Loading...Brian’s Morning Newsletter for July 3rd 2009
Adam added a chat room called Shoutbox to the forum. We pushed it to the limit yesterday by using multiple usernames for each of us. It would have been even more fun if a bunch of you were logged in at the same time.
How about a happy hour on the forum?
We had a real nice thunderstorm last night. It barely woke me up, or perhaps I heard our dog Cujo get up and clink clink clink across the linoleum looking for something to get under. I’ve become confident that our WiFi relay tower on the Crestone will hold up through lightening storms, since it has been up there, for what, three or is it four years? Now we have a wind turbine sticking up as the highest point around for miles. A quick glance outside tells me the tower is still standing, but that’s about all I can tell. I’ll need to go out there and check the batteries and inverter, but I’m not terribly worried; it has made it through worse lightening storms than last night, knock on wood.
I was bored yesterday and decided to play with Facebook for a minute. Nope. I hate it. Within minutes my Facebook home page listed the entire file folder system of this Linux PC, of course I was thinking about adding some pictures to my photo album, but I was never warned that Facebook was about to hack into my PC. This is very bad, and I am inclined to dump Facebook because of this security breach. Besides I haven’t seen anything of any substance said on any of the chats. Social networks??? I bet the FBI loves Facebook. So, instead I went back to the BMN Outfitnm.com forum. Although not as much was happening as in the Facebook page I came from, at least the content was real.
While I was on http://outfitnm.com/forum I saw Adam was on at the same time. I asked him through one of the recent posts topics if we could have a chat window, to which he promptly installed two packages. After he installed the two packages we yakked it up for an hour or so, discussing ways to get everyone to the forum. Adam said we could give away stuff. I jokingly suggested a carbon credit, but that is too complicated. I wasn’t until this morning that it occurred to me that we should have a happy hour on the forum. Let’s set a time for all of us to get together on the forum. Don’t get me wrong, there already is a lot happening on the forum, but there are 100 users on the forum, and perhaps ten of them have written anything.
If you have any ideas on how we can make the forum more enticing, please do let us know. Perhaps you don’t know how to log in, again please shoot me a message at brodgers@desertgate.com Please we really want more of you over there telling us what you think. The sky is the limit, hell we would even be interested in what you did on Friday night. A huge plus with our forum is no advertisements. The part I hate the most about Facebook and My Space is the obnoxious little window box with the college co-ed doing something with her hair or god only knows what. Yeah, I do hate something, little flashy, constantly moving images while I am trying to read or write something. It really is no wonder that most of the messages I’ve seen on Facebook are choppy and short.
So yeah, screw Facebook and Myspace, they are commercial endeavors, made by and for the establishment. We don’t need their input, indeed their input is stifling, unless of course you actually like commercials. I must be Mr. Old School, why shouldn’t I be, we have a great, stunning even astonishing group of friends, which I am so happy to say includes Adam Caldwell. We don’t need no stinkin Facebook, we have Adam. He is a much better programmer than all the sellout minions working for the corporate suits at Facebook and Myspace.
Really, though, you have to tell us what it is you want so we can make our forum work and bring us all together in a completely safe and commercial free
environment. Perhaps I should go into Facebook one last time and send everyone of my friends a link to the forum. Steal em away so to speak. Before I go that far,we need you all to head over and at least login and write a little something in your profile, maybe even a quick note.Hey, I have an idea, lets start a topic where we introduce ourselves
I’ll go do that right now.
While I am thrilled that the US troops are leaving Iraq, it seems our boys are now destined to die in Afghanistan. I’m slowly shifting in my feelings about war, in part because it seems to be a constant in our lives. Lately, I am of the mind that people who kill women and children as the crazies in the Middle East seem to do on a regular basis do need to be stopped at all costs, however illogical US and British invasion of Afghanistan appears to me, I suppose war is helping in some small way with the population problem. Now I know what you are going to say, "Brian is insensitive." From what I have heard and read, we have plenty, if not more male casualties in our cities with gangsters killing each other off than Americans killed in foreign wars or police actions. When we think about the wars we are involved in, it would be a good idea to think about the innocent bystanders being killed by our troops.
It is the killing of women and children that really gets to me. What drives a person to such a low level? Anyway I included a story with a picture of an American GI shooting what looks like every adolescent-male’s wet dream while a helicopter flies overhead. Truth is, I didn’t even read the story, I just liked the picture. Go get em America, try not to spend too much of our money while you are getting yourself killed over there fighting those evil
Mujahideen.Okay a couple of comics and I’m done
I hope I helped make your week with my newsletter. Friday morning comes around and I naively hope I did something worthwhile during the week.
