Newtown redux: Raising Adam Lanza

By pure chance I went to see what science documentaries were available on Hulu and ended up at PBS, thinking I might find something interesting on Nova. Yes, I do have other things I should be doing, but finding Frontline's story, "Raising Adam Lanza" gave me an opportunity to publicly admit I was wrong in a previous post.

Frontline's story on the shooting appears to be a two-part series starting on February 19, but some portion of the story has already been printed at the Hartford Courant. Despite some of my assumptions in my previous post - and the fact that Adam was sent to a private Catholic school for a time - the statement that I heard said by Adam's aunt that his mother bought the guns she bought "for protection" was likely errant.

To the contrary, the story describes this as "... a portrait of a mother, apparently devoted but perhaps misguided, struggling to find her son a place in society, ..." and reading the article certainly paints it that way. I can't say the article explains anything, though, because the descriptions remain frustratingly superficial. I perceive a "blame the mother" vibe that I don't really care for but we aren't given much to empathize with either. In the end, I suspect that reality will be just as frustrating.

Annoyed by news - CT shooting

[Disclaimer: This is a rant. I don't know Adam Lanza or his mother. I don't know anyone's motives; the latest I've heard is that Mr. Lanza killed his mother and wanted to destroy everything that she loved (more than him, presumably.) Facts are unknown and there are many missing pieces which may require changes to this story. I'll post a corrected story in due time if anyone is interested, but for now this is a rant.]



I get annoyed easily; news reports of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut not excepting.

News is always asking people what they think about the events, and many people seem to have responses at the ready. I haven't heard it yet, but I fully expect words like "evil" and "coward" to be bandied about by the same people who say there's no need for stricter gun control laws.

This is where I get most annoyed and want to put the blame for the shooting - this shooting and arguably every mass shooting for the past decade - squarely on Fox News.

You may consider this a logical incongruity but in the past few years and especially in recent weeks there have been a lot of shootings. Of the most recent, people are drawing parallels to the Columbine shooting, of which there are none. But there was a recent mass shooting at a mall in Portland, Oregon and not too long before at a movie theatre in Colorado. I've heard mention of the Virginia Tech shootings. Oddly, the one shooting I haven't heard about again is the massacre of a group of Amish children in Pennsylvania. This is the only shooting even remotely similar to the one in Connecticut.

Meanwhile, Florida has issued it's one-millionth concealed firearm permit. The nation is, in my opinion, now officially gun-crazy.

But why? From where does this insanity originate?

The only news broadcasting station that I hear repeatedly harp on about guns is Fox News. Their incessant message about Obama taking away people's guns is absolute baloney and a present danger to American society. I'm not going to say that only crazy people listen to Fox, but crazy people listen only to Fox. Fox helps this along by repeating that everyone else is lying to them. It is the central repository for conspiracy theorists and paranoid schizophrenics in mainstream society.

And it's all lies. The only gun law Obama has signed has been to expand the ability of people to carry firearms into national parks.  And now, because of the rash of shootings, there will come a serious effort to bring about changes regarding gun ownership in America.

I do not support additional gun control laws, but it's going to happen, and it's going to happen specifically because of Fox News and their appeals to the insane.

I briefly happened to catch the local Fox News broadcast coverage of the Connecticut shooting as well. I watched less than three minutes before the anchor suggested that public schools are too dangerous for you to send your kids there, thus promoting their alternate views of private, at-home, conservative education over, you know, actual knowledge.

Meanwhile, I think of the girl in Pakistan who was shot in the head for the sole reason that she was a girl and she was in school. I think of all the shootings over there where girls' schools are routinely shot up because their religious education teaches that women are not to be informed. And I think of all the parents that send their daughters to school anyway because it's the right thing to do. And I'm saddened for the future of America.

I'm sad because our society tolerates this Fox nonsense. I'm sad that Fox is encouraging us to be more like Pakistan: to fear public schools and turn into ourselves - just our families and our guns and our tribes and our ignorance and superstition; to believe that anything we try to do together as a society is a failure. I'm sad that there is no meaningful distinction between Fox News and the Republican Party and I'm sad that either of them still exist.

And so I wonder.

Would we be better off without guns? Do they serve a role in society? Why does a female substitute kindergarten teacher feel the need to own a Glock, a Sig Sauer, and a .223 Bushmaster M4 carbine rifle?

Can we rely on our second amendment protections to make us a more thoughtful society: not to rush to say that guns must be banned, but to peer into society itself to see the diseases within. Can it be argued that the tumult of gun violence augers a early-warning signal that society itself is deteriorating? That the deaths of a few innocents, as tragic and incomprehensible as they are, are sirens warning us to take heed, and save us as Americans from the deeper, truer threats to our civilization?

Or are we content to just say that this is what evil cowards do and that guns are both the problem and the solution?

Florida's "Stand Your Ground" Controversy

disclaimer: This has been sitting far too long as a draft. I'll add links and/or expand this post later, as I see fit.

Swimming Against the Tides of Madness

 

A brief discussion about Stand Your Ground

 

Florida's "Stand Your Ground" laws, which became in effect in 2005, have recently come under scrutiny because of the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. I assume you've heard of this.

According to recent surveys, it is generally asserted that this law is good policy. Here are the pertinent numbers:

38. Florida has a law that says a person is legally entitled to fight back with deadly force if they feel threatened, even if they could retreat instead. Do you support or oppose that law?

                     Tot    Rep    Dem    Ind    Men    Wom    Wht    Blk    Hsp
 
Support             56%    78%    32%    58%    65%    48%    61%    30%    53%
Oppose              35     15     59     35     31     39     31     56     36
DK/NA                 8      7      9      8      4     12      7     14     11
 
                     North/                             AREA...............
                     Panhd  Bay    Cntrl  SthW   SthE   Urban  Suburb Rural
 
Support              65%    59%    57%    57%    46%    50%    58%    67%
Oppose               30     33     34     32     44     39     37     26
DK/NA                 6      8      9     11     10     12      6      6

White and Hispanic generally support the laws more than Black; Men more than Women; and Panhandle/Rural more than Urban.

Recently, a man described by neighbors as the neighborhood nutjob shot and killed a door-to-door salesman because, he claims, he was "in fear" of the salesman. First, he shot the salesman in the shoulder as he approached. Then, after falling to the ground, he shot him once in the back of the head.

Can "Stand Your Ground" be used a defense here? What is the law?

First, a disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I have heard lawyers talk about this issue. I am writing this up so that I have a single page where I can point others to my thoughts.

Why was "Stand Your Ground" Needed?

 

Prior to 2005, Florida had two primary protections for people who use "self-defense" as a legal defense. The first is called the "Castle Doctrine". Under the concept that a Man's Home is His Castle, you have the right to use deadly force at any time from within your home or vehicle. If someone arrives at your door with a hammer and screwdriver, you can shoot them right through the door as long as they have no legal right to enter.

The second protection is self-defense in a public place. Here, the victim is obligated one action: the duty to retreat, and this duty is limited to those times where it can be done safely. Does the assailant have a gun? You cannot outrun a bullet and so have the right to use deadly force. If you run away will they be able to grab you? If yes, then you have the right to use deadly force.

Do we think that these laws are too restrictive? That they penalize the victims of assault?

What does Stand Your Ground do then?

So what is it that "Stand Your Ground" actually does? In short, it removes the duty to retreat. It applies the Castle Doctrine to anywhere you can legally be. But it does more than that as well. Here is the pertinent part of the text:

[...] person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

Here is the text in the actual statute, where it is split up among the many defensible uses of force.

So there are a couple new things in there ... we're not talking self-defense any more when someone can use deadly force to (a) "prevent ... bodily harm to ... another" or (b) "prevent the commission of a forcible felony".

Let's imagine that you're part of a membership organization that has some cross-town rivals. The Bloods and the Crips, say, or the Hatfields and the McCoys. Everyone's just hanging out polishing their guns when one of them suddenly goes off. Being in fear of their lives, everyone starts shooting in order to prevent bodily harm to someone else.

But wait - it was an accident you say. There was no imminent harm. The law doesn't care if there was a real threat or not - only that the person using deadly force "reasonably believes" there is. And this person doesn't need to feel personally threatened as long as they think they are preventing a forcible felony.

Congratulations, you've just legalized full-out gang warfare.

But wait, there's more!

So, wait a second ... what's a forcible felony?

776.08 Forcible felony.—“Forcible felony” means treason; murder; manslaughter; sexual battery; carjacking; home-invasion robbery; robbery; burglary; arson; kidnapping; aggravated assault; aggravated battery; aggravated stalking; aircraft piracy; unlawful throwing, placing, or discharging of a destructive device or bomb; and any other felony which involves the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual.

Aha - discharging a destructive device is a forcible felony. So if you reasonably believe that you need to kill someone in order to prevent them from shooting their gun (again), in our scenario, go right ahead. According to the Stand Your Ground law, you are:

immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force.

So the OK Corral it is!


But let's start with something simpler. "Aggravated assault" - that sounds dangerous, too. What is it?

An Aggravated Assault is (emphasis mine) an Assault (a) with a deadly weapon without intent to kill or (b) with intent to commit a felony. An Assault is "an intentional, unlawful threat by word or act to do violence to the person of another, coupled with an apparent ability to do so, and doing some act which creates a well-founded fear in such other person that such violence is imminent."

Hmm.

Perhaps you may want to think twice about the next time you say something along the lines of "Come over here so I can beat you with this hammer." Especially if you actually have a hammer. It may just be the last thing you ever say.

Now why, exactly, is this necessary?

Random thought:

I've heard people say that Zimmerman can't use SYG as a defense because he initiated the confrontation. Well, here's what the law says (again, emphasis mine):

776.041 Use of force by aggressor.—The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who:

(1) Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or

(2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:

(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or

(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.

So, here's the scenario: I chase you down. I start a fight. You turn around to defend yourself and I indicate that I am withdrawing and wish to terminate my use of force. You accept and begin to walk away. I punch you again. This time when you turn around and I clearly state my intention to withdraw you decide you've had enough and take a swing at me. Bang, you're dead, and I'm free. Even better, my buddy defends me so we have witnesses with corroborating accounts.


What is most sad is the ignorance espoused online. David Gray claims SYG was established for very valid, necessary, and common sense reasons. I would like to actually hear what those reasons are. I think the reality is more like the Tampa Bay Tribune states: these laws are really being used by violent criminals. They are unnecessary and not good policy.

Speaking of the Tampa Bay Tribune, they have published an excellent exposé on Stand Your Ground and shown numerous examples of who this law is really protecting.

And here's the final report to the governor, which I have not read: http://floridastandyourground.org/

Oil Imports and Debt Crisis

People, in general, are incredibly bad at math, numbers, and scale.


Numbers, Inflation, Scale

The ancient Sumerians used a Sexagesimal numbering system, from whence most of us get our counting systems for things like clocks (60 minutes, seconds) and degrees (360° (6×60) in a circle).  This was most likely helpful in calculating fractions, but I ponder whether it represents some human limit of scale.

If I were to ask someone what they were doing 60 seconds ago, I could get an answer pretty quickly.  If I asked what they were doing 3600 seconds ago I would get a blank stare for a few seconds, until they realized that that's only an hour ago, and then I'd get an answer pretty quickly.  Somewhere between 60 and 3600 lies a comprehension boundary - our minds simply can't handle that level of scale.

Given that, what is the likelihood that we can understand a number like one million?  It's really pretty low.  As fast as you can answer, what were you doing one million seconds ago?  Is that a month?  A year?  How about one billion seconds ago?

Numbers like "million" and "billion" have no meaning because they are literally incomprehensible to us.  One million seconds was about 11 days ago; one billion seconds is about 32 years.  Notice that I didn't say 11,500 days, nor did I say 2 weeks and 1,653 weeks ... quickly: About how many years is 1,653 weeks?)

The decimal system lets out throw out these numbers without doing divisions by 7 or 60 quite easily, but that doesn't mean we truly understand them or that the issue is limited to measurements of time.  See the video link for a simple demonstration much better than I can describe.

Now, what does this have to do with inflation?  Inflation is bad for many reasons.  It's the fairest of the flat taxes - a simple devaluing of purchasing power.  Yes, it's a tax paid to bankers, but they only take 6% and pass the rest on to the Treasury (here in the U.S.)

But the insidious part is that they make all the numbers bigger, and by extension, less comprehensible.


Deficits, Interest, Money

So - the deficit this year is estimated to be 1.56 trillion dollars, a bit above our legal debt limit of 1.4 trillion dollars.  (Quickly: what does one trillion dollars look like?) Well, what is a deficit? Quite simply, that's how much more we will spend than we earned.  Or: that's how much we had borrow so far this year (the U.S. fiscal year ends in September so this isn't all from January.)

