Month: November 2007

Mac Rumors post generated drool

Assuming Apple doesn’t blast the prices on the Mac Pro given the current prices reflect 2006 prices for 2006 technology, I will soon need to re-evaluate my tolerance for buying on credit. I haven’t purchased a computer since January of 2006 and no PC tower of any sort since November of 2001. The drool-inducing factor of a Mac Pro able to address 16GB of RAM and 1+ TB of hard drive space, all with 4 – 8 processor cores and big improvements on the motherboard (look at that FSB!) is too much to resist. It’s the kind of machine that, if properly maintained and upgraded as time goes by, could prove useful for well into the next decade.

What could spark such a post?

Mac Rumors: Intel Announces 45-nm Penryn Processors

Ubuntu Oddity

I’ve been using Ubuntu server edition for my end-of-lifecycle PC turned headless web/file server for the past year and change. For the most part I like it. What you lose in hardware-specific tuning in Gentoo you generally more than make up for in easy of install and use. I rather like Gentoo’s portage and have since come to appreciate the utility of apt-get. What I don’t like, however, is Unbuntu / Debian’s insistence on renaming popular modules in what I would assume is some misguided attempt at making the whole OS human readable.

For example, I spent an unreasonable amount of time yesterday hunting for PyXML, a bog-standard and widely used 3rd party Python module. It wasn’t until I finally decided to step outside the apt-get process and install myself from source that I found a reference indicating that PyXML is actually referred to as python-xml in Ubuntu.

In the grand scheme of things, it rates a meh. Still, there is always a small window of opportunity for programming projects on the weekend and the more time I have to spend configging my environment, the less time and energy I have for doing what it is I want. If you’re going to fudge with the package names, please include a thesaurus.

That is all.

Recursively yours,

So I added this blog to my Facebook profile. So now this entry will notify everyone who reads this blog that I have a Facebook profile. Then again, this entry will also notify everyone on Facebook that I’ve notified everyone on Facebook that I have a blog. I should see if WordPress has a widget that allows me to post all of my news and wall content from Facebook here. Seems I might be able to set up a perpetual motion machine of sorts. Reminds me of this:

  1. Create Facebook profile
  2. Create blog
  3. Link the two
  4. ????
  5. PROFIT!!!!!

Which, if you’re not an avid MeFi reader, you may not recognize as an inside joke dressed up as a meme.

Hyperwords Project

Is it Web 2 3.0? Is it just a jumble of Firefox extensions? Is it useful?

I’m not exactly sure. Still, the Hyperwords project is fascinating to me. It’s a Firefox extension that basically shortcuts a wide variety of search engines and other knowledge expansion tools. It also lets you work with the page or pages open in your browser in myriad ways. I have really only just started playing with it but have had some fun with it so far. See for yourself by watching the introductory video.

I can say that it dramatically reworks your context menu. This currently frustrates me but I’m willing to see if the frustration dissipates in the long term as the functionality proves its mettle.

Fortyone Has a Site

Staple of the Millionaire’s Holiday and still a regular in my daily listening, Fortyone combines off-the-wall samples with an exquisite sense of rhythm to produce delectable party treats. Perfect for an afternoon frolic or a late night mind bender, Fortyone’s audio efforts are truly worth your time. And now, it would appear, he has a site on teh intartubes.

There’s free stuff there, yo!

More Economy Fun

Buried in a MeFi thread was a link to Peter Schiff‘s latest essay on the US economy. If what he writes is true, then we are quite possibly way more fscked than previously believed.

Yes, Mr. Schiff is notorious for his bearish views on the US economy. However, he lays out how the government is fudging GDP in order to amplify any positive trends coming out of 3Q data. Basically, they’re acting as if there is no inflation (where commodity prices would strongly indicate the opposite). For 2Q they used an annualized inflation rate of 3.6% which is pretty league average while they used 0.8% for 3Q. This despite the fed cranking out dollars as fast as they can print them, the problems with credit, and the tanking dollar relative to other currencies.

I think this is another data point in the call for a new Constitutional Convention and revamping of the US government. You should note, Mr. / Mrs. Government Agent, that I did not call for an armed insurrection. Merely for a peaceful rethinking of our system of government. IOW, please do not lock me up for thinking critically.

An Extra Hour

Probably my favorite day of the year…the day we get the extra hour moving from Daylight Saving to Standard time. Oh yeah!

So I spent the extra hour revamping the blog a bit. While I was high on the blue background with wacky box thingers and on involving the dogs for some reason, I like this theme a bit better. I think I’ll mute it a bit more—the background color on the posts kind of screw with the Zen I had in mind. Still, I think we’re in a place where we’re mostly open for business. There’s still the per-category stuff to go over and translating the whole look and feel of The Millionaire’s Holiday site into the WordPress universe.