« April 2005 | Main | June 2005 »
May 31, 2005
Add a Favicon to your website 
This explains how to make a custom icon appear in the browser bar before the URL. First, create a Favicon from a picture for free here. Then, save the image, named favicon.ico, into the root directory of your web page. Some browsers also need the following HTML added in the HTML Heading section:
<head>
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico">
<link rel="icon" href="favicon.ico">
</head>
If it's working, it should look something like this:
If it's not working, you can test your Favicon here.
For some reason, mine works with Firefox, but not IE. There's a surprise. OK. Just found the solution here. Solution to make the favicon appear in IE is:
"Drag the generic favicon from the address bar in ie into an open area - don't let go, drag back to the address bar and the favicon will appear - it's a known glitch."
It's a known bug in IE. Are you surprised ;)
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 31, 2005 at 6:50 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
Googlebots - Waiting for the next Deep Scan
So, I'm trying to generate more hits for my miserable little website. It doesn't get a lot of hits, not because it's a disconnected series of discrete, rambling, inchoate thoughts, but because of some problem inherent in the Google search engine.
The Google Spiders (googlebots) then crawl around through these links in cyberspace, cataloging, ranking, and indexing them. You need as many inbound links (links to your web page) from high-priority sites as possible. As a webmaster, you have to direct the activity of these software robots, steering the spiders to the web's sitemap.
There are a few different types of spiders. Some crawl just the main index, and others perform a "deep crawl" where they crawl through every page and link on the web site. If you have a page that you don't want the robots (spiders) to crawl, you can specify this in the robots.txt file.
New web pages are stuck in the sandbox, sort of like a penalty box for new web pages. There are various theories as to whether this is due to too many one way links, or reciprocal links, or some combination thereof. So, that's kinda what I'm doing, is slowly attempting to crawl out of the sandbox.
One of the best ways to get a lot of one-way links is reportedly to submit your site at DMOZ. So, I submitted my site here, and to Google.
1) In your meta html, set meta name="robots" content="index,follow"
2) If you don't have a site map, then build one.
3) Make sure your Robots.txt does not ban any furthur crawling
4) Memorize the information at www.google.com/webmasters
You can create a spider map for you web site here.
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/23566.htm
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 31, 2005 at 2:19 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Hillary Rodham lied to America
The Penguin Group is rushing Edward Klein's forthcoming expose on Hillary Rodham into print, months ahead of schedule, due to the intense hatred of Hillary. The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President is widely claimed to have enough damaging, credible information about her to destroy her illconceived 2008 presidential bid.
"Bestselling author Edward Klein draws on rare access to inside sources to reveal what Hillary knew and when she knew it during her years as first lady, especially during her husband’s impeachment. Klein’s book, embargoed until publication, will break news about the choices and calculations she has made over the years. It will also prove that she lied to America in her bestselling autobiography Living History."
As always, Blogs Against Hillary has the scoop.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 31, 2005 at 1:40 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Leftosphere - An extension of the MSM?
Is Bayosphere, a new bay area blog by Dan Gillmor, poised to become anything more than an online extension of the MSM's liberal tentacles? Some say it's too early to tell, as the blog hasn't officially launched. But, early signs aren't promising.
Dan chose to use Memorial Day as a chance to do a little self-loathing. This is old hat for the liberal MSM, as there's no bad time for a little self-loathing, with a link to the east coast mavens at the NY Times. Typically, they like to do a little grandstanding on days like the 4th of July, Memorial Day, Veteran's Day. (They usually miss April 19th, because there's not one in a hundred that knows the significance of that proud day.)
Now, I'm not in favor about what's going on at Camp X-ray down in Gitmo, but where is the independent, objective analysis we were promised? How about mentioning the benefits of the invasion of Iraq, like the blooming democracies in the region? Witness the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, and the Purple Revolution in Iraq.
What will Dan do come September, when the NY Times starts charging for their oped swill? Aside from a persistent bleating of the wisdom of renting in the strongest real estate market in the country, Bayosphere looks more like it's poised to become a localized version of the Daily Kos blog, than a new form of media.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 31, 2005 at 9:57 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
May 30, 2005
When cars are outlawed, only outlaws will speed
Once you disarm a society of guns, the subjects would be at a distinct disadvantage if they thought the other person had a gun, so logically, you have to ban toy guns. The Green Party is serious about banning toy guns as well.
The British Medical Journal goes further, by advocating reducing "knife crime", stating plainly that "We need to ban the sale of long, pointed kitchen knives." Of course, this is the logical extension of the gun control argument. The logic is exactly the same. If there were no knives in society, wouldn't that reduce the number of stabbing deaths?
