Sigur Ros - Saeglopur

embed test:

Personal Online Journals?

A 'to do' item: which blogging tools allow you to set access permissions? What about posts which you only want to allow yourself to see? Does it have to be for the 'blog' as a whole, or can it be done per-post?

GPS is now awsome

I have been finding my in-car driving directions (GPS) to be amazingly useful. I love the way I've grown to trust it enough to take little side-roads/alternate routes, allowing me to see streets and places I've never seen before (even though I've lived in this area for almost a decade). I got the "TomTom One" around December, and I don't regret my purchase at all.

So I'm currently recommending the "TomTom One", 3rd Edition:
TomTom ONE 3rd Edition 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Vehicle Navigator

(plain text URL:
http://tinyurl.com/6s9e65
)

a wine recommendation: J.W. Morris Merlot 2005

Had an excellent drinking/dinner wine this evening; thought I'd pass along the recommendation.

J.W. Morris, Merlot, (California); 2005 vintage

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I saw one review online that really panned the 2004 Merlot, and complained of an "aftertaste"; my experience (with the 2005) was quite the opposite, as I found the wine to be mild and pleasant. A quick search online lead to other amateur reviewers with a few negative reviews, so I thought I should throw in my opinion/recommendation for this "bargain wine." Grab some if you find it! (Try Trader Joes if you're in California.)

Caveat/disclaimer: As with all wines (but esp. with mass produced or 'discount' wines), one never knows if they were able to maintain a consistent vintage, or if the bottling/corking process was consistent. Your experience may vary. (But I think you have good odds.)

quick note on "What is postmodernism?" article (a top search result)

April 23rd, 2008

[critique, philosophy, postmodernism]

A recent search I performed at ask.com for "What is postmodernism?" returned an article from an English professor [1] which is a sort of a book commentary-slash-essay... This post is just a quick commentary on one glaring logical fallacy (as much for me to come back to and refine / elaborate on as for you, gentle reader...)

Mary Klages' essay, titled simply "Postmodernism", does present some good summary points, but I have to point out that it has some glaring statements of bias presented as "fact"/"truth". In particular, her statement

"Because modernity is about the pursuit of ever-increasing levels of order, modern societies constantly are on guard against anything and everything labeled as "disorder," which might disrupt order. Thus modern societies rely on continually establishing a binary opposition between "order" and "disorder," so that they can assert the superiority of "order." But to do this, they have to have things that represent "disorder"--modern societies thus continually have to create/construct "disorder." In western culture, this disorder becomes "the other"--defined in relation to other binary oppositions. Thus anything non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual, non-hygienic, non-rational, (etc.) becomes part of "disorder," and has to be eliminated from the ordered, rational modern society."

While her claim about "western culture" may be true, the "Thus..." statement does not follow. (In formal logic, a non sequitur is an argument where the conclusion does not follow from its premises.) The concept of an 'ordered society' that collectively and/or governmentally moves to squelch or otherwise suppress societal elements that represent 'disorder' is by no means exclusive to the philosophical construct of "modernism." Such efforts would seem to be a natural result of a societal power-structure that seeks to retain power (and what government doesn't?) and could be classified in any other number of political or societal terminologies. More importantly though, in the context of this discussion on modernism, it is not a fundamental "truth" that those who subscribe (or have subscribed) to the idea of a 'ordered, rational, modern society' must think in only "binary" concepts (as the author puts it), or that elements of disorder will be conceived of as "anything non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual, non-hygienic" et cetera.

Assuming the ideas of "modernism" are at play, cultures -- western or otherwise -- can define elements of "disorder" in any number of ways; these elements are historically things which are seen to be different than the "norm" (i.e. of the perceived majority), unfamiliar (foreign / "foreigners"), or that are perceived to be a threat to the established power-holders. These elements _have_ been, at various times and in various cultures, "non-white" or "non-male", etc, but there's no play in a rational discussion for claims that they MUST BE, or that the only logical manifestation of a modernist philosophy will be one of "binary" thinking and an "ever increasing" effort to impose more and more levels of "order".

Pay attention to her use of words in the rest of the article as well; they seem to express an opinion: that "order" and its connotations in the context of modernism is "bad"/undesirable and that postmodernist relativism is "good". This instead of what the article pretends to be; which is an objective look at the philosophical underpinnings of the terms being discussed.

I suspect that this article may also have problems of generalism, by which I mean a tendency to ascribe to the philosophies being discussed characteristics that are not part of the original concepts -- expansions of the ideas put forth by the original proponents that seem logical to the writer, but are actually from other (albiet related) schools of thought.

[1] http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/pomo.html

notes-on_what-is-postmodernism_article; by Liberto M., April 2008

How You Can Tell Someone's Not In A Relationship

"Valentine's Day?

Forget that---there's a new episode of 'Lost' on tonight!"

Request for Enhancements (RfE) - to Miscrosoft, re Vista

Request for Enhancements (RfE)
TO: Miscrosoft
RE: Vista

(Man, this operating system's user interface is really annoying.)

