It wasn't me. You can't prove anything.


2008-05-31

Amazing tornado footage

This is one the best videos of a tornado that I've ever seen. It is from a surveillance camera apparently mounted on the side of building overlooking a parking lot. The information along with the video says the building was damaged, but there were no injouries.

Fedora 9 (upgrade) stinks

Red Hat 9 was the last free version of Red Hat if I remember correctly. Once upon a time, The Red Hat name was the name in open source. They went enterprise and made a name for themselves. I use Red Hat products every day at work.

At home, I use Fedora products. The latest version of Fedora is Fedora 9. It is riddled with beta software and poorly thought out construction. I've had several pieces of software break either in whole or in part since Fedora 8. It has become clear to me that the Fedora name has become a beta test of Red Hat's next release. I imagine that Red Hat 6 will look very much like Fedora 9 with a few bug fixes and a minor face lift.

Firefox 3 is beta and useful. It has some interesting changes and some annoying ones. Not a bad choice for a new OS output.

KDE 4 is beta and is completely useless on Fedora 9. KTTSmgr worked fine on Fedora 8. After an upgrade, it is broken to the point it no longer works. It isn't like I don't need this software, or that it is just one of the conveniences of computing. KTTS is the software that reads text to me aloud. I need that as much as I need a functioning keyboard or monitor.

Same is true with KDE itself. All I have to do is select a different theme and X collapse.

It is highly frustrating that Fedora is pulling this kind of crap. I sit at my desk looking at an error on my screen and wonder if I should have tried a full install from scratch. That does seem to fix most things wrong with upgraded units. However, when I think about the effort involved in that effort, I wonder why I'm not going to Ubuntu, a distro I've had good luck with in the past and know has a history working upgrades.

So, where does this leave me? I'm typing on a computer that is partially broken and no idea if it will ever get fixed. When i download an official release of an operating system, I want something that works. If I want cutting edge, I'll go looking for it. I complained when Fedora waited like six months to go from Firefox 1.5 to 2.0. Those were real releases of the software, not betas.

What are they thinking

What are these guys thinking? For no good reason, they take their and many other people's lives in to their hands and just for the hell of it, drive down the wrong side of the road. Any one know where this is.


2008-05-29

Tomb Raider, eat your heart out

The story behind this walkway dates back to 1901 or so. It is a bit breezy for my taste. It looks better than many of the video game traps I've had to traverse in virtual lands.They should copy this thing before the restoration in ... whenever the local government feels like ponying up the dough. In Spain, that could be a while.

New Snack Shelf

New snack shelf

Our company is expanding a bit. We had to double the space for the snacks. The company sells us candy and other assorted junk at cost. It is on the honer system. They got some new stuff in too. Three kinds of M&Ms. Peppermint paddies. We get free sodas too. Not sure where that came from. It is a great way to gain a ton of weight. I'm over there twice a day. Once for a soda and once for a snack. I heard on a podcast today that the obese children rate is leveling off. It must be the cost of food.

Thanks to Justin for the modeling. Justin is one of those folks who has the permanent jitters. He is full of energy. He hits the snack bar a couple times a day as far as I can tell and is skinny. One of the lucky ones I suppose.

How to get rid of a car

That looks pretty violent. To think, my shredder has a hard time with three sheets of paper.


2008-05-28

Heaven Avatar

I made a quick recording on my phone and emailed it to myself this morning. The recording was to remind myself of something I wanted to blog about later. When I listened to the recording on my computer, I pictured myself at about 22 or so with a full head of long red hair, clean shaven.  That must be the picture of myself that I use as my soul's avatar. I wonder if that makes a difference when I die? Will that image of myself matter?

I'm probably in better shape now than I was then. I walk more. Nothing trumps youth for health. There are few seventy year olds who could beat themselves at twenty beyond the advantage of experience. It is true that I have a bit more around the middle now than I did then.

In Eric the Viking, the gods are all ten year old children playing games with the lives of mortals. All the people who go to Valhalla become play things for the gods amusement, or maids. That is a very interesting interpretation. It has stuck with me long after the movie played. At the end of the movie, they all end up going back to Earth. They are all going to die one day. I guess they must all convert to another religion to avoid Valhalla at that point.

My perception of myself definitely makes a difference here on Earth.  It deeply affects my attitude. If I have a fat slob image of myself, I will probably do things that end up leading to my fulfilling that persona. If I have a masculine strapping lad image, then hopefully, I'll head for that goal. It makes a difference in the basis I start from for many decisions throughout my day. Everything I eat to how I carry my stride when I walk will be affected. Most people have a defined self image. They do everything in their power to attain it. Nearly no one knows they do it.


2008-05-27

Random Pictures

Busstop bush

This one is a bush next to my bus stop. I yelled at it a couple weeks ago because it got in my way. It rewards me by blooming pretty.

Busstop sign

This is a sign that it took me like a year to read. It is attached to the same sign pole the bus stop sign is on. I was worried it was some kind of notice that the rout would change or something.

Jack in the box

Random trip to Jack in the Box.

Hotwheels

I had a Hot Wheels vehicle that looked a lot like this. I played with it until the wheels fell off. I hope they get the same mileage out of this SUV. That is a pretty cool trick. I've seen RVs with motorcycle on the back. There are more cool cars in our parking garage.

Some Tornado Footage

And my parents are in the smack dab middle of Kansas this week. Worse tornado season in memory. Sometimes I wonder about those two. I got a call the other night that my dad had to park his truck under a neighbor's carport to get it out of the hail.


2008-05-26

One for Myth Busters

How cool is this? I want the Myth Busters right on the 2 liter plastic bottle myth today. I'm thinking the dumped bleach will cause damage to the earth in some way. There is always a trade off. How expensive is Clorox these days?


2008-05-25

Free

The freedoms of children. What they say. Where they go on a Sunday afternoon. Elle is on a spaceship that looks a lot like our couch.  I offered to be the navigator.

If only it were raining outside. That would make the game complete. We spend far too much time inside. We are lost to our cool air and entertainment centers. Elle knows better. What happened to my dreams. Oh, yes. I found them.

Next week worries me. Tomorrow worries me. I know not what new things have plans for us. what webs weave the powers in our path? Why, why? Shall we find our way? Will we fall? We shall fly. The world will slip by. The sun shines with our without us, but we give off our own light.

Sometimes we want tomorrows to hurry up and get behind us. Then, of cause, too many have. Life is like that. You get what you want only to figure out it was all crap and you should have stopped to smell the roses.

