Some Stuff to Share

I’ve been collecting things I would have otherwise shared to FB. Police raid VPN but fail to find user data https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/21/23692580/mullvad-vpn-raid-sweden-police Twitter goes crazy in the absence of verification: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1649146273121857554.html https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gay-pride-parade-canceled-after-anti-drag-show-law-passes/ https://www.demilked.com/funny-illustrations-deliberately-buried-comics/ https://www-theregister-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.theregister.com/AMP/2023/04/06/can_injection_attack_car_theft/ https://katu-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/katu.com/amp/news/nation-world/absolutely-unacceptable-behavior-outdoor-mall-ohio-easter-egg-hunt-apology-organizers-ohio-the-greene-town-center-management https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/04/04/world/exoplanet-radio-signal-scn/index.html https://www.salon.com/2023/04/06/ai-company-harvested-billions-of-facebook-photos-for-a-facial-recognition-database-it-sold-to-police/

Displacement of Current Residents of 99 Van Block Ave, Hartford CT

I’m currently at a public hearing for a new development in the neighborhood. They’re going from 60 units to 160 units and every one of the current residents is going to have to be relocated by “relocation specialists”. They’re making things look like this: This is the definition of gentrification, is it not? And it passes. They now have a resolution. I didn’t hear a no in the entire bunch of commissioners. It has been approved with “several delightful conditions”.

1996 – The Year Alternative Rock Died a Messy, Forgettable Death

Some phenomenal hindsight of grunge, alternative rock, and how it became the very thing it stood against. I remember this year vividly. I was 15, at the height of my angst, and this caused me not only to re-live the period but it also provided a unique subtext I was completely oblivious to. On the radio, Goo Goo Dolls’ “Name” bled into Tonic’s “If You Could Only See” into Dishwalla’s “Counting Blue Cars” into The Verve Pipe’s “The Freshmen” into Matchbox Twenty’s “Push” in a watery bouillabaisse of quiet-loud-quiet song structures and sad-bro earnestness. This has to be the most…

Link: Regain some control over your YouTube: YePpHa/YouTubeCenter Wiki · GitHub

With this extension you can do everything from disable ads to change the buffering settings. Remember the old days when you could let the movie load? Unfortunately to get that back you’d need this extension on every device. For Chrome: Click the mirror download for the Opera/Chrome hybrid (.crx) Check the box for “developer mode” in the top right of your extensions page. Download the .crx file and drag it to your open extensions page. Once you say OK to permissions it’ll load. Home · YePpHa/YouTubeCenter Wiki · GitHub.

Tomb Raider: Review (Kotaku)

I’m excited for Tomb Raider – but it’s unfortunate that I’m almost done playing through Far Cry 3 – it sounds very very similar. Complete with the very real, visceral agony and endurance needed to be an action hero: Tomb Raider: The Kotaku Review.

My 6-year-old Judges Books by the Covers, from No Exit to 50 Shades of Grey

What is No Exit About? “Momma, what’s this book about?” That is a question that I hear every time we go to our local bookstore as my very curious six-year-old daughter picks up eye-catching books from various sections from fiction to biographies to psychology. My family spends a fair amount time in bookstores, so this is a query I’ve become accustomed to hearing and one I try my darndest to answer (but really, how does one explain James Joyce’s Ulysses to a six-year-old?). Read More… [My 6-year-old Judges Books by the Covers – Strollerderby].

World Rally Fever on GOG!

If you were a fan of the original Worms you may have gone to the Team 17 website. On there they had a demo for this game – World Rally Fever. It was interesting because it was very Rad Racer NES type but it had better graphics, and it was more detailed then any game I had played before, especially a racing game. I liked to used to try and hit the sheep.           Check it out on Good Old Games (GOG) – Coming soon!

Battlefield 3 PC Beta

Here is some great information about the new engine (Frostbite 2) that powers Battlefield 3. Battlefield 3 Blog: Frostbite 2 Engine Presentation It is very impressive in demos. The Beta does not quite realize the quality of the demos, but there is some clipping and collision that needs to be worked out. You can still lay prone halfway into a wall, for one. There is a small list of fixes already slated but overall it’s very true to the original. I have it running at 2560×1600 max and I’m not seeing anywhere near the quality of the demo videos, though.…

Crysis 2 DX11 Pack Now Available

Crysis 2 DX11 “Ultra Upgrade” Pack Now Available! From NVidia’s GeForce.com When Crysis 2 hit stores on March 22nd it became Crytek’s first multi-platform game to be developed solely by their studios throughout the world. Because of the level of work required to ensure that all three versions of the game were equally as good, Crytek ultimately ran out of development time, preventing them from implementing planned DirectX 11 features before launch. Post release, the studio’s developers were free to focus only on the PC version of the game, and so for the past few months they have been beavering…

Politicomotion

I don’t normally delve into politics. I’m more the type to hint at what I believe. I don’t enjoy arguing politics because I don’t know enough. I believe what I believe, and anyone with some well memorized facts can take me in any argument. I just know what I feel. I’m liberal when it comes to modern ideas. I have no problem with anyone loving anyone else. I also have no problem with someone being responsible and making a very hard decision about what to do when they weren’t careful, or even when all the careful in the world just…

Formatting An External Drive with FAT32 for PS3 using Win7

Whew, what a mouthful. You might possibly find this post if you’re trying to backup your PS3 – it’s easy, Sony says you just need your drive to be FAT32 – well that’s fine, my thumb drive is FAT32. Oh… it needs to be able to fit the entire system for a backup? Ok – I’ll just take this external 40gig drive I have and format it. No option when right clicking the drive and choosing format for FAT32 only extFAT and NTFS, well maybe extFAT will work… nope! OK, well let me try the command line: format /FS:FAT32 /q…

Crystal Lite Pure Fitness Not Bad At All

I recently got some of this at Walmart at the suggestion of my wife. I hadn’t heard of it but she said it was free of artificial sweeteners, my biggest bane. I don’t often like to drink much water, so this seemed a good solution. It tasted good, and not overly sweet. I highly recommend it for anyone who needs to drink more water, doesn’t necessarily like straight water, and needs something cheaper then traditional tea/juice drinks. The Kiwi Strawberry that I had was slightly tart, slightly sweet, much like as if tasting a lightly ripened or just under-ripened strawberry……

New Internets

It appears it takes something drastic for things to show up in google these days – bing, yahoo… whatever these newfangled internets are pointing you to. In any case I’ve been up and running for like 5 days now on comb.synthetic-x.com and there is no mention in the searches of http;//comb.synthetic-x.com perfectly fine, mind you… just wondering what it takes. So in an experimental fashion I am listing http://comb.synthetic-x.com in my primary blog location that has been here for years… I hope it gets picked up before the URL submission just so I can say a ya ya eeeeee ho…