Feisty Fawn

Hmm.... all the Ubuntu Forums are shut down.
Oh yes, that's right, they moved to the next version. Guess I better too.

Oh look , when I check for updates, a convenient "7.04 update available" button apears , I don't even have to burn a cd with the iso image , I can just press the button.

Hmm... it's gonna be 700 megs at least... press the button and go to bed.

" I have to do groceries !"
Not the ideal way to be woken up , but ok , it's 9:30 am , I've had six hours sleep and my wife is going to work. "All right , all right. Make a list and I'll go, it's just across the street."
No that's not good enough. Wife is getting dressed anyways and getting ready to go.
OH well, back to my computer , press the button to continue the update (sleeping through the download was a good idea , now everything was on the computer waiting for me to press one silly button).
"Are you coming or not ?" wife demands.
Sigh , put on my pants and shirt.
Walk across the street, carrying the cart. She's ticked so she doesn't walk beside me she runs ahead. I don't care i've got the ignore box on (mp3 player) and everything is fine. Wait outside the grocery store, drink some juice. Eventually she returns loads up the cart , and again runs ahead while I drag the groceries back.
I'm actually impressed I can drag the cart around. It's been a long time since I've been this healthy.
At least she holds the doors for me.
Then I get to listen to her complain about how she has to care for a cripple, so I go to the kitchen and start putting groceries away. "What are you doing ! Scoot ! This is my kitchen !"
Hmmm... apears cripples arn't allowed in her kitchen.
Return to Ubuntu , and it starts installing , actually doesn't take very long.
Doesn't look much different than the old version. There's one new app , a tomboy notes thing. The Gjots2 program I use is better though so I ignore it.
Load up 2 cd's full of mp3's and start it playing. This time the mp3 player displays record covers which it presumably is getting from the internet as well as the song name. As well as playing some songs twice in a row (why does it do that ? It's annoying)
" !Come butter the toast on your breakfast!"
Sigh. Make up your mind, am I allowed in the kitchen or not ?


Anyways. Feisty Fawn installed on my old clunker without a hitch. Not seeing much improvement in anything , but not seeing any problems either.

(edit ) Feisty Fawn is the latest version of Ubuntu , a varient of Linux I run on one of my two machines at home. The other machine is an XP dell.

N.L. premier casts Harper as wily deceiver

Article


In St. John's on Friday, Williams said his government — which unveiled a budget projecting a record surplus for the coming year — owed nothing to Harper's government. The major gains in the province's recent budgets are due to offshore oil wealth, as well as the Atlantic Accord negotiated with the previous Liberal government.
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While Newfoundland and Labrador is projecting record wealth from offshore resources, it is also anxious about changes to equalization.


No No ! We know equalization is where rich provinces give to the poor to equil everything out , but we're not a rich province ! Honest ! All that sudden wealth from offshore oil shouldn't be counted ! Thats against the rules we made up that you never agreed to !

Don't you dare touch our equilization payments !

We're having a record year for our budget thanks to suddenly getting rich and we don't want you taking away our welfare checks just because we suddenly have a little cash in our pocket. It's ok to do that for private individuals in canada , but not entire provinces !

Why , next thing you know, if this oil thing gets going , you'll be demanding we pay into equalization like quebec and ontario , instead of just take out from it ! We can't have that ! No way !

Sony announces video chat add-on for PS3

Ok. And we're racing around the track , just me , bob , and Olga, in our ps3 racing game while video chatting. Bob did't get dressed today so he's in his undies and believe me they're filthy. Olga normally uses the avatar of a sexy blonde chick , but on the video chat monitor we see that "she" is actually a 300 lbs truck driver more interested in picking his nose than playing the game, possibly why he's coming in last ...


Video chat should stay in the office. I predict it to be a major disaster in home use.
*Uncontrollable laughter*

Man given 5 years for killing panhandler

Article


The court heard that Tower hit Grismajer on the back with a pair of pruning shears, puncturing his spleen.

The Crown was seeking a 12-year sentence, while the defence asked for two years less a day.


I can just imagine the defence lawyers argument.

"Your honor I protest ! It was just a pan handler ! My client shouldn't have to spend more than two years in jail for murdering such a useless burden on society !"

Yeah , right !

You got drunk , and you stabbed some bum with some garden shears. And he died.
AND YOU ONLY GOT FIVE YEARS ????

