It all started about two years ago around this time of the year. Almost exactly. I had been using one of my regular accounts to interact with sush inflexible thinkers as Neocon, Twirlip of the Mists and their friends. There was alot of heated political discussion that was essentially ruining my Slashdot reading. As I've said before, I FUCKING HATE politics and the people who love them. I got pissed off at reading all the bullshit that was circulating in the comments that was passed off as "informed political views" from the neocon losers. Since my wife was off to Washington to protest the saber rattling of our simian Unpresident and I was stuck at home tending to a work related problem I figured, I should be the voice of dissent here on Slashdot. Not "liberal" dissent, mind you. But the voice of anti-corporate dissent. You CAN be a liberal and a capitalist at the same time no matter what the neocons are spinning this week.

So I took my first stab and boy did I hit the jackpot with a nicely crafted troll that got tons of up and down mods and a nice amount of responses. It was carefully written and included links that discredited a lot of what Bush and his peanut gallery were saying at the time. The thing is that I didn't "research" it at all. I just linked a few relevant Google results and made sure that it went on and on for quite a few paragraphs. Enough that it had to force people to click on the "Read the rest of this comment" link. When they DID do that, then I had a nice multiple line "meta-troll". I take credit for being the inventor of the meta-troll as NO ONE did it before I did. It paid homage to the best trolls of days gone by and made light of the dumber trolls plus it threw in a few new ones of it's own. It was exquisite even if I do say so myself. Getting people to read my comment so earnestly only to find it punctuated with nothing but crap at the end was pretty satisfying. This was the perfect way to illustrate to the politically minded people of Slashdot that I DON'T GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU THINK.

After a while... my style settled down a bit and I found that people started friending and foeing me. This was new and interesting. It was also interesting to see the interactions with other people. I was quite happy to see that many of my "fans" came from OUTSIDE of the US. I've always felt like a stranger here anyway. Maybe it's because I was raised by a hispanic mother who conluded that Americans can get REALLY silly sometimes. Who knows?

From the beginning, when I chose my Slashdot ID I was trying to think of something that really symbolized what I thought of the neocons. Then I hit upon Trolling4Dollars. It's a semi-regional bit of humor. Where I live there used to be television program in the 60s and 70s called "Bowling for Dollars". This program was undoubtedly duplicated in many other markets in the US. When I read the pap that guys like Neocon and Twirlip of the Mists spat out on a daily basis, I realized that whether they see it or not, they are trolling on behalf of the dollar. They live for money and profit and the corrupt form of capitalism that rules the land today. Their "trolls" are driven by their greed. So my Slashdot ID was me thumbing my nose at them.

What I found endlessly entertaining was that they assumed I was "just a troll" and would probably eventually go away because of their "shining intellect". However, the grandest days for the T4D account were when Twirlip of the Mists and Neocon foed me. Especially Twirlip because he paid lipservice to not caring much about making foes because he's so "open minded". He made a big deal about how humble and gratified that he was that he had so many fans. Just "little old him". But he was an arrogant prick if you weren't on his side. One day he foed me. It seemed to be counter to what he claimed and boy did I enjoy that. When Pudge foed me it wasn't nearly as satisfying. Now, I will be the first to admit that Twirlip is not an idiot. He's a smart person, but he's not on the side of the person who makes less than $50,000 a year let me tell you. To me, that is the most dispicable kind of person. It doesn't matter how smart they are, but if they can't see the value in trying to help others, then I have no respect for them. Oddly, there are things that Twirlip and I did agree about, but he'd pretty much dismissed me even when I pointed them out. Twirlip... it's all in the implementation dude. Your implementation sucks.

