Category: FWIW

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Monday, Monday… Every other day…..

…every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah…

*heh*

Meanwhile, gratefully taking a break from Monday (and a break from Dhimmicraps, Repugnican’ts and other evils) to jot a post.

A cardinal principle to remember when purchasing anything: price is not cost. Sometimes (often, in fact), a lower price will mean a higher cost down the road. Sometimes, not all that far down the road.

Example: I haven’t mentioned before how much I despise a certain vintage* of eMachine “computers” have I?

Just a mild warning: if you happen to have allowed yourself to be sucked into buying one of the eMachine cheapo pieces of crap

1. Never trust ANY important data to one
2. Replace the power supply FIRST THING, as soon as you get it out of the box, before turning the *&%^#* thing on. Just sayin’
3. Get some real surge suppression between the thing and any electricity, cos the MOBOS aren’t much better than the power supplies.

Today, I had to tell another person who brought their eMachine to me that it’d cost about what it originally cost him simply to repair the thing… cos the cheapo power supply failed and tooik the motherboard out with it.

If you already have one of the things (shame on you for buying strictly on price!), back up your data and start putting money back to buy a new computer. Or build one from parts.**

*“certain vintage” to mean… darned near ALL of the *&%^#* things. *heh* Of course, this is only one guy’s opinion, but… based on at least some experience over the years.

**June micro-mini-project for America’s Third World County Central: build my first completely new computer in several years from parts. I’ve tended in recent years to take discards and upgrade them to make them useful for my personal use. Nice computers, but I need to do some consolidating, streamlining of my office: just too many boxes and monitors jamming things up. So, my next computer is just awaiting assembly time.

AM2 motherboard (choice is now down to one of two).
Athlon 64X2 (dual core) 5600+ (nice sweet spot)
4GB Crucial memory (my preferred brand)
500GB Seagate HDD
Plextor DVDRW
512MB PCIex vidcard
Nice steel case and good (but not best, which would be PC Power and Cooling) 500W power supply

And a few other goodies, including an external Seagate to match my onboard storage.

To run the thing: testing out several flavors of Linux this month to see which I prefer. So far, even with stiff competition from Linux Mint and PCLOS, Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron is still looking pretty good to me. Run the 64-bit version on the 64-bit Athlon based comp; VirtualBox (or VMWare–still testing these) to allow running Win98 (for my music transcription software), WinXP and maybe even PCBSD 1.5 in virtual machines inside the Linux OS.

That’d give me most of the computers I really need to run right there in one box, without the need to use the clumsy KVM switch I now use for several boxes.

Heck, maybe I’ll even switch out my 61-key MIDI keyboard for a smaller controller so I can save even more desktop space to spread my other mess out on. *heh* I like this one (even though I have this one sitting in a box somewhere *heh*)

Well, back to the salt mines.

Riiiiiight… (Cue Moody Blues: “Lazy day… “)

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Quote for the Day

Heck, this could be one of those comments that becomes a twc staple.

Reading in another pice of light reading for the past hour or so, a book from the Eric Flint-created Assiti Shards Series. That and the Belisarius Saga series are two of the most interesting “time travel/alternate reality” sets of books written in the past twenty of so years, IMO.

(All of them require some serious suspension-of-disbelief for the simple vast amount of distance in space required for any kind of time travel–especially the Assiti Shards books, as the Belisarius books feature an apparently different type of time travel–but the stories are generally interesting, especially if one is a history addict *heh*)

At any rate, Time Spike (Eric Flint with Marilyn Kosmatka) features a conversation in chapter 17 between a number of scientists and two odd men out (one’s a cop) that contains THE quote for today:

“We’re Ph.D.’s, don’t forget. Probably a bigger concentration of fruitcakes in academia than anywhere else.”

Preach on, brother!

*heh*

Oh, and another, from later in the book, is worth thinking on as well:

The ‘guv’mint’ is just something way over there, powerful and immense and unyielding to any personal leverage you might have. Sure, once every two or four years you get to vote, but that’s just so you can pick which big shot sits on top of the pile. You still don’t have any leverage yourself.

Sadly, all too true.

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Internet Withdrawal

*whew!* Glad that’s over!

The last 30 hours or so have been… notsomuch interesting. But did have time to get a few more chores done around the house and such like.

A tornado and high winds thee counties north of America’s Third World County took a pretty big bite out of our cable provider’s infra. No TV (no big loss there), but also no internet service and no VOIP (until yesterday, our ONLY long distance service).

