This needs repeating; add it to your vocabulary
Aug. 21st, 2008 | 03:03 am
The most common retort against privacy advocates -- by those in favor of ID
checks, cameras, databases, data mining and other wholesale surveillance
measures -- is this line: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have
to hide?"
Some clever answers: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause
to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they
keep changing the definition." "Because you might do something wrong with my
information." My problem with quips like these -- as right as they are -- is
that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It's not.
Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human
condition with dignity and respect.
Two proverbs say it best: Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? ("Who watches the
watchers?") and "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
checks, cameras, databases, data mining and other wholesale surveillance
measures -- is this line: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have
to hide?"
Some clever answers: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause
to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they
keep changing the definition." "Because you might do something wrong with my
information." My problem with quips like these -- as right as they are -- is
that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It's not.
Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human
condition with dignity and respect.
Two proverbs say it best: Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? ("Who watches the
watchers?") and "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
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Dark Knight in a nutshell
Jul. 26th, 2008 | 10:15 pm
Great effects. Fun stunts. Good Joker. Really long and yet still felt a bit shallow.
Now I have a strong urge to watch Wag the Dog to wash the taste of cheap half-assed ethical/political commentary out of my mouth.
Now I have a strong urge to watch Wag the Dog to wash the taste of cheap half-assed ethical/political commentary out of my mouth.
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Game Day 2008 and 4e ramblings
Jun. 8th, 2008 | 03:15 pm
mood: 
contemplative
 Yesterday was Game Day 2008, a promo vehicle by Wizards of the Coast. This year was, of course, all about the release of Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition. WotC provided a quick-start module, a map, some minis, some pregens, and even some dice. Originally I'd planned to play in one session and then DM a session, but as always there was a shortage of DMs. Instead, I ran the module for a group of five players (including ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jearl) and it went smoothly enough so I just kept going with a followup 'quest'. And, as a nice reward, I got to keep a bunch of the swag - the minis, a set of dice, and the game materials.Now, on to the 4e review... Actual play was very streamlined, possibly to a fault. It's been called a lot of things by a lot of reviewers: videogame-like, heavily influenced by World of Warcraft, D&D Lite. Some podcast or reviewer, I forget who, even said "It's like D&D, rewritten by Days of Wonder." Prior editions suggested using miniatures to keep track of combat. This is the first one that tries to outright require them. While minis certainly help resolve combat situations, there's a very negative effect that happens when every dungeon and every encounter involves pulling out the map and minis - players focus on the minis instead of their own imaginations. Players end up roleplaying by moving their minis and assume that the map is a complete model of the environment - if it's not on the map, the players won't think of it. In the Game Day session, this meant players often forgot they had skills that applied in situations, despite being experienced D&D players. As for the tactics, it's just very different from prior editions. There's good and bad to this - in general, the PCs are harder to kill and have more and better defined options, even at first level. On the upside, this meant I didn't have to pull any punches as the DM. In the demo session, I rolled everything out in the open, made monsters take shots at the clothies when they could, and generally tried to make the encounters challenging. In the end, despite being first level against a 3rd-level dragon with a superior tactical position, only the cleric died (and that was due, in retrospect, to a poor tactical decision on the part of the ~10-year-old player compounded with an AoE (dragon's breath) that hit him again when he was down.) On the downside, characters starting this powerful means the game skips over the early development, the struggle to survive that I feel shapes the character's advancement for a long while. The biggest failure in the new system is the lack of non-combat options. The skill system, which finally made some progress in d20/3rd edition, has been dumbed down and exists mostly to support combat. You no longer develop new skills as you gain levels - you're either trained or you aren't. There are basically two classes of skills - knowledge skills and encounter (mostly combat-related) skills. There are no crafting skills, no professions, and all of the rogue-related skills have been lumped together into one skill called Thievery. This simplification is, I believe, the reason they left out the Bard. If the system only supports everybody being really good at the few things they do, there's no room for somebody who is kinda good at a whole bunch of things. In summary, it's a great combat tactics game. It's even less of an RPG than 3rd edition was, and plays more like a boardgame version of World of Warcraft than prior editions of D&D. If you're attached to the look and feel of other versions of D&D, you probably won't like this. If you want a game to play with beer and pretzels but with just a little more depth and continuity, this is probably it - the only other choice in this niche is the campaign addon for Descent: Journeys in the Dark.  Personally, if I ever run D&D again, it will likely be 3.5 with elements of 4e backported in, or 4e with a hefty amount of 3.5 re-imported. I find it odd that in an industry that is competing with videogames (particularly MMOs) for an audience, WotC would choose to make their game more like the competition, rather than move in the one direction videogames/MMOs have a difficult time exploring - character development, interactive narratives and flexibility in game play. |
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Circuitlocution update
May. 12th, 2008 | 11:53 pm
Wherein I've got a music sample from the pss 460.
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Circuitlocution update.
May. 8th, 2008 | 03:57 pm
mood: 
accomplished
 | Update with another bending tutorial page at circuitlocution.com. Thing of note: Ribbon cables from a floppy drive make soldering 24 tiny wires to 24 tiny pins really fast and easy. It took longer to make the cable, but at least the chance of a short is tiny. Also, they make nice pictures. |
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tiny NIN review
May. 5th, 2008 | 05:00 pm
mood: 
blah
music: Nine Inch Nails - The Four of Us are Dying
The new NIN album is free, even lossless FLAC and full-on 24/96 WAV (better than CD). I think the distribution method has improved the music a great deal, or at least inspired a much more rapid production, which keeps it from getting too over-produced.
Anyway, track-by-track reviews:
1. 999,999 - ambient filler. meh.
2. 1,000,000 - More cowbell! Well, snare. Actually, it's pretty solid, and the lyrics actually fit.
3. Letting You - Mmm, glitch and dnb influences.
4. Discipline - I dunno. Rock somethingorother. Bland.
5. Echoplex - Take away the drum machine, and it's something like boring wanky 90s emo. Until about 2:30, and then suddenly the chord progression makes total sense and you've got a Broken-era soundscape.
6. Head Down - Stop rapping, Trent. The music's nifty.
7. Lights in the Sky - zzz.
8. Corona Radiata - ambient again. I never really know how to take these. This isn't Robert Fripp or Brian Eno-level ambient, so it just feels like filler to me. Maybe it's a special treat for someone with a really high-end audio setup that downloaded the super-high-quality version. Way more interesting around 4:45 or so.
9. The Four of Us are Dying - Instrumental. I'd like to hear Trent do something instrumental that wasn't also boring. I mean, it wasn't bad, it played with the sound space, but it still feels like something he whipped up in an afternoon while watching the Nature Channel.
