Facebook

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook is an interesting article

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I have a facebook account and I think it has a coolness factor but its all about business and ads and capitalism. I know much is but the Internet shouldn’t be.

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Is there no social networking site out there that isn’t all about the almighty dollar. Perhaps Craigslist should start a social networking site.

 

I am from the old school days when BBS’s existed as a hobby. Yes some charged but not excessively for what they offered. The charge was to cover the cost of the equipment and phone lines which were so damn expensive that I never was able to be a sysop.

 

BBS was a subculture about connecting people. Not about MONEY. The internet was about freely exchanging info. Maybe I will start a Facebook clone but instead of it being on the web, I will make it text only and on GOPHER. I have the hardware and bandwidth. I would just have to convince people they should use it so that they can stick it to than man by not using Facebook.

 

Btw I rarely have time to Facebook but I will stay on from time to time to keep in touch

 

 

The Deadly Doctrine of Predestination and Biblical Innerancy

I haven’t touched on this for a while. I am sure our buddy HaKohen will have a lot to say if he is still around. I have let the whole Calvin/Arminian thing kind of take a back burner for a while. That is until today. My wife is attending a Baptist College and her Professor is a Calvinist. She was going to use the Bible to “prove him wrong” and we are having a hard time coming up with proof texts to disprove the idea that God controls our every move and predestined some of us for hell. We cannot seem to find any good proof texts and therefore her faith is shaken.

 

I believe that that concept goes against everything the Bible teaches and everything I know from my personal walk with God. I don’t think a God that draws names out of a hat and says this one goes to heaven and this one goes to hell is any God I would want to serve and is certainly NOT the God I see when I read the words of Christ.

 

I am not all that outraged. I am at peace with my own faith but I cannot give any good advice to combat this. My take is either the obscure verses about predestination are misunderstood, mistranslated or simply WRONG. I have come to the conclusion that I can live a Christian life and know Jesus Christ without believing that every word in the Bible is literally correct. (major HERESY here). If anything that has opened the door to greater faith. I remember once when I was 14 (a year after I became a Christian). I was in tears because the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of John have quite different accounts of Jesus arrest. I had to reconcile each word or not have any faith. Well they are accounts written 2000 years ago by different people and I am surprised they are as similar as they are now.

 

Being able to believe you we cant proof text it or be affirmed by others. That is true faith. Believing the literal words of the Bible and doing what people tell you to. That’s not faith. That’s blind allegiance.

 

I am sure many good sincere Christians would read this and pray that I “come back to the Lord”. I got news for them. I don’t need to. I never left. I am closer to my God than ever before.

 

Some would say if you doubt the Bible you are on a slippery slope. Well now that I don’t have to jump through hoops to justify things that make no sense, I am on solid ground.

I believe the Bible was written by people. Its there perception of God. Much of it is true but it is tainted by the culture of its day and by thousands of years of tampering.

 

How do I know what I believe? I don’t need a book to tell me. I just know what I know that I know.

 

Now I am getting out there. Anybody know wtf I am talking about.

 

 

EVIL creditor calls

OK so I have too many credit cards and I am slightly behind on a couple of them. In particular one to Wells Fargo. I understand they want to get paid but they call at least 3 times an hour most hours from about 8AM-9PM 7 days a week. They have even started calling my cell phone. I don’t know how they got it. I created an address book entry on my Blackberry called Asshole 1,2, and 3 and set the ringtone to none so it doesn’t ring when they call.

 

What gets me is:

 

Its only about 2 weeks late. Until its 30 days it wont affect credit rating

I have already made payment arrangements with them.

 

This relentless calling is an act of psychological warfare designed to break me into paying them. Well I will pay them but not any sooner because of this. I have emailed them the date and times they call my cell phone and ordered them to cease calling any number they have on file for me in the 503 area code. My home number is in the 541 area code. Nothing helps.

 

I changed my home phone number and went unlisted. I am sick of it. Over 20 calls a day. Wtf

 

I am not condoning not paying bills but we all have rough times. I am not a deadbeat trying to default just someone who is slightly late. I would understand this torture if I was like a month or so late. They started this crap when it was only ONE DAY LATE. Not to mention the $160 is BS fees they have tacked on.

