BushidoHacks.com

This Place is a Mess!

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:48:00 +0000

After much consideration, I'm thinking about dumping some of the old articles I have. As much as I like Blogger, I think I'd like to give Wordpress a spin.

Futhermore, I think I'd like to show off my talents as a programmer here on the main domain, BushidoHacks.com.

I'm a little concerned that my professional skills and talents are not being as well advertized as I'd like.

So in the transition of cleaning out the archives, even as far back as my old blog from the Pre-Bushido days, I think I'll move all my blogging to another subdomain on this website.

Secondly, I've been thinking of changing the domain name. The complexity of this transition will be much more difficult. As proud as I am of the Bushido Hacks monikier, Mr. Hacks sounds a little more professional.

So starting next year, BushidoHacks.com will become MrHacks.com.

I think the most difficult part about this transition will be trying to transfer the wiki over to the new domain, where I have kept tabs on alot of the scum of the internet--the spammers. For over a year now, I have made it an incentive for many webmasters and computer security experts to visit this website to add to their list of baddies all the creeps who have come to this website, specifically the wiki. Perhaps I should transfer this responsiblity to somebody else. I don't want to delete it. There has certainly been alot of data collected so far.

Any archives of this blog may be moved.

Big Three Automakers Continue to Prove What Crooks and Liars They Are

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:32:00 +0000

Last month, GM, Chrystler, and Ford executives showed up in private jets, asking for money they do not deserve like a con artist at a bank. When they did this on November 19, they showed up in Washington in private jets hoping that the Government would buy into there bullsh*t. (Yeah, there is no other word to describe such liars they are.)

Fortunately, lawmakers saw through their prepared performance, and sent them home with NOTHING. They also told them, if they really wanted this bailout money (which in reality is the auto industry looking for a kickback that they can skim off the top of the misfortune of the subprime interest rate loan crisis), to come back a few weeks later with a legitmate reason for why they really need it.

The Auto Industry does NOT need this money. The excutives just want to take money that they don't deserve. A crocodile tear televangelists could pull this same scam and the government would still say no.

As a blogger in the St. Louis area, we have seen first hand, on more than one occasion, how much GM, Ford, and Chrystler really care about the hard working American: THEY DON'T GIVE A CARE!

When Ford announced that the Ford Assembly Plant in Hazelwood would be closing, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt, St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley, and Hazelwood Mayor T.R. Carr went to Detroit to ask them to reconsider. Even after giving Ford a large amount of money, they still said no. The plant closed in 2006, and was demolished this year.

Then the St. Louis Area experienced deja vu this year when Chrystler announced that they would close the Chrystler Assembly Plant in Fenton. Only these jobs weren't being terminated, they were being exported to Canada.

For some reason, the executives at the Big Three automobile companies have this strange defintion of what an American is. It should be no contest that if you are from the United States of America that you are American, but if you are from one of the three major countries from the contenent of North America, you are North American. So why do these executives think that we are dumb enough to believe that the definition of American is the same as the definition of North American? They seem to use this definition profusely when they talk, especially when they are lying.

So it should be no surprise that 12 years after they created an electric car, then dumped it in favor of the gas guzzling Hummer, that we are playing this game again, having learned nothing from bad behavoir, bad decision making, and zero empathy for the American worker, they have come back to Washington with no game plan, just the bastardly behavior of a bunch of white collar criminals.

Thus, it is also no surprise that when GM CEO Rick Wagoner drives a Chevy Volt from Detroit tow Washington, there will be 395 miles listed on the odometer, right? WRONG!. Contining to believe that most of the United States sniffs glue and are inbred offspring, Mr. Wagoner HAS LEARNED NOTHING, AGAIN!. Of course, this won't mean that he won't manipulate the odometer and make himself look like a big hero for the American auto industry. He won't be a hero.

So let the Big Three crash. There will be a New Automobile Industry to replace them when it is over. Don't worry, union buffs, they won't be Japanese, but they won't be lying creaps either.
The world will get to know Tesla Motors, Fisker Automotive. And more than likely, the guys at Tesla and Fisker will need some United Auto Workers to work with some electric vehicle advocates, especially Open Source electric vehicle advocates.

It is time for the Big Three to die.

Twitter-painted

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:53:00 +0000

Yes! I am now on Twitter. I figure if I'm paying $92 per month on a phone bill, I may as well do stuff that is work paying that much. (If you say "Buy Music", you're an idiot!).

Twitter is a free service that allows you to do mobile blogging. (Don't worry, I'll still be here.) Think of it as updating your Facebook status when you post to everyone, or instant messaging when you contact someone specifically. A great thing about Twitter is that you can control who can contact you on your mobile phone.

I'd like to use this on the G1 next year. (Find me the money to dump AT&T and it can be this year.)

P.S.: Twitter Me at @MrHacks.

NASA, you have a problem!

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:23:00 +0000

Years ago, NASA was once the pride of the American science community. But since the goverment has put money into other programs (many of them "Faith-based initiatives" that discriminate against science projects because of the entire "creation vs. evolution" argument), NASA has been runing out of funds and it take a long time for them to make simple repairs like fix the toilet on the International Space Station.

Now NASA has bigger problems to worry about than the Russians: The Chinese and The Indians.

It has been a long overdue thing that NASA has put off. And thanks to partisian politics, a broken patent-trademark-copyright office, the outsourcing of science jobs, and of course the pissing contest between Creationists and Evolutionists (pardon my french), America is in big trouble again.

Hopefully under the Obama adminstration, we can find some reason for the Government to get excited about NASA again.

SDHC does work on SD devices

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:57:00 +0000

Contrary to what you may have hear, Yes, SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) cards do work on devices that use SD (Secure Digital) devices.

There may be a few devices that are not compatible with SDHC, but so far it works on my computer's media card reader, my Palm Treo 650, and there is a good chance it will work on the Wii.

In any case, now is a good time to stock up on SDHC cards for Chirstmas items such as digital cameras, music players, cell phones, and computer file storage.

I still haven't run into any DRM issues, then again, DRM is really stupid in the first place.

Layaway Online Shopping and other Ideas to Preserve Credit

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:12:00 +0000

Online shopping is great. You can find exactly what you want, tell others about it, and most importantly save it to a wish list.

But some wishlist items are down right impossible, especially if you are trying to curb spending, pay off some of your credit cards or loans, or if you want to save money rather than spend it.

Credit cards provided the means to get what you wanted now, and make payments on your credit card later. But there are many problems with using credit if you abuse it,if the credit card company abuses you, or if your information is stollen.

Before I get into todays subject, the following things can possible happen, of which they shouldn't.

