Microsoft Product Lifecycle

Turns out that MS is eliminating support for Win 98/ME at the end of June this year. No big loss, but I had to check up on Win 2k. It's ok until 2010, it seems. See their Product Lifecycle page for details.

Airsoft Sites

SoftAirPro - FAQ
IceFire - FAQ
Pyramid Air

Net Machine Shop

I finally found the Net machine shop featured in Wired that I couldn't find the URL to: http://www.emachineshop.com/. Cool. Now I can proceed with my plans for world domination. They also have a sister company, Pad2Pad, that does circuit board etching. Build it!!

山本遊子のブログ

ここだったけど、ここに移った。以前名前をどっかで見たかな。今別の検索でサイトに巡り合った。

向こう側のアパート

隣のビルのアパートの賃貸情報を見つけた。実は、この部屋が良かったけど、引っ越した時に空いていなかった。ちょっと残念だったけど、結局あまり家にいないんで（いつも会社にいる気がする）別にいいか。

The Lie Behind the Lie Detector

Gotta learn how to pass a polygraph.

Fujitsu's 200GB 2.5"er

Turns out Fujitsu's 200GB Mobile drive is a 3-disk longitudinal product. It's interesting that they could get three platters to fit into the standard height. Fujitsu's product page contains limited specs.

A Margarita Recipe

Intriguing.

Japanese Post Office

This is extremely useful info for me! The Japanese Post Office has a nice online reference site for EMS now. Further, they have details on shipping food items to the U.S. There's a link to the U.S. FDA page on Prior Notice of incoming food items, as well as an online manual.

Watson's Weapons & Raufoss

For biiiiig guns, check out Watson's Weapons. Mostly .50BMG stuff. You can get armor-piercing incendiaries! Now only if one could get Raufoss Multi-Purpose rounds, some Norwegian AP ammo that apparently the Navy uses. The stuff uses RDX high-explosive, and detonates within the target after penetration. Ouch. I hear it's $30/rd. Now that'd be worth buying a 50-cal for!

Snopes, the Plague, and Ben Stein

This came up recently after talking to Katy about her dissertation on infectious (typically fatal) diseases. We'd discussed the merits of quarantining HIV/AIDS when it was in its infancy, and she convinced me that it wouldn't have been a good idea after all. The comparison was to the Black Plague, and the differences were that the Plague was visually recognizable and was fatal in a short timespan. HIV/AIDS is not outwardly visible and takes sometimes many years to kill, so quarantine is not feasible: There's no easy way to recognize the victims, and people don't want to go into quarantine so they wouldn't come out and say it. Anyway, I read up on the Black Plague on Wikipedia, and found out some stuff I didn't know, like there were three "varieties". The salient point was that the "Ring Around the Rosies" children's rhyme doesn't refer to the Plague, or so says Snopes, one of those myth debunker sites.

Another fun entry they had was a quote from Ben Stein regarding the state of America today where stupid celebreties are all-important and freedom of religion has gone out the window. There's one other one on the nature of stardom and role models that's worth reading. Ben Stein is cool.

The Municator

Makebot sent me a link to an article on the Make Blog covering The Municator. Another article.

Apparently the Chinese have made an Intel-compatible CPU for the express purpose of making cheap domestic computers so they don't have to rely on foreign stuff. From their website:

Our ultimate goal is to let the Chinese computer-users use our own-made CPUs in which we do not have to rely on the imported CPUs. Our products are made for ourselves but not for exportation only. At the moment, we have developed the necessary techniques and technologies for developing our own brand-named computers. If we can produce our own products by ourselves, more Chinese computer-users can enjoy the benefits, and this is what we have aimed to achieve.

I suppose that's really smart of them, because they're doing what the U.S. as a whole is too stupid to do—remain self-sufficient. We're so heavily dependent on Chinese shit that it's not even funny. Many stores only have junk that's made in China: it's hard to not buy Chinese even if you don't want to. And that's disgusting. Capitalism is shooting itself in the foot big time.

Tax Junk

This isn't a link, but I want to note it, just in case.

A US tax law allows taxpayers to choose whether they want to deduct the state and local sales taxes they have paid during the year in lieu of deducting state and local income taxes. This is beneficial for individuals who itemize their deductions and live in one of seven "no income tax" states (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Texas, and Washington) or live in states where the sales tax rate is in excess of the income tax rate. Taxpayers can choose to determine the deductible amount by relying on actual receipts or by using tables developed by the IRS. In addition, individuals who had large purchases, such as automobiles and boats, can add sales tax paid on those items on top of the amount indicated in the tables developed by the IRS.

"Be smarter at work, slack off"?

MRG sent me a link to an article on CNN Money about how people need slack time to be creative and give companies an edge. Seems like everyone I know is stressed out at work these days because they have too much to do. Too much work, too few competent people to do the work.

Of course, one has to be careful about saying it's ok to slack, because there are some true non-workers out there. The last thing we need is for them to work even less.

Mr. Dada: Gold & Business

I don't recall how I found this blog, but I must've been searching Blogger randomly or somesuch. Anyway, there's this gold investment blog called Dada Says, apparently by a businessman named A.B. Dada. It seems to be legit, though one should always take advice with a grain of salt. Free advice given freely is often wrong. We spend so much time building networks of people we can trust because ascertaining whether information is good or not is often how half our time leading up to decision-making is spent.

