53R1A75

I’m a browser snob. I run Chrome. I ran Firefox until it go popular. But besides popularity, here’s three tiny things that make Chrome my favorite browser for client-side development.

Just right click that element.

1. element inspection: right click and there it is. Then the element you’re inspecting is clearly identified and it’s dimensions (margin, padding too) are easy to see.
2. easily view style inheritance and edit styles: when you inspect an element, its styles are at your fingertips. No more pixel pushing – if I need to fix a style, just make it look right and copy the new values to my style sheets.
3. javascript debugging: yeah FF and IE8 do that. Chrome does it best. I’ll get into the head to heads in a second. But I can javascript the DOM the same way I edit the styles using the console. And I can easily explore variable contents in the same place I call them up. (more…)

Let’s root my slide!

That’s right I finally got it to work. Here’s how I did it and what you might expect if you’re trying to root a myTouch Slide 3G from the fiends at T-Mobile (and HTC).

Why I did it:

1) I HATE THE BOOT SCREEN (more…)

Hello September!

Today Apple is having a big surprise ‘thing’, so no doubt there will be some kind of shiny new technology for everyone to coo over. I’m hoping they resurrect Lala and get rid of that Genius crap. I never bought a single thing on iTunes because of genius. Whereas on Lala my web (and some mp3s) library was up to date with the latest in what I was listening and what was in my library. I’ve never gotten relevant or interesting recommendations for purchase on iTunes. So mostly I just torrent mp3s. On top of that I’ve been floundering around trying to get my library streaming on the web. The replacement services never really matched up to lala’s awesomeness so I dabbled in home media servers. First I tried Sockso, and that was sufficient for awhile. The playlist and flash player system was functional, but mostly annoying and it was only for audio. It did a good job letting me share my library in a user by user way, but had no social plugins. Then I needed to share video with my xbox, so I tried out TVersity. That definitely worked when I needed to stream P90X from computer to home gym, but listening to music at work has been so bad I’ve ditched it almost entirely, returning with tail tucked in to Pandora. Don’t get me wrong, I love Pandora, but sometimes I like to dig into the recesses of my own library, and no ADS please. So there it is, my only wishlist item for Apple: bring back lala…. please….

The suburbs will be the next ghetto wargrounds. Its only a matter of time. Abandonments are just the first step.

Mr. Sestak,

Previously I had lived in the 6th district, and only recently moved into your district. I’m still adjusting myself to the new local and federal political landscape of Malvern, so please forgive if you feel this is misinformed or inaccurate.

I recently heard you speak your opinion and reasoning for voting for the recent “bailout” bill on the 1210AM radio talk show hosted by Michael Smirconish. I felt very disappointed in hearing that you, after hearing from a majority of your constituents, decided to vote for a massive bailout of major banking institutions, against their expressed opinions on the matter.  To understand your perspective on the issue, I also read your press release in regards to your vote on this bill. (http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/pa07_sestak/pr_080930.shtml) And while I feel you are well meaning on your “Yea” vote, in the end, the bill as a package must require a vote of “Nay”.

I understand that it is your privilege and right, given to you by your constituents, to choose in a way that you think best for the nation even if they desire you to vote differently. However in this case I feel you more exemplify the out of touch social elite ruling economic class, than of wisdom, sense, or care for the needs your voting bloc.

As I understand it, now that the Senate has passed some form of this bill, you will again be voting on this bill. I ask that you would reconsider your original choice and vote against a bill that may seem to rebound a part of the economy, but will in actuality only delay the correction to the market that must eventually happen. The longer you delay this correction, the worse it will be, and you, along with your colleagues will be to blame for the mistake you made in medling with what is supposed to be a market free from socialist or communist leaning entanglements from the government.

I would also ask that you consider voting against the new version of this bill returning from the Senate because of these “bribes” placed in this bill. These bribes distort the true nature of what is trying to be done here and no good can ever come of a bad bill being bribed into law in this way. Some of these sections are:

• Sec. 105. Energy credit for geothermal heat pump systems.
• Sec. 111. Expansion and modification of advanced coal project investment credit.
• Sec. 113. Temporary increase in coal excise tax; funding of Black Lung Disability Trust Fund.
• Sec. 115. Tax credit for carbon dioxide sequestration.
• Sec. 205. Credit for new qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicles.
• Sec. 405. Increase and extension of Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund tax.
• Sec. 309. Extension of economic development credit for American Samoa.
• Sec. 317. Seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility.
• Sec. 501. $8,500 income threshold used to calculate refundable portion of child tax credit.
• Sec. 503 Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children.

