Nathaniel Eliot

• 21:32 The wife just told me she wanted to be accused of weapons snuggling. #

One step closer to "speak once, hear everywhere" technology. Thanks, LoudTwitter.

• 07:46 I'm gonna implode from holding my breath over here. :/ #
• 11:48 GODDAMIT. I opened one of the drawers underneath my bed and what do I see? A GIANT field mouse. Can we just burn the house next door down? #
• 11:49 And/or train my cats to leave THEIR toys outside? GODDAMMIT. #
• 11:56 I AM NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO SANITIZING UNDER MY MOTHERFUCKING BED. #
• 11:57 @Swamp_Daddy They have a cat door. I am very tempted to make them all stay out FOREVER. #
• 12:03 I have devised a cunning plan involving a small box, a piece of swiss cheese, the vacuum cleaner, a flashlight, and a plastic bag. #
• 12:07 Well that involved a great deal of shrieking and was not as effective as I had hoped. #
• 12:08 It charged me, and I crumbled in the face of its possible hanta virus. #
• 12:10 @Swamp_Daddy Vagina cats says I see you pikachu. #
• 12:11 @K82 Yes, since they abandoned the house the vermin I am sure are breeding. I OWN A STEAM MOP; I am not disgusting. #
• 12:11 Hey guys, another side effect of hoarding? The impact on your immediate environment. YOUR FILTHY HOUSE IS A PUBLIC HEALTH VIOLATION. #
• 12:12 AND NOW, your filthy house is invading my house and causing CHAOS. #
• 12:17 @tigerlilybelle Come over, it's a crisis! #
• 12:20 MY steam mop weeps quietly in a corner by itself. #
• 12:27 @darkgracie It's for facebook. If you use the Selective Twitter Facebook app any tweet tagged with #FB will be posted to your FB profile. #
• 14:33 FOR FUCK'S SAKE. Mouse has been trapped in poster tube. I reign victorious over this household. NOW TO SANITIZE EVERYTHING. AGAIN. #
• 19:22 Yeah, lizard torture techniques! Prepare my bath of eels. Torture makes tired. #vseries #
• 20:59 The words "cuddle puddle" make me want to vomit. #
• 21:50 Steam mop, you are my *best* friend. #

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Before I travel for the holidays I need to purchase a netbook so I can leave the much heavier and more valuable laptop at home and travel with the light and easy netbook. Also I need the second computer so I can play internet radio stations in the bedroom even though the laptop is in my office.

There are some used netbook models on Craig's List in the $350 range that come loaded with windows and some with MS Office. But they only have 1GB of RAM. Is this enough RAM to run Windows, MS Word, MS Excel, Outlook and Internet? That's all I need it for.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Some thoughts as we celebrate a week that starts with the 20th anniversary of the end of the Berlin Wall and continues with Veterans/Armistice/Remembrance Day.

I read somewhere that one of the advantages of being a worker in construction is that no matter how low in the hierarchy you were, every time you go by the bridge or building you worked on you can say proudly "I helped build that!" and be confident that what you took part in should stand for years, maybe centuries.

If I were to say something like "I helped make that happen" while watching the old footage of the Wall's destruction 20 years ago, you might think I was a tad delusional. But in a small way, I contributed.

All of us who served during the Cold War were a part of the strong military front that we placed in Europe to ensure that Communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular didn't advance. My role was more direct, being in a Pershing missile unit. At first we were a threat to rain nuclear fire down on countries like Czechoslovakia, Soviet satellites, but of no concern to the USSR unless they actually wanted to mount a westward offensive across Europe. Then while I was there in Germany, we got the Pershing II missiles. Their unclassified range would strike Mother Russia. That helped bring them to the bargaining table.

Also, having high-tech nuclear-armed NATO over the horizon meant that the USSR couldn't distract its people from their ever-worsening economic conditions with war against outside enemies. Afghanistan was a disaster and drain on resources, and with those freedom-loving Americans and other Westerners watching closely on the European front, it was getting harder to keep that frontier firmly under Moscow's thumb. After Solidarity got some wiggle room in Poland, and the Baltic states broke free, then Czechs started to gain their freedom. It stood to reason that East Germany, with little help coming from the Soviets, was going to hold out much longer on its own, especially since its citizens likely wanted reunification anyway. Suddenly, the wall was open, and the rest of what remained of the Iron Curtain crumbled soon after.

