This 65-Inch Sony OLED TV Is $500 Off
1 hour ago
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
New blog post : New Apple Friend Bar Gives Customers Someone To Talk At About Mac Products http://bit.ly/bPuCIP
New blog post : Girl Raised From Birth By Wolf Blitzer Taken Into Protective Custody http://bit.ly/cZq5ab
New blog post : The Ultimate Grilled Corn On The Cob - Now, all I need is a grill! http://bit.ly/a3tV9x
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
New blog post : Who played whom: the faces behind the monsters, droids, and others we love and hate http://bit.ly/9oOZXw
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
New blog post : Everything you know about awkwardly attaching SLR lenses to iPhones is wrong http://bit.ly/aa43bE
New blog post : Microsoft Kinect to travel around America’s malls and state fairs through October http://bit.ly/94Vv7v
New blog post : How to Hack Your Nintendo DS for Easy Backups and Single-Cartridge Playback http://bit.ly/aZgG8x
Friday, July 16, 2010
New blog post : No more vacation: How technology is destroying our lives (This one's for you, Ricky!) http://bit.ly/9X7umG
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
New blog post : Federal Judge In Boston Rules Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional http://bit.ly/aGbtdQ
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
New blog post : Iran's suntan crackdown - Just when you thought INSANTIY could go no further http://bit.ly/bGq7WY
New blog post : Naval Cryptologist with Top Secret Clearance Shopped Around Secret iPhone (PC World) http://bit.ly/b30lg0
New blog post : Just Cause 2 Black Market Aerial Pack Released, Plus a New Video http://bit.ly/b5B36Y
New blog post : Rock Band Announces No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom Album and More DLC http://bit.ly/aw6fBu
New blog post : The end of the college semester: joy for some, terror for others http://bit.ly/c3bXs8
New blog post : Is a Verizon iPhone in our future? Perhaps sooner than we think! http://bit.ly/bcRy9M
New blog post : 25% Of College Students Have Driven Drunk In The Past Month: Study http://bit.ly/ciKV8E
New blog post : New Tax Credit To Help Build Next Generation Digital Media Hub in British Columbia http://bit.ly/aEn8Wg
New blog post : Remove Microsoft's Force-Installed Search Helper Add-On from Firefox http://bit.ly/bMl4LQ
New blog post : Trade-in sites offering up to $320 for old iPhones (Ben Patterson) http://bit.ly/909ET1
New blog post : Obama's speech about the BP oil spill is nothing more...well, nothing! http://bit.ly/94X62k
New blog post : Parents of LA high schoolers enlist Megan Fox and fiancee Brian Austin Green http://bit.ly/aPmQS1
New blog post : How to Enable Multitasking and Home Screen Wallpaper on iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2G http://bit.ly/d3mVVN
Sunday, July 4, 2010
New blog post : Joan Cote, USO Delaware, Manages The Military's 'Dignified Transfer' http://bit.ly/9RmUld
Thursday, July 1, 2010
New blog post : Ways To Remove Or Avoid Adware And Spyware Without Spending A Dime http://bit.ly/9cOZvU
Monday, June 28, 2010
New blog post : U.S. Supreme Court: 'This decision should go a long way toward putting a stop to efforts by anti-gay groups' http://bit.ly/8Y8WaH
Sunday, June 27, 2010
New blog post : 'Little Fockers' Trailer: Stiller, De Niro, Alba, Streisand & More http://bit.ly/a3Ilo8
New blog post : Feinstein: If Petraeus Wants Afghanistan Troop Drawdown Scrapped, 'Give It To Him, Absolutely' http://bit.ly/bYhWYL
Saturday, June 26, 2010
New blog post : Bing iOS4 update brings new features, but isn’t optimized for iPhone 4 (Appolicious) http://bit.ly/d00Wk9
Friday, June 25, 2010
New blog post : The Subtle Body and The Great Oom (Reviewed by Barbara Spindel) http://bit.ly/cIMtNj
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
New blog post : USDA recalls 96,000 pounds of tainted beef from one American family http://bit.ly/cFUmqQ
New blog post : The fate of the Internet is being decided - in a closed-door meeting http://bit.ly/a9Td4n
Sunday, June 20, 2010
New blog post : Census Visits Providing Shut-Ins Once-A-Decade Chance For Human Interaction http://bit.ly/c2eEtn
Untitled
New blog post : 11 Brands That Will Disappear In 2011: 24/7 Wall Street http://bit.ly/cs25eV
via Ping.fm
Saturday, June 19, 2010
New blog post : Abolish the potholes and moron drivers and *then* talk to me about abolishing texting and cellphone use while driving http://bit.ly/9y95kJ
Friday, June 18, 2010
New blog post : Your next read? Take out the guess work and be sure your next book is one you'll love http://bit.ly/aLHnfT
Thursday, June 17, 2010
New blog post : Internet 'Kill Switch' Would Give President Power To Shut Down The Web http://bit.ly/baC5XR
New blog post : Grab Premium Versions of Your Favorite Productivity Webapps for Cheap with AppSumo fb http://bit.ly/9hzXM6
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Apple is becoming Big Brother, Hal. But?resistance is NOT futile!
