Internet makes life easy for Big Brother

Alien54 wrote with a link to a Wired blog entry noting that May 14th is the official deadline for internet service providers to modify their networks, and meet the FBI and FCC's new regulations. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires that everyone from cable services to Universities give them access, within certain parameters, to the usage habits of customers.

Slashdot

Yet another way to get the consumers to pay for the surveillance. It seems like every other week I cross a news story about one kind of tracking or another. At some point, the powers that be are going to figure4e out it doesn't do them much good to track so closely. The real way to keep a community out of trouble is to remove the reason people do bad things in the first place. That is not always possible.

I was neve in shape

Well, here is another example. If his wheels locked up, he wouldn't know it. I bet this guy could do it all on a unicycle.

Interstate closed in Florida for wildfires

A friend of mine was caught in some traffic jams last week over the trouble in Florida. She is safe and sound at lat check in. Her sister is off for an adventure. It all sounds very exciting.

She is one of the Faire folks. We at least try to keep tabs on one another. I'll keep her in my prayers

I was never in shape

I have complained about being out of shape. After watching this, I've never been in shape. I wonder if people in the U.S. would be arrested for letting their kids perform like this? There is a chance they could get hurt after all. They could get hurt crossing the street. They could get struck by lightning just standing there. I'm glad someone has the right to do cool stuff.

They are quite amazing. I may head out and look up some other videos by the same folks.

Shredding fun

This site has video of all kinds of things being shredded. It gets old pretty quick, but it is still worth a quick view. I stumbled across it at Ace of Spades.

Based on someone else's idea

<climbs on soapbox>

We had a discussion this morning about Linux vs Windows. it was the same old arguments. MS is better because everything is designed to build on their software. Linux is better because it is built by people who need to get things done themselves. There are a million reasons one might be better than the other. I don't really care. The only two thing I cannot get to work in Linux are specific games and web editing software. I've found open source for every thing else including office software that is equal to, or better than what I used on Windows. If I tried to buy a Win-box with all the closed source software on it that I use on Linux,It would cost over $10,000. As it is, I'm not pirating a thing and I get my work done.

I give up. I have no problem with MS taking over the market as long as their shit is better than every one else's. They are not. They are on par most of the time. They use the money you pay for the software to higher lobbyists to make it illegal for people and companies to compete with them. That pisses me off. That is why I use open source.

Why do I care? Why do I get upset? I get upset because MS is trying to take the decision process out of my hands. Think about it. People came to this country in the first place because they gave up on their old ones. Well, I'm worried about giving up on this country. The U. S. is the worse country, except for all the others. I really hope that does not change. I will work to make that not change.

<steps off soapbox>

Sorry. I just want people to understand why I go through the motions of making Linux work for me. Why I avoid MS when I can. Why I do not support the imperial nature of a one company dominated software market. Hey, at least MS is an American company today. Who knows where that will stand in a couple of years. The rest of the world may be rope for some Chinese company to step in and steel MS's cloths. How much would that suck? That has got to be why the U. S. government hasn't really punished MS for the shitty stuff they have done.If a car company tried the same tactics, they would be broken up in a minute. Look what happened to the phone companies in the seventies.

<steps off soapbox again>

Sorry. =]

Looping Dream

So, I was dreaming last night that I was stuck in a tent with a bunch of people putting on some kind of infomercial. They kept saying the same thing over and over. They kept pushing the same product. I don't remember what they were selling, but I ended up changing myself into a bird and flying away. I don't remember doing that before. I woke up and turned off the TV. It was 2:30 or so. All the channels play non stop infomercials over night. I don't even remember leaving the TV on. I must have fallen asleep reaching for the remote.

There is nothing to watch that late at night these days unless you have cable.That's OK. In 2009 the mandate kicks in that all terrestrial transmissions have to be digital. I guess I know when I'm going to upgrade my TV. We were in Wal-Mart the other day and I took a look at some of the TV sets. There are some pretty cheap flat panels that look good in my opinion. Not all the new TV sets have digital tuners. The ones that do not, have "Consumer Alert" cards next to the price. They are already dirt cheap. I believe it. I wonder when the retailers will drop analog all together.

