Sunday, July 5, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Obama putting gays back in the closet
After making strong promises to the gay community on national television, such as the repeal of the military Don't ask don't tell policy, and the repeal of the Defense of marriage act which he once called abhorrent, and getting elected on those promises, Barack Obama now no longer wants to say anything on the subject matter. Except in private, secret meetings. In other words, he would much rather have us keep quiet, in the closet. Those times have passed, mister President.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Naked DSL and Cable Internet without TV
These days, I make most of my telephone calls either from my (pricey) cell phone, or over the Internet. I have little need for my landline telephone line. Except I'm forced to pay for it because it is required to have DSL service with my current Internet service provider. The service runs over AT&T landlines. While AT&T has made "naked DSL" available to its customers, this only applies to those who subscribe to the AT&T internet service. Not to other internet services running on the AT&T cicruits. So, I'm subscribing to a $7.28 measured rate service. To which $6.88 of various taxes and fees are added, for a total of $14.16. For a service that I don't want or need. For over 7 years. This should be against the law.
Lately, I have been thinking about switching over to cable internet, because much higher download and upload speeds are available. However, once again, one is forced to purchase unwanted basic cable TV service when ordering cable internet from Comcast. I get my TV service by satellite and over the air, and have no use for cable TV. It appears that Comcast is now relaxing this requirement to purchase basic cable, but only for one of the lower speeds, and for a temporary introductory period of 6 to 12 months. After that, the monthly rate more than doubles, due primarily to the extra added cost of the unnecessary basic cable TV service. Once again, this bundling of service should be against the law.
Lately, I have been thinking about switching over to cable internet, because much higher download and upload speeds are available. However, once again, one is forced to purchase unwanted basic cable TV service when ordering cable internet from Comcast. I get my TV service by satellite and over the air, and have no use for cable TV. It appears that Comcast is now relaxing this requirement to purchase basic cable, but only for one of the lower speeds, and for a temporary introductory period of 6 to 12 months. After that, the monthly rate more than doubles, due primarily to the extra added cost of the unnecessary basic cable TV service. Once again, this bundling of service should be against the law.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Murder by the state : people with HIV to be terminated in California
The governator's proposed California budget includes $55 million of cuts to the AIDS drug assistance program. This program serves 35,000 people in California who are either uninsured, underinsured, or uninsurable, and need to take their HIV medications daily in order to survive. Any missed dose of medication can lead to drug resistance, and the medication stops being effective. This ultimately leads to the need for even more expensive medication, or to death.
With this new budget proposal, the governor is quite explicitly proposing to murder 35,000 HIV/AIDS patients by way of withholding their treatment. The cost of an HIV regimen typically starts at about $1,500 per month and most people on ADAP had no other way to pay for it.
The size of the annual California budget deficit is $24 billion. These ADAP cuts represent less than 0.2% of the state deficit. Apparently, there must be some higher priority than California citizens' life in the rest of the budget.
With this new budget proposal, the governor is quite explicitly proposing to murder 35,000 HIV/AIDS patients by way of withholding their treatment. The cost of an HIV regimen typically starts at about $1,500 per month and most people on ADAP had no other way to pay for it.
The size of the annual California budget deficit is $24 billion. These ADAP cuts represent less than 0.2% of the state deficit. Apparently, there must be some higher priority than California citizens' life in the rest of the budget.
What distinction do these 14 countries share ?
The USA, Brunei, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Singapore, Sudan, South Korea, Tunisia, Turks & Caicos Islands and the United Arab Emirates.
Stumped ?
They all still ban foreigners from visiting and migrating specifically on the basis of an HIV-positive status.
And how do they find out who is positive if the person does not declare it, you might ask ? By random bag searches at the borders. Anyone found with their HIV medications, which have to be taken at least once daily without fail, is sent back.
Stumped ?
They all still ban foreigners from visiting and migrating specifically on the basis of an HIV-positive status.
And how do they find out who is positive if the person does not declare it, you might ask ? By random bag searches at the borders. Anyone found with their HIV medications, which have to be taken at least once daily without fail, is sent back.
Rice recipe with pressure cooker and induction cooktop
I am a big fan of rice. But not of the time it usually takes to prepare it. A few years ago, I bought a rice cooker from Costco. It took over 45 minutes to steam just a couple cups of rice that I wanted to have for dinner. Everything else in my meal was ready long before. I found this unacceptable. The rice cooker went back to Costco.
