blog.shrub

A couple years ago I came across stories of a 72-year-old ex-boxer and an 84-year-old beating the crap out would-be robbers.

The trend continues.

In February, 70-year-old Ellen Basinski beat up some robbers with a saucepan:

The feisty Basinski was on the phone with her husband, a local judge, when the would-be robbers entered the house.

“I was angry,” she says.

As one of them started rummaging through her purse, she grabbed her favorite trademark Lagasse saucepan and, as the famous chef himself likes to say, BAM!

“He told the police it almost knocked him out,” Basinski says. “I gave it a good whack. I figured, ‘You might get only one swing, lady!’ So make it good!”

Last week, 69-year-old Dwayne Austgen shot a crack addict with a 22.

Avid reader Jeff Potter sends this in:

How’s that for juxtaposition?

Margo Howard, Ann Landers’ daughter, is also an advice columnist. Recently, she received a question from some religious fanatics:

Our daughter started college a year ago, and we’ve noticed during her visits home that she’s not the sweet, innocent girl we sent away for higher learning. We raised her with strong Christian beliefs, but lately she’s saying that she’s joined an atheist club on campus and is questioning everything we taught her. Now my husband refuses to let her in the house and is threatening to turn her in to the FBI.

Margo’s answer was spot-on.

Check out the question about the in-laws, too.

Good ol’ Fklsdjf Fldskf;!

Recently, my friend Rob posed a question to twitter:

Is Mac OS X 10.5.7 the single biggest patch Apple has ever released, or just one of the biggest?

I thought that was an easy question to anwser.

I was wrong.

I looked all over the web for this information, and no one seemed to have it in one place.

So, I present to you: the comprehensive Mac OS X software update chart, current as of May 28, 2009. When the downloads are still available, I’ve linked to them on Apple’s site.

Read the rest of this entry »

Writing for The Guardian, Cory Doctorow explains why net neutrality is essential and dispells myths about billing to show us we need a free and open Internet to allow for innovation:

Take filtering: by allowing ISPs to silently block access to sites that displease them, we invite all the ills that accompany censorship – Telus, a Canadian telcom that blocked access to a site established by its striking workers where they were airing their grievances. Around the world, ISPs co-operate with censorious governments in their mission to keep their citizens in the dark: for example, ISPs in the United Arab Emirates are blocking access to stories about a UAE royal family member who was video-recorded torturing a merchant with whom he had a business dispute. As a matter of policy, Transport for London isn’t allowed to block us from riding the tube to a rally in support of striking transit workers; British Gas doesn’t turn our heat off if they suspect we’re housing a benefits cheat; and BT doesn’t divert our phone calls if we’re ringing up a competitor to change carriers. Giving an ISP censorship powers — and then layering censorship in secrecy and arbitrariness — we make the internet a less trustworthy and less useful place to be.

Via Andrea: the Toronto Star shares the good news that Toronto’s getting a bike lane on Jarvis Street:

Mayor David Miller: “The city needs a network so cyclists can travel their entire trip safely.”

Check out all these hlmets:

Seen those annoying ads for freeCreditReport.com? Been, er, annoyed? Not only are they annoying (sense a theme here?), they’re also misleading. The FTC has their own ads, promoting AnnualCreditReport.com, which actually is free.