Do you see the light?

The Joy of Tech comic... laughter is the best tech support.

Just another form of slavery in Kingston Town

For anyone who wonders "why they hate us," watch this documentary and the mystery will be solved. It thoroughly documents how the US, the WTO, and the IMF have systematically destroyed every aspect of Jamaican economic opportunity and culture.

The US didn't abolish slavery in the 19th century; they simply outsourced it. Take a look inside the Kingston Free Zone and you'll see the slaves still at work. Visit a Jamaican banana plantation and learn about how the economy of a sovereign nation was subjugated in the name of "free trade."

In short, fellow fat Americans, pull your heads out of your globalizing butts and watch this film, and then try -- for just a moment, at least -- to put yourself on the other side of the coin. Imagine how you would feel about a foreign agency that took away your livelihood, that treated you like chattel, that demanded you stop making a living so that a transnational corporation could capture the last 5% of a market share.

Wouldn't you hate them, too?

Life and Debt (2001)
(via fefe)

Teaching a old Windows old tricks

The trick is that Internet Explorer 6 and 7 beta can be fooled into running Windows desktop shortcuts instead of going to the Internet. For example, right-click your desktop and choose Create a Shortcut. Tell the shortcut to run Notepad.exe, but name the shortcut "www.aol.com." Now type www.aol.com into IE (Internet Explorer) and see what happens. Instead of going to www.aol.com, IE starts Windows notepad.

Huh?

Wrestling with Windows' hidden "features" | InfoWorld | Column | 2006-05-19 | By Roger A. Grimes
(via schneier)

Do you want to upgrade?

My last DVD drive is dead. Kind of. It works. It doesn't work. It reads a data DVD, but not an audio CD. It refuses to burn CDs or DVDs. Sigh.

Fine, I buy a new DVD drive. This time a "retail", not a bulk version (and a different vendor). One with lightscribe and OEM software. Nero OEM. How very nice of Samsung to include that in the box (and not so nice to include a "normal" IDE cable instead of a UDMA133 cable).

So what does this new Samsung drive do in my computer:
1. I still can't grab sudio CDs, neither in iTunes or in any other application.
2. I still can't burn DVDs from the Explorer.
3. While I can burn CDs from Explorer and NERO, I can't burn them critters from iTunes.

But I digress, I was talking about NERO.

So I have a nice and free OEM version of NERO. Let's summarize:
1. I can't write LightScribe. The old version of the NERO software used to crash my computer. No bluescreen, no message in the eventlog. Just a restart. Fuck. I upgraded to a newer version and the new version just fails with a vanilla error message.
2. I can't burn DVDs in NERO. I can start it, but it fails after some time.
3. I installed NERO and the Samsung drive on a different computer, alas, only to get different error messages. (Well I managed to burn my first LightScribe on that different computer)
4. Whenever burning something in NERO fails (and it may fail because NERO *thinks* there is something on a RW disc and is unable to delete it), I HAVE TO CLICK 5 TIMES, SAVE THE PROJECT, CLOSE THE PROGRAM AND OPEN THE PROJECT AGAIN. WTF?


So if the NERO website asks me if I want to upgrade my OEM version and get something decent, I can say: YES!

I HATE CD BURNING UNDER WINDOWS

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

WHY IS IT THAT THERE HAS TO GO SOMETHING WRONG EVERY TIME I TRY TO BURN SOMETHING ON A CD OR DVD?!?!?!?!?

AND WHY THE FUCK DOES NERO INSTALL A YAHOO TOOLBAR IN MY INTERNET EXPLORER?

FUCKING C*NTS.

We resume our normal program after this short message.

Everybody is building car bombs, why shouldn't I?

This is a interesting story: How car bombs were invented and how they evolved. With notable appearances of the Anarchists, the Zionists, British Deserters, the Palestines, Alfa Romeo, the IRA, the Israelis and the international car bomb melting pot of Beirut.

With so many people trying to kill each other for so many different reasons, Beirut became to the technology of urban violence what a tropical rainforest is to the evolution of plants.

TomDispatch - Tomgram: Mike Davis on the History of the Car Bomb

And don't forget to read part 2. Here we learn how the US taught al-Qaeda how to build car bombs.

It was [CIA Director] Casey on his own, saying, ‘I‘m going to solve the big problem by essentially getting tougher or as tough as the terrorists in using their weapon -- the car bomb.'"