How you could abuse your credit.	How your credit card company may abuse you	How other people may abuse your credit
You max out. You spend over your limit, now it is time to pay the piper! You were dumb enough to skip a payment. If the creditor brags about this, DON'T DO IT! Hell, just don't in general! You were dumb enough to pay the minium. If you spend $150 on credit items, don't pay the minimum. Even if you didn't spend any credit, NEVER PAY THE MINIMUM! You have several credit cards and are doing the above points. If you are doing this, either you have not done anything constructive to control yourself or you are part of the problem.	Creditor jacks up the APR. You were at a cosy 3% to 9%. Now though no fault of the possible reasons in the left column (unelss you did one of the items of the left more than once), you are paying 16% to over 25%. When this happens, it is time to transfer. Preferably to a 0% for one year card. But don't do any of the things in the left column. Creditor increased your line of credit. Technically, it is not a bad thing. The problem is some people assume that they can splurge that money. DON'T! Creditors luring teens and college students. Parents worry that their kids will come under the influence of alcohol, drugs, and gambling. The truth is, it is the stuff that comes in the mailbox or is in the bottom of the bag at the school book store: The Credit Card offer. Much like the tobacco industry, the credit industry also seeks to "hook'em while they are young". Warn your kids about this. Creditor didn't transfer everything that you asked. So you decided to tranfers your credit balance to another card. Be sure that the entire amount that you asked to be transfered was transfered. Your creditor is about to go belly up. In an effort to make sure that their CEO has a gollend parachute, your creditor decides to freze your credit, jack up the APR, and press the self-destruct mechanism while they made you and their employees drink the kool-aid. While we hope this NEVER EVER happens to you, it has for alot of banks and creditors this year. If this happens to you, sic the FBI on them.	Theives stoll your info. It doesn't necessarily have to be Credit Card numbers. It could be anything. Drivers license numbers. Bank accounts. Social Security. Insurance policy, employee id, or club membership. A good bank or creditor will tell you if your card has been used without your permission. Paypal generally does it. Reguardless, there are some other websites that the government has that can help monitor your information for about a year should this happen. Theives "stoll a laptop" containing your information. Don't these stories in the news make you want to kick the guy's ass who not only stoll the computer but lost it too? What kind of self respecting company uses laptop computers for offline storage? Aside from seeking monitoring, you should find someone else to do business with. Inside Job. How else does a conartist find a job at a bank? They start out with such a clean record. Walk right in and help clean house. Fortunately, there are pleanty of checks and balances to make sure that you can be confedient that the man at the bank isn't double dealing or salami slicing. Dangerous Liaisons. That one night stand you had, where was you wallet? OK, maybe you didn't have an affair, but if your missing money, and the new person you are having relations with is suddenly gone and/or is spending your money, don't rule out the ones you love. Remember that a good relationship requires communication and trust. If he or she is not telling you they borrowed the money or if they decide to take advantage of you trust, it is probably best to end your relationship. The Ultimate Inside Job: Your family! Most people can trust their family. In fact, most of the time your family can help you set up an account at the bank as they have done it themselves. But then of course there are the disheartening stories about how parents stole from their kids accounts or the kids stole from the parents accounts. Families don't steal from each other!

Layaway seems to be an effective form of preserving credit, but it requires patience. Something that credit cards bypased and instead let you make payments after the fact which as we now know is probably not the best idea if you are trying to pay for the fancy items you want to get for Christmas if you are doing lay away in november, unless you just need to make two payments.

But many places no longer do layaway. I remember when I was a kid, my mom took me to pick up a winter coat she had put on layaway at JCPenny. But Places like JCPenny, Sears, Dillards, Macy's, Walmart, Target, and K-mart don't have a layaway department anymore.

Now with online shopping, there are things, that even with credit, make you wish there was layaway for. While you aren't going to find Layaway on eBay, Places like Amazon.com, Overstock, Shopping.com, Best Buy, Circuit City, and of course all of the places mentioned in the previous paragraph could benefit from reinstating that program.

Think of it like this: The best time to buy a TV is at the end of football season in Feburary. If Football starts back up in August, then the TV you put on layaway is yours after making six months worth of payments. The same goes for buying baby needs. It takes nine months for a baby to develop, so why not pay over that nine months toward baby furnishing rather than nine months of credit payments that can go up after birth?

As a computer expert, I've often wondered to myself "Gosh it would be nice to afford that laptop, but I can't pay for it all in one sum and I certainly don't want to pay for two laptops with my credit when I only bought one laptop." College books should be the same way, but it requires the professors to decide what books they should use before classes start.

Layaway should be manditory in both paying for technology, books, furniture, clothing, and other items. But the credit card industry decimated layaway.

It sure would have been nice to do layaway even before we had this credit crisis. It would be even better if online retailers got with the program.

The Battle of the Virtual Cooks

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:02:00 +0000

Videogames are starting to evolve from a form of entertainment into a fun learning lab. They are becoming more interactive, educational, and physical. While game maker now have integrated many of the physical and interactive attributes thanks to more advanced technology and better programming, the next step now comes to make games more educational and fun.

Words like "exergaming" (exercise gaming) and "edutaiment" (educational entertainment) are starting to become quite popular as there are certainly more skills and degrees of freedom to work with.

We are already seeing this phenomenon with games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band sparking more interest in learning how to play music. (From my own personal experience, learning the piano (somewhat well), guitar (not so well, but still having a good time), and the harmonica have been fun when you find time to play them.) And the Nintendo Wii and Konami's Dance Dance Revolution have certainly been praised for the involvement of physical activies.

But how would they be applied with other skills such as mechanics (tuning a bike, repairing a car, or building a small robot), gardening (in general, or just taking care of a few house plants), or in the case of a rising videogame trends, cooking?

Videogame developers had to be smart with this genre. Though many people have critized the genre of cooking videogames like they have exergames, they've probably never have been scared of working out in a gym, playing a musical recital, or cooked a mean without using the microwave.

Learning to cook is probably one of the most important skills for any person to learn. By instinct, it is one of the fundamental survival skills that a human being must know along with how to build a fire, what plants are healthy, edible and can be grown over the length of one growing season, which speices of fish or fauna would taste good to eat, and how to tend to injuries or other medical emergencies.

Face it, eating out is expensive. Eating out at fast food can be unhealthy. And eating pre packaged foods or the same thing constantly can also be unhealthy.

So it is important to know how to cook (and to plan meals if you are on a diet) so that you can live a healthy life style, along with exercise and good hygine.

