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GRAFFITI -- September 03, 2007 thru September 09, 2007>> Link to the Current Week <<Last Week << Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun >> Next Week Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable. About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message. |
 
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September 3, 2007
2121 - Good evening. A nice day. We walked the dogs, went to a barbequeue, watched a couple of episodes of a nice BBC drama ... all in all a lovely Labor day. If you had the day off too, we hope yours was nice, too. If not, well, at least we didn't go out to trouble you at your place of business. Happy Monday.
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September 4, 2007
1756 - Good afternoon. So we're riding back from our long weekend in Winston-Salem ... there's smoke billowing from underneath a freeway bridge over the local estuary. As we continued north, equipment was headed south with lights and sirens going. I expect that we missed that freeway closure by about 5 minutes. Then, after tanking up in Bowie following a really good run home (a tad over six hours counting two doggy pee breaks), we headed towards home, to see traffic starting to slow around an accident in the opposing lanes, where someone in a big SUV tried to make their turn before the school bus got there. Bad news, they misjudged and lost badly as a result. Upside down SUV well off the road, banged up schoolbus in the middle of the road. Plenty of people already "helping", and no equipment there yet ... we kept going ... and figure we missed that road being closed by about 5 minutes. So, when we'd been home for about half an hour and I saw smoke billowing from behind a house several houses up, I thought it only prudent to check. Fortunately, it was just barbeque in progress. So while bad luck does come in threes, yesterday's misfortune where Barbara's parent's car self-immolated was not a standalone event, but only the first of the three.
There's plenty of interesting stuff going on in the world, from rumors that Bush want to take on Iran before his term is up, down to the tempest over scribd.com. On the latter, I have not taken the time to read all the points of view, since I was on holiday. Perhaps soon I will, or perhaps not. Some seem to think that following copyright law and it's enforcement legislation, the DMCA, is all too much trouble. Others seem to think that it doesn't matter, and that all copyrights are invalid. None of the parties involved (or involving themselves) seem to have any other than a black vs. white view of this issue. I'm going to abstain for the moment, and see if I can take the time to learn enough to have an educated opinion on the matter.
On the matter of Iran, I do indeed think that they are being run by a bunch of evil bastards who will do their damdest to wipe out civilization (that is, non-Islamics). I also think that I've had just about enough of preemptive strike rhetoric from this administration. They've used 9/11 to justify rampant militarization and stripping of civil rights, and they've used 9/11 to justify all the lives they've spent in their expeditionary adventures in the Middle East. We cannot be a republic, and force our point of view on the world. I am not in favor of an American Empire. I think we must wait for the enemy to make another move. We must have cause, and reason, not imagination and fear, to drive the will and hearts of our troops and our citizenry. If we attack Iran without provocation, there will be a backlash that will mean the outcome will be sooner and worse than with no preemptive attack at all, I believe. If we had the will to stand up to the world and enforce our desires, we could pull it off. But we don't have that kind of political will. We're going to have a wuss in the White House in a year and a half. Only a dramatic attack on Western Civilization by Islam will then shift us. I don't think there's another path. Bad times are coming... that's only a moderately educated opinion, there.
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September 5, 2007
1930 - Good evening. Following links and reading further, most of the publicly involved (or self-involving) parties in the SFWA vs. scribd.com get it wrong. SFWA got it wrong by not issuing proper DMCA notices. Had they done so, the language used would have (hopefully) forced them to do the due diligence that would have prevented the blowup. Doctorow and others wrote in such a way that the sound-bite take away was that SFWA's action and goal was solely to take down such items as they had no right to represent. Later in the articles, of course, all is made clearer, but they make the first impression importantly wrong. The EFF attorney did get it right. They did say that SFWA didn't do it the right way, they did say precisely how to do it right, and they did say that to do it wrong IN THE FUTURE would open the SFWA up to legal action. That's it and that's all. That SFWA caved and disbanded their EP committee merely shows that the organization has all the spine of a banana slug.
