| operating systemses |
[Dec. 26th, 2009|09:24 am] |
For Christmas my dad got me a cute little Asus Eee PC (1005HAB) for Christmas. Tiny! 160GB HD, holy crap. I'll primarily be using it to surf the web or work on homework from the couch, sitting next to Gina.
Anyways I've been thinking about the best software and such to put on it. One of the first things I want to do is swap out the 1GB DIMM with a 2GB.
The other thing I'm looking at is OS. I know that a lot of people put Linux on these suckers, there are even distros specifically designed for the Eees. But I have to leave Windows on there because 1) UMass' online site only works 100% with IE (I know, I know) and 2) Napster only runs under Windows.
The other thing I'm thinking about is installing Windows 7, I can get Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional for $29.99 through academic pricing. Also tempting. But I'd also kinda like to put Win7 on my desktop machine, which is still my primary box, and I can only get one copy at that price.
Here's what I'm thinking: dual-boot the Eee PC XP / Linux, and install 7 on the desktop.
Yes? No?
Will probably upgrade to Office 07 (again, academic pricing) and switch from MS Money to Quicken (MS is ceasing development/support of Money and offering coupons to switch) while I'm doing all this. |
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| If Christmas were a noise, |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|10:24 pm] |
The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing Galway Bay,
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day...
Merry Christmas, everyone. |
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| do something. |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|03:12 pm] |
www.commondreams.org
50 Simple Ways to Get Off
If you're in love with the world, fall in love with trying to save it
by Derrick Jensen
Years ago I was interviewed by a dogmatic pacifist (note to self: bad idea), who in his (grossly inaccurate) write-up said he thought I wanted all activists to think like assassins. That's not true. What I want is for us to think like members of a serious resistance movement.
What does that look like? Well, to start, it doesn't have to mean handling guns. Even when the IRA was at its strongest, only 2 percent of its members ever picked up weapons. The same is true for the Underground Railroad; Harriet Tubman and others carried guns, but Quakers and other pacifists who ran safe houses were also crucial to that work. What they all held in common was a commitment to their cause, and a willingness to work together in the resistance.
A serious resistance movement also means a commitment to winning, which means figuring out what "winning" means to you. For me, winning means living in a world with more wild salmon every year than the year before, more migratory songbirds, more amphibians, more large fish in the oceans, and for that matter oceans not being murdered. It means less dioxin in every mother's breast milk. It means living in a world where there are fewer dams each year than the year before. More native forests. More wild wetlands. It means living in a world not being ravaged by the industrial economy. And I'll do whatever it takes to get there (and if, by the way, you believe that "whatever it takes" is code language for violence, you're revealing nothing more than your own belief that nonviolence is ineffective).
That's fine, Derrick, but what do you want me to do?
Part of me wants to tell you to bring down the industrial infrastructure, the engine driving the destruction of the planet, converting so-called raw materials-read: living beings, biomes, and indeed the world-into products for sale. But there's also a part of me that doesn't want to suggest that, because I'm guessing you wouldn't do it anyway. And besides, I don't know you, and no one who doesn't know you should ever tell you what to do (and if they do, you shouldn't listen). In any case, ignoring what I have to say may not be such a bad idea, since what I really want is for people to think for themselves-not to bring down the industrial infrastructure because I tell them it's killing the world, but rather for them to deeply attend to our current crises and come to their own conclusions about what we must or must not do, what we must unmake and what we must make anew.
But, Derrick, what do you want me to do right now?
Okay, here's a list:
A lot of the indigenous people with whom I've worked have said to me that the first and most important thing any of us needs to do is decolonize our hearts and minds. Decolonization is the process of breaking your identity with and loyalty to this culture-industrial capitalism specifically, and more broadly civilization-and remembering your identification with and loyalty to the real physical world, including the land where you live. It means re-examining premises and stories this culture handed down to you. It means seeing the harm this culture does to other cultures, and to the planet. It means recognizing that we are living on stolen land. It means recognizing that the luxuries of this way of life do not come free, but rather are paid for by other humans, by nonhumans, by the whole world. It means recognizing that we do not live in a functioning democracy, but rather in a corporate plutocracy, a government by, for, and of corporations. Decolonization means recognizing that neither technological progress nor increased GNP is good for the planet. It means recognizing that this culture is not good for the planet. Decolonization means internalizing the implications of the fact that this culture is killing the planet. It means determining that we will stop this culture from doing that. It means determining that we will not fail.
