Saturday, June 30, 2007

Trouble transferring your old cell-phone # to your iPhone?

If you've moved: The key is to tell AT&T that you're going to use it in the original service area.

See the link for details. :^)

Friday, June 29, 2007

Microsoft's Vista encourages insane behavior

One definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over, expecting to get different results.
Yesterday I had the task of getting a co-worker's email to work on his laptop(It could send, but not receive.). It was a Compaq running Vista. I opened the "Mail" program and went to the Account Settings dialog and checked the settings. They looked fine. I took the computer to my cube and checked the settings versus the ones I use for Outlook 2003. They looked the same - minor differences in servers not withstanding.

I made some changes and got it to receive, but it wouldn't send. I changed it back and it went back. I made it like it should have been and it didn't work. I made other changes and it didn't work either incoming or outgoing. I changed it back and it would send, but not receive. Are you seeing a pattern? I'm not! :^)

So, anyway, after a while I changed it back (again) to the way it should have been and it worked. 5% battery left, too. Perhaps Vista chose to have pity and end the joke whilst I could appreciate it. :^/

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Friday, June 22, 2007

When do you think we started letting too many people vote?

(or Another reason not to like Richard Nixon)
H/T to American Minute with Bill Federer

June 22

In Medieval Europe no one voted except the kings.

In colonial America only landowners voted.

After the Revolution, States gradually let those without land vote, but many had religious and literacy tests.

In 1870, the 15th Amendment let former slaves vote.

In 1920, the 19th Amendment let women vote.

In 1924, American Indians could vote in Federal Elections.

In 1961, the 23rd Amendment let District of Columbia residents vote in Federal Elections.

In 1964, the 24th Amendment let vote those who could not pay a poll tax.

In 1965, the Voting Rights Act removed literacy tests.

On JUNE 22, 1970, President Nixon extended the Voting Rights Act to let 18-year-olds vote.

The Supreme Court, in Oregon v Mitchell, limited this right so the 26th Amendment was passed in 1971 to confirm it.

President Nixon stated March 24, 1970:
"In other areas, too, there were long struggles to eliminate discrimination...Property and even religious qualifications for voting persisted well into the 19th century-and not until 1920 were women finally guaranteed the right to vote."


On August 24, 1972, Nixon said:
"For the first time in the 195-year history of this country, men and women 18 to 21 years of age will have the chance to vote."

Thursday, June 21, 2007

No Kissing!

An Egyptian doctor's solution to the avian flue:
"Every Egyptian mother should be very determined in foiling attempts of others to kiss their children, even if they get angry responses"

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Courtesy of the NRA

(H/T to Rocky Mountain Gun Owners)

House Passes Bill Enhancing Background Checks for Gun Purchases
The House passed legislation today that intends to strengthen gun buyer background checks and is supported by both the National Rifle Association and gun control groups.

Passed by voice vote under suspension of the rules, the measure (HR 2640) would increase the amount of electronic data available to states for checking the criminal and mental health records of people who want to purchase guns.


According to Gun Owners of America:
"[NICS Expansion] could have a significant impact on American servicemen," wrote Gun Owners of America recently, "especially those returning from combat situations and who seek some type of psychiatric care.

Often, veterans who have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder have been deemed as mentally 'incompetent' and are prohibited from owning guns under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4). Records of those instances certainly exist, and, in 1999, the Department of Veterans Administration turned over 90,000 names of veterans to the FBI for inclusion into the NICS background check system."


Cool. More lists. More databases. Less freedom.

Do something. Just don't join the NRA.

(BTW, Blogger now works with Safari 3.0 beta! :^)

Monday, June 11, 2007

So, you don't own a Mac and don't have an iPod...

and don't listen to talk-radio or music streaming through iTunes...

Well, now you can browse with the ease of us Mac-users on your Windows box -- courtesy of Apple's release of its Safari web-browser for Windows!

It's free. It's easy. What more could you want? See what you've been missing!

(Okay, let's be reasonable now... ;^)

Friday, June 08, 2007

Ken Ham's in trouble?

A week after former Queensland science teacher Ken Ham opened the world's first Creation Museum - a $33 million facility in Petersburg, Kentucky - he is being sued by the Australian evangelical organisation he helped to set up and which served as a springboard for his leap into the US evangelical movement two decades ago.

It's a bit short on dirty detals whilst being long on allegations. :^/

(HT to arstechnica again.)

A romp through the Creation Museum...

with the non-Young Earthers of arstechnica.com.

Some odd points:
Presumably to avoid labels of anti-Semitism, the museum takes it easy on Judaism.

...it wasn't considered incest for Adam and Eve's children to marry each other. Apparently there was less sin back then, and therefore fewer mutations in their DNA. Evidently sin, not two copies of the same recessive trait, gives rise to congenital birth defects.

Includes a link to a Flickr.com photo documentary.

Kent Hovind's in jail for tax evasion? Always seemed a little bit slimey to me. :^/

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Another silly interpretation of Mohammed's writings:

Temporary marriages. (They may even be a proper interpretation of the "Prophet"'s writings.)

They can last from an hour to 99 years. To discourage prostitution and extra-marital sex.

Hmmm...

Not buying it.

Monday, June 04, 2007

I wasn't going to post this

It's a bit of a downer: "The world's oceans are our plastic dumping grounds."

But then I saw that they were advertising an article on the Bugatti Veyron that I like so well.

Up or down?

A statistical question...

If you understand the conclusion, please help me out. :^)