I guess the Comcast execs weren't happy with their first try at screwing up TechTV. Earlier this year they merged their G4 network with the newly aquired TechTV. Leo LaPorte and Patrick Norton, the network's two top talents didn't make it into the new network. The G4 content was and is pure crap and the only surviving good show, the Screen Savers was tampered with to the point that I can barely watch it. Well, if they weren't satisfied with how badly they had screwed up this once perfect network, they finished the job today. The execs called Alex, Dan, Yoshi and Martin into the office and told them to get out of the building by 3 pm. TSS will be in reruns for a bit while they revamp the show again. It's only going to get worse. Look at their website. Look at it! Techtv.com used to be one of the best resources on the web. Now it's a stinking, bloated, ugly peice of crap. This is really disappointing to me. I've learned a lot from that show. I may not have got an IT job if it weren't for it. And now it's going down the tubes.

Update: Click here for a list of G4TechTV execs' emails. If you agree with my assessment, let them hear it.

Kevin's thoughts | Alex's goodbye | Sarah's thoughts | Yoshi's goodbye (registration required)

Can I get a little more cowbell?

This was in the New York Times yesterday:

"Many younger voters are turning to the "The Daily Show" for their news analysis, and are better served there than on much of what purports to be real news on cable."

I know that the first part is true, but this is the first time I've heard anyone (expecially anyone in the mainstream media) say what I think may be true; which is that The Daily Show provides better analysis than many real news shows. Stewart denies this at every opportunity he gets. What do you think?

I came across this picture in a book I checked out from the library. This was a short message that was beamed toward another galaxy. I found it very interesting, not because I believe that there are aliens who will ever receive the message, but because the message represents someone's attempt to describe who we are in less than a kilobyte of information. What's more, the description can't include any language. You can read a detailed explanation of the message here.

Dave has already pointed some of these things out, but it's worth repeating. Bush and Kerry are saying some things in these debates that flatly contradict each other. CNN has a short fact-check story that seems to be pretty fair. I was really hoping to get to the bottom of the whole timber-company comment, and it turns out Kerry was right. Bush did report income from a timber company (see this story). Even Charlie Gibson says Kerry was right on that one. Sadly most people who watched the debate will have a good chuckle and never bother to see who was lying. Kerry's point was that any millionaire can report a little money from a small business where they're part owner and then call themselves a small businessman. So when Bush says he has to protect small businesses from this tax hike, he could be talking about people like himself, who are actually filthy rich. This is kind of making me mad. I was searching for some info on the little timber comment and several articles repeat Bush's zinger, but very few bother to do the research and report that Kerry was right.

Here are a series of unrelated thoughts from an undecided voter . . .

I don't want to be a one-issue voter.

I'm not sure how much effect a president can have on the economy, for good or for bad.

I'm not as interested in which guy is running a better campaign, as I am in who will do a better job as president.

I'm not that impressed (any more) when politicians say that they should talk about the issues instead of all the mudslinging and distractions. If someone actually acted on that, it would be different.

Education is socialized, social security is socialized, health care is mostly privatized. Why? Bush seems to want to take steps toward privatizing education and social security. Kerry leans toward socializing medicine. Which of them is right? Which way of doing things is working better now?

Bush was wrong about Iraq. He said that they had WMD, nuclear material and ties to al Qaeda. Those were his reasons for invading and they turned out to be all wrong. I don't think that he was lying, but he made the wrong call there, and it was a pretty serious mistake. That might be enough reason to fire him.

Iraq is probably better off without Saddam. But is that enough to make up for the fact that Bush was wrong about his reasons for going in? I'm not sure that it does. Once his first reasons didn't pan out he started talking about liberating Iraq and deposing Saddam. This is a subtle but important shift. Nukes, WMD and al Qaeda connections would have made Iraq a threat to the US.

Daily Show viewers are more informed No surprise to me since the show is one of my main sources of news. (via Linkfilter)

This story says that one of Kerry's big campaign promises is to end the ban on stem cell research, but there is no ban. (via Linkfilter)

Last night we went with my parents to watch my sister play volleyball. After the game we stopped at McDonald's for a tasty and nutritious meal. I ordered some chicken strips (which are all the rage because they contain actual meat). I asked for one of each of their new dipping sauces and and two packages of sweet and sour and was told that they can only give me two sauce packs with my 5-piece chicken strip meal. I managed to get 3 sauces, since Emma's happy meal was allotted one pack. Feeling only somewhat defeated, I was gathering up my dipping sauces to head over to our table when the cashier stopped me. My dad had paid with a credit card and they didn't ask him to sign a receipt before he left the counter. She said, and this is a direct quote, "Someone needs to sign this; it doesn't matter who does it." She handed me a pencil (yes, a pencil) and let me sign the receipt. I was so upset about my limited selection of sauces that I didn't recognize the extreme irony of all this until Sara pointed it out to me.

Quiz: Art or Crap - Look at pictures and mark whether you're looking at works of art or just plain, old crap. My score: 7/16. I like to think of this as my low-brow contribution to the art discussion that Kyle started.

(via Linkfilter)

Japan. They give us reliable cars, raw fish, the PS2, and humor. The last of those can be found in Dave Barry's timeless work, Dave Barry Does Japan, but now it can also be found here: Engrish.com. This site has images of Japanese signs and products whose text was translated into English by people who don't understand the subtleties of the language. You may want to go straight to their recent discoveries and start looking around there.

(via Matt's Blog)

I just finished watching Some Kind of Wonderful and, I'm ashamed to admit, am also finishing a good cry. Brendan, you were right: this is Pretty in Pink the way it should have ended (although I am more partial to the 'richies' in the latter). I firmly believe that everyone needs a Ducky. Or a Lloyd Dobler.