Archive for the 'General' Category

February 5th, 2006

But is it accurate?

Apparently some Muslims are in a tiffy about this image. They are issuing death sentences, burning embassies, and demanding that “honest people all over the world to condemn this act.” But is this an inaccurate portrayal of their religion? Until they condemn these acts, I think it is.

I think there is a [...]

February 4th, 2006

ARI LTE: Holding out for a hero

I thought this letter to the editor from the Ayn Rand Institute (published in the Los Angeles Times) was especially relevant given the inspiration for this blog:
Dear Editor:
While it is great to finally welcome Superman back to the wide screen, Geoff Boucher’s “Old-Fashioned Value” [Jan. 15] raises disturbing questions about our culture. If American society [...]

January 30th, 2006

Ride photos

I took my camera along for my bike rides this weekend. Unfortunately, the trails were washed out after a thunderstorm, but I got a few good photos.

January 26th, 2006

The EPA just released this least of the top 25 renewable energy users. Unsurprisingly, the list is dominated by government agencies and enviro-nut oriented companies – that is, organizations that either feed off enviro-hysteria, or can simply steal more of your money to make up for their waste. If you are [...]

January 26th, 2006

Google Censorship Gallery

Just a few days after Google agreed to censor its results to appease China, the results are already evident. Here is a gallery of the websites and words it hides from Chinese surfers.

January 19th, 2006

U.S. govt sues Google for your porn queries

The Justice Department is suing Google after it refused to turn over all Google queries for a week and for 1 million Internet addresses. No warrant or reasonable cause was needed this is for the states research needs. MSN, Yahoo, and AOL already capitulated without a fight. If there was ever [...]

January 16th, 2006

Sleeping under the influence?

While surfing TV, I came across an episode of Everybody loves Raymond where a character who goes to sleep in a car so as not to drive home drunk is arrested. I looked it up, and its true you can get convited for drunk driving for sleeping in a car, with the keys in your [...]

January 7th, 2006

Google Pack

Just out: Google Pack, a suite of software from Google and other vendors that every casual and serious computer user should get. I highly recommend everything in the pack except for Norton Antivirus I prefer the free avast! 4 Home Edition.

January 3rd, 2006

Photo Fun

During my trip to see the family this weekend, I scanned over 100 family photos from Soviet Ukraine, some of them dating back to the 1930s. The photos are in various states of decay, and require touch-ups before they can be enlarged for printing. Fortunately, I have a copy of Photoshop CS2 [...]

January 2nd, 2006

Happy New Years!

December 14th, 2005

Of Traffic Jams and Bread Lines

On my daily drive to work, I am greeted by a crawling, sprawling traffic jam on the other side of the freeway. I cant imagine what it must be like to spend an hour or more of ones life every day in the ridiculous drudgery of a traffic jam I would go insane [...]

November 15th, 2005

I love capitalism

I got an Amazon.com Visa credit card last month, and ran up a huge balance, nearly a thousand dollars over the credit limit. I paid the full balance the day it was due, but it cleared two days later. Yesterday, I saw a $35 overlimit fee, and a $39 late fee on my [...]

November 15th, 2005

100k!

Two months ago, when I moved to Dallas, decided to I start biking to get in shape. I got my first road bike, and started with short 14-mile rides in the park. From that modest start, I moved up to over 100km in the Tour de Peppermint this Sunday. It took me [...]

November 9th, 2005

Time and Space

This post brought to you by my participation in the local atheist group, and my recent lack of interest in blogging:

Time and space are concepts that describe the relationship between particular entities. It is meaningless to speak of time or space outside of the entities they relate. In particular, in is meaningless to [...]

October 18th, 2005

Furniture

I have a few photos of my new furniture from Eurway up. What do you think?

October 14th, 2005

Econ Quiz #2

BISMARCK, North Dakota (AP)—To sell things over eBay, Mark Nichols may be required to take instruction in rapid-fire speaking, breathing control and reading hand gestures, even though the transactions are done by computer keyboard and mouse.

To get a North Dakota auctioneer’s license, applicants must pay a $35 fee, obtain a $5,000 surety bond and undergo [...]

October 13th, 2005

The Internet will “fall apart?”

If youve been following the net news, you know that the thug regimes of the UN are trying to seize control of the Internets DNS. The latest threat is that the net will fall apart within months if the U.S. does not turn over control. What does this mean?

Hidden behind the claims of [...]

October 12th, 2005

Need an MP3 Player

I am looking for an MP3 player. I would love to get the iPod nano, but much of my collection is in WMA format, which Apple doesnt do. I want something small and sleek to bike with but with at least 2GB of space.

Ideas?

Oh, and I have some photos up from [...]

October 12th, 2005

Yahoo Chat closes to minors

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is at it again—this time, forcing Yahoo Chat to close their chat rooms (used by millions of people) to anyone under 18, and give a few hundred thousand in extort.. err, donations to placate a few interest groups.

Time for an economics quiz. The likely outcome [...]

October 4th, 2005

Free Love

Love Field, that is. For the DWF residents:

Have you seen the Set Love Free ads? After decades of lawsuits and legislative battles, the city of Ft. Worth and Southwestern Airlines are running PR campaigns over a decades old measure isolating the DFW airport from competition.

Pro: http://setlovefree.com/
Con: http://www.keepdfwstrong.com/

I wrote a letter about it:
Please support [...]