Nathan's Occasional Blog

Great. Yeah, let’s allow the government to steal your property for pennies on the dollar of what it would actually sell for just so they can cater to big business. Simply WRONG.

Property can be taken for development-Supreme Court – Yahoo! News: By a 5-4 vote, the high court upheld a ruling that New London, Connecticut, can seize the homes and businesses owned by seven families for a development project that will complement a nearby research facility by the Pfizer Inc. drug company.

Under the U.S. Constitution, governments can take private property through their so-called eminent domain powers in exchange for just compensation, but only when it is for public use.

…

The residents opposed the plans to raze their homes and businesses to clear the way for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices. They argued that it amounted to an unconstitutional taking of their property.

Either I’m so tallented I can make the best out of any situation, or I’m not picky. Either way, I’m a percussionist. 🙂

Sex styles of musicians:

Mark Frauenfelder: Charles says: "An orchestral musician reveals that classical music is not very different from Hollywood when it comes to offering jobs-for-sex. From a review in the London Times of her recent book:

Blair Tindall, who played with the New York Philharmonic, offers an unseemly tour behind the scenes in a book entitled Mozart in the Jungle. . . .

Instrument players had a sexual style unique to their instrument, she writes. Neurotic violinists, anonymous in their orchestra section, came fast. Trumpet players pumped away like jocks, while pianists sensitive fingers worked magic. French horn players, their instruments the testiest of all, could rarely get it up, but percussionists could make beautiful music out of anything.

Link

Engrish hilarity on badly bootlegged Star Wars DVD:

Xeni Jardin:
Badly translated subtitles on a pirated copy of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith provide many happy moments of beverage-through-nostrils yukkage. Sample: Anakin to Obi-Wan –"I was just made by the Presbyterian Church." Link to "Backstroke of the West," as the movie’s title is translated here. Hard to believe this is real, but even if the post were a hoax, it’s a fun one. (Thanks, Bonnie)

Reader Comment: Paul Berger says,

I posted a similar story last week on my blog. Unfortunately I don’t have a photograph–it came via an email from my mother-in-law, of all people. She wrote, "My first attempt brought up the subtitles, probably the funniest thing about the film. An attack from the rear is translated as ‘he is coming into my behind’.”

We Presbyterians are devious people, aren’t we? Enough said. 🙂

Parents-to-be enjoy “babymooning”:

One of our affiliated blogs, Gadling, featured an article from the Miami Herald about a growing trend in getaways for soon-to-be parents. “Babymoons” – vacations for expecting moms and dads where they can relax before the baby arrives – are gaining in popularity and many resorts, spas and hotels are starting to cater to the pregnant crowd. The Planters Inn in Charleston, South Carolina will even include a jar of pickles with its three-night $1,399 package.  Other places like the Estancia Hotel and Spa in La Jolla, California provide couples sessions with a photographer, a chauffeured shopping trips and Pilates classes.

I guess Alicea and I did the same when we took off for Whistler back in March. Good to know we’re at the cutting edge of modern culture! 🙂

Students’ BB gun project banned from science fair:

Two middle schoolers spent months working on a project that would show the world just how dangerous BB guns can be – only to have the school reject their demonstration on the grounds that BB guns are dangerous. The Amherst, Massachusetts school offered Nathan C. Woodard and Nathaniel A. Gorlin-Crenshaw a chance to demonstrate their project privately to the judges and receive a certificate of accomplishment. The boys – politely, I imagine – told them to cram it.

As a friend said to me regarding this story: “Wow – but I’d bet they’d let them do something with unstable chemicals.” Certainly an exception could have been made, and precautions taken? Oh, right…that would have required that someone at the school do work. My bad.

You have GOT to be kidding me!?! As the proud winner of a 3rd place trophy in the Connecticut state science fair when I was in junior high, I can officially vouch that MANY of the projects I saw were dangerous. Heck, some kid in the high school level made a laser! Killing a project that PROVES how dangerous a BB gun is because it’s dangerous is the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a long time. I sure hope they didn’t mark their report with a red pen.