(From Mr. Andrew Leonard, http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/10/01/senate_bailout_extravaganza/index.html, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2008 13:36 PDT)

In addition, from the “earmark sections” and from footage of the Senate on CSPAN, the passage of this bill and the debate thereof is more akin to a three ring circus or mafia crime sydicate, and not the dignified debate of lawmaking that the citizens of this country deserve. Please abstain from adding or voting in favor of these earmarks which are really bribes for votes.

Finally, I have been enraged by what I feel is your outright ignorance of the people you were sworn to represent that I cannot, in good conscience vote for you when you run for your next term in Congress.

Mr. R. Lee Creasy

MSIT Bloomsburg University

BA Drexel University

Image via Wikipedia

I’m not going to vote for Obama, here’s a couple vague reasons why. 1) He’s only been in the Senate for a short time. This makes me think someone is propping him up to run as a figure head. Call me rascist, but I think who ever is propping him up may think it has something to do with the color of his skin and the national pasttime of looking at the cover and not reading the pages. 2) His voting record really isn’t as great as what he talks about in his speaches. He voted for FISA and Iraq. 3) Democrats = socialism in the name of victim hood.

I’m definitely not going to vote for McCain, here’s a couple reasons why. 1) He’s a soldier. In my cursory remembrance of US history, most of our worst presidents were war heros. I’m specifically thinking of the Grant administration. 2) His voting record is probably worse than Obama. He misses more votes than he casts and when he does cast, he actually tries to think about the repurcussions, which brings me to 3) He’s an idiot. He graduated near last in his class, thinks important issues that he isn’t up-to-speed on are funny and still thinks that Czechoslovakia exists.

In fact, with all the grumbling I do, I’d make a good case that the government should be overthrown for being criminals and not being subject to the laws they create and generally ignoring the will of the people. But I digress. I feel like my first two paragraphs were pretty good and I’m neither judge nor jury, just a humble subject, so I won’t go on.

I may subtitle this post: “Things That Happen When You Have Nothing Planned”.

I love the conversation when you meet up with a friend: “so what do you want to do?”, and the reply: “ehh, nothing, you”, “yeah, I don’t know”. With my group of friends this conversation invariably ends in one of several ways: TV, Videogames, or Jam Session. It was after one of these conversations with a larger assembly of my friends we began to play beats from a keyboard and battle rap each other. This may seem like a totally legitimate course of action for some people, but a closer look at the social make up and musical taste of our group would reveal, without a doubt, that rapping is not on the top of our “fun things to do” list.

However, we ended up rapping against each other, with each other, and around each other. It was hilarious. We rapped about school subjects like geography and science as much as we rapped about the funny growth on my nose or each other’s sexual preferences.

So, to that unexpected fun burst of creativity i have found some fun links for improving the battle rap skills of those around me. Read these and take heed. Though it may not happen often, battle rapping may soon become a regular member of our “bored-time” repertoire.

1. How to SURVIVE a Battle Rap
2. Learn your flocabulary
3. Wiki on freestyle wrapping

I feel like I’m getting old. Well, at least out of touch with older gamers and younger gamers. I just read an article here in ars pointing out how freaking awesome nintendo wii is doing in sales against other platforms. Now I know it’s a stretch to take an article about game and system sales and relate it to age. I’m a little too lazy to go into all the facts and figures, but essentially I see the Wii as the system for kids and adults who missed the original gaming “thing”. So when I see all these people buying rehash games like Smash Bros and Mario Kart, I think dang, I’ve really been there done that. My experience with those games was “screw it, I’m sticking with the game cube controller” (well, Mario Kart might be the exception to that, but seriously, EVERY GAME THAT DOESN’T USE THE WII MOTE IN A SIMULATIVE WAY HAS BORED ME TO DEATH AND I’VE RETURNED DIRECTLY TO THE GAME CUBE CONTROLLER). Not to mention games like Mario Party that I’m positive will cause rampant wrist problems due to meaningless repetitive motion. And then I think about my dear, sweet XBOX 360 that I’ve had for little over a year. Let me just point out what I love about it. (in no particular order, enumerated for counting purposes only.)

1. XBOX Live and the multi-player frag fests that ensue
2. XBOX Arcade (I’m a sucker for N right now)
3. XBOX media downloads, for you know, when I’m REALLY REALLY FREAKIN LAZY.
4. The possibility that that thing is the only box I need under my TV
5. Gears of War
6. Katamari Damashi
7. GTA (I have all of the old ones for XBOX as well as IV)
8. Midnight Club

Though I have to admit some of these are not unique to XBOX (but some of them are not on the Wii at all, though Damashi SHOULD BE)

So in a much needed conclusion, the Wii has yet to offer a series of games that would make me give up my 20 button controllers, and I feel like I’m in a strange Generational loop caught between the young and the old.

I want you all to know, I almost didn’t post this. But then I thought, “self, this is not your life.” And I thusly decided to reveal to you the secret innermost workings of the internet. It is, manbabies.com. Yes, you heard me correctly. Now when you visit this site try to image yourself in one of those pictures. And from now on, consider how you compose your facial features in a picture. Because you never know when someone may swap your head with a baby’s head. Just sayin’.

In an article at the daily galaxy, there’s an interesting idea postulated that perhaps the next space war is between software companies. I would agree. HAL 9K anyone? I mean we meandered through the days of WIN 2K, I just figure it’s the next logical step. But I digress. I think previously, I linked to google sky. It’s a fun program right up to the point where you sit down and try to figure out exactly where you are in the sky. That’s the trick. You’re behind you. Oh nevermind. It’s an interesting article. Go read it.

The New York Times must always be patting itself on the back for naming their “BITS” section. I mean come on, who comes up with all those clever little acronyms. However, they do have an interesting, not so assumptive article about a media giant mfer who is now without express permission, as a part of their “service”, going to log EVERY WEBSITE THEIR USERS GO TO and sell that information to an advertiser. In Karl Marx language, they are flexing untapped capitol created by their users to create more profit. Now, I’m a business likin’ kind of guy, so I don’t mind profit too much. But I do particularly care about personal information. Who is to stop them from selling to the highest bidder? What if that bidder was the US Government? Would you like it then? What if the ad company was simply a shell company created by the government to legitimately purchase private information without the oversight and overbearing (dis-)approval of the public? This is dangerous folks, and it should not be allowed.

Finally, my google dear hearts (also cutthroat advertisers) have integrated their photo service and wikipedia directly into google maps. I recommend you all check it out. It’s a lot of fun.

Politicians won’t save the world. They sure as rain and dirt makes mud won’t save our world of crumbling finances and overwhelming debt and perceived lack of choice and perceived lack of opportunity. You know who will help you? Your neighbors. Change the culture first and you will change the nation.

PEOPLE! I’m tired of you thinking that one particular candidate is somehow a panacea and is not scrutinized to the 1 millionth degree. I just finished reading the text of a new Obama tv ad. Its a pretty interesting little scuffle between he and Madame Clinton. He says, “I don’t take money from lobbyists.” She says, “Duh! That’s because you caint – its illegal.” He says, “You whore! All you do is spew trash from your mouth! At least I voted to raise taxes on the OIL SOB’s.”

Ok ok, so that last part isn’t really verbatim, but you get the point. The article continues in an interesting fashion though. Noting that this has basically been Obama’s point all along – that the Clinton era is over, and he understands “the people”. But I would like to point out the paragraph that caught my attention. Yeah, the last paragraph, the one I usually don’t read. He may not take money from lobbyists, but he certainly isn’t averted to taking money from people in or related to the oil industry. Now I’m an equal opportunity hate-monger, so I only really bring this up to say:

See they’re all crooks and liars. Not one of them can be trusted. That’s why they sign a contract with us, “the people.” But when that contract isn’t upheld or taken seriously, well, you get abusive serial crooks and liars.