The Gripe Thread
New AnRe, new gripe thread.
How come no matter what browser I try I can’t update my Facebook status, but I’m watching people in my friends list update theirs? BUT WHO WAS PHONE?
I can no longer hear audio out of any headset when I plug it into my Xbox 360 controller. The mic seems to pick up audio, and I can hear it if I set it to play voices through the TV speakers, but with two different headsets… I can’t hear anything. Dammit, do I have to buy another 360 controller already? >=[
Arg, can’t sleep.
I’m building a site for a client; the local NBC affiliate. They want to have video on their site of segments from their news production, and they want to be able to sell ad spots to appear before the video. Sounds like a cool project, except… They’re cheaping out. They don’t want to pay to host the video themselves, instead opting to use a hosting site like Vimeo. Okay, fine, it’ll be hard getting ads to play before a Vimeo clip, but I bet I can hack a way. But who’s going to upload the video and post other content on the site? Oh, we’ll have the reporters do it; after they edit the stories in Primere to show on the broadcast, they can upload them. Right, well, those clips aren’t going to have the reporters intro/outroing the stories as is seen on pretty much all other local news sites, but I guess just the story itself can do if they paste in their teleprompter text to accompany the video or something. But the files they export for broadcast are huge MPEG-2 clips with a filesize unwieldy to upload to a video hosting site; they’ll need to export them as MPEG-4 or some other more compact codec. Are they going to have the technical knowledge to do that? More importantly, are they going to have the time to export the story again, upload it to a video hosting web site, wait for that hosting site to make the clip available, then update the station’s site with the text and video and make sure it works right? We haven’t really spoken to any of the reporters directly, but one who was in the room during a meeting when we were discussing this had an expression on her face like, “Oh, dear God.”
I know this is going to end up being a site that I put a lot of effort into and then it never gets completed and goes live once the clients realize how much effort they will have to put in to maintaining it. It’s happened at least a dozen times before, and I can see it this time from a mile away. Given that, I have a hard time motivating myself to work on it in earnest, especially given all the other concurrent projects I have at this time.
Arg.
Yup, the morning hurt, though I was able to make it through the day. Instead of going to Japanese class after work, though, I came home, wrote an email to the prof, and collapsed on my bed for three hours. Hopefully I haven’t screwed my cycle so out of whack that I won’t be able to do it again before the morning…
I’m considering going back to school full-time and was doing some research on some colleges. It really seems that everywhere in California where there’s a college, the cost of living is ridiculously high, except for Humboldt State University - which I’d like to get away from - and Sonoma State University - where I went before. I really wanted to find a school with a serious Japanese program, but I don’t know how I’d afford it if I wouldn’t be working full time too.
Hmm.
The building keeps shaking, but there don’t seem to have been any noticeable earthquakes in the area recently. Am I going crazy? On drugs, maybe?
Okay, so a while back, I found a dance CD at the used section of a record store. It was cheap, so I took a chance and bought it. And loved it.
Now this disc is the third in a series of eight. I’m now interested in picking up at least some of the others, but this series is a bit hard to find. Neither Amazon nor iTunes is selling digital copies. I did find some of the discs at a few places used, though.
I also found the entire eight-disc series available on high-quality MP3s on a particular popular BitTorrent site.
Now, as a rule, I’m against piracy. If something is available for sale, and you will gain some use and/or enjoyment out of it, you should purchase it and support the artists and manufacturers. And besides, the used CDs weren’t that expensive - between $3 and $8 apiece.
But then I realized that buying the used CDs doesn’t support the artists and manufacturers at all. They only made their profit off of the first sale. They can’t make more money again. Further, a little bit of research shows that the companies that released these discs isn’t even in business anymore.
Moral quandary. =[
I used to be against pirating music. Eventually I decided that I wasn’t going to hunt down obscure singles and club give-a-ways just to legally acquire every song from a particular artist. That opened the door. Now I’ll listen to a CD, and if I like it I’ll buy it. If I don’t then I wouldn’t have bought it in the first place. Also, for example, the band Cloud Cult has made more money off me due to me downloading their newest CD than they would have otherwise. I happened on a link to their CD while reading about another band, I listened to it, loved it, and now I’ve purchased said CD, turned a bunch of people on to them, and bought tickets for two of their shows. < / Justification >
fil:
Now I’ll listen to a CD, and if I like it I’ll buy it. If I don’t then I wouldn’t have bought it in the first place.
^ Bingo.
I think people who are in a tizzy about “piracy” need to lighten up.
President Obama gave Queen Elizabeth an iPod filled with MP3s. It’s practically guaranteed that he violated copyright law to do so. That doesn’t mean that Obama is a criminal; it means that copyright law is broken.
Albright:
But then I realized that buying the used CDs doesn’t support the artists and manufacturers at all. They only made their profit off of the first sale. They can’t make more money again. Further, a little bit of research shows that the companies that released these discs isn’t even in business anymore.Moral quandary. =[
That’s a fallacy I see a lot from anti-piracy weenies and industry hacks. Digital copies are neither legitimate nor limited; where used copies are still legitimate, limited copies and therefore have value. Buying them still removes them from the market and thus increases demand. Plus, if the industry fails to make legitimate copies available they can hardly blame the consumer for satisfying demand wherever possible. If you own something that you aren’t selling, don’t blame me because your sales are down. Arr!
