Mostly Harmless

Mostly about my amusement

Year: 2007 (page 2 of 18)

December 19, 2007

Is there a Darwin Award equivalent for lawsuits…?

Thanks Hyundai for the Duh imageAfter that dim bulb lost the case against the RIAA (gremlins used her computer not her) I was hoping that other opponents against oh say, the MPAA would have better results.

So naturally when TorrentSpy received a complaint they basically went back and modified forum postings and talked about it in a public forum. Arstechnica explains but geez.

It was bad enough when the judge rationalized that data in RAM is a record and needs to be preserved (note: when that happens, you a) kill the network link, and b) ask the judge for help with that, it’s really game over when the judge is that clueless). The judge made a bad call but for them to go back and modify what data they had… that’s just plain stupid.

The MPAA and RIAA continue to shake down people for cash. They intentionally abuse their customers and rationalize it as good for their market. But if you really do break the law (see the RIAA genius) or you are skating on shaky ground like TorrentSpy then don’t make it worse by actually tampering with evidence that is supposed to come out in discovery.

December 18, 2007

Senator Harry Reid Senate Majority “Leader”?

I think Senator Reid forgot what the word leader means. It does not mean roll over and play dead.

Seriously this is why the next president will be a republican. Likely Rudy, maybe Mitt. They’ll get all Jack Bauer and the Democrats will fall over themselves again.

I continue to not get it. I understand that the Democrats want to be “the grown ups” and not get all partisan with the administration. But what ever happened to just following the law?

The telcos and the administration may have broken laws in the warrentless wiretapping cases. In the administration’s case they always claim it’s a state secret, they did not break the law, and if they did break the law then it did not apply to them.

The telcos are not the administration and should not be able to pull off that nonsense. If the administration got them to break the law then that needs to come out in the lawsuits. Why not let people see what is really going on?

The immunity bill is not dead just delayed. During the Thanksgiving not recess, congress kept things going to prevent President Bush from pulling his usual fast ones. I hope at the end of the year someone is keeping an eye on Harry Reid.

December 16, 2007

Zatoichi Challenged

When you are stuck at home thanks to a wet and icy storm you see a lot of TV. One of the high definition channels we get is the Kung Fu channel. They take a movie and then play it over and over again for weeks. Zatoichi films get lots of air time.

Zatoichi Challenged image from Wikipedia

Ichi’s stories all follow this plot line: he comes across some nice people who need help usually from gangsters while he does him blind masseur bit. He needs to work because he like to gamble. When the bad guy makes his move, that’s when Ichi starts leaving piles of bodies around.

It’s great fun. In this movie he befriends Ryota the son of a woman he met on the road. Ichi agrees to bring the boy to the his father when the mother dies. Along the way he meets the samurai Akatsuka who is not really a masterless samurai and is on a mission to wipe out all the participants of an illegal operation. One of those unwitting participants is Ryota’s father so at the end of the movie Ichi and Akatsuka have a great duel.

Ichi loses his sword (he killed Akatsuka’s assistant by throwing it) and Akatsuka tries to kill Ryota’s dad. Ichi grabs and struggles with him and Akatsuka must decide to kill Ichi when he is unarmed and helpless. Aside from the fact that he genuinely likes him, Ichi’s determination wins him over and he walks away.

The movie ends with Ichi leaving Ryota with his father and the sadness that Ichi feels because despite not wanting to he actually cares for the little boy.

December 15, 2007

It’s an action figure

G.I. Joe action figureOn my son’s birthday I got him a G.I. Joe Sigma 6 Arctic Duke.  This one is from Hasbro’s web site.

Its very different from the one’s I had growing up (but still has the kung-fu grip). For starters it looks like it could survive anything I could do to it. I don’t think I could break this and I am sure that a 6 year old would have trouble too.

I want to start getting the kids more appropriate *cough* less expensive *cough* toys. Right now the basement is filled with toys that are wrecked and should be tossed out. Between uncles and cousins, those kids can out stock a toy store.

His grandparents had gotten him a Lionel train and he is nuts about it. I was talking to him and asking him if he likes the G.I. Joe:

Me: Do you like it?

Son: It’s okay. It doesn’t do anything.

