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Once upon a time, long, long ago (electronically speaking), this site had a blog. It wasn't much of a blog, being infrequently updated, and generally neglected, but every so often a post would be added, and the rare comment would appear as if summoned from the abyss. But it was not to last. For whatever reason (my perpetual indifference), the blog whithered, until there was not but a dried up husk, where once there had been a slightly less dried up husk. And thus the blog was closed.
Here are the remains of that blog-husk; all the posts and comments that were made (excluding the spam).
Since I've nothing better to call this post, I'll leave the title as is. Beyond that, we'll see if this little experiment will improve my php skills.
So I watched Jon Stewart's interview of Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf, last night. I had been really looking forward to it for the entire 24 hours that I knew about it. I really wanted to see how the Daily Show would handle Pres. Musharraf. What sort of antics they'd get him doing. Maybe the Pres. would sing a ballad with Jon, or regale viewers with death-defying feats of acrobatics. So I sat down in front of the TV and 11 pm and watched with anticipation, waiting restlessly as the 15 or so minutes until the interview slowly dwindled away. And then that magic moment came. Stewart introduced his guest and out came Pervez Musharraf. Here he was, the honest-to-god President of Pakistan on a cable comedy show. How could this not be good. No. GREAT?
Well, I watched the interview and concluded initially, when all was said and done, that it had been ok. Not great, not good, just ok (and make no mistake, I wasn't looking for hard-hitting, just funny). I was even a bit disappointed by the whole thing, thinking that Mr. Stewart had gone the soft route with Pres. Musharraf. But as I considered things further, I realised that the way the interview had played out was the ONLY way it could have gone.
By its very nature, a lot of comedy, beyond the scatological kind, relies heavily upon the cultural nuances that a group of people hold in common. But Pakistan and the USA don't hold a lot of cultural nuances in common. The lack of these common nuances would thus have made it nearly impossible to conduct the kind of interview that, while not hard-hitting, still had a solid bite and was also humourous.
Stewart and his writers did the best they could considering the cultural gap between him and his guest. They kept the humour at such a level that it didn't fall flat (with one of two minor exceptions) but didn't offend the Pres. as a result of some stupid cultural miscommunication.
I suppose it was my own unrealistic and undefined expectations of what should have taken place during the interview that led to my quick-draw conclusion that it had been a less than stellar endeavour. So the lesson for today is: When someone on a cable comedy show is interviewing the President of Pakistan, keep your expectations realistic and make sure they've been defined ahead of time.
It seems that sometime before the end of next week, Firefox, that open source web browser we've all come to know and love, will fork. The impetus for this event is a clash between the Mozilla Corporation, which develops Firfox, and Debian Linux. Currently Debian, which includes Firefox in its releases, doesn't include the Firefox logo because the logo is trademarked and trademarks don't agree with the Debian Free Software Guidlines.
The Mozilla Corporation has taken umbrage at this, claiming it to be a violation of their trademark. As well, Mozilla is also asserting that Debian must run any patches to Firefox past them for approval, which Debian will have none of. And so, in order to end the legal wrangling, Debian will stop using the name Firefox, but continue using the browser (the source code remains free and open), and likely won't be submiting any patches to Mozilla at any time in the future.
While I'm relatively indifferent to the logo concerns, I can understand the patch concerns on the part of the Mozilla Corporation. The Firefox name is trademarked to ensure that Mozilla retains the prerogative to determine what can be released under that name and what can't. If the name were not trademarked, then it would be perfectly legal to release a malware infested piece of crap under the Firefox name.
What does this all mean?
Frankly, probably not a whole lot. Firefox will still be available to users of Debian and Debian-based systems, just not as part of the base install. As for this new, Debian-specific web browser? Who knows? All I can tell right now is that it has no project leaders, no coders, no maintainers, just a would-be name, and that's not the best way to start out in life.
Asylum Street Spankers' Stick Magnetic Ribbons on your SUV video. Well worth the watch. A warning though, it might be NSFW (depending upon your sensibilities).
Courtesey of the fine folks at Junkfunnel Labs A little orange box with a timer, that shrieks when you touch it, and runs off on hidden wheels. It sole reason for being: to look as suspicious as possible.
Wouldn't this thing be a shit load of fun at an airport. I can see the chaos now...
Don't yell fire in a movie theatre, or something like that...
Randy
2006-10-02 06:56:46
Consider these two facts and one supposition. 1) The age of the universe is currently estimated to be between 13.7 and 14.7 billion years. 2) The total human population of Earth is approximately 6.5 billion people. 3) The average current age for a human being I'll say is around 40, since I haven't found one stat that covers the globe.
My point? That between us all, we have at least 260,000,000,000 years of experience living on the planet right now. And that collectively, we're older than time.
Chew on that for a while.
By my calculations, sometime on October 16 or 17, the population of the United States of America will reach 300 million. This event is already being anticipated in the media (just type in "US population" and "300 million" in Google and you'll find all sorts of entries). And if you want to perform your own, up-to-the-minute calculations, the basic stats are available at the US Population Clock site.
On a more serious note, what do you get a country when it passes the 300 million mark? Silver? Gold? Less dependence on foreign oil?
On a less serious note, the US will remain the third most populace country on Earth after China and India.
You mean populous?
Randy
http://idiotstrings.blogspot.com
2006-10-20 21:45:46
Yes. Yes I did. And you know what this means? It means, because you pointed out this error, you are now the new Post Publication Spell and Grammar Checker. You get a fancy red hat with a green feather and a pair of suspenders to call your own. Payment is in the form of pocket lint. And only death can free you from this wonderful honour.
dan
2006-10-22 13:12:45
A month after I went through the arduous process of installing a Linux From Scratch system, Slackware 11 has been released. It's still using the 2.4 kernel by default, though there are now two 2.6 kernels available for those who want them. More to the point though, do I install Slack 11 now, or wait for Arch 0.8 to be released (Arch has excellent package management) or do I stick with LFS for now. Such a difficult decision. Found via OSNews.com.
It's quarter after eight! Do you know where your refrigerator is? And what colour is a square scented purple?
Yes, it's Thanksgiving. In Canada at any rate.
See comment in Happy Hallowe'en post.
Randy
http://idiotstrings.blogspot.com
2006-11-03 08:34:58
Rumour has it that North Korea has gone and detonated a nuclear bomb. *sigh* O' Lil' Kim. Will you ever learn? Now Papa Bush is going to have to spank your ass, right after he's done with Iraq, in say ... 10 years.
On the plus side, I have an explanation for why the sky this evening was a bit more green than usual.
Let's just be glad we're nowhere near the Korea peninsula, right?
Said
2006-10-09 00:24:17
I will admit, upfront, that I've never been the United States' biggest fan. I find the US's government structure odd (its defacto two-party nature) and disturbing (especially the excessive influence that lobbyists have, a pattern that is being repeated in Canada with increasing frequency) and I have strong disagreements with the US's foreign policy. But I've always admired the ideas that were behind the founding of the country. Ideas like freedom and liberty and justice and habeas corpus and fair trials (as imperfectly practiced as they were in 1776).
These are noble ideas, that should be available to all people in all countries. And it gave me hope that, despite all its foibles, these ideas remained at the centre of the US's identity (however concealed they might now be), and thus could be returned to prominence should the people want them back. But with the passing of the Mlitary Commissions Act of 2006 (the act itself), I confess, I've run out of hope.
The act effectively strips all within the borders of the United States of the writ of habeas corpus and gives the President the power to declare anyone he wants an enemy combatant. From this point forward, it would seem that American legislators are determined to turn the United States into a fascist dictatorship and what's more disturbing, nary a word is heard on the news, nor are there active protests.
So very few are discussing the MCA that I wonder if the majority care at all. But perhaps the people don't want their freedom and liberty and fundamental rights returned to them. Perhaps they want to sit on their asses, watch survivor, and maybe peak out their window when the NSA comes for their neighbour because he was declared an enemy combatant for mocking the President at the company picnic.
Americans! WAKE UP! Your country is being stolen from you, an you're LETTING it happen!
A thought: The road to tyranny need not be an abrupt and disturbing one. It can also look much like the road to Hell, paved with good intentions and edged with sweet smelling flowers.
I think that most citizens don't care about the lofty ideals of their rulers, and, therefore they will not care when those lofty ideals are not followed. They mostly care about government solutions to the problems of the day, preferably at someone else's expense and inconvenience. Very few will stick to their principles or ideals when those principles prove any significant threat to their comfort and security.
It is not seen as virtuous to act in self-interest, except by a few (though perhaps this is no longer true, or not currently true). To act according to some higher purpose, however, garners a greater degree of respect, even by those who disagree with that purpose, and even if it is a small degree. For most, the higher ideals only serve to provide a sense of comfort with one's decisions that they are part of some greater good that transcends the individual, paradoxically, even if the greater good is the freedom of the individual.
Most Americans will not notice or care whether they could, at the President's discretion, be labelled as enemy combatants. Even though the President has the power, he will not use it often, and it will not be applied arbitrarily. They know that it will very very likely not be applied to them. I can imagine it being used to silence opposition (on any matter, not just terrorism), but I can imagine that being done by other means, legal or otherwise and hardly more difficult, before the Act passed.
I did not try to find the habeas corpus thing in the Act. So I have no comment on that, except to say that until today I never knew what that was. Perhaps neither do most Americans, explaining why they don't care. George W. Bush would not be the first Republican president to suspend freedoms for security reasons. I read Lincoln did the same same thing... something to do with the Copperheads. If I knew that I would need that article later, I would have kept a note of it.
Randy
http://idiotstrings.blogspot.com
2006-10-20 11:32:26
My laptop is now running Slackware again, after about a month of running a Linux From Scratch system. I probably would have kept the LFS system as well, if I hadn't installed X11 in the wrong directories, making the installation of QT and KDE a huge pain in the ass. Having discovered my error, I first tried to install Arch Linux, but each time I upgraded the base install to current, I got a kernel panic on reboot. After going through this three times, I decided to give Slackware 11 a whirl. Lo and behold, everything worked fine. Slack 11 FTW!
Thanks to I like your style, I found the Mickey orgy video that Disney's been fuming about. The video can also be seen here.
The initial news reports I read said that Pluto was the one spanking Chip and Dale. But as can be plainly seen, it's Goofy that's satisfying his homoerotic urges (along with Mickey, who spends some quality time with a snowman). For shame news media, if you're going to out a Disney character, at the very least you could out the right one. For shame.
When I installed Slackware, it was because I wanted a couple of programmes that used KDE (in particular Kstars, though it turned out I could have also used Stellarium or Celestia for my purposes) and I ended up just using KDE as the default desktop. But I found the speed with which programmes started up to be agonisingly slow. And shutting them down was even worse. So I decided to switch back to a no-frills window manager. So I used the link that I have on the Linux page to wmii and off I went to... something that wasn't what I wanted.
I started to wonder if the project had been taken down, but kept trying, assuming that perhaps I'd mistyped something. But nothing changed as I kept returning to that same strange page. So off I went to wikipedia, to see what other low frills window managers were out there, and lo-and-behold I found wmii listed, and sure enough, there was an external link to it. The link had changed from the last time I'd visited the site, but there it was, wmii2 in all its glory. And strangely enough, I actually felt a sense of relief. So let me give you a brief introduction to wmii2 version 3.1.
It has no desktop icons, no themes, no fancy graphics, no point-and-click menus and no programmes running in the background. In fact, it's about as close to a text-based desktop as you can get without actually going to the command line. Most importantly, it's fast. Firfox, under wmii, starts in about 1 second for me (as opposed to about 5 seconds under KDE). And it can be closed just as fast. SHIFT-ALT-c serves as a useful kill function, shutting down whatever the mouse is hovering over.
Now it's certainly not for everyone, but if you're tired of the bloat of traditional desktop environments, I urge you to give wmii2 a try. It's incredibly easy to install, and the only external dependency it has (that I'm aware of) is X. And just in case you missed it, wmii2 can be found here: http://wmii.suckless.org/
This statement is false.
Self referential statements are not allowed.
Randy
http://idiotstrings.blogspot.com
2006-11-03 08:28:41
It's almost done with for another year. Daylight Saving Time is but mere hours away from being over. Finally!
I wish it could be daylight savings all the time! Boo to darkness before at-homeness!!
Randy
http://idiotstrings.blogspot.com
2006-11-03 08:33:00
Like the title says, Happy Hallowe'en (or for the really archaic, All Hallow's Eve).
Sure. You can remember holidays that everyone remembers, but you can't remember the ones that you co-created...
Randy
http://idiotstrings.blogspot.com
2006-11-03 08:31:33
...with none of the blood.
Today in US politics:
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that there are a lot of happy moderates and liberals in the US today. So, to ask the question on the minds of many, no doubt, when do the criminal conspiracy investigations and impeachment hearings begin?
I had five pencils all neatly arranged on my desk, each parallel to the others. I turned around for a second and there were four left. Then one of the pencils burped. Dirty cannibals.
You should use pens. They're more civilized. They don't eat each other *and* they always say please and thank you.
Randy
http://idiotstrings.blogspot.com
2006-11-25 22:09:18
...for today calls for a light dusting of snow, followed by more snow.
It doesn't get better than this.
Where 'zat picture come from?
Randy
http://idiotstrings.blogspot.com
2006-11-26 20:49:00
That picture was taken from the living room of my house, looking to the North-East.
dan
2006-11-28 11:13:57
We've got electricity again after a harrowing 24 hours without. I knew those kittens I sacrificed would pay off.
Thanks to the heavy, wet snow that was falling, we lost power at around quarter to ten in the evening on Sunday.
In total, the snow fell for about 24 hours, resulting in what you see below.
It made driving almost impossible and was a bitch to shovel. In the end it looks (and feels) more like southern Ontario in January than south Vancouver Island in November.
I can't stop listening to it! Let's all sing together: Bananaphone!
Today's the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. At my current location, somewhere around the 48th parallel, we'll receive a grand total of 8 hours and 16 minutes of daylight today. Sounds like as good a reason to party as any.
And to all, a good night.
Merry Christmas Drink lots of booze!
Randy
http://idiotstrings.blogspot.com
2006-12-26 14:47:03
I have failed. Oh the shame! I didn't drink lots of booze. Rather only half that.
dan
2006-12-31 15:05:16
Welcome to 2007. Wait another 365 days and we can do it all over again.
It would seem that employees of Norway's Foreign Ministry have the cognitive faculties of a two year old (or of a severely retarded 20 year old) i.e: They are unable to distinguish reality and fantasy. To them it's all the same thing.
"What is this all about?" you might be asking yourself now. It's about Norway's Foreign Ministry objecting to the use of their national anthem in a neo-Nazi group's propaganda video.
"What's wrong with that?" you're now asking, as you also ask what kind of racist fanatic I am.
Well, the problem is that the neo-Nazi group is not a neo-Nazi group, but rather a group of role-players from the game CyberNations, who belong to the Nordreich Alliance. It's a nationalistic group, but about as neo-Nazi as I am Horus, the Egyptian sky god.
Seriously, couldn't Norway spring the extra few bucks it would cost for someone who can read English and use a computer. For shame Norway... Will you ever learn?
But Norway's not the only one to level criticism at. This whole stupid thing shines a big light on, what seems to me, the vast sprawling morass of modern journalistic incompetence. It's bad enough a government ministry can't be bothered to get the facts, but it seems that the media, both Norwegian and English (and who knows who else) can't be bothered either. Common people, it's called research. How about you do a little of it before you go off half-cocked and make total asses of yourselves.
That is all. You may resume the position.
This is a test. It is only a test. If it were not a test, you would be radioactive dust. Technorati Profile
It seems someone finally got around to doing some actual research on the whole Nordreich vs. Norway, fantasy vs. reality, non-war to end all non-wars. To bad this wasn't done to start with, then Norway and the press wouldn't look like such morons. Though I suppose that would be just a little to much to ask for.
I finally saw "An Inconvenient Truth", the world's top grossing power-point presentation. It didn't really show me much that I didn't already know. But there were two things that I took issue with.
First: V.P. Gore states that it's a moral imperative to address the problem of global warming. Personally I find this a tepid position. A better way to describe it is as an issue of survival. Why survival you ask. For the simple reason that we don't know how a shift in the Earth's climate will affect our ability to produce food.
Already we've dedicated our efforts (at least in North America) to convert prime agricultural land into vast tracts of identical, soulless, suburban developments. What would happen if, on top of losing this land, we also lost the great plains and the mid-west of the continent to drought, or flood, or both? How much food is there in reserve on this continent should such an event take place.
Couldn't we import food from overseas? Perhaps. But from where? China and India would still be hugely over-populated and grossly underfed. Africa's in an even worse state. And Australia seems to be in a near perpetual state of drought (not a complete surprise as a good portion of it is desert). That leaves Europe and South America. Europe would likely have its own problems though.
If things get bad enough to severely impede food production in North America, then it's highly probable that a good portion of Greenland's ice would also have melted, flooding the North Atlantic with fresh water and shutting down the ocean conveyor belt. This would result in Europe experiencing what amounts to a little ice age, which, I'm going to guess, would not prove conducive to food production.
This leaves South America, with the Amazon and Patagonia. Now I'm not advocating cutting down the Amazon rainforest and replacing it with fields of wheat because, well, it just wouldn't work. The soil of the Amazon rainforest is, like all rainforests, poor in nutrients that agricultural plants require. That leaves us with Patagonia, the southern portion of South America and I'm not sure it would be able to provide the food required to feed North America.
All of this would end up leaving North Americans in a bind. A desperate, violent, Hobbesian bind.
Second: Gore says that the economy need not be sacrificed to mitigate the effects of global warming. That the current circumstances are actually an opportunity for economic innovation.
I actually agree with this, in principle. That principle being that the position had been advanced and acted upon 20 years ago (maybe even 30).
Frankly, I don't see how any real efforts at mitigation can be made without sacrificing vast swaths of modern society's industrial landscape: cars, trucks, planes, computers, suburban housing, textiles, smelting, mining, logging, and so on. I'm not saying an effort should not be made, just that we should all prepare for the worst at the same time. Be ready, should famine start becoming a far more common word and experience than any in North America are accustomed to.
! WARNING ! Using the following words, especially for commercial purposes or on objects that may be sold (such as calendars) will get you into serious legal trouble in Canada.
I've removed anything marked as a design, but you can find them here: Official Mark of the Bid Corporation as of April 3, 2006 (For anyone who wants to know, it's a pdf.)
Here's a select list of the words and combinations of words that all Canadians should be sure to avoid in the future: Sea to sky, friend, gold medal, game plan, top, 2010 (watch out calendar makers), see you in Vancouver, road to Vancouver, driven by nature, driven by dreams. Remember, use any of the following words at your own peril, for the VANOC is a many headed beast with millions of eyes that feeds on trademark violators, no matter who they are or if they had the trademark first. Enjoy!
Official Mark of the Bid Corporation as of April 3, 2006
Trade-mark of the Bid Corporation
Official Marks of the COC as of April 3, 2006
Official Marks of VANOC as of April 3, 2006
Seems this post attracts a whole lot of spam, which is becoming really really really irritating. Therefor: comments = off.
dan
2007-06-03 10:09:04
So... Everyone else is writing about this, so I might as well too (and it's been a while since I've posted anything here).
I watched the ABC/Nightline debate between two members of the Rational Response Squad and Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron (former child-star, current has-been and whack-job) of the Way of the Master (Flash-based...).
My first thought: Surely ABC could have done a better job of finding some apologists with brains. These guys are complete morons. Probably the best example of their stupidity and ignorance is the "Banana as the atheist's nightmare". It takes very little research to discover that the banana everyone knows and loves today was developed over the course of thousands of years by early human societies in South-east Asia (the banana as found in nature is stringy, bitter, small, and has very large seeds). Thankfully though, the banana never made a showing during the debate (likely because their video has been rebuked countless times on YouTube, etc. by folks who can read simple English).
But while we might not have got to see the banana, Ray and Kirk still brought their "A" game in the form of... wait for it... the crocoduck!