Getting back to Slashdot as a whole. It's pretty much ruined. What I used to love about it was that it was like a much nicer version of Usenet news groups. I used to be able to discuss real important stuff like Bash shell tips, getting IP Masquerade and NAT to work under Linux or getting a Quake server up and running. I learned some and I think I also taught people a little too. That's what this place was supposed to be about. The news stories were supposed to be the fodder for the discussion. But once Slashdot got invaded by mouth breathing AOHell users and people started talking about their politics, and then CmdrTaco encouraged all of this, it just went south. (If anyone of my friends has a relationship with Taco, pass this JE along to him I think he needs to read at least this part) Slashdot was a great opportunity to link a bunch of like-minded computer geeks together, throw some interesting tech news at them and then get the discussions going for better or worse. People would trade tips about hardware or software. They would relate horror stories about one OS or another. But in general it was all kept pretty friendly. That's all gone now. To actually survive on Slashdot you need to be a bully otherwise no one notices you. It's truly sad. Truly sad indeed.

My only political statement I'm going to make here is this. If you're an American, I don't care who you plan to vote for in November. I plan to vote for Kerry and my neighbor (who I think is a pretty nice guy) plans top vote for Bush as the sign on his lawn professes. Will I go over and pants him until he changes his mind? No. It's not my place to change his mind as he believes in his candidate for his own reasons as firmly as I do mine. Sure, I'll be vocal about my support of Kerry. I'll be interested in persuading those open to persuasion. But I'm not going to really expect to walk up to a Bush supporter and get him to change his mind. And in the end, regardless of who wins, we're going to have to live with the consequences and the "I told you sos" from either side. In the long run, it's just going to be more of the same. More moved in one direction, then back the other as the population has mass amnesia and forgets how "bad" things were the "other" way. The only thing I want is to make sure that every vote really does count. No dirty tricks. That's the best I can hope for.

I've noticed that some of my fans have dropped away. I imagine that one or another comments I've made regarding religion, OS choice or political views may have been the cause. It could also be something as simple as them wanting to add a different person they like better and I was on the short list. That's fine. There are still people I like regardless of what their reasons for dropping me. (bethanie ;P) I've also noticed some people just dropping out altogether because I think they, like me, are just sick of what Slashdot has become. It's kind of sad because some of them kept EXCELLENT journals. (the_mad_poster ;) ) Then there are the groups of really genuinely nice people who still seem to somehow rise above all the sludge and slime and keep their little group a nice place to be. Thanks for being a fan of T4D (DaytonCIM, Ethelred Unraed, tuxette, Zontar the Mindless, cyranoVR, JeremiahCornelius, SamTheButcher, SolemnDragon, danill, tomhudson, Zeriel, insanecarbonbasedlif, GigsVT). Then the folks who just write damn interesting things regardless of whether they are fans or freaks or friends or foes or neutral or even whether or not I agree with them. (Chacham, BlackHat, PerfessorMultigeek, js7a) There are a ton of other folks that have made my stay as T4D fun and enlightening but I'm running out of time to go through the list... take it as read that I am really glad to have known you all.

I might pop back in and out from time to time with T4D, but my other accounts will likely become more active. I want to pull out of the political discussions and the OS religion wars and see if there is some bit of Slashdot that still does what it used to. Vain hope I know.

Goodbye for now and [insert deity] bless.

P.S. - Please pass this on to anyone who you may be friends with who I mentioned but who may not be friends with me. Thanks. Over and out.

October 22nd, 2004 (7:34pm)

Well, i am about 15 minutes from going home, and about 20 hours away from a plane carrying me to NY for a few days, and I really havn't finished all the work that I should have finished before getting on the said plane, but the last 15 minutes is not going to save my life.

Typhoon 23 finally passed over japan with a lot of casualties - while typhoons here doesn't have the whole "off-goes-the-roof" effect that Florida keeps experiencing, possibly due to, at least in part, that there ar way too many do-it-yourself roofers in Florida, there are always some associated floods and landslides and ocean waves going over banks (or, in 23's case, ripped off a piece of old bank that was build too long ago), and subways flooding etc. Even Tokyo was not spared, as a deserted Shibuya was under several inches of water.

Not too sure what I can say - except that global warming has got to stop or this planet is turning into Venus in a handbasket.

