Finally.

alternateorg on June 19, 2003

What I’ve been thinking all along, and what I’d hoped more Americans would be:


As an article by Thomas Powers in the Globe notes, Bush, in his State of the Union Address, contended that Iraq possessed the following: 30,000 warheads, 500 tons of chemical weapons, 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin. In a dramatic appearance before the United Nations that helped convince many of the justification for war with Iraq, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Iraq maintained a factory for making poisons and explosives in Khurmal, chemical munitions bunkers at Taji, rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agents ”hidden in large groves of palm trees,” and a ”suspicious caravan of trucks” at the Amiriyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, a center for testing biological and chemical weapons. As Powers reminds us, ”None of this has been found.”

…
Hillary Clinton took $8 million from a book publisher and possibly didn’t tell the whole truth about the Lewinsky scandal. George W. Bush took the armed forces of the United States of America, put lives at risk, and shook the world order to wage war against Iraq. Maybe he told the whole truth about why we were going to war and maybe he didn’t

I honestly can’t understand why more of us aren’t outraged at what this country is doing; to ourselves as well as the rest of the world. I’ve never cared much about politics or government; I’m an American. We’re basically taught not to. What’s really difficult for me to trying to explan to my 5-year old that no, Iraq people are not bad. American people are not all good. He’s looking for a Star Wars-esqu Good Guys/Bad Guys type explanation and I just don’t have it for him. How do I tell him that we’re the bad guys?

More iTunes Misconceptions

alternateorg on June 2, 2003

From Lockergnome Bytes:



Apple’s decision to close a loophole in it’s Rendezvous feature last week may ultimately doom the service. With the decision to restrict Rendezvous they will more than likely have to close any loophole that hackers may find. The feature had obviously helped sell records. For everyones information apparently hackers have found a way to trick the software to share again, so we will see if Apple makes further changes or do away with it all together

Pay close attention to the line: “The feature had obviously helped sell records.” How the fuck could Rendezvous music streaming – something that takes place over an internal network, machines on the same subnet – sell music, when the sharing-over-IP function was what Apple cut out of iTunes 4.0.1, PLUS the fact that even then, you couldn’t share purchased AAC files, but your regular-old, no-DRM-encoded MP3 files?

If anyone should get it, it’s these guys. I’m just trying to battle the waves of incoherent innacuracy these days.

I can't fucking stand this type of BS

alternateorg on May 30, 2003

Called Rendezvous, the service enabled listeners and their friends to access one another’s music and listen to it ? but not download it ? from any computers. Hackers, however, had figured out how to download the music as well, creating programs with names like iLeach and iSlurp. So on Tuesday Apple sent out an update for its iTunes software, disabling Rendezvous and limiting music access to a user’s local network at home or at work.

Yes, New York Times, Rendezvous’ only function was iTunes music sharing across the internet. Gah. Rendezvous sharing is actually STILL enabled, but TCP/IP sharing is not. I hate tech writers. And John Gruber agrees with me: “They’re all a bunch of Jerk-offs.”

…And sun rains down from the cloudy sky

alternateorg on May 29, 2003

I give up. Tai knows everything. All shall bow down in his exalted presence. He gave me the crucial advice that allowed me to install Linux on an otherwise uncooperative Compaq Presario 5441.

Need linux help? Hire him.

Save The Heroes

alternateorg on May 21, 2003

From our namespace cousins at Alternet.org: The Matrix’s Neo is the Hero of My Generation.

There are some fundamnetal flaws in it, and some glazing over of deeper issues, but he does say one thing in particular that feels familiar:



That may be the big joke behind the Matrix. Even those who are trying to step out of the system step back into it when they buy the ticket. The movie has become another a product for sale. But to me, Neo can’t be co-opted.

My generation has been through this in the past. We’ve seen culture and ideas we identify with sold back to us, like graffiti, hip-hop or skateboarding. Big-time industries only see the surface, and not the deeper reasons why they resonate with us. Corporations see the Matrix as cool martial arts, leather trench coats and shades – but we see an idea that finally defines that feeling that this society is fake. Even if the movie comes from Hollywood.

Thoughts? Is Neo someone with a vision, the inspiration from him taken directly from Shepard Fairey or Shawn Wolfe; he sees through the bullshit? Or is it really about kicking ass while wearing trenchcoats and sunglasses in the dark?

iLeech

alternateorg on May 19, 2003

So … iTunes 4 lets you listen to your friends music as long as they have a real IP and iTunes music sharing enabled. This is done via a protocol called daap. iTunes and daap of course, DO NOT allow you to copy the music you are listenging to, ONLY stream it.



Today, I stumbled upon the new version of iLeech, this handy little Application simply copies those files as you stream them with out the need for a stream ripper or archiver… meaning its the original quality, NOT the streamed quality.

You can use Google.com to find websites that list daap servers that are available and online.




Gotta love the ‘net.