The Aribeth I Know (Part One)
July 21st, 2008
tiredNovember 6th, 2007
People are Scum
I just saw The Killer Within, a documentary about Bob Bechtel, the man who was bullied until he snapped and shot a dorm mate in 1955.
As I watched the documentary, I found myself becoming disgusted - not with Mr. Bechtel, but with many of the other people in the documentary. Mr. Bechtel, at least, faced what he did, paid what the standards of the time considered to be an appropriate penalty for his crime, and has done something good with his life. The other people in the documentary, on the other hand, refused to accept any responsibility for their parts in the tragedy, and spent their entire time on camera trying to convince the filmmakers that Mr. Bechtel was a monster and that he should not be taken seriously, no matter what he has to say, on any subject.
Even those who were involved in bullying him, after admitting to committing some of the acts he had described as examples of the bullying he endured, refused to admit that what they did constituted bullying. What kind of low-life scum are they?
I am disgusted.
grumpyNovember 1st, 2007
crazyOctober 23rd, 2007
Do you prefer private conversations, or posting your intimate secrets on public corkboards?
If you don't have a problem with posting your personal secrets for all the world to see, any IM client will do. They'll all happily send your messages over the net without any security whatsoever, and anyone with a packet sniffer can read them.
On the other hand, if you prefer privacy (like I do), I highly recommend OTR (Off-the-Record Messaging), which comes built into Adium, and is available as a plugin for Pidgin and Miranda, and available as a localhost proxy for any client that transmits AIM messages. OTR gives you the best security you can get for instant messages, and even if your key is compromised, your old messages are STILL secret.
MY IM client is set up to request OTR connections by default. I recommend you do the same.
On the other hand, if you prefer privacy (like I do), I highly recommend OTR (Off-the-Record Messaging), which comes built into Adium, and is available as a plugin for Pidgin and Miranda, and available as a localhost proxy for any client that transmits AIM messages. OTR gives you the best security you can get for instant messages, and even if your key is compromised, your old messages are STILL secret.
MY IM client is set up to request OTR connections by default. I recommend you do the same.
geekyOctober 2nd, 2007
Welcome to my Nightmare
Title: Not Quite Marty-Stu (Chapter 7: Welcome to my Nightmare)
author: Bill Hartwell
rating: teens
fandom: Harry Potter
characters/pairings: Harry/Ginny, Bill & Fleur Weasley
disclaimer: If you recognize it, and it’s not from Knights in Tarnished Armor, it’s not mine.
author’s note: Don't you just hate dreams?
word count: 3956
September 25th, 2007
Current Writing Projects
To make it easier to find stories that are in progress, I'm posting them on fanfiction.net, at least until I've put together copies on my own web site. So far, the links are:
Through a Glass, Darkly
and
Not Quite Marty-Stu
Through a Glass, Darkly
and
Not Quite Marty-Stu
accomplishedSeptember 23rd, 2007
Through a Glass, Darkly (Chapter Four: Breakfast and Planning)
title: Through a Glass, Darkly (Chapter Four: Breakfast and Planning)
author: Bill Hartwell
rating: teens
fandom: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, Aa! MegamiSama!
characters/pairings: Usagi/Mamoru, Rei/Makoto, Ami/Fred
disclaimer: If you recognize it, and it’s not from Knights in Tarnished Armor, it’s not mine.
author’s note: I know it's taking a while on this, but after the last chapter, I had to take a break to mentally regroup.
word count: 5,000
August 31st, 2007
SFWA Strikes Out
The SFWA has just shot itself in the foot, again, by fraudulently using the DMCA to demand that Scribd remove all mentions of Asimov and Silverberg from its site. This includes bibliographies of influential science fiction writers, essays about various authors or novels, the back catalog of the magazine Ray Gun Revival, and works by authors who specifically instructed the SFWA that it was not authorized to speak on their behalf.
What gets me is, Andrew Burt is (or, at least, used to be) an active member of Baen's Bar, so you'd think he would know better than to pull a stunt like this, but apparently this is just par for the course for the SFWA over the last few years. More details of this stunt, as well as a discussion of the fallout from it and past SFWA blunders, can be found in an editorial by Cory Doctorow, here.
The more I learn about the SFWA, the less inclined I am to pay for a membership, in the unlikely event I ever make the membership requirements.
What gets me is, Andrew Burt is (or, at least, used to be) an active member of Baen's Bar, so you'd think he would know better than to pull a stunt like this, but apparently this is just par for the course for the SFWA over the last few years. More details of this stunt, as well as a discussion of the fallout from it and past SFWA blunders, can be found in an editorial by Cory Doctorow, here.
The more I learn about the SFWA, the less inclined I am to pay for a membership, in the unlikely event I ever make the membership requirements.
irritatedThrough a Glass, Darkly (Chapter Three: Terror and Tenderness)
title: Through a Glass, Darkly (Chapter Three: Terror and Tenderness)
author: Bill Hartwell
rating: teens
fandom: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, Aa! MegamiSama!
characters/pairings: Usagi/Mamoru, Rei/Makoto, Ami/Fred
disclaimer: If you recognize it, and it’s not from Knights in Tarnished Armor, it’s not mine.
author’s note: What Ami sees and hears in Fred's memories are not made up for this story. They actually happened, and what his ex-wife says in his memories are as close to an exact quote as it is possible to remember after ten years.
