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2003

Dean in 2004!

Any man that says “I’m going to put the Democrat back in the Democratic Party” might be my man. Though it took him a while to give credit to the late Senator Wellstone for the line.

He’s been getting a lot of press lately for being the anti-war candidate. I spent an hour Tuesday night researching him and his positions, and he stands for a lot more than that. His comments about gun control in particular were excellent, understanding that gun control varies by areas of the country. Other topics such as health care, foreign affairs, and especially fiscal responsibilities struck a nerve.

I’ll be keeping an eye on him, especially considering I’m not hot on many of the candidates, but that’s a different discussion for a different time.

Ogg this!

Saw on Slashdot this morning, some news I’ve been waiting for for quite a while. Ogg support for a portable music player is coming!

About 6 months ago I ripped all my CDs into Vorbis format. Not only is Vorbis a better sounding codec, but it is completely open source. The only two downfalls are: 1. There is no portable player for .ogg files (yet), and 2, most Windows players (WMP, Winamp) have a hard time streaming ogg files, but can play them locally just fine. (Go download Zinf you Windows using people to listen to streaming Vorbis!).

And now this morning, the Xiph foundation announces they have signed a portable deal with Digial Innovations, makers of the Neuros portable player. The Neuros player just started shipping, and Vorbis support is expected in May. It’s a tad pricy, but I’m more than happy to pay for it, and it has a couple of nifty features: 1. It can transmit MP3/Ogg files via FM, so no car adapter is needed, just tune your car to the correct station. 2. Get the 128MB player, and buy the 20GB backpack to expand it. It only costs $30 more to do this than buying the 20GB player outright, and now you can use the 128MB when jogging or cutting the grass, and attach the backpack for the car, in the house, etc.

And last but not least, in the Xiph press release above, they hint at a CDR player coming soon… decisions, decisions!

Tyson

I had the pleasure last night of seeing the Tyson / Etienne fight. It’s actually the first live boxing fight I’ve ever seen. (I’ve seen others, but they’re always tape delay). So Tyson whiffs about 5 times, hits a couple, then a big hit to the face and Etienne goes down.

He goes down, and immediately takes his mouthpiece out. What is that about? Then Tyson helps him up after he’s been counted out. Tyson has never done that before.

Of course boxing isn’t rigged. Really.

Daredevil

Daredevil Movie

So we went to see Daredevil last night. Suffice to say, I’m the only one who liked it. It was exactly what I expected, no less, no more. Affleck’s acting was, in my opinion, spot on for a blind man. Elektra was ok, and Bullseye was right on.

Daredevil was one of the few comic books I read when I was a kid. I was more into baseball cards than comic books, and really didn’t even own any. Daredevil was one of the few I did read. While the revenge motive was new for the movie to get people going, I thought it was ok, even though it was a different twist than what the comic book had.

I think it was better than X-Men, which I thought was ok.

They’re all signed up for a sequel anyway, so now that we know the backstory, maybe people will accept the 2nd one more. (And the Kevin Smith cameo was good. :))

Stupid Winamp

Why can’t Winamp stream Ogg files correctly? Very annoying. Well, it’s still a step up from Windows Media Player that can’t even play Ogg files.

All Hail Zinf! (Formerly FreeAmp) which can stream Ogg files in Windows.

  • in General
  • 1 min read

Date Thing

Haha, I figured it out. I had it set to: Day (Fri), Month: (Feb), Year: (03) so it spits out Fri.Feb.03. The 03 wasn’t the date, it was the year. I think I fixed it.

Misc. Stuff

I finally got the RSS feed to work on Silwenae.com for this blog. Added the EFF RSS feed as well.

For whatever reason, the Gadsden Flag post below is dated on the site as 2-3 — but it’s 2/14. No idea why it did that.

Still can’t get the NWN server up. Slivers emailed me some ideas to try. I’ll get to that this weekend.

  • in Politics
  • 2 min read

Gadsden Flag

I have added the Gadsden Flag to Silwenae.com and linked it to America Live Free. The Gadsden Flag is becoming more and more popular as a way of showing support against President Bush’s attempts to restrict civil liberties.

I know my views aren’t always agreed with – but even under a threat of so-called war, there absolutely no reason to be reading citizen’s emails, opening up wire-taps, and other proposed legislation that limits us.

I’ll leave you with this from America Live Free:

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We recognize that informed dissent is patriotic, that questioning the government’s actions is patriotic, that demanding that all branches of government adhere to the Constitution is patriotic. For it is the patriotic dissenter who has the greatest commitment to the ideals upon which our nation was founded and it is he that keeps our nation on the right path.

This is the time for us to reaffirm the foundation, the cornerstone of our Democracy. It is time for us to rise up and stand for the promise, the vision, the guarantee of what our founding fathers had in mind for us: one great nation of free people, pursuing life, liberty and happiness.

We, the people, stand for the Constitution. We stand for our country. We stand for freedom.

Do not tread on us.

Gadsden Flag