July 28, 2005 Archives

i wonder what gacy's "summer mix" looks like

posted by tom / July 28, 2005 / 12 comments /

What is the best all-time breezy pop song about terrible things happening to little girls?

A) Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland 1945"
B) Okkervil River's "Black"

Other nominations welcome. Really, I'm just looking for the poppiest song about the worst thing, ever. It sounds easy, but once you eliminate the songs about drug abuse the field thins pretty quickly.

(Oh, and thanks to the governess for introducing the internet, of which I am a part, to Okkervil River. They also offer this song for download, and it's also a knockout.)

don't trust trusted computing

posted by tom / July 28, 2005 / 1 comment /
crossposted at BTD

It's time to say goodbye to BIOS. If you're lucky, you have no idea what it is, anyway, but the less fortunate have hit F2 or Del to enter setup when their system was booted, and browsed through the myriad options presented. The BIOS doesn't just let you flip settings; it also serves to manage the very low-level hardware on your computer, like RAM, basic video, plug-n-play support, and the built-in hard disk controllers. It translates the commands of more sophisticated programs into the language of your computer's specific chipset.

But most agree that BIOS has outlived its lifespan, and it's time to move on. Apple, for instance, uses OpenBIOS, a newer technology that offers advantages that make it easier to recover from a system crash, boot from the network, or run multiple operating systems on the same computer. Now industry heavyweights like AMD, Dell, HP and IBM are banding together to design a next-gen BIOS architecture called United EFI. That's fine -- but in the process they're going to try to cripple your computer. You shouldn't let them.

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more reasons to love

posted by catherine / July 28, 2005 / leave a comment /

ted leo read harry potter and the half-blood prince (spoilers).

wouldn't have thunk it

posted by tom / July 28, 2005 / leave a comment /

But apparently I need new playing cards.

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