optimist award

I find it hard to figure out how the US refusing to export its software is a rights violation. From my understanding of their own propaganda Cuba is a Latin paradise. Surely they have figured out how to write software by now?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31005365/

I also doubt most Cuban schoolchildren can crack open Linux and just start tweaking it to their needs.

"Open software is comfortable, free, easy to modify and public," 15-year-old student Anette Camacho said.

Lithium in water 'curbs suicide'

I bet in 1/10 of 1% of the population this has the opposite effect.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8025454.stm

You can’t think yourself out of every mental issue. However, you can harden the mind, make it stronger and more resilient. Many issues can be headed off before they become serious (chemical dependency). Just being able to recognize you have issues would be a good step. Stubborn has connotations of acting against reason. I am speaking of a mind resolute in its purpose.

Studies have shown that those who have been prepared to deal with PTS and similar disorders are better than those who have had no preparation. You are making yourself resilient to its effect. Ignoring warning signs would be an example of a lax mind, one that does not seek to fix itself.

Vatican 'hampered new Hanks film'

What? The Church barring you from filming in their buildings because they think the movies are mocking them? How dare they!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8032514.stm

The quotes from the director reads as if the he’s all hurt they won’t let him film on their property and that he is reaching out and being rebuffed. I thought it was manipulative and at the same time rather funny. They don’t like your message or content, what did you expect?

patriot act

Nevada has its own version of the Patriot Act in the works??? That’s what we need, more spying.


http://www.rgj.com/article/20090507/NEWS11/90507061&OAS_sitepage=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews

No it’s not. When was the last time the Federal government gave up power? Once they can start tracking certain things they will start legislating on them. They are already talking about putting a GPS receiver in your car to track mileage (with the rest of the data available via court order). There are just some things I would rather control myself rather than allowing the government to allot me things.

warranty callers

I seriously hope they get on those damn warranty callers. It’s pathetic how our national do-not-call registry has no teeth.

http://www.rgj.com/article/20090510/NEWS12/90510012&OAS_sitepage=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews

If you pay for time it’s a federal offense to call a number for marketing purposes as well.

Also, someone was calling my work line every morning at 5:30 from a spoofed number. After 4 months or so they left a message I could not understand. Finally they called me at 11 or so and I answered. I still have no idea what they want but they seemed to be looking for someone.

toothbrushes

I use an sonic toothbrush at home. However; I also keep a 6 pack or so of toothbrushes in my drawer for visitors or when I travel. As long as you get the basic $2 ones and not the spendy $7 ones they are pretty much disposable anyway.

If anyone indicates that eating the yeast and residue might make for a fine culinary choice, I can assure you that eating that would have the same effect as drinking a half gallon a milk and a half gallon of prune juice in one sitting.

3 released after shooting off firearms

Yay, getting detailed until they can run a background check and pull out a measuring tape.

http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090511/NEWS/90511027&s=d&page=1#pluckcomments

injuries and drugs

I didn’t make it to the LAN party :(

When I woke up Saturday morning I felt like I had a bad hangover, but I had nothing to drink. My head continued to pound so I just slept through the day.

Also, my doctor already has me on a good amount of drugs until my knee heals so I’m maxed on those. I hurt myself last year lifting (slipped when I was doing squats) and then again this spring snowboarding so I finally went to a doctor. Torn meniscus and two partially torn ligaments (ACL and another one). The ligaments seem to be healing up well though. Apparently the cartilage in your knees can’t heal but it’s a lot less painful these days, more of a get used to it thing.

religious workers

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/05/18/No-benefits-for-laid-off-religious-workers/UPI-95691242688977/

If you don’t pay into the system (insurance fund) you can’t really expect anything back. I wonder how many other professions may be exempt. I have read about other classes of workers dealing with the same thing.

new cars, rotaries, and my jimmy ;)

I have been hearing good things about the Mazda 6.  My brother Tony wants to trade in his giant truck for one of those.  I was looking at the Impreza at one of the car shows and it just seemed rather cramped.  I used to drive a truck with a cab (front seats) about the same size, but it was much more open.

I don’t need a Rotary, although I did drive one for 6 years or so.  I would love if my dad put the 4 port engine back in with it.  It’s his project car but he never has time to work on it.  

Back in college one summer I did help him cut out the rusty parts on the bed and weld in a new sheet.  A pinch of body filler and a paint job later and that thing was looking sweet.  I think if we reupholstered the seats, got some new tires and fixed/replaced the grill (my sister got into an accident with it once, totaled the other car; REPU came out with a dent and broken plastic) it would be looking pretty sweet.

Here’s a good example, the 77’s had the best body, only 3,000 made.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_Rotary_Pickup

I like ice cream, but I don’t like poisoned ice cream.  With some of the issues and tradeoffs they have mode Mazda almost seems to want to kill their Rotary’s off.  You look at the initial designed and are all “yay!” look at what they put into production and ask “why?”  I like the RX-8, but I think they could have done better.  Instead of a pimped sports car they cut off some of the nicer features for efficiency.

Pretty much they could have made a heavier more powerful engine but they didn’t.  I was reading about RENISIS engine design and they had to redesign things for efficiency and / or environmental concerns.  At least the new ones don’t have a thermal reactor, much more restrictive than an exhaust manifold. (They also forgot to make it backwards compatible with my REPU!)  

