Ramblings, v.2

Via Moonbattery & Gary Larson.

ross humor fail, hypocrite, politics

Ok, this is kinda cool. The app description said I’d be able to attach pictures too, but I don’t see that option. More investigation required. Later though – I’m tired.

Edit: after clicking “done” you get the options for media.

ross site stuff iPhone, wordpress

So I found this article, where the first paragraph saying (cause the rest is just fluff):

The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.

Ok, no biggie. But then there’s this great article (which is only great in the context of the above quote) where Obama was quoted:

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times [...]“

Riiiiiight.

Look, I get it that most politicians are hypocrites. But this… Obama was supposed to bring “change” and “new ideas” to our government. Instead, he’s bringing the same old idea of hypocrisy (…and socialism, but that’s not the purpose of this post).

In minor site news, I’m going to be keeping track of my hatred for our current president by both tagging all posts regarding him with “hypocrite” and naming posts specifically about him “The Great Hypocrite“.

ross rant-o-matic hussein, hypocrite, politics, rant

I hate to say it, but I think there’s a sick and twisted part of me that’s beginning to like Obama.

Go ahead and clean the poop out of your pants now…or rather not, as I don’t think this post is going to get any better.

A guy that I work with, a friend of mine, is what I’d call a “dirty, dirty liberal”. Actually, he’s pretty clean cut, but that’s about the only work-safe adjective structure I can put in front of the word “liberal” in that context. (And, if he’s reading this, he’s a real nice guy, and while I disagree with his political views almost entirely, he’s very well educated and I enjoy working with him.) Anyway, he said that Obama is getting more flack from Pelosi and other super-leftists than the conservatives. Pelosi called for a repeal of the Bush tax cuts immediately upon Obama’s swearing-in, and Obama has said “Now WAAAaaaaaAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaAAAAAaaaAAAAaaiiiiittt a minute!” (Sorry, had a show with the band last night and have had Shout running through my head.) Ok, cool. Leave the tax cuts and piss off liberals.

Obama also picked a pro-life, Prop 8 supporter to give the inauguration invocation. Bitchin.

Obama supports warrantless wiretapping. While I don’t like the idea of being spied upon, if even one terrorist attack is foiled because the right people’s phones got tapped quicker than would have been possible if a warrant was required, so be it. Big-brother the hell outta this country, as long as you keep my ass alive.

Finally, and the reason for this post, is a posting at one of my friend’s blogs that Obama authorized a missile strike on two small villages in Pakistan suspected of housing terrorist cells. So, wait, Obama, savior of tree-hugging, whitey-hating, peace-loving liberals said “kill!”?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here trying to explain why I’ve decided to have his love-child [shiver]. I still think he’s the lyingest lying liar who’s ever lied a lie (2nd quote in comment). And he’s a hypocrite. After banging the anti-lobbyist drum for nearly his entire campaign, he appointed one anyway. Don’t forget that whole tax-cut/hike floating limit…first it was $250k, then $200k, then $150k – soon it’ll be $10k and we’ll all be screwed.

Saying “Obama” following “president” makes my stomach churn. While he may be a dirty, dirty liberal, he’s pissing off other liberals. I won’t go as far as invoking “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, but Mr. Obama is making me smile at an alarming rate.

ross mindless prattling hussein, hypocrite, liberals, politics

I made one of these: CMoy Pocket Amplifier. I didn’t take any pictures of the progress except the one I twitpic’ed. I have since fitted it in a cut-down cookie tin with a pair of 9V batteries. Lemmie tell you what: this little sucker is freakin amazing. One, it can get DAMN loud. On a true, unamplified line-out, I can put the dial around 2 outta 10 before my ears threaten to bleed. Unfortunately, my pre-iPhone universal dock’s line out turns into an amplified headphone out, so I’m getting a doubly-amped signal (I think) running through the headphone amp, but it still sounds AMAZING. Bass hits are definitely fuller & deeper (awwww yeah). On a few live albums I have (Stephen Lynch’s Superhero comes to mind), I can actually hear the back-wall echo from the theater, and when audience members talk, I could swear it’s actually people physically behind me talking. For about $50 in parts, it’s SO worth it.

