Here we go again

"90 rockets, since Thursday" How many rockets would people in Mexico have to launch in to Texas or California before the U. S. government do something about it?

Israeli aircraft hit the Gaza City building housing the office of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh early Sunday, heavily damaging it. ... Meanwhile, the Israeli government announced that more than 50 Qassam rockets had been fired into Israel from Gaza on Saturday, injuring 22 people in Sderot and Ashkelon and causing property damage. The IDF said earlier that some of those injured were children. The government put the number of rockets at more than 90 since Thursday. CNN

And the world turns on Israel again. I'm telling you, the Israelis need to just flat out take care of this problem once and for all. They can then just take it on the chin for a couple of decades. Then, they will have the place to themselves again. This in and out bit just isn't cutting it. Every time the Israelis try to fight back against Muslim/Palestinians violence against them the world takes jab at Israel for defending herself.

Some say the Israelis oppress the Palestinians. If my neighbor was taking pot-shots at my children and lobbing grenades over the property line just to provoke me, it would probably work. There are lines of attitude and respect you do not cross without getting the shit knocked out of you. That is just the way things work.

Guess what is going to happen this time. The same thing that happens every time. Israel will invade Gaza. Which, is like saying the national guard invaded the states during the race riots in the sixties by the way. There will be a bunch of dead Palestinian babies to parade in front of the international cameras. Noe one in the wester world will care that Israel is just trying to defend her people. Then Israel will bend to international pressure and pull back. Then the rockets will start up again.

Why do they bother? I mean either side. How can people live like that. I'm thousands of miles away and it pisses me off to the point that I want to smack someone. And not Bill Gates this time.

Wobbly landing

No sooner do I complain about there being now good videos to post than one comes along. No one dies. This was shot today 2008-03-01 in Germany.

Skipped Videos

A buddy of mine complained to me yesterday that i put up a video which contained some one clearly dying after a car rolled over them. Well, I feel a bit inspired to cover the videos that I'm skipping today. First let me recount a video that I skipped a while back. It was called "watch your hands" on YouTube. It was basically a man getting his hands chopped off by a helicopter. If it was a fake, it was a damned good one. I just did a bunch of searches and could not find it any more.

Pedestrians you can laugh at - Granny crosses the street. A bunch of cars crash. Granny couldn't be bothered. She could have been killed. Something needs to be done so both pedestrians and cars can traverse the intersection without meeting in the middle. People just laugh and get about their day. I almost posted this one. It strikes a bit close to home for me though.

Bomb hits a house in a war zone - Soldiers cheer as an apartment block is hit by a bomb. "Happy Ramadan bitch!" It makes me ill to be honest. I wish the soldiers were a bit more professional when calling in an air strike.

Dog hit by IED in Iraq - Soldiers laugh as a dog gets hit by an exploding IED. I assume they knew this IED was about to go off so they whipped out the video recorder. A bit of professionalism would go along nicely here, but I can't blame them for taking what ever opportunities they can to giggle at something.

Woman pleads for her life as she is murdered - This is a 911 audio tape of a woman pleading for her life as she is murdered in a murder suicide. I did not listen to it myself. I don't need that sort of encouragement. (just kidding)

Harry (the prince) video from Iraq - This one was almost interesting. Harry acting like a prince in a war zone. You can put a prince in a war zone, but you cant remove is boot from the commoner's ass.

Bicyclist hit by car - Shatters windshield. Looks pretty rough. Seems to be a trend these days to show pedestrians getting hit by cars.

Most boring motorcycle wreck - Some guy driving a mini motorcycle around a warehouse slams in to come crates. Yawn! Did I mention this was boring.
It does point to the fact that many of these videos are from security cameras. This is also a growing trend. How do people get hold of this footage? Aren't there supposed to be protections of the contents or is it just a free for all on CCTV footage?

A touching news clip of a soldier's sister - A WWII soldier lost a case full of letters and pictures and such in Egypt some time in WWII. It was found by a tour guide who tracked down the relatives in England and brought it back. The soldier's sister, now in her sixties, travels down memory lane.

A boring drive down a boring road in a boring sand storm - <slept through description> Everything just went sand colored.

Great catch - Someone out playing for the hell of it makes a leaping catch of a softball. Not too shabby.

Soldiers blowing up a house - Planned detonation of a house exploding.
Something I have learned about explosions watching all these videos. There really is some kind of instantaneous pulse that causes at least electronic equipment to shutter. All the close up explosions have a sound on the video before anything shows in the explosion.

Most boring mortor position ever. - I'm glad the found it. I'm glad they took the bad guys out. I'm glad it is not in operation any more. I'm sorry I watched the video.

Those are the videos that I went threw today for mya six fans out there. None were realy worth positng. I did want people to understand that there is a filter in place.

A pebble redirects a river

Today one of our hardware folks came in to complain about how complex on of our software projects has become. He tried to check out package A and it has many dependencies called externals underneath the top level.  He had to get project to build all the way though  just in order to get his one little bit to work. Sure enough one of the external packages would have some issue because we are in the middle of a lot of development. These things happen. He wants to add his change, so he needs to check out the latest.

