Personal Made Public

Good news! Fedora Core 5 is NICE.
Bad news! Getting my wireless connection to work was a pain.

The IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T43 uses an Atheros chipset in the built-in wireless card (WARNING: I understand that this is not the only card they used). Fedora Core 5 installs smoothly (just set your LCD screen and resolution during setup) with the hitch being an inability to detect/install the wifi card. Here's what I did to get it running.

1. Add the Livna RPM repository to your yum configuration. The easiest way to do this is using the configuration RPM provided by Livna. Install the RPM and yum will now see Livna as a valid repository.

2. Use yum to install MadWifi (drivers for Atheros chipsets available from the MadWifi Project):

yum install madwifi

You probably need to reboot at this point to make sure everything gets installed properly (but maybe not).

3. You now should have an ath0 network device. HOWEVER, if you try to manage this via System | Administration | Networking or NetworkManager you'll find that it identifies itself as an ethernet device instead of wireless. If you try to add a device under Networking you'll get an Ethernet device instead of wifi. That's no good, so create it by hand:

#Atheros Communications, Inc. |AR5212 802.11abg
NICDEVICE=ath0
ONBOOT=no
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
TYPE=wireless
ESSID=***********
KEY=************
MODE=Managed
RATE=AUTO

You have to change this to match your environment. For UNC-CH you can look up the settings on the UNC Help Page (not published here for security). The asterisks are blocking out the UNC ESSID and KEY. Don't put asterisks there!!!

4. Save the above file as "ifcfg-ath0" in the following locations:

/etc/sysconfig/networking/devices/
/etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles/default/
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/

5. Bring up the connection:

ifup ath0

You should now be up and running!

I can't promise this will work for you or even that everything was done the "right" way. In fact, I know that there are still some problems to iron out (networking control panel can't edit the device). What I can say is that I can now connect to our campus network with a simply "ifup ath0". I hope this helps someone else out there!

Posted by Kevin at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I remember a time when Republicans were all about protecting the U.S. from outside threats.

These days the Department of Homeland Security is being used to protect multinational pharmaceutical companies from elderly Americans. Hey, guys! Point the guns away from our own Grannies! Go fight a bad guy instead of being the bad guy, okay?

If we had a decent prescription drug plan available here, maybe our seniors wouldn't be buying drugs from Canada (the drug companies DO make a profit off drugs sold in Canada, by the way). Medicare Part D just ensures that seniors pay the maximum possible price since the law prevents Medicare from negotiating lower prices on the drugs. Seniors become captive to the program while the drug companies charge them (and us) the highest rates on the drugs worldwide. What a bargain! No wonder "Homeland Security" has to be called in to protect the drug companies.

What ever happened to the idea of free and open markets? Not under this administration! Now we get Homeland Security enforcing profit-protection for Big Pharma. Are there ANY conservatives left out there or are they all Bushies?

Posted by Kevin at 12:44 PM | Permalink

"For the sake of justice and for the sake of border security, I firmly oppose amnesty," Bush said.

It is estimated that there are 11,000,000 illegal aliens living in working in the United States. What happens if you send 11,000,000 construction workers, maids, groundskeepers, and assembly line workers away? Do we suddenly have a labor shortage? Would our companies be scrambling to raise wages in order to get workers from the shrunken pool? Could they compete globally in that case? What about the American-born children of illegal workers? Do you send these American citizens "home" to a country where they've never been? Do you keep them here and send their parents away?

There's a big battle shaping up over "immigration reform". I can't answer the questions, but I can see that we're looking at another opportunity for politicians to show they are "tough" in order to gain politically while once again hurting all Americans. This needs to be a serious debate, but I don't see much hope in Congress or the White House for intelligent discussion -- especially not in an election year.

If I had to guess, I'd look for a really poorly crafted piece of legislation that either creates a "semi-slave" status for immigrants (you can work here, but you have no rights) or something that cuts off our nose to spite our face (throw them out and build a wall). I guess when the politicians have screwed up this badly (National Debt, global warming, Iraq, torture, domestic spying, drug benefits for big corporations...) you have to change the subject and find something NEW to screw up.

Posted by Kevin at 12:09 PM | Permalink

All signs point to a presidential election bid by Hillary Clinton in 2008.

I can't say I definitely won't vote for her in the election because I don't know how bad wacko her opponent might be, but they would have to be really wacko for her to get my vote. I know I'll be opposing her in the primary. I know she has a lot of popularity on the left, but I'm going to have to step forward right now to say that I won't be joining them on this. Let's go over some reasons...

1) "Decency". Yes, in quotes. Clinton is one of the "your government must protect your children" crowd. She supports stricter regulation of movies, television, music and video games. I prefer candidates that protect Free Speech and let parents do the parenting. I don't want the Feds raising my daughter.

2) Iraq. Hillary's position on Iraq: ??? Excuse me, but the mess in the Middle East needs attention. Hillary knows it's a morass and doesn't want to alienate a single potential supporter by offering any direction. Leaders need to lead. Hillary is just playing politics by sniping at Bush while never offering alternatives.

3) Dubai Ports Deal: She was one of the most vocal critics, stoking xenophobia for political gain. Bill Clinton, by comparison, actually worked with the Emirates in an attempt to help them negotiate the uproar over the deal. The UAE, by the way, contributed $100,000,000 towards Hurricane Katrina relief.

4) "Flip-flop": Again and again I see Hillary Clinton shifting stands based on political advantage. Where does she really stand? I think I know, and I actually approve in some cases, but if she won't play straight with us, I don't want her running.

5) Too far left: I'm a liberal. No doubt about it. However, that doesn't mean I'm an extremist. I'm an environmentalist. I favor ample funding for basic science via the government. I see a need for the government to overhaul healthcare (sorry, but our economy needs mobility in its workforce, and if your health insurance isn't portable, you're stuck!). I feel there is too much corporate welfare. I believe in progressive taxation. I don't think more guns make us safer. I don't like our current global militarism. I'm very liberal on social issues: everyone's rights to freedom of speech and religion need protecting, not just the mainstream. However, I also realize that respecting everyone's rights means creating laws we can all live with. Just like the far-right pushes extremist laws that enshrine their religion, morality and prejudices, I fear that Hillary would push ideas that are just too far out of the mainstream on the other end. I still believe that most Americans just want to live and let live as long as no one is in their face over differences (though the evangelical nuts are showing alarming growth). I think Hillary Clinton would push a social agenda that would further polarize our society. We need more tolerance, not greater polarization. Hillary Clinton would divide us further in a time when we need to find middle ground.

Hillary Clinton is smart, savvy, and cunning. She also honestly believes some of the same things I do. However, she is first and foremost a politician, and her quest for political power comes first. I don't need another politician who will say one thing to please the masses while pursuing another. We need a statesman.

Posted by Kevin at 07:00 AM | Permalink

It's a rare occasion that agree with George W. Bush, but this is one of those times: the Dubai Ports Deal should have gone through.

The bottom line is that Dubai would not have been responsible for security at our ports -- and even if they were we really don't do much port security anyway. However, inspections and security would remain in U.S. hands and we aren't even talking about replacing American workers with foreign ones. We're just talking about a change of ownership and management for running the docks.

Republicans and Democrats both made a big deal over this. Everyone saw political gains to be made. My first reaction was like most until I read more about it and found just how little was involved. This is just another case of foreign investment. We need foreign investment.

Xenophobia is not going to win us any friends, especially while we aggressively pursue opportunities abroad for American multinationals. What, we can have multinationals buy no one else can?

Thanks to this debacle, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are talking about moving currency reserves from dollars to Euros. That's bad news for us. Oil is currently demoninated in dollars. Oil is the foundation that, more than any other commodity, backs currency. The country whose currency is that in which oil is traded gets a big advantage economically and enjoys the position of "gold standard" for all others. A switch from dollars to Euros is not a good thing for us.

Bush was right. The Congressional Democrats and Republicans played up the "threat" in order to get some publicity, but traded away important international standing for the United States. They benefited from the uproar, and we'll get to pay for it.

Agreeing with Bush? I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Posted by Kevin at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We're going to drill in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. It's going to happen, like it or not. As oil costs skyrocket, the political pressure will mount. Sooner or later the cries to drill will override concerns for the refuge: we're going to drill.

Okay, so how much will it help? I'm writing this as an analysis for my own sake. My dad fervently believes that we should drill. I would rather we didn't, both for environmental reasons and to save the oil for a time when it may really be needed instead of simply as a price-reducing lever.

First, how much oil is there? The best estimate of recoverable reserves is 10.3 bbl (billion barrels). That's the estimate of the Energy Information Administration which answers to the President. I have to admit I have suspicions about the accuracy of data from the Executive Branch under the current administration, but let's go with those numbers.

Now the life of an oil field follows a predictable bell curve of production: after discovery it ramps up, eventually peaks, and then goes into a long, slow decline. Let's assume that 90% of the field is exploited over the first 40 years of the field's life. If so, ANWR will provide us with 0.9 x 10.3 bbl / 40 yrs = 0.23 bbl/yr or 230 mbl/yr (millions barrels per year) on average during the first forty years of it's life.

What kind of dent does 230 mbl/yr make for us?

According to the CIA World Factbook, the US uses a hair over 20 mbl/day (7.3 bbl/yr) as of 2003. Assuming that there is no increase in the use of oil in the US during the life of the field (very unlikely, but let's just go with it for the sake of argument), this means that ANWR will provide enough oil to cover 3% of US consumption. Of course no one expects consumption to remain steady over the coming years, so how much breathing room will ANWR buy us? At a 2% annual growth rate ANWR will cover our growth for under 18 months.

Hmm.... that's it? 18 months (if our economy grows only 2% a year)???

Well, we're going to do it. Doesn't seem to make sense to me environmentally or strategically, but we'll delay some of the rise in oil prices for 18 months. Considering that we are giving up an important reserve, I sure hope that we use that 18 months wisely. Unfortunately, I don't hear any such push.

Posted by Kevin at 07:04 PM | Permalink

When this lady makes an entrance she really makes an entrance:

This is up at Open Eye Cafe. She arrived a couple of minutes before I did, and I arrived a few minutes before the police arrived and told the staff to close shop until things got cleaned up. I got the last mocha they made this morning... :-)

Posted by Kevin at 05:35 PM | Permalink

I was just reading about a conference held by the conservative Cato Insitute. They put Bush's feet to the fire, and rightly so: the Neocons are NOT conservatives.

How do they feel about Bush?

"unconscionable," "irresponsible," "vindictive" and "inept."

"reckless" and "a socialist," and accused him of betraying "almost every principle conservatism has ever stood for."

"a 48 percent increase in spending in just six years," a "federalization of public schools" and "the biggest entitlement since LBJ."

complete contempt for democratic processes, torture of detainees, ignoring habeas corpus and a "vast expansion of the federal government."

people in this administration have no principles

The list went on and on.

I have often disagreed with conservatives over tax policy, foreign policy and environmental issues, but I respect their thinking because it is often intelligent and mature. I confess that on many of the issues I could be wrong and they could be right.

This administration is NOT conservative. They ignore the facts or twist them to suit their needs: real conservatives use the facts to shape policy, not policy to shape "facts". Real conservatives are typically people of character, and therefore believe in working within the law. Starting wars with bogus intelligence, torturing detainees, spying without warrants: these are not conservative values. Tax cuts with spending increases (while keeping the AMT -- a stealth tax about to envelope the middle-class) is not conservative. Liberals might raise taxes and spending, but no one but a neocon would cut taxes AND increase spending: the worst of both worlds! The whole K-Street project, pay-for-access politics, and lack of transparency and accountability: Neocon, not conservative.

It strikes me as sad that there are still conservatives backing the Neocons. They aren't conservatives, and they are doing long-term damage to real conservatives by getting people to associate conservative values with their corruption and irresponsibility.

I hope for the day when conservatives can one again shed themselves of the neocons. The debate between conservative and liberal is healthy. The neocons, however, aren't liberal and aren't conservative, but they ARE running America into the ground with corruption, militarism, unfunded spending sprees, cronyism and their belief that the Constitution and rule of law don't apply to them. Power corrupts. With the neocons running Congress and the White House it is clear that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Posted by Kevin at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Faith is a belief for which you have no proof.

It ranges from the simple and highly justifiable (setting the alarm because you believe tomorrow will be just another workday) through the tenuous to the incredible.

In my mind faith becomes fanaticism when you cling to a belief even when the facts overwhelmingly deny what you believe.

That's what makes it very disturbing to me that a recent Gallup poll discovered:

more than half of all Americans, rejecting evolution theory and scientific evidence, agree with the statement, "God created man exactly how Bible describes it."

Are we so fanatical as a society that we reject the entire concept of evolution along with the copious volumes of data that support it simply to maintain a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation story? Of course, many of these same people do not view Revelations as literal, but symbolic, but fanatics do get to have it both ways, don't they? If such a big portion of country is made of fanatics, are we destined for a future of sectarian strife such as the Middle East and Ireland have long known?

Maybe all those people aren't fanatics. Maybe they are just so ill-equipped by our education system to rationally appraise competing explanations. Then again, is that much better than a society of fanatics? How can a technological knowledge-based democracy succeed if the citizens can't tell myth from science?

I expect the reality is a bit of both: a mix of fanatics and those unequipped to deal with science, logic and reason.

A person of faith knows that what they believe truly is faith, not knowledge. Most people of faith with an ability for logical reasoning accept evolution as compatible with their faith: it serves as a reminder that the Bible from which they base their faith is not the literal word of God. Knowing that you cannot know is the basis for tolerance.

A fanatic "knows" that which cannot be proven, and can therefore not tolerate the beliefs of others or facts that dispute what they "know". They cannot incorporate new knowledge since they do not have beliefs that grow with time but "facts" that are immutable.

We cannot afford to be a society without reason. We can be a society of faith, but cannot be fanatics. Whether our problem is a lack of education or burgeoning extremism, the Gallup poll shows we live in dangerous times, and it may not be the terrorists that we need to fear the most.

Posted by Kevin at 01:51 PM | Permalink

Police for Ohio University have charged a 28-year old grad student with "Inducing panic" because his bike (like many nationwide) had a sticker on it for the punk rock band "This Bike is a Pipe Bomb".

I award the Ohio University Police Department the "Paranoid Idiots of the Day Award".

The bike, by the way, caused no panic except to the paranoid, clueless officer that flipped out when he saw it locked up. A bomb squad was called in. They destroyed the bike with a hydraulic press and SURPRISE! It's a bike. With a sticker. For a nationally-known band. Well, technically it USED to be a bike before the they SAVED US FROM THE EVIL MENACE...

Someone should take the guy's gun away before he shoots someone for calling "Hi Jack" to a friend in another car. Oooh... scary bicycle... Boo!

Posted by Kevin at 01:24 PM | Permalink

I'm continuing to study guitar and to do so quite seriously. With my first longevity bonus from UNC (10 years!) in my pocket, I decided to upgrade from my cheapie starter amp to a real amp. My lovely Strat deserves so much better, but the $80 amp I had was all I could afford after getting the Strat. Thanks to my friend, Bill (who is a professional musician and guitarist for The Kingsbury Manx), I selected the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe: 40 Watts of tube-driven Fender goodness.

Wow! I had no idea how much my old amp was now holding me back. My Deluxe picks up the tiniest vibrations in the strings where my old combo needed lots of vibration and still lost the bass end. Notes died quickly on the combo, but on the Fender they ring out with unbelievable sustain (the final note can die off over close to 45 seconds!) Bass notes are deep and round, the high end is crisp and clear. Nothing "tinny". It's the difference between a $10 transistor radio and a $1000 sound system. My guitar sounds like a completely different instrument.

I'm glad I lived with the $80 amp for the last year. I wouldn't have been able to appreciate just what a difference a really good tube amp makes had I not developed enough as a guitarist to be held back by the limits of my combo amp. Instead, I know enough to be completely blown away by the Fender Deluxe.

Oh, the volume goes to 12. Good luck finding a reviewer that's tested it over six. At TWO I terrified my dog. I think anything above six would cause structural damage to the house.

Posted by Kevin at 06:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)