10. Demon Seed - Ah, more of a return to Broken-era; methodical and droning like that era, but with more glitch. It's like the best of both worlds. I love the crunchy bits around 3:45.
So, it's a background noise album. This is Nine Inch Nails, here, and it's a background noise album. It's not what you'd expect from the guy that made the deeply emotional Pretty Hate Machine, the grungy and angry Broken or the scare-your-parents Downward Spiral.
It's not bad, though, and got more interesting on a second pass.
A least it wasn't The Fragile.
Anyway, track-by-track reviews:
1. 999,999 - ambient filler. meh.
2. 1,000,000 - More cowbell! Well, snare. Actually, it's pretty solid, and the lyrics actually fit.
3. Letting You - Mmm, glitch and dnb influences.
4. Discipline - I dunno. Rock somethingorother. Bland.
5. Echoplex - Take away the drum machine, and it's something like boring wanky 90s emo. Until about 2:30, and then suddenly the chord progression makes total sense and you've got a Broken-era soundscape.
6. Head Down - Stop rapping, Trent. The music's nifty.
7. Lights in the Sky - zzz.
8. Corona Radiata - ambient again. I never really know how to take these. This isn't Robert Fripp or Brian Eno-level ambient, so it just feels like filler to me. Maybe it's a special treat for someone with a really high-end audio setup that downloaded the super-high-quality version. Way more interesting around 4:45 or so.
9. The Four of Us are Dying - Instrumental. I'd like to hear Trent do something instrumental that wasn't also boring. I mean, it wasn't bad, it played with the sound space, but it still feels like something he whipped up in an afternoon while watching the Nature Channel.
10. Demon Seed - Ah, more of a return to Broken-era; methodical and droning like that era, but with more glitch. It's like the best of both worlds. I love the crunchy bits around 3:45.
So, it's a background noise album. This is Nine Inch Nails, here, and it's a background noise album. It's not what you'd expect from the guy that made the deeply emotional Pretty Hate Machine, the grungy and angry Broken or the scare-your-parents Downward Spiral.
It's not bad, though, and got more interesting on a second pass.
A least it wasn't The Fragile.
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Also, circuit bending
Apr. 27th, 2008 | 10:34 am
mood: accomplished
After about a year of idling, my ciruit-bending blog is 'active' again. I'm working on a hefty project, a Yamaha PSS-460, and trying to document the entire process. While I don't really intend to sell it, bent versions of this have sold on ebay for $400. That's generally true of 80s-era keyboards - bending them increases their value by 10x.
After this, I'm thinking of tracking down another V-Tech Talk 'n Learn Phonics Keyboard. It's a black blob device, which the bending hobbyists tend to shun, but I had surprisingly good and complex results with it so I want to document it, too. I think that black blob devices are where the biggest new developments are waiting to be made, given that two-chip (sound + cpu) keyboards haven't been produced since the early 90s.
After this, I'm thinking of tracking down another V-Tech Talk 'n Learn Phonics Keyboard. It's a black blob device, which the bending hobbyists tend to shun, but I had surprisingly good and complex results with it so I want to document it, too. I think that black blob devices are where the biggest new developments are waiting to be made, given that two-chip (sound + cpu) keyboards haven't been produced since the early 90s.
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SSRIs finally peer-reviewed
Feb. 26th, 2008 | 10:10 am
mood: 
nerdy
Short version: SSRIs don't work.
It took 21 years, but the original data submitted to the FDA that got Prozac approved has finally been peer-reviewed. The researchers (statisticians, really) found basically the same result that Breggin published back in '95, that "there was virtually no difference in the improvement scores for drug and placebo in patients with moderate depression and only a small and clinically insignificant difference among patients with very severe depression". The group also studied the trials of paroxetine (Seroxat, Paxil), venlafaxine (Effexor) and nefazodone (Serzone)
Also, a guardian article summarizing the results.
It took 21 years, but the original data submitted to the FDA that got Prozac approved has finally been peer-reviewed. The researchers (statisticians, really) found basically the same result that Breggin published back in '95, that "there was virtually no difference in the improvement scores for drug and placebo in patients with moderate depression and only a small and clinically insignificant difference among patients with very severe depression". The group also studied the trials of paroxetine (Seroxat, Paxil), venlafaxine (Effexor) and nefazodone (Serzone)
Also, a guardian article summarizing the results.
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A thin bicycle crowd in Copenhagen.
Jan. 15th, 2008 | 11:20 pm
mood: 
amused
Caption: A snowstorm tends to thin out of the number of cyclists a bit. Just a bit.
From
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif){kind=small}
copen_cycle. You should be reading it.Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Converting d20 to the 2d20 system.
Jan. 1st, 2008 | 01:12 pm
mood: 
groggy
While listening to the Fear the Boot podcast, during a discussion on dice systems, I had an idea for the easiest way to convert D&D from a linear probability mechanic to a bell-curve mechanic. At the same time, it would clear up too-granular 5% steps for bonuses to the roll, allowing an easier way to use the fractional bonuses as mentioned in the Unearthed Arcana.
I call it 2d20.
( Geeking about an RPG mechanic. )
I call it 2d20.
( Geeking about an RPG mechanic. )
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Email from Amazon
Sep. 8th, 2007 | 01:59 pm
mood: amused
As someone who has purchased or rated books by Robert A. Wilson, you might like to know that Finance for Sport and Leisure Managers: An Introduction will be released on September 21, 2007. You can pre-order yours by following the link below.
Finance for Sport and Leisure Managers: An Introduction
Robert Wilson
Price: $145.00
Release Date: September 21, 2007
Finance for Sport and Leisure Managers: An Introduction
Robert Wilson
Price: $145.00
Release Date: September 21, 2007
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Patton Oswalt's 'gifting suite' rant - awesome.
Jun. 4th, 2007 | 03:34 pm
mood: amused
warrenellis talks about the pimp line, but the coolest line of this is:Los Angeles is five of the best cities in the country, and three or four of the worst.
I don't know who Patton Oswalt is (I'm sure I will shortly), but he manages to say more in that line than Gaiman managed in his blurb about living cities that was quoted for Sim City.