And this is just the absolute beginning of decolonizing. It is internal work that doesn't accomplish anything in the real world, but it makes all further steps more likely, more feasible, and in many ways more strictly technical.
Next, ask yourself what are the largest, most pressing problems you can help to solve using the gifts that are unique to you in all the universe. People sometimes ask why I write instead of blowing up dams, to which I reply that my only D in college was in quantitative analysis chemistry lab, meaning you don't want me anywhere near explosives. Some people have said I should be an organizer instead of a writer. These people have never seen my work space; if I can't keep track of my pens, how would I possibly keep track of anything more complex? Likewise, I've filed dozens of timber sale appeals, but it was a very laborious process for me; it took me twelve hours to do what others could do in two. And I write terrible press releases. I can, however, write books. Harness your gifts, and put them in the service of your landbase.
My third suggestion is to ask yourself: what do I get off on? One reason I don't burn out as an activist is that I love what I'm doing. I was out one day with a wetlands specialist. We were trying to stop a developer from ruining a forest. The specialist dug into the soil, rubbed some between his fingers, and compared the color to a chart, which would help him determine if these were wetlands. I asked, "Do you get off on this?" He laughed and said digging in dirt was his second favorite thing to do after playing with his dogs. I laughed too and said I wouldn't like to do that work. I, on the other hand, have condemned myself to a life of homework: I get off on trying to figure out, for example, the relationship between perceived entitlement, exploitation, and atrocity.
My next suggestion is to make protecting the land where you live-and by extension the rest of the natural world, since protecting the land where you live will be insufficient to protect anadromous fish, migratory songbirds, or anyone in a world being burned alive by global climate change-the most important thing in your life. That may sound drastic, but we're talking about life on the planet here. There can be nothing more important than this.
So, Derrick, what exactly do you want us to do?
I want you to make the time to find what or whom you love-whether it's salmon, sturgeon, a patch of forest, survivors of domestic violence, your own indigenous tradition, migratory songbirds, coral reefs, or Appalachian mountaintops-and I want you to dig in and defend your beloved with your life, and, if necessary, with your death. I want for your actions to positively contribute to the health and defense of the planet. I want for you to figure out how to make it so the world-the real, physical world-is a better place because you were born, and because you lived here.
All of this leads to the point, which is, put simply, to do something. Several years ago I was giving a talk to several hundred people about bringing down civilization. The audience was excited. The atmosphere was like a rock concert. I suddenly stopped and asked, "How many of you have ever filed a timber-sale appeal?" Four or five. "How many have worked on a rape crisis hotline?" Ten women. "How many have done indigenous support work?" Three or four. And so on. It's all well and good to talk about the Great Glorious Revolution, but what are you doing right now?
The big dividing line is not and has never been between those who advocate more or less militant forms of resistance, or between mainstream and grassroots activists. The dividing line is between those who do something and those who do nothing.
Do something.
That's what I want you to do. That's what the anadromous fish and the Appalachian mountaintops want you to do too. |
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| Merry Day! |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|01:11 pm] |
To them what celebrate, may your Christmas be merry and any annual trials of this time of year not be too tumultuous. Everyone else, enjoy Chinese/Indian food but note that the Christians have started going to the theaters too so get there early. Also tomorrow is a bad day to shop but a great day to get cheap candy. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|01:06 am] |
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ugh, lady parts, why on the holiday... really? |
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| Not A Creature Was Stirring, Not Even A Mouse. Because I Ate It. |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|07:08 pm] |
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And, with the house cleared and shit wrapped and an unwise number of wine bottles emptied, I’m out. See you on the other side of little Winterval. Have a good break. Try not to stab anybody important.
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.) |
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| kind of sort of the end of the year |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|07:22 pm] |
2009 did not at all go as intended. i'm still sorting out whether that is a good or a bad thing. transformative nontheless. while the methods of getting myself in gear sucked, getting myself in gear was important.
tomorrow we drive down to ny to see my folks who i have not seen in a year, and to see how big the puppy who is obviously no longer a puppy is.
we get back sunday, monday i start operation-start-one-of-my-new-years-resolutions-early and then more piano lessons and all that.
so far i can now play a woefully inadequate version of across the universe and mad world. the arrangements are ridiculously simple. i've also started playing around with are you the one that i've been waiting for by nick cave, but that is leagues above the dumbass arrangements i have for the other songs. in general i'm trying to learn more theory and chords and inversions and all of that. this has not turned out to be as simple as i had hoped, however it's cathartic and creative regardless.
otherwise, lots of reading, lots of thinking, things are in general potentially in a huge state of flux, which is a good thing. |
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| Happy holiday funtimes, everybody! |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|12:33 pm] |
I'm off work for a week and a few days and that's swell. Less swell is that someone got ahold of my poor debit card numbers and used them to buy fancy organic food... in Spain. Now my account is blocked until I get a new card which will likely be after the holidays. So... if there's anything free going on, let me know. I am down with the free. I should be more upset by this but it seems like it was bound to happen at some point and it's just money, my old nemesis. The cause of everything fun and everything lame.
I'm not one of those people who needs to get Christmas presents but I am one of the ones who loves buying stuff or making stuff for people. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) benchilada has compiled a list of people worthy of receiving your dollars, sadly not my dollars at the moment since they are in dollar jail. You should look at the list and if something screams OMG I KNOW SOMEONE WHO NEEDS THIS you should buy it. One of the people on there is me, I still have jam. I could make a jam cabin out of the jam, let me know if you want to buy some or trade something for it. I also have apple butter. Also if you have a fruit-bearing tree I'm going to go ahead and say I don't need your surplus. |
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| Bullet points |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|12:52 pm] |
Horrible pun aside, a comment someone made on Facebook today got me thinking about gun rights. She was bent out of shape because wearing guns inside the State House was made illegal. It was only legal to do so in 2006, and was illegal for about forty years before that. The only reason it was made legal again was because the original boundaries of the State House were ill defined. The incident got me to thinking about gun control and the various arguments people make for it.
* "If you ban guns, only criminals will have guns" I find very little to argue with here. The Constitution is very clear about the right to bear arms, in the service of a well regulated militia. Perhaps only police, military, and national guard members should be allowed to carry guns? It would mean a bigger turnout in the Armed Services I'll bet!
*"Guns don't kill people. People kill people." The more I hear that argument, the more idiotic it sounds. Yes, people kill people and they sometimes use tools to do it. Anything can be used to kill someone. I have easily half a dozen lethal weapons on my desk right now. My odds of killing you with my salt shaker are somewhat less than my odd of killing you with my pen, or a screwdriver. Those odds dramatically increase if I have a tool which is designed to propel a bullet at high rates of speeds over a good distance. (Now I sound like I'm talking about Crossfit. Jesus, I have a one track mind.) A gun is not terribly versatile, it's not a computer. It's made to shoot things: targets, deer, people. It's not meant to be a paper weight; it's use as a deterrent from violence is limited at best.
*The fear argument cuts both ways with gun ownership. Gun advocates are afraid of losing their rights, being oppressed by the government, or being accosted by criminals. Gun abolishers are afraid of indiscriminate killing and upswings in violence when every one has a gun. Some people feel safer when they have a gun, but look at it this way. If someone is going to try to rob you, odds are they already have their gun out. Odds are they will shoot you before you can draw. Odds are they will shoot you from ambush. Or, they could just leave you alone and go after someone without a gun. A gun may be a security blanket, but it's certainly not a shield.
* Violent crime in New Hampshire is among the lowest in the country. Some point to the fact that citizens can bear arms as cause of this. Go to Washington DC and the violent crime rate is much, much higher. People aren't allowed to carry guns there. But is that a direct correlation? What are the statistics for shooting in big cities? Are most of the victims innocent unarmed bystanders, or are most of them gang related? The fact that many people could have guns hasn't seemed to be a big deterrent against gun violence.
*Guns are out there, and they aren't going away. Even though the Constitution is two hundred years old, and even though laws do change from time to time, the core element is still valid. If citizens don't have the right to bear arms, their security is limited to the benevolence of their government. Whether it's King George, Dubya, or Obama, bearing arms is a necessary safeguard in case your government turns into a dictatorship.
* Does freedom have to be black and white, all or nothing? If you want to own guns, do you need to bring your gun to school with you? How about work? Maybe you live in a bad part of town, and it's not safe being without one. Do you need a gun in a hospital? How about at a football game?
