Tag Archives: Boston

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I planned to post something yesterday, when I was actually safely ensconced back in tbbs WorldHQ. My last “yum update” session brought down the released version of Firefox 3. Thereafter, my Scribe Fire blog plugin would only post the article’s title, sans content.

I deinstalled/reinstalled Scribe Fire, and now write in SF in the HTML instead of WYSIWYG mode. At least that has worked once.

So for the fourth time, and hopefully this one is visible, I’m safely home from Boston and the Red Hat Summit. What an amazing conference. Information overload is an apt phrase to use to describe the goings-on. The sessions were presented by developers, engineers, and doers, rather than by marketing flacks. I especially enjoyed the cobbler and func presentations. I love infrastructure, and both of these are an infrastructure guy’s dream. I have dabbled with func, and read about cobbler; I’ll investigate the latter in more detail ASAP.

My original plan was to attend some FUDCon sessions on Friday, after Summit wrapped up. However, on Thursday night, or more precisely, early Friday morning, I took a header walking back to my hotel. Believe me, the sight of asphalt coming up to meet your face is not pretty. I managed to break the fall with knees, elbows, and hands; the face, for better or worse, is OK. I was stiff and sore on Friday, and have remained so since. I don’t know whether it was the fall, or toting around my backpack full of electronics, but my left side is especially tender. In spite of my right side having absorbed most of the punishment in the fall, it’s the left one that gives me grief.

I think it’s time for some liniment. Warming, and leaves me smelling like wintergreen.

-k-

Peoples Republik of Massachusetts

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Man, we are fast approaching our last days of freedom:
Police to search for guns in homes

Pandering to the parents of kids in high-crime areas, the police are asking permission of parents, to have their kids’ rooms searched for guns.

Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children’s bedrooms.

The program, which is already raising questions about civil liberties, is based on the premise that parents are so fearful of gun violence and the possibility that their own teenagers will be caught up in it that they will turn to police for help, even in their own households.

Are people afraid of their own kids? So afraid that they let the cops into their homes? And based on such credible evidence as:

Police will rely primarily on tips from neighbors. They will also follow tips from the department’s anonymous hot line and investigators’ own intelligence to decide what doors to knock on. A team of about 12 officers will visit homes in four Dorchester and Roxbury neighborhoods: Grove Hall, Bowdoin Street and Geneva Avenue, Franklin Hill and Franklin Field, and Egleston Square.

Unfortunately, ratting out a neighbor is fast becoming a way of life on its own; now, it is sanctioned and encouraged.

The program will target young people whose parents are either afraid to confront them or unaware that they might be stashing weapons, said Davis(Police commissioner – ed), who has been trying to gain support from community leaders for the past several weeks.

One of the first to back him was the Rev. Jeffrey L. Brown, cofounder of the Boston TenPoint Coalition, who attended yesterday’s meeting.

“What I like about this program is it really is a tool to empower the parent,” he said. “It’s a way in which they can get a hold of the household and say, ‘I don’t want that in my house.’ ”

Jeez, “Rev” Brown. You have a distorted view of “empowering the parent.” In the home, the parents have the power already. Just parent; it’s a verb, too.

The Boston Police Department has already distinguished itself over the past year, with the paranoia over harmless LED devices, and the blowing up of their own traffic counters.

Idiots.

-k-
[stags]Boston, Massachusetts[/stags]
[tags]Boston, Massachusetts, yearofthechickenshit[/tags]

More Bostonian Paranoid Excesses

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A scant few weeks after repelling the Mooninite Invasion, the Boston Police and Bomb Squad have turned their wrath on traffic counting devices.

While traffic counters are not child’s toys, they are capable of arousing Bostonian paranoia. The only difference between the counters and the Lite-Brites is that in the former case, there’s no big company from which to extort funds for police overtime.

Bruce Schneier sums it up succinctly:

Boston PD: Putting the “error” in “terror.”

-k-

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I Guess this Little Fracas is Over

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OK, TNT has paid Boston for its overreaction to a non-event, dangerous devices with batteries and wires are out of our midst, and all’s right with the world. Except that I’m on the coast that is famous for hand-wringing over such tomfoolery.

I’d absolutely love to live in a place, like say, ummm, Kansas, where such idiocy is unheard of. From either side.

Until then, I blog on.

-k-

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Banned in Boston

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As I sit in the newly revamped tbbs-land World HQ, drinking coffee and not smoking, I happened upon this article in my NNW reader.

