Saw this post from Val and decided to repost last year's stuff. Sue me.
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Posted by: Physics Geek at 03:39 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A man was walking home alone late one foggy night, when behind him he hears:

BUMP...

BUMP...

BUMP...

Walking faster, he looks back and through the fog he makes out the image of an upright casket banging its way down the middle of the street toward him.

BUMP...

BUMP...

BUMP...

Terrified, the man begins to run toward his home, the casket bouncing quickly behind him.

FASTER...

FASTER...

BUMP...

BUMP...

BUMP...

He runs up to his door, fumbles with his keys, opens the door, rushes in, slams and locks the door behind him.

However, the casket crashes through his door, with the lid of the casket clapping

clappity-BUMP...

clappity-BUMP...

clappity-BUMP...

on his heels, the terrified man runs.

Rushing upstairs to the bathroom, the man locks himself in. His heart is pounding; his head is reeling; his breath is coming in sobbing gasps.

With a loud CRASH the casket breaks down the door. Bumping and clapping toward him.

The man screams and reaches for something, anything, but all he can find is a bottle of cough syrup! Desperate, he throws the cough syrup at the casket...

and...
more...

Posted by: Physics Geek at 02:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Lileks is always a treasure. Every now and then though, he really hits it out of the park. Excerpt:

WhatÂ’s this Bunco thing your wife does? ItÂ’s a hen party. They meet at different houses, roll the bones, eat, enjoy cold libations. It is the absolute antithesis of poker. In poker men sit in silence, studying their cards and the other players; in Bunco everyone is talking, and no one is paying attention to the game. You could film six men playing poker, and sixteen women playing Bunco, and you would learn everything you need to know about the difference between the sexes and the nature of each. By our games do we know ourselves.

I'll admit it: I'm a Bunco widower every other Tuesday. ::sob::

Posted by: Physics Geek at 01:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Michele posted a recipe for a no-bake pumpkin cheesecake, which looks delightful. I think that it's time to repost my yes-bake recipe:

My recipe is pretty old. It was originally for 4 cheesecakes(I used to work in a commercial kitchen), but the quantities have been scaled back for a single cake. When I cooked for a living, almost no one else made pumpkin cheesecakes. Now, it seems like everyone and their brother makes their own, including the big warehouse stores such as Costco. Whatever. This recipe is the best.

----------------------------------------
Ingredients:

1 7/8 pounds cream cheese(worried about the fat? Use some Neufchatel)
5/8 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
5 eggs
3/8 cup flour
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
5/8 cup sour cream
1/8 cup rum
1 Tbsp vanilla

Approx. 30-49 ginger snaps
Approx. 1/4 cup butter

1) Grind up ginger snaps and mix with enough melted butter to bind together.

2) Cream together cream cheese, brown sugar and sugar. Beat eggs and add to
cream cheese mixture.

3) Add flour and the rest of the ingredients. Mix well. I suggest using the
beater attachment on your mixer, but it's up to you.

4) Grease a springform pan(10" preferred, but 9" will also work). Press the ginger
snap mixture into the pan to form the crust. Pour mixture into the crust-lined
pan; gently shake to remove air bubbles. Bake in 350 degree oven in a water bath
until the center is set.

***Note: If you have trouble with the cheesecake cracking, lower the temperature of
the oven to 300F and bake for 1 hour. Turn the oven off, open the door for one minute,
close the door and then let the cheesecake sit in it for about 45 minutes. Chill before
serving.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 12:28 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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If you're old enough to remember that commercial, well, welcome to the club. In any event, this article details how to rescale and edit your images, up to and including removing people from them. No more using scissors to cut out the old boy/girlfriend from photos. Simply remove, preserving the lovely background image. Oh, and be sure to check out this video which, I believe, Allah posted a link to over at Hot Air.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 02:50 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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McQ links to this story which I believe is a great example of the strong armed tactics we'll be likely to endure as a country if we allow ourselves to be disarmed. I'll leave you with McQ's closing thoughts:

They came into the home of American citizens, took their child (5+ weeks old and nursing) into state custody and placed it in foster care. Why? Because the parents, due to their religious beliefs, objected to a test the state had mandated. The child's health wasn't in danger, he didn't need any medical treatment, in fact he is quite healthy. But the state felt that its priorities and decisions overruled those of the parents and drew the child's blood over the parents strenuous objections. Chilling.

