... or that I'm fed up that I went to check my email after spending most of the day away from the computer, and I get yet another SEO con artist from India sending more spam offering their crappy services - stuff anyone who can throw together a few meta tags and a sitemap.xml file can duplicate.

So corporatesales@web-seo-proposals.in got the following reply:

Hi:
Kindly go fuck yourself. Preferably with a dildo covered in barbed wire. Repeatedly.

It's rare that I swear, but I'll make an exception in their case. And cut-n-paste it into a few of the many others in the inbox.

They also operate under the name ethical-seo-comapany.com (no, the typo is not mine - they actually don't know how to spell company).

Just make sure you check the headers before doing anything similar to make sure the spammer isn't really someone pulling a joe job.

The rest of them got this enhanced versin:

Hi:

Kindly go fuck yourself. Preferably with an aids-infected dildo covered in barbed wire. Repeat until you remove yourself from the gene pool.

The good news - doctors visit yesterday, and got the results from my latest labs. It turns out that going off that evil blood pressure medication was a smart move - my bp is lower now than when I was on it. He asked what I was doing, and I told him that every once in a while I would stop and remember to just "clear my head and RELAX!!! NOW!!!! DAMMI!!! :-)"

No need for meditation or anything like that - just thinking of something better for 30 seconds or so, to "break the cycle." It works.

I've never bothered worrying about cholesterol, but out of curiosity I asked, since it's a problem for other family members - turns out mine is just fine, as is my long-term blood glucose level.

Und now, ve haf zee bad newz! Stupid eye started bleeding again yesterday morning. It's still sore today, so I'm limiting myself to 15 minute intervals, with an hour breaks. Oh well, can't win them all.

Bring Back the 40-hour Work Week

Looks like I struck a nerve with that one ...

(Yes, that's my "other" account. I got tired of people going "Dude!" in their replies.)

It would solve the unemployment problem, has been proven time and time again to increase productivity, stimulate the economy, reduce health care costs, reduce stress on families - what's not to like?

We've all encountered those "web designers" who claim that you need facebook, twitter, whatever "social media web integration". And yet, we all know that you can buy facebook fans for as low as 500 for a buck, that you can buy twitter followers, you can buy google+ friends, you can buy web traffic to give any site a temporary artificial boost and make it look like the social media gimmick is working its magic ...

But where are the hard statistics?

Where are the studies that show that spending $X on "social media" gives a ROI of $Y?

And is the ROI better than if you had just spent the same budget on beer for the office party and returned the empties for the refund? It seems to me that, rather than being a way to add value, it's just something that will turn into an unproductive time sink - just like social media in general. Coincidence? I think not.

Does anyone have hard figures - not anecdotal "evidence" - to the contrary?

Trust is a funny thing ... takes time to build up, and only a second to destroy. So, in each of these pairs, who do you trust more, and why? I know, some these are like that definition of conflicted feelings - watching your brand new car go over the cliff with your mother-in-law at the wheel ... others are a Hobson's Choice .... but saying "neither" doesn't count.

1. Paypal [we'll hold back whatever we want when we want] or your bank [thanks for the bail-out, suckers]?
2. Facebook [I sell your data and lock you in] or Microsoft [I want your money and lock you in]?
3. Google [I sell your eyeballs and own your data] or Apple [we'll tell you what you want]?
4. Apple or Microsoft?
5. Microsoft or Sony?
6. GM [thanks for the bail-out, suckers] or the governments that bailed them out [thanks for the campaign donations, suckers].
7. The ER doctor you've never met before, or the salesman referred to you by a close friend?
8. The cashier at the store [I just work here], or the owner of the same store [I own the place]?
9. Dog or cat?
10. Skunk or porcupine?
11. Politician or Biker Gang Member? (warning: this is a trick question)
12. The police and the courts or Biker Vigilante Justice? (see, I told you #11 is a trick question).
13. Someone who uses linux or someone who calls it GNU/Linux? (no, Virginia, they are not the same).

