Month: November 2006

bad ideas, refreshed but no better this time

Reagan-era baristas ready to serve:

For all the world, it could be November 1986—a doddering, lame-duck president who will duck impeachment by making nice to Congress, a man in Nicaragua the Bushies just don’t like, a quiet Republican poised to take the helm of an agency worn to ruin by a too-secretive predecessor, an Iran in the offing, getting stronger and bolder daily, despite previous foot-stompings. Who said that when we are condemned to repeat history, it comes to us the second time as farce?

Often cited as Marx, but he claims Hegel was the originator.[*]

So this is progress. We are recycling Reagan-era cronies, the Mideast and Central America are still regarded as sandboxes to meddle in.

links for 2006-11-09

recommendations?

Anyone care to recommend a reliable brand of hard drive? Failing that, do I really want to have to replace a drive every year? I have now possibly (the data still seems to be there, just the directory is jumbled) lost two drives, both made by Maxtor in the past 6 months. Given that I have another that has been in service for i-dunno-how-many in a different machine, I’m thinking it’s not so much the drive as possible how it’s attached. The troubled ones (one is just mechanically dead) were both in external FireWire enclosures. Once I lost the first and suspected overheating, the other has been in an open enclosure. The room is cool, like mid 6os, so I doubt that’s an issue.

A real downside to FireWire enclosures is that you don’t get any SMART monitoring, as you on internal drives. That might have saved me. Alas.

I have to get something, if for no other purpose than to copy all the restored stuff onto. But that drive has been holding backups in a quick and dirty rsync-based arrangement and I’m sure I want to retain the ability to do that going forward.

So do I keep faith in Maxtor? Do I try another brand?

Continue reading “recommendations?”

one more vote to cast

See the poll in the sidebar, and cast your ballot:

It’s morning in America: do we impeach Bush/Cheney?

I’m curious about this. It’s legal, moral, ethical, but is it the right thing to do? Can we get things sorted out without the national nightmare of an impeachment or is it the Right Thing to Do? I don’t know myself. I guess I would need to see how “bipartisan” things get. My suspicion that the VP’s job might turn over soon, and the person who takes that on might make it more or less desirable.

Comments?

would that this were more widely held

Looking for something else, I found this.

NPR : The People Have Spoken:

I believe in the politics […] that teaches us all we owe to those who came before us and those who will come after. That each of us has drunk from wells we did not dig; that each of us has been warmed by fires we did not build.

Continue reading “would that this were more widely held”

blood for its own sake

This letter was in today’s toledoblade.com letters page:

Democrats have tried to block every attempt that this administration has made to defend and protect this country They have done nothing but complain and point fingers, all the while praying for our defeat in Iraq because they believe that would somehow make them stronger as a party if the current administration were defeated in battle.

It doesn’t seem to matter to them what the consequences of their actions would be by handing the enemy a victory, apparently just to make George Bush look bad. People need to really think about what a Democratic “surrender” to Islamic terrorists would mean.
The Democrats spend more time and energy trashing their own country than working to defeat this global threat. I do believe the United States has made a huge mistake in Iraq.
I would have done things World War II style. When the uprising in Fallujah occurred, I would have leveled the city. Every living being in that rat hole would have been extinguished. I would have marched through that country like a biblical creeping death, waving the stars and stripes. I would have zero mercy or tolerance for the enemy. I would fight like I mean it, and fight to win. This war would be over and gasoline would be 29 cents a gallon.
That is why the United States was both feared and respected after World War II. We were ruthless in combat and we pulled no punches. We devastated the enemy every place we found him. We as a nation have become soft and the world knows it. We may have the best military in the world, but the politicians and left-wing nuts won’t let us use it.

My guess is the writer missed this series in the very same paper:

Three decades after an Army platoon repeatedly executed unarmed civilians and prisoners in Vietnam, a military lawyer has recommended the unit’s former commander be brought up on a war-crime charge.

I mean, you’d think he would mention it, maybe even hold it up as an example of the Way Things Should Be Done.

this is what I was waiting for

Apple Unveils New MacBook With Intel Core 2 Duo Processors:

Apple today unveiled its new line of MacBook consumer notebooks that now include Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Just one inch thin, the new MacBooks are up to 25% faster than the previous generation and feature a built-in iSight video camera, the MagSafe Power Adapter, and iLife ’06.

And I didn’t realized they came in a smaller size than 15 inches: 13 is close enough, as I really like my 12 inch iBook’s size. Now to try and scare up the funds by January when Leopard ships . . .

this would have useful a week ago

Week One:

The keys to thriving in Week One are straightforward:

1) Surge early. To be on par for the month, you should be writing 1667 words per day. In Week One, try to get 2000 or 2500 a day, and beg, borrow, and steal as much of the first weekend as possible to write. You won’t need to keep up this pace throughout the month, but nothing guarantees a NaNoWriMo victory (and a fun month) like opening up a hefty lead in the first week.

Well, yeah, we can all do the math, but if you’re going to advise to “surge early” it might help to share that at the beginning of the week. I actually didn’t open up a “big lead” last year and I’m just staying on track this year. Granted my schedule is pretty flexible, but it’s not mandatory that you pile up a high count in the first week.

What I have learned from two prior attempts at this is that planning helps. You can’t blame your tools if you fail, but choosing tools or an environment that enable you to focus without distractions. For me, the addition of WriteRoom[links] to my environment has made all the difference. It blocks out everything: no email, no hot-and-heavy election returns, no nuthin’ Just you and the equivalent of a white page.

Picking a tool (ie an editor/wordprocessor) that doesn’t allow you to mess with fonts and styles is a Good Thing. You just get the words out and let the rest take care of itself, preferably in December. It really has made this a lot easier and allowed me to focus on the stuff that matters, ie not how it looks.