Author: smartpeopleiknow

A great tool to help you clean up your hard disk: JDiskReport


Are you running out of space on your hard disk? Have you lost track of what you had and wish you had an easy way to see just what is on your machine and how much space it is using. If so, then you want to get JDiskReport. JDiskReport is a fantastic tool that could do it for you. As the web site explains:

“JDiskReport enables you to understand how much space the files and directories consume on your disk drives, and it helps you find obsolete files and folders.

The tool analyses your disk drives and collects several statistics which you can view as overview charts and details tables.

This is ad-free uncrippled no-charge binary multi-platform software that never expires.”

It’s very powerful and quickly helps you see how you are using — or in my case, wasting — your disk space. After running it I found many GBs of files that I could either delete or move to a removable disk drive. 

I highly recommend this tool.

Want to live in a small house? Know about the restrictions on the land you want to place it

As you can see from this post, Tiny house = affordable house « view from the greg, some communities place a lower limit as to how small a place you can put on property in that district. If your dream is to build a tiny home likes the ones featured at tinyhousedesign.com  in such a district,  you might find your dreams and reality don’t match up. So please investigate further before you sink your money into a place.

your.flowingdata + twitter = a good way to help you track your New Year’s Resolutions

You’ve made your New Year’s Resolutions: now it’s time to track them. Well, if you are looking for a good way to track your new year’s resolutions and you already use twitter, I recommend you check out: your.flowingdata / Quick Start Guide. This guide will show you how easy it is to do this using this site. (I am starting to sound like a bad infomercial). For example, if you want to track weight loss or amount of cigarettes cut back on or even the amount of sleep you are getting or the amount of time you exercised, you can track it here in seconds.

It’s a good tool, and it’s been around for awhile. Give it a try. The visualizations will help give you a better sense of your progress. Hey, every little bit helps.

Why it pays to read the news from more than one source

In this mildly negative story on the Obamas Hawaiian Trip in the WSJ.com, there is this:

On New Year’s Eve, the Obamas watched “Avatar” in a shopping-mall theater cleared of people. “I must admit that when you close down shopping centers you’re pushing the envelope of the patience that people might have otherwise,” said Hawaii Democratic state senator Clayton Hee.

Now you don’t want to be like Senator Hee or the WSJ, for if you read this: First Family Sees ‘Avatar’ in 3-D – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com, you’d see:

The Secret Service cleared one of the 10 theaters at the Windward Mall’s multiplex in Kaneohe for the Obamas, who arrived for the special screening around 9:20 a.m., well before the day’s regular showings get underway so as not to inconvenience other moviegoers. The other nine theaters at the multiplex are open as usual.

Note that the only one of the 10 theatres were shutdown and that it was shutdown at 9:20 in the morning! Wow. I can see how that would really push “the envelope of patience” of the millions of people who want to be in THAT theatre at THAT time in the morning.

On the elusiveness of science fiction and art

(Don’t read this if you haven’t seen Avatar).

Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic highlights an idea that has come up with regards to Avatar (Avatar As Dances With Wolves – Ta-Nehisi Coates). The idea centers around one of the “white guy goes native” and talks about how this comes up in Avatar and Dances With Wolves. I’ve also seen it come up in discussions around “District 9”.

It’s odd to me, because while I can see how Cameron borrowed from the Western genre, by placing the film in the future and by borrowing images from other genres and events, he dilutes the ability of someone to say that the protagonist represents white Europeans. If anything, when the great tree is destroyed, I thought of the Na’vi as being New Yorkers and the great tree being the World Trade Towers. (The parallels in the imagery is strong.) So are the Na’vi a) native peoples, or b)  New Yorkers or c) something unique?

I  think they are something unique. I think Cameron is drawing from a number of sources in order to tell his story. That’s one of the great benefits of the SF genre, and one of the freedoms that artists have generally. Likewise for the director of District 9, Neil Blomkamp. With SF, you can break free of history and current events to examine ideas the way you would like to explore them. They can help shed light on history or current events, but there is as much divergence as there is convergence. Likewise, as an artist, you can make things up, and as an artist working in SF, you can make things up even more. (Though even SF has it’s limits). The audience is free to interpret your work as they will. But  that also means that people can agree and disagree about the intent of the work and the creator. That is the wonderful thing about the elusiveness of science fiction and art.