So , yah know, my wife is really ragging on me lately. Can I get drunk and beat her to death and only get 5 years too ? That would be awesome. I'll be happy to confess and everything and not cause you a bit of trouble... :)

Casino's : Just give them the money and walk away

Article


MontaVista buys two Linux firms
Posted by Stephen Shankland

MontaVista Software has acquired a business partner and another company, both of which, like MontaVista itself, focus on Linux for embedded computing devices such as slot machines and mobile phones.



Linux is an operating system. You run programs on it.

"Such as slot machines ..."

A slot machine based on program code instead of a spinning wheel or somesuch ... is totally untrustworthy. They can be programmed to do anything, cheat steal the works. And don't think they won't. Our own Casino D'Hull here in (or near) ottawa just got busted for slot machines that rapidly flash a jackpot symbol at the player , trying to subliminally influence them. Not to mention that you have no way of checking what the odds of winning are, the signs up top saying "1 in a thousand" for this machine don't mean diddly. Oh it's out of date , is the excuse , or you were just unlucky , or some such.

A computer slot machine is a bandit, pure and simple. It's just too easy , too tempting , to cheat "just a little bit" , and businesses are notorious for just such things. You see it all the time. Not only in the news, but I bet you yourself has had at one time a friend who openned up a restaurant and decided to keep two sets of books to avoid paying the tax man anything.

My mother , infact , once worked at a company and suddenly had to quit the job because she could see they were "cooking the books" and she didn't want to take the fall for it (she was the book keeper) so just up and quit and never went back rather than take the chance.

And it's these same cost cutting book cooking yahoo's who run these small business's who graduate to running the larger ones. You really can't trust a business any farther than you can throw it.

You might as well just walk in , hand them all your money, and walk away. Saves a lot on the aggrivation and costs just as much.

Helping out a forien Nation

The previous article raises an interesting question of so called International Law ( of which the muslim extremists obviously do not subscribe to).

And that is , If I send troops to help out another nation , and that other nation
has a nasty habit of mistreating prisoners, am I on the hook to protect , forever,
any prisoners I take , because I dare not turn them over to my friendly nation that I'm helping protect ?

The Liberals would say yes I am , but this answer is unacceptable. It puts a huge burden on the country helping out to deal with those prisoners, to the point where I simply don't have the resources to help out in the first place. Even worse, the Liberals will promptly point out that these prisoners did nothing to us , so we have no business imprisoning them in the first place...thus if we catch anyone we should just let them go free ? Yes, that seems to be their opinion.

The Liberal opinion , by Harm Theory , is indefensible.

Harm Theory , by the way , does not look at how fair or unfair a position is , it looks at how much harm it does. The harm imposed by placing such restrictions on western soldiers, is to the point where western soldiers may only assist other western nations. Anyone else , we cannot send soldiers there at all , for any reason , without irking the liberals. And that is such a huge harm as to threaten the existance of the west and thus the existance of our vaunted liberals and their special theories on life the universe and everything else.

Forget it. The position is not defendable.
Soldiers have to go out and defend the little nations that do not share western values. And they have to be able to turn over prisoners to the "proper authorities" rather than being stuck with them forever. Even if they know the "proper authorities" are going to torture and execute them.

It's a rough world out there, but you brought this upon yourself, guys. Lets face it , if you get picked up by a western soldier , it's because you had a gun in your hand and were shooting at them. That means every single prisoner in Guatanama bay is guilty of at least attempted murder , or they wouldn't be there in the first place. And more than half of them successufully killed someone , soldier or civilian , before being picked up.

And the liberals want to just set them free. A whole flock of murderers and attempted murders who want to personally kill us westerners, and believe that torture and painful execution are a wonderful way to carry out thier plans and they love doing it to us as much as possible.

If I could weep tears of blood, I would.

(edit : this part added)
If a private citizen travels to america , and kills a few people , and then passes by a Canadian Embassy , and gets caught by a Canadian Soldier... the canadian government is not on the hook for the criminals well being. The fact that Canada has no death penalty and America does, and if the Canadians turn the prisoner over to the Americans he will certainly be executed is irrelevant. The Canadian is a visitor and was just helping out the American government. He is required to hand the prisoner over immediately. End of story.

It is the same situation in Afghanistan. We are guests helping to protect the Afghanistan government, yes we have excessive influence in their affairs because they'd collapse without us , but still we are guests, we are enforcing THEIR laws, not our own. We are required to hand over prisoners to the afghanistan government just as much as we would be required to hand them over to the american government if we were in america helping out. The fact that their laws are harsher than ours means nothing.

Now Thats Just Silly

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/04/24/canadian.guantanamo.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories


The U.S. military filed murder charges Tuesday against Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan and sent to the Guantanamo Bay prison in 2002.


Ok. Its an arabic name , and they picked him up in afghanistan.


Khadr, the Toronto-born son of an alleged al Qaeda financial leader, Ahmad Said al-Khadr, was captured in July 2002 after being badly wounded in a firefight near Khost, an al Qaeda hotbed in eastern Afghanistan


Ok, he wasn't sneaking around or anything , it was an out and out fire fight, soldiers shooting at soldiers, with everyone pretty much in army uniforms of one nation or another. (or as close as could be managed). No civilians about.


He is charged with throwing a grenade that killed Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and wounded Army Sgt. Layne Morris of West Jordan, Utah.


Excuse me while I laugh at the silliness of the US position.

(ahem) .

You are , not to be too picky about it , charging an enemey soldier with murder ,for the horrible crime of FIGHTING BACK in the middle of a full blown battle.


The murder and attempted murder charges state that the acts were carried out "in violation of the law of war."


Apparently , defending your home land from US soldiers is illegal , and they now arrest the individual soldiers and prosecute them individually for this.


The wounded soldier and Speer's widow filed a civil lawsuit against Khadr and his father, who authorities believe was killed in Pakistan. In February, a judge awarded them $102.6 million


And while you are denied access to civilian courts to defend yourself , civilian courts are not denied access to you ! You can be sued ! And I bet you didn't get released from Guatuanima bay to attend those proceedings either !

And ... when all is said and done, he was 15 when this happened. And he's been in jail for 5 years now. You sued a penniless 15 year old for a hundred million dollars , in absenteism, while he was languishing in one of your own jails. Yes, I'm laughing at this as well.


Well... after due consideration , maybe it isn't as silly as you think it is. If you think about it.

I mean , who's side is he on ? Al-Queda.

Where is Al-Queda ? Ummm... no where. There's no standing government , it's a collection of private individuals with a religious cause and an opinion that anyone who disagree's with them they're gonna cut your throat , record it , and put it on the internet for all to see.

Do they have a country or anything ? No , no country counts Al-Queda as a political force inside of it, though several middle eastern countries are suspected of providing support to it.

So , how do you deal with this collection of private individuals that leave their own countries and run of to fight a war in some different country, without their own countries say so, or without that different countries invitation ?

They are "interferer's in the affairs of nations" and they get what they deserve. No nation backing them ? They're private individuals , criminals. Arrest them for their actions and sue their butts off , because they weren't following any generals orders , just their own religious notions of what is good and bad.

In this respect the US detention is incorrect in trying them in US courts. They should be tried in Iraqi or Afghanistan courts for their crimes. Both regimes of which will , of course, execute these foriegn criminals for their murderous crimes. Thats what happens when you get caught trying to overthrow a government and fail. Usually they execute you for that.

If I was the US Prez, I'd turn them all over to the countries I captured them in and let them decide their fates.

But sueing a 15 year old enemey combatant who hasn't got a dime in his pocket for a hundred million dollars , because , well , he's an enemey combatant ! I'm still laughing at that one. And charging him with murder because, well, in the middle of battle he shot at some soldiers who were probably shooting at him ... laughing at that one too !

The silliness just goes on and on.
Do we still call this a kangaroo court ? I vote to rename it a Bozo The Clown Court.

The crusade which the Blair regime has launched against the Muslim community,

Article

Really ? What crusade is this ?


...trying to justify their foreign policy through demonizing Muslims who have the fortitude to speak out.


And what exactly did this muslim who spoke out say ?


LONDON, April 24 — British counterterrorism police raided homes in two cities early this morning and arrested six men, including a particularly well-known advocate of radical Islam who once called the London bombings “praiseworthy.”


So ... some radical Iman (Muslim Cleric) said "Hurray" to the london bombings, "Do it again ! " and he got himself arrested ?

I'm not sure if your religion mentioned this to you , but killing people is a bad thing. And someone who represents your religion hopping up and down saying "Oh goodie they died ! They deserved it ! I'd of done it myself if I could !" .... well, you're not being demonized.

You're demonizing yourself.

And main stream muslims who make up the majority trying to protect this radical , is like saying "He's not a radical. Actually we all believe that way. "

Again , you're demonizing yourself.

What is a government to do when all these immigrants show up at the door saying "We're being killed in our home country ! There's no food ! If we go back they'll torture us and put us in jail ! But now that we're here we're gonna start killing you guys, thanks for letting us in. "

Probably not the message you want to be sending to your host country.

But it is the one you ARE sending.

Think about it.

Yahoo sued for informing China on dissidents

Article


"They should not be participating actively in promoting and encouraging major human-rights abuses," said Morton Sklar, executive director for the Washington, D.C.-based organization.

Yahoo has acknowledged turning over data on its users at the request of the Chinese government, saying company employees face civil and criminal sanctions if they ignore local laws.



But ... but ... we have to act like evil pricks and turn these people in so the chinese government can torture , imprison, and execute them ! Otherwise the chinese will kick us out and our profits will go down !!!

Pft !!!

Get out of china , yahoo. Let them wallow in their own filth. Businesses should be out right forbidden to do business with China at all. A communistic regime isn't even capable of feeding it's own people , let alone challenging a technological society. Let them drown in a sea of mayday red tape and bureaucracy, just like russia did.

Phony Cops : A Solution

http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif


Police: Phony Cop Tries To Handcuff Woman At Wal-Mart

I think this headline explains the problem all by itself without the need of further detail.

They do this in Iraq with false uniforms. They do this in America with false badges, enough is enough !

And how do you solve this problem of counterfit badges ? The same way you solve the problem of counterfit money. You put some cool looking high tech hologram on it that the regular average joe can't possibly immitate , and you put the cops photo on it , maybe as a holograph , so anyone who doesn't look like him can't use it, and you put a radio tag in it , so that if he goes into a cop shop and flashes it , they just look up in the database WHERE IS OFFICER 19445 ? and if the answer is way across town and not standing before you in the cop shop , out come the guns.

Come on guys, the days of a chunk of metal that anyone can carry are over ! Photo ID and some kind of weird holograph or other special effect that the counterfiters can't counterfit are the order of the day here. We're already at the point where a guy with a knife can whittle a badge out of wood and then just paint it up with the correct paints to make it realistic. Those old badges have got to go.

And uniforms, either cop or military , its time to start putting radio tags in them too. Someone swipes them , the radio tags get used to follow them to the source. Then raid the place.

You're not Their Citizen

Article

MacKay slams China's treatment of Huseyin Celil


The Chinese have called the case an "internal affair" and have requested that Canada not interfere with the case. Beijing has refused to recognize Celil's Canadian citizenship.



This is actually an interesting question. Does a foriegn nation have the right to decide who is , and is not a member , of some other nation ? Do they have the right , for example, to decide "You're not a canadian. I don't care what the candian government says. " ?

The reverse question is equally interesting. Does Canada have the right to say "You're now a Canadian Citizen." to a chinese person , even though the Chinese government is saying "No he's not ! He's our citizen not your's !". It should be mentioned that there is the slight mitigating factor that the chinse person must make it to canada and then jump through a number of difficult rings before actually being declared a canadian , Canada does't just pick some random chinese in the middle of china and say "guess what ! You're a canadian citizen !"

The answer , in this case is "BLAHHHHH....".
The right to make your own way in life and decide your own citizen ship is part of most western nations creed, but not part of the chinese creed. And guess what ? There's no ultimate force standing over both the west and china to make final arbritation on the issue , the two sides have to come to some kind of agreement.

And they havn't.

Will they get away with ignoring Huseyin's Canadian Citizenship ?

Unqualified yes.

China is bigger than Canada, and the victem is a muslim, and it just hit the news that some muslims in Turkey killed some helpless innocent Christian's for the horrible crime of working at a bible house, to "protect their faith" ....

The world has little pity for muslims when things like this happen. Our canadian foriegn minister will make the usual noises of outrage, the Chinese will ignore them, and the issue will die.

Is this fair ?

No , the guy was visiting his family in Uzbekistan, which has an extradition treaty with China , and got picked up. His only crime to which anyone will blame him is belonging to some particular religion (muslim). He's not actually accused of doing anything but being a member.

But then , it's not particularily fair to be working at a Bible Publishing House in turkey , and five muslims come in and slit everyone's throat , even stabbing one guy so many times the coriner couldn't count how many stab wounds there were. And when they were caught they claimed they were "defending the muslim faith" from outsiders.

I can just picture both spirits of the victems rising up on the way to their respective heavens , and stopping to talk . "What are you going for ?"
"Oh , the chinese put me in prison for being a muslim , and you ?"
"Oh , a muslim decided he didn't like christians and stabbed me a hundred times."
"Nice."
"But I forgive him ! And pray he doesn't go to hell."
"I just wanted to visit family. I wasn't trying to hurt anyone."

Is this right or wrong ?

Now that , is another question in entirely. What is right and what is wrong , the answers come out different depending on weather you've lived all your life in china , or in the west. And as I said, there is no final arberter on the matter, just a bunch of squabbling politicians from each side giving each other the finger.

Post Script :
China believes it has the final moral right to decide what, ultimately , is right and wrong. And naturally enough beleives it's cause is just and right and the west are corrupt evil capitalists totally out to lunch and it's obvious to everyone in the world they should be ignored.
The west believes china is a bunch of communistic human rights violators who enjoy torturning people , stifling free speach , and generally telling people how to live their lives and shooting them if they don't agree, a practice politely known in the west as "slave keeping". Obviously a slave keeper has no moral ethics at all and their opinion on any such issues is null and void.

*sigh*

Web 2.0 : The Great Make Work Go No Where Project

Article = None ...this is my own opinion.

The Internet.
A group of Interconnected Networks, with each network owned (usually) by a private corperation out there intent on making a fast buck. A lot of these corperations are inside the United States. A lot more are outside the United states.

The United States has hired a bunch of bald guys with big brains to reconstruct the internet to better suit modern times. Security is a major concearn , along with anti-spam , and yes, letting the FBI read your private email whether you like it or not, usually not.

Does anyone see a problem with this ?

Hmm.... let me explain.

Who owns the internet ?
A bunch of private companies spread out over many many countries.

Who wants the internet changed ?
One country's standing government.

Who's gonna pay for these changes ?
A bunch of private companies spread out over many many countries.

Who gets to decide what features do and don't make it into the final product ?
On country's standing government.

Now do you see the problem with Web 2.0 ? It's one government attempting to tell other people what to do with their private property. People that they weren't elected over and people who have no say at all in what that government does, because they belong to some other country. (so much for no taxation without representation)

Love the propaganda , but everyone and the dog is gonna give them the finger and keep the old network. At most they'll make a "translation" gateway or two to communicate back and forth.

I predict the USA will force it's own citizens onto the new network by way of legislation, expecting the world will follow suit, but instead some other large block , like the European Union, will take over the running of the old network and we'll all just keep on trucking same as before. Because the world isn't going to shell out billions and billions of dollars and then tell their customers "This is to make it easier for the FBI to read your email."

Blogger Code Criticized

Article



TORONTO — A proposed code of conduct meant to establish online civility is being met with criticism as debate surges over how best to handle vitriolic incidents such as one that recently shut down a prominent blogger.

Web observers say the disturbing attack against tech writer Kathy Sierra could inspire a chill among some writers and has already fuelled a crackdown by a growing number of bloggers keen to weed out comments deemed inappropriate from their web pages.


The bloggosphere must be anonymous. The best you can do , and should do , is make sure that a particular pseudoname has a reputation behind it, much like in an online game where a charactar has been around for years and is going to guard his reputation because starting over is such a pain.

The reason the bloggosphere must be anonymous is simply because there is no world governments. There are a hundred or so governments and they don't cooperate, so anyone in the world can send anyone in the world death threats, even hire thugs for a few hundred bucks and send them after you , and never leave their home and never get in trouble for it.

The bloogosphere can only be legislated when the real world that lies underneath it is legislated and these people can no longer act with imputy simply because they're in some other country who's laws protect them from recriminations. Talk of polite manners is nice, but if some super rich sheik in saudi arabia decides you're an infidel and starts looking for people to bribe to send to your front door step and beat the will of Allah into you with baseball bats...well...it's not gonna work out too well for you.

Anonymous blogging is here to stay, for as long as there are places in the real world where rich , opinionated people can do as they please without regard of the consequences.

Ads on CNN

I was just on the CNN.COM website, and more than half the articles are videos. And I'm on FireFox , not Internet Explorer, which is annoying because the video news articles will not play on fire fox.

Oddly enough , however, the movie advertisements have no problem at all playing on fire fox. In fact, you can actually go to an archive of advertisements and they all play just fine. So does that annoying mac vs pc ad they have all over the place. In high definition and full color !

so what is the message we take away from all of this ? If you want to watch the news you MUST bow down to bill gates and the mighty Internet Explorer , but we'll advertise to any old person or browser ?

I smell a rat.

Microsoft is giving them money somewhere along the line to do this , arn't they ?

Toronto to Ottawa by Plane

Sister came down from toronto. She's getting a little old and the drive is a little long, and the plane had this great special for 59$ each way and it only takes 45 min.

Baggage inspection. All the lotions and liquids in her bag gotta go. No hand cream no shampoo , nothing. it all goes in the garbage or you dont' get on the plane. Sharp objects. She had a souvineer swiss army knife wtih her company logo on it. Wasn't even a real knife , my thumbnail is bigger than the knife is. Nope. Gotta go. What about my thumb nail ? Apparently that would be allowed. (her nails are longer than mine and they made it through customs, so I would assume ... ) New rule ! Lighters gotta be in a plastic bag. They give her a plastic bag for her lighter.

Oops. The button holding up her pants is metal. M'am, we gotta pat you down.

Finally get through customers. Look , there's a shop where you can buy lighters and shampoo and everything beyond customs, and that stuff you ARE permitted to take on the plane. It is over priced but thats life.

What they don't tell you is that on the trip back, you're not permitted to take it on the plain. You gotta toss all that stuff you bought but didn't use in your short two or three day stay here in ottawa in the trash when you go home. But look ! when you get to the other side there's ANOTHER store that will sell you replacements ! At inflated prices of course.

Sucks to be an air traveller.
Sucks to be a male air traveller with a shaving kit with shampoo, after shave, liquid soap , and (shudder) razors ! But replacements are available for a modest over price beyond customs. :)

Lot of merchants are very happy with this new deal.

Security rating of the air port is not considered much higher because anyone tries to test it they quickly find out you can easily bribe some joe blow baggage handler with a cock and bull story and a bit of cash to put any uninspected bag you like onto the baggage cart and thus the plane. And thus , in theory at least , you can still blow the plane up easy.

Welcome to post 9-11 air travel. Maybe we should take the bus next time ?

Wife Surfs on Linux

My wife was gabbing with her friends on the phone. Sitting at my desk. My computer desk. She'd gotten up for a few moments and I'd sat down , having just come from work. Switched to the Linux box, brought up firefox. Wife shoo's me away.

Then she is told something or other happened here in ottawa and how terrible it was (some idiot beating on old folks, getting arrested for it , etc) and asked me to bring up a news article so she could read it while she and her friend were talking about it. I did so ,and got shoed out again.

And so there she was, happily reading the article , following a few links, gabbing with her friend. She turned to me and asked "Why are you grinning like that ? "

"You realize you're surfing on Linux ?"
Gives me an odd look.
"never mind. Have fun. "

She can't tell the difference between Linux and windows. The buttons are all in more or less the same place, and do more or less the same thing, what am I babbling about ?

Some days , I have to wonder if she's not the one with the correct attitude , not me.

'Porn & Pancakes' fights X-rated addictions

Article


MORTON, Illinois (CNN) -- At 8 o'clock on a recent Saturday morning, more than 250 men gathered at New Life Christian Church in Morton, Illinois, for a breakfast of porn and pancakes.

The event, not as titillating as it sounds, is the brainchild of Craig Gross, founder of the online Christian ministry, XXXChurch.com. Gross concocted the idea of "Porn & Pancakes" as a way to get Christians and church officials to talk about pornography addiction.

It's a problem, he said, that is growing, among Christian communities.


Just like the christians to solve a non-problem.

People think about sex all the time. That's life. Evolution even , since people who can't keep their mind off of it tend to do it a lot and have kids, and thats what Evolution wants. It's how we're built. Live with it.

Isn't the first time christians have come down on the prudish side either. Back around world war II it was all the rage, devices were made to keep men from having an erection while they slept (electro shock if you did) things like that. Then the medical establishment came down on them and said it was all nonsense and no harm had ever been proven to come of just letting it be and not trying to control anything.

