George Carlin on the “American dream, outlines why WiKileaks is being assaulted. And why we have such rotten governments around the world.
Additional Material: Amnesia as a Way of Life: WikiLeaks Amid the “Careless People”
George Carlin on the “American dream, outlines why WiKileaks is being assaulted. And why we have such rotten governments around the world.
Additional Material: Amnesia as a Way of Life: WikiLeaks Amid the “Careless People”
This article MeeGo will not displace Symbian as enterprise OS has now demonstrated that Meego is no longer supported by Nokia, and it will be left to die with Maemo as a ‘Non-Runner’ in the Mobile-OS arena. It also indicates that Nokia Management has gone down the MicroSoft path to complete irrelevance in the Mobile Phone market. It’s no wonder the Maemo/Meego managers and developers at Nokia are leaving. Most are heading to the surviving Mobile OS’s Android, Web-OS, iOS and Blackberry.
NOTE: and the BS continues, with Intel killing off MeeGo for Tizen to further delay or destroy Open Source for mobile devices.
We should sell a passport and an Irish Citizenship to everyone who believes they belong to the Irish diaspora! If we charged them all 100€ or maybe 1,000€ then we might have a hope to buy back the Irish sovereignty lost by Fianna Fáil.
The future of Irish unemployment, or for that matter, unemployment anywhere, may involve re-establishing a medieval apprenticeship, where students, or other unemployed IT/Scientific/Technical workers live with those in the same industry who ARE working, and learn the business from them, as MASTERS of the craft.
Apprentice – A Medieval Guild Apprentice was sent to work for a ‘Master’ during his early teens. The Apprenticeship lasted between 5 and 9 years depending on the trade. During this time the apprentice received no wages – just his board, lodging and training. An Apprentice was not allowed to marry until he reached the status of a Journeyman.
While all of these requirements need not be followed, it might alleviate homeless students or other tradesmen.
A couple of weeks ago a friend from work was clearing out their place, I assume that his wife was involved, but in any case my collection of computers grew a bit when he offered to gift them to me. So now I own a Sun SPARCstation 5 and a Sun SparcStation IPX along with other bits and bobs. My wife was thrilled, as you can well imagine. Now as a rule I only take systems that work, and they do, however the passwords have been lost in the annals of time.
So I was left with a marginal SparcStation 5 with a missing CD drive, which booted to Solaris 2.7, but no further. But I’m a geek, and undaunted by this minor setback, I set out looking for a workaround. The googling net is full of solutions for password recovery … if you have a bootable cd (yes CD not DVD), Ok, next does eBay still have Solaris stuff that old … not cheaply, so what next.
While googling, OpenBSD presented itself, and I downloaded and burned some generic ISO’s of version 4.8. and then to solve the other hardware issue, the Sun IPX was delivered with a cartridge loading CD, but the IPX drive was housed in an external SCSI 1 case, and the SS5 was wired with a SCSI II system externally. so I dismantled the CD drive and searched for a CD cartridge carrier which as any self-respecting Geek, I had stashed away for a rainy day. Then armed with the hardware I jumpered the SCSI CD drive into the SS5 chassis, and bingo a complete and bootable SS5.
Now attempting to boot the OpenBSD was no problem, which surprised me to no end. But then I attempted a password recovery on the Solaris disk and no joy. but I did manage to mount it, and more or less destroy it (latter I found a way to fix it) and determined to go ahead and install the full OpenBSD system. Which more or less worked, there were issues with the X-Fonts archive but I found the tarball contained another version, which worked. It now booted on the internal disk, but I had to add and modify the XF86Config file to find the display, mouse and keyboard. My result does not match the examples of this file you might find on the net. So if you are interested, contact me, the Sun GB keyboard was hell to make work. but TADA:
And I even now have a browser in the form of Links
However, while it can compile most anything, there isn’t much left on the 1GB disk to compile TO. So unless I find some pre-compiled SMALL binaries, or a very cheap internal SCSI Disk to upgrade with, I’m stuck.
