badblocks

2007-02-23T00:22:00.000-08:00

Weird

GMO cat anyone? Allerca has what the cat allergic have been yearning for, the hypo-allergenic cat. It's a lifestyle pet.

2007-02-15T06:59:00.000-08:00

Camera Citizens Arrest.

While reading the Crypto-Gram this morning I clicked through to a suitably_flip blog posting that ponders a New York implementation of image technology in 911 call centers. Great idea? I'd like to think so. Time will tell, and for now it seems the positives outweight the negatives. Schneier makes a good point in that 911 abuse is in itself a crime which should deter people misusing this service. There is though still, a potential for strangeness. Interesting though, welcome to the 21st century.

2007-02-11T07:55:00.000-08:00

The SIOP

A morning filled with reading about Mutual Assured Destruction is a sobering way to start the day. Single Integrated Operational Plan is the outcome of the President (USA) deciding who should be bombed, handing it to his Sec Def who then filters and refines it then hands it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The JCS then churn out a Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan which is finally converted into the good times targeting orders for nuclear strike. Just in case you thought it went out the door with the Cold War, It did not. Aides still pack the "football" for the President, the 40 lb emergency satchel for war communication. Jimmy Carter is one of the few Presidents in office since SIOP's have been around to really read and understand (he was the commander of a nuclear sub) the directives contained in the football. He ordered from that point on a summary be included. A former aide compared it to nuclear targeting options served up Denny's menu style.

Well, I suppose shrub has his favorites picked out already then.

2007-02-06T06:56:00.000-08:00

Siberia for pirating software.

Teachers are vile scum, we all have to know this. Fisrt it was the pr0n spewing laptop in a classroom and now its outright theft of Microsoft's bread and butter. marketwatch.com for the story of a Russian teacher looking at doing time in the crappy frozen North of Siberia. I'd like to know more about this as it goes on. If the OS came with the boxen, WTF? Oh, and why is the teacher being nailed for something a school district or the state itself should be getting whacked for? By declining to get involved in matters, Microsoft lends even more weirdness to a story that is already laden with strange.

2007-02-04T08:47:00.000-08:00

PX 6105

Ah, Bill really lets it be known that he cares about users in some interesting inhouse mail. iowaconsumercase.org (link to exhibits of interest). PX 6105 may sound like an early Lucas production but it's really UncleBill showing that sharing is caring.

2007-01-31T20:16:00.000-08:00

Hostnames

Hostnames are fun. I like themes myself, others like more impersonal things like numbers. In Hawaii while working I was told that the hostnames I had for my home network was bad mana (pele, maui, kaneloa, nihoa). I like the Hawaiian island mythos, and am cursed for it. Anyway, here is a hostname discovered in the "wild" today, hi.ponten.retractable.baton.sodomy.is.good.for.you.thepiratebay.org

Good times.

2007-01-30T20:01:00.000-08:00

Etch

So what if it didn't freeze in December. It flat out rocks it. Yeah, it did have a locking up issue awhile back but an update fixed it! This has been a furious seeming time with 12 to 20 updates a day. Whats really sad? I think I have used aptitude maybe twice to do it. I am just using the little orange icon in the panel (XFCE4). Simple. I was showing a client around Synaptic last week and was really impressed with it. I am such an aptitude drone that I haven't used Synaptic much. I might (on my desktop) start using it all the time (/me dodges hurled trout). Now it's a matter of waiting for the freeze, not that I mind all the updates, really I don't. When it finally locks is when I can put it on my work box :)

Now off to fix the dual boot client laptop. Guess which OS won't boot? Hee.

2007-01-29T06:26:00.000-08:00

Pills

How long can you go through life eating 2400mg of Ibuprofen a day? Longer than eating 120mg/day of Oxycontin for sure but I still don't think the "ibu" is doing me any favors. My ears ring. Fucking pills.

Don't ever go logging, it'll kick your sorry ass. A money.cnn.com article states,

"Loggers recorded 85 fatalities in 2004, a rate of 92.4 deaths for every 100,000 workers, more than 22 times the rate among all workers. Loggers deal with tremendous weights when they fell trees and it's not always possible to know exactly where a tree will fall or when. Too, they often work on steep hillsides, in poor weather, and in a hurry."

