Archive for January 9th, 2008
Who to help: cancer patients or the environment?
January 9th, 2008 • chatter
For almost 2 years now, I’ve grown my hair from a short 1″ buzz to about 14″ of headbanging mess. I was originally growing out my hair to donate to Locks of Love for cancer patients who need wigs and I’ve yet to donate the needed 10″ of hair. But last night I found something new, something that threw me for a loop, it’s oil soaking mats made of hair from Matter of Trust. I’m now having a real moral dilemma: help someone regain their self-esteem and improve their self-image or help potentially thousand of people and sea creatures.
In the last year I’ve really turned a lot of my personal focus to sustainability and going as green as I can which has put a real hamper on my helping-chemo-patients agenda. By now I could’ve donated twice and helped two people but would that outweigh helping clean up oil spills, reclaiming dirtied waters, and doing so in a wholly biodegradable way? I’m very torn on the matter as of now. I’ve done quite a bit around the apartment to try and make it as energy efficient as I can, same with our vehicles, but should this long standing endeavor (I’ve been rather environmentally friendly since I was 12 or so) outweigh something as simple as helping someone simply feel better about themselves?
For the first time in years, I’m truly torn over a choice.
I don’t want to prolong the death of this laptop
January 9th, 2008 • chatter
While it’s not really dying, the battery is just about shot. I only have xchat, a single terminal open, and Flock with a few tabs open and squeeze out a little over an hour of life now, great for school since classes last over 2 hours. Sure I could pony up and pay Dell another $120 for an extended battery that’s been reported by numerous customers to have a shelf life of a year. I could deal with another year but Macworld is just right around the corner and I’m hoping they’ll finally announce a damn sub-notebook MBP. It’s a stretch but it could happen, it’s been in the rumor mill for years and should be coming to fruition soonish. I mean, I was discussing the specifics of a widescreen iPod a la iPhone/iPod Touch 4 years ago with a friend at work (we had the form factor pegged but not much else) so a sub-notebook sized MBP has been cookin’ for just as long.
I’ve been running both Debian and Ubuntu on this laptop since I got it so I managed to more than squeeze out the money I paid for it but I’m really looking for something new and shiny. I don’t want a 15″ MBP because I just don’t need the extra bulk, I like my 12″ laptop so I’m looking for a similar size. The Asus Eee is a tad small but there’s little advantage to it over my current laptop although lugging around a 7″ sub-note for various meetings and class would be super sweet.
Waiting for Apple to fulfill rumors sucks but so does a dying battery. Now I’m off to find more Web 2.0 goodies for school.