Thursday, August 21, 2008

Row, row the Boat

A perfect example of the events in life that spark some desire to put opinion to word but used to be tempered by the construct of my last website. Is the story about a husband and wife who faked the husbands death while he was out in a canoe and then lived it up on the insurance money. That story was what sparked the existence of this newer, streamlined site.

I felt for that couple and I wanted to talk about that. That they could come up with a scheme that got by the fairly intricate mechanisms of government and then the even more intricate mechanisms of insurance and managed to swindle over two hundred thousand out of the great leviathan of commerce. I raise my hat to them.

Of course the morally afflicted will raise their eyebrows and smack their lips together, while purposefully shaking their head from side to side. But from my viewpoint the only thing they really did wrong, apart from getting caught, was to lie to their children. But even then we don’t know what the relationship was there. They might have been crap parents and had little contact with them. Or they might have been great parents and had little contact with them. Or they might just have been crap kids. If they were both good parents and great children and then the parents pulled this, and did not tell them. Then that was bad.

As for swindling two hundred thousand from the system, no problem. The system is fat and bloated and is not principled. Two hundred thousand in the great scheme of things is nothing. I have seen mediocre government departments blow that amount in one afternoon on useless equipment that was never used. Just to hit budget expenditure so they can get more the next year. That happens all the time.

Two hundred thousand really is no amount of money these days. What they did was wrong within the great scheme of laws required of society. But there is some part of my that wishes they could have got away with it. I think it is the thought of two people being able to stick two fingers up at the system and laughing into their penicolada’s.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Touching the Linux Fantastic

It would be safe to say that historically I have tended to avoid Linux wherever possible. I think that was mostly because Novell (back in the day) forced it down our throats in the misguided belief it was a lot more than it actually was.

In hindsight I think my problem with Linux was in my approach. Novell trumpeted Suse desktop as a Windows killer (honestly) and I think I made the mistake of thinking of it like Windows. It is a whole different planet.

Time passes and we find ourselves in different situations. Novell now is a distant memory of pub quizes and futile team meetings. I work now in London for a company that reserve two rack slots for legacy Novell technologies and a server room for a whole load of everything else. Which includes Linux. I need to get my arse in gear.

Besides, now that Microsoft have burdened us with Vista, Linux should be a walk in the park.

The remit then was simple - to install openSuse and then on top of that vmware server - an old nemesis of mine from previous encounters with Linux.

The installing Linux bit went real well. Unless you’re running bleeding edge technology then these days it should do, depending on the distribution of course. Debian failed miserably at seeing any of my duo core hardware but openSuse breezed it. Hoorah.

Then I got into the trifling matter of vmware which likes recompiling itself. The trouble is the dialogue that comes with each section of the install might as well have been in a language from another planet. Worded in that obscure way that Linux help files often are. They can contain pages on pages of text telling you what is required in English, all verbs and adjectives that describe switches and mechanisms that make absolutely no sense at all.

So it was, that after completing the install of prerequisites like compilers and source code I found myself pressing page down through the license agreement. I felt if this was all for free - which vmware server is then the least I could do was check out the whole of the agreement.

The trouble is though that when you get to the end it just stops. And nothing happens. There is no box where you can type ‘I agree’ or even a message stating that all you need to do is press return to agree. It just stops and you go no where.

Of course this is where all the smug little Linux afficionados sit smug on that other planet of theirs and giggle into their vodka tonics. All mouthing inison: ‘Just press Q numb nuts.’

Which is all you have to do but until you find out that little gem the world can suddenly seem like a wonderful arena for random violence against inanimate objects.

So we get past the license agreement and press return past the first few questions.

And then it told me it would need to compile - coolio I was expecting that. And then it told me my compiler was the wrong version - by one digit at the end of a sequence of digits. It then informed me in that other planet way that continuing would probably mean everything I dreamed vmware was going to give me would likely fall on its arse just when I least needed it to.

So I did some research. Surely it was just a matter of installing the right version of the compiler. But the only version on offer was the one I had. So I did some more research. Was it because of my kernel version? It did not seem like it. Not for this particular issue. The kernel issues were just around the corner. One cheerful forum announced.

Eventually I found a walk thru of vmware on suse that flippantly explained that it always comes up with that message and you just have to ignore it and proceed anyways. Not so coolio.

So we march on, now with a sense that the end is nigh and very soon I will be able to tell people that I installed vmware on Linux and survived a recompile. My heart beat hard in my chest.

Then I ran into the kernel issues. In order to recompile vmware the install needed the source files. Which were diligently installed at the very beginning. But for some reason it could not find the source files. Despite my subsequently having installed, un installed, installed, rebuilt the damn server, installed, disabled the software update source, re-installed etc

Violence simmered at the edge of my frayed sanity but violence was not an option. My boss hadn’t gone home yet.

And then I had a moment of utter clarity. I was still trying to troubleshoot this as if it was windows, which roughly follows a logic hierarchy. I needed to start thinking like I was from the other world. Think chaos.

So I did and found that the source files it was looking for just did not exist despite being checked as installed. Why would that be the case. This was the standard kernel install, these were the standard kernel source files. And it was not working. Which could only mean that Suse for some reason had installed another kernel while I had my back turned, probably while I was pouring that last sambuka I spect.

A quick scuttle over to the software manager confirmed my fears. For some reason the default kernel was not installed but for some reason the pae one was. Which needed completely different source files to recompile. Arse.

So I uninstalled the pae kernel, installed the default with the correct version number and rebooted.

From there the vmware breezed and I soon connected to the server from a remote workstation. Hoorah. I immediately pulled out msdn and installed Windows XP as the first image. A balm to chaos and I breathed easy. Swaying back and forwards cradling my wireless keyboard.

Changing Styles

It seems amazing to me that I can stand here on the Paddington station concourse - the time currently being fifteen minutes before seven of the night. And by the time I get home in less than ninety minutes I will have this blog posted on my website. You could probably even have read it by the time I get home. The amazing part at least to me is that all I have to create the blog is my Blackberry and two thumbs.

But that is the reality of how it is now setup and it wasn’t even that difficult to do. Wordpress, php, a hosted domain name and mysql.

It has been a long time since anything johniebg related has been posted anywhere on the web which has primarily been down to one thing - work. In the last post I was on the verge of employment having given up a well paid if dull job for four weeks unemployment.

The job panned out and despite all my protestations to the contrary while looking for a job I now find myself doing the London commute five days a week once more. Although this time heading into west London from the western provinces.

The job itself is the best paid I ever had during full time employment although half of what I was earning annually as a contractor in the years that led to and immediately followed y2k. It is also technically the most challenged I have felt for a very long time, simply because such a wide range of technologies are used.

The reason then that there were no blogs on the old site then was simply from the fact I have been getting home for the last eight weeks so exhausted I barely had the strength to twitch a finger. Let alone hold eight above a keyboard.

Which is how I came to this solution, an evolution of circumstances and needs. It pains me to not write. All those ideas and frustrations floating about inside. They just have to come out. If they don’t things start to get unclear, all fogged up and turned about.

Writing then is my release valve for the tedium of existence. At least an existence where we are forced to do the things we would not ordinarily in the name of food on the plate and mortgage paid.

A lot else also has happened in those eight weeks which includes Dexter, a new mortgage and house (almost), a wedding date, more of the book and a very small bike. Which I will not burden you with right now. Hopefully that can be saved for another evenings commute.

Touching the Linux fantastic

It would be safe to say that historically I have tended to avoid Linux wherever possible. I think that was mostly because Novell (back in the day) forced it down our throats in the misguided belief it was a lot more than it actually was.

In hindsight I think my problem with Linux was in my approach. Novell trumpeted Suse desktop as a Windows killer (honestly) and I think I made the mistake of thinking of it like Windows. It is a whole different planet.

Time passes and we find ourselves in different situations. Novell now is a distant memory of pub quizes and futile team meetings. I work now in London for a company that reserve two rack slots for legacy Novell technologies and a server room for a whole load of everything else. Which includes Linux. I need to get my arse in gear.

Besides, now that Microsoft have burdened us with Vista, Linux should be a walk in the park.

The remit then was simple - to install openSuse and then on top of that vmware server - an old nemesis of mine from previous encounters with Linux.

The installing Linux bit went real well. Unless you’re running bleeding edge technology then these days it should do, depending on the distribution of course. Debian failed miserably at seeing any of my duo core hardware but openSuse breezed it. Hoorah.

Then I got into the trifling matter of vmware which likes recompiling itself. The trouble is the dialogue that comes with each section of the install might as well have been in a language from another planet. Worded in that obscure way that Linux help files often are. They can contain pages on pages of text telling you what is required in English, all verbs and adjectives that describe switches and mechanisms that make absolutely no sense at all.

So it was, that after completing the install of prerequisites like compilers and source code I found myself pressing page down through the license agreement. I felt if this was all for free - which vmware server is then the least I could do was check out the whole of the agreement.

The trouble is though that when you get to the end it just stops. And nothing happens. There is no box where you can type ‘I agree’ or even a message stating that all you need to do is press return to agree. It just stops and you go no where.

Of course this is where all the smug little Linux afficionados sit smug on that other planet of theirs and giggle into their vodka tonics. All mouthing inison: ‘Just press Q numb nuts.’

Which is all you have to do but until you find out that little gem the world can suddenly seem like a wonderful arena for random violence against inanimate objects.

So we get past the license agreement and press return past the first few questions.

And then it told me it would need to compile - coolio I was expecting that. And then it told me my compiler was the wrong version - by one digit at the end of a sequence of digits. It then informed me in that other planet way that continuing would probably mean everything I dreamed vmware was going to give me would likely fall on its arse just when I least needed it to.

So I did some research. Surely it was just a matter of installing the right version of the compiler. But the only version on offer was the one I had. So I did some more research. Was it because of my kernel version? It did not seem like it. Not for this particular issue. The kernel issues were just around the corner. One cheerful forum announced.

Eventually I found a walk thru of vmware on suse that flippantly explained that it always comes up with that message and you just have to ignore it and proceed anyways. Not so coolio.

So we march on, now with a sense that the end is nigh and very soon I will be able to tell people that I installed vmware on Linux and survived a recompile. My heart beat hard in my chest.

Then I ran into the kernel issues. In order to recompile vmware the install needed the source files. Which were diligently installed at the very beginning. But for some reason it could not find the source files. Despite my subsequently having installed, un installed, installed, rebuilt the damn server, installed, disabled the software update source, re-installed etc

Violence simmered at the edge of my frayed sanity but violence was not an option. My boss hadn’t gone home yet.

And then I had a moment of utter clarity. I was still trying to troubleshoot this as if it was windows, which roughly follows a logic hierarchy. I needed to start thinking like I was from the other world. Think chaos.

So I did and found that the source files it was looking for just did not exist despite being checked as installed. Why would that be the case. This was the standard kernel install, these were the standard kernel source files. And it was not working. Which could only mean that Suse for some reason had installed another kernel while I had my back turned, probably while I was pouring that last sambuka I spect.

A quick scuttle over to the software manager confirmed my fears. For some reason the default kernel was not installed but for some reason the pae one was. Which needed completely different source files to recompile. Arse.

So I uninstalled the pae kernel, installed the default with the correct version number and rebooted.

From there the vmware breezed and I soon connected to the server from a remote workstation. Hoorah. I immediately pulled out msdn and installed Windows XP as the first image. A balm to chaos and I breathed easy. Swaying back and forwards cradling my wireless keyboard.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

A Good Moral Code

It would be mostly accurate if I were to say that I am on the whole a peaceful person. Sometimes inanimate objects can wind me up as can easy viewing TV but I tend to avoid the later and give the former a good kicking if they mess me about.

Religion can be a touchy subject as well.

I was on the train the other morning and happened to be sitting next to an American (or Canadian) who spent the first thirty minutes on the phone running down his boss and then extolling his own virtues. Nothing particularly wrong in that I suppose. Perhaps a little immature I thought given that the guy seemed to be in his early fifties. He wrapped up the conversation with: ‘God bless.’ and then: ‘In the name of Jesus.’

Amen, I thought.

He then got out his Bible and started reading a section of Psalms. Which for the unenlightened is in the Old Testament. The Old Testament being a collection of Jewish books about Jewish people which was borrowed by Christians about 1700 years ago and never given back. Jewish people don’t tend to have a lot of time for Jesus nor the faith that grew around someone’s belief that the world was about to end and that Jesus being resurrected meant life after death was on the cards. I almost asked this guy why he was reading Psalms. But already knew the answer, ‘Because it tells me that Jesus was the messiah.’

Rubbish, I might have been inclined to answer. There is no mention of a messiah that will die crucified a convicted criminal anywhere in the Old Testament. Of course nobody reads it so they would not know. All they do is listen to caped guys paraphrase the bits they like to hear.

But I didn’t say a word.

The next morning I was sitting behind two completely different guys that were talking about their children. From what I could make out one of them who I will call Matt for ease of story telling, had a two year old and a four year old. He was telling his mate that he had just started attending church a couple times a month.

Matt had no qualms about stating his motivation for going to church was in his wanting to get his kids into the local church sponsored school. Not that the Church had any direct sway but he had it on good authority that they had considerable sway behind closed doors.

I was just thinking to myself that going to church in such a manner would only be useful if the people running the church knew you were there so they could sway for your children. When Matt added that he was one of the people that had volunteered to lay out the Prayer books and Bibles.

That would probably get him noticed I thought. And then I thought what a weird old world it was where parents have to resort to such desperate measures to attain what the believed would be a better education for their children (which I will come back to).

I know something strange is supposed to happen when you first see the wriggly little thing spawned of your own DNA smile and take its first breath. And I get the wanting the best for your children but to forsake all that you stand for and prostitute your beliefs in the name of education. It is one thing being Christian and going to church but faking it? Is it because parents think their red cheeked cherubs will be safer from the evils of the world in the house sponsored by god?

The other guy had so far managed impartiality. But like me seemed a little confused if that was their only reason for going to church. Matt did not miss a beat.

It is good to teach your children a good moral grounding, don’t you think. I am even thinking about buying a Bible you know.

I almost choked my coffee over the back of his seat. And then had to restrain myself from jumping up and asking him what the hell he was on about. What bloody morals. You mean “do unto others as you would have done unto you.’ The golden rule of humanity that has been found repeated in civilisations across the world from almost a thousand years before Jesus.

What about all the other good stuff you might ask.

To which I would retort, ‘What stuff.’

‘All the good stuff Christians do?’

You tell me the last time you met a Christian that did any good for anyone other than a Christian. Or at least anyone other than those prepared to bow their head in prayer in order to receive a vaccination. Doing something in the name of faith for those that will acknowledge that faith is not good morals.

Doing something in the name of your faith is not the same as doing what your faith tells you either. People do good all the time, some of them just happen to be Christian. And don’t get me started on the bad that people do, do not assume bad is only done by people without faith. I could take a considerable amount of your time listing the bad done in the name of Christianity.

But we digress. So if Christians doing good doesn’t stand them out morally, maybe the word of their Bible does - the word of god they will tell you. Well if that is the case your morals revolve around condoning the beating of children to death if they are naughty (obviously after you get them back from church) and that (we are only touching the surface here) woman are only good for having children and should accept they are to blame for the sins of the world and are not even worthy of speaking in Church. Which you might snort at. But that one passage in the New Testament attributed to Paul was not even written by Paul - it was written in his name at least two hundred years after he died (most of us would call that a forgery). It has been used to subvert woman ever since. In the actual writings of Paul he talks of woman running worship groups, it never occurred to him woman would not be prominent. Oh what a wonderful thing the Christian Church turned itself into.