 

They should be happy. They are socking me with so many fees and more interest that they will make big bucks off me. I cant wait to pay them off and cut up that card. Who needs Wells Fargo anyway. I had planned on keeping their card. I think I will keep Capitol One instead.

 

WELLS FARGO SUCKS ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Companies considering using hidden RFID chips in merchandise

These companies are attending a conference which will try to sell them on the idea. They have expressed interest in this technology. Beware.

• Academy Sports & Outdoors • Albertsons • The ALDO Group • Anheuser-Busch • Best Buy • Blockbuster • Blommer Chocolate • Brass Eagle • CDW Corp. • Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream • Electrolux • Energizer Battery • Fuji Photo Film USA • The Gap • General Mills • Gillette Company

• Hampton Products • Hasbro • Hershey Foods • Hewlett Packard (HP) • Hunter Fan • Hy-Vee, Inc. • Jockey International • Johnson & Johnson • Johnsonville Sausage • Kellogg Co. • Kimberly-Clark • Limited Brands • L'Oreal USA • Loblaws • Louisville Bedding • Lowe's Companies

• Luxottica Retail • Maidenform Worldwide • Mars • Marubeni America • Masterfoods USA • McIlhenny Co. • Meyer Corp. • Nestle USA • Newell Rubbermaid • OfficeMax • Pacific Cycle • Payless Shoe Source • Pharmavite • Procter & Gamble • S. C. Johnson • SAKS Inc.

• Sara Lee Foods • Schick • Scott Paper Limited • Sears • Sears Canada • Sherwin-Williams • Storekraft • Stride Rite Corp. • Tanimura & Antle • Target Corp. • The Valvoline Co. • Unilever • Wal-Mart • Walgreens • Wm Wrigley Jr Co • Wegmans

 

Chips

OK so I am on the paranoid side now. For a while (my whole life) I have been hearing about the mark of the beast. I used to get worked up now I sort of let it slide by, However I was listening to Coast to Coast with George Noory last night and they interviewed Katherine Albrecht. She is a bit of a fundamentalist Christian but she had many good points. The use of RFID is way out of control. Over 300 people in the US have chosen to implant RFID chips in themselves for “convenience”  

 

There is also talk about chips that implant themselves in your spleen so that if you try to remove them it will kill you.

 

Real ID is something that all freedom lovers should be outraged about. In theory the RFID chip in a REAL ID license could give people the way to track you. A

 

Also Walmart has a contract with a large company to buy RFID chips for their items. Supposedly for automated inventory. Another good reason to boycott good ole Mall Wart.

 

It starts with pets. Next it will be prisoners, military and immigrants. Also frequent flyers.

 

Do you really trust the government and corporations with this kind of power.  I don’t. No chip for me.

 

http://www.spychips.com/  is an interesting though consipiracy theorist site.

 

Another really disturbing thing is the link between chipped pets and cancer. My dog has a chip. I didn’t put it there. The humane society we got  him from did and they didn’t even give us a choice. I hope he doesn’t get cancer or end up being the homing device for federal agents to find me.

 

1984 is becoming reality. We should band together to fight this abuse of corporate power

 

 

One more semi geeky post

I been thinking since that last post that its pretty disturbing that the US owns the root servers for the Internet. That means if we decided to be a big bully, we could pull the plug on the whole Internet. Well at least render it useless to non-nerds. Maybe that would be a good thing. Just kidding about that.

 

The US refused to give up control of the root servers.

 

ICANN is the company for a better word that assigns domain names. Though it is somewhat international guess where its headquartered. Marina Del Rey, CA

 

Just one more thing that can be used against any country that would dare to piss off the Bush Administration.

 

The other piece of the Youtube things is how it was worked around. The workaround was to block Pakistan from the Internet. Now nobody should have that kind of power. But if the root servers and the organization who decides which domain names can be used are American, well I guess we can cut off the net to anyone we damn well please. Also its impossible to register a domain on planet earth without supporting a US corporation.

