Speljamr.com

As if it isn’t embarrassing enough to live and work here in Buffalo, we get this kind of stupid shit happening: City forgets to renew domain name.

And of course we had to get Farked because of it.

I woke up mad this morning. Just like several mornings previous. I can’t help it. It’s because I actually care; because I think elected officials should care. Government doesn’t seem to think about the consequences of its actions until the shit finally hits the fan. If your not from the Buffalo, NY area you’re probably wondering what I’m talking about. Well, for those who aren’t living with it everyday I’m referring to the current Erie County Budget Crisis.

What I can’t seem to figure out is how a bunch of people who should have a modicum of intelligence can’t add a bunch of numbers together and see that the final outcome is a negative number. I just don’t get how they couldn’t see this coming. Seems very convenient that the announcement of this crisis came after elections.

And so to cover his butt, Joel Giambra decides to blame medicaid and raise our sales tax 1%. Now,to be honest, I’m sure medicaid is one of the many state taxes(and the state has been screwing NY citizens for years) hurting our budget line here, but it can’t be the only problem. Joel’s friends and family plan might be a small piece of the problem too. As well as other overpaid positions.

Some members of the legislature have at least listened to the people and stopped this tax from going through. Sorry Joel, but the LAST thing this area needs is another tax.

But it doesn’t stop there. Now some lawmakers are suggesting that next year they will have to raise property taxes 40%. 40%!!!!!!!! Are you nuts?!?! Don’t we have enough people leaving this area in droves? Raise property taxes that much and even I, someone who’s lived here all his life, will have to consider getting out of this area. Taxes like this are going to end up driving me away from family, which is the only real reason to stay in this town lately.

We entrusted these people with our county, our money, and they have betrayed that trust. That is why I am MAD as hell. It is time for the people to take back what is theirs. Tear down county government and rebuild it. The current leaders need to step down, both legislature and executive branches, and start the whole process of building county government over again. This time making a governing body that fits the needs of a much smaller population. Every member of our current government, and I do mean every, is responsible for this mess, and they need to fall on their swords now. Personally, I think it’s time to dump a truckload of tea on the doorstep of the Edward A. Rath County Office Building just to show how disgusted we the people are. But unfortunately I think most people are too weak to take such a stand. Gone are the Thomas Jeffersons of our day; Or the Benjamin Franklins.

My friend Kevin is running for president in 2008, so maybe I should run for County Executive. I couldn’t possibly screw it up any worse than the current administration; hell at least I can add a bunch of numbers together and know when it’s time to stop spending money. Maybe I can get the libertarian nomination and be the first libertarian county executive.

I think this letter of apology by Lieutenant General Chuck Pitman, US Marine Corps, Retired hits the target dead on.

Over the weekend I have been setting up and configuring my new network attached storage. I now have 160GB of fresh space to store all my music files and downloads. A much needed upgrade from the 30GB hard drive that was being used (28 GB were already in use). I can now continue my project of re-encoding all of my CDs to a higher bit rate.

I have achieved this wonderful state of storage bliss by using the Linksys NSLU2 unit and an Iomega 160GB USB drive. The Linksys NSLU2 is a really tiny device, but it’s full of nice features. You can attach up to 2 USB 2.0 hard drives to it and then create shares on those drives. Since the NSLU2 is assigned it’s own IP Address on your network it lets you access the shares directly across the network. You can even create users, assign them to groups, and then manage group access to shares.

To top it off the NSLU2 even does backup, either from a device on your network to the NSLU2, or from the NSLU2 to a device on your network. Or, if you have 2 drives attached to it you can backup from one drive to the other.

This setup is perfect for small to medium offices; the hell with spending a fortune on other NAS devices.

To me the coolest thing about the NSLU2 was the fact that it runs Linux as its operating system and uses Samba to allow access from most other operating systems (seems to work on Windows, Mac OSX, and other Linux distros).

This has to be one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. Well, back to encoding all 1000+ CDs in my collection!

Yes. Yes I do. I would love nothing more than to live a life of 200, 300, or more years. I find life interesting and there are lots of things I might like to try that one lifetime won’t afford me. Apparently so do several other people, and the subject is becoming a hot topic.

Technology Review ran an article last month about Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey, who has a plan on how to execute the necessary research to get the job done. And he’s not the only one who thinks its possible, Ray Kurzweil believes that we will achieve immortality within 20 years. There are of course a few people that think he’s off the mark, but I’ll take it ±20 years.

Dr. Ben Bova also put in his 2¢ a couple years ago with his book Immortality: How Science Is Extending Your Life Span and Changing the World

I look forward to the possibility of living so long, but its going to be a hell of a ride when trying to work out the social implications . You can’t exactly retire at 65 if you live for a couple hundred years.

Since this post a few people have asked me how I came to know what my personality type was. So here’s the skinny:

The personality type I mentioned in the previous post is based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® , which is based on Carl Jung’s notion of psychological types. Basically you take a test with a number of questions that have no right or wrong answers, they just help gage your personal preferences. Once done, a Qualified MBTI Practitioner scores your test and goes over the results with you.

I have seen a few tests online, but there is no guarantee that those online versions are accurate. You really should have the test performed by a Qualified MBTI Practitioner.

For anyone who is interested, my wife is a Qualified MBTI Practitioner and says she charges $25/person to do the test. She can be reached via karlyn at karlyn.us. Obviously, this is where I got the test done.

Here’s a quick public service announcement from Novell: http://www.novell.com/linux/windowstolinux/publicservice/

So yesterday I was stumbling through some other blogs just to kill some time. Every so often I do this just to see how other people use their blogs. But as I was wandering around I can across a post on Tony Pierce’s blog called How to Blog. So, as I’m reading through his list of things you should do I realize I’m already breaking some of his rules; not that this is necessarily bad as how I do my thing doesn’t have to be an exact copy of how he does his thing.

First off, I’ve already broken number 5. Everybody, and I do mean everybody, knows about my blog; even my mom. But shit, that hasn’t stopped me from following rule number 4 anyway.

Now when it comes to rule number 1, I’ve definately failed. I should write every day, I really should.

Rule numbers 13 & 19 made me realize that I should just let it all out sometimes. I do find myself holding back often. Sometimes I even think some great stuff in my head, but then never bother to write it down. This is typical of an INTJ personality type, which I have been found to be. I think things in my head and never feel the need to tell anybody. Damn Introverted Thinking! So, after reading Tony’s rule 13 & 19 I will try to break out of that mold and write more often.

Now tony, with regards to rule number 9, I think your being just plain biased. There are lots of great blogging applications out there, like WordPress or PolarBlog. But as a web programmer maybe I’m biased as well, and feel for the people who have put so much work into their applications.

So, thanks for the tips Tony. The jaunt through your thought process was helpful in exposing areas of my own thought I should explore.

New Scientist is running an article about a new solar sail method that could push a craft to Mars in about one month. Currently this is just a theoretical concept since the craft would need a push from a 60-megawatt microwave beam, which we currently do not have the capability of creating. Still, it’s a cool concept that could become a reality someday.

On the flip side, the Planetary Society is still on target to launch Cosmos 1, their experimental solar sail, on March 1st, 2005. I can’t wait to see how it performs.

It’s been exactly one year since I started this blog. Not sure its a big deal, but I figured it didn’t hurt to take note of it.