Considering going to DreamWidth.
In no particular order:
1: Eluveitie, Slania and Slania Live
2: Grey Eye Glances, Eventide
3: A double album, which I helped the artists finance and also buy their catalog back from a record company:
- Grey Eye Glances 1992-98,
- Grey Eye Glances 1998-99
5: Enya, Shepherd Moons (Especially the impossible-to-find version with the Gaelic version of Book of Days)
6: Enya, Watermark
7: Android Lust, Devour, Rise, and Take Flight
8: MC Frontalot, Secrets from the Future
9: XTC, Apple Venus Volume I
10: Tears for Fears, Songs from the Big Chair
11: Sting, Songs from the Labyrinth
12: Sarah McLachlan, Touch
13: Sarah McLachlan, Fumbling Toward Ecstasy
14: Sara Evans, Born to Fly
15: Kate Bush, The Red Shoes
16: Sarah Hickman, Equal Scary People
Which means that one possible scenario -- and I'm not saying it's true, I'm saying it's possible -- is that, where the texts of a given author aren't in the public domain, Dmitry picked the authors he did, and is continuing to pick the authors he is picking, because their work is available as pirated copies on file-sharing torrents (S.W.A.G., but I bet I'm right).
That would produce one /more/ interesting thing about this little meme, above and beyond the amusing results of purposefully manipulating the input text and the entirely regrettable results of purposefully pointing out to the author an area in which he could improve his toy.
It could be entirely the case that he has a decent selection of the works of each author, acquired through legitimate channels, in plain vanilla text format, unencumbered by DRM/encryption schemes, to analyse or generate hash tables from or build his database. I honestly do not know one way or the other.
Let's also consider that, for the purposes of getting a good sample of work, you need a minimum of one work from each author. At an Amazon-esque price of ten dollars US per legitimate, licensed digital copy of each work, and roughly thirteen authors I count available as results of the "I Write Like" test, whose works are not in the public domain / copyrights expired, that's a minimum of a hundred and thirty US dollars to get source materials, at one per author.
That kind of cost is not exactly burdensome, but neither is it trivial.
There is the question of, if he does in fact have digital copies of these works from legitimate sources, do the licenses he bought for these digital copies allow him to make derivative and transformative works from those texts? Fair Use could be argued, however, the iwl.me site has a link to codingrobots.com, which advertises a commercial product and offers it for sale, called Blogjet. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that transformative and derivative works of copyrighted works are not covered by Fair Use when they're used for commercial purposes, such as promoting a business. And I'm pretty sure that J.K. Rowling has a finger on the trigger of her tort lawyer team to go after fanfic that's making a buck, then she'd probably have her finger on the trigger of her tort lawyer team to go after someone using her works to promote their own business.
But I'm not a lawyer AND NONE OF THIS IS LEGAL ADVICE so I could be wrong.
But I think that the implications of Mr. Dmitry's activities are going to get very much more interesting very soon.
Meanwhile, I feel as if I've been Tommyknockered, am suffering from Insomnia, The Shining sun is painfully intense, and every Cell in my body is in Misery.
even my hair hurts.
god&^%$ flu.
Four Ribeye Steaks;
One bottle 18% Martini & Rossi Extra Dry Vermouth;
2 tbsp sea, rock, or kosher salt;
Baking dish, Tupperware, or a container large enough to hold all four steaks flat and will fit in the fridge.
Poke holes in steaks / tenderise if desired.
Place steaks in container, sprinkle salt evenly over steaks. Pour in quarter bottle of vermouth or enough to bathe steaks. Marinate 45 minutes in fridge, turn after 45 minutes and marinate to at least one and one-half hours.
Grill steaks to medium well, let rest for seven minutes, serve.
Soooo good.
Posted via LiveJournal.app.
I documented it recently and made a few tweaks - and then disassembled it. So this is what remains of it - pictures.
One note: the originals of the pictures are big. Very big. Click through to them for DETAIL.
