Daylight savings time is almost over,  does it really save energy or lives? I do know it’s a pain in the butt and unnecessary in this modern world. Arizona seems to survive without any problems not screwing with everyone’s clocks twice a year. China also seems to have luck with not using DST in fact the entire country operates under 1 time zone (GMT +8).  This is complete nonsense claiming that 'light' is a problem needing a solution, since we invented the electric light bulb, or more recently the 5 watt compact fluorescent. It's amazing how I can pretend it's daytime even when it's 4 am. It’s an great invention, and I no longer care if the sun is up or not.

In fact let’s have DST year round. Standard time is only in effect for a couple months anyway. Keeping DST through the winter would keep it light when most people get off work, which is when it actually matters anyway. I know I'd rather get up in the dark, and have an hour of daylight after work to play with, rather than getting up at dawn and wasting that hour getting ready for work.  If it's too dark when you get up or when you want to open your business, don't change the clock, change the time you get up or open your business.

If you are infact stuck on changing your clock you should be changing the time every day to make sure our time is as accurate as possible to the length of the day. Every day, 12 noon should be when the Sun is directly overhead, no matter where you are. Sure, this means changing time zones almost continuously while travelling, and at least daily while remaining stationary, but at least we won't have to deal with the confusion that comes from discovering that the Sun is directly overhead at 12:00:34 instead of 12 noon sharp! How can we call ourselves intelligent beings when our time system is so woefully inaccurate most of the time?

So if we really wanted some consistence to our idea of time we need to scrap daylight savings time and replace it with a system of several thousand time zones, each updated daily based on the predicted "high noon" for that particular day at that particular location. If the prediction ends up being off by a few microseconds on a particular day, just change the time to correct it right then and there! Sure, wristwatches will become orders of magnitude more complex, but it's the only way to have a truly sane and accurate system of time measurement. And after all, isn't that what we all really want here?

CodeWeavers, CrossOver, is free today and today only. http://down.codeweavers.com/  CrossOver is the product that lets you run Windows apps in native Linux and Mac installations without the need for a virtual machine.  It is a very well tweaked wine which works out of the box with most windows apps.  Why is CrossOver free today?

In White's typical humorous fashion, he issued a statement today saying, "That morning, I was filling my tank at Big Steve's Gas Palace in St. Paul. I had just finished my morning corn dog and 64-ounce Dr. Pepper when I looked at the pump and noticed gas was at $2.79. I screamed ‘Woohoo,' then I yelled ‘Oh, crap!' as I realized every American can now have my software for free. Kind of upsets my fourth quarter revenue projections..."

Go get it try it out install linux and MS Office and realize that Linux runs office apps better than windows. Free yourself goto http://lameduck.codeweavers.com/ and get your copy for OSX or Linux

I guess MS hasn’t given up on Vista just yet…  http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/10/24/windows-vista-service-pack-2-beta.aspx  there is no time frame yet but several features are discussed.

•             Windows Vista SP2 adds Windows Search 4.0 for faster and improved relevancy in searches.

•             Windows Vista SP2 contains the Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack supporting the most recent specification for Bluetooth Technology.

•             Ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Windows Vista.

•             Adds Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify Wi-Fi Configuration.

•             Windows Vista SP2 enables the exFAT file system to support UTC timestamps, which allows correct file synchronization across time zones.

I wanted to point out that John made a good point in the comments of my past post on the economy. He is right we are a republic because the average uninformed voter does not know what is best for the county. We should trust our elected officials because they are suppose to know what is best for us, however I do not feel that they are looking out for us. Since I am not in politics I am powerless to do anything about this other than vote in my local, state and federal elections.  Here’s to some good change next year.

http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/F/FINANCIAL_MELTDOWN   Henry Paulson, the CEO of Goldman Sachs until 2006 and current U.S. Treasury Secretary succeeded in scaring the public and Congress into giving him a $700B blank check to bail out his friends. If you think that money will "trickle down" to you or small business owners, or anyone other than the people it's directly going to, you are mistaken.

The DOW plummeted to 10,365 on Monday September 29th when the bailout bill failed to pass. Every proponent of the bailout screamed, "I told you so!" Then on Tuesday September 30th, even without the bailout bill the DOW rocketed up to 10,850. Then on Friday October 3rd when the bailout bill passed and was signed into law, the DOW dropped yet again to 10,325 (even lower than Monday when the bailout bill failed).

This bill will not help the credit markets, the debt markets, the equity markets or anyone reading this comment. It will help Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and the rest of the former investment banks de-leverage from 60:1 leverage down to traditional 12:1 leverage on your dime while the economy goes down the tubes.

What I find MOST incredible about this whole bailout, is the fact that nationwide polls of the general populace indicated between 70% and 75% were AGAINST the legislation, yet the Senate passed it through with FLYING COLORS, and House of "Representatives" were swayed to voting for it in a matter of only a few days. All it really took was throwing in a few key financial incentives and bonuses to the appropriate special interests, and some empty promises by potential presidents to be.

The whole time, these "Representatives" were being flooded with demands from the American people NOT to vote for the bailout - but they turned a deaf ear to everyone, and made bold claims like "I may not be re-elected because of this, but I'm confident I did the right thing for America's future anyway." One moron said he changed his vote from NO to YES, simply because "I talked with potential president to be, Obama, and he personally assured me he would enact legislation after his election that's in alignment with what I want to see." (WHAT?!? You were VERBALLY promised some B.S. by a guy who MAY or MAY NOT become president, so that's more important to you than listening to the people who elected you and trusted you to represent their wishes?!)

When HUGE taxpayer expenditures like this are voted through and signed into law in less than a week, despite 3 out of 4 Americans being strongly against them - it's clear we no longer live in a Democracy at all! This seems like as good a reason for an overthrow of our government as what we dealt with back around 1776! Yet people will not only sit back and accept it, but probably not even vote in protest for a 3rd. party like the Libertarians. (Incidentally, Bob Barr has been speaking out against this bailout the whole time, unlike our Democratic or Republican contenders.)

Space Adventures announced today that Charles Simonyi, Ph.D., intends to train with the Soyuz TMA-14 crew in preparation for a spring mission in 2009 to the International Space Station. Simonyi flew his first space mission in 2007. He would be the first space tourist to repeat the experience.  Space Adventures' sixth orbital spaceflight participant, Richard Garriott, son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, is currently scheduled to launch to the ISS on October 12 of this year. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26957212/

I guess I’ll get this out of the way now… What happens on Soyuz, stays on Soyuz. Once you've gone Soyuz you'll never go back. In Soviet Union - Soyuz ebet vseh (hum cannot post in Cyrillic).