That's a lot of cash.  The debt -- how much we owe in total -- is about 5 times larger.  And each year it increases by that year's deficit.  Taking a quick look at the 2010 budget we see that interest on the debt was $150 billion.  Income taxes brought in about $1 trillion (I'm using round numbers in the most optimistic way).  That means that for each dollar you paid in income taxes, 15 cents went to pay interest.

Except that this isn't paid to the bank (well, it is, now that the Fed is buying treasuries, taking 6%, and then giving the rest back to the treasury department), but also to other nations, like China, who now hold more U.S. debt than any other nation - about 20%.  So for every dollar you pay in taxes, 3 cents goes directly to China just for holding our debt.

3 cents -- 3%.  That's the same amount that everyone was an in uproar about when Obama wanted to raise the tax rates on people earning over $250,000 a year - from 33% to 36% and from 35% to 39.6%.  And that's only on the amounts over $250,000.

If you look at the projections things start to look pretty grim.  I'm going to gloss over some stuff here, but suffice it to say that the Federal Reserve is pursuing inflationary policy in order to sustain housing prices.  Loss of housing value means foreclosures which means bank losses which means minimum capital reserve requirements failures which means loss of bank credit which means loss of dollars which means deflation which means more defaults (because money literally becomes scarce - similar in effect but different to the liquidity crisis) which eventually means the end of the world monetary system as we know it.  While that would probably not be a bad thing, it would be very painful and lots of politicians and bankers would likely lose their jobs so don't expect to see that any time soon.

So the first item of business is to tackle the deficit.  People like to call this "get spending under control".  This is said out or either ignorance or irresponsibility.  In short, the problem is that the rent is too damn high, and anyone supporting the elimination of social security or medicare will not get reëlected.  People who want to cut defense spending tend to find themselves in the same boat.


Spending, Oil, Retirement

Listen: the problems are fairly simple.  Yes, we need to cut spending.  That appears to mean that we also need to stop electing people who call themselves conservative republicans.  We're sending money to "hostile" nations in exchange for oil.  We need to end this dependence, but today we can't.  The economics of it don't work because oil is still cheap.  We cannot spend ("invest") more money in this battle as a nation -- because we don't have any.

So what do we do?  We impose a constitutionally-allowed tariff on all imported oil.

Today, oil trades around $90 per barrel. We can impose a $1 per barrel tariff on all imported oil.  Domestic producers win because they can charge more for their goods.  The higher price allows renewables to be more cost competitive.  Supply and demand dictates that usage wanes, so we can forgo all the cap-and-trade and carbon tax talk.  Efficiencies will increase, mostly because they always do, but now there's additional incentive.  And the revenue can pay down the deficit.

... or can it?

We hear a lot about imported oil, and we do import a lot: somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million barrels a day in fact.  (Quickly: How much is 10 million barrels?  Google tells me that it converts into about 1.5 million cubic meters, but how big is 1 million cubic meters?)  Good - we can bring in $10 million a day.  That's a big number.

It's ... $3.5 billion a year.  A bit shy of our $1.5 trillion goal.  We'll have to increase that tariff from $1 per barrel to about $500 per barrel.  Do you think Americans would change anything if gas and fuel oil went from $3 per gallon to $15 per gallon?

But the best part of this news is that this is just to eliminate the deficit - to balance the budget.  Once we've done that we have to start to figure out how to pay off the other $14 trillion in existing debt.  That assumes, of course, that we don't elect any more conservative republicans and that none of the Baby Boomers retire.

But, in reality, how much additional federal spending would 76 million retirees actually add?

I can't imagine.  How about you?

Simple MPEG Trickery

In a previous life I occasionally created MPEG files from still images. I recently found some notes I'd taken and printed out. Since cloud services are all the rage these days, and because this may actually be useful to someone else (who knows?) I thought I'd save the notes here.

Disclaimer: I assume no responsibility for the horrendous formatting of blogger.com.

