Is this how time normally passes? Really slowly, in the right order?

I Can See Your House From Up Here!

I live over on the right hand side of this picture, and I work over on the left.

(via Slattsnews)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:40 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 36 words, total size 1 kb.

The Joy Of Running A Hundred Blogs

Out of the last 1200 comments, there are 776 comments on entries for which you have editing privileges that match your current blacklist. Select the ones below which you would like to delete.

If it weren't for Jay Allen's MT Blacklist, we'd be toast.

Update: Jay won the MT 3.0 plugin contest! Yay Jay!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:18 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 67 words, total size 1 kb.

Happy Fun Hardware

Okay, at 1:30 AM my ADSL dropped out and wouldn't come back. Not the end of the world, it was almost time for bed anyway.

At 4:18 AM /dev/hde in Yuri, my Linux box, had an unrecoverable error. Fortunately, I'm running RAID-0. Because if I'd been running RAID-5, I might have lost everything.

You see, if Linux detects an error on a software RAID-0 volume, it will forcibly unmount the volume and then attempt to remount it read-only. If it sees an error on a software RAID-5 volume, it will remove that device from the raidset... Even if it has already failed a disk out. In which case it will reduce your anime collection precious data to Purina Computer Chow.

So I now have a 1TB read-only disk. I can reboot, and it will almost certainly come back okay. Almost certainly. And anyway, it's mostly backed up. On 231 DVD-Rs.

Might as well get started backing up the rest.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:13 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 165 words, total size 1 kb.

Do You Want Your Possessions Identified?

Explorers find world's deepest hole, plunge to their deaths, only to discover that they were carrying an amulet of life saving all along.

Okay, I made that last bit up.

(Thanks to Rayra on LGF)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:57 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 47 words, total size 1 kb.

And It Started Out So Well...

Editorial in the Toronto Star:

What do Americans need in their president, post-9/11? Strong leadership, of course. Clear vision. Common sense. And in a dangerous, fast-changing world, the capacity to learn from past mistakes would be helpful.

Senator John Kerry, the Democrat who hopes to elbow President George Bush from office on Nov. 2, promises all of the above and more. But there was little of it on display Monday, when Kerry responded to Bush's challenge to spell out where he stands on the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Fair enough. Kerry is, as always, trying to stand on both sides of the fence.

Rising to Bush's bait, Kerry said he would have cast the same Yes vote in Congress that he did on Oct. 11, 2002, to authorize the president to launch a pre-emptive war that began March 19, 2003, even if Kerry had known that Saddam Hussein had no ties with Al Qaeda terrorists, no weapons of mass destruction and posed no real threat to the world.

Which is something of a flip-flop for Kerry, but we'll leave that alone.

"I believe it's the right authority for a president to have," Kerry now says. Only he would have used that power more "effectively."

Now, the real question here is what would Kerry have done differently? Specifics. We want specifics.

Does the Toronto Star ask this question? No. Instead:

This amounts to a sweeping claim by Kerry that America has carte blanche to make war on even bogus grounds, and in defiance of the United Nations and world opinion, so long as the war is waged effectively.

While Kerry's statement could be taken to mean that, we know where this is really going.

It's depressing from a candidate who has attacked Bush for "misleading" the nation, who promises a better direction and who claims to want to re-engage with the world.

I'd say it's pretty much on form for Kerry, but if the Toronto Star wants to be depressed by Kerry's form, I can't argue.

Kerry's vote in 2002, while misguided, was defensible. Bush had exaggerated Saddam's threat, and had won over 7 in 10 Americans to the view that the Iraq war was justified.

How, exactly, had Bush exaggerated Saddam's thread? Specifics. We want specifics.

But since then, the U.N. has been vindicated. Saddam was contained; there were no ties to the 9/11 terrorists; and Iraq had no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

BWEEET! Foul!

Saddam was contained? Only with a permanent force of U.S. and British troops present, and at the expense of the Iraqi people.

No links to the 9/11 terrorists? Saddam has not been tied directly to 9/11, but he has been shown to have had connections with al Qaeda. The links are there.

No nuclear weapons? But not for lack of trying.
No chemical weapons? You mean, except for those Sarin gas artillery shells?

That leaves most Americans feeling misled, or duped.

Unsupported assertion.

They can see the damage to U.S. prestige internationally.

The French don't like America. But then, they never did. All that has changed is that the mask has slipped.

The loss of more than 1,000 American and allied lives, and 16,000 Iraqi lives.

