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27 December 2005

Front Page::Proposed tax change worries businesses

I am getting so sick and tired of all these assholes taxing everything. If it wasn't bad enough that we are being quadruple-taxed (or whatever, based on location) they go and start redefining words like Property and Theft.. Assholes. Maybe Dino was right - maybe politicians should take a vow of poverty.

Evil Avatar - PC Gamer UK Reveal New Introversion Title

I loved Uplink, and used to play Global ThermoNuclear War... wonder if this will be any good.

CNN.com - Hubble finds new moons, rings around Uranus - Dec 22, 2005

more! more! give me more! heh

23 December 2005

Slashdot | New Studies Doubt Mars Water Theory

So when even the opposition to a theory can't agree on what caused something... what stance do you personally take?

Slashdot | Ingredients of Life Found Around Sun-Like Star

This is very interesting... most interesting to me is: hydrogen cyanide combined with water form 1/4 of DNA bases? very odd.

Slashdot | Senate Proposes Patriot Act Extension

How can these people not realize that their own rights are at stake too? Do they think they are immune from secret wiretaps and holding without being charged? Maybe until they vote the wrong way. Maybe that is already the cause.

22 December 2005

Slashdot | France to Legalize File Sharing

Interesting... so, the Parliment isn't the government?

Slashdot | Dust Samples Returning to Earth at 28,860 mph

Couldn't these particles be modified by the extreme heat of entering the atmosphere at that speed?

Slashdot | Digital Content Security Act

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican, and Democratic Rep. John Conyers are obviously in the pockets of the MPAA. Wish there was a way to force bribed politicians out of office.

Senators propose taxing Internet shopping | Tech News on ZDNet

How greedy can politicians get....

1) I do not have to pay California taxes right now because I am not under California jurisdiction. California has no legal right to impose ANY law on me.
2) IF I had a store in California, then that store (and thus the business) would be under California jurisdiction. Then, I would be obliged to collect taxes.
3) Just because someone in California decides to place a phone call to me in Oregon (which is what DSL does) does not put me into California jurisdiction.
4) IF I was obliged to follow the tax laws for every state that I am not currently under jurisdiction of, then what is to stop individual communities from imposing their own? For example, if you sell libertarian books to the town of Nowheresville,TX (population 50) you are required to pay 90% sales tax on that item with a $2 million dollar fine for failure to do so -- what? you didn't know Nowheresville,TX had that law? well, that's your fault.
5) What piece of software are they going to force upon all business owners that: a) works on whatever computer/OS the business is running; b) has a solution for small businesses without computers; c) never crashes or fails; d) isn't proprietary; e) can't be hacked; f) is always up-to-date; g) integrates with all POS software currently in use; h) etc etc -- it's friggin stupid
6) Worried about loosing jobs overseas? This kind of law would encourage businesses to transfer their entire business. Since it is all online, it doesn't matter what country they are in.

Self-Aware Robots

When I saw the title of the article, I was awash with inspiration. Yay! Finally!

Reading the article, I had to wonder if all it was doing was determining how much delay the robot saw before the other responded. That would be analytical, but not self-awareness. Maybe a way to test that would be to put something in between itself and the mirror to distort it -- maybe something like time-delayed projection instead of a mirror....

The Digital Universe

PBS of the Web huh?
Could be useful.

But, making the assumption that a PhD knows more than non PhDs it not very accurate. While I agree they have went to more school, it is commonly the students showing the teachers they are wrong -- not other teachers.

Run Linux as a Windows Screensaver

interesting..... i think....

21 December 2005

friggin ASP crap

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

friggin ASP crap


Current mood: irritated

I am so friggin tired of windows-based servers, ASP and ColdFusion... why is it every time a website takes forever to load then crashes, it is ASP/ColdFusion. Screw this. I will keep the MySpace account to post to friend's blogs, but I am going back to Blogger. Hopefully, Google will get their act together and create an alternative to MySpace.

Richard Stallman: Hypocrite

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Richard Stallman: Hypocrite
Current mood: irritated

So I saw this article on Slashdot and thought I would share a few thoughts...

Freedom 2 is the freedom to copy and distribute the software as you wish. And freedom 3 is the freedom to create and distribute modified versions as you wish.

Interesting... since GPL specifically prevents me from making a modification and distributing under say, BSD license... doesn't sound like I can modify and distribute as I wish. Perhaps that means GPL doesn't comply with those Freedoms -- thus making GPL non-free software.

Non-free software, by contrast, keeps users divided and helpless. It is distributed in a social scheme designed to divide and subjugate.

Well, that makes sense. If it wasn't bad enough having OpenSource vs. Non-OpenSource, GPL has divided it between pro-GPL and anti-GPL OpenSource. Not only that, as can easily be seen in many Linux/GPL forums, there is a huge social clique of pro-GPL that look down on those that would rather make their software truly free (and actually follow those Freedoms they CLAIM to follow).

The developers of non-free software have power over their users, and they use this power to the detriment of users in various ways. It is common for non-free software to contain malicious features, features that exist not because the users want them, but because the developers want to force them on the users.

That is extremely funny, considering that the anti-GPL OpenSource followers don't like GPL because of its 'viral-effect'. If you want to reference any GPL software, you are forced to make your software GPL -- even if the developer didn't want to.

JP: What was your history with the free software movement?

RMS: I launched the movement in 1983 with a deliberate decision to develop a complete world of free software. The idea is not just to produce a scattering of free programs that were nice to use. Rather, the idea is to systematically build free software so that one can escape completely from non-free software. Non-free software is basically antisocial, it subjugates it users, and it should not exist. So what I wanted was to create a community in which it does not exist. A community where we would escape from non-free software into freedom.

You created it? Weird... I was using Public Domain before that -- which I usually got from wintelnet, which was a very large 'community' of sorts... more importantly, some of the operating systems that existed then (BSD?) are STILL more free than Linux is now.

In 1983 all operating systems were proprietary.

Interesting, since BSD came out in 1977 [source] and OpenVMS in 1978 [source]

A problem arises when people who might be sympathetic to our ethical position, but focus on other issues, fall into the habit of helping to pressure others into using non-free software.

It becomes an ethical issue when there is a restriction.

And yet, that is now the anti-GPL camp feels about the pro-GPL camp. They try to take choice away from us and force us to use a licensing scheme that limits people's freedoms.

There are some special circumstances. To develop GNU, I used Unix. But first, I thought about whether it would be ethical to do that.

And yet, earlier he said:

GNU stands for "GNU is Not Unix", and the most important thing about GNU is that it is not Unix. Unix is a non-free operating system, and you are not allowed to make a free version of Unix. We developed a free system that is like Unix, but not Unix. We wrote all the parts of it from scratch.

interesting. seems like those two statements conflict.

I'm a Liberal, in US terms (not Canadian terms). I'm against fascism.

And yet your whole movement is designed to take choice away from me and force me to always follow your little set of GPL rules. Sounds fascist.


Politics d'jour

Friday, December 16, 2005

Politics d'jour
Current mood: disappointed

Where to start?

The Patriot Act failed reauthorization. While I am sure people will make it out to be a "us vs. them" thing, it should be noted (per the article) that some republicans voted against it and some democrats voted to extend it. The comment about blaming democrats if it fails to go through is complete rubbish though... for those who don't remember why:

Benjamin Franklin:They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security
The fact is that anyone who believes in liberty and privacy is against the Patriot Act -- it is not party-line specific.

Another piece of politics today is that Hillary Clinton is trying to make the ESRB have as much authority as the RIAA or MPAA (which shouldn't have any power anyways). Basically, she introduced a bill that would allow a private company to dictate the behavior of an entire market (thus the RIAA/MPAA comment). Not only is this completely stupid, this is the exact kind of thing that hackers across the world are likely to start breaking even if they didn't before -- just because of the politics involved. Hey Hillary, I have a company -- why not put it in charge of what foods you can eat? No more veggies for you kids, now you HAVE to eat twinkies and drink coke, or we'll sue you.

