Archive for September 29th, 2011
‘The Wire’ Actors: Where Are They Now?
Like most “Wire” fans who deeply and un-healthily lament the loss of a beloved masterpiece, the mere mention of anyone associated with the HBO ensemble drama sends simultaneous shivers of fear and joy and heartache through my bones. When one grows so attached to a group of characters, seeing them out of context feels like some sort of cruel joke.
“Hey! What’s Avon Barksdale doing on an episode of “House?” He’s supposed to be in prison. This isn’t possible. This just isn’t possible.”
(That is a blockquote of me talking to my television screen during a rerun of “House,” in case you were curious.)
I Can Hear You Now | Product Reviews | Wired.com
I’ve just discovered where those voices in my head have been coming from.
The culprit is the Songbird Clear sound enhancement device I’ve been testing the past few days. It’s not a hearing aid per se. It’s a tiny sound amplifier that fits into your ear and looks like a hearing aid.
Hearing aids, which can cost thousands of dollars and require several trips to the doctor, can replace sounds the ear has lost, like high and low frequencies. The Songbird Clear, on the other hand, is sold over the counter at drugstores for about $120 and boosts sounds your ears are already capable of hearing. It just makes them louder.
The sound it produces, however, is akin to being in a stadium with the announcer’s voice lodged permanently inside your head. Imagine this — whenever you’re talking to somebody, they sound as though they’re calling out the starting lineup over the public address system at the ballgame. You get the same effect whether watching television, using the phone, or enjoying an afternoon brew with the boys.
The Songbird Clear, made by Songbird Hearing of North Brunswick, New Jersey, also picks up background noise. As I paced my house, the creaking of the hardwood floors beneath my footsteps sounded like a Gatling gun.
Next, I thought the traffic speeding outside my house was about to crash through the front door. While writing this review, the clicks from my Magic Mouse sounded like a Zippo cigarette lighter opening and shutting, and the noise coming from my keyboard was less like gentle typing and more like a Sammy Davis, Jr. tap dance.
I just started working at Chili’s and I am shocked. : reddit.com
Its my first post and I am ashamed that it is me bitching about something, but my mind is just blown. It is not that the food at Chili’s is dirty or the cooks spit in it or anything like that. Chili’s is actually run well and run clean. What I -am- upset about is the food. They don’t actually ‘cook’ anything so to speak. People are paying them to heat up a microwaveable dinner.
All of the food (Minus the mashed potatoes which are SO good) comes in a bag to be heated. All of your sides, pastas, veggies, deserts, all in bags. They are heated up at the start of the service, and then heated again when you order it. This means that your food has been cooked three times before it even gets to you, and has been made with very sub par produce.
All of the meats (Burgers, steaks, etc) are cooked the day before and put in the fridge while still hot. Not only is that unsanitary, but just rude. These steaks that people pay so much for are then kept in the fridge for up to 5 days hoping it will be lucky enough to get selected for cooking. It is then reheated after being cooked and shocked.
Everything comes out of a microwave minus the fried foods like crispers, french fries, and onion strings. You are literally paying $10 to eat a meal that tastes exactly like a microwaveable dinner because it -is- a microwaveable dinner. They use shitty produce, low grade meat, and prepare it in an awful way. Don’t eat here any more. Support your local restaurants and not these guys.
via I just started working at Chili’s and I am shocked. : reddit.com.
Future of New York tech
We get asked a lot about the New York startup scene.
In particular, people want to know what will happen to startups when investors close their checkbooks.
Based on everything we’ve seen, here’s what we think will happen.
What’s been happening to startups
According to a study by Gridley & Company, more than 200 New York digital startups have been founded in the past few years.
The 200 startups are attracting much-needed talent to the tri-state area. But, instead of joining high-potential startups, engineers are founding mediocre companies.
There are a lot of small teams building small ideas. The companies won’t amount to anything; they’re able to exist because investors have been giving them cash.
Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz said that if Facebook was founded today, it wouldn’t survive. It would struggle to attract talent because it is no longer cool to join someone else’s startup. Everyone wants one of their own.
Dylan Ratigan: Get Money Out: Join 100,000 Americans
Money has bought our politics. Only we the people can take it back. But, HOW?
I have asked a professional lobbyist and a series of Constitutional scholars. They tell me that it will require a large, unrelenting, organized group aligned around a Constitutional Amendment to Get Money Out of politics.
So here is a draft of an Amendment and here is a petition to start the movement.
Read the Amendment and add your signature.
Our goal is to get a large, unrelenting, organized group to sign on to a petition asking our politicians to ban money in politics. If we can get it big enough, we can use my show on MSNBC as a platform to force this issue to the center of next year’s Presidential debate. Without you I am just a talking head. With you we are 100,000 American s for Justice.
So join us, at GetMoneyOut.com
(Lots of) Earth-like planets are very likely – Boing Boing
About one-third of sun-like stars are predicted to have at least one terrestrial planet in a habitable zone, says California Institute of Technology astronomer Wesley Traub after studying data from the Kepler orbiting observatory.
via (Lots of) Earth-like planets are very likely – Boing Boing.
BBC News – Facebook fixes ID cookie glitch
Facebook has said that it has “fixed” cookies that could have tracked users after they logged out of the site.
The issue was brought to light by an Australian blogger who has conducted a year-long analysis of the social network’s use of cookies.
He concluded the company might still be able to track members’ web browsing after they logged out, albeit only on websites that integrate with Facebook.
The Australian privacy commissioner is reportedly investigating the issue.
In a statement, the firm told the BBC that it had done nothing wrong.
“There was no security or privacy breach—Facebook did not store or use any information it should not have. Like every site on the internet that personalises content and tries to provide a secure experience for users, we place cookies on the computer of the user.
“Three of these cookies on some users’ computers inadvertently included unique identifiers when the user had logged out of Facebook. However, we did not store these identifiers for logged out users. Therefore, we could not have used this information for tracking or any other purpose. In addition, we fixed the cookies so that they won’t include unique information in the future when people log out.”
