Fred Upton is a bad man. He is a very bad man.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5063072.stm

“Representative Fred Upton, head of the House telecommunications subcommittee, said competition could mean people save $30 to $40 each month on their net access fees.”

Representative Fred Upton has TWICE pushed through a policy that will have a negative impact on all but the weathly.

Network performance Tiering is not competition. Competition is when CONSUMERS have the ability to chose between a number of distinct organizations providing similar services. That sort of competition is a good thing – people will not pay more when they can pay less for the same thing.

Internet service tiering ONLY BENEFITS THE TELECOMUNICATIONS COMPANIES. Nobody else. They will be given the ability to arbitrarily decide that one server does not deserve the same bandwidth as another. Who do you think will get highest priority? Why the telecomunications companies themselves, and their business partners of course.

This is a slippery slope. There is a slight – VERY SLIGHT possibility that consumer internet bills might go down a little. But the bills for service providers will go up.

Already companies have to pay exorbitant amounts for an OC3 connection. It really is obscene. But once they had that connection to a backbone they were set.
Well not anymore. Now you also have to bribe the owners of the backbones to let you use enough bandwidth. Sure, the internet ACCESS cost may go down, but the SERVICE costs are going to go up. Free services could disappear. Hosting costs, colocating costs are going to shoot through the roof once you start seeing any quantity of traffic.

THIS IS VERY BAD FOR THE FREEDOM AND OPPORTUNITY ON THE INTERNET.
THIS COULD STRIP THE INTERNET OF EVERYTHING FREE.

The argument being made is that phone companies cannot offer video services because the internet is too congested. This is bogus. Video streaming is not possible because residential internet bandwidth is not high enough yet. The infrastructure is capable. The congestion is not the backbone, it is the endpoints.

But lies from wealthy people have a way of becoming truth.

And the words of slimy politicians like Fred Upton have a way of ruining things for everybody.

Please people, tell your republican congressmen that they represent you, not big businesses. Tell them to support internet neutrality, and set the dollar signs in their eyes aside.

Save the internet.

Recently I purchased a new 120 gig drive, and I was inspired: Hey I should try installing linux again.

For those who know me, and have a memory for such things, I have linux moments. I would really like to be using linux. I would prefer it. As yet I have never paid for windows, and I do not look forward to having to. (Yes, I’m legal…)

So I decided to give SuSE a try. I have used in as a 64-bit server OS, and it was much easier for a gibbon like me to install and configure that any other *nix I had tried.
After reading the reviews going around the internet, it looked like SuSE was the closest to being a desktop OS. Better installer, easier to configure, more features etc…

My last affair with linux lasted a week. I had completely switched, and used it exculsively. For the regular day to day tasks, it worked acceptibly. I could chat, check my email, surf the web, listen to music and watch most videos.
Everything was working ok (aside from my hatred of open office – word processors should not be written in java…). I believe I was using Mandrake, and that particlar version did not come with firefox. Ok, so after MUCH ado, I did get it installed. And it worked acceptibly.

There was one thing that was driving me nuts, however. The fonts looked… yucky. They were muddy, fuzzy around the edges and blocky. After much research and even more ado, I recompiled X.Org to support font hinting and installed the MS fonts.
After switching to these better fonts, I still had fuzzy text in some programs. I found out there are multiple places you have to turn off antialiasing. So I edited config files, I edited xml files, and as far as I could tell, there should have been NO antialiasing.

Wrong. Firefox was still muddying up the fonts. So, I had to go though the advanced configuration page and look through hundreds of poorly documented settings turning off anything that resembled “blur, fuzz, smooth, alias”. No good. Nothing worked. I managed to make them look worse, but it refused to use my truetype fonts, and it refused to stop makeing the fonts look ugly.

To top it off, gaim’s window flasher was buggy. I need that feature.

The stray the broke the camel’s back, alas was lack of support for Windows Mobile devices.

Fastforward about a year. I don’t really use my pocketPC much, so it is not nearly so much of a priority.

Well SuSE got one thing right – font hinting is compiled in by default now. ClearType is also an easily selectable option, as well as cleartype configuration.

But…

It doesn’t appear to work.

When I switched between them I saw no difference. Even using the truetype fonts, linux was mucking them up.
The killer in this case came from Firefox once again. The fonts just look bad. They look terrible, and they still have not made it easy (or perhaps even possible) to correct.

I was not going to waste my time on it again. I have found that the linux community does not think clear fonts are important, and that I am whining without cause. So I will just not use linux. Perhaps in another year they will get it together.

They need to stop this multiple font rendering engines. They need unity.

One thing I use a lot in windows is my second monitor. I have a dual head graphics card, and I like to have the extra space. To get this in linux, I have to install ATI’s proprietary drivers.
When it first started up, it looked like they had it right. They had created two desktops, and you could move your mouse between them. Then I noticed something. An annoying series of little windows containing the icon for all running programs showed up on the left desktop. Before I installed the drivers, this had been like the system tray in windows – a part of the upper taskbar. Now each program took up a full section on the lower taskbar and cound not be minimized to the tasktray.

