Category: Linkfests

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*pfui* VMWare Needs a Swift Kick Upside the Head

I really appreciate being able to use VMWare Server 2.0 for free. Really. My “office” (scare quotes because–confession time–here at twc central my office is known as my junk room *heh*) is crowded enough as it is without four more computers and either more monitors or a cumbersome KVM switch, etc. Being able to run several (fully licensed) versions of Windows, BSD and even a couple more Linux distros all inside one machine without multi-booting is more than just handy; it’s a sanity saver.

But. Every time there’s a Firefox update (yeh, I use Firefox for it, because 1.it now uses a web interface plugin for console management and 2.the #$*&%# plugin refuses to work with Opera, even though ALL OTHER MOZILLA PLUGINS DO just fine and dandy) the web management console stops workng and the ONLY way I’ve found to get the thing to load again is to… completely recompile, reinstall and reconfigure VMWare Server. NONE of the other so-called fixes (hacks, kludges) that’ve been around since the VMWare Server FUBAR at Firefox 3.0.1 have worked. ONLY a complete recompile, reinstall and reconfigure works.

Dumb, VMWare, really dumb. It’s the same plugin–no change there. And another thing: EVERY time I have to completely recompile, reinstall and reconfigure the thing, the scripting informs me I have a wrong version of this that or the other OS component, always asking for a down version and warning the reconfiguration will crash. It never does and VMWare Server always comes back up after the reconfiguration, finally working again after getting the willies over a X.X.1 point change in a FIrefox version.

*feh*

VMWare is squandering major kudo points for its better-than-most-others’ VM implementation with this kind of mickey mouse issue, caused by its insistence on depending on a browser plugin it apparently cannot bother to maintain properly.

Still, for 64-bit VMs across a wide spectrum of OSes, once the thing actually LOADS, it’s just fine. Minor issues getting VMWare Tools (for VMs sharing USB, sound, etc., with the host machine) working in some OSes, but no real problems and LOADS of pluses… once the assinine console plugin actually loads.

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The Road Ahead, 2.2: Live and Learn…

I used to say (probably stolen from Lazarus Long *heh*) that you live and learn, or you don’t live long, but in today’s rubber-bumber society, that no longer applies. It’s be more accurate to say “You live and learn, or you don’t really live at all.” Or perhaps,

“‘A learning experience.’ The traditional three-word preamble to a burial.”

*heh*

I had occasion to sit down the other day with my parents–both in their mid-80s. They live a few hours away, so I don’t have a sit down with them all that often, though we do chat once or twice a week on the phone. One thing that struck me during our chat was that each of my now elderly parents are still learning… and using what they learn in productive ways.

Over the course of our conversation, it turned as it often does with them to the time when they were the most active in my life as parents. After all, that period does contain the most mutually shared memories. And yes, school came up, and, as usual, my status as the family changeling entered the conversation. *heh*

Now, unlike most Mass Media Podpeople, politicians *spit* and Academia Nut Fruitcakes, all my siblings easily have more intellectual capability than a head of cabbage. In fact, no dummies need apply at our family reunons. Still, I’m the odd one out among my sibs. For one thing, I’m almost certainly the only one that’d go back to school at the drop of a hat, were time and money pressures a tad different. Oh, not for a degree. Have enough of those. For the pleasure of sitting in a class taught by someone who knows more than I do and likes to share that knowlege with people who want in on it.

Oh, and I like taking tests. Just a wee tad competitive. No, not with fellow students, my competitiveness usually manifested itself in striving to outdo my teachers in some way. If it showed up to party at all. *heh*

Still, my sibs and I caught the learning bug from our folks, to one degree or another, and so learning new things is just what we do, even if not in formal school settings. Not all the same kinds of things, of course, but curiosity and imagination have made us into lifelong learners.

Some people aren’t like that, though. Some folks have to have new information crammed down their throats, packed into their heads like sand into a rat hole, poured into their stopped up ears and then hammered. And still they refuse to think about what they’ve (not) “learned”.

I think that’s a large part of the political and societal mess we’re now in: a large population of sheeple who have a hard shell of stupidity wrapped closely around a cotton candy fluff of contrafactual “truths” they’ve been drip-fed, NG-tube-fed, by the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind after long and careful enstupiation (with the sheeple’s mostly willing cooperation, of course) by Academia Nut Fruitcakes’ and remote educrats’ Prisons for Kids, enstupiated parents (yes, it’s a generational thing, now), “edumacators” and real teachers who’re trapped in the machinery of “public schools” and dumbed down colleges, forced at every turn to surrender teaching to “edumacating” (lobotomizing) young minds.

