-
![[FSF Associate Member]](http://server.ericsbinaryworld.com/images/fsf.png)
djotaku's twitter feed
-
- http://www.gnu.org/fry/
- Clinton Supporters: Are you really such sore losers that you're prepared to screw us all over for four years just because you lost?
- More Christian Tech Goodness: http://tinyurl.com/6c8587
- When I was a kid, I played some corny Biblical video games. Now this comes out: http://tinyurl.com/5mxczl Will it sell?
- From now on all LPGA players must pass an oral english test. Who cares if you speak english if you can swing a stick at a small white ball?
- I thought my blog looked a little weird and then I remembered that I had ad blocker turned on and my google ad was therefore missing.
- Foobar2000 the strangely named audio player with the neat features
- I'm annoyed that my Civ 4 BTS hasn't been auto-updating. Just had to download over 300 MB of patches just to play Fall from Heaven 2.
- @ASPwizer: Nothing wrong with you, Honda Elements are the cars that winners drive. q;o)
- Also, sharing: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericsbinaryworld/sets/72157606917571613/
-
Jul
31
It’s almost been a month since I went to Cancun, Quintanilla Roo, Mexicao. I meant to blog about it, but at first I was busy getting my married life and my room back into order. While in Cancun I decided not to rent a car in case the drivers were as crazy as the ones I’d heard about in South America. They actually ended up driving just as good (or bad) as people do in Tampa and arguably a lot better than how they drive in Miami. Since I wasn’t actually in Cancun, but in Puerto Aventuras (Adventure Port) we had to take a taxi to get anywhere Interesting.
It was in one such taxi ride on the way to the ruins at Tulum where my driver was listening to the radio that the Numa Numa song came on. My wife and I just stared at each other. So I asked the cab driver if he had seen the Internet video and he affirmed that he had. He asked me if I happened to know where this music came from. It has just appeared on the radio about a month ago. I told him it was from Rumania in Eastern Europe. He nodded approvingly as if one of the larger mysteries in his life had finally been clarified. I informed him that this song wasn’t on the radio in the US and he appeared a little shocked. I leaned back in my chair and my wife and I half-heartedly acted out the Internet video in the the backseat and laughed to ourselves. I thought when I said farewell to Numa Numa that it would fade out of my life. Who knows where it’ll appear next…some rapper remix?
While I was in Mexico there was a bit of what I’d like to call reverse-culture shock. One example was hearing Numa Numa on the radio. What I mean by reverse-culture shock is going to a foreign country expecting to see local traditions and customs, but finding non-local customs instead. For example, going to Playa del Carmen was an especially disturbing even for my wife and I. When we first walked in we saw:
A Sushi restaurant! I’m not saying that the Mexicans can’t eat sushi, don’t get me wrong. But this was a famous tourist location. Maybe I’m just not with the times, but I like to go to other countries to experience what their customs and traditions have resulted in. In this same area was a Subway and a Johnny Rocket. Then, to my horror, we came across:
That’s right, those $@^& golden arches are everywhere! Can’t they leave a place alone? It was right next to:
and just ruined the view. I’m just glad they didn’t have a McDonald’s at the Tulum ruins or I think I would have really disliked my trip. More about my trip to Mexico in a future post.
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Jul
31
I have chosen the ramart theme, developed by the owner of a blog about Weird Al Yankovic. After going over all of the available themes, I chose this one because it best reflects what my blog has evolved into. As a blog mostly about technology news and the GNU/Linux operating system, I feel this theme best conveys my content. However, don’t worry that I won’t be talking about personal things, politics, or religion - it’s just a realization of the main topics of this blog as well as the fact that I ‘m a VERY technological person. I mean, how many other people have three computers they use on an everyday basis, including a server. Finally, with the theme I was previously using I didn’t like the font as much - some of the letters ran together such as a c and an l - looking like a d.
I have adapted his theme to suit my preferences, such as having a calendar on the sidebar, which was not exactly a trivial task. I will be making a few more changes in the coming days. For example, I have decided to license all of my posts under the Creative Commons. They will still be copyrighted to me, but I think I will choose a license similar to the one I use for my pictures - attrib-deriv-no-commercial. I’ll add a link/icon to the site describing my license as soon as I get some time.
