Author Archives: bluedepth

Joli OS and Jolicloud

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I finally got all my ducks in a row and got around to burning a copy of Joli OS to a CD-R at work. I started grunging around for a machine to use it with and got sidetracked by several UPS units which needed to have their lead-acid batteries removed so that I could eventually recycle them. When I got the batteries removed and pitched the UPS units and cleaned up the space I realized that I had run out of time to do what I originally was going to do with Joli OS. So instead of using the CD-R that I burned I just set up Joli OS in a new VirtualBox container and watched it chug along.

Joli OS really impressed me. It was mostly successful in keeping the CLI hidden from the user and I quite liked all the integration with Google Docs and Dropbox that was available. I started to muse about how one could use this new “OS”. I thought it would be a great use for a computer without a hard drive. I’m always looking for a competent operating system that can be run live off a CD-R, and mount Dropbox or Box.net as its primary user-space filesystem and run like that forever. I will have to do some more tinkering to see if I can coax Joli OS into doing just that.

So far I’m very impressed with what I’ve seen and I’m looking forward to exploring more about Joli OS and Joli Cloud.

A line in the sand: Michigan Supreme Court Justice defines activist judges from rule of law judges in appearance before Tea Party | MLive.com

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A line in the sand: Michigan Supreme Court Justice defines activist judges from rule of law judges in appearance before Tea Party | MLive.com.

It’s actually a very simple discrimination to make. “Rule of Law” judges are conservative judges and “Activist Judges” are liberal judges. The only people who make this distinction are the conservatives who are unhappy that they aren’t getting their way in every sector of government. Conservatives aren’t at all interested in solving the problems of society with liberals, they are sure their way is the only way, so these sort of pronouncements are childs play. The tea party is devoted to this line of reasoning. I love it when conservatives go after liberals and their social programs. It helps illustrate their profound and deep-seated hypocrisy. The same people who rail against all the evil that liberals have perpetrated on the world are more than willing to suckle at the entitlements that the liberals established. If you were really conservative, march yourself right down to the Social Security office and declare that you no longer want Social Security payments, and while you’re at it, go to Medicare and declare that you no longer want that either.

When you do both of those, come on back and argue your points. Then you’ll finally occupy a position of authority after you put your money where your mouth is. Until that happens, please, shut up and cash your Social Security checks and go back to wildly gesturing in a ineffectual and adorable manner.

Green Lantern Review

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We just finished watching the opening night for Green Lantern at the Rave Theater in Kalamazoo Michigan. The movie was well constructed and delivered a good story and a wonderful summer movie-going experience. We had some problems with our local Rave Theater, their 3D projectors, Christie Projectors had some really awful color malfunctions throughout the previews but after “rebooting the projector” they got it working properly to display the movie, which we were all thankful for. In order to avoid spoiling the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it, I’m going to place the rest of this review under a more break.

Continue reading →

Blessings

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I read a lot online. Mostly material curated by my friends and acquaintances. Sometimes I run into a thick vein of feel-good affirmations. About the nature of happiness and how to cultivate it in your life. All of this is good and wonderful and I value those friends that bring those things to light because they really do deserve saying and sharing.

One thing does get me though, and this came up with the notion that happiness is not bound by external situations. Are you sure? I think about all the people I read who are very loving, very expressive, and very positive people… how much of that output is supported by a comfortable life? What happens if you don’t have the blessings that come with a first world existence? What if the water that surrounds you is toxic and if you drank any of it would lead to a slow agonizing death? What if you were homeless? What if you were starving? What if life arranged to punish you at every turn and you could never catch a single break? How fluffy and positive would that poor person be?

Don’t get me wrong here, I think that these people are vital and what they share is wonderful and I’m glad they do so, but, all the advice in the world, all the love and fluffy feelings and rah-rah aphorisms, when they land on the ears of someone who is struggling for the most basic things in life – how is that person supposed to react? Do they react with anger? Upset that people who are blessed with comfort feel compelled to export super-fluff are somehow not getting the big picture?

I think quite often on the poor soul who can’t scrape together a meal today, who has no reliable potable water to rely upon for survival and has no idea if someone or something will end up trying to kill or nibble on them in the night. How would they react to being told that everyone is suffused with love and true happiness is all in your mind and how you perceive and approach the world? When I imagine myself in that condition the last thing I want to hear is someone expounding on the fluffy. I’d really like something to drink, something to eat, and maybe someone to watch over me as I collapse.

