evolution

A bit of a slowdown this month, both by me and my readers. It must be getting nice outside.

In April, I had 1,640 unique visitors, who made 4,116 visits and viewed 9,398 pages. This brings the all-time totals to 13,701 unique visitors, 34,557 visits, and 123,454 page views. The biggest days were the 1st and the 18th — both of those days are related to events at the Vatican this month. Biggest times for me are the dinner hour and a two-hour period beginning at midnight.

Top five referrers:

1. The Wordpress themes list at the Codex. I released this site’s layout as a Wordpress theme.
2. My brother Neil.
3. The Politburo Diktat.
4. Tman.
5. Craving Progress.

Strange search terms: Apparently, this is a big month for anti-Semitism, sadomasochism, and baseless accusations of racism.

• aryan nation pope benedict — Nice try, asshole. He was part of the Hitler Youth during World War II, but then again, he was compelled to join by law.
• anti-semitism new york athletic club — Who needs that damn trophy anyway, when you’re one of God’s chosen people?
• weapons football coach neo-nazi — I never did figure this one out.
• penises in mouse traps — Holy crap.
• my lust is high — Just stick it in a mousetrap, pal.

Enjoy your spring, and thanks for taking the next step with me. [UPDATE [05.03]: Corrected Tman’s URI.]

I have finally configured my PC the way I want (at least for a while). It’s still based on Ubuntu Linux, but uses the KDE version. Gnome and KDE are the two big window managers for Linux; Gnome is more of a take on the Mac OS, while KDE will remind computer users of Windows.

I have found KDE to perform much better on my computer than Gnome using similar software. My computer is a 1.0GHz Pentium III with 256MB of RAM; Gnome seemed sluggish while KDE rocketed along at a pretty good clip, even with several instances of Firefox, the GIMP, and Web development software running; also, a Web server, a PHP processor, an SQL server, e-mail, an RSS aggregator, and the CD player were running.

The artwork produced by the KDE community is stunning, to say the least. KDE-Look is the main collection for such artwork. I downloaded a number of wallpapers, icon themes, and splash screens, none of which appear to harm the performance of my computer.

Just as with the Gnome version of Ubuntu, I have found replacements for all the devices and applications I used to use under Windows 2000. In many cases, I have come to like the KDE application better. amaroK is one such example; it can store information on your entire music collection in an SQL database for queuing in the amaroK playlist, and it can even download lyrics for the songs on your list. (Someone should write a guitar tablature plugin.) You can also save information about your favorite online streams (I plan on adding The Citizen Journalist Report tomorrow).

Ubuntu users can switch at will between Gnome and KDE, even though there are two separate installation CDs for the two window managers. Each of them is fairly large, and both of them together will not fit on a standard CD. However, Ubuntu updates are done over the network (similar to Debian, its parent distribution), so the files necessary to convert from one window manager to the other can easily be downloaded. I’ve cleaned all the Gnome files away, though, so I’m strictly using KDE now.

Perhaps tomorrow I’ll post a screenshot or two.

Finally, the Kansas City Star has readily-available RSS feeds for your news-reading pleasure.

Man, I’ve got to stop switching between KDE and Gnome on my Linux box and just pick something, dammit.

I think I’ll settle on KDE.

In testimony given before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Intelligence Agency chief, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby said that he thinks North Korea has figured out how to mount nuclear warheads onto missiles that can reach Japan and even US cities like Honolulu and Seattle.

North Korea is considered one of the most opaque intelligence targets for American analysts, and the absence of reliable human spies had made it all the more difficult to understand the progress of its program.

But when asked by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in a hearing today whether “North Korea has the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device,” Admiral Jacoby responded, “The assessment is that they have the capability to do that, yes ma’am.“

And Senator Clinton, of all people, realizes what happened with the “six-party talks”, and the deals that were blamed unfairly on her husband but are more properly attributed to Jimmy Carter, quite possibly one of the weakest representatives that the US has ever had:

Senator Clinton called Admiral Jacoby’s testimony “troubling beyond words.”

She added: “We have been locked into this six-party idea now for a number of years and all the while we’ve seen North Korea going about the business of acquiring nuclear weapons and the missile capacity to deliver those to the shores of the United States.”

Admiral Jacoby also confirmed the assessment that North Korea has the ability to deploy a two-stage intercontinental missile that could reach portions of the continental United States, in addition to Hawaii and Alaska. He added that a formal assessment under way by United States intelligence agencies of North Korea’s nuclear program would be completed next month.

Troubling beyond words, indeed.

ESPN News is reporting on its air that former Oklahoma QB Jason White will try out for the Kansas City Chiefs this summer.

Look out, loyal subjects of the Chiefs empire — here comes James “Boomer” Grigsby.

Reports at the draft pegged him as a bit of an oddball, but incredibly athletic and upbeat. I think that’s exactly what the Chiefs need.

[inherited from: Brain Fertilizer.]

My brother Keith and his wife Amie report that their third child, a boy, will arrive in August. They already have two daughters; one four-and-a-half years old, and the other 10 months old.

Guess that means I’m off the hook for a while longer.

I don’t know quite what to think of this. According to the readability test, evolution scored:

• Gunning-Fog index: 9.95 (or roughly equal to the reading level to a high-school sophomore)
• Flesch Reading Ease: 64.60 (authors are encouraged to land between 60-70)
• Flesch-Kincaid grade level (and this is the one that hurts): 6.66 (or roughly the reading level of a sixth-grader).

Ouch.

[inherited from: the high-school-junior-level INDC Journal.]

Just for fun, I’ve installed Kubuntu, the KDE version of Ubuntu Linux. I think it runs faster and is better-looking tham the Gnome version of Ubuntu, which I’ve been writing about off and on for the past month or two.

Again, I have found replacements for all of my Windows tools and applications, and I found a few more of my own. I might post a screen shot or two later if I am so inclined.