Be sure to visit this site for all of the information pertaining to such a wonderful day.
Also, make sure that you don’t miss these helpful tips on how to make the best use of your own System Administrator’s time. (Beware, we are being dreadfully sarcastic, and none of these tips are true). Some of my favorite tips (note “Ted” refers to a “system administrator”):
Never write down error messages. Just click OK, or restart your computer. Ted likes to guess what the error message was.
Feel perfectly free to say things like “I don’t know nothing about that boneheaded computer crap.” It never bothers Ted to hear his area of professional expertise referred to as boneheaded crap.
When Ted’s eating lunch at his desk or in the lunchroom, walk right in, grab a few of his fries, then spill your guts and expect him to respond immediately. Ted lives to serve, and he’s always ready to think about fixing computers, especially yours.
Don’t use online help. Online help is for wimps.
This last one, for those of you who don’t know, is how us computer folk survive. The internet is wealth of imformation. For example, I learned today how to use this in linux today: apt-get install %packagename%
All thanks to the internet!
The rest of these have all personal happened to me. Yes, they’re ridiculous, but people do that kind of crap. It’s pretty amazing when you think about it.
Anyway, I’m going to make sure that my Friday is great (yeah…right).
I’ve been using M$ Windows for years upon years. A few years ago, I made a part-time switch to Apple’s Mac OSX. Some of you may know that Mac OSX is based upon Unix. Unix is much more stable than Windows, and benefits OSX’s beautiful and clean interface well.
Recently, I thought I make another step even closer to Unix, and try Linux. There are various different forms of Linux, which are referred to as distributions. The various distros are basically different flavors of Linux, some require more work configuring the Operating System (OS) than others.
I chose one of the newest distros, Ubuntu - Linux for Human Beings. The newest release, “Dapper Drake,” is a great new version, and so far it’s running great! I just hope things stay this way.
I used to love Nirvana back when I was in High School. Kurt Cobain was a great writer, and Nirvana’s music spoke volumes to a young skater dude in a small town.
This was one of my favorites, off their album In Utero. In my opinion, In Utero was their most mature record.
“Dumb” by Nirvana from In Utero
I’m not like them
But I can pretend
The sun is gone
But I have a light
The day is done
But I’m having fun
I think I’m dumb
or maybe just happy
Think I’m just happy
my heart is broke
But I have some glue
help me inhale
And mend it with you
We’ll float around
And hang out on clouds
Then we’ll come down
And have a hangover… have a hangover
Skin the sun
Fall asleep
Wish away
The soul is cheap
Lesson learned
Wish me luck
Soothe the burn
Wake me up
I’m not like them
But I can pretend
The sun is gone
But I have a light
The day is done
But I’m having fun
Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) is the Senior Senator from the great barren wasteland that is Alaska. He’s been around forever. He is also the chairman of the Senate’s Commerce Committee, which handles all technology issues. Yes, one of the oldest people in the Senate is the chairman of the committee that handles all technology issues. Anyway. If you need an example of just how crazy Ted Stevens is, here’s a good starter from the Daily Show:
The most recent issue to cause a lot of stir on the Commerce Committee has been the large rewrite of the Telecommunications Act. Among many other controversial changes to the 1994 bill, is the proposal deemed “net neutrality.” Basically net neutrality says that internet service providors (i.e. Verizon, Comcast, North Dakota Telephone Company) cannot descriminate against content from other websites (i.e. Google, Amazon, YouTube). The internet service providors (ISPs) have said that switching networks from traditional phone lines to fiber optic networks is going to cost them a lot of money, and they need to convince Wall Street investors that fiber is worthwhile investment to assist in getting the build-outs paid for. The only way, ISPs claim, to convince Wall Street of this is if the networks can be created in tiers, one for bandwidth intensive things like video, and another for text. However, the fear is that this creates a situation in which the network providors can then discriminate content from content providors like Google or Amazon, while giving the content from the ISPs the “fast-lane.”At any level, it’s an incredibly complex issue, with some absolutely ridiculous arguments coming from the anti-Net Neutrality side.For instance, many network providors complain that Google’s Video service just sits on their networks taking up all of their bandwidth. Well, that might sound like a terrible, terrible thing to the incoherent Senior Senator from Alaska, but it’s a big bloody lie. The content from Google’s video service sits only on their servers in their data centers, which are distributed throughout the world. When I got to Google Video and ask for a video, then, and only then does that content traverse Comcast’s network. This same principle applies to every site on the internet. BrandonHirsch.com sits on a box in California. The only time this site sat on your ISPs network was when you asked to come here, you then connected to the box in Cali that my data resides on. You could leave this window open for two weeks and never during that time would you access content again on your ISPs network.
Ok, so now that I’ve explained the internet to those of you whom may not understand. Check out this great video of Senator Stevens’ on the internets:
Net Neutrality is out of the Telecom rewrite, which may not necessarily be a bad thing. But the provision may be needed in the future. It’s hard to say.What I can say, is that from a technologists perspective, it is very frightening that people that clearly don’t understand technology are regulating it. At least a few people in Congress do, but we need them all to.
I’ve updated the concerts in 2006 page with some shows that I missed and some upcoming shows:
June 03, 2006
Band of Horses
The Aquarium (Fargo, ND)
July 21, 2006
Secret Machines
9:30 Club
September 13, 2006
Band of Horses
Blackcat
September 14, 2006
Rogue Wave/Jason Collett
Blackcat
September 15, 2006
M. Ward
Birchmere (Alexandria, VA)
September 19, 2006
Magnolia Electric Co.
Blackcat
Yes, I am seeing Band of Horses twice this year (Yay for me!). And yes, I have 3 shows in a row on September 13, 14, and 15. I’m going to be one tired dude come Sept 16!
During the weekend of June 24 Dana and I travelled back to Minnesota to go to our friends’ (Molly & Kyle) wedding. We flew into Minneapolis on Thursday, the 23rd, and stayed with my old college room mate Travis.
We had a great evening dining on Pizza Luce’ and drinking some great wines, a few of Trav’s and some that I brought back from Schneider’s here in DC.
We then took off Friday morning for Fergus Falls for our friends’ wedding. Congrats Kyle & Molly! It was a gorgeous ceremony at Molly’s parents’ home right on the Ottertail River.
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