So, in 2006, I purchased a pressure cooker. This is a 6qt model from the Fagor Splendid line. It is relatively inexpensive, and made in Europe. I bought it at a local retail store in Santa Clara.
Having remodeled my kitchen the year before, I was the proud owner of a Kenmore 30" induction cooktop model 42800. I decided to experiment with the pressure cooker and this cooktop to get rice much faster than any steam rice cooker can. This article is about my current recipe. The total cooking time is only about 6 minutes.
Ingredients :
1. rice . I chose some Basmati rice from Costco. I have been using 1 to 5 cups with this recipe, I haven't really tried more.
2. water. With the rice I chose, I use 1.5x the volume of rice. This will vary depending on what type of rice you purchase. But once you know the correct volume, you need to measure exactly, as measurement errors are sure to make your rice either burn or be wet.
3. chicken broth cubes, 1 to 2. I use some Knorr brand.
4. PAM cooking spray
5. herbs. I use some thyme mostly.
6. olive oil .
7. salt
8. pepper
Steps :
1. spray the bottom of the pressure cooker with PAM . This is very important to avoid sticking. If you forget, washing will be much harder.
2. measure water volume and pour it into the pressure cooker
3. put the pressure cooker on the strongest burner and start boiling. On the Kenmore unit, this would be the top-left one. I use the highest P booster"setting.
4. mix in the chicken broth, olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme
5. while the water is boiling, wash the rice.
6. since induction is so fast, the water will probably be fully boiled in 1 minute, before you are done washing the rice :) Pour the rice into the boiling water as soon as you can.
7. put the lid on the pressure cooker and close the valve
8. wait until a significant amount of steam starts to release. This will take about one minute typically.
9. turn down the cooktop setting a little bit, to the 9 setting (non-booster) and let cook for exactly 2 minutes. Don't use an analog timer or watch for this. You need to be exact and use a digital one.
10. turn down the setting a little bit more to 8, and let cook for exactly 2 minutes. Again, use a digital watch.
11. turn off the cooktop. steam should stop releasing immediately.
12. turn the valve to release all the steam. This will take about a minute.
13. open the pressure cooker
14. serve.
15. clean the pressure cooker. This is the worst part, since it is not dishwasher safe.
Personally, I find the resulting taste and consistency of the rice to be much better than what I obtain in the rice cooker. And of course in less than 10 minutes of total preparation, versus over 45 minutes with a rice cooker.
Disclaimer :
I have a lot of asian friends. Not all of them agree that this rice tastes better than when made in a rice cooker. Some cannot tell the difference.
So, in 2006, I purchased a pressure cooker. This is a 6qt model from the Fagor Splendid line. It is relatively inexpensive, and made in Europe. I bought it at a local retail store in Santa Clara.
Having remodeled my kitchen the year before, I was the proud owner of a Kenmore 30" induction cooktop model 42800. I decided to experiment with the pressure cooker and this cooktop to get rice much faster than any steam rice cooker can. This article is about my current recipe. The total cooking time is only about 6 minutes.
Ingredients :
1. rice . I chose some Basmati rice from Costco. I have been using 1 to 5 cups with this recipe, I haven't really tried more.
2. water. With the rice I chose, I use 1.5x the volume of rice. This will vary depending on what type of rice you purchase. But once you know the correct volume, you need to measure exactly, as measurement errors are sure to make your rice either burn or be wet.
3. chicken broth cubes, 1 to 2. I use some Knorr brand.
4. PAM cooking spray
5. herbs. I use some thyme mostly.
6. olive oil .
7. salt
8. pepper
Steps :
1. spray the bottom of the pressure cooker with PAM . This is very important to avoid sticking. If you forget, washing will be much harder.
2. measure water volume and pour it into the pressure cooker
3. put the pressure cooker on the strongest burner and start boiling. On the Kenmore unit, this would be the top-left one. I use the highest P booster"setting.
4. mix in the chicken broth, olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme
5. while the water is boiling, wash the rice.
6. since induction is so fast, the water will probably be fully boiled in 1 minute, before you are done washing the rice :) Pour the rice into the boiling water as soon as you can.
7. put the lid on the pressure cooker and close the valve
8. wait until a significant amount of steam starts to release. This will take about one minute typically.
9. turn down the cooktop setting a little bit, to the 9 setting (non-booster) and let cook for exactly 2 minutes. Don't use an analog timer or watch for this. You need to be exact and use a digital one.
10. turn down the setting a little bit more to 8, and let cook for exactly 2 minutes. Again, use a digital watch.
