To Tweet Or Not To Tweet, That Is The Question

2010/08/31 — isecore

… or, Why Should I Keep My Facebook-Account?

A while back I got myself an account on aforementioned website. I think it was in 2008, some time. Compared to many other social networks that I’ve become a member of, Facebook then seemed a lot nicer. People used their real names, had actual photos of themselves rather than some celebrity or lookalike, and also the somewhat strict and spartan design of the site meant that unlike hell-holes like MySpace you couldn’t do much in the way of fucking up customizing your profile.

So it seemed okay.

But recently there’s been a lot of changes that have made me lose what little affection I had for Facebook. Chief among these have been the draconian changes to privacy settings, but there was a lot of other things that changed too. In fact, the only thing I still really like about it is the status-updates. It’s an easy way to keep in touch with friends, and an easy way for me to dole out whatever brainfarts I get.

So last night while I was waiting for sleep to happen to me, I started thinking. Thinking about my Facebook-activities and parts of my online activities overall. I don’t blog as much as I used to, for example. There was a time when I would spew out long, rambling stuff on a daily basis. I don’t really do that as much any longer, not because I don’t enjoy writing but simply because I’ve grown a little tired of blogging and feel that my writing abilities could be focused on other ventures. So, blogging has been put on the back-burner, and occasionally I feel bad about it, but it’s really just evolutionary – maybe someday I’ll be back to producing mind-numbing tedious rants on a daily basis again, who knows?

I also started thinking about how I like the status-updates type thing on Facebook, which is essentially a type of micro-blogging. The problem there is that you basically have to be a member of Facebook and a friend of mine there to see them. I’ve locked down my privacy settings as hard as you can, and that keeps them pretty private.

But it would be nice to have some way of communicating these small brainfarts to the rest of the world, outside of the iron curtain of my Facebook privacy settings. Which led my thoughts to Twitter.

Now, my official disposition to Twitter is utter contempt. I actually do like the concept of microblogging but I dislike Twitter and the whole culture of tweeting and blapping and retweeting and booming and jonesing and poppin’ and lockin’ and whatever other jargon they use. Every time I’ve encountered Twitterites (Twitters? Twitterers? Tweeters?) I’ve always gotten the impression that to use the service you have to buy into the whole culture. This annoys me. I want to use it my way, not the same way as everyone else. But maybe that’s just me being stubborn and backwards and get-off-my-lawn-you-damn-kids type grumpy.

Secondly, if I’m gonna go for the tweeting then I want a mobile way of doing it. As it is, I’m locked down to my computer to twitter stuff, and when I have a brain-fart on the go I’d need some type of mobile device to do this. My current phone is a SonyEricsson K750, it’s going on a bit over five years old and while surprisingly capable it still is pretty dumb. But I like it fine, it still works great and apart from some minor scrapes a bruises it’s essentially in mint condition. Maybe there’s some Java Twitter or something for it? I’ll better check that out.

Now, return to Facebook. I’m seriously thinking about ending my tenure there. The annoyances are becoming to severe. But, I still want to be able to give y’all status updates. Thus, Twitter seems like the perfect replacement. At least until Diaspora goes online in half a month or so, and I’m very curious about that thing. But Twitter exists and is ready.

I’m not sure about these plans either. This is essentially just me ventilating my thoughts, which is why you have a blog.

Posted in Blogging, Computers, My domain. No Comments »

Julian Assange Har Inte Våldtagit Någon

2010/08/21 — isecore

Just nu rullar den stora nyheten att Julian Assange, mannen som är ansiktet utåt för kontroversiella Wikileaks, söks i sin frånvaro anklagad för våldtäkt.

Problemet är bara att det här är helt och hållet fabricerat, och man behöver inte vara speciellt insatt i det hela för att förstå att det är fullständigt fabricerat och att “nyheten” är skapad av utländska intressen som manipulerar lilla Sverige till att göra som de vill.

Intressen i USA har ju de senaste månaderna varit enormt kritiska till Wikileaks. Ända sen den där filmen om helikopterpiloterna som glatt sköt ihjäl civilister läckte ut har Wikileaks varit en nagel i ögat på ganska många departement i bland annat USA. Nu försöker man på alla sätt att släcka ner det här, för att förhindra att transparensen i samhället får fortsätta.

För det är vad Wikileaks representerar: en möjlighet för oss vanliga dödliga att inse att majoriteten av de människor som sitter vid makten runt om i världen gör saker som är etiskt oförsvarbara och dessutom ljuger om det. Dessa människor vill se till att vi vanliga medborgare fortsätter vara en korkad fårskock medan de fortsätter att manipulera oss och göra saker som de själva sagt är olagliga och aldrig händer.

Utan Wikileaks kommer korruptionen i maktens korridorer att fortsätta och bli om möjligt ännu värre. Wikileaks behövs.

Men det är en obekväm organisation för just dessa människor och därför skyr de inga medel alls att försöka sätta käppar i hjulet. Där ingår att fabricera såna här smutskastningskampanjer.

Uppdatering: Fick precis reda på att anklagelserna hävts. Skönt! Det gör mig glad att det åtminstone finns lite vett kvar i det svenska rättssamhället.

Posted in Politics, The World. 10 Comments »

Remembering Colors

2010/08/20 — isecore

Yesterday an interesting little bit of trivia happened to me. As I was cooking dinner there was a knock on my apartment-door. Outside was an unfamiliar man, but he presented himself as my upstairs neighbor and informed me that their daughter had accidentally managed to drop some yellow doodad on my balcony, and could she have it back?

I confirmed that such a thingamabobber had indeed fallen on my balcony the previous day, but it was not yellow in color – it was purple. Yeah sure, that’s the one! Smiles all around as I quickly venture into my living room to fetch the aforementioned dohicky and return it to Daddy.

Funny though, because the doodad in question turned out to be teal in color. Neither yellow nor purple.

It’s interesting how poorly the brain seemingly remembers the color of things. This is not the first time that I’ve been mistaken about the color of some item. Interesting that we both completely mistook the color of this plastic thingamajig.

Posted in Miscellaneous, Thoughts And Such. No Comments »

I Want It: Dishrack

2010/08/14 — isecore

I find a lot of more or less creative solutions and industrial designs when I surf around the web. The stunning majority of them are crap – exercises from over-educated design students, and very rarely grounded in reality. Either they’re unrealistic from a technological standpoint, or they’re simply too weird or expensive to feasibly put into the real world.

But occasionally I find things that are funny, smart and would work. The funky baroque outdoor chairs are examples of that. Here’s another one.

This is a new take on the old dishrack, and I think it’s really clever. Whenever I have to handwash any dishes I often tend to get annoyed by the inflexibility of unmodular dishracks. They can’t be reconfigured and they only work in a certain way or setting. This one changes that, and I think it’s quite smart.

Now, where can I buy one?

Posted in Design. 1 Comment »

One Primary Reason Why I Prefer Ubuntu

2010/08/02 — isecore

I happened upon this image a few weeks ago, and I started thinking about it.

I started thinking about how Windows assumes that you’re a criminal, and it’s up to you as a user (through constant verification with Microsoft) to prove that you’re not. Unlike how most of civilized society views the legal process, where you’re innocent until proven guilty, Microsoft works the opposite way. You’re guilty until you continually prove your innocence.

And this annoys me. Because even if you’ve bought Windows, paid your hard-earned money for it, you’re still being treated as a potential criminal. Even if you’re a loyal customer to Microsoft, you’re still constantly being treated with a degree of mistrust. Even if you’ve bought and used nothing but Microsoft-produced software for all of your life, this still doesn’t qualify you to be completely trusted by them.

I find it both sad and kind of funny how many corporations today expect customers to keep buying their things, but still insist on treating them with dislike and as potential criminals. The movie and recording industry are prime examples here, but Microsoft does the same thing to a slightly lesser degree. When you run Windows, you’re not trusted. Not only are you not trusted to be running “genuine” software (whatever that means) you’re not trusted to take care of your computer. Windows will constantly treat you like a semi-retarded individual.

But, I digress. The point of this whole rant is that Windows (and by extension it’s creator, Microsoft) does not trust you. Like a greedy dragon it will lie on the golden pile, constantly watching you and constantly distrusting you.

Ubuntu, on the other hand, does trust you. It trusts you so far that you’re even allowed to peek at the source code, the magic sauce that makes it all happen – and even entrusts you with the power to modify this and share your modifications with the world. Ubuntu has no need to verify if it’s “genuine” since it’s always genuine. It’s redundant, and in the world of Ubuntu it’s as absurd as trying to sell shoes to fish.

