Not So Fast

The Freedom chart.

Ditch your Facebook friends and get a Whopper. What’s to keep you from adding them right back I don’t know.

I broke down and got a Eee PC 1000HA.

Pros: Size is a great compromise between portability and usability. Bright screen. No bloatware out of the box. Comes with a sleeve which I thought was a nice touch. Long battery life. Wireless works fine. XP loads quickly.  The hard drive comes as 2 logical drives (80G [C:] and 61G [D:], no Partition Magic needed.

Cons: Mousepad is  a bit small and insensitive, you have to be firm with your taps to make it work. No webcam software. Black case shows fingerprints horribly (I wanted white, but it was $10 more. Pfft, I’m not paying money for that.) I had to get TweakUI to get rid of the Eee Storage desktop Icon.

The keyboard takes a little getting used to. I don’t use the right-shift so it’s not as big a deal for me, but switching to the smaller size is an adjustment.

Sound quality is good. Videos are crisp and clear.

The familiar XP interface is nice. I know exactly what I need to do and where everything is. Kinda refreshing after wrestling with Linux.

I’m sure that sooner or later I’m going to wish there was a DVD drive to load something or other, but that can be gotten around through thumb drives.

Overall, two thumbs up.

If you have one of those government cheese DTV converter coupons, you can get a free $.01 box here.

Alas, I waited to long and the government ran out of money.

Now that we have taken a look at 2008 with Dave Barry, the new year is set up to start right.

/kinda a weird year, eh?

Interview with a Somali pirate. Strangely, it seems they do it for the money.

STOP SNOWING!!!!

ahem

You must make it through 5 minutes of boring to get to the Helvitica Scenario. Totally worth it.

I never trusted that font.

Also, Great Britian has bones and teeth dropoff bins? This frighten and confuses me.

The London Times list of the Top 20 lists of 2008.

A Very MST3K Christmas (Joel and Mike, to be fair):

And a couple lolcats that made me lol:

When they talk about pirate’s speedboats I had a more “Miami Vice cigarette boat” than “fishing on the lake outboard” picture in my head.

The RIAA is going to abandon mass lawsuits in favor of other, equally annoying, strategies.

Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.

The new approach dispenses with one of the most contentious parts of the lawsuit strategy, which involved filing lawsuits requiring ISPs to disclose the identities of file sharers. Under the new strategy, the RIAA would forward its emails to the ISPs without demanding to know the customers’ identity.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing – Weezer
Jesus Christ – Elephant Micah
Gaudete – The Mediaeval Baebes
Handel’s Messiah – Reliant K
Love Came Down At Christmas – Jars of Clay
Joy To The World – Sufjan Stevens
Once In Royal David’s City – Sufjan Stevens
What Child Is This – Matt Wertz
Greensleeves – Vince Guaraldi Trio
Winter Song (with Ingrid Michaelson) – Sarah Barelles
O Come O Come Emmanuel – Sufjan Stevens
Angels We Have Heard On High – Sixpence None The Richer
I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day – Jars of Clay
Cry Cry Christmas – The Sweptaways
O Holy Night – Weezer
We Three Kings – Sufjan Stevens
Christmas Time Is Here – Vince Guaraldi Trio
Angels We Have Heard On High – Josh Wilson
Silent Night/Away In A Manger – Reliant K
I Saw Three Ships – Sufjan Stevens
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear – Sixpence None The Richer

Four plausible scenarios of what could go wrong with the US economy.

Since no one saw it, it’s hard to say. Opened on more than 2000 screens. Made $500,000. That works out to 2 people per showing. Ouch.

A thorough, concise, clear look at who’s to blame for the subprime mortgage mess. Includes this gem:

In any crisis of confidence or failure of government, it’s a pretty good bet that members of Congress are involved.

Once upon a time, someone gave me a laptop. And I was thankful. It’s a PIII 1Ghz, 256M RAM, 10G hard drive, no internal wireless, ancient and slow thing. A PCMCIA wireless card, free after rebate and viola, it does all I need it to do which is surf the internet and create documents and presentations. Did I mention it’s free? Yes, and I have no intention of spending any money on it.

The problem is an operating system that won’t choke it. When I first got it, I didn’t have a XP license available, but I thought, “It’s just for browsing basically, I’ll try Ubuntu.” I’ve flirted with Linux before, but never really got down and just did it. So I did. And it was swell. Especially when I upgraded to Feisty Fawn, which found my wireless card without the whole ndiswrapper fun, which is awesome.