Unfortunately, the intrepid politicians of the British Medical Journal don't carry their argument far enough. If we're to truly blame inanimate objects for crime, then why not cars, swimming pools, and scissors. Why are we wasting our collective breath with "knife crime" and "toy gun control", when 5,000 people die every day in "car crimes" and "car-related crimes"? "Car crimes" are directly responsible for 50,000 deaths a year in the U.S. alone, and countless pregnancies. Not only are cars used to commit such crimes as drunk driving, speeding, racing, and tailgating, but they're the weapon of choice for bank robbers, rapists, stalkers, and hit-and-run drivers.
Although reputable dealerships routinely refer purchasers to the county to register the vehicles, what about the "used car loophole", where people can buy cars from private citizens with no proof of id, no background check, no registration, and no cooling off period? It's just cash and carry, and you've got a person out on the streets with a truck that can be used to rob banks, rape teenagers, and destroy pristine habitat of the endangered Deep-Throated Nut Sucker. Frequently, these vehicles can reach speeds in excess of 140 mph, over twice the posted speed limits on U.S. highways. Who needs this type of vehicle?
I'd like to get ahead of the curve and get out in front of the British Medical Journal on this one. With deference to my fellow citizens that proposed to close the Golden Gate Bridge to save lives, although I respect their intent, their solution is woefully inadequate. I'm sure I'm going to take some flack for this, but I'm not sure why we have to be so reactionary, always waiting for some nut group to dream up these ideas first, so that we read about their brain farts in the daily fish wrappers. Let's get out in front and demand some common sense regulations on "assault vehicles" and "thrill craft" that are taking so many young lives unnecessarily.
I propose:
* Government installed velocity controls on any vehicle with more than three cylinders.
* Mandatory background checks on all private and commercial vehicle purchases.
* Close the "used car loophole".
* No more than one vehicle purchase per month.
* Limits on the number of "thrill craft" any subject can own.
* Cooling off period for anyone wanting to purchase a vehile that goes faster than 20 mph.
* Lawsuits against the "car peddlers" that are profiting from the sale of these death machines.
Think about the children, and support common sense "car control". After all, if it saves just one life, isn't it worth it?
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 30, 2005 at 8:14 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Memorial Day in the Rockies
Male Broad-Tailed Hummingbird on Mountain Lilac. Canon EOS 20D w/ 85mm zoom lens on Manfrotto/Bogen tripod.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 30, 2005 at 9:47 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 29, 2005
Snuggles and Midnight are proud parents!
Snuggles had her babies last night. Midnight, apparently, works really fast. We bought him on Sunday May 1st, and on Sunday May 29th, Snuggles gave birth to seven healthy baby gerbils. The babies are about 1/2" - 3/4" long. They appear almost inconceivably small. (These photos were taken with Jennifer's camera, as it tends to do better with macro shots in low light.) Learn the painful details of Midnight's shotgun gerbil wedding here and here. See their new habitrail paradise here.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 29, 2005 at 1:03 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 28, 2005
Demagogues Still Don't Get It
Here's some made up liberal propaganda where 53% of the people claim they'd vote for Hilary Rodham. Hah! The only way you could get those kind of numbers would be to take the poll in the poorest section of town, and, last time I checked, that demographic has a nasty propensity of not showing up at the polls on Tuesday.
These Democrats are like weebles that wobble but won't fall down. Somehow, by default, they get to nominate a candidate every four years. But they have no clue what it takes to win the election. The pretentious Left Coast liberals and the Blue Blooded East Coast mavens just don't "get" flyover country. They're not going to shove a granola crunching liberal down our throats, but, for some reason, they keep trying.
Hilary is a cold, calculating, pathogen. I would say she is a nihilist, but if that isn't true, then her only tenuous claim to a particular ethos would be as an elitist. A decade ago, she tried to force socialized medicine down our throat and her proposal was taken out and killed unceremoniously. Hilary is a goat in goat's clothing. I despise her more than words can convey, as does every other man I've ever spoken to.
