It’s amazing, as I get older, how I find myself missing the simple things. Life is so complex: the journey is to find order out of chaos and a balance that’s good enough for all.
Nowadays I find myself missing where I grew up. My friends, the woods, getting lost in them. Going down to the river to fish. Playing paintball in the field. Heading up into the woods at 5am for white tail deer hunting.
Technology is great. We’ve made so many advancements as I species and we can do great things. The downside of all that technology is constant distraction. Too many choices. The more complex a system is, the more chaos.
Oh, a simpler time. A man on a horse on a journey. Enjoying the act of exploring, of just being. The most advanced instruments of his life a rifle and a pocket watch.
That feeling of “new” experiences drive us. That being said, enough of is enough.
I long for a simpler time. Of simpler things. Less distraction, more substance. Happiness in the journey. We all know the destination.
Mass Effect 2 is the sequel to Mass Effect. Set in the future, a diverse group band together to defeat an enemy that seeks to conquer and destroy the entire galaxy.
Mass Effect 2 combines great visual effects, a strong story and a myriad of unique characters with great effect. The decisions you made in Mass Effect can carry over with your character to Mass Effect 2. Part of a trilogy, Mass Effect 2 amplifies what was great in the original game and shows much promise to the third and final game in the Mass Effect trilogy.
The campaign in Mass Effect 2 is breathtaking in scope. The average game can take you between 20-30 hours to complete while stopping to take in the sights and do many of the optional side quests in the game.
In June, Bioware released the Project Overlord Downloadable Content (DLC) after releasing the Firewalker pack earlier this year. The Firewalker pack is a necessity for Overlord as you’ll need the new hovertank to traverse the large areas in Project Overlord.
Overlord is a fine addition to Mass Effect 2 and will take the average player between 2-3 hours to complete the mission arc. The Normandy has been asked by Cerberus to check on a research station that has been doing heavy Virtual Intelligence research and has gone radio silent.
The voice acting in the DLC is what you’d expect from a Bioware game; real, authentic and well-written. There isn’t a lot of off-the-cuff dialogue between your crewmates, but your interaction with the mission NPCs is great.
Keeping with Bioware tradition, the DLC story is dark. You’ll get the opportunity to gain some Paragon and Renegade points as you progress the arc and search for the reasons behind the silence of the research facility. By the end you’ll have to decide what action to take and if Cerberus will be happy with your results.
The DLC takes place in four separate areas across the planet’s surface. You’ll use the hover-tank (which is now viewable in the Normandy cargo hold) to travel from point to point in the game.
I’ve never been a huge fan of DLC and micro-transactions but I find the Project Overlord DLC to be worth the $9.99 it cost for Bioware points, usable “currency” you can buy on their website. The Firewalker DLC is cheaper but the missions are much shorter and not as fulfilling as Overlord.
If you enjoy Mass Effect 2 I heavily recommend picking up the Firewalker and Overlord DLCs. They’ll add a few hours to your game and you’ll even acquire a new object for your captains cabin displays. I completed all of the game missions before the Final Suicide Mission (*cough*) and was left with nothing to do after I survived. Check the DLCs out, humanity needs your help!
This morning I was reading that the US Congress is thinking about instituting state sales tax on Internet purchases. In 2009 it was estimated that there we Americans spent $134 billion dollars on online purchases. Obviously that number is going to grow.
Now, let’s pretend that the US Congress wants to actually PAY for all of their spending. A state sales tax is nice, but why not (God forbid that I’m actually saying this) institute a NATIONAL sales tax on Internet purchases or a combination of the two.
I propose something simple. A flat 3% state tax and a 3% national sales tax on purchases. That’s $4 billion dollars (to the states) and $4 billion to the national tax line, with 2009 figures. That number will only go up (or maintain or decline if we get tax crazy).
I completely agree that we don’t need more taxes, but at the same time, we’re building a deficit at an astronomical rate. A state sales tax can help states improve and strengthen their local economies and government could use that money to offset national mandates. Perhaps a moratorium that the money can only go to Internet-related endeavors or research grants?
by jason on June 26, 2010
Slacker Radio
What is Slacker Radio?
I love Internet radio and Slacker Radio is probably my second favorite place to go after Pandora. Plenty of channels to choose from at a good quality makes for an enjoyable listening experience. There are a couple downsides to Slacker Radio.
Downside of Slacker
First, if you want to have “unlimited” skips on your music you need to subscribe at a monthly fee. I like my money too much to want to skip songs without end at a cost.
