All Things in Moderation

We need more people to post here. I got writer’s block or something. 😉

The perfect epitaph. — KW

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TED Talk: How Healthy Living Nearly Killed Me.

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Medical technology innovations to look forward to in 2012 and beyond.

That’s it for today! — KW

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From Ace of Spades (yes, McWing, again), talking about the GOP and the upcoming election: If This is the Best We Can Do, We Deserve To Lose.

Our choice is coming down to whether we want to run the car over the cliff at 120MPH with Obama or whether we want to clip along at a leisurely 60MPH with the eventual GOP nominee in the driver’s seat for that final launch over the edge.

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And this is probably my last one, until next Monday.

If you’re a fan of the original Fellowship of the Ring, you might want to check out Drew McWeeny’s liveblog of his watching of the Blu-Ray extended-edition of same. I often disagree with Mr. McWeeny, but in this case I think he’s got it exactly right. Love that movie. Love them all, and look forward to getting the extended editions on Blu-Ray in the not-too-distant future.

Also, the latest production video from The Hobbit—in this case covering the huge production that is location shooting on such an elaborate film—is up. Can’t. Wait.

Honesty in advertising:

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Also, Kraft’s Velveeta Fudge recipe. If you go that route, don’t be afraid to throw in an extra teaspoon of vanilla. The more fattening version uses full fat Velveeta (what I’d recommend) and adds a 1/2 cup of dry milk.

I’ve never had the more elaborate Paula Deen version, but it looks evil. Watch Ellen Degeneres help her make it. She rolls it peanuts, but I’d still go for the pecans, if I were you. My theory is that you ought to add a little extra Velveeta, vanilla, and pecans to any Velveeta fudge you choose to make. Feel free to double pecans and vanilla, maybe add another a couple of cubes of Velveeta (up it about 15%). But, that’s me, your mileage may vary.

— KW

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I will not do well with interview questions like these, in part because they piss me off. But then, I’ve never been a fan of brain teasers.

Although I’ve been through my share of irritating job interviews. I had one where the guys wanted me to write out a SQL query longhand to create a database an automatically populate it and some other stuff—and I would never be able to write out an extended SQL procedure and have it work the first time. They could have just asked me that to begin with, and saved us all a lot of time. Almost nothing I write works the first time—I write, debug, write some more, debug some more, look on the Internet to see how this or that works again, to refresh my memory.

Of course, I’ve been on the opposite end of that, interviewing people for a position who didn’t seem to read the job description. We were always explicit about what you should know about, yet people would show up not knowing any of things we had asked about. It just mystified me.

Of course, the qualified people often bailed when they found out what the position was offering. We were cheap. Of course, if any of those people are still working in the design field, they probably aren’t making any more than what we offered at the time. Graphic design has a definite undersupply of jobs and an oversupply of talent.

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Bits & Pieces may be spotty or non-existent through the holidays. You know, for kids.

The first Hobbit Trailer is out. That’s all you need to know about anything, for now.

“Bagginses? What is a ‘Bagginses’?”

While I imagine a lot of work was finished in order to deliver for the trailer, it seems to me like they must have had a lot of the first movie done, given what’s in the trailer. I’m surprised we’ll be waiting until December 2012 to see it. Ah, well.

I’ll just have to content myself with repeatedly watching the trailer, and wondering what they’ve come up with for Gandalf’s interaction with Galadriel. To the Tolkien purists, all I’ve got say is: you’ve still got the books. I’m as excited as I can be to see what connective tissue to LOTR that Jackson and Walsh and Boyens have invented, and seeing Gandalf chatting with Galadriel, and knowing that Saruman will make an appearance—it all makes me very happy.

At some point, I’m looking forward to watching the extended editions of the two Hobbit movies and the three LOTR movies on Blu-Ray. Sometimes in 2014 or 2015 I imagine. Not sure how I’ll schedule it, but I’m going to make it happen.

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Still watching Battlestar Galactica. Saw a preview of Caprica, and putting it in context, that show looks great. Sorry to find out it got cancelled prematurely, but I’m surprised Syfy had the money to put together a series like Battlestar in the first place. Anyway, it’s awesome.

Stupid consumers won’t buy the right kind of light bulbs, so they must be forced to.

Supposedly because you save enough on energy and replacement costs to justify the investment. If so, why not let bulb manufacturers make that case to consumers, who can then decide for themselves?A noncoercive approach is unacceptable, the Times implies, because consumers are driven by irrational concerns.

Speaking of infrastructure jobs, isn’t the Keystone Pipeline “infrastructure”? Or is it bad when when it’s energy infrastructure? I mean, petroleum energy infrastructure?

I’m sorry, but this is bullsh*t. It’s Google’s g*ddamned search engine. Why the hell can’t they feature search results that feature their own products? Google may not be that great at not being evil, but this is just stupid, and any success they have in this direction just sets a bad precedent. I love how competitive behavior is getting re-defined as “anti-competetive”. Google pimping their own products is now anti-competetive? No, that’s actually competing. In the marketplace.

“Given the scope of Google’s market share in general Internet search, a key question is whether Google is using its market power to steer users to its own web products or secondary services and discriminating against other websites with which it competes,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter sent Monday.

As a call back to our earlier comment-thread discussions about Song of the South, here are the 6 Most Secretly Racist Classic Children’s Books. Sherlock Holmes is a children’s book?

A few years ago I purchased a collection of vintage cartoons intended for children, but also intended to be cheap (most, I imagine, are very inexpensive to license or in the public domain). There was one Tom and Jerry short on there, but not the cat and mouse (indeed, they were later renamed Dick and Larry, to avoid confusion). Two Laurel and Hardy types, only animated, and there’s a sequence where they are flying in a plane and decide to visit Africa, in blackface. Delightfully racist–you know, for kids!

— KW

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Somebody else is trying to do the Bad Lip Reading thing. This is their take on Rick Perry’s “Strong” Ad.

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