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Posted on

i’m a consumer

Right-o, chap.
I dunno if you noticed, but the entry is “late.” Usually I automate these things to post at midnight the day I want them up, which means I have them written beforehand. Not this time. I got home last night and decided I didn’t even feel like sitting in front of the PC. I debated even writing… but I have some kinda built-in thing now that makes me.

Saturday I did it. I bought a bike. Remember, I wanted to… to see if I could make it my >50% time method of transportation to work? It’s Sunday now, so I can’t really report on how that worked out yet. Although I do plan to bike the commute tomorrow, despite the cold and damp mornings we’ve been having. Later today I’m going to do a time trial, to get an idea of when I need to leave. In the end, I settled for a cheaper bike… since I’m no cycling enthusiast or anything. I guess anything with two wheels would’ve served me well… but I couldn’t stand the thought of cruising to work on a Sam Walton special. So I settled for something the hovers slightly above the department store generics and below the bike store name brands. Either way, it rolls when peddled… so I think I’m OK. If you never hear me talk about it here again, the shame of buying it and not using it as I’d hoped has become too great – and I’d advise not bringing it up.

It’s Monday now as I write… I got to work early to finish today’s entry. And, because I took off early from the house to give myself plenty of time on the ride in. Yup, I totally did it. Biked the commute for the first time, beat yesterday’s time-trial by 5min this morning. Riding through the cold fog-mist was kinda nice. I put the new Early Day Miners record on the flash player and peddled away. It felt good… I maintained a good pace, didn’t get too tired. I’m so self-conscious when it comes to exercise; I know it’s stupid. Everyone knows me as the guy who “doesn’t care.” So when I do things that are contrary to that, it’s a fair assumption that I’ll give them up shortly or that it’s a fad. I mean, the precedent is definitely there. So I ride to work and hope I don’t pull up next to a car with someone I know in it, for fear of feeling “dumb.” Oh, no doubt it’s psychosomatic… but it’s a real thing nonetheless. I’m just glad I’m doing it. If I can stick to it, there’s a potential 8.2mi per day… ~1hr more exercise than the zero I was getting previously.

I left the 5th grade 10 days before the last day of school, because my family was up and moving to Florida. Our classroom had a party that day which served the double-purpose of a “graduation from 5th grade” party and a sendoff for me. When we got to Florida, dad’s work put us up in a condo until we could find a house. A condo that was right on the beach. I remember that summer like one long vacation. Frank and I would roll out of bed and onto the beach. Move from the beach to the pool, pool to running around the complex ringing doorbells. It was great. I remember listening to “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” and “Nightmare on My Street.” I guess there was a period where I was listening to some top40… but I did have Speak and Spell in the cassette deck.

The other night Sharaun was watching this reality show where these fat people are competing to lose the most weight (yes, I know the name of the show, but chose not to use it as if I didn’t to demonstrate my disdain for such programs). Anyway, they had a competition where there was a insanely huge mountain of food on stage. All kinds of food, cheese, pastries, breads, anything you could think of and all stacked to the stagelights. The group was split into teams, and the goal was to move as much food from the huge pile over to a little podium – the catch being that they had to use only their mouths to transport and stack the grub. Imagine the scene – ten overweight people grabbing hunks of food in their mouths, shuffling across stage, and pressing it drool-covered onto a growing mound of similarly disgusting stuff. Food was dropped in transit, stepped on, mashed, squished, and gummed and toothed – but not consumed.

I watched it, and transformed from the mindless, wasteful American consumer I am – to that ever-popular American alter-ego of the caring (but just a tad less than being moved to act), world-conscious good Samaritan. How appalling would this video be if we took it on a tour of Somalia or something? It really was disgusting, it made Double Dare’s milk-battles pale in comparison. America’s food supply is so abundant that we have to find alternate uses for our stores – like playing games or building things with it. I remember a Sharaun telling me about an exchange student who was helping the homecoming committee clean up after the dance, and who broke down in tears as she watched the pounds and pounds of uneaten food go right into the trash. We truly are the land of plenty.

Random, but done.

Posted on

sucking out the spirit

Do the numbers lie?
Right now, I’m wrecked tired. Last night I stupidly stayed up until 2am… and the fatigue really hit me around 4pm today. Before I do this, I wanted to tell you guys that I really hesitated about posting another rant on religion. I wanted to write something funny again… like some of the old entries I’m so proud of. I’ve always said though, that whatever ends up getting written is whatever was meant to be written. Forced stuff just doesn’t work… funny just happens. So with that, here’s some super-unfunny crap for ya.

