Ubuntu is OK!

I dig running Ubuntu in a virtual machine under VMware.

I'm only asking because I really wonder..

Quite a bit of insulin for human injection is derived from pigs. How does that fly in the Muslim and Jewish communities? Is there such a thing as "Kosher Insulin?" Do Kosher rules apply to medications?

Interesting

Office for OS X icons on the top, Hebrew characters on the bottom

The iPhone plays videos upside down

I would have preferred the default landscape view of the iPhone to be inverted 180 degrees. Why? If you set the iPhone down while a movie is playing it rests on the volume controls.

That is all.

Macbook Air

The Macbook Air needs to be upped to 4 gigs of RAM. Upgrading the RAM would make the Air a far more compelling competitor to the Macbook Pro, in my humble opinion. Your mileage may vary.

Fast, Cheap and Out of Control

Fast, Cheap and Out of Control via Netflix Streaming.

This was the most compelling documentary I've watched, well, ever. It's a series of interviews of a topiary artist, naked mole rat researcher, robotics engineer and lion trainer intermixed with old movie, cartoon, circus and other footage.

Sounds boring, doesn't it? It's not. Give this movie a try, I think you'll like it. You can stream it live from Netflix. The netflix summary:

Acclaimed filmmaker Errol Morris paints a fascinating portrait of four obsessed eccentrics in Fast, Cheap and Out of Control. Morris weaves interviews with a wild animal trainer, a topiary gardener, a robot designer and an expert on the naked mole rat together with old movies, cartoons and stock footage, creating a compelling, kaleidoscopic look at the very thin line that separates madness from genius.

I need to lose some more weight

I was arguing with a workmate earlier today about reduction in carbon footprints when I realized that if I'm going to advocate using less resources it does not help my argument that I look like I'm eating my way though the entire scientific catalog of flora and fauna twice a month.

Education

At the start of the week I was fairly certain that my next educational step was known. Today I'm thinking of going in a different educational direction. But either way I'm essentially going to back to school in once sense or another.

Sports Illustrated gets it wrong

SI ran an on-line slide show of famous two sport athletes but fails to mention North Carolina's own Julius "The Freak" Peppers. Bad SI.

Gettin' my geek on

I went to the Raleigh Amateur Radio Festival today and some equipment followed me home in the form of a Yaesu FT-1802 transceiver, Jetstream switching power supply and a 1/2 wave 2 meter/70 cm antenna on a magnetic mount. All of the equipment is residing in my bonus room at the moment. Pictures will be coming shortly.

I've got to double check all my connections - keying the microphone turns my television off and on (not to mentioning doing horrible things to the picture) and I've now got a headache. I moved the antenna further away. Let's see if that helps at all.

Thanks a lot, Apple!

Some background: I've never been a fan of television speakers to the point I've never heard sound directly from a television I've thought passable. For as long as I've been able I pipe the sound from my television to my home stereo system (which itself is nothing special) which instantly improves the sounds quality by a factor of at least one thousand.

Last weekend while at the Outer Banks I noticed the audio from Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii sounded very "not right". At the outer banks, like home, our TV output is piped through a modest home stereo that generally serves no greater purpose. After a minute of troubleshooting the connections I found the audio output to the speaker wires was suspect and the "El Cheapo Stereo Especial" was likely no-beuno, ka-put.

No problem, I thought! I'll just pick up a 2nd Apple Hi-Fi unit and that will live at the beach and will thus fill the room with beautiful, rich sound I've grown so accustomed to at home in Youngsville (lest we not be confused the Apple Hi-Fi at home is plugged directly into an Apple Airport Express and is used to play music and Internet radio via iTunes. I've been so impressed with the Apple Hi-Fi sound I knew it would be the perfect companion for the TV at the beach and I could enjoy the same quality of streamed music that I enjoy at home while at the beach via streaming through the the Apple TV through the TV into the Hi-Fi.

Ah, problem solved and all would be well.

Until I found the Hi-Fi was discontinued!!! Why, Apple? Why? These were great boxes! People don't belive me when I say the Apple Hi-Fi sounds better than anything from Bose (that perfroms the same or like function) but once they hear my Hi-Fi everyone walks away impressed.

