Very Local News

• Got my 401/K statement today. After swallowing my tung, I decided not to go on a rampage. I can't afford it.
• Three out of four days this week, I've waited outside the front door of work waiting for someone with a key to show up. Shawn used to come in early pretty much every day. That stopped. I'm not the only one. There were four of us this morning. We chatted about body weight and leaning against the glass and steel railing between the north and south side of our office.
• The smog is horrible. There is a brown haze over the city. It is frightening. The sky is blue, but the air is nasty. How are all the buildings not black?
• Heathrow airport is going to get a third runway. I've heard interviews with British MPs and the consensus seems to be that it is inevitable. Some people bought bits of land in the way of the runway to slow things down. There are imminent domain laws in the U. K.. It is a mess.
• I listened to a podcast of a Holocaust survivor. It was painful hearing him say 'storm trooper' . In my life, a storm trooper has been a character from a movie all dressed up in plastic bits. He told a story of Checks throwing bread from bridges in to the trains as they past. It brought tears to my eyes. He is now a judge on international counsels regarding human rights. He was none.
• Ext4 is out. Ubuntu 9 has it available if you manually patrician the drive on install. Nice. I hear it is a leap forward. I cannot remember any of the bullet points. Well, except the maximum file size is 16tb.
• A BlueRay Disk is about 50gb. So, 16tb would be about 320 BlueRay Disks, or about 3636 DVDs in one file.
• I saw some videos of people making home made electric motorcycles. It looks pretty easy. I bet they get some good range as well. The successful ones used dirt bike frames which are rugged and light. One of the guys looked like he got over 40 or so MPH. There are some electric scooters. I would prefer something with a bit more meat on it.
• California is going to put an extra (luxury) tax on large TVs. Every other damn thing too. CA is is broke and looking for excuses to jack your wallet. They are cutting school days. Kids might like that. That will cost people more in child care.
• Rick Steves did a special on Iran. I missed it. I would like to catch it at some point. I think he has an interesting point of view because he is a travel reporter. His gig is enjoying the journey.
• Nat and I are weird. We do not own a game console. Not sure if we would use one. The Wii looks cool. I hear you can still not lay your hands one one. We don't have the spare change it takes to buy one anyway. Then all the games are costly. Then you have to get the online clap-trap.