syberghost

The kids broke my headset. I need a new one. If you click this and sign up, I get points to possibly win a very nice one. You also get to enter points to win things. Hint; watch the first 2 seconds of all the videos every day, it'll get you over 300 points per day.

I had two RedHat AS 4.6 servers that were unable to boot due to a heinous act of boot-prevention committed by one of my co-workers. (Details not for you; what happens in $COMPANY stays in $COMPANY).

I needed to be able to mount the root filesystem read/write to fix it. So, I logged on the DHCP server, and set these boxes up to boot from our current netboot rescue image, which is maintained by another team. It was invalid; files had been removed, and I didn't have time to set it back up.

So I went back in and reconfigured it for our old, deprecated-but-still-supposedly-valid netboot rescue image. No dice; files have been removed, and CBA to set it back up.

So I went into my stack of CDs to get my AS 4.6 boot CD. Gone.

Went to the other team's cabinet, to get their AS 4.6 boot CD. Gone.

I happen to have this image on my hard drive. Borrowed a blank CD-R, went to burn it. Windows laptop is messed up, can no longer burn CDs; three lockups and forced reboots later, I give up.

Walk into the machine room, hook up the KVM tray, insert my trusty Ubuntu 9.04 USB key (4GB Corsair FlashVoyager GT, highly recommended) and fix the servers, no muss no fuss.

Shoulda just used Ubuntu from the start. What I get for following corporate standards and documented procedures.

Now to go find the person responsible for those rescue image documents, and make an example of him for the next ten generations of system administrator. Anybody got a pike you aren't using?

So, 25 year old "Dragon Magazine" reprints are "e23 Originals" now?

http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG37-1101

Poll #1351477 Who would win?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 1

Who would win in a fight; Krillin or Lobo?

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&layer=c&cbll=42.953557,-77.663247&panoid=6vAkor2kYZz3m5_1iSkMrw&cbp=12,181.53727377395012,,0,21.75107339062427&ll=42.953463,-77.663242&spn=0.027766,0.22316&t=h&z=13

Go to this Google Streets link. Click "forward" and cringe. Click "forward" again, then turn around the left to look back...

or, The First Thing We Do is Kill All The Lawyers.

You and I, along with the vast majority of our fellow Americans, have a vested interest in laws being simple, plainly-written, and few in number. When laws are simple and easy to understand, whether or not we comply with them becomes a matter of choice, and it becomes possible for the average person to go through his day without violating any if he so chooses. Further, those choices are more informed, because there is no great disparity between the perceived severity of the infraction and the severity of the punishment.

There is one occupation, however, whose members have a vested interest in laws being complex, vague, indecipherable to people outside that occupation, and incredibly numerous. The members of this profession derive direct economic benefit if you cannot go through your daily life without violating some obscure law. They greatly increase their income if it is not clear whether or not a certain action on your part violates a law; indeed, they increase it even further if it is not at all clear even to THEM whether or not your actions are legal. It is in their best interest that the matter not be at all decided until multiple courts have ruled upon it, and further that this not settle the case for their next customer who does something identical, much less slightly different.

That profession, of course, is the legal profession.

This is not to say that a realistically ideal society wouldn't have lawyers. One can understand that exposure to carcinogens may cause cancer without giving up the need for an oncologist in the event that disease rears its ugly head; but under no circumstances is it ever a good idea for a society to have its laws written by people who are in majority, or even in a very large minority, attorneys.

George W. Bush came from the oil business, his father likewise. Ronald Reagan was an actor. We have to go all the way back to Ford and Nixon to find Republican Presidents who were lawyers, and they were disasters. Vice President Cheney was a corporate CEO for a time, but has mostly worked in various government positions. Dan Quayle was an attorney. Rockefeller was a businessman and philanthropist.

Senate Minority Leader McConnell has a law degree, but has never practiced law; Trent Lott was likewise. House Minority Leader Boehner was a businessman. Blunt's degrees are in History, although he's always work in government, DeLay was a Biologist, and Gingrich a History professor.

