Peter's Place

You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything in a while. That's due to the fact that my depression has its hand firmly gripped around me. Just about a month ago, in the early morning, as I was getting ready to go to my partial hospitalization program , I heard a knock on the door. I checked through the peephole and didn't see anyone, so I opened the door, with the chain lock still on it. That's the last thing I really remember. I was either punched in the face through the door, or the impact of the door being forced open (breaking the chain lock) knocked me out. I spent a few days in and out of consciousness, lying on the floor, until the person I've been staying with came back from spending the week at his sister's and found me. Since I'm not supposed to be there, I couldn't go to the police (the person I'm staying with is in a subsidized housing program and on Section 8, and he's not allowed to have people -- like me -- living with him)....

Most Microsoft Windows users know that from time to time, they have to "defrag" their hard drives. But most users probably don't know why the y have to defrag, and just what defrag means. Geek Girls has a pretty good explanation of the what ("Sometimes when you install a program or create a data file, the file ends up chopped up into chunks and stored in multiple locations on the disk. This is called fragmentation "), and a partial expanation of the why: Why should you bother with the housework? A couple of reasons. First, disks are hard working, mechanical devices and, like all mechanical devices, prone to failure. A little preventative maintenance can warn you of potential problems and fix minor glitches before they can do damage to your data. Second, the way files are organised on your drive has a perceptible impact on the performance of your computer. If your files are stored neatly, end-to-end, without fragmentation, reading and wr...

I was in NYC's Central Park a few weekends ago, up near the reservoir . I took a picture of this tree on my mobile camera phone, because I thought it was interesting, and beautiful, in a non-traditional sort of way. It was so peaceful and beautiful up there. Nature is a beautiful thing , but it can be pretty darned dangerous (how's that for some funky alliteration ?). Then, I had to be whisked back to the cold, drab realities of what life really is like .

Test from my mobile.

OK, this is kind of scarey, given the non-traditional , do no evil , corporate culture/philosophy that they usually portray. But guess what? Google is pulling an Oprah : Search engine giant Google, known for its mantra "don't be evil", has fired off a series of legal letters to media organizations, warning them against using its name as a verb. Rather than focus on the use of their trademarked name (which they have every right to protect ), perhaps they should focus on ensuring that the definition of "Googling" retains its current meaning, and that this definition spreads throughout popular culture: The verb to Google , or to google (depending on the dictionary) means "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet ." That way, Google is protecting its trademark, but allowing its name to become a part of culture. To me, I think it would help a company, not harm it, when the name of something that the company has invented (...

OK, so I was driving home tonight, and the battery light came on in the car (I have a 1995 Buick Park Avenue Ultra , which needs a paint job). This means that the car is now running off the battery. I saw the voltmeter begin to go down, and I knew I had to make it home, fast. I stopped at my friend's work place and hung out there, where I let the battery "re-charge" for a few hours. Then I went for the gold and made it the rest of the way "home" (you know, the place where I'm sleeping on the living room floor of a friend's Section 8 apartment that I'm not really supposed to be staying in). So, there's now something wrong with the electrical system. I don't know much about the inner workings of cars. All I do know is that I just replaced the alternator about four months ago, and it appears that this is the same -- or a similar -- problem. Oh, and did I mention that it's also a new battery -- less than six months old? So this means I'...

I really love today's Daily Dilbert . It pretty much reflects are large portion of my outlook on life. Click on the image below to go to the Daily Dilbert site and be taken (hopefully) to the right strip. Post a comment and let me know if you can figure out this large portion of my outlooik on life. OK, still haven't figured it out yet? I'll give you a hint: the mildly retarted consultant, or a certain aspect of what he represents, or a certain aspect of what he says, to me, at least, represents life, itself (have I used enough commans in this sentence?).

OK, so on a scale from 1 to 10, today's pain factor is about a 7. And that's after I've already taken about 8 Aleve pills. And it's only 11:22 am. This is really getting to be a bit ridiculous. Not to mention, painful. And, of course, the pain affects my depression . Scientists have just begun looking into the effects that physical pain has on the effectiveness of various drug therapies and other treatments for depression: "In particular, the odds of a poor depression treatment response were twice as high in patients with moderate pain at baseline and three to four times as high in those with severe pain," Bair says. In another study , researchers have linked chronic pain to depression. So it's kind of like this vicious cycle, wherein pain causes depression to worsen, which in turn causes more pain: Among the participants, 17 percent had chronic pain and 4 percent had symptoms of major depression; however, 43 percent of those with major depression also had...

Well, it's taken a little more than fifteen years, but the original purpose of the Internet has finally come to fruition: But as the internet and other communication technologies have made it easier for academics to share information with others in their field (not just at one's own university), the relationship between one's output, and that of others at the same university has been eliminated. Techdirt: Who Needs Harvard When You Can Blog?

Some of my friends have begun asking me, "Is there any way I can be notified (by email) when you post something to your blog?" The short answer to this is, well -- it depends. You see, most blogs, and some web sites , have something called a feed . Six Apart, the maker of some of the best independent blogging software out there, has a nifty little page that tells us all about what feeds are , and why we need them Many websites have links labeled "XML" or "RSS" or "Atom". All of these are ways of saying that you can find out about updates to that site without having to browse to it yourself to check. The Site Wizard has a more in-depth article about feeds and how to use them: RSS feeds and ATOM feeds are simply special types of web pages. Websites typically use such feeds to notify its visitors when something new has been posted on their website. thesitewizard.com's RSS feed, for example, usually contains news about new articles appearing ...

OK, so I FINALLY get my car back. Let me tell you something, eSurance is also the Suxx0r. It took them an entire week just to send someone out to look at my car. Then, they pay me only $600 out of the $2,000 it cost to get it fixed (and I didn't even get the replacement parts painted, because they weren't going to pay for that since the paint on my car is chipping away as it is). I mean, WTF is up with these people? (Not to mention, I rented a car, for a weekend -- which I could have afforded, except I kept it for a little over a month-- ooops! ) Anyway, so I get my car back last Friday. I'm driving back from the grocery store, and there are mad crazy thunderstorms all about. (One of my best friends, Stacey , lost her power due to the storm. She has some crazy pictures of damage that it did to her yard (mind you, this was just a thunderstorm!) But I digress....) So I'm driving back to the apartment that I'm not allowed to be in because it's my friend's and...

Time Warner Cable is definitely the Suxx0r . OK. I'm back online with RoadRunner hi-speed. At first, I ordered AOL Broadband which provided the RoadRunner Intro internet connection at $25.95/month and that operates at 768/128 kbps up/downstream, which, after having been accustomed to Cablevision's Optimum Online , which operates at 10 mbps downstream and 2 mbps upstream . So I basically had to upgrade to RoadRunner Hispeed , which offers a 5mbps downstream and 384kbps upstream. Not quite what Optimum Online offers but it's better than the Intro package. And, while I was upgrading the Internet connection, I decided to order Time Warner Digital Cable Television service as well. I knew that I wanted digital television, and decided on the DTV Value pack, which offers all digital television channels available. I also ordered Showtime , because I really like their home-grown programming , and there was a deal that if I got HBO with it it came out to a good price so I got...