Category: Random Ramblings

Anything that catches my fancy as a topic I want to cover. Truly random crap.

The Top 100 Women of History

Young Margaret Sanger

I heard one of the local radio station’s morning crew talking this morning about the women who changed the world and decided it might be interesting to see what some thinkers online came up with for their top 10 or top 100. The first list I found was this ThoughtCo. list of the top 100 women of History. My knowledge of historical women is pretty sparse, but I was happy to find I could at least recognize most of the women on this list, even if what I know about each of them is quite limited. I’ll be reading up more on the particular details of these women to expand my knowledge.

What’s most interesting about this list to me is that it isn’t something based on some small group of “experts” deciding who makes the cut – this is a list of women ranked by searches online. So while number one on the list may get disagreement from all corners (I’m sure of it, in fact), there is a reasonable basis for how she got there. 

Continue reading “The Top 100 Women of History”

Blender 2.79b

When last I was active blahgging, I mentioned an update to Blender had been released recently. Since that time, a lot has happened in the world of 3D modeling. I have tried to learn how to use Blender, buying and viewing video tutorial courses, books, and spending time reading the documentation. I still can’t create squat in Blender, but there are some amazing projects getting created with this tool. So I decided to share news of the latest version, 2.79b, just in case someone reading here has a knack for 3D modeling but isn’t already familiar with Blender. Check it out and see what you can build. I’d love to hear from someone who uses Blender to make something cool. Maybe even come share it in the Facebook Blender group.

Finding My Voice Again

I started the Blahg as a way to share things that I found interesting. For a while, I was really, really, active in maintaining it, spending less time with family or my job than I should have. I took time to setup posts days in advance so the site continued to receive new content when I was away – keeping daily activity going was important to me. It seems that for a while what interested me also interested others. At my most active, I was seeing hundreds of page hits per day. But not all was right for me to keep the site going.

Continue reading “Finding My Voice Again”

Understandable standards for system and components

I love this Tech Report article on setting standards for computer systems and components, but don’t have any idea how we could make this reality.

Discrete or integrated, nobody knows what graphics solution to choose anymore. No, I’m not talking about people like you and me who actually read hardware reviews. I’m talking about the vast majority of the market, composed of regular, non-technical people who simply want to buy or upgrade a computer. That apparently simple task has become an ordeal. I mean, you know there’s a problem when even my most computer-literate friends come to me for clarification—and I often can’t help without looking at Scott’s graphs.

I confess this is even true for me, and I try to keep myself moderately well informed of what is going on in the world of graphics cards. I’m still running an nVidia 670 card in my desktop, and would love to upgrade (don’t need to, but I want to), but I don’t have the time right now to properly evaluate the current generation and make sure I get something that’s a legitimate upgrade while still maintaining a reasonable spending budget.

Skyrim best mods?

I’ve started playing Skyrim again. The kids love it. I love it. It’s just a really well-crafted game. So now I’m looking over the newest Steam Workshop mods available for Skyrim. There have been loads of good community add-ons done since I stopped playing a few months. Anyone have recommendations of the best game enhancements? I love mods which add to the atmosphere of the game, simplify gameplay, or which make small but nice tweaks to the overall game experience. I’m not looking for anything to make my characters super powerful from the beginning.

As examples of what I like and use, I have the Stones of Barenziah Quest Markers mod. I use Unread Books Glow. I find something like Towns and Villages Enhanced to be nearly mandatory. And Realistic Ragdolls and Force just makes beating enemies a tad more realistic without increasing gore and so adds a nice bit to the play. I also have a few audio/music mods to increase ambiance, and some map mods to improve the quality and usefulness of the in-game map. So with these as my primary interest, can anyone suggest some more really handy mods for the game?

Blogging burnout, returning a Blahg

Three and a half years ago, I posted a picture of the awesome and beautiful Alyson Hannigan then quietly disappeared into nothingness. I was burnt out on blogging. More specifically, I was burnt out on the deafening silence from the audience. When I started my Blah, Blah, Blahg, I did so as a way to keep track of interesting things I found online. It was for me. Then, I started getting a visit or two from the outside. I wasn’t trying to write for others, but I also wasn’t trying to hide from others what I found interested. If I wanted to do that I could easily have used del.ico.us or any similar bookmark tracking service. Continue reading “Blogging burnout, returning a Blahg”

Conservatives respond to DHS report on “right wing extremists”

Very interesting video compilation of various conservative commentators on the report issued by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month regarding risks of right wing extremists:

What is particularly interesting is the last 10-15 seconds of the report.  This is the part almost no one seems to be reporting when expressing their false outrage over this report:

. . . this is an element of the story which has largely gone unreported.  There are two assessments.  One looks at right wing groups as you mentioned, and a second focuses on left wing groups.  Significantly, both were requested by the Bush administration, but not finished until President Bush left office.

But of course, that’s the kind of information entertainers like O’Reilly and Limbaugh wouldn’t want you to hear.

[tags]Right wing extremists, Conservative faux outrage, Faux News, More political lies[/tags]