How to Convert Images to MPEG



Method 1

cat <file>               \
 | anytopnm              \
 | ppmtoy4m -n <n> -r    \
 | mpeg2enc -F 4 -q 1 -Q 5 -H -a 1 -2 1 -4 1 -o <file>.mpg

Explanation:

1. Convert the file to a pnm (portable anymap)
2. Convert the pnm to a y4m (YUV4MPEG2) stream.
• -n: Output a total of <n> frames.
• -r: Repeat last frame until <n>.
3. Convert the stream to MPEG
• -F 4: Format 4: Standard SVCD
• -q 1: Quantization (1..31; 1 is best quality)
• -Q 5: Quantization Reduction (0.0..5.0; 5 for sharp images)
• -H: Keep as much High Frequency information as possible.
• -a 1: Aspect ratio (1=1:1; 2=4:3; 3=16:9; 4=2.21:1)
• -4 1: Initial 4x4 subsample search quality (1..4; 1 for best quality)
• -2 1: Secondary 2x2 subsample quality (1..4; 1 for best quality)

Sadly, that's not as clean as it could be. It would seem that the quality settings do not affect the initial image. The longer the clip, the clearer the MPEG gets, until the new GOP, at which point it resets. I think it's a bug. The following produces larger images and is more complicated, but they are crystal clear. There must be an easier way to do this as well, preferably with a pipe. Transcode is just a wrapper ... I should be able to turn on debugging and find out what it is really doing under the hood.

Method 2

Step 1:

• Create the input source

cat <file>| anytopnm | ppmtoy4m -n <n>-r > <file>.y4m

Step 2:

• Transcode the Y4M to MPEG

transcode -C 3 -y ffmpeg,null -F mpeg1 -Q 5 -V -k -i <file>.y4m -o <file>

This creates <file>.m1v. MPEG1 produces slightly smaller files with no appreciable difference in quality.

Explanation

1. Convert the file to a pnm (portable anymap)
2. Convert the pnm to a y4m (YUV4MPEG2) stream.
• -n: Output a total of <n> frames.
• -r: Repeat last frame until <n>.
3. Convert the stream to MPEG
• -C 3: Anti-alias mode 3: Process Full Frame
• -y ffmpeg,null: Use ffmpeg video codec, no audio codec
• -F mpeg1: Option to tell ffmpeg to use mpeg1 encoder
• -Q 5: Encoding quality (0=fastest, 5=best)
• -V: Use YV12/I420 as internal video codec (fastest processing)
• -k: Swap red/blue (Cr/Cb) in video. Without this, people get blue faces
• -i: Input file name
• -o: Output file form (.m1v or other extension automatically appended).

Method 3

This looks like a very promising method (needs to be fleshed out)

cat <file>.y4m | ffmpeg -f yuv4mpegpipe -i - -target vcd -f mpeg1video -y <output>

or something like

ffmpeg [-f (yuv4mpegpipe)] -i <file> -target vcd [-f mpeg1video]? -y <output>

Explanation

1. Start with y4m (see above to create)
2. -target vcd seems to be the magic
3. -y is force overwrite

Method 4

This is a pretty good way to extend (loop) an MPEG. First, convert it to a YUV stream:


transcode -i <file> -o output -y yuv4mpeg -k

• The -k is the chroma conversion we need with YUV video

Next, there are two ways to proceed. mpeg2enc is slower, a little less quality, but better compression. ffmpeg is faster, better quality, and the commandline arguments make sense, but it produces bigger files.

Both of these work with yuv4mpeg streams as created in the steps above. The yuv4mpeg stream is text-based, and contains one line at the beginning of the file that need to be removed for looping. Repeat the sed command in the examples below to extend the MPEG duration.

1. mpeg2enc
• (cat <file>; sed 1d <file>) | mpeg2enc -v 1 -I 0 -f 8 -F 4 -n <n> -a 2 -o <ouput>
2. ffmpeg
• (cat <file>; sed 1d <file>) | ffmpeg -f yuv4mpegpipe -i - -target dvd -b 2000 -y <ouput>

Note: the '-b 2000' overrides the default bitrate to 2mbit. Raising the bitrate gives better quality video at the expense of larger file sizes.

Method 5

This is an all-in-one shot that I've been using with success:


cat <input>               \
 | anytopnm               \
 | pnmtoy4m -r -n 100     \
 | ffmpeg -f yuv4mpegpipe -i - -target vcd -f mpeg1video -y <output>.mpg

Converting Short MPEGs into Long MPEGs

Method 1

This is really just extracting a still frame and then extending it into an MPEG using Method 5 above:

1. Extract the first frame:
   
   transcode -i <short_mpeg> -o <framename> -y ppm -c 0-1
   
   
2. Convert it into an MPEG:
   
   cat <framename>000000.ppm            \
    | ppmtoy4m -r -n ((<seconds> * 30)) \
    | ffmpeg -f yuv4mpegpipe -i - -target vcd -f mpeg1video -y <output>.mpg
   
   

My Toaster is Amazing

So here's a simple example that shows my continuing childlike wonder .... or something.