Last but not least, it looks like some NSA officials are blowing the whistle on the illegal survellience done here in the US (because of the Patriot Act)... A lot of good it will do, since everyone knew they were doing it anyways, but what the hell -- worth mentioning.

Diebold CEO Resigns Under Cloud

Tuesday, December 13, 2005


Diebold CEO Resigns Under Cloud
Current mood: ecstatic
Category: News and Politics

woot!

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/13/2053219&tid=158&tid=187&tid=219

Holiday plans

Tuesday, December 13, 2005


Holiday plans
Current mood: working

I have to work on 12/23, so we will either be leaving after work (7ish?) that night or early the next morning to head to Ashland. We both have 12/26 off, so will probably head back to Portland then.

Then 12/30 after work (6ish) we will be heading to the cabin. We both have to work Tuesday, so will be coming back sometime on 1/2.

friggin ASP crap

I am so friggin tired of windows-based servers, ASP and ColdFusion... why is it every time a website takes forever to load then crashes, it is ASP/ColdFusion. Screw this.  I will keep the MySpace account to post to friend's blogs, but I am going back to Blogger.  Hopefully, Google will get their act together and create an alternative to MySpace.

MySpace annoyance

Monday, December 12, 2005


Are we there yet?
Current mood: frustrated

OMFG! So, I noticed that I couldn't post to any of my friends' blogs, so I finally gave in and decided to setup a myspace account. For the last 3 hours, I have been trying to get this thing setup, and it just keeps crashing. I thought it was just me, but Brett said it is crashing on him too...

But what company in their right mind uses M$ ASP pages for ANYTHING that expects a large number of users. I really hope google gets on the ball and makes a competing product so that we can at least expect it to work most of the time.

Until then, I guess I will go ahead and do this... haven't updated Friendster in quite awhile (too slow). My blogger page is fine, but my server won't stay up (since the hardware is too new to install any damn OS), so... I guess I will scatter my thoughts into myspace as well.... we'll see how long that last.

Hocken and Canyon

A while back, Dino got a ticket for getting into the shared-left turn lane 1 car length early to turn left. She did so because Canyon-West was backed up to that point. At no point did she cross a double-yellow line or a white line.

A cop pulled her over and gave her a $330 ticket for 'passing in a no passing zone'. We talked to 5 different cops (Beaverton Police and Washington County Sheriff) and they all said that wasn't valid. They said that they would not have ticketed for 1 car length, but even if they would it would have to be 'misuse of a special left turn lane'.

Now, here's the kicker. The cop said the reason was that the shared left turn lane was there for oncoming traffic to go into the driveways. We went and checked, and took photos. She spent 14.5 feet in that lane. Oncoming traffic would have to go 500 feet to get to a legal left turn.

Will let you know.

20 December 2005

Richard Stallman: Hypocrite

So I saw this article on Slashdot and thought I would share a few thoughts...

Freedom 2 is the freedom to copy and distribute the software as you wish. And freedom 3 is the freedom to create and distribute modified versions as you wish.

Interesting... since GPL specifically prevents me from making a modification and distributing under say, BSD license... doesn't sound like I can modify and distribute as I wish. Perhaps that means GPL doesn't comply with those Freedoms -- thus making GPL non-free software.

Non-free software, by contrast, keeps users divided and helpless. It is distributed in a social scheme designed to divide and subjugate.

Well, that makes sense. If it wasn't bad enough having OpenSource vs. Non-OpenSource, GPL has divided it between pro-GPL and anti-GPL OpenSource. Not only that, as can easily be seen in many Linux/GPL forums, there is a huge social clique of pro-GPL that look down on those that would rather make their software truly free (and actually follow those Freedoms they CLAIM to follow).

The developers of non-free software have power over their users, and they use this power to the detriment of users in various ways. It is common for non-free software to contain malicious features, features that exist not because the users want them, but because the developers want to force them on the users.

That is extremely funny, considering that the anti-GPL OpenSource followers don't like GPL because of its 'viral-effect'.  If you want to reference any GPL software, you are forced to make your software GPL -- even if the developer didn't want to.

JP: What was your history with the free software movement?

RMS: I launched the movement in 1983 with a deliberate decision to develop a complete world of free software. The idea is not just to produce a scattering of free programs that were nice to use. Rather, the idea is to systematically build free software so that one can escape completely from non-free software. Non-free software is basically antisocial, it subjugates it users, and it should not exist. So what I wanted was to create a community in which it does not exist. A community where we would escape from non-free software into freedom.

You created it? Weird... I was using Public Domain before that -- which I usually got from wintelnet, which was a very large 'community' of sorts... more importantly, some of the operating systems that existed then (BSD?) are STILL more free than Linux is now.

 In 1983 all operating systems were proprietary.

Interesting, since BSD came out in 1977 [source] and OpenVMS in 1978 [source]

A problem arises when people who might be sympathetic to our ethical position, but focus on other issues, fall into the habit of helping to pressure others into using non-free software.

 It becomes an ethical issue when there is a restriction.

And yet, that is now the anti-GPL camp feels about the pro-GPL camp. They try to take choice away from us and force us to use a licensing scheme that limits people's freedoms.

There are some special circumstances. To develop GNU, I used Unix. But first, I thought about whether it would be ethical to do that.

And yet, earlier he said:

 GNU stands for "GNU is Not Unix", and the most important thing about GNU is that it is not Unix. Unix is a non-free operating system, and you are not allowed to make a free version of Unix. We developed a free system that is like Unix, but not Unix. We wrote all the parts of it from scratch.

interesting. seems like those two statements conflict.

I'm a Liberal, in US terms (not Canadian terms). I'm against fascism.

And yet your whole movement is designed to take choice away from me and force me to always follow your little set of GPL rules. Sounds fascist.

 


16 December 2005

Politics d'jour

Where to start?

The Patriot Act failed reauthorization. While I am sure people will make it out to be a "us vs. them" thing, it should be noted (per the article) that some republicans voted against it and some democrats voted to extend it.  The comment about blaming democrats if it fails to go through is complete rubbish though... for those who don't remember why:
Benjamin Franklin:They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security
The fact is that anyone who believes in liberty and privacy is against the Patriot Act -- it is not party-line specific.

Another piece of politics today is that Hillary Clinton is trying to make the ESRB have as much authority as the RIAA or MPAA (which shouldn't have any power anyways). Basically, she introduced a bill that would allow a private company to dictate the behavior of an entire market (thus the RIAA/MPAA comment).  Not only is this completely stupid, this is the exact kind of thing that hackers across the world are likely to start breaking even if they didn't before -- just because of the politics involved.  Hey Hillary, I have a company -- why not put it in charge of what foods you can eat?  No more veggies for you kids, now you HAVE to eat twinkies and drink coke, or we'll sue you.

Last but not least, it looks like some NSA officials are blowing the whistle on the illegal survellience done here in the US (because of the Patriot Act)... A lot of good it will do, since everyone knew they were doing it anyways, but what the hell -- worth mentioning.


13 December 2005

Diebold CEO Resigns Under Cloud



outsider
I kicked a diebold truck a few weeks ago.

Posted by outsider on Wed Dec 14 00:12:00 PST 2005
Malachi
You know, I am not one to usually encourage violence -- but man do I get offended seeing them here.  People think that they are only responsible for the voting machine votes -- and don't realize their machines also did the paper ballots locally.  And their only competition is run by another Texan company headed by his brother.

You got to tell me, how did it feel? Did you feel satisfaction? Did you say anything like "take that f*cker?" (does MySpace delete posts/accounts if we don't self-censor?)


Posted by Malachi on Wed Dec 14 00:18:00 PST 2005
outsider
It was at the WellsFargo by Fred Meyers. I didn't think much about it. I saw, I kicked, I thought twice about using the diebold atm there.

Posted by outsider on Wed Dec 14 08:20:00 PST 2005

Holiday plans

I have to work on 12/23, so we will either be leaving after work (7ish?) that night or early the next morning to head to Ashland.  We both have 12/26 off, so will probably head back to Portland then.

Then 12/30 after work (6ish) we will be heading to the cabin. We both have to work Tuesday, so will be coming back sometime on 1/2.

12 December 2005

Are we there yet?

OMFG!  So, I noticed that I couldn't post to any of my friends' blogs, so I finally gave in and decided to setup a myspace account.  For the last 3 hours, I have been trying to get this thing setup, and it just keeps crashing. I thought it was just me, but Brett said it is crashing on him too...

But what company in their right mind uses M$ ASP pages for ANYTHING that expects a large number of users. I really hope google gets on the ball and makes a competing product so that we can at least expect it to work most of the time.

Until then, I guess I will go ahead and do this... haven't updated Friendster in quite awhile (too slow). My blogger page is fine, but my server won't stay up (since the hardware is too new to install any damn OS), so... I guess I will scatter my thoughts into myspace as well.... we'll see how long that last.


Silver
may the winds of fortune carry google to a personal page design...
unless it's based on the same code as their google desktop, which ate my computer.
that was irritating.
add that in to the latest edition of trillian which locks up the computer for 2 minutes on boot, and I had some SERIOUS issues. Welcome to hell.


Posted by Silver on Mon Dec 12 10:03:00 PST 2005
Malachi
Yeah, the damn Google Desktop is written in C... Stupid.
I had the same problem with Trillian. Wasn't sure if it was due to Trillian or XP64.

I would rant and rave about how much Windows (including x64 version) sucks, but I am kinda pissed off that FreeBSD and Solaris won't install on my new hardware right now too.  Guess its time to get a huge grant and write my own OS ;)


Posted by Malachi on Mon Dec 12 10:23:00 PST 2005

27 November 2005

The RPG Class Test








Wizard
44% Combativeness, 26% Sneakiness, 82% Intellect, 38% Spirituality
Brilliant! You are a Wizard!
Wizards are spells-casters who study powerful arcane magic. While Wizards tend to be pretty fragile, some of those spells can pack quite a punch. Unlike Clerics, Wizards aren’t as good at fixing people as they are at breaking them, so watch where you toss that fireball…
Your most distinctive trait is your intelligence. You're probably well learned and logical, if perhaps a bit fragile.







My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:



















free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 25% on Combativeness





free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 27% on Sneakiness





free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 76% on Intellect





free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 38% on Spirituality
Link: The RPG Class Test written by MFlowers on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

The LONG Scientific Personality Test








INFP - the Healer
You scored 9% I to E, 10% N to S, 9% F to T, and 52% J to P!
You are more introverted than extroverted. You are more intuitive than observant, you are more feeling based than thinking based, and you prefer to go with the flow rather than having a plan. Your type can best be summarized by the word "Healer", which belongs to the larger group of idealists. You have a capacity for caring that is deeper than most. You strive for unity, are fascinated by the battles between good and evil, and can be something of an idealist. Only 1% of the population shares your type.
As a romantic partner, you are usually supprtive and nuturing, however, you have a high need for individuality. Harmony is extremely important to you as you are very affected by conflict and tension, which also makes you resist confronting your partner directly about problems. When you get angry, you usually blame yourself, rather than your partner. You can also be stubborn and unyielding when you feel you are being criticized or mistreated. You feel the most appreciated when your partner listens to you carefully. You need to be understood. You need to hear your partner express their feelings, the more often, the better. Your group summary: idealists (NF)
Your type summary: INFP







My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:



















free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 8% on I to E





free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 5% on N to S





free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 2% on F to T





free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 52% on J to P
Link: The LONG Scientific Personality Test written by unpretentious2 on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

26 November 2005

Breakthrough for quantum measurement (November 2005) - News - PhysicsWeb

I thought the primary advantage of quantum computing was that it was all states at once... if we force it into binary, aren't we loosing its greatest attribute?

16 November 2005

08 November 2005

Which animal totem best suits you?

You scored as Dragon. You are the Dragon. You store a lot of knowledge about everything. You are generally one who is good with personal growth and can regenerate yourself after a bad experience.

Dragon

92%

Dog

83%

Crow

75%

Bull

75%

Eagle

75%

Fox

75%

Ram

75%

Salmon

67%

Wolf

67%

Stag

58%

Horse

58%

Snake

42%

Bear

42%

Deer

33%

Which animal totem best suits you?
created with QuizFarm.com

The Politics Test

You are a

Social Liberal
(81% permissive)

and an...

Economic Liberal
(21% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Socialist




Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Your Birthdate: November 3

You are more than a big ball of energy - you are a big ball of hyper.
You are always on the go, but you don't have a type a personality.
Instead of channeling your energy into work, you instead go for fun and adventure.
Witty and verbal, you can have an interesting conversation with anyone.

Your strength: Your larger than life imagination

Your weakness: You tend to be pretty scattered

Your power color: Lime

Your power symbol: Lightening bolt

Your power month: March

27 October 2005

IsraCast: THE CAR THAT MAKES ITS OWN FUEL

interesting idea. I don't like it giving off metal oxide... realistically, I would rather have a car that can't go quite as far, but which only receives and gives off water - then I am not dependant on a fueling station.

The Chronicle: 10/28/2005: The Man Who Would Murder Death

I do have a problem with solution #4 -- that could lead to Ulcerative Coilitis.

26 October 2005

Remote Control Device 'Controls' Humans

wow

Governor Ted Kulongoski Press Release

The new open source initiative will create a joint-university open source technology center and organization in early 2006 to: design and coordinate curricula across the Oregon University System; offer student internships and expand its technology capacity for the growing number of open source projects and communities it supports; further the commercialization of open source innovations by facilitating linkages to the region’s network of venture capital firms, technology companies and incubators such, as the Beaverton-based Open Technology Business Center; and partner on key educational events, such as the inaugural Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON) recently held in Portland.


Beaverton-based? I'll have to look into that.

18 October 2005

VirtualWiFi Home

VirtualWiFi is a virtualization architecture for wireless LAN (WLAN) cards. It abstracts a single WLAN card to appear as multiple virtual WLAN cards to the user. The user can then configure each virtual card to connect to a different wireless network. Therefore, VirtualWiFi allows a user to simultaneously connect his machine to multiple wireless networks using just one WLAN card. This new functionality introduced by VirtualWiFi enables many new applications, which were not possible earlier using a single WLAN card.


nice... I know it is M$, but still....

Air Force testing new transparent armor

Nice! Mix this with that new electromagnetic resonance ion engine, and we have a good start.

17 October 2005

Slashdot | Jack Thompson Rescinds Offer

What a surprise... someone like him doesn't live up to his agreements. wow. i am shocked. really. no seriously. I mean, if he doesn't, why should we assume the RIAA or MPAA do?

Patently-O: Patent Law Blog

interesting site

Intergalactic Medicine Show

nice

Wired News: Wi-Fi Cloud Covers Rural Oregon

nice

The Presse.com - Domestic researchers developed a plasma propulsion, which is to revolutionize space travel.

according to tests the plasma propulsion leads to a fuel saving of approximately 90 per cent

That's awesome! I've always loved magnetics.

The Globe and Mail: Study turns pot wisdom on head

Very interesting research.... the people commenting are complete idiots though... let me respond to a few of them....

Peter Zed from Taranna, Ontario, Canada writes:

Marijuana is a terrible drug.It makes people do terrible things and is scarier than crack cocaine when it comes to the incredible harm and damage it is doing to the Canadian economy.

Think of the children.

* Posted Oct. 16, 2005 at 11:11 AM EDT
* Link to Comment


What kind of idiot thinks that marijuana is worse than coke? How can anyone even convince themselves that such is true? Do they just listen to some minister or politician that tells them this and never do any research themselves?


jo ts from Victoria, Canada writes:

For those of you who feel that pot use has insignificant side effects on the user, you should hire some of my ex-employees whom I terminated for substance abuse on a client's site. The trades are full of substance abuse individuals. You should hire a painter to paint your house on pot! Or better yet, a carpenter to build your deck on pot!

As for legalising pot and other so called soft drugs, give me a break! Drinking alcohol was illegal in the 20's until the government legalised it. What happen? All the illegal operators were made legitimate overnight and they still have a dominant hold on alcohol. Look at Seagram's history.

