Monthly Archives: December 2012

Christmas Trees and the Need for Less Speed

Posted on 2012-12-31 by dgilbert

Fresh in from the “We Can’t Make This Stuff Up” Depart­ment, we have two news sto­ries to share.  From some­where ran­dom in the US, we have two guys try­ing to launch their Christ­mas Tree with Rock­ets and from Can­more Alber­ta … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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FSF/GNU Petition against UEFI Secure Boot

Posted on 2012-12-30 by dgilbert

The folks over at GNU have a peti­tion up regard­ing UEFI Secure Boot.  Before those of you who don’t read my com­put­er tech­ni­cal arti­cles flip away: con­sid­er that this is very impor­tant and that I will try to min­i­mize the … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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Is Advertising Really Necessary?

Posted on 2012-12-29 by dgilbert

Do we real­ly need adver­tis­ing?  Put more point­ed­ly, do we real­ly need the por­tion of our indus­try that con­nives to con­vince us to buy things?  These ques­tions came to mind while lis­ten­ing to the CBC radio news sto­ry today decry­ing … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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Replacing the Steering Gear in My 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee – Part 2

Posted on 2012-12-27 by dgilbert

Before return­ing to the steps for the repair, this bit could be effec­tive­ly sub­ti­tled, “Repair failed, Pause for Christ­mas.”  At the very last step of the re-assem­bly, we stripped a fit­ting, so we’ll be re-remov­ing the Steer­ing Gear and re-installing … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Posted in Car Tech | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

LED Corncob FAIL.

Posted on 2012-12-26 by dgilbert

I have final­ly exhaust­ed my sup­ply of incan­des­cent light bulbs and thus decid­ed to buy an LED corn­cob light.  I live in Cana­da and for the major­i­ty of the year, the heat from a light bulb is not wast­ed.  In … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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Replacing the Steering Gear in My 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee — Part 1

Posted on 2012-12-23 by dgilbert

Of course some­thing­has to go wrong with the truck in the few days before Christ­mas.  This is the first of two arti­cles that will deal with the replace­ment of the Steer­ing Gear in my 2000 Jeep Grand Chero­kee.  Here we’re … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Posted in Car Tech | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Star Trek and the New NCC-90210

Posted on 2012-12-21 by dgilbert

A fair crit­i­cism of Star Trek the Motion Pic­ture (or Star Trek 1) is that it feels more like an over­long episode than a fea­ture movie.  The vis­tas are epic enough, but the plot is only deserv­ing of an episode. … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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Newtown’s Other Victim and Terrorism

Posted on 2012-12-20 by dgilbert

I’m charg­ing bold­ly into uncom­fort­able ter­ri­to­ry today: I’m going to relate the school mas­sacre in New­town to the rise in ter­ror­ism glob­al­ly.  I’m going to be look­ing at it from the per­spec­tive of the terrorist/shooter as a vic­tim.  There are … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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Windows 8 Concerns

Posted on 2012-12-19 by dgilbert

Win­dows 8 con­cerns me great­ly.  It’s not that it’s the next thing that Microsoft wants to shove down our throats: I suc­cess­ful­ly avoid­ed DOS, ear­ly Win­dows and Vista.  That may seem like an odd list, but Microsoft cre­at­ed a fair­ly … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Posted in Life, Tech | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Review: Borderlands 2

Posted on 2012-12-18 by dgilbert

When Bor­der­lands was released in 2009, it was a unique new com­bi­na­tion of first-per­­son-shoot­er (FPS) and Role-Play­ing-Game (RPG).  Its game­play, while on mis­sions giv­en by “quest givers” in the RPG sense main­ly fea­tured shoot­ing as the main inter­ac­tion with the … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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