Even Joe Klein, the unrepentant foaming liberal mouthpiece for Time magazine, thinks she should stay out. I don't care if she runs. Personally, I hope she does run. She is, however, unelectable. This fact is intuitively obvious to the casual observer.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 28, 2005 at 10:17 PM : Comments (4) | Permalink
May 27, 2005
Extinct Flower Discovered on Mt. Diablo
A small pink flower, thought to be extinct for 70 years, has been discovered on Mt. Diablo, by a Berkeley graduate student hippie male. The flower, named Mount Diablo Buckwheat, was last seen in 1936. For the uninitiated, this is one of those peaks that you fly over just before you begin your initial descent into the San Francisco Bay area. It's in the East Bay, a few miles east of Danville. Unfortunately, some crackpot is trying to get them to rename Mt. Diablo, so you'd better hurry if you want to find it.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 27, 2005 at 2:28 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 25, 2005
Winamp Hacks the iPod
Perhaps you're one of the jaded masses that purchased an iPod, only to discover that you can put songs into it, but you can't get them out. It's like a little black hole for music. The only reason that it works this way, of course, is because of the behind-the-scenes influence peddling by the thought police at the World Intellectual Property Organization(WIPO) and the Recording Industry Aggravators of Amerika(RIAA).
They designed the iPod so that you couldn't pull songs out of it to prevent piracy. Of course, as a result, they made it much less useful. How'd you like to send a big "F.U." to your friends at Apple, WIPO, and the RIAA? Well now you can, thanks to the new plug-in for WinAmp. Now you can play your iPod songs using WinAmp instead of iTunes, and, more importantly, you can extract songs from your iPod player as well.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 25, 2005 at 3:17 PM : Comments (5) | Permalink
May 24, 2005
The Royal Library of Alexdria
The city of Alexandria was founded on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt by the Alexander the Great at the intersection of three continents(Europe,Asia, and Africa). The library was founded by Ptolemy II Soter, but the library grew because Ptolemy III ordered that all visitors to the city surrender their books to be copied by scribes. Within its walls, all of the entire knowledge of antiquity was stored on papyrus scrolls.
Unfortunately, the city of Alexandria was sacked repeatedly over the next few hundred years, and the library was burned to the ground over 2,000 years ago. In pursuit of his rival Pompey, Julius Caesar occupied the city of Alexandria in 47 - 48 B.C. and moved in with Cleopatra. However, the Pharoah assembled some men and counterattacked. Caesar, in a desperate predicatment, he started a fire which burned the Egyptian fleet, saving himself. Unfortanely, the fire spread to the docks and burned the Royal Library of Alexandria to the ground. Almost nothing was saved from the fire, and an estimated at 400,000 scrolls were incinerated.
That so little of our knowledge of antiquity has survived is what makes the work that archeologists are doing recently so intriguing. At Stanford's Synchrotron Radiation Library(SSRL), they're using a synchrotron x-ray beam to read the writings of the ancient mathematical genius Archimedes, born over two thousand years ago in Sicily.
At Oxford, they're using a technique developed by NASA called Multispectral Imaging to read ancient faded texts unearthed from the rubbish heaps of a vanished city south of Cairo.
In the past few weeks alone, researchers have succeeded in deciphering a 70-line fragment from a lost tragedy by Sophocles and a 30-line fragment from Archilochos, a Greek soldier-poet who chronicled the Trojan War.
So maybe as our technology, we'll recover some of what was lost in the pyres of the Royal Library of Alexandria.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 24, 2005 at 5:40 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 23, 2005
Lunatics Wrap House in Tinfoil
They claim that, since the anniversary of 9/11, unknown neighbors have been bombarding the home with radio waves. They did it "As a shield...to protect...against radiation...because microwave radiation is reflected off of aluminum so...it's a protective measure. At first, you're skeptical but...we've tracked our health...the temperature in the home...we've had blankets burn that are supposed to reflect microwave radiation and radar...and they've burned."
Freaking hilarious. Where else but in Kalifornia. The video tells it all.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 23, 2005 at 9:21 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 22, 2005
Snuggles is preggers!
For those of you following the saga of Snuggles and Midnight, our two intrepid gerbils, we last mentioned that the two were forced into a double mealworm shotgun wedding. Well, it's now official. Snuggles is preggers, and she's as big as a house. Well...a gerbil house anyway. She's noticably larger, and, according to my gerbil research, is due to give birth on Wednesday at 2:00 a.m. More as things develop.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 22, 2005 at 10:39 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Airplanes That Land Themselves?
