Friday, February 29, 2008

I would be interested in a slate system, with a portrait style screen that had a much higher resolution. It should have the software needed to use its built in hardware and it should boot and be able to use any feature fast.

I would like the keys separated like they are on the Pepper but with larger keys; the thumb keys on the front of the system and the index finger keys at the back to save space. It should use standard rechargeable 18650 lithium batteries. It should have built in GPS, wi-fi, and 802.11n connectivity. It should have at least 4 USB connectors, one firewire, two compact flash card connectors, and 4 SD connectors. Also small speakers, headphone jacks, and a built in camera and microphone. A good large hard drive would be nice as well (maybe two).

It should be able to connect to the internet from almost anywhere. It should securely connect to other versions of itself on an ad-hoc basis with the user deciding the level of connectivity and to whom it connects. Sort of like an adult version of the ancient Cybiko. It would be good if wirelessly connected systems could work together, that is if one maxed out it's processor, being able to use some cpu cycles from nearby systems would be nice. Another great feature would be to be able to share the internet connection of other systems if their users if they allowed it. (Get enough users together with an internet connection and you could be sharing some really fast connectivity.)

I would use it for art (painting, sketching), reading books, keeping in touch with friends, music, offloading photos from my camera. Also as connection to my home PC, for instance reading books, or listening to music stored on the PC.

The most critical feature would be not using windows, (just too slow).


Slate PC's


Eee PC from Asus

A computer made for children, its a tiny $299 notebook that I hope will catch on. I would like this PC in a tablet PC form factor with same size screen. I have seen complaints that the Eee is no good because its not a gaming system, but I don't care I have a gaming system, this is something else. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Asus_Eee_proportions.png

See a review on CNET by Dan Ackerman. Asus reported moving 350,000 units in the first quarter it was available last fall.

see also:

Blood Sugar

116


Thursday, February 28, 2008

Blood Sugar

106


Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Lunar landing simulated in new NASA animation



William F. Buckley, Jr. 1925-2008

William F. Buckley, Jr. died today.

Treadmill

3.08 miles


Blood Sugar

129


Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Treadmill

2.57 miles


Vista Crash

Windows Explorer crashed again.


Blood Sugar

136


Monday, February 25, 2008

Vista is Slow

With no other programs open Media Center is unable to play without freezing and skipping every few seconds.


YouTube vs Pakistan

I found more info. "According to one PTA official, the video in discussion could concern a movie trailer whose author is Geert Wilders, a man with radical anti-Islamic convictions that so far have brought him numerous death threats." I will try a search on the term "Geert Wilders" I need to narrow the search I will try "YouTube Geert Wilders"

The last search turns up a number of videos.

1.

2.

3.

4.


Theocracy Shuts Down YouTube Worldwide

I am trying to find the Pakistan anti-Islamic video, that was the Reason that caused Pakistan to decide to shut down internet access to YouTube. A search on YouTube for "Pakistan anti-Islamic video" turns up the following vids. But I don't know which if any is the one Pakistan objected to.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.


Many users around the world could not access YouTube Inc.'s site for about two hours on Sunday. The video-sharing company blamed the outage on erroneous routing information introduced by a Pakistani Internet service provider. Pakistani authorities ordered ISPs there to block the site on Friday.
Traffic to YouTube was misrouted for around two hours, rendering the site inaccessible for many users around the world, YouTube said today.
"We have determined that the source of these events was a network in Pakistan," the company said, adding that it is still investigating the problem to prevent it from happening again.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ordered the country's ISPs to block users' access to YouTube on Friday because of an inflammatory anti-Islamic video on the site, said Wahaj us Siraj, convener of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers, in a telephone interview.

"If the video is provocative, then it is better it is removed, rather than provoke unrest in Pakistan," said Siraj, who added that he did not know the contents of the video.

Blood Sugar

148


Vista Crash

Windows Explorer crashed again.


Sunday, February 24, 2008

Blood Sugar

120


Saturday, February 23, 2008

Blood Sugar

104


Treadmill

4.25 miles


Blood Sugar

140


Blood Sugar

62


Friday, February 22, 2008

Car without Windshield Wipers

Everything stems from a special glass that thanks to four sophisticated surface treatments change the characteristics of glass at the molecular level. Il primo (a contatto con l'aria esterna) è a base di biossido di titanio: filtra il sole ma, soprattutto, regala al parabrezza un forte effetto idrorepellente. The first (in contact with the outdoor air) is based on titanium dioxide: filters the sun but, above all, gives the windscreen a strong hydrophobic effect. Il secondo strato di vetro è in realtà costituito da polveri microscopiche che spingono lo sporco ai lati del vetro, a loro volta azionate da sensori posti nel terzo strato che fanno pulire il parabrezza a seconda delle necessità (quantità di acqua o sporco da smaltire). The second layer of glass is actually made up of microscopic dust pushing dirt on the sides of the glass, in turn activated by sensors placed in the third layer forming clean the windshield as needed (quantity of water or dirt for disposal). E il quarto strato? And the fourth layer? E' il più fantascientifico perché è un conduttore di corrente, necessaria per alimentare il funzionamento di questo complicato parabrezza. And 'Unbelievable as it is a conductor of electricity, needed to power the operation of this complicated windscreen.

Vista Crash

Media Center locked up again. This time I checked Task Manager, it looks like the lock up happened when it hit 100% cpu usage for a very short time, this was in the mist of usage averaging between 30-40%.


Vista Crash

For no good reason I can see, Vista completely locked up for about 4 seconds. Media Centers view of the program I was watching froze. It just did it again while I was typing this.


Physics

Physics underwent one revolution after another. Einstein's special theory of relativity (1905) begat the general theory of relativity (1915), and suddenly even such reliable concepts as absolute space and absolute time had been discarded in favor of a mind-boggling space-time fabric in which two events can never be said to be simultaneous. Matter bends space; space directs how matter moves. Light is both a particle and a wave. Energy and mass are inter- changeable. Reality is probabilistic and not deterministic: Einstein didn't believe that God plays dice with the universe, but that became the scientific orthodoxy.

I have installed Google SketchUp, with all the bonus packs. I wonder how long it will take to learn. I've gone through the first video tutorial.






Vista Problem

The recycle bin on the desktop disappeared again.


Blood Sugar

123


Thursday, February 21, 2008

Treadmill

4.08 miles


Willie Nelson: Impeach Bush





Blood Sugar

120


Wednesday, February 20, 2008

AJAX Version of Mathematica Coming

Mathematica
has been long recognized as the world's best computer algebra system.
Stephen Wolfram originally conceived it of more than two decades ago
and since then the program has grown to become an unparalleled platform
for all forms of computing.


Now the O'Reilly School of Technology (OST) is poised to offer
Mathematica in its newest form: called "Hilbert" for the influential
mathematician, the newly licensed software will be browser accessible
and, utilizing AJAX technologies, will emulate the desktop version of
the software with remarkable fidelity.

Say What You Will (Requiem for a TV News Career)

CNN has fired Chez Paziena because of his personal blog.
I say this with the knowledge of implied complicity: I continued to draw a salary from stations at the local level and national networks long after I had noticed an unsettling trend in which real news was being regularly abandoned in favor of, well, crap. I may not have drank the Kool-aid, but I did take the money. I may have been uncomfortable with a lot of what I was putting on the air, but I was comfortable in the life that it provided me. I just figured, screw it, most people don't like their jobs; shut up and do what you're told, or at least try to. Besides, I told myself, what the hell else do you know how to do?
I guess its good I am unemployed.

Treadmill

4.00 miles.


Milky Way is twice the size we thought it was

It took just a couple of hours using data available on the internet for University of Sydney scientists to discover that the Milky Way is twice as wide as previously thought.

Blood Sugar

122


Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker





I finally found this video again, posting it so I do not lose it.


This is the story of an African doo-wop song. Its original title was “Mbube,” (pronounced EEM-boo-beh) which means “Lion,” and it was sung with a haunting Zulu refrain that sounded, to English-speaking people, like “wimoweh.”


