Jericho: How do you make a hormone?

I just had a strange set of thoughts sitting here at my desk, day dreaming as I work.

As some of you know, my hormone levels are pretty low. I wrote about this a while back.

The odd thought process I just went through went something like this: if I had to choose between playing a video game, having a real meal (not diet food) or having sex, having sex would come in at a serious third place. At my hormone level and my current body image level, this might be understandable.

However, my next thought unsettled me a bit. I tried to think of two things I hated doing. Instantly, washing dishes and going to work came to mind. When I compared them to having sex, I was forced to pause. While I would rather have sex than go to work, I would probably rather do dishes than have sex. I assumed that I would have put sex at the top of that list, but when I actually stopped to think about it, sex came in second. That is so not normal, nor is it right.

Jericho: I think Henry speaks for all of us ...

Jericho: Kate Bush & David Gilmour

OMG! 80s Prog Rock Heaven!!!

Jericho: The Search is Over.

IWDC has been on the web for, what? Five years? In that time, we have covered a ton of subjects and we have said a wild variety of things.

The tracking software we use for this site allows us to see how people found us, if they came in from a link on a different page or if they hit us from a search engine. The software holds onto the last twenty search strings used to find us. Usually, these things are pretty boring; one of our names, something from a recent article, etc. Every now and then, we see some wild ones. The last twenty today seemed wilder than usual! Below is a graphic from the tracking software. Click it for a larger, easier to read version.



Meat Hook Dangling, Buffalo Meat for Homos and where to buy a reel mower in Nashville. Gotta love the Internet.

Max: Whoosh, Boom, Splat

I don't think he originally said, "bagel."

Jericho: Get over it, Tree-Huggers!

We have talked several times on this site about alt-fuels and the advantages of Plug-In Hybrids, Hydrogen and Ethanol powered vehicles. I think I can speak for Max when I say we support advancements in alt-fuel usage. Oil is an addiction this country has to give up.

Finally, we see a step in the right direction.

Okay, maybe not the Plug-In/Hydrogen vehicle, let's try for plug-in, flex fuel hybrid first, umm-kay? But, I think you see where I'm going. Seeing Bush with an extension cord in his hand makes me feel good all over.

But, the idiot environmentalists have got to step in and make a fuss!

"Making our cars and light trucks go farther on a gallon of gas is the single biggest step we can take toward saving American families money at the pump, ending our dangerous addiction to oil, and curbing global warming," said Dan Becker, the Sierra Club's director of the global warming and energy program.

Okay, first, Dan, put down the pipe. Obviously, you are not in this conversation. Allow me to catch you up. E85 will do exactly what you are describing. The "E" stands for ethanol. The "85" is for the percentage, by volume, of ethanol in a gallon (or liter for that matter) of fuel. If we are using 85% less gasoline, isn't that cutting our gasoline usage by 85%? To get gains like that, you would have to nearly double the MPG of the average vehicle. This would mean a Ford Explorer that got 30 city and 42 highway MPG. It would be great if it existed, but the only way to do it would be to make the vehicle out of paper! And if you think the American public is giving up their SUVs - where have you been the last two decades?

E85 will do more than save money for families in this country, it will make money for families in this country and aid the environment in the process. American farmers will be called upon to grow feed stocks to make the ethanol in question. Material that is currently headed for landfills will be used as fuel. And, in the end, carbon held in the earth will remain there and carbon in the atmosphere will be reduced - or at least not increased. By all accounts, North America will take up alt-fuels, but oil will drop in price and fuel the developing economies in China and India, unless they, too, get sold on alt-fuels. It would be nice if large and influential groups, like, say, the Sierra Club, helped these countries see the light.

Dan, saying "Let's have more MPGs" is one thing. Telling us how to get there is another thing. E85 is compatable with our current infrastructure in every way. It reduces our usage of oil by, you guessed it, 85%. It adds jobs to this country. It will lower the price of domestically produced oil and thus lower the price of fuel in general. As E85 takes hold, it will become cheaper to produce and further cost savings at the pump, in the taxi, at the grocery store, etc. Dan, do you have a plan that does the same? We'd love to hear it.

In closing, Dan, I must say this to you: SHUT UP! Use your pulpit to support something worthwhile. Don't be a stumbling block in the process. We all want lower MPG, but this is a huge step in the right direction. Let's get this off the ground, this is something that can be done TODAY, then we can work on that 40 MPG Explorer.

Max: WTF?!?

Max: The New Debtor's Prison

Credit Card Companies Use Tricks And Traps To Trap Users In Debt

An example of what credit card-issuing banks do to people was given to the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, where Alys Cohen of the National Consumer Law Center, testified about 'a young Navy sailor who opened a credit card account with First Premier Bank on November 21, 2006. The credit card had a $250 credit limit and a 9.9 percent APR for purchases. The same day that the sailor opened the account, he was assessed two fees — a 'Program Fee' of $95 and an 'Account Set-Up Fee' of $29. The next day (November 22), he was assessed a participation fee of $6. Three days later (November 24), he was assessed an annual fee of $48. When this young sailor received his first month bill, which had a closing date of Nov. 24, 2006, he had already accrued a balance of $178, without making a single purchase.

'The next week, the young sailor used the credit card for four transactions totaling $84.85.On Dec. 22, 2006, he was assessed a participation fee of $6. With all these fees, the young sailor was already over his credit limit, despite making less than $85 in purchases on a card with a $250 limit. He was assessed an over-limit fee of $25 and a late fee of $25, plus a finance charge of $1.96, on Dec. 26. He now owed a balance of $320.81.

Max: An Excuse At Last

BBC NEWS | UK | UK sailors captured at gunpoint

Fifteen British navy personnel have been captured at gunpoint by Iranian forces, the Ministry of Defence says.

The men were seized at 1030 local time when they boarded a boat in the Gulf, off the coast of Iraq, which they suspected was smuggling cars.

Max: Poo Poo Paper

Poo Poo Paper

Max: My Last.FM Radio Station

My Last.FM Radio Station

Jericho: Congestive Heart Failure

I was in the ER again this morning. About 1 AM I woke out of a deep sleep. For about half a second it seemed like I was just waking up - then my heart started jumping all over the place. Some of you out there are saying "Ah-ha! Sleep apnea." Most likely, you are correct. I wasn't breathing. This sets off the atrial fibrillation. I went to the bathroom and then went and lay down again - hoping that if I just relaxed, it would stop or "convert" on it's own. I've had one incident that did and I am ever hopeful that I won't have to spend the night in the ER. But, it didn't stop. It was powerful and erractic. My left arm got numb very fast and my chest tightened up. I woke Steph about twenty after one, time to go to the ER.

When I got to the ER, I was still in a-fib, but it had slacked off some. They got me on the table and hooked me up. They set me up on the IV and drew blood. The waking out of sleep, the chest jumping, the numb arm, the tight chest, the ER and the IV, these are all routine to me now.

We talked with the nurses and with a doctor. In the process they noticed something a little different. I am retaining a lot of fluid. My heart is enlarged. The nurse said "They are thinking of keeping you over night, you have had some minor CHF".


Congestive Heart Failure.

Those three words sat me up in my seat. Those three words killed my grandmother. I know those three words and I know them very well.

They wheeled in a scale and I got up on it. I nearly had a heart attack right there. The read-out was upside-down, but 507 is pretty easy to read backwards. That's right, 507 pounds. I thought I had hit bottom when I hit 475, but I forgot one fact: I'm a Brown. When we hit bottom we ask for a pick-ax and explosives!

They upped my beta blocker dosage. They are telling me to cut my salt. Hmmm, I haven't had caffiene since September, they want me to do low carb, low fat, no salt. That leaves distilled water and brown paper bags. The beta-blockers have dropped my energy so low that I don't know what to do. Combine that with the Benadryl I'm taking to fight my allergies, I might as well just spend the day in bed. Throw out sugar and carbs in general, and I have no energy at all. We have had a treadmill in our living room for a month now and I don't have the energy to step up on it much less use it and now I have more beta blockers to deal with!

Eventually, my heart slowed on it's own, they gave me some drugs and that finished the job. They didn't have to shock me this time - although, with the news I got, I guess they did. They just didn't have to connect the paddles.

I stayed home from work today. My heart has flip-flopped a few times, just enough to remind me how much trouble I'm in. I ate smartly, but with no salt, the food was completely tasteless. And, please, don't tell me about Mrs. Dash or some other herbal alternative to salt. I'm not a salt addict. I barely use the stuff. What little I use is now gone. I know how the human sense of taste works. There are taste buds for sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami. I am left with sour, bitter, a little umami - but it better not be from MSG, and various artificial forms of sweet. In all, brown paper bags are probably the best option.

I don't know what to do. I really don't. What's the point of eating if nothing tastes, much less tastes good? There's no point it drinking anything but water - all the artificial junk tastes like crap. So, the good news is that I will lose weight, the bad news is that it will be from malnutrition. I have no energy. I really want to exercise - but how the fuck am I supposed to do that? Everything is bloated. I have a thing on my leg that won't heal - it's been there for weeks, it just weeps. It's disgusting. I was told last night that it's the diabetes, you don't heal as well when you are diabetic. Everything hurts; my back, my knees, even my arms. They are all suffering from hauling around a quarter ton of body. So, working out will bring down the weight and break my knees and back in the process. What if it sets off the a-fib? That's great, in the ER three times a week because those are the days I work-out.

I don't know what to do.

Max: This Is The Greatest Thing Ever

Max: My Hero

His energy bill is $0.00

Mike Strizki lives in the nation's first solar-hydrogen house. The technology this civil engineer has been able to string together – solar panels, a hydrogen fuel cell, storage tanks, and a piece of equipment called an electrolyzer – provides electricity to his home year-round, even on the cloudiest of winter days.

Max: Whacks On, Whacks Off

Sweep the leg, Johnny!

Max: Shadow Army

Max: The Courts Will Save Us.

Or not

More here. Site NSFW.

A California woman whose doctor says marijuana is the only medicine keeping her alive is not immune from federal prosecution on drug charges, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The case was brought by Angel Raich, an Oakland mother of two who suffers from scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and other ailments. On her doctor's advice, she eats or smokes marijuana every couple of hours to ease her pain and bolster a nonexistent appetite as conventional drugs did not work.

The Supreme Court ruled against Raich two years ago, saying that medical marijuana users and their suppliers could be prosecuted for breaching federal drug laws even if they lived in a state such as California where medical pot is legal.

Because of that ruling, the issue before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was narrowed to the so-called right to life theory: that marijuana should be allowed if it is the only viable option to keep a patient alive.

Raich, 41, began sobbing when she was told of the decision and said she would continue using the drug.

'I'm sure not going to let them kill me,' she said. 'Oh my God.'

Max: The IT Crowd

Possibly the greatest Britcom since Red Dwarf.



More (for the time being) on Youtube.com

Max: Mad Skillz

French Beatbox

Max: Rush Delivery

"Far Cry", from Rush's new album Snakes & Arrows now at Rush.com.

Jericho: Worst Run Ever

People like this give the rest of we socially inept roleplaying geeks a bad name.

For those of you that have played Shadowrun, you know for a fact this guy is lying or was a terrible player. I mean - break into the facility after dark after you have ganked the guards. Or, hack into their inventory computer and just have the goods mailed to you. Five finger discount in the middle of the day? Chummer is a total poser!

Max: Light Sabers Don't Kill People

Drunken Jedi kill people.

Max: Messed Up

Neave Strobe

Max: Double Plus Ungood

Via the ACLU.

Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Pub. L. No. 107-52) expanded the definition of terrorism to cover "domestic," as opposed to international, terrorism. A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act "dangerous to human life" that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping. Additionally, the acts have to occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and if they do not, may be regarded as international terrorism.

Section 802 does not create a new crime of domestic terrorism. However, it does expand the type of conduct that the government can investigate when it is investigating "terrorism." The USA PATRIOT Act expanded governmental powers to investigate terrorism, and some of these powers are applicable to domestic terrorism.

The definition of domestic terrorism is broad enough to encompass the activities of several prominent activist campaigns and organizations. Greenpeace, Operation Rescue, Vieques Island and WTO protesters and the Environmental Liberation Front have all recently engaged in activities that could subject them to being investigated as engaging in domestic terrorism.

...

Seizure of assets - Sec. 806: Section 806 of the Act could result in the civil seizure of their assets without a prior hearing, and without them ever being convicted of a crime. It is by far the most significant change of which political organizations need to be aware. Section 806 amended the civil asset forfeiture statute to authorize the government to seize and forfeit: all assets, foreign or domestic (i) of any individual, entity, or organization engaged in planning or perpetrating any act of domestic or international terrorism against the United States, or their property, and all assets, foreign or domestic, affording any person a source of influence over any such entity or organization or (ii) acquired or maintained by any person with the intent and for the purpose of supporting, planning, conducting, or concealing an act of domestic or international terrorism against the United States, citizens or residents of the United States or their property or (iii) derived from, involved in, or used or intended to be used to commit any act of domestic or international terrorism against the United States, citizens or residents of the United States, or their property.

This language is broad enough to authorize the government to seize any assets of any individuals involved in the Vieques Island protests or of any organization supporting the protests of which the person is a member, or from any individuals who were supporting the protesters in any way. Possible supporters of the protesters could include student organizations that sponsored participation in the demonstration, the Rainbow/Push Coalition, the Rev. Sharpton's National Action Network, and religious or community organizations that provided housing or food to the protesters.

Jericho: Electric Slide This!

This is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. And, considering who I am and the subjects we have covered on this site - that's saying something.

First, why would you claim responsibility for thirty years of White People Conforming? This dance makes the Macarena look like a ... okay, I don't know where to go with that - both of these dances are amazing examples of the depths of human poopy-headedness.

Then to try to copy-right something this late in the game? I think this guy should have woken up a little sooner. If I was a judge, I'd say he has released this to the public domain and that he needs to work on a new dance instead of wasting the court's time.

Jericho: Into the Woolsey

Check out this article.

I saw a speech from this guy maybe six months ago - sounds like the same speech they are talking about in this article. He was giving it to a group of farmers here in the area - I caught it on the UW's section of On Demand shows from Comcast.

This guy really seems to know his junk. He's not big on hydrogen because it isn't compatible with the current infrastructure. He likes bio-fuels like bio-diesel and ethanol. Primarily he likes these because not much has to change to use them, hydrogen will take a major shift in the infrastructure. Bio-fuels are here now and can be used by more and more new vehicles - bio-diesel can be used on ANY diesel engine without modification.

The terrorism stuff really struck home with me. The above article doesn't drive home the point very well. Apparently this plant in Saudi extracts sulphur from crude. Without that extraction, the crude is useless. There is a total of ONE plant in Saudi, in the entire region, that does this. Take it out and all of us are walking to work, because it will be less expensive to stay home. In the speech I heard, he said from $100 a barrel ... to $300 a barrel!!! Put THAT in your SUV!

For those in Missouri, he was really big on a pair of plants in Missouri that are converting "turkey awful" into bio-fuels. Apparently, one plant processes turkeys. They take the straw, poop and left over bird bits, send it all to the plant up the street and this is turned into a fuel. It's been a while since I've seen this - but I'm pretty sure that's how it went. In my book, garbage to fuel, no matter what the garbage, is a good thing!

Max: Shadow Wolves

Shadow Wolves

An all-Indian Customs unit—possibly the world's best trackers—uses time-honored techniques to pursue smugglers along a remote stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border

Jericho: Is Technology TOO cheap?

Our 802.11b router just got upgraded to 802.11g. For those of you that lack in tech speak - my wireless acess point point at home, the little blue box I hooked up so that our laptop could be trully portable, is headed for the trash bin. We bought a newer, faster (smaller!) wireless box in go-faster silver.

My "B" router is still in pretty good shape. For whatever reason, it stops talking to my cable modem now and then. If you unplug it and plug it back in, it resets and does just fine for a few days. However, I did spend about two hours on line with Dell tech support one night because I tried to troubleshoot a problem from the laptop end instead of the infrastructure end - doing the trick above fixed the issue.

So, I have this nice router that for which I have no use. Linksys - big brand name. You could probably find the same box on eBay for $20 if you wanted one. I offered it to two friends - figuring they might have a use in their own house or in their family or friend's place. Nope. No takers.

Ten years ago this item would have been worth hundreds of dollars. Five or so years ago, "G" routers hit the market and this router hit my price range, about $60 bucks. Now, it's good for keeping the trash below it from blowing out of the bin, and not very good at that.

When I was on the call with Dell, I had the oportunity to see the wireless access points in the apartment complex. Out of SIX - I was the only one on a pure "B". Being the lowest technology was bad enough, but being the lowest of six. I'm used to thinking that I'm well and above my neighbors. Not so. I used to worry that since I don't turn on the security features on my router that any fool out there with a wireless card could jump on my router and use my connection. With broadband - I'm not terribly concerned about someone jumping on and checking email. Considering half of the routers I saw were without security, I'm even less worried. What worries me is that so many routers means alot more router knowledge is out there and "router hacking" could become a fun past-time for kids.

So, the blue Linksys' future is in question. It will most likely go to Goodwill. There's just something freaky about all of this.

Max: This Is So Very Wrong

Apple - Trailers - Black Sheep - Trailer

Jericho: I'm an Omega Male on Beta Blockers!

Carlin is Amazing at 69 yrs old (sharp as a tack) | Send To Friends | Flash Cartoon Movies at JibJab

steampunk magazine - putting the punk back into steampunk

steampunk magazine - putting the punk back into steampunk

Before the age of homogenization and micro-machinery, before the tyrannous efficiency of internal combustion and the domestication of electricity, lived beautiful, monstrous machines that lived and breathed and exploded unexpectedly at inconvenient moments. It was a time where art and craft were united, where unique wonders were invented and forgotten, and punks roamed the streets, living in squats and fighting against despotic governance through wit, will and wile.
Even if we had to make it all up.

SteamPunk Magazine is a publication that is dedicated to promoting steampunk as a culture, as more than a sub-category of fiction. It is a journal of fashion, music, misapplied technology and chaos. And fiction.
It just may be the most spectacular magazine to ever fight against the spectacle, and it is free. Or as cheap as we can possibly get it to you. Using the latest in Creative Commons technology, we undermine the fascism of copyright while protecting ourselves from direct co-option.

We sell the magazine for $3, as close to cost as we can manage, and we offer it for free PDF download for printing at home.