Sunday, December 17
Tuesday, October 24
Friday, October 13
Pictures from TechCocktail2
I had a great time at Tech Cockatil #2 at The Grammercy
I've posted pictures at my flickr
Thanks to Kris for the ride down.
Filed in:
TechCocktail
TechCocktail2 Chicago GeekDinner Gramercy Coastr
TechCocktail
TechCocktail2 Chicago GeekDinner Gramercy Coastr
Wednesday, October 11
digg - Olbermann: "Why does habeas corpus hate America"
digg - Olbermann: "Why does habeas corpus hate America":
"First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me."
Monday, October 9
Sunday, October 8
McDonald's Monopoly Game 2006 - Rare Piece List
This is the list of "rare" pieces for each color in the 2006 McDonald's Monopoly game. If you have one of these, get ahold of the other common ones of that color because you've won!
read more | digg story
Tuesday, October 3
Ron Moore talks Season 3 of 'Battlestar Galactica', New Interview
Chicago Tribune interviews Ron Moore. Leaking new spoilers for Season 3 with the future of Baltar, Starbuck and Col. Tigh
read more | digg story
Friday, September 29
NY Times: Bush's "Tyrannical Law" is "Low Point in American Democracy"
Geneva Conventions sidestepped; basic habeas right to challenge imprisonment cancelled; coerced evidence allowed; torture allowed; secret evidence allowed; judicial review blocked; U.S. residents could be detained indefinitely with no hope of appeal. Nearly all Senate Republicans voted Yes.
read more | digg story
Thursday, September 28
See 5000 years of history in 90 seconds
Who has controlled the Middle East over the course of history? Pretty much everyone. Egyptians, Turks, Jews, Romans, Arabs, Greeks, Persians, Europeans...the list goes on. See 5000 years of history in 90 seconds.
read more | digg story
Thursday, September 21
Good message, from the Dalai Lama
INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIFE
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R’s:
Respect for self.4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
Respect for others.
Responsibility for all your actions.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon
Monday, September 18
TECH cocktail 2 @ The Gramercy 10.12.2006
TECH cocktail 2 @ The Gramercy - TECH cocktail
The first Tech Cocktail was great. The second is coming up in October.
SAVE THE DATE: Thursday, October 12, 2006 for TECH cocktail at the Gramercy!
Filed in: TechCocktail2 Chicago GeekDinner Gramercy Coastr
Thursday, September 14
iTunes 7 Video Issue
I've been having video problems since the upgrade to 7.0. Green and white bars or other video garbage when playing video but audio was fine.
I uninstall and reinstalled ITunes and Quicktime with no luck.
But then I just stumbled upon a setting that cleared things up for me. Here's what I did: From Windows Desktop goto - Start | Control Panel |Quicktime | Advanced - then under the 'video' section I selected Safe mode (GDI only) instead of DirectX and applied.
I re-selected DirectX and only selected 'Enable Direct Draw Acceleration' under that and the video is now working fine in iTunes.
Tuesday, September 12
Olbermann's 9/11 Valentine for Bush: Who has left this hole in the ground?
Who else has the balls to say it? Keith rips George a new hole.
read more | digg story
Friday, September 8
SXGA, UXGA, QSXGA Video Standards defined
Shopping for a new monitor or HDTV. Check all those cryptic acronyms defined.
read more | digg story
Thursday, September 7
Chicago Evacuation Drill
My building was selected as one of the buildings involved in the drill. Here's some pictures of the action.
Monday, August 28
Wednesday, August 23
Anti-Telemarketing Script
This script creates an imbalance in the conversation between the marketer and the consumer. It is this imbalance, most of all, that makes telemarketing successful. The EGBG Counterscript attempts to redress that balance.
read more | digg story
Monday, August 14
12 on 12 August
Landscaping, washing the dog, Hi Infidelity Concert at Walter Payton’s Roundhouse
See more progress on: Take 12 photos on the 12th of every month
Saturday, August 12
Video Game Law Backfires for Illinois
A federal judge has said the State of Illinois must pay over a half-million dollars in legal fees to the video-game industry for fighting the "Safe Games Illinois Act" intended to keep minors away from violent or explicit video games.
read more | digg story
Friday, August 11
What's Wrong With Showing Your ID?
If a 19 year-old college student can get a fake ID to drink, why couldn't a bad person get one, too? And no matter how sophisticated the security embedded into the ID, wouldn't a well-financed terrorist be able to falsify that, too? The answer to both questions is obviously 'yes'.
read more | digg story
Wednesday, August 9
Wednesday, July 26
The buck stops . . . where?
"The buck stops . . . where?
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi criticizing the lack of congressional oversight concerning Iraq war contracts:
'Why this huge contract has not been and is not now being adequately audited is beyond me. The potential for waste and profiteering under such a contract is substantial.'
