2003131

Point form today, there's lots of interesting bits of me and my life recently: This is the 'Skepdic's Dictionary' definition of "beggin the question", which is a common sense bit of thought processes that most people cannot get (and I fall prey to often). Picking out these flaws in an argument is a skill I would like to cultivate. I had a good job interview yesterday! Quite enjoyable, and definitely made me feel like I had a decent chance. I have no idea of whether I will get the job, but in some ways, I am just happy it wasn't one of those interviews where you are just in there for the humiliation. I've had interviews in the past where I got the feeling I was just in there to be assaulted and picked at until I gave in...ego crushed and will shattered. This was not one of those times, and I am very happy to see it. I added the GeoURL link in the sidebar...quite a cool little thing that tracks your (longitude and latitude) location and compares it will the people closest to you. One thing I'd like to see is who is furthest from me though...closest to the other side of the planet. Jen and I have Celtic knotwork wedding rings, and I've always enjoyed my scottish ancestry. Dan Smith's Celtic-looking fonts is a decent tool for making Celtic knotwork in documents and images. This reminds me that The Gimp has a Windows version, and most people don't realize that...it's been a Unix tool for creating images so long that it's never thought of as available on any other platform. Dave Barry has a blog. When I read a movie review site oriented towards parents who care to keep their kids away from sex and violence, I wonder if some of the visitors use it to find movies with 'juicy bits'. Jen and I were thinking...is it cheaper to buy a house or build something cool on vacant land and pay the fees for permits, sewage and electrical connections, etc. If anyone has a knowledgable answer to this (or even some thoughts), we'd like to hear them. It seems like even crappy old houses on tiny spots of land are overpriced in the extreme - even if they are located well outside the city. You can find some amazing things when you surf the web randomly. Late addition: I'm Steve....and I'm a supervillain Posted by Greg @ 03:53 PM PST [Link]

2003129

Part 1: Today I wrote my Canadian Federal Member of Parliament regarding the Recordable Media Levy that we are forced to pay on digital media to pay for piracy *-regardless of whether the CDs will be used to record copyrighted works-*: Dear Mr. Cadman, I'd like to draw your attention to an issue that has been bothering me (and I suspect a lot of other Canadians) regarding digital media (blank CDs, specifically). Since March 1998, I've been paying extra money on each blank CD I buy, which has gone to the Canadian Private Copying Collective (http://www.cpcc.ca). I do, of course, understand the reasoning behind attempting to stop the piracy of copyrighted works in Canada and the world, but I do feel that I am being unfairly penalized for others actions. I use the CDs I buy for backups and distribution of things that I create (mostly photographs of beautiful British Columbia that I haven taken). I am also paying this fee on the 'flash' memory my digital camera uses to take these photographs. According to recent estimates by the CPCC, over $28 million has been collected from people like me, who have done nothing wrong - and apparently none of it has been spread to the authors and performers the CPCC had promised to help (http://pcbuyersguide.com/hardware/storage/2003_Levy_FAQ.html#9). Please help to stop this, or at least alter this process so it is fair to me and other digital media consumers. If you could get back to me on this issue at your convenience, I would very much appreciate it. Thank you! Greg Webster Needless to say...when a private organization takes craploads of money for to give to copyright holders for the 'suffering' they have endured, and then none of the money actually makes it to those people, I get a little annoyed. I also CC'd it to a number of other people involved, hoping that they'll notice this as well. Really, what I'd like is for the idea to be scrapped and refunds given to Canadian consumers, but I know that won't happen. One interesting thing I discovered while researching this is that if I let a friend of mine copy one of my CDs for HIS own PERSONAL use, it's perfectly legal. As long as I don't do the copying myself for HIS PERSONAL use, I am following the letter of the law perfectly. Part 2: I've been working for years, every two weeks paying extremely high rates to the various levels of government so they can provide me with this like: Employment Insurance in case I lose my job, health care, roads, police protection, etc. Last month I lost my job and am still waiting to see if I qualify for EI - it's not a given...there are a number of circumstances that will prevent you from getting back any of the funds I pay in. In BC, you have to pay a 'user fee' for basic health care - It's graded on how much income you have, but health care isn't free here...it's free in almost every other region in Canada, but not here. The roads in my area are horrible...there are potholes bigger than my tires, and driving down King George highway )one block away from me) is like getting a free butt-massage for 3 miles or so. The crime in my area is awful...we've recently had a rash of home invasions where someone has assulted old couples (and a quadrapelegic man) in their homes. I live a couple blocks from 'known' crack houses - one was recently shut down after 8 arrests by police over the last 14 months. A few block further on, addicts with the arm-twisting gyrations of heroin junkies meet with their Mercedes-driving dealers in front of the closest liquor store. All of that is right across the street from the police station. Here in BC, we pay the second highest rate of income tax in Canada. We also have the second highest sales tax. I don't feel like I'm getting my monies worth. Posted by Greg @ 05:08 PM PST [Link]

