Modern automobiles are quite amazing. Computerized everything, GPS, less pollution, more power from smaller engines, incredible reliability, and comfort and amenities galore.

I propose one more gadget: some kind of day-and-night vision critter radar. With all of this great technology there still isn’t any way to keep deer off the roads, so I want a gadget that will detect the darn things before I flatten them. Twice this year already I’ve hit deer. The first one was just a nudge, and I hope the fool critter learned a lesson. But the second one was pancaked- 6500 pounds of diesel pickup at 45mph is unforgiving. (At least it was quick, a small mercy.)

Folks out here know to watch out for deer. During the fall hunting season, and early spring when they’re coming down out of the hills to eat the new grass we’re on high alert. We know they’re going to be crossing the highway. But no matter how careful we are, some collisions are unavoidable. It feels awful to hurt or kill a deer this way.

So what do you think, geeks and gurus? Would some kind of critter radar, especially something that works at night and in bad weather, be practical? You can buy a fish- and depth-finder for boats for under $100, why not something similar for land animals? It would sure save a lot of heartache.

Anyone thinking of suggesting those little sonic deer-repellers that mount on the front of your vehicle, nice thought. Unfortunately they don’t work.

This inspires another thought- if natural selection really works, shouldn’t all wild animals be vehicle-savvy by now? Haven’t the dummies been killed off before reproducing?

Would some kind of critter radar for vehicles, something that works day and night and in bad weather, be practical?

Related link: http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/03/09/tuning-kubuntu.html

All Linuxes are good, but I confess I am developing a special fondness for Ubuntu. It still has some rough edges, but the Ubuntu team is doing some very nice things, and it has already inspired a number of other projects, like Kubuntu and Edubuntu. There are a number of non-English derivatives, like Guadalinux (Spanish), Ufficio Zero (Italian version designed for office users), and Finnish and Taiwanese editions. The Accessible Live CD tries to assist vision and hearing-impaired users, and there is even Ubuntu for HP Laptops.

Pretty amazing stuff. You sure don’t see this kind of creativity and usefulness in the straitjacketed proprietary world.

Related link: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bug/1

This is one of more amusing bug reports I’ve ever seen:

“Bug #1 in Ubuntu: “Microsoft has a majority market share”
Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace. This is a bug, which Ubuntu is designed to fix.”

Take a cruise through the comments to see interesting perspectives from all over the world.

And, while I’m on the subject of amusing links, how about this one:
“Learning Curves for some Common Editors”

The fine folks behind the scenes are giving the O’Reilly Weblogs a major overhaul, so mind the dust.

Last month I wrote about buying a shiny new digital camera, and figuring out what computing platform to use for digital editing and archiving. Much to my shame, I actually tried Windows first. That didn’t work very well. Then I thought, well hey, Macs are way cool and this kind of work is just what Macs excel at.

Well, I still don’t own a Mac, as lovely and tempting as they are. Linux is working out great for my needs. Here’s a quick outline.

A key step was upgrading my PC. It had an 800mhz Duron and a puny 256 megs of RAM, which simply wasn’t going to cut it for photo editing. Now it boasts a 64-bit 3400 Sempron, 1 gig RAM, a new DVD writer, a shiny new 80-gig SATA drive, and a front-panel USB/Firewire/Smart Card panel. And a lovely quiet Thermaltake 430-watt power supply, with the best cable-wraps I ever saw. They look like snakeskin, and make it very easy to keep the power cables tidy.

After all that, I simply could not connect it to my old fading 17″ CRT, so I bought a 19″ ViewSonic flat-panel, the VA912b. I love this monitor- great color saturation, no dead pixels, built-in (tinny cheap) speakers, and it included both a DSUB and DVI cable. Of course this required a new video card, so I got a deal on a eVGA NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 256 MB AGP, which packs more horsepower than my first three PCs. Yes, I know that PCI-E is teh hawt, but my mobo does not support it. This card has wonderful 2D performance with the native Linux drivers. For 3D you need the Nvidia drivers. With LCDs get a DVI card for the best sharpness and least ghosting.

I like the KDE desktop and Debian, so I installed 64-bit Kubuntu. The Konqueror file manager is the best file manager on any platform. I plug in my camera card, and Konqueror creates a thumbnail preview. The I dump all images onto the computer for editing, an easy drag n drop, and very fast over USB 2.0.

While still in Konqueror I delete the pictures I don’t want, turn sideways pics around the right way, and move them into other folders. For editing, simply right-click to call up whatever editor I want, either the Gimp or Krita.

For making Web galleries, you can’t beat Album. (If you use it and like it, click the PayPal link and send the author a few bucks.) Album makes thumbnails, resizes, links everything conveniently, and comes with themes for dressing up your site.

Printing is the one area where I blew it. I did not shop carefully enough for a nice color photo printer. I bought a Canon Pixma, which is a great little printer, but its Linux support is not very good. I also have an Epson CX4800 scanner/printer which does horrible Linux printing, but makes great scans in Linux with XSane or Kooka. I will either purchase a new Samsung or Hewlett-Packard printer, since both have extensive lines of good Linux-supported printers, or I may just buy Turbo-Print for $30, since it supports both printers.

For future expansion I already have EVMS (Enterprise Volume Management System) set up, so adding new drives and shuffling storage volumes around will be as easy as falling asleep.

So after a few false starts, I’m back on track. Stay tuned for links to pages and pages of entertaining cat pics.