My toaster is amazing.  Not that there's anything special about my toaster - it's a 2-slice Toastmaster.  I expect I bought it some 15 years ago for $15 or less, and most likely at Walmart.  I suppose what I find amazing about it, aside from toasters being one of the most reliable devices you'll ever buy, is that I don't really know how they work.

Now, I generally understand the electricity makes heat part, but the "brownness" selector is something of a mystery.  I always assumed that this was tied to a variable resistor that affected some timer.  Not so.

I don't really care to go shopping.  You may wonder if my brain just skipped the tracks.  A reasonable assumption but bear with me:  Because I don't care to shop, I tend to avoid it.  This means that I tend to "stock up" when I do go shopping.  Long story short, this means I have lots of bread in my freezer.

One day I thought I'd defrost some bread by popping it into the toaster.  It may be uneven and a bit crisp on the edges, but I can deal with that - or so I thought.  It turns out that the toaster toasts my bread to perfection even when it's initially frozen solid.  Clearly, this toaster is a more complex device than I had imagined.


In an assuredly unrelated topic, turkey and cheese on frozen wheat bread - 3 stars; turkey and cheese on toasted wheat bread - 11 !

A word-game riddle

A while ago I came up with a simple riddle while driving (no, I don't need a cell phone to be distracted, TYVM).  I haven't really figured out the best way to describe it, but this is the premise:

There exist sets of five words (in english) such that the only difference between the words is that one of the letters can be replaced by each of the five vowels.  As an example, the pattern "b_g" expands into "bag", "beg", "big", "bog", and "bug".  I believe all the three letter combinations are that plus "f_r", "p_p", "p_t", and "t_n".

I know of a similar set consisting of words of seven letters.  The challenge is to find it.  Is it the longest?

A secondary challenge is to simply find other sets, of any length.

Newspaper Clippings

Since living in Florida I've often wondered if the sun makes people insane.

I don't have much of a cohesive thought behind this, but I've recently been reading the local newspaper's website.  For lack of any better commentary, I'll simply quote the thoughts of those from my community.

The paper reports a story regarding raccoons becoming acclimated to humans and behaving aggressively.  Apparently they are being fed, either directly or indirectly by the people who feed the local feral cats, and as state law prevents the raccoons from being relocated, they will be trapped and chemically euthanized.  Among the 45 comments to the story are these gems:

Momekit writes:  "Did you know that Racoons also carry TB along with rabies --and they are also know for loving to eat your cats and killing your dog if they can.-They will attack you--as I have been almost run down by a pack. If they run away I say relocate them WAAAAAAAY out in no mans land. f they stand their ground --put them down- I had them try to rip into my camping tent with me and my two cats inside. I do not like them anymore -ever no not ever..WE had cats killed by them I know what I say as true along with 28 chickens -and a couple of geese..I know of a lady police woman tht had one for a pet that snapped 3 of her finger off before she could get them away from it. Some pet. Wild animals when wrown are dangerous and they will always be WILD. My kitties had a riht to life along with the chicken-of which some were down right pets--Now they are all dead becasue of racoons-Racoons do not belong around people or their pets.By the way they climb and sleep in trees eat N baby birds- squirls N kittens"

kittengirl replies:  "Momekit, Also watch out for the coyotes. They are now in our area. They have migrated to all over the Southern U.S. and Florida. They eat cats, dogs, raccoons, chickens, ducks, and children. One cornered me in my yard while I was gardening one time, and was sneaking up on me silently with a demon-like grin on his face. I barely got in my house in time. They run in large packs and you and your pets or children DO NOT STAND A CHANCE of getting away from them unhurt if the pack attacks.Even if you are in a camping tent, that will be no protection from them. They are far more dangerous than raccoons, and carry rabies.They should all be removed from our area."

I'd like to think that kittengirl was exercising her sharp wit here, but I'm not convinced that's the case.  What's more, the paper carries a ranking system of sorts, and these are the highest "Recommend"ed comments on the page.

Of course, there are also interesting threads about the feral cat problem.  Freelens has the problem solved:  "I bet if people stop feeding the feral cat colonies there would be a lot more birds laying a lot more eggs that the racoons could be eating."