The romantics within the office hung up Halloween decorations - to liven up an otherwise somewhat boring office space with dashes of orange here and a plastic pumpkin there and a paper skeleton in the middle. The effort was not concerted by the entire floor, of course, and it ends up to be just about the wrong amount of it - there was too many to stash into for the "Halloween accent," but too little for an all-out display, so the few pumpkins and skeleton and bats just kind of hang from the ceiling without much corrolation to eachother, more like a sign of "beware! this is what happens to skelectons and bats that tresspass into this area." Not that anybody here except me would even have an opinion on this, anyway.

Hmm... seems like my 15 minutes are up (Wow I type slow). Tomorrow there is a 14 hour plane ride for me in economy class - and yesterday something weird happened to my back so I am not the happiest camper, faced with the necessity of sitting for 14 hours with an only partially functional back.

Many of my friends/fans will notice a new person popping up as a fan in the next few days. I'll also start posting in your JEs. So hopefully you'll recognize the snetiments and style. This account will probably be used strictly for toying with the retarded Scott Lockwood trollbots and finally go dormant for a while. Maybe I'll pop up again like Twirlip of the Mists! ;P It's been fun folks. See you on the other side.

To the trollbots. Get a sense of style guys. Even I can troll better than you can and I'M NOT A TROLL!

A challenge: Anyone care to try and analyze my posts content and see if they can track me down? I will give you a few clues. I have five accounts on Slashdot. You'd be surprised at one of them if you have any familiarity with my T4D posts. ;P Finally... *time is of the essence* Let's see if the trollbot slashtards can figure any of this out.

In fact... I think I will.

I have to do a little research, but my wife read last week that in a poll (for what they're worth) that asked what religion Americans identify with across the country, the answer was 41% evangelical/fundamentalist christianity. Sorry, but that just frightens me. When nearly half of the population of the U.S. believes in such a damaging and destructive faith, we are in SERIOUS trouble. It also goes far in explaining why this country is so fucked up. These people need to be educated and shown why their beliefs are extremist and in many cases flawed. It's one thing to believe in god and be nice to people. It's something entirely different to think that your chosen faith is the only game in town and everyone else is destined for hell and damnation. I'm going to see if I can find this poll to link here. Honestly. I thought that in 2004 we'd have less of that thing rather than more.

Update: The closest I could find was this link at ABC.com. Even though it's not quite 40% it's still a little alarming. The numbers break it down a bit more across various demographics. And if I'm being completely and unabashedly honest, it's the WHITE evangelicals that frighten me more than the non-white. Either way, it's still unnerving.

October 17th, 2004 (3.53am)

I have just finished watching many episodes of the Simpsons, and there was an earthquake about 3 seconds ago and the apartment is still shaking as i am typing this... It's kind of eerie to be up at the middle of the night and then everything start to shake all of the sudden, mostly in a quiet manner as the sofa sways under you. For a moment you pause and wonder if this is "The Big One" as the swaying increases in strength but then let out a nervous sigh as it seem to not grow in magnitude, and eventually settles and slowly fades, until you are not sure if it's really shaking or just your residual imagination. Besides the obvious fear for death involved, it's actually comforting in a way to know that the earth is relieving the tension buildups in small doses instead of pending it up for a big one. It was a long time (maybe almost a year) before we had a significant earthquake in Kanto, and while life went on as normal, people did have in on their mind and wondered if something big was going to happen (it kind of did) - kind of like that familiar face you see on the subway is missing for an extended period of time.

--- continuing on the hiking trip last weekend ---

The starting point for the hike was officially at Tateyama station. The road past that is off limits to private vehicles, and you can either walk or take the bus / cable car. Since it's an elevation of some 2,000 meters and several kilometers from the train station to the start of the hike at Murodo station several kilometers away, walking is just an illusion of an option and you have to shell out for bus tickets. As we have all should know now, monopoly means that the tickets are incrediblly expensive: one way trip was some 2,500 yen and roundtrip would cost a hefty 4,410 or so. Considering that a trip from here to the airport (some 120km) is only 2,000 yen ("only" in a relative sense), the price is extortion even by japanese standards. Worse yet, once you try to board the bus a guy comes over and asks to weight your bag - over 10kg means another 300 yen for the bag-fare.

