Merkey versus everyone

High weirdness: Merkey Law - Complaint Filed in US District Court. I bet ya didn't know that

slashdot.org is an far-right wing Internet news website that posts libelous and defamatory content and is used by Open Source Community members to anonymously post hate speech, death threats, threats to murder and promotes and advocates acts of domestic terrorism within the United States.

or that

Much of the activities of Linux and Open Source Software have served to create a funneling system allowing sensitive and advanced technology created by computer technology companies in the United States to be illegally exported out of the United States and into the hands of the citizens of other countries... as a result of these activities, a large portion of US technology has been unwittingly placed into the hands of various groups around the world, including Al-Queda, and other groups who sponsor international terrorism.

So Slashdot is far-right wing, but open source is pro Al-Queda? I'm so confused.

And somebody really needs to explain to this guy what a kill file actually is.

FavIcon from Pics

I keep finding this site and losing it: FavIcon from Pics: how to create a favicon.ico for your website. It's a very handy site: just upload a picture from your local drive, and it will generate a favicon.ico file for you.

Name space collisions

Just for the sake of future deniability by anyone mentioned here: I am neither the Dori Smith who's the event registrar for Network World '05, nor am I the Dori Smith who does interviews for progressive causes such as Talk Nation and Talk Nation Radio.

Not that I couldn't be either of these women, but I'm not, and they're not me. I'm just sayin'.

My Web 2.0

I'm checking out the Yahoo! Search My Web 2.0. If you want to be one of my contacts, I'm "smithdori". If you need an invite, let me know; I've got plenty.

John, you miserable slut

There was a time that I thought pretty well of John McCain. He seduced me with his "straight talk," and he talked a pretty good game. He's often portrayed as a moderate Republican, though his voting record is actually reliably conservative. The difference between him and the Bushies is that he's not completely insane from a domestic policy standpoint, so he can't stomach the fiscal mess they've gotten the country into.

But after Bush's speech last night, he was deployed as one of the administration's apologists for the Iraq war, and it was sickening to behold. He spouted the Bush line like a press secretary; you could practically see Cheney's hand up his butt making McCain's lips move. He dodged questions; he ignored facts; he skimmed over the reality on the ground; he trotted out the administration's Justification of the Week. It was your basic "I'm a total whore" performance. Pathetic.

Quote of the day

You look for random Healdsburg mentions, you get random Healdsburg mentions:

We want to get to know the Russian River Valley like J. Lo's jeans know her — every nook and cranny, not an inch without skin-tight coverage. That's going to mean spending some quality time in Healdsburg, the next "it" town in wine country, if you ask me. It's still got just enough charm and quaintness to make you forget all the hipsters down in Napa.

We couldn't agree more.

Peripherals status report

Because I habitually keep track of such things, here's a status report of the peripherals I've dealt with today:

• My Belkin F5U021 USB 4-Port Hub: Dead.
  
  
• My Targus PA055U 4 Port USB 1.1 Ultra Mini Hub: Dead.
  
  
• My Kensington Turbo Mouse Pro USB Trackball: Dead.
  
  
• My Macsense UKB-600GFT USB Extended Keyboard: Dead.
  
  
• My Wacom Graphire3 4X5 USB Tablet: Unknown. Given the status of everything else, I'm a little leary of plugging it in although I suspect that when I do, I'll find out that it's dead.
  
  
• My Targus Ultra Mini Optical Mouse: Appears to be working fine, which is a good thing, because I love this little mouse.
  
  
• My Kensington 64364 Wireless Optical Desktop: Unknown. I do know that it's not working with my Mac, but no one ever promised it would. I'll try it on my PC at some later time when I'm not feeling quite so dangerous. Because it's hard to find information on this particular model, here's a useful link: Synching Instructions for Wireless Optical Mouse and Keyboard - 64364.
  
  
• My Belkin F5U231 TetraHub USB 2.0 Hub: Purchased today. It's a hub. So far, it works. That makes it an easy winner given today's track record.
  
  
• My Kensington Expert Mouse Wireless Optical Trackball: Purchased today. CompUSA didn't have the Turbo Mouse Pro Trackball above (which I've had and loved for years) so I grabbed this one instead. I never used any of the extra buttons, so it should just be a matter of getting used to the scroll ring.
  
  
• My Kensington PilotBoard USB Multimedia Keyboard: Purchased today. Yeah, I'm trying out another cheap keyboard. So it goes. So far, I'm not loving it, but I'm not disliking it, either. And it does have some nice functionality, such as a scroll wheel on the keyboard in case I never do get used to that scroll ring.
  
  
• A Belkin Hi-speed USB 2.0 4-port Hub: Purchased today. This one's for Sean, so I'm not touching it. He needed it to go with the new Apple 512 MB iPod Shuffle he received for doing so well on his SAT's, SAT II's, and semester grades. It's probably also for doing well on his AP tests, but we haven't seen the scores for those yet.

In other news, if you've sent me email to which I haven't responded, my apologies — I've been kind of busy dealing with hardware disasters.

Tag, you're it

Hey, Tom, you're a tag!

For the future reference of others, just "negrino" should be plenty sufficient going forward. It's not like there's anyone else likely to be showing up with that name any time soon. Okay, there's twits like this guy who don't know the difference between a negrino and a negroni, but hey, running into them every once in a while can be good for a laugh, too.

Who needs drugs?

Last night, Tom and I recorded and started watching the 2005 AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to George Lucas. This page shows a picture of the point at which I had to stop watching for a while:

The evening began with a surprise opening song from William Shatner. Performing a modified version of My Way, Shatner was accompanied by a chorus line of dancing stormtroopers with great comic effect.

William F. Shatner. "Singing". Dancing stormtroopers. Oh, and they neglected to mention that the "modified version" of My Way included a reference to Howard the Duck.

I remember when you had to take really bad drugs to have experiences like that, but I was stone-cold sober for this one. Tom, otoh, laughed his butt off.