Many of you have already heard me ranting about the 2008 Presidential election already and the lack of a decent candidate (in my opinion). As time goes by I get more and more scared of Hillary Clinton actually winning the Democratic nomination. I truly think if that happens I will drop out of the democratic party and become a Green, or a Libertarian, or something. The idea of someone with NO opinion on anything that a pollster or political analyst doesn’t tell her (and bad ones at that) becoming President scares the hell out of me.
Knowing that there are worse candidates out there (Joe Biden, D-MBNA for example) doesn’t help because there are few who are worse who have a chance. The idea that we may end up with Hillary vs. Rudy (or worse – Mitt “Varmint Huntin” Romney) makes me completely disappointed in the whole process. Its sad that we cannot get anyone better than the current crop of candidates on EITHER side.
The only candidate running so far that I would actually like as President is Bill Richardson, who I think would make a great President but probably doesn’t have much chance of winning where fundraising is the most important aspect of a candidate.
I’m still holding out for Al Gore. If he runs I think he can, and will win and I’d be ecstatic about that. But at this rate it looks like its going to end up as Bad Democract vs. Worse Republican and I won’t vote for either.
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The second CD I picked up was the first solo album of “Dolores O’Riordan” (of Cranberries Fame), “Are You Listening?”
I haven’t had this CD as long but I have enjoyed it much more than the Linkin Park CD. I was disappointed when I heard that the Cranberries were going their own solo routes (they haven’t necessarily broken up – but the band has at least been on hiatus for a few years). The first album to have come out was from Cranberries guitarist, Noel Hogan’s “Mono Band” which I didn’t find terribly interesting.
O’Riordan’s new CD though – I would have thought it was a new Cranberries album(though with unfortunately less ‘rock’ in the guitars than Hogan’s work with them had). The vocals with the Cranberries were what kept me listening and they are the same as they always were. The upbeat songs as well as the slower songs reminiscent of Linger both keep me listening. If you were a fan of any of the Cranberries previous albums – I’d definitely recommend O’Riordan’s new album. I think its even better than the last Cranberries Album (Wake up and Smell the Coffee).
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So in the past couple weeks I picked up a couple of new albums. First off is Linkin Park’s new “Minutes to Midnight Album”.
Linkin Park claims that they are moving in a new direction – and it definitely shows. I just don’t particularly like their new direction. The only stand outs on their new album are “What I’ve Done” which came out on the radio before the album came out, and “Hands Held High”.
Now those who know me, know that I’m not a fan of rap music. That being said I’ve always thought the combination of rap and rock how Linkin Park did it (minus the Jay-Z collaboration) was great. Songs like “In the End” off their debut album, and “Easier to Run” off Meteora exemplified the best (in my opinion) of Linkin Park. The combination of Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda always worked great before. Now – outside of “Hands Held High” you can barely hear Shinoda in the newest album, and even there it is basically ALL Shinoda, with Bennington just doing backup vocals of “Amen” at periodic points of the song.
“What I’ve done” is more like tracks like Breaking the Habit and Crawling where – yes – it is all Bennington – but the melody and tune of the song, along with the vocals, has had me listening to that song much more than the rest of the album.
Overall its not ‘bad’ but its not the Linkin Park I had been looking forward to. Worth picking up – but listen to some of the songs (other than “What I’ve Done”) before doing so.
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So its 2007 and by the end of the year I plan on buying a new car. It will be my first new car and I’m excited about it. I’ve been talking to friends, talking to my wife, and mostly talking to my Dad about the plans. I’m sure he’s happy because his computer and technology son is talking about cars which hasn’t really happened too often over the years.
I’m by no means decided, but I’m heavily focusing on three cars.
The Scion xA (from Toyota):
The Nissan Versa:
and the Honda Fit:
As you’ve probably noticed – all three cars are somewhat similar in looks. All are four door hatchbacks, and to some extent I find it hard to say that word since I have always hated hatchbacks – or at least what hatchbacks used to be. Images of Honda Excels, and Chevy Metros are what I used to think of when it came to hatchbacks. The current ‘hatchbacks’ are much different than those and for some reason instead of being my most hated cars – they are some of my favorites.
Anyway – when it comes down to buying a car now – two of the most important things are fuel efficiency and price. All three of these cars are excellent on these points. They get mid 30s for MPG numbers and are in the $14,000 to $16,000 range. There are things I really like about all three cars – but some of them are minor and are not enough to push me to one car over the other (I like the sound system for the xA, I like the seat configuration possibilities for the Fit, etc.). Its really going to come down to test driving the cars (both my wife and myself) before I decide – and I am probably not going to make a decision and purchase until November or December anyway.
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So I stopped playing World of Warcraft for the forseeable future. I don’t see myself going back to it. I loved the expansion pack… at first… but after exploring everything and doing all of the non-raid/heroic dungeons I really don’t feel like I’m getting anything from the game anymore. I enjoy talking/playing with the friends I have who play – but beyond that I don’t see any reason to keep playing. It stopped being a game for me and became a chore.
Well since then, I picked up Gothic 3 for $30. Its not a multiplayer game – but that’s fine. I’m really enjoying the game. I played the first two games and really liked them (even though the controls for the game made it very annoying to get used to). They’ve redone the controls to feel more natural so you don’t have to really get used to it – just play it.
The gameplay and character development are great, the music is perfect, and the graphics are very impressive (both in style and technical quality). My only complaint is the game can be slow! Even with 1GB of memory and an Athlon X2 5200+ it loads very slowly and has occasional slowdowns (where the framerate drops it to a slideshow for 20-30 seconds). I’ve not gotten very far into it so I’ll probably make a post-mortem post about the game but I definately recommend it.
