Category: Rantings from the Pulpit

There’s a reason we complain about Facebook apps.

D'Arque Bishop3 Comments

The past week or two, I’ve been noticing on Facebook that friends of mine have been joining a group called “I don’t care about your farm, or your fish, or your park, or your mafia”. I don’t generally join such “advocacy” groups, as for the most part the people who the complaints are directed to simply don’t care. In the case of this group, I actually agree with the sentiment of the group, as I for one am tired of seeing all of these posts on my wall from people using apps I will never use. (Really, I’ve seen Facebook games. They’d bore the hell out of me.)

Well, yesterday, a friend of mine posted on her Twitter that she planned on doing double posting of her games to her wall simply to annoy those people who had joined that group. Her point was that instead of complaining, they should just use the built-in functionality in Facebook to hide the apps. Normally I would agree, but there are two problems I have that prevent it from being a long term solution.

The first problem is the sheer number of apps. It seems to me that every time I hit “Hide” on an app, two more pop up in peoples’ wall posts to take their place. It almost seems like every day I’m having to hit “Hide” on one app or another to get rid of these annoying posts. I’d love to be able to just click a box or set a setting to hide them all en masse… and that’s the second problem. To my knowledge (and I’ve asked others to no avail), there is no way to just hide all application wall posts. In short, I’m fighting a losing battle: I can constantly manually hide apps, but new apps keep springing up every day and I have no way to just blanket hide them.

I suppose the easiest thing to do would be to stop using Facebook, but considering how many people I know plan events and get-togethers using it these days, it would make life much more inconvenient in that respect. Unlike before, I actually DO have a social life now. I don’t begrudge people actually using the apps; I (and others) just would like a way to not see them, and Facebook doesn’t offer an easy or convenient option to shut them up. I don’t foresee it changing anytime soon, as I’m willing to bet the money made off the apps overrules any number of complaints. Until/unless something is done, though, those who use the apps should understand that while it might be easier to click “Hide” than complain in the short term, in the long term all we have to look forward is constantly clicking “Hide” or bearing with the annoyance of this filler crap polluting our walls.

It’s not “sampling” if you don’t have permission, damnit.

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

I just read this story via Slashdot, and it pisses me off to no end.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/world/europe/12germany.html

BERLIN — It usually takes an author decades to win fawning reviews, march up the best-seller list and become a finalist for a major book prize. Helene Hegemann, just 17, did it with her first book, all in the space of a few weeks, and despite a savaging from critics over plagiarism.

The publication last month of her novel about a 16-year-old exploring Berlin’s drug and club scene after the death of her mother, called “Axolotl Roadkill,” was heralded far and wide in German newspapers and magazines as a tremendous debut, particularly for such a young author. The book shot to No. 5 this week on the magazine Spiegel’s hardcover best-seller list.

For the obviously gifted Ms. Hegemann, who already had a play (written and staged) and a movie (written, directed and released in theaters) to her credit, it was an early ascension to the ranks of artistic stardom. That is, until a blogger last week uncovered material in the novel taken from the less-well-known novel “Strobo,” by an author writing under the nom de plume Airen. In one case, an entire page was lifted with few changes.

As other unattributed sources came to light, outsize praise quickly turned to a torrent of outrage, reminiscent of the uproar in 2006 over a Harvard sophomore, Kaavya Viswanathan, who was caught plagiarizing numerous passages in her much praised debut novel. But Ms. Hegemann’s story took a very different turn.

…

Although Ms. Hegemann has apologized for not being more open about her sources, she has also defended herself as the representative of a different generation, one that freely mixes and matches from the whirring flood of information across new and old media, to create something new. “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity,” said Ms. Hegemann in a statement released by her publisher after the scandal broke.

If I can be forgiven the vernacular response, BULLSHIT. The difference between what this girl has done and the “mixers” to which she refers to is the fact that those who produce commercial mixes not only acknowledge who they are sampling from, they get the original copyright holders’ permission first.

The biggest reason for that is the song “Bittersweet Symphony” by the Verve. They sampled a section of the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, and the Stones’ record label (the copyright holder) sued saying that the Verve did not have permission to use that sample. The courts agreed it was an infringement, and now 100% of all proceeds from the song go to the record label instead of the Stones.

If she had admitted to what she had done beforehand, and gave references in her novel, then I could understand what she did. As it stands, right now what she’s doing is making an excuse because she got caught committing the biggest cardinal sin in writing. The story says the book is still a finalist for the Leipzig Book Fair; I (and I would hope others, including author friends of mine) believe she should be instantly disqualified. This should be a black mark on her reputation, and that she’s apparently getting away with it is something I find shameful.

A proposed test for potential voters.

D'Arque Bishop

I’m not usually one for making political posts, but this was too good to pass up…

Recently at the “Tea Party’s” national convention, the opening speaker (a former Republican congressman named Tom Tancredo) suggested that Barack Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”. Such literacy tests were used in the South to prevent blacks from voting, so one could imagine why that would have leave something of a bad taste in several people’s mouths.

On the other hand, it seems to me that in a way this is kind of hypocritical, as it has seemed to me that many of those who support the Tea Party are themselves ignorant of current civics. For example, the Tea Party seems to be a home for the Birther movement (those who believe Obama isn’t a natural born US citizen despite the overwhelming evidence he is). In response, movie critic Roger Ebert recently posted his proposed civics/history test for potential voters, saying that to vote you should pass this test. I’m going to go ahead and repost his quiz here.

How well will you do?
Read more “A proposed test for potential voters.”

Random musings…

D'Arque Bishop

I’d had a few comments and observations I’d been meaning to post for a few days; normally I would put these in my Twitter, but they’re a bit more than 140 characters. ;-) So, for your entertainment, a few thoughts…

Does a bum WHAT in the park?

The following is excerpted from a conversation between myself and Jennifer on the way home from work yesterday:

Jennifer: “That’s the park where I see the guy poop. Of course, he hasn’t done it as much the past few months because the leaves are off the bush…”
Me: “Okay, I have to ask… is he REALLY pooping, or is he just squatting?”
Jennifer: “Well, let me put it this way: he’s got his pants around his ankles while he squats.”
Me: “Yeah, he’s pooping.”

Parenthood should be easier than this.

A friend of mine and his wife have been documenting their journey towards adopting a child from the Ukraine. They’ve done numerous applications. They’ve had to get CPR certified. They’ve had to get the fire marshall to do an inspection. They’re going to be undergoing a home study this week. It’s exhausting what they put potential adoptive parents through.

… on the other hand, it strikes me as kind of sad that adoptive parents have to go through all this preparation to take in a child, when Joe and Jane Idiot can just pop one out without so much preparation or a blink from the state. Don’t get me wrong; as much as I feel Scott and Lindsey will be great parents, it’s great to see that the agencies are making sure they’ll be ready for him/her. I just wish the parents of natural-born children got held to such a high standard sometimes.

(Then again, not that I consider any of my friends or anyone I know bad parents; indeed, they’ve been proving themselves to be exceptional parents or parents-to-be…)

Internet Explorer 6 is no longer welcome here.

Internet Explorer 6 is approximately eight years old. There are much better alternatives out there, including IE 7/8, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome. At this time there’s a serious IE6 vulnerability (which also exists in 7 and 8, but is apparently much harder to exploit), which was behind the Google China compromise. As a result, I’ve decided to load the IE6 No More code (via a plugin) that places a banner at the top of the page if someone enters the site using IE6, telling them to upgrade their browser. Educating the user is always a good thing, especially when it comes to an outdated web browser.

A new exercise regiment…

D'Arque Bishop

Well, this should hopefully be good.

Nearly two years ago, I started a new exercise regiment in order to get healthier and lose weight. What I started doing was exercise with small hand weights for five minutes when I get up every weekday morning, and doing 25 minutes of Dance Dance Revolution three times a week. While I enjoyed doing it, it got to the point where I wondered whether it was doing any more good for me or not. It didn’t help that I always felt it really wasn’t as much of a workout as I should be getting. So, with Jennifer’s support, I took the plunge this past Sunday.

