1. We’re Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister
   
2. 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton
   
3. Working in the Coalmine by Lee Dorsey
   
4. Day-O by Harry Belafonte
   
5. Bang the Drum All Day by Todd Rundgren
   
6. Take This Job and Shove It by Johnny Paycheck
   
7. Working Class Hero by Green Day
   
8. Takin’ Care of Business by Bachman-Turner Overdrive
   
9. We Gotta Get Out of This Place by The Animals
   
10. Bad Days by The Flaming Lips
    
11. Rise Above by Black Flag
    
12. Another One Bites the Dust by Queen
    
13. The Winner Takes it All by ABBA
    
14. Soul Sucking Jerk by Beck
    
15. Work is a Four-Letter Word by The Smiths
    
16. Get Off My Elevator by Kool Keith
    
17. Still by The Geto Boys
    
18. Feels Good to be a Gangsta by The Geto Boys
    
19. Big Boss Man by Junior Reid
    
20. Set it on Fire by Tony Touch
    
21. Wasting My Life by The Hippos
    
22. Stuck in a Rut by The Darkness
    
23. Minimum Wage by They Might Be Giants
    
24. Career Opportunities by The Clash
    
25. Kiss Off by The Violent Femmes
    
26. I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Nash
    
27. Quittin’ Time by Johnny Nowhere
    
28. School’s Out For Summer by Alice Cooper
    
29. So Long Sucker by The Mr. T Experience
    
30. So Long, Farewell by The Vandals
    
31. Fuck Authority by Pennywise
    
32. Like a Boss by The Lonely Island
    

Pro Net Neutrality

According to people on this side of the argument, ISPs want to create a false scarcity of data and then take all your money to give you access or better access to it.  I feel like that is incredibly shady and that no company should be allowed to pull that kind of antics.  I don’t feel like it’s a legitimate business plan to purposefully limit access to data on the Internet in order to make a buck.

Anti Net Neutrality

On the flip side to the argument, why should the U.S. Government have any right to impose any kind of regulations or laws on the Internet (a stateless entity)?  Even though Net Neutrality laws may only affect U.S. ISPs at first, it becomes a slippery slope leading to regulation of the Internet itself.  As you can tell, I’m not a big fan of government regulation or big government at all, and it feels like that’s what we’re walking into with Net Neutrality.

Conclusion

I don’t want companies to run over me, robbing me of my money like stagecoach robbers in the Old West.  I don’t want the government telling me what I can and can’t do.  Until some middle ground can be found, I’ll be incredibly indecisive on this issue.

For those that don’t know, I’ve been applying for jobs like mad for about 6 months now.  I’ve had some bites, and I’ve even gotten some interviews.  But, as I realized last night, it’s wrecking my ability to accomplish anything.  This self-realization (and a discussion with my girlfriend) has helped me conclude that I need to stop living in anticipation of “the next step” and try to make the most out of right now.

1. It Takes Two by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock
2. Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-a-lot
3. Rappers Delight by The Sugarhill Gang
4. Wild Thing by Tone Loc
5. Insane in the Brain by Cypress Hill
6. Jump by Kriss Kross
7. You be Illin’ by Run DMC
8. Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough by Michael Jackson
9. I Need Love by LL Cool J
10. Tootsie Roll by 69 Boyz
11. It’s Tricky by Run DMC
12. Check Yo Self by Ice Cube
13. Intergalactic by The Beastie Boys
14. Rump Shaker by Wreckx-N-Effect
15. My Prerogative by New Edition
16. Do Me! by Bell Biv DeVoe
17. So What’cha Want by the Beastie Boys
18. Beat It by Michael Jackson
19. Poison by Bell Biv DeVoe
20. Now That We Found Love by Heavy D & The Boyz

I recently discovered the website Ramenbox (http://www.ramenbox.com/), which is a site that sells packages of premium ramen.  This isn’t the ramen you bought in college to last until next payday (don’t deny it, you know you did it).  Compared to this stuff, that ramen is like boiling snot in saline solution and then eating it.  The interesting thing about Ramenbox is their sales model.  Instead of charging you per item, they charge you for the box and then allow you to fill the box with whatever types of ramen you  want.  You can get a regular box for $20 that has 20 slots (some items take more than 1 slot), or a large box for $35 that has 40 slots (basically 2 regular boxes).  If you’re new to the world of premium ramen, they also offer a variety pack, which is basically a regular box that is prefilled.  I looked over the site for a while trying to convince myself not to spend any money there, but it didn’t work.  I bought a large box with essentially every type of ramen the site had available.  I’ve been looking forward to receiving this since I purchased it last week and it finally came in today.

