January 27, 2010

Constellation Nixed

Filed under: Final Frontier — Adam @ 8:19 pm

Apparently confused by what exactly the words Aeronautics and Space mean, Obama wants to push to have NASA study climate change and forget all that astronaut nonsense:

When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.

There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

…

In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change — and on a new technology research and development program that will one day make human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system possible.

One administration goon said “We certainly don’t need to go back to the moon,” later in the article.

I don’t know how to put this any clearer for all of you anti-space travel fuckers, but this is our future. We have to keep going. There is no alternative. We have to reach higher, go further, get out there. No one is going hungry because of space spending, no one is going uneducated because of it, no one is losing their job because we’re spending money on this. The amount of money given to NASA every year is a pittance.

But hey, at least the guy is finally keeping to a campaign promise.

January 26, 2010

Testing something out…

Filed under: whiskeytangofoxtrot — Adam @ 6:52 pm

Apparently I can update the blog through the Drivel, a Linux livejournal/wordpress/etc updating program. This is the second best solution for me because the WP interface lags like a dog on my computer for whatever reason.

So if this works…

January 24, 2010

Who dat!

Filed under: Sports — Adam @ 9:25 pm

In a game that was filled with drama and emotion — including the heart wrenching feeling of seeing Favre hurting and soldiering on, solidifying his role as a hero — overtime was no exception to the drama. With multiple plays reviewed and an amazing field goal kick by Hartley, the Saints win their first shot at a Superbowl.

Who dat!

January 21, 2010

Go Caps!

Filed under: Sports — Adam @ 9:02 pm

And lo, the warriors clad in red did defeat the vile and heinous Pittsburgh by a score of six to three. Ovechkin got two goals, one being an empty net. Them’s the breaks I guess.

January 20, 2010

Obama’s first year

Filed under: Uncategorized — Adam @ 8:56 pm

The first year in the can, ending with the election of a Republican to the seat once held by Ted Kennedy in the midst of an argument about healthcare. I’m not going to say “oh the end is nigh for the Democrats and their policies.” That would be premature, wrong, and probably stupid. No, I think that the end is nigh for anyone in elective office for a while, unless they’re really liked by constituents. For the next election cycle or two I expect a lot of already elected officials to go away.

January 14, 2010

As if it weren’t obvious…

Filed under: Celebrities, Entertainment, Uncategorized — Adam @ 7:58 pm

I’m with Coco.

January 12, 2010

Honor. Integrity.

Filed under: Celebrities, Entertainment — Adam @ 6:36 pm

Not often words associated with late night comedy, but Conan O’Brien is willing to walk, and he’s doing it publicly. I’m sure others will offer their own take and I can see other ways of looking at it, but I see this as a very sincere, honest move on his part. There are no shenanigans, he’s not trying to sneak behind their back.

In 2004 he made an agreement with them, in exchange for signing on to stay through 2009, when other networks were interested. Most of them probably offered him more money; Fox is ridiculously interested in the man. But he chose to stick with them when offered the big chair, because that’s what he aspired to do. Then, last year, he moved across the country, uprooting his family and his crew (and their families) to take the big job.

Now, after only a few months, they are slapping him in the face, and spitting on the loyalty and work he’s put into their network. In an effort to keep Jay Leno around and hold on to three comics, they are bumping his show by a half hour? Really NBC? I hope they at least have the decency to let him out of the contract.

I will take some pleasure if he goes to Fox or another network and amasses the ratings to destroy and crush Leno.

January 10, 2010

Wow.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Adam @ 3:24 pm

The Bendy One and I have made watching at least the monologue from Conan O’Brien part of our TV viewing. But seeing as how we both have jobs, pushing it back thirty minutes isn’t going to work for me. I haven’t found Leno funny, aside from the occasional headlines, in, well, ever. He’s only slightly more tolerable than Letterman. (Of course all involved are funnier than Kimmel.) However, for as long as I can remember watching him, I’ve found Conan O’Brien to be awesome.

