Based on the premise that even a blind hog finds an acorn now and again, there may come a time where you come across a post that you like here. If that happens there is now a button down at the bottom of each post where you can give the post a +1 on Google. As an experiment why not try it on this post. Go on try it.

Scroll down.

A little further.

See it? Now click it. See, that wasn’t hard.

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This may be a fun post to write. A little background: This computer is shared by two adults and three kids ages 6-13. There is a no drinks other than my coffee rule at the computer desk. The rule was violated some time ago — twice. One time the keyboard was the victim, the other violation involved the mouse. The keyboard continued to work, but some of the keys are awfully sticky. The mouse pretty much stopped working all together. We had another mouse stuck in a drawer somewhere (who has had a computer for more than a few years who doesn’t?) and it was placed into service. (On another parenthetical note, how did I acquire so many computer/monitor power cords?)

Here’s the problem(s). One of the stickiest of the sticky keys is the “Enter” key. So, when I press enter to create a new paragraph I get several dozen new lines. I could just hit the backspace or delete keys, but they are sticky too, so when I try that I end up taking out the extra lines, and the last few things I wrote. The replacement mouse was replaced for a reason. For some reason it has a hair trigger left mouse button. A simple click, like closing a tab or window, also operates whatever is under that spot. I’ve tried to close one window and ended up closing two or three. When I look through my feed reader (as I was trying to do when I decided to write this post) I would try to go from one story to the next and ended up skipping two or three at a time.

Of course prices for both peripherals are really cheep. The problem is that I am cheaper. (My frugalness is kind of selective. It most often shows up when I have to buy something I don’t think I should have to buy — like a new keyboard or mouse. When it comes to buying something I want to buy I can be very liberal.)

Anyhow, due to these issues (and the fact that it’s taken over twenty minutes to write what should be a five minute post) I guess I’m going to break down and part with a few bucks.

So, how do you react when you have to buy something like this?

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If you want to look at a broad-brush example of what is hurting our country, today’s expected “Net Neutrality” regulations serve as a clear case in point. While we are suffering through bad economic policy and an out of touch administration, a real threat exists in the form of government “solutions” to non-existent, or, at the least, debatable, problems. Worse yet is the way that these “problems” are being addressed, not through legislation (bad enough, and another battle that needs to be fought), but through regulation imposed by government agencies that goes way beyond any legislative authority.

CAFE standards and the EPA’s “discovery” that humans exhale a pollutant that needs to be regulated are but two examples. Net Neutrality will be another. (On a side note; If you want to know how bad something is, just note how far the name given to a proposal is from the actual action it will take.)

Of course, we know by now that the FCC has approved those rules.

The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday approved “high-level rules of the road” designed to ensure that internet providers grant everyone equal access to the Web.

But the 3-2 vote immediately came under attack from both flanks, with internet-freedom advocates saying the new rules don’t go far enough and critics saying the government should stay out of online business altogether.

The point here goes beyond the rules themselves, bad as they are. What I want to emphasize is that these rules were passed after the courts and Congress have both indicated that the FCC does not have that power. From Ed Morrissey:

The new rules will come under scrutiny almost immediately in the upcoming Congress. Even the Democratic-run Congress objected to Genachowski’s first attempt at claiming jurisdiction over the Internet, as did the courts. A Republican-run House will look even more skeptically at expanded claims of jurisdiction by an agency, especially when Congress has previously refused to grant that jurisdiction.

Van Helsing writes:

You had to know ever-expanding Big Government would close its ham-like fists around the throat of the Internet eventually. Today FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, aka “Julius Seizure” is launching a major offensive that will serve as a beachhead for eventual total control.

He also points to an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by Republican FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell that includes this:

Nothing is broken that needs fixing, however. The Internet has been open and freedom-enhancing since it was spun off from a government research project in the early 1990s. Its nature as a diffuse and dynamic global network of networks defies top-down authority. Ample laws to protect consumers already exist. Furthermore, the Obama Justice Department and the European Commission both decided this year that net-neutrality regulation was unnecessary and might deter investment in next-generation Internet technology and infrastructure.

Analysts and broadband companies of all sizes have told the FCC that new rules are likely to have the perverse effect of inhibiting capital investment, deterring innovation, raising operating costs, and ultimately increasing consumer prices. Others maintain that the new rules will kill jobs. By moving forward with Internet rules anyway, the FCC is not living up to its promise of being “data driven” in its pursuit of mandates—i.e., listening to the needs of the market.