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Jul
31
Ch-ch-cha-anges
Category: Others' Blogs, Site | 
Leave a Comment
I believe that websites, magazines, blogs, and other media that people become accustomed to should always look the same. Afterall, that’s what people become comfortable with, so why change it up? However, I also realize that these things always change and it’s often for the better. In that vein, I am going to be changing up my blog a little bit. I don’t like that I’m just using one of the default templates for WordPress because what is it that distinguishes my blog from Andrew’s Blog or any of the others using the default template. It may take me a while to customize the template the way I want it, but I don’t want to take the server down again - it’s had enough downtime recently. Therefore, you may notice some changes on your visits until I get everything tweaked the way I want it. Thanks for you patience and see you on the better side of “It’s A Binary World 2.0″.
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Jul
30
In the News, 28 July 2005
Category: News | Leave a Comment
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. That’s a very important mantra to have in the software/hardware world. For example, OpenOffice.org has its own file format, but around 90% of the world uses the Microsoft Office format. Therefore, OO.o must incorporate support these formats. Similarly, a large portion of the Internet servers out there are running Linux and/or open source software. That’s the reason that Microsoft has decided to try and booot compatility with open source. How hard are they trying to make their software work with open source?
…Microsoft has established a testing lab containing 400 Linux and Unix servers in order to test compatibility with its own systems and management tools.
This is big news. It is also a validation of Linux as a competitor. Companies don’t try and become compatible with small programs because it’s a waste of their time. For Microsoft to care about compatibility with Linux and Unix servers shows that customers are beginning to demand this. The same way that early Internet customers demanded to be able to email people who weren’t using the same service provider, server customers find it ludicrous that their Microsoft servers wouldn’t interact properly with Linux servers.
This move by Microsoft can only help everyone. Microsoft will gain sales by being compatible with the large Linux/Unix server base. Linux will gain credibility and greater compatibility with MS servers without having to reverse engineer the protocols. Finally, users will benefit from competition which can only serve to lower the cost of the software.
If you’d like to hear someone arguing the exact opposite of what you expect, then Tim Butler’s got a great article for you. The important thing is to get past the first two paragraphs which refer to some other article(s) he’s written and look at this part:
After seeing his preview of “AdBlocK,” I did some more research to confirm that this was indeed included in the official code of Konqueror [a web browser for Linux - the KDE equivalent of IE], which, to the best I could discern, is, in fact, the case. This is singularly disturbing. While Firefox has become known for its AdBlock plug-in, this feature has remained outside of the core, official distribution. Considering the ethical ramifications of advertising blocking software, this is how it should be.
His main argument is that software which blocks ads on a page (not popup or popunder ads) is unethical because if the user doesn’t see the ads, they won’t click on them. If a website has ads, they are using the ads to difray the costs of having a website, therefore you are killing your favorite website by not seeing the ads.
While I understand the point he’s trying to make here, I find that he has one major flaw in his writing. Ever since the dot-com-bust (five years ago!) no advertiser pays a website owner just for displaying the ads. They USED to do that until they realized an important thing: people weren’t clicking on them. So they realized the “Newspaper and Magazine Strategy” wasn’t worth the money they were paying. Now all ads only pay them based on how many times someone clicks on the link and goes to the advertised web page. I can’t speak for all users, but I know that no one in my immediate family or my wife’s immediate family clicks on those. We know enough about Internet scams and “too good to be true” web advertising to care. I don’t even look at the ads any more - they are invisible to my eyes, which just focus on the text content. So whether I can see the ads or not is irrelevant because the website owner won’t get any money from me. I think, although I have no proof, that most people are like that. Therefore, Tim’s arguement is a moot point.
However, if I could go against some of the comments left on his website for just a moment. Everyone complained about ads making a website ugly. These must be some really anal people when it comes to how things are organized. I’ve never been to a website where the ads made it so ugly it illicited a reaction from me. Don’t be so darned sensitive to this stuff!
Talking ads are a different story though!
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Jul
30
Sound card in my server tanked, taking down the ethernet card with it. Result - server was down most of yesterday. I took out the sound card today since there is no need for a sound card in a server. It’s back up and better dang well stay up.
