Adding Dell to the list of companies I will never again do business with

As you may know if you've been reading this blog for a while, I have zero tolerance for incompetence. Especially when it comes from large corporations that allegedly want my money and my business. So far, eBay and PayPal have both demonstrated themselves so incompetent that I will never do business with them ever again.

Today, we can add Dell to that list.

Here's the story of what they did to get me this angry and why I don't think anybody should do business with them ever again.

The story of the Commodore Amiga (updated: now through part 12, the final installment)

Ars Technica has been writing a series of articles about the history of the Commodore Amiga. For those interested in computer history, this is a fascinating story. More interesting, in many respects, than the stories of Microsoft and Apple.

Here are links to what's been written so far:

• Part 1: Genesis
• Part 2: The birth of Amiga
• Part 3: First prototype
• Part 4: Enter Commodore
• Part 5: Postlaunch Blues
• Part 6: Stopping The Bleeding
• Part 7: Game On!
• Part 8: The Demo Scene
• Part 9: The Video Toaster
• Part 10: The downfall of Commodore
• Part 11: Between an Escom and a Gateway
• Part 12: Red vs. Blue

• People still use the Amiga today, and new Viva Amiga documentary shows why
• The A-EON Amiga X5000: An alternate universe where the Amiga platform never died

I believe this is the complete set of articles - 12 parts plus two sidebar articles. If more are written in the future, I will update this article when I learn about them.

WTF, Walmart. Get your holiday's straight

I recognize the fact that Walmart is not a Jewish corporation. Nevertheless, it would seem to me that they could at least take a quick look at Wikipedia to see what kinds of things Jews are likely to buy for Chanukah.

Instead, I see this display:

Look closely and tell me what doesn't belong here. Like, perhaps, most of the display.

On this display, only the olive oil and potato pancake mix are relevant to Chanukah. Most of the rest of the items (matzoh, macaroons and grape juice) are are traditional foods for Pesach which will be in April. And the package of kosher noodle soup, while nice to have, isn't relevant to any Jewish holiday at all.

New comic: Laws and Sausages

Laws and Sausages

Greg Weiner and Zach Weinersmith (author of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal) have teamed up to present, in comic form, a series of lessons on American history, civics and how the US government works (or is supposed to work).

The lessons posted so far are:

1. Separation of Powers, part 1
2. Separation of Powers, part 2
3. Impeachment
4. Practical Info #1: Writing to Congress

It's a fast read and very educational for those who haven't learned about this in the past (which I suspect is a lot of people) and a good humorous refresher for those who already know the material.

Heraclitean River: No, February 29th is NOT "Bissextile Day"

No, February 29th is NOT "Bissextile Day"
February 28, 2016, by Heraclitus

A new use of an old obscure word has emerged in recent years.  With leap day approaching, we will undoubtedly hear a number of sources wishing a “Happy Bissextile Day!” for February 29th.

The problem is that the term bissextile day does not refer to February 29th, and it never did.  I assume some folks get this mistaken impression due to old dictionaries that state the definition of bissextile day as something like “the day added to leap years.”  That definition is correct, but the problem is such definitions were written back when educated people would have understood that “the day added to leap years” was February 24th, not February 29th.

“Huh?” you say.  “What do you mean, February 24th is added in leap years?  That makes no sense.”  Well, it doesn’t make sense in modern calendars, but that is in fact when the bissextile day happens in leap years.  Thus, if you want to use that fancy word, don’t use it for the 29th.  Let me explain.

I just discovered (thanks to a reader who pointed it out to me) that the Heraclitean River blog no longer exists. I don't know exactly when it went down, but it's currently occupied by a domain squatter. According to the Wayback Machine, the site seems to have been down in March 2018 (the last capture) and the last valid capture of the home page was in October 2017. So we can assume that it went down some time between those two dates.

I don't know why the site went away, but as a part of my discovering this, I read the last article posted and since it is very interesting, I'm sharing it with you. Please read the full article and share it with your friends - it's a fascinating read.

AppleInsider: Paid as a brand ambassador by Huawei, Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot tweets from iPhone

Paid as a brand ambassador by Huawei, Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot tweets from iPhone
By Daniel Eran Dilger, Thursday, April 26, 2018, 05:49 am PT (08:49 am ET)

Huawei paid Gal Gadot to tweet out her affection for its Mate 10 Pro smartphone, but the Wonder Woman star sent it via her iPhone, the latest in a long line of celebrity endorsements for Android that revealed they were really iOS users.

It appears that celebrities love Apple products so much that they use them for broadcasting endorsements for competing products.

Read the whole article for many more amusing examples

My Disneyworld vacation - the food

Part 3 of 3

This article describes all the great stuff we had to eat on our vacation. If you haven't gone to Disney World with a dining plan, you might be unaware of the fact that they have incredibly great restaurants all over the place. They're probably too expensive to go to if you're traveling on a budget, but I think they make the overall vacation experience so much better.

This article is a quick review of all the places we dined at on our vacation.

The Verge: Your nose isn’t really as big as it looks in selfies

Your nose isn’t really as big as it looks in selfies
By Rachel Becker | @RA_Becks | Mar 1, 2018, 12:33pm EST

Noses in selfies may be smaller than they appear

Your nose isn’t actually as big as it looks in selfies, says facial plastic surgeon Boris Paskhover. So maybe hold off on that nose job — at least, until you’ve seen a decent portrait photo of yourself.

Last year, more than half of plastic surgeons were approached by patients who wanted to look better in selfies, according to a survey by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. But selfies don’t actually reflect what people look like in the flesh, says Paskhover, who works at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. “They take out their phone and they say, ‘Look at this picture, look how big my nose looks,’” he says. “I went out to prove why selfies don’t look like the real person, why they’re distorted.”
...
Most smartphone cameras have wide-angle lenses, says The Verge’s creative director James Bareham, and close-ups with wide-angle lenses cause distortion that makes objects closer to the camera — like, say, a nose — look larger. “It’s kind of one of the basics of photography: don’t shoot portraits on a wide-angle lens because you will look terrible,” Bareham says

Seems pretty obvious now, but I'm sure I'm not the only non-photographer who was unaware of this fact.

I think phone manufacturers should take this into consideration. It's probably not best to use a wide-angle lens for the front ("selfie") camera, the way you do for the normal (back of the phone) camera. On the other hand, if you're holding at arm's length (or less) for taking a selfie or for video-chatting, a portrait lens might not be able to capture you're entire head.

I wonder if the advanced image processing software of a modern smart phone could correct these wide-angle lens effects. Given that there are already software packages for other kinds of lens corrections, this might be a viable option.

Is anyone at Apple or Google reading this? If you are, please take this article as a feature request on my part.

My Disneyworld vacation - the parks

Part 2 of 3.

This article describes the things my wife and I did at the parks in Disney World.

This was not our first trip. It was my sixth (since the early 80's) and my wife's third trip. As such, there was no compelling desire to rush through and see everything as quickly as possible. We were both familiar with the main attractions and as such were able to focus on recent additions and our favorites.

With that in mind, here are the highlights of what we saw at each of the four parks.

My Disneyworld vacation - overview

Part 1 of 3

My wife and I just returned from a week vacation to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. It was a great trip. A lot of fun, but unfortunately not without its share of headaches as well.

This article is the first of three, describing our trip. This one is an overview of the trip, discussing the planning, dining plans and travel. Subsequent articles will discuss what we did there and about the restaurants we ate at.