11. turn off the cooktop. steam should stop releasing immediately.
12. turn the valve to release all the steam. This will take about a minute.
13. open the pressure cooker
14. serve.
15. clean the pressure cooker. This is the worst part, since it is not dishwasher safe.
Personally, I find the resulting taste and consistency of the rice to be much better than what I obtain in the rice cooker. And of course in less than 10 minutes of total preparation, versus over 45 minutes with a rice cooker.
Disclaimer :
I have a lot of asian friends. Not all of them agree that this rice tastes better than when made in a rice cooker. Some cannot tell the difference.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Share on ovi disaster
I guess some things in life are too good to be true.
The web site Share on ovi , operated by Nokia, had been offering unlimited image hosting, for free. It included such great features as the ability to retain the original picture size and let viewers see it, as well as on-the-fly resizing, sorting by shooting date, creation date, etc. It was everything I wanted in a picture hosting site, and for free ! I uploaded about 4GB of pictures from my Pentax K200D DSLR to ovi in the past year. Only to find out that the site no longer has any of its useful features. Viewers can only download a very small reduced picture, all the sorting is gone, etc. There isn't even an option to pay to get these features back. They are just gone. So, I'm now faced with the prospect of finding a new picture host. It probably won't be a free one. But I hope it's one that won't become useless soon after I start using it.
The web site Share on ovi , operated by Nokia, had been offering unlimited image hosting, for free. It included such great features as the ability to retain the original picture size and let viewers see it, as well as on-the-fly resizing, sorting by shooting date, creation date, etc. It was everything I wanted in a picture hosting site, and for free ! I uploaded about 4GB of pictures from my Pentax K200D DSLR to ovi in the past year. Only to find out that the site no longer has any of its useful features. Viewers can only download a very small reduced picture, all the sorting is gone, etc. There isn't even an option to pay to get these features back. They are just gone. So, I'm now faced with the prospect of finding a new picture host. It probably won't be a free one. But I hope it's one that won't become useless soon after I start using it.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Pinnacle studio 12 vs 24-bit audio
When editing my piano videos, I found out the hard way that WAV files recorded in 24 bit could not be added to the videos. Only those recorded in 16 bit worked. I hope that helps someone else trying to do music videos with Pinnacle, since the limit doesn't appear to be documented anywhere.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Bach's Goldberg Variations BWV 988, Aria, piano
I played this on thursday, practicing for an upcoming recital.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
IDE DVD drive + IDE to SATA converter + AHCI BIOS + Vista
This is your free "incompatibility of the day report".
If you try the above combination, the Vista install DVD will take about a half hour to boot, and will never be able to install.
The moral of the story : if you are going to enable AHCI in your motherboard BIOS, you need to make sure that all your devices are real SATA devices, and not using any IDE to SATA converter. I found this out, the hard way.
The specific components I ran into this with were a Samsung DVD burner, Unitek IDE to SATA converter, XFX nForce 750a motherboard with AMI BIOS, and Vista x64 SP1 boot DVD.
If you try the above combination, the Vista install DVD will take about a half hour to boot, and will never be able to install.
The moral of the story : if you are going to enable AHCI in your motherboard BIOS, you need to make sure that all your devices are real SATA devices, and not using any IDE to SATA converter. I found this out, the hard way.
The specific components I ran into this with were a Samsung DVD burner, Unitek IDE to SATA converter, XFX nForce 750a motherboard with AMI BIOS, and Vista x64 SP1 boot DVD.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Incompatibility of the day : GA-P35-DS3R vs Hauppauge HVR-1800 vs PNY 9500/9600 GT
For inexplicable reasons, installing a PNY 9600GT video card together with a Hauppauge HVR-1800 capture card on a Gigabyte P35-DS3R motherboard causes Vista not to be able to resume from ACPI S3 sleep mode.
Other combinations are OK with S3 resume, including P35-DS3R + E-VGA 8600 GT + HVR-1800, P35-DS3R + PNY 9600GT . I even tried on another motherboard, an XFX nForce 750a SLI . No problem there with the same PNY 9600 GT video card and the HVR-1800.
I also own a PNY 9500 GT video card, which I tried. It has the exact same compatibility problem as the PNY 9600 GT video card.
So, I can't really say which of the 3 components - the Gigabyte P35-DS3R motherboard, the PNY 9500/9600GT video card, or the Hauppauge HVR-1800 is most at fault. All I know is that they don't work right together with ACPI S3 resume . This is one of the major problems with PCs today - so much hardware can be installed together, but most of the combinations are never tested.
