Just a PSA - if anybody on MSN is getting random URLs from people taking the form http://theirusername.images.<something>.info/, don't click it. I'm not sure what it is but it's not something that's safe to click.
“Okay, so, erm. I guess I need to make this voice post now. Erm... those of you not in LiveJournal Support will probably not know what this is all about, but here we go anyway. This is going to be a public post, so, erm.
My name is Ciaran. I am a support administrator. I admin Issue Investigation, so that makes me an Issue Investigation admin. I have admin privs, and I have membership in lj_supportadmin. I enjoy being an admin... especially because in Issue Investigation we don't *have* any simple FAQ references to answer. But if I did, I would enjoy them, even if I had to answer lots of FAQ references.
Erm, So yeah, that's it, and I guess I'll hang up now. Er, see ya. Bye.”
“Hi again. Erm, this is actually just a test because I've, er, got an SIP client for my mobile phone now, and I can connect to Gizmo on it, and I can, erm... I can, er, make Voice Posts for free now when I'm at home. So I don't need to worry about these, er, charges [...] to a London number - I can do it for free through my home wi-fi. Yay!
So, erm, yeah, I'll just post this and see how it goes. Er... yeah. See ya.”
It's only one day... for now. But this is what Internet radio could permanently sound like after July 15th, or soon thereafter, if nothing is done.
A recent ruling increased the royalty rates for Internet radio stations by a massive amount - between 300%-1200%. Most Internet radio stations can't afford that by a long shot; as it is right now, they're struggling to make ends meet.
The worst part is, this royalty increase is retroactively enforced to January 1st, 2006. Most Internet radio stations will no longer be able to broadcast because of this. A lot of them - virtually ALL small and medium-sized stations - will go bankrupt.
If you value Internet radio, this should concern you. Even some of the bigger broadcasters, like sky.fm (aka. Digitally Imported) won't be able to continue broadcasting. This is serious.
So what can we do? How can we help to combat these rulings?
If you live in the US, your vote counts. SaveNetRadio.org is a comprehensive website detailing what can be done. In particular, the most effective thing you can do is to call your senators and representative in Congress to ask them to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act, S. 1353 in the Senate, and H.R. 2060 in the House. You can find who to call using this page at SaveNetRadio.org. Simply put in your ZIP code, and if asked, your ZIP+4 (or address if you don't know it).
If you live outside of the US, or even if you do and want to help in other ways too, here are other ways you can help:
You can raise awareness. That's what this post is, for example. Help others to understand just what this is about. While you may not be able to vote directly, your US friends most likely can. You can use the "Tell A Friend" page on SaveNetRadio's site to do this, or you can post about it on your journal, or however you normally would.
Donate to your favourite Internet radio station, or take out a membership if they offer it. Internet radio needs your support, and financial support is one of the better ways you can help. I've been a Premium member of sky.fm for a week or so now.
In case anybody is interested, I went back and updated my post from yesterday; it now has something resembling an essay. ;p Go read it if you're interested; it talks about how people with "unusual" problems are misunderstood and ridiculed, and includes a large part about "invisible diseases" such as fibromyalgia and ME.
I'm interested to hear your comments on that post. :)
Maybe you know someone who is not as smart as you, And maybe you laughed - maybe you laughed. Maybe you know someone who can't do the things you do, And maybe you laughed - maybe you laughed.
Well, remember, that someone came from Heaven too, And they are a child of God, the same as you!
Next time you meet someone who's less fortunate than you, Maybe you won't laugh, and maybe they won't cry; Maybe if you're kind, they'll maybe wonder why. They'll maybe feel like laughing too!
Some people can't see at all, and some people can't walk. Some people can't hear, and some can't talk. Some people are different-looking, Some people are strange. Some people hurt all the time, because of things they can't change...
Maybe you know someone who is always left behind, And maybe you laughed - maybe you laughed. Maybe you've seen tears that fall when others are unkind, And maybe you laughed - maybe you laughed.
Well, remember, that someone is loved by somebody too, And they are a child of God, the same as you!
Next time you meet someone who is struggling to get through, Maybe you won't laugh, and maybe they won't cry; Maybe if you're kind, they'll maybe wonder why. They'll maybe feel like laughing too!
