Last day of NaBloPoMO

Well, I've made it through the month. Driveling something at least once per day onto the electronic paper mill has been quite an experience.
I know why I don't usually post once a day... I don't want to. Sorry, no sappy tripe about the love of writing and the experience of community, yadda, yadda, yadda.
No, this blog is irregular and off topic enough without having to force something onto it daily.
I did it though, and I guess that's what counts.
Thanks to anyone who reads this for putting up with me.
ciao

I just can't get enough?

No, enough is enough.
I'm so glad that this semester at college is nearly over. All my illusions of having a good time were completely squashed. Between substandard and inattentive instructors and pseudo math, not to mention an increasingly painful ankle; I am ready to crawl under my covers and not come up... ever!
I'm truly hoping that the next semester will be more manageable. Even though I'm scheduled to undergo an ankle replacement, I have learned to more carefully choose which teachers to learn under. I also plan to not take things so seriously.
Stop laughing, I really want to try and not let the little bumps bother me so much.
On top of it all I am even questioning what field of study I want to major in. This is not at all like me. I'm not rushing into anything, but I plan on making some serious evaluations over Christmas break.
Anyway...
What's past is past.
Let's just hope for the best in the future.
Yeah, right!

The Un-Post

This is a post to say that I am not posting today, due to health reasons.
Yeah.
This is not a post.

But don't I need Office?

So you've made the jump and purchased a shiny new Macintosh.
It comes full of software that will easily take care of your everyday needs.
But you bought a copy of MS Office for the Mac, didn't you? What part of Stockholm Syndrome do you not understand?
"But, I need Office so I can stay compatible with everyone else" you say.
Horse Hockey!
You don't need that crutch, and if you bother to learn how, no one will even know the difference. The following windows show a selection of choices for sharing your document in other formats.
Some special effects from Pages, for instance, may not transfer to a Word document perfectly, but most documents that need special formatting are usually best shared as a PDF file. Basic Office documents will come out without any deformities. The real message here is to explore what comes preinstalled on your Mac. If you aren't willing to learn new and easier ways to accomplish your work, why did you bother switching computers systems anyway?

Monday, Bloddy Monday

Yeah, I was on campus all day. I'm beat. There is nothing left in of brain, but I am victorious!
What does this all mean? Nothing!
I have no idea what anything means. Did you catch my drift. My brain is mush right now. I'm going to bed until I can manage to type something coherent.

I hate Monday.

A Day of Rest

I got nothing today.
I've been fighting off a cold this weekend and today when I woke up, I wished I hadn't. I spent the day resting and mostly leaving my brain turned off. It was a glorious day of living like the vast majority. (There, I said something snarky. That should count for something.)
Anyway, I'll try to come up with something more post worthy tomorrow.

Retraction of another Kindle critisism.

I thought that Amazon had missed the boat on a great opportunity to couple with the advent of an always connected ebook reader.
Self published authors are not always the best thing around, but there is no reason in this blog driven, armchair quarterback world that books should be left out of the fun.
Apparently Amazon did have the forethought to put together a system for authors to put their work up for sale in the Kindle marketplace.
The Digital Text Platform gives the aspiring author the ability to do just that. If you are a writer, looking for a low barrier of entry into the world of book distribution; this just might be the next best thing since Apple gave us desktop publishing.

Some things I find striking about the Kindle.

It's not all bad. Such a shame that Amazon let the money grubbing publishing industry garner all the attention with the book download service. All the compelling geeky features get passed by in the sycophantic stampede.

1. The web browser (to get around paying for RSS feeds (dumb, dumb, dumb)).
2. That you can get around paying Amazon to convert your text.
3. Cheap prices for old or public domain text (that should be free, but whatever).
4. Instant access to The New Oxford American Dictionary.
5. Instant access to Wikipedia.
6. The cover makes it look a bit like a Moleskine notebook.

Almost makes me want to be able to have a custom start up screen for it that says "Don't Panic".

Happy Thanksgiving!

Now get out of here, and go eat something! Enjoy yourself, for Pete's sake!

The Kindle? Try kindling. I'm not buying.

I'm not linking to it, because if you know about the Kindle you don't need my help. If you have no idea, then you aren't missing anything.
After going over the reviews and Amazon video's here's my response:

1. Why is this thing 400 bucks? After dropping all that cash I want some sample content.
2. DRM. What happens to all your books after this service tanks and Amazon shuts it down? It's not like Apple's FairPlay where you can crack it using very simple techniques.
3. Money grabbing. Why are they charging for blogs?
4. Money grabbing. Why are they charging to translate documents to their propriety format? A simple web page could do this on the fly. And why not support plain, rich text and PDF?
5. Make this thing able to connect to local library systems to download the rent-able electronic books that are currently available only for Windows.
6. Do what Apple is trying to do with music, and make books available directly from independent publishers and people who are aspiring authors. What better way for the populace to access up and coming authors.
7. Oh, God, it's ugly!
8. Ditch the nasty, huge keyboard. I can't imagine I need that much space dedicated to a device meant for reading.
9. Oh, God, it's so ugly!
10. Oh, God, it's such an incredible ugly eyesore!

