When you do an ls -al (ls = list as in dir in DOS) you get a list of the files in the current folder with their permissions. To change the mode of a file (permissions) the command is chmod. a command looks something like the following.

chmod 664 <filename>

What do the numbers mean? Think binary.

000
----------

001
---------x

002
--------w-

003
--------wx

004
-------r--

005
-------r-x

006
-------rw-

007
-------rwx

... And so on. There are three sets of three privilege attributes. There is one additional bit on the far left, called the sticky bit, that no one really knows what it does. Until you stumble across the holly grail of the sticky bit, ignore it. The first set of three are for user (The user who created the file. Known as owner in Microsoft world.). The second set of three is for the group to which the file belongs. The third set of three is for all (or world).
Linux has mime types (Don't look it up. It means nothing), but does not use file extensions to determine what to do with you activate it. The only way Linux knows to run a binary or a script is that the file has the execute "x" attribute in the appropriate section.
I know no one cares. I felt this information had to be ported to the masses. I'm sick of it biting me in the ass every time I have to deal with vendors.

Baseball Game
My day job went to a baseball game yesterday. It was actually fun. I was worried it would be a drag going to a game with people from my job,but it was OK. I ran around taking a bunch of pictures of the stadium and people.
Before the game we went to a place called Onion Creek. This was about 11:30 or so. We started drinking there with a beer or so before the 1;05 game. This is an awesome place. I tis just plane cool. It is a coffee house with good food, beer and wine.
I didn't even know I was going until about 9:00 or so. Josh came in and handed me a ticket. He and some of the guys received a family upgrade to the club level seats.
The game was fun. I didn't stay in the seat much. I wandered around snapping a few shots. There is on shot lined up right down the track that allows you to get a cool picture of the train. It is from a rarely used stairwell in the back of the place. I think i have more fun watching the people than the game. There were a couple of guys smoking weed in the tour out back. The smell was strong enough to knock you out. There were a bunch of school kids there on field trips. I never went to a baseball game on a field trip. They looked like private schools.
It was the aftermath that was fun. We ended up at the Flying Saucer. The waitresses were warring these little Catholic schoolgirl outfits. What killed me was these girls in the white knee-high socks. I only took one picture, because I was afraid I would get arrested. I need to get out more.
I got my first look at the light rail. It is very quiet. I can tell why a couple of people have been hit.
I made it in to work at my normal time of 6:00 AM. I have gotten work done too. I admit, after lunch I was all but useless. I can't say that is abnormal for a Friday afternoon.

Art Car Parade
I'm going to try to make the Art Car Parade tomorrow. It may give me even more picture opportunities. They will appear on the blog, worry not.

It begins
It won't be long now. Soon you will have cloths that crash. You will have a manual on CD-ROM you will have to read and learn how to use before you can put on your jacket. I remember Back to the Future two or three where the main character's jacket was self drying. What I don't understand is why they used a battery. Why didn't they just make a mechanism charge the system as you step? They are already using mechanics with a small electric motor/servo. I wander if it uses a proprietary battery you can only get via OEM.

Dark Matter BAH!!!!
Dark matter is bullshit. Wait, there is more bullshit in the universe than dark matter. I've gone over this in my blog before, so I'll limit my rant to a few dozen lines. The concept of dark matter is self flawed. It is like saying the Earth is flat, What proof do you have that the Earth is flat? Look around, it's flat. There is a huge hole in the math. Gravity doesn't act like we expect it too all the time.
Some lonely geek sat down on a Saturday evening and did the math. "There is X amount of matter we can see. In order for gravity to work the way it says in the book, there has to be 10X matter in the universe. Where is all that other matter? Lets call it dark matter, I'll make slashdot with a cool name like that. Oyven-Glaven!!"
The book is wrong. Perhaps the formula of gravity doesn't stop declining at zero. Perhaps at great distances it repels instead of attracts. There are any one of a million excuses for the discrepancy. We would see the dark matter. If it has gravity (which it must or why have dark matter) It would form some kind of clump. We would see it. I bet it would look like fog or a dust storm when you looked through a telescope. It would rain down from the skies and hit us in the head. Look around, there is no dark matter.

All the children are put to bed. Their mother joins them soon. The day winds down. Another day comes. Night looms, leaks into my home. Dreams call, but not by name. The cool air, a night breeze sings to me while I lay awake. Awake to hear the breeze. Awake to hear my loved ones breath. Awake to feel my troubles slip away, away to tomorrow, tomorrow, so far away.

Tid-bits
Good Houston Vehicle
Some one has come out with an aquatic car that looks good for Houston Floods. If it had a slightly higher profile for all the potholes I bet it would be the ultimate Houston car.
Brain Priority
I work with computers and I work in an office. Now, I work a second job. I'm trying to land a girlfriend. My life needs priorities. Computers need priorities or they will never get anything done. I read all the time about artificial intelligence and how complex are the things that go on in the mind. I bet the RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Commands) design in conjunction with a flexible priority system would do wanders for AI. I bet forgetting tasks when they become too low a priority is important too. Can you imagine never being able to forget anything. You would go nuts knowing where you left your sox in the second grade.
Gmail gripes
It doesn't check the spelling in the subject line. Hence, 99% of my emails have "hey" as the subject. This is true about many of the other web email interfaces.
You can't remove a label once you have assigned one. I accidentally assigned the wrong label to an email and now, it is in both groups.
Email in the sent-items folder is there for ever. You cannot really archive it. It is still sitting in the sent items folder.
Gmail highlights
It does what it says on the box.
Conversations are linked. Once you label an email, all replies to that email are stuck in the same conversation. You archive conversations.

Warning
Every time, and I mean every time one of these virus/worm warnings come out, my day job's network grinds to a halt. It is frightening how poorly this system is set up to handle these every day occurrences. I'm really only upset because I haven't been able to listen to my internet radio all day.
I did get work done in spite of the lack of reliable I-radio. I found myself prioritizing my tasks based on what I felt like doing. I have so much piled up it doesn't matter where I start. You know, it worked. I got allot of work done. I asked several unique questions of the higher-ups at both my company and a vendor support and I got a resounding and unanimous “You're screwed Kelly” at every turn. Support sucks these days. Computers have reached the level where the easy things are all done for you and if you need something done outside the box, no one knows how to do it (except me). You would think this might make me feel better about myself. It does give me a false sense of superiority. That falls short of earning me more money. When people ask me who is my boss at my day job, I answer “everyone”. That is how it feels sometimes. Recently I've been telling people no. I've had people ask for one thing, then when I give then what they asked for, they say “I asked for ...” and I want to pull out the email or document they sent me and point to the facts and say “What did you ask for? What did I give you?” I'm not that abrupt about it, but I would like to be sometimes. It isn't that bad really. I should not complain, so much.

Linux
I blamed Linux about the Support Wizard trouble. I blamed Linux for the trouble I've had with several software packages. Now, I can't get Overnet to run reliably in Linux. it keeps loosing the connection with the Temp files. That causes me to redo the entire download list. After the third time I called it quits. It isn't Linux's fault. When you go to these web pages and look at the support there is a ton of crap for Windeath and a line or two for Linux. The software for Linux is an after thought. That will change I bet. I remember when Windeath was second to DOS. I remember when server meant NetWare or Unix. Pretty soon you will do your taxes on you mobile phone. It won't matter a damn bit which OS you have.

Progress
I got the Support Wizard software to accept emails as tickets. Now, if I can only get it to mail me when I get a ticket. Give me time.
Then, I found a cool new site and movie company. It looks like some independent film companies are giving Disney and Pixar (now two separate entities) a run for their money.
At some point I called Anna and left a message. Her crazy party was last night and I won't be able to sleep until I know how it went.
Cynthia emailed. She is in one piece, but puffy after getting her wisdom teeth pulled. She will be out of action for a bit.

Game Over
I wandered what happened to this show. Is it available on DVD yet? :-b They put it on Friday night for God's sake. I only saw the first one. I liked it. I hope it finds a home somewhere else.

Earthquake
There is a show on tonight about earthquakes in California. I'm so sick of shows about California. The universe doesn't revolve around L.A.. This show isn't even well made. It looks like they are trying to have too many sub-plots. The show is called “10.5” and is about as stupid as the name.

OK, Lame post
This is a lame post. I'll try to make sure I have something to say in the future. I've been getting a bunch of work done lately. That might have something to do with the frazzled brain.