I’ve officially joined a gym.

Jennifer’s been a member of 24 Hour Fitness for quite some time, and had been encouraging me to join. She and I went on Sunday (with me using a free week pass), and I was impressed enough to join as soon as we were done. My big hangup with gyms previously was that even with personal training, I’d never be able to keep up with how to do most of the exercises. (I speak from experience.) However, most of the machines have directions on them, which put me at ease right away. The staff was also very courteous and helpful.

So, now I’m going to the gym four times a week. I’ve settled into a good exercise routine that should do me pretty well, once my body adjusts to the extra level of exertion. Keeping to the routine shouldn’t be hard, either, as there are locations right outside my neighborhood, right by Jennifer’s neighborhood, and one or two by our offices. Here’s hoping it works out pretty well for me… no pun intended. :-)

And now, the Worldwide New Orleans/Lafayette Tour!

D'Arque Bishop

Jennifer and I in front of St. Louis Cathedral.A couple of weeks ago, I went on another road trip with Jennifer. She and her parents have a Thanksgiving tradition: instead of having a big turkey dinner, they go out of town for the weekend. This year, they decided to go to New Orleans and Lafayette, and asked if I wanted to tag along. I was up for it, so I went with them and had a great time. I’d been putting off posting about the actual trip, so I figured I’d spend some time doing a recap…
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Yet another tale of REALLY bad customer service…

D'Arque Bishop2 Comments

I seem to have a habit of posting tales of bad customer service here.

I’m not really “up” on the whole con thing, really. I’ve been to one or two, but my experience has been mostly with trade shows like E3 and OTC. However, the one con I’ve known about for years due to friends attending and talking about it was Dragon*Con. I’d considered going for years, even when slightly annoyed when undergoing overload of D*C. However, there had always been a reason for me not to go, from not wanting to fight with hotel rooms, to not having a friend to go with me, and so on and so forth…

Well, yesterday, I found a VERY good reason not to go. Yesterday, Ryan Sohmer of Blind Ferret Entertainment (responsible for the popular webcomics Least I Could Do and Looking For Group) made a post on the LICD forums talking about their experience with Dragon*Con staff this year as a paying vendor, and why they will not be back next year. Lar deSouza (Ryan’s collaborator on LICD and LFG) asked that people retweet Ryan’s post and get the word out; while I’ve already tweeted about it, I figured I would go ahead and repost the story on here.
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The Bishop Birthday Bash!

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

Well, this has been an interesting weekend.I'm showing off my cake.

It’s my birthday today. Normally I don’t go out of my way to celebrate my birthday; at the most, all I’d ever do is go out to dinner with my parents. In fact, the last time I had a birthday party of any kind was twenty-five years ago. I had mentioned that to Jennifer, and she resolved to do something about that. She spent the past couple of weeks working behind the scenes getting the party ready, and also working to get me gifts. We scheduled the party for this past Friday, set the venue, and I simply waited for the time to come…
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The Ultimate Mortal Kombat Annihilation Rant…

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

The following is a reposting of an article/rant made by a now-former member of the Mortal Kombat fan community named “FatSatan”. Like many people, FatSatan HATED Mortal Kombat Annihilation; this prompted him to collect every single thing he found wrong about the movie and gripe about it. After the website it was hosted on went offline, I got his permission to host it on my server. After showing it to Jennifer this evening (in response to her question asking what was so bad about the movie), I decided to go ahead and post it on the main site and not just on a subdomain somewhere. So, for your enjoyment… his Ultimate Mortal Kombat Annihilation Rant.
Read more “The Ultimate Mortal Kombat Annihilation Rant…”

A play, a convention, and two scary movies…

D'Arque Bishop

This has been something of an interesting weekend.

I spent the weekend with Jennifer, and we got to do quite a bit of fun stuff. We started off at Birraporetti’s downtown in the Theatre District, where we had a very nice dinner. That done, we wandered around the immediate area a little, taking in the sights and talking, before we went to see Our Town at the Alley Theatre. The show was very good, and well worth watching. Once the play was over, we wandered a block away over to Bayou Place, where we intended having a drink at the Hard Rock Cafe. On the way, we saw a rather… interesting sight: six guys dressed as superheroes dancing around a light pole. In retrospect, I wish I had been closer so I could have gotten a good picture of it. We went into the Hard Rock, had a drink and listened to a band whose name escapes me, and then made our way to Jennifer’s favorite martini bar. After having a couple of drinks there, we headed back to her place for the night.

The next day was something of a new one for both of us. We had learned that Randall Milholland, the author of one of my favorite webcomics, Something*Positive, was in town for a convention called Oni-Con. In addition, some of Jennifer’s coworkers were going to the event as well. So, not ever having been to a convention before, we decided to give it a go. When we arrived at the Marriott Westchase, we were struck by just how many people there were in costume. In fact, Jennifer said nothing but “wow” for four or five minutes straight. Once we got some cash for the tickets, we met up with her coworkers Joseph and Andrew, and got into line for tickets. Tickets bought, we wandered through the area, trying to navigate through the packed hallways. I even encountered one of MY coworkers while walking around.

At one point, we found a ballroom area that had many arcade and console machines set up. What drew my attention, however, was the fact that they had a working Doctor Who pinball machine. I was in heaven for a bit as I got to play (ironically, it’s the pinball machine I’m best at). Once done there, we moved on to the next ballroom, where we watched as attendees engaged in mock battles. We then crossed the hall into a room where vendors sold clothing and other items. One company, WLP, had three t-shirts I wanted. I bought two; one was a very neat IT one, and the other referenced a popular German forklift safety training video. They didn’t have the third one I wanted in my size, however…

That done, we wandered down the hall again, where we ran into Randy Milholland’s table. We talked to him for a bit, and he was kind enough to do a sketch of the characters Davan and Vanessa for me. Vanessa and Davan Sketch The guy was just as hilarious in person as he is in his comic and on his Twitter, I must say. I also got a copy of Super Stupor, which is his parody of superhero comics (and pretty funny to boot). We even got to see Clarine Harp, who is the inspiration for the character of Aubrey in S*P. Randy said he was about to do a panel on webcomics, so we made our way over to where it was, where we were entertained for an hour as he and other webcomic artists answered questions about doing webcomics and talking about their backgrounds. One of them asked why those who wanted to do a webcomic hadn’t done it yet; I almost replied that my art skills make Xkcd look like DaVinci’s work. All in all, though, it was extremely interesting… though by the end of the panel, Jennifer was geeked out, and the overheated room did nothing to make her feel better. So, after grabbing one more game of Doctor Who pinball, we walked over to Outback Steakhouse for dinner, and then made our way back to her house for trick or treaters and scary movies.

Once we got to her house, we got the candy ready for the trick or treaters, and sat down for the first of the two movies of the night: Event Horizon. Jennifer had never seen it before, and wanted to give it a try. An hour into the film, she was definitely unnerved, but we were also a bit disappointed. Not in the movie, though, but in the trick or treaters: we had only gotten two or three coming by. We turned out the lights and proceeded to finish the film. After it was done, she was a bit freaked out, but we went ahead with the next film: Prince of Darkness. If anything, that film scared her even more. She retaliated by threatening to make me watch Twilight; in the end, she put on Bram Stoker’s Dracula which was showing on Channel 55. In retrospect, that movie really wasn’t as close to the original novel as we liked, and we ended up shaking our heads at the Mina/Dracula romance. After that, we called it a night… with a couple of nightmares to boot.

All in all, it was a very fun weekend. I’m not sure when or if we’d do another con, but we’re definitely looking into seeing more plays at the Alley. We’re also looking at a couple more movies to watch at some point. For now, though, it’s the start of a new week, and it’s back to work for both of us. Fun fun…