Legalising pot would create the biggest boondogle in history. You would give groups like the Hells Angels a legitimate way to launder their dirty operations clean overnight. A lot of organised crime groups would have thought they have died and gone to heaven! They would have the infrastructure in place to retain a stranglehold on the distribution of the toxic substance. We as a society already pay huge bills treating alcoholism, smoking etc. Why add another item to that list? By legitimizing it, you would spread its use further. You will have smoking executives hook up with powerful media advertisers enter this industry and create havoc on society.

* Posted Oct. 16, 2005 at 5:29 PM EDT
* Link to Comment

So many things to say about this one... First, they tell you to hire someone who is high to do some physical labour... 1) no, you generally just allow them to do it in the privacy of their own home -- not at work. 2) in some jobs, say masseus, I wouldn't care if they were high. 3) in some careers (like art) the famous people were on much worse.

Second, their opinion of what happened in history is very skewed. What really happened was that the rate of alcoholism during prohibition was HIGHER than any other time. Making something illegal allows for it to be sold for outrageous prices, have no quality control, and ends up causing more people to do it.

Third, this person appears to have no clue what is really happening in the world. If you don't believe me, re-read what he says WOULD happen in the last sentence.

Slashdot | Scotty To Be 'Beamed Up'

nice :)

06 October 2005

Slashdot | Microsoft's Unique Innovation

doesn't he mean that the things they stole are pieces of a bigger puzzle?

Slashdot | Studying the Plague in WoW

interesting

Tom's Hardware Guide PCs & HowTo: Building The Ultimate Home Theater PC - Wishful Thinking? Silent Home PC For TV, DVD, Recording And Internet Connect

I want one!

really good writeup. combined with the other sites (like byopvr) and maybe some stuff from make magazine (still have to buy that) and maybe even that thing awhile back that recorded all channels at once.... could be fun.

Slashdot | No Office For Linux, MS Patents Rejected

wait, did I read that right? the patent office turned something down?

Deskzilla Screenshots

I don't really like BugZilla much, but this might make it worth it.

Slashdot | Internet Partitioning - Cogent vs Level 3?

This is a very good example why a p2p mesh network would be much better.

Nematodes: The Making of 'Beneficial' Network Worms

I've been saying this for years... but now that someone working for those who made l0phtcrack (and use to work for the NSA) mentions it, maybe it will happen.

The Courier-Mail: Google declares war on Microsoft [06oct05]

Man, what would it take for Google to buy ideas from me? I have so many. I don't really want to try competing with them...

03 October 2005

Sun Microsystems Talks With Li Moore of Google

For those who say that Java is slow and thus everything must be coded in C (not ASM?).... do you think Google is slow?

30 September 2005

Tom's Hardware Guide PCs & HowTo: Pepping Up Windows - Introduction

hmm, a good listing of some open source software we might want to use for our business

WSJ.com - Some States Push To Collect Sales Tax From Internet Stores

idiots...

I did sent an email to the author of the article... here it is:

A couple things I don't understand...

1. They provide 'software' to do the collection? So are we to assume that said software will easily integrate into any web application, or are we talking about some annoying program like Oregon's OTTER program that we would have to manually run in addition to any automated software? Or are we talking about software that would force us to use Windows and .NET?
2. Taxing the destination instead of the seller's state? How is that going to work? The seller is going to be taxed based on income made from the sale -- to tax the recipient would be double taxation. I really doubt the seller's state is going to so easily give up the taxes they are already collecting.
3. Neither Oregon or Federal law require it unless there is a presence in the other state -- how would they force an Oregon store to collect Tennessee taxes when Tennesse law doesn't apply to them?
4. Do we have any recourse if this is instituted?

Slashdot | P2P Users More Likely to Cheat, Shoplift

Perhaps it is more likely that certain people are compulsive liars and don't admit to either P2P or shoplifting/cheating?

I do, however, think people who use P2P are more likely to understand the 1st amendment...

Slashdot | Tim Bray on Implications of OpenDocument Format

I watched the video. Interesting.... one thing he didn't seem to know though is about IntelliJ's ability to read/write/use custom programming languages... not saying it is a good thing -- or that if IntelliJ died it wouldn't cause problems -- but there is the ability to do that now.

Slashdot | USPTO Reexam Finds $521M Eolas Patent Valid

Looks like the USPTO is being blatant about being on the take now.

27 September 2005

Slashdot | Pay vs. Happiness

I've been thinking a lot about this over the years. I am trying to get my own company off the ground so that I (and my friends) can switch to positions doing things we love for people/a company that we can respect...

the problem is it takes a lot of time, and money. it is hard to get enough money to pay your own salary for a year (without an external job), let alone all your friends

I look forward to reading the bit about job burnout. I have a feeling I will agree with a lot of it.

Slashdot | RIAA Suit Rejected With Prejudice

finally

Slashdot | 24 Mb Consumer Broadband Launched

hmm, that would be nice ;)

23 September 2005

qwantz: My Experience with Google AdSense

I had been thinking of signing up with Google AdSense, but not if crap like this is going to happen.

although it appears some have had a good experience.

If I *am* going to do it, might be best to modify my template so that it won't show up when I am personally using the site... thus, if they try to say that I clicked my own links or anything -- I couldn't have because my own template on THEIR blogging engine won't show them to me. That might work well.

but, last but not least, Tim Bray has a review of it, maybe I will give it a shot.

22 September 2005

A8N-SLI Premium + Windows x64 Pro

Ok, so the last blog entry was about this too, and one of the machines is going to be FreeBSD, but I thought I better start keeping notes somewhere other than gmail. I also though that, instead of just commenting on the last post, I would make the title something obviously identifiable when searching for my notes. I'll do the FreeBSD install in a seperate one.

Now, to start off with, firmware/drivers. I have the following:
  • Silicon Image 3114 Driver Disk v1.1.0.1 [Asus]
  • nVidia CK804 SATARAID chipset driver disk v6.66 for xp64 [Asus]
  • A8N-SLI Premium bios v1007.002 [Asus]
  • nVidia CK804 PATARAID chipset driver disk v6.66 xp64 [Asus]
  • A8N-SLI Premium bios v1008 [Asus]
  • Silicon Image 3114 Driver Disk v1.2.3.1 for Win64 [SI]

Originally, I used the bios 1007.002 and the 3114 v1.1.0.1 drivers. After getting windows running (about 10 attempts to format it until I cut the size of the C partition in about 1/2), the silicon image controller was 'unknown' in device manager. I noticed updated bios (v1008) and upgraded it.

Upon reboot, I noticed one of the RAID5 set was missing, and windows did the constant-reboot-panic.

Downgraded the BIOS, booted noticing the RAID5 drive was still missing. Windows loaded, and I upgraded the 3114 driver to 1.2.3.1 and the chipset to CK804. Upon rebooting, noticed that still no drive#3 (out of 4). Also noticed that the raid utility was reporting that I had the same amount of hard drive space available, with one less drive. Sounds to me like a likely candidate for hosing my filesystem at some point.

Upgraded the BIOS again, again not bootable.

Decided to try reinstalling Windows from scratch (they are hosed anyways, right). At the F6 prompt, used the SATARAID and 3114 v1.2.3.1 drivers. Wouldn't get past 'Starting Windows'.

Downgraded the BIOS again.

Tried to reinstalling Windows again. Complained that the drive could not be formatted at about 98%. Tried again, locked up at about 40%.

Hmm, ok. Tried latest bios, latest chipset, asus 3114 driver. Said that line 35 (which shouldn't have even been in use) of TxtSetup.oem wasn't valid. Hmm, ok.

Now I am trying v1007.002 bios, latest chipset from asus (SATARAID version), and the Asus v1.1.0.1 3114 drivers. We'll see.

I was debating whether to upgrade the BIOS after getting Windows running -- but maybe it isn't worth it.

One hell of a week...

