Image from here

Why are MSRP’s so far off of the real price of an item?  Even non-internet shoppers are quite aware that you almost never pay the MSRP (manufacturer’s suggested retail price) for anything.   It’s not even their fault 99% of everything in life is priced below MSRP.   Let’s look at the big things first, with the exception of the buy one get one free deals that seem to be in vogue with Kia there is almost no one on the planet that expects to pay the sticker price on a new car.  There are times that in retail companies have been caught trying to control the price of their wares, but in normal scenarios it doesn’t work out.

My problem however is when they say for example a 2 GB flash memory card has an MSRP of $20.00.   Now almost everywhere in the planet you can get this same card for $9.99.    Most stores will advertise that the price is fifty percent off the MSRP and it’s a huge discount off.   Unfortunately they are merely price matching.   In some scenarios the vendors themselves  try this tactic.  Now if a vendor is selling something (full time mind you not a once in awhile sale) for $9.99, how can they say their MSRP is $20.00.   Sorry just another advertisement about MSRP and comparing the “low price” you can get it for (standard price) bragging about the sale set me off.

Sorry for the rant.

I was the oldest child in my family.   I can also say I was a bastard older brother, mostly I think it was because I always wanted to be a single child.   So far barring any other additions (extremely unlikely) I’m the oldest of eight.   So my dreams of being a single child didn’t really play out as expected.   My sisters, well I was always protective of them.  My brother on the other hand….  Well we’ll leave it with the fact that we have never gotten along for any length of time.

While there are a few good stories I have about my brother, I’m going to start with one of the ones I was most proud of.  It was how I killed my brother.   Granted he is still alive and well and in November had his second child.   So I didn’t really kill him, but he thought I did.

One day my brother was being extremely annoying, but he was always up for dare (once in high school we managed to convince him to run down the street naked when there was six inches of snow on the ground).   Well that day I had a plan.   Now I’m sure almost everyone reading this has learned the method to check and see if a nine volt battery is still good.  Well in all honesty there are a few methods.

Method 1. – Plug it into something and see if it turns on.

Method 2. – Using a battery tester

Method 3. – Putting a penny across the two terminals and see if it warms up (great for melting crayons).

Method 4. – The old tried and true method of licking the battery terminals and see if you get a shock.

One day I decided to teach my brother method four.  I would say I was nine or ten years old, so he would have been four-five years old.   At first I explained the procedure, he (smartly) did not believe me.  So he wanted me to do it first.  I licked the battery, and was assured it was live.   I also showed no emotion to the shock of licking the battery (this was key).   I then proceeded to hand over the battery to him.  He was still sceptical but he proceeded to lick the battery.

His head shot back from the surprise shock ( I think it was a new battery).  He was upset at this time.   At first he was going to tell on me.   I then proceeded to tell him that licking the battery was going to cause him to die within a day.   There was no cure and there was nothing he could do about it.  He didn’t believe and pointed out that I licked the battery first.    I told him that I didn’t lick it at all, that I just acted like I did.  So I wasn’t going to die at all.

This had him livid and crying, but as he was about to run downstairs and tell my parents, I asked him what they would think if he told my parents that he did something so stupid.   He was upset and stayed up in the room for a little while discussing what to do.  Eventually he went down and told my parents.   I of course got yelled at for that one.  I can say that it was worth it though.

I’m going to die?

Image from here

While I don’t really blame NYPD from wanting to evolve and learn from other terrorists attacks, I think they are very short sighted in the idea of  blocking cell phone service in a terrorist attack.   I first read about this story on a Wired.com blog entry, I thought how asinine an idea just reading the headline.

The historical aspect where they are working form is the terrorist attacks in Mumbai that happened last month.   The terrorists used cell phone networks, GPS, and anonymous e-mail to coordinate their attacks.    The NYPD think that if they shut down cell phone coverage in the Big Apple terrorist cells  won’t be able to coordinate attacks in the big city.  There are a few things that they don’t seem to be aware of.   Terrorists are smart in most cases, citizens are ignorant.

We already saw in the Sept. 11th attacks the panic that is caused by the loss of cell  phone service.  If there is another large attack, normal people in NYC will panic, since the communication infrastructure was supposed to be strengthened post 9/11.  If they can’t reach their loved ones, if there isn’t a way to get news in and out, people will panic and make the problem larger then it would be otherwise.   This is just how the normal citizens would react, what about the terrorists.

