Politics > Match-O-Matic

Have fun with this. It lets you know how much selective listening you really do. Have you already made your selection? If so, is your selection really based on the 'promises' made by either party?

It'd be nice if they did more of these blind tests.

Match-O-Matic - Copyright © 2008 ABCNews Internet Ventures

The Debate - 2008

Okay, I didn't want to do this, but this is frustrating. I'm a democrat, but I have no issues voting Republican or even Independent, depending on who I consider appropriate for the position, or worst case, against who isn't appropriate. I was pro-Bush in his first term, but vehemently against him for his second term (glad I was, but very sorry enough other folks didn't agree).

Here are just some of my thoughts on my frustration with some of the views I'm hearing (although it still seems split). There are a lot of people that have already made their decision, and so are nit-picking things that in anyone else's lap would never be thought twice about. Guess you can consider these my nits.

• Didn't Bush have military experience? That got us far. I'm pretty sure a POW of 5 years will yield even better experience.


• What experience does Senator Palin have should she have to take the CIC position?


• Has no one considered, politics being a "Good Ole Boy" network, Palin wouldn't be pigeon-holed?


• If McCain disagrees with supporting Bush, how does Bush feel about that? (which it was shown as fact he has agreed 90% of the time.)


• Are you more concerned about the economy (D)? Or foreign affairs and corporations (R)?


• If Bush were running again, going down as one of the worst presidents in American history, would folks still be anti-Obama?


• Speaking of anti-Obama, what happend to being pro-McCain? I've heard commentators speaking about Obama's gray hair? Huh?


• Obama flipping. That's funny. McCain is a much bigger flipper than most politicians. (I heard that on a news talk radio show 6 months ago.)


• Obama didn't mention economic cuts? False. He mentioned cutting the billions we're spending on a false war in Iraq that McCain still thinks we can win. There are no winners in war. Doesn't he know that having his military experience?


• I cringe to think we can make it another 4 years under (current) Republican leadership.


• With as long as he's been in office, and as old as he is, can/will McCain really make "change" enough to get us out of our rut? Change typically isn't associated with life-long "experience".


• I'm so looking forward to the VP debate. Especially for the women voting just because there's a woman in the race. Can anyone really separate their ideals from reality? Although I'm sure there will be tidbits folks will highlight whatever they can grab.


• As with any minority, women included, this really shows you have to do twice as well as the non-minority participant in order to come up even in the best case.


• In a debate, will the opposing party always disagree with every single thing? Agreeing in this case was an attempt to show bipartisanship. Oh my!


• If McCain wins, and we get no better, or Lord forbid we get worse, will all the folks that backed him still back the next (R), as those that supported Bush in his second term are now supporting McCain? If so, how many years of doing badly will it take for folks to vote for reality (or worst case, a leap of faith in someone new) over their ideals?

Okay, I'm done. (For now anyways.)

Second Life; World of Warcraft

I can't find it, but I watched part of a news segment last night on CNN that discussed the psychological impact (both negatively and positively) of virtual worlds on people. First discussing Doom, they moved into more current games such as Vice City, and then branched into a 10-15 minute spiel on how Second Life is wonderful for marketing and making money. How one lady went from $35,000/year in real life to $85/year online designing her own clothing line, and a guy was doing six figures/year in online consulting for advertising and marketing agencies. Then they moved into a 2-minute blurb on World of Warcraft and how this couple had met in WoW, and then got married. They then moved back to discuss the financial benefits of Second Life.

My wife asked, "So you meet people in that game you play?" (I've been playing WoW since January.) I hope she well understood when I mentioned how hilariously flipped the news segment was. Having played both, I found Second Life to be the social network where folks "venture out", all the while constantly being asked about your first life. World of Warcraft was a pleasant change from what was becoming a fairly seductive environment where every girl is a knockout and every guy is the basis for masculine pleasantries. No one asked about real life except perhaps the occasional "What part of the world are you in?" and perhaps a "How old are you?" (Keeping language in perspective should you be grouped with a 10-year old.) But near all of the game is about discussing your in-world characters and I haven't found there to be as much "socialism" as there was in Second Life. Well, then again, I did hear a story about a guy that was stabbed in the leg (in real life) during game play. People do vent and share some RL things, but again, nothing like what I saw in Second Life.

I wish I could find the article that portrayed these two online virtual worlds in the way it was. Granted, WoW isn't going to make you too much money in RL (not that it can't), but the world of Second Life isn't "as much" about marketing and making money as it has become about socializing and "venturing out". There's a reason every girl is a knockout and every guy is the basis for masculine pleasantries. And there's a reason World of Warcraft is one of the top online virtual games to date, and it doesn't have very much to do with finding your soul mate.

iGoogle Themes

Do you Google? You need to be signed in to Google be able to see this...

http://www.google.com/ig?skin=http://kdcinfo.com/ig.xml

This is just something I threw together to test the iGoogle Themes development arena. Fairly simple really. Still considering whether it's worth it to go further on the layout: What is where and color scheme. I just did this up pretty quick to test the waters. I also didn’t go through all the attributes that can be set.

Short of getting a theme added to the iGoogle Theme Directory, which can take a little doing, there is an "iGoogle Theme Manager" gadget you can add to your page to add this or similar themes [semi]-permanently. When you add the gadget to an iGoogle page, allow it access*, and add the URL above to the list. I also did up a work-related test theme, but I'm not sure I can post that here publicly.

* Allowing the iGoogle Theme Manager gadget access: Aside from the general iGoogle cookies that are shared, I couldn’t find any security issues or risks. It does seem however that iGoogle developers have given it their blessing.

Note 1: The centered image in the footer appears to be "off" in IE. However, it looks good in FireFox. (At the time of this posting anyway.)

Note 2: I tried to see if Yahoo! had something similar I could toy with, but was unsuccessful in my search.

Multi-Page Notebook App

The only open source equivalent I found for this program was discontinued back in 2004. Although the obsolete version of the app still runs on XP, I’m not sure about scalability for when we downgrade to Vista. Also, don’t believe either of these apps runs outside of Windows at all (short of wine, sorry *nix buffs, but then you probably have one built in  ).

What it is:

• RightNote is a multi-page notebook that allows you to store and organize an unlimited number of notes in one file.


• Each page contains a hierarchical tree which can contain virtually an unlimited number of notes.


• Each page can be devoted to a different category, and typically you'll find you don't need more than one or two files to organize most things in your life!

Small-fee Commercial Notebook App: RightNote
http://www.bauerapps.com/RightNote.html

Discontinued Open Source Notebook App: KeyNote
http://sourceforge.net/projects/keynote/

I’ll be shelling out the $20 for this (or $30 if I don't make it in time for the special deal). I already shelled out $30 for an Explorer replacement (xplorer2: http://zabkat.com/ ) and I’ve been more than happy with that.

Gary Gygax, 'Father of D&D,' Dies at 69

"He was like the cool uncle that every gamer had. He shaped an entire generation of gamers." - Mike Mearls, Lead developer of the upcoming 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 2.4.0
In Memoriam: Gary Gygax

* Blizzard Entertainment would like to dedicate this patch in memory of Gary Gygax. His work on D&D was an inspiration to us in many ways and helped spark our passion for creating games of our own.

Blizzard's latest patch (2.4.0) opened a new area (Sunwell Isle), as well as a new tournament area (Global Arena Tournament) for level 70s.

World of Warcraft

The game is afoot! Care to join? Just let me know. I can provide you with a 10-day free pass to the greatest multi-player online game of this century to date. Okay, that's subjective, but you'll agree as soon as you create your character and learn the ways of their culture.

I have a family of characters, for which each one provides their own level of exciting adventure paths and abilities. You can click on their name to see more detailed stats about them.

You can also follow their progress in my newly created "Dragnist Family blog.

Dragnist Family - Antemortem
Doujhe	[doo-hey]	Alliance	Human	Paladin
Engineering / Mining		family favorite
Da'ajhn	[d'-on]	Alliance	Night Elf	Druid
Alchemy / Herbalism		youngest brother
Dehstni	[dest-knee]	Alliance	Draenai	Warrior
n/a		the only lady
Dejhde	[d'-shde]	Horde	Undead	Warlock
Alchemy / Herbalism		eldest brother; always up to no good
Duujhn	[doon]	Horde	Blood Elf	Hunter
n/a		Dejhde's follower

Cannot empty the clipboard.

Cannot empty the clipboard.

Well, I finally found a solid solution for this error (so far as I know for now). I tested this near 50 times and about 5 different ways.

I've read LOTS of message posts on this, and not one has suggested this. Although one came close by suggesting to leave a copy of MS Word open (if the problem is happening in Excel). Unfortunately, this problem has been known to happen in Word also.

My solution? Ready for it? Here it is...

Open the clipboard, and leave it open (but minimized).

How to open the clipboard? There should be a file in your system32 folder named "clipbrd.exe". Double-click it. Or, you might be able to "Run" (Win-R, or Start->Run) the "clipbrd.exe" command (minus the quotes).

Please note that this solution is primarily for anyone with this issue that isn't running the Get Right Monitor, or you're not running remote desktop (rdclip) and/or terminal services.

DirecTV vs Dish Network

In a follow-up to my AT&T DirecTV Home Entertainment blog post:

Although I would still love to have access to FIOS, we were recently forced to switch from AT&T HE over to Dish Network via Ygnition. Although skeptical of a company I've heard nothing about (which is why we didn't go with them when we first moved in), we had no choice. Living in an apartment has a lot of upsides (for us anyway), but this is one of the downsides.

However, surprisingly, I like them. The pricing is still ridiculous if you get a SetTop per TV (which we had to do with AT&T HE). With AT&T HE we had no choice but to get a SetTop per TV because you couldn't get local channels without it (at least not anything worthwhile, and we speak very little Spanish). But with Dish Network, we get every single channel we could want without a SetTop box. So, we only got one for the living room. Pricing is still high with only one box, but it's better than AT&T HE with 4.

Although changing channels is normal without the SetTop box, changing channels with one is a bit slow. But it's bearable with the speedier menu.

And what's best (aside from local channel availability), the menu system is what I was hoping for with DirecTV. It even looks like it was created in the 21st century! The box does too :)

All in all, I'm glad we were forced to switch, but we'll most likely still be considering moving in the next 6 months or so. I'm hoping we won't be restricted to a particular school district this time. But no matter where, if FIOS isn't available, we'll certainly be hoping Dish Network/Ygnition is.

Tribute to Reba on CMT

Tribute to Reba on CMT - 09/16/2007
Such class. Such beauty. So much emotion! So inspirational!!!

Lorreta! Dolly!
Such class. Such beauty. So much emotion! So inspirational!!!

I love everything from folk to hip-hop, and am mostly an 80's person, yet country always grabs my heart and soul.

I see these artists, I see talent, professionalism, and such beauty...