Current listening

Amy MacDonald - This Is The Life

It's all fun and games until a pin goes missing

The pin of a grenade is the smallest piece of mettle that will bring a person's life in to focus for the shortest period of time that seems like the longest. I remember an episode of MASH where a patient had a grenade and every one had to look around for the pin. I remember a show where Japanese soldiers killed themselves by activating pinless grenades and holding on to them too long. There was an episode of the Simpsons where a soldier died because he monologued too long. In True Lies, Arnold's character pulls the pin on a grenade and then lets the 'spoon' fly before he throws it. I had learned about spoons before this. It was nice to get that little detail in a major picture. The best movie grenade line was in Spies Like Us where Chevy's character holds on to a grenade too long, but then throws it at the bad guys. It lands in a box of grenades, so there is no hope of throwing it back. That is still a funny scene.

Apple, pickle, tomato, popper, there have been many names. They all go boom.


2008-05-24

Obama and assassination

Someone has a problem with Obama's race. Someone is really worried about it. I'm not. I don't like Obama's policies or his willingness to talk to our enemies. I don't like how much he reminds me of Carter. I have a problem with the politician. Hillery has all but said she thinks Obama will be assassinated before the convention.

The only people I hear talking about Obama and assassination are other democrats. If Obama is assassinated, God forbid, I will loose all my faith in this country. Not her ability to protect someone, but the people who cast shadows on her soil. I don't like Obama, the man or the politician. I'm glad he has the opportunity to run. I'll support him to a point if he wins. I mean, I may vote against everything he puts up, but I'll support him as a president. As much as I ever did Clinton any way.

Hillery is really starting to scare me. I blogged a bit ago about how I admired her ruthlessness. I do. It is starting to show through the thread bare seems holding her career together. Ruthlessness is best served in secret and behind closed doors. Hillery is just starting to look desperate. That isn't a good look for a politician.

First the bullet then the bang

I wonder if the YouTube War will affect Hollywood. Every time I watch a movie and a person is A) blown back by a gunshot hitting them or B) the gunshot that hits the hero makes a louder sound than all the rest, I cringe.

Ode to my father

I remember my dad building a ramp for us kids to jump. He built it from plywood. We put it on the sidewalk out front of our house and jumped it many times. The entire neighborhood showed full of kids showed up to try it out. Even ... kids from other streets. One of the young kids who had only had experience with crappy ramps built by other kids asked how strong it was. My father, being my father, went and got the Yamaha 125 cc endureo dirt bike we had at the time and jumped the ramp without so much as a creek or mark left on the ramp. From that day forward the kids of the neighborhood were not allowed to play with my dad any more.

Good times. Wish I had a video camera back then.


2008-05-23

Economics

Reality really does flow based on a balance of opportunity cost. It doesn't matter how much you pondered an apple vs an orange. The calculations were done for you by every person and fly, earthquake, sunshine, and all other factors that affected the orange and apple. What mystical fruit went extinct before humans cast shadows on the hard dry ground? It is that story you kind of hears that a butterfly flapping it's wings in the amazon triggers a path of events that start a hurricane. Or, the red paper clip guy.

The book Freakonomics opened my eyes to how the study of balancing opportunity costs can be applied to other things.

Capitalism uses/relies on this balance to work. Communism and Socialism other single pile efforts are doomed to fail eventually. Cuba, the last holdout of true Communism just allowed people to buy home computers and mobile phones.China hasn't been Communist in a decade or more. No state can supply everything it's people will want or need all the time. People must be held responsible for their own survival and happiness. That way, when they get neither, it is their fault and not the state. The state must survive.

When I took a class in economics, my professor did not get this fact much less teach it. That class could have changed my life,but it just detracted me with formulas and a woman crying during our final.

Everything and I mean everything you do and see and hear and feel is filtered through your brain. Your brain throws out 99.9& of all the information that comes in and only hangs on to the important stuff. Isn't that great? You have to learn (program a filters and procedures) how to do things. As you learn (program filters procedures) your brain brings about a set of actions based on past experience and, in the case of intelligent life, things other people tell you or show you.

That last one, ... what people tell you or show you, is a bit sketchy. I believe one only learns based on experience and visualization of things that people teach. I only have my experience to fall back on. If someone tells me something, I can only learn from it if I imagine myself in the situation, and performing a specific way. Otherwise, it is in one year and out the other.

When I go to put my foot down on an unfamiliar trail, I scan the area and eliminate all the dangerous places. This makes my choice of where to put my foot limited. If my filter eliminates all places in the direction I'm going, then I have to stop moving forward and consider a  different path to my destination. This is opportunity cost analysis. If I cannot put my foot down in a place aloud by the filter in my brain, I cannot move forward. If there is no alternate path, I must reassess the filter I use to take the existing trail, even if there is a danger involved. I may have to abandon my goal if things are bad enough. That is part of the filtration process. Is my end goal worth all this trouble?

Movement in nature, like a rock falling off the side of a hill, seems random, but if you look close enough you can find the cause and effect matrix that lead to that rock falling at that moment. Endless sun and rain, hot and cold. Any time you cannot find the matrix, it is called faith. When the opportunity cost of the rock staying in it's spot is greater than the opportunity cost of it rolling down the hill, it rolls.

It seems sciences have come about because people had needs. Mathematics seems to have come about as a science only because people had math problems in their heads and needed a way to write them down. Mathematics is more a means of communication than a science. Of course, that is what science is, a means to communicate highly extract ideas and concepts to other people, to teach really. physics came about as a way to apply math to real world ideas, if not real world itself. Economics came about more as a way to make money based on the realities of commerce and greed. It is not so much a way to teach as a way to take advantage of data. Biology is about understanding the mechanics of life and could be called the foundation of medicine. Quantum, well, who know what will come of quantum. Perhaps ascension. Engineering is not a science. It is a religion based on math, physics and uncommon sense. Economics should be a science if it is not already declared one.


2008-05-22

Evening in Paradise

I came home today and got past the same AT&T hole without a single vehicle passing me by. Three lanes of nothing until I was well past. I walked in the house and found my family in pretty good cheer. Elle and I had a discussion about politics and individual freedom vs the greater good. Well, something about the playing with rubber balls any way. Nat is in to her TV shows. I'm on the twenty first century idiot box. Work is still there. There are a couple of bucks in the bank and it is the end of the month. It is warm outside. It is cool inside. The cat box is cleaned out. The trash is taken out. Elle is in the bath. She says she brushed her hair real hard, but it's still wet. The cats are off sleeping somewhere. The racers are nowhere to be heard. The grass is cut. The sky has pretty clouds just floating about for no good reason. The wine is good. The cheese cake was good.

I won't say we are in heaven, but you can see it from here.

