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Some neat software and games stuff today. Politics are stupid and boring.

Wired has a great article about what really makes GTA IV a great game. I have been staving off my temptations to get the game because of the many freelance jobs I picked up earlier in the year that I must focus on and finish by the summer. Also, I’m planning a wedding, and that always trumps video games. Besides, Bully is still really entertaining to me. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to the day that I can play GTA IV uninterrupted and explore the sprawling landscape of Liberty City. …sigh… Though I’m not sure how long sandbox genre games can survive without being MMO in scope. Just a predictive tidbit.

Freeware genius just put out a little ditty on a piece of software I’m planning on trying out called Xneat. I’ll let you, my faithful reader know how it goes. Its supposed to help manage your windows. We’ll see about that.

Finally, a web2.0 grammar checking site called gramlee. I’m gonna put this post through its engine to see what kind of filth it spits out. I’ll get back to you on that as well.

*edit* BUT WHOA! for gramlee it appears that you have to pay per word. Apparently real people are editing these. To that I say:

1. That’s not web2.0
2. People are so out, computer programs are so in. Get with it.
3. Also, pay-for services are lame.

***Here’s what gramlee thinks of my first 100 words***

There’s some news about neat software and games today. Politics are stupid
and boring.

Wired Magazine has a great article about what really makes GTA IV a great
game. I have been staving off my temptations to get the game because of the
many freelance jobs I picked up earlier in the year. My deadline for the
deliverables for these various jobs is this summer. Also, I’m planning a
wedding, and that always trumps video games. Besides, Bully still entertains
me. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to the day I can play GTA IV
uninterrupted and explore the sprawling landscape of Liberty City.

***Funny right? I think so***

So after that little foray into the deeply political or the deeply disturbing (totally interchangeable), I’ve got some light hearted techie interests for you all.

The site Muxtape lets you upload and manage a playlist, for your friends to check out. Its outrageously simple and a fun way to spread what your listening to.

Also for those of you who love Facebook (I’m not thrilled about it), and have a million and one feeds that you update like a fiend (that’s me!), there’s BlogIt. Its a new Facebook app that will let you update your million and one blogs/feeds from one place. Its new and is lacking on the features, but it has a lot of promise.

a little mixed bag of loving for everyone.

England is now going to include a clause in their athlete contract that prohibit any political speech or negative discussion of conditions or “situations” while in Beijing. Failure to comply will get them on a plane home, pronto. Just look at the ridiculous picture of the Football team “Heil Hitler-ing” and you get the idea of how ridiculous it is to put those kind of restrictions on people.

Also my personal friend Hugo Chavez is threatening to stop exporting oil. I would normally see this as a good thing since it would continue to put pressure on the automotive industry to become oil independent. I say normally because I then read an article in wired about how there are several new studies showing that the biofuels movement may not be so green after all. Add that to the really environmentally bad chemicals in batteries and you’re left with… oil!

Which then brings me to a recently formed, unvented gripe: Compact Fluorescent Bulbs. Now it seems like the fashionable thing to these days is to FORCE your subjects to use these environmental wonders. But I would like to ask, “at what expense?” They contain mercury which among other things is POISONOUS. So while you on the one hand save a lot of money on energy and also a lot of carbon output by power plants, you really aren’t doing anyone a favor by having mercury hang out with your children, just like you go totally insane when there’s lead in childrens’ toys (no pun intended). On the other hand there was a comparison graph of mercury output by CFL’s compared to regular bulbs powered by a coal plant. The CFL’S won. So all I can say is: if you want to save some coin, be a little easier on the environment, don’t mind some poison in your house, and don’t mind the nagging buzz sound from cheaper cfl’s, by all means, fill your house with the buggers. But mostly I don’t want some socialist enviro-fascist bureaucratic junky telling me that these are so awesome that they are the only light bulb I’m allowed to buy or sell.

Speaking about lead paint in kids toys, this netflix for kids toys startup does test their toys for lead. Making life easier for you Type A’s (what in the world does that mean anyways?).

a: check, b: check, c: check. houston, we’re ready for take off. good article on choosing a spouse. very concise and to the point, but still a very good read.

We never made a real kilt, just an improvised skirt pattern that I wear (and it looks really awesome). But this was a neat (albeit hard-to-read) article on how to fold a kilt. Now if I could just find a pattern for a real kilt.

And finally to wrap things up, some software to download! Now I know most of my loyal readers don’t do this, but anyways, if you’re playing warcraft and you need to launch firefox, but it hogs memory, you could switch to a less memory intensive browser like ie or opera. But i’m hardcore firefox so I found a little preloader program that keeps some of the settings and things loaded in memory so it talks a lot less time to boot up when i’m hardpressed for good info from thottbot. W00t.

