You are going to need to know what a Hillman Imp looks like before watching the above video.
Did I mention these guys have too much fun?
I don't know where to start. I have to say, the Toyota looked the best. I bet he would have won if he went with the normal sized outboard. It would, however, not have been nearly as funny.
After last night's flood adventure, Nat wants a truck in stead of an
SUV. The SUVs we have looked at are all the new minivan wannabe
on-car-frame tall station wagons that are not any higher off the ground
than our car is now. After watching those videos from yesterday about
the Toyota truck, I'm kind of psyched myself. I've said many times that
to be a homeowner means you need a truck. I like my father's new Toyota
(4x2), but he gets 19 mpg or so. I want better than tat. Much better. I
want 30 mpg 4x4 that will tow stuff and is tough as a Toyota is
supposed to be.
Reality is, we will not be in a financial situation this year for a
new vehicle. Not to mention that I just can't bring myself to like a
vehicle that gets less than 24 miles per gallon. That number is going
up, not down any time soon. After getting screwed on the house and the
car like we were, I'm not going to just fall in to any new purchases. I
intend to make it as slow and painful as possible before I pull the
trigger on anything from now on. I may never buy a new TV.
I've griped that the answers to this problem exist, just not really in the U. S. right now. There are 4x4 pickups that get 30 mpg, but you have to get a four cylinder diesel stick that will not step out in front of traffic like the gas V-8 your father drove. Nat won't like me saying this, but I'm not the one driving so I don't care if it is slow as molasses. Nat understands what I mean. She needs an automatic, so that is one more count against mileage. It reminds me of the four door pickups I saw in pictures from Africa when I was a kid. I thought "Hey, that's cool. Why aren't they on the U. S. streets?" Then Nissan and Ford came out with them about the same year. Now it is hard to get a regular cab pickup any more. I heard there is a V-8 4x4 Land Rover hybrid in Europe. That makes sense. There are some videos of it on YouTube. That is as close as Americans can get to them apparently.
Let me start off by saying that I have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm just venting.
One of the guys at work has some pretty interesting ideas on morals in business. He is educated in some sort of business. He firmly believes that maximizing prophets is the only concern of business and that all other concerns are immoral. Not amoral. Remember, I was not part of this conversation because I find it difficult to talk to this person and keep a straight face (as in not scowl).
One of the examples he had was the clean water conundrum. it costs money to have clean water. In parts of China for example there is running water, but you have to boil it before you drink, cook or clean with it. The argument goes that there is a balance between the cost of forced clean drinking watter, like in the U. S. and the cheaper boil it first or pay extra for clean water situation. A bunch of people didn't get that water is expensive to some people. The people here make enough to more than cover necessities. Clean water is a luxury to some people. The person presenting the issue didn't take in to account (that I could hear anyway) the cost of fuel to boil the water. He didn't take in to account the cost in time or illness on the availability of labor and the stress on infrastructure. Balance?
I insist that the free market is not self steering. Guidance is
required at some point or the distance between those who have and those
who have not will effect an abrupt redistribution (revolution). This is
inevitable unless you 1) are willing and able to remove the lowest set
of those who have not from your society periodically or 2) make sure
those who have not have at least enough for the moment. I would suggest
the health of the balance can be measured in the health of the class
that has to maintain balance. In the States we call this the middle
class. perhaps we can call them those who are trying to get.
The first choice above is usually characterized by a massive
slaughter of people or forcing an entire segment of the society to
leave the country. This is sometimes called ethnic cleansing or
enforced immigration laws. Hits kind of close to home doesn't it? It
sounds bad, but the approach works most of the time.
The second is characterized by a welfare state approach. This way
works in the short term, but when those who have get fed up with
carrying those who have not, things get rough for a while. This method
sometimes precedes the first method.
I may have to start a new group called cant stands no more.
That same light was out again this morning at my bus stop. It was a bit more backed up today, but I was running later than yesterday by forty five minutes or so. I'm not sure why I think it is blog worthy. Again, it looked to me like traffic flowed better with the light out than it does with the light working. The light has been out since last night when Nat drove me home.
For as wet as it was yesterday, the mud wasn't as bad as I expected. It pains me to admit it, but the tall grass that I have to walk through helps keep the puddling to a minimum. In a couple of weeks, the grass will be too high to walk through in several places. If we were in Houston City Limits, I could call 311 and probably get the side of the road mowed. Harris County has no such number. I need to poke around and find if there is some municipal contact because I want a sidewalk, or at least a monthly mowing over the summer.
I looked around and it doesn't look like any one has kicked the idea of adding the abilities of bittorrent to Yum. Yum will use all kinds of network connectivities to obtain files for software version management. I believe you can use http, ftp, most any kind of file sharing, and local files for Yum repositories. I have to update my Fedora 7 box and I just know every one and their brother is going to try to do it at the same time because it just came out. All those other forms of file sharing get pounded worse the more people who try to access them at the same time. bittorrent is the other way round. Bittorrent works better the more people who dive in at the same time. It just sounds like a great option. I'm not sure how it would work. you would need a repository of torrent links and servers. The downloads would have to happen in the background over night for example. The RPMs would need to be shared over the torrent connection, eating up a bit of bandwidth. Even 1k of bandwidth would greatly affect availability. Oh, well. It is just a thought.
The bastards at Top Gear won't let me embed the video. For God's sake, go watch these two videos.
I so want a Toyota truck. This reminds me of a story from Libya many
years ago where two Toyota trucks full of rebels (aka red-necks
with a cause) would approach a tank from opposite directions. By the
time the tank aimed at one of the trucks, the other would be close
enough to take a shot with an RPG. It was quite successful, as long as
the first truck remembered to peal off before the tank got it's licks
in.
My mom used to own a Toyota 4x4. I remember it well. The whole
family went and played in the mud with it. My father always liked V-8
vehicles. He now owns a 4x2 Toyota. I like it very much except for the
mileage. I bet that 4 cylinder diesel stick gets pretty good economy
for a 4x4. I wish Toyota made them available in the States. What is the
problem? Why are there no small diesels available here. The rest of the
planet is a wash in small efficient diesel engines.
I want one. Nat does too after the flooding today.
The light was fixed at my bus stop this morning. I noticed two near
misses. In an
unrelated story I witnessed a red ford pickup have a blow out on a
front tire and drag the rim all over the place with sparks flying. It
was quite hair raising. Well it would be if I had hair. As far as I
could tell, the driver was able to get pulled over without further
incident.
On the way home, it was raining. I left work half an hour early
because I have too many hours. I got caught in the worst of the rain. I
was soaked. I planned on taking the bus, but Nat ended up coming to get
me. She had to stop before Hays street because of high water on
Westheimer. I walked through a bunch of it to meet her there. If I had
waited until the normal time, I would have missed the bad part. The
light was out again as we passed the morning bus stop. We just can't
win around here.
My cloths are in the washer along with my boots. I have no idea if
they will survive the washing process, but that water is so filthy that
I'll take the chance. I have no idea how to dry the boots later. I'll
worry about that in a bit. ... The boots are thumping around the dryer.
I hope there are no holes or dents when I check on the load in a bit.
I want a constitutional amendment for separation of work and home. I want a set of rules that say what I do at home can't get me fired. If I want to pose for nude pictures so be it. If I want to blog about my boss, so be it. I can only be on call half the time I'm not at work. There must be realistic deadlines that do not include 24/7 requirements. If I'm working for 3 months on a job site, I need 3 months at home on 40 hours a week (or whatever the time limit is) If I work over time, I get paid time and a half regardless of what I do or who I do it for.
I'm sure there are a million other rules that could be added to something like this amendment. I can't work out the details. I get tired of companies telling employees that said employees represent the company even in their home lives and the employees will be punished for exorcising their freedom of speech rights that affect the company. But hey, that's the way it is. It is not going to change. I understand the rules from the company's point of view. I will comply (boss). I'm not even thinking of my current company. It was the huge corporation that pissed me off. It was some corporate decree NPR mentioned that set this rant off.In Japan there is an unwritten rule that anything said in the bar
after work stays in the bar after work. I like that rule. It is not
freedom of speech, but it can get an otherwise missed message across to
the boss.
Well, I can't get yum to work. The repositories aren't hooked up or
something. The official version will come out this week. I'm going to
wait for that. I will try to get the web page up as best as I can. It
should survive the upgrade. I'm not going to devote a whole bunch of
time to it until then. I need to know the OS for work anyway. I might
as well upgrade now. It does finally come with Firefox 2.0. For God's
sake, they need to do a better job of supporting the latest version of
the reason people have computers in the first place.. I don't even use
an email tool now. I use gmail so,
I just use the web interface
exclusively. Isn't the web 95% of home computer usage these days? It is
ridiculous to make people wait for an OS upgrade to get the new
browser. Oh, wait, Doesn't MS do that to some extent? Maybe RedHat is
just following a bad example.
So, I'm installing Ubuntu 6.10 on a box. This box already has Ubuntu 6.01 on it. I boot off the CD. It takes ten minutest to boot the CD which takes you in to a live version of Ubuntu. No biggy. Thank goodness the "Install" icon is on the desktop. I click install and wait. It finds the hard drive. It finds the internet. It asks me where to install the OS. I try to tell it. The existing partition has an OS on it. Ubuntu won't use it as is. I hit "manual partitioning". I delete the existing partitions (killing my web page). It won't let me go back to th3e automatic partitioning section. I had to boot off the CD again. I set it for automatic partitioning. I install. All is well.
I start looking in to getting things up and running. I can't find the frigging http daemon config file. I can't find the correct service information. I can't find the Samba stuff. I can't get VNC to install the server right. I'm thinking "What a pain in the ass. I'm going to have to learn this stuff all over again." No biggy, but I could just wait a couple of days and get Fedora 7. At least I know where things are in Fedora for the most part. It is easier to set up an http server in my opinion. The firewall is easier to manipulate. So, I waited.
I downloaded the Fedora 7 RC2 DVD last night. I burned it. I looked at my watch and decided I didn't have the time or energy to go through another install. Tonight I mowed the yard. The install on my web/aMule server is running as I type.
Wet walk in this morning. I hate that because my feet are wet most
of the day. That makes for some painful lab visits. They keep the labs
at about -5 for some reason. When I got on the bus this morning it
smelled like a cross between rotten pineapples and a dead animal. I was
worried that I had stepped in something and it might be me, but It was
the bus sure enough. There must have been some road kill it hit or
something. I didn't get hit or even have any near misses. I got to work
around 07:00. A couple of limbs were down on my walk. It looks like
there were some high winds at some point. I did almost twist my ankle.
That would have been very bad earlier this week when that ankle was
hurting already. The ankle took it in stride, to coin a phrase.
It was humid as all get out. It was still twilight. The walk was styling. The light in front of my bus stop was out. It blinked red. The strangest thing happened. the traffic flowed better than normal. People were patient. The cars that needed to turn did so quickly and got out of every one's way. There was no tail back. I noticed no near misses. It was a sight to behold. Not even a honk. heck, I even crossed the intersection without trouble. That is saying something indeed. I wish I could have video taped it to put on the web and say "This is the way ti is done."
