Intellidick.com - Pure Insanity

As I read through the news, I constantly see articles about authors who are pissed off about someone taking their works and distributing them in other countries. Here’s the deal guys, you can’t publish something exclusively in one country and then get upset because someone from another country got a hold of it. Here is why I say that… The days of exclusive paper publishing  are dead, digital distribution is here. If you write a book and only release it in the US, somebody will scan it and send it over the wire to their friend in Germany… especially if it’s a series. The Harry Potter book is a perfect example, there was a story about a 16-year old kid who got a hold of the English version of the book and then translated it to French… in a matter of days. The author got upset because this wasn’t the “official” distribution channel (read: She didn’t get paid). I understand her right to get paid for her works, but she should stop listening to the meatheads at her publishers office and release her works onto the world, all at once. Give everyone who wants it the opportunity to have it, legally. Stop forcing them to pirate it in order to get a copy at the same time as the US does.

Millions and millions of dollars are dumped into advertising things like this to make us want them. They advertise them to the point where it’s social status to not have it on the first day. Do they actually sit around and wonder why people riot when they can’t get them? It doesn’t sound like rocket science to me. You advertise something enough that it gets a social status with it (like the iPhone) did, then you do a limited quantity, limited market release? Then you sit around and wonder why people rioted to get a copy? Yeah… totally not rocket science here people. If you don’t want to release it world wide and in enough quantity for a large percentage of the early adopters to get one, then STOP ADVERTISING IT EVERYWHERE you monkeys. You can’t get us all excited about it and then not give it to us.

(Time to rant hardcore) One more note. Parents, stop buying this crap on the media’s time line for your kids please. Make your kids wait and earn their things. Make them understand the value of working for what they want. If they want a new toy or something, put a value on chores and make them do chores until such time as they have enough “credit” to get what they want. But if they do their part, don’t back out on them. Make sure that if you promise something, you deliver it. Stop giving it to them freely and teaching them incorrectly. They don’t “deserve” to have it. It’s not their “right” to have it, it’s their “privilege”. Just think, you could be the mean parent that makes their kid work for everything they have but ends up as an adult with a true appreciation for everything that they’ve worked so hard for. Maybe your kids can have parents who care enough about them to teach them the value of things and not let the media and market teach them that an H2 is the most valuable thing in the world because of the “hummer” name on the side.

If your comment starts with “So, I was watching Star Wars Episode III last night…”, just stop and cancel the comment. (You should also disconnect yourself from my internet, but that’s another story.) We don’t want to hear your comparison of the article to the relationship between Han Solo and his Wookie. No really, it’s not that clever. We don’t care. Please… stop.

So i’m on IM with a friend and found this funny. Welcome to a day in my life…

(09:40:30 AM) Chris: im trying to get motivated to work
(09:41:25 AM) Chris: not doing too good
(09:41:27 AM) Chris: lol
(09:41:55 AM) Ed: ROFL
(09:41:56 AM) Ed: Same here.
(09:43:00 AM) Ed: Just installing some software on my laptop… veery slooowly I might add.
(09:44:50 AM) Chris: heh
(09:44:53 AM) Chris: sounds like fun
(09:45:36 AM) Ed: And now the guy from Schuran just sent me all of the english documentation for my Calcium Reactor and Protein Skimmer… now i’m REALLY not going to get any work done. lol
(09:47:50 AM) Chris: i repeat: nerd
(09:47:51 AM) Chris:
(09:48:14 AM) Ed: Ummm… that’s “Aquatic Master (nerd)” to you.
(09:49:13 AM) Chris: noted.

What do I have against Blu-Ray? SONY! That’s what. They own the technology, all of it. What does that mean for consumers? Licensing… lots and lots of licensing. Expensive players, expensive movies, etc. Sony knows this, most consumers apparently don’t.

I figure that we’ve got one shot left for HD-DVD and to not be stuck with Blu-Ray. That shot is to buy HD-DVD. Everybody, go find an HD-DVD player… buy it. Go find HD-DVD movies… buy them. Then wait. The technology is open, somebody will pick it back up and make it.

Let’s take our market back! If Sony REALLY wanted to do something good, they should give Blu-Ray to the DVD forum. Then i’ll buy one. Until then, forget it.

GO HD-DVD!

That’s it… I want the idiots off of my internet. I want my internet back. I’m so sick of all of the whiners on the internet, talking about their “right” to surf at work, their “right” to a safe, clean internet. I say to them, you have no “rights”. You have the “right” to keep yourself off of my internet and go back to AOL where they’ll offer you a “safe” (read: restricted) internet. Me? I’ll put up firewalls in front of me, choose to only run secure operating environments, and keep my sensitive data off of the internet. Go ahead, compromise this terminal… all of my valuable data isn’t here.

I want my internet back! I recently read an article about a Chinese hacking group that was boasting of no web sites being safe and how they even hacked into U.S. government web sites.. I thought to myself, why would the government have that crap connected in ANY way to the internet? Oh wait… because some idiot thinks that all computers should be on the internet! I say no… no, no, no, no, no! GET YOUR SECURE INFORMATION OFF OF THE INTERNET. IT IS NOT SECURE. Physical security is the only way to truly keep information off of the internet. If it’s connected to the LAN, it’s vulnerable… period. Not that anybody actually cares what my opinion is or anything, but we need to get our sensitive data away from the internet completely. Attention Government : The internet is NOT safe, pull the countries’ data away from it. Those machines (with my social security number and such) should NOT have public addresses or any form of address translation. Access to them should be controlled through a secure gateway with (at least) two-factor authentication. That gateway ought to be at least 2 or 3 firewalls away from the internet with no path back. NO ACCESS FROM HOME. COME TO WORK YOU LAZY MORONS. No copy/paste functions should be allowed on machines that connect to the secure area. No screen captures… nothing. Consider seriously that people who access those machines should not have access to the internet while at work. They don’t NEED it… it’s not their “right”. Prisoners don’t need Cable TV and internet either, but that’s a whole new rant.

I want my internet back. I say this to these morons who can’t seem to realize that the internet is NOT a safe place and it never will be as long as it’s connected to the rest of the world. This goes back to an old rant of mine… People have this need to believe that all other people are basically good and if given the choice would do the right thing… it’s definitely not true but i’ll let that one lye for now. But on that note… I want my internet back.

Too funny. I couldn’t resist the temptation to post this one.

If Valentines Day cards were honest…

Occasionally in life, I am reminded of the reasons why I believe what I believe. I have always believed that UNIX and Linux are unstoppable server OS’es and the only choice for hardcore enterprise duties. Maintenance required is very little (if any) and they’re easy to manage remotely. Windows administrators will argue about the lack of a cool global policy editor (which is admittedly very cool) or a remote GUI tool as fast and usable as Remote Desktop/Terminal Services. Those are very valid arguments… but let me tell you about one thing they don’t have. A decent serial port administrative interface…

For those of you who didn’t notice, the ID server bombed out the other day. I was at a customer and unable to get to the internet to fix it. It was out for around 8 hours! When I finally did get to a machine with SSH access, the server was apparently down. I couldn’t ping it, none of the sites were up, etc… So then I SSH’ed over to the serial terminal server that’s connected to my machine. Sure enough, the machine is up and running, it was the upstream DHCP server that had given me the wrong IP address. Something went very wrong on that subnet and i’m not sure exactly what. The point is that I got to the machine via a serial port and fixed it. Everything but GUI is available via that serial port, not a reduced subset of commands.

Gotta love UNIX and Linux. The legacy of the serial terminal has saved my tail so many times it’s not even worth counting any more. Try that with your Windows box! You might also want to factor in that this machine has been down only twice in over 5 years. Once for an OS upgrade and once because of an upstream problem. How’s that for reliability and track record?

It’s time to throw on my old man hat here! Parents are just pissing me off lately and it’s time to throw the power of the rant into action.

What is wrong with parents today? I’m driving to the store the other night at like 11pm, and there are young kids walking the streets around the fast food spots. Granted, it wasn’t a school night, but these kids were definitely not driving age… yet they were out at 11pm? I go in the store and when I came out, most of them were still there. I do live in a great neighborhood and all… but still… 11pm? Parents… WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?

Next… TV and video games… Parents, you do know that TV’s and most new video game consoles have parental controls… right? USE THEM! Most parents just don’t pay attention to what their kids play and don’t bother to even crack the instruction manual to lock down the console / cable box / satellite receiver. Parents… WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?

Another TV rant… Parents, TV is NOT a baby sitter. I see parents in the car with the TV on for their kids. My mom used to talk to us in the car. I see those same parents get home and pop a DVD in for the kids right away. We did house chores, played outside, etc… Parents, you do know that there are other things for kids to do… right? I thank my lucky stars that my parents made me go outside and play from time to time. I actually learned how to make friends and such without a “play date”… crazy! So, Parents… WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?

Computers. Oh… computers. I love computers. I’m really starting to dislike kids with computers though. Parents, you do know that the internet is NOT child friendly, right? Here’s a tip, there’s pornography on there! ( If anybody needs to know where the good stuff is, email me. ) There are stalkers and such out there. There are lots of influences out there that the mind of a child is NOT ready for. I know parents that at least take enough interest in their children to install some sort of filter / proxy software, but even that can be bypassed. So, sorry parents, it looks like you’re actually going to have to SPEND TIME WITH YOUR CHILDREN. I say again, Parents… WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?

Alright, one more and we’ll call this one a rant.

Stop letting your little girl dress like a tramp! We don’t need to see that much of her figure exposed. Now i’m REALLY going to sound old here, but that’s just disgusting and encourages bad things to happen. STOP IT PEOPLE. Teach your kids to have respect for themselves and their own bodies and not feel the need to tramp out in order to get attention. I’d say that the attention gained by this is negative and not desirable for a teenage girl. ( Yes, I had the teenage sister who got pregnant and I had to watch her go through all of the mental anguish of being a pregnant high school kid. It was not pleasant for her and my parents… definitely not desirable attention. ) Granted, this behavior is a classic scenario and girls have been trying to get away with more and more over the generations, but at some point it just has to stop. What’s next? Just pasties and a g-string? Parents… WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?

