Disqus - Latest Comments for Vinnie Garcia

Re: Assistance Required With Batch Files

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 14:40:12 -0000

I think New Jersey is planning a simliar route for electoral votes. I heard something about it on the news a few weeks back.

Re: Preparing to Move

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 11:00:11 -0000

Yeah, here in Philly you talk about the Eagles and whether Pat's or Gino's has the best steaks, not blogging. :)

Re: Debate Roundup

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 15:27:04 -0000

I do think Bush did better this time around than in the first two elections. Did he "win"? Not sure. Frankly, Kerry only beat him by a hair in the first two debates in my opinion. However, I was thinking that Bush would cream him in all three debates (and I'm rooting for Kerry this time around). The real winner will be decided next month I guess.

Re: The Angry Black Man

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 19 Oct 2004 09:25:58 -0000

I figured that since your company was very military-related you'd have the day off. Shocking that they actually removed it at one point!

Re: What’s the Difference…?

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:10:41 -0000

I've taken more of an interest in politics lately ;). I never really cared before, but things are getting ridiculous on every side of the fence now.

And oh boy does that law need to be rewritten! I guess Congress members passed it because they didn't want to look like they were "against children" or whatever come reelection time. The general public needs to learn to read these laws more thoroughly before going to the polls or believing the other side.

Re: What’s the Difference…?

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:27:32 -0000

At least with 1/4 of the country retiring we should start seeing quicker promotions at work ;).

Re: Blogrolling: New Blogs this week

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:03:43 -0000

"This message brought to you by all Registered Maryland Sex Offenders."

More like "This message brought to you by 'I think I saw a gun but I'm not sure'". ;)

Re: Breaking Down “A Stronger America”

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 14:53:30 -0000

Ingoal: That's why I love working the day after Christmas. Nobody's around, so I get a million things done. Usually I'm out of things to do by lunchtime.

Re: Why “Anybody But Bush” is an Invalid Reason to Vote

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 12:03:14 -0000

Whoa, that's awesome. A big win for open source and for people who don't have much money to spend on computing.

Now, can I get one as a thin-client for my living room to stream my MP3s from the bedroom to the stereo? ;)

Re: Bush Maintains a 2.8% Edge on Kerry

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 15:43:29 -0000

Statistically a dead heat. It's anyone's game right now...except for Nader :D

Re: Why “Anybody But Bush” is an Invalid Reason to Vote

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 18:21:52 -0000

That's it Carol, you're off the Christmas list :D

Re: Silicon Valley Cracks Me Up

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 19:53:07 -0000

Yeah, here in Philly you talk about the Eagles and whether Pat's or Gino's has the best steaks, not blogging. :)

Re: Navy Plans Cancelled

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 14:14:26 -0000

Glad I could help :). Expect another article or two this week.

Off topic: might want to fix the "comment form on every page" phenomenon. I think you still have tabindex set for themm all at 1-5, so when I tab out of the "name" field it sends me to the "name" field in the next post's comment form. Removing tabindex should solve the problem (though it might introduce others).

Re: Red Sox Curse in the Moon?

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 14:18:53 -0000

If the Cards come back from 3-0 this will be the weirdest baseball season ever!

Re: Navy Plans Cancelled

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 14:20:32 -0000

Congrats and sorry. Hopefully this will lead to better things :)

Re: I’m Getting Old

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 17:29:44 -0000

If you're driving a Humvee you're either in the military or you're making up for something, so yeah there's some demasculation going on ;)

Re: Why “Anybody But Bush” is an Invalid Reason to Vote

Vinnie Garcia — Sat, 30 Oct 2004 20:39:47 -0000

Traitor ;)

Actually, I've looked at a LOT of Microsoft blogs in the last few months. Eventually, I tend to stop reading most of them either because of too much NDA restricted talk (i.e. the IE blogs) or the fact that they're getting too personal and not staying on their topics.

The "U" word looks like a pretty cool blog though. I also like the MSNsearch blog, lots of cool info on the MSN search beta.

Re: MySQL 4.1 Production Ready

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 11:15:38 -0000

So when's the upgrade? ;)

Re: An Alternative Endorsement

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 13:51:46 -0000

Yeah, I do laugh at the fact that this time around the Dems are the ones talking about smaller government and the Reps have the financial crazyman. :D

Re: Puerto Rican Statehood

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 02 Nov 2004 14:32:33 -0000

Allow statehood for PR, DC, VI, and Guam and you get 54 stars, 9x6. There ya go.

Fun fact: DC gets $6 for every dollar it gives out in taxes. For a place that has taxation without representation they sure as hell get the most benefit ;).

Re: Puerto Rican Statehood

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 16:37:54 -0000

My name is all the gravatar I need :D

Re: The Red and Blue States in Detail

Vinnie Garcia — Sat, 06 Nov 2004 11:37:17 -0000

D'oh! I thought I posted in the Graphic Artists entry :(.

Re: Are Big Bloggers Taking Over?

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 07 Nov 2004 14:38:07 -0000

I usually blog for myself and still grow in influence levels. I think those that enjoy what they're doing will become the most popular. They're the ones that will avoid "blog trends" unless it suits them, and ultimately they'll be the ones who end up calling the shots because they don't answer to anyone. Covering the same story that everyone else does won't get you very far unless you provide some unique insight into it. That's why news reporters in traditional media love "the scoop", since they're the first to write about it and others have to play catch-up from there.

