4/15/2012

Thoughts On A Sunday

The warm weather has returned, making it easier to take care of some of the cleanup around the outside of The Manse. Today it was removing the sand left behind on the driveway and pulling brush cut last fall down to the brush pile on the lower 40. Screen doors were also put back in in light of the warmer temps expected this week (it's supposed to be in the mid 80's on Monday!).

With the better weather for the upcoming week I hope to get a lot more done around The Manse after work.

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I'm not the only one who's come to loath Microsoft Word. Glenn Reynolds still prefers Word Perfect and has used Open Office. And you can add the name of Tom Scocca of Slate to the list of those who think Microsoft Word has outlived its usefulness, become bloated, and less user friendly.

Maybe Microsoft should start with a clean sheet of paper.

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Are the Democrats trying to paint Mitt Romney as one of the characters in Mad Men? It would appear so.

President Barack Obama has noted the presumptive GOP nominee uses archaic turns of phrase such as “marvelous” and warned in an email to donors Thursday that his rival would usher in “a social agenda from the 1950's.”

Gee wiz, does that mean that everyone who uses 'archaic turns of phrase' must necessarily be stuck back in the 50's? Personally I think Mitt Romney is kinda neat, and his missus is just swell!

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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I almost forgot that the Boston Marathon is tomorrow. Normally I wouldn't make such a big deal out of it, but as Bogie reminds us it's going to be very hot for April in Boston, with temps expected to hit the low 90's down there tomorrow. That's a good 20 to 30 degrees warmer than what they usually see for the Marathon, which does not bode well for the competitors.

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Is it possible the so-called Smart Meters used to measure and report your electricity usage may be too smart for their own good?

With some readily available software from the Internet it may be possible to hack into some of these meters and reset them in a fashion that lets the user pay less, or even nothing, for the electricity they use. It's power theft in the 21st Century, eliminating the need to modify existing meters or to steal and reconfigure meters to make the theft possible.

They need to rethink these things.

(H/T Scary Yankee Chick)

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Also by way of SCY comes this second round of Microsoft 'news': Windows XP is finally coming to an end.

Not that this news is by any means surprising. We all knew Microsoft was going to kill it because, after all, it is over 10 years old and outdated.

Microsoft did try to end support two years ago, but business users rebelled, stating that XP's successor, Vista, wasn't ready for prime time because it didn't support many of the programs businesses used for their operations. What good was a new operating system if it didn't support the software businesses depended upon? So Microsoft relented (or caved, depending upon your point of view), and decided to continue support of XP until 2014. Microsoft also continued work on improving Windows, eventually shelving the much derided Vista and releasing Windows 7.

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The racial narrative pushed by the media and the race-baiters in regards to the Trayvon Martin shooting have been falling apart faster than a cheap suitcase in the rain.

It appears the only racists involved in this tragedy are the aforementioned media and the professional race-baiters, like Al Sharpton.

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Pat Austin has a roundup of the devastation caused by the series of tornadoes to hit the Midwest.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been gorgeous, the trees are sprouting leaves, and where boats have already been put into the water.