Ubuntu does trust you, and doesn’t monitor you. It also does not treat you as a second-class individual and gives you the power. After that, it’s up to you to wield that power properly.

Posted in Computers, Linux/UNIX, Software, Windows. No Comments »

More Cowboys And Aliens

2010/08/01 — isecore

A little more than a year ago I mentioned the upcoming movie “Cowboys & Aliens” which I felt looked like a fun time. I recently checked up on it, and now there’s this intriguing photo of Daniel Craig looking all cowboy-y and wielding some type of alien device.

I still say that this looks like a fun movie. It’s directed by Jon Favreau and stars a lot of pretty big names, among others the aforementioned mr Craig as well as Harrison Ford, Sam Rockwell and Clancy Brown. I think it could be a good, somewhat whacky movie. Fingers crossed!

Posted in Fantasy, Movies, Science Fiction. No Comments »

What Kind Of Screw Is This?

2010/07/29 — isecore

I need to find a screwdriver that fits this, and if anyone out there in Internet-land knows what kind of screw this is it would be very helpful.

The screw in question (or screws, since there’s four of them) is located on an IBM drive-tray for my servers. I would very much like being able to replace the drives myself, and thus need to know what kind of screw it is. I’m leaning towards this being some weird IBM proprietary screw, but I also feel it should be pretty easy to locate a driver for it.

Basically it looks a lot like some torx-variant, but it has a pin in the middle. I hope you can make it out from my crappy macro-photography.

Posted in Computers, Hardware. 5 Comments »

Ett Inlägg Om Servrar Åt Min Söta Mamma

2010/07/07 — isecore

För ett tag sen pratade jag med min älskade mor om mitt projekt att drifta en “riktig” server som ersättare för dels min egen hemmaserver, men även åt diverse släkt och vänner för att slippa bökiga webhotell.

Under samtalets gång säger hon att hon är lite nyfiken, och frågar: “Hur stor är en server egentligen?”

Jag hummar en stund och försöker sen förklara att servrar som regel är rackmonterade, och därför är de platta och avlånga. Jag förklarar det här med hur man delar upp rack i units, dvs enheter, och hur de minsta servrarna tar upp 1U, dvs en enhet i racket. Hur det finns tjockare maskiner som tar upp kanske 2U eller mer. Jag förklarade att servrar är specialbyggda för att klämma in så mycket maskin som möjligt på så lite fysisk yta som möjligt, samt att det är fantastiskt bullriga maskiner då de är byggda för funktion, inte för form.

Nåväl. Ord via en telefon är alltid bra, men en fysisk demonstration är alltid bättre. I brist på fysisk demonstration får nedanstående exempel duga.

Tidigare idag var jag och Jocke och hämtade inte en, inte två, utan tre stycken fullt godkända servrar av fabrikat IBM. De väger uppskattningsvis ca 35 kilo styck. Det här är en av dem.

Först lite bilder:


Servern från ovan. Framsidan av maskinen är den svarta sidan närmast kameran.


En bättre vy över framsidan. De vita märkena är rester från dymo-märkningen av diskarna och maskinen i sig. Jag har plockat bort dessa märken då de inte längre fyller nån funktion, och lite senare ska jag sätta mig med nagellacksborttagningen och ta bort klisterresterna. Det är inte den vackraste framsidan jag sett på en dator, men den är funktionell. Maskinen har plats för totalt 6 stycken hot-swappable SCSI-hårddiskar, och fem stycken sitter i. Hot-swappable på vanlig svenska betyder att man kan rycka ut och byta hårddiskar under drift, dvs utan att behöva stänga av datorn.


Baksidan. Inte så jättespännande egentligen. Grundläggande portar för skärm och tangentbord. Fyra stycken nätverksportar – de flesta normala desktop-datorer har en. Längst till höger två stycken nätaggregat för att förse datorn med ström. Dessa är också hot-swappable, och redundanta, dvs om en av dem går sönder tar den andra automatiskt över.


Ett foto med locket av. Bokstavligt locket av, då man lyfter av överdelen av maskinen medelst en mycket smidig liten snäppgrej. Det här är kylningen för hela maskinen. Åtta stycken stora, fantastiskt bullriga fläktar.

