USB wall sockets

For the USB device laden house hold:
http://fastmac.com/usocket.php

I've ordered two. Interestingly enough, they called my the next day to thank me for my order.

bwahahaha

Nice ad:
- funny BGH ad

Quote du jour.

"there's this apocalyptic porn market that caters to our reptilian brain" - Guy Harrison on the 'Big Picture Science' podcast.

Best line ever.

Best line ever written on CNN's opinion page:
(Santorum's opposition to birth control seems a bit disingenuous since he loves to wear a sweater vest -- which I view as a form of birth control.)

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/28/opinion/obeidallah-santorum-church-state/index.html?hpt=hp_c2Would Santorum put the Bible over the Constitution? - CNN.comDean Obeidallah asks: If elected president, would Rick Santorum make the Constitution subservient to the Bible?

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2521#comic really makes work a little depressing.

The Top Five Tax Myths to Watch Out for this Election Season

Link As the presidential campaigns rev up, taxes are emerging as the defining issue of the election. Unfortunately, a lot of misinformation and myths about taxes are spreading as candidates and commentator...

A swing an a miss

A swing an a miss from Paizo:


Seriously, 20 bucks for one frost giant? 7-8 bucks? sure. Even if that's a base model of a giant hold his fist up, and other models, or 'special' cost more.
Hell, 7 buck a pop in packages of 4 would be better.
at 20 bucks I need to drop 100 dollars if I want enough minis for encounter in the revenge of the giants adventure.

Bad science and Bad thinking in the military:

Bad science and Bad thinking in the military:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/acupuncture-the-navy-and-faulty-thinking/#more-18633Science-Based Medicine » Acupuncture, the Navy, and Faulty ThinkingA Navy neurologist, Capt. Elwood Hopkins, has posted a 3-part article on  “The Power of Acupuncture” on Navy Medicine Live, the official blog of Navy and...

George is still awesome

George is still awesome:
http://youtu.be/mvTCr5Z-0lAEditGeorge Takei is the Broker of Star Peace

Why we need clinical trials.

Why we need clinical trials:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/why-do-we-really-need-clinical-trials/#more-18619Science-Based Medicine » Why Do We Really Need Clinical Trials?A point I make over and over again when talking about new or alternative therapies that are not supported by good clinical trial evidence is that lower-level...

Con artist gotta con

There are two groups of people. One is educated medical people working with science and is regulated. Another group use magical thinking and nonsense to 'treat' people. Both have access to 10,000 dollars for treatment. Care you guess which group uses the most of the pot?

Booster Gold

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/syfy-booster-gold-greg-berlanti-261801
Syfy Orders Script Based on DC ComicsThe project, which will be penned by Fringe's Andrew Kreisberg, hails from Greg Berlanti's production company.

Opinions

Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours. - Voltaire.

This:

This.

Robots that can self assembly to fit a need, at the moment. Using foam was genius.http://news.discovery.com/tech/robot-builds-itself-with-foam-111020.htmlRobot Builds Itself With Foam : Discovery NewsResearchers have built a robot that self-assembles and can do a variety of tasks.

Robots that can self assembly to fit a need, at the moment. Using foam was genius.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/robot-builds-itself-with-foam-111020.htmlRobot Builds Itself With Foam : Discovery NewsResearchers have built a robot that self-assembles and can do a variety of tasks.

more Tim Minchin

If You Open Your Mind Too Much Your Brain Will Fall Out (Take My Wife) by Tim Minchin

More Cow b^H^H^H^H^H Tim MinchinEditIf You Open Your Mind Too Much Your Brain Will Fall Out (Take My Wife) by Tim Minchin

Vitamins and proer use

Steve Novella on Vitamins.:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/vitamins-and-mortality/#more-16540

tl;dr
Recommendations should be based upon specific health conditions and blood tests to measure levels of vitamins, so that specific deficiencies can be appropriately targeted.Science-Based Medicine » Vitamins and MortalityThe discovery of various vitamins - essential micronutrients that cause disease when deficient - was one of the great advances of modern scientific medicine...

Home 3d printing

Home 3d printing getting closer:
http://singularityhub.com/2011/10/12/origos-3d-printer-could-be-the-last-toy-your-ten-year-old-will-ever-need/Origo’s 3D Printer Could Be The Last Toy Your Ten Year Old Will Ever Need

Goodbye, Dennis!

#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
printf("Goodbye, Dennis!");
exit(0);
}

Too Soon?

Well, the iPhone 4S sales are up due to an increase in hipster desire. You know, because Steve Jobs is so underground.

unemployment

Because I have ran into, twice today, people that seem to think the unemployment was cause by Obama, here is this:


As a side note, look at the highest point, in 1982..who was president then, I can't recall.

RIP Steve Jobs.