If you love the cinema, I recommend The Criterion Collection site especially for their preview feature

Why? Well, it has some of the masterpieces of film available on DVD and BluRay. Works by Kurosawa, Hitchcock, Buñuel, and many more. You can buy these films, but if you didn’t want to or weren’t sure you wanted to buy these films, there is another choice.

 I found out via their FAQ that you can do this:

“I’ve never watched a movie online at the Criterion online cinematheque. How does it work? What does it cost? What do I get?

Watching movies at criterion.com is easy. Click on FILMS, choose a film, and click where it says “Watch movie $5.” You’ll be asked to enter a credit card, and for $5 you can watch the movie right in your browser or full screen, as many times as you want for a full week. For a year after that, we’ll keep a $5 credit on file for you and apply it to your purchase of that film on DVD or Blu-ray disc. Use it as a way to explore different parts of the collection, get a little daring, or just “try before you buy.” And best of all, each dollar you spend on online rentals gives you points in our loyalty program.”

This is a great feature. You can see some of the greatest masterpieces of all time for $5 a pop. Hopefully you will love them and buy them. Either way, it’s a great deal.

I should add, there seems to be a bug in terms of what is “Now Playing”. If you don’t like what you see, click Refresh on your browser and you will get a different list of films. Not sure why that is, but otherwise, it is a great site.  Go to The Criterion Collection for more info.

On quitting smoking and other New Year’s Eve resolutions

The NYTimes.com has a great piece on a writer who had struggled like many people to give up smoking. Anyone who has this resolution in mind for January 1 should read this: Hurry Up, It’s Time. Let me expand that and say anyone who has any resolution they want to make on New Year’s should read it. I think this applies to anyone, for it is not about the quitting. Rather..

“I looked around the faces in the classroom. Sure enough, everyone would eventually quit smoking, I thought. Everyone except me.

Then, at some point during the meeting, it hit me. I didn’t just want to quit smoking. I wanted much more. I wanted something new in life — call it a new deal, a new me, new rituals, new friends, new clothes, a new home, a new career, new everything. This was my crazy reason. I told no one.”

It’s good. Read it. And good luck to you and to us all.

Men’s Style Tips from Bill Blass

Since alot of people come to this blog because I once wrote why I buy suits from Zara — alot of people! — I thought they might also be interested in taking lessons from a real master, Bill Blass. I saw this in Vanity Fair and thought his closet provided some good tips for people acquiring men’s suits.

First, look at suits he has in his closet. If you are going to have a number of suits, you would be well off to stick with mostly blacks and dark grays and navy blues, while mixing up the striping and perhaps the cut. The key is “mostly”. Notice he does make room for lighter suits of browns and grays and plaids.

Also note how well he spaces the suits in his closet. He doesn’t have them jammed together. This is smart. Obviously you need space for this, but it is a good way to use your closet space.

Finally, don’t do what Bill does: wear pants instead. 🙂

If you want to know more about the photo, go here: A Jonathan Becker Retrospective | vanityfair.com

The Green Revolution in Iran continues…

..and as usual, Andrew Sullivan is doing a superb job of covering it. It’s way more in-depth than anything the majors will have in terms of coverage, although to be fair to them, they are covering it. What I think is really significant is this post, Why The Regime Is Rattled. If this is true, then expect more major events and changes in Iran.

Image of Protests in Iran - Dec. 2009

As an aside, there was a critical — and facile — article in Salon recently stating “There’s no evidence that the hot social networking site played any role in Iran’s spring revolt”. It’s hard to criticize it, since it is not so much factual as it is sophisticated name calling. One thing it did get wrong though, is this: “Sadly, though, six months later, things still haven’t changed much in Iran.” Things have changed alot in Iran since the election: what you have right now are two strongly opposing forces pushing up against each other, and while there is not much movement, there is alot of effort and pressure. In such circumstances, it would be wrong to assume nothing is changing. Instead, there will eventually be a big snap one way or the other and one side will be badly damaged.

If you don’t believe that, go to Andrew Sullivan’s blog and check out the posts and the YouTube video. Or follow Iranians on Twitter. You know, all those social networking things that Salon says don’t matter but for some reason both sides continue to use and try to stop.

