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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Friday, January 8th, 2010 |
patchworkkid
|
12:01a |
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| Thursday, January 7th, 2010 |
andricongirl
|
9:54p |
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trayce
|
7:41p |
"Serial killer and torturer due for sentence review" Earlier today, that headline read "serial killer due for possible release". The actual article went over how she is up for review and how all authorities don't want her released, ever. But hey, don't let that get in the way of a good headline! I'm puzzled it's now been changed to the above. Do they get active feedback and work from it? |
patchworkkid
|
5:34p |
I told Dave on NYE that each time I mention going overseas I feel like a liar. This is because up until now, what I do has never sustained the life I've always wanted: one involving travel, meeting people and adventure in the most non-twee sense of the word. Well, I said goodbye to J today, and unless I make this happen I won't be seeing her again anytime soon. And I know I'll do this. Still feels weird saying it. But I've got 8-10 things in the pipe, and if only a few pay off I'll make it over. There's this job, selling my stuff, ELR/PLR, the novel sale, copywriting gigs here and in Helsinki, proofreading academic papers for a professor and a few other ideas. And books like Feed Yourself for $35 A Week, which may become my bible between now and then. I'm glad she was here. We had a blast. The idea of continuing this over there, in a well-paying job and a place of my own, until the book sales kick in... brilliance. Also looks like 2010 is going to include Helsinki, Berlin, Leipzig, Edinburgh and New York. Fingers crossed. Saving at a rate of knots. |
patchworkkid
|
5:01p |
Hey kids!
Here's a fun thing to do if you have some kind of MP3 player with ear buds: 1). Plug earphones into player. 2). Start track playing. 3). Close mouth. 4). Insert earbuds into nose. 5). Open mouth, and your head cavity now serves as an amp. This job is damaging parts of my brain I probably need. |
erudito
|
1:51p |
Economic links
You can now buy placebos. Evidence that economists tend to be cheapskates. A nice, enlightening post on trade and current account deficits: the basic point is that countries do not trade, individuals and firms do. Someone who knows exactly what they are worth: 20 tons of wheat, wholesale. More here. Deconstructing a Secretary Clinton speech on development as manifesting the political incentives to babble. Seeing the hidden hand of government in the restaurant toilet disaster: we do not have this problem in Oz. Further comments here. Spruiking a book covering for and against arguments about randomised evaluation of aid projects. (As one of the comments notes, much the same issues apply to stimulus and bailout spending.) Much of the world did well economically over the last 10 years. Listing African successes over the last 10 years. Developing countries have emerged relatively quickly from the recession: A year after the West’s slump began to spread to emerging markets, it has become clear that the recession has been a moment of tectonic slippage, a brief but powerful acceleration in the deep-seated movement of economic power away from rich nations towards emerging markets. Investments by Somali pirates are suspected of causing a property boom in Kenya. The internet is making “black” markets easier to operate in Cuba. About which American economics textbooks way over-estimated Soviet growth rates and which did not. More. The paper. Rather better use of production possibility frontier analysis on the Soviet economy than in the earlier textbooks. The first decade of the C21st was a lost decade for US job growth, in stark contrast to preceding ones. Interactive map of the spread of unemployment across the US during the recession. How US federal taxes are raised and from whom: the top 1% of US taxpayers pay 40% of all US Federal taxes. Almost half of US “tax units” have no US Federal tax liability. US Federal Reserve Chair is open to monetary policy as a tool against bubbles according to a recent speech: Although the house price bubble appears obvious in retrospect--all bubbles appear obvious in retrospect--in its earlier stages, economists differed considerably about whether the increase in house prices was sustainable; or, if it was a bubble, whether the bubble was national or confined to a few local markets. Monetary policy is also a blunt tool, and interest rate increases in 2003 or 2004 sufficient to constrain the bubble could have seriously weakened the economy at just the time when the recovery from the previous recession was becoming established. The speech reviews evidence that monetary policy was not the main cause of housing bubbles. Democratic Congressional districts received on average nearly twice as much stimulus money as Republican ones. This, may, of course be explained purely by relative need … Agitating against the burgeoning costs of public employees. US states and localities have a looming underfunded public pension problem. US states have very limited control over their own budgets: If you thought elected officials in your state were running the budget show, you might be in for a surprise. Likely as not the federal courts are more powerful budget authorities than the state's legislature or executive. A few consent decrees can easily cripple any attempt to pass a balanced budget requirement in a state legislature, and overturn the act itself in federal court if it does happen to pass. California as a