Coral

Worlds oldest animal aged to 4000 years


New Research
Leiopathes_glaberrima.jpg

Texas
A&M University researcher Brendan Roark announced last week at
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that age and growth studies of deep-sea gold corals (Geradia sp.) and black corals (Leiopathes glaberrima, pictured left) indicate these animals live between two and four millennia, repectively. Science Magazine covers the story here, the press release is here, and Discover Magazine reports here.

Mysterious Creatures Found in Antarctica

Scientists investigating the icy waters of Antarctica said Tuesday they have collected mysterious creatures including giant sea spiders and huge worms in the murky depths.




Photo 1 of 3

Just how many astroturf groups did tobacco fund?

Thanks to the Tobacco documents we've learned how tobacco companies have secretly funded astroturf organizations like junkscience.com, secretly paid for think tanks to run political campaigns for them, and even created their own astroturf scientific journal. The latest pile of astoturf to be uncovered is detailed in a new paper by Anne Landman, Daniel Cortese and Stanton Glantz:

The anatomy of an illusion -- and what it tells us about the visual system

Go check this illusion out, nice.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Media Player

Media Player froze in the middle of playing a recorded show, again.


Vista Crash

I plugged in some headphones to the front panel jack, and was pleased to find that Vista popped up a message that it detected the headphones. They worked, and the main speakers were cut off. Great.

Its too bad that when I unplugged the headphones the main speakers did not come back on. I decided that my fastest recourse would be to reboot the system, well it was not fast. It seems Vista now takes longer to restart. The pure psychic pain of it.

Its also to bad that it did not work, I still have no sound through the main speakers.

I merged all speaker outputs in CP and now have sound in the main spearkers, not ideal, but it works.

Blood Sugar

125


Treadmill

1.26 miles.






Bill Maher: The Decider


Bill Maher: The Decider Part 1 of 8
Bill Maher: The Decider Part 2 of 8
Bill Maher: The Decider Part 3 of 8
Bill Maher: The Decider Part 4 of 8
Bill Maher: The Decider Part 5 of 8
Bill Maher: The Decider Part 6 of 8
Bill Maher: The Decider Part 7 of 8
Billl Maher: The Decider Part 8 of 8





Bush, Cheney & real Patriot Plame




Karl Rove in a violation of the Hatch act

By Scott Higham and Robert O'Harrow Jr.Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 26, 2007; Page A01
Witnesses have told congressional investigators that the chief of the General Services Administration and a deputy in Karl Rove's political affairs office at the White House joined in a videoconference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, who discussed ways to help Republican candidates.

The Lie of the Texas Miracle

So, the Nation's Report Card for 2005 has just been released.
The most striking thing about the national report card is how it is just total bullshit.
Additionally, the politicians that employ these so-called measures of accountability are cynically exploiting schoolchildren to pad their accomplishments, as was seen in Virginia in the last decade. First you introduce a bullshit test that no one is prepared for. All the results are totally crappy, and the politician who introduced says, "Look at the state of our schools! The previous administration failed Our Children! Blah blah blah!" The next year teachers teach to the test (and/or they weaken the standards) and scores dramatically improve. The politician then says, "It's an education miracle! Look at what my administration did!" Meanwhile, by any meaningful metric of success nothing significant has changed, except the kids have gotten better at taking pointless standardized tests.
This is the source of the so-called "Texas Education Miracle" that Bush used in 2000 to represent himself as a champion of education. In fact, the Texas educational miracle was one of the greater frauds perpetuated against the American people by a state government. Bush's accountability scheme, rather than actually changing anything, focused on pointless measurement and threats of loss of funding rather than real improvement. The result? Texas schools hide their massive dropout rates rather than honestly addressing them. Bush claims a reduction in drop-outs from 40% to 1% in 4 years, but they couldn't hide the data for long. An independent study of graduation rates by the conservative Manhattan Institute found the real graduation rate in Texas is somewhere between 57-67%. Real success in education usually takes a decade to appear, and any claim to the contrary should be immediately suspect.
Check out this map of a real metric of educational success. The lesson? Try to educate your kids in the hard-core red states and there is a high probability they will never graduate.