Workflow
I'm working on some T-Pro stuff. I am trying to set up a support software. The trouble is, I have no organization to setup. I have to guess what's next at every step. It can all be modified later if needed. I can't get the stupid thing to let me in to the FAQ without a login. I can't get the stupid thing to send me an email on a ticket. I cant get the thing to move tickets like it says it is supposed to. Blaw, blaw ,blaw.

Recover
This guy, Thomas Hamill, was being held in Iraq. He is a farmer in the States. He went to Iraq to drive a truck for Halliburton. He was in a locked building. When he heard a military group break into the building, he chased them down and was rescued.

Complaints and wining department
I've been in agony the past week. I have a crick in my neck. The pain is worse when I turn my head to the right, or look down. This happens every couple of years. normally it goes away after a week. Though the pain has dropped a bit in intensity, or I have become accustom to compensating, this bout shows little sign of release. It all started this past Tuesday with a bad dream or two. Now, the funny posture has lead to another, separate pain in my upper back. It is a muscle-soreness pain, different from the crick pain. This second pain is one I get all the time when I spend too much time in front of the computer. I have to admit, I've been spending fourteen hours a day in front of a computer between both jobs and all the other crap I do on the computer.

Saudi Arabia Blames Jews for attack
Story. Four gunmen, some of whom worked for the security guarding the place, broke into an engineering compound (with employee cards) and shot several employees dead before reaping mayhem upon the city.
This is a quote from the article from the crown prince Abdullah, the guy in charge of the Saudi Arabia Kingdom.
“Crown Prince Abdullah, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, blamed outside influences, specifically Israel, for the terrorism.
'It became clear for us and I say it, not 100 percent but 95 percent, that Zionists' hands are behind what is going now,' he said today.”
ABB, the company this happened to, asked if the other people would like to stay under increased security or leave. All 100 chose to leave. Go figure.

End of an era
Red Hat is officially dead. Red Hat chose to go full enterprise. It is $2400 for a server license. I hate to say it, but that is just too much for my small company. Red Hat is the distribution I learned first. It seems like all the books refer straight to Red Hat. Linux meant Red Hat to me for allot of years. I'm using Mandrake at the moment. I want to try SuSe. Mandrake is French (I know). SuSe is German. I hear good stuff about SuSe all the time. It is a professional distro. Many businesses use SuSe. It is on par with Red Hat in performance as far as I can tell. The U. S. government will not use anything that was not compiled in the U. S. so, Red Hat is about it.
Red Hat has spawned a bastard called the Fedora Project. I have not tried it. I only have one problem with Fedora, it is not Red Hat. It is a different distribution. It doesn't seem to support RPMs fully. Stuff is in different places. BAH!!
There is a movement to make Linux easier to use and make it something every Joe/Jane can use to get work done. Their goal is to make an open source system that businesses will want their employees to use. They have a long way to go. I said years ago that Linux was not ready for the desktop. Well, Linux is not even at Windows 95 level of usability. The developers are not going about the task in a way that will end with a better desktop. Microsoft spends more money on user feedback about the interface than any one company spends on the whole of Linux development. That is no way to catch up.

Atlantis
These scientists claim to have found Atlantis. Is Atlantis a real place? Was it wrought in the imagination of some ancient story teller? Not knowing is the only thing that makes it interesting. Too many myths and legends are defined these days. Once we figure out what the root of a story is, it isn't a mystery any more. People stop telling the story.

France
France is limiting the freedom of religion regarding family abuse and some other stuff that is considered a violation of human rights. When you read about some of the things that France has troubles with you might think it makes since. Think about it though, other countries don't outlaw these acts. Young women in the U. S. are required to leave the country to marry men they may have never met if their parents say. The French caught hell a while ago over banning young Muslim women from warring scarves in schools because they are a public display of religion. Forget the fact that it is a requirement of the religion.

Memory
My short term memory is shot. I'm trying to copy some files to a couple of locations around the globe at my day job. It is taking forever. The total size is around seventy megabytes and the network keeps bombing out the copies. My explorer died twice. At least XP restarts explorer when explorer crashes. In 2000 you had to start it manually. Lately it seems like every time I turn around I forgot where I was. It doesn't help that every one wants my attention. I've actually started telling people that I just don't have time to do stuff.  I can't get anything done because I have to stop in the middle and help some one else with something.