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"Love Bombs"
Apr. 26th, 2007 | 10:13 pm
mood: amused
No shortage of these, of course, but here's a nice sampling from Tom Tomorrow:
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Wiio's Law
Apr. 13th, 2007 | 01:46 am
Wiio's law:
1. Communication usually fails, except by accident.
1.1 If communication can fail, it will.
1.2 If communication cannot fail, it still usually fails.
1.3 If communication seems to succeed in the intended way, there's a misunderstanding.
1.4 If you are content with your message, communication will certainly fail.
( more )
(Previously)
1. Communication usually fails, except by accident.
1.1 If communication can fail, it will.
1.2 If communication cannot fail, it still usually fails.
1.3 If communication seems to succeed in the intended way, there's a misunderstanding.
1.4 If you are content with your message, communication will certainly fail.
( more )
(Previously)
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New icon
Mar. 15th, 2007 | 11:45 pm
Haven't updated in, erm, a month and a half.
Anyway, been playing warcraft and doing capoeira. New icon to bring those together. Froze the trolls in various frames of dance and kick animations using a model viewer and then stuck 'em together in photoshop. The troll on the left is about to get rastera'd onto his ass.
Also, working it into a t-shirt that I'm still tweaking but will end up getting done up somewhere, eventually. Maybe it needs color, I dunno.
Bigger image:
Anyway, been playing warcraft and doing capoeira. New icon to bring those together. Froze the trolls in various frames of dance and kick animations using a model viewer and then stuck 'em together in photoshop. The troll on the left is about to get rastera'd onto his ass.
Also, working it into a t-shirt that I'm still tweaking but will end up getting done up somewhere, eventually. Maybe it needs color, I dunno.
Bigger image:
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Failing at the internets
Feb. 1st, 2007 | 01:40 am
Dear Lazyweb,
Once upon a time I had a browser that, when confronted with a 404 or 403 or pretty much any http error, added a "View Google Cache" link to the right-mouse-click. This was a great way to retrieve pages that ceased to exist online. I'm too lazy to learn other ways to accomplish this, but I have noticed a disturbing lack of such functionality within Firefox.
What gives? I've tried X different extensions all claiming to be able to do such a thing, yet going to http://users.informatik.haw-hamburg.de/
So, Lazyweb, what do I do now?
Once upon a time I had a browser that, when confronted with a 404 or 403 or pretty much any http error, added a "View Google Cache" link to the right-mouse-click. This was a great way to retrieve pages that ceased to exist online. I'm too lazy to learn other ways to accomplish this, but I have noticed a disturbing lack of such functionality within Firefox.
What gives? I've tried X different extensions all claiming to be able to do such a thing, yet going to http://users.informatik.haw-hamburg.de/
So, Lazyweb, what do I do now?
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Getting right to the point.
Jan. 13th, 2007 | 08:58 pm
mood: snarky
Getting to the point, and pre-empting that meme, here's mine:
Reply to this post and tell me why you like me.
Then post this in your journal, if you, like me, would rather cut to the chase and publically announce your desire for validation.
It's a joke.
Reply to this post and tell me why you like me.
Then post this in your journal, if you, like me, would rather cut to the chase and publically announce your desire for validation.
It's a joke.
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RAW.
Jan. 11th, 2007 | 08:11 pm
...
George Dorn had decided to let his hair grow long, smoke dope and become a musician. He had succeeded in two of those ambitions.
R.A.W. was a genius, though not the same genius I thought he was some 15 years ago, when I was young, impressionable, and in need of an alias. More of that some other time. Short version is, 23 and 5 and discordianism were all pranks. Brilliant pranks.
Not sure what else to say. Guy had a crazy life. Wrote some crazy books that went over the heads of most people. A hefty chunk of it probably went over his own.
I'm not all that sad at his passing. He'd been ill for a while. To say he's in a better place would be a bit of disservice to a man who, despite borrowing from (and being borrowed by) numerous religions, was a self-described agnostic.
The best I can manage, then, is to try to borrow his ideas for a moment:
In this quantum reality, the being known as Robert Anton Wilson has ceased. From the point of view of others intersecting this bit of quantum reality, his reality has diverged from ours. Whether it has ended or not, none but he can say. So, hey, we'll see ya if we see ya.
George Dorn had decided to let his hair grow long, smoke dope and become a musician. He had succeeded in two of those ambitions.
R.A.W. was a genius, though not the same genius I thought he was some 15 years ago, when I was young, impressionable, and in need of an alias. More of that some other time. Short version is, 23 and 5 and discordianism were all pranks. Brilliant pranks.
Not sure what else to say. Guy had a crazy life. Wrote some crazy books that went over the heads of most people. A hefty chunk of it probably went over his own.
I'm not all that sad at his passing. He'd been ill for a while. To say he's in a better place would be a bit of disservice to a man who, despite borrowing from (and being borrowed by) numerous religions, was a self-described agnostic.
The best I can manage, then, is to try to borrow his ideas for a moment:
In this quantum reality, the being known as Robert Anton Wilson has ceased. From the point of view of others intersecting this bit of quantum reality, his reality has diverged from ours. Whether it has ended or not, none but he can say. So, hey, we'll see ya if we see ya.
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Circuitbending blog
Dec. 13th, 2006 | 02:07 pm
location: work
mood: accomplished
The blog, Circuit Locution, is underway. xauenmurph came up with the name. Started adding content, and posted the idea I had for a better probe setup that got me started on this project in the first place. The photoshopped schematic-for-dummies was fun to make and I think explains how to make the device very clearly:
xauenmurph came up with the name. Started adding content, and posted the idea I had for a better probe setup that got me started on this project in the first place. The photoshopped schematic-for-dummies was fun to make and I think explains how to make the device very clearly:Link | Leave a comment {2} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
The Xenophone
Dec. 2nd, 2006 | 05:01 pm
mood: accomplished
music: cow
The Xenophone is a circuit-bent Playschool Farm Friends Musical Xylophone. It has a bank of six animal noise samples and two tone samples, an octave of whole note keys, a bunch of lame built-in sequences and, oddly, the ability to record a sequence and play it back (though it's a little unpredictable). From a circuit-bending standpoint, it's not a great instrument (the CPU is a black blob), but it's a good one to start on and really shows what can be done by messing with the clock speed alone.
( More pictures, modifications, and samples. )
( More pictures, modifications, and samples. )
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Too wierd for eHarmony.com
Oct. 21st, 2006 | 06:07 pm
mood: amused
So, 1/5 people are so far out of the mainstream that they can actually separate morals from religion. There are other major assumptions going on there, too, but that one seems to be the one that weeds out the nonbelievers. I could go on, but clearly, eharmony.com is only able to handle a narrow swath of mainstream americans, specifically the christians.
Oh, wait, that's pretty close to 80%.
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cpanel sucks.
