Even in the darkest times (and there have been some in the last decade, eh!) the light is always on at the Lake. Thanks Jane and Firedogs. You guys help keep us regular folks sane. In fact, you’ve educated us how to stand against oppression. We thrive speaking truth to power. How else can we [...]

Thanks for sharing. Quick answer to the OS flavor perspective — either or both, depending… Neither solves the problem of security without “help”. Geeks provide such help. Long live geeks!

Sorry about the off-topic stuff. The threat of compromised hardware and software is ubiquitous. It is a living problem with no solution apart from giving up what we think is rightfully ours — access — to what we want. Brings to mind the phrase “Protect me from what I want”. Sure, things could fall apart. [...]

Yes, agreed — users care about such costs. Cost consciousness is relative, though. I prefer to spend less on the hardware so that I can spend more on the software. That’s my user preference because the hardware platform is basically incidental to the application. Apple takes the guesswork out of the whole thing. That is [...]

Hope I can answer it this way — yes, there many companies who have implemented older, cloned x86 architectures in their own ASICS, and they’re not named intel or AMD. The older cores are widely emulated and embedded. You just don’t see the “intel inside” label on such custom chips. OK, who wants a Pentium [...]

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my comment. The part I agree with you about is Microsoft’s hegemony and their complete indifference to quality vs cost effectiveness. On that point I am forced to acknowledge that the Windows OS is not as open as it could be. It is not open at all [...]

Apple’s strength, “freedom from choice”, has always stood in contrast to the open platform PC standard. For users who appreciate the clean and tidy interface that Apple provides, the trust elicited from the superior customer treatment (resulting from tight quality control of the software) translates into customer loyalty for years to come. Congratulations on a [...]

Come on Barbie, lets go party!

And bring on the bonuses! (No median to swerve!)

Rhetorical question: What did the drawing say to the Artist?

Precise answer: A sequence of serially uncorrelated random variables with zero mean and finite variance.

Ironic answer: White noise.

Revolutionary answer: Shhhhhh……

Hmmm…. sounds like a problem for a new super-hero: “Unconscious Man”… and his daring philosophy of… no philosophy! Isolated by the boundaries of consciousness, folks are ensconced in their thought-worlds. If only there were a way to expose the limited culturally-defined practices of so-called “thinking men”. We are all surrounded by ignorant fools. Ourselves! It [...]

What will Liz say to the victims? Vote for me! Halliburton syndrome: Stockholm syndrome on a national scale…

The Stockholm Halliburton Syndrome comes into play when a captive population cannot escape and is isolated and threatened with death high energy prices , but is shown token acts of kindness discounting by the captor. It typically takes about three or four days tankloads for the psychological shift to take hold.

We’ve [...]

Keep dem posts comin’!

Fun visualization — thanks! Hey, here’s something fun — let’s play the “Causation, Correlation, or just an uncanny Coincidence?!” — gameshow. Here’s how it works — find an uncanny coincidence and spend years trying to find a correlation or causative impetus. My favorite… Sunspots and earthquakes: Causation? Correlation? Uncanny coincidence? You decide! All votes tallied [...]

Beeeutramous! Yummy!

Just what a Saturday Art delight should taste like!

Long live Larue! I named my first VW Beetle (1971) “Lothar” after that band. MMMM mmm, fun times. A simple Theremin can be made by electronics experimenters. My attempts fell short of playable quality but it was fun to assemble and tremble. Fun times. Gosh, what a treat to get all this “remembrance” in one [...]