I didn’t think the new Superman would be this interesting.  Check it out.

What do you get when you take a great story, and add Ben Kingsley, Harrison Ford?  Ender’s Game.  It has been a while in the making, so we will see if it lives up to my memory of the novels.

*fingers crossed*

You can find out more about this movement here :

I would suggest you check it out.  DRM doesn’t work.  Knowing the pirate mentality, I can tell you, what they have already done is enough.  You don’t need DRM.  It just makes the web even stickier than it already is.

O’Reilly is having a sale today in honor of this event:  Here is the linky

Photo: Ken Gleason

If you cannot tell, I am angry at the Post Office.  I needed to get a passport for my daughter.  Should be an easy thing, right? Simple even.  Yeah. No.

Logically you would think that if you want to get a passport from the US Post Office all you have to do is go to the website and type in your postal code and it will spit out your local Post Office where you can get setup an appointment.  You could even expect the phone number to work correctly too, right?  Yeah, right.

So you call the number for several times that day, so you call the 800 number the Post Office provides, and it confirms that the data and numbers you were given already are correct.  Continuing to call the number, you still get that busy signal.  Leaving work early you go to the Post Office and wait in line.  A long line. And then you are told that they have not handled passport applications for over year.  They are going to update the Post Office Website soon.  Don’t you think that when you stop taking passport applications you could do the update?  One year later and you are not up to date?  There was no way to find out the information you need unless you walk into the Post Office.  Why have all the resources if they are out of date?

I know it was not the fault of the people that worked at that Post Office, but this is ridiculous.  To top it all off I find out that the price of stamps has gone up to $.46.

How they can raise the cost in the face of the fact that they have been giving such bad customer service is beyond me.  For example, last year I had a failed attempt at selling on eBay.  I went into the Post Office and wanted one of their “If it fits, it ships” boxes to keep costs low.  They don’t have any of them and they point me to the rack (which is almost bare) and tell me that is the best they have.  There was absolutely no attempt at helping me.  It put me off at the time, and becomes one more thing that makes me apathetic about the plight of the US Postal Worker.  They complain about their jobs and their benefits, cry me a river.  If they were to run like a real business instead of like a crappy bureaucracy they might get more love from us.

As far as I am concerned they are a failing business and need to really rethink how they are going to work if they want to survive.  I am not sure they can survive since they have to change and so does most of our Legislative branch.

I will pay my $.46 per letter ten times per year and see how this all falls apart.

Image: © Beatricekillam | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

Ok, so many of you already know I have had a baby girl (and no that is not a picture of her), and I am still amazed at how much work they really are.  That about sums up the last couple of months for me.  It also lamely explains why the blog has been dead.  My time and energy to be able to read and write have been limited to say the least. 

Now that my daughter is for the most part sleeping thru the night and her bed time is early enough that I have time to do things in the evening.  I have to say I thought I was ready for her arrival. I was ready for her to get here, just not to be here everyday.  There is a great big difference between being tired and being tired from taking care of a baby.  Friends had told me there was a difference, but until I experienced it I didn’t understand it. 

Anyways, what that means is I get time to write more.  YAY!

It has only taken 6 months, but I have finally gotten NerdKnow onto the WordPress platform. My old platform was BlogEngine.net.  I didn’t change because there was anything particularly wrong with BlogEngine.net, it just was that functionality that is easy to install on WordPress is a much more manual on BlogEngine.net.  Upgrades are very easy on WordPress (just a click of a button), and BlogEngine.net is a justified pain in the butt.

The short of it is we are on a new platform and I even changed web hosts (went to GoDaddy). So I am hoping to put more effort into NerdKnow and get back to some updates. 

Microsoft Surface – the new tablet?

So today Microsoft announced a new tablet product called Surface. They are very late to this game and it will be very interesting to see if they can catch up let alone keep up. With all the hoop-la involved with an announcement like this here is a small sample of what is popping on the internet. They are obviously trying to cater to a younger hipper crowd with all the colors of the tablet and accessories.

Storified by Russ Tarvin · Tue, Jun 19 2012 02:10:23

So it looks as if MechWarrior Tactics is now going into the "Friends and family" closed beta phase.  They are going to send out invites to people based on their subscription to their temporary forums.  Not sure if that means all people or just a few.  Either way sign up for a chance if you are interested. 

Also note, this is not MechWarrior Online, which is the first person shooter, this is the recreation of the board game. 

Both games are advertised as Free to play (F2P).

So I just took a reading speed test.  I am in the 300’s and above average.  I am not sure I could keep up the pace but I want to continue to try and improve. 

One thing to note, this is an advertisement for an eReader from Staples.  Consider yourself warned.

If you want post your score in the comments.

Source: Staples eReader Department

Image: imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So this report comes in two days late, but good news is that I have lost another pound and I am back on track to continue losing weight.  I even allowed myself two beers.  I like that I don’t have to be that strict which would not work for me.  What does work is the good food that my wife is still feeding me.  As I have stated before having that support is crucial to making this work.

Diet is only one aspect of the total package that needs to be balanced in your life.  There is a new website called Calm.com that you should check out.  It is a site where you can pick your background and background noises and it takes a two minute meditation break so you can relax.  Stress can destroy your body and mind fast.  My wife was recently stressed out and her blood sugar was out of control and there was little she could do to control it.  Stress is needed to deal with certain problems, but those problems are supposed to have been beaten down (fight) or left behind (flight).  The body does not seem to be built for long term stress.  We need to relieve or remove that stress so we can get healthy.  Just my take on it all. What do you think?