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Right thing or smart thing...

Posted By: Sanctuary - November.15.2009 - Comments(1)

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Often times in life there are choices we have to make.

I've always been a firm believer that the reality is never the choice itself, but rather a question "Can you live with the consequences of the choice you make?" (Everything has a price.)

The rules for this poll are simple. A choice is now before you. You can't vote on what you would want to do, you can only vote on what you would do.

I'm not going to present you with a situation. Only the choice.

The choice here is simple - would do the right thing, or the smart thing?

The smart thing:
has no consquences to you and would somewhat protect you.

The right thing:
has dire consequences for you alone, but has the remote possiblity of helping others in the future. There is no guarantee that if you do the right thing anything postive will result at all, but regardless it will still have serious consequences for you.

Choose.

The return of the stolen garbage cans...

Posted By: Sanctuary - November.9.2009 - Comments(3)

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Okay so last year; or a little more than that, my neighbours who live in the house next door, besides doing a lot of other bizarre things - stole my garbage cans. (They stole my organics container once too and I took it back.)

Yes, they stole my garbage cans.

How do I know this?

Well after the first one went missing - and when other things go missing too - you tend to start writing your house number on them. When you see them with garbage cans that have your house number, clearly written on them, you kinda know they stole them. (There have been a vast array of issues with them. In fact most of the street wants them to move now as they've been so horrible.)

I've never gone over to retrieve them. I'm a private person and those that know me know that I dislike confrontations and fighting. Those who know me also know that I'm very capable of doing so when a real need arises to have too. (And if that happens - it's anything but pretty.) So I weigh things out. This was no different. I weighed it up and quickly decided that it simply wasn't worth the aggravation it would likely cause. It's just a couple of garbage cans right? So I let it be. Whatever.

So last night, I heard something by the side of the house, near the back door - but I don't go look as I'm freaked out by a new neighbour whose been - and I'll quote him directly here "Watching me out in my backyard through the blinds." Never mind the other rather creepy things that have been said to me by this guy as of the last week. (That's a whole other freaky story though.)

So anyway - I don't go look. I really should have.

This morning, placed neatly beside the house - my missing garbage cans. Both of them.

Some, please explain this exceptionally bizarre behavior to me as it makes absolutely no sense. I'm left with a big WTF.

LOL.

PS - Is it wrong of me to want to toss them back in their yard?

Border Guards and New Avatars

Posted By: Atnevon - November.7.2009 - Comments(6)

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Some of you may have noticed a 'slight' change in my avatar lately, and I thought I'd give a little logic behind the switch, since it's something of an inside joke.

Last weekend, I took a trip up to Canada from the states to spend Halloween with a close friend. We had a blast, and I'm extremely glad that I took the trip; however, getting to and from the country has proven to be somewhat of a challenge both times that I've come to visit the home of the beavers.

On my first time around, I was met with a particularly stern border guard that was, shall we say, not so easily amused by anyone. As soon as I pulled up to his window, he started going through the routine questions with me. "What's the purpose of your visit to Canda?" "Who are you coming to see?" "Where do they live?" "Did you bring any alcohol, tobacco or firearms with you?" "What kind of work do you do?"

These were easy to answer, and I breezed right through them without hesitation, but then he brought out the question that tripped me up a little. "Did you bring any gifts with you for the trip?"

"Yes sir, I brought a hard drive with me f..."

He didn't even let me finish the sentence. "You brought a hard drive?!? Why did you bring that with you?"

"...I... It's for my friend's computer."

"Why are you putting a hard drive on her computer???"

"..She needs a new one because she's having trouble with the one that's in there right now."

"What's the value of the hard drive?????"

"... It's uhm... I'm not sure. It's an older one. It's probably not worth that much. Maybe $20?"

"What Do You Have Stored On This Hard Drive?!?!?"

"There's nothing important on it. We're going to format it as soon as I get there."

"Why don't you know what's on it???"

"..I... erm... uh... haven't used it for quite a few years. I just don't remember what was on it, but I swear, we're just going to erase everything that's on there anyway."

"DOES SHE KNOW YOU'RE BRINGING HER THE HARD DRIVE????????"

"Yes, I told her about it before I left. She thought it was a good idea."

He looked at me again in the eyes, staring, scanning me for any hint of ill intention. "All right. You can go on through."

The whole ordeal was pretty un-nerving, but I was thankful to get through it all unscathed, and without ending up in handcuffs getting a full cavity search because of the 20 gig hard drive I brought with me. After I began to breathe again, I pushed it all aside in my mind and figured that things would be much easier after this, since it was my very first time heading into the country.

Oh how wrong I was.

This time around, I was a little more prepared for the questions, and I told myself to prepare a little better for the border interview and I'd do fine. Sadly, when it comes to my mind vs. reality. Reality has this annoying habit of having the upper hand against me.

Coming through for this trip, I had the two gifts I was bringing with me handy by my side and easily accessible so that I could show the border guards that I wasn't carrying anything harmful with me at all. It seemed like things were going pretty well too. The border guard was a lot more friendly this time around, and he fired the usual barrage of questions at me without sounding nearly as stern or accusatory as the previous one had been. Everything was going along pretty well, but then they threw another monkey wrench my way.

"Who is this car registered to?"

Son of a bitch.

"Well, it's my car, but I'm having some trouble getting the title from the owner." (By the way, in case you can hear me quietly cursing to myself right about now, you're not imagining that voice.)

"Why haven't they given you the title?"

"I paid for the car, but I think they're having trouble finding the paperwork. It's all paid off though, and I have it insured in my name."

The border guard hmmm'd while he looked at his screen, then he turned back to me and said, "Well, it's just a random thing that pops up, but I need you to pull your vehicle over to the side there so we can do a quick search."

"Oh, okay, no problem sir." (Inside my head: damnit.. damnit... fucking... shit... arrrrrrrrrrg)

I pulled the car over to the number 12 parking area like he wanted, and then I was met by two more border guards that asked me to step out of the vehicle and hand them the keys. They opened up all my doors and went all through the contents of my trunk, which included some IT gear for my job, in case there was an emergency. Then they asked me what the equipment in the trunk was for, and I explained what I did for a living and that the equipment in the trunk was there in case of emergency runs to our server rack. This seemed like a good enough answer for them, but just to be safe, the two guards decided to go through every piece of luggage I'd brought in, closely examining every pocket and every crevice in my laptop case and my suitcase.

It was painstaking, but I didn't have anything to hide, so I wasn't too worried. Once they finished searching, they handed me a piece of paper and told me that I just needed to hand that over to someone at the middle counter of the customs building and I'd be on my way. I breathed a sigh of relief and made my way inside, expecting all the fuss to be over and done with. Again, I thought wrong.

The woman at the counter put me through a barrage of questions that was a combination of all the ones I'd been asked already by the two guards that went through my car and by the initial border guard that sent me there in the first place. She asked me if the person I was going to visit knew that I was coming. She asked me where they lived, how many times I'd been to see them already, how I met them, and then she asked for their phone number.

At that point, she disappeared into a back room, and didn't emerge for about 15 minutes. 15 minutes of me sweating it out, waiting to see what was going on.

Finally, she re-emerged and I found out that the reason for the delay is that she was calling the person I was going to see, to verify that I was in fact an expected and welcome guest. I was free to leave, and finish my journey the rest of the way there, and it was about all I could do to avoid speeding off so fast my tires squealed.

When I came back home, they didn't give me near as much trouble, but the border guard did decide that he needed to take my keys and look in my trunk for a few minutes before he let me through.

The whole ordeal has me shaking my head a bit. I realize that the border guards were more than justified in searching my car, especially with the car title issues, but I think I also have to come to the conclusion I must indeed be a terrorist. And, since I have to be a terrorist, I've decided I must change my avatar appropriately, so that I can be a very... very... terrifying terrorist.

(For those that might not get the reference, head here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go - Trust me, you'll get a laugh.)

The Phone Box of Doom

Posted By: Atnevon - October.1.2009 - Comments(3)

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I had to face the loss of an internet connection yesterday, and I thought I'd share some of the experience with everybody for a little fun and some education mixed in. Enjoy

Yesterday morning I had AT&T scheduled to come convert my existing DSL dry loop line over to a DSL and phone service line. I worked out the costs on it and it only runs me an extra $1.50 a month to get bare basic local service after I factored in the discount that I get for no longer having to pay an extra dry loop fee. For a $1.50 I could justify it pretty easily for 911 service and dial-up backup in case the DSL side goes out. Throw in the fact that Google Voice gives me voice mail and only counts as an inbound call, and it's a pretty good sell.

Anywho, doing the math on it all led me to calling the phone company and scheduling a switch over to basic local and DSL. Initially, they were scheduled to make the switch Monday, but then when the guy came out, he said they'd have to de-activate my DSL service for a few days while they made the switch over and provisioned the line for it. This wasn't going to fly at all, so I finally convinced them to do things all a dead line in the phone box, and I'd switch everything over myself when it was ready. It all sounds easy enough - I'd hit the phone box on Wednesday after they got things all situated, and I'd move the one line I remembered coming into the house over to the right spot on the box. No big deal. They called me later and told me, after a bit more back and forth with them, that they would just de-activate my existing and move the other over at the office without me having to do anything at the box level. I'd just have to wait until Wednesday. They said I might have an hour or two of downtime, but should be up and running by then.

I woke up Wednesday and my DSL was out. My modem had a solid green DSL light, but it was telling me it couldn't authenticate because it couldn't hit the ATM. This wasn't unexpected because of the switch over, so I waited and gave them until noon, when they said it would definitely be ready.

Noon came around, but still no internet, and there was no dial tone on my phone. I bypassed the filter/splitter and hooked my phone directly up to the jack, but there still wasn't a dial tone. I knew this jack worked, as I was still getting a solid DSL light on my modem still, and it was the same jack I'd been using all this time to get online with. My gut, my instincts, all of it told me that they must have done what I suggested earlier and setup a second line with my phone and my DSL on it and disconnected the other one. They told me they'd be switching things over so I wouldn't have to do anything with the existing line, but hey, everybody screws up sometimes. So, I went out to the phone box to take a look.

The NID was covered in cobwebs and clearly hadn't been opened since the last time I took a peek at it over the summer, so it didn't look like they'd run anything new to it, but I didn't know if they already had a second line feeding into it from the same cable that was already there. Out came my screwdriver, and open came the NID box. Inside it, I saw exactly what I remembered. There was a very clear set of blue and white wires hooked up to one line in the house, with no other wires that I could see leading into the house. The setup looked about as standard and simple as it gets. So, from there, I got out a corded phone and went down the jacks one by one to see if I could find the active one. 1st jack - dead, 2nd jack - dead.... and the list went on until I reached the second jack from the bottom and boom... dial tone.

That's when I called Tracie (a coworker at the office I work for), from right at the phone box, to let everybody I was still alive and that it should just be a few minutes until I was up again, and I was sorry for running so late. After I hung up the phone, however, I noticed something that made me do some head scratching. The jack that I had found with an active dial tone was already hooked up to the one set of blue and white wires I could see running into my house. Huh?

I plugged the jack back in for that line then went back into the house and still couldn't get a dial tone. Then I started heading to all my jacks and found one in another room that had a dial-tone. It was too far away to hook up my computer directly to, so I draped some cables around and found a nearby outlet to plug my modem into, then I tested it with my laptop. Sure enough, the DSL light was solid, but I couldn't get online at all. At this point I was sure something was wrong. The jack I'd been using wasn't working for dial tone at all and I couldn't get online with either one, even though the DSL light was on for them both. So, I called into the repair department and reported the dial tone issue first. Their system is all automated for phone trouble, so I went through a number of menus and then it ran an automated test. The test came back and said it found trouble on the line after a few minutes and it said they'd dispatch someone to come fix it, but it didn't say when.

So, I waited... and I waited some more... then I couldn't wait any longer, and decided it'd be a good idea to report the DSL trouble too, while I was at it. Well, it turns out that after they switched my line to voice and internet, they forgot to activate the internet side. An hour with support, then with tier 2 support after I proved I had a good idea what I was doing, and finally I was up and online again... but on a jack way too far away from my computer to make it work for doing anything without moving my desk.

I really didn't want to move my desk.

Since both jacks had a solid DSL light and since I just now started to get the DSL working again, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could get it working on the jack I wanted it on. I hooked up the DSL modem back to the other jack. The DSL light came on solid again... but no, I couldn't get online.

Head meets desk.

Back to the phone box I went. I looked and looked again and stared at the blue and white wires trying to make them turn into two sets of wires in my head so that what I was seeing would make some semblance of sense. Then I started to think that maybe, just maybe, the reason only one jack in the house was working was because the polarity on that jack was different from the other jacks, and the two wires that mattered in that jack were the reverse of the way the other jacks in the house were run. Maybe just maybe DSL could work even with the wires hooked up the opposite way since it's just on or off signals. Maybe phones weren't as smart as DSL modems about detecting that, which is why my phone couldn't hear a dial tone. And, just maybe, the addition of voice to the existing line made it so that the DSL modem no longer worked if it was hooked up in reverse, as it could no longer filter through all the noise.

