Domain: chebucto.ns.ca
Stories and comments across the archive that link to chebucto.ns.ca.
Comments · 29
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Personal lifeboats vs. better ships for all
We could have both perhaps. But in general, this is sad, since with a few trillion invested in R&D, we could have fusion energy (or dirt cheap solar, coming anyway, but more slowly) and automated indoor agriculture and near 100% emissions-free recycling of all consumer goods, and so on. And many actions of the wealthy (especially those invested in oil) have essentially blocked these sorts of efforts politically. As Bucky Fuller says, whether it will be utopia or oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end. Whatever the legality, for those in charge of much of the world's wealth for whatever reason to cut-and-run from the very problems they have helped create is morally irresponsible and very selfish.
And it probably won't end well -- even for them. A private airstrip in New Zealand (or "Elysium" for that matter, even backed by a large force of security robots), will not protect you against nuclear fallout or rogue nano-tech or air-born plagues or a bunch of other things -- including just "drone" cruise missiles with conventional warheads we have had for decades. Those missiles are getting cheaper and easier to make; there way a Slashdot article years ago about a DIY cruise missile for about US$5K. The damage from such things will of course fall mostly on the poor as with all disasters, but cheap drones will be another destabilizing force if we have a social meltdown (which history shows, happens again and again, see Daniel Quinn's book "Beyond Civilization" for example). A better approach is to work to prevent the meltdown in the first place (like Bucky Fuller worked towards), or at least protect everyone you can (Schindler's list).
That is why I have invested all my (potential, mostly never realized) wealth (as far as primarily time) into trying to make the world work for everyone, and also trying to make it possible for everyone to build any scale lifeboats/ships they want.
After all, I did graduate from Princeton with Michelle Obama, and in the next year were Jeff Bezos, the late Phil Goldman, and many others. I could have picked a different path. I also worked for a short time as an undergrad with someone investing the Princeton endowment, who told me the reason a big investor does better than the typical small investor was more information, cheaper trades, and faster trades (enough to discourage me from trying to be an individual investor).
But more than that, I read the book, "The Seven Laws of Money" by Michael Phillips when I was a teenager. I had gone to the library to read around books on how to become a millionaire. Of about six or seven there on the topic, all but one told me how to do it (the first million is the hardest; start a small business, work hard, be responsive to customers, hope you get lucky -- most small businesses fail in a few years, but keep trying and maybe you'll get lucky when you have enough experience from your failures). But the last book asked me, "Why do you want to be a millionaire?" And that is a very good question to ask yourself...
The basic concepts from that book
:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/...
http://seeingmoney.org/SevenLa...
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Comm...
"THE SEVEN LAWS OF MONEY
The following laws were published in 1977 in 'Seven laws of Money' by Mike Phillips. Mike, a Bank of America banker, was instrumental in developing Master Charge.
1. Do it! Money will come when you are doing the right thing. The first law is the hardest for most people to accept and is the source of the most distress. The clearest translation of this in terms of personal advice is "go ahead and do what you want to do." Worry about your ability to do it and competence to do it, but certainly do not worry about the money.
2. Money has its own rules: records, budgets, savings, borrowing. The rules of money are probably Ben Frankli -
Re:Why don't we give the pirates a choice
according to an interview with an kidnapping negotiator one of the main reasons for the Somalis becoming pirates is overfishing - most of the economy crashed because they cannot compete with the sophisticated trawler fleet. A FAO paper claims that illegal foreign ships are one of the main reasons for the depletion of maritime resources.
Without a government and while illegal fishing is profitable (pirating started with selling bogus fishing licenses to foreign ships, see here) the problems cannot solved; one proposal was an export embargo but this wasn't successful in the UN security council.
