No. He'll be an engineer.

I think I'm done with TV news

· Thu May 1, 10:16 PM by Steve Gigl

KSTP-TV tonight: HD: Violations at hospital where newborn was burned

The Star Tribune: Probe finds minor violations but none related to fire that hurt baby at Mercy

As MLW pointed out, if you didn’t think critically about the violations listed in the TV news report—and I have a feeling lots of tired adults waiting for the weather might not be paying that much attention—the other statements (not to mention the tone) in the report would lead you to believe that the hospital’s negligence relating to these violations led to the fire. [In fact, I’m pretty sure the report used the term “major” in referring to the violations, just to add to the effect.]

Normally I’d side with anyone but the Strib, but it looks to me at this point like KSTP crossed over to lying in search of ratings. Their online story has this line:

However those deficiencies did not play a role in the fire in January, according to the Health Department’s report.

I just rewound it on the TiVo, and that line wasn’t in the TV report. They skipped past that and moved on to making hay out of the fact that hospitals aren’t inspected by state fire marshals and have an industry group that does that.

I think I just witnessed the death-rattle of non-hyped TV news with any sense of context. WCCO lost that years ago, KMSP never had it, and KARE gave up on actual news long ago. I already hated the breathless drama-queen reporting and the nonsense weather reports, so I guess I knew this was coming, but I think it’s official now.

UPDATE: This isn’t the only story they’ve created out of nothing. Clearly, KSTP is trying to be your “breathless and pointless leader” here in the Twin Cities.

Category: Media & Entertainment
Scope: Local

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Misconception busted?

· Mon Apr 28, 07:50 AM by Steve Gigl

In case you were wondering why the economic pressure to have a two-income family is so strong nowadays, Todd Zywicki @ Volokh has a theory:

To put this in perspective, the increase in tax obligations [between the 1970s and now] is over three times as large as the increase in the mortgage (the supposed driver of the “two income trap”) and about double the increase in the combined obligations of mortgage and automobile payments.

And no, health insurance isn’t the source either. Read the rest (I was referred by this more recent post).

Category: Politics
Scope: National

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Hang up the BB gun, Granny Oakley

· Sun Apr 27, 09:10 PM by Steve Gigl

While MLW was taking a well-earned nap and I was staining a closet door in the basement this afternoon, someone took a shot at our house. [No, this isn’t a Murderapolis story…]

Not that anyone knew what happened at the time; MLW heard glass breaking, but didn’t find the broken window (in a screen door facing our deck) until a few minutes later. She came and talked to me, and I went up to take a look at it. There was an obvious impact point (hole, actually) in the window.

In other words, if it was a bird, the beak hit the glass.

Nope. After a few seconds, I found 2 BBs on the deck in front of the door. Oh, goodie.

So we called the police to report it, not because I was worried about my safety, but because there are several dogs, even more little kids, and plenty of windows that can be damaged pretty badly (even by BBs) around us. And we figured it was some dumb kid shooting at squirrels that didn’t realize what could happen. I wasn’t even too mad at that point, we just wanted the police to put a little scare into somebody.

But after the nice policeman dropped by and took his pictures, we talked to our neighbors, and it turns out there is an old lady in a house behind us who likes to shoot squirrels. And the neighbors have the dented and holed siding to prove it.

And suddenly I went from annoyance to white-hot-anger, because someone who should have known better was intentionally endangering my family and damaging my property.

I understand the impulse to get rid of pests. But this is a tightly spaced neighborhood, and she has a 45-degree downward angle from her deck to our yard (she’s on a big hill), and that is incredibly unsafe for all of the aforementioned dogs and kids. BBs are not the safe ammo you’d like them to be in weird circumstances like that.

If she hurts someone, or the recurring pain our dog has been having in her hind leg over the last year turns out to be a BB lodged in her leg… I am going to have my temper tested rather harshly. [As if it hasn’t been already today.]

The people in this neighborhood might not have been a-holes enough to get this stopped for good earlier, but I am just the right kind of jerk to get an old lady’s BB-gun privileges revoked.

