As I understand matters, the new ToS isn't actually any worse than that of either FB or G+. There was a time when users of MySpace would never have imagined it failing. The Russian culture appears to forever preserve and improve that which works. I strongly suspect that the changes we are seeing will be used to further improve LJ. ( Read more...Collapse )

I'm posting this as much to see if the "repost to" feature connects well with Facebook. UPDATE: So far the repost has not appeared on facebook but that could be because I've previously set my security to "friends only" by default and I cannot even manually make my posts public without first posting it private and then going back and editing the post to be public. Perhaps this will appear on Facebook after I change the security to public. Let's see.

As I understand matters, the new ToS isn't actually any worse than that of either FB or G+. There was a time when users of MySpace would never have imagined it failing. The Russian culture appears to forever preserve and improve that which works. I strongly suspect that the changes we are seeing will be used to further improve LJ. ( Read more...Collapse )

This easy recipe takes only FIVE MINUTES to prepare and makes about four quarts of delicious chicken and rice. Ten months in development, this is proven to be a big hit at pot-luck events. Total time from start to finish is about 40 minutes.

To be prepared in a modern electronic pressure cooker such as Fagor model 670040230, six quart multi cooker. Link: http://a.co/6QgiuzR. ( Read more...Collapse )

Tags: experimental chef

This should do it.

Tags: humor-misc

In case you haven't heard the news, the BBC has retired the most charismatic member of the Top Gear Team.  Granted, he was a loose canon, and probably subjected his employers to astronomical insurance liabilities, but you have to break some eggs to make an omelette.

Although I'm confident the show can go on without him, for me and I'm sure many others like me, the show will never be THE SAME without him.  It's not a matter of whether you like him, or whether you agree with him.  The issue is that in the automotive world, there are  quite a lot of opinionated people, and among such people, he is they most consistently entertaining.  It would serve them right if he got picked up by an AMERICAN network and asked to produce a similar program.  There's no doubt in my mind that it would be an instant hit.

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Tags: rants-product

I refer to THIS STORY.  There are really only two things that matter here:

1. The letter of the law that says you have to have been born on american soil.


2. The vitriol of those who insist the letter of the law must be adhered to, aka, "The Birther Movement".

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Tags: rants-political

I was discussing this with THE CAT today, and though his cat-like murmurs weren't particularly telling, it was clear I was onto something with this line of reasoning.

If you answer yes to three or more of these questions you are probably The Sphynx. Otherwise you are probably a typical housecat who like posing like The Sphynx.

Tags: polls

Apparently real and a success, in its day at least. The most interesting aspect of this retro airplane is that it was QUIET, and at a time when aircraft weren't.

One would think that a couple of these would have been brought into use as stealth spy-planes during WW2, at least prior to the development of RADAR, but from all my searches, it seems the only wartime use of steam related to aircraft regarded steam powered catapults to launch aircraft from carriers.

Tags: adnewsments

At some point in the past year I blogged on some sight about this miraculous little laptop that was first released in 1983 and how despite its limitations it's unusual qualities made it a favorite for much of the next 15 years. I might have thought I posted it on this site, but now I can't find it.

(Note to LJ operators, it might be time you add a search utility so that we users can find our misplaced posts. You can charge us a premium for it, we'll pay!)

Maybe I didn't post it here, or maybe I only thought I wrote it? In any case, you can easily read more about the features of this now thirty-one year old laptop than you can about the space shuttle, which is nearly as old, and that's pretty amazing. What may be more amazing is that some hardware hacker with lots of creativity, and perhaps too much time on his hands, has reinvented this great little machine retaining some of its best qualities, such as extremely low energy consumption and excellent keyboard, but giving it a super-modern insanely energy efficient brain and the ability to use micro-SD memory. ( Read more...Collapse )

Tags: tech & pet projects

I wish I were joking. I'm gearing up to post rants about this on other blog sites. I post a lot of political and technical rants on other sites, but few get me as hot under the collar as Microsoft's unethical attempts to coerce people into using their crappy software.

They are now informing people that there is a "bug" in Microsoft Word which could permit hackers to execute malicious code remotely. Their solution? BRACE YOURSELF; They are advising people to DISABLE MS Word's ability to open of files formatted in one of the few popular open source formats available to the poorest peoples of the planet, RTF !! ( Read more...Collapse )

Tags: linux, rants-political