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!
Tuesday, January 24
This really truly scare me
and I'm not afraid of squat. This, I'm pretty sure, is what I vote on here in Orange Park.
Susan Pynchon: Diebold in Florida Then eight of us voted, filling in the oval on our paper ballot. Six of us voted "No," the election could not be hacked. Two of us voted "Yes," it could be hacked. Then, one by one, we inserted our ballots into the voting machine. Ion checked after each voter to make sure that the counter on the machine was counting properly as each ballot was inserted. So, we ended up with an accurate count of 8 ballots cast on the screen on the front of the voting machine. Then Ion placed an "ender card" in the machine to end the election and printed the poll tape.
Instead of two "Yes" votes, the poll tape showed seven "Yes" votes.
Instead of six "No" votes, the poll tape showed one "No" vote.
Harri did not just flip the votes, as he wanted to show how easy it was to change the totals completely.
They were worried about viruses in a hack test like this? You've got to be s--tting me!
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 1/24/2006 10:30:00 PM 
0 comments
Saturday, January 21
The Big Picture: Home Equity Loans Fall of the Cliff
BarryThis is quite interesting. I think the information is pointing to a bear's market.
Some of the comments are interesting. I just want to think more about it before I give my finger exercise on it.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 1/21/2006 08:30:00 PM
0 comments
Congratulations to TravK!
TravK, a cousin of our's, has had his project approved and is now a PhD candidate.
So here's to the future Dr. King!
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 1/21/2006 07:10:00 PM
0 comments
MercuryNews.com | 01/19/2006 | Feds after Google data
Howard Mintz:
The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.
The repurcusions of this are going to be absolutely off the scale.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 1/19/2006 01:56:00 PM
0 comments
Friday, January 13
5 more reasons I won't be buying a Mac
Chris Pirillo again from
Lockergnome:
Support. Think about it for a second: just how many millions (if not billions) of Windows PC hardware configurations are out there? Now, how many Apple hardware configurations are there? Believe me, thousands of Windows problems are rooted in the very hardware the OS itself is running atop. When there are a limited amount of possibilities that exist, you should find a solution quicker - or possibly know that no solution exists.
And just how many of those configurations already outsell all Macs? A few I bet. And if we get into actual models, I think this item is really specious. Yes, Apple controls the hardware such that they didn't have to support everything under the sun. But let's see, we've seen other cards that support the Mac as well as the PC. And now that they are following Intel, there should be yet even more hardware going under the Mac hood. This could get quite sticky for Apple.
Malaise. This market is full of it - PC manufacturers who knowingly make crappy systems, larger-than-life brands who can't deliver on their "help desk" promises, etc. To put it to you another way, I'm still struggling to find a computer builder who isn't gonna give me a raw deal for a system. I know what kind of hardware I want, but I also appreciate having a single warranty (four years, minimum). Forget about all the names you think are great - because they're not. They *ALL* suck, and it may be time that we consumers start telling 'em to get their act together and give us an amazing experience. Not to say that Apple would be any better, but it's no worse than any existing PC alternative!
And Apple is different how? The warranty sounds impressive, but is that realistic? I've got Apple Genius Bar personnel that can't figure out that a laptop's Win Sock (way of communicating with the Ethernet card) has been screwed over by a piece of malware. "We don't support Windows" was what the guy heard. Yet anyone who's had to deal with spyware and malware knows exactly what to do. Genius? Fscking idiots are what they are. And why was this guy going to the Genius Bar in the first place? He owns an iPod, and iTunes was working correctly for him.
iPod. Yes, it's overpriced. Yes, the ala carte pricing stinks compared to existing (and future) subscription models like Napster. However, it's also holding over 80% of the portable media player market! Car manufacturers, accessory crafters, and countless other services are springing up around a single device - and there's no such thing as an iPod killer, so get over it. If something isn't iPod compatible, it likely doesn't have longevity or enough market share to be worthwhile. You can use your iPod on Windows, but... it's sincerely not the same.
Yeah, it certainly isn't the same. See the above. And yes, there is such a thing as an iPod killer. It's called DRM, or, if you rather, Apple being the gatekeeper. If nothing else does, Apple being the gatekeeper for what you can put on the iPod will kill it.
