USS New York's story is in its metal

Video of USS New York sailing up Hudson River

This was a favorie "fw:" email subject for a few years, but it's holding true. A new warship, the USS New York, was put into operation Sunday.

OK. Big deal. We commission new ships every so often. But this one is unique, and it *is* a big deal. What is arguably our biggest national tragedy went into this one.

Some of the metal in the bow of the ship -- seven-and-a-half tons -- was prized from Ground Zero, from the wreckage of the World Trade Center, flattened in 2001 in what could only be called an act of war.

Now, I don't know a thing about metallurgy, but I understand one of the reasons the towers collapsed was because of the intense heat of burning fuel when a pair of fully-loaded passenger jets slammed into them. The fireball weakened the metal to the point where it couldn't bear the weight of the buildings. I'm assuming the steel from the towers was remelted, perhaps mixed with other steel, and recycled that way.

But this is still a message, a real in-your-face to hostiles everywhere. As a nation we may be prone to hysteria (witness our post-9/11 behavior and subsequent attacks on civil liberties via the USA PATRIOT Act). Our government may be overrun with goofies. We may have an administration that is bound and determined to give the store away. But this is still America and we still have the right stuff.

Watch the video. If you live in the States and don't feel something as you view it, you're in the wrong country.

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On The Workbench: Enjoy the games but beware of scams

Posted in The Workbench, Reloaded:

I have some friends who are seriously into the Facebook games and applications. Farmville, Bejeweled, YoVille, and Mafia Wars are real popular among the people I know. I can't be bothered with that stuff myself. I go on Facebook maybe long enough to check my messages, say hello to a few friends, and log off to check my Twitter account.

At first glance the Facebook games seem to be harmless fun. I understand you play many of them in levels; you clear the first level and move up to the bigger and better stuff -- much like the old-school Mario Brothers game or Dungeons & Dragons. So far, so good.

But TechCrunch has been working on a series of articles on the social-media games, and writer Michael Arrington smells a lot more scam than score ...

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Loosened pot laws, national health care present new riddles

Canada has two things our current administration seems to be trying to get here: A national health care system, and legalized marijuana for some patients.

Well, that first part is pretty obvious, what with the Obama/Pelosi health plan in the congressional pipeline. But what with money being so tight everywhere, the Obama Administration is telling the states to not worry so much about enforcing existing marijuana laws.

So it appears Canada is our new model, but there's a problem. Many of these Canadians who are tapping the government for their pot are not paying the bill. The problem is so bad that Health Canada is asking these patients to pay up front for their ration.

Well, duh, any street-corner dope dealer will tell you about that. Collect the money first, so the customer doesn't get all stoned and forget. Catch him before he spends it all on Little Debbie snack cakes.

Do I have a feeling we'll be seeing the same scenario here? Face it. Canada's bureaucrats and leaders seem to come from the same School For The Brain-Dead as our own government officials.

While you're chewing on that scenario, try this on for size. Just like in Canada, under the Obamalosi plan (and states looking more to medical marijuana laws), taxpayers will be footing the bill to get someone high.

###

They Vote & Reproduce: Geraldo gets tang tungled up

Either Geraldo Rivera is getting his presidents and terrorists mixed up, or there's something very Freudian about his slip o'the tongue.

OK. Sometimes it's hard to tell them apart ... and equally hard to determine whether Geraldo's a joke or not.

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Using hygiene products and still can't score? Sue 'em ...

Just about everything that is sold in the world is advertised with, ahem, slightly inflated claims. This could be anything to your car (loaded, clean, low mileage), to your laundry soap (whiter than white), or even yourself (check your job resume sometime).

And that's understood. Puffery is a big part of sales. And sex sells; a lot of really peripheral things (such as your car or laundry soap) are sold along that angle.

But you heard the one about the guy in India who's suing the manufacturer of Axe Body Spray because he's been using the company's products for seven years and still hasn't found a girlfriend? Seriously. Vaibhav Bedi, 26, is suing Unilever, owner of Lynx (their product line includes Axe body spray), for 26,000 pounds. He says his lack of any real sex life is causing him all sorts of depression and psychological damage.

Already I'm wondering what this guy looks like. Probably looks like Michael Moore with a bad gas problem an abrasive personality, and lives with his mother.

Good thing his case isn't being tried in the People's Republic of California. He'd be an odds-on favorite to win his case.