The bus departs and enters the checkpoint where all private cars must turn back, and pays a toll. Since no normal cars can go through the toll did not reflect how much it would have cost, but for a bus it was certainly expensive at over 25,000 yen. Not that the bus didn't make money from all of us at ~50 seats filled to the rim at a fat chunk of change each, but nonetheless I did feel somewhat better (for reasons I cannot, at least at such an early hour, explain) knowing that i would have no way of affording the toll if they did allow cars up there.

The ride up to Murodo was uneventful though quite beautiful. Most of the way we were climbing and in only a few minutes we could look out the window and the road from where we came from would be on the other side of a valley and many meters down. Autumn already begun to paint the mountainside with a palette of yellow and red, and as the bus drives by suddently a patch of wonderfully shaded red colours would flash past the window, against a blue sky dotted with clouds - picturesque like a painting in a way that can only be after the passage of a storm.

On the way, we passed a long waterfall on a distant mountainside. The bus driver stopped to let us look at it temporrarily. It was far away and long - while it did not have the sheer raw power of Niagara falls or the sheer length of drop of the Nikko fall, it incited quite some excitement among the passengers. A few minutes later, we passed another fall, aptly named "sou-men taki" as "noodle fall," as the water hits a sloped mountainside and takes many routes down, very much like a a bundle of noodles drying on a bare surface.

-- continuing some other time --

October 14th, 2004 (8:33pm)

Today is my 2 year anniversary of coming to Japan. I am not so sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Originally the plan was for me to get back to the US around now, and that I can have my driver's license (expiring in a month) renewed, get my low insurance rate as I hit 25, and go forward with whatever the road of life takes me. Spending the 2 year anniversary here in Japan, though, means that a lot of plans made back in the days are no longer meeting my needs: I have no idea what to do about my license, my warrenty on my car is expiring soon, and I would definitely be spending my 25th birthday here - and japanese car insurance rates drop at 28... I need a lesson in planning contingencies, I think.

I wish there was something insightful I can say on this occasion, though - something about the passage of time, the integration of a alien body into a unfamiliar culture, or the loneliness and fulfillment that comes from not having a traditional concept of home - but really, today is just like another day, and unfortunately one of those very un-insightful days for me.

The past weekend was a three-day weekend. Japan have all these awsome holidays for all sorts of interesting reasons. October 10 is a day that usually have good weather and the Tokyo Olympics was held and since they it was "excercise day" and a national holiday. The next holiday will be Nov 3rd - "culture day." It's one of the things I like about Japan - the days are celebrating human endeavours common to the human race instead of some policital, national, or religious cause. Unlike most countries, Japanese currency do not have past political figures but contributors of science and culture for the heads. Maybe I am just being idealist but it's a good system that should be adopted in other places as well.

The point I was trying to make, though, is that I went hiking during the three day weekend. My motivation was not related to the exercising day - but rather that this would have been my last chance to hike Tateyama and Tsurugi-dake. The hike requires that I stay in a hut and the past sunday was the last day of operation for the hut. Besides, the mountains would become covered with snow any day now and it would not be a good ideal to attempt the "hardest hike in japan" under such deteriorated conditions.

One of the problems was that though October 10th and thereabouts is supposed to be the best weathered days in Japan, on this particular weekend Typhoon #22 - the biggest typhoon in 10 years - was heading straight toward us at an alarming speed. The original plan was to go to Toyama on friday night, hike saturday and sunday, and then take a slow day on monday visiting some local attractions and getting back. Unfortunately, around mid-day friday the typhoon probably had a revalation or something and headed directly toward Tokyo, increasing its pace from a leisurely 10km/h to some 60km/h.