Well this news has made it to the web, so terrorists can now plan for this eventuality.   They can now be ready to act if their cell phones are blacked out.  Also NYC is the land of open wi-fi hot spots.  Anyone with and sense could easily work with a wifi phone or a laptop and still have communication with one another.   So the next thing they would have to look at is blocking out cellular coverage and all internet access in and out of the city.   This is also if they are not coordinated ahead of time.   This is all a smoke screen to give teh police more power then is needed.

Remember -  “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” ~ Ben Franklin

Image from here

I’m the crossposting whore – I write once and I have everything designed to publish everywhere (well at least when things aren’t broken like Ping.fm to Myspace blogs).   This however is not syncing, it’s distribution and publishing.     A true sync across all platforms would be amazing.

The example I would love is I make an edit to a blog post, then every place and profile that I’ve published that post on would update with no manual intervention.   Since I can’t do that, Creeva.com is considered my authorative location for all blog posts.  If I wanted to edit those other sites I would have to do each one manually.  Granted I’m sure without using syncing it saves on bandwidth.

Things that I can sync?   Well my contacts and calendars with Plaxo, but that kind of is just the tip of the iceberg.   My biggest issue write now is syncing Flickr photos to Facebook.  I am aware of Flickurbook, but this still uses your local machine – there is no reason this can’t be done “in the cloud”.    It’s all soooo sloooooow.   Seriously at the speed it moves I could just reupload all the pictures to Facebook faster then this thing goes.  It’s free, it’s the developers fault, it’s great what he did; but it’s not the solution I’m looking for.

Finally using my distribution chain I chase all over the web to answer comments.  I don’t mind doing that.   However, wouldn’t it be better if across all platforms and services these comments were kept in sync?   Then I could use the spam filters I wanted to from a central location.  I could reply to comments from a central location.

I’m just pipedreaming again…..

I think I knew from our first date that my wife was going to be the one I was going to marry.   Granted I literally broke up with my ex the day before I asked her out, but it all worked out.   Though I was twenty -one and she was eighteen it was the first real date either of us had been on.   We had started “going out” with people before, but it was always meeting and doing things in social situations then you labeled as a couple and doing things was just being together and not really a date.  I did ask one girl out on a date previously, but it turned into a double date, so this was my first real date.

It was in September of 1997 and I managed to get off work early and get a hair cut, then I went out to one of our customers and bought her a bouquet of roses.   We went to Chi-Chi’s in Lorain, Ohio driving there in my 1986 Ford Escort.  I ordered a mexican pizza which they burned and she had me send back, and I believe she ordered the chimichanga’s .   We talked about going to the movies afterward and decided on Conspiracy Theory.   Walking to the car I asked her if I was the type of guy she could fall in love with (me=geek, not the best social skills).  She said maybe.   I asked her if I was the type of guy she could see herself marrying, she said she didn’t know.   We then drove over to the movie and had a wonderful time.

A few days later she was having problems with her parents, she was at a cross roads and all upset.  She was sitting on the front stoop of her friends house and that was the first time I ever told her I loved her.  She cried in my arms (not from me saying that, but because of the other stress) and said it back to me.   Three months later we were engaged. Thirteen months later on Jan 2, 1999 we got married.  From that first date until about 2004 when she went back to Ohio to visit family while I was stuck working in Oregon, we never spent more then 24 hours away from one another, over 2600 days of seeing each other at least once every day.

I’m not going to saying everything has always been fantastic, we’ve had our ups and downs.  We have managed to stay together and stay in love.   I love her more each day, and now she is going to be the mother of my child (last year we did say we would do something special for our 10th).  We are opposites, but we are also twins, we are stronger together then we are apart.  We are both critical thinkers, yet I’m the only one that thinks she is the better of the two of us – so sometimes she is wrong.

She is the core of my being and the center of my universe, even though I don’t always show it.   Her thoughts and dreams revolve around mine, like mine do around her.   She is my wife, and I love her.

I’m a publishing cross-posting whore.  I admit it.  I don’t deny it.  I want to get my stories and information out to the widest possible audience.   I signed up with Associated Content on July 9th.   I was going to make it part of my crossposting network disseminating my thoughts across the intra-webs.   I however never actually published anything with them.  Today I received this e-mail:

Hello,
My name is Brenna and I am a Community Manager at Associated Content. I see you haven’t published anything since signing up with us.
I wanted to let you know that there has never been a better time to publish on Associated Content. AC has grown by leaps and bounds in 2008, and we’ve paid out over $1 million to our contributors. We’re offering thousands of Upfront Payments weekly, we put out new Calls for Content every day and our record traffic (over 41 million page views in November!) means higher than ever Performance Payments. We hope that you’ll take advantage of this great time to publish with us.
For our American Content Producers, we’ll be giving away six iPod Nanos to Content Producers throughout December as a token of our appreciation. Publishing a piece of content for Upfront Payment automatically enters your name in the sweepstakes, and we’ll be drawing two new winners each week starting on December 16. If you’ve a lready published for Upfront Payment in December, you’re already entered. No purchase necessary. Full contest rules available here.
Happy Holidays and I hope to see you around the Associated Content site soon.

–Brenna

So why haven’t I? Well that answer is simple.  If I want to publish with Associated Content I had to give away the rights to my work and I couldn’t keep them Creative Commons licensed.   That means if I wrote something I published on Associated Content I can not legally re-use or republish it on my site.  I also can not publish it on my site first.

This is a major issue for me.  I retain control on who/what/when my content is used, at least to the extent that I don’t want others to put restrictions on my work.   99.9999% of the time use my stuff, I just want the credit for originally creating it, beyond that do with it what you will.   However if I entered into an agreement by submitting work to Associated Content I would no relinquish that control without gaining anything since being paid is not a guarantee.

For those who do publish through Associated Content, be aware of what you can do with your own data.  If you are fine with it, good for you.   I’m not trying to say my method is the only one, it’s just not a venue I want to deal with.

Picture from here

It seems through some of my affiliation that I am attached to that people feel the need to forward me chain letters.   Even if it was something I believed in, I wouldn’t want a chain letter.  I would prefer to read your own thoughts.  It seems someone sends me mails with a religious bent to them.   Some of them rail against the separation of church and state, something that even as a christian I hold very dear (for some reason most Christians don’t want it separated since they naively believe for all eternity they will be the dominant religion).   I’m more pragmatic.  I don’t think the dogmatic moral laws of each different little christian sect should be represented.   I’ve had my immediate say.  Let’s look at the first chain letter in this new series.

Picture from here

A 15 yr. Old SCHOOL KID IN ARIZONA:

New Pledge of Allegiance (TOTALLY AWESOME) !

Since the Pledge of Allegiance
And
The Lord’s Prayer
Are not allowed in most
Public schools anymore
Because the word ‘God’ is mentioned….
A kid in Arizona
Wrote the attached

NEW School prayer :

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God’s name is prohibited by the state.

We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks..
They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the ‘unwed daddy,’ our Senior King.
It’s ‘inappropriate’ to teach right from wrong,
We’re taught that such ‘judgments’ do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.

It’s scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school’s a mess..
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!

Amen

If you aren’t ashamed to do this,
Please pass this on.
Jesus said,
‘If you are ashamed of me,
I will be ashamed of you before my Father.’

Not ashamed. Pass this on..

Let’s go through this section by section:

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

Well ironically we still have in god we trust on our money, what people don’t realize is that “God” on your money has been found legally to be an abstraction and doesn’t necessarily refer to a Christian Diety.   Religious freedom was one of hte purposes of this country.  Once you start choosing an officially sanctioned govenerment religion, or teach the tenets of said religion you undermine the purpose that we were taught in school on why the first settlers came here.  (Yes I know that story is not quite as simplistic or accurate as we were taught).

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Ironically I don’t think we have thought police anywhere – like everything else it’s a don’t ask don’t tell world anymore.  If your flaunting anything that’s against school rules however you will be punished.   There have been exteremly few federal cases over this so I’m not quite sure it would really be a federal matter.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

What’s wrong with different colored hairs at all?  Mine has been natural.  Mine has been jet black.  Mine has been purple.  Mine has been blue.  There is nothing wrong with this.  My sister however almost got expelled from school because she dyed her hair bright red (not natural red).   I almost went and fought this at the school board, but she backed down (I’m sure with my mother’s coaching of not wanting to look bad to the neighbors).   We’ve lost the freedom of personal expression in schools and it’s not just prayers.  Besides if you really need to pray out loud I find you creepy.  Your like the guy at the video game store who picks up every title and reads the description out loud since they seem to lack any inner monologue.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God’s name is prohibited by the state.

Um, yes please be silent.  I pray, but I find you audible prayers creepy.  “Dear God please make my genital warts go away” – come on that would just be extremely creepy.   That’s the kind of thing I know some people pray for.  We want to pretend that they are all praying that the sick get better or the orphanage finds a savior donor so it can stay open.  It isn’t.

We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks..
They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

I’m fairly sure that guns were outlawed in most schools before the bible.  Granted I know some rural schools were teh kids could check in their gun when they arrive because they were hunting before school.   Do we really have to point out on how many levels that is wrong.   We’ll stick with just the hygiene issues.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the ‘unwed daddy,’ our Senior King.
It’s ‘inappropriate’ to teach right from wrong,
We’re taught that such ‘judgments’ do not belong.

I don’t see anything wrong with this – I have great grandparents that were probably married younger then someone who is the prom king or queen.   You can always judge someone, but when you have a holier then thou attitude it just doesn’t fly.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.

Hmmmm, you complain about pregnant senior queens and unwed fathers, but rail against birth control – I won’t point out the irony.

It’s scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school’s a mess..
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!

I’ve gone to a private school and I’ve gone to a public school – let me tell you the Christian schools still have the same issues with the ten commandments as part of the curriculum as public schools have without.

I’m not alone – someone else railed against this with their own poem – read it here.

I ran across this article by way of Slashdot.  A teacher had punished a student for handing out live linux distrubution discs, for those that aren’t familar with a liveCD, it allows you to boot your computer off of CD and test drive linux without modifying your hard drive.  You can remove the CD and reboot and be back to using windows or whatever in no time. This teacher wrote the head of this particular linux group and stated:

I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom. At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful. These children look up to adults for guidance and discipline. I will research this as time allows and I want to assure you, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows.

and also:

This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all. I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older verison of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them..

Now the person at the Helios distribution had some key things in response (these are snippets):

First off, if there was even the slightest chance that I was doing something illegal, it would not have been done. To think that I would involve my kids in my “illegal” activities is an insult far beyond outrage.

linux is superior to MS windows in so many ways, they are too numerous to mention here…I am weary of enumerating them. Unlike Microsoft who meters their “improvements” and then shovels them to you every five years or so for purchase; Linux releases their improvements upon their completion. We receive the newest and the best of the system when it is tested to be usable and stable

The most disturbing part of this resides in the fact that the AISD purchases millions of dollars of Microsoft Software in a year’s time when that money could be better spent on educating our children. A dedicated School Teacher would recognize that fact and lobby for the change to Free Open Source Software and let the money formally spent on MS bindware be used on our kids.

Now I do recommend you read the original article, but I do think this shows the ignorance of the teachers in our systems. Some people try to tell me when my child arrives that home schooling is a worse option then sending the kid to public or private schools.   I know I went through similar issues like this with my teachers, sometimes it was on english, other times it was on history.   Teachers won’t admit they are wrong and will continue to spew the same crap to students year after year.  They feel they must be the ones in the right otherwise they wouldn’t be the teacher.

I’m stopping now before I bust into a complete rant – read the original article and let me know what you think.

Maximum PC recently ran an article titled 50 Skills Every Real Geek Should Have, I wanted to go through and see how I ranked in their skill list.   Let’s find out.

1. Name the Connectors – yes I was able to :)

2. Run your essential apps on a USB stick – no I don’t do this, I could – I just prefer to run everything in the cloud or on my N810 – which is with me most of the time.

3. Straighten Pins on a CPU – I have done this too many times

4. Know the 13 basic HTML Tags – well I kinda know most of them – I use freaking wordpress I hardly need to use HTML and when I do I look it up and hav ethe answer in seconds.   Though I do know quite a few by heart that aren’t listed in the basic 13.

5.  Get through to executive customer service – hey I read the consumerist.

6.  Beat quake in 60 minutes – maybe at one point in time, but I’m not big on FPS games.

7.  Build a Hackintosh – I know how, I just don’t the components that seem to work, and I’m a cheap bastard that won’t buy parts just to run OSX - I’ll stick with ubuntu as my alternative OS.

8.  Watch TV Online legally – um that’s how I watch 100% of my TV these days.

9.  Get around a content filter from a public computer – yes I know how, I’ve helped friends at other companies, it’s not worth it to do it at my own job though.

