Category: Article

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The Paulson Trillion-Dollar Bonanza: What’s Not to Like, Part II

Yesterday I wrote at some length about how the US economy has gotten to the point where Paulson and Bernanke decided it would be worth spending 5 hours promising Congress gloom & doom unless they got a record-busting bailout measure passed. So, why not like this (theoretically) $700B plan to “save the markets”? There are a number of reasons, which I shall put forward here. For reference, here is the draft proposal for the bailout so you can follow along.

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The Paulson Trillion-Dollar Bonanza: What’s Not to Like, Part I — How We Got There

In case you’ve been asleep in a cave with your hands over your eyes and cotton in your ears for the past few weeks, the American economy has been in a world of hurt recently. US Treasury Henry Paulson has put forward a far-reaching plan to deal with this crisis. As it turns out there are indeed a lot of things not to like about it, but in order to see what’s wrong with it we need to take a look at how the American economy got itself into this mess in the first place. This will tell us what’s wrong with the economy and whether the bailout plan will address that.

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Extending the Recording Capabilities of your Videotron Illico DVR

Videotron Illico PVRs are neat, but they’re somewhat limited. Even the recently-released HD PVR will run out of disk space pretty quickly. If you like recording high-def shows, you will fill that disk in a rather meager 30 hours. This is not an issue on a day-to-day basis, but go on vacation for two to three weeks and you may well get to that limit. Even worse, the PVR I have is a first-generation HD PVR, which can only take 16 hours of HD programming. Sometimes you just need more. Continue reading “Extending the Recording Capabilities of your Videotron Illico DVR”

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Linksys WRT-350N – thumbs down.

Like any good geek I like to keep my networking equipment current and speedy. So recently I went out and bought a Linksys WRT-350N router. It has great specs — wireless-N support, a gigabit-ethernet wired switch for your desktops, USB storage support — but frankly, you’re better off not giving this one a second thought. It’s like when I try to cook: the ingredients are there, but the end product sucks.

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Tough times for bond insurers.

This is definitely not a good time to be in the bond insurance business. With large-scale insurers Ambac and MBIA — and with smaller players faring no better — one could well think that in the end the lending crisis has brought to light considerable flaws at the very basis of the American — and indeed global — financial sector. (all links above except the first lead to 6-month stock charts).

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MB makes a value proposition.

This article drove down the street to http://ambitiousbutrubbish.com/2008/01/mb-makes-a-value-proposition-with-the-all-new-c230/… update any bookmarks you may have.

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“Don’t make me use it! Now you’ve done it! You… forced me to use it!!!” -Ren Hoek

Today I used a crack to start a computer game I like to play. Now, don’t get me wrong. I own the game, a few months ago I went down to the shop and bought it fair and square. I haven’t lost the DVD, or even just thrown out the guide with the DVD access key by mistake. No sir. The reason I’m using a crack is because I have to. And I’m here to tell you that neither I nor anyone else should have to do that.

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“This is not the target market” -Mitch Hedberg

This morning I noticed a message entitled “Happy birthday Windows Vista” in my inbox. The message was in French but the subject line was still in English, which kinda hints at the idea that Microsoft “doesn’t get” Canada’s bilingualism, but that’s nit-picky of me… the message offers me a 2-for-1 on Vista Ultimate upgrades. If I buy one, I get a second one free.

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Why make even a few users nervous if you don’t have to?

I’m restoring the original software on my HP tx1218 tonight and came across something I found amusing: HP makes driver installer, called the File Based Installer. Now this doesn’t seem all that amusing, and in itself it isn’t, but note the initials, it’s going to be relevant. And at least mildly interesting.

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Volvo C70: continuing impressions.

This article has put its roof down and scooted off to http://ambitiousbutrubbish.com/2007/11/volvo-c70-continuing-impressions/… feel free to update your bookmarks!