ACIM

I have started a new blog. It will be about my interest in the "A Course in Miracles" book and it's impact on my day to day life.

Well it has been a while, updating

My Toshiba m10 now runs ubuntu. Opensolaris looks like a dead end at least for running on my computers.I have let this blog hang in the breeze for a while, but I have decided to get back into it, for a couple of reasons. First I retired last year. I quit Oracle. I would work in computers again, but I am not driving 50 miles a day, or allowing someone else to define my hours of work. I want to spend the rest of my life doing something I really care about. I don't want to join Facebook I really don't trust that guy's software running in my computers.

This is the place where friends and family can find out what I think.

I live in a gated community with all the drama I could ever want. I try to avoid it as much as I can. I am applying for veterans benefits as I am a Viet Nam veteran. I can say that now that no one is going to hold it against me. It sucks dragging up those old feelings, but it had to be done. I could use the extra money being retired and all.

I live here in North Carolina with my wife who loves me and puts up with my cranky pants attitude.

I spend time learning mandolin, writing the VA, feeding the birds, and praying. I would like to sail more, but I haven't gotten a sail boat yet.

I intend to write about my communications with the VA, how I feel about government, and my day to day experiences as I settle into retirement. I plan to write once a week, unless I get a job.

Here is to a new start on my blog.

OpenSolaris preloaded on a Toshiba laptop

Well I got my Toshiba M10 with OpenSolaris last week, and I pretty much an able to use it for my desktop. It came with a Nevada build 101b and I have been able to set up my business email client (thunderbird), business IM client (Pidgin), my web browser is firefox.

I have made wired and wireless network connections using a tool/process called nwam. It uses dhcp to set up the connection automatically. There is a problem with nwam and wifi connections if the wifi is using wpa, but so far that hasn't stopped me from getting connected using my favorite choice a Cradlepoint wifi router and a EVDO cellular modem. I can connect to the internet anywhere my cell phone works. Even vpn works with this set up.

I have been able to share my desktop in my business network, with applications which were bundled with the Nevada 101b build.

The laptop was able to mount my SD card and show pictures that were on the card, and the laptop held on the battery for over two hours. The built in web camera worked great but I had to load the cheese application from the repository. Loading from the repository is easy, bring up the package manager, find the cheese application, and load it.

The overall I am happy so far with my new laptop, but I expect more of the functions to work in the next release of Nevada, and I expect more information to come out about things like the smart card slot on the side.

I had a little trouble with setting up the extras repository, but a quick visit to the forum at http://www.opensolaris.com and all was well. My laptop is currently set up for three repositories opensolaris.org/release opensolaris.org/webstack and pkg.sun.com/extras the extras needs to use ssl keys to connect. Next blog will cover some of the development applications set up.

Well the election is over, time for change.

Well the election is over and the American people won.

Most of this blog in the past has been focused on politics, but recently I have ordered a Toshiba laptop computer, pre-loaded with OpenSolaris , and I am going to start blogging my experience in using the laptop as my personal and business laptop.

I have worked in the IT field since the mid eighties, that gives me over 20 years of experience working with the computer as a desktop and laptop tool.

The people I ordered the Toshiba laptop from, tell me I have nine days until it ships. I can't wait!

Regulation who needs it

Greenspan: Fed isn't a 'magical piggy bank'

My take on this article is that Greenspan is asking that an agency be set up to handle situations like the home mortgage meltdown, but I don't get it. The way I see it these meltdowns come from a failure by the government to regulate these industries in the public interest.

I see 4 dollar a gallon gas as a failure of the government to see and recognize oil as a commodity that needs to be regulated to protect the public interest, not big oils interest. The government of America has allowed America to be increasingly dependent on foreign oil, to the point now where it will take 10 years to correct it. If the government had done its job by recognizing our growing dependence on foreign oil they could have regulated the industry to energy resources available domestically. That didn't happen, and I don't think it was a accident, I think the current government drove us into this ditch, for the benefit of the oil industry.

I see the mortgage meltdown pretty much the same way, When the government deregulated the banking industry, the banks and the mortgage companies, pretty much got richer, with the lower regulations, and everybody was happy as long a things are going good. But, regulations are to protect the public interest when thing go bad. Now that things are bad and the industry has gotten all their commissions the taxpayer is left to pay up.

In general I see many of the problems facing our country today, are caused by the governments failure to determine what needs to regulated in the public interest, and setting policies and regulations to protect the publics interest. Today our country's oil policy was set behind the closed doors of Dick Cheney's office, but it is not hard to see that the oil industry came out the winner at the expense of the public interest. Is there anyone in the American government who really understands that there is a difference between public interest and big oil or big banks, If there is I'm not seeing it.

Today's editorial

In the news today, I heard someone say that McCellen needs to prove his statements, but I don't see it that way. McCellen's book stands in the vacuum created by the Bush administration's inability to effectively communicate their policy on the war, in a way, that the American people can believe. It was the vacuum that pulled the book into being. The world, the American congress, the American people, and now it seems members of the Bush administration, have been waiting for the spin to stop and to hear an open honest reason of why over 4000 soldiers have died and hundreds of billions of dollars have gone down the drain.

The Bush administration's failure to communicate candidly with America, no less, has discredited not only Bush, but the Presidency itself.

An old political quote goes;

"You can fool some of the people all the time, You can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

Like the lessons America learned in Viet Nam, the Bush administration is trying to prove the quote is wrong, at America's expense.

I think it time to elect people who learn from their fathers and their mistakes, not make up the rules as they go along.

dream

rove, rove, rove your bush gently down the libby. cheney cheney, cheney, cheney life is but a dream