If you are already a friend, you are already on the readership list. Thank you for your patronage.

If you wish to be on my friends list or an IM buddy, post a request here...

Пожалуйста объявите здесь, чтобы быть добавленными к моему списку друзей. Вы будете моим другом?

...and tell me why you think that is a good idea.

If you just "friend" me, it is not likely that I will see that for a long time. If I don't know you, I likely won't be making it mutual since you didn't introduce yourself.

If you do not have a Live Journal account, then get one. They are free and LJ won't spam you.

If you simply wish to comment on a post anonymously, you don't have to have an account for that.

Мои российские языковые навыки ужасны, между прочим.



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Sign the guestbook!

... LJ not happening this week. No time to even read it. I'll post something eventually...


I now return you to your regular posts.

I finally got around to trying out different DVDs on my laptop last night.

I was able to view Ironman (Marvel / Paramount), Princess Mononoke (Disney), Pinocchio (Disney), and another movie from Warner Brothers which I cannot recall.

Still, Porco Rosso (Disney) is unviewable. VLC just turns up an ugly hash with the audio being just fine. It figures that the first video I grab to test my DVD would be one that has a strange encryption scheme. But I did learn a lot from that red herring of trying to get my DVD to be viewable.

Video under Linux works great... depending on the DVD. Most all should play without issue. DVD menu navigation works well, too.

You all have seen the picture of Obama checking out the caboose on a young woman.

(C) 2009 Reuters

From this image we could say: 1) Obama is not gay. 2) Obama is a womanizer. 3) That's a fine booty.

Well... On number 1, we cannot be sure. He may just be a gentleman. 2, well, that also was a specious charge, 3: Let the picture speak for itself...

The problem with a static image is that it doesn't tell the whole story. I can take a picture of a parent playing with their child in a pool and say that they are trying to drown their kid. So what WAS Barry doing looking at the booty?

It turns out, according to an ABC news video, he wasn't trying out for an FBI (Female Body Inspector) job, but French President Sarkozy sure a heck was! Our President was turning around to offer his arm to a woman stepping down behind him.



( wow... three LJ tags that should never be together... gah! )

Happy Birthday, Nikola Tesla!!!!





I wish we knew what you knew. You left us too soon.

Why are so many people on Twitter? Seriously.

I have my own version: Raw News.

Today is an interesting day. Just past noon you will see it is:

12:34:56 07/08/09





Yeah... nerd fun.

I spent my three-day weekend grinding away on my new laptop (Kubuntu 9.04). The project was to get my data off my old laptop (Mandriva 2009.0) then convert it over to Windows so my daughter can play her educational software. I had to teach myself about NFS. I tried various gui-based utilities to deal with it, then I had my big "DUH!!!" moment.

mount.

So basic. So simple. 30 seconds later, I was sharing files.

Honestly, though, I made it hard for myself while trying new things and that is what took so long. My old laptop didn't have NFS installed and had no Internet connection. My new laptop is connected via wireless. I used a crossover cable to connect to my new laptop, but every time I plugged in my cable, the wireless connection died. It didn't matter how I shared it. I gave up and used a thumb drive to transfer the NFS-related rpms.

I got NFS up and running, remembered to turn off the firewalls, and then transferred my files. No problem! I converted the old laptop and my daughter played for HOURS... right next to me while I "played".

The rest of the weekend was spent trying to get DVD playback enabled. I still cannot view encrypted DVD videos despite hours of trying. The methods I found just aren't working for me. One item I stumbled across was the region code setting for my drive. I have a new drive and using regionset I discovered that my drive was regionless. I programmed it for region 1 (USA and Canada). That improved things. Progress!

Still, no joy. I can view the DVD navigation window, the trailers, and some other content, but any attempt to play anything encrypted just fails. The audio plays, though. VLC will play a hashed up scrambled picture for a while, then crash. My test DVD was Porco Rosso.

Maybe I should try something not released by Walt Disney.

Obama's climate leadership faces test at G8 forum
Thu Jul 2, 2009 11:33am EDT

By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, buoyed by a domestic victory on climate policy, faces his first foreign test on the issue next week at a forum that could boost the chances of reaching a U.N. global warming pact this year.

Obama, who has pledged U.S. leadership in the fight against climate change, chairs a meeting of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters at the G8 summit in Italy on July 9.

Known as the Major Economies Forum, the grouping includes 17 nations that account for roughly 75 percent of the world's emissions, making any agreement from its leaders a potential blueprint for U.N. talks in Copenhagen in December. [...]



---

The World's eyes are on the United States to curb carbon emissions because it means that our production capability will be damaged and allow other countries to leap ahead of our economy. Instead of trying to improve their own economies by creating a free-trade and business-friendly economic model, the World's consensus seems to be to take out the leader so they can "automagically" be in a better economic position. This is anti-competitive behavior. To see how it ruins business, look at how Microsoft does things. They operate the same way.

Global environmentalism is not about improving the environment, but about economic dominance. It is a foolhardy thing to specify a limit to global temperature rise. It is an unachievable goal, except by sheer luck. It implies that we have the ability to actually COOL the planet, not just prevent an increase in heat. One might as well try to impose a limit on the number of earthquakes globally.

Perhaps they should respecify that requirement such that there should be no more than a 2C rise due to HUMAN contribution to global warming... Ah... but then how to decouple from natural causes?

My replacement DVD drive arrived yesterday. I installed it and I can now read DVDs! Woot! Unfortunately, my replacement keyboard did not arrive. Today maybe? [ /me crosses fingers ]

No charge, by the way. All that is required is to send back the broken drive.

It was now time to muck with my Linux install.

Either of my choices of Linux distro (Mandriva or Kubuntu) has a broken wireless interface. Since it didn't matter which I chose, I figured I'd just use the one I liked most. I overwrote my Mandriva 2009.1 install last night with Kubuntu 9.04 (using the DVD I burned a few days earlier). True to form, wireless was still broken. I decided to logout after screwing around with the desktop for a while. When I logged back in, wireless was working! I now have a fully working Kubuntu install! Woot!

I have applied all updates. Now all I need to do is install all the software I need.

Al Franken is now a senator

The Democrats now have filibuster-proof control of the Senate. The Democrats OWN the U.S. government... all three branches. Democrats: you got your wish. There is nothing to stop you now. Nothing. Even elections are a long way off.

Be careful of what you wish for.

Witness the disrespect your fellow Dems have. Democrats in the New York Senate disrespectfully SIT during the pledge to the United States in a childish display of spite toward the Republicans. As usual, they attack the wrong target. Take particular note of the scene at 0:51-0:54 seconds where one Democrat senator was PULLED back to sitting by two of his colleagues.

I liken the Democrats to small children. If they don't get their way, they throw a tantrum.

Why can't you Liberals and Democrats get past your hate to see the damage you are causing? If you thought G. W. Bush was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.

A week ago I upgraded my $50 laptop from Mandriva 2009.0 to Mandriva 2009.1. Doing so hopelessly broke the network. I am missing a piece of software called "nl80211". This piece of software is new to the wireless configuration and settings. It sets the regulatory domain code thus allowing the wireless settings to be fully IEEE compliant.

It is hopelessly broken. Internet searches show this.

I tried recompiling the kernel to eliminate the need for nl80211 support. No help.

I tried to locate the software for download... no go. It is part of another package which, strangely, I have installed.

I decided to give Kubuntu a try. Kubuntu is Ubuntu with the KDE desktop. I used Ktorrent to download the DVD and gave it a try. First warning that something was wrong was that I was unable to burn the DVD using my laptop's drive. It didn't even see blank DVDs. I used an external DVD burner and made my Kubuntu 9.04 install DVD. No go. Even a movie DVD wasn't seen. The drive is broken. Strange, though since CDROMs work fine.

