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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Nine Nines' LiveJournal:
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| Sunday, October 19th, 2008 | | 9:42 am |
Instant Runoff Voting - IRV
I've mentioned this to a few people now and everyone likes the concept. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_votingIt's a way of ranking your choice when voting such that multiple people from one party can be on the same ballot and third party candidates have a much better shot at getting votes since you don't have to worry about the spoiler affect. I described IRV to a red-stater and he said "the liberals would never go for it - they would have gotten Bush Sr instead of Clinton" in 1992. My blue-stater friends say, sweet, we would have gotten Gore instead of W since the Nader Traders ruined that election. So, it's for everyone. No one believes exactly one strict party line - ok I'm sure there are some - but you get a much wider variety of candidates running, and then issues being discussed, etc. It doesn't fall into this red-blue head to head battle, it's more about the issues, what a concept. And there is a cute video: http://www.fairvote.org/irv/?page=2271It's been used in San Francisco and is used to select the President or Ireland. It would be great to plan for an election that wasn't a useless choice between Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber. Current Mood:  energetic | | Sunday, January 20th, 2008 | | 9:05 am |
Vera Verba
Now that a bunch of blogposts are accumulated, I'd like to highlight some more entries from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif?v=92.2) veraverblog... Why Doomsday Predictions Seldom Work Out (And How To Get Rich)We are currently seeing predictions that the economy will collapse in the next couple of years. Will the once mighty USA (and Europe along with it) soon resemble 3rd World Sink Holes? Will your business and investments go down the tubes? Or, could it be that this dip is an opportunity? ... Don’t sit around waiting for the end of civilization as you knew it. Be prepared with your own optimistic vision. Position yourself to get where you want to be. [...]Is Bible Really All Time Best Seller?Agree Or Die! (Polarization on the Frontier)When a group of people with the same opinion remains in a single room, that opinion moves inevitably to the extreme. ... The Internet makes it possible to surround yourself with people of a single opinion. ...unpleasant contrary opinions are good for us. Cognitive dissonance is our friend; it shows us what we have not integrated. Eliminating or even excluding contrary voices can be dangerous. [...]Swag Current Mood:  restless | | Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 | | 6:21 pm |
| | Monday, August 27th, 2007 | | 3:40 pm |
God Wants You Dead
Sean Hastings (Founding CEO of HavenCo the Sealand datahaven company) and Paul Rosenberg (Author of "A Lodging of Wayfaring Men" an underground hit among the clued digerati) have just released a new book about Religion, Politics, and future technology entitled "God Wants You Dead" This book is about the past, present and future evolution of human ideas. Its primary emphasis is on parasitic collectivist ideologies. It examines where they come from, how they harm us and how we can remove them from our own minds and from the culture around us. Finally, it tells us the amazing things that will become possible for humanity when they are gone. Not only religions, but also nation states, racial groups, corporations and other collectives are targeted for clear minded observation and criticism. read more | digg story | | Monday, January 16th, 2006 | | 10:19 am |
good info on credit scores
I ran across this from a loan officer on Tribe and wanted to keep it in memory These are my notes from a credit scoring seminar that I took as a loan officer... It was given by a mortgage credit reporting company. 35% of your score is payment history – rated by “recent-cy, frequency and duration” It's better for your score to keep a credit card open when you pay it off, this increases your duration of credit! Latest 2 years most important. Scoring module 0-6mos considered now, 6-12mos still considered heavy, 12-24 still worth the effort of fixing. 30% of your score is revolving credit balances – under 50% of overall limit, optimum use is 30% capacity of revolving accounts (to the penny!) ( Read more... ) | | Thursday, September 1st, 2005 | | 12:12 pm |
Katrina Help wiki portal is good for finding or providing help: http://katrinahelp.info/wiki/index.php/Main_Pageand the new orleans craiglist Katrina help section: http://neworleans.craigslist.org/about/help/katrina_cl.htmlNew Orleans Metroblog is very hands-on by (former) locals: http://neworleans.metblogs.com/and the various links from those places. My friends are luckily on their way up, a generous friend of theirs offering to drive from IN to TN to where they are and take them to NYC. Yay for great people! Everyone else I know there has been accounted for and has someplace to go and start over. It'll be interesting to see how many decent people go back and how many just start over in other cities. It would be very sad to see the poorest and least capable people left to rebuild the city. What kind of economy will survive there? Certainly oil and gas and shipping. Tourism is screwed for a long time. Maybe some kind of WPA-like organization will be put in place to rebuild and to provide jobs. I have mixed feelings about that, but all so many want are jobs and homes. | | Tuesday, August 30th, 2005 | | 10:18 pm |
hurricane woes
Well I have 2 friends who fled new orleans trying to make it up here from Memphis where they landed, except we can't seem to get their 5 cats here at all. airlines will only take 2 pets at once and amtrak doesn't take pets at all. Any ideas? I think I'll put posters around town for anyone with any spare beds or futons. I have 2 extra apts for a month but no furniture. My guess is my neighborhood will be generous as they can, I just need to get the word out. My friend even offered to let people stay at his beach house in the Hamptons. So sweet! So if anyone is driving from memphis to nyc or knows anyone going from memphis to nyc and wants to bring along some fleeing friends, please let me know! Current Mood: bummed | | Monday, May 23rd, 2005 | | 8:26 pm |
| | Saturday, February 19th, 2005 | | 9:20 am |
a new kind of cube life
 In hopes of bringing New York City back into the game of architectural creativity and greatness, the city has approved the construction of the Calatrava tower, which will consist of $35 million townhome cubes in the sky. I'm sure the $35 million price tag will be no obstacle in filling the tower. They will be located at the South Street Seaport, which is more a shopping and residential district nowadays than a seaport. The longstanding fishmarket there is soon moving to the Bronx I believe to make way for the "higher and best use" property types. I don't think I'd pay the money to live there, but I sure will try to get invited to the grand opening :) | | Thursday, February 10th, 2005 | | 1:46 pm |
| | Wednesday, January 5th, 2005 | | 8:44 am |
AMA compares Atkins, Ornish, Zone and Weight Watchers
and right in time for New Year diets! "Tomorrow’s Journal of the American Medical Association reports the results of a head-to-head comparison of four popular diets: Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and the Zone. Tufts University researchers randomly assigned 160 people to the four diets, gave them an instruction book and four educational sessions, and then tracked their weight over the next year. After the first two months, participants were encouraged to follow their assigned diets only insofar as they felt inclined to. At the one-year mark, the average weight loss was 3.3 kg (7.3 lb) for Ornish, 3.2 kg (7.0 lb) for the Zone, 3.0 kg (6.6 lb) for Weight Watchers, and 2.1 kg (4.6 lb) for Atkins. These numbers are group averages, including both compliant and noncompliant dieters; weight loss was greater for those who continued to follow their diets. About half of the Ornish and Atkins dieters and two-thirds of the Weight Watchers and Zone dieters reported continuing to follow their regimens over the entire year. Low-density lipoprotein (“bad”) cholesterol dropped by 12.6% in the Ornish group, 11.8% for the Zone group, 9.3% for the Weight Watchers group, and 7.1% for the Atkins group at one year. Dansinger ML, Gleason JA, Griffith JL, Selker HP, Schaefer EJ. Comparison of the Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone diets for weight loss and heart disease risk reduction. JAMA 2005;293:43-53." I'd like to see the numbers of weight lost for those who stayed on the diets as well, which I'm sure is in the full report. But ease of staying on a diet is probably more critical than it seems at first. I would have expected the Atkins group to have fared better than half in staying on a diet over the course of the year. They're always the drooling carnivorous bacon eaters that claim to love their diet. (not that I don't like bacon! I just don't like fat. OK fat is yummy, but needs to be moderated) | | Wednesday, July 21st, 2004 | | 12:12 pm |
Free iPods
for Duke University incoming freshmen. Very cool - "The school has set up a Web site modeled on Apple's iTunes music site that will allow students to download recorded lectures, audio books, language lessons and other course content. The students can also use the site to purchase music. The iPods will also come preloaded with freshman orientation material and the academic calendar, the North Carolina university said in a statement." http://money.cnn.com/2004/07/21/technology/duke_ipod/Durham, NC will be the iPod capital soon :) Like I need more reasons to love Durham. | | Saturday, April 3rd, 2004 | | 12:42 pm |
| | Tuesday, December 30th, 2003 | | 6:35 pm |
almost free software
I'm posting this in case anyone wants to support open source software development and also receive lots of great "free" software on a disk for a small donation. My friends over at Organizer's Collaborative are having a fundraising drive: FROM NOW UNTIL December 31, if you make an online donation of $25 or more to Organizers' Collaborative, you will receive a BONUS CD with a copy of over a dozen software programs, including the Organizers Database and both Macintosh and Windows versions of the Open Office office Suite, the AbiWord word processor, the Mozilla Web Browser, and the Scribus desktop publishing program for Macs. [Note: if you receive this email after the 31st, we will still honor the offer until Jan. 10.] Can you help us reach our goal? Our online donation link is: http://organizenow.net/join.html Though these excellent OPEN SOURCE software programs are available on the web, downloading them even on a computer with a fast connection can take a half an hour. And then you have to go through the trouble of burning a CD to bring the software to the social change group down the street that has only a modem connection. We've done that for you. We think that is a win-win situation if there ever was one: - First, you get a CD with high-quality software -- all programs are improved substantially over last year's versions. - Second, you support our program to deliver high quality technology assistance to needy grass roots groups and take a tax deduction for it if that matters to you. - Third, you can copy the CD we sent you without running the risk of paying a fine or going to jail. - Finally, you can rest assured that your gift is going to technology assistance and not PR: we receive no funds from Microsoft and much of our work is done by volunteers. And if you want to give but don't want the CD, just write "NO CD" in the donation comment box in the web form. Current Mood:  geeky | | Friday, September 26th, 2003 | | 8:32 pm |
Segway recalled! doh.
Scooter recall catches Segway off-balance By Ellen Kelleher in New York Published: September 26 2003 21:08 | Last Updated: September 27 2003 0:43 When George W. Bush fell off a Segway scooter during a family weekend in Maine this summer, it spawned a thousand jokes about his "lack of balance". But the presidential tumble may actually have been the result of a design fault, it emerged on Friday. The makers of the revolutionary self-balancing scooter have recalled the 6,000 currently in circulation after reports of riders falling off when the batteries are low. Such mishaps can occur if "the rider speeds up abruptly, encounters an obstacle or continues to ride after receiving a low battery alert", the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Friday. Segway said it had received reports of three cases of riders tumbling off the scooters - which can travel up to 12 miles per hour and do not have traditional brakes - with one person needing stitches. http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059480162090 Current Mood:  full | | 10:43 am |
A Solar Twist on Desalinization
GAINESVILLE, Florida, September 22, 2003 (ENS) - Desalinization has long held the promise of helping the world solve its pressing water needs, yet widespread implementation has not occurred because current systems are costly and require large amounts of energy. But engineers at the University of Florida (UF) have turned to nature for a solution that could make desalinization a viable option for those in need. ( Read more... ) Current Mood:  awake | | Saturday, June 14th, 2003 | | 11:10 am |
Open BSD experts???
I'm trying to install Plone CMS on an Open BSD 3.3 server. I actually managed to get Python, Zope, CMF and Plone installed, (ok, with lots of help already) but apparently I need the THREAD_STACKS_SIZE patch for python. I've downloaded the patch but have no idea what to do with it. The freakin explanation is 'just re-build the Python 2.1 port with "-DTHREAD_STACK_SIZE=0x20000" specified as an argument to the make command'. OK but simply sticking the patch in the build directory and rebuilding as stated does not work. Do I need to execute the patch file somehow? Rename it? Manually append the patch to the original file? I have no idea! Anyone have a clue you to lend??? Current Mood:  confused | | Wednesday, April 9th, 2003 | | 6:57 pm |
Grrrr - rant
Never ever be an absentee landlord. Ever. Not without a management company on the ground to handle things, or extracting great personal items like SSN and first born. Man, this whole thing sucks. So I'm trying to sell the house. Tenant #1 has been wanting to buy it, saving his money, and being overall pretty nice but dumb. He rented out half of the duplex to Tenant #2 (which is another story, but I OKd it after they had already moved in). I'm trying to coordinate with T#1 about my arrival to either sell to him or put the place on the market for anyone. What does he do? Supposedly tells T#2 that he must move out, because I'm coming down. WTF? So I call T#1 and he says that he didn't tell T#2 that, that T#2 was just being emotionally unstable and wanted to leave at the first sight of me arriving with contractors ready to beautify the mistreated house. T#2 says, no, T#1 told him to go, so he went and won't pay this month's rent. Confused? Me too, but in that stunningly painful way associated with absentee landlordism that means I'm about to lose more money. Why is it that people assume if you're a property owner, you must have so much money that you wouldn't miss payments of rent? This would not have happened if I was in the same state as my house, but I'm not and it's really hard to be 100% on top of things when you're dealing with this level of stupidity. I am extremely pissed off and trying to find the least worst of options. Continue to wait until T#1 has money to purchase, which is the least time-consuming and was supposed to be my cheapest option? Put the house on the market, unrented in half the duplex? Set it on fire? (just kidding, haha insurance co.s, i'd never do that!) And here I was supposed to be planning a trip to Amsterdam. Guess that's out the window. Current Mood:  pissed off | | Thursday, January 23rd, 2003 | | 1:30 pm |
Recipe to try
upon moving to new kitchen ~~ chicken stock, just a little not a can kale garlic mushrooms chicken chopped possibly black beans but maybe some other veggie? simmered in frying pan serve over purple potatoes that have been sliced/baked Current Mood:  hungry | | Wednesday, January 8th, 2003 | | 12:57 pm |
Less Caffeine
So I've been on half caff, half decaff coffee for a bit now, still just 8oz per morning (or whenever I wake up). So far, so good. I think this is the best way to ween myself permanently. Now I must get things done. |
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jozafiend's journal
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