Category: Uncategorized

Let’s see if I can keep this straight…

Apparently, the amount of information I do not possess will always be more than I have the time or the inclination to pursue. BUT, today I do have both, and so I am hot on the track of making things work that need to work for me to be happy that I have pursued everything I need to pursue. I will present this in reverse chronological order, so that my motivation is clear.

1. Currently, I am downloading XcodeTools1.5 from Apple. Why this version and not the most recent version? Simply because I have Panther (10.3) instead of Tiger (10.4), and the latest version only works on Tiger.

2. I am downloading this developer tools package because I need to use the command gcc in the terminal. Apparently, gcc is a command that just doesn’t come with the OS. I don’t know what it does, it seems to be some sort of C compiler, but I may eb way off. In any case, I need to download these tools to make my OS let me type gcc and have it do what I want it to do.

3. I need gcc to install the program aspoof (which is in itself an OS extension, as far as I can tell). See, I run the install package (a Perl script, that in itself fun and new to me), and it installs aaspoof, the program I really want, but which needs to run aspoof in order to function correctly.

4. But what does aaspoof do? It is a shortcut to aspoof, which asks for command lines only when it is installed. Since the command lines will never change (which would be detrimental to the computer working right, something I experienced last night), it is a very good little timesaver.

5. aspoof in itself is a script to modify the extension that drives the Airport Xtreme card in my Powerbook.

6. I want to mess with this file (yes, I even tried last night, by hand, with a Hex editor) because I want to change (“spoof”) my MAC address.

7. Finally, I want to do this a) because I have a random theory that the place I am receiving my wifi access from has blocked my MAC address so I cannot use that access point and b) because this has become an obsession since I have little else to fill my time with right now. [EDIT: I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the case, but you know what they say about idle hands… 2014-02-07]

Wikipedia has a fairly decent article on MAC addresses, if you want to know more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address
aspoof can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/aspoof.

got a bit of a beat to it

Random Walk:

““Eye for an eye” becomes “turn the other cheek”; fire and endless wrath becomes “blessed are the meek.” It’s a much lighter read, and it’s no wonder why it became a hit. If it weren’t for pesky little details, like a man being born to a virgin only to live his life working miracles and conquering death by ascending bodily to heaven after three days in a tomb, it might be a sound philosophy for me to follow. You see, I think the philosophy of Christianity is quite beautiful. Whatever you may think of the people who work in the name of Jesus, the guy himself was pretty decent. He did say a few things in the New Testament that could make you scratch your head (where was that sword he talked about bringing?), but on the whole, his message was of peace and love.”

the whole post was in response to right-wing/fundie christians accusing Ford of being anti-family for putting Ford ads in gay magazines. Does this make sense to anyone else? (the accusation, not the whole Jesus thing which seems to be a pretty good summary.)

Report Says States Aim Low in Science Classes – New York Times

“Starting with the 2007-2008 academic year, science will become a subject that students will be tested on at least once in grades 3-5, once in grades 6-9 and once in grades 10-12 – although the results will not be used to measure whether a school has made “adequate yearly progress,” as is the case with reading and math. Schools that fail to make progress are subject to sanctions.”

Report Says States Aim Low in Science Classes – New York Times

Long-term goals people. You are going to start sanctioning schools before they even get their feet off the ground, and how is that going to help anyone? None of these laws are going to work for a generation or more, because it takes time for the knowledge to trickle down. So STOP making new laws, and start paying teachers more to do what they need to do, STOP dictating everything they need to teach, and let them do it within guidelines. Tests are not the way to teach kids how to think. MAKING KIDS THINK is the way to do this. If I have to spend 90% of my time teaching to a friggin’ federal test, there is no time to teach kids what they really need to know. Example: I know a Hell of a lot more than a lot of kids from NY simply because they had to deal with the stupid Regents Exam while I was busy learning how to deal with actual problems.

willy wonka could have been planting trees

Mind the Gaps: Intelligent design as an answer to all life’s great conundrums.

