Category Archives: Uncategorized

Charts and graphs about the Cap and Trade bill. Looks bad. Crippling our economy, in this economy? Who thought that was a good idea?

Amazon halts its referral program for North Carolinians in anticipation of the passage of law forcing them to track taxes.

I bet that didn’t work quite like North Carolina’s legislature thought.

A law expanding the federal switchblade law to include most knives is working it’s way through Congress. Why is there a law against switchblades anyway? In a gun-toting society are knives really a problem? We’re not the UK here.

Windows 7 will be slightly cheaper than Vista.

Some people have too much money and not enough sense. NSFW, there are some strange people out there.

I really don’t understand the tattooing politicians or movie stars thing.

Iranian government showing a Lord of the Rings trilogy marathon on the state run television to keep people off the streets.

Next they can show, Braveheart, Red Dawn, or Star Wars (IV-VI), possibly V for Vendetta?

Also, lol:

It’s a great time to get a ticket to go to Mexico and sit on the beach.

Disney is releasing Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film Ponyo in the US. His film’s have gotten better and better, but how can he keep up the level of Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle? And Howl’s  Moving Castle wasn’t quite up to Spirited Away.  I don’t want to watch a slow decline.

I’m ambivalent about the dubbing. Good for wider audience, but I’d rather watch subtitles and hear the original voices.

It needs a ground, but this is an awesome idea.

Everyone can learn from this.

I can appreciate the anger and disappointment among gay and lesbian supporters of Obama, but in their frustration may well be the seed of a deeper understanding that politics and politicians are disappointing at best and malevolent at worst. Which is precisely the reason to squeeze their power and influence over citizens and human activity to the bare minimum, whether we’re talking about the bedroom or the boardroom.

Video of downtown PyongYang.  Clean though.

I’d like to get excited about this whole riot in Iran, but they do this sort of thing every election and never manage to change anything. I’m waiting until something actually changes to get excited.

Mark Steyn on health care.

Need I say more?

Yes, yes I need to. You’ll have to scroll down because I can’t link directly to the video.

You know how most fake tilt-shift photography totally doesn’t work? This thread has a higher than average awesome factor.

Imagine a TV show of nothing but holodeck episodes.

Who wrote all those Vic Fontane/Sherlock Holmes episodes? Hmm.

Barbie foosball.

How to filet that fish you caught so you can cook it on your freshly started cellphone-battery fire.

How to start a fire with your cellphone battery.  And some steel wool, which everyone carries around with them, right? And some tinder.

Nice article, but…
Who really thinks that companies losing money by the millions of dollars a day are going to take their time getting things back up. They’re going to borrow money from unaffected areas, and throw it by the dumpsterload at the problems until they are fixed. Or, their out of range competition is going to step into the void.

A chart that explains how well the president’s people guessed the economy would be doing.

The solution isn’t saying the rule is outdated, it’s making a lame workaround that totally violates the spirit of the law.

A loaf of bread, a stick of butter and a container of milk.

Kittehs at the vet’s office (in spectacular cellphone-crap-o-vision).

The army announces aimbotted bullets.

In case you get stung this summer, here’s how the remedies stack up.

(NSFW language)

I’m not a huge fan of audiobooks, or sharing books (libraries, pffft, waste of space) but if you are,  here’s something.

It’s kinda spendy, especially since books take so much longer to get through than a DVD. The selection is decent and they promise to get stuff if they have too, so that’s not bad.

Lifehacker has their list of (free) awesome programs for Windows.

Lujo is “really, really agressive”. Yay.

Luckily it doesn’t spread easily.

Google revamping email?

In which Lileks perfectly captures working with computers of all sorts.

Top 10 Sesame Street moments. With the additional videos it’s pretty complete.

This, however, is comedic genius:

What’s going on in Iraq.

But interesting.

Expecting inflation.

You can only soak the rich if you can hang on to them.

We’re out of money and the only solution is more healthcare.

The liquid-cooled computer desk = awesome.