Thanks, but I'll stick with my Newton 2100. It's got beautiful fonts for reading, a soft back light, and supports multiple file formats.

Founders Quote

The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.

Thomas Jefferson, 1801

Quotes: Victor Hugo

The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination.

To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.

Do you know what friendship is... it is to be brother and sister; two souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand.

A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing.

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

Almost all our desires, when examined, contain something too shameful to reveal.

Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.

I am a soul. I know well that what I shall render up to the grave is not myself. That which is myself will go elsewhere. Earth, thou art not my abyss!

Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant.

One sometimes says: 'He killed himself because he was bored with life.' One ought rather to say: 'He killed himself because he was bored by lack of life.'

From C. S. Lewis...

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians ever imagine that they are guilty themselves....
The essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride.
Unchastely, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.…As long as you are proud you cannot know God.
A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.

Fall is here...

Nothing too complex or deep this day, just observation.
It's officially deep into fall in West Michigan. The leaves are thick on the ground and the ones on the trees are in brilliant color and form. I don't really like the cold, but the smells and the foods that accompany this season are more than worth it.
The tree pictured is across the street from my home. Lovely.

Favorite Quotes from Blaise Pascal

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.

If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy.

Unverifiable Information?

The state of internet communication causes me no end of humor. One thing that entertains my thoughts is the assumption that you are being given correct information by the party or parties you converse with.

How does anyone know that the persona I portray has any basis in reality? What are the chances that everything I write is just an elaborate ruse? Outside of a very small handful of people, no one who comes to read this could have any way to know if I am an impostor. I could be a woman, or a really old guy in someplace other than I say. All the pictures I post to Flickr could be fakes, or from someone else completely.

How disappointed would you be to find out that all of this is a lie? Would you even care? Does the very thought cause you to wonder how much you come info contact with daily is completely false? The majority of what you hear or read could very likely be totally made up and you would never know if you didn't check it out for yourself.

There are certainly some things that you can let slide, but please exercise due diligence to be properly informed about things of larger circumstance. Obviously, what falls into those qualifications may vary, but hopefully you catch the drift.

Verifiable via observation...

Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and higher education positively fortifies it.

Stephen Vizinczey

Pompous, self-assured, a waste of human flesh; thy name is the over educated, aloof and unaware. Unaware of the reality that they might just possibly be dead wrong.

Any Given Monday...

Here's your explanation:
People are lazy. People are stupid. People do stupid and lazy things.
That about covers it.
-Anonymous

My Monday was long and painful. It's nearing the last month and a half of classes for this semester and I am ready for a break. Though, my break will consist of trying to catch up on everything I put off during this semester.

I'm starting to think I'm in a losing cycle again.
Lather, rinse, beat down, repeat.

Is there an option for a medically induced coma?
Just asking.

Peculiar Sins

One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity.
It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.

Malcolm Muggeridge

Founders Quote

It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.

George Washington


(NOT a deist, to all you history revisionists.)

PSA

The proliferation of "real" animal toys frightens me.
Not in a way that infers I fear for our societies ability to care and relate to living creatures.
Frightening as in those things kinda creep me out in a "One day they will get a signal from an evil genius and they will turn against us" kind of way.

The more you know...

I need a hero?

hero |ˈhi(ə)rō|
noun ( pl. -roes)
a person, typically a man, who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities : a war hero.
• the chief male character in a book, play, or movie, who is typically identified with good qualities, and with whom the reader is expected to sympathize.
• (in mythology and folklore) a person of superhuman qualities and often semi divine origin, in particular one of those whose exploits and dealings with the gods were the subject of ancient Greek myths and legends.
• (also hero sandwich) another term for submarine sandwich .
-The New Oxford American Dictionary

I realized today that I have a bit of mental hurdle to overcome when it comes to the phrase "... a hero of mine". I think it comes from my image of what heroic really means to me. My earliest thoughts of hero surrounded G.I.Joe (A Real American Hero), and comic superheroes like Silver Surfer and Spiderman.

There is no end of real people who I greatly admire, but my view of humanity as inherently flawed leads me discount any accomplishment as merely a temporary accomplishment. I know far too well that what we uphold as great and wonderful in people is just the act of ignoring human flaws.

I also do not agree with attributing the term hero with Jesus as some are apt to do, because that is just, in my opinion, a superficial way to attribute God's plan of salvation.

