From Facebook, as a response to a friend posting the YouTube video of Keith Olbermann talking about the ground zero “mosque” below:
Randy Calhoun: I do oppose racism but opposing the defacing of a memorial site is not racism. Blind hatred is wrong!! But would anyone be okay with a Hitler Statue right next door to a Holicaust Memorial? Yes! We wouldn’t think that the Jews were racist against Germans would we? There is a problem because of the circumstances. Radical islamists (and yes they do recruit and meet at mosques) killed AMERICANS (with no regard for race) there in 2001. People are not protesting a mosque for being a mosque the are protesting where they are putting it. Also interesting is how Olbermann is a Liberal (translated “Socialist”) and how the Nazis were “National Socialists”. He is a Facist if you ask me just like Hitler. Maybe he is against the extermination of a people, but he is for limiting of the rights of the INDIVIDUAL which is the only true protection of anyones Rights. (The smallest of all minorites is the individual.)
My response: ”He is a Facist if you ask me just like Hitler.” Are you fucking serious? Comparing a journalist to the architect of mass extermination of a people? The ignorance is amazing that you would take the leap from Liberal to “Socialist” to “Fascist” to Hitler. Take a look at so called “Socialist” countries in the free world that are doing just fine: Germany, France, much of Europe. Socialism is not evil. You may not agree with the concept, but it is not a form of government that is inherently evil. It scares you because Fox News tells you it’s bad, and combined with your ignorance of it becomes evil in your mind.
Our country was founded on religious freedom, let’s not take that away from anyone. Once they break the law, however, they will be dealt with. Don’t think for a second they won’t be under heavy scrutiny, maybe even unfairly so.
Like Keith Olbermann says, the Muslim community center (read: not Mosque) will have a culinary school and basketball court. Let them have their terrorist chefs and terrorist point guards.
And while they train these terrorists to make souflees and free throws, think of this: David Koresh and the KKK are to fundamental Christianity as Al Queda and terrorism is to Islam.
This topic, I’m sure, has been blogged about and hashed and rehashed a million times, but here it goes anyway. Stream of consciousness about reality TV:
The banality of evil is a well broached subject. However, the banality of existence and subjugation is a topic I have not studied in any extent. We live in an age of relative painlessness.
Do you have a headache? Take an Aspirin™. Diarrhea? Pepto Bismol. Hereticism? Well, not so clear. We live in a state where free speech is valued and (almost) expected. In other countries where publishing my thoughts may be met with a sentence of death, we are fortunate enough to live in the United States, where as long as it’s not blatantly subversive to the common good, it’s allowed.
Anyway, back to my main topic of reality TV. One of the primary side-effects of this unobstructed freedom is the subconscious realization that life without pain is 100% boring.
And how else do we cope with this boredom in a country constricted on all sides by the media? We delve into the abyss that is reality TV. In this comfort we find our humanity: fear, danger, pain, and discomfort.
With that random bit of jagged thought, I leave you with this, a quote from Alduos Huxley’s A Brave New World:
Said the Controller (authority figure in the Uptopian society in the book):
“We prefer to do things comfortably.”
“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
“In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.”
“All right then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.”
“Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen to-morrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.” There was a long silence.
“I claim them all,” said the Savage at last.
This is a response to an article I found out about here (original article by TechRadar here), which states the following:
In a shocking announcement, Tech Radar declares Linux non-sexy with appeal only to nerds, geeks and basement dwellers. In an article addressing the challenges faces by Linux in it’s ongoing quest to unseat either Windows or Mac OS as a mainstream operating system, Tech Radar concludes that lack of sex appeal is it’s biggest obstacle.
Citing the iPad as an example of what the open source community is lacking, Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation says that for Linux to jump ahead in popularity, a little magic and sex appeal will go a long way.
Other factors cited include the massive cost for businesses to switch operating systems and the fact that no one company or organization can be held 100% accountable and responsible for the quality and capability of Linux systems.