This was supposed to be a transitional form that's missing from the evolutionary path, and thus proves evolution is wrong, creationism is right and therefore god exists. Never mind the fact that the evolutionary lineages of birds (through dinosaurs) and crocodilians split from each other more than 200 million years ago. And thus crocodilians are not the evolutionary ancestors of birds.
Suffice it to say, when Kirk held up the crocoduck, I was stunned. Literally, my brain froze. It was like stupidity had been given a physical form that could be poked and prodded. When my brain finally un-froze, I couldn't stop laughing.
I figured that the RRS members would beat Kirk and Ray (who were challenged to prove scientifically that the god of the Bible exists without using the Bible or faith) when the show started, but I didn't think that Kirk and Ray could "pwn" themselves. It was the saddest funny (or is it the funniest sad) thing I've seen in a while. Fortunately, even though the debate is over, we can still revel in the glory of the crocoduck: the finest creature nature never bothered to develop.
...dead at 73. They say you shouldn't say anything about the dead unless it's good. He's dead. Good. Now if only Pat Robertson would join him...
was that why the flag was at half-mast on the 21st?...i wouldn't have thought so, but i can't figure out why else the flags would be at half-mast...
melanie
2007-05-24 15:38:18
The 21st was Victoria Day. Maybe that had something to do with the flags.
dan
2007-05-24 20:57:54
78 days without an update. A new personal best.
Wow! you've really outdone yourself this time. Jackass!
Alexexander P.
2007-08-04 11:46:45
The weight, in grams, of the internet. About the same as a very small grain of sand.
Blog is out. It sounds like a disease an old man gets ("I've got blog", "My blog's been acting up"). Instead, I've renamed the blog "Notes" as that's about what I use it for. I'll send an e-beer to the first person who gives a rats ass about the change.
I've hated the word blog since I first heard it. Something about the way the word was constructed. Started out as weblog. Then someone dropped the first two letters? Why? Then it stuck. Ugh.
I'm not sure if I think it sounds like a disease that an old man gets, but it doesn't sound like something that should be taken seriously. In fact, like a disease, it sounds like something I should be embarrassed about. I cringe every time I have to use it. But there is no other word with a small number of syllables that conveys what it is. Well, weblog, I guess. But that went out when blog came in.
Randy
http://idiotstrings.blogspot.com
2007-08-05 04:51:45
I have a new holiday: August 10. It's a day of celebration to commemorate the victory of Novell over SCO in an SCO-begun lawsuit. On this day, Judge Kimball ruled that "Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights", effectively destroying SCO as a business.
O this is a glorious day! I can't wait for Monday... I want to see SCO's already piddling stock spiral into non-existence.
Truly, this was a great day. For details (and actual information), go here: SCO v Novell on Groklaw
Yesterday, while inattentively watching something about the internet on CBC NewsWorld, my attention was piqued by the mention of a fellow suing a bunch of Canadian bloggers, Google, Wikipedia, and a couple other organisations, for libel. Seems he objected to them linking to a site (or in some cases, linking to a site that linked to a site that linked to a site, etc.) that contained statements that he considered as libelous against him.
Who is the offended party? A fellow by the name of Wayne Crookes; a Vancouverite and former Green Party organiser.
What got him upset? I don't really know. Most of the sites that mention him don't give the details, either because they've been named in the libel suit, or want to avoid being sued. As far as I can tell, it has something to do with some kind of questionable practices within the Green Party.
What immediately galled me about this whole situation is the fact that, under British Columbia's current libel laws, your guilty until proven innocent!
I know. It seems absurd that such a situation still exists in a developed country in the 21st century; but it's true. And so it's my hope that the same fate that has recently befallen SCO a scant seven days ago, befalls Mr. Crookes. It's also my hope that this whole situation lights a fire under the asses of BC's (and other Canadian) politicians to update libel laws that were written in the 1800's, making an update desperately needed.
Trolling the numerous sites that have provided almost-details on this matter though, I can't help but wonder if this whole matter isn't also an example of a massive generation/technological gap between Mr. Crookes (who appears to be somewhere between 55 and 65, based on a blurry, poorly contrasted photo) and the much younger and/or technically savvy members of the blogosphere (and the internet in general).
After all, Mr. Crookes seems to be implying that an anonymous poster on a wiki or blog might be mistaken as a reliable source of information regarding his character. But how many people actually take anonymous posters seriously? I know I don't, and nor do the people I know.
An anonymous post might spur me to investigate a claim further, but it certainly won't be what makes or breaks my decision or opinion about a matter. Even named sources on the internet (and TV and newspapers, etc.) I take with a grain or two of salt; as any rational person should. And of course there's the ability to challenge the veracity of information that's been posted (which to my current knowledge, Mr. Crookes has not taken advantage of).
Any claim about a person's character made by an anonymous, or named source, can be systematically dismembered if there is the desire to do so. Indeed doing so would likely generate greater sympathy and support for the assailed, and significant criticism for the assailant, especially if the assailant persists in their anonymous postings (an event I've seen repeated on forums I frequent).
Of course there is also another (albeit highly unlikely) possibility: the libel was true and Mr. Crookes wanted it gone because it could serve to highlight some kind of questionable (criminal?) activity (like questionable financial practices at the Green Party while he was senior party organiser). Of course this is likely the rantings of a very deranged mind (namely mine) and so should be taken with a hefty dose of salt (we're talking three or four tonnes worth).
Oh, and before the lawyers line up, let me state for the record: I am not a lawyer; I am not, have never been, or ever will be, a member of the Green Party of Canada; nor do I know any of the participants; nor do I claim that anything posted here is anything other than my opinion. That's all: an opinion. Like saying the sky's pink, or that elephants can breathe methane.
And in case you're interested, here's a list of all the folks Mr. Crookes is suing:
I saw Andrew Keen (author of "The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture") interviewed on the Colbert Report last night, and it was... tense. It seemed as if Mr. Keen wasn't sure whether he was supposed to take Stephen seriously or not, which didn't reflect well upon Mr. Keen in my mind, but this is beside the point I want to make.
Mr. Keen's argument is boiled down to his book's title: the internet is killing today's culture. To that, all I have to say is: duh, ya think.
Culture is always being killed by new innovation and advancement which gives birth to new culture that itself will one day be the victim of a murderous technological rampage. This is good though. I'm tired of seeing large corporation pass crap off as good because they managed to pay some schlub to write a good review. And I'm tired of incomplete news from televisions and newspapers. I want to know what's going on, not what some news chief, or corporate executive thinks I should know (or in the worst case, what that corporate executive's revenue sources--ie:corporations and advertisers--don't want me to know).