It's hard for the youth of today to imagine what it was like living in America in the years before 1989, living with the knowledge that at any time another country on the other side of the globe could cause the city or countryside you lived in to become instantly consumed in nuclear fireballs, knowledge that surviving the attack could be far worse that being incinerated in the blasts. In the 80s we knew that "duck and cover" wasn't going to cut it. There were serious debates about how globally devastating "nuclear winter" would be. We all saw the scene near the end of "War Games" when the computer screen showed various nuclear exchange scenarios, each one blanketing the earth with blasts.

In my unit, when we did a field exercise, it would end with "general exchange" -- take your time packing to go back to post, the world just ended.

But we held up our end of the madness of Mutually Assured Destruction, and the other player blinked. To this day, we're still in the process of putting away our nuclear toys. The Pershings are history, but many thousands of warheads (ours and theirs) remain.

Korea is often regarded as "the forgotten war," but aside from some little skirmishes that have happened through the years, the war most likely to forget its soldiers was the longest one. For much of 1945-89 we were supposedly serving in "peacetime" yet we had an enemy, and well spelled-out missions should we be called upon to enact them. From the time intercontinental missiles came on-line, we had armed weapons aimed at one another.

There are two reasons I don't join the American Legion. The first is the attitude I'm finding reflected in too many veterans -- that Flag=God, Obama bad, Palin good, and to think any other way is unAmerican. But that's for another rant.

The second, which really irks me, is that I qualify for membership solely because my dates of service include the same span of time that the U.S. had its little adventure in Grenada. That quickie war involved only a few units and really had nothing to do with me or any of the US or NATO forces I served with in Europe. But apart from that accident of the calendar, my service doesn't qualify.

That's like being told I can take credit for building a small bridge I never touched, but working on the big span on the other side of town meant nothing. That's not how I work. It's not right, and I won't accept it.

But to what degree I helped weaken a certain wall, that was a job well done.

Maybe we can both swim to an island and form a moderate party....

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091110.html

The other side of Saturn's ring plane is now directly illuminated by the Sun.

"It it is time, I suggest, to stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military."

created an rss feed for groupon in chicago: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/groupon_chicago/profile

should be useful. hopefully i did it correctly.

• 14:02 RT @jackmiller @krisstinawise of @goodlifeteam makes the top of Roost's top 50 in social media: glt.bz/top50twitter #

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1. The tea rule: when markgritter is out of town, you must remember to make your own afternoon tea. This is a good rule.

2. The miso rule: in months when you would by default wear socks, you must have something warm with at least one and preferably two meals a day. This, too, is a good rule.

3. The salad rule: no more than one meal a day can be solely composed of cold raw vegetables, or you will wake up in the middle of the night cold and hungry. (Clarification: adding cold nuts to the cold raw vegetables is only enough for ONE meal a day. NOT TWO.) This is a very, very good rule. See how much better tonight is for these rules than yesterday was without them? Yah. Good. Remember that.

4. You can doubt yourself when you're away from the computer. Doubt yourself in the shower, doubt yourself propped up next to the stove, doubt yourself riding in the car, whatever you need to do. Not required but permitted from time to time. But at the computer you write.

5. It turns out that being funny in a book does not make it easier, as a writer, to deal with the incredibly emotionally difficult plot points you have written into it, YOU BLITHERING MORON. But it turns out not to be physically possible just yet to go back in time and shake yourself by the shoulders for plotting it that way before you knew how this year would be. And it will be better this way. It really will. But--gee, huh, why might you be avoiding writing that chapter, self? What an incomprehensible behavior! Wholly inexplicable by any means except LOGIC AND DEDUCTIVE REASONING.

Sheesh, some monkeys.

...And he said OK!

The deal is, tomorrow is Veteran's Day, and a number of restaurants are giving discounts and freebies.

For the sake of fellow veterans reading this, or friends who know or are related to vets, here's the run-down of deals that I know of:

Applebees -- Free food off a select menu. Must show proof of military service.

Outback Steakhouse -- Free Bloomin' Onion and beverage. Must show proof of military service.

Krispy Kreme -- Not finding a reference on their website, but I've heard that military and vets each get a free doughnut (this is a trap, of course, as once you've eaten one, you'll want to buy a dozen... but they're so good!)