2003128

How do we all manage to exist in our daily lives? Between managing our food intake, our exercise level, our work, our kids, our relationships, our friendships, our spiritual life, our errands...how do we find time to get some fun time? Nevermind getting some quiet time just to sit and think. I've been unemployed for about 5 weeks. I still feel like their isn't time enough in the day to get everything I want to do done. People around me are finding time to take course, create art, volunteer and many more things, and I have no clue how. Someone please enlighten me? So far I'm getting a lot of stuff done, but I never feel like I am getting as much done as I should. New resume versions up top of here...all updated. If you've got ideas on how I could improve them, please let me know! Posted by Greg @ 09:45 PM PST [Link]

2003127

Busy morning...I woke up late because on friday night we ended up taking an evening nap together and had set the alarm for 8:30pm instead of the usual 8:30am. Yeah, I set the alarm even though I am unemployed. If I don't I'll happily sleep in to noon and destroy my whole day. Because I woke up late, I had to rush to compile my list of references for a recruiter and get them off to him so he could find me some work. Then there is a bit of a personality conflict between users over at UF to investigate (and make a note on my "bad users" list to watch one of them for a while). Last night I made a nice dinner for Jen - chicken breasts stuffed with water chestnuts, bacon and mushrooms (fried in garlic and white wine), then baked and served with a goodly amount of wild rice (mix, because it is a hell of a lot easier to do wild rice with a mix than by hand). I think we are going to start cooking more complex meals for each other, and we won't feel the need to eat dinner out so much. Monday Funnies: The Reverse 419 (4k text file) Sometimes advertising is subtle Museum of Hoaxes The hilarious and real (?) story of the Rocket Car urban legend The Bad Movie review Website Posted by Greg @ 11:02 AM PST [Link]

2003125

(for some reason I am singing this song today) Today is Busyday (our adaptation of Saturday), where we always seem to have two things on the go. We just got out of a painfully hot shower and are on our way to help friends with a very small move (down the hall in their building). After that, a quick refresh back home and drop off the car so we can skytrain downtown to listen to irish music at the Blarney Stone in belated celebration of Jen's birthday. Not a thing bad about today, just Things To Do. If you are near the Blarney Stone after 7:30, look for us and come say hi :) Our English emoticons suck. They do not have near the expressiveness of Japanese emoticons. There is no way in our normal 'smileys' to show something like: ((((((^_^;) (leave sneakily...the extra brackets are movement marks and the semi-colon is the sign for 'sweating'). The Amazing Ebow is truly a geek invention for guitarists. It replaces something so basic (a pick) and creates such improvement, it's like replacing a notebook with a laptop. It's been around since the 70's and been used by all sorts of artists across a number of genres. I'd love to play with one for a bit to see if it's as good as they say it is. Microsoft...well where should I begin. Last year they started an internal lock-down of new features until they could improve their focus on security. But they don't have the smarts to start with things like not allowing blank passwords on publicly available database servers. This doesn't even qualify as a hack...it's just taking advantage of a door that is wide open.....scratch that: a door that never even got put on the hinges in the doorframe. The traffic knocked 5 of the 13 rootservers (which handle the low-level conversion of human-readable names to computer-readable numbers) offline, thereby making large chunks of the internet unreachable. If I had my dithers, Microsoft would find itself against a class-action criminal negligence suit. Maybe then they would really take their bad security designs seriously. Before you bit my head off: Yes, the developers of the exploit that takes advantage of this should be punished. I'm just saying that they shouldn't be the only ones punished. Posted by Greg @ 01:28 PM PST [Link]

2003124

Ah ha! Finally a little tiny nibble on the job market. Nothing confirmed, but at least I have an interview on this coming Thursday. Through a funny set of coincidences, I may have worked for this company years ago when it was something else entirely (back then it was an internet provider - now it is an applications hosting company, it appears). I'm actually looking forward to being back to work, though the unpaid honeymoon with Jen has been awfully nice. I have a few self-doubts though...partly brought on by the incredibly needy job ads I've seen posted this time around (see previous blog entry). Sundry: Is it wrong to promote my !/. page as part of my signature on Slashdot? Maybe some moderators on the site think so, as I've recently gotten some negative moderations that were obvious enough to garner support from other readers (without me saying a thing about it). Wouldn't be the first karma point I've lost over there though. :) Been talking with Wil Wheaton over email recently about his possible filming in Vancouver (if he gets the part in "I, Robot" he auditioned for). Hope he does...the guy is decent, likable and definitely not Wesley Crusher. Did you know the CompTIA A+ certification is said to be "vendor neutral" on their website, but a whole half of the exams are about Microsoft Windows. It's not really a hardware certification at all, more about installation of vendor-specific OSs on similar hardware. Very uncool, and if you ever had to think that MS was a monopoly, here is the proof. I went and saw Die Another Day at the theatre the other day with Rich and Jen. Pierce Brosnan is getting old...his chest is sagging, he looks a bit paunchy. The movie was not NEAR as bad as people made it out to be, though the invisible car and the kite sailing bits were way over the top, even for James Bond movies. Halle Berry is not the best actress...no Oscars in her future, I think. Rosamund Pike was wonderful as the beautiful double-crossing spy. The final sword-fighting scene she had with Halle Berry before Pike was killed was a bit silly (Olympic fencing champion beaten in a swordfight with a rank amateur), but she looked pretty amazing. Here's hoping we see her in some dramatic roles. Posted by Greg @ 04:16 PM PST [Link]

2003122

In case you don't know Vancouver: it rains here. In fact, it rains here for stretches of time that would depress Ronald McDonald on Prozac. Nothing worse than being in a place that is grey for days doing something that keeps you stuck inside (job searching, waiting for phone calls) trying to get motivated. Generally, I am not a depressed guy. Oh, I've had times in my life when all I saw was the metaphorical ground in front of me and I couldn't force myself to look up at the metaphorical sky, but generally I'm a happy man. Job searching in the (itself, depressed) tech industry in Vancouver (which is overpopulated by technical people) in the midst of days of rain though...that's a bit soul-quenching. The only way out is to work my way through it, hopefully something will arise soon. Networking being what it is, the best way to get a job, please think about anything you might have that I could do for you or your employer or your friends' employers. My resume is up at the top. Other things I am doing to make money: I got my Cafepress shops off to the right in the sidebar, I am going to post on the supermarket bulletin boards offering myself as a computer tutor/web guy. I've actually made a sale on the Campbell-Maui shop! Someone out there has a wall clock with my design on it. Oh, the shadow of politics in BC, eh? The other shop, "!/.", I think has the most potential...there's any number of people who will buy something to express their displeasure with the 'big boys', that simple set of symbols means so much to those in the know. Posted by Greg @ 11:45 AM PST [Link]

2003121

The wonderful Baen books, purveyors of all that is good in the world, have opened a free library where some brilliant authors have put up some brilliant books to download. Some of these are my favourites, and I've put them online here in HTML and zipped HTML formats for you to enjoy: Rick Cook's Wizard's Bane HTML, ZIP and Wizardry Compiled HTML, ZIP. There are plenty more in the library, stuff that I haven't ever read and some that I've forgotten. I have planned on re-buying the Wiz series anyway, this just gives me added impetus to do so. My full set of the series disappeared, and I surely wish I knew where they went (maybe an ex-girlfriend has them?). Please note that these are books that the authors have agreed to share these novels, the publisher went along, it's not some big corporation making any blanket decisions "for the good of the consumer" (which never ends up being good for anyone but the corporation anyway, but that's a whole 'nother rant). My most frevent hope at this time is that Rick Cook writes again...I'd certainly appreciate the geek humour. Another book note: Cafepress, who allow people to create and sell their own t-shirts, clocks, pants, jackets, thongs, and so much more with graphics supplied by the shop-creator. Now they are getting into print-on-demand books, audio CDs and DVDs. This can't help but be good for the artistic elements of society, and of course every crackpot conspiracy theorist (godluvem) will be able to sell his shapeshifting alien reptile ideas. It's all cool by me - I can happily see myself attempting to sell my words online without going through the one thing that scares me about submitting my writing to a publisher - actually submitting it. To top it all off, Cory Doctorow, an up-and-coming-and-extremely-frothed-about author has put his brand-new novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom available for free download! Posted by Greg @ 01:31 PM PST [Link]

2003120

When Jen arrived in Vancouver from Alabama, a book was waiting for her in a "welcome to Canada" package I'd put together. It was "How to be a Canadian", which is a brilliantly funny look at who we as Canadians are (hint: it centers around the fact that 'we are not American'). Anyone who is interested in coming to Canada for more than a few days really should read this book. Otherwise, how are you going to understand if you are being insulted when a Canadian says. "Heya, be a bud and go score me a mickey and a 2-4, EI's the sh*ts and my pogey won't come until after the Oilers and Leafs drop a puck, eh?" But they don't go into how Canada really works (it doesn't) or why we keep electing the same morons (we do). Last week Gordon Campbell, the Premier of British Columbia (equivalent: governor of a US state) flew down to Maui on vacation, got drunk, drove, and got picked up by the Maui police department. People are screaming for his resignation and I even went so far as to make a funny t-shirt that you will hopefully buy to keep that pogey away. The thing is, while for a week there has been righteous indignation by all the peoples of the land, and now we settle into the 'forget it, eh?' stage. Heck, I don't mind if he stays on, it certainly could not possibly be worse than the horrific mess the people he replaced caused, but if you, as a citizen of BC, are choked and angered - well, then maybe you should stay choked and angered for longer than it takes to say 'lack of common sense'. While you meander through a life filled with Starbucks lattes and walks along the seawall, your decision to not get involved and forget the bad things makes us all go through the same cycles over and over again. This brings me around to this fact: the NDP (New Democratic Party) which was replaced in the last election was so very nearly wiped off the face of BC is gaining new ground and is more popular than it has been in a good long time. It was (no exaggeration) reviled, despised, and hated prior to the election for a hundred reasons, almost all of them good. Now, because one dumbass Premier got drunk you are looking to go back to the good old days of inept policies and poor fiscal mismanagement and an economy that went from passably good to incredibly bad in the 13 years of their reign. Sure...go ahead and kick Gordo to the curb if you want, but if you rise up the party that caused so many ills just to spite his drunken butt, then you will do yourself much more harm than good. Now I just wish I could run for office, but I speak my mind too much and my words are too clear to be elected by the truth-scared people of this province. Posted by Greg @ 04:54 PM PST [Link]