Bad Movie of the Week
Police in Macedonia (near the old Yugoslavia area) gunned down some illegal immigrants for the single purpose of making it look like the cops were doing a good job tracking and killing terrorists. It is enough to make you sick. But, hay, al-Qaida couldn't have a worse opinion of the West at the moment, right?

Political stuff
There is an article on The New York Times web page talking about the support for Bush waning recently. I believe it. There is so much criticism in the press lately that no one can hear a supportive voice over all the jeers. I don't know what kind of base The New York Times has for it's poll. I know I don't answer the phone at home so they will never get hold of me. Most conservative people I know don't participate in polls.
One little part of that article confirmed something I've believed for quite some time. Nader will divide the Democratic party if he continues to run for president. Apparently 5% of those polled would vote for Nader over Kerry where Kerry looses the 5%. I guess Nader puts the demo in democrat. =] It sounds like a dollar for Nader is five dollars for Bush. If there were only a way to make sure Nader would not pull out of the race and support Kerry.
Something else in the article says more Americans believe the Iraqi people are ungrateful for the toppling of Saddam. This was inevitable in my opinion. People in Iraq and the Middle East in general have had two uniting themes guiding their lives for the past fifty or so years, the hatred of Israel and the hatred of Israel's strongest ally, the U. S. I keep hearing that many folks will not be happy until Israel is pushed into the sea. I thought Arafat said that, but I can't find a quote. People in forums love saying it.

Some random word searches on Google.

Ralph Wiggum
Go Wiggum. You are one of my favorite characters on the Simpsons.

Abandon Missile Silo
Where were people expected to park?

Big Red Switch
I'm just not that impressed.

plastickelly blog
Cool. Searching for plastickelly alone also brought up a couple of porn sites.

cynthoughts
Cool, again.

Broken
A buddy of mine has a Mercedes. It is a little hot-rod coop convertible. He paid like $55,000 for it and didn't even get the xenon headlights. He is kind of nerdy and not a very good driver to be honest. I've ridden with him several times and he breaks funny. Anyway, it has been a running joke that there is a pool to pick when and just how he is going to kill himself in that car. Well, he spun it out just off Wilcrest and did some damage to the undercarriage, Thank God he wasn't hurt. He seems a bit embarrassed about the whole thing. I may take up a collection to get him some of those racing lessons they have at tracks somewhere around here.

Saddam's Birthday
Today is Saddam Husain's birthday. He is 67 years old. Normally I listen to NPR on the way in to work. They talk about birthdays. It is usually some relic I've never heard of. Today was different. This guy survived an early life as a hired killer. He rose to power in a political system where rivals kill each other to advance. He survived as a despot over a country of armed tribes. He survived taking that country to a couple of wars with his neighbors. He survived losing to the number one military power on Earth twice. This guy is going to out live me.

Bad Dreams
I had a bunch of violent dreams last night. People were trying to hit me with golf clubs and bats. My neck hurts this morning and I wander if I ducked allot while I was sleeping.
One of the guys up here said they had a disturbing dream about shooting people in the head a couple of weeks ago. I've had those dreams, but mostly after playing first person shooters. It is extra creepy because I go to the range every so often. In the dreams I smell the gun powder and feel the gun kick. I know it's a dream because my ears don't hurt after I shoot.
I've had friends tell me about stabbing some one with a sword and feeling the resistance as the blade plunged into flesh. I ask, did you smell the blood? They said no. I think there will always be some incomplete part of dreams. That is because the rational part of the brain only contributes random sense to dreams.

Gmail review
Cynthia decided to take Blogger up on their offer and beta test Google's new Gmail. I couldn't let her out geek me, so I had to give it a shot. the address is zhsy00001 at gmail.com. I'm not putting a direct link because of web page sniffers used by spam bots.
It is very beta. The address book is lacking. There is no Pop3 support (yet). I can't find a signature setting anywhere. It won't let you select multiple people for one email from your address book (I haven't figured it out yet). It does let you delete old mail, even after you have archived it. It has a category system for labeling your email. There is a nice feature for reporting an email as spam. If this does what I hope, as people report a particular email (and hopefully similar emails) as spam, gmail will toss them out before they hit every one's inbox.

