When I first found "Fred on Everything" I loved him. Then I found I wasn't very interested in anything he's written since then. Today (see Pitying the Poor) he backed up my thoughts on poverty. I think he nails the problem and I gave the explanation for why the poor are the way they are. How fun!

As he so often does, Vox rocks once again!

. . .the libertarian Right is opposed to the war because it and many things inspired by it are violations of libertarian principles. The Left opposes it because George Bush is for it.

You may recall that both the libertarian Right and the Republicans were against the Balkan war as well, while the Left was for it. As is all too often the case, of the three parties involved, only the libertarian Right is consistent in applying the same principles to different situations.

I mentioned Stumbleupon a few weeks back, and here's another site for finding cool stuff: Digg.com. It's mostly for tech news, but it's set apart from sites like Slashdot because it is totally user moderated. Any user can submit a story, which then shows up on the digg all page. If you like a story, you just click the link next to it that says "+digg". The page doesn't even have to reload, you just see a quick visual effect letting you know that your digg has been recorded, and you can keep reading. Once a story has been dug 15 times, it's promoted to the front page. I've found a lot of interesting stuff at this site. You can hit the front page for a quick look at the most popular news stories, or if you have time you can sift through the most recent submissions and help decide what should be promoted. Take a look at my profile page to see what I've beein digging, what stories I've submitted and read my comments. I also added a "recent diggs" section to my sidebar at Danny's Blog Cabin. There is an RSS feed for my diggs. If you register there, let me know what your username is.

Another cool thing about Digg.com is that it was created by Kevin Rose of TechTV fame. His other current projects include This Week in Tech, the podcast featuring the old TSS gang, and Systm, an online TV show that launches on Monday. I hope that these projects can be successful enough for Kevin to be able to quit his job with G4.

Trackerless BitTorrent - "As part of our ongoing efforts to make publishing files on the Web painless and disruptively cheap, BitTorrent has released a 'trackerless' version of BitTorrent in a new release."

BitTorrent just got even more impossible to stop. The tracker was the real weak point in the system before. It was a centralized point that could be taken down, it was hard to set up, and caused bandwidth problems. The lack of a good tracker and my complete ineptitude at setting one up kept us from ever really distributing the Brendoman.com podcast via BT. Once this new technology is in place and supported by all of the BT clients, publishing big files will be that much easier. Gringo and I have been talking about doing some video (video blog, video podcast, I don't know what to call it). Anyone interested?

(via Digg)

Tiger Direct Giving Away 64 Computers in 64 Days Sign up for Tiger Direct's Summer of 64 Sweepstakes and have a chance to win an AMD Athlon 64 3200 computer worth $1000. They are giving away 64 total and the winners will be chosen in 64 days. Good luck.

(via Digg)

So yesterday I almost thought I was going to have my truck fixed, but no such luck. I bought a new battery, and not the connections are fine, but absolutely nothing is happening with the starter, and I just bought that thing. Anyways today I am going to head back up to auto zone, and get yet another starter, and hopefully this one will work with the new battery and everything.

Hopefully I will have this done in time so that I can head down to Columbia and watch STAR WARS all day with Honzo.

On a good note, I got a perfect score on my final project in Audio Visuals. You know the one about the LAN party. Basically, he said I could use more pictures, but he really liked it, so he gave me an awesome.

Godzilla: Save the Earth

The Lord of the Rings (One Volume Edition) by J.R.R. Tolkien

Star Wars - Episode II, Attack of the Clones (Widescreen Edition)

Hat tip to Honzo for the super geeky quiz.

In a typical rockumentary, a filmmaker tours with a band during a particular period of time, trying to capture their lifestyle on the road, while (perhaps) simultaneously giving some idea of the band's history through interviews and archival footage. Whatever personal relationship the director tries to convey on film is limited by the relationship he forms with the band during a short time.

"The Fearless Freaks" is not a typical rockumentary. Bradley Beesley, the director, has been a friend of The Flaming Lips for nearly 15 years, collaborating with them on nearly all their music videos, as well as his own film projects. Over the years, he has attended multiple concert tours, studio recordings, family jam sessions, and Christmas celebrations, all with camera in hand. In "The Fearless Freaks" Beesley combines his own footage with home videos, interviews, and photographs to make an incredibly intimate documentary that spans the entire career of The Flaming Lips.

Read more »