Other combinations are OK with S3 resume, including P35-DS3R + E-VGA 8600 GT + HVR-1800, P35-DS3R + PNY 9600GT . I even tried on another motherboard, an XFX nForce 750a SLI . No problem there with the same PNY 9600 GT video card and the HVR-1800.
I also own a PNY 9500 GT video card, which I tried. It has the exact same compatibility problem as the PNY 9600 GT video card.
So, I can't really say which of the 3 components - the Gigabyte P35-DS3R motherboard, the PNY 9500/9600GT video card, or the Hauppauge HVR-1800 is most at fault. All I know is that they don't work right together with ACPI S3 resume . This is one of the major problems with PCs today - so much hardware can be installed together, but most of the combinations are never tested.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Positive SLI experience with dual 8600GT cards and XFX nForce 750a motherboard
For reasons that I will explain another day, I have been switching video cards around a lot between my home computers. When I built my HTPC in 2008, I chose a video card with the same chipset as for my main PC - one based on the nVidia Geforce 8600GT chipset cards. One board was from E-VGA, and the other from Palit. The HTPC is now running with a slightly slower, but cooler and quieter, PNY 9500GT. My main PC is now running with a much faster PNY 9600GT. The 3rd PC had a built-in video card on its XFX nForce 750a motherboard, and supported SLI. However, like most built-in video cards, it was relatively underperforming, and it only had one digital video output. I have a requirement for two DVI - one to drive my Gateway FDH2401 24", and a second one to drive the monster HP LP3065 30" LCD that's getting delivered on wednesday, to replace the CMV-221D 22" that I sold last friday.
So, in this 3rd PC, I disabled the built-in video card, and after mucking with the jumpers on the motherboard just like in the good old days of non-PNP ISA cards, plugged in both video 8600GT cards into their respective PCI-E slots.
After a reboot, I could see that the graphics performance went from 5.9 in Aero and 5.5 in 3D in the built-in Vista benchmark, vs about 4.3 for the built-in 750a. After enabling SLI, the 3D score went up to 5.8 . I guess it's a little disappointing to just go from 5.5 to 5.8, but it shows SLI is working. The 5.8 was the lowest of all scores - everything else was 5.9 . The other PC with the lone 9600GT gets 5.9 in both Vista graphic tests.
This was with a single Gateway FHD2401 display running at 1920x1200. The second HP 30" display will run at 2560x1600 when I get it. I hope the presence of two video cards will help the performance when it gets hooked up.
So, in this 3rd PC, I disabled the built-in video card, and after mucking with the jumpers on the motherboard just like in the good old days of non-PNP ISA cards, plugged in both video 8600GT cards into their respective PCI-E slots.
After a reboot, I could see that the graphics performance went from 5.9 in Aero and 5.5 in 3D in the built-in Vista benchmark, vs about 4.3 for the built-in 750a. After enabling SLI, the 3D score went up to 5.8 . I guess it's a little disappointing to just go from 5.5 to 5.8, but it shows SLI is working. The 5.8 was the lowest of all scores - everything else was 5.9 . The other PC with the lone 9600GT gets 5.9 in both Vista graphic tests.
This was with a single Gateway FHD2401 display running at 1920x1200. The second HP 30" display will run at 2560x1600 when I get it. I hope the presence of two video cards will help the performance when it gets hooked up.
Monday, April 13, 2009
VGA to DVI conversion success : Ambery HDV1
I received another signal converter today, the Ambery HDV1. I had ordered it last week from Ebay. It is not in the same price range as the model from Central Computers that I tested over the week-end - about 3 times the price - more with shipping and sales tax. It also has the interesting property that it works ! I connected the VGA output of the Roland VS-2400CD to the VGA input of the HDV1. I then used a DVI to HDMI converter, and an HDMI cable, and plugged them in to the DVI output of the HDV1. The HDMI cable went to port #1 of my Monoprice HDX-501 switch. And my Gateway FHD2401 displayed it nicely.
The HDV1 is supposed to support up to 1600x1200 resolution, which I have not tried, since the VS-2400CD will only output 640x480. But it could be useful down the road to hookup other VGA stuff, like my boyfriend's laptop.
The HDV1 is supposed to support up to 1600x1200 resolution, which I have not tried, since the VS-2400CD will only output 640x480. But it could be useful down the road to hookup other VGA stuff, like my boyfriend's laptop.
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