Well, let's ignore all the hassle we have had over the last month or two trying to get the house refinanced... let's ignore the 8 or so contractors that have been here in the last week... let's even ignore the switching internet providers, etc etc...

let's just focus on installing machines....
After months of searching, we ordered the DLG-4300 gaming router. But then we decided to use Jails in our new freebsd server, and found out we had to have one public ip address per jail. Unfortunately, the dlink wasn't a router, and only allowed one ip address.

we shipped it back, spent a couple weeks finding a router that would work, and ordered the Netgear FVS124g.

21 days later (1/3rd of the way through our free technical support) FedEx finally got it to us. I configured it THEN plugged it into the network, and WHAM everything died. Couldn't even access it, let alone the internet.

Finally, after multiple factory resets, called ISP and they had to release the MAC address associated with our dsl modem (unmanaged bridge). Then we could access the internet.

But what is this? The netgear, though claiming it could, can't do DMZ. Don't get me wrong, I read the manual, forums, everything. Unfortunately, the manual is months older than the oldest available firmware, and the DMZ settings just aren't there. An alternate DMZ setting is there if you view source, but not otherwise. And that isn't so easy to fix.

Did I also mention it was crashing and locking up every 5 minutes or so, killing the internet connection?


So, every 5 minutes we have to unplug the damn thing and on top of that, our DNS/Web/Email have been down for days.

Finally got ahold of netgear and they sent me a new unreleased beta firmware. That seems to have mostly fixed the lockup problems, but still no DMZ.

Around this time is when I started to also try to build all our machines. Hard drives had died in almost all of them, so 3 of the 5 machines had no operating system at all, and one had no internet access.

Windows XP 64-bit and FreeBSD 6.0 Beta5.
The windows box seemed to install just fine once I decided I didn't want a 715GB partition. Once I cut that in half, it finally was able to format without locking up. That was about the 10th 10-hour attempt at formatting before I made that decision. Got the box up and running,and 1/2 the base OS was 32-bit. that sucks.

Then today, I get the smart idea to install a newer motherboard firmware. Oops, raid now shows a missing drive and it won't boot into windows. Downgraded firmware, and raid drive still missing, but got into windows. And what's this, the raid controller software shows the same amount of hard drive space, but with one less drive. That's not a good sign. Called Asus. They tell me:
1) they don't support hardware raid
2) they don't support bootable raid
3) I'm screwed
They said I have to install windows THEN create my raid array (hmm, how do I make windows have redundancy and fail over then?). They gave me an email address for taiwan engineers when I complained, but that email address had permanent failures.

So, I am reinstalling windows from scratch now. Damn.

And the FreeBSD box? Well, it appears that the SiI3114r controller is only sorta supported... IE: it will show all the drives independantly, ignores the raid settings, and if you set RAID5 and figure out how to get the driver to work (which I haven't yet) won't do parity.... um... so what the fuck am I supposed to do? Don't know yet -- still working on that.

Needless to say, computers, firmware and tech support suck ass.

19 September 2005

Marc MERLIN's experience at Burning Man 2005: Psyche

lots of me friends were there.... don't see them in the pics though.

Slashdot | Artist Suggesting Ways Around Copy Protection

That's friggin awesome

Slashdot | Space Elevator Gets FAA Clearance

interesting

Slashdot | Mothers Taking the Fight to the RIAA

'Don't let your fear of these massive companies allow you to deny your belief in your own innocence. Paying these settlements is an admission of guilt. If you're not guilty of violating the law, don't pay.'


Yeah, reminds me of when the COURT HOUSE told me that pleading No Contest to a traffic ticket would count as admiting guilt, and that it wouldn't show up on my insurance. Of course, I paid triple insurance for 3 years, but hey...

Montreal Gazette - canada.com network

Wow, what a story.... we got oil vs hydrogen, companies at each other's throats, billion dollars motive for murder, anecdotal evidence, the whole shebang. Quite an article.

Slashdot | MP3 Company Refuses to Pay Swedish Copyright Levy

yeah! tell them to f-off.

15 September 2005

History of Secret Societies

Can't vouche for any of it, but interesting to see things in relation to each other.

Illuminati Saints

;) Interesting collection

Carlos Casteneda - Gnod's statistics

interesting site

The Founding Fathers Were NOT Christians

There are a lot of good quotes here... here's a few:

*
The Christian right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of its campaign to force its religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity.

This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and New testaments.


*
It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that 'the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.'


Thomas Paine:
nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all


*
On his deathbed, Washinton uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance.


John Adams:
Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!


Thomas Jefferson:
I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian." He referred to the Revelation of St. John as "the ravings of a maniac"


James Madison:
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.


Ethan Allen:
When Allen married Fanny Buchanan, he stopped his own wedding ceremony when the judge asked him if he promised "to live with Fanny Buchanan agreeable to the laws of God." Allen refused to answer until the judge agreed that the God referred to was the God of Nature, and the laws those "written in the great book of nature."


*
The words "In God We Trust" were not consistently on all U.S. currency until 1956, during the McCarthy Hysteria.


And my favorite:
The Treaty of Tripoli, passed by the U.S. Senate in 1797, read in part: "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." The treaty was written during the Washington administration, and sent to the Senate during the Adams administration. It was read aloud to the Senate, and each Senator received a printed copy. This was the 339th time that a recorded vote was required by the Senate, but only the third time a vote was unanimous (the next time was to honor George Washington). There is no record of any debate or dissension on the treaty. It was reprinted in full in three newspapers - two in Philadelphia, one in New York City. There is no record of public outcry or complaint in subsequent editions of the papers.


And from a linked source:

Thomas Jefferson:
Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.


Thomas Paine:
It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible.


This is interesting:
Having escaped from the state-established religions of Europe, only 7% of the people in the 13 colonies belonged to a church when the Declaration of Independence was signed.


This is really good too:
It was they—the Baptists—who were instrumental in securing the separation of church and state. They knew you can not have a "one-way wall" that lets religion into government but that does not let it out. They knew no religion is capable of handling political power without becoming corrupted by it. And, perhaps, they knew it was Christ himself who first proposed the separation of church and state: Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto the Lord that which is the Lord's.


This one surprised me. Not because they declared the US to NOT be based on Christianity, but because the original was in Arabic...

ARTICLE 11.

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Am I understanding this right? Did we agree that we would never go to war with them because we weren't Christian?

Of course there are other sources as well...

Pledge of Allegience, Again?

Once again I find myself arguing with my father about the pledge of allegience. He doesn't seem to grasp the concept that the Christians are not the ones being hurt -- but that everyone else is finally starting to get equal rights...

Let's look at history:
  • when black1 people were released from slavery, white people felt threatened
  • when women got the right to vote, men felt threatened
  • when alternate-beliefs gain equal rights (ie: both allowed or neither), the christians feel threatened
It is always, and probably always will be, this way. If we were to promote Robots as being 'life', then Humans will feel threatened. If children were given the right to vote, adults would feel threatened. If (UFO) aliens were given the right to attend school and get jobs, Earthlings would feel threatened.

Sure, not EVERYONE feels threatened, but the ones who do are the ones who were previously on the beneficial end of the stick.


1 Ok, someone is probably going to complain about the word "black". I have lots of black friends, most of which use the term "black people" themselves. I think the term African-American itself is derogatory, because it makes the assumption that, because of their skin color, they must have come from Africa. What if they came from Brazil? Jamiaca? Oh, but their ancestors, eventually, came from Africa -- right? Well, so did yours -- or everyone came from Pangea, right? Do you even know how the whole Politically Correct movement started? Do you realize that it was started as a form of Freudinistic Marxism as a way to get people to segregate themselves and thus make them fight each other and easier to control? Where did I get that info? I was watch a symposium on C-SPAN that was talking about how they started it. You want to fight the racism/sexism/religionism/ageism/etc? Then quit segregating yourself and others.

Fortune 75 - The Law of Unintended Consequences - FORTUNE - Page 1

I started to read this, but it is really really long.

ExceptionCollection.com

this seems interesting

Dartmouth News - Dartmouth researchers build world's smallest mobile robot - 09/14/05

it is all pretty kewl until you look at the 'funded in part by'...

this is kind kewl too. take a look of it sitting on a penny:

One Find, Two Astronomers: An Ethical Brawl - New York Times

hmmm... condemn them for not reporting it or condemn him for looking at their data?
perhaps both?

