I realize my posting has been very light the past week or so - and really light the last couple of days. I have been fighting - hard - with a number computer problems. First repetitive crashing on my main office computer, then the kid's installation of "fun" little games then a couple of software malfunctions that resulted in uninstall/reinstalls. The ridiculous crashing problem appears to have been resolved by deleting all - and I mean every single speck - of ATI software from my system and letting Windows simply find and install only the drivers for my video card. The kid's computer mess has been a long and ugly process, involving rootkits and registry scrubbing.
Then we get to the tipping point today.
I have a backup computer, if you will. It is a slightly less capable computer than my main one, but is a solid little system I built from an Abit IS7-V2 motherboard. It has an Intel Celeron clocked at 2.9 GHz and 512 Gbytes of (slightly slow) PC 2700 memory. While battling the problems with the main box, I was simultaneously updating the backup with all the latest Windows XP patches (the box hadn't been online in a while). All that went swimmingly.
Then I installed some better PC 3200 memory in the backup. And all hell broke loose.
Windows Genuine Disadvantage® tool decided my box was no longer compliant with the dictates of the mothership and disabled my internet connection and informed me I had to revalidate my legal software. All of a sudden, my wireless card was no longer on the system and I had no way to validate. I had to call, spend 45 minutes or so of my time trying to get the damned Windows software revalidated (which it was - hell, I had just downloaded 41 critical updates not an hour before I installed memory). Then I tried to figure out why I suddenly had no wireless card - I mean it was not even there according to Windows. Then I shut the computer off and on three times and suddenly the card was back and I was connected. (The card stopped working and disappeared from the system exactly when Windows decided I needed to revalidate it and only came back after I had.)
So now, it appears that Microsoft has decided to disable things on my system if I change or add components.
And I'm done with them. I'll keep my legal copies of XP, I'll keep running it on these computers I own until they die of old age. But I will be damned if I will ever buy another Microsoft product of any kind whatsoever.
A woman in Mountain View, California took her 4-year old daughter to the park. This would be the same park I posted about here and here. This is the home of terrorist squirrels and their ditzy defenders from all over the world. So you should be able to predict where this is heading.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. A mother is blaming snack chips for a squirrel attack on her four-year-old daughter.
The attack at a Mountain View park earlier this week left Debbie Allard's daughter with scratches on her face.
Allard says the animal was eating snack chips out of her purse. The squirrel attacked when the 4-year-old tried to get the bag of chips back.
Obviously, the squirrel just wanted some dip for the chips. Toddler dip. There will, of course, be a worldwide outcry demanding that the woman make restitution for depriving the squirrel of its human snack food.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette carries an article warning people not to feed wild deer. Their so-called act of kindness may actually be helping spread disease among the deer herds - and possibly eventually to humans.
Now is when deer elicit a love-hate response. Snow still lies deep across much of the state, especially in the mountains and northern counties. Deer have been plodding through it for more than a month. Often the deer congregate around homes where they glean easy meals from shrubbery and landscape plantings. Rhododendron and laurel planted around many homes are shredded and stripped.
Some homeowners are frustrated and tempted to ignore the law and declare open season on deer. Others feel sorry for the animals and want to give them a handout.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission's wildlife veterinarian says, "don't feed them."
At a recent presentation to the board of commissioners, Dr. Walter Cottrell said feeding deer in winter could artificially increase deer densities and spread disease.
Cottrell's main concern was the specter of spreading Chronic Wasting Disease among state herds. CWD has never been confirmed in Pennsylvania deer, but it has been found within 75 miles of the state's borders in New York, and within 30 miles of Pennsylvania in Hampshire County, West Virginia.
Twelve other states have confirmed CWD in deer, including Montana, South Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah, Wisconsin, Illinois, Oklahoma and Kansas.
There is another, scary thing to contemplate here. Deer drool spreads CWD. It spreads very easily from animal to animal as a result. Deer often get into crops meant for human consumption. How's that for a cheerful thought? (Yes, it is completely speculative).
The fact of the matter is that John Murtha, unindicted Abscam co-conspirator, is an inept politician with a big mouth. He sank his own big plan to screw the troops by opening his big mouth and telling everyone in the world what his real agenda is. And the Washington Post reports just that today. Murtha shot himself in the foot, just like a REMF.
The plan was bold: By tying President Bush's $100 billion war request to strict standards of troop safety and readiness, Democrats believed they could grab hold of Iraq war policy while forcing Republicans to defend sending troops into battle without the necessary training or equipment.
But a botched launch by the plan's author, Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), has united Republicans and divided Democrats, sending the latter back to the drawing board just a week before scheduled legislative action, a score of House Democratic lawmakers said last week.
"If this is going to be legislation that's crafted in such a way that holds back resources from our troops, that is a non-starter, an absolute non-starter," declared Rep. Jim Matheson (Utah), a leader of the conservative Blue Dog Democrats.
Murtha's credentials as a Marine combat veteran, a critic of the war and close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) were supposed to make him an unassailable spokesman for Democratic war policy. Instead, he has become a lightning rod for criticism from Republicans and members of his own party.
Freshman Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), a retired Navy admiral who was propelled into politics by the Iraq war, said Murtha could still salvage elements of his strategy, but Sestak, an outspoken war opponent, is "a bit wary" of a proposal that would influence military operations.
