When will the Catholic Church move into the 21st Century???

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids: "The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.
The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to HIV. "

Is this incredible or what? A global crisis and the church is stupid enough to say something like this? What can I say? What can any sane human say?

For some interesting comments by others on this issue - check out this page.

Hoofin' it with Vindigo

Recently spent 3 days in Washington,DC prowling around checking out museums,coffee shops,etc. Made good use of a program called Vindigo which works with a Palm Pilot (or in my case a Handspring Visor). You can download maps of any major city into your Palm Pilot and then just tell it where you are and it will show you a map with an X on it for where you are at that very moment. Then, let's say you're hungry and want to check out a restaurant. You just click on restaurants and choose whether you want to see them listed by distance (1/2, 1, or 2 miles), or by rating, or by cost. Once you've selected one (they're a hundreds listed and they are even categorized by food type), you just click on it. The map will then show you with an x where it is and you can tell where it is in location to where you currently are.

But it gets even better. You just click on "Directions" and it tells you how to walk there (works just as well for driving). Now that is slick. It's highly accurate, kept us from ever being lost and led us to all kinds of places we wouldn't have normally heard about.

It will also list all the current movies playing, where the theaters are , and how to get to each of them.

If you have a GPS unit with you, you can even enable it and it will show you where you are on the map as you walk along.

You can "synch" it with your computer before heading off to the city, to make sure it has the latest info. By synching, I mean you can hook up the palm pilot to your desktop and then it will connect to the Vindigo site where it downloads the very latest info into your handheld device. That is essential to make sure you have the correct movie times, museum times,etc.

For $20/year, it's a great deal and the best app I have on my Handspring Visor.Here's a few screen shots of what it looks like:


  

Nifty freebie tool for seeing what's on your Hard Drive

Werkema.com: Software: SpaceMonger
SpaceMonger is a tool for keeping track of the free space on your computer. Each file or folder on a given drive is displayed in a box in the main window whose size is a relative comparison to all the other files in your system. So, for example, if the "Windows" box takes up 90% of the screen, the "C:\Windows" folder and all its sub-folders and files are taking up 90% of your "C:" drive
This is an unusual tool in the way it displays hard drive usage. Worth a look, especially since it is free.
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Wanna make Google even better?

Google Preferences
Just click on the link above and it will take you to the preferences page, where you can check the box that says check for pages in English only - that will save you looking at lots of pages in languages you don't understand. And checking search for 50 items rather than the default 10 will keep you from hitting the Next button so many times. Also, open in a new browser window is handy, so that you can easily return to your search results page without having to reload it, so check that box too.  

Fascinating Insights - our Big Grain Problem

The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity
"All this would be bad enough if the government weren't doing its best to make matters even worse, by recklessly encouraging farmers to produce even more unneeded food. Absurdly, while one hand of the federal government is campaigning against the epidemic of obesity, the other hand is actually subsidizing it, by writing farmers a check for every bushel of corn they can grow. We have been hearing a lot lately about how our agricultural policy is undermining our foreign-policy goals, forcing third-world farmers to compete against a flood tide of cheap American grain. Well, those same policies are also undermining our public-health goals by loosing a tide of cheap calories at home"

A very good read, by the same fellow who wrote the widely read article some months back about antibiotics and steroids in our beef industry.
  

The Sneaky Boys are up to No Good Again!

Provisions Benefiting Energy Industry Are Folded into Bill (washingtonpost.com): "The little-noticed decision shows the extent to which the far-reaching energy legislation has become a catchall for environmental provisions long advocated by industry lobbyists."

This will impress you that our govt. is trying to take care of us. Wonder how they figure they are immune to all these future problems? Do they live in some kind of cocoon where they don't get diseases? Of course the major drillers are contending this is all wonderful and safe. Seems like we've heard that kind of talk from Monsanto and all those other wonderful polluters before.

Quote of the day:
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor."
Neil Gaiman
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Now's your chance to make Steve Jobs a bit richer!