Also see: Michael
Dobbs, Education Miracle Has a Math Problem:Bush Critics Cite Disputed Houston Data, The Washington Post, November 8, 2003.

And Dan Rather, The Texas Miracle™, 60 Minutes II, August 25th, 2004.
posted by Rev. Dr. at 8:41 PM, permalink,




60 Minutes II Investigates Claims That Houston Schools Falsified Dropout Rates

All in all, 463 kids left Sharpstown High School that year, for a variety of reasons. The school reported zero dropouts, but dozens of the students did just that. School officials hid that fact by classifying, or coding, them as leaving for acceptable reasons: transferring to another school, or returning to their native country.

“That’s how you get to zero dropouts. By assigning codes that say, ‘Well, this student, you know, went to another school. He did this or that.’ And basically, all 463 students disappeared. And the school reported zero dropouts for the year,” says Kimball. “They were not counted as dropouts, so the school had an outstanding record.”

Sharpstown High wasn’t the only “outstanding” school. The Houston school district reported a citywide dropout rate of 1.5 percent. But educators and experts 60 Minutes checked with put Houston’s true dropout rate somewhere between 25 and 50 percent.

“But the teachers didn’t believe it. They knew it was cooking the books. They told me that. Parents told me that,” says Kimball. “The superintendent of schools would make the public believe it was one school. But it is in the system, it is in all of Houston.”

Those low dropout rates – in Houston and all of Texas - were one of the accomplishments then-Texas Gov. George Bush cited when he campaigned to become the “Education President.”

A Million Texas Children between 1996-3003 Did Not Graduate

"In 2001-02, Texas schools enrolled 364,270 freshmen – and 225,756 seniors. The state's official annual dropout rate: 1 percent." (Source: The Dallas Morning News - August 31, 2003)


Hundreds of thousands of Texas students never made it to graduation from their high schools in the past seven years, but the reported dropout rates of many Texas school districts came through in small single digits.

A miracle? Hardly. More like a disgrace, a statistical sleight of hand that does more to cover up failure than demonstrate success.

The Texas ATTRITION RATE (on the right) provides a far more revealing (and harsh) portrait of what actually happens to many Texas students.

Where are those thousands of children today? Were they simply LEFT BEHIND? Discarded? Many were lost, forgotten, neglected and in some cases even PUSHED OUT. Push out the weak students and you will see test scores skyrocket.

If you were running for President or Secretary of Education, which number would make you look better, the dropout rate or the attrition rate?



Enrollments for the Houston ISD in 2001-2002

Source: The Dallas Morning News - August 31, 2003

Vista Crash

Vista crashed, I had to do a hard reboot, two programs were open, Firefox and Freecell, Firefox was minimized and freecell was open. Freecell locked up completely, I had no response from the keyboard or the mouse. Waited about five minutes and still had no response. I was also unable to switch to Firefox via the keyboard. What can I say Vista is just crap.


Saturday, February 16, 2008

Vista Problem

Vista keeps reporting that Miro has crashed but its working just fine.


Media Player

Media Player still does not work. It seems its OK until I try to fast forward after that it just is unable to play.


Vista Update

Vista installed some updates, it took forever for my system to come back. Still have not tried Media Player.


Vista Problem

Tried to watch a recorded TV show today, Vista was unable to play it without locking up. I have shut down Media Player and will retry. Restating Media Player did not work, I had the same problem with a different show. I will try rebooting.


Friday, February 15, 2008

"Genius" Chimp Outsmarts Tube




Failure of No Child Left Behind

ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2008)

A new study by researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas-Austin finds that Texas' public school accountability system, the model for the national No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), directly contributes to lower graduation rates. Each year Texas public high schools lose at least 135,000 youth prior to graduation -- a disproportionate number of whom are African-American, Latino and English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students.