The CIA's own operatives, however, proved incapable of carrying out the bombing, so Casey subcontracted the operation to Lebanese agents led by a former British SAS officer and financed by Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar. In March 1984, a large car bomb was detonated about 50 yards from Sheikh Fadlallah's house in Bir El-Abed, a crowded Shiite neighborhood in southern Beirut. The sheikh wasn't harmed, but 80 innocent neighbors and passersby were killed and 200 wounded. Fadlallah immediately had a huge "MADE IN USA" banner hung across the shattered street, while Hezbollah returned tit for tat in September when a suicide truck driver managed to break through the supposedly impregnable perimeter defenses of the new U.S. embassy in eastern (Christian) Beirut, killing 23 employees and visitors.

Despite the Fadlallah fiasco, Casey remained an enthusiast for using urban terrorism to advance American goals, especially against the Soviets and their allies in Afghanistan. A year after the Bir El-Abed massacre, Casey won President Reagan's approval for NSDD-166, a secret directive that, according to Steve Coll in Ghost Wars, inaugurated a "new era of direct infusions of advanced U.S. military technology into Afghanistan, intensified training of Islamist guerrillas in explosives and sabotage techniques, and targeted attacks on Soviet military officers."

U.S. Special Forces experts would now provide high-tech explosives and teach state-of-the-art sabotage techniques, including the fabrication of ANFO (ammonium nitrate-fuel oil) car bombs, to Pakistani intelligence service (or ISI) officers under the command of Brigadier Mohammed Yousaf. These officers, in turn, would tutor thousands of Afghan and foreign mujahedin, including the future cadre of al-Qaeda, in scores of training camps financed by the Saudis. "Under ISI direction," Coll writes, "the mujahedin received training and malleable explosives to mount car-bomb and even camel-bomb attacks in Soviet-occupied cities, usually designed to kill Soviet soldiers and commanders. Casey endorsed these despite the qualms of some CIA career officers."

...
It was the greatest technology transfer of terrorist technique in history. There was no need for angry Islamists to take car-bomb extension courses from Hezbollah when they could matriculate in a CIA-supported urban-sabotage graduate program in Pakistan's frontier provinces.

(via)

The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq

Washington Post - Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi
(via Matthias Bröcker)

A Clockwork Red White Blue - Original Screenplay by Herman Göring

Göring: "Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

Gilbert: "There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

Göring: "Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Herman Göring, Nuremberg Trials, 18th April 1946

Hermann Göring - Wikiquote
(via Matthias Bröcker)

A Clockwork Red White Blue - A Blueprint

What is the Clockwork Red White Blue?

I doubt that the events on September the Eleventh were the result of a deliberate plan by the US government to commit a terrorist act on US soil. It is my opinion that it were many different people on different levels with different agendas who enabled and maybe aided the acts on 9/11.
For those in top positions, an act of terrorism in the United States was a welcome opportunity to introduce the Patriot Act (1200 pages one month after 9/11? They had it ready, just waiting) and invade Afghanistan and Iraq (I'm afraid the US has plans read for every country in the world, so this not a surprise. They just have to pick one...). The US government knew of an imminent terrorist attack, but instead of trying to stop the attack by directing the differenty agencies that could have prevented it, they choose to let the attacks happen. The terrorist attacks gave them the needed momentum to achieve their policy. (So it is no surprise that the US government, having achieved what they wanted, lacks the interest to clear up the events that lead to 9/11. Not only that, they have no interest to stop these conspiracy theorists, because nothing is better than to cover the truth under a mountain of lies.)

People lower in the food chain didn't knew and didn't care about any plans by their government. They have agendas of their own. Some simply wanted more funds and more influence, which they hoped they could achieve by "[letting] the documents pile up so [they] can show it and say that [they] need more translators and expand the department".

Some agencies have agendas that are not clear while others agencies simply don't won't to play together out of a tradition of secrecy.

I don't know if the 9/11 terrorist, when choosing Huffman Aviation were aided or just lucky (or if Huffman had a reputation of being the right choice if one didn't want to attract much attention), but it seems that the authorities have been looking the other way with regards of Rudi Dekkers, Wally Hilliard and Huffman Aviation.