Electronic copyright infringement is here to stay. In some senses, too bad. In others, people who would not be exposed to an artist's work in any other way have a chance to learn, and later to support that artist (authors, musicians, actors, what have you ... all artists). There are future customers out there who won't find an artist any other way. Yeah, some will always steal the bread from another's mouth. But there are those who support their favorite artists in the most sincere way possible - with cash, or reasonable equivalents thereof. Why do you suppose that I spend a few hours each week working on Pournelle's site without compensation? It's to help Jerry so that he can do what he does best, write. In that manner, I think I give him something better than cash - I give him time to write. I don't know whether he understands that as my primary motivator, but it doesn't really matter. I support Jerry because I like what he writes, solo, with Niven, and with others. I don't always agree with the stands that Jerry takes, but then, I'm not as well educated, nor am I of the same vintage.
I have a backup to run, and other chores to take care of. Ciao!
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September 6, 2007
2158 - Good evening. I made another batch of salsa. That which did not evenly fit into the bottling, I used to marinate some pork chops. I blackened those at relatively high heat on the grill, then drenched them in more salsa to make for an absolutely yummy meal.
Recent oversights... Happy Birthday, Pete! I actually did call my brother yesterday, only one day late. I seriously meant to call him on the day, but the long drive threw me off my game plan. That's too bad - I'm in awe of Pete - he's a successful bloke running his own business, and he's also doing a wonderful job raising his daughter on his own. Then, to Luciano Pavarotti, Rest In Peace. What a wonderful voice.
That noted, I'm listening to Annie Lennox right now, one of my favorite singer/songwriters. She's got a new release due out next month. I wonder if I can buy it directly from her? Nope, apparently she redirects to either the main online retailers, or to the RCA site. Mmmm. That's too bad... Anyway, time to wrap up the day. Ciao!
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September 7, 2007
1933 - Good evening. I had fun today, using Apache, mod_ssl, and a locally-compiled copy of mod_jk to proxy access to a couple of JBoss applications. This was a demo setup running under RHEL 4 on a VMware server on my workstation. With the proof-of-concept in place, we have another tool in our bag for future needs. It's much easier to operationally configure than the documentation implies, which is a good thing. Now, we have a couple of discs of Bab5 to watch tonight. Some of this is just fill-in viewing for me, because I did watch occasional episodes from Season 2 on. More good stuff. Happy Friday!
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September 8, 2007
No post......
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September 9, 2007
 The last veg harvest, mostly peppers. |
1648 - Good afternoon. I knew I was going to tackle a little yardwork this weekend, and I was looking for some restful time, too. I got plenty of the former, and precious little of the latter. The garden beds were pretty much toast - even though I have a decent watering setup, the plants were cooking in place with the unrelenting heat we had through July and August. So, yesterday I stripped the remaining veg off of the plants (as you can see, only the peppers were still really in play), and started clearing the beds. I got rolling at 0930, and by 1530 I was wiped out, with only 4 of the beds cleared, the debris chopped and turned into the mulch bed, and the beds themselves rototilled. I could have kept going, but the year is yet young... So I came in an collapsed for a little while. In the evening, we ordered pizza in, and Marcia and I played dominos.
Today, after a late start, we shopped. Then Marcia went over to the Bowie golf course to hit a bucket of balls, while I mowed in the front and back yards. It's not as hot today, but for some reason my reserves were a little lower... grin. The lawn mower, though, is sounding a bit like the Crypt Keeper: past dead, and a bit rattle-y in the bones. I'll clean up the plug and check the oil level again next weekend, but it may be time either for repairs, or (more likely) a powered mower. Not a rider, I just can't see that (nor do I have anyplace to garage such a beast). But Fall is a good time to pick up mowers on sale, so I'll keep my eyes open.
General Petraeus is in town to talk to both houses of Congress about how well the troop surge is working. I think our troops can win any battle. But when the "war" at this point is between Islamic sects who only like killing each other just a little better than they like killing Americans, and with no sense of a rational outlook among any of the combatant parties ... I'm looking for Congress to start winding this one up. The troops are going to need a bit of rest before Islam does something else to provoke the West. Then we'll go into Iran (at least if Bush is still in power). If the troops are lucky, the Iran strikes will be strategic only. Otherwise this level of attrition will continue... My condolences to the families and units of our fallen troops:
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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.
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