Monthly Archives: December 2010

Futility of Traffic Tickets and the Internet

Posted on 2010-12-30 by dgilbert

The major­i­ty of traf­fic tick­ets giv­en in Toron­to are exer­cis­es in futil­i­ty and tax­a­tion.  Toron­to has made a name for itself as the city with the most speed traps in North Amer­i­ca.  The major­i­ty of these aren’t out to pro­tect … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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Server downtime: Eventually We will not Require Hardware

Posted on 2010-12-30 by dgilbert

I’m not being entire­ly glib and I’m not talk­ing about cloud com­put­ing.  I’m not the first per­son to have said this, but I have repeat­ed it often: The end goal of the soft­ware engi­neer is to elim­i­nate the require­ment for … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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Who’s Right? My Copyright Rant

Posted on 2010-12-28 by dgilbert

Being a math­e­mati­cian at heart, I tend to return to first prin­ci­ples to resolve an issue.  To talk about the mod­ern mess that is copy­right and/or intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, we’re going to con­sid­er the pur­vey­ors of this mess: cor­po­ra­tions.  Why is … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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Voldemort is not Creepy

Posted on 2010-12-27 by dgilbert

This post start­ed as a din­ner table con­ver­sa­tion.  I don’t find Volde­mort creepy.  He’s ugly, evil, mani­a­cal, and nasty, but just not creepy.  My wife argued that he’s creepy because he has no nose.  This point actu­al­ly stemmed from my … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Posted in Media, Rant | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

United Gamers Alliance: Friendly Multiplayer Games

Posted on 2010-12-27 by dgilbert

If you read the UGA home­page, you’ll quick­ly note that they’re some­thing of the anti-clan.  There are an amaz­ing num­ber of new mul­ti­play­er co-op games com­ing out.  We’re all famil­iar with Left 4 Dead and Bor­der­lands (both favorites of mine).  … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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Writing to be Read by Google: Selling Out?

Posted on 2010-12-27 by dgilbert

I was work­ing on sev­er­al of my many drafts today and I real­ized that a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of my time is spent think­ing about my audi­ence… and by audi­ence, I don’t mean the nice peo­ple who end up read­ing my … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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Spam free crap, really?

Posted on 2010-12-26 by dgilbert

I get the eco­nom­ics of spam.  I com­mon­ly con­fig­ure FreeB­SD sys­tems to route pack­ets or serve as VoIP switch­es.  One com­put­er pro­grammed to exam­ine and route bil­lions of tiny lit­tle pack­ets each day.  Rout­ing bil­lions of pack­ets or 100’s of … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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My Wikileaks Mirror Experience

Posted on 2010-12-25 by dgilbert

Wik­ileaks has been in and out of the news for a few years now.  It has had a few major suc­cess­es over the years, but noth­ing has gen­er­at­ed the press and the notice from gov­ern­ments as the release of the … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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Review: Tropico 3

Posted on 2010-12-25 by dgilbert

Steam can be a nasty hab­bit… or at least a damnable temp­ta­tion.  They have these sales, you see.  Good sales.  Good games for as lit­tle as $2.50 or $5.  This leads me to have a large heap of games in … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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My first dollar (fifty)

Posted on 2010-12-25 by dgilbert

I had a nice Christ­mas Eve with my par­ents and one of my sis­ters at her house.  Nice din­ner, nice con­ver­sa­tion… all around pleas­ant.  I was show­ing off my blog… fish­ing for com­ple­ments.  I even broke out Clones (see my … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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