Month: January 2008

Fun Photography and Design

I’ve got a soft spot for good, entertaining, and interesting photography and design, and am frequently browsing through popular Flickr photos via popurls. However, I’ve come across some other photography and design related links lately that I’m sure will be of interest to some of the local photogs and creative types that I know read this site:

January 24, 2008

Video Link Dump

Several random videos for everybody that have just been sitting here, waiting to be shared (videos after the jump).

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January 24, 2008

Whose Fault Is This?

Since BendCableBroadband is charging the same for their digital cable service as they are for their analog service, we decided to take the plunge and upgrade. They came by yesterday and set it all up. The problem? None of the channels numbers are the same, which I knew going in. The bigger problem? The various TV listings web sites all seem to be using the old Bend Cable channel lineup for their listings. xThe only one I could find that used the right assignments was Zap2It, which isn’t nearly as intuitive of a site to use as all the other sites (and Couchville’s shutting down, anyway, which is sad). The channels are all listed, but the numbers are all wrong, and I’m too dang lazy to cross reference stuff every time.

So is BendBroadband supposed to supply this channel lineup info to these companies or is this some sort of automatic datafeed that they just are ignoring? I don’t know how any of this works, but I’d much rather use Yahoo!’s TV listings or TVTitan to look for shows as the on-screen guide is slow and shows a ton of channels we just don’t get (and with most listing services we can hide channels that we don’t even care to ever watch).

January 23, 2008

One Seriously Misinformed Dude

I have no idea if this guy is trolling or trying to get a laugh or not, but in a reply to an article about why Linux will not displace Windows in education IT, this was the guy’s comment (copying it here, in case it disappears):

Are you saying that this linux can run on a computer without windows underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ?

That sounds preposterous to me.

If it were true (and I doubt it), then companies would be selling computers without a windows. This clearly is not happening, so there must be some error in your calculations. I hope you realise that windows is more than just Office ? Its a whole system that runs the computer from start to finish, and that is a very difficult thing to acheive. A lot of people dont realise this.

Microsoft just spent $9 billion and many years to create Vista, so it does not sound reasonable that some new alternative could just snap into existence overnight like that. It would take billions of dollars and a massive effort to achieve. IBM tried, and spent a huge amount of money developing OS/2 but could never keep up with Windows. Apple tried to create their own system for years, but finally gave up recently and moved to Intel and Microsoft.

Its just not possible that a freeware like the Linux could be extended to the point where it runs the entire computer fron start to finish, without using some of the more critical parts of windows. Not possible.

I think you need to re-examine your assumptions.

Hilarious! I wouldn’t be surprised if there were morons out there like this (especially in the educational sector). Thanks Ben for that.

January 23, 2008

EVERYBODY PANIC!!11!!eleven!!!!

This site has your PIN number listed. Check it out, as I can promise you that yours is there. Time to panic.

January 23, 2008

I Need A Better Furnace

In case you haven’t heard from every other local blogger, it’s frickin’ cold outside, dipping down below 0°F last night and will easily do it again tonight.

Here’s the problem with the cold in the Ortman household: We use our woodstove for heat during the winter, because it just provides much better heat for our house. Our electric furnace only pumps lukewarm air into one room of the house (there are no vents in any other rooms), so it’s fairly pointless to even bother to turn it on. So we use our wood stove to heat the house.

The problem is that with wood heat that you have to have wood, and you have to chop said wood. This isn’t usually an issue when the temperature’s in the 35-50° range as I can easily keep the house warm with not a ton of wood. I can usually chop a bunch of wood and have it last a few days. However, when it doesn’t get above 10° for a couple days, I can’t keep up with the amount of wood needed as we have to constantly have the fire burning hot, and I have to get up in the middle of the night to put wood on it. Chopping wood in 5° weather isn’t any fun, either.

I’m thinking it’s time to start saving for a new furnace and duct work, as I quit chopping wood a couple hours ago and I’m just now able to feel my hands again (and yes, I was wearing gloves and about 15 layers of clothing).

January 22, 2008

Damn You, Fox

As I mentioned before, we were given the gift of Netflix. One of the things we wanted to do was catch some of the old TV shows that we never saw all the way through from the beginning. We only saw one episode of Wonderfalls back when it was on Fox and unjustly cancelled (like pretty much every good Fox television show — Arrested Development, anyone?), so we decided to get the complete series from there (three disks). The show is absolutely hilarious and is one of the best shows I’ve seen (we just finished watching the last disc). I honestly feel sorry for shows that go to Fox Network, as it basically where good shows go to die.

Now we need to get through Firefly and Dead Like Me at some point. Both of those shows were cancelled to early as well — the former another Fox disaster, the latter on Showtime (we got hooked on Dead Like Me when we saw it now and again on Sci Fi Channel). Firefly I’ve never actually seen, but people who know my taste in TV tell me I’d love it.

So tell me, what are your favorite shows that didn’t make it?

January 21, 2008

Money Well Spent

A man who was sexually abused as a child grew up, found, and beat the living hell out of the man who abused him, and was only fined $280 for the privilege.

January 20, 2008

If You’re Looking To Steal Copper…

…cutting into fiber optic phone lines probably isn’t going to help you.

January 20, 2008

Finally, Some Useful Facebook Apps

Despite the fact that I have LinkedIn, MySpace, and Facebook profiles, I don’t ever do much with them and I certainly don’t play the games or install apps in Facebook. I’m constantly getting apps requests from folks who obviously have more time than me, and they’re usually just pointless timekillers. However, if some of these apps became a reality, I’d install every one of them.

January 17, 2008