08.04.04

The Kerry Bump

Posted in General at 10 am

Via http://www.thismodernworld.com/ :

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-battleground04-0802print.html

“John Kerry saw slightly stronger support among likely voters in 16 battleground states during the Democratic National Convention, according to the latest Zogby Interactive poll. Mr. Kerry now leads in 13 states, up from the 12 states he held a week ago, while President Bush leads in three states.

The latest poll, conducted July 26-30, was conducted simultaneously with the convention, though many voters were polled before Mr. Kerry’s acceptance speech. Mr. Kerry’s slight post-convention boost is what pollster John Zogby said he expected. Only a slim margin of voters is undecided, he says, so the conventions aren’t likely to cause major swings of support. “The president will get a small bump but — like Kerry — not a big one. There is just not enough give this year,” Mr. Zogby says.

The leads Messrs. Bush and Kerry hold in 11 of the 16 states are within the margin of error, which varies between +/- 2.5 and +/- 4.4 percentage points. Of the 13 states in which Mr. Kerry is in the lead, all but five are within the margin of error. Mr. Bush’s top spots, in three states (Arkansas, Nevada and Ohio), are all within the margin of error.”

08.03.04

Esquire Article By Ron Regan

Posted in General at 9 pm

From Esquire: This Möbius reality finds its domestic analogue in the perversely cynical “Clear Skies” and “Healthy Forests” sloganeering at Bush’s EPA and in the administration’s irresponsible tax cutting and other fiscal shenanigans. But the Bush administration has always worn strangely tinted shades, and you wonder to what extent Mr. Bush himself lives in a world of his own imagining.

Please read the whole thing.

08.01.04

Apple – Batteries

Posted in General at 11 am

It’s about freaking time… Apple: About Batteries talks about how to care for the main power source for Laptops and for iPods. I wish they would have had this up *years* ago! Maybe it would have helped me with my (which is, admittedly, 3 years old.) 1/2 hour iBook battery life.

07.30.04

Big HD for Old G3

Posted in General at 7 pm

So I’ve got $100 that I can spend at Amazon. Can anyone help me find the biggest HD that I can buy there that I can stuff into my old Blue and White G3?

I think she can handle the 80GB from Maxtor, but I dunno. I’m certain I want size, over speed in this case.

Added: It looks like 120 GB is the maximum for the B&WG3. And I’m lucky enough to have a Rev B motherboard which makes adding the additional drive much easier.

I guess what I’m really looking for is the best price per gigabyte. It looks like a 60 GB hard drive for about $45 comes to $0.75 per gig.

I’m looking for used and refurbs just as much as new-in-a-box…

(EDIT: I ended up getting the 60gb HD, which will give me plenty of room at a cheap price. I can use the rest of the funds on some other items… like say a Bluetooth adapter?)

07.27.04

Gmail Invites

Posted in General at 6 pm

If anyone wanted a Gmail account, they let me know. It seems I had 3 invites at my disposal.

(I was surprised by the number of requests from Brazil!)

Clinton's Speech at the DNC

Posted in General at 5 pm

From Newsday.com comes a transcript of Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention on Monday. If you can find an audio recording of this, let me know, as it was really very good.

Read the rest of this entry »

Haircutting time

Posted in General at 7 am

I finally took the plunge and went from long hair:

Before the haircut...

to fuzz ball on Sunday:

...after the haircut

The braided hair ended up over 20″ inches in length.

07.26.04

Research irreversibly damaged by Excel

Posted in General at 8 am

I have had this *exact* same problem over and over again in Excel: Genetic research irreversibly damaged by Excel autoformatting.

When you open a file in Excel, it automagically attempts to convert some numerical entries into Dates or Times. The Only way I’ve found to get around it is to open the file in a plain text editor, (if it is Tab delimited), Copy, open a new spreadsheet in Excel, select all of the cells in the sheet, tell them that they are all ‘text’ ahead of time using the formatting palette and then Paste the data into place.

Otherwise you get horrible horrible screwed up data. Another reason why I like I like Dumb software and hate software that tries to be ‘smart’.

07.24.04

Thermal Lockdown

Posted in General at 12 pm

WARNING: We are in Thermal lockdown. All windows are to be covered with non-conductive materials, backed with all drapes closed. To facilitate potential sleep patterns an air conditioner has been temporarily installed in the bedroom. As yesterday’s temperature exceeded 100° in Portland and other locations and today looks much the same, please restrict all CRT activity to the absolute minimum, use only fluorescent lights, and for for the sake of us all, don’t use the oven!

Clothing, however, is optional.

Walks to yard sales to purchase CD shelving units are allowed, before 1pm.

07.23.04

Cold, Dead Hands

Posted in General at 2 pm

From: Crazy Apple Rumors Site: Newton Users To Receive Intervention.

After Tuesday’s announcement that former Apple CEO John Sculley had been named Honorary President of the Worldwide Newton Association, concerned members of the Apple community have decided to conduct an intervention. Starting next week, Newton users will be targeted for some “tough love” by some familiar faces.

“We wanted to pick people they’d feel comfortable with,” said director of iPod marketing Stan Ng. “Clearly this announcement is a desperate cry for help and these are people we need to tread lightly with.”

All I can say is… “my cold, dead hands…”