I tried QTWeb on your recommendation, but I found that on the Linux systems I tried, it crashes seemingly at random. This is the current version as of a few months ago.

I'm not sure about how solid it is on Windows 7, I only tried it a little on Windows.

Thanks. I will have to try it, but it might take some convincing of the missus that I'm not poisoning it. :-P

How do you do the salt rubs? How long to leave it salted before you put it in the marinade?

Well, if you actually heard my rendition of YYZ, you might indeed say I sucked. By "_kinda_ got to the point..." I mean it was pretty sloppy. I missed some notes in those fast runs for sure. But I didn't demand perfection from myself and just had fun with it. The beer-soaked audience at my college were going nuts with each song we did from that album, so they were having fun too.

You have had some nice gear. My first decent guitar was a Washburn OSI(?) strat-style guitar I bought new in about '82. Over time, I had the frets redone taller and put some hotrails pickups in it. I encouraged my brother to get a bass so we could form a band, so he first got Squire sorta-short-scale bass. The tone was pretty poor on that, so it was not long before my brother found and bought a blond Rickenbacker. He was a Rush fan too. :-) When I started playing bass with my college band, I had a no-name bass with a thin flat neck that helped a guy like me transition back and forth from guitar. It had a real gritty sound, good for metal, not as good for the older rock we did. I never had a great amp (basic Crate). I played a Galleon-Kruger (sp?) amp in the store a few times and really wanted to get it, but didn't have the money.

The only electric I have now is a cheap Peavy guitar I got from a pawn shop during my first job out of school. I did upgrade the pickup with a EMG Humbucker, so I can get a pretty fat sound from it.

Thanksgiving was nice here. I hope you had a good one too!

Back in the day I mostly played guitar, but I joined up with another guy who could play much better lead, so I switched to playing bass 75% of the time. We did mostly Rush, Zep, Floyd, but a smattering of other stuff from Cream to AC/DZ to ZZ top to Metalica. I couldn't hit all of Geddy's playing cleanly, and I had to use a pick (I know, sacriledge...) I _kinda_ got to the point I could pull off YYZ, but that was really hard... but a blast! My favorite playing bass was probably Red Barchetta. I even did the foot-pedal synth thing by setting up a cheapo Casio SK-1 sampling keyboard with a hacked-in floor switch I could stomp on to change the background chord. The SK-1 "brass ensemble" sound setting resembled a lot of those Moving Pictures era floor pedal sounds. What a Hoot!

We thought were where the shit when we played Side 1 of Moving Pictures and Side 1 of Led Zepplin IV straight through. ("We're going to play something now from Rush's Moving Pictures album. This is... Side 1! [Ba-bum ba BUM! Ba-bum da Dum..]" When I was on guitar I loved to play Working Man, Limelight, Paranoid by Sabbeth, and a few more.

Man, what a great time. I don't play more than about once a year now. Most of my chops are gone. But those memories come back every time I hear one of those songs. Yeah, "hooks" is a good way to put it.

As a AC/DC and Rush fan since about 1981, I could not agree more. The new Rush album has a few nice bits but a lot of it just does not grab me. The last Rush album I was excited about is probably 'Power Windows' (1985).

Part of the problem for me is that Geddy's vocal range is shrinking as he ages (understandably). Another part is that most of the songs since the late-80's are too layered... to many things going on competing for attention. However, the biggest reason, making the layering much worse is the huge amounts of dynamic compression (of the sound levels) in all the 90's and 2000's releases. All the sonic layers end up stomping over each other, just making a loud mess. 'Vapor Trails' was really bad this way. There was a very good article about this maybe a decade or so ago... comparing the dynamic range of the early Rush recordings with the modern ones and providing clear technical reasons the newer releases sound like crap compared to the old ones.

I'd really like to hear cleanly-mixed, good dynamic-range remaster of the modern albums. 'Clockwork Angles' is perhaps a little better in terms of listenability, but nowhere close to the Rush albums from '74 through about '81. Unfortunately, remasters are typically getting more dynamic compression and loudness, not less.

Recent AC/DC stuff? I just don't bother.

Yeah, this post needs a 'x whatcouldpossiblygowrong' tag.

I'm a huge fan of this book, for all the reasons listed above and then some.

It's a small grain of NU-110, but I wouldn't want to paint it.

I put Xubuntu 12.04 (XFCE) on a machine at work and it seems pretty good so far. Nice-looking like the better distros using Gnome 2 and most things work in a pretty familiar way.

Shhh, Apple does not want anyone to know yet that the new 9-pin connector is all part of a plan to introduce uber-cool, retro stylings. The connector will be DB-9.

The Tech Report recently [p]reviewed the Trinity A10, and on many benches it half-way closed the gap to higher i5's and lower i7s. On a few games (not all), the A10 handily beat i7 with Intel's IGP in a laptop-type rig. Maybe the Trinity series will be competitive enough to make up for the abandoned Phenoms. I'd hate to see Intel have a complete x86 monopoly too.

ledow: For a kiosk type installation, maybe you'd benefit from trying Tiny Core Linux. It is really small and fast (runs stuff from RAM files after booting) and you only need to add to it what you want and need. If it runs well on your hardware, you can install the Opera "extension" (AKA package) and then add a line to the .profile file in your home directory to automatically launch Opera at startup. The tinycorelinux.com user forums are the place to get more detailed advice if you need it.

Please mod this "Funny". Really, for an 11-year old? Maybe if he or she has a 200 IQ. Otherwise he or she will need at least a few years to work up to this stuff, user 0111 1110. Sheesh.

I agree Python is pretty good although I don't have much direct experience with it. Javascript in the browser also leads to some quick, rewarding experiments.

For an 11-year old I know, who found an old science experiment book with BASIC examples, I installed Bytewater Basic. It works a lot like the old GW-Basic. Available as C source code and runs on Windows and Linux. Debian (and others?) has a pre-built binary package in its repository.

"Sadly the Volt is a perfect example of what happens when the government gets involved..." No, the Volt was in design and development WAY before the Bush-era bailout, before the Obama-era bailout and expedited bankruptcy. Sorry, can't lay any perceived shortcomings of it on the government's feet. Well, any more than any car that must meet emissions, crashworthiness, etc, etc.

It _is_ very expensive for a compact car, which is why the average buyer high-income. GM says they are working on a less-expensive version. The CEO challenged the engineers to take something like $10K out of the cost. That would get it down near regular car prices.

Prius battery packs don't typically need replacement at 5 years, do they? I know their battery chem is different, but the Volt already has a lot of battery management built in, both thermal and electrical, so the vast majority of the Volts will go far longer than 5 years with their original pack. YMMV.

Hairyfeet, you are thinking of the Tata Nano. Very lightweight, made with inexpensive components. If you saw it in person, I'm not sure you or many other Americans would trust that it would be safe on our roadways. Although I agree that there is room in the market for a far less expensive vehicle than what the traditional automakers are now selling.