Susan Jacobson

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DilbertDailyStrip/~3/qzg1IkRDGgc/

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-12-18/

So I got the Netbook over the iPod Touch. And then I Hackintoshed it.



SpaceSword (because it's little and black and isn't made of what it's supposed to be) is beautiful and light and has all my essential applications on it and it didn't require too much crazy hacking. It is lovely and awesome. The logo sticker is actually from the era when that was the Apple logo.

And now I am set to bang out game design documents like no one's business over the holidays, right? Right?

http://www.danwei.org/front_page_of_the_day/heading_off_a_run_on_cooking_o.php

The price of cooking oil has jumped over the past few weeks, reported the China Daily this morning:

The price of 5-liter bottles of cooking oil, such as soybean oil and peanut oil, increased by 10 yuan on average this month, the China News Service reported yesterday. Some residents in cities such as Shenyang, Chengdu, Shanghai and Fuzhou, began hoarding cooking oil last week.

But officials from the National Development and Reform Commission said on Monday that serious inflation is unlikely to happen.

Today's Beijing Daily Messenger reported that the Beijing government has stepped in to stabilize the market:

The Beijing Municipal Commerce Commission issued a notice yesterday regarding the purchase limitations on cooking oil that some supermarkets have put in place. The notice said that sellers may not conduct volume or time-limited sales promotions for cooking oil, and that there is not currently a shortage of cooking oil on the Beijing market at the present time.

Talk of a price hike on cooking oil has been circulating since the beginning of December, and many city residents have begun buying four or five bottles at a time to stockpile at home. Small-scale vendors have even taken advantage of supermarket price promotions to buy large quantities of cooking oil in the hopes of making a tidy profit after the price goes up. In response, some supermarkets have limited purchases to two bottles per customer. A notice issued by the Municipal Commerce Commission yesterday told citizens not to panic: "Stocks and sales of cooking oil in Beijing are entirely normal. There is no undersupply problem."

The Commission asked the government and private enterprises to strengthen their communication with suppliers in order to supplement and expand the timely release of cooking oil stocks so that shelves can remain stocked and shortages and stockouts can be avoided. It also asked that cooking oil sales be closely monitored, and any shortages and bulk purchases immediately reported to the Commission.

Tags: Beijing Daily Messenger, cooking oil

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Mainland accessible mirror on Danwei.TV

http://www.danwei.org/publishing/chinas_vital_role_in_chinese_s.php

Liu Cixin (刘慈欣) is probably the most popular Chinese science fiction author of the last decade, and the third volume of his Three Body trilogy is the most hotly-anticipated novel of the coming year.

Zhen Yufei (甄煜飞), a book planner and editor, posted the following short comment to his Sina microblog:

Famous Chinese science fiction author Liu Cixin — remember, he's a science fiction writer. A science fiction writer writes science fiction. When we sent this author's work to the publisher for review and approval, they rejected it. The reason they gave for rejecting it was that China no longer existed in the world he depicted in the novel!

via Pan Haitian.

Note: My translation of an excerpt of Liu Cixin's military-themed SF novel Ball Lightning can be found in the current issue of Words Without Borders magazine.

Tags: Liu Cixin, Pan Haitian, science fiction

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Mainland accessible mirror on Danwei.TV

There is a beautiful calico cat (either a very small cat or just an adolescent kitten) hanging out on my porch (at 47th and Spruce) right now. She is gray, white, and orange, and while she's timid she also seems to have been a housecat at some point -- she let me pick her up once she got used to me, although she didn't like it too much. As near as I can tell, she has all her claws. No collar, no tags. She's not one of the familiar strays from the neighborhood, though, so I'm figuring she's either lost or recently abandoned.

Did anyone lose her? Alternately, is there anyone who would be able to take her in? It's awfully cold, and while I've given her food and a box to sleep in, I can't bring her inside due to my husband's allergies (and the strictures of my lease, but the whole wheezing and swelling up thing is something I take more seriously). Seriously, though, she's gorgeous.

Please email me at crowyhead@gmail.com if you have any knowledge of who she belongs to, or if you're interested in taking her in. I'll be going to bed soon, but since we've given her food and a relatively comfy place to sleep, it wouldn't surprise me if my porch becomes her home base for the time being.