We wanted to go to Scarbi.
Well, we drove to Dallis. We got a hotel room. We called every one we
knew. The weather went to crap. No one called us back. We ended up
sitting in the hotel room for two days and driving through a bunch of
bad weather. Fun fun fun.
No pictures. No videos. No memories worth mentioning. It pretty much
sucked. Oh, did I mention it cost us like $400 with hotel, food and
gas.And a day of vacation for nothing. It has really taken the wind out
of my sails. I can't wait to get back to work tomorrow to recover.
The picture server is still down. I'm downloading the new Fedora as I type. I have no idea when stuff will be back up.
Down for a couple of days. I'll be back eventually. The picture server is down for a bit too. I'm converting it over to Fedora 7 when Fedora 7 goes live on Monday or Tuesday. I give up on Ubuntu only because I do not have the patience for it.
Spoiler Warning
Any bright ideas out there?
My father calls me out of the blue. "Do you remember your trig?" he
asks. I couldn't, but my office partner could. So, I took the above
picture with my trusty phone and sent the SMS to my father in PA. I
wonder if he got it. I wonder if it did any good. It was all something
about a staircase. I'm still sketchy on the details. Hopefully my dad
will fill me in.
There were tons of holes in the plot. We basically forgave the
producers for a lot. That happens in shows you like that don't take
themselves to seriously. I remember Xina was the same way. No two shows
seemed to care what happened in past episodes much. Only when it was
covenanting to move the plot along. It looks like Heroes may get some
leeway. It is fun to discuss the flaws and try to make up possible
excuses for the holes.
I have a super power. Not many people know it. I tend to stand by the correct elevator when it comes. Nothing to write Marvel about, but useful in it's own way.
I'm hearing a similar thread weave it's way around the blogsphere.
There is an opinion or perhaps a spreading fear that the U. S. is in
decline. More, all of western culture is on it's way out. When I
say western culture I mean specifically the ideals that brought about
things like the Bill of Rights.
In so many parts of the world, the people have no
guarantee of freedom. At least we have a contract.
It is all about different things too.
I'm quite sure I've missed many. If you pile all of these things on
top of each other, it does look like curtains for the U. S., but I
think it will pull a Mr. Burns. That is, all our enemies will pile on
top of each other trying to get in the door and get stuck. This will
leave the U. S. to survive well in to senility. That is the stage I'm
looking forward to. It reminds me of the fall of the British Empire of
the early twentieth century.
Well, maybe not. These are problems. There are more. I'm sure I
missed some. These are just the ones off the top of my head. I bet
there are a couple of duties no one knows about. Notice I didn't
mention the below only because I didn't happen to hear them in a blog
today.
It seems like the internet, the great communication medium, has just made it easier for us to realize how much we hate each other. I don't have a conclusion. I don't have an answer. I just take the next step, try to keep my family fed.
My old job frowned on calling problems anything that implied that
they were anything that was wrong. I don't know where this trend
started. It probably started in ancient Rome where all good management
techniques came to be. You cannot acknowledge that anything is wrong
because then people will know something is wrong. You have to speak in
code that misdirects all intention of fixing the thing that is wrong.
This should limit responsibility. If some one knows something is wrong
and they try to gloss over it with words that do not make it sound like
anything is wrong, then they are lying.
In other words calling problems 'opportunities' is fraud in my book. I don't like it. I'll do it if told, but I will not accept that it is the right thing to do.
 White
House spokesman Tony Fratto had declined to react on Saturday but on
Sunday fired back. "I think it's sad that President Carter's
reckless personal criticism is out there," Fratto told reporters. "I
think it's unfortunate. And I think he is proving to be increasingly
irrelevant with these kinds of comments." |
He just looks like an old codger who is set in his ways and will
start
swinging his cane and flailing his arms when someone is contrary to his
beliefs. Not Sad, fitting. I for one don't think Carter takes the cake
when it comes to failed administrations. The Iran hostage thing was
going on the whole time he was in office and only ended when America
elected a president who said he would bomb the snot out of Iran if they
didn't give up the goose right frigging now.
How dare Carter so much as voice his opinion these days. How should
have a cow bell around his neck and a sandwich sign that just says
"Failure" on it. Go build a house, you sad relic.
Finally, some useful information on the internet.
I'm sure this is ground well covered by many already, but I thought I'd frame this discussion with a couple notes for Cinelerra users. I finally got around to uploading a test video on YouTube, and the process is pretty simple:
I had to cover this all by my self. This is a good example with some screen shots. Great little example and some helpful hints. I thought about doing something like it, but I'm very lazy.
"There are great and strong voices, big or beautiful voices, but very rarely, there is what can only be described as a magic voice. Frances is one of these rare ones, and the magic seems to lie in the contradiction, she is youthful and wise, vibrant and sad, spontaneous and skilled. Hearing is believing."
Trevor Nunn, Artistic Director RNT
Read Frances' new Blog
She has some sample songs on her site. She sounds pretty darn good
to me. Her blog is way out of date, but that's OK. They twist artists
arms to do blogs these days.
Yes, I'm quoting a quote. blah blah.
Fairy-tale setting with your own personal lagoon
Searles Castle is no ordinary mansion. It may not have been designed to keep enemies away from a royal family, but it has all the trappings to make it worthy of Sleeping Beauty.
There isn't a moat, but the seven-floor castle has a dungeon that could be used for a friendlier purpose -- a restaurant, perhaps, or an extensive wine cellar.