No shit? The tree falling bit is nonsense. Personel who cut logs for a living know where the fuck they are putting sticks. Anyway, it is hazardous as hell and vicious on the human body. The price people pay for others to be able to wipe their ass, heh. Another article (carrerjournal.com) states logging (lumberjack is not a term a logger would ever use) to be the worst job you could land. Wow, I suppose one one hand I agree, on another level though it was a good thing. the sheer hellishness made it a good crucible. And when you can be good at something most people can't last a day at, you feel as if you are part of something else. Everyone else is a "flatlander" when you spend your days on 70 percent slopes playing pickup sticks...

No matter, my cervical and lumbar spine regret every miniute of it no matter how "manly" it was.

Don't go logging, it'll kick your sorry ass.

2007-01-13T08:28:00.000-08:00

Amero looks at 40 for pr0n.

Julie Amero, substitute teacher. She just got convicted of doing harm to minors by showing them pornographic images. norwichbulletin for story.

She is looking at 40 years for not pulling a plug. Wow. She is not denying anything other than it was intentional. Is she a total newb language teacher, who without having priv stripped from their accounts will have any box they touch owned in like 15 min. Seems to be. Or she is, and so is the person she was subbing for - thus the machine was riddled. I don't believe the police expert knows what he's speaking of as I know how hard it can be to really pin point the source and full behavior of malware on an infected machine. Read about rootkits if you don't believe me. So, the amount of money they spent on assurance is pretty low (assumption, local police looked at the box). This is for assurance that Amero "did it". How much do you think a Norwich computer cop makes? Right. People who find rootkits cost a lot of money. Some of them make what I do in a month in one day. I seriously doubt there was anyone of that caliber weighing in on the decisions made about Amero's life. The "You have to physically click something, she's guilty." argument is lame and reeks of diliberate ignorance. The whole thing, which should have warranted a health teacher coming in and discussing masturbation and what not, is so tragic and wrong on so many levels. Really just fucking painful.

2007-01-09T23:53:00.000-08:00

Songbird.

What a cool concept for a media player. It's a developer build but I like it. It scans web pages for playlists and songs to play. Fascinating, really. I played some of the mp3's and ogg's I have locally, tried out ktuh, last.fm and shoutcast. Songbird rocks it. I can't wait for 1.0!

2007-01-09T23:14:00.000-08:00

Ooooooooooh.

I like music. I really like nice applications that help me listen to said music. Being of a slightly masochistic bent I am going to try a developer release of something that looks really damn cool. Songbird. Get it here, songbirdnest.com if you want to try the dev version out. The ready for prime time is going to be 1.0, out later this year. Anyway, off to untar it and see how it works.

Funny how some nights bedtime gets pushed back further and further.

2007-01-09T22:29:00.000-08:00

Last Call

I honestly think that Eric Raymond knows wtf he is talking about when he states that time has come for Desktop Linux to get it on. This is, as I have heard certain Eastern leaning friends utter, an auspicious time. That things are close isn't going to mean a damn thing either. Maybe it will be as Mr. Raymond states a shift to 64 bit platforms (or maybe even something like cell procs) in everything, whatever. I hope Linux runs on it and Flash has been ported. Java too.

It helps the Empire (tm) has just released what to me seems a triumph of fellatio unto major media, Vista. Hours stacked on hours for years of development time culminates in Vista. What have to be some of the most brilliant people in the world punching a clock, making sure you can't look at digitally protected content if you don't have rights to it. The technical aspects of it when explained, like here at this cs.auckland.ac.nz page, are crazy. Really. Every cost will be borne by the consumer too. If thats not enough, even if you do "own" the media it still might not play because something in the chain of devices you own can't ensure untampered delivery and Vista will refuse to play it. business.timesonline.uk for article. Do you like PC games? Read at gamasutra.com for the possible love to be felt.

There is always Mac right? I keep hearing "it just works" from the Mac people. Thats cool. Today I quipped "It just works, because we own it all". Apple is in it to own whatever it can. Your rights included. The right to spend $$$ on whatever new thing that has been discovered packaged and slaped onto your ipod by the mothership. We get to feel like we are free because all the Apple crap is shiny and really ergo. Wee.

There are gaps in FOSS software. Huge gaps. I have had to labor many hours on various boxen to make them even close to workable desktops. I have had no issue doing this either, I like doing it. I can see though where the less curious and might have a life crowd might get behind "it just works", yeah. But does anything really ever just work? I am digressing, Linux on the desktop? I'd love to see it, and it's rocking it hard. Will it happen?... That's going to depend on so many things that Aptitude might puke. :) Even though some distros are getting close, someone has got to step up and ask "who's coming in second?", then get it on. Everyone may not love Eric Raymond (I know, painful.) but he has a really valid point. If the FOSS community wants it, we'd better get it.