...60 percent of African-American students, 75 percent of Latino students and 80 percent of ESL students did not graduate
...The discrepancy between the official dropout rates, in the 2 to 3 percent range, and the actual rates can be attributed to the state's method of counting...
The study has been published in the peer-reviewed policy journal "Educational Policy Analysis Archives"

US military accused of harboring fundamentalism

...Hall was confronted by a major for holding an authorized meeting of "atheists and freethinkers" on his base. The officer threatened to discipline him and block his re-enlistment. "He said: 'You guys are being a problem and problems can be removed,'...

A campaign group, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, is waiting for the Pentagon to respond to a lawsuit filed in a Kansas federal court on Hall's behalf.
It alleges a "pernicious pattern and practice" of infringement of religious liberties in the military. The group's founder, former Air Force lawyer Mikey Weinstein, said he has documented 6,800 testimonies by military personnel -- nearly all of them Christians -- of sometimes punitive or humiliating attempts to make them accept a fundamentalist evangelical interpretation of Christianity.

"It violates title seven of the US code for an employer to push their Biblical world view on an employee," he said. "But it's a trillion times worse when that is not just your shift manager at Starbucks but that is your military superior."

He singles out one of the major Christian groups in the military, the Officers Christian Fellowship (OCF).

"The joint standards of conduct for the Armed Forces and military equal
opportunity policies address the freedom of religion, avoiding
discrimination because of religion."

But Weinstein argued that most personnel are "too terrified" to speak out.

"When you actually fight against them, they make your life hell," said
Hall, adding he has been passed over for promotion since launching his
lawsuit. "I can't get a leg up no matter what I do."

A former military chaplain of a prestigious US military college reported being
prevented from leading worship after disagreeing with the fundamentalist stance of other officials.

"I am not ready to say that if someone does not profess Christ as their savior that they are going to hell ... That got a lot of people angered,"...

Knol

"The first page is the main page of a portal; the second page is where the search results are; the third page is what you click on when you decide where to go. Google already owns the first and second page, but since they don't own content, they have no control over the third page.

Treadmill

1.0 miles. I've been out of town for a week, so I have not used the treadmill. Its amazing how fast I get out of shape. I did just one mile and I am pooped.


Thursday, February 14, 2008

Looks like Robertson Prediction of 'Mass Killing' was wrong.

Pat Robertson predicted ... that a terrorist attack on the United States would result in "mass killing" late in 2007.
"I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during
his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian
Broadcasting Network. "The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it
will be something like that."
Robertson said God told him
during a recent prayer retreat that major cities and possibly millions
of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place
sometime after September.

Vista Crash

Windows Explorer crashed.


Vista Problems

I closed Window Media Player over two hours ago, its still playing.


Vista Crash

Windows Explorer crashed.


Vista Problems

Vista is just plain weird, I had just used the recycle bin, then a few minutes later the recycle bin was gone. I had to go into desktop properties to get it back.


Titan’s organics surpass oil reserves on Earth

Saturn’s orange moon Titan has hundreds of times
more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas
reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain
from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Open DNS


Free yourself of DNS-related Internet outages with our zero-downtime global network. Eliminate DNS as a problem source on your
network. Using OpenDNS means fewer support calls and headaches, letting you focus on more important issues.

Vista Crash

Just had a complete system lockup, I had to do a hard reboot.


Saturday, February 09, 2008

Vista Crash

I ended up having to do a hard reboot, the system locked up on me when I tried to restart. I think I am going to have to try another OS. Vista is just too horrible, its too slow and unreliable. It's also full of crap I don't need or want.


Vista Crash

I tried closing Media Center using Task Manager and was unable to do so, looks like I will need to reboot.


Vista Crash

I bought a set of DVD's; its the first time I've used the DVD player in this HP Windows Media System. Well it has been unable to play a single DVD without problems and right now Windows Media Center is completely locked up. It won't respond at all.


Thursday, February 07, 2008

Vista Crash


Windows Explorer crashed.


Vista Crashes

In the last couple of hours Windows Media Center messed up twice. Windows Explorer crashed twice. Something thats never happened before I tried closing Windows Explorer when it was the only open window and it took over 10 seconds to close.


