Winter wonderland

A man in Colorado Springs Thursday had his video camera rolling as vehicle after vehicle slid on an icy road and crashed into each other, piling up on the side of the road.

LiveLeak

Ain't cold weather beautiful? Every time I see one of those beautiful scenes of snow covered fields, fences, trees and cabins, I go watch a couple of these videos. They are easy to find. The internet is stuffed full of these things. This sort of thing happens every other block in the north country. There are some similar hills in upstate New York. I'm sure these death traps are sprinkled all over the union.

Dead Switch

It is now a bit more than 24 hours since I bypassed a switch on my network. Nat and I were both getting warnings that our Ethernet connections were going down and coming back up. Then they would do it again. This was killing our network. At first I thought it was my computer. Then I thought it was my $20 router. Then I thought it might be some wires. Then I noticed the funky blinking lights on the switch.

What exactly is a switch? It is a bank of Ethernet ports that has a tiny brain that helps direct traffic. Each port knows what computer is at the other end of the line, roughly. This allows information that comes in to the switch to be directed more quickly and more directly and with less noise to the place it needs to go. Sounds great. When it works it is great. For some reason, the world of cheap switches has produced a shit-ton of bad devices. They just fail after a while. If you reset them, they work for a minute then die again.

When you ping-flood from one computer to another, you should really get no loss in packets. Even if you are headed across a larger network, you should not get any loss. as I type, if I ping flood from one box to the other, using only the router, I get zero loss. When the switch was between the machines I got 6% packet loss if it worked at all. That percent may not sound like much, but 1% in a ping flood is nearly catastrophic for database communication.

kelly@vodka:~/docs/date/current$ sudo ping -f 192.168.x.x
PING 192.168.x.y (192.168.2.x) 56(84) bytes of data.
--- 192.168.x.x ping statistics ---
3733 packets transmitted, 3732 received, 0% packet loss, time 3802ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.433/0.965/1.987/0.096 ms, ipg/ewma 1.018/1.028 ms

The bad switch got tossed.

No OS

I cannot believe that I cannot get a computer from Dell that does not have Windows on it. I could, but it would be one of the shit boxes we use at work. They are pretty cheap, but they have no sound card on board. The video card on the system is horrendous. It is a brand new system with a video chipset that is labeled as "legacy" from the manufacturer.

So, I've gone to a local manufacturer called Directron. I've bought things from them before. They are over on the Southwest Freeway somewhere. The only thing that I have to find out is if I can upgrade the ram on the special. They have some options, but not many, for the purchase. It looks like they will be happy to sell you the computer without an OS. I'm a linux developer and do not need to drop the extra $100 to $200 on an OS I'm getting zero functionality from. The system looks pretty similar to the Dell, but for about $100 less. This means my expertise will transfer.

I have an email in to the folks over at Directron. I know how this goes. No one will answer it until the Spring thaw so I'll give them a call tomorrow and find out if a human can help me. Worse case, they are closed and I have to call them next week. This means the holiday specials will have ended or changed and I'll have to go through the selection process again. No big deal.

Directron Link

Directron Holiday System Special 2: AMD Athlon II X4 Quad-Core CPU, 4GB DDR3 1333, 250GB HDD, 24X SATA DVD-Burner
Processor: AMD AM3 Athlon II X4 640 3.0Ghz Quad-Core Black Edition Processor.
Memory: 4GB DDR3 1333 Memory.
Storage: 250GB SATA hard drive.
Optical Drives: Black SATA 24X DVD Burner
Motherboard: MSI GF615M-P33 Socket AM3 MicroATX motherboard with GeForce 6150 chipset.
Case: Black Logisys 10 Bays SOHO CS206 Mid Tower Computer Case with 480W power supply.
Video: Onboard. Optional Dedicated Card. [ The GeForce 6150 Onboard Video is OK for light gaming. For more regular gaming consider adding something like one of the optional Geforce 9600GTs ]
Audio: Onboard. 6 Channel Audio
USB: 2 Front [lower left], 4 Back [USB 2.0]
Network: 10/100 Onboard.

Dell Link The data from Dell's site is too much of a pain to copy and paste. In summery, the CPU is more expensive and all the options are way over priced.

Phil

I hate this guy. That is, I love to hate this guy. I can't stop watching. Somebody stop me!

Goals for 2011

I make no promises. These are not resolutions. They are not commitments.

• Get a new computer. By hook and or crook, I need a new box. Shit is getting ridiculous.
• More Some pushups and situs. It is an every day thing.
• Write some short fiction, good or bad, just get it down.
• Clean up the house. Not once. Every day.
• Empty the frigging over packed house of stuff that is just there to collect dust. I frigging mean this. Keep it uncluttered goddammit!
• Learn how to and start selling. My parent's are masters at this. I have it in my blood.
• Be kinder to stupid people.
• Continue the whole no rage thing. I need to redouble my efforts.
• Yard work is an every day thing. Clean up the flowerbeds or pay someone else to do it.
• Video more. This is already happening. I like it. I want to do more. Not sure why.
• Complain more.

This list will be amended as I think of stuff.

Parenting

Elle walks up and wants to change the batteries in one of her little noise making parental torture devices. I take a quick look at it. There is a screw. Elle tels me she has never unscrewed a screw. First time for everything.

"Find a screwdriver." She found a screwdriver.

"Find a smaller screwdriver." She found a smaller screwdriver.

We got the contraption disassembled. it was a mouse thing that spoke to you. "Kill your parents." "Raid their bank accounts and send it to my African uncle."

"Find some batteries." She found some batteries.

I dropped one of the batteries right next to the two dead batteries. She thought the good battery that I dropped was one of the batteries in the pile that I did not think it was. I let her use it and discover that the toy did not work. I toy with the idea of making her try all the combinations of batteries until she gets it right. That would take effort on my part making sure she gets it right and she would loose interest before it was done. She would not learn. Baby steps Kelly.

"Elle, go get the little black flashlight off my night stand." She did. It is a single cell light that takes one AA, AAA or 123 batteries. It says Gerber on the side, but it is made by someone else. It doesn't work as a battery tester unless the batteries are completely dead. We quickly identified the dead batteries. She bolted everything back together and I was yelling at her to turn it off all within about fifteen minutes.

Good times.

How to deal with spy cameras

Government cameras getting a little too nosy? Taker matters in to your own paws.

Shamelessly lifted here.

A bette year?

According to Stelzer, "when the final figures are in they are likely to show that we enter the new year with consumer spending -- accounting for about 70 percent of the economy -- rising at a real (inflation-adjusted) annual rate of something like 4 percent." And Stelzer believes that overall economic growth in 2011 will likely be in the neighborhood of 3.5 to 4 percent.

PoerLine

The article goes on to say that if Obama hadn't cratered on Bush tax cuts and such that these numbers wouldn't have been as good. That it very true in my opinion, but how are we supposed to convince the ignorant voting masses that the improving economy wasn't all Bushes fault?

Why are the skinheads fighting each other

I remember this question in high school. It was one of the few culture kind of questions I knew the answer to even back then. There are two kinds of skinheads. The racist skinheads and straight edge skinheads. There may be even more genera of skinheads. Some might just be cancer patients. That makes for an interesting rumble image in my mind.

Straight Edge skinheads

Racist skinheads

It ain't just Russia. The U. K., Germany, France I've heard stories from all of them about skinheads. I have my own experiences in East Texas.

This just illustrates my point about more than one kind of skinhead. Every group of people seems to have this element of violence that, given the opportunity, will show itself and fight for something. Jews have put up a fight. Blacks have put up a fight. Muslims have put up a fight. Everyone will eventually put up a fight even if they think they are not capable. Maybe not on a person by person level. Someone from a group will want to fight for, or in the name of that group.

I have no opinion on whether this makes things right or wrong. Some people think all fighting is bad. What about a group of pacifists? Blah. I'm not deep enough to cover all the bases here. Someone will make a stand. So, if you are oppressing someone, prepare for it.

Grand plans

At the beginning of this week off, I noticed my blog was at post 4960 or something. I sat to myself "Self, you can hit 5000 by New Years." I lied. I'm at 4971. Fail. I forgot how slow of a news week this is. Some people rely on this kind of period to cover their actions.

The most annoying thing to happen this week is a bunch of side stepping of the law by Democrats to further their socialist agenda. The president made some appointments that suck. They really are trying to take us down the same path as Castro and Chavez. What is it with Socialism that people find attractive?

Is it the lack of their belief in a god that makes them believe that people will be benevolent? Do some people want to believe in something that is perfect so much that they will try to make that perfect thing? Who are they to think they know better than any one else.

Do people forget that humans are creatures who have needs? Do people forget that people will do what it takes to fulfill these needs? Do people forget that they have what other people need even if they forget that they do have these commodities? I'm thinking of freedoms, not physical designs.

When the president uses the slowest news cycle of the year to appoint people who will push his agenda regardless of law,
and the federal government is suing states in to silence and submission to prevent them from enforcing the federal laws on the books,
and government agencies like the EPA deliberately over step their authority to enforce rules that are not law, but someone's opinion of what should be law,
and God is legal,
and children are told to turn on their parents by authorities,
and every moment of our lives is documented for future oppression of our thoughts and doings.
This is tyranny. This is tyranny.

Understand why I haven't posted so much?

Glad I don't use iTunes

Apple: Beware of Using Google Or Open DNS For iTunes
"Joe Mailer wanted to download an iTunes movie recently and his Apple TV told him it would take two hours. When he switched his DNS resolver settings, the download time dropped to less than 20 seconds. Apparently, iTunes content is served by Akamai which uses geolocation based on the IP address of the DNS request to determine which server should provide his content. When you use Google or Open DNS to resolve the Apple domain name, all the requests to Akamai appear to be coming from the same location and they're all directed to the same server pool, overloading that pool and causing the slow downloads. The solution: Be wary of using Google or Open DNS when downloading iTunes files or similar large files. Use your own ISPs DNS servers instead or run your own resolving DNS server."

SlashDot

This is the kind of crap that makes the internet suck. What cracks me up is the location of the ISP DNS server is most likely suspect regardless of what they tell you. I promise those are virtual systems and they run on whatever server is available.

Happy New Year

Most effective bleeps on YouTube. Also, she is waring a Santa hat for a new years thing. Well, she does mention Christmas I think. I don't know I was laughing too hard.

Thanks Olga.

Dying computer: Updated

My computer is dying. The Ethernet port is slow burning to oblivion. Every couple minutes I get a warning on my screen saying the wired network has taken a powder. Then it comes back. I checked the wire and the other bits between me and the network. It is the Ethernet adapter on the motherboard.

The funny thing is, we have had several computers die at work recently with this same symptom. The ones at work just dropped off to nowhere it seems. That or no one noticed their decline.

What do I intend to do about it. Well, a new computer is something like $700. It is the self same computer we have at work. It is a piece of junk, but it is cheap and you can order it with no operating system. I'm not paying for Microsoft Windows if I am not going to use it. There is no point in buying a new motherboard. A PCI NIC (Network Interface Card) is still a bit pricey for what you are getting. I did find a couple USB Ethernet ports on Amazon for about $5. This might get me past the bad spot.

You know, we are about to have some really old really cruddy, but still better than the one sitting on my desk, computers coming lose at work here pretty soon. Maybe I'll hold out for one of those by getting the USB adapter. That adapter will be useful for other computers that end up cratering on me or need a network change over. Might be a handy tool in the box.

UPDATE

After further experimentation, and a comment from Nat, I think it is the $20 router I purchased several weeks ago. More wining to come.

After even further experimentation and further comments from Nat, I've narrowed it down to a switch that has gone bad. It appears to be blinking on and off every couple of seconds. This is precisely the sort of thing that brings down our network at work all the time. Switches are pieces of shit. What is the deal? is it possible to design an inexpensive switch that is not a slab of crap?

Wednesday

Once upon a time, in a place not so far away, a man was on vacation in his own home. This is Wednesday of a Thursday to Monday plus a week vacation. His time off is just a bit past one half gone. Most of the obligations are done. Nothing is coming up for New Years. That is a good thing. All he wants is to sleep though the puring rain and listen to his book reader read to him some mindless book. The whole time, he daydreams about a world where he does not have to go back to work next week, yet can pay the bills and be a good contributer to society.

It is important for him to think of himself as a contributer. He knows so many who are. They are better somehow than people who take and take without ever giving back. You are not supposed to think that any one is better than any one else these days, but the truth exists and tels the opposite.

The house is a wreck. There are any number of chores he could perform to make the house more bearable. Funny how they just don't get done. Regardless of the health of everyone in the house, things just don't get done. This makes them lazy and a bit less deserving of good things. This is his own opinion. He would shout it loud and proud from the roof if he didn't think it would make his life miserable. Still, he is a lazy man who has some priorities out of whack.

He woke up this morning to his wife knocking on his door and demanding he help her hand a box to a woman at the front door. They have been boxing small bits of things up in boxes and giving these things away. FreeCycle is a wonderful therapy for those who are hoarders. He got up, put on some pants and handed over the box. The woman was obviously a Muslim and was probably offended by his lack of shirt. He expected to walk the box to someone's car in the rain. No point in getting a shirt wet for that. It felt good to purge some of the old. More needed to happen.

He ate lunch of left over cold pizza. A couple hours later, he ate more of the same pizza. He read several blogs and news stories. His wife was tied up pounding away on social media sites. The most he had done recently is remove a bunch of connections that he didn't really care to follow. Some family and several commercial links hit the cutting room floor. The knife sliced a bit deep. He needed up mending some of those links later. Still, a purge needed to happen on this front too.

That was pretty much all that was going on. This was not the most interesting day in his life. It was one of The more relaxing.

My new flashlight

I got a cool light for Christmas. Itis a Coast brand Model 7736TS. I'm pretty sure it is this one.

Plus

• Tough
• Compact
• Fits in the pocket for easy carry
• Easily mounted to a weapon
• Very bright.

Minus

• No focus ability.
• None of the cool features like blinking stuff.
• Too bright all in one beam with little halo area.

Apparently the word "tactical" in the description of a flashlight means non of the cool stuff is included. Hey, it will work. I modified a pillbox to fit over the flashlight to act as a difuse reflector. It kind of works for videoing up close.

Sample video

field	Data
Title	Sample video shot by flashlight
Description	This is a sample video shot to find out if it is possible to shoot a video using a flashlight and get any kind of output that doesn't suck. So far, the answer is still no. Coast light: http://www.coastportland.com/product.php?prodid=260&prodnums=%C2%BF934%C2%A11038%C2%A11039%C2%A1268%C2%A1264%C2%A1263%C2%A1260%C2%BF&mastCat=1&catid=8 Standard 3 cell MagLite with LED kit. Blog entry:
Tags	flashlight torch Coast Model 7736TS MagLite 3 cell LED Houston Texas Canon 980 980IS
Link	Link

Birthday ideas

Yup. I want someone to build me one of these for my birthday.

Prick (Julian Assange)

Why Assange so ready to diss his supporters? Because he didn’t really need them for protection. Some suspected “that, for all the talk of Assange’s courage in taking on the American goliath, the truth is that his assault on the U.S. government has not put him at great risk”. The Foreman article noted that “Assange has long liked to talk in what seems like a self-dramatizing way about his persecution by the authorities, complaining of ‘covert following and hidden photography’ by police and intelligence agencies”. He needed to convey that impression to drum up transient housing, credit cards, freebies and dates. But creating such an aura around himself had the necessary side-effect of making visible to anyone who looked moderately hard. The authorities had no trouble finding him in Britain and knew where he was long before they arrested him. It is not hard to see why.
. . .
Quoting: The truth is that both the Bush and Obama administrations have proved remarkably feckless and feeble in their response to the War Logs and, worse, in the latter’s failure to prevent the publication of the State Department cables it knew was coming. Indeed, the very fact that, despite the revelations before the April 2010 video, Assange remained alive and at liberty to continue and do even greater damage gives the lie to his paranoid fears of ruthless, hyper-powerful Western states capable of wiping out all truth and justice unless their actions are exposed by people like him.
It would be interesting to see if Assange ever dares to take on the Russian FSB, the Chinese government, or even the French security services—all of which would have far fewer scruples about lethally punishing him than the American state he believes is so dangerous.

PajamasMedia

Take on the Chinese or Russians you baby. You are only out to get the nice guys who will not slit your throat as soon as look at you. It is so easy to whine and whimper about all the bad things the good guys do. The good guys keep the bad buys from your door and bedside. wimp.

Christmas bush trimming

It took most of the afternoon to edit this. While things were processing, I need a new computer, I read several blogs. Some were military blogs. Some spoke of military actions and bravery of soldiers. I suddenly feel very small posting videos like these. Still, this is my lot. Thank you for defending my right to be mundane.

More insurgents followed, firing all kinds of weapons, said the 2006 Gig Harbor High School graduate.
"So I just shot up all the ammo I could at them," he said. "Then an [American] 240 machine gun was brought up because more people were coming up so I used that."
Another mortar round went off in front of him about the same time as he ran out of ammunition on the M240. He then grabbed an AK-47 from one of the border policemen and began shooting the remaining insurgents, including the suicide bomber.

Military.com

The mini time lapse runs a bit too long. The video is over length. The music, though cool, doesn't feel quite right. Should have kept looking. The selection on FreePD.com is limited. If you are a munition, please donate some music. It would really help us starving vloggers out.

Field	Data
Title	Cutting down the bush out front.
Description	No idea what this plant is called, but it is nearly impossible to kill. I used the Leatherman Charge. My parent's got it for me for Christmas. Worked like a champ. Maybe I could have cut a bit deeper in the editing. It may run a tad long for the subject matter. Leatherman Charge: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leatherman-Charge-XTi.jpg Music from http://www.freepd.com/
Tags	Leatherman Charge bush trim trimming cut down tree yard work Houston TX Texas Canon 940 940IS
Link	Link

New York blizzard

December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo.

Pritty nifty timelapse of a New York blizzard earlier in 2010. Watch the branches of the trees in the background. Snow is heavy.

Take that China

News: California Rare-Earth Mine Reopens
burnin1965 writes in to let us know that the looming crisis in rare-earth materials (which we have discussed recently) has prompted Molycorp, the erstwhile operator of a California mine closed in 2002, to announce plans to reopen it.
"With increasing prices on rare earth ore, tariffs raised by the Chinese government, and the threat of embargoes that would damage United States high-tech manufacturing Molycorp now has the needed incentive to reopen the California Mountain Pass mine. They will spend the capital needed to implement badly needed updates to environmental controls that will mitigate the radioactive waste water releases that plagued the mine in the past. Chinese imports in the 90s nearly halved ore prices and the California mine experienced multiple failures in environmental controls that resulted in the release of huge volumes of radioactive waste water. Updating the mine to address the environmental issues was not financially viable due to the cheap Chinese imports so it was closed in 2002." Within two years the mine could be producing 20% of the amount of rare earths we import from China.

SlashDot

All it takes is China to screw up and poof, American jobs come rolling back to U. S. shores. We just need to piss off more industries that the Chinese have dominated.

ZI8

I heard from one vlogger that she had great difficulty getting the audio from a Kodak ZI8 to work in her video editors. I have been eying the ZI8 so I wanted to try out the video format in raw form before taking the chance. I hunted for a couple minutes and found this site. They had some links to a few raw videos. Nice job guys. This proves yet again that you can find just about anything on the internet if you look hard enough.

Shouldn't this be a standard feature on digital video camera and phone reviews? I mean, aren't you going to have to figure out what to do with those files once you shoot them? If you love all the great features of a video camera, but can't do anything with the fails once you have them, what is the point?

All I needed was to know if the video moved properly and the audio came up at all. It did. I'm glad. This camera is still on my list of possible camcorders.

If the best-quality footage and shooting options galore are your main needs in an HD pocket camcorder, the ZI8 gets a glowing recommendation. However, I did experience some key usability issues, even if its video quality blows the competition out of the water.

PCWorld

Good old M-60, nothing beats that

M-60 is an old, but good go to weapon. I believe these things are still on the front line.

Merry Christmas

I've been editing this all day. Every little thing distracts me. I don't know why I can't focus at all on anything. Oh, wait, it is the Christmas holiday. I have an excuse. I didn't have a drop of alcohol, so where did the headache come from?

Field	Data
Title	Christmas 2010 at our place
Description	Merry Christmas. This is Christmas 2010 out my parent's place. It looks like everyone had a ball. We are not the most rowdy bunch. Blog: http://plastickelly.blogspot.com
Tags	Christmas 2010 family fun presents wrapping paper pet dog tricks blade knife Santa hat Houston Texas Canon 940
Link	Link

Videos

These are a couple videos I ran across while watching Dexter.

Idiot videos himself breaking the law. He nearly breaks the sound barrier too. He was trying to sell the Corvette.

I like the title to this one. "Typical Russian roller coaster. There is a happy ending. Worry not.

Live action Call of Duty. I have to say this is well done.

Christmas

Who we saw

• Parents
• Family
• Bill and Ted (Elle's dad and granddad)/li>
• Tested every single person I have even known. Even, my old lawn guy who wondered who the hell I was.

What I got

• I got a bunch of candy. Don't tell anyone, but we are re-gifting much of it. I'm too old for candy.
• Cool flashlight that is brighter than any I've had in a while. It is called a tactical flashlight and I believe it. It has only a bright beam and almost no halo area outside that beam. It might just work out though. I'm very happy with it.
• Awesome tripod that I used to film most of Christmas. Thank you Nat.
• genes that I needed desperately. Thank you parents and Nat.
• My parent's got me a really useful multitool. I will use it every day.
• Couple warm hats. Thanks Nat.
• New laser pointer to torment the cats, from Nat.
• Gourmet hot chocolate mix. I got hooked on this stuff years ago. Nat got me my fix this year.
• New backpack, from my parents. Works great.
• A couple of Hickory Farms things that we are pealing as I type.
• A fantastic meal, thank you parents, mostly mom. It was heavenly.

My parents got boots and mostly a bunch of other stuff that they bought themselves.

The same goes for Nat. She bought herself a bunch of stuff that she likes. She got shoes, snuggly, slippers and a bunch of girly stuff.

The family got tires on the car. and a few other things.

Elle made out like a bandit. Then she goes over to her dad's side of the family where she will receive another haul. Her dad bought her a Nook. Pretty nifty device. She likes it and I believe it will help her want to read more. Right now I think it is a good choice. I hope she doesn't get distracted by it.

Same time next week?

Ode to Christmas

Content Warning!!! Strong language

Good old FAB.

I predict

Sometime over the next several years I predict the end of cash. If the government doesn't want you to purchase something, they simply won't let the transaction pass through the system. If the government needs money, they will simply raid your savings account. You and every one you know will be completely dependent on the government for everything including your daily bread. Black markets based on barter will abound.

You will be tracked at the point of earning and at the point of paying for goods and services. Taxes will be automatic. Absolutely everything will cost you money. Everything will have some sort of monthly or yearly charge associated with it. finances will get to the point that people run out of resources to survive because someone has simply charged them out of money.

The idea of money as we know it will change. Things will eventually get to the point where the government will decide what you get and how much. You will get that and not need money. This is how socialism works. To each as they need is the way they state it I believe. The trick is, you are not the one making those decisions. Someone is making them for you. Someone else is making the decisions for those people and so on. No one is in control of their own life.

This scenario reminds me of Star Trek. They did away with money and everyone seemed to just bust there ass for no reward. They must have come up with a drug or a ray that motivates people for no good reason for things to work out this way. Nature dictates that without motivation, living things (and people) don't work hard. This is built in to us to conserve energy.

This Utopia can only occur in fiction. In reality, you have to have a reason to venture in to the unknown. The place you are now has to prompt you to leave.

This doesn't sound like Utopia to me. It sounds like slavery.

Yesterday's video

It is funny how proud I am of myself of putting together a video yesterday evening about basically nothing. Those are the best videos. They are just capturing every day things with a little bit of flare. The simpler the better. Just aim the camera at what is going on. They do not go viral. They do not make you millions. They document the little bit of your world.

The fact that hardly any one watches it is no matter. The video is honest. It is a tiny slice of our lives. I'm not nearly as good as many vloggers who do this sort of thing every frigging day. I don't know how they do it. I don't know how they keep it up over such a long time. One of them has 600 consecutive daily vlogs. I'm flabbergasted by that statement. It is difficult and time consuming for me to do the simple three minute video I did last night. It was a lot of fun though.