Oh, we still had local phone service, but… our backup dialup internet service bit the dust about three months ago, so no help there.

And Mothers Day. Had to call my mom. *heh* Had picked up a “throwaway” $20 cell phone (pay-as-you-go: came with two months/300 minutes, far, far more than I’ll use it in that time) juuuuust before our service outage, so Mother got her call from me. Was short. Just, “Hi Mom. My LD phone is out of service so all I have to say is, “I love you, bye-bye.” *VBG* (Couldn’t reach her until after 1:00, cos my dad had her out celebrating, I suppose.

Oh, well. I’ll call again in a minute or so and get the whole scoop.

Anywho, good ISP/cable company. Despite extensive damage, it’s back in service. Been very, very pleased with these folks.

L8R…

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Taxes

Why do I do it to myself? Every year I buy TurboTax again, so I can import my previous years’ data. No longer. Next year, I swear to break the chains of this bondage.

What’s that? I’ve grown to hate TurboTax. Once, in the deep dark ages of tax software, I used Parson’s Taxedge and the the software was a dream to use. Easy, accurate, simple.

Then Bob Parsons sold out to Intuit. I bought TurboTax because it swore it could import my previous yea’s data seamlessly.

Almost did.

First gripe.

The next few years were slightly better, but every year for the past five years or so, TurboTax has gotten progressively worse.

Last year, it stumbled on importing data from its own format from the previous year.

This year?

How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways…

First thing out of the chute, it refused to install un;ess I installed Microsoft’s abortion of a browser, Internet Exploder, the World’s Crappiest Browser.

Strike one.

Then, TurboTax wanted to update itself. Fine. Except… unlike ALL other internet-aware applications I have installed on the computer I installed TT on, it alone could not find an internet connection.

Quit TT. Opened it again. NOW it finds a connection! Stupid Intuit piece of crapware.

So, started importing/inputting data. Came to my Wonder Woman’s W-2. “Import!’ said I. Nope. TT can’t find an internet connection. WTF?!?!? It found it for updates, so what’s the deal? Called Intuit. Oh, had to

1. register to obtain an incident number.
2. get an email with a link to my incident number/telephone support number.

Kinda lame, but OK.

Called. 35 minutes on hold, switched to a support person and… CLICK… dropped!

Meanwhile, I’d finished my return. Hmmm… something funny. Several hundred $$$ more than I expected in a refund (I aim for having just the right amounts witheld, if possible).

Save return.

Exit.

Reopen TT. Wants to update again. Let it. Can’t find a connection.

Close TT.

Open TT (By now I’ve learned). Wants to update. Let it. It updates.

Open return. WTF?!?!? MANY hundreds of $$$ OWED, now (OK, within $7 of $1,000. You do the subtraction.)

From more tha expected in REFUND to nearly $1,000 OWED after a second update of the software.

Saved return. Closed TT.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Started a NEW return. Input same data. Now owe $115. Not bad. In fact, more in line with what I was expecting to begin with (a little, wee, tiny boost in income from non-witholding sources over and above what I’d allowed for leading into 2007).

OK, move on to State.

WTF?!?!? $1,100+ OWED? This can NOT be right!

Downloaded the interactive pdf from the state. Figured taxes in 10 minutes using data from my federal return. Nice REFUND (hadn’t figured some changes in state law into witholding plan in 2007, so we get some non-interest-paying money back from the brigands at the state capitol *heh*).

Never really figured what was going on w/TT, but after closing/reopening/(no internet connection for updates)/closing/reopening/updating/back in state return, finally TT agreed with the interactive state return.

Crazy.

If you’re doing your taxes with TurboTax 2008 and have more than one or two sources of income, you had better recheck your results with several different tools, several different ways, IMO.

Just saying.

Yet another reason to get behind The Fair Tax. Imagine: no more TurboTax! *heh* Almost as wonderful a phrase as “No more IRS!”

🙂

(Update & Aside: my state has done something right. If income taxes must be levied, at least make compliance easy. Just so: well-designed, fill-in-the-blank, auto-calculating pdf files that can be saved with the data one inputs, printed, mailed. Sure, I could have used one of the IRS-approved (or so it seems to imply) “free” tax sites to do my state taxes (my fed is too complex for any I looked into), but why, when I can get the material straight from the horse’s mouth? Good stuff. Well, about as good as income taxes *spit* get.)

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Third World County Weather Note

I’m keeping a weather eye on the creek out back (yeh, yeh, pun intended), because, with the steady rain, it’s now closer to the house than at any time in memory–now “wetlands” about 125′ from our basement door. So, if twc goes offline in the next couple of days and your trackbacks/comments aren’t being approved, just bear with me, OK?

Let’s see… burlap bags filled with absorbant kitty liter around the base of the back (basement) door? Maybe…

😉

At least the cable and power lines aren’t being rained out. So far.

Update: Well, we were more fortunate than some of the folks downstream of us, and th waters pretty much passed us by. Although the flood warnings continue for our area (indeed, our town) and the low-water bridge a quarter mile away is still under water and the flood plains (where most of the new housing in town has been built in the last decade–*sheesh!*) is swamp land, the creek that’s about 200 feet to our west that had approached as closely as 60 feet from our basement door has abated. The river–about 1.5 miles to the south–is still cresting though, and the folks who “built their houses on sand” in the flood plains there are in for more fun with shovels, wet vacs, new carpeting, etc., in the next few weeks. It’s what flood insurance is for. Makes me not mind the annual premium so much. *heh*

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Losing Civilization

In all the meaningless babble from Obama and tear-jerking from those jerks, the Klintoons, one thing stands out: facts, reason and indeed rationality itself have no place in the methods of leftist statists. (For that matter, they have almost as small a place in the methods of right wing statists, but that’s another problem that, though similar, needs to be addressed separately.)

All this emotional manipulation recalls to mind a brief passage from Wolf Time by Lars Walker

Get them to make small compromises, one at a time. Never use reason. Use feelings, for feelings are the only truth of the soul. There are just two kinds of people, you know — idea people and feeling people. It’s the idea people who’ve gotten the world into the mess it’s in. So if they try to pin you down with logic, don’t be ashamed to resort to the weapons of the heart. Like tears. Most people… would rather surrender any principle than cause a scene.

That’s the “logic” that dominates those who want to rule by blinding the electorate… or by simply using the already existing willful blindness of the sheeple who predominate in the electorate. *sigh*

It doesn’t help to point out that the emperor has no clothes on if all the emperor has to do to “win” the encounter is to call down the wrath of the people for making so hurtful an accusation (with appropriate tears and whinings about being victimized by so rude an observation).

Or better yet, have others point out how rude it is to note the emperor’s nudity, as in the case of Barry Hussein Obama-Winfrey supporters claiming racism whenever anyone asks probing questions of fact of Barry Hussein Obama-Winfrey or “shock!* happens to mention his middle name. (Why? Isn’t it his name? Oh, that’s right. Reality doesn’t matter, just reality-based fantasy.)

The end result of abandoning reason to emotional blackmail is barbarism… or worse. At least barbarians have to learn to deal with cold harsh realities.

I suppose now I should address the same kinds of behavior in Repugnican’t politicians *spit*, but my mind’s feeling dirty right now just thinking about the obscenity of the Left.

Another brief passage from Wolf Time before twc fades to black for today…

Some time back the courts, understanding the nature of the times we live in, accepted the establishment of a new class of law — the Hate Crime. This was their first official recognition that there are some ideas that simply cannot be tolerated in a free society; that it is our right and duty to root out certain kinds of thought.

Ah, yes. When thoughts become criminal, only criminals will think…

*sigh*

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Comparisons

I love the web. Chesterton sprang to mind today and I found and downloaded another couple of his books. Along the way, I ran across

Comparisons
G.K. Chesterton

If I set the sun beside the moon,
And if I set the land beside the sea,
And if I set the town beside the country,
And if I set the man beside the woman,
I suppose some fool would talk about one being better.

Indeed.

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Real Estate Bust? *yawn*

I’ve been avoiding “issues blogging” for the most part for the past week. (the choice in presidential candidates winnowing down to Hildebeast-ObamaWinfrey-MexiCain can do that to a guy), but one “issue” still turns my crank a bit: the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind’s rampup of economic woes with the mortgage crisis/real estate bust as its poster child.

As a poster child for economic woes, the mortgage crisis/real estate bust has all the appeal of a broken-down whore with leprosy. Firstly, the folks hardest hit by the mortgage crisis/real estate bust are those who went into debt over their heads to buy houses they couldn’t afford. Here are my most sincere crocodile tears for such idiots:

*Boo-freakin’-hoo–yawn*

To all such folks: you reaping what you’ve sown? Good.

Next hardest hit (sorta), the mortgage lenders who shouldn’t have loaned the money to begin with. Again,

*Boo-freakin’-hoo–yawn*

My Wonder Woman asked me what I though the impact would be on our home value. My answer? Who cares? Are we thinking of selling? (Yeh, we still owe a measly couple of grand on the place. Made a 25% down on it and got reasonable rates on a 15-year mortgage–thanks to my Wonder Woman’s money management skillset.)

Rabbit trail:

OTOH, our execrably bad “neighbors” who moved in less than eighteen months ago have their place listed for sale (Yipee and Whooray!). I asked my Wonder Woman how badly I could junk up the outside of our house to drive their selling price down on ’em… *heh* Hmmm… maybe I could buy a couple of junkers from the salvage yard and have ’em dropped in our front yard, ya think? It’d be a few months before the city would ask me to remove ’em, maybe long enough to drive thr price of our “neighbors'” seller down quite a bit…

Nah. Better just to get ’em gone.

But there’s a side to the housing market/mortgage crisis/real estate bust that is getting little play in the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind (and what play it does get is buried on inside pages or whatnot): “Some Cities Are Spared the Slide in Housing”–and this in the Neoo York Slimes, no less! Who’d-a thunk it?

In figures released on Thursday covering 150 metropolitan areas, the National Association of Realtors said that median home prices were falling in 77 markets — but rising in 73.

Real estate statistics must be interpreted with caution, especially when sales volumes are declining, as they are all over the country. But an analysis by The New York Times of three distinct data sets — mortgage data from the government, sales figures from the Realtors’ group and courthouse records from a company called DataQuick — produced a list of 17 metropolitan areas where all three sources of information agree that prices were still rising as of late last year, the most recent figures available.

For another 43 cities, two data sets, from the Realtors and the government, suggested that prices were still rising late in the year. DataQuick could provide no information on those cities.

Of course, since the article is in the Neoo York Slimes, the ariter spends quite some time making sure the reader doesn’t interpret these rosy facts positively. *heh* Still, facts are facts, and the housing market (and mortgage market) in my part of the country, for example, is strong to super-strong right now. Because of strong economic growth in other sectors, of course. Heck, it’s stating to get so built up in America’s Third World County that I might just have to answer my own question to my Wonder Woman (“Are we thinking of selling?”) with a “I want to live somewhere quieter. Wanna sell and move out into the piney woods?”

*heh*

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Compy Fun

(Y’all may have noticed I’m mostly avoiding politics/current events for the last few days? Good reasons, among them my disgust with the electorate for being stupid enough to validate the current crop of presidential candidates with their votes.)

Well, it had to happen eventually. The ten-year-old computer (ten years old? Yep) I had running the most stable windows OS in the house finally started developing some… glitches. Yeh, it started out as a Win98 comp, but Win2KPro was soo appealing (for a Windows OS. I had retired WINNT 4.0 off an earlier computer gladly; Win2KPro–WinNT 5.0–proved to be a bird of a different feather) I switched the OSes out fairly early on in the computer’s life.

Anywho, last week, Win2K began complaining the MOBO on which it had happily resided for no few years was not fully ACPI compliant and told me to update the BIOS. OK. Found an updated BIOS and attempted the install. Oops. My German isn’t that good. *heh* Back to the drawing board.

I may just decide to retire the comp… or convert it to Ubuntu or PCBSD. Probably the former for the old guy. I do need to maintain one Win98 computer for my fav music transcription software, but it dowsn’t have to be on that comp.

Or maybe I’ll find another BIOS update elsewhere.

Still, a 10-year-old MOBO (with a slightly newer processor, granted) still doing credible work on things that don’t require much processor-intensive stuff (web, email, word processing, etc.) tickles my tightwad side. It’s not like I don’t have more “modern” comps with other OSes (like the one I’m writing this post with) to handle other tasks.

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Passing Shots

Saw this some time ago. Can’t remember who to credit with a hat tip:

*heh*

On the road the other night. Saw a semi with a company logo with a motto that read, “Employee owned; customer driven.” Huh! They send the customers out driving those big rigs? That explains some things…

And while I’m on the road, did you ever notice that the idiots are really thick at night? Don’t believe me? Next time you’re out at night, just count how many folks can’t find their dimmer switch.

Anyone ever tell you, “Practice makes perfect”? If that were so, politicians would get it right at least once in a while.

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