Day: May 18, 2006

Police cited the woman for hunting without a license … … in her house!

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

http://www.lp.org/yourturn/archives/000306.shtml

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Defending Yourself Against Alligators
Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post story that will make you think twice about moving to Florida:

"Yesterday…an alligator walked through the doggy door of a woman's house in Bradenton and went for her golden retriever. The woman grabbed a shotgun and blazed away. The alligator escaped with a flesh wound. The neighbors heard shots and called police, who promptly cited the woman for hunting without a license."
How can the police cite the woman for hunting without a license? Who ever heard of hunting in your own house? Unbelievable.

Posted by Matthew Dailey at May 18, 2006 12:41 PM

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Absolutely unbelievable! 

If gaming companies purchased I-15, it’s likely they wouldn’t even charge a toll!

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

http://www.lewrockwell.com/french/french42.html

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If MGM Mirage can spend $7 billion on CityCenter and Boyd can spend $4 billion on Echelon, these two could finance the purchase and widening of I-15 in a heartbeat. The cost of that 316-mile stretch in Texas is $6 billion. LA to Vegas is 275 miles.

If a consortium of gaming companies purchased I-15, it’s likely they wouldn’t even charge a toll, especially for their customers, potential customers or vendors.

Does the idea sound crazy? Remember, the state of California is up to its neck in debt. If Gary Loveman, Terry Lanni and some other strip honchos would get together and dangle a few billion in front of Arnold, that never-gonna-happen idea for a bullet train can be mothballed once and for all, and a few more ribbons of blacktop will start materializing. And instead of burning up gas stranded in traffic, those Californians will be dropping money in slot machines like they want to be.
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I agree about that toll. But not about the train. They'd probably do both. They're interested in their money arriving safely. A train might be faster and safer and a more "novel" ride. They ran an airline until it became too much of a hassle. 

Trump, when he felt the disastrous Coleman skating rink refurb in NYC's Central Park was detracting from his premiere property, he got the job done in a tenth of the cost in a fraction of the time by a horde of contractors who want to be in his good graces and out of his notorious wrath. I believe he told a balky plumber that if a task was NOT done by the time he came down to turn the faucet that the plumber wouldn't work in NY again. It was done in record time!

I'd bet the job would be done ahead of time, under budget, with zero union trouble, and at a fraction of the "gummamint" cost.

To make people want to come, they'd probably serve drinks on the highway at the rest stops. :-)

All I know is it would be something to see. 

ElephantDrive, yet another xdrive competitor, can you say “commodity pricing”

Published on by reinkefj2 Comments

http://www.elephantdrive.com/ 

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How much does it cost?

ElephantDrive is free during the beta period, but ultimately will be offered as a paid service. The current plan is to launch the paid service in June 2006, with standard accounts tentatively priced at $9.95/month for 10 GB of storage, decreasing for larger accounts. We are offering the service free during the beta period not in effort to trick users, but because your feedback is extremely valuable to us and will help us create the best possible product.

There will always be free accounts of limited size available, and we will never “hold your data hostage” if you decide not to continue with ElephantDrive after it moves to a paid service. In the event you decide that ElephantDrive is not for you because of pricing (or for any other reason for that matter), we will hold you data for at least 30 days while you move it to an alternative location and then remove it from our system for your privacy and protection.
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Another offer of free web space? Wow an embarrassment of riches. What data shall I put here? Obviously nothing too valuable or irreplaceable. I've actually started "pairing" free services. Put data store X on vendor A and B. Put data store Y on vendor C and D. Two of them won't go belly up at the same time. Will they? And it's just backup data.

Hmmmm? 

Technology presents “a you won’t believe your eyes”.

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

http://www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html

from The LangaList Standard Edition 2006-05-18

A Free Email Newsletter from Fred Langa
That Helps You Get More From Your Hardware,
Software, and Time Online

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Hello, Fred! Just thought I'd send the link below to you for the Just for Grins section of the newsletter. It's an example of just how most of our brains work. We start out seeing one thing but, upon further inspection, we wind up seeing another. The page is suitable for all ages in all countries of the world. —Bob de Violini

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Sigh, now we can't depend upon what we see because of … evolution?

Hey Gov C wanna save some gas?

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

18 may 06 @ 727 am 295 s milepost 60 TD10471 wizzed by >75 mphs.

18 may 06 @ 731am 295 s milepost 55 SG20608 passed me at 65 but at least he used his signals and got out of the left lane.

Imagine mere peasants thinking that the glorious state workers of the People's Repoublic of New Jersey should be held to the same rules that they make for the serfs and peons! How rude. Let them each cake and drive on the portions of the road we are not using.

Remember the French Revolution? It just takes one spark to set off the blaze.

What to do if all the “good” domain names are gone?

Published on by reinkefj1 Comment

An irate inet fellow was grousing about the "good" names are gone and "they" want 100k$s (new dimension of money  — hundreds of kilo dollars) for them. What is one to do?