There may be more coming for this toy but just to make a comparison with modern hardware;
SparcStation 5 | Nokia N900 smartphone | |
Screen | 1024 x 768 (9 screens) | 800 x 480 (4 screens) |
Memory | 64 MBytes | 256 MBytes |
CPU Freq | 110 Mhz | 600 Mhz |
Storage | 1 GByte | 32 Gbyte |
Price (new) | 8,000.00$ to 10,000.00$ | ~500.00$ |
UPDATE: I found amongst the archives another external 1.2GB SCSI disk, which fits nicely in the same connector that the CD-Drive was in, so now the SS5 is without the CD-Drive but has a massive 2.2GB of disks, Impressive 🙂
We received a letter in the mail recently informing us that our DSL connection was scheduled to be upgraded to 8Mbits from the current 3Mbs, and without charge. Last weekend it happened, however they are doing it in stages, or else they couldn’t get their equipment to speed up that fast. So we are left with a ‘configured’ speed of 5Mbits (download) / 512Kbits (upload) which in real terms works out to 4.42Mbits down/ 410 up (see below)
But, what the heck, it didn’t cost extra, and it is faster… one can only dream of a vendor who delivers on the promises, reality is another thing.
I know all the Mass Media Press and even Intrade have predicted that the Republican Party will take over the U.S. House of Representatives during this election. But I am wishing this were not true, and I think that maybe I’m not the only one.
This is the same GOP Party that has brought the U.S.A. to the brink of destruction with their Corporate Policy’s that favor the Rich and powerful over the general population. And they are gaining GrassRoots support largely due to their ownership of most of the Press.
I fear that the GOP is both repeating The Big Lie so much that they expect to win on it, and that because the press it telling everyone that the GOP will take over the House, that they are expecting a Self-fulfilling prophecy to seduce the public into voting them back into control of the house.
But like I mentioned earlier, I can’t be the only one wishing that they will NOT get their hands on the controls of the House. If that is the case, I’m wishing that the Democrats get off their collective Asses and broadcast the GOP corruptions and Facts facing the voters this election. I’m afraid I’ll be disappointed, but I guess that I’ll just have to be satisfied that with the Democrats and the Republican splitting the Senate and House, that Congress will get nothing done. And that’s a good thing. Because ANY time congress passes a law, someone looses a freedom, and that can’t be good.
Before the last big election in the U.S.A. I managed to get on to a great deal of political Email lists, as I’m sure many of you did. And while they all managed to end up in the Junk email box, as I have very little vested interest in U.S. Politics anymore. I have seen a great deal of anguish about the emergence of the Tea Party Movement and the Radical and apparently irrational candidates demands.
I have worried as many that these people represented the worst in U.S. politics, the radical Right Wing elements who are being manipulated by ultra-conservative GOP millionaires. However, and I mean some how, however, they have managed to get off the leash from the directions of their handlers and appear to actually believe in their, from my perspective, misguided ideals. And there by hangs the tail on the political animal.
Democracy! It’s not just for mainstream (managed) Democrat or Republican candidates, those willing to say or do anything to get elected to office. Those who, with party backing, pay millions of dollars to get elected to political positions that really only pay a pittance. Just so thay can exert influence for those who paid to put them there. They are not really representing their electorate who voted for them, not representing the views and opinions of the people they were elected to serve, but those who paid to put them there. And we both know that is wrong.
So from another perspective, if a Tea Party candidate, who might believe in Pink Faeries who deliver chocolate cookies, receives enough votes from people who also believe in Pink Faeries. Then that person has every right, democratically, to server in the U.S. government. They would be doing exactly what they were elected to do, represent those who believe in Pink Faeries. In fact they would have more right to be there than those who were bought and paid for by lobbyist with an agenda.
And the worst case of this Pink Faerie representative in the Senate, or the House, nothing, except that they would not be beholding to anyone, except those who believed in Pink Faeries. Do you, for a minute, believe that legislation would ever be created to effect the U.S. regarding Pink Faeries? Would they be capable of generating the votes in congress to pass such legislation? Then what does anyone have to worry about, with ANY other belief that ANY candidate might profess during an election. They will first have to gather enough votes to get elected, then manage to promote any such idea in congress to a majority vote. And they have the right to try, in fact that it part of the problem with the two party system of politics in the U.S., not enough parties to represent all of the views of the differing sectors of American voters.