BetaNews | iTunes to Make Windows Debut October 16: "One week before it launches Mac OS X version 10.3, code-named Panther, Apple will officially unveil iTunes for the Windows platform - bringing the company's music store to an immense new market of PC users."

Only.99 per tune! Each tune has DRM (Digital Rights Management). Not sure exactly how that works yet - does it allow you to play that tune anywhere other than on your computer or IPOD? (the use .acc files which are supposedly better than .mp3).
 

Russians are Cranking it!

Would you be surprised to know that Russia is producing some 8.3 million barrels of oil per day, even outdoing the Saudis? Apparently with the help of US companies like Schlumberger, Halliburton,and Baker Hughes, they've revived a lot of old wells and have revived old fields that were thought to have been drying up. Of course, they are outdoing the Saudis, cause the Saudis choose not to produce that much oil, but still an impressive accomplishment

Also, how many of you knew that that US imported more oil from Canada than anyone else? Canada, Saudia Arabia, Mexico, and Venezuela in that order. Bet not 1 in 100 folks would have guessed Canada.

On a side note hope you enjoy the time and date while reading this blog. :) (Assuming you are using Internet Explorer as your browser - you won't see special effects if you're using Mozilla)
 

Germans Criticize Leaders, Admire 'Arnold Effect'

Yahoo! News - Germans Criticize Leaders, Admire 'Arnold Effect': "The straight-talking Hollywood action star's election win in California has had an electrifying impact on Germany, leading to calls Friday for top politicians to voice clear ideas in simple language or be swept away at the polls. "

Electrische Probleme in Kalifornia? hmmmmph.... Keep it simple, just hav de Hubble scope fokus die big sun rays down on die Kalifornia! What iz vrong mit you folks? Why you make eveyding so kompliziert?
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A Handy Email Tip

A Handy Email Tip

I picked up this tip from PCWorld (although I had seen it elsewhere before) .

If you email someone frequently, it would be nice to have a shortcut to click on, which would pop up a new mail message with their name in the To: field. So here's how to do it.

Right-Click your desktop (hopefully you know what the desktop is - that's that screen you normally see when first starting up your computer - the one with all the icons on it for different programs). After you right-click, select New-Shortcut. Then type mailto:your-buddy@his ISP.com in the Command line (Win98 and ME) or location field in XP. Enter your pal's email address after "mailto:". Click Next,give the Shortcut a name (like Billy Bob's email), and click on Finish. This will put a shortcut icon on your desktop. But we want to put it into the Quick Launch bar which is right next to your Start button on the bottom left of your desktop, cause that way you don't have be hunting around on your desktop for it. To do that, just click on the Shortcut on the desktop and while holding the left button of your mouse down, drag it into the Quick Launch bar. That's all there is to it.

Now the next time you want to send an email to that person, just click on the icon in the Quick Launch bar and up will pop your email form with their name already in it.

This is a handy tip if you frequently email someone.
 

UHDTV?

 Not sure where I saw this mentioned the other day, but apparently some Japanese folks have invented UHDTV, which has supposedly 16x the resolution of HDTV and is so sharp and clear, the eye can't tell it from the real thing. I can't wait till they figure out how to make the people appear in 3D in your living room and walk around - imagine yourself sitting on the recliner in the middle of a gunfight!

I WANT MY UHDTV!

New Upgrade for Roboform

 RoboForm: Free Password Manager, Form Filler, Password Generator: Fill Forms, Save Passwords, AutoFill, AutoLogin, AutoSave

Roboform has an upgrade to version 5.5. This one pops up much faster,is more consistent. If you don't surf the Net a lot, then you could get the freebie version which allows you to save 30 passwords, otherwise, the $30 version is the way to go, which allows unlimited passwords. I can't imagine working on the Net without this thing.

Yahoo! News - Davis Out, Schwarzenegger Wins in Calif.