Re: Motivation
First, I take issue with your assertion that Linux is attempting to “unseat” Microsoft or Apple in the OS market. Certain for-profit companies may have this goal (Google, etc.), but open source in general is not by definition about unseating anything. It is about open standards, community driven software development, and in general providing quality code to the world at large. This, while allowing profit to be a by-product of that effort.
I mentioned Google. If you’re looking for a “sexy” Linux, have a look at any recent phone with Android at it’s core. Google’s recent acquisition of Bumptop is a good indication that they plan to make a “sexy” iPad-like device in the near future.
Re: Sexiness
I do agree that most people just want their OS to “work” and don’t care about tinkering with it. Maybe your argument is that Linux isn’t “sexy” out of the box. While Windows 7 does look good immediately after first install, good luck adding anything to it without paying more and more as you go along.
Gnome, in my opinion, has never been all that pleasing to the eye (although Ubuntu 10.04 looks good). Pick up any recent distribution of KDE (4.0+) and you will see a world of difference and customizability.
http://kuartetdesktop.sourceforge.net/images/screenshots/current/default1.jpg
http://boogiestu.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/kubuntu_kde4_01.png
http://blog.trollgod.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/kde42_-_desktop4.png
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_R4XrRuDZwiE/SlldC1d5XdI/AAAAAAAAANs/DaHaQ15cwxs/s400/kde4.3_desktop1
http://thomascomputerrepair.com/images/desktop_kde4_2.jpg
But you know what the even more beautiful part of any Linux distribution is? If you don’t like KDE, or it takes up too much resources, simply install a different desktop environment, and boom, you’ve got a totally different desktop experience.
Re: Accountability
In organizations that need accountability (such as the defense contractor my employer contracts to), they can have easily by choosing one of the major players in Linux distributions. We install Red Hat Linux on both servers and 150+ workstations, and have no problem passing all Federal inspections and receiving support from Red Hat. So, while your argument that no _one_ organization is responsible for Linux is factually correct, it’s soft because once an organization does choose a major Linux distribution for their environment the can have all the support they want (see Oracle, IBM, Novell, Red Hat, etc).
In my opinion (and that of many expert software engineers), is that the bazaar* model in which many people throughout the world contribute and develop an open source system, is much more beneficial to the community and the world at large than having one monolithic organization fix issues as it is profitable to them. In case the link doesn’t come through, see RSAnimate on Youtube, specifically the video called “Drive”. Skip to 7:11 for the information relevant to my point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
* – Also see The Cathedral and the Bazaar, 1-56592-724-9.
So I guess KarmaLoop liked the background I made from scratch a long time ago so much that they ripped it off and used it as their own.
Nice. I know, I know; it’s only a background. Still … somehow I feel cheated when something of mine is stolen and used by a company, be it small or large.
Take a look:
For a while after upgrading my work system to Fedora 12, my sound wasn’t working. After ridiculous amounts of searching through extensive instructions on how to fix it, I stumbled on a solution today. For my system, ALSA sound worked just fine (found this out by trying the ALSA output plugin in audacious).
In / etc / pulse / default.pa, I changed the line from
# load-module module-alsa-sink
to
load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:0,0
Then, killed and restarted pulseaudio as such:
$ pkill pulseaudio
$ pulseaudio -D
When I heard the pop in my headphones I knew something went right and soon had sound in both Google Chrome (YouTube) and in Audacious. Sweet!
Ctrl + Shift + T : reopens the last closed tab. Good stuff; I love hotkeys, especially when I accidentally discover a useful one. 
Running Fedora 11, I forgot I installed Google Gadgets, so while I’m waiting for PEAR to install, I figured I’d register my disappointment here.
All of them look relatively decent, but unfortunately the 4 or so I’ve tried (out of hundreds, I know), aren’t SVG. So that means when I make them bigger to show off, they distort. :-/
I had this post all written up and lost it all by absent mindedly upgrading WordPress at the same time. Which, on a side note, I’m very happy with. The automatic update seems to work pretty well now, along with updating the plugins I have installed. The process was flawless.
So anyway, this is supposed to be about travelling. Yesterday around 16:30 I barely made it to DTW for my flight. I left with plenty of time to spare, but managed to get caught in a torrential downpour; the kind that so heavily hits your windshield you can’t see more than ten feet of traffic in front of you. I guess that was going to be the least of my worries.
I managed to get on the flight, even though to automatic check in was complaining about me not being there 30 minutes prior. “You may be in luck”, said the US Air check-in employee, “they haven’t closed the flight yet”. Luck isn’t really what I would call it, in retrospect.
After a 40 minute delay in the flight time, we sat on the flight line for an hour without A/C while they refuelled the plan and got the A/C working. Forty-five minutes into our patient wait they started pulling off passengers that were headed to the west coast, because they wouldn’t make their flights. US Air claimed this was because there were no other flights for those people to their final destinations, but that worried me, too.
Long story short, I missed the connecting flight and ended up stuck in Charlotte by myself for much longer than I expected. It seems everyone else will get to San Diego before I will…
They rebooked me on a flight that left at 07:20; that is just disgustingly early after having ingested as much scotch as I did at McKoy’s the night before. McKoy’s is a pretty cool little bar within walking distance from the Sheraton hotel US Air was nice enough to let me sleep in. There is definitely some interesting local “color” there, and plenty to drink scotch-wise. Johnny Walker Black, Green, and Gold were available, and after some joking I convinced Angelo, our New Jersey-born bartender to pour my drinks extra heavy. There was definitely no shortage of alcohol in my drinks from then on.
Oddly enough, I ended up talking geek stuff in the form of Qt and Linux programming with another guy that was also stranded in the area. It was definitely an amusing experience; I even bought a McKoy’s t-shirt. lol
That shirt is now inside out as I sit with a four piece chicken snack from “BoJangles”. Yes, I’m eating chicken from a place that shares a name with an SNL skit featuring Will Ferrell and a dog. It’s not too bad, considering I only paid forty cents for it after my five dollar meal voucher from US Air.
Anyway, this post has gotten way too long; if you have my Facebook check the videos on there later; should be amusing. 
Chris Walter/WireImage.Com
It’s not technique — it’s what you have to say.
I got the mumps. They threw me in a crib so I wouldn’t roll out onto the floor. And there’s a big bay window in my house, and that window stayed perfectly still until that train started to chug. At a certain speed, I could reach up and feel the pane, and that glass pane would vibrate. I said, Doggone, there’s got to be a reason for this. So I go to the kindergarten teacher, and she takes me to the science teacher, and the science teacher takes me to the library and reads it off to me — “This is called resonance.” That was the beginning.
The audience, they’re not professionals. They just love music. It isn’t necessary to play over their heads to be admired.
You can’t go to the store and buy a good ear and rhythm.
I got out of the car and there was a knife in my neck. The guy says, “Don’t move.” And the drummer got out of the car, and he got a gun in his head. This was my entrance to the South Side of Chicago. But it was necessary, because I wanted to play jazz.
When rock came in, people didn’t know what to do. Even Sinatra, he didn’t know what to do. The music was changing. And it’s changing now.
Last time I saw Count Basie, he was in a wheelchair. They wheeled him up onto the stage, he sits down at the piano, and he gives the downbeat, and that band played like they were in heaven. And right in the middle, the band cuts. He had to take one hand and put the other on it, and he comes down with one note. And it was the greatest note I ever heard in my life.
I gave up the guitar in 1965. Didn’t want to see a guitar. I’d go out and get drunk. When I came out of the heart surgery, the doc said, “Promise me you’ll work hard.” I said, “I thought working hard is what got me here.” He said, “No, working is what will keep you alive.”
There are times when you want to go where you used to go and you can’t go there. So I’m back to Count Basie lifting his hand. And I find you can stop that show with one note just like you can with a hundred.
I better go play now.
Interviewed by John H. Richardson, September 1, 2008
