Andromeda Rising

12.19.15.13.0 11 Ahau 3 Yax

This is a sad day: standing witness to the final dissolution of all pretense of democracy, human rights, justice, morality or even sanity in this utterly mad, morally and spiritually bankrupt nation arrogantly calling itself ‘America’.

While I am glad to see the noxious waste that passes for government and its institutions going down in flames - to an end it most richly deserves - I grieve for the innocents who will most suffer the burden of this monumental folly and its ineluctable collapse.

The depraved plutocrats and oligarchs have secured the golden parachutes and platinum safety nets by means of which they intend to flee to their safe havens, while those remaining on the lowest rungs of the societal ladder - those who have already been plundered, gang-raped, and sacrificed to the twin gods of incomprehensible greed and its ever-present partner: insatiable lust for power and domination - will be further shoved down society’s manholes to slog through the massive underground sewer system of our hopelessly class-fractured society - to gasp for breath and grasp for life as best they can, while their children, and children’s children will be born into slavery and oppression for generations to come.

Or - perhaps not.
Perhaps the extremity of the crisis yet to unfold, and the long-overdue awakening of the slumbering masses accompanied by their inevitable outrage and indignation, will finally, at long-last, bring about the complete dismantling of the fatally diseased white-man’s power structure calling itself ‘Western Civilization’ - and a new, more equitable non-order will emerge.
The seeds of beautiful flowers lie germinating in the sludge and detritus of the failed experiment in social ordering called Western Capitalism (or Socialism, or Communism, or Fascism, or any other ‘ism’)
Perhaps human beings will finally open their eyes, as well as their hearts, and forever spurn the shackles that a small, inbred and devolved class of sociopaths - undeserving of even being called humans - has endeavored to chain them to in perpetuity.

I want very much to devote this space to a positive and uplifting focus - but I am too depressed right now.
Yet in the larger perspective, the events unfolding are positive.
That which is counter to anything evolutionary in human consciousness is in the early stages of irretrievable dissolution - and only good can come of that.

On this day I do not feel inspired or eloquent - only deeply saddened.
I would like at this moment in history to defer to the eloquence of others whose courage, honesty, and penetrating insight I deeply admire.
Their words ring as a clarion call amidst the panicked and unreasoning din of those whose denials have finally come home to roost.

I invite others to read these exceptional essays on the present calamitous events - both their causes, and the opportunity they present to a jaded and war-weary world.

The always outstanding Cyrano’s Journal
(”Comforting the Afflicted, and Afflicting the Comfortable”)
offers a no-holds-barred indictment of our failed capitalist system by associate editor Jason Miller:

One Nation Under Capitalism: It’s Time for a Crucifixion

And the following exceptional essays by Arthur Silbur from his outstanding Power of Narrative blog - a fine sampling of his more recent penetrating articles on the current crisis and what has brought us to this brink:

Fucking You to Death: Blackmail, A $5 Trillion Price Tag, and A Criminal Government

There Is No Fix

The State and Full Spectrum Dominance, Abroad and At Home

Terrorist State, Abroad and At Home

Psst — While You Were Gibbering, the Ruling Class Rigged the Game and Won Everything

Women as the Ultimate Source of Evil

Or better yet, just subscribe to his blog and read all his posts.

And finally, for an excellent analysis of the compelling arguments against Statism of any stripe, by Robert Higgs:

If Men Were Angels: The Basic Analytics of the State versus Self-government

To a Better and Happier Tomorrow . . .

12.19.15.3.4 10 K’an 12 Kumk’u

Praise the Mother!!!
I have finally fixed Typhon - after 3 long years of struggle!
After one hard, final push to fix this crippled production machine, I had finally reached the point of giving up and was getting ready to part it out - which led to the discovery of what has been plaguing this system from the beginning: dimm slot 4 doesn’t work! - at least not when the other 3 are also populated.

I had removed the 512 gb ram sticks from slots 3 & 4 to give to one of our sons, and was just doing some final troubleshooting with a different graphics card, when all of the sudden - everything started working! The darn thing stopped crashing and it became rock-solid stable!
That is something that has never occurred since I built it 3 years ago.
I am still in shock and disbelief - and euphoria!

