Excessive Video Game Playing Could Rot Your Teeth

This seems kind of like a no-brainer. I seriously want to know what kind of salary this person is earning to make an observation that dentists have known for the last 3 decades.

For that kind of observational talent, I could be earning big bucks too!

Don't Forget To Bring Your Chaperone

After all the child sex abuse cases that the Catholic Church has fielded in the past decade, this news item shocked me! I had two thoughts immediately that I decided to blog.

First, I was wondering if anyone would accuse the Pope of solicitation for this. I don't understand how anyone could fall for this a second time. Why would anyone who had been raped/sodomized under the guise of spiritual training, want to do it a second time with the leader of the church that raped them?

Second, this last paragraph caught my eye. "the Vatican has also sought to play down the crisis, accusing the media of exaggerating the problem." How exactly do you do that? How can you claim that the multiple sex-abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church and cost them over a billion dollars is just a figment of people's imagination?

Whatever... All I can do after reading this story would be to provide some advice to the victims. Don't forget to bring your chaperone when you see the Pope; one of you might end up pregnant.

Nerd Sniping

This comic makes me laugh a lot more than it probably should, especially since if I ever got sniped, I know I would totally fail. I've actually seen this problem before too and I never managed to solve it in the same day. I would be a very easy person to snipe.
Except you have no reason to snipe me; I'm not worth any points at all...

Linux, Where Crapware Goes to Die

Check out this interesting article I discovered.
I would like to use this article as a response to people who tell me that they don't like Linux because it doesn't run the programs they prefer. The reason I love Linux over Windows, is that Linux also doesn't run the programs that you don't prefer.

There are 3 reasons Linux doesn't run all the programs that Windows does, adequately covered in that article. I'd like to emphasize a few of the points and add a few more for emphasis.

I've heard people tell me that if my Linux computer isn't infected with crapware, I'm not trying hard enough - i.e.; downloading everything and installing it? I've also been told that if Linux was more popular then crapware would be written for it just as commonly as it is for Windows.

I'd like to emphasize that this simply will never happen, and I've probably tried harder than you to stress test my computer system. During the phase where I was purposefully trying to see what Linux could do, I went and tried to get a virus or spyware to install. I would try to install the programs that killed Windows, just to try and kill Linux. They wouldn't install, and the viruses did nothing. 50 viral programs and countless spyware, adware, and crapware programs later... and Linux was still triumphant.

#1 and 2 - Linux Is Hard To Infect And Easy to Disinfect - What makes me laugh on this is that this is a well established fact. And it's also well established that one of the best ways to secure Windows is run it through Linux.

There are die-hard Windows users, server administrators, network analysts, that I know who tell me that the only Linux they know is how to set up a Linux server and run Virtualbox, which they run Windows on. And why do they run Windows on a Linux Virtualbox? Because Windows is safer!! Windows running through Linux is 90% less likely to suddenly pick up infections, it crashes less, and it uses less memory.

This solution here is also the perfect way to get all those programs you want/need/prefer on Linux. Running a Windows Virtualbox allows you to run all those programs you absolutely crave, inside the security of Linux.

#3 - Linux programs are vetted (and there are thousands of programs available) - This is one point I like stressing a lot. While one of the rally cries of Windows supporters is that the selection of software is so much greater for Windows, none of the programs are vetted for usefulness and stability. There is NO MICROSOFT QUALITY CONTROL working to make sure that Windows programmers only write programs that won't hurt you, and keep your Windows programs safe.

I'm serious! And if you take the time to think about it you've probably already been in a situation where you realize that I'm right! What is the only thing that Microsoft, or Dell, or Compaq, or HP can advise you to do once your system is running slower than molasses because of all the spyware and malware and is infected and crashes when you try running spyware scans? Reformat!?!? Seriously!? The only option is reformatting!?

I don't like reformatting as an option, especially when on Windows it seems to be the only option. I would prefer a safer operating system experience with guaranteed safe programs (something Windows simply cannot provide).

Linux is safe. Every program is vetted through a testing group of millions of users before being released. Because Linux has a watchdog service is operation, there are standards that must be kept, and rules that are enforced.So while Windows runs more programs, only Linux can claim that the programs it runs are stable, secure, and free of malware. This is something that Windows has never been able to claim.

Oh, and another thing I'd like to add. Have you actually checked out the number of programs that Linux has in the repository? Before you claim that Linux doesn't have a lot of programs, you might want to install and play around with the 30,000+ programs that are there. And once you're done with those programs, check out Sourceforge and other places for more links you can add to your repository. I guarantee you will never be bored on Linux.

If Web Browsers Were Modes of Transport

Cartoonist Caldwell Tanner of College Humor suggests that web browsers can be compared to modes of transportation.Are his descriptions accurate?

Sony Downgrades the PS3 in an Upgrade

Here's a story that has millions of people up in arms. You can read the complete article on the EFF website.

I don't know if there is any nice way to blog about this. All I can say is, forgive me for trampling on your die hard personal opinions (if you still maintain those personal opinions after reading the EFF article)... but, here I go.

After Geohot released a hypervisor hack that made installing Linux software on PS3 a breeze (included here since I have no respect for Sony at all), Sony countered by releasing an upgrade for the PS3 console that downgrades the console - it completely removes the hypervisor function. Here's what makes this action by Sony suck even more. If you decline to upgrade (should we be calling this an upgrade when it involves the removal of a feature?), it effectively disables the console.

If you decline to upgrade your PS3, the console will no longer play PS3 games online anymore, you will not be able to watch video online anymore, it will be impossible to play new PS3 games, it will be impossible to watch new Blu-Ray videos, and new Blu-Ray discs could even disable the Blu-Ray drive completely.

What makes this worse in my eyes is the eagerness that Sony rushes in to rape their entire customer base over the actions of distinct minority.

I've have never liked Sony. And, simply because they decided to fleece their customers in this way, I will never trust them again. Even if this software issue gets resolved so that no harm is done to the consumers, I still won't trust Sony because they did this in the first place. Why should you trust a company that decides to harm their customers so eagerly?

Ubuntu switches to base-10

Ubuntu's future 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) operating system is going to make a small, but contentious change to how file sizes are represented. Like most other operating systems using binary prefixes, Ubuntu currently represents 1 kB (kilobyte) as 1024 bytes (base-2). But starting with Lucid Lynx 10.10, the operating system will be switching from IEC units (base-2) to SI units (base-10) that will denote 1 kB as 1,000 bytes, 1 MB as 1,000 kB / 1,000,000 bytes, 1 GB as 1,000 MB / 1,000,000 kB / 1,000,000,000 bytes, and so on.
It was originally thought that the change over to SI units would happen with 10.04 Lucid Lynx, but it has been delayed to Lucid+1 (10.10) since some programs have failed to update to the new units policy and were still using base-2
The ancient Greeks did not count in binary (base-2) and this new counting will finally put them in line with the standard Greek meaning of "kilo" as 1000.
This is a move already undertaken by other operating systems including Mac 10.6 Snow Leopard.