What about 2&3?

"Vehicles that are one year old or newer often have very little wear and are mechanically sound. However, vehicles that are four years and older generally need to have wear-and-tear problems fixed in order to remain operable."

Less than none...

"Drivers should note that friction between the tire and the road is not constant and may vary to a point where there is almost none at all. To further complicate this, sand, ice or water on the road will decrease friction greatly."

Nuggets cont.

"Sunlight can reflect off snow and ice on the ground and cause a glare that can be blinding. To improve your visibility, use low-beam headlights..."

So, wait, the sun is causing headaches when it reflects off of the snow... Lets add MORE light!

More Nuggets from "I Drive Safely"

"If you are driving downhill, you are driving with the force of gravity, and your vehicle's weight causes your speed to increase quickly. "

Halloween

So what are y'alls thoughts on Halloween? Good? Bad? SATANIC?

NBA Season Beginning

Tomorrow I am going to watch the Maverick's open their season against the Lakers at 10:30 E(S/D)T (which one is it now? I think EST...) on TNT. Mavericks have a lot of new faces, and the Lakers do to. Shaq and Kobe aren't getting along, and Antoine Walker shoots too many 3's. Should be an exciting show.

some thoughts

1. Got Jaguar... love it (especially Exposé) Exposé lets me shrink all the open windows so they fit on the screen at once, and select which one I want to come to the front... or move all the windows out of the way so I can work on the desktop... ( you just have to use it to really get what is so cool about it)

LaunchBar works better with Panther (and there was not even a post panther update (yet)) command-space and then the first couple of letters typed in, and I can launch any program, open any file (music, word-processing, anything), go to any bookmark in my web-brower(s it copies bookmarks from any browser I use.) Very nice program... I will never stop using it.

2. went on a camp-out this weekend, and took some pictures (my fotolog) but had some problems with my computer:

It was really cold all night. In the morning I took some pictures of the sunrise, then got out my laptop to download the pics. It was working fine, but just before telling Image Capture to start getting the pictures, my computer fell asleep. I couldn't get it to wake up, but I found out that the battery was almost dead (so it was sleeping so that it wouldn't lose all the stuff loaded in RAM.) I guess it was just the cold, because now it is ok. When I got the computer plugged in, the camera wouldn't connect through USB... But now I rebooted and it is working ok.

3. there is no 3! there is no 3!!!! he he

iTunes

I know I said i would wait, but I went ahead and tried to consolidate my iTunes library today, getting rid of all of the extra copies that showed up when I moved my entire library to an external disk and kept my favorites on my computer... (none of this would be a problem if I had an iPod I only have 22GB of music and stuff so the 40GB one should be nice, especially with the Mic for recording classes, friends, and Christian Fellowship meetings, and the media reader for downloading pictures from my camera (esp. since my first gen 12" PB only has USB 1.1).))))(that should be enough)

I accidently deleted all my downloaded music from the iTunes store... I think I backed some of it up... somewhere, but I know some of it wasn't, and I don't think that there is any way to get it back... which stinks, but it is my fault.

Also, I need a way to easily move songs over to my computer's HD (until I get an iPod) I guess I will just have to move stuff over from the External HD using the Finder.

For those of you who follow this sort of thing...

yes, I admit it, most of my posts are just reposts of topics from Metafilter, Boing Boing Blog and occasionally Kuro5in

But some stuff is mine... I think... maybe.

More on fsck or FCUK or **Expletive Deleted**

Note my earlier post...

Here's another article to read (language warning)*

*Of course I should put a language warning by Real Live Preacher... but I haven't had any complaints yet... this post in particular :-P

Plants In Motion

Plants In Motion

This is a very cool site filled with time lapse movies of plants doing their thing. Very Cool... oh... snap... already said that.

Bye Bye G3

Apple has released the G4 iBook, so the G3 processor is no longer available in a new computer.

Panther comes tomorrow!

...

Jesus said there were two commandments:

1. Love God.
2. Love your Neighbor.

Can loving your neighbor include:
1. Supporting them when they are going to sin?
2. Acts that offend?

Do people hear God? How do we know when God speaks?

Creeds

What is a creed? What if a creed is incorrect? How close to correct does a creed need to be to be effective? What is a creeds effect?

9 days to Panther

And in honor of the 9-day-to event here is a picture of a Panther (or is it a Jaguar?)

Tinderbox

Tinderbox looks cool... Tinderbox looks useful... My brother tells me Tinderbox is the Bomb...

Can anyone tell me how to use this thing?

Happy Anniversary Thomas and Kim

Yesterday was my brother and sister (-in-law) 's 3rd anniversary. So Happy Happy Anniversary, from all of me to you, Happy Happy Anniversary from all of me to you! Yeehaaa!

Wisconson Strip Club soon may allow Minors?

Link

Wow.

Defensive Driving

I am taking an online defensive driving course online. Check out this nugget of wisdom from the course:

A horn honk will only get you a dirty look or possibly a one-fingered peace sign.

Karma

Digital Prayer Wheels:

Tibetan Buddhists believe that saying the mantra (prayer) Om Mani Padme Hum, invites the blessings of Chenrezig, the embodiment of compassion. They also believe you can produce the same effect by spinning the written form of the mantra around in a prayer wheel (called "Mani wheels" by the Tibetans). The effect is said to be multiplied when more copies of the mantra are included, and spinning the Mani wheels faster increases the benefit as well.

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, has said that having the mantra on your computer works the same as a traditional Mani wheel.

Right now, your hard drive is serving as a Mani wheel, because there are several copies of the mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum" on this page, and they are all stored on your hard drive in the cache for your browser.

On her page titled "Click Here for Good Karma" Deb Platt suggests:

"To set your very own prayer wheel in motion, all you have to do is download this mantra to your computer's hard disk. Once downloaded, your hard disk drive will spin the mantra for you. Nowadays hard disk drives spin their disks somewhere between 3600 and 7200 revolutions per minute, with a typical rate of 5400 rpm. Given those rotation speeds, you'll soon be purifying loads of negative karma."

This is very interesting. From what I can tell, "Karma" sounds very just to many people, and I have seen it spring up all over the place. The idea of Karma seems to be: All the bad stuff you do is kept track of, and an equal amount of bad stuff will happen to you, and the same for the good stuff. This hard drive prayer wheel allows people to "purify loads of negative karma." So the bad stuff you have done can be erased by an ultra fast prayer wheel with lots of Om Mani Padme Hum s on it. Weird

The Globe and Mail

Impeach Bush Now

An article from a, what? Ontario newspaper? Weird.

Smithsonian Photo Contest

Smithsonian Photo Contest

I am thinking of entering...

The contest categories, drawn from those subjects we’re especially interested in (that are also capable of being photographed), are:



Americana-Events, objects or activities connecting the American people to their history or cultural heritage.



The Natural World-Animals, plants, landscapes, geological, natural or climatological features and scientific processes and endeavors.



People-Portraits, both studied and spontaneous, of individuals or groups from all walks of life.



The Arts-Depictions of art, sculpture, textiles, etc., and of people interacting with same or in performance.



Travel-Images that capture geography, peoples, activities and cultures in the United States and around the world.

F**K

Guess what word is now ok to say on prime time television

Pornography

Generates approximately $1 billion annually with growth projections to $5-7 billion over the next 5 years, barring unforeseen change (NRC Report 2002)

74% of adult commercial sites display free teaser porn images on homepage (Child-proofing on the World Wide Web: A survey of adult web servers 2001, (NRC Report 2002)

345% increase in child pornography sites between 2/2001-7/2001 (N2H2, 8/01)

25 million Americans visit cybersex sites between 1-10 hours per week (MSNBC Survey 2000)

The U.S. Customs Service estimates that there are more than 100,000 websites offering child pornography - which is illegal, worldwide (Red Herring Magazine, 1/18/02)

9 in 10 kids 8-16 yrs. have viewed porn online, mostly accidentally while doing homework (UK News Telegraph, NOP Research Group, 1/07/02)

Study of 4 million children aged 7-17 who surf the net, 29% would freely give out their home address and 14% would freely give out their email address if asked (NOP Research Group, 2002)

Adult industry says some traffic is 20-30% children (NRC Report, 2002)

26 popular children's characters, such as Pokemon, My Little Pony and Action Man, revealed thousands of links to porn sites. 30% were hard-core. (Envisional 2000)

89% of sexual solicitations of youth were made in either chat rooms or Instant Messages (Pew Study reported in JAMA, 2001)

1 in 5 youths received sexual solicitation or approach in last year (NCMEC, 2000)

According to the Justice Department, in 1998 there were 28,000 X-rated websites, generating $925 million in revenue. Now, only three years later, there are 280,000 X-rated websites, generating over $10-20 billion in revenue (The Wall Street Journal 26 Nov. 2001).

30% of all unsolicited emails contain pornographic information (Choose Your Mail.com study, October, 1999).

53% of teens have encountered offensive web sites that include pornography, hate or violence. Of these, 91% unintentionally found the offensive sites while searching the Web (Yankelovich Partner survey, The Safe America Foundation; Sept. 30, 1999).

62% of parents of teenagers are unaware that their children have accessed objectionable websites (Yankelovich Partners study, Sept. 30, 1999).

60% of all web-site visits are sexual in nature (MSNBC/Stanford/Duquesne study, Washington Times Jan. 26, 2000).

According to Christianity Today the percentage of pastors who visited a porn site. 57% Never, 21% A few times a year, 9% Once in past year, 7% More than a year ago, and 6% Couple times a month or more.

At least 200,000 Internet users are hooked on porn sites, X-rated chat rooms or other sexual materials online (MSNBC/Stanford/Duquesne Study, Associated Press [Online], Feb. 29, 2000).

51% of pastors admit that looking at internet pornography is their biggest temptation. (Christianity Today, December 2002)

According to a U.S. News and World Report article, the porn industry recently took in more than $8 billion in one year. More than all revenues generated by rock and country music, more than America spent on Broadway productions, theater, ballet, jazz and classical music combined.

The primary pornography consumer group is boys between ages 12-17.

The church, for the most part, is unaware and uncomfortable dealing with pornography issues.

Estimates for the number of X-rated sites on the net range from 20,000 to 7 million (CNET.com, April 28, 1999).

Forrester Research found that porn web-sites earned $1 billionin 1998 and will earn $1.5 billion in 1999.

Every day, up to 30 million people log on to pornographic web-sites (CNET.com, April 28, 1999).

Pornographers 'disguise' their sites with common brand names and misspellings designed to "entrap" people. Examples: ESPN, Disney, and White House (Surveillance study, March 1999).

51% of pastors say Internet pornography is a possible temptation. 37% say it is a current struggle and 4 out of 10 pastors have visited a porn web-site (Christianity Today, Dec 2001).

A recent study (March 2000) shows 1 in 5 adults or 20% (which is nearly 40 million people), have visited a sexually oriented web site.

The research company Relevant Knowledge found that in 1998, 9.6 million users (about 15 percent Web users) logged on to the 10 most popular cybersex sites during the month of April alone.

Americans spend an estimated $8-10 billion annually on pornography. This exceeds the combined gross of ABC, CBS, and NBC, which is $6.2 billion.

Two hundred million copies of Hustler, Penthouse and Playboy are distributed in U.S. homes every year.

The combined circulation of Playboy and Penthouse exceeds that of Time and Newsweek.

The average age at which men first see Playboy or a similar magazine is 11.

A porn film can be made for $20,000 -$125,000 and can make up to $2 million in profit from retail sales.

Laboratory studies have showed that viewing violent pornographic films can increase aggression against women.

A 1985 study of 256 non-incarcerated perpetrators of sexual offenses who were undergoing treatment showed that 56% of rapists and 42% of women said someone they knew that was into pornography had sexually abused them.

A 1986 Women's Day survey of 6,000 readers found that 21% of women that were sexually abused knew the person who abused them was heavily into pornography.

It is believed that 70% of women involved in pornography are survivors of incest or child sexual abuse.

Nearly 900 theaters show X-rated films and more than 15,000 adult bookstores and video stores offer pornographic material, outnumbering McDonald's restaurants in the U.S. by a margin of at least 3 to 1.

Each year, nearly 100 full-length pornographic films provide estimated annual box office sales of $50 million.

(all stolen from http://www.xxxchurch.com/ the #1 Christian Porn Site.)