Coup it up!

2007-01-03T19:16:00.000-08:00

blog applet test.

Debian Etch desktop now. I think I am going to go back to Debian proper for awhile. Till I can load a working GNU/Hurd damnit. So this is a test of my lamer blog applet that allows for ultimate sloth.

2006-11-10T10:33:00.000-08:00

HST 2002.

Via loosechange911.com here (mp3 here) Hunter S. Thompson talks about America and 9/11. Interview from 2002. Who knows really what went down, I doubt we ever will. This is just an unfortunate time in American history, as bad as Vietnam and in the long run possibly worse. It truly is a band of thugs who have grabbed the reigns this last 6 years. Well, at least it seems to be winding down. maybe with the shift of the House and Senate here in the states Bush will become a serious lame duck. Not that it will right the wrongs perpetuated by these fixers but maybe it will slow some of this martial law crap that's been dumped on us. Anyway, it's a good interview with Thompson, you might want to check it out.

2006-11-05T18:02:00.000-08:00

Finance software.

Gnucash is overkill for me. I am too simple minded. I was delighted to hear about HomeBank. HomeBank homepage. Simple things for simple minds so it goes and that's all this app is. There is nothing wrong with Gnucash but it's way to much for me. I managed to crash it (HomeBank) once but everything I had saved was truly saved. No harm done, it's free software. The "Ubuntu" version (the deb :) worked like a charm too. I think it's cool development began on it in '95. On Amiga. heh. Anyway if you are running Linux and want simple home finance you should check it out.

2006-11-02T07:52:00.000-08:00

Proof that Humanity will kill itself off.

If you needed any more proof that Humanity would off itself, wait no more. Go read about viral fossils and what silly humans do with them in this article at sciencemag.org

2006-10-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

Rendition, what a creepy word.

This article over at VillageVoice (villagevoice.com) is a must read IMHO. Our fucking lowlife government here in the US is so beyond the pale of rightness. It's like the McCarthy era just jumped back to life here for the last six years. Go planespotters.

2006-10-20T11:44:00.000-07:00

Funny Things

One of the funniest cartoons I have seen in awhile. I guess it just shows where my mind is at. Read the Bill Joy Wired.com article called "Why the future doesn't need us". I guess I see why the Matrix was so creepy. All along I never put the Singularity together until I read Joy's article the other night, but I felt that there was something to that movie. Having it spelled out for me by Mr. Joy really made this concept gel. Yeah, this shit we make is too fragile and not well enough thought out before it's pushed into production. Software breaks all the time and yet humans think that they have the ability to control an AI with access to assembler technology someday. We, I guess deserve to die off if it comes to pass that we do build nurture and unleash some fantastic AI and give it tools to reproduce. Far from being a Luddite I work with computers every day and I don't think I will be smashing them to bits upon encountering them now that I know about the Singularity. I am though certain that something trick will happen and if it destroys all of Humanity well, maybe I'll get to see it go down. But on that note, I really hope that it doesn't happen. Check out Mr. Joy's article over at Wired if you haven't. Worthy read.

2006-10-15T05:55:00.000-07:00

Gnome Blog Applet & XFCE

Took me long enough. I haven't been using Gnome for the past four months. Every once and awhile I would think about getting it into a panel and then promptly forget about it. There has been much going on in life lately. The bummer is it's mostly been medical, involving my neck and brutal headaches. No matter the happenings I have things to be thankful for. Since I have the Blog Applet back I can post more about some of the fascinating insanity I have have a chance to be party to.

Right now I am bummed that there is no SPARC port for Fedora Directory Server. That is my current thought. That and the Live at Irvine Sonic Youth I am listening to is not too shabby. Oh well. OpenLDAP it is for the SPARC. Just installed Sleepycat but it's the wrong version. I need to go back and read the fine manual again then go grab the right one to build. This will be for a Hula box, personal use.

Work is work right now which is a bummer. Being in chronic pain has made work a challenge on a good day. The company is growing though and I have seen a lot of exciting proposals go out the door. More people in systems now, in just 2 months 2 people. Hopefully both full time and fast! That's been some of the best news in my professional life period though. We needed more hands on the systems side, I have confidence sales can keeps it going. We are becoming so "real".