Thirty-six fireplaces are scattered among more than 40 rooms, one of which once contained a pipe organ and served as a mini-concert hall.
Marble is everywhere -- rising in columns, carved as mantles and in slabs as flooring.
Balconies and terraces overlook the property's sprawling 61 acres,
which include a T-shaped lagoon, tennis courts and a garden temple
guarded by two marble sphinx sculptures.
They have a picture. It just looks like a plane old castle. I would
have to figure out how to get a thunder cloud to permanently park over
head and crack lightning at passers by while maniacal laughter is heard
wafting from the grounds.
What better place to base my lair of intergalactic dominance? I'll have to find out if the deed restrictions say anything about pulse cannons. Where is my check book?
I haven't been to busy to blog. I've been sick and pissy. Nat nearly
put me out of her misery last night. I wouldn't have blamed her.
My mother would have me in intensive care if she had her way. Thanks
Mom, but I'm not that bad off. My symptoms have sunk to cough, runny
nose, stomach ache and a bit of [looks both ways and whispers] diarrhea.
I'm sure you were interested in that bit of news. =] I don't have
much of a fever left. Sometimes it seems like I had a fever for a bit
while I was sleeping. I'm getting the bronchitis symptoms again I
am going to change doctors. I just don't care. I'm looking hard at the
urgent care place down highway 6. They are open weekends and the next
time I start feeling like crap on the weekend, I'm going in
immediately. They are closed Tuesdays. Funny that.
We are supposed to go to a friend's place tonight for a house worming. It isn't going to happen. We have like $50 bucks left until the end of the month. Nat and I refuse to put any more on the credit card. We insist on paying it off before we make any major purchases. That is going to take some effort. The car needed a tune up. The house still needs some repairs. I've had doctor's visits. Nat has doctor's visits. I'm out of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It's ANARCHY!!
Maybe we will make it. At least for a little while. We will have to feel it out later this evening.
MS will no longer support 32 bit processors after Vista. I just bought a computer and let me tell you, it would have been nice to know this before hand. I think it should have happened three or four years ago. There was no real reason to keep 32 bit going so long. I say this and all my machines are 32 bit. Linux really has to get it's shit together to get 64 bit working like 32 bit. If you ask me, every one should drop support for 32 bit as soon as possible. This will leave me in the dust because I cannot afford a new computer. Oh, well. I've never been on the right side of things before.
So, I went to the doctore again today. I go in for an ultrasound
tomorrow for my gut. Sounds like fun. I called my bos to let him know
what's going on. I'm going in for a bit tomorrow to take care of some
things. I don't care how I feel. Wish me luck.
That is list of symptoms and medicine. It doesn't add up to much. I've had this before. It usually leads to a bout of bronchitics. I cough for weeks and end up in the doctor's office a couple of times. I'm tired of being sick. I don't know what to do. There must be something .
At first I thought this was something I ate. I doubt it now. I think
it is some kind of virus or other real illness.
One side effect of the cold, I'm blaming it anyway, is slight loss
of directional hearing. I heard this tick tick tick coming from my
computer. It could only be the heard drive. A fan wouldn't make this
kind of sound I don't think. I go through the motions of trying to
figure out what drive is making the noise. I look at performance. I
look at the top. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then, I stand up to go to
the bathroom. The sound is coming from the sealing fan in the next
room. I guess a fan could make that tick tick tick noise.
 |
You scored as Akasha. You are the ultimate in
ambition. You don't just want to own the world you want to make crawl
to you on its hands and knees begging for mercy or at the least a taste!
Whose your Vampire personality? (images) created with QuizFarm.com |
I had a three way tie. I would have preferred Blade to be honest. Though, making the world bow before me has been a life long dream.
Damion M. Mosher, who put bullets [loaded rounds] in a vise and
whacked them with a
hammer to empty the brass shell casings, was hit in the abdomen by one
of the shots, authorities said.
...
Mosher, 18, told authorities he was trying to empty the .223-caliber
rounds to collect the brass casings for scrap.
Was he hit with the bullet part, or the brass part?
I've unloaded bullets. There is a purpose built device called a bullet puller that works by pinning the round in a holder and then slamming the device down on a hard surface like a hammer. The bullet (lead part) is then separated from the brass part of the round and held inside the device.
I remember having to talk a kid out of hitting a .22 round with a
hammer just to "see what happens" when I was in Middle School. I may
have saved a life. .22 are crazy. They go all over the place if you
aren't careful. Even when properly fired, they can be unpredictable. It
depends on the ammo.
So, I'm at home today. I'm sick. I'm not going to get in to details.
I nearly went in, but I couldn't face the stress of work today.
I can't sit for a long time without getting up and walking around.
Daytime TV sucks. I don't know how people stand it. There has got to be something better on cable. I've noticed AT&T touting $99 a month for cable, home phone, and internet. Finally, that sounds like an OK deal. They give you high-definition free for a year. That won't help us because we don't have a TV that will receive it. I've made the excuse that I watch too much TV now to bother getting cable. I kind of want it for the family.
TVs
at Wal-Mart are down in price. I liked one for $800 the other day.
I have no idea what to get. I need to bribe one of the geeks at work
who knows this sort of stuff to walk me through anything before I pull
the trigger. Nat and I say we are saving up for a new vehicle, but I
don't see that happening with gas prices skyrocketing. I'm of the mind
lately to wait until hybrids or electric SUVs make some headway. I bet
gas will be $5 a gallon by the end of 2008. That is just a gut feeling.
Maybe it is just the illness that kept me home today.