Couple of videos

Laughing at ignorance (1)

Laughing at ignorance (2)

I'm sticking with the theme tonight. Not much else going on. Having tea. Watching an old episode of Dr Who. Nat and Elle are watching TV. I learned that Vista home does not come with remote desktop. Vista sucks. I think I'm finally sick of Chick Fillet.


2008-05-21

Oops

Someone tries to throw a flash-grenade into a room, but doesn't quite make it. The training exorcise is bright to a sudden halt. This is why you train. Think of the potential catastrophes this sort of screw up could lead to in a live fire situation.

On this note, I need to keep my head in the game better. Stress management and multitasking are not my highest cards.

ATT Holes

ATT dug a bunch of holes down the street where I walk daily. I have to walk in the street to get round the biggest one. Last night, the trucks were there (the picture). This evening there were no trucks or cones. Just a hole and on coming traffic. There was also an unwitting stranger who helped me get past it all. God watches out.

USB key drives at work

Officially, we have no USB type flash drives at work. People bring in their own. I have one that I occasionally lend out to my coworkers who lack such bobbles. My drive came back without it's lid once. Every since, I loan it without the lid. I looked around and found (Thanks Wade) some thin twine with a wax coating. I think the coating is to keep it from fraying. It also helps it stay tied. I used it to tie the lid to the USB key drive. I'm waiting for Adam (the culprit) to ask for the drive again. He reads the blog, so he may come across this entry first.

We joked at one point that a USB key drive would not last long at our office. It would simply be absorbed in some way. We discussed putting a log chain attached to a cinder block attached to the drive with just enough length to reach the top and bottom shelf from the back of a cart.  I can just see someone wheeling the contraption down the hall on a cart to move a couple files. It is probably best people bring their own drives.

USB tether USB tether

Updated VNC Server Script

I forgot one cool thing about VNC. It is handy to copy and paste from the VNC window to the local desktop and back. This script kicks off vncconfig which allows copy and past between desktops. Remember, use the highlighted area for copy and the middle mouse button for paste.



#!/bin/bash
##############################
####################################
# Run VNC Server on the local box with some parameters.
##############################
####################################

# Yes or No routine
YesNo()
{
  echo -e "$1 (y/n)? \c"
  read answer
  case $answer in
      [yY]|[Yy][Ee][Ss]) answer=y;;
      [nN]|[Nn][Oo]) answer=n ;;
  esac
}

# If VNC Server is already running check if the user wants to kill it.
if  [ -n "`ps -elf | grep Xvnc | grep "${HOST}:1"`" ]; then
  YesNo "VNC Server is already running on display 1, Kill?"
  if [ $answer == 'y' ]; then
      vncserver -kill :1
      sleep 5s
      if  [ -n "`ps -elf | grep Xvnc | grep "${HOST}:1"`" ]; then
          echo "VNC Server :1 is still running. You may have to kill manually."
          exit 1
      fi
  else
      echo "Exiting without running VNC Server."
      exit 0
  fi
fi

# Kick off VNC Server
vncserver :1 -geometry 1280x900

# run vncconfig, allows copy and paste from vnc sessions.
export DISPLAY=${HOST}:1.0
vncconfig &


2008-05-20

Helpful script

VNC is a cool way of controlling computers remotely. Here is a little script for kicking off the vncserver command that gives you a wider screen and kills the vncserver already running.


#!/bin/bash
##################################################################
# Run VNC Server on the local box with some parameters.
##################################################################

# Yes or No routine
YesNo()
{
  echo -e "$1 (y/n)? \c"
  read answer
  case $answer in
      [yY]|[Yy][Ee][Ss]) answer=y;;
      [nN]|[Nn][Oo]) answer=n ;;
  esac
}

# If VNC Server is already running check if the user wants to kill it.
if  [ -n "`ps -elf | grep Xvnc | grep "${HOST}:1"`" ]; then
  YesNo "VNC Server is already running on display 1, Kill?"
  if [ $answer == 'y' ]; then
      vncserver -kill :1
      sleep 5s
      if  [ -n "`ps -elf | grep Xvnc | grep "${HOST}:1"`" ]; then
          echo "VNC Server :1 is still running. You may have to kill manually."
          exit 1
      fi
  else
      echo "Exiting without running VNC Server."
      exit 0
  fi
fi

# Kick off VNC Server
vncserver :1 -geometry 1280x900



Write Something

I would like to write something. Fiction. Creative. As original as something can be written and still have people like it.I'm not good at writing. I'm not as creative as I like to think I am. Oh, I can cobble together words in sentences and paragraphs, but they do not inspire emotion most of the time. At least, not if I'm making them up. It takes work to write. I can sweep the floor and know what the end result should look like before I start. That is difficult when writing. It is for me.

I am inspired by Freakonomics. It is the most poorly written book I've ever read that  I liked. It was a pile of anecdotes and facts, hearsay and conjecture based on numbers, yet, I made it to the end and felt a bit informed for my trouble. Freackonomics is one of those look-up books, that make you want to go look things up and learn more on subjects mentioned inside. It is just a bit less entertaining as some of the others like The De Vinci code.

What I want to write is pure fiction. I need to start with short stores. They can be boring. The best place to start is non fiction. Start with writing down of anecdotes from my life. Hmmm. The blog counts for that, so I've already started. Then comes the trial and error. Then comes planning. There is no story clawing it's way out of my sole. I just like the idea of leaving a mark in literature.

Too bad I'm so frigging lazy.

Bon Jovi

I heard a 60 Minutes interview with John Bon Jovi. I always assumed he was a fag. According to the interview he is married with a couple kids. He sounded like a normal guy in the interview. Normal as in not stuck on himself in a shallow way. He sounded like the CEO of a company or brand. By the sounds of how he works his band, he is.

A buddy of mine won tickets to a Bon Jovi concert when many moons ago. I went to see White Snake. I hate White Snake. They sucked in concert too.

A dime in time

Sometimes it really pays to have a couple bucks left over at the end of the month. Nat went to a sale today at Elle's school where parents usable uniform bits for a huge discount.  We got about $250 worth of cloths that still look pretty good for $40. This will keep Elle in uniforms for next year. How cool is that.

Normally, we are broke by the 20th of the month. Due to the economic stimulus package, we have a couple of bucks now that will save us several bucks in a couple months.


2008-05-19

The End is Nye

Isn't one of the biggest signs of the end of the world the fact that there is not enough food to go around?  I'm hearing about 30% rises in the States. Food prices have doubled in Egypt. Saudi Arabia is about the same. China has a booming economy, but people can't find rice to buy everywhere. Aid agencies are screaming about food for Myanmar costing too much to give everything people need. There were riots in Mexico a couple months ago over the price of corn tortillas .When you add on the fact that we are just now starting to sacrifice food crops and food crop land to growing fuel for our machines, you get a double whammy on the cost of feeding the children and workforce of the world.