Category: Home-Family-and-Kids
Scope: Personal

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Disturbing if true

· Fri Apr 25, 07:47 AM by Steve Gigl

Parallel killers? Really? It almost sounds too conspiracy-theory-like to believe. [Excepting the true conspiracy theorists, of course, who believe ten stranger things before breakfast.]

Category:
Scope: Local

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Good thing it's not right down the block

· Fri Apr 18, 11:03 PM by Steve Gigl

Ever since I started watching Good Eats lo these many years ago, I’ve been searching around for something Alton Brown keeps claiming should be available in every decent-sized city: a restaurant supply store that’s open to the public.

There should be one in the Warehouse District in Minneapolis, but there isn’t. Go ahead, check the Yellow Pages (snicker). Google doesn’t even make it easy, but I finally found one to check out: Hockenberg’s.

I finally made it over there this afternoon on a break from work, and it is almost everything I wanted: every sort of kitchen tool, lots of useful equipment, and fairly low prices. (I’d love them to have more in stock, but I understand that it’s fairly unlikely.) I restrained myself from buying anything this time, but I encourage you all to shop there like I plan to, because I want their business to thrive.

Meanwhile, if anyone knows of a place like that closer to the NW suburbs, let me know…

Category: Food
Scope: Local

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Ahead of my time but too lazy to do anything about it

· Fri Apr 18, 12:21 PM by Steve Gigl

Google just implemented an idea I had several years ago (and somewhere there are contest entry documents to prove it): map-based traffic predictions (click on “Traffic” and then “Change” to set the day and time)

At least partially; to fully match my idea, they’d also have to predict the traffic based on date (account for holidays, etc.) and weather. And given some directions and the current or predicted traffic, it would have to estimate your route time. And they’d allow you to register for routes and get text messages or emails when there’s an accident that will affect your drive time. [Hey, I’m ambitious in my imagination, if not anywhere else…]

Sadly, my web and software skills weren’t and aren’t up to that kind of challenge. But I’m glad to see that the idea interested someone besides me.

Category: Technology
Scope: Personal

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Gourmet popcorn? Yeah, it's possible

· Thu Apr 17, 12:50 PM by Steve Gigl

I love popcorn. Not movie popcorn [Well, OK, once in a while…], but popcorn you pop at home. Air popper or oil-based popper, it doesn’t matter much to me, as long as there’s a little salt (butter is optional). Caramel corn is outstanding, but too often it’s just sweet without much actual caramel flavor.

All that said, when I was contacted to potentially advertise for Popcornopolis, I knew that if they didn’t screw things up completely, I’d be pretty happy to advertise for them. Still, I was glad when they agreed to send me a sample of their product; if for some odd reason I hadn’t liked it, the money would have been returned. [As it is, half of it is in the mail to a charity, and the other half is awaiting the selection of a second. So I guess this blog is still a non-profit.]

I expected a couple little sample pouches of popcorn. Boy, was I wrong; last week, this arrived in the mail:

This is a lot of food. And even better [or worse, if you consider our waistlines], it’s outstanding. From a quality-control standpoint, it’s very well made and packaged; it arrived fresh and with no old maids or hulls to get in the way of the good stuff.

Here’s a flavor-by-flavor rundown:

Caramel corn: sweet, crisp, outstanding caramel corn. No burned flavor and not sickly sweet either. I’m not sure I’ve ever had better, but if I did it was probably made in front of me; that’s really the only way you could improve on it.

White chocolate caramel: I’m not usually a fan of white chocolate, but here it works, adding a bit of sweet creaminess to the caramel corn.

Chocolate caramel: For this flavor, they were smart and used high-quality, slightly-dark chocolate that provides a contrast to the caramel corn. Very good.

Zebra: A combination of the previous two flavors, and this is MLW’s favorite. The night the popcorn arrived, she told me she wasn’t sure she could give that flavor back to me. (I’ve since had a few pieces.)

Cinnamon toast: The biggest surprise in the tin. Imagine the best snickerdoodle you’ve ever had (like the ones my mom makes).