I would love to buy my family a nice TV. I just plane cant afford it right now. It is just going to have to wait. Other things keep coming up. The car needs fixed. The house needs fixed. The cat needs fixed. blah blah. I'm already tired of being a home owner. it just costs too much. The family is worth it.

I don't have time to wake up in the middle of the night from an infomercial induced nightmare. It took me a while to get back to sleep. I had some jingle haunting me. Fortunately, the racers were still out across the street making noise. I let my anger for them lull me back to slumber. Then the alarm went off. Wow, three hours just isn't enough sleep.

LOST

SPOILER WARNING

Last night's LOST was one of the good ones. Locke got shot and left for dead. I have associated with him a bit. After all, we are both bald, and both know disability. he even had a dead-end office job subject to several bosses. He got to the island and his disability disappeared. Lets face it, I've fantasized of the same thing happening to me. He is not my favorite character. Harley is. I don't know why, but I like him. he is very human and very flawed. He won the lottery and it only made him miserable. He is nuts, but lovable. What is not to like?

WTF is up with Jacob? I need to hit the message boards for ideas. It does make the name of the series more apparent. Is Jacob the black cloud? Is Jacob the thing that Locke saw that day that he called "The Island" in a personification? One of the boards said Jacob is going to be like the emperor in the Star Wars series. Talked about for ages before finding a corporeal part in the story.

We found out what happened to the DARMA Initiative folks. There were all gassed by the native inhabitants of the island. Apparently, there were conflicts between them. Now we have a new list of questions about where the original folks came from. No resolution to a question that doesn't raise five new questions. I think that is a good LOST formula.

Some other facts from last night are there if you paid attention. That is the van that Harley found and got running. It shows that Ben, the leader of the Others, is a killer. In fact, the killer of his father. How the hell did he become the leader? He was not born on the island. There is a difference between being born on the island and coming to the island. There is also some significants to dying on the island. I'm sure I'm missing a million of them. I'll hit the forums later and I bet I find people who analyze the show to length. I would not be surprised if there are organizational charts with LOST facts, questions, resolutions all cross referenced per character, event, internal time line, external time line (episode) and who predicted it first. Who has that kind of time?

I have some wild theories too.

• Ben Shot Locke to kill him on the island. This will make Locke able to see Jacob.
• The original inhabitance of the island are immortal as long as they stay on the island.
• It all boils down to Quantum Physics with a little Dr Who thrown in. Well, I hope it does anyway.
  
• Jacob is the oriental guy from all the videos. "Welcome to the DARMA Initiative. I'm Jacob, and I will be your guide today."
  
• Harley is actually, God.

The Next episode after this season's finale is in January. I'm finding myself obsessed. That is bad. I should just stop watching. Wait for it to all be done and get the DVDs. That would make my life much easier. Then again, I can't stop! I'm sucked in. I know it. If I died right now my last words might be "Who is Jacob?" and the paramedic would look at me like I'm nuts because she would have far too much of a life to watch LOST, or she might start sharing her opinion. Who knows.

Labels

I just learned that an Imperial gallon is bigger than an American gallon. That means some of the specs used in my old job were plane wrong. It was an oil company and labeled some things as Imperial gallons where they should have been American gallons.

Do you remember NASA crashing in to the Martian ground because one contractor was working in Imperial and the other was working in metric? I remember. That happened while I was working at the oil company. I was working in specs at the time. It really made me think about all the miss-communications going on around me. It wasn't that this company was bad. it is normal every day foul ups that can lead to bad things happening. that is something about the company that I'm at now. They seem to communicate far better that anywhere I've worked before. Sometimes communications become emotional and other times they are one way, but at least the communication is made.

Morning Commute

This morning was uneventful. No one tried to run me down. The grass was a bit wet. The air was humid and warm. A guy asked me to break a five, then when the stores open, then about the bus, then how long I've been riding, then where I'm going. I started lying to him. I've seen him riding the bus there before. I believe he is just a board commuter. Still.

I didn't cough much on the road or on the bus. I've had times where people got up and move away because i was coughing so much. It made me laugh at the time. I suppose I would have done the same thing. I didn't feel over heated. I felt fine when I got to the bus stop. The AC on the bus felt good, but dried my contacts out. I wanted to move from the window seat to the isle where the AC was not blowing directly. It was one of the long haul buses with the comfortable seats. There is no where for a wheel chair. I wonder how Metro can say all their buses are wheel chair capable. My knee popped on the way up the steps. It always pops when I don't expect it. It went back in to joint when I sat down.

LOST

48 more episodes? What are they thinking? At the rate they are skipping seasons it will take ten years to tell this story. They are nuts. They being the execs who think people will swallow this tripe. I'm sick of half the characters. Who is next to be profiled, the guy who cleans the toilets? I wish the powers that be would understand that to present a live novel you have to have 1) a plot 2) a point 3) sympathetic characters 4) an ending. One cannot drag a book out without suffering a loss of readers.

Look at Wheel of Time. It is a mess. We will never get the last book until the author dies. I may contribute to the assassination fund myself on that one. "We didn't want him dead, we just wanted an ending to the frigging story." Reality be damned. There are no endings in life. Even death doesn't stop life. Life goes on. That is why our stories must have endings to keep us going.

I may wait until it is all over and just marathon what is left. That is how i did the first two seasons. It was great. I think it is the only way you can follow the story. I'll never have that kind of discipline.

Lunch Conversation

Every one had shit to do today. Some folks were taking about banking things. Others were talking about family stuff. Heck, I was talking about vacation plans. It was a day to complain about all the things we need to get done and never seem to have enough time. That's OK. I brought some old pictures from several years ago on one of the internet machines. People stopped for just a moment to giggle at one of the pictures of a drunk coworker. Nothing malicious. Just a giggle. Then it was all back to work.

GK Party

The GK pictures are up. Goblin Nation

So, I had to be very careful picking pictures. There were a few that just weren't family friendly. It is a damn shame too. Them's the good ones. It amazes me how people call me over to the scene and say "Here Kelly get this one." Then tell me I can't publish any of it. My lips and lens are sealed.

Let me know if any are still inappropriate or might get someone in trouble. I can still pull them if need arise.
So, here are a couple of the clutter.

Ken's new ride.

Tantalizing torment

Me, friends, places, more friends.

And then it was over. The host got his house back. beautiful house that it is. People left. Some stayed. I forgot my charger and had to go back the next day for just a moment. The King mentioned that he loves slow hangover days. Those days where you resurrect from a willing joyous death the night before.

Then came work. Then came Monday evening. Then came making the pictures and the memories. That is what the pictures are for. I love it. Now it is off to bed, to dream of my family having every moment and then some. Right now I wont for nothing. Tomorrow is not in the pictures yet.

One Side

Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented immigrant" is like calling a drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist".

unsigned

Sounds good to me. How you refer to something tells a lot how you think about it. I firmly take the side that people who come to this country illegally should be treated like criminals, because they are criminals. They have just been getting away with it for a long time. Remember, I'm a citizen. I have the right to choose a side in a political movement. You have the right to bitch about it, but not to do anything about it.

GK Party

Went to a GK party Saturday. It was a blast. I think every one there had a great time. We had one casualty who had flown half way across the continent to be there. She started drinking Friday night ... Well, I'll spare the details. This morning she was looking in to moving her flight, but it was too much money.

I would love to put up the pictures, but it is going to take like a week to go though them and make sure that they are family friendly. I may put some up on the nation as well. I didn't take any video. People get all antsy about video at these events. "Two hours in the shooting, three years in the editing ..." Never mind.

I'm not mentioning any names, but if you add up all the female body parts, I saw one full naked lady over the course of the evening. I'm not talking about the one on the back of Ken's helmet either.

There was great food thanks to Chriss and others. There was tons of fun. No cops showed up who weren't invited. We only managed to break one chair, a couple of glasses and a couple of hearts that I'm aware of.

Well, that's about all I can say. I've been sworn to secracy on pretty much every other count. I would like to wissh Midge good luck on her CHL. I hope everyone has a safe trip home.

Something I learned today

I thought I heard a statistic this morning while in my sleepy stooper on my way to work. "Those who stayed on the Hindenburg while it burned survived." I couldn't believe my ears. Well, according to Wikipedia, that is true. Why am I 38 years old and just now finding this out? I'm sure I came across it before and just refused to learn it.

Death toll

Despite the violent fire, most of the crew and passengers survived. Of the 36 passengers and 61 crew, 13 passengers and 22 crew died. Also killed was one member of the ground crew, Navy Linesman Allen Hagaman. Most deaths did not arise from the fire but were suffered by those who leaped from the burning ship. (The lighter-than-air fire burned overhead.) Those passengers who rode the ship on its descent to the ground survived. Some deaths of crew members occurred because they wanted to save more people on board the ship. In comparison, almost twice as many perished when the helium-filled USS Akron crashed. ^[12]

Wikipedia

This revelation changes my view of a disaster that happened decades before I was born. There was a time I thought of the people who jumped as making a brave decision between the flame and the ground. Now, I'm not so sure. Some were in a bad location, but some sat tight and held on and ducked.

I'm starting to think differently about bravery. I guess that means I'm old now. I've traded my adventure for security. Is that a bad thing?

Almost Run Over Again

This time someone blatantly ran the red light and hit me as they blew trough the intersection. If I had been six inches further along, they would have hit me with the front of the bumper and I would have been badly injured. They didn't stop. I couldn't get my phone out in time to get their plate. I know they know they hit me because they stopped for a second on the other side of the intersection and looked around. Their buddy they were blowing around was in a dark blue or gray Chevy pickup. The car that hit me was some small gray/silver sedan. There aren't a million of those running around.

I hope they rot in hell, yadda-yadda. On with my life.

When I'm 57

The U. S. A. will be 250 years old. I vaguely remember the bicentennial from when I was a child. It was a good year for the fourth of July. Will nay one care when it is 250 years? They don't seem to care much now. Will I make it to 57? There are so many adventures that one might do me in before I get there. Will I be in one piece? Will I be better than I am today? Will the world be a better place? Will everything be the same?

Lunch Conversation

Today there were only about six guys in the lunch room when I ate. We mentioned our poor communication skills when it came with dealing with out significant others when it comes to meals. "What do you want for dinner?" means "You better want the first thing I say, or else." Then there is the sort of spouse who doesn't like to eat until late. This causes grouchiness which delays eating more. One of the others (and me)_ have ADD and can only do one thing at a time. We find ourselves immersed in our current thing (him - games, me - blogging) and our spruces just don't get that we kill ourselves all day and just want to let go when we get home.

Then a bunch of people came in the lunch room and I left. I have the hardest time with a crowd all talking at once. I just don't like hanging around. I had Taco Bell for lunch and it nearly did me in. I have decided that KFC and Taco Bell are two places that I should just let fall in to my history of being. I don't need to eat at either of those two places to make it through the rest of my life. Hopefully The Demolition Man prediction of Taco Bell culinary domination will not come true.

Written 2007-05-03

Semi Questions

How many miles do you get out of a long haul semi?
What kind of mileage do semis get these days?
How much does one cost?
What kind of insurance costs are there now?
What is the stopping distance of a fully laded semi?
What is the 0 to 60 of a fully loaded semi?
Are those camper bits on the back really worth the effort? I've heard some of them are quite lavish. There have been some out at Faire camping. Their generators tend to be quieter.
I have no intention of answer any of these. Just putting it out there.

Lunch

I went for a walk today. I mailed bills. I lost my apatite after adding up how much everything came out. I spoke with Nat for a while on the phone. I walked through Randal's and Target. I nearly died crossing the street coming back. I had to walk down to the light to get across the street which meant I had to walk through some dense mud at a construction site. There is a sidewalk under the mud, but that doesn't help much. Now I'm leaving muddy foot prints all over the place. Oh, and I'm hungry. Frigging lunch.

I'm planning on being a grump the rest of the day.

XHTML command <hr />

Problem

I have a problem with the XHTML command <hr />. It creates a horizontal line across the screen. That's it. You can set it to thick, thin, long, short. Whatever. the two main browsers treat it a bit differently though. IE requires no set up. Plop in an <hr /> and off you go. Firefox needs some additional stuff because Firefox uses the border settings to generate the line. So, I could get the line to show up in one browser correctly, and the other would blow a gasket.

Solution

<center>
  <img style="margin-top:8px; margin-bottom:8px;" src="images/hr_1px.png" />
</center>

Seriously, I gave up and just created a one pixel high graphic the length I needed. It works all over the place. I was spending way too much time messing with something that should not be a problem in the first place. This issue shows flowed design, and I'm not talking about browser design. I thought about trying to make a zero hight table, or section <div>, but both of those would have taken time to test and who knows what would happen.

Larger Issue

XHTML and HTML were designed by comity. A large comity. Some designs just don't work. Never have. The <hr> command shows that conflicts amongst competing designs are not always resolved. No one spelled out the procedure for design in the original documentation of HTML so the folks who designed the browsers (where the rubber meets the road) just did what worked for them at the time. IE and Firefox both use completely different tools to generate the line and thus have different requirements to get the line to work in for web pages.

Browsing the net works just fine without the <hr /> command. The <img> command for pictures however is hammered in to just about every page out there. Thus, the <img> command has been tested and refined. The <hr /> command just falls off the list of important things to do. I bet both  browsers say their way of handling the <hr /> command is the correct way. I bet they both could care less the waisted time it causes and the wedge it drives between their web designer users. The people who do the standard probably don't care either. They say the command needs to look like X and act like Y, so as long as those bases are covered,

One of the guys at work who is just plane smart at computer stuff said "I never could get things to look right in IE." He meant he designed for Firefox and not much else. I understand because he is a Linux programmer and probably doesn't have easy access to a true IE box. I'm sure most web designers are the other way round because they don't have access to a non-Microsoft based Firefox box. I've read a page that talks about getting IE to run on Linux. I want to try it out, but I don't have the drive to go through all that. Heck, it is a tenth as long as it used to be. I'm still too lazy.

Jen Rathbun Newsletter

Make a short, lovely drive out to Pattison on Sunday afternoon for outdoor fun, friendship, and frivolity.  I'll be opening for Zoe Lewis, the energetic singer/songwriter phenomena you just can't miss!

May 6: Potluck is at 4:00, music starts at 5:00 pm. From I-10 going west, take exit 732, which is highway 359. It jags through town, crossing the RR tracks, but keep on 359. After the blinking light, go 1.3 miles to Royal.  There's a Christ Lutheran Church sign there. Turn right.  Chocolate Buddha is at 35814 Royal Rd. Pattison, TX 77466 * (281) 375-5378

See you,

Jen

www.JenRathbun.com

I wonder if we can make it. It sounds like fun, but we will have Elle with us. She isn't in to loud things yet, thank God.

Finally, something interesting in the news

The annoying buzz of an all-terrain vehicle may have triggered a deadly shootout that led police to file a rare charge of "murder by duel," authorities said.

...

"We've had shootout-type cases, but I can't recall one quite like this where there was an argument, then the people separated and came back to the very same location, each knowing the other had a gun," said prosecutor Sid Bell.

The law, written in 1849, reads: "If any person fight a duel in this state and in so doing inflict a mortal wound, he shall be deemed guilty of murder." West Virginia became a state in 1863.

CNN

I hate to point and giggle over someone's stupidity, but this is the first interesting thing I've read in the news in weeks. It is so nice to have a story pop up that reaffirms one's commitment to sanity.

This plays out in my head. First there are words. Neither party even considers calling the police. They both own firearms legally (I bet). They both have practiced shooting over their lives. Neither has ever been shot at or shot a gun in anger before (I bet). When push comes to shove, only one of them hits the mark. The other dies.

The police need to make it something more than boys will be boys, so they dig up an old dueling law from before their was a Virginia. I have a sneaking suspicion the charges will change before it goes to court.

Maybe we will get lucky and another story whill come up that convicts a person of being a homosexual and they get life too. That was the law back then.