The editing skills that came in handy last night were simple things. Basic cutting was all I did to stitch things together. Planing shooting scenes out of order is more of a challenge than doing it. Blurring faces is a pain, but very doable. No text, fades, transitions or effects last night. Left those tools in the box.

When I decided to bring the boxes home, I wanted to video putting them in the car. Kind of glad I didn't. Nat and I argued about it. We were right inf front of the building at work, at lunch time, dropping seats and shoving flattened boxes in the trunk of the Corolla. It would have been a funny video.

I'm trying to come up with ideas for videos to shoot over the next week. I'm coming up blank. I'm not a creative video kind of guy. The creative video that I shot a couple weeks ago got about thirty hits. I either am or am not big on how many hits my videos get depending on what time it is. The spur of the moment stuff is OK for a lot of the time and OK for a lot of the people. I don't seem to be able to pull it off every time. There is a lot of planning to good spontaneity. Not my strong point.

Boxes

Field	Data
Title	Boxes
Description	I took home a bunch of boxes from work. This is to prove that we got good use out of the boxes. We are trying to clear some stuff out of the house. Some of it is getting donated to whomever. Some is ending up on Freecycle. The guy picked up a bunch of VHS tapes. He was happy to get them. We have a long way to go.
Tags	box boxes moving freecycle Canon 940IS Houston Texas TX
Link	Link

Log 2010-12-22

Early Morning

Got up. Watched the local news. Don't remember anything that was said except warm and wet today, cold for Christmas Day.

Showered, got ready. Still not waring wrist watch because it bights in to my skin. Feels funny not waring a watch. I couldn't check what time it was at the bus stop today because I didn't want to get my phone wet.

Morning Commute

Nat was crashed when I left the house. I walked to the bus stop. Traffic was light, but people were screeching their tires and honking at each other more than normal. People seem distracted. Someone pulled over this morning in a black full size truck to offer me a ride. I declined. I wish people understood that even if I know you, I'm not taking the ride because I'm not sure who it is. Identify yourself. I'll still decline to discourage you from doing it again, but it makes life easier for both of us.

Not sure why, but I noticed the broken curb today around the landscaping at the bus stop. it looks tacky and I wondered why they decided to go that route. There is a 2x4 sticking out of the ground from an illegal sign for the donut shop from a couple years ago when the placed opened. The plants look wild. The trees are choking to death from unneeded supports. It is sad.

The bus ride was quiet. I thought I had missed my stop, but nearly got off a couple stops early. This is a bad sign for the day.

The plan was to video this morning. I thought about running across Westheimer and walking down the levy. It might be quieter, but it is too dark at the time in the morning that I'm over there. It was sprinkling too. The grass would have been wet. I didn't have anything to say. I have an endless number of excuses. Video didn't happen.

Morning

I road with the security folks up the elevator. They were jovial and said good morning. Pretty cool folks if you ask me.

Had to hunt down paper towels for the lunch room. Kicked off coffee. Listened to a couple of the hardware engineers talk about how unreliable some high dollar equipment is. It is from names you would have heard of. It is shit and it is the only game in town.

Went back to my office and actually got some work done. It was easy at first, but I started getting Christmas-itus before 10:00. I have another may to go after today. I may be in trouble. here.

Some computers, though physically in place and doing their job, needed to be put in the correct virtual list to make sure the network knows what to do with them. In the process of doing this I found a computer that is either schizophrenic, or has a doppelganger. Had to track that down. This took longer than the original task. If I tried to rename the computer, it said the name was taken. If I removed the old computer name first, it recreated the old computer name. I had to rename the computer to something else, then remove the old name, then name the computer properly. This requires removing rebooting between every step.

In the middle of the renaming fiasco, I helped a guy replace a board in a computer. We had to move the computer sitting on top of the one we were after. I really hope that didn't blow the tests. I popped open the box, swapped the card and closed the box. We then lifted the other running computer and shoved the one we modified back in place. When I started at this company, I was told not to touch hardware. At some point, I started touching hardware. I was never told at any point that it was OK to touch hardware. There is no way I could do the job I do without touching hardware.

I text Adam, who took the remainder of the year off with "Having a party. Wish you were here."
He comes back with "Really, a party?"
I answer "No, I'm messing with you because you bailed."
I should have sent "Yup. The big boss is leading the conga line. I think he is drunk." That would have made Adam call me even if he didn't buy it. That is a rare thing for him.

Lunch

Skipped lunch to get more work done. Could have gone later, but it was too late by then.

After Noon

Someone killed a computer and it refused to boot back up afterward. I sat there running a bunch of different diagnostics until I decided it just needed to be restaged. Next time, don't lock it up and garbage the OS. Wait a minute. I run a bunch of tests. I check the hard drive, no errors. I start poking around and checking the network connections close by. All the machines seem to be connected and pining.

If I remove a piece of hardware it starts booting. I am not sure what is causing this issue, but heck with it. I uninstall the driver and send the guy a message what I did and where things are. He was in the middle of a bunch of tests so things might have been in a strange state. I'll leave e it to him to take it from here.

A guy came in who was worried because his Linux ID was wrong. He was worried because it looked like his user ID had been wiped or something. It turned out to be OK.

Someone borrowed a USB key.

I had to upgrade the new guys's mouse. Somehow, I had given him a really cruddy mouse. I ended up trashing the old one. It was just that unusable.

At some point I got a call from Nat that Elle was coming back. She had been hanging out with her dad. Nat had to hurry and finish wrapping a couple gifts for Elle before she turned up. I figure she had about fifteen minutes when we disconnected.

The big boss handed out free cookies in the lunch room. They weren't the cheap crappy stuff either. Dang taste. I would have been happy with a bag of Oreos. He announced the bounty over the intercom. I thought the building was going to fall over with the stampede.

I snuck past the lunch room a bit more often than normal and snagged a chocolate covered pretzel, or left over cookie. Surely, I was not the only one.

We recently had a change in our email system. This has been an opportunity for stuff to break. One of the folks had an email issue where an old reply to address was being used for them all of a sudden. This was one that had not been used for a long time. It took me fifteen minutes to track down where the reply to field is in Thunderbird. It is, by the way, right at the top of the account settings window. To be honest, I was not at the top of my game this Wednesday afternoon, two days before Christmas.

I looked up near the end of the day and realized it was an hour later than I thought. What happened to that hour? What did I do for that hour. There is no forehead print on the monitor. To home Kelly. To home and family.

Evening Commute

Natalie gave me a ride home from work so I would be around for a guy to come by to pick up some videos she does not want any more. Thank you Jesus for FreeCycle.

Evening

Waiting for the guy to come get the videos.

Guy came. Gave him the box full of old VHS tapes. He was happy to have them. Win win.

Looking at new computers. May be a bit for that.

Nat is making chicken noodles for dinner. Then it is off to bed. Back up for last day of work tomorrow for the year. Yay me.

What is fair?

Don't Ask Don't Tell: Is it fair to ask heterosexual people to experience "forced intimacy" with homosexuals? Is it fair to let homosexuals bunk and shower with people they are sexually attracted to while not allowing heterosexuals do the same?

Economic fairness: Is it fair to take from someone who earned money and give it to someone who did not? Why bother busting your ass to earn if you can just have it handed to you? If you earned an A would you settle for a C and give the other letter grades to the people who fucked off all semester?

Education: Is it fair that someone who has never paid taxes drops their kids off at a public school and then at collage and pays basically nothing. All the time they expect people who have paid taxes to pay for their own kids and these children both?

Companies: Is it fair that your cable company can block their competition for web pages or slow them down to give all the advantages to their own partners?

Some folks seem to have a messed up idea of what is or is not fair. If it helps you, it seems fair. If it hurts you it seems unfair. No one can claim to be out of the mix. If you are someone in a place of power, you want to stay in power and thus helping people who are likely to vote for is an obvious bias.

Companies seem to think that "Gimmy gimmy gimmy!!!" is all that matters.