Re: A Hint at Things to Come

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 07 Nov 2004 19:14:41 -0000

I don't think he wants another kid J ;)

Re: New Feature

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 14:28:42 -0000

I wouldn't keep it in the post. I like the little MP3 player on Keith's site, maybe you could do something like that as an ever-present part of navigation without getting in the way of the actual post?

Re: 1200 Terrorists dead ????

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:38:39 -0000

I thought you used Thunderbird for e-mail. TB has had RSS support for months now; that's what I use (though my RSS list is only people who update too infrequently for me to care about visiting their site)

Re: Separation

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 10:44:39 -0000

Wow, that is sad to hear. Ultimately though, if you two aren't happy together it's not going to do either of you (or your son) any good. Do what's best for yourselves and especially the kid. It's easier for a kid to take something like this earlier than later in my opinion (my parents divorced when I was 17 after 8 years of back and forth), so keep it clean and think of your son first.

Re: Separation

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 19:54:59 -0000

Eh youse gets used to it ;)

Re: Separation

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:42:25 -0000

You can also set the register globals flag in Apache via .htaccess:

php_flag register_globals off

Though it's better to do this at the php.ini level and not in a PHP script or .htaccess. Sadly though, some hosts just won't turn RG off because some of their customers' systems rely on it.

Re: Linkzilla

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 17:57:14 -0000

FG isn't too Apple-focused. They do a lot with open source in general and video games in addition to Apple stuff. The only things I really gloss over are the Anime stories.

Re: Why the “Arnold Amendment” Should Fail

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 23 Nov 2004 16:50:30 -0000

I like it. Simple, yet enough going on to know that there was a lot of effort put into it :)

I'll look into the IE issues when I get home from work. Too much going on here at the moment :(

Re: Why the “Arnold Amendment” Should Fail

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 23 Nov 2004 17:37:02 -0000

Yeah, a new WP theme does wonders for traffic. I shot up from ~3000 uniques to ~8500 uniques monthly since I released my themes and it keeps increasing every month :)

Re: Why the “Arnold Amendment” Should Fail

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:57:12 -0000

I agree with you Aaron. I think that being born in this country is a pretty fair requirement for running it.

By the way, Wikipedia already has some of the Ahnold info included. They're quick!

Re: Anatomy of a website part 2: The idea

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 14:57:19 -0000

Bart, that's the topic of a future piece in this series. :)

Re: Anatomy of a website part 2: The idea

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 16:41:13 -0000

This is a continuation of a lot of work that the government and private psychologists have done on hallucinogens over the past 50 years. MDMA (the active ingredient in Ecstacy) has been used as a weight-loss formula (when Merck first discovered it back in 1913), as a healing/truth serum by psychologists in the 1950s and 60s (like acid was), and lots of other uses. It does little harm in low and infrequent doses, and a lot of the research done on ecstacy that "proves" its harm has been misled (i.e. the "holes in your brain" trials on mice was done with a much higher than average dose, and was done with amphetamines and not MDMA).

Scandal? Why? Hell, if anything it proves that the government has been way too aggresive in putting drugs on Schedule 1 over the last 20 or so years, and that they should do more research into the good and bad aspects of a drug before dismissing it.

Re: Blog Content or Style?

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 26 Nov 2004 19:16:57 -0000

For a blog, I will definitely say that content is top dog. That's why people will read, subscribe to your RSS feed, and keep coming back. Aesthetics are secondary, however, they are not to be ignored completely, which is why most blog packages like WordPress or Movable Type have at least some default styling included. If your blog is a graphic/web design blog then it may play a much more important factor, but otherwise content should always rule out in the decision. There's a spectrum here between almost completely unstyled sites (a la Scoble) and sites where the style almost competes or tries to supercede the content. Since blogs vary so widely on topics discussed, the part aesthetics play will always be different. I wouldn't expect a political blog to be the pinnacle of design excellence, but at the same time I feel that a web designer's blog (if the topic is web design) should have some oomph to it.

Re: My New Blogroll Link—A Microsoft Blog?

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 14:12:39 -0000

Re: Technosailor Logs

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 06 Dec 2004 09:27:44 -0000

Re: NWS Releases Weather Data in XML

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 17:43:36 -0000

I agree with David. If there's one thing you don't want to buy used it's a hard drive.

Re: NWS Releases Weather Data in XML

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 21:53:23 -0000

I donâ€™t see it, but I made the change anyway. Thanks Carol and Vin.

The change works in IE and the Mozilla 1.8 alpha builds (Firefox is based on Moz 1.7.3). It's an old IE-only CSS trick that's going into the CSS3 standard. For now you can use plain old overflow: hidden; as well.

Re: Mini Vacation Over

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:39:00 -0000

NYC? What were you doing there?

Re: Screw the U.N.

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 28 Dec 2004 13:02:35 -0000

I bet Indiana will still mess this up :)

Re: Pruning the Blogroll

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:12:34 -0000

I just made a similar move, from a 3-bedroom house with a garage to a 2-bedroom condo in the city with no parking. My advice is to throw out everything you don't absolutely need. That old couch? Get rid of it. That book on RedHat 7 or PHP3? They're obsolete anyway, so lose 'em! Your moves out and in will be a lot easier and your place won't feel cluttered for the next few weeks while you unpack.

