Disqus - Latest Comments for mikeyDe

Re: Comment: I understand why Apple wanted its own maps, but it fails the laser focus test

mikeyDe — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 07:50:20 -0000

Funny story, funny to me at least. In February I took a friend to the airport two hours away. He was consulting his iPhone X for travel times, traffic problems around Philadelphia. He said he was using Google Maps, 'I always use google, Apple maps is awful. Why doesn't Apple get anything right?' His phone and my phone were giving out suspiciously similar data. When we got to Departures I asked to see his iPhone -- he had been using unreliable Apple Mals all along!

Re: HomePod Diary: A second one just replaced the Sonos Play 5 in our bedroom

mikeyDe — Wed, 09 May 2018 08:21:27 -0000

I enjoy hearing your real-life experiences, Ben. I bought one HomePod for the living area and am considering one for the bedroom. I'm mostly deaf in one ear so stereo is not a big deal. I had many early frustrations with music, it turns out mainly because I was also a new Apple Music subscriber. Over the months music requests have gotten smarter. Two big complaints. 1) Apple still treats classical music like the red-haired cousin at the family reunion. Ask what song is this and you get everything but the composer. Longstanding complaint. 2) Now Playing with Apple Music does not work seamlessly on my devices. In order to get it on my Watch I have to activate NP first on the iPhone. Then, after a few songs it flakes out. Works well if I stream from the phone, though.

Re: Trump has the 3rd worst margin of victory in American history

mikeyDe — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 16:59:38 -0000

Re. Medicare. The GOP will definitely dismantle it. Medicare as it stands is the best argument for socialized medicine. Get rid of it now and there will be no argument for single payer system for the rest of us. This week my husband paid a bill for a sonogram (kidney). He $30 when the hospital's bill was $760. The reductions came mostly from Medicare disallowing deliberately higher charges from the hospital. That is the cost containment everyone says the American medical system needs. It is also the feature the GOP (as well as doctors, hospitals, insurance companies) hates the most about Medicare.

Re Future of Republican Party. I wish I had a nickel (okay, a dollar) for every time I heard someone in 2012 say the party will never win another national election, demographics are against it. Truth is the Republicans control the rural states which give them better representation in the Senate and the Electoral College. Truth is the Republicans could hold the demographic advantage for decades to come (national popular vote notwithstanding.) Democrats have to work harder in competitive districts, which is why I'm depressed Peolsi, who has a safe seat in liberal SF, won House leadership today. No change in strategy is what we can expect.

Re: Atheists need to confront the (anti-Muslim?) Chapel Hill shooting

mikeyDe — Sat, 14 Feb 2015 13:43:49 -0000

So true!

In the spirit of conserving ink and paper, I was trying to limit my examination to those areas that contributed to the hate that led to the deaths of three students in NC. If the 20th century was the American Century, you could call the 21st Century the Blowback Century.

Re: Atheists need to confront the (anti-Muslim?) Chapel Hill shooting

mikeyDe — Sat, 14 Feb 2015 10:13:13 -0000

Acknowledging that the unexamined life is not worth living (paraphrase attributed to Socrates, a fellow atheist), I keep coming back to the challenge that Jon Green and others in the media have posed. And I still can't find anything to confront in my lack of belief in the supernatural.

Other things I'd be happy to confront: American exceptionalism, American gun culture. American xenophobia. American policy of exporting arms. American foreign policy post-WWII: the arming religious extremists opposed to socialism, overthrowing secular governments in Muslim-majority countries to protect oil companies, invasion of secular countries led by admittedly evil men to divert attention away from our real enemies in order to protect oil companies, divide-and-conquer in order to keep the world on edge in order to, well, I can't think of a reason other than to protect the oil companies. Did I leave anything out?

Re: The Bill Cosby story, and the time I got sexually harassed in the Senate

mikeyDe — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 10:22:23 -0000

No, I don't think reporting it would have helped. I was working at the government agency under contract. Not long after I left the president of the contracting company was imprisioned for fraud, an indication of the calliber of management there, and later the company went out of business. After the first comment, I asked Frank Kameny for advice; he suggested getting another job. I felt it was my own fault and took it as a lesson learned -- I shouldn't have danced with my then 'lover' now husband at the company Christmas party -- we were young and naive. BTW, although I remained openly gay, I never again attended a company Christmas party unless it was held during office hours -- nothing good ever came out of a company Christmas party.

Re: The Bill Cosby story, and the time I got sexually harassed in the Senate

mikeyDe — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 09:36:29 -0000

You did the right thing informing her boss. He needed to know this could happen again and maybe blow up in his face. That he laughed it off is not to his credit. I wish I had reacted as you did when something similar happened to me in DC in the seventies. My supervisor informed me I was passed over for promotion because I was openly gay. She advised me to go to library school because 'there's lots of your kind working in libraries.' I was stunned but said nothing. Weeks later she told me her son wanted to buy my bicycle (I had posted an ad on the agency's bulleting board) until he heard 'you are a homo.' Instead of reporting these inappropriate comments to her boss, I looked for another job.

Re: Bank Teller fired for being too Christian with the customers

mikeyDe — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 18:08:44 -0000

The War on Christmas here in the heat of July!

The owner of our health food store will bid you farewell with 'have a bless-ed day' Doesn't offend but always startles. I didn't know there was a Wiccan connection.

On the reverse side... I have a Roman Catholic friend who is liberally dresses her conversation with fuck and shit but will give you a lecture if you say damn. Jesus, they're just words!

