News quikies of the day - 4/23

FCC says 'Screw It' on Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality is saying everyone get equal speed an access on all internet networks.  The FCC was holding tight to this idea.  That was until some courts said that Time Warner and Comcast can do whatever they want on their networks.  They don't have monopoly on the market and people can go elsewhere if they want a different internet experience.

My Opinion: The FCC was getting black eye and offending heavy contributors to the Democratic party and had to back down on this policy.  BTW: whatever happened to that free wireless network the FCC was going to build from the open bandwidth from the sale of analog TV channels?

Two Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Allegedly Planted Guns at a Pot Store

http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/04/23/43721/2-former-la-deputies-accused-of-planting-guns-to-j/

There is evidence that LA Sheriffs planted weapons jsut so that they could raid a pot dispensary.

My Opinion: I think marijuana should be legal.  But it needs tighter controls then what it has now.  Things are way to loose.  And I can see why law enforcement is frustrated because federally its illegal but at the state level it is legal.

But two wrongs don't make a right.  Also this isn't LA Sheriffs have been under a federal investigation.  I think all federal funds should be suspended to this department until either they officers do a full confession or the matter is fully investigated.

I was hoping to do another one tonight but I'm tired.

They want government observers in the newsroom

Its been announced that the FCC what to study how news stories are selected.  They want to make sure the 'undeserved' are getting equal time with CIN program.

Quoting from the FCC article:

Today, the Office of Communications Business Opportunities (OCBO) and the Media Bureau (MB) issued a Request for Quotation (RFQ) for a study to examine the critical information needs of the American public so that the Commission can more effectively meet its statutory and judicially mandated obligations.

That sound good, but what is the result?

Someone, or many someones, would be taking personal notes on what people are saying.  What they are doing.  Who they are and if they have views in favor of opposed to the state's.  That information could potentially be used to pull a station's license.  Sounds MacArthur like doesn't it?

The definition of 'undeserved' changes from administration to administration.  Each FCC chair and committee has their own parameters for what they think should happen in a newsroom.  Its all subjective and changing, dare I say newspeak.

With cable new networks and new media coming age does it really matter?  Everyone has access to a radio, internet, and newspapers now. So why concentrate so hard on a shrinking medium: over the air broadcasting? Also it makes me really nervous when I see government official intruding into private affairs.

Many of you maybe saying 'you must be a part of X party!  You sound like a kook.'  Let flip this, what if the opposite party wanted to do this you?  When you stand for or against it then?  You need to look beyond thr prism of party lines and look at what its really doing.

I want to keep the government out of my life as much as possible.  Beside, the TV newsroom has operated the essentially the same way since the 60's: 'if it bleeds its leads' or 'if positively reflects on my friends and advertiser or negatively reflects on my perceived enemies run the story.'  The FCC knows and the government in general knows this.  The president ran the most effective media campaign ever.  Why is this study really needed?

What is IPv8?

An article on SlashDot about the IPv4 'crisis' reminded of something else: what ever happened to IPv8 and IPv9.

For the non-techies you're wondering what is IPv4?  An IP address is like having a world wide ID card for buy food.  That card has enough room for 7 numbers (0 - 9,999,999).  We'll call this IPv4.  You need that card to buy food. Lets say we easily have enough numbers so everyone in the world has unique card.

But dogs and cats eat food too, we HAVE to count them now as well! So we need cards for them as well.  Uh oh, we have way more dogs, cats, gold fish, ect. then people.  We're running out of number!  So what do we do?

We make a new system that has more numbers and now uses letters as well.  We'll call that IPv6.  Wait, all our old system can't deal with bigger numbers and letters. That means we have to start all over again!  It took us 50 years to build the first system.

So you get the idea of where the internet is heading.  Change the animals to tablets, smart TV's, and even internet enabled crock pots and you can see where things are going. We're getting close to running out of numbers.

There are work arounds like NAT.  NAT works by giving a number to a neighborhood and having a runner take orders. The runner remembers who asked for a red apple, gets the apple, and gives the apple to them.  But NAT has issue like being slow. Also someone in your neighborhood ALWAYS knows what you're eating or mix up your order with your neighbors.

IPv6 is a much better and faster way to do things on the internet but it doesn't work well with old internet. The old internet can't talk back to it easily eitehr.  Also almost every electronic device that will talks on IPv6 has to be upgraded, replaced, or you have to but a proxy device to keep something that is wearing out working. That's expensive.

Now I know what IPv6 is, what's IPv8 and IPv9?  IPv8 was a replacement for IPv4 just like IPv6.  IPv8 was also supposed to work more like IPv4 for easier upgrades and have tons more numbers than IPv6.  So where is it?

IPv6 was designed but a very small group so that could get things going faster.  IPv8 what open to whole world and got lost the conversation.  IPv9 was a similar idea but it was being made by the Peoples Republic of China. Its seems to have been more of a PR stunt then anything.  No code or specs has ever been released for IPv9 to my knowledge.

I hear IPv8 is used by spies?  I thought you said it never got off the ground?  You know I change my name to Barrack Obama but that doesn't make me the president.  Someone else started a P2P system for sending secret messages and called it IPv8 as well.

Are there any other IPv... something out there.  Sure but they're all in the shape of IPv8.

Will we ever see IPv6 running?  If you have a smart phone you already have.  Most cell phone companies use IPv6 on their phones and use NAT to talk to old IPv4 that our computers use now.  I guessing in about 4-6 years the real IPv4 crisis is going to hit us.  Then we'll see the big change over to IPv6 happen.

Desperate times make people stupid

We hear that the economy is bad.  We hear about wars.  During these times is when we should be pulling friends and families together.  Instead people are placing themselves as judge and executioner to prove some  personal point.  I looked at a Twitter account and here some of the first stories I found:

Libyan rebels fighting Gadhafi troops in Misrata say 8 oftheir fighters have been killed in clashes - Reuters
Up to 9 shot and a 19-year-old male killed when birthday party in Chester, Pa. turns violent - Philadelphia Daily News http://bit.ly/ggXsWXDutch shooting update: At least 6 dead; gunman ran through mall with automatic weapon before killing self -DutchNews.nl http://bit.ly/fBrbUH

I can understand people fighting for freedom.  I can understand defending your homeland.  But is with the arrogance of these people that believe they're purpose is to do something so horrific as too kill people indiscriminately?  Is an argument really worth killing people at a birthday party?

If you feel the need to kill move away from people.  There many places you can go to get away from your problems until you can deal with them.  If you feel the need to bring a gun to birthday don't go.  Gun rarely bring joy to party.

What is and isn't social media

I the last few minutes I received a post on Facebook:

We all have at least 60 friends on Facebook; However when it comes to needing someone to talk to, How many will actually be there for you? I can guarantee you, not even 15 of your Facebook friends will like this status. If you would be there for me, set this as your status & see how many of us there for you!!!

My reply was:

I understand the sentiment of your post but you have remember this is an asynchronous media. IE when you post something I may not even see it for hours or days. During that time more people will add their messages. If you want true conversation I would say invite some people out to lunch or meet up at church. Facebook, Twitter and other social media just quick ways of starting a conversation. The real conversations happen in the real world.

Social media is about the moment: "I'm playing a game now I need" or "Here's my quick thought."  While those thought snippets are getting posted so are twenty or thirty other thoughts by other people.  Theres no way can keep up with every conversation.

The real question becomes how do you want to use your social media?  If you want the maximum number of friends to play you RockYou/Zanga games then you loose intimacy.  If you want conversation then only friend people that want the same thing as you.  But don;t get upset if you friend people who don't want the same thing.

Can you pout some more?

Francine Lawrence, president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers, has notified the Ohio Department of Education that the union intends to pull out of the Race to the Top Program, she said Tuesday night.