So I don't think that this Clockwork Red White Blue is a machine with a few Illuminati at the control wheels driving it into the direction that they want. It is rather a cart with a large bunch of people pulling in all kinds of directions. And some people are more skilled in getting the cart to move in their favour. Unfortunately the cart is moving in a direction it should not move.

And this just a partial view of this system. The military has been woven in so tightly into the US economy and into US politics. A new weapon system has parts build in every US state to put pressure (jobs equal votes) on the representives. This makes the US military an elephant pulling the cart in its direction, slowly, but relentlessly, not caring about anybody else. This is the Military-Industrial Complex of which Eisenhower warned to no avail. And I really don't know if the US invades other countries because the government wants to or because simply they can.

What will stop this? I'm afraid that this system will bring itself down. First of all, nobody else can. The US are in a position were nobody else can attack them (and ignore terrorist attacks; terrorist attacks are pinpricks. Look at Israel, it is still here). Not that it would make much sense to attack the US, because out of 100 invasions in the last fifty years, about 10 suceeded (The US should know that out of own experience, but they keep invading countries...). The only ones that can stop it are the US citizens, but until they have a severe interest to stop this, they simply won't care enough. I wouldn't be surprised if things get a lot worse before they get better. All empires have crumbled and if some in the US think they need to act like one, one day they might find that they will end like one...

(Some links are from here)

Suicide

su·i·cide (s-sd)
noun
The act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself: "Gary Webb commited suicide by shooting himself twice in the head"

(via Journalismus)

Disturbing

dis·turb·ing (d-stûrb-ing)

To trouble emotionally or mentally; upset: "It is disturbing that the house of congressman William J Jefferson has been raided by the FBI"

see: involved

A Clockwork Red White Blue - Make every cocaine drop count

This is unbelievable. I'm not making this up (as fefe would say). Go check the sources.

A DC-9 aircraft, painted with a interesting seal owned by Sky Way, a bankrupt sub-penny stocks scam company pretending to be from the "ominous" Military-Industrial Complex, the aircraft being registered as N900SA to Royal Sons Inc. (having an unknown cooperation with Sky Ways), was seized by Mexico smuggling 5.5 tons of cocaine.

Annoying side note: See the lack of reports by the MSM versus the posts on the internet. Where is the so called free media?

Interesting side note: Sky Way has bought (aircontrol) ground stations locations and technical documentation associated with over 100 U.S. (aircontrol) tower locations and wants to sell a "airborne security system [that] uses passenger monitoring tools such as security cameras and facial recognition software to attempt to decrease the likelihood of future September 11th events from happening again".

Funny side note: The aircraft was previously owned by Kenny Rogers and the Seattle Seahawks.

Political side note: Connections of Brent Kovar (founder of Sky Way) to Tom DeLay (US congressman from Texas).

And someone is linking the whole affair to the CIA (Can someone point me to the original story?). Some people say this is the reason to the mysterious resignation of CIA director Porter Gross. They even make connections to Iran-Contra (Remember? The US selling arms to the Mullahs? The same Mullahs they want to bomb away now? If I were in charge in Iran now, I would build nuclear bombs to keep the US away, you know.) because the airplane used to be owned by Finove Capital, the same company involved in the Iran-Contra affair (I can't find "serious" sources for this, but my time is limited).

And it goes on:

The registered owner of the aircraft is: Royal Sons Inc., 15875 Fairchild Drive, Clearwater, Florida.

On April 5, 2006, the plane flew from St. Petersburg/Clearwater International to Simon Bolivar International in Caracas. "Sky Ways" has also been linked to the Saudi government and Bush family/CIA activities. Royal Sons, the name of which may indicate the involvement of Saudi princes, such as the cocaine-transporting Prince Nayif, also maintained an office at 224 East Airport Ave., Venice (Florida), at the same time lead hijacker Mohammad Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi were training at Huffman Aviation, which was located near by at 400 East Airport Avenue.
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=55262

This article goes on to draw connections between Satellite Access Systems (a former scam of Brant Kovar), the Banque Francaise de L'Orient, the Saudis, Skyways Aircraft Leasing and James Bath (George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard friend).

Please, please, someone tell me that this is not true, that this is a lie (and please send links). I can't find any "serious" sources for the "cocaine-transporting Prince Nayif" and I don't have the time to verify this. The last allegations seem from conspiracy land to me and I would welcome any "serious" sources for this.

Then again, it could all be a mistake:

We took the Seal off. Forget about the Seal.

