Apple Sauce

Nose strips only make you dorky, not faster. The Curmudgeon pointed to this story which says that those plastic strips which are supposed to increase the airflow through your nose don't help athletic performance at all. Apple has mastered bench-marketing. In the presentation this afternoon, Apple posted benchmarks comparing their iMacs to a Gateway Astro. Astros aren't even manufactured anymore, nor were they ever intended as machines to run Quake III on, which is what this benchmark was all about. I also question the validity of their Photoshop benchmark, considering that it showed the G4 took 45 seconds for some test, a Sony VAIO PIII-600 took 130, and a Dell WebPC PIII-600 took 180. How much can this benchmark have to do with CPU power, if two machines running the exact same CPU had such wildly different scores? Of course, no details were provided about RAM, hard disk, etc.

I did manage to stump one of the Apple guys with this simple question: "Brent, exactly what market is Apple targeting with their G4 Cube product?" He looked at me and said: "I have no idea". It's too expensive too be a low-end product and too wimpy to be a high-end product.

I searched the web (using Google) for my grandfather's name yesterday. I found this story, written by him, about an incident during World War II. He's told me it before, but never with this much detail, here's a bit:

"Ein moment," she said, only to disappear and return shortly with a key and pointed to a door. I unlocked the door and entered to find myself confronted by two Kraut non-coms in their underwear. They grabbed their lugers—and handed them to me. I never got my 45 out of the holster, but I had forgotten it was April Fools Day. And it wasn’t a "wasser kloset" after all.

Apple is doing a presentation in our building later today. Anyone who wants to come is invited, there will be free food, etc. Maybe I can sucker the Apple reps into taking me out for lunch before the show. Details are here.

Impending Doom

John apparently has an exhibitionist streak to him that I never knew about. I certainly wasn't expecting to find this picture at his site. Iowa's still the Cyclone State. ISU defeated the University of Iowa once again, making it three in a row. I watched the game on TV, shelling out twelve bucks to do so, since my girlfriend's sister didn't have local channels with her mini-dish. It was worth it. Especially when you consider that $12 is half of the price of one ticket if you attend in person.

You can tell when an Internet company is not going to survive. AllAdvantage, who started out offering 50 cents an hour to surf with their advertising bar active, has now cut that to 20 cents an hour. Oh, and you can no longer surf for 30 hours maximum, only 20. Oh, and we also only send you checks after you've accumulated at least $30 instead of $20. Oh, and by the way, those checks that used to come after three weeks? They now take at least 45 days. Those checks that should take 45 days? Well, they're coming, I promise! Check out the e-mail I just got below, I have a check coming for about $45 from them:

Dear Seth,

You earned enough money in your account at the end of July to receive a payment from Alladvantage.com. We do our best to mail payments to members 45 days after the end of the month. Unfortunately, we missed our deadline this month. Your check is scheduled to be mailed before the 25th of September. Sorry for the delay.

Member Payments Team AllAdvantage.com

Obituary

My grandmother's obituary ran in today's Washington Post. You'll have to scroll a ways down the page to read it, so I'll post it below:

Edna Collis Ravnholt

Assistant to Hubert Humphrey

Edna Collis Ravnholt, 72, who was office manager for Hubert H. Humphrey while he was vice president, during his Senate career and in the 1970s, died of kidney cancer Sept. 10 at her summer home in Luck, Wis., She lived in Kensington.

Mrs. Ravnholt began her career with Humphrey in 1963 and was also an assistant to Humphrey's widow, Sen. Muriel Humphrey (D-Minn.) during her time in office. Mrs. Ravnholt was office manager for Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) from 1968 to 1971. After Humphrey died in 1978, she was administrative assistant to Sen. J. James Exon (D-Neb.) She retired in 1991.

Mrs. Ravnholt was a native of Winchester, England. She moved to the United States in 1947 and settled initially in Wisconsin. Early on, she worked for the University of Minnesota Press and as a department store buyer.

Survivors include her husband of 53 years, Eiler C. Ravnholt of Kensington and Luck; four daughters, Elizabeth Zipser of Vienna, Ann Bokelman of Sandy Valley, Nev., Margrethe Ravnholt-Hankin of Bethesda and Jane Ellingson of Mankato, Minn.; and six grandchildren. A son, Christopher Ravnholt, died in 1988.