The military is apparently pursuing the development of an automated method of landing planes on carriers. This is not a crazy idea, but it's an idea who's time has not come. The dynamics involved in landing an airplane at night, in a storm, on a carrier are too complicated to be trusted to a few million lines of code. It's true that humans make errors in landing planes on carriers, but that doesn't mean that software can do a better job. Some company named QinetQ has apparently demonstrated an automated landing of a short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft on a ship. But, this doesn't mean it's a good idea. I was immediately reminded of the performance of this highly automated Airbus A320 at an airshow in 1988. More details on this A320 crash here. We don't need software flying planes or driving cars, as automated systems make as many mistakes, if not more, than people do.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 22, 2005 at 4:32 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 21, 2005
Germany - Land of the Free
Internet Service Providers(ISP's) in Germany will begin trashing their dynamic IP address history. This means that, if you are dynamically assigned an IP address by your German ISP, they aren't keeping a record of who had that IP address as of a point in time. Which means, for all intents and purposes, that you're allowed to surf the net anonymously. Wow. What a concept. German citizens are allowed to live free, anonymous lives, unmolested by their government. Very interesting. The current regime in the U.S. should take note. People don't want to live like Orwellian gerbils.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 21, 2005 at 9:50 AM : Comments (2) | Permalink
May 20, 2005
Your Freedom Is At Risk
The geniuses at the FEC want to regulate blogs. Their thought is that blogs on the internet could be used to alter an election, which makes it subject to the FEC's campaign finance reform. This draconian measure limits speech under the guise of a fair election. All typical bureaucratic hogwash, but you need to let them know it, and you need to let them know right away. Send an email to internet@fec.gov and let them know that you don't want them meddling in your affairs. If you do this, be sure to include your full name and address or they'll ignore the email. Alternately, you can go here and fill out their online questionaire.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 20, 2005 at 10:20 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Newsweek Spacemonkeys
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 20, 2005 at 2:06 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 19, 2005
SF Prepares to Devour Its Citizens
The City of San Francisco, in a misguided attempt to reduce homocides in the city, will vote on a referendum this November that will disarm all of its citizens, except for police, rent-a-pigs, and the politically well-connected like Diane Feinstein. That's right. In a city with 10 concealed carry permits, she is the proud owner of SF's concealed carry permit #0001. At least she's not a hypocrite, right? All people are created equal, but some are apparently more equal than others.
But if you disagree with the city for denying its citizens the fundamental right to self defense, you have to respect the city for their ability to think outside the box...outside the federal and state constitutions, even. And their tenacity can't be questioned either. It isn't like the city hasn't tried this stunt before.
Cinnamon is right on track when she poses the question "Does the famously liberal leadership of San Francisco really want to place itself in the position of breaking down doors and forcibly disarming law-abiding citizens?"
Molon Labe - "Come and take them."
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 19, 2005 at 3:35 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
May 16, 2005
CBS announces unsolicited bid for Newsweek
After trading closed on Wall Street today, Viacom/CBS announced an unsolicited offer to acquire all outstanding assets of Newsweek Corporation in a surprise takeover bid. Larry S. Kramer, the head of Viacom’s CBS News Division, explains:
“We felt like it was a natural fit. I saw Mark Whitaker’s[Newsweek’s Editor] comments come across the wire and I was immediately impressed. Mark said 'We're not saying it absolutely happened but we can't say that it absolutely didn't happen either.' Well, obviously that dovetails nicely with our newsroom motto of 'Fake, But Accurate'. It just seemed like a logical fit.�
“We should be able to recognize some economies of scale in the merger." Larry explained. "Not in fact checkers, as we don’t currently have any of those in our newsroom, and tentative feelers have indicated there are none at Newsweek either, but we figure that we could fabricate the news stories with less people. The same “fake but accurate� stories could be printed in magazine form, and aired on the small screen, for a substantial savings of cost.�
"Plus, both of our stocks[Viacom/CBS and Newsweek] seem to be tracking downward at about the same rate of descent" Larry observed. Responding to skeptical stock analysts after the bell, Larry observed "I'll admit pricing this thing is tricky...it's a lot like trying to catch a falling star."
Larry moved to squash rumors that Eason Jordan would be asked to run CBS’s Bureau of Military Affairs.
“While we would love to have someone with a proven track record like Eason Jordan, the reality is that, at this point, we just can’t afford to bring him on board. I was impressed with his comments at Davos, as were many of my colleagues, I am sure. It takes guts to fabricate a demonstrably false story that undermines our military at a time they are in grave danger. But to trot the fabrication out in front of countries known to oppose our foreign policy at a tony gathering of Europe’s pseudo-intellectuals to see if the story has legs, that takes kiwis. Eason is our kind of man, but he’s playing out of our league. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him become a senator one day.�
Larry went on to say that their new motto would tentatively be “Fake But Accurate: Even if it didn’t happen, it very well could have.�
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 16, 2005 at 11:51 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Mark Whitaker - The New Village Idiot
Mark Whitaker, the moron at the helm of Newsweek, gives birth to the new MSM mantra:
"We're not saying it absolutely happened but we can't say that it absolutely didn't happen either." - Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker
This sounds oddly familiar to CBS's infamous "fake, but accurate" code of journalistic integrity.
