May 14, 2006

Tom Wolfe Pimps his Car

The man who wrote I am Charlotte Simmons, customizes his all-white Caddy. ..more

The Perfect Mark

How a Massachusetts psychotherapist fell for a Nigerian e-mail scam. ..more

We don't need doctors to speed us to our graves

On Friday, the private member's Bill to legalise euthanasia has its second reading in the House of Lords. Right now thousands of people in the advanced stages of terminal illness, enduring agony of body and mind, are waiting hungrily for death. ..more

May 9, 2006

Nutters hurl insults as I exercise my right to offend
CARTOONING is not for the faint-hearted. The caper is fraught with danger and, believe me, the more effectively you express your views, the more virulently those who oppose them will respond. If only they'd respond with cartoons of their own. ..more

From stiff upper lip to clenched jaws
Theodore Dalrymple tells what he really thinks about Human Rights. Maybe he has no more dinner invitations in London. ..more

Saturday, May 6, 2006

Civil war: the only way to bring peace to Iraq by Edward Luttwak "Civil wars can be especially atrocious as neighbours kill each other at close range, but they have a purpose - they can bring lasting peace by destroying the will to fight, and by removing the motives and opportunities for further violence." ..more

Mac Attack

Will the Mac Zealots now be open to virus attacks with the use of the Intel processor? It seems one of the reasons the Mac has been spared until now is that the hackers were too lazy to exploit the Motorola chip architecture.

There are many more malicious hackers who understand the [Intel]x86 architecture in-depth than understand the [Motorola]PowerPC. And attackers have access to hundreds of documents and examples of how to exploit common vulnerabilities on x86, whereas exploits for PowerPC are far fewer...

I would never wish a virus upon decent Mac people. As for the microsoft haters, well ya better bone up on your firewalls fellas. Read the article here.   SeekFacts Tag: Macs

What is the Purpose of a Trial?

Many people think the purpose of a trial is to seek the truth. If you agree, then this article may be disappointing. The real purpose of a trial is simply to reach a verdict. If this verdict corresponds to the truth, so much the better. If not, well at least a verdict has been reached and the next case can commence. A ceaseless search for the truth would bog down the justice system. Wrong verdicts may be corrected at the appeal stage. Wrong uncorrected verdicts are hopefully rare, especially the ones where the perp swings from the end of a rope.

Ever wonder why people think the law is an ass? Then ponder the following:

But defense counsel has no comparable obligation to ascertain or present the truth. If he can confuse a witness, even a truthful one, or make him appear at a disadvantage, unsure or indecisive, that will be his normal course. More often than not, defense counsel will cross-examine a prosecution witness, and impeach him if he can, even if he thinks the witness is telling the truth, just as he will attempt to destroy a witness who he thinks is lying. As part of the duty imposed on the most honorable defense counsel, we countenance or require conduct which in many instances has little, if any, relation to the search for truth.

In other words, if you ever have the misfortune to be a witness in a trial, remember this – even after you swear to tell the whole truth, the lawyer's job is to portray you to be the biggest liar to walk the face of the earth.  SeekFacts Tag:Law

Every Guy Needs a Good Drill

Of course I use "guys" in the generic sense. The word is often used in a gender non-specific way, as William Safire of the New York Times explains. Anyway, back to my main point – every guy needs a drill. Even the SeekFacta–wife agrees. She has been known to give excellent advice on tools. She has many, including a drill, a scrollsaw, a toaster and an oven.

My ancient non–reversing drill is nearing its death. After extensive research (10 minutes at Home Depot), I chose a corded Ryobi VSR-clutch model. Of course, VSR means variable speed reversing. But the sine qua non of this baby is the clutch. For years I have endured the pain of torque kick–back as a drill hit resistance. Now I can set the clutch so a torque threshold just causes the drill to stop (although with a loud grinding noise). Happy drilling everyone.

For Christmas you can get me an impact driver. This is a tool that looks like a drill, but ain't. They are like those air tools that mechanics use to bolt on tires. The electric impact drivers are also noisy, but they do drive screws and lag bolts with no torque–kickback. This activity occurs at a relatively slow RPM, which is why you wouldn't drill a hole with an impact driver.  SeekFacts Tag:tools

This Site Under Construction

This SeekFacts site in only a couple months old, and it shows. I am still working on colors and such. I do have have my RSS feeds set up, thanks Scobleizer. Wikipedia has more info on RSS. Hopefully, this site will soon have a constant "look" so I can just get my (blog) rhythm going.

Windows Tool-Tip: Who Knew? 

Maybe I should get me some glasses. You know, the ones you stick on your head, not the ones filled with bourbon. A tool-tip is the little window that pops up under your cusor. Put your mouse over the headline above to see it.

The Windows OS must have 6 billion lines of code by now. I just need the few lines that tell me how to increase the size of that friggin window so I can read it. Well, to Googleize is to simplify.

And the answer is: right-click on the desk-top | Properties | Appearances | Advanced | Item. Now select Tool-Tip then Size: I chose 10 pixels. Thank you Bill Gates for making that so easy, not. Tag:computers