JohnB v2.0

…philadelphia we had a problem

JohnB — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:04:59 +0000

My internet access is through Comcast and I lost access to my blog approximately 2 weeks ago and during that time I knew it was still accessible. I was still getting emails that new subscribers were signing up. It wasn’t left and right but it’s still appreciated. I sent a direct tweet to Frank Eliason (@comcastcares) and he was extremely professional and helpful in trying to help me figure out what my problem was. He even put his colleague Bill on the case, who is also very helpful and professional. Frank even made the call to have someone come to my home to replace my cable modem. Even though that didn’t fix the problem here’s what did. I had to manually reset my netgear wireless n router (which normally rocks the casbah btw) to pick up the new ip address that was assigned to my new cable modem and all is well in the world of JohnB now.

I have my internet access and access to my blog as well … makes me happy

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a weird mood…

JohnB — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:30:01 +0000

All this week I’ve been in a really weird feeling mood. I haven’t been really been inspired to really write anything. While it appears that I’m writing about not being inspired, that’s not exactly what I’m getting at here. A lot of time you have to push yourself to do what needs to be done, and that’s with anything in life. Procrastination really doesn’t do anyone any good, unless it’s out of one’s control, that’s a bit different.

I have been feeling a bit down since my wife and kids left for Ohio. My wife has family up there and it’s just too quiet here these days. My home is usually really boisterous, noisy. I guess over the years since my kids have been born, I’ve gotten used to the noise, the screams, fights and various objects getting broken and since that’s not happening it just feels empty, like something is always missing. My wife and kids will eventually come back home again and I can’t wait to see them again. I miss them so much. You know you love someone when you get all mushy and they’ve barely been gone for a week.

That must be the reason for the mood I’m in. Yeah I’m keeping in touch with the children and my wife but it’s just not the same as if they were here. You could say that it’s the next best thing. It’s just not the same. I miss them a lot.

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Bush YOU ARE a Fascist …

JohnB — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:49:41 +0000

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I couldn’t agree more …

JohnB — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:21:04 +0000

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Death Magnetic

JohnB — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:44:09 +0000

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Epic Online

JohnB — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:02:43 +0000

I got an email from twitter the other day stating that I am now follow’d by EpicOnline, a.k.a Dustin Williams. A fellow Memphian. He’s rather passionate about a city that I quite frankly can’t stand to live in. At any rate, he’s on ustream.tv @ http://www.ustream.tv/channel/epic-online, also you can find his blog out at http://epiconlineblog.blogspot.com.

So take a look at his blog and help out a fellow Memphian eh?

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XKCD - Online Package Tracking

JohnB — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:04:45 +0000

Being from Memphis myself, I found a veritable treasure trove of humor in this.

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XKCD - Centrifugal Force

JohnB — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:23:17 +0000

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Tech-Tard-ica

JohnB — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:38:46 +0000

Recently, Metallica invited bloggers to listen to finished tracks from their new upcoming album. Bloggers, being the people they are, posted on various blogs about what they heard. Metallica issued them all cease and desist orders demanding that the blog posts be taken down. Also there are allegations that the bloggers were given the “do what we say or you’ll never work again” treatment. I don’t like this at all. The pressure put on this group of bloggers was said to be a bit on the extreme side. Now all the blog posts, that oddly enough were mostly positive, have all been removed. Metallica complained that the tracks played in the private meeting with the bloggers weren’t “ready for prime time”. So then why were they played for anyone in the first place? There was neither a tacit agreement or signed NDA’s. I wonder what Metallica was really thinking and why are they continously freaking out over media distribution over the internet? .. Well livemetallica.com is one exception and while it has the appearance of giving to the fans, I don’t think they give a damn about the fans anymore, especially after what they pulled against the group of bloggers THAT THEY INVITED IN THE 1ST PLACE! I don’t think anyone has mentioned that Metallica has already announced that the new, yet unnamed album will be released drm free at the same time the cd’s go up for sale in stores. What’s up with all the hypocrisy James, Kirk, Lars and Robert??

I’m about to pull a “napster” and burn all my metallica cd’s, t-shirts, posters, and any other memorbilia I have of theirs. They are continuing to alienate their fans and to this end they will be obsolete in very short order. What are they going to do if they happen to be around the day that digital downloads outsell cd’s? Oh wait, that’s already happened. It’s also very sad that while they claim to have the attitude of do what we want when we want? they have obviously and continously drank the “record label” Kool-Aid and refused to sell their actual past released albums in a completely open format? Does the fact that their new album will be sold both drm free online and in stores mean that from here on out they’re willing to show a new face? Well I’m not buying it right now, so I’ll just play a wait and see on this.

Everyone knows that Metallica are TECH TARDS! They are continously trying to keep themselves in an outdated and outmoded format. They were unfortunately have decided not to embrace the current music-buying culture and stay perpetually in the stone age. Not a smart move, for a group of headbangers that are trying to stay relevant in a world which is about to push them aside if they don’t get with it, and soon.

!!UPDATE!! : on Buzz Out Loud #742 it was said that the desicion to pull the blogger’s reviews of tracks from Metallica’s new album was a desicion not made by the members of Metallica, it was made by their management agency, QPrime.

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Dave Winer = Ultimate Fail

JohnB — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:26:40 +0000

Here is a screenshot of Dave Winer’s offending FriendFeed comments….

Dave, I USED to have the utmost respect for you and your work with RSS along with all your other accomplishments, but I have to ask you something. Why did you think that anyone wouldn’t get the least bit upset at you posting comments like that? I am a Republican, I don’t have a limp dick and I also have a happy wife and 2 kids to show for it.

Yeah I might have lost my cool but you fail to understand one simple thing that I already know. To say to someone that you’re either Democrat or Republican (in my opinion) represents a mindset. I would not ever insult someone’s intelligence or go out of my way to hurt anyone’s feelings or sensebilities over which political party he or she has chosen to affliate with. Oh, and be sure to read my response as well Dave.

Yes Dave, I am offended.

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Talkshoe Simulcast 12-03-07

JohnB — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:15:16 +0000

I found this on my ustream channel (JohnB’s Goof-Off Channel) that I, unfortunately, had forgetten about. This is a Talkshoe simulcast back from late last year. This is episode 142 of “JohnB’s Digital Graffiti Talkcast”. Enjoy.

.TV online : provided by Ustream

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Seesmic on Wordpress

JohnB — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:09:17 +0000

Thanks to Seesmic’s API they recently released a video comments plugin. It works really well and it’s nicely integrated. It can be found at http://wiki.seesmic.com/Wp-plugin . If you’d like to see an example check out another post on this blog here. The video comments are backed up by seesmic (meaning they’re hosting the videos.) and I’m glad I can take part. I’m having a lot of fun.

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Bandwidth Caps and the Devil’s Advocate

JohnB — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 04:55:45 +0000

My Thoughts:

I’ve been reading a lot about ISP’s moving towards bandwidth caps. Comcast is most likely going to go with a 250GB monthly cap and TimeWarner is testing a 4GB monthly cap for new customers in Beaumont Texas. I really think it’s a bad idea for business due to the fact that heavy internet/bandwidth users (and yes torrent users as well) will just move elsewhere. While more and more ISP’s move towards measures to prevent them to beefing up their own infrastructure, I’m not entirely sure they’ll ever catch on to the fact that at the end of the day they’re only hurting their own customers and in turn their own bottom line. (not to mention this is one step towards abolishing net neutrality)

The Devil’s Advocate:

All ISP’s have the right to run their own networks how they see fit right? All those torrent seeders downloading their illegal mp3’s (Ed. which is usually nothing more then a linux dvd iso download) and their pirated software are hogging the pipes for everyone else and that’s not cool. So we’re going to lessen everyone’s monthly bandwidth usage and if you go over you’re going to pay us extra. I don’t really get why people think they can just take take take and take, stressing our powerful networks to the max. (Ed. which is why they still need to beef up their networks/infrastructure anyways.) We’re into keeping our shareholders happy. We really don’t care about keeping our customers happy, the shareholders make us the most money anyways. We’re just going to continue to be cheap-asses and you all are going to like it, whether you like it or not!

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new Antec Skeleton display at Computex 2008

JohnB — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:27:36 +0000

This has to be one of the most exciting computer cases I think I’ve ever seen. Period.

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Web Services … and why I like FriendFeed

JohnB — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:46:46 +0000

I’ve been using a lot more services online lately. I’ve been using Gmail but in either IMAP or POP3 since that inception and now I’m back to using the WebMail Notifier Firefox extension since it’s been updated for Firefox 3 (due for final release soon!) and accessing all my email online. I’ve been using Twitter for a little over a year, and I’ve signed up for Pownce to support Kevin Rose and his online efforts. And now FriendFeed comes into focus. It’s basically an aggregator. It allows you to pool Twitter, Pownce, blog rss, Netflix Queue, Last.fm, and many other services output into one single place. Is this really needed? I think so, especially if you want one place for people to comment on all your online activity.

Twitter is so addictive , Pownce is a lot fun and I’ve met a lot of really fun people in both. I really enjoy using FriendFeed to bring it all together. I use Twhirl as my desktop twitter client of choice and it also has FriendFeed support which makes it easy to keep up with both.

Web services are the glue that’s going to keep the internet going in the years ahead. Email might have been the internet’s first killer app, but web services/communication tools such as Pownce, Twitter and the new Plurk. will be the way forward for personal internet communications in the future. So in a sense, I want to be future proof. On the other hand, Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) mentioned recently that he’s following 25,000 people on Twitter which accounts to one tweet a second. Maybe being totally future proof on the internet isn’t such a good idea after all.

Twitter - JohnBfromTN

Pownce - JohnBfromMemphis

FriendFeed - JohnBfromMemphis

Plurk - JohnBfromMemphis

Seesmic - JohnBfromTN - look to the sidebar for all my seesmic posts! ;):)

… and more to come soon

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Napster

JohnB — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:34:06 +0000

As I’m sure a lot of you have heard by now, Napster is offering drm free mp3’s. While slightly late to the original party, it’s still a welcome change to see. The files are in 256kbps and that’s a bitrate on par with all the other drm free music stores, except for eMusic. (Ed. They use 192kbps VBR MP3 format) The tracks are still .99 a piece, but albums are .05 cheaper then iTunes, $9.95 compared to $9.99 and even higher on iTunes.

I’m still very happy with the audio quality and consider this time and money well spent. Napster might not have been able to do this sooner legally, but with the new consumer climate of anti-drm, I do hope more and more online venues for drm free music start to appear in the future.

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Haliburton charged with selling nuclear secrets to Iran

JohnB — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:44:18 +0000

This is old news I’ll admit, but this is something that can not be ignored as to the REAL state of the union.

This is an excerpt from an article I found at projectuncensored.org.

…”However, Halliburton has a long history of doing business in Iran, starting as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company. Leopold quotes a February 2001 report published in the Wall Street Journal, “Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., works behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company was registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Dubai and is “non-American.” But like the sign over the receptionist’s head, the brochure bears the company’s name and red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world.” Moreover mail sent to the company’s offices in Tehran and the Cayman Islands is forwarded directly to its Dallas headquarters.”….

..original article written by Jason Leopold…

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/2-halliburton-charged-with-selling-nuclear-technologies-to-iran

P.S - They’re still working in Iran for Iran today. It’s making me wonder what they’re really up to over there. Also, I found the original article thanks to George Donnelly via FriendFeed.

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Toxic chemical found in baby bottle plastics …

JohnB — Thu, 29 May 2008 04:42:15 +0000

No wonder more and more young male children are having mental health issues, only to wind up being forced into taking drugs and no wonder why young female children are going through puberty at younger and younger ages.

Bisphenol A (BPA), has been linked, in clinical tests and studies, to type II diabetes and early onset of puberty. Read this excerpt from the article linked below and ask yourself why in the hell was BPA used as a chemical component in baby bottle plastics, if the baby bottle manufacturers knew that BPA was toxic in infant children regardless of dosage.

“…. The U.S. government’s National Toxicology Program said last month that there is “some concern” about BPA from experiments on rats that linked the chemical to changes in behavior and the brain, early puberty and possibly precancerous changes in the prostate and breast. While such animal studies only provide “limited evidence” of risk, the draft report said a possible effect on humans “cannot be dismissed.”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-05-28-baby-bottle-lawsuit_N.htm

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FriendFeed Comments on Wordpress!

JohnB — Thu, 29 May 2008 04:08:58 +0000

Using a plugin, you can show your friendfeed comments on a blog post that you have posted to friendfeed. It’s really nice and a great idea, but thanks to another plugin I was having problems with (Ahem! ..twitter tools) I’m going to wait and see if this works since I’ve gotten things setup the way I think they should be. Of course, that doesn’t mean that’s it’s the correct setup I could probably stand to at least deactivate a few wp plugins. That might fix things, who knows.

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Memorial Day…

JohnB — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:38:59 +0000

Memorial Day is to remember all veterans who have fought for us, our freedom. My grandfather fought during WWII on the U.S.S Indianapolis in the U.S Navy and I have an uncle on my Mother’s side of my family that fought during Vietnam, in the U.S Marine Corps (SEMPER FI!!) and lost a foot to a buried mine. I myself was born almost 3 years after the end of Vietnam, and as fate would have it, if my grandfather wasn’t granted shore leave he most likely would have died on the Indianapolis since that ship was one of the first that was sunk at Pearl Harbor. What this means is that if my grandfather had died on the Indianapolis, I would’ve never existed and to that I am eternally grateful.

Last night on JohnB v2.0, (my show on talkshoe) myself, Stoff and new good friend Drakeo, each took a turn talking about what we remember in life the most both good and bad. After I ended the show we spoke about the sacrifice active duty military soldiers make, both at home and personal, to serve their nation. The whole show was nice, calm and quiet which is what I needed after a loud boisterous day at work.

Just take what you remember most, what you’re proud of and hold it close and never let it go. If you don’t, you won’t like it but then again ignorance is always bliss is it not?

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thank you for flying …

JohnB — Sat, 24 May 2008 06:20:41 +0000

We all know everything is getting turned upside down these days. It’s not invisible, it’s not easy to hide from either; it’s right in all our faces and what are we going to do about it? I never just lay down for anything nor anyone. If you’ve spoken with me for any length of time longer then 5 minutes you know at least that much about me. I’m only one person speaking out when and where I can. So I ask the rest of you this. Where are you speaking out on what’s going on and what’s bothering you today? Are you even speaking out at all? . .or are you too busy living out your boring daily lives and being a sheep? Do you really need to be sheparded? Do you really think you can’t take a hard look at things and not get pissed off?

If it’s not the high gas prices, it’s our own state governments stealing children from their parents and families. If it’s not that it’s the fact that while our state and federal governments work for us they don’t seem to think so anymore. If it’s not that it’s the fact that one woman I respect and care for almost more then I do my own family was gang stalked and assaulted by her own police department in San Diego CA.
If it’s not that it’s the fact that while the oil companies are being assaulted by our own federal government for price fixing it’s political forces that have forced the high gas price hand we’re dealing with today. Do I need to really and truthfully need to say more.. .

Live life with passion and stand up for what you love and believe in and while you think this is the cliche of the conspiracy theorists, Stand up before you cut off at the knees.

Thank you for flying JohnB Airlines. .now this is the question, since you have reached your final destination. What would you rather be served? .. the ass or the crotch?

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Why I can’t stand Facebook

JohnB — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:40:30 +0000

excerpt from WebWare …

“Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we’ve had a chance to evaluate the technology,” the post by Facebook employee Charlie Cheever read. “We’ve found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service.”

So you were going to violate your own terms of service? You complain about privacy issues when Beacon (your own creation) originally was a very not-so-easy opt out, and that was only after the entire internet screamed in extreme outrage. Hypocrisy isn’t going to get me to come back to you. You should have left Beacon on the shelf from the get go. After all the “are you naked” invites I received on my facebook profile from some guy also located here in Memphis, even after I removed the app; I don’t think I’ll ever be going back to Facebook. What a name. And no, I didn’t ask for all the “Are You Naked” invites either. I don’t think I would be making this blog post if I “had asked for it”. BMSMA!

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