Secondly, the free subscription is laced with advertisements every so many seconds. At first this really didn’t annoy me, but occasionally it now gets on my nerves.
That is, until yesterday.
The Secret to Blocking Slacker Radio Ads
I discovered that Ad Block Plus for Firefox blocks audio advertisements from Slacker. Sure, the music goes quiet for 15-30 seconds, but there’s no interruption of Mr Announcer.
How To Install AdBlock Plus
Installing AdBlock Plus is quick and easy but there’s one requirement: You need Mozilla Firefox.
- Install Firefox
- Download the AdBlock Plus
- Restart Firefox and choose your filter
That’s all you need to do!
by jason on June 25, 2010
The FTC has reached a settlement with Twitter over events in April of 2009 resulting in unauthorized data disclosure of personal user information. This includes emails, private messages, possibly phone numbers, you name it. I’m sure there were some naughty tweets discovered as well.
Normally I’d care less about this but for some reason I really want to point out the inconsistency of the FTC. They worry about Twitter hacks but how often do you hear about the FTC jumping in and going toe-to-toe with other companies about their security? The FTC never got involved when it was possible to hack into Hotmail accounts by changing the URL. I didn’t hear about the FTC suing TJ Maxx when they were breached and thousands of credit card numbers were stolen. Facebook suffers privacy issues and technical exploits and the FTC says nothing.
Could this be related to the government wanting to have an “internet kill-switch?” In the event of “cyber warfare” they want the ability to turn off the Internet (good luck on that champs). Ask yourself: why does the government want to have control of the most advanced communication tool in the existence of mankind? I don’t think cyberwarfare (and if you use that term you need to kick your own ass) is a good excuse.
Get with the program, government agency, and have some consistency. Your intervention is costing me tax dollars that could be better spent.
by jason on June 24, 2010
Soccer is a great sport, it requires agility, strength, speed and stamina. Like rugby, which I used to play, there are no pads. Just a bunch of sweaty dudes running around kicking a ball into a net. Sure there’s strategy, tactics, strength of will: it’s a sport. There’s also annoying people with loud annoying instruments from all over the world to make noise and cheer on their nation.
Great, I get it. This is the one time that everyone else in the world gets to act like assholes. Their problem is that we in the ass-kicking US of A are always loud and annoying. If being loud was an act of patriotism, we must be the global cheerleaders for the United States.
Just in the last couple years, we’ve decided to USURP the foreign love of soccer and make it our own. Make no mistake, millions of us, myself included, really don’t care. There are more of us that care about other sports than the ones who care about soccer. That’s the louder majority, those sudden soccer-lovers. If we don’t win the World Cup no one will care in two weeks. Other nations will celebrate, or cry themselves to sleep, but we will move on.
They can like their sport, I don’t care. The sad fact is that people take more pride in sports teams than their own families. If they do, that’s their problem, not mine. Show your spirit, America. Be loud and rambunctious and cheer on the national team, go for it.
Those of you in the rest of the world, enjoy your time of being loud and annoying. Feel better that you get to let off some steam, get loud, celebrate as a nation.
We Americans will do it the other 335 days out of the year while you insult us. And we’ll have fun doing it.
by jason on June 23, 2010
I bought a 92 Wrangler YJ last April from Craigslist. Amazingly, when I went to go look at it, the Jeep was in excellent condition. It only had 92,000 miles on it and the owner had padded the roll cage, added custom front and rear bumpers, put a new top on it and also included two other bikini tops for it. He’d also added four new Wrangler tires with custom rims. All of those extra goodies for only $200 over Blue Book price.
The third day I had it the master clutch cylinder went out. The washer holding the rod into the cylinder snapped and I was a mile from home buying lotto tickets and milk.
I picked up a new master cylinder the next afternoon and swapped it in myself. Bled the clutch and was good to go. It took about an hour or so from start to finish, the only tricky part was to disconnect and reconnect the hose between the master and slave clutch.
About two months later I noticed I had a small clutch fluid leak. Now, I have a severe clutch fluid leak. Looks like I’m going to be buying and replacing the slave cylinder as it seems the most likely culprit.
by jason on June 22, 2010
Last week my house got hit by lightning. It was inevitable; I live in St Petersburg, FL which is the lightning capitol of the world. My house came out of it okay (mostly) and the current surge jumped through my cable box, through my router and toasted my PC, PS3 and wireless router. Somehow the RoadRunner/Brighthouse Networks cable modem toughed it out.