It is not yet time for Soylent Green yet, but come on. Things are getting scary. Where are the fear mongers? Where are the smelly guys on the street corners shouting that it is the end times? Repent!! Repent!! I suppose there are city ordnances against such things these days.

Politics (yes, more)

Three for three. Shit.

  • Clinton has all but lost.
  • Clinton 2.0
  • Obama is a childish Carter wannabe.
  • Carter 2.0
  • McCain is just scary.
  • Bush 2.0 (some say 3.0)
  • Notice I'm not worried about Ford 2.0 or Kennedy 2.0.
  • Huckabee can kiss his VP spot good bye after one stupid comment to the NRA about a chair falling.
  • Where is Reagan 2.0?
  • John Robert Bolton still looks good to me.

I've heard that Republicans are going to loose huge this time round. I can't say I blame Republican voters. Where we are now sucks. The Democrats are not going to do any better. Every one knows it. There is no good choice.

Have I mentioned how tired of the whole thing I am lately? Yet, I still talk about it constantly. It is a sickness.


2008-05-18

Freakonomics

I read the entire book with the exception of the long lists of names towards the end. I did skip over some of those. I may have fallen asleep at the end of a couple of the tapes. The only time I get to read is right before bed time. I have to recommend Freakonomics. It is the most interesting book that will ever be written by economists ever in my opinion.

  • I did end up looking up who Ted Kaczynski is. He is used as an example in the book. I didn't realize how well educated and how good of an upbringing he had. I will probably avoid letting Elle or any of my other potential children skip a grade if that subject comes up.
  • I learned why so many crack dealers live with their mothers.
  • I learned that reading to your kids or how much they watch TV doesn't make much difference to their test scores.
  • I learned adopted kids' tests scores reflect the genetic parents more than the adopted parents when it comes to test scores, but not when it comes to success in life over all.
  • I learned that kids inherit more from who their parents are than what their parents do.
  • I learned that kids nurturing comes from their peers, not their parents.
  • I learned that the huge drop in violent crime in the early nineties was probably due to Roe vs Wade, not police, gun control or any kind of planning from politicians. Face it, unwanted babies are treated as such. In combination with the typical household that might get an abortion, you end up with a lot less criminals oh, say sixteen to twenty years later. Go figure.
  • I learned that a book written by economists is as boring as those economists. I only finished the book with the above mentioned exceptions because I am a fact fiend.

There were tons of other bits I pulled from this book. Telling all of them would spoil the experience of those who take my recommendation. Three people recommended this book to me. Two I trusted and one I wasn't so sure about. Cynthia was very impressed. I was kind of impressed. I do like the anecdotal format. I may even look in to what other books these two have written. Maybe not.

Sunday Afternoon

I have to call this post Sunday Afternoon because I slept through the morning.

  • I pulled myself out of my bed at 12:30 or so. I did not take a shower because I wanted to weed-eat the front. I eventually did after 14:00, but that was all the yard work I got done.
  • I finished reading/listening to my book Freakonomics earlier. I can't say I remember every detail. I slept through the end of a couple tapes and fast forwarded through a couple of tables correlating child names with mother education levels. Give me a break.
  • I read a friend's blog and commented. I over commented. I should just stick to "Hey that's great." but I cannot help myself sometimes.
  • I was kept awake by the racers again last night. It is 17:25 and I just heard another racer roar down the road. It has to be in the power of the state of Texas to put an end to this blight. No one wants to. The solution is to make inaction cost more than action. I will have to start a letter writing campaign and drag the rest of the residence in to the actions with me to get anything done.
  • Natalie is in her room talking parenting with Julie. It is kind of cute.
  • Merlin, our gray and white cat, has been a serious pain in the ass. He gets on top of the book shelves and knocks stuff off. He gets on the beam we have running through the living room. He is a nuisance.

Nat and I are on our way out the door to get something to eat. I have no idea where we are going. Elle will be back tomorrow Yay!!! I miss that little girl. Nat and I are taking our last evening alone together for a bit.

Natalie and gaming

This might get Nat interested in gaming.


Inspired by the ever cute Sanrio character "Hello Kitty" ©, Katherine wanted to bring a little color (and a bit of snappy fashion!) into the male dominated (and admittedly gothic themed) gaming world of Warhammer 40K! Katherine's devotion to painting her gaming miniatures in constant tribute to Hello Kitty has stirred much interest in the gaming community - and there are growing hopes among many gamers that where one girl blazes a pink trail into the gaming world - others may follow! :-) 
Well that's the hope anyway :-)


I'd learn Warhammer if Nat decided she wanted to play. I bet we could get Ken D. and a couple others going too. I wonder what kind of gaming will appeal to Elle when she gets a bit older. I wonder if Rose and Elle will game in some way. That thought brings a smile to my face.


2008-05-17

Classified Intel

This information must not fall in the wrong hands. I only know one man who games successfully with his wife. Save yourselves!!!

That's some iron

Now, that is a lot of iron. Tanks weigh eighty tons. That is about as much as you can put behind a semi truck. Look at all the wheels on some of those trailers.


2008-05-16

Lunch Conversation

Today's lunch conversation was split over two  areas. We went to Beck's Prim for burgers. We ate outside We spoke of goofy stuff about movies and small talk. We nearly got pooped on by irate birds. Oh, and TV shows. Something about TV shows. I don't remember. It's funny. I have no idea what details went by. It was like I wasn't even there. Something about Armadillos too. I must have needed food. I hadn't eaten out for lunch in months. I don't even remember it.

It's funny because I remember walking over there. The weather was nice, cool and breezy. I remember crossing the street, dodging cars. People gunned their engines to hurry us up.I remember coming back and nearly breaking my neck in a whole in the sidewalk.

We had a break later in the day and spoke about one of our coworkers who is off to do missionary work in Cyprus. This lead to the discovery of where Cyprus is and it's population. Then the conversation turned to the quake in China and an internet hunt for the map of where everything happened. Anyway, my coworker will learn Arabic to make web pages and media that pushes the Christian religion in the middle east. I'm all for that. He and his wife need funding. I'm thinking of asking my mom if she knows where they might get helped out. Her church helps missionaries.

Joke

A friend sent me a joke in email. "The judge asked the prostitute 'when did you realize you had been raped?' the prostitute answers wiping away tears 'When the check bounced.'" An old joke that still cracks me up.

