Gridski

Leaving Venice. When big ships like this leave, everyone on shore comes out and waves and whistles endlessly as you pass by. You also get a unique view of the city

Our first view of the ship coming from the water bus. It seemed freakishly large and I was embarrassed for a minute by this display of runaway consumerism

When you first enter your cabin, the TV turns on and knows your name. Creepy

The emergency drill happened within hours of boarding and leaving port

Everyone was very serious about it and no one laughed or joked (see Costa Concordia)

The entire port side of the ship was the smoking section. Everyone smokes.

Tacky carpets and disco lighting everywhere

Glitzy Las Vegas style Theater. You just have to giggle

The Captain and his officers (notice there is only one woman…and she was the entertainment director). We had a few drinks with the ship’s doctor (6th from right) and his Norweigan mistress one night at the bar

They make you dress up on “Formal Night”. Yes, I am wearing a ball gown 

Epic view of Istanbul from the ship. You can’t get this angle from an airplane

Another leaving the port of Katakolon, Greece

You can teach people how to make BIG shaka once everyone has had a drink or two.

If you buy cigarettes on board, this is how they come

They have a Cigar Bar on board that sells Cuban cigars (Ukrainian gangsters at the table behind us)

Condiments come in long NASA-like tubes.

Your precious, precious ID card is the lifeline on board. Lose this and you’re a nobody. You need this card for EVERYTHING. They might as well have tattooed the bar code on our forearms. This was a cashless soceity.

A newsletter for the following day appears on your bed every night after you come back from dinner. I called it the ‘propaganda paper’

Unbelievably gigantic ship

I think this was the GPS antenna

Smokestacks are bigger than my apartment

“Water money” Bottled water is weird on the ship. Everyone has to pay EXCEPT Americans. They get 7 free waters. We never understood why.

Lifeboats. They seemed really complicated and you would need heavy duty shears to open one of the boxes. Also, the crane thing looks complicated. A week’s training to operate that thing. We would all have to jump into the water before figuring it all out.

If you’re really lucky, you meet a few incredibly cool people to hang out with at night on board the ship before the next days’ adventures. 

Why do countries with large Catholic populations (Spain, Portugal, Argentina) vote in favor of marriage equality laws?

Considering the Church’s views on gay marriage and homosexuality in general this is rather surprising. But the people who study this sort of thing have a theory: Portugal, Spain, and Argentina were all under dictatorship until well into the second half of the 20th century. The older generations, which in countries like the USA generally tend to be against same-sex marriage, remember what it is like to be persecuted for things you can’t control.

via Mental Floss 

Fresh off the birth control hearings earlier this month, our Republican Party escalates its War on Women deeper into the political landscape with the transvaginal abortion stuff introduced in Virginia last week. 

The bill began muscling its way through a legislature that recently came under the rule of GOP conservatives. It moved ahead despite an outcry from women and Democrats, including a female lawmaker who called it “state-mandated rape” and another who made her point with a failed amendment requiring rectal prostate exams for men seeking Viagra prescriptions.

After a Republican senator wife or two refused to sleep with her husband if they voted in favor, the bill was shot down. Even the ever-eloquent and always-essential Megan McCain had something to say:

I’m just horrified by this bill. As a Republican woman, I’m horrified.

The Virginia bill resurfaces a few days later, but narrowly passes with a “no vaginal probe” clause (yes, that’s a headline)

The Virginia Senate on Tuesday narrowly approved a version that still requires women to get an ultrasound, this time without the vaginal probe

Artist’s rendering of a transvaginal probe (as suggested be enforced by your government)

Meanwhile, in Alabama, the same type of bill comes…and goes…

A lawmaker in Alabama is backing off a provision that would have required women in his state to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before getting an abortion — similar to a much-maligned measure in Virginia that was also eventually scrapped.

btw, Alabama’s particular bill also has a nice corporate lobbying twist (!)

The chairman of the Alabama Senate Health Committee said he doesn’t see a conflict of interest between his support for a bill that would require physicians to perform ultrasounds on women seeking abortions and his company, which sells the type of equipment the bill would require

Also for the record, the bill is calling for the ultrasounds to be done vaginally to display the embryo or fetus more clearly. The doctor also would be required to describe the images to the woman. Because one thing a woman who has chosen to abort a pregnancy doesn’t realize is that she’s actually pregnant. (Because women are stupid, you see)

(ProTip: Just say no to inner-vaginal Republicans)

So, in the mist all this nonsense the past week (which is actually pretty terrifying nonsense, since these freaks make laws, and stuff)….Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), the last of a few women holding office in the Republican Party (not to mention a rare dying breed of “moderate” Republicans) has announced she will not seek re-election, virtually guaranteeing a return of the seat to the Democrats and radically disrupting the political landscape (possibility of Senate control reverting back to the Democratic Party)

I do find it frustrating that an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions.

