A recent slashdot article on banning NSA eavesdropping is quite interesting. Someone brought up the point that "Only in a Government do you need to outlaw something that is already illegal." Oh how we should weep for the United States of America, and what she has become.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
...
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

(sorry for the play on 'American Made Music to Strip By' by Rob Zombie.
1. Metallica - Fade to Black. This song is wonderful, especially played live. Checkout livemetallica.com for reasonably priced downloads of shows, as well as some older shows of lesser recording quality that are free.
2. Metallica - Orion. This was played live recently, at Germany and South Kora, this is also amazing to listen to live.
3. The whole Metallica '...And Justice For All ' album; long songs, heavy flowing rhythms. The guitarist from Lamb of God referred to this album as the 'Be all, end all' metal album.
4. Lamb of God, especially their latest album. There are some great songs, like 'Blacken the Cursed Sun', and the more known 'Redneck.'
5. Gojira, their latest album 'From Mars to Sirius' has some great tunes. The opener 'Ocean Planet' is amazing as well as 'Flying Whales.' The album has a global warming theme to it, These guys are quite good. Expect them to take off.
*. Feel free to make any suggestions in the comments, but that's what I can think of right now. I'm sorry if all my suggestions are metal, feel free to suggest outside this genre.

Btw: Rep Harman, Jane and Rep Holt, Rush D. have been added to the HR 1022 list of CoSponsors.

I mentioned in a post on Profane Mutha Fuckas journal that one of my worries is a hasty passage of H.R. 1022. I am not willing to say that I completely oppose a new assault weapons ban. But in fairness it would be a shame if a new law went into effect without enough debate, and in its current form it is a very scary proposition. I noticed on the page for H.R. 1022 that there are three new Congressmen who signed onto the bill yesterday. None of these three appear to be on the "Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security", but I think the process may have begun.

As to whether I personally like the idea of an assault weapons ban, I don't. But in the US the situation has already been compromised. So at this point it is only to be expected that such a thing would exist.

Check out what appears to be the first post on the "Google Earth Highlights Darfur" article. This idiot posts up mindless extreme liberal bullshit: "Next step? What about showing the destruction of Irak by US troops?" and gets moderated to 3 as Insightful? Are you f@#$ing kidding me? This may actually be a struggle to see who can expend the most moderator points as it is now:
70% Interesting
20% Flamebait
10% Troll
Anyways, way to go /. you continue to amaze me. Hell, this guy was probably joking. I don't see how anyone could say such a thing with a straight face. The distruction in this region (it already looks like a desert wasteland that I would never want to inhabit) is caused by disagreements over the democratic process and the problems caused by the two seperate muslim populations. It is basically a microcosm of the growing Shia sentiment and how they want a few seats at the table for future discussions and a word on the future of the religion of Islam. To blame Americans is rediculous.

Btw: In South Dakota we have an area of the state that looks kind of like Iraq (except prettier), we call it the Badlands. Because no one in their right mind would want to live there.

A few things to talk about:

I recently bought an ATI TV Wonder 200. It sucks, apparently it doesn't do hardware encoding. Why the fuck would they even bring such a piece of crap to market, I just assumed it did hardware encoding but I guess I'm dumb.

So I tried setting up mythtv for this but the version in FC6's repo didn't match up with the latest Linux kernel version -> so I installed Ubuntu. This went ok, but in the end the card's bttv driver didn't seem to recognize stuff quite right. I could have persevered but in the end I just put the card in my Windows box (I reverted the AMD64 back to Windows ... I know I suck.) Plus the mythtv frontend and configuration software took up the whole screen and the mouse cursor effectively disappeared so it sucks at life and didn't appear to be worth the trouble. This card basically takes up my whole single core's cpu while running with time shifting enabled. It probably isn't worth typical daily use but I may just use it to record shows to disc to be able to watch later.

On that note, I think I might have to get a Mac (Mini) the electricity useage of that thing is quite low which is really enticing. I really don't game much so I could leave the Windows box off most of the time.