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I’m waiting for my last class of the semester to end. If I haven’t said already – I’m only taking one class a semester – all Business classes towards my (eventual) MBA. I’m just finishing Marketing now. One more undergraduate pre-requisites class next semester (Fundamentals of Corporate Finance) to finish before taking the real MBA class.
I really enjoyed the class, though I thought I’d dread it. The course was very interesting, and I learned a lot even though I had NO interest whatsoever in Marketing before. I’m just about to hand in a paper for the course – an analysis of the Nintendo Wii (and all its marketing strategy) now – though I liked the class I’m glad I’m over with the paper!
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I have to say I’m feeling a lot better now then I was after the last big election (2004) where I felt physically ill at the results (Bush reelected, republican majority increased, etc.). I’m in a very good mood now due to the election.
There were not many local races I was able to vote on which were contested heavily though. We New Yorkers did elect Eliott Spitzer as Governor by a wide margin which I am glad for. There are times I pick one politician over another as a lesser of two evils but not with Spitzer. He is a governor I’m proud to have – lets see if he follows through and runs the State as he ran the Attorney General’s office.
We elected Hillary Clinton which I honestly could care less about. I don’t hate her, I just feel that she’ll go whichever way the polls lie. I just hope she doesn’t run or get the Democratic Nomination for President in ’08.
Our friends in other districts in New York were fortunate enough to elect John Hall (D) over Sue Kelly (R) in the 19th Congressional District, and Kirsten Gillibrand (D) over John Sweeney (R) in the 20th district.
We’re waiting on results from the two still contested senate races in Virginia and Montana though but both look to be democrat pickups. Things look a lot better in Washington already.
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Okay.. so things didn’t go well on campus. I spent several weeks researching and testing a new layout for our webmail users on campus. It has all the features of services like GMail, and Yahoo Mail (including auto-completing addresses from your address book, drag and dropping of mail, encrypted mail, a new interface to filter your mail, and a lot more). It was very well received in testing (from around 20-30 people including technical and non-technical people). The problem is – when launched… the thing was incredibly slow. Its hard to simulate the load several thousand students, faculty, and staff will put on a production system. Hopefully after a hardware/OS upgrade some time next year we’ll be able to recommend it again for our users. For now though, Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa.
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Those who know me might have heard me rant about spam before. There are many things which make spam a problem these days. In no particular order:
- The spammers themselves of course.
- The network/system admins which allow spam to go outside their network (For one – any ISP which does not block port 25 outgoing except from designates servers is no worse then a polluter spilling waste into a river).
- The people who write operating systems (Read: Microsoft here) which are so often vulnerable to getting taken over by hackers and used to send spam.
- Companies who send legitimate e-mails to their customers which LOOK more fraudulent then the real scams.
- And most of all – the retarded people who ACTUALLY BUY things from spam.
That last one is the one which bothers me most. Now maybe ten years ago, back when spam wasn’t as prevalent as it is now, and when the spammers didn’t have to fight against filtering, someone might have thought they were getting a deal I guess if they were slightly gullible. But who in their RIGHT MIND would buy something which was advertised like below?
Subject: Re: VlbAGRA
Hi, GREAT VlbAGRA http://www.MISCELLANEOUSSPAMMER.com So what do you want us for? Floyd asked. The creatures words were drowned out by a throbbing roar and a cloud
or the ‘Pump and Dump’ scams (This is where they try to get you to buy some random penny stock that the sender of the spam bought a ton of but is not involved directly with. As soon as people ‘buy it for the great deal’ advertised in the spam, they sell the stock leaving themselves with a big profit and the people who bought it because of the scam high and dry.):
RANDOMSTOCKTICKERNAME – Add it NOW! Major PR campaign starting next week on RANDOMSTOCKTICKERNAME – GET it early! WATCH RANDOMSTOCKTICKERNAME trde on monday – act Now. elizabeth could hardly help smiling as she assured her that had not been the case. comfortable home; and considering mr. collins’s character, connection, and situation in life, i am”wickham is not so undeserving, then, as we thought him,” said her sister. “my dear father, i
I refuse to do their dirty work so their URLs and the name of the Stock are replaced.
I mean – who would buy medicine from something like the first one – or buy a stock based on financial information given out in a message like the one above? It was bad enough years ago – but now when they need to put in all the random crap you see to get around filters – honestly – who would buy this? I want to find people like this because they should be institutionalized. These are people who should not have control of their own financials.
But what it comes down to is – if people stop buying from the spammers – they will stop spamming. As it is now – if even a hundred people buy from them and they are sending millions of e-mail out – they are making money. And they will keep doing so. And all the technical countermeasures that we can use are just making it more difficult and making legitimate e-mail more of a pain.
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Do I really hold to it? No. Do I say I will try? Sure – and I’ll try again.
Work has been rather more stressful than usual lately. It just seems that my workload keeps piling up with projects of indefinate length, all along with my normal work. I’m hopeful that I can get ahead of things again soon but when I mentioned to my boss last week “I’ll take care of doing X when things slow down in a month or two – he laughed”. Not reassuring. But then again – he has a lot more to worry about then is on my plate. Speaking of work – there are two major things that are getting to be a pain lately. Firstly is Spam/Scam/etc. e-mails – more about that in a later post.
Secondly, is Luminis. I can’t go into too much detail but the software, and the company who sold it to the campus makes me really annoyed. They sell it to people claiming it will do A, B, C, and D, but they don’t tell you A and B won’t be working for a year or more, you can’t do C without paying a consultant to come and train you since they don’t give you any documentation without paying for the consultant (not to mention even the consultant doesn’t know half the things) and D works but is such a horrible interface no one will want to use it. I’m still waiting on our consultant to get me information from the developers which I was promised (which should just be in public documentation anyway).
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