So, he walks in my office and says "What happened to blah project?!" His problem was project A had and externals folder with project B that also had an externals folder which might contain project C which ... Well, you get the idea.

One of the other developers was walking by and got drug in to the conversation. We discussed scenarios and battled our opinions and observations back and forth. During this impromptu meeting, there were a couple of global design changes that will affect several projects. They are good things in my book.

This all started as one developer complaining to another out of frustration for making a very minor change in I believe one file on a Friday afternoon. It struck me as funny how that worked. This is something that can only happen with a limited number of developers. Huge companies have a problem fixing things like this down the road.

We have a development manager at our company now. I have a feeling that once he gets up to speed on larger projects he will make these kinds of decisions and changes like this will not occur after a quick meeting on a Friday afternoon as a result of frustration over checking out a bunch of files and trying to make a minor change then build a bloated project.

Tired

Too tired to think. Must get some sleep. Sick.

Computer hooked to TV

Nat finally hooked her computer to the TV. I've been trying to get her to either hook Elle's computer up or her own. She is watching some online video. No, a movie she borrowed from the library about tornadoes. The day we got the TV, I tried to get her to hook up one of the computers.

"Wow honey, this is beautiful." It is quite beautiful. Her computer running Vista seemed to recognize the TV without trouble. It hooked up straight through a standard VGA connector. It is, after all, a monitor with a few extra bits attached that allow it to be a TV on the side. The hard part was running a network cable from the hub over to that part of the living room.

We used one of my wireless-less connectors. They are fifty foot Ethernet cables. I paid $12 a piece for them. They have been invaluable.

I'm looking forward to the $300 DVD player we got for Christmas to sit and collect dust now. It has too many shortcomings anyway.

She surfed the net for a moment on the TV. It has a resolution of something like 1280x720 or something. That is good enough for most computer tasks. It is 32 inch. Not too shabby.

Videos

Jacked up ride

They don't show him coming to a stop. He must pull up next to a house.

Never even slows down

God Bless America. This was filmed in Saudi Arabia.

More carnage

WARNING People clearly die in the above video.

AMD vs Intel

In Linux when you use a command called uname to get some information about the system. It turns out there is a difference between the exact same OS installed on a genuine 32 bit system and a 64 bit system with a 32 bit OS. At least, there is a difference when using kernel code to build a driver.

When you uname -p and see i686 or athlon, the kernel build will make a difference. Pretty much the same thing occurs for 64 bit AMD vs 64 bit Intel processors.

This is not that big a deal because I've been working in this area for over two years and it just became an issue today.

Now, when I figured this all out, It upset me. I thought to myself, I feel like smacking someone. The only person that came to mind, in an automatic not even thinking about it way, was Bill Gates. This issue pretty much has nothing to do with Bill Gates. This one might just actually not be his fault. Still, no other faces came to mind ripe for getting smacked.

So, who to smack? ... ... Linus Torvalds, No. The kernel team has to build the kernel to run the best on different systems. So it must be Intel and AMD. No. They are just competing with one another and cannot step on each other's patents. Patents are intellectual property. So, RIAA. ...

Yes!! RIAA <SMACK!!!>

Tipsy Tow

The title of this one was "The wrong way to tow a car". Pretty close. I'm not sure if the owner of the car being towed was smart by cranking their wheels all the way to the right before parking illegally. I assume there was something like that going on.

Nooooooo

And not even a public hearing. How dare they put a donut shot right at the end of my morning walk. Do you have any idea how tempting it is to stop off on the wait for the bus? It is like torture. They have no idea how good a colache tastes after a mile and a half walk. How smooth a bottle of chocolate mile chases a bag of donut holes.

BASTARDS!!!!

Blues Brothers Car

I finally caught this guy long enough to get a picture of his car. I've seen it around a couple of times. I feel kind of funny taking a picture of something that unique without asking.

When I got home I thought, I bet he is on other web sites. So he is. Scroll down a bit.

"It's a small world after all ..."

No more Truck Nutz?!

I just know every one of my friends are going to want a pare. I'm surprised I haven't seen these on some of their vehicles already.

The Real Monster

This video reminds me of those Japanese monster moves from when I was a kid. Actually, it looks better than those old movies. There is a blue haze from the distance. The fall is slowed because of the size of the crane. Film makers should take some notes.

Nader

Why is Nader running? I do not have a problem with his running because it will defuse the Democratic vote even if just a little bit. Dork. I've heard more than one person say in an interview that Nader is a prick. I've heard he wants to open the door for third party folks to have a shot at the presidency. Work on the House and Senate first. There is a lack of representation there and you won't cost the whole of the American people a choice in the process.

It is the United States, and I suppose he has the same right as I do for running for president. I just don't think his strategy is the most appropriate for the time. I'm not running for president because I do not want to waist any one's time or money. especially my own.

Many people blame Nader for Gore loosing Florida because Bush only won by like 500 votes. Nader took nearly 10,000 or so and exit poles said Nader voters would have voted for Gore 2 to one over Bush. Here we go again. Those numbers come from memory after listening to Talk of the Nation.

