Okay, this is a week too late, but...

It's still fun! According to this article on Wired News, Portland, Oregan hosted BrickFest PDX over the President's Day weekend. From the description, it was LEGOs as far as the eye could see in all their creative glory. This is the first time I've heard of such a festival, but it makes sense. Those of us who are LEGO fanatics would totally go for this kind of thing. (Yes, I'm a LEGO nut. It's just in remission right now.)
Anyway, several clubs got together to put this on. They had a big "shared" village that every group helped to set up, but they also had individual displays. Some of these looked spectacular. The LEGO roller-coaster has to be seen to be believed. The article on Wired News has pictures.
Hey, it's Friday. Let your imagination run wild!

Bad news for telemarketers.

According to this article on MSNBC, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the Federal No-Call List! Yea! That means that everyone who signed up for the list oh, so many months ago, should be free from tele-harassment. At least, for a bit. I'm sure the telemarketers will try to find a way around it. But, at least we'll have some peace for a little bit.
Oh, and if you haven't signed up yet, go to the National Do Not Call Registry and do it. It's free!

Here's one I've never heard of before.

According to this article on Wired News, there's a government program designed to "retrain" people to be competitive with H1B visa holders. The idea being to give US Citizens skills that make them competitive with imported skilled workers. Great idea, right? Yeah, only I've never heard of it before and now they're trying to get rid of it!
The article is a little confusing, frankly, about who benefits from the program, H1B holders or people training to compete with them, but the end result seemed to be more US Citizens with viable skills and careers. Frankly, I'm in favor of any program that helps retrain American workers and keep them viable in the workforce. And, based on this quote:

"It would kill a program that mitigates the need for foreign workers by training U.S. citizens," said Mike Wilson, chief executive of the Bay Area Technology Education Collaborative, which runs training programs in the greater San Francisco area. "That's a hard one to swallow."

It sounds like that's just what this program is designed to do. Might be something to talk to your Congressman about, eh?

Or, is that the "Isn't it ironic" department?

Well, it's a little of both, actually. In two related stories from Australian IT, we get a closer look at the off-shore industry. It seems things are heating up for those poor "oppressed" people who are "reallocating" resources offshore. First, they're not getting absolutly every job they can, so they're protesting and claiming that a true free-market economy will decide where the jobs should be. No, really, I'm not kidding, here's the article. They're protesting the fact that the Australian government is restricting how many government, and government contract, IT jobs can be sent offshore. Hey, that sounds like the will of the people to me. And, isn't that what a free-market economy is all about?
Maybe the problem is that China is going after India's customers. After all, a shrinking market with higher levels of competition is a scary thing. So, when someone undercuts your price and starts to gain a significant portion of your market share, it's scary. And, according to this article, that's what's happening. But, hey, the free-market ought to take care of that, right? Oh, right, at the expense of someone's job. Well, as long as it's not one of their jobs. Yeah, that seemed ironic to me, too.

Change is good, right?

Well, if you've noticed that my site hasn't been updated much this week and were wondering why, it's because one of my domains got booted from my old webhost. But, I found the folks over at Amzia.net and all is well. Actually, it's better than "well", at least on-line. Amzia.net is not only a better service, in my opinion, and a local company, but they're cheaper, too! If you're looking for hosting, check them out.

In other news, today is VD day. Oh, okay, "St. Valentine's Day". So, for fun, I bring you the news that Ken and Barbie are getting divorced. No, really. They make up some story about her being a "career worman" and all that kind of junk, but really, I think she's just run off with G.I. Joe. Or, maybe this guy. I mean, c'mon, admit it, every girl likes a guy in uniform. Honestly, I think the only reason my wife was interested in me was that I told her her I was an Eagle Scout! (Then again, considering the pictures of my Eagle Ceremony, maybe not...) Personally, I think Ken should go for one of Joe's girlfriends. Turnabout is fair play, after all. And, afterward, they could all get on one of the afternoon talk shows! Now, that's what I call a good St. Valentine's Day!!

Or, Why We Fear Friday the Thirteenth!

I always thought it was because Judas was the Thirteenth Apostle or something like that. No, according to this article on GlobalPsychics.com, it has to do with the plot to suppress the Knights Templar. Hey, stop laughing! That's what it says!! And, I quote:

The modern basis for the Friday the 13th superstition stems from Friday October the 13th, 1307. On this date, the Pope of the church in Rome in Conjunction with the King of France, carried out a secret death warrant against "the Knights Templar". The Templars were terminated as heretics, never again to hold the power that they had held for so long. There Grand Master, Jacques DeMolay, was arrested and before he was killed, was tortured and crucified. A Black Friday indeed!

So, there you have it, Friday the Thirteenth is a global conspiracy!
Enjoy it.

Well, maybe parts of it.

At least, according to this article on Wired News, a federal judge ruled that parts of the Patriot Act were in violation of the First and Fifth Ammendments. Basically, he said that parts of the Act were to "vague" and left too much open to interpretation and that ambiguity was, in fact, unconstitutional. Go figure. The case in question, incidentally, was regarding a group that was giving advice to groups on seeking a peaceful resolution of the Kurds' campaign for self-determination in Turkey. Apparently, acting peacefully somehow riled some government agents who used the Patriot Act as a threat to get them to stop.

You know, the intent behind the Patriot Act was a good one: to keep America safe. But, the actual document was written so poorly that it allowed far, far too many potential abuses. I think we need stronger security, but we need to improve it without infringing on our Constitutional rights! I think that what we have in place now needs to be scrapped in favor of something less invasive and with more checks and balances. There has to be a middle ground. But, to find it, we need to keep our heads and not panic, as Thoreau said, "It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things." And, as my favorite statesman, and a fellow Freemason, said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. "
It's our job as citizens to deal with this. Talk to your Senators and Representatives about this. Tell them how you feel and make an impact on the future of this nation. It's your civic duty to be involved in government!

No, I mean really psycho toys...

It all started with a harmless, little article on Wired about new cube toys. (Make sure to read the article. It explains a lot about the rest of this.) Then I Googled on a few of the artists and came up with SweatyFrog Toys, KidRobot and finally XL-Shop online. Oh, my stars and garters, as a favorite comic-book hero was known for saying. The toys are truly mad and more fun than a barrel full of developers! They do get a bit pricey, though. SweatyFrog Toys has the best prices, but the other two have a better selection. In any case, it's great fun to window shop there. And, hey, it's Friday, go have fun!

(Oh, and yes, this post first appeared at my other blog.)

Let's talk "license".

It looks like SCO's attempt to extort money for alleged proprietary pieces of Linux code is slowly failing. At least, according to this article on AustralianIT, which says that the Australian government is basically just ignoring them. They apparently got their Linux solution via IBM, so they just refer any issues to IBM. Which, frankly, makes sense. Besides, IBM is already bringing suit against SCO for, well, basically for being stupid, I think.

The more I read about stuff like this the more I think the way to go is Novell and SUSE. An integrated solution, right down to the desktop, that has a better, less expensive licensing program than Micro$oft and has global support. Seems like a better option to me. But, what do I know? I'm just a Network Geek.

Two great tastes that taste great together.

I only wish I was going to get to taste them. I was reading the article in this month's Novell Connection Magazine about all the cool new things that Novell is rolling out for Netware and Linux in a mixed envrionment. It really makes me sad that my current company is phasing out Novell. Especially now that Novell has bought SUSE! Yow! I can only imagine the things that will be coming down the pike! I mean, things like Linux-only Groupwise just really makes me drool. And, with all the web-based administration tools, managing servers from home on the weekend would be a dream with Linux. *sigh* Well, maybe one day I'll get the chance to be in a Linux/Novell shop. Until then, I have to content myself with running Linux servers and nursing the old Novell servers through end-of-life.
At least it pays the mortgage.