I just have to mention this for the simple fact that the military, in my opinion, can be run by complete idiots. (Again, I will keep my comments to a minimum since I’m still in the Navy and don’t want to temp fate.)

From an article at Military.com, a 22 year old Air Force Airman 1st Class will be sent to jail for 4 months and reduced in rank for having a threesome with two other Air Force members. One of the other “partners” is also facing charges but the third isn’t because it’s felt that she was too drunk to be aware of what was going on. The original charges were asking for 10 years in prison and a reduction in rank. > more <

I don’t usually post things like this and I hope this doesn’t become a habit. But I heard about it yesterday and thought others might be interested.

According to WorldNetDaily, President Bush signed an Executive Order back on May 9 (without telling anyone) that gives the Office of the President the power to take over the government in case of national emergency. From the article: “Translated into layman’s terms, when the president determines a national emergency has occurred, the president can declare to the office of the presidency powers usually assumed by dictators to direct any and all government and business activities until the emergency is declared over.” > more <

Choosing the right file system for your computer can have a large impact on how well your computer works. I won’t claim I know everything about file systems, but I will share what I know, which should be enough to give you a basic idea of how these things work.

According to Wikipedia, a file system is “a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them.” Most people don’t think too much about the file system, if they think about it at all. > more <

After making a comment on a fellow GIDBlog site, I realized that it would make a good topic of discussion. The original comment I made was that, by playing Gran Turismo, I’ve learned quite a bit about cars that I didn’t know before. Obviously, it’s a game so a lot of real life aspects can’t be duplicated exactly, but much of the premise of the simulation is still applicable.

For example, I never realized how much tires affect the car. It makes sense though. The tires are the only part of a vehicle that actually interact with the environment, in this case the ground. Having poor quality tires means your are more likely to lose that precious ground contact. Once you lose good contact, you no longer have control of the vehicle. This means not just when your tires actually leave the ground (like when you go over a cliff) but when you lose any type of traction. If you brake too hard without anti-lock brakes, your wheels will lock up and you lose control. If you go over a “washboard” road or hit a speed bump too fast, your tires will momentarily lose contact with the ground and you just can’t drive on air very well. > more <

You’ll probably notice that I’ve changed the site’s theme again. I’m still messing around with this whole “blog” thing so I’ll probably end up changing it again.

I like this particular theme because it allows the RSS buttons to remain visible as I move the sidebar widgets around. My prior theme didn’t do that. Knowing how much I rely on RSS feeds, I would like to think that as other people find my site (and find it useful), they’ll subscribe to the RSS feeds. If they’re not visible, then it can be a pain to set it up. > more <

So, I bought my wife a brand new 2006 VW Jetta TDI last year and wanted to share my experiences with using a diesel. One of the reasons we bought a diesel is so we can use biodiesel, plus I want to switch to a waste-oil system when the car is paid off. (On a side note, buying cars in Hawaii is a joke. Even though we were able to talk the dealer down nearly $3000 from the original price, we still paid more than $2000 more than the “street value” as listed on several car shopping sites).

We use 100% biodiesel in our car. For those who don’t know, biodiesel is made from recycled vegetable oil, which isn’t really that strange. The original diesel engines were made to run on peanut oil, if I remember correctly. And even though nearly every diesel car maker states you can void your warranty if you use anything greater than 5% biodiesel blends, it’s mostly a lie. > more <