Last Friday, police – yes, police! – barged into the home of Jason Chen, the Gizmodo editor who left the prototype iPhone in a bar, and seized a laundry list of computers, documents, and other electronic devices. This is one of the main reasons I refuse to buy anything Apple: while Android and WinMo are – at least for the time being – open source, Apple has always been a police state. This was fine when it was just a little thorn in Microsoft’s side, but now that it’s become so pervasive in our everyday lives, it’s megalomania has become our problem.
Of course, if there was any legal wrongdoing, Apple does have every right – and, arguably, the obligation – to seek legal action in order to recoup its losses. However, the rather brutal arrest of Chen really just indicates to a much larger problem: Apple controls many people’s “virtual” lives. With its products becoming the de facto portal to our online, mobile, and computing lives, the idea of one company having such control over that to which we do and do not have access is more than a little frightening.
But, perhaps people aren’t as “sheepish” as we may think. Check out these stats:
In recent months, Android is clearly arching upwards while the iPhone sales have declined. This is an excellent sign that people are realizing the tight grip Apple holds and are turning to the alternate, open source Android. The Android operating system is every bit as capable as iPhone’s OS (if not better, from both a programmatic and end-user point-of-view).
Tim Bray, creator of XML markup language and popular blogger, has recently joined the Android team, and I think that he sums it all up quite well:
The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.
I hate it.
I hate it even though the iPhone hardware and software are great, because freedom’s not just another word for anything, nor is it an optional ingredient.
The big thing about the Web isn’t the technology, it’s that it’s the first-ever platform without a vendor (credit for first pointing this out goes to Dave Winer). From that follows almost everything that matters, and it matters a lot now, to a huge number of people. It’s the only kind of platform I want to help build.
Apple apparently thinks you can have the benefits of the Internet while at the same time controlling what programs can be run and what parts of the stack can be accessed and what developers can say to each other.
I think they’re wrong and see this job as a chance to help prove it.
Perhaps it’s time for people to throw their iPhones into the river. And being from (and living in) Boston, I can really appreciate that!
Monday, April 26, 2010
Stephen Hawking: Aliens may pose risks to Earth
LONDON - British physicist Stephen Hawking says aliens are out there, but it could be too dangerous for humans to interact with extraterrestrial life.
Hawking claims in a new documentary titled "Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking" that intelligent alien life forms almost certainly exist — but warns that communicating with them could be "too risky."
"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet," Hawking said. "I imagine they might exist in massive ships ... having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.”
The 68-year-old scientist said a visit by extraterrestrials to Earth might well be like Christopher Columbus arriving in the Americas, "which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."
He speculated that most extraterrestrial life would be similar to microbes, or small animals. Microbial life might exist far beneath the Martian surface, where liquid water is thought to trickle through the rock. Marine creatures might also conceivably live in huge oceans of water beneath a miles-thick layer of ice on Europa, a moon of Jupiter.
But if a scientific census could be extended beyond our solar system to the rest of the Milky Way and beyond, the odds in favor of life's existence rise dramatically, Hawking said.
"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like."
Hawking said an attack by interstellar predators is just one of the dismaying possibilities in the search for intelligent life beyond Earth. Another possibility is that intelligence itself might be inimical to life. Hawking pointed out that humanity has put itself on the edge of its own destruction by creating nuclear bombs and other weapons of mass destruction.
"If the same holds for intelligent aliens, then they might not last long," he said. "Perhaps they all blow themselves up soon after they discover that E=mc2. If civilizations take billions of years to evolve, only to vanish virtually overnight, then sadly we've next to no chance of hearing from them."
Hawking has become one of the world's best-known scientists — not just because of his theoretical work on cosmology and black holes, but also because he has achieved so much while coping with a paralyzing neural disease for most of his life. In recent years he has become a prominent advocate for space travel, contending that humans must journey into the heavens and going through zero-gravity training himself.
"Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking" had its television premiere in the United States on the Discovery Channel on Sunday, and is due for broadcast in Britain next month.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Two apps I wouldn?t be without
Live Mesh
Microsoft has (finally!) done something right, and, actually, the did it quite a while ago. Live Mesh is a service that brings cloud computing to new heights. What it does is simple…and brilliant!
Instead of the dealing with the whole file sharing game (where you upload your files to a remote server for access when you’re away from your computer), cloud computing puts everything “in the cloud” automatically. What makes Microsoft’s Live Mesh so great is that it offers both the security of file upload (your files aren’t in Neverland but reside on your computer) and the cloud. This is achieved by selecting the folders/files that you wish to associate with your mesh. These files are automatically synced to Mesh’s “Live Desktop.” And, if you have more than one computer, you can choose to allow full and completely invisible synchronization between all of the computers that subscribe to your mesh as well as Live Desktop.
Here’s how it works.
- Register on Live and download the file, click here.
- Once the file is installed on your primary machine (i.e. home/office desktop), you’ll see the sign-in dialogue box. I strongly recommend that you check all three boxes so that you don’t have to think about logging in and entering your password each time you restart your machine.
- Next, you’re going to select the files/folders you’d like to add to your mesh. To do this, simply launch Windows Explorer and select (click once) on the file/folder you’d like to include in your mesh.
- Now, right-click and select “Add to Live Mesh”.
- The dialogue box will open. Click, “Show synchronization options”.
- Select the appropriate rules for the synchronization. I have never used the “Never with this device,” but you may find some reason for it. If you do, please let me know.. ;)
- That’s it! If you chose a folder, every time you save anything into that folder, it will automatically be synced with both your Live Desktop and any other machine on which you’ve installed Live Mesh!
Now, if you navigate back to your mesh, you’ll see your Live Desktop. If you don’t see all of your files/folders here, give it some time as it may take awhile for the sync to complete.
Here’s a screenshot of my Live Desktop:
(You’ll notice that the laptop icon is grayed out. This is because I don’t have my laptop online at the moment.)
PowerMenu
Ever wish that you could keep a particular window “always on top” on your computer’s desktop? Of course you have! We’ve all suffered the clicks of death, and, really, I don’t understand why Microsoft has never added this feature – it’s long overdue! Anyway, here’s a nifty (and free) little program that’ll end your frustration forever. It’s called PowerMenu, and you can download it here.
After you download and install it, you’ll see the little black arrow in your taskbar.
To use it, simply right-click on the window you’d like to keep on top and select “Always on top”. The program also offers several other options, one of which is “Transparency” which can come in quite handy when you’re trying to work with, say, an Excel where you’re copying information from another window into your spreadsheet. If you set the Excel window to “transparent,” you’ll be able to see the other window with your information underneath.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
Updated an old post: Dan Quayle still pushing "Perot elected Clinton" nonsense http://tinyurl.com/yb2bep7
Dan Quayle still pushing "Perot elected Clinton" nonsense
In 1992, Bill Clinton won a decisive victory in the presidential race, snagging 370 electoral votes and relegating George H.W. Bush to a smaller share of the vote than any incumbent president since William Howard Taft in 1912.
The right is still pretending this didn�t really happen. Oh sure, they acknowledge that Bill Clinton was elected and sworn-in as the nation�s 42nd president. They just claim it wasn�t really a legitimate victory. Case in point: an op-ed from Dan Quayle set to appear in Sunday�s Washington Post. Quayle writes:
Many remember the Reform Party of the 1990s, which formed around the candidacy of Ross Perot. I sure do, because it eliminated any chance that President George H.W. Bush and I would prevail over Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1992. What started as a grass-roots phenomenon ended with 19 percent support at the ballot box -- and a majority of those voters would probably have gone Republican in a two-party race. Speaking on behalf of the Bush-Quayle campaign, to this day we firmly believe that Perot cost the Republican Party the White House.
Republicans have been blindly pushing this argument for nearly 20 years now, acting like George H.W. Bush was all set to win a second term until some crazy Texas billionaire came along and messed it all up. It�s understandable why they like this narrative: it lets them off the hook for losing the public�s confidence in the late �80s and early �90s -- and casts Clinton�s electoral triumph as an accident of history.
But let me try, one more time, to set the record straight: there is absolutely no rational reason -- none -- to believe that Perot cost Bush and Quayle the 1992 election. To understand why, let�s quickly review what happened in the �92 campaign.
In the early stages of the race, just after the Gulf War in 1991, Bush looked positively unbeatable. As a result, every big-name Democrat -- Bill Bradley, Mario Cuomo, Al Gore, Jay Rockefeller and on and on -- backed out. And for the spring and summer of �91, virtually no other Democrats stepped up to the fill the void. Former Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas was the only active candidate until the middle of the summer, and few took him seriously.
But as the Gulf War afterglow faded and the sputtering economy gained more attention, Bush�s popularity returned to earth. Several Democrats, including Clinton, Tom Harkin, Bob Kerrey and Jerry Brown, entered the race. And when, in December, Cuomo resisted a last-minute push to recruit him into the race, Clinton emerged as the clear front-runner. He was badly damaged by scandal in early �92 and nearly overtaken by Tsongas, but by April, Clinton had emerged as the inevitable Democratic nominee.
At that point, he was given little chance of winning, mainly because of the scandals (Gennifer Flowers, draft-dodging and so on). But economic anxiety was widespread, and Bush�s job approval ratings were poisonous. He was a plainly vulnerable incumbent. This is where the Perot phenomenon took hold: With voters initially unwilling to trust Clinton, Perot stepped forward and rocketed to the top of national polls. By the late spring, he led in three-way trial heats, with Clinton lagging in a very distant third place.
