February 25, 2010 by vortmax.

We always hear about colloquialisms that enter everyday conversations.  Back in the 80’s, it was “valley girl speak” of “like… you know” and “Oh… my gawd!”   We then heard the over-use of “essentially.”

That has now evolved into my new pet peeve: “Basically.”

That is the new overused word in the American conversation.  While the speaker may intend to use it as a simplification of a point, it is often used as a “filler” to make the speaker seem smarter than they actually are.  More often than not, it makes the listener feel more inadequate, or it makes the speaker appear arrogant about their own intelligence.

So, I beg of each and every one of you:  do not use “basically” when you are trying to describe something.  Use “I believe” instead, because that’s what you are… basically… expressing.

GAH!

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February 18, 2009 by vortmax.

2/18/09 = 0.0123456789

Only geeks will appreciate the significance of this.  For you non-geeks who don’t get it, here’s the word-problem version:

Divide 2 by 18, then divide that by 9.

p.s. - If I could figure out how to do the repeat notation I would, as “0123456789″ repeats, but that would indicate my geekdom is off the scale.

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May 14, 2008 by vortmax.

People who litter annoy me.  People who throw their cigarette butts out the windows of their cars really annoy me.  I’ve always wanted to start a site to report these offenders, but I’ve been beaten to the punch (or saved a huge headache).

Litterbutt.com provides this service, and I’ve submitted my first report.   While I don’t expect to change the world, it at least provides me with some way to act against those who don’t give a crap about what harm cigarette butts can cause.

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May 8, 2008 by vortmax.

Watch and find out:

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January 9, 2008 by vortmax.

Yup, I got it. Nope, I didn’t get the flu vaccine. Yup, I’m dumb.

I had forgotten how miserable the flu makes a person. Nose running like a faucet, head so stuffed I’m dizzy, body aching, chills.

Next year it’s the vaccine.

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December 24, 2007 by vortmax.

Ever wonder why Southwest Airlines doesn’t have assigned seating?  Simple:  it’s faster:

Van den Briel says that while Southwest’s open seating might seem like an invitation for chaos, it actually illustrates a tendency among passengers to self-organize when left to their own devices. “Passengers who are free to sit anywhere usually do a good job staying out of each other’s way,” he explains. “Without having studied it in detail, I would imagine that an open boarding model is faster than assigned seating.”  

It’s one of the few reasons Southwest ranks well in on-time efficiency.

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November 28, 2007 by vortmax.

In case you didn’t know.  Yes, I finally figured out to make my own named account and promote myself to administrator level.  

I is a compooter dood! 

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November 27, 2007 by admin.

This time, it’s not Infoworld, or some other reputable source.

This time it’s just little old me. I’ve been working on an ActiveX wrapper for our new plugin software (since IE doesn’t support Netscape-style plug-ins since 5.5 sp2, the buggers).  Up until last Wednesday, it was working fine.  Then I downloaded an update to Visual Studio.  Now my compiled version of the control works fine on my Parallels XP/IE7 and Vista/IE7, but it crashes on native Vista/IE7.  The assertion looks like it cannot create a new window for the plugin to load into.

OK, so I guess this is more a Visual Studio gripe for breaking their own code (yes, the assertion is in their own codebase, not mine).  Still, can’t MS do anything right? 

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October 9, 2007 by admin.

I’ve never been an “all or nothing” type of person, I believe in compromise and adjustment. However it seems that studies confirm that most people aren’t that way. Most people see every choice as a binary choice, thus creating an information cascade.

From the linked article:

“The belief that low-fat diets prolong your life is one example of a cascade. The crusade against global warming is another — which is not to say that global warming isn’t real. Cascades can be based on correct beliefs as well as mistaken ones. The point is that large groups of people can reach a “consensus” without most of them really understanding the issue: Once a critical mass of people starts a trend, the rest make the rational decision to go along because they figure the trend-setters can’t all be wrong. The danger is that you end up with the blind leading the blind….“

I found this very fascinating, and very scary, especially when reflecting upon the decisions of both the Bush administration, and the Democratic Congress of late.

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