Media Player 11 is useless

In another short sighted move by Microsoft, the new version of Windows Media Player does not support m4a files.  The fact that many people, including myself have a whole lot of m4a files is obviously of little concern, buried deep within the bowls of the knowledge center is the following disclaimer:

iTunes. The Player can’t play iTunes music files with .aac or .m4p (protected AAC) file name extensions. The iTunes Jukebox from Apple Computer is required to play these files.

My other favourite codec for music is also not supported, the .ogg

Ogg Vorbis. You can play files with .ogg or .ogm file name extensions in the Player if you install DirectShow-compatible filters, which you can download from the WMPlugins.com Web site. Note that these filters only allow you to play the files using the Player; you won’t be able to add them to your library.

I am not really surprised by this, instead of playing nicely they just won’t support the “competition”, they will bundle media player with Vista and like IE7 probably force compliance by pushing it through the windows update process.  All this in the hope that people will give up in frustration and just use their products, never mind the millions of people with legally purchased music that they cannot now listen to without browsing to the file and double clicking it (I mean music libraries are for sissies.).

Gee Microsoft, thanks a bunch, good luck competing with apple …. not!

Upgraded to Edgy and a Wobble with Java Studio Creator

Today I upgraded my home PC to uBuntu 6.10 and downloaded and installed a copy of Sun’s excellent Java Studio Creator. Everything went along fine until the end of the installation with a rather cryptic error message.

Installation Complete
————————————
Application Server could not be installed correctly.
The following RPM packages need to be installed: compat-libstdc++, compat-libstdc++-devel

The Solution:

You need to install the following 2 files.

* libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 and
* libstdc++2.10-dev

sudo apt-get install libstdc++2.10-dev libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2

reinstall sun java studio and off you go.

This is the first in many baby steps to hopefully migrate our enterprise financial and support software off .NET and into something that lasts a little more than a few years at a time. We upgraded several projects from Framework 1 to 2 with disastrous results. With framework 3 on the horizon and none of the framework 1 dev tools being supported under Vista there is a little more that a feeling of general disgruntlement around the office at the moment.

Happy days are coming …

update: 29/10: Just compiled and ran a JSF web page that was built in the windows version of Studio Creator under my now happily installed uBuntu Creator.  Result was exactly the same as seen in the windows build, no problems were encountered with importing the project, building, running or output.
I like this more and more.

uBuntu Linux impresses me more every day.

So far my experience with uBuntu has been effortless. It is my operating system of choice for personal use and as soon as I can get Mono up and running Windows is getting the virtual bullet. uBuntu has been rock solid for me, neither plaguing me to download “Genuine Advantage” tools nor suffering horrible memory leaks and asking me to reboot every 5 minutes. It is not plagued by virus and spyware, has all the tools I could possibly want and it upgrades effortlessly.

Version 6.10 – Edgy Eft (bleeding edge stuff what …) has been released and my upgrade is as effortless as running the update manager.

From the command terminal run:

gksu “update-manager -c -d”

This is the screen you are presented with:

Click the Upgrade button and off you go:

I have also connected to our work exchange server with Evolution, hey presto – email, calendar and all the other good things you need. The real joke is the connection to exchange from evolution is much simpler than with Outlook, a fact that boggles the mind.

With the patchwork and very pricey abonomnation that is Microsoft Vista lurking on the horizon, I am glad I have such wonderful alternatives.

Head on over to uBuntu Downloads and download a copy or go to Shippit and the nice folks at Cannonical will post you a CD for free

The Muslim’s Right to Rape

 

A Muslim sheik told followers at a public meeting in Bankstown that women who were raped had incited men’s lust by dressing immodestly and only had themselves to blame.

Sydney-born Sheik Faiz Mohamad, 34, a former boxer who teaches at the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Liverpool, made the comments during a lecture for more than 1000 people at Bankstown Town Hall.

The Sun-Herald has a recording of the March 18 speech in which Sheik Faiz said: “A victim of rape every minute somewhere in the world. Why? No one to blame but herself. She displayed her beauty to the entire world . . .

“Strapless, backless, sleeveless, nothing but satanic skirts, slit skirts, translucent blouses, miniskirts, tight jeans: all this to tease man and appeal to his carnal nature.”

He compared a woman dressed in such a way to a sheep. “Would you put this sheep that you adore in the middle of hungry wolves? No . . . It would be devoured. It’s the same situation here. You’re putting this precious girl in front of lustful, satanic eyes of hungry wolves. What is the consequence? Catastrophic devastation, sexual harassment, perversion, promiscuity.”

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The Expensive Tastes of Kim Jong II

 

My personal physician allows me one meagre glass a day ….

IN THE EARLY 1990s, Kim Jong Il became the world’s leading purchaser of Hennessy Paradis, a cognac legendary for its complexity and finesse. Paradis usually retails for a few hundred dollars a bottle, though in Kim’s case bulk discounts may have applied: The North Korean leader–who, according to a former personal chef, has “an exceptionally discriminating palate”–was said to be spending $700,000 to $800,000 a year on it.

Such a liquor tab fits the sort of pathological decadence described by defectors and national leaders who have spent time with Kim. The same former chef reports being sent on shopping trips to Denmark for pork, Czechoslovakia for beer, and Uzbekistan for caviar.

A former Russian presidential envoy has described a 2001 state visit in which Kim traveled across the country in a private train stocked with crates of Bordeaux, flat-screen televisions, and a retinue of female performers. Live lobsters were flown in to await the train’s chefs at points along the route.

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The Kanga, Part 1

The following is a poem written by Zimbabwean Bella Matambanadzo, featured on http://www.kubatana.net/ it is a response to the Jacob Zuma rape trial where he was acquitted and the victim was forced to leave the country for fear of reprisal.

The Kanga: Part 1
Isabella Matambanadzo
August 04, 2006

The girl lay under bedding of felt-soft yellow sheets. The corners were neatly turned down in a nurse’s envelope.

He takes it out
Already dripping

Face up, she felt the leaves of the garden of flowers running in neat rows across her single bed tickling her bare, chubby feet.

Holds it with both hands
As if it will break

She didn’t squeal with delight as girls her age are meant to. She kept very, very still. She did not want to make a mess of her new hair.

His pants, belt around waistband, drop
Plonk.
Upon brown laced up shoes.

Her mother had spent the Sunday afternoon melting her tough curls with a Vaseline and a hot comb, etching out fantastically even cornrows. She was careful.

He calls his mothers name in a grunt
No surprise he is back in the thing that pushed him out.

The smell always reached her first. Filling the follicles of her nostrils and bursting past her tonsils into her mouth. A mucky mingling of heavy mucus and swallowed tears that she pushed back into her stomach.

He pulls it back into checkered underpants, hands apart this time tucks the shirt tails in.
Funny thing, that. How they can always fuck with their shoes and socks on.

That smell. And then there it was. The sound of metal turning hinges. Unrolling wood against a green carpet into puffs of dust dragged to life by turned up trouser ends.

And funnier still how Judges can get away with telling you
that you are the sick one, need help. 

The Mad Kenyan Woman Speaks Out on Madonna

Of Course I have a Madonna Opinion… And wouldn’t you be disappointed if I didn’t? As you can probably imagine, the whole set-up is ridiculous and absurd as per maoni yangu. The boy has a father. He may not be a celebrity, a star or white, but he is this boy’s family. He gives him up to Madonna on the clear and stated grounds that he hopes for a better life for his son, which he, the father, himself cannot afford to give him.

Question: if Madonna donated her budget for shoes for, let’s say, erm, a month, to this family, would this little boy have to be snatched away from his family, his surroundings, his culture, his heritage and his birthright? What about her hairdressing fees for a few weeks? We aren’t even talking about percentages of her net worth—that would simply be rude. However, might it be possible for her to go for a few months without the attentions of her pedicurist? If so, then no adoption would be necessary, would it? It is not a curse to be born an African—I wouldn’t change it for the world. It is a curse to be poor, and helpless and powerless, such that the best gift you can give your children is to make them the gift itself. To Western celebrities?

As one of my favourite talk show hosts said, “Madonna is very pleased with her new black African baby. She hopes to wear him to the Oscars….”

Fast becomming one of my favourite blogs …

NamBrangelina – Africa in Hock!

I only found this fantastic article written about Brad and Ang and how they took over Namibia – written from the perspective of and African.  Lovely stuff, can anyone say “Madonna adoption”?

CLEARANCE SALE!!!! EVERY AFRICAN COUNTRY MUST GO!!!! PRICES SLASHED !!! BUY ONE, GET THE GOVERNMENT FREE!!! (POPULATION OPTIONAL)

Not long ago, African Bullets & Honey coined the phrase “a dollar a day continent” to describe Africa. In that context, the phrase referred to our alarming propensity to welcome do-gooders of every hue and stripe, and to allow them to tell us that we urgently need wells, schooling for girl children, fish farms, women’s institutes, abstinence but not birth control, radios but not computers, etc. Of course, being ourselves congenitally—Africanly—capable of nothing, we need also the skilled personnel from these very same “donor” countries to run these admirable enterprises, so that it is perfectly understandable that many of our “charitable” friends are forced, nay, compelled to spend the overwhelming majority of their donations on themselves, their overheads, their lodgings, their four wheel drives and their salaries. Ah well, it’s the thought that counts. Not.

However, we Africans have now reached new depths of depravity and shame. Or perhaps that should be heights, since it is somehow rather ineffable that an entire country can be turned into a private maternity ward. An. Entire. Sovereign. Country. Namibia has granted Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt the rights of ownership (or lease?) over its borders and its airspace, so that this couple, who are accomplished enough to have arranged their genetics so as to have the requisite good looks—if one likes that sort of thing—to subsequently make unthinkable amounts of money for occasionally pretending to be someone else on film, can determine who enters or flies over Namiba. I repeat. Namibia, THE COUNTRY.

more …

The Worlds Top Polluted Places – 2006

This website is a horrifying expose of humanities callousness towards the environment that sustains us.  Invariably a product of industrialization and man’s ever-present greed.  Particularly noteworthy is how many of these places are in Russia and China.  Lovely stuff.  Brings to mind one of my favourite childhood books, The Lorax by Dr. Suess (which was banned in the US for a time) – if you have a child, read this book to them, plant a mental seed that they may, perhaps, not be as greedy and arrogant as our generation.

Website here …

Iraq Soldiers Sick To Death of Depleted Uranium

NEW YORK — It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills — morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves.

Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done.

Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.

There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military’s new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick.

In the sprawling bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, he has many caretakers. An internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon and a dermatologist. He cannot function without his stupefying arsenal of medications, but they exact a high price.

“I’m just a zombie walking around,” he says.

Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon’s arsenal of it — thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.

A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The United States has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.

more …

Sanction Iceland, Norway and Japan

Iceland has decided to resume commercial whaling, in defiance of the 20-year-old international whaling moratorium. The country joins Norway in openly hunting the great whales for profit. In recent years it has been killing a small number of animals annually but saying it was hunting them for “scientific” reasons, as does Japan.

Iceland’s current permits include 200 minke whales from 2003-07, of which 161 have been caught, leaving 39 for 2007. It will now allow whalers to harpoon a commercial quota of 30 minke whales and nine fin whales in the year to the end of August 2007.

<…snip…>

But the Icelanders took a robust view of their decision yesterday. “The Icelandic economy is overwhelmingly dependent on the utilisation of living marine resources in the ocean around the country,” the Icelandic Fisheries Ministry said in a statement. “We are ready to start hunts immediately,” said Kristjan Loftsson, head of the Icelandic whaling company that received the hunt permit.

Yeah, commercial gain is a good reason to let greedy countries like Iceland, Norway and Japan hunt the whales to extinction, why should our grandkids see whales when they can make a quick buck now …. bastards!

article…

Life in BioSphere 2

Jane Poynter entered the world’s first hermetically sealed, manufactured ecological system in 1991 with seven other people.

Biosphere 2 — the 3.15-acre, almost-airtight outpost in the Arizona desert that was to be their home for two years — proved impressively stable, although low oxygen levels and disappointing crop yields made survival a daily challenge. Eventually, pure oxygen had to be added to the system, and the team had to supplement its diet with food from an emergency stockpile stored before closure.

Throughout their stay, short tempers, depression and even the specter of insanity kept life interesting for the “biospherians.” In her new book, The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2, Poynter gives an insider’s view of the famous experiment. She spoke with Wired News about cult rumors, Biosphere 2’s unique usefulness to climatologists and her time inside the bubble.

Interview here …

MMORPG players beware, the taxman cometh!

SECOND LIFE, Oct 15 (Reuters) – Booming virtual economies in online worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft have drawn the attention of a U.S. congressional committee, which is investigating how virtual assets and incomes should be taxed.

“Right now we’re at the preliminary stages of looking at the issue and what kind of public policy questions virtual economies raise — taxes, barter exchanges, property and wealth,” said Dan Miller, senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee. “You could argue that to a certain degree the law has fallen (behind) because you can have a virtual asset and virtual capital gains, but there’s no mechanism by which you’re taxed on this stuff,” he said.

The increasing size and public profile of virtual economies, the largest of which have millions of users and gross domestic products that rival those of small countries, have made them increasingly difficult for lawmakers and regulators to ignore.

more …

If you don’t pay your online taxes do they lock up your avatar? 

Sea Monkeys, The Comics Lied!

I remember being endlessly fascinated by the back covers of my comic books when I was younger, there were these miraculous creatures called Sea Monkeys.  They apparently miraculously appeared when you added some funny nutrient mixture to water.  The image showed little amphibian-primates in a Disney style family unit replete with mandatory castle and happily oogling humans.

Sadly the truth was very far from the marketing as is often the case in life.  A sea monkey is actually a brine shrimp (Artemia salina for the biologists among you). 

This is what a brine shrimp looks like – nothing like the add is it?

What Does it take for Peace?

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said he did not exclude the possibility that Pyongyang would detonate another nuclear device, a step Washington’s top official on North Korea warned would be considered a “belligerent act”.

Defiant in the face of sanctions backed by even its closest ally, China, Pyongyang said it had withstood international pressure before.

Official media quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying: “It is quite nonsensical to expect the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to yield to the pressure and threat of someone at this time when it has become a nuclear weapons state. The republic wants peace but is not afraid of war.”

The average man just wants to live peacefully, little (and large) militia countries with nuclear weapons threatening the safety of the entire globe should under ideal circumstances be dealt with by an “empowered” global peacekeeping force (quite unlike the impotent shell that is the United Nations).

In my opinion, screw Bush, screw Osama and screw Pyongyang – kindly and quietly take your curtain call and leave the rest of us alone to get on with our lives without fear of nuclear holocaust and terrorism.  The life worth living doesn’t give a damn about your religious outrage or your political aspirations.

Sony Reader Reviewed

Following on the heels of my posting on the Gutenberg Project, David Pogue reviews the Sony Reader.

I can’t wait for these to arrive here at the bottom of Africa, another nice gadget for the gadget obsessed.

Literary Feast at Project Gutenberg

I have found some real gems on Project Gutenberg.  For those of you who don’t yet know what this wonderful organisation is about,

The Project Gutenberg Philosophy is to make information, books and other materials available to the general public in forms a vast majority of the computers, programs and people can easily read, use, quote, and search.

The have a useful listing of their top 100 free ebooks, go wild!

Antonym.OS, Anonymity on a Disc

WASHINGTON, D.C. — To many privacy geeks, it’s the holy grail — a totally anonymous and secure computer so easy to use you can hand it to your grandmother and send her off on her own to the local Starbucks.

That was the guiding principle for the members of kaos.theory security research when they set out to put a secure crypto-heavy operating systems on a bootable CD: a disc that would offer the masses the same level of privacy available to security professionals, but with an easy user interface.

more…

Authorities on alert for flesh-eating bug

Health authorities were on high alert last night after the discovery of a rare flesh-eating superbug which has already claimed three lives and left several other patients in isolation until tests come back tomorrow. An elderly patient at Christchurch’s Princess Margaret Hospital died on Friday from necrotizing fasciitis, the third death in a fortnight from what is the first outbreak in New Zealand of the streptococcal superbug. Patients and families were being informed of the issue, but the hospital said there were no plans to transfer patients to other hospitals or to rest homes.

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Metal Storm and the Chinese Military

The Chinese military is on a campaign to acquire Australia’s military secrets. There are massive implications if the information gets out.

A special investigation by Sunday reveals that representatives of the People’s Liberation Army of China have made at least four separate attempts to acquire secret, high-tech weaponry.

“Metal Storm” is the name given to a deadly weapon being developed by a Brisbane based company. The weapon has been identified by the US Department of Defence as a technology so deadly that it must not be allowed to get into the hands of America’s enemies.

In one instance, a Chinese-Australian man on a trip to China was approached by a powerful bureaucrat with a secret proposition. The Chinese army needed someone to help them get their hands on “Metal Storm” weapons technology. Money was no object and a multi-million-dollar commission was the reward.

In another audacious approach to acquire the weapon, there was an attempt to lure the inventor of the technology to Beijing in return for a huge cash payment: “They said we don’t want metal storm weapons, we don’t want the paper work, we want you in Beijing.”

The Chinese were so persistent that the Brisbane man feared for his safety and contacted the Defence Department’s security service for protection: “What I was expected to do in Beijing was to divulge all the knowledge I had to enable prototypes to be built for the weapons system to be developed.”

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