However, Feisty really bogged my poor lappy down. Especially if I wanted to use OpenOffice and Firefox at the same time. OS loading times were bad. It was okay until login, then it took forever to get the desktop up.

I had just looked into my lightweight Linux options and was about to switch to Xubuntu–the others were too pared down for my Linux n00b use–but for my class I needed XP. By this time I had upgraded to Vista and had an available XP license, so it was all good, yo. Here’s the thing; XP with SP3 = ~6G of hard drive space. Yes, over half my hard drive is operating system. So I put Portable Apps’ programs on to save space. And it was fine.

XP’s loading speed was on par with Ubuntu. Programs opened slightly slower.

Now, class is over so I could switch to Xubuntu. Yay! Then the hard decision: Hardy Heron or Intrepid Ibex. I decided to go for it and went with Intrepid. Only the latest and greatest for me!

Same easy install as Ubuntu, torrent the ISO, burn a CD, pop it in, tell it you want to install, answer a few easy questions and wait. It was even polite and asked if I wanted to dual boot with XP.

Xubuntu is nimbler loading and opening multiple programs than either Ubuntu or XP. Yay! It only takes up 4G of hard drive space. A couple gigs here or there doesn’t matter much when you have 120 of them, but when you only have 10, that’s a big deal.

I love, LOVE the window shade action. LUFF EET!

Xubuntu didn’t recognize my wireless card. Boo. But these excellent directions walked me through the process painlessly. And actually, Xubuntu is better recognizing and connecting with routers than XP was with the stupid competition between Windows Zero Service and the manufacturers little program. (Why, WHY, WHY does every laptop and modem manufacturer think we need programs to use wireless? Windows does it fine on its own and using 50 brazilian different interfaces makes everyone’s lives harder. Yes, even those kids in Africa who’ve never seen a computer.)

Xubuntu doesn’t come with Open Office, so I had to download that, which was easy enough. It still bogs everything down when it’s running, but switching around is not quite as bad as with the other two.

Then I tried to pimp my desktop out. It all went fine, but the Avant Window Manger bogged it down so hard it was unusable. Alas. So, back to the standard gnome(?) taskbar. I’m still working on getting Conky going in a manner I like. But really, these are things I never bothered with in Ubuntu or XP and if they don’t work it’s not that big of a deal.

Xubuntu’s version of a quicklaunch bar is teh suck. I have no idea where OpenOffice keeps its icons and since I can’t drag and drop programs or shortcuts into it, I had to go with a random icon I could find. I learned a lot about where programs install themselves while looking around, though, so I have that going for me. Which is nice.

The Add/Remove Programs is painfully slow. Synaptic Package Manager is slightly better, but it’s still best to just walk away. Even with lighweight programs like VLC. Just walk away.

My only other beef is that you can’t sudo drag and drop files in the Thudnar File Manager. If you want to move a protected file, you have to use Terminal.

Despite my complaints, Xubuntu does what I really care about, it works faster. And that’s a good thing.

Hopefully in the next 6 months or so I’ll get a netbook and all this will be moot.

WINDOWSHADES, YEAH!

Let’s see how the Ford Fiesta does with the Royal Marines on a beach assault. Well, now we can’t. Thanks BBC. Here’s the Carol of the Christmas Pickle instead.

This is the pie crust to use. Trust me. Comes together quickly and easily, no guessing with the water amount, nice texture, and tasty too.

Xubuntu. For all your ancient laptop resurrection needs.

All the viral videos you missed, in one handy package (NSFW).

The auto bailout is put off for a while. I guess we owe one to the UAW.

It could have been like his were.

Rational responses like this won’t win VDH any friends.

Left lane slow-pokes are starting to get tickets. Good.

And given the cops propensity for handing out tickets around here it really surprises me that they let this issue go. Maybe ease up on the 3mph-over people and crack down on the 5mph-under-in-left-lane people. Just a thought.

It’s the smell of a thorough fisking.

My cats love to steal toilet paper. They, apparently, are not alone.

The Top 10 Stupid Christmas Gifts.

I’m not surprised that there’s a sugar daddy dating site, but still, wow.

Let me google that for you.

LOL. I’m rich!

Now you can start your Christmas shopping.

Hint: it’s not your processor.

Interesting reading on Google’s gatekeeper status and free speech throughout the world.

Obama’s hurts the gullible left as he comes to the middle with his cabinet picks instead of hanging on the fringe with them.

Remember the crowbar and Half-life strategy guide that went to the Large Hadron Collider guy that looks like Gordon Freeman? Yeah, he’s put it to good use.