HP to rerelease their hw6515 Pocket PC Phone with Windows Mobile 5.0 next year?:

We’ve seen plenty of people get hands on with the iPAQ hw6515 Mobile Messenger before, but what specifically caught our eye about Pocket PC Thoughts’ take on HP’s new Pocket PC Phone is the news that HP is going to rerelease the handheld with Windows Mobile 5.0 sometime in early 2006 (it’s currently slated to ship with Windows Mobile 2003 SE). Definitely plausible, but what we’d really like to know is whether HP is going to offer upgrades to the new OS for anyone who buys a hw6515 now.

This is where Palm and RIM have a distinct advantage with their Treo’s and Blackberrys – they don’t have to worry about OEM’s making dumb decisions. Why is this even a question? The answer should be an unequivocal yes. It’s stupid stuff like this that makes MS’ platform look bad (lack of compatibility). I totally want one of these to replace my BBerry 7290, but I’m not going to run one until it’s got WM 5.0 with the messaging enhancement pack announced last week and Exchange 2003 SP2 is out.

That being said, why does it take so darn long for WM 5.0 to roll out to the real world? Is it going to take even longer for the push messaging pack?

Darn OEMs.

Star Wars: Blogs | From the Desk of Ghent | Prequel Generation Questions A New Hope:

A dad watches Episode 4 with his 7 year old son, who has essentially now seeing the movies in order. Pretty funny continuity questions.

– as C-3PO throws a Jawa body on the pile… ‘Do you think that R2-D2 started that fire with his jet rockets?’

– ‘Is Chewbacca the only Wookiee that survives the Clone Wars?’ (with great concern)

– ‘So, does this mean that R2-D2 is really the main character in Star Wars?’

– though not prequel-provoked, ‘Why are red leader and gold leader the leaders? They don’t know what they’re doing…’

Jesus on a potato chip:

GOOD GRIEF. Friggin lame.

Ding dong, the Voq is dead:

The poor, much-maligned Voq smartphone from Sierra Wireless has just been put out of its misery. The company announced that the QWERTY smartphone line will be either divested or terminated due to lackluster sales. And to refresh everyone’s memory on exactly why those sales were so tremendously lackluster, let’s just say bungling a product launch bad enough to earn you a shareholder’s suit should pretty much have been the writing on the wall.

If the device wasn’t such a piece of junk and the software they tagged onto a lack-luster Windows Mobile version that was outdated already by the time the device launched, maybe this could have worked. But having spent a week with this … thing … I’m glad I got rid of it. I feel myself getting amped up over the new info coming from MS around push email and other features of Exchange SP2 with Windows Mobile 5.0, but will they live up to the hype that has been generated? Let’s hope so, because the market may give up on MS if it doesn’t deliver.

I read something this morning from some “analyst” who said that the new feature pack wasn’t really pushing email, the device still had to go check for email (like Outlook does), just more often. I hope this is an incorrect assumption based on the current version of WM5.0 without the impending feature pack. Anyone heard any clarification on what MS really means by push?

United Airlines announces in-flight WiFi plans:

Bring it!

It really isn’t the flying itself we’re afraid of—it’s the prospect of being without our nurturing tether to the internet that makes us all nervous and agitated. Which is why we’re filled with heady anticipation at the news that United Airlines is planning to become the first domestic carrier to offer WiFi access on all of its flights (assuming that they don’t go out of business first, that is). It’ll still be a while before you’ll actually be able to get online (they’re aiming to have this rolled out by the end of next year), but they’ve gotten the proper FAA approval to start installing and testing the equipment, and now all they need is for the FCC to auction off the necessary bandwidth. They haven’t announced what they’re planning to charge for in-flight access, but other airlines that offer in-flight WiFi, like Lufthansa, SAS, Singapore Airlines, and Japan Airlines, usually charge about thirty bucks a flight to get your WiFi on.