( LOTS more pictures inside. )
I appreciate the contrast between how Dallas has an eternal monument to one moment of negative national political violence that punched a vulnerability and which defined an entire generation, yet one moment of positive personal political vulnerability is at once incomprehensible, unforeseen, disavowed, censored, persecuted and abhorred.
Dallas forever remembers the assassination of a carpetbagger and forever cracks down on drinkin', dancin', and droppin' clothes.
Her actions were a celebration of human individuality and as such were a slap in the face of conformist sexually-repressed Baptists -- or rather, the Baptists made damn certain their face was in the way of her outflung hands.
Perhaps one day a culture again will arise that builds a monument to a woman walking nude on a warm spring day, and which cannot comprehend, foresee, avow, universally teach, cover-up or shelter a culture of political assassination.
Dallas forever remembers the assassination of a carpetbagger and forever cracks down on drinkin', dancin', and droppin' clothes.
Her actions were a celebration of human individuality and as such were a slap in the face of conformist sexually-repressed Baptists -- or rather, the Baptists made damn certain their face was in the way of her outflung hands.
Perhaps one day a culture again will arise that builds a monument to a woman walking nude on a warm spring day, and which cannot comprehend, foresee, avow, universally teach, cover-up or shelter a culture of political assassination.
it is because of the collapse of a multi-dimensional self-referential meta-syntactical truth table.
The preceding sentence is false.
The following sentence is true.
Pertinent Facts about Republicans and Teabaggers
"[The primary rules are:]
never allow the public to cool off;
never admit a fault or wrong;
never concede that there may be some good in your enemy;
never leave room for alternatives;
never accept blame;
concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong;
people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one;
and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."
-- US Office of Strategic Services, describing the political techniques of the Nazi Inner Circle and psychological profile of Adolf Hitler.
The Teabaggers are the Sturmabteilung.
Kristallnacht - the breaking of windows to threaten and intimidate opponents - was the kickoff of their pogrom against the Jews. It was the brainchild of Josef Goebbels.
Godwin's law is hereby repealed.
Republicans and Conservatives
are advocating, winking at, dog-whistling their support of, are defending, or are participating in
ACTUAL PHYSICAL VIOLENCE
AS A MEANS TO A POLITICAL END,
that political end being
NOTHING OTHER THAN INTIMIDATING THEIR CRITICS AND FELLOW AM
FROM DARING TO DISAGREE WITH THEM.
are advocating, winking at, dog-whistling their support of, are defending, or are participating in
ACTUAL PHYSICAL VIOLENCE
AS A MEANS TO A POLITICAL END,
that political end being
NOTHING OTHER THAN INTIMIDATING THEIR CRITICS AND FELLOW AM
FROM DARING TO DISAGREE WITH THEM.
This is very important, so I want to say it as clearly as I can.
FUCK.
THAT.
SHIT.
FUCK.
THAT.
SHIT.
* sarcasm
Did you know that My Very Educated Mother Just Made Us Nine - ?
Your decision has rendered hundreds of thousands of people, if not /millions/, forever pre-adolescent when contemplating the planets.
Or worse, My Very Educated Mother Just Made Us Nothing.
GAH!
Jesus Fucking Christ that man is white.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7){kind=small}
forbiddensight , who is once again right where I am wrong.Then to 1995.
It's the like Unix clock bug, it hits only once I get the clock past January 4th or so 2010.
...
YES I STILL USE A NEWTON.
On Tuesday, a catastrophic earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The full extent of the damage is still being assessed, but the death toll -- already in the thousands -- is climbing fast.
This is the worst earthquake to hit the area in more than 200 years. Entire communities have been ripped apart and as many as 3 million people have been directly affected, including tens of thousands of American citizens who are in Haiti.
Our neighbors in Haiti are racing to confront the enormous devastation -- and the OFA community can help.
Click here for more information about essential relief efforts and ways you can help today.