Re: You Might Be a Liberal If…

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 14:49:05 -0000

I'm from a red state in the South and I've given blood. Guess that makes me a Libertarian :D

Re: 2005

Vinnie Garcia — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 13:14:18 -0000

Happy new year Aaron. Keep up the good work on the degree :)

Re: Gravatars

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 09:30:53 -0000

They offer Macromedia MX hosting too! I was wondering where I was going to host my new Fireworks site :p

Re: About to get Laid Off

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 17:09:28 -0000

That's awesome. I might have to pick that one up once my Protege bites the dust. Mazda makes great cars for the price.

Re: Seeking Faith, Not Church

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 21:08:52 -0000

Didn't Robertson also call for the death of some of the more liberal supreme court justices to get a bigger proportion of conservatives in there? And doesn't he also use his tax-exempt status in creative ways, such as using his show to market a health shake he sells at GNC?

My point is, Robertson's a huckster and nobody should be taking him seriously. He does a disservice to organized religion and I don't think he really believes it himself.

I'm not a big fan of the actions of many churches (and haven't since the church told my mom they needed a "bigger contribution" to allow me to receive first communion when I was 13; yeah, perfect thing to tell a single mom of 4 kids who teaches kindergarten for a living), but I don't fault anyone for pursuing higher beliefs than what's on this planet. In the end though, religious extremism and corruption will do much more harm for any issues relating to religion than any atheist could.

Re: PageRank Increase

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 09:47:15 -0000

Anything above a PR5 is going to be hard for you to get. With Google's recent upgrade it has apparently gotten much harder to increase PR. I actually went down from PR6 to PR5 a few days ago. Don't worry though, PR is becoming less relevant unless you're trying to sell advertising on your site.

Re: Letters to Raistlin

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 16:43:50 -0000

D'oh! I thought I posted in the Graphic Artists entry :(.

Re: Still having Commenting Issues

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:42:30 -0000

Did you add a comments.php to your 1.5 theme?

Re: Still having Commenting Issues

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:46:45 -0000

Everything seems to be working now :|

Re: Still having Commenting Issues

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:50:41 -0000

Steal my Way too Clean theme if you need help figuring out how the files work. ;)

Re: Still having Commenting Issues

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 15:05:59 -0000

ry living in Philadelphia and hearing this stuff at work every dayâ€¦

At least my dadâ€™s happy; the Cowboys won last night.

Re: The Dog Cam

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 04:59:43 -0000

I'm not sure about my peak times (I'll check it out when I get home from work), but my peak days are Tuesday and Thursday. Saturday and Sunday are the worst days; I think a lot of people read my sites from work or something.

Re: Cartography

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 11:31:18 -0000

Looks nice. A few suggestions:

1. Smilies have a border on them. I'm not sure how easy it would be to remove, but it's a little weird.

2. I would narrow the letter spacing in the "News. Technology. Everything Else." piece. Bonus points if its edges line up with the "Technosailor" text edges :).

Re: Cartography

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 14:19:31 -0000

That better, Vinnie?

Change "1px" in #header p to "0.1em" and the edges of your paragraph should line up with "Technosailor", at least at default text settings. ;)

Re: SeasonalCSS plugin limited release

Vinnie Garcia — Sat, 15 Jan 2005 15:11:51 -0000

That final sentence doesn't show any bias to me. It just says that Windows 2000 is better than NT, which almost everybody I know would say is true. The sentence before that though, definitely seems suspect.

Re: The Sysadmin’s Customer

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 17:44:00 -0000

Thanks for recommending my article :)

PS before anyone says it here yes I know it’s Ben Trott and not John Trott, I’m working on getting that edited!

Re: The Sysadmin’s Customer

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 23:34:13 -0000

Another test comment

Re: 10 Rules for Dealing With Snow

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 15:32:31 -0000

That's got to be one of the funniest things I've read all week :).

By the way, in the wake of your tsunami conversion, all blizzards should be renamed "frozen water events".

Re: Enjoying the Snow

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 15:35:06 -0000

Daddy tried to stay out of the snow and cold. Mommy took the pictures. ;)

"Aaron, come out and help us build a snowman!"

"Not now honey, I have to compile MySQL!"

:p

Re: On the Feedreader Bandwagon

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 15:45:27 -0000

Re: The XBOX Will be the Downfall of Society (?)

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 15:31:53 -0000

Boy am I glad I own THE MOST EXCITING PRODUCT ON THE PLANET :p

Re: Job Offer

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 11:04:22 -0000

Money means little in the grand scheme of things. I took a slight pay cut between my last job and current job, but I don't regret it. I'd rather work a semi-normal schedule and like the people I work with, and be happy to go into work, rather than selling my soul and all of my time for a job I hate because it gets me an extra few bucks on my paycheck. However, I don't know your financial situation and how much this pay increase would benefit you, so I can't really give you good advice. The grass may always be greener, but at the same time you have to be smart about these things.

