The sticky notes at the front of the page
for my 3 MPs (no, not my MP3s...)
Blogroll has moved to a
new page. It was just too huge (close to 1000 blogs in Bloglines) and helps the page load time tremendously. Blogrolling.com just sucks, and Bloglines has too much. Oh, and I have updated Blogrolling.
Have a nice day!
Monday, February 28
manalang.com - This site is broken!
This site is broken!
Can't enter a comment. I get a PHP error message about no input file, and I can't email the author because I can't find a good email link! I know he has
Yahoo! mail and
Google mail, but what in the heck is the actual username is (manalang? rich.manalang? rmanalang?).
My comments work, they just don't display properly! :-P
I'll be updating to 2.2 of Blogkomm when it gets out of "beta" β. Support of gravatars, and hopefully a fix in the CSS for the display.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/28/2005 06:44:00 PM 
0 comments
Schneier on Security: Sneaking Items Aboard Aircraft
Schneier on Security: Sneaking Items Aboard Aircraft
This is exactly how I feel about the whole
TSA thing.
It's making lawbreakers out of everybody, and the real evildoers will find a way to get whatever it is they want on an airplane.
I feel less safe now flying than I did before this whole 9-11 thing. And I flew in home on 9-11 (early morning).
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/28/2005 01:41:00 PM
0 comments
Monday, February 21
Wingnuts just don't get it.
Minnesota Politics: JD Guckert and Powerline
The wingnuts scare me. Logic? What's that?
The whole Guckert/Gannon thing I've decided not to post about. I didn't think I had to, other people had said what is on my mind. But some people don't see the issue. I see an issue, and it's liable to get even more contentious.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/21/2005 06:49:00 PM
0 comments
gapingvoid: windows vs macintosh etc.
gapingvoid: windows vs macintosh etc.:
windows vs macintosh etc.
1. For sake of argument, imagine two companies, 'Startup A' and 'Startup B'.
2. Imagine both are virtually identical, with virtually identical markets, products, intellectual capital, payroll etc.
3. Imagine both have just received identically large amounts of startup capital from their VCs.
4. Now imagine that both just bought an identical number of brand new computers for their entire staff. One chose Windows, one chose Macintosh.
5. Now ask yourself, basing it only on what I told you, which one do you think is the most likely to still be in business in five years?
6. Be honest.
I've already posted a couple of replies to this blog entry, and I decided to expound a little more here on my site. Why not? It's my site!
The response for the most part are correct, as far as I'm concerned. The platform really doesn't make a difference. It's the actual software being used, and if it's just MS Office, Photoshop, and general desktop publishing, then I would be pushing for a PC platform - myself. I know PCs best. I don't think somebody wants to pay me a bunch of money to learn Macs so that I can support them.
I'm reminded of the Macs that the Division of Securities has, and the problem of connecting to the AS/400 was a problem for them (it was never a problem for the PCs, imagine that…) up until we got Ethernet up and running on the AS/400 and somebody found an 5250 emulation package for the Macs. Then the whole department upgrades to 100Mb (maybe even 1Gb, I forget), and the Macs have issues connecting because now there's too much traffic on the net (
even though they are connected by a switch!) for them to get a connection to the AS/400. That happened right as I was leaving. The ended up putting a router in, and I'm not so sure that the real reason for that was so that they could get their own independant connection to the Internet. It sounds fishy to me, since Ethernet is a standard that's been around for way too long to even think about the issues that were supposedly raised at that time. If I had still been the Network Supervisor at the time, I doubt that I would have let it happen.
I dislike Macs. That's a personal preference, not a professional preference. I think that Apple was (and for that matter still is) arrogant and that their whole plan of attack is going to burn them in the end! Even as they reach more and more 52 week highs. Sigh. They've managed to keep a complete monopoly on their hardware, using their software to push the sales of their hardware. The iPod is making them money, even though (supposedly) they are loosing money on selling music through iTMS. At least that little piece works on most platforms.
