27 Apr 2004

Tue, 27 Apr 2004 02:29:49 GMT

Moved my blog to moongroup.com.

22 Apr 2004

Thu, 22 Apr 2004 14:52:34 GMT

this is just a test... you can safely ignore this entry.

21 Feb 2004

Sat, 21 Feb 2004 18:56:29 GMT

So I've built a davinci rpm for x86_64 so I can maintain the blog remotely. This entry is it's first test.

24 Jan 2004

Sat, 24 Jan 2004 06:04:25 GMT

Wow, it's been a loooooooooooooooooooong time since I posted anything here.

Much has changed.

Lunar has come a long way... many, many releases!

I am no longer directly involved with LPI and my day job is teaching for Red Hat.

I guess, now that I am working with the Fedora Project I will try and keep track of what I'm doing on that project.

17 May 2002

Fri, 17 May 2002 18:53:30 GMT

harumph!

16 Jan 2002

Wed, 16 Jan 2002 20:02:02 GMT

travel

this week: home
next week: chicago
the week after: new york
march: hamburg, germany

11 Jan 2002

Fri, 11 Jan 2002 06:26:52 GMT

met ilan

6 Jan 2002

Sun, 6 Jan 2002 15:55:11 GMT

snow

11 Oct 2001

Thu, 11 Oct 2001 17:55:52 GMT

war

1. the taliban ambassador to pakistan says the US military is targeting civilans.

2. they say we've killed about 170 civilians now...

uhm... is it just me or do others see a problem with those two sentences? i posit that if the US military is targetting civilians they're doing a damn poor job of it. it seems to me that 170 people (and more) could be killed in a single strike if our military wanted it that way. ~sigh...

lug

going to a trilug meeting tonight. it's been a while!

travel

getting squared away for Comdex in Vegas... augh!

getting squared away for my trip to Linux West in Japan... double augh!

10 Oct 2001

Wed, 10 Oct 2001 19:59:48 GMT

war

i was thinking this morning that the prez's statement about "smokin' 'em out of their holes" was a bit deeper than it at first appeared. without really thinking about it i presumed it was nothing more than the rhetoric to be expected of an angry texan. but then i started listening and reading news about what's happening in the streets of countries other than afghanistan. hmmmm....

all over the world people willing to use or support terrorism to promote their cause are making themselves known... very interesting! what is also interesting is that just like here in the west the east has cannon fodder... but just like here the cannon fodder is generally poorly educated and disadvantaged. ~sigh... it never changes. i guess the principle difference is that the economic advantages of the advantaged few enjoyed by the west have, thus far, out weighed the economic advantages of the advantaged few in the east. so the advantaged few in the east are using their wealth and superior intellect to convince those who are more easily led to commit horrific acts in the name of god. do they really believe this will bring equity? somehow i think they don't... i think their motives have nothing to do with righting wrongs... i think their goals are much simpler... they want power and are willing to sacrifice anyone but themselves to get it!

it's frightening to see the eastern cannon fodder saying publicly that they want to kill people like me and what is worse still is they've been convinced that god is encouraging them to do so. lunacy.

on the other side of all of this it's been nice to see some of the other responses from easterners. one of the best examples was a young pakistani woman at a concert making a few comments about how everyone in her society wasn't a radical who hated the west. it made for a nice contrast after being fed a steady diet of street violence for 3 or 4 days. i already knew that the entire hemisphere was not insane but it was nice to see it any way.

so what's it coming down to? is it east vs. west in a global game of tag? will we spend the next 10 or 20 years counting coup? makes me wish i could find base and stay there... but... like the man in the cowboy hat said... "you're either with us or against us"

so what to do...? if it came down to simple mortality i'd certainly choose life for me and mine... i don't want my wife or my 10 year old son dead at the hands of some undereducated savage grinding a rich asshole's axe (while said rich asshole hides out in a cave and makes maniacal videos). so... if i have to choose and there's no safe place left because the combatants have made it that way then i guess if it comes to it i will choose to be a combatant as well... at least that way i have a chance of influencing the outcome for myself and my family. it's been a long time since i've owned a gun... i guess it's time... better safe than sorry. at least, in this country, i still have a right to own a gun (for now) and just maybe the troubles won't come down my street.

are these the kinds of thoughts the folks on flight 93 had before they made their decision to fight?

funny thing is... 10 years ago i was being shot at by people who made the same kind of noise about jihad for all the same reasons... it was all about power then too! when it was just me i didn't much mind the danger... and even though i thought we left the field too soon that was okay at the time... but now it's not just me anymore... we shouldn't leave so soon this time... we should finish it.

conclusion: they've miscalculated the breadth and depth of western resolve. the west is not perfect but it's not craven either. we have an old adage i've heard all my life... "the squeaky wheel gets the grease".

Advogato blog for csm