Unrest in Georgia. The president there is American backed, yet the Soviet Union (Yes, yes, I call it that on purpose) still considers it to be in it’s sphere of influence. And they like to play the same way the US does: economic sanctions. Despite the fact that they are trying to westernize (they are even part of the EU) a large part of their economy still depends on trade with Russia. This is the way it is in Eastern Europe. But trust me, they make excellent wine. Support them by ordering a bottle or two. By the way, the protests are blamed on Russian insurgent types, but also because people are blaming the current president/pm on not being faster about the economy and land grabbing.

A quickie: an engine falls off a plane during take-off. Where’s superman when you need him to make sure airline timetables are kept?

The girl with 8 limbs continues to recover. She showed movement in the limbs they kept, which is a good sign apparently. Among the stats: it was a 24+ hour surgery, it took  30+ doctors, it cost $625,000 (I assume that’s US$), they were charged $0, being thought of as a reincarnated god: priceless. (I know, I know, lame… pfft)

If I could invent a disease to get out of life, this is what it would be. 30 Students walked out in protest, 300 or so students simply aren’t coming to school, and parents are flipping their lids because some students and teachers have a weird “twitch”. How rich…

A neat looking program I’m going to be using asap.  Xentient thumbnails does a much better job putting your images into icon thumbnails in windows.

My major news outlets are some feeds on my rss, reddit, digg, and am radio. The only place I’m hearing anything worthwhile about this is from the autoblog feed I subscribe to. From their articles, I’ve clicked through to some Detroit news outlets and I infer that CNN and other television news networks are covering it. Maybe it’s being looked over by the mortgage “crisis” or Ahmadinejad speaking these past two days. Or maybe the economy isn’t really determined by the US car makers anymore and I’m just getting old. At anyrate, I’m keeping tabs and things aren’t looking good for GM. CAW is joining UAW, and in the midst of everything, GM is simply playing temptress with an export deal to China (which pretty moot considering how many parts they have have to import from China just to build the product they will export). But the GM stock seems to be holding steady today, so who knows?

Just a simple, interesting article about how a guy won an award (or awards) for a piece of software that was actually a text file that simply read something like, “this is not a program.” How? Because the software download sites just want you to post a badge on your website saying that you won the award so people check out their site (really basic version).

If you’re not following it, you should be. We very well could be at war with this man’s country because of things that he says and things that our government says. The transcript of Ahmadinejad at Columbia University is much easy to understand than trying to listen to his translator’s voice superimposed over his voice.

Here’s the afternoon edition because I somehow forgot that Ahmadinejad is here in the states, talking to students at Columbia U. (The bastard) The question I would like to ask is this: are non-citizens afforded the right of free speech in America? They aren’t afforded the right to work or make wages, are they? IMO, if the US believes that democracy is the way for the world to go, we should be the big people and put our freedom where our mouth is. So here’s some pics of the circus of the day. (I would check out the source blog, but as an opinionated, experiential source. Not necessarily a factual source. Also, the newyork daily news has an interesting opinion of the Iranian. Finally, the transcript of the A-man’s interview with 60 minutes. A read that makes me wish I could believe him. But he’s so shady on some of the key questions that, IMO, I can’t believe him anymore than I believe the US gov’t. (I don’t). But you can’t ignore the fact that he’s damn intelligent, making the reporter eat his ill-thought words right from the start.

Strangely enough (or not) MS has released a downgrade patch for vista. I’m not surprised if there is a patch, but I’m not totally convinced that the source is solid.

Finally, for a bit of monday fun: the relative/comparative sizes of sci-fi vessels. WHERE’S FIREFLY YOU HOES?!?! (I know, I know, the Serenity is probably only like one or two pixels comparatively, but surely that alliance ship could go on there)

some interesting surfing for you today. though not very exciting. I was listening to my music this morning with my awesome sony headphones when i noticed some earwax. eww. well, i was curious, so here’s some random, probably useless info on earwax via wikipedia.

also via wikipedia, by way of my brother. Fernet-Branca, a liqueur we had last night that tasted like someone mixed whiskey and gin together. I enjoyed, he enjoyed it, and come to find out, its base is a grape, with a lot of herbs and spices (not unlike gin). So good, i think i’ll be getting a bottle in the not-to-distant future.

i have been toying with idea of getting rid of this blog as a link sharing method. my commentaries, while enlightening and witty (i’m sure), can be time consuming and tedious. plus in my social web surfing way of life, i’ve come to be the generator of several social feeds (del.icio.us, etherealnation.net, flickr, digg, google reader, and several others). a while back i found tumblr, made an account, didn’t figure out what it could be useful for, and just gave up. well, in my quest to minimize my data output (more accurately, simplify) i went back to tumblr, and added in a ton of my data feeds. here is what has happened: my tumblr. sorry to say it doesn’t look like it backfills anything, so there isn’t anything posted there. but don’t worry, it will soon be waaaay too full of stuff for most normal people. so eat your hearts out (on glaring lack of privacy). similar, quicker, but not quite as nice is soup.io.

