25 Pictures that will Make You Laugh

According to the folks over at Reddit, these are some of the funniest, laugh-inducing pictures of all time on the Internet:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Animated GIFs:

 

 

How Lost should have ended:

 

 

 

 

Top 5 Problems with Google Plus (and how Google could fix them)

I’ve been using Google Plus (add me to your circles here) for a few days, and already I’ve become addicted to it. I may never return to Facebook again (and may even give up Twitter after more people move to G+). Google Plus has a clean, streamlined interface. It also makes sharing information with specific groups of people much easier than most other social networking sites do. Nevertheless, Google Plus presents a few annoying issues that, as a user, I would love to see resolved soon.

#1 – It’s hard to find like-minded people

You can search for people by keywords in their profiles, such as their job description, place of employment, city, etc. Unfortunately, it’s somewhat difficult to find people based on their interests, the subject matter of their posts, and the types of people they follow.

Proposed Solution #1: Hash tags – I would love to see hash tags (such as #technology or #politics) made clickable and searchable in Google Plus. For example, if I include hash tags at the end of my post (say, following a hyphen or colon character), Google Plus should identify the individual tags, remove them from the text of my post, and turn them into clickable hash-tag search links just below the posting. Clicking on one of these links should display the most recent posts that carry the same hash tag. I should be able to filter this list of posts to include or exclude public posts by people not in my circles.

Proposed Solution #2: Search People by Sparks – In Google Plus, Sparks let you specify one or more topics for which you would like to periodically read new and interesting information. According to Google, it provides "a feed of just the stuff you’re really into, so when you’re free, there’s always something waiting to be watched, read, or shared." It would be really nice to have a way to search for other Google Plus members based on their Sparks (interests). It would also be nice for Google to recommend people to follow based on the number of Sparks we have in common.

#2 – The +1 button doesn’t really mean anything yet

That cute little button that appears under every post in Google Plus may offer readers a way to "approve" or "agree" with something they’ve read, and it may provide some minor feedback to the original poster about the popularity of his post, but right now it doesn’t really do much more than that. For example, you can’t easily find out who is "plussing" you the most, or which posts and topics generate the most interest.

Proposed Solution: Google Plus Stats – Google, the company that gives us Google Trends, Google Zeitgeist, and other useful statistical tools, should give each of us a personalized Google Plus Stats page. Taking cues from Flickr or WordPress, the Google Plus Stats page should show me interesting stuff such as:

• Your posts and comments that have received the most +1′s in the past day, week, month, and year.
• Your friends’ posts that have received the most +1′s in the past day / week / month / year. (It would be nice to be able to select any specific circle, or All Circles, and see the top vote-getting posts from among that group of people.)
• Public posts (among all users of Google Plus) that have received the most +1′s in the past day / week / month / year.
• The Top 20 people from whom you’ve received +1′s in the past day / week / month / year.
• The Top 20 external web pages (news stories, web sites, etc.) that have received +1′s from your friends in the past day / week / month / year.

#3 – No easy way to post the current web page I’m reading

When I come across something on the web that I would like to share with my Google Plus friends, I have to copy the URL, switch over to Google Plus, start a new post, click the Link button, and paste in the URL of the page I want to share. Although this does not represent a tremendous burden, it’s enough to inhibit sharing some times.

Proposed Solution: Bookmarklets, Browser Extensions, or a Built-in shortcut key in Chrome – Since I use Google’s Chrome web browser, why not just build in support for Google Plus right into the browser itself? Give me a shortcut key and/or a button in the address bar to let me quickly share the current page with my G+ friends.

#4 – It’s hard for subject-oriented communities to form

This item relates strongly to item #1 at the top of this list. Unless someone is a celebrity, I probably don’t know whether or not I should start following her based on our common interests. Sure, I can get a gist of the person’s interests from her profile, but that may not necessarily correspond with the topics she likes to discuss online.

Proposed Solution: Public, Opt-In Circles – Google should let us configure an individual circle as public, and allow people to request membership in the circle, either with automatic approval (pure opt-in circles,) or with approval from the circle’s owner (moderated opt-in circles.) The owner of a public circle should be allowed to name any of the other members as administrators of the circle, and anyone with administrator authority should be able to add or approve additional members (if the circle doesn’t feature automatic approval.)

This way, I could create a circle called "Weight Loss Tips" or "Funny Pictures" and allow anyone who wants to become a member to join the circle, simply by clicking "join circle". Of course for this to work, all public circles must appear in the owner’s user profile, and Google must provide a search function to help people find public circles. For comparison, think Flickr Groups or Facebook Pages.

#5 – Your Stream can get very noisy, very quickly

Currently, Google shows you posts from everyone you follow, or posts from one particular circle. In many cases, the former fills your stream with too much noise, and the latter doesn’t provide enough recent updates to maintain engagement.