22 inches Baby!

I have a brand new 22 inch monitor. My parents, God bless them, turned up with it this afternoon. It was a birthday present. I gave my old Sony to Nat. Elle gets Nat's old monitor. It is a full musical monitor afternoon.

Movies fit better. The resolution is much higher, 1680x1050 at 60 HZ. Nice. I have acres of space to put my programs. This monitor has digital connectors. That means darker blacks and brighter whites. All the colors are matched via the digital numbers so they are as accurate as the manufacturer can get them.

I love my parents, and not just for the stuff they give me. They also got rid of the huge heavy TV that was worrying me. They took it to a local garage sale and dropped it off. My father and I carried it to the back of their pickup. I told my mother not to let him pick it up by himself. It is just too heavy. They made it all the way round the corner before dropping it off at the first yard sale. Free, as long as they could pick it up.

Smashing Idea

I wonder if I would be any good at desctruction derby. After a quick look at some of the rules, Maybe so. Even if there are rules about having to watch out for flags or something, I could rig up a remote kill switch and have a walky-talky to someone keeping an eye on the bash.

Get myself a neck brase and it sounds like a plan.

Couple videos

I'm board. Nat is watching a series she likes marathon style. I didn't get up until three this afternoon. I was supposed to throw the weed eater at the yard today. It was too nice for herbivore carnage. I slept like a stone. I think the scotch and water helped. Good old Johnny Walker Black.

No one has called today. No one wanted anything. Nat and I have just sat around the house and ate junk and either surfed the net watching videos of car stuff or watched a British show about chasing down a child molester.

Off to the videos.

Ghost Rider 5

These goofballs need to be tracked down and arrested for endangering the public. How many tax dollars go in to this kind of thing? I mean, this is some place in Europe, but the idea is the same.

The most boring police chase ever

How did this make it to feature status?

The vehicle we need in Houston

Oh, wait. That snorkel kit isn't good enough for Houston. You would need one that did about four meters for the floods around here. Nice idea though. Actually, I'm impressed. Even with a snorkel kit, that kind of thing isn't easy.

New kind of rollover

More snorkel kit fun

Leaserly Sandy drive, through a swoop

New weapon and ammo

No, I didn't buy any of these. I'm just blogging about them. Cheaper than a new laptop though.

The gun

I learned about a new pistol and ammunition today. I had heard of Springfield before, but never paid much attention because I knew they didn't really make their weapons. They import weapons from other manufacturers around the world. It even has a feature of the lower pint just below the end of the barrel does not move. This allows you to shove the gun into someone's gut without the slide coming back and thus rendering the gun unable to discharge.

It is a Springfield Armory XD. It comes in several calibers including .45 GAP, which I hadn't heard of until today.

The Bullet

I feel stupid not having heard of the .45 GAP until today. This is the .45 ammo used by Glock. ACP stands for Automatic Colt Pistol. GAP understandably stands for Glock Automatic Pistol. There is also a .40 GAP.

The .45 GAP was developed for the Glock 37.

Conclusion

The XD is the firest real competition for Glock I've noticed. There have been other attempts I'm sure. I'm just not in the loop on firearm news. If I were in the market for a new pistol, I would seriously consitter the XD in .40 S&W. That is what I say today at any rate. My mind is hardly made up. Nice accessories though.Ever wonder where the game creators get those freaky weapons.

Update

Another link

Date Night

Nat and I went on a date night. It was fun. We went to Alamo (There is another theater in Houston?) and saw Fools Gold. Save your money. All the previews were for shows that were all about relationships. They were all comedies about relationships. They all had the exact same formula. All the best bits of this movie were in the preview.

They all probably have those scenes that pass for funny these days. Those scenes where people are made uncomfortable enough that the only way out of the uncomfortable feeling is to laugh about it. That just seems like a cheap way to get a giggle out of someone. God forbid you tell a joke. Is it possible to laugh with someone, without laughing at someone?

I sat down in the completely wrong theater. I couldn't get this other title out of my head. I would have swore we were there for the other movie. They were both the some kind of flick. The kind I just got through describing. I really think that I could have sat through either without noticing which I had attended.

I had a BLT and the $5 shake. Nat had a mimosa and the cheese plate. I do not understand how you can eat a bit of cheese and a cracker or two and feel like you had eaten anything. I'm glad she enjoyed it. They have the best BLT sandwiches. They give you a key of bacon.

When Nat and I got home, the cat puked on the carpet right in front of us. I had just changed the cat box. I'm looking forward to doing the dishes and mowing. Yuck.

I then watched Sleuth (2007). Now that is a good movie. It is extremely well made and a good read (it has a plot). It has some hard to watch scenes, but they are supposed to make you feel that way. They are not done to make you giggle, or get sick all over the keyboard. (I watch on the computer) They are there specifically to prod emotion and ponder. They work. I wish I had been watching Sleuth when at Alamo earlier this evening.

Who needs a Helicopter

I can't tell if the plane is facing in to the wind. Even if so, it is quite impressive. Slow speed maneuvers are very difficult, or so I've heard.

STOL