Me: Well, I got you this doll so you could play with it. You played with your sisters dolls and I thought you’d like this one better.

Son: (Looking at me like I need pity) Daddy, It’s not a doll. It’s an action figure.

Sigh. He started playing with it some more but he’ll always prefer any Lionel train over an action figure…

December 14, 2007

Baseball and doping

When the report came out most of the guys in the office were not surprised. Two things surprised me about that report.

First was that some people did not have a problem with “juicing”. They pointed out that baseball is a competitive sport and that their job is fill seats. I mentioned but what about betting in baseball? “That’s different. That’s cheating.”

The second thing was one name on the list. Chuck Knoblauch was on the list. I used to pay some attention to the Yankees and Knoblauch was one of my favorite players. He was not a superstar, did not show up in the news dating some famous model or singer, and really just did his job.

I got a kick out out of the fact that when a Yankee’s pitcher hit someone, Chuck was the designated payback. He’d almost always do this twist and get hit in the back and just take the base. When he got traded I thought that was just silly. They made lots of trades and I just stopped paying attention to baseball.

Nothing will come of this report. There will be some sacrificial motions and some players may get tarred and feathered. But as long as baseball keeps paying people multi-million dollar contracts then the players will just find new ways to “become more competative”.

December 9, 2007

Gundam 00 GN-004 Gundam Nadleeh

So that’s where the missing GN-004 was. Episode 10 revealed it.

Gundam 00 GN-004 Gundam Nadleeh

The episode was weird; looks like the only Gundam Meisters that aren’t really nuts are Setsuna and Lockon. Tieria was revealed to be a “you are not worthy” creep in episode 7 and Allelujah Haptism switches personalities to a homicidal maniac.

Aside from Allelujah possibly having some New Type ability (and what was with Tieria’s eyes when Virtue revealed Nadleeh?) he also turns into a real nut job.

The show is still developing well and I like it more than Gundam Seed. It was revealed in episode 9 that the Celestial Being organization was around for a while. One of the characters told Lockon that both her parents were Gundam Meisters. With such a hidden history and established force (Setsuna was saved by a Gundam in 2301, the story takes place in 2307) I wonder if it will be revealed that there are other Gundam teams working in the shadows?

A good write up of the episode can be found at Random Curiosity.

December 8, 2007

2007 Christmas tree

Here is a picture of the 2007 Christmas tree just completed today.

2007 Christmas tree small

This year we purchased a new tree. It’s pre-lit and we added LED lights to add color. It’s also 9 feet tall and narrow at the base so it looks different from the one we had for years.

We all think it looks good. You can compare the new one to the old one at this link. The LED lights are like little colored flashlights. They project colored circles on the walls!

Disco effects… It would have been different but I could have replaced the spire star on top with a mirror ball… 🙂

December 6, 2007

Now this is just scary

pg-13 I just saw this on Reddit: House vote on illegal images sweeps in Wi-Fi, Web sites. The vote was 409-2.

According to the article this bill would make it a crime to run an open Wi-Fi access point without being able to report illegal images including obscene cartoons or face fines up to $300,000. Read the link, it covers it well.

I work in network security for companies. Outside of web proxies using subscription based content filters, how can a coffee shop or library afford the technology to scan images for content?

Huh. I wonder if someone reports open Wi-Fi hot spots and a fine is levied, can that person put in for a reward? As a Dad I think the idea of protecting children is admirable. But can they stick to actual laws that work? This type of law pushes the crime away from the offender and onto other people: they can’t stop these monsters but the law can abuse people who make it possible for people to do bad things.

Why not just go after the electric companies? No electricity means no Internet. Why can’t the electric companies maintain the technology that lets them tell when people are committing crimes using electricity?

This is why President Bush’s administration can get away with anything at all. The Democrats are trying to out Republican the Republicans.

I bet Threat Level would have something on this if they were not covering Hans Reiser’s murder trial so closely.

PG-13 image lifted from Wikipedia entry.

Update: Seems like Arstechnica sheds the light of reason on the bill. I still dislike the pushing the penalty for the crime onto others (ISPs apparently) but Mom and Pop coffee shops may be off the hook.

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Jan Dembowski

Jan Dembowski

I am a software enthusiast who is easily amused and definitely mostly harmless.

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