535ad
Minding the Dark
2007

 
 
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2007
Welcome to 535

It’s the year 535 AD. Major climate change is in the air, literally— volcanic dust from an equatorial eruption that will darken the sun for more than a decade, with catastrophic effect on the entire world.

It requires only a brief overview of history to appreciate the magnitude of natural disasters in past centuries, from earthquakes to volcanos, droughts to floods, plagues to famine.

These days considering our vastly-larger world population we’ve been reasonably lucky, all things considered. At least global warming is something we should still be able to do something about.
 
 
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2007
Back to Free TV

In its early days television had three or four commercials every half hour and was free. Now it has a dozen or more every half hour and you also pay for it via satellite or cable.

Even some shows on PBS, like certain do-it-yourself shows, have a high number of underwriter spots, often just shortened ads, yet the stations still have to beg for contributions from viewers. Okay less government influence— maybe.

Much of the cable and satellite allure must be convenience. You can find Law and Order or Seinfeld almost whenever you want to watch them. But some types of programming aren’t on the air, e.g. C-SPAN and local access.

Going from limited basic cable back to free off-the-air TV has been relatively painless. Even with an attic antenna Fox doesn’t come in for some reason. There are no city commission meetings. But there is time to read a book.

Now nightly network newscasts sometimes feature limited commercial interruption, and unlike the free TV of old they’re in color :)
 
 
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2007
Congrats Al!

Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Republicans are probably starting to grumble why is it always Democrats. There’s a solution for that— join the winning team :)

It’s very clear now who the right choice for President was in 2000. But if he jumps in the ring for ‘08 how does one choose between him and Barack?
 
 
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2007
MySpace Hazards

MySpace can lure complacency— no money seems to be involved, so why would there be danger? After all it’s just a social site.

This relative late-comer to the My-scene has already been hit by at least two attacks.

Soon after setting up myspace.com/unitheist, friend requests poured in from what purported to be alluring young females with glamor shots right out of Cosmo and names like Tiffany, Trista, and Yasmin. At their pages they explained that MySpace wouldn’t let them post their nude photos, but you could see them at another so-called free site (link provided).

Googling strings of text in quotes from the womens’ descriptions led to the plainer real sites from which the chatty intros and girly interest lists were stolen.

Photos of the fictional characters were likely lifted as well, plan being that a certain percentage of visitors would end up opening pay accounts at the linked cam or pic sites. Could it be that these alleged lovelies are nothing more than greasy, obese only-sons in rural Mississippi, sharing rented trailers with screaming diabetic mothers?

Apparently no harm done. However a couple months later a malware scan turns up a Tibs dialer. No suspect porn sites had been visited lately. The dialer must have been picked up on a visit to a MySpace page via a friend request.

Most such pages are deleted within a day or two, whether by MySpace or the owner himself.

Possible solution— If you don’t know the person presenting the request, wait a week or so to even visit the page, much less accept or decline the friend request.

Recently more trouble. Out of the blue friends simultaneously message about the same address in China, one suspecting a hack. A false bulletin and numerous spurious comments had been posted from MySpace.com/unitheist. Impossible. A level-three password had been used. No way anyone could have guessed that.

Where’s Tom? Never needed Tom before. Buried in back pages of course— uncool to have Tom as a top friend. Checked Tom’s FAQ’s. The culprit: a phony home/login page, as in email phishing. But who doesn’t know that— never access forms from email messages, much less fill them in. So from where did the spoof arise?

In hindsight reducing page history to two days was not smart. The login blunder happened more than two days ago or would have been recollectible. In such straits there’s always the temporary internet files. Luckily they are deep, intended to reduce reloading of graphics in an effort to improve dialup speed.

Too many files to examine, so sort by type and check HTML files. Bingo. Recall. A few days earlier a cute MySpace real friend purportedly posted a comment— apparently a link to a video. Gotta see that even though dialup is movie-unfriendly. Why won’t it even start though? Click it on and login appears— “You Must Be Logged-In to do That!”

Already logged in, but do it again anyway to get to the video. Still no video. Back to the link, then again to you must be logged-in. Around and around. Funny that login required both email and password, whereas normally the email is already entered. Should have bothered to examine the URL in the address line. But who would want to hack MySpace?

Someone wanted to and did. Homepage itself undamaged but bulletin and comments with link to spoof login take long to remove, and who knows how many others got hit by it in the meantime.

Solution— At any login page that pops up (other than the one that appears immediately after typing MySpace.com in the address bar) routinely double-check the address in the bar; must be myspace dot com slash, not myspace dot com dot something or anything else.

If worse comes to worse and a hacker gets in, first change password to prevent further damage. Any comments on friends’ sites posted by the hacker can then be removed— visit each site with a bad comment and click on View All (comments). There will then appear an option to remove. False bulletins can also be deleted.
 
 
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2007
Greenway Gold

What will end up doing the most for Paducah— the performing arts center, Lowertown, or the riverfront development? How about something costing only a fraction of any of the above, though itself included as part of the riverfront project— the greenway trail.

Indianapolis has miles of greenways and they are heavily used, suggesting that many more people than do would walk, jog, or bicycle if they had a quiet, safe place to do it. Mental reflection, repair, and increase— not to mention improved physical being— can be accomplished on a stroll or gentle run away from commotion.

This artist has enjoyed walking to do errands, saving gas and auto insurance, but has been hit by a car once (lightly, no injury) and nearly hit on two other occasions. Many of the pedestrian crossing buttons don’t work, and sidewalks require close attention or an uneven slab will render the unlucky foot passenger face-down on concrete.

Since this will be our first project of its type, an incentive to encourage use (should one be necessary) might be to offer free bus rides to and from the trail. If the cost of this could not be absorbed by the transit company, one or more corporate sponsors would win considerable good will in return for a relatively modest outlay.

In the meantime completion of the trail should be the city’s top quality-of-life priority.
 
 
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2007
rnyspacei.com

Will it ever end? In small browser type it’s easy to mistake rnyspace for myspace if the trailing i isn’t noticed. Phishing season is 24/7 on the web and what better stocked pond than the largest social networking site.
 
 
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2007
Praise to WPSDTV

Shortly after noon today a group of us delivered a petition to Congressman Ed Whitfield's office here in Paducah in conjunction with a nationwide effort coordinated by the political action group MoveOn.org. Despite our fairly low-key effort it was covered by Channel 6 and reported on the 6:00 PM newscast this evening.

The petitions were signed by one hundred sixty thousand people nationwide supporting a Congressional blockage of future efforts by President Bush to militarily attack Iran.

Thanx also to Jeanie Embry for volunteering to host and spearhead the event, and for her pointed television interview.
 
 
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2007
‘07 In Review

Having been some time since offering a newsletter, resolved this season to try the hand—

Sister Lori seems to have had the most ups and downs, first with the loss of her new husband Mitch, then on a positive note with the recent marriage of her older daughter Tami. She now seems to be back on the upswing.

Papa is energetically remarried, wintering in Florida, giving an occasional Sunday sermon as a Presbyterian lay minister, and calling once in a while to remind about getting a job.

Friends and parties— what is anything worth without these! Attempts are made to host a bash here at least once every six weeks to a month or thereabouts, usually with live music. A wide range of bohemians of all ages, accompanied by the beverage of choice, are vital for happy singledom (and imagine for marrieds as well).

Beyond social life three words summarize recent efforts: unitheism, art, and (regretting the loss of so much resource to something so non-remunerative) infrastructure. Since the last might perhaps be the easiest for friends and family to relate to— hence the most entertaining— we'll start there.

The center light over the disco floor (front gallery), a RotoBall purchased on eBay a few years ago, was successfully rebuilt. It ran fine for a year or two before the bushings started to fail— they seemed to have been installed incorrectly in the factory. It also needed unusual 24V replacement halogen bulbs which had to be special-ordered online.

Less fortunate was the effort to repair the flooring in the TV room. Next to this room, under the stairs, is a compartment that holds the water heater. Last year the tank gave and water seeped between the hardwood floor and an underlying layer of old linoleum (the room was a kitchen decades ago, long before I bought the place).

After the water heater was replaced and the buckled floorboards lifted and given a chance to dry, a week of strenuous effort to reset them with the aid of rams and wedges failed. Another attempt may be made next year. The lesson learned is never let your tank burst into your floor.

On a happier note the unitheist movement, while fledgling, is showing signs of life. Although the definition of unitheism is not established and varies by usage, here it refers to the belief that ultimate reality is encountered in life and nature, and to the extent truth is known all faiths are one.

Even opposing systems are positive to the extent they work for the adherent, yet objective attempts to comprehend underlying principles tend also to resolve differences.

At unitheist.org improvements have been multifold. The site itself, so long saddled with a bland early-Nineties look, was pimped (jazzed-up) with Hubble background and heraldic triform on sunburst, presented by a pair of comely spacemaids (similar to mermaids but with rocket instead of fish tails) per cosmic as opposed to aquatic environs.

Round-cornered text pages were supplanted by classic scroll fittings, and the link to the main body of writings, collectively titled Faith by Reason, is marked by image of an old briar pipe, suggestive of philosophical (or in this case unitheological) reflection.

The writings themselves are progressing slowly as usual. Books I and II are more or less finished pending further revision and editing, and the page describing unitheism itself in its various manifestations has been expanded and refined. A needed FAQ page has been added.

Meanwhile efforts at the easel, while less than hoped, have been gratifying— Car Series, Lovered followed by Car Series, Lava Spouts (images of both can be found at warrenfarr.com).

A couple sales were made this year, and work included in the Kentucky Arts Council invitational traveling show Uncommon Wealth (if you are in the Louisville area Friday January 4th it opens there, call or write for more info). Paintings also appeared in various exhibitions at the Mark Palmer Gallery here in town, before it closed.

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