Christopher Hitchens RIP

Christopher Hitchens, champion of rational thought and vocal opponent of superstition, lost his battle with cancer on December 15. He will be missed.

Sam Harris expresses it better than I could: The Blog : Hitch : Sam Harris

Union Rules Hookers

(Originally heard this from a college buddy back in 1983)

A dedicated Teamsters union worker was attending a convention in Las Vegas and decided to check out the local brothels. When he got to the first one, he asked the Madam, "Is this a union house?"

"No,' she replied, "I'm sorry, it isn't."

"Well, if I pay you $100, what cut do the girls get?"

"The house gets $80 and the girls get $20", she answered.

Offended at such unfair dealings, the union man stomped off down the street in search of a more equitable, hopefully unionized shop. His search continued until finally he reached a brothel where the Madam responded, "Why yes sir, this is a union house. We observe all union rules."

The man asked, "And if I pay you $100, what cut do the girls get?"

"The girls get $80 and the house gets $20."

"That's more like it!" the union man said.

He handed the Madam $100, looked around the room, and pointed to a stunningly attractive green-eyed blonde. "I'd like her", he said.

"I'm sure you would, sir", said the Madam. Then she gestured to a 92-year old woman in the corner, "but Ethel here has 67 years seniority and according to union rules, she's next!"

An Amazing Deal On IPads!

http://www.jumbojoke.com/an_amazing_deal_on_ipads.html

I've always wanted an iPad, but could never afford one. Now this is an amazing deal! Just $1, and it's totally legitimate! I already have mine!

If you are interested in getting an iPad I know someone who has a bunch that he has to get sold off immediately.

These are legit -- not off the back of a truck! They are from a canceled hospital contract due to Government cutbacks in health care.

Obviously, the numbers are limited -- he has just 20,000 iPads, and at $1 in original packaging, you know they're going to go really fast.

I got mine already -- the photo of one satisfied customer is below!

Get back to me as quickly as you can if you want one too.

We can show kids how to really save money. Who doesn't have a buck lying around to get in on this great deal?!?

- - -

- - -

- - -

What?

Oh, "iPad", "eye pad" -- what's the difference?

Coat of Arms finalized!

At long last, after learning all sorts of cool things I can do with the Gimp,

I finally completed the design for my personal Coat of Arms!

Hooray!

Now I need to find a place that will produce a nice hand-painted plaque with

a customer-supplied design. The services I've run across have no mechanism

to handle a customer-supplied design; they only offer packages where they

design the thing themselves based on the customer's last name.

My research into heraldry traditions revealed that a coat of arms was supposed

to be different for each individual, though each son's version was based

on his father's (and grandfather's, great-grandfather's, etc.) design in a specific

manner. Then when the father died, the eldest son adopted his father's design

but the other sons continued to use their modified versions.

The various traditions also morphed over time and weren't really followed

consistently in many cases, so ultimately I decided that it's entirely appropriate

for me to design my own coat of arms based on my ancestral lineages, and

to evolve the heraldric traditions in accordance with societal evolution that

has occurred since medieval times.

In today's society, women are no longer thought of as second-class citizens.

In light of that, I've incorporated both my father's (Abreau) and my mother's

(Moran) family crest designs into my shield, in the manner commonly used
when two different kingdoms were joined together by marriage. I've affixed
a "mullet" (5-point star) to indicate that I'm my parents' third son; I've replaced
the armored helmet with a blue fedora; and instead of choosing an animal to
represent my basic virtues, I chose instead two of my intellectual heroes:
Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Darwin.

Blink, and you miss it!

Well, it finally happened. On October 31, when I was distracted and didn't think to check the clock, the official headcount of the population of our planet crossed the 7 billion mark.

There are now more than 7 billion human begins living on the third rock from our Sun!

We passed the 6 billion mark on October 12, 1999. The 5 billion mark was crossed on July 11, 1987. The 4 billion mark is estimated to have been reached in April 1974, and the 3 billion mark in July 1959.

Pretty soon it will be standing room only!

Introducing: Plato's Magical Mystery Cave

Time for a fresh new perspective! "Perdition's Obsessive Compulsion", an oblique reference to the legend of Captain Van der Decken and the "Flying Dutchman", has now been renamed "Plato's Magical Mystery Cave"! Hooray! :e

On Dennis Ritchie: A conversation with Brian Kernighan - O'Reilly Radar

On Dennis Ritchie: A conversation with Brian Kernighan - O'Reilly Radar:

'via Blog this'

Dennis Ritchie Day - O'Reilly Radar

Dennis Ritchie Day - O'Reilly Radar:

On 10/30/11 let's remember the contributions of computing pioneer Dennis Ritchie.

