Separation of Church and State

I was reading I, Cringley earlier and noticed something.

"Here's one more tidbit on wire-taps: They get you free phone service! The feds tapped the phone of the Sisters of Mercy in Washington D.C. because of some anti-war stance or something they took in the 1980s. The good sisters noticed some kind of clicking on the phone at times, and finally decided that someone must have tapped into their phone. Their solution: Don't pay the bill so the phone company will have to shut off the phone. The phone never went dead, and they quit sending them bills! The Feds wouldn't let Ma Bell shut them down, and probably began paying the bills. The sisters talked long and free with their friends across the country!"

I lol'ed after reading this. Right after that I was shocked. If this is true, isn't it State sponsorship of an established religion? Where can I find out about this? Can I put in a vague request under the Freedom of Information Act? Anybody know?

On a side note, I talked with my lawyer yesterday and he had a doozie of a story. He just got off the phone with the US Secret Service and they told him that they didn't get any of the documentation he sent last year. Of course this is after asking for clarification and additional information last year on the same documents. My lawyer said he's sending everything to them again. Makes you wonder about the competence of federal employees. I'm not sure whether it's the US Secret Service of the US Postal Service.

LOL

I was looking for the link to John Dvorak's PC Magazine column and found something funny on his blog. I couldn't help but laugh out loud. He was talking about Heidi Klum's legs being insured. One is insured for more than the other, because she has a childhood scar on one. The line that made me laugh is this: "If the company determines that the leg is “totaled,” do they get to keep it?" I just thought it was very funny. It might be because of my situation with the US Secret Service. Last I heard, they haven't even assigned someone to my claim. (It was only earlier this week. (@_@)) If they are this slow when they are protecting the President, the phrase "dead presidents" might have an entirely different meaning...

Good for a Chuckle

I was taking a break from my job search and ducked into Groklaw to see what's going on with the SCO case. It's taking forever... (>.<) I saw one of the news items and clicked on it. It took me here. That got a chuckle out of me, funny. The subject matter is serious, but their presentation was funny. It's happening. There are companies that datamine vast quantities of data. Some of it is not even supposed to be identifiable. Oh well, welcome to the scary world of computing.

RFID-Zapper

I'm just itching to see the manual for making a RFID-Zapper. It's something from the 22nd Chaos Communication Congress. I don't like the thought of RFID getting into all kinds of products. It's not like we don't have enough erosion of privacy as it is. I just recently read that the new version of iTunes phones home. (>.<) Bad Apple!! You know there's always one in a barrel. (^_^);; I'm glad I have auto update turned off.

Just out of Curiosity

Yeah, I know. Curiosity killed the cat.

There's all this talk about video game violence. What about in game drinking? Game rating only goes up to 18+. Last time I checked, drinking was 21+ here. Not that the law ever stopped anyone from breaking it...

In World of Warcraft, you can drink and get drunk. Well, your character can. I never tried, so I don't know what effect it has. I heard if you drink enough your character will get hammered and your screen will all get shakey and stuff. It's rated T for 13+. Is there a correlation between underage drinking and in game drinking? No idea. I'm not even sure if anyone has ever asked this question. They all seemed concerned with sex and violence in games.

Should people be hawking games where a 13 year old kid can drink? Well, at least his/her character, anyway. I should really write that blog on corporate responsibility.

Back

I did some thinking on the drive down. I had time on my hands.

I think I realized why I think in Japanese on these long drives. It might be because I listen to a lot of JPop when I drive.

I was thinking about the Oral Assessment on the drive down and I thought some of the questions were biased. I think if you have a half a brain and/or some common sense you would not get into situations that would require answers to those questions. The questions weren't hypothetical... It made me think about the efficacy of the test... I also came to realization about some of the other parts of the assessment and what I might do next time.

That Sucked Wads

I didn't make. (T_T) I didn't get the job. (T_T) I didn't even get a good night's sleep last night either.

Here's the NDA, so don't ask. Then I won't have to tell to not to ask me. (^_^);;

There was a really cute lawyer there, but alas she was married. I tell you, all the cute ones are taken. (>_<) That was a total waste of time. Well, at least I know what to expect next time. I guess I can try again...

San Francisco

Made it to San Francisco ok. I caught myself thinking in Japanese quite often on the long drive up. I thought it was interesting. Actually I got here a little earlier than I expected. I got settled in and looked for a place to eat. With the help of my mapping software I found a restaurant nearby. I was in the mood for Japanese. I wonder why. (@.@) I ended up having 親子丼 (oyakodon). I think I might have mentioned it before... It's chicken and egg over rice. I was really in the mood for 狐蕎麦 (kitsune soba), but they only had 饂飩 (udon). Not that they had 狐饂飩 (kitsune udon). I know, those of you saying how can you say 狐蕎麦? It's always 狐饂飩!! Well, I'm not a big fan of 饂飩. Let's just say it was edible. The rice was cooked in too much water so it was a little soggy. (>.<) I make a point not to eat at a Japanese restaurant not run by Japanese. I didn't have much choice... so I was in a Japanese restaurant run by Thais. (I think they were Thais. They candy was Thai. I don't know enough Thai to say one way or the other.)

Off to San Francisco

I'm off to San Francisco for a few days. Actually, I'll be driving two of those days. (>.<) I'm not going to have time to see anything. The one day I'm actually there, I'll be cooped up inside. (>.<) I don't think I'll have any energy after that. I'm aware Macworld is going on, but I'm not that big a fan of Apple nor do I have the time. (^_^);;

Wish me luck. Hopefully I get the job.

Hahaha, I Bought a Book

Hahaha, I just made an impulse buy. (^_^) I spent $6 on a book from eBay. (Actually $5.94 with $3.95 in shipping.) It comes with an "USED" sticker you see on those used books. (^_^) Woohoo!!

I already own this book in better condition. (Actually an autographed copy. :D)I think I paid around $25 for it when I bought it years ago. I think it might be out of print. I'm not sure. I should ask the author. I was visiting with him yesterday and the talk of the book came up. He told me someone was trying to sell it on eBay for $300.00. (O.o) He said he has seen it go for around $100. I just remembered it while reading some news. I think something in the news article made me think of it. I went to Amazon. It ranged from $45.59 to $85.00. The $69.99 one is Like New. The $85.00 one is only Good while the $45.59 is Very Good. (^_^) Go figure.

I went to eBay to check the prices there. I think there were 3 for sale. One was an auction and the other two had Buy Now. The auction was like $13.95 or something and had over four days left on it. One of the Buy Now one was for $1.99 and the other was about $15 or so. (I think...) I didn't pay too much attention to it. I was drawn to the $1.99 price. By the looks of it, the one I just bought is pretty beat up. I would probably rate it as Good. But come on, it's only $6.00. I ain't complaining. Maybe I'll take it to the author to get it autographed when it gets here. It'll still be under $6.00. Hahaha. Sorry, inside joke.

Hey John, you think a certain person teaching sensitometry has driven up the price on your book? Wahahahaha. (^_^) Sorry, another inside joke.

I just wanted a copy of the book to read while on my flight. It's going to be a long flight. (>.<) I wanted a copy I wouldn't have to worry about. I wouldn't want the TSA to blow up my good copy mistakenly thinking it was some terrorism implement.

Maybe I'll post a photo when I get it. (^_^);; Told you I was easily amused.

My Poor DVD Drive

I recently read that Microsoft will stop supporting DVD drives made before year 2000. What will become of my DVD Drive? I have a region free DVD-ROM drive I bought in 1997, I think. (It could have been as late as 1999 and as early as 1995.) My sister is baby sitting it. :D Well, why do I care about this drive when I have a NEC ND-3540A? It's less than a year old and it burns dual layer DVD's. Not that I have any dual layer DVD blanks lying around. It fits about half of Project Gutenberg's book on one DVD. It also fits a year's worth of photos I took on a disc. (^_^) Some Linux distros fit on one DVD. I can also shove all the updates and whatnot on a DVD until it get full. (It takes a while, but some things keep updating themselves almost every month. (>.<)) It's a tremendous space saver. I can fit stuff on one disc that would have taken up 7 discs worth of space. If I'm going to live in cramped quarters, it's a space saver.

The old DVD drive is a Toshiba drive. (I don't remember the model number and I can't look it up right now.) I like it because it's region free. The importance of that? Well, last time I check, I had both region 1 and region 2 discs along with various region free discs. I got region free ones so I could play them on the laptop that I no longer have. It didn't have a region free drive since I got it in 2002 or 2003. I might have some discs in another region as well. If I were to play my American movies and watch the cute Japanese girl DVD's and vice versa, I would run out of region switching I can do before the drive locks into a region permanently. I could use two drives and set each to different region. If I need to play other region discs I'll have to get another drive or sacrifice the functionality of the drive.

I'm thinking about getting rid of my gear in favor of a XPC so I can have some space. It only holds one drive. See my dilemma? They say Blue Ray will only have 3 regions instead of current 6. I really don't see real business reason for region coding other to support a pirate industry. I heard you can get all your DVD's region free in southeast Asia for $2-3 each. I guess somebody thought it would be nice to setup a nice cottage industry there.

I'm really careful about buying DVD's unless they come free on top of a cup ramen. (^_^);; I only own a handful of DVD's vs. almost a thousand CD's. No region coding on CD's, only diabolical rootkits and other nasties. I have autorun off, so I don't worry. Also I don't listen to CD's on the computer.