Well, enough of that. We are so real I just remembered some of that reality that needs taking care of =)

Oh, and XFCE rocks. Go Ubuntu.

2006-07-02T09:52:00.000-07:00

Sprint website crashes Firefox and Epiphany. And then it doesn't

Which sucks because I have to pay my phone bill. Looks like I will be calling in response to the friendly text message sent by them this morning.

Weird, i have used FF under Linux before no issues at all,

Oh, and now the browser won't crash! Changed my password. Sprint has a lame 6 to 8 char rule for web account passwords. Why don't they at least provide you with the ability to generate a strong password I don't know. Maybe they are just apathetic and figure most people will default to the shitty 6 char password they use on 12 different accounts anyway so why bother. Still crappy.

Anyway back to Firefox and Epiphany. That was weird.

2006-07-02T07:38:00.000-07:00

Will anyone notice?

Could be that the NSA and ATT,Inc. might have been talking about monitoring before September 11 2001.

Mr.Bush's admin team has argued that this became necessary after 9/11...

If there is any decency left anywhere, this will be real and Bush Co. revealed as the greedy swine that they truly are.

The story, "Spy Agency Sought U.S. Call Records Before 9/11, Lawyers Say" is at Bloomberg.

2006-06-18T02:21:00.000-07:00

Spread the Word.

Exercise the finger dialing and vocal cords while speaking to your favorite (or despised) Representative to government about the Corruptibles (eff). And get the word out!

2006-05-20T08:55:00.000-07:00

OpenOffice Anyone?

Why touch MS Word with a ten foot pole even? I was just looking around for tools to put on a thumb drive this morning and holy crap, there have been headlines all over about a new "zero day" exploit in MS Word. Story@incidents.org

Now might be a good time for people to start trying OpenOffice. Might save your machine (for a while anyway =) which in turn saves you heartache.

Of course there's always Ubuntu...

2006-05-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

NSA and we the people.

We have all heard about the NSA and the current administrations auth'ing the use of questionable wiretapping techniques right? WiredNews has this update on the debacle that is our privacy... The EFF page on it goes into the specifics of it.

Serious indeed. If you care at all about your privacy and your right to it, support the EFF. Send them ten buck even, small price for "freedom" whatever that means.

Now back to your regular programming.

2006-05-08T22:10:00.000-07:00

Mandelbrot sets rock.

I was reading about OpenVZ at DebianPlanet and somehow got into Mandelbrot sets. Damn if fractals aren't cool... Check this out, this person is a Debian Maintainer. Personal website is joachim-reichel.de, now check out the Mandelbrot set link, middle top of page. That's a kick ass image.

Anyway...Work is busy. Weather here has been pretty nice. Back to OpenVZ, the whole virtualization trip is where it's at. After using VMWare at work I can see the benefits of it and the bummer of compromise. Don't get me wrong, hardware virtualization is a beautiful thing. Being able to have Windows hosts and not have to sacrifice box space for it is a boon. Just that someone thought up a way to fool an OS into thinking it was running on made up hardware is... well phenomenal IMHO. But there are 3 types of virtualization variants Virtual Machines (like VMWare), ParaVirtualized Machines (like Xen) and Virtualization on the OS (like OpenVZ). From what I am reading though, the hot tip (if you just want to run Linux hosts, which I do) is the last of the 3. Kernel sharing between distributions! That's just really cool. The "Features" page at OpenVZ for more description.

I was wondering what my next box was going to be, you know mentally spec'ing parts... If I just build a screamer I can have 2 or 3 hosts. Ubuntu, Debian (go Etch!) and most likely CentOS (everybody runs RedHat :) Oooooh. Those would be just the GUI enabled hosts... heh.

2006-04-28T16:38:00.000-07:00

sleep is rad.

it was really nice to wake up at 7 and go back to sleep. until noon. I went to Powell's yesterday picked up Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Mosquito Coast and of all things Conan #7, it contains the story Red Nails... For some reason the Black cover of RaFotTR, resplendent with its large swastika creeped me out. I went ahead and threw it out, I am more comfortable with the mini iron crosses on the spine.

Headed to a lookout cabin for purge time. Massage is lined up. maybe the kink in my shoulder that's making my left arm go numb will take a hike... anyway, time off was a key ingredient to sanity. The weather is beautiful, funny I am getting more sunlight than I did in the middle of the Pacific.

Need to pack coffee...

