(I'm watching the debate)...

Kerry, for Christ's sake, LOOK INTO THE CAMERA.

Sad day for my Powerbook.

As I write this message, my Powerbook G4 800 fan is on full blast. The case is extremely hot; I can't hold my finger to the section of metal between the keyboard and the display for more than a second it's so hot. CPU load is less than 0.2, usage is under 10%. All I have open is Safari and iChat.

My Powerbook used to have overheating issues a few months ago, but it only happened when I was really pushing the CPU--compiling or playing games. Now all I need to do is have the system on for 5 minutes and it will severely overheat.

This has been going on for two weeks now and I have no idea how to mitigate this. Nothing I do seems to get the laptop to cool down; the fan may become more quiet but it's still uncomfortable to type on because the keyboard is so warm.

I love this laptop. I've had it for about 2 years so I know I'm due for a replacement. I'd buy a replacement today but I know the G5 Powerbooks are just around the corner...

I'm considering getting a PC laptop because all of the code for my thesis is done in Win32/Direct3D, but something about going back to a PC laptop just doesn't feel right. :-) Certainly, in PC land I can get something much more powerful much cheaper, but I love the Mac toolset for email, writing (LaTeX), and web surfing... Also, PC laptops don't have exactly have a better track record for reliability... :-/

Unlocking your GSM phone

I always thought this sort of thing required a special cable, I guess not!

Excellent quote

If Islam ever tries to get into this country, "Homeland Security spokesman Brian Doyle said Islam would be put on the first available flight back to Britain."

They're actually referring to Yusuf Islam, or everyone's favorite singer-turned-Muslim, Cat Stevens.

A law enforcement official who asked not to be identified said the United States had information Islam had donated money to the militant Islamic group Hamas.

Hmm.

Must-Have Games for the Pocket PC

My game Vector Blaster was just listed as one of three "must have" arcade games for the Pocket PC! Rock on!

Excerpts from today's Stratfor

...it is essential to realize that from al Qaeda's strategic point of view, the last three years have been a series of failures and disappointments. This is the objective reality. It is not the American perception. The first reason for this perception gap is the definition the administration has given the war: It is a war on terrorism. If the goal of the war has been to deny al Qaeda strategic victory, then the United States is winning the war.

We have also argued, and continue to be amazed, that the single greatest failure of the Bush administration in this war has been its inability to give a coherent explanation of why it invaded Iraq. The public justification -- that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction -- was patently absurd on its face. You do not invade a country with a year's warning if you are really afraid of WMD. The incoherence of the justification was self-evident prior to the war, and the failure to find WMD was merely icing on the cake. The consequence was a crisis of confidence that was a very unlikely outcome after Sept. 11 and which the administration built for itself. In other words, the decision to invade Iraq was, from our point of view, inevitable following the failure of the covert war. What was not inevitable was the catastrophic failure to explain the invasion and the resulting crisis of confidence.

...we can say that al Qaeda has failed to achieve its strategic goals. At the same time, the United States is facing its own strategic crisis. Since Vietnam, the fundamental question has been whether the United States has sufficient will and national unity to execute a long-term war. One of the purposes of the Iraq invasion was to demonstrate American will. The errors in what we might call information warfare -- or propaganda -- by the Bush administration have generated severe doubts. The administration's management of the situation has turned into a strategic defeat -- although not a decisive one as yet.

Massive dissent about wars has been the norm in American history. We tend to think of World War II as the norm, but, quite the contrary, it was the exception. The Revolutionary War, Mexican War, Civil War, Vietnam War and others all contained amazing levels of rancor among the American public. The vilification among the citizenry of Washington's generalship or Lincoln's presidency during the action was quite amazing. Thus, it is not the dissent that is startling, but the perception of U.S. weakness that it generates in the Islamic world. And the responsibility does not rest with the dissidents, but with the president's failure to understand the strategic consequences of public incoherence on policy issues. Keeping it simple works only when the simple explanation is not too difficult to understand.

Design for Oregon quarter decided



I personally would have gone with Mt. Hood, or all of the cascade mountains in one shot. :)

AgendaForAmerica.com

So now, suddenly, Bush is ready to talk about the issues? Did you notice that ads for this website just started today after the memos (below) were released?

TiMonkie:/Users/rose<3>whois -h whois.bulkregister.com agendaforamerica.com



SMARTech Corp

   PO Box 11181

   Chattanooga, TN 37401

   US



   Domain Name: AGENDAFORAMERICA.COM



   Administrative Contact-

        Jeff Averbeck: jeff@smartechcorp.net

        SMARTech Corp

        PO Box 11181

        Chattanooga, TN 37401

        US

        Phone- 423-664-7678

        Fax- 423-664-7680

   Technical Contact-

        Jeff Averbeck: jeff@smartechcorp.net

        SMARTech Corp

        PO Box 11181

        Chattanooga, TN 37401

        US

        Phone- 423-664-7678

        Fax- 423-664-7680



   Record update date: 2004-08-20 14:18:33

   Record create date: 2004-08-20

   Record expires on: 2005-08-20

AgendaForAmerica.com was registered August 20th, 2004.

This is very entertaining...

Memos state Bush skipped out on his Texas Air National Guard duty

George W. Bush needs to answer why he regularly misled the American people about his time in the Guard and who applied political pressure on his behalf to have his performance reviews "sugarcoated."

No! Don't believe it, the documents are forged!

I opened Microsoft Word, set the font to Microsoft’s Times New Roman, tabbed over to the default tab stop to enter the date "18 August 1973," then typed the rest of the document purportedly from the personal records of the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian.

Actually, no they're not!

Someone posted the two images (White House released and Word generated), so I fired up an image editor and had a look. While the font character spacing are very similar, most typography experts in the threads agreed that the original had type-write like characteristics (number 8 slightly high on the line, etc.) that would be hard to reproduce in Word. More importantly, the superscript "th" which caused most of the interest is not in the same position in the two images (see attached superimposed comparison).

Politics is great. If anything, the debunking of the debunking just gives more credibility to the original debunking that the debunked debunk was attempting to debunk. Needless to say, Drudge Report, O'Reilly and Libaugh probably won't cover the third stage of debunkery, and debunk-debunkers will continue to believe that debunk they feared had been debunked.

MeritCall: It only works with our equipment

I discovered today what I thought was probably the best deal in VOIP/PSTN offerings right now: MeritCall. No monthly fee, 1.9 cents a minute to call anywhere in the US.

The problem is, you can only sign up by buying their equipment. Their cheapest phone is a flimsy looking USB device at $79. The next device is overkill, a full-blown VOIP phone at $100.

I contacted MeritCall sales to see if they would hook me up with service using my own VOIP equipment; no dice.

Me: Hi, I'm interested in signing up for Meritcall service, but I already own VOIP equipment. Is there a way to sign up without having to purchase one of your phones?

MeritCall: Thank you for contacting MeritCall sales center. My name is Scott and it’s my pleasure to assist you. Unfortunately, since we are offering no monthly fee no contract service, there is no way to use our service without purchasing our phones. Thank you.

Me: If I buy one of your phones can I just set it aside and use my VOIP equipment instead?

MeritCall: I don’t think that’s going work. The way is to buy our phones. Thank you.

So I guess after MeritCall the best deal in VOIP is SIPPhone at 3.5 cents a minute. SIPPhone, they claim, works with any SIP capable equipment, even softphones.