tcpip: (Default)
Diary of a B+ Grade Polymath ([personal profile] tcpip) wrote2005-08-08 09:51 am

USB and Linux, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Labor for Refugees

This weekend, I have discovered the hell that is trying to get USB devices to talk to Linux. This is not a pleasant experience. Any insights greatly appreciated. I'm using Mandrake 10.1 if that helps.

Remembering Hirsohima from those who
experienced it. Melbourne Unitarian Church had Ian Maddocks from the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, providing a careful and insightful discussion on the subject. We all went to the Remembrance Rally in the city afterwards. I found the first speaker to be so obnoxious and sectarian that I left within five minutes.

RuneQuest IV is now up to version 3. Playtest on Sunday indicated that the radical changes to the parry and hit points system simply do not work. New player (Michael) is showing his design skills, but he does software engineering so he should.

Caught up with Greg T for the first time in a year last week. He's returned from a four week holiday in northern Europe which turned out to be six months. He has a long-term plan to get an graduate environmental engineering degree and engage in a process of reforestation of desert land. A noble pursuit. Other major social activity was great birthday drinks at the Sahara club for [livejournal.com profile] devilgirly, many people, lots of laughter, great food.

Oh, and I had another letter published in The Age. On land tax of course.

EDIT

How did I forget? Labor for Refugees quarterly meeting on Saturday. FEA elections have been deferred, national Tampa anniversary rally coming up. Announced my intention to resign as President. Been there long enough, about time someone else had a go.

I was aware of this...

[identity profile] octobrianaoz.livejournal.com 2005-08-07 06:35 pm (UTC)(link)
...when I went to the Psychic Fair on that date. I was in the reeaders' pool you see, so I had to be there. Not a good day overall, but you have to take the hard with the easy.

It always struck me that with all the hoo-hah about "weapons of mass destruction", that the USA is teh only nation ever to have used them.

Re: I was aware of this...

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2005-08-07 07:13 pm (UTC)(link)
It always struck me that with all the hoo-hah about "weapons of mass destruction", that the USA is teh only nation ever to have used them.

*nods* The also hold the overwhelming number of WMDs and spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined in military machinery.

It's sad and tragic behaviour from a nation founded on noble principles.

Re: I was aware of this...

(Anonymous) 2005-08-12 12:09 am (UTC)(link)
Not quite, octobrianoz. Nuclear weapons, yes. But if you include chemical and biological weapons as "WMD" (as we did when scraping the tarry residue from the bottom of the diplomatic barrel to find a vaguely plausible casus belli against Iraq), then amongst "users of WMD" we have to include Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and Russia (WWI), Germany (WWII), Japan (China War), and Iran & Iraq (Iran-Iraq War, then called "Gulf War").

If you expand the "chemical warfare" definitions to include agents which act primarily against vegetations, and secondarily against humans, and to include the use of conventional weapons in a manner designed to cause mass destruction (eg, blowing up dams to flood cities), then the list becomes rather larger...

Of course the weapon most destructive of human life since WWII has been the humble rifle, commonly the AK-47...

Cheers,
Kyle Schuant
(sorry, I have no LJ or similar)

Re: I was aware of this...

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2005-08-12 12:50 am (UTC)(link)

*nods*

WMD has always been a bit of a dubious classification. I suppose by definition it is any weapon that can destroy more than one mass with a single act... Which of course, as you pointed out, would include any assault rifle..

Re: I was aware of this...

[identity profile] octobrianaoz.livejournal.com 2005-08-15 02:31 pm (UTC)(link)
See the Leunig Cartoon I posted to this (in the same thread).

Re: I was aware of this...

[identity profile] octobrianaoz.livejournal.com 2005-08-15 02:29 pm (UTC)(link)