Since good hygine isn't really something a videogame should teach (as you should probably learn this on your own), and exercise (be it mental or physical) seems to be undergoing a revival in the gaming industry, cooking seems to be the next challege of the video game industry.

Enter the battle of cooking games!
The game series that seems have kicked off this genre is Cooking Mama. It's mild popularity has sparked the interest of Gordon Ramsay and Alton Brown to jump on board. (Hopefully, Rachel Ray will sit this one out.)

Cooking Mama is an outstanding series. Despite the deadpan reviews by the critics (who also gave deadpan reviews to many other exergame and cooking games), Mama has persevered. So much so she has recieve sponsorship and endorsements from a couple of food companies as have her rivals.

In fact, embeded advertising has become quite popular in video games. If advertisers do a good job (easter eggs in online games, visible advertisments), gamers become interested in their products. If advertisers do a bad job (i.e. subliminal advertising, constant berating, lame products, or annoying adverts), gamers--and consumers for that matter--are less interested. (Take a few tips from Google Adwords, madmen.) One of the most interesting product placements this year, being an election year, was the campaign of the President-elect Barack Obama, who's campaign bought ad space in virtual reality and was certainly a good talking point in terms of advancement in technology.

Mama's latest advertising has been with Nestle. (Cheat: If you can't want for the latest Mama game to come out, check out Meals.com. Although, I've traditionally been a fan of Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.)

There are pleanty of cooking websites out their with many recipies either through interest, method, grocier, distributor, food, or culinary style. Thanks to videogames, cooking is now something to get fired up about.

Follow Up" Palin gets Palinized by John McCain

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:56:00 +0000

Ever since their loss on Tuesday Night John McCain has not at all been happy with Sarah Palin. So much so, that the shrewd Vietnam veteran has sent G.O.P. representives to repo her extravagant wardrobe. For a small list of things that Mrs. Palin bought with her $150K+, check out this website..

Kit Bond's Carrier is OVER!

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:01:00 +0000

The election is over, now it is safe to say that even though Kit Bond (R-MO) still has two years left in his term IT WILL BE HIS LAST!

Last week at a McCain-Palin rally, run by America's most clueless Hockey Mom in Cape Girardeau, MO, the crowd was fired up when he warned them about his view of Obama's judicial philosophy.

"Just this past week, we saw what Barack Obama said about judges," Bond said. "He said, 'I'm tired of these judges who want to follow what the Founding Fathers said and the Constitution. I want judges who have a heart, have an empathy for the teenage mom, the minority, the gay, the disabled. We want them to show empathy. We want them to show compassion.'"

--source CBS News

To which various disabilities advacates were not at all impressed.

Certainly, Lt. Governor Peter Kinder (R-MO) should distance himself from such individuals, especially people like Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) who whould rather do nothing about her youngest child's Down Syndrome or any other child with ANY disabiltiy except group them in a PROVEN FAILED government program, the Individuals with Disabilties Education Act,and kill important research projects at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.

Needless to say, the doctors at UNC were not impressed with "Doctor Palin".

I guess this is probably why she didn't say a whole lot last night after John McCain's concession speech. If Kit Bond was wise, it would probably be in his best interest to do likewise.

The coming tsunami of Change

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:19:00 +0000

With just nine days to go until the election, the forces of status quo are in panic mode. They are trying to find some way to enact martial law so that the election on November 4th does not happen.

A couple of months ago, it was the crisis in the former Soviet repbublic of Georgia. The past couple of month, it has been the crashing economy. (Burn baby burn!) And this afternoon, the provoking of Syria.

It appears that whatever is going on in Washington right now seems to be about as logical as using a baseball bat to smack a hornet's nest in an attempt to not go to work it seems.

What I am waiting for at this point is for Miss Alaska to do something really stupid and support an organization that she probably should not support. Apparently, someone went to Plaza Frontenac recently and splurged $150,000 at Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus on a wardrobe and a spa treatment. (I went down to Plaza Frontenac to check out the Neiman Marcus. They wanted $100 for a tie! Expensive!) For someone who claims to be a hockey mom rooting for the Walmart crowd, Sarah Palin definitely did NOT shop at Walmart for her attire.

Reguarless of what this poser is doing, the fact is there are alot of scared white people out there right now. I am not one of them. And it is of no shame that BushidoHacks.com endorses Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. However, I would like to remind the many minority supporters that Barack Obama is not Jesus Christ reincarnated. While he does have a great and positive influence, this "he's a cadidate for 'our' (black) people" is slightly off the mark and not to metion adds to the hostility that many white people have against him as president.

When you run for president, you don't run for one particular race or party. Barack Obama sees that. But if both Black voter and White voters, and Democractic supporters and Republican supporters see him in polar opposite points of view, that also doesn't help.

Remember, vice president is just a heart beat away from being president. So if you don't like McCain or Obama, you have to keep in mind that you are actually voting for Palin or Biden.

Palin want to continue funding the failing IDEA program which is very partial and does not work but she wants Congress to stop funding an effective research project that has helped identify many autism spectrum disorders using fruit flies. If this was a program to help resolve Colony Collapse Disorder and it had democratic support, she would probably support killing that project too.

As a person with disabilities, Palin does not have the best interset of the disabled at heart. If anything, her support is emotionally and politically driven. She is basically tossing her own newborn son with Downs Syndrome under the Straight Talk Express bus.

Palin seems to think that there is a one-size-fits-all approch to people with disabilites when the truth is that people with High Functioning Autism (HFA) and people with Downs Sydrome are NOT at all alike. While these are disabilites, many people with HFA (espeically people with a form of HFA called Aspergers' Syndrome) can function and support themselves in life, where as many people with Downs Syndrome need constant care and monitoring. By putting the constrains of a program like Down Syndrome on people with HFA, the HFA individuals feel constrained as they have to prove to employeers that their disability shouldn't really have too much of an effect on their work aside from probably needing an extension on some deadlines.

But programs like the ones Palin supports assume that the person with HFA should work as a Walmart greeter. As a person who has spent six years at a private university to aquire a computer science degree, I sure as hell am not working at Walmart, not even as a manager!

So why is there all this hate agains Barack Obama? Recently, a guy name Sirkowski (kind of NSFW) pointed out that racial hatred continues to be pumped into this campaign. (Protip: Puting a Barack Obama sticker on a Curious George doll and calling it "Barack Obama" DOES make you a racist.)

It is my personal belief that racists, much like the current adminstration, are in panic mode. Right now, I see them as the people who go out onto a beach just before a massive tsunami is about to strike. The momentum of the Obama campaign has become so large that the breakers can not stop it at this point. And on November 4th, the massive wave will crash into the shore, changing the lives of the people living near the coast. Some will fight in vain to stop the wave and in their defense may try to drown themselves. Others will be on the high ground, watching in horror the people who will kill themselves because of the fear.

But on November 5, 2008, the world will be a much different place, and the countdown to January 20, 2009 will begin. The fight to stop a lame duck president and his corporate constituants from unravalling a 232 year old instition that during the past eight years has been abused and taken advantage of by the people who lulled us into believing that what they were doing was right.

Now comes the age of democracy restored.

The Smell of Sulphur before Cambridge

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:48:00 +0000

In these irksome economic times where money is tight, the job market is arid, and you pray to God that what you still have holds up until you find a job that pays well and has modest benefits.

But until the technology companies figure out that climate in Missouri is less likely to spontaneously combust into a fiery inferno than California, and that gas is cheaper, and housing is more affordable, I can only dream about working for a technology company that offers an appreticeship position.

In the meantime, I upgraded from Fedora 8 (Werewolf) to Fedora 9 (Sulphur).

I realized that when I had to reinstall operating system on my parents' computer recently, and that Firefox 3 was available, that I had enough with waiting for Fedora to upgrade to Firefox 3.

Firefox 3 is a must have. Saved sessions are a godsend since the Adobe Flash Plugin generally crashes. But like Firefox 2, Firefox 3 loves to consume memory, especially when Flash is being used. The Adobe guys still like to play the part of Debbie Downer. Flash 10 still doesn't work for X86_64. Flash 9 still doesn't work well with Compiz-Fusion. And Compiz-Fusion (not an Adobe product) would be so much cooler if I had more memory.

Perhaps I can't comprehend Compiz-Fusion how good it can be because I am to anxeous to appreciate it due to my hardware constraints. If I could afford fancier components (more memory, new DVD burner, better graphics card, a case with better air flow, a better partitioned harddrive, a touchscreen monitor,...) then maybe I could appreciate it. But running Compiz is like trying to run Vista on an old 286 notebook computer. But I'm using a 64-bit dual core system. So for right now, Compiz is turned off, which sucks considering Google Gadgets is available and looks beautiful when Compiz is running.

Speaking of Google, some Google goodies are available in Fedora 9. GMail has a link as does Google Calendar and Google Docs & Spreadsheets, though Abiword and Gnumeric are great Open Source alternatives to Microsoft Word and Excel. I think there might be a way to fool GNOME into making GMail the default mail application and Firefox open GMail when an email address is clicked.

Google Gears is still not ported to X86_64, but I have a feeling that someone at Fedora or Google may be working on that issue. And rumors are going around about a possible 64-bit version of Flash 10. For right now, I'm sticking with Flash 9. A stop by here and here are still manditory for X86_64 Linux users.

Fedora 10 (Cambridge) promises tabbed windows in Nautius at the end of the year (which seems likely) and KDE 4 (hopefully). Personally, since most of the programs that use GTK for their UI rather than Qt, GNOME seems to be taking an outstanding improvement over KDE.

I personally believe widgets are kind of silly. What is the point of running a program that is underneath several other programs that you actually are using. Widgets are nothing more than eye candy really. And as the dentist would say, too much candy is bad for you. Call me old school, but I prefer icons and taskbars over widgets and dashboards. Again, my conservative views on computer hardware and performance seem to be a killjoy in terms of all this new technology.

Google Phone won't be coming to St. Louis? Curse the Cubs!

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 03:05:00 +0000

Jelous of Chicago's access to technology that St. Louis does not get, I want someone in St. Louis to go up to Wrigley Stadium, buy tickets for Section 4, Row 8, Seat 113 and dress up as an angry goat farmer. Because if I don't get a G1, the Cubs can't be freed of The Curse.

I walked into the T-Mobile store today, understanding that yeah I wasn't going to be getting the phone anytime soon, hoping to find some printed information only to be told by the friendly salesman "There won't be a G-Phone in the St. Louis area." (Booooooooo!!!!)

The Apple iPhone is in the St. Louis area, but I dislike the device and hate AT&T so much. (Bad service. High prices. "No jobs" in that big building downtown. (Yeah, right.))

As if my technological luck wasn't bad enough, a flaw in the iRiver H100 series (in my case H120) in the electrical system has put my MP3 player in limbo. The battery and Hardrive are OK, but the firmware is boned.
e ho
I miss money. That is why, I will soon be adding ads to this blog in the near future. While hosting this site has been affordable, the job market in the St. Louis area has been cruel and unimaginative. Sales jobs are no place for a computer nerd. So until the job sites stop sending me the same three lame-ass sales jobs while the good jobs are outside of the area (or country for that matter), this site will be taking on some ads.

Hello, AT&T? T-Mobile Called. They want me back!

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:44:00 +0000

Four years ago, I made some pretty stupid mistakes. I voted for Bush (something I am not proud of anymore), and I switched from T-Mobile to Cingular, which then became AT&T. At that time, no one would have predicted that a camper who I was supervising would be stung by a bee in the middle of a camp out and thus require the need for a cellular telephone in a place where you normally turn those things off.

In this time for change and economic uncertanty, a glimmer of hope emerges. Last year I sought to break free of the bondage that AT&T sold and failed, but this year, despite the fact that their unclear wording looped me into another two year contract that I did not want with a phone that I also didn't want (*cough*Palm Treo*cough*) because the guy at the phone store didn't want to sell me a Blackberry, I've decided to break free from AT&T as soon as I have the proper monitary means to tell them to "piss off!"

The T-Mobile G1 (an HTC phone with Google Android) hits the shelf next month. That's right, iPhone losers. You guys can can use your little "fashion accessory" and stick where the sun don't shine! Android is bringing some serious applications for people who use their phones for serious puposes. An Internet company making an Internet phone powered by a software platform developed by people on the Internet.

My only hope for the G1 is an Secure Shell (SSH) application and a reliable battery. (Protip: Check Ebay for batteries with a longer battery life for your device!)

It's time to get free!

Rockbox is better than your iPod

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:20:00 +0000

After a near foolish attempt to replace my iRiver 120 MP3 player with a SanDisk Sansa, I finally got around to getting Rockbox to work.

My experience has been positive especially after fearing a repeat of previous experiences. My only regret is that the iRiver 120 has a black and white screen. Imagine what it would be like if it was in color.

I should be able to listen to music how I want it this time, by playlist order (which the iRiver's original software could not read .m3u or .pls files) or in some form of portable relational database.

FM radio still works, although I wonder if there is some way to pick up other bands. I should double check my understanding of electronics.

I have not explored all the features yet, but I am amazed that I can finally play games and WRITE text files on the device. I hope I can read PDFs on it now.

