Anyway, the power was out long enough that I had to shut down the entire network, because the modems are on a UPS which complains if there's no power, and my machine's UPS is only good for about 12 minutes.
...over the past couple of days this machine has been running awful slow, it seemed, in the "accessing the Internet" department, and I kept thinking, "Maybe I should reboot...well, I'll do it once I'm done with this." And of course once I was done with "this" and had automatically sent the computer to sleep, then I'd remember that I wanted to do a reboot; so I'd say, "Well, I'll get it next time."
And the cycle would repeat.
Now that I've basically had everything off all day, of course, the Internet access seems a lot snappier than it's been for a week. *sigh*
* * *
I want e-Ink, not LCD, dang it. Well, they don't have a good way of doing e-Ink in color yet, so if you want a color eBook reader, it's going to have an LCD screen.
By the way, "$200" is not "inexpensive" for an eBook reader. Not when name-brand readers are selling for $150 and my trusty Aluratek can be had for $100.
* * *
Salon charges overweight customers extra.
...because their $2,500 chairs can only support 200 lbs.
...
"Do you think that’s fair when we take $24 [for manicure and pedicure] and we have to pay $2,500? Is that fair? No," the manager of the salon said.
Or, you know, here's an idea: if you're going to pay $2,500 for a freaking salon chair why don't you get one that's not made out of pipe cleaners and rubber bands?
* * *
I hope Georgia has set aside money for the lawsuit the Obama administration will bring against the state. Georgia has emplaced methods to enable election judges to determine whether or not someone is legally casting a vote.
Oh, there's already been a lawsuit.
"The Justice Department...said federal law required the state to verify a voter’s identity,..." Emphasis mine. You know why, don't you?
Why isn't "federal law" requiring people to show ID to vote? Isn't voting at least as important as safe air travel, for which you are required to show a photo ID before boarding? Isn't voting at least as important as keeping alcohol out of the hands of minors, for which people are required to show photo ID before purchase is allowed? (At least in IL.)
* * *
Okay, economic doom and gloom, linked without much if any comment. I think I'll call this the "Obamanomics Recovery Summer" section:
We're in a depression.
Remember that "recession" is defined as "one or more consecutive quarters with zero or negative economic growth as measured by GDP". Well, the federal government spent more than $1,000 billion on "stimulus", and government spending is one of the factors which determine GDP. Government could run the presses nonstop and spend $5,000 trillion and it would look like the rosiest economy ever...but it would be a sham, because it's all credit and no real wealth. And when the bill came due--well, let's just say the chickens would be coming home to roost...and they'd all be Foghorn Leghorn on PCP and crack, with zip guns and nail-studded baseball bats.
No, we're in danger of a double-dip recession. WHHHHAAAAAAT? Obama said that was impossible!
This article proceeds from the Keynesian presumption that government spending is critical to stimulating the economy. Unfortunately, the economy is so badly broken there's no way to make that work; the government ran up a huge tab last year, and now that the money's been spent the economy is trending downward from the stagnation it experienced during the stimulus spending spree. Now each new dollar of debt is destroying productivity; we're on the wrong side of that curve for more deficit spending to be beneficial in anything but the very short run.
And even if we did crank up the printing presses, the economy would just falter again once the printing stopped; and it would crash worse than it will now.
Dow-Jones suffered a big loss today at news that the housing market was in the dumpster.
Sales of existing homes, particularly. "The housing market is also being hampered by the weakening economic recovery." THERE IS NO ECONOMIC RECOVERY. How many times I gotta say it?
The dollar's hit a 15-year low against the yen. The euro, too. This is really bad for anime fans who want to buy merchandise related to their favorite series.
With interest rates near zero, the Fed can only buy debt to reduce the amount of money in the economy. And "buying debt"="monetizing the debt" which is invariably inflationary.
It's not a coincidence that the number being bandied about here is about $1,000 billion worth of excess money. That's what the federal government spent on the failed Obamanomics "stimulus" scheme.
Take a look at the chart at the end of this Vox Day post. Egad.
* * *
Derek Lowe talks about a lab accident which cost a graduate student some fingers and time in a hospital. He links a couple of places, including this pithy post on the subject.
Favorite quote:
A different student miscalculated when setting up a synthesis and made 30 g of triacetone triperoxide (nasty!) instead of 30 mg. (W.T.F. — how is this possible? Well doctor, you see, I was planning to eat 5 M&Ms, but I made a mistake and ate 5000 and didn’t notice until I was done.)*sigh*
What I want to know is, will BATF come down on the lab for their work? I mean, if a model rocket enthusiast had had something like this happen, the entire block would have been shut down and the hobbyist would be in jail once he was out of the hospital.
* * *
If you make serious modifications to a brand new vehicle, expect the warranty to be voided. Sorry; that's the way it is. If you can't afford to pay for things that break, don't modify the thing until the warranty expires and save your money.
I have to wonder if the guy put an aftermarket exhaust on his Jeep. The guy put a lift kit and 35" tires on it, and (it looks like) a winch and aftermarket bumpers and possibly some suspension/steering upgrade components.
My thinking echoes something in the comments: if this guy was rock crawling with his Jeep, and banged the exhaust against something, that could have led to cracking the exhaust manifold.
I've always thought that the manufacturer's warranty will apply only if you haven't made a bunch of non-standard changes to the vehicle. I mean, if you buy a new car and do oil changes yourself, that's one thing; but if you buy a new car and then swap transmissions so you can get some better gear ratios, there's no reason for the manufacturer to honor the powertrain warranty: you've altered the thing to a non-stock configuration, and God knows what else you might have done while the transmission was out.
And since the powertrain is the most complex sub-assembly of the vehicle, voiding that warranty pretty much means the entire car's not covered.
I can't find fault with Chrysler for this; I really can't.
* * *
This graph is wrong. "Hip hugger jeans" got their start in the 1960s and 1970. They fell out of fashion in the 1980s but came back in starting in the mid-to-late 90s.
That graph was probably generated by a 20-something.
* * *
I guess that's one way to get out of the Army.
* * *
Well, my Fuuka fig has shipped, and has an ETA of Sep. 1.
* * *
As for me, I didn't get anything done today that I wanted to. The power failure screwed me up; not that I was trying particularly hard to hew to the line I'd drawn. WTF, none of the stuff on my "to do" list is "critical" or even "urgent". Most of it is in the "do this...eventually" category. But I couldn't get to sleep even before the power failed, which was also a factor.
I mean, it's not like we're out of anything critical, like cat food.
The road construction continues. They ripped out the aprons at the intersections today. There's a huge pile of gravel blocking my street, but the opposite side has a nice ramp; well, we can get out of the neighborhood via several other streets, so it's not a problem.
I was able to get to the grocery store on Main street to pick up components for dinner without having to go the long way around; I just went around the block to the street which didn't have a huge pile of gravel in front of it, and then took back streets on the south side of Exchange to get to the store. No problem.
One of my two cats surprised me by actually eating corn-on-the-cob. Once I was done with it I held it out for her, and IttyBit started licking and chewing on it; after a while I set it down and the continued to work on it. Heh.
Luna, of course, turned her nose up at it: "Well, that's not meat, poultry, fish, gravy, or milk, so to hell with it."
* * *
Work on dumping Kimi ni Todoke to DVD continues. I've got it done through ep 15. Next up is ep 16, the stupid recap episode. I've been thinking about not doing it, or doing it out of order, but I decided to take the high road and just put it where it belongs. I'll read while it's dubbing.
Then I think I'll start on B Gata H Kei; and once that's done I've got to finish K-on! and start with K-ON!!, because that series is a favorite of mine.
Zettai Karen Children ep 9 is the one where the girls appear to be adults to Minamoto. That's the last ep I recall Steven Den Beste talking about. I don't know if he watched any more of it, or what. I'm getting kind of tired of it, myself.
Over the past week or so, the only thing which has really appealed to me is reading; I haven't wanted to do anything else: not WoW, not anime, not Torchlight, nothing.
End of summer doldrums, probably; I don't know. What I do know is that I'd better get some of my errands done tomorrow, else I'll feel like a total slug.