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Followup on mind control

Mae Geri. Source: http://www.foto-harz.de/details.php?image_id=968

This post was originally going to be dedicated to Karate, but I stumbled upon a reflective article: “Mind Control” by Pete Herzog and decided to try to build on top of it.

Pete, makes reference that given the speed of our sensors and our brain we basically live in the past: 80 ms in the past to be precise. So since we live in the past, our mind has been made up before we actually know or realize it; this enables us to perform complex tasks in “mental autodrive” or mental cruise control and how much energy is necessary to change mental patterns. Keep Reading →

Tools

I’ve added a new section that contains some tools / scripts / quick hacks I’ve done over the last couple of years.

They are probably not my best coding, but they get the job done.

If they are helpful or useful for you let me know. If you have any suggestions or patches add a comment or contact me.

Empathy and MSN

I’ve had some problems recently (the last couple of weeks) with Empathy on Ubuntu 10.04. All my MSN accounts just started giving my an “Authentication Failed”.

After checking with pidgin, which I use for other accounts, that my credentials were still working I found a post in the Ubuntu Forums that gave me a good solution:

$ sudo aptitude remove telepathy-butterfly
— Make sure you have telepathy-haze installed, if not
$ sudo aptitude install telepathy-haze
— Delete the accounts and recreate them with the new plugin

I’m not sure why this happened, but at least it’s working again.
Hope this helps someone else out there.

Ubuntu Firefox: This address is restricted

I got the weirdest of errors today trying to open a web page on port 6000: ThisAddress-is-restricted

After reading for a while I found out that de Mozilla Foundation built in this protection for “Cross-Protocol” scripting attack with a form of Port Banning.

To overide this protection use one of the following steps:

  • In the user’s profile directory the all.js, add the following line at the end of the file user_pref("network.security.ports.banned.override", "1-65535");
  • In the defaults/pref/ sub-directory of the installation directory (multi-user systems) add the following line at the end of the file user_pref("network.security.ports.banned.override","1-65535");
  • Open a new window, in the address type: about:config and add a new entry of the type string with this name network.security.ports.banned.override and value 1-65535.

If you want to set free only one port change the range for that port o list of ports.

Moved to WordPress

Hi after a long silence I finally got the time to catch up with the blogging.  So the best thing to do of course is update my software..

Well after upgrading from b2evolution 2.0.x to 2.4.x my hosting server started complaining about memory!!  I decided to try WordPress out just before moving to a better environment and it worked out great!  Well is was a pain moving all my post manually:  on the WordPress site there is a script that was supposed to take care of that, but it’s last upgrade is 1.9.

Well I’m back and writting again.

Authoring a blog

I’ve been trying for some years now to create a blog and really commit to writing it, not just to make a comment on the latest news or to just share a link but to share: my views, experience, to give my two cents to make the world a better place.

I got the idea from Rob, and if I remember correctly the original idea was to practice writing, share some hacks and stuff he had been doing. I followed his lead a couple of months later and instead of just working with the software he already had working I did it the “geeky way”: installed my own blog software on my server. Getting back on track to finishing the idea, it didn’t work! I just wasn’t disciplined enough to write periodically.

After working on a book last year (which I’m waiting to be published to gain my full bragging rights Hacking Linux Exposed 3rd Edition) I realized how much I enjoy writing. The hard part comes in what to write about, creating new content.
In a normal day in front of the computer I go through just to many blogs and news feeds (I really have to cut some off), I got my regulars (which include Schneier, Rothman, The Reg, Hoff, last but not least Scott Adams) that I really learn stuff from, got the news feeds. I have found that comments on those pages and post are in many cases even more influential that the original post.

I ran into an article in the last couple of days that really made me remember something I’ve been observing more and more over the last couple of years: the “blogspheare” is full of floggers!! People that comment and “re-fry” the news just for the hell of it, just for completeness. Creating content or authoring is not that simple (at least not for me), it requires thought, creativity, time and dedication. …

I just finished reading Bruce Schneier’s Secret and Lies and instead of making a bibliography or making extensive use of references throughout the book he wrote a chapter called “References”. In it he states the following:

The ideas in this book have been heavily influenced by the ideas and writings of others“,

I really couldn’t agree more. Are intellect, what we know and therefore a big part of who we are has been influenced and authored over the years by many people. There is a big difference between reasoning on ideas, concepts, or knowledge in a general sense; and the “copy paste culture” that has been going around inn schools since the beginning of times. The later has become more popular since the content is available in a digital form, the kids don’t have to retype and rephrase the contents of the encyclopedia like we did back in the day. They simple push ctrl+c ctrl+v, change the spacing and the homework is done. Teachers and tutors in the later school years have been fighting very hard to avoid this behavior, to the point that students are afraid of stating an opinion or concluding something because of the possibility of being tagged as “plagiarist”. The “copy paste culture” is evolving into a new mix: intellectually afraid students and a culture of “we think”; like referred to in the following story by William Davies.

The bottom line is that I will make an effort to publish every time I can and to avoid flogging whenever possible. (You were expecting something more intense right? Me too)

Fedora Counter

It’s no secret that I’m a Fedora User and advocate. I’ve been using Red Hat Linux since ’97 and Fedora since the change. So I just found a js with a counter for the release of Fedora 9 and set it up. There have been many changes over time, some versions I really didn’t like: Red Hat 9 or Fedora 4. I’m not sure of the details of why I just remember upgrading and downgrading a week later. I really have my hopes up for Fedora 9, the actual stable release (8) isn’t one of my favorite upgrades: it fixed some things and broke others. We’ll see what Fedora has in store for us. I’ll be posting a small review once I upgrade and the workarounds I use to get my box working just how I like it.