SMART Google Tricks . . .

Google as a epidemiological early warning system for influenza.

Tres-cool, indeed.


Song: The Black Death, Seanan Mcguire

Solstice Rune Reading 2008-12-19

Interesting Solstice rune reading here. Imagery and indented test are from www.facade.com (the "free online rune readings" link on the link roll), italics are mine.

The left rune represents an important element of the past. Algiz plainly shows the antlers of the elk that it represents. The elk is the object of the hunt, and hence Algiz speaks to the pursuit of goals and the thrill of that pursuit. The rune is currently shown reversed, so this could suggest a failed endeavor or a lack of effort. Algiz is also representative of a protective hand (fingers open wide), so the reversed form may indicate a failed defense.

I think it is fair to characterize my last 20 years of incautious living as "lack of effort" or "a failed defense" of my health.

The middle rune represents a deciding element of the present. Ken is the rune of light and knowledge. The rune is shown reversed representing a state of darkness or ignorance. Either you are unable to obtain information that you need, or the information is being withheld from you. In darkness there is fear, but remember that darkness does not mean isolation. Friendship and comfort can still be available, although they are not immediately visible.

The funny thing about this rune is that I have been increasing my knowledge about my medical challenges. Due to my rabid use of the Internet, information has nowhere to hide from me. I do not think this is so much as isolation from information but isolation from social situations and challenges. I think the stones are trying to tell me that this strategy needs to change . . . .

The right rune represents the critical element of the future. Eoh refers to the Yew tree. The Yew does not go dormant and therefore represents endurance. Even the wood of the tree is strong, resilient, and pliable - the Yew bends, but does not break. The evergreen nature of the Yew is present even in the rune itself, as it cannot be changed even by reversal. This rune is historically symbolic of death, but, as in the Tarot and as suggested by the nature of the Yew tree itself, death is seen only as a transmutation of something eternal and unchanging - the spirit.

In other words: change my unhealthful ways and socialize / continue to educate myself and I'll endure to elderhood. Or become a weapon for an English yeoman . . . .

Teh mind, it boggles . . .

US Army to use WoW to experiment with "virtual soldiers."

As the title implies, the mind boggles . . .

(Guild Chat) What kind of boss loot does Osama bin Laden drop?
....

Impressions of the DNC

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Listening to: Neil Young - Lookin' for a Leader
via FoxyTunes I've been following the Democratic National Convention in Denver via teh innerweb. The national party conventions have been one of two exceptions to my "No teevee" stance / pledge -- the other exception is election night.

Without TV, I get most of my news from the various blogs and from newspaper sites. With little "drama" -- national nominating conventions have been almost drama-free since the 70s (Thank you Chicago 1968!) -- the press have been focusing on such matters as Sen. Clinton's formally releasing her delegates to vote for Sen. Obama, and the diehard Hillary supporters who are holding out inder the PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) banner and the vast congregation of A-list political bloggers covering the convention.

OK, impressions:
1. Senator Ted Kennedy -- a very very sick man with brain cancer and other painful infirmities -- gave a speech, a symbolic "passing of the torch" to a new political generation . . . MY generation. Demographers call us "Generation Jones" -- the late Boomers and early post-Boom GenXers. Born right in the middle of the Cold War, too young for the sociopolitical convulsions of the late 1950s and 1960s (most of us were in short pants), too young for Vietnam / the civil rights movement and too old (many of us) for Iraq and Afghanistan. For us, the seminal political event of our young lives was the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979-81, an event widely credited with delivering the Presidency to Ronald Reagan.
The Lion of the Senate, the man one of Styx's lyrics called "First of the 80s / and Last of the Sons / First in the Hearts of his Countrymen" roared again. Goddess keep you, good Senator!
2. Michelle Obama -- What a classy, smart, eloquent woman! While First Lady Laura Bush has not been the abject embarrassment her husband continues to be, I continue to be impressed by MichelleO. Comparisons to Jackie Kennedy are already being drawn.
3. Hillary Clinton -- I did not vote for her in the primary. If she ever gets the chance to run again -- say in 8 years -- I just might.
4. Karl Rove -- With respect to his commentary: As they say in the US Marine Corps, "Golf. Foxtrot. Yankee."
5. Internet application taking the political blog world by storm: Twitter.

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Listening to: Neil Young - Lookin' for a Leader
via FoxyTunes

Coolest Avatar

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Now playing: The Kimberly Trip - I Wanna Date Your Avatar
via FoxyTunes

Things that make you say OI!

Worst. Album. Covers. EVAH!



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Now playing: The Kimberly Trip - I Wanna Date Your Avatar
via FoxyTunes

Figures . . .

McCain does not how to use a computer or teh innernets

I suggest a book



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Now playing: Emerald Rose - Summerland
via FoxyTunes

wtf did you expect?

Your Ultimate Roleplaying Purity Score
Category	Your Score	Average
Hacklust	6.6% Slew entire Asgardian Pantheon with one hand while blindfolded	53.5%
Sensitive Roleplaying	15.19% There is no player. There is only.... Zuul.	54.7%
GM Experience	10.87% Worldbuilder, storyteller... Master.	69.3%
Systems Knowledge	78.53% Local rules guru	90.4%
Livin' La Vida Dorka	8.05% Gaming is my life	63.2%
You are 28.74% pure Average Score: 68.7%
Take The Ultimate Roleplaying Purity Test and see how you match up! (By The Ferrett)

RIP Netscape

Burying the corpse of the slain from the Browser Wars

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Listening to: Stan Rogers - Field Behind the Plow
via FoxyTunes

Speaking of food . . . eeeeewwwwwww!

Take one part food kitsch from the 1950s, add one part bad graphic arts and one part snark and you have The Journal of Regrettable Food.

Like this roast that " . . . looks . . . like Jabba the Hutt's prostate . . ."

The less said about that, the better.

Looks like lol-food . . .

"Bumper Nuts" reach a new low

Nothing says "Support the Troops" like a Camouflage "Support the Troops" plastic scrotum to hang on your bumper!

edit: evil thought -- A Vietnam era phrase variously abscribed to LBJ, Nixon and SecDef Johnny McNamera was "If you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow . . . " In this 'support the troops with a magnetic sticker" era, why not just get them by the bumper? That way you get the scrote, heart and mind too!

Praise Teh Sacred Google!

This. Is. C00l.

The Discordian in me loves this kind of stuff. Eris and Google -- BFF!

Google's High Holy Day is September 14, the anniversary of the date the domain google.com was registered. And, it's just five days before another geek holiday, Talk Like A Pirate Day. A holiday devoted to the discovery of truth and good, not to mention pirates, is a perfect antidote to the annual beating around the head and shoulders with the proverbial bloody shirt every Sept 11.

Of course the Dungeon Master in me beat them to it awhile ago.


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Listening to: Seanan McGuire - Still Catch The Tide
via FoxyTunes

Life imitates WoW?

This is pretty good, actually . . .

For those of you who do not play WoW: "Feign Death" is an ability possessed by the Hunter character class that allows them to stop monsters from attacking ("lose aggro" on WoW terms). This is a very nice way to avoid being turned into a meat snack by a bunch of monsters.

The whole story sounds like a low level escort quest . . . I hate those.

Now if they can only fix the battlegrounds honor rewards in Alterac Valley . . . .



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Now playing: Emerald Rose - Dagger of the Moon
via FoxyTunes

What Am I Thankful For?

A very partial list . . .

Physical: A great job, a roof over my head, enough cash to pay the bills, bandwidth and the means to use it.
Social: Mom, Dad, Ron, Sophia and Sam. Friends like Michelle, David, Kayla, Matt, Richard, Sammy, Duncan, Isabel, Tim, Kate, Sue, Rachael, Don, Rob, Kajir, Heather, Dave, Diane, Gene, Aries, Nika, Mystique, Harley, Rita, Bug, Shalyn and Hillary.
Other: An awesome health care team led by Dr. Nelson . . . the fact that the evil that is Shrub will be out of office in about a year . . . RT and e-Tran . . . PCJ and Panera . . .the music that helped save my life this year: Seanan McGuire, The Elders, Emerald Rose, Leslie Fish, James Blunt, Tempest, Escape Key, Flogging Molly, Roy Zimmerman, Loreena Mckinnett, Niel Young and Weird Al Yankovic.
Media: Serenity / Firefly, D&D, World of Warcraft.

Apps! (cough) Apps!

I got up early this morning thanks to a lovely coughing fit. Feeling better than yesterday, though.

I spent a bit of that early morning time playing some more with Bento, the FileMaker database app I mentioned yesterday. I forgot to mention that it accesses the Mac OS X Address Book and iCal too. This makes event planning sense.

I foresee a Macworld release for Bento (mid-January).

