The Machets’ Blog

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude to try to figure out where he was when he spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, “Excuse me, can you help me? I appear to be a little off course. I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The woman below replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.”

Amazed by what she said, the balloonist stated “You must be in
Information Technology!” “I am,” replied the woman, “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I’ve no idea what to make of your information and the fact is that I am still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip.”

The woman below smiled and responded, “You must be in Management.” “I am,” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” said the woman, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”

Wishing you a happy, healthy and sweet new year (of the Hebrew Lunar Calendar).

Name: Battery Eater Pro Price: Free

Notebook computers were designed to be carried around. They shouldn’t have or require any cables while on the go, but unfortunately, this is not the case. Notebook batteries are notoriously known to not provide enough power for a single movie. They can only be used on short flights, and will require a recharge at your next destination.

The problem with batteries is that they lose a little power after each recharge. After around 100 recharges, it’s time to get a new battery, otherwise you’ll be wired to the nearest plug. To test your battery’s life, a new program called Battery Eater Pro has been made. Basically, you load it up (with full power) and it will suck all the juice out of your machine. It then tells you how long your battery can last.

Battery Eater Pro could also improve battery performance by giving your notebook a full recharge, as many mobile PCs are kept connected when not being moved around.

As previously mentioned, the media cannot be trusted. To emphasise this fact, Zombie has written an in-depth analysis of an incident that occurred during the Israel-Lebanon war. According to this unambiguous source, reports that Israel fired missiles at two Red Cross ambulances are completely false.

Lo and behold, when we look at other pictures of undamaged Lebanese Red Cross ambulances, we see that many of them just happen to have a ventilation cover of the exact same diameter as the “missile” hole right in the center of the cross on the roof.

On September 2, The Age published an article in response to both Zombie and Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer’s comments:

Red Cross volunteers manning the ambulances and Mr Fawaz insist the hit was caused by small weapons fired from unmanned drones that they heard circling above after the attack.

There is no substantial evidence given the Age’s report, and any details are in direct opposition to the initial article. The fact that the Age was prepared to give such comments further emphasises its ideals and biased opinions. There are many quotes from Lebanese sources, however the article provides one and a half paragraphs of information from the other side from an anonymous Israeli spokesman.

As a final word, how many people do you think who read the article in the newspaper or online will actually visit Zombie Time?

I highly recommend that you pass this around (the link to this post is http://www.machet.com.au/blog/2006/09/16/the-media-cannot-be-trusted/) to everyone you know — this is one of the most important world news articles.

Links: The Red Cross Ambulance Incident; or Ambulance Attack Evidence Stands the Test.

I have recently made some changes to The Machets’ Blog which you may or may not have noticed. All of our plugins (addons to the blog) have been brought up to date, and some other small changes have been made.

It’s now even easier to receive our feed, as there are more programs and choices available. I have added a new poll that is worth voting just to see the effect. Other small enhancements include the name of the poster, the ability to print each post and the time taken for each page to load is displayed at the bottom. Unfortunately, however, all the link counters have been reset to zero, so the values reflected in older posts will not be accurate.

If you have any suggestions, or if you have discovered any problems with the blog, please let me know.

Update: Poll in progress.

If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.

Although we rely on what we read, watch and listen, when it comes from trusted and well-known news sources, this short video is proof that you can never believe everything you’re told.

Please take a look at this video, and email it to everyone you know. If you liked this, you should also take a look at Pallywood. Feel free to add comments below. For more information, please go to Zombie.

To view this video at its actual page, please go to aish.com

Name: Windows Live Writer Price: Free

Microsoft has just release one of the best - and most useful - programs into its Windows Live suite of products. Windows Live Writer allows you to write and edit posts on your blog. It has many features not available in the standalone version of Wordpress, including one that gives you the ability to quote people or other blogs.

The best part of Windows Live Writer is that you write the posts on your computer. This means that you can save it, bold words and use the WYSIWYG editor, without the need to wait for changes to load. You can easily view a preview or the html with the program’s simple shortcuts.

Ionut Alex. Chitu from Google OS writes:

When you select the preview mode, you’ll see how your blog would look if you published the post, so it takes the idea of preview one step further.

The simple interface and the innovative additions make this tool a good replacement for the standard blogging interfaces.

Writer is easy to set up, stores your post styles, and it is compatible with Wordpress, Windows Live Spaces, LiveJournal and TypePad. You can download it on the Windows Live blog.