I'm not even supposed to be here today...

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

2008-12-03T23:45:39Z

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

A couple of useful things

2008-12-03T23:13:10Z

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!

A typical day at the office

2008-09-04T03:18:26Z

There are days where I soooo want to do this.

I'm not old...I'm 37...

2008-05-23T08:29:35Z

Much like poor Dennis, I maintain that I am not old...nor do I resemble an old woman. :)

Wednesday randomness

2008-05-07T21:19:19Z

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

What Do You Have To Say? - Music: My First Favorite Band

2007-09-13T07:18:46Z

What was the first band you became a fan of?

Brought to you by HP | Contest | Vote for Winners!

View 500 Answers

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. :)

Good way to recycle toner/ink and cell phones...

2007-09-10T09:22:26Z

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.

Well, the picture doesn't do me justice...

2007-08-02T23:33:20Z

Can you believe these results?

Smart Paladin! :)

OK Rowling...

2007-07-24T17:36:26Z

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

In general I'm pretty happy with Book 7. Oh, I have some minor quibbles here and there, but nothing worthy of a rant.

My only real problem is with the epilogue. "Nineteen Years Later," was way too skimpy. It should either have been about five times the size (minimum) and answered far more questions or not been included at all.

What I want is a full-on, Tolkien-style "Cleansing of the Shire." Let's find out what the immediate aftermath looks like. Let's see a wee bit of the action that lead us back to the Hogwart's Express. Don't even try to tell me that there were no interesting moments in the Ron-Hermione and Harry-Ginny courtship/marriage/kids sequence. What the hell do they all do for a living?

This was the a totally Hollywood style movie ending and felt completely tacked on. I would rather have just ended than been thrown these bits and pieces.

It doesn't "spoil it" or "ruin everything," I'm just disappointed in Rowling for not attending to it properly.

"Girl, you ain't got no arms"

2007-07-10T23:03:43Z

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.

Tilting at windmills...volume 2

2007-07-10T08:14:47Z

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).

On the playground with the cavemen

2007-07-04T08:51:03Z

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.

Of late I've been playing a great deal of a game mod for Blizzard's Warcraft III, called DotA (Defense of the Ancients). We've got a fairly regular group that is on most nights between 9ish and around midnight and it is generally a lot of fun.

Tonight, wrestling with insomnia again, I hopped on by myself and jumped in a regular old "public" game. It was fairly one-sided and we were getting pasted. I even joked with one of my teammates that he was being awfully polite about it as he complimented the opposing team several times for particularly skillful moves.

Towards the end, one of my team members managed to pull off a reasonably slick maneuver which kicked off this exchange (accurately transcribed but w/ unnecessary game talk redacted):

Blood.Luster: ur a jew
Vedrin: Actually, I am Jewish.
Blood.Luster: yes ur a dirty jew
Vedrin: Hmmm...really?
Blood.Luster: let me guess, ur an accountant aswel?
Vedrin: You are good...no...let's see...a lawyer...
Blood.Luster: event worse
Blood.Luster: JEW
Vedrin: did you know that the BattleNet terms of service can have your account revoked for racial epithets?
Blood.Luster: u know they probably dont give a shit?
Vedrin: do you realize how ridiculous you sound?
Vedrin: sitting behind a keyboard hundreds of miles away makes you kiddies feel like you can say anything

The game's host then berated me for having issues and told me to "go fuckin talk to the wall you prick"

Vedrin: i'm not the racist idiot
Blood.Luster: ya you are

I've been toying with the "Hey, I'm a *insert slur*..." tactic for a bit and have gotten a wide variety of responses to it. In the grand scheme of things, no big deal, really. I mean, I'm not Jewish and it's just a video game, right? Bullshit.

I was explaining the online environment to a non-gamer friend and came up with an analogy that helps to explain why this bothers me so much. While politicians and parents groups are quick to blame video games for everything, I think that this is not only misguided but just plain wrong. Any virtual environment, be it a message board, video game or whatever, is analogous to a real world space. In this case, I compare it to a playground. I've been on this particular playground since it was built. If I, as an adult, sit back and let these kids simply get away with making this the defacto behavior here what the hell do I expect to happen? To complete my analogy...parents are dumping their kids off at the playground (whether it's MySpace or World of Warcraft) and doing nothing to monitor or influence their behavior. Then when things go bad they blame the playground.

Would I let this happen in real life? Hell no. So...helm atop my head, astride my awkward steed I'll be tilting at windmills again.

Oh, and I filed a formal complaint with Blizzard. Along with the transcript above I fired off a quick message:

"I'm a lifelong gamer, now in my mid-30s. I defend my hobby constantly but it is getting to the point where I can't enter a single game without racial epithets, gay bashing, etc. Renew an 'old' man's faith and do something about this, please?"

Sadly, as part of their initial response I received this: "Due to privacy concerns and the anonymous nature of Battle.net, you will not be notified of our findings, nor of any actions that may be taken against the account in question."

They did, however, ask for detailed information that would allow them to identify the account and take whatever action they deem fit.

It's all in the way you look at things...

