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3 random link
- Meaningful advances in battery technology
- A 24 inch monitor for $229. My, how the prices have fallen
- China executes ex-drug chief for graft
China executed a former drug and food safety chief on Tuesday for corruption in an unusually swift sentence which will serve as a warning amid a series of health scandals that have stained the “made in China” brand.
Can you imagine that happening in the US? I can’t.
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A thousand curses upon Comcast Broadband
I’ve been getting 90% packet loss on all upstream traffic all day, which pretty much kills any and all productivity on my part. The tech support couldn;t do anything and had to schedule a service appointment for Thursday.
Does anyone know if you can get DSL without a phone number?
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A good time was had by all
My first ever gig at Limerick Junction was a success. Everyone seemed to have a good time. The songs “I Miss Ronald Reagan” (written by Tommy Womack) and my song “Heroin and Cheetos” seemed to go over particularly well. My would-be guitar showcase of Bonaparte’s retreat fell a bit flat. The room sounds noticeably different when full than when half full and that threw me off a bit as the set progressed.On the whole a good night. The A-Sides rocked as usual. The photo was taken by my brother, who also recorded the show.
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Come see me play tonight
If you’re in Atlanta come out and see me play in my first ever scheduled gig this Sunday at Limerick Junction Pub. I’ll be going on at 8:00. Atlanta legends the A-Sides are the headliner.
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A minor improvement on the bleeding edge
As a result of fixes in the last version the Ajax Toolkit, it is now possible to do a full compile of an Ajax.net website! There’s not huge improvement in anything, but the resulting application is much cleaner.
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Eight random facts
Subadei tagged me with the eight random facts meme a couple of days ago. With no further ado, here are the eight.
- All dogs, no matter what temperament or breed, like me, at least a little. I can’t recall a single dog that has been at all hostile to me.
- I am immune to fleas and mosquitoes. They simply don’t bite me.
- When I was 20 I fought in a toughman contest and got knocked out in the first round by a tough redneck about 25 pounds heavier than me. For the record, I was up by eight but the ref declined to let me continue. It taught me two important things, namely that while I can take a punch, I can’t take eight punches, and to be very careful about making promises in front of women you’re trying to impress (namely that I would fight in a toughman contest.)
- I earned the permanent enmity of a boss of mine with an artful quip. He once remarked “I’m pushing forty” to which I replied “yeah, from the North.” I found out later he was 54.
- While my speaking voice is abnormally low and quiet, my singing voice is abnormally loud. I present a challenge to the sound guy. Luckily for them my guitar style is loud too.
- I think Thomas Sowell’s theory of the constrained vs. the unconstrained view of human nature does more to explain Western intellectual history than anything else.
- I think “Bonaparte’s Retreat” is pound for pound the best song ever written. While the original Irish version is seldom played, the melody is simply more suited to acoustic instruments than anything else in the traditional catalog. The version on the first Doc Watson family album shines in it’s harsh minimalism, while his later more fleshed out renditions work almost as well. Norman Blake and John Hartford have good versions too. Doc’s version of “Lone Pilgrim” still has the most primal impact on me though, I’m not sure why.
- The life and writings of Eric Hoffer are a source of endless fascination to me. Albert Jay Nock and H.L. Mencken are close seconds. All three of them managed to unload their thoughts onto paper with a minimum of distortion. All three were also solitary and dispassionate observers of human nature.
I now tag Dan Tdaxp, CodePoet, Purple Slog, and Dave Henson.
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National brain drains and blog posts – the easy way
One of my grand unformed theories is that the 20th century’s genocides and ethnic cleansings have acted as a categorical shift in evolution, both social and biological.
A significant part of that theory is that talent leaves one country for another (AKA – a brain drain, as part of the Ricardian Triangle of Land – Labor – Capital) but I’ve never formed the thoughts that much. I made a comment on Dan Tdaxp’s blog on a related post noting that I was surprised he hadn’t written anything about it either.
Imagine my surprise when a day later he writes The Consequences of Brain Drains in Developing Countries. Life is much easier when other people do all the work…
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Sony VAIO customer service – an exploration
Jane Galt vents most eloquent on her frustration with the Sony Corporation, specifically Sony Vaio tech support. Short version; it’s lame.
In the post she states
So instead, I’ll try to change the cost-benefit analysis. With your help, I’d like to make this little incident as expensive for Sony as possible.
Let’s remind Sony that sometimes, the dumb bitches have blogs. And friends with blogs.
So if you’re reading this, and you have a blog, if you wouldn’t mind linking to this post, preferably with the words “Sony VAIO customer service” in the link, I’d appreciate it awfully.
Sure, it’s revenge. But revenge has positive social uses. If it gets expensive enough to screw over their customers, they’ll stop doing it. To all of us.
We’ll see what happens. It creates an interesting exercise in feedback, i.e. an advancement in the first of of the OODA loop.
That would be a good company to start – a service that monitors the blogosphere for mentions of a product and somehow differentiates the positive and negative threads so one could track the source and find hidden problems with the business process.
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Quick Friday roundup
- E-Snailer – Write a letter on the internet
- High Trust Societies
- Fair and Balanced Radio – by Radley Balco
- Better and better car batteries. From Wired. We probably need at least one generation more of advancement before plug-in hybrids are feasible.
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A belated Fourth of July post
The Declaration of Independence
translated out of 18th century English and into 20th century American
by H.L.Mencken
from The Baltimore Evening Sun 7 November 1921WHEN THINGS get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody.
All we got to say on this proposition is this: first, me and you is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better; second, nobody ain’t got no right to take away none of our rights; third, every man has got a right to live, to come and go as he pleases, and to have a good time whichever way he likes, so long as he don’t interfere with nobody else. That any government that don’t give a man them rights ain’t worth a damn; also, people ought to choose the kind of government they want themselves, and nobody else ought to have no say in the matter. That whenever any government don’t do this, then the people have got a right to give it the bum’s rush and put in one that will take care of their interests. Of course, that don’t mean having a revolution every day like them South American yellow-bellies, or every time some jobholder goes to work and does something he ain’t got no business to do. It is better to stand a little graft, etc., than to have revolutions all the time, like them coons, and any man that wasn’t a anarchist or one of them I.W.W.’s would say the same. But when things get so bad that a man ain’t hardly got no rights at all no more, but you might almost call him a slave, then everybody ought to get together and throw the grafters out, and put in new ones who won’t carry on so high and steal so much, and then watch them. This is the proposition the people of these Colonies is up against, and they have got tired of it, and won’t stand it no more. The administration of the present King, George III, has been rotten from the start, and when anybody kicked about it he always tried to get away with it by strong-arm work. Here is some of the rough stuff he has pulled: