computer fail/octuplet fail/economy fail

Earlier this week, I got an itch to overclock my NVidia 8500GT video card (with baby on the way there's little expendable cash for a new video card). To do so, I'd have to buy another case fan because when you overclock computer components, they produce much more heat. Most third party vid cards (or gpus) already have fans on them, but they aren't designed for overclocking. I went to my local Frys and purchased this:


Initially, I though it would be perfect because it would force air directly onto the gpu. Unfortunately, the fan pointed directly at the video card fan creating a cyclone of hot air - the exact opposite of what I wanted. In the process, I also noticed that my power supply was a little low for the 8500. Another trip to Fry's for a new power supply and a case fan. And that's where everything headed south.

Normally, I would build my own PCs from scratch, but last year I found a great deal on an HP a6110n that was cheaper than it would cost me to build a comparable system. The downside of pre-builts is that the cases are usually way too small. In the process of trying to disconnect the power supply from the hard drive, I broke some plastic off of the casing making it impossible to reconnect the cables.


Granted, it was completely my fault because I tried to perform this maneuver without pulling the hard drive out. I went to the Tech Stop here at Google and they didn't give me much hope. We tried to put the drive in an external enclosure and that didn't work either. I took it to Central Computers in Santa Clara and they told my I was hosed.

Luckily, there wasn't a whole lot of stuff on that drive as I primarily use that computer for gaming, so I just decided to buy a new drive. Central Computers (who might become my favorite computer store) had a Western Digital Terrabyte drive for 99 bucks!!! Sold!!! Now I get the joy of putting my machine back together and reinstalling everything. Fun!!!


There has been a lot in the news lately about Nadya Suleman, she's the gal who, after already having 6 kids, decided to have the remaining 8 embryos implanted. Where do I even start? Why would anyone (aside from Mormons, Evangelicals, the Amish) want that many children? Was she some sort of uber fan of The Waltons or Little House on the Prairie? Now, it's coming out that she doesn't currently work, thinks that a career in Social Work will pay her enough to raise her spawn, and that her mom currently raises her previous 6 while she goes to school. This is just plain INSANITY!!! Further, she's already on welfare and is probably expecting the publicity to raise enough money to help raise her kids. What in the hell were the doctors thinking? How ethical is it to implant embryos into someone who is financially incapable of raising children? This is what pisses me off about our welfare system. Granted, there are plenty of folks out there that absolutely need governmental assistance, but for every one of them there are three people totally abusing the system. And, as usual, John Q taxpayer gets stuck with the bill.


Speaking of John Q taxpayer footing the bill, Time Magazine put out The 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis. It's a pretty balanced piece, but it's pretty clear that the primary cause (as if we needed an explanation) was too much greed in the corporate sector. And the republicans still want more corporate tax cuts. If anything, we should RAISE corporate taxes. When will this country learn?

Pleasant Dreams.

god i LOVE the interwebs/slammin'

I have to make an announcement. I LOVE YOUTUBE. This feeling of gratification blossoms not from the fact that I work at Google (who owns YouTube), but it stems from the fact that it reflects the true voice of the people. I could spend hours upon hours watching European Durex commercials, a comic series involving a group of online "friends" and their addiction to WoW, music videos from hundreds of now defunct bands, SuperBowl commercials; the list goes on and on.

Saturday, after being rudely awakened by Aki, I decided to take a leisurely stroll around the YouTube neighborhood. I discovered a few new entries from slam poet Mike McGee. You see, Mike used to work for me at Kinko's back in the day and although I haven't gotten the chance to see him in MANY years, I still try to keep up with what he's doing. A couple of years back he won the National Slam Poetry championship. This feat is made even more significant considering Mike was born with Spina Bifida and shouldn't have lived to see beyond childhood. He has taken this "handicap" and turned himself into a powerhouse poet. Here is a sampling of his work:



While watching this video, I noticed in the "Related Videos" area a group piece by Buddy Wakefield featuring Mike and a young lady named Sarah Kay whom I'd never heard before.



Sarah's hauntingly beautiful voice intrigued me further so I decided to check out some of her vids. It was surprising that someone with such a calm and quiet disposition could put forth such passion. She's almost the anti-slam slam poet.



In a nutshell, I was exposed to two more incredible poets as result of checking in on an old friend. As much as technology can be used for evil purposes, so too can it be used for good.

Pleasant Dreams.

the kettle is black

It seems like everyone is chiming in on the various proposals surrounding the bailout and stimulus packages.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/05/fiorina.pay/index.html

Let me get this straight, Carly Fiorina, she who drove HP into the dirt and still walked away with $21 mil., dares to comment on the proposal limiting TARP CEO salaries to $500k. Who in the hell does she think she is???

"Our capitalist system works best when there is transparency and accountability." That goes without saying, but you and your Republibot friends like John McCain keep whining about how regulation hurts business. Without regulation, THERE IS NO TRANSPARENCY OR ACCOUNTABILITY!!! Do you honestly think that corporations can be expected to self-disclose executive wages voluntarily? Of course they can't. If that were the case, scumbags like Bernie Madoff wouldn't exist. And while we're on the subject, normally I'm staunchly anti-death penalty, but I would change my perspective if they could apply capital punishment to these white collared succubi. Besides that, given your and John McCain's past records, you have the economic know how of a shattered piggy bank.

"And it doesn't strengthen our economy when government decides how much each job is worth." Really? How about this? When you were at HP, you're annual base salary was $10mil./yr. If you were only getting paid $500,000/yr, that leaves $9.5 mil. At $40,000/yr, that $9.5 mil. could have saved over 200 jobs. That isn't a lot over the grand scheme of things, but when you consider how many executives there are in a company the size of HP, this type of action could have saved well over 1000 jobs.

Here's the bottom line - the free-market has created nothing but a cesspool of greed, overflowing with the muck created by lack of compassion for our fellow man. Granted, according to a report released today, the vast majority of CEOs in the companies propped up by TARP aid, don't make much more in base salaries than the $500k cap. However, their bonuses were in the several millions range. Answer me this Mrs. Fiorina, how does one get a bonus WHEN THEIR COMPANY IS GOING DOWN THE PROVERBIAL DRAIN?!?!?!?! Even the Trump thinks that salary caps are the right thing to do because as taxpayers supporting these companies, we have now become shareholders and have a stake in the company's success.

Further, I don't think that the salary caps should be limited to TARP companies. If Obama wanted to make real change, he'd apply this law to all executives. Let them make as much as they want (or the share holders are willing to give) in bonuses, but the bonuses can only be paid out under certain guidelines. The most obvious guideline would have to be that no bonuses get paid out unless the company is profitable. When I was a branch manager at Kinko's, I certainly didn't get bonuses unless my branch was profitable so why should this be any different?

There is a ridiculous disparity in this country between the haves and the have nots. If this isn't rectified (and soon), we're going to have a revolution on our hands (remember the Bolsheviks?). Unfortunately, whenever anyone talks like this, they are automatically labeled as a socialist or a communist. They falsely say that socialism encourages free-loading by those who don't WANT to work (as if these millionaire CEOs actually do any REAL work). All I'm saying is that this country needs to overgo a massive overhaul in many arenas if we expect to get out of this quicksand and it starts with the realization that trickle down economics was a failure on the grandest of scales.

Pleasant Dreams.

sorry for the lag

Seeing as I haven't posted since I returned from India (and have long since emerged victorious from the fascist claws of food poisoning), I guess it's time to do a few updates. Please note that I have decided to drop my normal "telegraph" style of paragraph structure and punctuation (or lack thereof) to increase readability.

On the personal front, Krissy is heading into her ninth month of baby baking so the little guy (yes, it's a boy) is almost ready to burst forth from her innards a la the first Alien movie. As such, we have been attending quite a few "baby prep" classes that constantly make me wonder how children were even brought into this world for the past couple thousand of years. Krissy has been doing a ton of reading (as English majors are often wont to do) and I've been picking up some choice tidbits via osmosis (though a lot of it is stuff I already knew from watching medical dramas on TV - thank you ER, St. Elsewhere, M*A*S*H, Trapper John MD, and General Hospital). The classes, however, have provided Krissy and I hours of entertainment at the expense of our fellow classmates. Here are a few choice quotes from the class:

"Will a Doctor be present in our room from the moment we arrive to the hospital?" - Sure, because Kaiser has hundreds of OB/GYNs just sitting around in delivery rooms.

"Do the forceps hurt the baby?" - Yeah, because having their entire bodies shoved through a 10cm opening is a joy ride.

"That's what a cloth diaper looks like?" - Apparently this gal didn't have younger siblings and had never babysat before.

And the Grand Prize Winner (in response to What is an Episiotomy?) Drum roll please...

"It's when the doctor makes an incision in the Cervix." - WHAT WHAT WHAT!!!

Krissy's shower was this past weekend so we came home with a ton of schwag for Aidan Miles (Aidan is Irish for "Little Fiery One" and Miles for my two favorite musicians: Miles Davis and Miles Hunt from The Wonder Stuff). We can't thank my family and especially my folks enough for being so generous. We were a little concerned that some might not be all that thrilled with the idea of a "Green" shower, but it sounds like everyone did what they could. I can't believe that March 10th is just around the corner.

On the political front, Barack Obama got elected!!! I can't even begin to describe how thrilled I am to have a president that doesn't cause me physical pain when he opens his mouth to speak. I can conclusively say the Bush was the DUMBEST president we have ever had. And DUMB mixed with unchecked power is a dangerous combination. Mr. Obama's first two weeks have been a bit rocky. He's made a couple of serious missteps in his recent staff selections (Geithner, Daschle, Killifer) and there are some things in the stimulus package I'm not too thrilled about - $88 mil. to "develop" a new Coast Guard cutter when they can just buy a brand new one from STX Europe for about $43.3 mil. I guess they want the Coast Guard to "build American." I think that if it doesn't relate DIRECTLY to job creation or helping people not have their homes foreclosed on, it shouldn't be in the bill. The Dems have the majority now, they can move on their pet projects later. The bill to lower executives' salaries is something I've been railing about for years now. Personally, I don't think it should be limited to TARP funded companies either.

I love how the Republibots lump all Obama supporters into the same "idiots that drank the Kool-Aid" batch. Obviously, they've never read the Pew Research poll that states that 43% of self-identified liberals have a Bachelor's degree or higher compared to 19% of self-identified conservatives. I'm not even a Democrat (though I'll probably be leaving the Green Party soon) and I fully support Obama. He's done more in his first 2 weeks than Bush did in his entire administration. For the first time in a long time, I look forward to the next four to eight years.

OK. I think that's enough for now. I'll try to be more consistent from now on (yeah, right).

Pleasant Dreams.