Monthly Archives: July 2005

This Way to the Egress

Posted on July 23, 2005 by Kelson

Whenever I see this sign, I always think of the story about P.T. Barnum trying to get his visitors out of an exhibit so that new customers could come in. He eventually put up a sign saying “This way to the egress,” figuring most people wouldn’t know the word just meant “exit.” According to the legend, it worked.

Freeway sign: Egress

Now, given that every other freeway sign I’ve seen says “exit,” I have to wonder why they phrased this one the way they did. My best guess is that it’s because it’s marking an exit from the carpool lane (it’s on the Santa Ana Freeway, heading north between the 55 and 22) instead of an exit to surface streets or directly to another freeway—but even that doesn’t make sense, because every place where you’re allowed to leave a carpool lane is marked as “exit!”

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Cellular Palm Tree

Posted on July 23, 2005 by Kelson

The drawback of cellular phone technology is that you need to have transmitters everywhere. In a big city you can probably mount them on buildings, but in the suburbs, you just have to put up towers like you do for power lines and land-line phones. Every once in a while, someone decides to pretty things up a bit.

Cleverly disguised cellular phone tower

I’ve been meaning to catch a picture of this one for weeks, but I’ve just never been on the right stretch of freeway with a camera before. Katie almost caught it last week on the way back from San Diego, but the lighting conditions were poor and the picture came out way too grainy.

It’s not a bad approximation of a palm tree, but it’s too straight and the fronds are too regular. Still, if most people are only going to see it from their cars, it’s enough to blend in.

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Terrorist Hunting Permit

Posted on July 23, 2005 by Kelson

Spotted on the back of an SUV that also sported a US Marines sticker:

Terrorist Hunting Permit

I have to admit I rather like this one!

Posted in Politics, Signs of the Times | Leave a comment

Halfway to Infinite Crisis

Posted on July 23, 2005 by Kelson

When DC Comics first announced the quartet of miniseries leading up to Infinite Crisis, I figured I’d take a look at Day of Vengeance (the magic corner of the DCU) and maybe Rann/Thanagar War (the Sci-Fi corner), and that was it. Countdown to Infinite Crisis got me excited about The OMAC Project, though, so I figured I’d pick up the first issue of each mini and see what I thought.

At first I found OMAC and Rann/Thanagar the most interesting, and Day of Vengeance just enough to get me to try issue 2. Villains United didn’t impress me at all.

After three issues of each (plus Day of Vengeance #4 out this week), my impressions have more or less reversed. On a whim I picked up Villains United #2 and enjoyed it much more. OMAC and Rann/Thanagar are both bogged down, and Day of Vengeance reminds me a lot of March of the Wooden Soldiers (my least favorite Fables arc): some nice moments, but a bit slow and not particularly exciting.

Right now, I could probably leave OMAC and Day of Vengeance, and the only things keeping me on board Rann/Thanagar War are the L.E.G.I.O.N cameos and trying to figure out what’s going on with Blackfire. Part of the problem is that none of them seem to be six issues worth of story. Sure, there’s a cliffhanger at the end of each issue, but they just still feel padded.

Well, we know DC is planning for big changes in the Crisis’ wake. I can only hope they have good reasons for what they end up doing, rather than just doing something like “Let’s kill off the Flash and Supergirl again because we did it 20 years ago!”

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Forget GTA: The Sims is the real danger!

Posted on July 22, 2005 by Kelson

Well, now that people have successfully gotten Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas reclassified as Adult (18+) instead of Mature (17+)—since we all know that sex scenes that you can only get at by hacking the game are far more damaging to 17-year-olds than interactive sequences in which they shoot people, commit carjacking, and run over prostitutes—they’re going after The Sims 2.

Yep. The Sims.

Apparently you can modify the game so that the sims appear nude. OMGSEX!

Jeff Brown, vice president of corporate communications at EA, in response to the accusations, told GameSpot, “This is nonsense. We’ve reviewed 100 percent of the content. There is no content inappropriate for a teen audience. Players never see a nude sim. If someone with an extreme amount of expertise and time were to remove the pixels, they would see that the sims have no genitals. They appear like Ken and Barbie.”

Thompson doesn’t buy it. “The sex and the nudity are in the game. That’s the point. The blur is an admission that even the ‘Ken and Barbie’ features should not be displayed. The blur can be disarmed. This is no different than what is in San Andreas, although worse.”

Yes, he actually said that The Sims is worse than Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

What is wrong with these people?

First they came for the violent games…

Posted in Annoyances, Computers/Internet, Politics | Leave a comment

Who needs version numbers, anyway?

Posted on July 22, 2005 by Kelson

Just a day after Firefox decided to jump from 1.1 to 1.5 (triggering far more discussion than the numbering change really deserved), Microsoft has announced the official name for Longhorn: Windows Vista.

Okaaay. Yeah, I can see the connection: a vista is something you see through a window. But at that point, why not just go for broke and call it Ventanas or something?

Yeah, no one wants to use numbers anymore. It’s kind of like in the mid-1990s when it was taboo to tack a number onto the title of a movie sequel. As if having a 7 on Star Trek: Generations or a 4 on Alien: Resurrection would have scared off more viewers than the movies themselves.

Meanwhile, we’re left with yet another version name that does nothing to help you keep track of which version is newer. XP? 2003? Vista? MX? CS? Tiger, Leopard and Jaguar?

Posted in Computers/Internet | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

On Comic Con and Baseball

Posted on July 20, 2005 by Kelson

The Beat remarks that maybe Padres games during Comic-con WASN’T such a hot idea. [archive.org]

Having had to skip several trolleys that were indistinguishable from large moving sardine cans, I have to agree. On the other hand, the fireworks display over Petco Park on Saturday night was breathtaking.

Too bad they’ll never read this because they disabled both comments and trackbacks on that entry. I wonder if they ever look at Technorati?

Update (April 2007): It seems The Beat never transferred their archive when they moved from Mile High Comics to Publishers Weekly in 2006, and the old site finally deleted their posts. So much for “permalinks,” and hooray for the Wayback Machine.

Posted in Comic Con 2005, Comics, Travel | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Command and Control

Posted on July 20, 2005 by Kelson

Apple Matters has posted What OS X Could Learn From Windows, a short wish list of features that Windows already has. The first one is to move keys around so that Command on Macs and Control on PCs are in the same place. When I first read it, I thought “Yeah, that’s tripped me up a lot!” Then I thought about it, and realized that it only causes me problems when I’m using Unix apps on OS X, either directly or through a SSH connection, or on those rare occasions when I’ve booted the PowerBook into Linux. I can’t remember the last time I fumbled over this while using Mac software. It’s only when there’s a conceptual conflict—and then I really stumble!

Maybe it’s because laptop keyboards are already different from standard keyboards. Except for occasional browser testing and iTunes importing, I haven’t used a desktop Mac in years. Or maybe it’s harder for people switching the other direction.

Anyway, I would’ve just posted this in the comments over there, but they require you to register before you can comment. I consider that rude, and I usually refuse to register on a site just to be able to post one comment. If I’m going to come back as a regular reader, that’s one thing, but if not, it’s not worth setting up yet another account with yet another username/password/etc.

(via Slashdot)

Edit: And just to prove that I don’t know what I’m talking about, I just tried to close a tab in Opera using Alt+W instead of Ctrl+W. (Alt on a PC being where Command is on a Mac.) I guess all that writing about the Apple keyboard had me thinking differently.

Posted in Apple | Tagged | 9 Comments

Useful warning labels

Posted on July 20, 2005 by Kelson

Forget “Coffee is Hot!” and its variations. What they really need is a warning on iced blended drinks that anything larger than about 12 ounces may separate and require frequent re-mixing unless drunk rapidly. And those are the ones that are mixed well. Let us not speak of the ones you get at the café downstairs from the office, or at rush hour when everyone else in town wants a Frappucino NOW and the baristas are just trying to get through with the blenders as fast as they can. You know, the ones that end up like a coffee-flavored snow cone with a straw.

For some reason, coffee just doesn’t seem to blend with ice as well as fruit does.

Posted in Annoyances, Food | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

On Google Moon

Posted on July 20, 2005 by Kelson

Google Maps has been extended to the moon, with all the Apollo landing sites marked.

Be sure to experiment with zoom for full effect.

Posted in Humor, Space | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment