Zaphod's Deepest Thoughts

2012, Doomsayers, The End of Time, and Cataclysm.

Okay, I am going to make my 2012 predictions now, and go on record with them.

IN 2012 NOTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY THAT COULD BE CALLED A CATACLYSM WILL HAPPEN.

There. I said it. The Mayan calendar will reset, and life will go on. But I also predict, that in 2012, the sensationalist fear-mongers will say they got it wrong, and the actual end of the Mayan calendar is in 2013, or 2014, or 2015, or or or, I believe some will even go as far as saying 2112! To these people, this voice from the then past says... SHUT THE HELL UP! You may not keep the sheeple amongst us living in a constant state of fear. Panicked worrywarts give me a sour stomach from empathy. You may play until the end of 2012, but after that...

GET A JOB, YOU WERE WRONG, YOU WILL ALWAYS BE WRONG, LEAVE HUMANITY ALONE YOU UNBELIEVABLE IDIOTS.

YOU ARE NOT A PROPHET. YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL. YOU HAVE NO POSITION OF AUTHORITY. YOU HAVE DESTROYED LIVES.

And to those of you who were misled by these idiots, I have nothing but pity, understanding, and sympathy for you. Humans in general have always been into sensationalism, it is no fault of your own that you listened to these self proclaimed authorities. This might sound hypocritical, but put your faith in the Lord, for at least with that group, no one knows the hour of his return. They believe you should live your life in peace and just keep yourself an outstanding individual to be safe. Sounds good to me. Well, if ya gotta invest your time believing in something intangible, why not?

For those of you who call bull on this, good, you can't be fooled into wasting your life in fear of the end.

Oh, btw, the world will end, NO ONE KNOWS WHEN. But I guarantee, someday, we will be smacked by a big rock, maybe even a planet, chunk of stellar core, or the ultimate insult to all we've done and created, sucked into a black hole. Yes, it will end, but to waste your time worrying about it, sure wastes the precious moments of your life. Just think if all that time you spent worrying about you, and your lot in life, you spent worrying about the animals at your local shelter, the old and feeble, the starving amongst us.

What I think the main distillation of all this is...

Doomsayers are psychic vampires. Are you food?

Zap :)

Radio Contests Can Lead to Personal Information Disclosure.

There is this local radio station I enjoy very much, KTWO AM . I use them for my daily dose of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, plus Coast to Coast AM. Lately, they have been running a "Listener Fan Club" type contest thing, where if you enter certain words e-mailed to you, and said on the air, into their website, you can redeem these for prizes. Great, so I played the game for awhile, earned some points, and went to redeem them for a compact fluorescent light bulb.

SURPRISE! To claim it you had to fill out a IRS form W9, and give it to them.

Never before in the past had I need to fill out a W9 for promotional materials,

Now, as far as I knew, non-monetary prizes were not considered income unless the amount was extreme. But still, the thought of turning over my social security number to a radio station I am not employed by, just to claim a less than $1.00 (before store mark-up) compact fluorescent light bulb, sets off alarm bells. In this age of information theft, I am suspect of anyone reaching for my SSN without need.

I probably wouldn't mind as much if I had to send the W9 into the IRS myself, but leaving my SSN in the files of a non-related entity bothers me. As it stands now, I am not going to claim my prize due to this, and further, I am going to drop out of their "fan club" and send all further contacts to the trash in my e-mail. Sadly since there is no way to un-join the fan-club on the website, I will probably have to flag it as spam.

Now, before you freak out, I hold the Talent, DJs, newscasters, and even the station's GM, faultless. I do however suspect something fishy in the bean-counting department, or the middle/upper management. Your social security number just shouldn't be given out like this, nor should it be used for identification. Any business I can think of, would normally just write off such a small amount as the cost of doing business. I even have doubt the DJs know about this W9 silliness.

Even stranger, I am still going to listen to this station, because I like the people running it, and the content. However, in my opinion, they really need to be bought be a local benefactor, and given more control over their destiny... I do not believe the corporation holding title to KTWO has the best interests of the people of Wyoming at heart.

This article and content of this site in whole, is opinion covered under the 1st Amendment, and is not to be taken as an endorsement, nor detractment of any product or service.

Question answered about the Sylvania SMPK2242, and more!

Yet more adventures with my SMPK2242!

J. H. Wrote in to ask me some questions and after answering them, he thought I should post it in the blog, so here goes.

***BEGIN Q/A***

Q: "Do you know of a firmware update that will allow you to play unlicensed mp3's on the player? I have 5 mp3 players in the house with everyone using different applications to transfer the music (songbird being the newest addition) and this is the only device that isn't working properly."

A:Simple, just connect it so it comes up as a USB hard drive, and put all your MP3s in /MUSIC.

Just as the videos go in /VIDEO.

Honestly, I never installed the bit that lets it work with Windows Media Player, as it would probably try to lock up the device as DRM only (Why? So [Company-X] could make you rent things you already own!).

I Just save things to it, as if it were a normal USB drive (Using windows explorer under Start/Programs/Accessories , it appears as Removable Disk Drive G: on my system. Yours may vary.) So next time you connect it to your PC, don't select MTP device, select USB drive. No special conversion is needed for non DRM mp3s, just copy them to the right directory on the device.

As far as I can tell, the SMPK2242 is one of the most OPEN players out there.

Zaphod

P.S. I repeat, no special programs are needed for the SMPK2242! Get back to me if you need more help.

***END Q/A***

I also added later, that the SMPK2242 can also play .ogg without modification, and that one can put in subdirectories like "/MUSIC/Heavy Metal/AC-DC" or "/VIDEO/Music Videos/New Age/Enya/" to keep things organized.

Of course, I can't leave well enough alone, so I did research on the Curtis International website, about what other Personal Medial Players they have that use the same codecs and media type, found out that the data on the TRANSCODING HELP PAGE should also work with these models:

SYLVANIA SMPK1072
SYLVANIA SMPK2072
SYLVANIA SMPK2242 (My model the page was made for!)
SYLVANIA SMPK8854
SYLVANIA SMPK8854B
SYLVANIA SMPK8858

CURTIS MPK7836
CURTIS MPK7836UK
CURTIS MPK8854

And I would assume, many other off brand players that use the AVI container, and the XviD codec may benefit too. Be mindful to match your player's screen resolution with that in the encoder.

If you have any more questions, get back to me at my CONTACT page!

Zap!

Gloom and doom for the USA?

I don't think so, but this Russian does.

Personally, I think he's full of it, especially in the way the country is supposed to split up.

If I had to look at this as being an issue, turmoil in North America, and how it would divide up, here is my map of it.

Okay, that seems rather simplistic, till you consider my sources of input on the subject, which are the 2008 election maps (displayed further down), and a knowledge of certain things.

1. Where population centers are, and what influence they would have on soldiers able to be provided to the front.

2. General survivability of people in a breakdown of society, based upon the level of societal support they currently enjoy, and current lifestyle choices (Ever go hunting? Ever go fishing? Ever go camping? Ever go backpacking? These people who do can survive with allot less support than people who live in cities.).

3. Where most of the military hardware of the countries is stored, and where most of the soldiers serving in said military come from (loyalty).

4. Pincer movements between any two areas of stronger influence crushing a weaker area in between.

5. Ability to receive material support from foreign allies (ports).

6. The constant threat of Tijuana and their drug cartels being neutralized by absorption.

7. Disgruntlement of people being ruled by far off regions.

8. Historical division of areas of production vs. areas of transshipping and middlemen/management.

And finally...

9. The most recent (2008) elections, which areas supported which idealism. Here are the maps of those...

Source: US Elections Board.
Red=Right Wing/Conservative.
Blue=Left Wing/Liberal.
Note: Alaska went conservative also. (Sarah Palin, Conservative V.P. Candidate was governor of Alaska)

Source: Wikimedia Foundation.

Looks pretty clear and clean cut to me. So, lets hope, for the sake of silly pie in the sky leftists, and general ethics, that we don't decay into civil war. But if we do, I do believe my side of things will come out on top. Good will always triumph over evil. And you need to ask yourself, what IS good, and do your intentions lie in line with the classic definition of good.

If you can't tell intuitively what good is, then I bet you are in one of those areas not marked as being the new United States.

Zap!

Why Detroit (and soon the rest of the auto industry) Is In the Crapper.

I'll be as short (Yeah, right, sureeee, I'm angry!) as I can about this. They say that Detroit has run out of ideas... baloney.

Detroit has plenty of ideas, and they have rejected all of them! Why you ask?

COWARDICE!
(and of course, the pointy haired boss)
(with apologies to the great S. Adams)

For years and years, the best and brightest minds in Detroit, the engineers and designers, have been dreaming up the most fantastic, yet attainable cars. They were capitalizing on Americas greatest power, our power to invent!

But then, as usual, some pointy haired boss who couldn't grasp the new car, or even the concept of the new car any further than the fact there was a "concept" in there somewhere...

Slapped the label "concept" on it, showed it to his friends, and relegated it to the dumpster.

Cars that could break 200 miles an hour and hold it for as long as you like.

One seater commuter cars that had room for you, your briefcase, and the ability to go 300 miles on a 3 gallon tank.

Cars that would parallel park themselves at a push of a button.

Electric cars that could run 40 miles on a charge. (For getting back and forth from work, that's all most people need)

Cars that would last for 1,000,000 miles. (Semi tractors do it all the time)

I could rabbit on and on, but the truth of the matter is, since the higher ups in the companies couldn't appreciate how much the public would want one of these vehicles, since they were afraid of the risk in them, they never allowed any of them to reach production. No, they would say something like "Let's take last years model, and raise the trunk, and make it boxier... and we'll call it the Capri EX, as in s.E.X., and that will make people want it!" Then, because people buy it, for they have no other choice that stands apart from the rest of the cookie cutter cars, they think that it was wanted. WRONG!

Now, allot of you may be saying "Man, he's got it all wrong." Oh, have I? Why not talk to the American powerhouse in Milwaukee? Yes, none other than Harley-Davidson. Take a look at the V-Rod if you like, it's a living, breathing concept motorcycle in production. Sleek, fast, good looking, better handling, safe, everything a motorcycle should be! And it sold like mad! Now, Harley-Davidson pwns the world motorcycle market, and all it took was one truly original bike to bring them to light, and then innovative upgrades and redesigns on their big twins to keep them there.

Detroit, you've been a bunch of haughty fools following Japan, and doing nothing original. As a matter of fact, Japan never really goes outside the box either, they just slowly improve on what we've done. You even took the mighty HMMWV stripped it down to a Tahoe with a boxy body (HII) and then castrated it back to an early 80s S-10 Blazer with a less rounded shape (HIII). You have no idea the value of testosterone. I see more women driving HIIs and HIIIs than men. and Even our pickup trucks, once mighty and rugged symbols of manhood, the pickup truck, has become more smooth, soft, bubbly, and slick... just like a minivan! You even tried to marry the two in Excursions and Expeditions!

Enough of this for now, but you will be paying the price and living on the street soon, unless you streamline the path between concept and production post haste. Oh, and try asking the people what they want too.

Zap.

Added Digg, let's see how it does.

Well, I've drank the Ghoul-Aid and added Digg to my blog. Let's see how it does.

If you remember a story, one that you liked from time past, please search it up, and if you can find it again, nail it with a digg please. I am sure others will agree with you.

Why am I so late into the digg game? Well, it used to be that stories on digg would get digged way up by botnets. Now, they've taken steps to clean things up. I don't think any of my goofiness will ever see the front page of digg, but, maybe someone will dig a little deeper.

(I am almost certian my server would bomb with a front page digg anyway!)

New Filetopia 4 name and logo leaked!

Wow, I never thought I would see anything new out of them, but here it is...

 

Amazing isn't it?

Actually, it's not, it's a bad, somewhat inside joke based on this software in development forever. Sure hope it doesn't make for too much bad karma. But on a REAL NOTE...

BeTaGuRu has released a bugfix patch for Filetopia being run under Windows Vista, you can get it HERE.

Columbo Still Scratching His Head (But some things aren't public record.)

Perhaps you have seen the article from: http://www.nabble.com/Politics:--Columbo...Still-Scratching-His-Head-td19610231.html regarding the fictional, but lovable detective Columbo asking Barack Obama where certain records of his past are. However, some of these records (not all of them) aren't public information. Let me break down the list.

1. Occidental College records -- Not released
Private Institution. Only public record would be his degree, if any.

2. Columbia College records -- Not released
Private Institution. Only public record would be his degree, if any.

3. Columbia Thesis paper -- 'not available'
Must be published for peer review.

4. Harvard College records -- Not released
Private Institution. Only public record would be his degree, if any.

5. Selective Service Registration -- Not released
PUBLIC RECORD! MUST BE RELEASED UNDER F.O.I.A.!

6. Medical records -- Not released
Private Record: Doctor - Patient Confidentiality.

7. Illinois State Senate schedule -- 'not available'
Odd, but not unbelievable in a state that lets dead people vote. (Rotten Record Keeping) Also odd that none of his peers on the other side of the aisle could dredge this one up.

8. Law practice client list -- Not released
Only those clients who moved to trial and did not settle out of court would have public record of being attached to him.

9. Certified Copy of original Birth certificate -- Not released
PUBLIC RECORD! MUST BE RELEASED UNDER F.O.I.A.!

10. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth -- Not released
PUBLIC RECORD! MUST BE RELEASED UNDER F.O.I.A.!

11. Harvard Law Review articles published -- None
Ne'er-do-wells are usually ne'er-do-anything.

12. University of Chicago scholarly articles -- None
Ne'er-do-wells are usually ne'er-do-anything.

13. Your Record of baptism-- Not released or 'not available'
Private under Separation of Church and State (1st Amendment).

14. Your Illinois State Senate records--'not available'
See number 7 above.

Now the big questions are...

1. WHY are the public records that should be available under FOIA being withheld This is federally criminal.

2. HOW are these records being hidden? (F.O.I.A. is a pretty straight forward law. It would seem like if Obama doesn't get into office, allot of cooperating bureaucrats are going to go to prison.)

3. WHAT reasons would he have to hide the other records listed here? (Form your own opinions!)

4. WHO in his past would he not want to be associated with? (Thesis and Law Practice)

5. WHERE was he actually born? (Birth Records)

Too many damn questions for me to even THINK of voting for Barack...

Oh wait... Democrats/Leftists are emotional thinkers, so to them, it doesn't matter what reality is, but only that it feels good.

fear thy neighbor...

The Night Owl has flown the coop.

Today, I just received word, that a friend of mine of several years has shucked his mortal coil...

Ray Patterson, SysOp of Opus/Fidonet BBS The Night Owl (307)235-5207 (Now Defunct) has died.

I won't say that we were good friends, in the sense of consistent contact, but I will say that he was at my first Casper Computer Users Group Meeting in the early 80s. His bulletin board (BBS) The Night Owl, I called at least twice a day. It is also rumored, though I never saw it myself, that he had made a one megabyte bank-switched Timex/Sinclair 1000! Totally within the realm of possibilities, but how do you load something like that with cassette?

It's a bit sad actually, that the bringer of his death was a brain aneurism, the man had a wonderful mind.

He had never done me wrong, and I don't think I had ever heard anyone else say ill of the man. So, yet another pioneer of Wyoming technologists flies off, not into the sunset...

But into the moonset this time.

With thoughts,
Zaphod Breeblebrox :(

*** Ray's Obituary from http://www.trib.com ***

Monday, September 8, 2008 7:37 AM MDT

CASPER -- Funeral serves for Ray Patterson, 55, will be held at Bustard's Funeral Home at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008.

There will be a viewing at Bustard's from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008.

He died on Sept. 5, 2008 at the Wyoming Medical Center from a cranial bleed. He was surrounded by family and friends.

He was born Dec. 10, 1952 in Thermopolis, to Harold "Pat" Patterson and Willamette (Gerard) Patterson.

He lived in Casper for most of his life and graduated from Kelly Walsh High School in 1971. He also attended Casper College.

On May 28, 1976 he married Terry Lea Brummond, the love of his life.

He worked at the Wyoming Medical Center as a computer specialist. He was retired from the Natrona County Fire Department.

He was a member of the Eagles, F.O.E. #306, Casper Air Modelers, Wyoming Blues and Jazz Society, Wyoming Modelers Park Association and his nightly coffee club.

His was interested in stock car racing, kite flying, RC airplanes and cars, playing the guitar and motorcycle and RV road trips, among other things.

He is survived by his wife, Terry, daughter Erin Rodgers and her husband, and daughter Deedee, all of Casper; his sister Janet Althouse and her husband, two nieces, one aunt and four cousins.

He was preceded in death by his parents and brother.

In lieu of flower, memorials may be made to the Wyoming Blues and Jazz Society, P.O. Box 1643, Evansville, WY 82639 or The Donor Alliance in Denver, CO, (303) 329-4747.

(Edit #1: Added Obituary)

A hacker's political sign!

Ever wondered if hackers like you and me are getting the message out to eachother? Here's a simple hack to get your message out...

Set your SSID of your router or modem to whatever message you want to get out. Some automated software will even be spamming your political message all over wi-fi access point maps!

Here's what mine looks like when searched for in XP.

Just incase someone else believes the same way you do, like me you should put a _XXX where X is a random something as a postamble, so every Tom, Dick, and Harry isn't trying to connect to your wi-fi as well as their own. Also this would be a good time to check your modem/router's wi-fi security settings to make sure they are as tight as you like them.

If you have an old 802.11B router around that is not in use, this would be a great use for it! Even better, if you can secure the link, make it a free WAP that people look for! (I have some iffy security in my LAN, and a somewhat slow connection, so I am keeping it closed.)

Oh, yeah, and don't forget to activate SSID and full power output on the device!

Enjoy!