To be completely clear - I can’t say for sure whether it is dimm slot 4 in particular that doesn’t work, or if the motherboard is simply unstable with all 4 slots filled - (my guess is the latter) - but at the moment, I really don’t care.
I know slot 3 works. and that the ram is detected in slot 4.
I have also extensively tested the ram in this and other computers and know that it is good.
I could try placing the 2 remaining sticks in slots 3 & 4, instead of 1 & 2, but I really don’t want to go back to having problems again after waiting this long to get a working system.
(I can’t have 3 sticks in there, as the MB mfr states that installing memory on only 3 dimms can cause failure.)

Just prior to this discovery, I had become convinced that the problem was either the graphics card, or a damaged hard drive, and was switching things around to test out those possibilities.
However, I now have the original video card in, and it is working fine, and the hard drive I suspected is working fine now too - no damage at all.

We were planning to just scrap the machine and buy 2 more for the studio, but it now looks like we can keep this one for recording, and just buy one more for mastering - which is great, as we have very little to put into more equipment right now.

How do you spell R-E-L-I-E-F!
I now feel that I was not such an idiot after all - for all my software-related attempts to fix this system having failed.
It would have been nice to have discovered this problem several years ago. but after hours and hours of pouring over forum posts and mailing lists, I had never encountered anyone describing a problem that sounded even remotely similar to the one we were having.
We could not compile anything without the system locking up hard. We could not copy large directories or files without crashing, and it would crash nearly every time it was booted up or shut down.

It is a fact that the nForce3 chipset which we have on Typhon has been known to have major issues.
nVidia doesn’t even support it anymore - though they support chipsets prior to that one, and since.
Guess it’s been a dark secret in someone’s closet, and has lost nVidia a lot of good will by the end users who got roasted.

And just a week ago, I finally got my laptop working so I could go online in Linux!
I could never get the dial-up modem to work under Linux, and by the time I bought an RS232-to-USB adapter for an external modem, I no longer had time to go on the computer and even try it out. When I managed to get time to go online again a few months ago, we had finally managed to get a DSL line to our home (after 10 years of waiting), only to be confronted with the new challenge of getting the integrated ethernet chip working under Linux.
I have been struggling with it for over a month, and finally got it working a few days ago by disabling acpi in the kernel boot options.

We now have Linux working on both our computers, and can go online with them as well!
It’s been a long time coming.
There is so much we need to catch up on now: a huge backlog of music to finish recording and mastering, and many computing projects that have lain dormant all this time, and we are very anxious to get back to work.

However, in the bigger picture of things, I see this breakthrough as being inextricably connected to a total reorientation of our consciousness - and our relationship.
It is referred to in metaphysical circles as ‘Reversing One’s Direction on the Wheel‘ or ‘Crossing the Plane of Reversal‘.
And that we have definitely done.

The outer ever reflects the inner - and there have been many transformations in our outer reality that have reflected the profound shift within.
It is a wonderful thing to experience Life rushing forward to embrace you when you are willing to release judgments and images, and go beyond your imprinting.

So many amazing changes have occurred in the past year - and especially the past few months.
Everything has changed, and the world seems new again.
I have so many ideas and projects I am eager to get started on.

One of the things which is going to get a makeover is this long-neglected web site, and our others as well.
I will be removing the political content, as it no longer feels appropriate, and focusing instead on the constructive and creative things I have always wanted to devote this space to.

Politics is, by nature, divisive and negative, and I have used the political postings and links here to hold a magnifying glass to what I have seen as wrong with the world.
I would now like to hold a magnifying glass to what is right with the world - what can be healed, what is being healed, and supporting and participating in the work of healing.

It may seem platitudinous to say that the glass is either half-empty or half-full; that if one is not part of the solution, then one is part of the problem; or that we must be the change we want to see in the world - but it is also profound truth.

The imbalance we see in the world around us reflects the imbalance that lies within us, and the love that seems missing in the world, is the love that we have failed to give it.
We do create our own reality.

This cosmic ending of a cycle and beginning of a new one which is upon humanity, is a time of great change and vast possibilities - an opportunity to make a huge evolutionary leap - and I mean to take maximal advantage of it.
What an exciting time to be alive . . .

4 Kawak, 7 Pax

Raise It Up! - (from the film “August Rush”)

Raise It Up!