Saturday morning, I hopped online with HP technical support and a new drive will be sent this week, possibly by Wednesday! I am even getting a new keyboard since one of the latches broke. Not a critical thing, but annoying cosmetically. Even if I have to pay $160 for the new drive, it is still WAY cheaper than having to buy a new laptop altogether. However, no mention of payment due was made and I didn't ask. My fingers are crossed that these are free replacements. Silly me, I also forgot to mention to tech support that I bought this thing used and "as is".

Since the DVD didn't work, I burned a LiveCD version and booted. Kubuntu 9.04 is a beautiful piece of work. I really like how the Kubuntu team structured the desktop. KDE 4.2 just looks and operates beautifully! It is better than Mandriva's interpretation, in my opinion. Mandriva's desktop operates more like you'd expect Microsoft Windows to. That will make for an easy transition for anyone "upgrading" to Linux. If you can use Windows, you can use Linux. If you want to just give Linux a try but don't want to install it, a LiveCD is the way to go. Your harddrive will never be touched.

Unfortunately, Kubuntu 9.04 also has a broken wireless interface. Even using iwconfig directly from the command line did not help. Plus, I don't like how the wireless configuration app works. I prefer the Mandriva style. Fortunately, with Linux, I can get what I want, so with a bit of tweaking I can have EXACTLY the desktop I want.

WTF guys? That is TWO major distributions that have flat out BROKEN wireless implementations whereas the previous versions worked GREAT (so says my Internet research). I don't like OpenSuSE or Redhat's Fedora so I won't bother trying those. It looks like I will have to downgrade my OS until the teams get their code straightened out. I am GREATLY looking forward to the NEXT version... Kubuntu 10.04, anyone?

I'll probably be installing Kubuntu 8.04. However, it does have the older KDE 3.x desktop. I'll be booting from the LiveCD just to make sure all is well, first.

I have been enjoying my laptop... five minutes here, 1/2 hour there, ten minutes here. For some reason I can't seem to get a good geek session with my new $50 toy.

I originally installed Mandriva 2009.0 but decided to let it do the upgrade thing on Friday evening and let it update itself to 2009.1.

Upon reboot, I got nothing more than a blank screen with a blinking line cursor. Gah. Stupid frickin' video issues.

I used my desktop to look up the solution. Two commands: XFdrake, and "service dm restart". Please keep in mind that Linux was running. I just had no desktop. Unlike Microsoft Windows, the desktop is not part of the operating system. I used Alt+F6 to switch to another terminal session and logged in. I ran "startx" just to get a clue as to what the error could be. That was one heck of a screen dump! I am still not sure what the actual problem was but I figured it was similar to the problem I was having before with the Metisse 3D desktop. XFdrake showed that the wrong Xwindows driver was selected. I chose the generic ATI (my chip is a ATI Mobility Radeon X600) and did a test. It worked great.

I then restarted the desktop manager using "service dm restart" and all was well. In fact, all was even better since the system sounds worked correctly!

The next geek tasks are to use a peer-to-peer LAN cable to download all the stuff from my old laptop to my new. Then I will load Windows 2000 (I wish I had a copy of NT4!!!) onto it so I can install my daughter's computer games on it. She can have that clunker.

I am home again after being in California for a week. I haven't even STARTED on trying to get caught up on everything that has transpired while I was out and had almost no Net access.

Anyway... it was a long drive. 16 hours, in fact.

On the drive back, some people were driving SPECTACULARLY stupid. That got me to thinking about how laws are made in this country.

Drunk driving is a bad thing. In 2000, the US Congress adopted a federal standard of 0.08% BAC ("Alcohol and temperance in modern history"
By Jack S. Blocker, David M. Fahey, Ian R. Tyrrell) as a limit. Before that, the accepted level was 0.1% in most states. Penalties did not increase that much, but it is now far easier to violate the law.

Now, let's look at a recent development in Japan. The Japanese parliament has made even PRIVATE copying of copyright material illegal. In the US, we have the DMCA.

The Federal Register is well over 80,000 pages by now.

The Code of Federal Regulations contains more than 4000 federal crimes in over 27,000 pages.

The point is... YOU ARE A CRIMINAL. You just haven't been charged with a crime yet.

We have made it easier and easier to be a criminal without substantially increasing the penalty for violating the laws. We just allow our legislators to create more laws and lower limits and so forth.

Get that? Lower limits. First there was a BAC of 0.10%. Now it is 0.08%. I expect at some time for it will be lowered again. All this does it make it easier to become a criminal. Where are we going to put all these new criminals? Please please please do not think I am advocating drunk driving. I think it is abhorrent. It SHOULD be punished. I only use it to illustrate my point.

How about instead of making more laws and lowering limits, we just INCREASE THE PENALTY for the existing laws? What if, instead of making copying of your VHS tape to DVD to preserve your legally purchased video illegal, we INCREASE the PENALTY for piracy?

What if, instead of continually lowering BAC limits, we increase the PENALTY for violation? Oh, say, 1st offense, your car is taken away and you are banned from driving a motorized vehicle for a year plus you must attend alcoholic rehabilitation. Second offense? You never drive again in your life and mandatory six months in jail plus alcoholic rehabilitation, and you can no longer hold a public office. Third offense, mandatory five years prison, rehabilitation... etc.

What if the penalty was so harsh that you wouldn't even THINK of violating the law?

Multiple rape offender? Castration. Or maybe even give them sex change then throw them into general population at supermax.

What if execution from death penalty violations was really slow and painful? How about screaming your way to your coffin? I think that might be a deterrent.

Let's get rid of some laws and increase penalties for some others. It will make the hard job police have easier and deter crime. That is a win-win.


Laws don't stop crime.

Penalty for violation does.

UPDATE (3:56PM):
Here is another example. Hawaii intends to ban pocket knives. I ask you, does making law abiding citizens MORE helpless and creating a new criminal class solve the problem?

No.

Recall the past.


I won the corporate computer lottery last week. I won a new (for me) $50 notebook - a HP nc8230. Given my previous experience with the last used corporate notebook I won, I was not expecting much.

Was I ever WRONG.

Yeah... 55GB harddrive, Intel 802.11a/b/g wireless, gigabit LAN, fast CPU (???MHz), lots of memory (I think it is 512MB), 3 USB ports, SD memory card slot, Firewire, DVD R-RW/CDRW, ATI video.

Muah ha ha ha! I saved myself probably around $1500 from having to buy a brand new one!!!!! I think this one will do nicely.

I installed Mandriva 2009 on it last night. I used a different style of desktop than the usual default one now that I have the horsepower to do it. Matisse looks like it has great utility for me. The thing to remember about Linux is that it can have a number of virtual desktops. With a single click, you are looking at another desktop. This is apparent when you get to 2:20 in the video (link above). Viewing all desktops at once is not standard. But what REALLY sold me was facades creation. That is freedom, Baby! My desktop can be configured however I want!

Tim Geithner is woefully inadequate in his job performance. The man is in way over his head. However, he may have a second job as a standup comedian.

----


Geithner backs strong dlr, says China's assets safe
Sun May 31, 2009 11:57pm EDT

BEIJING, June 1 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday reaffirmed his faith in a strong dollar and reassured the Chinese government that its huge holdings of dollar-denominated assets are safe.

[...]

"Chinese financial assets are very safe," Geithner said. His response drew laughter from the audience. (Reporting by Glenn Somerville; Editing by Alan Wheatley)

----

emphasis mine

"Okay, Robomarkov, we get it. You don't like this administration! What is the point of telling me this?"