Hi all,
my name is Kate. I'm 21, and my dad is an alcoholic. he's almost 4 months sober, goes to AA meetings every morning, and we've been able to be very open about it. I can ask questions

I'm home for winter break from college, and want to make a beef stew. problem is, it calls for a lot of red wine.

I know alcohol will cook out of a lot of dishes, and he said it won't be a problem. I have no reason to not trust him, but I wanted to see if anyone has advice or a similar experience of cooking for someone with an alcohol problem. any suggestions, advice or experiences would be wonderful.

thank you all :)

05:17 WANT: bit.ly/6u2SRI #

05:17 WANT: bit.ly/7KsBAk #

05:17 WANT: bit.ly/5k869e #

13:40 AZ GOP Chief used GOP voter database to facilitate creepy-ass, ILLEGAL stalking "We can do what we want with the list": is.gd/5rwxt #

13:44 Pounds of yak hair used in the Broadway production of Cats: 2,488 harpers.org/x/1996/4/14 (via @harpers) #

15:10 A partial and sobering list of aid workers abducted or killed in 20 countries in 2009 bit.ly/7iA9jY #humanrights (via @JonHutson) #

15:12 Hacking the Predator drone: Cheaper than dinner and a movie bit.ly/5y7liO (via @BoingBoing) #

15:33 Journalist Fired After Column That Was Critical Of Major Advertisers dlvr.it/6MS (via @techdirt) #

15:43 NYT: "Intelligence Improperly Collected on U.S. Citizens" www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/us/17disclose.html (via @EFF) #

15:49 Moving #Gitmo is NOT Closing Gitmo ow.ly/N9em #Guantanamo #torture #terrorism (via @amnesty) #

15:51 Not Just Drones: Militants Can Snoop on Most U.S. Warplanes bit.ly/5MWFiX (via @dangerroom) #

15:53 If Congress doesn't reauthorize the Patriot Act, America's companies will step in: bit.ly/89rLfG (via @privacyint) #

15:56 At one point, the U.S. Mint was spending $35,000 a year to store 122 million unwanted Susan B. Anthony dollar coins. (via @mental_floss) #

17:18 Become a Guardian of Liberty with the ACLU. Sign up today! tr.im/HVNW #aclu (via @ACLU) #

17:23 TV characters can spread racial attitudes among viewers, new research suggests. ow.ly/Na0A (via @Discovery_News) // NO, REALLY? #

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http://consumerist.com/2009/12/t-mobile-down-throughout-southern-states.html

What the heck? Did you guys strike early and target the wrong wireless carrier? The day before the possibly-ill-conceived "Operation Chokehold" is supposed to bring AT&T's wireless network to a standstill, T-Mobile steals all the bad press by going out this evening across large parts of the Southeastern US and Puerto Rico.

Update: Immediately after posting this, T-Mobile announced the service was back up.

UPDATED 12/17 6:40pm PST: Some T-Mobile customers in the Southeastern United States and Puerto Rico experienced intermittent service degradation for voice and data services earlier today. We are pleased to report that T-Mobile has fixed the equipment malfunction. Full service has been restored to our customers. We again apologize for any inconvenience to impacted customers in the region.

---

Here's the original post:

We got tipped off by Tyler in Alabama, who wrote in with this update two hours ago:

I live in Mobile, Alabama, in the most southern-part tip of the state on the Gulf, and have been without T-Mobile phone service since early this afternoon, alongside all of my friends and family.

After a discussion with a customer service rep, I've found out that service has collapsed all across Alabama, and is rolling outward from there (whatever in hell that means). The rep wouldn't tell me much more, but indicated that it is exceptionally widespread, and is spreading, but left me without details.

She told me (after several attempts at calling, during which I was told all lines were busy) that in my state there are complaints that extend all the way past Montgomery and towards Birmingham, in the upper most section of the area, which seems to say it is blanketing the whole shebang.

There was no ETA for when it will come back, and there is absolutely no way to contact them via cell; I had to call on a landline.

There's no word yet on what's behind the outage, but T-Mobile says, "[Our] engineers and rapid response teams are working urgently to restore full service in impacted areas as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing our customers.”