Notes:

The odds of me being called in to work or at least called over the next week, while the company is more or less shut down, is very high. I predict I'll have to come in at least once. I bet I come in, spend 45 minutes figuring out what is wrong and end up rebooting a computer.

"We might as well call Alzheimer's Type Three Diabetes." Heard on Einstein A-Go-Go Year in review show. The idea is to stop consuming anything sweet. There is another study that says artificial sweeteners that says the "satisfaction" centers of the brain are not hit by fake sugar. Only genuine caloric contribution makes you feel satisfied, even if you eat more fake sugar.

I need a video camera that takes longer videos. There are several things I want to do with it. One of these days, I'll get a better computer. This will allow me to render 1080p video output more easily. My current computer nearly barfs every time I rip a 70p 5 minute clip. I know, I'm being selfish. There are worse things to want. My computer is about five and a half years old.

I have a week off coming up. One of the things that I'm glad about is the bounty of podcasts episodes I will have waiting for me on the other side of the break. Many podcasts will take a break for the season. That's fine. Several are not. I look forward to any I can get.

Notes:

The guys fixing the windows outside my office building is whistling Christmas songs. They are out there dangling along side the building banging on windows. They are replacing the seals or something. At this rate, it is going to take them months to do the building.

I'm so sick of hearing about net neutrality. The companies will get wheat they want. Perhaps, they will not get it when they want it, but they will spread mountains of cash around until they get in. They don't care if it is the front door or through the seems behind the water heater.

DVR's will come with loaded commercials soon.

The population of the United States slowed over the last decade to the lowest amount of increase since the Great Depression. This is just one more statistic that makes our current times look like the Great Depression. They have had to redefine what a depression is to prevent people from calling what we are in a depression. How messed up is this?

All those years I road in cars without a seat belt, I was only in a couple minor wrecks. How did I survive? Statistically, you are more likely to die from a bee sting than a terrorist action.

Our Carola can't hold a bunch of boxes. We need a minivan or small SUV. Something that gets good mileage will do.

Harry Potter 7a, Harry on camping. Was, unfortunately, exactly what I thought it would be. Too bad.

I have next week off. I plan on drinking my weight in coffee. I plan on getting nothing done that qualifies as productive.

It is funny how many people look for boxes over the year. I have a stash of boxes at work that I beg people to take. They are from computers that we buy over the year. They are not top dollar computers, but the boxes are awesome. I there them down and stash them in a space in a storage room. This Christmas, I am taking a good portion of the boxes home for my use. Nat said she wants to box some things up and get the living room cleared. I'm all for it. No sooner than these boxes hitting my garage, someone will complain that they need boxes. "Don't we have a pile of boxes somewhere around here?"

I predict

Within the next, oh, five years you will need to get a license to put content on the internet. This will come about via a treaty. You will need a license to view unlicensed material.

Anyone who accepts input in a forum will be held responsible for what you say. They will be required to perform do diligence to make sure you are who you say you are before allowing you to add content to the system.

The libel laws in the United States will start to resemble the libel laws in the United Kingdom.

There will be stop and search checkpoints between cities run by the government.

There will be stop and search checkpoints in front of stores run by the government.

Privacy will be redefined as whatever the government says it wants at the moment.

Every one in the U. S. will find out that our government has had a DNA database in place since the eighties that has encompassed any one they could get their hands on regardless of reason.

No one will believe anything that comes out of a scientist's mouth on any subject because we have been lied to so many times in the past. The scents crying "bad for you" simply stops meaning anything. This is already happening. This allows bad people in power to make things happen that really are bad for you and you simply say "everything is bad for me." and do it anyway. The bad people laugh all the way to the throne.

The Chinese will start mass migration in to the US and Europe. Simultaneously, they will all but eliminate migration to China.

The Higgs Boson Particle, once isolated will not solve any problems. It will simply lead to more questions and some other bit of existence that needs to be deciphered at tremendous expense to the public with basically no benefit to every day life.

People will continue to write speculative fiction and continue to laugh at past speculative fiction that got it so wrong.

People will be encouraged not to travel so much. People will be encouraged not to communicate so much. People will be obliged not to bread so much. Learning will be come far to expensive.

We will never travel to the stars as "us". It will take someone or something else to come get us and show us what to do. We will be too busy killing and controlling one another for such endeavors.

I will still be complaining even if I cannot afford the internet license to put it up for the world.

Partitions in crime

What makes you you? Let's define a few terms. These are just for this blog entry.

Brain: the human brain as the lump of material between the ears. It is hardware. It is the mechanism by which the spirit or entity or intelligence may communicate to the body and world.

Mind: The mind is the what makes a person who they are. Memories, dreams, thoughts, will, everything that you think of when you think of an individual.

Hard drive: The physical computer device upon which data is written.

Partition: The area drawn on a hard drive that organizes the data. It is a unit of space, a list of numbers, it is data on the drive used to organize other data.

I'm in IT. The idea of a device that holds data and a piece of data on the device runs though all kinds of areas. When I work on computers, I move data around. I modify the data between moving it from one device to another. I use one device to make a template and then apply that template to multiple devices.

Not long ago science came up with a way to separate emotions from memory. That is, take a traumatic memory, apply drugs, and disconnect that traumatic memory from the powerful painful emotions that it causes. You still remember the bad thing, but it doesn't punch you in the gut every time something reminds you of whatever happened. Very cool. I bet many lives will be made better with this kind of thing. It is something that people have wanted since the first time someone went through a life changing event.

This is one more step in a long list of controlling how the brain old memories. Mind control, for good or evil, is coming. There will be a point in the future when we can read thoughts like a book or a video screen. Then comes the ability to make changes and delete things, plant whole complete thoughts and memories in the mind. Then comes changing attitudes and rewriting the operating system in the mind to make people act specific ways. End crime. Of course, who says what is a crime or not?

Then comes the real mastery. Just as I currently take a partition or image from one system and plant it on another, the same will work on brains. Compensating for degradation, you would find a person who has access to or control of what you want. Then you would temporarily put your mind on their brain and perform the operations on that thing that you wanted done. Then simply put the partitions back on the same brain they came off of.

This is a plot for a science fiction story today. This sort of manipulation is on the way I tell you.

Another time lapse

I'm desperate for a video This came up. I took it.

Field	Data
Title	Saturday drive Time Lapse
Description	This time the software settings worked in KDENLive and it worked. No frigging crashes now. This is at 10 times normal speed. The image is a bit shakey. The music is from http://freepd.com
Tags	timelapse time lapse Saturday drive fun car mount Canon 940IS Houston Texas.
Link	Link

Sound

Recorded on a dry warm evening with no wind.

You need to keep your equipment dry. Sound people in the entertainment industry don't tend to be early risers I bet.

I've heard the same stock sound when every corner is turned a corner. There is this little chirping sound that simply signifies the turning of the steering wheel. I stand at bus stops all the time. Rarely do vehicles make this sound as they turn a normal corner. This is an out of alignment kind of sound.

I suppose it is to give the elution of speed. They can't break the law. The film industry has to jump through all kinds of hoops and permits in order to do some kind of stunt. I imagine if a production company gets in trouble while filming it is very bad and might hurt future jobs.

These are stock sounds that are far over used.

Christmas Spirit

Spirits more like. Where is the Jack?

Need light

It looks like that grill comes off. I need one of these for filming and working in the garage. Really, this is a requirement. I cannot possibly justify not buying one in the near future.

IT work

Well, it happened today. I got one of those calls that sounds much more serious than it really is.

I had a user today who couldn't see changes that any one else made to a network system. The other people could not see this user's changes either. We could see each other's changes though. After about 15 minutes of checking rights on the server, I finally walked over to this user's computer and realized the shortcut on the user's desktop was really a folder. I made a real shortcut and set the user to moving the files over, warning the user to check duplicates and not just assume either was the best one to use.

This sort of thing happens all the time. You really have to be on the lookout for the simple stuff right along side of the really complex stuff. To be honest, this is the sort of thing that can kill an hour. I just happened to catch it pretty early because the folder contents look quite different.

G4L

I use Ghost for Linux (G4L) at work all the time. It works great for copying entire hard drives to an FTP system and back. This allows the setup of multiple identical machines in much less time than installing and configuring all of them one after the other.

For some reason, we use a windows system for our FTP server at work. Not sure why, because it costs us to keep a MS server up and running when a linux box would be basically free for an internal system. FTP works just fine in Linux.

Up to recently, I've been chugging away using G4L on the internal FTP site with the greatest of ease. Then, the ax fell. I don't know if some setting changed on the FTP site or if there is some kind of date related BS going on in G4L, but the file name list mechanism in G4L refuses to list the file names from the FTP site. The older version of G4L I was using would simply blink when you asked to pick a file and then dump you right back in the main menu. Useless. The new version of G4L 0.35 at least prompts you for a name and lets you type it in.

This is the sort of thing that makes you think. G4L is running off a CD so there have been no changes to the software I'm using on the client side. The FTP server does not appear to have changed at all. What caused the problem? I really wonder if it is a file name. Some special character has turned up in the file list that is throwing G4L off. When I use other software to view the FTP site, the file lists all come up just fine.

This got me twice today because not only did I need to install an image, but I had to then update the image though windows update. Then recreate the image after. The old image was created in the spring (2010) some time. The number of windows updates has grown by ridiculous proportions.

Notes:

According to one of the gold commercials, all the gold mined in all the history of mankind would not fill two Olympic sized swimming pools.

Last night I blocked my first user on YouTube. They had an obvious spammers name that I will not repeat. This is all it took. It was a friend request. Apparently, a friend request gives you more than I know about. The spammers want that acknowledgment for some reason. Need to figure out what it buys you.

We purchased some Dell towers that we had purchased in the past. Trouble is, the BIOS is updated. The new ones take three times as long to boot. The ere is some new feature involving remote system setup. We do not need this feature right now on these machines. They will be desktops. Some of our servers have this kind of access.

Some scientist isolated the hormone system that controls the decay of Christmas trees. Once you block the hormone production, the tree lasts twice as long before it begins to rot after it is cut away from the roots. Look for new and improved otherwise natural Christmas trees in the next couple years. What will they think of next?

It is very strange tweeting and facebooking with people who have left the company. Not used to staying in touch with coworkers who leave. It is really nice.

I had a dream last night that I was spreading gravel on Christal and Tony's driveway.

Notes:

Wow. I'm having trouble listening to Mark Levin. He really does his homework. What he says is scary. The world really is in someone's hands who has an agenda other than freedom and individual rights.

Today was one of those days where I get pulled in every frigging direction except the ones I needed to go.

Shooting video at work

I shot a video of the company taking the company picture yesterday. We used to do this in a closet sized conference room. We had as many tears of people standing, but had much less room to fit every one. The company now has a larger space and <got organized>. The picture taking went without much of a hitch. Adam and Laurie's little girl whom I only know as CC stole the show. No, I didn't get her on video. Dang it.

Once I got home yesterday, I managed to copy the files to my hard drive and watch them mostly through to get an idea of what I had captured. The Flip camera took 25.13 minutes of video. It was aimed at the bleachers from the side. CC walked right behind it at one point. So, I missed that. The audio really sucks for some reason. I think sitting the camera on the floor caused the carpet to absorb the sound.

The canon was in my hand most of the time, but I only shot a couple little shots as things were going on. I didn't want to accidentally let the camera turn up in one of the pictures. The audio, though mono instead of stereo, seemed to do much better on this camera. I bet it is only because the camera was at about chest height or higher while recording.

Honestly, I don't think there is much worth editing. I can't put the video on YouTube without the company's permission. I don't think it is worth putting up regardless. I'll have to play with it and find what steps out of the clips. I'll need to jack up the audio a bit on the Flip footage.

The new tripod worked like a champ. Thanks Nat. It was an early Christmas present. Next time I'll know to keep the camera farther away from carpet.

Lunch conversation

We had the annual Christmas lunch today. We went to some stake house. The napkins were nicer than anything in my house. I had eaten there once before. I remember the pork chop was worth it so that is what i got. It is about two pounds of pork that melts in your mouth. I ate myself sick. The deserts were pretty good too. You got a sample of cheesecake, some kind of truffle thing that made people cough because it had some kind of flavor powder sprinkled on it and a creme brulee. I got two deserts because the guy next to me didn't want his.

The table I sat at was a bunch of the young guys. Mostly engineers and support folks. It was a good place to park because We seemed to have plenty in common to keep each other entertained. This made for some good conversation.

Conversation

• Computer games: This crowd was all about computer games. They can go for hours if you let them.
• The big boss: He left early so some stories came out for the new guys. It was pleasant.
• What are you going to do for Christmas? It turns out I have a very boring Christmas planned.
• Facebook vs Twitter: Many of us don't even bother getting each other's phone numbers any more.
• 2005 Honda Accord
• Kindle surfing vs phone surfing vs computer surfing. No mention of the iPad at this moment.
• Ideas for videos.

Notes:

I love it. Some guy on NPR called the activist hacking action against PayPal and Visa kabuki. He said it is pressure, but not cybor warfare. He also said it is not really denial of service attack.

28% of people celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday. How is Christmas a secular holiday. Kiss my holiday.

What happened to the dinosaurs?

There is a saying that dividing by zero will cause the end of the universe. So, why has it not happened. Surely, someone as achieved the feat with a calculator back in the last century or perhaps even one before. Some might say that the first one who think of the concept was the one to trip the end of the universe. The end is just taking a bit.

Well, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. No change of anything can happen to the next bit of universe next to it faster than the speed of light. There is a whole set of rules about quantum that don't make any sense to the sane that I'm skipping that might or might not say that things can be in all states at the same time, or no state at that same time. They might also predict the existence of a point or bit of the universe that can or may not exist in the same place as the same time as itself or in two different places at the same time. Did I mention I'm skipping this bit?

I have entered, in to a calculator and in to a computer, x over zero. I got an error. In some compilers, you can simply define what happens when you hit x over zero. The choices were return an error, return a zero or something else I don't remember. There were choices. So, the fate of the universe depends on the CFlags string.

The first time h sentient creature put one container inside another, the universe hung up. All we lost were the dinosaurs. Glad I wasn't on that bug hunt. We should just count ourselves lucky and ignore the cracks in reality.

Notes:

I wouldn't say that voters are fickle so much as they keep realizing that the side they support has been lying to them more than the other guys. This cycles every election or so.

There are a couple girls in the old CB group who basically make a living mooching off other people. There are probably some guys doing something similar, but I don't recognize them. Anyway, these girls I'm thinking of are pretty. Duh. They are also mothers. Becoming a mother made them worse because now they are mooching for two. I hate passing judgment. It just took me a lifetime to recognize what is going on.

Alexander the Great, Ganges Kuhn, The British Empire, and the U. S. have all tried to manipulate Afghanistan. The Afghans say "It is easy to invade Afghanistan. It is difficult to leave." True for hundreds of years.

I really like podcast for Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo Film Reviews. They are cripplingly liberal and don't even know it. They are so far left of center that they think center is well left of left. I still listen every week.

My first shoutout video

A shoutout video is a video where one vlogger talks about another. Pretty straight forward. This is my first attempt at such things. This vlogger asked for shoutouts about his channel. He gives tons of shoutouts. There will not be a better opportunity to get started.

Judging by the names, I'm guessing there is not a true standard for the term "aussie" or "Auzzy".

Field	Data
Title	First shoutout - TheFatAussieBarstard
Description	This is a shoutout video (my first) for The Fat Aussie Bastard http://www.youtube.com/user/TheFatAussieBarstard. It isn't like he needs the five or ten hits he gets from me, but I enjoy doing this kind of thing. He gives tons of shoutouts and asked for some of his own. There will not be a better opportunity for me to get started. The guy who I followed to Austrailia http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAuzzyLife Other cool like that I forgot to mention http://www.youtube.com/user/RedneckRickem Other cool link I mentioned Davidsfarm, has been removed from YouTube apparently.
Tags	shoutout TheFatAussieBarstard RedneckRickem TheAuzzyLife Houston Texas Canon 940IS
Link	Link

Coriography at it finnest

The title of this video was "What you can do when getting laid is not an option." That is pessimistic. I think this is a great video. Life is not where you put your pecker. There is a bit more to it. It took a lot of work and practice to get this done. Good on them.

Propane target

Wonder if I know these idiots.

Ordering bits online

It cracks me up how hard ordering equipment can be. This afternoon at work it took me two hours to order a couple hard drives, a couple video cards and a couple sticks of RAM.

Drives

I had to track down the guy who used the other two drives we had lying around. Then I had to get him to crack open the the computer he used them in to get the model numbers. Once I had that, it was a snap going straight to that vendor and filling in the paperwork for the orders.

These are to replace drives used for a server where they were not intended. Now I hear we need to move files on the system we just stole the drives from. Figures. This makes for more work later on.

Video Cards

Hunt down what kind of slot we have on the machines. Figure out what we ordered for similar systems before. Lucky me, we still had one of the boxes lying around. Find the board on a couple sites and pick the cheapest one that looks like they are not full of crap. Fill in the paperwork.

The cards are for new computers we ordered. The computers are so cheap, that it makes sense upgrading the video card that comes on the motherboard. That video card is so frigging bad that it is unusable.

RAM

OK. This one is the one that took me the longest. I look up on Dell for the replacement hardware. They want way too much for it. I track down the same thing on other web sites. There is no same thing. I start searching for similar things that really look like they match what Dell used. Find a ton of crap. Can't pick the cheapest because they look like assholes. Settle on an Amazon seller. Dell wanted $90 for two gigabytes of RAM for this system. I found roughly the same thing for $33. It sure looks like it will work, but I have my fingers crossed.

I didn't have the heart to tell the person who needs this RAM that they have a 32 bit version of Windows XP and there for will not be able to use all the RAM. They already have two gigabytes and the OS only seems to use three. It will report four gigabytes, but not use it.

Time

These actions took me about two hours. I cannot believe it took this long. What happened? There must have been some distractions or something that came up that caused me to spend time elsewhere. I do not remember it if it happened. Nope, that bit of surfing and filling in paperwork took two full hours.

Who am I?

More or less the order I wrote the list

I am more than what I do for a living.
I am greater than the sum of my wealth.
I am a father.
I am a husband.
I am a tax payer.
I am a voter.
I am a pedestrian, but not by choice.
I am disabled.
I AM the IT department!
I am an investor.
I am a home owner, well, mortgage payer.
I am a dog person who doesn't like pets.
I am addicted to surfing the net.
I am a white male. Please don't hold it against me.
I am 35 to 50.
I am a believer in God who does not believe in religion.
I am not a shorts kind of guy.
I am a glasses over contacts guy.
I am a guy who wares a kilt on occasion.
I am a morning person, most of the time.
I am a renny, but not hard core.
I am a camper, thought rarely happy about it.
I am falling out of love with music.
I am a podcast listener.
I am an audio book reader.
I am 5' 10" and about 200 lb.
I am a red head.
I am a victim of male pattern baldness.
I am employed, thank God.
I am a little bit creative.
I am messy.
I am a blogger.
I am a vlogger.
I am.

Same list sorted by length.

I am a believer in God who does not believe in religion.
I am a white male. Please don't hold it against me.
I am a camper, thought rarely happy about it.
I am a home owner, well, mortgage payer.
I am a dog person who doesn't like pets.
I am a morning person, most of the time.
I am a guy who wares a kilt on occasion.
I am a victim of male pattern baldness.
I am greater than the sum of my wealth.
I am more than what I do for a living.
I am a pedestrian, but not by choice.
I am falling out of love with music.
I am addicted to surfing the net.
I am a glasses over contacts guy.
I am a renny, but not hard core.
I am not a shorts kind of guy.
I am 5' 10" and about 200 lb.
I am a little bit creative.
I am an audio book reader.
I am employed, thank God.
I am a podcast listener.
I AM the IT department!
I am a tax payer.
I am an investor.
I am a red head.
I am a husband.
I am a blogger.
I am a vlogger.
I am a father.
I am disabled.
I am 35 to 50.
I am a voter.
I am messy.
I am.

Notes:

There was an altercation on the bus this morning between the bus driver and some guy. I do not know what it was about specifically, but the guy kept saying something like "It don't matter what I do before I get on the bus." and worse. Some metro cop looking guy got on the bus a couple stops later. I got off the bus before anything else happened. I can't put the video up without bleeping the N-Word fifteen times.

The whole family is sick. I feel kind of crappy. I'm using work therapy to muddle through.

You have to be paying taxes for tax cuts to help you. This makes perfect sense to a lot of people, but not to everyone. Some people thing that just because they don't make any money and there for pay no taxes, they should still get a check.

Got to edit some VB script again today. It felt like stretching an old muscle. I've done this before. I should bring myself back up to speed on VB. I use it all the time.

One of my duties at work is to recover machines as people do not need them any more. I found a 2 gigabyte SD card in one of the laptops. It had a text file on it with some kind of instructions for a machine in it. No idea what that is all about. It is strange being the guy in charge of so much random crap. I have a shelf full of random crap.

No idea why, but I pictured the guy who played Norm on Cheer's in his roll as the soldier with a billiard ball in his mouth on M.A.S.H.. I hope he is OK. It is never good news when old actors just pop in my mind like that.

Light

Ordered myself an early Christmas present. I know, bad Kelly.

Ever tried to shoot video by flashlight? I have. I need a hand held little flood style flashlight. Recently I climbed in to the attic with a head lamp trying to find nunchucks. While up there, of course, I noticed how crappy the headlamp worked for the camera. There is one bright spot in the middle that the white balance of the camera uses to adjust its settings. This leaves the surrounding glow area just dark. Useless. Most flashlights I have do this bright spot in the middle thing. That's fine for a flashlight, but I need a mini flood light.

I found one on Amazon for $10 or so. It is the right size, but I don't know if it will through enough light to shoot video by. For $10 it is worth a try. The next choice on the list was a full blown electric lantern kind of light. All the LED kind of stand alone flood lights were $60 to start. You can get a lantern kind of light designed for camping and such for about $20 or so. These probably throws as much light as the floodlights, though not as "white". They are both bulky. The one I ordered is the size of a standard hand held flashlight. The only complaints were the amount of light is not fantastic beyond a couple meters and the switch might switch itself on in your pack. My only complaint is that is it not waterproof. Hey, it it $10.

Perhaps, I can attach the light and camera in some way so I only have one thing to hold and aim at the action. Who knows.

Haggling

Obama sounded upset about the the controversy over the tax cut continuation. He is not so angry at the other side as much as he is at fighting with his own party. Some democrats say Obama's people gave in far too quickly. I'm sure Obama wanted to give in on this bullet rather than some of the other items he has currently flapping in the breeze.

For once, I believe Obama just saw the writing on the wall and wanted to get on with further bullets for his personal agenda. He wants health care and the Dream Act pushed through. The Dream Act gives illegal aliens preference over citizens for college positions. Are illegals sure they want to be part of this country? Once they become citizens, they loose half their rights.

What else does Obama have going on? You are jut not going to get everything you want. What cracks me up is Obama couldn't get half the stuff he begged for when the Democrats held all the cards. Everyone wanted their palms crossed for their vote. There is just not enough graft to go round for that.

This goes to show that the people running out country just don't get it. They are out to keep their power and get more. Anything that gets in the way of this is simply ignored. Constituents are only as important as the next election. It doesn't matter if the voters get a "throw the bastards out" mentality, because politicians are all the same.

Mark of the beast

This keeps coming up on my blog. I for one am exited to watch the progress to the end of days.

You are going to need your ID to ship a package. It is just one more step to get people used to presenting their papers for inspection at every point of contact. They will trickle these requirements in one at a time over a long period of time. It will all be in the name of saving lives, never mind that fleas cause more deaths than terrorism.

People are bound to get sick of digging in their pocket or purse for ID every five minutes so why not use some sort of pendant or badge to make things more convenient? You don't even have to know you are being scanned as you walk down the street. It is so convenient, you don't even know who is canning you. If you don't have the device exposed, no worries. You can just step in to the pervasive body scanner or give blood to run you genome through the database to verify on the spot. "Crime? No crime has been committed. We just want to make sure you are who you say you are for your own safety. This way, we know you are not a terrorist and we won't gun you down while reaching for your papers to get through the checkpoint."? How convenient.

When it gets to the point you need to present ID to buy food, that is the mark of the beast to a lot of people. Not sure how that is going to go down with the whole freedom of movement idea.