Vilket för oss till den riktigt praktiska demonstrationen. En liten film jag spelade in med min digitalkamera där jag dels kopplar in strömmen, och sedan slår igång maskinen. Det ger en uppfattning om precis hur mycket oväsen den här saken för. Kom ihåg att det är mycket värre i verkligheten. Tänk en armé av hårtorkar som slår igång.

Jag vet inte om det hörs heller, men när man kopplar in strömmen i nätaggregatet slår fläkten igång, på lågt varvtal. Så länge strömmen är inkopplad snurrar den lågt och skapar ett tyst litet hummande. Sen trycker man på strömmen för datorn, och de där åtta stora fläktarna drar igång och skapar en mindre tornado. Ställer man sig på baksidan av datorn är det som en relativt stark fläkt som blåser.

När man lyfter av locket ökar bullernivån dramatiskt. Det här är med andra ord ingenting man vill ha hemma, igång dygnet runt. Såvida man inte vill bli tokig. Eller som jag, redan är det.

Posted in Computers, Hardware. 2 Comments »

Det Är Väldigt Sant

2010/07/01 — isecore

(Via: Stefan Flod)

Posted in Pictures, Politics. 1 Comment »

The Ownership of Sounds

2010/06/25 — isecore

So, about half an hour ago or so I was in my kitchen making a sallad. It’s midsummers-eve here in Sweden, and while I’m not partaking in any festivities I felt that something a little more festive was called for as far as dinner was concerned. Thus, I made chicken-salad. Quite lovely.

While pretending to know what the hell I was doing in the kitchen, I had some music on for companionship. One of my favorite songs is “God is a DJ” by Faithless. It’s a great dance-type song, and I never tire of listening to it.

This time however I noticed an interesting sound in the song. Faithless often uses odd bleeps, sweeps and loops in their songs, and this one sounded familiar. I’d probably noticed it before, but this time I paid attention to it. While my hands chopped various vegetables my mind stirred around and tried to remember where I’d heard that particular sound before.

After some mental wandering through my archives I remembered. It was from one of my all-time favorite movies, the masterpiece known as “Apocalypse Now“.

Apocalypse Now has a very interesting soundscape. The music is this odd synthesizer-and-percussion thing, and most of the soundscape is somewhat surreal and unreal – which goes well with the films somewhat bisarre themes. One of the more noticeable aspects of this is that a lot of the helicopter sounds have been replaced with similar-sounding (yet at the same time kind of alien) synthesizer-created sounds.

The very first minutes of the film demonstrates this, with the Huey swooping across the film with a distinctly non-Huey type sound.

It was this very sound I heard in “God is a DJ”. An odd, swooping type sound filling out the background.

I briefly wondered if Faithless had sampled it from the movie, and if so whether it was a legitimate (i.e. they asked for permission from the copyright holders) or whether it was a black-market sample. The latter option seemed much more logical, and while it’s a fairly uniquie soundbite it’s also quite generic to the untrained ear.

But then my mind continued thinking about this. What if they’d recreated the sound using the same type of equipment? What if Faithless discovered they could replicate the sound using completely different equipment?

So who owns the sound if an almost identical sound can be recreated using completely different equipment some twenty years after the “original” sound was created?

Could the copyright holders of Apocalypse decide that they owned the IP of that particular sound, and that any other sound created independently of that sound, sounds that weren’t completely identical but at the same time sounded similar enough, was in fact infringing on their intellectual property? That they owned the rights to every similar sound?

Of course it’s quite bizarre to think about, but it’s also essentially how the copyright-mafia works today so it wouldn’t really surprise me either if some crazed hollywood rights-holder unleashed a shitload of lawyers over this trivial matter.

Which in the long run reminds me that this IP-hostility only serves to stifle creativity. If Faithless had to leave out that sound due to threats of being sued into oblivion, then the rights-holder of that sound would’ve stifled innovation and creativity.

Kind of sad to think about.

(The sound in question can be heard here, in this Youtube-video of the very introduction from Apocalypse Now. It’s the very first sound heard, the swoosh-swoosh-swoosh.)

Posted in Music, Technology, Thoughts And Such. No Comments »
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