I’ve had a problem with my computer lately with the clock being consistently slow, even though it is set to sync to an internet time server every day. Whenever I would manually sync it to an internet time server, the time would be correct for an hour or so, then suddenly lose time. Before, it was about 5 minutes, but lately, it was 17 minutes. This would cause all sorts of problems, especially when I was working on a file when the time jumped back: suddenly, the latest version of a file had a timestamp 10 minutes earlier than a previous version. Not good! But after extensive testing, I’ve determined the bug.

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A few days ago, the New York Times had a story about who really makes up the 1%. It’s a wide variety of people, making a wide variety of incomes depending on where exactly they live (unsurprisingly, the top 1% in Connecticut looks a bit different than the top 1% in Alabama). Of course, not all of them, nor even a majority, are the kinds of investment bankers and hedge fund managers that many people are upset at for ruining the economy. The NYT story about the top 1% is about the top 1% by income; the top 1% by wealth is a different group, arguably more removed from the middle class than the top 1% in income earners. That certainly makes sense: a surgeon that is in the top 1% in income may only be one generation removed from a middle-class upbringing, while a top 1% wealth-accumulator has probably only known luxury.

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• Current Mood: Pain
• Currently Reading: "Requiem For A Dream", Hubert Selby Jr.

Zappos.com recently had a data breach. As data breaches go, it was not nearly as bad as it could has been: no full credit card numbers leaked, nor any plaintext passwords. What makes it special, then? It’s somewhat special to me, since it is, to my knowledge, the first time that I have been part of a data breach: I have a Zappos.com account, and I received the email about the breach. Notice I said “to my knowledge”; plenty of data leaks don’t get reported. I haven’t been a part of a major one, though, at least according to pwnedlist.com, where you can check to see if your email address or username has been leaked.

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• Current Mood: Meh
• Currently Listening To: "Under My Thumb", The Rolling Stones
• Just Watched: True Grit

It’s been pretty fun to watch the GOP presidential race and all of the non-Mitt-on-Mitt violence going on, as you may imagine. However, never did I expect to hear people like Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry attack Mitt Romney using language that sounds like it would be more at home coming out of the Occupy Wall Street protesters: “vulture capitalist”, “crony capitalism”, and everything else. It’s evident that those barbs are creating some sting, since Romney is firing back that anybody who attacks him for Bain Capital is attacking capitalism itself. I find that particularly odd, especially from a party that essentially takes the opposite approach when liberals attack, for example, guns. Here’s a hint to Romney: you’re not doing it right.

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• Current Mood: Sore
• Currently Listening To: "Long, Long, Long", The Beatles
• Currently Reading: "The Compass of Pleasure", David J. Linden

Now that the CFPB has somebody in charge despite Republican efforts to the contrary, it can actually start getting into the business of what it was created to do: protect consumers by regulating financial products. And it just so happens that some news I read today provides a handy example for thinking about what exactly needs to be regulated.

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• Current Mood: Calm
• Currently Listening To: "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place", The Animals

President Obama made a recess appointment today to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which caused Republicans to absolutely flip out (A Fox News blog screamed that he “mocks the Constitution”, which I have to say gave me quite the chuckle). Is Obama a dictator? Is he wielding absolute powers? Does Fox News distort the truth? Will Rick Santorum beat Obama in 2012? All signs point to “no”

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• Current Mood: Satiated
• Currently Listening To: "Something", The Beatles

It may be the night of the Iowa caucuses, but I don’t feel like commenting on the hilarity therein: if you want to read about how Michele Bachmann thinks one of the most important issues facing the U.S. is light bulbs, how Rick Santorum wants to allow states to outlaw birth control, or how Herman Cain thinks he is qualified to be Secretary of Defense because he was on a Navy boat once, there’s plenty of places to do that. Instead, let’s talk about debt!

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• Current Mood: Exhausted
• Currently Listening To: "Take Me to the River", Talking Heads

I’ve uploaded a few photos from our trip to Omaha for Christmas. A couple samples below the fold.

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• Current Mood: New
• Currently Listening To: "Heartbreaker", Led Zeppelin

It’s been a while since I did a tech update, but nothing like doing OS installs on a Friday night. My nearly 5 year old laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1501, is on its last legs. The only thing I use it for is BOINC, so I figured that installing Ubuntu would give it a bit more breathing room than Windows. However, when I tried to run the install, I got a screen full of crazy colored vertical lines. Doing a BIOS update did not help. However, a forum thread did lead me to the right solution: setting the nomodeset option before install.

So if you want to install Ubuntu on a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop and you keep running into the crazy colored vertical lines, during the install, hit F6, then select “nomodeset”. Presto!

The First Amendment to the Constitution is probably the most misunderstood amendment, likely because it is the one that most people know about. Few things are funnier than hearing it misused by people who say things like “You can’t ban me from this website, I have First Amendment rights!” It’s one thing for internet trolls to not have a grasp of what the First Amendment means; it’s quite another for churches to think that they have a right to discriminate while getting government contracts.

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• Currently Listening To: "Daughter", Pearl Jam
• Currently Reading: "Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions", Edwin Abbott Abbott
• Just Watched: Crazy Stupid Love