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28/06/2009Typical Sunday. I woke up late, glanced at the data center monitoring system to make sure all was well, had an hour-long shower, then sat down to read emails.
Three were from a female name I didn't recognize, which in itself isn't unusual, although they usually contain a link to erectile dysfunction ads. This time, it turned out to be from an Iranian girl I had seen in BBAD chat a few times. I hadn't seen her for awhile and I assumed she had grown bored and moved on.
It turns out that BBAD, from the main page to chat rooms to forums, is now being totally blocked in Iran. Ahmedinejad has made clear he won't be relinquishing power without a fight, and he's the one with all the big guns.
I won't mention even her first name, here. I can't help her. I'm on her side, though. 11/06/2009
 A few weeks ago, I saw some cute little stickers that made a bit of a phallic joke of light switches. Fun things, I thought, and checked on the net to see if I could buy a few. Well, a few PayPal dollars later, I got my order confirmation and promptly forgot about them.
They arrived a few days ago. I opened the envelope, threw away the 20 or so pages of promotional crap encouraging me to buy more stuff, found the stickers and immediately threw them out, too. They were junk. They didn't fit on a light switch cover. They were just stickers with a picture of the light switch that had that on it. Stupid and misleading.
Now, if I had been smart, I would've just accepted that small loss and gotten on with my life. Not being so smart, I thought to myself that it would be trivial to get these things made, and if they sold for a few dollars plus some handling charge, there might be a bit of a cottage industry in them. It was an eBay business waiting to happen. I printed out a picture and took it to a few local printing places. One, a place that I've dealt with many times in the past, said "sure we can make these".
So now, a week later, I have 60 stickers of little male figures that fit on light switch covers. Will I ever sell them on eBay? Probably not, but if eSecureData.com ever dies, it's nice to have a backup plan. 09/06/2009
To my considerable amusement, the Swedes have elected a member of their single-issue Pirate Party to the EU Parliament. This group seeks "to fundamentally reform copyright law, get rid of the patent system, and ensure that citizens' rights to privacy are respected." As expected, the copyright crowd has come out screaming about the imminent demise of civilization as we know it. I'm less worried, myself.
People sometimes act as though copyright law was codified in the Bible right beside those other 10 commandments. The reality is that, as human history goes, copyright law is relatively new, and in my opinion, has generally been a failure.
We're told by the pro-copyright crowd that, without copyright, there would be no great music or writing. Reality, however, gives the lie to this assertion. International copyright began (generally speaking) in 1886 with the Berne Convention. Before this, we had Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. We had Shakespeare and Jane Austen. With minor (mostly local) exceptions, works from these artists were freely copied. Since the Berne Convention, we now have Britney, Madonna and Avril. We have Harold Robbins and Howard Stern. We have giant media conglomerates peddling garbage to children, and if any of this crap gets copied, the RIAA sues your kids.
Beyond the apparent empirical failure of copyright law to advance society, I also have a fundamental problem being assigned the role of collection agent for Metallica, which is what is effectively happening. Why should society step up to the role of making sure nobody copies Lars' crap? I don't give a rip if Lars' stuff gets copied, aside from a bit of minor amazement that anyone would want to.
I'm not sure I'd go all the way over to a free-for-all the way these Swedes want, but either way, I think a change of rules is in order.
14/05/2009
I just renewed my BBAD ads and got a rude surprise. Yahoo's UK division (and only that division) declined the following ad.
Free Voice and Video Chat Rooms
No charges ever. Sign up, sign in, and meet new friends.
www.BBAD.com
Their reason?
Unacceptable Content
Page promotes an unacceptable product.
Amusingly, Yahoo's North American search site, the Australian Yahoo and all other Yahoo sites that I've used are totally fine with the exact same ad. Only the poms seem to have gone quite this crazy. 18/04/2009
 Poetry is dumb.
It is so boring.
My mind gets all numb.
I end up snoring.
Who cares what you say?
It just doesn't matter.
Get out in the day.
Forget rhyming banter.
Try doing instead.
Try changing your world.
Forget what's all read.
Turn pebbles into pearls.
by Reg Natarajan 14/12/2008
 I've got a business that I've built from nothing. It's still not solid, though, and I'm still struggling. Rightly or wrongly, my business is my whole life, and a lot of people depend on it to support their families.
Now, I just cut a deal to get some more hardware in. I cut a deal like this every couple of months, so it's nothing new, but it's critical to my survival. In a few days, I'm going to have a skid arrive in Richmond with a few hundred motherboards, CPUs, hard drives, RAM, power supplies, and some other goodies. I need that skid torn down, packed into a rental van, brought to the data center, and then I need every single item unpacked, the boxes flattened and taken to recycling, the other packaging thrown away, I need the items neatly stored in the secure area where I keep stock hardware, and I need everything itemized in the computer system I use to track that type of thing. It's about a man-week of work but really, I need two guys to do it in two or three days. If I don't get that done, I might as well close shop as I can't deliver new sales. I don't even really care what I have to pay to get it done (within reason). The shipment is worth so much that whether I pay the workers $10 or $20 per hour to get it where it's going just doesn't matter, so I pay $20/hour.