Re: Lessons in Web Security: PHP and register_globals

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 16:35:15 -0000

Re: Speaking like a Merliner (Marylander)

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 16:37:37 -0000

That's it, I'm moving back to Florida. I'm surrounded by crazy-speaking states :(

Re: Speaking like a Merliner (Marylander)

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 17:39:34 -0000

Eh youse gets used to it ;)

Re: My Wife is Blogging

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 14:08:42 -0000

Anyone have any sources for â€œeye

Re: My Wife is Blogging

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 09:45:30 -0000

I'm not all that fond of the red you've chosen. It seems to break up the more feminine feel of the site. Perhaps a lighter tint? ;)

Re: My Wife is Blogging

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 15:46:41 -0000

Yeah, it fits the theme a lot better :)

Re: Sites that Make You Go ‘Huh?’

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:50:50 -0000

:lol:

This is what you get when you send the contact form without filling in any information. Priceless!

You apparently lack the rudimentary skills necessary to send us a message via this basic mail form. That's pretty sad.

Click here to go back and give it another try. Otherwise, perhaps you should stop jerking around and get back to work sometime soon.

Best of luck in this, and all your ventures in life, as most of them will obviously be quite a challenge for someone like you.

Re: Anatomy of a Revolution

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 07:55:15 -0000

I'm looking into getting a similar setup as you actually. Sometime in the next year I plan on buying a Powerbook and turning my current desktop PC into a server and putting it in a closet somewhere. I still have a Windows laptop (I don't think I can go 100% without Windows, at least for a while) but I like the thought of a multi-platform happy home. :)

Re: Anatomy of a Revolution

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 11:47:38 -0000

I contribute every 3 months Aaron :p

Re: Anatomy of a Revolution

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 13:20:58 -0000

Yeah but you have to be pulling in at least 25 cents a month in profit. At that rate you'll have a new Powerbook a month or two before Longhorn is released :p

Re: Blogroll Update

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:36:54 -0000

So Carol and Egor get "Culture" but I get lumped into "Personal"? That's so not cool! :p

Re: Blogroll Update

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 14:24:03 -0000

I was kidding, but while you're at it, I think I'm going to convert IBeBloggin' to a more political focus. Web design just gets so old ya know ;)

Re: Wordpress 1.5 Goes “Gold”

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 17:22:31 -0000

I see some upgrades in my future :(

Re: 44

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:08:06 -0000

I think Mitt would make a better candidate for president than Condi, for a lot of the same reasons you've outlined: He's not a woman, he's more in line with red state values, and he has previous experience actually running government offices. Now don't think I'm sexist or anything; I'd love to see a woman in the white house, but I don't necessarily see it happening on the Republican side first. And if he can win one of the bluest states in the nation as a Republican, he can probably fare better than lots of other proposed candidates.

Re: Yoda interviewed by Bill O’reilly

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 16:37:15 -0000

Nah, if Yoda was really interviewed by O'Reilly there'd be more interruption on Bill's part. That's what makes his show so unbearable for me to watch.

Re: IE7… Whatever…

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 16:41:20 -0000

My comment to Jeremy's post was meant more as "I won't say anything good or bad about IE7 until I try it out myself."

Do I think they're going to improve IE? Sure, making some improvement is relatively easy when it comes to IE6. Do I think it will be what everyone wants it to be? I'm not so sure, and I don't want to make any assumptions. It might knock my socks off with improved security and support for every current CSS property and selector imaginable, or it might not. I'll express my opinion in the summer, or whenever this thing is available.

Re: Democrats: Party of Exclusion

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:36:49 -0000

They're called the fringe for a reason. The 80% in the middle wouldn't much care for either side ;)

Re: Wordpress Taken to a New Level

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 14:15:32 -0000

For nearly any PHP CMS type work I've had lately I've used WP. It's just so flexible it can handle anything I've thrown at it. The only thing it can't handle well right now is e-commerce, but hey, they have bbPress so maybe we'll see e-Press in the near future :D

Re: Join the Army: Free Drugs, Man!

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 14:19:28 -0000

Re: Wordpress Taken to a New Level

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 16:20:59 -0000

Don't put The Loop in the index template. ;)

Re: Retiring TechnoClassic

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 09:33:34 -0000

I like the new theme better :)

The old one was cool, but I kept having cookie issues that would take me back to it even though I chose the new default theme.

Re: Retiring TechnoClassic

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 14:18:23 -0000

A new theme huh? Prepare for an onslaught of support emails/comments ;)

Re: Retiring TechnoClassic

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 14:53:25 -0000

Actually, I set up a separate email address for theme support. Nobody ever uses it though; they find my contact form and ask their questions through that.

Re: Retiring TechnoClassic

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 17:02:42 -0000

I like it. Simple, yet enough going on to know that there was a lot of effort put into it :)

I'll look into the IE issues when I get home from work. Too much going on here at the moment :(

Re: Thoughts for the Day

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 10:28:46 -0000

Yeah, a new WP theme does wonders for traffic. I shot up from ~3000 uniques to ~8500 uniques monthly since I released my themes and it keeps increasing every month :)

Re: Citizen Pauper

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 14:37:55 -0000

Ah, eminent domain. They've been using that "right" here in Philadelphia to force people out of "blighted" neighborhoods recently. Unfortunately, a statistically significant percentage of the homes they're trying to take aren't blighted. The city labels broad areas as "blighted" without actually taking a look at the condition of most of these homes, so they're offering people $20K for a house that could easily sell for five times that on the market.

While I see the need for redevelopment of neighborhoods that have fallen into disrepair, I think that eminent domain is abused far too often, and in those cases does not work in the public interest.

