Meyaden's Blog

The Road to Hell is Paved with Cheese

2012-01-10T14:05:00.000+09:00

I have been thinking lately a lot about how I eat. More specifically, I am considering trying to go vegan for a few months. If nothing else, it would confirm a very strong suspicion.

I am not currently vegan, but I have gone a month or two on a vegan diet from time to time for various reasons, and this blog post is about where I stand now.

You hear people talk about the effects of a vegan diet all the time. You hear about them saying how healthy it is and how good you feel. What you don’t hear about so often is people who have gone vegan long enough to start to notice a difference, and then gone back. In some ways the term backslidden seems appropriate, but might be off putting to people who see the phrase as having a more religious connotation.

First of all, I never really used to think so much about how my body felt until I started to think about and change what I ate. I was always more in tune with my body than most people, but not quite like I was when I was focusing a bit on what I was eating.

During the times that I was living as a vegan (mostly for selfish reasons at the time), I noticed a few things.

1) Your body really does start to feel better when you live off of fruits and vegetables. A good balanced diet of fruits, vegetables, and grains provides all the major dietary requirements and then some. They are full of energy and quite often are easier to digest than heavy meats.

2) When you eat healthier, you get to know your body better. You get to feel what it needs. Yes, your body will tell you what you are hungry for, and the more different things you eat the more likely it is that your brain will associate the body's request with a specific food item.

3) I really really do like the taste of vegetables.

Now, to move on. Quite often, when I have fallen off the wagon, it has been because of something involving cheese. As I said, my reasons for going vegan were usually short term and somewhat selfish. Because of this it wasn't so hard to pick up that burrito, or that slice of pizza, or a grilled cheese sandwich, and not look back.

Lately I have been thinking about other reasons to go vegan. One big one is the health benefits, the rest are a little less selfish. There are a lot of reasons to go vegan, and only a few real reasons that one might not. That is for another blog post though. The point here is to describe my experiences in a way that may make sense to others. If it makes sense to the people around me, then maybe they will help me stay away from cheese related products and places. :P

As I said, when I went vegan for a while, there was a definite energy boost. My body felt healthier, more stable, cleaner. I was more in tune with my system. Most of the aches and pains associated with human life were gone.

Afterwards, when I started eating cheese and then meat again, there was a stark noticeable difference at first. After getting away from meat and dairy for a while, your body doesn't always like the reintroduction.

After a few weeks though, my body started to get comfortable again with the situation. Something wasn't quite right though, so I started watching my body and what it did.

Again, I needed to lose some weight, and wanted to do it safely so I went vegan again for about a month and a half. I lost the weight, and I had the energy boost that I had experienced before, and was overall more comfortable in my skin. Then came the cheese.

Looking back over the last handful of years, I have realized something. When we say we feel healthy as meat eaters, and that we are comfortable in our bodies as meat eaters (especially those who claim to be carnivores), quite often it is because we have no point of reference.

The times when I feel "comfortable" after eating meat again for a few weeks are not quite the same as actually being comfortable. It is the body adapting to the given situation. Human bodies are good at that.

I suspect that is why I feel "ok," but not quite the same. Before my experiments with veganism, I really had no frame of reference. I had always had mild reactions to dairy (especially milk). I had always felt sleepy after eating a meal with a lot of meat. I had always felt just... Well, normal. Or at least, it was what I thought was normal.

So, to confirm this suspicion, I plan to try again soon. I have so many reasons to give it a go, and only one reason not to.

Yes, I do like cheese. I like it rather a lot, but that is not a valid reason. The only real reason is the matter of vitamin B12. It is the one vitamin that is hard to find in plant matter. It is more of a mineral really. It is a form of cobalt that the body uses for a lot of different processes.

Even that is not a valid reason at the moment though. The body requires a very minute amount of the substance, and there are many foods that are enriched with it. So, basically, modern science makes up for the one evolutionary glitch that makes meat somewhat necessary.

When I get to San Diego in a few months, I will have more control for a while over the groceries I buy. If I can stay away from Taco Bell, then I should be able to eat a vegan diet fairly effectively. I will try to post from time to time to keep people up to date on the results.

Oh, and for the record, raw grains tend to be a lot tastier to me than meat any day. :P

Words Have Meaning

2011-09-08T14:39:00.001+09:00

I know that most people don't care about language, or even about cultural minorities for that matter, but it really pisses me off when I go onto a web forum and people are having a conversation about hackers and hacker culture, and then someone breaks in and starts trolling by using the HOLLYWOOD definition of hacker.

The word hacker has been in use a heck of a long time. It was imported into the computer science community somewhere in the 1950's (yes, the word was already old 60 years ago). Somewhere during the 1980's and 1990's, Hollywood started making "Hacker" movies, and that is where many people get their meaning of the word.

If no one persisted in using the traditional meaning, then there would be no argument. However, Hackers still exist and have a thriving culture. That culture is quite often under attack by people who don't even realize they are attacking it.

Words have meaning. When those words are actively being used, it is not good to warp the meaning (especially to something so exactly opposite). It is not good to target a subculture you know nothing about.

It is not fair that people are losing jobs, and in some cases ending up on terrorist watch lists and coming under legal scrutiny, just because their culture has been twisted to the extreme in the media.

When I got halfway through writing this, I almost stopped and deleted half of it because I was like "Wow, this sounds like I am comparing it to racism or religious discrimination..." But before I could hit delete, I realized that is actually a very apt comparison.

A subculture of people who have existed for a very long time are being maligned and their public image is being warped by the media. It is taking place to the extent that people are hurt socially and financially by the image that the media portrays. People lose jobs because their bosses find out that they are a "Hacker," but they have no clue what that means.

People are passed over for promotions that they deserve, simply because the next person in line has never been labeled a Hacker, but they have.

People get subjected to police harassment and their equipment stolen (I think the official term is confiscated) because they are suspected of being up to no good when no crime has been committed.

All because Hollywood decided to take our words and twist their meanings.

Our modern world was put together by Hackers. Hackers created the software you are using to read this page. Hackers created the software that the web server is using to display this page. Hackers created the foundations for the software is running your computer.

What about the technology that holds together the internet? Hackers did that too.

The tech that runs your favorite video games? Yeap, that was hackers too.

Hackers are not criminals. They are people who like to play with things and create things and learn about things. Hacker culture believes in learning, and sharing what you learn. It believes in community and unity.

The “everyone for themselves, win at all costs, damn the consequences, damn the law,” image that you see in Hollywood Movies is just that: A movie.

I would love to find a way to educate people. I would love to find a way to get people to use words the way they were intended. I know though that I do not have near the cultural influence that a movie start or a film director has. For now, I will have to content myself with an occasional rant on the subject. I will have to content myself with educating the people around me on the subject.

After all, just because you can't do everything, there is no excuse for doing nothing.

A Different Stance on Christianity

2011-08-22T19:34:00.000+09:00

This was originally written as a message board posting, so if you are a Citizen Radio fan, you may have already seen it.

Regardless of what the following may look like, it is not intended as a direct attack on any particular group, but rather something to think about. For this reason, I ask that even if the first part is offensive, keep reading.

My own faith at the moment is in an interesting place perhaps, but I took a long time to get where I am.

My statement, simply put, is this: Modern Christianity's approach to God is blasphemy against man, and sacrilege against God.

Christians believe that the book of Genesis is the depiction of the creation of the world. Some see it as a literal history, and others see it as more of a symbolic description of a truly massive event. Either way, it is a matter of faith, and happened so long ago that there is not much you can do to prove to most one way or the other. At this point, even the big bang theory is a matter of faith (even if it is more soundly founded in science).

The book of Genesis also goes into one very important detail other than how. It explains "Why?" Most Christians don't think so much about this detail, and most churches seem to prefer it that way.

If you believe the Book of Genesis, then man was created not to worship, but to fellowship. The "Blind Sheep" concept of worship taught by the church of today (The one that has led to so many atrocities over the centuries) is entirely incompatible with what the ideas presented in Genesis.

It is better that you live as if there was no God at all, than to live as if you were simply an unquestioning servant. When you go before the maker, you should be able to stand toe to toe and say to him/her

"What you have created is Beautiful."
"What I have created is Beautiful."
And perhaps most importantly...
"Dude, you know... Some of that shit was real fucked up."

I am not currently a Christian. I followed that path for a while, but I wandered off of it when it was no longer compatible with my view of the universe and the creator that may or may not be.

I do believe however, that if the God described in Genesis (and most books attributed to Moses for that matter) does exist, then he will not see my decisions as a crime.

I think though, that if he does exist, the modern church is fucked.

Display Your License Proudly

2011-08-02T19:07:00.001+09:00

When a developer is creating a library, or any other software package, that they want others to use it is absolutely vital that they choose a license for the project that will allow their target audience to use it.

It is just as important that the licensing information is included among the files that are downloaded when someone gets a copy of the library.

Most people remember these steps, but they are occasionally forgotten.

What is JUST AS IMPORTANT however, is to find some way to inform people who are downloading your code from a website or some other source of what the license is before they download it.

If I don't know the licensing terms of your code, I am most likely just not going to download it. If I am working on a project, and I am looking for a library to make it easier, then I am looking for libraries that are released under compatible licenses. If the license is incompatible, then the code isn't worth much to me at the time. It is a waist of my time and your bandwidth for me to download a library I can't use.

This is especially sad when the developer has taken the time to create a beautiful website with a lot of description of what the program is, and does, but then they forget one of the most important pieces of information.

Please, if your code is licensed as GPL, say so on the site. If your code is BSD licensed, say so someplace on the site. Whatever license you use, display it proudly. If you are using a git repo, and it is set up to be web viewable, this is perfect. You can include it in the README file that your git repo software most likely wants to display to the web anyway.

If you are just offering tarballs/zips. then just include it on the download page.

To be honest, there are two common practices that I have seen most often on websites for successful projects. That is to either include the licensing information on the About page, or to just have a page that specifically addresses licensing issues. In either case, these would be included in the navigation bar/pain/whatever on the website.

Once you have already done all the work of making the code worthy of public display, you owe it to the project to take the last few steps needed to encourage adoption.

Remembering Our Dead

2010-11-21T15:02:00.002+09:00

Violence of any form is a Human issue. It is not a gay issue or a straight issue. Violence against our fellow Human being affects us all. In this day and age when we have found (in law at least) freedom to choose your religion, freedom to be male or female, freedom to not be abused based on your race, there is still one group of people that are quite often legislated against.