He also says that most of the stuff on the internet is crap (my paraphrasing of him) and that it has no artistic or monetary value; and you know what: he's right. Most of the stuff is crap and most of it has no monetary value (if we exclude the 90% of the web dedicated to porn). But perhaps it's not meant to have monetary value. Maybe it's just there for fun.
This site, for instance, exists solely because I want it around. If folks find something useful here: great! If not, that's fine too. Perhaps Mr. Keen should think of the web more as a digital playground interspersed with the occasional tidbits of useful information. That's how I think of it, and it has served me well so far.
I don't think culture is any more dead than it ever was. I think that the internet merely allows us to gauge its proximity to death more easily. If culture really is dying, it is not because of the internet. I would argue that the internet is a better place for the growth of culture than anything else in the late 20th century, simply because internet self-publication is so simple and it's free if you're not picky.
Consider any other form of publication. Not many have the resources to publish their own books, music, or newspaper/journal/etc., so most are left consuming culture produced by someone else, rather than producing their own. On the other hand, it's easy to publish text, music, or video on the internet. Anyone can do it. You don't even need a computer. You just need to know someone who does.
Culture doesn't grow when corporations produce crap and tell us to like it. It grows when we produce crap of our own. Mr. Keen probably has an elitist, idealistic, and/or nostalgic notion of culture. He looked at the internet and didn't like what he saw. Rather than responding by changing his conception of what culture is, he concluded that culture simply wasn't there. A bacteria may be desirable or undesirable, but this has nothing to do with whether it is alive or dead, growing or dying. So it is with culture.
Randy
http://idiotstrings.blogspot.com
2007-08-21 21:17:15
Wow! A third post in one day... Will wonders never cease. This one's just to take up more electrons. w00t!
I finally got around to creating a page for DOS and Windows. There's still not much in the Windows section (it's been so long since I've used it, I've almost forgotten everything I knew about troubleshooting it--I don't know whether that's a good thing or not), in fact there isn't anything yet. But probably sooner, rather than later, I'll find something to stick there.
So, seems like folks got a taste of the post-Microsoft world this past Saturday. Sometime on the 25th, the Windows Genuine Advantage server crashed (or as others have euphemistically put it, "suffered an outage". This hobbled the ability of users to install (or re-install) legitimately acquired versions of Windows XP and Vista, and also served to irritate those users who were unfortunate enough to have applied patches or updates from Microsoft.
The problem is now fixed, but it serves to highlight a significant issue that current Windows users will have to deal with one day: the inability to validate a legally acquired version of any version of Windows released after XP. The doom and gloom folks are focusing on a post-Microsoft world where Windows versions from XP onward are rendered unusable due to any number of scenarios (Microsoft going bankrupt; the WGA server being destroyed in some catastrophe; the rise of the mole-men), because Windows can't call home to mommy, and see if it's genuinely Windows rather than some un-crippled knock-off.
Of course, such extreme events are unlikely to occur (though they're not impossible). However, there is a far more realistic (and inevitable) problem that will arise, probably within the next 2 or 3 years: Microsoft dropping support for Windows XP.
Let's say you're running some older hardware from 2003 or 2004, and XP does a reasonable job of things. Now one day, say in 2010, or 2011, something untoward happens (perhaps a new virus, or trojan, or maybe just the accumulation of digital crap that comes along with running any version of Windows), necessitating a reinstallation of the operating system. Everything goes smoothly until you get to the authentication form: Windows XP can't connect to the WGA server (or perhaps it can, but it can't find a valid key). Faced with having to reinstall Windows in 30 days, you call Microsoft to get a validation key only to be told that Microsoft is no longer supporting Windows XP! Their recommendation: buy the latest version of Windows, it's much better. It even has doors!
Now what? Assuming you don't want to buy new hardware and get the latest version of Windows (now with doors), there are really only two options:
Of course this assumes that it's the individual users dealing with their own machines. I wouldn't want to be a tech support guy trying to explain to Mr. McNoob why he can't use the same operating system (assuming he even has a clue as to what that is) that he's been using for the past seven years. "Think of it this way sir, XP is ready and willing, but the WGA servers just aren't rising to the occasion." Of course, I use Linux, so what the fuck do I care. Happy slacking.
... to comedy.
U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, has finally resigned. I guess it was just getting to be to much effort to continuously undermine the rule of law in the U.S. Of course the real tragedy in all of this isn't that politics and cronyism ruined a man (or maybe the man ruined politics and cronyism... I'm not entirely sure at this point). The true tragedy is that Stephen Colbert has lost a hero, and Jon Stewart lost a... um... I was going to say "easy target", but pretty much everyone in the Bush administration is such. I guess "prominent easy target below Dick Cheney and above the White House pool-boy" will have to do. Truly, today is a sad day for comedy.
The rumours and innuendo are true! Those masked protesters who were trying to incite a riot at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Quebec, were in fact undercover agents for the Sûreté du Québec.
I'll leave the political analysis and the calls for vigilance against the government/police/corporations/etc., to others, since many are already expressing such sentiments. But I do want to laud YouTube, because without it (or a similar site), this likely never would have been reported in the mainstream media. Instead, it would have been relegated to the realm of conspiracy theories and paranoid delusions. And good, upstanding citizens would continue to believe that the police don't actively undermine civil rights and liberties. Aside for that, it's just one more reason not to trust out-of-hand what comes out of the mouths of government and corporate agents.
I finally installed Xara Xtreme for Linux and let me say: wow! Granted it's missing some of the functionality that Inkscape currently has, (though the reverse is also true) but damn is it fast. Once it's possible to move svg files between these two, I'll thrilled. (I'll be even more thrilled if they ever manage to merge their code bases. That would be something.)
Once again, there are now photos on the site. I've abandoned flickr though; Yahoo! wants way to much personal information. The images are now being hosted on Google's Picasa. It has its drawbacks, but I find it far less intrusive.
I wandered over to the floodgap gopherspace to see what was new, and noticed a directory comment that said "updated 21 August 2007". Checking the directory title, I was shocked to see "Keep Gopher support in Mozilla Core". Surely the Mozilla folks couldn't be thinking of taking gopher support out of Mozilla-based browsers, I thought. Such a thing would be preposterous. It'd put them on par with Internut Exploder. But following the link, my fears were confirmed: some no-brain hack (or group of no-brain hacks, I'm not sure which) wants to take gopher support out of Mozilla-based browsers.
They've even got two bug reports dedicated to this effort:
I must say that this is very disturbing. As it is, the only thing that really keeps me using Firefox over Konqueror is the fact that it has native gopher support (likewise for Camino on the Mac). And while the average web user might have no clue what gopher does (it's a protocol, like http), or has (a lot of archived information, but also a lot of new stuff; it's still alive folks, just smallish)I can't see what advantage there would be in removing gopher support from the Mozilla core.Apparently their reasoning has something to do with a potential security vulnerability. Of course no protocol is supremely secure; that's wishful thinking. Http has it's problems, and yet no one's talking about removing support for it from the Mozilla core.