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RfE #5,822 : Fix it so that the UI doesn't show me a Shortcut creation icon if it's just going to *&^%$#@! copy the folder.

Action: [Alt] + click + drag file or folder from one folder to another folder (from one drive to another drive).
Visual cue: A 'shortcut creation' icon.
Actual Result: Vista copies the entire folder to target. (no shortcut)
Why It's Annoying: The folder I was trying to create a simple link to was HUGE, and there was no clear way to cancel the COPY command I had not intended to issue.

------
RfE #5,823 : Make the metadata displayed in the Details pane CONSISTENT! !!!!!
(MUCH more USER control of file metadata is required if this is to be at all useful. Why can't we set up global metadata of all files REGARDLESS OF EXTENSION?)

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RfE #5,824 : Why is it that I could set attributes for mp3s (.mp3 files) by right-clicking on a file in XP, but Vista won't let me change the attributes?


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(*&^%$#@!-*&^%$#@!)

Video Games, and Too Much Free Time

[posted by Liberty; file under: shared bookmarks, links, recommended]

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This is a great idea for a blog:

"Too much free time - Playing every video game, because it needs to be done."

It's not actually ever game; he really meant "playing every obscure DOS or NES game I could find online" -- but it's still a great title and idea.

Check it out at http://tmftgame.blogspot.com (opens in a new window or tab).
~~~

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Updated : Beyond Guitar Hero -> Be a Keyboard Hero !

(http://libertymiller.blogspot.com/2007/08/beyond-guitar-hero-be-keyboard-hero.html)

Find Other Web Sites Hosted on a Web Server

[posted by affiliate0]
_____________________ _ _ _________ ___
A reverse IP domain check takes the domain name or IP address of a web server and searches for other sites known to be hosted on that same web server. Data is gathered from search engine results, which are not guaranteed to be complete. Knowing the other web sites hosted on a web server is important from both an SEO and web filtering perspective, particularly for those on shared web hosting plans.

Part of the spammer-detection toolkit

http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/web-sites-on-web-server/

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

50th Anniversary of the LEGO Brick

Google is celebrating 50th anniversary of Lego Brick on January 28th, 2008 by placing the Lego Brick Google Logo.


Happy Birthday LEGO Brick!

Read more about it: the history of the Lego Brick (invention)

Microsoft Q2 Earnings Summary

After trading hours on Thursday (Jan. 24), Microsoft announced its second quarter earnings and "guidance" for the next business quarter, and estimated earnings for the year.

Earnings were 16.37 Billion dollars* for October through December (Q2 on MSFT's fiscal year calendar); this versus a "consensus estimate" by "the street" of 15.95 Billion dollars.

* USD $ 16,370,000,000.00

Actual (net) profit was 4.71 Billion dollars, which means that it somehow cost 11.66 Billion (that's with a capital "B", now) to run the company.

Depending on how they do the accounting, of course... For example, through the magic of numbers, second-quarter revenue and profit growth rates are exaggerated when compared to results a year ago. Why? Because Microsoft "deferred" more than $1 billion in net income, based on delays in releasing Windows Vista and Office 2007.

Total sales of the Vista operating system (not 3-month sales) were reported as being over 100 million copies.

For comparison, that's equivalent to a copy of Vista for every man, woman and child in California [36.4 million], Oregon [3.7 million], Washington state [6.4 million], Arizona [6.1 million], Nevada [2.5 million], Idaho [1.4 million], Wyoming [0.5 million], Montana [0.9 million], North Dakota [0.6 million], South Dakota [0.7 million], Utah [2.5 million], Colorado [4.8 million], New Mexico [1.9 million], Texas [23.5 million], Oklahoma [3.6 million], and Louisiana [4.3 million]*.

* estimates based on 2006 U.S. Census Beureau numbers.

Or, if you prefer another number to use to put the number 100 million in context:
the July 2007 population estimate for the United Kingdom is 60.7 million. Japan: 127 million. Germany: 82.4 million.

Microsoft representatives also said that Microsoft has shipped 17.7 million 'Xbox 360' consoles since the machine went on sale two years ago (November 22, 2005).

Full Year revenue was estimated on the "conference call" to be between 59.9 to 60.5 Billion dollars by the end of the current fiscal year.

Microsoft said profit in the year ending June 30 will be $1.85 to $1.88 a share, on sales of $59.9 billion to $60.5 billion.

Photo © REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton, taken January 2007

File Under: "it's Business, not Enterprise"
Posted by Liberty Miller, 24 January 2008

About Voicemail & Google Chat

~About Google Chat~

Which players are supported for music status?

google.com/support/talk/...answer=44269

We currently support the latest version of the following music players:
iTunes
Windows Media Player
Winamp
Yahoo Music Engine {http://music.yahoo.com/musicengine/}

Random Bookmark:
http://my.nero.com/#0
(saved to Google Notebook / G Bookmarks @ libertymill)

How do I configure iChat for Google Talk?

_

google.com/support/talk/...answer=24076

How do I show my contacts what music I'm listening to? _

google.com/support/talk/...answer=43426&topic=8550

~ submitted by Liberty, 2008 Jan 21