http://distributedrepublic.net/archives/2009/07/04/secession-week-finale

Secession Week ends today on the subject of American Independence.

Joey Chestnut brings it home once more.

"Daddy, I was wondering if we are gonna fly our house tomorrow?"

good day overall. i'll try and make a full post later, when i have some free time, but i know that there are some people following on lj so this is for them.

for reference: everyone started with 30k in chips.

Recalling her massive number of colleges to get her Bachelor's, commenter Jon H. on John Rogers' Kung Fu Monkey site wrote:

"She's going to transfer to the governor's office of a couple other states, and eventually rack up enough credits to complete the term."

Original: craschworks - comments

On last week's ride we had a ferry trip at the 1/2 way mark and I was talking with another guy about nutrition etc. He put me on to 2-3 things that I hadn't used before, being Carbo-Pro, Eload, and Cliff Blocks...

Well I went out and bought the products - and also Gu Chomps (even better than the blocks) and WoW, what an impact they had on my performance today. Good steady pace, heart rate decrease, and generally an overall much better feeling during and after the ride! Haven't even needed the post-race nap - Yet ;-)

As a side-note, if you haven't been to trifuel.com yet, Check It Out! I have been reading article after article for days now + blogs + etc. It is Great!

All the Best Everyone,

Clint

I'm still not convinced that Vista is a net win, but it just scored some points with me. It has XMouse functionality built-in. I can't remember the last time I set up a new computer and didn't immediately download TweakUI.

Reported on slashdot, "Cnet's Dennis O'Reilly caught 'Windows Search Helper' trying to change his default Firefox search from Google to Bing. This isn't the first time the software company has been caught quietly changing user's preferences to benefit its own products."

Previously: IE8 update forces IE as default browser

Affirmations intended to raise self-esteem may actually lower it.



This seems to me to be a tricky thing to measure though -- you're relying on the participants to report how they feel...

via badastronomy, a cool chart showing which of our TV signals have reached how far.

slashdot:

"Pwn2Own winner Charlie Miller has revealed an SMS vulnerability that could provide hackers with root access to the iPhone. Malicious code sent by SMS to run on the phone could include commands to monitor location using GPS, turn on the phone's microphone to eavesdrop on conversations, or make the phone join a DDoS attack or botnet, Miller said. Miller did not provide detailed description of the SMS vulnerability, citing an agreement with Apple, which is working to fix the vulnerability in advance of Black Hat, where Miller plans to discuss the attack in greater detail. 'SMS is a great vector to attack the iPhone,' Miller said, as SMS can send binary code that the iPhone processes without user interaction. Sequences can be sent to the phone as multiple messages that are automatically reassembled, thereby surpassing individual SMS message limits of 140 bytes."

(Emphasis mine)

... aphelion for 2009, the point in the earth's orbit when it is furthest from the sun. Yesterday's APOD nicely illustrates the difference in the apparent size of the sun at perihelion vs. aphelion.

Here are a few more pictures (and a couple of videos) from the last day or so. (Pictured above is a seagull above the wake of the ferry). I'm currently recharging the camera battery. Speaking of which, I got a tiny amount of salt spray on the outside shutter for the lens, and now the camera is a little lazy about opening the shutter. Hopefully a wipe-down is all it will take.

Last night we all went to a Dairy Queen in Edgartown (not many off-island chains are allowed), where the kids had soft-serve ice cream dipped into some kind of liquid waxy candy. I had an ice-cream equivalent to Banana Cream Pie, which was good, but too big.

There is a buzz on the Island about the Obama's coming for a couple weeks in August. They will stay somewhere on East Chop, where some of the bike-riding pictures were taken. Nice place.

The traffic from Woods Hole and the Cape on a beautiful blue-sky early afternoon was light. The traffic going the other way looked unpleasant.

Thanks for your suggestions on photo processing programs.  I ended up going with Adobe Lightroom 2.

After a friday-night binge with the software, in which I culled through, tagged, described, and refined about 800 photos in about 5 hours, I can say that it's totally addictive.  The "develop" feature is amazing.  I can take shitty pictures of interesting things I took under less than ideal conditions and refine the hell out of them until they're quite good.  If they're good to begin with, you can make them really sizzle. 

You have to be careful with focus though or you'll start to feel like an overworked superhero, surrounded by a massive crowd full of people whose lives need saving.  I'm trying to focus my retouching efforts on the photos that get me the most value for doing so.   Otherwise I'll never get through.

5 hours * 11000 photos / 800 photos = 68.75 hours, which sounds like an extremely long time to be in front of the computer.  Hopefully once I'm more proficient with the program, it will go significantly faster.

"Manualist plays Guns N Roses - Sweet Child of Mine"



Related videos: Super Mario Bros. theme, Bohemian Rhapsody, Final Countdown, Crazy Train, Stairway, ...

Oddly enough found via the comments thread of the previous entry.

More topical: Stars and Stripes Forever

In what cartoon, probably from the 80's, do the little kids/kid follow up their snore with "me-me-me-me-me" or "mi-mi-mi-mi-mi"???

I thought it was the grinch (from the 60's, but it played in the 80's), but when I look for video's of those Who's, I don't think they are snoring.

Was thinking the other day about the concept of “No Taxation Without Representation” Ya know the thing we fought and won a war over. On the premise that we pay taxes because we have elected representatives that we choose for ourselves… Why are children required to pay sales tax. Certainly they do not vote. The British told us that we did have representation in England. What we objected to was having no vote in their choosing. Children have no say at all in the choosing of their representatives either. Under these foundational principals of taxation and representation… why do children pay sales tax?

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

233 years later, there are still those who pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to this cause. They remind us that the right of revolution is a birthright of all peoples and a light to all the world.

Here's to them. Their story is not over, and neither is ours.

Alexander Grishchuk 111875

Is that THE Grischuk?

There is a picture of him in a recent New in Chess having won a roulette tournament in Monte Carlo or Nice or something, and I think I read something about him liking to play poker. Winning Linares and the WSOP in the same year would be something I would daresay would never be done again.


Day 1 Ryan-Roto Update:

Jim's team:
Sandra Naujoks 76725
Vitaly Lunkin 68300
Jason Mercier 41125
Gus Hansen 38075
Jon Turner 13350
Allen Cunningham 0

Ryan's team:
John Hennigan 76250
Scott Hall 76025
Sorel Mizzi 41375
Isaac Baron 37500


Maybe others out, but AC was the only one they listed specifically.