Oct. 9th, 2006 | 05:21 pm
mood: 
annoyed
1 - 10 of about 572 for "cpanel sucks"
Currently relevent. Came in today, server is down for no good reason. Fixing it meant rebuilding apache (compiling from source? On red hat? For apache? Isn't this what package managers are for?), rebooting the server three times, and then discovering that mysqld won't start because /var is full because the apache death process built a log file of 762M. That's M.
This all happened last night at midnight because cpanel decided to automagically update the server.
That's the problem. Cpanel's a catch-22. Either you let it update itself, occasionally breaking itself horribly in the process, or you switch it to manual or no updates and some script kiddie comes along and fucks you for forgetting to update in a couple days.
I'd rip cpanel out by its own entrails, but without it the admin portion of my job would take three times as long. Just changing a password, for instance, means changing it in at least 4 places.
Oh, and now exim's broken.
Currently relevent. Came in today, server is down for no good reason. Fixing it meant rebuilding apache (compiling from source? On red hat? For apache? Isn't this what package managers are for?), rebooting the server three times, and then discovering that mysqld won't start because /var is full because the apache death process built a log file of 762M. That's M.
This all happened last night at midnight because cpanel decided to automagically update the server.
That's the problem. Cpanel's a catch-22. Either you let it update itself, occasionally breaking itself horribly in the process, or you switch it to manual or no updates and some script kiddie comes along and fucks you for forgetting to update in a couple days.
I'd rip cpanel out by its own entrails, but without it the admin portion of my job would take three times as long. Just changing a password, for instance, means changing it in at least 4 places.
Oh, and now exim's broken.
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Hey, if Reason.org says it's true, it must be.
Jul. 25th, 2006 | 12:55 pm
location: work
mood: 
aggravated
Reason.org, that bastion of unbiased science and truth, put out this: Have you Hugged a Hummer Today?
Mostly, it's spun analysis of a fundamentally screwed-up, non-scientific (they call it "Non-technical") study by CNW Marketing Research, Inc.. The premise is to sum up all of the costs of producing and operating a vehicle, including R&D costs, shipping, etc. While the study takes a couple stabs at explaining why hybrids cost more in energy use than SUVs, Reason.org's Shikha Dalmia glosses over those in favor of this explanation:
Of course, that doesn't even hold true with the data from the study:
So the real reason the Prius seems to consume more energy is that the entire research and design phase cost is being divided among a single year of cars, while the Hummer's R&D cost is being divided among many years of cars.
This is a bit like saying that the Wright Brother's R&D costs are far too high for such a short trip, so clearly this new flying technology will never be economical.
I guess all that new-fangled technology is pretty "fancy".
Mostly, it's spun analysis of a fundamentally screwed-up, non-scientific (they call it "Non-technical") study by CNW Marketing Research, Inc.. The premise is to sum up all of the costs of producing and operating a vehicle, including R&D costs, shipping, etc. While the study takes a couple stabs at explaining why hybrids cost more in energy use than SUVs, Reason.org's Shikha Dalmia glosses over those in favor of this explanation:
"...by and large the dust-to-dust energy costs in Spinella's study correlate with the fanciness of the car"
Of course, that doesn't even hold true with the data from the study:
As the figures below show, the Prius cost about $29,000 per vehicle sold in D&D [Design & Development] energy while the Corolla was $2,600.
As time passes and the design and development of the Prius's hybrid technology is leveraged to other vehicles, the cost obviously will diminish on a per-model, per-sale basis. We, however, could not make the assumption that any of that technology would be spread across other products at the time of this study. As the GM Impact showed, high-tech products aren't guaranteed a long life.
So we had to include all of the Prius's technology D&D energy consumption into a single product.
So the real reason the Prius seems to consume more energy is that the entire research and design phase cost is being divided among a single year of cars, while the Hummer's R&D cost is being divided among many years of cars.
This is a bit like saying that the Wright Brother's R&D costs are far too high for such a short trip, so clearly this new flying technology will never be economical.
I guess all that new-fangled technology is pretty "fancy".
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Also...
May. 29th, 2006 | 07:19 pm
mood: accomplished
Up to 80 throws juggling clubs.
I'm going to have to start measuring in time rather than throws, because counting is beginning to distract me, especially as I approach a new record. When it was just to, say, 20, it pretty much counted itself. I suppose it will soon become irrelevant - it won't be long until I can just keep the cascade pattern going indefinitely.
I'm going to have to start measuring in time rather than throws, because counting is beginning to distract me, especially as I approach a new record. When it was just to, say, 20, it pretty much counted itself. I suppose it will soon become irrelevant - it won't be long until I can just keep the cascade pattern going indefinitely.
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Firespinning pics from jearl's housewarming
May. 28th, 2006 | 04:18 pm
mood: 
sore
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Games in the near future
May. 28th, 2006 | 01:54 pm
mood: geeky
After jearl's housewarming, I've gotten renewed interest in playing and running a bunch of different RPGs.
( Wherein I ramble about GURPS horror )
( Wherein I ramble about killing puppies for satan )
So, yeah, those are two games I want to run soon. I've also got the D&D game that I need to recruit a third for
jearl's housewarming, I've gotten renewed interest in playing and running a bunch of different RPGs.( Wherein I ramble about GURPS horror )
( Wherein I ramble about killing puppies for satan )
So, yeah, those are two games I want to run soon. I've also got the D&D game that I need to recruit a third for
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Ginger beer, juggling, capoeira, and a cool hack to get free music
May. 26th, 2006 | 09:05 pm
mood: blah
( Wherein I blab about the status of the ginger beer. )
( Wherein I blab about the status of my juggling capabilities. )
( Wherein I blab about the status of my not-doing-backflips-yet capoeira abilities. )
( Wherein I blab about a cool hack for Pandora. )
( Wherein I blab about the status of my juggling capabilities. )
( Wherein I blab about the status of my not-doing-backflips-yet capoeira abilities. )
( Wherein I blab about a cool hack for Pandora. )
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Ginger beer
May. 20th, 2006 | 12:37 pm
mood: accomplished
Started it last night. Should end up with a dry-tasting ginger ale, only with 5-6% alcohol content. Hopefully ready in two weeks or so, though I may give it a bit longer to deal with the honey.
About 1.5 lbs ginger
4 lbs turbanado sugar
4 lbs honey
4 lemons (juice and a bit of pulp)
D47 wine yeast by Lalvin.
The original recipe calls for plain white sugar and a champagne yeast, but that strikes me as a high risk for some nasty off-flavors. So I went with half honey and half turbanado (raw) sugar, which should be both easier on the yeast and have some remnant of sweet after fermentation is over due to the honey.
