Yahoo
Microsoft is gearing up to steal what they can’t buy, through a proxy fight. This whole thing is kind of like watching the Aggies play football – you know your team’s going to lose, but…
Mas y Menos
When we told Tim about the specifics involved in a marathon race his highly appropriate response was something along the lines of, “that sounds like something you should get paid to do, not the other way around.” I’m also pretty sure he prefaced the entire thing with an emphatic and heartfelt “you stupid hippy, why the hell would you do that?”
I can safely say that at mile 10 of the Mas y Menos this weekend in Terlingua, I couldn’t agree more. At mile 12 I was praying for any kind of mechanical failure that would necessitate as short break, and at mile 15 I actually considered selling my bike to a random Mexican dude who was watching the race and walking away forever. Nothing compared though, to mile 20 as we neared the tres cuevas climb. On the approach it went something like this –
me: Dude this is going pretty good.
germ: Yeah, not to shabby.
me: Is that the big climb (motioning to sheer, 13,000,000 ft cliff to our right)?
germ: Nah, I’m sure we’ll go back around that….
me: Oh ok, cool.
germ: Well actually…yeah, I see tiny people up there…
…and by tiny people, it was like the way 18-wheelers look like ants when your on an airplane.
This thing just went on and on. Not having the benefit of a pre-ride I tried to assault it assuming the end was a reasonable distance away. The sunofabitch just kept going up and up. One switchback after the other until, right before I started knocking my head on the International Space Stations’ solar array, there was a bunch of hippies sitting in rocking chairs and wearing oxygen tanks, welcoming us to the top, like some kind of weird patchouli-scented version of Into Thin Air with bikes. Clearly, I exaggerate a bit, but this was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever ridden a bike up.
Big bend is, well, big. It’s aptly named. Medium Bend would not do it justice. And the race fits, nothing about it is tiny, from the course, to the climb to the kickass food and free beer. There was a pancake breakfast at 5a.m. the morning of the race – you know those people had been up since 3 a.m. cooking in the freezing cold desert. The people who put this thing together are incredible – the only thing that’s been close rivaling it was the livestrong ride and that has the freakish, Lance Armstrong cult of personality to back it. This is just a bunch of people, in a tiny hippy town in west Texas putting on a big race. That’s a pretty neat thing to be a part of.
Our Democracy at Work
Look, someone else trying to get elected on a technicality that goes against the popular vote.
Now who does that remind us of?
Clinton — who initially joined other Democrats in opposing Michigan and Florida’s decisions to go ahead with early primaries — now wants the votes of those primaries counted. The Obama camp thinks that idea is unfair, since candidates were not allowed to campaign in those states, and Clinton alone kept her name on the Michigan ballot, meaning Obama did not have a chance at getting even provisional delegates. (more)
I wonder how you go about requesting that the U.N. monitor your elections for fairness and transparency. Is there like an online form somewhere?
Lake Mead
Scheduled to dry up somewhere around 2014 to 2021 according to the most recent models. We’re going to have some thirsty angry people on our hands.
FISA
FISA Bill, S. 2248, (aka the government is now allowed to listen to all your phone calls without a warrant bill) has passed the senate with retroactive immunity for the Telecom giants (who have already been doing the governments dirty deeds), intact (as in, no you can’t sue AT&T for tapping your phones illegally in the past). Also of note Obama and McCain voted to strip retroactive immunity from the bill (thereby holding them responsible for their previous, illegal actions). Clinton voted the other way couldn’t be bothered to vote.
Mobile Flash
John Gruber of Daring Fireball supposes that having Apple natively support flash would be counter-intuitive to their overall strategy.
The mobile market is wide open in ways that the desktop market is not. E.g., in the mobile OS market, Microsoft isn’t even in first place, let alone a monopoly. And, in the mobile world, Flash is rare, not ubiquitous. Why would Apple help Adobe establish Flash as a de facto standard for the mobile web, too?
My only thought here is that the users who want flash mobile, will eventually get flash mobile, one way or the other, a lesson that Apple has yet to learn even after the jailbroken-then-bricked- iPhone-hoopla last year. Whether anyone cares enough to put in the time and effort will be the real question.
CNN
Understands Europe real good like.
To the Green Mazda Protégé…
I know its scary, making a left turn across a busy highway, with no stoplight to help you, but I have to tell you you are probably not going to get an embossed invitation to execute your turn. Normally I would tear ass around you, but you were turning into the same driveway as me, making it necessary for me to sit with you in the middle of the road while angry suburban housewives narrowly avoid testing my vehicle’s 5-Star crash-test rating. As you might understand, Green Protégé, this is a little stressful for me as I have not yet had coffee, nor do I like the concept of Subaru and Wade parts scattered all over the fucking road. In the future maybe instead of sitting in the road for a solid 10 minutes waiting for a quarter mile stretch of traffic to open up, you could, I don’t know, maybe drive to the next light and make a u-turn and stop messing with my existence this early ?
Just a thought.
Primary
For the first time in my lifetime, democratic primary candidates are paying attention to Texas.