The Design and Implementation of laffer1

Some 4th grader brought a grenade to school in Texas today. I saw this on fox news so get a real source before you take it as fact.

http://sel.sony.com/cgi-bin11/DM/y/haZD0Ob1Yy0C3c0BA4i0GT

Additional footage.. huh. This link isn't working in safari but works in firefox. Sony needs to fix their site. :)

Here is a quote from the most recent MSDN email newsletter about crashes.

"It's a mistake, it gives people a lousy user experience, and it isn't the quality the customer expects. However, just because something crashes does not mean it constitutes an exploit."

So they admit that office crashing for exploits is bad for the user experience.

I took a break from studying long enough to boot up the NeXT. I got it booting ok now. I even fixed the pause. lynx is installed. In fact, i'm writing on the next!

Amazing...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18237132/

The President did two good things in one week.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18096327/
From an MSNBC article:

Some defenders of rap music and hip-hop culture, such as the pioneering mogul Russell Simmons, deny any connection between Imus and hip-hop. They describe rap lyrics as reflections of the violent, drug-plagued, hopeless environments that many rappers come from. Instead of criticizing rappers, defenders say, critics should improve their reality.

?Comparing Don Imus? language with hip-hop artists? poetic expression is misguided and inaccurate and feeds into a mind-set that can be a catalyst for unwarranted, rampant censorship,? Simmons said in a statement Friday.


...

Pulling Imus off the air was also censorship. That's what the people were asking for. Apparently no one cares about free speech. If you want to bitch, you have to make it equal across the board. Its just like all the video games caused VT bullshit. There is much more than video games in this world that may or may not be violent. Its just like the people who complain about porn on the internet. These same people don't call for playboy to be banned.

As far as making the situation better, by the time we hear rap artists they are making tons of money. Putting more time into helping children in poor neighborhoods would be a better use of time and money. However, this won't be uniform either. I lived in a fairly poor, trailer park town during high school. I can tell you that there are poor white kids out there.

I couldn't resist.

Requirements to join the Republican party:

1. Support the President
2. Support invading Iraq + high gas prices
3. Support corn farmers (e85 pownz not)
4. Watch Fox News religiously.
5. Pretend to support Pro life groups (some of which are terrorists)
6. Pretend to support extreme christian groups
7. ???
8. Profit

Requirements to be a Democrat:

1. Complain about Iraq
2. Make outragous claims (impeach the VP)
3. Support lowering gas prices so that you can charge taxes to encourage hibrid sales. (higher gas prices)
4. Complain about E85, but push alternate fuels.
5. Watching anything but Fox News
6. Pretend to have solutions to all the worlds problems, deliver very little.
7. ???
8. Profit

Requirements to hate both groups: (independents, green, libritarians, etc)

1. Complain about 2 party systems.
2. Complain about everything.
3. Tell people they can have or do anything they want. (everyone else is the man)
4. Point to the two people across the country that get an office and say they can't do anything because of the other two groups
5. Complain about all the biased news sources
6. ???
7. Profit

The upcomming presidential election next year will be a mess. I now have absolutely no canidates I wish to vote for. Up to this point, I was hoping for Clinton. This news article has changed my mind.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18233111/

Clinton supports the Imus firing and takes support from "al". I completely agree that Imus should not have made the remarks he did, however I don't think they were racist. They were certainly mean, but not racist. Growing up in a poor, white town, the word Ho was used often. It is also used in lyrics to many songs. The description of their hair was also often used for skank white girls hair when I grew up. It is not specific to one group. Again, its mean but not racist.

If the world wishes to set a new standard for tolerance, then it must apply to all groups. No one should use these offensive words. I equate cracker to the "N" word. In fact, cracker should now be the "C" word. Well, perhaps "CR" since "C" is used for another word.

Aren't there any good or at least good at lying politicians left? So far all of them have managed to piss me off and its still quite early. I really don't care which party at this point.. just someone who doesn't side with an extreme would be a good start. McCain supports all of Bush's actions now so he's in that 30% who like the President camp. Obama seems to let his people campaign in nasty ways and I am suspicious of his opinion of women. Guiliani i don't think I have to talk about... he's the best Republican running but something just bothers me. The other candidates aren't even worth mentioning.

I suppose some people who stumble across this entry will try to label me a republican or democrat. Please don't try. 8 years ago, I considered myself a moderate conservative. Today, republicans consider me a democrat. I didn't get more liberal, they just moved to the right.

I must say that I was starting to agree with national healthcare for people who couldn't get real healthcare. I saw a republican congressmen discuss problems with medicare plans on cspan the other day. He made a few good points about letting the government manage healthcare. The VA came up a few times too. His central argument with prescription plans was that the US government is not the largest customer of pharmeseuticals. The bargining power is therefore limited on price. You can only not agree to pay for some drugs limiting choices. There is some sense in that. I'm really not sure what to think about it now. This is one issue in the upcoming race.

We also have Iraq hanging in the wind. No one has had a good plan for Iraq. McCain made a joke about attacking Iran. I'm not very happy about that little incidident either.

Oddly, the first positive thing I've seen the President do recently was state that this isn't the time to debate gun control laws. (after VT) You know, I bet vermont hates that abbreviation for the virginia tech massacare.

Perhaps I should just go back to my no politics rule. After all, if I write nothing my mother in law can keep thinking I'm a flaming liberal.

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/04/seeing-through-walls.html

Ouch.  This means that LCD displays are just as "easy" to see as CRT displays.  I had a professor at WMU who had a CRT spying aparatus set up.  And I didn't even get a chance to get an LCD display yet!

I feel like writing a little more.  Its a nice day.  The sun is out.  The birds are chirping.  The cats are batting at the screens trying to kill the birds.  So peaceful. 

I think the air force is going to town or something.  There is a rediculous number of aircraft in the skies today.  It sounds like a world war II film. 

Caryn's at work.  I'm hoping she gets to leave soon.  She's worked a lot this week. 

As long as there are no surprises this weekend, we'll be OK.  I don't think Caryn's mother can have us come move more shit from her house.  That is a good thing. 

I tried to play WoW earlier, but the sound thing finished that adventure. 

Winter Semester ends next week with finals.  I'm getting near the end.  This has been the worst semester of my college career other than my semester at U of M Flint.  Between getting sick for two weeks, making the fatal mistake of signing up for two math classes plus a CS course, and spending a little more time than I should have on MBSD, I've really blown it. 

As far as grades go, I have no idea what I'll get in math.  It strongly depends on my final exam grade.  My computer science grade is probably in the D/E range which is the first time ever in any CS course for me.  I should have dropped it the first day when everyone except me was retaking it.  That should have been a sign.  She made distinctions between graduate and undergraduate work on homework assignments, but not on in class work or tests.  That seems a bit unfair.  There is no curving either.  I'm not happy about that. I'm just hoping to pass it even though I find it likely i have to retake it.

As for my English course, I honestly have no idea what grade I'll get.  I did very well on the first three assignments.  (As)  The final is a bitch.  Its take home with 3 short essay (1 page) and 2 long essay (3 page) due next Wednesday.   The forth assignment I didn't get done. 

I submitted my financial aid paperwork for spring and summer today.  I still need to register.  I don't know what classes to register for yet.  I have a few ideas for fall, but not a clue for summer.  I haven't declared a minor officially, but I think I know what I want to do.  Its too late to get an advising appointment to declare it with the fall/winter person.  I'll need to do that in the fall. 

I'm still having problems with some of my hardware in Vista x64.  My sound card randomly drops out.  Usually its after several hours of use.  Today, it happened while playing World of Warcraft.  Its rather difficult to play without sound.  You don't know 3 people are attacking you!

Creative has not fixed the Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer driver.  (well they don't call it Gamer since they don't explicitly list it anymore)  Funny is that it works perfectly in linux, MidnightBSD, FreeBSD, Windows XP, and even Solaris (with OpenSound driver).  Perhaps creative should hire the open sound guys to fix their driver?  Actually, in all fairness the driver does not work well in amd64 versions of MidnightBSD or FreeBSD as it tends to get distorted over time during sound playback. 

NVIDIA released another beta driver for the 8800 series which also supports many older cards.  An older version of this driver fixed my many OpenGL issues.  I'm hoping the new version improves performance a little. 

There are days I think about going back to XP. 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/19/yahoo_china_sued/

For complying with the chinese government, Yahoo finds themselves in court. I'm not sure who's side to be on in this case. I wonder why yahoo needs to do business in china.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/19/us_state_dept_rooted/

Can anyone say secure Microsoft product?

What a day.  I went to EMU to turn in my timesheet.  I got something large and sharp stuck in the bottom of my shoe.  I'm lucky it didn't go all the way through.  It did tear a nice hole in the sole though.  I'll have to buy shoes soon.  Then I get up to kirk's office to find out he didn't turn in my time sheet for last time.  I was sick and emailed it and he forgot.  Granted he's old and shit happens, but now i don't get any money for two more weeks.  Plus I have to turn that sheet in tomorrow or monday to get it processed.  Next, I find out that ICT is backlogged with a serious mail server problem.  They won't get to our network setup issue for some time.  SO that means little hours to bill in the future.  shit on again.

Trivs been posting counter arguments to what i'm saying on mbsd's blog too.

I have been rather quiet about real issues in my life and in general. 

The effect of the VT shootings is unbelievable.  The first night, almost every network ran "experts" blaming everything from video games and hollywood to gun control and the president of VT.  In reality, the only person responsible is the person who shot those people.  (Cho is it?)  A professor in the English department tried to get him help.  People who were popular when they were young or feel that they are "normal" Americans often try to blame people they don't understand for crimes.  The terrible acts in Nazi Germany are an example of people following along with a witch hunt.  This guy came to the United States in 1992 with his family from South Korea.  He is a perminent resident of the United States.  (was and is since his body is here)  This guy was not a South Korean anymore.. sure genetically he was from that region of the world.  His family owned a dry cleaners near D.C.  He had a sister.  He wrote terrible things and stalked women.  This man killed 30+ people (they can't report the number consistently).  He was depressed and killed people.  I can imagine a person who moved to the US with a "foreign name" and background would be an outcast.  Like everyone, I wish VT wouldn't have happened or at least that he just killed himself.  Gun laws, video games, and the like would not have changed things.  This was planned.  A waiting period would not have stopped him.  He probably made the bomb threats to find out how long it took police to get into position, etc. 

I feel terrible for the victims families.  I also feel terrible for the family of this "Cho" guy.  Having your son commit the deadliest killing at a school in the US is not what they had in mind when they moved their family here for a better life. 

As a student, I feel like people are overreating just a bit.  College campuses have a lot of problems and this is unlikely to happen again soon.  There maybe a few other incidents just as there were copycats with the shootings in the 90s.  Get these people counseling.  Instead of trying to fortify campuses against shootings, perhaps they could start with better overall night security.  How many muggings, rapes and other terrible crimes happen on campuses?  How about little crimes like left? 

Now I read that a Democrat from Ohio wants to impeach the Vice President.  I don't think this is the week to start that.  I also don't think its the right thing to do unless there is hard evidence.  I doubt there is.  Regardless, most Americans are focused on VT right now. 

EVIL.  Do not use CBL.  They falsely list real mail servers.  How can a machine with BSD get a windows trojan which is their only claim.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6539027.stm

53% of india's children are sexually abused!  They have 19% of the total world population of children!  That's just fucked up.

I wake up to cat vomit all over the bedroom.  Caryn's left for Flint, probably already there.  I'm eating toast this morning.  Woo hoo.  I do hope that I feel good soon. 

The last few days have been rough.  Caryn and I got food poisoning.  While we are not sure, the most likely cause was some from a local starbucks.  I bought Caryn and I some coffee and dropped it off at her work.  It really sucked.  She's feeling better today but I'm still a bit icky. 

She's got a family gig tomorrow in Flint and I don't know if I'll feel like going or not.  My aunt also invited us over but as usual it was at the last minute.  I hate that.  Caryn's family invited us first.  I wanted to just sit here and relax this weekend.

I've drank like 4 liters of water this weekend.  Anyone who knows me should know how sick I really am!  I don't typically drink water. 

Worst part is I've had a lot going on with my BSD project this weekend.  We had to back out propolice which really sucked.  We think we tracked down the source of the problem and it wasn't going to be even a moderate time fix.  Switching to gcc4 is probably a better option.  We removed static opera in the process but I think that might be for the better.  The shared qt version works much better anyway.  I had to reinstall MidnightBSD during the process on my desktop.  I switched over to amd64.  Its working OK.  There are some bugs I need to work out.  I really miss the binary nvidia drivers though.  nv sucks in this version of xorg.   I'm getting garbage on the screen randomly in x. 

I did get a lot of ports work done over the last two days.  We want to branch soon.  I'm still contemplating how far to go with 0.1.  I know what makes sense but so many people expect the first release to be "done".  Its very frustraiting.

Midnight got into some pepto yesterday and got very pissed off as he was feeling "bloated" we will say.  he kept us up most of the night bitching.  It was rather fucked up. 

The semester is nearing the end and I don't feel very prepared.  In fact, things are very shitty. 

Going back to mbsd for a sec, I felt bad having to back out propolice.  It was archite's largest commit in awhile.  Even he agreed we had to do it, but still it sucked.  I talked to someone about mbsd for a few hours in chat today.  I think we might have some users if this release works out. 

I still haven't looked at my next to figure out what is wrong with it. I wish i could remember how to get into single user.  I might be able to fix it then lol.  I should look that up.  It seems like it was a weird key combination.  Funny thing is i remember it on a mac.. command s

I saw jj had 154 users.  Its gained 34 users this year already.  That's pretty good.  Every other weekend I spend a day on it now.  Next time I think i need to add categories or something.