Aunt and Uncle
My aunt and uncle are in town this week. They are on my dad's side. They have a sail boat and sail around looking for adventure. Yes, they are retired. My aunt is a school teacher. My uncle is a military man (air force). I'm not sure what he did in the military exactly.
For a while he drove a limousine. I remember a story about him driving the whole family down to Wall-Mart in the Limo and letting them out at the front door while warring the outfit and all. I just can't picture my family pimping at Wall-Mart like that. I'm sorry I missed it.

My new dream car
Sixty four valve, eight liter, “W” sixteen cylinder, one thousand horsepower, four turbo chargers, variable valve timing (on all four cam shafts), computer controlled clutch, all wheel drive, I'm in love. The Bugatti Veyron have crammed as much as possible in to a single engine. I love it, the site does the math. 1.3 gallons a minute must be burned to get 1000 horsepower. The videos of the engine are a pain to get to, but worth it.
Look out Gumball Rally.

Tpro
OK, the world has gone topsy-tervy. My day job is getting harder. Well, not harder. It is definetly less fun due to pay cuts that I will never recapture and the politics that are driving me up the wall. Tpro is getting easier. Well, not easier, better defined. There is forward momentum and I can't wait to find out what happens next. I've learned a ton and there are opportunities galore.
I've got my support server up and running. Now, I just need to figure out how it works. =] I still have a bunch of other stuff to learn. I'm on my way though.

Simpsons philosophy
Lisa finds out her family experiences “dumbening” at age eight. She feels the evil sting of genetics. It turns out to just be the males of the family who get stupid. I kind of know how she feels. My vision is genetic. That is what I've been told. I don't believe any of these doctors know what they are talking about.

Bad day
I had a crappy day today. I don't want to go into what caused it. I think it is a bunch of crap all piled on top of each other. I'm having trouble juggling two jobs. The day job is just falling apart. There is this one project that will just not work. The other job is suffering badly.
At my day job I've asked for help from higher up in my own company. They are basically lost. They say “talk to the vendor”. The vendor is trying to help, but apparently this company is the only one trying to do what it is doing. No one else in the world does it this way according to the vendor. So, I'm the bad guy. I'm the one who can't get it done. Two multi-billion dollar companies don't do it like this, but I'm the one who has to fix it.

Woman I met through my blog
I've told some people about a woman I met because of my blog. First of all, I'm finding that there are people reading my blog I've never met. She is a friend of a friend. She found my blog through Cynthia's blog. She first said my blog was boring and wanted me to spice it up. Well, there isn't any spice to sweeten this train-wreck. We have been chatting through email and the only thing we have in common is that we agree we have nothing in common. She is outgoing and has parties. I sit at the computer for ever. She goes hiking, I've been hiking twice. She has sex toy parties and I can't bring myself to go to a strip club. We are a lousy match.
I've asked five times for dinner or a meeting (other than a sex toy party), but her schedule always gets in the way. She doesn't want a one on one meeting. I understand. I don't shine in a party scene though. I suppose I don't shine one on one either, but I'd do better than at a sex toy/mortician graduation party. (for God's sake) How the hell are you supposed to meet some one for the first time at a party like that? What is she thinking?

Vanilla Sky
I tried to watch Vanilla Sky. That was a mistake. A guy maybe kills some one or doesn't, maybe he had a car wreck or maybe he didn't. It looks like two plot lines run in a twist around each other. It is my opinion that this movie was produced to match shows like Memento. Vanilla Sky takes it one step too far and it is just annoying to follow. Besides, when the car runs off the bridge and slams into a wall, there is no steam from the radiator. That car was not running when it hit the wall. Supposedly, it was doing 80 when it went off the bridge. It should have been close to over heating. There is no way that much front end damage didn't pop the radiator.

Party
I've decided to not go to the sex toy/mortician graduation party this weekend. If the woman who is throwing it knew me at all, she would not have invited me. I'm sure it will be fun. I have a hard enough time at boring dinner parties, and this time I wouldn't even have my camera to hide behind.
I'm just not that guy. I wish I could just stop worying about finding someone and get some work done.