2006-04-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

Molokai

It's a damn good thing I grew up on O'ahu (I lived there from 3 yrs to 17 yrs old) because working here on Molokai has been just that, work. We have been anchored to this office since we got here (we arrived on the 11th), that's without letup. The fucking hardware vendor (Microtech Systems on Grand Ave. in Portland, Oregon)... The vendor says Linux compat... boxes arrive on the 14th... Thats when the real work began. The boxen are not Linux compat, no way. From SATA hell to onboard Ethernet dying these boxen were shit form the get go. This is with SLES (SuSE Enterprise) as we were plotting a Windows to Novell migration. So things look grim right off the get go, we bail to CentOS which was a little better (read Ethernet and raid1 worked but not raid5) but then we ran into issues with Novell and their brand of proprietary crap... I was a fan but if you can't drop ZenWorks and GroupWise onto a CentOS box, screw that. Scope change almost every fucking day here. We punted. Thanks and props to the Zimbra people. We migrated all their Echange mail to Zimbra in one fell swoop (even the 67,000 messg. mailbox that took me 14 hours to backup and test restore from), so there was a glimmer of hope here... My lead in engineering and I have loaded Linux so many fucking times my head is swimming. All because of hardware... well SLES shares some of the blame, if they used a slightly newer kernel it might not have been so bad, still though the vendor back in Portland is ignorant of what Linux compat is. Anyway, Molokai looks to be beautiful, I remember it as a child and not much has changed (in Kaunakakai anyhow =), but damn i was hoping to at least get sunburned... just a little. maybe next time I'll come to vacation.

2006-04-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

wow.

Now we can be really introverted and uncommunicative. Good old MIT and The Emotion Reader.

2006-04-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

Total pain in the ass.

One more reason to try and avoid products from the Empire; Rootkits (link is to eweek.com article) on any system are a bad thing. Having to "nuke" your OS every month would suck. Anyway, good idea though about rapid imaging of machines.

2006-04-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

Dawn Patrol

My freaking spine has decided to subside with the nerve impingement routine. That's happy making. As I pull dawn patrol this morning, I have this to link to, screenshot. Its a shot of a Firefox window. "The clutter...the clutter." This morning is a good time to practice being positive too. I awoke a negative human. Why that is lately is a mystery to me, life is pretty cool right now. Anyway other good Firefox links came my way this morning by way of diggnation post on Optimizing Firefox. Lets face it, it (FF) is a memory eater. Under Debian/Ubuntu it crashes rarely but it can (usually when it's 25 + tabs for me)... this weblog post from mozillazine is interesting and funny too, I love comments sections sometimes.

Lastfm still continues to impress. I had to edit about:config, adding;

network.protocol-handler.app.lastfm

Handler needs a value that points to the application so under value I pointed it at ~/Lastfm-1.1.4/player. Bliss.

I might even subscribe, works out to 36 USD a year. Not too bad, although I did laugh when I read by subscribing you got to beta test as well. But for now this is a worthy free service to check out.

2006-03-25T18:01:00.000-08:00

Old Injuries.

Manual labor has destroyed my body. Manual labor and the stupid "Be a man" attitude. I have two herniated disks in my lower back, L4 and L5. I about lost my left hand, it was sewn back on but the Ulnar side of it has little sensation and is hooked... Profession? Logger. Just about as punishing a job as you can find for sheer abuse, especially if you "work it". My lower back gives me the most hassle and it is right now. I had to ask one of my roommates (who happens to be my boss/lead in the engineering dept.) to take me to the hospital early last week because I was having a hard time walking. Due to the disk damage my vertebra don't stay aligned anymore. This causes nerve impingement, which if you ask me, sucks ass.

So here I am about 5 days later, eating steroids (Prednizone) and pain medication (Hydrocodone), lying in bed with my laptop on a sort of "breakfast in bed" stand. I had to do field work on Friday and it about killed me. I am though, fortunate that I do have the job I do now. That and it was only one day last week that I had to get out of bed. The advantages of telecommuting have paid off for me. At least I'm not dragging these dog's around anymore. Nor packing blocks and other assorted heavy crap associated with setting up a Yarder.

No real meaning to this post I suppose, just some ex-logger ranting. There is so much more I want to spill about how workers are fucked over by their employers and workman's compensation... Kinked doctors who are on the take, lack of socialized medicine and depression but what the fuck...

Because I can work in bed.

2006-03-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

Random

Who the hell would buy anything from these assholes?