I don't have the convening power of a Governor Brown, but for those of us around the world who care, I hereby declare this Sunday, October 30 to be Dennis Ritchie Day! Let's remember the contributions of this computing pioneer. (Tim O’Reilly)

'via Blog this'

IPv6 Baby Steps

Been doing some research on how to proceed, now that my first IPv6 tunnel is working.

The "Seven Deadly Traps" whitepaper recommended finding an IP address management (IPAM) tool to manage allocation of IPv6 addresses. After installing and testing several opensource implementations, I found that phpipam works well.

Tried installing OCS Inventory NG, too, but I'm having some difficulties getting it running properly.

Checking out some IPv6 info resources at ARIN.net. Found the following checklist at First Steps for ISPs

Work Toward Native IPv6

After you have accomplished this, it is time to begin the planning and education process which will result in offering native IPv6 Internet access services at all PoPs where you currently offer IPv4 Internet access. You will need to run dual-stack on your backbone and servers, and will need to push IPv6 all the way to the edge. Here are some pages which will help with that.

• Implementing Dual Stack
• Educating Yourself about IPv6
• Planning IPv6 Deployment
• Designing an IPv6 Lab Environment
• DNS and Naming Issues
• Troubleshoot IPv6 Issues
• Implementing 6PE
• Investigate Middleboxes
• Article on ISP IPv6 planning

Who says men don't have a sensitive side?

Teddy Bear Collection

A woman meets a gorgeous man in a bar. They talk, they connect, they end up leaving together.

They get back to his place, and as he shows her around his apartment, she can't help but notice the soft, sweet, cuddly teddy bears in his bedroom!

There are three shelves with hundreds and hundreds of cute, cuddly teddy bears, carefully placed in rows covering an entire wall! It was obvious that he had taken quite some time to lovingly arrange them and she was immediately touched by the amount of thought he had put into organizing the display.

There were small bears all along the bottom shelf, medium-sized bears covering the length of the middle shelf, and huge, enormous bears running all the way along the top shelf.

She found it strange for a young bloke to have such a large a collection of teddy bears, especially one that's so extensive, but doesn't mention this to him, and actually is quite impressed by his sensitive side. All the while thinking to herself, "Oh my! Maybe this guy could be the one! Maybe he could father my children!"

She turns to him. They kiss... and then they rip each other's clothes off and make hot steamy love.

After an intense, explosive night of raw passion, the woman rolls over, strokes his chest and asks coyly, "Well, how was it?"

The guy says: "Help yourself to any prize from the bottom shelf."

Reinstalled RequestTracker

Back in the spring we had a disk failure on the BLU server, and I never reinstalled a few of the subsystems that had gone unused for a long time. One of these was the RT helpdesk system.

I needed RT again for the IPv6 project, so I reinstalled it yesterday afternoon. Couldn't get the dependencies working for the latest tarball (version 4.0.2) so I ended up using the pre-built package (version 3.8.8) from the yum repo.

Alas, there's a boatload of new features in 4.x that I'd like to use, but I needed something operational immediately. Hopefully the newer version will get packaged for EPEL in a few months.

The Science Channel Videos: Through The Wormhole: Machine Planet

Machine Planet (video hosted by Morgan Freeman)

Baby's First IPv6 Tunnel

Yesterday I registered for an account at SixXS, got the account details, and then requested a heartbeat tunnel.
This afternoon I received the config details for the tunnel. I set up the tunnel on Lachesis and was then able
to successfully ping6 a few IPv6 addresses and browse a few IPv6-only websites.

Woo-Hoo!!!

(Apologies to any Minbari who may find that expression offensive or confusing :)

-------------------------------

Details:

1. Installed the AICCU software on the CentOS 6.0 server: "yum install aiccu"
2. Edited the config file "/etc/aiccu.conf" with my tunnel config info. Set the username, password, protocol (tic), server, and tunnel_id. Left the rest of the file as-is.
3. Ran "chkconfig aiccu on" and "service aiccu start" to bring up the tunnel.
4. Ran "ping6 ipv6.google.com" to ping an external IPv6 address. Success!!!
5. Connected to the server via vnc over an ssh tunnel, and started firefox.
6. Did a google search for IPv6-only sites.
7. Browsed to "http://ipv6.cybernode.com/list-of-ipv6-only-sites" for a list.
8. Tested connection at "http://v6.testmyipv6.com". Success!!!

The site linked to a free whitepaper: "The 7 Deadly Traps of IPv6 Deployment and How to Avoid Them". Next step is to read through this.

Progress on IPv6 project

Status so far:

1. Allocated a server for a BLU IPv6 testbed at our colo facility. Needs hard drives.
2. Talked to colo customer support; turns out they don't provide any IPv6 support.
3. Asked for recommendations on BLU discussion list.
4. Recommendation #1: Do a hybrid IPv4/IPv6 system, instead of a pure IPv6-only system
5. Recommendation #2: Use the SixXS.net tunnel broker to connect to the IPv6 Internet
6. Registered for a SixXS account for the project
7. Requested a heartbeat-type tunnel from my SixXS account

--------------------

Details:

1. Browsed to https://www.sixxs.net/main/ and read through the "10 Easy Steps to IPv6" page. Determined that the best type of tunnel for my purposes is a Heartbeat tunnel.
2. Used the SixXS direct signup link to register for an account.
3. Once I received the account, I requested a heartbeat tunnel.

Red Hat Takes Its Hat Off to Dennis Ritchie

Red Hat Takes Its Hat Off to Dennis Ritchie

October 14, 2011

by Tim Burke, Vice President Linux Engineering

It is with sad hearts that the Red Hat community mourns the passing of computing pioneer Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie. Dennis Ritchie was the principal designer of the C programming language and co-developer of the Unix operating system, working closely with Ken Thompson, his longtime Bell Labs collaborator.

Many of us have a proud history of involvement in the UNIX operating system well before the emergence of Linux. To the UNIX world, Ritchie and Thompson were as influential as Linus Torvalds is today to the Linux community. Unix and C's direct and spiritual descendants cannot be counted, but include Linux, Android, Mac OS, iOS, JavaScript, C++, the genius of the internet, and a planet of developers. The major impact of UNIX is not so much in the elegant code itself but rather in the culture of sharing work across industry and academia that became UNIX’s hallmark. Prior to UNIX, operating system code was locked in corporate vaults – inaccessible to the masses. UNIX flung open these doors by allowing code to be shared among software engineers across the nascent computer industry, ushering in an unprecedented wave of collaborative development – and, at the same time, liberating many applications from being locked into a single proprietary hardware vendor.

UNIX code was also shared with universities where it became the foundation of the learning and advancement of operating system practices. Similarly, the C programming language became a staple of the computer science classroom. Many of us literally grew up in Dennis' technical shadow and still have his book, The C Programming Language, co-authored with Brian Kernighan and more fondly referred to as K & R, on our shelves. It remains a source of inspiration and practical help to programmers to this day.

Most of what we do is heavily influenced by Dennis’s outstanding contributions – both in the technical arena and as a founder of the concept of community development. We at Red Hat look with awe and reverence on his legacy.

PXE Dust at Midnight

The new PXE install server is finally working! The final problem turned out to be an SElinux issue with Apache.

It seems Apache doesn't like to serve files from an iso image mounted on a loopback device, unless you set the SElinux context in the mount options:

mount -o ro,loop,context=system_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t Cent OS-6.0-x86_64-bin-DVD1.iso dvd1

Isaac Asimov on Mysticism

"I wonder how many people go for these mystical, nonsensical things simply because they must go for something, and this is the only thing available.

The same thing bothers me about mysticism that would bother me about con men. It doesn't seem to me to be right to sell a person phony stuff, and take money for it. And this is what mystics are doing. They're selling people phony knowledge, and taking money for it.

Even if people feel good about it; I can well imagine that a person who really believes in astrology is going to have a feeling of security because he knows that this is a bad day, so to stay at home.

But nevertheless, a guy who's got phony stock may look at it, it's nice and shiny, and has scrolls and all gold lettering and stuff, and as long as he doesn't have to do anything with it, he feels real rich looking at it. But that's no excuse; he still has phony stock.

And the person who buys mysticism still has phony knowledge."

(Isaac Asimov)

"Downers Grove" (Emo Phillips)

Lyrics to Emo Phillips' song, "Downers Grove"

-----------

I like to shop in downtown Downers Grove

It doesn't take big bucks, and everyone there really is nice

I went to the bakery just the other day

I said to the girl, "Do you have a zwieback?"