Watched the movie “August Rush” recently - beautiful film with so much heart.
But this clip just took my breath away - absolutely incredible!
It gives me chills every time I hear it.
Thank you IMPACT Repertory Theater for an incredible performance, and Jamia Simone Nash for your angelic vocals.

This is what music is all about - stirring the ethers by Stirring the Soul!
Simply Magic.

Lyrics:

“No father figure in the house
and i’m wonderin’ how i’m gonna work it out

oh my friends keep on tellin’ me how i don’t need that man but they don’t really understand

there’s far too many presures in reality but dealing with the pain and stress and poverty

and i gotta be myself because there’s nobody else for me (ohhhh)

(heading there with me)sometimes it takes a different kind of love to raise a child
(so don’t give up)so don’t give up

(when pressures come down)sometimes it takes a different kind of dream to make you smile

(so raise it up)
(hang in there with me)sometimes we need another helping hand to show the ways

(so don’t give up) so don’t give up
(when presures come down)sometimes it seems impossible and that’s why we pray

(so raise it up) we raise

[HOPE] seems to be nothing left for me mommas gone daddy didnt wanna be and now i’m all by myself wonderin where is love or should i just give up

life falls down on me, cuts into my soul but i know i got the strength to make it through it all cause im still standin tall breaking through this wall i’m gonna give my all

[HOPE] feelin like a motherless child hankered into my soul its bringing me down cant find my smile on a face of a motherless child

im gonna break down these walls gonna give it my all ya know
yeah yeah yeah yeahhhh

(hang in there with me)sometimes it takes a different kind of love to raise a child
(so dont give up)so dont give up
(when pressures come down)sometimes it takes a different kind of dream to make a smile
(so raise it up) so raise it up
(hang in there with me) raise it up
sometimes it takes another helping hand to show you the way
(so dont give up, when pressures come down)
[HOPE] sometimes it seems impossible thats why we pray
SO RAISE IT UP”
————————————————–
Song: Raise It Up
Artist: Jamia Simone Nash and Impact Repertory Theatre
Album: August Rush Soundtrack
Year: 2007
————————————————–

Go to Free-Burma.org

And also go to AVAAZ.org

and sign The Petition here: Stand With Burma

Busy-busy-busy!

Still here, he-he-he
Haven’t posted for a long time because I’m actually being
productive!

Making tons and tons of progress with Linux (and DOS).
Now that I have a working Linux distro, (and my own computer),
I’m finally learning Linux, Unix, DOS, bash-scripting and other stuff.
WOW - this is so fun! Love it, love it, love it!
I was born to do this - it’s like breathing.

The “UNIX for Dummies” book has had me in stitches for days.
Not a whole lot of content, but a thoroughly enjoyable - and hilarious - read.
It is a relief to know that there are hackers with a sense of humor - especially about themselves, lol.

Another reason I haven’t posted is that all the tech stuff I’m figuring out really belongs in a Wiki.
I don’t want to clutter up my general blog with it all, so I am trying to find a Wiki that will work for personal-notes, tips&tricks and various how-tos as I discover them, that I can just post to a Wiki linked to this website.

Am busy putting together a new Linux distro I’m calling ‘Zen Linux’.
Yes, I know there already is one - but it is defunct.
Furthermore, I like the name, mine is way more Zen than theirs is, and I got the domain zen-linux.org. So . . .

Right now it is more a ‘Zen-Puppy’, than ‘Zen-Linux’, but is rapidly becoming less Puppyish, as I continue stripping things out, and replacing them with my own vision of the perfect Linux distribution.

Also getting ready to figure out how to compile Ardour from scratch on my new Zen-Pup.
I think this will prove to be quite a challenge, but I’m ready.
I’m currently maintaining 6 PCs at home, with various OS and all different kinds of hardware, so this is all keeping me very busy.

Have also been very busy, creating court forms and putting together a case for my son Adriel - so the poor fellow can finally get his birth certificate. (Long, sad story - for another day.)
Have had to do extensive research on state code for both Idaho and Missouri, and learn how to do pdf editing.
(Found a great little pdf editor PDFill for only $20 - Windows only, I’m afraid). It saved my derriere.

Been helping my oldest daughter, Luthien, get all her paperwork
and financial aid forms together for UND, and getting 4 of my teens ready for ACTs, SATs, GEDs, etc.
Luthien and Adriel just took their private pilot written test a couple of weeks ago - and passed with flying colors!
Now comes the expensive part - 40 hrs of flight training!
(About $120/hr)

Adriel took a marathon, solo bus odyssey to LA back in mid-March to attend a big anti-war demonstration in Hollywood on March 17.
It was a grueling trip, but he enjoyed the adventure, and we are proud of him for putting action to his beliefs.
(I was going to say for putting his feet where his mouth is - but that wouldn’t come out right, lol.)

Our oldest son, Thrace, just bought a huge diesel truck, and we have been having lots of fun - NOT!, lol - trying to fix all the things that went wrong with it right after he got it.

Will have 5 of 8 younglings all working this summer!
Lots of driving and gas, but we can sure use the money.

My little laptop is working like a dream. I’m thinking about calling it Scirocco - but haven’t quite decided yet - names are very important!

I gleefully deleted the Vista partition it came with and started from scratch.
It is all open-source now: FreeDOS, Linux, Menuet & Kolibri, and will be trying out Minix and DragonFly BSD at some point.
Don’t have any internet access on it yet, as I couldn’t find any Linux drivers for the internal modem.
I tried the Linuxant drivers but they didn’t work (probably because it is a laptop) - and totally screwed up my audio to boot.
So I reinstalled, and am getting an external modem with a usb to serial converter. Should work. [fingers crossed]

Still haven’t even begun to tackle printing yet. I’ve heard so many horror stories I’m kind of scared - but maybe things have improved in that arena.
Also trying to prettify the fonts in Puppy for web browsing - got a lot to learn there.

Have also been searching for some really nice GPL/Creative Commons-licensed desktop wallpapers to include in Zen-Linux, and think I have finally found them on Flickr.
(I’m currently using a few I salvaged from my Vista OS - the only good thing about Vista was the wallpapers.)

Hopefully I’ll have my Wiki up soon before I forget all the stuff I’ve figured out. :/

Just discovered the WillemPen Manpages site has gone down - permanently!
Just when I was really using the heck out of it.
(Wonder if that had something to do with it?)
I’m going to try to retrieve all the archived pages off the internetarchive and host them on my server.
I’ve also got some other projects I’m hoping to resurrect or take over maintaining that seem to be drifting into oblivion.

Have also found a great new way to pass the time while waiting for web pages to load.
Instead of going to news sites and getting all bent out of shape compulsively reading news stories that make me really scared and angry, I now play ‘Bubbles’ - the old tcl game from Ulis.
I love this game - it is so therapeutic!
I mean, my primary compulsion in life has always been to eradicate obstacles - in the most efficient and resourceful way possible.
This game always boosts my spirits when I have had a frustrating work session. Highly recommended!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Just watched “Little Miss Sunshine” last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I mean - I can relate to this eccentric family on so many levels!
Our family - a bizarre cross between the ‘Adams Family’ and ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’, with a good dose of Tyler Durden’s gang thrown in, gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘eccentric’.
I think the most resonant moment for me, was when they get pulled over by a cop with their dead grandpa in the back, and the dad frantically instructs his family to “pretend to be normal”, LOL.
Yeah!
The VW-Bus with the stripped clutch, is also reminiscent of so many of our past vehicles - several with no brakes, etc.
I mean - we have had some moments!!!

Also saw ‘Night at the Museum’, and ‘Stranger than Fiction’.
Really nice, warm-hearted, feel-good films - a refreshing change from the usual fare.

Came up with a good motto yesterday:

“A hack a day, keeps the brain-rot away”

I really like that - will have to post it permanently somewhere.

My son Adriel came up with a jewel recently, as well:

“You have to think outside the box, if you want to live outside the box.”

Great one, Adriel!!!

- A Più Tardi

Finally, vindication! - Justin does it again!

Please read Justin Raimondo’s latest commentary entitled:
The Real “Existential Threat”.

It was almost precisely a year ago to this day (April 4th, 2006 to be exact), that I posted my despairing, angst-ridden prediction of the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut towards the invasion of Iran, and the inevitable launching of World War IV, here:
World War IV.
(So-named in acknowledgement of the view taken by many that the so-called “Cold War” was, in fact, WWIII.)