Then came the Perot crack-up. Faced with media scrutiny he�d never before experienced, Perot�s erratic, paranoid and even delusional tendencies became evident to the general public. His numbers began to slide. He grew cranky � with the media and with the campaign team he�d assembled. In July, hours before Clinton was to deliver his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, Perot withdrew from the race.
Here the GOP�s �blame Perot� excuse-making falls apart, because immediately after the Democratic convention, Clinton soared ahead of Bush in polls -- by more than 20 points. This was with no Perot in the race. The explanation was obvious: Clinton, after a beautifully choreographed convention, had convinced millions of Americans to give him a second look. It had been clear for months that voters were ready to throw out Bush, but they�d been unwilling to embrace Clinton. After the convention, though, they were.
Clinton�s one-on-one lead over Bush survived for the next 11 weeks. Not a single independent poll after the Democratic convention ever showed Bush leading Clinton � not even immediately after the August �92 GOP convention (after which Bush temporarily closed the gap, to as few as six points in one poll). By Labor Day, the Bush convention bounce was gone and Clinton was back ahead by double-digits -- a lead that endured all the way through September.
It was then, as October arrived, that Perot jumped back in the race. But his re-emergence didn�t disproportionately hurt Bush -- who, it cannot be emphasized enough, was already being drubbed by Clinton. In a CBS poll on the eve of Perot's re-entry, Clinton led Bush by 13 points in a two-man race � and by 11 in a three-way race. In other words, Clinton�s lead actually declined (very slightly) with Perot back in the mix.
Throughout October, Clinton maintained a steady, commanding advantage over Bush. Three presidential debates were held that month. In the first, Perot stole the show and earned a measurable polling bounce -- from single digits back to double-digits. In the second, Bush was excoriated for glancing at his watch, feeding the impression that he was insufficiently energized and engaged as president; his poll numbers ebbed. In the third, Bush fared better, and by the end of October, he�d pared Clinton�s lead back to the mid- to high- single-digits.
Any last-minute Bush momentum, though, was undermined on the Friday before the election when Iran-Contra independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh indicted Caspar Weinberger, Ronald Reagan�s old Defense secretary � and, in a statement released with the indictment, implicated Bush, who had been dogged for years by questions about his Iran-Contra involvement.
The following Tuesday, Clinton nabbed 43 percent of the vote, good for 370 electoral votes. Bush finished with 37 percent and 168 electoral votes. Perot tallied nearly 20 percent, and exit polls showed that his voters were roughly split evenly on whom their second choice would have been.
In other words, take Perot out of the mix, and Clinton still wins -- handily. The argument of Quayle and other Republicans that Perot cost Bush the election would be more credible if there had been even a single independent poll after the Democratic convention giving Bush the lead over Clinton in a head-to-head race. There never was. Clinton won the race and Bush lost it -- no asterisks needed.
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The iPad? Perhaps
Anyway, the iPad. Yes, it�s intriguing because, like I said, it�s sidekick, the iPhone is excellent. While I�m still reluctant to move towards the iPhone � I use a Windows (WinMo 6.5) phone � I�m really starting to wonder, mostly because my Imagio (and no other current WinMo phone, by the way) will be able to run the new WinMo 7 OS.
Which brings me to the iPad.
As you can see from the picture above, it�s rather sexy. And it�s very portable. These two factors, alone, make the device very desirable. It�s a touch-screen tablet computer, roughly the size of a magazine, with three models that connect to the Internet strictly over Wi-Fi (16GB for $499, 32GB for $599, 64GB for $699) and three that use a combination of Wi-Fi and AT&T's 3G wireless (16GB for $629, 32GB for $729, and 64GB for $829--pay-as-you go for the data subscription).
If you've ever used an iPhone or iPod Touch, the iPad will feel immediately familiar. Out of the box, you get many of
The iPad's refined feel and high-quality materials won't surprise Apple devotees, but in the larger landscape of tablets, Netbook computers, and e-readers, the design feels distinctly upscale--especially given its price. Next to the Asus Eee PC, Amazon Kindle, or Fusion Garage JooJoo, the iPad looks like it was made on a different planet (where plastic doesn't exist).
Size also matters. As one of the first tablet computers to go mainstream, you'll need to assess the iPad's size on a case-by-case basis. For the advertised purposes of Web browsing, reading books, and checking your e-mail, we found the magazine-size screen perfectly adequate. After years of watching videos on devices like the iPod Touch, or even dedicated video players like the Archos 5, video playback on the iPad's 9.7-inch screen feels downright luxurious.
The missing feature? Handwriting. I can�t believe that with such a great piece of hardware � not to mention the fact that the iPad is, after all, a tablet! � that Apple didn�t include handwriting input. Still, though, it will be interesting to watch-and-see. Once in the hands of consumers for a few months, all of the bugs will be worked out, and we�ll get something like the iPadii. Perhaps then, I�ll ditch Microsoft. But until then, I think I stick with Old Faithful.
If you get an iPad, you should throw in this wireless keyboard. At around $70.00, it�s totally worth it, and, I don�t know about you, but I find it much more comfortable to type on a keyboard than glass.
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The iPad?
Are you getting an iPad? What makes me even consider anything by Apple is that I really do like the iPhone. For what it does, it does it supremely. That said, if Microsoft was more on-the-ball, they could have owned this market, hands down, because their OS is far superior to the iPhone’s and the iPad’s. But that’s another article!
Anyway, the iPad. Yes, it’s intreguing because, like I said, it’s sidekick, the iPhone is excellent. While I’m still reluctant to move towards the iPhone – I use a Windows (WinMo 6.5) phone – I’m really starting to wonder, mostly because my Imagio (and no other current WinMo phone, by the way) will be able to run the new WinMo 7 OS.
Which brings me to the iPad.
As you can see from the picture above, it’s rather sexy. And it’s very portable. These two factors, alone, make the device very desirable. It’s a touch-screen tablet computer, roughly the size of a magazine, with three models that connect to the Internet strictly over Wi-Fi (16GB for $499, 32GB for $599, 64GB for $699) and three that use a combination of Wi-Fi and AT&T's 3G wireless (16GB for $629, 32GB for $729, and 64GB for $829--pay-as-you go for the data subscription).
If you've ever used an iPhone or iPod Touch, the iPad will feel immediately familiar. Out of the box, you get many of
the iPhone's capabilities, including Apple-designed applications (apps) for Web browsing, e-mail, maps, photos, music, video, YouTube, and more. More apps can be installed using the built-in App Store software or by connecting the iPad to iTunes via your computer using the included cable. If you already own apps purchased for an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can transfer these apps to the iPad, as well.
The iPad's refined feel and high-quality materials won't surprise Apple devotees, but in the larger landscape of tablets, Netbook computers, and e-readers, the design feels distinctly upscale--especially given its price. Next to the Asus Eee PC, Amazon Kindle, or Fusion Garage JooJoo, the iPad looks like it was made on a different planet (where plastic doesn't exist).
Size also matters. As one of the first tablet computers to go mainstream, you'll need to assess the iPad's size on a case-by-case basis. For the advertised purposes of Web browsing, reading books, and checking your e-mail, we found the magazine-size screen perfectly adequate. After years of watching videos on devices like the iPod Touch, or even dedicated video players like the Archos 5, video playback on the iPad's 9.7-inch screen feels downright luxurious.
Still, though, it is Apple, after all, and I’m not sure that I want to invest in a company micromanages to the point of meglomania. I really don’t like the fact that Apple restricts application development. Granted, today, it’s not that big a deal, and one could even make the argument that it insures security on the Apple products. But we all know what happens when this sort of regulating gets out of control: think seatbelt law, cigarette tax, etc.! Think Big Brother. I believe that Apple will only get stronger, and strength equals power. In fact, I’d say that within a few years, they’ll surpass Microsoft.
The missing feature? Handwriting. I can’t believe that with such a great piece of hardware – not to mention the fact that the iPad is, after all, a tablet! – that Apple didn’t include handwriting input. Still, though, it will be interesting to watch-and-see. Once in the hands of consumers for a few months, all of the bugs will be worked out, and we’ll get something like the iPadii. Perhaps then, I’ll ditch Microsoft. But until then, I think I stick with Old Faithful.
If you get an iPad, you should throw in this wireless keyboard. At around $70.00, it’s totally worth it, and, I don’t know about you, but I find it much more comfortable to type on a keyboard than glass.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
The ego is as the ego does
For most people, it’s the ego that’s their most potent nemesis. This is because we actually believe that inner voice, that inner dialogue, that chatter. But, while the ego is part of who we are (and, therefore, we must always show it nothing but love), it can annihilate those who don’t have it on a tight leash.
The first step to knowing your ego is to train yourself to recognize its voice. And you know its voice quite well. For many, it has become their very identity. They believe in that voice, believe that the voice in their head is their “gut instinct.” But it isn’t. If it’s language, it’s ego. Truth is beyond language; language is far too limited for Truth. Language is the flesh and bones of the ego.
The second step is to trust what you experience of Truth – some call this faith, but don’t confuse a text (which is language) with Truth. Truth won’t speak to you. Truth is perceived, it communicates non-locally and, therefore, transcends language. Defies it, even. Truth is far too powerful for language, for thought. Truth isn’t understood, it isn’t thought. Thought is language. And language is ego. As I’ve said, the ego must be loved. But, for most of us, it’s the “tough” brand of love that’s necessary. But the ego will eventually come to not only accept the leash but, eventually, to rely on it. This is balance.
The third and final step is to realize that the there is no end to this process. Enlightenment (if that’s what you want to call it) isn’t some mystical explosion of universal energy that transports one to the heights and depths of divination but rather, it’s organic, precise, relevant, immediate, subtle. It’s the opening of a flower, the roll of a wave, the heat of the sun. It’s in the moment, so to speak. It exists only in the now, in the present. The past and the future do not exist. The past and the future are language. And language is ego. To live in the “now” frightens the ego; it finds its comfort in the past or in the future. By harnessing (or “training”) the ego, you will eventually live in the now. This is balance. This is Truth.
The ego is as the ego does
For most people, it’s the ego that’s their most potent nemissis. This is because we actually believe that inner voice, that inner dialogue, that chatter. But, while the ego is part of who we are (and, therefore, we must always show it nothing but love), it can inhilate those who don’t have it on a tight leash.
The first step to knowing your ego is to train yourself to recognize its voice. And you know its voice quite well. For many, it has become their very identity. They believe in that voice, believe that the voice in their head is their “gut instinct.” But it isn’t. If it’s language, it’s ego. Truth is beyond language; language is far too limited for Truth. Language is the flesh and bones of the ego.
The second step is to trust what you experience of Truth – some call this faith, but don’t confuse a text (which is language) with Truth. Truth won’t speak to you. Truth is perceived, it communicates non-locally and, therefore, transcends language. Defies it, even. Truth is far too powerful for language, for thought. Truth isn’t understood, it isn’t thought. Thought is language. And language is ego. As I’ve said, the ego must be loved. But, for most of us, it’s the “tough” brand of love that’s necessary. But the ego will eventually come to not only accept the leash but, eventually, to rely on it. This is balance.
The third and final step is to realize that the there is no end to this process. Enlightenment (if that’s what you want to call it) isn’t some mystical explosion of universal energy that transports one to the heights and depths of divination but rather, it’s organic, precise, relivent, immediate, subtle. It’s the opening of a flower, the roll of a wave, the heat of the sun. It’s in the moment, so to speak. It exists only in the now, in the present. The past and the future do not exist. The past and the future are language. And language is ego. To live in the “now” frightens the ego; it finds its comfort in the past or in the future. By harnessing (or “training”) the ego, you will eventually live in the now. This is balance. This is Truth.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
?Disposable? web accounts to keep you private online
Here, I’ve listed some excellent web sites to enhance your privacy online tenfold! To check them out, simply click their headings.
Mint Email
This is a great service for those websites that force you to register before giving up the goods. If you’d rather not give out your personal email address, simply hop on over to Mint Email, where you will receive an instant, one-time, three hour temporary email address. Simply use that email address for the site on which you’d like to register (copy/paste for best results). The new address is valid for three hours and, when the registration confirmation email arrives from the originating site, Mint Email will display it. Then, simply follow the confirmation instructions of the site on which you’ve just registered. Easy! And, your real email addy stays private. Just don’t close the browser window until you’re finished.
Drop.io
This is a really powerful website for file-sharing and collaboration. Basically, you created a “drop” for for whatever file you’d like to either share or on which you’d like to collaborate, and drop.io takes care of the rest. First, it assigns you a permanent website address (which you can, for a fee, upgrade). Then, you upload your file(s) and send out invitations. Free accounts are limited to 100MB, but you may very well find yourself wanting to upgrade because of the multitudinous features drop.io provides.
Skype
Skype is an incredible telephony service. While it isn’t free for the purposes of this post (you’ll have to sign up and pay for a “virtual” phone number), it’s well worth the cost. To sign up, just head on over to skype.com and go through the process. The cost of a “Skype Out” virtual phone number is minimal: about $.02/minute. So, if you use it only to provide a completely anonymous telephone number for websites (or to anyone to whom you’d rather not give out your real telephone number), something like $10.00 in Skype credit will last quite a long time. The Skype Out service’s features are vast and deep (such as free voicemail and Caller ID), and you can make free Skype-to-Skype calls, as well. Plus, you can download their mobile application and make calls using your cell phone’s data service (check to make sure you have a data service as part of your plan before you do this, however).
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Facebook privacy
The privacy settings on Facebook are many and confusing. Some people are showing aspects of their profiles to the world that they don’t realize and which they’d rather not. Here, then, are my settings, which allow only friends to see just about everything I post, pictures and videos I’m in, and comments people make about my posts while still allowing the world to find me and add me as a friend on Facebook. Click the images for larger views.
Photos and Videos of Me: One very cool feature in Facebook is the ability to “tag” other people who appear in photos and videos. This allows others who browse the owner of the photo’s profile to see who else on Facebook appears. This also allows those same people to access your profile. Therefore, this setting is important to understand because even if you’ve set your level or privacy to mostly (or completely) “Only Friends,” the world can still access pictures and videos of you from other people’s profiles unless you set this to allow “Only Friends.” Then, only friends of yours (and not friends of your friend who tagged you in the photo) will gain access to these tags.