2003118

Admission #1: Flashdance is on TV right now, and it reminds me to express my inner pig and tell everyone that if strippers were that cool, artistic, in shape, talented, and interesting - I'd be in the strip club all the time and so would most of the women I know. Unfortunately, strippers are just annoying, somewhat athletic, silicone-enhanced brainless and boring women who care not a lick (pun!) for the audience's enjoyment. After all, the audience is mainly lower-middle class manual labourers who earn considerably less than the women on stage and the women there wouldn't go out with them if they were the last penile-enabled men on the planet. In the years of strip-clubs I have visited all the way across Canada, one performer of all of them made me applaud her creativity. Her (stage) name was Micha Le Chat, and she stripped off her kilt dancing a jig to a quick-paced bagpipe recording. Just those little differences brought down the house. And to you strip-club DJs...you may call them 'ladies', but the term should be applied as loosely as the half-built poles you ask them to strip on. If any strippers read this...prove me wrong, please. Then maybe I'd actually want to see another stripper in my lifetime. As it is now, I don't. Admission #2: I spent an hour this evening watching Trading Spaces, which is very much a female-oriented show. It was their Live Reveal in Las Vegas episode, and it was so screwed up by technical probems (or lousy staff, who kept inserting themselves into the show) that we never got to see the crucial reactions of the owners of the homes which were redecorated. Now, having been a camera operator (including live feeds), I can understand the difficulties these things impose. But that just plain sucked. What's worse is that I have to admit that I watch Trading Spaces and show my 'not terribly masculine' side to all my gentle readers. But what is a man to do? They've ruined one of my favourite shows! Excuse me, I'm going to curl up with a fattening frozen dessert, a box of tissues, watch You've Got Mail (or insert some other chickflick) and have a good cry. Hear that? It's the sound of testicles receding across the world. Just kidding...there are no non-dairy fattening desserts that are any good. [/humour] Posted by Greg @ 10:30 PM PST [Link]

2003117

Lots happened over the last couple days, though none of it extremely big or important, so I've slacked off on the blog a little. Too bad, because the thoughts were there and entertaining ideas had come to light and you might have enjoyed them. This week I dreamed the following things: chinese men with tiny nostrils, boats made of cookie sheets, evil zombie farmboy supervillains, pottery shards, hitch-hiking, and much much more. I do enjoy the crack I've been smoking, thank you very much for asking. Bought more craft supplies recently...to complete the projects I'm working on I need the following: dried maggots or other small worms, small animal skulls, bits of sagebrush, various colours of sand, tabletop pourable plastic, a good set of carving knives, a few small rasps, and time and inclination. I have some rice I dyed red that would work for the first item if need be. Interesting, huh? I spent a bunch of time developing a variant of the reality TV show 'Survivor' to be played online over at the Userfriendly.org Comment Board. Difficult and somewhat time-intensive, since people want desperately to find ways around the rules. It's a fundamental aspect of our society...we constantly seek ways around the beaurocracy of our governments and the flawed laws our police enforce. I find little urge to do that now that I am getting older, though I can't say the same for other people our age or younger. ...which reminds me - on our way home from buying red snapper, eggplant and wine (how's that for a yuppie meal plan, eh?) we drove into Surrey over the Pattullo bridge and a two-tone green van was driving like a lunatic...nearly caused 3 accidents in the space of a block. We followed him until we could get his license plate number, then stopped and tried to call the police. 911 cut me off twice, then I noticed that there were two police cruisers about 50 feet behind where I'd parked at a used car lot. I spoke to them, they didn't sound too interested and told me to call the non-emergency police number and report it. I did, and they forwarded me immediately on to the 911 dispatcher I'd been speaking to when I was cut off, who sent out the info on the van to all patrol units. Does this seem to you to be a roundabout waste of my time, the police dispatcher's time, and a whole lotta money? Anyway, they took my info and address and name and birthdate (I guess so they can reward me! Yeah, that's likely), but I doubt I'll ever hear anything about it. Posted by Greg @ 05:54 PM PST [Link]

2003115

I'm not American, so this isn't supposed to directly affect me, but it certainly will... Today, the US Supreme Court upheld the extended copyrights sought by large corporations for their intellectual property (read as 'Disney' and 'Mickey Mouse'), known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Act. The US Constitution allows Congress to give authors and inventors the exclusive right to their works for a "limited" time. Congress has repeatedly lengthened the terms of copyrights over the years. Copyrights lasted only 14 years in 1790. With the challenged 1998 extension, the period is now 70 years after the death of the creator. Works owned by corporations are now protected for 95 years. This doesn't just apply to things like Mickey Mouse (which I feel should fall under a different law for 'icons'), it's about all sorts of written and artistic works, and perhaps things as disparate as mathematical equations and formulas. The public really does lose out here, having to wait nearly a century after the death of the property holder (note: not the creation of the work) to develop the property further or create derivative works. I'm purely disgusted. Americans, please keep an eye out for Canadian and Australian websites where you can download works by Americans that your own government doesn't allow you to view. It's legal there. Cool project idea: First, buy one of these (the professional 100W one), then buy a 5.6" or 6" LCD screen with NTSC input (or SVideo, if you can find one), and display movies 4' by 4' on a nearby wall. If you are a movie lover like me, this will rock your world. As soon as I have a job and money I will be doing this very cool thing. Posted by Greg @ 05:38 PM PST [Link]

2003113

Back from my Weekend with Family, and to tell the truth it wasn't too bad. I had to watch myself from glitching-out and reverting to old fight-or-flight behaviours. Little things like two family members exchanging a cross word made me physically back away. I do tend to avoid conflict in the physical realm (and occasionally seek it in the electronic), and even more so with family. There were a few racist epithets ("walks into a room full of turbanheads") and a little uncomfortableness (slagging my absent father - which I don't care about really but it was getting nasty; talking about my absent uncle and his inability to enjoy competitive games without getting his panties in a knot), but overall it was nice and mellow. People were very sweet. My cousin is getting married in February in Prince George and we are trying to decide if we are going to make it up for the wedding. It's about an 8 hour drive over some pretty mountainous terrain and the car needs a tuneup. I need a job! Please check my resume up top! Some pics from the trip...we drove over the snowy Coquihalla highway, and it was very pretty (popups). Why I like BC. I've travelled a lot of North America and there just isn't mountains like this near populated areas anywhere else. It's definitely avalanche country though. Ice-age glacier carved mountain. A summer hiking challenge, to be sure. Oh-oh-oh!. I want one of these...the practical jokes I could play..... Rockin' in the snow! Doh! I didn't know you saw that :) What a cutey! Ok, I'm damned cold, my feet are frozen, are you done taking stupid holiday shots yet? Was not the best driving conditions on the way back. Frozen hay in my rural hometown. Speedy little road movie (992k file) - not a popup. Nice snowy trees for your wallpaper collection. Posted by Greg @ 11:49 AM PST [Link]

2003111

Off to visit family this weekend (and hence no nightly blog entry tonight)...I'm not really negative about it, though unfamiliar (pun!) with them. When I left home in 1989 and moved from Merritt to Vancouver I made an unconscious choice not to involve any but my closest family in my life. Experiences with a few of them left me bitter about the whole family concept. As an example, I haven't made the 3.5 hour drive for Christmas since. My friends down here became my family and I always celebrated with them (or alone, which I really didn't mind all that much). There's always been the "good side" and the "bad side" in my family and I, son of a drunken trucker father and the bad daughter mother, was definitely on the bad side according to my grandparents (mothers side). All of us kids were pre-judged at the moment of birth and things were never quite as happy when we were around. My mothers parents have passed on, and things are apparently improving in the 'good side' and I'm taking my new bride to meet them. I can't say the prospect doesn't unnerve me a fair bit, but I'm a different, stronger person than I was when family was so dysfunctional I left. I'm hoping nothing more than things to be real...if they are nice that's just a bonus. Posted by Greg @ 08:29 AM PST [Link]

2003110

I have to admit the job search is getting me a little down today. I've applied for a number of jobs over the internet and posted my resume on a number of job sites, and now (according to the way that these things must work), I am supposed to wait. I don't want to wait. I want to have some interviews and get some motion happening before I feel like I've stagnated. A note for the administrators of job sites: You asked me to post my resume, and I have never had a single bite from that from any real employer. I've gotten lots of MLM scumbags and "Work at Home Stuffing Envelopes" scammers contacting me and I really don't appreciate that. It makes me lean far toward looking at the job postings, but not posting my resume, which may end up not bringing those all-so-important employers to pay you money for your site. I've had a few auto-responses from these sites, which really has got to be the most offensive thing I've seen. Unless they've got thousands of trained staff poised to rip apart an incoming resume for evaluation, I should never get an email 5 minutes after my submission saying my skills don't match the qualifications. There's something so incredibly wrong about that. Another note for employers...assuming you want me to have worked and slept in the past 5 years, I cannot have 3-5 years of full-time at-the-job experience in each of Java, ASP, Cobol, .NET, Access, Oracle, XML, Javascript, PHP, Perl, MSSQL, MySQL, Linux, HP-UX, SunOS, Exchange 5.5, and added to that 2 or 3 serious certifications (CCNE, A+, MCSE, for example). Please combine the last two paragraphs...if you are listing an incredible set of requirements and automatically disqualify any resume which doesn't have those keywords you are either going to get no qualified applicants at all, or you will only get applicants who dishonestly have seeded their resume with keywords that do not match the skillset they have. So I'm down, the market is still down, and the silliness of the IT industry (who also only wants to hire people on 3-6 month contracts) is rampant. If you are a job seeker like me I sincerely apologize for spoiling your day :( An extra-special comment to Primerica Financial (Multi-level Marketing) Services and all your agents: You suck. You mislead people who are desperate for work into wasting their time meeting with you because "you'd rather not explain over the phone". Luckily for me I went through your crap last time I was looking for work and caught you immediately on the phone this time. I'll be sure to besmirch your reputation any time I get the chance in future. Posted by Greg @ 08:28 PM PST [Link]

200319

...which really isn't going especially well anyway - Not having a whole lotta luck. If you know of someone in British Columbia, preferably in the Greater Vancouver area or Vancouver Island, who needs a linux system administrator with good people skills and a widely varied background (lots of extra tidbits of knowledge)...please let me know or send them to my resume link above. Thanks! Here's some fun for you: Lord of The Rings Parody Spoilers!!! Newly HTMLed and easier to read. Nasssty, kinksssy hobbitses!! Took Jen to Tim Hortons yesterday, which sucked, mostly. The coffee was burnt (the worst TH's coffee I've had yet) so we left it undranked on the table, and it was super-crowded for the lunch hour rush. Many varied business people were taking up whole tables with paperwork and a cup of coffee in front of them while others who came for lunch couldn't find a seat. I hate when people do that. We took some Timbits home though, which was tasssty. From there we went to Hobby Brews and started a cheap batch of white wine (Gewurztraminer - link leads over to Jen's blog where she talks about this). Really damned cheap way to go for good wine. It takes 10 minutes at the start of the process and 1/2 hour at the end and you get 30 bottles at a price of between $4 and $7 per bottle (Canada dollars) depending on which process you take and what wine you choose. Posted by Greg @ 10:52 AM PST [Link]

200318

Do you believe in aliens? (then you are level 1 weirdness) Do you believe that the US government is hiding their proof of the existence of aliens? (definitely level 2 weirdness) Have you recently been anal-probed? (uhhh...'scuse me...I've got someone over there to talk to instead) Do you believe Dan Sherman's claims that he worked for the NSA and was given proof that aliens exist and and the info is being held by the US government? He's been on the Art Bell show and other 'independent media' trying to proclaim the hidden truths. I may be a freak, but I'm not sure if I believe or not. Truth is always stranger than fiction, and the US government has never given me any reason to believe them (and quite often the contrary). Well, at least it's not shape-shifting alien lizards posing as the British royal family. Took a nice, but short walk out to Bear Creek Park yesterday. Was pretty cool...not 100 feet from the screaming kids and yelling parents in the payground I looked up and saw a big grey owl (popup). It had no fear of us and was causing considerable consternation to the peanut-fattened squirrels in the area. After pointing it out to a few older people we left and walked around taking pictures of statues and squirrels and free places to get married (sign next to it says "no booking required", which may mean that you'll share your summer wedding with someone else!). Very nice place, and we'll explore more when we get some time. Posted by Greg @ 10:57 AM PST [Link]

200316

In a vain hope to spend less on things like $50 movies ($12 each for entry, plus ultra-costly popcorn and pop, plus gas), today we went and bought craft supplies and spent this evening making cool-ish things. I started out making marble magnets - they make it out to be much more complicated than it needs to be though. I just used the magnets and an exacto-knife to cut out the pics from magazines and some standard white (dries clear) glue to put it all together. It seems to take a little longer to dry, which I expected since it's basically trapped between two hard surfaces with no airflow. After that Jen and I made some beeswax candles (hers are very pretty, mine are very disturbed - very much a reflection of who we are, I think). Following that I poured food colouring into rice-filled jars and shook the crap out of it. Just because. Really, I'm curious if I can do some sort of glue and board painting with it or maybe something like the between-two-sheets-of-glass sand sculptures using rice instead. Who knows...could be fun. At the absolute very worst...rice is dead cheap, the jars can be washed and if we get really desperate the rice is just coloured with food colouring so I may start a trend of eating blue and red and green rices in public. Jen will be beautiful, I will be disturbed :) Actually, Jen will be disturbed too. Other crafty stuff...the nice big gnarled arbutus branch we nabbed off Gabriola Island is going to be combined with some english ivy that we've taken from our underground parkade walls and will become our main balcony plant. Something more managable than a large tree probably. The ivy sure grows like mad downstairs anyway, I doubt we'll have any trouble growing it up in the south-facing sun. Before we hit the craft store we took a drive up into north Coquitlam, trying to figure out what was -behind- the rows and rows of hideous houses on their postage-stamp land. We drive as far as we could up Pipeline Road until we came upon what looked like a military compound...razor wire, searchlights, tower cameras, etc...as we approach I saw that it was just the Coquitlam watershed, providing water to the cities in the area. It's a shame that in Canada, where we have so much water that it's free (we don't have a water utility), that we have to lock down the reservoir so that sick freaks don't poison it. I remember going out as a kid with my father to fish on a reservoir...one of the very few times I remember anything positive about my father - at least at the start of the boating - then my father got bored and headed back as soon as he got rid of me he headed to the bar. That's all I remember; I was annoyed and offended and that pretty much sets the stage for the rest of memories of my father. There's a thousand memories there, but they'd be boring to relate to you. So I won't. Posted by Greg @ 11:24 PM PST [Link]

200315

Well, we really liked Gabriola Island, but at the end of our two days there, hanging out with Rich, looking at the houses, getting a feel for the could-we-live-here question.......it just doesn't feel right. We're far from disappointed, this means that we can cross one possibility off our list and move on searching elsewhere. Woulda been cool to live near Rich and Bill though, maybe get together an island LAN gaming and RPG group, take up some artistic pursuits and relax more :) On the big plus side: it was beautiful and incredibly beautiful. Photo gallery is here; there are no descriptions because many of the photos are similar, as I was looking for a better angle or better light or waiting for a certain thing to happen. A couple notes though: 1) the male one is Rich, the female one is Jen, 2) the boring sky picture has two full-grown eagles that look like dots in the sky [this may be the same couple who have a young adult child], 3) the pitch-black one is the night sky [if you jam the gamma up to max maybe you'll see something], 4) the dead bird on the fence is an eagle [who died of natural causes as far as I know], 5) that whole area creeped Jen right out. If you've got questions, post a comment and I will be glad to answer! We nabbed a nice chunk of Arbutus driftwood for our balcony to remind us of the place, right now it's sitting in the hall being sniffed by Pico. Next, we are going to take a day or two each and look at Galiano Island, Mayne Island, Pender Island and a few others. Galiano is the biggest and quite possibly has the most different things to explore and choose from. If any of my readers know anything about these islands please let me know! Posted by Greg @ 11:18 PM PST [Link]

200313

Tomorrow we're heading over to Rich's place on Gabriola Island to see if we like it. Really, we're doing this so we stop pipe-dreaming...we've been talking about how nice it would be to move over there and have a nice quiet little life on an island where we can maybe start a little business and carve a little niche of individuality. Note how many times I said 'little' in that last sentence and think about why that is. I am utterly sick of the rude people, the crowds, the smog, the traffic and the high concentration of idiots in Vancouver. I'm originally from a small town, and while I dislike the remote possibility of living in that small town ever again (thanks for the lung problems, Mr. Weyerhauser!), another small town (or island community, preferably) sounds awfully nice. Jen is from a small town as well, and I think that maybe the short period she's been living in Vancouver has made her realize that it's not all fun and excitement. Mostly it's just as I said above...rude, stupid people and their cars. It doesn't take much to realize that. But then our plans get a little complicated...I need a job. I need a job badly, so that I can do Jen's immigration papers and get her Permanent Resident status. I must somehow be able to prove that I can support her for 3 years (if need be) in order for them to accept her into the country...whether she's my wife or not. More rampant stupidity on the part of the government policymakers, I'm afraid. It's not hard to see that we are not a marriage of convenience and that I'd do anything I need to do to be with her. Unfortunately, what I need to do is follow the rules that were set up in order to prevent other people who are trying to scam the system from succeeding. I guess that's what we all have to do, constantly...bring our behaviour in line with the lowest common denominator of human ethics, rather then seek to live our lives honestly and individually, even if that individuality gets some strange looks or is outside the boundaries of conservative folks. Being that I'm trying to keep a 'geekly' aspect to my recent posts, here's a hint for you Unix newbies: 'chmod -R o-r /etc/' doesn't secure your system from intrusion. I just figured I'd tell you that since the guy I help with his linux system didn't understand why that might be a problem. (For you newbies: it removes the ability of anyone other than root, or programs run by root, to read the important configuration files in the /etc directory. Unfortunately, a lot of thing need to be able to do that...don't mess with top-level directory permissions, the defaults are pretty much always good.) Posted by Greg @ 10:54 PM PST [Link]