What to do, what to do?

1. Don’t attack directly. Chip away at the hard shell stupidity covering the cotton candy ignorance with humor, ridicule. When the enemies of The People are shown to be fools, the sheeple may be open to being fed real food. Dennis Miller’s biting sarcasm comes to mind. Oh, you’ll not be able to reach a True Believer in Leftardism with Miller’s material, but those who are just among the common enstupiated sheeple might find a bit of the hardshell stuidity eroded by his ridicule of Leftardism.

2. Once you find any crack in the hardshell of stupidity, start pouring facts through the cracks. Facts are stubborn things. Amazingly, once facts can be brought into juxtaposition with the “reality-based fantasies” of Leftardism’s many lies, the lies begin to unravel. The difficulty is in finding the cracks in the hardshell of stupdity into which one can pour a bit of the antidote.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Unceasingly.

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The Road Ahead, 1.2

I’ve pretty well settled on the 1.X series of “The Road Ahead” posts dealing with simple things the average Joe and Josephine can do to deal with the financial impact of rule by the Trimvirate of Greed and Envy. Now, a disclaimer: I’m not a financial expert, and anything I suggest is simply common sense, not advice from a competent financial advisor. If you can find some such person and are able to afford consulting with them, you might be well served to do so.

How to cushion the blows of a government ruled by he Trimvirate of Greed and Envy? One obvious route for common folks is to focus on real wealth: precious metals, ones home, etc. If you’ve already been setting aside resources in precious metals, good on you. Gold is good, but perhaps significant investment in gold is a bit beyond your means. If you need to start really small and build up, try collecting–or even small-time buying–pre-1964 US silver coins as a decent place to start. Even if all you do is keep an eye out for them in your nightly change, pretty soon you’ll have a small collection of coins that are worth more for their metal than for their face value. You might even find a few collectables that are worth more to a collector than their silver content. Cash those in for more silver–or even gold–coinage that’s not worth as much to collectors and keep on growing your precious metals pot. Silver and gold aren’t the only choices for precious metals, but they’re a very smart place to start as you climb the learning curve.

Another obvious place to build and/or protect real wealth is your home. Look around. Are there maintenance things that you’ve put off? Do them as soon as possible! Any capital improvements that have a good ROI prospect? Do them as well, as soon as you are able. Money–and especially sweat–spent here are better than money in the bank, even in a market of housing price downturn, especially if you intend to make your home yours for a long time. (Here at twc central, for example,we don’t plan on moving, and the bank won’t even own a piece of us after next year–but our “payments” will mostly continue in maintenance and improvements that have good ROI prospects.) Even at “depressed” real estate pricing, compared with other homes in our area that are selling, our investment in this house has a value that well exceeds inflation over the term of our nearly-retired loan. But do look very, very closely at potential ROI on further investments in your home.

Another way to improve your home investment is to accelerate your loan payoff. Look at how your loan is structured and find a way to pay a little extra on the principal with each house payment. Really own your home sooner. Sure, you’ll lose an interest deduction on your income taxes when you pay your home off early, but there are ways to deal with that, too, and if the SHTF and a really big financial collapse hits, you’d have only maintenance and property taxes to deal with–a Good Thing.

What? You don’t “own” your home (aren’t buying it)? If you’re single, consider this: we “talked” our single adult children into moving back in and saving the money they were throwing away every month on rent, etc. But do NOT just spend any money saved. If your parents are amenable to the idea, use the opportunity wisely. Learn what it is to truly live frugally. Become a tightwad and ELIMINATE every single solitary luxury item you can. SAVE every single penny you can and put it to work making money, so you can pay OFF any debt you may have accumulated, save for a home of your own, emergencies, etc. Learn to forgo that cuppa humongously overpriced Starbucks coffee, etc., and really save every red cent you can against future need. Learn to effect delayed gratification.

Of course, those same principles can be wisely applied by anyone.

Married and renting. Learn to live cheaply and save for a wise investment in a home you can afford. Dream home? Don’t count on it, and DO NOT PUSH YOURSELF into a home you cannot REALLY afford.

Simple things, eh? I’ll talk further on things like this as time goes on, but for a tip to a frugal living blog, just CLICK HERE. You’ll find further links there. Start your research going for tips, tweaks and principles of the tightwad living style. Prepare for the worst in the coming days of rule by the Trimvirate of Greed and Envy, or be expect to be caught with your pants around your ankles right when you need to move quickly.

Not a happy thought.

Do note: my lil automated “scripture of the day” feature on my right sidebar notes Matthew 6:19-21 today. Ironic? Not really. I’m not advocating, here, “lay[ing] up treasures on earth” but simply taking prudent steps to protect ones finances and provide for ones family, instead of relying on a fickle government run by people who do not know you and do not give a fig for you and yours. Do what you will.

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Break Out the Black Arm Bands?

It seems my dystopian view of our society is warranted. I said,

“…since the vast lot of folks going to the polls today are exceedingly stupid, lazy and greedy sheeple who have cheerfully given their minds over to Academia Nut Fruitcakes to be lobotomized and souls over to the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind to be posessed, we may well see a super majority of socialist tyrants in Congress and a flat-out corrupt Chicago machine Marxist in the Oval office.”

And indeed, it appears that, despite a Dhimmicrappic controlled Congress with the lowest approval rating in my lifetime, Dhimmicrappic policies that directly led to the recent financial burnout and a presidential candidate that exit polls in critical “battleground” states indicated is NOT in agreement with the professed values of voters, exceedingly stupid, lazy and greedy sheeple have given nearly complete control of the federal reins of power to a bunch of socialists and outright Marxists to work their magic destruction powers upon American society.

Can America survive four years of such a combo? Yes. But can it survive and then regain its strength? Maybe not. No wonder so many of our “not-friends” among foreign powers have been so elated at the prospect of surrender monkeys throwing their wrenches in the works of the American engine.

Buy gold. Learn Polish. Stockpile food (until the commisars send troops to make you share your cookies with the grasshoppers). This can’t be good. No matter how much I appreciate being proven right about the outright stupidity and cupidity of the American sheeple, it’s a bitter pill to swallow just to realize that so very many fellow citizens are so utterly stupid and venal.

There is one ray of hope here, maybe two. Given the political situation to come in Washington, even with the cover of the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind, it will be difficult to completely obscure the disasters that will ensue from the policies Obama and Pelosi and Reid have advocated, should they make any real attempt to implement them (and why would they not, given the successes of their lies to date?).

Oh, well. Life goes on. Until it sto

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Vote Today…

…unless you’re a clueless, idiot sheeple, in which case, please stay home and drool on your couch instead of on the voting booth.

Thank you.

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November 4 is Prologue…

…but to what? Is it to be “The Day Before Guy Fawkes Day/Night”? *heh*

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Barack Hussein Obama: the Affirmative Action Presidential Candidate

Affirmative action is that process of conferring racial preference for a job candidate without regard to their ability to actually perform the job well. It’s a fundamentally condescending, paternalistic, racist assuaging of false white guilt as normally applied in giving preference to unqualified job candidates who are “people of color” or members of otherwise officially-designated so-called “minority” groups.

And that pretty well describes The Obamassiah’s candidacy. By any measure, he’s the least-qualified person in the race, based on experience and accomplishment alone. His record of past behavior and alliances (NOT “associations” but full-fledged, intimately working together alliances) with open racists, communists and felons would be automatic disqualifiers in any other candidate, while his lack of accomplishment in any field other than running for office (counting his first couple of races where his most notable accomplishments were getting other candidates thrown off the ballot) are nil.

Heck, in the last century, even Dhimmi Kahtah was more qualified to serve as president.

The Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind’s treatment of The Obamassiah’s candidacy reads like a CYA human resources glowing report of an affirmative action job candidate, filled with code words that all say nothing but “HE’S BLACK; WE HAVE TO HIRE HIM!”

Thomas Sowell takes a slighly different tack to my assessment in a recent column, “Believers in Barack,” wherein he focuses on folks who close their eyes to facts, planning instead to vote with blind feeling as their motivation. But either assessment depends upon overlooking his disqualifiers and inflating his accomplishments past any reason.

And then there are those who support him precisely because he is a Marxist and crypto-Islamist “Mansourian Candidate“.

