Why, then, have I started blocking ads?

Simple. Companies that insist on using tricks to try to force you to look at ads you don’t want to see. Pop-up and pop-under ads, for example.

Worse, to me, is those ads that pop up if you simply mouse over text in the middle of a news story. This is the epitome of skanky behavior on the part of advertisers. It’s offensive and disruptive. This is why I block ads now. If advertisers would simply realize, “Hey, if we only put some ads here and there in the main page and refrain from making them stunningly distracting, from interfering with the actual usability of the site,” then I would be perfectly happy to turn off the ad blockers and let the ads back into my life.

Until then, I’ll block the ads.

For the last few days, my iMac, which I use when I’m writing because I have so much screen space on it (three screens, courtesy of the integrated screen, the video port, and a USB->DVI converter box), has been acting oddly.

Yesterday I ran some tests on it, and lo and behold, TechTool Pro tells me the video subsystem is bad. Apple’s hardware test utility says the disk controller is bad. I have no idea what exactly the problem is, but clearly all is not well in iMac-land.

So I have an appointment to take it in for service tomorrow evening. In the meantime, I’m working on the MacBook Pro.  Which is a great machine, except I don’t have a really good place to work on my laptop for extended periods. My desk is far too crowded to put a laptop on, so I’m working in the living room. Which is not the optimal place to work for many reasons, both ergonomic and Sophie-nomic.

The point to this pathetic little rant: if you’re expecting or hoping for something from me, I’m running a bit behind at the moment, so please be patient! Sorry!

Yeah, it’s a stupid show. Blame my musician brother for getting me hooked on it. He insisted on watching while he was visiting last year, and I’ve been unable to kick it since then.

Although I wound up voting for McCain in the end, this was a tough call for me this year.  It’s the first time I wasn’t able to make up my mind many months before the election.  That says something, although I admit I’m not sure what.

While I certainly understand the passion people can have, especially for someone as engaging as Mr. Obama, I don’t get the kind of hate that flows in the other direction.  It’s shameful, and it makes me sad to have to listen to it from so many people I otherwise like and admire.

All that aside, congratulations to President-Elect Obama.  Good job, and good luck, sir.

This is especially critical now, with our relationship with Russia taking on a more complicated edge, and with Congress about to recess without approving permission to buy more seats on future Soyuz craft. As NASA administrator Mike Griffin says, this is going to almost unavoidably result in a period of time during which only the Russians will be aboard the International Space Station.

This can’t be allowed to happen. Congress needs to get off its butt and fund both the Space Shuttle through 2014 as well as fully fund the Constellation program. It’s time to man up, boys, and do what needs to be done to ensure the United States maintains its leadership role in space exploration.

I have far too many left-leaning friends with whom I have extremely strong differences of opinion to engage in political debate with them. They tend to all come at me at once, so that I feel like I’m being ganged up on by them and their (from my perspective) ill-informed views.

It’s not conducive to legitimate discussion, and I always wind up offended and frustrated, which usually results in me storming off in a huff.

Here are a few examples of ways good friends can force me to withdraw from a political discussion in sheer exasperation:

1. Repeatedly call our leaders lunatics or idiots without backing it up with any kind of logical argument.  Me, if I don’t like someone, I just say that.  Just because I disagree with someone doesn’t make them an idiot or a lunatic.
2. Insist that someone’s motives are entirely driven by greed, malice, or sadism, despite a total lack of evidence that such is the case.  If you honestly think that, you’d better have a reason for it, otherwise shut the hell up.  Just because you don’t understand why someone does something doesn’t mean their motives are impure.
3. Argue that our country shouldn’t defend its interests, no matter where in the world those interests lie.  Isolationism doesn’t work, and never has.

I think it’s a low form of debate to use such arguments as 1-3, and I think people that don’t think we should defend our interests around the world are just stupid. I’m fine with arguing degrees to which things should be done, but to flat-out argue against it is insane.

Is it possible that the cable modem is somehow damaging the routers plugged into it? I have no idea, but it seems hard to believe that so many routers — each a different brand — would be defective.

I’m starting to wonder if the fact that I keep having trouble with Charter is because searching Google for “hate Charter” finds this blog as the top hit…

In more directly Mozilla related news, I hope to have the new MDC stuff into version control so that localizers can work on the skin. I have detailed instructions for how to go about doing it, which I’ll post prominently once the SVN access is ready.

That’s all well and good.

Here’s the problem: despite saying on the package that this protector is for the iPod touch, the overlay is too small to cover the entire screen.  I’m not just saying that it doesn’t cover the entire front of the iPod (which is what I’d rather hoped it would).  It doesn’t even cover the entire display area of the screen.  It’s a good quarter-centimeter too small in both dimensions.

Don’t waste your money on this thing until they fix it.

Does anyone make a protective iPod touch screen overlay that covers the entire front of the unit?

Have yet to actually successfully run Windows XP on Parallels 3 since then.  Crashes 100% of the time during or immediately after startup.   And of course the updated VM won’t work in Parallels 2.5, so even though I’ve reinstalled 2.5, I’m now having to install and set up a new VM from scratch.

As I write this post, XP is rebooting after installing its second batch of updates.  I’m not sure how many more there will be.  Then I can start installing the apps I need on it.

Tedious.

It’s the first time a Parallels update (including betas) hasn’t worked flawlessly for me.  Frustrating.