Tuesday also saw a major, tasty update (version 2.3) to World of Warcraft. The biggest change is under the hood: optimization for the common dual-processor machines like the Intel Core / Core 2 Duo-driven machines like almost all of the Intel Macs. Prior to yesterday's update, WoW would typically run almost exclusively in CPU#1 (I saw this in the Activity Monitor utility) and load it down to 80%+. After update, the load is much more balanced between the CPUs. They also tweaked the graphics animations (probably in response to Leopard's introduction of the Core Animation API).

The big fix from the gameplay point-of-view is that the leveling curve has been flattened between levels 30 and 60 by giving about 15% more XP per quest completed or monster slain and reducing the XP needed to level by about 15%. Prior to 2.3, leveling slowed waaaay down between levels 30 and 60. In addition, it became very difficult to "solo" a lot of the non-dungeon quests, and as a player hit level 40, far too many of the quests available in places like Arathi Highlands, Dustwallow Swamp and Stranglethorn Vale for leveling the character were simply not soloable. I'd usually bypass these quests and either go "grind" some easier monsters or hope to put together a pick up group (PuG) and hit a dungeon. Apparently this slowdown was frustrating so many new players that many were quitting. PuGs for dungeons can get really ugly.

I noticed the difference right away on my Level 55 Troll Shaman alt. It typically takes me 12 hrs or so of play to advance one level at 50+; I went from 54 + 50% to 55 in less than 4 hours. Me likes.

Oh and 10.4.11 and 10.5.1 updates come out today.



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Now playing: The Elders - Message from the Battle Zone
via FoxyTunes

Something very nice this way comes or Bend it Like Bento

After coughing my lungs up all night, I feel semi human this evening.

Oh, the things you can learn from a RSS feed . . . I subscribe to the MacFixIt.com feed for Version Tracker. VT is a site that lists new software releases for Mac OS X, Mac OS Classic, Windows and Palm OS. New software releases including things like virus signature files for antivirus suites, security updates for core operating systems, and updates for applications major and minor. If you want to make a Mac so something that Apple has not provided a program for, say, ripping DVDs to your hard drive, look at Version Tracker. Want new iTunes visualizations or updates to World of Warcraft? VT's got 'em.

Something very interesting came in on the OS X feed tonight: FileMaker, a Mac software company so venerable that Apple bought it some years ago, has a public beta / trial version of Bento, their new personal database software application.

Database software is usually one of the most user-unfriendly of the common applications. On the one hand you have general purporse database apps like FileMaker Pro. dBase, Microsoft Access (an oxymoron if there ever was one!), etc that are very flexible tools for designing exactly the database you want to build. Very nice until you need to retrieve something from it. Then you need to learn a query language -- basically a specialized scripting computer language -- in order to search that database. On the other hand you have special-purpose applications like WotC's D&D eTools that are very easy to use -- no programming and no data structures knowledge needed -- but are one trick ponies, inflexible, unusable for anything else.

This gap has long been recognized by software developers. OpenOffice, NeoOffice, Claris Works, Microsoft Works (another oxymoron) and other suites have database programs that attempt to address the issue; all of these apps require a degree of familiarity with database software conventions and programming that is beyond most users, and is not worth the trouble for even someone like me to learn to use.

Bento hits the nail on the head. It is a very flexible database editing and search application aimed at folks who do not want or need to learn SQL. Three things about this app: Start with the source list / app work area of iTunes and the iLife and iWork applications; add to that drag and drop database design and tie that to Leopard's Spotlight metadata search functions and you have Bento in a nutshell. If you can make an iTunes playlist, you can make a functional and usable database.

My test of this nice little tool is the creation of NPC databases for D&D and Serenity.

In the dark future of the 41st Millenium . .

. . . there is only Hello Kitty!

The Altoids link is Not Safe For Work At ALL.

I hate payday loans

Yesterday I proclaimed my appreciation for Sacramento RT and Elk Grove e-Tran. Today's bit of bloggery has to do with an industry that should, even in a free market, be run out of town like criminals. And, sadly, one I became all too familiar with during the first part of this decade.

Back when I was a kid, usury laws were on the books that forbade the loaning of money at massive rates of interest. People with wealth and property could always secure loans with collateral from federally regulated banks. Folks lacking these resources turned to "the bank of Guido and Luigi," the local shady operators, often a Family operation, who substituted the threat of pain or worse for more tangible resources and charged enormous rates of interest. Well, laws have changed and the collection specialists (legbreakers) are something of a thing of the past. Now anyone with a fixed address, a steady income and a startling lack of financial sense can score for themselves a "payday loan" from one of 22,000 such bloodsucker locations scattered across the fruited plain.