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Jul
28
In the news yesterday, 27 July 2005
Category: News | Leave a Comment
I wanted to be able to talk about the news stories I found very interesting without creating an additional post for each story, so here is the first edition of “In the news today”.
This BBC story shows how NASA’s attitude about shuttle accidents has changed since the 2002 shuttle destruction. Previously NASA was more concerned about its PR image. How would it look if NASA was trying to check the shuttle for problems due to foam hitting the wing? For whatever reason, they decided to deny the astronauts the ability to check the condition of the shuttle, costing them their lives. This time around, with a possible heatshield tile missing from the Shuttle Discovery, they are doing a full diagnostic over the entire shuttle to determine the integrity of the protection system against the heat of reentry. I’m glad NASA has finally learned its lesson. I hope that this is one it doesn’t forget.
This BBC story mentions that the current US administration is moving away from the phrase “war on terror”.
In recent days, senior administration figures have been speaking publicly of “a global struggle against the enemies of freedom”, and of the need to use all “tools of statecraft” to defeat them.
I think this is a two tiered strategy by the government. First of all, they want to distance the terrorism conflict from the word war. This is because Bush and Cheney spent so much time conflagrating the War in Iraq with terrorism (despite its lack of truth) that most people see the two as synonymous. This poses a problem for Bush, who wants to be the President who tacked terrorism. Many people see the war in Iraq as another Vietnam in the worst case and barely a victory in the best case. On the other hand, I think most people are happy with the lack of terrorist acts on US soil, so separating the two issues in people’s minds would be helpful. Of course, it is his fault they are stuck together, but that’s something his legacy will have to deal with.
On the other side of things, this change of terms to describe our strategy against terrorism is not just another case of Washington spin. When fighting an enemy which isn’t represented by a whole country, it’s hard to have a real war. We can just wage war in the boundaries of every country with terrorists. Afghanistan was a unique case and I think it will be a stretch to apply to any current countries. Therefore it is up to our “soft” troops: the CIA and NSA. They are the ones who have to be the most diligent in finding the terrorists. Then they can communicate the information to their counterparts in the country involved. In the case of Scotland Yard or MI6 (whatever James Bond’s agency is) they would be most cooperative. In some other countries we might have to wage covert wars. However, the days of dropping troops into countries are pretty much over as far as terrorism goes.
This BBC news story says what I’ve been saying all along:
People who illegally share music files online are also big spenders on legal music downloads, research suggests.
Digital music research firm The Leading Question found that they spent four and a half times more on paid-for music downloads than average fans.
To me this says that people feel the same way that I do - 30 seconds is nowhere near enough time to preview a song and determine if you want to buy it. I know that they are trying to prevent the analogue recording trick, but they are just keeping me from buying music. Since a lot of music is crap, I’d rather download it first to make sure I like it. Then I buy the CD (or the legal music downloads) to support the band.
Why shouldn’t you use Windows on your computers/servers? Because a UK hacker accessed *97* US government computers…
“Via the internet, the defendant identified US government network computers with an open Microsoft Windows connection.”
Yeah, switch to Linux!
Finally, This article mentions that Sony wishes to create an download store for its video stores; in layman’s terms “an iTunes for movies”. It’s a great idea, but I’ll never buy into it for the same reason I dislike downloading music from iTunes and Napster.
1) I am not in control of the quality - most music stores release the music at an inferior quality when compared to ripping it off of commercial CDs
2) I can’t experience it on infinite computers - Napster and iTunes say I can only listen on 3 computers. I have four in my house, so what’s that about?
3) I can’t experience it on whatever portable player I want - iTunes only works on iPods and WMAs don’t play on iPods. This is BS and they know it.
Fix those issues and I’ll be a loyal customer.