Fil is correct. Since the Recording Industry’s Association of Assholes (RIAA) shut down such file sharing sites as Napster and Audio Galaxy, I have returned to a state where I rarely hear any music I like and thus have also returned to rarely buying any.
Fata is also correct in that Obama is a criminal for other reasons mostly relating to his failure to keep his vow to uphold the Constitution. =0D
There was an electronics dump day today, and I finally parted with every video game system I own earlier than my PS2. That includes two Saturns, two Dreamcasts, an SNES, an NES, two Genesi, a 32X, a NGPC, and a couple GBASPs, all in various states of repair. I hate to admit that it was a little tough, but I had already sold most all the games years ago, and had to admit that I was never going to get around to selling or using these again.
I emailed my boss Sunday morning to ask him if the office was open Monday, since he left early on Friday and nobody else who was there when I left had an answer. He hasn’t got back to me yet, but I sincerely hope the answer will be “no” because I’m behaving like it’s a three-day weekend - nearly 2:00 AM and I’m still awake, and I procrastinated on my laundry until tomorrow.
So consider this a premature gripe if the answer actually turns out to be “yes.”
My dad has to go under the knife again - they have to scrape more gunk from his heart. He was supposed to go in on Friday, but he delayed it because he wants to go to the Portuguese Hall feast tonight. I don’t know about the wisdom of delaying heart surgery to eat a bunch of cholesterol-laden foods, but that’s his choice to make, I guess.
The bummer is that he’s not obese. He’s probably in better shape than I am, actually. Between this and the cancer on both sides, I wonder if I’ll make it to age sixty myself.
FUCK we were nearing the end of working on a client’s site this afternoon, and all of a sudden he sends a message to his clients (of sorts) saying “New site will be up tomorrow!” Gee, no pressure there. Okay, not outside the realm of possibility, but we don’t control the domain name. So at about 5:10, my boss got ahold of the guy who does; I wanted to sit in on the call, but he waved me off. Well, of course, my boss gave him the wrong config info, so now we’re trading emails and phone calls and trying to get back ahold of the guy who does control it and hoping he can figure out how to configure a nameserver to send web requests to one server and email requests to another. Fuck it, I’m gonna go play Burnout Paradise and read comics.
Yes. Again. >=[
In the fall, I’m probably going to end up taking the 1B class again, even though that’s the one I just finished in the spring. That is, if they’ll let me. At the least, I can reinforce what I learned last time, which is something you can’t ever really do enough of when learning a second language. And who knows, maybe after that, there’ll be enough students to fill a higher-level class.
Earlier today, I’m on my way to work. Traffic is kind of heavy. I’m coming up on an interchange where the freeway I’m on ends and I’m turning South onto the next freeway. I’ve just passed the last entrance ramp which I know becomes an additional lane. I look in my right side view mirror and see that the only thing in this lane is a red pickup truck fifty yards back on the entrance ramp. So I check my front, turn on my signal and begin sliding over.
“SCHREECH!!!! BEEEEP!!” Somehow, in that half a second, that guy had accelerated to warp nine right up into my blind spot (I was doing about 65-70 myself). Of course, I was properly chagrined and swore to be more careful in the future - the usual stuff. A few seconds later the guy zoomed passed me, flipping me off as he went by. Okay.
That should have been the end of it, right? No harm, no fowl. I turn South, a few miles later I get off the freeway and head East and make the first turn into a residential neighborhood. I like to cut through this neighborhood to wind down from the freeway before I get to work. After the first stop sign, the vehicle in front of me pulls over and I pass. Then he pulls back out behind me and I recognize that same red pickup. Sure enough, the bastard is following me.
So, he wants to give me a piece of his mind, does he? Well, I’m not interested and I’m pretty sure that he can’t spare it. My work hours are very flexible, it’s a nice day and I have a full tank of gas. So let’s see how much time this guy has to devote to demonstrating what a monumental asshole he is. I know the area very well and can drive for miles through side streets and proceed to do just that - heading generally South and East. I’m not speeding, not trying to get away from him. I’m not even acknowledging that he’s there and he’s right on my butt the whole way.
A half an hour and a few miles later he finally gives up and heads in another direction. After a bit I head back North on a different path but there he is again. Fine, there’s a cop shop a few miles this way. Let’s go have our conversation in their parking lot, but he only follows me for a half mile this time.
I was mostly amused at the time, but now I’m a bit concerned that this psycho is going to pop up again.
I live near the city park, where the yearly rodeo is taking place. I almost didn’t have a place to park when I came home tonight because douchebags have flooded my building’s parking lot so they can walk over to the park. Some of them are parked across two spots. How fucking hard is it to park in one spot? In kindergarten, they teach you to keep it between the lines. What a bunch of fucktards.