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Michael Jackson's dad blows Father Of The Year chances

I've always had some serious questions about Joe Jackson, Michael Jackson's father. I mean, ol' Michael didn't exactly have what you'd call a normal childhood. Rather than playing baseball in a vacant lot, the Jackson kids were honing their act, playing their music, and making a ton of dough for Dad.

And now, a few months after his meal ticket died, Pops was having his say. At the opening of the posthumous film This Is It, Joe said that Michael is worth more dead than he was alive.

Gee, with fathers like that ...

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Father preserves his son's ashes -- in a tattoo

More stuff I can't make up. From the BBC:

A father says using his two-year-old son's ashes in the ink for a chest tattoo of the boy will be a "lasting tribute" to him.

At least this guy has feelings for his deceased son, but a wacko is still a wacko.

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Scuttlebutt 2.0

(Again, I bring you short dispatches from Twitter. I left these verbatim, with hashtags and all. Bear in mind the nature of this feature -- it's all scuttlebutt. Links are provided for those tweets that tie in to a news story or blog. Enjoy!)

littlebytesnews: RT @leahita:"Drs Speak Out Agnst Govt Contrlld Medicine."(VID) http://3.ly/ybM #tcot #tlot #C4L #hc09 [you'd think Congress wld listen??]

JimDeMint: There's a very disturbing trend from this administration in favor of secrecy and against transparency.

littlebytesnews: TPO_News:PETA Killed 95% of Adoptable Pets in its Care During 2008 http://bit.ly/zX15U #tcot [wow that's terrible,so much 4 animal rights?]

the_old_geek: "Every day you've got to get up and play hard."Jeff Immelt

JTlol: If a Democrat's teenage son got a girl pregnant & she went on to pose for Playboy, how many minutes would she get on the CBS Early Show?

Infidel007: RT @Drudge_Report: Boehner: '1,990 Pages Of Bureaucracy'... http://tinyurl.com/ygd9yo4

JTlol: Does Anita Dunn not know the difference between Mao Tse-tung and Sun Tzu, or does she just think the rest of us don't? http://j.mp/4jDN6L

Infidel007: RT @heidilore: Swine Flu paranoia getting out of hand!! http://twitpic.com/htwqn

coutpost: Organ Thieves, Hyperfeminized Football & White House Maoists http://cli.gs/8Ah8t #tcot #politics

JTlol: Dude, Where's My Czar? Or: Harold & Kumar Speak Truth to Power By Misusing Federal Agencies for Political Purposes: http://bit.ly/1YPFBD

Someguynamedpat: Govt never reduces itself. Govt progrms nvr disappr. A govt bureau is t nearest thing to eternl life we'll ever see.. http://bit.ly/XRo08 RR

Someguynamedpat: Is health care overhaul constitutional? http://ow.ly/x9yC Constitutionality of health overhaul questioned http://ow.ly/x9yF

thejobsguy: Companies Ready to Unfreeze Salaries; Retention Worries Increase ... http://tinyurl.com/ykzgjqw

JTlol: But then, the new guy has really lowered the bar, hasn't he? http://j.mp/3SkWj2

littlebytesnews: okay ppl, spammers R out again,just got 2 dm's from ppl I know w/ "this U on hre?" &a link....spam i'm sure!! B careful!(via @PlusSizeMommy)

Akos_Fintor: JFK knew exactly what was coming that's why he was taken out http://bit.ly/S6Iu2

Paceset9999: RT @leahita: MANDATORY VACCINATIONS? TELL FEDS & STATES TO 'STICK IT' by Devvy Kidd! http://3.ly/c5Q #H1N1 #novacs

angelsbuzztap: The Orange County Register >> Angels: Now what? http://bit.ly/2cqJDu

(Shameless plug: Of course I'm on Twitter ... follow me.)

Site shows how to do home-shot Botox treatments

For years I've joked about do-it-yourself surgery as a possible solution to the escalating costs of health care. And everything I say on the subject is just that: A joke. Not to be taken seriously. Got it?

OK. With that said, there's a Website that allegedly shows the DIY'er how to do his own Botox treatments (which usually involve injections into the face) to beat the signs of aging and the high cost of treatment:

... Wired.com looks into a site that seems to offer clients the drugs and tutorials to do just that. Video how-to demos show how to inject the drug, derived from botulinum toxin, into one's own face ...