Re: It’s time for the Holocaust Museum to stop calling gays “homosexuals”

mikeyDe — Tue, 13 May 2014 10:46:03 -0000

I don't recoil at hearing the word homosexual but feel it's inappropriate in contemporary situations. In historical contexts the museum should put quotes around the term to reflect how it was used by the Nazis at that time. Using the historical German terms could be powerful in some contexts. Using the term gay or LGBT in a historical context is jarring to my ears.

Re: NBA bans LA Clippers’ Donald Sterling for life

mikeyDe — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 19:20:10 -0000

Once again our community was at the forefront, first in condemning Russia and boycotting vodka, then in shunning Putin's olympic games, and now in standing up to bigoted CEOs. One day, perhaps, other segments of America will join us sooner rather than later.

Re: Was the gay community right to target Mozilla’s Brendan Eich?

mikeyDe — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 10:12:14 -0000

I am proud to join the rank of crazies who demand equal rights. I'm also proud there was no loss of life, no injuries, no property losses. Only dignity restored to an organization. And I didn't have to leave the comfort of my home, I didn't even have to download an app that tells me what products not to buy. What's so bad about that?

Re: Mozilla / Firefox hires anti-gay “Prop 8” supporter as new CEO

mikeyDe — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 14:13:04 -0000

Another reason to turn off javascript!

Re: Russian thugs attack St. Patrick’s Day revelers for wearing kilts, thought they were gay (video)

mikeyDe — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 09:51:08 -0000

Suddenly no police on the street? Too busy enjoying free donuts and coffee, calculating their salary and benefits in support of the kleptocracy. Oops, wrong country.

Re: Hemmer foxsplains: “It took us 2,000 years to find Noah’s Ark. Do we ever find Flight 370?”

mikeyDe — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 19:33:18 -0000

And this is precisely why we need Bill Maher's ridiculing the Bible even if it sounds mean to some people.

Re: Bill Maher blasts story of Noah, calls God “psychotic mass murderer”

mikeyDe — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 09:58:26 -0000

I thought his send-up of the film Noah was hilarious. It's not about Maher's anger toward a fictional character. He is right to point out that people who take these stories literally still hold a lot of power and deserve to be opposed. Texas school books, Kentucky creation museum, certain right-wing politicians, 'persecuted' Fox-media celebrities are deserving of ridicule. I thank God that movies like Noah give comedians like Maher yet another opportunity to ridicule.

Re: Should the NYC 9/11 Museum include an i-beam “cross”?

mikeyDe — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 22:10:45 -0000

The Christians have a long history of co-opting other people's holy-days. Why start depriving them now?

9/11 was a horrible day that made possible a truly horrible and avoidable event. Shock and Awe, 2003. I don't have television but happened to be in a Radio Shack when the networks ran live video coverage of the nighttime bombings. The destruction displayed on a dozen televisions combined with the glee of the other shoppers made that the most gut-wrenching moment of my life. Where's my museum? Where's my hunk of twisted metal?

Re: Russian govt wiretapped local gay activists, US-based Human Rights Campaign, HRW

mikeyDe — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 10:24:10 -0000

Is it time for Obama to publish an editorial complaining about Russian exceptionalism in the pages of Коммерсантъ?

Re: Are progressives anti-war?

mikeyDe — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 11:23:14 -0000

And what do we hope to accomplish by intervening?

Re: Are progressives anti-war?

mikeyDe — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 11:19:14 -0000

To my limited knowledge, no one who counts has said exactly what king of intervention we will make in Syria. Until you know what that intervention is, how can you say you are for or against it? Apparently, those who are pro-intervention are for any kind of intervention; those against are against any kind of intervention. Given this current state of ignorance, I must put myself in the latter group.

Re: Boys who grow up with sisters more likely to end up Republican, and sexist

mikeyDe — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 16:04:59 -0000

I'm a 62-year old, gay socialist atheist in a 37 year relationship. Two older sisters, one twin sister, one younger sister. Both parents conservative Republicans, one Catholic one Christian Scientist. All five siblings liberal if not Democrats.

Re: NSA-leaker Snowden defects to Russia

mikeyDe — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 09:23:11 -0000

John, you need to take down this embarrassing blog entry. All day I looked in vain for news reports substantiating your defection claim. Snowden is a train wreck of his own making, we don't need to make things up. (still, as an infomaniac I'm glad he did what he did -- always nice to know how my money is being spent in my name -- all in for glasnost' no matter where it come from.)

Re: Russia’s Putin signs draconian anti-gay law banning speech, rainbows, holding hands

mikeyDe — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 09:30:19 -0000

If the US Olympic team's outfit doesn't include rainbow suspenders, I'm not watching. (taht is, if I owned a television set.)

Re: Human Rights Watch blasts Olympics over worsening plight of Russian gays

mikeyDe — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 10:52:21 -0000

There are good reasons to boycott the Olympics. A waste of public money that promotes professional athletes, under the guise of amateur athletics, and nationalism. I'm all for professional athletics, just don't ask me to pay for their games and their stadiums.

Re: GOP congressman: I oppose abortion because fetuses masturbate (video)

mikeyDe — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:55:54 -0000

Will we soon see video of dozens of FBI agents raiding this man's house looking for fetus porn on his computers?

Re: Olympic “concern” over Russia’s threat to jail gay foreigners – how sweet

mikeyDe — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:50:12 -0000

What? There's still an international olympic movement?