Won't quite be ready forjearl's housewarming, but it should be a good summer 'beer' anyway.
About 1.5 lbs ginger
4 lbs turbanado sugar
4 lbs honey
4 lemons (juice and a bit of pulp)
D47 wine yeast by Lalvin.
The original recipe calls for plain white sugar and a champagne yeast, but that strikes me as a high risk for some nasty off-flavors. So I went with half honey and half turbanado (raw) sugar, which should be both easier on the yeast and have some remnant of sweet after fermentation is over due to the honey.
Won't quite be ready for
jearl's housewarming, but it should be a good summer 'beer' anyway.Link | Leave a comment {3} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Annual lj cleanup
Jan. 1st, 2006 | 03:15 pm
mood: tired
New year's seem like a good time to clean up the friendslist.
Also, new icon. Yes, I made it.
Also, new icon. Yes, I made it.
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Icons
Nov. 10th, 2005 | 02:50 am
mood: nerdy
Yep. New icons. Stolen from here.
Particularly like the one fordorky nerdy.
I'm kinda looking for that set of GIR from Invader Zim that were floating around a long while back, but my google-fu (which is normally quite strong) doesn't seem to be up to it. They were shots from the show, re-built into GIR dancing and a few other things.
Particularly like the one for
I'm kinda looking for that set of GIR from Invader Zim that were floating around a long while back, but my google-fu (which is normally quite strong) doesn't seem to be up to it. They were shots from the show, re-built into GIR dancing and a few other things.
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Also, bottle rockets!
Oct. 30th, 2005 | 01:56 am
mood: amused
Water-powered rocketry. This guy's taken it quite a ways further than my little 2-liter one I had growing up.
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Ubuntu on the desktop, final grade: fail (update)
Oct. 13th, 2005 | 10:49 am
Edit:
No dice. I've given up on it. The following reasons will probably also keep me from using linux on a desktop for at least another year, while they fix some of this crap.
- ALSA is a rancid pile of shit. That was the last straw that madejwz finally give up and go mac, and I sympathize. I thought I could fight through it, but it's just not worth it. "Advanced" Linux Sound "Architecture", my ass. At first, I had high hopes for getting both sound cards working. In the end, I had to settle for having 1/3rd of one sound card working - that is, two channels of my six-channel sound card.
- Xinerama is almost a pile of shit, but it's not actually its fault - window placement control is at the application-level. That makes it a fundamental X problem, and it's a pretty serious one. Leaving individual applications to decide where they want to place windows is a bit like having each automobile manufacturer decide how high bumpers should be and what side of the road the car should drive on. In my case, it results in a lot of windows being drawn split half-and-half between my two monitors.
- apt-get broke my computer. Specifically, I did two things that cost me 4-8 hours of fixing shit that should have just worked, each time. I upgraded to 5.10 in the hopes that Breezy Badger might fix other problems; this promptly broke my videocard drivers, which I had to recompile because I didn't go with the default drivers. I was told in #ubuntu that I should have stuck with the default videocard package, but this meant no hardware acceleration, which, sorry, just doesn't fly. Then I figured maybe I could get some better performance by upgrading the kernel to one for my processor instead of the default one, for a 386. This broke my videocard drivers, again, but also broke 50-something packages that should have been upgraded when I upgraded the kernel, but weren't.
- ubuntu's default videoplayer, totem, is crap. However, it cannot be uninstalled without also uninstalling the default ubuntu metapackage. They're essentially coupled, and this means that ubuntu is not ubuntu without totem. This would be fine, kinda like windows media player being part of windows, except that it's damn near impossible to associate video files with any player other than totem. It simply doesn't work.
I should not need to use modprobe. I should not need to use insmod. I should not need to rm -Rf my /src directory when I upgrade a kernel - either the aptitude database should realize I've upgraded, or it should remove the old source for me automatically.
Not ready.
Here's my overly optimistic post from earlier:
Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog), on the desktop. 5.10 (Breezy something) is declared stable in 10 days, apparently.
This is probably the distribution I'm going with for this machine. It's gone off mostly without a hitch, though I still have some minor issues to deal with and I'm still deciding if I actually like Gnome as a windowmanager.
Ennumerating my requirements:
All system:
Desktop:
Other notes:
The default movie player comes with no useful codecs installed, as far as I can tell. I'm not even sure how to install more, though there's probably some in the package manager. I'm likely going to use something else, like VLC, but may need codecs for video editing anyway.
There's only one
Now, installing drivers has been a touch more complicated, and could use improvement. For one, the Nvidia drivers kinda suck. I'm not even sure they're working right - lspci says "0000:03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 00f2 (rev a2)". For another, the nvidia-setup package needs major improvement - it should be smart enough to help me set up dual monitors. Instead, I managed it after a ton of web searching and trial-and-error.
I'll be playing with this one some more. It seems very promising - all those little annoyances I had with DSL just aren't present here. The one minor issue I have is that there's only one theme in the default install where the upper-right-most pixel is mapped to the close button on a maximized window (with the toolbars all shunted to the bottom, where they belong...
If there's a windowmanager that makes better use of screen corners, I'm all ears.
No dice. I've given up on it. The following reasons will probably also keep me from using linux on a desktop for at least another year, while they fix some of this crap.
- ALSA is a rancid pile of shit. That was the last straw that made
jwz finally give up and go mac, and I sympathize. I thought I could fight through it, but it's just not worth it. "Advanced" Linux Sound "Architecture", my ass. At first, I had high hopes for getting both sound cards working. In the end, I had to settle for having 1/3rd of one sound card working - that is, two channels of my six-channel sound card.- Xinerama is almost a pile of shit, but it's not actually its fault - window placement control is at the application-level. That makes it a fundamental X problem, and it's a pretty serious one. Leaving individual applications to decide where they want to place windows is a bit like having each automobile manufacturer decide how high bumpers should be and what side of the road the car should drive on. In my case, it results in a lot of windows being drawn split half-and-half between my two monitors.
- apt-get broke my computer. Specifically, I did two things that cost me 4-8 hours of fixing shit that should have just worked, each time. I upgraded to 5.10 in the hopes that Breezy Badger might fix other problems; this promptly broke my videocard drivers, which I had to recompile because I didn't go with the default drivers. I was told in #ubuntu that I should have stuck with the default videocard package, but this meant no hardware acceleration, which, sorry, just doesn't fly. Then I figured maybe I could get some better performance by upgrading the kernel to one for my processor instead of the default one, for a 386. This broke my videocard drivers, again, but also broke 50-something packages that should have been upgraded when I upgraded the kernel, but weren't.
