The Corporation

We finally got round to watching the award-winning documentary “The Corporation” on DVD.

This doco looks at the concept, history, legal status, institution and ethics of corporations (or ‘companies’ as we might more commonly call them).  At 145 mins it’s a little lengthy, but the film covers a lot of ground while keeping the viewer enthralled.  Notable interviewees include Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore.

Along the lines of the Hendo Wine Rating (HWR) is the Hendo Movie Rating (HMR).

HMR:  5/5

Evolution of ‘Gay’

In the natural course of a “living” language, new words are introduced, some words disappear from use, and other words change their meaning over time.

While many words have changed their meaning, it occurred to me that the English word ‘gay’ has now had three very distinct and different meanings.

1. Cheerfulness, merry, lively. E.g. Flintstones cartoon “have a gay old time”.

2. A homosexual person [noun]; acting in a homosexual manner [adverb]; related to homosexual interests [adjective].

3. Stupid, dumb. E.g. “that’s so gay” [in a derogative sense]. This usage is not pervasive, but is definitely used among kids, teenagers and twenty-somethings.

‘Message Force Multipliers’

New York Times, 20 April 2008:

Article:  Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

Multimedia version:  Interactive Presentation

Excerpt:

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

Worst. Interface. Ever.

The periods in the title are there for dramatic effect and do not accurately represent the author’s knowledge of English grammar.

The Safely Remove Hardware user interface in Windows XP and Vista needs to be re-designed. There, I’ve said it. Go forth and re-design, O ye architects of Windows.

If you want to safely remove a USB memory stick from your PC, the following steps are required:

1. Right-click the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon in the traybar and choose “Safely Remove Hardware” from the popup menu. 2 clicks.

2. Select the device you want to remove (though if there’s only one device in the list then it is already selected). 0 or 1 clicks.

3. Click the “Stop” button and then in the confirmation window click the “OK” button. 2 clicks.

4. In Vista, click the “OK” button that appears in the “This device can now be safely removed from the computer” message box. In XP, it’s optional, but you can click to hide the yellow popup notification bubble that appears above the traybar. I’m counting it as 1 click.

5. Click the “Close” button to close the “Safely Remove Hardware” window. 1 click.

Total of 6 or 7 mouse clicks!

This cumbersome interface causes users to skip the process and just pull out their USB memory stick from the PC when they think the system or application has finished using it.

Such users don’t realise* that just because the File Copy dialog says it’s finished copying doesn’t mean the operating system has finished writing to the device and that pulling out the stick may result in data loss.

* I’m Australian so am using British/Australian English spelling, much to the WordPress.com spellchecker’s horror.

Download YouTube vids as MP4 files

This handy browser bookmark allows you to download and save a YouTube video to your hard disk as an MP4 file, which you can then play in apps like QuickTime Player or VLC.

‘Andy Dufresne’ speaks at NAB

In news from Vegas, Tim Robbins gave a keynote speech at NAB 2008, though the choice of speaker came as a surprise to some.

His humorous and at times satirical speech drew on political topics and reflected on the history of broadcast media.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Confessions of a Vista lover

Okay, so I don’t really love Windows Vista, but it makes for a snappier title.

There are only 2 things that annoy be about Vista:

1. File Copy / Transfer speed. Seriously, whoever re-designed / re-wrote this needs to be fired.
2. Windows Explorer list columns are not consistent across folder view types. I don’t care that some folders may contain images, and others contain music files, and others just a whole bunch of different types. I want Explorer to show the same list and columns for all folders, like I could do with XP.

But on the whole I think Vista is a good successor to XP. There are enough new features or tweaks over XP that I have come to appreciate, including (in no particular order):

• Faster boot time
• Network connectivity icon in the traybar shows internet connectivity
• The new Start menu
• Search
• Aero and UI update
• Security improvements (a lot under the hood, for instance the SetProcessDEPPolicy() API)
• Windows Mail

C++ books

The following are some of the C++ books on my bookshelf, some which are must-read classics, though I highly recommended all of them:

• C++ Primer, Lippman et al
• The C++ Programming Language, Stroustrup
• Effective C++, More Effective C++, Effective STL, Scott Meyers
• C++ Coding Standards, Sutter & Alexandrescu
• Exceptional C++, More Exceptional C++, Exceptional C++ Style, Herb Sutter
• Design Patterns, Gamma et al
• Modern C++ Design, Alexandrescu
• C++ Templates, Vandevoorde & Josuttis
• The C++ Standard Library, Josuttis
• The C++ Standard Library Extensions, Becker
• Secure Coding in C and C++, Seacord
• Writing Secure Code, Howard & LeBlanc
• Programming with POSIX Threads, Butenhof
• Windows via C/C++, Richter & Nasarre

Taylors Jaraman Shiraz 2004

This lovely red is a multi-regional blend from McLaren Vale and Clare Valley (Australia).

Winorama scores it at 88 points (of a possible 100).

Hendo Wine Rating (HWR): 5/5

It begins

This blog will cover a range of subjects that I either find interesting or just want to blogify about.

I intend to cover topics including (in no particular order) computers, film & TV, C++, wine, software, sport, politics, and possibly the mating habits of the Odobenus rosmarus.