| » A Great Outlook On The Presidential Race |
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My Dad was talking to me about the news, and he made a great point. To paraphrase, he said:
With Bush getting a good bounce from the convention, all Kerry want is to get on the news and fight back. Problem is, what is the news today? First you've got over 100 children dead by terrorists, giving Bush a boost. Then there's Bill Clinton's heart surgery, stealing the attention of many Democrats and everybody who liked the guy. Finally, there's the hurricane in Florida, the biggest swing state in the nation. And every one of those is leading the news ahead of Kerry's announcement that he vows to be a President that tells the truth. For the next few days, the only way Kerry will make the top stories is if he announces that he's gay!
Sep. 3rd, 2004 @ 04:23 pm
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| » Public Searches |
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To those who disagreed with my previous post about illegal searches at the Democratic National Convention, I bring you this: a "Know Your Rights" factsheet, designed for protestors. And, as it plainly states, a police officer, with no probable cause and not having arrested you, only has the right to pat you down for weapons. The officer has no right to ask you to open your bag or empty your pockets. The rules are different for entering buildings, since the building can choose the entry procedure it wishes to enforce, and you can choose not to enter. But a public area, which anyone has the right to be in, is subject to all the protections the Constitution gives us. So if an officer asks to see what's in your pockets during the Republican National Convention, a simple "I do not consent" will suffice.
(via Boing Boing)
- On a side note, has anyone noticed their old posts becoming unreadable because of supposedly invalid HTML markup? This has happened to me three times in the last four days, and I've had to go back and edit them. For the people who can't read and edit HTML, this is probably an even more serious problem.
Aug. 23rd, 2004 @ 09:56 am
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| » Viruses are spread by the worst kind of infection: Ignorance |
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Since June 24th, a 34 day period, I have received 160 viruses (mostly worms, but the term virus is simpler) in my never used email account. Now, the reason I receive these viruses despite never using the account is simple. Someone has my email address in their address book. They receive a virus, and the virus looks throught their address book, adding all the names to its list, and then sends out itself to random addresses. The infection only continues if someone is stupid enough to click on the email, then open the attachment which is so obviously a virus to anyone with a decent knowledge of computers.
Then again, I guess that is too much to ask for. I have 160 viruses in 34 days, and every single one of them came during normal business hours. This confirms what I have long suspected, that the viruses which spread and cripple email networks are the fault of corporate users of Microsoft Outlook who don't have the neccessary computer experience to know that you do not open a file in an email unless it's a Word document. Again and again I get my viruses from NBC, the state of New York, IBM, the USTA (thanks Carl!), Playboy, the Design Imaging Group, BestWeb, Eastbay, Palm, and many others.
People really need to understand that viruses do not spread because of brilliant programming, but because of mass stupidity. When you get an email, only open the file if its from someone you know (people you don't know don't send you files, it just doesn't work like that), and only if the file is a .doc, .txt, .pdf, .jpg/.jpeg, or .gif. Anything else, assume its a virus and call the person and ask them. NEVER open a file that ends in .exe, .com, .bat, .dat, or really any extension you don't recognize.
Also, don't assume that just because you got a virus that says its from somebody that the person actually sent you the virus. More likely than not, they didn't. When someone opens a virus, the virus grabs all their email addresses and adds them to the virus, then sends itself to random emails, many of which may not even be from the address book, and with random return addresses as well. That means that if Adam opens a virus, the virus may send itself to Bob and claim its from Carl. You shouldn't call Carl like an idiot and complain. If you want to find out who sent it to you, learn to read email headers, and that's a topic for another day.
Aug. 5th, 2004 @ 09:06 am
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| » Horrified. Just Plain Horrified |
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Pharmacotherapy or Neurocops? Internal Policing and the Future of the Drug War
You can look at the summary, read the 28-section paper, this article lays it out for you but let me sum it up: Britiain is seriously considering giving children "vaccines" that will prevent drug use, by "protecting" them from the euphoria experienced by drug use.
Well, now I've seen it all. Let me put it simply: This is quite possibly the most dangerous idea in the history or mankind, and I don't think I'm even approaching overreacting.
If we give the government the license to alter our children's feelings at an age where they cannot give consent, we are taking away the concept of freedom from our lives. What if the government takes the next step and "protects" us from revolutionary feelings? Angry feelings? Homosexual feelings? I am so horribly disgusted by this that words fail me.