As for the RX-8 specifically I like the look but it could have been sportier (or course driving up the price).  I’m not saying its underpowered or anything, it is very descent, in fact the specs aren’t too much off the 4.3L Vortec in my truck; 150kW, 250ft or so (depending on variant), I was just hoping for more.  Also, the way the setup the base model.  Maybe I just don’t like the way they design cars lately.  Everything seems too small and the inside looks like it has been injected molded as one piece.   

Of course I don’t plan on buying a new vehicle soon.  There is nowhere in this town I even like to drive; so as long as my truck is running...  I miss living out in the middle of nowhere where they had no-to-light traffic.  I’m not into that conspicuous consumption things, so as long as my truck doesn’t look like a complete POS I’m fine (I do have a little taste).  As with any 15 year old vehicle it has some issues (leaking seals, worn bearings), but none serous.  It’s actually the biggest engine they put in that vehicle and it has some nice power.  Also, the serious cargo capacity is nice while still being as short as most full size cars for easy parking.

I have two rear view mirrors, I even have a third sitting in the back seat.  You only need one to be legal.  I actually keep thinking of going to get a muffler (it would have to be welded on, so it limits my choice of area shops) but I am never in town on the weekends anymore. I was going to go do it last Saturday, but I didn’t feel well.

feeling "chip"-per

I keep seeing this story pop up. I find it comical how you can have continuous legal battles over the definition of a chip.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30850499/

Also, I have been thinking of getting a bike.

hippy housing

http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm doesn’t seem to bad.  I have questions about its sustainability (as in I think that roof would rot pretty fast), but it’s much better than many environment friendly houses I have seen that look like they would blow over in a steady win. 

I’d like a house like that, but there simply isn’t enough nice land to go around in this world.  Maybe if we forgo technological advancement and kill off the extra 6 billion people then sure.

Of course the guy writing seems a little biased.  Apparently carpenters are evil; and carcinogens and poisons don’t exist in natural materials.  Excuse me, I’m going home to have a nice cup of hemlock tea.

ruskies

Got to love Russia’s attitude on this.  The ISS was designed with a solution when decommissioning came around, fly the entire station down in a controlled burn.  Now they want to pull off their components and keep them in space, leaving the ISS without propulsion and saying that it’s NASA’s problem to dispose of the station.

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8064060.stm

landlords

I like the gist of this law. The only problem seems to be it can turn lenders into landlords without their knowledge.

 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30891380/

Terminator

Anyone else see Terminator over the weekend? Without any spoilers, I thought they used too much shaky cam. Also, Bale tended to use his deep throaty Batman voice too much; it just sounds forced coming from him.

I liked the Terminator in 3. It was a nice evolution I thought. Metal endoskeleton with the liquid metal as a cover. Also, it couldn’t do any weapon, it had like a dozen or so built in, which was a nice change. I did think the storyline was a bit weak. 90% of the movie was just them trying to escape.

I still need to watch the last half of Season 2 of the Sara Conner Chronicles. I hear it had an interesting finale, but it won’t be back for season 3; cancelled. As for continuity, it’s actually a revision to the timeline. That comes within the first few episodes. It was good, just different.

socializing credit cards

Here is something I have been thinking about lately. The government is the only one authorized to print currency and mint coins. These days using debt cards is a ubiquitous as using cash was years ago. Plastic in the form of debt and credit cards is the de facto currency to many people. Should the government start issuing currency in the same way?

The government doesn’t charge you fees for handling cash, nor does it burden you with private agreements on how you can use such currency. That is handled by the tax system, US government as a whole. So you would rather private banks continue to dominate control over our currency by issuing such instruments of commerce?

I’m not advocating the removal of cash, it has abundant uses. However, in order to do participate in electronic commerce, which is increasing every day, you are pretty much limited to credit or debit cards, both monetary systems regulated, but not controlled by the government.

Visa and MasterCard could still exist. This in no way would replace debt services. This would be a cash replacement. It’s just that our forms of currency are not keeping up with the way people use them. We don’t necessarily swap goods in person anymore and the monetary system should reflect that.

As it is a cash system you would bear no interest on your funds. You could transfer your money to a private (interest bearing) account if desired. It could help cut down on welfare fraud and such since you would use this as the deposit point for all such services.

Simply require that all businesses in the US that take Visa or other forms of credit/debit also accept this system. I say this would fall very nicely under interstate commerce laws. If you need to go outside the US transfer to another private account if necessary, but I’m sure the rest of the world would eventually adopt similar systems. Same with using your cash internationally, you may need to convert it at some point.

Data is the hot commodity these days, not silk

What’s more troubling is that even though we are paying descent prices for cable internet they aren’t using it to expand capacity. I’m starting to think large data links are going to need to be managed by the government like roads are. Everyone is always worried about the roads. It’ time we have arguments about internet capacity.

More on ketchup

 I don’t eat Heinz ketchup unless forced to.  I tend to keep 3 kinds around, none of them Heinz.  Del Monte is the best followed by Hunts.  I’ll eat it if it’s what is available, but I don’t stock it at home.

More ways to save during the recession

Back in Hermiston, one trick I learned was how to save money on ketchup (don’t let me hear any of you sissies spell it catsup). When your bottle runs out, most people go shell out $1.27 for a new one. Madness! Instead, find a restaurant that has packets of ketchup available. Take a few handful of those home and you can squeeze them back into your empty ketchup bottle and be good to go! Don’t bother with the McDonalds as they have those push-down dispensers and the minimum wage high school kids make a stink about taking your bottle of ketchup in there.