2007-06-21T21:30:51Z

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/

Disturbing but powerful PSAs

2007-03-28T17:52:53Z

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.

Bill Maher...new rules...

2007-03-27T15:04:56Z

"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=

Vista activation cracked by brute force ...

2007-03-02T21:06:49Z

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.

The "I" word.

2007-02-12T22:08:15Z

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.

The saga continues

2007-02-09T21:27:00Z

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.

Our media and government working together...

2007-02-02T20:32:03Z

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

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

Not with a bang but a meh...

2007-01-30T22:39:01Z

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.

Just hold still...this won't hurt a bit...

2007-01-22T18:02:38Z

Interesting developments in the financial and healthcare areas....

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070109/METRO/701090331/1022/POLITICS

"A sales tax on services is getting a good look now, and it probably deserves that kind of look," said Bill Rustem, president of Public Sector Consultants Inc., a Lansing-based policy think tank.

This will be a nightmare for small business owners in the service industry. I am, admittedly, biased as it would affect me directly. The last thing I want to do is file more paperwork. Add a 5% increase to the cost...meh.

The larger problem I have is that a sales tax is inherently regressive. Add this to the increased fees and decreased essential services we have faced over the last few years and a larger portion of the tax burden continues to shift to the working poor and middle class.
-------------------------------------------

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16721913/

"Currently, employees who receive health coverage through their jobs do not pay taxes on the benefit. Bush would cap the amount of coverage that would be considered tax-free. Anything above that would be taxed as income. The limit for deductions would be $15,000 for families and $7,500 for individuals. The average cost of family health coverage is $11,500."

On the surface this looks pretty good. Of course it looks good because of the size of the health care cost deductions. If those deductions do not pass at the recommended size or if they are allowed to stagnate after passing the program will only have succeeded in making individuals completely responsible for their own health insurance. The growth in health care costs has stayed solidly in the double-digit or high single-digit column for a very long time now. If we take the $11,500 figure and add a 10% increase for the next five years we would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $18,500, even cutting that to a 5% annual increase we are still looking at a cost of about $15,000.

Some things to chew on.

The Secret Letter From Iraq

2006-10-13T19:30:22Z

This was an absolutely amazing letter from an unnamed marine in Iraq. Time magazine posted this last Friday. I got it courtesy of lostwind. I wish that the men and women in our military were able to speak to us this frankly more often. The endless spin we have to wade through just to get information that then has to sifted and analzyed by the bullshit detector is often maddening.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1543658-1,00.html

Cats and Dogs...

2006-10-05T19:15:19Z

From Scott Kurtz's blog on his eminently geeky and funny comic strip PVP.

http://www.pvponline.com/

"My assertion is that cats are bastards and only take their love from you because they’re selfish creatures. Dogs truly love you. And my evidence is news reports about the police finding people dead in their apartments.

If the dead person was a dog owner, they find the dog by the side of the corpse protecting it. If the dead person was a cat owner they find the cat eating the face off the corpse.

No dog will fake affection by licking your hand and then immediately turn on you, bite your hand, hiss and scratch at you. That just doesn’t happen. Not that I don’t love my cat. He’s awesome. But he doesn’t love me as much as Kirby does."

I think he may be on to something....

There goes another piece of my childhood...

2006-07-20T21:53:53Z

I've developed a pretty thick skin over the last several years towards all of the "reimaginings" of various shows and movies I loved as a kid. Some of them have actually been quite good; the new Battlestar Galactica is excellent if you can just let the changes go. The majority of them, however, have been disappointing, but you have to expect that by now. The live-action Scooby Doo was horrible, but once again, I can't believe anyone was really surprised. Then someone just goes a little too far:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_&_Scooby-Doo_Get_A_Clue!

"Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue! is the tenth and current incarnation of Hanna-Barbera's long-running Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo. The program will begin broadcasts on The CW's Kids WB prgramming block in the fall of 2006.

Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, the new show will focus solely on the characters of Shaggy and Scooby-Doo. The format will shift towards more of an action-based format: the Mystery Machine now has the ability to transform itself into a number of other vehicles, and Scooby himself can transform and gain powers by consuming special Scooby Snacks containing nano technology."

There are some other bits and pieces I read in a related piece, such as Shaggy being a strict vegetarian now. I'm not sure why this bothers me, but it does. Maybe it's just because they have strayed so far from the original that it really just has almost no resemblance except for the names of the characters they decided to keep. It all just reeks of 'focus groups' and the other sorts of processes that lead networks to cancel great shows that do somehow manage to squeak by.

Throw in the live-action Transformers movie that is also in production and, well, I'm not sure what's left to be said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers_%282007_film%29#Internet_leaks

In the big scheme of things not a big deal, but it still annoyed me.

All the cool kids have them.

2006-07-08T09:33:13Z

So I finally signed up for LiveJournal and MySpace accounts. Yes, even the old and creaky bastards who remember using 300bps modems can be dragged kicking and screaming into the joys of public displays of our wit...or lack thereof.

Can't say if I'll post on it much, but who knows. Good to be able to read those of you who do.

Oh the MySpace is http://www.myspace.com/eral375 for those who care.

Peace,
eral