Bowling
I was watching an episode of the Simpsons, the one where Homer buys Marge a bowling ball with his name on int for Marge's birthday. I had an epiphany while watching her move over from one side of the lane to the other and going from a single pin to a strike. When I was in high school, I joined a bowling team. We met one night a week and just bowled. I was terrible. I still am. I did, however, learn some powerful things about myself. That is the earliest time I realized I had a problem with anger. Every time before that I just accepted the way I felt and let myself go. I wanted to control myself at bowling though. There were girls there. I found out years later the girl I was interested in was a lesbian. That too would haunt me throughout my life. I had no idea how to make the anger go away.
The bowling was only half the frustration I encountered on bowling night. My mother noticed how upset I would be when I came home. There was a night when my parents had some friends over and asked me to find a ride home. I walked. It was about six miles. It wouldn't be the last time frustration over a woman would make me do something stupid. Six or seven years later, I walked from a friend's house to Westhimer where I caught a bus back to my apartment for the exact same reason.
The epiphany is about sports. I've always wandered why sports are so important to some people. I realized while watching the Simpsons and thinking about what I learned during bowling that people use sports to communicate and learn the social ins and outs. I wander if that is part of what I missed. I did miss something. Somewhere along the way I missed learning how to date, flirt, the mating ritual. Now, I have to learn at thirty five. I think the first step was a willingness to learn. That happened a while ago. I wander what the next step is.

JPEG
The people who originally put the JPEG format together were bought by another company who wants money. There needs to be a law that says when you create something you have to charge for it from day one or you loose the ability to go back and gripe.
SCO would have lost their privilege to sue entities for any Unix code that had already been put in other programs. They would only be able to go after stuff created from now on. The Linux people said “Tell us what is in violation and we will take it out.” from day one. SCO took forever because they knew their case sucked. Now their main investor is upset.
Maybe the JPEG format has had its run.

National ID cards
There is a huge debate in England (Britain) over national ID cards. Privacy Rights people have all but thrown in the towel. They are getting the message that it is going to happen because the government wants it very badly. The physical card is not the issue. The biometrics that are linked to the card will be held in a database and kept for ever. The database will only be accessible for law enforcement, or so the officials say. Of course, this is the information age and companies will lobby for access to all or part of the data. I'm sure it will come in small waves. Lets suspend our rights a piece at a time in the name of anti-terrorism. The terrorists hate our way of life, so lets change our way of life until they have nothing to hate.
I have to tell you, I like the idea of a national ID card in the States. It is one stop shopping for identity theft. The card will be difficult to copy. The data in the database will be under lock and key. That will just make it precious. When is the last time any government got anything right on the first try?

Movie in the making
These guys were caught in a building and nearly didn't make it. The story reads like a movie script. Scary stuff.

Laser canon
This thing looks cool. They have finally worked the kinks out of most of the systems and this one is going on a plane. They swear this thing was designed to shoot down missiles as they launch. I'm sure it will work for that purpose. I know that is an important defensive mission this device will cover. However, what is to stop them from aiming this thing at a vehicle or AAA emplacement? Cost might be a factor at first. This thing will only get cheaper.

Ethics in business
My day job is a major corporation. Yesterday they gave away free ice-cream if you call your congressman and tell them to vote a specific way on a law. How messed up is that? That just makes me feel dirty. I've read the law they want and it sounds like something I might vote for given the chance. The ice-cream thing just makes me feel like a five year old. It also seems petty. It sounds like a bribe to me. I'm no lawyer. They are not paying for votes, but they are paying for you to call your government representative and tell them to vote a specific way. How chicken-shit!

Exuberance
I'm in the middle of setting up some software for the help desk Tpro will use. The software company doesn't really support Linux well, so I put Apache on an old XP machine. I installed Apache, I installed the Support Wizard software. I messed with some settings. I pointed my router to the new web server running on the Windeath box. Then came the time to test the first hit from outside the network. I typed in the link that would cause my computer to look from outside the local network through the internet for the path back to the machine sitting on my desk less than a meter away. The test page came up, it came up, it worked. Something extraordinary happened at that moment. I felt a surge of exhilaration come over me. I felt like rolling my head back and cackling like a mad scientist. I now had two active web servers on my home network. I had conquered two platforms.
I had not seen it coming. That is the scary part. I had no expectations when I hit enter on that address bar. My God it felt good. Now, I just have to configure the software. That is noting compared to making it connect.

