On the strength of Ian McKellen portraying a main character in the show, I watched the 2009 remake of "The Prisoner," a six-part series about a man who wakes up in what he believes to be a cleverly designed prison. The plot reminds me of a current subplot in the third season of "The Walking Dead," where two women are refugees in a safe town that they suspect to be a secret tyranny run by a deceptive villain. Or at least, one of the women suspects this.
I hate to say I agree with most of the critics about "The Prisoner." It is a bit incoherent and unsatisfying to this viewer. I suppose I'm old-fashioned but I like to enjoy a coherent plot that I can relate to, not something that resembles a rather paranoid trip. I was particularly disappointed because Ian McKellen is such a fine actor, superb as Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Gandalf is like this wise man that has the answer for everything, in my opinion the embodiment of Tolkien's philosophy. Tolkien was that thoughtful Christian with a heretical fantasy theology, defined in "The Simarillion," a book I found impenetrable as a young man but have enjoyed lately.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Dream of my Father
I just realized that the title of my post is similar to the title of Obama's book. Oh well, too bad. I don't think one can copyright a title, and there aren't many possible configurations of a four-word title anyway. Somehow I don't think a lawyer's going to be sending me a nastygram about it. Irrelevancy does have its advantages.
I can't remember a good dream about my father. Last night, I dreamed I was still living in that house, a teenager, and he was busily searching my room from top to bottom, as he often did, searching for contraband, weed being top on the list, followed occasionally by other things, such as paraphenalia, like a homemade bong, or a lighter, or even matches, or ashes, or rolling papers, or tobacco or clove cigarettes, though I stopped smoking them later, nasty habit. He was tearing apart my room, throwing my things on the floor, because he was "suspicious," his favorite word, and when he did look at me on occasion it was with a leer, letting me know he enjoyed this little game, it was a lot of fun for him. I called him what he was, a sadistic bastard, and he pretended to be outraged and grounded me for weeks or months or took away my favorite possession, my computer, on which I spent all my free time programming in BASIC, so that I would be spurred on by boredom to go out with my friends and buy weed from somebody. He loved it, he loved every moment of it, the battle of wills between us, making me suffer and watching the expression on my face. I knew he loved it because he would smile and laugh at me, "hee hee hee hee hee," more like the cackle of the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz, and congratulate himself on being such a good parent, such an upstanding moral example. He loved prancing around, acting the moralist, the man who never had sex with his wife anymore, who let her do all the housework while he sat around watching television all the time or napping. Always he was at war with either my brother or me or sometimes, for a special treat, both. He always found the thing one of us loved and took it away or made it scarcer. The Grinch he was. And Mr. Grabby Hands besides, although he put a cork on that once I reached the venerable age of twelve.
Weed was expensive in those days and difficult to come by, besides being pretty weak. It was mostly stems and seeds, the shake of the Colombian harvest, and for those of you who do not know, stems and seeds have little or no THC content. Most THC is located in the buds, while some is on the little leaves next to the buds, and a very small amount is in the big fan leaves, but next to nothing is found in stems and seeds, yet they contribute much weight to the product of a dealer selling to inexperienced kids like me, maximizing his profit. I never had a good source, but always somebody taking advantage. In truth this Colombian had the same effect as a weak beer, but my father's rationale was that marijuana was illegal, so it was forbidden, end of story, no negotiation. It didn't matter that the marijuana had little effect other than as an antidepressant. Occasionally he did find alcohol in my room as well, and since I was underage that too was forbidden, but punished much less since it was not very illegal, only a little bit illegal. Later on I concluded that weekend alcoholism was okay in his book so I adopted that practice, drinking on weekends.
I didn't do many other drugs due to my dread of their effects, because I wasn't ignorant about drugs at all. Coke was available, but I thought it was stupid putting something up the nose and never felt tempted. I still don't understand the appeal. My brother rolled up a dollar bill and set up some lines for me once, twice, three times, different occasions. I only tried it once, because of his incessant urging, a half-hearted try, just to shut him up, and I don't think I got more than a line snorted, and it was weak stuff to begin with. I didn't feel much of anything. Probably mostly baking soda with a little bit of ground-up caffeine pills and cocaine, was my belief then and now. That's a perennial problem with coke, it isn't easy to get the genuine product. Glad I skipped that train, but it certainly wasn't my father's doing. Coke would have been a lot easier to hide in my room.
If he didn't find any weed, that meant I had successfully concealed my stash somewhere. He never was satisfied I didn't have any, that was impossible in his ideology, because all resistance and all obstinence and disobedience was the result of marijuana, nothing else. He was absolutely convinced that marijuana was the sole representative of Satan Incarnate. I think it was his fanaticism on this point that persuaded me to keep using marijuana, because I began joining him in his game, finding the amusement in it. I decided he wanted to find marijuana, he was just putting on that he didn't, and that was probably true. He always had a big sense of joy every time he found something and was frustrated and dejected when he didn't. So this was a big game between my father and me that we played for years until I was eighteen or so.
I can't remember a good dream about my father. Last night, I dreamed I was still living in that house, a teenager, and he was busily searching my room from top to bottom, as he often did, searching for contraband, weed being top on the list, followed occasionally by other things, such as paraphenalia, like a homemade bong, or a lighter, or even matches, or ashes, or rolling papers, or tobacco or clove cigarettes, though I stopped smoking them later, nasty habit. He was tearing apart my room, throwing my things on the floor, because he was "suspicious," his favorite word, and when he did look at me on occasion it was with a leer, letting me know he enjoyed this little game, it was a lot of fun for him. I called him what he was, a sadistic bastard, and he pretended to be outraged and grounded me for weeks or months or took away my favorite possession, my computer, on which I spent all my free time programming in BASIC, so that I would be spurred on by boredom to go out with my friends and buy weed from somebody. He loved it, he loved every moment of it, the battle of wills between us, making me suffer and watching the expression on my face. I knew he loved it because he would smile and laugh at me, "hee hee hee hee hee," more like the cackle of the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz, and congratulate himself on being such a good parent, such an upstanding moral example. He loved prancing around, acting the moralist, the man who never had sex with his wife anymore, who let her do all the housework while he sat around watching television all the time or napping. Always he was at war with either my brother or me or sometimes, for a special treat, both. He always found the thing one of us loved and took it away or made it scarcer. The Grinch he was. And Mr. Grabby Hands besides, although he put a cork on that once I reached the venerable age of twelve.
Weed was expensive in those days and difficult to come by, besides being pretty weak. It was mostly stems and seeds, the shake of the Colombian harvest, and for those of you who do not know, stems and seeds have little or no THC content. Most THC is located in the buds, while some is on the little leaves next to the buds, and a very small amount is in the big fan leaves, but next to nothing is found in stems and seeds, yet they contribute much weight to the product of a dealer selling to inexperienced kids like me, maximizing his profit. I never had a good source, but always somebody taking advantage. In truth this Colombian had the same effect as a weak beer, but my father's rationale was that marijuana was illegal, so it was forbidden, end of story, no negotiation. It didn't matter that the marijuana had little effect other than as an antidepressant. Occasionally he did find alcohol in my room as well, and since I was underage that too was forbidden, but punished much less since it was not very illegal, only a little bit illegal. Later on I concluded that weekend alcoholism was okay in his book so I adopted that practice, drinking on weekends.
I didn't do many other drugs due to my dread of their effects, because I wasn't ignorant about drugs at all. Coke was available, but I thought it was stupid putting something up the nose and never felt tempted. I still don't understand the appeal. My brother rolled up a dollar bill and set up some lines for me once, twice, three times, different occasions. I only tried it once, because of his incessant urging, a half-hearted try, just to shut him up, and I don't think I got more than a line snorted, and it was weak stuff to begin with. I didn't feel much of anything. Probably mostly baking soda with a little bit of ground-up caffeine pills and cocaine, was my belief then and now. That's a perennial problem with coke, it isn't easy to get the genuine product. Glad I skipped that train, but it certainly wasn't my father's doing. Coke would have been a lot easier to hide in my room.
If he didn't find any weed, that meant I had successfully concealed my stash somewhere. He never was satisfied I didn't have any, that was impossible in his ideology, because all resistance and all obstinence and disobedience was the result of marijuana, nothing else. He was absolutely convinced that marijuana was the sole representative of Satan Incarnate. I think it was his fanaticism on this point that persuaded me to keep using marijuana, because I began joining him in his game, finding the amusement in it. I decided he wanted to find marijuana, he was just putting on that he didn't, and that was probably true. He always had a big sense of joy every time he found something and was frustrated and dejected when he didn't. So this was a big game between my father and me that we played for years until I was eighteen or so.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
XBMC's Black Screen
XBMC is a Zen video player for Linux. Instead of video, XBMC plays no-video for the no-mind and the no-body. When I click on XBMC, I get a black screen, and the keyboard and mouse no longer work, because after all, there is nothing more important than meditation, and one does not require a mouse or keyboard in order to meditate. Nor does one require video. Or even a computer for that matter. So XBMC is Zen in its purest form. I can only assume that the developers have achieved enlightenment, entered Nirvana and left this world of suffering behind. I have not yet achieved enlightenment, so I decided to uninstall XBMC and revert to slow but functional VLC.
TIME Magazine
I got the latest TIME and was impressed by its unusual heft. The heft wasn't all additional advertising, as I had suspected, but actual news articles concerning something other than the latest Hollywood movie. The last issue devoted 27 pages to the latest movie by Spielberg. I wonder how much Spielberg paid TIME for that amount of advertising. I also wonder why I should be paying for a magazine that is composed of advertising and not news.
Would this issue of TIME mark the brand new, never-before-seen inclusion of investigative journalism and tell me something that I did not already know? Would this issue be reality-based, or a bunch of rumors and half-truths? Unfortunately, TIME squandered all its pulp to analyze the election and the supposed technical, financial, demographic and logistical factors behind Romney's defeat, based upon its various sources in the rumor mill. I scanned those articles but found them beside the point. I don't expect that many people in the media will get the point. At any rate none of it was interesting to me, and I went back to Doris Lessing and her confessions of being a Communist divorcee in Southern Rhodesia. Yes, even that was more interesting.
Who won was a function of the candidates themselves, the ideas they espoused and how those ideas resonated with the electorate. I don't expect Republicans to gather any clues from the election. Republicans never take rides on the clue canoe. The only likely change is they will become more extreme and crazy than before to reflect their base. The Republican party is the extreme right wing, while the Democratic party is the moderate right wing. There is no left wing political party in the United States. Anyone who looked at Obama's policies for five minutes without bias would conclude that Obama is a conservative. In large part he continues the policies of his predecessors Bush and Clinton, which is why his relations with the former Presidents remain so good. Romney, at least the latest version, was not a conservative, but a radical Social Darwinist who promised extreme change that would result in unnecessary suffering and additional warfare and debt. There were enough voters in 2012 that perceived enough of this to make the crucial difference--more than enough voters, as a matter of fact, because the margin was not as close as pundits predicted. Romney lost not just the Electoral College, but the popular vote as well, and he lost in all those battleground states that the Republicans were boasting they would carry, and in doing so he squandered hundreds of millions of dollars from his unethical donors. Perhaps his supporters on the ground were uninspired by his background at Bain Capital, his flip-flopping on issues, and his fumbling of words and facts. But the central problem was Romney's ideology, and I am pleased to predict that Republicans will never admit that in a million years, because introspection is unknown to Republicans. No, they will continue to commit the same old errors, which bodes well for the opposing party of the future, be it Democrats, Greens or Libertarians.
Would this issue of TIME mark the brand new, never-before-seen inclusion of investigative journalism and tell me something that I did not already know? Would this issue be reality-based, or a bunch of rumors and half-truths? Unfortunately, TIME squandered all its pulp to analyze the election and the supposed technical, financial, demographic and logistical factors behind Romney's defeat, based upon its various sources in the rumor mill. I scanned those articles but found them beside the point. I don't expect that many people in the media will get the point. At any rate none of it was interesting to me, and I went back to Doris Lessing and her confessions of being a Communist divorcee in Southern Rhodesia. Yes, even that was more interesting.
Who won was a function of the candidates themselves, the ideas they espoused and how those ideas resonated with the electorate. I don't expect Republicans to gather any clues from the election. Republicans never take rides on the clue canoe. The only likely change is they will become more extreme and crazy than before to reflect their base. The Republican party is the extreme right wing, while the Democratic party is the moderate right wing. There is no left wing political party in the United States. Anyone who looked at Obama's policies for five minutes without bias would conclude that Obama is a conservative. In large part he continues the policies of his predecessors Bush and Clinton, which is why his relations with the former Presidents remain so good. Romney, at least the latest version, was not a conservative, but a radical Social Darwinist who promised extreme change that would result in unnecessary suffering and additional warfare and debt. There were enough voters in 2012 that perceived enough of this to make the crucial difference--more than enough voters, as a matter of fact, because the margin was not as close as pundits predicted. Romney lost not just the Electoral College, but the popular vote as well, and he lost in all those battleground states that the Republicans were boasting they would carry, and in doing so he squandered hundreds of millions of dollars from his unethical donors. Perhaps his supporters on the ground were uninspired by his background at Bain Capital, his flip-flopping on issues, and his fumbling of words and facts. But the central problem was Romney's ideology, and I am pleased to predict that Republicans will never admit that in a million years, because introspection is unknown to Republicans. No, they will continue to commit the same old errors, which bodes well for the opposing party of the future, be it Democrats, Greens or Libertarians.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Doris Lessing
I spent the entire day reading Doris Lessing's autobiography and came to dislike her. Maybe she would feel likewise reading me, I don't doubt.
So she was a Communist, fine. Get over it. Plenty of people were back then. It's not a big deal. All of this hand-wringing and agonizing and "how could I have thought such and such" was unappealing. Like we haven't heard about repentant Communists before. I found her too circumspect. She wants to place the spotlight upon every iota of her own being and that of others in order to indulge her guilt fantasy. I want to tell her to stop it, for your reader's sake stop it and just let things be for once, do whatever it takes to stop all of this dreadful, unending slicing and dicing of every thought and feeling, just let things be. After a couple hundred pages I felt a headache coming on and had to put the book down.
I much prefer Anne Rice's early novels about vampires. Anne Rice could be riveting back in the day, before her light faded.
I will not take Doris Lessing with me to work again, that's for sure. She can only be absorbed in small doses. Her books make passable bathroom reading material, two to five minutes at a time.
So she was a Communist, fine. Get over it. Plenty of people were back then. It's not a big deal. All of this hand-wringing and agonizing and "how could I have thought such and such" was unappealing. Like we haven't heard about repentant Communists before. I found her too circumspect. She wants to place the spotlight upon every iota of her own being and that of others in order to indulge her guilt fantasy. I want to tell her to stop it, for your reader's sake stop it and just let things be for once, do whatever it takes to stop all of this dreadful, unending slicing and dicing of every thought and feeling, just let things be. After a couple hundred pages I felt a headache coming on and had to put the book down.
I much prefer Anne Rice's early novels about vampires. Anne Rice could be riveting back in the day, before her light faded.
I will not take Doris Lessing with me to work again, that's for sure. She can only be absorbed in small doses. Her books make passable bathroom reading material, two to five minutes at a time.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Mental Illness
In the end, or rather before the end, my father's mental illness killed his relationship with me. After he reached a certain age, I found it impossible to communicate with him. I visited him several months ago. He does not see me. He looks through me, as though I am just an abstract idea. He talks at me rather than with me. His face is a mask, he conceals what he really feels, what he really thinks, because his mind has many unpleasant thoughts and feelings, a beehive of little demons that must be kept in, lest they sting and sting. Once when I spoke with him for five hours into the wee hours of the morning he started telling me that a stranger he passed in the mall was spying upon him using an electronic listening device. When I went to bed that night I wondered whether he would come into my room and stab me, because maybe I was spying on him too, maybe I was in league with them, maybe I was actually the stranger, using a clever disguise to appear as his son.
His mind today thrives upon anger. He is always searching for something to get angry about. He is never willing to admit the slightest fault. He demands that everyone pretend as though he is always right and always perfect. I think it is a coping mechanism that helps him deal with his depression. So he will die alone having written me and possibly my brother out of his will because he is angry at us. He is always angry at either my brother or me. I cannot remember a time when he was not. He sought to use his will as a tool to manipulate us, except I refused to be manipulated. If he writes me out then so be it. I feel like he gives a lie to all the things he used to say and the things he used to swear. More often I recall the bad things he did to us, the lies he said to us. Less do I recall any good.
I remember when I was a boy, my father instilled in me the fantasy that we were special, that our family was special, that he was special, and that I was special, but I came to find out later that none of that was true, rather we were ordinary and powerless and poor and humble in abilities and resources, and as for our family, well, it was dysfunctional due in large part to his mental illness and the poor decisions that he made, and now our family is thrown to the four winds, for Mother at last acquired the strength and wisdom to leave him, and today he is not even willing to speak to his own children out of pettiness and spite, a pattern he has followed off and on for decades, for his whole life. No, we are not special in any way, and I am glad the line ends with me, I am glad I was cautious, because there is nothing really worth going to the trouble and expense of replicating, as I look around the world and observe so much genius and creativity in others. My father was proud without a basis for his overweening pride, and as a youngster I absorbed this pride and claimed it for my own, but now I feel different, I question the basis for this pride, and feel humble. I feel empty also and think that much was random and meaningless. It is a strange thing to recall being close to one's father long ago, and knowing now that he wouldn't even answer the phone if I were to call, because of his sickness of the mind. For years I thought my life's achievement would be an autobiography, or at any rate a derivative book of some kind, but now I realize that no one would read it in the first place, because autobiographies are for the famous, and there's nothing remarkable about us, we were just another family living in a certain period in a certain area. I prefer allowing my memory to decay and fade, for dust to pile upon the dust. To disturb old ghosts again is not my wish, nor do I want to preserve in words those who don't deserve it. So he will fade into darkness and I will follow in due course and that will be that. When I look back I see so many lies, so much nonsense, none of it was important at all.
His mind today thrives upon anger. He is always searching for something to get angry about. He is never willing to admit the slightest fault. He demands that everyone pretend as though he is always right and always perfect. I think it is a coping mechanism that helps him deal with his depression. So he will die alone having written me and possibly my brother out of his will because he is angry at us. He is always angry at either my brother or me. I cannot remember a time when he was not. He sought to use his will as a tool to manipulate us, except I refused to be manipulated. If he writes me out then so be it. I feel like he gives a lie to all the things he used to say and the things he used to swear. More often I recall the bad things he did to us, the lies he said to us. Less do I recall any good.
I remember when I was a boy, my father instilled in me the fantasy that we were special, that our family was special, that he was special, and that I was special, but I came to find out later that none of that was true, rather we were ordinary and powerless and poor and humble in abilities and resources, and as for our family, well, it was dysfunctional due in large part to his mental illness and the poor decisions that he made, and now our family is thrown to the four winds, for Mother at last acquired the strength and wisdom to leave him, and today he is not even willing to speak to his own children out of pettiness and spite, a pattern he has followed off and on for decades, for his whole life. No, we are not special in any way, and I am glad the line ends with me, I am glad I was cautious, because there is nothing really worth going to the trouble and expense of replicating, as I look around the world and observe so much genius and creativity in others. My father was proud without a basis for his overweening pride, and as a youngster I absorbed this pride and claimed it for my own, but now I feel different, I question the basis for this pride, and feel humble. I feel empty also and think that much was random and meaningless. It is a strange thing to recall being close to one's father long ago, and knowing now that he wouldn't even answer the phone if I were to call, because of his sickness of the mind. For years I thought my life's achievement would be an autobiography, or at any rate a derivative book of some kind, but now I realize that no one would read it in the first place, because autobiographies are for the famous, and there's nothing remarkable about us, we were just another family living in a certain period in a certain area. I prefer allowing my memory to decay and fade, for dust to pile upon the dust. To disturb old ghosts again is not my wish, nor do I want to preserve in words those who don't deserve it. So he will fade into darkness and I will follow in due course and that will be that. When I look back I see so many lies, so much nonsense, none of it was important at all.
Right Wingers and Their Guns
There was a bald guy out at work that resembled this detritus and looked me in the eye one morning and said that all Democrats should be shot.
The more right-wing a person is, the more evil, the more likely they are to inflict suffering and harm upon living things.
The more right-wing a person is, the more evil, the more likely they are to inflict suffering and harm upon living things.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Romney Loses, America Wins
I am relieved that President Obama won reelection. This was an important juncture in the history of our world. The ballot initiatives and other state and local elections are also encouraging, giving me cause for optimism about the goodness and understanding of our people. It is pleasant when honesty, decency and fairness prevail over the forces of evil.
Should anyone be surprised that the former slave states voted for Romney? With some exceptions they will remain Republican until successive generations loosen the iron neck-collar of the right wing, which beats the drum for division, anger, and war. Had Bush #3 won, the United States would have gotten entangled in yet another overseas conflict, because that is the only thing the right wing knows how to do, make war upon their numerous enemies. They have waged war upon gays, upon women, upon racial minorities, upon foreigners, upon our environment, upon workers, and they are accustomed to making war for the sheer love of war--they do not require a proper reason for war. Romney had no other skills, for he never built a business, but rather destroyed businesses in order to make easy money, and he never worked a single day in his entire life, but was a vulture circling for easy scraps, and to distract attention away from his shortcomings, away from his lack of empathy and his callous disregard of living things, he would have succumbed to the same temptation that Bush #2 found irresistible, warfare, the crack cocaine of the right wing, their fix, their jolt in the arm, their kick.
Should anyone be surprised that the former slave states voted for Romney? With some exceptions they will remain Republican until successive generations loosen the iron neck-collar of the right wing, which beats the drum for division, anger, and war. Had Bush #3 won, the United States would have gotten entangled in yet another overseas conflict, because that is the only thing the right wing knows how to do, make war upon their numerous enemies. They have waged war upon gays, upon women, upon racial minorities, upon foreigners, upon our environment, upon workers, and they are accustomed to making war for the sheer love of war--they do not require a proper reason for war. Romney had no other skills, for he never built a business, but rather destroyed businesses in order to make easy money, and he never worked a single day in his entire life, but was a vulture circling for easy scraps, and to distract attention away from his shortcomings, away from his lack of empathy and his callous disregard of living things, he would have succumbed to the same temptation that Bush #2 found irresistible, warfare, the crack cocaine of the right wing, their fix, their jolt in the arm, their kick.
China's Hackers
Those of us in tech already know China's on the move in cyberspace. The Russians and the Chinese are targeting not only military, but web sites and computers everywhere without regard to their role or function. Motives vary, and old-fashioned state espionage probably isn't at the top of the list, but the Internet remains a Wild Wild West out there.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Downton Abbey's Deja Vu
I had a real sense of deja vu watching last night's Downton Abbey (Season 3, episode 8), where Thomas was leaving Downton Abbey after ten years of reliable service without a reference for being gay. Except in my case, there weren't warmhearted senior employees looking out for me, more like a gang of O'Brians looking after their own ends. Downton Abbey is just a wonderful fantasy about what life could be like, and I'm always dazzled by the kindness of the characters on the show, the way they are so compassionate and enlightened in the most unexpected ways. Perhaps it is unrealistic, but we need a good fantasy, and I love the set, the acting, the script and the costumes.
Over the Moon with Linux Mint
Ground control had a lot of work to do pulling all-nighters and unpaid weekends, but now I'm over the Moon with Linux Mint Maya. Couldn't be happier.
As Bob Marley said,
As Bob Marley said,
Don't worry
bout a ting, 'cause
every little ting...
gonna be all right.
Linux Firewall Won't Play Fair
Perhaps one day, my Linux will get a firewall. For now, I can't make heads or tails of the Linux firewall. If I enable it and deny incoming, then no matter what exceptions I make for 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255, that box is OFF the network. I might as well cut the ethernet cable with a pair of scissors.
Three hours down the drain tonight trying to get the firewall working. I watched video, read three tutorials and twenty forum messages--nothing availed.
Will I recommend Linux to anybody? Yes, people I don't like.
The regrettable truth, and I don't like saying it, is that folks would be better off paying $1000 for a single copy of Windows XP 32-bit. What's that? Windows XP only costs $100 on Ebay? What a bargain. Buy it now.
Update: I finally got the firewall working right(er) at 05:21, after picking up a subtle clue on a stray tutorial somewhere out there in Internet land. Turns out the other tutorials, forum messages, Youtube video, et al were all wrong about how to whitelist IP ranges. The From...To thing doesn't work for me. I tried it six ways to Sunday. Seems broken. What does work is adding one single exception to allow Incoming. I found that whitelisting 127.0.1.0/24 in the "From" field--and leaving the To field blank--does the trick. That single line was ALL that was needed to permit local network shares to continue functioning. Period.
Now I'm going to work on whitelisting the outgoing connections. Nah, scratch that. Save it for tomorrow. 05:43, you know, it's time for me to get some shut-eye.
I felt a little guilty about all the bellyaching I've been doing in my blog about Linux Networking until I read some asides from experienced Linux gurus that basically said they just about yanked their router out of the wall and threw it out the window. I think frustration is fairly widespread. Of course, the truth is I did have trouble configuring Windows networking, too. Not as much trouble by about five to one, but I did have some difficulty. The thing with Windows is its all graphical and options are quite limited (protecting the user from himself) and the documentation available on the Internet is comprehensive, even without Microsoft, and I've never used Microsoft technical support in all my days.
Once you get Linux working, there's a sense of "Oh, wow, this is neat!" and a feeling of remorse ensues. Now why did I ever, ever doubt my darling, free, lovely Linux? how could I be so fickle? so...disloyal, when Linux has done everything for me? Yeah, I do feel pangs of conscience, which is weird, I know.
When it works, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. When it doesn't, if you can't figure it out after many long hours of trying, then you want to throw it out the window. That's the cardinal truth about computers, doesn't matter if it's Linux or anything else.
I guess I'm just relieved that Linux is logical after all, that I finally proved that it is a system based upon rules that I can actually understand if I just deduce what those rules are in the first place. Unfortunately, documentation is lacking, to put it mildly, which is why I spent 99% of my time researching on the Internet and only 1% actually doing something. There are secrets hidden away that you can never discover in a million years unless you read the secret straight from the hand of an experienced guru.
Update2: I've since revised my firewall to rule to allow 192.168.1.1/24 instead because that seems to be more or less what everybody else is doing, and with my ignorance, they're probably right and I'm probably wrong. Not really sure but it's working with that so I'll keep it. Had to give up on trying to configure firewall rules for outgoing. Seems like a bear, and I don't know whether it is strictly necessary.
In my opinion, Linux security has to be taken with a grain of salt, because 90% of all users are going to disable the settings just like me because they are frankly incomprehensible gobbledygook. So Windows has the security advantage I think of the two operating systems. I'm sure for the Linux guru the security can become nigh invulnerable, but for the rest of us, we are going to do everything we can to disable security, because otherwise nothing works right on a network.
Three hours down the drain tonight trying to get the firewall working. I watched video, read three tutorials and twenty forum messages--nothing availed.
Will I recommend Linux to anybody? Yes, people I don't like.
The regrettable truth, and I don't like saying it, is that folks would be better off paying $1000 for a single copy of Windows XP 32-bit. What's that? Windows XP only costs $100 on Ebay? What a bargain. Buy it now.
Update: I finally got the firewall working right(er) at 05:21, after picking up a subtle clue on a stray tutorial somewhere out there in Internet land. Turns out the other tutorials, forum messages, Youtube video, et al were all wrong about how to whitelist IP ranges. The From...To thing doesn't work for me. I tried it six ways to Sunday. Seems broken. What does work is adding one single exception to allow Incoming. I found that whitelisting 127.0.1.0/24 in the "From" field--and leaving the To field blank--does the trick. That single line was ALL that was needed to permit local network shares to continue functioning. Period.
I felt a little guilty about all the bellyaching I've been doing in my blog about Linux Networking until I read some asides from experienced Linux gurus that basically said they just about yanked their router out of the wall and threw it out the window. I think frustration is fairly widespread. Of course, the truth is I did have trouble configuring Windows networking, too. Not as much trouble by about five to one, but I did have some difficulty. The thing with Windows is its all graphical and options are quite limited (protecting the user from himself) and the documentation available on the Internet is comprehensive, even without Microsoft, and I've never used Microsoft technical support in all my days.
Once you get Linux working, there's a sense of "Oh, wow, this is neat!" and a feeling of remorse ensues. Now why did I ever, ever doubt my darling, free, lovely Linux? how could I be so fickle? so...disloyal, when Linux has done everything for me? Yeah, I do feel pangs of conscience, which is weird, I know.
When it works, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. When it doesn't, if you can't figure it out after many long hours of trying, then you want to throw it out the window. That's the cardinal truth about computers, doesn't matter if it's Linux or anything else.
I guess I'm just relieved that Linux is logical after all, that I finally proved that it is a system based upon rules that I can actually understand if I just deduce what those rules are in the first place. Unfortunately, documentation is lacking, to put it mildly, which is why I spent 99% of my time researching on the Internet and only 1% actually doing something. There are secrets hidden away that you can never discover in a million years unless you read the secret straight from the hand of an experienced guru.
Update2: I've since revised my firewall to rule to allow 192.168.1.1/24 instead because that seems to be more or less what everybody else is doing, and with my ignorance, they're probably right and I'm probably wrong. Not really sure but it's working with that so I'll keep it. Had to give up on trying to configure firewall rules for outgoing. Seems like a bear, and I don't know whether it is strictly necessary.
In my opinion, Linux security has to be taken with a grain of salt, because 90% of all users are going to disable the settings just like me because they are frankly incomprehensible gobbledygook. So Windows has the security advantage I think of the two operating systems. I'm sure for the Linux guru the security can become nigh invulnerable, but for the rest of us, we are going to do everything we can to disable security, because otherwise nothing works right on a network.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Finally, Linux
Well, after nine days of Linux networking hell experiments, I finally got all my shared folders on Linux Mint 13 64-bit Mate showing up on my Windows network. I can tell you the solution involved not just one configuration file, but about five or six, and I had help from several different web sites and tutorials, and not any one of them proved to be the cure-all, although it's true I was branching out and doing other things I learned along the way to optimize my system, like replacing LABELS for my partitions with UUIDs in fstab, which helps to avoid problems when connecting new drives, and specifying "noatime" on each partition to stop Linux from keeping track of file accesses.
The last remaining obstacle that caused me much grief was that in Linux, setting permissions for a directory is not enough, not by a long shot. You must also check the permissions of the directory that that directory is stored in. When I set up the parent directory's permissions to permit access by others, that's when things turned around, like presto. Until then, I was very confused indeed.
It sure would be nice if there were some kind of auto-config utility that would walk users through the process of setting up a simple home network. I don't know why it has to be such an arduous process in 2012. There are things I could be learning about that would be of greater advantage than this, because nobody hires network admins without years of corporate experience, so my experience here is useless to anyone but myself. Be that as it may, I'm done.
Despite all my belly-aching I'm sticking with Linux Mint as long as she works, for the important reason I've already invested a boatload of time getting things set up and there's no way I'm going through all that nonsense again. This blog functioned as a release valve for all the frustrations I had repairing my network after switching one box from Windows to Linux.
My next project, scheduled for a long time from now, is to backup the Linux box to ensure that even if the hard drive fails, I won't have to conduct further experiments andheadaches learning exercises.
The last remaining obstacle that caused me much grief was that in Linux, setting permissions for a directory is not enough, not by a long shot. You must also check the permissions of the directory that that directory is stored in. When I set up the parent directory's permissions to permit access by others, that's when things turned around, like presto. Until then, I was very confused indeed.
It sure would be nice if there were some kind of auto-config utility that would walk users through the process of setting up a simple home network. I don't know why it has to be such an arduous process in 2012. There are things I could be learning about that would be of greater advantage than this, because nobody hires network admins without years of corporate experience, so my experience here is useless to anyone but myself. Be that as it may, I'm done.
Despite all my belly-aching I'm sticking with Linux Mint as long as she works, for the important reason I've already invested a boatload of time getting things set up and there's no way I'm going through all that nonsense again. This blog functioned as a release valve for all the frustrations I had repairing my network after switching one box from Windows to Linux.
My next project, scheduled for a long time from now, is to backup the Linux box to ensure that even if the hard drive fails, I won't have to conduct further experiments and
How to Vote on Ballot Initiatives
My rule of thumb is that those who live in a red state where the right-wingers control the government should vote against a ballot initiative, no matter how it sounds, because it is most likely evil.
In blue states, greater effort is required to evaluate ballot initiatives. I like to examine a sample ballot prior to voting and do my research on the Internet prior to entering the booth. It is not really possible to understand a ballot initiative based on the descriptions given. For my part, I'd be in favor of anything that expands the rights of the individual, such as marijuana legalization, and against anything that siphons off resources from public services, such as charter schools, which are just a gimmick to grab state money for conservative right-wing Church schools.
In blue states, greater effort is required to evaluate ballot initiatives. I like to examine a sample ballot prior to voting and do my research on the Internet prior to entering the booth. It is not really possible to understand a ballot initiative based on the descriptions given. For my part, I'd be in favor of anything that expands the rights of the individual, such as marijuana legalization, and against anything that siphons off resources from public services, such as charter schools, which are just a gimmick to grab state money for conservative right-wing Church schools.
Cautious
I'm either indecisive or cautious. I've got three hard drives sitting by an open case, each with a different OS: 32-bit Win SP3, Linux Mint 13 64-bit Mate, & OpenSUSE 12.2 64-bit KDE. OpenSuse / KDE I like a great deal, because of its professional demeanor, well-designed and modern and minimalist, but I realize OpenSUSE doesn't mean Open Sesame!, that is to say, it won't auto-config the network for me, and the thought of copying all the files that need copying and configuring all the things that need configuring is, well, daunting. OpenSUSE has been put on hold while I tap into a new reserve of patience that comes with a new day.
Last night, in my Google-powered research, I found a blog that teaches how to set up Samba in a very clear and concise manner--very appealing, even tailored to my specific purpose, and if it works, then I will be linking to that site on this blog out of gratitude. I will certainly go back to Linux Mint if the network issue can be ironed out, because I have a feeling the other issues won't be quite as difficult.
Windows 32-bit is a last resort, because that old thing can't support > 2 tb drives. Fine for most desktops, but definitely limited as far as future potential goes, and the 32-bit thing just irritates me when 64-bit has been supported by cpu's for a decade or so.
Last night, in my Google-powered research, I found a blog that teaches how to set up Samba in a very clear and concise manner--very appealing, even tailored to my specific purpose, and if it works, then I will be linking to that site on this blog out of gratitude. I will certainly go back to Linux Mint if the network issue can be ironed out, because I have a feeling the other issues won't be quite as difficult.
Windows 32-bit is a last resort, because that old thing can't support > 2 tb drives. Fine for most desktops, but definitely limited as far as future potential goes, and the 32-bit thing just irritates me when 64-bit has been supported by cpu's for a decade or so.
Friday, November 2, 2012
OpenSUSE 12.2: First Impressions
I've always had a weak spot for OpenSUSE, maybe because I love the color--green--and the cute lil lizard. On the technical end, it boasts the latest Linux kernel among just about all the major distros, including Linux Mint, and that's important to me because the later versions include improvements for the AMD/ATI GPU.
I decided to attempt to install in UEFI mode, which didn't work with Linux Mint 13 for some reason. With Open SUSE 12.2, my Network Install CD didn't get anywhere, and I don't know why because I couldn't read the text on the screen due to the boot manager displaying with 1600x1200 resolution on my 800x600 screen. So I threw that install CD in the garbage can and downloaded and burned a full installation DVD, 4.3 GB. I had a much better experience with that. Everything worked. My ASUS E350M1-M motherboard booted the OpenSUSE 12.2 Install DVD in UEFI mode, and OpenSUSE for its part partitioned my drive using the latest and greatest GPT rather than grandmother's MBR.
From the get-go I had the feeling that yes, this is a professional operating system, and just maybe this compares with Windows. Due to my building confidence in OpenSUSE I decided to just accept all the defaults and I haven't regretted it yet. KDE looks light-years above Gnome, although there does seem to be a few things I need to learn about it. The look and feel, though--definitely OpenSUSE has it.
I'm going to print out all the documentation I can from the web site tonight and read the entire manual. You know what, with Linux Mint the manual was outdated by two versions or so and wasn't much to begin with, just a collection of platitudes for the most part and reasons why Linux Mint is the greatest OS on Earth. I will see whether OpenSUSE is any different. I hope that it is. Right now I have a very favorable impression of OpenSUSE based on the ease of installation and the fact it didn't hiccup over UEFI. Plus, it's beautiful.
I decided to attempt to install in UEFI mode, which didn't work with Linux Mint 13 for some reason. With Open SUSE 12.2, my Network Install CD didn't get anywhere, and I don't know why because I couldn't read the text on the screen due to the boot manager displaying with 1600x1200 resolution on my 800x600 screen. So I threw that install CD in the garbage can and downloaded and burned a full installation DVD, 4.3 GB. I had a much better experience with that. Everything worked. My ASUS E350M1-M motherboard booted the OpenSUSE 12.2 Install DVD in UEFI mode, and OpenSUSE for its part partitioned my drive using the latest and greatest GPT rather than grandmother's MBR.
From the get-go I had the feeling that yes, this is a professional operating system, and just maybe this compares with Windows. Due to my building confidence in OpenSUSE I decided to just accept all the defaults and I haven't regretted it yet. KDE looks light-years above Gnome, although there does seem to be a few things I need to learn about it. The look and feel, though--definitely OpenSUSE has it.
I'm going to print out all the documentation I can from the web site tonight and read the entire manual. You know what, with Linux Mint the manual was outdated by two versions or so and wasn't much to begin with, just a collection of platitudes for the most part and reasons why Linux Mint is the greatest OS on Earth. I will see whether OpenSUSE is any different. I hope that it is. Right now I have a very favorable impression of OpenSUSE based on the ease of installation and the fact it didn't hiccup over UEFI. Plus, it's beautiful.
Adios, Linux Mint; Hello, OpenSUSE
After two weeks, I'm still not able to reliably network my linux box. It's erratic. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't, and sometimes strange error arise, and if I solve the error, then another one crops up, and another, and another besides, and some of these are old errors I've seen before, and some are new ones. Sometimes Linux Mint gets into moods and when it boots, something is broken, for an unknown reason. It regularly forgets the proper screen resolution, 800x600, and bumps me up to 1600x1200, rendering the display very difficult to read. I don't know who thought Linux Mint was user-friendly, because I've been doing nothing but pouring over online tutorials on editing /etc/smb.conf using a text editor (the 1980's style of business) and I've gotten exactly nowhere. I would only recommend LM to someone that does not have a network and never plans on getting one.
I have about the simplest network in creation, all connected by wire. Linux has me spinning my wheels all week long trying to get Linux shares to show up in Windows. Always there is "Access Denied," if the shares show up at all. So Linux wins an A+ for security, an F- for usability. I think that a rock would be a better operating system for networking purposes, because I can throw the rock and hit another computer with it, but I can't get anything to hit Linux. I've followed at least twenty tutorials online and read so many forum messages that my eyes are burning, and nothing works.
My next project is to try OpenSuse, on the hypothesis that it has smoother networking capability than Linux Mint. If that doesn't work out for me, then it's back to Windows. I'd rather be programming than running back and forth between computers to see whether a share can be accessed or not. Bo--ring! Now I know why I went into programming rather than network administration.
I have about the simplest network in creation, all connected by wire. Linux has me spinning my wheels all week long trying to get Linux shares to show up in Windows. Always there is "Access Denied," if the shares show up at all. So Linux wins an A+ for security, an F- for usability. I think that a rock would be a better operating system for networking purposes, because I can throw the rock and hit another computer with it, but I can't get anything to hit Linux. I've followed at least twenty tutorials online and read so many forum messages that my eyes are burning, and nothing works.
My next project is to try OpenSuse, on the hypothesis that it has smoother networking capability than Linux Mint. If that doesn't work out for me, then it's back to Windows. I'd rather be programming than running back and forth between computers to see whether a share can be accessed or not. Bo--ring! Now I know why I went into programming rather than network administration.
The Polish
Lately I have been winning a lot of chess games with the Polish. I think I like it even better than the Grob. Seems like I'm often fighting just to stay in the game with the Grob. The Polish is much more forgiving, where the Grob is sharp. However, the Grob remains a useful surprise tactic, especially for speed chess where someone that knows the opening cold like me can get an advantage.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Patience
I've learned not to wrestle with ornery computer problems late at night, when my patience has ebbed. Just about blew a gasket yesterday trying to get my computers to talk with each other on the network. I'm much more patient about things like that in the morning and afternoon.
Yesterday around midnight, I was all set to kill my Linux Mint 13 Mate 64-bit install, sell the new motherboard, and fall back to my old motherboard and Windows XP 32-bit SP3. In fact, I had the case open and the old motherboard right there on the floor and a screwdriver in my hand, ready to take the new motherboard out. But oh, the thought of defeat, that rankled, the thought that I couldn't figure things out... call it nerd pride--I couldn't, I just couldn't. Besides, there were the forty hours I had already invested in configuring Linux and learning about it. In for a penny, in for a pound. One of the reasons I'm good at computers is I just don't give up, that's my ace in the hole, when every other sensible person would call it quits and cut their losses, I'm just too hard-headed, and I have confidence in my ability to see things through to a satisfactory solution. I'm not about taking it easy, I'm about maximum efficiency.
Today I learned more about Linux, and I think I do see light at the end of the tunnel, insofar as I'm getting better at things and there are fewer mysteries.
To be sure, Linux is much easier without a network to deal with. I would really rather not learn quite so much about networking as I am, but it looks like Linux is determined to give me a crash course. I find networking a bit boring, a matter of running around from hole to hole, knocking gophers on the head, and just when I think I've got them all another one pops up, and another.
Yesterday around midnight, I was all set to kill my Linux Mint 13 Mate 64-bit install, sell the new motherboard, and fall back to my old motherboard and Windows XP 32-bit SP3. In fact, I had the case open and the old motherboard right there on the floor and a screwdriver in my hand, ready to take the new motherboard out. But oh, the thought of defeat, that rankled, the thought that I couldn't figure things out... call it nerd pride--I couldn't, I just couldn't. Besides, there were the forty hours I had already invested in configuring Linux and learning about it. In for a penny, in for a pound. One of the reasons I'm good at computers is I just don't give up, that's my ace in the hole, when every other sensible person would call it quits and cut their losses, I'm just too hard-headed, and I have confidence in my ability to see things through to a satisfactory solution. I'm not about taking it easy, I'm about maximum efficiency.
Today I learned more about Linux, and I think I do see light at the end of the tunnel, insofar as I'm getting better at things and there are fewer mysteries.
To be sure, Linux is much easier without a network to deal with. I would really rather not learn quite so much about networking as I am, but it looks like Linux is determined to give me a crash course. I find networking a bit boring, a matter of running around from hole to hole, knocking gophers on the head, and just when I think I've got them all another one pops up, and another.
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