Category: Random Ramblings

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

National ice cream day

I almost missed this one. Today is national ice cream day.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the month as National Ice Cream Day. He recognized ice cream as a fun and nutritious food that is enjoyed by a full 90% of the nation’s population. In the proclamation, President Reagan called for all people of the United States to observe these events with “appropriate ceremonies and activities.”

And my wife tells me Reagan didn’t do anything good as President (for the record, I already disagreed with her before finding out about national ice cream day). (via Consumerist)

[tags]National ice cream day, Ice cream[/tags]

But she’s “not a violent person”

This really isn’t the kind of thing you read about every day. At least, I hope it’s not the kind of thing you read about every day. It certainly isn’t something I’ve heard about too many times before.

A woman who ripped off her ex-boyfriend’s testicle with her bare hands has been sent to prison.

Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage when Geoffrey Jones, 37, rejected her advances at the end of a house party, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

She pulled off his left testicle and tried to swallow it, before spitting it out. A friend handed it back to Mr Jones saying: “That’s yours.”

. . .

In his statement, Mr Jones said she grabbed his genitals and “pulled hard”.

He added: “That caused my underpants to come off and I found I was completely naked and in excruciating pain.”

It does sound a little something like Ron Shock would talk about. But outside of that – yup, it’s a fairly rare story. By the way – if you ever have the chance to see Ron Shock, he is one of the funniest comedians I have ever seen. Go see one of his shows. Buy his videos after the show. You won’t regret it.
Also, that story headline here? It’s an actual quote from the lady who did the, ummm, ripping. And I must say, I know of no non-violent or loving way to rip a man’s testicle from his body.

[tags]Violent testicle removal, Unwilling partial castration, I’m not a violent person[/tags]

Why I should be playing World of Warcraft

As you may remember, I’m a bit of a gamer. My current addiction is City of Heroes. But another poster in the CoH forums linked to this little screenshot that shows why I should have been playing World of Warcraft instead.

mount_me.jpg

As much as I play my MMO, I probably would have had enough gold for that exchange had I been playing WoW all this time.

mount_entry-points.jpg

Not adverse? I can at least confirm my wife isn’t secretly playing WoW. Might have to give up CoH and start playing WoW so next time I can take advantage of a chick trading anal sex and was in to costumed nasties for in-game money.

[tags]WoW, World of Warcraft, Anal, Group, I’m playing the wrong MMO[/tags]

PS3 dropping hardware support for PS2 emulation

If you are one of the (comparatively) few considering a PlayStation 3 purchase any time soon, you might want to make the move before the new 80 gig models come out.  While normally such advice would seen bad, in this case you are looking at better backwards emulation by giving up that extra 20 gig.

“The current 60 GB model utilizes a hardware and solution for backwards compatibility, namely the Emotion Engine chip,” said SCEA’s Kimberly Otzman. “The new 80 GB PS3 will use a software solution for backwards compatibility, similar to that currently found in the PAL model.”

While for a lot of folks such a change won’t matter, anyone who does plan on running PS2 games on their PS3 will be much happier with a hardware based solution.  Don’t believe it?  Well, consider this quote from David Reeves (of Sony’s European entertainment division) regarding the US and Japanese PS3’s backwards emulation compared to the European PS3:

The backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as the U.S. and Japan models

So now the ball is in your court, console buyer.

[tags]PS3 reduced functionality coming, Sony drops hardware PS2 emulation, Sony, PlayStation 3, Emotion engine[/tags]

Don’t go chasing waterfalls?

They seem to have a problem in Boston. A small problem. Or, rather, almost 2 million small problems, which unfortunately all occur in the same place.

Almost three years after state managers vowed to close thousands of leaks in the Big Dig tunnels, nearly 2 million gallons of water flow each month through the Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Tunnel, an 18 percent increase over last year, a Globe analysis shows.

So it seems to be getting worse. Just something to keep in mind next time you consider driving under Boston. On the other hand, authorities report positive progress in reducing the number of leaks:

The turnpike spends almost $5 million a year for construction crews to plug leaks in the tunnel roof and walls by injecting a grout sealant into fissures in the concrete, Carlisle said. He said the number of leaks is down to about 800 in the O’Neill, compared with more than 3,500 acknowledged by turnpike managers in 2004.

Not sure I think a 75-80% reduction in number of leaks is so good if the volume leaked is increasing month by month. But hey – I’m in Memphis, not Boston. Good luck with that, folks.

[tags]Boston leakage, Holes down but quantities up, The big dig suffering big leakage[/tags]

Millenium Falcon stop-motion build

Someone with significant patience and LEGO building skills made the Millenium Falcon and created a stop-motion video of the process.

Pretty cool, but much more time consuming than I could tolerate. I’m amazed at the process and necessary patience to pull this off. (via TechEBlog)

[tags]Millenium Falcon, LEGOs, Stop-motion video, Stop motion, Star Wars[/tags]

More open source software

Since I’m made periodic posts lately about the stuff I’m working on in the Open Source world (as a consumer of applications, not a producer – my code-fu is too weak), I think it’s safe to add this list of 30 essential free and open source applications to the blahg. A number of the tools on this site I am already using or currently learning. However, there were a few new-to-me tools on the list that I’ll be working on getting a handle on in the near future.

11. VLC Media Player
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Replaces Windows Media Player, Quicktime, RealPlayer, etc.
If you get tired of having tons of media players on your computer, get this package that runs pretty much every media type you’ll run across without breaking a sweat.

This is my personal media player now, as well. It’s not been too long ago that I thought VLC was weak in the interface, but that has been improved dramatically since then. Overall, it’s tremendously useful. Like many tools on that page, VLC also comes in a portable version which you can run from a USB key or any directory on your system without installing the application. So you remove it by just deleting the directory.

18. Handbrake
http://handbrake.m0k.org/
Unique but essential
Handbrake enables you to stick a DVD in your DVD drive and have the contents of that film stored to your hard drive in a form that can be read by pretty much any media player. I often use it to put a few movies on my laptop for travel purposes, so I don’t have to worry about keeping track of DVDs while on the road.

I’m not currently a Handbrake user, but I may use it this week to rip some DVDs to my laptop for the kids to watch on the road this week-end when we travel to grandma’s house. I’m familiar with the tool, but have never needed it before.

So there are 2 as a sample. Now head over and view the full list to see what legally free and redistributable software you should be using. And if the full list isn’t enough information for you, spend time in the comments area – there are more recommendations there that are worth checking out. IF you want to try any of these tools and are looking for a portable version, let me know in the comments and I’ll try to track that down if you can’t find it yourself.

[tags]Open source, Essential open source software, Essential Windows freeware[/tags]

Excessive tanner dies from skin cancer

Oh my {$diety} this is scary, although not necessarily surprising. A woman who started using a tanning bed twice a day at age 14 developed cancer after 7 years of abusing her skin this way. Recently, she passed away from skin cancer at age 29.

Zita Farrelly began using a sunbed at the age of 14 and saved up to buy one when she landed her first job.

For seven years she had tanning sessions twice a day. When her worried mother stopped her using the sunbed more than twice a week she borrowed a friend’s.

I’m guessing her friend might look at this and think something like “I helped cause that.” At least, I know I would.

[tags]Skin cancer, Excessive tanning bed use[/tags]

Beware the fake battery

I know the appeal of buying off-brand batteries for your cell phone or laptop. However, there is often a reason the off-brands are less expensive, and sadly sometimes the generics can be very unstable and cause real serious problems when they fail.

A man has died in China after his mobile phone battery exploded in his chest pocket.

Welder Xiao Jinpeng was working at the Yingpan Iron Ore Dressing Plant in the western province of Gansu.

. . .

He died at a nearby hospital after emergency treatment failed.

Motorola said it was “highly unlikely” that one of the company’s products was to blame – and suggested the dead man might have been using a fake phone or battery.

So the new rule for buying generics is that while you might be OK buying generic/refilled ink-jet cartridges, you probably don’t want to buy off-brand batteries. Admittedly, even the name brand batteries have problems at times, but I believe they still have much lower failure rates. While we don’t know that this man was using a generic battery, I’m willing to go out on a limb and guess it wasn’t a genuine Motorola.

[tags]Exploding cell battery kills man, Dangerous battery, Generic batteries[/tags]