Social media

Facebook is all about advertising. Anyone who doesn't think so is trying to pick your pocket. They listen to what you say and your conversations. They sell this to advertisers. Don't let them lie to you. Facebook has all kinds of rules about what you can or can't say or support. If Facebook doesn't believe that a cause is Facebook compatible, it will deny it. There are something like 600,000,000 people on the service.

Facebook blocs some file sharing sites even though the content you are linking to may be completely legal. There is legal and illegal material on file sharing sites. Whether torrent or a file parking service, they are just a tool. Blocking content from any of these sites is like turning up the roads so people can't drive stolen cars down them.

No one calls. No one texts. If it were not for Facebook and Twitter, I would have no friends I stay in touch with outside of work. This is the most sad thing I can think of. It is true.

When I make a video I put it up on Facebook and Twitter. I also put it on the blog. I like the blog platform as a publisher of content because I can put up all kinds of details and links. I can embed the video and put up little applications to emphasize my point. Twitter is great for forcing people to get to the frigging point. Facebook just is. I still have not figured out what the point is besides selling advertisement and duping people in to paying money for virtual property that vanishes when the company folds.

Notes:

The days of the pocket video camera are over. Every one is using their phones. Cisco paid $500,000,000 for flip last year or so. it is dead. They are just flushing it. Flip sold at just the right time. I have a Flip. It still works. There are still some choices out there. My phone records shit video and even more shit audio. The term iPhoneogrophy has been used. It is not so much the camera as it is the photographer. It is part the camera. I would call it phonography.

You can get first run movies on some cable companies. You pay $30 for a movie that just came out. Theaters are pissed. Some say theaters will not run as many screens or retaliate in some way on movies that are available in this format. If your are single, $30 is way too high. If you are a couple with five kids, it makes much more sense. The cost of soda and popcorn alone will save you a fortune at home.

Space 1999!!

One of the podcasts I listen to is about science fiction. A presenter who is living in Japan said something like this paraphrase. As a resident in a post apocalyptic radioactive wasteland, I have to admit it is very much like living in a scifi novel. Only more boning.

Microsoft really needs to implement true soft links. Probably hard links as well. They have *.lnk files, but programs have to be specifically programmed to use them properly. If they were native to the OS, lnk files would simply work as a way to temporarily rename a folder to compress it or as a way to repoint the data files to a crappy hard wired program. When will Windows be ready for the desktop?

Has anyone else heard about this royal wedding in some European country? I only just heard something on the news. You would think this kind of thing would be hyped relentlessly. You know, to the point it drives you nuts and you push it out of your head.

The next Olympics may drop male female based competitions and at least some of the time, use hormone levels to determine what class athletes will compete in. What's next?

Have you heard of a Faraday cage? Build your own.

>Notes:

There aught to be a law that says you have to keep a running total of every dime you have spent on a device. That total has to be displayed at every boot and unlocking so you cannot hide from your total lifetime payout on that device. We have the technology. Owners of iPhones and iPads would not be so proud of the devices if they suddenly noticed $6500 after three years showing up on their screen. "I could have bought a motorcycle."

Europe is starting to look scary. It is not the invasion of people from other countries landing on their shores. It is the lack of one country to defend themselves from being over run. Italy has issues with too many people coming all at once. Italy issues temporary visas to immigrants and doesn't stop them from going to France. France has stopped trains from Italy. The idea of a "orderless Europe" is really starting to ware thin near the seems. Some say "Immigration rules have failed inside Europe." "Italy should leave the EU."

The storms that went through the south earlier this week makes me cringe. From what I can tell, most of the deaths happened east of Texas. I have a friend in north east Texas who was tweeting while the storm was happening there. She was kind of flipping out. Understandable. She made it through fine. Listening to the news talk about the destruction is depressing. The people have my prayers.

Cool chopper

This is one of those inventions that I can think of a million uses for. You could use it to inspect your neighbor's roofs and pools. You could buzz the neighborhood block party. The list is endless.

Coming home after work

Field	Data
Title	Coming home after work
Description	Today was one of those days I dreamed about after coming home from work to the family.
Tags	good day family fun boiling contacts eve Dallas mystery got to pee after work canon 940IS Houston Texas
Link	Link

Sony breach

Field	Data
Title	Sony Breach
Description	Sony had a huge breach on their PlayStation user database. I'm not happy about it and I don't have a PlayStation. http://bit.ly/jEInIr
Tags	sony playstation breach lost data trust canon 940IS Houston Texas
Link	Link

Morning

I spent most of my morning at work cleaning up a lab close to my office. The big boss comes by at 08:00 sharp and tells me he needs my help because I'm so close to the lab. He would have probably grabbed me any way, but it was a nice line.

The cleaning consisted of tarring down an entire lab full of ramshackle computers and replacing them all along the shelves. We even cut the zip ties from power strips and rerouted them. We got rid of some old computes. That is, I put them in my office and will get rid of them when I have time. We took one of the shelves out and replaced it with a couple racks. None of the same computers are in the racks. Those are different servers they wanted out of other labs.

The big boss does this kind of thing all the time. It is kind of nice because there is no veto or comity with which to appeal the move. He ones the company and what he says goes. I ended up with a big pile of power cables in the corner. Another box of power cables and using a bunch of power cables. There are an extra two or three hundred power cables lying around the place.

It took all morning. I had other stuff that had to take a back seat. That is normal. These kinds of things happen every so often.

We had to move one set of computers that our support people use. This means kicking fifteen people off and shutting down. This would take days of planning unless you have someone with basically sudo powers over people in the company to tell them to just hurry up and wait until things are back up. Then it takes about an hour.

They did some more work after I shifted to other tasks. I still do not understand what the end game will look like. I'm not sure there is a plan beyond make room in one spot and shuffle stuff everywhere else to take the overflow.

There is nothing wrong with that. It is just a unique feel. I came from a huge company that required stuff like environmental impact studies and personnel interviews for moving labs around. I remember trying to get a parking lot repaired took a year for the paperwork. "Where is the rain run off going to go?" "Are there animals living there?" "Will it cause wind or sunlight problems?" Whatever. A frigging year.

What happened today only killed about three to four hours and six or seven people for at least part of it. Honestly, it reminds me of the military. The big boss was a marine.

SSL blows

Every step of SSL certificates is like pulling teeth to me. I'm not sure why. I get the basic idea of how this crap works. It is the details that kill me.

• Buy a cert from a company.
• Who do you go with?
• Why is the price so frigging staggered all over the net?
• Why is it cheaper in other countries?
• Get a specific key off your machine from the correct software.
• Doing this is different on all servers.
• On renewals, can I use the old key?
• Give that key to the place your bought the cert from.
• Do I need to select a dedicated server or a third party dedicated server?
• They generate a cert.
• Wait until the "approve" you.
• Make sure you know exactly how it will be used because the files are customized for that service.
• Install the cert on the box you generated the key from.
• Install multiple certs including a couple that make no sense.
• The old cert is still hanging around. Do I remove it?
• Somehow coax the software you need to use the cert.
• Hold it, where are the settings for this? Does my software just need the cert attached to the web server on the box?

Every step is fraught with peril. All of these are times the number of certs you have to deal with. One of my bosses won't let me buy three or more years at a time because "We will forget to renew in time." Bah!

For example, I had to call support at our issuing company in order to figure out where the link was to renew an existing cert. It turns out I was just looking in the wrong place. It also turns out that you don't really renew a cert, you buy a new cert and start the process over again. I have to tell you that the guy had amazing patients with me. I know how frustrating I can be when I can't figure something out that I feel I should know.

Why is this so hard? Shouldn't industry make it easy for people to make their systems more secure?

A right is something you need

Daily, I hear about cops beating people or arresting people for videoing what cops are doing.

That the police force in New Orleans is "a significant threat to the safety of the public", as the DoJ says, is obvious. But the same problems can be seen all over the South, from Miami to Mississippi to Alabama; and the same nationwide, according to Paul Craig Roberts, a former editor of the Wall Street Journal and former assistant secretary to the treasury under Ronald Reagan, who wrote recently: "Police in the US now rival criminals, and exceed terrorists as the greatest threat to the American public."

NewStatesman

Today I watched a video where a news videographer was arrested for videoing an arrest that happened in full view of the public while he was standing on public property. I also saw a man who was beaten for videoing cops while videoing and arrest. This kind of shit needs to stop. If law enforcement can video the public, the public should be aloud to video law enforcement. Who else is going to keep law enforcement in check if not the people they are charged with protecting?

Wifi is a joke

Wifi is a joke. I wish there were a song or a poem in me to express the epic fail that is depending one the unseen radiation that flows through hour bodies and only provides us with half a wireless experience for surfing the net. It isn't like we can take ourselves off the grid and live in a cave with all our needs met far from resources. We find ourselves only at the distance as far as we can throw our phones and only the most useless bits of existence on the internet. Let me know when they can fax me a sandwich and a cool drink of water. I'll be impressed then.

We want freedom, but only for me, not for thee. No honest person has anything to hide until they have a teenage daughter. Then, they find that even the most honest law abiding citizen has something very important to hid. Their child's privacy. You lock your door when you leave.

Tin Pan Ally

Kit is like 16 or something. I don't remember. He plays pretty damn good and not for a kid.

Drool

Canon ELPH 100

Not too bad for $200. Could be much better. Then, who would buy their higher end cameras?

If the need were to rise today to replace my existing camera, I would seriously consider this camera.

Pros

• 1080p (24fps)
• Slow motion mode. How awesome is that?!?
• Same SD cards
• Same wide angle as my current camera
• Night shot settings

Coins

• 4G limit on file size
• < 15min at 1080p
• < 24min at 720p
• Only 24fps on HD. That is annoying.
• Still only does digital zoom in movie mode.
• Mono sound
• No exterior sound input
• Makes huge files

I'm sure there are good and bad I'm missing. I like the picture quality of my Canon 940. The sound quality is not bad. The lack of exterior sound input is annoying, but understandable given this is a pocket camera. Stereo would be very nice.

The couple of poor ratings online were things like "It doesn't come with a memory card." Which, is clearly stated in the copy. Other gripes are "The flash is too strong." That can be overcome with settings if it is like my 940. Every Canon camera over exposes. Not sure why they come set like that. I forget the other one. It didn't seem important enough to remember.

Notes:

Today will be a good day. I hope.

Old adage in the law. (from memory) "If the facts are on your side you pound on the facts. If the law is on your side you pound on the law. If neither the law nor the facts are on your side, you pound on the table."

Frigging wifi

Spent most of my day trying to figure out why some people have trouble accessing our email server from within the company. Isolated it down to one single access point. It might be the connector or the access point. I have to get a ladder and plug the laptop straight in to the cable to test properly. I need to wait until every one has left for the day. Some days it sucks being IT.

What does it take? Ping all over the place. Ping flood all over the place. Narrow it down to the access point. Connect a wire to the switch the access point is plugged in to and give that a try.

The longest chunck of time was spent failing to locate a windows ping tool that does a ping flood. a ping flood is the source computer not waiting to send a packet immediately after the last one. The instant a packet is returned, another is sent. This is highly telling when you are trying to find hardware on your network that is dying or failing. It basically crams the pipe full and counts the number of failures. It is a stress test. It is handy. I cannot find a windows tool to do it. There are a million windows tools that all do the same thing. They let you ping a bunch of computers until they break. That or something along that variant. That is useful as well, but not what I'm after.

Thus, I have to boot a laptop in linux. The command $>ping -f &IP;IP> slams the connection and tells you how reliable it is. I need to find some piece of software that does this in windows. Getting a laptop to boot even recent linux is annoying and time consuming. Ubuntu finally bailed me out. Even the Wireless worked. Nice. I did have to boot back in windows and reactivate the wireless transmitter. Not sure what happened there, but it killed a good twenty minutes.

Now, even a 1% packet loss can be catastrophic for databases. Microsoft Outlook is basically communicating back and forth to a huge database that is getting hit by every other person also trying to access their email. I've been over this before.

I do not have an extra fancy access point lying around. I have to revive one of the old ones. This is not a big deal. While waiting for everyone else to leave for the weekend, I put together the old swap AP and swap it with the other new AP in a rarely used office. Now, I prepare that new AP to replace the bad one. I'm not even sure It is the broken bit at this point, but I need it just to test.

