Grant's blog

We Are Drones

Grant A. — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 11:17:15 +0000

I have finally learned tonight that, well, there is no hope for any of us. You know that thing they told us when we were little about how we could do anything we wanted if we set our minds to it? Well, that’s a god damn lie. How do I know this you ask? Well, I’ve noticed that the smart don’t get free rides into the schools they desire. Nope, they have to have money first. Plus, on top of that, I’ve noticed that, no matter how much you try to reason with some people, they simply will not listen, especially if they’re in a position of power and have something rammed up their ass. So, essentially, we are all doomed to a life of mediocrity, unless already born into power and money, and are forced to be simply drones, following blindly those who hold the key, no matter how misinformed they, or the brainless masses they generate are. If this is the real world, i’m not so sure I want to be a part of it.

Goodbye, Seniors

Grant A. — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:20:48 +0000

I said my goodbyes to friends I may never see again. Some of them were the best friends I had during my years I’ve been in high school so far, and not a single day of it would have been the same without them. Everyday, I would have them in one of my periods, and they would lighten my mood and make my day much better, whether it was through jokes, random silliness, or by invigorating intellectual discussion which degraded into a bunch of jokes. Some of them I even knew before high school, and to this day, I still value their friendship or the acquaintance I made with them. I grew apart from some of them, I will not lie, but I still gained a life time of memories from the few short years we had together.

Friends I have in the class of 2010, you picked me up when I was down, kept me afloat when I was flying high, and I will miss you all dearly. I hope you all enjoyed my friendship or acquaintance as much as I enjoyed yours. I love y’all.

I will now give shout outs to those seniors who I will always remember:

Quinton Sartor and John Hanna: Joking around with you guys in 10th grade during gym was always fun, and we had some really good laughs together. You guys were both awesome to know, and I will miss you both.

Jarrod Cole: Dude, you made the weirdest first impression on me (you know what you said XD), but you proved to be a great friend during my freshman year of high school. Sorry that it took so long to talk to you again, but we will rock this summer.

Cody Bunker: When I first met you, I didn’t know what to think. I assumed you would be one of those redneck types, but you turned out to be a very nice and funny guy. Just goes to show you that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. You are an awesome friend, and I will always remember you as such.

Daniel Lopez: The first time I met you, I could have sworn you were on something. At first, like Cody, you were very intimidating, but you turned out to be a nice and funny guy just like him. A gentle giant, perhaps. Despite that, you ended up being a great friend, and you still make me laugh to this day. I’ll never forget you, dude.

Cody and Daniel: You both made C lunch the highlight of my day in 10th grade, you both always kept me laughing and having a good time. I will miss both of you so much! And whatever you do, promise me that you will both come back. You’ve both given me a lifetime full of memories, and I will always keep them close to me.

Ashley Ramirez: You turned out to be a really nice person, and yes, Spaniards are a subset of the Caucasian ethnic group. Lol, despite that though, you turned out to be really nice and I was glad to have made your acquaintance. I’ll miss you!

Michael McRay: I still remember the first day I met you in physics. You and Rafael just ended up at a lab table with me on the first day of school, and we immediately started cracking jokes. It didn’t take long for us to become friends, but you were definitely the best friend I had this year. I loved our intellectual discussions in the beginning of the year, and the jokes we would always crack about politics or things going on in the classroom. You always made an effort to lift me up when I was down, and I will always remember you for that. I’ll definitely miss you, dude!

Alex Sabadosa: I remember the first time I met you was during the beginning of the year, when I got into an argument with Michael over the Quran. In his defense, it was an argument where I was totally and utterly wrong. Anyways, I remember that we didn’t really start talking until I moved to y’all’s side of the room sometime in October. From that point on, you, Michael, and I always had something to talk about and keep me distracted from my work. Our interesting political conversations with Michael which always diverged into random jokes were the highlight of my day this year. I’ll really miss you, you were one of my best friends this year, as well.

Michael and Alex: Thank you both so much for being such great friends this year. Our funny political conversations that turned into random jokes in Spanish III always kept me entertained, and they easily made my day, everyday. Thank you both for always trying to keep me up when I was down, and thank you both for making Spanish my favorite class. School this year would not have been the same without you guys, and I hope that our paths cross again in the future!

Britney Hargraves: I remember back in 7th grade when I first met you in Theater Arts class. We always managed to have fun in that class, and we had quite a bit in common back then. I’ll always remember you, shorty! Sorry that I grew, lol. But remember, just like the song you used to sing in class, it’s alright to be itty bitty, lol. Sorry that we never kept in touch after you graduated from Junior High! Thank you for an awesome year back then and thank you for being an awesome friend during that time.

Evan Riley: I remember back in Spanish II that we had conversations that always kept me laughing. You really turned out to be a great friend that year, and made Hail to the Mountain King get stuck in my head almost every other day in Ms. Lambert’s class. Spanish II would have not been the same without you, and you easily made it my favorite class in 10th grade. Thank you for being such a great friend!

Kayla Gonzales: Sorry that things never worked out between us. I wish they did. Either way, I’ll miss you, too!

Good bye seniors, I’m proud of all of you, and I hope we all see each other again after you all go your separate ways.

In Reply To Mono Being Put Under The Community Promise

Grant A. — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:12:06 +0000

It’s true, the Community Promise is indeed a wolf in a sheep’s fur, due to the fact that the community promise doesn’t cover everything that Mono implements.

I wouldn’t worry about that, though. Mono is protected by the Open Invention Network. The Open Invention Network is made up of Novell, Oracle, IBM, Sony, Philips, NEC, and RedHat. They’ve stated that if Microsoft ever goes hostile on the Linux and Mono fronts, then they will retaliate against Microsoft with their own patent suits. IBM and Oracle could totally wipe out Microsoft in their own suits, so I wouldn’t expect any trouble from Microsoft on the Mono front. If Microsoft ever sued Novell because of Mono, then that would mean that Microsoft would break the terms of the Microsoft-Novell agreement, and Novell would then proceed to suing Microsoft with its vast networking-based patent portfolio. Plus, the attempted destroying of something that exists in the name of interoperability would probably flag the attention of anti-trust regulators in the E.U. and the U.S.

It would be suicide for Microsoft to attempt something so stupid.

Alright, that’s it; I’m putting my foot down.

Grant A. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:04:46 +0000

What the hell is wrong with big news corporations these days? I’ve seen everything from bending over backwards for their sponsors, to manipulating statistics.

A few months back, the news companies said that executives took 160 million dollars out of a 170 billion dollar bail-out for bonuses that they gave to each of their employees. The problem? 160 million sure looks like the majority of 170 billion when just the first 3 numbers are shown. Honest reporting should’ve said 160,000,000/170,000,000,000. Folks, 160 million is less than thousandth of 170 billion, but of course, the big news corporations had to blow it out of proportion to get some extra ratings. When I first heard about this, I was rather indifferent. I thought that, “Well, this is the only time I’ve really ever caught them doing this, maybe I can let this slide.” but no, they just had to do it again. Recently, I’ve noticed two things come to my attention:

1) CNN showing a huge graph illustrating the “steep rise” of military fatalities in Afghanistan. The graph started out real small, and then spiked up in May, June, and July. The problem with this was that they only showed the amount of dead troops, which was around 160. People, there are 48,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan, and they were acting as if this was some sort of major blow! Had they been honest and showed the amount of dead troops, in relation to the amount of alive troops, then the graph would look like a straight line hovering around the bottom of the graph. We need to finish what we started in Afghanistan, and it doesn’t matter how many fatalities it takes. When people joined the military, they were aware of the dangers, and their families need to buck up and realize it too! If they have a problem with the troops dying for peace in Afghanistan, then they shouldn’t have let them join in the first place! A few lives is worth a LOT less than the freedom that it would give the Afghan people! Seriously, if we back out now, things will just revert to their old ways, the Taliban will come back into power, and they would provide terrorists with a safe haven to plot out new terror attacks! You decide, what’s better: backing out now, allowing the Taliban to oppress the Afghans, and letting them have a safe haven from which to commit another 9/11 style attack, or staying, kicking their asses, and leaving with a few military deaths? In my opinion, a few hundred military deaths are a lot better than a few hundred civilian deaths that occur because of a terrorist attack. People, quit whining, and support your troops. If you want your relative back from the war, shame on you! You’re not only putting the Afghans in danger, you’re putting your own countrymen in danger! People need to quit looking at the world with such a selfish view. Do y’all ever even wonder why the rest of the world hates us? It’s for those selfish ambitions right there.

2) News corporations buckling down, and kissing ass. News companies should be around to provide unbiased information. I quit watching FOX news ages ago because all they did (and still do) was attack people who thought differently than they did! Well, at the moment, FOX news is looking pretty damn good compared to these ass kissers. CNN and the Indian Times are apparently bowing down. On their sites, I have seen tons of ads from our favorite monopolizer: Microsoft. They recently both printed articles talking about the problems of Google’s Chrome OS, when just a little while ago, they both talked about it as an interesting competitor to Windows. Apparently, to appease their sponsors, they both printed articles to try and spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). This is the main problem with modern news corporations, either they attack whoever gives them an opinion, or they bend over to make their sponsors happy. When a sponsor threatens to leave a channel, and another company isn’t willing to fill its empty spot, then the channel’s owners will bend over backwards to keep the sponsors happy. This absolutely disgusts me, and makes me wish that we had some state-funded news channels or a mainstream community-supported channel.

Arguably, one could say that we vote on how a T.V. channel works by watching it. If all the viewers leave, then it’s not a hot spot for advertising, and the sponsors soon dry up, as well. Sadly, they are able to get away with crap reporting because there isn’t enough of a drive within the community to act.

*sigh* C’est la vie…

EDIT- Damn it, those bastards just did it again. Now they’re saying that “IED attacks” have risen “1000%”. Their graph, being shortly displayed, showed another steep graph going up to 800 injuries. This time, however, they didn’t even say whether or not they were American troops, Coalition troops, or American and Coalition troops combined. :/

Sources:

Deployments of the United States Military

Foreign troop fatalities in Afghanistan (The graph and the numbers on American troop fatalities were broadcast on the T.V. station. If anyone can dig around and find it on their website, I’d be very thankful!)

Chrome FUD from CNN (The Chrome praising part was on the T.V. station. If someone could find it on the CNN website, I’d be very thankful!)

Chrome FUD from the India Times

Are Google and Microsoft Attempting To Snuff Out The Competition?

Grant A. — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:54:44 +0000

It looks like Google is trying to snuff out the competition. At the moment, they are trying to switch YouTube from Flash to h.264. H.264 is a patent-encumbered high-definition video algorithm. The problem with this is that, no browser can legally play h.264 besides Google Chrome and Safari. Most notably, Firefox, the browser with 22% of the browser marketshare, will never be able to play h.264 videos because, if it did, it would have to drop the GPL from its tri-license. Originally, Google was going to use the unencumbered by patents, and equally high quality, Ogg Theora codec as their replacement for flash, but decided to switch to h.264. Being unencumbered, Ogg Theora can be played on all browsers, but that wouldn’t be good for Chrome’s marketshare to have fair competition. I remember that a while back, Firefox was constantly being advertised on YouTube, as opposed to the current Google Chrome ads.

As everyone knows, YouTube is the largest video provider on the Internet, and the average Internet user most likely comes in contact with a YouTube video very often. Is it possible that by converting from Flash to h.264, Google is trying to steal the market from FireFox and Internet Explorer? Videos are one of the hallmarks of the Internet. If YouTube was suddenly only available for Chrome and Safari, then there could be a mass exodus from the other browsers. In my opinion, this is a blatant abuse of a monopoly and therefore, Google should be sued by the United States and the European Union for anti-trust. Does Google really think that they can get away with this?

If you are concerned about this, then it’s a good time to report it to the Federal Trade Commission, because there is currently an on-going probe on Google led by the United States Department of Justice.

Ironically, Google is the victim in this next problem. Microsoft is currently switching the search default from Google to Bing on Windows computers, via updates. Yet another cheap attempt at monopoly abuse.

With the European Union and United States Department of Justice looking to destroy a couple of monopolies, Google and Microsoft better quit it, or face the consequences.

Sources:

Slashdot article about YouTube replacing Flash and Theora with h.264

GNU GPL

Wikipedia article on h.264

Information about the current anti-trust probe on Google

Software Patents…

Grant A. — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 08:16:31 +0000

Originally posted at the Ubuntu Forums

Original Post:

I think patent laws should really be revised, because currently, you can patent something even if you do not own the Intellectual Property in its entirety. People keep whining and complaining about it, but the thing is that the law will never be revised unless you become active and talk to your lawmakers about it. The patent issues have gotten ridiculous and with the recent patent lawsuit against Google, Microsoft, and Apple over image previews, things just seem like they will get worse.

The patent systems in all countries started out as ways for inventors to protect their rights, but unfortunately it seems that greed, recessions, and tanking stocks have corrupted to patent system and have destroyed the moral fiber and integrity that software companies once had.

This is why I am asking, nay, imploring, that everyone start petitions, write letters, just do something to revise the patent laws, or remove software patents all together! Developing countries depend on free software and due to most of the Free and open source software organizations living in “patent warzones”, these distributors will shut down and these countries will no longer have any way to obtain their Free and open source software.

So please, write to your local lawmakers and make petitions (real ones, not online ones as they hold little weight), to revise software patent laws so that we can keep our freedom. Software should truly be unpatentable. Currently there are 300 lobbyists for every lawmaker, and unless you get the word out to stop software patents, the lobbyists who are paid by the greedy companies trying to use patents as unlawful monopolistic practices will just keep winning. The Free Software Foundation cannot do it alone! The Free and open source software community has given so much to you, isn’t it time you gave some back?

