barnson.org Half-baked opinions, served lukewarm.

My brother Jay posted a great story we watched on Sunday: Old 666. Excerpt:

Zeamer and his misfit crew seized the plane, and worked to restore it and make it airworthy again. Not just restore it – they decided to customize it. They added nearly 50% more guns to the bird, including a forward-firing machinegun so Zeamer could also shoot, like a fighter pilot. They replaced the .30 caliber machine guns with bigger .50 caliber guns – or, in some cases, twin .50 caliber guns. When they were done, their aircraft – number 41-2666 (or 12666, depending on the account) was the most heavily armed bomber in the entire Pacific theater of World War II.

Be careful about blowing your Vuvuzela at your dog in the house.

Just ran across a great tutorial on how to use the Pingback module for Drupal.

I've recently begun doing some research into how I can improve traffic to my web site. Yeah, I know, long-term readers would say “Uh, dude, start writing again!” I hear you, and I'm working on it, starting today here & now.

One of the sites discussing driving traffic to blogs mentioned one of the basics is being aware of “hot keywords”, where advertisers pay top dollar for click-through ads. Now, a lot of these, I feel like I'd have to sell my soul to capitalize on them. I'm talking about the ads for cheap viagra & cialis, payday loans, debt consolidation, and Nutrisystem eating plans. Well, OK, Nutrisystem is just a diet plan under the hood – and a well-advertised and above-board one at that – so I guess I'd be OK about that, but the rest seem to be largely the province of people who constantly try to spam my site with comments to try to boost their ad revenue, offshore pharmacy, or extortionate loan scheme.

Because I've started writing my soliloquies again, I've changed permissions again for new users. Anonymous users are allowed to post again, as are recently-authenticated users, but all posts are moderated unless you're part of the "Contributor", "Barnsons", or "Moderator" groups.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Attorneys general from 13 states -- including Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff -- sued the federal government Tuesday, claiming the landmark health care overhaul is unconstitutional just seven minutes after President Barack Obama signed it into law.

Until today, I have largely ignored the Tea Party. Decided to read some of their own literature today. After careful study, I've come to the conclusion that it's a mostly-male thinly-veiled white-supremacist organization hell-bent on eliminating religious freedom from the USA. Apparently some 11% of the USA sympathizes with them.

Updated Drupal today to version 6.15 from 5.X. No issues at all, it went perfectly. Not entirely sure I want to re-enable all the old modules. But I am sure I want to start writing in this dang thing again. It's been months since I've posted due to some personal reasons. Yet the compulsion to write is hitting me again!

Got a question from a relative the other day: "Why are SSDs so much smaller than hard drives?" Here's my layman's response:

Ran across this parable today, thought it was cool.

A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year old grandson.

The old man's hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered.
The family ate together at the table. But the elderly grandfather's shaky hands and failing sight made eating difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, milk spilled onto the tablecloth.