Hot Corners. Something Macs have always had that Windows should have had since 98.

Ultra-high definition (3673 x 1740) of the 1966 Earth-rise image.

Wallpapers. For when you’re bored with your Deviant Art stuff.

Square America. Fascinating.

Live Piracy Map. Check out all the pirate action on the high seas.

Humanitarian aid correspondent for What You Ought To Know. Yep, she’s hit the big-time. Next is CNN, I bet.

Anyone else notice that Amazon’s Prime 2-day shipping is almost never 2 days anymore? Since October only one of the five orders has actually gotten to me in 2 days. It’s at least 3 days and sometimes up to 5 days if weekend is involved. What’s up with that?

Can they top the original MST3K “Santa Clause Conquers the Martians”? Should they really be messing with it? I’m leary.

Internet over power lines in your house. Still a bit expensive, I say.

College student’s bonfire lit off the Montecito fire.

Germany and Italy having trouble meeting Kyoto’s requirements, decide to ignore it.

Also, *ominous music*

“Italy and Germany have grown nearer”

Yes, I ripped it out of context. It’s better that way.

It’s my birthday tomorrow. It’s not too late to get me a nice gift card.

Or, my wish list is available.

AAAGGGHHH!

Free ZoneAlarm Pro firewall .

Last week, the government announced a program that will substantially lower payments for many homeowners who have little or no equity, but only if they are at least 90 days delinquent.

You know, I could do a lot with the money I’d save not paying my mortgage. Hmm.

But what about the moral obligation to pay off a debt?

Shut up.

If you meet these requirements and can document your income, your servicer will reduce your monthly mortgage payment – including property taxes, insurance and association dues – to 38 percent of your gross income.

Ah, phooey, I’m below that already. Curse my common sense.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Schiff says. “People are going to feel like complete morons if they don’t participate. The people getting punished are the ones who never made an irresponsible decision to buy a house they couldn’t afford.”

Yep.

I realize that was all the exciting moments stuck together to attract the non-Trek audience, but I fear this movie may not be anything at all like Star Trek. 15 minutes of rebel Kirk at the beginning will make me annoyed. Which makes me sad.

Was out sick most of the week, so it’s a bit light. Sorry.

Food art.

Orwell’s diaries.

The Font Conference.

Coping with tragedy, ala James Bond. (NSFW)

If you love America, you throw money in its hole.

Iran and corn farmers are upset over the low prices of gas lately. Why weren’t they complaining in the 90s or the 80s or the first half of the 00s?

Christopher Hitchens.

Those who think that they have just voted to legalize Utopia (and I hardly exaggerate when I say this; have you been reading the moist and trusting comments of our commentariat?) are preparing for a disillusionment that I very much doubt they will blame on themselves. The national Treasury is an echoing, empty vault; our Russian and Iranian enemies are acting even more wolfishly even as they sense a repudiation of Bush-Cheney; the lines of jobless and evicted are going to lengthen, and I don’t think a diet of hope is going to cover it. Nor even a diet of audacity, though can you picture anything less audacious than the gray, safety-first figures who have so far been chosen by Obama to be on his team?

Three predictions about the Obama presidency.

Media bias matches market. Who knew they were just trying to make money? I’m shocked.

Steven DeBeste.

Michele Catalano.

Seven Post-Election questions.

McCain Malaise.

I can has a Congress?

Instapundit has some excellent advice.

Can I ask that, regardless of who wins, we tone things down a bit?

We don’t have to agree on issues, or on leaders. But if we can’t agree that a free and fair election can produce a legitimate president even when it’s not the candidate we like, then we’ve got a very serious problem.

Google’s live map.

Daily Kos has a sweet map, if going there doesn’t make your head explode.

This means I get to complain about the federal government for 4 more years.

It’s always exciting voting in Idaho. You can vote for the republican or, well, just the republicans. A few initiatives to raise taxes to raise money for roads and police and stuff and you’re done. 10 minutes max. I was #22 at 7:30am.

Oh yeah, we still use scantron sheets, so no touchscreen shenanigans to report.

I guarantee the new Three Stooges will suck. Guarantee.

Starbucks will give you a free cup of coffee for voting tomorrow. Which is probably illegal.

Amazon’s Windowshop. Nice.

MySpeed. Changes the playback speed of online videos. Great for reviews and stuff where you just wish they’d get to the point.

Stuck on a glacier with Magyver. Old, but worth revisiting.

Dead husband coffee maker review. Read the replies. I LOL’d. I almost ROFLed.

