bloggie

thursday, september 2, 2010 3:43 pm zst

Touché with a touch of bitché

hyperlinkopotamus

Cam left a comment at 2:43 pm 09/02
zorkmidden is also here
zorkmidden left a comment at 2:21 pm 09/02
king's shadow is also here
RWC left a comment at 2:40 pm 09/02
zorkmidden and Thousand Sons have also commented
Aridog left a comment at 12:20 pm 09/02
packen, zorkmidden, Thousand Sons, and Cam have also commented
Cam left a comment at 2:55 pm 09/02
zorkmidden, packen, and Mar have also commented
Cranky Phil left a comment at 1:46 pm 09/02
Aridog is also here
zorkmidden left a comment at 11:46 am 09/02
cba at parents, packen, and Aridog have also commented
zorkmidden left a comment at 2:09 pm 09/02
Aridog, Christine Keeler, and cba at parents have also commented
Cam left a comment at 2:35 pm 09/02
zorkmidden, Thousand Sons, and evariste have also commented
Thousand Sons left a comment at 4:11 pm 09/01
zorkmidden and Cam have also commented
Cam left a comment at 2:56 pm 09/01
Thousand Sons, Earl, and zorkmidden have also commented
Cam left a comment at 10:51 am 09/02
Smit, RWC, Cranky Phil, packen, and Mar have also commented
zorkmidden left a comment at 3:35 pm 09/02
Aridog, Earl, Thousand Sons, Brooklyn Bill, Cranky Phil, Mar, packen, and RWC have also commented
evariste left a comment at 11:15 pm 08/31
zorkmidden is also here
Posted by V the K on Oct 08, 2007 7:53 am

48 comments, latest by zorkmidden at 10:58 pm 10/10

#1 V the K at 7:54 am on Oct 08, 2007

Don Surber: “Interesting that public schools aren’t good enough for their kids but public health insurance is.”

Glenn Reynolds: “If business owners with half-million-dollar-plus homes and kids in expensive private schools now count as ‘working families,’ does this mean they’ll get tax cuts?”

Rick Moran: “If Mr. Frost can afford a $400,000 house he could easily find private health insurance to cover his family.

#2 Frank IBC at 7:59 am on Oct 08, 2007

Damn the greedy employers of the Frosts.

#3 zorkmidden at 8:55 am on Oct 08, 2007

Two adults and four kids, how did they manage without health insurance all these years? Medical care in the US is not exactly affordable.

#4 Earl at 8:58 am on Oct 08, 2007

OT to flo (just back from Canadian T'giving):

Re my Mac conversion:

Bought a miniMac, the cheaper one. Reason? I had just purchased a quality 20" LCD monitor, and did not want to scrap it. The basic miniMac was more than sufficient for my purposes. The iMac looks great, but was more machine than I need (Garage Band??? WTF???) ;) . The miniMac just sits quietly on my now-irrelevant PC.

Only glitches?- needed a DVI cord to plug the new monitor into the miniMac; needed a USB2 cable to plug the printer into the miniMac; the keyboard would not communicate to the miniMac, so I just bought a new Mac keyboard.

Otherwise, I'm sold. True plug'n'play, no drivers required, no security patches, no viruses-no Norton. Just brilliant.

#5 Frank IBC at 9:01 am on Oct 08, 2007

What was the problem with the keyboard? Does the MiniMac take only USB?

#6 Frank IBC at 9:04 am on Oct 08, 2007

Does the MiniMac have a floppy drive? I'm guessing it doesn't since it sounds pretty much "legacy-free".

#7 Earl at 9:23 am on Oct 08, 2007

FIBC

Dunno. I was using an old 6-pin keyboard, and bought a USB adapter that worked with the PC. But not the Mac.

MiniMacs have only Cat5/ethernet, USB and DVI ports. And plugs for sound jacks.

No floppy. Apparently, one burns directly to CDR. I haven't figured it all out, yet.

#8 Frank IBC at 9:27 am on Oct 08, 2007

Or else just save on a memory stick.

#9 Frank IBC at 9:29 am on Oct 08, 2007

Kind of hard to believe that 1.44 MB was big enough to store ANYTHING.

With my new (and already broken) 6.0 megapixel camera, that's enough space for exactly ONE image.

#10 Frank IBC at 9:32 am on Oct 08, 2007

And this whole idea of having a huge "tower" filled with mostly empty space, for the sake of "upgradeability" is a waste for most home users. The MiniMac was a stroke of genius.

#11 Earl at 9:34 am on Oct 08, 2007

It's remarkable- 8"x8"x2.5" of pure, simple, elegant personal computing.

(ev likely views me as a complete naif, since Apple has been producing this product since, IIRC, ~1984....)

#12 Frank IBC at 9:36 am on Oct 08, 2007

My E: drive (CDRW) doesn't seem to notice any discs that are put in it.

And my D: drive (DVD) which worked more or less OK, got its name overwritten by my Nikon software - the Nikon software calls itself the "D: drive". Weird.

#13 evariste at 9:52 am on Oct 08, 2007

Oh, you got a Mini! Cool! I've been thinking about one of those for my home office. I've got a crummy Windows computer in there now, but it has a nice 19-inch widescreen LCD. So a Mini might be a better buy for me than an iMac.

GarageBand: I'm sure the Minis come with it too. It's part of the iLife suite, so it comes with every Mac.

#14 evariste at 9:56 am on Oct 08, 2007

#10 Frank IBC
And this whole idea of having a huge "tower" filled with mostly empty space, for the sake of "upgradeability" is a waste for most home users. The MiniMac was a stroke of genius.

Hey, it's been a waste for me for at least 5 years, and I'm a giant nerd. I haven't bought a single expansion card in all that time, although I came close to buying a new video card once. For all practical purposes, the only "expansion" most people do is through their USB or Firewire ports.

#15 papijoe at 9:57 am on Oct 08, 2007

Oh, you got a Mini! Cool!

For an awful second there I thought you were talking about one of those stupid Coopers...

#16 evariste at 9:59 am on Oct 08, 2007

I love those stupid Coopers, papijoe! It's a pity I'm so darn tall. For once, I envy short people.

#17 papijoe at 10:00 am on Oct 08, 2007

#16 evariste
I love those stupid Coopers, papijoe!

Noooooooooo!

#18 evariste at 10:01 am on Oct 08, 2007

#11 Earl
It's remarkable- 8"x8"x2.5" of pure, simple, elegant personal computing.

(ev likely views me as a complete naif, since Apple has been producing this product since, IIRC, ~1984....)

Actually, the Mac Mini is a very new product. It came out for the first time maybe...four years ago? Not that long ago.

#19 Aridog at 10:29 am on Oct 08, 2007

#12 Frank IBC
My E: drive (CDRW) doesn't seem to notice any discs that are put in it.

And my D: drive (DVD) which worked more or less OK, got its name overwritten by my Nikon software - the Nikon software calls itself the "D: drive". Weird.

Too late for Frank, but to EVERYONE else....do NOT install that shit software that comes with your camera....you do NOT need it for anything running an OS from Win 2000 forward...and I presume that includes Apple Orchard condiments too.

Just plug in an go through USB 1 or 2 port. Period. Your computer will assign a new drive letter to the camera automatically.

If you want to fancy things up, add only Photoshop Elements or CS3, plus a little software item called "Super Jpeg", and another called "Turbo Navigator" ....then you can see both the camera drive and the PC storage drive on one screen. Bada Bing Bada Boom!

#20 Memphis Bill at 10:40 am on Oct 08, 2007

#4 Earl
OT to flo (just back from Canadian T'giving):

Re my Mac conversion:

Bought a miniMac, the cheaper one. Reason? I had just purchased a quality 20" LCD monitor, and did not want to scrap it. The basic miniMac was more than sufficient for my purposes. The iMac looks great, but was more machine than I need (Garage Band??? WTF???) ;) . The miniMac just sits quietly on my now-irrelevant PC.

Only glitches?- needed a DVI cord to plug the new monitor into the miniMac; needed a USB2 cable to plug the printer into the miniMac; the keyboard would not communicate to the miniMac, so I just bought a new Mac keyboard.

Otherwise, I'm sold. True plug'n'play, no drivers required, no security patches, no viruses-no Norton. Just brilliant.

That's a nice choice for a first Mac. You may find yourself shopping for an external hard drive soon.

I had been running a G4 side by side with a PC for several years using a single monitor and managing the PC from the G4 using MS RDC which is free at the Microsoft site.

Late last year I bought a mini for personal use. I chose a mini because - like you - I had a perfectly usable display to use. Mine came with a DVI/VGA adaptor.

Earlier this year I purchased a 17 inch iMac so I could work from my living room when convenient.

Be sure to have a look at NeoOffice, which is a Mac version of OpenOffice. It's free - they accept donations - and I use it mission critical.

#21 Aridog at 10:40 am on Oct 08, 2007

My E: drive (CDRW) doesn't seem to notice any discs that are put in it.


Huh? Has Ev sat on it?

#22 Frank IBC at 11:26 am on Oct 08, 2007

The E drive stopped working sometime before I installed the Nikon software.

It may be in part due to the tug of war that RealPlayer is having with WindowsMedia.

The only reason I haven't already deleted that virus known as RP is because sometimes I like to watch a DVD with the sound off, and listen to a music CD out of the other drive at the same time, and there doesn't seem to be a way to do this with WM alone.

#23 evariste at 3:16 pm on Oct 08, 2007

#20 Memphis Bill
Be sure to have a look at NeoOffice, which is a Mac version of OpenOffice. It's free - they accept donations - and I use it mission critical.

Wow, you use NeoOffice? I read that it was a giant pile of Java GUI crap on top of OpenOffice, which itself is a giant pile of crap. Also, I hear the OpenOffice.org project is finally gearing up to do a real Mac release, which will render NeoOffice's existence essentially moot.

I'm not a heavy office suite user, though. Much more pressing for me is what text editor to use for programming. I've got iWork kicking around on my hard drive, and Office 2007 on Windows, in Parallels. But I never open up either one.

#24 evariste at 3:20 pm on Oct 08, 2007

#22 Frank IBC
The E drive

Stupid Windowsisms that I don't miss:
-Drive letters
-the Start Menu
-the System Tray/Notification Area/whatever Microsoft wants you to call it today
-the Registry
-the childish "My" Everything

#25 franco cbi at 3:48 pm on Oct 08, 2007

So what do you call the drives, then?

#26 franco cbi at 3:55 pm on Oct 08, 2007

Chris Pirillo Upgrades from Vista to XP

Disappointingly, there are no bloopers on this.

#27 evariste at 4:03 pm on Oct 08, 2007

#25 franco cbi
So what do you call the drives, then?

Well, at a very basic level, drives are "mounted" on the filesystem, at "mount points". The filesystem hierarchy starts at "/", and everything is attached to that tree under /, from external hard drives to CDs to network shares to my actual hard drive's contents. On a Mac, drives show up mounted in /Volumes if there's anything in them, and they also appear on the Desktop and as a source in the Finder's source list (by the name of the media inside them, not by some useless drive letter). So right now I have a CD in the drive and an external hard drive attached. Each has an icon on the Desktop, on the sidebar in the Finder, and can also be reached on the command line. Who needs drive letters? And furthermore, who needs them when there's no media in the drive? If I don't have a CD in my CD drive, why do I need an icon and a drive letter for it?

#28 evariste at 4:05 pm on Oct 08, 2007

Same goes for a camera, a phone, a USB key, or whatever the hell else you might plug in. It appears on its desktop by its name, e.g. "evariste's iPhone" or "gym iPod" or "Hadzizakis" (my external Firewire hard drive).

#29 franco cbi at 4:06 pm on Oct 08, 2007

Ah, I see... it's focused on contents rather than empty machinery. Makes sense.

#30 evariste at 4:06 pm on Oct 08, 2007

Er, actually, the iPhone only shows up in the iTunes source list, not in the Finder.

#31 franco cbi at 4:12 pm on Oct 08, 2007

Oh, wait a minute... I thought it had created some sort of "virtual" drive just for Nikon Picture Project. I was wrong - I realized that it's renamed the actual DVD drive as "D: Picture Pro".

WTF??

#32 evariste at 4:12 pm on Oct 08, 2007

#29 franco cbi
Ah, I see... it's focused on contents rather than empty machinery. Makes sense.

Exactly. In what way is it meaningful for your CD drive to be "E:\" and your camera to be "F:\" or whatever? It's pretty stupid. I can't believe they didn't get rid of it in Vista.

#33 franco cbi at 4:14 pm on Oct 08, 2007

Oh, never mind... I got the brand wrong, it's actually pointing to my hard drive. But still, why a separate drive going to the same place?

#34 evariste at 4:15 pm on Oct 08, 2007

#31 franco cbi
Oh, wait a minute... I thought it had created some sort of "virtual" drive just for Nikon Picture Project. I was wrong - I realized that it's renamed the actual DVD drive as "D: Picture Pro".

WTF??

By the way, you can manually reassign drive letters in diskmgmt.msc (Start->Run->diskmgmt.msc)

#35 Memphis Bill at 4:17 pm on Oct 08, 2007

#23 evariste

Wow, you use NeoOffice? I read that it was a giant pile of Java GUI crap on top of OpenOffice, which itself is a giant pile of crap. Also, I hear the OpenOffice.org project is finally gearing up to do a real Mac release, which will render NeoOffice's existence essentially moot.

I'm not a heavy office suite user, though. Much more pressing for me is what text editor to use for programming. I've got iWork kicking around on my hard drive, and Office 2007 on Windows, in Parallels. But I never open up either one.

I'm using it with a fair degree of satisfaction. Gave up waiting for OpenOffice Mac. I use Neo to open .odt files on a PC hard drive and save them back to that drive with a backup on Mac.

#36 evariste at 4:18 pm on Oct 08, 2007

So iWork doesn'tWork for you?

#37 franco cbi at 4:25 pm on Oct 08, 2007

OK, it looked like one of the other drives was pointing to the C: drive. Fixed at least one now.

And this gave me a laugh... when I was doing that, my (long since expired) Norton popped up and identified Ad-Aware as a Trojan.

#38 Memphis Bill at 4:30 pm on Oct 08, 2007

#36 evariste
So iWork doesn'tWork for you?

Haven't need for graphics processing, at least not for work. Thanks for the OO heads up. I see they have an Aqua Alpha available. I'll look at it.

#39 cba γβα גבא ابت вба at 4:52 pm on Oct 08, 2007

#37 franco cbi
my (long since expired) Norton
I uninstalled Norton when I was going to get AVG because ev told me Norton doesn't play nice with others.

#40 franco cbi at 4:56 pm on Oct 08, 2007

I keep meaning to get AVG or CA one of these days.

#41 Memphis Bill at 5:27 pm on Oct 08, 2007

#23 evariste

Wow, you use NeoOffice? I read that it was a giant pile of Java GUI crap on top of OpenOffice, which itself is a giant pile of crap. Also, I hear the OpenOffice.org project is finally gearing up to do a real Mac release, which will render NeoOffice's existence essentially moot.

I'm not a heavy office suite user, though. Much more pressing for me is what text editor to use for programming. I've got iWork kicking around on my hard drive, and Office 2007 on Windows, in Parallels. But I never open up either one.

Neo is somewhat faster than OO Aqua at the moment.

#42 Laura at 11:00 pm on Oct 08, 2007
#43 RIP Ford at 12:02 pm on Oct 09, 2007

#13 evariste
Oh, you got a Mini! Cool! I've been thinking about one of those for my home office. I've got a crummy Windows computer in there now, but it has a nice 19-inch widescreen LCD. So a Mini might be a better buy for me than an iMac.

GarageBand: I'm sure the Minis come with it too. It's part of the iLife suite, so it comes with every Mac.

I was thinking about getting a Mini to run on a decent size flat screen LCD for the living room. Just to run videos and music, perhaps even some image editing. I probably won't use it much for the internet since I like to have the TV on while browsing...

#44 esmense at 12:47 pm on Oct 09, 2007

#1 V the K

Don Surber: “Interesting that public schools aren’t good enough for their kids but public health insurance is.”

Glenn Reynolds: “If business owners with half-million-dollar-plus homes and kids in expensive private schools now count as ‘working families,’ does this mean they’ll get tax cuts?”

Rick Moran: “If Mr. Frost can afford a $400,000 house he could easily find private health insurance to cover his family.

Are you self-employed? Do you have Individual Health Insurance? Or are you covered by an employer paid (partial or full) group plan?

Small business owners and the self-employed have to purchase Individual plans -- which, for a basic HMO plan, can cost close to $2,000-3,000 (or more) a month (that's premium, then there are co-pays, deductibles, etc.) for a family. That is, if they can even get coverage -- which the Frosts most likely can't because of their daughter's on-going, permanent health problems resulting from the automobile accident.

My husband and I are small business owners. We pay just under $15,000 a year in premiums, just for the two of us. And we count ourselves lucky because he had thyroid cancer 8 years ago -- and even though he is fully recovered with no trace of cancer, if we lost the insurance we now have he would not be able to get any kind of private health insurance, because of the pre-existing condition.