Any Given Tuesday

I watched the film Any Given Sunday last night. It's Oliver Stone's take on professional football. While it was certainly a gripping film, the editing got really annoying sometimes. I don't want to watch football that's cut like an MTV rap video, I couldn't tell you what half of the plays were in the film, since you'd only see one player at a time, who somehow got the ball just in time to be tackled. While the movie portrayed much of what is wrong with professional football, it failed to portray what is right. The strategy of play calling, of making critical decisions under pressure, is not even touched upon in this movie. If Stone is to be believed, the quarterback just kind of makes it all up as he goes. I just finished filling out a really stupid application form. Apparently, the University now requires P&S people to fill out an application form just like the ones used at McDonald's. Previously, our resume was all we needed to apply for a position, now we're also given a four-page form to complete. Half of the form are boxes where you're supposed to list your four previous work experiences, it notes that the information can be the same as on your attached resume, but you can not substitute the resume for filling out the boxes. So, I just spent 15 minutes of hand copying my resume into boxes that are far too small to hold the information they ask for.

Another line reads:

Are you now or have you ever been employed by the University of Northern Iowa, another Iowa Board of Regents institution, or other state of Iowa agency? If yes, state name of institution/agency, position held and dates:

Okay, they give you one line to answer that. Am I supposed to include all of the student positions I held at Iowa State, or just the full-time position I hold at UNI? I held at least 10 different student positions in my 5 years at ISU! On one line? Right!

At the very end of the form, it says:

I understand that any offer of employment made to me by the University of Northern Iowa may be conditional upon my passing a pre-employment substance abuse test and/or physical examination, if required.

I'm not worried about passing this, I've never even smoked a cigarrette, much less a joint, but do they really need to do drug testing on PC Support Specialists?

At Peace

My grandmother passed away last night. I received a phone call from my mom around 10:30 last night letting me know. My grandmother has been battling (what started as) kidney cancer for the last several years. She died peacefully at home, surrounded by her four daughters, family, and friends. While I'm obviously saddened by her death, I'm also glad that she is finally at peace. After several years of painful treatments for the cancer, she is no longer in any pain, and our family can take some solace in that knowledge.

I'm a little worried about my grandfather. When I talked to him on the phone last night, he seemed unsure of what he would do with the rest of his life. He's in good health, and has been in a care-giver role for my grandmother for so long, it may be hard for him to adjust to doing something else.

I'll be driving up to Luck, Wisconsin for the funeral later this week. She's asked that half of her ashes be buried there with her son's, and that the other half be returned to her native England to rest alongside her mother.

The Curmudgeon points to this story about Americans wanting to die at home. Thanks to John for pointing to it, and for his condolences. At least my grandmother was able to die at home, surrounded by her family. I think she might have preferred to have done so about six months earlier, however, before the pain and immobilization had become so troublesome.

``We must begin by becoming more willing to recognize the moment when our efforts only serve to worsen an irretrievable situation. Having acknowledged that such a time has come, we must abandon not the patient but the barricades on which we have been fighting the inevitable.''

My grandmother told me last fall that she was ready to give up, the treatments for the cancer had become worse than the disease itself. I can not fault the physicians at Johns Hopkins, however, they did everything possible to save and prolong my grandmother's life, but sometimes you just have to accept the inevitable, and change your focus from increasing the quantity of life (measured in time) to the quality of life.

I firmly support a person's right to die as they choose. After watching my grandmother struggle with cancer for so long, as well as a family friend slowly succumb to the mind-wiping of Alzheimer's disease, I have an extremely strong desire to end life on my own terms.

They never had clubs like this in my day. Iowa State apparently has a BDSM club now, called "Cuffs". It's for people who are interested in Bondage, Domination, Sadism and Masochism. What, no swingers club? Nudists? If you're going to have a club around a sexual issue, couldn't you start a little tamer?

Our work site now uses JavaScripts to send you to a version that will work with your browser. That is, if your browser is Internet Explorer or Netscape, and is at least version 4.0 or better. If you're still using Mosaic, it's time to upgrade. ";->" Now if I want to add or update content, I have to modify two different pages. This was not my idea.

John e-mailed me to tell me that my link to the Gore site was incorrect. He claims that I should link here instead. Not a bad parody site, I chuckled at it. I'm still not voting for George Dubya though. ";->"