- ubuntu's default videoplayer, totem, is crap. However, it cannot be uninstalled without also uninstalling the default ubuntu metapackage. They're essentially coupled, and this means that ubuntu is not ubuntu without totem. This would be fine, kinda like windows media player being part of windows, except that it's damn near impossible to associate video files with any player other than totem. It simply doesn't work.
I should not need to use modprobe. I should not need to use insmod. I should not need to rm -Rf my /src directory when I upgrade a kernel - either the aptitude database should realize I've upgraded, or it should remove the old source for me automatically.
Not ready.
Here's my overly optimistic post from earlier:
Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog), on the desktop. 5.10 (Breezy something) is declared stable in 10 days, apparently.
This is probably the distribution I'm going with for this machine. It's gone off mostly without a hitch, though I still have some minor issues to deal with and I'm still deciding if I actually like Gnome as a windowmanager.
Ennumerating my requirements:
All system:
- Dvorak: pass - Right away, during the install, it asked for my language, set up a default keyboard setting, and then let me change it to dvorak. Within the OS itself is a mature, Windows-like keyboard layout switcher. Bonus points for exceeding my expectations.
- GUI: probably pass - It uses gnome, with a couple custom themes. I can't decide if I like gnome or kde better, or if I'm ultimately going to go with a completely different WM. Gnome is a whole lot more mature than when I last looked at it, though. Also:
- clipboard: pass - works in every app that came installed, exactly the way I want it to.
- alt-tab: pass - works perfectly
- CS menus: mostly pass - gnome is doing this a lot better than I remember, though it's not always perfect.
- taskbar: pass - gnome's taskbars don't suck. Might even be better than windows'.
- window controls: pass - they're mapped by default to win32 hotkeys.
- WM/PM - still not sure. I haven't actually found the right way to switch a WM, and I'd like to find a non-destructive method of 'trying on' a WM without losing old settings.
- Package manager: pass - apt-get is brilliant. Synapse is a great gui. Haven't broken anything yet.
- automounter: tentative pass - seems to work okay for cds. Yet to try usb devices.
- Start menu: mediocre - I hate to say it, because this isn't really the fault of ubuntu or gnome. It's great for all the applications that come with ubuntu, or whose packages are gnome-aware. All others involved manually editing a text file, and that's sooo pre-Win3.0. It's probably the best I'm going to get on linux, so far, though.
- mousewheel: pass - mousewheel support has come of age in gnome. It works basically how I want it to, but could use some tweaking.
Desktop:
- SATA: pass - this one beats Windows XP, hands down. It never even looked at me funny.
- drivers: mixed - it handled usb mice without a problem, X worked at 640x480, and the network worked right off the bat, which is good because the network connection is near vital to the install. Otherwise:
- Dual monitor support: poor - This took me quite a while, and required building nvidia's binary drivers into the kernel and then manually editing xorg.conf. A newbie would have been lost at this point.
- Dual mice: pass - 'nuff said.
- Dual soundcards: don't know yet - I can't tell if it's even seeing that I have two sound cards. It did set up my turtle beach santa cruz with no problems, though I didn't notice at first because the volume was set very low. I'll come back to this.
- TV-out: no clue - this is probably going to need some googling.
- Dual boot: pass with flying colors - Grub has come a long way, and Ubuntu's installation of grub is brilliant. It tells you the conditions under which it will work, shows you what info it sees about other operating systems, asks if these are all of them (warning you not to install grub if not), installs in the right place and autopopulates a boot menu for you.
Other notes:
The default movie player comes with no useful codecs installed, as far as I can tell. I'm not even sure how to install more, though there's probably some in the package manager. I'm likely going to use something else, like VLC, but may need codecs for video editing anyway.
There's only one
Now, installing drivers has been a touch more complicated, and could use improvement. For one, the Nvidia drivers kinda suck. I'm not even sure they're working right - lspci says "0000:03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 00f2 (rev a2)". For another, the nvidia-setup package needs major improvement - it should be smart enough to help me set up dual monitors. Instead, I managed it after a ton of web searching and trial-and-error.
I'll be playing with this one some more. It seems very promising - all those little annoyances I had with DSL just aren't present here. The one minor issue I have is that there's only one theme in the default install where the upper-right-most pixel is mapped to the close button on a maximized window (with the toolbars all shunted to the bottom, where they belong...
If there's a windowmanager that makes better use of screen corners, I'm all ears.
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Linux part 4: server
Sep. 30th, 2005 | 08:54 pm
Finally, the server. This is where linux is supposed to shine, so I rather expect it to. I don't think it will be hard for it to beat win2k3 in terms of speed and stability, but there's still a couple features I'd like, above and beyond that easy goal:
I'm sure I'll come up with more of these, as I work with other LDs. I'm not sure which computer I'm starting with first. The server makes the most sense, except that I'd really like to stumble across the LD that's perfect for the server, and I might do that while playing with one of the others first.
- OS-level IP Filter. This is my file-server, after all. Bonus points for one that autoupdates against some popular list, but I'm sure I can hack out a perl script to handle this.
- OS-level Bandwidth limiter, for individual daemons and apps. This is vital. It needs to be able to run on a schedule, but be temporarily overridden as needed. Bit-torrent runs 24/7, but should not kill my network connection during hours I or housemates are normally awake. I'm willing to learn iptables or ipchains or whatever voodoo, but it must work. On windows, I use NetLimiter to do this.
- Easy-to-configure Terminal Server. VNC is not a terminal server. I'd like to know what K12LTSP uses, but I don't think that will ultimately be my choice of a server distro.
- Smart filestreaming. I'm not sure how else to put this. It's going to be my main file storage area. Movies will live on it. I expect to be able to watch them on other computers, over the (wired) network. I already mostly have this, when win2k3 isn't being stupid about it.
- There's a few things I'd really like a server to be able to do. They're pipe dreams, but having one fullfilled wins a lot of points, leaving me to deal with other LD deficiencies. For example:
- Clustering and/or "roaming profile" that works and isn't too complicated. I like the idea of all my more vital files and settings living in one central, RAID'd location. I don't want to install the new firefox on four computers and have to update each one separately with extensions, themes, greasemonkey scripts, adblock filters, etc. I'm not even sure where to start, although having a fast server play TS is a possibility. But it'd also be nice to have my laptop autosync settings whenever connected to the home network, or have files autosync across all three computers for mega-redundant-backup purposes. I know this can be done, I don't know how, and any LD that holds my hand and does this well wins lotsa points.