"T-Mobile Outage Strikes Southern Parts Of United States" [The Inquisitr]

http://consumerist.com/2009/12/citicorp-deferred-interest-trap-springs-shut-on-man-who-underpaid-by-11.html

I suspect some readers will say that Assefa Senbet is to blame for screwing up one of his final payments to Citibank on a deferred interest loan agreement. They'll be right--it was his responsibility. But he didn't skip a payment, and he wasn't late. In fact, he frequently overpaid in order to pay it off early. Near the end of the loan, however, he sent in a check for $70 instead of $81. As a consequence, he's now paying off $887 in deferred interest fees at a 30% interest rate.

The Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul published Senbet's story yesterday. The article focuses on Senbet's generally All Around Good Guy status--he enjoys watching National Geographic and religious programs, he's worked as a parking attendant for 10 years, he was born in Ethiopia but he's now a U.S. Citizen. But Senbet could be my crazy Aunt Francis who drinks paint thinner, abuses grocery store clerks, and throws cats at the neighbors, and it wouldn't matter. What's important is that the terms of the deferred interest agreement are so extreme that a single, small error on your part can cost you huge amounts of money.

[Citicorp] dropped its "Penalty Pricing" hammer, billing Senbet $887 for interest going back to the date he purchased the television. Citicorp is now charging him 30 percent interest on that outstanding debt, making a payoff nearly impossible.

"I'm very confused," said Senbet, who has parked cars for 10 years. "I don't want to pay for this for the rest of my life."

[...]

Monday, Senbet got Citicorp's curt response letter saying: tough luck.

"We expect the same from all our clients no matter where they come from," wrote Citicorp's Tomeka Harris.

I don't know anyone who can predict the future so well that he can confidently enter into a contract like the one Citicorp offered Senbet. Let's say you're positive you'll never make a casual mistake when making a payment. What if a technical difficulty beyond your control interfered with a remittance? What if someone stole the money from your account and your payment bounced? What if you lost your job?

Offers like this one are deliberately designed to entrap consumers--make any mistake and the punishment will have nothing to do with your error, but it will be costly, and the bank will make a fortune off of you.

It's like if you wanted to play basketball but didn't have a ball, and I'm a prosthetic arm salesman who comes through town and says, "Here's a basketball. Play with it all you like. However, it's made of nitroglycerin so if you bounce it too hard it's going to explode and probably take off a limb." Why would anyone think it's okay for me to go around handing out basketballs to people?

"$11 mistake earns 0.0% sympathy from Citigroup" [StarTribune.com] (Thanks to Grant!)

http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2009/12/17/askthepilot345/index.html?source=rss&aim=/tech/col/smith

http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2009/12/17/askthepilot345/index.html

Plus: The 787 takes to the air, and gift ideas for frequent fliers

http://consumerist.com/2009/12/disney-princess-shrink-ray-hits-mattel-dolls.html

Shopping for toys at Target, Anthony noticed an interesting change in a small, inexpensive doll that his daughter enjoys. The princesses have been affected by a toy shrink ray--the dolls are smaller, the mold used to make them is different, and they come with fewer accessories--for the same price, naturally.

My daughter has hit the princess-obsession phase. A few months ago we bought some small dolls of the different Disney princesses at our local Target in Los Angeles. The dolls are inexpensive so we didn't mind giving them to a toddler who has broken and lost a few, knowing we could easily replace them. I stopped by to replace a headless Ariel and I discovered they are replacing the dolls with similar ones at the same price. I was very disappointed to see these new dolls no longer look like the characters they depict (see the pic of Belle, original on the left, new version on the right). Also, I was rather annoyed to see that the new dolls no longer include the little accessories (in Belle's case, a 'Mrs. Potts' teapot, a 'Chip' teacup, a rose necklace and matching shoes to both dresses. All for the same price as before, around $5. Honestly, I'm not as irritated about losing the shoes since they get lost pretty fast anyway but the new molds of these dolls are awful and the dresses aren't nearly as nice. Both the new and old are made by Mattel.

Have you noticed this happening with other toys?

Hi there,

My kitty had a couple of teeth pulled a month ago. His stitches are the kind that are supposed to dissolve in his mouth - they don't need to be pulled out. He has recently become very itchy, and it seems like he is scratching his mouth and chin area. Could he be itching his stitches? Is there anything I can do to help him? Should I let me vet know, or is this likely to pass??

