Radi0Raheem's Ramblings

ChurchOfTheGeek.com!

2006-06-08T18:55:30Z

I've kept my LJ account around so I can comment within the system, but I wanted to drop a quick note in here to let everyone know you can read my current blog at http://www.churchofthegeek.com

Enjoy!

Last Livejournal entry

2005-02-01T15:44:06Z

So I've decided to move my blog over to the Blogger.com service. I haven't updated this in quite some time, and I figured a two month-or-so gap is as good a time as any to start fresh. Unfortunately Blogger doesn't have an import function yet, so all my old entries will have to remain here for the time being (LJ does allow you export, I just can't do much with the file until Blogger supports it).

Anyway, head over to http://jasonrallen.blogspot.com to check out the new digs.

RIP Winamp

2004-11-11T20:11:10Z

It's the end of an era....

"The last members of the original Winamp team have said goodbye to AOL and the door has all but shut on the Nullsoft era."

I've been using Winamp for almost 10 years. Granted, I will still continue to use it, but this really is a major event in the online community. The popularity of MP3 files can, arguably, be contributed to Winamp and its long time status as a free piece of software.

Just in case you didn't know, the geniuses at what was Nullsoft also created the P2P file sharing protocol Gnutella which is still heavily used by many pieces of software to this day. Basically if you're not using Kazaa (which is a spyware loaded piece of crap) then you're using a Gnutella client without knowing it.

Cobra Commander for President

2004-11-01T20:00:32Z

This message paid for by the Cobra Commander 2004 Campaign

Selective News, 9/11 The Show, Hypoallergenic Cats

2004-10-28T20:58:42Z

Why is it that stories like this one are on the frontpage of the BBC news but I can't find it ANYWHERE (other than NPR) on the major US news web sites?

58,000 absentee ballots have gone missing in Florida. The only statement to come from the US Post Office is "It's highly unlikely that 58,000 pieces of mail just went missing."

Now, I try not to promote one side of the election vs. another in my blog because I'm pretty moderate myself and I'm definitely in the "swing voter" group that both sides are practically begging for votes from. The fact of the matter is that Bush was elected in 2000 based on a margin of 537 votes (in Florida). Regardless of the names on those ballots, how do you think this will affect the election? Given the coverage this story is getting (which again is next to none) I highly doubt they'll even find them before we're all casting our votes and wondering if they'll be counted or not.

As much as I'd like to hope that in 5 days we'll have our president picked I can't help but think this is going to turn into the same mess we had 4 years ago. And who knows, Michigan could be the next Florida based on the polls.

Oh... wait... read the last paragraph in the link above. The mess has already begun. I guess I won't be leaving the house without a rain coat on lest I get covered in the political BS raining down from above:
Both the Democrats and Republicans have already begun filing lawsuits in states across the US, challenging different aspects of the election process.

I always thought that it would be years, even decades before the entertainment industry started making TV shows/movies/whatever that dealt with the 9/11 attacks, but it looks like I was wrong. I guess the time restriction for good taste has been bumped down to 3 years. Way to bring in that ad revenue folks (note: sarcasm detected).

Excellent article over at Wired today about how the Internet being used less and less for pornography and more for every day life. In case you weren't aware, it's a completely accurate statement when I say that porn is what drove the internet to where it is today. I'm not kidding here. This was also told to me, in class, by my profs at MSU.

Allerca will start offering hypoallergenic (by way of genetic modification) in 2007. Believe it or not (personally I think they'll beat their deadline).

If I don't post tomorrow then have a good weekend ya'll!!!

Sinclair backs down, Stephenson Rocks, No More New Tags

2004-10-20T20:49:45Z

Starting with this entry I will no longer be forcing your poor lost little web browser to open all links in a new browser. In case you were wondering, all you have to do is a target="_new" to your "a href" html tag and any link will open in a new window (the target statement must be made in each link individually). Originally I added this to all of my links thinking it would help readers out, but let's be frank, if you want the windows open by themselves then go download a web browser with tabbed browsing capabilities. Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox (my personal fav) are two excellent choices. And if you just can't live without Internet Explorer then please, PLEASE download the Avant Browser. All it does is wrap IE up in a better toolbar so you have tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, and a slew of other features.

Wow... something I made a stink about actually got changed for the better. Will wonders never cease?

I'm not even sure what to make of this link. Click and wonder.

Jon Stewart's appearance on CNN's Crossfire. Required viewing entertainment. Trust me!

Neal Stephenson and William Gibson are, perhaps, my two favorite science fiction writers. I own every book Gibson has written, and I'm working on Stephenson's massive Cryptonomicon. To make a long discourse short, Gibson is basically credited as the inventor of cyberpunk, and Stephenson (who has published relatively few books compared to Gibson) is well respected solely because of the work he has done (please note the implied importance of has, meaning the fewer works are impressive to say the very least).

Anyway, Stephenson answered some interview questions over at SlashDot and I am in tears (of laughter) over his response to some of the questions. Here is my favorite excerpt:
The first time was a year or two after SNOW CRASH came out. I was doing a reading/signing at White Dwarf Books in Vancouver. Gibson stopped by to say hello and extended his hand as if to shake. But I remembered something Bruce Sterling had told me. For, at the time, Sterling and I had formed a pact to fight Gibson. Gibson had been regrown in a vat from scraps of DNA after Sterling had crashed an LNG tanker into Gibson's Stealth pleasure barge in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. During the regeneration process, telescoping Carbonite stilettos had been incorporated into Gibson's arms. Remembering this in the nick of time, I grabbed the signing table and flipped it up between us. Of course the Carbonite stilettos pierced it as if it were cork board, but this spoiled his aim long enough for me to whip my wakizashi out from between my shoulder blades and swing at his head. He deflected the blow with a force blast that sprained my wrist. The falling table knocked over a space heater and set fire to the store. Everyone else fled. Gibson and I dueled among blazing stacks of books for a while. Slowly I gained the upper hand, for, on defense, his Praying Mantis style was no match for my Flying Cloud technique. But I lost him behind a cloud of smoke. Then I had to get out of the place. The streets were crowded with his black-suited minions and I had to turn into a swarm of locusts and fly back to Seattle.

The second time was a few years later when Gibson came through Seattle on his IDORU tour. Between doing some drive-by signings at local bookstores, he came and devastated my quarter of the city. I had been in a trance for seven days and seven nights and was unaware of these goings-on, but he came to me in a vision and taunted me, and left a message on my cellphone. That evening he was doing a reading at Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus. Swathed in black, I climbed to the top of the hall, mesmerized his snipers, sliced a hole in the roof using a plasma cutter, let myself into the catwalks above the stage, and then leapt down upon him from forty feet above. But I had forgotten that he had once studied in the same monastery as I, and knew all of my techniques. He rolled away at the last moment. I struck only the lectern, smashing it to kindling. Snatching up one jagged shard of oak I adopted the Mountain Tiger position just as you would expect. He pulled off his wireless mike and began to whirl it around his head. From there, the fight proceeded along predictable lines. As a stalemate developed we began to resort more and more to the use of pure energy, modulated by Red Lotus incantations of the third Sung group, which eventually to the collapse of the building's roof and the loss of eight hundred lives. But as they were only peasants, we did not care.

The Vernor Vinge Singularity Theory. I for one welcome our robot overlords.

New Mouse,

2004-10-19T20:26:50Z

So my Dad was kind enough to pick me up a new mouse last Friday, and wouldn't you know it Logitech puts out a brand new model less than a day later. Oh well, my new mouse still rules. It's got a 4-way scroll wheel (so it scrolls left/right in addition to the usual up/down) and an application switcher that functions like alt-tab. And unlike most wireless mice, the receiver (the part you actually plug in to your USB port) is the size of a USB flashdrive. They even included a little USB docking station-type attachment that is basically a USB extension cord (in case you take the mouse with you for laptop stuff and then use it with a desktop at the home).

Dear Sinclair Broadcasting Group

2004-10-15T12:44:25Z

From: jasonrallen@gmail.com
To: comments@sbgi.com
Subject: Broadcasting & Politics

I'm glad you (as a company) feel you can forget things you did less
than a year ago and use your power on the airwaves to swing this
year's election. Lord knows that there isn't enough moral bankruptcy
in this country right now and it's nice to see another large
corporation like yourself sucking some more out of it.

You are truly heroes in this modern time. Where would we be without
large companies who are, according to the FCC charter, "borrowing" the
airwaves from the public in the first place. Thank God we aren't
forced to decide what to watch ourselves and you are choosing for us.

As a reminder: Less than a year ago your group refused to air a
reading of all the troops killed in the Iraqi conflict. Here is a
piece of your statement (from
http://www.newscentral.tv/station/statement.shtml):

=======
There is no organization that holds the members of our military and
those soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in service of our
country in higher regard than Sinclair Broadcast Group. While Sinclair
would support an honest effort to honor the memory of these brave
soldiers, we do not believe that is what "Nightline" is doing. Rather,
Mr. Koppel and "Nightline" are hiding behind this so-called tribute in
an effort to highlight only one aspect of the war effort and in doing
so to influence public opinion against the military action in Iraq.
Based on published reports, we are aware of the spouse of one soldier
who died in Iraq who opposes the reading of her husband's name to
oppose our military action. We suspect she is not alone in this
viewpoint. As a result, we have decided to preempt the broadcast of
"Nightline' this Friday on each of our stations which air ABC
programming.
=======

"Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal" will be aired on your stations.
This is a well known anti-Kerry documentary. The double standard and
blatant hypocracy you are demonstrating is completely unforgivable.
There are veterans of the Vietnam war who fought alongside Senator
Kerry, many of them in fact, who do not agree with the statements put
forward in this documentary. And yet you will still air it.

So let me get this straight: You'll refuse to show a reading of U.S.
casualties in Iraq because of ONE widow, but when MANY veterans, who
actually fought for their country, survived, came home, are trying to
speak out, you choose to ignore them. How convenient. Sure there are
other veterans who agree with what is being said in the documentary
but that's not my point. The point is that material of this nature
does not belong on the airwaves this close to a presidential election.
You may say that Fahrenheit 9/11 is a counter example to what you are
doing. WRONG. People drove to their closest movie theatre, shelled
out $10 or so for a ticket and walked in that theatre after deciding
to. Watching this documentary you are about to air is as simple as
pressing a button on the remote. And considering fewer Americans can
even afford to go to the movies (myself included) this represents a
completely unfair perspective.

I live in Lansing Michigan. I'm sure you're well aware of the fact
that I'm being told by the media that Michigan could be the equivalent
of Florida in the 2000 election. Most importantly, I AM A SWING
VOTER. I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I do not officially
align myself with any political party. To be honest I'm still not
sure who I'll vote for. My comments stem from a belief that
corporations should be held accountable for their actions especially
when they involve a public statement such as the one above.

Thankfully I do not have cable television and your advertising will
never reach me. You'll never see a penny from me or my family in any
way shape or form. But I'm not writing for me and my family. I'm
writing for the millions of Americans out there who trust the media to
bring them fair and unbiased information. To put it simply, our
future depends on what you put on our networks because most people
simply accept what they see read or hear without the slightest
question in their minds.

Feel free to contact me in regards to my comments (to be frank I don't
expect you will).

Sincerely

Jason R. Allen

Mark of the Beast, Wal-Mart, Gadgets n' Oil

2004-10-14T19:39:10Z

The FDA has approved VeriChips (implantable wireless "medical" chips). Let the "mark of the beast" banter commence.

Google has released a beta of it's Desktop Search application. Now you can use the world's favorite search engine to search the files on your hard drive. It will even thread your email (something gmail does automatically) and allow you to search your AIM chat histories. Screenshots, release info, and download available here.

Worst... byline... ever... (from the Cnet site www.news.com)

Sony looks under the Christmas Tree
Americans will go gadget shopping this holiday season, even if oil prices go up, Sony execs say.

WHAT THE HELL DOES THE PRICE OF OIL HAVE TO DO WITH PEOPLE BUYING ELECTRONICS FOR CHRISTMAS?!!

Cnet also has an excellent interview with Ben Goodger, lead engineer for Mozilla's Firefox browser (which I've been happily using for some time). Find out why you should stop using Internet Explorer.

I am very, very conflicted by this story. Wal-Mart is pressuring major music labels to drop the wholesale rates on their CDs (the cost Wal-Mart pays for them before they are sold to you). Interestingly, Wal-Mart currently takes a hit for each CD it sells in the hopes that shoppers will pick up a CD player or boombox (or anything else for that matter) while they are in the store. Basically they're just using their CD prices to get you in the door.

Here's my favorite block from the article:
"This wasn't framed as a gentle negotiation," says one label rep. "It's a line in the sand -- you don't do this, then the threat is this." (Wal-Mart denies these claims.) As a result, all of the major labels agreed to supply some popular albums to Wal-Mart's $9.72 program. "We're in such a competitive world, and you can't reach consumers if you're not in Wal-Mart," admits another label executive.

Facts of the matter:

- Wal-Mart has become the nation's largest music store in the past decade. An estimated 1 out of every 5 CD's sold are purchased at Wal-Mart.

- Wal-Mart purchases CD's from labels for about $12 per (currently) and sells them for about $10. Again they can afford to do this because A) they're huge, and B) it gets customers in the door which is their first and foremost goal.

- Even though Wal-Mart accounts for almost 20% of the record industry's sales, music sales only account for 2% of Wal-Mart's total sales. This is what I like to call a "favorable position."

My bottom line: Lower CD prices have been something that people have wanted for years and there have been many attempts to get the industry to lower their prices. While this is an improvement for Joe-average consumer it's a wolf in sheep's clothing. This "positive" change is coming about at the hands of a large uncaring corportation, not from the consumers (which is where it should be coming from).

The Margin of Litigation

2004-10-12T20:17:36Z

Let me tell you, I just LOVE getting up at 7:30 in the morning and driving to work when it's 35 degrees out.

Yes, I live in Michigan.

The simple fact of the matter is today is the coldest morning I've experienced since the summer bid us a fond farewell and all I really wanted to do was sleep.

Today's topic comes from an article published in the Columbus OH business journal about the upcoming election. I've had the opportunity (if you can call it that) to visit Columbus several times for my job and hated every trip. It's your typical midwest city with a fairly diverse range of people except there's about 3 million of them crammed into a space that's about the size of Lansing. To top it all off some brilliant city planner decided to make EVERY SINGLE freeway ramp a two-way ramp, meaning there are people getting on the freeway behind you as you're trying to exit.

Whoa... tangent.

Anyway, the secretary of state in Ohio is J. Kenneth Blackwell. This is my new favorite election terminology:

Given the rancor of the presidential campaign, Blackwell said he fears Election Day could deteriorate into teams of lawyers "yelling at 73-year-old poll workers." He also worries those lawyers will file lawsuits that dispute everything about the election if the outcome is decided by 1 percent or 2 percent of the vote, or what Blackwell calls "the margin of litigation."

Ok this is just CREEPY. I was just on Amazon doing a search for Interpol (a group my sister turned me on to) and Amazon's search listed the new Franz Ferdinand album immediately beneath the album I was interested in. Less than 5 seconds later my last.fm playlist (playing recommended tracks based on my listening profile) pulls up a track from that exact same Ferdinand album.

Not a bad track either.

Now this is disturbing. According to an AP article available on... well... just about every news site I visit at least 11 al-Qaida suspects have "disappeared" in U.S. custody and some may have been tortured.

As sad as a story like this is, I can't help but think that this is still nothing new. And as much as I disagree with it I do fully recognize that the world would pretty much fall apart if everyone knew every secret that was out there. Hell, most people can barely cope with driving and talking on their cell phone at the same time. How do you think they would deal with this kind of knowledge?

Solve the World's Problems with Money

2004-10-11T17:46:37Z

After all the crap we've endured, after over 1000 troops have been killed, after getting ourselves into what appeared to be the beginnings of a new Vietnam War, the powers that be have found a way to calm the violence in Iraq.

MONEY.

Yes folks that's right, not only can we start wars with money but it seems we can end them too. Simply put, militants in Sadr City are trading in their weapons today for coupons they can later exchange for cash.

Read it for yourself:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.main/index.html

What a great world we live in where money has this kind of power over our lives.

Digital Music 101

2004-10-05T21:27:28Z

Steve Ballmer says "the most common format of music on iPods is 'stolen'."

The world hates him for saying it, but it's still true. I hate to say it, but when think of everyone I know who has an iPod there is no way all that music is on there legally.

BUT make no mistake here, I disagree with the laws that are relevant to this issue. Instead of helping digital technology evolve (and it us, undeniably, the future of their industry) they did something never before done in a capitalist country:

They sued their users.

In a country that seems to be all about who sues who it finally happened: A company sued the very people they were marketing to. The same people who they wanted to buy their cd's, come to their concerts, and maybe buy a cheap t-shirt or two.

Eyes Wide Open

2004-10-01T18:54:37Z

http://www.livejournal.com/users/remin/756347.html#cutid1

Just a reminder, Friendly Politics

2004-10-01T15:39:25Z

Awwwwwwwwwww.... aren't they sooooooooooooo cute? One could almost forget that this is probably one of the most heated presidential races ever.

Review the PATRIOT Act, Don't Expand It

2004-10-01T14:37:15Z

I highly encourage anyone reading this to head over to this link and send your representatives a letter/email/fax etc showing your support for a review of the PATRIOT act. This will encourage law makers to review the PATRIOT act and bring it under a reasonable amount of control, rather than EXPANDING its broad-reaching power as some are trying to do today.

The link will take you to the EFF's web site (Electronic Frontier Foundation) which makes it incredibly easy to take action on items like this. Fill in your info and a couple clicks later you're done.

THINK POLITICAL ACTION TAKES TOO MUCH TIME? NOT WITH THIS!!!

While you fill out your info you'll notice a check box that says EFFector next to it. If you check the box the EFF will send you a newsletter by email that will alert you to every action you can take similar to this one.

DO SOMETHING PEOPLE!!!

NBA player retires with CMT

2004-09-24T19:20:27Z

Making this brief post more so I have a record of this URL than anything else, so sorry for the lack of content here.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2213&ncid=755&e=7&u=/ap/20040922/ap_on_sp_bk_ne/bkn_76ers_macculloch_retires

Clear And Present Declination

2004-09-23T20:31:24Z

So I started reading Stupid White Men by Michael Moore the other day, and regardless of what you think of the man or his politics I think he wrote an excellent opener to the book. Basically he points out that, not too long ago, things seemed pretty good. Post-80's we had a new sense of the environment and how to care for it, the federal budget actually had a surplus instead of a deficit, job rates were up, the general hostility level around the world was down and for a while it really seemed like the human race might just pull through and accomplish something worthwhile. This isn't to say the world was perfect, just that there seemed to be a shared sense of "hey, we're starting to do things right and the world just might be getting a little better."

SO WHAT HAPPENED?

I'm not going to get up on a soap box and yell "IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!!!" until I lose my voice. Granted my personal views on politics aren't very in line with the current administration, but I accept the fact that even though I am a well informed person there's simply no way to ever really know the full TRUTH about anything. And while the Bush administration certainly hasn't been saints they are far from the first government to use its power in such a way. Not that that makes it all ok or anything, I'm just trying to put it in a proper perspective.

You can come close to the truth. Ask the right questions, talk to the right people, do some digging and find the facts! But there are a couple problems inherent to the whole communicating-as-a-human-in-the-modern-world-thing:

1. Human beings are biased communicators. And I don't mean a political bias. The brain's system for memory operates almost like a keyword search in Google. But the brain actually CREATES memory around what it picks and chooses as the most important parts as it's actually experiencing the memory. You could tell me all about some friend of yours who wore a nice looking outfit to dinner the other night and 6 months later I may only remember you talking about a blue jacket because blue happens to be my favorite color. This simple preference forms the basis for a lot of our opinions because we can NEVER fully remember every little detail of what we've read/heard/experienced, only what was most important about it to us at the time. The real problems start when we crazy humans start actually TALKING TO EACH OTHER, because the pieces of the "truth" that we remember get resorted into a new form of that same truth by the next person who hears it. Obviously we're not about to stop talking or anything, but this is the modern school of Psychology's take on what is essentially the telephone game.

2. Nobody thinks about TRUST anymore. Which is unfortunate because our nice safe happy whatever little country is based ENTIRELY on trust but most people don't realize it. You drive to work in the morning, what guarantee do you have that the guy coming towards you on a two-lane 50 mph road won't suddenly swerve into your lane and kill you? You trust him to be a decent enough driver to not do that. Go out for dinner and order a nice entree, how do you know somebody in that kitchen that you most likely can't see didn't spit in your food or worse? Trust. Read a news article online, in a magazine, newspaper, whatever. How do you know what you're reading is even remotely true? Granted most of us take all our news with a several ton grain of salt these days, but we're still willing to believe bits and pieces almost without question. But those bits and pieces, no matter how small or insignificant, are still based entirely on trust.

Tons o' Topics

2004-09-15T20:17:31Z

It's hump day (Weds) and it seems there's a lot going on in the world.

Analysis of Bush National Guard documents. (Just in case you were wondering what all the hub-ub is about. This page basically shows how parts of the documents are authentic while the body/content is FAKE.)

Nice forum discussion over at Anandtech.com about freeware replacements for apps that a lot of people pirate (translation: cracking a shareware version or finding a paid for copy online). After reading it I switched from a shareware version of WinRAR to a (so far) fantastic archive manager called IZArc.

Significantly updated release of FireFox just came out yesterday. Shame on all you IE users out there for not switching to it already. Do so now and your sins shall be forgiven.

An excellent example of my take on politics. And I'm not using this as a pro-anti-anybody arguement. All I'm pointing out is that the biggest factor in politics is how you look at what's being said. This link demonstrates how words taken out of context (often no context is even needed) can be completely spun in a different way.

Want to see the censoring of media by the U.S. government in action? How about covering up a probable nuclear explosion so as to not rock the boat before an election? Please note: I'm not faulting the Bush Administration directly (though if this is a cover up they are the only ones who could be held responsible). It's important to remember that these types of cover ups have been occuring for the entire history of the nation.

TGIFATWIT: Thank God It's Friday And The Weekend Is Tomorrow

2004-09-10T18:21:49Z

Hmmm... maybe I'll start a new restaurant called TGI FATWIT'S...

Haven't posted in a while, life's been unusually busy lately. So today's entry will be fairly random in nature.

First off I owe a big apology to my sister who has been in town for the last couple weeks. I haven't been able to spend nearly as much time with her as I would've liked. Granted I did go visit her in GA a month ago, and I want to make sure she has plenty of time to visit with family and friends she hasn't seen in a while, plus the trappings of me having a 9 - 5 job have all lead to less time together these couple weeks. (Because I already took a lot of paid vacation time off this summer it was difficult to get another large chunk off).

So if you've felt that I've neglected you while you were here dear sister I am so, so, SOOOOOOOOOOO sorry. I love you dearly and couldn't ask for a better sister.

My mother-in-law has asked me to give a talk at one of her classes about CMT and how it relates to stigma (click the link if you're unfamiliar with either). The unique thing about how the two relate is that some people with CMT show almost zero outward signs of the disorder, yet they still experience chronic pain, fatigue, and many other related problems on a daily basis.

I am one of these people. Most of my friends and coworkers don't know about it excluding my close friends and (usually) bosses. I try to keep it that way on purpose because I don't want to be treated any differently than everyone else. Sometimes I push myself too hard as if I'm proving to myself that I'm still capable of doing everyday "normal" things. But the most important reason for this is that I have to keep a strong mental distance from the pain. Think of it as a wall I've built up over the years. When I get really tired or stressed out that wall gets thinner and thinner and that's when I actually feel the pain that normally gets filtered out.

This all started with my first orthopedic surgeon. He is recognized as being a "leading authority" on CMT treatment and I was incredibly lucky to have him as my doctor for my first operation. He told me how CMT is untreatable, and that dealing with pain is simply something you have to accept and find a way to deal with it. The less medication the better, basically.

The problem with all of this is that I've reached a point where I can't always trust what my brain is telling me about my feet/legs/arms/hands/whatever. The wall has become such a prominent part of my life that I don't have full control over it anymore. But the fact remains that without it I'd hardly be able to get out of bed everyday.

Anyway, the reason why I'm attempting to write about this here is because I'll obviously need to prepare for this class talk, and it's as if my mind resists any outward expression of CMT (for example I probably rewrote the above content 4 or 5 times before I finally gave up and just left it as it is now). I need to become comfortable talking about it. And writing about it is probably the easiest way to start.