Here's the cover of Newsweek that you will never see.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 16, 2005 at 11:04 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
Newsweek Proffers an Olive Branch
Scrappleface has a freaking hilarious article regarding Newsweek's inappropriate response to their fabricated story that sparked rioting in the Muslim world on a global scale, ultimately resulting in at least fifteen deaths and hundreds of injuries:
"If there's a bright side to this story," said Mr. Whitaker. "At least our anonymous sources are safe, unharmed. And of course, our advertisers now know that Newsweek has great credibility in the Arab world, despite the bad feelings that Muslims have about America in general."In an effort to help in the grieving process, the magazine's publisher said that immediate family members of the dead would receive a free 90-day trial subscription to Newsweek.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 16, 2005 at 10:51 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Newsweek Lied - People Died
Newsweek reaffirmed their position as a liberal, yellow, tabloid supermarket-checkout-counter rag last week, by reporting false, unsubstantiated rumors as fact. They falsely reported that U.S. interragators in Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Koran by flushing it down a commode, sparking riots across the globe. Muslims around the world took to the streets burning U.S. flags, and attacking people. At last count, approximately 15 people were reported killed in what was possibly the most massive religious uprising since the Crusades.
Newsweek was slow to correct their account and buried it when they did. Their response was eerily reminiscent of CBS's attempt to justify Dan Rather's career-ending news fiasco, claiming his documents were "fake, but accurate".
If this had happened in the blogosphere, Newsweek, CBS, and Eason Jordan would be filleting the blogs, field-dressing the guilty, calling for congressional hearings, prosecutions for manslaughter, censorship, and a clear deliniation between professional journalists and the pajama-clad bloggers. However, since it happened to one of their own, there was merely a minor shuffling of the Titanic's deck chairs.
The MSM will have to shed it's blatant, well-documented liberal bias, or it will become obsolete, as the internet provides alternate views on the same stories, and "readers" reach out to form a new, more interactive, and less biased representation of the events unfolding in the world around us.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 16, 2005 at 3:56 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Bayosphere - The Chrysopolis Chimera
Dan Gillmore has launched Bayosphere, which appears to be poised to fill a new niche. My take is that it will be a sort of a chimera between a blog and the MSM. The main stream media has been abysmally slow to understand the power of the blogosphere. The blogosphere is the most efficient fact-checking engine in the history of the world, and the MSM has been abysmally slow to grasp this. (Witness the fiasco at Newsweek where they falsely claimed interrogators desecrated the Koran by flushing it down a commode deep in the bowels of Gitmo, inciting riots across the globe resulting in over two dozen deaths.)
The MSM has been victimized by a ruthless thought consolidation that would make Goebbels drool with envy. The inexcusable capitulation of the FCC is the antithesis of agency capture, allowing conglomerates to gobble up the airwaves. The JOA's allowed the newspapers to further consolidate. Today, something like 85% of the radio, television, and newsprint in controlled by a handful of companies. Predictably, the result has been the glorification of the Democrats and the vilification of the Republicans.
Much of the blogosphere, although conservative, such as Instapundit and others, is not as interactive as it could be. Instapundit, which I love to read, is basically just one guy, deciding what he posts on his site, which links he likes, linking to views that agree with his, etc. Comments and trackbacks are not allowed. So, although I love Instapundit, and more often than not agree with Glenn Reynolds, it's not a replacement for the MSM, nor, I'm sure, is that the intent.
My hope is that the Bayosphere is stepping up to fill this gaping hole that exists between the MSM's one-way liberal mealy-mouth my-way-or-the-highway, here-it-comes-be-ready-when-it-hits-you news steamroller and the techno-pundit, the indefatigable gadfly that lives and breathes to rebut the fountain of lies spewing from the multifaceted spigots of the MSM. What would make the Bayosphere a success would be to have a truly diverse editorial staff that could tackle the issues facing Northern California today, with an open, honest, objective opinions. The way to do this would be to allow people to debate issues in an open comments forum. So, to make this venture successful, regular contributors and anonymous contributors would compete for space in this Brave New Blog. Honest, open debate should be allowed via comments and trackbacks underneath each article. Through this forum, the ideas presented would be debated on their own merit, not on some pre-approved list of palatable ideas to which the MSM is forced to kowtow in perpetuity.