Coming soon: Le Car.

The United States government, if you haven’t noticed, owns the auto manufacturing industry, props up the last vestiges of “labor,” and soon will bail out the failed state of California. So this harmonizing of disparate interests is what a gracious person might call a “conflict of interest” and an honest person refers to as “racketeering.”

…

According to Forbes magazine, less than two years ago Chrysler officially put the cost of meeting similar standards at $6,700 per vehicle. Cerberus, which is a private equity firm, threatened to walk away from the auto giant because the new requirements would have meant the end of Chrysler.

dee-dee-deet-deet. Americans have gotten fatter because they’re eating more.

So, should the economy collapse, people will be unable to afford too much food, America gets skinnier, saves on health care costs, win. Also, it will clean up the environment as we plunge into pre-industrial darkness and people die off from malnutrition and preventable diseases, so win there too. Economic disaster, it’s good for you and good for mother earth.

I have no idea how I got there from where I started.

Asks what’s happened to the media in the last 4 months, give examples.

Mark Steyn, out of the ballpark.

But forget the money, the deficit, the debt, the big numbers with the 12 zeroes on the end of them. So-called fiscal conservatives often miss the point. The problem isn’t the cost. These programs would still be wrong even if Bill Gates wrote a check to cover them each month. They’re wrong because they deform the relationship between the citizen and the state. Even if there were no financial consequences, the moral and even spiritual consequences would still be fatal.

Frank J brings us the truth about Dick Cheney.

This is what makes America great.  Taking stuff sitting in the garage and a great idea and genius results.

Scary pictures. They, of course, assume nothing dramatic will change.

The movie can be summed up in three words: LENS FREAKING FLARE!

Apparently it would have killed them to pan a shot without having some flare in it. 10 minutes in, it started to annoy, and it didn’t let up for the next 1:50.

Also, a lot of love for the magic shaker. That’s a industry-wide issue though. I’ll be glad when we can watch and follow an action sequence again. One day a pioneering director will say, “Hey, maybe the audience would like to see the fight. Let’s put the camera on a tripod.”

Other than that, quite enjoyable, would watch again. I was kinda sad when I realize that they were wrapping the movie up, they could have put another 30 minutes in, I think.

What was with the water? In the future water is dehydrated and stored out of the way, not laying around in tubes or  cargo bays.

The end credits were awesome.

Also, I hold out no hope for GI Joe. Transformers 2 may be okay, but based on the trailer, the plot and dialogue is crafted from 100% American cheese.

What I did this morning:

important papers

Free Amazon mp3s I’ve downloaded lately:

Look Up – Oppenheimer

Excursion Around the Bay – Great Big Sea

Boplicity – Miles Davis

Hot Dog – Greyboy Allstars

If You Leave – OMD

Anna Mae – Dragons of Zynth, mostly because of the awesome band name, also for the Jesus & Mary Chain sound.

Young Adult Friction – The Pain of Being Pure of Heart

Yeah, doesn’t work so well. Especially with the chart.

Death Star vs. Enterprise.

Enterprise is just hanging there? What’s with that? Can the Death Star not hit a moving target?

#annoyatrekkie

I had to read it TWICE in high school.  Rereading didn’t help.

Best. Worst.  In the movies.

Because Riker saying “Fire” in Best of Both Worlds beats everything but KHAAAAAN! As a matter of fact it’s not to hard to come up with a lot better and worse moments from the TV shows.

Star Trek communicator USB mic/speaker. It needs to be made with bluetooth.

Also, lol:

The Simple Dollar is giving away “Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance on the Back of Five Business Cards“.
It’s actually 50 pages, not 5 business cards long.

Great poster and video. Somewhat interesting article.

Environmental tips.

No seniority for Specter now that he’s a Democrat. What they lied to him? How odd.

A patch that tracks all your medical info—including calories taken in and expended—and sends it via bluetooth.

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As ‘Fun, Watchable’

“If I wanted to see young, attractive people doing cool, exciting things, I’d go watch sports.”

