Archive for April 28, 2009

Does game night add up to a visit from homeland security?

Posted: April 28, 2009 by datechguy in gaming
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It might this week. We started with a a game of Robo Rally. Frank won that one, but we finished a tad early so we needed a 2nd game, so we decided to play Nuclear War and Nuclear Proliferation as they are usually rather quick to play.

By an odd coincidence in the middle of the game my nephew Dominic got a call from his kids in Minnesota. He was telling his daughter that he would soon be on a plane from Boston, at the same time the background talk was launching missiles, millions dead and so many megatons and bombs.

If anyone was monitoring that call and not familar with the board game they much have gotten rather excited. If the monitoring is done via computer programs then the alarm bells should be ringing off the hook.

I’ll let you know if the men in dark suits show up.

I thought apple was the company of the people?

Posted: April 28, 2009 by datechguy in tech
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I think that Apple might actually be a business out for profit:

Reports of cracked hinges on the laptop are nothing new, but we always assumed Apple would eventually ‘fess up to the problem and comp those repairs. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case, and we just got another report of a hapless MacBook Air owner who has a broken hinge that Apple says will cost $800 to repair, despite the fact the laptop is under warranty. Our own MacBook Air Rev. A had the exact same problem — the hinge becomes loose over time, then suddenly catches and cracks from normal use, it’s not from undue stress — and Apple did the repair for free, but only after we escalated the issue to a manager, who let us know how very nice of them that was. From reading various reports, that seems the exception to Apple’s repair policy, which lists this sort of damage as “accidental,” and we’re wondering how widespread this issue may be.

This would make a very interesting Mac vs PC counter ad.

Via Glenn.

I always thought a house was to live in

Posted: April 28, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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To me the value of a house is as a place to live and to raise my children. The actual price never really mattered to me.

So this story doesn’t bother me in the least:

A widely watched housing index shows home prices dropped in February, but for the first time in 16 months the decline was not a record.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 major cities released Tuesday dropped by 18.6 percent from February 2008, slightly better than the 19 percent in January. The 10-city index slid 18.8 percent, compared to 19.4 percent the month before.

For decades I have heard the cry of “affordable housing”. If prices drop doesn’t that mean that housing is more affordable? Isn’t that a good thing?

OMG Even Olberman gets it!

Posted: April 28, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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How do you know a mistake is a REAL mistake. When Keith Olberman calls for the resignation of a member of the Obama administration:

You have to wait for the 1:20 minute mark to see it but it comes.

As national review says:

Okay, so Olbermann’s a maniac, but even broken clocks can be right twice a day.

Yes I don’t think I’ll be writing that Olberman gets it very often.

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