Dutch to Open Electronic Files on Children - Yahoo! News

their privacy steps are good, but I don't think they are good enough

Mailinator:Spam Map

Very interesting approach

FOX 12 OREGON Portland home prices continue to jump

20% jump in the last month? Then why are they not taking that into account for the refinance I am trying to do right now?

Collaze: Connect. Collaborate. Create

I don't have time to read this right now, but it looks interesting.

An early look at JUnit 4

looks like some interesting changes

14 September 2005

Oregon's Sara Jean on Cover of Playboy

This morning on Good Day Oregon they announced that a local Oregon girl named Sara Jean was the new cover model for Playboy. Evidentally, she was signing issues yesterday ;)

Oh, and this is kinda funny. See how she got there.

As a side note, I am not sure why, but the float:left on the image keeps overlapping the next post. I was worried about trying to fix it, but, screw it.

Slow Seismic Slip Event Underway in Pacific Northwest

The probability of occurrence of a megathrust earthquake is about 30 times higher during this approximately two-week window, than during the rest of the 14.5 month cycle," Cassidy told LiveScience. "Having said that, 30 times a small number is still a small number.

WSJ.com - As Angry Patients Vent Online, Doctors Sue to Silence Them

here's a solution..... equifax-like service that consolidates and provides credit scores for all businesses. if they don't like it, then they can get rid of consumer credit reports and we could get rid of commercial credit reports...

Guilds: What's in it for me?

You can be an architect in Star Wars Galaxies? I had no interest before, but now.. hmmm...

But it is a Sony game... which in itself is a negative...

maybe I should find a new MMORPG soon since my new desktop will be done soon

Gallery 2.0 Released! | Gallery

was going to check this out -- but mysql is saying too many connections right now...

not even really sure what it does. will have to wait and see.

Find-A-Human -- IVR Phone S... - Approved*

very interesting page

for example, it provides:


type cell

company name Cingular

phone number 800-331-0500

steps to find a human For faster service, press the option that you are looking to close your account, You get the same ppl but an immediate answer

company home page web


usa national mass-market?


status approved

hours

PCWorld.com - 20 Things They Don't Want You to Know

pg5 has some interesting pwd recovery tools

pg9 has a link to Cliche Ideas... who has a link to Amazon/eBay/PayPal unlisted numbers... whom I am also providing said information for notebooksforless.com

page10 has an awesome link to Find-A-Human -- IVR Phone System Shortcuts (USA) which I will blog a link to separately.

Slashdot | GMC to Begin Remotely Scanning Cars for Trouble

wonder how much it would cost to get onstar for my mitsubishi eclipse.

wonder if it would be worth it. what do they offer?

hmmm looks like they don't offer much that I would like other than driving directions... not really worth it. if they could add OBD II to it, that would be awesome.

New Zealand Herald - Flying dinosaur biggest airborne animal - Friday 09, September 2005 17:59.00 PM - World News

interesting

Google Blog Search

interesting. but it fails to find my blog.
which is really wierd, because google used to find my blog all the time.
I guess that is what I get when my server keeps dying (has been running 24x7 for 12 years and now the hard drive is going) -- luckily we are in the process of replacing it

13 September 2005

In the Forests of RNA Dark Matter -- Riddihough 309 (5740): 1507 -- Science

wonder how this will affect genetic algorithms

Freedom to Tinker » Blog Archive » Acoustic Snooping on Typed Information

damn! now that's good.

Column from PC Magazine: Microsoft Should Confuse the Market More

nice ;)

I'll take the Porn edition thank you

haha

Tasmania powers up 12Mbps broadband: ZDNet Australia: News: Communications

I want this.... a lot better price than what I am getting.

Security Watch: A virtual den of thieves - CNET reviews

wow, cybergangs ;)

Proxy Client Autoconfig File Format

nice.... since latest firefox broke the switchproxy, now I have a little 3 line javascript program that auto-switches for me :)

Developing Firefox Extensions with GNU/Linux : Page 1

I should look at this later, but I don't really have the time right now

WolframTones: An Experiment in a New Kind of Music

this is interesting...
would be kewl to mix this idea with the game from Apprentice Adept

playing with it, it looks kinda interesting. wish I had more control. like ability to specify the percussion instruments and tempo separately.

BBC NEWS | UK | MI5 head warns on civil liberties

'But the world has changed and there needs to be a debate on whether some erosion of what we all value may be necessary to improve the chances of our citizens not being blown apart as they go about their daily lives,' she said.


She wants to trade freedom in for security? Guess she deserves neither, eh?

Russia to Build World’s First Floating Nuclear Power Station for $200,000 - MONEY - MOSNEWS.COM

no comment

BBC NEWS | Health | Q&A: Two mother embryo

These will then be put into a fertilised egg from another women with only healthy mitochondrial DNA.

Although this second egg has been fertilised, the pronuclei DNA from the male and female that made this egg will be removed.

The result would be an embryo with pronuclei DNA from the parental egg and sperm but mitochondria - and mitochondrial DNA - from the donor egg.


damn

Slashdot | RNA May 'Run' Genetic Coding

speaks of 'an order of magnitude more transcripts than genes', suggesting that more actual coding is done through RNA than DNA. Is everything we know about genetics off-base? (no pun intended)


damn!

Tom's Hardware Guide: Samsung builds foundation for 32 GByte Flash cards

kewl. I want some

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Controlling Hurricanes -- [ METEOROLOGY ] -- Can hurricanes and other severe tropical storms be moder

do they really think it is a good idea to control hurricanes? aren't they worried that they might be a necessary part of the ecosystem? I could understand harnessing them for electricity (wind/tidal energy) but... stopping them might end up having long term devastating effects...

not to say that they aren't devastating themselves -- but what would happen to the earth if they no longer happened? if they are caused by heat, wouldn't stopping them mean stopping the heat dissipation as well? what about the millions of tiny particles that end up hundreds of miles away that no longer would -- would some species of microorganism end up inbreeding?

sounds like a dangerous proposition without them knowing more

Tech Shows

This is a list of the best free downloadable tech/gaming shows currently available on the Internet. These shows are also referred to as vidcasts, VODcasts, videozines, and IPTV.


kewl

New legal threat to Google over GMail - Industry sectors - Times Online

Let me see if I get this straight...

Google launches GMail
Germany company said they own the trademark on the name GMail
British company said they own the trademark on the name GMail
British and German companies will work together to proove that __insert_what_here__ owns the trademark GMail?

And what does the US Government say?
7 entries...

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Titan moon occupies 'sweet spot'

interesting

GameDAILY: Free video games, cheats, game downloads, video game news and reviews

$2million for playing BeJewelled? damn!

New Scientist SPACE - Technology - Ant logic makes sense in space

this is really kewl... I like the idea... wonder how it could be used terresterally... car skins perhaps... cushions that inflate in specific areas depending on where the weight is.... smart homes?

Adult Swim throws fans b'band lifeline

mmm... more cartoons....

64-Bit Windows' Performance on Dual-Core--ExtremeTech Review

AMD 4800+ with 2GB of memory? They should know that memory is more important than processor speed. We are building a Win64 for the business (as well as a FreeBSD6) and have 4GB with AMD 3200+. Reading the second page, they did mention that:
The key to running 32-bit applications is something Microsoft dubs WOW64; WOW stands for Windows on Windows. Running 32-bit apps in x64 essentially gives each application its own 4GB of virtual memory space, which isolates it from other applications. So if one 32-bit application locks up, it only affects its memory space, not other running 32-bit apps. Windows x64 itself has a full 16TB (that's terabytes) of virtual memory address space. The downside, if you can call it that, is that you'll want to load your system up with as much memory as possible. While we used 2GB in our test systems, 4GB or even 8GB is desirable—assuming your motherboard supports it.


how to install 32-bit apps (as long as they have no 16-bit code):
On the other hand, installing and running 32-bit apps can occasionally be a chore. A 32-bit application that has any remaining 16-bit code won't run, because WOW64 doesn't support any 16-bit code. Also, 32-bit applications and 64-bit applications get their own folders. "Program Files" is reserved for 64-bit apps, while "Program Files (x86)" is for 32-bit software. This will sometimes result in strange installer behavior, as with Steam, Valve Software's game download application. Steam insisted that the parentheses in "Program Files (x86)" were illegal characters, and refused to install. You can either install Steam into a different folder (e.g., \games\valve) or change the folder name in the installer to "Progra~2\valve".


