Life, Liberty, and Property

Links and Resources for the Eee PC

Recently Asus, a well respected motherboard maker, created the Eee PC. A 7" ultraportable laptop and runs linux and only costs $400. I has become the darling of the ultraportables and of the linux community. Here are some links and resources about the Eee PC.

Labels: eee pc, eeepc, linux

Your Check Engine Light--How to Figure Out What the Problem Is
I like this description of how to figure out what your car is trying to tell you when your Check Engine light turns on. Now do won't have to take your car to the shop to get it fixed.

How to Grill Ribs

I love ribs and there is nothing better than grilled ribs. Here's a great, easy to make, recipe for grilling dry ribs. The ribs don't turn out dry, but nice and succulent.

Tania Head: 9/11 Victim Or 9/11 Disgrace?

The Post Chronicle reports:

Tania Head had a story that touched the hearts of many. She was badly burned on the 78th floor of the WTC south tower on September 11th, and the love of her life was killed in the north tower.

Tania was trapped in the south tower until a heroic man saved her, as well as several others. During her tragic journey out of the building, one dying man took her hand and placed his inscribed wedding ring in her grip - a ring which she later returned to the woman who held the man dearest to her heart.

A tragic tale. This tale took Tania to lead Tribute WTC Visitor Center tours. It led her to speak at gatherings and engagements - and it led her to become president of the non-profit organization, the World Trade Center Survivors Network.

But it all may have been a lie.

The New York Times is reporting that Tania Head's story was never verified - and can't be. there are holes in her story that have led the organization to remove their president.

Dancing With the Starts Results--Season 5 Episode 3

Josie Maran got the boot from the show tonight.

Unity 08

According to Wikipedia:

Unity08 is an American political reform movement that aims to offer all voters an opportunity to directly engage in politics by ranking the most crucial issues facing the country, discussing them with the candidates and engaging in an online, secure vote to nominate a bipartisan alternative to the Democratic Party and Republican Party presidential tickets for the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

I'm glad to see that a pro-legalization candidate is the leading presidential candidate in Bolivia. This is good for a couple reasons. 1. Cocaine should be legalized. 2. Hopefully this means the US will give less money to Bolivia.

If you ever played Super Mario Brother during the Nintendo days, you'll enjoy this.

Dr5 is Alive
Last night, in a fit of procrastination, I decided to finally set up my new blog with Movable Type. It has been fun writing a blog on blogspot, but Dr5.org is better. Come on over.

Joel Schwartz
I met Joel Schwartz at a conference I was at over the weekend. Joel is a very bright guy that writes interesting things about air quality. Specifically, that air quality is improving, and it will continue to improve. If you want to read solid thinking about air quality, check out Joel's website at http://www.joelschwartz.com/.

God Created Autumn for the Playoffs
Tim Kurkjian on ESPN makes a standard argument about the Yankees--that their bullpen is suspect. He writes:

How reliable is the Yankee bullpen?
It is more flawed than any time during this eight-year run by the Bombers. Mariano Rivera, the best closer in postseason history, is again at his best. His cutter has been unhittable recently. Getting to him is the problem. Jeff Nelson hasn't been his usual dominant self. The left-handers (Chris Hammond, Gabe White) are not Mike Stanton in his prime. It's no longer a six-inning game when you play the Yankees. So, they need to get more from their rotation, which includes two 40-year-olds, Roger Clemens and David Wells. Look for Jose Contreras to play a major role somehow in this postseason. His stuff is marvelous; he can start, he can pitch in relief, and maybe he can be the bridge to Rivera.

But is the Yankee's bullpen really a problem now? Their bullpen struggled early in the year and into the middle of the season, but they have been pretty good in the second half of August and all of September. The bullpen lost 4 games and the other 5 games the Yankees lost in September were lost by the starters. The bullpen's ERA in games where the bullpen got the loss was only 3.07! If you throw out 2 earn runs attributed to Jeff Weaver (who likely will not pitch in the postseason), the bullpen's ERA in those games is a mere 1.84!

If you look at games in August, the Yankees lost 12 games in August. Only 5 of the losses, however, are attributable to the bullpen and 2 of them are blown saves by Mariano (and these were Mariano's losses during the season). Furthermore, after August 13th, the Yankees lost of total of 14 games, but the bullpen only got the loss in 4 of them. It would take more time than I have to fully analyze the numbers, but at first blush, the Yankees got their bullpen woes taken care of and they should be tougher than people expect going into the post season.

Tyler Cowen on Moneyball
I have recently purchased Moneyball and I will read it as soon as I have finished Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash." GMU Economics Professor Tyler Cowen (his office is just down the hall from mine) writes about Moneyball on the blog (Marginal Revolution) he writes with Alex Tabarrok (whose office if across the hall from mine). Cowen writes that "Moneyball, which pretends to be about baseball but is in fact a profound meditation on behavioral economics, management science, and how hard it is to measure value. An obvious question: if it is so hard to measure the performance of first basemen, when there is a slew of publicly available statistics, how about the rest of the economy?" Check out Marginal Revolution for other interesting insights.

Here's Another Reminder That There Are Only Two Parties--The Evil Party and the Stupid Party
The Washington Post reports that some "administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist." While I'm not a Republican, I have Republican sympathies. I would like to believe that Republicans are more moral that Democrats, but the fact don't bear that out.

Liberals Hate Examples of Their Hypocrisy

Southern Methodist University shut down a bake sale Wednesday in which cookies were offered for sale at different prices, depending on the buyer's race or gender.

The sale was organized by the Young Conservatives of Texas, who said it was intended as a protest of affirmative action.

A sign said white males had to pay $1 for a cookie. The price was 75 cents for white women, 50 cents for Hispanics and 25 cents for blacks.

Members of the conservative group said they meant no offense and were only trying to protest the use of race or gender as a factor in college admissions.

Similar sales have been held by College Republican chapters at colleges in at least five other states since February.
...
"This was not an issue about free speech," Tim Moore, director of the SMU student center, said in a story for Thursday's edition of The Dallas Morning News. "It was really an issue where we had a hostile environment being created."

How is selling cookies at different prices depending on your skin color "creating a hostile situation?" If SMU is using race in its admissions process, isn't that "creating a hostile situation?"

And While I'm Thanking Jesse...
...I ought to thank him for turning me onto the older Johnny Cash classics such as Live at Folsom Prison. When I worked at CEI, Jesse was the Warren Brooks fellow. Due to his strange writing hours, coupled with my equal strange habit of returning to study at work after I went to class at night, we had a few interesting late-night conversations.

Before I talked to Jesse I was a fan of Mr. John R. Cash mostly because of his newer stuff, such as his cover of Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage." John R. was by far my favorite country singer. I'm bummed I came to his music after he quit touring. I wish I would have seen the man in black in concert.

Drug Dealers Turning to Selling Cigarettes
I absolutely love this article in the NY Times.

The seller on the Harlem street corner, who hawks his cigarettes for $5 a pack, said he used to peddle marijuana on the streets.

"The money is about the same," said the man, a lanky 20-year old who would give his name only as Jay. "You can make $100 or $150 a day. And it's not like we're robbing or stealing. We're trying to make an honest living."

"I'd rather do cigarettes because it's safer," the former drug dealer added.

Thanks to Jesse Walker at Reason for the pointer.