Sunday, February 13, 2011

Firefox isn't good anymore

Hello. I am back after however long it has been, and I bring new information. Today I am here to talk to you about browsers, and how your browser choice will affect you.

So, like most of us, I started out with Internet Explorer, because it was already on my computer. It got the job done, but it was slow and slowed down my computer too much. It was around 2008 that I started hearing so much about this wonderful alternative called Firefox. It was open source, you could install addons and do whatever you wanted. So I downloaded it and it was goodbye IE.

Three years later and I was still using Firefox. I noticed it took up quite a bit of processing power, and ran slowly. Still better than IE, but it was irritating. Everyone around me said that Firefox was yesterday's news, and Chrome was now the shit. I was weary of it because I tried it when it first came out and hated it very much. But I sucked it up and decided to try it again, maybe it was better now. And it was fucking amazing.

It was everything that Firefox tried to be when it first came out, but better. The extensions installed more smoothly, it had a sleek interface, each tab started it's own process, meaning the browser would crash less often, and my bookmarks imported over quickly and easily. It starts up and performs quickly and the interface also is beautiful, but none of these things impress me the most. Every aspect of the browser seems to be in harmony. Everything comes together to form what can only be described as a unified browsing experience. And I know that sounds like some crap out of a Hallmark card, but it's true. It's one of those things that you can only understand after you have tried it.

So to all of you reading this, go out and try Chrome if you haven't already. I have confidence it will beat out Firefox as the tech-savvy person's browser if it hasn't yet. Well, fellow bloggers, this has been my two-cents on browsers. Stay classy.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Entropy: The Hunt for the Skinwalker

Yay a blog. It's not like the internet needs another one of these, but I started it none the less. Well, I guess I will be reviewing things here mostly, and bringing what I believe to be interesting topics, pictures, videos and other crap to your attention. Hmm. I better start my first post off with some actual content. Here it goes.

.......Okay, here's something interesting. Let me preface this by saying that as you can tell by my name I am a bit of a science nerd. In particular, chemistry is my favorite. But all areas of science I find interesting. Maybe it is the beauty of the scientific process.

I also very much enjoyed the paranormal in my younger days, mostly ufos, ghosts, bigfoot. I had lost interest theses areas around the time I started high school. But a year ago I read this book that managed to approach the paranormal from a completely objective viewpoint. The name the book is "Hunt for the Skinwalker" by George Knapp.

Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Hunt-Skinwalker-Science-Confronts-Unexplained/dp/1416505210

The book tells the firsthand accounts of a family that lived on an out of the way ranch in Utah. The family is plagued with a plethora of paranormal activity that ranges from UFO's to large, bullet proof animals to cattle mutilations, poltergeist activity, and yes, even Bigfoot makes an appearance. I know that all of this sounds like a season box set of "Unexplained Mysteries" (Robert Stack f-yeah), but this is billed as nonfiction. About halfway through the book the family can't take it anymore and moves out. This is when things get even more interesting.

At this point, a scientific team, NIDS, hears stories of the ranch, and decides to buy it from the owners at a steal. The father from the family even agrees to help them, and give them accounts of all the events he and his family had witnessed. At the end of the book they provide several explanations for what is happening.

I found this book to be a great read and I definitely recommend it to anyone interested in either the paranormal or the scientific process. It totally changed how I see many supernatural phenomena.


You're probably wondering what a skinwalker is. Well, this may be the books one flaw; the title poorly represents the content. It is the reason I almost put it back on the shelf at the library (I am SO happy that I didn't). The title "Hunt for the Skinwalker" is somewhat off-putting to me. While there is a part of a chapter that explains that a skinwalker is a Native-American witch that wears animal skin, the events on the ranch rarely involve this. I don't know if an editor at the time thought that this would be a good selling point, but regardless of the title this book is worth the read.

And yes after I returned it to the library, I scoured the internet and found no PDF. Looks like you will have to buy or borrow it. Sorry! Apparently it is available for purchase in PDF format somewhere though.