I must be a geek

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I love automating things, even though sometimes I have the idea that the time to create the automation seems longer than it would have taken to do it manually.

Right now I am considering to find that plugin for firefox again that allows me to automate filling a form. I know I had this before I updated my computer but I just can’t remember it any more what the name was.

Mostly I need this to fill out a non-standard form on an e-commerce site when I have to do some test purchases. When I ran into this graphic…

… I decided it’s better to do it right away instead of waiting through the initial straight line that I have in common with the non-geek.

Amazing Photography

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For your enjoyment, another slideshow of most amazing photography…

The How-to-Geek Blog

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One of the few things that remain on my ‘look-at-every-time” blogs is How-to Geek.

In its year-end cleaning they revisited their Best How-To Geek Guides of 2011. Subjects covered are:

  1. The How-To Geek Guide to Getting Started with LastPass
  2. The How-To Geek Guide to XBMC Add-Ons
  3. The How-To Geek Guide to Making Your Own Custom Ethernet Cables
  4. The How-To Geek Guide to Getting Started with Usenet
  5. Hardware Upgrade: The HTG Guide to Picking the Right PC Monitor
  6. The Beginner’s Guide to Using QoS (Quality of Service) on Your Router
  7. How to Secure Your Wi-Fi Network Against Intrusion
  8. How to Use a Soldering Iron: A Beginner’s Guide
  9. How to Pick the Right Motherboard for Your Custom-Built PC
  10. The How-To Geek Video Guide to Using Windows 7 Speech Recognition
  11. The Beginner’s Guide to Shell Scripting
  12. The How-To Geek Guide to Hackintoshing
  13. The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing Using Audacity
  14. The How-To Geek Guide to Scoring Free Wi-Fi
  15. The How-To Geek Guide to 3D Monitors and TVs
  16. The How-To Geek Guide to Buying an HDTV

How come I read this blog and not the many others I am subscribed to?

The reason is simply that this is the only one I am subscribed to by email. I had, in the past, set up RSS feeds for all the other sites I wanted to keep up with in my Thunderbird and I read, or at least skimmed, them all on a daily basis.

Until it got too time consuming and I decided to use Google Reader so that these new posts did not interrupt my workflow. I transferred all the feeds to Google Reader and made a nice icon in my task bar for it – – – and that is where it remains – mostly unnoticed. Now, when I remember to check new blog posts, I have an overwhelming “>1000” to deal with. So, most of the time, I just select ‘set all as read’ and be done with it.

Conclusion – email still gets much more of my attention than RSS feeds in Reader.

10 Reasons why the Mafia is Better than the State

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At the Porcupine Freedom Festival which is held annually in NH by the Free State Project, a person, who I only know as Emily, delivered the rant I want to present here in a free transcription.

The usual argument against a society without the state (anarchy) is that we would first sink into total chaos (another meaning of anarchy, yet not the right one) and then organized crime would take over.

Let’s assume that this is true – which it probably is not – but let’s just look at it for the sake of argument, and we find out quickly that we would still be better off with the Mafia than the current ‘state’ of affairs.

10. The Mafia has a sense of honor – when they say they do something then they do it. That is not the case with people running the state. (Ed. comment: this is self-evident if you look from which ‘professional’ group the members are generally recruited.)

9. The Mafia’s code of conduct is simple and clear. There is no legal double-talk and not millions of rules and regulations.

8. When two families of the Mafia go to war they do not create millions of fatalities as collateral damages. For the Mafia that would be just bad for business.

7. Instead of conducting a war on drugs the Mafia is happy to provide quality products to those people who desire them.

6. When you buy protection from the government, you get protection. The Mafia limits violent crimes in the area they protect instead of just giving you a phone number to dial when you become a victim of violence.

5. The protection of the Mafia is much less expensive at 10 to 15% of your profits versus at least 40 to 50% for the current legal syndicate.

4. Unlike the government the Mafia actually wants your business to succeed. They know that ruining your business makes you unable to pay for their protection. They also don’t impose a huge overhead of paperwork and force you to fill out reams of self-incriminating confessions (tax forms.)

3. The Mafia will not keep you from having guns to protect yourself. The Mafia will gladly sell you the means to protect yourself.

2. Different than the state the Mafia will not regulate what you do in your bedroom. Instead they will offer for sale all the things you might need to increase your enjoyment.

1. Members of the Mafia have style, dress much better and are a lot easier on the eye than government bureaucrats.

The added advantage of having the Mafia being in charge is that the ‘protected’ do not believe that the organized crime lords have a god-given right to rule us (as most people believe the government has.) This will make it much easier for competition which will then drive down prices – something that will always happen in a free society.

If you are interested in seeing a bit more clearly what is going on here, a good introduction is delivered by this video by Stefan Molyneux…