L'America: What's the Nuclear Option in the Senate

2013-11-23 9 min read L'America Marco

If you are confused about the changes to the filibuster rules in the United States Senate, read on!

Hooray! There is something new to explain! You have all heard about this Nuclear Option that Senate Majority Leader (Democratic) Harry Reid pushed through, and you don’t understand what it’s about, what’s going on, and why it’s a big deal.

I am not a Constitutional expert by any means, but I’ve been following this for a long time and here is my (potentially totally misleading and confusing) recap:

Ancient European Divinities (No Letters Missing)

2013-11-21 1 min read Alphabet Lists Marco

A list with ancient divinities from Europe, from Athena to Zeus Continue reading

Chinavasion Rear View Mirror Device

2013-11-19 5 min read Gadgets Marco

Verdict: buy if you like installing things without good instructions. Otherwise wait until someone posts a video on YouTube, or some reseller afraid of lawsuits creates a real manual.

I just got myself a new car (a Subaru Forester) and I’ve been interested for a while in getting a **dash cam**. That’s the cameras you install inside the car to keep records of what’s happened on the street you’ve driven on. I am a fairly polite and safe driver, and if anything happens, it benefits me if I have a video showing what went on.

Amazon has hundreds of different models of the kind. They come with all sorts of functions, but none of them seems to combine them all. For that, I had to go to Chinavasion, a site that aggregates gadgets made in China and has them drop-shipped to consumers. You can get a volume discount, but there is typically no minimum sale.

Nexus 5 - First Look

2013-11-07 8 min read Gadgets Marco

Short version: buy it, buy it, buy it. Then get a T-Mobile SIM card (micro) and show off.

Do you like your 2 year contract? Do you like the $100+ bill for such precious commodities as the unlimited long-distance calls you don’t use, while you are stuck with a hard limit of 2GB (AT&T) or 5GB (Verizon)? Do you like the mysterious charges that show up in your phone bill?

I got fed up with all of that a while back. I guess quite a few people have, because contract-free phones are all the rage. And for those that love contract-free phones, there is no better one than the gold standard of Android: the Google Nexus 5.

Beaches (No letters missing - with pictures!)

2013-11-04 1 min read Alphabet Lists Marco

Dream of beautiful places by the sea and name successive releases after some of the most spectacular locations on Earth! Continue reading

People of Computing (No letters missing, but Q and X out of series)

2013-11-03 1 min read Alphabet Lists Marco

A list of people famous only to computer geeks (like me) Continue reading

Sweets (No letters missing)

2013-11-02 1 min read Alphabet Lists Marco

Sweets words in alphabetical order – single word only (you really don’t want to figure out how multiple words are spelled out in your VCS) Continue reading

Halloween (No letters missing)

2013-10-31 1 min read Alphabet Lists Marco

A spooky list for all your ghoulish needs. Continue reading

Ancient Roman Celebrities (No K, W, X, Y, Z)

2013-10-29 1 min read Alphabet Lists Marco

Letter	Main Candidate	Secondary	Comments
A	Augustus		First official emperor
B	Brutus		Killer of Caesar
C	Caesar		First unofficial emperor
D	Diocletian		Ruled over the Empire at its largest extent
E	Eusebius		First chronicler of the Christian Church
F	Flavius	Fabius	Both are names of gentes, the aristocratic families of Rome
G	Germanicus		Father of crazy Caligula
H	Hadrianus		Roman emperor, usually spelled Hadrian in English
I	Irenaeus		Church theologian
J	Julius		Name of the gens to which Caesar belonged
K	–
L	Livius		Name of a gens, made famous by the historian that goes by its name
M	Marcus		Common name (see Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Antonius) derived from Mars
N	Nero		Emperor famous for burning down Rome
O	Octavius		Common name, for the eight-born
P	Pompeius		Another gens, made famous by several Romans (Pompey)
Q	Quintus		Common name, for the fifth-born
R	Romulus		The founder of Rome
S	Scipio	Sextus, Septimus	A gens made famous by the winner against Carthage
T	Titus	Traianus	Early Roman emperor
U	Ulpius		Gens to which the emperor Trajan belonged
V	Valens		Late emperor, captured by the Persians
W	–
X	–
Y	–
Z	–

Countries (No W, X)

2013-10-28 1 min read Alphabet Lists Marco

The usual fiend of alphabet lists, Q is well served. But for the life of me there seems to be no W or X? Continue reading

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