I Wooted for the first time today. They were selling Gyration's mini-keyboard set, refurbished, for $35 shipped. I've always been tempted to give one of those things a try, and it seems like it'd be perfect for my HTPC. Even if the gyroscope mouse turns out to be a realative dud (I don't expect to be playing games on it, don't get me wrong), the keyboard should at least be cool. And those things normally sell for ~$100.
Woot!
Matt has been re-tooling his blog. I wish I had the energy for such shenanigans, but I'll have to settle for WordPress' built-in setup. But I was reading through his archives (inspired by the new setup) when I came across this post about gas prices. Oh, how I fondly remember the days when $2.34 was an outrageous amount for a gallon of gas. Le Sigh.
Ah, BlogZot came through. Free SubEthaEdit for me. Free stuff roxxors.
<Corporate Shilling>
BLOGZOT 2.0 on MacZOT.com is helping give away 3000 copies of SubEthaEdit from CodingMonkeys. MacZOT and TheCodingMonkeys will award $105,000 in Mac software to Mac fans all over if enough people blog about them. Free advertising an all, I can dig it. I want a free copy of SubEthaEdit, so I'm more than willing to whore myself out a little bit.
Seriously though, SubEthaEdit is pretty bad-assed. It's a very well done colaberative text editing program. Go blog about this and submit it to MacZOT, so that it can be free. That is all.
</Corporate Shilling>
I'm having this relatively elusive, but rather annoying crash with my HTPC. Every few days it doesn't just crash, but it actually blue-screens. I sent a crash report into Microsoft, and it came back as an "unknown driver" conflict.
So far, I've reinstalled the drivers for both TV cards (a Hauppauge PVR-150 and Divco Fusion5 USB HDTV tuner; both highly recommended) and the video drivers, to no avail. I even turned off AMD Cool n' Quiet, thinking maybe that'd do it, but no dice. It's really annoying, because I end up missing recording times. Nothing important, but still.
The Divco tuner is really nice though; found out the other day that despite only having basic analog cable, I can pick up NESN HD with it. Gonna have to watch the Sox in HD tonight ^_^
Any suggestions would be appreciated. I'll probably try reinstalling the chipset and audio drivers at some point, if not tonight. Stupid Windows XP; probably wouldn't have this problem with a Mac, although I would have spent like 2x as much once you figure in tuners. Oh well.
Configuration: Antec Sonata II | MSI K8NGM2-FID | Athlon 64 X2 3800+ | NEC 3550A | WD Caviar SE 320Gb PATA | Hauppauge PVR 150 | Divco FusionHDTV 5 Gold USB | Mitsubishi WD-52327 HDTV
I really wish this signalled some sort of crumbling of the Bush administration, but I'm not all that optimistic.
Oh yeah, and the outgoing CEO of Exxon is getting a retirement package worth $141,000 dollars per DAY he worked?? Are you kidding me? At that rate the man could give away $3.5 million per month, and would probably not see much of a difference in the quality of his life. I cannot think of anyone in human history that has done anything to justify compensation of that magnitude. Not one person, ever. If you can think of someone, please point it out in the comments.
It's official. Capitalisim is broken. I can't believe that this is what the free marketeers that helped shape our country were aiming for. Greed is one thing, but this is crazy. Time for the governemnt to step in, and mandate some social responsibility into these insane companies.
$3.00/gallon my ass.
I find the bickering over immigration to be somewhat hillarious. One side yelling “They’re taken’ our jobs!” and the other “You don’t want them!”. Both sides are totally wrong, and they’re being played against each other.
Americans don’t want the jobs, this is true. But it isn’t because they’re menial. It’s because the pay sucks. And there is a reason the pay sucks: supply and demand. The employers can get illegal immigrants to do the job for $2.50/hr, so that is what they’re willing to pay. Even if they were willing to pay minimum wage, who in their right mind would take a job for minimum wage? You can’t live on that.
The real villian here is playing us against each other: it’s the compaines that are hiring the workers in the first place. They are creating a demand for cheap labor, and are willing to take illegal workers because the repercussions are non-existant.
The solution to this is easy, but two fold. First, we need a real minimum wage. It needs to be based on the location too. You can’t live on less that $10/hr up here around Boston. I’m not sure how bad it is other places, but that would be below the poverty line here, whatever they say is livable. Minimum wage needs to be a wage you can support yourself on.
Second, we need to aggressively go after the assholes who are hiring illegal workers in the first place. It’s their fault. And I have an easy way of making sure no one ever employs someone without proper papers again – fine the crap out of them. Fine them $10 per man hour worth of illegal-immigrant work they employ. To make this even better, offer 10% of that fine as a bounty to whoever turns in one of these employers. Even better, if it is one of the employees themselves, put them in a fast track to legal status.
Most importantly, don’t punish the workers. The system is gaming them; it’s not their fault. Even better, once their employer is busted, get them into a system that will make them legal, get them decent wages, and get them paying taxes.
Thanks Matt. You've made me officially afraid. I don't read the news specifically cause I don't want to read about crap like this. If this isn't a late April Fools Day joke (and I'm sure it isn't), I'm not sure what to say about the stupidity of our government. I understand that invading Iran is almost an eventuality at this point. I understand that we will sacrifice yet more young lives on the altar of Freedom. I just worry that we aren't making anyone any free-er than when we started (no wait, I'm sure we're not). And I'm less concerned about the rest of the world trusting us; we already dug our grave over that. I'm worried that the next generation of kids won't trust us, and won't sign up for the Army. Who want's to serve a country that just betrays them? Then get ready for a poor people draft. Rich people sure as hell don't go to war.
Good thing I've got a heart condition. And a thyroid condition. And ADD. I might be flat-footed too.
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