Some snazzy title goes here

THE TIME MACHINE

I was thinking about the post I had made in the entry "Janeane Garofalo is stalking me" where I had asked "WHAT MOVIES WOULD YOU TAKE?"

It reminded me of the movie "The Time Machine". The 1960's one - not that piece of shit remake that got a couple less stars than the original. Anyway, at the end of the movie it turns out that this guy who had built the time machine took a few (5?) books off of his shelf and the housekeeper didn't know which ones. It was not specified whether it was her incompetence, apathy or illiteracy that was to blame for not knowing which of the books were missing but the best friend of the guy then asked "Which books would you have taken?"

He may just as well turned to the audience, looked dead in the camera and asked "Which books would you have taken?" It was one of those endings designed to make you, the viewer think. So I did. I think they were stupid people.

Lets take a look at it. You have a time machine. You want to go from your time to one where you have found happiness. So, you grab some books you think will help and go. There was never any talk about limited fuel consumption for the time machine, inability to make more than a couple of trips - none of that. And he obviously knew what time he had to go to and from. Why not take a bunch of shit? He is a stupid, stupid man. Or, very impulsive. I'm not seeing either a stupid nor impulsive man coming up with the gumption nor the work ethic to build a time machine. It is disappointing.



NETBOOK VOICE COMMUNICATIONS

When I was in the hospital, I was trying to talk to TJ. It wasn't working worth a crap on there. Unfortunately, I found out just how easy it was to accidentally uninstall the sound drivers. I think I reinstalled them correctly, but who knows. I am no good with computers. I was able to talk to TJ after that but only like 4 words at a time before my voice went away.

Bert will hopefully be able to save us from me. When he gets time (he is tearing apart his new house right now looking for the creamy center or the toy prize at the bottom of it) he will look in his masses of packed boxes (envision end of the first Indiana Jones movie here) to see if he can find a microphone he said I can have.

Whenever he gets a chance to find it, we'll see if he is available to come over and do a sound check so that we can get that up and running. Hopefully, it will work out - and not suck down batteries. Scary there.

I'm also thinking that due to weight and such, the netbook will have to learn to survive in the backpack. I'm not happy about that but combined with the kindle, it just weighs a bit much in my pouch thing.



AMERICAN INVENTIONS

People say that in America we have no conception of history, but I hope this can show you that we do honor history, inventions and the people who made those things come.



ONION NEWS NETWORK

Here are some videos I found of interest to get you started. They are only about two minutes in length or less. Enjoy.

Also, if you are not sure if you are dead or not, you can take this interactive test. Fortunately, if you fail it does give you the opportunity to try it over.

This one is good for travelers. It is an accurate portrayal of American travelers. USA! USA! USA!

And this one - Christ, how many women have I seen trying this?



Smart.fm gets dumber

According to their blog, "Today we are announcing that Cerego Japan Inc. will officially end our Smart.fm service on March 31, 2011." That's a real pity because it was a helpful application to learn foreign languages. I know I sunk some hours into it learning German. According to their announcement, they will be pricing it at 1000 JPY ($12 USD) to continue with the course.

I had put up this in their comments (which I will be surprised if it isn't removed soon): "I'm curious how they are going to transition to a $12/month (1000JPY) service. I noticed that all of the Smart.fm things seem to be *user made*. They merely provide the framework. I'm wondering if they'll just be taking all of that work and charging for it. Or saying they're making it anew. Either way, it is a loss. I'd rather have them put up a 'donate' button somewhere near the top of the page.

Oh, well. Capitalism wins again. Perhaps someone else will be clever enough to come up with an app that works like this where the users can put in their hard work to teach languages. I feel indebted not so much to the hosts of smart.fm but to the users whose work I appreciate.

Thanks folks."

Yes, this is the site that - if they had a 'donate paypal' button up, I'd have gladly tossed them some money. But to go to a pay for site, relying (or stealing) the hard work of the users that programmed it? I cry foul.

Note that after the first few negative/critical comments were posted up, they deleted some of them and began to moderate (ie not posting) all that came afterward. Not only are the people who basically built the site unhappy but now not allowed to post at all. I hope they rethink OR fail. Their choice. I'm guessing they will opt with 'fail'.

In a strange bit of serendipity, their site closes on the 'free' on March 31st. Guess what day that is people?