August 4, 2010 – 10:28 am
Fair use is one of those US legal concepts that, like the first amendment guarantee of freedom of speech, gets badly misused on the internet. Chances are you don’t understand it. That’s okay; I don’t fully understand it, either. But there are some misconceptions that you absolutely positively should rip out of your brain.
The most [...]
My uncorrected eyesight is terrible. I started wearing glasses in second grade and contacts in third grade. My optometrist had me wear rigid contacts in the mistaken hope that it would keep my eyes from continuing to degenerate. At this point I am nearsighted enough to need nearly eleven diopters of correction. Without my glasses [...]
It’s spring, when a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love and authors post rants about fanfic. Diana Gabaldon is the latest author to denounce fanfic and those who write it in a manner reminiscent of Anne Rice at the turn of the century. Unfortunately, many of her arguments are so shaky and [...]
INT. GENERIC GAMESTOP – DAY
STEPHEN and his six-year-old son ELI enter. ELI is instantly captivated by Super Mario Brothers Wi-hee! on the Wii next to the door.
STEPHEN
Hey, Eli, are you going to stay here by the Wii?
ELI
Look, I’m moving Mario all around the map!
STEPHEN
I’ll take that as a yes.
STEPHEN wanders over to the Xbox games. [...]
February 1, 2010 – 5:55 pm
Huh. So that’s how Dollhouse ended: with a jumbled, unfocused episode that epitomized many of the show’s shortcomings.
It didn’t help that Misty and I watched Epitaph One right before the finale. Epitaph One was the first season episode that only showed up on the DVD release, at least in the US. It was set ten [...]
January 12, 2010 – 8:23 pm
Yesterday on NPR, Robert Siegel spoke to Steven Hall, Managing Director of an executive compensation company, about how the investment banks Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase are giving its employees some $47 billion in bonuses.
SIEGEL: Well, it’s reported that Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase have combined, that is, have set aside [...]
December 17, 2009 – 1:46 pm
As you know, Bob, I’m mildly obsessed with how to display data visually. Displaying data well is tough, especially when you’re talking about complex data. When I have to design a chart for some crazy-ass set of data, I often look at how others have done the same thing, and I keep tabs on blogs [...]
December 16, 2009 – 11:34 am
If I linked to every incident of an author being crazy on the Internet over a bad review, I’d be here all day, but this one is a perfect shining diamond of such crazy. It’s the platonic ideal of an author going insane over a bad review, and will be studied by future cockroach scholars [...]
December 15, 2009 – 10:58 am
James Chartrand is a well-known blogger in certain circles through his articles for Copyblogger and his web design and copyrighting company, Men With Pens. Yesterday James admitted on Copyblogger that he’s really a she. She’d adopted a male pen name to make it easier to land freelancing jobs.
You know the punchline, of course: it worked.
There [...]
November 20, 2009 – 6:07 pm
Dear Internet,
The name of our blog isn’t really misspelled. While it’s true that the weapon is spelled “grenade”, if you check our about page, you’ll see that our last name is spelled Granade. It’s why we chose this domain name and blog title.
Hugs and kisses,
Stephen