And:

Discountmedspa sells a variety of other DIY cosmetic treatments, including prescription Renova, and lip-filling gels. The botulinum toxin-derivative for sale on the site is Dysport, produced by the pharmaceutical company Ipsen and is a competitor of Allergan’s Botox. The site simply calls it "the Freeze."

If you're dumb enough to try this, don't tell me about it. Please.

(Photo from Wired. I have no idea who the fool is.)

###

Growing older beats the alternative, but has its glitches

I love this! Thanks, Dad!

Observations on Growing Older
• It's harder to tell navy from black.
• Everything old is new again, but if you wore it before, you're too old to wear it the 2nd time around.
• Your kids are becoming you -- and you don't like them, but your grandchildren are perfect!
• Yellow becomes the big color -- walls, hair, teeth.
• Going out is good; coming home is better!
• When people say you look "Great", they add, "for your age"!
• When you needed the discount you paid full price. Now you get discounts on everything -- movies, hotels, flights.
• You forget names, but it's OK because other people forgot they even knew you.
• The last 2 outfits you wore had spots on them.
• You ask your husband or friend how your outfit looks, and they tell you the truth.
• The five pounds you wanted to lose is now 15, and you have a better chance of losing your keys than the 15 pounds.
• You realize you're never going to be really good at anything -- especially golf.
• Your spouse is counting on you to remember things you don't remember.
• The things you cared to do, you don't care to do, but you care that you don't care to do them anymore.
• Your husband sleeps better on a lounge chair with the TV blaring then he does in bed. It's called his "pre-sleep".
• Remember when your mother said "Wear clean underwear in case you GET in an accident"? Now you bring clean underwear in case you HAVE an accident.
• You used to say, "I hope my kids GET married; now it's, "I hope they STAY married!"
• Who wants to wear 3" heels anyway?
• You miss the days when everything worked with just an "ON" and "OFF" switch.
• When GOOGLE, ipod, email, modem were unheard of and a mouse was something that made you climb on a table.
• You use more 4 letter words -- "what?"..."when?"
• Your husband has a night out with the guys but he's home by 9:00 P.M.; next week it will be 8:30 P.M.
• You read 100 pages into a book before you realize you've read it.
• Notice everything they sell in stores is "sleeveless"?
• Many of the people in People Magazine you've never heard of.
• What used to be freckles are now liver spots.
• Everybody whispers.
• You have 3 sizes of clothes in your closet, 2 of which you will never wear again.
• But old is good in some things -- old songs, old movies, and best of all -- old friends!

Trust me. Even though I'm a mere pup of 51, I can relate to some of this stuff.

###

Notes from the readers ... capitalism debate

I had a couple of comments on the post "Barney Frank wants government bank seizures made easy", and I feel I must link to them here.

Both are from someone named Anonymous (this guy sure gets around, kind of like the way Fallen Rock is seen on road signs everywhere) raising questions about greed, capitalism, and misplaced priorities. The second comment, well, I felt the need request he cool his language (I counted five F-bombs and who knows what else -- maybe it was the same person after a few drinks?), so I'm warning you now.

But Anonymous #1 and #2 raise some interesting points, especially in light of my own views.

Feel free to join the debate ...

Internet reaches middle age, though not many realize it

(Screenshot: Browsers old -- Lynx -- and new -- Firefox 3.5.3. Lynx was my go-to browser when I first went on the Internet in 1996.)

Published in The Workbench, Reloaded

Although few had even heard of this Internet thing (then known as the "information superhighway" until the early or mid-1990s, it got its real start 40 years ago this week.

It was Oct. 29, 1969 when the first two nodes of ARPANET were interconnected between UCLA’s School of Engineering and Applied Science and SRI International (SRI) in Menlo Park, California. And unless you were one of the guys on the inside, you really didn't know or care.

I was a bit of a late adopter. It was 1996 when I used a noisy modem to link into an Internet provider in a nearby city. My computer was an old Leading Edge XP, with an 8088 processor, Hercules graphics card, DOS 5, and 2400-bytes-per-second modem. I used Procomm to link up, and the text-only Lynx browser to surf ... more

###

They vote and reproduce: Reenactor's cannon works

History buff launches blast from the past

Imagine this guy's surprise when his homemade cannon actually worked. His neighbor, though, wasn't terribly amused.