I think many people commenting here are quite naive.

#45 Sarah at 10:41 pm on Oct 10, 2007

#1 V the K

Don Surber: “Interesting that public schools aren’t good enough for their kids but public health insurance is.”

Glenn Reynolds: “If business owners with half-million-dollar-plus homes and kids in expensive private schools now count as ‘working families,’ does this mean they’ll get tax cuts?”

Rick Moran: “If Mr. Frost can afford a $400,000 house he could easily find private health insurance to cover his family.

Okay, time for some facts, boys. The Frosts don't pay $20,000 for "private schools" they have scholarships for the schools and pay $500 out of pocket. Furthermore, they paid $50,000 for the house in the 90's and the 400,000 is an Magical Malkin exaggeration of the current value of the home. Also, no one seems to mention the fact that the father has said he has tried to get private insurance but was rejected because of the pre-existing conditions--the accident that got the kid in a coma in the first place!

#46 RIP Ford at 10:46 pm on Oct 10, 2007

#45 Sarah


Okay, time for some facts, boys. The Frosts don't pay $20,000 for "private schools" they have scholarships for the schools and pay $500 out of pocket. Furthermore, they paid $50,000 for the house in the 90's and the 400,000 is an Magical Malkin exaggeration of the current value of the home. Also, no one seems to mention the fact that the father has said he has tried to get private insurance but was rejected because of the pre-existing conditions--the accident that got the kid in a coma in the first place!

You haven't been following the discussion on the net very closely have you?

#47 RIP Ford at 10:52 pm on Oct 10, 2007

This place is going to be the new ev's bithday thread for a while, isn't it?

#48 zorkmidden at 10:58 pm on Oct 10, 2007

#47 RIP Ford
This place is going to be the new ev's bithday thread for a while, isn't it?

Last person out turn off the lights.

I'm off to bed, sleep well :-)

recent comments

[ Vanity Fair's Sarah Palin Profiler: 'The Worst Stuff Isn't Even In There' ]/ ' The
' The Palestinian Authority and Christian leaders on Thursday signed an accord to repair the Church of the Nativity
' Asked about Hamas on Thursday, White House Mideast envoy George Mitchell said: "We do not expect Hamas to
' Abbas and Netanyahu are far apart on issues that have eluded a solution for decades, including the borders
' To relaunch Middle East peace talks on Thursday, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders and their American mediators quietly
Holy Shit. Anyone who voted for this nitfuck deserves the government that they've gotten. I feel sorry for the
#4 zorki: I think the situation is a little different _ via a vis _ South and Central American
[ #9 ]/ zorkmidden and shop for specials for denture adhesives. [img]
[ #3 ]/ Cam: I know the Chinese do that and that there are networks who loan money to
#5 zorki: She should be tried, then, for the crime of dumbfuckery - assuming that that is is a
#2 zorki: They work it off when they arrive.
A little OT, but every time I read the stories about illegal immigrants who come to the West for jobs,
packen, if you haven't seen "Fallen", you should.
[ #8 ]/ RWC: And when you're not robbing people of their bling, you can commiserate with evariste about
' Of course, I have no way of knowing if the Tamils’ claims are genuine: post-civil war Sri Lanka
It _ was _ surprising, but I felt the movie sacrificed its own internal logic and mood for the sake
[ #4 ]/ zorkmidden #3 RWC: Happy birthday, old man. Don't join a gang
[ PA arrests two Hamas members for the terror attack ]/ . The [ JPost article ]/ does not
[ #5 ]/ king's shadow: It surprised me and I liked it.
[ #6 ]/ Thousand Sons: And they wouldn't drop out of school if only they had schools. Or alarms.
The Fallen was a good movie, but I didn't like/buy the final twist.
Because gangbangers wouldnt be thuggin' or making quick, illegal cash if they just had _ jobs _ .
[ #2 ]/ zorkmidden: There's definitely a simlarity.
[ #1 ]/ zorkmidden Nice chilling story for a * hot day * . Which
' Is there a leak? Does anyone know? ' Apparently a small leak, that's not associated with

home

this & that

bloggie pulse: circulation
last 15 minutes:
74
last hour:
213
last 24 hours:
2310
bloggie pulse: comments
since midnite:
73
last 24 hours:
86
in our lifetime:
761771