That all said, I’m going to make version 2. Here are my goals:

• Bigger power supply capacitors for even better bass handling
• Slightly bigger case so I have more room to work during assembly and possible storage for extra cables, etc
• Make battery power an option, maybe, where primary power is via wall wart
• Two complete implementations of this (for left & right channel, but using pots that do two separate lines each)

Yeah, awesome. I really want to get started on it, but first I’m going to tackle converting a computer ATX power supply into a bench supply with banana plugs and everything. Before even that, I need to wait for my shipments from Electronic Goldmine (piles of random components) and Adafruit (diy Atmel programmer kit) to show up. At this point, I’m looking at least a month between now and starting on headphone amp v2. We’ll see. I still need to set up a solid station to do the soldering with power & lights, which means I need to break out my electrical tools again and move outlets around. Fun!

ross sweet action CMoy Pocket Amplifier, iPhone, roooosss-Lectric, soldering

I’ve removed the reCAPTCHA plugin. I’ll see how many spam comments get into the system today. If I get a ton more, I’ll reactivate it while looking for other options. There are a few other plugin solutions I could try, but I need a control in this experiment, and that will be today.

ross site stuff plugin, reCAPTCHA, spam

Ok, I added a reCAPTCHA input to my comment form and I’m still getting spam comments. I think the volume is a bunch lower, but I really wasn’t keeping track before I added the plugin. All I know is that I’ve gotten six since about 7:30 this morning.

ross site stuff fail, plugin, reCAPTCHA, spam

I just went back and read my first two rants on this blog – hippies and why i hate professional basketball. They’re genius. I also re-read my digg rant, and I must say, I haven’t lost my touch.

Anyway, enough with the ego masturbation…for now, anyway. Let’s go with a videogaming update.

Been playin the crap outta Fable 2. I’ve nearly maxed out my first character (only two spells left to get to the 5th star and a couple expressions to go), and he’s a badass. I cruised through the Knothole Island expansion, though after reading reviews of it, it sounds like nearly any half-developed character could. Whatever. I also started a second character, this time a girl. Let’s just say the game can’t hold a candle to DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball (1 or 2), but there is motion involved.

And with that, I realize that this country has just 16 minutes before the beginning of the end, and I’ve lost all enthusiasm to continue writing. Can I win the lottery and go buy an island yet?

ross mindless prattling Fable 2, hippies, rant, videogame

Alright, I’m on 2.7. The admin page is slick. I need to find a reasonable theme tho. The default theme burns my ass, and not in that fun MSOE way. Also installed & enabled a plugin that should tweet this. I’m going to try to find a widget or something that integrates twitter into my sidebar or something. Oh, and none of my tags transferred. Ah well.

edit: found a theme.

ross site stuff msoe, twitter

I think I’ll finally get around to updating this site to the latest & greatest version of Wordpress.  The site is currently at 2.0.5, and the latest is 2.7.  To say I’m a hair behind is an understatement.

The two years of redneck quotes are going to disappear for now.  I’ll need to find or write a plugin that will read the current table structure and spit it out where necessary.  I’m leaning towards “write”, but that means writing PHP, something I haven’t really done.  I’ve messed with WP code here and there to do some very minor stuff, but writing a plugin that does database calls would be new to me.

A moderator at the WP support forums suggested I step to 2.7 – first install 2.3, then 2.5, then 2.7.  I’m pretty sure that I read in one of those versions they convert the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin to the built-in tagging engine.  That’d be useful, not because I think tags on my blog are anywhere close to necessary, but because I like them.  They’re cute.  I want to eat them, with ketchup.

I’m going to be upgrading the site in-place, so this sucker’s probably gonna be screwed for a while.

ross site stuff