Then there are those who think that Windows is the worst choice
, but I disagree. I lose much more time with hardware than I ever do with software. Maybe that's my curse.
Updated image links to new site 3/19/2008.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/21/2005 04:19:00 PM
0 comments
Salon.com News | Among the believers
Salon.com News | Among the believersIt's not only liberals who have noticed that Bush's most committed followers are caught up in the fact-filtering force field of a personality cult. In January, Paul Craig Roberts, assistant secretary of the treasury during the Reagan administration and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal's far-right editorial page, published a damning column in the progressive Z Magazine about fascist tendencies in the conservative movement. "In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush," he wrote. "Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush … Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy."
And some people wonder why I truly dislike this administration. It's not just Shrub that I have issues with, it's the people around him, especially when they say lies like this:
The crowd at CPAC's Thursday night banquet, held at D.C.'s Ronald Reagan Building, was full of right-wing stars. Among those seated at the long presidential table at the head of the room were Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, Dore Gold, foreign policy advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and NRA president Kayne Robinson. Vice President Dick Cheney, a regular CPAC speaker, gave the keynote address. California Rep. Chris Cox had the honor of introducing him, and he took the opportunity to mock the Democrats whose hatred of America led them to get Iraq so horribly wrong.
"America's Operation Iraqi Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this time among the blame-America-first crowd," he crowed. Then he said, "We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make them inside Iraq." Apparently, most of the hundreds of people in attendance already knew about these remarkable, hitherto-unreported discoveries, because no one gasped at this startling revelation.
Really! Just where is the mainstream media reporting this? Where are the right leaning blogs? Where are the wingnut blogs? They aren't! Then we have this bit about Santorum:
The people who come to CPAC range from very conservative to proto-fascist. Within that grouping, though, are a host of different concerns. Some of CPACers hate taxes and love guns but are basically social libertarians. Others, like the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, a far-right Catholic outfit, support the criminalization of homosexuality and oppose legalized birth control. A few have very specific grievances, like the man who stood after Santorum's talk to rant about judges who discriminate against fathers during custody disputes and women who won't let their ex-husbands see their children more than twice a month.
In his speech, Santorum tried to unite the various constituencies behind the anti-gay marriage amendment with the Orwellian argument that such an amendment is actually necessary to keep government out of people's private lives.
"I know there are some people who may be economic conservatives and not consider themselves cultural conservatives," he said. Addressing himself to them, he tried to explain how banning gay marriage is crucial to laissez-faire governing. "Think about those communities where marriage does not exist," he said, invoking their poverty and illegitimacy. "What you see is a model of what life would look like in a country that has fathers and mothers not wedded together in strong relationships to raise children." In poor neighborhoods, he said, there's a strong government presence, "because if Mom and Dad isn't there to raise the child, someone else has to bridge the gap, and that someone else is always the government."
Santorum didn't quite explain how proscribing gay unions would strengthen families in poor communities. The assumption seemed to be that homosexuality would make a travesty of matrimony. Like a suburban block where undesirables insist on moving in, its worth would go down. "If we deconstruct marriage in society, if we say marriage is whatever you want it to be, then marriage loses its intrinsic value," he said.
"I'm talking at a very protective level about what is important to our society if we are to be a free people," he said. "The less virtue we have in our society, the more the need for government to control our lives, to govern our lives." In other words, government needs to enforce virtue in order to keep government out of our lives.
This argument seemed to make sense to his audience.
What a load of bullshit. I do love the conclusion of this article, which is truly sad:
Who needs logic when you've got power?
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/21/2005 10:14:00 AM
0 comments
Wednesday, February 16
Upcoming…
I got a couple of things I should be writing up sometime.
How I came to know Sebastian (for a comment that was left here).
How I got to become known as Bytehead (although I think I have that on my
old site (now archived on my own webiste) somewhere. Just for historical reference.
/me busts out laughing…Also, I'm just now noticing that the comments seem to be broken as far as formatting. I've looked at the source, and it's not obvious, so I believe it's probably a CSS issue. Yuck! I hate those. No easy way to play with those. I'm pretty sure it's the style sheet that came with the code. There's been an update (something about rel="nofollow", which I've really only implemented on some links in my template that probably should not be followed (do I really want Google to suck down my RSS and Atom feeds, my private blog (password protected, so it's a dead end anyways) and my editing links to Blogger?). I'm willing to spread the love. And I've only been hit with one spam ever (that got erased, which I should have just marked out instead...), although I've gotten some email wanting me to advertise their goods (does the fact that I don't run Google AdWords, nor Amazon affiliation or anything at all like that). I have one person that I've done a link exchange for, and I've noticed that I'm not even on their site anymore! Sheesh! That's gone. Now I link exchange with nobody! That will learn me.
Gee, it's only taken me an hour and a half to get this post up (post time is 8:27PM, and it's now showing 9:56PM on my computer clock…), which could be a reason why I'm not as prolific as S c o b l e. 9:58PM. Multitasking works, but there's still only so many cycles the Central Punybrain Unit can handle I guess.
Updated pointer 3/19/2008
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/16/2005 08:27:00 PM
0 comments
Problems with Blogger
I'm having issues with Blogger and my link blog. And we won't even get into the issue of where BlogThis! wants to, by default, put eveything into my linkblog. Which I pretty much don't want to do. Hmmm. And I just found an issue with the template. Drat! Gotta fix that right now. :(
OK, fixed the template. A missing <p /> between two related things, but it just looked bad the way it was. Taking forever to republish though. It's done, it's fixed. Hurray! Now I just have to wait for
he-who-cannot-be-named (
Bwahahahahahaha!) to visit when it hits
Technorati. Hmmm. Do I even have my
linkblog listed in Technorati? I may have to fix that. Although that means I have to add it to my profile, then put the code in, then wait for Technorati to scan my linkblog... Hmmmm. I have no idea when/if
Google will be scanning it either. I know
this blog gets scanned daily, but I never put the code into linkblog to tell me when it gets a Google workout. :/ Oh well!
Oh yeah, I've claimed my linkblog, and pinged Technorati, so it should be cool.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/16/2005 08:27:00 PM
0 comments
What good is it.
Le Site Special DriversI'm sorry, but the listed site above is a .com. Which is
supposed to mean that it is a US commercial site, which to me means, I should be able to read it. In English. This particular site is in
French.
I don't have a problem with the language, the people nor the country, but come on, don't expect me, nor most of the other surfers to be overjoyed at finding a .com using French! I'm currently loading a
Google translation of it (it's taking awhile to do), and now that it's done, it's still not translating the graphics of course. Still, it should be either station-drivers.fr, or, if it manges to come from quebec, then station-drivers.ca. .com? That should be English. Sorry to be so USian about this, but even the people I know outside of the US use English! Maybe not well, but certainly enough for me to understand (and that's usually quite an achievement, even with native English speakers! :*) )
Rant, rant, rant. I guess I'm done ranting now.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/16/2005 03:03:00 PM
0 comments
Saturday, February 12
MAC address clone
00-A0-24-8D-1D-C0 - Etherlink card (P3)
00-50-2C-A5-56-33 - Realtek Fast Ethernet (P4)
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/12/2005 10:21:00 PM
0 comments
Wednesday, February 9
NPR : Montana Weighs Increasing Taxes on Big Box Stores
NPR : Montana Weighs Increasing Taxes on Big Box Stores:
Montana Weighs Increasing Taxes on Big Box Stores
by Kathy Witkowsky
Morning Edition, February 8, 2005 · A bill before the Montana legislature would tax retail businesses on gross receipts in excess of $20 million, unless they pay their employees at least $22,000 a year. The measure is aimed at 'big box' retailers such as Wal-Mart and Costco.
