Merry Christmas
While the holidays are supposed to be a joyous time, I know and understand how hard they can be for some people. If you're having a rough time over the next week or so and need someone to talk to, feel free to message me. If you're reading this blog, you likely know my email address or phone number.

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Senator Elbert Guillory
Elbert Guillory, a state senator in Louisiana, has switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. This website has a short commentary on the matter, as well as an embedded video of Senator Guillory explaining his decision.

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Powergrabs
Yay Socialism!
That was sarcasm. Socialism is bad news. It leads to the government controlling every aspect of your lives. Take for example this story or a bit closer to home, this story.

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MTA
Why is the MTA's budget each year referred to as a "doomsday" budget? They vote on it every year, and every year it's approved, and every year they get subsidised by the tax payers and toll payers. So why is it a "doomsday" budget? They're not going out of business, although it sure seems their worker's union would like to see that happen given their demands.

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Don't they have better things to do?
It has come to my attention that Congress, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to write legislation against television commercial advertisements having a louder perceived volume than the actual programming.

While I do sometimes find this annoying, do we really need an act of congress to outlaw this? Shouldn't our representatives be doing something better with their time, like repealing hundreds of laws that hinder the free market economy and trample the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of the citizens?

Of course not, that would threaten their power.

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NJ Governor Endorsement
I officially endorse anyone who is not Jon Corzine.

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Can't Argue with That...
Well, I have to admit it; there's one issue I agree with Obama on: Kayne West is a jackass.

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The DNC Hates Unix Users Pt 2
Looking through this script, it appears that DNC is relying on Microsoft's Silverlight plugin. Currently, this browser plugin is supported for a limited selection of browsers on a limited selection of operating systems. A relatively complete list of supported platforms can be found here.

Knowing full well how limited the support for this technology, the DNC still decided this was the best solution.

I hope the RNC will use technologies that are more cross-platform than this. Currently the video available at their site is based on Flash. While Flash support is a bit shaky outside of Windows and Mac OS, it is supported in Unix.

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The DNC Hates Unix Users
Just confirming the Slashdot story (http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/08/25/229210.shtml):

We're sorry, but the Democratic Convention video web site isn't compatible with your operating system and/or browser. Please try again on a computer with the following: Compatible operating systems: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, or a Mac with Tiger (OS 10.4) or Leopard (OS 10.5). Compatible browsers: Internet Explorer (version 6 or later), Firefox (version 2), or, if you are on a Mac, Safari (version 3.1) also works.

My User Agent string is currently "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070527 Firefox/2.0.0.3"

So not only does the Vice Presidential nominee want to expand the powers of the DMCA, the entire party wants to prevent Unix users from obtaining information.

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A Strange Encounter
Yesterday morning at work I was walking back to my cubical from the cafeteria with a bottle of water in my hand and a woman from another department stopped me in the corridor.

She said (roughly), "I've seen you over the last few months and you've lost a lot of weight and I just wanted to tell you you look great."

To which I replied (roughly), "Thank you," and I smiled.

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It's snowing!
Okay, it's not snowing right now, but it was earlier. I took some vacation time and cut out of work early today. I spent an hour and a half driving 11 miles home. By time I got home the snow was already 3 to 4 inches deep and still coming down.

So what did I do? I put on my normal cold weather running gear, put on sweat pants and a sweat shirt over that, and took off running.

After the first mile, I was a lot warmer than I thought I'd be. There was a big difference between running today at 28F and running last week at 20F. I took off the sweat shirt and continued running. Along the way I got a lot of strange looks from people shoveling their driveways, but I suppose that is to be expected.

I ran about 6K and while it wasn't my best run, it was good fun.

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New PGP Key!
So apparently Evil32 happened. Approximately 24,000 PGP keys were generated that had collisions with the 32-bit short IDs of existing keys. Then someone decided to use those conflicting keys to generate revocation certificates and upload them to the keyservers. Joy.

Though my old keys still work, they were affected by this mass revocation of collsions. I have created a new key which can be found at http://skinnymf.com/~mforde/mforde.asc.

On a related note, if anyone is interested in Key Signing Party, shoot me an email. I haven't been to one of those since college.

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Cast Yourself

"Cast yourself upon Him and be not afraid; He will not draw away and let you fall. Cast yourself without fear, He will receive you and heal you."

-- Saint Augustine, Confessions: Book 8, Chapter 11

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It was a good day...
So today I woke up and watched an episode of Star Trek while I did some weight training and core work. Then I met my friend and her 5-month old baby for breakfast. That baby is so cute, and so happy too.

After that I met another friend for a run in the Tourne where we met a fox on the Red Trail. When I got home from the run, I turned my lawn into an avant garde art installation and then took a shower.

I took Ailsing out for a drive and on the way home she rolled over to 15,000 miles. I've had the DeLorean for about five years now, so I'm still averaging 1,000 miles per year. Not bad.

A large part of a tree fell and missed my house by about 18 inches. So then I went and ran another Six miles during a National Weather Service tornado watch.

Now I'm finishing up the day with a good movie and a glass of Monk's Blood.

Today, I didn't even have to use my AK. It was a good day.

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JTHM

There's nothing terribly wrong with feeling lost, so long as that feeling precedes some plan on your part to actually do something about it. Too often a person grows complacent with their disillusionment, perpetually wearing their "discomfort" like a favorite shirt. I can't say that I'm very pleased with where my life is just now... But I can't help but look forward to where it's going.

-- Jhonen Vasquez, "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut"

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The DNC Hates Unix Users Pt 2
Looking through this script, it appears that DNC is relying on Microsoft's Silverlight plugin. Currently, this browser plugin is supported for a limited selection of browsers on a limited selection of operating systems. A relatively complete list of supported platforms can be found here.

Knowing full well how limited the support for this technology, the DNC still decided this was the best solution.

I hope the RNC will use technologies that are more cross-platform than this. Currently the video available at their site is based on Flash. While Flash support is a bit shaky outside of Windows and Mac OS, it is supported in Unix.

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