Cheese: I don’t really like cheese popcorn, so my best grade would be “I don’t hate it” (and I don’t). MLW, though, does, and gives it very high grades. And check out the ingredients: popcorn, cheese powder, coconut oil.

Kettle corn: sweet and salty together isn’t my thing, but this is the best example of kettle corn that I’ve had (and I’ve tried several, hoping I’ll understand the attraction).

Almond caramel: I had high hopes for this one, but it’s basically just caramel corn with caramel-coated almonds added. Very good, but I think an actual almond-flavored caramel would have been interesting (if it’s even possible). As it is, it’s merely very good…

All in all, any of these flavors from Popcornopolis would make a heck of a gift for someone who likes popcorn, and I’m feeling pretty good about letting them advertising on this blog.

Category: Food
Scope: Personal

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German earworm

· Wed Apr 16, 12:06 PM by Steve Gigl

Uh oh, my brain is stuck on this song again (ignore the animation, that’s the only way I can listen to this song until I buy the CD^*).

^* Yeah, I’m so old-fashioned that I pay for music. A dying breed, I am…

Category: Music
Scope: Personal

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Sell out with me, oh yeah...

· Fri Apr 11, 09:58 AM by Steve Gigl

As you may have noticed, I have an honest-to-God advertiser now. [Oh yeah, after 6 years of this I’m finally seeing some revenue. At this rate, I’ll be in the black by 2106!]

It’s a company—called Popcornopolis,—that sells gourmet popcorn in many (many) flavors. As part of the deal, we received a gift basket of some of those flavors yesterday, and I’m going to post a review of the food in the next couple of days. “Unbiased, I’m sure” you snigger, and that’s fair, since I obviously have good feelings about the company (or their PR firm, at least) already.

That said, I didn’t get so much money that it shut down my taste buds or my critical side—which, as MLW will tell you, is considerable—so I won’t give them a pass if the food isn’t good. [Preview: it appears I choose advertisers well… or rather, am lucky in who wants to advertise with me. ‘Nuff said for now.]

Category: Food
Scope: Personal

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True?

· Fri Apr 11, 09:47 AM by Steve Gigl

No generalization is 100% true, right? So why is it that the conclusion in this statement fits the data so well?

“A naturalist is someone who is interested in and knows a lot about the natural world. An environmentalist is someone who hates people.”

Do you ever wonder why so many supposedly-environmentalist policies have the overwhelming effect of making people’s lives worse (or, you know, ending them)?

• Pushing ethanol (or other grown biofuels) as legitimate energy sources? The ripple effect of higher food prices will probably kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in developing countries over the next decade or so. But that’s OK, because conservatives will get blamed for it anyway because we didn’t do enough about global warming…]
• Anti-nuclear-energy activism? Dumping sulphur, mercury, and CO^2 into the air at astounding levels by keeping us on the fossil fuel standard.
• Global DDT ban? Has killed hundreds of thousands—again, if not millions—in Africa. But like nuclear power, the “icky” factor is so strong that the limited use of DDT to fight malaria-bearing mosquitoes is still being used as an example of a colonial mentality (“if we don’t allow it here, why are we gassing the poor people of Africa with it?”).

To my mind, I’m a conservationist, not an environmentalist. Why? I like humanity, and think sentient life is worth much more than any non-sentient animal life.

Even if environmentalists couldn’t get behind that idea, environmentalism would morph into something I could support if the enviros would just stop pushing for unreasonable government solutions—which always have massive and tragic unintentional consequences—instead of trying to find solutions that actually work and can be applied on a local or individual level, where the unintended consequences can be seen and dealt with (or the idea scrapped) without massive effort. [Quicker feedback = fewer tragic consequences.]

Government can help by making illegal any behavior that the market doesn’t protect against (tragedy of the commons-type stuff, etc.), and engaging in other behavior that the rest of society can’t provide. The only active role the government has been successful with has been buying up land and creating national parks. And that’s just about the only increase in the size of state & federal governments with which I might be OK.

I could rant more, and I’ve been sitting on this entry for 10 days trying to clean it up, but in the meantime Steve H. Graham has fleshed out a lot of the same ideas I had. Go read!

Category: Politics
Scope: National

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