Footage is pouring in of homes collapsing, Haitians carrying injured family members, and hospitals being overrun in what was already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
I have directed my administration to respond with a swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort to save lives. Personnel from the United States and our partners in the international community are on the ground in damaged areas right now, working side by side with the Haitian people. They're providing much-needed food, water, and sanitation supplies, saving lives and helping local communities start to rebuild.
Despite the fact that we are experiencing tough times here at home, I encourage those who can to reach out and help. It's in times like these that we must show the kind of compassion and humanity that has defined the best of our national character for generations.
Click here to find out what you can do:
http://my.barackobama.com/
As this story continues to unfold, I hope you will continue to keep the people of Haiti in your thoughts and prayers, as well as the many Haitian-Americans who have done so much to enrich our country and who are worried about friends and loved ones in this time of need.
Thank you,
President Barack Obama
Dell! Vista!
Two great tastes that taste great together, taking, so far, 36 hours (roughly 22 work hours) to get from initial diagnosis of problem requiring a nuke-and-reformat-and-reinstall to "Windows Update: Installing update 26 of 97".
Thirty minutes of gathering information about the issue,
Thirty minutes of googling the symptoms and model,
twenty minutes of password guessing (BIOS password was unknown)
four hours of burning files to DVDROM while booted off Ubuntu thumbdrive
The remainder in numerous attempts to restore from Dell's own goddamned restore partition (numerous fails), dell's own goddamned OS install DVD (numerous fails), formatting the drive with Dell's own recovery software (numerous fails) and having to format and reinstall /yet again/ once Vista successfully installed because the /very first/ Windows update choked the OS to death.
You'd think that the restore DVD and partition provided with the computer would function with the BIOS set to factory defaults.
Someone at Dell should maybe consider actually, I dunno, /testing/ machines to see if the provided recovery software actually works.
---
Virus got loose on computer. Boot from hard drive hangs. Boot to previous known good config hangs. Boot to safe mode hangs. Boot from OS install disk and go to recovery mode. Nothing can access the disk. Vista install cannot access the disk. Boot to Ubuntu, poke around in bootlogs and registry entries. Virus nuked the AHCI driver and installed a generic ATA driver for the HDU so it could hook it. The BIOS is set to AHCI mode: Vista fails to boot. Set the BIOS to ATA mode: Vista boots up until it hits a Blue Screen. Restore to previous known good results in a boot to Blue Screen. Boot to Safe Mode results in Blue Screen. Boot to Ubuntu, burn user files to DVDROM. Boot from Vista install disk. Nuke and reformat main partition. Install Vista. Install gets to end, hangs. Boot from hard disk hangs. Boot to Ubuntu, nuke and reformat the partition /there/, set it to bootable, boot from Vista disk, install Vista, installation is peachy, gets to automagically installing Windows Updates, installs four, one failed (Guess which one? Hint: Hard disk drivers), reboot, boot hangs. Boot from Vista disk, format and reinstall Vista, installation is peachy, visit Dell's website, download thirty driver packages, install thirty driver packages except for the hard disk drivers, reboot like seven times. Run Windows Update.
In the space it's taken to type this, Windows Update has progressed one whole update package.
Sometime, late tonight, I will likely be able to finally say "Make a hard restore point here", and then backup the entire system to DVDROM so that /if this supposedly mature and robust combination of operating system and vendor hardware has problems again/, I can restore from a known good disk image.
And the hard disk is still in ATA mode with ATA drivers, because right now I would like to get to a save point before plunging the entire system back into the fires of vendor fail.
---
Please also note that the reliable OS here was Ubuntu Karmic Koala running off a thumb drive, whose worst sin during this whole process was running out of space on the default 128MB casper loopback file for the ginormous log file produced by the DVD archiving.
T h e r a i n o u t s i d e i s s l o w l y t u r n i n g i n t o s n o w.
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is an ontologist.
Waiting for them to finish their due diligence on their part, and give me a start date.
Aidan is in the Busy Baby stages - always checking out stuff, always investigating, always trying to figure out how the tall people balance on two legs. What's in this box? What's in this cup? This is my favorite blankie. Watch me wrap it around myself and end up looking like a tiny Buddhist monk, crawlimerating towards you.
It is that time again.
New York hedge fund manager John Paulson was one of the first to anticipate disaster. He told Congress that his researchers discovered by early 2006 that many subprime loans covered the homes' entire value, with no down payments, and so he figured that the bonds "would become worthless."
He soon began placing exotic bets — credit-default swaps — against the housing market. His firm, Paulson & Co., booked a $3.7 billion profit when home prices tanked and subprime defaults soared in 2007 and 2008. (He isn't related to Henry Paulson.)
At least as early as 2005, Goldman similarly began using swaps to limit its exposure to risky mortgages, the first of multiple strategies it would employ to reduce its subprime risk.
The company has closely guarded the details of most of its swaps trades, except for $20 billion in widely publicized contracts it purchased from AIG in 2005 and 2006 to cover mortgage defaults or ratings downgrades on subprime-related securities it offered offshore.
In December 2006, after "10 straight days of losses" in Goldman's mortgage business, Chief Financial Officer David Viniar called a meeting of mortgage traders and other key personnel, Goldman spokesman DuVally said.
Shortly after the meeting, he said, it was decided to reduce the firm's mortgage risk by selling off its inventory of bonds and betting against those classes of securities in secretive swaps markets.
...
In early 2007, the firm's mortgage traders also bet heavily against the housing market on a year-old subprime index on a private London swap exchange, said several Wall Street figures familiar with those dealings, who declined to be identified because the transactions were confidential.
The swaps contracts would pay off big, especially those with AIG. When Goldman's securities lost value in 2007 and early 2008, the firm demanded $10 billion, of which AIG reluctantly posted $7.5 billion, Viniar disclosed last spring.
As Goldman's and others' collateral demands grew, AIG suffered an enormous cash squeeze in September 2008, leading to the taxpayer bailout to prevent worldwide losses. Goldman's payout from AIG included more than $8 billion to settle swaps contracts.
by way of
http://consumerist.com/5395226/goldman-s
"A 5-month investigation by McClatchy Newspapers has found that Goldman secretly bet on the housing crash, went out and pimped the dickens out of assets it knew were junk, and may have broken securities laws in doing so."
Goldman:
# Bought and converted into high-yield bonds tens of thousands of mortgages from sub-prime lenders that became the subjects of FBI investigations into whether they'd misled borrowers or exaggerated applicants' incomes to justify making hefty loans.
# Used offshore tax havens to shuffle its mortgage-backed securities to institutions worldwide, including European and Asian banks, often in secret deals run through the Cayman Islands, a British territory in the Caribbean that companies use to bypass U.S. disclosure requirements.
# Has dispatched lawyers across the country to repossess homes from bankrupt or financially struggling individuals, many of whom lacked sufficient credit or income but got sub-prime mortgages anyway because Wall Street made it easy for them to qualify.
# Was buoyed last fall by key federal bailout decisions, at least two of which involved then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former Goldman chief executive whose staff at Treasury included several other Goldman alumni.
did in later exams what they did in '92, would they have uncovered the Ponzi scheme?
Madoff answered, "Absolutely." He added, "There is no way they can avoid being
criticized for not doing that in 2006."
Madoff said that in 1992, the SEC came for the examination and recalled John
Gentile was the supervisor. Madoff described Gentile as an "Italian guy wearing a short
sleeve shirt," and called him a "no bullshit" guy. Madoff stated that Gentile came to
BLM and wanted to see the stock record, the DTC records, and the blotters. Madoff said
that Gentile, "knew what he was looking at and that was it.".
