Lee.org

Long story short:

If you use Skype, call me, username: gadlen (I have Skype voicemail)
If you use Google Talk, call me, leeatleedotorg

If I don’t seem to be online, ping me on AIM, u:gadlen or by phone. I sometimes turn off my instant message & talk clients to save on RAM for intensive tasks.

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I’ve been using Google Talk for 2 weeks now, talking on the phone/computer with my sister fer free. The sound quality kicks and it’s hard to beat the price. (free)

TJIC says that my Skype-Out call to him sounded “like a good cell phone”.

My Google Talk –> Google Talk conversations with my sister sound much better than a telephone.

I got the free crippleware version of Total Recorder to make recordings of some Skype calls. The sound quality was “pretty good” (and definitely adequate) but there was some weird static on the recording.

I’ve been mooching off my housemate’s phone so I’ve been using Nobelcom calling cards. For most calls to New Jersey there is a terribly frustrating echo on the line… I hear my own words a 1/4 second after I say them. All other calls sound peachy

I might have to go buy cordless computer headsets for all my friends and family for Christmas.

Dear Lazyweb,

I recently moved from the Eastern time zone to the Pacific time zone. All of my reoccurring events (i.e. birthdays and anniversaries) in Outlook shifted from being “all day events” to occuring three hours sooner… 9pm the day before until 9pm the day of the event. I rummaged around on Microsoft.com but the best I could find was that Bill told me to either move to another time zone, just get used to it, or manually fix all of the events. I went ahead and manually fixed all of the events… it took about an hour and a half and now my eyes hurt. :-(

For future reference, is there a better way to do this?

Update 12-9-05. See comment #5, below

I had an exchange with SierraTradingPost.com recently about comment spam they appeared to be writing.

Here is the last letter I wrote to Andy Newlin, Online Marketing Manager at SierraTradingPost.com

To paraphrase our conversation:

I said: Your company is posting comment spam, which I don’t think is very endearing.
You said: No, we’re not.
I said: Yes you are, and here are 20 examples of it
You said: No, we’re not. That’s not us. Well, actually, you’re right. An adverstizing affiliate of ours is writing potentially deceptive ads in our name. So please apologize for saying that we’re writing comment spam.

You do what you think is best for your company. Have a nice day,

Lee Sonko

Continue reading ‘SierraTradingPost.com comment spam’ »

I guess I’m in the right place….

Pledge ruled unconstitutional

By Associated Press
Wednesday, September 14, 2005 – Updated: 02:06 PM EST

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal judge in San Francisco has declared it unconstitutional to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.
The judge, ruling in a lawsuit brought by Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow, today ruled that he is bound by precedent of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Newdow objected to the words ”under God” in the pledge.

My rant on the subject

When a court fires pot-shots like this, the rulingslikely won’t stick nationally, but the sentiment is still there.

I generally only watch a particular television series once in order to grok it. When I’m done with it, I’m done.

I watched and enjoyed the original “Bachelor”. I found the experiment in “forced romantic community” quite interesting. I also followed the original “Survivor”. I thought that the Survivor story was finished… well, except for the multiple of re-iterations. I was wrong.

Richard Hatch won the original Survivor through a mix of social engineering, careful plannning, and luck. But apparently, his skills are so infused into his personality, he doesn’t know when to turn them off.

The Smoking Gun

“Survivor” winner indicted for tax evasion, fraud, charity swindle

SEPTEMBER 8–After rejecting a plea deal earlier this year, original “Survivor” winner Richard Hatch was named today in a 10-count indictment charging him with tax evasion and fraudulently using charitable donations to cover personal expenses. According to the indictment, a copy of which you’ll find below, Hatch never bothered to report his 2000-01 haul for winning the initial installment of the CBS reality series–a $1 million check and a $27,000 Pontiac. The 44-year-old Newport, Rhode Island resident also never told the Internal Revenue Service about nearly $400,000 in other income. Included in that six-figure sum was $36,500 in donations to Horizon Bound, a purported charity established by Hatch. Prosecutors allege that Hatch actually used that money for personal expenses. Along with two tax evasion counts, Hatch was charged with filing a false return; mail fraud (four counts); wire fraud (two counts); and bank fraud. He faces a maximum of five years in prison (and a $250,000 fine) on nine of the felony charges, though the bank fraud rap carries a 30-year max and a $1 million fine. Hatch reneged on a January plea agreement calling for him to cop to a pair of felony tax evasion counts. Prosecutors responded by opening a grand jury probe that resulted in Hatch being hit with eight additional felonies. (18 pages)

My dad went to a doctor today. His heart has some tricky blockages. I’m very concerned.

I’ll probably be flying home for the surgery.

I wrote this list in response to watching the movie Shall We Dance with Richard Gere on my way to San Francisco in February 2005. I have only now gotten around to transcribing it. I think that it is a good list.

What I learned from Shall We Dance

• Follow your dreams, even when they take you in unexpected and even threatening directions. Keep hold of your foundations and things are bound to go well.
• Don’t be afraid or ashamed. There will be times when you -are- afraid or ashamed. Let the natural course of events overcome.
• When you see a chance for happiness, take it.
• Be proud of what you love.
• Allow new passions in your life.
• Don’t let your fears control you. Don’t sweat it when it does. It happens to us all.
• I cry often during movies in which people dance.
• The substance of what epassions you is much less important than the spirit and energy that is put into it. The spirit -is- the substance, and that will show.

LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sept. 12, 2005–eBay Inc. (Nasdaq:EBAY)(www.ebay.com) has agreed to acquire Luxembourg-based Skype Technologies SA, the global Internet communications company, for approximately $2.6 billion in up-front cash and eBay stock, plus potential performance-based consideration

Skype had been privately held.
From working stiff to billionaire, overnight*.

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*If, by “overnight”, you mean: innovating, struggling and slaving for without any solid goal in mind for several years.

www.coldforged.org is down. I hope he’s ok! I only know him from trolling his posts but he’s a good guy!

I’m hoping the best for him!

I’m guessing that he lives in a currently waterlogged portion of the US…..

Update 9-12-05
Not waterlogged…. CPU logged.

From Coldforged on WordPress.org

Just FYI.

After some trouble with my hosting provider — meaning having my account suspended for CPU usage 3 times — I’ve gone ahead and shut down coldforged.org. I currently have no intention of finding another hosting provider and starting anew, so this is the end of that era. Thanks to those who read and those who found my plugins helpful.

My plugins, Enhanced Views, Paged Comment Editing, Image Headlines, and the Spelling Checker are still freely available under GPL from the plugin repository but I will no longer be supporting them. If by some chance I decide to revive the site in the future, I may pick up where I left off but I certainly wouldn’t count on it. And I’m sorry to say I won’t be checking back here for support questions on any of the plugins. There are lots of people using them who may be able to help you, though, so it doesn’t hurt to ask here.

This also isn’t a call for help, free hosting, or debugging my installation. I’ve tried many things — static caching, disabling features, cached gravars — and I realized following this time that I think I am using the seemingly notorious “Brian’s Latest Comments” plugin which has caused such issues in the past. However, I’ve apparently had one too many strikes with my hosting provider and frankly don’t feel like paying more or going through the headache of migrating. Not worth it. Thanks in advance to anyone who wanted to help :).

Adios, friends.

9-16-05 update: He couldn’t stand to be offline. Blogging is catharsis for him too.

I have had a religious conversion.

I am now borne up by the saucy tentacles of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.