Posts in the category “rants”

J.Crew Follies

I am astounded by how bad the J.Crew website is. The .jsp filenames indicate that the site is Java. It is tragically slow and the senseless implementation of AJAX makes it near impossible to use. It’s almost 2009! How can there be so many horrible shopping cart systems on the ‘net? And for such a

Sexual Harassment Training

Alexander McPherson, a professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at UC Irvine’s school of biological sciences, wrote a bitchin’ letter to the LA Times on the subject of sexual harassment training. This is a must-read for anyone that has a brain. As far as I can tell from my colleagues, it is worthless, a childish

This Makes No Sense

This Makes No Sense

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

Not-So-Ancient Games

BMX? Men’s BMX and Women’s BMX? Water Polo? Volleyball? Beach Volleyball? Badminton? Table Tennis? Kayaking? Basketball? Field Hockey? Trampoline? Race Walking? Look. I know that Ping-Pong Table Tennis and Synchronized Swimming have been in the Olympics for a long time. That doesn’t mean they need to remain in the Olympics. Can’t we just all agree

Whether or Not

The words or not never follow the word whether. That’s it. That’s the rule. Whether implies or not. You don’t ever need to say both of them. The words or not should never be spoken. (They should certainly never be written.) Whether implies “or not”. Get it?

Microsoft Money and a Mac

Microsoft Money and a Mac

In which I go on a long and detailed rant about the preposterous lack of adequate personal financial management software for the Mac

iPhone 3G Bluetooth

It takes four actions to enable Bluetooth on the new iPhone. Click “Settings”. Click “General”. Click “Bluetooth”. Click on/off slider. Leaving Bluetooth enabled all the time drains the battery much too quickly, so it makes sense to only enable it when you are using it, and to disable it when you are finished. (The same

Natural American Spirit Cigarettes

In addition to one of the standard Surgeon General’s Warnings, packs of Natural American Spirit cigarettes are labeled: Made with 100% additive-free, whole leaf, natural tobacco. No reconstituted sheet tobacco. No processed stems. Up to 25% more tobacco than other king size cigarettes. All of that would, in some convoluted way, probably lead a smoker

Cell Phone Spam

I have gotten over a dozen phone calls today from (949) 374-5125 and (208) 650-4253. I had been answering the phone on the first or second ring and there would be nobody there. At first I assumed it was just some moron repeatedly calling the wrong number. But just now a call from the first

What Is This?

davidgagne.net is the personal weblog of me, David Vincent Gagne. I've been publishing here since 1999, which makes this one of the oldest continuously-updated websites on the Internet.

bartender.live

A few years ago I was trying to determine what cocktails I could make with the alcohol I had at home. I searched the App Store but couldn't find an app that would let me do that, so I built one.

Hemingway

You can read dozens of essays and articles and find hundreds of links to other sites with stories and information about Ernest Hemingway in The Hemingway Collection.