See ya Monday, hope hope hope
Brian Rodgers
96 Dodge 4×4 3/4 ton for parts – $500 (Taos)
Reply to: sale-pfqa2-1249227251@craigslist.org
Date: 2009-07-01, 3:09PM MDT
- Location: Taos
- it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 1249227251
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New Facebook Privacy Controls Take On Twitter
In a move that may actually pass without a huge uproar, Facebook has begun testing new privacy options that will make the service pretty much just like Twitter, but only if you want it to be. Or so they say.
If these changes pass without a big user protest it would mark something of a return to normalcy for the service, which in the recent past has become globally-recognized for its ability to tiff users at seemingly every turn.
Once the changes–now in beta and not yet final–are complete, users will be able to decide who can see their Facebook posts on a post-by-post basis. The sounds like a chore, and may be if not implemented properly, but it also makes Facebook potentially much more flexible and useful than Twitter.
With the enhanced privacy controls, described by Facebook execs here and here, users will be able to select quite specifically–from everyone on the planet down to a single friend–who sees which posts.
Twitter makes no such allowances. Once you’ve accepted a follower, they see everything you Tweet. That aspect is part of what makes Twitter more like a news or announcements service and less a way to share information with only your close friends. That, and the 140-character message limitation, which Facebook lacks.
The new Facebook controls, as I understand them, would allow me to post links to blog posts like this one for everyone to see, while items of interest only to my ham radio friends would be visible only to a group of people that I’ve specifically selected.
Create enough groups and you could make Facebook publishing a pretty granular thing, while still maintaining a public face by posting to everyone. This could become complex, but only if you want to add lots of groups and sometimes forget to select the proper setting before sharing.
Reading Facebook’s description of the planned changes, which include getting rid of the oh-so-useless regional networks, I can’t find anything that makes the hair on the back of my neck rise. That is an unusual experience with Facebook lately, so I’ll have to go back and reread a few times.
Still, with the addition of friendly URLs (I am www.facebook.com/coursey), and the forthcoming privacy changes, Facebook may become a better Twitter than Twitter as well as a better Facebook than Facebook is today.
Finally, a Facebook change I may not have to vote against.
David Coursey, who has been called "cranky" in some blog circles, points out that this post is almost warm and cuddly. He tweets as techinciter and can be reached directly using the form at www.coursey.com/contact.
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US marines face a ‘hell of a fight’ in Helmand surge
United States Marines storming into southern Afghanistan are facing a "hell of a fight" in some districts while others are "suspiciously" quiet, their commander has said.
After meeting little resistance in the first day of Operation Khanjar, or ‘sword strike’, he said units south of Garmsir were involved in heavy fighting.
American marines lost a single soldier during the first 24 hours of the 4,000-strong assault on the Taliban heartlands of southern Helmand province.
The operation is the first big push of President Barack Obama’s surge strategy which has seen 21,000 reinforcements ordered to the country this year.
Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, said on Friday the 2/8 infantry battalion was meeting resistance at Toshtay, 16 miles south of Garmsir.
He said: "For 2/8, there is a hell of a fight going on in the southern quarter of the sector. 2/8 are going to face some challenges.
"An enemy-controlled baseline just south of Garmsir was crushed yesterday but that doesn’t mean all the enemy have gone.
"In the next few days the enemy will observe us to see what we are doing. Then they will come back with a vengeance."
He added: "Nawa is quiet, too quiet. Something is eerie. The enemy has gone to ground, shuras [councils of elders] are being set up."
The American marine offensive entered its second day as British troops north of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah began a third wave of their own Operation Panchai Palang or Panther’s Claw.
Around 800 Light Dragoons drove north after the Welsh Guards spent ten days capturing 13 crossings along the Shamalan canal a British military statement said.
On Friday it was announced Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe, the first British commanding officer to die in combat since the Falklands, had been killed by a roadside bomb during the operation.
The British said they hoped to allow free movement for next month’s presidential elections by securing the road between Lashkar Gah and Gereshk.
American marines were ferried into Garmsir and Nawa districts by a fleet of dozens of helicopters and armoured convoys in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Khan Neshin, further south where Islamist militants were said to have set up a shadow government, was overrun later in the day.
A Taliban website, which in the past has exaggerated and fabricated coalition casualties, said 15 foreign and Afghan soldiers died on the first day of the assault.
A statement said: "In every locality they faced bloody attacks by the Mujahideen, as a result of which the enemy suffered heavy casualties.
It continued: "As a result, so far 15 foreign and internal enemy soldiers have lost their lives in the fighting." After an aggressive 36-hour opening phase, the operation was predicted to slow as American marines attempted to win local ‘hearts and minds’.
First Lieutenant Kurt Stahl, a spokesman for the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, said: "When Marines go out into towns, they are always looking for opportunities to talk to village elders and explain why they are here."
"The intention is to understand each other, elders can express their concerns and an open flow of communication is secured."
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