Current estimates* put the world’s population at 6,396,000,000, which, after some zero counting, I decided is near 6.4 billion. When I said yesterday that I find statistics interesting, it got me thinking. Some of the most interesting, and telling, statistics are those about world religion. For instance, out of those 6.4 billion people I mentioned above, an estimated 5.3 to 5.8 billion purport to believe in “… God or a similarly understood higher power(s). “* That’s somewhere between 80%-90% of ALL people, an overwhelming majority that’s hovering close to unanimity; simply amazing. Doing a little statistical analysis with these numbers can yield some interesting thoughts.

I need to make two assumptions before I get into the numbers:

  1. I’m assuming that the probability that any person will be born in a certain geographical area is directly proportional to the population of that area. I.e., The more people on a continent, the more babies of the world born on that continent. For this exercise I’m going to equate a baby’s percentage chance of being born in country X to country X’s percentage of world population.
  2. I’m assuming that if you’re born in a certain area, it’s reasonable to think your religious ideas will fit the statistical data for that area’s religious beliefs. I.e., if you’re born in Thailand, and the population of Thailand is statistically 95% Buddhist, I’m assuming there’s a 95% chance you’ll end up Buddhist.

I realize this 2nd assumption could be argued on the point that people don’t always stay where they’re born, as well as many other points. But as a generality – I think it’s a relatively safe assumption to say that most people stay in the country they are born in, and will align with the statistical trends.

Before we go any further – I also realize that statistics can change over time, and you can’t eliminate the possibility of dramatic change. Whereas Thailand is 95% Buddhist today, who’s to say there couldn’t be a wildly successful Hare Krishna campaign in Thailand, converting 50% of the people in a year’s time? While I readily acknowledge it’s a possibility, and would wreck all this thinking… the fact is that the breakdown of world religion by area has remained largely unchanged for decades. Another factor that I’ve not taken into account is the “growth rates” for different countries. If some countries are humpin’ and reproducin’ at a faster pace than others, it stands to reason that they may have an edge on less rabitty nations. That stuff is all too complicated though, so let’s forget it OK? Good.

With the two above assumptions, we can make some interesting inferences. I’m going to approach this through Christianity, because where I live it’s by far the theology of choice”*, and is easiest for me to hold up to the statistics. Now to the meat.

Christianity is grounded in the fact that you must believe in the God of the Bible to have “salvation” (ignoring a multitude of doctrinal differences over how salvation is truly attained). Earning salvation is the goal of Christianity; to be saved, to ultimately live forever in Heaven once you’ve died on Earth. If you don’t believe in God, you’re not just not going to Heaven for a life of eternal joy, you’re instead going to Hell… which is a “lake of fire” where there is only eternal pain and suffering. This black and white property of Christianity works well when applied to world religion statistics, because you can immediately see approximately how much of the world is going to spend an eternity in the anguish of Hell’s furnace after they die (or, conversely, how many will walk streets paved with gold and have palaces of their own – but the Hell stat is more “in yo face”).

So let’s do it then. Current estimates show that out of the world’s 6.4 billion souls, an estimated 2 billion fit a generalized definition of “Christian.”* Looking at those numbers and drawing the most basic of conclusions, it’s clear that a full 2/3 of humanity, 2/3 of God’s own creation, is damned.

Not only are only 1/3 going to Heaven, but if we go back to assumption #2 – you’ve got the odds of where you’ll be born to factor in as well. Out of the 193 countries in the world*, 120 of them have a population where Christianity is the religion of the majority (>50% population)*. That means if everyone were as likely to be born in Zambia as they were India, you’d stand about a 60% chance if being born into a country where (by assumption #2) you’d more than likely end up Christian. Not entirely bad odds, but a little “coin-tossy” for me. However, by assumption #1, we know that you’re more likely to be born into a more populous country. With that in mind, consider that 37% of the world’s total population is concentrated in two, non-Christian majority, countries. To make it a little more concrete, using the “only Christians go to Heaven” mindset: If you do manage to be one of the lucky 63% of babies not born into either of the world’s predominantly non-Christian heaviest populated countries, you still have to “overcome” your birth-country’s belief-breakdown.