particularly toxic case of the problem: … that the permanent government has disqualified itself from superintending California's welfare state, ostensibly its reason for existence. When parents can't enroll their children in healthcare programs online because it is more important to protect clerical jobs, the humane purposes of the welfare state are mocked. When teachers unions proudly commend themselves for making it effectively impossible for schools to discipline or fire faculty members who are burnouts and creeps, the endless, cynical talk about putting children first becomes an indictment. If the rhetoric determined the reality of the welfare state, the needs of its clients would always take precedence over the demands of its personnel. It is a scandal that the politicians who ought to be most deeply concerned about using California's tax dollars as efficiently as possible to assist the state's neediest residents are, instead, complacent and often insistent about diverting billions of those dollars to the government workforce. A lot of the stimulus money is making things worse for states (hence Indiana and Texas refusing some of the offerings): For example, the stimulus offered $80 billion for Medicaid to cover health-care costs for unemployed workers and single workers without kids. But in 2011 most of that extra federal Medicaid money vanishes. Then states will have one million more people on Medicaid with no money to pay for it. Nice post on private management of public parks from someone whose business that is: The typical lifecycle of this business is that a public agency runs to us begging to take something over to keep it open. We do so on a quickly negotiated contract, and then find ourselves spending a ton of money to fix all the deferred maintenance problems left by the public agency. About when we finally get the place cleaned up and public trust restored and finally have the prospect to make a little money at the location, the public agency decides it is time to seek competitive bids. Everyone who refused run the place when it was a mess now come out of the woodwork to bid on running the facility now that its fixed up, several of whom seem to have oddly close relationships with senior officials of the public agency. We bid, some of which we win and some of which we lose. If we win, we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor. If we lose, we shrug and try again. The Obama Administration’s foreclosure relief program is being criticised for doing more harm than good. Current Mood:  hungryCurrent Music: bird noises |
patchworkkid
|
12:01a |
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| Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 |
erudito
|
9:57p |
Film, media and art links
TV Tropes: a website to lose hours in. Crazy Indian music video. Having a great deal of fun with a poor bit of ad photoshopping by Victoria’s Secret. Top 10 news stories you missed in 2009. Engaging in online protests against Ireland’s blasphemy laws. Paper arguing that movies encouraged a particular narrative of the economic crisis. The Index against Censorship is in a bit of internal bother due to its self-censoring itself over the Danish cartoons. Muslim intimidation over such matters keeps happening because it works. Nominating the top 10 movie scenes (not to be confused with the top 10 movies) of 2009. US daytime TV has its first gay sex scene: schmaltzy music, candles and all. Reason.tv on why the noughties were the worst decade ever. My favourite line: Any time Dennis Kucinich is the voice of reason, you know you're really screwed. How to write about Africa: a wonderful satire. Nigerian novelist TED talk on the danger of a single story. Another TED talk on the one-sided nature of media coverage of Africa. Great review (with pics) of Dances with Smurfs (aka Avatar): … because Cameron endows the blue people with English-speaking abilities, hot bodies, classically beautiful features, and the exact same family structure and benevolent rule as the greats of Western civ. It’s just so natural to love ‘em. They’re not ugly and they’re totally like us! Enjoying the aesthetic beauty of Avatar: James Cameron claims to have written this film fifteen years ago, which would put it squarely in the middle of the Ecstasy craze. All the glowing colors, peace, and love, that exists on Pandora certainly seems drug inspired. Avatar as demonstrating the ubiquity of the faith instinct: We live in an age in which it's the norm to speak glowingly of spirituality but derisively of traditional religion. If the Na'Vi were Roman Catholics, there would be boycotts and protests. Make the oversized Smurfs Rousseauian noble savages and everyone nods along, save for a few cranky right-wingers. …
What I find fascinating, and infuriating, is how the culture war debate is routinely described by antagonists on both sides as a conflict between the religious and the un-religious. The faith instinct manifests itself across the ideological spectrum, even if it masquerades as something else. Say it sister: The widespread support for Polanski shows the liberal cultural elite at its preening, fatuous worst. They may make great movies, write great books, and design beautiful things, they may have lots of noble humanitarian ideas and care, in the abstract, about all the right principles: equality under the law, for example. But in this case, they're just the white culture-class counterpart of hip-hop fans who stood by R. Kelly and Chris Brown and of sports fans who automatically support their favorite athletes when they're accused of beating their wives and raping hotel workers.