I hate it when the end of a bunch of testing doesn't give me solid results. I had a hard time telling what wifi I was using. Thank goodness for iwconfig in linux.

Don't need no stinking runway!

Break

It was windy, hot and kind of humid today at lunch. It was still preferable to go out to the parking garage and just sit there listening to nothing for a couple of minutes. Sent out a couple of texts. Day dreamt for a minute. Got up and went back in. Wouldn't have traded it for a stake.

This means there was no lunch conversation to speak of. I did attend afternoon break at about 15:00. The turn out was light. My buddy Adam moved to the fifth floor and swore he would still attend tea time as we call it. I suppose he was just too busy to turn up. Still, He was missed. Mostly because I wanted to show off my REI French Press coffee cup. It is pretty slick. It does only make one cup. Even using the standard issue Folger's coffee in our lunch room, the output was pretty darn good. It is just too bad that French Press coffee is so dang bad for you. It is loaded with cholesterol.

Some people just don't know how to act. Someone in a neighboring room basically shouted a cuss word while playing a game of cards while at break this afternoon. I heard it clearly and HR is right next to my office. She was in. The odds of her not hearing it are slim. Way to mess thing sup for the rest of us heathen. They are playing go fish for God's sake. How excited can you get?

One of the topics at break was separating the sound from a DVD. I have not tried this, but I'm sure it is doable. I'm thinking any of the video editing softwares out there that support the DVD format will let you strip the video to a raw file. Then you can slice and dice to your heart's desire.

After that, we spoke of work. At what point does a specific 2 U server out pace two specific 1 U servers? This is crazy because there are all kinds of places where you have bottle necks. The 2 U only has one bus so you have to put all your data through it. The two 1 U servers will act independently from one another and allow true multiple channels. It boils down to finding the knot holes and eliminating them. It is not easy.

We also went over the large number of people taking tomorrow off. Some are taking Monday as well. Someone came in last Sunday to work and only he and the big boss were here. That kind of situation can go in any direction.

Notes:

Syria used to use American aircraft in their airlines and military. Since some embargo bard them from getting spare parts, they have turned to Russian aircraft. Way to go U. S. government.

New Orleans is 100 miles from the coast. This is the big bullet they use to sell tourists on visiting. I suppose if it works, they should go with it.

My phone is getting on my nerves. Just moving around is bogging the phone to a halt. Bah! I don't have the scratch for a new phone. I may go get a cheap smart phone from Virgin to get by. Someone said they are $150 with a month to month. That's nice. The coverages sucks.

Can you believe there is still a monarch in the U. K.? They have banned protests during the royal wedding coming up. The U. S. need to do this at funerals.

Question

It's funny how it can take all evening to produce a stupid video like this.

Field	Data
Title	Distracted driving question
Description	Left drive vs right drive, which is more distracting?
Tags	distracted driving question right hand drive left hand drive distraction stick shift brain dominance garage canon 940 Houston Texas
Link	Link

Happy days

Field	Data
Title	Happy days
Description	Me playing with the different filters. Sound effects from http://www.sounddogs.com/ Please don't sue me.
Tags	happy child clapping acting foolish fun family sound effects canon 940 Houston Texas
Link	Link

Lunch Fiction

I walked around the parking garage and yelled at the pidgins today. This is code for talked to myself. I have little half stories in my head that want to come out. I've noticed that some of them come back again and again. I may just need to get them out to clear my head for more information and stories to find there way out.

The weather was hot and windy. It felt great. I can tell when it is going to be one of those no good story days when I start my talking to myself with a weather report to myself. I noticed the new paint on the staircase and the pillars. This is a bad sign for creativity. There have been days a gargoyle could have past me in the elevator and I would not have noticed. These are not always good days, but they are creative days.

The trouble is that I rarely remember any of the stuff that comes out five minutes after it does so. When I hit the same story, I get a feeling of de ja voe. If it weren't for this, I would spout the same three stories one after the other for the rest of my life.

Notes:

No videos for a while. Then, in one day, I put up three videos all from one day. This just shows that it can be done. I really enjoy putting up videos. I enjoy sharing to a point. I have lousy social skills so putting things up on the net is my way of getting out there and joining the outside world. As often as not, life gets in the way.

I need to remember how nice it is having a wife who doesn't work. She can normally take care of things that need to be taken care of during the day. Nat has been helping take care of Louise, her genetic grandmother, the woman who raised her. Louise is dying. Nat has been tied up and unable to do many things, understandably. Today she ran over half of creation to take care of our household in order to take care of her mother the rest of the week.

Missed lunch today. So much to do. Have to take another half day Wednesday to deal with Metro Lift. At least it sin't a whole day. I get more vacation this year. I don't normally take vacation so having to used it for bullshit like this is not too bad. Just so long as it is only the half day, I don't have that much of a problem with it.

Another free music place. Read the rules. incompetech.com. You can use the music in online content.

Mowing

Field	Data
Title	Sunday Spring mowing
Description	Spent more time re-wiring the weed eater than weed eating. Not a bad effort thought.
Tags	legally blind lawn work mowing weed eater weed whacker Flip Mino HD Canon 940 Houston Texas
Link	Link

Splinter

Field	Data
Title	Splinter
Description	Splinter
Tags	splinter tweezers magnifying glass ouch Canon 940 Houston Texas
Link	Link

Sunday lunch

Field	Data
Title	Sunday lunch at home
Description	Elle and I were on our own for lunch today. Frozen meals it is.
Tags	frozen meal TV dinner hungry man lunch microwave dirty kitchen cream cheese stuffed olives Canon 940 Houston Texas
Link	Link

Less evidence

What Happened To the Climate Refugees?
Attila Dimedici writes "In 2005 the UN said that by 2010 there would be 50 million climate refugees. They even provided a map of where they would come from. However since that original story was posted the UN has taken down that page. They apparently don't know about Google cache."

SlashDot

Indeed. This is just one more incident where the numbers have not materialized. Not only are the estimates off, they are nonexistent. When will the lies stop?

I'm boring

Some videos I watched this evening. I've been racking my brain trying to think of something to put up on video. I've already done all the boring stuff that I do on a daily basis. I have over 150 videos and not one of them is particularly interesting.