Maybe people are getting used to medicating problems and ignoring personal responsibility, but these are children we are talking about. They don't know what is being done to them, they don't know what it means, and they can't know if they don't want to do it. Smoking pot is not a mental illenss you treat with drugs, its an antisocial behavior, and we have no right to alter people against it. It is their choice. They risk arrest over it, same as with every other crime. Are we going to medicate people so they can't commit crimes? Why don't you put a V-Chip in my brain so I can't steal Post-its at work!
Let alone the fact that we would be altering our children in ways that are not illegal in other countries! Are the British saying their laws are better than Amsterdam, and those unfortunate to live in England should be "protected" from another country's culture? If England passes this law, I don't think I could ever enter that country and not feel disgusted. I have to believe that the people of England are rational enough not to stand for such an invasion of their children's bodies, but I can never be sure. God help them if I'm wrong.
Aug. 3rd, 2004 @ 02:39 am
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| » Say Goodbye To The Fourth Amendment |
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For your consideration, the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States:
- The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Now check it:
Activists sue to stop random MBTA bag searches
Ladies and gentlemen, that is going too far. I support the Patriot Act, or at least the need for it. I understand that terrorism is a tough bug to smash, and we need tougher measures to combat it. I have no problem with the CIA knowing what books I take out from the library, or where my transactions go. Measures like that, while invading privacy, can never hurt anyone unless they are doing something wrong. No one is going to jail because they took out a book on bombs from the library, but it might point out a terrorist to the authorities, and that makes it okay to me.
But searching people on a bus or train? Random, completely non-suspicious people? Throwing them off the train if they refuse to comply? That is crossing the line.
If a police officer thinks I have commited a crime, but has no evidence to charge me, he can ask me to come with him to the station. And guess what? I can say no.
I guess not anymore.
If a police officer asks you to search your bag, you do the American thing. You ask, "On what probable cause?" Then, when he tells you its for security purposes, you can qoute the Constitution and tell him to go to hell.
Jul. 27th, 2004 @ 04:58 pm
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| » How To Add Hotmail Contacts To gmail |
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or "How I Finally Gave Back To The Internet"
Many gmail users want to add their Hotmail contacts to gmail. When gmail announced it would allow importing of contacts, but it would still not work with Hotmail, I thought "There has to be a way". 20 minutes later, turns out there was.
1. First, add your Hotmail account to Outlook Express (or Outlook, if you have it). Obviously, you'll need a version of Outlook that supports this. This process is illustrated below:
Hopefully that's all pretty straightforward. If not, there are plenty of places that will explain to you the process in depth, including Microsoft's own support site.
2. Open Windows Address Book and click Tools -> Synchronize Now. Address Book finds your Hotmail contacts. Then click File -> Export -> Other Address Book, and in the next dialog click Text File (Comma Seperated Values). You now have a *.CSV file, which gmail can easily import.
Someone already told me this works for users other than myself, who have MSN Premium, so all Hotmail/gmail users can take advantage of this workaround to get their contacts set up. Problem is, the more contacts you have, the more obvious it becomes how primitive gmail's contact manager is. But, that makes it all the better to not have to type in all those contacts. And I suggest deleting your account from Hotmail and your contacts from Address Book, so worms will have a harder time getting at them.
If you post my tip, give me credit and a link.
Oh, and my tip is also featured on the excellent Gmailtips.com, and in the gmail community.
Jul. 21st, 2004 @ 10:11 am
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| » Feeling Loyal... And Disenfranchised |
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I live in New York. According to a recent issue of Business Week, 8 million Republicans living in New York and California will have absolutely no reason to vote this year because the electoral college hands New York to the Democrats every year (although California has a shot). Ever since I was old enough to vote (which isn't a very long period of time) I have been a Democrat, because it was the only way I could vote in the primaries and have an actual say in local politics. I have been telling people for years what a waste of time it is to be a Republican in New York City.
Yesterday, I walked into the DMV and changed my party affiliation to Republican.
I feel like a liberal. I did something that makes me less important to the political process than ever before just because I believed in it. Previously, I believed you did the most to maximize your vote potential. Now I am doing what my heart tells me.
For debate: Is it unAmerican (in the spirit of the Constitution, not the words) to have a system that marginalizes and throws out the votes of tens of millions of Americans? Is anyone else disgusted by the fact that they don't matter?