My car is fixed, it had massive down shifting problem. It would have an engine hesitation and occasional backfire (if I fully pressed the accelerator under certain conditions - temp,rpm,speed etc). I had a hunch it was the Ignition Control module, since i've done almost every other minor maintenance I could. When replacing the wires i noticed that one of them had rust inside it on the 'coil pack' end of the wire. That seemed very odd. So after replacing wires and plugs the problem still existed. The ICM part is about $100. I should've fixed it myself. Instead I took it into the GM shop in town, they didn't think that was it -- they were wrong. The car runs faster than a raped ape now. With performance plugs and wires, cold air intake, clean MAF, Camaro style dual exhaust the 3800 in my car moves. So now, about 2 years later with the car running great I'll probably end up giving/selling it to one of my neices and buying myself a newish Jeep Liberty. The V6 with 6 speed manual option on the 4x4 Sport seems like a great setup. Plus winters would rock with that thing. Snow, mud, off-roading would be fun shiznit. And heading out to the ranch to go hunting and helping out would be much less of a problem.

Today I had a massively lame nerd moment. I was telling my cow-orkers how neat a certain layout of the ascii table was and that it was incredibly useful and what-not. They started laughing.

The layout in particular is from "C Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications", and in particular the ascii table is layed out with respect to the parity bit. (so that it is readily obvious that A (0x41) + (0x20) = a ... and other such neat things.) The layout is 8 high by 16 wide (16 columns,8 rows) and immediately reveals some neat properties of the ascii table. Maybe it's just me but seeing that table was a lightbulb turning on.

I just wanted to put up a post letting everyone know that I am not moving to Multiply.
1) I have a blogger account. (It's in my info as my homepage now.)
2) I still like /.
3) I don't have the time.
The interesting thing is there are no /. messages for me this morning. There haven't been JE updates from anyone for almost 12 hours. Hallelujah, the fad is dead. Now we can resume JE life as normal.

Also a few updates: I put up a blog entry on http://ak3ldama.blogspot.com/ about a Fedora Core 6 review I read recently. It's really cold here this morning (like -16 degrees F) and my car barely started. Also, last night I purchased a nice deer rifle (.270 Winchester/Weatherby Vanguard) from a friend who had another deer rifle and wanted to get rid of it.

The .270 Win round is really quite amazing, since it's basically a necked down 30-06 it can fire a 130 grain projectile at speeds around 3100fps quite easily; all while not producing too much kick. Hopefully this spring I'll do some prairie dog population management.

I am not sure how to state this, and have for quite a while not even been sure if to bring it up. For a few reasons i am: 1) Not many people will probably even read it. 2) It's worthy of discussion. 3) It goes against stated slashdot documents.

I have noticed that recently there has been a lot of moderation of comments down. Even good comments deserving of their current score. It appears as though most of the time this is done in some attempt to squelch other peoples opinions. Such as if there is an anti-Apple comment on an apple article, or an anti-Bush/for-Bush comment on a political discussion. The worst part is there is very little accountability for when people moderate down. Not only that- but this could be done by the /. Editors and we wouldn't even know it. If it is up to the god-like figures to determine early in discussions if something is flamebait or a troll then we should know that it was editors making these decisions. The other alternative is to have more metamoderation going on, especially in regard to modding down comments. This is probably the best solution - the existing infrastructure is basically already available.

Those are just two things we could do to try to expose why comments are being modded down so often. There is the conspiracy theory approach: are the gods of slashdot trying to bring karma back to more of a level playing field? This seems like a very odd scenario, but it could be possible since usually there are not many down mods on any one comment. Wow, maybe I should apply for a job at slashdot? Because I definitely feel like fixing /. would be better than trying to create something new.