Malware. Viruses, Spyware, et al - they're bad, and they're all over Windows. Even when Vista ships, it will still be vulnerable to the same software that has plagued previous and existing versions of the OS. If you don't want your parents to accidentally send a trojan out to everybody in their address book, don't buy 'em software that might or might NOT work - have them run on OS X. It really sucks to say that, but Windows is still the tallest nail (and it will continue to get pounded as such). When you absolutely NEED your Windows software, it should only be a click away on the same machine.
Well, if you do indeed need your Windows software, you're still going to get hit with the barrage of malware out there for Windows. Buying a Mac and running OS X, or running Linux because you are afraid of malware is simply security via obscurity, and that's not a good thing to be counting on. Besides, aren't OS X and Linux security updates still occurring? If you didn't have to worry about somebody taking advantage of a security issue, why fix it then?
Change. When was the last time you were excited about using your computer? Something different is something good - and a new Microsoft operating system (the first one in half a decade) is not likely to do the trick. Are you bored with the way things work? Do you want your computing lifestyle to be interesting again? Consider something new, something completely new... and now for something completely different.
Yeah, I do want change. I want to be running a dual Xeon dual core system with 4 gigs of memory, a terabyte or more of disk storage, and easy backup of that storage. And I really am ready to get off this damn upgrade treadmill, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Sorry, Apple switching to Intel may be change for Apple, but for the rest of us that run Windows? That's not really a change now, is it? I'd be better off running NetBSD and calling that a change. And now all the big-endian and little-endian stuff gets interesting.
These arguments don't convince me in the slightest that my next PC is going to be a Mac. It will be an interesting time to see how convincing it is for other people.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 1/13/2006 06:41:00 PM
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The Impeachment of George W. Bush
Elizabeth Holtzman:
Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush--not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations and even in Congress. As a former member of Congress who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon, I believe they are right to do so.
I'm not surprised. One bit.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 1/13/2006 12:51:00 PM
0 comments
5 reasons why my next PC will NOT be from Apple
Chris Pirillo writes
Your Next PC will be from Apple1. Duality. Windows Vista won't be blocked on Intel-based Apple hardware. This means you will (in theory) be able to purchase a Mac computer and run Windows on it, just as you would a regular ol' PC. At least, Apple won't stop folks from doing so. However, current AND future "Windows" machines will not be able to run OS X. That's a big win for Apple. It's upon this first point that the rest of my list is built.
Well, I can already run Linux, BSD and Unix on my box. Considering MacOS is a modified BSD… If Microsoft can get Vista to boot with BIOS and with EFI, why can't Apple? Oh, that's right, they want to lock you in to their hardware. Apple wants to be snooty and make sure you can't run MacOS on a plain IBM PC. What happens if Microsoft gets snooty and decides that Vista or the next generation of Windows
won't run on Apple's hardware? Not liable to happen? Probably not, but still, the Linux fan boys had better be hooting and hollerin' just as much at Apple as they do at Microsoft for their lock-in.
2. Style. Yes, you can trick out your PC with all sorts of neon cables and fancy case accoutrements - but there's something to be said about Apple's simplicity. No other PC manufacturer has come close to mass producing an elegant design that was equally as functional. It's the hardware, man.
One thing comes to mind. The Mac Cube. Apple doesn't hit 100%. And as for style in a computer, who the hell sees my computer? Me. My family has a passing glance at it, but for the most part what you see is the monitor, the keyboard, the mouse, and the mess that is my computer desk. I don't go to LAN parties. Maybe if I did, it would be a little different. Then again, in that kind of situation, I want something that I can call my own, not some other designer's.
3. Fun. When was the last time you downloaded something new. And I don't mean a new registry cleaner. I mean something completely and utterly new - out of the box new. Something that you just hadn't seen before (either freeware or shareware). The old "there's no software for the Mac" argument hasn't held water for a couple of years now, overturning itself with the advent of OS X. You'll now have a safety net underneath you.