One thing that had been mentioned on the site (but that I’d forgotten about) was that they send along some “extras”.  These extras include several pairs of chop sticks and a few packets of chili sauce (and a sticker!).  Everything one needs to complete their ramen eating experience!  Stay tuned for some noodle slurping goodness (and maybe some reviews).

Chad started designing what he calls Project Jarvis a little over a year ago and it is forming into exactly what I set out to do a decade go.  In some cases it surpasses anything I had imagined being able to do at that time.  Essentially what he did was put together some code on a Mac Mini that is on IM, Twitter, email, etc. waiting for a command to be issued by Chad to which it will respond accordingly.  He can ask it the weather where he’s at or anywhere else, the time, what’s in his Netflix queue, he can set alarms, adjust the lighting in his house, have it email people for him, and the list goes on.  Its a very novel idea and it has inspired me to create Cortana, my very own “Digital Lifa Assistant” (a term coined by Chad in regards to his project).

A picture of Cortana from Halo 3

The name Jarvis comes from the AI construct designed by Tony Stark from the Iron Man movie (which is derived from the real life butler of Tony Stark in the comic books), so I figured my project needed to be equally aptly named.  I settled on the lovely and loquacious Cortana from the Halo video game series.  I still haven’t settled on her capabilities yet (I do have a few in mind), but that isn’t a very high priority just yet since I’m working on setting up the underlying framework before I proceed with any true functionality.  Cortana will be built in C++, not so much because I think its the best language for it (though if I come up with anything crazy for her to do it may work out that way), but instead because I wanted to brush up on my C++ skills and figured this would be a good test of my ability.

So far Cortana can tell me the current time but only in Eastern Standard Time, and I’m working on setting it up so she can track my location via Google Latitude.  I haven’t hooked her into any communication services yet, but I intend to have her talk via Twitter, Jabber, IRC, email, and eventually (possibly maybe) Skype.

One of the things I’d ultimately like to do is manage my Facebook account.  What I mean to say is, I get annoyed by the group invites and goofy application requests and the event invitations for events that take place too far away from me, I have no interest in attending, or both, for me to go to.  I’d love to be able to give Cortana the decision making process to reject all group and application requests outright, and then notify me of certain events, allowing me to decide on the spot whether I’ll be attending or not.

For more information on this project keep an eye here, or if you can’t stand the suspense – contact me!

Picture taken from http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/PADD

One of the web comics I read recently compared the iPad to the PADD (from Star Trek).  They point out that while, in form, the iPad moves closer and closer to the ideal that is the PADD, in function it is moving in the opposite direction.  For those of you who don’t know what the PADD is, it is essentially a touch screen tablet, no larger than a sheet of paper, that is an extended interface for the ship’s computer.  No matter where you are in the ship, this thing works as a full blown computer.  Put in terms of modern computing, it is a thin client that connects wirelessly to its terminal server.  I hadn’t really thought about the iPad from this perspective before, but it makes sense.  An Apple Tablet has been rumored for years, and when they finally come out with one, its basically an iPhone with a larger screen.  In my opinion, what this is doing to personal computing is dumbing it down.  While I understand that this is supposed to make computing and using the Internet more accessible for those who don’t already, is it necessary to make a device that can’t be used outside a very narrow band of scenarios tightly controlled by Apple?  Apple could have done such great things with this and just fell short.  My grand idea can be considered an extension of “target” mode in OSX.  With nearly every Mac, you can boot it into a mode where it acts as an external HD for another Mac called target mode.  Why not make an iPad target mode, where you boot your iPad up and it is just an extension of another computer on your network?  That way you can use a more powerful computer to do things, but with the mobility of the iPad.

About once a year or so, I get the urge to see if I can switch from Windows to Linux on my desktop. I’m not saying I don’t use Linux, I just don’t use it on my desktop. I have a netbook with Ubuntu on it, a server with Red Hat, and several VMs running BSD, etc. The point is that my desktop is my main machine and every once in a while I try to see if I can do everything I use my desktop for in Linux. This years contender was a newbie to the scene: Linux Mint. I’ve heard good things about it, and I’ve heard it’s easier to use than Ubuntu (ease of use is definitely a plus for me on my desktop machine, trust me). So I downloaded the ISO and a copy of UNETbootin and proceeded… to fail. When the machine booted into Linux Mint (which by the way, is quite pretty), it worked fine. When I tried to install, X crashed consistently at around 90%. I tried an older version of Linux Mint with the same results. So we got an alternative contestant: Ubuntu 9.10 (amd64). I’d first like to point out that I am aware that the 64-bit version is likely to be buggier than the 32-bit version and that some software may not work or may not be available for the 64-bit version, but what’s the point of having 64-bit hardware if you can’t use it to its potential. This installed with no problems and was up and running in no time. Here are my findings this time around:

Hurdle #1: iTunes

I’ve grown accustomed to iTunes as a media library/pod catcher. In fact, I really like it for those functions (I’m a little sketchy about video playback but that’s a story for another time). What should I use for a replacement in Ubuntu? I went with Rhythmbox (which I like even more than iTunes) for audio and Miro for video. Rhythmbox held up it’s end of the bargain, but I don’t like the way that it dealt with or presented podcasts. I also never quite got MP3 playback working properly so it always told me that my podcasts were either missing or couldn’t be imported. Nonetheless, I could listen to music and download audio podcasts to my hearts content. Miro, on the other hand, failed me miserably.

After setting it up and giving it some feeds to work with it took an incredibly long time to download anything (while other apps on the computer screamed along at normal speeds), and once it downloaded, I couldn’t watch anything. Pressing play on a video caused Miro to crash every time. I also don’t like the way Miro deals with video podcasts. It sits in the system marked as new until I watch it and THEN a timer is set on when the video will be automatically deleted (if I choose that option, which I did). The lowest you can set this is one day. If I have to choose when a video is deleted based on when I’m done watching it, then I’d like it to be gone immediately. I’d rather just keep the last video in the feed until a new one comes along. Couple these 2 problems together and these videos essentially never go away, since I had to watch them in the Totem player or VLC. I also didn’t like that Miro couldn’t minimize to the status area, but that’s minor.

Ultimately, I decided (thanks to the wonders of Wine) that I would just knuckle down and install iTunes on the machine. Thanks to Apple, this was impossible. I downloaded the newest version of iTunes from the website and ran the installer. According to the installer, there was no problem but when I tried to run iTunes, I couldn’t find it. The installer hadn’t done anything to the “C drive” in Wine. I tried again and managed to get Quicktime and Bonjour installed, but still no iTunes. Looking on the internet I found that I needed to install an older version of iTunes for it to work. But at this point Quicktime and Bonjour for the new version were installed and Wine wouldn’t uninstall them and every time I ran the installer for the older version, it would error out telling me it couldn’t install Quicktime.

Hurdle #2: Netflix

Being that I don’t currently have a TV or a way to watch Netflix “Watch Instantly” service (my Roku is in the basement of a friend in Michigan), I use this service like a mad man on my desktop. The last time around I remember having this issue because “Watch Instantly” used Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 and Moonlight (the open source clone of Silverlight) was only compatible with Silverlight 1.0, but there was progress being made in 2.0 compatiblity. Now, I find out that Netflix switched to Silverlight 3.0 just as Moonlight 2.0 was becoming available. Is it so wrong that I want to be able to stream movies to my computer that runs Linux? Apparently, according to Netflix and Microsoft, it is.

Hurdle #3: Flash

A lot of websites use flash to some degree. I needed to be able to use flash and I needed to be able to use Flash 10 specifically. There’s a beta out of Flash 10 that’s available for Linux. There’s a super kludgy way to get it working on 64-bit Ubuntu. It works, but it doesn’t work consistently or in a predictable manner.

Hurdle #4: Synchronicity

A friend of mine recently wrote about how he uses syncing tools to keep his profiles relatively consistent between computers (http://www.crthomas.org/?p=198 and http://www.crthomas.org/?p=180). I recently took this to the extreme and installed a number of portable apps (http://www.portableapps.com) into my drop box which I sync among my different computers. The problem that I’ve run into here is now that I’m using Ubuntu, how to I sync all these apps? Actually, I dealt with this in a rather ingenious way! I’ve you create a sym link from where your Firefox profile SHOULD be that points to the profile in the drop box, Firefox works flawlessly. There are a few minor problems if you have version discrepancies, but it’s mostly with extensions and a restart will magically resolve them.

Thunderbird refuses to work though I’m guessing this is a result of Ubuntu running Thunderbird 2 and my drop box having Thunderbird 3 installed.

