.
10 medium peaches, peeled and sliced 1/2-inch thick
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cranberry juice, divided
2 ttablespoons (scant) cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups pastry or all-purpose flour
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter (If using salted butter, omit salt from dry ingredients.)
1 egg
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup milk
In a large saucepan over medium heat, bring peaches, lemon juice, sugar, salt and 1/2 cup cranberry juice to a boil. Mix remaining cranberry juice and cornstarch and add to peaches. Boil until juice is clear. Add almond extract. (This can be made ahead and stored in refrigerator for up to 1 week.)
Topping: Stir flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter until pieces are the size of walnut halves.
In a separate bowl, mix egg, cream and milk.
Add liquid to dry mix and stir 16 revolutions in bowl. (This develops structure.) Turn onto floured board and knead 12 times. (This develops layering or sheeting.)
Roll out to about 1/2-inch thick and cut into 12 2 1/2-inch rounds. (Or pat walnut-sized balls into discs.)
Pour filling into a 9-by-12-inch pan and top with cobbler.
Bake at 375 degrees 15-20 minutes or until peaches are bubbly and topping is golden brown.


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While looking through some documentation about Microsoft Azure App Insights I noticed a typo in the documentation. In the past that would mean trying to get into contact with the author by email, convincing her/him to update the article, ... Nowadays Microsoft provides an easy link to update the content via Github and markdown and that's what I did. Once you updated the documentation and are satisfied with it you can make a pull request so that the owner of the original repro can either accept it or deny it. Mine got accepted pretty quickly and is already online. It's great to see this kind of potential involvement by the community from Microsoft. So..., what are you waiting for? Go check out the documentation and improve it where possible.
The pull request that got accepted itself is: https://github.com/Azure/azure-content/pull/3463#event-295012378
The documentation that got updated: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/app-insights-javascript/
Grz, Kris.
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