It isn’t until you get to writing how you feel that you find yourself tripping over the very core reason why your political views are formed the way they are. I think it’s this, this poor soul, a nameless faceless sufferer that compels me to be a liberal. To share what I have, (with hope that we share what we have) in order to ensure that this one poor soul never has to face such an empty existence. And I think it’s this poor person that I always think about when I walk into the voting booth, and when I look upon my paycheck and note how much FICA I’m paying, just to start. It’s something I cannot understand, and probably never ever will. Why people can be so cold and unfeeling, so unimaginative that they cannot comprehend someone to be in this suffering state. I think that’s one of the core reasons why I am filled with boiling waves of rage when I hear conservatives railing against social programs. How corrupt and alien would be our world if any one of us fell through the cracks and died while others did nothing. If you want to know evil, I think that’s the core of it. Not being violent or malicious, but being indifferent to suffering. By being indifferent, in some ways you are actively collaborating with suffering itself. It makes me feel wretched.

So, getting back to where we started, the central question remains. Is happiness bound by external things? I think it most certainly can be. People should not lose sight of that.

Meh

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Oh how does DC drop the ball. They’ve perpetrated a hat-trick of meh.

  1. Brightest Day was a concern at the very beginning. I remember commenting that it felt like a sleek aircraft on the tarmac slowly winding up it’s engines. There were some notable explosions that were, on reflection, where it was really at. The biggest payoff for Brightest Day was Deadman learning to live. This of course was undone at the end, of course, so even the biggest feel-good part of the event was whacked with a tire-iron and left to float around in limbo. The climax of the tale was more about stroking Alan Moore than it was about a really good story. It harkened back to elements of the DC Universe that nobody remembers and nobody values. “The Parliament of Trees” and “Swamp Thing”. That went out with disco balls in your bedroom back in the late 70’s kids. So that’s the first most painful bit of meh. Brightest Day. An investment for sure, lots of little minis to soak up the money like little sponges and a payoff that made 40 and 50 year old comic nerds happy but left the rest of us in a lurch wondering what the hell happened. Upon later reflection the entire Blackest Night/Brightest Day was really just a monumental reach-around for Alan Moore. Marvel did a zombie thing, zombies seem like such a great idea… blah blah blah. We forgave Blackest Night because it had a payoff at the end we valued, enough to forgive the obvious Alan Moore heavy petting. It wasn’t until we got shafted with Brightest Day did we discover that we had been sold. Sold to advertisers, sold to the ghost of the still living Alan Moore, and most damningly, sold to the nostalgia that DC seems to be utterly trapped in. Which of course leads us to…
  2. DC’s re-(whatever) event. They are redoing everything, killing off a raft of beloved characters, incinerating the past 75 years of comic book history all in a bid to regain what they’ve lost. Traction and relevancy. I’ve written about this before, the precipitous drop in sales, how last month was better than this, and so on and so forth. The cross-eyed procession done by both of the giant comic book houses when it comes to their events and pricetags, ie “Fear Itself is worth the money!” and “Flashpoint doesn’t have to break the bank!” point out quite clearly that we know it’s a ploy and so do they. This wouldn’t come up unless the fans were tired of $200 misadventures (cough, Brightest Day, cough). It’s bittersweet to me that they are going to do day-and-date release for both physical comic books and digital ones. I suspect that DC hit a point where the pain from poor sales drove them like a horde of disorganized Trollocs right into the sunny vale of the digital comic world. Yes, that’s right, I used a Wheel of Time metaphor, it’s apt! This re-(whatever) you want to call it feels like a clutch. It’s a back-against-the-wall move that has the metallic tang of desperation splattered all over it. “We need hip young heroes with bad attitudes and saggy pants! We need to amp up the Speed-P-Diddy-Yo factor in our stories!” And what do I have as proof for this conjecture? They eliminated the Justice Society of America. The characters, the setting, the story – all gently and transparently euthanized. Jay Garrick doesn’t go out in a Speed Force draped blaze of glory, he just evaporates in a puff of logic. Piff. All gone. Jay Garrick? Who? Yeah. Who. This isn’t the only speedster to get the short end of the stick. Our favorite Speed Force Scarecrow of course is Wally West. If you were able to put a team of DC people in a room, strap ’em down with “I Love Me” jackets and then over the PA say “WHAT ABOUT WALLY WEST?” they would all moan, their eyeballs would slide back in their heads and they would dash their brains out on the nearest wall until they all stopped moving. I’d like to think this was in any way inaccurate but we’ve seen as much, in the little taste of the ostrich-head-in-the-dirt reaction when we posed this very question to DC during C2E2. The only thing I brought to the setting were the straight jackets, the lunatic asylum, and the ultraviolence.
  3. The third bit is the upcoming Green Lantern movie. People like me, who are very fond of the Green Lantern series of comic books are beyond-thrilled that we’re going to see a live-action rendition of our beloved Lanterns. I’m even willing to put aside my urge to throw erasers at Hal Jordan for the time being (think Roger Rabbit). Of course we’re enthralled beyond all reason and enthusiastic beyond measure but I distinctly was very leery about GL hitting the silver screen. I implored the people at DC “Please, if you are going to do it, do it as best you can.” Because anything less would be a heartbreak to the Green Lantern fans who put their entire comic-book-fandom on the line for DC’s effort to cinematically monetize the Green Lanterns. I was at least initially buoyed up by the early reports that the first 15 minutes of the movie make it worthwhile, but then all my good vibes crashed when I saw the reviews of the movie from rottentomatoes.com. 33% Fresh. It is as I feared. It’s going to be a niche movie with a heavy blade. It’s going to make fanboys like me squeal with delight but it’s going to alienate the casual moviegoer who isn’t into comic books.