Keeping that in mind, imagine, if you will, what powers the state will be left to exercise if it eventually is placed charge of every aspect of your health care.

And there exists a sizeable chunk of people in this country who think that what we need more of is more and bigger government. I'd call them stupid, except that I'd be insulting stupid people.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 02:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Turns that Glenn Reynolds and I have the same taste in old science fiction shows. Of course, Reynolds watches The Time Tunnel whilst sitting on his dark throne, sipping his puppy, while I tend to opt for a Guiness. To each his own.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 02:01 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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One place where Linux still lags Windows is in its (in)ability to create VCDs, DVDs et al complete with custom menus. Sure, there are lots of programs out there, many of which are command line driven, which means that lots of people won't even attempt them. In some cases, you have to manually run multiple programs from within a shell, using lots of gibberish (okay, I actually understand shell scripting, but you know what I mean) to create menus, ISOs and then burn the DVD. Well, not only has someone created the open source software to do such a thing (DeVeDe), someone else has made a detailed tutorial on how to install and use it on your Linux system. Excerpt:

In windows there are many guides on how to create a dvd using your own video files. However this doesn't seem to happen in linux and moreover by using a program with a GUI. In this guide I will describe how to create a dvd with a menu using DeVeDe. DeVeDe is an open source program which allows you to create DVDs and CDs (VCD, sVCD or VCD) suitable for home players. It supports any of the formats supported by mplayer such as mpeg, avi, asf, wmv, wma, quicktime, mov, realtime, ogg, matroska and many others!

There's actually waaayy too much detail for me to excerpt anymore from the tutorial. Suffice it to say that it's a good choice for you Linux users. He also suggest using k3b to burn the resulting image. Since that comes with several of the KDE frontend distros, you won't even have to search for it. If you do, the Synaptic tool will easily find, download and install it for you. And if you don't have Synaptic, you always use apt-get. Now go forth and make DVDs.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 11:27 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Okay, it's not completely different. Rather, it's a topic that I almost never bring up here on the blog. Megan McArdle has a series of posts on vouchers, all of which you should read. I'll excerpt from a couple. Number 1:

Forgive me--I'm about to get testy again--but this thread on 11D really does seem to me to showcase in stunning technocolor the moral bankruptcy of voucher opponents who have pulled their own kids out of failing inner city schools. They have no good answer for why their choice is morally worthy, but vouchers are horrifying; their response to the deep need of kids in failing schools is a slightly gussied up version of "screw you, I've got mine." Their children's future, you see, is an infinitely precious resource that trumps their principles of distributional justice and community solidarity, but they cannot imagine putting the futures of poorer, darker skinned children ahead of sacred principles such as "Thou shalt not allow children to attend schools run by the Catholic Church" and "Supporting the public schools (even when they suck)". I could do a better job arguing against school vouchers.

Number 2:

How many educated people who:

a) Oppose vouchers
b) Have children who do not attend inner city public schools

would still oppose vouchers if they were the only way to get their child out of an inner city public school? How many of them would accept that their child had to be left in that school because the systemic effects of allowing their child to exit that repulsive school would be dreadful?

Respectfully, I believe the answer is "null set".

And the money quote here in number 3:

Empirically, I may be wrong; vouchers may not work. But we know that the current system isn't working. And poor kids should not bear the burden of making affluent liberals feel better about themselves.

I believe that OUCH is the word you're looking for.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Even if you don't care who wins the World Series, oreven if you don't know what the World Series is, you can still profit from the game of baseball if and when a base gets stolen. I present to you Free Tacos! Excerpt:

There has been at least one stolen base in every World Series matchup since 1990. When the first base is stolen, the unit of Yum Brands Inc (Taco Bell), will announce a Tuesday afternoon when consumers will be able to walk into the chain's participating 5,800 outlets and ask for a free taco. Anyone who walks into a participating outlet during the give-away period would be eligible for a free taco.

It'll be time to make a run for the border soon...

Posted by: Physics Geek at 02:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I swear that this article of 100 Reasons to upgrade to Vista from XP is one of the funniest damned things I've ever read. What makes it even funnier is that the authors appear to be serious. Personally, I tend to agree with this article from IT Wire: Microsoft's Top 10 Reasons to Upgrade to Ubuntu, Not Vista. Excerpt:

#8 Your PC can take care of itself
Your days of defragmenting are over. Ubuntu uses a different file system to Windows. It does not really ever require defragging. DonÂ’t just take our word for it; check out geekblog.

No version of Windows can boast such built-in self maintenance. Not even Windows Vista. Perhaps its intended radical new database-oriented file system may have fared better, but it was pulled so the OS would finally ship – so we’ll still have to wait to find out.
...
#3 ItÂ’s the safest version ever
That’s right; Ubuntu is the safest version of an operating system ever. Oh, it’s safer than Windows XP or other prior versions of Windows – and it does it without fading your screen to black and asking you to confirm each operation.

Microsoft have gone over the top with VistaÂ’s user account control, but they have a problem largely of their own making. ItÂ’s rare to find a Windows user who logs in under one account, and performs systems administrative tasks under another. Consequently, Windows has a legacy of users running as local administrators who have full control over their machine.

Linux has never been this way; users are always been encouraged to run under a user account with limitations imposed. Because of this, Linux has always made it harder for people to accidently delete operating systems files, or infest their system with virii.
...
#1 It makes using your PC a breeze.
The cliché literally is true: Ubuntu just works. You install it and it runs. In fact, you can test it out. Without harming your computer in any way, you can boot from the Ubuntu CD and give it a complete whirl on your machine. If you don’t like it, nothing’s lost. You just remove the CD and boot back in to your existing operating system.

Ubuntu is the operating system your granny can use. And what a dutiful grandchild youÂ’d be setting her up with it. Imagine not having to explain blue screens of death, or UAC, or program crashes and lockups.

Thanks, Microsoft, for these top 10 reasons why we should upgrade. LetÂ’s take up that advice. Time to load Gutsy Gibbon.

While I'm partial to the Ubuntu derivative MEPIS (I prefer the KDE interface and I think it's better than Kubuntu), I don't really have anything bad to say about Ubuntu. It's enormously popular, and part of that popularity has to do with the ease of installation and use. In fact, that's probably the best indicator of how robust Ubuntu has become.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Interestingly, except for the train wreck that is Britney Spears, the videos linked here at Cracked are pretty damned scary. I especially like the description of Affleck's drunken, loutish behavior: Ben Affleck shows off his acting abilities by improvising the lead up to a violent rape. In any event, I give you The 11 Most Unintentionally Poignant Drunk Celebrity Videos.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Anyone else watching Bionic Woman besides me? Apparently not too many of you, which is a shame. I think that the series has shown some promise, although it has been a little uneven in its quality. Good episodes alternate with mediocre episodes. I'm all for setting the stage, introducing the characters, etcetera, but just get going. Right now, the ratings are about what got The Nine killed last year.

What do I like? Here's a small list:

1. Katie Sachkoff plays someone of almost pure evil on the show. Certainly her character on BSG-Starbuck- has elements of moral confusion, but as Jaime Sommers' nemesis she's downright creepy at times.

2. I enjoyed the original series. It didn't take itself too seriously and was a lot of fun. This version is much darker and bleaker. Sort of TV noir, with some comedic elements thrown in.

3. Holy mother of god, have you taken a good look at Michelle Ryan?

more...

Posted by: Physics Geek at 08:59 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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By Doug Ross@Journal.

