existence trainer

... because, you know... you can't have both :(

I guess this would be my list (going historically, roughly): Elvis Presley The Beatles The Beach Boys Bob Dylan Jimi Hendrix David Bowie The Velvet Underground The Rolling Stones Led Zeppelin Radiohead close calls: James Brown Chuck Berry Pink Floyd further down on the list: Black Sabbath U2 Nirvana

I've been on the hunt for a while now for a decent cross-platform PIM application. As of yet I've not found one. Of the ones I've tried, the below either come close or are worthy of consideration - even though none of them have exactly all of the features I want. 10 Ideal Features I'd like to Have in My PIM calender / schedule items daily diary decent address book with ability to tag, add pictures, etc to-do lists with reminders notes allows for attachments cross-platform portable allows for encryption of data freeware, but preferably open-source 5 Applications I've Tried Thunderbird with the Lightning Extension / Sunbird With the release of 0.7 of the Lightning/Sunbird this is one step closer to being what I want it to be. There is definite improvement. Unfortunately, though, it lacks features 2, 3 (this has continued to suck over the years), 9, and I'm not sure about 5 and 6. Chandler I got really excited when I found out about this project... but then I tried...

If you use Firefox and haven't yet checked out the many add-ons that you can install into it, then I'd highly recommend trying (at least some of) the following. They really improve my browsing experience: Adblock Plus with Adblock Filterset.G Updater - Now you don't have to constantly be bombarded with ads when browsing around. Highly recommended! (Question: I feel bad for those sites that use ads in a responsible non-intrusive way. I guess I wish there was a version that would white-list those sites, because hey - we all need to earn money. Any suggestions?) Always Remember Password - If you use Yahoo email, then you know that they have disabled the ability for Firefox to save the password in the password manager causing you to have to type it every time. Well, now you don't. CacheViewer - Exactly what the title suggests. Its a bit rough around the edges, but at least it gives the ability to view your cache. del.icio.us Bookmarks - I've yet to be entirely sat...

Here is a fascinating discussion of the problems and complexities surrounding the adoption or non-adoption of GPLv3 by the Linux kernel developers. Definitely check out the comments. All in all, I guess I would prefer the Linux developers to go ahead and adopt v3.

From today on Slashdot: "TorrentSpy, one of the world's largest BitTorrent sites, has been ordered by a federal judge to monitor its users. They are asked to keep detailed logs of their activities which must then be handed over to the MPAA. Ira Rothken, TorrentSpy's attorney responded to the news by stating: 'It is likely that TorrentSpy would turn off access to the U.S. before tracking its users. If this order were allowed to stand, it would mean that Web sites can be required by discovery judges to track what their users do even if their privacy policy says otherwise.'"

After watching the two republican primary debates as well as the democratic primary debate ... Of all of the Republican candidates, the only two I like are John McCain and Ron Paul. I really wish Hagel would join the race. Rudy's recent shtick is that the Democrates are returning to a pre-911 mentality. ... Civil liberties do not seem to take a very place on his list of priorities I really, really like Obama. I think he would be great for this country in so many ways. The one thing I struggle over most, though, is the issue of abortion. I am so conflicted about this issue, and I don't have any good ideas about a stance I'd like to see. The absolute worst of the bunch fortunately don't have a chance anyway ....

If you missed the BBC documentary, "Scientology and Me," you can find it here . If there hadn't been a ruckus about it, then I never would have known about its existence. But when certain Scientology members - ever willing to intimidate, sue, or slander anyone who criticizes their organization - have now targeted the BBC itself, well... I had to find out what all of the fuss was about. Listen to what John Sweeney, the BBC reporter in charge of this documentary had to say about his attempts to investigate Scientology: "I have been shouted at, spied on, had my hotel invaded at midnight, denounced as a 'bigot' by star Scientologists, brain-washed - that is how it felt to me - in a mock-up of a Nazi-style torture chamber and chased round the streets of Los Angeles by sinister strangers" Now the Scientology has come out with their own video coverage on John Sweeney and the BBC. It can be found here . What is great about this video is that it shows you precise...

