Entries Tagged 'Uncategorized' ↓

“Social Security, which involves the younger generation paying some of the retirement benefits of the older generation, is a perfectly legal Ponzi scheme.”

This video was up during the election, taken down by the powers that be, and then returned to YouTube last week. Merry Christmas.

unpublished [verb] (origin: Boing Boing) 1. To delete, destroy, or otherwise remove the work of an individual from existence as if the work in question had never been there in the first place, as long as you created it, it was something you did personally, and it can be viewed elsewhere. Example: Andrea Yates unpublished her children; you can still see photos of them in albums and home movies. 2. To take away an individual’s ability to view a work. Example: FOX unpublished episodes of The Simpsons from my TIVO after a week through DRM.

So, if you’re a fan of Teh Intertubes, you know all about the non-smackdown that happened between Violet Blue and BoingBoing and just how boring and frustrating it’s been the past few days. When will someone at BoingBoing say something that doesn’t sound like Scott McClellan wrote it? When will the BB fan boys stop acting like Violet Blue is the devil? When will readers notice that BoingBoing and Big Brother share initials and memory hole policies?

For those of you who aren’t Intertubes fans or have been in a cave recently, the non-story of the year goes like this:

Violet Blue is a sex blogger and sometimes writer/radio show host who probably has more money than God that comes from simply talking about sex. Boing Boing is an anti-censorship, liberal vehicle for Cory Doctorow’s latest work copyleft/copyfight blog that pretty much makes money from talking about how much copyright, big government, and invasion of privacy suck. Sometimes, the libertarians on this blog are all over BoingBoing; sometimes, we’re just over it.

The connection between the two comes from the fact that Blue once wrote a few posts for BoingBoing, and used to be a favorite on BoingBoing insomuch as she was linked to with frequency. Over the course of a few years, Blue wrote for or was mentioned in BoingBoing somewhere on the order of 70 times, give or take a few, according to an LA Times blogger who bothered to go to the WayBack Machine and count.

Why the Wayback Machine? Well, that’s the rub. You see, according to BoingBoing, they “unpublished”, which is a NewSpeak way of saying “deleted”, not just articles by Ms. Blue, but every mention of her in existence on their site, effectively scrubbing her from their archives and sending her down the memory hole.

Trust us, Winston Smith was doubleplusbusy that day.

Naturally, for such an anti-censorship site as BoingBoing, this seems rather odd, especially since there was no transparency in the action to unpublish Ms. Blue: one day she existed in the BB universe, the next she did not. Even Ms. Blue was unaware of her deletion until this past week, when the news slowly began to trickle out that she was gone from BB. People began to ask questions, and alternatively flame the hell out of BoingBoing, and BB began a hard and fast policy of denial: any comment that mentioned Violet Blue was systematically deleted from their site. The InterTubes grew restless. Metafilter got involved, then ValleyWag picked up the story, which then hit its sibling site Gawker, and all hell broke loose.

Sometime yesterday, BoingBoing responded to the controversy with a non-post about the issue by Moderator-cum-Douchebag Teresa Nielson-Hayden, who did her best White House Press Secretary working interview and forced out the editors’ response to the controversy, which was pretty much “This is a personal blog, we’ll damn well do what we feel like and have no responsibility to tell the readers what happened or why. More over, this is personal, so leave us alone.”

Also, she cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.

Now, that by itself wouldn’t be so bad, if the comments that followed weren’t routinely attacked for asking questions that seemed pretty self-evident after reading the post, such as how can a blog about transparency and accountability be neither transparent nor account for its actions? How can they continue to post about Mr. Doctorow’s novel fighting Big Brother (entitled “Little Brother”) when they had gone totally BB themselves and unpublished a writer? Between Nielson-Hayden and the readers, things in the comments quickly spiraled out of hand and two camps formed: fan boys who believe BB can do nothing wrong, reading for two minutes of hate with Violet Blue as a symbol of all that’s wrong with the InterTubes, and conspiracy theorists and general uber-left communists who now want BB staff to post home addresses, SSNs, and all other personal data to be the most transparent InterTubes blog of all times or else fail miserably under the weight of evil corporate oppression.

After that there were only three or four new posts to BoingBoing’s site, ending around 3PM. Then, for six hours, BoingBoing was dark, save for the glowing light of the comments thread growing exponentially. Meanwhile, ever the willing victim in all of this, Ms. Blue was giving interviews to any blogger who would listen. She even created a spreadsheet detailing every post involving her that was deleted from BB. When it comes to being sympathetic, Ms. Blue seemed to be aiming for a new residency over at Fail Blog.

Lost somewhere in the maelstrom was the question that the first few hundred posts reasonably asked: what transgression did Violet Blue commit that was so horrible and unspeakable, she had to be erased from the annals of BoingBoing, at the expense of BoingBoing’s own integrity?

For anything even close to an answer, only the LA Times and SF Gate came close to getting answers, and theirs had the ring of X-Files paranoia to them.

1: Cory Doctorow is a big copyleft protector, fighter of the “evil” of copyright. Violet Blue legally changed her name two years ago to Violet Blue and soon after sued a porn star for using Violet Blue as a name. Said porn star is a single mom (Oh noes! Leftists always bleed extra hard for the single mommies!) quit the business to sell her own work herself (Leftists also get massive hard-ons for independent production and small business) and (here’s the actually important part) had been using the name since 1999, long before Ms. Blue was a sex blogger. Moreover, it is believed that Violet Blue knew of the porn star’s existence before legally changing her name, and allegedly, before even using the moniker at all. Blue (the sex blogger) even had Blue (the porn star mommy) on her radio show once. The fact that Blue (PSM) couldn’t afford a decent attorney and was trounced in court by Blue (SB) would have really pressed Doctorow’s buttons wrong and ended with Blue being throughly denounced on BoingBoing. However, Blue being a former contributor, it might have looked bad to other editors or the almighty sponsors if Blue was still on the site as a contributor and yet trashed later on, so it was best to delete her and go on their separate ways.

2. Federated Media supports BoingBoing through ad revenue almost exclusively. Like many other publications, BoingBoing could, theoretically, be held hostage to the demands of Federated Media, and if they decided association with Ms. Blue was becoming a liability, they could demand she be wiped from the site.

3. Blue was “riding the coattails” of her BoingBoing posts, according to some readers and bloggers familiar with the two. She allegedly referred to herself as the fifth BoingBoing editor, which may have bruised an ego or two, and eventually might have had a falling out over taking more credit than her due and trying to raise her importance level to back her new projects.

4. Editor Xeni Jardin and Ms. Blue were allegedly involved at some point, and the affair turned sour. A hurt Jardin may have then convinced the other three editors that deletion of Ms. Blue was the best way to go. This rumor is fueled by a LA Times blog post which suggests that after a conversation with both Jardin and Blue, the blogger was satisfied that it truly was a personal matter handled poorly and not worth the bru-ha-ha it generated. Of course, that blogger’s lips are sealed.

5. Combine theories three and four. Or, as ValleyWag puts it:

For Blue, we’ve come to believe, the friendship always had a mercenary angle — Jardin could get her linked as well as laid. The association with Boing Boing boosted Blue’s career. How painful it must have been for Jardin to realize she was being used by a groupie who wanted to join her band. And people in pain exercise supremely bad judgment, which is what Jardin did when she “unpublished” posts about Blue from Boing Boing.

None of the rumors implicate either Mark or David as the root of the problem, which makes sense, as Mark just seems like such a nice guy, you can’t imagine him getting into a fight with anyone (did you see him on the Colbert Report?) and David isn’t nearly as active as the other three. Mark and David are like the Ringo and George to Doctorow and Jardin’s Lennon and McCartney, respectively. While you can see the latter getting into public feuds with people, the former just are so freakin’ nice and quiet, you’d have to murder their ickle robot puppies for them to get upset with you, and even then you could probably settle the matter over a cup of tea or something.

So, no matter what theory you subscribe to, the one thing all the theories have in common is that BoingBoing has compromised their principles for some unnameable reason, which makes the compromising of said principles all the more suspect. For a group of editors who decry the Bush Administration (and who doesn’t anymore, really?) they sure have learned a few lessons from the last 8 years under Bush Jr’s reign, such as how to talk without actually saying anything.