Yes, I realize you have to be careful about assuming that the statistical breakdown of a population’s beliefs will determine the tendancy for someone born in that country to ally with any certain belief. There is, of course, the element of human “choice” to deal with. And sure, anyone, anywhere, at any time can choose something different than they the statistics “say” they will. But with numbers like 99.5% of the people in Yemen being Muslim*, I think it’s a safe bet that the 1st kid born in Yemen in the next 30sec will end up being a faithful Muslim.

I also realize that Christians might scoff at all of this, because of course every person in the entire world has an equal shot at knowing God. It’s as simple as believe or don’t, and that’s 50/50 odds. I gets rather silly, because from a believer’s perspective – statistics have nothing to do with the determination of a person’s beliefs. Belief is a choice, and every choice is yes or no, 50% chance. I mean, from an evangelical Christian’s point of view – being born into a country in which 99.5% of the population is Muslim makes no difference on your ability to be Christian.

Whew… I’m tired.

All that said, I haven’t even mentioned the real figures I wanted to get at with this discussion. See, we’ve broken down odds based solely on Christian vs. non-Christian lines. Thing is, the term “Christian” I’m using encompasses a lot of different faiths, or denominations. There are several of these denominations who believe that they are the only ones doing it right, and therefore the only ones who will escape Hell. For instance, most denominations which sprang from the “Restoration Movement” of the 1800s firmly believe that they are the one and only church through which one can get to God*. There are estimated to be 5,400,000 members of these denominations worldwide*. If you hold to that thinking, the percentage of people in the world who are actually going to live forever with God plummets to .00084%. Think that’s bad? Well guess what, there are even subsets within the “Restoration Movement” umbrella who think that they are the only true church…

I don’t mean to pick on any particular denomination or “movement,” the principle is the same no matter where you start dissecting. When you break down Christianity into branches and denominations, adherents to a particular set of dogma number fewer and fewer. When certain denominations or branches believe they are the only “true” way to God – they are essentially telling an overwhelming majority of people they are damned. Oh sure, they’d tell you that “everyone has a shot,” but I suspect the effect of religious conversion on statistics this large is completely in the noise.

Ooouuch… my head hurts, and I’m not making any sense anymore. I’m sorry.

This thing turned into such a mess of math and statistics that for a while I just started writing down sentences as they came to me. Afterward, I combined them all into (what I hope is) a rational flow. At one point, I was reading through my stream-of-consciousness looking for what “point” I wanted to make next, and I found the sentence “You have a 37% chance of being born.” That cracked me up for some reason. Anyway, hope it ended up being an interesting enough read to justify the time I put into it.

Goodnight goodnight goodnight.

Posted on

hate and bass

I just don't get it.
Midnight now, definitely time to go to bed. I do this all the time… stay up for no good reason. Just sitting here, surfing the net, reading about this and that.

Related to my entry yesterday about comment spam, it seems Google heard the blog-collective’s cry and has decided to do something about it. I’m hesitant to call it a solution, because all it does is remove the “reward” spammers get from putting links in comments (Google calculates a webpage’s “PageRank” by the number of other pages on the web that link to that page, so getting your URL on as many webpages as possible yields an elevated PageRank and the resultant higher prominence in search results). I guess, eventually, when there’s no direct benefit from polluting comments with spam, comment spam will cease. But for a while, those bots will still be running… and the spam will still be there. Still, it’s cool to see that WordPress has signed on to support the feature in a future version, I love WordPress.

On the way home from work today, I arrived at a red light in the middle lane of three lanes. Shortly, I was flanked on either side by teenager drivers. The new Decemberists album was on the stereo, filling the truck with high-pitched, warbly, folky nasal crooning backed by soft acoustic guitar. The two sideways-hat-wearin’ teenagers were having a good ol’ fashion whiteboy bass-off, trying to outdo each other’s bumpin’ – and I was caught square in the middle. So there I was, entombed in bass and poseurs… realizing how un-young I am. I had a brief urge to flip on over to the frequency modulated bands and put on 97.1 BEAT or 101.5 BLNG or whatever’s hot with the yunguns these days… but I resisted. Wait… I’m old enough to joke about not being a teenager, right? I mean, for Jah’s sake… I’m pushin’ 30 y’all.

I dunno how many people know about Google’s Zeitgeist, I read about it a couple years ago. It’s really awesome to watch internet search trends over time, or maybe it’s just me. Statistics are rad, there’s a voyeuristic feel about them – not the crazy statistics I took in college that was all triple integrals and 4th order differential equations; nay, that kind of statistics sucks. Anyway, they’ve got some cool data that’s kinda fun to poke through. To round out this paragraph of two unrelated thoughts: I exchanged mail again with Bob from yesterday, you know the guy who runs TWOBITS.com? He sent me a link to his personal webpage. Check out the “Roadie” story, it’s a fun read – as are they all. And, we’re done.

Goodnight peoples… until tomorrow.

Posted on

put your hands up!

Drop that hammer! We're haulin' you in son.
Hey guys, welcome back. Sorry if any of you encountered a 404 error while checking sounds familiar yesterday, I was mucking with the .htaccess file in an attempt to block the glut of referrer spam I’ve been getting lately. Long story short, it didn’t work quite as I’d wished… since it effectively took my site offline. But now I’m back, by the shack of a soul boss most turnin’, stormin’, sound o’soul!!

Tonight when I got home, I fired up Thunderbird to check my oft-neglected “primary” e-mail address. Among the usual spam messages and “FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: FW:” prefixed messages from my uncle, I saw something potentially interesting. The mail was titled: http://www.pharaohweb.com/pacman/files/pacman_repro_underlay.zip, which I recognized as the URL to a file hosted on my Pac Man pages. Some background: some time ago, a visitor to my Pac Man site used his Adobe Illustrator skills to create a reproduction of the Pac Man cocktail cabinet underlay artwork. The reproduction was outstanding, a dead ringer for the NAMCO original. The kind artist offered to let me host the file on my server, and asked for nothing in return. He figured, as I did, that we were doing the MAME community a favor by offering the file freely. Now, onto the e-mail that flickered back at me from my monitor:

Dear Dave,

While I appreciate the plug on your page at:

http://www.pharaohweb.com/pacman/itemized.html

there is a link to your page at:

http://www.pharaohweb.com/pacman/hardware.html

where you are offering a free copy of our copyright artwork:

http://www.pharaohweb.com/pacman/files/pacman_repro_underlay.zip

Please remove the link as soon as possible to avoid further action. For your info, we sell the MsPac-man CT underlay pre-cut for a Pac-man table.

Don’t take this as an attack on you or your great website; I get people referencing it to me all the time and I see that you haven’t done anything with your pac page in a while, It’s just that we pay the rent off graphics sales and NAMCO gets their pound of flesh on every piece. The ONLY thing we get from them is protection from counterfeiters.

Drop me a line and let me know your thoughts.

Bob

PS Please don’t blog our correspondence; it’s for your eyes only.

Read more about the current NAMCO lawsuit.
http://www.TWOBITS.com/sued/

I was kinda caught off gaurd, but I’m not going to say that I haven’t wondered before if I’d eventually get a “cease and desist” letter regarding the copyrighted artwork. I always figured that if there was a letter, it would have come from NAMCO directly. A quick check of the TWOBITS.com website shows they do indeed proclaim that their “officially licensed graphics” are “Manufactured by TWOBITS.com under license from NAMCO Ltd.” Taking a minute to re-read and digest the note, I realized that it wasn’t really threatening at all… and seemed more like one man appealing to another to stop doing something that was impacting his bottom line. I immediately called Ben to tell him I was famous… and he agreed with my position, which is summed up in my response:

Hey Bob,

No hard feelings… to be honest I wasn’t really aware you guys were paying any royalties on the artwork. Not to be accusing, but I figured you were in the same boat as the rest of us – using the graphics without permission. I mean, everyone and his brother says their graphics are “licensed,” even the guys at the booth in the flea market. As much as I like being able to offer the file as a service to the MAME community, I’d hate to take money from the pocket of someone who went to the trouble of getting permission and is paying to do it right.

So, to sum it up – the file is gone. I didn’t mean any harm by posting it.

However, there is one part of your message I find haaaard to abide… how can I not blog about my encounter with big brother? Seeing how we see each other eye-to-eye here, would you still deny me the retelling of this story?

Thanks, take care.

dave
www.pharaohweb.com

So, that’s that. I took the file down tonight, and have replaced it with a link to this entry. In the end though, I guess my rebellious side had to make a concession to my empathetic side… because while I managed to comply with the request to remove the file, I simply couldn’t resist documenting the exchange on this page. In the end, I’d still recommend taking your business to twobits, for underlay artwork or any other of the rad DIY arcade accessories they offer. I can’t ding a guy for working to protect his income. And even though the file I hosted was in no-way pilfered from their graphic (it was painstakingly re-created from scratch), I don’t think that’d hold up in court. And yeah, I do feel kinda bad for writing about it against Bob’s wishes, but I’m hoping that since the whole thing was settled amicably he’ll be willing to shrug it off as “what I do.”

One last oddity that came from tonight’s events, the mail I got from twobits was addressed to myself, and Sharaun, and had our last name to boot. Not that big of a deal maybe, but I pay fee to “mask” my personal info from the prying eyes of WHOIS. I asked twobits about how they got the info, which I’m assuming was obtained by querying my WHOIS proxy service, but I thought it was interesting. I guess if you have a legit need to contact the registered owner of a domain (such as that owner is using something you hold the rights to without your permission), the proxy service is bound to cough up.

Pac Man talk over, website admin nerd-talk coming.

Migrating to WordPress as my blogging tool of choice was a great move, the system is easy and works great. The only drawback is the fact that because WordPress is so popular as a blogging system, it’s become a huge target for all kinds of spamming. Comment spam is the number one problem, where bots scour the web for the PHP submit methods of WordPress and input spam comments with links to poker websites and whatnot. Luckily, there are some killer plugins for WordPress which block comment spam based on keywords and IP addresses, all the while becoming “smarter” with each piece of spam identified. Each “holdem” ridden stream of consciousness, each “viagra” peppered extract from rare philosophical texts, each “low mortgage” and “weight loss” laden nonsensical rambling… they all work to make my comments even more spam-free.

Lately though, I’ve noticed an interesting comment spam phenomenon – an increasing amount of “benign” comment spam. I made up the term “benign spam,” but it seems to fit here. These are comments that usually say something like, I like your website I will share this with friends, or, Wow, this is a great web site. I am so glad I found it, thank you. It is funny, I was just talking to my friend about their web site, and they said they like your site too! And that’s all they say. They contain no links to porn or gambling sites, and usually list no author other than “Anonymous.” Being that they’re not linking to any websites, not pitching any product, or redirecting traffic – I have no idea what their goal might be. A simple Google search shows that these are not just a sincere comments from some English-as-a-second-language reader, but some kind of template comment spam.

I can only guess at their intent, but I’d say they are probably testing the “strictness” of my spam filter; seeing just how innocuous the structure of the comment has to be before it gets through the filter. Once they do this a thousand times on a thousand blogs, they’d have a pretty good idea of what most filters qualify as “spam.” Then they can restructure their spam messages most like the comments that didn’t get filtered. Otherwise, I have no idea what they’re all about… unless they’re just scouring the web for open and spammable commenting scripts. Maybe there is no motive, maybe these are just pure evil people wanting to pollute my database with inane comments about nothing. Stupid spammers, scourge of the internet.

I guess I’m an extremist – who thinks we should ban all mention of penis-enlargement, low interest rates, texas holdem, and xxx-teen from the ‘net. OK, we may need some of those xxx-teen sites… to… keep the teens from being exploited and all. Poor teens.

Website admin nerd-talk over.

And that’s it folks, enough for tonight. Before I leave you, you should check out this site. It’s totally amazing… you can play every video game for NES, Genesis, Gameboy, and MAME (arcade) online via Java applets.As for me, I’m going to bed… and hoping I don’t awake in the morning to some kinda slander lawsuit or something. I mean, it’s late… and this new Radio Dept. EP isn’t doing a whole heck of a lot to keep me awake. Plus, it’s lonely back here in the “data center.” G’night, until tomorrow.

Posted on

man this entry blows

Vote Shiite, Sunni sucks.
Good evening blog, glad to see you in good health. What’s that? You’ve been plagued lately by online poker and Viagra spam? Well, not to worry blog, although you may get ~20 “holdem” and “bigger member” spams per hour, I’ve installed some nice anti-spam features that prevent all but the craftiest spammers from getting a comment through. I know, I also wish that your usage stats were once again meaningful, rather than a record of spambots trying to post comments. It’s the nature of the internet, blog, that’s just the way it goes.

Argh… why does the “war on terrorism” have to look so much like a war on Islam? Word around the web is that we’re posturing against the next member of the “axis of evil,” Iran. It was interesting that the rumour of covert US forces in Iran was this morning’s story, and this afternoon the “Americans evenly split on how they feel about the Iraq invasion” story was the lead headline. But have no fear, the orderly and completely representative democratic election this month will set Iraq squarely on the road to non-barbarianism.

Sorry for the sarcasm, but I’ve lost all faith that this vote is anything more than a sham, a parade by the administration for the sake of perceived progress. The news is rife with stories of polling places kept secret out of fear of violence; 60% of voters think they’re voting in a new Iraqi president (they’re not); candidates can’t campaign for fear of death; and more than one million absentee voters are registering from over fourteen countries. This election is nothing more than a dog and pony show, I don’t understand how it will accomplish anything at all. Not everyone can vote, people who are voting don’t know what they’re voting for, and the candidates can’t get their message out even if they did. I guess I’m pessimistic.

Enough about it already, I realize there’s nothing for complaining.

Having my entire music collection here at work with me is awesome. I can listen to such a wide variety of stuff during the day. I’ve got about 80% of my CDs ripped to MP3, so I have almost my entire collection on-hand. I need to get around to ripping that final 20% (which consists mostly of Beatles’ bootlegs), so I can be done with it. After I’ve got everything ripped, there’ll be a period of “cleaning” up the tags and directory structure. But for now, it’s awesome to be able to pick from the same selection I’ve got at home while at work. Just tonight, for example, I got the complete Miles Davis Montreux recordings (a 20CD boxset clocking in at almost 2GB when digitized)… how cool is that to have on-hand when I feel like rad jazz? (Ugh, after downloading this beast it seems like it’s all from the 80s and is with Miles’ electronic band… I dunno if I can get into this…)

I relented from my hardline stance of not doing work-work in the evenings (my much cherished off-time) tonight, mainly because I didn’t make full use of my time at work today… and I’m once again pressed for time this week. Finally made my reservations for the first of my two upcoming trips to Taiwan, the initial jaunt commencing in late February and lasting a week. The second trip comes sometime in late March and lasts 2-3 weeks. I got worried at first, because it looked like my favorite swank hotel was completely booked up the week I was going. The thought of not being able to stay in that now familiar environment really bummed me out… I like that hotel, I feel like the king of the castle there. Anyway, I did manage to book a room for the week, and am now looking forward to the trip, and subsequent sky miles. Too bad I couldn’t arrange something where Sharaun could join me…

Man this entry blows. Goodnight.

Posted on

poor horatio

Let's go down to Myer's Lake for a picnic.
Dear reader, a varied post lies ahead… written at different times throughout the weekend. I make no claims about its contents being interesting, or even cohesive for that matter. I only offer what I write, and I tend to write a lot of crap. Please bear with us here as we strive for some decent content, but for today – we’ll take what we can get. And now onto the stuff.

If you know me, or have been reading this wordy webpage for a while, you know that The Andy Griffith Show is “pretty much my favorite” television show. As much as I like it for it’s bumpkin humor or Aesopesque underlying messages, I like it more because it’s a glimpse at some kind of utopia… at least, a utopian vision that closely aligns with my own. Simpler times; a close-knit community of friends; a rural existence based firmly on morals, a desire for peaceful clean-living, and a common-sense respect for others. A place where people are still close to the things that make them happy: the land they work, the friends they have, and the beliefs they share. No… the show never really goes into any of that, those are just my extrapolations. That’s my Mayberry, as stupid as it sounds.

In the tradition of last weekend’s “what I’m listening to” sidebar addition, I spent 10min Saturday adding a “random post” link at the bottom of the “archives” sidebar section. Used a nifty little WordPress plugin to get the job done, pretty cool. Even I get a kick out of clicking it sometimes, I write some stupid stuff. So check it out, and remember – if you see some whack formatted posts that got messed up in the WordPress transfer, lemme know so I can fix ’em. Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Sunday, I got what I thought was a great idea. I’ve had this 120GB external hard drive sitting around for a while, not really doing much with it but copying the occasional thing over to it as an extra backup. Double-checking the current size of my digital music library and finding it to be 106GB, I decided to copy the entire thing over to the external drive. Then, I setup a script that can compare the two drives and keep them in sync, always ensuring that the external drive is up-to-date. I plan to take the drive to work with me. Now, instead of having to sift through piles of DVDs to find something to listen to at work, I’ve got it all on-hand. I’ll bring it home every few days to sync it with the master collection on my RAID array. Now… if I could only find a way to plug it into the car stereo and be able to take it on the road…

When technology really gets smart, here’s how I see it going down: I’ll have a central repository for digital media in my house, it will be large capacity, redundant, and fault-tolerant (RAID5). I’ll have a small iPod like device, but based on flash memory, which will also be large-capacity, enough to hold a mirror image of my entire collection. Vehicles will support the standard interface to this portable device, a plug-in interface that supplies power and signal-out and will be as ubiquitous as the 2.5mm headphone jack is today. The portable device will have built-in wireless capability, and will use my sleeping hours to keep in sync with the central collection. Physical size is important, the current iPod form-factor and weight being the largest that’s acceptable. Storage size must always seem to be overkill, 500GB-1TB if it this thing were real right now. As a rule of thumb, it should always be about 30% larger than what’s thought of as “big,” because if you just aim for “big,” it’ll without a doubt be too small within a year. The advantage of flash vs. moving spinning disks is essential, and when unplugged from a power source, the battery on this device will last 24 hours.

In addition, if I’m in a music store with the device, I can “purchase” an album and zap it through the ether onto my drive; same deal at the video rental store. If I’m at a show, I can purchase a board recording of the event at the end and beam it on. The device will support a “friendly” mode, where it will wirelessly seek fellow devices with similar tastes and enable file-sharing between them, integrated GPS will even allow two “friendly” enabled device owners to meet in real life if they wish. DJs at clubs will be able to offer their entire sets to be immediately “beamed” to paying customers. It will interface with PVR devices to take the kids’ favorite TV shows on the road. If you like a song you hear while in a store, you’ll be able to purchase and beam it to the device.

I spent a good bit of my weekend freetime reading Beside Still Waters, a book Pat loaned me thinking I’d be interested, mostly based on my writing from the other day. It’s a good book, if a little wordy. In fact, it’s a great book… seemingly targeted to what I’ve been thinking about lately. I wanted to write more about it, but I’ve not finished it yet – and wanted to reserve judgment until I was done. If you’re at all curious about that kinda stuff, I’d recommend checking out the book. And, I’m sure I’ll have more uninteresting stuff to say about it when I’ve finished reading it.

Goodnight.

Posted on

doubts

YIS for election.
I can’t honestly believe that anyone thinks there can be a successful election process in Iraq just two weeks from now. Some facts about the election process: There are more than 120 recognized parties who are eligible to run no more than 275 candidates each. The people are voting in 275 members to the general assembly. Yes, you read that right, voters are expected to pick two-hundred and seventy-five people off a list of somewhere between 20,000-30,000 names. There is no formal registration process; in fact, eligible voters are being culled solely from a decade-old list of people, which was drafted under Saddam’s regime. In the past weeks, there have been multiple attempts on the lives of candidates and election officials.

I understand that democratic elections have been held under less-than-ideal circumstances before, post-revolutionary war for one… but this Iraq situation seems ridiculous. As a voter, I have a hard enough time educating myself on the 30 names on my ballot… can you imagine trying to sort 30,000 people? How would you even go about preparing to vote intelligently? You wouldn’t. You’d vote down party, religious, or social lines. Can you imagine how daunting it would be to stare down at a ballot filled with tens of thousands of names? I wonder how many pages the thing is. It seems like a farce to me… an elaborate charade. I guess it has to happen sooner than later though, because the of ousting of a government to install another just isn’t “cool” anymore. Would that we could return to the days of “sponsored” governments and US backed coups… y’know, maybe roll the USS Nashville up into the Gulf everything goes smooth. Where’s Teddy when you need him?

I think I know why they call it getting “tight.” After a couple $30 shots of tequila, the skin on your face actually feels tight… stretched, or something. I didn’t mean for tonight to end up like this, I had scheduled a meeting for 6am tomorrow. Luckily, the guy I scheduled the 6am meeting with is crashing in my spare room… a victim of the same tequila and beer cocktail that brought me down.

I’m going to bed. Goodnight.