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May 31, 2006

This is what it's like when nerds collide

So, I read this article that I found linked off of /. that talks about fight clubs in silicon valley. I get the idea behind them, we all saw the movie, find. My beef with this article is two fold, 1) look at what the guys are wearing in the picture with the article. If you are fighting to feel manly, don't dress like your mother put the closes out for you on your bed while you took a shower with your rubber ducky. 2) the cheap shot towards the end of the article that says this is happening because these men carry repressed anger from video games and movies that they've had since they were kids.
(Joe steps up on his soapbox) They like to beat on people for whatever reason, keep video games out of this.(soapboxing over)

Posted by bucjos at 11:21 AM | Comments (4)

May 29, 2006

Everybody gets a chalupa

so, I was reading this article on ars about a tax that has been in place on long distance phones calls since the Spanish-American war. Turns out the war is over, by about a century, and the .gov is going to stop collecting it.
Even better they're refunding the last 3 years worth of it.
To get your refund you just need to refile your taxes. Yep, just refile all that paper work and you'll get the estimated sum of $10 or so.
I always thought that one of the rules for stuff like this and class action lawsuits and recalls was that it be easy for the consumer to cash in on it. Refiling taxes does not fall into a category with the word "easy" in it's title as far as I'm concerned.
Here's my proposal on how to dispense the refund, free chalupa day. Every american with some proof of id gets a chalupa. Heck, even give'm 2, that's still < $10. I think that's < $4 but whatever. It's easy, and everyone wins.
I know that chalupa's aren't the most healthy but it's just 2 of them, you'll be fine.
Thoughts?

Posted by bucjos at 07:50 PM | Comments (5)

May 22, 2006

I can finally make a Convoy reference in context, woot

So, I'm heading out to Seattle to help Josh drive the Kruck family's, as we know it,gear to MN. I'll actually be piloting thier blazer while Josh captains the Uhaul with the focus in tow.
Josh sent me the itinerary and here is day 1 which will be followed up, after a continental breakfast, by day two.
Should be fun times.
Here's a clip from the song "convoy"(iTMS link) by CW McCall. Feasibly one of the best songs ever.
UPDATE: Josh just told me that this song was used in a Futurama episode. That just moved Matt Groening up 2 slots on my "people to knight once I become in charge of anything where I get to knight people" list.

Posted by bucjos at 02:53 PM | Comments (5)

May 19, 2006

Isolationist technology policy?

So, I read this link today which talks about the US .gov saying no to lenovo made thinkpads. What do you all think of this?
On the surface some Senators are making a fuss about sensative material being stored on laptops made outside the US. I wonder if these same Senators know that:


Depending on where they buy it from, how much OEM software is installed and how many people, if they wanted, could have dropped a backdoor enabled network driver or something of the like in there it seems like this attitude is silly and, more likely, further damages the US's current administrations lack of regard for 'fairness' in international policies, economic in this case.
If it's just that they're worried about driver/hardware based backdoors since they strip them down to bare OS's before they deploy...I still think the Lenovo supply chain is probably so similair to others that it's a wash.
I'm guessing this whole deal is more of:

Personally, I'm surprised that Lenovo didn't build some kind of clause into their buyout of the thinkpad brand that was tied to .gov acceptance. I'm guessing the US government is a big buyer of thinkpads, thanks to their reputation as one of the most sturdy consumer windows laptops available.

Posted by bucjos at 12:43 PM | Comments (5)

May 15, 2006

Great dilbert today

The truth, brought to you by pixels 31768 and 68539, and the letter Pi.

Posted by bucjos at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)

Saving the internet, ninja style

Okay, so there's this whole net-neutrality debate right now and it's pretty important so read up on it.
Here is the askaninja explanation of net neutrality and why it's important.

Posted by bucjos at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)

May 12, 2006

Holy sweet action in spandex

Just found a link to the second superman trailer. All I can say is the sci-fi/comic books nerds must've been, colletively, good little boys and girls this year because Santa's 6 months early.
Go watch that now. Wait, go get a swiffer and clean the floor because you're jaws going it hit it about 2 seconds after this loads and you don't know what kind of germs are down there.
So many reasons this is going to be sweet, Kevin Spacy, a plane disintgrating...its even enough for me to get over the star of Win a date with Tad Hamilton as Lois Lane.

Posted by bucjos at 01:03 AM | Comments (0)

A late night find

So, I'm toiling away at the big V turned big S and I see that Scott Kurtz, over at PvP has linked to a comic called Joe and Monkey. Shoot, I should've called this blog that, silly koala's, distracting me with their innate puntability...
Well, anywho, I was traipsing through their archive and found this comic.
I want that action on a shirt yo.

