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Nightly Ramble: Firefox,Pandora, Uphill Battles, More

  • Firefox: Taking a bite outta crime [1]I use Firefox here at Casa de Bit; there’s a copy on every computer I have online. I particularly like the web development tools and the plugins for WordPress. I gather from the rumor mill that Firefox is about ready to release version 3, assuming the reviews on the candidate go well. V3RC1 is on the site ready for download. [2] There’s a few caveats for installing the RC, as there always is at the beta level, so be careful. By the way… if you’re a Firefox fan, as I am, you’ll love the wallpaper here. [3]
  • Doing some musical exploring? Got questions about a particular artist or group? Pandora [4] seems a fair enough place to start your exploration. I’ve only had a few minutes with it, and am already impressed.
  • Ever tried Freeware Planet? [5] Do. It’s an arrow that has been in my quiver forever. So has Onlyfreewares.com [6]
  • President Bush’s message about how we have no problem with the people of Iran, just with it’s government, may be falling on ears that don’t understand. Something on the order of nine million Iranians can’t read or write. [7]
  • A third place at OTB’s Caption Contest [8]
  • Conservatism is ALWAYS and invariably facing an uphill battle [9], Sis. That’s because cowardice is easier than being brave, saying yes, so long as someone else is paying for it is easier than saying no, being a victim is far easier than being a leader, and it’s been 20 years since we had a party that understands that.
  • One of the biggest problems in the online chat world, supposedly, is pedophiles. Enforcement involving these has taken a weird twist, however, as the authorities have discovered there are a large number of people besides themselves claiming online to be young girls. Mostly, these are men, trying to attract younger girls, but who end up unwittingly talking to other men claiming to be young girls. So, if you see a cop with a dazed look on his face, you now understand why.  Either that, or they were trying to figure out the Democrat primary system [10], by the numbers.
  • Did you know that if we all started driving the Prius, we’d use more energy than before? [11]
  • You guys need to read this from Walter Williams on the Big Corn and Ethanol Hoax. [12]
  • For some reason I didn’t look at the hitcount totals for last weekend until today. Usually the traffic drops off a bit on weekends around here. Last weekend, it actually went UP. More people spending time at home?
  • The one point that the Democrats who cite approval ratings seem to miss:
  • Toon courtesy of IBD Editorials [13]
  • Pat Casey at RCP asks a question I’ve been asking here… well, forever… If McCain wants to govern like a Democrat, why have two parties [14]?
  • With Memorial day coming up, Scott Fybush reminds us of a bit of a celebration that’s been happening the last several years at what was once the single most important music radio station in the world… 77/WABC.  They did top 40 radio for 22 years, there, and no single radio station in the country ever had more listnership. And as Fybush points out, it’s unlikely there ever will be again, with digital delivery, satalite radio and whatnot. They’ve now been on talk radio for 25 years… (has it really been that long?) Apparently, WABC plans to drop it’s talk format for the weekend, doing airchecks and whatnot.  Check Scott’s site [15]for some of the scheduling details.  [1]Two more points, here; first of all, the new Harris DX50 transmitters they’ve got in down there in Lodi New Jersey for WBAC are cleaner and louder than ever, and as a result their signal has lost none of it’s potency.  ( Still, they lack some of the ‘personality’ the mighty GE BT50 had back in the day…. including the old spring reverb…  That GE was a cantankerous beast by comparison …Or even the personality of the old MW50, which is pretty much what I worked with back in the 80’s) Back in the day, the old tube type GE would take $5500/mo to power, even in early 60’s dollars.  By comparison, the newer MW50 they just replaced a couple years ago, would take under half that same power, even without allowing for inflation… and the newer systems, even less, for what amounts to a better signal each time.  Oh, well.) Anyway… Night time, you should be able to get them about anywhere in the northeast, .  and they’re streaming online, too, of course, if you’re out of the area. Alas, that most of their scheduled events are daytime, and their signal here… 400 miles away… is marginal during the day, and in my area gets covered by little WTOR… a little 1kw daytimer at Lewiston, NY, pointed at Toronto.  Still, WABC does run live oldies every Saturday night… and they sound just fabulous.
  • Do you do work with IP networks? I do frequently enough to make subnetmask.info [16] a worthwhile arrow in my quiver.