Do I need a hero anyway? That's easy. No.

Slow down, you move to fast...

Today I am reminded of how important it is to rest. There is a reason that the Israelites were given a requirement of rest, not only for the body, but for the land they lived on. Going, going, going all the time takes its toll on every aspect of a person.

So today I did very little. I tried to relax and let my body fight off the growing stiffness that accompanies the cold of fall.

Stay warm, and rest, if you can.

Cheers.

So tired, tired of waiting...

I am certain that there is a conspiracy to make the time from now till the end of this school semester last until judgment day. I'm literally having the least fun in school since I was in high school... a long time ago.

As the season turns to fall, I'm feeling so tired. I'm tired all of the time. It might have a great deal to do with constant ankle pain, but as of right now I have approximately 79 days until I have my operation to replace my left ankle.

It's a much shorter time until the end of the semester, but I don't really care about that right now. I really just want to go to bed and stay there until late January.

Anyone have a problem with that?
No?
Didn't think so.
Goodnight.

All sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Sometimes I wonder if all the effort and energy expended on any given long term goal is really worth the effort. Am I really going to get further ahead, or am I just going to get 99% there only to be crushed by a cement tube falling off a truck?

Is it safer and more productive in the long term to aim lower? Most people seem to get by without ever firing up their brains. They just coast through. They enjoy network television, tabloids, popular media and never think twice that they are just wasting oxygen.

Perhaps if I saw more individuals making an effort and making a difference I would think the opposite, but most people I know are just spinning their wheels and they seem happy enough. Maybe resigning to a life at the bottom of the barrel is good enough and I should stop trying to succeed. Getting ahead the honest way seems to produce little and I couldn't bring myself to act in an unethical manner.

Ultimately none of it will matter, so why even bother?
I have no answer right now. I just keep plodding along, hoping something worthy of the effort will happen before I die.

10, Not X & Mac Not MAC

I dislike the notion that this sort of thing still needs corrected, but two constant sources of ignorance still plague the technological landscape. These transgressions apply to the incorrect naming and spelling of things Apple.

1. The oldest offense. I'll make this easy. Mac is a shorthand version of Macintosh, the operating system created by Apple Inc. MAC is short for Media Access Control.
Please, do yourself a favor and use the correct one. You are only making yourself look like an ignorant noob when you write it the wrong way.

2. Mac OS X is the name of Apples tenth version of it's operating system. The big X you see in print and packaging is a roman numeral 10. It is not X (eexs) as in the letter of the alphabet. Once again, please do not be a pathetic noob, use the correct pronunciation.

Mac OS X Newbie Tip #2 -Hide the Dock and clean your Desktop

Does your desktop look something like the image on the left?
Do your applications get cheated out of valuable desktop space because your Dock is always visible?
Hide that dock and reclaim that space!
There are a many of ways to access the dock preferences:
1. Right click, or ctrl+click on the divider line on the dock. From there you can activate auto hiding and other features.
2. Use the keyboard. Command+Option+D Hides and shows the desktop. With the Dock hidden you can access it by bringing the mouse to the bottom of the desktop.
3. System Preferences also houses the Dock preferences as well.



Now, why on Earth do you have your hard drive icon on your desktop? Are you still living in the past? Your files are housed in your home directory, not the root of the hard drive. Gone are the days where it was safe or appropriate to put your personal files and applications at the root level of your computer.
Head to the Finder menu and click Preferences.
(As a side note, almost every program you will encounter will keep their settings here. Do yourself a favor and explore these settings.)
From the Finder preferences you can turn off that silly desktop icon. Change the default Finder window to show your Home folder. After this, merely clicking on the Finder icon in the Dock will open your Home location. The Finder's Go menu is also a gold mine of accessibility, but that is a subject for another post.

From the Finder preferences you can also shut off the annoying "Are you sure you want to" trash warning.
Delve around these settings and you'll find plenty to like, and ways to simplify your navigation around the Mac OS. No need to thanks me, I'm just doing my job. ;-)

Mac OS X Newbie Tip #1 -Expose

When you first start using the Macintosh, many useful features are turned off by default. Today I will cover Expose. Via keyboard function keys or mouse gestures you can view and switch between all the visible windows and applications you have open. With Expose there is no need to minimize or close windows.
As an added feature, Expose allows you to do fancy drag and drop maneuvers with text, images and files.

To activate Expose, go to the System Preferences application located in the Utilities folder. As an added tip, it is useful to just drag System Preferences into the Dock for fast reference. I like to keep mine next to the Finder icon all the way to the left.

As you can see in my setup, I utilize all four corners and have set up matching keyboard function keys. This allows me maximum access to the features without needing to switch between the mouse and the keyboard.
I don't know why Apple chose to leave this feature turned off, as Windows users aren't accustomed to actually exploring their operating system. I fear they have been stigmatized by the constant warnings and interface inconsistencies of Windows.

