Random thoughts by a technology junkie
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Writing to-do lists and keeping a schedule may keep you organized, but does it really help you get more done? I believe that organization is important, but what you really need is focus. Being able to sit down and concentrate intensely on your work for a few hours. Even a half hour of focused effort can get more done than an entire day of distraction and multitasking.
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“Alberto Gonzales is saying, basically, there are problems of which he cannot speak, for which he is responsible yet not to blame, and that he is the only one who can clean up the mess that he can neither confirm or deny exists. Let me try to put this in schoolyard terms, if I may: He has smelt it, and while he cannot confirm that he in fact also dealt it, he refuses to deny it on the grounds that it might incriminate him for supplying it.”
From Media Matters:
“On the July 24 edition of Fox News’ Special Report with Brit Hume, on-screen text identified Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) as a Democrat during a report from chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ July 24 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The text appeared during footage of Specter telling Gonzales that the committee would be reviewing his testimony about a May 10, 2004, confrontation over the Bush administration’s warrantless domestic wiretapping program to “see if your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable.” Angle introduced the footage of Specter as an example of “other[]” senators who “urged the attorney general to correct his testimony, vaguely warning of legal action.” At no time during Angle’s report did anyone say that Specter was, in fact, a Republican.”
Apparently this is not the first time they’ve done this. Is it deliberate or are they just incompetent?
I now finally have an excuse to get an HDTV and HD Cable/FIOS. TiVo HD gets official: $299, loaded, with SATA and TTG coming
I am addicted to my TiVo and hate watching TV without it. When Verizon called offering FIOS service I turned them down because I couldn’t easily use my Tivo. If this thing can work with Digital Cable/FIOS then I’m all over it.
Technorati Tags: tivo, video, hd
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I’m not a big fan of ring tones. Not that I hate the ability to customize my phone. I just can’t justify the cost through my provider for a 15 to 20 second song clip. Because of this, I’ve resisted custom ringtones on my phone for years.
The other night, however, I came across Phonezoo, an advertising supported website that lets you send ringtones to most phones. It has some really cool features.
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Here is another story along the same theme as yesterdays. In King George W.: James Madison’s Nightmare author Robert Scheer frames George W. Bush as the president that our founders warned us about.
George W. Bush is the imperial president that James Madison and other founders of this great republic warned us about. He lied the nation into precisely the “foreign entanglements” that George Washington feared would destroy the experiment in representative government, and he has championed a spurious notion of security over individual liberty, thus eschewing the alarms of Thomas Jefferson as to the deprivation of the inalienable rights of free citizens. But most important, he has used the sledgehammer of war to obliterate the separation of powers that James Madison enshrined in the US Constitution.
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From Mornon land, their listing for Top 13 worst slogan translations. My favorite
Pepsi’s “Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation” translated into “Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave” in Chinese.
Technorati Tags: humor
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The New York Times ran a great editorial today about the power of the purse to curtail the presidential power to make war. If you read what some of the Founding Father’s wrote you would think they were addressing President Bush.
“The founders were particularly wary of giving the president power over war. They were haunted by Europe’s history of conflicts started by self-aggrandizing kings. John Jay, the first chief justice of the United States, noted in Federalist No. 4 that “absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal.”
The founders would have been astonished by President Bush’s assertion that Congress should simply write him blank checks for war. They gave Congress the power of the purse so it would have leverage to force the president to execute their laws properly. Madison described Congress’s control over spending as “the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.”
The framers expected Congress to keep the president on an especially short leash on military matters. The Constitution authorizes Congress to appropriate money for an army, but prohibits appropriations for longer than two years. Hamilton explained that the limitation prevented Congress from vesting “in the executive department permanent funds for the support of an army, if they were even incautious enough to be willing to repose in it so improper a confidence.”
Our Founding Father’s were wise to assign the power of the purse to Congress. Congress shouldn’t fear political backlash by using it.
I had a pleasant surprise tonight while working with VMWare. When I installed Windows XP under VMWare I noticed that the sound card it emulated was an ES1371. This is the ENSONIQ (or Creative) AudioPCI.
I worked at ENSONIQ through most of the 90s for the Multimedia Products Division and was one of the developers of the Soundscape and AudioPCI line of sound cards. It’s nice to see it lives on.
We did some crazy Voodoo to get DOS audio to work on this device. I wonder if the gang at VMWare figured it out…
The Baked Potato Recipe: Recipes: Food Network
The Baked Potato
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown
Show: Good Eats
Episode: This Spud’s for You
Heat oven to 350 degrees and position racks in top and bottom thirds. Wash potato (or potatoes) thoroughly with a stiff brush and cold running water. Dry, then using a standard fork poke 8 to 12 deep holes all over the spud so that moisture can escape during cooking. Place in a bowl and coat lightly with oil. Sprinkle with kosher salt and place potato directly on rack in middle of oven. Place a baking sheet on the lower rack to catch any drippings.
Bake 1 hour or until skin feels crisp but flesh beneath feels soft. Serve by creating a dotted line from end to end with your fork, then crack the spud open by squeezing the ends towards one another. It will pop right open. But watch out, there will be some steam.
NOTE: If you’re cooking more than 4 potatoes, you’ll need to extend the cooking time by up to 15 minutes.
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