$500,000 for new windows at a closed tourist center in Washington state, $6.9 million for repairs to an 1846 brick fort in the Florida Keys, accessible only by private plane or a four-hour boat ride, $2 million for California researchers to study ants in the Indian Ocean, and $762,000 for “interactive choreography programs” at the University of North Carolina.

His indignance sounds perfectly sensible, right? I mean, people are starving, we’re fighting a war wars, nobody’s driving flying cars yet, etc. And $6.9 million! That’s a lot, particularly for some fort built in 1846: nothing that old could possibly be important, right? And even if it was, a four-hour boat ride is ridiculous. Who owns a private plane?

Of course, things are never quite as simple as Fox News makes them out to be as they seem.

If you’ve never been to Dry Tortugas National Park, well, too bad for you. I won’t regurgitate the Wikipedia article, but it’s worth saying that the park is both a natural and historical wonder (see pictures below), and integral to the tourist industry of Key West. CNN had an article on the renovations earlier in the year that points out that they’ve been ongoing for the past 30 years, and will likely continue for the next 30. The Federal Register also notes that visitation at the park increased 400% from 1996 to 2000, from 23,000 to 95,000 annual visitors. Oh, and the boat ride is only two and a half hours each way.

So, let’s run the numbers again. Assume, conservatively, that they spend the $6.9 million over the next 10 years, and that visits to the park drop off to only 80,000 people a year. With those numbers, it works out to $8.63 per person.

Makes me wonder about those windows.

In addition to the loud sucking sound I hear, Buzz also appears to be evil.

First, your “would you like to turn on this feature?” screen sucked.  Too glitzy.

Second, I already have a Facebook account.  Facebook sucks too, but nowhere near as much as Buzz.

Fourth, it’s not immediately clear why I can block some people from following me, and not others.

Actually, wait a second: let’s back up one.  Third, you opted me in to following people?  You opted me in to follow a random bunch of people that I maybe once sent some email to, who could then, in turn, see who else I was following?  What the fuck were you thinking?  Have you ever heard of privacy?

If this isn’t evil, I don’t know what is.

Last, you made Turn Buzz Off a tiny link at the bottom of the page?  Thanks: that was totally the first place I looked.  It makes much more sense than having a Buzz tab in, oh, I don’t know…Settings, perhaps.

Please fire the people who came up with this idea–and the people who are responsible for its implementation–promptly.  All of them.  Even the llamas.

Sincerely,

Jerry

For the first time in my adult lifetime, I too am proud of my country.

[Edit 11/5/08: I'd be a lot prouder, though, if another 5% of CA voters had pulled their heads out of their collective asses and realized that "discriminating against people" does not help  "protect marriage".  Assholes.]

After installation, the computer was basically unusable in Windows.  Vista could not even recognize the built-in ethernet port, let alone the wireless card (let alone the bluetooth module, etc.) without having drivers installed from Dell’s DVD.  This, mind you, is on a computer with a fucking Windows Vista sticker on it.  The wonderful people at Microsoft also made me go to Dell’s website to get video drivers, since they claim that the NVIDIA ones don’t work for mobile cards.

Ubuntu, on the other hand, detected everything, and even went so far as to find an open wireless network and connect to it.  All without me having to do a damned thing.  No problems with the NVIDIA drivers, either.

Linux is ready for the desktop.

Total Ticketmaster Costs: $587.10

Sending your Mother (and your Godmother) to see her favorite band from the front row of a 25,000 seat venue: Priceless.

In other news, I’m feeling slightly more purple than €17.46.

Since I’m using Emacs 23 anyways, I’d much rather have an anti-aliased font, like, for instance Bitstream Vera Sans Mono-10, as it’s much nicer looking and easier on the eyes. However, it’s also much taller, meaning I’m down to only 85 lines per screen:

I’m sure there are fonts out there that are both short and easy on the eyes (in addition, of course, to being fixed-width, having distinct glyphs for 0 and O, i, l, and 1, etc. etc. etc.), but I don’t know of any. Can someone help me out here, please? I’ll be your best friend…

I need a haircut.

Also, here’s an excellent talk my advisor gave at the conference on the subject of my most recent research, the collaborative exploration of design spaces.

“Mr. Packer said the decision was made principally because of demographic considerations.

Only a tiny fraction of the members of underrepresented minority groups who take AP exams take the tests in one of those four affected subject areas, he said.”

Fuck them in the ear.

[Edit: Lest anyone think that I'm insensitive, let me remind you that I've published on the problem of underrepresented minorities in computer science. That being said...in both ears.]