War is Peace.
Secrecy is Transparency.
Long live BoingBoing.

I always knew that FOX news was a bunch of racist, elitist, neo-con bastards, but to go this far is fucked up. From MoveOn.org:

FOX’s smears against Obama are out of control–have you heard about them? I just signed a petition telling FOX that their use of racism and prejudice is not okay. Would be great if you signed too.

First, a paid FOX commentator accidentally confused “Obama” with “Osama” and then joked on the air about killing Obama. Next, a FOX anchor said a playful fist pound by Barack and Michelle Obama could be a “terrorist fist jab.” (Seriously!) And then, FOX called Michelle Obama “Obama’s baby mama”–slang used to describe the unmarried mother of a man’s child.

Nearly 100,000 folks have signed a petition that will be delivered to FOX. Can you sign too? The more names, the bigger the impact. Here’s the link:

http://pol.moveon.org/stopthesmears/?r_by=13009-8324528-tTuJeNx&rc=paste

From BBC News:

Apparently, a creative-minded car salesman in Missouri had an idea on how to stop flagging car sales due to increased gas prices: buy a car, get a gun for free!

Continue reading →

I know the IRS has stimulated The Husband and myself, as evidenced by our bank account doubling over night. However, apparently the IRS had a computer glitch recently that resulted in some people getting stimulation that should have been directed to other people’s accounts.

“We do know of instances of problems; we’ve heard of situations where stimulus checks have gone to the wrong people’s bank accounts,” conceded Kevin McKeon, the Internal Revenue Service spokesman for the New York region. “We’re getting a lot of calls to the toll-free number.”

_{[Source: NewsDay]}

Ooops.

If you have yet to be (economically) stimulated by the government, there are toll-free numbers you can call:

866-234-2942
800-829-1954

To find out when to expect your stimulation to occur, try the IRS website’s Where’s My Stimulus Payment and FAQ.

Hillary Clinton still thinks she can beat the Obama movement that has survived a horrible spin on his never-truer-spoken words about small town folk being bitter (speak truthiness to power, Obama!) and the furor over his pastor’s remarks (which remind me of a Macbeth quote I’ll leave to your memory of Shakespeare to fill in.) Could anyone be as silly, as naive?

Yes. And it’s the BoM’s old nemesis: Sony!

Sony believes that the PS3 will eventually best the Wii and XBox360 and become the best selling console, beloved by all. Apparently, like Hillary, they are taking a “slow and steady wins the race” approach to things, because damn. I can still walk into any store and buy my choice of PS3 versions (a feeling akin to having one’s wallet stolen from them, may I add!) but lines still form around big box retailers and video game stores alike whenever a shipment of Wiis are rumored to be in. XBox still has exclusive games, as does the Wii, whose Twilight Princess and Smash Bros. Brawl were possibly two of the most anticipated games in the last year. And the Wii is getting more games that are available on more “serious” platforms, such as Guitar Hero and Manhunt, as well as previously sought after but unavailable titles like Dance Dance Revolution, plus it has games for all ages such as Wii Sports or the eagerly anticipated Wii Fit.

Challenge your friends to yoga posers, middle age women! Nintendo knows no console has gone for that 35-60 market, and don’t worry, they are there for you!

PS3 has what, Grand Theft Auto 4, and that’s going to be on the XBox and PC pretty soon anyway? Whatever, Sony. Keep dreaming.

Here’s a problem from 2007 that’s making a comeback: a lack of connectivity when you update 10.4.10 or later updates for MacBook.

This was back during my honeymoon period with Apple, when I implicitly trusted them and allowed them to automatically update my OS whenever they told me I should. I mean, it’s Apple. It just works, right? I’d had no problems with my MacBook in the seven or eight months since I bought it, and all other updates worked flawlessly. I couldn’t believe anything would ever go wrong with it.

Then, there was OS update 10.4.10

Afterwards, I could connect to any open network after the install (which was helpful, as the neighbors have an open, unguarded network) but not any with WPA encryption. Frustrated, but too proud to call the Apple Care support line I paid for, I reinstalled OS X version 6 and upgraded to version nine, the last update that worked.