She said, "I always slouch this way"

I went to the pet shop, said, "I want a parrot"

The Guy said, "How 'bout a cockatoo?"

I said, "No thanks, just a bird"

I went into the clothing store and I made up my mind

I wasn't going to let any pushy salesman pressure me into buying

something I didn't need...

So after I bought the kilts

I went to the hardware shop

I said, "This riding lawnmower's stupid"

They said, "Next time, you get on top"

I went to the gas station, said, "Fill 'er up, Harry"

The guy said "Regular?"

I said, "No, put on a gorilla suit

And dance like a fairy"

I went into Gus' Artificial Organ and Taco Stand

Said, "Give me a bladder, por favor"

The guy said, "Is that to go?"

I said, "Well, what else would I want it for?"

I was walking down the street

something caught my eye

and dragged it fifteen feet

That's why I like to shop in downtown Downers Grove!

Class Warfare and a Shrinking Economic Pie

"If there has been class warfare, My class won" (Warren Buffet)


I disagree with his conclusion. Buffet's class got more than its share
of the pie, but the overall size of the pie is shrinking. In absolute
terms, both classes are losing; Buffet's class is just losing at a
slower rate than ours.


Also, the entire pie is shrinking precisely because the rich class
has been preying on the rest of us for the past three decades. Like
termites, they've eaten away at America's economic foundation to the
point where the whole economy is at risk of collapse.

Children and superstition

"You say you're worried about children; I'm not worried about children, I'm worried about 'grown-ups'.


"These are the ones who vote. These are the ones who tell you, 'the world is coming to an end in 2012!' Kids don't say that, grown-ups do.


"Grown-ups say 'read me my horoscope and tell me when I'll find money tomorrow!' Grown-ups say this, not children. Children do not read horoscopes. Children are perfectly happy counting through the number 13. Children aren't afraid to walk under ladders. They see a black cat cross their path and they say 'look! kitty, kitty' and want to pet it, not run in the other direction.


"Children are not the problem here!"


(Neil deGrasse Tyson)

Good Luck, Mr. Gorsky!

When Apollo Mission Astronaut Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon,
he not only gave his famous "One small step for man; one giant leap
for mankind" statement, but followed it by several remarks, including
the usual COM traffic between him, the other astronauts, and Mission
Control. Before he re-entered the lander, he made the enigmatic remark
"Good luck, Mr. Gorsky."

Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival
Soviet Cosmonaut. However, upon checking, they found there was no Gorsky
in either the Russian or American space programs.


Over the years, many people have questioned him as to what the "Good luck,
Mr. Gorsky" statement meant. On July 5, 1995, in Tampa Bay, FL, while
answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26-
year-old question to Armstrong. He finally responded. It seems that Mr.
Gorsky had died and so Armstrong felt he could answer the question.


In 1942, when he was a 12-year-old kid, Neil was playing baseball with his brother in the
backyard. His brother hit a fly ball which landed in front of his
neighbors' bedroom window. The neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Gorsky. As
he leaned down to pick up the ball, he heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at
Mr. Gorsky, "Oral sex? Oral sex you want? You'll get oral sex when the
kid next door walks on the moon!"


(Note: this is an urban legend)

Investment 101

If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have $49.00 today!

If you purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG, you would have $33.00.

If you purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers, you would have $0.00 today.

But, if you purchased $1,000 worth of beer, drank all the beer, turned in the aluminium cans for recycling, you would have $214.00.


Therefore the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle.

Harry S. Truman 1947

"Republica­­­­­­­ns approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke.

They stand four-squar­­­­­­­e for the American home--but not for housing.

They are strong for labor--but they are stronger for restrictin­­­­­­­g labor's rights.

They favor minimum wage--the smaller the minimum wage the better.

They endorse educationa­­­­­­­l opportunit­­­­­­­y for all--but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools.

They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine--for people who can afford them.

They consider electrical power a great blessing--­­­­­­­but only when the private power companies get their rake-off.

They think American standard of living is a fine thing--so long as it doesn't spread to all the people.

And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it."

-- Harry S. Truman 1947

Great Italian Sex

The Jewish man said, “Last week, my wife and I had great sex. I rubbed her body all over with schmaltz (chicken fat), we made passionate love, and she screamed for five full minutes at the end!”

The Frenchman boasted, “Last week when my wife and I had sex, I rubbed her body all over with butter. We then made passionate love and she screamed for 10 minutes!”

The Italian man said, “Well, last week my wife and I also had sex. I rubbed her body all over with olive oil. We made love, and she screamed for over six hours!”

The other two were stunned. The amazed Frenchman asked, “What could you have possibly done to make your wife scream for six hours?” The Italian said.............

”I wiped my hands on the bedspread.”

Ya know it's a recession when...

Ya know it's a recession when...

1. I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.
2. Wives are having sex with their husbands because they can't afford batteries.
3. CEO's are now playing miniature golf.
4. Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.
5. A stripper was killed when her audience showered her with rolls of pennies while she danced.
6. I saw a Mormon with only one wife.
7. If the bank returns your check marked "Insufficient Funds," you call them and ask if they meant you or them.
8. McDonald's is selling the 1/4 ouncer.
9. Angelina Jolie adopted a child from America .
10. Parents in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their children's names.
11. My cousin had an exorcism but couldn't afford to pay for it, and they re-possessed her!
12. A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico.
13. A picture is now only worth 200 words.
14. When Bill and Hillary travel together, they now have to share a room.
15. The Treasure Island Casino in Las Vegas is now managed by Somali pirates.
16. I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc., I called the Suicide Hotline. I got a call center in Pakistan, and when I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited, and asked if I could drive a truck.

Evolution of the GOP

"When I was a kid and Eisenhower was the president, my whole family was happily Republican. Then I grew up, and Nixon dragged us through Watergate and Ronald Reagan proved what a disaster Voodoo economics really is, and then George Bush proved it again.

"Now the Tea Party/Repubs believe they are the true voice of America, with paranoia rampant in their fact-free universe. The Republican Party has gone off the deep end and has plunged into some kind of madness. This is not even the party of Bill Buckley…it’s the party of wild-eyed nut jobs like Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin and Herman Cain.

"The Republicans seem to have a death wish. I have often argued that they need to suffer an apocalyptic political defeat in 2012 so they can re-examine what it really mean to be conservative in the reality-based world. We need to have a real, conservative voice in our national dialog, but these guys/gals are not it. They are so deeply irrational, suffused with flagrant hypocrisy, and drunk on the No-New-Taxes Koolaid, that you can’t even have a meaningful discussion with them.

"I wish I could find a reasonable Republican to debate, but I don’t know any."

-- Robert Post

Cannibal Restaurant

A cannibal was walking through the jungle and came upon a restaurant operated by a fellow cannibal. Feeling somewhat hungry, he sat down and looked over the menu...

• Tourist: $5.00
• Broiled Missionary: $10.00
• Fried Explorer: $15.00
• Baked Democrat or Grilled Republican: $100.00

The cannibal called the waiter over and asked, "Why such a price difference for the politicians?"

The cook replied, "Have you ever tried to clean one? They're so full of shit, it takes all morning."

My mother told me to behave...

My mother told me to behave.

How should I do that?

During childhood i saw Tarzan going around naked, Cinderella coming home after midnight, Pinocchio lying, Batman driving 240km/h, Sleeping Beauty staying in bed all day long, Little Red Ridding Hood talking with Wolf even if Mother told her not to, Popeye having weed, Snow White living with seven men, Aladin getting high...

And they all lived happily ever after!!!

(found on Google+)

Little Teeny Eyes

Little Teeny Eyes

1.

Oh we got a new computer but it's quite a disappointment

'Cause it always gave this same insane advice:

"OH YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT

LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY HANDS FOR MILKING MICE."

2.

So we re-read the instruction book that came with the computer

But it kept on printing crazy stuff that reads

Like: "YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT

LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY SHOES FOR CENTIPEDES."

3.

So we got an expert genius and he rewrote all the programs

But we always got results that looked like these:

"OH YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT

LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY LICENSE PLATES FOR BEES."

4.

Then we tested each resistor, every diode and transistor,

But our EElectronic brain just raves and rants:

"OH YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT

LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE BRANDING IRONS FOR BRANDING ANTS."

5.

Now we're looking for a buyer for a crazy mad computer

That will only give out crazy mad advice

Like: "YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT

LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY HANDS FOR MILKING MICE."

(Tom Digby, written 1/27/66)

A Utah Phillips Tribute

Wood shop interior

1:28 AM.

Lots of interesting 3D art at BlenderArtists.org!