Photo Albums: If you click this setting, you’ll be presented with all of your photo albums where you can select the level of privacy for each one. This is another really great feature because it allows you to create albums with various levels of privacy. Therefore, you might want one album with pictures of, say, a new car you’re considering buying to be accessible to the world (perhaps to get feedback on, or whatever), and another album of, say, vacation photos that you only wish to share with friends.
Posts by Friends: This setting allows you to display your posts by friends on your profile but, depending upon the level of privacy you’ve set in “Posts by Me,” still disallow the world to see your own posts. This is especially useful if you have defined a group of people with whom you’d like (or not) to share this information. A practical use for this setting would be to allow a group of colleagues to see posts made by other colleagues while still disallowing these same posts from being viewed by friends and/or the world.
IM Screen Name: You might consider allowing the world to see this because, depending on the information that you’ve supplied on your IM profile, it’s a good way to allow anyone to contact you without revealing your email address. Also IM clients all have their own privacy settings, so you’re really not losing very much privacy if you allow the world to see this.
Website: This displays any websites you’ve added to your profile. The only reason not to allow this setting for the world to see is if one of them is, say, a corporate intranet. Otherwise, they don’t call it the world wide web for nothing! ;) Also, because almost everyone is on Facebook, it’s a very good way to promote your website(s).
Hometown: Disallowing this setting will keep your hometown from showing up in the Facebook directory. One important caveat to this is that you won’t show up in the search results of anyone looking to reconnect with you. On the other hand, if you set this to “Everyone,” you’ll be able to be “friended” by those people.
Send me a message: Facebook has an internal email application which allows people to send you private messages, much like email. I choose to allow only friends to contact me in this way because if someone wants to get in touch with me, they can just request my friendship – if they don’t want to do that, I probably don’t want to hear from them, either! ;)
These settings are really important to understand. Facebook allows open access to their API, which means that anyone can develop and deploy applications which run on the Facebook platform. And there are thousands of them. Virtually all of them will pull information about you from the various fields of your profile – i.e. hometown, name, email address(s), etc.
What you share: These settings are pulled from your PRIVACY SETTINGS >> PROFILE settings. Therefore, applications will have access to this information, as well. However, it’s important to note that applications will not be able to circumvent your privacy settings in any way; so, if, for example, you’ve allowed “only friends” to see photos of you, these applications will follow the same rules and not display photos of you, either.
What your friends can share about you: Many Facebook applications allow their subscribers to share profile information. Depending upon the privacy settings of your friends, these applications can (and oftentimes do) pull information from the user’s profile, such as his/her friends. Therefore, if you’re a friend of someone who’s using an application that does this, whatever information you’ve elected to share will also be available to these applications. Clicking “Edit Settings” will give you another layer of privacy control.
Activity on Applications and Games Dashboards: Many of the Facebook applications are “social,” which means that they’re popular because they involve many people’s participation. This setting, then, will allow you to restrict what information about you and your participation with the particular application is displayed to your friends as well as anyone else who is using it. While this is an important aspect of such social applications, you may want more control over who sees what. Like I said, applications cannot circumvent your privacy settings, but this setting does give you another layer of privacy by disallowing even your friends to see your interactions with any of these applications. If you want to disallow everyone from seeing this information (which could significantly limit the appeal and/or game-play of such applications), there’s one extra step that you must take: on the setting dropdown, select “Custom” and then “Only Me” from the “These People” dropdown.
Facebook Search Results & Public Search Results: This one is important because I want to be able to be found by anyone searching for me from within Facebook but not in world-wide search engines like Google, Yahoo, etc.
Healthcare FAQ?s
The House of Representatives passed health care reform Sunday night. This new legislation will extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, prohibit insurers from discriminating against sick people, and reduce the federal deficit in the coming decades, according to official estimates. Yet many questions remain unanswered. Here's a sampling.
Say I have a pre-existing condition. Can I get affordable insurance now?
Wait three months. The requirement that insurance companies take any and all comers—known as "guaranteed issue"—doesn't kick in until Jan. 1, 2014. But the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act allocates $5 billion for the establishment of "high risk pools" within 90 days across the country. These group insurance plans will provide coverage only for people with pre-existing conditions who can't find insurance through normal avenues. By law, they must take all eligible applicants and can't charge more than the standard rates.
The bill costs nearly $1 trillion in the first 10 years. How exactly does it reduce the deficit?