I have no idea who this Dan Gillmore guy is, but if he wants to view the world like my friend Halsey Minor, perched out on Lands End, gazing out over China Beach, drinking in the view of the Golden Gate through floor to ceiling plate-glass windows, he'll have to bring a new view to the city. Not some politically correct soft copy of the San Francisco Fish Wrapper. He needs to bring a plethora of truly diverse opinions to his new venture, and give the citizens of this country the true freedom of the press they signed up for, not the licensed media of Citizen Kane, of which our founding fathers were so presciently wary.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 16, 2005 at 10:57 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 15, 2005
Opportunity Still Stuck in Sand Dune
Opportunity appears to be going nowhere fast. He's buried up to all six hubs in fine martian dust.
This is, of course, assuming that NASA isn't still lying about the missions. Recall that they initially warned that after 90 days, the rovers would grind to a halt due to a buildup of martian dust. But now that they've been roaming around up there for a year and half now, it turns out that this was all just a big lie. They were sandbagging so that, if they broke after 90 days, they'd call it a success. Whereas, they knew all along that the little Martian robots would, in all probability, last for a full earth year, and possibly much longer.
After their initial 3 month mission, their mission was extended two times for for an additional 11 months. After those 14 months passed, their mission was extended again, this time through September of 2006. This is sandbagging on an almost unimaginable scale, and makes me wonder what other issues they're sandbagging on? Hubble's life expectancy? The Deep Impact camera problems? Project co$t$?
So, is the rover really stuck? I have no idea. I know NASA has lied to us before. How's the saying go? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me", right?
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 15, 2005 at 7:00 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Revenge of the Sith
Some guy lambastes the Revenge of the Sith as:
....nothing more than a sigh—the sigh uttered by a terminally ill patient when, finally, the euthanasia is administered. Part punishment, part release (in the most scatological sense of the term)...Suffice it to say that Star Wars has long since passed from cinematic to cultural narrative, a story that won’t end with the last movie or the last few hundred million in action-figure sales, but with the as-yet-unforeseeable death of the much-larger phenomenon it initiated: the blockbuster era, which, like crack addiction, sustains itself on cycles of euphoria, amnesia and denial.
http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/frontpage7.asp
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 15, 2005 at 12:30 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
May 13, 2005
Pruno - The Breakfast of Champions!
Ever heard of Pruno? It's apparently a horrendous alcoholic concoction that the convicts make in prison requiring nothing more than fruit, sugar, ketchup, and a ziploc bag. By all accounts, it tastes remarkably like putrified horse flesh, but a gallon of it can get a dozen or more inmates snot-slinging drunk before noon. Those lifers are a resourceful lot, aren't they? If you're looking to whip up a batch, The Black Table has you covered.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 13, 2005 at 11:59 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
The Tooth Fairy Cometh
The tooth fairy comes tonight. As of today, Jennifer has lost a total of 5 teeth. Her tooth came out at school, and they gave her a little "tooth safe" shaped like a treasure chest to take it home in. Jennifer left a note for the tooth fairy, explaining that she was sleeping in my bed, as her gerbils, Midnight and Snuggles, make too much noise at night and keep her awake. Apparently, they're feeling particularly amorous since their official Gerbil Wedding last weekend. Plus, she left the tooth fairy a little trinket. I was like "Did you leave this for him?" and she was like "For her daddy. The tooth fairy is a her!" Doh! I keep forgetting that part!
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 13, 2005 at 10:52 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Caddyshack Trivia Quiz
Sure, you've watched it a few dozen times. But how well do you really know Caddyshack? Take the Caddyshack Trivia Quiz.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 13, 2005 at 1:33 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Denver Rises Above Law To Prosecute Citizens
The city of Denver, Colorado is at it again, prosecuting citizens for exercising their rights guaranteed under the Constitution of the State of Colorado and the 2nd amendment to of the U.S. Constitution.
The City of Colorado Springs is on the fence, trying to decide whether they should join the fight against the rogue city of Denver. If you happen to live in El Paso County, contact them and tell them to fight for the rights guaranteed to you in both the U.S. and State constitutions, or you'll elect someone who will.
Many thanks to Dudley Brown of the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners http://www.rmgo.org/ for pointing this out.
Continue reading "Denver Rises Above Law To Prosecute Citizens"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 13, 2005 at 11:20 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 12, 2005
Slap Your Co-Worker Day is Coming!
Tomorrow is the official Slap Your Irritating Co-workers Holiday:
Do you have a co-worker who talks nonstop about nothing, working your last nerve with tedious and boring details that you don't give a damn about?
Do you have a co-worker who ALWAYS screws up stuff creating MORE work for you?
Do you have a co-worker who kisses so much booty, you can look in their mouth and see what your boss had for lunch?
