Notes:

WII II is coming out. It might be called something else. WII don't know. May the puns be with you. Remember, Nintendo makes money with their hardware. Sony and Microsoft loose money on their consoles.

One of the guys at work has a Nook with an aftermarket OS (Android) on it. Nice. It is almost a laptop. The battery lasts forever too. Wifi. The whole bit. No, I isn't want one. The text is too small and the sound is offal.

Tried to shoot a video of Elle throwing a fit over having to fold the towels. It didn't work out. So much can go wrong.

Belly dancing troop

Field	Data
Title	Local belly dancing troop
Description	Some friends of ours have a belly dancing troop. They put on shows every so often. Nat and Elle want to get in the mix.
Tags	belly dancing dance bellydancing show coffee shop coffee house class exhibition family fun family Saturday evening Conroe Texas Canon 940IS
Link	Link

Jump the Dodge

Field	Data
Title	Jump the Durango
Description	A buddy's Dodge Durango died after a belly dancing show.
Tags	Dodge Durango jump dead battery jumper cables Chevy Chevrolet diesel family fun electric windows Chrysler parking lot Conroe Texas
Link	Link

5 minutes that will not be returned

Found here. Should have been left there.

How Obama wanted to say it

More people would watch if they did those snooze fest announcements like this.

Video card install

Microsoft needs a failsafe method of installing video cards. I had all kinds of trouble with a cheap video card in Vista 32 bit. In linux, you are required to kill the GUI and work from the command line to update the driver. This annoyed me in the beginning, but now I am very glad of it. This means that all the tools to fix the broken system are there. They may not fix it, but you can at least use them to try to fix the system. As it is I cannot get the computer to come up far enough to fix the issue until I've fixed the issue on windows.

Trouble

Experiment	Result
Install driver before installing card.	No hardware found.
Boot machine after installing card.	Blue screen of death (BSOD) endless loop.
Install card, point to old card in BIOS and try to install driver.	No hardware found.
Try to boot in safe mode after installing card.	blank screen.
Windows update, then try the stuff above again.	Same result.
Install a different, but similar card just to get the driver installed.	Worked, but still get BSOD after replacing the original card.
Install a different, identical card to verify hardware.	Same BSOD even after installing the driver.
Boot linux for a comparison.	Boots on troubled card just fine.
Fresh install of Vista.	Won't boot Vista or Windows 7.
BIOS upgrade on my computer.	Same thing.
Call Dell support.	"We don't qualify video cards on server machines." Paraphrase: Your are screwed.

The re-install of Windows Vista requires a drive format. I've already installed Office and gotten everything done on the machine. The last thing to do was the video card. Now I have to start completely over again and I have no idea if it will work. I may have to send back all seven video cards we bought if they will take them.

Fortunately, the booting off the CD part didn't work. This prevented me from having to wipe the system just to find out it was still broken.

I fought with this for hours. Remember, each experiment above has a dozen steps. It doesn't help that the machine takes five minutes to reboot.

Did I mention it's been longer than 30 days since we bought the cards? No?

Loosing freedom

People are willing to sacrifice freedom to achieve stability. This is my premise. Assuming this premise, follow the logic below.

If you want to take away people's freedom, start knocking the tears of stability away from their society. As these beams fall, people will cry for someone to come along and take away their freedoms in the name of stability.

This has got to be why so many smaller countries seem like they are about to spontaneously combust. The elite class wants to give just the right appearance of a balance between a place suitable for investment or at least exploitation and unstable enough to convince the people of the country that their lack of freedom is required or all will descend in to chaos.

I fear this process is what is happening to the U. S. A.. Time will tell. I see it coming. The only savior will be the American people. Any one else is trying to sell us something.

Notes:

Question: Subliminal learning, fact or fiction? Answer: Yes.

"We cannot be seen as going in to Libya to kill Qaddafi." Why are we there again? This kind of thing is coming up after killing his grand children. "Command structure is a legitimate target."

Wreck

Field	Data
Title	A wreck of a dream
Description	Just something that happened.
Tags	minor fender bender aftermath wreck fire truck ambulance dream premonition canon 940 Houston Texas Harris County
Link	Link

Notes:

I threw away a bunch of old equipment today. Many companies throw away perfectly good equipment. Not so much my company. We tape, bailing wire and cobble things together for years before we call them dead it seems. It is good and bad. Sometimes things just need to go.

Sometimes I get weenie of looking things up. I try to say when I'm not fact checking something by saying it is from memory or some other appropriate label. Just how much fact checking is needed on a tweet, blog, web article, magazine article, book? Don't just believe anything regardless of media, regardless of author, regardless of citation. Something seems to have happened in the last several years that gives people the excuse to lie. I've heard of stories that are two good to check. Publishers only worry about what will or will not sell and what will or will not get the sued.

A buddy of mine left me bailed on me for lunch. I know him. I called a bit too early because I misread 11:37 as 11:57 on my computer. By the time the proper time rolled around, I was doing something. When I looked up it was more like 12:17. He called and left an apologetic voice mail. That was not needed. He is amazing. No one else I know has the some level of selective memory of this guy. I have no idea how his wife puts up with him.

Sleep deprived brains are simply not as effective as rested brains. Even if the animal looks awake and is acting awake, they make poor decisions and loose reaction time. - Heard on NPR, it must be true.

Frustration

All the way up and all the way down. It cracks me up. Not only does it take longer on the way down, but he has to wait for the snowmobile to catch up to him.

Getting out of work

Field	Data
Title	Day 2011-05-04
Description	Getting the heck out of work.
Tags	work metro bus sunglasses stairs stairwell commute Houston Texas Canon 940
Link	Link

Surviving

The first 10% of effort produces 90% of your result. It takes the other 90% of effort to get that last 10% of result.

This is not a human formula. It is a formula of nature, or reality. Flowing water knows this. burning logs know this. It just is.

When the aliens invade, you do not have to survive for ever. At some point the alien leadership will declare victory and move on. The idea is to out survive the budget constraints of the invading force.

Whether aliens or zombies, the rule applies.

Aliens can get anything from our planet elsewhere. Unless they are just looking for a party, they can get it elsewhere, easier. Invading costs money and resources. I don't care where you come from, it takes effort to take a planet. It takes infinitely more effort to keep it. Zap everyone from orbit or fly around and pick up magic beans round the corner where they are just lying around.

Zombies have to eat. If they don't eat, they simply become very still and really don't qualify as zombies any more. All that shuffling around and moaning takes energy. The laws of physics say that energy has to come from somewhere. Brains have only so many calories.

Be the guy who knows how to filter water, skin a buck, run a trout line. Have a place that no one cares about in mind. Have a backup. Be willing to let others die for you to live. They are part of the 90% I mentioned above. You be a 10% kind of guy. Not the top 10%, the meanest 10%.

Cleaning office

I have to clean up my office. This is a nightmare. I have something like fifteen computers in my office. They are getting dolled out to users over time. I have all kinds of equipment in here that needs to get packed away somewhere else. I also have a bunch of equipment that needs to be retired. It cracks me up how complex it is to get throw something away at a company. They don't want stuff growing legs, so they keep track of it.

There are two sets of shelves in my office. One contains computer equipment and the other contains more computer equipment. There are a couple books on one of the shelves. One of the shelves has a bunch of boxes leaning up against them. There are several dead computers that need to be removed from inventory at the bottom of one of the shelves. There are tons of wires that could probably find a better home on the other shelf. Both shelves at work, much like my computer shelves at home, have stuff that has spilled out from the shelves on the floor in front of the shelves. I am afraid to clean up the shelves too much because someone will come take them away from me. No one steals ugly cluttered shelves.

The thought crossed my mind that I should video or take pictures of the before and after. There is no way I could publish said media because the boss would get upset. Not sure an untrained eye could tell the difference anyway.

People all over the place have the same task. I'm getting calls from folks trying to give me equipment that looks ugly because they really don't want to throw it away. I have an access of ugly equipment to take care of as it is. I'm running out of rat holes in which to hide said ugly equipment.

The reason for the cleaning effort is not to be repeated I'm sure. No idea what one can and cannot repeat these days. the future of my employment is hair raising. Since I have so little hair, my trouble meter is unreliable.

This is what the company gets for denying me a door on my office.

Notes:

Now Sony's PC network for Sony Entertainment has been hacked. If you play Everquest you may want to report your card lost. It appears this breach came about the same time as the other Play Station issue. I can't wait to hear the apologies for this one. Are there any Sony networks I should make sure I'm not a member of?

"Surprising rise in inflation" Where the fuck have you been? I hate experts. Oh, we were all wrong by miles, but keep paying us to be wrong because who else are you going to listen to? All I had to do was look at my list of monthly bills to tell you inflation was rocketing toward orbit. They are still making predictions that inflation will not get even worse. These experts are mad. They don't count all the things that make us all faint when we pay the tab. Lump of idiots.

Yesterday, I videoed two guys standing on the side of the fountain out front of work. They were a couple of working men types who had that stance that they were there discussing how to fix something. They pointed and sighed. They shook their heads and ended up walking off. I deleted the video because it was boring. I wanted to catch them walking in the fountain. No such luck. I wished this morning that I had kept the video because the fountain was drained. It looks like they really were there to fix something.

TV ownership in the U. S. dropped by 2%. It has as much to do with the economic down turn as the change in how people get their entertainment. Cable TV is a luxury. I do not have cable. I get my TV through the airwaves for local news. I use the internet for entertainment. The commentator mentioned that she had 1300 channels on her cable.

