Life in Russia under Putin

Doesn't sound like much of a democracy.

Asus releases new ultramoble PC

Usually UMPCs are very expensive ($2000-3000), and are packed with features. The Asus one is different, for one it runs Linux, for two it has a solid state disk as a main storage unit (basically a thumb drive in the UMPC). And the cost is quite low too.

Anyway there is a review here of it.

And ZipZoomFly has some pricing info. ($420 for 4gig version w/ larger battery, $350 for 4gig and smaller battery)).

I think it's a potentially good deal, but I worry that first the price mentioned was $200 or $250, and a 16 gig or 8 gig disk. Now there is only a 4 gig disk, and $420. So i think they need to do more to bring the price down. As it is, it's not a windows computer, it won't run much at all except web browser and word processing apps or other non-demanding apps. On the other hand, boot and load times are non-existant (10-15 seconds to load linux, a few seconds to load apps). My current desktop takes a full 5 minutes to load windows and an application (its screwed up, admittedly, time for reformat). So it's not strictly better than other UMPCs in sense that it's a limited platform, but it's much cheaper. Its kinda like a upgraded blackberry. Anyway, its not a must-have for me, but if i was a student it'd be useful for notetaking and that sort of thing.

1.5 million books online

Cool! I had no idea this project was taking place (it happened mostly in China and India, where labor is cheap)

The project web portal (Univeral Library) is here:

Alas it's not all its cracked up to be. There are 350,000 English 'books'. Searches for post 1990 books on biology turn up a handful of US Fish and Wildlife periodicals, and a bunch of chinese things. Its somewhat abhorent that there are no modern biology textbooks, or texts in general, in this endevour, which leads me to think that the scholarly aspects are misleading at best.

10 worst thanksgiving dishes

Just say no, folks.

What's the writer's strike all about anyway?

Some interesting commentary at Advice Goddess, quoting Marshall Herskovitz in the LAT Its mostly about money and control; the networks control the product way too much, and pay the writers too little. The networks profits have soared while writers saleries are cut. Much nuances, but read the whole thing.

WoW Dailies

Some help here.

The wowwiki page for Dailies is here

Seems like there are three main factions for Dailies. All require flying mount, and a quest chain to unlock. The netherdrake faction requires 300 ride skill (5000g), so this is usually taken up later.

1) Sha'Tari Skyguard

This starts with Yuula at the Terrance of Light in Shat. She give the quest "Threat from Above", basically just fly northeast of shat, and kill ogres. They are 70s and 71s, and there is one elite. Don't engage him, stay clear! He wooped my ass 3/3 times. From here, several dailies are unlocked, mostly in Skeetis. To grind rep to Exalted w/ just dailies it will take 26 days and net approx 1000g. (40g/day approx)

2) Ogri'la. All info on that page.

3) Netherdrake quests. You need 300 ride skill to advance past neutral.


New dailies in 2.3! Wohoo, get more honor in AV and more gold per dungeon run is always a good thing.

Muslims and catholics raising cross over St. Johns in Bagdad

Wow, this photo should win a Pulitzer.

Yeah, the Iraq War is hopeless. Yeah, we lost. Yeah, the Iraqis don't care or hate Americans. Yeah, QQ. Photos don't lie (much).

Joss Whedeon to do another TV series

Staring Faith from Buffy.

The Longest Morning

The 82nd Airborne vs Al Qaeda. Gripping story! AQI tried to kidnap a 4 man observation post shortly before Petraeus's testimony to Congress, with the goal of torturing and murdering them. They didn't succeed.

Ramadi awakening

This is just an awesome, extremely interesting post about post-awakening Ramadi.