Break

My goodness I was busy today. I made releases. I tested things. I bugged things. I fixed a script or two. The stress level was hight. Customers were waiting. It is just one of those days. I'm not the only one. Every one is at the edge. It is kind of nice to be honest. Things happen quickly at a smaller company. I remember working for a huge corporation.  It was a pain to get some things done. When you needed a drastic change to something whether it was a large or small thing, the step were the same. You had to follow procedure for building a refinery or buying toothpicks, it was paperwork.

We may have taken a break, but it was only  a few minutes. It is amazing how much faster that break makes the entire afternoon go. I don't get out of work until after 18:00 most every evening. I get to work before 8:00 most days. Typically I take a short lunch. Sometimes I go walk around the parking garage. Today Nat was thinking about coming up for lunch, but her asthma was acting up so she didn't want to get on the road. That break kept me running the rest of the day.

We don't need no stinking ramp

I'm impressed. Those little front loaders are not as easy to use as you might think. I can't tell if any one was in the truck or not.

What an idiot

Even I saw this coming.

Not bad

I've never been much on magic tricks. I like knowing how they are done better than watching them in the first place. I guess that is the engineer in me.

Watched Iron Man

Iron man was pretty cool. It had all the elements of a good Kelly Movie. I liked it. I thought What's his name did a pretty good job. He is a talented addict.


2008-05-15

Scripted Conduct

I'm listening to the Democrats run in their race for the nomination. Hillery is behind a bit at the moment. Obama is the odds on favorite by some measures. There have been hints of a double winner ticket with one of them as the nominee for president and the other for vice president. There have been jabbing at each other and complimenting each other. There have been raised voices of race vs gender and experience vs 'change' which means nothing.

The Democratic Party has held the number one spot in the news cycle only temporally bumped by the odd disaster for the last several months.The competition has sparked new interest in voting. The challenge has sparked interest in even the very young who have other things to worry about than voting.

As a card carrying right wing conspiracy collusionist, I wonder if it was not all planned. Let's face it, McCain is all but unknown right now. I'm sure he is biding his time and saving his money until the real race after the Democratic Convention sometime in June.  Sounds like a plan.

It all sounds so scripted. This election so far sounds like a bad movie of the week. It seems like every one is doing what is already written. I get this feeling with all the interest in this battle for the Democratic nomination, the over all election is going to be boring. I think the Democrats are going to walk it in the executive and legislative branches.

I do not think McCain has a chance of winning. I feel he was chosen to run because the Republicans know he is a scapegoat. They have to run someone and they might as well run someone who will not live long enough to have a real chance at the prize again. I have a hard time keeping a straight face when people ask me if I'm going to vote for McCain.

Who is the Libertarian candidate?

First Impressions of Fedora 9

Firefox 3.0 is pretty nice. I'll have to upgrade elsewhere. I deliberately didn't even look at the new Firefox until Fedora supported it because of all the hassle I had going from 1.5 to 2.0. I fluted 2.0 was working for me so far so I waited. One annoying thing is that Firefox comes to the front when you double click on an html file or send a link in from another program. This is annoying because I need to activate several links from my RSS aggregater  at once. The old Firefox let me. The new one tries to take my box over every link.

The screen saver fades correctly. It amazes me how much of a pain in the ass that flicker was.  Nat complained about it from the other side of the room. It was highly distracting. Hopefully that is the last of it.

KTTSMGR (KDE Text To Speech Manager)  has some issues. Things just sit there and don't start reading for a while sometimes. The CPU is at 100% and nothing is happening. The problem seems to be in the engine that actually does the rendering, not KTTSMGR. It does read the frigging HTML code half the time. That is a pain in the ass. It is still usable at the moment. I may complain more about this because I use text to speech daily.

Remember, I'm using an upgrade that kept my settings. For the most part everything looks similar, but different. Several programs simply went up a notch in version. Some buttons moved around and a couple things seem to be better. So far, nothing hits me as a drawback. The change seems incremental. Not much to write home about.

I need to learn the pipes

This is probably the best video on the net ever. Well, in the last couple of days. Well, in the last fifteen minutes. It is cool. In a geek sort of way.


2008-05-14

Sorround Monitor

Looks pretty cool, but this guy is going about marketing all wrong. First of all he is a dud. Second, He better have that ting patented out the wazoo. It looks way to easy to just copy. It uses what looks like off the shelf tech and existing game settings. I think it would be better if you could figure out how to use two or three projectors to get better side peripheral images.

Secret weapon of the Iraqi Army

There are a lot of things that weed makes you do worse. For example: everything. Well, everything except walk in front of dangerous shit saying "Fuuuuck youuu BOYO!!!"

Weeeeee!!

That looks like fun. What happens when you mess up?

Rock and Roll in China

I heard that the quake in China if superimposed over a map of the U. S. would stretch from Main to Arizona. Many people have lost their children. Millions are homeless. Tens of thousands are missing or buried under rubble.  There are dozens of videos making the rounds. There are after-shocks every so often. Remote areas are still cut off. People are living in tents. People are scraping for food and medicine. People are building hand cranked generators to charge their mobile phones. People are sending text messages (SMS) in stead of calling someone because it saves on batteries and doesn't tie up the service as much.

China says the Olympics will go on time. They will also accept help from all those who offer. For all the bitching I have done about China having the Olympics I have to say, it seems to have helped China become a world nation as apposed to a nation willing to be the workhorse of the world. I know the majority of Chinese are rural. The videos show people in office buildings, stores, bars, restaurants, and apartment blocks. running out. Staying out. People are afraid to sleep inside in some cases.

This is all happening a million miles away, in a country that is a whole different culture. It is happening to people I do not know and that I do not really understand. This would have been a news story a couple years ago. Just another bit of background noise passing by on the evening news. Today, however, I get emails with links to videos of people on the street in these places. I get first hand accounts by bloggers on the scene.

Fedora 9 upgrade failure

So, the upgrade to Fedora 9 didn't go so well. After running the upgrade, X will not start. X is the windows part of the OS. I can get to the command line, but no programs that use GUI interfaces will run. I'm sure it is due to the frigging ATI drivers. I truly loathe ATI for having shitty drivers for Linux. Guess what. I do not have a copy of Fedora 9 on disk, so I cannot just turn around and install it from there. I have to obtain one. Nat does not have a DVD burner in her box. We really need to rectify that.

I have put off the updating of the server until I get my desktop working. I do not remember if I installed the ATI drivers on my server or not. Surely I was too lazy to have done so. Waiting is harder than it sounds. The first thing I need to do is back up some data. Then I need to get the DVD of Fedora 9. Then, I need to try an upgrade. When that doesn't work, I need to install fresh. Did you catch my faith in the upgrade process? Then comes restoring what data I can and starting the process of getting all the settings where I can use the box again. Pain in the ass.