Payday loans are like the Dark Side of the Force in Star Wars: " . . . once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it guide your destiny . . ." "Easy" money is soooo seductive, a quick way out of a jam that carries a tremendous cost of its own. How well I know because a few years ago, my paydays were little more than covering last pay period's payday loans and re-writing new ones . . . then taking the cash, minus a couple hundred in fees, to pay the bills.

I admit it, I knew better. I could read the disclosure statements and I winced at the 300% - plus APR interest rates. I wish in retrospect I could have learned to say NO to these loans. I'm owning up to my own weakness, accepting my share of the blame. I've completely eschewed them and stayed that way for almost two years.

It seems that the industry now has a trade association. Go figure.

From Teh Innerweb for your Bush-Bashing Pleasure!

I like this





I was looking for a website with a countdown clock where I could use the new WebClip feature of OS X Leopard Safari 3.0 to make a Dashboard widget showing a countdown of the time till Shrub is scheduled to leave office. The widget even has a reset feature to reset the countdown in case the SOB is impeached. They also have Winderz screen savers (the Mac version is for pre-Tiger versions of the OS) and other assorted widgetoid things.

More Leopard FUN

The only reason I did not install Leopard on my personal machine on the first day it was released was that my personal machine has an optical drive that keeps on ejecting discs. Again. But tonight I got the cat to purr as it should.

OK, so how did I manage to get Leo installed? Four very important words to the Mac Geek: Firewire Target Disc Mode. "FWTDM" allows a Mac to boot up and say to all the world that it is nothing but a hard disk. When that Mac (the "target") is connected via Firewire (aka IEEE 1394, if you're keeping score) to another Mac booted normally into OS X, the target disk is treated like another external disk -- it is visible on the desktop and accessible through the Finder (the Mac answer to Windows Explorer).

FWTDM is a godsend for those times when a drive will be recognized and "mount" (become accessable by the Finder) but you cannot boot from that drive into Mac OS X. You can use it for data rescue (most common use). Another use for FWTDM is for times when you want to mount optical discs from one Mac's optical drive to one where the optical is nonfunctional on the targeted system.

So all i needed to do is borrow a Firewire cable and wait until after work to use my iMac workstation's optical drive to install my copy of Leopard onto this system.

That is the theory.

Install attempt number 1: I got clever and did an Archive and Install preserving instead of the usual upgrade install. One of my favorite tech sites suggested it, and their reasons made sense to me. Sadly for me, the AC power glitched enough to shut off the targeted iMac (the MacBook didn't blink thanks to the battery). Installus Interruptus. Welcome to my nightmare scenario. This is a bad place to be; most of the time this is a reformat. The MacBook, predictably enough, booted to the classic "Apple / Gear" screen that is the hallmark of damaged system files or filesystem. If damaged files, no worries, a straight archive and install fixes that. If damaged filesystem, then I'd have to reformat the drive, lose everything on the system, and reinstall. Your basic nuke and pave reinstall. Fortunately, Disk Utility dubbed the filesystem to be OK. Dodged that bullet!

Attempt number 2: Archive and install preserving user settings. Worked fine until I tried to log into my user account -- bad password. Tried to reset it with the Password reset utility, and it would not reset. Disk util said things were still OK with the filesystem, thank Eris. Then the MacBook started kernel panicking (BSOD for you Windows users). Ick. Deja Vu all over again.

Attempt number 3: OK, I decided then and there to do one more A&I, but this time NOT preserving the user account. If this install screwed the pooch, it was time to bite the bullet and nuke it from orbit. This install was smooth as glass. The system booted to first time setup as usual, Made a brand new account with the exact same name as my old one and a four letter password (fsck, of course). Lo and behold, the MacBook booted to the Leo desktop.

Thirty minutes of user account migration and a password change in System prefs later, my email, bookmarks, address book, documents, wireless peripherals, Bluetooth enabled phone, and World of Warcraft were working perfectly. Not to mention iPhoto and the uber-neat Screen Sharing feature. Now to make sure that I install Palm Desktop (Arch and install ALWAYS breaks Palm Desktop's Transport Monitor), my printer drivers (nice thing about leo is that the open-source Gutenprint driver set I use with my "OEM drivers for Windows ONLY" printer (HA!) is now included with a standard install) and a few other apps I can download form the Internet and I'll be jake.

Not to mention that none of the 'puters on which I have Leo installed on have taken any kind of performance hit. Startup is still fast and there are a few strange behaviors. The only major casualty of the install has been my Windows partition because the arch and installs eat disk space.

Oh well, Windows can wait until I get the optical fixed.

Not a bad night's worth of hands-on teching!