aside

bite me.

- mr. grumpy pants

I had a conversation with a prof today, who was wondering which app to use for hosting the activities and discussions for her online course. We were discussing the pros and cons of various options, including WordPress (via UCalgaryBlogs) and Drupal (via campus IT) and others. I wound up saying something along these lines:

Once you switch from Blackboard, everything else is so many orders of magnitude better that it really doesn’t matter what you choose.

The biggest shift is to get out of Blackboard. Everything else will flow from that.

Thank the fucking lord.

I sent this to Southland Transportation this morning, but all of the school bus operators are equally guilty.

I was nearly hit by a Southland school bus at around 8am this morning, as I was riding my bike on Varsity Drive. I was riding safely and legally in the lane, when bus #1002 passed me in the lane to my left, before swerving into my lane without signalling. The bus missed me by maybe 6 inches, and I was nearly pushed into the lane of parked cars on my right.

I wish this was a rare occurrence, but it happens nearly every day (not the same bus). It seems as though school bus drivers either have no idea how big their buses actually are, or have no concern for the safety of others on the road.

Please ensure that your drivers are properly briefed on safe driving procedures, and that they are reminded NOT to kill bicycle riders through their incompetence or negligence.

Thank you.

I think I want a Whomping Willow in my front yard…

I’ve been tweaking the CSS on my blog, as well as the photoblog. I’m getting really quite happy with how they’re set up. Of course, I’ve said that about a dozen times before, followed shortly by some radical change to the theme because I got bored…

Currently, it’s Helvetica all the way, with clean and simple traditional blog layout here, and similar concepts behind the photoblog as well. I’ve decided to fork the themes I’m using, so I can hack them a bit more than I can if I’m worried about integrating updates from the original theme developers. Don’t know how far I’ll take it, but I may play if I get time. Yeah. Right…

can I still post here? posting is busted over at mindfulseeing.com. Is it a WP 2.8.5 thing? Something borky on the server? Keep getting Page Not Found errors. Sigh.

Great, great article by Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone Magazine.

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.

and

If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain — an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.

and the tie-in to the next bubble – “green” carbon credits:

And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits — a booming trillion- dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an “environmental plan,” called cap-and-trade. The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that’s been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won’t even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.

holy. shit.

The greed inherent in unchecked capitalism is obvious. The rich get richer by sucking the less-rich into “investing” their money. They also provide “guidance” in the form of screaming “investment analysts” on cable news channels, ensuring the masses keep funnelling their retirement savings to prop up the pyramids so the rich can get their money out before it crumbles.

Why are there no mobs roving the streets with torches and pitchforks, demanding the heads of Goldman Sachs (and other leaders of this shitstorm)? Why are people taking the economic meltdown laying down?

Also, why are the best, most accurate, least adulterated sources of news and editorial critique coming from Rolling Stone Magazine and The Comedy Network? How fucked up do we have to get before we hold some feet to the coals? Does Mad Magazine need to scoop CNN on something big?