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Jul
28
Why the Creative Commons Makes so much more sense…
Category: Geek Love, Internet, News | Leave a Comment
Today I was reading an article about the perils of blogging about the workplace. This is something I have always avoided. I think it’s ok to say something like, “Man, this guy was a real jerk to me in the cafeteria, I wonder what problems he was facing to feel that way.” It’s not ok to say, “Man, my boss is such an [insert favorite insult]” because that will just cause problems. Don’t think that he/she might not read it. Although I garner a few thousand hits to my website a month, I know that I have a pretty small audience compared to the more famous bloggers and I figured my blog to be relatively obscure. My wife’s neighbor googled me and found all sorts of stuff on my website that we presented as proof that he had researched me. (This is not as weird as it sounds, she grew up with him as a neighbor and he protects her as a niece or maybe even a daughter - and he’s a great guy) So, your boss might end up on your site too. Keep your comments as generic as possible and try not to mention your company by name and you’ll probably be ok. But I’m way off on a tangent from my purpose for writing this post.
The article, like all articles in a newspaper, is copyrighted. This means that the authors can legally impose prices upon those who wish to use the articles. The folly of copyrighting news in today’s technological world comes to light if you click on the “reuse or republish this article” button. This brought up a Java site that looked like:
I want to use this article in [box with list of choices]
Price: $$
[Click for Quote button]
For fun I decided to click on the list of choices to see what was available. There were standard entries such as: use this in a book, use in a CD-ROM, use in a newsletter,etc Then there were two that caught my eye: use this on a website, use this in an email.
To purchase the rights to publish the article on a website costs $100! This is completely unenforceable unless the person republishing has a famous website. If no one can ever find your website, they can never ask for the money. But this wasn’t the craziest part of this whole thing. To send the article via email costs $1. Does that make any sense? There is a button right next to the article that says, “email this article to friends.” This costs $0. But if you are “republishing” it you have to pay $1? However, things get even more absurd when you realize what happens with email. Let’s say I pay the dollar to email the article to you. There is no way for them to collect a fee from you if you turn around and email it to the entire world. The primary reason for this being the fact that anyone can go out there and get a free email address without even revealing their real identity. I certainly did that in the early 90s in order to have multiple email addresses.
The author would be better served by a Creative Commons license. With such a license he could have a attrib-deriv-no commercial license and would accomplish the same thing. This would mean that anyone could copy the article given that they gave him credit as the author and did not make any money off of it. After all, I don’t care if you copy every word of my blog as long as you clarify that *I* wrote it, not you, and you don’t make any money off of it. After all, these are my thoughts and if anyone is going to make money it should be me (or you and I), so I think it’s only fair. That way information is distributed and authors make money if others are going to make money. After all, do you really think that anyone who uses it in a newsletter or email is really going to pay you? No, so why make them criminals?
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Jul
28
Comments
Category: Site | Leave a Comment
Just wanted to remind people that the comments, trackbacks, and pingbacks on this site are moderated to help prevent comment spamming. Your comments probably won’t be posted for a few hours after they are made, so there is no need to double-post.
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Jul
27
tumultuous times ahead
Category: Site | Leave a Comment
As we switch the server over to Fiber Optic lines (providing faster experience for you), you may experience some periods of downtime on the server. I hope to have things resolved by the end of the week.
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Jul
27
What will we do now?
Category: News, Politics | Leave a Comment
Those of you who have been reading since I was blogging on Tripod will recall (or be able to go back and read) my post in which I wondered why the terrorists, if their true aim was terror, were not attacking us randomly in all manner of locations. You can only do the big attacks so many times before security gets too tight around the important targets. For example, for a long time after the 11 September attacks in the US, the Statue of Liberty was closed. Washington DC is also now off limits for any pilots who have not obtained prior clearance. Anyway, these types of attacks barely terrorize me. They happen in certain high visibility areas that most Americans have no contact with. If it weren’t for visiting my wife’s family, for example, I’d never be in the New York City area. Therefore, I wondered why they didn’t just attack mass transit and other public areas which are impossible to protect.
It was so obvious that it was only a matter of time before it would actually happen. Israel-style terrorism has arrived in London. It remains to be seen if the two attacks of July 2005 are the last of the attacks or just a foreshadowing of times to come. So far we have been blessed not to have one of these types of attacks in the US. I think there would be colossal circumstances from a series of subway and bus explosions in the Us.
I don’t want it to seem as if I was wishing the terrorists would resort to this type of violence. I wish they would just stop with all the violence and put their anger towards somethin