Now my screwdriver was meeting the one phone jack that did work and the one that didn't, and I took apart my phone jacks to check the wiring inside them. Sure enough, the wiring configuration of the jack that was working was very different than the one that wasn't. On the working jack, I could see a blue wire and white wire hooked up that exactly matched the blue and white of the box outside the house. On my other jack was a red and a green wire. This very much looked like a second line was run into the house, but logically, I knew that I was only seeing one line coming in the house at the NID. I couldn't believe myself though, so I went back outside and opened up the box yet again. Sure enough, all I could see was a blue wire and a white wire coming in the house. I went downstairs and checked the phone wiring that was routed through my basement ceiling, and I couldn't see anything that had come lose or was chewed through by a random rodent.

With this in mind, I went back to my phone jacks, figuring that I just needed to find the right combination of wiring to make everything work again. I switched around the 4 wires with every possible combination I could try on the two wires that actually mattered in the jack, but still had absolutely no dial tone. I thought maybe the jack itself was bad, so I took it all the way apart and cut my phone cord to expose the wires inside it, and tried hooking up the two wires in the cord directly to the wires that fed the jack in every combination there was.

Nothing got me a dial tone at all, but I could still get a solid DSL light on my modem if I used the red and the green wires. Inside my head I began twitching.

Back to the phone box I went in a moment of desperation.

I opened up the box and still couldn't see anything except those blue and white wires... taunting me... mocking me.

At this point I was too frustrated to give up, so I started pulling on the inside of the phone box to look behind it and actually see the wires feeding into the house. That's when I saw it...

In the very bottom port of the phone box, tucked behind the jack itself, was a set of thick, solid grey wires that were an identical color to the phone box itself and wrapped right along side the wires that actually feed the box itself, so that they previously had looked like they were one and the same.

I found the issue. Now I just had to move those two wires up to where the blue and white wires were and we were in business. My screwdriver came out, the wires got unscrewed, and then.... they wouldn't reach the new jack...

That wasn't going to stop me though. The wires got hooked back up to the spot they were at and I moved the blue and white wires down so they were all on the same jack, then I pulled the phone plug out and tired to cross it over to the second jack from the bottom instead of the very bottom. It wouldn't reach either though.

Frustration led me to pull harder and harder on the cord I knew was too short, and then... it unseated itself from the casing it was wedged in and I finally managed to get it plugged in.

Success!

I called Lee (another co-worker that was covering my calls while I was out of commission) from Skype after I got back inside to find out who I needed to cal back now that I could use my computer again, and mid call... we got disconnected.

Another call the phone company later, and I discovered that they were running continuous line tests because of my trouble report, which was knocking me offline repeatedly. I canceled the service call and the tests and finally, I was back in business and haven't disconnected since.

Knock on wood...

(Attached, you'll see... the phone box of doom)

Social networking sites

Posted By: Sanctuary - August.31.2009 - Comments(6)

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I absolutely loath social networking sites.

We have:

Twitter
Facebook
Myspace (The lesser of the evils in my eyes.)
LinkedIn
Blogger (Though that doesn't really count does it?)
Vampire Freaks (Turned into one.)
Livejournal (Same as blogger?)
Digg
Friendster
Bebo
Hi5
Wordpress.com (Sorta of.)
Xanga (Sort of.)
Fliker (Sort of.)
Photobucket (Sort of.)
Tagged
Classmates.com

My list of "What the hell is that anyway but it's listed a social networking site?"

Plurk , Tumblr, Indenti.ca, Brightkite, friendfeed, Mashable, Kwippy, Plaxo, Delicious, Koomk, Diigo, youare, Multiply, Yammer, Utterli, imeem, seesamc, laconi.ca, present.ly, vox, typepad, shoutem, streetmavens, radar, myyearbook, tosterous

The lists above are just the tip of the iceberg. Frightened yet? Well I hope this next part does scare you. Remember this doesn't even include all the forums people visit and post at. (Yes, like this one.)

And down the rabbit hole we go...

Most people who know me know that I'm both easy and hard to get to know. If I want my privacy invaded I'll invade it myself! Which, oddly enough, is what we unknowning do when we join these places. Unkowningly in most case is where my issue is.

These sites have very little protection in place, even with the ability to delete your profile, to protect the end user. Most don't even put into place things that would prevent search engines from cataloging you even after you remove your account. Not to mention places like the "way back machine" that hold onto your data indefinitely.

There are now several sites in place, some are paid, some are free that data-mine your information from all these different places and catalogue you, and every little person detail you've been sucked into placing on the net, including who you work for, who you're dating and the list just goes on and on. They even catalogue things from places like E-bay.

Scared yet? Good. You really should be.

Recently my country (Canada for those who don't know) just took on Facebook for breaching our privacy laws. So far the outcome is very promising - but what about other countries whose laws aren't as good as ours when it comes to use and compiling of personal data?

How safe are you?

How safe do you think you are?

How safe are you being?

Does this cataloging bother you?

Let's talk about personal safety on the Internet and social networking sites. Share thoughts and idea about this subject and ways to help people safe guard themselves from these vultures.

How far down the rabbit hole will you go?

Multitasking

Posted By: Atnevon - August.25.2009 - Comments(5)

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Source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/08/25/multi...=rss_topstories

I've found this to be true with myself in a number of cases. While I don't have a good fix for the problem (as I *need* to be online and available through several mediums for much of my day - because of how I work), it's been very apparent to me that over time, multitasking really starts to kill your ability to focus on the task and hand and it can lead to a lot of procrastination.

Everyone is different though, and I'm curious if multitasking seems to help or hurt others of you out there. Do you feel more productive because of the ability to do more than one thing at once on the computer or less productive?

Happy Birthday Starphoenixkoroias

Posted By: Sanctuary - July.25.2009 - Comments(7)

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BUSTED!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday

New Royalty Rates for Online Radio

Posted By: Atnevon - July.7.2009 - Comments(9)

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Source: Betanews

This is incredible news for webcasters and I think it will make the internet much more friendly to smaller online broadcasters, which I believe will in turn help independent musicians a lot towards getting their music heard by a larger and more dedicated audience.

While there are still fees to pay for stations that don't make any revenue, they are a very small fraction of what was being asked initially, and much much much more manageable than the per listener per song charges that were being paid previously.

It's your community... time to vote on a feature.

Posted By: Sanctuary - July.2.2009 - Comments(14)

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Invision 3.0.0 has a number of new features. One of them allow for the users to "vote" up a user based on posts. We can turn it off or leave it on.

Regardless of mine or Atnevon's personal opinion on this feature we want to put it up for a vote. This is YOUR community after all so it's not a choice we want to make for you.

While we both agree that it's a cool new feature, there are some things we would like you to consider before placing your vote. (We're not trying to influence anyone one way or another - it's entirely up to all of you.)

This place has never been about popularity or the like. It's been a place where pretty much all are welcome. (There are some exceptions naturally. ;-) ) It's a place where you are welcome to contribute or not. You can come back years later and we'll still greet you as if you never left. Everyone here. Belongs here. We take all kinds, we don't hold grudges here, and past mistakes are exactly that. Past. Everyone is welcome back whether they are gone a day, a week, a month or years.

We may not like what people post sometimes, we may disagree - but the right is there for them to express themselves. We will always, at the very least, make the effort to leave post intact as they are. (There again will always be the exception as we have the rights of the majority to consider while at the same time the rights of the individual.) It can be a difficult path to keep balanced sometimes but we will always make the effort to do so.

What we truly don't want to see is anyone feeling slighted if they don't get votes, or if someone gets more etc. This forum is not a contest. We're all just people. (Well most of us anyway.) The feature bothers us a little from the standpoint of it being turned into a popularity thing.

Again though, our thoughts on it aside, this is your community. This is your decision.

Feel free to discuss this before voting as well. There is no rush on this.

Rumours...

Posted By: Sanctuary - July.2.2009 - Comments(2)

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Okay, so I received an email today containing people(s) speculations about a subject and a crap load of rumour mill material and I found myself wondering if it was true. Even though some of it was ludicist at best. (I think.) So I shared the information with someone(s) who may have been able to say true or false. Afterwards I was thinking. What the hell? Who cares? Why did I care?

I had to stop and question my own reaction to it. Though parts were actually amusing.

What is our fascination with rumours? Why do we feel the need to ask questions about them or repeat them?

Is there ever anything positive that comes from rumours?