No wonder Middle America hates them. BTW, this is from a feminist columnist in The Nation. Virginia Postrel skewers the NYT’s freelancing incoherence: Instead of focusing on inputs, the Times should focus its quality control on outputs: what actually appears in the paper. Drop the absurd ethics guidelines, hire freelancers who know their subjects and how to write about them, and disclose any potential conflicts so readers can make up their own minds. Think about delivering value to the reader rather than ritualistically adhering to journalistic guild customs. Alternatively, the Times could shrink the paper to include only that reporting whose costs it can cover out of its own budget and stop trying to free ride. Current Mood:  sleepy |
anachronoclast
|
9:20p |
Vale Mr Gemmell; you are missed
And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.David Gemmell is an author who has made me cry, laugh, and rejoice like few can. A more than avid fan I had until the last week read all but three of his books. Epic tales of flawed heroes, courage, and human endeavour in the face of trials and tribulations few of us will with luck realise. And within which are found values I can only hope I have the strength to at least emulate in some manner. Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the pursuit of evil.The last three books that I had as yet not read were the trilogy based on the tale of Troy, on which he was working at the time of his death in 2006. The third in the trilogy, aptly titled Fall of Kings, ably completed by his wife, Stella. The last books he ever wrote. The last of his novels still waiting for me to read. Tonight I finished Fall of Kings. And wept. Current Mood:  melancholy |
patchworkkid
|
8:58p |
There's a hallmark of being young. If you like something, you can't understand that other people might not like that thing. Psychs call it 'the Other Minds Problem.' it's a term i picked up from reading Malcolm Gladwell, and goes a some way to explaining why my first drafts are littered with scenes almost completely lacking in detail: I assume I tell the story with so much commitment it's just getting punched, whole and complete, into the reader's head. I'm 37, but it still works. |
patchworkkid
|
8:51p |
There's this story I've always liked. A small girl in a class who never said much was tasked, along with everyone else, to draw a picture of whatever they liked. This girl was always looking out the window, never paid attention. Nothing really seemed to grab her. But this exercise did. The teacher simply had to know what had the girl this absorbed, so she asked "What are you drawing?"
"God," the girl said.
The teacher laughed and said "No one know what God looks like."
The girl replied, "They will in a minute."
-
There's another story in a similar vein, this time from a BBC radio broadcast in the Sixties. I think it was just a story read aloud as some nighttime thing. A man had a crisis of faith, and so he wrangled a few connections and got access to the university's computer - their Big Brain.
He wanted to know if there was a God.
He learned how to feed the machine information with punch cards, and so fed in reams of Genesis, Bertrand Russell and Darwin and so forth. He set it running and waited a night and a day. At the end of that time the machine ground to a slow chug, stuttered and stopped. And it popped out a card.
It read: "There is now." |
patchworkkid
|
8:19p |
This is probably common knowledge, but after the War Alan Turing was convicted of homosexuality, stripped of his security status and never worked on a project of import again. He committed suicide in the Fifties, by eating a poisoned apple. Some believe this is why Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak named their company 'Apple.' Never knew that. I wonder if it's true. |
andricongirl
|
4:47p |
that didnt last long :\
Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd's stealth boat Ady Gil has been cut in half by a Japanese security vessel in the Antarctic today, the group's leader Paul Watson said. The $1.5 million high-tech vessel's remains were sinking, but its six-man crew had been rescued and was uninjured, Captain Watson told The Age online. Captain Watson said the Ady Gil was idling in waters near Commonwealth Bay when it was suddenly approached and rammed by the Japanese ship Shonan Maru, which has been detailed to provide security to the fleet. Japanese sink the sea shepherds steath boat (video on page may auto play) |
patchworkkid
|
4:15p |
"I just want to make films that have enough of a budget to pull off high-level imagery but also have a budget that is low enough that I can do what I want."
Between the trends of the last year and views like this, i think we'll be seeing a rise in original, well-told stories and a decline in massive budgets, overpaid stars and movies based on games, comics or remakes of other films. Glad I lived to see this. |
patchworkkid
|
3:58p |
 Tom Gleisner + beard + hair = ...  Peter Jackson - weight. Same nose, same eyes, same laugh lines, same forehead, similiar head shape and mouth. If I wasnt at work I'd Photoshop it. |
frou_frou
|
3:51p |
Like to work at Circa?
Three days a week - see ad at Seek. Any questions, please email me at: nicole@circavintageclothing.com.au applications close Saturday week. thank you. UPDATE: if you are interested in this position, please ensure that you carefully read the ad on the link above and apply in writing to the postal address rather than emailing an application. I've already received almost thirty by email and as much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, your chances of an interview are greatly increased if you do as I request! Thank you. Current Music: the temptations. |
patchworkkid
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3:12p |
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jagaroth
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2:54p |
aaarrrggghhhh!!!!!
I downloaded & installed vmware under Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. Did everything by the book. I fire up the interface (uses Firefox for the interface, nothing new there, I've written code before that uses it too) It asks for login & password, I have PAM installed so there should be no problem. It won't accept either my user or root name & password. I keep hunting around the web. I re-ran the config file which even asks if you want to keep the default root name & password. Why won't the f*cker work??? |
patchworkkid
|
2:37p |
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jagaroth
|
9:42a |
I started my new job on Monday. I need to start drinking lots of coffee again. I found it so hard to stay awake as it neared midday. At least in my last job I had plenty of time by myself so I could nod off for a moment & no-one would know. |
| Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 |
reddragdiva
|
11:44a |
Apache proxy configuration question.
A question for work. We can ssh into our intranet via a particular host (call it foo). I'm using the Lotus Notes webmail (which is 1000% nicer than the software client, and I now use it all the time by preference) and can easily access our internal IRC, source control and intranet websites via ssh tunnelling.
The intranet website access requires foo to be running a proxy. This is of course easy in Apache 2.0:
ProxyRequests On
ProxyVia On
ProxyDomain .internal.example.com
<Proxy *>
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 172.26 10.1 localhost
</Proxy>
172.26.*.* and 10.1.*.* are intranet IPs. (Yes, we have multiple RFC-1918 ranges.)
All well and good. However, foo can thus be used as a proxy to access outside websites, in a manner that bypasses our WebSense filter (which is running as a transparent proxy). WebSense is inherently patronising and braindead rubbish that is not fit for purpose, but we don't want to upset the IT department unduly, and outside access is not after all what the proxy is there for. Also, not all intranet sites are in .internal.example.com — I need access control based on IP range.
So — how do I tell the proxy to only allow itself to be used for access to intranet IP ranges? What manual page did I miss?
(I could carefully construct a ProxyBlock entry to block everything except our ranges, but that's more than a little laborious. I could do it server-by-server using ProxyPass, but that's way too much like work and I can't be sure my whitelist would ever be complete — I just want to allow it to proxy to intranet IP ranges but not to other IPs.)
Has anyone done this? How did you do it? |
patchworkkid
|
7:54p |
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." *bong* |
patchworkkid
|
7:49p |
I think this happened at a hospital in the UK: a team was brought in to teach doctors and staff how to correctly clean up and sanitise. Deaths dropped 30%.
Kinda makes me want to stick to leeches.
Brought to you by an attempt to get through this shift. |
andricongirl
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6:04p |
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erudito
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8:39a |
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jagaroth's Friends Page