Do you have a co-worker who is SOOO obnoxious, when he/she enters a room, everyone else clears it?
Well, on behalf of Ike Turner, I am so very very glad to officially announce tomorrow as SLAP YOUR IRRITATING CO-WORKER DAY!
These are the rules you must follow:
* You can only slap one person per hour - no more.
* You can slap the same person again if they irritate you again in the same day.
* You are allowed to hold someone down as other co-workers take their turns slapping the irritant.
* No weapons are allowed...other than going upside somebody's head with a stapler or a hole-puncher.
* CURSING IS MANDATORY! After you have slapped the recipient, your "assault" must be followed with something like "cause I'm sick of your stupid-a$$ always messing up stuff!"
* If questioned by a supervisor [or police], you are allowed to LIE, LIE, LIE! Now, study the rules, break out your list of folks that you want to slap the living day lights out of and get to slapping.....and have a great day!
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 12, 2005 at 9:34 AM : Comments (2) | Permalink
United States Swimming In Fear!
After 9/11, everyone seemed to be wondering why they didn't just blow the jets out of the sky with F16's or cruise missiles. The reason is that, if you took that approach, you'd kill WAY more innocent victims by shooting down errant passenger jets than the terrorists would kill. (Like in 1988 when the US Vincennes shot down a commercial airliner). So, although the terrorists do pose a potential threat to US citizens, our collective reaction to this negligble threat, becomes a very real threat both to our freedom and our saftey.
Yesterday was a classic example. A student pilot and his instructor in a tiny Cessna 150 strayed into the protected airspace over the mall in DC, and they're suddenly scrambling jets, shooting flares, and evacuating the White House and the Capitol. This is asinine. First of all, there are no freaking lines painted in the sky for a pilot flying VFR. Secondly, if the potential threat is a Cessna 150 aircraft, you're clearly safer inside the building. Finally, if you're that freaking paranoid, then why don't you build bunkers underground like the other dictators so that you don't have to live in fear of the citizens around you.
But, it isn't like this is a first. Does anyone remember September 11th, 1994? A lunatic deliberately crashed a Cessna 150 into the Whitehouse on that date, while the secret service ran for cover like so many shattered housewives. No one ever fired a shot at the plane as it crashed into the Whitehouse.
Anyone remember Mathias Rust? He deliberately piloted a Cessna 172 (larger than a 150) into the Soviet Union airspace and landed in Red Square intentionally. They held him in prison for 18 months while the United States called on them to release him for what was clearly an innocent prank. I wonder how our intrepid leaders of today would judge his actions?
My suggestion to our fearful leaders is this; we're all going to die someday. That much is sure. Why cower like dogs in fear for your days on this earth. If you really want to defeat the terrorists, walk outside and enjoy the Sunshine. Stop quaking in fear every time you hear the drone of a Cessna's engine.
The paranoia and fear betrayed by the massive overreaction of the Washington DC gestapo bears the hallmarks of a ruthless dictatorship. Think I'm wrong? Sit back and enjoy the ride. It's going to get bumpy from here.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 12, 2005 at 7:54 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 11, 2005
Computer Soaked in Mineral Oil
I'm not entirely clear why, but for some reason, this genius put his computer in an aquarium full of mineral oil. Apparently, mineral oil doesn't conduct electricity? Go figure.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 11, 2005 at 8:40 PM : Comments (3) | Permalink
Economic Theory
I'm hashing out a little pet theory of mine that goes something like this. In any given large city, anywhere in the world, there exists a powerful extralegal organization that regulates most of the cities' commerce, both legitimate and extralegal. What makes my pet theory peculiar is that I believe that the legitimate business owners, the city government, and the Main Stream Media are colluding because they have a vested interest in the success of the criminal organization.
http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/monopoly.htm
Continue reading "Economic Theory"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 11, 2005 at 1:05 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 10, 2005
Real-ID Passes U.S. Senate 100-0
The U.S. Senate passed the $82 billion Iraq Supplemental Spending Bill which includes the Real ID act driver's license reform. The National Governors Association has indicated at the possibility of a lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the Real ID provisions, which would create national driver's license standards, and a federal database of information from all 50 states.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 10, 2005 at 10:39 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 9, 2005
Papers Please
Tomorrow, the US Senate is scheduled to vote on the implementation of a national ID card system. The Real ID Act is nothing less than a Real National ID Act. The only thing left to the individual states is which pretty picture they will choose to put on the card: everything else will be controlled by Washington DC bureaucrats.
Contact your representatives and let them know what you think about the Real ID system. (Hurry, though, because they vote on this tomorrow.)
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 9, 2005 at 11:22 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
May 8, 2005
May Menu
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 8, 2005 at 3:36 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Gerbil Wedding
We bought Jennifer a pet gerbil named Snuggles shortly after I started working locally. I’d promised her a pet, and she eventually settled on a gerbil. I’d told her stories of how I raised gerbils, and they’d had babies, and those babies grew up to have babies. When we brought Snuggles home, she began to show some concerns I had not anticipated.
“I don’t want Snuggles to get pregnant, daddy.�
“Well, I don’t think there’s any danger of that angel.�
“Why, daddy. How do you know?�
“She can’t get pregnant alone, baby. There has to be a daddy gerbil to get the momma pregnant.�
“Oh. OK, daddy.�
Continue reading "Gerbil Wedding"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 8, 2005 at 1:21 PM : Comments (3) | Permalink
May 6, 2005
FCC Takes It In The Shorts
Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF) are reporting that the FCC had their hat handed to them by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. In an audacious move, the FCC attempted to take control of your television, your personal computer, and your Tivo/Personal Video Recorder(PVR) all in one fell swoop. Fortunately, the court told the FCC that they had no authority beyond 'wardrobe malfunctions'. Unfortunately, the FCC is going back to Congress to request the necessary authority to control everything electronic in your house.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 6, 2005 at 3:37 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 5, 2005
School Daze
Here's a video of some of some recent elementary school photos. This slideshow is a 9 Meg self-playing executable named school.exe. The soundtrack is 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins. Click here to download the presentation. If you have an Apple, an iMac, or some other type of computer with training wheels, click here to download the Macromedia Flash version. Click here if you need help.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 5, 2005 at 11:55 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 4, 2005
Unexpected System Failure - Prepare For Impact
These stories just write themselves. You really can't make up things any crazier than what's out there. Bill Gates is currently working with Ford Motor Company to make a car that won't crash. Right. How about you geniuses in Redmond focusing on making a computer operating system that won't crash, and leave the cars alone. Microsoft's operating systems are notoriously unstable. When the O/S crashes, you see that annoying blue screen, derisively referred to as the "Blue Screen of Death. This spawned a joke a while back that Microsoft intended to start generating revenue by selling ad space on the Blue Screen of Death. Then, there was the joke that circulated a while back about If Microsoft Made Cars. Never mind that fact that a growing percentage of car service is due to software problems already. I, for one, will never buy a car that runs a Microsoft operating system. Unexepected system failure - brace for impact :O
Update: Toyota Prius has a software bug that causes the engine to shut down at highway speeds. Nice.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 4, 2005 at 1:19 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
May 3, 2005
Classic Scapegoating
You may recall the fiasco that befell Delta's regional jet service Comair (Com-"scare") over Christmas of 2004. Their aging SBS flight crew reservation system choked, canceling thousands of flights, and costing their new parent company, Delta, in the neighborhood of $20 mill. In this article, they fault Comair and Delta not replacing the software sooner. However, IMHO, I think one could easily argue that the risks of replacing the software outweigh the risks of not replacing the software. The glitch that unraveled the airline was that the crew management application could not handle more than 32,000 per month before shutting down.
On January 17th of this year, Delta forced Comair's President Randy Rademacher to step down. To me, this is absurd. There's no way anyone could have known that the flight reservation system was going to behave that way, nor is there any crystal ball that would indicate that, had the system been replaced, the new system wouldn't have suffered a similar fate or worse.
I can tell you this, if you think that the IT group running Comair is inordinately clueless, you'd be mistaken. IT departments today are supporting countless systems, both home-grown, and off-the-shelf. All of these applications require ongoing maintenance to correct existing problems, enhance functionality, and to comply with new requirements. All of these millions of lines of code are, at best, poorly understood. Various people understand bits and pieces of each application. Collectively, they manage the programs, fixing them when the fail, which isn't uncommon.
The only real difference between the system failure suffered by Comair is mainly that it occurred in a highly visible system at a critcal time (the holiday rush). The reality is that Randy Rademacher is a scapegoat, and if you think Comair was a disaster, wait until a similar problem happens at the nation's nuclear power plants or Norad down in Colorado Springs.
http://www.cio.com/archive/050105/comair.html
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 3, 2005 at 2:30 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 2, 2005
Reporting network abuse: spamming and hacking
If you want to do a reverse lookup on an IP address, go here. Shows city, county, state, country, and even graphs the location out on a map.
To search the regional WhoIs databases, click on the regional maps below. Note that this may be different than the information in the provided by the link above.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 2, 2005 at 12:17 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink