Rob Talks Nonsense

Monday, January 18, 2010

Using Our Military Might For Right

So, Haiti. Tens of thousands dead, and all of the nation's hospitals destroyed. The international aid agencies, specifically Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross, are out of supplies. Both the port and the airport in Port-au-Prince are destroyed, hampering any effort to bring in more. The Pentagon, like the iPhone, has an app for this.

Here is a piece of military hardware to get Ed all worked up: the USNS Comfort. It is a hospital ship with a helipad so it can serve areas without ports or airstrips. It is as large as a supercarrier and has the facilities to rival any hospital on Earth. Beds for 1000 patients. 12 fully equipped operating rooms. Four distilleries to make 300,000 gallons of drinking water per day. A complete pharmacy and radiology lab. Complete labs for dental, optometry, and trauma patients. Two oxygen-producing plants.

This sounds like a good idea to me.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Music Night - 27 Club

To be honest, I don't think that there is a real statistical spike in musicians dying at the age of 27. It does make a good story though.

Tonight's songs are:

But why would you want to?

This stuff was made during the winter of 2007/2008 as a hobby project.

Features:
- ZiLOG Z80 CPU @ 4MHz
- 32 kBytes of RAM
- 32 x 32 char B&W alphabetic display adapter
- 1 kBytes of Video RAM
- Full stroke keyboard
- Built-in monitor program

The machine consists of two boards (CPU and video) and a keyboard, just connected to each other via ribbon cables.
The character geneartor and the system ROM was burnt into two 27C256 UV EPROMs. For the character generator, the best way seemed like downloading the C64 character set and burning it into mine. For OS programming, I used the ECAL Z80 assembler.
Unfortunately, the schematic diagram of the video board is still not drawn, but the CPU board plans are downloadable.

Now if they had done something like this I would been much more interested.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

I have a question to ask but first I want to note that I think you should go give some money to Doctors Without Borders to help with the relief work in Haiti.

OK, now that you are back can someone explain to me the horrible pile of crap that Haiti has dealt with for .. well damn near forever ... and at the same time explain the concept of an omnipotent and just God without using the phrases "He works in mysterious ways" or "man has free will and so can do evil". And no, this is not a test, it is one of the biggest reasons that I cannot wrap my head around any monotheistic religion.

All of that unmoved mover shit is easy to deal with compared to this kind of thing. The basic unfairness of it just fucking appalls me and I do not understand how believers go on believing.

And if you are now pissed off that I would ask such a rude question at a time like this, all I can say is ... go give some money to Doctors Without Borders. I promise that it will make you feel better. Even if it doesn't, you just might save a life.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Death on the Catwalk

… just a few hours before model Ana Carolina Reston, a 21-year-old Brazilian model, was reported as having died of starvation, trying to live on a diet of apples and tomatoes to keep her catwalk career. Ms Hunter’s Body Mass Index was a healthy 21.5, while the girl on the right, Swedish Marianne Berglund, had a BMI of 16.1, well below the 18.5 considered by health professionals as the minimum weight of a healthy adult woman, and even below the minimum BMI of 18 for models taking part in Madrid Fashion Week, set after catwalk model Luisel Ramos collapsed three months earlier at a fashion show and died from heart failure, having eaten nothing but salads and Diet Coke for three months in her lethal attempt to slim down to the perfect size zero.

Three months after Hunter’s win and Reston’s death, Luisel Ramos’s sister, Eliana, a model with a major Argentine agency, died after having starved herself. Rather than even consider the issue of the fashion industry’s insane demands on young models desperate enough to risk their lives to be thin ‘enough’, her boss, Pancho Dotto, declared well before any coroner’s post mortem that ‘obvious the sisters’ deaths must be due to a genetic problem.’

Read the whole thing. If you are not revolted by Karl Lagerfeld's comment then you should take a long look in the mirror and not like the person staring back at you. And don't take the current BS about Lagerfeld shooting a spread with a "Plus Size" model that you might have seen seriously. She is not a model, she is "burlesque star Miss Dirty Martini". He is still thumbing his nose at normal women. Think twice before picking up that next Chanel trinket.

This strikes the right tone

From Firedoglake

People have already been pushed a lot farther than simply having to accept a 50% tax on their multi-million-dollar salaries. Americans struggling in the economy created by these pirates can show these overfed, overpaid banksters just how far.

Join them sometime, rich banker fatcats, if you dare. You haven’t any concept of what it’s like to actually be “pushed.” Your multi-million-dollar, many-home, luxury yacht, multiple Mercedes, Gucci-shod, mistress-bedecked cosseted lifestyle hasn’t even been dented — yet. But keep up your silly mewling, bankster pirates, and you may very well find out how bad it really is at the bottom. The least you can do before we arrive with the torches and pitchforks is pay your fucking taxes to fix the economy you destroyed and repair the lives ruined in your wake.

Yes, I get that being taxed at a 50% marginal rate really sucks but considering that in a just world none of these assholes would have a job I think that they should just STFU.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Music Night - Change

Starting something a little different. I periodically (ok obsessively) play some of my favorite music on Facebook. I am going to start sharing some of the playlists here on my blog. Don't know if anyone will listen. Don't know if anyone will like them. Don't know if I will continue to do it more than every once in a while.

Just trying to find something new to do with my spare time so of course the theme for this first one is change.

Here is the lineup: