My new Vox Amp

I have a new toy.
I have been teaching myself to play the guitar. I mean really play it, not just hit the rock power chords of “Freebird” like I did way back when.
The toy? A Vox amPlug Headphone Guitar Amplifier – Classic Rock version.

It is tiny, about the size of a standard [...]

Review: Installing Linux on a Dead Badger by Lucy A. Snyder

Installing Linux on a Dead Badger (and Other Oddities) by Lucy A. Snyder
Lucy A. Snyder provides us with zombie tech and horror humor stories in this hilarious collection.
Well, to be fair, it may only be hilarious to that part of the population that consists of zombie movie watching computer geeks. Snyder’s subtle humor and [...]

Procrastination Cessation …

Hello. I am a procrastinator. I sometimes can keep my head down and get things done, but over the last year I have really let a lot of things slip. I am going to rectify that.
I stumbled across an interesting meme here on the internet. It is called “101 Things to [...]

The Phone is Dead

Here at Swamp Acres we are starting our third day (24 hour period) without our land line phone. If anyone needs to contact me, try Doris’ cell. If you don’t have her cell number, send me email. If you don’t have my email, post a comment to this entry. Our phone [...]

Why VPN Doesn’t Work on all Broadband

[22 MAR 09 UPDATE: This post fostered an idea for a story I wrote. You can read "VPN Doesn't Work" at Every Day Fiction.]
I have mentioned here that I must use VPN (Virtual Privacy Networking) to connect into my work computer network.  VPN is a secure way to connect a personal computer anywhere out [...]

Cruising for Hot Spots

The internet broadband connection went away again. For nearly two full days we battled connecting to the internet. They both needed to check things online, so last night Doris and Chris grabbed their wireless capable laptops and off we went into the great sprawling metropolis of Waverly in search of wireless hot spots. [...]

Diesel from Plastic

If this is real, and it appears it is, then this is the most cool news to come out of recycling in a very long time.  I AM STOKED!!!  A month ago the magazine New Scientist reported about a company that has developed a process to take hydrocarbon based garbage like plastics and rubber and [...]

Atkinson on Asimov Nonfiction

When you mention Isaac Asimov to most people either they have no idea who you are talking about, or they identify him as a science fiction writer. What a lot of people don’t realize is that Asimov wrote mostly nonfiction. History has not caught up with him yet, but I would think that [...]

Planned Obsolescence

So… the passenger window on my car decided it wasn’t going to work anymore. Fixing it has been on my to do list for over a month. Yesterday morning I finally got around to attacking the problem. One of the things I learned as a kid is how to be mechanical. [...]

Does anyone have a lever?

(another rant about work)
I have a place to stand, but apparently I am am not allowed to have a lever. We have a deadline. The deadline is god.
The project team I am on has been working without the proper tools for several years now. Oh, they keep fancy and powerful PCs on [...]