I woke up this morning, fumbled around for coffee and fired up a browser... Digg ( http:digg.com ) has a link to a Forbes article about the empire letting 'Vista" slip yet again. Now this is nothing new in the world of software, things get delayed because of various reasons, mainly things are broken. But there is glee in my heart when it MS we are talking about and Daniel Lyons at Forbes skewers the Redmond shibboleth (not to be confused with authentication software =). I quote the article;

"Microsoft execs also talked about "Impacting People," then they dragged out fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger, who seemed very "impacted" as he sang praise for Microsoft programs. Actually, he was reading meaningless statements from a TelePrompTer. Here is one of his quotes, verbatim: "When you combine people and technology, you have a very powerful combination." Think about that. Just let it sink in for a minute."

I didn't even have to think about that before reaching for the puke bucket. What the hell? Meaningless sound bites and Microsoft are hand in hand, about the same caliber as the current administration too. Anyway Vista is crapware, I have tried it and it was a healthy XP facelift for the most part. A Windows/Cisco person who I have had the genuine pleasue of working with the past couple of weeks summed it up best...

" All they do is move things around so I can't find them for awhile, I'm stuck with the same tools, just in a different wrapper."

5 or is it 6 different versions too, to lock you into your little computerized caste system. This shit blows and people keep shelling out the cash... Well their software may suck but they have some damn good marketing, and that's what it seems people are into... You want a crappy lock-in product with miserable licensing? it'll be here sometime January, knock yourselves out.

2006-03-09T08:13:00.000-08:00

Music.

Oh yeah =)

Music, I was going to go on about it in my last post... I just discovered LastFM and am coming around to "social bookmarking". Based on Audioscrobbler it is, fairly painless to install the player and plugins, best of all, a charge of music is available to listen to. A plethora... Really. I must have listened to the goa trance tag for 14 hours yesterday and ... wow, very few songs were repeated. the (lamely labled) "indie rock" tag is pretty good, Sonic Youth is playing right now, that's rare shit. gratuitous screen of my SuSE box and LastFM player, tag page is loaded in the browser.

2006-03-09T07:15:00.000-08:00

D&D Online... SuSE

In the something to yearn for dept. is the new D&D Online. Absolutely cool. Alas I can't go there... I would be a junkie no doubt about it =) But what a time it would be. I am a Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights fan. Not that I have much time to go there but it's fun when I do. Oh yeah, here is the link to Dungeons & Dragons Online. Possibly when it's ported to Linux I will, er... um "sacrifice" a few weekends.

I captured a screen in which one of the game shots is a background, nice and moody. Good compliment to the Tactile/SmoothGnome. BTW, yes it is a SuSE/Novell box.

As an Debian/Ubuntu person I was reluctant to have an RPM based box around but we are rolling Novell for a client. I grabbed the OpenSuSE 10.0 iso and although a painfully long process the box loaded without issue. For the first two weeks of it's life I thrashed around with eDirectory and ConsoleOne, eventually liking the ability to grab a Yast package of eDirectory amd being a GUI drone =)

Non-GPL kernel due to Nvidia and my lust for 3D but hey, the Novell stuff isn't what I would call free as in anything.

It's running well though, some minor issues but what distro doesn't have them? All in all OpenSuSE stacks up and I think I will keep the box loaded the way it is (for awhile anyway).

2006-02-10T18:48:00.000-08:00

So we all might die =)

No really. Looks like a big asteroid (2km) is set to smack Earth around August. Link to translated page.

2006-02-02T09:18:00.000-08:00

Abramoff.

There is a Jack Abramoff page over at the NYTimes. ( tinyurl http://tinyurl.com/758jw ). Aside from being the catch all for "the dirt" that is floating to the surface in this case there is a great .pdf chart thingie for our collective viewing. The URI is for a javascript pop up so I won't fiddle with it. If you go to the page linked to above you will then see a "Multimedia" heading and a link to DeLay-Abramoff pdf. Well put together and flat scary. Seems more and more is coming to light about our government in general lately. We need a second party here in the states... Hell we need 20, maybe things would be a bit more honest that way.

2006-01-24T09:56:00.000-08:00

Oh the joy of Monsanto.

I was made aware of the GM (Genetically Modified, sometimes known as Transgenic) Papaya issues in Hawaii last year by a friend who like myself grew up there. Both of us (even if I am a Haole Boy =) have strong ties to the islands having spent our youth surrounded by the beauty of the place. I started to do a little reading about it... Pretty grim. Just like farmers on the mainland, farmers in Hawaii are getting screwed over by big industry. In the case of Papaya the name doing the screwing is Monsanto. This archived article is a good intro to the issue. Another article here with interesting numbers (esp. because it's 2 years dated)... Psssst. When farmers are getting the shaft people so are we. Just say no to GMO.