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Internet Town Hall meeting Oct. 26 Halifax
Concerns over this and other issues such as copyright laws, digital rights management issues, the Digital Divide, and privacy have prompted the Chebucto Community Net and the Dalhousie Student Union to hold a public Internet Town Hall meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia on Monday, October 26th at 7 pm in the McInnes Room of the Dalhousie Student Union Building. I saw the notice on their website here: http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Current/CourtesyCCN.shtml
Their main speaker is Laura Murray, co-author of Canadian Copyright: A Citizenâ(TM)s Guide, and they've got speakers on the other issues too. They're calling it "Who's Shaping Your Digital Future?" and it's noteworthy for being the only meeting of its kind in the Atlantic Provinces. I don't know why they're not promoting this better, maybe they don't have the money or something, but I know I'll be going to it.
I wonder if anyone from the government or the mainstream media will be showing up.
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Re:What ethical engineering jobs are out there?
Everyone's situation is unique. Some general references:
"Honest Business" by Michael Phillips
http://www.amazon.com/Honest-Business-Shambhala-Pocket-Editions/dp/1570621799
and:
"The Seven Laws of Money" by Michael Phillips
http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Money-Shambhala-Pocket-Classics/dp/1570622779
"The Seven Laws of Money" by Michael Phillips (Author), Salli Rasberry
http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Laws-Money-Michael-Phillips/dp/0931425417
(I think the first is a slimmed down and improved version of the second...)
One key idea in that "The Seven Laws of Money" book is a corollary to the first law:
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Commerce/RATNA/june2.html
The first law is: "Do it! Money will come when you are doing the right thing."
but the corollary is "The world does not owe you a living".
One way to make budget ends meet is to reduce expenses. Lower expenses means more flexibility.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=voluntary+simplicity
From my own experience, trying to run a business is a whole set of skills which are completely different from doing engineering. They are not necessarily incompatible, but they are rare in the same person and require changing mental paradigms (successful business owners need to be focused on immediate markets, cash flow, return on investment, ownership, and so on). Personally, I know I'd have been a lot better off in life (as well as the projects I and my wife worked on would have been more successful as communities) if I had treated them as a serious hobby, not as a business (or, alternatively thought of them as a very long term business where the investment would span decades and so I could expect no immediate return on capital investment). For one thing, we could more easily have collaborated with others. Take 3D printing, for example -- try to build a business in it and you are all alone and fighting against the established vendors. Do it as a serious hobby, and you could work closely with, say, the RepRap project. http://reprap.org/
Still, there is nothing wrong with right livelihood. Many people work full time doing stuff like solar panel installations or working in university research labs.
Also, my limited understanding of the Australian culture was it was common for people to save up money and take a six month trip, and then go back to work after that. Why not six months spent helping, say, the RepRap project?
Anyway, I'm not saying what is right for you. I can't. I can just say to try to think differently about the situation. Ultimately we are talking about a future where there is little correlation between work and income because computers and automation (and 3D printing) make so much that the problem is more getting rid of stuff than making it. Almost no current business model makes sense after such fundamental change of economic climate, a return to an (once hunter/gathere) assumption of prosperity for all instead of an (agricultural) assumption of scarcity for all. This is a tidal wave of change which some think the forces that be (e.g. RIAA, Disney, others) have been actively holding back for decades. People were describing this change even more than forty years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triple_Revolution
http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/F -
Re:It's not weened
You seem to have trouble understanding the differences between a dependent and independent clause. For example, "have to content ourselves with providing corrections here" is not an independent clause. Here is a link to help with that: Independent and Dependent Clauses.
You also seem to have some issues with anger management. Here is a link to deal with that as well: How to Deal with Anger. -
Other alternativesThere is some software out there to coordinate GPS devices and a digical camera. See this post for some alternatives</shameless plug>.
Richard Akerman also has an excellent summary on the currently available software/hardware to geotag photos.
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Re:Recommendation for windows then
1) Patch the OS religiously.
2) Remove/shutdown everything that is not being used. As others have noted, worms and viruses attack applications, not ports. If there's nothing listening on a port, you're pretty safe... assuming the attack isn't against the stack itself, but those types of worms aren't very common.
3) 80 through 9999 is a shitload of ports. I'd suspect that not all are being used by the DVR app, as there are ports between 80 and 9999 that are used for other services. Here's a list:
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~rakerman/port-table.htm l
I'd close everything that isn't absolutely being used and complain to the vendor about the lose recommendation. 80-999 open is asinine.