From Boing Boing:

Civil War enthusiast William Maser, 54, accidentally fired a cannonball into his neighbor's house and is now being charged with a felony count of discharging a firearm into an occupied structure ... that's in addition to the charges of reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct that he was already facing for this incident ... what I'm really curious about is Mr. Maser's first reaction to the effectiveness of his homemade cannon ...

I've hung around a number of history buffs and reenactors -- a few out here in South Carolina who relive battles from the War Between The States, and a group of Old West-style gunfighters in Arizona (the latter even talked of having me make a cameo appearance in one of their Main Street gunfights). But one of the cardinal rules of reenactors is this: Don't use live ammo.

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Booze and jealousy don't mix

You probably heard about that man and woman in Nevada who were pinned in their bed for more than an hour by a car that drove through the wall and landed on top of them. They were extremely fortunate that they got away with no more than minor injuries.

So how did this happen?

According to CNN, the driver was drunk. OK, that's almost a given. But in that state of mind, he thought he'd surprise his ex-girlfriend and her new man before plowing into the wrong house.

###

Did you notice anything unusual about him ...?

This crime was easy to solve ...

From the Associated Press:

AP - Police said a one-legged suspect was caught after only one shoe went missing in a store in Belgium. An amputee was an immediate suspect when a store attendant found one shoe missing from a shop in the western Belgian town of Maldegem. Police spokesman Rik Decraemer said Monday authorities were alerted and quickly found the man who fit the description by shopkeepers. The shoe was also recovered.

Many cops I know would have attributed the arrest to "outstanding detective work." Yeah.

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Governator's veto letter: A coded curse?

Love him or hate him (and the numbers are suggesting more of the latter these days) California Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger does bring his share of local color to the garden party.

Take a look at the first letter of each line of The Governator's letter blasting the state legislature -- there's a lot more to the story than just the official language in the missive.

A spokesman for Schwarzenegger swears there's nothing to this letter, that it's mere coincidence. Sure. And I'm gonna play the lead in the next Terminator movie.

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How to pick out an email scam? Site outlines 10 ways

I've spent a bit of time looking at some of the nefarious things that can find themselves on your computer courtesy of the Internet. You can get bad programs, spyware, viruses, and some eerie email at the click of a mouse.

What with the speed and ease with which one can send off mass emails, the scammer has all the tools he needs to separate many people from their dollars. And you've probably seen a few of these messages showing up in your inbox -- maybe even a few this week.

From switched.com, here are 10 red flags that the email you've received is probably a scam:

Look for things like requests for personal information, lots of misspellings, clickable Web links, innocent-sounding surveys, that "hot tip" you don't remember requesting, unsolicited attachments,and you-must-act-now pitches.

From Switched:

If you see the phrases "verify your account," "you have won the lottery" or "if you don't respond within XX hours, your account will be closed," it's a scam – every time. Hit the delete button and don't look back.

Like:

5. Stock tips from random people or companies
Got a "hot stock tip" via e-mail? It's probably a "pump and dump" scheme. The sender already owns shares – and when you and others act on the "tip," the stock price soars and he sells fast – leaving you with virtually worthless shares.

Or:

9. Red-flag phrases
If you see the phrases "verify your account," "you have won the lottery" or "if you don't respond within XX hours, your account will be closed," it's a scam – every time. Hit the delete button and don't look back.

These are some you should delete, kill, whatever you do with them.

It's a jungle out there. But then you already knew that.

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Scuttlebutt ...

(This is a new feature of short dispatches from Twitter. These are almost verbatim; some editing was done for spelling and style, but the content remains. I can't vouch for the veracity of anything here -- hey, this is the Internet -- so that explains why I call it "scuttlebutt." Links are provided for those tweets that tie in to a news story or blog. Enjoy!)

Infidel007: SF could soon ban cat declawing in the city. SF is so weird. lol http://bit.ly/JiO4A

xarker: Now Facebook comes in two flavors: "Too much information," and "Stuff you read yesterday." Good job team!

infowarsstories: The LAPD fights crime, not illegal immigration: Los Angeles Times | Illegal Immigration is not crime? http://bit.ly/ifDSe

prespolitics: TPM Election Central: GOP Calls On Obama To Condemn Grayson's 'Whore' Remark http://bit.ly/VIFbY Full http://bit.ly/twV0y

(Shameless plug: Of course I'm on Twitter ... follow me.)

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Cockroaches are too efficient to PP

(This one's going out to my brother Rick, who turns 56 today. He loves this kind of useless information even more than I do. Happy birthday, Rick!)

* * *

I can't stand them, especially when they take over my kitchen and require more than one bullet to kill them. But I still have to marvel at the cockroach.

They can live anywhere, on nothing. I used to argue that they would be the one species that would survive a nuclear holocaust, an environmental disaster, fire, flood, famine, or asteroid strike. Even high-grade poison might kill off the first generation, but the second generation would tap dance in it.

I'm not a cat owner, but that animal amazes me because of its incredible quickness and balance (the tail acts as a counterweight). Mice, I understand, cannot burp or pass gas. Ants can carry many times their own weight and never break a sweat. But let's give the lowly cucaracha its due. If you want a survival machine, that's it.

What is it about the common cockroach? Its metabolism is so efficient it doesn't even urinate. This is according to Wired (and watch out for the popup ad that races across the screen like a ... well ...):

... researchers who sequenced the Blattabacterium genome have found that it converts waste into molecules necessary for a roach to survive. Every cockroach is a testimony to the power of recycling — thanks to their microbes, they don’t even need to pee ... “Blattabacterium can produce all of the essential amino acids, various vitamins, and other required compounds from a limited palette of metabolic substrates,” write entomologists in a study published Monday in the researchers have known that cockroaches need the microbes to survive: Kill Blattabacterium with antibiotics, and the insects die. They also knew that roaches store excess nitrogen — one of life’s essential elements, needed to make proteins, amino acids and DNA — inside their bodies, in tiny deposits of uric acid. But researchers didn’t know exactly what became of the uric acid after it was stored, or precisely what Blattabacterium did ...

Wow ... they can live in spilled coffee or even in puddles of beer, and never even need to run to the bathroom ...

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Barney Frank wants government bank seizures made easy

Within the last few days, we saw the 100th bank go toes up since the economy tanked a year ago.

Congressman Barney Frank said he will introduce legislation making it easier for the government to seize any banks considered "too big to fail." This is from the New York Times, by way of MSNBC:

Setting up the equivalent of living wills for corporations, that plan would require that they come up with their own procedure to be disentangled in the event of a crisis, a plan that administration officials say ought to be made public in advance ... "These changes will impose market discipline on the largest and most interconnected companies," said Michael S. Barr, assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions. One of the biggest changes the plan would make, he said, is that instead of being controlled by creditors, the process is controlled by the government ... some regulators and economists in recent weeks have suggested that the administration’s plan does not go far enough. They say that the government should consider breaking up the biggest banks and investment firms long before they fail, or at least impose strict limits on their trading activities — steps that the administration continues to reject.

Let's see. The federal government is in the car manufacturing business. It was in the auto-junking business with that "Cash For Clunkers" program. It's trying to get in the medical business. And the banking business.

These are the same guys who got into the insurance business (Social Security), mail delivery (the Postal Service), and trying to get the trains to run on time (AMTRAK). And ran each of these into the ground.

Busy, busy, busy ...

What is our government's legitimate business? Once you cut through all the chaff, you could write it on the back of a business card: Protecting our rights, mediating our disputes, and protecting us from foreign invasion. And at least two of these it's not doing very well.

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Facebook password-reset email carries a virus

(Cross-posted in The Workbench, Reloaded)

Sheesh!

These writers of viruses and other nefarious code will stop at nothing to spread the love. But while you can see many viruses coming a mile away, I understand this one looks official.

This one, a Trojan horse dubbed Bredolab, comes dressed up as a "Password Reset Confirmation Email" from Facebook. In the email you click on the link to -- you think -- get your new password. That's when the fun -- if you can call it that -- starts. That link downloads system-destroying files, such as rogue "anti-spyware" programs that inject their own spyware, into your computer.

Considering some of the problems Facebook has been encountering -- partly from increased traffic and partly from its own recent redesign, this email almost sounds plausible.

I haven't seen this one myself; I got the details from Mashable! and MXLab.

According to MXLab, here's the body of the message:

Hey vguysville ,

Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed.
You can find your new password in attached document.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

Here's the drill. If you see something like this from Facebook, watch out. It's probably not from Facebook. Bear this in mind:

- If you didn't request a password change from Facebook, you have no reason to receive a reset confirmation. Don't bother opening it; dispose of it immediately.

Enjoy your computer, don't be skeered of the virus bogeyman, but be wary when you go online. Cool?

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H1N1: The real deal, or is it just hype?