I regularly hunt for new and better open source software to meet my various computer needs. Often I come across a really exciting project that is in the works, but that's still in the early stages of development. Sometimes a project looks so promising that I find myself continuously checking back with it to see if there is any recent news or updates. Below I'll listed the top 10 open source projects I'm most excited about (listed alphabetically). Let me know if there are any other open source projects still in the early stages of development that look very promising! Beryl - This might mainly be a bunch of eye candy, but its great eye candy. If you haven't seen some of the great video clips on YouTube, you're in for a treat. [*nix] Chandler - I've been looking for a decent open source cross-platform Personal Information Manager for a while, but I've yet to find one I'm pleased with. This one looks like its got some great potential for all your organ...

Investigative journalism at its best!! The story here .

Richard McBeef Mr. Brownstone

so verizon is trying to make money off of shit they they didn't invent. fuck you verizon. Here is the basic story as one slashdot writer so aptly put it: Ideal: Person A has a brilliant, rare idea. Person A invests years in refining and expanding said idea. Person A goes out and patents said idea. Person A opens a business with said idea, reaping customer praise and financial reward. The patent has encouraged creativity and expanded the market. Reality: Person A has a somewhat obvious idea. Companys B, C, D, and E without investing in refining or developing the idea run out and patent said idea. Patent is granted to Company B (and sometimes C,D,and E too). Company B sits on patent, preventing anyone else from opening said business in order to protect the large profit margins on their current offering. 15 years later Company B sells the rights to said patent to Clearinghouse F. Clearinghouse F takes the broadest possible view of said patent, and sues everyone in the business. Years...

Changes: - I've completely re-written of the user interface (I think it is much nicer now). - It has better support of different text encodings. - It now give you words-per-minute, amount of text completed, and time remaining. - Much better configuration of fonts and various display colors. - I've fixed a lot of bugs (but probably have introduced a few along the way). Download it here .

This is some scary bullshit .

Page source -> Search -> class="photoImgDiv" the http://... that follows.

In the present cultural atmosphere where people seem to think they must "pick sides", its nice to see an injection of fairness and modesty every once in a while. The article is here .

This is a graphic illustration of the process. If you eat meat, you should be aware of what you are paying for.

Money quote : In an interview, Mr. Jacobovici was asked why the filmmakers did not conduct DNA testing on the other ossuaries to determine whether the one inscribed “Judah, son of Jesus” was genetically related to either the Jesus or Mary Magdalene boxes; or whether the Jesus remains were actually the offspring of Mary. “We’re not scientists. At the end of the day we can’t wait till every ossuary is tested for DNA,” he said. “We took the story that far. At some point you have to say, ‘I’ve done my job as a journalist.’ ”

Tacoma Narrows Bridge And here is some great footage with a wine glass.

Religious charlatans aren't the only ones. Now it James Cameron .

I'm an unabashed fan of Wikipedia. I go there for constant talk on science, technology, and all things pop-culture. Todays pop-culture fun can be found at the Timothy Noah article . On Slate, he recently posted this article: " Evicted From Wikipedia, Why the online encyclopedia won't let just anyone in ", which, of course, has sparked a flood of discussion on his Wikipedia article. A couple of times today, if hit the refresh button and new sections have come into and gone out of existence. Most recently, this has popped up (lets see if it stays there): In a February 2007 article in Slate, "Evicted from Wikipedia"[6] Noah opened a small can of worms by discussing the Wikipedia Notability Guideline. Noah's entry had been flagged for deletion review. His entry's re-instatement seems to be purely as a result of writing the article thereby raising questions about the fairness of the policy and the consistency of its implementation. Here's a proposal (...

Uhhhh.... and the painful, painful, laugh-track

The worst part of it is the last line: "In the future, Alex would be better off simply accepting my teachings without resistence."

Oh yeah baby, I'm almost there! All this hard work is finally paying off....

I was recently asked the following question: How secure is Firefox's Password Manager? I wasn't entirely sure, so I went checking. Here's what I've found. All things considered, Firefox's Password Manager (PM) looks fairly secure. Check out this post here . Given that the passwords are encrypted, they will be hard to recover. There is though, as the comments of this article point out, at least one security weakness in Firefox's Password Manager, but it should be fixed by the 2.0.0.2 release, which will be released sometimes later this month (or so they say). So I guess its not the end of the world. About brute force password recovery tools (like FireMaster ), well, I'm not sure what to think. As long as your Master Password is a good one, then I suppose it will probably have difficulty cracking it (am I right about this, anyone?). Maybe I'll try it out and see how long it takes for it to crack my own password. Anyway, if you want to be paranoid about it...

I find this statistic hard to believe, but according to this article: ... over 40 percent of Americans do not believe in evolution and about 20 percent, when asked if the earth orbits the sun or vice versa, say it’s the sun that does the orbiting ... Ok, I can believe the evolution statistic, but seriously, 20 percent think the sun orbits the earth?? That's 1 in 5 American adults. No way.... HEY, geo-centrists, are you really out there?

Remember the Super Bowl commercial that had two guys eating a snickers until they kissed? Well, these two alternative endings caused a bit of an uproar from the gay community: I think this one's actually pretty funny:

Here is a pretty good list. I find this game of Virtual Pong addictive.

I don't know exactly why I love this interview... I do love chocolate, but I don't think that's the reason. I guess what I really like about it is that Doutre-Roussel's passion for chocolate is so apparent that its contagious, and when this passion is combined with her fantastic French accent and the particular way she uses the English language, well that's all it takes for me I guess. The interview is here .

A striking illustration of the aftermath:

I love discovering flame wars like this online. Great entertainment value. On the one side, you have Scott Adams (you know - Dilbert) and on the other a biologist named PZ Myers. Scott Adams keeps a blog and, ever so often, uses it as a forum for philosophical speculation - but all in good humor. Its a good read when your taking a 5 minute break from work. Anyway, along comes PZ Myers, a in-your-face-credentials biologists who, apparently, can't stand someone even speculating about an intelligent designer. Well, I guess this post was too much for Myers: I wonder how you can tell if an alien is “intelligent life.” Is there a test that fits all situations? For example, suppose we found a blob on Mars that moved under its own power and wasn’t a carbon-based life form. How could we tell if it was intelligent? ... Suppose the blob on Mars beat you at chess. That would tell you that the blob can “compute,” but it wouldn’t tell you if the blob was intelligent “life.” A computer can beat...

(click it for a better view)

It's true .

And its hilarious.

Full story here : Ten blinking electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a publicity campaign for a late-night cable cartoon. At least one of the devices depicts a character giving the finger. Highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River were shut down and bomb squads were sent in before authorities declared the devices were harmless. "It's a hoax — and it's not funny," said Gov. Deval Patrick. Turner Broadcasting, a division of Time Warner Inc. and parent of Cartoon Network, said the devices were part of a promotion for the TV show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force"... Here's the press conference of the suspects who are accused of planting these devices. Make of it what you will:

The story here .

Thankfully someone debunked this hogwash: Allegations that Sen. Barack Obama was educated in a radical Muslim school known as a "madrassa" are not accurate, according to CNN reporting. Insight Magazine, which is owned by the same company as The Washington Times, reported on its Web site last week that associates of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, had unearthed information the Illinois Democrat and likely presidential candidate attended a Muslim religious school known for teaching the most fundamentalist form of Islam. Or here's the Fox report: By far my favorite response to this story is the Daily Shows mockery:

In general it appears that many Republicans are on board with a minimum wage bill that includes certain tax incentives. Why, then, hasn't the bill yet been able to make its way through Congress? Here's the answer : Aides to some House leaders say they would be willing to allow some of the tax breaks. But others, including Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, are insisting that they will not concede any tax cuts. House Democrats say that by forcing a vote on a clean bill they would force Senate Republicans to put themselves on record as opposing a wage increase, which was a popular campaign issue in the midterm elections. “We are still operating on the assumption or hope that the Senate will pass a clean minimum wage bill,” said Stacey F. Bernards, a spokeswoman for Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic leader. “If it doesn’t happen, it’s because a minority of Republicans held it up. It’s the...

A very good primer .

Brilliant .

This looks really fun (and soooo dangerous).

"Bush Commits One Additional Troop To Afghanistan" [The Onion].

More Information can be found here .

Check out this article "What is a Neocon Anyway?" over at the blog The Gay Republican . The author gives a fairly clear and succinct characterization of neo-conservatism and paleo-conservatism from a neocon point of view. Of course, this means that the article is slanted towards favoring a neocon perspective, but I nonetheless recommend reading it just to see this view from an insider perspective. By seeing it in this way, you can get a sense of the motivations guiding this view and why it leads it proponents to favor the policy decisions they often do. Make sure you check out the FAQ on his sidebar - which, I think, is a fairly adequate reply to those who would claim that someone who is both gay and a republican must be self-hating (like this post here ). Also, check out this post for a brief review of The Gay Republican blog.

In my sidebar I wanted to link to Comedy Central's archive of The Daily Show videos and The Colbert Report videos. The problem is that once you start playing on of these videos your browser gets resized. So rather than turning of javascript, I wanted to be able to link to them by opening a pop-up window. Here's a link to the code I used: Pop-up Code Oh, and here is a link on how to display html code on your post.

Here are links of where you can go to see a vast archive of Comedy Central Videos without having to first watch a 30sec advertisement: The Daily Show South Park Comedy Central Presents Chappelle's Show The Colbert Report UPDATE : I've streamlined the process a little bit by including the links to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report in my sidebar. These links open up pop-up windows to these respective shows (so that your browser window doesn't get automatically resized).

Here . If I get a chance, I'll post some thought on the debate (but first, I got to spend the day with Aristotle).

Its been a very long time since I've worked on this program. I released a copy of it about 5 years ago on Freshmeat (this old version can be found here for now - though it will probably be gone soon), but I haven't had much time to work on it since then. You can find the newest version here , and I've created a simple (and presently incomplete) webpage for it here . So far, I've only released a Windows version, but I'll soon update the Linux version on Freshmeat. Basically, WordFlashReader is a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) program that makes reading things on-screen a lot easier on the eyes (at least once you get used to it). Feel free to distribute it, modify it, and so on (its GPL'd). Let me know what you think! Also, its still beta, so if you encounter any bugs - let me know, and maybe when I get a chance I'll be able to fix them. From the Release notes: This program is intended for anyone who has an electronic text or book they wish to read. ...

This video is either incredibly offensive or sublimely satirical. It also seems to me this is exactly what this guy was going for (being flame-bait is a sure-fire way to shameless self-promotion). I'm leaning towards viewing it as being unflinching satire. Consider some of the lyrics (the full lyrics can be found here ): "To enter heaven there's no back door..." "Righteous man, get on your knees..." "Jesus my savior is the only man for me..." "Fill me with your love..." Furthermore, this video is shot in very soft lighting, and this guy is wearing pink shirt, white pants, and has a brillian 'stache. Here is a great take I found : This video reminds me that South Park episode where Eric Cartman becomes famous for singing vaguely creepy Christian pop songs—with lyrics that echo “fill me with your love,” and, “Jesus is the only man for me,” and, “righteous man, get on your knees.” That South Park episode nailed the blatantly homoeroti...

In order to change the default startup directory for Command Prompt - do the following Start->Run->Regedit.exe Go here: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Command Processor If Autorun is missing, create a new String Value here. Change the Autorun value data in the following way: CD /d C:\directory_to_folder So, for example, I set my startup directory to: CD /d C:\Documents and Settings\Jonathan\Desktop\dev restart the command prompt.

If you want to display a snippet of code within blogger, then this post is very useful. Basically, paste the following code near the blockquote code in the template. code { font-family: Courier; margin:.75em 0; border:1px solid #596; border-width:1px 1px; padding:5px 15px; display: block; background-color: #dedede; white-space: pre; } Now just place the code you want to display inside the following: <code></code>

Recently, I've gotten back into programming. Its been a couple of years and the last time I was into it I was working in a UNIX environment. Now I'm in a Window's XP environment. I've already felt a bit frustrated with Microsoft's standard command shell (cmd.exe). First, it lacks many of the commands I have come to know and love. Second, it's tab auto completion is lacking - when you hit tab, it cycles through all the filename matches rather than displaying a list of all of the matches. And third, I want my command shell to preserve my command history across sessions. I've been searching around, and I've yet to find a free command shell in windows that has all of these features. Here is what I found: cmd.exe: This is the standard command shell. Its not to difficult to get it to use windows ports of the UNIX commands I want with the help of unxutils. Here and here are useful instructions for setting this up. Winone : This is the closest thing I've ...

Regardless of what you think of Donald Trump, at least this is an interesting interview. Trump evaluates G.W. as a CEO.

I just spotted this here on slashdot. According to the article being referred to it sounds like Section 220 in S.1 would be a severe blow to free speech: "In what sounds like a comedy sketch from Jon Stewart's Daily Show, but isn't, the U. S. Senate would impose criminal penalties, even jail time, on grassroots causes and citizens who criticize Congress. Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself. A quick internet search seems to indicate that this worry is not without merit. Although there seems to be som...

So funny, but lots of bad mental pictures. [Update: Its fixed for the time being.]

I could not imagine falling in a more painful way. And it was probably too quick that he didn't even realize what was going to happen until it was too late. I almost get queasy watching the slow motion.

I think one or both of these will happen sometimes in my lifetime (and maybe fairly soon). If I had to put money on it, I would say that a woman has a better chance than a black man at becoming president at this time (though Barack is the wild card here). In fact, there is some polling evidence that this country is becoming more and more open to either possibility.

His comments can be heard here: [ mp3 ]. No doubt, James Dobson's unwillingness to vote for McCain will have a negative impact on his candidacy - given Dobson's tremendous sway in the republican party. Here is an question I have: Why do many people dislike McCain so much?

For years, Pat Robertson has been in front of a camera claiming to have supernatural revelations that people are being healed of arthritis, kidney stones, or whatever. By these so-called "words of knowledge" God is supposedly revealing to Robertson particular supernatural interventions he is performing through-out the (televised) world. Of course, these "prophecies" are never disconfirmed, and so I guess his contributors rely on what they perceive to be the character of Pat Robertson in order to believe that what he is doing is genuine. I mean, how could someone be that disingenuous to put words in the mouth of God? Well, now we can really put him to the test. Recently he claimed that God told him that late in 2007 the U.S. would suffer "mass killing" resulting from a terrorist attack. Well, fortunately for us, Robertson's prophecies have fallen short before . Who actually buys into this stuff? By the way, Robertson should read Deuteronomy 18:19-22 ag...

Ufff! Its been a big pain in my ass. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) there have been enough people problems similar to mine that generally a google search would yield a solution. Here is a bit of what I went through. BY FAR, the most important thing you can do is save a copy of your old blogger template (that is, assuming you have modified it - if not, then chances are your upgrade will not be as painful as mine). You won't be able to use all of it, but you will be able to mine it for useful code here and there. The first thing I wanted to do was to add a third column where I could place advertisements. Although creating a third column was not too difficult (its very similar to how you would do it on the old blogger - instructions here ), populating it turned out to be a big pain. First, the GUI blogger builder obviously does not support the creation of new columns (no surprise there), so you need to edit the html. The problem is that the Beta Blogger either would not save my...

A fascinating article here . I'm a bit confused about how this is supposed to alleviate hunger, though. According to the article, one rabbit feeds about eight people. Ok, but couldn't a LOT more people be fed merely with the food given to that one rabbit through the course of its life? Compare the following two quotations in the above mentioned article: Each of his rabbits produces around seven kilograms of meat, says Szmolinsky, who was so keen to help alleviate hunger in the impoverished country... and The 12 bunnies he sent can produce 60 babies a year -- if the North Koreans find enough food to feed them properly. Another random thought: I wonder if and when they will be sold as pets.

This is a real video resume submitted to numerous investment firms. Absolutely priceless. The following is a great spoof of the above video:

Senator Obama, Time and again I have been impressed by your ability to bypass partisan bickering by first acknowledging the concerns on both sides of an issue, and then by offering a practical and clear vision of how you consider the issue in light of these concerns. And the fact that I keep finding your perspectives on issues of importance both thoughtful and wise gives me hope that great things are in store for you in the future. This brings me to my present concern. Just today I learned that a new source of stem cells has been discovered, and that these stem cells may hold the same promise as embryonic stem cells. I think this is fantastic news and should be applauded by all sides of the debate over stem cell research in this country. Many thoughtful individuals find the harnessing of embryonic stem cells morally suspect - even if it has the potential to yield tremendous scientific gains in the fields of health and medicine. I'm sympathetic with these worries - and this is partl...

Also check out this other picture here .

Instructions here .