Japan's Vietnam
Read about how the Japanese captives from Iraq were treated after they returned to Japan. The Japanese government charged them for air fair on the trip home. That is not how things work. These people were journalists trying to get the story. If you have a problem with journalists going to places of turmoil, stop buying the media to which they report. Bad form Japan.

Say it was a missile
Every time I hear reports from Iraq that mention what witness say, the media quotes some one as saying “... it was a missile.” I hate that. There was a radio report a couple of months ago that had a translator say “There is a guy running around the crowd telling people to say it was a missile.” I believe that translator far further than I believe the eye witnesses. I wish the press would blow off eye witnesses who are not confirmed. In the U. S. the reporter always finds the most buck-toothed hill-billy to put on the tube who is willing to say “Ya, I seen'em.” After a life time of this, I can't listen to “.. an eye witness said ...” without thinking they are full of crap.

Anger resolution

Recognize the problem
It is surprisingly difficult to tell when you are angry or in a bad mood. The first thing that tells me I'm in a bad mood is actually my own voice. I yell at the computer, or whatever is in front of me, or I bite some one's head off. Sometimes it is my own head on the block.

Stop
The next thing you have to do is stop. This is also a difficult step because anger and rage have a momentum. That momentum must be broken before you can continue to the next steps.

Make up your mind to change
Even after stopping the momentum, making the decision to not be angry is perhaps the most difficult of all. When I am angry, I want to stay angry. I want to yell, I want to stomp. Sometimes I just plane decide to stay angry. I don't know why. You have to start over again and it is just that much more difficult the second or third time. “I don't want to be that angry guy. I don't like the angry guy.”

Pull yourself away from rage
Once you make the decision to not be angry you must pull yourself out of the mood. It is a bit like pulling yourself out of a pool that has a ledge with no place to hold. You will feel yourself slipping backward, but you can't panic or get angry. You have to relax and simply go forward more slowly.

Follow through (prevent relapse)
I find myself easy to anger for a long while after I calm down. Sometimes a distraction helps, but only temporarily. I take frequent breaks at work before I get angry. I have to. I need to clear my head between tasks.

Resume life
Now, you still have to fix the problem or complete the task that made you angry in the first place.

A Man's guide to Women and complaining
I am thirty five years old and I have to relearn the same lesson over and over again. When a woman comes to me and tells me about a problem she is having, she doesn't necessarily want a solution. She might want sympathy. If she wants sympathy, she will think your are bossing her around when you offer her a solution.
For example, your wife tells you that she hates her professor at university. Do you A, Say “Drop the class sweetie, it isn't worth it.” or “Go to the dean and talk about it.” or “Slash that bitch's tires.”; or B, Say “I remember some of my professors ...” or “I can go talk to the dean if you want.” or “What does her car look like?”; or C, Say “I hear you sweetie. Tell me all about it.”
The correct answer is of course C.

Dog
Every one tells me to get a pet. I work funny hours. I would not pay enough attention to a pet. I have a small apartment. I don't find the same enjoyment in pets that others find. I just look at them and think “I would hate the life you lead, all cooped up.” I was probably a domesticated dog in a past life. I don't want a dog. I don't want a cat. I don;t want a fish. I don't want a bird. Stop telling me you think I should get a pet.
I had one of those Japanese watch sized electric pets once. It died. It died a couple of times.

Darkness
I'm in one of those moods where everything looks bleak. I can't snap out of it. Things are screwing up at my day job. I don't have the energy to follow through with Tpro work I need to do. My social life won't return my phone calls. blaw blaw blaw. Nothing is happening right now that hasn't happened every day of my life.
This is as good as it is going to get. I'm healthy. I'm trying to think of other good news. What ever. Kelly complaining about being Kelly again. There is no fix. This is me. I should accept it and just do the next thing that needs to be done. I need to pay bills. I need to finish a small software project for Tpro. I need to stop doing software packaging at my day job. When I came home this afternoon I just went to bed. I haven't eaten. I got up because I wanted to write in my blog. I probably wouldn't have stirred if it weren't for my adoring public. =]

I learned
I If I'm not really paying attention, Spanish music sounds like Arabic music.

Weight
People gripe about their weight. Well, my two cents:
Ware cloths that fit. pull the tags off i you don't like the size written on them.
Eat what you think is healthy. Avoid things you know are crap.
Get off your butt and exorcize. This is what really matters.
Through the scale out the window. The stress over that number will kill you quicker than the blubber.
Thank God you have enough food to eat and some choice.

