Paul Kimbrel's Musing

Wow. I really blew it on that last post. I even proof read it a few times. But it was just bad. Bad, bad, bad. I mixed up you’re and your. I mixed up buy and by. I mixed up site and sight. I got the plurality of my fingers wrong (thankfully I do have more than one). I just plain butchered a number of sentences (and there weren’t many to butcher).

I hate to do this, but I must give it an…

F

You can’t say you can’t do something when you read a story like this… a 78 year old man loses his sight, and then goes on to bowl a perfect game:

Blind Bowler Scores Perfect Game

It reminds me of what my friend, Steve, who taught me guitar basics, always told me… “Don’t tell me you can’t play! If I can teach a special-needs kid to play… YOU can play.” That’s paraphrased, by the way. The point was… I kept saying my fingers were too fat. He didn’t buy it. I’m glad he didn’t.

[edit]And apparently my problem is… I can’t tell the difference between your and you’re. Ugh.[/edit]

Okay… big question to you iTunes weenies… why iTunes? In my quest for a pure Open Source system, I got stuck on iTunes since that’s been my sole source to buy digital music. But I’ve never liked the iTunes interface and hated that I couldn’t take my music to any computer and play it (especially since I have a computer in just about every room of my home).

Enter Amazon.

I just used the Amazon MP3 service. Same price as iTunes… and I got high quality MP3 files that I was able to put on my internal file server and use on all my computers… including my soon-to-be-installed Linux desktop. It appears that Amazon, unlike Apple, actually wrote a Linux client for their service.

Niiiiiiiice…

I’m currently enjoying The Choir’s, O How The Might Have Fallen. As MP3’s. Purchased from Amazon.

I like Windows XP. I really do. But Microsoft seems bent on ditching a decent operating system for Vista despite calls from them to be rational. I’ve talked to several people about their Vista experience and only two have had favorable results. And, of course, they have good reason - they both have Quad Processor, 2thz CPU, 200gig ram, 50 gig video monstrosities of machines. I believe their lights dim when they turn their respective machines on. Okay, slight exaggeration, but not much.

I really, really don’t want to spend a zillion dollars on new machines, plus whatever they want for a semi-professional version Vista, just because Microsoft wants pretty windows that zip around when you switch applications. And on top of all that, now all my MS Window weeny friends are buying macs. Hmmmmm… more hardware.

Well, I’ve decided to take the Open Source plunge again and try Linux on the desktop. My studio computer will still be stuck in XP land, but it took me 5 years to upgrade it from Windows 98, so I’ve got a few good years on it, yet.

My laptop, on the other hand, is my development and office productivity computer. That’s where I intend to switch to Linux. So I’ve made a list of things I need to do. These are MS-centric programs and behaviors that need to either change or be addressed before I can go Linux on my laptop. My goal? 100% free software.

1. MS Office - I’ll admit it. I like Office. It just works. Everyone else uses it. I use it at work. Open Office has made some great strides recently and I’ll have to see if it cuts the mustard for me. I know people have MS Office working under Linux, but my goal is 100% free software.
2. MS Outlook - I’ll admit this, too. I like Outlook. Not Outlook express - the full Outlook. It’s the perfect PIM in my mind… and it synchronizes well with my PDA. I’ve used Gnome’s Evolution, but I always seemed to have issues with it. I can’t remember why. I’ll either try it, or I’ll try Mozilla’s new Lightning project. It’s being funded by Open Office and looks a little nicer. Plus, I think I can synchronize with Google Calendar with it.
3. Secure USB Key - this I actually have working on free software, though I haven’t gotten it running under Linux, yet. I don’t think that will be an issue
4. Development - I use Eclipse to do my development, so hopefully that will be a non-issue. I do recall having problems getting my PHP extensions working under Debian, but that was almost 4 years ago.
5. PDF’s - My laptop actually came with a paid license to Adobe Acrobat. I don’t actually use it (or know what it does for that matter), but I do use the PDF “printer” feature that lets me “print” to a PDF. I use that to send invoices to my clients. It appears that Open Office has the ability to actually “Save As” to a PDF format, so hopefully that will come through for me.
6. DOS Box - Yea, I got on this retro kick and started playing old video games from my youth. Most of the shareware stuff from 3D Realms (formerly Apogee) is still for-pay, but things are a lot cheaper. One game I really liked was Crystal Caves (yea, that dates me). It used to be $35+ to buy the whole set. Now I can downloaded it for $10. I bought it. I love it. I want to keep using it. DOS Box is an excellent DOS emulator that emulates the old machines DOS would run on as well as the operating system. All the old games, Commander Keen, Crystal Caves, Monster Bash, Duke Nukem… even Wolfenstein 3D, all work very well under Dos Box - even the sound. I see there’s a version for Linux… hopefully it will work.
7. WinAmp - I have all my MP3’s on my laptop. I’m moving them to a secure file server that’s inside my firewall to free them from my laptop, but I need a decent media player. Not just a media player. A good media player. I like WinAmp. I use WinAmp. Heck, I paid for WinAmp. I will miss WinAmp. So far, all the media players I’ve used in Linux have sucked eggs. Hopefully that’s changed.
8. Imaging Tools - Ah, the bane of Linux. Before someone mentions the Gimp - please know that I detest the Gimp. What a great idea that’s never been implemented right. I’m serious. I want to draw and manipulate my pictures with a graphing tool - not a scripting tool. I know the Gimp has a lot of power, but it’s just not very accessible from the GUI. I haven’t used the Gimp in years, so maybe it’s better, but I’m not holding my breath.

