Journal Sep 2004
A simple message.
Please watch the "debate" tonight on most major TV networks (9 EDT/6 PDT), then turn off the TV. Or even better, just listen to the debate on the radio, because I just heard that FOX is controlling the cameras from which that all the networks get their feed. Yikes!
Also, please don't be complacent; please vote. Swing state, blue state, or red state, just vote to make sure your vote counts.
-res
Interesting. At work, I had trouble with Google. The company uses a web proxy some of you may be familiar with, Websense. Several of us at work got the "restricted" page when trying to access anything from Google, or when we got a cached version of the Google start page, it came up with the same restricted screen. Yahoo! Search came up fine. Examining the restricted page again, I noticed the word "terrorist" added to the description of sites denied access, along with "sexual", and other no-nos for sites to view at work. It should be noted that certain counterproductivity sites are denied as well, such as Jumble and Scrabble.
The most interesting of all is that the Yahoo! News UK story I linked yesterday appeared to be gone (showing instead a Yahoo! page indicating that the story was missing). So I linked my saved copy of the story. I just tried it now after work at home (where I had to reboot the server), and the original link worked fine.
At this point I was just hoping I wasn't the cause of this proxy failure, or worse, that my web searches didn't make my company think I was some sort of terrorist or something. Of course, that's a little extreme since nowadays fine upstanding citizens like myself want to find out the truth, which would include such searches. Keep in mind though, that I work for a defense contractor.
That's my anecdote for the day. Other than the fact that my server was on sleep mode or something in such a way that I had to reboot it, so I apologize for the 6 hours of downtime. Hopefully after the election I will have (a) a new server up and running and (b) more interesting/funny/nonpolitical stories to tell.
-res
(updated 29 Sep 2004)
Only an educated electorate is qualified to vote for our leaders. That educated electorate should be us Americans. Democracy works on the assumption that the people voting are informed of the candidates and issues. And that's why it is our responsibility and duty to do research and vote. Our other responsibility is to make sure our votes are counted. The EFF has a good article on e-voting.
While I'm on the subject of voting, I'd like to dispel a couple of myths. Myth 1: terrorists want Kerry to win. You'd have to dig deep, because it's not found in the general media, but apparently Al Qaeda has good reason to want Bush to win. A Google search of (bush election al qaeda) or (al qaeda letter) will point to this Yahoo! UK News article suggesting it. The reasons actually make sense. I obviously don't support terrorists, but it's interesting to see what they may think about the election. Also keep in mind that this is a "purported" letter from Al Qaeda, so this may not even be a real letter. Update: the link appears not to work anymore, but I have it saved (PDF file).
Myth 2 is that all or most Christians are conservative. I'm a Catholic, and I don't agree with much of the so-called Christian right. It was Moby who pointed me out to this big group. Moby describes himself as a Christian who questions the whole Christian right. He argues that Jesus was at odds with the political and religious leaders of his day, and he would be so today. That bumper sticker "Hate is not a family value" says it all. Jesus called on us to be compassionate, and a big part of that is helping the poor. Are the conservatives doing that? The Sojourners have a campaign, God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat. which shows that no political party has the monopoly on morality or Christian values.
Also, morality is not exclusive to Christianity. In America, all religions are free to practice, and any one religion should not crush all the other ones. Why can't we all get along? We must have respect for different faiths and cultures. Only then can we evolve as a society. Yes, I said evolve. That'll be a topic for another day....
-res
I would say the older you get, the more you appreciate simpler things. When we're younger we take simple things for granted because almost everything is simple. What we don't understand we usually don't have to deal with. When we do learn to understand these complex things, we grow.
My son is 3 1/2 now, and watching him grow and learn is truly wonderful. He learns something new everyday, and it really helps that he goes to a preschool-like daycare and makes friends easily. The parent-run co-op daycare was good too, in that it really involved both parents of the child (father and mother or both guardians or whatever), so we learned how to play and teach with patience. I think it's important for parents to be truly patient and loving, no matter what the situation is. Too often I've seen parents yelling at their kids, and I'm also too quick to judge. I do understand that there are certain things that can push parents over the edge, whether it be the number of kids taken care of by that one parent, or repeated undesired behavior by the kids or just the one particular kid, or other family members making it worse.
I'm not exempt from this, either. I'm guilty of it too, but I'm also learning everyday and trying to see how better to raise my son. I'm really lucky to have help, too. My wife and I have been at it for 3 1/2 years now, and with another child on the way, we can not only hope for the best, but really try and put effort into raising them both. We're no experts, but really, who is an expert? There are a few, and they have good advice, but every child is different, so we must take different cases into account, but keep in mind the simple things: love and patience. I highly recommend the book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. It's aimed at couples but also has sections for children and others. Dare I say, everyone should read this book. It teaches that love is an action, not a feeling, and that to truly love someone, you must "speak their language" of love. It goes beyond Mars & Venus to show that some of us show love in the same ways (those couples have the easiest time), so those who show it in different ways to each other must acknowledge when they're being loved by the other and show it back the same way. Ahhh, simplicity. It's a good read for a short plane ride (which is what I did), and I've learned more in that book than most other books thicker than it.
Love is the answer. It's not just a simple saying. It's actually common sense. And now it's almost proven.
-res
I'm a technology nut. Except for the fact that I don't have to have every gadget in the world. There was a time when I upgraded my computer yearly. I got to a certain point when I had to question whether it was worth it or not.
