Soledad

Oops, Microsoft did it again

2006-05-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

Oops, Microsoft did it again.

Before

Now

It's interesting how the anti-spyware ad has a Mac, and how this anti-piracy ad has a Mac as well.

Talking to the walls, as if you were home...

2006-05-22T04:11:00.000-07:00

What if the NSA or other instances would decide to wiretap all new or renovated houses - how long would it take before anyone would notice? When you move to a new house, you unlikely turn upside down every square inch of every surface, open the stoves and walls and air conditioners just to make sure there are no bugs ... instead of wiretapping what people say on the phone, wouldn't it be more efficient to ~~spy~~ what the people say in the peace of their home?

Yes, the privacy has value. And if everyone would be observed long enough, there would probably be something fishy enough to investigate. Someone writing a letter to their lover, keeping their room in a suspicious order, having a too weird collection of not Republican approved items, talking too much to their family or friends outside the country...

The only good why this wouldn't happen is probably that there are a lot of people involved in construction. If there was a central system for approving the houses, with a board of people able to circle in the house for half an hour, it could be still easy to technically achieve. What would be the advantages of listening to everyone is beyond me, but since there are millions of phones wiretapped without warrant, why not wiretap everyone at their own homes, and in public places too? That way it wouldn't even matter if you changed your phone numbers.

"What do you have to hide?" would be as valid as on those other two articles by Schneier. Instead, why do you / they want to ~~spy~~ "observe" everyone for the "security's" sake?

Finnish airport security goes high tech

2006-05-18T04:16:00.000-07:00

Airport Video Surveillance Goes Hi-Tech, and that in a bit more detailed view.

Great. In the case of that country, it will mean that they can even better point ~~the different skin colored people~~ the suspicious behavior.

And fortunately it is no e.g. Joensuu on the East part of the country - there the city and the area seems to be proud to be racist. Nationalist, whatever is the more polite way to say it.

Suspicious behavior in that country includes, based on only first hand experience, e.g. of the following: wrong skin color, wrong hair color, someone smiling what they should not, unusual name or last name, someone being of a wrong country for their taste, anyone not thinking that country is the center of the world... If someone is laughing, they are either drunk, foreigners, high, nuts, or all of the above. If someone does not think that Finnair has the Greatest Customer Service on earth and friendly on flight personnel, that is suspicious.

Cannot wait to see the Finnish version of this happening. "Sir, we are arresting you for the security reasons as we could see you smiled sarcastically to a flight attendant / you are wearing too many clothes" ... something as more than a Finn would wear in July (even if it's +15 C / 70 F out).

Serialbox 05/2006

2006-05-03T01:16:00.000-07:00

Serialbox 05/2006 for your entertainment.

Jesus was a honky

2006-05-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

How hard is it to prove that Jesus was a honky? (whatever it takes to look like a Dutch woman with a beard).

Also another recent and interesting read to find was David Pratt - the teosophy ideas seem like a good book - can entertain for hours.

Newton Connection Kit on Windows XP .. or Solaris?

2006-04-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

I just made a terrible realization.

I can still so laugh on the people who call to get help for their system running Windows XP 2000, but ... despite playing with servers, with different operating systems etc, I don't think the technical side is always that much better.

So - my problem here: Can I run Newton Connection Kit with Windows XP?
As I thought, the XP thing is the only thing home that I have a floppy drive with.
And then better thinking: Do I have a floppy drive on the Dell? As if I had paid attention to it...

So here we go again, what would the Dell technical support say?

"Hi, I normally use OS X, OS X Server and Solaris but I was just wondering ... I have this Dell Inspiron laptop that I run Solaris OS in, I wonder if it has a floppy drive???? I need something where I can run a few programs on a floppy and as none of my Macs home has one, maybe my Dell does ... I need to find a floppy drive only so that I can run Newton Connection Kit in it. Or do you know if I can use Newton Connection kit directly in Solaris?"

Slaves and immigration sceneries

2006-04-18T02:22:00.000-07:00

Why are the immigration rules and regulations now what they are in US?

Just look back a few hundred years. The White people were lazy, and imported their own slaves from Africa. Now - were these Blacks, Africans, slaves, POSSIBLE legal immigrants? Or had they filed all their K-1, K-3, i-130 paperworks in the Outside-European British Embassies before the slaves were imported?

And what if the Native Americans, Indians, call them how ever you prefer, would have had the same immigration policies?

SubSpecies23 aka Kevin Underwood - they guy your next door?

2006-04-18T02:02:00.000-07:00

La Repubblica mentioned today that this Kevin Underwood bad guy had a blog. They did not obviously link it - only mentioned a few phrases about its contents. Would they have linked it, it for sure would have got a lot more visitors. But even now, his sites must get a lot of traffic. I had a quick net search just because it seemed such a weird type, and to be able to compare it to what's available now to a few years forward when there will be (of course) a Hollywood version, with Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks, Keanu Reeves or whoever great actor as the protagonist. (And I love actors as much as the creators of Team America do).

The first thing I found was Huff's crime blog. He had a link to the crimelibrary article on the first page, and to the first post he had ever made about this Kevin. Aka SubSpecies23, SubSpecies, psycomind, KUnderw674 ... as of old usenet entries, kunderw674@aol.com (KUnderw674).

I also found the blogs of this Kevin - Strange Things are Afoot at the Circle K. or http://futureworldruler.blogspot.com/ where he some interest was pointed to a beast meme and the other blog of his, for learning Japanese. And a mirror of his myspace.

The crime library shows a non-mugshot picture of his. Looks a bit like everyone's neighbor, doesn't he? A big question on my mind was why while looking at the traces he had left in the web - yet cannot find anything worthwhile, at least now now.

Secure flight lists, homeland insecurity etc

2006-04-14T03:58:00.000-07:00

Airline Security a Waste of Cash is an interesting read. Like a lot of other things Bruce Schneier has written about security and privacy. Secure Flight Program isn't very successful according to Schneier (and quite a few other people), yet some things start to make sense. The Secure Flight and CAPPS that it was to replace are programs to check travelers against the 30,000 to 40,000 names on the government's No-Fly list, and another 30,000 to 40,000 on its Selectee list.

These lists consists of people and aliases who are too dangerous to be allowed to fly under any circumstance, yet so innocent that they cannot be arrested, even under the draconian provisions of the Patriot Act. The Selectee list contains an equal number of travelers who must be searched extensively before they're allowed to fly.

These lists come from the Terrorist Screening Database, a hodgepodge compiled in haste from a variety of sources, with no clear rules about who should be on it or how to get off it. The government is trying to clean up the lists, but - Schneier says it doesn't have much of success.

Schneier was a member of the government's Secure Flight Working Group on Privacy and Security. They looked at the TSA's program for matching airplane passengers with the terrorist watch list, and found a complete mess: poorly defined goals, incoherent design criteria, no clear system architecture, inadequate testing.. a lot more of it is explained and linked here.

TSA was also developing Registered Traveler along with the Secure Flight.

These lists of names on the Secure Flight .. well, at least makes one feel not that special. Ted Kennedy has suffered enough of it. The well-known Massachusetts Democrat was stopped five times as he tried to board US Airways shuttles because a name similar to his appeared on a list or his name popped up for additional screening.

"If they have that kind of difficulty with a member of Congress, how in the world are average Americans, who are getting caught up in this thing, how are they going to be treated fairly and not have their rights abused?" Kennedy asked Homeland Security undersecretary Asa Hutchinson.

Kennedy said he was stopped at airports in Washington, D.C., and Boston three times in March. Airline agents told him he would not be sold a ticket because his name was on a list.

Also Cat Stevens was refused entry to US on the same grounds - "The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said the singer, who converted to Islam and changed his name to Yusuf Islam, was denied access to the US "on national security grounds".

Flight 919 from London to Washington was diverted to Bangor International Airport in Maine, after US security officials were told Mr Islam was aboard.".

These aren't really unique - there are plenty of others. And it seems very easy to get to that list. Live in another country than which your passport or nationality states, use a credit card based and issued in a different country ... if you fly, and somoene else used their credit card to pay for your flight, you most likely get intensive screened. Again.

****

Airplane Security and Metal Knives is another thing that I have wondered for years. How exactly is using plastic knives supposed to make me feel safer in a plane? Whereas El Al, which for sure is high on the safety, uses metal cutlery in economy class (which I have to still test).

****

Sometimes I really wish the Native Americans ("Indians", not the rednecks) would have been better in the homeland security back in 1492

.

Serialbox 04/2006

2006-04-03T09:43:00.000-07:00

Serialbox 04/06 for your Mac. (Direct link).

Serial Box 03/2006

2006-03-21T05:05:00.000-08:00

Serialbox 03/2006 for your entertainment.
Or spell it Serial Box, or March 2006, or however you want.
The March file.

3rd Annual Nigerian Scam Conference

2006-03-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

3rd Annual Nigerian ~~Scam~~ Email Conference

Serialbox 02/2006

2006-02-08T10:36:00.000-08:00

Serialbox 02/2006 for your Mac needs. Enjoy.

Attention Whore Disorder subcategories - IAWD, RLAWD, MKAWD, BAWD, PAWD, DAWD, MRAWD, SDAWD

2006-02-06T10:53:00.000-08:00

AWD - Attention Whore Disorder can be divided into different AWD subcategories:

- IAWD = Internet Attention Whore Disorder
This attention whore disorder is shown in individuals who seek infinite amount of attention in their Internet activity and existence.
This can include e.g. bragging about their love life or the lack of it, their personal relations details, the details of their job, or their sex life, or anything that they consider interesting for the public, from the problems they have in seeking a legal status of residence in a country to rumor mangering and rumor whoring about products such as new phones or computers or operating systems.

- RLAWD = Real Life Attention Whore Disorder
This type is similar to IAWD, but it manifests in the Real Life, aka not in the Internet.
However a mixed type - with IAWD and RLAWD, and any AWD to aany AWD, is surely possible a combination.

- MKAWD = My Kids Attention Whore Disorder
This type of AWD affected person uses words such as "my kids", "my kids", "my kids" "[kids name]" "[kids name}" in every situation possible. It becomes a disorder when it is not appropriate to talk about the kids. E.g. while troubleshooting your computer, mobile phone, or internet connection; while discussing work related issues at work, or while goig out with people that are not interested in Your Kids.

- BAWD = Breeder Attention Whore Disorder
BAWD is close to MKAWD. Breeder is more of generic pro-human-reproductivity kind than actually talking about [his/her kids] all the time. BAWD and MKAWD and PAWD can and often do coexist. BAWD affected people bingo the others about why they don't want to have kids, even when the topic is gardening or how to cook octopus with rice.
BAWD people do not believe anyone can or does want to NOT have kids, and whatever was the original discussion, they do their best to direct the discussion back to human breeding.

- PAWD = Pregnant Attention Whore Disorder
A sufferer of often BAWD and MKAWD, PAWD takes all the attention available to his or her pregnancy. Again this becomes an AWD when the others are talking about a non-pregnancy related movie, science fiction, cooking, sports, ANYTHING but pregnancy and human reproductional choices.

- HAWD = Health Attention Whore Disorder
HAWD sufferer draws attention to him/herself constantly talking about his/her health issues - thus all conversation and topics become involved in whatever, real or imaginary, health issue the HAWD sufferer has - this can include pregnancy in which case the HAWD sufferer also and in specific has PAWD.

- DAWD = Dressing Attention Whore Disorder
DAWD sufferer dresses in improper ways to get attention, and even to "not" get attention.
This includes e.g. wearing a tiny top and mini skirt at office in a male environment; wearing a dress while grocery shopping; wearing anything in any situation that is far overkill for the situation in question, or highly ignores the set expectations of dressing.

- MRAWD = Mac Rumors Attention Whore Disorder
MRAWD is a subcategory of IAWD - since over 99 % of them are mainly affected in their online life.
MRAWD is not limited to macrumors.com, as it can be seen anywhere on the net - from lurking rumors about the next Sony Ericsson models, Oracle updates, anything to be slashdotted, and especially frequent they seem to be around any Mac rumor sites - however this AWD could as well go and goes with the alternative name of SDAWD - Slashdot Attention Whore Disorder.

Motorola Rumors - New Motorala Phone names

2006-01-31T12:00:00.000-08:00

ROKR, RAZR, SLVR... wonder what's next?

Motorola may end up splitting their product line to different type of user groups or target markets, so based on the actual -R we might see

Bathroom line
* SHVR
* TRMMR
* BARBR
* VBRTR

Generic line
* FNDR
* KIPR
* LUSR
* BIPR

Teenager line
* RPPR
* LUSR
* FCKR
* FAKR
* SUKR
* WNKR

Female market
* LOVR
* BRDR
* DNCR
* DIETR

Niche market line
* KILR
* RAPR
* FRMR
* CHTR
* SPNDR
* ACTR
* FRZR
* FEVR
* NIGR
* SCKR
* BLVR

Final Book Studio or what else to call the next PowerBooks and iBooks?

2006-01-19T00:19:00.000-08:00

MacBook Pro was sure a funny name. So if it will not be a mid-market level product, a hybrid between the PowerBook and the iBook, but substitute both of them, what would their successors be called then?

Some crazy name ideas seen out there in the wild wild web:

iMacBook
MacBook (no "Pro")
iBook Pro
iBookMac
MacBook i
MacBook Express
Final Book Express
Final Book Pro
Final Book Studio
MacBook Amateur
MinBook
MacBook Lite
XBook
XBook Pro
XBook Serve
PowerMacBook
Newton
Hello Macintosh
Maczilla
iPod Maxi

And, not particularly regarding this subject or any other,

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Support Bloggers' Rights!

Get married in Apple Store opening, if some people got in MWSF...

2006-01-18T02:33:00.000-08:00

A couple got married in MWSF this year. Cult of Mac has some links to photos about that aspect of MWSF too.

That makes me feel creative for where we would instead.

We first met in iChat, talking about some Apple products hardware and software.

We then got engaged on the day the first ever European Apple Store opened, the London, Regent Street one that is. And still totally ignored the fact that those two events happened on the same day, for at least half a year. We were on the queue, we got the photos and movies out there, and just did not make a big deal of the other event in the queue that day.

That leaves the logical place to be the opening of the first non-UK European Apple Store, Rome. Its retail jobs were announced around November or December of 2005, so the store will open some yet unannounced time in early 2006.
Unless they open something somewhere even before that, including in Japan...

The most horrible kid names of the World

2006-01-15T10:45:00.000-08:00

A logical continuation to the White Rich girl syndrome: the most horrendous kid names ever. Logical in the sense those two concepts seem to be sought together. Not that White, Rich girl syndrome sufferers would name their kids with total idiotic names, since there are a lot of barely alphabet, white (and not white) trash, people with typoed names - those Rich people just seem to be more kr8tiv with the names.

So here what some childfree people have seen or invented.
From that source, and still on the same community seen after:

Gwyneth Paltrow's kids: first one = Apple, second = Microsoft or Orange, third = Linux, or Banana, forth = Solaris, or Nut...
Asthma Hussein
Mcborg
Abcde ("Absedie" pronunciation)
Sephiroth
Polly Ester
Latrina and Artillia
The first kid: Shyanne -The second kid: Braggin (pronounced BRAY-gin)
Savannah Rae, Skye Blue, Maverick Storm (siblings)
Mykyia
Trice
Ansley*
Kinsley*
Mar'Quay
Mur'Quayrious
Me'Kaylen
Keaundrae
Alliceanee
Chardonnay
Kynnedi
Tra'Kireya
Kaedence
Ivyauna
Jarrline
Dymand
Laird
Danyale
Zy'Asia (wtf)
Macayle
McKenna*
Brailey
Raini
Heaven*
Destiny/Destiney*

So. Let's make them take in one more step to be even more kr8tiv with their kids names.
Inspired by those that really exist:

Allycen
Harley
China
Creed
D'Quarius
Shykee
Chada Sky
U'lysia
Me'Kaylen
Allycen
Chardonnay
Mar'Quay
Danyale
Laird
China
Harley
MeQuayeleh'
Mec'Queail
Miquil
Mique (yea TEH creative spelling!!!eleven)
Allucinogin
Brozakh
#
Zointë
Uaitlain
Lard
Margharin
Buttarh
Fad'Assh
Lanyardiele
Queyringh
Carquey
Essuv'ë
Aipod
iPod
Vindosh
Eckqspi
Vista
T'Abasko
Troianh
Durecks
Khandum
P'Ill
Champaghhne
Chardonnhay
Mërlotte
Win'Órdinhair
Theblwinh
Gluhw-Ann
Sweden
Norway
Germany
Kuala Lumpur (oh wait need to be kr8tv... Schwe'Dhen, Qu'Ala L'umpr, N'Òruei, Doitschl-Ann, Óstrihlia, U'Quei, Moskaw, )

Seriously. Naming your kid Chardonnay? Why? Why not go with Merlot, Table Wine, Asti, Spumante, Birra, Biere, or any other substance the mother was on while she got knocked up? May be the story behing kids called Savannah or Concorde - even those could be more creative or just plain awful: Esuvee, Airbus, Mallorca, Ibiza, and so on.

Fortunately the other kids don't give a ### of what you name your cat. So the cat could be Ostrihlia if you wanted it to be. I think I will just stick with normal cat names like until now. (And then, even if the male one was to be called Leonardo, no one has ever called him with that name. A funny dog name got stick to him, and it fits his more than straight cat nature well).

Boycott music industry

2006-01-15T08:50:00.000-08:00

I don't normally make new year resolutions. It does not have much point to promise something stupid that one plans on keeping on for a week - such as most smokers deciding to quit smoking, or whoever promising themselves to lose weight, if all that happens on 1 January of any given year. (Unless there is some good reason like a heart attack or something - which would magically occur around New Year).

My resolution is to not buy any music CDs until any further notice. Actually, I don't even remember when I bought a music CD the last time (excluding iTMS, of which 95 % are the free US downloads, one per week).

The decision is based on this, and on the full story of Sony rootkit (feel free to browse all the story if you would happen to be among the 0,01 % of people who missed it). And this is so a$$ move from the music industry that they don't deserve even one cent of my money any more.

Also, CDs are overpriced. They were charged more than audio cassettes and vinyl records in the 1980s, and since those two medium slowly disappeared, and audio CD became the standard, their price NEVER got down. To produce an audio CD costs LESS than producing a full scale Hollywood or Independent movie, and movie DVDs are often cheaper. I intend on keeping buying movie DVDs, but simply not buy any audio CDs as a moral response to this. Music industry makes too much money -- not most artists, just the industry.

Long live EFF.

Buying movie DVDs is not affected by this decision. Thus I will keep on buying movies that will entertain me. Movie industry's anti piracy ads in the beginning of the movies are annoying, especially on the UK movies, but they still are a minor annoyance compared to what audio CDs have caused to several people, AND producing a full scale movies costs a lot more than producing an audio CD. So it makes zero sense that audio CDs cost as much as full scale movies.

Couple got legally married online

2006-01-15T08:36:00.000-08:00

Couple got married online.
News.com.com
La Repubblica
Hindustantimes article
O'Reillynet
W*USA news
SouthFlorida.com
Freewareweb

Fri Jan 13, 4:08 AM ET
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Rita Sri Mutiara Dewi's fiance could not get time off from his job in the United States. But that didn't stop the couple — who have never met in person — from tying the knot on Thursday.

And a Muslim cleric who witnessed the ceremony between the Indonesian lovers declared it legal, she said, even though they were on opposite ends of the earth.

"We are happy that we're married now, even though we had to do it via the Internet," said Dewi, 50, noting that the two used a video link so her relatives could see her 52-year-old groom.

Dewi met Wiriadi, a physiotherapist who works at a hospital in California, in an Internet chat room several months ago. They exchanged pictures and contacted each other almost every day, she said, speaking usually online but other times by phone.

In November Wiriadi proposed. Over the Internet, of course.

Dewi, who works as a teacher in Malaysia, returned to Indonesia for the virtual wedding. Wiriadi, who uses only one name, was in California. It was the second marriage for both.

Dewi said Friday she plans to travel to the United States next month to meet her new husband.

That would have a real nice business opportunity.

Is it possible anywhere else on Earth to actually get married online? And if so, how? It just sounds so much more appealing than having to get a few days off work to go to some other country and wait in some offices and registries. The technologies are out there (skype, any otehr voip, even plain video chat like aim or iChat and iSight).

I cannot find any websites where it would be possible to get married. Such a business opportunity. Who cares about buying your flights, books, or iPods online, if you can or could get married online?

Nigerian banker turned to a Jordan millionaire in 90 minutes

2006-01-14T04:08:00.000-08:00

And then this Mrs Rose UBA from Central Bank of Nigeria, using his yahoo email address, and not cenbank.org, in the next email, sent 90 minutes after the previous one, has another fairytale:

He sent the same picture of his passport though.

From: engr2711_2@yahoo.com
Subject: Proper Investment From Engr Zeid Hajahmad.F
Date: January 14, 2006 1:22:36 AM GMT+00:00
Reply-To: engr2711_2@yahoo.com
Return-Path:
Received: from ab97c2138.com (192.116.81.10.static.012.net.il [192.116.81.10] (may be forged)) by mac.com (Xserve/smtpin19/MantshX 4.0) with SMTP id k0E1MKcn007017; Fri, 13 Jan 2006 17:22:26 -0800 (PST)
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6900 DM

From Engr Zeid Hajahmad.F.
Assallam-alaikum my friend.

Dear friend,

Engr Zeid hajahmad is my name 48 years old a citizen of the Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan but presently in London. Actually I deal on
gold and diamond.

Then this is to introduce you into my project of wishing to invest in your country most likely on stocks,bonds and real estate and any invest of your chioce you think that willbe profitable to both of us.

Please if my proposal could be acceptable, kindly send to me your full name,address,telephone,mobile numbers if possible a form of identification.

I want you to stand as my foreign partner in making a smooth investment in your strong and steady economy.

Find attached of my passport.

In Shaa Allah,
Best regards
Engr,Zeid Al-hajahmad
email: engr2711@Safe-mail.net
Date: 13th day of Jan 2006.

LIKE WHAT THE F##K LADY? FIRST YOU ARE MRS ROSE UBA WITH THAT SAME BUTT UGLY PASSPORT PICTURE OF JORDAN, AND THE SAME YAHOO EMAIL ADDRESS, AND NOW YOU ARE 90 MINUTES LATER A MILLIONAIRE IN JORDAN??? HAVE A NICE DAY. YOU FORGOT TO ADD YOUR NIGERIAN PHONE NUMBER.

The butt ugly passport picture.

Nigerian scammers use always a hotmail, yahoo, or lycos email (and never cenbank.org)

2006-01-14T04:06:00.000-08:00

Another example of these ~~idiots~~ business men...

Why is it that every single person who emails random people in the Internet telling they are the head of the central bank of Nigeria, use a yahoo, lycos, or hotmail email address? Guess what? I intend on blocking all of them from my mailbox.

This one is hilarious. The guy sent unrequestedly even his passport picture.

So anyone in the mood to get this one busted? Here ya go, all the delicacy as it was received:

From: engr2711_3@yahoo.com
Subject: Payment Notification
Date: January 13, 2006 11:38:40 PM GMT+00:00
To: [removed to protect privacy]
Reply-To: wittwer2711_1@yahoo.com
Return-Path:
Received: from ab97c131.com (192.116.81.10.static.012.net.il [192.116.81.10] (may be forged)) by mac.com (Xserve/smtpin29/MantshX 4.0) with SMTP id k0DNcINC015109; Fri, 13 Jan 2006 15:38:23 -0800 (PST)
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6900 DM
[and some other stuff removed from headers]

CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA
TINUBU SQUARE,VICTORIA ISLAND,LAGOS-NIGERIA.
(OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR)
CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA
TINUBU SQUARE LAGOS
CONTRACT #: MAV/NNPC/FGN/MIN/009,
FOREIGN REMITTANCE DEPARTMENT
CENTRAL BANK NIGERIA
Our Ref: CBN/IRD/CBX/021/04
Attn: Honorable Contractor,
Sir/Madam.
From the records of outstanding contractors due for payment with the federal government of Nigeria your name and company was discovered as next on the list of the outstanding contractors who have not received their payments.
I wish to inform you that your payment is being processed and will be released to you as soon as you respond to this letter. Firstly, I plead on behalf of my country and the Central Bank Of Nigeria for not contacting you all this while as regards your contract payments which I know by now must have cost you some inconveniences, I am promising you on behalf of the Central Bank Of Nigeria that this will no repeat it self any more advice you to co-operate with me and listen to my advice as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will not be held responsible for any lapses or mis-direction of your fund due to your inability of you to co-operate with me who is in-charged as the Executive Governor.
Also note that your to recieve a part payment for your contract payment is us $1.7 Million Dollars (ONE MILLION SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATE DOLLARS). Kindly re-confirm to me if this is inline with what you have in your record and also re-confirm to me the followings,
1) Your Full Name.
2) Phone, Fax And Mobile #.
3) Bank Name,Address and Your Account Informations
4) Company Name, Position And Address.
5) Profession,
6) Copy Of Int‘l Passport.
As soon as this informations are received, your payment will be made to you in a certified bank draft or wired transfer from central bank of Nigeria into your nominated Bank acount. Get back to me as soon as you receive this letter for a serious discussion.
YOURS SINCERELY,
MRS. ROSE UBA,
FOR THE GOVERNOR,
CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA (CBN).
email :wittwer2711_1@yahoo.com
Telephone:234-803-3074101.

And then he sent the delicacy picture as well:

Mrs Rose Uba is without the doubt the ugliest woman I have seen ever in my life. Secondly, her nae seems to be Jorhar Ahmad Zeid Ahman Fayyad, and he or she has a forged Jordan passport. Third, he or she is sending the email from Israel, and claims to be in Nigeria. Forth, why the f##k would any bank in the world, EVEN A F###ING NIGERIAN BANK, use yahoo or something as lame??

And fifth, central bank of nigeria #1 and link #2. The REAL Central Bank of Nigeria website. So it would be slightly more credible if all these mrs Rose or Ahmed Jihad whatever, were using at least an email that ended cenbank.org.

Pardon my rage, but I just hate these idiots.

iTunes Music Store mini browser paranoia

2006-01-12T09:06:00.000-08:00

"iTunes is spyware" made a long list of talk in slashdot yesterday, and not only at slashdot.
Today it got more clarifications.

iTunes mini store browser sends anonymous data of what you listen, to feed you with what you could like to listen more. So?

The same people who bitch about that are those who wipe their Frequent Flyers high mileage clubs cards every time they fly; they use their CVS and Walgreen's cards every time they shop there, so Walgreen knowing exactly what brand of asthma medicines they use, when they bought a pregnancy test or lime flavored condoms the last time, or how much gatorade they buy; they have no issues with AmEx, Visa, and Mastercard knowing exactly what they buy, how much, when, where, thus knowing a whole lot more of where their money goes, which are exactly their shopping patters and perversions, and they never ever doubt AmEx or Visa, or American Airlines, or any partner Finnair, CVS, Kodak, Alitalia, or anything else out there, would use the data they have for anything... like marketing.

Those people concerned or worried about their privacy, could have used Little Snitch to start with, with their computer.

And they should pay only with cash in the real life. And even then, the stores they buy may notice that they buy weird stuff.

Maybe one of the fears was them being revealed for using P2P networks for obtaining the music. But that is not in the metatags or in id3 tags the mp3 or aac use.

So their Visa, Amex, and Virgin Megastores know that they have bought 5 CDs of Britney Spears. iTunes background data could have seen they were listening to one track of Britney Spears (or anything else hideous or they would not want to admit to be listening to) and could not tell how it was received.

Such a big deal.

Running Solaris 10 on Intel Macs (iMac or MacBook Pro)

2006-01-11T08:18:00.000-08:00

Must be different or perverted thinking... when I saw the Intel based iMacs and the terribly named MacBook Pros out there, I had a sudden desire to browse for alternative laptops... with Xeon or Sparc inside. Then everything at Dell and around. Well - Sun's laptop running Solaris 10 costs $ 6,500 if I want it to be with 15" screen, and it is still only 80 GB for its hard drive (I want minimum 120 GB). Also, since I don't have to pay for Solaris 10 licence, $ 6,500 for a laptop is a bit much.

So, searched around, Fujitsu, Sony, Dell again, Sun... everything seems to sell with an operating system bundled. Dell would have had things that looked nice for the Solaris use (on laptop) but the principle turnaway for me -- all bundled with Windows XP. No thank you - since I will not want to use the laptop with XP, I do not want it installed there, and I do not want to pay for its license, as a principle. I want a laptop with Solaris. My different thinking now, after once migrating to OS X from Linux distros. I want back there, at least partially.

Since we will be getting one of those iNtelMacs .. well, iMacs with intel inside and thank god not with a sticker about that on the Mac, maybe we'll stick a 500 GB hard drive there, if there are any lying idle around (or get one spare of them from an XServe or XServe RAID) and I will rape it for a few partitions and operating systems. Very tempted.

So who would have thought? Getting a Mac, to run OS X -- and Solaris 10, and Debian, and any x86-based Linux distro there, and maybe even XP on it.

I have no clue where the idea for Solaris came now, but it just sounds like what I want to explore as for my use. Building programs for it from Linux sources does not look to be too complicated. I hope I will not have to touch the rpm files though (I admit, I am too spoiled in OS X for not needing to touch them any more).

MWSF notes on the fly

2006-01-10T10:41:00.000-08:00

MWSF 2006 keynote notes
- lots of ipods sold - 14 mil this quarter.
- sold 850 mil songs to date and 8 mil videos.
- ipod fm tuner and remote announced, apple branded - for being able to listen to radio, not like the griffin thing.
- surprise surprise, ilife 2006: iphoto 2006 - more pics, features such as photocasting = apple version of flickr. podcasting built into ilife. garageband 3, and iweb announced, and that's it for $ 79.
- iwork 2006, Some of the features in iWork '06: 3d charts, advanced image editing, image reflections, free form and masking, tables with calculations, new themes and templates.. $79
- dual core imac with 2 mb l2 cache; showing benchmarks. overall 2-3x faster"; 17" and 20"
- macbook pro, 4-5x faster than existing powerbooks. video conferencing and ir remote built in. 5.6lbs. iSight, Front Row; $1999 1.67 Core Duo; 667 DDR bus, x1600; $2499 1.83GHz

Dear Spammer, Leave Me F-ing Alone.

2006-01-09T10:10:00.000-08:00

Dear
* Nigerian Bank with only a Hotmail address
* Nigerian millionaire who is living in the concentration camp with T1 speed internet address
* Some Business man in a poor country with millions of dollars to send me with some swanky article linked to BBC webpage in your email
* Anyone who wants to send me millions of dollars from Africa
* Russian or British authority telling me I have won millions of dollars or pounds or euros in a lottery I did not participate to
* some swanky businessman out there telling me about business opportunities / about v1@grA / (iaLi5 / diamond business / some fake internet actions / something else
* Escuela Tántrica anything
* Company that granted me millions of dollars of loan that I did not apply for
* Buyer asking me about an eBay item I have not seen in my life that you are asking me about
* Barrister, Thumba Mulato, Next of Kin, Former President of Nigeria I had never head of
* PayPal buyer asking me about anything - since I don't even have a PayPal account
* Anyone I have never asked to be emailed by for your commercial, spam, religious spam needs or whatever.

For your immmediate mind refreshment: if you happen to be one of these lusers in this mailto list below, I mean especially you.

cletusopanka@yahoo.com.au, biglobe.lee.pang@gmail.com, tjfw4os@izap.com, fredadams100@hotmail.com, lawrence_george3@hotmail.com, daveg@diamondinvestment.com, david_lugard@hotmail.com, daveg@diamondinvestment.com, fred_adams001@hotmail.com, ukonlinenotification2005@msn.com, patrickadams2000@hotmail.com, sunlondon@msn.com, chuksobiora2@yahoo.co.in, abiolaw200555@yahoo.com, h.promotion@virgilio.it, chineduego@universia.net.mx, wst@netzero.net, cbn_contracts_department150@hotmail.com, harrykeem@netscape.net, drsophialoren@unaidsconsultant.net, philgan98@yahoo.co.uk,
nicolenicolejj@netscape.net, christopher_idah@mailbg.com, haruna4b@hotmail.com, gtalotto2@gmail.com, shehu_abubakar@hotmail.com, jamesevans@o2.pl, no.reply_optinsub21093332@optinright.com, lonneylegalfirm@yahoo.co.in, thembamulato9@yahoo.co.in, ohn_williams25@walla.com, hktdlv4f5@hotmail.com, awarddraw@usl8888.com, helenohelen@sify.com, kayojones@netscape.net, susan234@walla.com, hzkyvvvv4f5@hotmail.com, paul_mbekif@yahoo.co.in, mcgarydouglas@netscape.net, olofinjana@teenmail.co.za, grace_morgan_1970@yahoo.fr, sales@bestwebstoreonline.net, skyblue@conlared.com, olofinjana@teenmail.co.za, markgross4agel@comcast.net, internationalloteria@zwallet.com, frv4f5@hotmail.com, princehenry247@yahoo.com, prince247@lovetrain.com, frv4f5@hotmail.com, okadigbow@uku.co.uk, petkwame@zwallet.com, ahmed2trust@jubii.dk, ahmedee2005@hotmail.com, themba1@mailbox.co.za, euro_lotto2005_london1@emsergipe.com, eurolotto05lon@netscape.net, nnbangura1@yahoo.co.in, manewmann@netscape.net, corrymatley@hotmail.com, derek.davis@personal.ro, sans_front02@ny.com, themba1@mailbox.co.za, georgeakinyele@zipmail.com.br, jabumdu@webmail.co.za, chriseze@eresmas.com, johnelokannpc@eramail.co.za, johnelokannpc13@yahoo.co.in, tsouwarin@yahoo.com, Jennygirl740@Usa.com, Jennygirl740@yahoo.ca, lewsike@dearriba.com, themba5@mailbox.co.za, microsoftword@eresmas.com, khumalo_steve@yahoo.com, khumalo_236@hotmail.com, globasicinsuranc@eresmas.com, frankidris004@teenmail.co.za, luisae@eresmas.com, issah_abdoul300@latinmail.com, mgraeme@mscold.com, david_okoh@o2.pl, itlotto@terra.com.mx, moses_moloi@yahoo.com, msjantaylor@globalum.com, msjantaylor2005@walla.com, moses_moloi@yahoo.com, olakaseem68@eresmas.com, james_obi@globalum.com, keen_john11@inmail24.com, keen_john@unlimitedworld.org, james_obi@globalum.com, amed_smith@pleasehelpthechildrenofgod.com, personal007@eresmas.com, el_konam@indiatimes.com, paulguei4@0500mail.com, md-chambers@hotmail.co.uk, info-mdchambers@hotmail.co.uk, williams_okon_10@eresmas.com, willia_okon00@mail2world.com, presidency4@eresmas.com, lagutin87@eresmas.com, sulemanumar@zipmail.com.br, rivmu@kaixo.com, bensonmolefe@hotmail.com, patobi001@eresmas.com, sojiben@zipmail.com.br, sojiben30@yahoo.com, pccs_banker@HOTMAIL.COM, jerrygani@walla.com, felixubah@she.com, infocbnoffice_01@handbag.com, infocbnoffice@bluebottle.com, frank2005@tsamail.co.za, email.frank2000@yahoo.com, ladygoodwin@teenmail.co.za, lisagoodwin@teenmail.co.uk, mrsurulere@zipmail.com.br, mrsurulere_1@mail2world.com, barr_kery@yahoo.com, bnn_innocent@yahoo.com, hdschuen@netscape.net, tony_nzuma@email.lu, abbaabacha2@tiscali.dk, abbaabacha2@yahoo.co.uk,
paulguei1@0500mail.com.

I just wanted to tell you that
* If you live in a concentration camp with a T1 speed Internet access, where can I sign up to get to live there?
* I have zero interest in your viagra, cialis, diamond business, buying some random actions some spammer tolds me to, or sending money to anyone that approaches me over email
* That you really irritate me. The fact that you repeatedly keep spamming me irritates me that much that I want you to get if not unable to reproduce and keep your idiot genes in the gene pool, at least get that poor that you will never ever have an access to a computer so that you could spam me any more, or that you would have a Windows 3.1 with Outlook Express, and getting so millions of spams to the email addresses you have ever used to spam me. I rely on the spam harvesters in this to collect your email addresses, and send you adverts for more viagra, cialis, ephedra, diet pills, anything that makes you lose weight, lose money, get more inches in your p*nis, and at least as many proposals of these Nigerian Banks with a hotmail address, these State Owned lotteries with yahoo or other free email address, and to get also all the Blonde, Educated Russian Or Other Eastern European Ladies Who Want You To Marry For Money. I ALSO HOPE THAT PEOPLE WILL USE THE CAPS LOCK AS WELL AS YOU HAVE USED IT FOR ALL THESE YEARS. I HOPE YOUR DAUGHTER WILL HAVE PREMARITAL SEX WITH A PERSON OF THE RACE AND SEX YOU DO NOT APPROVE. I HOPE YOU WILL GET NIGHTMARES OF SPAM, AND ALL THAT YOU WILL BE EATING FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, IS CANNED SPAM.
* AND, AS THE LAST POINT, THAT I REALLY REALLY HATE THE ABUSIVE USE OF CAPS LOCK, EVEN IF IT IS USED IN YOUR WHATEVER REASONS.
* I very kindly ask you to leave me the f*** alone, and select some other people in the mailto: list above in this webpage to entertain you. Imagine if all you Nigerians are so rich, just unite and you could buy Saudi Arabia and a few states of USA if all your monetary investments were united.
* That if you really have millions of dollars and are still stupid enough to live in a concentration camp, I hope you die. Painfully.

SerialBox 01/2006

2006-01-05T13:03:00.000-08:00

SerialBox 01/2006 for your entertainment.
Enjoy the cereals.

Check if your email is read by you only

2005-12-23T15:59:00.000-08:00

Idea not mine but from here and here.

by Richard M. Smith

With all of the controversy about the news that the NSA has been monitoring, since 9/11, telephone calls and email messages of Americans, some folks might now be wondering if they are being snooped on. Here's a quick and easy method to see if one's email messages are being read by someone else.
The steps are:

Set up a Hotmail account.
Set up a second email account with a non-U.S. provider. (eg. Rediffmail.com)
Send messages between the two accounts which might be interesting to the NSA.
In each message, include a unique URL to a Web server that you have access to its server logs. This URL should only be known by you and not linked to from any other Web page. The text of the message should encourage an NSA monitor to visit the URL.
If the server log file ever shows this URL being accessed, then you know that you are being snooped on. The IP address of the access can also provide clues about who is doing the snooping.
The trick is to make the link enticing enough for someone or something to want to click on it. As part of a large-scale research project, I would suggest sending out a few hundred thousand messages using various tricks to find one that might work. Here are some possible ideas:
Include a variety of terrorist related trigger words
Include other links in a message to known AQ message boards
Include a fake CC: to Mohamed Atta's old email address (el-amir@tu-harburg.de)
Send the message from an SMTP server in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
Use a fake return address from a known terrorist organization
Use a ziplip or hushmail account.
Besides monitoring the NSA, this same technique can be used if you suspect your email account password has been stolen or if a family member or coworker is reading your email on your computer of the sly.

This wouldn't actually tell you if your mail is being read, so much as
it is a way to try to get someone (or something) to add your mail to the
"watch list". It is not a good idea to try this if you hope to ever
again fly on an American airline without first being strip-searched by
the TSA monkeys.

Make Aperture run on any Mac

2005-12-22T15:06:00.000-08:00

Run Aperture on any Mac

Partially in desperation after discovering my Mac wouldn't install or run Aperture, I figured out a solution to both and want to share it with others wanting to use Aperture on your more than a year old Mac that Apple wants you to replace.

You need HexEdit and BBEdit or TextWrangler.

To disable the installer check:
1) Create a writable image of your Aperture DVD with Disk Utility. Eject the DVD and open the image file.
2) Hit command-shift-g in Finder and enter '/Volumes/Aperture/Aperture.mpkg/Contents'
3) Open Distribution.dist in your text editor
4) Search for 'function installationCheck() {' and enter 'return true;' on the next line. Save and close the file.
5) Et voilà! Aperture now installs with any CPU/GPU.

To disable the application startup check:
1) Install Aperture (after modifying the installer script as described above)
2) Open HexEdit and browse to '/Applications/Aperture.app/Contents/MacOS/'.
3) Open 'Aperture'. HexEdit saves a backup automatically to 'Aperture~' when you write changes to the file, so you don't have to worry about messing up. Be aware that HexEdit is quite buggy in 10.4. Don't click anywhere I didn't tell you to click.
4) Hit cmd+f. In the 'Find' field, enter '49 48 48 32 6D C9'. Make sure 'Matching:' is set to HEX. Hit return.
5) Click the bar of the 'Aperture - Data' window. Replace the selection with '49 48 48 32 59 59'.
6) Click the search window. Using the procedure in step 4 and 5, replace
'49 4C 48 32 6D 35' with '49 4C 48 32 58 C5'.
7) Save and close the file.
8) Done! Have fun : )

Entire Newton museum collection out for sale

2005-12-21T16:00:00.000-08:00

Newton museum is selling their entire collection on eBay.
And I am probably happy about the fact that I don't have access to a credit card available now.

How To Know Whether Or Not You Are Ready To Have Children

2005-12-18T04:12:00.000-08:00

Mess Test
Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.

Toy Test
Obtain a 55 gallon box of LEGOs (or you may substitute roofing tacks). Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream because this would wake the child.

Grocery Store Test
Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.

Feeding Test
Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal into the mouth of the jug, while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.

Night Test
Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8-12 pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 3:00 p.m. begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00 p.m. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10:00 p.m. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more songs and sing these too until 4:00 a.m. Set alarm for 5:00 a.m. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

Ingenuity Test For School Assignments
Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and pot of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet paper tube and turn it into an attractive Christmas candle. Use only scotch tape and a piece of foil. Last, take a milk carton, a Ping-Pong ball, and an empty box of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Automobile Test
Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime. Stick it into the cassette player. Take a family size package of chocolate chip cookies, mash them into the back seat. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There, perfect.

Physical Test (Women)
Obtain a large bean bag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now, remove the beans and let the bag just hang there.

Physical Test (Men)
Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store. Go to the manager's office and arrange for your paycheck to be directly deposited to the store. Purchase a newspaper. Go home and read it quietly for the last time.

Final Assignment
Find a couple who already have a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training and child's table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run wild. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.

Another hot air study

2005-12-16T04:40:00.000-08:00

Another hot air study.

" Japanese ladies appear to simply fart for fun; with nearly half of them practically pumping their way through the first year of marriage. Equally unsettling is that a staggering 29% couldn’t even manage two years without reeling off the odd rasper."
"To finish up this item of trivia, they persuaded one of the wives who had never passed gas in front of her husband to try to do it, so their hidden cameras could capture this moment for posterior-ity…"

Well, I know a lot of people who would be very lousy Japanese housewifes.

Engineer and Management

2005-12-16T02:02:00.000-08:00

A man in a hot air balloon realized that he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted.

"Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The woman below replied. "You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.

"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.

"I am," replied the woman. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I've no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is, I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip."

The woman below responded, "You must be in management."

"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is, you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, you've managed to make it my fault.

Mail.app of OS X 10.4 shows some letters garbled, e.g. instead of ä, ö, ø, å, è, é, ñ, ã, õ.

2005-12-13T10:43:00.000-08:00

Mail.app of OS X 10.4 shows some letters garbled, e.g. instead of ä, ö, ø, å, è, é, ñ, ã, õ. The mail receiver sees letters as squares, symbols, Asian characters or other wrong encoding.

User side is often PC (Windows, Linux; Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Kmail and so on); sometimes even Mac OS X 10.4, 10.3, 10.2, 10.1, OS 9.x, 8.x.

Verify if it is caused by a bad font. Mac OS X fonts list and Turning fonts off can be useful.

Unfortunately some of the people annoyed by this are graphics and other who have a need for hundreds of fonts, and who are unwilling to find a font among hundreds or thousands to be the problem; enabling then half of the fonts back, then some more and so on until a bad one would have been identified. And in some cases the problem is not a bad font but something else.

What seems the ultimate solution - here. Just take normal Terminal or command line precaution: careful with what you type. A letter MAKES a difference.

Locate Terminal in your Applications > Utilities folder. Open it.

Enter in terminal window:

defaults write com.apple.mail NSPreferredMailCharset "UTF-8"

(including the "") and press enter.
Now it should behave correct.

Man hits 1,003,625 frequent flyer miles

2005-12-02T02:13:00.000-08:00

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - After two months of zig-zagging across Canada by plane, frequent flyer Marc Tacchi has reached his goal of accumulating one million miles of credits -- and become something of an Internet celebrity in the process. # 2 # 3

On his blog "The Great Canadian Mileage Run 2005," Tacchi reported on Wednesday that he had racked up 1,003,625 mileage points and spent 56 of the last 61 days in an airplane.

By reaching the 1 million mile goal, Tacchi gets the equivalent of about 10 round-trip business class flights from Canada to Australia, which he has estimated would normally cost about C$70,000.

He plans to redeem his travel points to take his family to Miami at Christmas, then maybe go to Hong Kong or Thailand.

When he wasn't flying to collect travel points, Tacchi works as a contract pilot. Once a week, he flies a Boeing 747 cargo plane to Europe or Asia.

Now THAT is some serious travelling.

Proposed punishment for spammer

2005-11-23T00:19:00.000-08:00

Prison. Solitary confinement. A very limited computer, able to
receive Email but nothing else. An Email address widely and
frequently exposed on newsgroups, web pages, and other venues
liable to harvesting.

Three times a day—at unpredictable times—an Email with a
random subject line would contain a password needed to get the
next meal served. This might be at the end of the (otherwise
typical SPAM) message, in the middle, near the beginning, but
the prisoner would need to read each and every EMail to find the
password for his next meal.

[Found in a newsgroup]
[and in email]

Windows released 20 years ago

2005-11-21T05:12:00.000-08:00

IT-viikko, a Finnish IT news magazine, reports on their today's number that Windows was first released to public 20 years ago.

They have quite an interesting choice for pictures, I have to say.
And words.
"Steve Jobs of Apple competing with Gates, tried a mouse on a computer's side" .. doesn't make sense? As if most things written in Finnish would...

Kernel panic wear

2005-11-17T15:07:00.000-08:00

Kernel panic mug ... for safe boot mornings.

Kernel panic shirt

Kernel panic inside?

Kernel panic in fridge?

And yes - why did it take so long for anyone to come up with kernel panic wear? The mug feels perfect for the mornings before 11 AM, the wear for just annoying people at work, and I want a fridge magnet - if for nothing else, to see how the people will look like when they see a fridge that asks to be shut down...

Sajida Richawi running away from the bombs, and innocent victims kids try illegally racing cars

2005-11-13T12:00:00.000-08:00

And more Sunday browsing and rants...

Stupid kids, now described as innocent, victims, saints. A bunch of teenagers were driving their parents cars in Rome, and had a competition which one would be the last to hit the brakes. So the kids were driving at full speed, hit the brakes 50 meters before wall, and one of the kids died in the crash, 3 ended up in the hospital. The description of how fascinating and important this sort of driving - getting to full speed and seeing who has the courage to be the last one to use the brakes, is amazing. At least they were illegally racing these cars in a zone where no one was living - so at least no one uninterested was hurt. To have such competition occur on a curvy street, and the car end in a living room would have been far worse. But victims? Of course. They were so totally not seeking that to happen.

The second "smart news" is from Amman and Jordania. The missing, failed suicide bomber, Sajida Mabrouk Atrous Richawi, has confessed, and showed her face in the TV. While she and her husband entered the Radisson hotel, her husband exploded, and she did not - she escaped with the other people. Oh why? If you are there to suicide yourself, and to kill a bunch of other people, why would you run away to save your skin?

She looks a lot older than the Internet information suggests (that would be 35).

Evangelist's DRM opinions boingboinged and /.ed

2005-11-10T15:52:00.000-08:00

Previous Director of Product Marketing for Apple's "Pro" applications, Mike Evangelist, does not really like DRM music - which I totally agree with him.

"From this day forward I will never spend a another dime on content that I can’t use the way I please. If I can’t copy it to my hard drive and play it using the devices I want, when and where I want, I won’t be buying it. Period.

They can all take their DRM, and their broadcast flags, and their rootkits, and their Compact Discs that aren’t really compact discs and shove them up their bottom-lines."

So entertaining - firs the story, the blog entry, was boingboinged, then nearly a day later slashdotted.

And, talking about Apple ... for your enjoyment - Serialbox November 2005.

Serialbox November 2005

2005-11-10T15:42:00.000-08:00

Serialbox November 2005 (11/2005)

If you need a mobile phone, you'll buy an iPod???

2005-11-10T00:50:00.000-08:00

Of the series of stupid slashdot articles: Apple sabotages ROKR so that the people who were wanting to buy a mobile phone, will buy an iPod...

Laughing on that alone, without bothering to even read more than the headlines for a day.

"Oh yes, I need a new phone ... so I'll just buy an iPod". What next? Someone who is looking for a new phone, buys a new digital camera? I still don't get how I can call with an iPod. There is no addon for a mobile phone functionality for an iPod, so if I need a mobile phone, why would I get an iPod?

But then.. why would I need to buy a new phone? I'll wait until the promised price drop of PSP will be true - their price at $ 150 as what they promised when 5th Generation iPods got out -- that and a USB microphone, and I'm covered for where ever I am at work and at home -- VOIP rules, who needs a mobile phone when you can PSP?

Well, the "original" Appleblog article linked as a source info for that /. article was stolen from Wired: Battle for the Soul of the MP3 Phone .

Excerpts from that Wired article that sum it up:

Zander had been hired to jazz up the staid midwestern company, and an association with iPod would provide a much-needed infusion of cool - maybe even more than the upcoming RAZR. For Jobs, a partnership with Motorola was a way of neutralizing a threat to the iPod, which already dominated the US music-player market. Consumers around the world are expected to buy 75 million MP3 players this year, but they'll purchase nearly 10 times that many mobile phones. If music players become standard in handsets, the iPod could be in trouble. Partnering on a music phone gives Apple a way to enter that market yet protect the iPod. So although the two companies were superficially aligned, in fact their ambitions were diametrically opposed: Motorola dreamed of bringing the iPod to the cell phone-buying masses, while Apple sought to protect the iPod from them. [..[

Anssi Vanjoki, executive vice president of Nokia and head of its multimedia group, has bad news for the labels. In an impossibly sleek conference room at Nokia's steel and glass headquarters in Espoo, a woodsy Helsinki suburb, Vanjoki is showing off the new N91, a 3G Symbian handset that will go on sale this winter. As a music phone, the N91 is everything the ROKR is not. It can hold a thousand songs or more. It has a rugged 4-gigabyte hard drive as well as Wi-Fi and a high-speed USB connection. "If you want to do file-sharing, this is also possible," Vanjoki says. "Because this is not a mobile phone, it is a computer."

He pushes a couple of buttons on the keypad. Up pops Symella, a new peer-to-peer downloading program from Hungary. As the name suggests, Symella is a Symbian application that runs on Gnutella, the P2P network that hosts desktop file-sharing apps like BearShare and Limewire. It was created earlier this year by two students at a Budapest engineering school that for four years has been exploring mobile P2P in conjunction with a local Nokia research center. Symella doesn't come installed on the N91; Vanjoki downloaded it from the university Web site. "Now I am connected to a number of peers," he continues, "and I can just go and search for music or any other files. If I find some music I like and it's 5 megabytes and I want to download it - the carriers will love this. It will give them a lot of traffic." [..]

In the end, what's surprising about the Moto ROKR is not that carriers resisted it but that it is so short on innovation. Instead of creating new possibilities, as the N91 does, the ROKR allows FairPlay to close them off. Why won't Apple open iTunes by licensing FairPlay to a wide range of manufacturers? "That's a good question for Steve Jobs," replies Alberto Moriondo, a Motorola executive who helped lead the development of the ROKR. (Jobs declined to be interviewed for this story.) Another handset person says he asked the same question in a meeting with Apple execs, only to have them roll their eyes and mutter, "If only …"[..]

Hey, this Nokia N91 actually sounds interesting. I might even consider switching back to Nokias after a 5 years pause of them.

Nokia's press release
ROKR product page

I have a perfectly working Sony Ericsson P800 that I have no intention of changing, an Ericsson T39m (yes, it has bluettoth) as a secondary phone, and a 20 GB iPod (first of the kind), an iPod mini, and an iPod shuffle, and a Newton 2000. Do I really *need* to buy a new phone? Most reasonably NO, I don't, but ... anyone who needs a PHONE, will buy a phone. Until you can call with your digital camera or palm. They buy a phone, or a Treo, or something. The reverse engineer part of me wants to get a PSP and hack that to be a VOIP with a USB microphone, then again, I might be curious enough to get the Nokia N91 soon enough - if they have fixed finally an annoying bug which made me ultimately run away from the Nokias a few years back.

New STD: Gonorrhea Lectim

2005-11-08T13:51:00.000-08:00

New STD: Gonorrhea Lectim
Beware the Carriers of a New Disease

The Center for Disease Control has issued a warning about a new virulent
strain of Sexually Transmitted Disease. This disease is contracted through
dangerous and high risk behavior. The disease is called Gonorrhea Lectim
(pronounced " gonna re-elect him "). Many victims have contracted it after
having been screwed for the past 4 years, in spite of having taken measures
to protect themselves from this especially troublesome disease.

Cognitive sequelae of individuals infected with Gonorrhea Lectim include,
but are not limited to, anti-social personality disorder traits; inability
to tell the truth, delusions of grandeur with a distinct messianic flavor;
chronic mangling of the English language; extreme cognitive dissonance;
inability to incorporate new information; pronounced xenophobia; inability
to accept responsibility for actions; exceptional cowardice masked by acts
of misplaced bravado; uncontrolled facial smirking; ignorance of geography
and history; tendencies toward creating evangelical theocracies; and a
strong propensity for categorical, all-or-nothing behavior.

The disease is sweeping Washington, trailer parks, and the red states.
Naturalists and epidemiologists are amazed and baffled that this malignant
disease originated only a few years ago from a Texas Bush.

Rich White Girl Syndrome and other entertainment for your Saturday

2005-10-29T13:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday evening surfing entertainment...

Weird kid names
Breeder bingo thoughts # part 2
Pregnant teens must be killed - and the teen moos attack back & part 2
Rich White girl syndrome - makes me think of the people gathering especially in places like this.
Violence and media = ban the Bible
Joys of living in a multicultural neighborhood

I love the way she writes. And unfortunately I can recognize many women suffering of the White Rich Girl Syndrome. No wonder I have never liked women.

Geek jokes

2005-10-29T11:52:00.000-07:00

* There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't
* If at first you don't succeed; call it version 1.0
* I'm not anti-social; I'm just not user friendly
* My software never has bugs. It just develops random features
* Roses are #FF0000 , Violets are #0000FF , All my base belongs to you
* In a world without fences and walls, who needs Gates and Windows?
* Hand over the calculator, friends don't let friends derive drunk
* I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code
* Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue...
* The box said 'Requires Windows 95 or better'. So I installed LINUX
* A penny saved is 1.39 cents earned, if you consider income tax
* Unix, DOS and Windows...the good, the bad and the ugly
* A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila
* The code that is the hardest to debug is the code that you know cannot possibly be wrong
* UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity
* Ethernet (n): something used to catch the etherbunny
* C://dos
C://dos.run
run.dos.run
* You know it's love when you memorize her IP number to skip DNS overhead
* JUST SHUT UP AND REBOOT!!
* 1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
* Alcohol & calculus don't mix. Never drink & derive
* How do I set a laser printer to stun?
* There is only one satisfying way to boot a computer
* Concept: On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape button
* It's not bogus, it's an IBM standard
* Be nice to the nerds, for all you know they might be the next Bill Gates!
* The farther south you go, the more dollar stores there are
* Beware of programmers that carry screwdrivers
* The difference between e-mail and regular mail is that computers handle e-mail, and computers never decide to come to work one day and shoot all the other computers
* If you want a language that tries to lock up all the sharp objects and fire-making implements, use Pascal or Ada: the Nerf languages, harmless fun for children of all ages, and they won't mar the furniture
* COFFEE.EXE Missing - Insert Cup and Press Any Key
* Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning
* LISP = Lots of Irritating Silly Parentheses
* The beginning of the programmer's wisdom is understanding the difference between getting program to run and having a runnable program
* Squash one bug, you'll see ten new bugs popping
* Everytime i time i touch my code, i give birth to ten new bugs
* boast = blogging is open & amiable sharing of thoughts
* We are sorry, but the number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again
* Cannot find REALITY.SYS. Universe halted
* If it weren't for C, we'd all be programming in BASI and OBO
* Bad command or file name! Go stand in the corner
* Bad or corrupt header, go get a haircut
* Unrecognized input, get out of the class
* Warning! Buffer overflow, close the tumbler !
* WinErr 547: LPT1 not found... Use backup... PENCIL & PAPER
* Bad or missing mouse driver. Spank the cat? (Y/N)
* Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes
* Best file compression around: "rm *.*" = 100% compression
* Hackers in hollywood movies are phenomenal. All they need to do is "c:\> hack into fbi"
* BREAKFAST.COM Halted...Cereal Port Not Responding
* I survived an NT installation
* The name is Baud......James Baud
* My new car runs at 56Kbps
* Why doesn't DOS ever say "EXCELLENT command or filename!"
* File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)
* Cannot read data, leech the next boy's paper? (Y/N)
* CONGRESS.SYS Corrupted: Re-boot Washington D.C (Y/n)?
* Does fuzzy logic tickle?
* Helpdesk : Sir, you need to add 10GB space to your HD , Customer : Could you please tell where I can download that?
* Windows: Just another pane in the glass
* Who's General Failure & why's he reading my disk?
* RAM disk is not an installation procedure
* Shell to DOS...Come in DOS, do you copy? Shell to DOS...
* The truth is out there...anybody got the URL?
* Smash forehead on keyboard to continue.....
* E-mail returned to sender -- insufficient voltage
* Help! I'm modeming... and I can't hang up!!!
* All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?
* Once I got this error on my Linux box: Error. Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue
* Once I got this error on my Linux box: Error. Mouse not attached. Please left click the 'OK' button to continue
* Press any key to continue or any other key to quit...
* Press every key to continue
* Helpdesk: Sir if you see the blue screen, press any key to continue. Customer : hm.. just a min.. where's that 'any key'..
* Idiot, Go ahead, make my data!
* Old programmers never die; they just give up their resources
* To err is human - and to blame it on a computer is even more so
* (001) Logical Error CLINTON.SYS: Truth table missing
* Clinton:/> READ | PARSE | WRITE | DUMP >> MONKIA.SYS
* (D)inner not ready: (A)bort (R)etry (P)izza
* Computers can never replace human stupidity
* A typical Yahoo! inbox : Inbox(0), Junk(9855210)
* (A)bort, (R)etry, (P)anic?
* Bugs come in through open Windows
* Penguins love cold, they wont survive the sun
* Unix is user friendly...its just selective about who its friends are
* Artificial intelligence usually beats real stupidity
* Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone.
* To err is human...to really foul up requires the root password.
* Invalid password : Please enter the correct password to (Abort / Retry / Ignore )
* FUBAR - where Geeks go for a drink
* I degaussed my girlfriend and I'm just not attracted to her anymore
* Scandisk : Found 2 bad sectors. Please enter a new HD to continue scanning
* Black holes are where God divided by zero
* Hey! It compiles! Ship it!
* Thank god, my baby just compiled
* Yes! My code compiled, and my wife just produced the output
* Windows 98 supports real multitasking - it can boot and crash simultaneously
* Zap! And there was the blue screen !
* Please send all spam to my main address, root@localhost :-)
* MailerD(a)emon: You just received 9133547 spam. (O)pen all, (R)ead one by one, (C)heck for more spam
* A: Can you teach me how to use a computer? B: No. I just fix the machines, I don't use them
* PayPal: Your funds have been frozen for 668974 days
* 1-800-404 : The subscriber you are trying to call does not exist
* 1-800-403 : Access to that subscriber was denied
* Error message: "Out of paper on drive D:"
* If I wanted a warm fuzzy feeling, I'd antialias my graphics!
* A printer consists of three main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light
* "Mr. Worf, scan that ship." "Aye Captain. 300 dpi?"
* Smith & Wesson: The Original Point And Click Interface
* Shout onto a newsgroup : It echoes back flames and spam
* Firewall : Intruder detected. (A)llow in (D)eactivate the firewall
* Real programmers can write assembly code in any language
* Warning! Perl script detected! (K)ill it , (D)eactivate it
* Firewall : Do you want to place a motion detector on port 80 ?
* Helpdesk: Sir, please refill your ink catridges Customer : Where can i download that?
* All computers run at the same speed... with the power off
* You have successfully logged in, Now press any key to log out
* Sorry, the password you tried is already being used by Dorthy, please try something else.
* Sorry, that username already exists. (O)verwrite it (C)ancel
* Please send all flames, trolls, and complaints to /dev/toilet
* Shut up, or i'll flush you out
* Cron : Enter cron command \ Now enter the number of minutes in an hour
* We are experiencing system trouble -- do not adjust your terminal
* You have successfully hacked in, Welcome to the FBI mainframes.
* I'm sorry, our software is perfect. The problem must be you
* Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurling down the highway
* Webhost livehelp: Sir you ran out of bandwidth, User: Where can I download that?
* If Ruby is not and Perl is the answer, you don't understand the question
* Having soundcards is nice... having embedded sound in web pages is not
* My computer was full, so I deleted everything on the right half
* You have received a new mail which is 195537 hours old
* Yahoo! Mail: Your email was sent successfully. The email will delivered in 4 days and 8 hours
* I'm sorry for the double slash (Tim Berners-Lee in a Panel Discussion, WWW7, Brisbane, 1998)
* Ah, young webmaster... java leads to shockwave. Shockwave leads to realaudio. And realaudio leads to suffering
* What color do you want that database?
* C++ is a write-only language, once can write programs in C++, but I can't read any of them
* As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code
* earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can
* A typical yahoo chat room: "A has signed in, A has signed out, B has signed in, B has signed out, C has signed in, C has signed out.."
* When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop
* Warning! No processor found! Press any key to continue
* Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product
* NT is the only OS that has caused me to beat a piece of hardware to death with my bare hands
* Warning! Kernel crashed, Run for your lives !
* NASA uses Windows? Oh great. If Apollo 13 went off course today the manual would just tell them to open the airlock, flush the astronauts out, and re-install new one
* javascript: An authorizing language designed to make Netscape crash
* How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
* Yes, friends and neighbors, boys and girls - my PC speaker crashed NT
* root:> Sorry, you entered the wrong password, the correct password is 'a_49qwXk'
* New linux package released. Please install on /dev/null
* Quake and uptime do not like each other
* Unix...best if used before: Tue Jan 19 03:14:08 GMT 2038
* As you well know, magic and weapons are prohibited inside the cafeteria -- Final Fantasy VIII
* Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft...and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labo
* Unix is the only virus with a command line interface
* Windows 95 makes Unix look like an operating system
* How are we supposed to hack your system if it's always down!
* God is real, unless declared integer
* I'm tempted to buy the slashdot staff a grammar checker. What do they do for 40 hours a week?
* Paypal : Please enter your credit card number to continue
* It takes a million monkeys at typewriters to write Shakespeare, but only a dozen monkeys at computers to run Network Solutions
* Please help - firewall burnt down - lost packet - reward $$$
* If Linux were a beer, it would be shipped in open barrels so that anybody could piss in it before delivery
* Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle
* Perl, the only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption
* Norton: Incoming virus - (D)ownload and save (R)un after download
* I had a dream... and there were 1's and 0's everywhere, and I think I saw a 2!
* You sir, are an unknown USB device driver
* C isn't that hard: void (*(*f[])())() defines f as an array of unspecified size, of pointers to functions that return pointers to functions that return void

Internet celeb pearls

2005-10-29T09:38:00.000-07:00

More pearls of the Internet 'celebs'.

Celeb # I - let's continue with mymemory of Macrumors aka vjrei aka Reinaldo Torres - pearls:

"I am 29, and she is 17" - indeed. "is about the culture actually. This is not my country and the US have too many controls over too many things. I just do not want to be on CNN as a "Pedophile Macrumors member" or something". Fancy seeing this in or out of the context?

"Would you leave a job for a girl?" - now would this sound a bit more original and credible if this was not the 20th girl we would be hearing about him leaving his life and job for? Everything is so great in USA, and everything sucks in Venezuela, and then everything is so great in Venezuela and everything sucks in USA. Make up your mind. Go for once, choose what you want in your life, and do something, just quit bragging.

"My girlfriend in Venezuela has a girlfriend in Mexico who si venezuelan too. She told me once they kissed each other and slept in the same bed for a month I do not know why. She told em too that all her girldfriend boyfriend's looks like her (my gf) some how. I am always teasing her about that but she feels very relaxed about the topic. Lets see, in December her gf is going to come over to Vzla and we will see"

For the integrity of the Mymemory internet celebrations, part # 1, part # 2, part # 3, part # 4, part # 5... of her - profile, pictures of her in Italy, and of the gothic baby looks in geocities. and the same gothic baby pics in msn spaces, and some photographer's takes on Iliana Ron at deviantart.

So why am I so bugged about this? It seems just so weird for me that someone who wants to keep a low profile of what he does - for trying to get his green card, for not obviously paying his taxes in the full amount, for having messed with sure enough underaged girls in his past, to be posting all his life's details in the internet, for the public. Would you besides enjoy that whatever of quite personal you told to your guy, would end up being spread internet wide? (Don't blame me - blame your guy).

"Oooh! Look at me! I am keeping a low profile in the Internet!" hm... maybe if your girlfriend wanted everyone to know that she is bisexual, she would have posted it herself in the Internet?

Celeb # 2 - fryke. As only of example of the kind. Overly professional at the rumorsites. Very annoying editing of text, so leaving _these_ _stupid_ _lines_ _to_ _get_ _text_ _look_ _professiona_. Does it? No. Besides, if in the past 5 years you have posted 8000 posts in a rumor site, you probably should be smart enough to have noted that _xx_ you could get the same result in vBulleting code by using [u] and [/u].

The _editing_ is not the most annoying thing ever. It feels worse to see constantly posts like on this page and especially this post. "Look at me, I have insider information. I have people leak chittychatty details to me, and here I brag (until Apple lawers bother to find some reasons you will not) and link all rumors to my own blog, whereas I don't like anyone else to post links to rumorsites or their blgos."

So for your _frykeish_ entertainment: linkety, linkety? (still a Patrick Armruster, and still prices in Swiss Francs, so I bet), linkety, linkety.

In real life Patrick sounds like a nice person to know. It is just something about the spamming of his own rumor site around the internet, and insisting in using BBEdit shorthand code all the time while posting in vBulletin powered boards... how much more will it take to learn ONE shortcut for editing your text? Five years and 8000 posts and still doing it.

I'm not even getting started on the PC users side. These two people made it for one rainy day's entertainment in front of a PC.

Payneful sense of humor

2005-10-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

I wonder why is it that sometimes the people with the scariest history and sense of humor themselves join places where people have fun of some sort (think for instance some humorlists) and then don't want to see any humor at all. "This is not funny."

Indeed. Playing games that probably would expose oneself to the world of both sexes or even the other sex, still .. no, not funny. Not at all.

Fortunately we have invented the parental controls. Unsubscribe would be probably just too easy, then to create sub-rules in the mail application itself does not look to be currently possible the way I would desire it, so I will just have to entertain myself sometimes finding my own humor in the internet. At least I can be funny, and find a lot of sexist jokes, and actually enjoy them.

The Nerdiest pattern for a Wedding or Engagement Pattern on Earth

2005-10-12T13:34:00.000-07:00

The nerdiest pattern for a wedding or engagement ring on ~~Earth~~ Universe.

Or can you beat that?

Very lame copyright law being prepared in Finland

2005-09-17T03:13:00.000-07:00

Competing with the most d=ing stupid laws of the World, the copyright laws they are preparing in Finland don't seem to make ~~much~~ any sense.

The end of the low profile love story of the illegal internet celeb

2005-09-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

One more update to this guy's story.

Now they are splitting up.
The reason looks to be that she had told him she had $40 K of savings, whereas she had $10K. So of course he was looking for plain ~~money~~ love.

"Back in Venezuela, Chavez is sinking everything, the economy is very bad, taxes at 15%, plus 10% luxury tax for other things. I mean, she just count with probably 10,000 dollars from a heritage and that is all what she have in her life. She may be making around $200 a month as a lawyer in a country where everything is 80% more expensive than here. "

Excuse me? You are telling me everything is 80 % more expensive. Food is not 80 % more expensive. Only manufactured luxury items are.
And the only way you can be bitching about a 15 % tax is when you are working 100 % illegal. If you have any income, FYI your taxes are normally FAR beyond 15 % in USA. So so much about your legal status here then.

And keeping such low profile in the Internet in your situation is good.

Low profile in the private life as posting to widely read sites in the Internet

2005-09-06T13:08:00.000-07:00

Updates to mymemory getting married.

Now stealing his own words: "We are working the visas and paper work... what a nightmare!

So far and keeping everything very low profile because is getting so complicated. She can not obtain a tourist visa because she was rejected at the US embasy once about a year ago for no particular reason (well, the reason is that everybody wants to leave Venezuela)."
(D'oh??!! Keeping LOW profile means posting in a board in the Internet with thousands, tens of thousands of readers??)

"To bring her here is very difficult, so difficult and once she gets here she wants to still as a lawyer and that would mean for her to start over her career again and is an amount of money that we do not have. A year studying law ia around 28K and she may make as a paralegal probably 30K at the most. She would have to take all the paralegal courses and this last month was very bad for me so sofar I can not support her at all until I find a reliable job.

These last two months were very bad for me. The US system didn't help at all. I do not undertand why studying here is so expensive when in every other country is so cheap. "
(Maybe in every other country on earth where you pay as much to study, you earn well? Maybe in the countries where studying is cheap, like in your case in Venezuela, your salary is low as well, so you have about the same relation of cost of study per what you will earn?)

"Plan B? any other plan would be a disaster regarding the visas.

-She could get an O-1 visa like me. The O-1 is for "outstanding" in your carrer like a musician or in my case a Visual Artist. She could apply as an acterss but she does not have enough credits for it, I mean, there is nothing outstanding in what she does.

-There we would have students visas but she need and sponsor with the money equivalent of a year of studies + living expenses and I do not have that and she neither.

-Tourist visa: She could at list come oner every once in a while but the US embassy denied her a visa already and if she applies again and gets denied she would have to wait another year to apply to any other visa.

-Working visa: No way here in FL, Miami is full of lawyers and no one here would do that even for a family member.

-Marriage: We could get married now and she could get an O-3 visa right away as an spouse, but I am in the middle of the paper work to become a resident. If I add some one else to my list I would have to wait one and a half year to start again a proces that have been 4 years long already, but the actual problem is that I would have to have in cash in the bank the equivalent to 95 thousand dollars, equivalent to 3 times the pooverty line for 3 people (my mother, her and me) and we do not have that kind of money.

I mean, to bring her here I need 150.000$ in my bank account just because of the regulations.

Last night we went over everything nd she just got tired. She wanted me to go over but the cheepest plane ticket is $480 + taxes when it use to be $240 not too long ago (because of the gas pices).

I woke up this morning very quiet, like in standby, I just have to keep going with my things and that is it. Is not the hardest I had face any way but it suck big time. Life is demanding su much from me. I really thought in going back to Venezuela for a few months but the situation down there is caotic. The government is keeping all the mortages that fell in to their banks for the people to sing against chavez in the referendum. The government have all our names and is making a life a living hell. I have an apartment I want to sell and I can't because they are not releasing the the mortages since November of last year.

But I do not care about that now, I just do not understand certain things at this point."

Well. If life was as easy as some of us want it, there would be 150-400 million South Americans in USA, plus 50 + million Europeans more than there are actually.

So dream and keep on posting about your low profile.

All these poor Africans who have millions of dollars on their bank account, reside on a concentration camp, and have nothing better to do than...

2005-09-06T11:17:00.000-07:00

If you just made it to the list below, congratulations. You have made me really hate you for continuously spamming me.

Let me tell you something. I get so dozens of emails of all these poor Africans who are in the concentration camps in some remote part of Africa, and where they have Internet connection... and they are all so stupid that despite having millions of dollars in their foreign bank account, they are still at the concentration camp, and have nothing better to do than to spam me.

If the African concentration camps really have Internet connection... guess what? Any African charity is not getting a dime of my money.

Guess what? I still really hate spam.

And if your spam is intended to be funny, there is no way you will ever beat the funniest spam of the world. Period.

And if you really are so f-ing stupid that you have millions of dollars of money, and you are on a concentration camp emailing people, you deserve to die, preventing the humankind of genes that may cause more morons like you.

So here a list of the email addresses connected from the return to and addresses you poor w-ers have given me as where to send more info.

If your name isn't on this list, feel more than free to subscribe these people anywhere you know they get spammed, and the spam harvesters like visiting.

williams_chambers25@yahoo.co.uk
ohn_williams25@walla.com
hktdlv4f5@hotmail.com
xioihcgimzp@hotmail.com
tbaileyz@yahoo.co.in
issah_abdoul300@latinmail.com
globasicinsuranc@eresmas.com
khumalo_236@hotmail.com
ditqzqxzwbx@hotmail.com
reubenanderson@msword.org
lewsike@dearriba.com
Jennygirl740@yahoo.ca
cwqfdwczilpjg@hotmail.com
chriseze2003@yahoo.com
chriseze@eresmas.com
euro_lotto2005_london@atmail.com
ahmedee2005@hotmail.com
raymondbaker002@yahoo.co.uk
awarddraw@usl8888.com
helenohelen@sify.com
jonesgaruba@netscape.net
susan234@walla.com
themba3@teenmail.co.za
paul_mbekif@yahoo.co.in
mcgarydouglas@netscape.net
sales@bestwebstoreonline.net
qnczszfkw@hotmail.com
unionsecu@zwallet.com
themba1@mailbox.co.za
www-data@businessbox4.server-home.net
prince247@lovetrain.com
okadigbowilliams@netscape.net
okadigbow@uku.co.uk
okadigbowilliams@netscape.net
petkwame@zwallet.com
ahmedee2005@hotmail.com
ahmed2trust@jubii.dk
ahmed2trust@jubii.dk
ndkuygzxwbzinuxb@hotmail.com
themba1@mailbox.co.za
eurolotto05lon@netscape.net
euro_lotto2005_london1@emsergipe.com
tezsgwvij@hotmail.com
gtiwzgqisgeuhr@hotmail.com
manewmann@netscape.net
corrymatley@hotmail.com
derek.davis@personal.ro
d_derek012000@yahoo.com
sans_r_front@3xl.net
gzwfr@hotmail.com
themba1@mailbox.co.za
georgeakinyele21@katamail.com
georgeakinyele@zipmail.com.br
georgeakinyele@zipmail.com.br
rymiykefdzffoodegy@hotmail.com
jabumdu@webmail.co.za
winnerslotto@mailbox.co.za
johnelokannpc@eramail.co.za
nobody@yttnetwork.co.kr
johnelokannpc13@yahoo.co.in
tsouwarin@yahoo.com
lewsike@dearriba.com
yhtzsuclftgth@hotmail.com
themba5@mailbox.co.za
microsoftword@eresmas.com
khumalo_steve@yahoo.com
ditqzqxzwbx@hotmail.com
frankidris004@teenmail.co.za
luisae@eresmas.com
mgraeme@mscold.com
mgraeme1@bareed.alburaq.net
mgraeme@mscold.com
mgraeme@plasa.com
macgraeme44@myway.com
mgraeme@mscold.com
david_okoh@o2.pl
itlotto@terra.com.mx
petereric@libero.it
yjnwszpd@hotmail.com
msjantaylor2005@walla.com
msjantaylor@globalum.com
moses_moloi@yahoo.com
ruzwlvqn@hotmail.com
moses_moloi@yahoo.com
olakaseem@sify.com
olakaseem68@myway.com
olakaseem68@eresmas.com
olakaseem@sify.com
james_obi@globalum.com
keen_john11@inmail24.com
keen_john@unlimitedworld.org
keen_john@unlimitedworld.org
james_obi@globalum.com
james_obi32@yahoo.com
amed_smith@pleasehelpthechildrenofgod.com
amed_smith@care2.com
personal007@eresmas.com
mkdd_007@hotmail.com
admin285047@scrivimi.it
anonymous@air.it
raymondbaker002@yahoo.co.uk
jonesgaruba@netscape.net
susan234@walla.com
themba3@teenmail.co.za
privatembekif@yahoo.co.in
mcgarydouglas@netscape.net
grace_morgan_1970@yahoo.fr
ales@bestwebstoreonline.net
markgross4agel@comcast.net
unionsecu@zwallet.com
themba1@mailbox.co.za
privatembekif@yahoo.co.in
mcgarydouglas@netscape.net
grace_morgan_1970@yahoo.fr
johnelokannpc13@yahoo.co.in
paulguei1@0500mail.com
abbaabacha2@tiscali.dk
abbaabacha2@yahoo.co.uk
ezzyltqbg@hotmail.com
tony_nzuma@email.lu
ywifyoyncyzcrkimleq@hotmail.com
hdschuen@netscape.net
barr_kery@yahoo.com
bnn_innocent@yahoo.com
mrsurulere_1@mail2world.com
mrsurulere@zipmail.com.br
lisagoodwin@teenmail.co.uk
email.frank2000@yahoo.com
frank2005@tsamail.co.za
infocbnoffice@bluebottle.com
felixubah@teenmail.co.za
jerrygani@walla.com
jerrygani10@eresmas.com
pccs_banker@hotmail.com
sojiben30@yahoo.com
sojiben@zipmail.com.br
patobi001@eresmas.com
patobi001@freenet.de
sojiben30@yahoo.com
jamesmabuza@thepub.co.za
ezybzfc@hotmail.com
apache@mail.kaixo.com
sulemanumar@zipmail.com.br
sulemanumaro@myway.com
lagutin.yuriy@personal.ro
lagutin87@eresmas.com
presidency4@eresmas.com
frankjohn1@bareed.com
willia_okon00@mail2world.com
williams_okon00@mail2world.com
williams_okon_10@eresmas.com
info-mdchambers@hotmail.co.uk
myoqwdizj@hotmail.com
nel_konam@indiatimes.com

Kahney - the Cult of Mac

2005-09-01T01:06:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't know Leander Kahney, the Cult of Mac creator... Steve Jobs may have created the Macs, but Leander noticed the cult, and raised it to the knowledge of the 'common mortals', those not living in that cult, those not married to or living with Apple employees.

The Cult of Mac-book makes an amazing portrait of the Mac heads. Not just of those who are portrayed as with Mac hairdos, but of all the various aspects the love to the Macs can be, excluding only aspects why there are so many Apple couples, and what is it like to live with six people working for the fruit company in the same house... everything else is covered. And far better than anyone who was working for Steve would have been able to cover. Leander could have his objectivity, he didn't need to promote the company's agendas, he could love all of the aspects of the cult he wanted to, and have more in love and objective point to start with.

Some guys in Amazon reviews describe the book as Mac users love letter to themselves. The book is just beautiful. I would place it in the living room, would I not be afraid of it getting any stains... I can imagine how long to write that book and gather all that mateiral has taken. A full life, spent surrounded by Macs and Mac lovers. Mrs Kahney doesn't hopefully have a reason to feel anvious about the Mac love.

Dementic mymemory still getting married

2005-08-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

Updates to the story of an Internet personality's love life - now this gets interesting. In the updates this said person writes her name differently than before; "Iliana" intead of "Ileana" in the previous update... and goes to long details in their visa issues. Hmm - whichever it is. And the updates, smartly keeping the low profile, posting to a well known and widely read board in the Internet; "We are working the visas and paper work... what a nightmare!
So far and keeping everything very low profile because is getting so complicated. She can not obtain a tourist visa because she was rejected at the US embasy once about a year ago for no particular reason (well, the reason is that everybody wants to leave Venezuela).
And I am in the paperwork of my greencard and I can not include her at this particular time because I would need to proove I can supporther by showing a ridiculous amount of money (00,000) and my 3 latest taxes "things" and I have been here only for a year.
So... we are working around an artist visa O-1 for her because she is an actress."
I don't remember when I've seen so many typos, even by non-native English speakers. But to keep a low profile in the internet is always a good thing.

Where is Antigia - a country different from Antigua?

2005-08-03T14:06:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered where is Antigia? If you google for it, most hits are for Antigia, as a typo for Antigua and Barbuda or something similar.
Wikipedia does not know Antigia, but knows the place called Antigua.
Idem for Mapquest.

So .. due to running to this "Antigia" at work when dealing with system errors - there are constantly items that show in the system being shipped to Antigia - which constantly pisses me off, as all items sent to said Antigia, are acutally sold in UK, Spain, Holland, Sweden, France and so on. Said items are then supposed to be without warranty, but the very few reasons why some products of some kind would not have a warranty of the normal kind would be because of them having been sold in a small list of countries in the third world, mentioned in a specific list, which does not have neither Antigia nort Antigua... Due to me having to run to the error at work, I need to bug other people to solve this system or programming error every time I tun to this error, and I do not hide my being pissed off or treating some of the system people like idiots (they have proven how they deserve to be treated anyway, in their own responses).

So I have finally the winner. These people explained me where this country called Antigia is.

But I think that Antigia is really a small little country, like Liechtenstein, but tucked away in a small remote region between Finland and Russia. It has a population of 167 people who are now very impoverished, having lost their livelihood since the end of communism. It is rumoured that during the years of the Soviet Union, over 20 Billion dollars worth of computers and other high tech equipment and weaponry passed through Antigia from Finland to the Soviet Union, thus by-passing the strict US laws against shipping these products to known 'Communists". Although every citizen of Anitigia was a millionaire, they have since had to spend all their money keeping alive, and now have to live on food and old worn clothing donations from the few Finnish people who also made fortunes on this illegal trade. Of course, the country never made it onto any map of the world, because, officially, if did not (and still does not) exist. Wikipedia is maitained by its readers, and everytime anyone enters information about Antigia, it is instantly deleted by the person with the only remaining working computer in Antigia. So, you will never find it there. But, because of its reputation dealing in illegal goods, we have to classify it as IMC.

Now do you understand? It also explains how all those iPods have made it to the black Market just off Red Square in Moscow, doesn't it? :-)

A nice answer I got when wondering why there is such a place mentioned as "Antigia" in the company's all countries list.. so at least some people really earn their money. AT least this is the most stupid ever answer I have received from the people dealing with system errors. :-)

The sender nearly made me wow him for this masterpiece. The only reason I did not do so was the fact I bothered to use spotlight, and I found a few old issues in mailboxes dealt by the same person, which answer wise were all FUBAR.

Nevertheless, for anyone who ever wondered where this place called 'Antigia' is....

Amused by an Internet personality's love life, arrogance, and view of life in black and white

2005-07-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

Some people are amusing to read in the Internet.

One of my favorites or least favorites is this guy, aka Rei or mymemory. His life and evolution ... are very readable in Macrumors.

He has posted all the details about his love life, and how he was moving from Venezuela to Miami, USA, how the other Venezuelans could get a visa in US as well, dreaming of German women and his old prom date, what he thinks about sex, and now how he is getting married. Quite entertaining to browse all those other old threads, including when he was moving to Germany, dating an underaged girl, trying to tell how Latins NEVER sleep with other people when they are married, anatomy of the German love story...

Nothing beats this thread through - German culture - the lack of love. So based on this childish macho love fantasies and how some Steffi did not make him feel like he was the greatest lover on universe, his text in that thread has such pearls as "German people are arrogant and very selfish. They are very nice outside of Germany but once they come back they think they are the best. " (As if he has never read what he writes himself? So he is obviously lovely and the opposite of arrogant and selfish BOTH in USA and Venezuela) "And for those of you who are German your coments are not valid, I mean, your vision about relationship still in black and white." (as he is always so mature thinking, and sees life in technicolor, and so on).

So much has evolved. Now he makes his decision to get married in an instant messenger, tells "I met her a month ago exactly this 16th, 3 days after my father died (the 13th, a month ago).", as this must be a long enough time to know someone very well. Or, actually "No, he is write, adding all the days we have been actually together they barely add a week. The problems are our parents, actually her mother. My mother told me once to get married and then tell her, probably because my sister married twice and spent all the familly fortune on that and now she is getting back with her first husband andy way" ... so a week is enough to know the other. At least this Ileana looks a lot happier than Steffi did. Then "The big dilema is her visa, she can not optain a tourist visa but there is a finace visa and I am going to ask about t tomorrow. The issue was that now that things are getting tighter we need to be very careful with what we say to our parets because the situation is very demanding. She is in Venezuela nad I am here and i have to bring her here. If I marry her just liek that it doesn't work either because she is not going to get a social security number and won't eb able to work legaly, so we are looking for an O-1 visa like mine but for her because she is an actress too. " (the lawer is also an actress?) "One of the easy things is that I know her culture very well and I know whe her mind is going and comming from just because my point of views about life are actually bigger after being here in the US, so I can explain and tell things about herself better. That make her feel very safe with me" (Dating a German and trying to make his life in US have made his "points of view bigger"), "she has a fetish with being an schoo, girl. She actually look like a 19 year old and she see me like her "tutor"", "So... in a way, as we are very creative people we can manage to actually have ourselves all the time so far and do not feel disconnected. I have been there when you are emailing some one or talking on the phone and you feel they are different people. I do manage to be the same person in every media and it has to be constant." So that means he is as mature in the real life as he appears online.

Best of luck for him anyway. Even if this love story would not have the happy ending as he's dreaming of, I really doubt we'd see a thread titled "Venezuelan culture - the lack of love". I have some sort of difficulties imagining this guy actually living with somebody rather than living in a virtual life, but time will show. It will be interesting to see if he actually will change. Or if he will actually be more of what he describes himself in his resume; "Profile: Creative, proactive problem solver, team player, detail oriented, intuitive, dedicated and accurate..."

Internet visitor count whoring at Slashdot about the video iPods aka how to kill your life and future

2005-07-19T15:58:00.000-07:00

Internet visitor count whoring can be nasty when it's done at all costs. A nice example of this can be seen here.

"Steve Jobs has spoken with Disney President and soon-to-be CEO Bob Iger about ways to license various Disney content for a video iPod, according to an internal Disney email I have obtained."

Maybe think twice before stating something like that in the Internet, and even bothering to post a link to your blog in the same /. visitorcount whoring rumor. Or maybe this guy (or this?) will post again in a few days, telling how by some strange coincidence a friend of his at Disney's has been fired, and how he has lost all his fortune for some other company's lawers, whatever. If he gets himself /.ed for that time as well, he'll just prostitute himself for more visitors. Maybe that's after all what some people are looking for with their sites and blogs, even if it destroys their future and real life.

If Microsoft made airplanes...

2005-07-11T16:18:00.000-07:00

Microsoft making cars sounds like a funny perspective.

But imagine all the technical calls they would get...

"Park your car, and reboot it. See if that works."
"Your car's operating system is over 3 years old.. we don't support that old cars."
"It could be that your antivirus is affecting your engine, and causes your car to stop every time you reach 113 mph..."
"You are calling from a road that is not supported by your car. The road I-194 is supported by Macs and Windows 2014, and your Windows 2008 is not in the list of the drivers..."

Even better if they did planes.

"Microsoft Airlines technical support... You have free 120 days phone support after you buy your plane. May I have your aircraft's serial number please..."
"You are at the Airport? Airport Express, or an airport? Ah fine, just had to ask as we don't support Apple's products..."
"We don't support emergency landings. You should contact your airport for emergency landing instructions."
"You are out of the phone support... you could go and use Microsoft's web self service for free, and order that engine from there.. "
"No, burnt engines, exploded parts of the plane, wrong alerts and such are not covered, we consider those as abuse."
"Hm you said the plane is crashing? Restart it to see if that helps..."

Fighting international terrorism for the past millennium

2005-07-11T15:52:00.000-07:00

Terrorism, international terrorism, terrorist attack, terrorist alert, extreme Islam, security, fighting terrorism... Strong words, used to control the people, to make them accept whatever they want to be accepted, to not question or they will suddenly be stamped as the voices of Bin Laden, thus terrorists...

I like to keep things in perspective. If you don't know the history of the humanity for at least the past 2-3 thousand years, you are more or less living from hand to mouth.
So let's go back a few hundred years.

I chose the picture above for liking it. I wouldn't for sure wear that shirt when I'll fly, but I like it for giving a bit more perspective. Go back in the time to 1492. What did the good Europeans do? Stayed in the Americas less than 90 days, did not work...? And after all, they of course did nothing that could be described with the word terror or terrorism. What if the Native Americans would have been able to fight back the way US now is doing that? Go home, you white, religious freakos, and stay in Europe. Don't come to kill us, torture us, make us slaves, die for White diseases, lose our religion, deprive us from our land, cattle and women...

Go back to the same year or century, and follow again these white good guys. If around the parts of the world where you have Israel now there has been fighting and killing for the past few millennia, who knows which was worse, the Europeans doing what their pope and Catholic church asked them to do (steal and deprive them from the treasures and money, I mean to spread the Christian religion) or the people living there? Who after all invented all the fairytales in the original fairytale book about being special, selected people, stories that were later adopted by Christianity and Islam (same God, so why all the hassle?). I think I see these 'selected people' more innocent, simply as they lived there, whereas the Europeans were there for greed (religion, whatever).

Or go back another few centuries... Mediterranean Europe around 900 CE (Common Era). That wasn't far as Christian as most non-Mediterraneans think. It was the Arabic time in the Mediterraneo. Culturally far from barbaric, in arts and architecture and kitchen something amazing, creative ... the Churches were converted when the regions became governed by the Arabs to mosquees, only to be be re-converted back to churches a few hundred years later. How did these transfers from one power, governor, religion and so on happen, peacefully and with no fight? By suddenly the governing Arabs warning the people about the terrorists, starting a war against terrorism - Christianity? The religions and the people were cohabiting in the same cities, so the Jews lived their own way, the Muslims lived their own way, and the various Christians lived their own way. This before the Catholic church split to the reformed versions, before Luther and who ever invented that Jews actually had it wrong and so on. Until then the White people had all its crusades to convert the barbars, locals, to the Christianity (and take care of their treaswure on the same time), and they continued to crusade, to discover new continents (of which the non-White people had been unaware for thousands of years totally unaware - all they needed were the White Europeans to come and tell them that they did exist, and that they were inferior than them).

Once the reforms of the Church had started, they continued to occur on faster pace. Some of them probably went a bit wrong, a bit extreme, to the point of the religious freaks feeling oppressed in Europe. For being weird. So a few centuries after they went on their own crusades, looking for their promised land, to live in peace and sometimes converting the locals too. As Mormons and Amish and [insert a lot of small weird religious groups here] went to the Americas, they were for sure not the most scaring people around, and probably were for peace too. As they felt oppressed and not too welcome to stay in Europe, they didn't have any intent to stay in the continent less than 90 days, and to be just a turist, not working there either. Add groups of several, at least dozens of religious minorities, just an overdose of White people stealing, depriving, religiously converting...

Homeland Security lost its fight against the international terrorism pretty far. Yes there are a few million of Natives left, but compare it to pre-Columbus era, thus before 1492. Millions of people have innocently been killed for the name of God, religion, economical profit, greed. Religions were lost, as these White terrorists brang their own. Histories were rewritten, at least for all the continent, for its millions of Natives and all the tribes.

Just what if the Natives would have had the way to protect themselves? To send the Europeans back to Europe withing their 90 days, to have them transport the Africans back to Africa...

I am nowhere saying that killing is fine in this text. In fact, I don't think killing is acceptable ever.
I don't just think the media or the political powers have been very fair in regards of 9/11. What happened 11 September 2001 in New York or 7 July in London did lead to (a few) thousands (and tens) of innocent people die, but it has as well lead millions of people being terrorized daily, by the fear of the 'terrorist alerts' (just tell me when do you really think the terrorist alert color would go to green?) in the news, by people being terrorized mentally constantly. Terrorists this, terrorists that...

It has not been very nice time for those who are non-Christians, and who are not of White but Mid- or Far Eastern origin. Well, Jesus probably didn't physically look like a French lady, at least I would think it's not very likely he was blond and with the traditional features as he has when presented in the European traditional religious arts and presentations. Genetically, being from those parts of the World, he probably was far closer looking like Osama Bin Laden than a French lady.

People are not terrorists only because and if they happen to be of non-Christian religion. People are not automatically non-terrorists only because they are Christians. In the name of religious tolerance I feel the development has been backwords - as if it was now unacceptable to be a Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, any non-Christian... including the Native religions.

Microsoft did it again

2005-07-02T15:56:00.000-07:00

Microsoft does it again. Their new spyware removal program is, like many of the products Microsoft markets, running on a Powerbook G4. So on the first page you can see now this picture:

I would not personally want to have Microsoft's spyware removal programs running on my Mac.

I am a statistics

2005-06-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

Hollywood (Apple) & Intel

2005-06-06T14:39:00.000-07:00

I am not very happy about this -- about what the article talks about.

I it's really about Hollywood: Apple's looking to transform the movie industry the same way the iPod and iTunes changed the music business.[...]

Apple -- or rather, Hollywood -- wants the Pentium D to secure an online movie store[...]

Released just few days ago, the dual-core chips include a hardware copy protection scheme that prevents "unauthorized copying and distribution of copyrighted materials from the motherboard," according to PC World.

Intel's DRM scheme has been kept under wraps -- to prevent giving clues to crackers -- but the company has said it will allow content to be moved around a home network, and onto suitably-equipped portable devices.

And that's why the whole Mac platform has to shift to Intel. Consumers will want to move content from one device to another -- or one computer to another -- and Intel's DRM scheme will keep it all nicely locked down. [...]

Will current Mac users like this new locked-down platform?[...]

The Apple & Intel was announced today.

Ode to Newton

2005-06-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

The Newton's history. As far as the story goes before it really even starts...
#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 Wired's #8 #9 #10. The #8 has the best up to date story, even if it's 3 years old by now - still works the same way. Still same legend. Still amazing. In the sense of how it has changed my personal life too.

Now enough of the anandtech

2005-06-05T07:38:00.000-07:00

All the net junkies have seen the Anandtech's G5 bashing article (from /.). This and its comments add something to the above article. Of course still, all the creative professionals must use mysql as one of their main tools when they get a G5... .

Apple G5, Intel Pentium inside

2005-06-05T03:33:00.000-07:00

The project is nearly done. The last step(s) left to do:

* Wire the front panel to the main logic board - this should be easy as I have the pinouts for the cable that plugs into it. That means I can use the power button, firewire, usb, and audio jacks (and gee the firewire may actually work). This also means I can remove the temporary power button that you may see poking out of the rear fan vent.
* Play with cable and hose routing - just need to clean it up a bit more.
* Replace main logic board fan (its broken, VERY noisy and soon to be disconnected).
* Install low noise fans in rear - not TOO necessary since this runs nice and cool, but i want to get that waste heat out of the box.
* Find alternate power supply that matches better to the rear port - pipe dream, but you never know what to find. A friend and I are looking into what it would take to rewire a Power Mac G5 power supply which would also resolve the cable routing issue.

and my ultimate todo - have the Apple laser cut out of the side panel door and mount some lucite in its place. A nice blue glow would look good coming out of where the apple was.

System Specs:

* One Power Mac G5 case
* Gigabyte GA-8INXP (Complete specs on the mlb) which includes built-in:
- 5 speaker audio
- gigabit ethernet
- 4 IDE channels (2 supporting raid)
- 2 Serial ATA channels (both supporting raid)
- dual bios images on the board
- dual VRM modules (odd but /shrug)
* Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz CPU
* Samsung 2.5 GB PC2100 DDR RAM
* Samsung DVD+RW Optical Drive
* Western Digital 120 GB ATA/100 Hard Drive
* GeForce4 4600 with 128 MB RAM AGP Video Card
* 400 Watt Power Supply
* Thermaltake liquid cooling system (its soso but quiet, I have a Swiftech setup on the xeon box, much nicer)
* 4 port USB 2.0 PCI Card (needed the internal USB port to power the neon)

Side view with lights on, shows the upper drive tray that was cut to fit the hard drive(s) underneath the optical drive. I sorta like how it looks in this orientation.

Open side with lights off - Here, you can see the blue led lights added. Ok, so it looks pimped, but I sort of like it. The small blue fan on the right came with the main logic board, the reddish glow to the left is the waterpump which has a status light (it goes out if the pump isn't working).

More pictures will eventually be uploaded here.

Who needs Windows?

2005-05-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

Who needs Windows? Interesting article to read, and discussed in /. too. It would be nice to see that Windows-free world, however I doubt that would happen. Just like nobody needs in the end branded clothes, who cares for Adidas or Louis Vuitton - does that make Adidas or Louis Vuitton disappear? People still buy luxury clothes even though they know that there are alternatives. For computers - unless they have tried or at least searched for themselves, XP is just XP, and most people just don't consider anything else to start with.

Get some QuickTime 7 Pro functionality for free in your QuickTime 7

2005-05-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

You don't actually need to get Quicktime 7 to get all its functionalities.
Some of them can be conquered with simple AppleScript.

Movie plays in fullscreen:

on run
tell application "QuickTime Player"
activate
present movie 1
end tell
end run

Audio recording:

tell application "QuickTime Player"
activate
new audio recording
end tell

Video recording:

tell application "QuickTime Player"
activate
new movie recording
end tell

Voila'! They work correctly in QuickTime 7 non-Pro version. :)

And this works in Quicktime 6 as well:

on open theMovie
tell application "QuickTime Player"
activate
set request to display dialog "Select a scaling, fool!" with icon ¬
note buttons {"normal", "double", "screen"} default button "screen"
if button returned of request is "normal" then
open theMovie
present movie 1 scale normal
else if button returned of request is "double" then
open theMovie
present movie 1 scale double
else if button returned of request is "screen" then
open theMovie
present movie 1 scale screen
end if
end tell
end open

Save that as an application, and drag the file you want to see as a full screen movie to that application.

The funniest ever article at Slashdot

2005-05-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

Funniest thing at slashdot, ever. *Microsoft* making cars that don't crash?
That will be a redifinition of the blue screen of death.
"Your car is running Windows 2008 - this road supports only Windows 2011 or better - please update".
"Microsoft cannot detect your car's Windows licence. Please contact Microsoft technical support if you want to drive this car".
"Your car radio has been disabled since Windows has detect that the analog radio you are listening to is not using Windows DRM".
Besides ... if Windos "It just works" new slogan is as Windows products are generally, I have no desire to know what their cars are like.
What would it be to drive a Mac then?

CD to annoy your neighbors

2005-05-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

An interesting CD - the most annoying sounds. I feel I want that. Not to annoy our house mates - they are nice, but ... would be just nice to have.
However I feel more creative myself, so I rather make such CD myself. Open Source even - so others could enjoy it as well. Any ideas for tracks to add?
- Annoying Germans bitching about stuff
- Annoying Germans argueing
- Germans eating (loud)
- German marriage crisis
- Irish rat dogs barking
- Ice cream car
- Some Abba tracks, possibly as karaoke
- Teenagers screaming
- Teenagers giggling loudly
- Baby crying
- Tap leaking drop by drop
- Finnish tangos
- Random adults loudly intimate
- Random adults loudly intimate in shower
- Men watching football on TV when they are winning
- Men watching football on TV when they are loosing
- Running wooden stairs up and down
- Bed making noise while being used by more than one person
- Loud annoying laughter (adult male, and adult female)
- Snoring, several kinds of
- Bitching mum screaming and yelling at her kids, and kids screaming and crying back
- Loud and giggling, drunk woman screaming while getting laid
- Germans argueing in kitchen and breaking kitchenware
- Standard Nokia ringtone
- ICQ and msn messenger new messages arriving
That would probably be enough for the CD 1. Or have I forgotten something essentially annoying?

I really hate spam #2

2005-05-01T11:13:00.000-07:00

I really hate spam.
80% of spam received by Internet users in North America and Europe can be traced via aliases and addresses, redirects, hosting locations of sites and domains, to a hard-core group of around 200 known spam operations. Top 10 of the worst, and the worst #2 #3.

IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

2005-05-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

I do hate spam, but this one is the best I have ever seen.

From: <######>
Subject: IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
Date: Sat,30 Apr 2005 19:29:00 -0100

IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED
: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

FROM: GEORGE WALKER BUSH
DEAR SIR / MADAM,

I AM GEORGE WALKER BUSH, SON OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH, AND CURRENTLY SERVING AS PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE
NOT MET NEITHER IN PERSON NOR BY CORRESPONDENCE. I CAME TO KNOW OF YOU IN MY
SEARCH FOR A RELIABLE AND REPUTABLE PERSON TO HANDLE A VERY CONFIDENTIAL
BUSINESS TRANSACTION, WHICH INVOLVES THE TRANSFER OF A HUGE SUM OF MONEY TO
AN ACCOUNT REQUIRING MAXIMUM CONFIDENCE.

I AM WRITING YOU IN ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE PRIMARILY TO SEEK YOUR ASSISTANCE IN
ACQUIRING OIL FUNDS THAT ARE PRESENTLY TRAPPED IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ. MY
PARTNERS AND I SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE IN COMPLETING A TRANSACTION BEGUN BY
MY FATHER, WHO HAS LONG BEEN ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN THE EXTRACTION OF PETROLEUM
IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND BRAVELY SERVED HIS COUNTRY AS DIRECTOR
OF THE UNITED STATES CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.

IN THE DECADE OF THE NINETEEN-EIGHTIES, MY FATHER, THEN VICE-PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SOUGHT TO WORK WITH THE GOOD OFFICES OF THE
PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ TO REGAIN LOST OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE
NEIGHBORING ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN. THIS UNSUCCESSFUL VENTURE WAS SOON
FOLLOWED BY A FALLING OUT WITH HIS IRAQI PARTNER, WHO SOUGHT TO ACQUIRE
ADDITIONAL OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORING EMIRATE OF KUWAIT, A
WHOLLY-OWNED U.S.-BRITISH SUBSIDIARY.

MY FATHER RE-SECURED THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF KUWAIT IN 1991 AT A COST OF
SIXTY-ONE BILLION U.S. DOLLARS ($61,000,000,000). OUT OF THAT COST,
THIRTY-SIX BILLION DOLLARS ($36,000,000,000) WERE SUPPLIED BY HIS PARTNERS
IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA AND OTHER PERSIAN GULF MONARCHIES, AND
SIXTEEN BILLION DOLLARS ($16,000,000,000) BY GERMAN AND JAPANESE PARTNERS.
BUT MY FATHER'S FORMER IRAQI BUSINESS PARTNER REMAINED IN CONTROL OF THE
REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ITS PETROLEUM RESERVES.

MY FAMILY IS CALLING FOR YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE IN FUNDING THE REMOVAL OF
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ACQUIRING THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF
HIS COUNTRY, AS COMPENSATION FOR THE COSTS OF REMOVING HIM FROM POWER.
UNFORTUNATELY, OUR PARTNERS FROM 1991 ARE NOT WILLING TO SHOULDER THE BURDEN
OF THIS NEW VENTURE, WHICH IN ITS UPCOMING PHASE MAY COST THE SUM OF 100
BILLION TO 200 BILLION DOLLARS ($100,000,000,000 - $200,000,000,000), BOTH
IN THE INITIAL ACQUISITION AND IN LONG-TERM MANAGEMENT.

WITHOUT THE FUNDS FROM OUR 1991 PARTNERS, WE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO ACQUIRE
THE OIL REVENUE TRAPPED WITHIN IRAQ. THAT IS WHY MY FAMILY AND OUR
COLLEAGUES ARE URGENTLY SEEKING YOUR GRACIOUS ASSISTANCE. OUR DISTINGUISHED
COLLEAGUES IN THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION INCLUDE THE SITTING VICE-PRESIDENT
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, RICHARD CHENEY, WHO IS AN ORIGINAL PARTNER
IN THE IRAQ VENTURE AND FORMER HEAD OF THE HALLIBURTON OIL COMPANY, AND
CONDOLEEZA RICE, WHOSE PROFESSIONAL DEDICATION TO THE VENTURE WAS
DEMONSTRATED IN THE NAMING OF A CHEVRON OIL TANKER AFTER HER.

I WOULD BESEECH YOU TO TRANSFER A SUM EQUALING TEN TO TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT
(10-25 %) OF YOUR YEARLY INCOME TO OUR ACCOUNT TO AID IN THIS IMPORTANT
VENTURE. THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL
FUNCTION AS OUR TRUSTED INTERMEDIARY. I PROPOSE THAT YOU MAKE THIS TRANSFER
BEFORE THE FIFTEENTH (15TH) OF THE MONTH OF APRIL.

I KNOW THAT A TRANSACTION OF THIS MAGNITUDE WOULD MAKE ANYONE APPREHENSIVE
AND WORRIED. BUT I AM ASSURING YOU THAT ALL WILL BE WELL AT THE END OF THE
DAY. A BOLD STEP TAKEN SHALL NOT BE REGRETTED, I ASSURE YOU. PLEASE DO BE
INFORMED THAT THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO
CO-OPERATE IN THIS TRANSACTION, PLEASE CONTACT OUR INTERMEDIARY
REPRESENTATIVES TO FURTHER DISCUSS THE MATTER.

I PRAY THAT YOU UNDERSTAND OUR PLIGHT. MY FAMILY AND OUR COLLEAGUES WILL BE
FOREVER GRATEFUL. PLEASE REPLY IN STRICT CONFIDENCE TO THE CONTACT NUMBERS
BELOW.

SINCERELY WITH WARM REGARDS,

GEORGE WALKER BUSH

Switchboard: 202.456.1414 Comments: 202.456.1111 Fax: 202.456.2461 Email:
president@whitehouse.gov --

Better ad blocking than PithHelmet for Safari

2005-04-30T03:50:00.000-07:00

Save userContent.css somewhere like home:Library:Safari) and then launch Safari. Go to the Preferences... menu item, and choose the Advanced tab. Use the stylesheet popup to choose the new userContent.css file. And it works, without even restarting Safari. All ads gone.

I have to admit I got tired of PithHelmet, always telling me how many ads it has blocked. Bye bye PithHelmet.

And here for how to add the same as customized ad blocking as you want in any other browser.

Internet statistics

2005-04-26T14:31:00.000-07:00

Now they say that emails pose threat to IQ (my mum is a living proof TV is a far worse influence for intellect), and that kids with internet at home learn worse than those who have only books home... adults have no clue what their minors are bwrowsing, and those who think they have a clue the results for kids are worse. and they amazingly found out that people who don't need to use internet for work, use it mostly for browsing.

Links for the bored surfer

2005-04-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

I remember when I was a kid, I used to go to a physical library often, and loan a bit pile of books often, spending a lot more time in the public library than in my parents living room.

Now that I'm older, i do miss the libraries sometimes. But when I find something equally interesting in the net, I will be entertained the same way for hours and days. Like yesterday, feeling a bit icky and feverish, I ran to these libraries, which for sure entertained yesterday and will entertain today and so on. The same "I want to read this all" (skipping the annoying parts), which I had not encountered for a long time in the material not regarding work.

So some of the articles that are interesting... (random new ones).

So, a new way of looking at the Bible, with its errors, discrepancies, #2, and incests and so on, John Paul II history, far different from the pope John XII, or from Pope Linus, John Paul I, John VIII / Joan (the first female pope), occult stuff (like numerology, Nostradamus and witchcraft).

September 11 theories #2, Carlyle Group and an interesting trivia about Osama Bin Laden - his father dies in plane crash, San Antonio TX in 1968.

Area 51 theories, terrorism in general and techniques, generic conspiracy theories, American concentration camps and something hilarious about the temp agencies.

Eunuchs, incest myths, the folder of generic sex and links to a lot of concepts and trivia about it, SARS... interesting enough surfing to keep me inside the house all day, when it is a barbeque weather outside.

Apple-Expo Paris 2005 registering open

2005-04-22T15:43:00.000-07:00

Apple-Expo has opened the registering for this years expo (20-24 September, in Paris).

Tiger and new stores

2005-04-22T14:41:00.000-07:00

Next Friday, 29 April, Apple Store Birmingham (UK) will open. That is the second official retail store of Apple in Europe, and the only others that are outside US* are the stores in Japan )full list). That occurring the same day OS X 10.4 will be released makes it sound like a very interesting night for the sales for both Bullring, and all other retail stores. At least Longhorn will not compete for Tiger for a long time, since it will take another year and a half before it will out for public.

Vivek Sambhara leaked out the 10.4 pre-release to p2p networks earlier, was caught for it, and I am amazed he is not in any more trouble for that.

* More stores in Texas will open later this year.

Mac OS X viruses part 2

2005-04-22T14:11:00.000-07:00

Back to the topic of Mac OS X and computer viruses / virii... Interestingly Wired faces the same concerns. The bigger market share, the bigger interest in writing viruses. Also for just commercial point of view -- the anti-virus industry is not that innocent either. After all, they sell the software, make money out of it. At least on the pc side.

Mail.app alternatives (gnumail, mutt and so on)

2005-04-17T16:21:00.000-07:00

I want to change the email client from mail.app to something that I like more. No clue which to go for, so I have to try the various options on the list

Mutt is great, when you don't mid using vim .. it is actually very effective too - however I think to make that work, to bypass the firewalls etc it may take some effort again.
Gnumail isn't bad, maybe my 2nd option, if it runs on 10.4.
Sweetmail looks funny.
Thunderbird felt cheap, and the integration with addressbook was poor, I used it a year ago, and didn't like it - M tried it in January, and it hasn't improved its usability. However it still bypasses all the MS provided options. For some reasons I do want to not have nay Mircosoft products on my Mac at all, so there is no reason to go to Entourage -- call it not accepting the end user licence (when there is the site licenced version), and if that is not enough, then the unwillingness to have zombies running on my system. (The only times I had zombie problems was when I had MS office installed - OpenOffice may be ugly, but no zombies).

Mutt seems so far the best. Even though mail.app's search is not a joke any more, it still lacks options I need, does not allow me to control everything, and amazingly the most satisfactory experience of all email clients goes to the one with least gui. So it's all in you key strokes which ever will be the fastest and most versatile to use.

There doesn't really feel to be anything out there that I would like more. At least of any unix, open source or other free versions. Time to create your own, or accept what is out there. Let's see what I decide within a few weeks - probably it will be mutt + vim.

Devonagent doesn't like me

2005-04-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

Devonagent doesn't want to work for me. It does not make any sense... doesn't work at home with the Powerbook - ok, I am behind APX, but it doesn't work at work either - behind an interesting firewall. It can not be nor APX since Sergio has it running behind APX and linksys, and I saw people at work test it under similar network / firewall settings. So at work it does not run neither on the G5 nor on the eMac. All with the same error - does not find any data.
It can't be even using a weird port, since otehr people with same settings and from same location get it work. I don't get it.

Pipes trigger panic

2005-04-15T01:14:00.000-07:00

Interesting things behind and challanging kernel panics.

Burn away

2005-04-14T16:13:00.000-07:00

I don't know how long can I keep the current pace in the life. Work around the clock to numb the pain, and at work and home and asleep and everywhere, be reminded of what I don't want to know (what I can't deal with, what I can't control over life, what I just have to get over), and just keep going until I crash. I crash asleep every night, don't ever get enough sleep, and during the day for this, I notice my brain is sometimes not working in any given language.
I can be days without feeling hunger, and I can't imagine it not becoming even more chronic.
I feel sucked out of energy in the life. Like a candle reaching its end.

Kernel panic on a Sony Ericsson P800 (Symbian phone)

2005-04-11T14:57:00.000-07:00

I had something that I would call a kernel panic on my phone today.

Program closed "Program AppArcServer =Thread Reason code: KERN-EXEC Reason number:3" more specificly.

I did not know a symbian phone could have a kernel panic, but you learn something new every day. I also learned what had caused it - some application that wants me to go and download more (paid) applications - the program relaunched after I had restarted the phone (after removing the battery to be able to shutdown it). No thank you. If I want any applications, I go look for them. It tried the "It is highly recommended that you.." as if there were any real updates. No thank you program, please do not launch ever again unless I ask you to.

Mac OS X virii & Automator

2005-04-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

Automator scares me.
It's a cliché to say that there are no virii for OS X. That's how it is now, and I am amazed so far no one seems to have fully understood the malicious potential of Automator. Must be that the developer mind is innocent, so all the preadded command pieces in Automator are only innocent, and can be used just to increase productivity. Right. Just don't analyze how you could actually use the code, and let all those "send to everyone in AddressBook", "mass mail", and commands that I don't comment (being able to apply unix commands has the most potential) float in the mind, on the level of just optimizing your PDF workflow...
Execute unix commands, delete files, transform them to other formats, apply the mass emailing to anything, ... the potential scares me. Writing workflows may have never been easier (except if you ever bothered to learn e.g. AppleScript basics?), but on the flipside it looks that anyone on AOL user level is able to write his (I do classify personally everything that enables massmail and deleting files at least potentially malicious) own code with that. Maybe it will need a 13 years old kid to realize with a bunch of C++, Objective-C, or Cocoa to realize the full potential.
If so would be, maybe finally there would be market for OS X anti-virus programs. DIY virii with GUI. How many bad codes, or epidemies, would it take to add a warning to Automator? When will our government make rules about using any scripts at work?
I am still not able to do what I wanted to with Automator - an idea for a script that I had months and months ago. It didn't work then, and it does not work now. But that would have been for my own, positive use. So in Mac OS X there are no virii from 10.0 until 10.3.x. So far. What about 10.4? As long as Automator code can be limited to influence the environment it was created for, and the computer it was created for, probably nothing to worry. Except the mass mailing.

Melancony bytes

2005-04-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

Melancony in the musics that put it so much better that I would today with anything coming out directly from my keyboard.

Cuántos amigos ausentes
como yo recordarán...
esas noches de verbena,
esas noches de alegría,
y este tango que se oía
entre copas de champán...
A pan y agua...

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, Worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, Going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, No expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, No tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
These dreams in which i'm dying, Are the best I've ever had

In my dreams I'm dying all the time
As I wake its kaleidoscopic mind
I never meant to hurt you
I never meant to lie
So this is goodbye
This is goodbye
Tell the truth you never wanted me
Tell me
In my dreams I'm jealous all the time
As I wake I'm going out of my mind
Going out of my mind

Even though life has changed a lot in the past few [time], the melancony is still here when I am alone.

Dirty php

2005-04-10T09:37:00.000-07:00

Who says you can't program dirty in php?

<?php
/* set level of interest */
$forplay=true;
$sex="sure";
$dirtyPhrase = array["again", "yes, yes", "don't stop","deeper!"];

while (i<10; i++) {
if ($forplay == true) {
smile(true);
flirt(true);
kiss(true);
slap(true);
tickle(true);
squeeze butt(true);
kiss a lot more(true);
} else {
excuse ("I have a headache.");
}

if ($sex == "sure") {
/* undress */
shirt(off);
pants(off);
bra(off);
echo $dirtyPhrase[1];
panties(off);
echo $dirtyPhrase[3];
sex(normal);

}else{
excuse ("cold shower");
}
}

?>

Killing zombies in terminal

2005-04-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

Cleaning my iPods. One had all OS untill 8.5 - why would I need them on the iPod? (I wouldn't, if I had any space on my portable hard drive, sigh). Another iPod got just rid of 1.5 GB of Newton software. Shuffle will get rid of everything that is reconverted. And maybe get some space as a USB stick (even though I notice I do 'need' to have memory sticks of the size of a few DVDs).

Among the interesting items I had on the iPods... old chat transcripts. Old photos of my 1/2, and some unix sfuff.
Of those, something useful might be killing the zombie processes.
ps aux | grep Z

Mac OS X essential additions for applications

2005-04-10T07:10:00.000-07:00

I promised to make a list of the most used non-prof apps for a friend, and how to install's them, for a newly converted OS X user friend (with Windows and various Linux background). But maybe it will be useful for some others too, so here we go.

CD and DVD burning
You can use Finder, Disk Utility (in Applications / Utilities), or Toast (not freeware), or FireStarter FX (free).

Browsing & Email
Safari is pretty good (came with your system), but you may want to try Camino or Firefox too. An alternative to mail.app of OS X is Thunderbird, which now probably has better Addressbook integration. And Shiira is based on Safari, also worth a try (some more possibilities).

Messengers
AdiumX (free) has AIM, iChat (.mac), ICQ, YIM, msn, Apple Rendezvous, anything you want and you can have multiple accounts on each service, and you can make the gui look exactly as you enjoy. There are a few other alternatives too - Fire (free), Proteus (shareware, works as well free). iChat is of probably enough for you if you use only AIM or iChat messenging, but at least AdiumX is worth a try. And for voice chats and free telephony, try Skype for talking for people with ANY operating system, or via phone. Currently Skype seems to have better audio quality in less than T1 bandwidth than iChat.

Privacy
Privoxy and Tor (bundled to Tor, freeware) may be worth a try. I have home issues with that since I am too lazy to open port 8118 in the wireless base.
For encryption needs, I would suggest GPG (GnuPG), basically a free replacement for PGP. Macgpg is the best and easisest for OS X. (In short: first install GNU Privacy Guard, then PGPreferences, then GPG Keychain access, after that you do want to install Sente.ch mail.app plugin - done it all in that order makes it work, so 30 minutes of maximum hassle, and you have encryption). Thawte is another way of obtaining a free digital certificate, and probably easier to use. If you attach your digital signature to your emails, and have the signature of someone you will send email to, you can encrypt with thawte as well.

Other apps
Subethaedit is a nice free code editor / notepad, with which you can edit the same code with your friends over bonjour/rendezvous or internet. iJournal is a nice editor for LJ, or for generic a href type editing, faster than coding manually for sure - also XJournal seems to be nice.
Search at Apple's site is your friend for trying to figure how to do something with OS X.

Another Saturday evening

2005-04-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

La vida es tenerte a ti
Ver que tus ojos tienen ganas de mi
Tu corazon es mi pais
Si me faltaras no sabria vivir
Y no hay dudas
Mi amor ya no tiene cura
Nada tengo si tu no estas
Desde que legaste ya no hay nadie mas
Porque te quiero tener
Una y otra vez , orta vez
Es porque comprendo que sin ti no se vivir

Sounds ickily sweet? I was listening to 80's sweet music all day, such as Laura Pausini and Nek. I ran to the city, planned to do some shopping but I am not me without my other 1/2. This week has been pain, not a morning woken up rested. I turn around and around in my sleep, and the past few days I have cried more than in a long time.
I wish I would wake up, and be full again.

Soledade

2005-04-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

Soledad, soledade, solitudine... That is what I feel when I am barely half of me. Or exactly half of me, but the missing half makes me feel that I am no more than 10 % of me, or even less.