Jul. 8th, 2004 @ 01:25 pm
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| » I'd Like To Patent... The Air! Yes, The Air! |
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Wired has an article about how some collosally stupid patents are being challenged by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. These patent include the patent for distibuting all digital content, the right to record a concert and then sell a cd of it, the right to rank players of online games, the right to use subdomains (like www.livejournal.com/montevino), and the right to test people over the internet. These are all basic concepts that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was stupid enough to grant, effectively shackeling perfectly normal uses that the company in question has no right to patent. And if you think these are perfectly stupid harmless patents, don't, because every one of the patent holders has already used it to bully small companies.
I bet no one ever thought to patent "the process by which sound is distibuted through air, arriving at the auditory canal, processed by nueral impulses and interpreted as natural language". Yeah, I'm off to patent sound, see you later...
Jun. 30th, 2004 @ 08:35 pm
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| » Being Ron Jeremy |
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So, a spoof of Being John Malkovich is out, called Being Ron Jeremy. Basically a similar plot, but with the famous porn star as the character you can enter, and with the (admittedly crude) concept of you getting spit out of Ron Jeremy when he farts, landing naked in a dumpster. My girlfriend is going to love this, one day after I made her see Malkovich. And I'm sure Queens College will also be thrilled, just another QC grad doing good.
Right...
Jun. 28th, 2004 @ 10:13 am
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| » Ga-Ga For Google |
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I have become such a Google-obsessive over the last week, searching on Google, for Google. It started out as looking for tips on gmail.
From the top:
So, I've been using gmail for the last few days, ever since a kind gmail swap user gave me an account for a horrible reason. Problem is, while gmail is interesting in concept, there was no email to look at since I had just gotten the account. It was like my first day of email all over again, and it was creepy. I've had the same Hotmail account since around 1998, so switching to gmail isn't going to be easy. I'm not telling everyone about my gmail address until I know I'm sticking with it.
So, I wanted to test it out, but didn't want people sending me email. I signed up for a few Google News Alerts and Beta Web Alerts, but none of this was enough. So I decided I wanted to dump my entire Hotmail inbox into my gmail account, if only as a test.
First, I just forwarded all the email. Bad plan. I wound up with a single email in my gmail inbox that was 16 megabytes, and contained within it hundreds of attachments, each one an old email. That might be useful as an archive, but didn't do me any good.
So, off to Google to find a better way.
I discovered that by combining Hotmail Popper with Eudora I could pull it off. Hotmail Popper creates a fake POP3 mail server on your computer that pulls data off Hotmail. Then Eudora acceses what it believes is a POP3 email account, but is in fact your good-old Hotmail account. All your Hotmail winds up in Eudora's Inbox, you set up a filter that redirects the mail to gmail, and bam, one Inbox becomes another Inbox.
This didn't work out exactly as planned.
I wound up with something like this:
If you look at the messages, you'll see a lot of them are from "by way of Nathan Weinberg". I already figured out this bug and what it means. When you have an email account, you are supposed to give your name to the client so when people get email from you it says "Yishai Maynard" and not "iwontwritehisemailaddress@aol.com". This mainly happens with AOL, since AOL doesn't use any technology the rest of the internet has been using for years. So, when my email is redirected, since there is no name, it puts in my name since that's the one Eudora provided.
A second problem is that gmail missed on grouping the conversations right, a lot more than it usually does. These two problems mean I am definetly not switching to gmail until it has a proper import feature, although I will use it for a few things here and there.
During my travels, I discovered a few cool things. The first is gtray, which gives you a little notification when you have new mail. Definetly a useful little tool. However, when it checks for mail it interrupts the computer for just one second, meaning whatever you type during that one second is lost, meaning a nice little typo. Really annoying bug, since it happens every five minutes without fail. I emailed the maker of the little program, Elias Torres, and hopefully he can fix the bug.
Then there's MoreGoogle, which adds, well, more to Google. It is a simple DLL that adds features to normal Google searches. It adds an extra two seconds to searches, so it can get annoying, but is at least worth checking out first.
Some useful sites:
And before you go, a video about what a Google school would be like, and for those who never tire of politics, an interesting little site about John Kerry
Jun. 28th, 2004 @ 04:14 am
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