Frederic Geffon from Royal Sons LLC, the Florida air charter company which the FAA listed as the last registered American owner of "Cocaine One," was happy to talk about Brent and Glenn Kovar's most recent (last year) bankruptcy.

"Their company is a scam and heÂ’s a scammer. I got sold a bill of goods about his stock. Everybody out here at the (Clearwater-St. Pete International) airport invested with him, and we all lost it all."

In an exclusive interview, Geffon was quick to point out that the DC9 was no longer his concern when it left the general aviation terminal at Clearwater-St. Pete on April 5th heading for Caracas and its ignominious rendezvous with destiny.

Moreover, he told us, the phony Homeland Security Seal was no longer on it, a statement confirmed by photos of the plane taken in Mexico after its interdiction (see photo above.)
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0605/S00134.htm

Then again, it could all be a web of lies surrounding the true owner of an aircraft.

Make up your mind. How professional is that? Imagine selling an airplane, let someone fly away with it to Caracas on 04/05/2006 and having it still registered at your name until 04/13/2006, two days after the airplane is seized in Mexico with 5.5 tons of cocaine on board?

After all that scrutiny one has to go through to fly as a tourist from Europe to the US, you can have a commercial airplane with unknown owner, unclear registration, flying around with drugs?

And forget Homeland Security. Homeland Security is a organization dedicated on keeping control on US citzens, maybe hustling a "non-citizen" (as in foreigner) from time to time.

I advise all terrorists, buy commercial airplanes in the US and fly them into buildings. It doesn't seem to be a problem almost five years after 9/11, if you have some cash. You can even get the money back by having put options...

And don't be surprised if the US starts to make propaganda against Mexico for not keeping this one quiet.

And oh, lest I forget, there is a second aircraft, N120NE (ex N8500, N60FM, N901B, N2H, HB-IFA), with the same history as N900SA (dubbed "Cocaine One"). And you might want to check N391SA.

If you want to see how to play hide and seek with aircraft registration numbers, google for: N168D ("Devon Holding and Leasing Inc"), N196D ("Devon Holding and Leasing Inc"), N44982 ("PREMIERE EXECUTIVE TRANSPORT SERVICES INC", "N126CH INC", "Bayard Foreign Marketing", ex N379P, N8068V, N581GA), N4476S ("Keeler & Tate Management"), N85VM ("Boston Red Sox Gulfstream G-IV"), N227SV (ex N85VM), N221SG, N505LL, N120JM, N212CP, N221SG ...

And surely it is a coincidence, that Sky Way Enterprise from Kissimmee, FL (just 135 miles from the company Sky Way in Venice) has a DC-9, registration number N112PS ...

N900SA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(via fefe)

With a license, you don't own the product

Watch out if companies stop selling you products and start "selling" you licenses. Because a license is nothing more than a lease on a product. You don't own it. You can hardly sell it. The company can ask for more money. And best of all, the company can take the product away from you again.

And there are only a few reasons for leasing a product:
- You only need it for a short time and save a lot of money compared to buying the product
- You have some sort of service contract and get a new and improved product every once in a while, but do this only when you know that the "old" product won't do in one or two years time. An example would be a machine or a car you use a lot.
- Your product requires a regular service not covered by the product price
- You have tax reasons
- You want to spread out the product price over a amount of time

Maybe I missed a point or two, don't hesitate to add you input!

So in some circumstances, it makes sense for you to lease instead of buy, but the decision should be up to the user. If a company starts to enforce one option and stop another option, be very wary.

So does it make sense to lease games, software or music? I guess only for the company receiving the money from you.

Sony rumored to be limiting PS3 game resales | News.blog | CNET News.com

And in related news:

Final Fantasy Turns Into Final Nightmare For Xbox 360 - Thomas Hawk

Web 2.0 - Under new management

Seems like O'Reilly has the rights to Web 2.0...

Up in arms over who owns 'Web 2.0' | News.blog | CNET News.com

Hehe. The content mafia...