At the time of writing this lament, I was ridiculed for taking such an extreme, ‘over-the-top’, ‘pessimistic’ and dystopian view of the future.
It appears now, that it was only the timing of my prediction that was premature.

I have, throughout my life, been a frequent victim of the Cassandra Syndrome.
Within a week of the destruction of the Twin Towers on Sept 11 2001, I was posting distraught and agonized messages on various forums, bemoaning what I saw as our country’s imminent plunge into a fascist police state.
I saw it coming - and it broke my heart, and made me ill.

At the time, I was derided and viciously attacked for being crazy, for being unpatriotic, for supporting the enemy, for being an ‘America-hater’, a traitor, and all the rest of that rot.

Well - I was right; and it didn’t take that long for my predictions to unfold - in an even more nightmare scenario than I imagined at the time.

I was neither wrong in my fears, nor in what I foresaw as to the inevitable result of our imperialistic fervor and recklessly stupid arrogance and hubris.
I prophesied this crossing of our Rubicon - though I take no joy in being right.

I have always been a visionary.
I have envisioned great and beautiful possibilities for this planet and the humanity which dwells upon it.
And despite this precipitous course of self-destruction we seem hell-bent upon - I still believe that the power of those who cherish life, who cherish love, who cherish freedom, who cherish survival and who wish to realize these positive potentialities will, in the end, prevail.

The curse of the visionary is that they foresee not only the good, the beautiful and the hopeful - they foresee also the evil, the horrific and the terrifying - things which evoke gloom and despair.
Yet, these premonitions of dread are a wake-up call - a summons and appeal to act, to acknowledge and to change the destructive course of events.
They need to be heard. They need to be listened to. They need to be acknowledged. And they need to be heeded.

What I feel, more than a grim satisfaction at being vindicated, is anger - deep anger - at being ignored, and having my insights and perceptions dismissed out of hand as the ravings of a lunatic.

I hope, and believe, it is not too late.
I hope those who still have hearts and souls intact and who still retain a conscience will finally act.

We must raise our voices and speak truth to power.
We must rise up in solidarity and oppose this reckless, headlong rush towards self-annihilation.
We must stop, in its tracks, this freight-train to Apocalypse.

We can no longer afford to remain in denial and hope it will all somehow just go away.
It will not go away.
And if we continue to remain silent and do nothing to stop it - we are all responsible for the Global Holocaust we will be unleashing upon the Earth.

Be it not so.

Cyberlog Stardate: 12.19.14.3.5 (2 Chicchan 18 Cumku)

Working hard on stuff - some progress and big breakthroughs, with occasional setbacks.
However, I need to get some things off my chest.

First: I have been forced to totally disable comments on my blog due to the enormous volume of comment spam - to my political posts only.
(Wow, what a coincidence!)

I post on different subjects: personal, tech, spiritual and political, but the only posts receiving spam are the political ones - which always have a strong anti-war, anti-government, anti-establishment perspective.
I know who is doing this, and it is incredibly pathetic - but I should not be surprised.
The mofos are going down in flames and they are desperate.
However, I will continue to speak my mind and voice my views with passion - and will simply forego the responses.

Even disabling all comments hasn’t completely stopped the spam attacks.
My moderation queue has still been filling up with scores of hits - 63 just yesterday.
I am having to resort to exhaustive filtering and blacklisting to cut it down to a manageable level.
Perhaps I will eventually figure out how to really turn off comments so they don’t even get into my moderation queue.

Second: Ubuntu sucks

I really tried to be open-minded and give it a chance - in spite of misgivings when I found out it was Debian-based, and seeing how ‘extremely popular’ it was.
It definitely has the most sophisticated and engaging outward presentation. Their ‘branding’ has been quite successful, and I’d say their PR campaign is working quite well.

I decided to set aside any bias I had and give it my best shot - but to say I was disappointed is an understatement.
After several abortive attempts to install it - as it was refusing to use the partitions I had created for it - I finally managed to get it installed, only to discover that it had run roughshod over my other partitions.

I told it, it could only install grub on the partition it was using - so what did it do?
It went and found my other linux partition, deleted all the grub files from it, made the partition unbootable, and excluded that partition from the default grub menu.
(It left the Windows partition in there, however.)