Yes, I'm an idiot. I should have:

  • Made backups before hand.
  • Had the Fedora 9 DVD/CD on hand.
  • RTFM (or in this case, the FAQ)
  • Not done this on day one of the newly available files.
  • Had Knoppix (recovery software) on hand.

The last time I did one of the YUM upgrades I got caught in a circular dependency during the upgrade. When attempting to install everything from the DVD, I got no warnings or errors. The box just sat there acting like it was doing something. This time, I still got those errors, but doing the upgrade this way at least tells me what is going on. My trouble is once everything is installed, the software that puts the GUI up breaks. I can see the computer attempting to switch from the CLI (Command line interface) to the GUI with some flickers. Then ... nothing.

It was my own fault. I have not yet lost any data that I'm aware of. Wish me luck.

And then I gave it a shot

It turns out all I had to do was remove (rename) my xorg.conf file. The system created another one when I rebooted the box. Things seem normal for the moment. I'll keep bitching if things break posting my results.


2008-05-13

Another tall dump truck bites the dust

This time in Moscow, a dump truck flips up when the driver fails to tell that the truck is too tall to go under an overhang. Do they not put those height signs on overhangs in Russia? The person in this accident was injured and had to be rescued. You don't get to see them drop the truck. I guess that is the money shot.

Watched Cleaner

Spoiler Warning

Cleaner is a show about an ex-cop who cleans up the remains of people who die. There is some gore and people dressed in scrubs. There is a kid who gets in the way. There is a cop and a partner. There are bad cops who were not all that bad. There is a woman and a pregnancy. There is a ledger that kept track. The movie had all the  most important bits of a who-don-it including a predictable ending. I didn't even fully watch the show. I was skimming through and guessed who the killer was half way through the flick. I hate that.

Fedora 9

Fedora 9 is out today. I'm running an upgrade via YUM as I type. It will probably take all night. I hope there are no troubles. There were some conflicting packages last time, but only a couple. The repo files are getting more and more complex. There are several base URL entries in the one's on my machine. I had no idea. I never look in those files until there is trouble.

Noting is as nerve racking as that list of a million packages that scrolls up the screen all preparing to be upgraded. The next step is to determine the dependencies and yell at me if some are missing. As I'm watching the times, I can tell, this is going to take all evening. This is why you should wait a couple of days before kicking off the mass upgrade. I've already decided to wait on upgrading the server for a couple of days. I'm going to go watch TV for a bit. Maybe that will calm me.

Very Local News

  • Sense from the Government (What happened?)
    • The cost of stamps went up to 42 cents. Nat bought some forever stamps and some one cent stamps. It has got to save the Post office money using the forever stamps vs. printing one cent stamps. Makes sense to me.
    • Congress made some new rules about giving those who make pennies and nickels to choose metals and manufacturing techniques to make a penny for less than a penny and a nickel for less than five cents. Bout time. Maybe this will squelch the calls for eliminating the penny. Well, for a while any way.
    • How many decades have people been bitching about these two issues?
  • New Blackberries are out. Nifty
  • I really miss Elle. The house seems empty. The world seems a bit more empty while she is off having a great time with her dad's side of the family. Nat feels the same.
  • Nat is busy as i type setting up her new iPod. She loves that thing. I can tell because she has threatened to throw it against the wall seven times and yet has not given up on making it work.
  • Today was another busy day at work. This is a habit now that we no longer get overtime.


2008-05-12

Very Local News

  • Politics
    • Clinton is on the ropes. Honestly, I do not like Obama or McCain. There just is not enough difference between any of the three of them for me to care. I would be nice for Democrats to pay the price of bad war PR for a while.  I'm thinking the next president is a one term runner. I could be wrong.
    • Obama can play the race card (typical white person) and people admire him. Recently Clinton mentioned a racial demographic and is all blasted. I thought it was OK to use racial demographics in your speeches and conversations of an official nature. I guess "only if you are that demographic" rule still applies.
  • That sink hole is making national news. The MSM would love it if someone would please fall in the frigging thing and need to be rescued. Pleas. .. Pretty please..  Maybe a massive drop off and loss of half the town would be cool.
    This story is so boring that the MSM has gone to saying that sink holes can happen all over the U.S..  Watch for cracks in the walls, holes in the yard , other signs of shifting soil. Shit, that is called Houston.  Houston is built on swamp. My God, you would think it was a slow news week.
    Home owner's policies do not usually cover sink holes. The disaster status seems a but much. I heard something like five businesses and a couple of private properties were in immediate danger. That hardly seems like a disaster to me. Maybe to the locals.
  • I had the busiest morning of my life this morning. Of course, everything was needed yesterday. In the afternoon, I tried to keep my head screwed on straight and still get some things done.
  • Finally found a pet cat that I like. My mother gave Nat and I a wood carving in the shape of a cat. It is an adorable little kitten that will cause me no further headaches unless Nat decides to hit me with it the next time I piss her off.
  • Myanmar
    • Generals and their wives on local TV voting. Passing mention of the military passing out tents and TVs to victims. No food.
    • Relieve is rotting on the tarmac at the main airport because A) the people in charge want to distribute the stuff for their own political efforts and B) Myanmar is paranoid of outsiders so they do not want people (aid workers) to be included with the aid. This is costing lives.
    • Some reporters with their feet on the ground in Myanmar (there illegally and their lives in danger) say the government is ignoring the trouble and the bodies are stacking up.
  • I'm trying out a new antihistamine called Zyrtec. It is kicking my ass. It makes me a bit drowsy. It drys me out. It cuts down on the coughing a bit. The worse thing it does is make me dizzy. There is a warning. I suppose the dizziness is a good sign. It at least means the stuff is making a difference.  Sheesh.
  • This past Sunday was Mother/'s day. Nat and I went over to my parent's place for burgers and some awesome sausages. We got my mom a ladybug ring made partially of amber. She seemed to like it. My mother gave Nat her old iPod. How cool is that?
  • Stopped by Cracker Barrel for dinner. Nat had a craving for dumplings.
  • After posting that video earlier, I have "Happy Trails" going through my head.
  • The quake in China made the news all day. You would think it was one of the states. I've heard the era of crazy cheap goods is over. People in China are probably happy about that. I wonder what Wal-mart is going to do.

Old fashioned

I'm proud do know you through your work too John.


2008-05-11

Danial and Trever

Danial and Trevor are brothers. They live in the same apartment. They work at the same place. Danial never told Trevor that the Mother's day thing they had planned had been canceled because their Mom, my Mother in law, had to work a double. That cracked me up when I heard it. I can't blame them. I know how guys work. They just don't keep others informed of things unless it is in their way. They have probably gotten very good at staying out of each other's way.