So it’s just a matter of time now. These three meh-tastic events all lined up and it really tests my affections and my loyalty to DC. I can hope for a few things. I can hope that the “Lets go stroke Alan Moore” well has dried up and we can get to some truly original storytelling instead of digging up 1975 and trying to pretend that it’s a PYT, which, if you have seen me, anything from 1975 can no longer be regarded as a PYT. How about something new DC? Something novel, something daring? Something you didn’t find floating around a pile of very old and very fally-aparty comic books from the deep past? On your current track, it seems as though this is the death-rattle before the end. That I think is the saddest thing, all of this, just falling apart. 

Show Me > Tell Me

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I just got off the phone and an iChat session with Scott’s Mom. She reacted the same way my mother did when we had our first iChat screen-sharing support experience. They both were speechless about how easy it was to respond to a screen sharing request sent over iChat and were both shocked that I could not only hear them and talk to them over the link but also share their screen and see what they see and help them solve the problem. The only difference with Scott’s mom is that she has a Mac Mini without a microphone, so we bridge the communications gap with a phone. It’s still good however.

And then we get to the core of what I love so much about iChat screen sharing. I can really help if I can see and help control, leagues better than if I’m just relying on what the client sees and then tries to describe to me over the phone in classical telephone support. The biggest issue I have with classical telephone support is it has a catch-22 wedged right in the beginning of it. The catch-22 is that people have to have a good understanding of computer jargon and terminology so that they can describe their problem and get a solution over the phone. If they had those skills then they would most likely not need me to give them technical support in the first place! It’s almost the worlds worst practical joke on people who have made it their career to help others with technology. Because iChat is so friendly and so convenient, it makes this entire support experience just fly by in heartbeats. Everyone is happy, they get what they want and they don’t have to spend an arm and a leg on airfare, or wait for us to drive in, or pay some shyster an unholy amount of money to make a house call and then end up doing more cash-generating damage just to pad their bottom line. I can see what they see, do what needs to be done and actually *teach* how to solve the problem with an inherent simplicity and elegance that plain telephone support can never ever match.

I have often times mused about starting my own company. A Web 2.0 Internet company. It’s driven by iChat, with Google Chat performing the long-haul services (just like it was for my loved ones in this example) and social networking to link it all together. I envision a twitter account, say @MacNeedHelp and it’s staffed 24x7x365 by various people all around the world. When someone needs help, they contact that twitter name, tell them whats wrong, and in seconds they have a trained computer professional inviting them to an iChat screen sharing session ready, willing, and able to help them solve their computer problems. The clients pay a tiny monthly fee, like insurance, so that they can call whenever they like and use the service as much as they want to make their computers work best for them. What’s better, they start to actively learn how to start solving their own most common problems and stop using the service over a time. Most people I suspect would pay $5 a month just to have the peace of mind. Even if they never use it, it’s something wonderful to be able to ask for help, and get a friendly voice who can solve whatever it is that is troubling you and help you get on with your day. Perhaps someday I’ll pursue this cute little idea further. This iChat system is worth it’s weight in absolute gold!