Another feature that Rockbox has that the origninal iRiver (or several other MP3 players) is support for people with disablities, specifically those with impaired vision.

My only grievances about Rockbox so far are how the Installation instructions were written. I wanted to install the manual instructions for rockbox, but when the Linux instructions started talking about using a .exe file (which Linux does not run .exe files) and mentioned some tools for modifying the .hex file (the iRiver firmware patch) that were not on my system, I had to conceed to using the Automatic instructions.

It would also be a little awesome if there was like a mini-Linux console to write shell scripts and fiddle with sed, awk, and vim. The Handhelds.org had something like this. I blame the emphasis on Debian packages for why Handhelds.org wasn't very successful.

Outside of all that, Rockbox rules!

Dems leave Linux users in the dark

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:52:00 +0000

As much as I support Barack Obama for President, the Democratic National Convention Comittee screwed the pooch by choosing to use Microsoft Silverlight instead of Adobe Flash for their video needs. The decision is in conflict of an article the DNCC called The 2008 Democratic National Convention: The Most Technologically-Savvy Event Of Its Kind.

Silverlight does not allow Linux or UNIX users to view online video like Flash, Windows Media, Quicktime, or Real can.

So why only support Windows or MacOS? No other software is bias against the users' operating system software preference. If the Obama website supports Flash video, why doesn't the DNCC?

This is why I refuse to do any programming on Microsoft IIS, ASP.Net, or SQLServer. (That and I don't know jack about ASP.Net in the first place. I mean, come on? $300 for software or free? Which would you pick if you were a poor starving college kid?) If that is going to affect my job search, then good! I'd rather do programming the right way (Apache + PHP + MySQL), rather than the easy way.

At least the DNCC got one thing right: Using an open source CMS called Silver Stripe

In short, Silverlight = BAD, SliverStripe = GOOD.

In terms of Joe Biden as VP, while I do not agree with his stance for supporting RIAA or MPAA, at least he is not Carly Fiorina who nearly destroyed Hewlett-Packard a few years ago with her ability to micromanage. If McCain has 7 houses from marrying his trophy wife, and Fiorina has 5 private jets (two she had to give back) that she bought by showing 5000 HP workers pink slips, what are the chance that McCain will NOT become the next president of the United States? Nearing 100%. Ask anyone working in the Tech industry, especially in Silicon Valley (San Jose,CA), who Carly Firornia is and they'll likely say she makes Hillary Clinton look like a saint.

In terms of technology, I believe that any politician who plans on making any technology decisions and has a bias against hackers needs to read "The Conscience of a Hacker", at least one technical book (i.e. HTML for Dummies), and needs to under stand the workings of email, cell phones, and the Internet. We don't need anymore Ted Stevens-like senators who don't know jack about technology but are put in charge of a Senate Committee responsible for Comererce, Science, and Transportations just so they can be spoon fed what the NTCA tells them and prays to God that no one finds your emails (cough!MattBlunt!cough!)

yum indigestion? Give it some pepto!

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:54:00 +0000

After some 24 hours of package updating, Fedora 8 is installed without the hassle of Fedora's PreUpgrade process which uses Anaconda.

Anaconda is good if you are new to Fedora Linux, but after a while you begin to realize, programs like Anaconda and pruit are not ideal.

Running Fedora's PreUpgrade is about a logical as using yum update or yum upgrade. Unless you specify the names of the packages that need to be ugraded, yum will abort as soon as it hits the first conflict, and you will run into a conflict.

Conflicts can be resolved, but it will require some thinking.

For instance, on x86_64 systems, some packages may conflict with a i386 package of the same name. You don't need to download the i386 package if you are using 64-bit (x86_64) system, but there are a few softwares that are x86_64 that need to use the i386 packages for support. nspluginwrapper is one of them.

Another example is the stubborn software that holds up everything. Beryl was one such software. In fact Fedora suggests removing it (using yum erase beryl*) after the Beryl project merged with Compiz thus creating Compiz Fusion. I assume Compiz is a feature in Fedora 9, but for right now, lets see how Fedora 8 is running. As long as I upgrade before November, I think I should be OK.

But removing software should be a last resort! ALWAYS look for the package that is causing the conflict or the package that the current package needs.

As I previously stated, using yum update without package names is foolish. In couple instance, yum would be stuck in an infinite loop reporting the depenency that a package relied on. If you are stuck in this trap, CTRL+C (you may need to press enter after doing that.) ps -a and if yum is still running, kill it (kill -9 yum).

Durring the upgrade process, yum was hanging. It didn't do anything, even after a couple kill attempts. It was clear something else was holding things up. Fortunately, Rob Greene found a soultion.

From that I composed a new script fix_yum.sh


#!/bin/bash
# File: fix_yum.sh
rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db*
rpm -vv --rebuilddb
yum
yum clean all
echo "Back in business!"

Some time during the upgrade process, you will need to leave the GUI and go into a text console environment. CTRL+ALT+F1 (or CTRL+ALT+F2, etc.) will cause you to leave the comfort of the GUI. Using text programs like sed and gawk will make browsing through the list of packages easier since you won't have the convienence of the scroll bar.

From this point, use the force, Skywalker.

What I like to do is send a list of what needs to be upgraded to its own file.
yum check-update > updates.txt
You will probably have to to this many times along with this gawk command.
gawk /pattern/'{print $3 " " $1 "\t" $2}' whatigot.txt
Because gawk treats text files as a text database, I decided to move the third column which listed what repo as the first column. You can ommit the thrid and second columns (version number), but the package name ($1) is required. pattern is a pattern. You could use regular expression, but for ease, lets not do that. However, what I did was use ^pattern (a carot as the first character) to look for packages that began with a specify letter or string. You will use this command often and with the same patterns. (a,b,c,...etc).

whatigot.txt was created because we need a file to be use as a text database for gawk. However, gawk may not be all that reliable. You should use cat and head to make sure you don't miss any packages starting with capital letters. Most packages are lower case, and when yum looks for packages, it is generally case-insensitve, where as gawk is case-sensistive.

But if all this sounds tedious and alot of work, there is some good news. You can use regular expression to tell yum to find multiple packages. Generally, you will use the * (asterisk) character. For example, say that package.x86_84, package-devel.noarch, and package-libs.x86_64 need to be updated. You could just update the packages for the x86_64 architecture using
yum update package*.x86_64
or you can update them all by name
yum update package*
Keep in mind, that yum check-update and yum update will only update the packages that are already on the system.

