Taskbar Tooltip Fix

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I'm sure that, if you use windows, you've had this issue:
This bug is a prime example of what's wrong with this company.


Well, then get this. What does it do? This:

Yep, it makes the tooltip appear over, instead of under, the taskbar.

This has existed since Windows 95. Microsoft's "fix" for it? Restart your computer.

List of People that Have to Go

This is just a list of people I feel need to be done away with in one form or another.

1. Warmongering idiots.
You know the sort. "Bomb them all and let god sort them out." The kind that doesn't care at all about innocent lives and families that are ruined, about the massive cost, they just want war, war, war. Our current administration falls into this category.

2. People that contribute nothing at all to the general advancement of the world, but still leach both money, and culture.
This is the group that consists of lawyers, advertisers, petty crooks, and those corporate assholes that make choices primarily about the bottom line and PR, instead of how it will affect people. Examples of this are the Big-Oil companies, Big-Tobacco, and most of the other of their ilk.

3. People that do things for the sole purpose of pissing other people off.
These are the assholes at the office, the trolls on your forums, the virus writers, the malicious hackers that deface websites, and many others. They do it only for their own amusement, and should be slapped in the ears a great many times; maybe knock some sense into them.

And finally, let's add what George Carlin has to say about this sort of thing. It's George, so it's NSFW of course.

"Four Groups that have got to go."
George Carlin

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I Hate Virus Writers

In additional news, I hate virus writers, alot. I battled with one for several hours before finally ridding myself of the damned thing. It deleted all anti-virus apps I tried to install, as well as just making a general annoyance of itself.

Finally got rid of it in its entirety by doing a repair install of XP. Still don't know specifically what one it was, think it could have been a strain of W32.Beagle though.

Kerry Will Let Wolves Eat Your Babies!

And make you wear a pink tuxedo to your sons gay wolf wedding!


A parody attack ad on Kerry. It's old, but still funny. Oh yes, don't forget that hot, gay wolf sex! :P

It turns out...

"It turns out poor people with bad credit can't afford a home. Who Knew?"

It's a sad day and age when the most basic of things for a person, where they live, is so inaccessible to buy. Around here the average cost of a house is over $600,000.

Walmart Skimps Property Taxes

Seems that Wal-mart can't keep it's nose clean nowadays. From underage labor in mexico; buying flip flops and other cheap products from China and other places that can seriously poison, harm, and even kill you. There seems to be no end to the corners that they're cutting to make sure they have the lowest prices.
It's now apparent that Wal-mart is paying rent to a company that it owns. One part of the company owns and runs the Wal-Mart store, another owns and operates a real estate setup. The store pays its rent to the real estate subsidiary. The subsidiary, called a "captive REIT," or real estate investment trust, takes this money as a deduction, and thus does not have to pay taxes on it. They then give this money back to the parent company as a tax free dividend.
Thanks to the inane way that tax law works they've managed to save themselves millions of dollars, $17 in Wisconsin alone, that should have been payed to the state in order to help to pay for local things; roads, schools, and what not.

This is a perfect reason why the entire tax system needs to be redone. You need a masters degree in order to understand it fluently, even though every person in the country it supposed to deal with it on a yearly basis.

I Have a D.R.E.A.M.

Or The "Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act."
I learned of this while watching the following video.




Bill Moyers talks of two programs around six minutes into the video. The "DREAM" one really caught my attention, just because I felt like I had seen it before. It offers citizenship for two years of service.
Hmm... now where have I heard "Service guarantees citizenship" before?

Microsoft WGA Server is Down

Well, this is what you get when copy protection runs amok. When you think more about making sure that your customers can't copy your software than you do about the customer's needs.

If you use Windows, do your best to avoid anything that requires a ping to WGA. That means you should stay away from patches and add-ons until the coast is clear. WGA will not reach out across the Internet and deactivate your copy of Windows, but you should avoid talking to a WGA server for any reason.

Now, while you can run Vista unvalidated for 30 days, this is just ridiculous. Thanks to just a couple mistakes on Micro$oft's part there are huge amounts of 100% legit copies getting invalidated. When this happens you can't apply patches, and you lose Vista's one nifty feature, the Aero interface.
So, all thanks to copy protection... you can't use your own copy of Vista. What more, pirates simply disable WGA on their copies of Vista, so they're perfectly unaffected by this. That's right! You, the paying customer, got screwed while the pirates are just laughing at you.

A prediction: When the server comes back up on Monday, and everyone in the world tries to revalidate at the same time, the WGA server may very well be unable to handle the influx and go down again.

Update:

Customers who received an incorrect validation response can fix their system by revalidating on our site (http://www.microsoft.com/genuine). We encourage anyone who received a validation failure since Friday evening to do this now. After successfully revalidating any affected system should be rebooted to ensure the genuine-only features are restored.

Guess they thought it would be a bad move to leave people stranded for three days without the only thing that makes Vista seem okay, the Aero interface. Even then, it's stupid that this should ever happen in the first place. When you buy something you shouldn't have to worry about your legit $400 copy of Windows Vista suddenly stopping working, just because the company is trying to stop a little piracy!