Even if 16,000 Iraqi lives have been lost (and I'd like to see the source for that figure) we can note that these largely fall into two groups:

1. Bad guys. Baathist thugs of all sorts and Islamist militia.
2. Ordinary Iraqis killed by group 1.

And how many people would have been killed by Saddam's regime in the past 15 months if we hadn't invaded?

A $200-billion cost.

Yes. Ballpark.

And they see no easy exit.

They're Americans. And British, and Australians, and Poles, and others. They didn't go in looking for an easy exit.

Unlike some.

All this is baggage Bush should carry to the polls, alone. But Kerry has just re-endorsed his misguided policy, if not its clumsy delivery.

And here come the ad-homs.

No wonder Kerry is struggling to pull ahead in a race with a president who has not delivered promised jobs and who is seen as a friend of the rich and powerful.

There's a kernel of truth in the jobs remark.

But to say that Bush and not Kerry is seen as a friend of the rich and powerful takes a truly amazing level of bias.

Practical politics undoubtedly prompted Kerry's reply.

Perhaps.

He is loath to admit he cast a foolish vote in 2002.

Or possibly he doesn't consider it a foolish vote?

Well, who the heck knows what Kerry thinks anyway.

He does not want to alienate voters who were similarly duped

Duped? About what? By whom? Specifics, please.

and who are not keen to be reminded of it. And he must not be seen as "soft" on Saddam.

Well, I should bloody well hope not!

Saddam Hussein was one of the bloodiest tyrants of the last few decades. He oversaw a regime of murder, rape and torture. He used poison gas on his own people, massacring entire villages. No-one sane would want to be seen as "soft" on Saddam.

But Kerry comes off looking like "Bush lite" on Iraq, rather than as a candidate with better values and a sounder program. He seems weak. Muddled.

True.

Has he learned nothing from a slew of American investigations that have exposed the sloppiness of U.S. intelligence and the shabbiness of the rationale for war?

Has the rest of the world entirely lost its moral compass?

Yes, the intelligence was not up to scratch. But the moral foundations of the war are absolutely unshakeable.

This is a letdown for American voters who yearn for a real alternative, and a healthier direction. It is not good news for the world, either.

I agree that the failure of the Democratic Party to come up with a viable candidate is bad for America and bad for the world. But a truly viable candidate would have views on the Iraq war closer to Bush's than to Kerry's. Which is not, I think, what the Toronto Star is looking for. And in any case, Joe Lieberman did not get the nomination.

What they want to do is to go back to the holiday from history we enjoyed from 1993 to 2000. But that world is gone, never to return, and we are at war. It's not a war we started, but it's a war we must finish. And the hapless bleatings of dying newspapers like the Toronto Star* cannot be allowed to weaken our resolve.

(And worst of all, Debbye Stratigacos of Being American in T.O. should be doing this, but she hasn't posted in over a month. If anyone has heard from Debbye, please drop us a line.)

* "Buy the Saturday Star and get Sunday to Friday FREE!"

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:14 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 1106 words, total size 7 kb.

No Shit, There I Was...

The Liberal Case Against John Kerry by Matt Taibbi.

After listening to John Kerry's acceptance address last week, I did a little experiment. I decided to remove everything that was bullshit and see what was left. I invite New York Press readers to follow me on this journey, step by step.

Read the whole thing.

For those slackers who don't have time to read it, here's his final analysis of Kerry's speech: more...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:11 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 101 words, total size 1 kb.

When All Else Fails

Spread a meme:

Testing Meme Propagation In Blogspace: Add Your Blog

This posting is a community experiment that tests how a meme, represented by this blog posting, spreads across blogspace, physical space and time. It will help to show how ideas travel across blogs in space and time and how blogs are connected. It may also help to show which blogs (and aggregation sites) are most influential in the propagation of memes. The dataset from this experiment will be public, and can be located via Google (or Technorati) by doing a search for the GUID for this meme (below).

Please join the test by adding your blog (see instructions, below) and inviting your friends to participate—the more the better. The data from this test will be public and open; others may use it to visualize and study the connectedness of blogspace and the propagation of memes across blogs.

The GUID for this experiment is:

as098398298250swg9e98929872525389t9987898tq98wteqtgaq62010920352598gawst

The above GUID enables anyone to easily search Google or other search engines for all blogs that participate in this experiment, once they have indexed the sites that participate, which may take several days or weeks. To locate the full data set, just search for any sites that contain this GUID.