- Some kind of security auto-updater. This is less vital on the desktop and laptop, but the server is going to be open to the world, at least on some ports. I know it's vastly more secure than 2k3, but there are exploits out there, and staying somewhat caught up is something I'd like the OS to take a stab at. Barring that, some kind of useful emailer that notifies me when there's a major exploit that applies to me pops up. I can't read all of CERT every day, and I shouldn't have to.
I'm sure I'll come up with more of these, as I work with other LDs. I'm not sure which computer I'm starting with first. The server makes the most sense, except that I'd really like to stumble across the LD that's perfect for the server, and I might do that while playing with one of the others first.
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Linux part 3: laptop requirements
Sep. 30th, 2005 | 08:52 pm
This is going to be a real challenge. It's a Fujitsu Lifebook P1032.
- A really good bootstrapper. LD needs an installer that can handle the fact that laptop has no floppy drive, no cdrom drive, can't boot from network (I don't think), and can't boot from USB. LD that can do this is likely to trump all other LDs, at least for an inital toehold. Not only that, but the LD MUST be able to support some way to shuttle more drivers onto the computer - either USB drive, network card, or one of my three wifi devices (two of which are USB and likely Right Out).
- Touchscreen support. I gather this exists, but it'd better be able to be calibrated, or it's not gonna work.
- Odd screen dimensions support. This runs at 1024x600.
- Trackpoint support.
- Battery indicator.
- Hibernation support. This is likely a deal-breaker.
- Transmeta Crusoe support. I don't mean works on the transmeta, I mean uses it fully. I expect downregulation of speed when it's not needed, to save power. I expect it to run well enough to play divx movies fullscreen, because dammit, Windows can already do that. Bonus points if the installer recompiles the kernel to support my specific processor (I'm looking at you, Gentoo).
- Custom Keyboard support. I've got a lot of function keys to do things quickly. Some (like contrast) had better still work. Others (like volume or check email) are allowed some configuration, but they'd still better work.
- External monitor support. I play movies on this thing onto the tv. I may have a projector. I expect this to work.
- Right LD will not hose my partition table. Doing so voids that LD from my use for at least a decade. Restoring the laptop after such an event will not be easy.
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Linux part 2: Desktop requirements
Sep. 30th, 2005 | 08:50 pm
These are the OS requirements for my main desktop, which will become a dual-boot windows/linux system. I'm not about to give up videogames, but I would prefer a work environment that was more sane. So:
- SATA support from the installer would be nice. It's asking for a lot, but I'd rather not have to hunt down drivers for my SATA card for linux, put them on a floppy (which means hunting down a floppy...) and then figuring out how to boot the installer with the right option to use said floppy. Bonus points if it can pull off this whole thing, standard points if it at least is smarter than the Windows XP (must press f6 at the right time) installer.
- Built-in drivers for the rest of my hardware. I fully expect to need to update some drivers. I'm used to that. But at minimum, I at least expect the installer to figure out how to get X working, a network connection working (I have two, either one is fine), and usb mouse. Bonus points for:
- Dual monitor support without too much headache.
- Dual mouse support. No, not two cursors (though that would RULE). I switch between a trackball and a mouse regularly, to reduce wrist stress.
- A dual sound system that lets me use my onboard sound and my sound card, and switch between outputs for all programs, easily. Windows cannot do this, to my knowledge. I would like this so that I can do full 5.1 sound with my card, and easily switch to stereo headphones, easily. And a pony.
- Smart tv-out control. This might be an application-level thing.
- A dual-boot manager that doesn't suck. In the past, I've been forced to use bootmagic by powerquest. Lilo does not qualify, sorry. If it can't figure out where to put itself, how to dodge whatever partition-start limit might still exist, or hoses windows' ability to boot, it sucks. Bonus points for an installer that can non-destructively repartition my drive. (I'll be doing that with PQ ahead of time, but the bonus still stands.)
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Linux
Sep. 30th, 2005 | 08:49 pm
Seriously considering a move to linux. However, I'm not going to buy a PC with it pre-installed, and I am very, very picky about certain aspects of my OS. So, I'm going to be auditing linux distributions (LDs) in the next few weeks, searching for the best one. I'm probably doing this on all three of my computers, starting with my desktop. Each holds unique challenges, so it should be interesting to see how each LD deals with each of them.
Here's my requirements, which will likely be updated as I go:
All systems: (requirements to be met on all the test machines)
Here's my requirements, which will likely be updated as I go:
All systems: (requirements to be met on all the test machines)
- Support the dvorak keyboard layout. All LDs sorta already do. Bonus points for:
- Installer that lets me set a keyboard layout at the very beginning.
- Letting me set it once and have it Just Work, everywhere, always.
- GUI I can live with. This is somewhat subjective, but there's a few things that will go a long way towards winning me over:
- A clipboard that works across all applications. Today I tried to paste a command from firefox into the default terminal in D.S.L., and it failed. Not good.
- Keyboard-controlled application-switching. Like alt-tab in windows. Yeah, most WMs do this, but at least two I've tested do this badly. Microsoft got this one right. I want to be able to be reading a web page, pull up only the window I want on top of it, do whatever (while still seeing firefox in the background), and dismiss the window when done. Bonus points for supporting alt-shift-tab (or something like it).
- Context-sensitive menus. Preferably in all default packages.
- However the windowmanager lets me run more programs, it should be accessible even if my screen is full of other windows. Autohide taskbar? Sure. Screenspace-hogging taskbar? Whatever. Windows, when maximized, cover the only place to click to open an application menu, and there's no easy keyboard shortcut to pop it up? No.
- Universal window controls that make sense. Keyboard-activated would be nice.
- I realize I'm crossing LDs with WMs and kernels, and that I can mix and match. A good LD is also one that addresses this, using a good window manager manager and a good package manager. Some LDs come with one WM and no (easy) ability to change.
- A non-broken package manager. When I last tried Red Hate (er, Hat), probably around v6.0, a half hour after the install I completely broke the kernel with a single RPM command. In this day and age, not only must this not happen, but I rather expect the package manager to find me the package I want online, resolve all dependency issues automagically, install the packages, shine my boots and run out and get me my mail.
- Have a working automounter that doesn't explode when looked at funny.
- It'd be nice if the default and/or packaged WMs had an application menu ("start menu") that I didn't have to populate by editing a text file. It'd be _really_ nice it it autopopulated itself for most software, with a sane method for adding my own items that I compiled by hand (it happens.)
- Mousewheel support that doesn't suck. Come on, this is 2005. It should Just Work. If it doesn't work exactly the way I want, there'd better be a decent control panel that lets me change it so that it does.
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Where the blame lies.