Sadly, it appears that the feral cats are actually zombies.  From imqwerty: "Google "Florida feral cat attacks" for more...
VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — The Volusia County Health Department issued a rabies alert for 60 days Friday, following two unprovoked attacks on humans by feral cats within the past month.
In one case, a cat wandered into a house and attacked a woman inside. In the other, passing motorists who stop to aid a cat that had been hit by a car were attacked."

Elsewhere in the news, there is a community blog site.  rodrinck3 posts the following entry titled "Toe nail fungus": "A natural colon cleansing method is sure to make you healthier, boost your energy levels.Find how toe nail fungus treatment works.for more details go to genital warts"

Indeed.

Microsoft Security Essentials (SOLVED: 0x8004ff01)

Initially published 2010/03/18; updated 2013/05/01 to edit title in a poor-man's SEO effort

So ... ignoring the whole I'm actually installing Windows thing for a moment, in order to look at some software I'm installing Windows XP (XP because apparently I bought something that came with a license for it) in a virtual machine.

So I installed XP and then upgraded to service pack 3 via Windows Update.  It seemed like the right thing to do.  Meanwhile, Windows is complaining about my not having antivirus software installed.

I find something called Microsoft Security Essentials that can be installed for free, but it keeps failing with error code 0x8004ff01.  There's a link that can be clicked for help, but no help is to be found by following it.  The site even provides a search box but it knows nothing about the error code.

I figure maybe if I installed IE8 it would pull in whatever was hip and cool, but no such luck - the same error continues to manifest itself. While searching around on the web for how to solve this I find all sort of abstruse instructions involving editing the registry and rebooting a dozen times.  Ahh, Windows, how I never missed you.


However, using the gray stuff in my head (aka: taking a SWAG) I found the the answer is relatively straightforward: Download MSI 4.5 (the Windows Installer), which can be retrieved from here:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5A58B56F-60B6-4412-95B9-54D056D6F9F4&displaylang=en

Clicky-clicky and away you go.  Your Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3) gets a fancy new icon in the system tray, the antivirus warning icon goes away, and your computer is apparently suitably inoculated for travel to the internets.

Flash (savior of the universe?)

This morning I looked at my Watt's Up? meter and it read 160 watts.  I was expecting it to read around 110 based on my baseline measurement the other day.  I noticed that "Shockwave Flash" was consuming some 80% of my CPU so I killed it.  Now the meter reads about 97 watts.

Because I may be taking a trip soon I went to the Travelocity website.  They have a banner advertising their own service (thanks - I never would have heard of you otherwise) that for some reason just HAD to be done in flash.  Because, you know, you can't make a 4 frame GIF or something.

My Watt's Up? meter now reads 110 watts again.

Fight global warming: disable Flash.

Illuminating

I recently bought a Watt's Up? power meter and plugged my computer station into it.  Looking at the readout, it consumes about 110 Watts.

Wow, I thought, that seems like a lot.  Because, you know, it's over 100.  In some scales that could boil water.

Then one evening I turned on my little desk lamp and glanced at the power meter.  It read 150 Watts.  Wow again.  That seems like almost 50% more (though it's closer to 1/3)!

So I look, and the little lamp only has a 40 Watt bulb in it (at least that part of the math works out).

That seems ... disproportionate.

With 110 Watts, I can power a computer with its associated CPU, Hard Disks, Graphics Card, etc, a pair of speakers with a powered subwoofer, a 22" LCD, a cable modem, a wireless router, a keyboard and optical mouse, and recharge the battery in my UPS.  Using these I can talk to almost anyone in the world virtually instantaneously, watch movies, play music, learn about the world, and almost anything else intangible.

With 40 Watts, I can illuminate a small corner of my bedroom.


My bathroom lighting fixture has three bulbs: a 100 Watt and two 75s.  250 Watts to illuminate the smallest room in the house.  I could put a computer with 6 22" LCDs there instead, saving power and upgrading the lighting to a giant virtual seizure-inducing disco ball or psychedelic Lava^® lamp wall.

Or I could save all that energy and just comb my hair in the dark.

My First Blog

So .. this is something that I've half thought about doing for a while now and simply haven't been able to convince myself that anyone would care enough to even bother with. I still haven't done so, so this is just a start. I might feel differently inclined once I have a single, solitary, and oh, so sad, post.

Hopefully, I can edit this later.