(originally posted on Memories from the Pandorica)

Goodbye, Sarah Jane :-(

I just heard that Elisabeth Sladen died on April 19, of cancer. Elisabeth was the actress who played the role of Sarah Jane Smith, companion of Doctor Who back in the '80's, when Tom Baker was the Doctor.

I loved the 2006 episode "School Reunion" where she ran into the Doctor again, during David Tennant's time, and enjoyed her spinoff series that followed.

Elisabeth was still active up to the end. I will miss her.

Current Location: Home
Current Mood: sad
Current Music: Karma Chameleon-Culture Club-Billboard Top Hits: 1984

(originally posted on my LiveJournal site)

Deepest Sender

Another blogging client, implemented as a Firefox plugin. It's called "Deepest Sender", and it appears that it works for Blogger and LiveJournal. So far, so good.

Current Location: Baypath
Current Mood: thirsty
Current Music: Not In Love

(originally posted on my LiveJournal site)

Qumana and Blogger

Trying Qumana as a blogging client, it won't load old posts from this blog. Will it allow posting? Seems to work fine with LiveJournal...

Powered by Qumana

Departure of the Mysterious Non-Smoking Man

He Who Shall Not Be Named came visiting from Another Land for a few days. He's heading home to his Secret Lair this evening, with gifts for his family. Adios, until next time!

The video from Wednesday's BLU meeting was somewhat spotty; the camcorder had been in photo mode, and we didn't catch the error until well into the meeting. Fortunately, we were recording the audio separately, so at the very least we can post the audio.

Current Location: Home
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Welcome To The Jungle-Guns-N-Roses-Greatest Hits

(originally posted on my LiveJournal site)

Google Video, R.I.P.

Last week I received notice that Google Video will no longer host videos, and that my immense archive of BLU meeting videos will be deleted in early May.

I downloaded my archive in it's entirety, to Pegasus, and then proceeded to upload all five of them to YouTube. Alas, YouTube required me to split them into 15- minute segments before it would accept them.

Over the weekend I searched through a bunch of old removable-IDE drives that I had used for backups in the past, and I found several more BLU meeting videos that had never been on Google Video. I copied them to my laptop, then transferred them to Pegasus during this week's BLU meeting.

When I uploaded them to YouTube, I discovered that YouTube now allows me to upload them as a single file, and I no longer have to split them into 15-minute chunks. Hooray!

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

(originally posted on my LiveJournal site)

Blogging from the iPad

Found a LiveJournal app for the iPad, and giving it a try. Works OK, but suffers from the inherent suckiness of the on-screen keyboard. Would probably be fine if I had a good Bluetooth keyboard. At the moment I don't have *any* Bluetooth keyboard at all.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

(originally posted on my LiveJournal site)

G'Kar's "Declaration of Principles"

(from the Season 5 opener of "Babylon 5")

The universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice.

The language is not Narn, or Human, or Centauri, or Gaim or Minbari

It speaks in the language of hope

It speaks in the language of trust

It speaks in the language of strength and the language of compassion

It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul.

But always it is the same voice

It is the voice of our ancestors, speaking through us,

And the voice of our inheritors, waiting to be born

It is the small, still voice that says

We are one

No matter the blood

No matter the skin

No matter the world

No matter the star:

We are one

No matter the pain

No matter the darkness

No matter the loss

No matter the fear

We are one

Here, gathered together in common cause, we agree to recognize the singular truth and this singular rule:

That we must be kind to one another

Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us and each voice lost diminishes us.

We are the voice of the Universe, the soul of creation, the fire that will light the way to a better future.

We are one.

Are you sick of highly paid teachers?

Are you sick of highly paid teachers?

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan-- that equals 6 1/2 hours).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET'S SEE....

That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher's salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days == $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student -- -a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)

WHAT A DEAL!!!!

Make a teacher smile; repost this to show appreciation for all educators.

Waiting for Series 6...

Finished up the Total WHO Marathon just in time for Christmas! I had begun months ago with the first 26 seasons, from 1963 to 1989, then caught Paul McGann's 1996 movie, then raced through the Chris Eccleston and David Tennant years, and finally watched "The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang" on Festivus Day, December 23.

Just in time for "A Christmas Carol" on Dec 26. Kazran Sardick, half-way out of the dark!

Now the long wait for Series 6, which should begin airing in the Spring...

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Good King Wenceslas

(originally posted on my LiveJournal site: The Pizza Delivery Weasel)