Then again, what do you expect from --
Wait. Those were the words 40 years ago of Rep. Donald Rumsfeld (R-Ill.) criticizing the lack of congressional oversight concerning Vietnam war contracts.
The company he was talking about would later become a unit of Halliburton.
Our government has shortcomings.
Lack of continuity is not one of them.
Saturday, July 22
Role Playing Game Inspirational Posters
Probably not as effective, but definitely funnier than the ones hung on the walls of offices...
read more | digg story
Friday, July 21
Thursday, July 13
July 12 on 12
I got the idea from Fr. Roderick of the Daily Breakfast podcast to take 12 pictures of a day in your life once a month. See what I go through durring the Life of Brian on my 12 on 12 - photoset on Flickr for July 12th 2006.
Sunday, July 2
When Republicans Hurt Our Freedoms, The Terrorists Win.
"Every time a Republican attacks our freedoms a terrorist gets his wings."
read more | digg story
Thursday, June 29
Roe Conn on CNN Headline News
Roe Conn, afternoon personality on ABC-owned news/talk WLS-AM (890), gets an hour of prime time on national television when he fills in Monday for Glenn Beck on CNN Headline News.
Conn has been a regular contributor to Beck's unconventional talk show since it debuted last month. It airs at 6 p.m. Monday through Friday with reruns at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.
Wednesday, June 28
Freedbacking-giving free feedback to the developers of your favorite sites
Fostering open feedback between users and developers, Chris Pirllo is creating a new tag that doesn't exist in Google (which means it doesnâ't yet exist): Freedbacking.
You're giving free feedback to the developers of your favorite programs, or the creators of your favorite Web service, or anybody who's making something that you use.
read more | digg story
Filed in: digg Freedbacking ChrisPirillo Bloggercon
Tuesday, June 27
Bush approval rating by state
This shows bush's approval rating by state (per month) since the 2004 election. Could we be a blue country by 2008?
read more | digg story
Saturday, June 24
Thursday, June 22
How-To: Wiring VoIP to your phone jacks
Engadget has a nice guide on hooking up our VOIP/Vonage adapter on your old phone jacks. "No soldering irons or caustic acid required." All you need is a screwdriver, pliers, wire cutters, extra phone wires, splice connectors (optional), and a VoIP Adapter"
read more | digg story
Friday, June 16
Extra Points Fanball Review
Text from my review of Fanball.com as heard on Extra Points podcast.
I've used fanball.com as a user for the last 2 years for 2 different leagues.
Our Commish switched from CBS Sportsline.
Its very comparable to the big guys, plenty of customization for rules and points, live chat, online draft and live scoring.
The cost is about $120/year per league, but it will also keep the league from intact for the next season, making keeper leagues easier to maintain.
It also has a stats section which gives you a head-head scoring comparing your score to all other teams and also maintains hall of fame stats spanning the seasons and playoffs.
They have an active writing staff to help you decide who to play trade or draft. Like Yahoo and CBS, fanball is designed for fantasy sports. They have multiple football games and are setup for fantasy baseball, basketball, racing, golf, sports book and poker.
One downside which shows it hasn't been ready for the season is the live scoring in the beginning of the season. Fanball has had two different live scoring apps the last two years, and in the the first couple of games of the season, the web site can't seem to handle the traffic load, especially at halftime and between the games when people tend to check the scores. 404 errors were common. During the rest of the season the live scoring, although live scoring being unofficial would be incorrect. There were a couple of close games I was up or down by 3 points Monday night only to find I won or lost by 10. The message boards were loaded with threats of people switching to other sites. To there defense, CBS has had these problem in the past as well.
However, I still prefer yahoo's paid service over Fanball.
Filed in: Fanball FantasyFootball FLL ExtraPoints Podcast Review football fantasy
Thursday, June 15
Friday, May 26
Wired:Why the public isn't revolting about Iraq like they did about Vietnam
Where the hell is everyone?
They're at home, tuning in to root for the next "American idol." They're plugged into their iPods, utterly self-involved and disconnected from what lies just outside their doors. They're spending 25 hours a week playing video games in virtual worlds instead of fighting to save the only world that really matters.
It also covers:
- NSA (allegedly illegal) wiretapping of U.S. citizens
- The Press failing its "government watchdog" duties
- The U.S. failing to sign the Kyoto Protocol
- Oil dependency (specifically Big Oil controlling the U.S.)
- Organized religion influencing the government
read more | digg story
Tuesday, May 23
Wired News: The Eternal Value of Privacy
Wired News: The Eternal Value of Privacy: "Too many wrongly characterize the debate as 'security versus privacy.' The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide."
Monday, May 22
The Top 25 X-Men
With literally hundreds to choose from, we sorted through the many mutants who have been part of an X-team over the past 40+ years. We looked into alternate futures, brief allegiances and long-standing members. These are the top 25 X-Men, the complete list.
read more | digg story
Afraid Of Re-installing Windows XP?
This site has a very useful tutorial if you have an old and slow XP machine with hundreds of programs and you want to re-install. This site will show you how to save your old partition in a virtual machine, and have a nice, new install of Windows.
read more | digg story
Saturday, May 13
Battlestar Galacticsimpsons
pantsketch: Battlestar Galacticsimpsons
BSG Characters drawn as Simpsons cartoons.
Filed in: battlestargalatica, bsg, sci-fi, simpsons, TVSquad
Friday, May 12
7-Minute X-Men Sneak Peek
The seven-minute preview of 20th Century Fox's X-Men: The Last Stand, aired on Fox now exclusively at Dell.com/X-Men! Check out Beast (Kelsey Grammer) and Angel (Ben Foster)
Large Video Link
Friday, May 5
AT&T to stop local goverments from implementing Fiber
Four more Chicago suburbs were sued by AT&T Inc. for delaying plant improvements that will lead to a launch later of the telephone company's video service.
The new defendants are Itasca,North Aurora, Wood Dale and Geneva. Suits were filed against the Illinois communities May 2 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Previously, AT&T sued the communities of Carpentersville, Roselle and Wheaton, Ill., as well as two communities in California.
According to local regulators, 10 communities have put the brakes to the improvement drive, called Project Lightspeed. Of those, seven have been sued and three more anticipate legal action.
read more | digg story
Thursday, May 4
Easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine
It's easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman. That's because Vegas slots are better monitored and regulated than America's voting machines.
read more | digg story
Friday, April 28
TLC Van on Wacker
TLC was taking testimonials bits for "Life Lessons" for the TV shows Honey We're Killing the Kids! and Shalom in the Home
Thursday, April 27
SCI FI Announces Caprica
SCI FI Channel announced the development of Caprica, a spinoff prequel of its hit Battlestar Galactica, in presentations to advertisers in New York on April 26. Caprica would come from Galactica executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, writer Remi Aubuchon (24) and NBC Universal Television Studio.
read more | digg story
Monday, April 24
How To Order Wine Without Looking Like An A$$Hole
Its wine, not the Blood of Christ. Don’t worship it. Enjoy it.
See more progress on: learn about wine
Friday, April 14
Google News + Google Maps + Yahoo! Traffic
Virender Ajmani over at Mibazaar.com has created a cool mashup that lets you find local news based on your U.S. zip code. This map definitely fits the mashup definition. It combines the following: Google Maps + Yahoo! Geocoding + Google RSS News Feeds + Yahoo! Traffic
read more | digg story
Tuesday, April 4
Spiderman 3 Plot Revealed
We've all heard rumors and speculations of the plot for Spiderman 3, but we've never had anything confirmed... Until now.
read more | digg story
Tuesday, March 21
Electronic voting good, design bad
Where I voted had the electronic voting machines, but who ever designed them was an IDIOT.
Its a nice an electronic machine, but instead of voting touch screen, you have this obtuse dial thing-a-magig at the bottom of the device to control the highlighted section. Then press the Enter key instead of touching the screen. Very tactile but unnecessary confusing. Ironically I voted in a nursing home. Hope the Alzheimer patients voted early :).
I am surprised how much unaposed people are running. There was one entry where no-one was running. So, I had a chance for a write in, just for fun I put myself. I felt like I was putting in the high score for Asteroids, rotate right, to N, left back for B, right all the way for a space....
Good news is that were was a paper ballot backup which I was able to verify before submitting the ballot.
Tuesday, March 14
Wicked
Saw Wicked on Saturday (3/11/06) with my family in Cincinnati. It was a great play humors and surprising back story of the Witches, Wizard, Tin Man, Scarecrow, and the Lion.
Tuesday, March 7
Ten of the Biggest Mistakes Developers Make With Databases
Although fashions come and go in software development, some things stay remarkably constant. One of these is the use of databases...
read more | digg story
Monday, March 6
Free the Grapes!
http://www.freethegrapes.org/
A national wine war is pitting consumers—who want the option of having wineries ship directly to them—against wine wholesalers, who are threatening winemakers and citizens with jail time if they bypass the middlemen.
Free the Grapes! is a national, grassroots coalition of consumers and wineries who seek to remove restrictions in 20 states that still prohibit consumers from purchasing wines directly from out-of-state wineries.
See more progress on: learn about wine
Friday, March 3
Monday, February 27
I'm in the Chicago Tribune
I attended a Chicago Bloggers Meetup group and Steve Johnson a reporter from the Chicago tribune wrote a story about it Chicago Tribune | How many bloggers does it take ... ?
Other sites that were mentioned in the article
Barbara Iverson
Charles A. Krugel
Bighappyfunhouse
KIPlog
Food Blog
www.fired.tv
noattention.blogspot.com
Phonecamnews
Friday, February 24
Peter Parker as Venom!
A new official image from Spider-Man 3 is out and it's damn revealing. That's not a black and white image above, according to Sony it's Spidey in a black costume. And we all know what happens with Spider-Man's black costume.................... Venom
read more | digg story
Thursday, February 23
Anutthara's WebLog : A separate milestone for quality? I thought we built quality into the product in all milestones...
Interesting read on taking an iteration in your project development on just fixing the development environment adding test cases, code coverage, refactoring.
Green tea may reduce, but black tea may increase breast cancer risk
"Drinking five cups of green tea a day can reduce the risk of breast cancer by 22 per cent, claims a meta-analysis of previous studies, the same studies that the FDA recently said contained very little science to support the claims."
read more | digg story
Wednesday, February 22
Creation Salutes STAR TREK The 40th Anniversary Celebration
Just annouced Feb 17th.
Creation Celebrates The 40th Anniversary of STAR TREK with WILLIAM SHATNER and LEONARD NIMOY.
CHICAGO, IL AREA
September 8-10, 2006
Wyndham O'Hare Hotel
6810 N. Mannheim Rd.
Rosemont, Il.
Thursday, February 16
Sunday, February 12
The Matrix: Explained
This guy wrote two extremely detailed analytical essays about the iconography and symbolism in Reloaded and Revolutions. Whether you loved or hated the movies, it's a fascinating read.
read more | digg story
Wednesday, February 1
Remember there are different flavors of tea
Just because you’ve tried green tea before and didn’t like it; remember there are many flavors of green tea. Some teas have strong taste, gunpowder and sencha, and other are more subtle, dragon well and white monkey. Green tea can also be infused with flavors, mint, citron and peppermint.
There are also different families of tea: Black, White, Green and Red(Rooibos) and herbal
Also all tea has caffeine unless processed, except for herbal. A quick way to remove the caffeine is to brew the tea for 20-30 seconds then throw the water out. then steep for 3 mins for green and white, 5-7 for others.
See more progress on: drink green tea every day
Friday, January 27
How I got started with wine
I got started getting interested in wine by joining a wine club. When I started I thought I liked whites over reds. As I tasted more I find reds more my style, Shiraz/Syrah is one of my favorites. They’re the same grape but one is grown in Australia, the other in California.
Lately I’ve been listening to podcasts Wincast and Grape Radio
See more progress on: learn about wine
Thursday, January 26
Young Americans and Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales spoke before law students at Georgetown today, justifying illegal, unauthorized surveilance of US citizens, but during the course of his speech the students in class did something pretty ballsy and brave. They got up from their seats and turned their backs to him.
read more | digg story
Tuesday, January 24
Follow Jack Bauer With The Jacktracker
Found this on digg
Using wayfaring and flickr, this map shows Jack’s activities as he makes his way through Day 5 of 24.
See more progress on: watch all of the new season of 24
Thursday, January 19
11 Tuner PVR system by SnapStream!
The monster 11 tuner system with HDTV support PVR...they keep adding the tuners.
My dream System
read more | digg story
Thursday, January 12
Wednesday, January 11
How to Toss Water To Freeze in Mid Air
Yes you can toss water in the air and it will freeze before it hits the ground. Tom Skilling explains how and why...
read more | digg story
Sunday, January 8
Play Again Games : MonopolyHomeRules
A great list of alternative rules for Monopoly
Read more at wiki.playagaingames.com...
Friday, January 6
the Great Predictor
Way back in August I predicted the AFC, NFC and NFL champs.
3 out of 4 aint bad.
Just replace GB with the Bears, and Ill be right.
Raymond Lewallen : Superbowl Predictions: # re: Preseason Super bowl Predictions for the upcoming 2005 NFL Season
posted at Thursday, August 04, 2005 2:18 PM by ColdChilli
Philly will be good, but they wont make it to the 5th NFC championship game in a row.
Pitt has a good chance of making it 2x in a row.
Go out on a strech..
Indy vs Cincy in the AFC game
Seattle vs GB in the NFC game
Super Bowl
Indy 37
Seattle 21
Thursday, January 5
Photos and information on new TiVo Series3 w/ CableCard & HD
New TiVo has external SATA port for easy Hard Drive upgrades. Two CableCard 2.0 slots. Internal NTSC, ATSC and QAM tuners. New TiVo remote with backlight too!
read more | digg story
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