English Dreams

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From six to seven this morning I had one of the deepest most memorable dreams I’ve had in a very long time. I was with Scott and several other friends and we were in London, England visiting as tourists. I don’t remember arriving, but the first thing I did remember was being in a suit having dinner with someone of importance. Like with many of my dreams sometimes they are multi-threaded and contain two realities at once. The other reality was me in London at an old theater of some type, and that setting was blending in with the “Old Big House” setting that frequently occupies a lot of my dreams. Elements of both blending together. As I was walking into the Theater/Big Old House everything shifted and I was in the Long Big House, which is even more established than the Big Old House is in my dream lexicon. So in this setting I slipped into bed with a rather flimsy blanket on and the room was filled with strangers who were, ahem, exceptionally friendly, and then somehow I put it together that they were the acting troupe in the theater. I had to use the bathroom, in the dream, and so I walked down the steps (apparently it was a stadium-style theater) and out to the bathrooms. I met up with Scott and suddenly we couldn’t locate the bathrooms. Once we were out of the theater bouncers appeared at the doors and wouldn’t let us return. I was telling Scott about these people I met inside the theater and right when he was going to comment, I lifted my head off the table, as I was back in the first reality. Scott and my friends were gone and I was still in my suit, lifting my head off the table it felt like I had either passed out from too much alcohol or I had simply gone to sleep and just woken up. With a start I stood up and started to walk away from the dinner-setting area and then I was in raggedy street clothes and I was with a young woman. I didn’t know her but I knew she was in the same condition I was in. We were both Americans in London, England, utterly lost and cut off from our friends and in a situation we had no anchor in. I was walking and thinking to myself “I wonder who I’ll meet, now that I’m lost, I could meet anyone” and I watched people as they shuffled by. Eventually I followed a group of people and the girl onto a bus. It was a strange bus, the seats were plush and overstuffed and rotated on a pinion, they could either face to the back of the bus or the front. The girl was sitting in the front row by the driver and I was several rows back. We were driving along and another common dream trope hit me, the “being stuck on the bus” trope, which almost always either happens in Buffalo or somewhere in Europe. So I was on this bus and out of the blue the girl asks the driver if he can drive to the US Embassy. He grunts and assents to her request. I come to out of my reverie and as we approach the US Embassy. The sky, which was not noticed before suddenly is, and it’s the slate-gray drizzling kind of sky that you see sometimes when it rains slowly and interminably. We arrive at the US Embassy and the bus drives off. The US Embassy resembles an old Greyhound Bus Terminal, with the used-too-hard plastic and metal-frame chairs running along the wall. We’re sitting and I look for anything to contact Scott or my other friends and there isn’t anything at all. I get up from my seat and go exploring the building and after I walk out of the waiting room I wander into a kitchen, tile floors, marble countertops, an empty wine refrigerator, it seemed like someone was just about to move in. I look for a phone or some device to send a message and I get the feeling I’m being watched. I return to the waiting room and sit down and a woman in a very tight pantsuit, with a very tight face puts a travel alarm clock next to me and says I can use that to communicate with my friends. I start looking at it and it’s all black without any buttons, just a continuous shiny lump of black plastic. Then I wake up.

 

Most Americans Blame Wars For Federal Debt; Few Cite Tax Cuts | TPMDC

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Most Americans Blame Wars For Federal Debt; Few Cite Tax Cuts | TPMDC.

It’s time to declare that we won both wars and pull our troops home. Cease all operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan and let China, Russia, and the European Union take over. They’re so hot-to-trot to wear the big-boy pants, why not let them? China has billions of people and all our money to waste on Afghanistan and Iraq. We need to concentrate on issues at home.