Even more disturbing; a couple months ago there was a debate about removing ftp support from the Mozilla core. Why: for security reasons, and because it had a small user base. How long will it be before that's revisited (and implemented)?
For now I shall cross my fingers and hope that the Mozilla developers will see the light, otherwise, I guess I'll be looking for a new and better graphical web browser with real protocol support.
What's your definition of "a lot of archived information" and "a lot of new stuff"? thousands of archives? hundreds? dozens? - A
Asa Dotzler
2007-08-30 13:09:31
I must admit I'm slightly surprised that this garnered a response. But a question's a question, so I shall (try to) answer.
I'll start by stating the following: I don't operate a gopher server, or site. My interest in gopher has as much to do with how different it (and its underlying culture) is from the realm of http, as it does with whatever information I find. I find it to be sort of a zen garden in a sea of noise and clutter (this site no doubt adding to such clutter).
Now to the question (had I known someone would call me on my statements, I would have chosen my words with a bit more care (probably...)--lesson learned: "teh internetz = srs bsns".
So, a definition is sought. It probably wouldn't serve to claim 100 documents is "a lot of archived information". Truth be told, I'm not sure I can give an appropriate definition for what constitutes "a lot of archived information" (henceforth: "aloai"). I'm not sure that an appropriate definition could be provided for the http based web. Does porn count as "aloai", or forums debating the relative merits of Kirk, Picard, Sisco, and the two ladies? Is it of value? I don't know. Suffice it to say, I'd call "aloai" 100,000 documents. It's a small number compared to the rest of the net, but vast compared to most personal libraries.
I can say with certainty that I've found information in gopherspace that I never managed to find within the realm of http. That's not to say it wasn't there, but the sheer quantity of information stymied my efforts to locate it (it was probably on page 44 or 45 of Google's search results).
As to "a lot of new stuff" (did I really say that... crap...), that was probably a poor choice of words. A better statement likely would have been: "and new stuff being added". This I shall blame upon misplaced overzealousness. I was having a good morning. Still, there is new stuff that's added to gopherspace, and personally, on average it seems more useful (or at least entertaining) than what's added to the http servers.
And of course there's the history to think of. Won't someone please think of the childr... history.
dan
2007-08-30 15:51:47
:D
Thanks for the honest and entertaining answer. These kinds of decisions are difficult to make. Every piece of unowned code, especially in the lower levels like networking and layout, is scary. More capability in those lower levels means increased attack surface so you've got the trade-off between security and functionality with no one responsible for managing that risk (an owner for that piece of code). For Gopher, where the functionality is, as best I can tell, only interesting to a very small population of users, but the security risk is there for all users, the balance is going to lean towards removal.
On top of that, Mozilla, Microsoft, and other software vendors have of late come under a lot of fire for exploits in specific protocol handlers or mechanisms for content handling handoffs between different programs. With increased scrutiny, it makes a lot of sense to either audit and own well the existing niche protocol handlers or to push them out of the product.
The cool thing about Mozilla though, (well, one of the cool things) is that our networking stack has very extensible protocol handling capabilities. That's why we even have Gopher there to start -- because it was pretty darned easy to implement. We had/have finger:// support too. One thing that I think results from this pluggable protocol handler architecture is that it shouldn't be too difficult for someone to build a simple protocol extension for Firefox that added Gopher support back in. It could probably be done in JavaScript, making it cross-platform. Then, anyone that wanted Gopher support in Firefox could install a simple extension while the other 99.99% of Firefox users would be somewhat safer.
- A
Asa Dotzler
2007-08-30 18:18:25
It does all makes sense. Not that I wouldn't/won't be a bit sad if/when gopher support is pulled from Mozilla core. But under the light of realism, there doesn't seem to be an alternative. If 30 or 40 percent of web surfers used Gopher, there probably wouldn't be this move to pull support (of course with that kind of support, Gopher would be searchable by Google... To dream the impossible dream...).
Ah well. I shall hope for the best, prepare for the inevitable and salute Gopher with a pint when the fateful day arrives (whenever that might be). And then I'll find a Gopher plug-in.
dan
2007-08-31 19:02:28
...I'd just like to shill for OpenDNS; especially if you're using Telus.
In other unrelated news: Princess Diana died 10 years ago this week. The anniversary warranted her face once again gracing the cover of Time (and no doubt other) magazine(s). And I remain today, as I was 10 years ago: perplexed by the attention her death garners. Not to sound (too) callous but she's dead. So what. People die all the time.
In news slightly related to the above, 10 years ago this week Mother Theressa died. Ibid the above sentiments.
So, based on variable answers that change with the tides, a test created by a random netizen says I'm the Phoenician language. I guess it might mean something... unless it doesn't. Who knows. Anyway, suck it Latin alphabet.
Your Score: Phoenician
You are the Phoenician Alphabet! Teacher of the Greeks and Etruscans, you are the one all languages bow down to. That is, until the Romans decide to wipe out your civilization. That's the way the cookie crumbles.
Link: The Which Ancient Language Are You Test written by imipak on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test
Way back in 2002/2003, I came across a strange operating system: QNX Neutrino. At the time, version 6.0 was available as a free download. So, curious to see what a microkernel OS was like, I downloaded and installed it on one of my towers.
Now I can only vaguely recall the setup process, but I don't remember running into any problems. It worked, as they say, "out of the box". Probably the only snag I hit was trying to get the modem to work. Of course the damned thing was a winmodem, so it was about as useless as tits on granite.
The Photon GUI was also something new to behold. I'd come from using a long line of Windows 9x interfaces (or clones of that particular interface, which have all been abandoned in favour of wmii), and found Photon to be a quite agreeable. Even today, after the ultimate non-gui (wmii), Photon's still my favourite user interface.
But QNX didn't last all that long. I wanted to try something else after a couple months (probably the latest version of Slackware), and I uninstalled it.
My interest in QNX waned for some time, and was all but extinguished when the free download was discontinued; it was dead by the time qnxZone ceased operations. But with QNX opening access to its microkernel (it's not open source, it's something else, but I'll let someone from QNX explain that), and Photon and other tools on path to the same status, my curiosity is again piqued. Perhaps it's time to reformat a harddrive again.
Sometime around 11 am, 21 September 2007, the Canadian dollar managed to reach (and exceed) parity with the US dollar. It, of course, slid back, settling a bit under $0.99 U.S., but that's not the point. The point is that, for the first time since 1976, the Canadian dollar was worth at least the same as the American dollar, and it's likely to do so again within the next couple days (depending on whether or not currency markets operate during the weekend).
But why stop with the greenback? I say we keep going. Hit the Euro next. Hell, maybe we should just go for the £ and affirm our currency dominance. Then, its only a matter of time before the heathen masses of the world are converted to high-sticking, two-four chugging, toboggan racing lunatics, made in our own image. Of course it's not all fun and games.
Prices still haven't come down. A paperback book still costs something like $65 Canadian to $9.99 U.S. This can not stand. Retailers made their fortune when the dollar tanked, and tanked, and tanked some more; happily slapping on little stickers that kept jacking the price up as the loonie slid towards oblivion. But things have changed. Now that bird's finally found its pluck, and has managed to make it back into the skies. I say it's time for the retailers to give something back: start slapping little stickers on goods that reflect our dollars improved health. Put an end to this masturbatory price-gouging you've been engaging in; give us relief.
Of course retailers might need a little help understanding what we're asking, so I propose the following: if you can, buy all your crap from the states (either in person, or on-line, it doesn't really matter which). We might as well take advantage of this good fortune; it might not last forever. Oh, and while you're trolling for bargains from American retailers, make sure to pick up whatever pieces of the U.S. you can (I've got my eye on Nebraska).
By the grace of the mighty NASDAQ, the SCO Group has won a temporary reprieve from having its stock delisted.
Previously, the SCO Group was to have its stock delisted on 27 September due to the company's filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy. SCO appealed and was granted hearing on the matter, scheduled for 8 November 2007. Unfortunately for the poor schmucks at SCO, NASDAQ wasn't done with them. A new threat of delisting now looms on the horizon due to SCO's inability to keep its stock above the $1.00 mark. They've now got until 24 March 2008 to rise to the challenge, or face the executioners axe.
Of course, remaining listed probably isn't the biggest challenge that SCO is facing; there's no guarantee the company can actually last until March. Hell, it might not even last until November. Its most recent SEC filings painted a picture of hopeless despair, and the indomitable Mr. McBride seems to be completely out of touch with reality. Whatever he's smoking, get me a kilo; sounds like it'd fly off the shelves (or out of the pockets as the case may be).
And most ignominiously of all, SCO could be on the hook to Novell for $30 million, twice the value of SCO's assets. And if Novell gets that cash, then the only place that SCO is going is into chapter 7 bankruptcy. If that doesn't spell certain doom, I don't know what will.
Of course, all this posturing could be for a reason: appearances. The executives at SCO may be trying to convince folks they really do believe they'll survive; that the show isn't over. Why? Because whose going to prosecute a true believer for securities fraud? "Honest your honour, I thought we'd make tonnes of money! I had no idea switching our business model from software to litigation would so thoroughly annihilate our client base and viability as a corporation! Have pity!" Of course the ploy only works if people believe it, and call me cynical, but I don't think folks are buying what Mr. McBride is selling. So here's my favoured scenario:
Current value of SCOX stock on the NASDAQ: $0.16 (down $0.01 or 5.29%).
_^_Like the title says _^_ Today is a glorious day to sacrifice a turkey!
(South Carolina, that is.)
So by now, I imagine that anyone with an internet connection knows that Stephen Colbert has announced that he's running for President of the United States of America, in South Carolina (and if you don't know this: I pity the dial-up rock you're using).
I suppose this could be a case of life imitating art (Man of the Year starring Robin Williams), though in this case, I hope life doesn't lose the humourous edge the way the art did. But life/art issues aside, I want to explore a what if.
Now there's no way Stephen's going to win the Presidency running solely in South Carolina. Even on its best day, the state only has eight Electoral College votes. That's a far cry from the 270 necessary to win. About the only way Mr. Colbert could become President Colbert, were if the rest of the U.S. was hit by some devastating calamity, wiping all human life from it, sometime before 4 November 2008. So President Colbert is out. Curiously though, that doesn't mean that Stephen might not have an impact upon the 2008 Presidential race.
First though, a couple of (wildly far-fetched) assumptions need to be made.
In such a far fetched scheme, it's theoretically possible that Stephen, with his 8 Electoral votes, could serve as king-maker. Who knows what he could get out of the deal: money, power, some kind of coveted political position (Secretary of Truthiness), perhaps even a new state named after him (Stephen Carolina).
Of course, this assumes that the Democratics and Republicans can't overcome their mutual hatred long enough to look after the best interests of their country, and nominate some kind of coalition ticket ( Dennis Kucinich/Ron Paul) that everyone could live with, or at the very least, equally hated (Clinton/Giuliani).
If you happen to be a citizen (or even just a resident) of Canada, and a fan of Comedy Central shows (like South Park, The Daily Show, or The Colbert Report), like myself, then you've likely noticed by now that, for some strange, and unfathomable reason, www.comedycentral.com (and its affiliated sites) is no longer accessible to you. When you try to make your way to these esteemed bastions of truthiness, instead of of landing upon the pleasing semi-pastels of Comedy Central's site, you find yourself confronted with this hideous abomination:
After 30 seconds, you're whisked off to the steaming pile of crap that is The Comedy Network's site; a garish, and fetid example of design and implementation, last popular sometime around 2002, or 2003. The site lacks even the most basic essentials of Comedy Central's home on the web; things like archives of past episodes, or the ability to play what content is available in Linux.
Initially, I thought this was some kind of bad joke; a laboured attempt at cleverness by some script kiddie looking to annoy a couple million Canadian users. Thus, being pressed for time, I closed down my browser, and went off to handle other matters.
But two days ago, I was cleaning up my bookmarks, and found one for www.thedailyshow.com. I decided to follow it (whether for fun or profit, I'm uncertain), and instead of taking me to The Daily Show's band-spanking new site (which I had visited probably mere hours after its initial launch, scant days ago), I was again confronted by that hideous mass of crap seen in the screenshot above. And after the menaced 30 seconds, was again sent to the online hell that is www.thecomedynetwork.ca.
I was aghast, to say the least.
This latest affront to my efforts prompted me to investigate just what the hell was going on. The answer I found, was not pleasing. It turned out that CTVglobemedia (the owner of The Comedy Network) and Comedy Central had signed an agreement (some time ago, it seems) about content. Within that agreement, was the cause of all my problems: Comedy Central promised to redirect all Canadian visitors to www.thecomedynetwork.ca.
I had been stymied by corporate gluttony. Damnit!
Not content to simply accept the situation, I proceeded to investigate various proxies, in an effort to circumvent this assault on my free travels around the internet. Sadly, I met with little success.
Half of the proxies I tried couldn't load the flash media on Comedy Central's sites; half could load some aspect of the flash media, but couldn't play it. I was relegated to using Google's cache, to watch the latest edition of The Daily Show. It was a fix, but not a solution. And then I remembered something: Tor.
(Tor (The Onion Router) allows you to surf the internet anonymously (in conjunction with privoxy), masking your IP, and thus your location, from the prying eyes of evil government, and corporate, overlords.)
And so, I downloaded Tor, and privoxy (and libevent, since I'm running Linux), and installed them. Admittedly, I ran into small annoyances along the way: reinstalling libevent; specifying the directory that libevent was installed to, for Tor's ./configure operations (remember kids, always run ldconfig after installing new software libraries); and failing to make a copy of torrc.sample as torrc. Once these inconveniences were dealt with though (and my browser was setup to use the proxy), I found myself with a functioning internet connection once again.
Now came the test: could I watch flash media on Comedy Central sites?
With no small amount of anticipation, I directed my browser to www.thedailyshow.com, and waited with almost baited breath. The site loaded; the calming colours a welcome invitation compared to the black and yellow abomination that I would otherwise have had to face. But would it load the flash?
I waited and watched; those two seconds seemed interminable. But finally, eureeka, The Daily Show's Wayback Randomizer loaded. Flash media worked under Tor. And as the latest edition of The Daily Show loaded, I smiled contentedly. I'd beaten the bastards. I had my Comedy Central access restored thanks to Tor, privoxy, and libevent.
Now, truth be told, the connection is slower than normal, Comedy Central's sites taking longer to load than before this debacle began; but it's a price I'm willing to pay to avoid having to look at that travesty of a site that The Comedy Network calls a home page. Maybe, if it weren't so garish, and they had all of the content that Comedy Central had, this wouldn't be as much of an issue. Don't be mistaken, I'd still be ticked that I couldn't visit www.comedycentral.com, but it would have taken me a bit longer to get around to doing something about it.
I guess, in a way then, I owe The Comedy Network thanks. So, thank you Comedy Network. Thank you for having a site that sucks so bad, that it prompted me to get off my ass, install a proxy, and regain access to Comedy Central. I won't forget you for this.
For those that are interested, here are links for:
Over the last couple days, I've been seeing people from Canada posting that they again have access to Comedy Central's websites. I've not been so fortunate though... until today.
Today, on a whim prompted by reading this thread at dslreports.com, and taking note of the date, I decided to try again; and lo and behold, it worked. I managed to get to Comedy Central's site. I checked the Daily Show's site as well, and it's up and running for me; all without a proxy.
Now I'm not convinced that things will stay this way. I'm hopeful that reason has been seen, but human stupidity, and corporate profiteering have a way of beating reason to a bloody pulp. Hell, this newfound access may even have something to do with the writers strike. What it might have to do with it though, I have no idea.
And while I'm on this subject, I think I'll include a link to this guide, put out by the Citizen Lab located at the University of Toronto: Everyone's Guide to By-Passing Internet Censorship: For Citizens Worldwide.
What a difference 3 days make. Once again I've lost direct access to www.comedycentral.com, Comedy Central's Motherload, and the Colbert Report's little corner of the internet. As of 4:55 PM PST today, all that I retain direct access to is www.thedailyshow.com (and who knows how long I'll still enjoy that luxury).
I guess it's back to Tor; I will not be denied!
And, yes, I still loathe the Comedy Network and their craptacular site (those Linux hating bastards).
Seems I was wrong; www.thedailyshow.com is only partially accessible. I can see the words, and the flash loads, but it doesn't play anymore (even under Tor).
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
Looks like Comedy Central is taking a book from NBC's page.
Well... I will not be deterred. There's got to be a way around this bullshit, and I'm going to find it. Hopefully. Otherwise, there's always bittorrent.
Some further poking and prodding has uncovered the reason for my recent set backs with Tor, as well as some alternative means of accessing geo-gated/geo-blocked streaming media. I'll start with the latter.
I'm not going to bore anyone with the long and frustrating details of near misses, and the like, as I struggled to overcome corporate censorship and tyranny. That's already been documented previously, so today was just more of the same. But while I was fighting the good fight, I did come across a couple of sites that may, or may not, prove useful to others.
Early in my journey, I came across two posts from a blog called "Complete Japan SURVIVAL Guide"; they were:
Now it's not that these weren't helpful in some way, they did direct me to a couple proxy lists, but beyond that, I think the near year-old information, while not totally out of date, hasn't kept pace. That's not to say in a repressive country this information might not be useful, but I'm not in (what typically qualifies as) a repressive country; I'm just trying to circumvent an irritating corporate policy.
For the next little bit (a couple hours on-and-off) I pretty much got the same results has I had previously. But some magic words changed that, and I managed to find Mike Davidson's blog and this particular post:
Now it's not so much that the post is all that useful; it's a review, so it's of no use at all. The comments though... now that's an entirely different story. Most were looking for help, trying to watch stuff on www.abc.com from locations outside of the U.S. Some though, tried to offer assistance, and two in particular proved quite useful.
The first was essentially just a link to Laurent LaSalle's blog, and this article in particular:
What it boils down to is: if you want to watch ABC's shows on their site, and you're located outside of the U.S., you need to use a U.S. based proxy that is transparent, and change the timezone preference in your OS to an American location. And yes, this does work (on Linux as well), I've tested it.
The second post (written by Snypmasta and posted 3 March 2007 at 12:00 am---I'd provide a link, but all it would take you to is an error page) was less revelatory, since it followed the general principles of most other instructions I've seen on setting up a proxy, but it had a couple useful links:
It was through the second link (or rather, what was at the other end of that link) that I managed to determine why Tor wasn't working for me. When I visited "What's my IP" while Tor was running, it said my IP was located in Edmonton. When I refreshed: Germany. Neither of these locations are within the U.S., and thus I couldn't play things on www.thedailyshow.com.
I'd forgotten that Tor was not designed with the intent of letting geo-blocked Canadians watch American television on the internet; it was designed so that people living in repressive countries could gain access to the outside world. That said, I still want that small amount of American television I like to watch. So now I just need to figure out how to tell Tor to only use American proxies.
Things are, again, looking up.
And speaking of proxies, you can find lists of proxies at the following sites:
You may want to consider stopping by whatismyipaddress.com to test and see if the proxy server you are wanting to use is detectable. Or if it reveals your actual IP address, as it seems that many do.
John Wilkson
2007-11-30 09:19:09
Like the title says, wmii 3.6 is now available for download. Get it here and know the freedom that come with leaving the mouse (almost) behind (and also of managed windows, that's also pretty damned sweet).
I can't believe you're shutting down your "notes"! Loser
Bob
2008-05-01 08:05:13
Well "Bob", it's all part of a grand master plan that involve underpants, ?, and profit. The Notes/Blog will likely return once the site has been moved to its (intended) new host (hopefully in a couple of days).
dan
2008-05-23 10:27:13
Given the fact that it's been almost half a year since I last posted, maybe it's time to make some changes. Thus the blog is temporarily closing--sorry spambots--so that it (and the rest of this site) can undergo desperately needed renovations, and hopefully be resurrected with slightly more focus than currently present. What can be saved, will; what can't be saved shall burn upon a glorious pyre!