I have one box in my house that uses the Windows operating system.

Well... let me rephrase that.

Until tonight I had one box in my house that uses the Windows operating system.

I just went upstairs to watch a movie.  My Win box wouldn't even boot.

I officially cease to care.   If I can't do it in Linux, I won't do it.  It's as simple as that.

I have a hearing problem. I've had it for at least 20 years. I find it difficult to understand human speech in the presence of background noise. In my living room, I will be able to hear every word you say. In my car, your words are likely to get drowned out by the background noise of the engine and the road. In a club or a crowded room... I need to read your lips to know what you're saying.

I just went to the Apple.com trailer site to see what's coming out.

I've watched 4 trailers so far, and I have absolutely no clue what was said in any of them.

I've experienced the same thing when watching DVDs and when going to the movies.

Somehow, the background noise (foley, soundtrack, etc.) has become more important than the dialog. Words are quieter and less distinct than music and sound effects.

I can say right now, that there are several movies that I won't be going to see because I can't hear what's being said in the trailers.

It's not a universal situation. Half of the trailers I've watched were fine. I could understand the voices even through the music and sound effects.

The frequency range of human speech is very well cataloged and understood. It's very easy to punch the vocal track in a movie (and its trailer). ....So.... Why am I unable to differentiate the dialog from the score and F/X tracks on so many trailers? Why aren't studios more interested in making sure that the audience can actually understand the words being spoken?

Yes. I'm alive.
No. I haven't been posting--at least not here.

I've been busy with all the other projects I have going, and there hasn't been a whole lot to write about. My political writings are going on in other forums and blogs. My personal life amounts to little more than going to work and coming home to work on projects, so there's not much to talk about there.

I had a little time this weekend, so I did some maintenance to this site. My gallery hasn't worked for almost 2 years. So. I fixed it (Are you happy now, Heidi?). Well.. I sorta fixed it. Actually... I didn't fix it at all. What I did was install a whole new gallery and transfered the photos over to it. The existing one will vanish shortly (if it's not gone already when you read this).

This is my new gallery

There's even some new photos in there. I've uploaded the photos from my trip to the Dominican Republic over New Years. There's even a whole album from my SCUBA dive.

2 months ago I started a new project: JoeMiskulin.com

I've posted a couple "coming soon" messages but haven't had anything solid to show--until now.

I spent today prparing, uploading, and labeling the first batch of photos. About 130 photos are uploaded, and about 80 of them have been labeled. About half-way through I realized that my organization plan wasn't going to work, so I'm going to have to create new albums and rearrange stuff, but that's not a big deal.

"Preparing means taking a scan that has 8-10 photos on it, cutting and pasting each photo into its own file, rotating (if need be), adjusting brightness and contrast, saving, and then batch resizing.

"Labeling" involves finding the physical photo (in a stack of about 300) that matches the uploaded scan and typing in what's written on the back.

These images represent about one-third of the photos I have. And then there's the video. It's going to be a big project, but I think it's worth it.

I'm in desperate need of a calendar/scheduling program for work.

We're currently using Sunbird, but a critical memory leak and CPU issue has become so severe that it's actually significantly impacting other aspects of work (loading Sunbird causes our cash register to completely lock up for 25 minutes).

I will not use Outlook.

I've already looked at Google Calendar. With 24 calendars, it's far too crowded and difficult to read. Also, our net connection gets heavy use, so I'd like to keep the application on our own network to prevent from overloading the connection

I've looked at Multi-Calendar, but it will cost us $2,000 for enough licenses.

I've looked at the Chandler Project, but it has limitations and other issues that make it highly unsuitable.

Here are my requirements:

• Clean, simple interface
• Ability to handle 40 individual schedules, each with their own color (some duplication would be okay)
• Ability to display any or all schedules on the same calendar screen
• Central, shared files for the individual schedules (such as .ics files or a central database stored on the network server).
• Real-time sharing of data or frequent refreshes
• Ability to have multiple access points (up to 15 boxes all accessing the schedules with read/write access)
• Ability to include detailed information with each event
• Standard format for the data (not something proprietary that will leave us trapped if the vendor goes out of business).

I'd prefer a FOSS solution, but I'm willing to pay for it.

Any suggestions?

Sinclaire: Ready?
Delenn: Why do your people always ask if someone is ready right before you're going to do something massively unwise?
Sinclaire: Tradition. [1]

I've been re-watching Babylon 5 over the last couple weeks, and it's struck a few nerves. The series originally ran from February of 1993 to November of 1998. It ended 3 years before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and yet so much of its storyline presciently echoes actual events since that date. Unfortunately, this isn't because J Michael Straczynski knew how to predict the future. It was because he understood the past.

The totalitarian concepts depicted in Babylon 5 were, I am sure, pulled from the examples of Soviet Russia, Communist China, and Fascist Germany earlier in the century. The concept of "thought police" and "approved viewpoints" was one that was foreign to the United States when this series aired. But it wasn't unknown in our history. Senator Joseph McCarthy (R, WI, 1947-1957) established and defined that benchmark in the United States.

Our current administration has simply refined the methods.

In Babylon 5, the "Ministry of Peace"[2] decides who is and is not "fit" to be a part of the "new order". The government bases its decisions on the platform of "us first" and "protecting the people from alien influence". They ask citizens to spy on their neighbors and report any "suspicious" behavior (sound familiar?). They require patriotism, and look with suspicion and and derision on those who don't openly and blatantly display the trappings of "patriotism" (or jingoism) (those who don't actively support us are unAmerican and support the enemy" sound familiar?). Loyalty to Earth is paramount ("If you're not with us, you're against us"... sound familiar?). The administration, of its own, decides who is a patriot, and who is a traitor (sound familiar?).

What scares me the most is not that Straczynski could see into the future, but that so many others couldn't see into the past.

[1] Babylon 5, Episode 3x16 "War Without End, Part 1"; timestamp: 42:48
[2] An Orwellian-sounding section of the government, much like the "Department of Homeland Security".

As of March 5th, I will cease to be "Blaze Miskulin: Purchasing Clerk" and will become "Blaze Miskulin: Geek-at-Large".

I'm leaving my job with the Madison Metropolitan School District, and am becoming "The Geek" for the Manke family of companies (Don's Marine and Manke Enterprises). The companies are undergoing some internal changes, and part of this is a new interest in e-commerce and an aggressive web-presence.

I've been working with the owner on a freelance basis for about a year now, and as he's taken the time to look forward, he's realized that his vision requires a full-time person to make it happen. In a move that is utterly foreign to my current work environment, he took the initiative and decided to hire someone for that position. And that would be me.

My job with the school district is a good job--it's good people, a good environment, great benefits, and respectable pay--but it's a job for a "maintainer". I'm a "maker". I just don't fit into that job. I'm not sorry that I've worked there--not in the least. I've learned a whole lot in my 4 years with the District, and it's knowledge that will serve me well in the future. But, considering I started there as a temp, and only expected to stay for 2 months as a stop-gap measure between my (then) recent lay-off and a more permanent position elsewhere, I'd say that I've gotten far more out of the deal than I could have expected.

It's time for me to move on, and this new job is a huge leap forward for me. What it may lack in guaranteed security (there's something to be said for the solidity of civil-service jobs) it more than makes up for in challenge, interest, flexibility, and growth potential. Plus.... there's the fact that the office is only a mile from my house, so I can bike (or kayak!) to work when the weather is nice. Even if I drive every day, I estimate that I'll be saving about $1,000 a year in gas (at current prices). That's nothing to sneeze at.

I only hang out with one person from work, and leaving for the new job won't stop that. I will miss chatting with a certain sexy librarian, but I'm sure I'll survive. I've no clue what the new job will bring. And, to be honest, that's one of the biggest attractions it holds for me. I do know, however, that I'll be working for a man who has both vision and the guts to pursue that vision. That's a rare quality.

In my ongoing progress towards OS freedom (leaving Windows and embracing Linux), I've moved my bittorrent duties from my ancient Windows box to my spiffy new Linux box [1]. For a couple years now, I've been using BitTornado as my torrent client. I like it. It's simple, clean, and effective. Yes, it opens a new client session for every torrent, but I didn't consider that to be a significant issue.

BitTornado is listed as "unstable" on Linux. So I decided to take a look at what else is out there. I'd heard some really good things about Azureus, and know several people who use it. It's in the Ubuntu library, so I install the package and tried it out.

Wow. Can a program get any more bloated? BitTornado had, if I recall correctly, 3 options: upload limit, download limit and preset limits. It had a pause/resume feature, and a cancel (quit) button. Very simple, very intuitive, very elegant. Azureus is a monster. The options tab has a bazillion choices (there are over a dozen categories, many with subcategories, all of which have multiple options). There are nebulous states (queued? waiting?). I had 2 torrents spend 9 hours in the "queued" state, doing absolutely nothing except sitting there annoying me. "Force start" did nothing (what is it supposed to do?). Canceling and restarting did nothing. They just sat there. There wasn't even a little red sad-face to tell me that I was connected but doing nothing. 27 billion options and not a single one of them is "work correctly".