Madoff also contrasted this experience with Ostrow [SEC auditor who supervised the 2006 audit] who "comes in like he's Colombo." Madoff stated that Ostrow "was very cryptic." Madoff stated that Ostrow was "doing things that made no sense to us at all." He added that Ostrow was a "total asshole." He said Ostrow "was an idiot," citing Ostrow's repeated requests for computer runs, which would take eight hours to run off. Madoff stated, "I almost came to blows with him." Madoff also characterized Ostrow as a "blowhard" who acted aggressively and was not intimidated by Madoff. He noted that Ostrow "talked tough, but didn't look at anything."
Madoff said it was "amazing to me" that he didn't get caught during the
Enforcement investigation, because they specifically asked him, "Are these securities at
DTC?" They further pressed, "What is your account number." He replied, "646."
Madoff stated that it was "obvious they thought that something was amiss." He went on
to say that when they asked for the DTC account number, "I thought it was the end game,
over. Monday morning they'll call DTC and this will be over... and it never happened."
Madoff stated that when nothing happened, he thought, "After all this, I got away
lucky." But he said he thought it was just "a matter of time," saying "that was the
nightmare I lived with." ~When Enforcement did not follow up with DTC, "I was
astonished."
Madoff stated that the Enforcement investigators "asked all the right questions,
but it was still focused on front-running." He said that the investigators dismissed the
allegation of a Ponzi scheme as "inconceivable to them."
He noted that the SEC never asked him about his accounting firm. He stated, "I
used a small accounting firm, but I also used KPMG London and they were terrible."
Madoff stated that he got the impression through all the exams and investigations
that "it never entered the SEC's mind that it was a Ponzi scheme." He noted that there
was a DTC Terminal in the cage, but, "They never went in to the cage."
related to stock records or DTC records." Madoff stated that "they never even looked at
my stock records" or did a "box count." He said he was "astonished" that they didn't ask
for DTC records, and stated that only a regulator could get those records from DTC, and
the SEC would "have to go to DTC." He added that DTC does not have separate
accounts for each customer, but rather, provides a global report, but stated that if they
went to DTC, they would've seen his market-making position, and that it "would've been
easy for them to see" the Ponzi scheme.
Madoff stated that the SEC could've gone to counterparties, and if they had, they
"would've seen it," adding, "they didn't do any of that." He stated that "it's the only
thing to do," and clarified, "If you're looking at a Ponzi scheme, it's the first thing you
do."
From http://www.sec.gov/news/studies/2009/oig-5
There are times when my child is so beautiful that my brain says "Here is a sculpted babydoll - there are no human children this beautiful. Surely I am gazing upon an uncanny thing; Humanity is not so perfect."
dim daa dimdim dada
dim daa dimdim dada
dim daa dimdim dada
dim daa dimdim dada
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There is something to be said about being such a giant dork that one owns no less than four covers of "Don't Stop Believin'".
And that would be it.
Posted via LiveJournal.app.
Wonder no more!
From an official publication of the Republican Party of Texas:
"President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for, in the words of the Nobel Commitee, intending to promote nuclear disarmament and world peace. In announcing the award, the Committee acknowledged that he hasn't actually achieved anything on either of these subjects. Or much of anything else. The Nobel Committee gave the president its most prestigious award for what he wants to do, not what he's done. That made us wonder, what other prestigious award will the president win next? Surely the Nobel is only the first of many accolades.
He loves NCAA basketall[SIC]. Perhaps he'll be awarded a national championship. Or maybe the NBA will name him this year's MVP. He drives a car. Perhaps Motor Trend will name him Car of the Year.
He has actually written two books. Perhaps a Pulizter[SIC], or a Nobel for literature, will come his way.
The president is known to like pie. Perhaps he'll win a blue ribbon at the Illinois State Fair.
He did host the "beer summit." Perhaps he'll be named a Real Man of Genius.
Surely a Cy Young, a Heisman, a Vince Lombardi trophy, and the America's Cup will take their places on the president's mantle soon. And his Tour de France shirt and US Open blazer must be in the mail by now.