Page3... well, they are using the A8N SLI-Deluxe. We are using the A8N SLI-Premium, so the results should be fairly comparable.
They are running with 6800GT graphics, whereas we are running with dual 6600GT.
They are using a 160GB SATA drive (actually, two but dual booting one os to each disk), we are using 4x250GB SATAII drives.

Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan

Ok, let me get this straight...

since we can't rely on them actually knowing whether someone else has WMDs or not -- we will let them bomb anyone they think has WMDs, even if they don't?

does this also mean that they can nuke Oregon if they "suspect" that someone planted biological weapons here?

yeah, give guns to the bullies on the playground. great.

12 September 2005

Slashdot | Making Ice Without Electricity

hmmm, ice without electricity... that sounds like a really good idea... wonder how well that could work along with a heat pump...

10 September 2005

Balanced Ternary

While looking at whether it would be interesting to use Balanced Ternary for solving Primes, I was looking over my tutorial I wrote a few years ago (link above) and then did a search. I found this page that had a very interesting observation...

Date: 04/08/2002 at 11:41:19
From: Thomas
Subject: Weird base three

Hello Dr. Peterson,

First of all thank you for your prompt answer to my math problem. I
followed your advice and made a table using base 3 for the numbers -5
to 35. I noticed a pattern. The column of the 1s follows 1, -1 0. The
column of the 3s: 1,1,1, -1,-1,-1, 0, 0,0. The column of the 9s has
nine 1s, nine -1s, and nine 0s. Consequently the next column, which is
the column of the 27s, will have 27 ones, 27 -1s, and 27 0s.


What they are saying is this...
bit0 follows the pattern 0+-0+-0+-
bit1 follows the pattern 000+++---000+++--- (note that the first + is actually number 2, so leading 0's don't have initial 0)
bit2 follows the pattern 000000000+++++++++--------- etc (first + is actually number 5, so leading 0's don't have initial four 0s)
bit3 follows the same pattern, but 27 of each -- starting with first + at 14

so, to clarify...
bit0: [0][+][-] repeat
bit1: [3*0][3*+][3*-] repeat
bit2: [9*0][9*+][9*-] repeat
bit3: [27*0][27*+][27*-] repeat

how do we clarify where the initial '+' would be?
bit0: skip 0
bit1: skip 1
bit2: skip 4
bit3: skip 13

f(x)? except for bit0, the # we are skipping, times itself, plus 1 = the number of the repeat
more specifically, we are repeating the pattern of: 3^bit, and the number to skip = ((3^bit - 1)/2)
so..
bit0: ((3^0-1)/2)=0/2=0 [if the computer didn't give a crash]
bit1: ((3^1-1)/2)=3/2=1
bit2: ((3^2-1)/2)=9/2=4
bit3: ((3^2-1)/2)=27/2=13
etc

so...
we are skipping the first half of each repeat (round down to nearest whole number), where each repeat is 3^bit...

what does this mean? it means we could generate an entire table without doing any math, any calculations, etc -- OTHER THAN doing 3^bit and /2.

pattern = (3^bit)0s followed by (3^bit)+s followed by (3^bit)-s; skipping the first 1/2

Slashdot | Windows XP In Your Pocket

Funny enough, a coworker had me check this out this last week.... nice :) I'll have to actually read the article, sometime...

Slashdot | Patch & Workaround for Firefox Flaw Available

Personally, what I think sucks about the new version is almost all of my really useful plugins quit working... copy+url, webmail compose, etc.

RSA Security - The RSA Challenge Numbers

While trying to decide what practicum project to have a capstone student do for me, I realized that writing an AI to solve the RSA factoring challenge might be too extensive for a capstone. So, I am debating working on it in my spare time. Here, I am going to put a few notes that I have figured out this morning to make sure I don't forget.

The RSA FAQ says that the best known method for solving the factorization is to use a General Number Sieve and then Matrix all the resulting primes to find the correct one. While the first is an algorithm, the second is obvious brute force. It is because of the length of time these two take that the RSA feels that these algorithms are secure for "decades". I believe that an AI could solve the problem quicker (even if it still took months).

We can speed up the first part (the sieve) by matching patterns. For example, some basic things we know:

  • base2

    • has 2048-bits, based on the specific challenge to solve

    • has to start with a 1, or it would be a 2047-bit number

    • actually, it appears all primes start with 1

    • has to end in 1, or it would be a multiple of 2

  • base6

    • has to end in 1,5, or 0, or it would be a multiple of 3

  • base10

    • can not end in 2,4,6,8, or 0, or it would be a multiple of 2

    • can not end in 5 or 0, or it would be a multiple of 5




One AI solution to speed things up would to be locate patterns in different bases (as seen with base2, base10 and base6 above). This would speed the sieve engine. Speeding up the matrix/brute force might best be done with a median-approach, but that is hardly AI-based.

We can assume that teams are currently working to break the RSA-640 algorithm. As such, an alternative to the RSA-2048 algorithm up front would be to run the program against the RSA-704, then move on to the next one once it has been solved. If we wanted to take this approach, then the program should be written so that it makes as much of the reusable data collected/created available for the next run.

Also, 2048-bit keys are going to take a lot of memory to keep track of every single one in memory. This is probably part of the reason it takes so much resources. Perhaps a better approach would be to utilize a random-access memory mapped file, so that we can keep the minimal amount of data in memory at any given point in time.

09 September 2005

Google Code: APIs

There looks to be some fun stuff to play with here

More about Google Talk

some interesting info

although, it doesn't agree with Google themselves...
from Google Code:
Google Talk is Developer Friendly - 24/Aug/2005
As you may have heard, we've released our IM/Voip system Google Talk into beta. Talk uses XMPP for its communications protocol, and the team has a document outlining how to use a standard Jabber client to communicate with Google Talk. This makes for a very nice programmatic interface for IM. There are interfaces in multiple languages, including Python, PHP, Java and C#, and the Jabber Software Foundation maintains a healthy list of libraries on their site. We hope you enjoy our developer-friendly Google Talk.

email from a friend - LA Levees



> If the levees there are so flimsy that a single barge (heavy though
> they are) can do this much damage, then the people who approved the
> levee design should be hung.
>
> From rense.com:
>
> Locals - Loose Barge
> Broke The New
> Orleans Levee
> By Wayne Madsen
> 9-7-5
>
>
>
>
>
> Locals from Lakeview subdivision of New Orleans report that after
> Katrina passed a loose barge struck levee causing breach that flooded
> city.
>
> WMR has just been informed by evacuees in Baton Rouge from Lakeview, a
> well-to-do New Orleans neighborhood, that the flooding of the city was
> caused by a loose barge striking the levee on the 17th Street Canal.
> The breach was not caused by rising flood waters as reported by FEMA
> and other agencies. Lakeview is some 1.5 miles down Veterans Boulevard
> from the 17th St. Canal breach.
>
> Distraught evacuees want to know why the Coast Guard or the U.S. Army
> Corps of Engineers did not secure the barge. The evacuees who
> witnessed the barge striking the levee also want to know why the major
> media is not covering this story. It is not known what company owns
> the barge but if it is a major campaign contributor to the GOP, the
> answer is self-evident.
>

Slashdot | ESR Gets Job Offer From Microsoft

too funny

Unpatched Firefox flaw may expose users | CNET News.com

people make fun of me for my java-evangelism, but...

well, you figure it out:
from Section 9.1: Introduction to Correctness and Robustness
For software written completely in Java, buffer overflow errors are impossible. The language simply does not provide any way to store data into memory that has not been properly allocated. To do that, you would need a pointer that points to unallocated memory or you would have to refer to an array location that lies outside the range allocated for the array. As explained above, neither of these is possible in Java. (However, there could conceivably still be errors in Java's standard classes, since some of the methods in these classes are actually written in the C programming language rather than in Java.)


