Dwelling: Ross Olson's Journal

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Friday, November 28, 2003

Good Beats

@ 11 pm | PermaLink

Interesting "music video" as produced by the North Korean government.

Its got a good hook, but the ending is really weak.

Discussion Board

Thursday, November 27, 2003

On Johnny Cash

@ 06 pm | PermaLink

It turns out that one of Johnny Cash's daughters, Tara, lives in Portland. The Portland Tribune had this in a sidebar as part of an interview with her this week.

Life Lessons

In 2000, Johnny and June Carter Cash called their big family to the Carter home in Virginia for what they called Grandchildren Week. For it, Tara Cash of Portalnd prepared this list she calls "The Lessons I learned From My Father."

Ice cream tastes so much better churned on the front porch of an old home in the country surrounded by a lot of loved ones.
It's far better to pile into a Jeep with 10 others singing "Children Go Where You Send Thee" than it is to watch television.
You'll never find arrowheads in an old creek bed if you don't spend quite a lot of time looking for them.
Watermelon tastes better with salt on it.
Mistletoe is abundant in the woods, and it's free if you have a shotgun.
Silence and humming can say volumes more than words.
Always throw the small perch back.
It's always best to end a fine day with a bowl of ice cream.
Always talk to your worm when baiting a hook with it.
When passing cows, always greet them.
Stick to the rules, then break them.
If something is stolen from you, let it go. Then buy 40 of whatever it was to replace it and put them everywhere.
Children should skinny-dip and catch fireflies.
Sometimes your closet can be the coziest place in the world.
There really are such things as comfort foods, and you should have them every day.
Chili tastes better when cooked at 60 miles per hour.
Expect to be respected.
Always kiss your babies on the lips.
If you see clean, clear water trickling out of a mountain, stop and take a drink.
When you order soft ice cream at a drive-through, you must eat it in under three minutes.
Wearing black really does make you look thinner.
You're never too old to be cool.

Fortunately, I didn't have to retype that. I got smart and found the original article online.

I wanted to keep this around, but so did Amy. She's clipping it out of the paper and keeping it on her desk.

Discussion Board

Friday, November 21, 2003

Progressive Energy

@ 10 pm | PermaLink

Tonight I picked up a Kill A Watt meter that tracks the energy usage of an appliance. Right now I've got it between my iBook and the wall outlet, and I'm seeing how much energy my 'book is using. Then I can compare it to some of the other computers around here as well as the appliances that we have. I'm particularly interested in checking out how much my G3 is taking up, since I have it running as a server which I've been leaving on for most of the time.

<rant>Not that I can schedule when my B&WG3 running OS X turns off and on of course, since startup and shut down scheduling are features that it has taken Apple *3* frickin' years to put *back* into their operating system. And even then, I've got to wait till I pick up Panther in order to get it.</rant>

Since winter is coming on and Amy and I are trying to keep our bills down, I'm also interested in checking out what the most efficient way to keep warm is: the little electric heater, the electric blanket, the wall heaters are all basically unknowns to me in terms of the energy they use. Well no more!

I had been trying to justify picking one of these up for going on two years since I first read about them in Home Power magazine. They were running $40 to $60 online and such, but about 8 months ago I saw them at Radio Shack, still for about the same price.

Well, I went looking around for them again a couple months ago and it turns out that Radio Shack is selling off their remaining inventory, so I hunted high and low to find them and the Jantzen Beach Radio Shack had them for just $19.95. So after hemming and hawing and a little encouragement from Amy, I finally picked one up.

I'm a big fan of what I call Progressive Energy. Progressive Energy is about being aware of what I as an electricity-consuming person can do to minimize my waste energy. I consider Progressive Energy to be more approachable than Alternative Energy. I'd like to expound on that a bit. (Read more...)

Previously, that same day...

Networking Humour

@ 03 pm | PermaLink

It took me a little bit but this image really made me giggle... It's titled "How to catch script kiddies" which is key to understanding the last panel.

Thanks to NTK for the link.

I included the image in the Read More section.

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Proscenia

@ 01 pm | PermaLink

Hmmm... looks interesting. I'm not sure what Proscensia's purpose is, but it looks like they've got a pretty good newsletter going.

http://www.proscenia.net/news/

If it turns out to be pretty good over the next month, I'll post it to the DevGroup NW blog.