It was Tuesday last time I took a day off for pretty much the same thing. I'm probably eating something on the weekends that does not agree with me. We went to Mama's Cafe on Westheimer for Mother's day. I had a hamburger. It was pretty good. My father got ribs. He didn't like them much. I didn't like them much either. Now, Heath, has ruined me for ribs, but these were actually bad. I wonder if they made me sick. I'm going to have to ask my dad if he has the same trouble. Probably not. Everything else we had was good.
Pipers are very special people. They make a lot of money based on what they know. There is no degree for it. There is only learning by doing. Most of them come from the oil fields. They learn by getting their hands dirty. They learn by crawling around on pipes. They learn what actually works, imagine that. They are good old boys. They are hillbillies. They are red necks. They drive big trucks and they might use an ATV to go get the mail. They are not stupid. They are not careless. They are needed. They are free.
And, they suffer from knowing they are smarter than their degreed bosses.
Supporters say that we've always sought ways to extend life and improve the human species and that to do otherwise would be to cede our destiny to the slowly grinding wheels of evolution.
...
"You can either try to live as if we're still on the savanna, or try to design the human body to live in the circumstances we're in now."
...
"Almost always, new developments evoke horror and fear and gradually acceptance. We saw that with in vitro fertilization and organ transplantation," said Robyn S. Shapiro, director of the Center for the Study of Bioethics at the Medical College. "This is a little bit different. This is really tinkering with the basic building blocks of who we are."
Such changes, she adds, raise the specter of eugenics, the discredited notion of improving the human race by restricting reproduction to only those people with traits deemed "desirable."
The first guy who sharpened a stick to a point was enhancing his body. The speer lengthened his reach and gave him claws. The gap between haves and have-nots they speak of in the article has always been there. It always will be there. There will never be an infinite quantity of resources for every living thing. Lions developed good night vision to hunt at night. Owls developed amazing hearing and balance to hunt at night. Horses grew longer legs and the ability to run for long periods of time. They also run in herds. Lets face it, all living things evolve or die. The trilobite ran the oceans umpteen gazillion years ago. They are all gone now because they didn't have umbrellas. Perhaps some other reason killed them off. Well, we have umbrellas. This makes us more likely to make it than the lowly trilobite. Hope so anyway.
Having been legally blind all of my life, I welcome cybernetic technology that enhances the human body and mind. I suffered for years at the whim of healthy dick-heads who never had a headache or a sick day in their lives. They made damned sure I was in my place every minute. If I had an advantage at the time like enhanced dexterity, improved concentration, or the ability to spell, I would have been a far happier child. I might have learned more in school. I would have done better in college. It would not have taken me nearly this long to conquer the universe with my army of cybernetic ex-cripples.
I believe that while the western civilization sits on it's hands bitching about the moral implications of genetically enhanced eyelash length, the Chinese et al are going to bust their ass to guarantee their superiority for many generations.
Iraq to bar press from blast scenes
Iraq's interior ministry has decided to bar news photographers and camera operators from the scenes of bomb attacks, operations director Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf said on Sunday (local time).
...
"This decision does not imply a curtailment of press freedom, it is a measure followed all over the world."
Ya! everybody else is doing it. Why not us?
Actually, I'm not so sure it is a bad idea. I'm sick of the videos
and pictures being run through the Al Qaeda filter and hitting the
front page of every U. S. news paper and TV screen. What was this form
of government we were thinking would flourish in the Middle East? Oh,
was it democracy? Wait a minute, that requires an informed public. We
can't have that. You have to have an educated public first. That puts
the U. S. out. I'm a product of public schools and I know this.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) knows the AS&E Advantage. Multiple agencies within DHS deploy the Z Backscatter Van for counterterrorism applications. A breakthrough in X-ray detection technology, AS&E's Z Backscatter Van (ZBV) is a low-cost, extremely maneuverable screening system built into a commercially available delivery van. The ZBV allows for immediate deployment in response to security threats, and its high throughput capability facilitates rapid inspections. The system's unique "drive-by" capability allows one or two operators to conduct X-ray imaging of suspect vehicles and objects while the ZBV drives past.
It violates your right to privacy and doesn't even have to stop. Why you can just pass by a vehicle on the street and have your rights violated with neither muss nor fuss.
I heard somewhere that this back scatter device can fit in a suit case. I think it was on the local news a couple of years ago. No, maybe it was on CNN, or both. Heck, maybe it was PBS. I'm not sure how people expect to keep off the shelf stuff quite in this day and age.
Well, here is another example. If his wheels locked up, he wouldn't know it. I bet this guy could do it all on a unicycle.
A friend of mine was caught in some traffic jams last week over the trouble in Florida. She is safe and sound at lat check in. Her sister is off for an adventure. It all sounds very exciting.
She is one of the Faire folks. We at least try to keep tabs on one another. I'll keep her in my prayers
I have complained about being out of shape. After watching this, I've never been in shape. I wonder if people in the U.S. would be arrested for letting their kids perform like this? There is a chance they could get hurt after all. They could get hurt crossing the street. They could get struck by lightning just standing there. I'm glad someone has the right to do cool stuff.
They are quite amazing. I may head out and look up some other videos by the same folks.
This site has video of all kinds of things being shredded. It gets old pretty quick, but it is still worth a quick view. I stumbled across it at Ace of Spades.
<climbs on soapbox>
We had a discussion this morning about Linux vs Windows. it was the same old arguments. MS is better because everything is designed to build on their software. Linux is better because it is built by people who need to get things done themselves. There are a million reasons one might be better than the other. I don't really care. The only two thing I cannot get to work in Linux are specific games and web editing software. I've found open source for every thing else including office software that is equal to, or better than what I used on Windows. If I tried to buy a Win-box with all the closed source software on it that I use on Linux,It would cost over $10,000. As it is, I'm not pirating a thing and I get my work done.