That was in July of 2007.

Then, a few weeks ago, I bought Final Cut Express for a project I was working on, which necessitated an upgrade to 10.4.10 or later, and because of the problems I’d had previously, I installed the next update, 10.4.11. Surely Apple would have fixed the problem, right?

Nope. Final Cut worked, but once again, my uber-encrypted home network was rendered useless. The solutions seemed to be either take off encryption (and thus leave others in the household unable to do their confidential work at home — and possibly compromise my anonymity) or keep leeching off the neighbor’s network until a solution presented itself, as Apple’s website seemed to be ignoring the problem.

A quick google search revealed that more than one user had found themselves in similar situation, but the only solution seemed to be to either go backwards to 10.4.9 or go forwards to Leopard. Could it be that Apple was deliberately ignoring the problem so as to either force people to pay for the phone tech support or force them to upgrade to Leopard? One individual took his MacBook (duo core) back to the Genius Bar. A week later it was returned working, though the Geniuses could find nothing wrong with it, supposedly. Hmmm.

I was tempted, but still too proud to call or go into the freshly-opened store in my area. It’s not that I’m an elitist — only that I’m a recent convert to Mac, and I’m still operating on my experience from PC days: fix it yourself or get a hacker buddy to fix it for you (usually, you can bribe a college student with food to do this for you, by the way,) because Microsoft products are a piece of shit and tech support is laughable.

After (two) weeks of (not so) diligent searching, I finally stumbled upon a solution that worked. For the record, I did this while simultaneously installing WPA2 so either one solution works independent of the other or they work in combination. However, the solution listed below seems to be one which most will find useful.

1. Download Pacifist
2. Download Airport Extreme update 2007-002 Later updates will not work.
3. Download the 10.4.9 Combo Update
4. Go to /system/library/extensions and copy appleairport.kext and appleairport2.kext to a backup location just to be safe and then delete them from the extensions folder.I used a USB drive for the backup task.
5. Also in the extensions folder you’ll find IO80211Family.kext and copy it to backup folder and then delete it.
6. Open Pacifist
7. Open Package and choose the airport extreme update
8. In Pacifist you will now see all the files that are in the package. Find system and expand it’s tree by clicking on the triangle. then expand library and then extensions. You will now see the IO80211Family.kext file. Click once on it so it’s highlighted and then click “Install”.
9. When it’s done copying files expand coreservices and then menu extras. Highlight “Airport Menu” and click install.
10. When it’s done copying close the window in Pacifist for the airport update.
11. Open Package and choose the 10.4.9 combo
12. Again find the system folder and expand it and then expand the library and extensions folders.
13. In the extensions folder you’ll see a bunch of files. Look for appleairport.kext and highlight it. Click “Install”.
14. Repeat the previous step with appleairport2.kext
15. Reboot FTW

You should be back up and running in no time!

Edit #100,000: If this post has appeared on your RSS feed reader a million times in variations, it is because WordPress does not handle certain commands particularly well and I had to go through the directions, line by line, to find which lines WordPress found objectionable and re-write them several times to edit out the confusing phrases.

Here at the Bastion of Mediocrity blog (or BoMb for short), we have a lot of inside jokes that crop up in the writing from time to time — the pitfalls of being a husband and wife team, I assure you. To aid you in your reading of this blog, here are some terms we use that you’ll probably need to be familiar with:

• InterTubes noun: 1. a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP); 2. It is a “network of networks”; 3. A series of tubes. Synonyms: internet, interweb, internets.
  
  NOTE: The InterTubes were not invented by Al Gore, but the phrase has its etymology in another famous politician, Ted Stevens.




• Margaret noun: 1. a craptacular, web-based, encyclopedia project operated by the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation; 2. legless, armless wife of Roy who always knows where things are located, whether something is in stock, or if an item even exists. If one is looking for information, one should as Margaret as “Maragret will know.” Synonyms: Wikipedia, crapipedia, ‘wik-a-pedia’.

  See also: Little Britain, Mr. Mann, Roy, Margaret.