Ron Paul 2012

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

I have come to the sad realization that Barack Obama is a massive failure. Ron Paul would’ve been a much better choice in 2008 and likely in 2012, even for a left-leaning libertarian like myself. I’m not saying that I would vote for any Republican over Barack Obama. Obama is at least marginally less repugnant than most of the Fox news endorsed yahoos like Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. Nor am I saying that I agree with Ron Paul on everything. I don’t. But there seems to be no reasonable Democratic candidate who will deliver on any of the issues on which I do disagree with Ron Paul. Given that fact, the rational choice, the lesser of two evils, is the Republican. It’s not hard to see why. Just consider what Obama has delivered and compare that to what Ron Paul would’ve delivered.
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Selling Off Old Macs and PCs

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

I have two desktop PowerMacs to get rid of, two Mac Minis, and one PC running either Windows 2000 or Linux. (I’ll have to boot it to find out.) Update: it’s Ubuntu and Windows 2000. If anyone wants them they’re for sale to the highest bidder. Minimum bid on all items is showing up at my apartment in Brooklyn and hauling them away. I’ll probably put them on Craig’s List or eBay soon, but in the meantime here’s what I’ve got:
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Upgrading WordPress to 2.9.1

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

If this blog goes dark, you’ll know why. This always scares me. I wish WordPress had reliable XML export and import, not SQL.

I upgraded The Cafes yesterday. The automatic upgrade failed, but manual upgrade seems to have succeeded.

OK. Seems like the upgrade completed successfully. Holler if you notice any problems. I think I’ll spend the rest of the morning straightening out the old computer mess as part of my general effort to simplify, clean up, and declutter my apartment.
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eBay is Unfair to Buyers

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

Every time I bid on eBay I see this:

	By clicking on the button below, you commit to buy this item from the seller if you're the winning bidder.
Confirm Bid.
You are agreeing to a contract -- You will enter into a legally binding contract to purchase the item from the seller if you're the winning bidder. You are responsible for reading the full item listing, including the seller's instructions and accepted payment methods. Seller assumes all responsibility for listing this item.

Notice that bit about “You are agreeing to a contract — You will enter into a legally binding contract to purchase the item from the seller if you’re the winning bidder.” Why don’t sellers have to adhere to it too?
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Microsoft is Leaving Money on the Table

Friday, February 5th, 2010

If Windows were priced similarly to Mac OS X, I would have by now bought at least one full copy each of XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Instead the last non-bundled Windows I bought was Windows 2000 right before XP came out. It’s too damned expensive, and the DRM is too annoying. In fact, I can buy a full computer with Windows for roughly the cost of one Windows 7 license; but I can’t reuse the software on my Mac in Parallels or Bootcamp so I won’t even do that.
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