Ok, I can live with this I guess…

Next, you cannot drag windows to the second screen. If you right click, you have the option of seding the program the the right desktop. So I chose that, and it places it on desktop # 2 on the left screen. Nothing shows up in the right screen. Apparently the right screen was supposed to correspond to desktop two. That is a great idea, but it didn’t work. Aside from being able to move the mouse between them, the two screens were completely independent.
No thanks. I need to be able to move things to my second display when the primary gets too cluttered.

The other issue is that the photo sharing feature in Yahoo Messenger (by far one of the nicest features I’ve seen in such a product) is not supported in linux. And I can’t use my napster subscription.

So there you have it. Two years in a row, and the fonts are still muddy. The cleartype does not appear to do anything, and programs do not play well together.

I guess I’ll try again next year.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4635233826986620052

NEVER USE A MESSY RECIPE!!!!

http://www.savetheinternet.com/

Congress is working on a bill that would allow telecommunications companies to charge rates for better bandwidth. That is, they are trying to abolish Internet Neutrality.

What this would mean, is they could determine that a particular service is using too much bandwidth, and limit them to a total of 50k/sec. That site would, if it received too much traffic, appear to be non-responsive. What happens when a site is non-responsive?

People go elsewhere.

Go to the site and sign the petition. Here is the letter I included for my congresman.

The internet was founded on the proliferation of freedom. It has been instrumental in bringing nations together and accelerating equality.

Information, and the passage thereof needs to remain free of class and privilege. All nations, all classes, all races deserve the same level of service from the backbone of the internet.

What these companies are suggesting as beneficial is a lie. Imposing artificial limits based on how much a person is willing to pay will alienate those small businesses incapable of fronting the bill.

This does not encourage competition: it is a cleverly disguised assault against it.

The telecommunication companies are all in the business of providing “bulk” services. Since they own the backbone, they don’t have to pay the excess fees. Smaller companies – and even larger ones – Like Google or AOL will suffer – and have to raise rates for their consumers.

The result of this would be a slow – even bottlenecked internet for those who could not afford to pay for more.

I believe you will agree with me that this is wrong, and must not happen.

Please act immediately to save the Internet.

Warner Brothers Inks deal with BitTorrent

LOL

ROFL

Wow. Just wow.

In case you don’t understand, there is no company BitTorrent. BitTorrent is an open source, duty free protocol.

That is like saying Warner brothers signed a deal with Ethernet.

Oh man.

EDIT:

OK, so the arrogant self worshipper Bram Cohen went and took his open source technology and “trademarked” the name and started a “company.” A company which nobody uses. A company he should not have named after a technology that the community has done more for than he ever will.

His clients are clunky, featureless, and oh yeah, written in python. Pretty much the most worthless programming language on the planet (tabs for heaven’s sake. What the heck!)

Yeah, so this ticks me off. If he wanted to start a site, fine. But don’t be a jerk and name it after a TECHNOLOGY. Much less an OPEN SOURCE TECHNOLOGY. Much less an OPEN SOURCE TECHNOLOGY FOR WHICH THE ORIGINATOR’S UTILITIES ARE GENERALLY CONSIDERED CRAP.

Ok, now I’m really done.

I had to reinstall nucleus, and repair a database table. I’ve never had to do that before!!

I hope nothing important went missing. Guess I’ll find out when the two people who visit my site check in. That should be in about…. oh 2 weeks 😛

So about 3 hours ago I popped up my site fully intent on posting about something, and was totally distracted by the fact that the thing was broken. And now I cannot recall what I was going to say.

Darn.

Do you like my new layout? I found it on the nucleus site and thought it was pretty cool. It took a bit of work to get it to behave, but I think it’s pretty nice now.
I enabled member signups, so if you want to track comments, go ahead and signup 😀

Comments are working now. Don’t know how that happened, but the code for the blacklist got all fubared.

There once was a monkey named Moses,
who a bad case of halitosis.
No one was in a rush,
to give him a toothbrush.
So they went around pinching their noses.

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/manuscripts/gospel_of_judas/

Just do a search for Gospel of Judas in the news. You will find every major news source touting that “Judas didn’t betray Jesus, he was obedient”

People, alas, do not understand how the Bible works. The documents of the Bible are verified to be the inspired Word of God, to the best of our understanding. There are quite a number of books that were written near the same period that are nothing but fiction – there is a whole book about the youth of Christ. It is well written and interesting, but it is fiction.

Did you know that people have been writing fiction since before Jesus was born?

Apparently these ignorant scholars don’t either. And the reporters are even worse. Big headlines that are going to ruin the faith of thousands who lack the resources to investigate it properly.

The dead sea scrolls are not a part of the Bible. They are not God’s word. They are interesting peieces of historical literature, but not much else.

The “Gospel” of Judas was unlikely to have been written by Judas, and in the first few paragraphs it is obvious that these are not the words of our Saviour, nor the words of our beloved misfit disciples. Jesus did not speak of Eons, nor of any chosen people. This single piece of questionable literature runc contrary to everything in the Bible – old and new testament. It doesn’t fit.

It is unfortunate that the early Church was to block-headed about heresy (they were VERY much like the pharisees Jesus condemned.) They did not feel it needed any explanation – it was contrary and thus to be destroyed.

Now our news media makes it sound like it was rejected as legitemate for only these reasons. What fools.

Most likely the gospel of judas was written by Apopheses (hebrew for Joe Bloe) (just kidding, I don’t know hebrew), who happened to know Judas and was sympathetic to his plight. It could have been anything. The point is, there is no – negative even – evidence that this document was written by Judas at all. And even if it was, why do we assume it is truthful just because it is old?

The cannonical documents are assumed to be truthful because we believe they are God-breathed words. No book – regardless how good it sounds – can be taken as truth, or have any weight upon our faith if it was not directly inspired by God (or some analysis thereof) – meaning interpretation and clarification – not new information.

The “Gospel of Judas” is a lie, a work of fiction that will teach you about writers of the day, but nothing about Jesus of Nazareth. Wait for the real analysis by people who know what they are talking about. It won’t be on the front page of any newspaper I can assure you, but it will be reassuring.

A quote from that page later on – by some Theology professor in the netherlands:

“It was known from ancient times that there had to be a Gospel of Judas. Irenaeus of Lyons spoke about it in his Adversus haereses (Against Heresies) in around 180 A.D., but his real source is Justin Martyr, and that takes us to around 140 A.D. I would guess that the Gospel of Judas would have to be dated at about 120 A.D.” The original, at least. The papyri that appeared in the hands of shady dealers at the end of the last century (see photo) were probably a copy from the end of the fourth century. What is spectacular for science is that the Gospel of Judas has at last been found, or at least a part of it. Van Oort does not rule out that it involves the missing codex from the Nag Hammadi codices. What he does rule out is that Judas himself wrote it. “There is no reason whatsoever to assume that he did this. Nothing points to that.”

The Gospel of Judas is a codex from the Gnostics, a movement that was denounced by the Church in the early days. “They set themselves against the established order, and thus also against the Creator. That’s why Judas was their hero.”

In other words, it is known that it was written by a religious sect well after the life of Christ. They exalted Judas, and wrote works to praise him.

News media, go to hell. Oh wait, I didn’t need to say that, you would have anyway 😛 How about you happily go to hell and stop trying to take everybody else with you.

Goodnight.
-Jason

Banjo, my funny fuzzy buddy, was relaxing under my desk, looking longingly at my feet. Looking down at him I had a shocking revelation: He was very cute!

So I got down on the floor and petted the little bugger. The squeaky wheels started a spinning, and my cat became a bonified purr-box.

If you don’t know what a slicker brush is, I’ll give you a hint – it’s like a hair brush made of hundreds of tiny wire bristles. Looks like it could be quite painful if used in the wrong places, but it does a superb job of freeing dead skin, loose hair and getting cats all worked up 😀

So I went at him with it. Banjo quite enjoys the slicker brush. He lays down and stands up and flops over and walks away just to turn around for more when the brush can’t reach him. I got three big balls of furr off his back, and reduced his dandruff levels – all in all his coat is in much better shape now. I’m happy, he’s happy.

How do I know?

Well since the first time I gave Banjo a good brush-down, after I finish he returns the favor.

No, he doesn’t brush me down with the slicker brush you silly.

He becomes my very own personal hair stylist – he really gives it his all. Even gets in ther with his teeth to make sure everything is in just the right place. Sometimes he gets carried away and tries to shape too much at once, but he’s ever so patient of my squirming and squawking!

Why would I squawk at such a kind gesture?
BECAUSE HE REALLY PULLS ON THAT HAIR! He’s trying to pull it out or something. Then he tried to eat my head. No, not bite it, he tried to swallow the thing whole. He’s got sharp little teethies!
But I don’t want to seem ungrateful, so I just let him finish his instinctual return-favor so he can be content. Then I look in the mirror and critique.
You see, it would not be so bad I imagine if he finished, but he obsesses on the detail, then get’s bored before he finishes. The result is generally the same – a three inch circle of wet, rear-facing hair just above my ear.

Silly cat.

Speaking of hair, I discovered something – when you sleep with your hair slicked back, not even a morning wash can repair the damage. Your hair will be messy the next day, and people will laugh. I know, it happened to me. I don’t care cause I’m a programmer and people expect such things from programmers. But you?

Perhaps you are going on a hot date
Or preparing for an interview
Maybe you are the manager of a large fast food restaraunt
Or maybe you are a Jehova’s witness
Maybe you work in a department store
Or maybe you walk dogs around in a dog show

Whatever it is, you probably don’t want your hair to look like mine did today.

So as I prepared for bed tonight what did I do to keep my hair away from my face?

I slicked it back. Kekeke, I hope I don’t have any meetings tomorrow 😉

You all have a good night.

-Jason