Translation: The Repuplican Party is insane. I’m out.

Meanwhile, Republicans ready themselves in Pennsylvania

Even as the transvaginal ultrasound bill in Virginia was causing national outrage, Pennsylvania conservatives were quietly pushing a even more restrictive abortion bill. 

In addition to mandating the much-maligned transvaginal ultrasound requirements, Pennsylvania legislators proposed strongly encouraging women to view and listen to the ultrasounds, forcing technicians to give the women personalized copies of the results and mandating how long before any abortion the ultrasound much be preformed — and that’s just for starters.

There’s never been a better time to consider becoming an American ex-pat in Europe!

I never really thought about this before, but the shape of our cameras (box + lens) is an outdated design that we are all still holding on to from the days of film.

This concept makes sense

- via PetaPixel

I saw this on BoingBoing and our awesome bartender, Lani, at Chiko’s Tavern whipped one up this past Friday pau hana.

It was good.

We’re going to work on perfecting the brain string effects next Friday after work

What is the point of Wikipedia? You’d be surprised.

Put your headphones on and listen to John Siracusa’s epic takedown of Wikipedia. This is essential knowledge for any tech geek, or for anyone who thought crowd-sourcing information was a cool democratic process.

The relevant Wikipedia discussion starts at 72:30. 

I’ll rarely link to podcasts, but this is worth mention.

John Siracusa is one of my favorite tech guys, I listen to his Hypercritical podcast every Friday afternoon on my drive home from work …and this is him in his element and in top form. Articulate, smart, passionate, unapologetically opinionated…yet fair to both sides. A well-informed step-by-step analysis with disclaimers noted up front. Reasonable cause. Devastating logic. Just great.

Actually, this whole podcast is a classic and I recommend listening to the entire 1.5 hour episode in its entirety. The first part is a brilliant analysis of Apple’s recent foray into the textbook publishing industry followed up with wickedly accurate comments on the state of education in general.

If you don’t listen to Siracusa on 5by5 every week, your life is incomplete.

Apple recently posted breathtaking quarterly profits. The money they made in the last quarter is so over the top, charts like this have been updated.

Largest profits per quarter of all time

Look at this list. The common theme here is oil and gas corporations.

And then there’s Apple in the #4 position. What? Yay! Go Apple! I mean, wait. What? Look at this list. Look at it closely.

The companies listed here are historically the world’s largest despoilers of this planet’s resources. When you think ExxonMobil, GazProm and BP, you think: cutthroat business practices, rape of the land, human rights abuses in far away places…you think profit at any cost, the destabilization of whole countries, an influence so large and far-reaching that wars are started on behalf of their industry.

These companies employ massive well-funded security services to protect their assets, black forces that could be compared to another country’s army or defense force or secret services.

Oil corporations are like countries unto themselves.

There are direct human costs related to this kind of profit. These companies fill a hole in runaway consumer needs…at any cost.

Is it a good thing that Apple is at the top of this list? Is this good company for them to keep? Are these really Apple’s industry peers?

Apple is the oddball here. A tech company. Lonely on this list in a sea of oil barons. But you don’t get on this list without global reach and influence.

And, let’s be honest, its more than likely that you don’t make money like this by being a good steward of resources and people.

Coincidentally, a day after Apple’s earnings call, the New York Times unleashed this exhaustive investigative report on the state of Apple’s overseas manufacturing practices.  

Now things are fitting together nicely. The NYT is providing context to Apple’s incredible profit revelation. This kind of money is not made in a white sterile vacuum. There are no kittens …and there are no rainbows.

Back to the list.

We all know what Exxon and BP are doing out there to make these kinds of profits. Its no secret that this kind of worldwide corporate raider action goes relatively unchallenged because we need to fill our tanks with gas. Lobbyists get paid. Taxpayers read the news and shrug. We won’t even choose a hybrid car over a Ford F-150 to lessen these companies’ influence and curb the abuse we know is going on.

We are gas drug-addicts.

We are also iPhone addicts. 

Personally, I feel major disassociation going on, I am deeply conflicted. I’ve been a fan of Apple since they were the underdog a decade ago. It is rewarding to see their insistence on quality and the happiness of the end-user finally pay off.

There are 2 iPads, 2 iphones, 1 iMac, a MacBook Pro , an Apple TV and a MacBook Air in my household.

My brain is churning. This is like Newt Gingrich defending space exploration and saying he wants to put a base on the moon by 2020. What? Yes! Count me in! Vote for Newt! Wait…what? Newt Gingrich? That’s repulsive.

I’m not sure what point I’m trying to make, But, I recognize something is wrong.