-- Janeen Brady, "Maybe You Laughed"
I don't have the album this song is on, and to be honest I'm not sure I'd want to; it's a children's CD and some of the songs sound... not so good. But when I heard this one, I fell in love with it, hee. So true, too.
I've uploaded a version here (note: This is a better version than the one that was linked before :D) - thanks to exor674 for the original file, which came from an audio tape :O So that's why this one isn't really the best-ever quality... but I think it's worth it.
I'm personally of the belief that people can still learn from this song - even at our age. I'm not thinking of anybody in particular - just that the world is still like this. :(
Too often people nowadays don't know how hurtful they can be to those around them who suffer like this, even if it's not intentional. And when it is intentional... well, that's just sad.
For example, a number of very good friends of mine have fibromyalgia or ME (Chronic fatigue syndrome), both "invisible diseases" which nevertheless fundamentally affect their lives. They're "invisible" because if you were to look at them, you wouldn't obviously know that they had a problem. They don't go around with walking sticks or anything, since they don't need them - that's not their problem.
However, because of this, a lot of people don't understand how they can possibly have a problem, since they look fine on the outside. This leads to problems when, for example, they park in disabled parking spaces. Too many people have the idea that parking in a disabled parking space without some sort of visible problem isn't allowed - and worse, they sometimes "make sure" that the person knows that. While they have the best of intentions (that is, trying to keep the spaces free for people who in their opinion *are* disabled), they just don't realise that these people have just as much right to park in these spaces as those in wheelchairs do, and it just causes a lot of grief for the person affected.
Similarly, people try to be encouraging, but end up unintentionally being irritating. An example would be when the person with the disease says to someone else that they just don't have the energy to do something, and the other person is all, "Meh, you look fine to me. You can do it!" The trouble is, they can't, despite appearances, and trying to be encouraging like that is not going to change things, and probably ends up being very irritating, as yet *another* person doesn't understand them.
I could go on about invisible diseases, and similar things that aren't even diseases (like Asperger Syndrome) yet nevertheless cause similar problems for people, but unless people want to hear it, I won't; this is already looking to be a long post and I don't want to make it much longer. If people want me to talk about it though, do let me know.
Of course, those with invisible diseases aren't the only ones affected by this sort of thing. Visible physical deformities, blindness, deafness, and so on are all things that unfortunately invite (and actually can invite even *more*) ridicule and misunderstanding - and that's just not right for anybody.
Now, i'm not intending to put words in the mouths of my friends who have problems like these, especially as I don't have anything quite like them myself - so I'd like to ask people reading this to speak up in the comments about your own experiences, about whether I've got things right here, etc. There's no pressure - if you can't, or don't want to, it's fine. I like to make sure I have the right idea about things like these, however.
If you're interested in knowing more, there are a number of great sites to look at. For invisible diseases, a good resource is http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/ ; check out the Spoon Theory while you're there. (Unfortunately, it seems to now only be available in PDF format, it used to be available in HTML too. I sent an email about it; I think there should be a choice, since although PDFs *can* be more accessible than HTML for some people if the PDF is done correctly, they're inaccessible to others, especially as it's a proprietary format.)
I'm a strong advocate for people who are misunderstood in this way. Can you tell? (on another note, I'm not sure about the "Heaven" in "Well, remember, that someone came from Heaven too"; it doesn't seem to have an H at the beginning, making it sound more like "Well, remember, that someone came from Devon too", but somehow I don't think that's quite right. ;p Anyone know for sure?)
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This post is going to be of interest to UKers only, most likely.
I just got an email from a friend of mine, fledge, giving a link to a petition hosted on the website of 10 Downing Street against a new proposed scheme related to road pricing. It sounds innocent enough until you consider that on this proposed scheme, all UK vehicles would be tracked and movements recorded.
Normally I would call this a hoax, as emails like this are normally fakes. Sadly, however, this one really is legit. I'd never heard of this scheme before now and I'm guessing others haven't either.
Also, see this blog post from Bruce Schneier for some more interesting thoughts from last December. [edit: Um, oops, that was from December 2005. I guess it probably doesn't have anything to do with it. Sorry for the confusion.]
