Performance Zen

Author: spierzchala

  • The Democratic Disaster — Bob Shrum

    Link: Bob Shrum – Disinfopedia.

    Bob Shrum is the worst thing to happen to the Democratic party since “Southern Democrats”. The party has this completely bizarre faith that this person — who is now 0 for 8 in campaigns — can lead them to the promised land.

    GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF THE SAND.

    Karl Rove has your number, has you cornered, and this dinosaur from the Kennedy era has got to be retired.

    It’s over. The New Deal is dead. Camelot is gone. Carter is a great “statestman”. Clinton is eating fries and taking aspirin.

    I vote that we send Bob Shrum somewhere where he can do a lot of good for democracy — Iraq. Then the Democrats will be able to start with a clean slate.

  • Microsoft says Firefox not a threat to IE | CNET News.com

    Link: Microsoft says Firefox not a threat to IE.

    “We probably need to do a bit of work to communicate the features that are in IE,” he said.

    Now, the interesting thing here is that, as someone on Slashdot said, the gentleman making the comments has never used Firefox. I think that if you are going to criticize something, you should have at least used it for a while.

  • Desktop Searching: Only for the CPU-Endowed

    I keep hearing that the latest and greatest wave in technology for the home PC is the ability to have more powerful file and data search tools to help you find grandma’s picture which got stored in some oddball directory last year.

    I would use these in an instant, except for two concerns.

    1. Google Desktop Search. My recent feelings of animosity towards Google aside, the concept of a Web-based local search is so backwards. And then you spook us by injecting local results into Web seraches? That app got round-filed in less than an hour.
    2. CPU and Disk Thrashing. Some of the other search tools that I have tried thrash my hard drive and lock-up my teeny PIII/500Mhz Thinkpad 600X. Not everyone has a monster machine with a GB of RAM. I demand Auto-Indexing of all new content, so I am not taking advantage of the gentility that these processes can bring. But I also demand instantaneous results. So either the desktop search companies can by me a new machine, or clean up their indexing.

  • Firefox “Success Crisis”

    Link: Firefox 1.0 fans clog Mozilla site | CNET News.com.

    Yours truly quoted in the article. Kudos to Ryan Breen for coming up with the memorable “success crisis” tag, which he claims he stole…borrowed from somewhere he can’t remember.

    On the positive front, the site appears to have returned to some semblance of normal. The Updates page is still suffering, but I can wait a few days for new themes and extensions.

  • No Longer a Christian

    Link: No Longer a Christian.
    Read this. Understand.

    I was told in Sunday school the word “Christian” means to be Christ-like, but the message I hear daily on the airwaves from the christian media are words of war, violence, and aggression. Throughout this article I will spell christian with a small c rather than a capital, since the term (as I usually hear it thrown about) does not refer to the teachings of the one I know as the Christ. I hear church goers call in to radio programs and explain that it was a mistake not to kill every living thing in Fallujah. They quote chapter and verse from the old testament about smiting the enemies of Israel. The fear of fighting the terrorists on our soil rather than across the globe causes the voices to be raised as they justify the latest prison scandal or other accounts of the horrors of war . The words they speak are words of destruction, aggression, dominance, revenge, fear and arrogance. The host and the callers echo the belief in the righteousness of our nation’s killing. There are reminders to pray for our christian president who is doing the work of the Lord: Right to Life, Second Amendmendment, sanctity of marriage, welfare reform, war, kill, evil liberals. . . so much to fight, so much to destroy.

    Amen.

  • Paxil/Seroxat Used as Loss Leader

    Link: SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Society | Revealed: secret plan to push ‘happy’ pills.

    I love reading stuff like this about Paxil/Seroxat, as it is the SSRI I have been taking since 1998.

    A half-life is the scientific term for how long it takes for the
    concentration of a drug to drop by 50 per cent in a patient’s
    bloodstream. The company suggested Seroxat’s short half-life meant patients could come on and off the drug easily, compared with those on Prozac, even to the extent that they could take ‘treatment holidays’.

    ‘There was an argument that a short half life was really good news,’
    Brook said.

    For those of you out there who may have tried to stop taking Paxil/Seroxat, you may have encountered a few of the withdrawal symptoms.

    It is best to consult a physician before discontinuing SSRIs. Stopping taking SSRIs such as Paroxetine (Paxil, Seroxat, Deroxat) suddenly may cause discontinuation effects, or withdrawal symptoms, including:

    • dizziness
    • vertigo/light-headedness
    • nausea
    • fatigue
    • headache
    • insomnia
    • abdominal cramps
    • chills
    • increased dreaming
    • agitation
    • anxiety

    When I stopped, I encountered all of these. The only one that I liked was the return of my vivid dreaming. But I finally had to go back on them. You have created another addict for life; thank you GSK.

  • The failing Democratic Party

    Link: andrewcoyne.com: It’s the Hispanics, stupid.

    In my opinion, the Democratic Party is a dinosaur. It has lost the evolutionary battle to the Republicans, and no longer represents a viable entity on the US National scene. Harsh, but true words.

    Their power-base has been shrinking since 1976. They have yet to latch onto the new vision that Americans have of themselves. They are a party of the urban dis-enfranchised, minority  and university-educated voters, especially if you look at the county-by-county electoral map in the 2004 election.

    The Democratic Party, if it is to survive, must abandon the National scene, and return to the local scene to try and survive.