I didn't mind the speed so much - if meant that it was possible that the typhoon would pass over this area on saturday and sunday should be beautiful blue skys with white puffy clouds. I ended up glued to the television for the entire day on friday checking the typhoon's progress. NHK has this tendency of cancelling *all* of its regular programming on the occurence of some natural disaster and provide round the clock coverage thereof. For the entire day saturaday, NHK was "The Typhoon Channel." Luckily the typhoon veered right and passed Toyama prefecture relatively untouched, and the trip officially started at 9pm saturday night.

The destination prefecture is Toyama, stuck between Ishikawa and Niigata prefecture on the Japan sea coast. The mountain ranges, Tateyama, is in its eastern side and very famous for various things - most of which I don't remember. One of the more interesting is that the mountain range gets a lot of snowfall during winter, and to keep the roads open massive plowing operations proceed through winter and the resulting road is flanked by walls of snow twenty meters high, the opening of which every april is a highly anticipated event many tourists. Another is that under the mountain is a fairly famous dam called Kurobe dam. It's an arch dam much like the hoover dam, though not quite as big. It's another attraction that draws many people every year.

The hike was to start at Murodo, on the west side of the mountains. There are two ways to reach the start of the hike, one is from the west, and another from the east that's very expensive, as it involves many segments of bus ride in specialized tunnels inside the mountain, and seveal segments of cable car. The bus also passes across the kurobe dam as well - which is one of the reason that even though the route is quite expensive, it's still fantastically popular. The other way is more conventional - the only problem is that since there are no other ways across the mountain range, one have to swing around above it on the ocean side - making the trip near 400km each way, even though linear distance is at most some 70% of that.

-- added Oct 17, 2004 (about 4am) --

Ok, continuing in another file.

Before anyone jumps to any conclusions about this being a right vs. left thing, I'll say that it's not. I'm specifically asking about personal opinion. If you want to bring up BJs in the oval office vs. coke snorting political marionettes, that's your own look out. The other thing I'll say is that there seems to be a lot of difficulty discussing anything related to sex on /. I haven't figured out why, since contrary to popular belief, many of us "geeks" get some on a regular basis. But it does seem that "geeks" have a problem with actually openly discussing sexuality with people they don't know closely. Odd.

My personal feeling is that drugs are a worse vice than sex because of the damage they do to the most important part of your body: the brain. Sure, you COULD get an STD (possibly life threatening) from casual sex, but if your brain is in good working order, there are plenty of ways to prevent that. I've had a good number of sex partners and was smart enough to know how to avoid STDs, so I know it can be done. On the other hand, every person I know who has fallen victim to drug use has either had a tragic end to their lives, or is miserable now. I've had drug using friends go to jail for committing crimes that were the result of impaired judgement. I've had friends who are currently struggling to get out of poverty but are finding it difficult because they never made it through college due to their drug habits. Being in their mid 30s and having police records doesn't help either. The friends who indulged in very extreme sexual behavior have come out of it just fine. No STDs. No criminal record. And in every case, just a normal life (at worst) where they are now married and have some kids. However, here is the most telling fact in my opinion: the sex focused people can still indulge in their "vice" with no negative impact on their lives whereas the drug focused people seem to fall lower and lower the more they indulge. The only solution for the drug focused people is to completely stop using (a few of my friends fall into this category) otherwise they continue to decline.

What do you think?

DISCLAIMER: If you find profanity offensive, move along.

This is kind of a fill in poll. This morning when I was headed into work, some asshole cut me off and I went into one of my Tube Bar text strings:

"Why you motherfucker cock sucker! Ya yellow rat bastard! You'd fuck your own mother for a nickle you sonuvabitch"!

That always has the effect of putting a smile on my face.

Anyway I started thinking about me and some of my friends and how we actually all have personal curses that we use when we get REALLY pissed off. Back in high school one of my friends had a few choice ones:

1. Geezus CHEEESEBURGERS!!!
2. Ohhh..... COCK!!! (Usually said in a rage with a fairly lengthy pause between both words)
3. What a ball jockey!