4) Disallow any use of the system for purposes other than recording. Period.
5) I suspect that the no-anti-virus requirement is a consequence of processing overhead. With a sufficiently powerful server, I can't imagine why you can't run anti-virus software and still record. Multi-processor would be a great idea.
6) Does the vendor have a usergroup or message board? Surely you're not the first person to encounter this type of problem. Ask the people who know.
7) Don't be too discouraged by the responses you receive here :) It's easy to be condescending when you're staring at a computer screen.
If replacing the system is a possibility, I'm a huge fan of Axis cameras:
http://www.axis.com/
I have several clients running a range of their IP cameras, and they work fantastic. All you need to receive video from the camera is port 80 open and directed at the camera. -
Re:Solution
And since nobody's posted it up until this point while reading it threaded: Les Barker's Reinstalling Windows, a talking word comedy tape from England (the words to which are on the page I linked to) seems to fit (espeically given that this is from the BBC).
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Re:Most of you have gotten it wrongWhat am I trying to say? That authoritarian control that you Americans resist, yes, that is not a good thing, but it has come about due to the influence of Chinese culture, not because of evil people. You people do not exactly understand *why* authoritarianism exists, choosing to see it in only a romantic, black-and-white, good-and-evil thing.
One problem with this story. Who is Chinese? Labeling the country of Taiwan "Chinese" for example, is incorrect since most of the population is Formosan not Chinese. The same goes for a lot of the various modern and ancient acquisitions. These territories weren't acquired because they were "Chinese". Only two thirds of "Chinese" speak the main language, Mandarin.
IMHO, things make much more sense if you view the culture of China not in isolation, but rather as a highly successful tool of an imperialistic bureacracy. I think the culture was created from the very begining to form an empire. For example, two of the primary religions of China were created by bureaucrats (pardon the negative connotations, but I don't know a better term to describe their careers in the government), that is, Taoism and Confusism. In each case, the religion was quickly endorsed by the state. And the concept of the "Mandate of Heaven" (basically a claim of divine sanction to rule) precedes these religions by many centuries.
My point is that Chinese culture was shaped long ago into a tool of imperialism. It's longevity and the number of adherents is a good sign of its great success over this unimaginable period of time.
I should also add that I believe a key component of this has been one of the most successful eugenics programs in the history of man. I think it's fair to say that the old Chinese empire and culture were used as tools to make the entire Chinese empire related in culture and genes to the Mandarins of the imperial court. The emperor and other high nobles were encouraged to have many children (while the closely related Mandarins controlled education and even the survival of the children). The culture was set up so that marrying a child of higher status was a good thing. Hence, they had a means for propagating the genes of a small controlled elite to the general population.
I think you should consider the reason for the existence of Chinese culture and not just what Chinese culture "wants".
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Re:Need for Microsoft patch CD
Microsoft does have patch CDs.
In North America, Office Service Packs can be obtained free of charge on CD-ROM. Order Office Service Packs on CD-ROM
They also have a free CD as part of the Security Resouce Kit (the technet website, not the book). http://microsoft.order-4.com/securitykit
I have a webpage with more home broadband security information.
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All political in the end...
If you are Dutch, then Piet Hein is a national folk hero. If you are Spanish or Portugese then he was a rapacious Dutch pirate stealing colonial income.
If you're Canadian, then the Brig the Sir John Sherbrooke was a warship, if you were American, a pirate ship. Vice-versa for the Syren.
As with acts of war anywhere, perspectives can differ even amongst folks supposedly on the same side.
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Re:Comics on the web just aren't the same thingAnother thing that comics on the web can do well that just doesn't work well on paper (or, at least, I've never seen work well) is exploit their digital nature.
For instance, I do a comic strip at qwantz.com where the exact same images are used, without modification, every day. Put that in a print book and you can be a little put off, because it does look so computer-generated. But on a computer screen, it's natural.
Remember how ugly Frank Millers Dark Knight sequel was? He and his colourist Lynn decided they'd stop trying to make computer colouring look like real colouring and just go all-the-way with digital. The result was that the vast majority was turned off ("it looks so artificial!" they say). I'd venture that if it were published online, they wouldn't bat an eyelash.
Oh, and while I'm talking about online comics... you should also look at a softer world which is sweet and sad and you're going to fall in love with it.
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getting started
If you want to get started, start by securing your home Internet connection. This will benefit you and the Internet community in general. I have a page with some information on home broadband security.
When you move to security in a business environment, in my opinion you need to frame security as a tool for risk management. CERT provides good information on handling security professionally, including their book The CERT Guide to System and Network Security Practices and a large collection of Articles, reports and papers.
Information Security Magazine will give you a sense of where the infosec business is going. On the academic side there's the new IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine and the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Security and Privacy. Also on the academic side there are the more established journals from compsec online.
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some links to get you started
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reviews
See my site at Digital Photography - Resources. It has lots of links to reviews and such.
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Sandford FlemingWow - that Sir Sandford Fleming was a hell of a guy.
Anyways, I'm still amazed at the simple yet overwhelming idea of laying cables under oceans to link continents, and that it was done so long ago. Wasn't the Atlantic cable (or part of it) recently tested? I seem to recall that it was in relatively good shape.
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Chebucto Community Net
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An Atlantic Canada Community Net
I volunteer as an online help guy for our local community net, Chebucto Community Net, which is based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. As you can see from the About Us link the community net here has been around since 1993; that page is also a reasonable summary of what the operation is all about.
I have participated in some policy workshops, and although I am by no means a primary volunteer (too much other stuff to do) I can certainly assert that community nets like this are the only source of connectivity for low-income folks, are one of the few affordable sources of connectivity for many other community organizations, and are also frequently the only ISPs that seem to give a damn about accessibility.
Although I use cable myself (now) I still maintain a dialup account through CCN. It is interesting to note that they provide a full-featured PPP experience at a theoretical 56K for only CAN $100 per year. Contrast that to any other ISP locally, where your annual costs will be at least quadruple that.
They offer a reliable connection and the responsivity to help requests is good. What more can you ask for?
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An Atlantic Canada Community Net
I volunteer as an online help guy for our local community net, Chebucto Community Net, which is based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. As you can see from the About Us link the community net here has been around since 1993; that page is also a reasonable summary of what the operation is all about.
I have participated in some policy workshops, and although I am by no means a primary volunteer (too much other stuff to do) I can certainly assert that community nets like this are the only source of connectivity for low-income folks, are one of the few affordable sources of connectivity for many other community organizations, and are also frequently the only ISPs that seem to give a damn about accessibility.
Although I use cable myself (now) I still maintain a dialup account through CCN. It is interesting to note that they provide a full-featured PPP experience at a theoretical 56K for only CAN $100 per year. Contrast that to any other ISP locally, where your annual costs will be at least quadruple that.
They offer a reliable connection and the responsivity to help requests is good. What more can you ask for?
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Re:They include media player software on the CDs?> Are the copy- protected CDs shipping with software on them? If so, can I really trust their software? What if I want to use my own media player, such as winamp?
1) Yes.
2) No. From the legal page -- "The Player includes technology of EverAd Inc., Midbar Tech Ltd., and QDesign Corp.;" EverAd is a known spyware product.
3) You can't - at least not without reverse-engineering the player, getting the Blowfish key, and decrypting the MP3s encoded on the disc, or by breaking the protection to rip the
.WAVs to your hard drive. Either option would be in violation of the DMCA, should you be so unfortunate as to live in a jurisdiction where that craptacular piece of law applies. -
Re:Chomo?
Sorry. Bad link.
Chomo. -
Re:And what is 'Underage'?
In japan, the age of consent is only 14.
In Canada, under certain circumstances, the age of consent is only 14. And this, in context, is a sensible and rational age to place consent.
But under the laws of Canada, which already disallows virtual "child" porn, it is illegal to depict someone under the age of 18 (or appears so) engaging in an act which is perfectly legal for a real person of that age to do.
I can only hope that the US doesn't follow us down the path our legislators chose in an atmosphere of fear and suspicion. But they probably will, and for mostly the same reasons.
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Welcome to Canada
We've had this sort of thing on the books for a long while. I did an article on the subject a couple of years ago, and the situation has changed little.
The upshot here is that in Canada it is illegal to create art of two people having underaged sex, or even who look underaged. And it doesn't matter if it is made clear that the characters are not underage, the only test is that they look underage. So disclaimers mean nothing.
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Next!The David Allen Coe classic "Nigger Fucker"?
GG Allin's magnum opus, "Kill Thy Father, Rape Thy Mother"?
Or anything at all by Anal Cunt?
"Everyone should know of all information that others have deemed unfit for public knowledge."
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FunkScript is obviously the best.
When is comes to scripting, nothing beats Funkscript.
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Re:Use LynxThis isn't as facetious as it sounds. Why not provide surfing access via Lynx? Our local Chebucto Freenet provides free service using only Lynx, and it gets quite brisk usage.
If this can be done without undue problems (and really, unless you're guaranteeing graphic access you shouldn't have many) then it's a simple matter to monitor disk and printer access a little and voila, a relatively pr0n-free internet service without the need for a filter.
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Re:Don't Have a Problem With ItHaving worked in child protection law for a few years, I can attest to the impact that violence can have on small children, not to mention the impact of having parents who can't be bothered monitoring such things. However, I must disagree that violent video games in arcades (which is the venue this law seems aimed at) are really going to impact that many 3 year olds. These games, from my experience, are usually played by teenagers and above, with the little kids quickly becoming bored of such things, or at least muscled out of the way by the older crowd.
But there's another aspect that makes me wonder a little. Apparently the law is also against "strong sexual content" in arcade machines as well. Strong sexual content? In arcade machines? I've been gaming for a long time (cut my teeth on Space Invaders) and I haven't seen as much overt sexual content in all that time as in any three episodes of Murphy Brown. And we can all be sure that small children have much more access to the television than an arcade machine.
Finally, a tip of the hat to all those who pointed out the very clear message that having government step in on a social issue is a very, very bad thing. Check out my essay on what happens when this happens in the real world.
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Re:FIRST SCOOBY!Scooby-Dooby Doo, Where Are You?
We Got Some Work To Do Now.
Scooby-Dooby Doo, Where Are You?
We Need Some Help From You Now.
Come On Scooby-Doo, I See You . . .
Pretending You Got A Sliver.
But You're Not Fooling Me,
Cause I Can See
The Way You Shake And Shiver.
You Know We Got A Mystery To Solve,
So Scooby-Doo Be Ready For Your Act.
Don't Hold Back!
And Scooby-Doo If You Come Through
You're Gonna To Have Yourself A Scooby Snack!
That's A Fact!
Scooby-Dooby Doo, Here Are You.
You're Ready And You're Willing.
If We Can Count On You, Scooby-Doo,
I Know We'll Catch That Villain.
Trolling for Scooby-doo!
Scooby dooby doo!
More Scooby links:
ScoobyCentral
Scottish Scooby site
Shaggy's Groovy Pad
Scoobyland links -
Trollin for Scooby
Scooby-Dooby Doo, Where Are You?
We Got Some Work To Do Now.
Scooby-Dooby Doo, Where Are You?
We Need Some Help From You Now.
Come On Scooby-Doo, I See You . . .
Pretending You Got A Sliver.
But You're Not Fooling Me,
Cause I Can See
The Way You Shake And Shiver.
You Know We Got A Mystery To Solve,
So Scooby-Doo Be Ready For Your Act.
Don't Hold Back!
And Scooby-Doo If You Come Through
You're Gonna To Have Yourself A Scooby Snack!
That's A Fact!
Scooby-Dooby Doo, Here Are You.
You're Ready And You're Willing.
If We Can Count On You, Scooby-Doo,
I Know We'll Catch That Villain.
Trolling for Scooby-doo!
Scooby dooby doo!
More Scooby links:
ScoobyCentral
Scottish Scooby site
Shaggy's Grovvy Pad
Scoobyland links