Originally I thought maybe it was just the power supply unit that failed (PSU) so I bought a new one on Amazon.com and had it shipped overnight by the UPS elves. Long gone are the days I have multiple spare computers laying around so I needed something to test. I plugged the PSU in and still didn’t have power, so my motherboard or CPU were toast. There were no tell-tale beep codes so it was a safer bet it was the mobo but you never know! Without being able to tell which, I ordered replacements for each component from Newegg.com.
Yesterday I busted out my screwdriver and had my 8 year old daughter help me do the rebuild. I swapped in the new motherboard and left all of my old parts in. It booted right up without a hitch. I opted to keep the new video card, a good bargain GeForce 220 GT which is a slight upgrade over my 8600 GTS that I’ve had since 2007.
The Asus P5Q SE Plus motherboard does everything my old Abit board at a smaller formfactor. There’s still six SATA ports, front and rear USB expansion ports, and also includes SPDIF jacks with a high-definition audio chipset in the event I feel like plugging my PC into a receiver. Windows 7 booted up like a dream and installed all of the proper drivers. The only hitch was the “open box” motherboard, which didn’t have the software CD so I ended up going to Asus’ website and downloading the proper sound manager software. Without it, Windows defaulted to the SPDIF outputs which did me no good and I didn’t have sound.
My current rig is not even close to “top-of-the-line” but it handles everything I do without issues. I’m an avid computer gamer (my PS3 was used more as a Blu-Ray player and media center) and I hobby with photo-manipulation and graphics design. I don’t need a rig with SLI and can’t justify spending thousands on a computer to eek out a higher frame rate. As long as I can pull off 30+ FPS on high or medium settings with 2x AA I’m happy.
Current Specs (for those who wonder)
- 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo (soon to be overclocked to 3.2 GHz once more)
- 4 GB Corsair RAM
- Galaxy Geforce 220 GT (1GB DDR2 RAM)
- Lite-On Lightscribe DVD RW drive
- 2×320GB SATA drives (7200 RPM)
by jason on June 21, 2010
For 60+ days oil has been purging into the Gulf Of Mexico like a cut jugular. Millions of acres of marshland, swamps and beaches are at stake as well as the lives of fish, animals and people. Everyone knows it’s important, BP, the Coast Guard, the Obama administration, people who live near the gobs of oil washing up on shore along with dead birds and fish.
Congress summoned the CEO of BP to publicly chastise the company for not doing enough to clean-up the spill. Not only that, Congress demands BP setup a war chest of funds for recompensation to Gulf Coast residents which exceeds $4 billion. Despite the fact that there’s a $75 million maximum penalty capped by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.
President Obama addressed the nation on the oil spill and his plan to clean it up. Pledging that BP will cover the costs of damages and that the National Guard has been deployed to assist. Our President also stated that he wanted to know whose ass to kick.
But what does all this mean?
Simply put, this is political maneuvering and just another crisis to be exploited by the Administration to take more control over the national economy as well as cap & trade. With the Administration having ramrodded the publicly unpopular Patient Protection and Affordability Act through the House and Senate, incumbent Democrats are worried about their jobs. Public support for the administration and the Democratic Party is slipping lower and lower.
The Congressional inquiry into BP CEO Tony Hayward was grandstanding at it’s finest with Senators taking their turns attacking Big Oil. Tony Hayward has also taken flak for being at a yacht race and not “doing more to clean up the mess.” I would agree that Hayward has made some comments that show is public-speaking skills are lacking and BP itself needs to hire a new PR firm (where are those guys from Sterling Cooper Draper & Pryce and are they available for hire?). BP did take the steps to buy Google keywords to redirect traffic to their site. Good going guys, way to spend thousands of dollars a day.
Really, now that I’m done rambling, let’s get to the meat of this.
- From the Socialist playbook – Never let a good crisis go to waste. Information on Rahm Emanuel’s socialist agenda can be read here.
- Disparage BP through Congressional inquiry to attack ‘Big Business’
- Pass a new energy bill during a lame duck Congress after the 4th of July Recess
Number 3 is really all that matters to the Administration. Democrats are watching their popularity dwindle, public opinion of the administration falter and the Silent Majority of right-leaning Democrats, Tea Partiers and conservatives gaining traction before the November 2010 mid-term elections. Before the balance of power shifts and the Democrats most likely losing their majority in the Senate (and possibly the House), the Administration wants to push through as much reform as they can before they lose power.