Now, I'd love to hire some young Canadians to do this. I can communicate with them in my native language and I can count on them to understand what I'm saying. They're used to getting paid electronically which is better for me as my bookkeeper can just do a direct deposit without my having to fuss. If I can't get a Canadian, though, I'll take whoever I can get to do this job. If my past experience is any indication, when the shipment arrives, no Canadian is going to want to do the work.
I'll advertise where Canadians can see it. I'll hope Canadians will email me. I know they probably won't. Instead, I'll get some polite emails in broken English from guys named Jose and Carlos who are ready to work 12 hour days with a smile and will shyly ask if I could possibly pay cash. You know what else? They'll work harder than any Canadian I've ever seen.
All this talk we hear about culture is a bunch of abstract crap. Out there in the real world, guys like me are struggling to make sure their businesses survive. 04/11/2008
I don't like to talk about my cars, primarily because I have no real luck with them. My good car is usually broken and sitting in a shop somewhere (as it is now), and my backup car (a Ford Taurus I bought new 10 years ago) just died for good on Friday with about 240,000 km on it. That may have been a blessing though. I ran into an Australian couple who decided to leave Canada for home because they wanted to reconnect with family (poor buggers). They had a 1999 Chevy Malibu with a 3.1 litre V6 that they needed to get rid of. It had 90,000km on it (54,000 miles, or about 6000 miles per year). I bought it. It drives perfectly. There are no significant stains or discolourations in the interior and it's comfortable and quiet and fuel efficient. For this, I spent $3500. The rain-covered picture below was taken about 10 minutes ago.
It's a bit of a reality check for me, this. Why exactly do we buy $50,000 vehicles and then spend $5000/year not including gas to keep them running? Ok, I admit it's not an exciting car, but in my experience with several, exciting cars tend not to work very reliably. I begin to reasses my automotive values.
29/10/2008
 I went to Starbucks with Gunda the other day and a painting on the wall caught my eye. It was huge, red and dramatic. We spent a bit of time guessing what it was, drank our bad Starbucks chais and that was pretty much that.
It was signed and it had a business card holder and a small white price tag underneath it. I looked at the price and thought, "It's probably worth that much but I can't justify that kind of expense." I snagged one of the business cards intending to just visit the painter's site and flushed it from my mind.
It didn't stay flushed. I visited his site and emailed him to tell him I had seen it, loved it, but couldn't pay his full price. He emailed back telling me he was more interested in finding it a good home than getting rich. A few hours ago, I met up with him and the deal was done.
It's hanging in my new support office, now, and it just feels right there. Gunda likes it. The night support tech on shift tonight hated it. I love it. To me, it looks like it has come home. I've disabled anonymous comments due to the extremist spam, and since I tend not to add people as users, that pretty much means I've disabled comments totally. I regret this but the alternative was to spend hours cleaning them up and I'm just not that dedicated.
To anyone who saw the comments before I deleted them, please note that the extremist comments on the blog were not mine, even if they had my name at the bottom. Until today, anyone could leave a comment (and obviously, they could end it with my name). 26/10/2008 I've always wondered if Jesus existed. I'm not talking about the separate question of whether he was the son of God. I'm talking about whether he existed at all. I can't find any evidence that he did. There are no Roman records of him, and the Romans were meticulous record keepers. Actually, there are no records of him at all that I can find other than the Bible which, when taken alone, is no more convincing than any other book to me. I don't believe Alice in Wonderland existed because she's mentioned in a single book. The other day, I stumbled across the story of Horus, the Egyptian falcon god, from 3000 years before Christ was allegedly born. Here are some interesting facts about Horus (credit to various sources around the net).
- Horus was born of a virgin on December 25 in a cave/manger with his birth being announced by a star in the East and attended by three wise men.
- His earthly father was named Seb (Joseph).
- At at 12, he was a child teacher in the Temple, and at 30, he was baptized having disappeared for 18 years.
- Horus was baptized in the river Eridanus or Iarutana (Jordan) by Anup the Baptizer (John the Baptist), who was decapitated.
- He had 12 desciples, two of who were his witnesses.
- He performed miracles, exorcised demons and raised El-Azarus from the dead.
- Horus walked on water.
- His personal epithet was Iusa, the ever-becoming son of Ptah, the Father. He was thus called Holy Child.
- He delivered a Sermon on the Mount and his followers recounted the Sayings of Iusa.
- Horus was transfigured on the Mount.
- He was crucified between two thieves, buried for three days in a tomb, and resurrected.
- He was called the Way, the Truth, the Light, Messiah, God’s Anointed Son, the Son of Man, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, the Word made flesh, the Word of Truth, etc.
- He was called the Fisher and was associated with the Fish, Lamb and Lion.
- He came to fulfill the Law.
- Horus was called the KRST, or Anointed One.
- Horus was supposed to reign one thousand years.
I could've sworn I've heard some of that stuff before.
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Copyright 2009 Reg Natarajan. All rights
reserved.
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