Aug. 31st, 2005 | 07:07 pm
Alright, so you can't control the weather. So nobody's to blame for the damage of Katrina, right?
No, actually, the damage done by Katrina lies squarely on the shoulders of George W Bush. Well, and his administration.
Wow, that's a pretty hefty claim to make.
Over $250 million that was allocated to repairing the levees of New Orleans was diverted to fund the war in Iraq.
6000 more national guardsmen could have been helping with evacuation, search and rescue, and rebuilding efforts, if they weren't currently stationed in Iraq. 6000 sounds like a big number, but is it? Well, there's apparently only 3,500 guardsmen actually deployed to help in all of Louisiana right now.
So, what good could 6000 more guardsmen do? Well, they could relieve people who are unable to keep up with the rescue effort.
From boingboing:
While I can appreciate the sentiments about not making this partisan, let's be perfectly clear:
George W Bush fucked up, and he fucked up bad. Again.
No, actually, the damage done by Katrina lies squarely on the shoulders of George W Bush. Well, and his administration.
Wow, that's a pretty hefty claim to make.
Over $250 million that was allocated to repairing the levees of New Orleans was diverted to fund the war in Iraq.
6000 more national guardsmen could have been helping with evacuation, search and rescue, and rebuilding efforts, if they weren't currently stationed in Iraq. 6000 sounds like a big number, but is it? Well, there's apparently only 3,500 guardsmen actually deployed to help in all of Louisiana right now.
So, what good could 6000 more guardsmen do? Well, they could relieve people who are unable to keep up with the rescue effort.
From boingboing:
One of the teams came in today after having been out for hours at a time. One particular rescuer went straight to a corner and collapsed into tears. I went directly to him and just held his hand. What else could I do? I said nothing. He said it all. They lowered him 26 times and he pulled 26 people to safety. He wants to be back out there but there are mandatory rest periods. His tears are tears of frustration.
While I can appreciate the sentiments about not making this partisan, let's be perfectly clear:
George W Bush fucked up, and he fucked up bad. Again.
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Mixed signals
Jun. 17th, 2005 | 09:13 am
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Thoughtcrime Act (Sensenbrenner 1528)
May. 18th, 2005 | 03:02 pm
From Here the text of the proposed Sensenbrenner act, which basically makes it a crime to not turn in someone you know is committing a drug crime:
"SEC. 425. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person who witnesses or learns of a violation of sections 416(b)(2), 417, 418, 419, 420, 424, or 426 to fail to report the offense to law enforcement officials within 24 hours of witnessing or learning of the violation and thereafter provide full assistance in the investigation, apprehension, and prosecution of the person violating paragraph (a).
"(b) Any person who violates subsection (a) of this section shall be sentenced to not less than two years or more than 10 years. If the person who witnesses or learns of the violation is the parent or guardian, or otherwise responsible for the care or supervision of the person under the age of 18 or the incompetent person, such person shall be sentenced to not less than three years or more than 20 years.".
(sections 416, 417, etc, refer to various drug crimes, including possession with intent to distribute, which often just requires an arbitrary quantity in possession, such as the racially biased 5 grams of crack).
This bill is basically making it a crime to think for yourself, and make your own moral choices. Is your neighbor using crack? You don't get to decide whether he should get treatment, you must turn his ass in or you could end up in jail yourself. I think this is rather telling of the current situation: people do see a difference between illegality and morality (that is, something can be illegal but not wrong), and this law is criminalizing that distinction.
What's next? Will it become a crime to not turn in someone you know is not turning in someone else for a drug crime? Will it be a thought crime to not report someone else's thought crime? It's a good thing section 425 isn't self-referential, or we'd all be doomed. Well, more than we are already.
Now, I'm pretty sure this has zero chance of both passing and being upheld in court. I mean, it doesn't even make allowances for people who are supposed to maintain confidentiality, like doctors, lawyers, priests... If you go confess to a priest or your therapist that you're hooked on heroin, and he fails to turn you in, he's liable?
"SEC. 425. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person who witnesses or learns of a violation of sections 416(b)(2), 417, 418, 419, 420, 424, or 426 to fail to report the offense to law enforcement officials within 24 hours of witnessing or learning of the violation and thereafter provide full assistance in the investigation, apprehension, and prosecution of the person violating paragraph (a).
"(b) Any person who violates subsection (a) of this section shall be sentenced to not less than two years or more than 10 years. If the person who witnesses or learns of the violation is the parent or guardian, or otherwise responsible for the care or supervision of the person under the age of 18 or the incompetent person, such person shall be sentenced to not less than three years or more than 20 years.".
(sections 416, 417, etc, refer to various drug crimes, including possession with intent to distribute, which often just requires an arbitrary quantity in possession, such as the racially biased 5 grams of crack).
This bill is basically making it a crime to think for yourself, and make your own moral choices. Is your neighbor using crack? You don't get to decide whether he should get treatment, you must turn his ass in or you could end up in jail yourself. I think this is rather telling of the current situation: people do see a difference between illegality and morality (that is, something can be illegal but not wrong), and this law is criminalizing that distinction.
What's next? Will it become a crime to not turn in someone you know is not turning in someone else for a drug crime? Will it be a thought crime to not report someone else's thought crime? It's a good thing section 425 isn't self-referential, or we'd all be doomed. Well, more than we are already.
Now, I'm pretty sure this has zero chance of both passing and being upheld in court. I mean, it doesn't even make allowances for people who are supposed to maintain confidentiality, like doctors, lawyers, priests... If you go confess to a priest or your therapist that you're hooked on heroin, and he fails to turn you in, he's liable?
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On privacy and online journal harvesting
Mar. 7th, 2005 | 10:09 am
mood: annoyed
You might want to check the ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif)
ditto_cops community to see if any of your friends are listed. If so, your friends-only posts are potentially compromised by a third-party site (www.frienditto.com, which is currently having bandwidth issues). Users of the frienditto site were asked to provide their LJ login details, and those details were then used to archive posts, some of which may have been friends-only.
This sort of thing is likely to happen again and again. DO NOT provide your LJ login details to anywhere other than LJ - doing so can compromise not only your journal, but also any friends-only posts of your friends.
ditto_cops community to see if any of your friends are listed. If so, your friends-only posts are potentially compromised by a third-party site (www.frienditto.com, which is currently having bandwidth issues). Users of the frienditto site were asked to provide their LJ login details, and those details were then used to archive posts, some of which may have been friends-only.This sort of thing is likely to happen again and again. DO NOT provide your LJ login details to anywhere other than LJ - doing so can compromise not only your journal, but also any friends-only posts of your friends.