(Image from the Nytimes.com)

All things Chocolate

This article, The Chocolate Wars – NYTimes.com, has a great rundown of the state of affairs when it comes to chocolate in the world today. The article starts with the fight for Cadbury, with Kraft on one side and Hershey on the other. This is not appealing to the British, I suspect, based upon the comments of the Mayor of London, Boris Johnston, who says they…

“…face an appalling choice of succumbing either to Kraft, makers of the plastic flaps of orange cheese, or to Hershey, whose Hershey bars have been likened in flavor — by independent experts — to a mixture of soap powder and baby vomit.”

Ouch!

Chocolate is big business, especially as places like India start substituting traditional treats for chocolate ones. (Think of all the cultures that don’t have chocolate desserts: those will be the countries and cultures that the big chocolate makers will go towards.)

But it’s not just business. The article has a summary of the history of chocolate over the 20th century and some guesses as to why we find chocolate so appealing. So break open a box of Christmas chocolate — or heck, have the last one! — and check out this article.

Bah Humbug! The infamous CHRISTMA exec worm

Back in the 1980s when I worked on VM as a system programmer, people used to send around VM executable code like the CHRISTMA exec that people would run. The execs (as we called them)  would show a text message like the one in this picture. Pretty harmless and nice.

However, the CHRISTMA EXEC was different. It was not harmless or nice. It was dangerous and sneaky. It would not only display a Christmas message, but, without you being aware of it, would read a file (the NETLOG file) that would find out email addresses of people who sent and received email from you and send itself to them as well. A worm, essentially. Since people were used to getting scripts as Christmas greetings, they ran it without looking at it (indeed, the comments even tell people: “browsing this file is no fun at all       just type CHRISTMAS from cms “…sneaky). The next thing we knew, this worm was showing up all over the place. A nice way to spend Christmas time, killing this worm.

So to the CHRISTMA EXEC I say, “Bah Humbug!”.

But to everyone else I say: Merry Christmas!

Jane Hamsher’s “10 Reasons to Kill the Senate Bill” and a rebuttal to those reasons…

..can be found here: xpostfactoid: Eight rebuttals to “10 reasons to kill the Senate bill”

I think Hamsher makes some good points, and even this rebuttal cannot overturn them all. That said, I still think the HCR bill before the Senate provide a great benefit to Americans. I was going to say, “despite it’s flaws”, but like all legislation, it goes without saying it has flaws. (Even the U.S. Constitution has its flaws (and the Amendments to correct them)).

People on the left who are agreeing with Hamsher should check out the link above.

African Graphic Novels


I came across three great links on a tweet from @gkofiannan who was retweeting @emeka_okafor and pointing to African graphic novels that will be interesting to anyone interested in Africa, graphic novels, or smart things in general. “aya” is one, and you can find it here: Africa Unchained: Search results for aya.  As well the Guardian has a story on “Marguerite Abouet’s hugely popular series of books, centred on the life of a young woman in a cheerful Ivory Coast suburb, show an Africa far from stereotypes of war and disease” which also sound interesting. Finally there is a good blog post on “The Shadow Speaker”, another such work.

I believe France has a strong tradition of graphic novels. And I noticed that two of the authors here are associated with Côte d’Ivoire. I wonder if there is any connection there? Regardless, they look great. Check them out.

On NORAD tracking Santa


CNET News has a great story on NORAD tracking Santa with some good gems in it, including this one!

“…it actually began in 1955 with a wrong number.

One morning that December, U.S. Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, the director of operations at CONAD, the Continental Air Defense Command–NORAD’s predecessor–got a phone call at his Colorado Springs, Colo., office (see video below). This was no laughing matter. The call had come in on one of the top secret lines inside CONAD that only rang in the case of a crisis.

Grabbing the phone, Shoup must have expected the worst. Instead, a tiny voice asked, “Is this Santa Claus?”

“Dad’s pretty annoyed,” said Terri Van Keuren, Shoup’s daughter, recalling the legend of that day in 1955. “He barks into the phone,” demanding to know who’s calling.

“The little voice is now crying,” Van Keuren continued. “‘Is this one of Santa’s elves, then?'”

The Santa questions were only beginning. That day, the local newspaper had run a Sears Roebuck ad with a big picture of St. Nick and text that urged, “Hey, Kiddies! Call me direct…Call me on my private phone and I will talk to you personally any time day or night.”

