Saturday, January 1, 2005

"Against all enemas" I'm reading Richard Clarke's book. Just finished the one about supercomputers. Fascinating how they saved information in tubes filled with mercury. The memory of my "IT" colleagues making fun of me in dis-belief is still fresh in my mind. I'm too busy to throw this particular one out there. Back to the Richard Clarke book. I think he had a ghostwriter. At times the book reads like an episode of the "West Wing". But still its exciting and interesting read. Interesting to realize that we all are human after all. Even the prez and the vp and the most powerful officials on the planet put their pants on one leg at a time and are human beings (evil or good whatever) just like the rest of us. I think the worst thing that happened on 911 was that the event punctured the baloon of a myth of America being the Unipolar Omnipotent superpower. A myth that every other network (BBC, Discovery, TLC, FOX, CNN.. Hollywood you name it) had worked so hard to ingrain in the feeble minds of their subjects in far-away lands. This book points it out. That was the worst thing that happened that day..(IMO) The psychological hit was much more than anything else. that is why I don't think that it was a conspiracy. Also, the folks who brought you the fiasco Iraq, could not have pulled this one. I think 911 would be for us what JFK assasination or moon landings were for the prev gen. As I was reading the begginning chapters, I started to remember what I was doing at that time. I was riding my bike on that morning in the Don Valley. It was a beautiful september morning.. and I was listening to "We all live in a yellow submarine". I think by the time I came out onto pottery road, it must have been after the first attack. I noticed an un-marked jeep cherokee. I remembered it because I always notice license plates. And this one said "324 SEE" call me paranoid, but doesn't it sound like "Three to Forsee?" I guess it was the candian intelligence or something. But I didn't think much of it. I had my iPod with me. And I went merrily along all the way to the lake and back. On my way back I got the call from Sabeeh. I couldn't believe it. He said one of the towers was already down. I was in shock. I don't think I could bike any more so I walked for a distance. Back to the book. this book is a good read. But I think he divulges too much information. I mean, why does the public need to know that there is a bunk in the east wing? or maybe because its already common knowledge due to shows like the West Wing that he doesn't mind mentioning these things. One thing is, that He is trying to make himself look like some kind of hero. But I guess I would do that too if I was writing a book. I mean. It sounds like it was Richard Clarke who was running the show. With Dick and Wifey in the bunker with Bitcholeeza Rice and Dubya on his plane and no one really incharge.. it was this guy who was running the show for the first few hours. I have only gotten to 12:00pm by now, but it is very interesting to read this first hand account. Kind of traumatic also I suppose. 8:07:34 PM    comment [] The Tidal Wave Wired has a fascinating article on the Topsite phenomenon. Learn something new every day! Excerpt: 1. THE INSIDER Industry and theater employees run their own straight-to-video operations. Hackers looking for prerelease videogames target company servers. And before that long-awaited CD hits Amazon.com, moles inside disc-stamping plants have already got a copy. 2. THE PACKAGER The pirated goods are passed on to a release group. These groups take multi-gigabyte movie files and squeeze them down for easy online trading. 3. THE DISTRIBUTOR Release groups are known to have exclusive relationships with certain so-called topsites. These are the highly secretive sites at the top of the distribution pyramid. When a topsite operator drops a file, the avalanche begins. 4. THE COURIERS Alerted by release groups, worker bees spring into action, copying and transferring files from the topsites to lower-level dump sites, and then from there to P2P networks like Kazaa and Morpheus. For the couriers, the payoff is props from their peers and credits redeemable for goods on upper levels of the pyramid. 5. THE PUBLIC After the file is copied thousands of times the P2P networks saturate, allowing casual file-traders easy access to the newest movies, music, and videogames. 5:53:42 PM    comment [] George Bush is a Son-of-a-Whore Hey the homeless guy in boston said it. More here at Persian Blogger Chronicles (if you know Farsi that is). I tried posting a comment but it won't let me. What gives Alireza? 1:09:32 PM    comment [] Sweet Sweet Internet! First transaction of the year. I just purchased "Programming Ruby". Shipping estimate for these items: Jan 5 2005 - Jan 5 2005 Delivery estimate: Jan 7 2005 - Jan 13 2005 1 "Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide" With Chad Fowler and Andy Hunt Dave Thomas; Paperback; CDN$ 46.17 Not bad. I have decided NEVER to shop at INDIGO. Chindi-Holes seem to think that VB and .NET and JAVA are the only languages we should be interested in. Or at least that's what the 5 shelves filled (wall to wall) with MS and JAVA stuff indicate to me. Chief book lover can love me anytime she wants. In other news, I went to Red Cross Canada yesterday to give them a check and they looked me right in the eye and told me they were closed. It was 4:05pm and I believe they closed at 4pm. The door was closed and I tried to open it and some hippy wanna be asshole showed up at the door frantically trying to tell me they were closed. There were 3 other people behind him, with a look of disappointment on their faces. It appeared I had crashed their little "scoot party". The guy babbled on non-stop for about 2 minutes, as I kept staring him in the face. Finally, he stopped, looked at me and asked, "what is the reason that you are here?" and I said, "I'm here to give you a check for the tsunami relief. I would like to do it today if possible as it is the last day of the year". He looked at me for a few seconds not knowing what to say. At this point, a "respectable" looking bearded middle aged man stepped in from behind and told me "If you can get the check into a mailbox before mail pickup today, you will be issued a reciept with today's date on it." I just stared at them in disbelief. I was there. I had the checkbook in my hand. I wanted to write them a check. All they had to do was take the check and cut me a reciept or at least say they would mail me the reciept. But they just didn't want to bother. I walked back to my car in utter disbelief. I just couldn't believe it! I mean, how FUCKING CALLOUS one has to be - especially when one claims to work for a "Humanitarian" organization - to turn down money in the face just so you can make it to your lousy new year's parties. Nevermind the 150 thousand that just took it up the arse not even 2 days ago. Shame on you Red Cross! Then I tried OxFam. They were reachable by phone, but apparently the "volunteer" they had online was high on some illegal substance. I tried to ask him their exact location and he wasn't too sure and had to ask someone else, which is understandable if you are new etc. I decided to donate by credit card. After he had taken all the information, the card number, name address etc, He just wished me a Happy New year and was about to hang up. I was like whoa! what about the transaction? did it go through? is there a confirmation number? He couldn't give me a reference number after I pledged a large sum of money on my credit card. He also didn't know when it would be applied to the card. Apparently, it was all okay because he was just a "volunteer" doing me and everyone else in the world a FUCKING FAVOR by answering the phone. So I told him to cancel the whole thing and that I would pay online because the computers (thank the Lord) haven't started getting high and booting up after that. That wouldn't be so nice.. an apache server, high on silicone fumes showing me titty pages when all I wanted was the weather report. How can I trust these asinine organizations to do anything efficiently on the other side of the world, when they can't even properly take CASH! I don't know if the OxFam guy every cancelled my transaction. End result being that I am still wondering how to donate to the tsunami victims. I have no doubt that these assholes here will fuck things up before it ever gets there, if it ever gets there. mother fuckers! Pity the fools. I. Keywords: GTA Blogger Red Cross Tsunami Toronto OxFam A$$Hole$ 11:34:50 AM    comment []

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