Video: Fire fight involving an A-10 pilot. "Keep your fire west of the smoke. ... Cleared hot." You can hear the pilot breathing and the soldier on the ground growing frantic. They are all trying to keep their buddies alive and kill the enemy.

Video: British (I think) cops chase a stolen car around. The thief gets away by running a train crossing.

Video: Skipped a video about Syrian protesters tied up.

Video: A bunch of people in Misurata make and uses Molotov cocktails on camera. This is the sort of thing that people should't put up on the internet. You can clearly see faces.

Video: Ground crew gets run over by tarp for a rain delay. Skipped.

Video: Repeat of a Russian group of red necks jumping in to a lake and sending some girl flying off some blow up device. This video was on another service a couple weeks ago.

Video: Foot chase in Afghanistan. Skipped.

Video: Timelapse of nature. Skipped.

Video: Cake shaped like a baby. "When the thrill of abortion has lost it's luster." Skipping.

Video: Guy playing a ukulele while driving in heavy traffic.

Video: Reporter ruins Guinness giant bubble attempt. Skipped.

Video: Two Iraqi politicians fighting on TV. Skipped.

Video: Cooking Swedish stile. I was hoping for nudity. It was one of those sites. Nope. Very funny though. Reminds me of a young Ethan.

Video: Cops try to confiscate video of arrest. We need a constitutional amendment for letting people video police. This will never end until someone with the right power puts their foot down.

Video: Kids smoking. Skipping.

Video: Man catches on fire at porn shop. How do you do this? I'm not linking to it. The accompanying text just says this happened in San Francisco and the guy nearly died.

Video: Police kicking a door in and failing. Another cop pulls the door open.

Video: Sperm bank parody. Not funny.

Video: Big trucker sits on another guy who attempted to abduct a child. Citizen's arrest. Good going.

Video: Something about rebels somewhere blocking military from entering a square. Skipped.

Video: Car hits man on bicycle in Brazil. Skipped.

Video: Guys being dragged across hot pavement while scooting on their ass in their underwear. Wish I had skipped.

Video: Qaddafi supporter falls to death. Skipped.

Remember the "Bat shit crazy" video I posted? It is number one under category "how to and style" on YouTube as I type this. That is awesome. That category is all chicks showing how to do makeup, and that guy. Awesome.

Video: Massive tornado in Oklahoma earlier this year. Scary looking.

Video: "Vittorio Arrigoni ISM journalist and human rights defender murdered in Gaza on April 14 2011". Please, let's give these people their own country.

Video: Guy gets hit in the side of the head by a frigging building that was blown in a high wind. He was just walking down the street.

Well, there is my adventrue. This is a Saturday evening and I'm at home watching videos on the internet. Yup, hold on to your hats.

Dr Who in 6 minutes

Dr. #4, Tom Baker is the doctor to me. All the rest are pretenders.

What is going on with OpenOffice

OpenOffice.org To Be Given Back To the Community
An anonymous reader writes "Oracle has stated they will give back the OpenOffice.org productivity suite to the community. Edward Screven, Oracle's Chief Corporate Architect, said the company intends upon 'working immediately with community members to further the continued success of Open Office.' Because there was a 'breadth of interest in free personal productivity applications,' the company believes the OpenOffice.org project would be 'best managed by an organization focused on serving that broad constituency on a non-commercial basis.'"

SlashDot.net

Does this mean they won't use the name LibreOffice any more? I'm glad if so. The code has been branched. Is Oracle combing to their senses? Are they pulling a fast one with open source?

Joke

Bat shit crazy

rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat! WAAAAH-AAAH-AAAAAAAAAAAh! rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

Bullshit

The House of Representatives has passed legislation funding the federal government for the remainder the fiscal year while cutting $38.5 billion in spending.
The U.S. Senate has passed the budget deal worked out last week to keep the government funded for the rest of the fiscal year while cutting $38.5 billion.

CNN Headline News Email

This is paper clip money to the federal government of the Untented States. They are arguing over pennies.

9,000,000,000,000 -> deficit
   38,000,000,000 -> cuts

Some of these are not even cuts. They are planned increases that they are not planning on any more. If you had nine grand laying on the table and someone was bitching over $38 of it, what would you do? You would tell them to stop their bitching. They are arguing just to make it look like there is something going on. There is no real effort to make anything better. Today I start to believe the conspiracy theories. Our government really is out to get the citizens of this country. The Mob really is in charge of this country and weeping for lack of more to conquer.

Sidegrade

I've mentioned this before on the blog. I'm switching my primary machine from Linux to Windows at work because all our network and software is set up for Windows. This will help me support more people more quickly and keep me up with most of the software we use at the company. The reason I had Linux is because I was in the software department for so long.

Remember, I used Windows all my life. There is still a learning curve. Just getting around is different. Just making things happen is completely different.

Video

This comparison is unfair. The video card on my old Linux box was crap. I only had VGA connections. Now, I have a much better video card and a DVI connection to my left monitor. The right monitor is still crap because it uses two VGA cables and a shit KVM. It hurts my eyes just looking at the fancy background I have displayed compared from one monitor to the other.

Screen Saver

The screen saver only displays the images that I gave it to cycle through on the primary monitor. Drag. I'm sure there is a fix for this. Not sure what is going on here.

Command Line

Once one learns how, one can work miracles on the command line in Linux. There is no command line in Windows. It is a joke. Editor's note, I pounded the keys while typing "joke" in the previous line. People who have not taken the time to learn the other language that is the command line do not understand the universe of possibilities they loose by depending on the GUI for everything. I prefer a healthy mix of both worlds to get through my every day work and joy.

On Windows you have nslookup and ping for network utilities. You have to hunt down software for everything else.

Network paths

Everything on Linux accepts network paths. Network paths (no drive letter) have been around longer than Windows. Microsoft made the ridiculous decision to go with drive letters for everything a million years ago and all the programs for the platform got used to it. The programming world is getting better, but there are tons of hold outs. I find myself having to map a network drive for a specific program to get one specific task done. Linux uses the top down drive hierarchy model. Everything starts from there. Windows tries to use 26 points of hierarchy. It is maddening to have these drives around and forget what program needed that path mapped.

