David Gessel

Google Street View ReflectoPorn

Tuesday, March 6, 2012 

Google drove past our little village in Italy and caught themselves in the turning mirror just about perfectly.

The coverage they have is getting pretty impressive.

street_view_reflecto_porn.JPG
Posted at 22:59:11 GMT-0700

Category: MapphotoPlaces

Debugging the System. Literally

Monday, March 5, 2012 

My space heater stopped working. The switch’s light would turn on, but no fan, no heat. Although there were “no user serviceable parts inside,” I thought I’d take it apart.

After poking around with a multi-meter, I found that there was 120 being distributed around, but the ground wasn’t getting past the bimetal thermostat. Nothing obviously wrong with it, but careful investigation showed what looked like bits of fluff in it. Poking at the contacts, there were three ants squeezed between them (or perhaps one trapped and two would be saviors electrocuted). bugs_in_the_thermostat.jpg

One carcass was lost to the prodding, one is still visible as a fleck on the far left between the two gold button contacts, the other culprit I managed to get a clear picture of.The_bug_in_the_thermostat.jpg

Now that I’ve debugged my space heater, it works properly.

Reliving Grace Hopper’s history.

Posted at 15:43:45 GMT-0700

Category: OddphotoTechnology

Windows Suckz

Tuesday, February 28, 2012 

I will never understand why companies choose to spend good money developing software and systems around Windows. How can they be so stupid as to pay for absurd and byzantine licensing of inferior, insecure, opaque operating systems on which to build their products the regular failure of which only serves to damage the reliability of their applications and harm their reputation while reducing profit and increasing cost?

On the plus side, seeing BSODs and hang screens in public places is always good for lulz.

Posted at 07:03:05 GMT-0700

Category: TechnologyTravel

Otherwise it won’t come

Friday, February 17, 2012 

It is a childproof security feature as their little hands won’t reach.

Posted at 06:25:37 GMT-0700

Category: FunnyOddphoto

I <3 Germany

Saturday, February 11, 2012 

Where else can you find a store like this at the airport?

Posted at 04:07:17 GMT-0700

Category: FunnyOddphotoPlacesTravel

Please pull over for my rental car

Monday, February 6, 2012 

Crown Vic. Putting my flashlight on the dash in a red plastic cup on strobe mode and gonna make some time.

Posted at 17:46:49 GMT-0700

Category: Rental cars

Urban Tumbleweed

Thursday, February 2, 2012 

They’re blowin’ down the street.

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Watch “Good Hair
Posted at 02:29:25 GMT-0700

Category: Oddphoto

Cleaner, More Efficient Windows 7

Thursday, January 26, 2012 

One of the things I hate about Win 7 is the automatic “smart” folders like Homegroup, Favorites, Libraries, and the User folder. They are ass and unbelievably annoying. I have a folder called work that is well organized, but way too often I’d end up the the Library “work” which is just idiotically bizarre. I want my pictures organized the way I want them, typically topically, not all lumped into a folder called “Pictures” and segregated from another folder of “videos.”

Why someone at Microsoft thought that dynamically self-organizing file structures was a good idea is beyond me. They are in love with this insanely stupid premise that it is somehow helpful that every time you click on a menu or open a folder it is organized differently that the last time based on some algorithm you can’t control. It is like having Clippy restructure your documents for you.

They should have a central “turn off all features where MS engineers think they can organize things for you automatically and let me organize my computer myself, OK?” But they don’t, and while it is a bit tedious, it is possible keep Microsoft’s meddling fingers out of your organization with a few regedits.

Remove Favorites: https://web.archive.org/web/20131005200518/http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/remove-favorites-from-windows-explorer-in-windows-7/3461

Remove User Folder: https://web.archive.org/web/20210315084556/https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/48123-user-folder-add-remove-navigation-pane.html

Remove HomeGroup: https://web.archive.org/web/20130925000911/http://www.techrepublic.com:80/blog/window-on-windows/remove-homegroup-from-windows-explorer-in-windows-7/3425

Remove Libraries: https://web.archive.org/web/20130917233557/http://www.techrepublic.com:80/blog/window-on-windows/remove-libraries-from-windows-explorer-in-windows-7/3401

And regain control of your computer.

Clean_Computer.JPG
Posted at 17:48:57 GMT-0700

Category: Technology

Keep the Pitchforks Sharp

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 

While David Pogue’s opinion piece “Put Down the Pitchforks” makes a valid point about the alliance of varied views on the utility and validity of copyright that have come together to oppose SOPA/PIPA, the differences are more subtle than his language indicates.

Everyone, even those characterized (somewhat fairly) as the “we want our illegal movies” crowd, is horrified that the United States would contemplate outright censorship of the web à la North Korea or Iran, something we actively fight quite vigorously, and with USAID and State Department support, to ensure that dissidents can circumvent similar blocking schemes.

There is no way to fix the language of the bills to rule out those abuses. Universal filling a flagrantly illegal DMCA takedown request with YouTube to censor the MegaUploads advertisement video, the pernicious use of malicious prosecution by the RIAA, and the recent MPAA/Chris Dodd bribery flap all demonstrate incontrovertibly how the entertainment industry has been utterly shameless to date and there is no basis for the belief that they would voluntarily refrain from an aggressive and likely illegal extension of whatever new powers they are offered. If anything, we need stronger legislation to discourage the current abuse of litigation and take-down powers.

Thus everyone, including those that believe that copyright needs to be extended (again, further), recognizes that the premise of SOPA/PIPA—that parts of the international internet have to be blocked in the US—are fundamentally flawed and cannot be repaired.

The differentiation between the “ignorant mechanism” and “ignorant goal” camps is, however, unfairly characterized by Pogue when he draws an analogy to shoplifting. Copyright is not a property right—it is a privilege that is granted by we the people, an exchange where we the people voluntarily relinquish our right to copy, and we gift the inventor with a temporary monopoly as an incentive to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.

It is not “stealing” to copy a movie; it may be illegal, but it is not stealing. There is no legal basis to consider such an act theft—not in natural law, not in “denial of utility.”

“If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.”

– Thomas Jefferson, 1813

(A letter that should be read in its entirety by anyone electing to weigh in on copyright.)

The basis and purpose of copyright is codified in the constitution: it is an agreement between we the people and inventors to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, it is neither a property right nor a human right. If any copyright legislation fails to advance the cause of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts it is simply prima facia unconstitutional. And not a single extension of copyright law, back to and including the Sony Bono Copyright Extension Act, has even bothered to pay lip service to the obligation to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.

The problem is that these bills retard progress by hampering important and economically relevant industries for economically irrelevant ones (regardless of how nostalgic they might be). It is fair, still, to frame copyright protections and copyright modifications with respect to the expected actual net contribution to the progress of science and the useful arts, as the constitution requires. It is unlikely that such an analysis would favor complete abolition of copyright but it is clear that only a mechanism closer to the patent model makes sense: a very limited and carefully regulated temporary monopoly granted to inventors and creators in return for fully contributing their efforts to the public domain promptly thereafter.

(Edited and enhanced by Carolyn Anhalt)

Posted at 14:42:48 GMT-0700

Category: PoliticsTechnology

The SOPA/PIPA Fight is Not Over

Friday, January 20, 2012 

Megaupload, the company that enables easy file transfer used by 50,000,000 people every day, was sized by the DOJ. Check www.megaupload.com

This is an illegal, unconstitutional seizure. It is an example of the scum who run entertainment companies like Universal (who illegally got MegaUpload’s video yanked from youtube by filing a false DMCA takedown) turning US law enforcement and the US judicial system into criminal enforcers to create a business model around theft and intimidation to replace their obsolete and irrelevant role as gate keepers and toll collectors between artists and their audiences.

If SOPA/PIPA pass, links to the sized domain would have to be expunged from any site even talking about them. This is intolerable. It is a subversion of democracy and outright theft of the public domain by those who would retard or even reverse progress to protect their profits and wealth.

The constitution grants the privilege of a temporary copyright to artists and inventors as a mechanism to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. Laws that extend this privilege in a manner that fails to promote the progress of science and the useful arts are plainly unconstitutional. Record companies have no natural right to stop you from using your hardware, your devices, to rearrange the bits on your systems in any way you like. They have turned the discussion to claim they have a property right to your data through manipulation and outright lies. The only fair response to their illegal and heinous acts is to revoke their privilege and drive them swiftly into bankruptcy so they no longer have the resources to bribe our representatives into ignoring the constitution.

The DOJ should be using RICO to shut down entertainment companies that use intimidation to protect profits, not innovative companies acting to expand the public domain in a manner clearly consistent with the goals of the framers of the constitution.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9caPFPQUNs[/youtube]

Posted at 19:03:59 GMT-0700

Category: FilmsNegativePoliticsTechnology