Watched Arlington Road

Spoiler Alert

Arlington Road is a twisting tale of lies deceit and blowing shit up. It was about the Oklahoma bombing and how the whole thing could have been a conspiracy. Well it was kind of about that. It was a bunch of fantasy.

It had too many twists and turns for my taste. It drug along. It could have been a movie of the week on TV. If it were not for some good acting by all involved the movie would have stunk up the theater. It was choppy.

The story is where I have the problem .There were twists for twists sake. People calling saying they were one person to kidnap someone's son. The bad guys seem to have everything figured out right up to the end. I will say thought, I like it when the bad guys win. It is even more tasty when the good guys get blamed. That is the jucy plumb.

HARSH! vehicle vs pedestrian video

I've had people complain that I show people dying in videos on my blog. This one is very harsh. Some of the people deserve getting hit thought. Most of them are just in a bad spot an pay the price. Adam, don't watch this one. If you do, don't complain.

Sometimes .. you need a truck

I heard that for the first time in thirty years, cars out sold trucks in the U.S.. I tell you, that is great. I like the idea of people driving cars on the road. I honestly like the idea of less private useless truck that never have more than a cooler in the back on the road. Sometimes you need a gruck.

Sometimes, floor-it is not the way

So many times the mantra "If at first you don't succeed, back up and floor it." works in off road efforts. This time, it failed. There is no rule of thumb except thumbs are usually the shortest digit.

Freaky crash

Where the hell is this? That storm drain just blows it's top when ever the hell it feels like it. I love how cars just keep blowing by at full speed. Oh, hell with the water, I got to get to Star buck's.


2008-05-10

Watching the Bucket List

Bucket List

Bucket List

Christ this show is depressing. I've made it through the first couple scenes. I feel like stepping in front of a bus to avoid illness. They are establishing the idea that going out on your back sucks very well. Tidy.

Then the family of the mechanic starts showing up. They are concerned with health and test results. I remember when My grandmother was dying. She lost her mind before her body. That was depressing too.

Crap. I just noticed a glasses on / glasses off / glasses on easter egg in one of the bed to bed hospital conversations. I hate it when I notice this stuff. It is what some people live for. I wonder sometimes if the directors don't sneak some in just to keep the geeks happy with something to blog about.

They jumped. That was a funny scene. If I ever jump out of an airplane, it better be a rickety heap, or I ant going.

They did the Mustang thing. Couple of little surprises there. I like that scene. I want to rend a track and tare a couple of cars up when I win the lottery. I'm dreading the touching ending that I smell coming up.

They pull off two guys having a communication in a bathroom without it coming off the least bit fag. I'm impressed.

Have you  found joy in life?

Has your life brought joy to others.

Wall of China. vroom vroom

Then it is home and the touching scenes I was worried about.

The touching moment came and went. What was I afraid of? I shed a tear. I smiled.

My joy came the first time I tickled Elle and she tickled me back. I hope she enjoyed it too.

Oh, I recommend the movie. See it with someone you love. Unless, that is, you are afraid to cry in front of them.

Before DnD begins

I do not have the $10 I owe Adam from last week's DnD. Nor, do I have the $10 for this week. I'm so goddamn sick of being broke. Nat intends to drop off a twenty this evening. I hope that happens before food payments show up. She says she likes me much better when I play DnD. Apparently, it relieves a lot of stress.

The laptop is not going to work. The video card refuses to use the driver that came with XUbuntu.  When I click on the slide bar to move the text up and down moves slowly. Click and wait. Click and wait. I need to bounce around the document quite a bit. That is not going to work. My old Palm-Pilot was faster.  It is back to a pencil and paper for me.

During DnD

Just got started and started feeling ill. I felt like crap most of the day and thought a glass of olive tainted scotch would calm my nerves. It just made things worse. It was good scotch, don't get me wrong. I ended up leaving in the middle of an encounter. I hope no one is mad.

After DnD

Nat came and got me. I went home and went straight to bed. My head still hurts this morning from a sinus thing. I was hoping to mow. We have crap planned all this weekend. I'll fight to get it done after work all next week. I need to start robing banks so I can afford to keep the yard pristine for the home owner's comity.


2008-05-08

Redlight camera

They are not all bad. What pisses me off is some municipalities will shorten the yellow light in order to increase revenue. Sometimes, not even that.

Mad Skills

My blog skills came in handy this morning. The big boss wanted to get people with laptops a lock mechanism they can use quickly and easily. I went straight to the manufacturer we normally use and looked at their solution. It actually looked like a good solution. It uses the lock slot on the laptop. I'm not sure if the ultra thin laptops come with a lock slot, but every other laptop I've seen has them.  They are all about the same dimensions too. I went around and looked at prices. Honestly, the OEM was competitive.

I then remembered a guy who had defeated old style laptop locks. I looked up the video for it and sent it along too. It is important in my opinion to tell people those locks are a deterrent not a fix. The lock will hopefully stop snatch and grab burgers. Hopefully, anyone with enough on the ball to defeat one of these locks is after different fish.

They work, not every time, but they do work. I have two personal anecdotes. A) A buddy at my old job had a son who's laptop was stolen from his dorm room. His roommate's laptop, on the desk across from his son's laptop, was fine, because it was locked to the desk with a lock like the one I suggested. B) My old job had a satellite office broken into. Electronics were taken, but no laptops because they were all locked to the desk.

From now on, when I post a dream laptop, it will include a link to a lock.


2008-05-07

This time, he deserves it

The guy who imprisoned his daughter for um-teen years and fathered seven children and maybe more with her is upset that the media portray him as a 'monster'. I haven't heard any one take even a slightly sympathetic side with this monster. The monster wants a fare shake. I will not get in to what I would like to do with him. To be honest, I'm not upset over this story. I just don't have the strength to throw verbal daggers. He is going to hell.

I was going to quote some text, but it is not worth my effort. There was a video on LiveLeak that I should probably put up. It shows the man on vacation with some friends. He seems like an over weight slob. I wish the video had subtitles.

It is coming to light that several people knew there was just something wrong with this guy. He was not caught until he turned himself in after the eldest child he fathered with his daughter became very ill. She may not survive. There is no chance any of the children will lead anything resembling a normal life. This monster plans on using an insanity defense. I just feel sorry for every one involved. Even the local priest and shop keepers. You know they are going to have to answer questions like "Wasn't it strange how X, Y and Z he bought on a weekly basis?" What did his wife know? Twenty four years! What are my neighbors up to?