Now let's look at the other side of the isle.

Obama, Biden, Reid, Pelosi; all lawyers. Clinton: lawyer. Gore: flunked out of law school and went into public service. Mondale: lawyer.

Reid's Democrat predecessor, Tom Daschle, was a military intelligence officer. Byrd's degree is in law but he never practiced. Pelosi's predecessor Dick Gephardt is a lawyer. Foley was a lawyer. Wright was a veteran and a businessman.


So in the name of "change" we're going from a Businessman and a Businessman, working with a Law-trained Public Servant and a Businessman, to a Lawyer and Lawyer, working with a Lawyer and a Lawyer.

Our major choices for President among the Republicans were a career Naval officer with a businesswoman as VP, a Minister, a CEO, and an Air Force Flight Surgeon turned Gynecologist.

Among the Democrats we had to choose from a Lawyer with a Lawyer for VP, a Lawyer, a Lawyer, and a nearly-homeless mooch who lived on charity until entering public service and who believes in flying saucers.


So you've replaced everybody who had a vested interest in making laws simple, understandable, and inexpensive with people who promise "change", all of whom have a vested interest in more and more complex laws.

Don't pretend to be surprised at what you get; Uncle Syberghost gave you the head's up.

Yesterday I posted an entry about a fantastic piece of WoW machinima. If you haven't watched it yet, follow this link and check it out.

The primary piece of music is a Japanese pop song called "Hide and Seek", by Namie Amuro, from her album "Play". Here's a link to the lyrics:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/hide-and-seek-lyrics-namie-amuro.html

Damn catchy song, with enough English lyrics to follow the story. I'm listening to the album now. Cover picture is pretty hot, too:

It's basically an extended fight scene in Wuxia style using World of Warcraft lore and models, from a professional animator. Reminds me very much of Steven Erikson's descriptions of fights involving the best of the Imperial Claw assassins in the "Malazan Book of the Fallen" series, although more fantastical. (If Ang Lee made a movie of "Deadhouse Gates", this is what Kalam's fight at the end of the book would look like.)

http://vimeo.com/2625538

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ewanspence/455529387/

http://www.inquisitr.com/12667/huffington-posts-syndication-tricks-come-back-to-bite-them/

For most of this year, possibly longer, The Huffington Post has been syndicating articles on their site with links back to the original source. The general idea is to take 2-3 paragraphs from the original source, then link out at the end so that readers can continue reading the article on the original site.

I’ve always found the model interesting, but I also presumed that it was done with permission; we now run a small about of content here at The Inquisitr on the similar basis, although always with permission from authors upfront.

It turns out that The Huffington Post not only didn’t have permission, but at times were republishing full posts, not just extracts.

Chicagoland made the initial call out on content being stolen, then followed up with a pile of extra examples. Ryan Tate at Gawker calls the practice grubby.

I guess when your entire reason for existence is screaming profanity at one man, you kinda start to run out of material after a while.

I intend to use the phrase "The Obama Regime" constantly for the next few years. Fair is fair.

Gatagis, mighty Orc Hunter And his faithful Ironbeak Owl, Flip.

My World of Warcraft main character.

...of a meme about how different you are from everybody else on LJ...

So, syberghost, your LiveJournal reveals...

You are... 0% unique and 12% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy science fiction). When it comes to friends you are popular. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are keen to please. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is conventional.

Your overall weirdness is: 19

(The average level of weirdness is: 29.
You are weirder than 40% of other LJers.)

Find out what your weirdness level is!

http://www.orlandosentinel2.com/data/arrests/index.php?id=3605

Edit: there was an apology, there is forgiveness all around, flist is returned to previous state. Nothing to see here, move along.

Let's not forget this study from four years ago, folks:

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx?RelNum=5409

"Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great
mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always
worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump,"
said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found
that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with
ill-conceived stimulus policies."

Mike Reagan's had enough. Let's join him:

http://www.reaganaction.com/

Viva la revolucione, part two.

And yes, the first thing to fix is the GOP.