Proposed Solution: More granular control of the Stream – In particular, it would help if Google would place check boxes next to each circle, so that we could turn on or off multiple circles. For example, I might like to see what members of my Friends circle and members of my Family circle are doing right now, without having to switch from one to the other. For the sake of usability, Google should also provide a way to check/uncheck all circles.

Finally, while I have your attention

Here are a few other miscellaneous problem-solving features I would like to see in Google Plus:

• Threaded (nested, reply-to) comments.
• The ability to schedule events, invite people, and integrate the events into the Google Calendar.
• Gmail inbox as a "channel" in the stream. It would be VERY nice to be able to see my Gmail inbox items in my stream, just like all the posts by people in one of my circles. After all, the inbox is just another queue of incoming information.
• Better integration with Google Reader – I should be able to share items from Google Reader to Google Plus with a single click, and Google should remember which circles I shared with last. Ideally, Google will remember the most recent circle selection for each individual Reader folder from which I have shared something. That way, if I share items from my "Libertarian" folder in Reader with my "Politics" circle in Plus, Google will propose the "Politics" circle the next time I share an item from that folder, but will propose another circle if I share something from my "Technology" folder, for example.

Getting Things Done with Microsoft OneNote

You’ve got a lot of things to do, and more tasks coming in every day. You probably also experience a lot of stress just making sure you don’t forget anything, lose track of your progress, or miss an important assignment. Keeping up with the constant barrage of incoming e-mails, unexpected assignments, interruptions and changes in priority can prove extremely stressful and time-consuming.

This booklet provides you with a system for relieving the pressure and worry of work-life management. This system uses Microsoft OneNote® and the principles of Getting Things Done. If you follow the steps described herein, you will find yourself spending more time doing productive work and less time worrying, organizing, sorting, and processing incoming tasks.

Learn how to manage you work with Microsoft OneNote and the principles of Getting Things Done:

Download the free PDF

Decatur Improvement Idea – Make Ponce a Pedestrian Mall

OK – so here’s one idea for improving the downtown of Decatur: Close Ponce de Leon between Commerce and Church Street, and turn it into a beautiful outdoor pedestrian mall.

Closing this stretch of Ponce and turning it into a pedestrian-friendly outdoor mall would create a distinctive outdoor downtown environment, and create a nice walking “loop” between the Decatur MARTA rail station, the MARTA bus terminal, the old courthouse square, and the corner of West Ponce and Commerce.

Once closed, the street, curbs, and sidewalks could be replaced with brick pavers, trees, plantings, benches, mini-parks, fountains, outdoor sculptures, and other items. We could arrange everything so it continues to allow for standard-sized festival tents and booths for the Book Festival, Art Festival, Beach Party, Beer Tasting Festival, etc.

As inspiration, have a look at the beautiful Pearl Street Mall in downtown Boulder Colorado:

View Full Album

Some reasons and benefits to closing Ponce between Commerce and Church Streets, and turning it into a beautiful pedestrian mall:

• It fits with the Decatur Strategic Vision to create more family-oriented, pedestrian-friendly areas in the city.
• It will give Decatur a distinctive, unique feature that will further set it apart from neighboring communities.
• It will attract more visitors and shoppers to the downtown district.
• The City of Decatur frequently closes this stretch of Ponce anyway (or at least the part from Claremont to Church) for festivals. Permanently closing it will reduce the cost of holding festivals, and make additional festivals more attractive and easier to stage.
• The addition of fountains, trees, benches, sculpture, etc., will make the area a destination for families and visitors, encouraging them to shop and eat at businesses near the square.
• A pedestrian mall will tie in very nicely with the existing MARTA stations, encouraging visitors to arrive by transit rather than driving.
• It would be extremely cool – helping to make Decatur the coolest city in the metro-Atlanta area.

Lee’s Mediterranean Style Fish Stew Recipe

Here’s something I made a few nights ago by combining some things I saw in two different recipes, and adding some stuff by the seat of my pants that seemed appropriate. It came out tasting really good — and it got compliments from the wife (she asked me to write down the recipe so we can repeat it.)

Even though it has a lot of ingredients, it uses the lazy man’s approach to cooking — which is that everything pretty much comes out of a can, a bag, or a jar, so it’s not that hard to put together.