I give up. I have no problem with MS taking over the market as long
as their shit is better than every one else's. They are not. They are
on
par most of the time. They use the money you pay for the software to
higher lobbyists to make it illegal for people and companies to compete
with them. That pisses me off. That is why I use open source.
Why do I care? Why do I get upset? I get upset because MS is trying
to take the decision process out of my hands. Think about it. People
came to this country in the first place because they gave up on their
old ones. Well, I'm worried about giving up on this country. The U. S.
is the worse country, except for all the others. I really hope that
does not change. I will work to make that not change.
<steps off soapbox>
Sorry. I just want people to understand why I go through the motions of making Linux work for me. Why I avoid MS when I can. Why I do not support the imperial nature of a one company dominated software market. Hey, at least MS is an American company today. Who knows where that will stand in a couple of years. The rest of the world may be rope for some Chinese company to step in and steel MS's cloths. How much would that suck? That has got to be why the U. S. government hasn't really punished MS for the shitty stuff they have done.If a car company tried the same tactics, they would be broken up in a minute. Look what happened to the phone companies in the seventies.
<steps off soapbox again>
Sorry. =]
So, I was dreaming last night that I was stuck in a tent with a
bunch of people putting on some kind of infomercial. They kept saying
the same thing over and over. They kept pushing the same product. I
don't remember what they were selling, but I ended up changing myself
into a bird and flying away. I don't remember doing that before. I woke
up and turned off the TV. It was 2:30 or so. All the channels play non
stop infomercials over night. I don't even remember leaving the TV on.
I must have fallen asleep reaching for the remote.
There is nothing to watch that late at night these days unless you have cable.That's OK. In 2009 the mandate kicks in that all terrestrial transmissions have to be digital. I guess I know when I'm going to upgrade my TV. We were in Wal-Mart the other day and I took a look at some of the TV sets. There are some pretty cheap flat panels that look good in my opinion. Not all the new TV sets have digital tuners. The ones that do not, have "Consumer Alert" cards next to the price. They are already dirt cheap. I believe it. I wonder when the retailers will drop analog all together.
I would love to buy my family a nice TV. I just plane cant afford it
right now. It is just going to have to wait. Other things keep coming
up. The car needs fixed. The house needs fixed. The cat needs fixed.
blah blah. I'm already tired of being a home owner. it just costs too
much. The family is worth it.
I don't have time to wake up in the middle of the night from an infomercial induced nightmare. It took me a while to get back to sleep. I had some jingle haunting me. Fortunately, the racers were still out across the street making noise. I let my anger for them lull me back to slumber. Then the alarm went off. Wow, three hours just isn't enough sleep.
SPOILER WARNING
Last night's LOST was one of the good ones. Locke got shot and left for dead. I have associated with him a bit. After all, we are both bald, and both know disability. he even had a dead-end office job subject to several bosses. He got to the island and his disability disappeared. Lets face it, I've fantasized of the same thing happening to me. He is not my favorite character. Harley is. I don't know why, but I like him. he is very human and very flawed. He won the lottery and it only made him miserable. He is nuts, but lovable. What is not to like?
WTF is up with Jacob? I need to hit the message boards for ideas. It
does make the name of the series more apparent. Is Jacob the black
cloud? Is Jacob the thing that Locke saw that day that he called "The
Island" in a personification? One of the boards said Jacob is going to
be like the emperor in the Star Wars series. Talked about for ages
before finding a corporeal part in the story.
We found out what happened to the DARMA Initiative folks. There were
all gassed by the native inhabitants of the island. Apparently, there
were conflicts between them. Now we have a new list of questions about
where the original folks came from. No resolution to a question that
doesn't raise five new questions. I think that is a good LOST formula.
Some other facts from last night are there if you paid attention.
That is the van that Harley found and got running. It shows that Ben,
the
leader of the Others, is a killer. In fact, the killer of his father.
How the hell did he become the leader? He was not born on the island.
There is a difference between being born on the island and coming to
the island. There is also some significants to dying on the island. I'm
sure I'm missing a million of them. I'll hit the forums later and I
bet I find people who analyze the show to length. I would not be
surprised if there are organizational charts with LOST facts,
questions, resolutions all cross referenced per character, event,
internal time line, external time line (episode) and who predicted it
first. Who has that kind of time?
The Next episode after this season's finale is in January. I'm finding myself obsessed. That is bad. I should just stop watching. Wait for it to all be done and get the DVDs. That would make my life much easier. Then again, I can't stop! I'm sucked in. I know it. If I died right now my last words might be "Who is Jacob?" and the paramedic would look at me like I'm nuts because she would have far too much of a life to watch LOST, or she might start sharing her opinion. Who knows.
I just learned that an Imperial gallon is bigger than an American gallon. That means some of the specs used in my old job were plane wrong. It was an oil company and labeled some things as Imperial gallons where they should have been American gallons.
Do you remember NASA crashing in to the Martian ground because one contractor was working in Imperial and the other was working in metric? I remember. That happened while I was working at the oil company. I was working in specs at the time. It really made me think about all the miss-communications going on around me. It wasn't that this company was bad. it is normal every day foul ups that can lead to bad things happening. that is something about the company that I'm at now. They seem to communicate far better that anywhere I've worked before. Sometimes communications become emotional and other times they are one way, but at least the communication is made.