And so we're on this circle again. Or they are.

I'm not endorsing anything illegal like child porn or anything. Just pointing out that looking at a few pictures of naked ladies is hardly an "addiction", it's perfectly normal. Despite what the religious types might think.

Virtual feds visit Second Life casinos

Article


NEW YORK (Reuters) -- FBI investigators have visited Second Life's Internet casinos at the invitation of the virtual world's creator Linden Lab, but the U.S. government has not decided on the legality of virtual gambling.


I'm ... speachless. Thunderstruck even.

Second Life is like a giant online game with thousands of users. Except there's no "game" , you all sit around and chat. And write program code, and create virtual objects. Think of it like playing world of warcraft , except instead of going out and slaying monsters , you stay in the city and just chat.

Second life does let yuo make objects , and attach program code to them.

This is the part that renders me speachless. Why ? Because if you were to make such a casino , everything is program code. And that means it's dirt easy to cheat and make sure the house always wins, the slot machine always lets you win when you're testing it but always takes your money when you do it for real , etc etc.

Basically , you're an idiot of you use a "computer" slot machine instead of a mechanical one.

And they're gambling in there ? With real cash ? Gambling against some programmer using HIS program and trusting him not to cheat ?

The gullibility of some people just boggles my mind.
You do understand that online gambling has in fact been kicked out of north america and is forced to operate only off shore sites because they constantly cheat and rip people off even as it is ?

Online gambling should be barred entirely , ESPECIALLY in a virtual world like Second Life, because you can't even trust these yahoo's in the real world with real cards and real slot machines. Now you want to give them the ability to program rigged decks of cards and slot machines that do anything they like and bet real money on it ? Forget it , you're an idiot for stepping into such a place.

I'm just ... flabbergasted that you would even consider giving these jokers a single penny. Of course shut them down. Absolutely.

Ubuntu Crash

Article = None , this is my own opinion, or in this case experience.

You know, that Fire fox for unix ? It's running a little slow. I don't know , maybe because the old clunker I'm running it on only has a 1GHz clock cpu in it , compared to my much maligned windows machine's 2.5GHz clock , but I'm gonna try Opera.

www.opera.com

The site immediately recognized that I was on Linux. The button said press here to download Opera for Linux.

Press button. Amazing, it downloads and installs and only ask's for my password once. And Opera is up and running. An easier installation I have never seen. Not even on windows.

Hmm... opera doesn't have flash. Try the flash site. It recognizes that I have Linux , and only wants to install flash for fire fox. Flash for Opera On Linux is not a supported operation.

30 min of hitting the message forums and looking things up and delving deep into the arcane and obscure linux commands, I discover that if you install flash for Fire fox opera will simply steal it from fire fox and you're all set. So , with great pain and suffering , I do that.

And it works. On fire fox. Not opera. Oh , there's an icon on the top right saying I need to reboot. So I reboot.

And down she goes.

And Up she does not go. Error message, my X-Windows server has failed. (thats the thing that draws all the pretty icons and menu's and stuff for you to run linux like it was a windows machine). Reconfigure your graphics card and try again. Reboot , same deal.

Most users would throw in the towel at this point. But the only thought that crossed my mind was "I always wanted to reinstall Linux. Bet I could do a much better job this time around. "

Reach for the LiveCD for Ubuntu.

11:00 pm , insert CD begin reinstall.
Hmmm... when it looks for your time zone , apparently Ottawa Ontario doesn't exist.
Montreal does and it's only two hours away and in the time zone, I use that.
11:25 pm ... finish installing linux, take the cd out , boot into it normally.

Do a search on EasyUbuntu , and download and install it. This is a utility that installs the most common patches and upgrades that everyone wants. Things like making your DVD , actually play DVD's ! And the music player play MP3's , etc. Careful if you're in the USA apparently this violates all sorts of bizzare copy rights down there and they'll cart you off to jail.

And EasyUbunto isn't glitch free either. The list goes on and on , off the bottom of the page, of packages it wants to install. And the buttons for you to enter your password and say ok are at the bottom of the page of course.

Started doing it in pieces, then I realized that I could simply hit any package name , hit TAB and it would put me in the password field. Enter the password, hit enter (even though you can't see the password field) and off it goes.

12:10 am Installation complete.