OSHA instruction posters from the Enterprise. (Cracked, NSFW)

I watched The Hunt for Gollum yesterday. To sum up:  if you’re a fan, you’ll enjoy it.  Spoilers follow: Continue reading →

The trailers looks amazing for homebrew. Can they keep it up for 40 minutes?

Texas really is a whole nother country.

More stars than you can shake a stick at. Really, go get a stick and try.

The 5 deadliest pandemics in history.

Ahmadinejad’s election slogan “We Can”.  Next up, hope and change.

Serenity bar fight rehearsal.

Groovy 70s swine flu public service announcements.

The universe tastes like raspberries. More or less.

The coming collapse of the Special Interest state and the rise of the Fourth American Republic.  If the first three taught us anything it’s that the federal government will wrench to itself more power somehow, unfortunately.

Earth from the ISS and from the moon. In HD.

Cheap housing available in Detroit.

Of course you were reporting your internet purchases to your state at tax time. There’s a line for it on the state tax sheet and everything. You upright, middle-class, tax-paying citizens, you.

It’s got to be a nightmare for the software writers though. And what about local taxes? That could get even uglier.

Cheap blu-ray players are coming this Christmas.

It’s nice to see the world coming together on some things.

I’m not saying don’t save $100 million. I’m saying you’re going to have to do better than that, champ.

Also:

$100 million here, $100 million there “pretty soon, even here in Washington, it adds up to real money,” says the president.

Except, you know, really it doesn’t. Let’s say the administration finds $100 million in efficiencies every working day for the rest of the Obama administration’s first term. That’s still around $80 billion, or around 2% of one year’s federal spending.

Apparently, the Beatles sound better in mono.

I hadn’t checked my site referrals lately, so I did and lo, behold, Xubuntu has a link to my review. The real official Xubuntu. That’s right, despite the sibling dismay, my opinion matters. Not like yours which isn’t linked to.

Cold brewed coffee. I’ll think about trying it in a few months.

Wolf vs. Pig. That’s an insane number of photos.

Hilarious cat reaction.

Infinite photo.

The fast food ad vs. what you actually get. The BK omlet thing looks delicious.

Frank J. hits the big time.

Lileks takes down George Will and his denim hating ways.

Acid-washed! It’s the latest style! Now, here’s a tune from Poison that’s heading up the charts.

Hands-on with the Asimo cyborg legs Walk Assist Devices.

Here’s how.

Tax forms through the years.

Stolen identity prices are at an all-time low.

Pic of North Korea’s rocket entering sea-synchronus orbit.

Cool animal pictures.

Awesome case mod.

A bill allowing warrantless wiretapping of the internet on American citizens was introduced by those freedom-loving democrats that hated the brown shirtedness of Bush’s Patriot Act. Also, they can shut the internet down anytime they feel like declaring an emergency.

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 – introduced by Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, and cosponsor Olympia Snowe, R-ME – bypasses all existing privacy laws and allows White House political operatives to tap into any online communication without a warrant, including banking, medical, and business records and personal e-mail conversations. This amounts to warrantless wiretaps on steroids, directed at U.S. citizens instead of foreign terrorists.

The bill gives the Secretary of Commerce and a new national cybersecurity czar power to shut down all Internet transmissions in the event of a yet-to-be defined “cyber emergency.”

Google and Lexis-Nexus enables Congress keep track of where the stimulus money is going. Because it’s impossible to do it from within the government.

Google needs to do some sort of government tracking database. Bills, spending, down to the local level. Are they working on this? They should.

There are much bigger issues to pick on Obama for, but the White House response is so lame that it deserves comment.  He clearly drops his head below the king’s.

Sock thief at large (w/ pic of what the sock thief may look like).

Hamas tried to use US made Stinger missle against US made helicopter. The missle recognized the helicopter as friendly and instead homed in on the Hamas’s own guns.

