Lots of freeware

Here's a page with about 450 freeware programs and their descriptions. Take a look, you may find a valuable time saver. A quick glance turns up some good stuff. A hex editor, mp3 tag editors, free phone, etc. Good stuff.

Incidentally, I'm amazed that anyone pays for a legacy phone anymore. A cell phone is a must, at least it is to me. But an old landphone? If you simply must a have an inferior non-transportable phone, why not use a free one through the internet? Just about any chat program allows you to send/receive voice for free, though I understand it's desirable to have a phone number people can call.

Skype, people. This is what Skype is for. I'm always shocked by how many people have never heard of this. I just use it for chat myself, but you can use it as a free phone if you want. Note that some places will try to upsell you on fancy headsets to fit your computer. You can buy a $5 adapter at Radio Shack that lets you use a normal cheapo headset for cell phones.

I still don't see why, if someone is paying a phone bill already, they don't use a cell phone for all their calling needs. Maybe there's an angle I'm not seeing, but I can't imagine phoning could be any more convenient than fitting in your pocket. Plus the ability to screen calls through the caller ID window is priceless. And when you don't want to be reached, just hit the off button ("Sorry Mom, my battery was dead"). It's illegal to telemarket to cell phones. It's better in every conceivable way. I'll spare you any more of that tangent, I'm just sayin' that if you're paying for a landphone, you're just a big ninny, is all.

In one of my C++ classes in college, someone asked the prof if we could look for snippets of code already written for us on the internet. He not only said it was ok, he encouraged us to do that all the time. If you can find something someone else has already done for you, you will be a faster and better coder, is essentially what he said.

I take the same approach to finding stuff on the internet. The world is full of nerds who sit around creating stuff we can all use, for their own enjoyment. They like to make it, and I like to take it (haha! that rhymed! I sure am clever and witty. now if only I could get my hand out of this vending machine...).

I'm similarly amazed that anyone pays for porn anymore. I mean, don't they know about the internet? It took me two seconds to find this site, literally full of nothing but free porn (NWS obviously). There is more free porn on the internet than any one person could ever look at.

I sure wish this had been around when I was a kid (highspeed internet didn't hit West Virginia until I was at college). Wow. All that time spent looking at the Victoria's Secret catalog, and in moments of humiliating desperation, the Sears catalog, could have been so much better spent. On the other hand, I probably didn't need to see horse porn at that age (or any age, for that matter).

And while I'm at it, remember how much fun Napster was? Now it's called BitTorrent (the companies are separate). You search for whole albums and software. I would not trust porn from there, it's probably loaded with trojans or viruses. I don't abuse this like I abused the crap out of Napster back in college, but it comes in handy sometimes.

My conscience doesn't allow me to download willynilly like I used to (I'm as shocked about this as you are), but I think it's ok to download an album if you already own it otherwise. I won't steal software, especially not games. I like games and want them to make more. But if my disc is damaged, even if it's my own stupid fault, I have no qualms about downloading a copy.

You see, this is because of my totally superior morality. Just another way I'm way gooder than all of you. It's not your fault, some people are just naturally better people. (wait, you mean all I had to do was let go of the candybar and I could get my hand out? Oh. Thanks for sending the firetruck anyway)