All parents seem to want to believe that their kids are perfect… another false pretense. Every time my father turned the other way, I was in to something that I shouldn’t have been.

Parents, i’m sorry to tell you, but you’re going to have to watch your kids. You can’t just make them, put them in front of the TV, and expect them to grow up okay. They will need your guidance and wisdom… if you don’t have any, don’t go see your parents because they probably didn’t raise you right either.

Alright, i’m taking the old man hat off now and going back to normal.

I almost quit the hobby last night! I was working on my new MTC PROCAL reactor and noticed a leak in the main chamber seal. I shut the reactor pump off and was fiddling around with those annoying little screws and decided to go ahead and pull it out of the stand.

Wouldn’t ya know, I managed to find the only piece of tubing that didn’t have a clamp on it! (Lesson 1 : Tubing is easy, PVC doesn’t come loose) Apparently I neglected to go back and clamp that one piece of tubing on that end. What a dumb mistake and a testament to why one shouldn’t get in a hurry when building a tank… needless to say, I knocked the drain hose off with a big reactor in my hands.

Water is now going EVERYWHERE. I scrambled to get the reactor back on the ground, grabbed the hose and got it back on the bulkhead. As i’m walking away to go get an army of towels, the pump runs dry. Enough water had run out of the tank to successful drain the pump chamber. And then… I start to hear the inevitable “sizzle” sound from a surge protector that had gotten wet. Any body want to guess where a large portion of my electrical was sitting? Fortunately, all of the GFCI actually worked and everything shut down. (Lesson 2 : GFCI. Always, Always, Always)

Now here’s where it gets interesting. Just when I thought I had it back under control…

I get all of the affected electrical out of there and start soaking up water. During that process, I managed to KNOCK OFF THE CANOPY! Okay, so apparently, my canopy has no nifty piece of wood on the back to prevent it from sliding forward off of the tank! (Lesson 3 : If your canopy will slide off of your tank with just a push, FIX THAT ASAP)

What a mess… i’m standing there, wedged behind my tank, holding on to my canopy that’s loaded with expensive lighting and reflectors. Anybody want to guess where I set my new electrical stuff that I was about to install? You guessed it! On top of the canopy! Seeing as the canopy is now at a 45 degree angle, everything has now slid off… into my ATO reservoir, which I just moved to the front of the tank so I could get behind there. (Lesson 4 : 12″ from the wall is NOT far enough, you will need more space! Deal with the look of it or run a smaller tank that you don’t need to get behind!)

So I have now managed to ruin my old electrical stuff as well as my new electrical stuff, gotten water all over the floor, and have no idea what equipment works and what doesn’t. I got the circ pumps back up, set two of them to break the surface tension, tossed in a heater and WENT TO BED. (Lesson 5 : If you’re that tired, you’re probably doing more harm than good)

Insert 8 hour sleep break here

I have now spent the better part of the morning putting everything back together, all of the “core” equipment is working but I have yet to test the calcium reactor, ATO, etc… my 3 IceCap 660’s survived the splashing and all of the bulbs survived. Even my moonlight LEDs made it. I’m not sure about the reactor pump just yet, but I consider that a minor loss if I have to buy a new one. That last piece of flexible tubing is now CLAMPED in place. (Lesson 6 : Using Flexible tubing as PVC elbows is a neat concept but turns out to be a big PITA in the end)

So, that’s the end of my story. I was ready to start bagging livestock and taking it to the various stores. But man… i’m sooooo close. I can’t help but love this hobby. I’ve invested all of this time and money to get it running, and now i’ve learned yet another lesson that will make my next tank even better!

I’m still in the fight, but wow did I want to quit.

Let me summarize all of this into one small, informative list and add one more…

Lesson 1 : Tubing is easy, PVC doesn’t come loose
Lesson 2 : GFCI. Always, Always, Always
Lesson 3 : If your canopy will slide off of your tank with just a push, FIX THAT ASAP
Lesson 4 : 12″ from the wall is NOT far enough, you will need more space! Deal with the look of it or run a smaller tank that you don’t need to get behind!
Lesson 5 : If you’re that tired, you’re probably doing more harm than good
Lesson 6 : Using Flexible tubing as PVC elbows is a neat concept but turns out to be a big PITA in the end
Lesson 7 : Big calcium reactors are freakin’ cool… After all of this crap, i’m staring at my PROCAL going “Wow… that’s just cool”

Life apparently got the best of me. I’ve been totally slacking on updating ID.com. So, here’s an update…

1. I’ve got a few ideas in draft posts right now, maybe i’ll pound one of those into an actual post (instead of this crap excuse for a post).
2. I could do a new “fishy” post… lots of stuff going on there.
3. I could d a mega-rant. I’ve got 4 or 5 topics rattling around in my head that i’ve been wanting to rant about.
4. Maybe just a general update post or something.

Maybe i’ll do one of each… who knows? Stay tuned!