Saw LOTR last night. If you haven't seen it, do so. Best. Movie. Ever. Im serious. That movie blew away every Star Wars movie I've ever seen, and even topped last year's FOTR. OTOH, if you haven't seen ST Nemesis, you may safely skip this one. Its worth a view at the dollar flicks or on video, but I wouldn't recommend paying $8.50(or whatever movies cost in your area) to see it. Really Nemesis was on par with a decent TV episode of the Next Generation, but thats about it.

I've gotta get this silliness off my chest: That commercial for SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals. Looks like a great game. After the Navy Seal dudes kick the snot out of the Gen-Y hipsters one of the Seals says "like shooting fish in a bucket". I'm sorry but that's one phrase that needs to be stricken from the English language. First of all, its "shooting fish in a barrel" and even that one has major problems with it. Number one, if the fish are already in a barrel, why do you need to shoot them? You're just going to destroy the fish and put holes in your barrel, or bucket as the case may be. At any rate, I don't get it. How on earth did that become a recognizable phrase; its about the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

and I'm done. This was my semester of electives. Why? Because I am planning on going through UNM's academic renewal program(I dropped out 5 years ago due to personal reasons and got 3 F's) and won't actually start there until next month. This semester, I got my brain back in gear at TVI. I am taking Spanish, Economics, History, and Public Speaking.

Assumming I don't freeze up on those last two finals, I'll have 3 A's and a B in Spanish this sem. The A in Public Speaking was very unexpected. Its not my strong suit, and I would have been happy with any passing grade. However, the instructor really felt I improved a lot over the semester. Moral: If you're a geek and you want to strech your capabilities, try something you're not good at. It can be tough, but it's worthwhile.

This is on top of working full time running an ecommerce site. Hey don't laugh. It may be small, but its profitable.

In other words I've been a very busy bee this semester. I don't expect it to get any better, but I'll try and post more during my breaks.

Get your Segway today!. I have to say, the Segway is cool, but not for 5 grand. They already said this thing could go for 3 grand(which is a much more reasonable price). So basically that extra 2G is price gouging. You're not going to get a world-changing invention if you're price gouging. The automobile didn't take off until Ford made them affordable. Personal computing has yet to become pervasive in households for the same reason. I only bring these examples up because Kamen's goal was to create a world changing invention and to fundamentally alter the landscape of cities.

Bin Laden associate warns of Al Qaeda cyberattack. Most alarming quote: "I believe that Osama bin Laden has earned his leadership and most [Muslim students] who are graduating in computer science and computer programming and IT technology are supporting Osama bin Laden." Personally I've met a lot of people from Arabic/Islamic countries in the engineering and science depts. I would never even think to imagine that the majority of these people are learning tech to take home to fight the country that educated them. I think perhaps this gentleman is overstating things, even if he is close to Bin Laden(maybe thats whats clouding his view). I would imagine that most Arabs and Muslims want nothing to do with Bin Laden, including those studying science and engineering.

And(gasp!) Microsoft does a good deed! MS, Apple, and others (A group of high-profile technology companies), lobbied Congress recently to ensure consumers aren't being slowed down unnecessarily by their providers. I have to say, the lack of cheap broadband did more to slow down the acceptance of the Internet than any other factor. I'd almost have to blame the dot-com bust on this factor alone.

In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with Haiku poetry messages.

Better Haiku, than Seppuku, I say. If you have any more to add, post away.

The Web site you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.

A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.

Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

Finally my critiques of capitalism will have some theory to go behind it. This is my first business or economics class ever. It's just that when I was in high school this stuff never interested me. However, having been stupid with money and having felt the consenquences, and also having been involved with growing a business has changed my outlook considerably. In fact I'm taking econ 105 now to keep my options open in case I want to minor in business.

So anyway, allow me to very briefly touch on some of the Macroeconomic wisdom my school has imparted upon me.

The basic goals of economics are as follows:

Economic growth

Full employment

Economic efficiency

Price-level stability

Economic freedom

Equitable distribution of income

Economic security

Balance of trade

To achieve these lofty economic goals, the prevaling wisdom is that you reach a point of economic nirvana called market equilibrium in which the circle of businesses, households, resource markets and product markets are each serving each other perfectly and thus fulfilled.

Unfortunately for us, as I discovered when I asked a few questions about our economy, we are far from attaining this state. In particular, having a monopoly of any type severely disturbs this equilibrium. Many of our most basic services like gas, electricity, and water come from a single source. 95% of media comes from 7 companies and a single company produces 90%+ of desktop software. These, among many other examples, have a deleterious effect on the economy.

At any rate, we're just getting started and both the professor and the book we use have a very traditional capitalistic approach to the subject. So I may be adjusting my view of capitalism in the near future. I will say however, it appears that capitalism needs a lot of government regulation to function correctly. I think perhaps the point I made previously about businesses cannibalizing each other(with a coincident harmful economic effect) until a monopoly emerges may not be so far the truth.

I know I'm not the only one here who has experienced this, but it still sucks.

I can't remember the last time I was moderated down where the moderation was something other than "overrated". To paraphrase Jack Black from High Fidelity, the overrated mod is very pussy.

