Sunday, January 31, 2010

Strange Network Activity

[Update] The issue seems to have been cause by a cheap or just bad switch (it was cheap so I assume that's why), after it seemed to be dead I tested it and the same thing happened in the lab!
Be ware of bad switches!

-----original---------

Recently I have noticed a strange network activity in a workstation PC. It is an older IBM model running Windows XP, the issue has not occoured to me until I opened the Local Area Connection Status window and saw the amount of sent packets under the Activity section (figure 1)



There are probably several possible causes but right now it seems to boil down to a bad connection on the wire or connectors. I have re-installed windows since I have noticed this originally, I also don't remember this PC having issues before it has been moved to the current location but the 'problem' keeps coming back.

The strange thing about this is that the group policies get affected every now and than.

It doesn't seem to have any issues with internet, application, bandwidth or any of the other network components including itself so not a big issue, I guess "if it ain't broke don't fix it"?

But anyway, if anyone has any ideas let me know.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Future by Design Review

After I watched the documentary called "Future by design" I had to mention that while it is a great documentary and very recommended to everyone, it brought many new unanswered questions and ideas to mind. (IMDB, torrent download)

First, I think that Jacque Fresco is a genius. No doubt he finally has shown us the way, I always thought money is a strange concept but never knew how it could be different, and what is possible in a different economy and his imagination of the future is really brought to life in this film. My only criticism is that his thinking and designs that are just too far ahead of our current or near-future reach. While he has amazing ideas with incredible details to his designs and inventions, I feel that we need to focus on the more immediate transitional ideas and the bigger picture that are not covered very much in this documentary.
For example: how do we start?

We really cannot start rebuilding for future cities like he discussed, nor can we build futuristic cities from the ground or in the water. What we can and should do is discuss the type of details that get us out of a monetary based system, unite the world's countries and share resources. Improving education and removing any money related ideas. The list of jobs and ideas that are completely unnecessary is going to be huge so I will not list it here but I hope you get the idea.

Another video on the other hand, does much more in-depth coverage of these ideas is: The Zeitgeist Movement: Orientation Presentation. Similar to ZEITGEIST: ADDENDUM (Also by Peter Joseph), but I felt it is more concise and to the point, with in-your-face fact driven and solutions laid-out type which might not appeal to some. Nevertheless I highly recommend watching this (link above) - and as with everything - you may take it with a 'grain of salt', but I found this very eye opening and in general a topic which is in need of many more and much more open discussions of these ideas.

The very true facts I take from these videos are: with no monetary system there would be no drive for immoral or negative 'criminal' acts. If we re-think the way things work in our world we should be able to improve the global and personal quality of life. If education systems are modified and technology improved for the greater good instead of profit, I believe that our potential is limitless.

So assuming you are as convinced as I am that we need a change in our economic worldwide systems, I keep hitting myself with the same question:
How can we change from the monetary system?

A possible answer is:
If the people in the highest powers are comfortable they will never agree to any change, therefore this must happened from the people that are uncomfortable. But will this be a very fast abrupt change or will it take several discussions to the possible solutions to change to?

As you can see there are many questions and I think that now with an open mind we must ask and discuss these ideas.

Truly I feel the "Resource based economy" idea sounds great in theory there are many more important details that are not covered. Going back to ideas of "Future by Design" it is impossible to assume as Jacque did that all the mundane jobs are automated because that just sounds too far into the future.

So there are many questions that have to be thoroughly discussed and thought out but what we need to do is start thinking what steps can be taken NOW toward a real change in the SYSTEM.

Today's facts as I see them are:
The monetary economy is wholly flawed, motivation for profit creates unrealistically huge amounts of immoral acts, to list a few;
cruelty, crime of murder, theft, and simply things that are wrong by any standard are all done by individuals and groups of individuals (also known as organizations, companies or corporations) for the single most important goal of this economy is MONEY.

There are constant roller coaster of inflation and deflation in value of currencies and more problems I may not be able to think of right now... but all of this is simply unacceptable.

It is unproductive to our technological and academic growth.

The solutions sound simple: remove the monetary system to an education and resource based system but how do we get there from where we are now?

So please I ask of everyone reading this, if you got this far I hope you have some ideas of your own at this point so share them with me or anyone around you.

Thank you

Thursday, January 14, 2010

BackTrack 4 Released!

Recently backtrack version 4 final was released, I would like to take that opportunity to try the USB live install this time instead of the DVD or hard drive like I have done before with the pre-release and previous version.

I am currently downloading it via torrent in order to conserve bandwidth for them and reduce their server load (it seems they have been getting a lot of downloads when they released) but also because I like to stick it to the man and my ISP finally stopped throttling... or maybe it's the protocol encryption utorrent employs.

I'm liking what I saw in the pre-release and I like that they finally got a new website, can't wait to install and start hacking!

Let me know what you think.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

ZEITGEIST: ADDENDUM review

After watching "ZEITGEIST: THE MOVIE" [RELEASED 6/25/07] by Peter Joseph, I felt that although the documentary is well made, the first part spoke strongly to me but the second part of the documentary was not very close to home in a sense of what I could relate to and the understand or believing the facts presented.

And it is very interesting to consider but the truth is we will never know what happened because they can hide it too well, and what is more important becomes apperent in his second documentary: "ZEITGEIST: ADDENDUM" [RELEASED 10/02/08] from Peter Joseph. This truly inspired me to look further into the future and how things would play out if we lived in a different system - not a monetary based but a resource based economy.

The goals and motivations would shift from the endless and useless money, currently humans are trying to obtain as much money as possible (why? money isn't real anyway!), our goal of making things better for everyone will include ourselves. The rewards will speak for themselves.

To find out more go to http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ and http://www.thevenusproject.com/

Let me know what you think in the comments or email.

Powers of 2

2^0 1
2^1 2
2^2 4
2^3 8
2^4 16
2^5 32
2^6 64
2^7 128
2^8 256
2^9 512
2^10 1,024
2^11 2,048
2^12 4,096
2^13 8,192
2^14 16,384
2^15 32,768
2^16 65,536
2^17 131,072
2^18 262,144
2^19 524,288
2^20 1,048,576
2^21 2,097,152
2^22 4,194,304
2^23 8,388,608
2^24 16,777,216
2^25 33,554,432
2^26 67,108,864
2^27 134,217,728
2^28 268,435,456
2^29 536,870,912
2^30 1,073,741,824
2^31 2,147,483,648
2^32 4,294,967,296

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Oh Canada - Our Bought and Sold Out Land

Did you know it costs four pennies to make one penny?!?!

I watched this interesting documentary, and it is defiantly worth a watch.

Check it out!

http://www.ohcanadamovie.com/

Download or Watch

Summary:
This surprisingly entertaining documentary film explores the history of
banking, the selling out of the prosperity of Canada, the clearance sale of
Canadian businesses and the political liquidation of public infrastructures
to the multi-national corporate oligarchy. How has this led to the biggest
economic crash in Canadian history? Could it have something to do with our
politicians listening to international bankers and corporations instead of
the people Canada? How does the Canadian banking system really work? How
does the central Bank of Canada compare with the American Federal Reserve?

This movie presents these issues that affect every Canadian from the
perspective of and delivered by concerned youth in a astute and colourful
manner. This is a serious journalism piece that asks the tough questions
directly to such politicians as Former Prime Minister of Canada Paul Martin,
Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May,
Ontario Gas Man Dan McTeague, NDP Leader Jack Layton, Mayor of Oshawa John
Gray, Former Prime Minister of Canada John Turner and many more!

We encourage you to seed this torrent, pass it around and freely distribute
it to your friends and family.