Foster's Premium Ale

I don't usually taste beer in my perfect beaker, but this is a kind of beer that deserves very little respect.

It's a gimmick can. The color is a clear copper, which is also a gimmick because the can said they use artificial caramel coloring. It has a sorta whitish head. Slightly grainy/citrus aroma and flavor with a dry finish and lasting bitter/graininess. I think the bitter is from the artificial color, maybe. Thin texture and moderate carbonation. I sabotaged the lacing with my (plastic) beaker.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Suspicionless Checkpoint, Addendum

Lieutenant Stephen D’anjou says that the suspicionless checkpoint (covered previously) was announced to the Daily Breeze on September 2nd.  Again, I find no mention on the Daily Breeze website, so we still have an effective Internet blackout of this information.

The Lieutenant  believes it was also posted on Torrance Police Department website, but he said the website program never published it.  An honest mistake.  I've seen first hand that this can be a common mistake in any web publishing environment.

But there's something else I'd like to point out.  See if you can tell the difference between the two announcements.  One announcement was for the 11th, the other was for June 19th.

Download now or preview on posterous

DUI_Checkpiont_91109.pdf (33 KB)

Download now or preview on posterous

DUI_Press_Release_061909_-2.pdf (37 KB)

The information published about June 19th, 2009 listed the intersection as well as the time.  But the information published about September 11th, 2009 does not list the intersection.

It's already beyond recognition of what it was originally.  They're just going to keep tweaking and modifying this.

If you still don't understand why this is bad, please review my previous article on the subject.  Also consider an article called "Bloodsuckers in Blue" on Lew Rockewell's web site.

 

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Johnny Rockets

See and download the full gallery on posterous

This is the first time Benjamin has ever colored the kid's menu. It's also the first time we've been to a sit-down restaurant like this with all the kids.
 
Unless you count Pat & Oscar's.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Last Night's Suspicionless Checkpoint

Last night, I observed a suspicionless checkpoint on Artesia going eastbound toward Van Ness.  All eastbound traffic was being stopped.  A lot of cars were being towed.

I contacted Torrance Police Department to inquire as to why these activities were not announced ahead of time.  The initial response from Lieutenant Stephen D’anjou (via Blackberry) was that the press release was sent out last week.

I believe Lieutenant D’anjou is mistaken.  I checked the Torrance PD web site and no such press release was listed on their press release page.  Maybe a press release was sent out but just not posted on the web page.  The local paper would have gotten a copy if that's the case.

But this is not the case from what I can tell.  Daily Breeze (the local newspaper in Torrance) has announcements for other such activity in the past, but not the one regarding last night.  Was it announced only in hard copies of the newspaper?  Is this an Internet blackout?

Yet indeed, here is a view of the actual suspicionless checkpoint from the corner of Artesia and Van Ness, looking back to the west:

Download now or watch on posterous

Zi6_0541.mp4 (6911 KB)

This is a shot of the parking lot next to the activity:

Download now or watch on posterous

Zi6_0542.mp4 (4559 KB)

Torrance Police Department believes the "DUI" checkpoint is a proven effective method for increased awareness of the dangers of impaired driving.

In the past, by publicizing these enforcement and education efforts, Torrance Police Department believes motorists can be deterred from drinking and driving.

Typically, funding for these kinds of operations is provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

But last night, they broke from their previous motivation and imposed the suspicionless checkpoint without even prior notice.

Whatever your belief of the effectiveness of these suspicionless checkpoint, know this.  It is a violation of the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution to demand evidence of a crime without probable cause.  The suspicionless checkpoint, by definition, lacks probable cause.

It is much easier to introduce an intrusive measure by watering down the most intrusive aspects.  It is harder to be against suspicionless checkpoints when they are announced ahead of time.  But is easy to just stop announcing them once they become commonplace.

