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Two party system dying?

Oh yes. We hear it daily. Left! Right! No left! Way right! The words lip off people’s tongues like insults, "Democrat!" and repulsions, "Republican!" Some people do not totally agree with either party but choose one as the lessor evil. Will anything break the two party system? The Pirate Party thinks they will break the two party system! (or maybe it will be Neoroots.)

America’s two political parties may not realise it yet, but in their current form they are nearing obsolescence. As technological advancements continue to bring more and better tools for communication, citizens are increasingly empowered to come together in common purpose and reject the current political system that seems designed by the two parties to keep us apart.

[Source] (see also) (and democracy isn’t dying, democrats are)

Note: To read The Pirate Party, you will have to hold down your mouse and highlight the white box.

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Sync your browser settings

Do you leap between computers? A bookmark in Firefox one day at work and a bookmark the next day on the wife’s computer? Remember being at a website but don’t know which computer you were using? Google introduces another tool. Google’s Browser Sync ends your frustrations by keeping all browser information between multiple computers the same. It even claims to remember your open tabs!

Google Browser Sync for Firefox is an extension that continuously synchronizes your browser settings – including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions.

Give into Google. Resistence is futile!


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Let’s track a typical day.

Updated. The fact checker woke.

Thus far:

I overslept and woke at 4:305am. 4:30-55-5:30am was my freshening up time and making coffee. I’ve severely cut down on my coffee intake, going with no coffee days on end, since caffiene seems to aggrivate the BPV. Today I needed coffee.

5am-7:30am I avoid distractions and focus on programming a client’s web application. With web apps, so much can go on behind the scenes that the client can begin to think the developer isn’t working at all. Today is about producing visible results. I do some multitasking and during this time I also get Windows 2000 Professional installed on a client’s machine. I was having much difficulty because I couldn’t get the harddrive formated as the keyboard kept locking up on boot. Last night Evan crawls over and starts pushing buttons and stomping on the keyboard and I’ll be darned if he didn’t get the formatting software working in a couple minutes when I’d been trying for hours! The one year old is a computer prodigy!!

7:30-8 is some me time. Regrouping. Quick bite to eat and getting back to work.

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Let me off this ride!

A day or two ago it hit me. BPV! Benign Positional Vertigo for me comes on with extreme stress. It’s strange. I feel woozy. The room spins and I have trouble standing. Nothing I can do helps. I just have to wait until it subsides then try really hard to minimize my head movements. Granted, I could get some 25mg meclizine pills but I can’t afford the sleep right now.

Age: BPPV seem to have a predilection for the older population, with the average age of onset 51 years. It is rarely seen in persons younger than 35 years without a history of antecedent head trauma.

I wonder what head trauma I’ve had.

One of the most common causes of BPPV is head trauma. Although the true mechanisms are not exactly certain, the concussive forces presumably cause particles that reside in the vestibule to become displaced to the canal. Other factors that predispose individuals to BPPV include inactivity, acute alcoholism, major surgery, and CNS disease.

Oh. Thanks college!

Once treated, BPPV recurrence rate is between 5% and 15%.

Treated? I wonder if they mean canalith repositioning procedure (CRP). I suppose my chiropractor could do that.

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Miniature battles

RC battleships

I’ve dreamed of doing stuff like this for years.

We built and sail 1/144 scale Radio-Controlled Model Warships from WWI and WWII which are armed with Co2 powered cannon and armoured in thin balsa. These vessels engage each other in combat on ponds across Australia, endeavoring to punch holes in each others hull with their cannon until one of the vessels sinks or flees. Yes, the cannon really do fire, the vessels really do take damage and sink, and yes, it is legal in all states and territories of Australia without a gun license.

Link courtesy of Make.

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Oh Hell

For the record, the sign of the beast is probably 616 not 666. Of course to satisfy people’s devil interests, Wikipedia has notes on the Number of the Beast. The number 666 is so powerful that it causes such stupidity as renaming highways. US Route 666 was named in 1926 and had no problems for 77 years but in 2003 it was renamed to US Route 491.

A fragment from the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, dating to the Third century, gives the more mundane 616 as the mark of the Antichrist.
…the discovery appears to spell the end of 666 as the devil’s prime number
…more conventional versions of the Bible give 666 as the “number of the beast,” or the sign of the anti-Christ whose coming is predicted in the book’s apocalyptic verses, the older version uses the Greek letters signifying 616.

[Source, Religion News Blog, Beast’s real mark devalued to 616?]

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Lady take it elsewhere!

LiveJournal wants women to breastfeed their babies in the bathroom.

Six Apart, creators of Movable Type and, more recently, owners of LiveJournal, have decided to harrass LiveJournal users whose default icons depict breastfeeding.

LiveJournal is even protected by law!

Lawmakers are beginning to understand …; California, where Six Apart is located, has express legal provision exempting breastfeeding from obscenity legislation.

The AAP recommends "Exclusive breastfeeding for approximately the first six months and support for breastfeeding for the first year and beyond as long as mutually desired by mother and child."