Recently another friend of mine came up with one he was particularly happy with:

1. Why that god-cocking mother... (Again said in a rage)

He also has this one:

1. God Mutha.... (Said with a strained voice. Interestingly it's not really a curse per se...)

Still another friend has:

1. What a bunch of asscocks!

Myself, I've got:

1. Mudra Fakah! (Must roll the R)
2. That's just nadtacular! (Said in a mild rage)
3. You sack! (Said with derision. Imagine applied to Metzler.)

My wife uses:

1. Aahhhh... EAT ME! (When someone is bullshitting here and she wants them to know)

So what about you? Do you have any favorite personal curses?

Read this and tell me what you think. I think it's cool AND stupid. Oh... and don't tell me it grosses you out. I'm not going to stand for that sort of thing. We are Devo.

There is a tendency for human beings to assume that everyone else is just like them. It's kind of hard to NOT do that, but eventually we all are able to accept that people CAN be different to varying degrees of success. With that out of the way...

Are there not more geeks who got their start as electronic musicians on Slashdot? I've posted a few JEs and comments over the years and in my various accounts that are related to electronic music. But, I usually get very few responses. Part of me feels like this can't possibly be right as electronic music and technology are virtually married. Hell... that's how I first learned hexadecimal. My old Ensoniq Mirage sampler required that you could count from 0-256 in hex if you really wanted to get anywhere with it. Understanding the signal flow of audio and the routing in a MIDI network translates pretty readily to ethernet networking equipment. Using a computer to make music basically gets you about 75% of the way to being able to be a good network admin at the very least.

Am I wrong in assuming that there must be more geeks here who got into IT via electronic music? Am I falling into that old trap of human nature of assuming that everyone else is like me? I can't be THAT unusual!!!

On another topic: How many of you who are being pretty vocal about voting for Bush actually plan to vote for Kerry secretively? I've talked to a few close friends who have been republicans for a long time, but they aren't happy with Bush. They've told me that they are planning to vote for Kerry but they have Bush signs and stickers on their cars and in their front yards because they need to keep up the appearance. I found this very facinating because it doesn't make much sense. But it leads me to wonder are there more than just the handful of friends I have who feel the same way?

After having worked professionally with computers since 1997 and having gotten only one professional certificiation (an NT4 MCSE which was dead simple to get), I've often wondered about going back to school to get a CS degree. But is it worth it for a 34 year old guy to do this?

My college degree was a BS in Communication (Telecomunication with emphasis on audio production) and was basically just to appease my folks. I've been out of college for over ten years now and the degree only really helped me in terms of being resume helper. Considering that it wasn't a hard science and I suck at math, I imagine I probably have a good deal of catching up to do before I could even pursue a Master's in CS. The thing is that over the past seven years, I've picked up a lot about networking, general OS support, scripting in CMD, Bash, Perl, a little TCL and programming in C (my big project is to really do a lot of C after the kid is born). Computers as a profession never occurred to me before because I mostly used them for music and graphic design. But once I moved to Linux, I got bit by the bug and started to play with computers at a much more advanced level and found it to be enjoyable. The whole D.I.Y. feel of the *nix OSes is much more fun than just using applications on Windows. So... the big question, should I try and take this interest and really hone my skills by getting a CS degree.

Finally, the setback. Like I said earlier, I suck at math. Not that I don't understand it, but I have a severe problem seeing my own mistakes unless someone points them out to me. Once, when I was taking a geometry class in undergrad school, I would literally check my work five times over. This made what should have been a 45 minute homework session more like 4-5 hours. But, I STILL couldn't catch my mistakes. When I would go in to talk to the teacher, they would instantly spot the error. usually a set of transposed digits or a minus sign instead of a plus sign. Even today, when I write something in Perl or Bash, I will make mistakes that I can't see... until the machine points them out. Fortunately, since the machine points them out, I "get" the problem and can usually fix it about 99% of the time. But working with computers hasn't required much actual math for programming in C or writing scripts in Perl/Bash. Instead it seems that logic is much more important and at that I excel. I knew this back in undergrad when I took a deductive logic course and aced it without trying while the rest of the students bemoaned their Cs Ds and Fs. So... in the "real world" of programming, how much math (as in figuring out the calculation before the computer can tell you that you made a mistake) is required?

OK. Hopefully that got your attention. Especially those of you who are electronic musicians like me. I am riding high right now because I just compiled and installed Linuxsampler along with it's GUI interface "QSampler" (can be found in a link from the Linuxsampler page). What is this, you may ask me? And I will tell you... it's a software based sampler akin to the Tascam Gigasampler product for Windows. It's in ALPHA right now, so it's not exactly stable, full featured or reliable. But it's a VERY nice start to something that is likely to beat the pants off of Gigasampler and hardware based turnkey systems. I should know since I've worked with the following samplers:

1. Ensoniq Mirage
2. Emu Emulator III
3. Emu Emax
4. New England Digital Synclavier
5. Roland S550
6. Roland S760

It's quite exciting to see my P4 outperforming my own Roland S760 in terms of sound quality and polyphony. I paid $2400 for the S760 back in 1994 and you'd be hard pressed to find a used one these days for less than $1500, they're that good. But, with the style of playing I have, you can go through 24 notes of polyphony pretty fast. That means it can be a pain to sequence your stuff in muptiple passes from MIDI to audio tracks just to emulate more notes of polyphony. After seeing this program, I'm hoping that within the next few years, my studio will be completely inside my PC with only an 88 key weighted action MIDI keyboard as the interface. It looks like Linuxsampler is going to support Gigasampler and Akai sample formats which opens up a pretty decent library of sounds. However, it would be REALLY awesome to be able to get my hands on old Fairlight samples... :)

I'm happy! Happy!! HAPPY!!!!

Bill and Steve,

I know you guys have a lot on your plate with Windows right now, but I thought I would try and make your life a little easier by solving the piracy problem for you. I've worked out a plan to completely put an end to piracy of Microsoft products and it's just a modification of your current licensing scheme!

Ever since you guys moved to using Windows registration combined with license keys, you've certainly put somewhat of a roadblock to piracy in place. But, people are still pirating Windows. You know that and I know that. I think part of the problem is that you guys were a little soft on the issue. If you really want to stop piracy of your products try this:

1. Keep track of every one of those codes in a database
2. Require that all Windows machines have an always on or "phone home" connection to the internet. No internet? No Windows.
3. Disable a Windows installation if any one of those codes was not generated by MS, thereby destroying all registration key generators
4. Disable multiple Windows installations if there are duplicate registration codes/software keys
5. Get rid of Volume License Key versions of Windows
6. Require users with disabled copies of Windows to buy a new registration key at the full price of a new copy of Windows. This can be extended to people who originally had pirated copies so that they don't lose the data they have on that machine.

These simple changes would most assuredly end Windows OS piracy because it would no longer be possible for people to install Windows on multiple systems without MS's knowledge. This is good because it would end piracy as we know it today. This could be extended to MS software such as Office as well. People would complain but that doesn't really matter as the end goal is to end piracy. Or is it???

UPDATE: I will note that no one seems to want to touch this topic with a ten foot pole. Is it because no one really wants to stop piracy? Including the big companies that purport to loathe it? Is because a lot of you are afraid of being caught with a pirated copy of Windows or other Microsoft products? Is it because a lot of you don't want piracy to stop since it is how you acquire some or all of your software?

October 4th, 2004 (4:21pm)

Urgh! I am so busy these days.

October had swung by and the weather cooled off tremendously. In the perpetual wet cloudy days, every day another patch of rice field, the day before full of arched rice stalks from the weight of the fruition of a year, become barren and nothing left but cut stalks and the muddy ground below, rice peels in a pile burning on the side of the field, producing noxious smoke. I hardly have time to take my time to reflect on such change of season anymore. Time flies by like wind, not only is it fast, it comes and goes intangibly like the blotches of colour outside flashing across the window on a fast moving train.

NHK morning drama has entered a new season. I think I finally got the grasp that the said morning dramas are always about 6 monthes long. I admit to my schadenfreude for the previous series's completion, because while the main actress is indeed very pretty, the show was a warehouse of boredom compressed and cut into 15 minute segments. I am not here to talk extensively about NHK morning drama (which as far as i know a very small percentage of japanese male population ever casts eyes upon), but rather that I realized that the new series would probably be the last one I will be able to watch extensively. While I am not a zealous fan for the particular, erm, art form, watching the show on my morning commute as a diversion and a practice for listening to something besides the news had become a ritual here. A notable indicator of this particular lifestyle that I have settled into. To be confronted with these indicators of the end of an accustomed life, no matter how foreign it started out originally, is admittably the cause of some anxiety. Ironically the life that is supposed to be familiar (the life back in the US) now seem to hold many unknowns and undoubtedly many surprises.

The supermarked called "Big House" near my residence is truly an amazing place. I have many times mused at their fine and eclectic selections of fish, but I am repeatedly tempted to go at it one more time. Last weekend I took a stroll there to find some harmless salmon and tai (bream) for a simple soup dish, but ended up staring in amazement at a huge Ankou (angler fish) and bought home some haze (goby) and some ankimo (angler fish liver). It did not end there, of course. Of the things I didn't buy there are many. In fact, a tropical fish that I frequently seen while diving also made it onto the shelf at the supermarket. There were also plates of these other tiny round but extremely thin fishes. They were about the size of a coaster, and are not much thicker either. I cannot imagine how they would be cooked, as they appear to belong in an aquarium rather than on the dinner table.

The Ankou was humongous. It was a bit bigger than a deflated basketball with a disproportionally small tail. They laid the fish bottom up in the styrofoam container, and the bottom was slimy and white. The large mouth that opens upwards could not be seen. When I peeled the fish in an attempt to look underneath it (look at its "up"-side,) thick columns of mucus lingered from its black and disagreeably textured skin on its other side onto the container's bottom, as if the fish is part of a huge snot-ball some giant just sneezed out. As much as ankou is one of my favourite foods, I decided to leave the snivel covered fish alone.

That said, goby fish is no any more pleasant to look at. (Disclaimer, I am no longer so sure what I ate WAS a goby. Maybe it was a specie of frogfish) This is another fish that drells on the bottom or near stones, so the unexposed bottom side is white and... sloshy. It was about 30cm long, with a bony head and many protrusions from it. The eyesocket sits well above the head and bones make these two alcoves where the tiny eyes look out, much like a frog. The shelter/alcoves shares small resemblance to arches of Sydney's Opera House. The skin was slimy but prickly at the same time. Many lines of these little hook/teeth-like protrutions run along the back side of the fish, under a layer of slime-like substance. The stomache was exceptionally soft and sloshed, like a rubber bag with questionable durabitily half full of water. Touching it was of no pleasant experience.

Nonetheless, I decided that for 250yen, it would be a reasonable amount to try to see if this would taste good. A general rule I follew is that the uglier the fish the better they tend to taste. I unfortunately did not have the requisite 4,000 yen to spare on that huge ankou just for experimental purposes, and besides the fact it was large enough to feed a small army - or at least drive the appetite thereof away for a while, which in some sense serves the same purpose.

My experiment did not produce encouraging results. I was to find out later that the skin should have been peeled before cooking, along with whatever that was sloshing along the interior. While I was eating the said fish, a bladder-like organ that was either the esophagus or the stomage broke open, and its interior - undistinguishable substance of questionable colour and a whole, small shrimp, spread into the plate. While I consider myself fairly adventurous in dining, the sight of partially digested food of my food somehow brought about some unmitigated horror in my stomache.

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Probably will continue about hawaii in the next episode. With all my being, I hope time will allow that to be tuesday. Must run off to Piano now.

p.s. speaking of Piano. Debussy has an uncanny ability to make incredibly difficult pieces of music seem easy, much to the dismay of my hands.