Re: Citizen Pauper

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 18:00:45 -0000

There's also a Supreme Court case coming up on eminent domain usage in New London, Connecticut. Similar situation to what's happening here in Philadelphia.

Re: Homeland Security: Are We Doing All We Can To Secure It?

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 14:29:17 -0000

The only thing I know in Martha's Vineyard that needs protecting is Martha Stewart's wine collection and her prized Alaskan Huskies.

Martha's Vineyard has quite an interesting immigration story though. Lots of people from other countries like Brazil work in all the little shops on the island. Some of them take up permanent residency on the island and claim unemployment in the winter when the touristy summer shops have closed, using the unemployment money to go backpacking through Europe.

Full disclosure: My in-laws all live on Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod.

Re: My Resume in Bash

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 10:13:17 -0000

And /methinks I should have some kind of grep in there somewhere. lol

# this line in here so I can grep for the word "suck"

Re: February Roundup

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 17:56:26 -0000

Heh, you seem to be about a month behind my stats. If that's any indicator then you'll blow 10,000 uniques away (I got ~13,400 this month).

It's all about the WordPress themes, people seem to be flying to any site that has 'em.

Re: February Roundup

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 18:16:35 -0000

You mean, all I need to do to be a popular kid is repeat Word Press Word Press Word Preâ€¦ oh, Iâ€™m supposed to do it on MY site, arenâ€™t I?

It also helps if you use WordPress and provide downloadable themes or plug-ins :)

Re: A New Approach to Social Security Reform

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 10 Mar 2005 19:47:23 -0000

$82,000 doesn't seem like it will be much of an income in 65 years. Then again, Social Security was never really meant as a full retirement plan, so it might work. However, I don't see how it will help those inbetweeners like me, who won't get much if anything out of the current system and aren't lucky enough to have been born 25-30 years in the future.

Re: A New Approach to Social Security Reform

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:05:51 -0000

$82000 accruing 6% interest over 65 years is well over a million dollars, Vinnie.

I thought $82000 was the annual payments sent out upon retirement. In the year 2070 I don't think that will be much money at all, maybe enough to keep the elderly from having absolutely no money, but it definitely won't be enough to retire on alone. It's not that I expect Social Security to be set up as one's only source of retirement; I just don't necessarily think this approach will be the boon everyone's making it out to be. Think of how far even $5 would have gotten you back in 1940 versus today.

Re: A New Approach to Social Security Reform

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:11:33 -0000

That said, I think it will be a very long time before $82k is not enough for a retiree to live on.

That's true. My wife and I are doing okay in a pretty expensive city with quite a bit less than that :). I think right now the average retiree gets about $24K/year from SS. I get the feeling that by the year 2070, $82K/year will be about the same, purchasing-power wise, as the $24K today, if not less.

Re: New Halo 2 Game Variants

Vinnie Garcia — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 23:30:38 -0000

Nice information. Coming from a family that hasn't had any military members this sort of thing is a total mystery to me. Thanks for the info!

Re: Florida Antics

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 14:32:53 -0000

I thought Orlando was famous because of Willy and Flipper? :)

No, orlando is famous for vermin and movie studios and the people that come from all over the world to see them AND MESS UP TRAFFIC ON MY WAY TO WORK!! :mad:

Sorry, I lived in Orlando for five years. If I can offer tourists any advice, it's to stay in the Disney and Universal resort areas and don't rent cars ;).

Re: Blogging Primer - Part 3: Building for Search

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:13:46 -0000

There's a lot more you can do to your code besides semantics to help with SEO. For example, having your content (in the case of a blog, the entries) first in your source code before navigation elements can help give your entries more "weight" in the search engines. This also has a good effect on blind users or users who have CSS disabled for whatever reason, since they can get to your content first without having to wade through a ton of links (this is especially useful if somebody uses a speech browser, like many blind people do. Hearing the same 30 links before you can get to a story is a major annoyance).

Re: March Madness Round 1 Picks

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 14:21:57 -0000

Connecticut (2) - UCF (15) - Winner UConn

You're going against my alma mater man, that's not cool!

Unfortunately, you're probably right :(

Re: Peak Oil

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 14:02:36 -0000

Move to MA. When I was there last summer gas was anywhere from $2.20 to $2.65 for a gallon of regular. I've never seen a Mazda protege take $32+ in gas until then (and you should have seen the charges for my wife's F-150).

Ingoal definitely has a point: we pay far less than other countries when it comes to gas. However, as Americans we don't have as many options, given the dismal state of public transportation in most American cities. However, if this sort of price increase keeps up much longer I'm going to be giving serious thought to taking the train into work every day.

Re: I did it.

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 13:41:01 -0000

Nice. I'm torn between buying a Mini and LCD monitor vs. an iBook myself. I would love a new laptop but the space-saving factor of the Mini+LCD would make my desktop far less cluttered :).

Re: Microsoft Bias

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 14:05:11 -0000

Re: Comcast Sucks!

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 12:49:21 -0000

I had the same trouble last night. Very irritating when you're trying to send a proposal to a new client for approval. Good thing everything was functional when I woke up this morning :).

Re: I need a Hard Drive

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 19:52:33 -0000

I agree with David. If there's one thing you don't want to buy used it's a hard drive.