Every year we get a version of the flu making the rounds. But this one, the H1N1 Virus or "swine flu," is doing a fine job of scaring everyone.

Folks are taking unusual precautions. Hand sanitizer is flying off store shelves. You can go on YouTube and get crash courses on how to sneeze properly (do it in your sleeve). Bodily contact is out. Flu shots are in. And Barack Obama declared a national emergency last week.

This declaration allows Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebilius "to temporarily waive or modify certain requirements" to help squash the flu bug, to limit its spread, or at least to help health care facilities install emergency plans. This also could expand the role of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, although it's a little early to tell what that would be.

One emergency plan already is drawing a bunch of flak. In New York, health care workers are required to take their flu shots, and many are bucking the trend and making a movement out of it. Some of the workers have been massing in the state capital of Albany, protesting the statewide edict that all health care workers be vaccinated.

Meanwhile, folks are preparing for the virus. That alcohol-based hand sanitizer is a hot commodity. Some churches are foregoing the brotherly hug in favor of a handshake or friendly nod. And people are wondering if there's enough flu vaccine to go around.

On the official level, Senators Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo) are saying that whatever resources Obama needs to manage emergency response in the flu epidemic, he should have.

Despite all the buzz and dire predictions, H1N1 is showing itself to be all sizzle and no steak. Since April, "millions" have been infected in the United States, according to Centers For Disease Control (CDC) director Dr. Thomas Frieden. At least 20,000 were hospitalized and more than 1,000 died.

But then, according to the CDC (I got these numbers from the World Almanac), various influenza viruses will hospitalize 200,000 and kill about 36,000 people in the United States every year. That's every year.

Stacked up against these numbers, this begs the question: How much of H1N1 is hype, and how much is the real deal?

Depends on who you ask. The World Health Organization seems to be playing this on potential, and the flu pandemic of 1918 is held up as the ultimate. And, yeah, the 1918 "bird flu" was a heavy one. It started as something relatively mild, mutated into something deadlier, and ended up killing millions worldwide over two flu seasons.

But in 1918 we didn't have hand sanitizer. We didn't have climate control, which is a factor. And we didn't have all those good drugs we have now. Attempting to make a comparison is a weak reed to lean on.

I've never had a flu shot, and I don't intend to start now. But I am taking my own precautions. Things like washing my hands every so often. Taking Vitamin C. Eating well, getting exercise, all the standard stuff.

I'm not scared, and I'm not buying into the H1N1 hysteria either.

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Airline fiasco: It's the laptop's fault

It wasn't like missing your freeway offramp. But you've no doubt heard plenty about those pilots who missed a whole city.

OK, what's 150 miles or so?

There was plenty of speculation about how they could have missed their Minneapolis destination with the radio calling them. They were asleep. They were debating airline policy.

After being grilled earlier this week, the truth came out: They were on their laptops.

They were so distracted they didn't get their heads back into the game until the tower called them and asked if they were thinking of bringing the plane down sometime that day.

The pilots said they brought their laptops on previous flights, in violation of company rules.

I originally thought the initial speculation that the pilots were so deep in a discussion of company policies that they forgot the job at hand was the right one. Really. I've worked for companies where that kind of stuff happens. But with the laptops entering the picture, then the whole thing makes a lot more sense.

Right now I'm sitting at my laptop, writing this, and if the house burned down around me I might notice later, like if a blazing chunk of ceiling lands on my screen. And if I'm doing something mentally taxing -- like bringing this laptop back to life after I destroyed a couple of system files -- I might not even notice then. But then I'm the same way when reading, when listening to music, or having a conversation. But playing with a computer -- even if it's something lightweight like FreeCell -- requires a whole extra level of concentration that you just might forget something important.

Like landing a plane.

###

 

On The Workbench: Laptop is back up, officially

As published in The Workbench, Reloaded

I can say it now: The laptop is back among the living ... most of my software is back up. I've knocked off most of my to-do list. I'm writing this column on it, and soon I will upload it and download email and news. I'm extremely pleased. One of the things I noticed is that, with the new configuration ...

Bringing the outdoors inside

This was kind of cool.

I'm an outdoors kind of guy, especially when the weather is nice. Usually I'm doing my work out on the patio, or in the living room with the door propped open.

So a bird flew in this afternoon. A cardinal. Made one circuit in the living room, hit the closed window on the other side, and flew back out the door. Well, howdey there!

Lovin' days like this.