Sure there are Java programs out there that have this problem. But that is USUALLY because they include NON-Java code.

Neowin.net -> Google Talk's very first secrets

Nice ;)

Not sure how useful, but funny anyways

Verbot® 4.0 by Conversive, Inc.

this looks interesting

The Little DG834G Page.

this might help me learn how to start doing some hardware hacking on those little firewalls.... put some custom firmware on them...


here too:
The DG834 Hacking Site

Scratch-built GPS - hack a day - www.hackaday.com _

I've been wanting one of these

Vacuum forming - hack a day - www.hackaday.com _

Kewl... we'll have to use this to start making our own java-based hardware

9/11 Inside Job

this was sent to me today. I have skimmed a little bit of it -- it is a lot of reading

Frequently Answered Answers about the Optimus keyboard

Since I still want one, how about an updated FAQ?

It’s in the initial stage of production.

We hope it will be released in 2006.

It will cost less than a good mobile phone.

It will be real.

It will be OS-independent (at least it’s going to be able to work in some default state with any OS).

It will support any language or layout.

Moscow is the capital of Russia.

Each key could be programmed to produce any sequence.

It will be an open-source keyboard, SDK will be available.

Some day it will be split (and made “ergonomic”).

It will most likely use the OLED technology (e-paper is sooo slow).

Our studio is located two blocks from the Kremlin.

It will feature a key-saver.

Keys could be animated when needed.

It has a numeric keypad because we love it.

There’s no snow in Moscow in summer.

It will be available worldwide (why not?)

OEM is possible (why not?)

Slashdot | Recent Solar Flare Could Disrupt Communications

Watch out Mr. CellPhone... they're coming for you ;)

Das Keyboard - The Blank Keyboard.

nice :)

Slashdot | Researchers Say Human Brain is Still Evolving

interesting...

gene discovered that gives adults the ability to digest milk..? hmmm...

Slashdot | Clever Artificial Hand Developed

nice, maybe I can get one of these once carpal tunnel completely removes my ability to work :)

08 September 2005

Comet reveals its secrets (September 2005) - News - PhysicsWeb

They also report that Tempel 1 consists largely of extremely fine particles that seem to be very loosely bound together: in other words, the comet is more like a pile of powder than a solid rock. The outer layer of the comet is composed of particles that are between 1 and 100 microns in size, while the density of the nucleus is about 600 kilograms per cubic metre (Sciencexpress 1118923).

In addition to the material ejected by the impactor, the flyby spacecraft also saw shallow outbursts of material - probably triggered by sunlight - with a mean radius of about 3 kilometres. This ejected material mainly contain water and carbon dioxide. Furthermore, a relatively high concentration of organic material, such as formaldehyde and methanol, was found to be more abundant than water and carbon dioxide during and after the impact.

Next Generation - Plaudits, but no U.S. Deals for Darwinia

I tried it, wasn't too fond of it -- but I *really* liked their Uplink game. In fact, that was the only reason I tried Darwinia.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Morphware -- [ INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ] -- Magnetic logic may usher in an era in which computing devi

A coworker mentioned this to me... Unfortunately, since I no longer have a subscription (and google's cache doesn't seem to go to the full story) I can't read it all.

luckily there are other resources...

Morphware Page
http://morphware.net/

Morphware Forum
http://www.morphware.org/

Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD

a coworker told me to check this out

Serial ATA

wierd... I bought 'SATA II' drives... hmmm...

Daily Kos: UPDATE 2: "Go Fuck Yourself, Mr. Cheney!" - CNN Reports it!

that's funny

Software As She’s Developed - The Ajax Desktop

interesting. will have to check this out.

Internet Pioneer Vinton Cerf Joins Google

so Google will own the chairman of ICANN? interesting. and Google CEO has been friends with him since he was 12...?

Developer aims for Dtrace on FreeBSD: ZDNet Australia: News: Software

Kewl. I will make sure to use it on my FreeBSD servers. Although, if Sun had managed to write it in Java this would have been ported in a matter of seconds instead of... how long?

Logitech unveils smart mouse - Computer Business Review

it's too bad they don't add these kind of features to their wireless trackballs...

and WTF is up with having to buy a mouse in order to buy a keyboard? in order to buy a new set of wireless keyboard+trackball from logitech, we had to ALSO buy a mouse? How friggin useless.

Slashdot | FEMA Demands Use of IE To File Online Katrina Claims

When is the government going to learn that we don't like it when they ENFORCE monopolies?

Google Help : Search Features

I stumbled across this today... Gives a nice overview (with links) to the different types of searches you can do with Google... examples:

Search By Number

Use Google to access package tracking information, US patents, and a variety of online databases.

Travel Information

Check the status of an airline flight in the U.S. or view airport delays and weather conditions.

Who Links To You?

Find pages that point to a specific URL.

• etc

07 September 2005

Boing Boing: 18-year-old "pirates" a school bus, rescues 100 from NOLA

nice :)

Microsoft sues European Commission | CNET News.com

craigslist > best of craigslist > portland

wierd...

Wired News: The Next Mother Lode: Mars

4Frontiers will also be hiring soon, said Homnick.

'We're not shooting blanks,' said Homnick. 'We need to staff up. Our message to recent college graduates is, 'You can go with a large corporation, give up some of your freedom and most of your dreams. Or, if you have freedom in your heart, courage to face the unknown and discipline to deliver, contact us.''

Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury: "Americans Are Being Brainwashed"

wow

Slashdot | 6.8GHz 1TB RAM and 2TB HDD Laptop?

if the title wasn't enough:

A new "non-volatile Quantum-Optical" type of RAM is used

Mystery Bulge in Oregon Still Growing

Another volcano? Great.

Cypherix Products - Cryptainer LE Free Encryption Software

too bad we are upgrading the windows machine to 64-bit

the electric sheep screen-saver

this is a really interesting idea....

Gilligan died at age 70

Slashdot | First Episode of NerdTV Released

First episode is a 95MB download in mp4 format.
And then neither Quicktime or Real Player included audio when they played it...
The website has separate audio download available, but I would prefer it to be in sync.

Slashdot | SALT Telescope First Light

Guess I will have to check this out later, since...
NOTE!! This site has been slashdotted. All large images have been temporarily removed to save our webserver and bandwidth. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Slashdot | Hydrogen Stored in Safe High Density Pellets

Didn't we cover these pellets recently?

CNN.com - Hitachi unveils terabyte DVD recorder - Aug 24, 2005

Hitachi said it did not have concrete plans for launching the products in overseas markets, explaining that consumers in Europe and the United States were not as keen on high-end recorders.


Oh no, we are interested in the high-end recorders, just not the high-end price tags.

Slashdot | Marvel Gets Cash to do 10 Films

Wow. 10 more Marvel films. Bet Stan Lee is feeling pretty good right about now.

06 September 2005

Linspire - The World's Easiest Desktop Linux

wow. they have been slammed all weekend. guess /. posts really do help get people to try your product.

Researchers find clue to start of universe - MIT News Office

ok, maybe I am missing something here...

they are saying that studing deuterium is important because it was created during the big bang and provides measurements of how much dark matter there is.

are they on crack? since when is a hydrogren atom with one extra neutron proof of anything a bazillion years ago? since when are we even unable to create it ourselves? since when do we have proof that it can not exist naturally in some other galaxy? in fact, since it occurs naturally as a gas -- who is to say there isn't stars right now giving it off?

they are on crack, I am sure of it

Slashdot | Parasites That Can Control Insect Minds

oooh.. fun with nature....

Slashdot | Experimental 4G Phone Service Faster Than Cable

I want a 1Gb phone...

in fact.. how about a router like the PX40, but add 4G to it... and then get me unlimited minutes on the cell carrier... yes, then we can set up our own 1Gb mesh network with multiple entrypoints to the internet and say screw fiber.