95% or thereabouts market penetration with Windows. Safety net? Windows has a much bigger safety net. Yeah, there's always going to be somebody that claims to know what they are doing, and they don't. Like that doesn't happen in the Mac world? And then there are the people that know quite a bit about the Mac world, but once they get outside of that to IBM PCs, mainframes, minicomputers and other non-Apple hardware, they don't know squat, and they won't even bother to learn anything about it. They hear of a possible solution and go with it. I've
seen that happen, and if I was in control of the situation as I had in the past, it wouldn't have happened.
4. Knowledge. Don't let platform bigotry get in the way of understanding and appreciating good technology. We all are better for knowing more, and that's something you should look forward to doing - not avoiding at all costs. Bury the hatchet if you think that this still is the Mac you first saw in 1984.
Bigotry? On
who's side? I have always maintained that you find the software first, and let that determine the hardware. I have seen way too much bullshit in people trying to justify their purchase of a Macintosh. I've seen people that needed PC compatibility at least at a file reading level go through a bunch of contortions to actually do their real work while they had what they think they really wanted.
5. Equality. Pretty much anything and everything you can do in Windows, you can now do on OS X. Not everything, mind you - but in knowing that a new Apple machine (with proper software, I'd assume) will allow you to boot into Windows, any kind of OS driver issues will be further minimized. There's always Microsoft's Virtual PC, too.
Emphasis mine.
"not everything, mind you", uh, is that really truly equality? I have to say
not. About the proper software in the underlined emphasis, you'll have to
wait until Windows Vista at this point it appears. Actually, I'm betting that somebody comes out with some sort of pre-boot CD or modification of the Windows XP installation CD that allows it be installed on the Apple hardware, just like somebody is going to figure out how to get Mac OSX installed on regular PCs. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if VMWare came out with something that allowed you to at least run Mac OSX emulated, if EFI is the only thing causing that to happen.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 1/13/2006 12:48:00 PM
0 comments
Thursday, January 12
Cartoon for Garfield and Sparx
Cyanide & Happiness @
Explosm.netWell, are you men yet?
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 1/12/2006 01:52:00 AM
0 comments
Friday, January 6
Florida School Vouchers - Denied!
From PointofLaw.com
Ted Frank wrote:
Unfortunately, as I anticipated in June (in a now-defunct Haloscan comment), a 5-2 decision of the Florida Supreme Court has struck down a school-voucher program by manufacturing a nonsensical interpretation of a state constitutional clause out of thin air.
OK, here's somebody that's gunning for school vouchers.
Because the decision was on narrow state constitutional grounds, there is no basis for appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Or, perhaps better phrased as "To avoid appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the decision was on narrow state constitutional grounds.") The only remedy for Floridians is to amend their state constitution.
Now from
this, I see that Mr. Frank is the Director for the American Enterprise Institute Liability Project. The only thing that seems to qualify him for this is his
Reform Proposals, which actually doesn't tell me squat. And since the AEI is based out of Washington, DC, I'm assuming that Mr. Frank is living in or around that part of the country, and is not currently living in Florida. I don't consider what the SCOF did manufacturing anything nonsensical. I will admit my bias that I am against school vouchers, especially if they are used for private religious schools. Sorry, but arguments about how it's the parents' tax money and they can spend it how they want is nonsense. Because I would be making damn sure that none of my income tax is being used for the war in Iraq, using the same argument Pick your own cause, it's the same problem. They are free to send their kid to any school that they want. Do they have the right to claim "their" tax money to help defray the cost? Not in my book.
Yes, I live in a great area of the state for schools, as the schools my kids have gone to are either A or B schools according to the grading that the state does. And Mr. Frank has put how many kids through Florida schools?
The other issue that I have is that the voters of Florida have already passed constitutional amendments such as the one limiting class size, and the fscking legislature puts all of its efforts towards trying to thwart that amendment. Hell, it only takes a simple majority (I think, that may have changed in the last elections) to get an amendment passed in Florida, so what is the big deal if it
does take a constitutional amendment?
I would have left a comment about it, but that blog doesn't allow comments. Otherwise, he would be getting an earful from me.
So instead, I blog it myself, and maybe, just maybe, he'll see this in a search result when he goes ego surfing.
Update 1/8:Mark Lane from the Daytona Beach News-Journal gives a little more detail on this that I didn't know about.
Florida has, since 1868, had some kind of constitutional requirement for quality public schools. But since 1885, the constitutional language has been weak and vague enough that nobody in the Legislature ever lost sleep over it.
Then, in 1998, voters made this mandate more emphatic.
Until now, many smart people dismissed this new language as mere constitutional happy talk. The legal equivalent of graduation day oratory. That changed last week.
The court ruled this new mandate for a strong, well-funded public school system forbids moving public school money to private schools.
The court said the state is in the public school business and the public school business only. Private schools are good and useful, but the state constitution doesn't say the state may fund them.
Particularly if funding private schools means de-funding public schools.
So, Mr. Frank, it appears that an amended state constitution
has been made. Too bad it is
against what you think it should be.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 1/06/2006 12:06:00 AM
0 comments
Monday, January 2
My link blog and Blogger — again
I'm still ready to kill Blogger. I added my gmail account to the list of emails that get sent. I'm getting them. Slowly, but I'm getting them.
Blogger? If I'm lucky, I manage to get one posted. After 5 tries. I finally sent this stuff to my core.com account, and did a cut/paste operation to get the sites I currently have set out of my way. I've got plenty more, and I'll probably do one topic a day. Hopefully, it will be taken by Blogger.
I've got quite a few pages printed out of performancing to look at. That's a bit daunting, but if I can get a stripped down code that allows me to push this crap through via XMLRPC or whatever it is, then I'll be quite happy about it.
Trouble is, I didn't print the total number of pages for each file (I've corrected that oversight. Sigh.)
Oh, and now Performancing is reporting an error trying to post (this post was done via Blogger's web interface).
I just can't fscking win.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 1/02/2006 09:11:00 PM
0 comments
Link blog and Blogger
I'm ready to shoot Blogger. The mail gateway has become problematic. I'm sending well formed email messages, and Blogger's just dropping them on the floor. Especially if I don't have a comment. But I just entered a comment on the last 8 that I did, and they still aren't showing up. Performancing is a cool tool, that I'm using now. I'm thinking about grabbing it and ripping out the posting portion and putting that into my code somehow. Probably via shell scripting I'm thinking.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 1/02/2006 09:13:00 AM
0 comments
Link blog back up.
I got my latest changes compiled into url2mail.c, recompiled it, and just uploaded a bunch right now. I'll be checking them out here shortly.
Looks good, like it's supposed to. Then only issue? my clexpnd.c isn't returning what it should be returning. I think it's just not copying what it should be copying into allocated memory, I'm off by some number (two it appears), but I'm not sure why it seems to work for a few, and then it gets off, but I'll play with it and get it working, one way or another
Sunday, January 1
Look who's blogging now.
Well,
Guy Kawasaki is now blogging.
The guy that made using a Mac a matter of faith, as far as I was concerned back then in the '90s. My thoughts back then (and really, still are) is that you pick your software first, then your hardware. The way that Guy evangelized it didn't make me feel any better about Apple and Macs. And my thoughts have seen the "impossible" happen by having Apple now use Intel hardware. I personally think Apple will have their ass handed to them for this move, and time will tell. And yes, you are correct, I'm
still not a big Apple/Mac fan.
I didn't get an iPod as an MP3 player (which made me happy actually) for Christmas. I will positively absolutely refuse to buy anything from the ITMS. In fact, when I installed Quicktime for the PC, I went back and uninstalled iTunes (I wasn't given an option of
not installing it with Quicktime) and Quicktime still functions as it should.
Hey Apple! It's my freaking hardware, and I will install the software that I choose to. Yeah, it was nice of you to allow me to uninstall iTunes after I installed, but I should have been allowed to
not install it to begin with.
As far as I'm concerned, another arrogance from Apple thrown in my face. That's right up there with claiming that Apple Macs' couldn't get a connection to the AS/400 minicomputer that was plugged into a 100mb/s switch because of the "backwards" compatibility with LocalTalk. I still call bullshit, it was just an excuse to get a router, and it's a damn good thing I wasn't still in my old job when that came up!
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)