Listen to his laugh in that last one. This is the laugh of a mad man. It doesn't sound like one, but it is.

Today your are a ...

Coming of age is a load of crap. The whole idea of the coming of age movie or time of life or that one magic issue or challenge that makes you a man or a woman instead of a child is bollix. I don't think I ever had one of these times or moments. Nat says I was never a kid. I've gotten that many times. When I was an adolescent, my friends said I was more mature than my parents.

There was a time when people were born, grew up, worked on the farm, got sick, then died. They were too busy trying to stay alive to worry about middle school bullshit. The great philosopher Phebe from Friends once said (from memory) "When I was homeless, a guy offered to give me food if I would have sex with him. That is a problem. You guys are dealing with a bunch of middle school BS."

Religions are full of coming of age business. There is a tribe in Africa that circumcises young men at age thirteen. That sucks. American Indians had hunts or other forms of mutilation that I've heard in passing over the years. The ongoing theme of things is that one has to go through a challenge of some kind to be proven worthy of such an honer of being called an adult. I do not remember ever going through such a task. A bunch of stuff just kind of happened to me and gradually, I started calling myself an adult.

There was a podcast from NPR where an out of work guy let his son drop out of high school because he had a real problem with people and administration. The catch was, they had to sit down and watch movies together and talk about them. They wrote a book about it. Not a bad home schooling. The father swears his son has a much better attitude about learning now than he did while he was still in public school. The son was 22 at the time of the interview and headed to Vienna to attend a film school.

That story above smells like a coming of age story. Not really. It seemed to fit here. I wonder if there is a reason the son did not fit in with any of the clicks and thus was an outcast. I know I had the hardest time fitting in anywhere. Hell, today I fit in with hard boiled geeks and blue collar cops. I never would have figured that one.

When I look back on school, I only feel disdain for all the other people I knew. There may be a couple exceptions. For the most part, I hated it. I didn't get it. I wanted out. College wasn't much better. Work is not bad. For some reason work is easier than school ever was. Not easier. I understand it better. I get it. The rules are geared to help people get along for the most part.

I suppose it all boils down to milestones. We celebrate success at different times. School, we celebrate at the end. Plays, we celebrate opening night. It might be the last chance.

Very Local News

  • My God, there are still six months until the general election. I'm really sick of it already. I'm not going to make it.
  • A bunch of schools are going to stop with the whole year book business. I'm glad. With all the online stuff these days, it is moot. I was not in most of my year books. They wanted us to take the pictures during lunch. Screw that. If they had offered a cookie, I would have shown up.
  • Versioning in programing is a pain in the ass on the best day. There are too many people pulling in too many directions.  At work, we are never going to agree on how and when to change the numbers of the branches of software we have to juggle daily. I get a headache every time we go over it. I can hang with talking about abortion, gun control. politics, religion, but God forbid people start talking about software versioning. Here comes the headache. I have to stop and come down off the walls for a minute.
  • Eating out is outsourcing meal preparation and cleanup.
  • Elle went to school today and still managed to get a couple of dresses from the re-sell shop. She has been complaining about her ears itching. They close up she says. Poor thing. I'm afraid to break out the drops. That is like pulling teeth.
And just for the heck of it ...

Akiro snap


2008-05-06

Between 18:00 and 18:30

I was at work this afternoon getting some over night tests set up. I had just kicked off the evening build. when John came in and asked where Jake was. I pointed toward Lances office. The discussion in the new lab between my and Lance's office was something about what the crew of youngsters were up to some night this week. They were making plans and horsing around a bit. The noise and to-do spilled the four steps to Lance's office. The last thing I heard Lance say before I fled the scene was "I have work to do. It is impossible to get work done between six and six thirty."

I hate it when thing like that happen. I was one of the bad guys this time. My stuff was done for the most part. I had double checked things. Now I was being a jerk. Well, at least I bailed when I figured out what was going on.  I hope Lance got his stuff done.

The whole episode lasted like five minutes. It wasn't like things were out of control for a day or two. We have a pretty tight ship really. Hey, we could be getting attacked by replicators and have to fly the entire city through hyper space to safety. Then we would have to be on our toes.

Stargate screen shot


Stargate screen shot


Stargate screen shot


Stargate screen shot


Stargate screen shot


Stargate screen shot


Stargate screen shot


Stargate screen shot


Stargate screen shot

I like ending on the 'to be continued' It seems appropriate some how.

Santa is mad as hell, and he is not going to take it any more!!

Why do I find this video relaxing?


2008-05-05

Hillery vs Obama

Frigging krauts got a sense of humor.

Link

Idiot

I would be pissed if I were the owner of that car. This kind of crap is what's going on across the street from my house. It should be open season on idiots who put other people's lives in danger like this asshole.

Today's dream laptop

They keep getting cheaper. If I wait for a couple years, I'll have one for free. Nat wants an iPod. I'm lucky I have what I have. I should not complain.



Inspiron 1420N

Starting Price $969
Instant Savings $20
Subtotal $949


  • Inspiron 1420N

  • Date   5/5/2008 7:49:14 PM Central Standard Time
    Catalog Number   29 Retail 19
    Catalog Number / Description   Product Code   SKU   Id
    System Color:
    Jet Black
      BLKWC   [320-5524]   2
    Inspiron 1420N:
    Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5450 (1.66GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
      LT545LN   [223-1342]   1
    Operation System:
    Ubuntu Linux version 7.10 with DVD Playback
      LINX   [420-7901]   11
    LCD Panel:
    High Resolution, glossy widescreen 14.1 inch display (1440x900)
      14XGAL   [320-5521]   5
    Video Card:
    128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 8400M GS
      128NV84   [320-5496]   6
    Memory:
    4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
      4G2D   [311-7256]   3
    Hard Drive:
    Size: 120GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
      120GB   [341-4864]   8
    Optical Drive:
    8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
      8XLDVDR   [313-5277]   16
    Wireless Networking Cards:
    Intel® 3945 802.11a/g Mini-card
      IP3945   [430-2334]   19
    Camera:
    No Camera
      NCAMERA   [320-5523]   21
    Primary Battery:
    56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
      6BAT   [312-0539]   27
    Sound Card:
    Integrated High Definition Audio
      IS   [313-4783]   17
    Integrated NIC and Modem:
    Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
      INTNIC   [430-0493]   13
    Processor Branding:
    Intel Centrino Core Duo Processor
      ICNSNB   [310-9348]   749
    Warranty & Service:
    1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service
      ST111RR   [960-2780][983-3180][987-5397][987-8139][990-7989]   29
    Dell Recycling:
    Free Recycling Kit
      RECYCL   [310-5408]   129