Grant McWilliams

I was digging through an old forum (OK I admit it, I googled myself!) and found a funny comic. I have always wondered how long I'd last on level 1 tech support - probably not long.

 

We all know that Android is a cooler geek OS than iphoneOS and let's not even mention Windows CE which is plain crap. However, the question may come up with who's getting the ladies - iphone users or Android users? Maybe a robot doesn't come to mind when women think of romance and love but still. Recently the popular online dating site OKCupid did the thing they're most famous for - analyze data and find patterns. The following picture is a result of that research.

It appears that mindless drones get laid more than businessmen or tech savvy geeks. Who knew?

I also find it interesting that 20% more women using iphones are getting laid then men who use iphones. Who are they waking up next to then I might ask? I'm not saying anything about iphone users but the statistics don't lie - they might be stuck on one cellular network but they appear to be fairly open with other choices in life. ;-)

If the original study interests you (it should) head on over to OKCupid and check it out. http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/dont-be-ugly-by-accident/

 

 

No matter how fast your cpu is or how big your hard drive is you'll find a way of using it all up. Here I'm encoding videos to h.264 for my Archos 5.

I'm thinking that Amazon has an issue with their database and the photo isn't matching up exactly to the description.

 

 

Readwriteweb did an article on Facebook wanting to be your one login. Their point was that people use it for posting their photos, instant messaging, "email" and just about everything else. The problem was the article's title was Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login and of course Google indexes this with the words Facebook and Login together. Now when people type in "Facebook login" into Google they got the article referenced above instead of the Facebook login page. This would not be a problem for anyone with more than a half a working brain becuase they'd immediately notice that the Readwriteweb site looks nothing like Facebook and would then conclude that they were not in fact at the Facebook login page but a completely different page (hence the strange non-Facebook URL)! Unfortunately not everyone on Facebook has half a working brain (thanks Myspace for falling out of favor, now they invaded Facebook) so the comment thread that ensued was quite hilarious.

Here are a few comments to the article. Notice that these freaks of nature really think they've landed on the Facebook login page but can't figure out how to log in.

I did NOT hand pick these, I'm just going down the line one after the other!!!

• ok cool now can I get to facebook
• The new facebook sucks> NOW LET ME IN.
• when can we log in?
• I WANT THE OLD FAFEBOOK BACK THIS SHIT IS WACK!!!!!
• just want to get on facebook
• please give me back the old facebook login this is crazy.................
• I just want to sign in............
• I just want to log in to Facebook - what with the red color and all? LOLLLOLOL!!!!!111
• wtf is this bullshttttttttttt all about. can i get n plzzzzzzzzz
• What is going on? You are totally confusing me. Knock-knock. Anybody there? Let me in. Katherine
• IAM NEW AT FACEBOOK NOW WITH CHANGES IAM LOSSSSSSSSST!
• All I want to do is log in, this sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
• This is such a mess I can't do a thing on my facebook .The changes you have made are ridiculous,I can't even login!!!!!I am very upset!!!

Keep in mind that these fine people are not on the FACEBOOK site at all but are on the Readwriteweb site reading an article about Facebook. There's more...

• Can we log into face book? This is crazy I want to get all my info off and be done with this. I recently moved from MN to SC Myrtle Beach and facebook was a great way to keep in touch with family and friends but this is getting to be to difficult.
• i need the old facebook this new one is very bad bbbbbbbbbbuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
• What have they done now. It's not simple enough for me to figure out.
• Seams like all of the comets i read agree with me you people messed up royal i was enjoying facebook now i am thinking of getting rid of it all

• Quit this crap and let me sign in!

• this sucksssss how do i get on my screen?
• Looking good
• bring me back old facebook this is sheet

 

It isn't until about the 80th post that a few people start realizing that this isn't Facebook. Here's the original URL if you want a laugh.

Facebook wants to be your one true login

 

A friend and I were googling my name to find the oldest reference still on the internet. Things seem to disapear after a while and it appears that I've been erased before 1997 but the positive outcome from this exercise was to find a spoof of an old newsletter I contributed to. In that newsletter was a quasi-german warning message which I've remembered but missed. With a tear in my eye I share it with you now. If you speak German, pretend you don't or you may miss the message.

 

 

ACHTUNG!

Alles Touristen und non-Technischen Look ens Peepers! Das computenmachine is nicht fur gerfinger poken und mittengrabben. Oderwise ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen, und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Der Machine is diggen by experten only. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen das cottenpicken hands in das pockets, so relaxen und watchen das blinkenlights!

I was updating a CentOS OS and I noticed that one of the mirrors it chose was mirror.facebook.net so out of curiousity I put that into my browser and this came up. Does Facebook have extra bandwidth and storage they don't know what to do with?

In Japan women are attempting to stop being victims of crime by hiding from their pursuers in plain site. They wear a skirt that turns into a full size cloth vending machine!Hopefully they don't avoid one criminal only to find another breaking into vending machines. Original story at the New York Times .Grant

As some of you know I moved this year to a new house. I now have plenty of room in the garage for the servers which means my heating bill will go up now that they won't be contributing. Anyway I'd been using Powerline networking for some time and it's worked wonderfully because you never need drivers for the network. How it works is you plug your network cable into a powerline bridge and then plug the bridge into the electrical wall socket. Do this for each location and you have an instant network! It's completely painless. Only problem is your electrical wiring needs to be perfect and mine to the garage in the new place isn't. My print speeds were so horrible that I was copying data to my laptop and carrying it down there to print. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that isn't the solution. I've always shied away from wireless outside of occasional use on the road because of the security implementations but it appears I have no choice short of rewiring my house. The new 802.11n stuff is tempting but without more testing I'm not going to bite. I already have a Linux powered Linksys WRT-54g which has served me well. My plan was not to add wireless cards to all the machines in the garage but rather set up a wireless bridge and plug a Gig switch into it so the servers could talk to each other at 1000Gbits and the rest of the world at 54Mbits. My biggest requirementis the router has to support the Linux DD-WRT software. After some looking I settled on the Buffalo WHR-G125  available for $29 at Circuit City with rebate... The Buffalo WHR-G125 does not come with Linux installed and from what I saw on the review forums doesn't come with much functionality in the stock firmware either. I honestly didn't even log into the stock firmware or use it in it's stock form. The first time it was ever powered on I nailed it with a tftp upload with new Linux DD-WRT firmware and it's been running Linux ever since.The Buffalo WRT-G125 is a 240 mhz mips processor (Broadcom BCM5354) embedded device with a 5 port switch and uplink. It has 16 megs of ram and with Linux running there's about 14 free. The antennae is fixed but I found one guy solder a connection on so he could connect any external antennae.If you don't know what dd-wrt is you're in for a treat. It's a replacement firmware operating system for many consumer based routers. It gained it's fame on the Linksys WRT-54 series and that's where I came into contact with it. The Linksys WRT-54g was a Linux router and several firmware replacement projects stemmed from it. I started using a paid for replacement called Talisman. The firmware was encoded and I lost the original file once and didn't want to go through the hassle of getting the author to give me another so I decided to look around and see what else was out there. Well, that and there was a lot of controversy about the developer's practice of stealing other people's code and then acting like a copywrite Nazi when anyone else wanted his code. I don't like supporting people like that so I switched to dd-wrt. DD-WRT adds many features to your router like ssh access, QOS, wireless bridging etc.. There really isn't any reason that I can think of for not using it.

I just ran across this quote of possibly this country's smartest founding father - Thomas Jefferson. It concerns copy writes and patents.

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

Interestingly he believed that as soon as you released an idea of your own it belongs to everyone. Much in the way the GPL lays it down.