The Perils if Mail.app and IMAP

Thankfully, Google added the ability to access GMail via IMAP, so I should be able to remove the old account in Mail and add a IMAP account, right? Wrong.
The problem? From Mail's help:

Removing an account in the Accounts pane of Mail preferences removes the account setup information from Mail and deletes all mailboxes and messages for the account that are saved on your computer.

The partial solution?
Make the old account inactive so that is disappears from the Mailbox source list.
I still do not like how a separate entry for IMAP accounts. I wish it was incorporated into the existing mailbox list.
I find it a bit confusing.
I also do not understand Mail's handling of drafts, spam, trash and sent mail in regards to IMAP. The preferences pane is very cryptic and unhelpful. I'll see how it goes. It might take some getting used to, and it might be a complete wreck that I walk away from and change the account back into POP only.

There you have it.
:-)

A letter from a relative in Canada...

I actually held on to this until today so that the most people might get a look at it. My wife has family in Canada. Many politicians in America would like us to adopt a form of socialized medicine like what Canada has. Although they won't call it by that name, it's the train wreck they want us to buy a ticket for.
Here is the letter in its unedited form...

I saw on the news up here in Canada where Hillary Clinton introduced her new health care plan. Something similar to what we have in Canada. I also heard that Michael Moore was raving about the health care up here in Canada in his latest movie. As your friend and someone who lives with the Canada health care plan, I thought I would give you some facts about this great medical plan that we have in Canada.

First of all: 1) The health care plan in Canada is not free. We pay a premium every month of $96 for Shirley and I to be covered. Sounds great! What they don't tell you is how much we pay in taxes to keep the health care system afloat. I am personally in the 55% tax bracket. Yes 55% of my earnings go to taxes. A large portion of that (I am not sure of the exact amount) goes directly to health care our #1 expense.

2) I would not classify what we have as health care plan, it is more like a health diagnosis system. You can get into to see a doctor quick enough so he can tell you "yes indeed you are sick or you need an operation" but now the challenge becomes getting treated or operated on. We have waiting lists out the ying yang, some as much as 2 years down the road.

3) Rather than fix what is wrong with you the usual tactic in Canada is to prescribe drugs. Have a pain- here is a drug to take- not what is causing the pain and why. No time for checking you out because it is more important to move as many patients thru as possible each hour for Government re-imbursement.

4) Many Canadians do not have a family Doctor.

5) Don't require emergency treatment as you may wait for hours in the emergency room waiting for treatment.

6) Shirley's dad cut his hand on a power saw a few weeks back and it required that his hand be put in a splint - to our surprise we had to pay $125 for a splint because it is not covered under health care plus we have to pay $60 for each visit for the dr. to check it out each week.

7) Shirley's cousin was diagnosed with a heart blockage. Put on a waiting list .. Died before he could get treatment.

8) Government allots so many operations per year. When that is done no more operations, unless you go to your local newspaper and plead your case and embarrass the government then money suddenly appears.

9)The Government takes great pride in telling us how much more they are increasing the funding for health care but waiting lists never get shorter. Government just keeps throwing money at the problem but it never goes away. They are good at finding new ways to tax us, but they don't call it a tax anymore it is now a user fee.

10) A friend needs an operation for a blockage in her leg but because she is a smoker they will not do it despite paying into the health care system all these years. My friend is 65 years old. Now there is talk that maybe we should not treat fat and obese people either because they are a drain on the health care system. Let me see now, what we want in Canada is a health care system for healthy people only. That should reduce our health care costs.

11) Forget getting a second opinion, what you see is what you get.

12) I can spend what money I have left after taxes on booze, cigarettes, junk food and anything else that could kill me but I am not allowed by law to spend my money on getting an operation I need because that would be jumping the queue. I must wait my turn except if I am a hockey player or athlete then I can get looked at right away. Go figure. Where else in the world can you spend money to kill yourself but are not allowed to spend money to get healthy.

13) Oh did I mention that immigrants are covered automatically at tax payer expense having never contributed a dollar to the system and pay no premiums.

14) We now give free needles to drug users to try and keep them healthy. Wouldn't want a sickly druggie breaking into your house and stealing your things. But people with diabetes who pay into the health care system have to pay for their needles because it is not covered by the health care system.

I send this out not looking for sympathy but as the election looms in the states you will be hearing more and more about universal health care down there and the advocates will be pointing to Canada. I just want to make sure that you hear the truth about health care up here and have some food for thought and informed questions to ask when broached with this subject.

Step wisely and don't make the same mistakes we have.

Is this what you want to support? Is this what America needs? Research, choose wisely and vote not on a party line, but on what is best for your country.