He succeeded only in splitting his own party. Murtha's need for adulation from the left fringe undid his entire scheme. Because every, single voter will know exactly what really drives his plot. And it is not concern for the troops. I would completely disagree with the Post on one point: the plan was not "bold". The Murtha "Kill as many troops as it takes" plan was - and is - an act of cowardice. It is an attempt to avoid responsibility for the failure of the war while ensuring the war fails.
All of a sudden, the news is plastered everywhere that the US is planning for an attack on Iran. The Times of London has a breathless report that several unnamed pentagon generals "will quit" if the US attacks Iran.
SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.
Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.
“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”
A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.
Seymour Hersh is recycling his dire predictions - first made last year - that the war planning is ongoing. He calls it a "Redirection" of US policy.
In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
And I smell smoke here.
There is a concerted effort going on to make the public anxious that the administration plans an attack on Iran even though the administration is very openly saying they have no intentions of doing so. Military planning is an ongoing thing and means nothing in and of itself. There is probably a file cabinet in the Pentagon that has a plan for military action against Lichtenstein, for Pete's sake. I doubt the US will attack Iran, Bush would not have the political support necessary for such a move. He knows it - so do the political enemies of the administration. But if they can scare up enough public sentiment, they think there will be some political advantage. So the smoke machines are in full operation.
Yesterday, I posted about an op-ed by Cass Sunstein from the Washington Post. He pointed to the great potential of the wiki-type projects to solve problems in the world. He breifly mentioned some dangers as well. Here's an essay that point to even greater potential damage the digital collectivism mentality can lead to. Hint - the title says it all: Digital Maoism.
(JARON LANIER:) My Wikipedia entry identifies me (at least this week) as a film director. It is true I made one experimental short film about a decade and a half ago. The concept was awful: I tried to imagine what Maya Deren would have done with morphing. It was shown once at a film festival and was never distributed and I would be most comfortable if no one ever sees it again.
In the real world it is easy to not direct films. I have attempted to retire from directing films in the alternative universe that is the Wikipedia a number of times, but somebody always overrules me. Every time my Wikipedia entry is corrected, within a day I'm turned into a film director again. I can think of no more suitable punishment than making these determined Wikipedia goblins actually watch my one small old movie.
Twice in the past several weeks, reporters have asked me about my filmmaking career. The fantasies of the goblins have entered that portion of the world that is attempting to remain real. I know I've gotten off easy. The errors in my Wikipedia bio have been (at least prior to the publication of this article) charming and even flattering.
Reading a Wikipedia entry is like reading the bible closely. There are faint traces of the voices of various anonymous authors and editors, though it is impossible to be sure. In my particular case, it appears that the goblins are probably members or descendants of the rather sweet old Mondo 2000 culture linking psychedelic experimentation with computers. They seem to place great importance on relating my ideas to those of the psychedelic luminaries of old (and in ways that I happen to find sloppy and incorrect.) Edits deviating from this set of odd ideas that are important to this one particular small subculture are immediately removed. This makes sense. Who else would volunteer to pay that much attention and do all that work? ……..
……
The collective rises around us in multifarious ways. What afflicts big institutions also afflicts pop culture. For instance, it has become notoriously difficult to introduce a new pop star in the music business. Even the most successful entrants have hardly ever made it past the first album in the last decade or so. The exception is American Idol. As with the Wikipedia, there's nothing wrong with it. The problem is its centrality.
More people appear to vote in this pop competition than in presidential elections, and one reason for this is the instant convenience of information technology. The collective can vote by phone or by texting, and some vote more than once. The collective is flattered and it responds. The winners are likable, almost by definition.
But John Lennon wouldn't have won. He wouldn't have made it to the finals. Or if he had, he would have ended up a different sort of person and artist. The same could be said about Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, Joni Mitchell, Duke Ellington, David Byrne, Grandmaster Flash, Bob Dylan (please!), and almost anyone else who has been vastly influential in creating pop music.
It is rather long, but it is worth the read. The hive mind collectivism that is popping up in various locations on the web is actually rather scary. Don't believe it? Write a blog entry that gets noticed by the artist formerly known as the Daou Report. When the swarm arrives, the spam filters go into meltdown.
UPDATE: Sorry, should have hat-tipped to Little Green Footballs for the link. Also head over there to see examples of hive mentality in action at Digg.
It used to be called guilt by association, but the AP appears to have taken sole ownership of the term with this "story". Apparently, it is a matter of grave concern and much interest to the AP that Mitt Romney's great, great, great, great, great grandmother once owned a cat. Or something equally ridiculous.
SALT LAKE CITY - While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate's great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.
Polygamy was not just a historical footnote, but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first Mormon president.
Romney's great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.
Romney's great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she "used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow" over her own husband's multiple marriages.
This is exactly like the media reports about Arnold Schwarzenegger when he first ran for governor of California. They went something like, "Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, like Adolph Hitler, is originally from Austria." This is nothing but a media attempt at guilt by association. No matter how hard I try, I can't convince my great, great grandfather to change a thing about himself or how he lived his life. Because he's dead. I'm willing to be anyone reading this has the same limited amount of influence over - or responsibility for - something their ancestors did. This is pretty sleazy.
Geek Stuff, Rants | Gaius Sunday, 25 February , 2007 | 
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