It is hard for us to call ourselves a free country when there are those among us who are being attacked and killed regularly for all of these things. It is even harder for us to change this when our law makers are actively writing laws against one of these groups.

The sad truth is that people die way too often, just because they loved the wrong person.

I know I am a bit late posting this, as it is now nearing November 21'st in the mainland US, but 20 November has been declared by the GLBT community as the Transgendered Day of Remembrance.

I myself am straight, and married to a wonderful woman, but many of my friends and even members of my family belong to this community. This is a human rights issue that has been of concern to me for many years, so I can't let the day go by without saying something.

The following link goes to a website that should be self explanatory. The people on the list were brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, lovers and friends. In some cases they were even mothers and fathers.

What they all have in common is that they died for being different. They did nothing to harm anyone else. They were just not "normal" by some random individual's definition of normal.

Every year this day is remembered, and has been for a number of years. Every year, this list is longer. Many of the people on this list are American. We cannot call ourselves a free country as long as we are allowing these things to happen.

http://www.rememberingourdead.org/

Twenty Media Outlets say that Torture is Free Speach

2010-07-17T19:15:00.005+09:00

Torture is not protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. In fact, it is not supported in any amendment.

The first amendment states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

These words that we hold so dear where meant to have a few common sense obvious effects. They were intended to protect everyone's right to worship or not worship as they please. Even though the phrase "One Nation Under God" appears often in American politics, you do not have to follow that god.

Secondly, they are intended to protect the rights of the common man to object to the behavior of his government in a very visible way without risk of backlash (in the case of protest), or in a more verbal but quieter way (in the case of petition).

Third, it protects the rights of the press to record and distribute information, even if that information is not comfortable for the people in power.

Our country was founded because the powers of the time did not practice these things. To insure that our new government did, they codified them in the very document that acts as the foundation of our Union.

It is this document that we look to in order to judge the validity of every law that is passed in our country. It is not a perfect document, but it is one that a lot of people have put a lot of thought into. This is why we have amendments to start with. To many people, the first amendment is the most important, for the reasons stated above.

Its sole purpose is to protect the little guy. More importantly, it is to protect the basic and natural behavior that can be expected of any rational human being when their rights are trod upon.

The entire document is primarily about protection of these very people. No where does it say that an outside entity has the right to torment, harass, and torture any citizen for any reason.
Enter Westboro Baptist Church. I do not normally speak like this of anyone, but they are a hate group that hides behind their "God," and a twisted interpretation of the first amendment while they torture the families and loved ones of our nations fallen. I put "God" in parenthesis, because of all the various denominations of Christianity (of which they claim membership) that I have experienced, NONE of them worship a God that would condone the torture of people in his name.

Now that I have spoken in that manner, I should probably explain WHY I feel the way that I do. I am sure that there are those who have not heard of them.

These people do not picket companies. They do not picket government buildings or events. They do not stage independent rallies to share their views loudly with the world.

No, they crash funerals. They travel around the country, protesting funerals. They watch the news, and scour the air ways and internet for word that a fallen solder has come home for their final rest, and they put together a personalized protest just for him or her, complete with photographs of the fallen so that the families know that it IS about them.

They are fond of slogans like "God Hates Fags" (Yes, the URL above really does appear to be theirs), "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," and "Thank God for IED'S."

Their website (linked above) even has a schedule of events that they plan to picket in the near future. I have looked over the list, and on it they have three protests scheduled in the near future (one yesterday) for military funerals. Three are flat out anti-semetic. The rest are mostly either against other Christian groups, or Lady Gaga... No, that is not a joke.

Of the ones that are not military funerals, several of the others are targeting families not organizations.

They go around saying hateful, hurtful, angry things, and getting in the faces of people who THOUGHT they had gone through the worst that life could offer them. People who are already dealing with the loss of a son, a daughter, a husband, a brother, a wife... Suddenly they find themselves the focus of a terrorist attack, carried out by their fellow Americans!

I have been thinking about this for a while. I am an American Sailor. The idea of going to war is a little scary, but it is no where near as terrifying for me as the idea that if I were to die, my mother and father would likely be tortured by these people. While they are still working their way through the grief process, they could find themselves receiving messages that people were glad I was dead. "God hates Fags! God hates the military! I am glad your faggy son is dead." That is the kind of things that these people are saying at these protests.

The constitution guarantees your right to stand outside of city hall and yell whatever the hell you want. Right or wrong, you can protest the local bank, or the health department, or whatever organization that has you pissed off this week. Fill out the paperwork, and get your permit. You are good to go.

The constitution does not however give you the right to be disruptive, and hateful, and threatening, and vulgar, while people are carrying out the single most solemn ceremony that exists in any faith.

When someone has died and their loved ones are laying them to rest they should be allowed a moment of piece. They are sure to have many sleepless and painful nights even without outside interference. When people are in pain, the proper response is not to intentionally make it worse.

What I have said may seem like common sense to a lot of people, but apparently not to everyone. The case of Snyder vs. Phelps is heading quickly towards the Supreme Court, and amicus briefs are being filed in support of both sides.

This is part of what finally convinced me to take the time to write a full blog entry on the subject.