It’s a Makezine article on how to make an LED t-shirt. I frankly don’t understand the appeal of such things; I’m probably too generationally challenged old to get it. I am aware, though, that one would be well-advised to refrain from wearing such a shirt in Boston. You could be mistaken for a suicide bomber.

-k-

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Hoax Jokes

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From The Free Dictionary:

hoax
n.
1. An act intended to deceive or trick.

Evidently, Bostonians should take this definition to heart, and realize that the cartoon characters left about the city in a perhaps ill-advised marketing campaign, were not a hoax. There was no intent to deceive or trick, and hence there was no hoax. It was a knee-jerk reaction by a bunch of officials, who must by now have remembered through which airport many of the 9-11 hijackers departed. And the arrest count is up to two, as another poor schlub, who was probably trying to make a few extra bucks, has been caught up in the investigation. The Massachusetts law is a felony offense; from the cited article:

Peter Berdovsky, 27, of Arlington, and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown, were each arrested Wednesday night on one felony charge of placing a hoax device and one charge of disorderly conduct, state Attorney General Martha Coakley said.

A felony, for not anticipating what some official might do when confronted with a clearly harmless device, the intention of which was to promote a cartoon show. Man.

Add to this that the devices had been in 10 cities across the country for three weeks, and only sparked a reaction in Boston. This means either that Boston is one of the most alert and safe cities in the country, or the one most likely to inappropriately overreact to trifles. I have my opinion of which of the two it is. Hence, the return of the “Year of the Chickenshit” tag.

-k-

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After Further Review

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In the previous post, I linked to this, which points out that an arrest has been made in the case. An arrest. For “planting” LED caricatures of a cartoon character. From the article:

Peter Berdvosky was arrested in Arlington Wednesday night and charged under a recently enacted statute making it a crime to place a hoax device that results in panic.

OK, then, I’m glad Massachusetts has taken such meticulous care for the welfare of its citizens. My only question, is who panicked? Seems to me that law enforcement induced the panic, by closing roads, tunnels, subways, and parts of the Charles River, for crying out loud.

The suspicious device reports forced the temporary shutdowns of Interstate 93 out of the city, a key inbound roadway, a bridge between Boston and Cambridge, and a portion of the Charles River but were quickly determined not to be explosive.

The shutdowns were not “forced”; they were called by officials who didn’t have a proper grasp on the situation, and were unable to assess the gravity thereof. Seems obvious who panicked, given the following:

the devices have been in place for two to three weeks in 10 cities: Boston; New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Atlanta; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; Austin, Texas; San Francisco; and Philadelphia.

The devices were in 10 cities, and only Boston “panicked”. Officials, arrest yourselves. As for me, I will be tuning into the Cartoon Channel.

-k-

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A tbbs-land Quiz

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If you can pick the bomb from these two, you’re not from Boston:


Maybe Turner Broadcasting should have thought this through a little more, but I still can’t see how this marketing ploy gone awry caused everyone to get into such a lather.

If I hear “post-911 world” one more time, I’m gonna scream. Or load up the iPod with podcasts and listen to them during drive-time. Yeah, there’s the ticket.
-k-

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Unaccented

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It’s been a good week, or a bad one, depending on your view, for InterWeb Quizzes:

What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The West

Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you’re a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.
The Midland
Boston
North Central
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
The Inland North
What American accent do you have?
Take More Quizzes

I’m not sure I like being referred to as a “lowest common denominator”, but it is what it is.

-k-

Update: It looks like Mr Style Sheet has clobbered the reddening of the bars in the above. Oh, well, I am a “lowest common denominator.”

No Mas(s) Help

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The Big Dig debacle continues, from 2 billion to 14+ billion, for a public works project benefitting the few at the expense of the most. Plagued with overruns, institutional incompetence, and huge slabs of concrete killing citizens, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney wants to make it right, again on the backs of the US taxpayer.

From this Boston Globe article:

Romney said state transportation officials haven’t begun to estimate the cost of the repair work, but he said he made a pitch for federal assistance in a meeting yesterday with Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry and US Representative Michael E. Capuano.

Followed by this:

“I’d be embarrassed if I didn’t always ask for federal money whenever I got the chance,“ Romney quipped, saying he had asked for help in paying for a comprehensive safety review of the Big Dig, for which the state has allocated $20 million.

He quipped? Nope, he wants his grubby ”Mitt“ in our pockets yet again. It is devoutly to be desired that our rollover Congress has the balls to vote down any further help for this project.

-k-

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