They already know their days are numbered. The oil spill gives the President a platform to campaign against Big Oil and push a “green” economy and energy bill. If they are going out the door they may as well try to push more through Congress while they can.
So let me leave you with these questions:
- How many millions of jobs will be lost by cutting back on oil production?
- If the Gulf oil spill is so catastrophic and important to fix, why must repair crews be union employees?
- Why did we turn away the help offered by other nations because they weren’t union?
- Who makes money on cap & trade? (List here)
by jason on June 19, 2010
First there was Friendster, then MySpace and Facebook. The original triumvirate of social network sites. They were hubs to connect people. Friends, musicians, college friends, you name it. We’ve all flocked to social media sites to keep track of our friends, our neighbors, our high school crushes and our favorite sports, movie and television stars.
Then came Twitter and Identi.ca. New social sites to connect people and ideas. (You can toss YouTube and Flickr in here somewhere, the time-line isn’t important.) You can read short messages from people you know or people you don’t know.
Now, following Foursquare, these sites are looking to add something extra. The GPS location of where you and your friends are at. With millions of people using social media and location-based services, including handy sites like Yelp, maybe we should ask ourselves one important questions: what’s the deal with location-based services?
The Benefits of Location-Based Services
Location-based services are a double-edged sword. If used properly, it’s a great way to share what you’re doing and where you’re at. Check-in on Foursquare at your favorite restaurant and maybe your friends will show up because they didn’t know where to have dinner and your update kicked them in gear. Maybe you want some friends to join you for a jog down the Pier? Check-in, send an update and now they know exactly where to be. Use Yelp or sites like it and you can find ATMs, restaurants, auto mechanics, you name it, near your location. This sort of “augmented reality” is quite beneficial for the consumer.
Samples of things you can find with location-based services:
- Restaurants
- Parks / Zoos
- ATMs and Banking Facilities
- Retail Stores
The Downside of Location-Based Services
On the other edge of the sword, the downside of location-based services: your privacy. Broadcasting your location to the Internet can be dangerous. There are reasons that people are careful with whom they share their address. Post an update from your house or apartment on from your cellphone and it’s tagged with the GPS coordinates. No need for an address, someone can track you to ten feet of where you sent it. It’s worse than just knowing the apartment complex you living or housing subdivision.
- Stalkers
- Identify Thieves
- Burglars/Thieves
Most people don’t realize that digital cameras, including those on cellphones, embed data in the picture, including the type of picture, what camera took the picture and, if applicable, the GPS location. This is great for sites that want to use your pictures for “virtual tours” but not so good if that picture is publicly indexed on the Internet. Anyone can extract the GPS data and look up the latitude and longitude to determine where it was taken. This may not be such a good idea if someone wants to track your movements.
Does the good outweigh the bad?
The answer is based on the user. Location-based services have a great benefit to the consumer. It makes finding something much easier and requires little effort to use an application on a cellphone. Are there safety concerns? Undoubtedly, we just haven’t heard of anything SERIOUS yet. It’s only a matter of time. It doesn’t have to be a stalker finding your information, the possibility exists that a hacker could gain access to the information and use it for identity theft by mimicking your patterns and activities, finding where you shop and waiting for their opportunity.
I admit that I use most of these services, I’m just diligent about what I update and who I share it with.
How To Protect Yourself
Steps to protecting your personal information are common sense.
- Limit what you share
- Share with only people you know
- Be a user of Location-Based Services and not a contributor
- Filter information before you send it
These are fairly straight forward actions you can do to protect yourself. If you don’t want people to know, don’t share it. Share sensitive personal information to only people you know. (There’s a reason I only have friends on social networks that I actually “know.”) Use location-based services but limit when you share your location. Proactively review what you’re sharing so that you don’t let something slip you don’t want the public to know. (That goes for your keg-stand pictures that you don’t want your boss or future boss to see.)
There are pros and cons to location-based information. Protect yourself and use common sense. Privacy is only an illusion and controlling that illusion is up to you.
by jason on June 17, 2010
http://healthsetter.com/brown-rice-just-2-servings-can-lower-diabetes-risk/#more-2380
Apparently eating 5+ servings of white rice increases your chances of type 2 Diabetes. I can’t imagine how pumping your body full of starchy carbs, causing your body to produce insulin to get that glucose out of your blood, can cause insulin resistance over time.
Science, once again, proves that the FDA Food Pyramid is what is making you sick.
Thanks, guys, for pointing out the obvious.