Second Light. Microsoft make Surface 3-D.

Scientists think they may have found the planet Vulcan. Which is awesome.

Sweet OLED news from Samsung.

The race is as close as Bush/Gore in the polls. Yes, I can’t wait to hear the screaming should the race be close, or, god forbid, McCain win with all the “Obama is ahead by miles” talk.

One free Taco Bell taco for you because someone stole a base in the World Series. Yay!

Amazon Windowshop. Now they need to personalize it.

Japanese Monkey rides a Segway. He has some sweet moves.

LOLdog.

Whatever You Like – Weird Al Yankovic, really captures the economic outlook of America.

Duck Confit. I probably should have saved this for after I try it, but this week or next I’m doing it.

Monster Size Selection of Awesome Photoshop Tutorials. Truly.

People raised on black and white TV dream in black and white more. That’s just weird. Brains are frightening and powerful things and who knows what they are doing up there.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc’s U.S. customers, increasingly worried about their own financial security, are waiting until they get their paychecks to buy even the most basic necessities, the retailer’s U.S. division head said on Tuesday.

What were these people using to buy basic necessities before?

5 presidential election campaigns dumber than this one. (Cracked, so NSFW)

Also, if this doesn’t cure you of believing the pundits when they say this is the most divisive time politically in America’s history, nothing will. Really, more divisive than the 1850-1860s?

I point this out purely for the awesomeness of this line:

So basically you can have the First Amendment and the Second Amendment but don’t try to combine the two into one freedom peanut butter cup….

I think a year or two of Obama will cure them. On the other hand, maybe they just want 4 years of column fodder. Clever.

Disposable diapers easier on the environment carbon-wise, probably still not as easy on the landfills. The British government isn’t happy about this though I’m not sure why they are so emotionally invested in what diapers their citizens use.

Mark Steyn on Joe the Plumber.

Anyway, our Fact Check Unit ran the numbers on the Obama tax-cut plan and the number is correct: “95.” It’s the words “percent” immediately following that are wrong: that’s a typing error accidentally left in from the first draft. It should read: Under the Obama plan, 95 of the American people will get a tax cut.

So inside the Beltway types admit indirectly what outside the Beltway people suspect: That Washington, DC is run by people who believe IN Washington, DC. Government is the answer whether you are John McCain or Mike Huckabee or Hillary Clinton or, most of all, Barack Obama. It is just a matter of degree. No one believes Joe The Plumber is the answer. No one trusts Joe The Plumber. No one trusts Joe The Plumber except that he needs to pay his taxes to fund their pet projects. Joe needs to learn his place and be patriotic and do his civic duty–which is to pay to keep the Beltway folks in power.

Link

A horse stuck in a tree ala Winnie the Pooh.

The Spyderco Whale Rescue blade: I’ve heard it cut through a 2 inch synthetic rope in 2 seconds.

Peter Gunn: That’s some quality TV, Lou. On top of having the awesomest theme song EVAR.

People take advantage of Hawaii’s universal children’s health care.

A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan.

Let’s think about Obama’s healthcare plan and see if we can predict what will happen.

Alaskan glaciers grow.

For the first time in the area’s recorded history, area glaciers have begun to expand, rather than shrink. Summer temperatures, which were some 3 degrees below average, allowed record levels of winter snow to remain much longer, leading to the increase in glacial mass.

Joe the Plumber is getting hammered.

Stills from the new Star Trek movie.

The ship looks pretty cool, except for Uhura’s station, what is she playing an Atari 2600 over there? But not at all like TOS.

Small banks say no to government money.

Community banking executives around the country responded with anger yesterday to the Bush administration’s strategy of investing $250 billion in financial firms, saying they don’t need the money, resent the intrusion and feel it’s unfair to rescue companies from their own mistakes.

But regulators said some banks will be pressed to take the taxpayer dollars anyway.

You take this money now or else!

Some perspective on the nature of American government.

Politics has no ultimate victor. It has no final, decisive battle. It just goes on and on, like soap operas and Law and Order.

If guys want the annoyance that is wearing pantyhose, more power to them. I foresee this dying out quickly.

To all those that said gas would never drop below $100/barrel or $3.00/gallon and that we would soon all be walking and the world would come to a screeching halt.

Remember this as you consider the future of the stock market and the US economy. Just like people who thought the good times would never end were wrong, those that think the bad times will never end will be wrong too.

No Christmas music until the day after Thanksgiving. This is something Congress should be working on, not that stupid bailout stuff.

xkcd – The Universe to scale

Windirstat – Find those pesky files that are wasting your drive space. I freed up 7GB in one fell swoop.