After a quick web-search, I found QTorrent. It's part of the Ubuntu library, so it was simple to install (though I did have to go to the command line to start it). It's options are pretty much limited to "run" and "stop". There's not even a "pause" option in there. That is, I'll admit, a mark against it--as is the lack of transfer limits. However, when I opened those torrents that spent 9 hours "queued" in Azureus, QTorrent started them up instantly. In a couple hours, they were all happily downloaded and acting as seeds. That's nice.

Unless it upgrades a bit, I'll move away from QTorrent eventually; it doesn't allow for pauses, or transfer limits--things which can be important when I'm working on web projects and need bandwidth for "real" work. And the lack of a ratio listing bothers me. I like to make sure that I give back at least as much as I take. If a torrent is active, I'll leave it until it has at least a 2.0 upload ratio. For "important" torrents, I'll often let them run to 10 or 20 before I stop them to let other torrents use the bandwidth.

But I really appreciate the "elegance" of QTorrent. I does what it's supposed to, without any extraneous crap. Azureus has fallen into what I consider to be a common trap for open-source (and many proprietary) applications: the "we can, so we will" mentality. Developers keep slapping on features just because they can. They continue to do this until it's all about the features, and not about the core functionality of the application. They have no concept of "elegance": doing what is to be done with the minimum of clutter or waste.

Say what you will about Microsoft, the fact of the matter is most of their stuff "just works". Yes, it's buggy and insecure, but 99.44% of the time, you click on the button and it does what you expect it to. It's not up to the standard of "elegance", but it's at least pointed in the right direction.

This is something the Linux community needs to learn, something they need to embrace: the concept of "elegance". It's not about "bigger", it's about "better". More often than not, "simple" is the best choice. At the very least, it should be the default state.

Linux is approaching a crossroads. It can rise up and become a powerhouse that will take down the Goliath of Microsoft... or it can plummet back into the depths of Geekdom. The key, pure and simple, is "elegance". Make Linux elegant, and it will take over. Let it continue to flounder in a morass of complexity and detail, and it will never see the mass market.

Elegance is a simple concept. It's not hard to follow. The Linux community (especially Ubuntu) simply needs someone who understands it to give them direction and guidance.

And if anyone is willing to pay me a decent salary to take up that responsibility, I'd be more than happy to do so.

[1] A good friend of mine is one of the owners of a company (Soho VFX) that does CGI effect for Hollywood movies. He had an old "junker" computer laying around that he traded for 12 lbs of Johnsonville Brats. This "junker" box has dual athalon 1.8GHz processors, dual-display video card, and a DVD drive. It is, I am quite sure, more powerful than any other box in my house. It's all a matter of perspective isn't it?

I am not a computer novice. I was programming in BASIC and PASCAL back in grade school. I remember accessing the "main frame" via a DECWriter. I was on the cutting edge of personal computing and had an IBM PCjr--with a color monitor. I did everything in DOS, and was a Mozilla user way back when it was still Mosaic, and IE wasn't even a wet spot on Bill Gates monitor. I've run Windows since 3.1, I remember when pine and gopher and archie. I remember having to actually hunt to find an ISP that had PPP. I write html and css by hand, and I'm president of a small web-hosting company.

This year, with the hubbaloo about Vista, I finally reached my breaking point and decided that I would not give Microsoft another penny for an OS that treats me as if I were both an idiot and a thief. So, I did my research regarding linux distributions, and I decided that Ubuntu would be a good place for me to start. It's supposed to be "linux for newbs". And, while I've been playing with computers for 25 years, when it comes to linux, I have to admit that I'm a newb.

I am, I'm sorry to say, less than impressed.

I used an old, mildly defective, laptop as my test box. I wiped the drive and (after some significant frustration finding an ap to burn an iso to CD) installed Ubuntu. The install was rather painless. I was off to a good start. The designer in me wasn't exactly ecstatic over the depressing brown desktop, but I figured I could get back to the "pretty" factor later.

Right about here is where things started to break down.