Well, in case anybody missed it...wikipedia and it's brethren have practically taken over the tubes on the internets. Not just wikipedia uses it but other sites such as wesnoth use it. There are others, but all you need to do to find them is to start checking out various open source projects. For those that occasionally checkout my JE's here is a wikipedia page I setup on my linux machine. Go ahead and leave an anonymous note or do whatever ... (I hope to hell this doesn't make the mainpage.)

The install process on FC6 was awesome. I already had Apache, so I copied the wiki files to a folder in /var/www/html/ and put up a simple index.html file to test it out once I knew apache was working. From there I installed and configured mysql which was pretty damn painless. The mysql documentation is great, and the wiki setup was straight forward. The next thing I'm thinking of setting up is Bugzilla.

I've been moonlighting at autoblog. But i don't know why i do it. The comments there are ridiculous. Most things are easily broken down into the 'yuppy foreign car loving fags' and the 'broken tooth southern redneck who loves his domestic pickup.' I recently responded to this article about the new saturn aura. I posted this: (as comment # ??? )
#37 "When you drive the car, you are spending hours in it's interior, not staring at the chrome wheels or the foglamps." When I drive i prefer to stare at the road, at which point the car just melts away and all that matters is the feel of the car and the sounds from the stereo and exhaust. I am not going to buy an Accord or Camry so I can sit in it and stare at the interior.

Maybe I am missing something but I really, fundamentally, don't have a problem with my old '91 Oldsmobile. It gets good gas mileage and runs quite well. I don't plan on replacing it, maybe supplementing it with a 4x4 but that's it. I just can't understand these ricer kids' logic. Actually I haven't put the post up yet because the autoblog email confirmation hasn't been received yet. I guess in the end I keep going back to autoblog because I keep waiting to hear more specifics on when there is going to be a compact pickup coming out with a (turbo)diesel engine. If any of the three (though I don't like the dodge dakota's current look but I could get a wrangler instead) came out with such a vehicle I'd have already bought it. Maybe I should quit waiting for now and check back in 4 years.

Update: i forgot to include the link.

Just got back to my computer after being away for 4 solid days and I see all of these /. Messages about Thanksgiving and such. I probably won't read any ... not that I don't care what others have to say, it's just that i don't care what others have to say.

Now onto the good stuff: I was hoping to put up a range report about my Ruger New Vacquero .45 Colt revolver. (patience, the ruger site takes a while to load.) I was able to fire off 5 rounds and it shot a bit left. I'll have to put it on paper at 10, 25, and 50 yards sometime and get some scans to put up some other weekend. But other than that the gun felt great. I shot some Federal semi-wad cutter hollow points at 900 fps. w/ 405 ft lbs. of energy and the recoil was fine. Definitely less than my .40 caliber (s&w) semi-auto. I plan on putting some reloads together once I get enough brass and I'll put those at about 1000fps on up to 1100 fps. 1200fps or so is common on the Ruger Blackhawk, but my guns frame is just a little bit smaller so I won't push it that far.

On another note, my car got 30 miles per gallon on the last portion of driving for the weekend. I kept the Oldsmobile '88 under 70 on the interstate and I think that's the key to good mileage on the series uno 3800 v6. I didn't baby it the whole time either, did a little rodding around but I kept it low on the highways and all was well. It sounds like a goddamn pickup truck engine rolling down the road so I'll get it checked to see if it's lean or rich. .....anyways, peace. i'm out for now.

Does anyone have experience with this? I always thought it would be fun to write some apps or maybe even some games for a phone. A WinCE type cell phone goes for about $250. The only other option these days is BREW which I am frankly scared of more than with .NET. Though I suppose the performance problems may be the same as those with Java Embedded type stuff on phones; it would be nice to know before I drop $250 for a phone that is huge and I don't really want or need. Maybe I could write some stuff up, test in the visual studio device emulator, and then do some performance analysis on my boss's ppc 6700? haha. I know I could make a fun little racing game on this type of phone if the performance would be good enough. (Think RC Pro Am on a Gameboy. Something that wouldn't need a gas & brake button just two buttons for turning.)

