I love my IBM ThinkPad T40.  I've been using ThinkPads as my notebook of choice since 1994 when I got a ThinkPad 750 (I think it was).  I've had great luck with them. But with this ThinkPad T40, the hard drive just doesn't seem to be quite right. It is slowly dying. Sector by sector, it is degrading. Luckily, I actually do backups on a regular basis so when Windows got wiped out again due to more sectors going bad, I was able to recover my data. But I don't trust it now, I'm going t...

This article at the Telegraph (linked below) sums up many of my views on Moore.  Moore's writings and "documentaries" can be entertaining -- if you're already in the looney left wing camp or don't keep up with this stuff on a daily basis.  To the rest of us, it's just frustrating. In my view, Moore is little more than just some ranting left wing idealogue who has managed to get famous. There's a zillion conspriacy nuts just like him out there. It's like they've elected him king of t...

Just got back from South Padre Island. Lots of run. The kids loved the ocean. We all got a little sun burned. Only downer is that my right ear is totally plugged. Went to the doctor while there and got a prescription...not that it helped any since the pathetic pharmacies there didn't have the anti-biotics.  I really like South Padre island though. The people are nice and it's a fun vacation but I would hate to live there. It's like traveling back to the 70s in terms of technologies and r...

Fahrenheit 9/11's success or failure will provide a good measure of the political temperature of the United States. In my mind, Michael Moore is a villain. An unscrupulous opportunist who brings new meaning the to the phrase "the end justifies the means".  The end, of course, being the ouster of George W. Bush.  The means, in his own small petty way, is his new smear movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. This review at Slate takes the movie apart bit by bit. I highly recommend reading it. If ...

The reaction I'm seeing in my apolitical friends and neighbors to the spate of beheadings in the middle east is a mixture of disgust, anger, and perplexion (if there's such a word).  "How can a human being do this to another human being?"  If these Islamic terrorists believe their actions will somehow change US policy in the region in a way that benefits their cause then they're fools. The practical result of these beheadings, I believe, is the gradual dehumanization of middle eas...

Drengin.net is going to be expanding hugely soon. We've been signing deals (announcements coming soon) with various major publishers to put their games on Drengin.net. The idea isn't to necessarily put their latest/greatest titles on there but instead focus instead on games that are on their way out from retail. The example I love to use is Total Annihilation. It's discontinued now (I'm sure you can find it somewhere) but it's a game that was just awesome in its time and graphically it still ...

In the game, The Political Machine, www.politicalmachine.com , the computer AI only knows the statistics. It doesn't have to play real world politics. It only knows which states it needs to win and based on our data, which issues to focus on. So the computer controlled John Kerry is always trying to get Missiouri and Iowa which tends to mean Ghepthardt.  But what about Tom Vilsack? Governor of Iowa? Kerry should talk to him.

There's an old Star Trek episode in which Kirk and crew beam down to a planet that had been influenced by organized crime in Chicago. A whole planet run by organized crime.  It made for a kind of silly episode since the concept was so absurd. And yet much of the population in the middle east lives in an environment in which organized crime runs their daily lives.  This outstanding article (posted at USS Clueless ) gives a detailed look at the situation in that region. For all...

I was on NPR this afternoon doing an interview with regards to The Political Machine ( www.politicalmachine.com ). As soon as they have the RealAudio archive up I'll post a link.

Many popular PC games are huge nowadays.  I mean literally over a gigabyte.  The million dollar question (literally) is how much is too big? What what point is the file size such a barrier to entry that it becomes economically unfeasible? In the recent World of Warcraft beta, the download size was in excess of a gig and there are thousands and thousands of people happily participating in that.  I am a big believer that people (like me) want the convenience of pressing a button ...

That seems to be the hot topic right now.  Who is John Kerry going to pick for his VP candidate.  In our upcoming game, The Political Machine ( www.politicalmachine.com ), the AI controlled Kerry tends to pick someone from Missiouri or Iowa.  So to be safe, we put in Richard Gephardt complete with artwork for him.  That wasn't too tough. I mean, he's a likely choice. But who could Kerry pick from Iowa?  The governor of Iowa is Tom Vilsack, a Democrat. He's a possibility....

So I didn't win Michigan's Entrepreneur of the Year award this year. I was a finalist and so I'm told everyone who makes it that far is a "Winner". But the competition always brings into question, what exactly is an entrepreneur? How do you measure different levels of success? For example, is someone who inherited their business an entrpreneur? If so, how do you measure their entrepreneurship? And how do you measure entrpereneurship itself? Is it the number of jobs created? The revenued...

Some daily use visual styles that didn't get as much attention as they should. One of my personal favorite artists, Z71, created a bunch of outstanding visual styles for the GUI Olympics. And in most events, his skins almost got into the top 3.  But here are some other skins that I really liked that didn't get much attention that make good "daily use" skins. You can get these, and more here .

2002 Economic chart of major nations (populations >1 million) Nation GDP (millions) Per Capita GDP Population Density Life Expectancy Literacy Rate Fertility Rate World $43,600 $7,081 6,157,400,560 31  63.7 no data 2.7 United States $9,963 $35,831 278,058,881 75  77.2 97% 2.1 Switzerland $207.0 $28,421 7,283,274 457  79.7 99% 1.5 Norway $124.1 $27,557 4,503,440 ...

I've been watching the tributes to Ronald Reagan this week. I've been somewhat dissatisfied with them because none of them capture the enormity of Ronald Reagan's contribution to mankind. They tend to focus on just one aspect of what he did. They tend to ignore the full benefit Ronald Reagan's presidency has given to us all. Ronald Reagan's achievements can be categories in three areas the made our lives better. Rich or poor, American or non-American, odds are, you directly benefited from one...