 Yahoo! News - Davis Out, Schwarzenegger Wins in Calif.: "'We have tough choices ahead,' Schwarzenegger said in declaring victory. 'The first choice that we must make is the one that will determine our success. Shall we rebuild our state together or shall we fight amongst ourselves, create even deeper divisions and fail the people of California? Well, let me tell you something — the answer is clear. For the people to win, politics as usual must lose.' "

Well all I have to say is that it sure will be interesting. Can politics as usual lose? That would be a first. But it will be great to see someone who is not an old time politician bring some fresh insights (assuming he has some) to the game.

And for the Republicans who are crowing over this victory? Well perhaps they should heed the warning of Leon Panetta -

"But the recall was more than a message to Davis, said former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta, who called it a warning shot to all officeholders.

"It's a revolt of people who are increasingly angry at the crises that face them, and at the failure of leadership," Panetta said. "If I were a Republican, I wouldn't get too cocky about what happened."

Cars,Computers and Sports

 
Finally got my rumble fixed in my '92 Toyota Camry. New sway bar bushings did the trick. Only put up with that for 2 years! Feels like a new car!

If you're looking for a good book on Photoshop Elements 2, then you might be interested in this one. These Hands-on-Training books are quite good.

Am testing out a new beta of a Spam program called iHateSpam that incorporates into Outlook Express and Outlook. Sends all spam into the Delete Folder in OE. Initial testing reveals that it is quite accurate. Will let you know how it does over the next few weeks. I've liked Mailwasher, but find it cumbersome with having to delete and check things in it and then go to OE to download. This is much faster and seems more accurate initially.

Cubbies continue their quest this evening against the Florida Marlins. Has been great baseball so far with a great game last night as well with Boston squeaking one out over the Oakland A's to make it into the playoffs against the NY Yankees. Interestingly the last time the Cubbies were in a World series (1918), the Red Sox beat them with Babe Ruth getting 2 of the wins as a pitcher. (Did you recall that the Babe was initially a pitcher?).

What it Takes to Get by these days

A Slave to Health Insurance (washingtonpost.com)

Life couldn't get much grander than this!

Outrageous

 
Went to the dermatologist the other day and he prescribes this tube of cream to use on my face. I don't think much about it till I get to the pharmacist and shell out $58 for it. Now, I have a lousy prescription plan (I have to pay 40%) and wasn't thinking when I coughed up the money. While driving home, I got to thinking - what did that stuff really cost before my part was paid? So I pulled out the paper that came with the prescription - $178 for a 100g tube of cream !!! Can you believe that? And to top it off, the possible side effects will keep me busy with anxiety attacks for the next year! This is progress??? I know, I know, the drug companies gotta be able to pay for all that research - cough,cough.

Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock.
John Barrymore

On the Techno Front.....

 
I was reading an article today about the forthcoming 64bit computers which propose to make CAD (computer aided design), video and games work much smoother and faster. Current 32 bit models can address 4 Gigs of Memory (the average home user can get by quite nicely at the moment with 1/2 Gig of Memory). Well 4 Gigs of memory is nothing - moving to 64bit means your computer can address 16 exabytes of RAM (there's a new word for me - an exabyte!). How much is 16 exabytes? A mere 16 billion gigabytes! I wonder how I am going to afford a 1 billion gigabyte chip? :) It was bad enough to buy 1/2 of 1 gigabyte! Of course, there is no OS (operating system) built yet that can use 64bit, but that's coming.

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Turning to inkjet printing, noticed that PC World had an article abut inkjet printing by the guru of inkjet testing - Henry Wilhelm (Sep 2003). Those cheapie aftermarket inks I buy? One of them - a Rainbow branded ink is good for about 1 year on an Epson C82 vs Epson's 92 year cartridges! Carrot Ink (which I've also used) was good for about 4 years on a Canon S9000 vs. Canon's 27 year cartridge. So if you're planning on printing quality photos that are going to last a while, guess you'd better buy the real stuff. Or move to dye sub, a different process alltogether. I have found though that for printing in general, these inks have worked pretty well, but they do clog my Canon S300's printheads and do start to streak. Unfortunately the S300 is an ink hog, so I will have to find a printer that works better and is much more economical on ink.