Being an injineer, trained to solve other people's problems at the drop of a hat, I came up with a question and at least one alternative.

Question: What makes a domain name "good"? Short, memorable. Maybe?

I understand well the game that is being played on us.

https://reinkefj.wordpress.com/2006/05/17/yahoo-wants-to-get-you-interested-in-registering-a-domain-why-bother/

BUT having said that you need to be in the “game”.

I have two thoughts.

(1) Go offshore. I took Reinke dot cc because it was my last name and available. The "CC" in dot-cc refers to a tiny island chain in the Indian Ocean. It's the Cocos Islands, a 5.4-square-mile territory of Australia, population 650. Maybe I'll go visit someday? So QWERTY in Western Samoa is available. Just checked. You could be G @ QWERTY dot Web Site. Or there is .nz for New Zealand, .kz for Kazakstan. Mississippippians can go to .ms for Montserrati. Or Marylanders to .md for Moldova. There's lots of TLDs out there.

OR

(2) Go long. Buck the trend. Become G at QWERTY PLUMBING CONTRACTOR dot com which is also available.

I’m not so sure that the common wisdom is correct on short domain names. Yes, if you’re advertising on TV and you want someone to remember your phone number or website then you have to be as memorable as possible. In your case, I don’t think that applies.

Just my thoughts for what it is worth.

Remember you’re reading a fellow who uses <14 character random string> @ ISP dot net.

Will you every remember and type that? No. (Hell NO! but you could in a pinch, if you really really wanted to?)

But it’s very usable because you either reply or fire off a mailto weblink. 

So does dot com or short really matter? 

My answer is no.

Your Mileage May Vary. 

Now let me see if I can beat you to those names and sell ‘em to you for a big profit.  Was that QWERTY or YTREWQ? Dot CC or WS or TV or RADIO.

(You get the idea. Beat'em at their own game.) 

The need for a “good” email address!

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

Permit me to offer some unsolicited advice?
I'd like to share something I wrote a while ago. I think it is even more true now. And easier to implement.

People sometime judge you by your email address.

I see that you have changed from Yahoo to Hotmail. IMHO I don’t think that’s a good change. People want to do business with people they can trust. Hotmail is associated with kids. Free services don’t engender confidence.For example, which would you trust more ReinkeFJ AT reinke DOT cc or ReinkeFJ AT hotmail dot com or supernerd @ gmail dot com?

I have two hosting companies I use at a very modest cost that I can recommend. If you’re interested?

Jasper Jottings is hosted by http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=9113251 and YAG is hosted by http://www.aplus.net/ (AP2297627204). I prefer 1and1 but either is good. And cheap. You can lock in a good deal for between 120 to 240 per YEAR! I think that is a minimal investment for a professional image.

FWIW

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04/30/04

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You should learn form the mistakes of others. You are not obligated to make EVERY mistake yourself into order to acquire wisdom.

IMHO the gold standard solution is to attach it to your own website with a hosting company. For example, me@mydomain dot com. When you buy your domain name mydomain dot com with a hosting company, they usually throw in email addresses with the deal. At least the good ones do. You MUST choose a good domain name for job search purposes. Use your name if you can get it. Mine was not available. Who ever heard of the Reinke Pivot Irrigator Company? But I did get reinke dot cc. But that is another story.

The silver standard is to buy your own email separately from a well-known financially sound company like Yahoo. AOL make you look like a kid. The bronze solution is to purchase or use a free redirector. Bigfoot has a pay service. For a while when email wasn't common and anyone would ask about the funny name, I used the lock in story in interviews to advance my value proposition. ("I minimize lockins personally and can do it for you"). Alumni associations and groups like IEEE all have free redirectors for their memberships. Anything is better than allowing an ISP to lock you into to "your" email address.
The bronze standard is use an ISP based account.

The lead standard is to use a free service like HotMail, or such. 

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Your mileage can, and will, vary.

Good Luck,
fjohn

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Today’s jigsaw puzzle the Statue of Liberty with NYC skyline minus the WTC. Sensitive or Insensitive? I’d say “in”.

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

http://games.myway.com/index.html

Today's jigsaw puzzle the Statue of Liberty with NYC skyline minus the WTC. Sensitive or Insensitive? I'd say "in".

But then, I'm the guy who says we should have a private fund raising drive to rebuild it just a little taller than it was. When a bully knocks you down, you don't roll over and let him kick you.

As an L, I hate the gummamint enslaving us. I'd have said sell the WTC towers because why is a quasi government agency running real estate in the hotest market in the world?

But, when someone kicks over my stuff, the gloves come off.

It's one thing if one of our own rants and raves. It's quite another if comes from the outside in. But then I'd also say we should be minding our own business.

But, this was "not relaxing", which is why I start my day with a modest mental challenge to get the brain going.