This is giving him the shaft. He hasn’t had a year in the job yet, and he’s got Leno on an hour and a half before him. Now, he’ll be pushed back a half hour (losing viewers who have to, y’know, wake up in the morning) and still follow Leno. That is no way to build ratings.

Dear Fox: Please steal him.

Reasoned Discourse!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Adam @ 9:26 am

With an Internet Tough Guy. So some blogger lady made a post about guns; a few gun people responded. Her husband starts randomly threatening people, stands by his words, and further mockery ensues. Hilarity; Rob Russell is a classic Internet Tough Guy, and he’s also Trying Too Hard. (He is also editing or deleting comments to make those opposing him look more foolish in an attempt to look better or make himself feel better. If you make a comment, get a screencap of it before he applies Reasoned Discourse to have you now say something about your package size.)

Basically, I just want to call the guy what he is: Robert Russell is a douchebag. But I don’t like it when people mess with my words, so I can’t use his blog or the blog of anyone connected with him. So preserved for eternity on my blog: Robert Russell is a bathtub full of douchebags rolling down internet tough guy hill while covered in a layer of trying too hard snow. The End.

January 9, 2010

I’m really starting to dislike Monty Widenius.

Filed under: Geek Stuff — Adam @ 2:48 pm

A few weeks ago I had no idea who Monty Widenius is. There are only a handful of Open Source developers whose names I know — Linus Torvalds (Linux kernel, git), Richard Stallman (a lot of GNU and FSF stuff, the GPL), Eric Raymond (the Cathedral and the Bazaar), Theo de Raadt (BSD work), and William Jon McCann (the dickhead who broke Gnome Screensaver). See, a short list. Now, this guy is all over the Oracle/Sun merger because of the fact Oracle will now own MySQL, the database program that a lot of the internet is run on.

Widenius was, as far as I can tell, the main force behind MySQL for a long time. Then he courted investors, and then Sun bought the company. Widenius claims he didn’t know Sun was going to buy them until after it was a done deal — which sounds odd to me if he was a shareholder of any magnitude — and now he wants MySQL back. Basically, he got like a billion dollars and wants his toy back now. I get his argument about Oracle controlling the database, though. It would be a Bad Thing. For about ten minutes:

A lot of people have, however, pointed out that people could just go to PostgreSQL. This is a very real option. In fact, if Oracle made things too difficult on people using MySQL — a lot of which is protected by the GPL — then the free stuff could be forked or worked on with PostgreSQL.

Widenius, who is at least somewhat to blame for the state of affairs, is now saying that, if PostgreSQL actually comes to dominance as a product for free databases, then Oracle would just somehow either buy off the developers or buy the companies supporting it, thus dashing all hope and crushing the internet into the shape of Larry Ellison’s colon. Or something.

Other than the fact he’s a raging hypocrite and projecting his own issues (being bought out) onto others, I have a few problems with his theory/whining:

1. He’s assuming that other companies would just let Oracle stomp around at will. IBM, Microsoft, Google (which really should have bought Sun), even RedHat, all have a vested interest in Oracle not holding all the cards. I don’t know if Widenius is aware of this, but those companies are pretty big. Oracle is one company. They are many. Oracle doesn’t control everything.

2. A lot of software works with non-MySQL databases already, especially PostgreSQL. Once you’ve modified your software to support more than one database, adding another shouldn’t be any big problem — good programmers would make the hooks fit into a module of some sort. PostgreSQL is not the be all end all either: Open source developers are legion. Especially if suddenly Oracle starts handing out checks to them. I would start my own SQL DB if there were a billion dollar check at the end of the road. Dear Larry Ellison, I promise not to make LawsonSQL for a pittance — a million dollars! I am a thousand times over more cheaper than Widenius. Invest in me!

3. No, seriously, invest in me. I guarantee I will not produce a database of any sort.