Reply to nothing:

Wow, I am stunned. I posted this almost a day ago, and none but two voices of agreement? Is this the true Linux community? A group of cowards who leave trying to save their cherished operating system to a group of 100 people (The Free Software Foundation). Microsoft has hundreds, possibly around a thousand lobbyists being paid to pump information into lawmaker’s heads. Microsoft constantly claims that Linux infringes over 200+ of its patents, and you sit there and do nothing while they claim royalties from Linux distributors such as Novell and Xandros?! The least you could do would be to write a letter to your lawmakers that would take 20 minutes of your time. The Free Software Foundation is trying constantly to save Linux’s good name while you just sit there and reap the once-a-year successes!

Well you know what? I pity you. I pity you all, have you learned nothing from years of schooling? Did you not learn the fact that people who didn’t stand up for their rights were crushed and oppressed? The United States is a democracy, and so are the countries of the European Union! You can write letters, you can start petitions. The government of a market economy is much stronger than people think, if we got enough signatures on a real-life petition, we could get the government to make Microsoft reveal all of the patents that Microsoft is claiming Linux infringes. Why? Because what Microsoft is doing is putting heavy pressure on competitors, without giving ways to fix the problem. This is a form of monopolistic behavior and should be stopped. The hands of democratic government relies on the people! Without you, the corporations will keep getting stronger and this “Free” software you love so much will cease to exist!

If Microsoft revealed the patents infringed, then the Linux community would quickly replace them with Free alternatives, and Microsoft would have no more leverage.

If Microsoft sues a single Linux user, then Novell, IBM, Redhat, and Sun will sue Microsoft for all of the patents it may infringe. Novell and IBM have a particularly high amount of leverage here because of IBM patents Microsoft may have infringed during the DOS era, and Novell because of all of the networking patents it owns. This patent war would cause the companies to die picking at each other’s throats. Do you really want this to happen? The end of the IT industry? I love Microsoft, I am not afraid to say that. I love Free and Open Source software. Both have made good contributions to the software world, but one is being constantly tormented while the other sits still preparing for a future patent war. I don’t want the end of the IT industry, I want all IT companies to flourish with no monopolistic practices.

If this is what the Linux community has become, a bunch of spineless cowards not defending themselves, then I want no part of it.

So please, write to your lawmakers and politicians and write petitions about getting Microsoft to disclose this information, for if we can solve this problem, then Linux’s name will be cleared, along with other Free and Open Source projects.

Would some of the greatest men ever to live not agree?

“Take sides! Silence only encourages the tormentor!”

- Elie Wiesel

“Give me liberty or give me death!”

-Patrick Henry

The community has given so much to you, yet you just take it without giving back? The developers are smart, I believe that they could find new ways to implement things without infringing patents.

As you can see, I was pretty ****ed off at the fact that no one had replied in a course of ~19 hours. I just thought that was plain ridiculous that the Linux community as a whole could just let this happen, while the FSF struggles to fight for their rights. It just makes me plain sick.

I would like to ask that everyone write a letter to congress to get Microsoft to reveal the infringing patents or make them abolished all together, or atleast the silly ones, such as the IsNot operator.

/My two cents

Don’t be part of the problem, be part of the solution!

Grant A. — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 02:10:34 +0000

Alright, this has really gotten me mad. Everyone goes “Oh needs ‘X’” and ” sucks! I can’t stand it, I’m moving to “. Look, nothing is perfect, alright? When was the last time that someone else’s senseless complaining and whining on the internet got you to “get motivated and write the biggest program ever”? (Yes, I realize the irony in this post.) I mean, it’s just plain pointless to whine. The biggest offender of these complaints are you guessed it… YOU. Linux, Windows, and Mac fanboys. If there is one thing I have learned from Open Source projects it is: “Implement it yourself, or it may never be done”, so learn a damn programming language, take 5 minutes out of your day everyday to read a graphics editor program! Something! Just quit complaining and write a program to fix it. Chances are, if you never do it yourself, it will never get done. Developers have a TON of weight on their shoulders, and there are NEVER too many developers. Join a project, start your own to fix something in that annoying OS/Program, just QUIT THE COMPLAINING!

Killer Linux Apps That Work in Windows

Grant A. — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:25:31 +0000

I have compiled (no pun intended) a list of very good Linux apps that also work in Windows without Cygwin/Internix/Windows Services for UNIX.

The Mana World – Free Open Source MMORPG.

7-zip – A Free Open Source archiver that can read almost all archive types, a great replacement for WinRAR.

Gimp – A Free Open Source raster graphics editor.

Python – The Python programming language.

Tortoise SVN – A Free Open Source Subversion client for Windows. Now I know it’s not for Linux, but it’s pretty much the best thing you can find for Subversion checkouts in Windows.

Irssi A Free Open Source command line IRC client that works in cmd, as well as Puttycyg

Firefox/Thunderbird Two Free Open Source Projects. Firefox is a web browser, and Thunderbird is an e-mail/rss client.

I know that there are more, but these are the only ones that are really good in my opinion.