For those who may not be aware, considering that I don’t update my blog very often, I started eating and living a Paleo life style, not diet. It amazes me how much better and fuller I feel eating foods that are wholesome and good and attuned to what our bodies eat. I started last fall and eat probably 80% of my food Paleo: meats, fish, nuts, vegetables and fruits with little sugars and no refined wheat products, bread or pasta.
Today is my first 24 hour fast without any food since 6pm last night. Normally I don’t eat if I’m not hungry and when I woke up, I still wasn’t hungry this morning.
When I ate an “American Diet” riddled with inaccurate “conventional wisdom” I’d be starving by now, have a headache and be craving food. Instead, I feel hungry, but I still have a high energy level, do not have a headache, feel dehydrated nor do I feel any cravings to eat. Hungry, yes, but I do not feel an imperative to shovel food into my mouth.
For my friends out there who struggle with diet, diabetes, celiac disease, high blood pressure, or other maladies I recommend reading two web sites that set me on the straight and narrow: www.marksdailyapple.com and www.freetheanimal.com.
Both sites have great information, resources and community focused on eating and living better. If you want to normalize blood sugar, lose weight (body fat) and feel healthy, do yourself a favor and check them out.
Is complete. Well, complete meaning that Emma, the dogs and I are down here in the new house. Our stuff will be here next week, most likely on Monday. Chelsea will be up from the Keys tomorrow and then things will be much improved!
The drive was almost surreal. It was hot, dry and I don’t have air conditioning in my car. Other than that it was a great drive. Emma did good, the dogs were behaved and shared the back seat like champs. The drive was surreal in the fact that I recognized a lot places from when I drove to Virginia when I was a kid. So many places hadn’t changed in those 17 years. There were several times I experienced déjà vu.
Thankfully I made it through almost every city without hitting rush hour. I passed through Atlanta at lunch time and St Petersburg at the tail-end of the rush. I was happy that we skipped KC, St Louis and Nashville rush hours. The Jeep, stuck in traffic, is not fun in the heat. Not one little Kelvin.
I had left Omaha at 7 AM on Tuesday and drove until about 8PM and stopped in Murfreesboro, TN. We spent the night at the Best Western (because they accepted pets) and then got up bright and early and then were back on the road at 6:45AM on Wednesday. Last night we rolled into the house at 6:45 and we were beat.
Today we’re getting settled in. Making a list of items that we need at the house. All in all things are good!
by jason on June 18, 2009
I haven’t posted anything lately and for that reason I suck. Okay, not really. Consider this my official announcement to the world: on June 30th, 2009 I am moving to Tampa, Florida.
Life changes constantly and the best you can do is to adapt. That being said I am moving to Tampa/St Petersburg with my lady and our family.
On the horizon is a lot of work for me to get the house ready, cleaned up and our things packed up. Next week the moving company is going to pack and move our belongings and less than a week later I am in the road with Emma T and our dogs.
I have received a lot of questions about employment and such. I am pursuing some good options (It seems Tampa has a better job market then Omaha) and I have interviews lined up (as well as second interviews). We’ll be renting a house until we can sell the one in Omaha.
My employment at PayFlex has been great; they are a great team and I am lucky to have spent the last few months with my CIO and the team that has worked for me. I wish them the best and hope to continue to work with them to help grow their business and their people.
If you have any questions feel free to email me or call me (if you have my cell.)
Until next time.
Jason
by jason on April 18, 2009
by jason on April 11, 2009
For the curious, I am now the Director of Information Technology at PayFlex. Job found! =)
by jason on March 27, 2009
Still searching. Omaha has such a limited IT community.
Thanks to all of the people who have tried to help. I appreciate it. I’ve got some projects lined up to keep me busy.
by jason on March 3, 2009
Yes, it’s the day. That. Much. Awaited. For. Day. Square Root Day.
Screw that, it’s my birthday!
Happy 31 years on planet Earth for me. Yay!
Thanks for the all of the emails everyone!
by jason on February 27, 2009
So it’s going to snow again today. Could get 1-3 inches of the frost precipitation. Let’s hope it doesn’t suddenly turn into a blizzard. It’s arctic-ly cold outside too, so it should make for some non-powdery hard snow and not the soft stuff you want to take your kids out in to play.
Thank goodness it’ll be almost 60 again later this week.
by jason on February 23, 2009
I don’t know why, but her music is so addictive. I am listening to it right now and I can’t stop tapping my foot! Damn you, Gaga!
