“If I wanted my computer rendered useless,” I said, “I would’ve saved myself some time by simply continuing to run Windows XP on it.”
Refusing to take “no” for an answer from my computer, I made a second attempt to install Windows Vista. For the full story, check out my article at Global Nerdy.
Today, November 1st, is All Saints’ Day, a.k.a. Hallowmas (which is why October 31st is All Hallows’ Eve, a.k.a. Hallowe’en). It’s the day before All Souls’ Day: November 2nd, unless it’s a Sunday, in which case it’s moved to November 3rd). However, in Mexico, festivities for what they call El Dia de los Muertos — the Day of the Dead — typically begin today.
In the Philippines, we don’t throw fiestas like the Mexicans do. Instead, November 1st is typically the day when you go visit your relatives’ graves. I decided to go traditional this morning and pay Dad a visit.
I miss the big guy.
Courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele and Headturban, here’s a sampling of incredibly cheesy newspaper ads for movies, whose vintage ranges from 1959 to 1977 (click the photo below to see them at full size). They’re schlock-tastic!
It’s a day late, but here’s an amusing Hallowe’en comic courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele:
In torture-related news, Dilbert creator Scott Adams — whose opinion matters among the educated, rationalist, leaning-towards-libertarian crowd (geeks, technologists and such) — has shifted slightly in his opinion on torture, from “pro” to “undecided”:
The media have trotted out expert after expert to say that regular non-torture interrogation is MORE effective than torture. I discounted those experts as selectively chosen by the liberal media. One thing that all of the experts seemed to have in common is that none of them had USED torture. So how would they know torture was worse than the alternative?
But much time has passed since this debate began. You’d think that the proponents of torture (cough, cough, Fox New, cough) would have produced one credible torturer to say, “Torture works great! I get all of my information in minutes and I’m home to help the kids with homework by five!”
Or perhaps the media could find one torture victim who would say, “I wasn’t going to tell them anything until they started water-boarding me. Man, that stuff works!”
Now granted, it might be hard to find someone to confess to being a torturer. And it might be even harder to find someone who was tortured who is willing to endorse it. But it seems to me that with all the torturing going on, you could at least find a friend of a friend who saw it work. Or the American government could find some CIA operative who is willing to be filmed in silhouette with his voice garbled saying he’s seen torture produces excellent results.
But nothing? For years?
Move me to the skeptical column. The burden is on the proponents of torture to produce some proof that it works. I still don’t rule out the possibility that torture can be effective, but if it’s being done in my name, I want some fucking evidence.
…and the results have been less than optimal. Read this story (and more) on Global Nerdy.
On Saturday, I attended a reunion for the school where I spent grades 6 through 13 (back then, there were 5 years of high school in Ontario), De La Salle College “Oaklands”, a Catholic school located just north of downtown Accordion City. It sounds strange saying this, but it was my class’ twentieth anniversary of graduation. Twenty years!
It was good seeing some of the old gang — Nick Catre (the Filipino Eric Cartman), Steve Bucic (fun guy and troublemaker extraordinaire), Anthony Famularo (learned, impartial and very relaxed), Borys Gogus (always up for a drink), to name only a few. It was also good to catch up with one of my favorite teachers, Mr. Tony Ellis, who brought science to life with his giant slinkies (to demonstrate waves), his dead cat (which he used to charge plastic for electrostatics demos) and pranking us by nitrogen triiodide, a compound so unstable that it often exploded just just a touch. (Mr. Ellis also evangelized Crazy Go Nuts University, which played a role in my going there.) I wish my computer science teachers, Messrs. Joe Clarkson and Tony Etele and my English teacher, John Cheley had been there too.
The campus looks a little bit different now, but I’ve got to admit that it looks shinier — that’s the effect of their switch to becoming a fully private school after my departure. I’m sure that going co-ed (geez, why didn’t we have girls in our day?) helps too — we were always less slovenly when ladies were present.
Glenn Douglas made the best observation of the night: “The changes in us aren’t so dramatic as they were at our ten-year reunion,” and he’s right. It’s a much bigger leap from graduating from high school to having finished university and going to work or grad school.
It was also good to hear that “Del” is still known for academics. In our day, 90% of us who graduated went on to university or college; I’ve seen school where that number is closer to 15. This is still the case, and Del still has to turn away 2 applicants for every student they accept.
I had a great time catching up with everyone, and even the Ginger Ninja enjoyed herself. Thanks, guys!
(Maybe I’ll have to post some high school stories here.)
Techies: you can either read our tech blog, Global Nerdy, or wallow in the filth of your own ignorance and uncoolness.