You just know that these people use this mod because they either don't like you or disagree with what you say. Yet they are too chicken to use something that will show up in M2.

With all the nice changes that have occurred around Slashdot lately, the "overrated" mod abuse is the one remaining glaring flaw in the system. There are undoubtedly people with several accounts that mod nearly every day - and if they are using the overrated mod, well they basically have free license to swing any discussion they way they want, without any checks against their behavior.

A lot of journal entries recently have commented on friends/foes limits, the disappearance of templates, etc. Not to mention that the whole thing has been buggy lately.

Well, if you haven't seen this already, here's the reason. The changes are designed to get us journal writers to subscribe to Slashdot.

Interestingly enough, I decided it was the right thing for me to do shortly before I read Taco's journal. I have no doubt I'm draining $5 worth of resources on this site every month.

Something I've wanted to know for a while about you guys and gals that read and/or post in journals. Why did you pick your nickname?

I'll go first. I picked the nickname 'Pinball Wizard' for two reasons. Firstly, CmdrTaco is a big Who fan, as am I. Secondly, 'Pinball Wizard' is highly symbolic of the geek type - someone who is really good at what he/she does, but generally doesn't fit into 'normal' society. In his case, he's the deaf, dumb and blind kid who plays a mean pinball.

In my case, well I try to fit into normal society as much as I can, but there is a twist: I have some very oddball friends. In HS there were certain stuck up types that had problems with me because of who I associated with. Well, I associated with everyone, except the stuck up types. I've made friends with everyone from the very wealthy down to the homeless, from the brightest people to people who walk the streets mumbling incoherently. Some people think you are known by whom you associate with, but I disagree. I'm interested in all sorts of different people.

Well, I've been admitted into computer science at UNM and am back on track to get my degree. If you read my Religion journal entry, you'll recall that my future looked uncertain(to me at least). I did have to take time off work and go talk to several people, but other than the time it took to make the appointments and see the advisors/professors necessary to let me back in it wasn't too painful. I know its nothing to a lot of you but I was a bit worried there. I didn't want to face the prospect of not being able to continue my education.

The downside is, since I am switching from computer engineering to computer science I've got 2.5 to 3 years to go still because the requirements are quite different. I need a minor now, plus I need a foreign language, a fine art, and either public speaking, technical writing or creative writing. I could do either a comp engineering minor or a math minor which would give me a leg up on completing the minor. Not sure I want to though - I'm thinking I would like something significantly different, perhaps a business minor to round out the degree.

At any rate, thanks for everyone who was supportive when I wrote that last journal. Moral of the story: stay in school(if you're in school) and don't let life get in the way of acheiving your dreams. It's much easier to slog through than it is to go back after you've given up and dropped out.

I appear to have "fans"(i.e. people who have declared me a friend) that don't show up in my fans list. Anyone else have that problem? What good is it if you can't reciprocate when someone declares you a friend because you don't see them on your fans list? Perhaps its the ones that don't write journals? Only that doesn't make sense because there are a couple of people who don't write journals on both my friends/fans lists.

On the subject of journals and friends and fans, allow me to list a couple of interesting things I've run across.

Most lopsided friends/fans ratio: John Carmack, with a huge list of fans and no friends.

Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of C++, has only one fan(me). He's only posted two times though, I bet most people have no idea he ever made an account.

<background>I've been programming now for 8 years, 6 of them professionally. I started off learning C++. On the job, I started out doing web pages using ASP/VBScript and ocassionally writing backend components and programs in C++. Recently, my company changed its server platform and I've been doing a lot of Perl. Although I've never had the opportunity to use it professionally, I'm now completing my second class in Java.</background>

So here are my thoughts about the language. I would especially appreciate anyone who's had more experience with Java(FortKnox?) to add their thoughts here.

1) Java is just about the nicest, cleanest language I've had the opportunity to program in. The structure of this language, the syntax, and the conventions employed all combine to make Java a very nice, easy to write, and easy to read language. I feel it would be very enjoyable to use it in a professional setting.

2) Java is a very complete language - meaning that for 95% of anything I would want to do, there is a library available to help me do it. Of all the other languages I've looked at or used, only Perl has a similar capability. That's good, because I really hate reinventing the wheel every time I want to put a vehicle together.

3) Java has some shortcomings - such that I could see myself hitting a wall in serious(read: not classroom) development. For instance: what would you do if you need to create complex data structures like a hash table or binary tree? Or if you did manage to create those structures(perhaps by using references rather than pointers?) what do you do in a program where you wanted to inherit from both classes? Java allows for single inheritance, and mimics multiple inheritance by allowing interfaces(you can't modify or implement new methods in an interface, you only get what is there) Now I know you can use CORBA to interact with other languages. However, it appears to me that you can't make use of the other languages special features(like, say templates or multiple inheritance in C++) because the interface itself isn't designed to deal with them.

3a) Another shortcoming with Java compared with other languages is the investment a company and its programmers need to make to become productive with it. Think of all the things you need to do just to get a simple servlet working on the web - you need to create an application, create and compile your classes, write your web.xml file to let the server know where everything is, and finally package it all into a war file. With Perl, by contrast, all you need to do is write a Perl script and drop it in your cgi-bin directory. I heard complaints from other students who worked for huge organizations about the complexity in getting a Java environment working. If its difficult for them, it would be next to impossible to realistically deploy Java in small to medium sized companies.

4) OK, I'll admit. For most corporate development you are not going to be concerned at all about things I brought up in item 3. You will be creating user interfaces, simple classes that incorporate your business logic, and database access methods. For this type of development, Java excels, and the bigger your company is the better off you will be for using Java since it is logical, very well organized, and can scale itself to the biggest of companies. But, where is Java going? For the last couple of sessions at my Java class, everyone has been talking about how Sun's stock is basically in the toilet(hovering around $5), how they might get taken over by another player(Oracle, IBM), and the fact that while Java makes no money for them, it requires a huge amount of development resources. If a company did take over Sun, would they want Java the way it is? Or would they exercise their right to make Java a proprietary language and try to start making money off of it? Meanwhile, MS is promoting .NET, and although they have their problems, they appear to be a much stronger company than Sun. How closely tied is Java to Sun's success as a company? What will happen if Sun folds or gets bought out?

Experienced Java programmers, your comments are very welcome.

If capitalism is so rational, why is the stock market such a crapshoot? The basic tenents of capitalism I can deal with, but sometimes the stock market, which seems to control the overall economy and job situation, seems very flaky. Consider this news bit I pulled off Yahoo today.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Thursday as warnings from companies like Lucent Technologies Inc. and surprisingly soft U.S. retail sales data dampened investors' hopes for a swift rebound in corporate profits.

Um, hello, McFly? Wasn't Lucent one of those fucking companies laying off thousands upon thousands of workers? So let me see...you've not only crippled your staff, you are one of the leading reasons(layoffs) people can't afford to buy your products. And the fact that sales are down is a surprise?!

Sigh...when you think rationally, the parts of this world that are insane tend to drive you nuts. Its apparent to me that downsizing only appeases shareholders while at the same time ravaging the overall economy.

This comment, and subsequent comments in this thread claim that the economic value of music is now zero, thereby justifying all the music they download and never pay for.

This is sad, because I really like and support P2P file sharing, but these people give it a bad name. Sure the music industry is evil and corrupt, but the musicians who sweat it out and take great financial risks to bring you the music you love are not.

I don't recall people in the Open Source/Free Software movement advocating that people use warez because of the corrupt software industry. Rather, they are providing a valuable alternative that is legitimately downloaded and used for free.

By the same token people who download warez are generally fully aware that they are breaking the law and are cheerfully stealing their software. But there seems to be a large number of people who think its morally right to download all of their music. Where the heck did that viewpoint come from? These people are taking away any sense of legitimacy that P2P software can have.

Ultimately I would love to see all software and music be free. I also would like to live in a society free from capitalism, and believe that "an end to scarcity" will be a reality someday. But until that happens, we live in a capitalistic society. If someone puts something out on the market for a price, and you use that product and don't pay for it, you are stealing. Period.

I managed to get one of the spotlight reviews for Vapor Trails on amazon.com(reposted below). What a great album. I also ran into this page on nasa's web site - look closely, there's at least three references to Rush here.

God I love Rush. They have consistently put out great records for 28 years. Although the past several records have been great, there is something about their former glory that they just seem to fall short of. Although I have immensely enjoyed all of their records, I began to accept that there might never be another 'Tom Sawyer', 'Closer to the Heart' or a number of older tunes written in Rush's glory years.

This new album is really different. Some of the tunes are so emotional and so visceral I can't help comparing them favorably to the great songs of Rush past. Earthshine in particular is a monster of an anthem. Sweet Miracle is as catchy as anything they have ever written. One Little Victory and several others are as heavy as anything they have ever done. Not only that, this album really hangs together as a cohesive whole, and is strong from start to finish.

There several factors that made this album unique. Neil Peart had faced severe tragedy in his life and recovered. They had as long as they needed to finish the album. They completely cut out the keyboards in this album, filling the sonic territories with layers of guitar and vocals.

The result is their best album by a longshot since Moving Pictures. Good job guys.

Hmm...somehow I've become good at resisting the urge to buy the latest and greatest thing lately. My (newest)PC is only a 1Ghz, and I've decided to hold off on buying a Zaurus until they come out with a 2nd gen product - or it becomes clear that its not a flash-in-the-pan type of thing(been using a Palm for years now). I've resisted buying a DVD player so far - because VHS is still a high-quality format believe it or not and movies are 2-3 times as cheap.

And I still have a Playstation I. However, with the upcoming price drop, I don't think I'll be able to resist.

Its looking like its the PS2 for me over the XBox. The games I want to play(Tony Hawk 3, GTA 3, Spiderman) are all on Playstation. Plus, there's the Linux kit - which I assume will be able to play different sorts of multimedia. Meaning this one box will serve as a game console, DVD player and MP3 server.

But I'm open-minded. If anyone has a convincing reason why I should buy an XBox instead, I'd like to hear it.