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You a news junkie? Rather than going to all those different web sites, why not have all the headlines delivered to you in one place? That's what RSS feeds are all about. They give you the headlines and enough info to decide whether you want to click on it and read the entire article. I've mentioned before about downloading a copy of Feed Demon to view all these. Feed Demon even includes a browser inside itself with tabbed browsing - and it's free! Most sites have an XML tag (look at DP Review and you'll notice the small xml tag at the top right of the page.. Just right click on it and select "copy shortcut" and then back in Feed Demon, you can create a new channel for DPReview that lets you capture all of DPReview's latest news without having to go to the actual web site. You can create Groups as well, like a Photography Group. Sometimes the little orange tag will say RSS instead of XML - you still use the same procedure. Pretty cool and a news/info junkie's dream!

Rumble Resolved!

 

Finally drug my car in to Toyota to investigate the rumble I've been hearing forever from the rear of my car. They put it up on one of those full length racks like you find in an alignment bay and within a few minutes - problem resolved! The insides of the sway bar bushings were worn out causing a lot of slop and making the sway bar links that go through these bushings bang around. You could move the sway bar easily up and down and hear the clunking noise. (apparently not evident on a normal lift where the car is supported on the frame as you can't get the pressure off to make the sway bar move, so understandable perhaps why my shade tree mechanic couldn't find it).

Of course, they didn't have any bushings in stock , so have to return in a week. (another 130 mile roundtrip!). Still, was glad to get this resolved! Will set me back about $130 total (i'm sure that's a colossal ripoff), but I'm willing to pay just to get rid of the damn noise! Maybe I'll feel like I'm driving a car again , rather than a dump truck! LOL
Take most people, they're crazy about cars. I'd rather have a goddamn horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake.
J. D. Salinger (1919 - )

Cars - (crappy, awful, reprehensible shit)

Well think perhaps I finally resolved my vibrating tire issue on my '92 Camry. Drove it back to Walmart again (45 miles) and this time planned on putting on Goodyear Viva Touring tires and dumping the Goodyear Aquatred 3's. Discovered they didn't have any Touring tires in my size in stock, so rather than tear my hair out again and return again, I decided to give the Douglas Touring Tires a try. $10 cheaper per tire, too. :) 80,000 mile warranty as well. So I went that route. Service Mgr is one of the nicest customer service people I have met anywhere - he has repeatedly worked with me to solve this problem. Walmart needs to clone this guy. Didn't cost me a dime, in fact rebated me $40 since these tires were less, although I had put some 6,000 miles on the Aquatreds. Guess he felt I had been hassled enough.

Drove off, expecting the worst, but discovered that this had finally done the trick (of course, I had to check the tire pressure before I left, since Walmart is notorious for overinflating my tires. Sure enough - 42 in the left front, 48 in the right front, 40 in both rears. So I reduced them all to 35). Now that's a relief - can't even count how many times I've gone to Walmart over the past year trying to figure this out. Now off to Toyota in a few days to figure out what is rumbling in the rear end of this car - expecting to get hosed by the friendly folks from Toyota. We shall see. If they could stop this rumbling, I'd probably see an even smoother ride - in the meantime, I keep expecting the rear wheels to fall off, the gas tank to drag along the ground, explode, and send me to where I probably belong - hell! Ho, ho!
 

Good ol' Blues!

 Enjoyed immensely the Blues Program that started tonight on PBS. Very well done. Will run for the next 6 nights in a row, each night done by a different director. Clint Eastwood directs one of the nights.

They had some great clips of the early timers playing. One guy really lit into that ol' guitar - Son House was his name. Wasn't familiar with him, but I'm not real history buff of the Blues, so learning something new all the time. Even saw Keb Mo' on the show, who is one of my favorite musicians. Check it out - you might just like it! :)