Nowadays I still follow tech trends and breakthroughs. One way I do this is by reading Tom's Hardware Guide daily. But I haven't bought too much because I have a family to take care of, and even without them, there would be better places to put money. I pride myself in taking some restraint recently over buying tech stuff. It's very tempting to get an iPod or iBook or Athlon 64 notebook though....
I'm also a gamer, but I don't play that many games. We put a lot into technology to make games seem more real. But sometimes it's better to get actual reality than virtual reality. My family and I are going camping this weekend, and it's a good chance to get some of that actual reality that we don't get to sample very often. Unfortunately for some, actual reality isn't that great. But there's at least one way we can make that better: do your research and vote (and make sure your vote counts). It's also good to volunteer. I'm guilty of not doing my share of volunteering, but I do every once in a while at least.
Simplicity is good, and sometimes technology makes life simpler, but usually more complex. I like supporting technologies that make parts of my life simpler so I can enjoy the rest of my life.
-res
You may be wondering, "What's with the flags?" Well, I was born and raised in the US and still live here. My parents are from the Philippines. There are servers in the UK and France mirroring this website.
I don't know how many of you will be reading this everyday, but for those of you who do or read even a bit, I hope I'm able to provide some insight or new information to you. Some people who have journals, like Moby, have important and/or entertaining things to say, and I hope I'll be one of them.
So here's my insight for today, actually someone else's insight, but I agree. (If you want to know who said this, just ask.) What is fair? Fair is listening to both or all (if there are more than two) sides of something and presenting both the merits and criticisms of each. It's hard to listen to someone you may disagree with, but it's better than just listening to people who agree with you. I'm not saying it's good to make enemies, because you don't have to verbally disagree with them right there, but it's good to hear them out in full. And once again, check facts against reliable sources. If we all take what comes from the media with a grain of salt, the world would be a lot better. Of course if time is the issue, I would recommend getting news from the web. And be sure to check facts from them too.
On a lighter note, we're in our fourth month of pregnancy for our second child, and we hope all goes well. I'll post ultrasound pictures soon. Hmmm, maybe I should post all our missing pictures too.
-res
I'm officially kicking off my journal. Below are not true journal entries, but all of the annoucements from the main page, annotated to be a proper journal entry. This, however, is my first pure journal entry, so here we go.
I normally avoid the topic of politics, just not to alienate people of differing opinion. However, it is, as I say, an opinion, as are all political beliefs. All I can say about politics right now is: make sure you check your facts. And when I say check your facts, I mean look them up in real sources, especially nonpartisan ones, like NPR, FactCheck.org, and Media Matters for America. Fair.org also appears to provide thorough media critiques.
Don't rely on sound bites, network or cable TV news, especially FOX "News". Can you guess my political affiliation? Are you sure? Does it matter? Nothing is worse than hearing a statement out of context or an outright lie or a total omission of something important. Maybe there are worse things. In this day and age, politics is important, so no matter what your political affiliation, your patriotic responsibility is to do your research beyond the mass media, ask your leaders the tough questions, and most of all, vote! You may also want to vote absentee just in case =).
Peace out.
-res
Mozilla Firefox 1.0PR has reached 1 million downloads! Yeah! Also, in "About Us" I added anagrams for our names and a link to Wordsmith.org to make anagrams. Some of you may already know how interested I am in linguistics and the English language specifically, which is why I try to keep my sentences written in proper English. Or at least conversational English like this sentence. I'm not perfect, though, so even though I'm a perfectionist, I won't catch everything. I'll get some more word links up soon.
Mozilla Firefox 1.0PR update: if you're having trouble installing extensions, make sure you enable "Allow web sites to install software" in the Web Features section of Options/Preferences. Also, I've just added a Moby link in the bands page and indicated when I first listened to some of these artists. What's with Moby? He makes good music and good sense. I plan to overhaul this page and my other list pages to get neater icons and general streamlining.
Mozilla Firefox 1.0PR (pre-release) just got released today! See my web help page for details. I've said it before, and I'm saying it again (summarized): Firefox is probably the best web browser for everyone. Why? The only thing you need to do to use it is download (only 5 MB in Windows!) and install it. It automatically imports your Internet Explorer favorites. It has built-in automatic popup blocking, and is more secure by not being as connected to the operating system. It can be trusted because its publicly-available source code can be examined by anyone, showing whether or not it does something malicious. It is extensible with Netscape plugins and Mozilla extensions. Caveat: some sites will look funny because they are either (a) poorly written (with respect to code standards), which Internet Explorer will attempt to correct (thus making the author believe the code is fine), or (b) written with code that includes Microsoft standards that aren't part of the general (W3C) standard.
I got to the root of the counters problem, and I used the error logs to correct the counter database values. It's not like the counters are scientific or anything, though, and I may still remove them one day. Remember I'm administering the server and the website myself, so...if you find a problem with this site, please let me know.
I'm aware the counters haven't been working for at least a week, and I'll try to get them working again soon. Or I may end up not using counters, which really simplifies the web design.
Past Journal Entries: 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001
2010 Journal Entries: Nov
Common and favorite references and their acronyms:
- Washington Post (WaPo): http://www.washingtonpost.com/ (requires free login)
- Moby's journal: http://www.moby.com/journal/
- Sojourners (Sojo): http://www.sojo.net/ (requires free login)
- Tom's Hardware Guide (THG): http://www.tomshardware.com/
- Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): http://www.eff.org/
- SourceForge.net (SF): http://www.sourceforge.net/
- My referral link for a free Mac Mini (legit): http://www.freemacmini.com/?r=160454 (why this is here)