RIP Steve Jobs.

Lofgren, retired pub staffer

An article from Mike Lofgren, a recently retired staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees.
It's a long, but good article that sums up how much lunacy is going in in the republican party. http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult | TruthoutSkip to Main Content Area. Home. Wednesday, 05 October 2011 / TRUTH-OUT.ORG. ARCHIVE | LOGIN | JOIN TRUTHOUT | SEARCH. CIA: Zubaydah's Torture Drawings, "Should They Exist," to Remain To...

I had to reshare this

I had to reshare this....great commercial.C.C. Chapman originally shared this post:Quite possibly THE best video game commercial ever.

Thanks to +J.C. Hutchins and +Steve Coulson for putting this on my radar. SO well done if you are gamer."Michael" -- PS3 Long Live Play

Another test/Garrett Moffitt originally shared this post:Testing cross posting

Another test/Garrett Moffitt originally shared this post:Testing cross posting

Share from G+Garrett Moffitt originally shared this post:Interesting old Krugman article from the Bush era:http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/warfore.htmlwarforeCLASS WARFORE? This note is by way of background to my recent op-eds, which have been very tough on George W. Bush. Here's why Bush's plans have me upset: our current situation is one in which...

Share from G+Garrett Moffitt originally shared this post:Interesting old Krugman article from the Bush era:
http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/warfore.htmlwarforeCLASS WARFORE? This note is by way of background to my recent op-eds, which have been very tough on George W. Bush. Here's why Bush's plans have me upset: our current situation is one in which...

To the Moon

I wonder what it would cost to put something on the moon. Nothing that needs to return, just literal dropping stuff on the moon. How Would I find out that cost?

d6

Found this song. Another piece of nerd music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54VJWHL2K3I

Harry Potter

I just found out Rowling won't release her books in ebook format.

hahaha. What a maroon.

A good story is a good story. Is King Lear less of a story when reading it off a printing press instead of scribed? Is music only good live?

Paper books are a wast for a great many reasons. They need to be phased out. Of course she is deluding herself. In 10 years when most person books are in electronic format, she will have a sudden change of heart. Probably along the lines that she doesn't want to deprive the current generation of her works.

There are people who love books, and there are people who love good stories. They are not necessarily the same person. You can tell the difference by how the describe their reading habits. If they mention the sheer number of books in their collect, reading is just an excuse for them to collect books.

Of course, the other side of this ugly coin is copyright lengths; which are far too long for a healthy and vibrant culture.

Penguin Publishing cc: Jim Butcher

Dear Penguin Publishing,

You are failing to learn the lessons of previous industry impacted by the new digital life.

People want to pay less, not more then the non digital equivalent.

I can get a song for 99 cents and listen to it with equal enjoyment many, many time. Almost all books don't warrant a separate reading.

A book is often a bigger endeavor, so I will pay up to 5 dollars for an eBook. In my case it's the kindle but that applies to future readers as well.

Five Dollars, Max.

Don't forget who you are competing with. It's not eBooks v paper books. It's you're current business model vs Used books, libraries and, yes, copyright infringer.

Feed issues

I think I got the feed set up, however it's grabbing older post. Why would it grab old posts by default?

I am hoping to figure out how to get it to go from facebook to my blog instead of the other way around.

Feed changes

Trying to figure out how to get facebook posts to also post here.

Expect an increase in test posts

Template Change

I decided to change my template. The old one had issues when trying to make the body wider, and bloggers new template designer doesn't adjust that template. grr.

Since I was changing templates, I decided on a radical departure from brown and boring.

Philosophy

Philosophy as it's own study has been brutally, and gleefully, murdered by science.

Google dumps MS.

Google has made it their policy to dump windows and move to Linux. I would wager to speculate they are setting the stage to move to Chrome OS.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d2f3f04e-6ccf-11df-91c8-00144feab49a.html

This should sound some serious alarms at major corporation and MS weak security architecture and implementation.

Cool link of the day:

Watch a stadium come down from the inside:

http://www.dallascowboys.com/farewell/Texas_Stadium_Implosion.cfm

How to lose at Portal

This is the first room. Notice where the cube is?

Public Service

The Prince of Persia movie is coming out soon. As a public service I present this in order to lower your expectations and thus, make the movie better for you.

Geo-Engineering

More and more often the topic of geo-engineering comes up as a method t deal with climate change.

One of the most recent one is this one the Bill Gates has reportedly dropped some cash into. What they fail to talk about is with less light. what will be the impact to crop yields? How long will it take to stop the effects of shooting seawater into the air should it turn out the raining salty water on everyone is a bad idea?

The last onie is the critical one to my mind, and should be boiled down to one question that should be answered about all these efforts:

"If we realize that is a bad idea, how long would it take to stop?"