Notes:

Why is cash tacky as a gift? Think of it as a universal gift certificate with no expiration date. I have never let a $10 spot slip my mind. I have left gift cards on a table until years later and then tossed them assuming they had expired, thus waisting the money. You are already not putting much thought in to what you are getting me.

Nat got me a hooded sweater for Christmas. She asked me if I wanted it to ware this morning. I told her to take it back to the store because I already have a closet full of winter cloths each item of which I can ware about every other year. I do not need any more winter clots as long as I live in Houston except to replace bits that I already have.

The cost of TV shows to NetFlix will skyrocket soon. The owners of the networks want to turn NetFlix in to a cable company. Traditional cable companies hand you a bunch of TV you don't want in order to get the stuff you do want. If NetFlix provides pay as you view and only for what you want to watch TV over the data transmission of cable TV lines, how long do you suppose it will be before the cable TV companies demand a slice of the pie? It has already happened. Where do you suppose all these net neutrality treaties are coming from? Vizio and OnLive are both coming online soon as direct competition. Microsoft and Amazon are on their trail as well. The industry smells a dollar.

Stupid birds

Stinking pidgins.

Field	Data
Title	Pidgins are running me off the garage
Description	The pidgins are ganging up on my ass. They want me off the garage. That is their turf.
Tags	goodfethers birds pidgins garage roof turf dispute Canon 940 Houston Texas
Link	Link

Nunchucks

I managed not to kill myself.

Field	Data
Title	Old man and the nunchucks
Description	This is me, the old man, picking up a pare of nunchucks. I managed to not kill myself.
Tags	nunchucks practice old man Canon 940 Houston Texas
Link	Link

Busted

Some chick got nabbed for allegedly spying on one of the houses of Parliament in the U. K.. Many people have been interviewed. I'm learning a lot about the situation in some BBC podcasts.

The girl is Russian. She was cleared. She worked for two years for some MP or someone about that level. She did mundane day to day office work as far as anyone is willing to say. One of the other people who worked about the same level as she did would have been amazed if she had access beyond the person's schedule and hat size. She apparently went on holiday to some place in Eastern Europe with some friends she went to school (in the U. K.) with. They came back and bam she was under the microscope.

Some Russian general who defected years ago came on and said it isn't the spy you have to worry about it is the 600,000 Russians in London, many of whom are willing to volunteer to hand over whatever information they have to the agency that replaced the KGB. They get nothing in return. They just love doing it for free. He went on to describe the military generals who run the Russian consulate in London. They are active military.

That is about all I've heard on the subject. I don't know if it is the bias of the people involved, but so far it sounds like this chick is a patsy or a setup. What do I know?

YouTube woes

Last night I shot two videos. I shot one of me rummaging around in the attic looking for the nunchucks. After finding the nunchucks in the bedroom, I shot a video of me playing with them. I survived.

There was a video sitting on my camera from lunch. I just shot a couple of the pidgins standing around. Noting to write home about. I intended to put it up as filler really.

While editing, I blew the attic video away. It was just bad.

The nunchucks video was a snap. I shot a quick intro, stuck the two together and trimmed a bit of fat off the ends. Walla, a YouTube video. The bird video was not much more difficult. Snip snip, done.

Then comes the step of uploading to YouTube. I get this sign that reads "We are in read only mode. You may upload your video if you want, but it will just error our out, forcing you to repeat your steps later, so there is not much point." I'm paraphrasing.

I waited a bit, but then went to bed. I understand the need for maintenance. YouTube must be a crazy database. They have to constantly clean things up and reindex. I'm so frigging lazy though. I mean, it takes me for ever to work up the mustard to find the nunchucks. Attache the camera to the tripod. Set up a place to shoot. Shoot. Edit. Upload. Now I have to wait a day. It just might not happen. It will. Fortunately, obsession outranks laziness.

Something else that I noticed was all the partner people I frequent were able to upload. Some appeared to upload and go live while the read only mode was enacted. They get special treatment. They make money for YouTube.

Jihadi or patsy?

There is a guy who wanted to blow up some people at a tree lighting ceremony recently. He waited to be a jihadist. The FBI held his hand all through the operation. Apparently they were on the case from the start and let it run all the way through to the end where he was arrested after attempting to trigger a fake explosive. What is entrapment?

The show I was listening to was a podcast from NPR from last week. I can't say I learned very much from the commentator. She didn't have any facts that I hadn't already heard. They had some callers who had something to say. Several law enforcement called in to the show. They seemed to have conflicting views on the mentality of ends justify the means. Every one was intense about their point of view, but those points of view all conflicted.

What do I know about cops? I watch TV. I know what really happens is not much like TV. I have a couple friends who are cops, but I am not on the inside of their world.

What is my opinion about hand holding this guy through an operation to bust him? I love it. Nail the bastards. I'm for relaxing the entrapment rules in order to nail people who want to be mass murders.

Notes:

The Democrats are bitching already that they are going to get blamed for all the failures next year, even though, they are no tone ones really in charge. There is a cure for that Dems. It is called "Blame Bush."

I bundled up this morning because it was right above freezing. I nearly over heated. Yes, it was cold, but I was walking and warm as toast. By the time I got to work, I was rolling my sleeves up. Felt good.

Stop taking the Christmas out of Christmas. It is not "The Holidays?" Which holiday is it anyway? Which one are you telling me to be happy about? Up yours. I do not recognize generic holidays. It is the end of the year. Aren't we all really celebrating New Years Day? Is this not a good enough excuse to get together and have a party?

There was a new generation of pidgins all over the parking garage this afternoon. They didn't like me walking around. I got the stink-eye. There must have been forty or so just hanging around. Not sure why they were all just sitting there. Several flew up to the lights on the roof when I walked past. They got tired of my antics and all took off as group about ten minutes after I got there. No idea where they all went. I missed them taking off.

Tax payers still own 40% of GM. We are also paying top dollar for 25% of all the Volt hybrid cars being made. The fleet purchase is to keep GM from loosing quite so much money on the entire run of 2011 hybrid cars because GM looses a bundle on each vehicle made otherwise. Someone has to buy those lemons I suppose. This is after a 45 billion dollar tax break that they should have not gotten in bankrupts. How many other rules have been bent double to prop up this failing company?

Video response

One of the vloggers I subscribe to has asked people to comment about the death penalty. I want to say something. I don't really have anything to contribute to the idea or the history of the death penalty. I want to respond for some reason. It isn't like me to do video responses to be honest. Rarely do I contribute that way.I did put up a response to this guy's vlog though. It was his comment about loosing his "man bag" that got me.

The idea of sitting down and talking about something so deep dividing as the death penalty just drags me down. The words will not come to mind. Every time I try to run though a possible script in my head, I don't like what comes out. This is one of those times I think I will leave it alone and move on. No matter what you say on this subject, the world will bite your head off. It is almost as bad as abortion.

I'm too tired this evening to do the nunchucks video I want to do. Save that one for a restful evening. Need a bit of room in the garage and to make sure the first aid kit is up to snuff.

Elle's birthday

I'm serious about attaching a camera to a kid and setting them loose in the tubes. It might be a study in the behavior of little kids in Chuck E. Cheese ceiling tubes. The world must know!

Field	Data
Title	Elle's Chuck E Cheese birthday party
Description	This is Elle's eight birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. It is getting harder and harder for me to take this place. Fortunately, kids don't really want to go there for much longer.
Tags	Chuck E. Cheese eight birthday party Elle pizza wings presents happy fun family talking mouse 4x4 kid's ride Canon 940 Houston Texas
Link	Link

RC plane buzzes New York

This is perhaps one of the best RC plane videos. It is by far the most interesting. They found something cool to fly around and they got it on the internet. They praise the TSA for professionalism. It looks like some organized group of folks who do this sort of thing on a regular basis. I found a Black Sheep RC club, but they cannot be the same folks.

I hope they have no long term legal issues. I hope they figure out a way to make some scratch on these videos. It already looks like people have stolen them and posted all over the net. I found originally on LiveLeak, but their embedding code sucks so I tracked it down on YouTube. It doesn't say that many hits so this is clearly a copy after the fact. Still, good video.