This morning was uneventful. No one tried to run me down. The grass was a bit wet. The air was humid and warm. A guy asked me to break a five, then when the stores open, then about the bus, then how long I've been riding, then where I'm going. I started lying to him. I've seen him riding the bus there before. I believe he is just a board commuter. Still.
I didn't cough much on the road or on the bus. I've had times where people got up and move away because i was coughing so much. It made me laugh at the time. I suppose I would have done the same thing. I didn't feel over heated. I felt fine when I got to the bus stop. The AC on the bus felt good, but dried my contacts out. I wanted to move from the window seat to the isle where the AC was not blowing directly. It was one of the long haul buses with the comfortable seats. There is no where for a wheel chair. I wonder how Metro can say all their buses are wheel chair capable. My knee popped on the way up the steps. It always pops when I don't expect it. It went back in to joint when I sat down.
48 more episodes? What are they thinking? At the rate they are skipping seasons it will take ten years to tell this story. They are nuts. They being the execs who think people will swallow this tripe. I'm sick of half the characters. Who is next to be profiled, the guy who cleans the toilets? I wish the powers that be would understand that to present a live novel you have to have 1) a plot 2) a point 3) sympathetic characters 4) an ending. One cannot drag a book out without suffering a loss of readers.
Look at Wheel of Time. It is a mess. We will never get the last book until the author dies. I may contribute to the assassination fund myself on that one. "We didn't want him dead, we just wanted an ending to the frigging story." Reality be damned. There are no endings in life. Even death doesn't stop life. Life goes on. That is why our stories must have endings to keep us going.
I may wait until it is all over and just marathon what is left. That is how i did the first two seasons. It was great. I think it is the only way you can follow the story. I'll never have that kind of discipline.
Every one had shit to do today. Some folks were taking about banking things. Others were talking about family stuff. Heck, I was talking about vacation plans. It was a day to complain about all the things we need to get done and never seem to have enough time. That's OK. I brought some old pictures from several years ago on one of the internet machines. People stopped for just a moment to giggle at one of the pictures of a drunk coworker. Nothing malicious. Just a giggle. Then it was all back to work.
So, I had to be very careful picking pictures. There were a few that just weren't family friendly. It is a damn shame too. Them's the good ones. It amazes me how people call me over to the scene and say "Here Kelly get this one." Then tell me I can't publish any of it. My lips and lens are sealed.
Let me know if any are still inappropriate or might get someone in
trouble. I can still pull them if need arise.
So, here are a couple of the clutter.
And then it was over. The host got his house back. beautiful house that it is. People left. Some stayed. I forgot my charger and had to go back the next day for just a moment. The King mentioned that he loves slow hangover days. Those days where you resurrect from a willing joyous death the night before.
Then came work. Then came Monday evening. Then came making the pictures and the memories. That is what the pictures are for. I love it. Now it is off to bed, to dream of my family having every moment and then some. Right now I wont for nothing. Tomorrow is not in the pictures yet.
Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented immigrant" is like calling a drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist".
unsigned
Sounds good to me. How you refer to something tells a lot how you
think about it. I firmly take the side that people who come to this
country illegally should be treated like criminals, because they are
criminals. They have just been getting away with it for a long time.
Remember, I'm a citizen. I have the right to choose a side in a
political movement. You have the right to bitch about it, but not to do
anything about it.
Went to a GK party Saturday. It was a blast. I think every one there had a great time. We had one casualty who had flown half way across the continent to be there. She started drinking Friday night ... Well, I'll spare the details. This morning she was looking in to moving her flight, but it was too much money.
I would love to put up the pictures, but it is going to take like a week to go though them and make sure that they are family friendly. I may put some up on the nation as well. I didn't take any video. People get all antsy about video at these events. "Two hours in the shooting, three years in the editing ..." Never mind.
I'm not mentioning any names, but if you add up all the female body parts, I saw one full naked lady over the course of the evening. I'm not talking about the one on the back of Ken's helmet either.
There was great food thanks to Chriss and others. There was tons of fun. No cops showed up who weren't invited. We only managed to break one chair, a couple of glasses and a couple of hearts that I'm aware of.
Well, that's about all I can say. I've been sworn to secracy on pretty much every other count. I would like to wissh Midge good luck on her CHL. I hope everyone has a safe trip home.
I thought I heard a statistic this morning while in my sleepy stooper on my way to work. "Those who stayed on the Hindenburg while it burned survived." I couldn't believe my ears. Well, according to Wikipedia, that is true. Why am I 38 years old and just now finding this out? I'm sure I came across it before and just refused to learn it.
Despite the violent fire, most of the crew and passengers survived.
Of the 36 passengers and 61 crew, 13 passengers and 22 crew died. Also
killed was one member of the ground crew, Navy Linesman Allen
Hagaman.
Most deaths did not arise from the fire but were suffered by those who
leaped from the burning ship. (The lighter-than-air fire burned
overhead.) Those passengers who rode the ship on its descent to the
ground survived. Some deaths of crew members occurred because they
wanted to save more people on board the ship. In comparison, almost
twice as many perished when the helium-filled USS
Akron crashed. [12]
This revelation changes my view of a disaster that happened decades before I was born. There was a time I thought of the people who jumped as making a brave decision between the flame and the ground. Now, I'm not so sure. Some were in a bad location, but some sat tight and held on and ducked.
I'm starting to think differently about bravery. I guess that means I'm old now. I've traded my adventure for security. Is that a bad thing?