Indiana Almost Legislated Pi

The Indiana Pi Bill, 1897


This is Indiana House Bill No. 246, 1897,
known as the Indiana pi bill. Towards the end of section 2 it says plainly that "The ratio of the diameter and circumference is as five-fourths
to four
," which means pi is 3.2. The section goes on the
criticize (ungenerously, I'd say) past values of pi as "wholly wanting and misleading."

Click here to
return to "Indiana Pi."



ENGROSSED HOUSE BILL No. 246


A Bill for an act introducing a new mathematical truth and offered
as a contribution to education to be used only by the State of Indiana
free of cost by paying any royalties whatever on the same, provided it
is accepted and adopted
by the official action of the Legislature of 1897.

Homemade key unlocks Diebold voting machine




Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Quote Mined

Reality ... is biased against religion, and science is merely the study of Reality.
Dan|February 5, 2008 2:18 PM

Monday, February 04, 2008

Vista is Slow

I just opened Windows Media Player, and was scrolling down the list of programs in the Guide, when is just stopped responding. It took over a minute before it came back online. No other programs were open.


White House Opposes Surveillance... Of Its Own Surveillance Policy

Since it was formed in 2004, on the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has been blasted by civil libertarians
as a tool of the administration, more interested in whitewashing War on
Terror–related privacy violations than serving as a genuine check on
government intrusion. One of the board's five members even resigned in protest,
citing among other things "the vast array of alphabet soup agencies and
bureaucracies in the national security apparatus" that sought "to control and modify the Board's public utterances."
So last year, Congress sought to give the board greater autonomy by
moving it out from under the aegis of the White House and
reconstituting itself as an independent boad within the executive
branch. The response of the White House, Wired reports, has been to drag its feet in appointing a new board -- meaning there is no one on the board as of January 30th -- prompting bipartisan criticism from top members of the Senate's Homeland Security Committee.



The board's second annual report
(pdf), released late last month, does not exactly inspire confidence in
its assiduousness as a privacy watchdog -- even when staffed. After
touting its excellent working relationship with the White House, it
moves to a "nothing to see here" review of the post-9/11 use of the
material witness statute (MWS) as a detention tool. Aside from one
"terrible mistake," the report asserts the board "was not made aware of
specific problems with the use of the MWS in the anti-terrorism
context" and cites a claim by the Justice Department that "on only nine
occasions since the attacks of September 11, 2001 has the MWS been used
in terrorist-related investigations." That is hard to square with the
findings of a joint report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union,
which found some 70 instances of 9/11-related detention, though the
discrepancy may be explained by the frequent use of immigration
violations as a pretext for detentions that were actually related to
terror investigations.

Vista Crash

Windows explorer crashed twice before I could get this message written.


Feb. '03: Janeane Garofalo vs Fox's Brian Kilmeade




Blood Sugar

162, damn what did I do, thats bad.






Sunday, February 03, 2008

Vista Crash

Windows explorer crashed again.


Vista Crash

Windows explorer crashed again. It was slow coming up.


Treadmill

2.90 miles


Flight of the Conchords- Business Time




Saturday, February 02, 2008

Vista is Slow

Media Center, I am having problems with playing a recorded show. I know the show is OK because if I restart it, it will play the part that messed up before just fine, but then another part of the show will mess up. I restarted Vista, and closed all other programs, and still have problems.


Vista Crash

Vista completely locked up, I had to restart. I lost the last part of the show that was being recored.


Vista is Slow

Tried to watch a recored show, it could not play, the sound was not understandable, and the video was jerky. This is one of HP's media center PC's, and it did not work.


Sister

I justed called Rose, she did not answer so I called Mary. Rose lost her phone, she has a new one. They are doing the garage sale this week. I'll visit next week.


Vista is Slow

I really, really hate Vista, its just so slow; sometimes it will not even keep up with my typing, and I don't mean fast typing, I mean type one letter wait, type another, wait. But is just not consistent, sometimes it works, other times no, I really hate Vista.


Blood Sugar

108


Friday, February 01, 2008

Vista is Slow

This time it was Freecell, it locked up for a good 20 seconds.


Edward A. Villarreal. Powered by Blogger.

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