 

He who controls the spice, controls the universe.

More Proof that Pakistan couldnt have broken Youtube on their own

The article at Smash the Man explains that the Internet root servers are completely controlled by the US. The root servers are the ones that provide DNS data. When you punch in www.google.com in your browser, your computer goes to this server and says who is this and is directed to the IP address for Google. If the US controls the root servers then the US controls who is authoritative. Given that it should have been impossible for Pakistan to break Youtube unless someone in the US didn’t do their job.

 

But its fun to blame Muslims. They make such good enemies. The average moron in the US will say, I hate Pakistan they killed Youtube. Lets go to war and kick their raghead asses. (I meant that as pure sarcasm not as an insult to Pakistani’s, Muslims, or Hindu’s) I bet the Walmart and Nascar crowd is all over this as they drink their miller and spit their Skoal. They are enemies of free-dum.

 

I admit that they did try to kill it in their country but that’s all. That is wrong. But somehow I fear that this is going to be labeled an act of terrorism or something.

 

You really think the US doesn’t block web sites or spy on us?

 

Smash the Man has a lot of cool stuff out there. I found it on a link from a link on Nina’s blog.

 

http://www.smashtheman.com/smash/Articles/Article.aspx?ID=44

 

 

I will keep on posting until the guys with suits come and drag me off in a black helicopter to “retrain” me

Pakistan Breaks Youtube (I DONT THINK SO)

I noticed this weekend that on two blogs I read there were Youtube videos. Both of which did not work. I thought it was my computer or that Youtube was down. I am not a big Youtuber but it can be interesting. Turns out that Pakistan was trying to block Youtube within its borders because of “offensive” content. More likely political dissent. Anyway, they did this by changing the DNS record to point somewhere else. The concept would be similar to changing the phone number in the directory to someone else’s to prevent telemarketing calls. Somehow they changed it for the WHOLE WORLD instead of just within Pakistan. This is not supposed to be possible so in reality it is likely the fault of whoever wrote the DNS zone files for Youtube and not Pakistan. However, Pakistan should not have been blocking sites at a country level in any case. Pakistan’s unorthodox workaround brought to light this problem and exploited the mistake. What they did should have only blocked people on their network. Anyone ever hear of AUTHORITATIVE FREAKING DNS?

 

OK. I have geeked out. Sorry for the confusion. Some of you may follow. Most normal people wouldn’t know wtf I was talking about.

 

I heard about this on a tech podcast. My conclusion that its Youtube (or their hosts) fault is my own based on knowledge of how DNS works and just how much misinformation there is.

 

Pakistan sucks and should not be blocking sites. Neither should China, or the US for that matter. I am against censorship and for free speech all the way. However, the Pakistani’s are not mad hackers and the scope of the problem was caused likely by some lazy network administrator right here in the good old USA. Somehow, I doubt anyone else will believe that. I guess it will become another look what those people can do to us. We must go to war. AGAIN. They meant no harm to anyone outside of their own country.

 

DNS is the system where names (such as www.youtube.com) are converted to IP addresses for easy access. Without it, you would have to go to the IP address directly so instead of typing in www.youtube.com you would have to type in 208.65.153.253 to get there. Go ahead and try. It will get you to Youtube. It would have even worked during the “outage”

 

 

 

Liquid Satan and the Hamburger Buns

I thought what a cool name for a blog post. Sounds like a band from the 90s doesn’t it? Actually credit for the term liquid satan goes to Ninjanun from a comment on one of her posts.  I don’t steal without giving credit. Anyway, on to the post

 

Last night my wife made some hamburgers for dinner and bought supposed whole wheat buns. I took one bite and said, I taste sugar in this. I bet it has liquid satan in it.  Of course she was confused as was my mom and I had to explain the whole HFCS/Liquid satan reference. I wasn’t sure it was LS but it was definitely sugar.

 

Later on, I went home. My wife was still at my moms and she read the ingredients and called me and said I was right. The third ingredient was Liquid Satan himself (High Fructose Corn Syrup). Some whole wheat bread huh.