Thanks for any advice.

From City Kitties comes an amazing tail (yes tail) of a seven year old who saved up his allowance and gave everything he had, $46.75, to help homeless cats.



In Evan's honor I paypalled $46.75 to info@citykitties.org.

You can too.



And you can read City Kitties note about Evan here.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnicallyPhilly/~3/egAJ3Lx0-yM/city-of-philadelphia-to-buy-municipal-wifi-network-from-network-acquisition

http://technicallyphilly.com/?p=7567

The City of Philadelphia plans to purchase for $2 million the city-wide wireless network once known as Wireless Philadelphia, currently owned and operated by Network Acquisition, the Inquirer reports.

Check out Technically Philly’s multimedia Flash timeline that follows the history of the storied Wireless Philadelphia network.
The network will be utilized by the city for municipal services, [...]

http://consumerist.com/2009/12/no-fedex-kinkos-will-not-print-your-naked-family-christmas-cards.html

Bob Cringely and his family send out family portrait cards every year for Christmas, and the gimmick is the entire family is nude, but not really nude: all the naughty parts are hidden away behind carefully placed props or accessories. The Fedex Kinko's in Charleston, SC doesn't appreciate his family's sense of humor--the woman there even remembered him from last year, and not in a good way.

This is the second year in a row we’ve been rejected by Kinkos. “I remember you,” said Ms. Johnson, handing back my USB drive with a look of disdain. It was hard for me to tell whether this was a different look of disdain from the one I got when Ms. Johnson had to put down her cellphone to serve me in the first place.

I appealed last year’s rejection to the store manager, a man. After all Kinkos — the very same Kinkos — had happily printed our cards the previous four years. We were posing last year in a fishing boat, wearing life vests, strategic shadows, and nothing else. “I see something there, ” said the manager, pointing at what would have been the groin of my six year-old if it hadn’t been well-hidden behind a light on the boat.

“What do you see?” I asked.

“You know,” he said.

“It’s a navigation light,” I said.

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s green,” I said. “It’s a green navigation light.”

I know the feeling. Several years ago, Zazzle rejected my customized postage stamp design because the picture I uploaded was of a dead street rat. Their excuse was that it was obscene or vulgar, which I'm pretty sure it wasn't--it was funny--but it just goes to show that you never know what kind of sensitive prudish type you'll have to deal with when getting custom printing done.

Fortunately for pro-nudity families everywhere, one of Cringley's readers owns a printing service and offered to print the cards for him this year. Also, you can see the photo in question on Cringley's website to decide for yourself whether this Fedex Kinko's is being a little weird about the whole thing.

"FedEx Kinkos Won’t Print Our Christmas Card" [Cringley.com] (Thanks to Jen!)

http://consumerist.com/2009/12/citi-promises-no-foreclosures-or-evictions-for-one-month.html

About 4,000 borrowers who were either scheduled to have foreclosure sales or who were going to receive foreclosure notices will be left alone until January 17th, according to CNN.

"We hope that with this suspension we can make the holidays a little less stressful for our customers who are going through a very difficult time," said Sanjiv Das, chief executive of CitiMortgage, in a statement.

"Citi's holiday treat: No foreclosures for a month" [CNN]

http://consumerist.com/2009/12/speak-out-against-ticketmaster-live-nation-merger-at-ticketdisasterorg.html

Yesterday a bunch of consumer advocates and anti-trust people held a press conference on Capitol Hill and asked the Department of Justice to block the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger. If you, too, feel that this spells nothing but trouble for consumers--that a Ticketmaster-Live Nation monopoly would ruin competition and increase ticket prices--then check out the website TicketDisaster.org. From there, you can contact the DOJ to voice your opinion about the proposed merger, read up on reasons why the merger sucks for consumers and for the concert industry, and sign up for updates.

TicketDisaster.org (Thanks to JammingEcono!)

I buy reissues now, because I am old.

Ah, but I remember every note.

Fox News' Shepard Smith: 'If my kid were in Detroit, I'd try to burn the place down'

The Detroit Public Schools took another blow in the national media yesterday courtesy of Fox News commentator Shepard Smith.

"If my kid were in Detroit, I'd try to burn the place down," Smith said during a discussion on the district's record-low test scores.

( Continued... )


Oh Fox News...

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