First, it slows spending on Medicare and Medicaid by reducing the rates those programs pay for services such as hospital visits. (It also reduces the amounts paid out through the Medicare Advantage program.) Second, it introduces new taxes, including a 0.9 percent Medicare payroll tax hike for workers who make more than $200,000 a year (and couples who make more than $250,000 a year) and a 3.8 percent tax on unearned income for the same tax brackets. Both taxes will take effect in 2013. Lastly, the so-called "Cadillac" tax on relatively high-end employer-sponsored insurance plans will target individual plans that cost more than $10,200 every year and family plans that cost more than $27,500. (The "Cadillac" tax won't roll out until 2018.) The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, together, these measures will decrease spending and increase revenue enough to reduce the deficit by $143 billion over the first 10 years and more than $1 trillion in the second decade.
There's a fine for not having insurance. How does the government know whether you have insurance or not?
Through the tax system. The legislation doesn't explicitly say how the individual mandate for health insurance will be enforced, but taxpayers will probably be required to prove that they own insurance when filing their taxes each year. (If you get insurance through your employer, they'll help take care of it. If you're self-employed, your insurer will probably send you a document to submit with your other tax forms.) If a taxpayer doesn't have insurance, the IRS will notify him of his nonenrollment and show him how to sign up through their state's insurance exchange. If he still refuses to enroll, the IRS will levy a fine that shows up on his tax forms. The fee starts small in 2014—$95 or 1 percent of income—but edges up incrementally until 2016, when uninsured individuals will have to pay $695 a year, with a family maximum of $2,085 or 2.5 percent of household income.
What if I have federally subsidized insurance and need an abortion? Who pays for it?
You do. The compromise struck between the House and the Senate says that federal funds cannot be used to pay for abortions. So if the federal government fully subsidizes your plan, you have to pay out of pocket for abortions—except in cases of rape or incest. (This is the same arrangement for women covered by Medicaid.) Even if the government only partly subsidizes your insurance, you still have to pay for the portion of the insurance that covers abortion. Here's how it works: You write two separate checks to your insurance company every month—one to cover possible abortions, one for all other treatments and services. The federal government then contributes a third stream of money, which cannot be used to pay for abortions. Insurers that offer abortion coverage are required to keep those three pots of money separate. So any time someone gets an abortion, it's paid for from the account devoted exclusively to abortion coverage. (Pro-life advocates who claim that the health care bill subsidizes abortion argue that even if you keep the pots of money separate, the government is still contributing to plans that allow abortion.)
The Virginia attorney general has promised to file a lawsuit against the federal government claiming that it can't compel Virginians to buy health insurance. His supporters say health care reform violates the 10th Amendment. Does it?
Probably not. The 10th Amendment states that "[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." The federal government, however, can claim two Constitutional justifications for mandating health care. One is the right to regulate interstate commerce, which includes any business that operates across state lines. (Even if not all health insurance companies operate in more than one state, Congress can still regulate them as long as that regulation is part of a comprehensive interstate scheme, acc
ording to the Supreme Court.) Congress also has the Constitutional right to tax. Just as Congress taxes polluting companies for imposing a burden on other people, it could tax Americans who don't buy health insurance for doing the same. As if to emphasize the point, the fine for not buying insurance is levied by the IRS.
What would it take to repeal health care reform?
Realistically, a Republican majority in the House and Senate, plus a Republican president. Even if the GOP won back a majority in the House and Senate in 2010, President Obama could still veto any legislation that would repeal any part of health care reform. Republicans would then need a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override his veto. That's unlikely.
If the Republicans control the House, Senate, and presidency in 2012, they will still need 60 votes in the Senate to overhaul the bill in its entirety. They could, however, cut off funding for it through the budget reconciliation process, which only requires a 51-vote majority. But they wouldn't be able to tamper with any part of the legislation that doesn't affect the budget, such as the ban on discrimination against pre-existing conditions.
Epic and immediate
So there I was, hanging out in the second row, when, suddenly, he came up to me and asked, “Hey, do you have a light?” I told him that I did but that he couldn’t smoke here – we’re in a theater, wouldn’t you know! He smiled at me. Somehow, that smile looked insincere, painted on. He replied, “I know that. But it’s okay. I have permission.” I asked from whom, and he complimented me on my grammar. Then, he produced three fire crackers and told me that, as part of his act, he was going to light them off. I told him that he’d better get back into the scene first, pointing to the movie screen.
?Nurse Jackie? ? unapologetically authentic
From its organically revelatory plot to its utterly authentic characters, Nurse Jackie epitomizes that which is great television. In her first big role since The Sopranos, Edie Falco proves that she’s far more than just another “one hit wonder.” Falco’s ability to morph completely into her characters is “Streepian.” And the layers are vast and thick: we watch her in Nurse Jackie transfixed as she dances that delicate ballet between feelings of guilt (cheating on her husband, taking stimulants, etc.) and her remarkably genuine awareness that life has many facets and that you do, indeed, make your own rules or become the prisoner others’. I’ve always loved Edie Falco, and I’m so excited that she’s makin’ magic yet again! I just can’t believe that I waited until now to check out the show.
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