i do a lot of work with people who work with a lot of other people. do you know what this means for me? MAJOR SCHEDULING ISSUES. so i found timebridge. i’ve recommended it to the people in my life who swear that it would take a full day just trying to schedule 30 minutes with 5 busy people. and the good news is they’ve actually started using it, and so far, it’s really nice. simplified, it’s almost like a business version of evite. but, it allows for alternative date suggestions and it can put the agreed upon meeting time into your google, msoffice, or ical calendars.

and finally for a bit of science, check out nasa’s page for a neat article about a sun spot taking on the shape of the trilobite. also, here’s the video. it’s pretty intense. i mean for one thing, you’re watching the magnetic waves emanating from the surface of the sun. and for another thing, according to the article you’re actually seeing into the sun.

Here’s a great list of web2.0 web applications that let you do day to day computing from anywhere. so far, i stick with google docs and keep it simple. other webapps that i enjoy regularly are moneytrackin’ and instacalc.

Great page of information on all the thought that should go into acquiring a credit card from the federal reserve. a must read for financial hopeful’s like me.

in hong kong a gym is beginning to add electric generators to the treadmill equipment to create the electricity for the building. this isn’t a new idea i’m sure, but this is the first i’ve read of anyone actually doing it.

a man in georgia kills a bear by throwing a log at it while protecting his son. he gets a ticket for not securing his campsite. sweet irony.

is apple really going to be able to deliver on the battery life of the upcoming (THIS WEEK) iphone? slate delves into how they may have made this happen.

youtube is seemingly becoming a more legitimate media outlet, signing on a reality tv show for ad revenue sharing.

pretty interesting article (from the sound of it. i haven’t read it entirely yet, but i’m about to) on class differences becoming a factor in which social engine you use (facebook vs. myspace). i use virb for my band, and myspace for exposure, facebook for friends, and linkedin for business. i’m connected baby.

welcome to another edition. this will be a mixed bag, but i’ll sort by source.

From some publication on the Left Coast in LA, word is out that Mr. Wizard died yesterday. I hate admitting this, but for some reason when I watched this on NICK as a kid, I always thought Mr. Wizard was Patrick Stewart. TRAVESTY OF TRAVESTIES.

Next up, from the pages of make!

Surreal Wallpaper! Queue jokes about eating shrooms without all the hassle. But I’m intrigued. Maybe I’ll find a great little room of my own just for putting up this paper.

In early alpha, Wii Media Center X. I’m pretty excited to toy around with this one so I can stop using my XBOX for media. But that’s Bias, since the XBOX hates on my network at home.

A spanish blog noticed a small picture “hidden” on the Windows Vista Business CD. Conspiracy? I think so. God I despise M$, not that this really has anything to do with them. I just thought I’d let you know.

And now from the top lists of Reddit

Straight dope’s response to: Can you open the hatch of a commercial airliner in midflight? BUT WHAT ABOUT IN THE MOVIES?

I would include a more in depth explanation of my beliefs, but I don’t think that this blog is the correct venue for this. Suffice to say that I completely disagree with the idea of “God Said Pi=3” and another article on the same topic, sited by the other. Why don’t you site the Missler/Numerology explanation of the original Hebrew manuscripts that was given in the comments section? And finally in answer to Mr. Dutch’s Question: Your humility. In your presentation of pi, you pridefully assume that you know more than God. This hubris causes you to assume that your interpretation of the Word of God is absolute and final. And with that I will always disagree.

And back to our regular programming. I hope google really isn’t evil. Now that they are moving into universities their market will expand a great deal, as will their access to more information. While I applaud the business of their movements, I am still concerned.

Ninja? In Italy? Who is Russian? Oh the cultural hilarity that ensues.

And now, my new RSS subscription filed under fun: The Fake Steve Jobs Blog!

Afternoon Edition!

An interesting article on arstechnica through digg about Verizon disclosing records to the NSA, claiming the first amendment in defense of a lawsuit. I haven’t had time to check the facts on this one too deeply, but there is a great comment on the digg page and a link to an interesting write up on the rights of corporations.

A top 25 list from usatoday about public meltdowns. Who knew famous people were this crazy? Oh wait, we all do.

I was thrown a little curveball by this article, but thought I would comment on it briefly. More and more I’m becoming a huge fan of Ron Paul, so when I saw this article I was very interested to see how it would turn out. I ended with slightly mixed feelings. I started reading expecting more information about Paul and ended up getting a lot of rhetoric about the “new media.” Don’t get me wrong, the “old media” makes me absolutely sick. I’m just not a big fan of rhetoric. So now I’m looking for a transcript of the debates because it’s looking like Ron Paul might be my man for the big “P”. More info on my findings later

And finally, some good news from Cisco. I don’t typically follow stocks as much as I probably should, but Cisco interests me because the recently acquired webEx, and I’m a regular user of that software.