In an article in Stars and Stripes, dated 18 July (It may have a different date stateside), they speak of 20 media groups that are siding with Westboro Baptist Church on the issue. It seems that they feel that psychological torture of individuals (individuals, not organizations) is protected under the first amendment. In the case of Snyder vs Phelps, they flew all the way from Kansas to Maryland to target a family. They could have just as easily made the same statement in ANY other situation, and I would not object. I do not agree with them. I think they are hate mongers and bigots, but they have a right to be.

However, I do not agree with the assertion that their right to be bigots allows them to attack people.

There is a blog entry (basically very similar to the printed paper article) at the Stars and Stripes site. They list the organizations there.

I can see the organizations worries, but they fail to see the difference between news coverage of an event, and personal attacks on individual citizens. They fail to realize that the issue here is nothing like a reporter covering a story. It is more like a mugger being told he did a good job, and was welcome to keep at it.

People have to know that there is a line between peaceful protest, and personal attacks.

It is late, and I am running out of steam, so I will leave off here. I know it is not often that I get two blog entries in the same month (or quarter for that matter), but some things have to be said. Some things just make your head want to explode.

This is one of those things.

The Apple AT&T Lawsuit has issues

2010-07-11T10:43:00.003+09:00

The AT&T class action suit is claiming to be anti-monopoly and anti-trust. Monopoly: One company has exclusive access to sell a TYPE of product. The iPhone is NOT the only smart phone, and the others are NOT being sold by apple. Trust: Two or more companies conspiring to set prices on the same sort of product. This is usually to split up market share (i.e. neither of us are likely to lose customers to the other), or more often to hedge out some third party (i.e. He is not one of us, so if we both undercut his prices, then he won't get business).

AT&T and Apple may be setting prices together, but they are not the same kind of company. One makes a popular telephone, the other provides communications services for that phone. Them cooperating does not make a trust possible.

Please people, if you are going to bring suit, there is nothing stopping you, but do NOT set the precedent of redefining legal terms. When you do that, it muddies the water for everyone.

I have yet to hear of anything that AT&T or Apple is doing to harm customers. There is nothing stopping you from buying any other smart phone (at a lower cost). There is nothing stopping you from going to another phone provider (T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint, just to name three).

They are not conspiring with their competition to set prices, and they are not the only providers of smart phones. They aren't even doing a very good job at hedging out other smart phone providers.

The iPhone is a very nice piece of gear, but that does not make it a human right.

vi And vim

2010-01-15T13:34:00.001+09:00

I keep seeing a comment pop up here and there on the web that is starting to anoy me just a little. Long time vim (vi) users seem to be constantly explaining how wonderful their favorite editor is and then say that there is a steep learning curve to using vim.

Quite frankly, that is a load of bull.

In their defense, for many of them it has been many years since they used anything but a full featured text editor.

They forget that their target audience is used to notepad and the like where simple things like search and replace are still new and shiny toys.

I say this because most of these speaches at least indicate that they are targeted at relative newbies.

A word of advice, it takes less than five minutes to learn enough about vim to do everything you can do in notepad or nano.

Unless you are using something similar to emacs, or one of he vi offshoots it will take you less than a day to get up to the same level of productivity in vi that you are at in your current editor.

At that point you can learn all the scary bits that everyone talks about at your leisure.

Don't be scared. Give it a try. Worst thing that can happen is that you don't like it and go back to whatever you are already using.

And for those who have found the ideal text editor for use on their local machine, vim is still worth playing with. It truely excels at editing files on a remote server.

If you have shell access to the machine, then there is a good chance that vi is already installed or that your admin will be willing to install it for you.

If you are the admin, there us a version of vim for pretty much every OS. :)

Vim is not a pretty editor, but what it lacks in beauty it makes up for in style.

The Perfect Game

2009-05-04T20:10:00.001+09:00

The bast games start with a solid idea of where they are going, and how to get there. A path is laid, so that if everything goes smoothly the GM knows where to go next.

It is also important that the Game World is fleshed out a bit, and alternate paths are charted to get to the final destination.

Finally, once all this preparation is done, the GM has to make the ultimate sacrifice (from the perspective of a world creator). He or she has to give up part of his ownership of this world. He or she has to be willing to let the players take the rains of their character and go with it. The best games are a shared virtual reality created in the minds of the Game Master and the Players. It is not a straight forward game. If players wanted that, they would stick to the computer.

The best game is a living, growing, evolving thing. The characters that you will always remember are not the ones that you spend hours upon hours dredging out of a book filling your head with numbers and lists of powers and plans of grandeur. The character you will remember twenty years from now is the one that got away. The one that woke up one night at the gaming table, leapt forth from your mind, and never returned. The character that took on a life of its own. No matter what you thought you wanted for him or her, they had other ideas.

When the game takes a life of its own, independent of the individual gamers but thriving within the mind of all of them, that is the ultimate game. That is the game that you will find maybe a few times in your life.

It is like the surfer's ultimate wave, the climber's ultimate mountain. It is the kind of game that spawns novels that refuse to have a sequel, but leave people begging for one none the same.

I know that as a GM, I can only ever hope to come close to creating such a creature, but it is the goal.