10. Recite Pi to 23 decimal places – nope – I have no inclination to ever learn either.

11. Replace the controller board on a hard drive – hey I did that once, it’s not a skill that comes up at parties though.

12.  Benchmark your computer – really?  Is this even on this list? Yes, I was doing this before I fully understood what the benchmarks meant on my 386 DX40.

13. Decorate your room with only printer paper – am I physically in the skill set to be able to do this?  Yes I am – would I?  No.  I’m more likely to decorate with NES cartridges.

14. Securely erase your data so it can’t be recovered – yes I am capable – it would be easier if you encrypted it first though.

15.  Get into a windows computer if you don’t have a password – yes I’ve done this quite a few times.

16.  Hide data from anyone – yes encryption, hidden volumes, stegnography (which I got bored with in 2001) – I am capable of doing all that – I’m more likely ot share my data then hide it though.

17. Explain what e=mc2 means – yes I would like the e=MC2 with a side of fries please – yes I am capable, but refuse to put in the details here since I want to make it through this list.

18.  Abstain from buying extended warranties – I may have bought one, once – it was on something i thoguht it fall apart though – so it’s all good.

19.  Use photoshop or gimp – yes I am capable.

20. Use a DSLR in full manual mode – I can – I’m just lazy and prefer it to do the work.

21. Mooch your neighbors wi-fi – my neighbor doesn’t have wi-fi but I’m ready to mooch when they do.

22. Protext your wi-fi – Wep2 currently – For a while I had mac filtering, I hated to keep getting mac addresses from visitors though.

23. Create an animated spray in Valve games – um – I don’t think I’ve played a single one for more then 5 minutes….so this one is a no.

24.  Setup RAID – yes I’ve done this a few times over the years for my home network.  Now implement Iscsi raid across multiple computers – that’s a challenge.

25. Calculate a Pitchers ERA – no I don’t know how – but I know google will give me the answer quicker then I can calculate it.

26. Run two Operating Systems – um I dual boot currently……

27. Install a hard drive in laptop – done before and some day I’ll do it again.

28. Pull off an elaborate prank – I think have the skill set and knowledge – I just never have – unless stealing street signs as a teenager counts.

29.  Rocket jump with a macro – um – I said I don’t really do FPS games – so no I can’t do this.

30.  Wire your home with ethernet – um every place I’ve lived with my wife we have had wired ethernet – we even used RG58 at one point.

31.  Know the 6 most important linux commands – yes I get command not found when I’m not thinking and run them in windows.

31. Rip your CDs to Flac – we did this for awhile then went back to MP3

32.  Stream Music, Movies, Pictures to any TV in the house – I’ve done this before – now we just carry our laptops around – shrug.

33.  Install and configure a VM – yes I’ve done this for literally years (maybe even a decade by now)

34.  Run multiple monitors – yes I use to dual monitor and run SWG on two different ones at the same time – I’m sad I know.

35. Run hacked firmware on a router – yes liek the rest of hte world I have a hacked linksys router /yawn.

36.  Pick a lock – I’m not good at it, but I’ve done it a couple times.

37.  Tell the difference between Dr. Pepper and Mr. Pibb – it’s been awhile but I think I could.

38.  Avoid DRM on everything – well streaming video legally that they talked about above seems to contradict this one doesn’t it.   However all my local video, music, picutres, and ebooks are DRM free.

39. Download a flash video and reformat it – yes I’ve done this – youtube videos locally stored on the N810 ftw.

40.  Get around in DOS – I grew up and DOS and resisted windows for a long time – so let’s just say yes.

41. Rip a DVD to h.264 – yes been there done that.

42.  Overclock your PC – yes I’ve done this my pride and joy was overclocking my AMD 133 mhz 486 to 160 MHZ – and it benchmarked and ran like a pentium 133 for half the cost.

43.  Use remote desktop – it’s part of my job – so yes.

44. Debate the merits of a star destroyer vs. the enterprise – yes, and the star destroyer would win.

45. Buld your own computer – built too many to actually count – I’m serious to – I worked at a small PC store and we sold hundreds – thousands of machines – so I cna build my own.

In irony they don’t seem to actually have 50 things on their list – so I think most geeks should know how to count also.

