David Was takes GB out for a spin. Being NPR, the commentary also comes with a different sort of spin, but what can you do?

Latest fallout, emphasis added:

The Social Security Administration has said it would not accept any marriage licenses from San Francisco as proof of marriage until the legal dispute was resolved.

So now straight couples in San Francisco can’t really get married, either, and any who did so recently are in “gay-wedding limbo”. Somehow I don’t think that will increase their support for gay rights.

So how did we manage to stay in this hotel twice (three times for me!) without eating at their steakhouse? What, were we stupid or something? I have never had a better steak. I have never had a better baked potato. I don’t think better desserts exist.

I like the Hilton Steakhouse, which was damn good eight years ago, and is still damn good. I despise the Treasure Island Steakhouse, which takes excellent beef and treats it with less respect than your local Sizzler would, which, come to think of it, also describes their service.

Luxor Steakhouse? Unbelievable. After tipping 30%, filling the comment card with glowing praise, and vigorously thanking everyone we could on the way out, we were still wondering if we’d done enough to express our appreciation for the food and the service.

The only way they could improve the place is to hire the hostesses and waitresses away from Fiamma Trattoria across the street at the MGM Grand. [which is a fine restaurant, but they have so many pretty women working there that they could spare a few for a good cause]

On a related note, we discovered that slot tournaments are just as ridiculous as they sound, but when the party afterwards includes filet mignon from the Luxor Steakhouse, suddenly it seems like a good idea. A really, really good idea. I have no idea how they managed to get 400+ perfect steaks out the door in about fifteen minutes. We felt sorry for any vegetarians in attendance.

Oh, and the player’s club hosts at Mandalay Bay are assholes dedicated to making a mockery of the chain’s “One Club” advertising. I really wonder how much business they’re driving away; their attitude Sunday night certainly convinced me to stop playing there. [I suspect it’s a deliberate attempt to drive away the wrong kind of customers, defined by qualities unrelated to their gambling habits…]

I’ve seen multiple claims that iPods have a built-in JavaScript interpreter that is user-accessible. Unfortunately, I’ve found zero supporting evidence for this claim. No documentation, no sample code, no SDK, not even a dead link.

I’m left with two possibilities: either it doesn’t exist, or they’ll only tell you about it if your last name is “Belkin”.

Camera gear to capture bird sightings: £700.

Membership in British Trust for Ornithology: £26.

Bus to Grimsby to see rare American robin: £15.

Having a sparrowhawk snatch the robin while you’re still setting up your tripod: priceless.

From the English translation of the new Iraq Constitution:

This government shall be constituted in accordance with a process of extensive deliberations and consultations with cross-sections of the Iraqi people conducted by the Governing Council and the Coalition Provisional Authority and possibly in consultation with the United Nations.

Emphasis added.

On the other hand, it doesn’t give the people much room to insist on their new rights if the government turns sour:

It shall not be permitted to possess, bear, buy, or sell arms except on licensure issued in accordance with the law.

One might argue that this is a necessary temporary measure until freedom really takes hold in Iraq and the majority of the remaining terrorists have been eliminated, but I have a sneaky suspicion that the government is unlikely to ever believe that such a day has arrived.

There’s this moron who thinks he has something to say, and he insists on saying it in my comments section under a variety of aliases. So I’ve turned off all comments for a while.

Update: Truth is, I was headed to Vegas for a week, and I didn’t want to leave the little twerp with a private playground while I was offline, especially since he enjoyed ineptly pretending to be me by responding to his own comments. I’ll turn them back on now that I’m home.

A funny thing happened when we upgraded our servers from Solaris 2.5.1 several years ago: when we killed a process, frequently its parent wouldn’t notice. This was annoying, since a lot of our Operations processes were built around killing and restarting services so they’d notice changes in a controlled fashion.

more...