This is one of the oldest characteristics in who I am, and it’s been a part of me virtually as long as I’ve been aware of the concept of politics.

Sometimes I wish that I could be ignorant and naive and believe the hogwash that politicians tell us. Sometimes I wish that I could stop thinking, and stop seeing how hollow their promises are. Sometimes I wish for the ignorance and bliss that might come with it.

But I can’t. I lost faith in politics and the people involved with it long time ago, and for each year that passes this lack of faith gets stronger.

When I went to school we were taught about democracy and parlamentarism. That the power wielded by politicians were given to them by us, the people. That this power was wielded to promote the happiness and security of the common man. That politicians worked for us, and to further to goals of peace, prosperity and safety.

Sadly this turned out to be a lie. Today the common people exist simply to promote politicians. Politicians who have long since become corrupt and lost touch with why the got into this system in the first place. Politicians who’ve become almost autocratic, and who feel that they’re above the rules. Politics have become draconian systems to keep the common man in place, and our elected politicians are ignoring our opinions in order to further their own hidden agendas. The saddest thing is that we’ve become to complacent that we stop caring, and every time there’s an election we listen to the lies and we vote in another bunch of crooks.

My own lack of faith in politics and the lack of goodness in people involved with it saddens me. But it’s nothing compared to the sadness I feel when I see how badly they country is managed, and how unabashedly the lies are thrown in our faces these last few weeks before election.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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.

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.

(Via: Stefan Flod)