Matt's Mindless Musings

Month: May 2003

  • Lazy Long Weekend

    I didn’t accomplish much this weekend, but I did manage to get my butt in a saddle for the first time since early April. Brian finally showed up and shod Arthur on Tuesday, when I wasn’t around to pay him. The MayFest Horse Trials seemed like a good time to track him down and settle […]

  • Rachel Corrie

    Have you heard that name before? I hadn’t either, until I received a copy of Naomi Klein’s article comparing Rachel Corrie to another blonde American hero, Jessica Lynch. Ms. Klein tells the story so well that I can’t add anything to it. But I felt compelled to mention it here since the US government and […]

  • Why I don’t want a Beemer

    Aside from the fact that driving a BMW is an easy way to proclaim to the world “I’m an asshole!” there’s a tangible reason not to want one (even if I could afford it). The new ones are controlled by Microsoft Windows CE, as glowingly described in a Microsoft press release. Anybody knows this is […]

  • Does anybody care what time it is?

    Is it a big deal if the clock on a bank’s automated teller machine is three minutes off? It is a big deal if that timestamp is used as evidence in a murder investigation. An Arizona Star article tells the story of two teenagers and a mother falsely arrested for murder, and hauled from Arizona […]

  • Homeland Insecurity vs. Wally World?

    I made a quick stop at Walmart yesterday (no comments, Mel!) to pick up some pictures of friends and neighbors that I took at Rolex. It was the first time I had experimented with the process of having prints made from my Nikon 5700 and I was curious to see what kind of quality I […]

  • Lima Lima Mike Foxtrot

    A recent Wired article about the innovative and improvisational information technology in the Iraq war brought a new military expression to my attention. Lima Lima Mike Foxtrot. I’m going to be mean and make you read the article to find out what it means. It’s kind of catchy, but a little awkward for normal use, […]

  • Kucinich Scores in Iowa

    I haven’t been able to produce much new content here recently, so the Kucinich presidential campaign was nice enough to drop some in my lap, in a recent email about his recent ranking by union members at a candidates’ forum in Iowa. When I first received it, it was not yet on their website, so […]

  • Marie Antoinette Reincarnated?

    In a perfect example of clueless politicians and CEO’s, a New York Times article reports that workers in an Omaha factory will lose a day’s pay when the plant closes for a speech by President Bush, telling them how they’re going to be helped by tax cuts for their rich owners. This doesn’t seem to […]

  • Speaking of flaws and incompetence

    After almost 10 days of either not having time to add anything here, or not having anything worth writing about, I finally grabbed a couple of minutes for a quick Microsoft bashing (below). And it didn’t work; the story disappeared into a black hole somewhere. After first blaming myself or my browser, and trying unsuccessfully […]

  • Another Micro$oft security flaw?? Surprise!!!

    Considering Microsoft’s overall record for quality and reliability, it’s not really surprising to read a New York Times article reporting that “Microsoft acknowledged a security flaw Thursday in its popular Internet Passport service that left 200 million consumer accounts vulnerable to hackers and thieves”. It’s not even really surprising that Microsoft couldn’t find a hole […]