A Public Service Rant

One of my readers has adware/spyware installed on their computer. Spyware by the name of "FunWebProducts." The purpose of this little program is to hijack your home page and search results, and to show you pop-up advertisements. Fun, eh?

One of my readers, accessing the page from a Rogers Cable connection near Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, to be precise.

To find out if you have the FunWebProducts spyware, copy and paste the following text into your address bar of your web browser and hit Enter:

javascript:alert(navigator.userAgent);

If you see "FunWebProducts" anywhere in the text box that pops up, you're infected, for example:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; FunWebProducts)

You can read more about it here, here and here.

Oh, there's also someone in New Delhi, and someone in New York with the same malware installed, but the person in Ontario has been to my blog more than once in the past month, in fact they took a look at my photos from BSF, Rattlesnake Ledge, and Swing Dancing, so odds are they know me (or have some sick fascination with me, take your pick), so I'm betting they'll return.

Yes, that's right, I am Big Brother, I'm watching you, and it's for your own good.

People, please don't install cute little programs downloaded from the Internet onto your computer, no matter how many of your MySpace friends say it's "TOTALY AWESUM LOL!!!"

A good adware/spyware detector is LavaSoft's Ad-Aware. It's free for personal use. If you're worried about spyware, and adware slowing down your computer and showing you ads, you should install it. Yes, I did just tell you to download and install a program from the Internet, but remember, I'm Big Brother, and I know best.

You must comply.

Lindy Hop

Six weeks ago I signed up for an introductory Lindy Hop class. Lindy Hop is similar to Swing Dancing. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I've been dancing in Seattle on Sunday nights and occasionally on Wednesdays. The next session is starting, and I'm thinking of signing up for the next level. I would like to continue learning, and my repertoire of moves could certainly do well to expand, but I'm going to be gone for the second and third lessons in a series of five. I missed two non-consecutive lessons in Lindy 1, and I was able to catch up, but it was difficult.

Lindy 2 is more about learning new moves than learning the basic steps, which was the focus of Lindy 1, so I won't be "behind" in the same sense as I was then, but there's still a 3 week gap between the lessons. I guess i'm just going to have to get over my fear of being out of practice and looking like an idoit: I might as well, since I'm sure the latter will happen no matter what I do. I can always re-take Lindy 2 a couple of times, which is the way the class was designed to be taken, so says the website. The moves they cover must vary from class to class, and the focus is on becoming a better lead/follow, which takes lots of practice.

I'll just have to lower my expectations from "being instantly perfect at everything I do" to "getting in some good practice."

Laziness Is the Mother of Efficiency

Yesterday I was reminded of why I never go into work before 9:00 unless I have to. There was an 8:00 meeting, and I was first on the roster. I left my apartment at 7:30, got out on the road, and sat there in my car, staring at tail lights for 10 minutes straight. I think I had moved 100 yards. I could see that it would be a while before I could get on the freeway, so I decided to take an alternate route, and weaseled my way onto another street. This street had some traffic, but at least it was moving, and in no time I was ready to turn back towards the freeway. Predictably, I hit another queue of cars, and this time had no choice but to sit there and wait it out.

While I waited, I called my boss and left him a message telling him I would be late, and pondered the nature of time in one's day. I decided that I liked sleeping much better than sitting in traffic. When I got to the meeting, they had just finished connecting up with the remote attendees, so I didn't actually keep anybody waiting. Next time I'll have to remember to leave much earlier. Why does everyone think they have to get to work at exactly the same time everyone else gets to work? That's such an inefficient assumption in our society, and it's straining the freeway system.

My normal commute to work is 15 minutes. This commute lasted 45. By sleeping in one hour, I add 30 minutes of time to my day.

It's a win-win situation.

The Birth of a Movement

Arrrr!

The United States of America now has its very own Pirate Party.

Before you laugh, or perhaps after (but certainly not during), take a look at what they stand for. Basically, what they're all about is weakening some of the mechanisms that certain corporate conglamorates have used to hold intellectual property hostage for undue amounts of time.

The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; ~United States Constitution Article 1 Section 8

It's not that protecting intellectual property is a bad thing, it's just that every time the copyright on Steamboat Willie is about to expire, Congress seems to extend the copyright period a little bit longer. At some point, the benefit of granting a monopoly on every little piece of our culture to the company that bought the rights from the artist is outweighed by the people's constitutional right for that work to enter the public domain for them to use as they please.

Does it really encourage the making of movies for the movie companies to know they have exclusive rights for 95 years from the date of publication? Would fewer movies be made if that period of time was 50 years? I don't think so, in fact, I think it would have the opposite effect. I think the optimal amount of time for a copyright is somewhere between thirty and fifty years from the date of creation/publication.

The copyright to "Happy Birthday to You" won't expire until 2030.

The Pirate Party also has a similar argument about pharmaceutical patents, they take issue with the powers given to law enforcement in the PATRIOT Acts, and they want better protection for personal private information, such as patient records.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were more public domain works (old music, old movies/TV shows, old books, old photos)? Would that not foster an environment of cultural enjoyment, extension, and creativity (the whole point of having copyright and patent systems in the first place)? Given the recent breakthroughs in peer-to-peer file sharing and proliferation of Internet access, the benefit to society of having works enter the public domain is greater than ever.

I think copyright should last somewhere between thirty and fifty years, maximum.

This is not about making it legal to download the latest Britney Spears album over Bittorrent, or to sell "pirated" copies on the street. It's about constitutional rights that the Congress has taken away from the people in the interest of corporate greed.

The End Of A Matter

A good name is better than a good ointment, And the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth.

It is better to go to a house of mourning
Than to go to a house of feasting,
Because that is the end of every man,
And the living takes it to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter,
For when a face is sad a heart may be happy.
The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning,
While the mind of fools is in the house of pleasure.

It is better to listen to the rebuke of a wise man
Than for one to listen to the song of fools.

...

The end of a matter is better than its beginning;
Patience of spirit is better than haughtiness of spirit.

Do not be eager in your heart to be angry,
For anger resides in the bosom of fools.

Do not say, "Why is it that the former days were better than these?"
For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this.

Wisdom along with an inheritance is good
And an advantage to those who see the sun.

For wisdom is protection just as money is protection,
But the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the lives of its possessors.

Consider the work of God,
For who is able to straighten what He has bent?

In the day of prosperity be happy,
But in the day of adversity consider--
God has made the one as well as the other
So that man will not discover anything that will be after him.

~Ecclesiastes 7:1-5,8-14 NASB

And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.

But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.

And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.

And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?

~Jonah 4:6-9

Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,

And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

~Job 1:20-22

For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.

~Psalm 84:11-12

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

~James 1:17

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son...

~Romans 8:28-29

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.

~1 Thessalonians 5:23-24