Mock Porchetta – Aww, yeah. I used a picnic shoulder, didn’t use capers and sorta just guestmated herb amounts, but it’s a fabulous thing to do with shoulder.

Great Fark Headline – who cares what the story was.

ESV Study Bible: Coming October 15th. I like how the ESV does verbs, very clear.

Mother’s Cookies is going under.

Does this mean no more Circus Animal cookies? I don’t think I want to live in a world without Circus Animal cookies.

The stock market’s history with bull and bear markets clearly marked.

The market sucks because it’s October.

LA Times blogger gets pwned over her complete lack of knowledge of firearms. Some of the comments are great.

105% of eligible voters registered in Marion County, Indianapolis.

There’s more.

The coolest library I’ve seen this week.

Again with the advice for McCain/Palin.

Drawing on Obama’s own record and statements, they need to paint him as a big spender, class warrior and cultural elitist; they need to say he’s never worked across party lines or gotten his hands dirty solving big issues. But the duo must also give voters reasons to support them. They must crystallize a positive, forward-looking vision so people who see Obama as unqualified have something to hang on to. It can’t be a laundry list of positions.

The economic union, not so much.

The whole “give some pumpkin puree to a dog for constipation thing” works. Daisy was having issues for a couple days–I blame the beef bone she had Saturday–I gave her about 1/3 cup of canned pumpkin, 6 hours later I took her for a walk and viola.

Of course, then I had to pick it up. There’s pluses and minuses to everything.

The best samurai tap dance you’ll see today.

Desktoporgraphy: beautify your desktop

Samurize: Make your desktop more useful.

Sauted Shrimp w/Tumeric and Mustard Seeds

Bento Lunches: Since I’m brown-bagging it lately, why not step it up a notch. I don’t even remember how I came across it now.

AIDA32: Learn more than you ever wanted to know about your computer. I knew about this before, but forgot.

UxTheme Multi-Patch + Tiger 2 VS = Win

System 47: The coolest screensaver evar.

Or not.

It’s been around since the 1900s.

Microsoft is putting out a new “cloud computing” OS for all your online app needs in few weeks. While working on Windows 7.

Vista: it’s Windows ME on steroids RAM.

How not to sink in the financial downturn.

Your government at work.

Let the children lead the way.

Interesting pictures from an interesting technique.

“The Great Moderation” doesn’t have the same ring as “The Great Depression”.

But despite the alarms, including dire warnings from President Bush, economists insist there is no risk of a second Great Depression because, for some time now, the U.S. economy has been in the midst of a very different, less-threatening phenomenon: “the Great Moderation.”

Star Trek and the A-Team.

As a general proposition, when told by unanimous elites that a particular course of action is urgent and necessary to avoid disaster, there’s a lot to be said for going fishing*.

Also, Boy George.

Where the next pandemic is coming from.

Actually, everything on this list seems unlikely to be a pandemic. But you weren’t worried about your stocks for a minute right?

Anyone that drinks instant coffee gets what they deserve.

I wonder how long until we figure out that everything in made in China has corners cut and the price of stuff goes up.

This’ll help you get out of that jam you’re in.

Greenest people fly furthest, thereby negating all their green living and more.

While we weren’t looking they are building an ion drive.

I hate the Adobe Updater.

I need 100,000 unique visitors to start rolling in the dough. I haven’t checked my stats in months, for all I know I should be making money now. I find it unlikely however.

Amazon has video on demand now. I’m having a tough time seeing why I would want to pay 10 bucks to watch a movie on my computer. Or pay $2-$4 to rent it on my computer.

Other than Netflix is slow getting stuff up to watch instantly and I MUST WATCH IT NOW, of course.

Plus, it’s DRM’d so I can only put it on two other devices.

Vending machine pizza.

So, the new Android is out. I am mildly interested, but don’t have a need for a phone that does more than makes phone calls and texts which dampens my enthusiasm for spending $200. But it does look pretty cool.

It was because my head light was out. I didn’t get a ticket. Your snickering was in vain.

Also, he was a good cop. Didn’t ask where I was coming from or where I was going, which is nice because like it’s their business. But the hassle of the whole “am I under arrest?” libertarian freedom thing just isn’t worth it. I need to get to the grocery store. Which I guess is why they still ask. Meh.

BTW, tuna on sale at Super-1, 48¢. That’s a steal.

Red light and speed cameras soon will be able to track you nationwide.

It’s for the children.