Personally, I hope this turns off at least a few people to Microsoft, and their DRM obsession.

The Super Friends

Remember that show? Sure, it wasn't one of the shows I watched when I was a little kid, but I did end up watching it later on.



Looking back at it now, that show was so bad that it was funny. Everything about it screamed bad quality. It sounded like the voice actors were constantly stumbling over their words, as though they were from a bad grade-school play.
Then there's the animation. They recycled about as many frames, if not more so, than Scooby Doo! They also seemed to love to burn off time with things they do about every episode.
Such as "Meanwhile, at the Legion of Doom's Secret Headquarters." They would always pan to that squished Darth Vader looking base as it raised out of the water. No reason why it's always going up and down in the water like that, it just does.
In the episode that inspired this post the Legion they needed a Monolith of Evil that is, for some reason, buried at the center of the Earth. So, they simply reversed the animation for raising out of the water (it looked like the water climbed up the sides of the base), then drilled straight down with the big "drill to the center of the earth" attachment they have for their HQ.
There they quickly find the monolith, but it's protected by a lava monster. now, instead of getting one of their stronger members to just get rid of it, freeze it, or whatever; They decide to use a riddle to get the "Super Friends" to do it for them! Why? I really don't know.
Well, after Superman freezes the monster, the villains come out and explain exactly what's going on to heros. Again, why? Bad writing I'd have to say.

Even with all that, though, it's just... funny! Check it out over at TV Links.

Bill O'Reilly on Rational Thought

It's amazing how some people are so good at saying one thing and doing another. Billo here is talking about how if you meet someone that ignores solid evidence in something, and still believes otherwise you should avoid them. He even says to run.
If everyone followed that advice, most people that come on his show would do just that, run.

The topic of this video is whether or not he's an atheist. Personally, I couldn't care less about that. It doesn't change the fact that Billo is just a pigheaded idiot.

Dwarf's penis gets stuck to vacuum cleaner

Source

A dwarf performer at the Edinburgh fringe festival had to be rushed to hospital after his penis got stuck to a vacuum cleaner during an act that went horribly awry.

Daniel Blackner, or Captain Dan the Demon Dwarf, was due to perform at the Circus of Horrors at the festival known for its oddball, offbeat performances.

The main part of his act was for him to appear on stage with a vacuum cleaner attached to his member with a special apparatus.

The attachment broke before the performance and Blackner tried to fix it using extra-strong glue, but unfortunately let it dry for only 20 seconds instead of the 20 minutes required.

He then joined it directly to his organ. The end result? A solid attachment, laughter, mortification and ... hospitalisation.

"It was the most embarrassing moment of my life when I got wheeled into a packed A&E with a vacuum attached to me," Blackner said.

"I just wished the ground could swallow me up. Luckily, they saw me quickly so the embarrassment was short-lived."

I'm not even sure where to begin with this... but now I want to know what sort of act a dwarf would perform if he were to have a vacuum cleaner attached to their crotch. I mean, it sounds like one of those things that you know you shouldn't see... but you can't look away.

Program Review: Color Selector

Well, I've been needing Color Selector for a while now. I found it while looking around for some free program to let me just grab the colors of a pixel, without having to take a screen shot, then using an eyedropper tool on that spot.
It has a number of useful features, including a drag and drop zoomed-in color picker, and about all the different ways of displaying that color you'll likely need. It can also take an average of a larger area, if you need to.
Overall I'm very impressed with this tool, and I'm going to be using it very often.

Tag Cloud for Blogger/BlogSpot

After much searching I was able to find a way to change the old, boring labels list to a nice looking tag cloud, like over at Technorati.

Instructions are over at phydeaux3's blog, here.

A small clarification to his instructions, though.

Ah ha, that's where my difficulty was. Just be sure that you do not expand the widgets. I had missed that. Thank you, phydeaux3, for clearing that up!


And there you go, you should have a working tag / label cloud for your blog! Beyond that his instructions are perfect. All in all this should take just a couple minutes to implement, and the results are well worth it, I would have to say.

Edit 09/07/07: I have since changed the cloud to a much better list than what comes by default, and I'm quite happy with the results.

Hand Shadow Show

Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong


In this beautiful video, shadow puppetry is taken to a level I've yet to see before now. I won't spoil this for you, but I have to say that it's very artistic, and worth a watch.

XBoxs and Water Don't Mix

A 14 year old boy from Brevard, North Carolina (surprise surprise) was nearly killed Sunday while trying to stop his Xbox 360 from overheating. (14 years of age, and he still doesn't know not to put things that are plugged in into water? His parents must be so proud)

The boy’s mother told local news that his Xbox 360 kept turning itself off after about 5 minutes. (It didn't occur to him to point a fan at it, or maybe excange the faulty thing for a new one?) Her son had read online that he could stop it from cutting off by cooling the power supply. “I saw him put the cord on top of a box in the living room”, said the boy’s mother. “When I left to go next door he was playing a game but when I got back he was laying on his back on the floor and unconscious”.

While his mother was away the boy had taken the power supply and wrapped it in plastic and tape. (Well, he made an effort to keep it dry it seems.) In an attempt to cool it off, he submerged it into a pan of water with the cord still plugged in. (At this point the water short circuited the power supply. Electricity traveled into his hand, and out through his bare foot to the floor, where it grounded out. I wouldn't be surprised if the floor had been wet too.) The boy had regained consciousness by the time paramedics had arrived. He was taken to the Transylvania Community Hospital (hell of a name for a hospital) in Brevard where he spent the night.

Aside from getting knocked unconscious the boy only suffered small burns to his right hand and foot. (Hopefully this will be a lesson this kid will never forget.)

I imagine that the XBox itself is ruined too. Hopefully, the mother won't buy him a new one. After the bill for the first one, as well as the hospital bills this kid will have wracked up, I don't think he'll be getting much of anything for a few months.

Investigative Reporting Gone Awry

Brief summary:
Monsanto gets everyone to think their bovine growth hormone is safe; It's not.
Reporters from fox news find out, and decide to report on it.
Fox news threatens them not to continue, then bribes them not to. They did this out of the fear of losing ad revenue, and getting sued.
In the end, a super edited version of the story (83 edits/reviews, one after the other) was made,but it never made it to air. Afterward the reporters were promptly fired.

They tried to sue Fox based on whistleblower laws ( laws that protect people trying to keep others from breaking the law ) but the court found that Fox didn't break the law at all, they just wanted to lie to people and say that a growth hormone that had been directly linked to cancer wasn't all that dangerous.

Well, I give a bow to those two reporters, and a good middle finger to Fox news, and to Monsanto.

The Mac Store

I'm not the only one that read this sign wrong, am I?
Because that really looks like WTF Mac Store.

Conspiracy Theory Rock

The problem is, while the majority of what is said in this video is true, noone will take it seriously. Why? Because of the words "Conspiracy Theory."
Those two words have been demonized for decades now. That way if anyone makes a valid point 'Big Media' can simply say he's a Conspiracy Theory nut, and be done with it.

I'm Sorry but I Speak No English

Scott: Hello? I want you to tell me where a shoe store is because I want to look for a pair of shoes and buy 'em.

Dave: I'm sorry. I'd love to be of assistance to you but I'm afraid I speak no English.

Scott: Pardon?

Dave: Ah. I see by the expression on your face that you are confused by my statement. Perhaps you doubt its veracity, but let me assure you, I speak not a word of English.

Charlie Brown Christmas - by the Cast of Scrubs

Sure it's not really the right time of year for it... but it's still funny!

Quote of the Day 08/21/07

"There is no substitute for proper adult supervision."
-Bic Lighters

The Extra Gay Post

OK2BGAY - Tomboy

I was also shown another very gay video "What What (In the Butt)" by Samwell.

Pat Robertson's Regent University

Remember Pat Robertson? You might know him best from The 700 Club.

Well, he's got a school.Their motto? "Christian Leadership to Change the World."

Guess what?

150 people in the white house were graduates of this school, including Monica Gooding, one of the people that are being protected from saying anything on the record, or under oath.
Surprised? Didn't think so.

Wanna know who was in charge of hiring all these people?
Kay Coles James the dean of the school!

Now, is it just me, or does anyone else think this Christian school forgot to remind people that lying (false witness) isn't exactly a good thing. In fact, it's bad, quite bad.

Interview With Ed and Elane Brown

"[The martial] knew we had committed NO crime, but he was just going to follow orders and bring us in."

The Federal government has cut external power, mail, internet, and phone service to the house of Ed and Elane Brown. They effectively have the couple under siege; and have had them that way . Right now they are making due with supplies brought by friends, renewable energy from solar and wind, and disposable cell phones.

Their crime?
Are they running a cult, like in Waco?
Are they drug dealers?

Nope, they simply refuse to pay $215,890 in income tax. They are doing this because there are currently no constitutional laws stating that you do, in fact, have to pay.
The couple say that they will not be taken in, either. They plan to fight to the death if their house were to be attacked.
Their house guest was thrown to the ground, tazered, cuffed, and dragged off. His crime? He simply stumbled upon where the police had been hiding.



"If you fear the government, you have tyranny; If the government fears you, you have freedom."

Their Myspace page, for those that want more information about these two.

The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus

A bit from the audiobook version of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them called "The gospel of Supply Side Jesus." Someone has made a semi-animated comic of the story. 'Tis rather amusing.


"It is easier for a rich man to enter heaven seated comfortably on the back of a camel than it is for a poor man to pass through the eye of a needle."

"The only way to get into heaven is to give me lots of money!"

Programs I Can't Do Without

Now that most of my windows reinstall is in order, I felt that I should make a list of all the programs that I simply can't live without. These programs, in one way or another, have made themselves indispensable to me.
This is, by no means, a be-all end-all list. It's just what I can think of right now.
Everything here is free, unless otherwise noted.

Media tools

• Irfan View - Image viewing and screenshot tool. (To take a screenshot, open IrfanView and press C to bring up the window)
  
• K-lite Codec Pack - Various commonly used codecs, as well as Media Player Classic.
• Real Alternative - A freeware alternative to Realplayer/RealOne, doesn't have all the annoying Realmedia annoyances. I've used this for years now.
  
• Quicktime Alternative / QT Lite - Alternate, freeware codecs for Quicktime file playback.
  

Windows Add ons, Fixes, and Changes

• Taskbar Shuffle 2.2 - Reorganize the taskbar and notification area, as well as middle-click-to-close function for Windows.
  
• Find Target - Context menu item for shortcuts. Opens the containing folder of the selected shortcut.
  
• Win32Pad -Notepad/Wordpad replacement.
  
• TweakUI and other PowerToys - Tweak various settings that are normally hard to find in windows XP.
  
• Daemon Tools - Mount virtual CD/DVDs onto your computer.
  
• WinRAR(Shareware) - Archive decompression/compression.
• RivaTuner - Tuning program for nVidia cards, as well as newer ATI cards.
• CableNut - Auto network tweaking software. Works with most any connection, and gives you the ability to change settings to suit your needs.
  

Communication

• Pidgin - Universal chat program. An alternative to Trillian. Can have spellcheck as well.
  
• mIRC (shareware) - IRC client. I use this because of various scripts I've made for it over the years.
  
• Firefox - Free, better alternative to Internet explorer.
  
• Thunderbird - Free, better alternative to Outlook Express.
  

Security

• AVG Antivirus Free Edition - Free anti virus Utility.
  
• Spybot S&D - Free anti spyware utility.
  

Nifty Stuff

• Clock Tray Skins (Shareware) - Program that makes the windows clock alot nicer to look at, as well as more useful.
  
• Window Blinds (Trialware)- Makes Windows XP a lot nicer to look at.

Filesharing Utilities

• eMule Plus - Upgraded version of eMule, a filesharing client.
• Azureus - Java powered Bittorrent client.

There are more than that, but these are the ones that have really sprung to mind to mention. If you have any suggestions, I'd be quite happy to hear them.

Network (1976)

It was as true then as it is now, The News Media© today is a joke. Reporters no longer report what's going on. That doesn't make any money. Instead they show whatever it is that will get the best ratings.
"News" today is not about getting the facts out, it's about what makes them the most money.



Back in 1976 the movie Network was released. The story of a news reporter who has lost his job, and his hope. So, he decided to kill himself on live TV.

This is the origin of the famous line "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"


I want to be an angry profit denouncing the hypocrisies of our times, too!

Keep left in Iraq!

Please stay in the left hand lane, violators will be shot in the face.
Thank you.

I... think it's about time we left.

The Front Fell Off

A wave hit it!

If Real Meetings Were Like Many Forums

"You guys want to get a bigger portfolio in 2 weeks? Follow me."
"Wait. Would you please read this?" *holds up captcha*
"Ummm... nah."

12v Battery Hack

12 Volt Battery Hack! You'll Be Surprised... - Click here for this week’s top video clips

Okay, Kipkay, you're brilliant!

I just tried this with a spare 23a/12v battery I had lying around, and it does indeed have 8 1.5v watch batteries in it. Battery ID LR932. Happy hacking!

Reinstalling Windows XP

Well, the time is quickly approaching for me to reinstall Windows XP on this computer. I have, unfortunately, been using XP Home up until now. With this latest install I'm going to rectify that. Hopefully this will save me the trouble of having to do so again... at least for a good long time.
Thankfully on my previous install I set up my drives to allow me to simply wipe out this install when the time game. First I'll be backing up a few files though, of course. Beyond that I'm looking to make myself a slipstreamed CD, just to make this whole thing a lot easier for me.
Since I'll be rather busy with this, I may be a tad lacking on posts... but then again, I very well could log the whole thing! Why not?

First thing's first, backing up all the data I need to in "C:\Documents and Settings\" That includes application data, my documents, and the desktop.
Next will be to get all the various latest drivers and such I need for the new install.
After that I need to put it all together in the slipstreamed CD, then simply reinstall.

Sounds simple enough.

Money Making Update 08/16

So far, thanks entirely to you that read this blog, I have earned $44. the way adsense works, though, is there is a $100 minimum payout.
Out of respect, and because of the amusing irony, I'm going to point out that the people that buy ad space through Google like to have their adsense ads alone call attention to themselves. So, if you decide to do this yourself just remember not to ask your visitors to click on ads, it's against the terms of service. I'm still going to thank you all, though.
There's even more detailed tips over here.

As for InboxDollars, I have earned a grand total of $32. One more and I'll request they send me a check, as there is a $3 "processing fee." But it seems that Inbox Dollars is not a scam, it does indeed work. While it is a little slow when you have nobody referred, you do actually get money!
I started with them on the 27th of July, and in less than three weeks I've made an easy $30, without a single penny invested. Pretty good so far, at least for a start.



Update: It is Friday, August 17th, and have requested a $30.50 check from Inbox Dollars. They're estimating it will be mailed October 1st. Seems their processing time is rather excessive, but as long as I get it, I'm happy.

You can sign up referred by me with the button below. It doesn't cost anything but a little time.

Scientists break the speed of light

Source

It was supposed to be the one speed limit you cannot break.

But scientists claim to have demonstrated there is the possibility of travel faster than the speed of light.

The feat contradicts one of the key tenets of Einstein's special theory of relativity - that nothing, under any circumstances, can move faster than 186,000 miles per second, or the speed of light.

Speed of light beaten: One of the key tenets of Einstein's theory of relativity is proved wrong

Travelling faster than light also, in theory, turns back time. According to conventional physics, an astronaut moving beyond light speed would arrive at his destination before leaving.

But two German physicists claim to have forced light to overcome its own speed limit using the strange phenomenon of quantum tunnelling, in which particles summon up the energy to cross an apparently uncrossable barrier.

Their experiments focused on the travel of microwave photons - energetic packets of light - through two prisms.

When the prisms were moved apart, most photons reflected off the first prism they encountered and were picked up by a detector.

But a few appeared to "tunnel" through a gap separating them as if the prisms were still held together.

Although these photons had travelled a longer distance, they arrived at their detector at the same time as the reflected photons. This suggests that the transit between the two prisms was faster than the speed of light.

Dr Gunter Nimtz, of the University of Koblenz, told the magazine New Scientist: "For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of."

It just shows that with enough ingenuity, just about anything can be done.
I love how the article ends, too. Fortunately it only takes one proven instance of anything to disprove a theory.

Female Balls of Steel?

Just what would they be called?



For anyone unsure about the reference to Kerri Strug, here is a video of the event in question.

Cuddle Sutra

The cuddle kama sutra.

If you've ever slept in a small bed with your partner, you know just how vital it is for you two to cuddle nice and close. Besides being a rather amusing video, this actually has very good ideas about it... in bed!
Personally, I really love the last one. I won't spoil it for you, though.

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader

The premise is: they take questions from grade school textbooks, and give them to adults. Now, one would think that adults should know things like basic math, measurements, and what not ... but no. If that were true this show wouldn't be able to keep going.
Also, the look on the kid's face at about 1:09 is just priceless. You know he's just thinking, "What the hell? This woman is a dumbass!"

Well, now I suppose I know why Bush was elected into office twice, and Americans mostly did nothing at all about the constant barrage on their constitutional rights...

Simply the fact that this show exists is rather sad, really.

I'm also thinking that her kids are NEVER going to ask her for help with their homework, period.

Quote of the Day 08/14/07

"Killing under the cloak of war is no different than murder." - Albert Einstein

I've Got a Jar of Dirt!

And guess what's inside it!



A stitching together of clips from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Ahh, Captain Jack Sparrow. Gotta love him!

Guy Loses His Leg and Doesn't Notice

A JAPANESE biker failed to notice his leg had been severed below the knee when he hit a safety barrier, and rode on for 2km, leaving a friend to pick up the limb.

The 54-year-old office worker was out on his motorcycle with a group of friends in the city of Hamamatsu, west of Tokyo, yesterday, when he was unable to negotiate a curve in the road and bumped into the central barrier, the Mainichi Shimbun said.

He felt excruciating pain, but did not notice that his right leg was missing until he stopped at the next junction, the paper quoted local police as saying.

The man and his leg were taken to hospital, but the limb had been crushed in the collision, the paper said.

Only in Japan. Only in Japan...

China Bans... Reincarnation?

Link to the NBC article


In an effort to dominate Tibet even more China has passed a law that states that Buddhist monks cannot seek to reincarnate without government permission. This basically means that the next Dalai Lama will not be born in Tibet. More likely he will be from America, or Europe.
It's just a move on the Chinese government to control its people all the more, and it's just sad... sad and stupid.

While my personal views on reincarnation are... interesting, don't think they quite fit in here. Perhaps in a later post, if there's interest in it.

"Gay Bar" Westboro Style!

Someone has made a briliant video compilation of the Westboro Baptist Church "lipsyncing" to the song Gay Bar by Electric Six. Brilliant!

And as I'm sure you know these are the same guys that do the protesting at funerals, while holding signs that read along the lines of "God Hates Fags."

Doctor Who - Infinite Quest

For any fans out there of Dr Who, I present to you a small animated series... sort of thing that was done with the latest Doctor, as well as Martha. It's set up, for the most part, as an episode.
It's a series of side adventures that take place in between the normal episodes of Dr Who.

Still has all the wit, charm, and just overall cleverness of the show itself, so go on and check it out.
I'd suggest watching the second entry there " 1-13. All Episodes."

Happy Whoing!

'94 Cheney: Iraq Invasion- a "Quagmire"

This is video of an interview done back in 1994 with Dick Cheney. He is discussing how invading Iraq would be a very bad thing to do. He actually pretty accurately predicted exactly what has transpired in the last few years... more than a decade ago.