Tonight on CNN there is/was a piece on Islamist aggression. Now I don't want to waste too much time here: The problem with Islam is that extremist views aren't easily silenced. The good Muslims don't have many/any courses of action in retaliation against their extremist brethren. For that matter, what happens when someone tries to leave the faith? They are outcast, sometimes killed. The women aren't treated fairly, the Dhimmi are ... dhimmi. How can a country under Muslim control escape this sharia? This lack of freedom -- especially religious freedom, this combination of church and state is FUCKING SICKENING! I don't think that Islam can be classified as a religion, not with these levels of sanctioned integration into society, law and government. Now don't get me wrong. I support the right of Muslims to practice religion as they see fit -- for now. I also am fully prepared to go get my guns. This is the fourth thing which I am prepared to lay down my life for: (This is because the practices of Islam infringe directly onto the first three.)
* God
* Family
* Country
* Fighting the Muslims

The only question that remains is how will the Civilized world get through this 'medieval period' of Islam? If there is not some massive undertaking on the part of the mainstream 'Islam Nation' to (1.) silence extremism and (2.) separate church and state I just don't see us escaping World War 3.

With this mic device
I spit nonfiction
Who got tha power
This be my question
Tha mass of the few
In this torn nation?
Tha priest tha book or tha congregation?
Tha politricks who rob and hold down your zone?
Or those who give tha thieves tha key to their homes?
Tha pig whos free to murder one
Shucklak
Or survivors who make a move and murder one back?

I am not sure why i brought up this quote. I guess I have always liked Rage Against the Machine and this one quote in particular. and from 'Take the Power Back':

The present curriculum
I put my fist in em
Eurocentric every last one of em
See right through the red, white and blue disguise
With lecture I puncture the structure of lies
Installed in our minds and attempting
To hold us back
Weve got to take it back
cause holes in our spirit causin tears and fears
One-sided stories for years and years and years
Im inferior? whos inferior?
Yea, we need to check the interior
Of the system that cares about only one culture
And that is why
We gotta take the power back

Now I am just a dork white boy gringo, but it does disturb me what this quote refers to. This is the real racism. I may be a racist on some levels, but I treat everyone equally as a person, and I certainly see differences in peoples/cultures/classes as being just that - different.

I read all your comments, and I have re-evaluated my decision and am going to slightly adjust it. I now realize that my initial desire for the /. JE system to be a bastion of technical discussion and personal growth may have been an unrealistic goal (since it was apparently only my goal). I will turn back on messages to other people's JE posts, but that is it. I am now often making article comments as annonymous since I don't really care to worry about what people say back. If i want to find out I can just check my "recent comment" list and see if there were replies - this is not a matter I will worry about checking often.

On the technical side: I would like to get into J2ME development for mobile phones (for fun) and develop some games or something but my current mobile phone provider appears to not offer a java enabled phone (alltel sucks the big one). Any one have insight on this?

On the less technical side, this Kerry thing is pissing me off a bit. I have a cousin in the military who went into the Army after high school. He is a bright kid as are his 3 brothers (2 w/ college degrees, 1 w/ technical school degree). A friend i graduated from high school with was a genius, went into the navy for nuclear engineer. Another friend is in the guards and isn't dumb either, and will work on a college degree as he goes (or after deployment). Who the fuck does Kerry think he is? So of the three close people i know of that are or were in the military none are dumb. neither is my uncle (father of said cousin) who was in vietnam; did the rotc thing then went, now farms. I have a great uncle that was in Korea who isn't dumb either but never received a degree. There are bound to be some dumb people in any type of work like this (not requiring college degree, etc). To call out the whole armed forces and say such a thing is rediculous. Why kerry thought saying such a thing was necessary or a direct correlation is confusing; sure people in the military may not always have a college degree but to speculate (albeit indirectly) that they don't have the capacity? It is possible that I am out of line and mis-interpreting what he said though : "I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member or American who was offended," Kerry said in a statement Wednesday. Needless to say his joke has not been well received.