System requirements are very modest - any *nix-ish system, gcc, a copy of the jdk, and a plain-text editor. unjava does not impose any licensing restrictions on programs you create. Examples have been updated.

... and I found out two things:

1. It's still a pain in the eyeballs, but it's now somewhat manageable

2. I have zero interest in wasting another minute of my life with crap languages in crap environments - in other words, no javascript, no php, no dom, no browser. I'd rather hand-code assembler than use a brain-dead language in a brain-dead environment. Heck, I'd even rather use java (though I obviously still prefer c/c++).

Seriously, I'd rather not ever write another line of code than waste my time on a programming "paradigm" that should have followed basic on the trash heap a decade ago.

The FSF is at it again - claiming that usage of the GPL is on the rise, when its' share of the market is declining, both in F/LOSS, and in the larger software ecosystem.

So, time to let everyone in on a little secret - any gpl'd project can be taken closed-source by anyone willing to go through the exercise.

Summary

Copyright law only protects a limited portion of all creative works. What I mean by this is that neither portions of copyrighted works that lack creativity, nor those parts that are "scenes a faire" ("there's only one way to do it") are protected. APIs, for example, are one such "scenes a faire".

Remember the "linux headers" FUD the FSF put out? Even Linus agreed that the headers, simple macro definitions, enums ... they simply are not protected. The same rules applied to Google using Apache Harmony - java class names and method signatures are not protected. They either lack the necessary creativity, or there is only "one way" to do it.

3 steps

1. replace all artwork, comments (comments are expressive, and as such, protected by copyright);
2. rewrite all function bodies that are not "scenes a faire"
3. PROFIT! (maybe).

You can release the result under any license you want - and you don't have to distribute your source. Better yet, you also maintain binary compatibility with the original.

Why?

Business A develops GPL software and sells support. Business B doesn't have the overhead of developing that software, so they spend the money and resources saved on things like marketing the crap out of how they are better at it, and developing a few plugins that require server-side services that only they provide.

So Business A says "the heck with this", does what I propose, forks their own software, and releases a new closed-source version that breaks only Business B's code.

Why wouldn't they?

More importantly, why wouldn't B do this first, as a preemptive strike? Once you have a "good-enough" code base, you don't really need community support for further development. In fact, releasing code "to the community" is now where software goes to die. It's the digital "elephants' graveyard."

There's really nothing legally preventing anyone from doing this and being able to sell the resulting code over and over again. Both businesses and consumers are used to that sort of arrangement.

So, can we expect to see a linux "clone" by the end of the decade? I doubt it - there's no need. BSD already runs linux programs. But I do expect to see closed versions of many open-source programs pop up once a few test cases make the rounds.

It's already being done

Sony is making a busybox clone, and there's nothing that can be done about it. So, people have a choice - do it themselves before companies like Sony do it and reap all the profits or stick their heads in the sand. In the age of "good enough computing", if it's "good enough" to clone, it's "good enough" to take private.

I'm wondering if some of the problems I've been experiencing with my vision - or rather, inability to compensate for it any more - are related to the blood pressure medication I was taking. It certainly negatively impacted me in many other ways, and there are still, a few weeks later, some lingering side effects (still overly-tired, for example) ... but... yesterday, the morning started out with pain after 10 minutes, but later in the day when I came back, it wasn't nearly as bad using the computer (after the first half-hour to adjust) as it's been in quite a while.

Today, well, let me sum it up quickly: "I've got the itch to code."

If that's the case, I'll really, really be more than a little p***ed off at the manufacturer - they failed to list the worst (and known - I'm not the only one who's had serious problems with this crap) side effects, or say "stop taking this sh*t immediately if you notice any of these side effects."

I am not amused! If this is the case, there are going to be some serious negotiations going on in the future.

Remember the NSA line eater?

Well, it appears that the Department of Homeland Security and others are now monitoring Facebook and other social media web sites for certain keywords (Article at Animal New York, and on Slashdot. I wonder if Slashdot Journals count as social media web sites?

Well, here goes nothing (text shamelessly copied from the Animal New York story linked above):

2600
Abu Sayyaf
Afghanistan
Agent
Agriculture
Agro
Agro Terror
Aid
Air Marshal
Airplane (and derivatives)
Airport
Al Queda (all spellings)
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
Al-Shabaab
Ammonium nitrate
AMTRAK
Anthrax
Antiviral
AQAP (Al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula)
AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb)
Arellano-Felix
Artistics Assassins
Attack
Avalanche
Avian
Bacteria
Barrio Azteca
BART
Basque Separatists
Beltran-Leyva
Biological
Biological infection (or event)
Biological weapon
Black out
Blister agent
Blizzard
Body scanner
Border
Border Patrol
Botnet
Bridge
Brown out
Brush fire
Brute forcing
Burn
Burst
Bust
Cain and abel
Calderon
Canceled
Car bomb
Cartel
Cartel de Golfo
Center for Disease Control (CDC)
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Chemical
Chemical burn
Chemical fire
Chemical Spill
Chemical weapon
China
CIKR (Critical Infrastructure & Key Resources)
Ciudad Juarez
Closure
Cloud
Coast Guard (USCG)
Cocaine
Collapse
Colombia
Communications infrastructure
Computer infrastructure
Conficker
Consular
Contamination
Conventional weapon
Crest
Critical infrastructure
Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
Cyber attack
Cyber Command
Cyber security
Cyber terror
DDOS (dedicated denial of service)
Decapitated
Delays
Denial of service
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Dirty bomb
Disaster
Dock
Drug
Drug Administration (FDA)
Drug cartel
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
Drug trade
Drug war
E. Coli
Earthquake
Ebola
Eco terrorism
El Paso
Electric
Emergency
Emergency Broadcast System
Enriched
Environmental terrorist
Epidemic
Erosion
ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna)
Evacuation
Execution
Exposure
Extreme weather
Extremism
Failure or outage
FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces Colombia)
Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Flood
Flu
Food Poisoning
Foot and Mouth (FMD)
Forest fire
Fort Hancock
Fundamentalism
Fusion Center
Gang
Gas
Grid
Gulf Cartel
Gunfight
Guzman
H1N1
H5N1
Hacker
Hail
Hamas
Hazardous
Hazardous material incident
Hazmat
Help
Heroin
Hezbollah
Home grown
Homeland Defense
Human to ANIMAL
Human to human
Hurricane
Ice
IED (Improvised Explosive Device)
Illegal immigrants
Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Improvised explosive device
Industrial spill
Infection
Influenza
Infrastructure security
Interstate
IRA (Irish Republican Army)
Iran
Iraq
Islamist
Jihad
Juarez
Keylogger
Kidnap
La Familia
Leak
Lightening
Listeria
Los Zetas
Magnitude
Malware
Mara salvatrucha
Marijuana
MARTA
Matamoros
Meth Lab
Methamphetamine
Metro
Mexican army
Mexicles
Mexico
Michoacana
MS13 or MS-13
Mud slide or Mudslide
Mutation
Mysql injection
Narco banners (Spanish equivalents)
Narcos
Narcotics
National Guard
National infrastructure
National laboratory
National Operations Center (NOC)
Nationalist
NBIC (National Biosurveillance Integration Center)
Nerve agent
New Federation
Nigeria
Nogales
North Korea
Norvo Virus
Nuclear
Nuclear facility
Nuclear threat
Nuevo Leon
Outbreak
Pakistan
Pandemic
Phishing
Phreaking
Pirates
Plague
PLF (Palestine Liberation Front)
PLO (Palestine Libration Organization)
Plot
Plume
Pork
Port
Port Authority
Powder (white)
Power
Power lines
Power outage
Public Health
Quarantine
Radiation
Radicals
Radioactive
Recall
Recruitment
Red Cross
Red Cross
Relief
Resistant
Reynose
Reyosa
Ricin
Rootkit
Salmonella
San Diego
Sarin
Scammers
Secret Service (USSS)
Secure Border Initiative (SBI)
Service disruption
Shelter-in-place
Shootout
Sick
Sinaloa
Sleet
Small Pox
Smart
Smuggling (smugglers)
Snow
Social media
Somalia
Sonora
Southwest
Spammer
Spillover
Storm
Strain
Stranded/Stuck
Subway
Suicide attack
Suicide bomber
Suspicious package/device
Suspicious substance
Swine
Symptoms
Taliban
Tamaulipas
Tamiflu
Tamil Tiger
Target
Task Force
Telecommunications
Temblor
Terror
Terrorism
Tijuana
Tornado
Torreon
Toxic
Toxic
Trafficking
Transportation security
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
Tremor
Trojan
Tsunami
Tsunami Warning Center
TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan)
Tuberculosis (TB)
Tucson
Twister
Typhoon
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)
U.S. Consulate
United Nations (UN)
Vaccine
Violence
Viral Hemorrhagic Fever
Virus
Warning
Watch
Water/air borne
Wave
Weapons cache
Weapons grade
Wildfire
WMATA
World Health Organization (WHO and components)
Worm
Yemen
Yuma