Re: Somethings I’m Beginning to Hate

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 19:10:17 -0000

Thank you for expressing what I've thought about OO PHP for the longest time. I use objects in PHP for business logic, but that's about it. Most of the stuff that's actually used on-page is as procedural as ever.

PS: From your first rant it seems that you hate browsers, not CSS. I can agree with you there; if it weren't for those pesky browsers CSS would be braindead easy.

Re: My Platform

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 10:42:02 -0000

Very nice points. I find I agree with most of what you've said, except for the Campaign Finance reform thing (that's just out of my ignorance, I don't know much about the issue). I'm a bit on the fence about government regulation of the market (I think some of it is a necessary evil), but I agree fully with all your points on personal freedoms.

On the legalization issue: how do you feel about age minimums, i.e. 18 to buy cigarettes, 21 to buy liquor? While I feel they're arbitrary ages, I do feel that some kind of cutoff is necessary. This might not even be an issue if parents were to teach their kids about responsible use early on (not necessarily get them to use alcohol at 13, but teach them moderation if they do decide to use it).

As for how I vote, I'm registered as independent but tend to vote Democrat or Independent depending on the issue. Voting Republican is rare for me especially with the socially conservative agenda many have been putting forth, but it does happen sometimes. I vote mostly based on social issues and I'm a social liberal though.

Re: Adobe-Macromedia: Friend or Foe?

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 09 May 2005 19:10:47 -0000

You have an incorrect statement in your list up there. Freehand is for vector graphics, not page layout. It's more of an Illustrator competitor than InDesign.

Oddly enough, Adobe used to own Freehand. They acquired it when they bought out another company (Aldus I think) and they sold the rights to the program to Allaire/Macromedia.

I posted my own thoughts on the merger on my blog. I hold no hope that Homesite will be kept (which sucks since I'm a proud Homesite user for work stuff). I'm actually hoping that Adobe's acquisition sparks the adoption of SVG. They have loved SVG for a long time at Adobe and with Macromedia's Flash Player penetration and quick uptake around the internet whenever a new version is released (and browsers like Opera including SVG natively now) I think it could happen. Who knows.

Re: RealID on Tap For Congrssional Vote

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 10 May 2005 14:28:43 -0000

What bugs me about RealID is that it will do precisely nothing to stop terrorism. Remember, the 911 hijackers were living in the US legally and as such could have easily gotten any form of ID they needed. RealID wouldn't stop this at all. To me it's just another unnecessary invasion of privacy.

PS: I don't think the Republican party has been about states' rights or fiscal conservatism for quite a while now. Between the Schiavo case, enforcement of federal drug laws over contradictory state laws, and the massive spending in all levels of government under the Republican executive/legislative branches they seem to have lost their way just a little bit.

Re: Yahoo! Please Call Me!

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 15 May 2005 09:40:18 -0000

" Adelaide?"

Gavin would be drinking him under the table :)

Good luck Aaron. Yahoo's always seemed like a cool company to work for and the position sounds like a good match for you.

Re: I’m a Sellout

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 16 May 2005 22:28:25 -0000

If you're putting adsense on entries older than 14 days you probably shouldn't have the last two months worth of posts on the front page ;)

Re: I’m a Sellout

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 17 May 2005 09:23:02 -0000

Yeah, but since you don't do excerpts on the front page there's little incentive to go into the single post view unless leaving a comment or something. Even then, clicking the "comments" link takes you right to the comment list/form, somewhat bypassing the ads ;)

Re: Internet Explorer Loses Market Share

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 17 May 2005 17:45:54 -0000

I'd be happier if IE5 marketshare was nonexistant (on both the Mac and Windows side). :)

Re: Hi All!

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 31 May 2005 21:11:26 -0000

I spent my Memorial Day weekend driving from Fort Lauderdale to Philadelphia. I saw the country, does that make me a good American? ;)

Re: Hi All!

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:33:25 -0000

"I did the drive from Baltimore to Hartford."

Over my whole drive, Baltimore was the worst in both directions no matter what time of day. I have no idea how you guys commute every day. :|

Re: Hi All!

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 15:16:27 -0000

"Let me guess. You used 95? ;)"

95/495 from NoVA to past DC, then whatever goes around Balmer (895?)

Re: Hi All!

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:39:26 -0000

Sounds tempting but I had to do 95 this time around to meet up with friends in Jacksonville and NC. I may try that next time when I'm going directly to south Florida though...

Re: Clarification on U.S. Military-oriented holidays

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 12:39:12 -0000

"Yeah, you have to have served two years to be considered a veteran."

Wow, I've never heard this before. Any links where I can find extra info?

Re: Clarification on U.S. Military-oriented holidays

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 11:30:59 -0000

Is two years the same cutoff for reservists?

Re: Clarification on U.S. Military-oriented holidays

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 13:50:05 -0000

Nice information. Coming from a family that hasn't had any military members this sort of thing is a total mystery to me. Thanks for the info!

Re: New Theme Unrolled

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:03:41 -0000

The narrowness alone doesn't really bother me, but the line-height does. Try increasing it for easier reading :)

Re: Health Issues

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:05:23 -0000

"It has given me incentive to at least think about quitting smoking, something that I was not very serious about before. "

Hmmm, wanna be my quitting buddy? I'm stopping as of Wednesday because too many people I know have been having health issues lately :(.