(we’re supposed to use the additional plural possessive “s” now right? Or no? I can’t keep up.)

50 things every 18 year old should know.

If you’ve ever swum a mile, you know how far six miles is. Cattle dogs are hard-headed, obstinate little critters, so this isn’t too surprising.

Viruses that build themselves into Li-ion batteries.

I want flexible, folding, wifi-enabled computers that I can stick in my pocket.

I realize I mentioned this last week, but this is a bad, bad thing.  Banks aren’t allowed to pay back TARP money lest the government lose control of them.

Don’t worry, Obama will save you from the mob he controls.

The government is trying to hoodwink us!

Three great reasons to pay your taxes.

This article on the unmarketablility of Pixar’s lead characters lately has many great lines, especially this one:

Most worrisome of all, though, is Pixar’s galling commitment to making quality films regardless of what investors think:

Trailer. That kid has the greatest voice. Also, Dug wins.

We now pause for the Sound of Music.

Yeah, only one. Kinda sad, but the internet is a bit slow this week.

Netenyahu tells Obama to get a move on in dealing with Iran or he will.

Fun!

Even Sweden, 70% taxes to pay for social programs Sweden, says bailing out its car industry is too socialistic.

America not quite ready for welfare state:

American welfare state programs like Social Security and Medicare were set up and expanded step by step by very shrewd strategists operating over many years. Obama has the audacity to hope that he can jam things through with sizeable Democratic majorities at a time of economic crisis and uncertainty. But he has quickly encountered some roadblocks — and may yet encounter some more.

You take money from the government, they get to boss you around (more). That’s just the way it is, Sparky.

See?

The Spokanites are smuggling our real dishwasher detergent across the border because they have some rule that they can only use ineffective phosphate-free dishwasher detergents.
I’m really surprised that Washington didn’t launch this in the Seattle area.

Grammar…strict persons…

Academic Earth. All those academic videos in one place. Nice.

O Fortuna. The lyrics.

Tilt-shift, time-lapse video.

Lots of videos this week. Wierd.

I’d just like to point out that while Hillary Clinton accused conservatives of having a “vast right-wing conspiracy” the liberals are actually the ones that bothered to create one.

New York Transit Authority is upset that some volunteers are:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority thinks the smiling women in their 1940s-style stewardess uniforms are giving riders the idea that the MTA is actually improving service, said specialist Kiki Valentine.

Noooooo! Not that!

The Greek mob and how well that ended.

Obama’s economic plan “a way to hell”. – EU President. And you know, the European Union isn’t really where I look for conservative economic planning advice.

Nice graph.

An essay on tyrants and tyranny. From 1986, so the USSR hadn’t fallen, but still very applicable.

They come with promises. If we will disarm ourselves, they will provide professionals to protect us. If we give over our property they will assure us jobs. Crime will be abolished. Poverty will vanish. Together we will build a nation worthy of the future.

The temptation is large, because we all, at one time or another, have longed to have an end to striving; to create the future and have done with it. Can we not, by one supreme act, solve all human problems? The way will be hard, but after heroic effort the straggle will be over. War on poverty; war on ignorance; war on illness; war on cancer, mental illness; one supreme act of war, and then eternal triumph. The strife will cease . . .

In which Stephen Colbert angers me.

You know the latest “narrative” about how we need gun control to curb Mexico’s problem with drug lords? Surprisingly this isn’t the least bit true.

Ironically, what we need is better border control.

Distributed border watching. Watch the Texas border from the comfort of your home.

He seems upset.

Nifty terrariums.

Pandemic II. Which makes this funnier.

10 facts about Leave It To Beaver you probably didn’t know.

So, can we get rid of the Department of Homeland Security and let FEMA take care of these “man made disasters“?

What happens when a hospital cares more about meeting government targets than caring for patients. It also shows the level of care governments set.

It takes 10 years to get a pizza place going. And there’s no word on delivery.

A friendly reminder that the First Amendment doesn’t recognize a difference between “hate speech” and “free speech”.