Just came in from a night out playing my weekly role-playing game. For those who still live in the 70's and 80's: yes there is magic in the game, no there is no magic in real life, no we don't dress up in costumes, no we are not satan worshippers, no we don't think that some mysterious force will send us to some mysterious fiery place for playing this, yes we are sick of the stupidity that causes me to preface any talk about RPGs because of your closemindedness. RPGing has much more similarity to playing Monopoly or cribbage than it does to anything you might be wondering about. That out of the way...we had a lot of fun. I play a weak, but gaining, sorceror in a group of a druid, a ranger, a bard, a barbarian and a rogue. It's a game more of politics in some ways than just running around killing imagined creatures by rolling dice and writing on bits of paper. This particular game is only a few months old, but I have been playing since I was about 13 years old. Many of my best friendships came about because of these games, as well as my most interesting conversations. I've voice-acted everything from superheroes and space aliens to futuristic cybernetic punk rockers, none of which I feel is anything but a role I have played in a game. Some left more impression on me than others...my nickname 'Kickstart' that I use online comes from a superhero that I played back in my late teens. When friends of mine and I get together to hang out, an occasional reference to a particular event in a game we played in the past will cause rounds of laughter, even (once explained) to those who were not there at the time. I wouldn't give it up if I was asked to. It's an intrinsic part of my history and my memories and serves nothing but positive experiences in my life. I hope that when I am 98 years old and sitting in my rocking chair waiting to die, one of the things that will still get a smile out of me is my memories of late night role-playing sessions. Better than that...I hope that I can round up a group of geriatic adventurers to roll a few dice and smack down a few orcs. All the best adventures start from a high level resurrect spell :) Posted by Greg @ 12:01 AM PST [Link]

200312

Cory Doctorow writes: There's a hitch, though. The paltry $25,000 that Lee needs to accomplish this miracle won't come through from the granting agencies until after the rainy season, too late to do the installations (you try humping gear around rural Laos in a typhoon) He's raising money (Paypal link, mention "Remote IT" in the donation) from the Internet to make the project a reality. Here's what your cash gets you: * $10 20 lbs. shipping costs * $25 Keyboard * $50 Headset * $75 Antenna * $100 Battery * $250 Bicycle Powered Generator * $450 CPU or Mountain Top Solar Panel * $850 Base Station * $1,000 One RT US-Laos Trip for One Technical Consultant * $1,500 One Complete Jhai Computer * $2,500 One Complete Village Set-up * $3,000 Relay Station * $25,000 The Full 5 Village System Once you've made your donation, blog this. This kind of project is the future of the world, a way to connect everyone to everyone, a way to make knowledge as free as the air. I just kicked in $100, the amount I spent on the weekend on a Linksys WET-11 wireless bridge so I could put my laser-printer in a different room without tripping on the Ethernet cable. I have a feeling that the $100 I gave to Lee will be a much better investment in the long run. Posted by Greg @ 11:06 AM PST [Link]

200311

Welcome to the Chinese Year of the Sheep, too (well, actually, the Chinese New Year falls on a different date, but that's no impediment to silliness)!! New title bar at the top of this page. It's actually a 468x60 banner I made for Aspectus, but it works to replace the standard text at the top. I just hope that it doesn't automatically get zapped by your ad-blocking software. I'd bet lawmakers are right now making decisions about how that is "stealing the internet", by the way. The spammers have already won. Speaking of spammers...I set up some alterations to my Spamassassin the other day. It appears that prior to me two addresses existed: imhotep@geekly.com and hojo@geekly.com. Since I set up a global alias for geekly.com I was getting volumes of extra spam to these old addresses (we're talking 30-40 a day on top of my regular 20 a day). So what I did was set up the following lines in /etc/aliases: imhotep: "| /usr/bin/spamassassin -r -w imhotep" hojo: "| /usr/bin/spamassassin -r -w hojo" spam: "| /usr/bin/spamassassin -r -w spam" webpowercom: "| /usr/bin/spamassassin -r -w webpowercom" 'spam' and 'webpowercom' are two addresses that I've previously given out to trap spam (webpowercom was an address I submitted to http://www.webpower.com, who subsequently sold my address to severe [incest|rape|animals] porn spammers). What those lines do is take the emails, report them automatically to Vipul's Razor and a host of other spam tracking agencies, then deletes them. I don't have to do a thing about them and they are added to other people's anti-spam products. Very nice. Then I added a similar line as an 'Action' in my email program Sylpheed. That way I can map a keyboard shortcut to quickly and easily report and delete spam that makes its way through. I am a one-man spam-killing machine. Cool link today: ...click on the above to help me win Referer[sic] Risk Posted by Greg @ 11:13 AM PST [Link]

LINKS and STUFF

Aspectus - This is Illiad's (of Userfriendly fame) other project, which is like Slashdot in some ways and like a personal blog in some ways, but cooler than either. Needs more content, and more visitors, but that'll come.

RED MEAT - Oh my. I imagine there is a FBI file on the artist. I never, ever want to meet him. But I will glory in his comic strip. Brilliance and intelligence wrapped up in the tattooed skin of a circus freak and tied with a bow made of blown O-rings.

Imparte.com - Rich's site. Not going to talk about it until he says I can. But go visit anyway.