But the phone number in the ad was off by a digit. Instead of connecting with Santa, callers were dialing in on the line that would ring if the Russians were attacking.

Before long, the phone was ringing off the hook, and softening up, Shoup grabbed a nearby airman and told him to answer the calls and, Van Keuren said, “‘just pretend you’re Santa.'”

Indeed, rather than having the newspaper pull the Sears ad, Shoup decided to offer the countless kids calling in something useful: information about Santa’s progress from the North Pole. To quote the official NORAD Santa site, “a tradition was born.””

The whole article in CNET is good. Go see!

The long arm of the law catches underage drinkers using a Facebook sting

As if we don’t have enough examples of why it is bad to break the law or the rules and post it on Facebook, here comes another example where police in Wisconsin used Facebook to catch underage drinkers by friending them. You can see the details here on Wired Campus.

You know those hundreds of friends you have on Facebook? Some of them are not your friends. Beware.

What will Health Care Reform (HCR) mean for the rest of the world?

I believe that HCR is actually great for the rest of the world. Because with HCR, Americans will be spending more of their money on Health Care, versus other Things (Things = cars, houses, etc.). As more money gets devoted to Health Care, there will be a greater focus on Health Care generally. I believe the result will be more innovations in the area of Health, with more cures and better ways to deliver health care. This will benefit Americans, but indirectly it will benefit the rest of the world as well.

I used to be envious of Americans because they received tax deductions on their mortgages. Sadly, this likely led to the Great Recession we are just starting to pull out of. If Americans put their money into better Health Care versus better houses and better cars, we all will benefit.

The oddly negative articles of Konrad Yakabuski in the Globe and Mail

His latest, With bitter pills, Obama gets his health vote, is typical of his articles in the Globe. While it’s a good thing to have editorial columns criticizing Obama (and all other politicians, left and right), to see it in articles is another thing. If you read this, and his other columns, you will see how Yakabuski sees Obama and his situation in a very negative light. The overall column is more balanced. For example, this is true:

That is a singular achievement and the second in as many days for the President, who also extracted a commitment from developing countries to join the fight against global warming. But in both so-called successes, Mr. Obama acted as a broker of deals rather than a principled idealist. As such, he risks alienating his most fervent supporters.

Sounds pretty positive, yes? There’s lots more, too. And that’s what makes them odd: the articles themselves are balanced and well written, but there is almost an attempt to make them more negative then they are or need to be.

For example, on this article that I referenced, it is true that there is a strong negative reaction to this. But there’s also columns by such notable people like Paul Krugman and over at TPM media that balance that out. That’s the bigger picture, and from the Globe and it’s writers, I would like the bigger picture. If I want smaller more partisan pictures, there’s lots of blogs and other places for that.

There’s alot of good coverage in Yakabuski’s articles. But his negativity is odd, to say the least.

P.S. Thanks for reading this. If you have found it useful and you’d like to say thanks by buying me a coffee, you can do so here. Thanks! That’s awesome!

Want to be “green”? Keep the SUV…ditch the dog.

Yikes! If you believe this, it looks like you may be greener to own an SUV than a dog! (Cat owners may smile at this…)

Now I would argue that if you are going to have a vehicle at all, you should aim for something greener than an SUV. As for dogs, it’s clearly not a choice of: should I get rid of the dog or the SUV. Still, it’s interesting food for thought. See here for more: Is Owning a Dog Worse than Owning an SUV? – GOOD Blog – GOOD

Crossdressing for freedom in Iran

Why are these men dressed as women? Apparently it happened when the activist Majid Tavakoli was arrested in Iran, and the government released (doctored?) photos of him wearing a chador and a scarf around his head in a suspected attempt to embarass him. Instead, it encourage other men in and out of Iran to post photos of themselves dressed the same way as a brilliant way to protest against the government and their actions.

 See IRAN: Apparent attempt at humiliating activist sparks widespread hijab backlash in the Los Angeles Times for more details.

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Mitchell Kanashkevich’s Travel and Photography Blog


Mitchell’s Travel and Photography Blog not only has great photographs, like this one, but good posts on his travels around the world. He also writes well about photography and his thoughts on it. Anyone interested in good photography and how to make it should pay his blog a visit. I am taking the liberty of linking to this photo of his to encourage you to go see the rest of his site.