These are the politicians that stopped international terrorist wiretaps in a play for political power.

Don't worry: they'll blame Bush. Heck, I always do.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 12:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And it comes from Stephen Green:

It only took six years of constant, strong growth, record-low unemployment, low interest rates, several years of a housing boom, and new stock market records... for the MSM to finally convince almost half the population that we're in a recession.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 12:34 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I knew that if Bush continued his ban on embryonic stem cell research that we'd have to wait for breakthroughs from other, more enlightened countries like England. Excerpt:

In a study published in October's Experimental Neurology, Dr Paul Kingham and his team at the UK Centre for Tissue Regeneration (UKCTR) isolated the stem cells from the fat tissue of adult animals and differentiated them into nerve cells to be used for repair and regeneration of injured nerves.

Oh wait. What was I saying about embryonic stem cell research? Nothing to see here, just move along. And now I wait for an honest assessment about this research in the news. Do you think that maybe CNN, PMSNBC, CBS, ABC, or NBC will mention this correctly as a treatment derived from adult stem cells? Me neither. Instead, we'll be treated to editorials on how we're falling behind other countries in stem cell research, without bothering to mention that it's not the morally suspect embryonic kind.

Ehh, I blame Bush. Or question the timing. Or whatever brainfucked piece of idiocy gets John Cole and the Kos Kidz through the day.

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers!

Update: And Daily Pundit readers!

Posted by: Physics Geek at 08:26 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Despite the falling out between Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema over money, the two groups appear to be leaning towards Jackson directing The Hobbit. Since Sir Ian McKellen and one of the favored replacement directors both think that Peter Jackson would be the best choice, I'm going to go out on a limb and state for the record that it will eventually happen, hopefully before Gandalf is forced to use a walker onstage.
Oh, and it appears as though New Line is losing the legal battle:

Another sign: New Line appears to be losing the legal battle against Jackson with regard to Rings profits. Last week, a federal judge imposed a rare $125,000 sanction against the studio for failing to turn over potential evidence Jackson argued could help him prove that accounting tricks cheated him out of tens of millions in profits. New Line has said it won't appeal the sanction.

Yeah, if it looks like you've actually screwed the director of an immensely popular movie out of money, and then you turn around and decide to not hire him because he legally fought for what he was due, you might find that the public won't bother to go see your product. Just a guess, though. In any event, it'll be a few years away at best. In the interim, I'll be waiting for X Files: Need the Geritol to arrive.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 01:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Looks like Susie is back home recuperating from having old vermiform removed. Stop by and wish her well.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 11:17 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Kim Brebach, fresh from his 13 Reasons why Linux won't make it to a desktop near you column, presents the other side of the coin: 13 reasons why Linux should be on your desktop. Excerpt:

1. Cost -- Linux is free, and that includes all the apps. Microsoft is greedy. Vista Home Premium and Ultimate cost hundreds of dollars, even when upgrading from Windows XP. Moving up to Office 2007 involves handing over another bundle of dollars.
   
2. Resources -- Even the most lavishly equipped Linux distros demand no more resources than Windows XP. Vista is greedy: a single-user PC operating system that needs 2GB of RAM to run at acceptable speed, and 15GB of hard disk space, is grossly obese.
   
3. Performance -- Linux worked faster on my Dell Inspiron Core Duo than XP, at least the way XP worked out of the box. After cleaning out the bloatware and trading McAfee's Abrams Tank for the lightweight NOD32, XP and Linux (with Guarddog and Clam-AV) perform at similar speed.
   
4. No bloatware -- Linux is free from adware, trialware, shovelware, and bloatware. Running Linux is like watching the public TV network.
   
5. Security -- Last year, 48,000 new virus signatures were documented for Windows, compared to 40 for Linux. Still, most distros come with firewalls and antivirus (AV) software. Programs like Guarddog and Clam-AV are free, of course.
   
6. Dual booting -- The best Linux distros make dual booting a simple affair, along with the required disk partitioning (so you don't need to buy partitioning software). Windows on my Dell laptop is still intact after installing and uninstalling a dozen distros.
   
