mgroves

I'm thinking of changing the name of this blog to "The Blog of Anne Frank", based on this fresh new bash.org quote. It's so very, very wrong, but yet so very, very funny.

I have always been of the opinion that voting is a privilege, and not a right. I have always been of the opinion that voting should be a difficult, exclusive process, reserved only for those who care enough to research the issues and candidates that they are voting on. Because of this, I'm opposed to Ohio's State Issue #2. It appears that most voters oppose the issue as well, possibly for different reasons, of course.

If we only give driver's licenses to people who demonstrate that they have at least rudimentary skill at operating a vehicle, why not require some sort of basic test or application process to be able to vote? I'm not calling for "literacy" laws with the sole purpose of excluding minority groups--the uninformed/ignorant are certainly in no danger of becoming a minority. I'm just calling for a simple test to see if the person understands who they are voting for or that they have actually read an issue and understand what it would actually do. Could it hurt to exclude people from voting for a new auditor if they have no idea what an auditor does?

Here's a Flickr photoset of the original user manual for the home version of Pong (Atari). I think I will call all power supplies "battery eliminators" from now on.

Here we have a microcosm of the Prince Charles story that I reported about last weekend. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a man with strong Ohio ties, yet still the governor of California will be featured in phone calls to Ohio citizens, urging them to vote for Issue 4, which would take redistricting powers away from elected officials and give them to a court appointed committee. Now, I'm not in favor of Issue 4 at all, but that isn't the point. Why would an Ohioan care about the opinion of a Californian elected official, over say, another Ohioan. I'm not saying his opinion is invalid, but the outcome of the decision made by people he is trying to influence, does not affect him in the least. Kinda like non-land owners favoring a property tax increase...

Even though he's a Mac nut, Bill Amend may be the coolest comic strip artist ever. His homepage is in "NostaligiaVision

I think this is a neat idea that could be considered. Senator Gary Cates wants to bump up the legal driving age from 16 to 18. Sure that sounds pretty drastic, but he also wants to change the learner's permit age from 15½ to 16½. Instead of requiring a parent to drive with them, they would be prohibited from having other passengers except for family members. So they can't drive with their friends, but they can drive with Dad or by themselves. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Remove the distractions, give teenagers more driving experience before letting them loose with a full license.

Take a look at the screenshots at this French site (imageshack mirror). I believe that is the first new 2d mario game since Super Mario World 2. I've been dying to see a new 2d Mario, and I thought for sure they'd release one for GBA. Looks like if I want to play it, I'll have to finally pick up a DS.

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It's almost official. The Reds will be sold by Cincinnati Reds, LLC to a group lead by Robert H. Castellini, who will probably replace Uncle Carl. Fortunately (or unfortunately I guess), the team is being bought by Cincinnatians, and not by Nick Lachey. What does this mean for the team on the field? Not much, I imagine. Aurilia and Ortiz were already turned down for options, and I doubt that much additional payroll will be added. It's still likely that one of the four outfielders will be traded, and just as likely that it will be Wily Mo. What's not certain yet is the fate of Dan O'Brien, the much maligned GM of the Reds. Original Article [reds.com]

Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi has claimed that the PlayStation 3 will be capable of running games at an unprecedented 120 frames per second...,

according to gamesindustry.biz. This is the equivalent of saying "Elevendy billion frames per second," since no TVs currently refresh that high, no TVs will refresh that high until well after the PS3 has come and gone, and 72 fps is maximal (anything over that would be overkill) for the human eye anyway.