For the packages that are not on the system, you can try yum list.
A good idea is to save the list to a file.
yum list > packages.txt
Then with a little sed you can narrow that list down. Say you want to exclude all the i386 files.
sed -n -e '/\.386'/!p' packages.txt > packages.x86_64.txt
Now suppose you do not want to see the new packages from Fedora 8.
sed -n -e '/fc8/!p' packages.x86_64.txt > packages.fc7.x86_64.txt
Finally, you just want to see all the installed packages.
sed -n -e '/installed/p' packages.fc7.x86_64.txt > installed.fc7.x86_64.txt
Of course, you can also create a list of what is out there, but if you use yum check-update > updates.txt to list all the packages that are currently installed, you will probably want to create a file that will list MOST (some packages may not have fc8 in there name) of the available packages.
sed -n -e '/fc8/p' packages.x86_64.txt > packages.fc8.x86_64.txt
Now you can use gawk to list files that you are interested in look at. For example, you can find the packages that being with "php" using
gawk /^php/'{print $3 " " $1 "\t" $2}' packages.fc8.x86_64.txt.

In case you wanted to know know many lines (not neccesarly the number of files) that are in the results, you can use
gawk /^php/'{print $3 " " $1 "\t" $2}' packages.fc8.x86_64.txt | wc -l.

Hey! You just learned how to use sed and gawk as well as a few other Linux and UNIX commands! Well, at least a few simple commands.

Eventually as updates.txt becomes shorter and shorter (or atleast about 10 packages left or less) the upgrade should be complete.

Hopefully this will work about a month from now when I catch up and use Fedora 9 then eventually Fedora 10.

A Dead Distros Party

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:05:00 +0000

I can't believe Fedora 7 came to its end of life and I didn't get the memo.

Clearly, this was a major mix up in communication.

So right now I'm working on upgrading to Fedora 8, then Fedora 9 since Fedora 8 will die in November when Fedora 10 is released.

I need to sharpen up my Linux skills a little bit.

The good news is that Falko Timme saved me the trouble of having to reinstall everything, for the moment. Because a new distro for Fedora comes out about every six months, Fedora should make their distributions upgradeable like their packages, or atlease be as easy to upgrade as how Timme explained it.

Hopefully, when everything is upgraded, I can then proceed to upgrading to Fedora 9 then eventually Fedora 10.

Timme's method is such a time saver! (Thank you!)

I also want to get Google Earth back up and running on my computer.

From what I can tell, I should also try to avoid kernel version 2.6.25, which may explain why there is a security breach.

Because of the compromize in security, Linux users should exercise caution. Using ClamAV and SELinux may help. (SELinux was a pain to work with, especially with Apache HTTP server.)

I have a feeling that I have some scripts to write this weekend along with some portfollio pages.

Local gangs? More like local baffoons

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 04:37:00 +0000

How stupid are the gangs in St. Louis city?

Well...for starters they tried to sell AK-47s behind a gas station in Ferguson in North St. Louis County last year. They got caught.

A couple of thugs from the city robbed and nearly murdered a local girl who attents my old high school. Florissant Police apprehended the idiot and a couple of his city friends who were commiting robberies in the County.

Then their was the incident with rap star Nelly's stupid friend who though there were clubs in Hazelwood (which there aren't) then pissed off the Hazelwood Police (which he shouldn't) and because of his size was tased 50 times by the same police officer. (Talk about thick skinned!)

Finally, there was an incident eariler this week were a about a dozen of the City's little darling hellspawn came out to the county to the posh University City Loop. For those of you who don't know, down the road on Delmar Boulevard at the end of the Loop is the local branch of the ~~Church of Scientology~~ Cult of Scientomogy. The Internet crowd know this place very well as they have protested against the Cult several times this year with the support of the standalone complex Anonymous. This would have been a much better place to take peoples money since giving your money to these people is just about as bad as been robbed. (Horray! I pissed them off! I can here the frivolous lawsuit subpoena being printed as I am typing this! F*** L. Ron Hubbard and his f*** all his clones! Learn to swim! Learn to swim!)

But rather than robbing the spiritually confused who have never heard of the True Savior Flying Spaghetti Monster (Ramen!), these fools decide to try and rob people on the Metrolink station at the crossroads of the City-County Border "for the thrill" rather than for the LULZ. Needless to say, many of their smiling faces were clearly visible on the video cameras at the station.

These punks couldn't cause a riot without bragging about thier plans. They are like the stupid kids who videotape the fights, bullying, and crimes and post them on YouTube. Makes you wonder why they didn't stop by the bicycle shop (which they could have robbed but are too stupid to know that) to try on helmets. (Yes! A bicycle shop! These guys are really retarded. They make the special kids look intellegent!)

Face it...when you commit a crime in St. Louis COUNTY, you tangle with the St. Louis COUNTY Police. The WELLFUNDED St. Louis County Police. Unlike the underfuned city police with their police chiefs who have lawbreaking daughters.

Better yet, instead of commiting crimes, why don't you STOP BREAKING THE LAW!

Nothing Cool about Cuil

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:15:00 +0000

The Press has been bragging about Cuil (pronounced "cool"), a search engine created by a few people from Google hoping to get rich like their former employer.

Cuil claims to have a database three times larger than Google, but the search still has alot of bugs.

Where Google has an Image search, Cuil does not. Cuil links images with artcles, images that do not match with the article. For example, a search for Bushido Hacks does not fetch BushidoHacks.com has the first result like it does with Google. Cuil claims that it is because it looks for pages that are relevant not popular. BushidoHacks.com seems pretty relevant. Searching on Ask.com would confirm Google is right.

Cuil claims to not track users like Google does, as if to state that Google is an Orwellian juggernaut (bitch!). While Google has grown from a sucky search engine to an outstanding search engine with services better than Yahoo! (I'm still pissed at them because they deleting my Geocities pages), Cuil seem to pull up all the instance of my name in the worst places. For instance, they pulled up the old avatar that I used on Weebl's website before they banned me. (Weebl's website has a very, very low tolerance for shenanigans. I think it was because I sent them the Goaste image on April Fools Day. At least I didn't Rickroll them.) Then their are the instance where my name shows up in user profiles. Bad Cuil!

Being a fan of various comics, manga, and video games, Cuil failed to find anything relevant. For example, one of my favorite Metal Gear Solid parodies is Metal Gear Yotsuba by Skaijo. Google found Skaijo's DeviantArt page. Ask found her NewGrounds page. Cuil found the internet community 4chan (NSFW!). My dog could search better than Cuil, and she can't even stay in the back yard without a leash.

But Cuil does have a couple of good features. A newspaper-like layout. Related Search Widgets. But even with all that, Cuil will more than likely go bust if the tech industry runs into a bubble situation.

If Cuil wants to work, it needs to realize that searches were not based on popularity in the first place and that its goal of relavance is way off the mark.

Dreams in Digital

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:02:00 +0000

June is the one year anniversary of the thrid greatest project I have ever completed. (The first greatest was obtaining my Eagle Scout. The second greatest was graduating college.)

I still have plans for this machine. I am personally holding off any Linux upgrade until Fedora 10 comes around. (It would be so much easier if instead of every 6 months, the people at Red Hat released a new distro every year instead. On the other hand, I should really consider installing software from source code rather than waiting for binaries.)

One plan that sounds affordable for right now is a fan too cool down the hard drive. If the nuclear energy supporters want to make environmentalists happy, they would us a really fast graphics card to generate steam for electricity. Then again, what would they need to use to generate the electricity for the really hot graphics card? Reguardless, the part of the computer that I forsee will be the cause of its downfall is the graphics card. Remember, if your GPU is spiking around 65 degrees Celcius, your main fan is probably broken, or your graphics card is too hot! The print on the wires generally states that their is a heat limit of about 70 degrees C. The normal for the GPU should be around 60 degrees C or less, otherwise everything is going to get hot, slow, or worse break down. I believe that is what happened to the main fan a few months ago. The GPU literally cooked the wires. While their was no puddle of plastic goop in my machine, the insulation that kept the wires from burning up could not protect the wire from the relatively intense heat.

Until I can afford a really nice graphics card, I will try my best to keep the rest of the computer as cool as possible. The fan and raidator on the CPU keep the CPU coool. The main fan aswell as a couple other case fans keep the MoBo and the memory in good order. And I have a new fan that will keep the hard drive cool which was remarkably affordable.

Also on my honey-do list for the computer: replacing the DVD-R/W. This like the GPU is currently a short-term long-term goal. As I have previously stated, I am hoping that a Linux standard for Blu-Ray R/W comes out in the near future and that prices for Blu-Ray drop within the next year. I went to Office Max the other day and saw that a single Blu-Ray disc for Blu-Ray R/W was $20.00. You want to know how much that disc is really worth? About a nickel. That's SONY for you.

Another short-term long-term goal would be to add an infrared controller to the computer. I don't care much for Bluetooth. And secondly, why does SONY use Bluetooth for their controllers and remotes in the first place? Bluetooth has many security concerns, and since it is pretty logical to use the wireless peripheral that interfaces with the computer in the same room, Infrared makes more sense.

Now if you really want to use Bluetooth for something, how about this next project that is definletely long-term long-term. Because Bluetooth can be used in say the next room over, why not create a Bluetooth device for your apartment that aquires free-to-air satilite television to be piped in to your house.

Now I hear some of you say "But Bushido, we can get this from DirecTV or Dish Network." True, but what they are as well as the cable companies are are middlemen between the satilite from space to your house. And if you noticed in your house if you have cable, the signal from your TV that is directly hooked up to your TV rather than a cable box does not have a delay. Likewise, this is the problems with the satilite TV companies. Because they get their feeds from various satilites then bounce the signals back up into space and into your backyard, this delay is much longer. The critism with such a project is that the dish used would be about 3 feet to 6 feet large, or maybe larger. The fact is we have come a long way from the 1980s when my grandpa had this piece of what was then considered high tech equipment in his house. We now have DVB which allows for us to watch TV on cellphones. The truth is, we could probably watch that for free if the big telecom companies didn't charge to do what the satilite TV companies do. And if you think about it, why do you think the Cable company is like "don't swith to satilite" and the satilite TV companies are like "switch to us from cable". It is because both the cable and satilite companies use the same signal equipment to fetch TV signal using thier 30 year old 12 footh satilite dishes. Cable does not go out in a rain storm because they use the satilite dishes that are tuned to the frequencies that can penetrate the toughest rain cloud. This technology is portable to Linux under ITU DVB-S standards.

But why stop at just TV? Shortwave and Amatuer radio could also be combined. This is a little more compilcated as many people know about the size of the amatuer radio and CB radio antennas. What I don't understand is why satilite radio has a small antenna. There is some information about amatuer radio at this link. And don't forget the Internet!

Next question is how do we power this device? In this age with gas price through the roof and people starting to wise up to solar and wind power I was thinking about something that would power the device, but at the same time be grounded from lightening strikes. The grounding mechanism would also be required for the dish as well as the amatuer radio, assuming that there is no way to talke that out of the equation. A Big-Ugly-Dish (BUD) with solar pannels built into it would be perfect, but physics doesn't work that way. I saw on 60 minutes one time BUDs are still used in Iran as a way to override their government's TV broadcasting.

The idea is really good and very smart. It may be the satilite/cable/ISP-company-in-a-box, but first I would condiser the cost and make certain that the telcoms and the satillite/cable compaies don't foil my idea. I do like the idea. It is the most straightforward plan. But their would be some programming involved like telling where to point the dish and the solar-pannels (if any). Generally they point south, but for the first time use, or the poor soul who nevery used a compass in the Boy Scouts (or Girls Scouts). The prototype will necessarily be boatanchor size even though technology can get smaller and maller...but then again you don't want it to get lost or have some ignorant jerk steal it.

But I would like to see something like that be fore the end of the next decade. Maybe the end of this decade if feasable. Two and a half years is a long way to go and a lot of time to learn things.

It is time for citizens to commandeer oil prices!

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:39:00 +0000

Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) worked valiantly today to send a message to the oil industry that we have had it with the oil companies high prices with no merit. But when the bill that she proposed that would charge the oil companies a windfall sales tax failed, then another bill that gave tax breaks to alternative energy died, both at the hands of the Establishment, it has become clear that no amount of legislative action, or judicial action, and certainly not any executive action, would stop the oil companies from overcharging Americans.

The oil industry makes enough money, that they are above the law. They could commit murder (which they have) and simply write a check for bail if they were in a trial. The oil industry has no respect for the laws of man or the natural rights of humans. Their crimes have hindered the wellbeing of citizens, as police and fire departments must cut back on their crime and safety training for gasoline. The oil industry has obstructed the school year of children that school years must be truncated, shortening the educations of some students, and rerouting buses to standing room only for mass-transit systems.

Today, the estabishment stated that they are in full support of the oil industries crippling America, its infrastructure, and its government.