Anyway, this Mr. Dada links to an online book called What Has Government Done to Our Money? (PDF). Indeed. I haven't read it yet, but it does look interesting.

This article on the Clinton and inflation was quite interesting.

Then there's another blog by the same fellow called Be Your Own Boss. Sounds like a kindred spirit.

Link Page Back Up

Apparently some blogs hosted on Blogspot were down for a few days, one of which was this one. As such, I wasn't able to take down a bunch of interesting links. Well, when one uses a free service, one doesn't have the right to complain. Much. I suppose it's my fault for not being more with it—perhaps a normal person would be able to keep these things about himself without getting buried. These are confounding times we live in.

Tacnuke North Korea

Apparently North Korea has been test-firing more missiles. They really need to get smacked down. Hard.

Maxxuss

Maxxuss is my hero.

Hard Disk Info

USByte has an interesting explanation of HDD technology. It's extremely simplistic, but is therefore good information for someone who knows nothing about how a HDD works.

Um, the following is work-related, but is kinda interesting. Regarding the so-called "Wallace spacing loss":
Clearance Measurements - References the patent by Klaassen, et al, #5130866.
Head reliability of AMR sensors based on thermal stress tests - A bit more detail regarding the spacing measurement.

松下奈緒

綺麗だな、この人。前にも雑誌の表紙で見て調べた。残念ながら写真集はなさそうだ。でも買ったら嫁に怒られそう！

女性雑誌ランキング

女性向けの雑誌に興味のある人はここまで参考してください。特に、アイドルのものな。

Hostesses

My senpai sent me a note a while back asking about the Lucy Blackman trial. I had forgotten about it, it happened so long ago (2000). She was a British girl who came to Japan to make money as a hostess and ended up getting killed by some psychopath who had drugged and raped a bunch of hostesses. I haven't been able to find info on what happened with the trial of the psycho. Japan's legal system is very messed up. If I were that girl's dad and this was the U.S., I'd shoot the psycho in the head. Twice. With a history like that, trust me, the piece of shit isn't worth allowing to walk around.

Transcript of 60 Minutes bit on white-girl-stalking psychos....
If you still don't mind, here's a page about being a hostess.

Walther G22

My dad was telling me about the new Walther G22 rifle. It looks pretty sweet for a .22, even if it only has 10 rounds. I may have to include it in my list for the gun buying spree I go on when I move back to the U.S. Muahaha. Perhaps I'd better get that FFL after all.

Manko Power

Katy asked me to get her some stickers from this Japanese adult net store that say "manko power". How demented. Especially because it's in romaji. Perhaps they would've gotten in trouble if they'd written it in kana?

All About Pizza in Chicago

Worth studying? Mongo like pizza.

Katy's Gossip Links

Ok, so I was talking to Katy online about random stuff, and suddenly she sends me this incredibly twisted link to a Flash game about Lee Tamahori. The game is really twisted, but I had to go look up wtf Lee Tamahori was. I ended up on this site called The Superficial, which is some wacky celeb gossip site. Katy knew it, and then started sending me links to all these other gossip blogs: IDon'tLikeYouInThatWay.com, The Awful Truth (Blind Vice), and Dlisted. I didn't know she read this stuff. I thought she was a serious PhD student. And now my brain is reeling from nasty pictures of celebs I used to think were hot, like Teri Hatcher (think Tango & Cash, ok?). Good Lord, what has this society come to? But...but...here's Jessica Alba topless sunbathing? Yowza.

Bozzetti

While jogging, I went by Kugenuma station just for the heck of it -- ok, I thought I could cut around the Enoden tracks a different way and there wasn't one -- and passed by this leather goods store called Bozzetti. Handmade stuff is cool.

Check out Limbo

Apparently Dennis Ritchie worked on a successor to the C programming language, called Limbo. This sounds quite interesting...must learn more.

CNN News, 2006.02.02

Some news articles from CNN:
Women sue Wal-Mart over contraception - I'm no fan of Wal-Mart, but these feminist bitches need to get smacked down. Who the hell are they to tell a company they must stock a certain product? That's not capitalism, that's socialism! On the other hand, I'd be happy if morons like this didn't produce offspring, so maybe Wal-Mart should stock the morning-after meds. Incidentally, it's inaccurate to call it "contraception" if the medication is utilized post-fertilization.
How Pepsi outgunned Coke - An excellent article on why the cola wars wasn't everything. Also an eye-opener: if you buy stock in companies you like, sometimes it's not as profitable as buying companies you don't like. (I vastly prefer Coke to Pepsi, but made less than 10% on Coke stock.)
The "Oh, s#&%!" moment - A few good tips for handling the low points of office work. Check out "Managing the boss" and "Adventures in e-mail".
Young and in love with saving - Think about the future. Active investment is becoming a must in Corporate America. Don't trust your future to your employers: when it's time for you to "retire", they won't care about you anymore.

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眞鍋かをりのココだけの話
がんばれ、生協の白石さん！
Monkeyfarm: なんでも作るよ。