So while I don’t believe in the Tea Party, I will defend their right to make the attempt put forth their ideas and views to the vote of the people of the U.S. and discover for themselves the measure of acceptance of those ideals from the voting public. And if they are elected, so be it, this is the voice of the electorate, let it be heard.
That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?
Pie chart: Apple’s outrageous share of the mobile industry’s profits
In any other businesses this would be called a RIP OFF! by Apple, but with the Apple-Fanboy base, They can do no wrong. I used to be a Apple Evanglista back in Apple’s dark days, and I still use a MacBook. But I use a Nokia N900, because I can do more, with less Apple regulation, and I pay a great deal less than any iPhone ball-and-chain.
I may have stumbled upon a missing link in our technology. But first let me tell you a bit of myself.
I use a CPAP to help me breath at night. And while I won’t die without it, I am somewhat dependent on it for a good nights sleep. Last night I got up for a respite in the necessary and a small clasp gave way. Not completely broken, but incapable of holding my mask on. I managed to kluge a fix in the dark, and finished the night.
I had opened and closed that clasp a thousand times. I was dependent on the tiniest component to breath and sleep. And it came to me that the bits and pieces we use everyday in our high technology lives, have us somewhat by the short hairs. I thought of flash memory sticks, and SSD’s which are built with a limited life span. Just like my clasp, one snap past it’s sell by date. Mean Time to Failure.
Just like every other device we use, you have to have a backup, a plan. Mine with the clasp, was a touch of superglue and the cost of a bit of inconvenience. But what about a life’s work on a flaky flash memory.
Got your super glue handy?
Moments after we arrived in Wales, we were interested in checking email and whatnot. So we stopped at a McDonald’s to use the non-existant WiFi. So realizing we were in a Vodafone cell site, I thought I’d use my JoikuSpot from my Nokia N900.
No problem we even got decent download performance on the 2MByte download. And then we disconnected, and the shock set in.
I got an immediate SMS with the following;
You’ve spent eur41.43 data roaming and your usage will be capped at eur60.50. To continue past the cap, text PASS EU CAP to 50193. For more info see vodafone.ie
WTF, this is a Vodafone SIM (IE) and they are charging this kind of roaming charge in vodafone Wales. What a Ripoff!
I may be the last to see this, a war, underground and undeclared, but a war. The opponents are a bit undefined but there is a clear and escalating combat in the world. I’m not talking about Terrorists, (although the establishment who is under assault may declare their attackers as such) I am talking about the the established order, The Multi-Nationals, the Big Press, Governments, Military establishments, Religious organizations. The big anonymous bodies that have been abusing their positions to detriment everyone else.
On the opposing side, are all the little people, groups and oppressed, or the perceived oppressed. Your fellow ‘pissed off’ worker setting next to you, who will explode in a fountain of Whistle blowing. A venting of frustration that will result in the next big internet explosion.
The WikiLeaks is merely the first oozing pustule on the face of the corporeal Corporations of the world. The World of Blogging has for many years undermined the world press both broadcast and print to the point that now the majority of the population now refer to the Internet for real news rather than the handful of corporation owned ‘News’ services.
Control has now slipped out of the hands of those who for years have managed the information flow. Evidence of this ‘management’ appears almost daily in the presentations of ignorance passed off as ‘News’. And where ‘Fair and Balanced’ openly bribe governments to maintain control, religious organizations openly attempt to promote such myths as Creationism at the scientific Truth.
The tide has turned, and the failing newspapers are only the start. Watch for more WikiLeaks and Whistle Blower sites springing up, more Lawsuits more Smear campaigns as the giant attempts to swat the Whistleblowers who are biting it to death.
The Big, I mean the Really big, the really REALLY big news from Ireland is a Runaway Cat Boards Train, Reunited With Owner Through Twitter and again here Cat sneaks on to train, gets lost, is reunited with owner via Twitter Who would have thought it. A cat.