Re: New Theme Unrolled

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 16:53:28 -0000

MUCH better!

Re: Health Issues

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 16:54:59 -0000

" I think Iâ€™m going to need to do the patch because Iâ€™ve been smoking for too long andâ€¦itâ€™s just hardâ€¦"

According to some recent health studies I saw, you have a much higher chance of relapse if you use quitting aids like the patch or Commit lozenges versus going cold turkey. I have some money put aside for Commit just in case, but I'm trying cold turkey first.

Re: Health Issues

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 15:37:02 -0000

'â€œWhen

Re: Health Issues

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 15:06:14 -0000

You left out the fauxhawk and metrosexual clothing. I like your style :)

Re: Health Issues

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 17:17:04 -0000

The cities you have sex with are your business Aaron :p

Re: Smoke and Even Moreso Mirrors

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 12:49:51 -0000

"Buffalo is a hard town to figure when you try to nail down being Liberal of Conservative. They voted heavily for Hillary, which I chewed them out on."

I wouldn't necessarily describe Hillary as liberal either. Her stance on video games/violence/etc. reads straight out of the socially conservative playbook.

Re: Let There Be Light…

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 12:55:48 -0000

I bet Indiana will still mess this up :)

Re: Crash Into Me, Yea…

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 11:16:06 -0000

"This confirms my theory - older people need to take driving tests or should stay off the road."

Yeah, but tell someone that their independence is at risk and they'll fight it to the death. I've actually had this happen in my family recently, and it's not the easiest thing in the world to tell someone.

Hope your injuries are minor and quick Aaron, and that you enjoy the valium your doctor gave you :). At least it doesn't look like the car will be out of commission for too long.

Re: Every Page…

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 11:17:08 -0000

They offer Macromedia MX hosting too! I was wondering where I was going to host my new Fireworks site :p

Re: Radical Christianity a No-Go

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 11:35:53 -0000

Re: The Story Thus Far

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:06:12 -0000

Wow, this is bad news, but you seem to be taking it better than most would. Stay positive; you're going through the worst now but things will get better.

Re: USB Car Keys

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 09:33:40 -0000

That's awesome. I might have to pick that one up once my Protege bites the dust. Mazda makes great cars for the price.

Re: Exploiting the Storm: Win-Win for the Saints, NFL

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 18:18:42 -0000

Yes, the New York Giants play in NJ; East Rutherford as a matter of fact. Personally I think Jersey Giants (Jiants? ;)) has a better ring to it...

Re: Katrina & Rita

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 10:54:06 -0000

Frankly I'm saddened that the hurricane has distilled down to a bunch of political talking points on both sides. It makes me mad that so many aren't doing much other than talking about who was wrong and why, when there is so much else at stake and people who still need help.

For those of you who have never lived in hurricane-prone areas, here is why many of those who may have been able to evacuate didn't: because most of the time those who issue the evacuations are wrong. I can't tell you how many times I was under hurricane warnings when I lived in Florida, but I can tell you how many actual hurricanes I have been through: one. Hurricane Andrew, 1992. After hearing wolf cried so many times you get numb to the whole thing. You still carry out the drill of boarding up your house and hoarding water and supplies from your local grocery store and home depot, but odds are nothing happens and you take your boards down the next day, mad at the weatherman for making you poke a bunch of holes in the stucco exterior of your house and missing a day of work.

The people of New Orleans have had many a warning that turned out to be nothing. Remember that.

You also have to remember that many who stayed behind had no other choice. Many people forget that being poor in the US can still mean not having viable transportation, and not having enough money in the bank to get on the next bus/plane out of town, and in a city like New Orleans getting around without a car can be impossible under emergency conditions. Even if Nagin had ordered people to get on a bus and get the hell out of town, where would they go? Some people just can't get out, and none of your complaining at them will change that unless your complaints somehow land them a higher-paying job.

And about the race thing: I sincerely believe that the whole Katrina fiasco has little to do with race and everything to do with class/social status. New Orleans is 67% African-American so of course there will be more of them affected than anybody else. It's just statistical fact. However, the poor of all races were hit harder than those who were better off because they couldn't do much to evacuate or prepare.

The only way this will get any better is if we as individuals and as a nation realize that it's the fault of all of us and actually help those in need rather than paying lip service and politics about these situations.

I've said a lot. Thanks for letting me speak my piece :)

Re: Back in the Saddle

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 09:52:30 -0000

If it was Giuliani/McCain versus Hillary I think I'd vote for a Republican president for the first time ever. I agree with Mike though; I don't think Hillary will make it through the primaries because of the non-moderate stigma attached to her name (and a social liberal like me wouldn't vote for her because of her stance on censorship).

Re: Back in the Saddle

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 13:59:17 -0000

Extremists get nominated, moderates get elected. I forget who said that previous sentence but it's mostly true.

I think itâ€™s a fallacy to believe that all the power resides with â€œthe baseâ€.

Agreed there. Even with "the base" the Republican party only got a small victory margin last time. Seeing that most of the promises that energized the social conservative base haven't come to pass, I'm not sure they'll be as easily convinced to get out and vote red the next time around either.

Re: Back in the Saddle

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 14:01:13 -0000

And I forgot to add: while the Republican party has been pandering to the socially conservative base lately, they seem to be pissing away their fiscally conservative base by running massive deficits. The fiscal conservatives probably won't vote Democrat as a result, but that doesn't mean that a party like the Libertarians can't pick up some votes at the Republicans' expense.