MPAA accused of hiring a hacker | CNET News.com

Apple will have to work on the security of its software

page 14 [of Apple's "secure coding guidelines"]

"So far, Mac OS X has not fallen prey to any major, automated attack like the MyDoom virus. There are several reasons for this. One is that Mac OS X is based on open source software such as BSD; many hackers have searched this software over the years looking for security vulnerabilities, so that not many vulnerabilities remain. Another is that the default installation of Mac OS X turns off all networking services that might be used to exploit vulnerabilities. Also, the email and internet clients used most commonly on Mac OS X do not have privileged access to the operating system and are less vulnerable to attack than those used on some other common operating systems. Finally, Apple has an active program of reviewing the operating system and applications for security vulnerabilities and issues downloadable security updates frequently."

The fact that something is opensource software and that it has been audited before is no guarantee whatsoever that it's more secure then a commercial equivalent. There has been a lot of disscusion around this, and people have concluded that it can have the potential to be more secure but it doesn't have to be. In this particular case they use BSD as an example. Every once in a while I audit BSD code, and there is nothing magically secure about it, plenty of security bugs in there to go around.

So OSX turns off all network deamons by default. But the firewall is off by default last time I checked, there is dhcp parsing code IN THE FUCKING KERNEL, and it does send out an recieve mdns constantly.

So the email client, browser, and other utils don't run as root. So if you own them you don't instantly own the box. That's what local root exploits are for, it's a very common 2-step thing ! I know this is defense in depth, but I wouldn't go so far as to brag about it, it might bite you in the ass later.

The Idea that apple's browser and email client are less vulnerable to attack then others is total bullcrap. In fact, the opposite is true. When I did browser fuzzing safari was ALWAYS the first to break. It's simply not up to par with IE and Firefox when it comes to parsing input !

I don't know if all this is true, but once more and more people are going to switch to Macs, Apple will have a serious security problem if they don't change their attitude.

ilja's blog: Apple Secure Coding Guide

Microsoft gets nasty

At the same time that Apple gets more friendly?

:-)

Coding Horror: You may be a victim of software counterfeiting.

You need to be open to new ideas to attract them - Duh.

That's the connection between technology and liberalism. Without exception the high-tech cities in the US are also the most liberal. But it's not because liberals are smarter that this is so. It's because liberal cities tolerate odd ideas, and smart people by definition have odd ideas.

And only odd and new ideas create new business, new wealth.

No liberal climate => No economic growth.

Paul Graham - How to Be Silicon Valley

Best deal in town

If earlier you usually paid premium for Apple’s laptops and desktops compared to Wintel PCs of similar performance, now you can get a MacBook cheaper then most of its PC rivals. The Apple MacBook is cheaper as a PC even if you have to purchase standalone Windows XP OS and run it on MacBook via Bootcamp. Is there any reason not to buy a MacBook if you want a highly portable 13” notebook?

and

I spent quite a bit of time searching for x86 laptops of similar spec and form factor, and there's just no avoiding it: the Apple x86 laptops are a great deal for the price.

Coding Horror: Apple Laptops: Good, Cheap, Fast -- pick three

Low opinion of other people is socially acceptable :-)

By definition, you’re a racist if you believe that ordinary Muslims are incapable of acting rationally, unless you believe exactly the same thing about yourself and everyone else. In that case you just have a low opinion of people in general, and that’s socially acceptable.

The Dilbert Blog: Those Crazier-than-I-Think Terrorists

"the greatest work of art in the entire cosmos"

Rather old article from September 2001, but interesting to read nonetheless.

classical music - andante - "the greatest work of art in the entire cosmos"

It's not a trick - It's big brother!

...I tried, on multiple occasions to discuss their (insane / arbitrary / uneducated / unenlightened, dicatatorial) censorship policies in more detail-- but lo and behold, no one in management would speak with me...nor would they respond (meaningfully) in writing on this subject.

..They would not specify which photos of mine offended them, or what point of policy I had allegedly violated, making me play "guess our prejudice" instead...then they sent me a 24 hour deletion notice and detonated my entire archives.

This was my first and only warning.

The Big Brother mentality convinced me to ban Sony and all Sony products for life.

http://flickr.com/groups/nocensorship/discuss/158679/1337222/ Sony image-sharing site terminates account without explantion - Flickr-Group: No Censorship

Funny, the same thing happend to me on flickr: They deleted my account, but I didn't even get a warning. The Big Brother mentality convinced me to ban Yahoo and all Yahoo products for life.

What really happened on 9/11?

I'm afraid we will never know. The US government has no interest of finding the truth. Anybody else does not have the means.

911 Loose Change
and
Daylight Atheism � Loose Marbles I: Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories