At least the Patriot act thread has introduced me to a new Canadian state/territory, Nunavut. When I lived in Toronto and went to primary school, there were ten provinces and two territories and I was glad I didn't live in the USA (50 etc). But unfortunately when I got home, I couldn't tell you how many states Australia had. I had been further north than anyone else in my class. Although admitting that made me no friends at all. Sigh.

Like Canadians, I hate it when citizens of the USA refer to themselves as "Americans". Perhaps it is only a reflection of the USA desire to take over all of North and South America. Personally, if Australia becomes the 51st state, I'll be moving to NZ. At least they have an electoral system that prevents corporates getting to much control.

I marked up a new friend because they had a huge rant which made sense to me and then at the bottom they had a link to a religious site, that promotes Jesus.

Can I be friends with a believer? When I'm not sure, and I would like to believe in a benevolent god but see little or no evidence for one and considerable evidence against. Eg compare the beautiful things in Nature with the ugly things. Compare the beautiful music inspired by god, with the ugly acts inspired by god. Anyway I thought about de-friending be-fan and then I thought again. I could just welcome be-fan to the diversity of opinion that makes the world interesting, same reason I marked Reziac

Note to self: remember to put the / before the a when marking the end of a link.

Did anyone else notice something very strange with lack of moderation over comments posted this week ie from 24th thru to 27th. Moderation seems back on track now (28th), but boy you sure notice something when it aint there. I had my filter set for level 3 and was getting almost nothing to read and everything if I modified the rating.

I tend to notice replies to my comments if you want a discussion. Although for the moment I feel like I might as well be writing on a piece of paper then burning it...

Have just had gnome installed on the new freebsd machine. Lots of grief because it is an intel with everything motherboard with an intel extreme graphics card which "features" dynamic memory sharing between the card and the cpu RAM. Sheesh. And none of these things are known to freebsd/X/Gnome. Sigh.

I just had problems with the old computer not recognising a nice new 80Gig drive although I think that is mainly a win98 Fdisk bug which can be fixed. And now the new PC and freebsd won't speak to each other. And just to make the combination of old and new really diverse, I have an ancient 3 button serial port mouse to go with and it doesn't like that either.

well it's working a bit now after a few shutdowns and restarts, and mozilla is working, no more popups? But how do I get each link to open in a new window (ie ie shift right click but how do I do this with mozilla?)

So I really ought to write nothing here. But I can't.

I like only one man especially his John Belushi quip.

Just for interests sake, I think that the longer this war takes and the more casualties no matter how caused, the more people will join the peace rallies. And the angrier the peace rallies will get, especially if the leaders still villify the marchers.

I wonder if Bush will finish the job this time?

Or will his push depend on the opinion polls. I admit I thought, well they've started now, I hope they finish the job properly. Unfortunately things seem to be going sour. I expect Saddam is hiding out in the Museum or most beautiful Mosque in Bagdad, or maybe one of the international hotels that the C of Willies don't want to bomb.

The sourness kind of reminds me of the parents with the screaming baby in the checkout queue

I can tolerate the screaming so long as the parents don't give in to the child and give it the lolly, but if they're going to give in, please do it straight away, not after five minutes of screaming.

On a completely different topic
I relate really well to the Hacker FAQ, it explains a few problems I've been having on my current job. I need to do a lot of thinking without much interference. The interference has stopped pretty much but about once a week or fortnight I get the "if there isn't some output we'll have to sack you" crap. Sword of Damocles. I like some pressure like "when is it going to be finished" but not "we're thinking of sacking you"... Blech.

Is this a sneaky ploy by Saddam to prove George a liar? Was Saddam telling the truth all along and George spouting lies?

So if this weapons testing thing goes ok in Iraq, Who is next? Is George game to take on China, North Korea or Pakistan? How about Israel and Palestine?

A quick war is not a good war

And it aint over until the fat man screams

And the stupid man sings.

Ooh here's another scary thought. If this war is finished too soon to improve George's election campaign, will he organise another one. Perhaps we could have a Surviour/Weakest link type show to pick the next country to be voted (bombed) off?

I always thought a troll post was something that you posted, that you didn't necessarily agree with, just to bait someone into a fight/flamewar/passionate discussion.

But I've noticed some posts that I'd have marked as informative, being modded troll.

Like the one in the X fork, that said "forks are good", right under it was another slightly better expressed but less succinct, that said the same thing, forks in open source are good... troll or not? and not troll but says same thing

and the first one gets "troll" and the next one doesn't? Huh?

I have noticed that if I write early on a forum, ie within the first 10 of score 1 posts, I have a good chance of being mod'd high unless I post what I think of going to war against iraq in which case I get 0 for off topic, even if it was on topic to what I replied to (that may have also been off topic).

However if I am late and there are already several hundred posts with a score 1 or higher. I've got bugger all chance of a mod, but a reasonable one of a reply. Cute. Learnt today that the default fdisk that comes with win98se will not correctly recognise an 80 Gig drive. It said I had 10 gig. Hmm. Apparently its going to say I have size - 64gig ie around 10 gig. Downloaded the fix q263044 filled out their survey and asked them what the hell their little exe does (fortunately ref on hotfixes general page was more informative).

BTW I am going dual boot, 10 gig or so for win98 so I can still run my scanner, and the rest for FreeBSD - whee!

I'm spending way too much time in /. these days. Anyway with the aim of making potentially interesting comments stand out, I have marked anonvmous coward as my first friend.

why? interesting posts, and the first /. poster to reply to one of my posts...

I tell you what thou, becoming a fan (marking someone as a friend), is harder than it looks. Click on dot, nothing happens, click on dot again, nothing, wait several days, try again, works! Wha?

These are from Australia. Note: Howard is the PM of Australia, Blair is PM of the UK. PM vaguely equivalent to President.

Asses of Evil: Bush, Blair, Howard
War for Peace is like Fucking for Virginity
One dead Iraq baby = One more terrorist
USA Lapdog (Picture of Howard's head on a pekinese dog)
No BU__SH__
No BUSHit
An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind (Ghandi)
Thou shalt NOT Collaterally Damage
Peace Please
Weasels with Weapons
Let Exxon send their own troops
Right Now, even Michael Jackson makes more sense
Howard! Get your head out of George's Bush
Who's threatening who? George?
Thou shalt not lie, Howard
Not Happy, John
How much oil for a child's life?
Howard: Don't insult our intelligence
Aussies won't go Bush
Frodo has failed
War IS Terrorism
Bush is SpOILing for War
Globalise Love not War
Just see Bowling for Columbine