We are no longer on our way to a police state.  We live in a police state now.  It's only going to get worse.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Behold: The Perfect Rootbeer Float

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Too Big To Survive

Too Big To Survive

Some emails I receive are too good not to share. This is one of them. "GD" tells his story of attempting to buy a foreclosed property.

"GD" Writes:

Mish,

I had to pass this tale along to illustrate how ridiculous the housing situation is and how much of a mess Bank of America / Merrill Lynch (BAC) is right now.

My wife and I are currently looking to buy a house in hopes of finding something that has reasonably returned to earth in the last 18 months in the Bay Area. We found a bank owned property in an excellent neighborhood that had been absolutely gutted by the departing owners/tenants. The listing agreement said that all offers had to be submitted with a Bank of America prequalification. We have been working with Merrill because we have investments with them and they are willing to verify our assets without forcing to sell anything until the last minute.

Our agent contacted the selling agent to make sure that it was fine for us to submit our offer with the Merrill pre-approval. No dice, it had to be Bank of America. So we contact a B of A rep and get a quick approval ($50 for the trouble plus another run on our credit). Then our agent prepares the offer and learns that the house is actually owned by Merrill. We then contacted our Merrill rep and had him see what the story was to determine if we could perhaps deal directly with the person inside managing that portfolio.

What happened next? You probably already guessed it, Merrill couldn’t find the property on any of its books. Neither could Bank of America. Needless to say we walked away from such a mess.

This is not a “one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing,” this is a other fingers on the same hand are clueless situation. These banks are not too big to fail. They are failing because they are too big.

via globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Wow. Just wow.

Posted via web from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Kodak Back

Part of what we expect from big-name-electronics is support, right?  Originally, I had to chose between Kodak, Aiptek, and whoever it is who makes the Flip Mino.  I have very little experience dealing with this aspect of consumer electronics because they are generally so reliable in the first place.  But if you had to chose an HD video camera strictly by how well known the brand is, wouldn't you go with Kodak?

Why did my Kodak Zi6 break down?  I don't know.  They never said.  The first symptom of problems was that it would only record 5 seconds then appear to lock up.  It doesn't run any kind of Microsoft operating system, so there was no explanation as to why it would lock up.  Yes, that was a joke, but isn't that what you think of when something locks up?  Microsoft/Windows?

Indeed, the firmware on the Zi6 is so simple, how could it ever lock up like this?  So I ran the diagnostic, and it seemed to get worse.  To me, this is clearly symptoms of hardware failure, not the firmware.  It could have been caused by anything from humidity to component defect or a combination thereof.

Since I bought it in April and it started acting up in August, I thought for sure the warranty had expired, but Kodak's web site took my information and indicated that it was indeed covered.  I shipped it uninsured by USPS for $2.70 (risky, I know).  They did whatever they did and sent it back UPS for free.  There was no indication on the rider sheet about what went wrong or how they fixed it.  But it works now, so what do I care?  They got my camera back to me in 3 weeks.  That was very nice too.

My theory is that they sent me a new or refurbished device, not my original camera.  I think this because the serial number sticker looks askew.  It clearly looks like someone pealed it off and applied it to a different camera.

I don't care if that's what they did as long as it works.  I just hope the replacement device doesn't need service with a serial number sticker looking this way.

So way to go, Kodak!  No real complaints from me.  I just wish it didn't break right before the trip up north, but the timing is not Kodak's fault.  On the other hand, if you were going to just replace it, why not send the replacement first, dear Kodak?  That's what Seagate does with hard drives.  Oh well.  Like I said, no real complaints.

Ok, I do actually have one small complaint.  They didn't update the firmware to the latest bersion before shipping it back to me.  It came back with 1.10 and the web site lists 1.11.  The steps indicate you must use an external card reader to update the camera's firmware, but that's not true.  You can load the firmware onto the SD card with the camera itself, then follow the steps as if you used an external card reader.

Incidently, there is talk of a group forming to edit (hack) the Zi6 firmware to get more features out of it.  Neat.  They're even discussing the feature I want: default HD60.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog