Yesterday, I saw an ad on TV that stated, “We are a consumer based society.”  After I heard that, I thought yes that is very true.  We consume… but what do we give back?  We always want the latest toy whether it is for our fleeting fancy or because someone we know has that and we want to impress someone.  We want products and we want to pay the least possible.

With elections coming up, people have asked me, who are you going to vote for?  When I look at the candidates,  I ask myself not which one is going to give the most to the country but which one is going to take the least from our homeland?  It is very obvious that the canidate with the most money is favored.  Where do they get the money?  From businesses and individuals who see getting a return or favors from that canidate if they get elected.  …Ooops… Your not thinking of bribery are you?  Well truthfully, that is what it is!

Why are we still driving gas vehicles which require gasoline from countries that profess to be our enemies?  Because there is still a lot of money in the Petroleum industry.  If gas is suffering shortages, how come the Oil companies made more profits in 2007 than any other year in history?  Why do you and I continue to support the oil companies and their actions?  Because we don’t want to get off our butts and walk or ride a bicycle.  Oh yea, the stores are too far away to walk too… well that wouldn’t be the case if we had not forced them out of business by wanting more products at cheaper prices.  See, it is all because we wanted more things.

I took Rapleaf.com down from my blogroll (links) because they have sold out on their original purpose - that of a reputation system that was not affiliated with any other organization.  I have also deleted my membership at that website.  I mean what’s the point if I can’t build a reputation that is visible to other people.

I will be searching the web for a new replacement.  If you know of a place, please comment and let the rest of us know.

Several years ago I started using VI and the more I used it, the more I loved it.  When I switched my desktop to Ubuntu, I found that the arrow keys only worked in command mode VI.  This aggravated me however I continued using it despite the irritation and productivity decline.

Friends at work conjoled me to give up on VI and switch to Nano however I never gave in.  Finally, today I was using VI to edit an HTML document and after having to switch to command mode about 50 times to fix errors that were caused by insert mode arrow key mistakes I gave in and went to ubuntuforums.org.

clipped from ubuntuforums.org Re: Arrow keys are broken in vi…how to fix? sudo apt-get install vim-full ’sudo apt-get install vim-full’ will install all the vim related package and the dependencies, that includes gnome libs, etc… if you dont use gnome and just want to fix this issue in the text mode you can run : sudo apt-get install vim-runtime

1.  Boot from the Ubuntu Live CD

2.  Open a Terminal Window

3.  Type in

• sudo grub
• > root (hd0,0)
• > setup (hd0)
• > exit

4.  Reboot (normally)

Ok, we all know about PayPal. The same PayPal that was bought out by money hungry eBay. PayPal is ok but they are so “pre” Information Age. The fees that PayPal pays is higher than most other financial institutions… why? Because they can… as long as we continue to use their services.

Now, there is an alternative. Yes, and it is free!!!

Visit the website to find out more. If you hurry they will give you $25 free.