| Stuffz0rzz 2004-10-06 18:00:15 ET |
|
So I've had Debian (3.0 aka "Woody") installed for a while now. By "a while" I mean a few days. I now know why there aren't any new packages for it. Why there is no firefox and stuff. Cause all the new packages are on the new "testing" release of Debian which is called "Sarge" and whose version number will be 3.1. I've wiped my apt-get sources list cause I fucked something up with it when I was editing it before and I had accidentally altered something that caused apt-get update to return some errors. The usual "file/url can't be found" errors. I'll actually start learning C on the lappy tonight. I'll go outside to the nearest gas station, get a soda, pop an ephedra pill (I stocked up before the ban) and start typing away during the night. Each and every day I find new reasons for learning how to program in C. Latest reason is hardware controlls. A friend of mine made a magnetic stripe reader out of a magnetic head from a tape deck, a broken headphone wire, and a C program which he wrote. I'm striving for that DIY freedom that programming gives you.
There must be some law in Europe (though not in all of Europe) that dictates that you must be given a butterknife to cut meat. 2 years ago I went to Europe with my parents. We landed in Prague, Czech Republic, stayed there for a few days, rented a car, and drove to some other parts of Czech; Slovakia; and Bohemia. Then we moved on to Vienna, Austria, with stops along the way ofcourse, then we stopped at Budapest, Hungary, did stuff and then went back to Prague from which we took a plane ride to my former hometown of Moscow, Russia. If memory serves me correctly most of the restaurants in the Czech/Slovakia/Bohemia/Austria regions gave us butter knives to cut meat with. Thus I'll reitirate what I said above and ponder out loud whether there is some law banning sharp knives in restaurants. Which would be ridiculous. You could kill a man with a dull butter knife. Sure, you'll need to practice at first, but sooner or later you'll be able to stick a dull butter knife through 3 layers of leather coating (on a jacket) and even through Kevlar! Am I exxagerating? Well, practice and find out. I'm not gonna give out all the answers.
Btw, if anybody wants to add me to their buddy/friends list then please do. I won't mind. Honest!
|
| Need to write a lot today. 2004-10-06 06:17:26 ET |
|
Need to create samples of work so I could apply for a job as a writer at rags and yellow journals. Maybe I can get a job writing book introductions for unknown first time writers:
"I had know 'Ritchie' for a long time and was gently happy that he had asked me to write the introduction to his book for him. Ritchie is a poor old fellow with numerous diseases and even more numerous medical bills which he, by publishing and selling this book, is trying to pay off. So please by this book and grant Ritchie one more precious year on Earth."
Phone rings the next day:
Editor: "Uhm... Leo?"
Me: "Yeah?"
Editor: "The writer's name is John."
Me: "..."
Me: "Whoops."
|
| ... 2004-10-06 06:12:29 ET |
|
|
am adding more people to my SK friends list to get more reply. Woo-ha-ha so evil.
|
| Posting from links 2004-10-04 23:03:26 ET |
|
This is a test to see if I can post using Links. For those who don't know: "Links" is a text-based web browser that is run from console (aka "DOS prompt" aka "command line" aka "command prompt" aka "whatever you will.") I'm currently reading Neil Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" and in it a few characters decide to create their own currency using ww2 filipino gold to back it up. The currency, in the book, will be all digital and its counterfeiting measures will rely upon cryptography. Thing is that the main characters mention, quite correctly, that you don't need anything to back up your currency to create currency. Most, if not all, of the world's currency isn't backed up by anything. We're not on the gold and silver standards anymore. At this day and age currency only holds value if it's:
A.) Hard for other people to create (i.e. "hard to counterfeit")
and
B.) it's issuance(is that the right word?) is propriatery(is that the right word?)
The book says that non-backed currency has a serious danger of collapsing like, the example is given, the Asian currency markets back in '95. Problem with that point is that the U.S. dollar and the British pound remain stable currencies (even though the dollar has lost some of its value over the years.) Thus you don't really need filipino(sp?) gold to back up your currency. You don't really need anything but good PR people to get the masses to use your money.
And online money is all good and fun until it gets hit by a Denial of Service attack.
Also I don't understand how cryptography is supposed to keep the digi-cash from being counterfeited. I remember an old issue of Time magazine focusing on the notion of "cyberspace". The issue contained an originalshort story by Neil Stephenson (guy mentioned above) and it was about...surprise, surprise, digi-cash and how governments might not exactly like it.
Since I'm on the subject of cash and governments not really liking currency competition from low-key players, and since I don't know if this message will post correctly, I'll go off on a wacky tangent.
There's this woman who is/was the Vice President of the Bank of America. She wrote some book, a fictional novel, which described how to steal money from banks the safe and easy way. Then the book evolved (or de-evolved, depending on how feasible you see the idea being) into the old scheme of:
A.) Get your own currency
B.) ???
C.) Profit.
Where "???" = "Keep the value of currency lower than the dollar. Let's say you call your currency "Monkeys". So 1 monkey = .05 dollars. So 1 dollar buys 20 Monkeys. Then you change the value of your currency (the book points out that the value of currency not backed by any assets is set by the currency issue him or herself.) to 1 dollar = .05 monkeys. Thus 1 monkey buys 20 dollars. Thus you're rich! You print up a few million monkeys and exchange them on ForEx (Foreign Exchange Market) for dollars. So where 20 million monkeys would buy 1 million dollars now 1 million monkeys would buy 20 million dollars. And since dollars are actually used to buy stuff you'll become rich! Rich I tell you!
Ofcourse it's probably more complicated than that but I haven't figured out how complicated it really is yet.
Ofcourse, I might just get a bank account and follow the Emperor Norton way of spreading your ideas: With humour and a bit of craziness. Google for Emperor Norton and you'll see what I mean.
Anyways, I gotta go now. I really, really, really hope this post actually gets posted.
|
| Still installing Debian... 2004-10-04 20:13:06 ET |
|
I've lost track of how many installations I have done so far. There's nothing wrong with the Debian installation process. It's just that I'm new to linux/unix/bsd. I'm a total *nix n00b. So I'm trying to become aware of what's going on during the installation. I've finally realized that I shouldn't install anything when installing the OS. I should install the packages that I want later on. This will help me know what's installed and what's running in the background. *nix is a horrible chaotic network of files, all strung about in various directories. It seems like a porous material into which dye has leaked. No matter how hard you try to clean it you still won't get certain aspects of the stain out. No matter how hard you try to uninstall a program a few of its files will remain. Actually that's probably due to package installations. We need some sort of tracking program to know where each file has been installed and that lists the complex net of file dependencies.
In other news my mom took me driving again. This is my 4th time learning how to drive a car. I'm 21 and I'll be 22 on November 30th. My driving learner's permit will expire then and I might as well learn how to drive before it does. I think that I'm getting good with it but I still need more practice.
|
| third Debian installation 2004-10-03 16:17:44 ET |
|
|
Okay, I'm installing Debian for the 3rd time now. Good way to learn.
|
| Laptop stuff 2004-10-02 18:17:46 ET |
|
|
Yeahm so I have an old Toshiba Sattelite Pro 465cdx. I used to have Damn Small Linux on it and now i'm installing Debian on it. The lappie has a 2 gig hd. 320 megs are being used as a swap partition and 900 megs are being used for the installation. Hope all will be well.
|
|
