Jesus Christ Superstar

Jesus H. Christ, this thing rocked!

Lock up the paint thinner? Why?

My neighbors have plutonium in their barn.

Never mind.

When is a GUI not a GUI?

When it's Robocopy GUI.

I was a running some experiments with the uber-useful Robocopy windows robust copy command, and I found a GUI front end for it.

Or so I thought.

If you are going to build a GUI for a command line utility, a crapload of checkboxes for the command line switches accomplishes absolutely nothing. Spell out the options for chrissakes.

Bush's "Long War"

That's it.

We're are living 1984.

It's one thing to actually be in a perpetual state of war to justify stomping on civil liberties, expansion of power and excessive spending etc.

But to be in a self-acknowledged war with no end in sight and give a new Proper Noun Name to the war makes me wonder if the Bush administration isn't actually using 1984 for their playbook.

I am not the only one picking up on this.

"Executive Secrecy is Job One"

at the law firm of Gonzales, Watchu, and Howe.


(flash animation)

Dick's Got a Gun

Well, the Daily Show's got a pretty funny take on Cheney's hunting accident (it would have been funnier if they didn't change "birdshot" to "buckshot")

But this is better.



Or wait, I think these might be better.

iTunes + Quicktime - iTunes = Quicktime

Dear Apple,

Why must I install iTunes + Quicktime and then remove iTunes to get the quicktime player only?

Do you hate me?

rob

Arnold and Jesse

I was reading the Top Ten Sci-fi Films that Never Existed, and I saw this scary quote.

"Then again, when I was watching Predator I didn't think two members of its cast would become governors, either."

Poor Carl Weathers. He's just the butt-end of jokes on Arrested Development.

Only on the internet...

Can you find a video of a drag queen playing the banjo and singing Cindy Lauper.

How not to Buy a Dell

[So long as sites like The Consumerist insist on silly closed comments system, I figure their posts are fair game in my own blog.]

Consumerist.com parrots posts some "tips" from Dealhack about buying a Dell. Several of the tips are not good.

On average I buy one Dell a week, and I advise people on their private purchases just as often. My own purchases are for work but they have the same motivation as a private purchase: most bang for buck.

"1. Buy one step below top-of-the-line."

Misleading. Buy at the price/performance "sweet spot" that you can afford (see the backward #2 tip below). "Just below" the top of the line may not be a good deal at all and you may pay for features you don't need. One thing's for sure, don't buy the absolute top-of-the-line, ever.
"2. Decide your needs before you configure."

Backwards. Decide your budget, which will dictate what you can buy. If it doesn't meet your needs, raise your budget. If you try to pick a system based on needs, you're going to find systems all over the price range that either just fall short of your needs, meet them or slightly exceed them, yet the price range across these systems is substantial.
"3. Make the best use of coupon codes."

Yup, if you can. Be wary though -- sometimes these don't work. It can also take a long time of monitoring coupon sites before you find a good deal.

"4. Buy and install additional memory yourself."

This does save a lot of money, but it gives Dell an excellent target if you ever get in to a hassle over weird problems with your computer. Memory issues are very frustrating to diagnose. Using 3rd party RAM gives Dell support a plausible explanation (an "out" of the support, if you will) for weird hardware problems that may or may not be RAM-related. If every component on the motherboard comes from Dell under the same warranty, it does not matter what is causing the problem -- Dell needs to fix it.
So buy 3rd party RAM to save money, but expect to take it out before calling Dell about a problem. Better yet, buy 3rd party RAM to upgrade your system after it's out of warranty.

5. Buy online, not over the phone.

Only if you are comfortable with using computers. Many folks buying Dells are not experienced computer users.

So here's the revised set of buying tips.

1. Pick a budget first.
2. Expect the shopping experience to take weeks or months if you want a good deal.
3. Pay the extra money for a good three year warranty. If you can afford Complete Care for your laptop, get it as well.
4. Don't buy the extra junk they offer to sell you in addition to your laptop like software, UPS, carrying cases, etc. Get those separate, and be sure to budget for them.
5. Look at Macs before buying a Dell

Bizarro Brewery: Where "fresh beer" is not always better

I read and re-read this article very carefully, and it is fundamentally misusing the word "fresh" in the context of beer.

"Fresh beer" is beer that is already at its prime and has been handled and stored properly. This is always better than the same beer that's been in the bottle. If for no other reason than most bottled beer has had more exposure to oxygen.

With a few notable exceptions, the "aging" of beer doesn't occur in the bottle, since the most of the beer aging is a complex result of microbial and chemical reactions, and there are no microbial reactions in macro-brewed beer, which is almost always pasteurized.

Shame on the Consumerist for perpetuating this misleading article as well. Usually they have great posts. This one stinks (skunky?)

Update:

Rob,

you are right of course, when it comes to pasteurized beer. It was a distinction that I failed make in the post.

I have posted again on the subject, and would love your opinion on what I wrote. It should be the top post on accidental hedonist.

-Kate

NPR news teaser chuckle

Pretty much word-for-word from Morning Edition today:

"Angry Muslims torched a Danish mission and ransacked a Christian neighborhood in protest over cartoons that depict the Prophet Muhammad as violent."

Gridirony

I had much better things to do than watch the Superbowl. I do tend to like the commercials though. If the level of creativity shown in the Superbowl commercials appeared in most commmercials, I might not even use a tivo.

I go to the google video compilation of Superbowl commercials and the first ones I watch were not show on television.

So not only did I not watch the Superbowl, I first watched only the Superbowl commercials not shown during the Superbowl.

Bring on the board games and pizza

I built my niece a child-sized oak table for Christmas. Didn't turn out half bad.





It was made from rough sawn white oak, based on a plan I found in Popular Mechanics (it's not available online). The original inspiration came from a Pottery Barn kids catalog.

It's built with mortise and tenon joinery, lightly stained (I believe it's honey pine stain) and finished with a couple of coats of polyurethane. There are no exposed mechanical fasteners, and the only fasteners at all are the table top and seat clips underneath the table and chairs. Ideally this would let the table top be replaced if necessary.

I had to get this from Kansas to South Carolina in a cost-effective manner, so I took it out with me on the plain mostly finished and assembled it shortly after Christmas (with some help from the family).