Auto Bailouts Will Give Us Detroitsky

A Chapter For Detroit To Open

Wouldn't it be great to live in a world where everything was free? You sure?

Plants are people too..?

Detroit: Same Old, Same Old

Great article by Walter E. Williams that helps explain why socialism is a fundamentally evil concept.

I'd go even further and say it's also insipid because its supporters actually believe that supporting socialism actually makes them morally superior.

Imagine there's an elderly widow down the street from you. She has neither the strength to mow her lawn nor enough money to hire someone to do it. Here's my question to you that I'm almost afraid for the answer: Would you support a government mandate that forces one of your neighbors to mow the lady's lawn each week? If he failed to follow the government orders, would you approve of some kind of punishment ranging from house arrest and fines to imprisonment? I'm hoping that the average American would condemn such a government mandate because it would be a form of slavery, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another.

Would there be the same condemnation if instead of the government forcing your neighbor to physically mow the widow's lawn, the government forced him to give the lady $40 of his weekly earnings? That way the widow could hire someone to mow her lawn. I'd say that there is little difference between the mandates. While the mandate's mechanism differs, it is nonetheless the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another.

Read the whole thing: http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/11/19/evil_concealed_by_money

This year's GUI Championships are the first one to take place since Windows Vista was launched which means the age of 256x256 icons have arrived!

www.guichamps.com.

DeskScapes 2.5 as part of Object Desktop 2009 coming this week. Animated wallpaper for XP users.

Changing the Windows Vista boot screen is about to become a snap in Object Desktop 2009 which arrives this Wednesday. Everyone who purchased Object Desktop within the past year will automatically get this.

Impulse Phase 2 has gone into beta.

To get it, make sure you have the latest version (just open up Impulse).

Then go to preferences by clicking on the Stardock orb and choose "use Impulse betas" to get access to the latest/greatest editions.

Better. Stronger. Faster.

NOTE: The beta build removes the Impulse dock. We are going to release the Impulse dock as a free download later this week. This way, people who don't want the dock don't have to deal with it and the people who want it can get it.

Dell has released its Core i7 machines.  The XPS 730X takes isn't just a little bit faster than previous XPS's...it's a LOOOTTT faster.

And best of all, Dell has started pre-loaded Vista 64-bit as standard. The XPS 730X comes with Vista 64-bit. Period. 

My only complaint is that I can't buy it with 12 gigs pre-installed. 6 gigs is the max they're shipping with right now (4 gigabyte DDR3 RAM is out so it's possible).

But my friends, this is the future of computing.

Gas Powered Games is working hard on Beta 2 of Demigod. We don't have a definitive date for it but we're hoping to get it out before Thanksgiving so people can play it over the break (that would be next week).

Now, so far beta testers have only played the engine test. That was basically just to see compatibility and performance.  We've taken that data and the GPG team has increased the game's performance dramatically.

Beta 2 is where we get into the "meat" of the game.  As we've mentioned before, beta 1 wasn't supposed to be fun. We're delighted some people found it fun but it wasn't really meant to be fun.

Beta 2, by contrast, is where the fun starts. How fun it'll be depends on how many of the features get in.  Below are some of the key features beta 2 will introduce:

1. Objective Flags.  Beta 1 has a couple of these but beta 2 adds a lot more.  Winning at Demigod is about your ability to capture and make use of these objective flags.
2. Skill Trees.  The skill trees have been greatly expanded upon.
3. Generals.  While Assassins are extremely powerful on their own, Generals can summon minions who can be controlled like an RTS.
4. Internet play.  Impulse Reactor based "cloud" multiplayer gets in which should make getting games going very easy (fingers crossed).
5. Citadel upgrades.  Right now, things progress based on time.  In Beta 2, players will have to spend gold on Citadel upgrades to get access to more units, better units, etc.

We also have some surprises that we hope will make it into Beta 2 but we can't commit to that or whether they'd fall into Beta 3.

I started back in September on a 7 week diet.  With a beginning weight of 176, my goal was to get down to 165.  This is the first diet I've ever really been on.

At first, it went pretty well - a pound a week.  But around week 5, I hit 171 and have not managed to get past that.

To lose more weight I have to overcome one primary obstacle: Cold weather.  While I have a treadmill and elliptical at home,  I much prefer to exercise outside. So when the weather started getting cold in October, I found my average daily steps drifting downward.

In week 4, I was averaging over 10,000 steps a day.  In the last couple of weeks, that average has dropped in half. 

I've been finding it a lot easier to restrict what I eat than to take the time to get out and walk and such.

My wife and I got home from a romantic weekend and I discovered to my dismay that I was at 176 pounds. Now, my ideal weight is 165 given my height (5 foot 11) and this was the heaviest I've ever been.

Mind you, it's not the health issues or even how I look, it's the clothes. I don't want to have to buy new clothes.  So it's diet time.

Let me tell you a few things about dieting that you probably already know:

• Going from 2 cokes a day to water is not fun.
• Exchanging a glazed donut for an apple isn't enjoyable.
• Carrots are not nearly as good as BBQ potato chips.

So here's my goal chart which I'll be updating:

Week 1: Well, I didn't lose as much weight as I had hoped. I kept to the diet pretty well even walking on average 2 miles a day (4 miles on Sunday). I cut out soft drinks and candy and fudge. I did have Pizza on Sunday which probably didn't help but I also walked 4 miles and only had a salad for lunch. I'll just have to work harder this week.

Week 2: Still only lost a pound but did a better job watching what I eat. I did have a day night with my wife where I ate and drank which probably kept me from getting to 173.  I've increased the amount of exercise I'm doing starting with the elypitical machine twice a week.

Week 3: Lost a pound again.  I almost lost 2, just didn't get quite enough activity this past week.  I've started making more use of the treadmill and elyptical machine we have but the number of steps I took per day was pretty lousy. I only had 2 days where I exceeded the 10k minimum (average: 6723)  I'm much better about controlling what I eat which is probably the only reason I continue to lose weight.  I'm going to try to do better this week.  This week I'm going to try to get my average steps per day up while still maintaining my lowered food consumption. With any luck, I could lose 2 lbs.

Week 4: Lost another pound. I just barely got down to 172, it was a close thing.  I increased the amount of exercise I got this past week increasing my average daily steps to 10,639. I think I've reached the end of the "easy" weight loss. I found out that a Panera bread sandwich has typically 950 calories so there won't be any more of those.  My coke consumption is down to nil.  It will be interesting to see if I can get to 171 this next week.

Week 5: Lost my pound. I didn't think I was going to do it. My average steps dropped to 7572. Part of that was the trip up north. After 3 hours in the car, it's hard to get the umph to walk. But mostly, I was just busy with work.  I think there may be a little more "easy" weight loss left after all as I feel pretty confident I'll get down to 170lbs this week.  I'm pretty far behind my goal weight now (3 pounds) but the steady progress is encouraging.

Week 6: Didn't lose weight this week.  Between a business trip to California, Halloween candy, Halloween party, etc. I just didn't have time to exercise let alone watch my intake.

Week 7: No change.