Monthly Archives: March 2006
Uncategorized UncategorizedBuy OpenBSD!
March 26, 2006 – 9:42 pm
Buy a set of CDs. Buy some swag.
If you’re a company and want more that just the software distribution, then buy a supported bundle.
If you don’t care about the bundle, then just donate! If you’re including OpenSSH or OpenBSD in your products and are saving money because of the efforts of these projects, then donate!
GOP Conventions, HR 4437
March 25, 2006 – 3:40 pm
I attended the my GOP county convention this morning. It was a good morning. Our state senator and representative showed up for a few minutes, as well as our U.S. representative. Good times.
More importantly, I got two resolutions passed through that will be forwarded to the state convention.
BE IT RESOLVED:
- that employers be required to validate the legal status of all employees within 30 days of the first date of employment
- that all entitlement spending be approved by a two-thirds majority of both houses of the U.S. Congress; that a balanced-budget amendment be passed; that the president should be given a line-item veto power with regards to spending bills
Interestingly, #1 didn’t make it out of the resolutions committee, even though it passed at the precinct level just like everything else. I insisted on bringing it to the floor of the convention, and it passed easily.
Anyway, that brings us to a related topic: HR 4437. This is the U.S. House’s recent bill on illegal immigration. It really is a good bill. It is quite long (257 pages!), but here is a summary. The highlights:
- Measures to beef up actual border security (more guards, technology, etc)
- DHS would get responsibility for border control
- Redefine felony to include illegal immigration; redefine ‘aggravated felony’ to include smuggling, etc
- Denies admittance of nationals whose countries who will not admit deportations
- refuses entry and naturalization to aliens who are criminals, suspected terrorists, etc
- makes drunk driving, sexual abuse, and social security fraud deportable voilations
- make employer participation in the “basic pilot program* mandatory”
- illegal immigrants who have been deported can be deported again without going through all the process of deportation
Just a good bill, all around. I read the summary and didn’t see anything unreasonable at all. I really hope the Senate Republicans will form a backbone on this one and get it through without getting “Specterized” (i.e., gutting conservative principles and replacing them with Arlen Specter’s own, unreasoned liberalism).
*The basic pilot program is program, nationalized in 2003, allowing employers to validate the legal status of employees with databases maintained by the federal government.
RedState Editors Have Completely Lost It
March 24, 2006 – 11:48 pm
The editors at RedState.org have completely lost it. One of their brethren, who was hired by the Washington Post to tend to a conservative blog of theirs, was recently outed for plagarism. His name is Ben Domenech. I’m sure he’s a nice man. I’m sure he’s a brilliant writer. I’m sure that he’s sorry.
But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s been caught in the act of plagarism.
His leftist critics (there aren’t really many liberals left in the world, after all) unjustifiably demonized him for the two days leading up to the revelation of his mistake. It was completely irrational, mean-spirited, and disgusting.
The RedState editors, however, have completely and totally lost control of their emotions. They are banning people left and right simply for making observations that happen to be critical of Domenech, or of them. Suddenly, RedState is not welcoming to various viewpoints, and it is being ruled over by a bunch of seemingly emotional adolescents. It has left a mightily bitter taste in my mouth. I got banned, temporarily, for pointing out that “Thomas” was overreacting to another member’s comments, and pointing out that this other member (“mcg”), was correct in his assertions. No matter. They don’t listen.
I won’t forget, and my respect for redstate has definitely been lowered a notch.
C++: A threaded timer
March 23, 2006 – 12:39 am
I have written a threaded timer that will start on command, and stop on command using the boost threads library. here’s the code:
/* copyright Benjamin Collins 2006
* please contact for licensing information */
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
typedef boost::recursive_mutex::scoped_lock rt_slock;
namespace
{
bool _start = false;
boost::recursive_mutex start_mutex;
boost::condition start_condition;
bool started()
{
return _start;
}
void start()
{
rt_slock lk(start_mutex);
_start = true;
}
void stop()
{
rt_slock lk(start_mutex);
_start = false;
}
}
class timer_func
{
public:
timer_func()
{
boost::xtime_get(&_time, boost::TIME_UTC);
}
void operator()()
{
while(true)
{
{
rt_slock lk(start_mutex);
start_condition.wait(lk);
}
while(started())
{
_time.sec += 1;
boost::thread::sleep(_time);
if(started())
std::cout << "." << std::flush;
}
}
}
private:
boost::xtime _time;
};
int main()
{
timer_func timer;
boost::thread t(timer);
while(true)
{
if(!started())
{
std::cout << "press enter to start: " << std::flush;
std::cin.get();
start();
std::cout << "starting" << std::endl;
start_condition.notify_one();
}
else
{
std::cout << "press enter to stop: " << std::flush;
std::cin.get();
stop();
std::cout << "stopping" << std::endl;
}
}
return 0;
}
Nanci Pelosi for the free markets?
March 22, 2006 – 10:39 pm
An OpinionJournal piece by Mallory Factor, praising Nansi Pelosi and other Dems for apparently wanting to de-reg the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting rules.
Good for her. I like to give credit to anyone who deserves it. They’ve got a really, really long way before I’d consider voting for them, but I like to see this anyway because deregulation is good policy.
Rare kudos to Pelosi & Co.
Flightplan
March 22, 2006 – 9:09 pm
Flightplan
Year: 2005
Writer: Peter A. Dowling and Billy Ray
Director: Robert Schwentke
Length: 98 minutes
Category: Drama
Media: DVD
Rating from MPAA: PG-13
Cast:
Rating: out of 5
Kyle and her daughter mourn the loss of Kyle’s husband (and Julia’s father). They leave their lives in Germany behind as they look to build a new life back in the U.S. The problem is that Julia disappears in-flight, and no one believes that she ever existed, and that Kyle is a nut that must be contained to protect the flight as she rages, looking for Julia. The only thing is, she’s right and everyone else is wrong.
I thought this movie was OK. It wasn’t bad. The suspense was good enough for a 98-minute movie. The plot was creative in a it-would-be-creative-if-someone-actually-did-this kind of way, but nothing there really blew my socks off. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, because it’s a decent flick and you might like to rent/buy it (click the image).
Tags: movie flightplan jodie foster
HP 2600n on OpenBSD
March 21, 2006 – 8:50 pm
I got my printer, an HP 2600n, to work on my OpenBSD box, thanks to Mike’s instructions on erdelynet.com I really wanted to get it to work doing it the “OpenBSD Way ™”, but I had a hard time. It didn’t take long for me to get lpr to print to it. That was a snap. Just install the foo2hp ports as described on Mike’s page (or rather, links from Mike’s page), and then follow the instructions for lpr, substituting the name of the PPD in the example given. What I could not figure out is how to get lpr to print color without resorting to using a wrapper shell script (one was included in foo2hp that would probably have worked) or having to directly pipe things through gs or whatever. I ended up just going back to using cups, because it takes all of 5 minutes to set up just how I want it.
Persecution of Christianity in Afghanistan
March 19, 2006 – 10:46 am
Wow. Read this.
In the US, Christians toy with what to us is a hypothetical question: “What would you do if someone said demanded of you, ‘Renounce Jesus Christ or die.’?”. We consider it briefly, sincerely hope that we would not cave in to such a demand, and then dismiss it because it has never happened here, at least not in an institutional way (and may never).
For this man in Afghanistan, the question is anything but hypothetical. This is evidence of serious spritual warfare, folks.
Andrew Connell
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