While the president awaits his next earth-shattering award, the Republican Party of Texas is working hard every day to actually do things. Real things, in the real world, to help [Like passing legislation that gives companies tax breaks to outsource my profession overseas? -- ED] real families like yours. We work to cut your [See previous comment -- ED] taxes. We work to balance the state budget. We work to keep Texas strong, free and prosperous by fighting against the Democrats' insatiable appetite to take more control over your life, raise your taxes, and enact policies that will destroy our economy and cost jobs [ibid -- ED].
We're not going to be awarded the million-dollar Nobel Peace Prize for that."
And thank goodness for that; Destroying the world's economy by following Phil Gramm's economic policies isn't any sort of qualification for a Nobel.
--emphasis mine.
Once again, I invite the Republican Party of Texas to consider hiring a professional -- or even an amateur - copyeditor or proofreader. I'm available, and my rates are reasonable. I promise I won't change the copy and won't leak it.
It says, in Quenya, written in Tengwar,
I am a Bard; I do not vouchsafe my secrets to slaves.
I am a guide, a judge: If you sow, you labour.
Literally, it's "I am a free poem-author, the cunning-speech is not to be told [by me] to slaves. I am a guide, a person of Námo [Valar associated with discernment and judging]; one who pours therefore labours."
Elaboration through a cheezburger
TL;DR rant on how long this community's existed
belief that PC is a newcomer of late
Reminiscence of the flame wars and the trolls
and past posting's perfection
Recounting of the steps that led to the decay of nettiquette
mostly involving Steve Case and America Online
Insistent call for the moderators
discovery of the depth of CP's bile tract
regret over the lateness of CP's arrival
Earwig youTube link
Naïve RickRolling attempt
Reluctance to accept this tune won't fade
Request for eye goggles
subsequent call for bleach
Repetition of the meter of the song.
Insistent observation
that PC's comment does not scan well
Demand to refactor
the meter to a song.
[ninja edit]
"AcipHex" is a very poor brand name.
EDIT: " a ba nana."
YEAH
My brother and his wife just adopted (Just tonight the lawyer told them everything is finalised) a little baby girl, who is six months old - two months younger than Aidan.
Her name is Emily, and she is an awesome little baby.
They babysat her over the weekend and my brother made her carrots, by cooking the carrots for two hours to ensure that they would be the right consistency.
BABY!
Come on. Guess.
Here's why:
Yesterday, I spent a good chunk of the day rebuilding my parent's computer's OS from the ground up: Some trojan that a free anti-virus program couldn't isolate had embedded itself into the RPC service, shutting down the ability to run many programs and even the command line prompt. And Norton anti-virus couldn't find it, malwarebytes couldn't find it ...
So I go the Weyland-Yutani route and nuke the site from orbit: It's the only way to be sure. And restore from SP1, update to SP2, update to SP3.
During this process, there's plenty of down time in which I am discussing with my father just how it would be a good idea to get a Mac Mini; His computer was up-to-date on OS patches (I had to rebuild it all about two weeks back for another trojan program embedding itself into a network service which nothing could pull out) and had an active, up-to-date antivirus.
So, I'm telling him: Just look at Google! They run appliances to deliver their services, which is why you rarely if ever hear about them having downtime!
The universe, meanwhile, is in the middle of a "Let's make a liar out of Finn" phase ...
I'm sure you see where this is going.
First MacOSX virus that bypasses admin privileges will be reported within two weeks' time, because the universe loooooorves to make a liar out of me.
My son just signed for "more", "drink", and opened his mouth like he does when he is expecting food to be spooned in.. And then reacted very positively when we gave him a drink.
My son is seven months old.
My son has, in the past 24 hours, said
DaDa
MaMa
Brother
Mother
Daddy
I can have that? (while pointing at his mother and kicking his feet to indicate {go to})
and
Yeah!
findëtengwestanya avanyárima na mólttë
tiënye, námon
ulyaldë etta mótaldë
