VaxCave

The search for WMD has ended. Result: Zilch. You may remember that a few years ago the President said:

Bush: “Saddam Hussein is a man who told the world he wouldn’t have weapons of mass destruction, but he’s got them.” (Nov. 3, 2002)

Bush (and faithful sidekick Laura) will appear in an interview on ABC with Barbara Walters. An excerpt:

Barbara Walters: “But was it worth it if there were no weapons of mass destruction? Now that we know that that was wrong? Was it worth it?” Bush: “Oh, absolutely.“

— via various sources and ABC News

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Filed by AxsDeny at 2:05 pm under General, Politics
2 Comments

If you haven’t seen the new Mac that Steve Jobs introduced at MacWorld, go check it out. I’ve been reading some of the sites that are covering the announcement. There are many positive and excited comments flying around. It seems Apple has finally broken the Mac-basher’s argument that the machines are too expensive. Those Mac-bashers are still doing their best to bash this machine. Since price isn’t a problem now, they have decided to focus on the features that are available on the Mac Mini. I’ll respond to a few below.

ISSUE: “The graphics card is crap.“ RESPONSE: This machine is meant to be an entry level Mac. This is not a high level gaming machine. Otherwise it wouldn’t cost ~$500. This machine is for email, web, tunes, and photos. If you want a gaming machine, buy an Alienware box for $4000.

ISSUE: “There is no microphone port! How will I record sound?“ RESPONSE: If you were serious about recording sound you wouldn’t use a microphone port. Anyone who does any real recording uses a USB or Firewire peripheral. I, for example, use an M-Audio Fast Track USB.

ISSUE: “There are only 2 USB ports! The mouse and keyboard will take up both slots!“ RESPONSE: Apple sells keyboards that are wireless (bluetooth). The wired keyboards have 2 USB ports in them. That frees up at least one USB port for you to plug in a USB hub. They run about $15. Look into it.

ISSUE: “Why is there only 1 Firewire port? How is that even useful?? “ RESPONSE: If you weren’t an idiot you would know that Firewire devices can be chained. Just like SCSI… only faster and better. You can chain up to 63 devices and you don’t need a terminator. Technically you only need one port. Once again, this is a bargain machine. Use your head.

ISSUE: “This thing is going to be locked tighter than fort knox. I’m sure you are going to be able to get in but not without the thing falling apart into a million pieces.“ RESPONSE: You’ve clearly never opened a Mac. They are put together extremely well. Ask Matt about taking apart his Powerbook. Putting a new drive in this thing will be simple. What I would worry about is a heat problem. Placing a 300 gig drive in this machine may cause some overheating. Caveat emptor.

ISSUE: “Why not put a TV-in port instead of a modem port on this machine??“ RESPONSE: Macs, out of the box, work as fax machines and not everyone has broadband or even access to broadband. That’s why. Not everyone on the planet wants, knows of, or has the know-how to configure their own PVR. Fax is more important to a $500 machine than PVR capabilities. Look for add ons if you want a PVR or just buy an X-Box and use MythTV.

Summary: I’m tired of Mac-bashers doing their best to find anything wrong with what Apple does. If Apple created the perfect machine, a machine that was cheap, and a machine that could be expanded, the bashers would still complain that they can’t run MS SQL Server or some stupid crap like that. These people are the same ones that complain that iPods don’t play WMA files. Instead of seeing something for what it is, they see it as not what they want it to be. Pessimism about something you don’t understand is the lowest form of ignorance. Coincidentally, this same type of pessimism happens in politics all the time. sigh

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Filed by AxsDeny at 11:11 am under General, Rants
4 Comments

You’ve all used those goofy “discount” cards that chain stores hand out. You know the ones I mean. They clutter your keychain until it looks like a chandelier of plastic rectangles. Apparently, somehow, I’ve missed all the advertisements that have indicated that when I shop at Giant Eagle I can get money off my gas purchases at Get-Go. Get-Go, for those of you who don’t know, is the gas station / convienence store that Giant Eagle branded after buying out the Crossroads Gas Station folks. Anyway, apparently when you buy $50 or more in groceries you get $0.10 off per gallon when you buy gas. If you buy $100 you get $0.20 and etc. You can only redeem this option once though, after that you start at zero. Having never used my points and hearing that all points would disappear at the end of January, I decided to go get a tank of gas… I scanned my cardand I pumped 8.5 gallons of regular. I looked at the pump and the final price read: $0.01

I had filled my tank for a penny. I’ve got the receipt to prove it. I suggest that those of you who didn’t know about this go take advantage of it while it is still around.

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Filed by AxsDeny at 5:50 pm under General
2 Comments