Disliked Worlds Collide

Two links have been sitting in a Word document for almost a month, waiting patiently to be turned into a blog posting. Sadly, those two links were forgotten until now, and now they have lost much if not all of their relevance. However, since I’ve been known to post out-dated things, perhaps it is not too late for these links to shine in one of my joyous blog postings. If you read to the end (before and including the update), you might get a relevant and timely surprise!

If this article is not lying, and I don’t believe it is, then The Tonight Show with Jay Leno falsely portrayed the audience response to Sarah Palin when she was a guest on the show. They replaced the audience's silence and sounds of dismay with canned laughter.

It is rather unfortunate that I’m not terribly surprised that Jay Leno and his people would commit such a vile act of falsely representing an audience’s reaction to create the illusion of comedy, love, and admiration in a vacuum of such things to aid a politician. I expect two types of people above most others to be ethical: comedians and scientists. Did you think I was going to say “politicians”? Really? Why would you think such a bizarre thing? I’ve learned not to expect politicians to have ethics or souls; that way, I avoid a lot of disappointment. Anyhoo, Leno’s (or whoever’s decision it was to edit the audience – since Leno’s name is on The Tonight Show, I will hold him responsible) ethical indiscretion is, in my admittedly strange view, on par with those scientists who screwed with the climate change data a few months ago. Scientists and comedians are people we should be able to trust; when either lies, it truly is a sad day.

Fortunately, in a world of lying Lenos, there are also truth-keepers in the form of satirists. Here, Jon Stewart talks about Palin’s Leno appearance, particularly about her crazy claims that Fox News is "fair and balanced."

As if the evil editing to make Sarah Palin appear more loved or less disliked weren’t enough, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno continues to commit evil acts of duplicitous editing today. The "I’m with Coco/Conan O’Brien" Myface (Facebook) fan page posted this article a few days ago, that tells of a brave and heroic Slash wearing an "I’m with Coco" pin that made a forcibly brief appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. It’s not surprising at all that Leno and his people cannot handle dissent. Somehow, if something like that were to happen on pretty much any other talk show, the host would go ahead and make jokes about it, because that’s what funny hosts do. Unfortunately, Jay Leno continues to not be the funny talk show host that I know he could be. Of course, the other talk show hosts I allude to would probably not find themselves in such situations, for most if not all of them would not have done what Leno did.

UPDATE April 11, 2010

These disliked worlds collided s’more on SNL; The Tonight Show with Jay Leno will be featured on The Sarah Palin Network.

World, I mean Word Coming to an End!

I was shocked to learn today that some small company from America Junior (Canada, as Homer Simpson called it) claims to have a 1998 patent for the way Microsoft Word works (something about the XML implementation, like I know what that means) and they're forcing poor, poor Microsoft to stop selling Word and Office on January 11, 2010. This will screw over computer sellers and stores that sell Word and Office, and obviously it will screw over every business on Earth, every student on Earth, and every computer-using person on Earth.

So the world won't end on 12/21/12, it will end on 1/11/10, or the Word will anyway.

I think it’s patently clear (pun intended) that the Canadian company is a vengeful one, since its name is i4i.

Fortunately, the copies of Word and Office that we already have will still be supported by Microsoft, and hopefully they'll be able to fix the patent-infringing problem before doomsday.

UPDATE February 1, 2010
I guess I should have updated this on 01.11.10, but I guess I was too distracted by all the excitement of Binary Palindrome Day.

Anyway, Doomsday came and went, and both the world and Word continued to exist. Microsoft was forced to remove the XML thingie from all copies of Word 2007 and Office 2007 sold on or after that day, and they are required to pay $290 million in damages. Microsoft is appealing this decision, particularly the damages part, in hopes that they will reduce that massive sum, for the sake of the future (since they don’t want to set a precedent for such a large amount in damages).

I know it’s “wrong” to root for big business, but I can’t help it – I hope Microsoft succeeds.

I Cheated on Google

Dearest Google, I’ve been unfaithful to you. I’m sorry to be so blunt, Google, but the truth had to come out, especially now, since the time of repentance is upon us.

My transgression occurred a few weeks ago. I was googling something obscure – I had heard something about heavy metals being present in calcium carbonate, the very calcium supplement I take.

But Google, my beloved, you couldn’t find any relevant results, at least not in the first pages of search results, and, Google, you know I don’t look beyond the first few pages generally.

So I tried Bing. Yes, Bing. Like you, Google, it has a cute and amusing name. I once searched Bing before, when I saw their commercial on the TV, purely out of curiosity. At that time, it appeared as though Bing’s results were very similar to yours, Google. So using Bing seemed pointless, for why stray from my beloved Google when there appears to be no additional benefit to Bing.

But on that fateful (and unfaithful) day, Google, when you couldn’t satisfy my web searching needs, I did the very same search at Bing that I had tried at you, Google (I don’t remember what I specifically searched for). And Bing found exactly what I was looking for, right there in the first web result.

There was an article from 2000 talking about a JAMA study that had found lead in a few brands of calcium carbonate, though the amounts were less than one would ingest from food and are (or at least were in 2000) acceptable by FDA standards. It stated that Caltrate (the brand I used to use until it became increasingly more difficult to find the kind I like that contains no Vitamin D since I take that separately; my stopping of Caltrate came long before I discovered its lead content) contained these detectable though safe amounts of lead, but Walgreen’s brand (the one I switched to) contained no detectable lead at all. Tums also contained no lead, which is nice. This is the thing Bing found.

But don’t worry Google, this doesn’t mean I’m leaving you. I still love you dearly, and you remain superior to Bing in other ways. I tried the Bing toolbar -- again, purely out of curiosity, and it was useless. Its only purpose is the search box, which sits in an obtrusive and unattractive blemish in my Internet Explorer (perhaps the Bing toolbar blends more nicely in Vista or Windows 7). The Google Toolbar, on the other hand, blends beautifully and modestly, and contains all those other useful thingies like Autofill, Pop-up Blocker, and other nice features. Also, Google, you have all those other products that I love so dearly, and that I surely could not be happy without.

Rest assured, My Dearest Google, that I will only use Bing on those very rare occasions when you can’t find something. This likely won’t happen often, since this was the first time it did, since that glorious day 8 or 10 years ago when I first googled, after someone on The Late Show with David Letterman website mentioned you, Google. I had never been happy with any search engine before you, Google; you almost always find exactly what I’m looking for.

Are you still upset about my unfaithfulness, Google? Doesn’t it help that my transgression was with Microsoft? You’ve known I’ve had a relationship with Microsoft since Windows 95, Google. But I understand, web searching is your territory, Google, and I’m sorry. I hope you will forgive me Google.

I love you, Google. But I also love Microsoft (most of the time).

ABC/Disney is Discriminating against DVD Users!

I make this outlandish claim because I have discovered (well, they make it blatantly obvious) that Lost University will be exclusive to the Blu-ray version of the fifth season.

I was so ridiculously excited about Lost University when I saw Lost’s Myface (Facebook) fan page post something about it back in July. I couldn’t wait to enroll – it seems so incredibly interesting. I even felt that they had stolen and then morphed my idea, since I had thought it would be a great idea to have books like The Philosophy of Lost, The Psychology of Lost, and The Gospel According to Lost, like they do for The Simpsons, and it seemed that’s what Lost University was all about, sort of.

UPDATE April 29, 2010
I suddenly felt compelled to see whether the Lost books I envisioned might, in fact, already exist, and they do!  Well, 2 out of 3 -- The Psychology of Lost doesn't appear to exist at this time, but Lost and Philosophy and The Gospel According to Lost do exist!  Woohoo!

I had hoped at the time that they were only suggesting the purchase of Lost Season 5 on Blu-ray. But after I excitedly enrolled today, I discovered that not only is that a requirement, but almost the whole University exists solely on the Blu-ray. It’s not even on the DVD!

I vowed never to buy Blu-ray discs, largely because I do not own anything that will play such a format. I also vowed never to buy Windows Vista, and thanks to Windows 7, I will never have to, so it worked. (It seems my Blu-ray avoidance might have to come to an end at some point in the future, according to Wikipedia.)

I wasn’t even sure I would be willing to buy the DVD of Season 5, but if Lost University would be on it, I probably would have. But now I won’t. I won’t buy any Lost DVD now, in protest of their exclusionary behaviors.

Hey, ABC/Disney, why don’t you put Lost University on a separate DVD if you don’t want to put it on the Season 5 DVD? I would definitely buy that, even if it’s just the non-interactive portions. Or better yet, why not put the whole thing online, you know, like at the Lost University website that already exists (see link below)? You could throw some ads on there and make money that way, or you could even charge “students” to enroll. Despite my proclivity towards cheapness, I would probably pay for such a fun, exciting, and interesting online university. But I won’t buy a Blu-ray player just for the joys of said university.

If you own a Blu-ray player and want to enroll, or if you want to enroll and see what you can get out of it without the stupid Blu-ray like I’m doing, go here:

http://www.lostuniversity.org/

UPDATE January 24, 2010
Well, so much for that – I caved. Amazon has (or had – I don’t know how long the sale will last, if it’s not over already) the DVDs of all the past seasons (1-5) for really low prices, so I bought them – all of them. It was a difficult decision – I was filled with guilt for betraying my own (pointless) cause. My sister was kind enough to allow me to “pretend” I bought it for her (which works out nicely if they end up releasing a fabulous box set of the complete series that I would obviously need to buy), but alas, it is still a betrayal of my non-worthy cause. What can I say, I’m weak.

Of course, the Blu-ray versions of all 5 seasons are (or were ) also on sale at Amazon, but their sale prices are still high, of course, because it’s Blu-ray, and Blu-ray is expensive.

I really hope they put the Lost U things on a DVD, even if it is just the non-interactive potions, because (assuming it would be cheap enough) I would buy that.