Comments for A Slight Delay

Comment on Summum jus, summa injuria. by paul

paul — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:01:46 +0000

That’s fine, Roy. Not for nothing did I name it “A Slight Delay.”

I’m curious: you say you would vote for the re-introduction of the death penalty, but that you wouldn’t vote to impose it if you were serving on a jury. Why vote for a law about which you’re conflicted, and that (from the sound of it) you’d prefer not to see carried out? I can understand supporting the death penalty (although I don’t agree with it) and I can also understand why one would refuse to impose it, but these strike me as a dichotomy, an either/or rather than a both/and. Could you shed some light on your thinking?

Comment on Summum jus, summa injuria. by Roy

Roy — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:20:55 +0000

I’m sorry I’m 18 months late to this discussion, but you state that the Capital Punishment debate is only about the death penalty on the surface. How right you are.
If it came to a free vote here in the UK, I would vote for the re-introduction of the death penalty. Absolute fact.
If I was sat on a jury where I knew that the accused could be put to death because of my vote, I could never return a verdict that could take some-one else’s life. Fact again.
Logically, then, the death penalty is no good, because for a deterrent to deter you must be prepared to use it. If 1 person out of 60 million that live in this country aren’t prepared to use it, then universal justice cannot be served.

Comment on Smokey, Meet Santa by paul

paul — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:48:09 +0000

My brother from another mother! Thanks for stopping by!

Comment on Smokey, Meet Santa by Michael Johnson

Michael Johnson — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:14:49 +0000

No truer words have EVER been spoken!! I agreed with everything that you wrote!!

Comment on Smokey, Meet Santa by paul

paul — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:35:47 +0000

Josh’s Mom: As of the time I wrote this post, it wasn’t just the advertising firm, but also HTH’s website, that was advertising the buttons at $1.98 apiece. And it’s hardly the only email I’ve received from the company (or on its behalf); the others also listed the same asking price.

But to address what is, I think, your more salient point: This post is not an attack on Christians, and I’m not sure quite how/why you’d read it in quite that way. My issue’s not with Christianity, but with the fact that it, like Christmas itself, has become a commodity; my point is that when you (not you, specifically, moreso a generic “you”) commercialize “saving” Christmas, you’ve missed the point as surely as someone thinking that picking up a few last-minute doodads at Wal-Mart is somehow honoring Jesus. To compound the irony, you’ve fed into precisely the same mentality you’re railing against. The point isn’t what’s on your sleeve, but on your heart.

With all that said, thank you for visiting, and for commenting. I wish you and your family a merry Christmas, as well.

Comment on Smokey, Meet Santa by Josh's mom

Josh's mom — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:00:58 +0000

I happen to know these people. They are all Christians and are upset that Christmas trees are now being called the ‘great trees’ in their town. All though the advertising firm may have been extreme, they actually give them away free. They have donated hundreds to local churches and anyone that wants one they will send them out to at no cost. There are numerous emails that were sent out. This is the only one that was sent that required payment. The advertising firm felt that some people would not see value in something that did not have a cost. All the other emails offered the buttons at no cost and were shipped all over the company at the companies expense. This company has not and will not make any money on these buttons. You rant about the email but what about the values of this country. Again, you have exemplified the reason that the principals of this company are so upset. Attacking Christians is easy. In our society today it is not so easy to simply say ‘Merry Christmas’. To that end I say to you and yours ‘Merry Christmas’. For a free button click here: https://www.headingtoheaven.com/site/freebutton/default.php?src=asd

Comment on Smokey, Meet Santa by Jenny

Jenny — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:39:44 +0000

I cannot express to you how much I enjoyed this post.

Comment on Barnes and Noble’s new Nook Considered (From a Distance) by paul

paul — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:27:47 +0000

My understanding of this is that the pricing of B&N e-books will be pretty much in line with Amazon’s pricing; there’s also supposed to be a decent number of free content available via B&N, and when you throw Google Books, Creative Commons, and Wikimedia into the equation, that opens up yet more free content.

Another drawback, as I mentioned in the post (and could have elaborated upon, but I’ll do that here) is that Nook doesn’t appear to take full advantage of its wireless capability. I’ve seen the point made elsewhere (by B&N flacks and a handful of prospective users) that this is supposed to be a reader and not the Swiss Army Knife of electronic devices, but this explanation/excuse is too simplistic by half. I don’t necessarily want to play Tetris on an e-reader, but I fully expect to be able to read on it. Not being able to do something as simple as set up an RSS feed so you can read newspapers, news aggregators and blogs (maybe they’re afraid it’ll cut into their subscription revenue stream?) seems to defeat what is, after all, the stated purpose of the device.

Comment on Barnes and Noble’s new Nook Considered (From a Distance) by Philip Yurchuk

Philip Yurchuk — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:45:25 +0000

My random comments:

I agree about piracy fueling the success of MP3 players in general. As for the iPod specifically, I think Apple does a better job than any other tech company of creating - and mass producing - objects of desire. This is coming from someone who appreciates aesthetics - I haven’t owned an Apple product since the IIc.

The technical book industry already allows you to buy print or electronic (usually PDF) versions, and both for a discount. I usually stick with PDF because it’s easy to cut and paste code examples. And there are online tech book libraries. O’Reilly’s Safari is well stocked. As you suggested, the full library search is extremely useful, as is searching just your “favorited” books.

As for the Nook, I was discussing this with my roommate the other day. He’s a Kindle (2nd gen.) owner, and I find the display crisp and the text to speech feature really useful. While the Nook looks like it may have some improvements, it has one drawback the Kindle doesn’t have: Barnes & Noble-priced books.

Either way, I’m afraid I just don’t read enough to make any reader cost effective. That’s why I need to retire soon

Comment on Puerto Rico Diary 2: Dining Out by Philip Yurchuk

Philip Yurchuk — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:50:02 +0000

I’m wondering if you could phrase ask the locals a different way and get better results. I’m thinking if you asked “what restaurant makes the best empanadillas?” or pernil or something like that, you might jog their memory better. Then again, you probably already thought of that and got, “Oh, my wife makes it the best. We don’t go out for that.”

For the next time, Yelp seems to have decent coverage of San Juan, at least:

http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=restaurant&ns=1&find_loc=san+juan%2C+puerto+rico