1hour 10 minutes for a total reformat and reinstall. Beats the plick out of Windows.
And reboot time is 1 min 20 seconds, and that includes 7 seconds for me to enter my user id and password, from the off on switch to the desk top where you may start your work.

Will EMI unlock music revolution?

Article


More DRM nonsense.

DRM = digital rights management. For music.

Here's the deal. Download music from iApple, pay a bit. it only plays on their iPods , no other device. users are locked in.

Apple has "over solved" the problem. They not only prevented cheating and illegal copying, but they established a monopoly whereby their store is the only music store allowed on line, and their ipod is the only music device allowed offline. Everyone else is locked out.

Customers are still screaming about this "solution" to the problem of illegal copying of tunes.

Just the same as this iRiver device I have hanging around my neck to play my tunes ? it "over solved" the problem of downloading music to it by only working when connecting to a winxp machine. No other operating system is acceptable. I'm still screaming about that , yes, and I will never buy another and obviously recoomend everyone stay away from these iRiver devices.

You know , all of these copying problems would go away very easily if you simply modified the mp3 players everyone has ? Allow them to receive songs, but not upload them again. (Also allow them to erase songs , obviously). Thus they can no longer be used to copy songs from one computer to another. They can play , they can erase, thats it.

Nope, not gonna happen.

Microsoft's take on the Digital Rights Management is to invent a special microsoft only format for this stuff, and it only works on windows machines, locking apple and linux and everyone else out. And no , they're not going to sell the rights to apple to immitate it , they want to drown apple and say "you can't do that. Ever. Get a windows machine instead." backed up with a platoon of lawyers. Yeah , we're screaming about that too.

These people arn't interested in solving the DRM issue. There must be a dozen different ways to come to a reasonable accomidation , but thats not what they're interested in. They're interested only in taking you the consumer for a ride.

The Evil ZDNet

One of the articles on ZDNet I found to be somewhat annoying , so I went to reply to it.

Have to register. Please provide first and last name , email address , street ,state postal code (these are required fields , not allowed to skip) and pick at least 4 of these magazines that we will spam you to death with every day , then you can post a reply to our articles. You think I jest ? Try it sometime.

I decided not to bother.

Place is nothing but a gathering joint for emails so they can spam you to death with junk mail.

Article


How, then, to effect a trade wherein Microsoft agrees not to sue users of Linux in return for a reciprocal agreement from patent-owning companies that might own IP relevent to Microsoft software?


Sue us. Sue us for daring to write software and give it away ?
This is called a spurious legal suit, you can sue microsoft for suing you.

How about you stand up to bat and say THIS IS MY SOFTWARE I'LL GIVE IT THE HECK AWAY TO ANYONE I LIKE AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT YOU CAN SIT ON IT AND ROTATE ?

If you cave in to microsoft and agree that you're not allowed to write free software without permission , you might as well kiss it goodbye, because everyone and the dog will now sue you simply because you're an easy target.

Stand up and take it like a man. It's your ownly choice.

Never Erase an Email Again

I heard recently that Yahoo is offering unlimited email storage. You need never erase an email again.

You talk like this is a good thing.

Considering the cops supena organizations like yahoo and google to take their records and use them in court, one can imagine the mountain of circumstantial evidence that could be amassed on almost anyone , to accuse them of almost anything. A good lawyer can turn a simple "you were in the same park at the same day at the same time as the crime happened" into a conviction. "he was the only one there ! By his own words he admits he saw no one else he was alone" ((david milguard got 11 years by this kind of reasoning until DNA testing showed him innocent))

And the cops are nothing. At least they have a set of rules they have to follow. Your employer doesn't. Log onto email at work once, your boss swipes your password (It's his computer at work , not yours ! He can monitor you perfectly legally ! ) and guess what ? He's in like flynn reading anything he wants, and if you want to keep your job then you stay quiet even if you find out about it.

This electronic age is a security dream if you're a cop. The average citizen , it's another matter.

My advice is that you're emails should be pretty paired down. "Meet you at my house at 5pm" or some such. You don't need your boss reading your girlfriends love letters, or some such do you ?

(edit)
And if you want to express yourself online, do what I do . Make up a fake name and start a blog under it. And becareful not to include anything that can trace you back to work , because you gotta know , sooner or later you're gonna show your blog to someone at work, and they're gonna read the whole thing, and "you said that about me ? In public ???" Let work issues lie until you're retired and it's too late for them to do anything.

:)