Current Events

2008-10-18T23:07:00.002+09:00

Well, it has been a bit since my last entry. Currently I am in Sasebo, I have been for almost a year. I like it here so far, but I look forward to getting back to Tokyo in a few years. Somehow the Kanto area has become home.

My wife has come to Sasebo and we have a child on the way. We are both adapting well to the area and the idea of being parents.

I am working on starting up a software project that I am calling libGamePieces. At the moment the most active source of information on it is the Wiki page at http://wiki.nexuscrossing.org/index.php/LibGamePieces.

I am in the process of recreating most of the code at the moment. I will make sure the darcs repository for it is functioning properly when the time comes for it to be totaly public. :-) As it is, the code can be checked out at http://darcs.nexuscrossing.org/. The directory labeled lgp is the new code base. Eventually it will be renamed to libgamepieces and the old directory removed.

I should also start making more updates to the SF page as well. :P

Can I do bilingual blogs? バイリンガルにできますか？

2008-05-25T01:43:00.007+09:00

Maybe I should start writing bilingual blog entries.

My Japanese is not so good, so at first it will probably result in funny looking blogs.

Eventually, I will be able to write properly.

My English should be readable at least. :-)

Any bilingual Japanese and English speakers out there, feel free to correct my Japanese!

たぶん僕はバイリンガルのウェブブログを書き始めるべきです。

日本語がまだ上手じゃありません、だからウェブログたぶんちょっと変だよ。

私の英語は、少なくとも読みやすくなければなりません。

僕の間違えは訂正して下さい。

Back!

2008-05-23T02:01:00.001+09:00

Ok, this one will probably not be very long. I am back where I can be online often now.

I figured out how to get my dashboard to show up in English!! Yay! My Japanese is not good enough to use the Dashboard in Japanese, I wish it was. I may start attempting blog posts in Japanese on occasion. Maybe that will be good practice.

:-)

Hmmmmmmmm

2007-11-24T06:54:00.001+09:00

You have to wonder sometimes at the intelligence of spammers.

Lately, I have been seeing a lot of spam sent to religious mailing lists advertising porn. I am not sure what the sender was thinking. I am guessing that it was probably a bot. They harvested the email address from someone's list and sent it off. Either that, or the bot was simply designed to troll through the yahoo lists, and saw that the list had a LOT of members. Most religious lists do. :P

I just wish that the spammers would show a little more discretion. Spamming a religious list with porn sites is just kind of wrong somehow...

Microsoft and DRM

2007-08-18T13:03:00.000+09:00

I am not a Microsoft fan. I use Linux on my own computers, windows mainly just at work because that is what my employer uses. Lately I have been hearing a lot of people complain about Microsoft and "their" DRM initiative. They feel that Microsoft is using DRM to strong-arm people into using their OS, since their OS is the one that can legally use the DRM enabled software. A lot of this sentiment comes from a misunderstanding of what DRM is. A lot of this post is similar to one I sent to a mailing list. It was in response to the assertion that Microsoft and Macintosh have a choice of whether or not to include DRM software in their operating systems.

There is one big issue. There are still a LOT of people among the average consumer that thinks of their computer as a "DVD Player Plus." If Microsoft and/or Intel cannot provide them with that, then they lose a rather large chunk of the consumer base. They are too Large, and in the media too often to do this illegally without major repercussions. This means doing it legally, which means, sorry for the vulgarity, Hollywood has them by the short hairs. This is the same reason that the Packaged distros no longer ship with full DVD support built in. It is not because they do not have the ability, it is because they do not wish to face the legal firestorm that would result if they did so. Hollywood is watching us. They see us as a threat. :P They are convinced that we will watch DVD's under Linux in an unlicensed manner. >:)

From a purely moral standpoint, I personally feel that watching DVD's under whatever platform is a Fair Use matter, as long as you have a legal copy of the DVD. I wish the courts still felt that way. :/ Instead, the organization producing your software has to pay out the nose for you to be able to use it legally.

I wonder how hard it would be to start a fund geared specifically towards raising the money for licensing of a DVD player program. The only problem is that while the majority of the code could be open sourced, the Important part, the part that actually decodes the video stream, could not.

Basically though, Hollywood is driving the DRM issue. :P

In order to continue providing legal DVD playback under windows, they have to shell out the cash for the license. Under the terms of the license, it is revocable under most any reason that the corporation wishes. The thing is easily as bad as one of MS's EULA's.

I would say though that there are plenty of reasons to dislike Microsoft even without the DRM issue. ^^;; Yes, it is an agitation, but we cannot focus directly on MS if we hope to solve that problem. That will have to become an issue of dealing with the media industry.

We can encouraged MS to fight it, and if they choose to do so (and more importantly hold their ground) Then they can be a strong ally in that one area. They made noises in that direction once, but it only took a few threats from Hollywood lawyers to get them to back down. That WAS their decision, but it was a business decision based on how much it could cost them in the long run, and the fact that the courts they would have to deal with were already a bit angry with them anyway.

*grins* All it takes is one agitated lawyer to cause problems for a long time. ^^;; If you ever go to court, Don't tell the judge he is computer illiterate.

Things we can target MS on. :P Lousy performance. Strong-arm tactics (though we need more support from the computer manufacturers for this one), frivolous patent suits, jacked up standards. These things alone (especially performance issues, and jacked up code) are more than enough reason to dislike MS. Most of the reasons people apply to them work just fine. :P We just need to make sure to keep each issue in proportion.