I don't like region coded DVD's since I don't want to lock the DVD drive on my laptop to a single region. It's going to cost me about $150 to replace the drive that will have the same problem of region code locking and perhaps void my warranty or pay double that to keep the warranty, but face the same region code locking problem. Hence my vast collection of 2 movies. They are sentimental things for me. I wouldn't even have bought them if they didn't have sentimental value. I don't want to mess with my DVD drive region coding.

They should just throw out DMCA and get rid of DRM and region coding in everything. I tend to shy away from things with DRM and region coding for the most part. Not that I have the financial resources to buy them anyway. Since I own almost thousand CD's, do you think I would own more DVD's if they were region free?

Why do I have to worry about the usefulness of my DVD drive which I paid my hard earn cash to enjoy my DVD movies (City of Angels and The Professional if you were wondering) AND my free Japanese cute girl DVD's which I got free with my cup ramen (Actually the price of the cup ramen was inflated to compensate for the DVD, so they weren't really free.)? Wow, that's a long sentence. Where's my right? Why do multinational media conglomerates and/or multinational consumer electronic conglomerates need laws protecting them? What happened to looking out for the little guy?

%#@!?ing Linux Pt2. & Other %#@!?ing Things

I just got off the phone with Circuit City. About 5 calls just for today. It's already taken about 3 months. It was supposed to have been settled over a month ago!! What am I talking about? My %#@!?ing rebate with Circuit City. They screw up and I have to spend an hour on the phone to fix it. That's just today, mind you.

Did I mention Best Buy screwed me over for $150.00 in a rebate. The Better Business Bureau was no help. Although they did solve a problem for me with Sony. In the end Sony did the right thing and the person at Sony was pretty nice. The last guy I talked to at Circuit City was pretty nice to. Actually all the people from Circuit City was nice except for some lady with an attitude that hung up on me. Best Buy has the worst people working for them. I got hung up on by Best Buy people and they are not so nice.

On the Linux front, I considered Debian when I was going through all the distros. I think I tried about a dozen. The reason I skipped Debian in favor of ubuntu was the size. It's on fourteen discs!! OpenSUSE, Fedora Core, and Slackware are all on four CDs. Two CDs for Slackware are source CDs. ubuntu fits on a single CD. The more I use kubuntu, the more I get annoyed with Linux. It didn't recognize the wireless card. (>.<) No untettered web surfing. (T_T) I'll just chuck it if I need the space. I waiting for Fedora Core 5. Maybe it'll do a better job. Or maybe KDE 4 will alleviate some of my gripes. It's still in version 3.5.

I won't transition to Linux at all if I can't get Korean input. I heard CJK support is pretty sucky. You have to jump through hoops to get it configured and working. I'm not going to abandon Windoze any time soon it looks like. Even if it is a Swiss cheese of security and whatnot. Even if it does have really sucky CJK support, it's still better out of the box. My gripe with Windoze is its lack of universal CJK support. Some apps support it while majority don't. It might be the app writers' fault, but I blame Microsoft. The same app works fine with other language versions of Windoze.

%#@!?ing Linux

During this holiday season I decided to try out bunch of Linux distros. I was able to install some and not others. I was experimenting with my old Sony laptop. I believe it's five or six years old. It still runs great. It only has a PCMCIA CD-ROM drive. About half the distros I tried had no problems with it, but the other half would boot and load the kernel, but weren't able to access the CD-ROM drive. (>.<) Obviously those never got on the laptop. I was looking for a lean distro since the laptop is old.

I wanted to try OpenSUSE and Slackware since they were pretty big, established distros. I figured they would support the hardware, but they weren't able to access the drive. (>.<) I ended up playing with Fedora Core 4 and ubuntu flavors. It's such a pain to setup networking with Fedora. I almost gave up before finally managing to get it working. It was huge and unwieldy. There's some things that are missing... I couldn't get Korean to work on it. Also using Gnome was a pain so I switched to KDE. I missed some stuff from Gnome. Currently I got kubuntu on it right now. I still don't have Korean. (>.<) I haven't tried the wireless stuff yet. I couldn't get it to work in ubuntu.

I might to get rid of Linux and stick with Windows XP. (O.o) I know I should be promoting Open Source. But Windoze is so much more user friendly. Regardless of all the issues associated with it, it's still the easiest to set up on this laptop. I try Linux ever so often. It still got a ways to go. It has come along so much since the days of XFree. The one thing that bugs me and makes it difficult for me is that a lot of the menus for configuration are oversized and there's no way for me to interact with it properly on a 800x600 screen. (X.x)

This laptop along with other computer stuff are up for sale if anyone is interested.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!

That's about it in terms of new year's greetings for those considering today to be the start of the new year.