That’s it for now. I’ll probably have more as time goes on. My goal is to go over my laptop with a fine toothed comb to back up all my data and find what programs I have lurking about that I never use but can’t live without. I’ve tried a few Live CD’s of Ubuntu (and friends), but I’m having a horrible time getting my wireless controller working. That’s apparently been a standard issue for Linux users for a while. If I can’t get it working, I’ll be stuck.

A while ago, my wife bought me a SanDisk Cruiser 4GB USB flash drive. The thing works pretty well, but for encryption, it uses SanDisk’s proprietary U3 software. U3 is nice and all, but it locked me into the Windows platform and I always seemed to have issues getting it to run on machines that I hadn’t already tooled around with.

I’ve been considering moving off the Windows platform on my development laptop, but the two things that have kept me on Windows was the Office suite (believe it or not… I like it) and the U3 software. I started looking around at other secure USB flash drives to see if anything would work with Linux and I couldn’t really find anything pre-installed. But everyone pointed to an open-source software package called “TrueCrypt.”

I considered getting another flash drive and installing TrueCrypt on it as a second, more platform independent data solution. However, I got to thinking… Do I really use the U3 software? It has a sync feature that is nice, but you can only sync a profile to a single machine. So I didn’t use it - ever. I just copied my documents to the flash drive periodically and called it a sync! So I decided to ditch it.

Thankfully, SanDisk did something rare for a hardware manufacturer… they actually listened to their customers. They put an uninstaller for the U3 software that will remove the “secret” partition on the drive and free it up to act just like a standard flash drive.

So, I backed up my files, uninstalled U3, and installed TrueCrypt on it. REAL tough… you copy the files to the drive. Phew… tough.

I ran TrueCrypt. It works by creating a file on the unencrypted partition that acts as a data store for an encrypted partition. The TrueCrypt drivers then use that data store and de/encrypt data from/to that file in real time as you use the encrypted “drive”. Through some relatively easy menu options, I was able to set up a drive that automatically mounted when I fired up TrueCrypt from the USB drive. There’s an “autorun.inf” file on the drive, but it doesn’t seem to want to run. So I just created a batch file that ran the same command.

So, now, all I have to do is stick the drive in, let the unencrypted drive mount, then run the “start.bat” file that I created in the root. TrueCrypt asks for my password and another drive mounts with my encrypted data.

Niiiiiiiiice…

Next up… trying it with Linux.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about where I’m going with the Office suite, I’m looking at IBM’s Symphony. It’s basically a nice facade to OpenOffice.

And for those who know me, you know that I’m Outlook junkie. Yea, yea… don’t bug me about it. Hey, I can’t find any other package that integrates contacts, emails, and calendars as well as Outlook. Well, except for Evolution. I used Evolution a bit when I was trying the Linux desktop thing once before. I’ll have to give it another go. I did hear from someone that Thunderbird has a calendar plug-in. I’ll have to see how well it works. I mainly need something that I can sync with my PDA…

I’ll post more my Linux Desktop migration again as it progresses. My main drive is a slightly unfounded fear of Vista.

In what can be best described as an “Onion” article in real life, the good folks of London are padding their lampposts to prevent people from injuring themselves while texting on their cell phones.

Unreal.

Padding to Protect Pedestrians

I think everyone should be issued a helmet and a padded vest.

My good friend, Mervin, had a comment to post on my “USD” blog entry. There was so much to it, I thought I’d put it out here as a blog entry:

First, I have to say… Yes, Paul is weird. However, I don’t want to minimize his fact and what this means for the world.

In my studies I have found that every money system has a lifespan. The society that uses the particular money system fails through political distress after the lifespan is over.

Every graduation to the next stage is brought on because the society tries to expand both influence and power. In the end, however they overextend themselves and fall. One could make the argument, then, that money is the greatest reflection on the intentions of mankind.

The Four Stages To The Money Lifespan

1. Real Money

   Another word for this is “Commodities”. You will find the world’s natural resources and elements here. This is anything that has a real use, and therefore value, to human kind. It could be something needed to sustain life, like water, or a man made need - such as oil. Real money = Real wealth.

2. Money Standard

   Think of this as an IOU. This money, whether paper or a stick (i.e. Talley Stick), is generally used because of the ease of transporting. It is backed or pegged to real money. Actually, this is probably the healthiest stage because it is easier to do commerce, but the money is still restricted to real money that is in storage somewhere. This is the stage of economic expansion.

3. Fiat Money

   Ah credit, what a wonderful thing. The term “Fiat” just means “By Government Decree”. Of course, another term for this is “Legal Tender Laws”. In this stage “Real Money” is totally disconnected from the IOU. The laws of the Government are the replacement for the “Real Money”. This stage is far more lawful and authoritarian in nature; trying to control money with words alone. It is also the stage of overextension where a “credit bubble” forms.

4. Hyper Inflation

   In the Fiat Money stage, the Government has earned your trust to print what they feel is necessary to sustain commerce. In the final stage, they abuse this trust by over printing the money. The reason for this is to pay off interest obligations from the “credit bubble” formed in the Fiat Money stage. When the society no longer believes that the Government is acting in their best interest, they start to move away from the money system which, in turn, devalues the money and brings an end to the system. The Government might be able to get away with over printing for a while, but once the society “wakes up” to it, the collapse happens very fast.

A money system is one of the most powerful systems of control over a society, but if people understand how money works they can use it as a tool instead of letting it be the master.

Thanks, Mervin!

Remember that chart I put on my “Amero” post showing the decline of US Dollar (USD) against the Canadian Dollar (CAD)? Well, we’ve all but hit parity (1 to 1) with the CAD today. The USDCAD currency pair got down to with in 1.0002. That means the USD is 2/100 of a cent away from being equal to the CAD.

I’m guessing that unless there’s a surge back up, that the CAD will be the dominant currency in North America by end of the day.

One step closer to a new currency…

And I’m not going tell you who he is.

Why? Because my Google ads keep showing his name it ads. And the ads are for auditory signals used to grab your attention when a person is trying to contact you through the radio based telephony device strapped to your belt (trying not to add to the AdSense fuel)!

Who is this guy? And why are his rington… I mean auditory signals… showing up in my Google ads? Seesh! I noticed that whenever I create a new page, either here or on my studio website, his, um, auditory signals, always show up until Google figures out what the page is for.

I just hope he’s some nasty guy who uses cuss words like conjunctions.

– EDIT –

Huh. Well, now my Google ads are showing the light bulbs again.

Weird.

Never have I been so nervous about posting something in my life. But given the lack of discussion around the water cooler about this, it needs to be known.

It’s amazing that something so significant can get so little press. And yet, it’s something that’s happening right under our nose. The “Amero”. What is the Amero? It’s a (as such) hypothetical currency that would be common between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It’s similar to the “Euro” in Europe, with the Union to boot (the “North American Union,” that is).

Stomach turned yet?

When I first heard about this, I was skeptical. However, the more I research, the more I find. A simple Google search turns up a wealth of information. The more credible sources still herald the North American Union and the Amero as theoretical. The less-than-credible-but-no-reason-they-would-be-wrong sources are claiming that the currency is already being printed and stamped and the North American Union will be in place by 2010.

The main reason major news sources don’t give much credence to the Union coming to pass beyond the theoretical is the fact that the US Dollar is so much stronger than the other currencies in this new Union. The imbalance would be of little incentive to the non-US countries.

However, if one examines the value the US Dollar has in the global economy over the last 5-10 years, it’s very easy to see some alarming trends.

The US Dollar’s value has tumbled. Tremendously. It’s worth less than the Euro and the British Pound (GBP) by quite a bit. It used to be you needed two British pounds to get a US Dollar. The reverse is now true. The GBP is worth over twice as much as the US Dollar.

Who cares?

Well, let me put it this way. Imagine if you had a million dollars. You’d feel rich! Imagine, now, that you had a million pesos instead. Whoopee! That’s about 90,000 US Dollars. Not chump change, but you certainly couldn’t retire with that.

Bottom line, whatever value you place on the money in your savings account, your 401k, your IRA or any other retirement plan today will mean squat in 4-8 years if the US Dollar’s value drops off the face of the planet. The Amero would do just that.

So what can we do?

Unless Congress puts the brakes on the whole North American Union, I’d say the Amero’s pretty much going to happen. We can prepare ourselves, though. The purists will tell you to invest in silver or gold, or other non-currency based investments. That’s a bit much for Joe Shmoe to swallow, I imagine. However, there are far simpler things you can do.

If you have a substantial amount of debt… get rid of it. Do what it takes to pay off your car, your house, that home equity loan you got when rates were low. And please, please get those credit cards paid off. The less you owe when this all goes down, the less it will effect you. And if I’m wrong, and this whole NAU stuff turns out to just be rhetoric… well, hey, you’ll be debt free.

And don’t think you can’t do it. The only barrier between you and being debt free is your own willingness to cut back on the crap you don’t need. Living in servitude to the monthly payment is merely a mindset. Imagine what you could do if you didn’t owe money. The idea that we have to live in debt is the biggest lie in the “American Dream,” and almost all of us have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

Amero Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amero - Wiki Article
http://www.amerocurrency.com - Anti-Amero Website
http://www.spp.gov - The US office pushing the Union
http://www.nsi-ins.ca/english/news_views/oped19.asp - Op Ed on the Amero
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=14965 (Warning - Conservatives on steroids)

Video Links:
Not much, but this is as close as the mainstream media has come to mentioning the Amero: You Tube Video about Amero