In the end, I am for the right to bear arms. I acknowledge that by being for this right, I accept all the school massacres, crimes of passion, and child deaths caused through negligence. I accept that carrying a gun on my hip may make me less of a target, but it won't save me from a gun fight. Gun ownership is a huge responsibility, but not everyone is responsible. And anyone can have a bad day, lose their shit, and open up into a crowd. Or would they? New Hampshire seems a good example of gun ownership working. Perhaps the social contract is strong enough, people's instinct for self-preservation, would stop events from spilling over into a catastrophe. This last paragraph calls to mind a scene from Predator 2. A man is being hassled by some thugs on the subway, so he pulls a gun. The thurgs hassling him pull out their guns. All the commuters on the subway pull THEIR guns on the thugs, leaving Bill Paxton and Maria Conchita Alonso to defuse the situation. At least until the Predator shows up and kills everyone except Maria Conchita Alonso. The real moral of the story? You're better off not owning a gun, unless you are pregnant. |
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| Happy Halloweenmas and Happy New Year!..... |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|11:55 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
I think I'm looking forward to the "HEROES" New Year's Eve Party more than I am Xmas Day. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to that too. I just get more excited about parties than I do holidays. Yes, more than likely I will get very drunk on NYE and start wishing everyone a Happy Halloween again. Especially if after two bottles of champagne to myself and countless rounds of mind erasers later a certain coat check individual, fishheadned , tells me that it's actually Halloween and not New Year's Eve.
I probably won't have much time online tomorrow, so Happy Holidays! I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloweenmas and, if I don't see you, a Happy New Year! |
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| A Single Drop needs your help... |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|01:01 am] |
So about a little over a year ago I volunteered to help edit (from existing footage) a promotional video for A Single Drop, which is a non-profit, global clean water initiative. (http://www.youtube.com/asingledrop) ASD goes into villages in Africa and the Philipines and teaches them to build and maintain clean water technology using indigenous resources, as well as showing them how to test their water sources for bacterial contamination.
In the intervening time, I’ve become very good friends with the organization’s founder Gemma Bulos. She’s an extremely talented and dedicated woman who has spent the last several years just MAKING A DIFFERENCE. She doesn’t draw a salary from the organization, she just works her butt off helping people around the world.
One of the things that they do is distribute portable microbiology lab kits to villages and towns. 25 single use kits fit in a 1 gallon ziplock type bag. In 2003, 600 of these kits were given to a town in Tanzania. The total cost was about $1500. Once the town started testing their water for hazardous contamination, the reported cases of diarrhea in the town went from over 14,000 to fewer that 650. In one year. For $1500. And diarrhea is one of the major factors in infant mortality, so that’s a miraclous change.
These people are making a difference out there. A real, significant difference. They’re saving lives. But they’re seriously short on funding for 2010.
If you can make a donation of ANY amount, it would help. Just follow the link.
But even if you CAN’T make a donation, please help spread the word. This organization needs to keep doing what it’s doing, and they can’t do it without getting the word out.
http://www.razoo.com/story/Double-Your-Donation-Holiday-Matching-Grant-Challenge |
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| Tasting notes: Tokaji Aszú 6 puttonyos 1999 from Szepsy |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|03:32 am] |
Close to this time of year 7 years ago, I took a trip to Europe and started this livejournal account so I could write of my travels. That trip took me to Munich, Vienna, Budapest, and Bratislava. My friend ahaseurus recommended that I check out the dessert wines from the Tokaj region of Hungary. At the time, I didn't realize I could drink (I do still have beer and wine allergies), but I did bring back a sampler pack of the wines. I could have small tastes of things, and I tried the wines with arcanus and evildrgo. Much to my delight, I found that not only did I have no allergic reaction to these wines, they were also as extraordinary as ahaseurus described. I fell in love with them immediately.
Three years later, I visited Budapest again and stopped by the same wine shop - Présház - and bought a handful of bottles. Two of those bottles were from 1999, which is possibly the best year of Tokaj wines since the new renaissance of the wines began in 1990 (2000 may rival it, with 1993 being the first "vintage" year). However, for the higher grades of these wines, it's best to wait for them to be at least 10 years old. ahaseurus offered to cellar them for me, with the agreement that I share some with him when I open them. :)
In November of this year, the two bottles from 1999 became 10 years old, so it was about time to open one of them. I'd never tried a wine from the Szepsy estate - reputed to make the finest Tokaji wines and whose heritage dates back to the invention of the aszú style back in the 1600's - so that's the one I chose. I got in touch with ahaseurus and we got together for dinner and drinks:
Szepsy
Tokaji Aszú 6 puttonyos 1999
Color: dark topaz
Nose: faint cinnamon, honey, apple, sweet but deep and dark, dried apricot, tea, hint of saffron, hint of lemon
Palate: cinnamon at the very front, then what I first thought was green pepper but was actually a particular kind of tea my friend happened to have in a tin in his house (he'll look up the kind, as it was unlabeled - the resemblance was uncanny). sweet, crystallized honey, dried apricot, tea, faint saffron, stony, thick and coating, faintly lemony, slightly tart
Finish: dried apricot, apple skin, tea, semi-sweet, crisp, _very_ long
It didn't have as intense a sweetness as I've found in other 6 puttonyos aszús, but it was wonderfully balanced and complex. I was also thrilled that it had the tea notes I found in the wines from Monyók last year. Overall, it's unforgettable, and if by some stroke of luck I find it again, I'll buy another. I look forward to trying my 2003 in 2013! |
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| About My Power |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|06:44 pm] |
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Musician/writer Christine Hart felt it necessary to preserve this Twitter exchange from earlier in the year:
I have just been informed via the power of Twitter that I’m on io9’s 2009 Science Fiction Power List, alongside, um, Lady Gaga. Actually, it’s kind of an interesting list — and an interesting, if peculiar, concept. Doubtless, by the time you read it, the comments section will have filled with snark. But the article itself is worth a read (not least because it includes Lady Gaga. I think even Bill Gibson was talking about that last video).
I’ve just been informed that Bleeding Cool will be broadcasting all through Xmas Day.
Me? I will doubtless still be ruminating on the fact that five minutes ago I was selecting children’s books for my daughter, and that apparently with the passage of no time whatsoever I am now wrapping a MOCK THE WEEK: UNCUT DVD for her. Not sure how she went from Maurice Sendak to Frankie Boyle yelling "cunt" overnight, but suddenly she’s 14 and arguing with me over rap/rock, guitarists and what the best track on the Florence & The Machine album was. It’s brilliant, frankly.
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.) |
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| Update fail redux |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|03:32 pm] |
Last Thursday was the TCB holiday party, held at the Jorge Hernandez Center in the Back Bay. The last time I was at this venue, there was a big dance party/rave event. The music wasn't as good this time around, but there was a dance contest. The winners were myself and our cute red-headed receptionist. Second place was my boss, and the VP of Development. Fortunately, we survived with our jobs intact. The good times kept rolling with birthday celebrations for Fudjo, followed by late night Band practice with my roommate and more mead, until 2:30 in the morning.
Friday was a treacherous day, but I survived it. I didn't survive long enough to attend any more parties, which I'm sure would have been fun.
Satruday: 2nd place in a Warhammer tournament in New Hampshire. Good thing I was well rested from the night before! The snow kept most people away from Sin-O-Matic, which was largely made of social fail. Thanks to Shivar and Mothra for pulling me out on the dance floor to forget about my worries, for a while.
Sunday: Begin hermitage
Monday: Hermitage continues, along with craptacular work day.
Tuesday: More crapitude at work, followed by a three hours subway/bus ride home. One should never take the bus from Harvard to Porter during rush hour, even when there isn't a disabled train.
Wednesday: Start the day with a good Crossfit workout, run into a wonderful spin jam friend on the Green Line, and have a welcome air-clearing conversation with another old friend going through a rough patch. The miasma from Saturday is finally lifting a bit. Holiday plans have been planned, and re-planned. Time to come out of the cave. |
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| Rockin' Wednesday Redux |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|02:41 pm] |
My Paypal account was hacked at 4 AM and I have already dealt with it both through Paypal and through my bank (DCU continues to be awesome, they even gave me a new debit card on the spot), but it entirely ate up my morning. So Rockin' Wednesday might not start until closer to 8, depending on whether or not my last patient shows up. If you get there at the 7:30 start time you might have to wait a few minutes and then watch me rapidly do some last-minute cleaning ;P. |
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| Westward Ho |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|01:36 pm] |
Couplingchaos and I are take off for Los Angeles tomorrow, she meets the parents and I show her round LA a bit; there’s a clubnight on Saturday I’m interested in, man I haven’t been LA goth clubbing in like ten years. Helter Skelter and Stigmata were the basis of my experience, they’re not around anymore, it’ll be interesting to check out what it’s like now. I imagine it will be like the clubs in Boston now vs ten years ago: similar, and different.
Then we're off to Hawaii to hang with Pax Industria and family for New Years! Welcoming the next decade from the middle of the Pacific ocean. I like it. |
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