Oh well, it is not to be. My TV optical audio output will likely continue to do nothing and I'll just replace the dead stereo with another power-hungry and unecessry stereo.

Boo!!

How about.

How about a drone airplane that could be piloted around ships in pirate-infested waters that could identify in-bound pirate "ships" and, ahem, non-fatally "slime" them with some kind of biodegradable, organic sludge that gave the sensation of burning?

The drones could be flown and landed out of area airport/strips where they could refuel while being piloted here in the states much like the Predators (and the like) that are flown out of Groom Lake.

Oh man.. talk about my dream job.

"Target identified, deploy capsaicin sludge."
"Deploying sludge."
ppppppppppppppppphhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwww *SPLAT*
"Target struck. Natives restless."
"Affirmative. Initiate victory song."

Come on, who's with me? Flight control could be just down the road in Wilson, hope home of cheap bandwidth. Data to and from the planes, well that's another story but I'm sure we can work something out.

Yes....

Greenlight gets brighter

Good news (for the people of Wilson, NC): Greenlight is now offering Internet-only service! Before Greenlight would come bring its blistering fast and fairly inexpensive Internet service to your door as part of a larger bundle of services.

I'm upset over Time Warner's want to tier services. Why do I struggle with unreasonable upload speeds and minimal download speeds when I have equal service at the Outer Banks for less money a month and no caps via Charter Cable? Why do my parents, who happen to live in the Greater Phoenix Metro Area, an area much larger than RDU where environmental conditions make it 1000 times more difficult to bury anything, get 17 meg down and over 2 megs up on basic Interent service via Cox?

This is just a money-grab by TWC plain and simple. TWC has an effective monopoly in the area and they are flexing their muscle around your neck. Why does TWC offer 15+ meg service (buried in the article) down in Wilson where they have actual competition? Is it any mystery?

Why is Greenlight the only Interent service in the state that offers equal up and download speeds? If my office were 15 minutes closer to Wilson I'd move my household there by force if necessary just for Greenlight access.

One very obscure song

The movie Vanishing Point is one of my favorites though most likely not everyone's cup of tea. At roughly ten minutes into the movie a song places at Kowalski drives his Challenger into a the parking lot of a biker bar. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what that song is. It's not on the soundtrack. As far as I'm able to tell it's not listed in the end credits as a song played. Midomi can't even figure out what or who it is. Worse still the only lyrics that can be heard clearly come up with just one hit on Google - and that hit is someone trying to figure out the song name!

Mystery lyrics: "Oh, Lord, won't you help me to find myself a place to pray?"

Singer? No idea. Male singer with a few background singers. I have a sneaking suspicion that Delaney, Bonnie and Friends preformed the song but the name and whereabouts today remain totally unknown.

Any ideas?

On a related note I think the drive in my Apple TV is going. I'm going to have to look up how it may be possible to break into the device and replace the HD with a solid state drive, if that is even possible. Or I may have to replace the Apple TV with a Mac mini with a solid state drive but I don't really want to do that (though it would combine the DVD player and Apple TV functions into one device - that is a plus).

I wonder

Can I get this Kosher?

UPDATE: This was an April Fool's Day prank! I knew it was too good to be true!

WRONG!!!

"Windows users may further have to invest in anti-virus software, as a result of the OS being targeted more often."

WARNING: Float-over windows galore in this article.

Windows is not more vulnerable because it is more popular. Windows is more vulnerable because it is based on a flawed software infrastructure. Why we still have a registry in Windows is simply beyond me, but there it is.

Microsoft was never intended to build operating systems. Microsoft built applications and that is what they were and are good at doing. Had Gary Kildall answered IBM's knocking on the door the computing world would look very different today and we'd all be using some version of CP/M, or maybe OS/2, or maybe something else. Whatever we'd be using we'd be better off for it.

It has been seven years since Bill Gates launched the Trustworthy Computing Initiative in an effort to secure Windows. The faithful are still waiting, Mr. Gates. The enlightened have moved on.