The reason there is not currently a contraceptive pill for men is because the side effects are considered catastrophic. There is a lot of money involved so they keep trying to come up with one.

U. S. National Debt

It isn't that the U. S. can't make changes and fix the mounting debt problem. It is that we will not do so as long as everyone running the country refuse to let the other side get anything done for political reasons. The country is going to loose it's AAA rating. This will cause real world issues with normal people. it will affect the price of gas and food. People who barrow money to start businesses will have trouble getting loans and will have to pay more for the loans they get. This means lost or never created jobs.

The same old argument comes to mind. Families can't work um-teen trillion dollars in debt, the government shouldn't either. The trouble is, this is starting to sound old. People have been so slapped with this analogy that it is not making seance any more. The truth is still there. You cannot escape it by getting board of complain.

One of the analysts on the news said he gets asked every ten minutes how much time the U. S. has left before people of the world wake up and stop buying U. S. bonds and securities. He said he has no idea and neither does any one else. It will happen. If any one is right about when it happens it will be because so many people made so many guesses that someone must be right.

Really scary stuff.

GPodder

I need to find a new podcast abrogator. GPodder blows. They have many shortcomings in their design. I would like to know what aggregator the GPodder developers use on a daily basis.

• Doesn't continue download on restart. If you kill it, you have to start the download over again.
• The interface is clunky and not very intuitive.
• The download screen on the latest version does not appear to update while downloading. You have to guess when the downloads are done.

There has got to be a better software out there already.

You know, I have internet access at my desk now at work. I could probably just use that computer to get my podcasts. It is a MS machine. There are aggregator programs for MS. That would fix a bunch of problems I have with my very flawed system of movement. I am constantly forgetting my USB drive either at work or home. This could be a solution. I never listen to podcasts at home. There are just too many other distractions there.

Republicans

Who will run? Who can win? Who cares. half the people standing on a stump say Obama can't win. The other half say he cannot loose. Supposedly, Obama will have a billion dollars to spend on his campaign. I cannot believe this. I'm sure it is true. I just can't wrap my head around it.

Trump is a joke. I really hope he is just messing with the media for the ratings. He would make a terrible precedent.

Sarah Palin is a choice, but I'm not sure she can beat Obama. Listen to me. I sound like I know what I'm talking about. I would like to hang out with Palin. I think she is capable. She has had to balance a budget a couple times. That is more than Obama did before becoming leader of the free world. Far as I can tell anyway.

Ron Paul scares me. I don't know why. I don't even know him. I'm afraid to look. I fear he has a chance. That the worse

Rick Perry

Mit Romny

No one else sticks out in my mind.

European Union

Europe is in deep shit.

Immigration is running out of control. It isn't that Europe is a particularly fantastic place. There are so many places in the world where people live complete crap lives that just about anywhere else would look good. Europe and the U. S. seem to have ridiculous laws and enforcement of those laws about immigration. This is causing an invasion of Europe and the U. S..

The laws in Europe say that you only need a visa from one country to travel to another country. People from Libya are getting to some island that is under Italy's care and then making their way to France. France is stopping trains from Italy. Some say this is illegal, but it is happening.

The countries with the worst human rights records are on the Human Rights Comities of all the important organizations. Many are not even part of Europe, but this fort of thing is allowed because Europe is too proud to tell people they have to get their shit together before they can sit at the adult's table.

I'm waiting for one of the countries to vote itself an Islamic republic because all the Muslims in the country vote as a block. There are people who have lived in the Netherlands for generators fleeing because the country is not their home any more.

Half the countries in the EU have made noise about leaving or pulling out of the EU at one time or another. France is tired of immigration rules. Germany is tired of paying every one's bills. Italy has had it with many of the rules. There are general rumblings of of dissent and discontent. I bet the EU will survive. The people in charge want it to succeed, the surfs be dammed.

Bin Laden

Ding dong Bin Laden's dead.
What the heck do we care?
What the heck do we care?
...

This has been going through my head all day. I do not like celebrating my government killing an individual for whatever reasons. I can support this decision, but I do not want to shout hurray or start dancing. I cannot get the song out of my head.

Here are a couple things I've heard. Not sure how accurate they are. Bin Laden was in a mansion a couple miles away from a Pakistani military installation. He had been there for a while. He was living relatively well. At least some in the Pakistani government knew exactly where he was and for some time.

The U. S. has been giving Pakistan money to beat up on the terrorists. The incentive to keep the money coming is to make sure the terrorists stick around. There was a game going on where the Pakistani government would hand out some information about the location of terrorists, and when the good guys got there, the terrorists had just been tipped off to scurry and hide.

I also heard that this raid was not on the Pakistani government's radar. I wonder how much of this stuff I've heard is true.