7. Installation -- Anyone who's done it once knows that installing Windows from scratch takes hours or even days by the time you get all your apps up and running. With Linux, it can take as little as half an hour to install the operating system, utilities, and a full set of applications. No registration or activation is required, no paperwork, and no excruciating pack drill.
   
8. Reinstalling the OS -- You can't just download an updated version of Windows. You have to use the CD that came with your PC and download all the patches Microsoft has issued since the CD was made. With Linux, you simply download the latest version of your distro (no questions asked) and, assuming your data files live in a separate disk partition, there's no need to reinstall them. You only need to re-install the extra programs you added to the ones that came with the distro.
   
9. Keeping track of software -- Like most Windows users, I have a shelf full of software CDs and keep a little book with serial numbers under my bed in case I have to reinstall the lot. With Linux, there are no serial numbers or passwords to lose or worry about. Not a single one.
   
10. Updating software -- Linux updates all the software on your system whenever updates are available online, including all applications programs. Microsoft does that for Windows software but you have to update each program you've added from other sources. That's about 60 on each of my PCs. More icing on the Linux cake is that it doesn't ask you to reboot after updates. XP nags you every ten minutes until you curse and reboot your machine. If you choose "custom install" to select only the updates you want, XP hounds you like a mangy neighborhood dog until you give in.
    
11. More security -- These days, operating systems are less vulnerable than the applications that run on them. Therefore a vital aspect of PC security is keeping your apps up-to-date with the latest security patches. That's hard manual labor in Windows, but with Linux it's automatic.
    
12. No need to defrag disks -- Linux uses different file systems that don't need defragging. NTFS was going to be replaced in Vista, but Microsoft's new file system didn't make the final cut. Instead, Vista does scheduled disk defragging by default, but the defrag utility is a sad affair.
    
13. A wealth of built-in utilities -- The utilities supplied with Windows are pretty ordinary on the whole, that's why so many small software firms have made a nice living writing better ones. Linux programs are comparable with the best Windows freeware, from CD burners to photo managers, memory monitors and disk utilities. PDF conversion is built-in, both into OpenOffice Writer and into the DTP application Scribus. All you do is click a button on the task bar.
    

...
The road from Windows to Linux is now mostly sealed, with only a few rough patches left. You can see your Windows partition in Home > Storage Media, open Windows files, and even write back to them. The sound of glass shattering when Mepis can't open something is a change from the dull red cross signs Windows throws at you. These Linux dudes have a sense of humor: when K3b finishes burning a CD, it bursts into a bugle sound that makes you look for the cavalry coming over the hill.

For most users, OpenOffice is compatible enough with Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. The font set in the Writer is pretty mean but can be made more generous by installing MS core fonts with Synaptic. Still, fonts are the elephant in the Linux room, admittedly. More work needs to be done here.

Compatibility stops with Desktop Publishing, since Scribus can't open Publisher files. Other than that, Scribus will do most of the things Publisher does, Evolution is more than a match for Outlook, and Firefox makes Internet Explorer 7 look stale. ShowFoto is as slick as any photo editor I've used on XP, digikam is a great photo organizer, and the Linux multi-media apps lack nothing.

If you prefer Opera to Firefox, or XnView for working with photos, you just tick the box in Synaptic and it will provide. More specialized apps like Inkscape or Blender are just a few Synaptic clicks away. The Gimp is already installed; it has a reputation for being hard to use but who'd argue that Adobe Photoshop isn't?

Read the rest.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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For once, I didn't announce-exactly- that I'd be out of town, although I did make repeated references to the GABF in Denver from which I've recently returned. I have a number of photos to post about my experiences, most of which have caused my liver and kidneys to revolt. Viva la revolucion! In any event, stay tuned for post-drinkiness daily GABF diary entries.

Sheesh. I drank so much that I actually haven't wanted a beer all day. Then again, I'm at work, so it's probably just as well.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 03:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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