I would probably have recommended Matt read his Bible and quote a few of the good morals he was on about, those suitable for his children. But he would probably soon realise, as he otherwise seemed like a descent guy, just why the Church routinely had anyone that tried translating the Bible from Latin quite literally hung drawn and quartered. That was the punishment. The first Bible that was widely available to anyone outside the Church was the King James in the early eighteenth century. Which of cause precluded the demise of the Church because everyone then read it and saw it for what it really was – mythical and legendary.

And while we are at it precisely what do you consider is a good education for your child, apart from all those Biblical morals. A cursory glance at evolution? And then doctrine around all creation flowing from the hands of a glowing caucasion, who created mankind and then considered all his mistakes must have been the woman’s fault.

Surely only mankind could make up such rubbish. The need for faith through a god is nothing more than a human illness with it’s roots set in the same foundations as all other addictions. A mechanism by which people can overcome their social fears and failings and become part of a social group.

Church is the absolutely last place I would take a child. Which you should probably consider has one of the highest rate of convicted child sex offenders of any profession. Like Alfred Hitchcock is often quoted as saying after seeing a priest lean forward to place a hand on a young boys shoulder: ‘Run child, run for your life.’

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Heartbreak on the 7:10 to Paddington

A routine day except maybe for the lazy rain that forwarns of winter approaching. The train arrives and herded onto and into the carriage I sit down. Despite the number of people the carriage seems mostly empty.

In the opposite row of seats one row down but facing me are a man and woman. He is sitting in the aisle seat. Very smart, maybe late twenties, maybe early thirties. Dashing. I cannot see much of the woman. Not her face, just that she seems to have dark straight hair, a smartly dark utilitarian suit that compliments his and a wedding and engagement ring that sparkels brightly in the soft light of the carriage. It looks very expensive.

I have no understanding why I had to see her face, I just needed to. Maybe it was because at first the male who I assumed was the provider of the rings had his arm draped consoling around her shoulders. Which was why I couldn’t see her. But then he sat back in that way men do when they realise they are tryng to comfort a lost cause.

She was probably mid thirties, no makeup and average looking. I guessed from her dress the sort of efficient woman that sparkles because of the hope she holds inside. On this occassion her face was a picture of abject misery complete with protruding bottom lip. Not pouty. This was not the kind of misery that weeps at a dead cat, or even a lost parent, worse - not even a broken heart. More like a heart that sits inside your chest heavy and oozing dark impulses for you to be alone, laying down and to just close your eyes and never open them again. So instead your mind just steps you through the daily routine because it knows it should not leave you to your own devices. Me and that sort of misery are old acquintenances.

I couldn’t bare to sit there, my mind recalling my correlating memories. So I got up and moved back a couple of seats. A few minutes later I could hear a restrained sobbing. And then after a few more I saw her heading down the carriage. I assumed she was off to the toilet but she might have just got off without the guy. I didn’t see her again.

It's a brave new world

For a few years now I have been meaning to make my website dynamic, not so much in the jaw dropping content, that is of course already abundant. But in the nature of the interface. Dynamic lets me do all sorts of stuff while allowing you the avid reader to consume and then importantly ‘comment’. Not having the ability to create comments on my old website was apparently frustrating for readers.

Now that johniebg is a world wide phenomena I have expanded the empire to also include johniebg.org which from this point on in time will host my blogs. Importantly they should also be more frequent as I have setup a process that allows me to simply email a blog to my web page and hey presto it appears. Which is marked contrast to having to type and add a blog manually to my old johniebg.net site by editing the code. Which will continue to run but solely featuring the blog archives from 2002 to this moment and my creative writing.

Hope to see you soon.