When I booted into Ubuntu to try to troubleshoot the problem I was greeted with an admittedly cute splash screen, coupled with an extremely slow boot up.
Then, when I went into the console to start trying to repair the damage, I was informed that I didn’t have permission to perform those commands.
I tried then to log in as root, but had no idea what the password was. (The only account it had created during install was my user account.)
I am not accustomed to user accounts, as I have always done everything in Linux as root - and it works great for me.
I hate user accounts and all that administrative stuff!

I finally had to reboot into the ‘repair’ kernel to access root mode.
Although this allowed me to use cfdisk and fdisk and do some troubleshooting, it didn’t really help very much.
As I could no longer boot into my other Linux partition, I had to access grub on the Ubuntu partition, go into command mode and enter all the boot commands by hand.
(Fortunately, I remembered them all.)

After finally getting back into Puppy, (whew!), I was able to begin damage control.
I dropped to console mode, created a new boot partition, and installed grub to it - with Puppy in the menu ( and not Ubunutu).
There - take that!
I am now deleting the Ubuntu partition and want nothing more to do with this distro - I don’t care how cute and together it appears to be in its outward presentation.

I have always had the feeling that the Debian community was extremely anal - but had hoped that perhaps Ubuntu would prove to be a much more user-friendly, up-to-date, and flexible distro.
After my recent experience I want nothing more to do with it.
It was like trying to install and deal with Windows XP or Vista.
Maybe that’s precisely what they are trying hard to imitate.
If so - well done!.
They just showed me that Linux distros can be as bloated, sluggish, and lacking in user-control and transparency as Microsoft.
Good one!

I guess it really just comes down to there being two fundamental types of people in the world:
Those who like to get under the hood, fix their own motors, and have understanding and control of their systems and life.
Others prefer to be controlled, and have things decided for them.
I belong to the former camp - which is why I have despised Microsoft’s approach to operating systems and programs, and why I can’t stand big Linux distros which seem intent on outdoing Microsoft in all the respects which made me dump Windows.
No transparency - and no respect.

Oh well - fortunately, there is still a small segment of the open-source community, of which I am a proud member, that has embraced the opposite approach to computing - and for that, I am extremely grateful.

On the upside - I have been having tremendous, ebullient and joyous success with Puppy Linux (Seamonkey) and with MenuetOS and the newer KolibriOS.
Thank the gods, there are still some wise and gutsy programmers left in the world - mavericks and trailblazers in the best of the old-school hacker tradition.

Bravo to the assemblers who have worked so hard to bring Menuet and Kolibri to where they are today.
I hope very much to participate in the development of these OSes.
And the Goddess bless Barry Kauler, for his genius in creating Puppy Linux.
Kudos!!!!!

This distro just works!!!
It is so small and so fast.
It boots up at lightning speed, whether running out of ramdrive or off the hard drive.

It has worked on every system I have tried it on - from my little girl’s i586, (with 100mhz Athlon K5, 40 mb ram, 1mb video ram and a 1gb hdd), to my oldest son’s K8 system - (with Athlon64 4000, PCI-express, 2gb ram and 80 gb SATA) - and everything in between.

And not only that - I have - for the first time ever with any Linux distro - managed to get online with our dialup internet service!
And it has worked with every single modem, both internal softmodems, and external ones, on our 6 computers.
(Haven’t had a chance to try out the wifi modem drivers yet, but I am very optimistic, based on the success I have already have.)

Menuet/Kolibri have also worked on every system I have tried them on - and my - they have come so far from their first days!
I am truly impressed!
Menuet/Kolibri is such an ideal OS for embedded systems and, I feel, is extremely promising for audio apps.
I know RME uses pure assembler with their Hammerfall DSPs - so it seems like it should be a terrific match for embedded audio systems.

I am also extremely pleased with XOSL2 and am working on a universal CD-installer - and enhancing it with paritioning and filesystem tools.
(More on this later.)

Overall, I am extremely pleased with my progress so far.

Oh - and I did go ahead and get a little 2gb keychain usb drive - and I absolutely love it!
It has definitely changed my life for the better.
The Sneakernet is back, lol!

I also splurged on a Belkin G+ Wifi modem for my laptop, and I love it too.
Look out world!!!

Keep on hacking.