*smiles*

Also, sadly,
“In fact, it’s the strongest thing that creationists have got going for them because their science is dismal,” Ms. Scott said. “But they do have American culture on their side.””

Stupid American culture.

. [Atlantis, Louisiana]

“Now we are being told that we should spend billions not just on rebuilding houses and roads but on re-engineering the environment as well. Louisiana’s coastal scientists, engineers and politicians suggest that without this coastal restoration project, all other efforts will be endangered. But it’s not that simple, for several reasons.”

Forced Marsh – New York Times

These guys are approaching a good point, which should be ‘we don’t need to re-engineer something that would work perfectly well without us being involved. Furthermore, there isn’t land there anymore, and we have no reason to waste billions of dollars creating new places for stupid people to build their houses when there are plenty of other good places to live, especially federal money.’ Let people do what they want as individuals, but I see no reason for the rest of the country to have to pay for building an Atlantis in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

you are the wild monkey of my dreams

[EDIT: This post is interesting to me, not least because my opinion on religion has subtly changed over the years. There’s no need to rag on people for being religious, but I do still see the need to rag on people who claim that religion equals science. 2014-02-05]

Yay! The retort to Darwinism (or is it evolution in general?) is best summarized as “I can’t think of a real theory, but someone must have done it.” This is from the same people who claim we can never know God because he/she/it is beyond our capacity to understand. Now, if you admit one thing is beyond your capacity to understand, doesn’t that open up the door to a lot of other things that just may be over your head?
Trial begins today

Of course, they obviously do not say ‘God’: they say ‘Deity.’ Which is okay as long as you don’t try to teach anything in particular, wink wink nudge nudge, say no more. If an Islamic group were pushing for this sort of thing it would have no chance of happening, or even a Jewish group.

Silly Christians. I get to talk about them because I suppose I qualify as one. Even if you aren’t you get to talk about them because (some of them) are just silly at times.

Anyway, I make my point that this is stupid and unconstitutional–claiming that an unknown Deity may have created everything is just as religious as claiming that God or Yahweh or Allah or Odin may have created it. Once you make a statement about a Deity, you remove the impetus to question the world around you and find out how it works, and instead cause people to start asking, ‘now what are the characteristics of this Deity, and what shall we call it?’
 

when i run out of words bury me with a dictionary

Creativity again…sooner or later I will photograph and upload some drawings I’ve done recently, it’s something a litte different from what I usually do, which tends toward either sculpture or multimedia/video (I even started work on a surrealist film in the vein of Salvidore Dali while in Oz, but I never finished it, due to lack of a good digital camera). Right now I’m working on drawings so I can design a series of logos for this, that, and the other thing, just in case I need them (and maybe you’ll see them sooner than you think). Strangely enough, I have never built a sculpture out of a bicycle. I think this is because I see bicycles as cheap transportation, and using parts that are still valuable to a working machine seems sacreligious. Recently I built a bookshelf out of a pair of skis and some wood from an old dresser, a pretty solid piece of work in itself that kept me occupied for a day or so.

Incidentally, I’m interested in other artistic projects while I’m still here in Vermont, whether they are sculpture or paint or drawing or film or multiedia or writing. I’m looking for people who would like to collaborate.

Speaking of which, before the site disappears (until I find a new server at least), if you are from SLU (or even if you are not, and have a grasp of world events from 2002-2003) PLEASE visit my site on the Green Wall [edit, see Flickr] and drop me a comment here on what you think. I want to put together some sort of ‘world political picture’ book, using some of the imagery and tying it in with events on and off campus from that year. What I am looking for are memories of world events, campus events, whatever, that explain or enhance the stuff I have photographed–you will get full credit if you want it for what you supply, of course. There was so much going on that year that I was unable to write down some of the meanings behind some of the graffiti, and some of it I still don’t understand. By the way, if the pages suggest posting to some forum, don’t post there, please comment on this site only–any forum I may have set up does not exist anymore; at least, it is not active and is not likely to be ever. Thanks for the information.