We are now at war with The Estabishment. The Estabishment that declared war but sent its troops into battle without armour. The Establishment that promised "Gas Tax Holidays" to bribe people into gaining their consent and compliance to continue to raise the price of fuel and lower environmental standards. The Establishment that has damaged the environment to the point that their are no bees to polinate crops, which in turn endangers our food supply. The Establishment that bailed out mortgage lenders and savings and loan groups just as they did nearly 20 years ago. The Establishment that put energy companies in charge of environmental and energy standards which made the air we breathe unhealthy and the people who could not afford heating or air conditioning freeze or swelter. The Establishment that mistreated hospitalized war veterans, exported jobs overseas, and held back students who proved that they could succeed.

The Establishment is afraid of change. It is afraid to lose the power it has been inebriated itself with the freedom of its citizens. It has taken this country and the world for a ride and it was incahoots with alot of bad people who also fear change. Many of these changes were maid possible online, reguardless of the attempts of disinformation which tried to drown out or lie about what is going on. Television and radio only tell us what the Establishment wants us to see and hear. The Internet has changed the playing field. Not like in 2000 or 2004, but for real this time in 2008.

We frighten the Establishment, and that is a good thing. We aren't sending them terriorist threats or manufactured lies to keep people in control. We are spreading the honest truth that life stinks right now, but at they same time we are telling people that we are not going to take it lying down.

We are ready to take on the changes that the Establishment will fight us tooth an nail over. We are not going to let them continue to keep the status quo because we know what has happened--that IS HAPPENING--because we gave up freedom for quiet conscent.

It is time we commandeer the gas stations and put the price of oil back under $2 per gallon. The oil industry makes more than enough money that they deserve to be victums of their own crimes.

But by no means does not paying for gas mean that we can drive around in the big gas-guzzling vehicles.

The automobile industry is still an accessory to the crimes of the oil industry. They broke the laws too, raking in profits while their workers took a pay cut so that the guys upstairs got a pay raise.

It is time that the citizens of the United States of America took control of this situation, as the Establishment, the oil industry, and the automobile industry won't.

America is desperate but not stupid, Mr. Akin

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:13:00 +0000

Senator Todd Akin (R-MO) proposed this morning the $150 Barrel Energy Extortion Act of 2008, a bill that will continue to keep the status quo as far as energy standards go.

Pretty much it calls for what every Republican-based energy bill proposes.

Open Antarctic National Wilderness Refuge (ANWR) to oil and gas exploration. (Something we should not be doing.)
Open the Continental shelf to Oil and Gas exploration. (If you are a beach-goer, this potentially means oil dericks in view of the beach.)
Expand the refinery capacity of the U.S.- no refinery has been built in 30 years. (There is a new refinery being built in Omaha, Nebraska. Living down stream, especially after a tugboat accident spilled 30,000 of oil into the Missouri river just a few miles from where I a writing this post, I'm not very keen about the idea.)
Promote the creation of fuel from shale reserves. (Strip mining)
Promote the safe construction of new nuclear power plants. (Again, a step backwards.)

If this bill sounds familar, like it has been done before, it has.

Akin's bill continues to ignore alternative energy and only continues to support the oil industry.

Does he really think that we are going to buy into this? It's about as foolish as that "gas tax holiday idea". Do we really believe that the oil indsutry is going to lower the price for oil if we cut out the tax for oil? HELL NO! They're going to jack up the price and make money off of what the federal, state, and local governemnts charge for oil.

And that is what this bill is. It says "When oil hits $150 per barrel, GIVE THEM MORE MONEY!"

Akin says he saw this coming since 2001. If that is so, why didn't he stop the oil barons when oil hit $50 per barrel? Or $75? Or $90? Or $100? Or $125?!

We are already being extorted and forced into coercive complaciency! It's like tossing a lobster into tepid water then slowly turning up the heat. Eventually the lobster boils to death.

This bill's only purpose is to stear people away from alternative energy--which is gaining momentum--and put keep the oil, coal, and nuclear industries in control. Just because they are losing customers (like a very small fraction) they make a big stink about it with the government but tell everyone that it means nothing. Well if it means nothing, why the hell are they so afraid that that small fraction is breaking away? "Oh no! We lost 0.001% of our customers! Quick call the government! We might not make $40.8 billion dollars this year! We'll only make slightly less than that! Save us, Senator Akin!"

This bill does not stop the oil industry from extorting customers. IT PROMOTES EXTORTION!

Follow up: Honeybees sighted in St. Louis!

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:54:00 +0000

It is with cautious elation that I report that honeybees have been sighted in my neighborhood for the second day in a row in North St. Louis County, Missouri. Though their numbers are not as numerious at they should be, it is a postive sign that Colony Collapse Disorder has not stopped the honeybee from doing her work!

I would like to find out where her (surprizingly, all the worker bees are female) hive is so that I can check--from a safe distance obviously--that her hive is healthy and in good spirits.

Maybe her sudden appearance is the result of something that the local beekeeping group did. But their group picnic isn't until this weekend.

Maybe this is a small group of wildbees. About two weeks ago, a swarm of wild honeybees invaded an elementary school. No one was hurt, and the school turned turned their unexpected strife into an educational learning experience. If only my highschool did that every year in biology class when part of our school was infested with ladybugs!

The honeybees that I saw were docile enough (though it is probably never a good idea to pick them up, especially when they are working) that I could examine them for Varroa. Though the mites are very small, their brown bodies would stand out from the bees black and gold. The few bees that I observed had no varroa on them. Despite the varroa's devistating effects on bee colonies, locally they could have an alibi, at least from my limited observations.

Follow up: Norwegian Hospital Vandal Shutdown

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Sat, 31 May 2008 02:37:00 +0000

Thanks to the IT team at the hospital in Oslo, Norway for their quick response to the wave of vandalism that has plagued this website and many other websites on the Internet.

Their response has inspired me to send out letters to other sites who may be abusing the Internet to spread unsolicited and in some cases illegal content.

While CAPTCHAs may not guarantee a decreased risk of vandalism, it will certainly be considered as a countermeasure. Because of the recent cracks of the CAPTCHA, the Honeypot-style plan is effective.

Hopefully, I will not be sending any more messages to hospitals in Norway.

Once again, Thanks!

A new plan to deal with vandals

noreply@blogger.com (Bushido Hacks) — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:04:00 +0000

My new plan creates a page of every banned IP address. Rather than a long list of IPs that can be difficult to sort, and a pain to list if over 300 vandal IPs are attacking your site at once. (ouch!)

I'm also sending letters out to companies whose employees or students are quietly vandalizing websites.

I don't know why a hospital in Norway is posting links to pornographic websites, but I'm sure that their Information Technology department will give me a reason.

The new plan uses resources from the various NICs (Network Information Centres). While this is alot of work, it will be something to keep me busy until I can find work. (Career Builder sucks!)