Talking Toilets!

Now, using a talking urinal to tell drunk people that they shouldn't drive... okay, that's a good use, yes. But then, is a drunk guy really going to take advice from a toilet?
On top of that, I imagine that these things are going to very soon to be rather wide spread advertising the latest stupid "primetime" show on TV.

Unsurprised and Saddened

Every day I read stories about how our government is abusing its power, and every day I find myself saying, "Why am I not surprised?"

1. Bush signs a new law, the Protect America Act of 2007, that allows authorities to wiretap anyone that has communicated with another person outside the United States. This continues on for up to a year. By the way, they don't need a warrant.
2. This same new law is being used to try to dismiss a lawsuit against the NSA spying program. This lawsuit was already in the courts before the law was passed.

There are also incidents like in Miami, Florida, Involving a lawyer Elizabeth Ritter. Now, she wasn't there to take part in the free trade protest, no no. what she was there for was to protest the rows and rows of masked, faceless police that were there. After being there for a half an hour she was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet. Later she had been cowering behind her sign that read "Fear Totalitarianism," when she was shot in the head with another rubber bullet.

Ah yes, afterwards they can be seen laughing about it.

What more, the U.S. has LOST 190,000 guns in Iraq. They have no idea where they went, how to track them, or what they're being used for. In all likelihood, they're in the hands of the very same people we're fighting against over there.

Pandora in Firefox's Sidebar

Just a quick little useful tip.

For anyone that hasn't tried it yet, you should go check out Pandora. It is a free streaming music service. what sets it apart from typical internet radio is that it adapts a playlist to suit what you like.
Just put in the title of a song, or Artist, that you like. They've analyzed quite a number of songs already, and will play other songs it has determined to be similar to what you put in.
In a sense, it's like stumbleupon for music, actually. If you like the song that's played, give it a thumbs up, if not; a thumbs down.
What more, you can have a number of different stations, so you can set up plenty of different music styles, I've a dozen myself, so far.

Now, the issue I had with it for a little while was that it took a tab to have it open. Well, my solution to that was the Firefox plug-in All-in-one Sidebar.
To load Pandora into the sidebar just open the site in a tab, and click on the button in the upper right of the side of the sidebar. This plugin is also useful for plenty of other things, so I'd suggest it for anyone that might like this sort of feature.

Saw Parody

Now, normally I would look at something like this and just roll my eyes. You know, just another group of college students doing things they ought not... but the timing of what happened was just too amusing.

The Best Things in Life Aren't Things

Love, friendship, happiness, purpose...

TAGAP: The Apocalyptic Game About Penguins

Guns, high explosives, destructible environments, and more penguins than you can shake a stick at. What more can you ask for?

I've been playing this game since yesterday, and it's quite fun. It's a side scrolling platform-shooting game. Aim and shoot with the mouse, move about with the wasd keys. Sounds simple enough?
The enemies can get to be quite overwhelming, if you let them, so be careful with that.

Beyond that it has rather good graphics, and the game is set up in such a way that anyone can modify it as they see fit, that's always a big plus.

One small issue I've encountered, and a way I've found to work around it. If you're playing in windowed mode, and alt-tab to another program, you might not be able to make the game active again. The way I've found to fix this is to click on it, press Ctrl-alt-delete to bring up the task manager, then press escape to close it.

Additional: To do the trick in the screenshot above start firing in the direction you want your first uzi to shoot, then right click and hold to lock it in place. This lets you aim the other gun.
Be sure to also try out the alt fire on all the other guns.

Download(95Mb) Full version

Have a Digital Camera and Spare Time?

Google is now looking to add a new feature to their Google Maps service, it seems. They're willing to pay people $10 to talk to local business owners, and take pictures of the store.
From the information I've found so far, you're working independent of Google, so you're not an employee, you're a contractor. The only thing Google is providing are the handouts about the service.
I, for one, have already signed up for this. Once they approve my sign up I'll be on my merry way. In fact, Google is right up the street from me, so I might even be able to just go over there and pick up the pamphlets by hand, instead of waiting for it in the post.

A New Kind of Tattoo

From Discovery News

A new type of tattoo has been developed that uses plastic instead of heavy metals in the ink. They are apparently just as permanent as a normal tattoo, but they can be removed much easier.
To get rid of it just takes a single laser treatment. The plastic pellets that hold the color are broken down by the laser, and are absorbed naturally by the body.
I'd imagine that this technology will be improved upon as time passes, possibly enough that people might start getting 'seasonal' tattoo. The sort you wear for a few weeks, then take off again.

*chuckles* I'll bet this would be great for those people that get a tattoo of someone's name on themselves, it would make it a lot less embarrassing if they were to break up.


As an afterthought, these tattoos would be a lot safer in an MRI, since the inks are non-magnetic.

08/22/08 - Here's a what if for you. What if companies would pay people for perhaps one year of advertising on someone? On your average person, that wouldn't mean too much. But what if Coca-Cola paid some pop star to get a tattoo of their logo, perhaps on their lower back, or some such place?
I'm sure this sort of thing will happen soon enough.
I'd have to say this could be great for people that want to get some video game character, then realize that was a stupid idea later in life.

Their site.

GTA Can Now Be Sold to Kids in CA!

An article from the local paper, the Mercury News.

Judge tosses law banning video game sales to minors
By Howard Mintz
Mercury News
Article Launched: 08/06/2007 03:06:31 PM PDT

A federal judge in San Jose today declared unconstitutional a state law that barred California retailers from selling or renting violent video games to minors, concluding that the legislation violates the First Amendment.

In a 17-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte permanently blocked the law, which was signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005 to address mounting concerns that particularly violent and mayhem-filled video games incite violent behavior in youth. Among other things, the law required video game publishers to put an "18" label on particularly violent games.

While Whyte indicated he was "sympathetic" to state legislators' concerns, he found insufficient evidence of a connection between violent videos and violence in children to keep the law on the books. The legislation was originally backed by San Francisco legislator Leland Yee.

The evidence does not show that "playing violent video games immediately or necessarily results in real world violence," the judge wrote.

The video industry sued to block enforcement of the law two years ago, arguing that the legislation infringed on free speech rights and that the issue should be addressed by more parental involvement in the video game habits of their children.

Whyte's ruling can be appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Federal judges in a number of other states have struck down similar laws, including in Michigan, Washington and Missouri.

O'Reilly: Agree With Me or I'll Call the Cops

Just when I thought that he couldn't get any stupider...

Here's a short account of what's going on. He has a radio show, and invites people to call in, but if you say "Keith Olbermann" you get cut off. Okay, so far not that crazy yet.
Stupid? Yes, but not crazy.
Here's the crazy. He has Fox News Security (FSN) call you, and harass you. One woman they called was reduced to tears out of worry, because her daughter was in her car with her.

Billo even says on his show that he will have FSN call the cops in your local area to have them come and harass you as well. But of course, that's an idle threat, since there are no laws being broken.

Kipkay - 245mw Laser Hack

Ah, Kipkay. I love the stuff this guy comes up with, and this one doesn't disappoint.
This is instructions of how to turn an old DVD burner, a small 2xAA maglite, and a laser assembly into a very strong laser.

This is of course dangerous, so... don't be stupid with it.

Full directions here.

I wonder how that laser would look as viewed with his
$10 Do it yourself infrared goggles.

"Barbie Girl" On Four Cellos

If you like the sound of the cello you might actually want to listen to this. These four people play an instrumental version of that... terrible song 'Barbie Girl.'
Now, normally I wouldn't even think to torture anyone with listening to it, but this is actually quite pleasant to listen to. Just... make sure the lyrics of the real song don't get into your head.

Money Making Update, And Other News

Well, just thought I would give everyone a little update to my ongoing efforts to make money online.

From Google's Adsense I've earned about $25.82, while from Inbox Dollars I've earned $28.17.
Unfortunately I have to wait until I hit $100, and $30 respectively before I get a payment.

If I do get a payout from Inbox Dollars I'll post about it here, to show the world that it does indeed work. If I don't... well, I'll post about it here, to show the world they're just a waste of time.

Let's see what one's what!

Boot to the Head, Phoenix Wright Style

To my sister I leave... a boot to the head. *thump!*

This was done quite well. Great use of the sprites.

International "Don't Kill Anybody" Day

Okay, here's my idea for a new world-wide holiday. It really doesn't matter the date, how about September 24th.
The idea of the holiday is to not kill anyone. You'd also have to make sure not to put anyone in a position where they would have to kill you. That'd mean there would have to be treaties or something for that day.
But just imagine... Not one person killing any other person in the world for one whole day. Perhaps, even, a day without crime, without war... without some crazy religious nut blowing up some other crazy religious nut that had plans to blow up some third nut.

The sad thing is, for humanity, this would be an amazing accomplishment.

All everyone has to do is to agree not to kill anyone.
It's not that much of a commitment.
Twenty-Four hours.
No killing.
That's it.

Spread the word! No killing September twenty fourth!

2, The Ranting Gryphon - America (NSFW)

Ahh, 2. He makes a damn good point.

"We're killing people for no reason in a country, in a country we can't even point to on a map, in the name of a god they invented... and you want to know why the rest of the world hates America? Because we're assholes!"

-2

Welcome to Bizzaro World

Two people can have the same idea, and be thought of differently.If you're a politician, it's as though you're a biblical figure. Unless you never change your view on anything, you will be scored.
Personally, I would rather have someone that was open to new ideas than some pig-headed idiot that doesn't know when it's time to give up, and try something else.

The Origin of God - Douglas Adams

I absolutely love Douglas Adams, his works, and his ideas.
This speech he gave to Magdelene College Cambridge, in September of 1998.

Won't spoil any details for you. It's quite good, and even rather amusing, thanks to his particular style.

As an additional note, you might notice that he played Arther Dent in the original radio show.

FCC to Make a "Super V Chip"

"The Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation Thursday asking the Federal Communications Commission to oversee the development of a super V-chip that could screen content on everything from cell phones to the Internet."
-From the Article

Hey parents, instead of trying to protect your kids from... everything, how about you teach them how to take care of themselves? A little kid doesn't care if he sees a nude woman. In fact, the US is one of the few countries that are so up tight about such meaningless things.
A nude body isn't bad; it isn't a sin. No one person has anything that anyone else hasn't seen before, so just stop being so stupid about trying to control your kids' activities, and just teach them to take care of themselves.
I mean, it's people like you that have gotten episodes of Tom and Jerry edited, or even banned... just because they show them smoking.
Lighten up! Your kids are not stupid, but if you try to protect them from everything, they will be ignorant, and that's even worse.

Mozilla Releases Hacker Tools

Just a quick little thing. Mozilla is releasing a set of tools that are normally used by hackers to find vulnerabilities in programs. By doing so they are giving people a very good way to help them fix any security holes in their programs that might be left.
The versions they're putting out are somewhat older though, so the major companies have already had a chance to use them on their own software. These tools are instead meant mainly for the open source community to use on their own software, to make sure that they themselves are not vulnerable.
Businesses are now releasing hacking tools... I love it! The world is changing, let's hope it all for the better.

Taking a short break

The goings on in politics today are getting to be too much for me, at least for the time being. It seems like all this crap is happening, and nearly nothing is being done to prevent it. So, this is why I'm taking a short break, at least for now.
I should be back within a day or two. Until then I still might post a video or two that I've seen, but politics... I just need to step away from, for my own well being.

We as a country need to stand up and stay we're pissed off and we're not going to take this crap any longer. Until we do, not only will we have to keep taking it, but we ourselves are guilty for allowing it to happen.

State of the Fox Address

I look around me at the world today and I see war, greed, and corruption. I see people that care more about getting back to their cars after they've left Walmart, than they do about a dying woman that has been stabbed several times, well, except maybe to take a f&#*ing picture. I see people that seem to care more about American Idol than they do about the American Election.
Speaking of elections, we have one coming next November. That is well over a year away, but looking at the amount that these clowns running for office are campaigning, you would think that it's coming up in a couple months time.
I see leaders in our own government that are not only ready to, but actively stabbing us, the American people, in the back for a quick buck. At the same time I see a dancing-monkey-type figurehead that is arguably the worst "president" in American history.
I see the rest of the world looking at the people of the United States, and thinking that we are just like Bush, since we elected him, and we're obviously doing nothing at all to stop him.
As of this post the US is 8.935 Trillion dollars in debt. At this rate we'll hit 9 Trillion in mid September. Our debt is now so high that we basically have no hope of EVER paying it off, not in a hundred years. The most we can try for is to keep it from going up any higher too quickly.

This is just appalling; yet we sit here and do nothing to stop it. In other counties, when the government does something wrong, the people take to the streets and show their disapproval, but here in the US people are too afraid of saying anything, thanks to the modern policeman.
And now, at any protest in the US there seems to be a few troublemakers. They don't get caught, and they're used to justify mass police action that results in a lot of innocent people getting hurt, no guilty people arrested, and no more protest.

When is this going to stop? When we, as a people, decide to do something about it. Until then, enjoy your police state. Enjoy your substandard education system. Enjoy your terrible, profit driven health care system. Enjoy your government that is nearly totally bought out by big business.

Ten Most Popular Past Thoughts

1. How to: Enslave a Population Today
2. Classic Game Review: Nanaca Crash
3. News Helicopter Collision in Phoenix
4. AT&T is all Pissed
5. To the person.... Reply 2
6. ... With a Mortar Launcher
7. Hell: Too Good for Some Evil Bastards
8. To the Person That was Spamming my Comments
9. A Challenge To You
10. Don't Take Drugs... Except Ours! (NSFW)

GoLeftTV News For August 1st

Just watched this, and I have to say that it's quite a good commentary on the various incredible things that our government is currently doing.

And of course, their site is here.

"News Corp" Owns More than You Might Think

News Corp, the corporation that owns Fox News, owns quite a bit more than you might have previously realized.
Things you would likely recognize are newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal and New York Post; TV guide magazine; of course, the rest of the Fox TV studios (*growl*); Zondervan, a very Corporate-Christian book publisher, along with dozens of other things.
It doesn't stop with real media, though. They also own websites such as MySpace, IGN, and Photobucket.
Just remember, all the crap that is said on Fox News has to be approved by the higher ups, and there is no higher up in that company than Rupert Murdoch. So keep in mind that the people that give Bill O'Reilly his paycheck and script are the same people that own your Myspace page.

Strange Fitness Video

Crazy Fitness Chick - Watch more free videos

I've seen strange things for exercise balls and what not, but this... this is just out there. It was posted under the title "Crazy Fitness Chick." Just... watch for the poodles.