I can remember railing at length that these frivolous wars are going to drain our treasury and sap our collective wills and it will come down to a clear and simple choice. Do we maintain our bloated and grossly over-important military or do we have social programs? It’s going to come down to that you know. The Department of Defense versus the Social Security Administration. Americans will then have to choose which one they want more. Do we want to kill strange foreign people for fun or do we want to kill grandma and grandpa for fun? It’s a choice. Either we keep our war on and the elderly and infirm start to die off or we recall all our troops and we have a shot at keeping Americans alive and well.

One thing does strike me, does it really matter to make that choice at all? It’s really a self-solving problem. Once the US Dollar is no longer the world reserve currency, that’ll pretty much punch our collective tickets and then inflation will come and wipe out pensions and retirements, kill off a massive amount of people, and leave America an empty scarred hellscape. I’m sure our proud military servicemembers will work for no money and they can survive on pure refined patriotism. It will be a true test of an aircraft carriers pilots mettle to navigate San Diego Harbor manually without tugboats, as there won’t be any fuel oil to run them… to say nothing of the hapless Army grunts who are effectively trapped wherever they are because there isn’t any gas for their vehicles. It’s a long walk home from, well, wherever they are. When they get here, I’m sure they’ll have nothing but happy news to report. I have no doubt in my mind.

It’s just a matter of waiting really. How long before we smash our teeth out on these stupid wars? How long before we have to start deciding between War and Social Programs? There will be a lot of funerals.

 

Home owner beats would-be robber with frying pan, robber listed in critical condition | MLive.com

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Home owner beats would-be robber with frying pan, robber listed in critical condition | MLive.com.

This brought me great joy, reading how a homeowner defended his home with a cast-iron frying pan. Now I know the weapon of choice to have under my bed when I feel vulnerable. *PONG* YAY! *PONG* *PONG* *PONG* *PNGSMUSH*

Not going to pay a lot for that muffler!

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When I first brought Verizon networks to my workplace and selected them for our mobile technology carrier (remember, I care for the carrier about as much as I care for a particular rib of celery) we discovered pretty early on that we were getting hosed on MMS messaging. There is a difference between MMS and SMS. Of course nobody knows what either of these are and so we have to melt this all down into obnoxiously simple terms like “photo-texting” and “texting”. People would prefer “texting” to “Short Message Service”… whatever.

So we had MMS on these phones on accident. Sending any MMS traffic with Verizon unless you have a plan for it (bullshit carrier moneymaking cash-grab) costs about a dollar a shot. MMS can do a lot, including a pretty nifty “Multiple SMS MMS Message” format so you can address one SMS message to many targets and they’ll all get the message at the same time. In order to keep our Verizon bill from becoming poisoned with MMS bullshit we had to turn on MMS Block on each line. This blocks MMS traffic as well as this pretty neat multiple-destination SMS feature, which I find rather stupid, that it should be tossed out with MMS. Of course, like most things that irritate me in my life, I found a way around my bullshit carriers issues and filthy money-grubbing ways with an app and one single change to my iPhones options.

First, you download an app called “Groups” which allows you to manipulate address book groups in your iPhone, it also allows you to select multiple people for inclusion on an SMS message. Then on your iPhone, you go to Settings, then Messages, and turn off MMS Messaging. When you do this, and use Groups, and send one SMS to multiple people the phone behaves as it should. It makes a duplicate of your message and sends the message out one-at-a-time queue-like to all your SMS targets. Because SMS with our particular plan is complimentary (makes you wonder why they used to charge for it, filthy cash-grubbers) this path is a snap. It takes a bit longer to send out your messages, but at least they do get sent out to people en-masse. So you can get your lost MMS feature back without having to spend more money on the black hole that is your carrier.

If I could whack all the carriers with a shovel and bury them in shallow unmarked graves I would. I’m not particular, I hate them all. It’s not a customer relationship, it’s a battle of wills against a filthy tentacled monster bent on doing whatever it takes to ruin your day and your life. They are all the same, it’s just the flavor of bullshit changes from one to the other. I quite enjoy it when I find an option that lets me stick it to them, at least in a little way.

P.S. If you work for a carrier, I heartily recommend that you not read my blog, not follow me on twitter, or on facebook. And if you do, I invite you to stop. Your absence from my life will not make me unhappy. All of these relationships are unpleasant ones. Lets save each other the agony, okay?