 

I guess I blew the diet last night but there are a few points

 

1)       I have adjusted from not eating much sugar to the point that I know it when I taste it. Call it the gift of culinary discernment.

2)       Ninjanun’s term for HFCS (Liquid Satan) just may catch on in the mainstream vocabulary.

3)       Liquid satan is out there and will get you where you least expect it. Resist liquid satan and he will flee from you.

 

 

I shouldn’t have been eating hamburgers or bread anyway. I can have whole wheat bread in phase 2 but not yet.

 

 

DRM is EVIL

I have that sticker on my truck and I believe it. I am all for supporting the artists but the music industry is as corrupt as well the health insurance industry. RIAA is not about helping the artist. They are about making the world a greener place. Well at least the world inside their wallets.

 

Diane Feinstein who is supposed to be a progressive keeps on introducing the Perform act and other shit that would require artists and podcasters to use DRM. I have toyed around with podcasting and I think it will be dead should such legislation pass. If I create something and I want to share it with the world free of charge instead of capitalizing on it nobody should fskcing stop me.

 

Anyway, read about it here. I think I would send these guys money. If I had extra money that is. I am too busy tithing to the government to support this freaking war. Another topic.

 

https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?JServSessionIdr004=iqxzulbhg3.app2a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=221

 

Wyden

I am desperately trying to find some current news on the web about this but I have heard in the last few days about Ron Wyden’s plan for the diabolical HMO feeding bullshit that masquerades as “universal health care”. I guess I been living under a rock because I didn’t know about his proposal until recently. All I can find is articles from 06 and 07 but it appears he supports this.

 

This lie is the biggest sham of our time. Its not universal health care. It’s a way to force you to give your money to private insurance companies. For profit companies whose job it is to deny you health care.

 

I thought Progressives in Oregon were smarter than that.

 

Fellow blogger Tim Nam is considering running for Darlene Hooleys seat in the Senate when she leaves. Perhaps I should run against Wyden in the next election. He has lost my vote.

 

I don’t know why this issue is such a hot button for me. I think it may be that I see the insurance industry as very corrupt. Not saying agents are bad. I have known many good people who work in the insurance business but the companies behind them are corrupt and evil.

 

Wow. Another slam of this health care thing. You must be thinking. This guy really must hate insurance companies. This is the main reason why I so staunchly oppose Clinton.

 

Apparently Wyden is in bed with the insurance business more than he wants to help the people in Oregon who don’t have access to health care. Mandating wont help them. People who don’t have insurance don’t have it because they cant afford it not because they choose not to.

 

I know I am spewing on this issue again. I promise to shut up for a while. Maybe I will reword this and send it to Wyden.

 

Damnit this is America and if we choose not to support the insurance industry we should not have to. I would be for making car insurance not mandatory. Not that I wouldn’t have it but if I want to choose to be sued instead of padding the pockets of the rich that is my right. And driving is choice. Last I heard being alive is kind of mandatory.

 

OK. I will shut up.

Obama Button

I found that on a blog called Numskullery. Interesting place. Found it on a link from Ninjanun.

 

Just wanted to credit the source for my Obama button rather than just steal it.

 

Anyone who wants it, feel free to grab it. The link didn’t work on his/her site so I didn’t copy that code. I suppose you could link it to Obamas site or just leave it as it is

Fishermans Bend

Here is a pics from Fishermans Bend. Just west of Mill City off Highway 22. This is the North Santiam River

Relentless

The $ales team at the company I work for likes to use the word “relentless” and tells sales reps to be “relentless”. Somehow that just rubbed me the wrong way when I read it and made me realize that most $ales people are motivated by one thing. I realize this is business but it was bugging the hell out of me. One guy even said his strong points were “employs relentless $ales tactics” Now I don’t know about you but I would be turned off to any $ales style labeled as relentless. Here is the definition of the word:

 

Relentless: adj.

1. Unyielding in severity or strictness; unrelenting: relentless persecution.
2. Steady and persistent; unremitting: the relentless beat of the drums.

 

Now I admit $ales pitches are often comparable to persecution but how can one be this way and truly not sell out their own integrity. I am not saying it cannot be done.

 

Way back in 1993 I had a $ales job with a computer store. Now I always considered myself an honest Christian but in order to have the money to pay the rent at that time I had to have the bonus for $ales numbers. I would lie, deceive, misrepresent whatever it took so that I could pay the rent. I felt downright dirty. I finally got tired of it and found another job. I don’t think I was particularly good at $ales. The management there thought I had potential. The worse my morals were, the better they said I was doing. Perhaps my technique was wrong. Though it seemed pretty relentless at the time. Before I had heard that word.

 

Any experience anyone with knowing someone who is or personally are successful at $ales without feeling like you “screw people for money”:

 

 

What am I doing up?

Its about 1:30 AM here in Oregon. I am sitting in my garage/office/kick ass server room. For some reason I am still awake. Its quite cold out here so I should be in bed but I felt the need to catch up on the blogosphere.

 

I don’t have anything truly profound to say at this hour. I guess all that is really on my mind is how I process stress. I realize I don’t get upset when things are not as they should be. What really gets me going is when things are out of control and I feel I need to do something. For example paying the bills rather then complaining about them and doing nothing. That really stresses me out when things get ignored. When the people who should help me deal with problems choose to ignore them, I panic. I am calm now in that respect.

 

I seem irritable recently and do know exactly why. My wife seems to be the one who notices the most. I am not trying to be but sometimes I feel like the stupidest things get on my nerves lately.  Perhaps I am just looking for one little corner of the world that is mine that I don’t have to share. Perhaps I am just wanting people to stay out of my face and let me chill for just a few minutes. I don’t know. My real theory is that its sugar withdrawal from the diet I am on. Sugar is like a drug. Maybe I should be in rehab for it. Who knows. They say it affects the brain much like heroin. I don’t know if they are right. I don’t even remember who they are.

 

My wife is busy doing homework. She is rehearsing for some kind of performance in her drama class at college. The fact that she is walking around the house having conversations with non existent people carrying a book freaks me out when I am trying to sleep. Moreso when she walked out here into my little world. Her conversation with some person named George was interesting.Anyway, she isn’t nuts. Just practicing. Though it seems weird from a half asleep condition. Especially since she is getting quite good at drama and is convincing.

 

I will shut up and go back to bed before I lose all my credibility in the blogging world. I hope this post makes some sense to someone. Or maybe even to me in the morning (or afternoon) when I wake up and read it tomorrow.

 

One more thing. Tomorrow (or later today if you want to get picky) If we can afford the gas and have the time, I want to go to Fishermans Bend just outside of Mill City in the Cascades. I heard it was nice and I don’t find much about it on the net. That probably means not many people will be there. That is a good thing. If I go, I will take and post some pics. If not, maybe in a couple weeks.

I will vote for Obama Because....

I plan to vote for Barack Obama in the Oregon primary (which is too late to mean much) and the general election is he should win the nomination because:

 

1)       He is not a member of the Bush family

2)       He is not a member of the Clinton family

3)       He didn’t vote for or against real ID

4)       He didn’t vote for or against much (its hard to hate someone with no opinion)

5)       Did I mention he is not a Bush or a Clinton

6)       He is not going to try and shove mandated health ins down our throats and call it universal health care

7)       He is not John McCain

 

Ok, so there you have it, I am going to vote for Obama for who he is NOT rather than who he is.

 

 

Someone suggested Elmo. I would support Elmo but I don’t think he has raised enough campaign money to be a viable candidate. Perhaps in 2012. Maybe Cookie Monster or Oscar could be his running mate

 

I sure hope Kucinich gives it another go and people take him seriously next time.

 

I don’t expect much from Obama but he is better than the alternative. He has become NONE OF THE ABOVE

HTML Cleanup

I am not a programmer and I don’t claim to be. However I noticed I had some crappy HTML code on my blog that was making things look weird and have extra stuff attached. I cleaned up some of it.

 

As a geek it looks bad.