I don't want anyone to feel bad for me. I don't want anyone's pity. Just today I was reading about a possibly genetic treatment that researchers in Scotland have found for treating CMT but I can honestly say I don't want it. I'm used to this now. The majority of my life has been this way and it's made me who I am today. My limitations have taught me a new level of appreciation for the day-to-day things most people take for granted and I try to live my life in the "carpe diem" style because I never know what tomorrow may bring. To put it simply CMT has forced me to appreciate the things in life that should be appreciated.

I think that's about all I can put down on this for now.

Last.fm is a new streaming radio service with a twist: you can download a plugin called Audioscrobbler which will note all songs you listen to and submit them to your profile on the site (it even tracks songs you've skipped indicating you didn't particularly like them). Using the songs you've listened to the site builds a profile of your music tastes and then determines other Last.fm users who have tastes similar to your own. The whole idea being that this is a revolutionary new way to find new music similar to your favorites. Basically the more music you listen to from your own collection the more accurate the site gets at predicting what you'll like. Plus the "radio" stations that you listen to aren't really stations, they are the collected playlists of an individual user or group of users. The site is still in beta so you must be patient if you're going to use it (I lost the first 300 songs in my profile after the first couple weeks of using it, but oh well, that's what beta means and i'm back up to 190 now). After a few days of listening I'd already found some new groups I need to pick up like Interpol (who I first heard via a CD my sister burned for me, but I was able to listen to a lot of their other stuff via this site).
You can look at my last.fm profile -here-.

When I got into work this morning my firewall notified me that a new version was available (using past tense because it is now on my computer). Sygate Personal Firewall is absolutely free, contains no spyware/adware, and won't hork your computer like ZoneAlarm frequently does. You can pick up Sygate Personal Firewall 5.5 -here-.

The mayor of my old stomping grounds has decided to roll out a massive security camera network. -LINK- Begin endless "big brother" and invasion of privacy debate.

Have a good weekend everybody!

- RR

RadioRaheem for President

2004-09-03T14:43:57Z

Man oh man I'm tired. I've been taking a new drug called Celebrex. Supposedly it's an anti-inflammatory that should help out with my CMT stuff but it's been making me soooooooooooooooooo tired. And not the kind of "end-of-the-day" tired or post-lunch tired; it's the kind of tired that never leaves you and sticks around all day. Blarg. So yeah, I'm not taking it anymore.

Here's why I should run for the Presidency: Because I don't want to be President

I really don't think I can stand much more politics this year. Honestly I just want the election to be over with so we can see what the next 4 years will hold. The more time I spend reading articles online, in newspapers, magazines, whatever the more frustrated I get.

Here's the biggest issue (in my humble opinion): Who is right. Or more importantly who thinks they are.

Seriously. That's what it boils down to. Politicians all think they have the best approach to things and as a result nothing gets done because they can't agree on the best actions to take (that and their cheif concern, regardless of party, . I know this is a very generalized statement, but...... christ, I can't bring myself to even write about it anymore. It just seems to extend the futility of the whole system.

Hurry up and get re-elected Bush. Or let John Kerry take it over. Personally I'm for Kerry at this point, but no matter who gets elected I'm sorry to say that I don't think it'll make a huge difference in the day-to-day lives of most Americans over the next 4 years. I've spent all 24 years of my life watching the world get progressively worse, and for every 1 step we take forward it always seems to be followed by 2 steps back. The only thing the policiticans of my life have showed me is that they're just short of useless.

I'm done writing about this crap. Maybe I'll elaborate some other time when I'm feeling particularly frustrated/pissed/fed-up/whatever.

Am I the only one out there who doesn't like the design of the new iMac G5? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this design compared to the original iMac's all-in-wonder candy-colored tv set, but this type of design has been tried before by many, many companies with limited results. Sure, it'll probably catch on well in schools and for students, and one could argue that this machine is one step closer to the portability of a laptop while still being a desktop machine. I think the new design is ok, I just liked the last model's flat screen on a stalk design better.

People in Paris seem to think it's pretty sweet:

(image via Gizmodo) (Link to Apple Quicktime VR model of new iMac G5)

Mondayitis

2004-08-23T20:42:45Z

Another Monday, another lame choice of subject line. Forgot the traveling laptop which still has my LJ entry for the Savannah trip in it. Oh well. Guess y'all will just have to wait ("y'all" not deliberately added for increased southern flavor).

More on the poor guy who was killed out in CA (who also had my name and was from Michigan) here.

Joe Piscopo might be making a run for Governor of.... New Jersey. Just in case you don't know who I'm talking about, Joe Piscopo is a Saturday Night Live alumni and actor, and is generally considered "funny enough".

Like a lot of people I've been able to catch a bit of the Olympics lately. Not as if that's a hard thing to do when NBC is showing non-stop continuous coverage of EVERYTHING via its various networks (NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, etc.). Just hitting the news today is the story of Irina Korzhanenko. This past Wednesday Irina became the first woman to receive a gold medal in an area that historically has only allowed men to compete (Ancient Olympia basically). Today she lost it. Turns out that Irina was using the oh-so-fashionable and oh-so-we'll-kick-your-ass-out-for-life performance enhancer stanozolol (STEROIDS) and it showed up in a routine drug test.

As pathetic as this all is, you're probably wondering "hey, what's the friggin point?". If you click on thislink you'll be taken to the same story above in greater detail, with this little gem of a paragraph:
So far, nine weightlifters have failed drug tests, including another Russian, Albina Khomich. A Kenyan boxer was also sent home for using drugs. With six days left in the games, including track and field events, more positives are likely.
How sad is it that we've reached a point where our faith in each other (as a species) counts for nothing, especially at an event as "world-spanning" as the Olympics? Instead of treating these drug users/cheaters with contempt we're acting like it's almost a given. Sure, some of them are facing lifetime bans from their sport of choice, but the world seems to have adopted a "big surprise" attitude that the supposed best and strongest athletes in the world do this.

Continuing the Olympic theme, I'm very, VERY glad I'm not in any way involved with the Olympics in an official capacity. Here's why:The International Olympic Committee is barring competitors, as well as coaches, support personnel and other officials, from writing firsthand accounts for news and other Web sites.
I could go off on this for hours, but I'll just sum it up in one abbreviation: WTF???

Edvard Munch's well known masterpiece "The Scream" has been stolen at gunpoint from a Norwegian art museum. Oddly enough this occurred 93 years to the day after the Mona Lisa was stolen from Paris (and returned, obviously).

Cuba has rejected aid offered by the U.S. for help with the aftermath of hurricane Charley.
"This cynical and hypocritical offer by the government of the United States to ease Hurricane Charley's effects ignores the damage caused over more than four decades by the economic war of successive [American] administrations against our country," Cuba's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried Monday in the Communist workers weekly Trabajadores.
I guess I see this both ways. Our economic sanctions have made life in Cuba hard, but at the same time there are thousands of people there who now have to pick up the pieces of their lives and I'm sure they wouldn't say no to a few million in aid from the U.S.

How to get a video game geek into bed in one easy step.

Fear Itself... an engagingly well-written piece dissecting fear in the new age of terrorism. (via MetaFilter)

Peace to the family!

- RR

I'm Dead!

2004-08-20T19:37:33Z

Sorry for the lack of posts, been taking it easy since returning from Savannah. I just couldn't resist posting this as a quickie though:

According to this link, I'm dead.

So many topics, so few bytes

2004-08-04T18:10:51Z

Don't ask me where I came up with that subject line. It sprang full-grown from my forehead.

There's a lot of topics bouncing around my head today that I could write about. Here's a brief outline:

- It's only 11:30 am and I can already tell my work day is going to be boring as hell. I'm the only person in my department who is actually in the office today. My job isn't boring per se, but when you spend 2 years in tech support with this company you get used to a much faster pace of work with a lot more pressure.

- Friday I'm leaving for Georgia to visit my sister and I can't wait. I'm very, VERY poor right now (a situation which should improve soon by a small margin) but I'm actually looking forward to traveling on an incredibly tight budget. To give you an idea, the single most expensive thing I know of that I'll have to pay for is a $20 flat rate cab ride from the airport to my sister's house.

- I spent a few HOURS last night filling out a questionnaire about my family history as it relates to my CMT. There were some interesting questions, such as "At what age did you learn to walk?", "Did you walk on your tiptoes when learning to walk?", and (my personal favorite) "Were all other developmental milestones on time?".

- As of a few minutes ago I've completed reading the complete works of Cory Doctorow, who is now officially my second favorite still-living science fiction writer (a close second to the venerable William Gibson). If you own a handheld computer/PDA of any variety (or a computer for that matter) you can download ALL of Cory's works for free via his web site (linked above). eBooks rock! It took me some time to get used to them. I was very, VERY anti-eBooks when they first became available to me, but now if I had the option to get all the new books I want in e-form I would without hesitating, while still buying my favs in hardcover after I'd already read them.

Link-a-licious:

How 4 Year Old Information Was Transformed Into Clear and Present Danger
(or, how the Bush administration used intelligence pre-dating the 9/11 attacks to keep the fear-grip tight)

A couple lucky movie geeks got some footage of the new Batmobile while Batman Begins is being filmed in Chicago. As a former Chi-town resident I REALLY wish I was still in the area so I could check some of this out myself. Right click the link and choose Save As or Save Target As to download the movie to your machine. -LINK-

My trip to Georgia on Friday will be the first time I've flown since the 9/11 attacks, and I'm a tad nervous. Obviously I'm going to travel light and leave a large portion of my gadget bag behind to minimize any possible difficulties. MSNBC has an article about the trials and tribulations that the Air Marshalls have been going through since being reinstated after 9/11. I guess I'll be watching for suit n' tie wearing people trying to guess who has a gun and who doesn't while I'm flying. Read the article to understand why. The article also contains a fun little flash game that makes you the security baggage screener and not only shows you what the scanners readouts look like but also has you trying to locate the trouble-maker items.

Orangutan Boxing. I kid you not. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself:

LOW MORALE is best described by what's on the site: Low Morale is a series of animation portraying one mans struggle to cope with the soul-sapping, will-to-live draining, life-force mugging, morale crushing experiences of work. Any correlation between events showed and real-life have been personally researched. I just watched all 7 animations (updated regularly), and they even have an animation set to Radiohead's "Creep" (acoustic) that is friggin' EXCELLENT.

If extreme body modification (or face modification as is the case here) isn't your thing then you shouldn't click this link. Seriously. Don't click THIS LINK. I mean it. THIS LINK.

Peace y'all!

- RR

Return of the Raheem

2004-07-26T20:20:44Z

So it's been a while since I last updated my blog. This is mostly due to a phenomenon I increasingly see every day I spend with computers: The more I use them, the less I want to.

I've been online on pretty much a daily basis for almost 10 years now. The two years I did spend in college I majored in Computer Science. I've become the defacto tech support guy for countless amounts of friends, family, and co-workers. I don't regret any of this (well, I regret the two years as a CompSci major, that was a complete waste of time). I'm not trying to knock universities or anything. My mother-in-law is a prof at MSU and my grandfather was the dean of the college of business for almost 30 years. My whole family has quite the history at this university. Both of my parents, both of my mom's brothers, and many other relatives and friends graduated from MSU over the years.

I guess the biggest difference between me and the rest of my family is that they were in college back in the days when a degree really made a HUGE difference in the job market. Bottom line: It doesn't any more. I hate to use myself as an example, but it's not like I have some dream job or anything, so I will anyway. In my time with this company I've interviewed many, MANY applicants who graduated from the same school I dropped out of. The majority of them didn't get hired. Why you may ask? Simple: They might've spent 4+ years learning about computers, but what experience do they really have? The answer most of the time is none.

(Any CompSci-types out there reading this: I can't stress how important it is to get a computer-related job BEFORE you get your degree. Have some experience on that resume before you go looking for a job.)

Experience during school is what probably what put me where I am now. While taking my classes I was also a graphic artist and web designer, and both jobs gave me experience with the realities of day-to-day office work that simply aren't taught in a classroom.

Anyway, I'm getting off-topic here. The first 5+ years of my time online were spent as a hard-core computer nerd in training and I acted as any other computer nerd would. I spent countless hours updating software (for no other reason then a new version was out), finding new software/tools, learning new web design tricks, and a plethora of other compnerd stuff that anybody even remotely like me could spend hours telling you about. I value the skills and knowledge that I have, and to be frank there's no other way I could've learned what I did. I'm almost entirely self taught with the exception of some one-on-one learning with other nerds like me.

But the world is changing. The internet continues to extend its reach into every corner of the planet and the generations now growing up have never known a world without e-mail, instant messenging, or web browsers. When my parents got their last "new" computer my brother (who was 9 years old at the time) was the first to figure out the CD burner and make his own mix discs (without any help from yours truely).

Personal communication has already been revolutionized by the internet. It's only a matter of time until the rest of the word is too. I could keep going for hours but I've just about reached my rant limit for the day.

Have some links!

BlogOn2004 is a conference covering... well... blogs (simply put). Anyway, during a Microsoft presentation at the conference the presenter asked the attendees how many of them used Internet Explorer:

Probably 99 times out of 100 when he asks that question all the hands go up, right? Well first there was a pause and then a giggle and then a whoop of laughter as the audience looked around and realized that NO ONE had raised a hand. The presenter was thrown off his mark, but he recovered and said, "Wow! Okay how many of you wish we'd fix IE so you could use it?"

Still no hands....

Informal survey afterwards said the Windows users in the crowd were all using the latest Firefox. Wouldn't it be amazing if Mozilla ended up winning in the end? -link to originating blog-

If you care about copyright law at all I would HIGHLY encourage you to go to this link and fill out the letter. All you do is fill in your info and click a button. Lazy activism at its best. Basically what's going on here is Senator Orrin "Copyright Lobbying Is The Greatest Thing Ever" Hatch is trying to get the "Inducing Infringement of Copyright Act". Summary from the EFF page linked above:
Right now, under the Supreme Court's ruling in Sony v. Universal (the Betamax VCR case), devices like the iPod and CD burners are 100% legal -- not because they aren't sometimes used for infringement, but because they also have legitimate uses. The Court in Sony called these "substantial non-infringing uses." This has been the rule in the technology sector for the last 20 years. Billions of dollars and thousands of jobs have depended on it. Industries have blossomed under it. But the Induce Act would end that era of innovation. Don't let this happen on your watch - tell your Senators to fight the Induce Act!

(My letter just went out to my senators, is yours?)

CLICK THIS LINK My jaw is hanging wide open after watching this trailer. The basics: Thailand kick-boxing movie called Mach. Special effects with NO WIRES.

That's about it from my end for today. Have a good one y'all

- RR

radi0raheem @ 2004-07-08T15:25:00

2004-07-08T19:28:13Z

Family reunion was a lot of fun. I saw folks I hadn't seen for many years and met distant relatives I'd never met before in my entire life. I'm freaking EXHAUSTED today so this is a short post. Couple interesting links below to check out.

Two articles online today talking about rumors that The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King Extended Edition (damn that's a lot of caps) might be in theatres before it's out on DVD. High on the Rock scale!

Police Academy is back. I kid you not.