Re: I Put My Wedding Ring Back On

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 15:46:25 -0000

Good luck. I nearly always root for those who work to get their marriages back in order (except in extreme cases i.e. abuse), especially when kids are involved.

Re: Technosailor v4.0 Launched

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 11:24:22 -0000

Very nice! :)

Re: Staying True to Myself

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:30:40 -0000

:lol:

This is what you get when you send the contact form without filling in any information. Priceless!

You apparently lack the rudimentary skills necessary to send us a message via this basic mail form. That's pretty sad.

Click here to go back and give it another try. Otherwise, perhaps you should stop jerking around and get back to work sometime soon.

Best of luck in this, and all your ventures in life, as most of them will obviously be quite a challenge for someone like you.

Re: Mt. St. Helens Eruption… Again?

Vinnie Garcia — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 16:43:54 -0000

Comcast's internet service has been perfect for me. The only time it went out, I hit the power button on my modem a couple of times and all went well again. I can't stand their sloooooooow digital cable and horrible installation servicee though (the installer was an idiot and used the same cable outlet for both TVs and my cable modem in my condo. I have black cables EVERYWHERE :mad: ).

Also, your profanity filter is way off. Are you using stristr? Try regular expressions instead, like bassb to search for word boundaries and filter out the right things and not words like Massachusetts ;).

Re: Anatomy of a website part 2: The idea

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 14:00:21 -0000

Don't put The Loop in the index template. ;)

Re: Survivor Review

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 14:51:31 -0000

Re: Quitting Smoking: Day 5

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 14:52:39 -0000

Days 7-14 are when the cravings come back hard. Good luck getting through that, it's where I fell off last time :(

Re: Quitting Smoking: Day 5

Vinnie Garcia — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 23:23:53 -0000

PS: I'm surprised Smoke on the Water and Purple Haze aren't in your list :)

Re: Issues, Issues

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 13:12:16 -0000

Good idea in theory but it looks kind of ugly now (not matching up with the rest of your layout).

Re: Commenting

Vinnie Garcia — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 20:12:28 -0000

Ignore my email then :)

Re: Textpattern and Trackbacks

Vinnie Garcia — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 08:44:39 -0000

I've been on textpattern for 8 months now and honestly I don't miss Trackback at all. Sure I might get one or two less links but it's not that big a deal, and I haven't had to deal with comment/trackback spam at all since I installed it, which I think says a lot.

Re: Commenting

Vinnie Garcia — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 15:34:55 -0000

Another test comment

Re: Lots of Issues

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 10:18:09 -0000

There’s pap_xpoll for polling, though it’s not as web 2.0 as the Wordpress plugin you were using (no AJAX that I’m aware of).

Re: Blog Software Smackdown

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 10:44:06 -0000

Thanks for recommending my article :)

PS before anyone says it here yes I know it’s Ben Trott and not John Trott, I’m working on getting that edited!

Re: Friday Poll: November 11, 2005

Vinnie Garcia — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 11:56:50 -0000

Uh MS-13 isn’t terrorism, it’s gang activity just like you would have seen in South Central LA ten years ago. Unless everything we don’t like is now labelled “terrorism” and I missed the talking points memo…

Re: T.O. Absurdity

Vinnie Garcia — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 20:02:56 -0000

ry living in Philadelphia and hearing this stuff at work every dayâ€¦

At least my dadâ€™s happy; the Cowboys won last night.

Re: Pajama Orgy

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 11:51:58 -0000

Time to start trimming your RSS feeds?

Whenever I find a bunch of bloggers circlejerking around the same story too much (and without any unique insight) I cut all of them off except for the one or two who tend to get to the story first.

Re: Pajama Orgy

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 10:37:16 -0000

I thought Free Republic was a parody site for the longest time.

I wish I was right :(

Re: Friday Poll: Which Map Program Do You Use?

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 10:39:40 -0000

Gas prices were seriously the top concern? Unless you’re in the shipping industry it shouldn’t be THAT much of an issue. I think the difference between peak gas prices back in September and now was a whopping $10 per week to me, and I drive 350+ miles every week.

Re: Friday Poll and Another Migration

Vinnie Garcia — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 18:28:35 -0000

I don't think he will resign but I don't think he's doing a good job either...

Re: Just can’t grasp the hype

Vinnie Garcia — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 21:51:18 -0000

"V for Vendetta" is based on a comic book series published in the 80s. It may draw parallels to current terrorist themes but it in no way originates from recent events.

I'm totally with you on the "if you don't like the movies then vote with your wallet" train. There's room for things that you both like and don't like in the media and you can avoid the things you don't like pretty easily with technical marvels like the V chip, responsibility, and the power button.

I think this leads to a much bigger issue though: people as a whole don't want to think critically anymore, and a work of art that challenges their viewpoints is a risk to that. Art exists to confirm as well as to offend, and if you only choose to stick to one side you will never get the full effect.

Re: And The Weather Is Beautiful @ Dan Rubin’s SuperfluousBanter

Vinnie Garcia — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 15:28:45 -0000

It's days like that that make me miss living in Florida. Now I live in Philadelphia and while the autumn is nice, the 39-degree nights could use some work.