 

Later all

Monetization of Blogs

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/eai/integration/archives/the-real-purpose-of-a-blog-4214 and it kind of sickened me. As a blogger I say that my motivation has nothing to do with money and I would stop blogging before I would dare try to capitalize on my readers. Blogs like most of the Internet are being hijacked by the marketing crowd who seem to see $$$ attached to everything. Cant we have one little corner of what was once a free for all (Internet) that isn’t monetized. I don’t know how amyone else feels but I am just getting fed up with the capitalism and consumerism particularly online. I think I will start a gopher site just to be in the free zone

This also made me ask why do I blog? Well I do because I like to get my thoughts out. I like to think I am adding something to world by sharing my thoughts and experiences. Also I like to meet cool people and read their stuff. No I am not seeing it as social networking market. I really do hope someone can benefit from my rambling nonsense. I know I do from the blogs of fellow bloggers and friends.

Salem Drivers Suck

I drive all over this state at different times. My work takes me to the Portland area about once or twice a month. Other than traffic jams, I find Portland to have decent drivers and to be easy to drive in compared to many big cities (ie. Minneapolis, DC, Denver, Chicago, Kansas City, etc).

 

Salem on the other hand is a different story. Being small, it doesn’t have the traffic but I am always having a near miss with some freaking SUV or monster truck. I-5 is like a speedway. The speed limit is 60 (except in construction zone that is all of S Salem) but I can do 65-70 and still have some moron come up behind me like I am a speedbump.

 

Its not just me. Insurance companies say that Salem has more accidents than the rest of Oregon. I wonder why this is. Could it be that its full of right wingers with monster trucks and Tahoes? I don’t know but I would rather drive in Portland any day than on I-5 thru Salem. The only thing similar but worse is Salt Lake City and places in Idaho. Hmmm those are red states.

 

Perhaps insurance companies who are corrupt and use unfair practices like credit scoring should start charging higher rates for those who are registered Republicans. Not sure about the connection but something is wrong

Beligerant Asshole

OK so I have started working out and I was in the locker room of the health club and there was this guy who was VERY LOUD. I think he was drunk because he was rambling to anyone who would listen. He said that Hillary is a bitch, Obama is an idiot and he was in the Marines so he knows how things are. He thinks McCain is the answer to all our problems. He also said that he would like to see an America where criminals have no Miranda rights and we just shoot them on the spot. Next he said this is Oregon and everyone in Oregon is a stupid pothead. OK. I almost asked him then why are you here then?

 

I didn’t approach this narrow minded moron but I would have if I thought I could have had an intelligent conversation with him. One person did talk to him and it almost turned physically violent.

 

I guess what gets me is that I had to listen to this crap and that he could be such a narrow minded bigot. I guess we should be thankful that we live in a country where idiots can spew there madness. Though he did get obsene and crude when talking about Clinton and Lewinsky.

 

Another thing I have noticed is outside of small pockets in the valley, Oregon is not nearly as liberal (in fact downright redneck conservative) then most would think.

 

If I was a republican I would be less likely to support McCain knowing this dipwad likes him.

 

 

My First Computer

Back in the 80s when I got my first computer, I thought it was Awesome. With its 1K of RAM and casette storage. It was the Sinclair.

This pic is not my actual computer as its long gone but it looks just like it.

Oh for the good old days. BASIC was fun.

Annoyance

Ok so I went to oil can henrys in salem to get an oil change. The guy with his plastered smile who couldn't complete a sentence without using the word sir(which seems so fake and makes me feel old) anyway he tries to sell me over 100 dollars worth of other services. I declined and was irritated. He still smiles like the plastic people in the black hole sun video

Next I go to carls jr ( I know I am on a diet but I still gotta eat) this guy is sickenly smiley and kept saying sir as well. He tried to sell me fries and a big drink.

I hate suggestive selling and I won't be a victim anymore. No I don't want fries with that. I don't want to spend 20 bucks on an air filter I can get for 5 and install myself

I am not a walking market segment. I am more than one who consumes so the rich get richer

I am a freaking person. I do not exist to pad the pockets of the rich elite