A Bit of Advise

2007-08-18T12:36:00.001+09:00

Everyone needs to choose their battles wisely.

I am not saying you should turn away from a strong enemy, or that cowardice is the right route. Instead, what I am saying is that you need to insure that you know your enemy.

If you are going to engage a target, then make sure it is the right one. Do not overestimate your enemy, and end up aiming six feet over their head. Do not target a perceived enemy for the flaws of another. Do not paint an unrealistic image of your foe, because that will make it harder to gain allies. If you are going to fight a battle, make sure to do it on realistic grounds. We cannot defeat a foe by punching at shadows. We cannot garner allies through spreading lies, to do so is dishonorable. We should make sure our allies know what is real as well.

Newton's Mechanistic World and it's impact on Religion.

2007-08-03T13:48:00.000+09:00

What follows is a paper that I wrote for a class. (So, Ma'am, if you see this one I realy wrote it, I didn't just grab it off of this blog page) :P

The paper was not great, but I hope that it got an A, I should hopefully find out soon. :-)

I may do a review later on the books that I used for this course (REL340 Science and Religion). One of the books is excelent, the other is not so great. :-)

The Heliocentric model presented by Copernicus did much to explain where the planets moved, but not why. Kepler had presented theories on the locations of the planets, but still no real evidence of why or how. Among Newton's greatest achievements were his studies of celestial mechanics. He sought to explain what those before him had not (McGrath, 1999, p. 16).

Newton's contributed greatly to this body of knowledge, but his greatest contributions perhaps were simply a new way of looking at the issue. He saw connections between information that people before him had seen as unconnected, and he gave more detail to ideas that had only been discussed as vague concepts before that (McGrath, 1999, p. 16).

Newton used basic measurable concepts such as mass, space, and time to investigate the motion of objects, and their interactions with one another. First he focused on the laws of motion. His three laws lay the foundation for the study of motion and the interaction of objects with one another (McGrath, 1999, p. 17).

He looked seriously at Kepler's laws and how the planets interacted in light of his own theories. He was able to see that while Kepler's laws seemed by themselves somewhat arbitrary, when applied along side the laws of motion they were plain to see. At the core of these studies was his belief that the same laws that applied to objects in relation to each other on the earth would apply equally to the celestial bodies. Applying these assumptions, he was able to calculate the duration of the moons orbit around the earth with an error of only ten percent. It was later discovered that the error was simply caused by a misunderstanding of the moon's distance from the earth. When later studies were able to accurately measure the distance of the moon, the calculations and observed time matched (McGrath, 1999, p. 17).

Newton's studies led quickly to a mechanistic view of the world. That is the view that the world operates according to a set of fixed laws, much like the gears and springs that cause a clock to operate. This mechanistic worldview was embraced by many who saw that it encouraged the idea of design. It was seen to indicate that there was a guiding hand in the process of creation; How else could everything be so structured and work so fluidly together. Newton himself supported this view (McGrath, 1999, p. 18).

"The success of Newton's mechanistic world view led to a significant religious development. . . . It can be shown without difficulty that Newton's emphasis on the regularity of nature encouraged the rise of Deism." (McGrath, 1999, p. 18)

In this way Newton's theories supported a non-confrontational model of science and religion in that in his view and the view of many of those who followed his studies, science and religion converged. The two complemented each other. God was the great creator. It was he who built the great device that was the universe. From him all science flowed, and all of nature pointed to his existence just by it's very eloquence. To Newton, and the Deists who clung to his theories, no words needed to be written for a man to see God in the very fabric of creation.

References:

Alister E. McGrath, 1999, Science & Religion, Maryland: Blackwell Publishing

Pet Peeves of a Techi

2007-05-11T16:37:00.000+09:00

Ok...

I have noticed a few things that are starting to become consistent in many forums that are starting to get really agitating.

First and foremost:

If the company tells you they are selling you a 500Gigs drive, then most likely they ARE! The drive is NOT 464Gigs. It is 500Gigs, but it NTFS takes a HUGE chunk out of the drive when you format it. Fat32 took a much smaller chunk out of it, and Fat16 took even less. However, I would suggest sticking with NTFS. ;P You are not getting cheated, you are not being lied too. The company that made your hard drive, and the company that made your operating system are both up front and honest on the subject.

Example:

Seagate Rocks!

Reviewed By: [name removed to protect the accused] on [should probably take out the date too.]

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

Pros: Best bang for the buck, per gig basis!

Cons: As most drives the advertise space is actually a bit less to account for format overhead.

Other Thoughts: Will not bother with any other brand!

This individual at least acknowledged that "most drives" did the same. Please, for the love of whatever god you serve, EVERY hard drive is like that. If the company automatically deducted a number of gigs to account for the overhead of a single partition NTFS drive, then a good quarter of their customers at least would still not get exactly the number they give. Probably more. For one thing, most of us are probably going to partition that thing down to smaller segments. For another, a lot of people won't even be using them with Windows. Every file system has overhead, but the overhead is not the same for every system.

Personally, I am probably going to buy the drive listed. :P I will read a few more reviews first. A 400gig Barracuda for 99$ (As of the time I typed this). That is a great deal. :) The biggest complaint I saw so far was that some of them are loud (big surprise), and you have to click a few extra buttons in Vista. :) Also, make sure your Motherboard supports 3Gig SATA II. That leads into the next peeve.

Older hardware cannot be expected to support any standard that was created after it was.

Performs as advertized . . .

Pros: Large capacity, cost-effective, reasonable quiet, and a strong guarantee from a reputable company make this drive the budget-minded drive of choice.

Cons: As usual, Seagate is short when it comes to affixing a jumper setting label. The many Seagate drives I own all have the label installed in such a way, that you cam not easily read the jumper-settings and handle the jumper(s) at the same time. But this drive does not even have jumper settings listed! This would not influence my decision to purchase this model drive, but I wish Seagate would get the message.

Other Thoughts: This drive did not work, and caused my system to fail boot when I first tried it. As it turned out, my system has a controller for a 1.5 mbps SATA drive, and this drive is (by default) 3.0 mpps. I had to visit the manufacturer’s website and download the .pdf manual to find the proper jumper setting for 1.5 mbps. Also, it uses those down-sized jumpers so I had to scrounge my junk pile to find one as no jumper was included. Many SATA controllers will auto-switch between 1.5 and 3.0 – but should be advised to check yours in the event that you too are unable to read and write from this drive.

Read the specs before you buy new hardware. When you buy OEM you get OEM. It is not the hard drive's fault that you have last years motherboard. It is not the board's fault either. It is probably an awesome board. As for "Most SATA controllers will auto-switch..." That is another example of what I am saying. Most controllers made for a new device will switch down automatically to be compatible with an older device. If you have an older device however, you cannot expect it to switch up. Please do not get upset because the company doesn't have a crystal ball. They cannot tell the developers what will be invented six months AFTER their chip hits the market.

If a product has a defect, then it has a defect. If it does not, then don't say it does.

I'm not an elitist. I'm not a cynic. I am just getting tired of people getting irate every time things don't function the way they assume it will, even though it functions exactly as advertised, and exactly as the manual says it will. Yes, the manual. You know that little book that comes with the device (or that you can download from the web site)? If something doesn't work, read that before you go slandering the company. Technically if theses companies were as blood thirsty as some people seem to think, they could slam a number of people with law suits. Libel and slander is a big deal in civil court, and when the "misinformed" comments are on a web page, the potential for damages is in the millions.

Anyway, enough ranting for today.

Fair seas and Trailing winds.

So Far This Week

2007-04-13T00:13:00.000+09:00

So far this week, work has not been fun. I have been constantly busy.

On the bright side though, I am getting ready to apply for orders. Wish me luck!

Status report on the computer:

I now have Xfce4 installed and working. The system is running much more smoothly, and is much easier to use now that I have a complete desktop environment in place, instead of the addhock measures I was using while I built it to that point.

Next, I think I will install kate or gedit before moving on to install anything else. Vim is great. It is an awesome console based editor, but I like to be able to point and click. I have gotten used to GUI based text editors, and they make things much easier for me. I think I actually like kate a bit better than gedit, because of it's extendibility.

After I install kate, I will check over all the dependencies and install Gimp, Ogre, and Blender. That order may be best for completeness.

After that, I will install OpenOffice.org 2.x, and that will bring me up to speed with the minimum requirements I posted in my prior post.

From there I will research into other graphics programs, and perhaps music creation programs. I will see what I find. :)

Easter Sunday 2007

2007-04-08T13:02:00.000+09:00

Easter is here, and I have duty.

We hosted a baptism this morning, and it went well.

Status Report

The mouse is working, and I have metacity installed. This serves two purposes. First, metacity is a lot more user friendly than TWM, even if it lacks just a little in features. Second, it can be used as the window manager for some of the desktop environments.

I also got FireFox and Xchat up and running. This will make life a lot easier. :)

Currently I am working on compiling Qt I will try to get 4.x working first before falling back to 3.x. I got a compile error the last time, but I think that I know what is wrong. I am pretty sure that I need to tell the poor confused library where some libs are located.

Since I will end up installing most of the required libraries anyway, I may go ahead and install the Gnome2 Desktop environment, as well as GDM. This way I will have that option if I want to use it, or at least I will know I have all the libraries I need to run most applications that build against gnome libs. I will still likely use XFce for my working environment.

Anyway, I am that much closer to a fully functional system. :) Once the system is running smooth, I will be able to relax a bit.

Status Report

2007-04-06T01:45:00.000+09:00

Ok, this is what I have been up too, and what my status is.

I have been doing a total rebuild of the Linux system on my laptop.

"What distro is the lazy blogger using this week?" one might ask.

"Why LFS of course!"

Now, for those who know what LFS is, the thought of attempting it on a mostly modern laptop probably seems a little foolish. For those who don't know what it is, check out The LFS Website. It is a great concept, but not for the squeamish or weak of heart.

Imagine, installing Linux on your computer without a package manager such as emerge or apt. For that matter, imagine installing Linux on your computer without a distro all together. >:P That my friend is the point to LFS. Linux From Scratch is a guide to building a functional GNU/Linux system from the ground up. The first step is to build a temporary tool chain, then use it to chroot into a encapsulated environment and build the system from the bottom up starting with glibc, and the compiler package and going from there.

It is not as hard as it sounds, but the initial setup from c-lib to X is time consuming. Now for the status report:

My system will now boot, and load into Xorg with twm (Tab Window Manager). It is a rather horrid looking interface, but it works. The only glitch I am now having is that my touchpad works just fine, but the USB mouse I am trying to use is not properly detecting. Everything else seems fine.

The next step of course is to get that mouse to work. After the mouse is working, I will move on to installing the GTK libraries and their dependencies. From there I will move on to install Xfce and it's dependencies. Hopefully by the time I have GTK working properly, I will have most of those covered already.

Of course somewhere in there, I will install FireFox, just as quick as all of it's dependencies are met. I may even make it higher priority than Xfce. As I said, twm is rather horrid to look at, but it is sufficiently functional for my purposes for the moment. However, once I have installed Xfce, and maybe Window Maker, I will likely never log into twm again unless I absolutely have to for some bizarre reason.

Once I get the above items installed and functioning, I intend to insure that Mesa is functional, and then install the newest stable versions (and in some cases the development versions) of my favorite office and graphical apps.

Packages I intend to install (at a minimum):

OpenOffice.org (Newest stable release)

Ogrelib (Newest stable release)

Blender (Newest available release)

Gimp (Newest Stable)

Before installing Blender of course, I will insure that my Python interpreter is up to date.

My goal is to have my development environment properly set up before I go underway the next time. This next underway period will be very long for me, as it will take me away from my girlfriend. To add to the anticipation of my return, it will also be my last underway with the Kitty Hawk. As strange as this may sound to some, I will miss this ship. I have been proud to serve here. Having a proper development environment to play with will help to keep me distracted. :-)

I am back (again).

2007-03-21T18:28:00.000+09:00

Ok, So I have not been the most reliable of posters. I have logged in to post again, and I see that they have made a few changes (mainly the switch over to Google).

I have just finished upgrading my computer from Dapper to Edgy. Ubuntu users will know what I mean. :)

I must say that the newer look is not bad. However, with an upgrade in distributions, come and upgrade in the related packages.

I have tried some of the programs out, and I don't really like the look that the developers have decided to go with for xchat, and the new layout for Anjuta is confusing as can be. I will not know for sure what my opinion of the new Anjuta interface is for a while still. I need to get a chance to play with it and read over the documentation before I pass judgment. I am sure that the developers had good reason for their changes, but at the moment I don't like them much. Again, I will give it a try before passing final judgment.

On other scores, I think most of my problems relate to the fact that I am running on a laptop with an ATI video card. :P My next task as far as this machine is concerned, is to get the built in card readers to work!

I went to Kyoto and Osaka last week. Both were nice, but I think I enjoyed Osaka more. :) Kyoto is intentionally fancy in places, and intentionally backwards in others. It is hard to find a place that has western style toilets, and even then they will usually only have one.
Also, there are very few fast food places near the train station. For the casual tourist that is no big deal, but when you have thirty minutes till your train, you don't have time to sit down for a real meal.

Yes, they do have a nice variety of different restaurants bellow the station, and in the surrounding area.

Osaka on the other hand is much more real person friendly. It is easy to find anything from takoyaki to KFC. Osaka is known for its food though, so that makes a real difference. Takoyaki is a favorite of mine. Osaka is known for takoyaki and okonomiyaki. Both are on my list of favorite foods.

For the westerners out there, tako means octopus, and no it is not scary. It actually tastes quite good. :) I am an American myself.

Osaka is rather lively at night. I was near Namba around 9pm, and the lights were bright and the place was loud. I am told that it is like that all the time. We had dinner, and stopped at a karaoke place for a bit. It was enjoyable. The Glico store is interesting also. There is one right in the middle of Namba. You can purchase giant pocky.

In the morning before returning to Yokosuka, we stopped at Osakajo, and visited the castle. It as impressive.

It's been a while

2007-01-04T16:05:00.000+09:00

I know it has been a while since I properly posted. I have been a bit distracted with life and the real world.

I am in port for now. I don't expect that to change for a few months at least.

I intend to start making more time for studying. There is no point in procrastinating. :-) I have two major things I need to study (at least), so I need to crack down and do it.

In fact, I am going to start right now. So, have fun and hopefully you will hear from me soon.

Soon

2006-12-09T23:41:00.000+09:00

Soon I shall once more set foot upon dry land.

When I do, I will be being moved into a barracks room, where I will quite probably be able to get a real internet connection. This will mean I can be more active in my posting, as well as in my studies. Hopefully it will mean that I can make better progress on my projects as well. ^_^

Underway

2006-11-11T12:33:00.000+09:00

We are underway again. We just left Sasebo a few days ago. I bought a new camera. I got a good price on it I think. It is a nicer camera than the one I had before. :) In case you are wondering, I lost my old camera in Thailand. I left it somewhere between the Hard Rock cafe restraunt, and the Hard Rock Hotel. I know they are right next to eachother, but I walked arround a bit after dinner.

Nothing on the technical front, but I am trying to make a little more progress in my Japanese studies. :-)

It's been a while

2006-10-23T10:26:00.000+09:00

It's been a while since my last post. However, I plan to start posting more often soon. I am hoping to have more progress on my programming projects, but maybe I can at least post something interesting from time to time.