Home of Mr. Joshy

I happened to get curious, about the definition of the word ‘reasonable’. Often times, I seem to come into dispute with others over the true meaning of the word, though I keep quiet for the most part about the discrepancy, and chalk it up to the whole dichotomy of logical/rational versus emotional thinking processes. The following quote was about halfway down Dictionary.com’s definition of “Reasonable”:

“What the majority of people consider to be ‘reasonable’ is that about which there is agreement, if not among all, at least among a substantial number of people; ‘reasonable’ for most people, has nothing to do with reason, but with consensus.” [Erich Fromm]

Suddenly a great many things which were mysteries to me become perfectly clear.

From The Washington Post via The Agitator, more news following my previous post on this topic, the Virginia Assembly has passed a bill re-authorizing traffic enforcement cameras throughout the state. On my ride into work this morning I spotted a red light camera that looked to be freshly installed in Arlington, and I know Fairfax County never dismantled theirs (that I can remember). Beware, as they will probably go live as soon as the bill is signed.

See The Newspaper for a good summary of studies on Red Light cameras and their effect on injuries and fatalities.

Just caught word from The Newspaper that Virginia’s Legislature is hard at work bringing back Traffic Enforcement cameras. Just when you thought you were safe. Fire up your fax machines and telephones! I’ve heard that lawmakers don’t read e-mail. They get too much e-mail from people.

I have been legally eligible to vote since before the 2000 elections. Since that time, I have voted twice. I would have liked to have voted more, even every single time, for every single election. Our system needs as many votes as possible to remain legitimate. But often due to my own lack of diligence, persistence, and in some cases being tied down at work (including today), I have not been able to vote.

This year, I am also held back by the inopportune timing of my having moved from my apartment to a rental house, days before the registration deadline, and without the time surplus to be able to re-register. A worthless excuse to some, but true nonetheless.

I have seen the documentary, Hacking Democracy. It is unsettling, to say the least. I believe it. I put some stock in the rumors that we are footsteps away from utter chaos. Not neccessarily much stock, but enough.

I am officially severing my ties with qmail. In addition to the troubles with installing qmail, I have encountered more than enough evidence that there are widely known security issues, none of which would necessarily compromise a host, but invite DoS type attacks, and in general a degradation of the mail system.

I need something more robust against such attacks. I will more than likely switch back to the horrid swath of code which is sendmail. Sendmail’s ties to the internet vigilante group “MAPS” are what turned me away from sendmail in the first place.

UPDATE: I have done some research and decided on Postfix to replace qmail and sendmail.

Article from AP via Yahoo! News. Tag is unsafe. Dodgeball is “exclusionary and dangerous”. One parent says “I’ve witnessed enough near collisions”.

The fear of lawsuits is supposedly the motivation behind this one. Lined with the veneer of “save the children”. From themselves, of course. The problem here is quite simply tyranny.

Took a trip over to the OCRemix site recently, and now I can safely say I won’t be going back. The changelog page, which is not directly linked to from the front page, and therefore somewhat hidden to the casual surfer, details some of the reasons why.

OCR00032 - Zelda 64: Ocarina of Time ‘Ocarina Boogie’

• Reason: Original/non-VGM composition + in-game Ocarina instrument as lead. Not from any identifiable in-game music.

OCR00092 - Diablo 2 ‘Wanderer (Flayer Mix)’

• Reason: First portion too reliant on directly sampling the original. Second portion not from any identifiable in-game music.

These are the main reasons. It seems that OCRemix is only interested in “music” which is just the original melody with minor changes to arrangement or instrument. (e.g., Jazz rendition, etc). Songs which have too much originality are rejected. For reference, both of these “offending” songs constitute my two most favorite works from the site. You can obtain “Ocarina Boogie” from the original author’s page, here. I couldn’t get access to the website of Bart Klepka, which appears to be down.

I caught this article via Yahoo! News, and it seems to do a good enough job outlining the reasons why I think this Nation is in the midst of a great crisis, just not the one that everyone seems to think that it is. I’ll refrain from mindless banter for now and leave you to read this piece.

I had an idea for a website related to politics and the economy. A somewhat simple idea, really, but requiring a lot of research. If I were a college student, I’m sure I could pull it off. The website would list various pet projects of rich political talking heads, and work back through the economic food chain to determine what products and services one must buy, to fund these projects. One could then make a decision on what to buy, and/or who to patronize, based on what political goals their money would be advancing by doing so.

The pitfalls of such a project is that it would require a major investment of time, something that I do not have a large surplus of. Perhaps when I am rich and famous, I can have someone build that site for me.

From TheNewspaper.com comes word of this story, from local station WRC-TV (Channel 4). I’m somewhat speechless. Police are often afforded much respect, honor, even “hero status”. However, it would appear that if an Officer of the Law is having a bad day, you’d better steer clear. After all, there are so many laws on the books, it’s nearly certain you’re breaking at least one.