Why You Should Wait to Buy a New Laptop

This will be an incredibly short post: If you look up the best selling laptops on Amazon, you’ll notice striking pricing. The best seller is the Samsung Chromebook, 11.6″. The best selling “real” laptop is a Toshiba Satellite, at 15.6″ quite enormous. The downside: here in two images. The price on both is fluctuating, currently $250 for the Chromebook and $300 for the Satellite. I guess on an 11.6″ Chromebook that resolution is acceptable, but I imagine you can see the pixels on the 15. Continue reading

L'America: What's the Nuclear Option in the Senate

If you are confused about the changes to the filibuster rules in the United States Senate, read on!Hooray! There is something new to explain! You have all heard about this Nuclear Option that Senate Majority Leader (Democratic) Harry Reid pushed through, and you don’t understand what it’s about, what’s going on, and why it’s a big deal. I am not a Constitutional expert by any means, but I’ve been following this for a long time and here is my (potentially totally misleading and confusing) recap: Continue reading

Ancient European Divinities (No Letters Missing)

A list with ancient divinities from Europe, from Athena to Zeus Continue reading

Chinavasion Rear View Mirror Device

Verdict: buy if you like installing things without good instructions. Otherwise wait until someone posts a video on YouTube, or some reseller afraid of lawsuits creates a real manual.I just got myself a new car (a Subaru Forester) and I’ve been interested for a while in getting a **dash cam**. That’s the cameras you install inside the car to keep records of what’s happened on the street you’ve driven on. I am a fairly polite and safe driver, and if anything happens, it benefits me if I have a video showing what went on. Continue reading

Nexus 5 - First Look

Short version: buy it, buy it, buy it. Then get a T-Mobile SIM card (micro) and show off.Do you like your 2 year contract? Do you like the $100+ bill for such precious commodities as the unlimited long-distance calls you don’t use, while you are stuck with a hard limit of 2GB (AT&T) or 5GB (Verizon)? Do you like the mysterious charges that show up in your phone bill? I got fed up with all of that a while back. Continue reading

Beaches (No letters missing - with pictures!)

Dream of beautiful places by the sea and name successive releases after some of the most spectacular locations on Earth! Continue reading

People of Computing (No letters missing, but Q and X out of series)

A list of people famous only to computer geeks (like me) Continue reading

Sweets (No letters missing)

Sweets words in alphabetical order – single word only (you really don’t want to figure out how multiple words are spelled out in your VCS) Continue reading

Halloween (No letters missing)

A spooky list for all your ghoulish needs. Continue reading

Ancient Roman Celebrities (No K, W, X, Y, Z)

Letter Main Candidate Secondary Comments A Augustus First official emperor B Brutus Killer of Caesar C Caesar First unofficial emperor D Diocletian Ruled over the Empire at its largest extent E Eusebius First chronicler of the Christian Church F Flavius Fabius Both are names of gentes, the aristocratic families of Rome G Germanicus Father of crazy Caligula H Hadrianus Roman emperor, usually spelled Hadrian in English I Irenaeus Church theologian J Julius Name of the gens to which Caesar belonged K – L Livius Name of a gens, made famous by the historian that goes by its name M Marcus Common name (see Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Antonius) derived from Mars N Nero Emperor famous for burning down Rome O Octavius Common name, for the eight-born P Pompeius Another gens, made famous by several Romans (Pompey) Q Quintus Common name, for the fifth-born R Romulus The founder of Rome S Scipio Sextus, Septimus A gens made famous by the winner against Carthage T Titus Traianus Early Roman emperor U Ulpius Gens to which the emperor Trajan belonged V Valens Late emperor, captured by the Persians W – X – Y – Z –