This time someone blatantly ran the red light and hit me as they blew trough the intersection. If I had been six inches further along, they would have hit me with the front of the bumper and I would have been badly injured. They didn't stop. I couldn't get my phone out in time to get their plate. I know they know they hit me because they stopped for a second on the other side of the intersection and looked around. Their buddy they were blowing around was in a dark blue or gray Chevy pickup. The car that hit me was some small gray/silver sedan. There aren't a million of those running around.
I hope they rot in hell, yadda-yadda. On with my life.
Today there were only about six guys in the lunch room when I ate. We mentioned our poor communication skills when it came with dealing with out significant others when it comes to meals. "What do you want for dinner?" means "You better want the first thing I say, or else." Then there is the sort of spouse who doesn't like to eat until late. This causes grouchiness which delays eating more. One of the others (and me)_ have ADD and can only do one thing at a time. We find ourselves immersed in our current thing (him - games, me - blogging) and our spruces just don't get that we kill ourselves all day and just want to let go when we get home.
Then a bunch of people came in the lunch room and I left. I have the
hardest time with a crowd all talking at once. I just don't like
hanging around. I had Taco Bell for lunch and it nearly did me in. I
have decided that KFC and Taco Bell are two places that I should just
let fall in to my history of being. I don't need to eat at either of
those two places to make it through the rest of my life. Hopefully The
Demolition Man prediction of Taco Bell culinary domination will not
come true.
Written 2007-05-03
I went for a walk today. I mailed bills. I lost my apatite after adding up how much everything came out. I spoke with Nat for a while on the phone. I walked through Randal's and Target. I nearly died crossing the street coming back. I had to walk down to the light to get across the street which meant I had to walk through some dense mud at a construction site. There is a sidewalk under the mud, but that doesn't help much. Now I'm leaving muddy foot prints all over the place. Oh, and I'm hungry. Frigging lunch.
I'm planning on being a grump the rest of the day.
I have a problem with the XHTML command <hr />. It creates a horizontal line across the screen. That's it. You can set it to thick, thin, long, short. Whatever. the two main browsers treat it a bit differently though. IE requires no set up. Plop in an <hr /> and off you go. Firefox needs some additional stuff because Firefox uses the border settings to generate the line. So, I could get the line to show up in one browser correctly, and the other would blow a gasket.
Seriously, I gave up and just created a one pixel high graphic the length I needed. It works all over the place. I was spending way too much time messing with something that should not be a problem in the first place. This issue shows flowed design, and I'm not talking about browser design. I thought about trying to make a zero hight table, or section <div>, but both of those would have taken time to test and who knows what would happen.
XHTML and HTML were designed by comity. A large comity. Some designs just don't work. Never have. The <hr> command shows that conflicts amongst competing designs are not always resolved. No one spelled out the procedure for design in the original documentation of HTML so the folks who designed the browsers (where the rubber meets the road) just did what worked for them at the time. IE and Firefox both use completely different tools to generate the line and thus have different requirements to get the line to work in for web pages.
Browsing the net works just fine without the <hr /> command.
The <img> command for pictures however is hammered in to just
about every page out there. Thus, the <img> command has been
tested and refined. The <hr /> command just falls off the list of
important things to do. I bet both browsers say their way of
handling
the <hr /> command is the correct way. I bet they both could care
less the waisted time it causes and the wedge it drives between their
web designer users. The people who do the standard probably don't care
either. They say the command needs to look like X and act like Y, so as
long as those bases are covered,
One of the guys at work who is just plane smart at computer stuff said "I never could get things to look right in IE." He meant he designed for Firefox and not much else. I understand because he is a Linux programmer and probably doesn't have easy access to a true IE box. I'm sure most web designers are the other way round because they don't have access to a non-Microsoft based Firefox box. I've read a page that talks about getting IE to run on Linux. I want to try it out, but I don't have the drive to go through all that. Heck, it is a tenth as long as it used to be. I'm still too lazy.
Make a short, lovely drive out to Pattison on Sunday afternoon for outdoor fun, friendship, and frivolity. I'll be opening for Zoe Lewis, the energetic singer/songwriter phenomena you just can't miss!
May 6: Potluck is at 4:00, music starts at 5:00 pm. From I-10 going west, take exit 732, which is highway 359. It jags through town, crossing the RR tracks, but keep on 359. After the blinking light, go 1.3 miles to Royal. There's a Christ Lutheran Church sign there. Turn right. Chocolate Buddha is at 35814 Royal Rd. Pattison, TX 77466 * (281) 375-5378
See you,
Jen
The annoying buzz of an all-terrain vehicle may have triggered a deadly shootout that led police to file a rare charge of "murder by duel," authorities said.
...
"We've had shootout-type cases, but I can't recall one quite like this where there was an argument, then the people separated and came back to the very same location, each knowing the other had a gun," said prosecutor Sid Bell.
The law, written in 1849, reads: "If any person fight a duel in this
state and in so doing inflict a mortal wound, he shall be deemed guilty
of murder." West Virginia became a state in 1863.
I hate to point and giggle over someone's stupidity, but this is the first interesting thing I've read in the news in weeks. It is so nice to have a story pop up that reaffirms one's commitment to sanity.
This plays out in my head. First there are words. Neither party even considers calling the police. They both own firearms legally (I bet). They both have practiced shooting over their lives. Neither has ever been shot at or shot a gun in anger before (I bet). When push comes to shove, only one of them hits the mark. The other dies.
The police need to make it something more than boys will be boys, so they dig up an old dueling law from before their was a Virginia. I have a sneaking suspicion the charges will change before it goes to court.
Maybe we will get lucky and another story whill come up that convicts a person of being a homosexual and they get life too. That was the law back then.
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