Tools (and other magic things)

What I learned from Tim (88E30M50 on the INGO board)...
EVERY Kimber Ultra should come with one of these gadgets.
Yes, indeedy.

 

 

Lurve. Lurve lurve lurve!

All the bells and whistles and bling bling bling!!
Come to mama!!
Meet my new LG enV2
Yesss.
I lurve it hard.

Bonus: finally with the same provider as most of my family and friends.
Free lurve, baby. Free. Lurve.

Bragging in the 21st Century

When my daughter was born, my mom (who lives over a thousand miles away) immediately bought a brag book to fill it with baby pictures. I pity the person who sits next to her on a plane because all it takes is a whiff of interest or the word "grandkid" and she whips out that portable photo album like a ninja with a shuriken. Even now; almost 16 years later.

She often has company in her house, and by "often" I mean just about every day and sometimes people stay for days/weeks/months as they just can't turn away a person in need.
She doesn't have a ton of space on her walls for photos, but what she does have, she likes to keep current and show off her only granddaughter.

Enter: my brilliant idea for her birthday gift.
We got her this digital photo frame:


There's almost nothing to using it, which is great because she's not really into learning a bunch of techie stuff.
All you do is pop in your SD card and it will show everything on it however you decide to view it. You can have groups of thumbnails, you can zoom, you can set it to stay on one photo, or you can create a slide show...and you can do all of this from a little remote control that's about the size of an iPod Nano.
You can transfer stuff directly from your pc, if you'd like...but I'm keeping it as simple as I can to tell her how to use it so she doesn't get frustrated with it.
...And that would be: Take the card out of your camera, pop it into the side of the frame, and click "auto play" on the remote control.
I think she's gonna like it!

'Scuze me...

So JL hooked me up with a snazzy microphone and now I can bug people on my friends list in messenger with my annoying voice.
You KNOW it's my new favorite toy. My favorite part is "calling" people so I can burp at them.
Yeah, it's juvenile and unladylike... but that's just how I roll.

Caution: High Voltage

In 1974, a NASA scientist named Jack Cover invented the first stun gun, which he named the TASER, or "Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle," after Tom Swift, a fictional young inventor who was the hero of a series of adventure novels. Because it relied on gunpowder, the BATF classified Tasers as registered firearms. When Tasers were re-engineered to work with a nitrogen propellant rather than gunpowder in the early 1990’s, the weapon was no longer categorized as a firearm.
Unfortunately, Tasers are being used as a first resort for reasonable force.
Is 50,000 volts across your heart reasonable force? Is death reasonable force?

News and police reports indicate there have been over 260 Taser related deaths since July 2001.
According to video, some Tasers don’t even seem to operate like the manufacturers claim they do. This is an indication that they most likely haven’t been adequately tested. Yet they are continually put in the hands of police before what they do, or what the long term effects will be, is known.
Taser incidents are increasingly involving frail or mentally ill people and psychiatric patients.
On July 3, police used a Taser to subdue an unruly juvenile patient at Brattleboro Retreat, a psychiatric facility. Neither the hospital nor police would give more detail about the incident.
In the spring of 2003, 17-year-old Roger Holyfield had gone through a very difficult period after his father had committed suicide. Roger had been taking an anti-depressant medication, which created adverse psychiatric side effects, which led to additional prescriptions to deal with the side effects. On the eve of being baptized, he was going through something induced by these medications and an eyewitness said he had been on a sidewalk calling "I want my Mama, Jesus," holding a Bible in one hand and a cordless phone in the other and asking for God's help. He did not pose a threat to anyone including himself, yet a local policeman engaged him. Rather than alleviate the situation, they created a conflict. Before the conflict was over, some 7 police officers had become involved in the altercation. Roger Holyfield's calling on God was certainly not illegal or criminal in any way and did not warrant any action by the police. According to the eyewitness, an officer who recognized Holyfield, had said, "Take it easy, he's sick," Another said, "Let's fry the mother****er." and was the one who delivered the Tasering. Police beat and Tasered him repeatedly. After he had been Tasered 6 times, he vomited at the scene and his heart had stopped.
There are no national standards for training; each police agency defines its own training requirements in accordance with the laws in that state.
Is the issue whether the level of force being used is appropriate for arresting somebody? The Fourth Amendment protects you from unreasonable seizures, which means police can’t use excessive force when they’re taking you into custody.
I suppose no one told officers that when they encountered Fouad Kaady on September 8, 2005. Kaady had been in a car accident that left him covered in blood from cuts, and burned over most of his body. When police reached him, he was disoriented and in a catatonic state, sitting on the side of the road in shock. They shouted an order to him (to lie on the pavement), but in his state of shock and with the loss of massive amounts of blood, he didn’t comply. He just sat there with his hands in his lap and his head bowed. Rather than calling for medical help even though they could see he was badly burned, and even though they could tell he was in shock and unarmed, they tasered him repeatedly for not complying. Then they shot him to death. Justifiable? You decide.

Stem Cell Research

Embryonic stem cell research seems to require the destruction of the human embryo. However, recent theory suggests that embryonic stem cell lines can be generated using a sort of biopsy similar to that used in preimplantations that could allow stem cell creation without destroying the embryo.
Opponents of this research argue that embryonic stem cell technologies are a slippery slope to cloning humans which would fundamentally devalue human life. They argue that a human embryo is a human life and is therefore entitled to protection.
Contrarily, supporters of the research argue that resultant treatments of research could have significant medical potential. They maintain that excess embryos created for in vitro procedures could be donated with consent and used for the research.
My feelings about this have ranged from both sides at different points of my life, but mostly I still ride the fence.
On one hand I understand that life is life and I’m of the opinion that it begins at conception, which warrants protection of sorts.
On the other hand I understand when embryos are no longer wanted, they are thrown in the trash. How protected is that?
I’m coming to terms with myself about this after quite a few long arguments with myself. I think that if the “parents” of these embryos relinquish their claim (or even donate them to research) and the funding is from private sources, I’d be inclined toward supporting the studies. This is an incredibly hard resolution for me to come to because I liken it to a parent abandoning a child to someone who will destroy them. The more I write, the higher I climb back up to the top of the fence to sit.
At any rate, here’s Michael J. Fox on the issue:

Hippy Net?

In January 2007 a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine. The creators of Blackle cite the US Department of Energy's Energy Star information page which states that a monitor displaying white uses 74 watts, while a monitor displaying black uses 59 watts.
Wikipedia says since it is not owned by Google Inc., the Blackle site lacks many of the features of conventional Google, including the 'Cached' and 'Similar Pages' options, and it does not have as many of the corresponding links that can be found on the Google homepage.
According to Treehugger.com, Blackle’s homepage at May 7th's publication time of this year, a total of 4,408.917 Watt hours have been saved.

Test for yourself: Blackle.com

Edited per reader demand :)

Let me show you

A member of a discussion forum that I frequent was struggling with doing some text acrobatics and was having a little difficulty trying to figure it out. Since I frequently do the exact thing that he wanted to know about, he asked me how I do it. Within the span of an evening and several communications back and forth, I was typing out informal instructions and apparently frustrating him because I wasn’t able to clearly convey what I was doing.
I told him that it would be so much simpler if I could just take two minutes and show him what I meant instead of trying to explain it in ever lengthening text that was even starting to look like gibberish to me.
Then the brilliant idea hit me. I could show him how!
I grabbed the digital camera and set it to “video” and opened up that message board on my pc.
It was perfect. Did I say it would take two minutes? Two minutes and 45 seconds of recording an impromptu posting lesson… and I sent it to him. Within the next few minutes after that he was implementing what I was trying so hard (and failing miserably) to express.
Chalk another one up for technology!

T2

No, not the Terminator.
Technology part 2:
I recently received an email from my MySpace account alerting me that someone wanted to add me to their "friends list". Having the suspicious nature that I do and not recognizing the picture of the person making the request, I did the usual. I always send a message first asking "what for?" Sometimes there's no response (which means spam of some sort to me). Then there are the "u r hawt" pervs that just get sent to the cyber black hole. Once in awhile there's a plea to put an advertisement banner on my page.
But the response I got this time just about floored me.
It was a high school classmate from 20*cough*something years ago. Holy Moly.
Of course I had to go get the yearbooks out and pour over them and read what she wrote, etc.
The internet. Bringing nostalgia to a desk top near you.

Technology

Cell Phones: use # 8,529
Driving home today, I saw a little blue pick up truck going down the highway ahead of a few vehicles in front of me. Upon nearing a stop, I could tell that the right brake light was out.
Not to worry... I flipped open my phone and hit a stored speed dial number!
"Dude! You have a tail light out!" :D
Love my small town! Yep, I do.