Mark Tapscott, in his article at the Washington Examiner, quotes S.C. Senator Jim DeMint.

Proceeding on its own liberal whims rather than facts, this FCC has chosen to grant itself broad authority to limit how businesses can bring the internet to consumers in faster and more innovative ways.

Americans loudly demanded a more limited federal government this November, but the Obama Administration has dedicated itself to expanding centralized government planning. Today, unelected bureaucrats rammed through an internet takeover, even after Congress and courts warned them not to.

Yesterday’s FCC decision is only the most currently visible example of an out of control federal bureaucracy that refuses to be accountable to the American people. Let’s hope that the 112th will put the brakes on this type of shenanigans and ever expanding government control.

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Santa Claus has always been on the cutting edge and it’s no different in the age of the internet. Gone are the days of mailing letters and schlepping to the mall. Amy-Mae Elliott has posted 5 Ways to Connect With Santa on the Web at Mashable.

Today’s kids have a wealth of online options for hooking up with the Claus.

We’ve scoured the ‘Net for the five best ways to connect with Father Christmas, from the iPhone version of a letter to Santa, to some sleigh-tracking GPS tools.

If you have kids (or are just a big kid yourself), we think you’ll enjoy sharing these holiday web treats.

My favorite is the NORAD Santa tracker, although the email from Santa was a big hit.

Have a great Christmas Eve.

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I posted about the move to 10pm right before bRight@Night was supposed to start last night. Then I clicked over to my host switchboard to start the show. It was then that I found out that Blog Talk Radio had switched from the old click to talk (for premium subscribers) to using Skype. Now, I have nothing against Skype, and I have nothing but good things to say about Blog Talk Radio.

On the other hand, I sure wish they had given some warning about the switch. I was told that it was a “soft launch” and that additional details would be available soon. But 10-15 minutes before show time isn’t sufficient to download the software, get all the settings right, create an account, and still log into your show.

I finally got things set up around 10:40 — 10 minutes after the show was scheduled to end. I quickly scheduled a 15 minute segment for 11:00, but it really threw me off my game.

I wanted to talk about the elections today in NY, VA, NJ, and elsewhere. I guess I’ll just have to talk about the results on tomorrow night’s show. I can do that.

Or maybe I’ll have to schedule a show for tonight, after results start coming in. I’ll have to see about that.

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The internet turns 40 today.

At 2100, on 29 October 1969, engineers 400 miles apart at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and Stanford Research Institute (SRI) prepared to send data between the first nodes of what was then known as Arpanet.

It got the name because it was commissioned by the US Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (Arpa).

The fledgling network was to be tested by Charley Kline attempting to remotely log in to a Scientific Data Systems computer that resided at SRI.

Kline typed an “L” and then asked his colleague Bill Duvall at SRI via a telephone headset if the letter had arrived.

It had.

Kline typed an “O”. Duvall said that arrived too.

Kline typed a “G”. Duvall could only report that the system had crashed.

I haven’t researched it, but I think that sometime in the few days following this event a message went out inviting readers to “add fuel to your love-rocket.”

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Six time since 5:30 this morning. That’s how many times the computer has, on it’s own, just restarted. It makes it very challenging to read, and especially write, anything.

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I tried using the computer we bought at a church yard sale. It has about 10% of the memory and ran at about 10% the speed of this one that still wants to restart on it’s own. The trade off is substantial. Until I can replace this one, or figure out why it wants to restart at random, I’ll just have to do what I can.

Thank you for visiting in spite of the lack of posts. That will change starting now.

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I’m impatient, and the weekend is here. WordPress issued 2.7 RC1 several days ago. The final release isn’t due out for another few days, but with the extra time the weekend brings I have decided to install the latest release candidate here. I’ve been running the latest version for several weeks on a test blog I have set up and I haven’t had any problems. Of course all of that is subject to change (and Murphey’s Law) on a “real” blog.

If things go wonky for a while, at least you’ll know why. And I’ll have a few days to fix things.

UPDATE: Things appear to have gone smoothly. Only two plugins don’t work – Baltic Amber Admin Themes, and Simple Tags. Neither are really needed.

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I’ve just uploaded a new WordPress Plugin – Twitme. If it works as I think it should this post should be automatically sent to my twitter feed.

Here goes.

UPDATE: It Worked!

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