Uno Chicago Grill -- Free entre or individual pizza, with equal or greater purchase. Must show proof of military service.

And not tomorrow, but next Monday, 5-9 p.m., Golden Corral steak buffets will give a free meal to any service member or vet. No proof needed; they'll take your word for it.*

I've found a bunch of my old military paperwork, so I should be able to extract something the eateries will accept. (What? The dog-tag on my keychain isn't enough?) We usually get horrible service from Applebees, so Uno is looking good.

If any of y'all know of other deals, feel free to comment.

EDIT: *Some Golden Corrals may require proof. The Indianapolis locations have gone by honor system. Also bear in mind they get VERY crowded so be prepared to stand in line to get in and share a table once you're inside (and don't forget we're talking next Monday, not tomorrow).

Also, halfwaytocrazy has alerted me that Arby's will give a Free Regular Roast Beef Sandwich during regular business hours Wednesday. Proof of US Military service is required. Limit one per ID. At participating Arby's in OK, AR, MO, KS & Ill (greater STL area).

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From time to time I've tried to tackle the backup/conversion of my audio CDs into a more lasting and portable format than the heavy zippered case that hosts my music collection. I've been searching for quite some time for the perfect ripping software for my particular needs, and I think I have finally fulfilled my quest:

Rubyripper

This is a Ruby-based CD ripper that focuses on quality rips -- it makes a test rip of the file twice, and then compares them before making the final rip to minimise the errors. Even better, it's got a very intuitive interface that lets you choose the desired format with radio buttons, and set your own file naming conventions (with the options right on the screen that lets you set them, so you don't have to wade through online help files).

It's also very easy to edit track information before ripping. The only bad thing I've found so far is that it doesn't know how to rip to an already existing folder without overwriting it -- if you want to put two CDs into the same folder (e.g. a 2-disk set) you have to create a separate folder for the second disk, and then copy over the second set of files after ripping.

The application itself can either be installed, or run directly from its folder. I chose the latter and stuck it into an Apps folder on my hard drive, then created a shortcut to the main executable (rubyripper_gtk2.rb for Linux or rubyripper_cli.rb for Mac). To get the most out of this fantastic application, I highly recommend installing more than just the bare minimum requirements. The one downside to this application is that it doesn't have a Windows version...but I'm sure all the poor Windows users out there will make due with the numerous rippers already available to them. ;)

A very HAPPY BIRTHDAY today to moonstone_fae and granulac !

And in advance to technoinfidel for tomorrow, as I don't know if I'll be on-line.

• 20:43 Sometimes my credit giving has been called namedropping by insecure individuals @journchat #Q10 #
• 21:52 So current geekcrushes @debs @mikecotton @jeffjonas get your bootie on twitter Jeff! #openbanking #
• 21:54 nom nom making hot chocolate w miss @alleamarya who is in SF visiting... though I should be working on prezo for tomorrow! #
• 21:58 SNORT! @myrnatheminx @jgilliam @adrielhampton you guys are killing me!!! #namedropping #deeplyvexingquestions #
• 22:22 or RT messages u are in? RT @adrielhampton: #deeplyvexingquestions @jgilliam @myrnatheminx @silona Or retweeting your own follow fridays ... #
• 22:23 +2 for recursion! @jgilliam @myrnatheminx @adrielhampton @journchat #
• 18:27 pissed off about the lack of #transparency in the ACTA ow.ly/BajY #EFF #copyright #patent #
• 18:33 ugh more #fail on ACTA boing boing ow.ly/Bans and the Canadian view pt ow.ly/Bany #EFF #copyright #patent #
• 19:18 So anyone else see the amazing resemblance btn sidewiki and reframeit? somethin' smells stinky... #
• 19:27 whoops how was I not following @paultrevithick #identity #kantara Sorry Paul! #<
  /a>
• 19:52 #fail @drdigipol so mafia wars guys is a complete asshat and admits it ow.ly/Bb8T #

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Speaking of fun things to do, the tickets to opening night of New Moon are starting to sell out across the country. Yes, the movie will most likely be bad. But that's not going to stop the rabid fan girl from being at the midnight showing on Thursday November 19th. Time to get my tickets.

EDIT: Tickets purchased! If anyone wants to join us we're going to the Regal Thornton Place Stadium 14 & IMAX.

The savagery of capitalism will not be left unpunished