Author: David

(A lil “drive-by posting” amid a jammed up day. *heh* I love having “spare posts” saved for days like today.)

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The natives are restless. Growing weary of proprietary formats that lock ’em outa using their media the way they want to, cranky about irretrievable corrupted files written in formats that defy recovery and reconstruction but encourage corruption and failure, some Apple product users—including power users and Mac gurus—are abandoning ship.

Just in time, another Linux-based product for media addicts. The Linux-based Omni, from Titan Global Entertainment is a PMP (portable media player) that TGE is positioning as

“…a more featureful, lower-cost alternative to Apple’s iPod Video product.”

Check the feature set:

4.3-inch “HD quality” LCD

30GB hard drive

Bluetooth wireless

USB 2.0 interface

Lithium ion battery offering 8 hours of video or 15 hours audio playback

Weight — 15.2 ounces (260 gm)

Audio/video I/O supports MPEG4, DivX, XviD, WMA, MP3, OGG

DVD recorder functionality

Photo wallet functionality

Will it be a video iPod killer? No, of course not. But it may offer one avenue of escape for those held in iPod slavery. And as more alternatives come along (hopefully more and more alternatives in the open source community), I think more people will welcome an escape from iPod hell.

Yeh, I do seriously hope for more Linux-based media options. In fact, as we continue to upgrade things here at third world county central, I’m even looking at building a media PC using a Linux-based solution. It’ll be a while before we want or need that, but I can see it coming, and there are some decent open source media center solutions out there, now.

For handheld devices, this lil Omni looks like a really nice deal. DivX a few videos, DVDs (Yeh, I bought ’em, I should be able to view ’em where and when I want), mp3 a few more [pieces of my music recordings collection, even interface the puppy with my car stereo (yeh, there are $30 USB devices for that)… I could see it working not only for me but for a lot of other people.

Especially since it uses standard formats I can manage and easily and safely backup.

Too much going on today. This is an open trackback post. Link in some good stuff for me to read later. You know the drill: link to this post and track back.

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Didja know… the average American tosses nearly 1,500 pounds of garbage out each year? (Drive-by update: Oh, and that was according to stats from four years ago… think it’s more or less, now?)

Why! That’s almost as much garbage in a year as Michael Moore-on spouts in a day! Scary. Try to cut down on your trash, eh?

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As I said, this is an open trackback post. Link to this post and then track back. If you want to host your own linkfests, check out

Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at Linkfest Haven.

Ya know, I’ve not been able to mention the wall treatments that I’m (just now) finishing up in our home to local folks, neighbors, friends and the like. Why? Because America’s Third World County has a communication system that is faster than light. As soon as (if not slightly before) I said something like “I just finished plastering the walls, working evenings over the past few weeks… ” it’d be all over the county about how I spent all my evenings getting plastered.

Count on it. Communication that’s faster than light, just not all that reliable.

*heh*

Knocking back a few at Consevative Cat

“The nation blest above all nations is she in whom the civic genius of the people does the saving day by day… ”

The following article is reprinted with permission via Minuteman HQ email.

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An Update from the Minuteman Fence Project Manager

First, let me say thanks to the brave ranchers who are stepping up to put their lives on the line to stop the illegal invasion. They live and work within spitting distance of the Mexican border every day. These brave men and women are working side by side with Minutemen in this war zone they call home, allowing us to secure America.

Second, let’s be clear. Not every single mile of the border or every ranch or rancher is the same. The full-on Israeli-style Security Fence is our primary design and first choice for construction. However, when circumstances dictate adjustment to a Border Fence with barbed wire and a vehicle barrier or another design to meet local requirements, we will make the necessary adaptations—and keep building.

Our plan: Do the job until our government does its duty.

• Announce the need for the Minuteman Border Fence.
• Ask again that President Bush do his duty and secure the border.
• Schedule a groundbreaking to get the Border Fence launched.
• Begin raising the $55 million needed for 70 miles of fence in AZ.
• Work with ranchers to design fence to meet specific private landsite requirements.
• Get steel and contractors to manage the sites.
• Register and vet fencing volunteers.
• Build a Minuteman Fence Security Plan to patrol fencing.
• Set up Volunteer Crews administration and crew management
• Continue to build fence as fast as resources allow.
• Start more sites in TX, CA and NM as donations and olunteer capacity permit.
• Continue Border Watch and Fence Operations until the border is secure.

Click to view details of fence diagram.


A Comprehensive Design
Continue reading “Guard the Borders”

This is Monday’s open trackback post here at third world county. Link to this post and track back. More below “Thema”.

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This week I have planned posts on “Mending Walls: Faith, Part 3” and another tentatively titled, “Mending Walls: Public Education—The Carefully Considered Rape of the American Citizen’s Mind.” I suspect the rest of the twc posts this week, apart from those that are crossposts informational or simply for my own amusement, will be themed similarly, influenced by the following comment made by William James in his Dedication Speech for the Shaw Memorial (Robert Gould Shaw), Boston, May 31, 1897:

The deadliest enemies of nations are not their foreign foes; they always dwell within their borders. And from these internal enemies civilization is always in need of being saved. The nation blest above all nations is she in whom the civic genius of the people does the saving day by day, by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly; by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans or empty quacks. Such nations have no need of wars to save them. Their accounts with righteousness are always even; and God’s judgments do not have to overtake them fitfully in bloody spasms and convulsions of the race.

I leave it to my readers to educe the theme.

Rabbit trail: read the whole speech. It’s a reminder of how much better a writer William James was than his brother, Henry.

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As I said, this is an open trackback post open all day today. Link to this post and then track back. If you want to host your own linkfests, check out

Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at Linkfest Haven.

Or, Early (?) Oldtimers’ Disease Part X

So, I had been walking around looking for a (normail format paperback) book for maybe half an hour. I knew I’d had it in my hands earlier but had no idea where I had put it down.

Took a break. Sharpened a machete and cut down a volunteer elm that had sprung up, hidden within my (good) neighbor’s hedge (which I have kept trimmed for her for the past eleven years, cos it’s an older lady who just doesn’t have that in her yard care repertoire). Back inside, looked for the book some more.

Found it in my hip pocket.

Not enough coffee today. Nope. Not enough at all, at all.

BTDT, have the t-shirt.

This book, Teach Your Dog 100 English Words, should be used as a ready reference by every parent of a young child who wants to have their children grow up to be civilized human beings but doesn’t want to stifle their creativity, initiative or personality.

Really.

And I don’t think it’s too bad for dog owners, either.

Touting the tome at Woman Honor Thyself and TMH’s Bacon Bits.

This is an Open Trackback alliance post, all weekend long. Link to this post and track back. More below.

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For those of y’all intrigued or puzzled by the question in the post title, don’t expect an overly cryptic or philosophical post. For those of y’all who already think you know what a day is, you’re welcome to read on, cos you’re probably wrong.

Most folks think a day is some arbitrary 24-hour period of time as designated by some anal, obsessive-compulsive dude who looked at the Sun, saw it “come up” in the morning, “go down” in the evening and thought, “Wow! A day has passed! I just have to create a calendar and keep track of these things!”

*feh* Slacker. Anal, obsessive compulsive slacker, but slacker nonetheless.

A day is really that period of time between extended periods of uninterrupted sleep. If it’s 16 hours or 72 hours long: that’s your day, folks.

Slackers, now, real slackers, just walk around asleep alla time, so they don’t really have days…

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As I said, this is an open trackback post open all weekend long. Link to this post and then track back. If you want to host your own linkfests, check out

Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at Linkfest Haven.

The most common dictionary definition of a tightwad is “miser”.

Vile calumny, I say! A tightwad is one who is regularly able to make at least one complete peanut butter sandwich from a jar others dismiss as being empty. A tightwad would never say, “Who steals my purse steals trash” without first examining the wallet to see if there is any salvageable material.

And more, a tightwad is one who sees the town dump as evidence of the monumental stupidity and waste of his neighbors who lack the ingenuity to see salvageable (or simply repairable) objects of worth and simply toss them out to be destroyed by the elements.

A tightwad, by nature or nurture, is a conservationist, ever exploring new ways to use, re-use, repair, mend, re-engineer and recycle; one who sees the simple wisdom in the old meme, “Waste not; want not.”

Tightwaddery does not exclude spending more for an item of quality as opposed to an item that is poorly made of poor materials, but rather sees the long-term value and ROI in items of quality… even used ones in need of repair.

Above all, tightwads are not swayed by labels, advertising or brand names. Or the opinions of folks who see dumpster diving as something that is somehow repellant. After all, repairing and re-using items others would discard is, as I’ve indicated, a hallmark of tightwaddery. After rescuing some thousands of dollars worth of computer and electronic equipment, furniture, furnishings and appliances from dumpsters over the years–and repairing and putting them to good use myself or giving them away for others who needed them–I sometimes laugh at the folks who are so brainwashed they think they have neither the time or ability to repair their broken things (or that doing so is beneath tghem somehow) that they will instead waste money (which is after all their time in another form) going down to WallyWorld or K-Mugger or some such to buy something to replace the repairable object… something that will likely be less durable than what they are replacing, made by slave labor in China and contributing to the erosion of U.S. manufacturing capabilities.

So, I’m kinda glad I’m a tightwad. Even if it does mean my garage is sometimes a tad messy… *heh*

Sadly, sometimes a discarded item is not repairable, but… once three or four unworking printers, for example, have been stripped of all usable parts to make one serviceable printer, I no longer feel quite so bad discarding the unusable parts… (though I do almost always keep screws, rollers, wheels, whatever might be useful building something entirely new. :-)). And yeh, I do have several jars of bent nails I have not yet straightened. But I’ll get to ’em someday. And there’ll always be more, too.

(Straightening used nails with a hammer and a small anvil is something that can be a relaxing activity, kinda using the body doing a repetitive task to allow some meditation time. Try things like that. Very relaxing. Picked that one up from my tightwad grandfather. :-))

It may seem like a foreign idea in these advertising/consumption-driven days, but what can you “Use up; wear out; make do; do without”?

Part 1 of “Mending Walls: Faith” dealt very briefly with a missing meme in today’s society: faith as a bilateral covenant of trusting obedience/providence and protection. It’s a meme that has been present in every stable and flourishing society the West (and even much of the early Middle East) has produced for millennia, and its lack has profound implications for us today.

But before we very, very briefly approach those implications, I’d like to select just a few, by no means exhaustive, examples of what the lack of that meme has produced in our society.

Continue reading “Mending Walls: Faith, Part 2”