What happens if your language only has ten letters? I feel ripped off because aren't there 64 basic symbols in the Chinese script? Is there a language that has hundreds? Windows should have started there.

Media

VLC player plays MP3 files and some video files. Thank goodness the USB sound card works just as well in Windows as it did in Linux or I would be out of luck. We have no sound cards floating around. I do miss the script I wrote that gets rid of duplicates. It looks like I have to generate the play list every time or save it off somewhere. Still learning how it works. At least it does work. I'm counting my blessings on this one.

Telnet

OK, not telnet, but all forms of intermachine communication. I have basically one piece of software called mRemote that gets me in touch with all my other computers. This is good and all, but I mess the robust editing tools in Gnome Terminal. I can't cut and paste like I want in the VNC sessions. The Remote Desktop for Windows is pretty good, but there are other issues. This is one stop shopping for communication, but it is lacking in depth of features and flexibility.

Browser

The browsers are just about the same. There really isn't much difference.

File Manager

You would think that moving files around would be simple. Our network is Windows based so moving files from one part to the other is a nightmare on Linux. That aside, It can be much easier to script movements on Linux. I have a script on Linux that removes the duplicates from the music lists. I have another that updates my to do lists every day. The files get renamed by date and backups happen. Custom things that would not get done without a script.

The GUI in Windows is superior except in one feature. Nautilus lets you open folders in a direct drop down model like a Mac. I like that. There is probably some software you can get for Windows that does the same thing. I'm not worried about it.

Text Editor

Can't find a good text editor on windows that has a working and functional spell checker. Crimson Editor uses a basic spell checker that underlines stuff that is wrong but there is no way that I can find to supply suggestions. Notepad++ swears it uses Aspell, but it refuses to find the dictionaries. You have to install it separately, so what is the point. As far as I'm concerned, Notepad++ comes with no spell checker.

I now have to edit my HTML files in OpenOffice just to get a good spell checker. I'm going to have to get used to just making things work now that I have switched to windows at work.

If I send HTML code straight through email, it gets all messed up. I'm not sure how to explain that. Even if I attache the file, it gets messed up. If I put the code in as readable, it seems to work as long as I paste it in to text editor and not in to an HTML GUI interface. So, I cannot use half the HTML editors on the market only because I can't send it home in order to post it.

I give up. I'll use OpenOffice or LibraOffice to just write stuff down and send it home as that format of file. No one bothers to open those and screw up the contents. I might do what I used to do a long time ago and just write it all down in an email.

...

Then I figured out that I was installing an incompatible dictionary in Notepad++, or more accurately, Aspell. Aspell is infamous on Linux. it is functional for the most part. I've had trouble getting it to work on that platform. I suppose Windows shouldn't be any different.

Once this issue was rectified, things started working in an acceptable manner. This means I have one fully functional advanced text editor on Windows. That will get me started.

One good thing that came out of this is that I found a program called Notepad2. It is a stand alone executable that does many of the things that more complex editors do like block move, syntax highlighting and such. I've been looking for something that did this for the servers. I don't want to install anything because it will mess with settings and make itself known on the system. This program does none of that. It just runs. If only it had a spell checker.

I asked one of my coworkers which editor he uses on Windows. He said he doesn't. Most of the time he uses an editor on Linux to edit for programming. I have to day that this sounds like it is an insane thing to someone who has not used text editors on Linux. I do not have the will to do something like that. Once you have a need for a text editor, you will find one that works for you. Once you find one, you will try to stick with it. Even, if it abandons you.

Same

I believe it has been three years since I used a Windows machine as either my primary work or home computer. It is new and depressing to do so. I'm sticking with Linux at the house. It surprises me how similar everything is. Windows seems shallow somehow. So much of it is designed to the lowest common denominator in order to keep support calls down. Linux doesn't have a support budget. Figure it out or pay through the nose for some other OS. This gives the old girl depth.

Stupid story

I have this same stupid story going through my head over and over. Not continuously, but when I stop focusing on other things, this story turns back up. I'm going to write it down just to get it out of my head. The following is pure fiction.

Jiesel

I had this buddy who I've known for years. When he was in high school he bought an old Jeep. It ran like crap. He spent a lot of time and money keeping it on the road. The problem was the engine. It just had problems. When the transmission went out, he parked it. By this time he was working at a mechanic place. He wanted a diesel truck because the place he worked would give him extra work on the side. They couldn't pay cash, but they were giving guys free diesel.

It was lucrative enough to make him look for a cheap diesel truck. He would have killed for a Dodge. That was not in the stars. He found a Mitsubishi flatbed that someone had tried to weld the frame and basically ruined it. It didn't have that may miles. He knew how to weld and do a bunch of the work to pull the engine. He only paid $500 for the truck if I remember right.

He pulled the engine and tranny. He set it in his garage and set to work getting the Jeep ready. It turned out he had to move the transfer case. He could have hooked it up two wheel drive. That wasn't his stile. He wanted a 4x4. It took him some favors, but he got the three drive shafts made for pennies on the dollar. Once all that was done it was a snap rewiring and converting this and that so the engine Japanese would work in the Jeep. It was a project that took a month or two.

I remember the day he first fired it up and drove it around the block. Ran like a top. A smelly noisy top. It took him a long time to get the exhaust up to snuff. Once he did though, the mileage went up. Even with the rigged exhaust, he got pretty good mileage. When all was said and done he went from 12 miles per gallon to over 19. That is with four wheel drive. Not too bad. Considering he got a bunch of free diesel, it was a fantastic deal.

I wonder what happened to that crazy bastard and his Frankenstein Jiesel.

Flip is dead, Long live Flip

The flip cam series is associated with vlogging. I have a Flip camera. It turns out they kind of suck for vlogging. They have a lot of drawbacks.

Drawbacks of Flip

• Over priced
• Their minimum focus is longer than the average arm. Not good for vlogging.
• Can't have an extra battery in your pocket.
• Can't have extra media (SD card) in your pocket.
• Not full HD (only 720p not 1080p)
• Not wide angle lens
• Doesn't take stills. I don't care about this one, but a lot of people do.
• No built in lens protection. This is really nice on the Canon PowerShot cameras.
• No light or flash

I still use the camera for things I need to shoot that take longer than 10 minutes. This is because my primary camera, a Canon PowerShot 940, limits videos to under ten minutes. Not making that mistake again.

It's funny because I've noticed only about 3 companies doing the pocket video cameras that don't suck. Panasonic makes one, but it rattles. There are several digital camera companies are trying to do HD video on their snapshot cameras. Most of them have issues. Flip, Canon and Kodak are really the three companies that do a decent job on pocket cams. Many vloggers are just using their new iPhone 4s. You can upload them straight to YouTube without a computer. Can't beat that. This is most likely where the concept of pocket sized quick shot HD video cameras is going. It is also why so few companies are getting in to the field I imagine.

Notes:

I got some new harmonicas. They probably came from China. Now I have a sinus infection. How does one sterilize harmonicas? They have both metal and plastic bits. I'm thinking alcohol.

I am pissed that fucking Obama dist Houston on the Space Shuttle. I am beyond pissed about this.

Public money is only 3% or NPR's budget. Drop those leaches.

Natural gas is supposedly green. Well, burning it is a bit cleaner. Digging it up out of the ground is much more damaging. Once the whole carbon footprint is massive because of the methane released when drilling. It is so cheap at the moment it is called the crack of energy. I should have known that the green angle was bullshit.

Dell

Nat needs a laptop. We ordered one from Dell. Our transaction went through after midnight. The laptop is just over some minimum number or the time of the order set off some flag. Neither of us of us knew some security code that the credit card was asking for. Long story short, the transaction got held up.

The solution is to call the bank. Get the transaction approved. Then get hold of Dell and get them to rerun the transaction. This means several phone calls. This means everything has to be done during work hours. This means that Kelly has so many things to balance between work and home life. Normal stuff.

Couple things. My bank was amazingly professional. Every one I've ever spoken to is professional and informed. This is in stark contrast to Dell. The first person I spoke to was an idiot. He statutes in the way that makes you loose confidence in his efforts. He sounded like some guy who does this job because he has to do so. All I got out of him was a better phone number to call. I called this number and got hold of someone who sounded like they were in India. She was intelligent, understanding and more professional. She listened to my story one time and was able to help me.

This reminds me of when I worked for a huge corporation. If I put up the name you would recognize it. I worked in a support capacity. I didn't quite live on the phone to the help desk, but there were days it seemed so. I would deliberately save the harder issues until the next day. I always came in early. Any calls to the help desk before 09:00 I believe it was went to India. The people in the states were hit and miss. Mostly miss. Anyone who showed promise was taken off the first line and moved off to a second or third tear. The Indian call center had smart people on the front line. How much time and effort did this save for the company? I told people at the company my mind on the matter. I convinced some people to do the same. No one ever came back to me and complained.

Japanese fallout

Countries all over the planet are banning Japanese food products. The U. S. has not done so yet. The word is that if you go by the danger numbers from years ago, the entire North American Continent would be on some kind of alert. The danger zone keeps getting redefined. Who the hell can afford that kind of thing? People might try to protect themselves or something. Think about it. If they told you no food on the market is safe and water filters won't clean up the tap water of this stuff, what would you do about it? So, the solution is to just don't worry about it. There is nothing you can do about it anyway.

Weeeeee!

Greasy side down!

The most difficult part of these runs is keeping that beast from taking flight.

Rebellion

Rebellion should not be directed at governments. It should not be directed at elites or even authority. It should be directed at the elite class of people who believe they are above the laws of the land. They believe they are doing the general population a favor by bleeding them dry and making a buck off their labors. Have successful rebellions been set against an amorphous class of stuck up assholes.

The funny things is, it seems like we the unwashed masses could simply stop listening to the self appointed elite class. This would take away all of their power over us. If ignorant people stopped listening to ignorant leaders, think what amazing things human kind could get up to. Why, we could teach our children about the world before they inherent it. We could give police time to enforce laws that hurt people instead of the laws that take deny a dollar from someone who is already rich. We could enforce borders and afford to pay off our debts with money we earned instead of waiting for a handout that will never come because, getting the money means you don't need the money. What an amazing world.

Except, the political class made the mess. As that political class keep wining and dining one another as they discuss how to make things worse fix things, it is actually the German taxpayer doing the bailing out. The mess is certainly not the fault of the ordinary bloke making Volkswagens in the factory in Wolfsburg, but he has to pay for it. Hopefully the anger of such people is with the German political class and the European political class, rather than with "The Spanish" or "The Southern Europeans" amorphously, because it is the political class who are responsible.
In the case of the vendor financed telco bubble that I discussed earlier, the companies that did the lending and the borrowing generally both went bankrupt, their assets gobbled up by new and more sensible companies. In the case of governments that have done the same thing, cleaning up is messier. The German and Spanish political classes are not just going to go away, however much we wish they would.
Perhaps there is anger with the German political class. Support for the traditional Christian Democrats and Social Democrats appears to be in serious decline, which has led to support for the Green party approaching 30%. Which is not going to help. It is hard to see any scenarios in which we are not totally fucked.

Notes:

It's funny. People on the podcasts who talk up NetFlicks have to give a disclaimer that you have to pay attention to your bandwidth caps. The excuse of helping control traffic is bullshit. All the places throttling or capping have streaming content or intend to bring on streaming content. This means they want a piece of every web page that also provides streaming. Bastards.

Some folks get pissed when you get Gilligan's Island trivia wrong.

I went out at lunch this afternoon to get some video footage of the fountain out front of the work place. It was windy and they turn down the presure to protect people waking by from getting wet. This does not help me get my personal stock footage.

First blue screen

Field	Data
Title	Blue screen test
Description	I used KDENLive to generate this video. It is very simple blue screen green screen test. I need to get a better area to work with for my videos and this kind of gives me an excuse to drop the $5 on a tarp for the effort. Next time I'll ware a solid color shirt and fix the white balance. Lesson learned.
Tags	KDENLive green screen blue screen test canon 940 Houston Texas
Link	Link

Japan radiation zone

I hope these guys were not planning on a big family.

Let me know if you have any issues with the CNN embed code.

Some Saturday videos

I wish I knew what they are saying. Tsunami waves are more frightening knowing they are not a giant wave rolling in and smashing everything in their paths. They are a general uprising of water that flows like normal water. This does a great deal of damage and washes away buildings that one might think would withstand such pressure. The idea is to get the heck out of the way.

You couldn't have used a better quality camera for this once in a life time occurrence?

I want to hang out with this guy, but I don't want to live anywhere near him.

Yesterday and today

I had felt like crap the previous day. I felt much worse. I woke up several times over the night to caught. I had used the Nutty Pot thing. I gargled. I tried to take the correct medicine to help.

I got out of bed. Called my boss and asked if it was OK if I took a sick day. The other IT guy is on vacation. My boss was highly gracious and said to stay home. I would have just passed out anyway. I then went back to bed and slept for about fifteen hours.

Earlier this year, I said I would not stay home sick unless I was genuinely sick. Not just feel like crap, but exhibiting symptoms or fervor or something. We are talking seventh grade rules. I've applied these rules. I've already missed three days for illness this year I believe. I hate that.

Now, it is after 13:00 on Saturday. I feel a bit better. I have slept 40 hours out of the last 48 maybe. I got up ... this afternoon. Did the dishes, made coffee, tweeted and started writing a blog entry. Full ... afternoon.

We were supposed to put together the little area of Nat's in the back yard. It should be cool when it is done. I'm too sick to help haul the stones back and forth.

Saturday morning blues

The Fat Aussie Bastard recommended this guy. I'm glad he snuck this one in on a Saturday that I'm feeling like crap. It made me tap my toe and get going.

Notes:

I wonder if we will really get a government shut down in the next couple months. It is simply an annoyance to most people. The military, post office and other services will stay open. Parks and a large number of other services will be shut down. It sucks that so many people have to take time off without pay. I would not survive that sort of thing. What if people decide they like the shut down? The last time this happened was 1995. We are looking at a one week extension. This will let the military run for the rest of the year. This extension would let the Congress go on Spring break.

Malls exist because of the automobile. Wal-Mart exists because of the automobile. California is trying to ban cars in down town areas and put in pedestrian malls. This will not work. People will have to drive 50 miles to walk around a damn mall. What is the point?

Some friends of mine went to a place in Galveston for a long weekend. They do it every year or so. There is a bird festival of some kind going on. People show up on some po-dunk island and watch birds. It sounds like a great way to get bit by mosquitoes to me, but they seem to enjoy it.

Dish Network will buy Blockbuster. Interesting. This means Disk will use existing contracts from Blockbuster to stream movies online. I'm all for competition. NetFlicks just paid a fortune for Mad Men. The idea of letting someone stream your show online is getting more expensive. Dish networks has some kind of internet offering with their TV offerings. Will they charge you extra to use NetFlicks on their internet connection?

It's funny listening to podcasts of radio shows. They cut out the music for the podcasts in many cases. This cracks me up. Some of the shows in the U. S. play music, but it is independent band music that I'm used to hearing. Not a single show that I've heard out of Australia plays music. Not a note. I'm not sure, but the laws must be more strict there.

The probes

Why are the Voyager probes slowing down more than expected?

So many people, myself included, wanted this anomaly to be the proof that something was highly wrong with the numbers. It pisses me off when Einstein's theories are thought to be wrong based on observation and then it turns out to be some bullshit reason that proves he was right all over again. I have nothing against Einstein. If he is right, we are never going to reach the stars in my opinion. So many people disagree. I just don't think it is going to happen without some completely new idea of what the universe is made of coming about.

The nuclear pigs (mini nuclear power plants) on both probes are mounted on the side of the space craft opposite Earth. This is because the pig would interfere with transmissions back to Earth. This means the back side of the big antenna (think satellite dish) aimed at Earth acts as a reflector for the heat radiation from the pig. The radiation is radiated out in all directions. Some of this hits the back of the antenna. The bouncing light does not completely cancel out. There is just a bit of advantage coming off of the back of the antenna. This means the space craft is slowing down because of uneven heat distribution from the pig.

This idea has been kicked around for a long time, but someone finally sat down and did the numbers.

Plot, point or fake it

I'm trying to come up with ideas for shooting a video. I got a compliment on the simple fifteen second video I shot that was really just a test of me doing a simple clone shot. The clone didn't even say anything. I did it as a learning experience and went ahead and put it up just because I spent so much time on it.

What I learned

• The camera must be left absolutely still. Any movement, even a pixel or two, will pop the illusion like a soap bubble. My mini tripod is very easy handy and very easy to knock off by a tinny bit. Even hitting record might be enough to blow the shot. That is why pros use fifty pound tripods and put sand bags on the feet.
• KDENLive lets you use the arrow keys to line up shots lying on top of each other.
• Timing is impossible when playing both the sides of a conversation. Lining up two sides of a conversation that both involve you talking is going to take a lot of creative editing. The side doing the talking is going at normal speed. The side not talking will have to be slowed down or sped up if possible to make up the difference. Keeping track of this in your head while the camera is on you is taxing. This is where a producer or director would come in handy. Just having someone there ticking off the seconds until you answer a question would be great.
• A vertical line running down the middle of the set is nice. It gives the actor(s) a visual queue of their limits. In the previous video I split the scene on the right side of the door frame. That was the line to avoid. It was handy when editing because it let me make sure I lined up from top to bottom.

I have thought about interviewing myself. I have no idea what to ask or answer. Another idea was to tap out a drum beat on one side and do a little dance on the other. That would just be stupid. The timing issue would be all but solved though because keeping a beat is not nearly as difficult. I would have to find a metronome or something to keep me in line since I cant keep a beat in a jar.

Notes:

I didn't play the harmonica on the walk in this morning. I thought about it. I was already out of breath after the first couple of yards walking. Not sure what changed. I wouldn't say out of breath. I was breathing heavier than normal. I felt fine by the time I got to the bus stop.

Something new - EV Battery charge stations. They are testing in Israel. You pull up in your electric car. You swipe your card. The ground opens up below your car and swaps the battery while you sit there. You drive off. The whole thing takes two minutes. This is the kind of thing that is going to have to happen before electric cars "work" for day to day efforts. This would really come together if you also charge at the house and work for example.

Sometimes I wish I had the will to read the budget and follow what is really going on in our government. The crooks in the government know that people don't have time to keep up with there own lives so they make things so complicated that it is impossible to keep up with the things they are pushing through.