Anyway — in case you want to try it at home, here’s the recipe:

LEE’S MEDITERRANEAN STYLE FISH STEW RECIPE

1 cup frozen chopped seasoning mix (onion, celery, bell pepper) — this comes in a bag in the frozen vegetable section at Publix
some olive oil — enough to cover the bottom of your stew pot
1 teaspoon minced garlic (I use the stuff from a jar)
1 box (32 oz?) of low-sodium chicken stock
2 1/2 cups of Hot and Spicy V8 juice
1 small can of tomato paste
2 cans of diced tomatoes, unsalted — DO NOT DRAIN
1 can of regular cut green beans, drained and rinsed in a collander/strainer
1 can of sliced carrots, drained and rinsed in a collander/strainer
12 oz of boneless, skinless Halibut, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
12 oz of boneless, skinless Haddock, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
(You can find the fish in the frozen food section at your grocery store)
1 can of lump crab meat – mostly drained
3 tablespoons of butter
1 teaspoon of hot sauce – more if you like it spicy
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
6-8 leaves of fresh basil, chopped into small pieces
3 bay leaves
2 teaspoons of dried oregano
1 1/2 cups of dry white wine
2 teaspoons of lemon juice
1 teaspoon coriander
2 tablespoons of olive juice (from a jar of olives)
_____
In a large stew pot:

1. Sautee the onions, peppers, minced garlic, and celery in the olive oil in the bottom of the stew pot until cooked.
2. Reduce heat
3. Add the chicken stock and V-8 juice
4. Add all the canned vegetables and the tomato paste
5. Stir everything well, making sure to break up the tomato paste
6. Increase heat and cook until stew comes to a near boil
7. If the fish is frozen — zap it for a minute or so in the microwave to defrost
8. Add the fish cubes and the crab meat — stir to break up the crab meat
9. Add everything else — DO NOT LEAVE OUT THE LEMON JUICE – it makes this recipe
10. Heat to a near boil, then cover and simmer on low heat until the fish is cooked (20 minutes)
11. Open and drink a beer — such as Arrogant Bastard Ale, and let the stew cook a while longer.
12. Eventually, remove the bay leaves and eat the stew. It’s good.

Tired of quiz and game results in your Facebook feed? Here’s how to turn them off

If you’re like many people who use Facebook, you’ve grown tired of the endless stream of quizzes and game results that appear in the Feed on your home page. Here’s how to reduce the clutter:

Hide Quiz and Game Results in Facebook

Go to your Facebook home page.

Find a quiz or game in your feed that you no longer want to hear from.

Hover your mouse over that item until the "Hide" menu appears over at the right-hand edge. Click the menu and then choose the second option to hide updates from the game / quiz:

That’s it. Repeat as necessary

Listen to (and Record From) Streaming Internet Radio

It’s time to get your groove on, folks. Time to listen to some cool sounds while you surf the web and update your Facebook status. Time for the magic of streaming Internet radio.

But you don’t want just any streaming Internet radio. You want a small, free, lightweight player that sounds good and doesn’t use a lot of memory and system resources. You also want a player free of adware and spyware. In short, you want the Screamer Radio player.

Step One – Get the Screamer Radio Player

Download the Screamer Radio Player here, and install it. It’s very easy to set up. After installing it, run the program. You should see a very small, non-bloated window that looks like this:

You can click on the Presets menu to listen to a pre-loaded station, or you can use the File / Open URL dialog to listen to a station of your choosing.

Screamer Radio will also record, in MP3 or OGG format, the songs you’re listening to, placing each track into a separate file. You can use the Settings menu to tell the program the name of the folder in which you want it to store the recorded tracks.

Step Two – Add Some Cool Stations to Your Favorites

To get started, may I recommend two great streaming radio stations: Radio Paradise and SomaFM‘s Secret Agent.

To add these stations to your Favorites, do the following:

Select "Open URL" from the File menu:

 

Then, put in the URL of a stream. Here are the two URLs for the stations mentioned above:

• http://somafm.com/secretagent.pls
• http://www.radioparadise.com/musiclinks/rp_128xx.m3u

If these streams don’t work for you for some reason, visit the SomaFM or Radio Paradise to find several alternate URLs.

After you get a stream playing, add it to your Favorites by selecting "Add current station to Favorites" from the Favorites menu:

And remember – if you find that you like Screamer Radio as much as I do, don’t forget to make a donation to keep the project going!

Why to use Screamer Radio

• It’s easy to use
• It’s not bloated
• It’s ad free
• It has no spyware
• It has a huge database of radio stations
• It has a cool peak meter
• You can easily record what you’re listening to
• You can hide it in the system tray
• You can play back on multiple soundcards
• .. and it’s free!

Supported Stream Types

• Shoutcast and Icecast MP3 Streaming
• Icecast OGG Vorbis Streaming
• WMA Streaming
• AAC Streaming

Recording Features

• Recording buffer: start recording in the middle and still save the entire song!
• Direct MP3 Audio stream saving, no loss of quality!
• Direct OGG Vorbis stream saving, no loss of quality!
• Or encode OGG Vorbis as MP3 using Lame
• Encode WMA or AAC to MP3 using Lame

A great dinner and first impression of Leon’s Full Service

My wife, our friend Barbara, and I enjoyed a fine dinner at Leon’s Full Service last night. This newly-opened restaurant is owned by the same folks who run the wonderful Brick Store Pub. Leon’s full service is located in a former Sinclair gasoline station at the corner of Ponce de Leon and Church Street in Decatur.

The new owners have completely renovated the old gas station, but have kept many of its finer touches, such as the red tiled roof that was a hallmark of many Spanish-revival buildings built along Ponce de Leon Avenue in the 1920s and 1930s. The architects also kept the large sliding garage doors, one of which serves to ventilate the bar area when the outside temperature allows.

To accommodate more seating, the owners also enclosed the covered area under which cars used to drive up to refuel at the gas tanks.

The food and beverages at Leon’s Full Service are unlike anything I have seen before. All three of us remarked about the menu and how so many of the items combine ingredients we have never seen mixed together quite like that.

We tried the "hummus", which does not include any chickpeas but instead consists of pureed carrots and pine nuts, with a small amount of oil and spices. It was fantastic. We also sampled the rabbit tenders (good, but not great,) the calamari (served with a barbecue sauce instead of the usual marinara,) and the scallops. The scallops were served with fresh fennel and onions, as well as smoked bacon from a small smokehouse in Tennessee. The scallops were the best-tasting item that we tried.

The menu also includes things like curried vegetables, salads, burgers, sandwiches, and French fries that come with a choice of three sauces from a list of ten (horseradish mayo, etc.)

Everything at Leon’s focuses on special-ness. The bar features at least 14 beers on tap, many of them from Belgium and all of them from relatively small breweries. They have at least 100 more beers in bottles, plus a decent wine list. All of the whisky and bourbon at Leon’s are small-batch varieties. The list of specialty cocktails includes a drink made with rye, spiced ginger ale and orange zest.

The atmosphere is casual and very far removed from white tablecloth, and the bar area is large and inviting.

All in all: highly recommended, and we will definitely go back!

Leon’s Full Service
(404) 687-0500
131 E. Ponce de Leon Avenue   [click here for map]
Decatur, GA 30030

Your one-stop source for news about freedom, government, and politics

I have compiled a set of about thirty RSS feeds into a single source for news related to freedom, civil rights, government power, and politics. You can find the latest stories as a continuously-updated web page at the link below:

LeeCo Freedom and Politics News 

or, if you prefer to receive your news as an RSS feed, you can get it here:

LeeCo Freedom and Politics News Feed

The news from these sources will primarily focus on protection of liberties granted by the Bill of Rights, as well as efforts by elected officials to expand the size and power of government, or to increase taxes, or to invade or control private lives and enterprises.

Lawmakers in 20 states move to reclaim sovereignty

This may be one of the best things to happen to Liberty in the United States in a long while.

An interesting groundswell against an out-of-control Federal government has started at the state level. Almost half of the state legislatures are considering or have representatives preparing to introduce resolutions which reassert the principles of the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution and the idea that federal power is strictly limited to specific areas detailed in the Constitution and that all other governmental authority rests with the states.

a rebellion against the growing dominance of federal control is beginning to spread at the state level.So far, eight states have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, including Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.Analysts expect that in addition, another 20 states may see similar measures introduced this year, including Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania.

Here’s a portion of the text from a typical state sovereignty bill, the one from the state of Washington. I agree with these sentiments whole-heartedly (emphasis is mine):

WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States specifically provides that, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."; and

WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being those powers specifically granted to it by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and

WHEREAS, Federalism is the constitutional division of powers between the national and state governments and is widely regarded as one of America’s most valuable contributions to political science;

WHEREAS, The scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be limited in its powers relative to those of the various states; and

WHEREAS, Today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government; and

WHEREAS, Many federal mandates are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

…

NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully resolve:
(1) That the State of Washington hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States; and
(2) That this serve as a Notice and Demand to the federal government to maintain the balance of powers where the Constitution of the United States established it and to cease and desist, effective immediately, any and all mandates that are beyond the scope of its constitutionally delegated powers.

The Washington State bill backs up its interpretation of the ninth and tenth amendments to the Constitution with words from the men who wrote it. For example:

James Madison, the principal author of the US Constitution:

"The powers delegated to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, [such] as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people."

Thomas Jefferson:

the states are not "subordinate" to the national government, but rather the two are "coordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government."

Alexander Hamilton:

[I hope] the people will always take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the general and the state governments. This balance between the national and state governments forms a double security to the people. If one [government] encroaches on their rights, they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by [the] certain rivalship which will ever subsist between them.

To find out more about this growing movement to reassert state sovereignty under the ninth and tenth amendments, read: Lawmakers in 20 states move to reclaim sovereignty.