Anything that's long then a week should just be scrapped.

The solution I would like to see researched would be to put giant sheets of material in orbit. Several squares that we can send up a piece at a time and have it automatically attached to another piece. So we are building it as needed. We could also decommission it a piece at a time. Or if it become s critical mistake, do commission it from orbit immediately. Or push it closer to the sun so it has less of an effect. You could even put up a material that only blocks specific frequency of light.

Also, we should be in a global effort to plan relocation of people and crops. This will take a long time, so make a plan and be ready.

I found the as captivating

Views on BP aside, I really enjoyed this ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVsPT6ePKPw

Awesome, funny, bold.

Are they coming for you?

THEY CAME FIRST for the people who compute trajectories,

and I didn't speak up because I don't compute trajectories,

THEN THEY CAME for the analog watches

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an analog watch,

THEN THEY CAME for the auto factory workers,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't auto factory worker

THEN THEY CAME for me,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't John Conner

And now, some humor

I stumbled upon this video.

Very funny.

This just in...

Using less of a drug means the drug will not be as strong.

Shocking..a revolutionary idea that will cause a paradigm shift in out quantum understanding~

Homeopathy still does not work. Never has, never can. Please stop wasting your money. Stop endangering the lives of others, and take some critical thinking course.

Seriously, using less of a substance can not produce more of an effect. Nothing in anything man has ever found about the universe supports that, nothing ever tested supports that, it is literally nonsense.

Here is a nice write up:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=4750

Some humor:

http://dilbert.com/2010-04-16/

Finally a quote from Michael Specter:

“When you start down the road where belief in magic replaces evidence and science, you end up in a place where you don’t want to be.”

iPad

I finally went to look at the iPad. It was very...meh.

Nothing really new there. I had high hopes, but it pretty much does what the Touch does, only bigger.

Moving through a book as slow, and as an eBook reading I would place it write in the "It's OK" status. The kindle is a lot easier on the eyes.

At no point would I have used the word 'Magical'. It's known tech.

Not to say it doesn't have an use, or wouldn't be interesting to have, just that nothing about it makes me want to jump right out and get one.

The only reason I wouldn't want to ge one is Apple's obsession with control on their appliances.

What I can read, what I can put on it, and planned obsolesce is all a little much for me.

It's always a trade off. If it was substantial cheaper, then the trade off would be worth the risk. If it did something mind blowing, maybe it would be worth the risk of not being able to do what I want with it.

As it stand, meh.

To put technology that's being used in perspective:

http://xkcd.com/728/

Not so magical now, is it?

People are going way too nuts over this thing.I understood the iPod. It was a revolutionary mp3 player. The iPhone was pretty nice.

I can only think the people who call it 'magical' are either getting paid my Apple to use the as a buzzword, using it to justify not actual having a reason to spend that money, or have been brought here from 1989.

WePad

The tablet/eReader I am looking forward to is the WePad.

It has what Apple lacks. Open platform, a web cam, and a better sized screen.

Open Platform:

There is plenty of talk about how Apple likes to be the dictator of what you can do with the device you buy, so I'm not going to rehash that here. I will say that it looks like the WePad doesn't suffer from one person delusions of grandeur. It will run anything that runs on Android; which is a significant number of Apps.

Web Cam:

I mean, come on Apple, how could you leave this out? You could have grabbed the book market and the video phone market. I suspect it will be in future releases. I also suspect their will be a mad rush of people selling their 1st Gen iPad for a newer one. At this point they will all suddenly agree that it should have had a web cam to begin with.

Screen Size:

Its a bigger screen that looks more comfortable to use for media and browsing. This is actually a minor detail, but when I was looking at an iPad, it just didn't 'feel' quite the correct size.

WePad Cons:

It has less battery life. This is to be expected; however I am still waiting for some battery life numbers to come in from the iPad after it's been out for a moth or so.

It's not out yet, so the fact sheet could be wrong. According to the site, on 4/26 a WePad will be put into the hands of critics.

The WePad's price is listed as 449 Euros. I don't know how that will translate to US dollars at the time of release.

The biggest downside is that its initial mass release will be in German this August.

Still if it does what it's claimed to do, then it will be worth the wait.

My advice to everyone is to hold off on buying the iPad.

Authors

This was in my previous post, but decided it need it's own posting.

Would you rather make 1000 dollars by selling a thousand books at a dollar a pop, or sell 2,000 books, make 2000 dollars even if it means another 100 people don't pay for it?

We have seen this is the music industry where the artist put their product online, and even though a lot of peopel pay nothing, the band still makes more money then if they went through tradition means.

That doesn't surprise a lot of us who realized that most people who download a song from someplace that doesn't have authorization to distribute it, would never buy it anyways. I'm not saying it's right, just that is just how it is.

eBooks and whatnot

eBooks have come under some heat lately, mostly because publishers are craving to make the same mistakes the music industry did. They could jump up and make a lot of money and adapt to a new market just by following what Apple did with iTunes. A central place to get and manage music.

The publisher could make a consortium and create similar software for books. Nothing about it would really be technically new or really challenging. It WOULD require them to think about future contracts, and how to charge. You will be a lot more successfully with eBooks if you charge less. The digital price point is different. By different I mean lower.

There is still billions of dollars to be made with eBooks, different strategies to getting people published and effectively infinite shelf space.

This is only a problem because publishers are loosing their monopoly on who gets published. They need to realize this is going to happen, and figure out how to be the company people buy their eBooks from. They also need to stop penalizing the consumer when the person selling a book does something wrong.

I am waiting for some established writers to say good buy to the publishing house and just sell their book online. IN fact, I can see an editing industry popping up where authors pay to have their book edited and prepared for eBook distribution. A company completely separated from publishers. Authors just put their book online through any of the new emerging channels.

The 'Butcher fiasco' should be sending a clear message to all parties involved: "Digital books are hear, and you need to stop assuming everyone is ripping you off."

Or they can just let Apple become such a power house they have to do separate negotiations for eBook with them, Just like the music companies did.

HDMI Cables

Because this topic seems to rear it's ugly head every now and again, I thought I would link to some articles showing the differences in cables:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/tests/4235717

and here:

http://www.audioholics.com/education/cables/long-hdmi-cable-bench-tests/hdmi-cable-testing-results

the short answer? it doesn't matter.

I paid 5 cents + 2.95 shipping and handling for my cable, and it pushes 1080p just fine.

I got it from an Amazon seller.

For home use systems, what you should look at is where the cable meets the connector. It should not seem flimsy. This is you most likely place for failure. Bear in mind most people don't touch the cable for years after it is set up., so it doesn't need to be a heavy duty connection. Obviously if you are using equipment you move around, you want a heavier duty cable that can take being pulled out and tossed around. It will probably cost more then my nickel cable, but it should costs 100 dollars.

For industrial grade use, you will need an expensive cable that is thick, shielded and designed to be handled by people who might not care.

Finally, check to be sure it's rated for your system. Most of the time this wont matter, but it doesn't hurt. Rated for HDMI 1.3 should do it for almost ever system. For the true home theater set up, at this point 1.4 is what you are looking for. Again, Many 1.3 cable will do 1.4, but there isn't a guarantee. In the Amazon link above, on page 3 there are 1.4 HDMI cables for 12.99.

Save you money for a nice Blu-ray player the supports streaming.

Tiger Woods

Alert - Tiger woods is a human who plays golf. Nothing more. What he does in his own life is his business, what he does while golfing is public business.

And then this:

“It is not simply the degree of his conduct that is so egregious here,“It’s the fact that he disappointed all of us, and more importantly, our kids and our grandkids. Our hero did not live up to the expectations of the role model we sought for our children.” Billy Payne

Listen Bill, If a golfer has become a hero and role model to your children, you have failed as a parent. Plus his attitude and tone was so condescending I expected the word 'Boy' to exit his mouth.

Where are his harsh words for Mickelson? Oh yeah, Mickelson is white so he doesn't care.

I don't even watch the game, and I am sick of this.

What the Hell

I watched th Daily show. Newt was on it, and he basically called all Americans cowards and stupid. Well done Newt~

Americans don't want Terorist tried in New York? really? Another out of touch wind bag.

"When you poor money into the federal bureaucracy, it doesn't come out,"

Really? I see a lot of money coming out in the way of private sector contracts, military, federal employees. In fact sometimes too much comes out.

Why do people think the federal government is a vacuum? all that money, every single penny, ends up beck into the economy. We can discuss who that money gets back into the economy, but to act as if it doesn't is incorrect. Either Newt is stupid(he is not), or he is spreading FUD. Hint: He is spreading FUD.

He then goes on to include TARP as part of the discretionary budget, claiming it's 1.4 trillion and doesn't account for the money the financial institution has paid BACK to the feds. Oh yes, they don't like to bring up the fact that most, if not all, returns to the feds.

I love how is uses a few abuses of Medicare to claim that's why it's cheaper. I would argue if it costs you most to look out for abuse then the abuse costs you shouldn't worry about the abuse.

Some change

The initial point of the blog was just a vent for ideas that pop in my head. I am going to morph this into a skeptic Blog.

Regarding new punctuation I proposed

I just found out that author Ambrose Bierce wrote his essay "For Brevity and Clarity" and proposed a new type of punctuation mark to convey jest, which he knew would make the satire a little more clear in typewritten correspondence.

So I'm not some sole loon to think that snarky or jest deserve to be its own sentence type.