I'm sure that the corporations involved are bellyaching about this. But geez, doesn't it pretty much make sense? You either pay your employees enough to actually make a living and incur those costs as legitimate costs, or do you set things up such that most of your employees also have to depend on government subsidies and services to better increase your bottom line (and therefore enhance the management's bonuses?)
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/09/2005 06:08:00 PM
0 comments
Tuesday, February 8
Good things happen, to those who link!
Wow, I get an RSS update from Technorati, and find out that another Florida blogger has linked to me. I put
spacecoastweb: blog on my Bloglines subscription, which automatically updates my blogroll from them. And since I coded it to use PHP instead of JavaScript, Google (and Technorati evidently) now troll the list (since it's true generated HTML that they are reading) and hopefully spread some more linklove around (I dropped from 5 to 4 in my
PageRank - boo hoo!). It wasn't a hard thing to code, as both Bloglines and Blogroll offer PHP code to do that.
But this also shows a good part of the blogging economy. One person links to you, so you link to them. I like it!
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/08/2005 07:36:00 PM
0 comments
Saturday, February 5
Optimizing BitTorrent
I'm not talking about speed, I'm talking about the issue with some rather large torrent files out there that have no seeds, or at best, sporadic seeds showing up.
I think that a modification to the client would help fix this issue.
The client knows which pieces are the most rare. Certainly Azureus knows this. Instead of just grabbing random pieces, or the pieces for the front of the file, grab the pieces that only the seeds have. You wouldn't want to make all your download slots do this, but I bet if you had half of them doing this, and reprioritizing after each sync with the tracker, you'd find that the odds of completing a torrent without a seed would go up immensely, because you might actually get one entire copy spread out through all the clients. There's not like getting 90% or more done, and find out that you can't complete the torrent because there are no seeds up, or the seeder does come up, but it's too damn busy passing out pieces that other leechers already have.
That might be another optimization as well. If a piece is well populated, you never get it from the seeds and never request them from the seeds. This might be a range, so that if there are 100 leechers, but only 1 or 5 leechers have a piece or a certain small percentage of them, then it might be OK to grab it from the seed. Or if nobody that has that piece is allowing you to get it, then the seeder would be the last choice. This optimization would be a little harder, I think.
What I like about both of these optimizations is that the only changes neccessary need to be made on the client leeching side, not the seeder or tracking side. They seem to be practical. If I new Java programming, I'd be thinking about looking at the source and seeing if I couldn't at least get the first optimization done.
It's a thought.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/05/2005 05:50:00 PM
0 comments
Friday, February 4
Crazy Sun!
According to their website, if I want to run Solaris 10 on more than what I claim to be running, then I have to get a new authorization. Now, this is what I got back from them (emphasis mine):
ENTITLEMENT for
SOLARIS 10 3/05 OPERATING SYSTEM
THIS ENTITLEMENT EVIDENCES YOUR AUTHORIZED SCOPE OF USE UNDER THE TERMS
OF THE SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC. SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR THE SUN SOFTWARE
INDICATED BELOW (THE SLA) UNLESS OTHERWISE AGREED IN WRITING BETWEEN YOU AND
SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC. (SUN). Capitalized terms not defined in this document
have the meanings ascribed to them in the SLA. These terms will
supersede any inconsistent or conflicting terms in the SLA.
Licensee/Company: Entity in receipt of Software from an authorized source
Beginning Date of License Term: the date of receipt of this Entitlement
Software: Solaris 10 3/05
Permitted Use: Commercial Use
License Term: Perpetual (subject to termination under the SLA)
Licensed Unit: Registered Computer System
Licensed unit Count: Unlimited
Additional Terms:
1.0 License to Develop. You are authorized to develop software programs
utilizing Software. If you desire to develop software programs which
incorporate portions of Software ("Developed Programs"), the following
provisions apply: (i) you may not modify or add to application programming
interfaces associated with Software; (ii) you are not licensed to use fonts
within Software to develop printing applications unless you have secured valid
licenses from the appropriate font suppliers; (iii) incorporation of portions of
Motif in Developed Programs may require reporting of copies of Developed
Programs to Sun;
and (iv) you will indemnify and defend Sun and its licensors from any
claims, including attorneys' fees, which arise from or relate to distribution or
use of Developed Programs to the extent these claims arise from or relate to the
development performed by you. This Section 1.0 does not apply to the Sun Java
System Application Server Platform Edition 8, Sun Java System Message
Queue 3.5, Sun Java System Directory Server 5, and Java 2 Platform, Standard
Edition (J2SE) included in or bundled with the Software.