I really, really hope the feds use software to eliminate posts like these. I'd hate to think that some poor agent has to waste time seeing if I'm a potential threat or just some guy who cares about striking a good balance between spotting legitimate threats and labeling anyone who happens to say the "wrong" thing at the "wrong" time a terrorist.

Canonical's Ticking Time Clock
Given Canonical's history of abandoned users and product announcements that come up short in execution, Shuttleworth's most recent goal of 200 million users by 2015 doesn't compute. There's simply no path from "declining OS vendor" to "competing on an equal footing with Microsoft, Apple and Google." It's the sort of rhetoric a CEO would say to rally the troops, but it's become obvious that it's already too late. [more]

I guess you learn something new every day ... today I learned that apparently, as long as it doesn't get out of hand, my retina bleeding once in a while is a good thing - it means that the torsional stress is causing "gunk" (the scientificky term) to detach from the retina, so of course some blood vessels will also bleed, but as long as they eventually stop, it's a good thing ...

... the alternative being that they open the eyeball up and scrape it off. I told him that wasn't an option, and he said that if it ever gets to that point, I might want to reconsider, but that it probably won't. The good eye - 94% chance that it won't, the bad eye, obviously less, but still probably better than 50-50, "depending."

94% - I like those odds. 50/50, not so much. In the meantime, using the computer for half an hour in the morning still leaves me feeling like I've got dirt stuck under the eyelid for the rest of the day. Oh well - it's an excuse to get off it.

With my eyesight continuing to be a problem, it's become obvious that I can no longer even code my own little side project - it just takes too long to "get in the zone", too long (a week or more) between attempts, etc.

That kind of sucks.

Making it worse, unfortunately, is that until I'm "legally blind", supposedly I can work. At what? Nobody's going to hire someone who, from one day to the next, is unable to say that they can or can't use a computer for extended periods of time, and needs 20 to 40 days off a year for doctors appointments and stuff.

Sure, I've been through a lot worse, and survived ... but as the saying goes, that was then, this is now.

Back when I was recovering from the flesh-eating bug that almost killed me and the shrink stopped by and said it must be hard copig, I told him it was no big deal because I'd already been through a lot worse growing up, for a lot longer, and I would get through this too ...

This time feels different. It feels ... I guess the best word is "pointless."

I really wish spring would hurry up and get here! Where's global warming when you need it? Wasted on the polar bears!

Steve Jobs and Apple, not Microsoft, killed the Linux desktop.

Think about it. If Apple had never recovered from their near-death experience, Linux would have had a Vista-sized window of opportunity to gain desktop share and interest from commercial software houses.

Also, there would have been no Android phones - they'd all be running a stripped-down Linux instead, since there would have already been a viable commercial software-for-profit ecosystem.

And there would be no App store with one company dominating a platform.