Some people might disagree with my rating of this chapter. Tough! They probably disagree with the existence of sexual information in their school nurse's office, or the number of the local suicide hotline being posted in their school counselor's office, too.
word count: 5383
exhaustedAugust 23rd, 2007
Beautiful Music
Thanks to Freefall, I've been turned on to the absolute best recording of Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D Minor that I have ever heard. Performed by Frederik Magle on the pipe organ in Riga Cathedral, it is lush, beautiful, simply a joy to listen to. Mr. Magle has made it available for free download, here. If you love music, do yourself a favor and get this recording.
happyAugust 21st, 2007
Through a Glass, Darkly (Chapter Two: Bock and Photos)
title: Through a Glass, Darkly (Chapter Two: Bock and Photos)
author: Bill Hartwell
rating: teens
fandom: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, Aa! MegamiSama!
characters/pairings: Usagi/Mamoru, Rei/Makoto, Ami/Fred
disclaimer: If you recognize it, and it’s not from Knights in Tarnished Armor, it’s not mine.
author’s note: This started as a dream....
word count: 8239
author: Bill Hartwell
rating: teens
fandom: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, Aa! MegamiSama!
characters/pairings: Usagi/Mamoru, Rei/Makoto, Ami/Fred
disclaimer: If you recognize it, and it’s not from Knights in Tarnished Armor, it’s not mine.
author’s note: This started as a dream....
word count: 8239
( Story Time )
creativeAugust 19th, 2007
You know you have indigestion....
Me: God! Something crawled up my ass and died!
![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
wackylisa: I'm glad you said it, so I didn't have to.
No, I don't have a clue what I ate.
wackylisa: I'm glad you said it, so I didn't have to.No, I don't have a clue what I ate.
embarrassedAugust 14th, 2007
Something most people don't know....
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' new report, Child Maltreatment 2004, when one parent is acting without the involvement of the other parent, mothers are almost three times as likely to kill their children as fathers are, and are more than twice as likely to maltreat them.
As if those of us who grew up in mother-only households didn't already know that...and as if fathers who are kept out of their children's lives by abusive mothers didn't already know that..
We already knew that, but it seems as if everyone else is trying their hardest to pretend they don't know.
As if those of us who grew up in mother-only households didn't already know that...and as if fathers who are kept out of their children's lives by abusive mothers didn't already know that..
We already knew that, but it seems as if everyone else is trying their hardest to pretend they don't know.
cynicalThrough a Glass, Darkly (Chapter One: Arrival)
title: Through a Glass, Darkly (Chapter One: Arrival)
author: Bill Hartwell
rating: teens
fandom: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, Aa! MegamiSama!
characters/pairings: Usagi/Mamoru, Rei/Makoto, Ami/Fred
disclaimer: If you recognize it, and it’s not from Knights in Tarnished Armor, it’s not mine.
author’s note: This started as a dream....
word count: 6984
August 13th, 2007
Livejournal is anti-abuse?
This is a good example of why I can not trust LiveJournal enough to continue using them as my primary journal. As long as they continue in this vein, Insanejournal will be my journal site of choice.
annoyedAugust 12th, 2007
The Y2K Bug was REAL! Well, for ONE thing, at least...
It seems that James Hansen (yes, the same James Hansen who accused the Busheviks of trying to censor his views on climate change) was using a secret algorithm for calculating the global temperatures that he reported as "proof" of "global warming".
Leaving aside the fact that a real scientist would never use a secret algorithm to produce the data he claims as "proof" of anything, we have now discovered that Mr. Hansen's algorithm had a very interesting Y2K bug. Thanks to Steve McIntyre, of climateaudit.org, who reverse-engineered Mr. Hansen's algorithm when Mr. Hansen refused to reveal what he used to calculate his temperature data, we have learned that no matter what data you feed into Mr. Hansen's algorithm, you will always get a sudden jump in global temperatures right around the year 2000.
After eliminating Mr. Hansen's Y2K bug, that sudden jump in global temperatures no longer exists, and we discover that the actual distribution of temperatures falls into the normal variances you would expect, without having to call upon "global warming" to explain them.
amusedAugust 9th, 2007
Time to Update Your Lists
I've been annoyed by LiveJournal and its oh-so-wonderful management in the past, but their latest stupidity has finally pushed me beyond merely being annoyed, into actually doing something about my annoyance. So, all my future journal entries will be posted to InsaneJournal, instead of LiveJournal. I may continue to monitor my LJ friends page, but there's no guarantee I'll notice anything you might have specifically wanted me to see.
So, if you want to see my future posts, look for them at Yinepuhotep, Battered Men, and Knights in Tarnished Armor.
I'll be copying my old posts over, over the next few days, so they'll be accessible there, as well as here, but all my new posts will be going there.
So, if you want to see my future posts, look for them at Yinepuhotep, Battered Men, and Knights in Tarnished Armor.
I'll be copying my old posts over, over the next few days, so they'll be accessible there, as well as here, but all my new posts will be going there.
August 8th, 2007
July 23rd, 2007
The World's Longest Suicide Note
Also known as Windows Vista Content Protection.
A relevant quote from the article:
A relevant quote from the article:
In fact, Microsoft is imposing a higher standard of security for premium content than what's been required in the past for any known secure computing initiative proposed for protecting data classified at TOP SECRET or TS/SCI levels (the closest that anything came to what's required in Vista was the LOCK kernel with SIDEARM and BED coprocessors (PDF link), which didn't go as far as the Vista requirements and after 17 years of development effort was a commercial failure to boot). Just to make this point clear, the level of security that Vista is trying to achieve to protect video and audio is more extreme than anything the US government has ever considered necessary for protecting its most sensitive classified data.