2.0 Sun Java Studio Enterprise for Evaluation Only. You may only use the Java
Studio Enterprise (Studio) bundled or embedded with the Sun Java System
Application Server Standard Edition portions of Software for Evaluation Use
unless you purchase a separate license from Sun. Studio may contain a time out
mechanism.
3.0 Sun Java System Directory Server 5. This Section 3.0 applies only
to the Sun Java System Directory Server 5 portion of the Software.
3.1. Definitions.
(a) "Directory Instance(s)" means an instance of the Sun Java System
Directory Server process, slapd, running on a server.
(b) "Entry(ies)" means a single Distinguished Name ("DN") and its
associated attributes.
(c) "Enterprise Wide" means your entire enterprise network.
3.2 License Grant. Sun grants you a non-exclusive and non-transferable
license
for the internal use only of Sun Java System Directory Server 5 (Directory
Server) (where you control, manage, configure and otherwise use the software)
for your internal business use and not for resale or redistribution in any
manner and only for the number of Entries for which the corresponding
fee has been paid. Subject to the limitations of the previous sentence, you may
provide services with Directory Server to users outside of your commercial legal
entity, if any; provided that you may not permit any such user to control, manage or
configure Directory Server.
3.3 Additional Use Conditions.
(a) Directory Server may contain, at no charge, up to an aggregate maximum of
200,000 Entries, across any and all Directory Instances running
Enterprise Wide.
For the purposes of this Section 3.3(a) only, Entries exclude Solaris 10
operating system entries that do not define users.
(b) You may install and run multiple instances of the Sun Java System
Directory Server Console client on multiple computers and platforms for remote
and distributed administration of servers and applications.
Why should I have to tell them how many computers I'm going to install this on, when they already give me an unlimited license. Can somebody explain that to me?
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/04/2005 01:06:00 PM
0 comments
An update at last
Last month (it seems only yesterday actually) I got diagnosed with diabetes. Also, my potassium levels were down, as were my magnesium levels. My BP started going out of control, and I ended up in Orange Park Medical Center for 9 days. Mainly because of my blood pressure.
The ER thought that it was congestive heart failure. After getting my cardiac enzymes tested, an echocardiogram done, and a nuclear stress test, my heart was declared healthy, no heart failure. Then, it was off to see if I had a narrowed kidney artery, which my left kidney has a 40% narrowing, but they only stent them when it's 50% or greater. My BP is still high from what the doctors want it to be. It showed some sign of coming down, but not now. I'm not happy about that.
On the other hand, I've got my blood sugar under control it seems. I'm taking Glipizide (Glucotrol) for that. It's still not at the levels I'd like to see it at, but it's not that bad. If I drop a few more pounds, that should help as well.
I'm on 11 drugs right now, of which two are OTC. Baby aspirin and magnesium oxide. Expensive, to say the least. And that doesn't include my multivitamin, nor the occasional Claritin that I take. And then there's the test strips and the lancettes. At least I got the blood meter for free from the insurance company. If I buy the cable to go with it, I can grab the data from it onto my PC. Pretty cool.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 2/04/2005 11:22:00 AM
0 comments
I'm now down to fifth place when I used to be #1.
Blogger's about me: Your usual fat computer geek. Currently looking for work in the Jacksonville area and in Columbus. Network Administrator for hire!
♥ Sparx
♥ wookiemp164 aka Garfield116(x)