Posted by bucjos at 12:52 AM | Comments (0)

May 11, 2006

This is my day...

As illustrated by Sam Brown.
Hope your day is more like this.

Posted by bucjos at 05:40 PM | Comments (1)

May 10, 2006

Awesome...

So, the BBC has a story about a mother spiking cookies with laxatives and sending them to a teacher that gave her daughters low marks. Turns out that the teacher shared them with the students and some of them got sick....whoops....
( as a parent, what the crap? You don't like the grades you get so make the teacher sick? -12 points for that parent )

Posted by bucjos at 09:40 AM | Comments (7)

May 08, 2006

Alpha crazy pants leader follows his lackey's lead

Well, this should be expected by now. Chavez follows Morales and doubles the tax for oil being extracted from Venezuela. Gotta love when countries let large, multi-national businesses in and then when those companies are established and have constructed the vital infrastructure leaders decide that the companies need to pay considerably more. Awesome.

Posted by bucjos at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2006

Yeah for art

Okay, this guy has some wicked cool stuff.
Let's see..there's batman as a member of law and order...and then there's bea arthur wrestling as dinosaur....and then jerry orbach as a samuri and some harrison ford with his saga action. So many winners here, check them out.

Posted by bucjos at 06:01 PM | Comments (0)

I got me some new shirts

I just thought I'd share that I bought some new shirts, the internet is so great.
First, my second purchase from explodingdog.com. The first is a drawing that Travis finally framed for me after 2 1/2 years and moving 3x with it unframed.
Secondly, a find of brookes from threadless. It was on sale even. That almost makes up for the fact they charged $6 for shipping and handling. I think there should be rules about having shipping cost 100x more than what they paid some poor child in china to make it.

Posted by bucjos at 05:45 PM | Comments (0)

Daft Punk is playing...

well, no where according to ticket master but this post is about my house. My awesome, awesome new house. All Travis' and my stuff is there, Travis has his stuff put away, most of mine is still in piles in the living room, I hope to rectify that tonight.
Our basement is still a hodge-podge of furniture, we'll formulate a coehesive gameplan shortly I'm sure.
We have all the essentials, gas, power, water, etc and internet will be arriving shortly ala qwest DSL ( fight comcast is my battle cry ).
Well, actually my new battle cry is "furry friends beyond". It was what travis misheard when I said something entirely different but I like his version much better.
So far I've really been digging the house, no major complaints. The walls in the garage leak a little, which I kinda was told about, but not bad and not a big deal currently, but it will need to be seen to eventually. I need to weed, but that's cool because I have tulips, a fair trade off in my book...what else....I'm finding that I'm doing an okay job filling the random storage areas, so that's cool...Need to run a new coax drop but I have a wide array of friends that are AV/techno oriented, I'm sure that'll be easily done with some help.
That's about it, hope the week is treating you well.
Oh, and a big thanks goes to Jess for the random email of the week for the last two weeks running, glad to hear you're still doing well Jess.

Posted by bucjos at 05:39 PM | Comments (1)

May 01, 2006

Monkey fun

I stumbled across a link to a story about monkeys that I saw a while ago which made me laugh until I almost cried. It's a good read but does involve the demise of a few monkeys and some fece's tossing if I recall correctly.

Posted by bucjos at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)

It's monday, let's peck a fight

So, I'm checking out the BBC today and I see a short article about how Bolivia re-nationalize's it's energy industry. It appears that the president has given all oil and gas companies operating in Bolivia 6 months to either renegotiate their contracts in a manner that puts the control of the oil/gas produced in the hands of the .gov or get out. This seems like a bad idea to me from a business sense and, to some extent, like he is pandering to his public.
I understand how the current contracts are probably unfavorable to his country, or not as favorable as he'd like, but to basically say, "oh, those old contracts, the ones that you had in place when you built all this infrastructure, we were just kidding. Play by the new rules or get out" seems ridiculous.
I know that my knowledge of South American politics and how the current situation stands in relation to history is far from adequate for my musings to hold any weight but after reading recent articles I just get the feeling like socialist leaders are taking their countries down a path that isn't condusive to increasing their position in global economies. It seems like they see a situation that would have short-term benefit ( more money for their country ) at the cost of long term socio-economic development( decreased international support/cooperation ) and are choosing the short term. I think other countries are going to be hesitent to sick money into a country that has a tendancy of taking established industries and re-appropriating them to the state so that the state can benefit. So, what happens when the oil drys up guys? By guys I'm mainly looking at Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez.

Posted by bucjos at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)

Koala down...

It looks like my website is sick, i'm investigating.

Posted by bucjos at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)