My mother loves to gossip.  She loves to spread gossip.  She loves to receive gossip.  If you are familar with the musical “The Music Man” at all she is one of the “Pick A little, Talk A Little Women”

She would go to the community pool under the pretext of watching my sisters swim. If however there was no one to gossip with she would pack up and either take my sisters home, or get someone else to watch them. I’m sure my mother misses the hey day of the beauty parlor where all the women sat around and gossiped. I’m sure in some areas these still exist, but not really in her neck of the woods. Besides she felt superior becuase she had “her” beautician that she went to.

Her beautician always made sure that her hair came out with that blond color that she was born with. All those pictures I’ve posted of her as a toddler on up that have dark hair? Well I guess my mother believes that those are all bad exposures since she swears the blond she has now is her natural color. Ironically it’s because of her and the lies about her hair color that I refuse to ever dye my hair to hide my gray. I’m not going to tell people my hair is a certain way. Granted I’ve dyed my hair black for a costume, I’ve also done purple and blue – heaven help those that thought those colors were natural. I actually have my mother’s native hair color, I’m just not in denial.

My mother would love to gossip. She would spend hours on the phone talking to friends about who was having marriage issues, who was having works issue, who bought something new, and who was stuck with something old. If she didn’t have any friends at a given time she would either try to get me involved (I never had an interest so I’m sure she bored of me) or she would enlist my grandmother (who had the same enthusiasm as I did).

You would think she would like to discuss something of interest, but the most poignant she ever got to real life events was what new Longaberger baskets were coming out or discussions about Dr. Phil and Oprah – it seems to her these are the messiahs of the new world order. Who knew?

Read Part 1 Here

Read Part 2 Here

Read Part 3 Here

Read Part 4 Here

Read Part 5 Here

Read Part 6 Here

Read Part 7 Here

Read Part 8 Here

Read Part 9 Here

Read Part 10 Here

Read Part 11 Here

Picture from here

Well in preperation for my NANOWRIMO challenge of writing, I’ve mentioned that I didn’t want the blog to be neglected with no new posts showing up.   I still have some more writing ot get done before Nov. 1, but I managed to clean out most of my drafts now.   Granted a lot of these were quickie movie’s I own posts, but hey they are cleaned out and done.

FYI – the movies I own posts are two fold, the first being it helps me keep track of stuff I own so I can lend it to friends.  The second since I use Amazon.com links in it, it gives me the psuedo chance ot actually make money on this blog.  Not that I think you will, but if you are interested in buying any of the movies I post about click the Amazon links from teh referrals on my site.

Having gotten rid of 30 drafts today does make me a happy panda.

Earlier this week this email (it’s been edited to protect names- edits in italics) showed up in my inbox:

Hi Brent.. I just want to know that I miss talking to you.  I am thrilled for you and XIE as you await the birth of your new little son.  I remember when the two of you came to see YOUR YOUNGEST BROTHER and I after he was born saying you will neve have kids and I said oh give yourself another ten years things may change.  Here you are….I am sure XIE is getting all prepared, reading planning, etc.  I think she will do great during  delivery, they have so many different ways to help with relaxation during labor.  After YOUR SON is born the two of you will be so amazed at that moment and your life will change forever.  You will never look at certain things the same way again.  And the way a new baby smells, its a special scent that only lasts a few days then fades away to the sweet smell of baby lotion bath wash.  You will see, I think its a good thing for both of you, you will have alot of fun.

Love mom

Now grammar and spelling mistakes I didn’t touch, just the names to protect some people’s identity.  When I told Xie about the e-mail she was miffed that my mother didn’t call.   I told her that was the only smart thing my mother did for this situation.  I’m sure my mother knows by now that if I heard her voice I would have just hung up the phone and she wouldn’t have had a chance to get anything out.    Score one point for my mother.  Though I’m going to make the wild assumption that she didn’t assume I was going to post this on my blog.

I read the e-mail out loud to Xie.   I started reading it in my mothers tone and voice pattern (I do a fairly passable impression of her speaking mannerisms).   I didn’t make it through the first sentence before Xie said she would smack me up side the head if I didn’t read it normal.   I submitted and read it normal.   The first thing Xie said after her rant on my mother e-mailing, was “So she wrote that whole thing to say ‘I told you so’.”  I replied with “Yep.”