Pidgin has actually been the weirdest. It doesn’t read the profile as it exists in the drop box, but it will write to it :/

Hurdle #5: Games

While I don’t play a lot of video games, I do still play them every now and again. I am especially a sucker for the Civilization line of games and what with the newest in the series (Civilization 5) coming out later this year, I don’t think my poor little heart can take not being able to play it. FreeCiv is a reasonable facsimile of the Civilization games but it doesn’t quite cut the mustard for the latest and greatest.

As I mentioned with iTunes, it is possible that I could install this with Wine, and it may work competently (I ran Star Wars Galaxies over Wine on Ubuntu with a minimum of problems a couple years ago).

All in all though, I think I’ll be switching back to Windows on my desktop in the near future.

A Basic, Working Copy of Silt (MUD server)

A leftover from last year (and the year before), I plan on having a working copy (in the loosest of terms).   Realistically, I don’t foresee this one happening this year either, but if I don’t put it here it’ll fall by the wayside.

Final version of the Birthright site

Three rewrites in and a handful of concept changes later, I think I finally have things settled.  This is the project of the year and I plan on having it fully, completely finished by the end of the year.

Brainstorm at least 5 good ideas for Linux Journal articles

Since getting one article idea accepted, I’ve been bitten by the bug.  Whether I come up with 5 ideas that get accepted or not, I want to come up with the ideas nonetheless.

Read the complete Hellblazer series

The comic series that spawned the movie Constantine.  I’ve had it for most of a year now, and just haven’t gotten around to reading it.  Time to change that.

Read 12 fiction books

I think this is self-explanatory.

Read 2 non-fiction book

This, also, is self-explanatory.

Master Scroll 2.0 project

This is a project for the website I maintain for my fraternity to keep track of info about the membership.  I’m working on making it a Joomla component and cleaning it up.

Finalize Drink Matron layout

I’m maintaining a website for my girlfriend and I told her I’d develop a template for it.

Pay off personal loan

‘Nuff said.

Pay $5k on student loans

Again, ’nuff said.

A Basic, Working copy of Silt (MUD Server)

This was a lofty goal at best from the get go, but I wanted to put it on the list to keep my mind on it.  The most I accomplished was starting a sourceforge project page for it.  So I think we can place this solidly in the FAIL category.

Finish the Birthright Webpage

This was one of those goals that started as a firmly planted win that would be trivial to complete, but ended up being the exact opposite.  I found myself getting too tied up in style issues and less worried about function.  Also, starting in June (when I got my job) I suddenly found myself without free time to work on it.  So in the ensuing chaos, I revamped the site and moved a little further into functional coding than I had been.  While not completed, it’s still making progress toward completion.  While I feel good about the progress of this project, I said I’d finish and I’m not even close to that goal so: FAIL

Achieve JLPT level 4

There’s nothing to say about this one except:  FAIL

Write a white paper on security

Originally, the idea for this came from when I was at Defcon and several of the speakers said that there is no better way to force yourself to learn a subject than to write a white paper on it.  I decided to do this as a goal simply to force myself to learn a little more about a subject I enjoy, and perhaps to get my name out there a little more (hey, you can’t blame a guy for a little self-promotion).  While I never got the proper push to writing a security paper, I did get approved to write an article for The Linux Journal regarding command line history.  The article isn’t done yet, but is solidly on its way and not due until July 2010.  Because the research is done and all that’s left is to finish the writing, this goal goes to: MEH.

Read 12 fiction books

I read Watchmen, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Babylon Babies, Dearly Devoted Dexter, Dexter in the Dark, Storm Front, Fool Moon, Grave Peril, Summer Knight, and Dexter by Design.  That puts me at 10 books, which is 83%.  Not too bad considering my lack of free time all around.  Chalk this one up to SUCCEED.

Read 2 non-fiction books

I got halfway through 1 book and halfway through another.  I just can’t force myself to stay interested in non-fiction and I don’t know why.  FAIL

Start a podcast

I did it, we’re at 24 episodes strong and 2 months short of a year running.  Inconsistent, I know, but we’re getting better!  Listen at http://whatstherumpuspodcast.com/ SUCCEED

Be $10k less in debt

I made a good deal of progress towards paying off my debt, not as much as I’d have liked but a decent go of it nonetheless.  MEH

So there is a rundown of my goals for this year.  Stay tuned next week when I recount my goals for the coming year.