The point is to tell you where to put your money. China is getting out of long term US debt. When that happens, the government will have to finance its debts with more debt: i.e. it will start to print more money. Inflation is coming and it will likely be BAD when China pulls out. That means that you ALSO need to stop investing in typical US debt instruments. Follow the money.

US debt is not going to be a good place to invest. Get into hard assets and foreign currencies. There are, however, inflation protected Treasury bonds called TIPS and I-Bonds. However, if things continue to be deflationary, you'll get killed on the interest rate. But if you invest in regular bonds and notes and we go inflationary, you'll be screwed then, too.

Hard assets: gold and silver are not really good investments over long terms. However, over short terms they can perform miraculously. Other items are foods, mining, fuel (oil and gas).

In short, invest in things that people ALWAYS need. Go to the basics. Look at the supply chain. For example, you need bread. What is bread made from? Wheat. What do farmers need? Fertilizers and seeds. We need energy. Who supplies it? Where do the energy providers get their fuel? Capital equipment is needed for all that drilling and digging. Who makes it? What do they need? Metal!

Get it? Now, go cover your assets!

Why does it take those that have lived through Marxism to see it so clearly? Why won't we listen to them? If you have been following this blog, you know that this is what I have been warning you about. Even other countries can see our impending doom, but we simply sheeple ourselves along.

I know, I know... you can't write that scathing letter to your representative just now because American Idol/Battlestar Galactica/Sex In The City is on and you gotta see THIS episode. That Youtube video is just too funny! Yeah. More important stuff to do than a dumb letter that probably won't be read anyway.

I have nothing more to add to the wisdom of Stanislav Mishin.


----

American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed, against the backdrop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters. [...]

----

Original Pravda article is here. Pravda is blocked at work for some reason, so I hope the link works.

I am just wondering why I have to go to foreign media to get honest reporting. I am debating if celebrating this fourth of July is worth it. Freedom is gone. Independence is shunned and ridiculed. I want to celebrate the birth of my country, the birth of freedom, the desire for individual independence that lead to the most free and greatest nation in the history of the world. All I see now is Socialism, dependency, and all those other things that are the antithesis of this formerly free and great nation.

What will I be celebrating this upcoming July 4 Independence Day?

Memories of what was.... and it will be done with a tear in my eye.

The media has a bizarre crush on Obama. Obviously, Fox News is not part of it. They lean the other direction. However, the numbers show that the press gives Obama a pass on pretty much everything by either endorsing his policies or by simply not covering them.

Robert J. Samuelson
The Obama Infatuation
Is the press giving the president a free pass?

Jun 1, 2009 | Updated: 1:47 p.m. ET Jun 1, 2009

The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time. Has any recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage? Well, maybe John Kennedy for a moment, but no president since. On the whole, this is not healthy for America. [...]


---


The next time you read, hear, or see, coverage for Obama, take a deeper look. Analyze it. Is it the writer's "hope" and wishful thinking? Is it actually coverage of a meaningful topic? Did the author/talking head do real research or just act as a mouthpiece for the administration's press releases?

Yeah. That door swings both ways...

Microsoft created a plugin for Firefox. It allows .NET to work seamlessly with the popular Mozilla browser. However, it also allows websites to secretly install software on your computer.

If you use Firefox and it asked you to install a .NET extension, don't do it. If you already accepted it and installed the plugin... well, you are kinda screwed. You see, Microsoft disabled the uninstall feature. Removal requires a registry hack. Just disable it, in the meantime.


via Brain Krebs at the Washington Post:

Microsoft Update Quietly Installs Firefox Extension

A routine security update for a Microsoft Windows component installed on tens of millions of computers has quietly installed an extra add-on for an untold number of users surfing the Web with Mozilla's Firefox Web browser.

Earlier this year, Microsoft shipped a bundle of updates known as a "service pack" for a programming platform called the Microsoft .NET Framework, which Microsoft and plenty of third-party developers use to run a variety of interactive programs on Windows. [...]