2006-01-24T09:35:00.000-08:00

blog of the dead

That's me, the dead. Lately it seems like I have a lot to blog about but no time to do it. Seems like it anyway, which I know is complete drivel. I am going to convert over to the hoards of GTD. Getting Things Done. I have to... Life is becoming painful without a bombproof system to keep track of everything that goes on around me.

2005-12-23T14:29:00.000-08:00

Thinkpad

OpenSourcery picked up a slightly used IBM Thinkpad T30 to replace my Dell. The Dell ( four year old machine ) had a beautiful 1600x1200 display going for it but everything else was croaking.

So the technical specs on the box are pretty common nowadays. Intel Pentium4 2.0 proc. 512M of memory with a 60GB hard disk. PCMCIA (2 slots, nice sheltered bay), sound is Intel as well stock 82801 audio controller. DVD-RW is a HL-DT-ST RW/DVD. 2 USB, Ethernet and modem (Intel). No floppy. Really a nice box.

Loaded Ubuntu Breezy on it without issues. dmesg |head though reveals a bunch of errors getting information at the beginning of startup, where proc info usually is. cat /etc/proc returns all the cpu info and the proc even frequency throttles. So when I have a bit more time I'll look into that.

The hot tip for me anymore is having a handy home directory backup to push onto a fresh install. The Dell really taught me that as it's hard disk was failing :) After the initial load of the os and tools it's a quick 20 min rsync and I'm working again. I do have to reinstall things like Tomboy, Gkrellm, Gnome-Blog, some assorted network and admin tools, really an easy solution and by using the -a option with rsync it archives all permissions.

Ooooooooh, the Thinkpad has a little LED in the screen bezel. Activated by Fn PgUp. Excellent idea! Beats having to plug in a USB light. Volume keys are hardware too, mute, vol-up and vol-down... Heh, it was like early commercialismas for me.

2005-12-20T08:24:00.000-08:00

Is Wikipedia Doomed?

Wired.com News reports wikipedia founder (co-founder) Jimmy Wales finds himself answering more questions about people self-editing profiles. First Adam Curry and podcasting's origins to now Mr. Wales himself and wikipedia's origins.

Article is at wired.com/news

How much more can wikipedia take in the form of credibility hits? I honestly do think that it is a self-fixing system and that all the eyes reading those pages are going to mean accuracy is eventually reached. I say eventually because it does take time for self correction to occur. So maybe less popular topics don't get straightened out as quickly but they will. The more people using it (and editing it) the more of a resource it becomes.

Will non-geek types see and perceive this? I suppose that's left to be seen and speculation is silly at this point. Wales preached, "self edits can cause loss of dignity." hee. That has to hurt the ego something nasty.

I really bet he wishes he'd not gotten caught. I really wish he hadn't done it in the first place, perceptions of wikipedia are not helped by activity like this... And if wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets. Time will tell.

2005-12-20T06:55:00.000-08:00

City of Night - Online

Can't think of much else to say about this NYTimes article (tinyurl; http://tinyurl.com/8fw42) except... Wow. Smart kid discovers cash cow. I think I can't be anymore surprised with humanities depravity and lo, wonder of wonders I am amazed.

To the pedophiles. We aren't supposed to do this to children. Get some help, quit meeting with the bro's to plot strategy... Disengage from the pipe. You people are ruining lives by perpetuating this culture. If you don't care, well... Karma has ways of dealing with that. And of course I have to add you are fucking shit up for the rest of us concerning computer use and freedom of speech issues. If you can't help yourself you need to get rid of the always on cable/DSL connection, AutoClave those pr0n filled drives and ditch the box.

To the other camwhores. Wait till you are adults (much older adults I hope), then make the decision. Simple rule of thumb, compromising photos and or video can really bite you in the ass. Aside from that, only if your life plans include overdosing on [narcotic-of-choice] while inserting things into bodily orifices in front of a webcam should you continue down this road. Really, there is no glamor in what you are doing, money yes but the hell it's going to buy in your head can't be cheap.

2005-12-06T06:15:00.000-08:00

Money Laundering.

I awoke this morning to the New York Times announcing a Judge has dismissed the conspiracy charges against Tom "The Hammer" DeLay. The article is here (tinyurl) at the NYT Online (mildly painful registration required).

"Conspiracy to violate the election code by making an illegal corporate contribution." Those are the charges that were dropped.

"Money laundering and conspiracy to launder money." Are the charges that remain. The defence seeks to have these dropped as well via a charge of "prosecutorial misconduct."

I can't believe that in the midst of this the swine are having fund raisers that quote, " the most successful ever for the congressman." No figures released though...

DeLay is a thug and a fixer. I'm not saying the rest of the crew (both sides of the aisle) are any better but DeLay is so tied up in the Abramoff fall out that he is damaged goods.

I hope this is the beginning of some kind of awakening here. Combine Cunningham's flaming exit from office with this kind of trial and people might just start to wonder...

Here's to better days people, better days.

2005-11-26T18:49:00.000-08:00

Beer helps fight cancer?

Xanthohumol, found in hops and thusly in beer is found to fight cancer. Biologynews.net story here.

Microsoft plays Karl Rove. It's discredit time in Massachusetts after OpenDocument adaptation. The guys boss is defending him for crying out loud... More here at O'Reillynet.

I haven't read anything at Slate for at least 2 years. This first Slate link is just saddening. That a gang of fixers could do what they did is amazing. Goes to show that public relations - marketing can legitimize anything. Second Slate link was ok... I don't really agree with embellishment like "touchy-feely hype" and don't understand how it fits in but whatever. Drills down to something people think but never remember, when _was_ the last time Microsoft released anything revolutionary? Where is innovation in that environment?

2005-11-26T10:26:00.000-08:00

The World, Micro$oft style.

Holiday came and went (Thanksgiving here in the US) and I managed to stay away from email and web browsers for a whole 36 hours =)

"What has been going on in the world?" I mused, firing up the laptop. Point the browser to lxer.com and what do you know? Microsoft mouthpiece claiming Linux is anti-commercial...

No big news right? Well check it out. ZDNet (UK) has fleshed it out a bit. M$ can't figure out how to make money off OpenSource software. Must be anti-commercial! Hell, if you can't rape some West African for 20 percent of their annual wage for Windows 98 (5 buck out of an estimated $160.00/year) then what's the point right? FirstMonday has a good write-up (with a chart illustrating license fee relative to GDP/capita). Lets just strike this uncomfortable making wording from a United Nations recommendation paper... It's about an American export right? As an American I should be happy right? I'm not though. Our governments courtship and subsequent lovefest with Microsoft will act just like our blind support of Israel. People literally hate us. We don't push freedom people, we (Americans) push the exploitation of all comers (even ourselves) to make an "honest" dollar. How many of you relish the thought of getting shafted day in and day out? I'll guess and say not many. On a daily basis though world wide this arrogant, bloated anti-human abstraction called a corporation grinds away at choice while trying to make you think you are making one.

Microsoft will claim "all good for capitalism!" heap more dirt on OpenSource and move along, hoping their paid government lackeys ( lxer.com - newswire archive ) can hold the fort against the people... That was not a typo. Our government is doing the enforcer work here people. Governments around the globe, US in particular. The corporation that is Microsoft is trying to lock us into something with the active help of our governments. Government is selling us out to the highest bidder people...

Some remark "Whats new?" because we are so inundated with horrific information that our jaded cynicism (highly refined because it's cool) couldn't care less about some inconsequential thing such as information freedom. Just computer geek turf wars. the Super Bowl seems so much more important than corporations acting on global domination fantasy. But that's the plan right? Co-opt cool... bundle it with conformity (how that's been pulled off is simply amazing) then seal it with visions of what we need to achieve the "American Dream (TM)."

If we don't wake up sometime, we (and all of our children) won't ever get the chance. It's not just Microsoft, it's the behemoth that corporate America has become. We all lost something when the Supreme Court ruled that corporations enjoy the same rights as individuals; thomhartmann.com (decent rundown on the happenings and happenings surrounding that ruling) illuminates. Corporations don't want us to think for ourselves. They want us all to think what they tell us. It works well too. Advertising works so well on me I can't be around television. Radio, print now viral marketing (where planted people make unassuming pitches for placed products). We all think so much about Home/Car payments, credit card payouts, making ends meet etc... That we don't notice the real threat, assimilation and lockdown.

Like Orwell wrote, (I'm paraphrasing) "The future of Humanity is a boot smashing a Human face, forever."

Cheers!