The Obamassiah: the candidate for racists, Holocaust-lovers and unthinking loons.

He’s not the first presidential candidate to be a racist. He’s not the first presidential candidate to be a Jew-hater. He’s not even the first presidential candidate to be a Marxist. But as far as I can tell, he’s the first presidential candidate to be all three AND be presented by a major political party.

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I think that word DOES mean what you think it means…

Isn’t it nice for The Chosen One to take time from his busy schedule to visit my humble blog? *heh*

Barack Obama | info@whiterabbitcult.com | whiterabbitcult.com | IP: 82.146.49.61

I really like what you had to say here! It\’s about time! Would you mind if I placed a link back from my blog?

Can anyone say,

😉

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Two-Party System?

While I believe a two-party political system has many advantages, the problem with our two-party system nowadays is that it isn’t, really. One wing of our uniparty talks about unity, while doing everything it can to be divisive, while the other wing talks about bipartisanship, meaning “surrender our principles and accede to the other wing of the uniparty’s demands.” And so we end up with R.L. Dabney’s prophetic 19th Century utterance,

“Conservatism’s history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution, to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward to perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It tends to risk nothing serious for the sake of truth.”

Yes, he was talking about conservative vs. “progressive” as to both political and social matters in the 19th Century–which were somewhat more separate in the 19th Century than today. How much more valid are his words today? (OK, so there is some small difference between the two “major” parties. The Dhimmicraps–leaders and rank-and-file, it seems–want to drive the country over a cliff into the abyss of socialism/communism at a brisk 100mph, while the Repugnican’t “elites” demur. They feel a more sedate 75mph is in order… )

So, some would “send a message” to one party or the other by voting for a third- or fourth- or firth-party candidate. The problem with that is that nobody’s listening to the so-called message. The only way a third-party candidate can send a viable message is by either winning an election or getting a plurality of the vote. Apart from that, third-party candidates are dismissed by very nearly everyone as simply cranks. No, the only way an “independent” (ain’t no such critter*) or third-party candidate can make waves big enough to be heard is to have a big enough base of the candidate’s own to actually win office… and then be successful in making changes that are positive, whatever base deems positive.

By that set of criteria, Joe Lieberman is an almost successful third-party (a party of one?) candidate/officeholder. To be truly successful, he’d have to have effected positive change in the party he left, at the very least, and he’s not done so.

When I see a viable third party form that espouses my views, I’ll jump on board lickety-split. Until then, unfortunately, I’ll probably still be limited to votes against the worst candidate, more often than not. Fortunately, reviewing this year’s offerings at local, state and national level, I can vote with some degree of positivism on almost half the races. Heck, adding Palin to his ticket even gave me a positive reason to vote for Juan Mexicain (and hope for a Palin presidential candidacy down the road, a candidacy that may well be a step in reform of the Repugnican’t Party).

But third-party? Not until someone with a positive record of accomplishments and genuine reform comes along to challenge the Uniparty.

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Google Chrome? Yes and No

Not quite Google Chrome. I tried out the still buggy and full of security holes Google Chrome when it came out and thought, “Well, this might be a browser option someday, but it’s not my cuppa right now.” Perri Nelson noted some issues and features, and although I didn’t give it quite as much attention as he did at the time, I agreed that it was pretty good. Lovely Daughter tried it out on her lil XP Home Sony notebook and liked it.

Noodling around, trying to get the taste of McWhatsisname whimping out in “debate” number 3 out of my mouth, I stumbled across Codeweaver’s offering of “a Mac and Linux port of the open source Chromium web browser.” Hmm, thought I, isn’t Chromium from the same code base as Google Chrome? Nope. It is the code base of Google Chrome.

Sooo, downloaded and installed Codeweaver’s free “port” of the Chromium browser. (Codeweaver is a company making money off WINE technology by extensively testing and tweaking a WINE core to ensure compatibility with specific Windows products. It’s a Good Thing.)

Nice. Slick. My memory of Google Chrome running in a Windows XP Pro VM isn’t as pleasant as this browser (apparently the same browser, just a few rough edges smoothed over). Still not ready for prime time for my use, but it looks very, very promising. Some buggy behavior (a graphic artifact–“connecting…” indicating a site loading–showing up over my use of a different browser to write this post is annoying), but I still kinda like it. I’ll be checking back to see what comes of Chromium/Chrome in the future.

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