Archive for August, 2005

For all geeks out there…
The Open Source Kama Sutra

Ok, not to be out done in human tragedy for even a week Iraq has answered our Hurricane Katrina with this. Is there no end to their brinksmanship? :(

I’d rather help physically myself, so for all those people like me out there, here is the current statement from FEMA (along with a list of agencies you could send money to or volunteer with).

Apple is giving out free test drives of the Mac mini get your info here.

Wow, the science here is just beyond cool. Taiwanese scientist have genetically engineered a fish that lights up it’s own cancer cells. Researchers Use Fluorescent Fish

Info on a class action lawsuit against apple. It appears to deal with iPod owners who had battery issues.
Apple iPod Settlement

The standard clinical test for psychopathy, Robert Hare’s PCL-R, evaluates 20 personality traits overall, but a subset of eight traits defines what he calls the “corporate psychopath“

This is just impressive! World’s Oldest Person Dies in Netherlands

Funny that they cannot figure out how to bust this guy… They have his picture after all…Camera Phone Has Life After Theft

Ok, this is more of a placeholder for me to make sure to look for this phone in October…

HTC Wizard coming to T-Mobile and Cingular in October

I think I’m going to set myself up as my own non-profit organization. Bishop Eddie’s heavenly bank account

“Tax the churches. Tax the businesses owned by the churches.” – Frank Zappa

I believe I agree with Frank on this one…

So does anyone know what kind of crack Pat Robertson is smoking these days?
Venezuela seeks action in US row

Some very interesting stories from the war…
Michael Yon : Online Magazine

So the government released a report and news media has once again started another round of pointing out that US getting fatter and fatter here, and here, and here, and here, and here (ok I guess we all get the picture now)…

I agree that we as a nation are overweight. We are a rich nation and we eat way too much. For the sake of the statistics, I would like to point out that somewhere around year 2000 the scale, by which normal body weight is measured, was changed. The change instantly made ~ 20% more people obese/overwieght overnight (strange enough, you don’t hear about that when the news media prints their graphs). Notice the huge increase in the CDC’s 2003 graph. I’m yet to see a line graph year over year (I will bet the huge spike in 2000 would make people ask why it’s there).

Now on to my point… I’m hearing statements that the US government isn’t doing enough about the fattening of America. I’m not even sure where to start with this one. I’m not sure what people think the US government could/will do. A good conspicuous consumption analogy would be energy use. We use more of it now than ever (and we are starting to pay the price at the pump), and government efforts to reduce usage have been mostly useless. How can you expect the government to convince people to not have that extra piece of cake, that mid-day soda, or to order the half-rack of ribs instead of the full rack, when they cannot even convince people that it might not be a good idea to buy a SUV that gets 12 miles to the gallon. Even funnier is that people do not seem to remember that there was a gasoline availability issue in the mid 1970’s, and that world is at least as unstable now as it was then.

Thus bringing into question the ability of many people in the US to plan for their own future, remember what has happened in the past, and to take personal responsibility for what they do now (My view: We are a relatively short-sighted population who think someone else is to blame for our ills, and since we cannot be expected to care for ourselves we want the government to do it for us).

Wow, what a rant… In my next rant I might question how government organizations can issue reports with impressive statistics, and get big sensational headlines nearly every time (thus giving the best chance of full coffers come budget time, which if I remember correctly is just around the corner).

For safety the soapbox has now been returned to it’s under-seat position.

Someone at CNN has a sense of humor.

Whenever someone says that Apple computers are too expensive, you can point out that the Macintosh price point needs to be high to prevent public chaos.

Here is some of that “Love thy neighbor” mentality from the religious right….

Another example of how unsafe practicing unsafe computing can be…

As if we needed another one… ;-)

Interesting bit of debate. It seems that telemarketers think that there are too many varied restrictions on their trade at the state level. Isn’t that a shame. ;-)