Looks like it's got some good industry-wide news as well as some Oregon-specific info for the interactive/digital media sector.

Discussion Board

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

So Crates Humour

@ 06 pm | PermaLink

In ancient Greece, the great philosopher Socrates (469-399BC), was known for his wisdom. One day he spoke with a pupil who exclaimed: "Socrates, guess what I just heard about one of your students!"

"Pause a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me anything, let me ask you three questions."

"Three questions?"

"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you tell me what you heard, I must ask you... Is it Truth?"

"Well," the man replied, "I don't know if it's true, I just heard it from Xenophon, I don't know it for a fact."

"My second question," said Socrates. "Is it Good?"

"No," the man said. "I mean... To the contrary..."

"So, it's neither Truth or Good," noted Socrates. "Now, my third question. Is it Useful?"

"No, it's not," the man admitted. "I cannot see how you would benefit."

"Well," concluded Socrates, with a smile: "If what you want to tell me is neither Truth, Good or Useful, then why tell me at all?"

After this exchange Socrates' pupil continued on his way, with new understanding and increased regard for the wisdom of Socrates. This also explains why Socrates never found out that Plato was sexing up his wife.

Discussion Board

Previously, that same day...

Video Remix

@ 12 pm | PermaLink

GI Joe!

heavengallery.com/fenslerfilms/

Discussion Board

Saturday, November 8, 2003

Every Packet is Sacred

@ 10 am | PermaLink

Every Packet's Sacred

With apologies to Mr.'s Palin & Jones, Cerf & Metcalf

There are POTS in the world.
There are Tokens.
There are Arcnets and fibre channels, and then
There are those that send in Morse, but
I've never been one of them.

I'm an Ethernet Router,
And have been since before I was spec'd,
And the one thing they say about Routers is:
The data they pass on is perf'ct.

You don't have to be hundred meg' T.
You don't have to have a VPN.
You don't have to have DHCP on. You're
A Router the moment you're plugedin!,

Because...
Every packet's sacred.
Every packet's great.
If a packet is wasted,
Vint gets quite irate.

Let the Belkins 'jack theirs -
and have a pop-up spawn.
Metcalf'll make them pay for
Each packet that's not passed on.

Every packet's wanted.
Every packet's good.
Every packet's needed
In your neighbourhood.

RIAA, Studios, Lawyers,
Want to block yours any time,
But Vint loves those who treat their
Packets as sublime.

Every packet's sacred.
Every packet's great.
If a packet is wasted,...
...Vint gets quite irate.

Every packet's useful.
Every packet's fine.
the Net sends ev'rybody's.
Mine!
And mine!
And mine!

Let the Censors spill theirs
O'er "beaver", "breast", and "cocaine".
Metcalf'll strike them down for
Each packet that's dropped in vain.

Every packet's sacred.
Every packet's good.
Every packet's needed
In your neighbourhood.

Every packet's sacred.
Every packet's great.
If a packet is wasted,
Vint gets quite iraaaaaate!

Discussion Board

Sunday, November 2, 2003

Copyrights suspended for abandoned technology

@ 09 am | PermaLink

From the NewtonTalk list. DJ Vollkasko wrote:

-------

Please allow me to most respectfully recommend this link to your esteemed attention:

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/docs/librarian_statement_01.html . I would be very interested in learning your conclusions on this topic and what impact you see to the Newton platform.

Statement of the Librarian of Congress Relating to Section 1201 Rulemaking
[...]

I am today issuing a final rule that sets out four classes of works that will be subject to exemptions for the next three years from the statute's prohibition against circumvention of technology that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work. [...] The four classes of works are: [...]

Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.
Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access.
Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling of the ebook's read-aloud function and that prevent the enabling of screen readers to render the text into a specialized format.

Faithfully yours,

DJ Vollkasko

-------

From what I can tell, this basically frees up nearly any abandoned platform's software for the next three years. I'm assuming that the 3 year term is a test run. Let's hope it sticks!

Most of the people on the NewtonTalk list have been *very* sensitive to copyright issues, and the primary archive, UNNA.org, will not host anything that is not specifically noted by the author as free to distribute.

The only real question is the definition of the term "Obsolete". My Netwon is no where near obsolete, but it certainly is abandonded.

Discussion Board

November 2003

Please Note: If you have not found the entry you are looking for please read about how to find the one you want.

November 2003

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