It begins

Afghanistan Called First "Robotic War"
"Fareed Zakaria (Editor of Time, CNN GPS) writes that one in 50 USA combatants in Afghanistan is now a robot. There are more fighting robots than elevators in the country. Article has links to film of robots in action, allusions to Terminator films."

Slashdot

It cracks me up. Tick the currently working robots off on your fingers.

• Manufacturing
• Making war
• Autonomous vehicles
• Bomb disposal (more than remote control)
• vacuuming

Jobs coming soon to a robot near you.

• Autonomous surgery (not remote control)
• Commercial flights
• Taxi cabs
• Buses
• Trains
• Long haul trucking

The next logical step is all those jobs that are dangerous and too likely to provide opportunities for corruption for people to do.

• Soldiers
• Miners

I've thought for years that the reason we have such a poor border policy is to prevent Americans from taking the jobs they won't do. Perhaps those menial jobs will be taken by robots. It would make the transition much easier if the people who have those jobs currently were more easily denied rights. Shoving them aside would be much easier if they had few rights.

That is giving our government too much credit. Robots will never be aloud to take the place of voters. Right? Who would be Left to govern?

Leadership

What is the first piece of news that hits me this morning? Our president is starting his 2012 campaign today. He needs to raise money for such an effort. He is not alone. Several politicians are doing the same thing. Some beat him to the punch. Is it bad that I am disgusted by this?

Has this country had enough of his golfing his way through running a country? Have our allies had enough of his gaffs and bowing to dictators? Will his race come in to the race again? (That sentence really sounds stupid.) Can the country stand another four years of "Ignore it and it will go away." leadership?

Get me straight. I'm not blaming him for starting the campaign. I'm calling him a dangerously bad leader. He is selling the country and, separately, her citizens down the river by indecision and neglect of duty. It seems to me that Obama would work ten times harder to avoid a decision that he would making one.

Obama has us in another war. Don't tell me it isn't a war. We bomb the daylights out of a country and put some boots on the ground to make the bombing more accurate. Have we chosen a side? Well, we say we want the Libyan leader gone. We give his enemies weapons. Those weapons will be turned on us tomorrow. How many times will this same story play out?

It will continue until the citizenry of the U. S. highers a leader. Here lately, we have had a popularity contest. Somehow people must be reminded that when they cast their vote, they are hiring someone to spend their money.

Notes:

Your odds of winning the lottery are only slightly increased by buying a ticket. Dr Karl.

Got the harmonicas. Haven't unwrapped them. I'm scared. I'm scared of sucking at it so bad that I'm never good enough to not suck. How exactly do I intend to get there if I won't even pick them up?

If Germany leaves NATO, then NATO is no more.

We have x8 KVMs at work. We have old ones new ones a crap load of them. Some of them require you pull all the plugs that have power in order to kill them. Every once in a while you have to kill (reboot) them in order to wake them up. That is like 30 cables you have to pull and put back. There was an email that went around today that griped that someone had pulled all the cables and not put them back. Something very interesting happened. The person who did it fessed up. I was nearly flabergasted.

Life is a Poncy scheme.

Government gun running

Have you heard about this? Doesn't this have bad idea written all over it?

On March 28th, I had a post on the Big Government website that highlighted the details of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) ‘Operation Gun Runner.’ This operation, sometimes called by the name ‘Fast and Furious,’ entailed selling thousands of guns to known Mexican criminals in the U.S., allowing the weapons to be carried into Mexico, and tracing the movement of the guns in hopes of catching major players in the Mexican Cartel.
The problem with this plan is that it didn’t work. Of the 2,000 to 2,500 guns that were sold, only 1,300 (approximately) have been recovered: which means that right now, as I type, 1,200 guns are passing hand to hand between cartel members and others in Mexico.
...
Won’t it be great if Congressman Issa can find out who authorized these operations and why the objections of numerous BATF Agents were suppressed, among other things?
Clearly, somebody within the administration authorized the illegal sale of those guns to individuals with known cartel ties. And perhaps the same person, or somebody else, knew those illegal guns were then being smuggled across the border. As of now, all we know is that the BATF and the Justice Department knew about the operations. But thanks to Congressman Issa, we may know much more in the days immediately following April 13th.

Someone said it was a good idea to let loose a bunch of real guns loose in to the hands of Mexican cartel members. Then, sit back and let the data roll in about where these guns were going. Then when fellow law enforcement officers from the U. S. start getting killed by the guns, to start denying everything and cover for the higher ups before all the walls come crashing down. Did I miss anything?

Dragons

StunRay Incapacitates With a Flash of Light
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Scientific American reports that a newly patented method of non-lethal incapacitation can render an assailant helpless for several minutes by overloading the neural networks connected to the retina with a brief flash of high-intensity light. 'It's the inverse of blindness—the technical term is a loss of contrast sensitivity,' says Todd Eisenberg, the engineer who invented the device. The device consists of a 75-watt lamp, combined with optics that collect and focus the visible light into a targeted beam, which can be aimed like a flashlight to project a controlled beam of white light more than 10 times more intense than an aircraft landing light with a range as far away as 150 feet. Recovery time ranges from 'seconds to 20 minutes,' says Eisenberg. 'It's very analogous to walking from a very bright room into a very dark room.'"

Let me get this straight. Shining a bright light in soneone's eyes stuns their vision temporarily. The first guy to walk out from under the trees could have told these scientists this. When I was a kid, I knew this with my first flashlight. What happened to the dazzling lasers? What happened to the black light that would only blind the bad guys?

How many of my tax dollars went to rediscover that light is bright? Bastards.

That'll buff right out

Where has Kelly gone?

Kelly is living his life and neglecting his blog. Decades ago, I kept a journal. I threatened to put it up on the blog, but this won't happen. Anyway. The last entry in that journal says something on the order of "I'm going to stop writing about my life and start living it." This is not going to happen with the blog.

I'm just so boring that I have nothing to talk about.

Finished the first two seasons of Star Wars Clone Wars. I thought it was pretty good. I noticed some parallels between the politics of the show and the current political scene in the world. There is still no parallel for Israel.

Got the tax stuff handed off. No idea what is going on there. Need to pay better attention to that sort of stuff.