Eral

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Hmm...cleaning out some digital backlog as I wait for a few things to finish scanning. Found two or three things that you may or may not already know about:

For those who are not sedentary beasts:

http://www.mapmyrun.com/ <---Haven't played with it much, but it is in my bookmarks for spring when I plan to try taking up the whole running thing again.

For those who are sedentary and spend most of that time at or near the computer:

http://www.hulu.com/ <---I've been hearing about it for a while, but haven't had time to check it out. Looks to be a very good way to catch some television from your PC. Just poking around the interface looks much smoother than most of the network sites.

For those with too many e-mail, chat and social networking accounts:

http://www.digsby.com <---This is awesomely useful. I never really check my MySpace account and occasionally things languish there for months. This lets you get status updates and utilize multiple services with one client. So far it is stable, doesn't seem to hog too many resources and I'm really impressed all around.

Enjoy!

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Courtesy of tishalro.

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd   Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It's okay. I understand.
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Social Nerd
Drama Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Anime Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Musician
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

I think the first record I ever bought...yes, that's right...record, was Asia. Before that I seem to recall taping the Eurythmics off the radio. :)

http://www.michiganhumane.org/site/PageServer?pagename=green

The Michigan Humane Society has “adopted” a new program to properly recycle used cell phones, cell phone accessories, ink cartridges and toner cartridges while raising funds for the animals in our care.

Can you believe these results?

Smart Paladin! :)

I have one bit of commentary for Ms. Rowling...

( CUT-TAGGED FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT FINISHED BOOK 7---SPOILERS )

Via BoingBoing:


http://www.boingboing.net/2007/07/10/armless_woman_refuse.html

"Rockford, IL woman Dawn Larson, who was born without arms, was refused service at a McDonald's drive through, because the staff refused to let her take her food away with her feet (she uses her feet to drive, handle money, etc). The staff were vociferously revolted by the woman's disability."

Ah...it just warms the cockles of my heart...with a sort of rage.

There are many cavemen. The playground is big. Our current tally stands at five racists reported directly to Blizzard. I've almost got a standardized form set up for it now.

On a smaller scale, but more gratifying in a personal sense...the use of a local banlisting program has proven quite successful. Several dozen people have gotten a "you were banlisted by *player name* for *poor conduct*...sorry...karma seems to work" before they are booted from games. Our personal lists are shared and we have about 1200 people on there (most for being poor sports, not racists).

Those who know me are well aware that I'm hardly a shrinking violet. I don't get offended easily and I've put up with great many...I'll borrow the appellation cavemen from my friend Joz.

( Cut-tagged to spare tirade and game-related racist drama )

This video makes an excellent illustration of the types of distortions many of us have in looking at ourselves:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/627850/fat_or_thin_sexy_woman/

http://www.montanameth.org/View_Ads/index.php

These are extremely graphic but probably the most well-targeted ads I've seen on the subject.

Watch at your own risk.

"Just saying you are patriotic, is like saying you have a big cock. Chances are if you have
to say it, it's not true."

"Mark Twain said:
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”


And a few other gems:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWhy-hhoBkA&mode=related&search=

http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37941#

I guess Ballmer was right…that’s why Vista isn’t selling.

And...my latest pet peeve…trying to install a network printer and repeatedly being told the driver couldn’t be installed because I was “out of memory” Funnier still since one of the Vista gadgets I had on my desktop tracks RAM usage (it was at around 60%). Meh. The solution? Install the driver manually on the machine and then connect via the network.

This is an odd one. I never thought I'd hear any Republican use the "I" word for any reason while the Dems control the House.

"The case -- and Bush's response -- has enraged conservative Republican House members. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach (Orange County), invited Ramos' wife to the State of the Union address. This week, he warned there would be calls for Bush's impeachment if either of the agents dies in prison."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/10/MNGH6O292R1.DTL

There are a lot of articles on this and depending on the read they sound either totally guilty or totally innocent. In any case, it certainly has stirred up a great deal of controversy. In the end, I'm inclined to think they agents are guilty of having failed to report the discharge of their weapons. I would bet this was because of a combination of not wanting to deal with the paperwork or admit they had let the guy get away. Bad? Yes. But the punishment appears to be very excessive.

Of course I do find it hard to have much sympathy for an illegal alien who was running hundreds of pounds of drugs.

Heating and cooling woes day # something or other.

On the plus side, we have gotten some warmer weather which has made things easier. We finally got the manufacturer of our existing furnace to send someone out to look it over. He did agree that the corrosion was excessive but attributed it to a faulty installation.

I'm not really surprised. On the one hand, I'd expect that to be the answer, just to cover their butts. On the other hand, the company that installed it has gone out of business in the intervening years. Meh.

So, throw all this in with my uncle's naturally cautious approach to everything and here we still are. I'm running out of available free time to help him keep looking and tending the space heaters/fireplace so things are going to have to get taken care of soon. The only small plus is that he is actually considering getting a quote for a switch to a forced air system. It would be a pain in the ass, but help with selling this place a lot more than simply replacing the old boiler.

We'll see where things go from here.

Other than that, pretty quiet week. Spent Steph's birthday puttering around the house...mostly with happy memories. Haven't slept well or much this week, but that's not too unusual this time of year.

Wil Wheaton covers this much better than I would. You can see his take here:

http://syndicated.livejournal.com/wilwheaton/344010.html

With Vista unleashed on the market last night and my MCP subscription sitting on the doorstep when I got home...well...can't say I was psyched but I figured I should start messing around with the new OS as I'll be getting questions on it soon.

A few random observations:
1)Sure is purty...I think they have finally got something really nice in terms of a user interface. Only a few years after all the tweaks were introduced or incorporated elsewhere.
2)Fanboys actually lining up for this thing boggle my mind. Welcome to the party, you are late as usual.



http://blogs.download.com/Daily-Download/post.php?p=1324

3)While it is rarely wise to bet against Microsoft, I will say that sitting in class last night surrounded by IT people...well, the general feeling was a collective meh. On the whole we are underwhelmed, annoyed by restrictive DRM and licensing and not looking forward to the new support issues that will arise in droves. Sure we are going to test it and learn our way around, but none of us is rushing out to buy the massive amount of upgrades needed to fully take advantage of it. The sticker price is also insanely high.

More later.