Anyone is free to analyze the data of this experiment. Please publicize your analysis of the data, and/or any comments by adding comments onto the original post (see URL above). (Note: it would be interesting to see a geographic map or a temporal animation, as well as a social network map of the propagation of this meme.)

INSTRUCTIONS

To add your blog to this experiment, copy this entire posting to your blog, and then answer the questions below, substituting your own information, below, where appropriate. Other than answering the questions below, please do not alter the information, layout or format of this post in order to preserve the integrity of the data in this experiment (this will make it easier for searchers and automated bots to find and analyze the results later).

REQUIRED FIELDS (Note: Replace the answers below with your own answers)

(1) I found this experiment at URL: http://rocketjones.mu.nu/

(Well, that's the third time I've seen it, but anyway.)

(2) I found it via “Newsreader Software” or “Browsing the Web” or “Searching the Web” or “An E-Mail Message”: Browsing the Web

(3) I posted this experiment at URL: http://ambientirony.mu.nu/

(4) I posted this on date (day/month/year): 10/08/04

(5) I posted this at time (24 hour time): 21:21

(6) My posting location is (city, state, country): Sydney, NSW, Australia

OPTIONAL SURVEY FIELDS:

(7) My blog is hosted by: Meeee!

( My age is: 37

(9) My gender is: Male

(10) My occupation is: Computer Consultant

(Thanks Ted! Half the answers don't even need editing!)
(11) I use the following RSS/Atom reader software: none

(12) I use the following software to post to my blog: MovableType

(13) I have been blogging since (day, month, year): 14/04/2003

(14) My web browser is: Mozilla

(15) My operating systems are: Fedora Linux and some Microsoft thingy

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 516 words, total size 3 kb.

Cheap At Half The Price

I should have another couple of 25-packs of DVD-Rs around here... Somewhere. Upstairs? Nooo. Downstairs? Nooo. Hiding under the pile of shirts I've yet to iron? Nooo. Sitting by that chair in the bag from the store? Aha!

Hang on, I paid how much? $29 for 25 DVD-Rs? I was robbed! I can get 50 DVD-Rs for $40! Well, now I can. These ones I bought, oh, at least two months ago.

(Pixy is currently fiddling with new software to be installed on the MuNu server and will return soon.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:38 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 100 words, total size 1 kb.

Just Thinking Out Loud

A few months back, I was called by a political polling organisation. I was rather busy at the time* and anyway I hate political polls because they are, frankly, full of shit. So I told the nice young lady on the phone that I wasn't interested in taking part in her charming poll and hung up.

Now, I'm not exactly normal, but I can't be the only one to do this. So I'm just wondering how many people might be telling the pollsters to, well, shove it, and what the distribution thereof might be.

* Sleeping. It was a Saturday, and that's what I do on Saturdays.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:39 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 115 words, total size 1 kb.

Cold Fury

I haven't done my Blog of the Day for quite a while, but this absolutely not-to-be-missed weapons-grade rant at Cold Fury deserves nothing less:

Christ almighty, what is it with you people? You’ve spent a couple of years asking why we didn’t prevent 9/11, calling for an investigation, asking ‘how much did Bush know and when did he know it?’ You blamed us for something we failed to prevent after eight months in office, and yet to this day you give the Clinton admin a free pass, even though he had eight years—eight fucking years, people—to do something about al Qaeda and didn’t do one goddamned thing.

You finally get your investigation, the results of which confirm most of what we’d been saying all along, but you don’t want to hear that any more than you wanted to hear about the fact that one of the Democrat commissioners, Jamie Gorelick, was responsible for the so-called “wall of separation” prohibiting information-sharing between the FBI and CIA, which nearly everyone now acknowledges was one of the biggest problems preventing any effective defense against terrorist networks. You do deign to acknowledge that problem, but the part you originally claimed to be most interested in—who was responsible—is suddenly not so interesting anymore the moment you realized you couldn’t reasonably blame us for it.

You insist that Condi and Bush must testify publicly to the commission (even though Condi had already testified once), but it doesn’t seem to bother you when Clinton gets to testify behind closed doors. You laud Richard Clarke’s and Joe Wilson’s credibility, but when it’s clearly shown that they’re liars you don’t seem to want to bring it up anymore. You hint at all sorts of sinister skullduggery on our part, but when Sandy Berger openly admits to stealing classified documents for God only knows what reason, you couldn’t care less.

And that's just Mike getting warmed up.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you Michael Gene Hendrix and Cold Fury. No finer place to get your mellow harshed.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:12 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 339 words, total size 2 kb.