Ohio was awarded in August $400 million in the federal Race to the Top competition, a program aimed at reforming schools. The Toledo district's share is $10.8 million.

Source: ToledoBlade.com, published on 3/19/2011

The issue is that the Toledo Public Schools (TPS) academic programs have been floundering for nearly two decade. Together with budget shortfall from a shrinking population TPS has to make drastic changes and make them now.  TPS is trying to negotiate those changes with local teacher's union but they're not budging.

Right now the TPS teacher union is waging a PR war against TPS to keep every single benifit they have negitiated over the last two decades.  This is the latest tatic to force the school board the give in their demands.  The problem is TPS doesn;t have the money and if Francine Lawrence and the Toledo teacher union drop this program the teachers loose even more and the school have even less to pay their teacher and maintain the facilities.

This a big game of chicken that Francine can't loose in. Why can't she loose? Simple: Her contract is set in stone and she will continue to earn her six figure salary until the day she retires.  So really right now she's heading negotiations for her legacy as she nears retirement and not the good of the children.

Skirting the Laws in Pants

Have you ever heard of earmarks?  You ever hear of pork barrel spending?  They're the same thing, it just every few years the media change the name of the practice so that most people don't realize what it means.  Earmarks are when someone in political power take tax payers' money and give it to a company or other organization, usually for political favors.

Because of most of these organizations are for-profit and should be bringing in enough money that they should be  paying for themselves and the earmarks (your money) is almost always some sort of payback.  So lets make it really hard for for-profit companies to get this money and potential political favor?  Some of our representative did. Of course some those same representative the next day went out and started giving money to non-profit companies.  But wait, the non-profit companies were for-profit companies the day before.

The first person take advantage of this loophole was Ohio congress woman Marcy Kapter to Victoria Kurtz of the Great Lakes Research Center.  Of course at the exact same address is Ms. Kurtz' sister's business TeamIST. Both have the same executive staff.  So all of these ladies have went out of their way to funnel money to themselves.  I wonder how much the TeamIST has contributed to Marcy's campaigns in the past?  A better question is how much of the cash to the research center are going to go to Marcy's campaign?

Sunday afternoons lead to some of the stangest things

We had some stuff happening at our house that would have let us go to one service but they got moved up and we missed church.  So I puttered around the house and then ran so errands.  While I was out I made the mistake of dropping by Lowes.  While I spent $2.17 on some 1/2" PVC pipe and fittings.

So what did I with it when I got home: I turned it into a blowgun.  I've been catching a lot of videos YouTube about how to build one and I saw the Mythbuster's special about a ninja dart gun.  The video's I saw took needles and nails and turned them into darts.  Since I like a small trailer and I don't want the neighbors thinking I'm total freak I came up with a non-lethal alternative: q-tips.  You get quite a pop out of the cotton darts when they hit a door and wall with out trying.  

After I convinced my lovely bride that I wasn't going to kill any of the pets, I made some chicken and cheese cascades to help sooth the evening.  Also, somewhere in there we watched Mister MaGorium's Wonder Emporium.  The movie is pretty good.  Not Christian per say but it did give a decent message on dealing with death and continuing life.

Prototype Picture: Peppermint Pudding 1

I figure its time to get back to making a web comic again so here's the first prototype image and main character: Peppermint "Pepper" Pudding. I hope to make a few more concepts next week and then actually start building the comic.

How NOT to drive in the snow

With White Death Winter Storm Hank 2009 now past my area I wanted to say a few words on HOW NOT TO DRIVE IN THE SNOW:

1. Tailgating -  Your SUV has great breaks and handles well on the snow, even when you're 6 inches from my bumper.  This is called the 6 inch rule.
2. Don't Pass Responsibly - Take that icy lane next to mine and keep your bumper parallel to my mine for 5-10 minute before accelerating or decelerating.  The occasional swerve towards me was a nice touch.
3. Decelerating - When you can't safely pass, don't decelerate to re-merge into slower traffic.  See point 2.
4. Merging - When merging, remember the 6 inch rule.  See point 1.  Also, merging into spaces less then your car length is encouraged because the person that is now behind you will not mind suddenly slowing down on an icy road to give you the space you need for safe driving.
5. Peaking - When driving down a road feel free to swerve half in and out of your lane to see through the snow tunnel of death to decide if it is safe to pass.
6. Fiddling - Remember to always mess with the radio and TV/DVD combo unit while driving.

WTF were people thinking this morning?  If the snow wasn't cover the chick's license plate I would have written down the number and personally went to he house and flattened all her tired the next time it even threaten to flurry.  Some people just need they're driver's licence revoked.

New Word of the Day: econonarcissistic #tcot

As I seem to every week or so, I'm coining a new word.  Today's word is:

econonarcissism - The irrational action(s) taken by a rational individual when a personal finical event or series of events happens during a recession or depression cause by the individuals inability to see a positive outcome (See: hopelessness, finicalesteem, mammon). 

Often timed these econonarcissistic actions will have a negative physical and mental effects on individual physically and emotionally close to the one experiencing the econonarcissism.  See Great Depression (people jumping out of building), Ervin Lupoe (killed family after losing job), Marcus Schrenker (attepted to fake death to keep from paying debts.)

A little screen save I wrote: Spiral 1.0

Hey all,

I wrote a basic screen saver over the weekend called Sprial.  To install it you just unzip the file and copy the "spiral.scr" file into your "c:\windows" folder and then select it your desktop properties.  I'm trying a new file sharing service because my standby doesn't seem to be working.  So you can download it here.

Leave me comments on what you think of the screen save and the file service.

BTW: Here's a picture of one of the runs.  Colors and designs vary depending how long you let it run:

My questions to ask a pastor

If you follow me on Twitter you know I've narrowed my select down to a couple of churchs.  I've queried my friends on which questions to ask as pastor or elder.  One of them gave me a great resource with a list of questions that I could.  Based on that list and suggestions from other I've started to put together my own list.  Below is what I've come with so far.  There maybe revisions, so I would check back in a couple of weeks:

Basic questions:

- What is the church's prefered bible?  Why does use that bible over other bibles?

- Are there bad bibles, and why?

- Is the Bible a book that should be taken literally or should it be taken mostly metaphorically ?

- Who are your favorite Bible Teachers?

- Outside of the people mentioned in the bible, who are a few people who most influnced the Christian church?

- From those who are on the Radio or TV, who would be your favorites ?

- What 5 books would you recommend to someone who has just become a new believer in Jesus Christ ?

- Can a person ever loose their salvation?

- What role does Baptism play in the eternal salvation of a person ?

- If you went to Seminary, where did you go to Seminary ?

- What seminary would the pastor recommend, to someone who might be interested in studying to be a pastor ?

- Do you think that many Seminaries no longer teach Truth, and do not sufficiently equip pastors for the work of the ministry ? Why do you think this is the case ?

Intermediate Questions:

- What is the pastor's position on the Eucharist, and whether the teaching of the presence of the Body of Christ, is true or not?

- Are we in the end times ?

- Do you believe in ecumentalism (the merging of all religions into one)?

- Was Jesus Pre-existent before He came to Earth ?

- Did or does the Church replace Israel or is the Church grafted into Israel Spiritually ?

- Is the Jesus of the New Age the same Jesus as the one in the Bible ? IF they are different, what are the differences and how would one tell ?

- Is Everyone born with Original Sin ? 

- Was Mary the mother of Jesus (Mary) either Sinless or born without Sin ?

- Is Satan a real spiritual being or an impersonal force ?

- Is Freemasonry something that the Bible approves of ?

- Are any Church Pastors, Elders or Deacons Freemasons at this church ?

- IF a person wanted to deeply study the Bible (inductive Bible study) on their own, what are the top 5 or 6 tools or books that should or could be used for this ?

- At what point does it become morally right for a church to split of or splinter from a denomination, if either the denomination or the leaders in it, are teaching material that is contrary to the Bible ?

- Is there any aspect of the Gay lifestyle that the Bible does not condemn ?

- Is being Gay something which Biblically should be understood as a personal choice or is it something which should be understood as a genetic fact ?

- What is the hiring policy of the church, in the matter of  hiring anyone who is Gay, especially to be in a position of church leadership ?

- If the pastor could train people to be teachers or leaders and they were willing to devote 20 hrs a week for 3 months to learn this, what would he want to teach them ?

- Is the pastor or senior pastor willing to spend regular time each month with the teenagers of the church, hanging out, answering questions, about the church, theology, etc...

- What is the most controversial public stand that this pastor has taken ?

- What are the top 3 lessons that - as a pastor - he would advise someone else - to pay attention to, especially if they were to consider being a pastor today ?

- According to this pastor, is He and other pastors doing enough to teach young people...the doctrines and specifics of church history, biblical history, and how a person can grow into a mature spiritual life on their own ?

- Are their issues or questions that the Pastor fails to address or confront with teenagers, because of fear of men, or of the parents - that the parents do not want the pastor to address, because they are not where they are supposed to be spiritually themselves ?

- Explain the correlation between scripture (bible) memorization and the spiritual strength and understanding a person can have.

- If the nation state of Israel is being carved up into 2 right now, and if what is being given to the Palestinians is the ancient places of Galilee, Judea and Samaria, then does this mean that the Land no longer belongs - or should belong - to those who are Jewish ? If the land does not belong any longer to those who are Jewish, then does this mean that God was not serious when he Gave the Land to Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob ?

If the Land was given to Abraham, and yet Presdent Obama is doing all he can to give this land to the Arabs (called Palestinians), then - even though Obama "says" he supports Israel, does this mean that President Bush is working on the side of Almighty God, or against Him ?

- How can a person increase their spiritual discernment in these days, to be sure that they are not spiritually deceived ?

- IF you (the pastor) died today, and a funeral was held for you, then what would you want to be most remembered for, concerning your ministry and the long term impact you would like to have hoped - you would have had on those who sat under your ministry ?

- Are Pastors doing enough to teach the individuals and men in their congregations to learn to conquer fear, have courage, and learn to be mature spiritual leaders, in order to get their strength and significance from the Lord (and not their circumstances) ?

- If this Church Building had to close its doors tomorrow because of special circumstances, then how well would its members do, in being able to feed themselves directly from the Bible, and in being able to grow and develop their own Spiritual Walk? 

- As the Pastor here, or one of the Pastors, do you believe that the present Church Structure leaves you free enough to teach and preach in the manner and way that you believe would best serve your highest calling in accordance with the Call of God upon your life ?

- Can you name Three Teachers on the Radio, TV or Cable, that you believe can lead me astray, and that you believe that I should stay away from, and instead learn from more Biblical teachers ?

- What kind of "personal discipleship program" does this church offer, either one-on-one or in a small group ?

- Would your (other) elders and long standing members be abale to answer most of these questions?

Things to say during a bailout

The picture says it all.

No data, no help, no money

If you remember a few weeks ago there was coordinated attack in Mumbai that killed at least 170 people. Now the Indian government in political play has decided to not give any of the terrorist data to Interpol. Mr Noble said, "To date, India's government has not authorised India's police agencies to enter any data relating to the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai into Interpol's databases.

You have made a 'sovereign choice'. Now the UK may have to make one of they're own when the 2009 budgets start in few days.

How to get the most out of #TCOT

If you're not familiar with #tcot, here's the skinny.  #tcot is a hash tag for 'Top Conservatives On Twitter.'  A hash tag is either one or two words or a group of letters that represent a group or common interest.  Other common hash tags include #bacon and #peta (People Eat Tasty Animals).  #tcot is a group of conservative Americans who think that the Republican party has lost track of its core values.

So how do you get the most out of #TCOT?

1. Setup a Twitter account.  I would recommend you setup on just for #TCOT because of step 3.
2. Go to the #TCOT hub website (http://www.topconservativesontwitter.org/) and look over the general announcements.
3. Request to be added to the #TCOT (http://www.topconservativesontwitter.org/index.php/get-added)
4. Invite everyone you see on there to become your friend.  Currently it about 1,500 people which is why I said you may need a special Twitter account just for this.
5. Now follow the conversations going on by following them at either http://hashtags.org/tag/tcot or http://tweetchat.com/room/tcot
6. Post conservative topic or questions on Twitter with the hash tag #TCOT at the begining or the end of the conversation.
7. Start a blog.  You can use a service like http://twitterfeed.com/ to post the title and link to your Twitter account.  Make sure that include the hashtag #TCOT somewhere in the title.

Rules the road:

• Be civil.
• Be conservative and the values we portray.
• Take flamewars to @private or d direct messages.
• Don't post everything to #tcot.  We don't need to know what Aunt Mable did at the family's Christmas party.  That something should posted with #AuntMable
• Hash tags are not case sensitive.  Rule of thumb, is lowercase is better.  UPPERCASE IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING.
• If you use http://tweetchat.com/room/tcot, remember you're not seeing what someone is saying unless you're following them.

BTW: If you want to follow me on Twitter, you can find me at http://twitter.com/tekrat

Obama: Bush Not so bad

Today I saw two stories cross over Reddit that made me smile alot.

1. Obama & Biden To Protect Bush Administration Criminals
http://tapurl.com/TMcU3M

2. Slot Machine VS Voting Machines
http://tapurl.com/p10Rhu

It appears that the members of Reddit, a linking and discussion website whose members are predominately liberal, are saying that Obama's election was invalid and the new administration is just as corrupt if not more so then the previous administration. Why else would the look the other way on 'crimes against humanity and the state.' The alternatives are that the Obama-ites are incompetent or Bush DIDN'T do all the horrendous thing they were accused of.

One of the posters said, "I'd challenge you [members of Reddit] to name a crime that the Bush administration is guilty of for which Obama and Biden, were not either directly involved, voted for or at very least complicit in."

#TCOT Gas Prices Will be Going Down Because of the Lack of an Auto Bailout

Yeah, I was scratching my balding head when I read the original article as well. It turns out that people who invest in oil futures see the lack of an automotive bailout as a bad thing. The fear that almost every factory in the US will shut down and thus use less energy. Yes if the bail out had went through our country would be stuck with vehicles that use almost no gas. Less gas, less oil.

What really has my scalp itching is the fact that the Treasury Department now wants to lend funds to the auto industry. Isn't that illegal? If it isn't, can someone tell me how it isn't illegal for the Treasury to give out money without congressional approval?

Oh well, OPEC is about to cut off a lot of our oil soon anyway so we can look at prices rising.

#TCOT Tell your kids they can't eveything they want

In a fit common sense Reuters interviewed Steve Rhode from the Myvesta Foundation where said "Be honest. It's not a matter of them getting a job to help pay the mortgage, but rather not asking for things all the time, or when you say we can't afford it, they understand why you're saying no."

Some children will not understand. Others will not like it. All will have to learn to deal. We can't wipe out the credit card every five minutes to get what we want. Congress is already doing that, and most, if not all of our GDP and spoken for by other countries. If don't say no now, another country will say no for us.

Bad Economy Keeps Bad Employees at Work, Making More Bad Employees

Reuters has a piece on how a bad economy is making more people go to work then stay at home. That sounds great on the surface but think about it. If you have more bad employees in the office, people who don't want to be there, then how are they gonna act? Productivity will be down and they're gonna make your good employees feel like crap.

Ultimately businesses will have to face a decision: Keeps the grumpy employees so you at least have bodies filling the seats in emergencies, or thin the herd and pay a butt-load of overtime. Thinning the herd seems to be the path most employers are taking. They feel that they can reward a few good (happy) employees more then pay to for whole bunch of people, many of who loath being at work.