I had to have my sys-admin walk me through the process of getting the wireless up and running. Now, maybe I'm being a bit silly here, but I thought that 802.11 would be old hat to the linux community; a snap to get running. Yeah... not quite. Eventually, however, it was up and running. Great. Now I can sit down anywhere in the house and access my new and spanky-fresh linux box via VNC, just like I do for my antiquated (but continually useful) Windows desktop box.

Or not.

VNC works... when it manages to connect. I open the connect dialogue, select the right IP, click on "connect" and.... apparently I'm bouncing the signal off a relay satellite orbiting Tau Ceti. The connection just vanishes. When it does connect, it works great and holds the connection for days without a problem. Actually getting it to connect, however.....? It's an exercise in random probability.

Okay... my house is small and, for the most part, I'm only using the linux box as a juke (for now). So, I learn that USB audio is part of the kernel. Great. I plug in my USB speakers and get ready to listen to my music. And we hit snag number 2.

Yes, the speakers work. They work rather well...... on the rare occasion that the box actually manages to activate the USB audio component. {sigh}. I've taken to leaving the linux box running continually (which is a bit of a problem, since the box has a faulty power buss on the motherboard and, as a result, has no internal cooling; it's currently cooled by a USB-powered "chiller plate"), however, there are times when I need to reboot. It generally takes at least 5 reboots to get the USB audio to kick in. I'm not doing anything different each time, it's just a matter of random chance.

So... I have the box up and running, the USB audio active, the net connection connected, and--if I'm lucky--I'm able to control it all via VNC. So.... my mp3 library is on my NAS so that any computer on the network can access it and play the music. Any computer that is, except the linux box.

If I browse the network from the linux box, I can see my NAS. In fact, I can see all 3 partitions, which is more than I can do from the Win boxen. However.... my juke application doesn't see the NAS. Ah... I need to map the networked drive as a local drive. Right. So I head out to the net, do the Google magic, and..... come up with some unintelligible mumbo-jumbo that I'm supposed to type into the command line, and insert into some system file, and..... it still doesn't work.

Am I missing something here? In Windows, with the click of a couple buttons, I can map a network drive as a local drive. In linux I can't? The geek OS doesn't have a way for me to access networked drives? WTF??

And what's with all this command-line shit?

Let me get blunt here: You linux-geeks are always going on and on about how Windows is a tool of the Devil and linux is the Holy Grail, and how can people be so stupid as to stick with Windows when linux is obviously so superior?

The answer is simple: People want a product that works. A product that works the first time, without mucking about in the system files, and without having to learn a whole new language of commands. Not everyone is a computer geek. Not everyone is a sysadmin. Some people are doctors and lawyers and accountants and mechanics and bakers and parachuting instructors. They don't expect you to know how to do surgery or prosecute a tort case or adjust your fuel injection or decorate a wedding cake or pack a parachute... so you shouldn't expect them to know how to plug commands into the terminal window.

I want to switch to linux, I really do. But linux isn't making it very easy for me. I really don't think it's unreasonable of me to expect things to work correctly, consistently, and easily. At this point in my life, I have a spare computer and spare time and can afford to look at switching over to linux as "a long-term project". Most people don't have that.

If linux really wants to take market share away from Windows, you're going to have to get your act together, trash the geek-elitist attitude, and build an OS that works for everybody, not just geeks.

I'm going to continue to trudge through this--because I'm really obstinate--but I am not impressed, and until there are some significant improvements in the the "user-friendly" category, I will not recommend to anyone that they convert.

If you can't convert those who actively seek you out, how can you possibly hope to convert those who are happy where they are?

I've started by own team at Folding@Home.

Folding@Home is a distributed computing project run by Stanford University. The program installs on your computer and runs in the background, using whatever processor power you aren't using. So... if you're working hard, it sits and waits. If you're just poking around online or doing basic word-processing, it kicks in and works behind the scenes. And when you walk away and leave your computer running, it takes that opportunity to kick into high gear and really get some work done.

What it's doing is "folding" proteins. Incorrectly-folded proteins are the cause of such diseases as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and some types of cancers. Standford is asking you to let them use your computer's free time to help them work out the solutions as to why these diseases happen, and to find ways to cure and prevent them.

Just think... you could be curing cancer while you're surfing the web.

Grab the program, install it, and when the little box pops up asking what team you want to join, type in 52596. That's the Dragonfly Dreams team.

Zero effort, curing cancer... You can't find a better deal than that!

(Oh... for all you Catholics out there: this has got to be worth a bunch of Purgatory Points.)