Women
BAH!!!

P2P update
There is a new type of download software out there called stream ripping. It appears to be a way that users can share files without being traced. It is a bit annoying sounding because you don't choose the music you download. It is a way to get around IP addresses and such. It pulls down from online radio. A bunch of the downloads are just DJs or even advertisements, but you just delete those.

Office Politics
I am definitely a technician. I'm finding more and more that I am very bad at politics in the office. I tend to tell the truth and air my thoughts far too often to be a political success. It will keep me in a technical position for the rest of my life.

Grasping at Straws
I found a cool site that shows the origin of many phrases. I heard the phrase "grasping at straws" on the BBC and I just had to Google it. I've been looking for a decent site that compiles the origins of phrases. This place is pretty lame. It is also seriously bent toward British ends. Ah, well, tis more the thrill of the hunt.

Lean
I'm looking at the company I work for and I've come to the conclusion that they should get rid of my department. That is, they should outsource. The whole department is overhead. We do not take in outside work. It makes sense now why outsourcing saves so much money. If my department took in outside work, we would be forced to make ourselves better than we are. We have many shortcomings that would be culled at the first chance if we lost a client who was paying. I.T. departments almost exclusively work only with inside a single entity. There is no competition. There is no incentive to improve the product (for real) because you have a captive customer. This epiphany has made me reconsider the approach to outsourcing. The company I work for makes a specific group of products. I think now that this company should stick to that and outsource engineering, support, construction, I.T., and some other overhead objects. This company should keep control of research and development, ownership, legal, rights management, and other managerial objects. What do you think?

2 eDonkeys
I am moving Overnet (aka eDonkey) to another computer. It was on an XP box, but I'm moving it to My Linux server because I need the XP box for testing. The funny thing is, the Linux box is 1/3 the CPU 1/2 the RAM and much older than the XP box. However, Overnet runs faster on the Linux box. Right now they are both fighting over the DSL bandwidth. I'm letting the XP machine complete its downloads before I completely take it offline. They are both running at full speed. I suppose the extra $10 I pay per month for the higher speed DSL is paying off.

Inevitable
Well, it finally happened. The company I work for has banned picture capable phones from all sites. Everyone will have to surrender their phone to security upon entry to the facility. This also implies that you will not be able to leave the phone in your car in most cases because the parking lots are inside the gate. I have been waiting for this memo.
The next thing I'm waiting for are the mass layoffs as a result of outsourcing that the company has assured us we will not feel. Also inevitable in my humble opinion. But, I'm not bitter.

Wild Wild Middle East
The New York Times has an article on the contractors working for the coalition in Iraq. I'm reading this article and thinking "Ye-gads! this sounds like a massive pile of kindling ready to light." It sounds like there are many groups of people and companies from different countries all trying to work together. They are paid by the companies that need security. Some of the companies complain they didn't realize the security needs when calculating the contract costs. Some of the contractors are under supplied and under trained security guards. Some are ex-special forces. Some quit the special forces to take the higher pay of the contract.
One thing that sounds interesting is the different companies are clawing and scratching to get some order to things. Normally, they don't have motivation to communicate and agree on rules. Getting a phone call from your men in the field asking for backup and listening to them die on the phone because there is none must be a good motivator.

Linux VS. Microsoft
This operating system is never going to kill Microsoft at the present rate of creation. I just tried to get a help desk software to install and spent nearly four hours trying to get the install.sh (script) to run, but nothing. It was looking for rpm. I type in rpm and baddabing, there it is. It was looking for make, I type in make and badaboom, there it is. The rpm files that came with the install have some problem with Mandrake 9.2. I'm learning Mandrake 9.2 sucks.
I installed Apache on one of my XP machines and it took ten minutes. I installed the help desk software in 10 minutes. Now, there is only configuration. Every time I try to install software that didn't come with the distribution Linux messes up. It is just plane not ready for prime time. It is worth the extra $999 for click-click install and setup. In a business it costs more to have some one sitting there jacking with the machine than it does to just pay the extra money for a Microsoft server. Maybe outsourcing will change the face of labor costs and thus topple Microsoft.