One point of view could be said that my mother is attempting to repair a bridge between a fractured relationship.   Like eveyrthing else my mother attempts to do this is a selfish act.   When I was younger she put guilt trips on me for not having kids because she wanted grandkids (bear in mind I’m the oldest of her 6 kids so she was bound to have grandkids).   My brother already has a daughter and a son that should be born in the next couple weeks.  My brother is on speaking and family terms with my mother so she has two grandkids she would have access to.   My mother’s only access to me is messages that my siblings or my grandmother deliver.   The only message I ever send back is that I don’t care.

As it stands right now my grandchild will never have access to her.  I know how she screwed me up my siblings and myself (though I have a different world view, so I’m sure they think that I’m the one that’s screwed up).   I don’t want to risk exposing my child to that.   After my child is of legal driving age and can take himself over there, it will all be in his court on what he decides to do.  My child won’t be forbidden from going there, but I’ve been told that I’m not welcome there and can’t come over.  So I’m holding that to heart for the rest of time.

My point of view if you haven’t figured this out, is that my mom wants to be seen as the good grandmother.    She follows the theory in life that it’s better to appear good then be good.   Now I’m not going to say that I am any sort of saint.  I am who I am.   I don’t put on false airs for anyone.   I don’t pretend to be someone I’m not.   I’m rough, I’m honest, and I can be brutally blunt.   I’m used to that and I can deal with the consequences, because I enjoy who I am.

I haven’t put more than a passing thought into my mother in the last year.   When someone mentions her I give my knee jerk “I don’t care answer” and forget about her.   But this email has forced me to bring the pasts thoughts to light (just when I’m in a peaceful place again).   So in the upcoming month look for some articles about the problems I have with my mother.   This email may look like an honest attempt for reconciliation by some, but I know my mother’s methods.  I will concede that is what she believes she is doing in her mind.   She is just too naive to really look at herself for who she is though.

Picture from here

I have a profound fascination with cloud computing, internet computing, bamboozled processing (whatever you want to call it).  The problem when you start using these terms in the IT world it becomes “Software as a Service” (SaS) in some attempt to legitimize the business model.   There is a distinct difference, however.   That difference is money.

“Cloud Computing” is still one of the ephemeral terms that no one is quite sure what it means.   It’s akin to the “Network Computer” model pushed out by Oracle in the mid 90′s – it’s all as hard to explain, ridiculed, ahead of its time, and understandable as the Network Computer was.  The idea of cloud computing means why you process your data locally through some window (Browser, Local PC) into the cloud (Internet), your data is stored in the cloud and accessible from anywhere.  Terms like Webmail have become keeping your email in the clouds – I like the concept but we are bringing back the 90′s terms about “thinking outside the box” with this type of labeling.   Social networks such as Myspace and Facebook are also considered to be cloud platforms, I assume this means because you can annoy your friends anywhere with applications invites – even if you’ve never met them in meat space.

Current definition essentially is if you are doing anything online except reading a static web page (library interaction in the clouds?) – is considered cloud computing.   Some people are referring to any of this same type of activity as SaS when it is in the IT realm.  It’s not, please change your wordings, understand what you are talking about, respect both the IT world and the non-IT world.  You are confusing people with concepts that are also completely non-explainable already.

SaS is much like cloud computing, much like a cheetah (SaS) is similar to a bobcat (cloud computing).  Both of the latter animals are members of the feline family and have similar body makeup, but we can also recognize that they are not the same and have vastly different feature sets.   A bobcat is also more common.  First I’ll say it, most SaS is boring.  It’s the kind of stuff you do at work.  Whether it’s Peachtree’s online application,  it’s the remote backup service and outsourced server monitoring your company purchases.   These are software packages your company can buy and manage but they’ve moved them off site and out of their direct control over the hardware.  It’s on the network and that’s all that matters.

SaS products come with service level agreements that guarantee up time and will compensate you for excessive (which is sometimes 15 minutes) of downtime.   I have yet to see a check from Twitter or MySpace, and I’m sure some users can show real cause and effect of damage to their online businesses if there is an outage.   SaS is normally pretty niche, costs money, and replicates things you already do.

I pay for Flickr?  Does that mean it’s an SaS?  No it doesn’t, the Flickr “application” is free, what I am paying for is storage space and a small number of features – not the application.  The same goes with Google Apps and Smugmug.  If it’s a consumer grade product it’s still a cloud computing application.  When we move into things like Microsoft offering remote hosted MS Exchange packages, we are entering into SaS.