[to anybody coming here from the no_lj_ads post - hi! The vast majority of my journal is friends-only, so you won't see a lot of public posts from me here. I generally only post publically when there's an issue that I want to vent about that I feel everybody needs to see - like this. Feel free to add me if you like, but I probably won't add you back unless I know you.]
Okay, I will. It ain't so. There's been no LiveJournal policy change. Popups are not, as far as I know, ever going to appear on LJ.
So why are some S+ users getting them now?
To cut a long story short, this is because of a certain advertiser - kpremium.com (not linked; don't go there, I don't believe they deserve it) - being sneaky and underhanded. It's not LJ's fault, and I have no doubt that the ad will be gone in a few hours.
The ad itself is for a program that lets you download stuff - you know the sort of thing. The ad is a Flash ad, and masquerades as a banner ad.
Thing is, the Flash ad contains code to open a popup that leads to a very different destination - it's what I assume is an affiliate link that attempts to download and install ErrorSafe on your computer (link is to Symantec's description of it).
This, of course, would be totally against any ad company's guidelines. Masquerading as a banner ad, but discreetly opening a popup - and not only that, but to what people consider malware - is totally against any ad company's guidelines. So how did it get through?
Simple - the ad actually contacts its website in the background, and the site returns a response code that tells it whether to display the popup or not - "popup=1". My guess is that kpremium.com returned "popup=0" while the ad company were testing the ad for conformance to guidelines, and then they turned it back on once it was out in the wild.
This, my friends, is an absolutely despicable way to do things.
So, it's not LiveJournal's fault. No LJ policy change has been made. kpremium.com are the underhanded ones, and the ad company didn't spot the request the ad made. I have every faith that LiveJournal will nuke the offending ad as soon as possible.
Okay. So out of the 44 messages in my inbox as of this morning, 21 of them were spam. That's nearly 50%, people. *rolls eyes*
Wanna guess what the percentage is now? How does 70% strike you?
It's true. I looked at my inbox using the webmail interface just now, which displays 100 emails per page. I then selected to delete the spam I could easily identify just by subject and sender. I was even a little generous - some of the emails which I had were most likely spam, but had a vague enough subject that I didn't delete them offhand - I like to give emails the benefit of the doubt when it comes to spam.
After that, I hit the button to delete those emails. When the next page came back, my inbox was apparently 70 emails less than before - I started with 890 emails in my inbox (don't worry, I *do* read the ones I need to), and ended with 820. So 70 out of 100 emails were spam. Probably more.
Of course, there are a number of things to take into account with these figures. The first is that I use different addresses for *everything*. This means that depending on the email addresses they find, I could be listed many tens of times on the same spam list - all going to the same inbox, although the people using the addresses don't know that. This isn't pure speculation either - no less than 9 of my email addresses at my domain got more or less the same spam for "Penis Enlarge Patch", all of which were included in the count above.
I do *not* put addresses willy-nilly into forms. I don't sign up for free "Joke of the Day" lists or other silly things like that. And I *do* have spam filters on my email client, although I'm thinking I might need to employ stronger spam filters on the server. I hate deleting mail automatically, but I may be forced to at some point. (On a side note, I just noticed that SpamAssassin isn't operating properly. GAH. I'll see what I can do about that later.)
I wanted to point you to this site: http://www.renewforfreedom.org/ . The site itself is only applicable for people who are citizens of the UK - as is most of this post - but you may want to take a look anyway.
I've been subscribed to the mailing list of the organisation behind it - NO2ID (whose site is at http://www.no2id.net/ ) - for some time, and they launched this site last month. Basically, the gist is that we (that is, those of us who are UK citizens) should renew our passports in May, whether they've expired or not. For a mere £51, this will at least keep us from being put on the so-called National Identity Register for 10 years.
May is the month in which NO2ID and their supporters - like me - are making a protest. Although the actual date when the changes will happen will be later - although possibly as early as October - in the meantime you can renew whenever you like. If everybody renews in May, then not only will we be part of a big movement to send a message to the Home Office about how we feel about the NIR, you also won't need to renew for another 10 years, and thus you'll remain off the Register for that time. In the meantime, NO2ID will be doing their best to combat the Register and the ID Card scheme.
There is a factsheet available from the http://www.renewforfreedom.org/ website - look on the right hand side for the graphic saying "NO2ID FACTSHEET 1" (note: PDF link). It explains more about why I (and all the supporters of NO2ID) think this is important, and why I feel we should do the same.
Anyone who knows me will know that I'm not one to normally recommend forwarding messages to people. In fact, when I get forwards, I normally refuse to forward them, look up the message on snopes.com, and if the message is there, point the sender towards it. (btw, if this message somehow ends up on snopes.com: Hi Barbara! :-D)
However, I will say this: If you would like to support the initiative, then as well as making sure to renew your passport in May, you might like to pass on the factsheet, or a link to the 'Renew for Freedom' website, with your endorsement. PLEASE DO NOT SPAM! You could, for example, copy this post or an excerpt of it into your own journal, or email it to friends, colleagues or mailing lists and fora where you regularly post (as long as it's relevant, please) with your own explanation of why you'll be renewing. Or print some copies out and distribute them.
morti has set an interesting poll: The issue of political correctness aside, would you rather hear "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays"?
It's an interesting question. The latest post in jayisgames says:
Just a quick update to wish everyone and their loved ones a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, or whatever it is that your religion or your culture celebrates at this time of year.
That's a bit of a mouthful right there, and pretty loaded with vague sentiments. Quite a few other posts on my friends list do a similar thing.
Respecting other people's beliefs is good. But the trouble with a broad statement like the above is that it seems to lose its intent through over-political correctness. It doesn't really mean anything. We try to accommodate everybody in the things we say - and in so doing, lower their meaning for everyone.
"Happy Holidays" is similar, in my opinion. It's so watered-down as to lose its meaning. Each religion celebrates its holidays differently; the mere fact that it's a holiday isn't what makes followers happy. For Christians, it's because of the arrival of Jesus Christ on that first Christmas. For Jews, it's about victory of their faith over Hellenistic civilisation and victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire. You never get religious holidays for the sake of being holidays, so treating them all under an umbrella like that is insulting to everybody involved, except atheists.
One of the people at my workplace got infected by a trojan/virus today. It's pretty new, and seems to be spreading rapidly; Mcafee VirusScan couldn't detect it and I couldn't find much about it on the Internet. So here's what I do know.
This one is actually pretty good at getting you to run it, because the email it comes in is very well-written and is very enticing. The email will look something like these:
Your photograph was forwarded to us as part of an article we are publishing for our May edition of Business Review Monthly. Can you check over the format and get back to us with your approval or any changes you would like.
If the photograph is not to your liking then please attach a preferred one. We have uploaded the photo and article here, [URL snipped by Ciaran]
I noticed whilst browsing your site that there were problems with some of your links, when I tried again with Internet Explorer the problems were not there so I assume that they were caused by me using the Mozilla browser.
As more people are turning to alternative browsers now it may be of help for you to know this. I have enclosed a screen capture of the problem so your team can get it fixed if you deem it an issue.
Kind regards,
James Andrews Dept. Publishing FlexiPrint.co.uk
The person at my workplace got the second one. The attachment differs between cases, apparently; we got a ZIP file with a file named SO.SCR inide, using the icon for a .PDF file. Unfortunately, he didn't know that .SCR files aren't screenshots, but screensavers - in actual fact, just .EXE files renamed. He ran it, and the virus popped up an error, but of course it had installed onto his system and the error was just a cover for that.
A good rule of thumb is that if you get a file ending in .SCR at all via an email, do not open it unless you are absolutely sure you know what you're doing. There is absolutely no need for anybody to be sending you screensavers, and it's a common method of fooling people into thinking it's something other than an .EXE.
If you used to (or still do) use some form of RISC OS-based computer (the Acorn Archimedes, the RiscPC, Iyonix, etc - or even if you just use an emulator), and what's more, you played (or play) a game called "Stunt Racer 2000", then I want to hear from you. Basically, I want to try doing a similar sort of game for the PC; perhaps one that could import the original tracks, too. It's vapourware right now, and probably will be for some time at least, but I'd love to produce an OpenGL-based port of it to Windows/Linux.
I phoned up Viz-A-Viz to ask about placements. Apparently both tracks 2 (Theatre) and 3 (Technical) are full. There's a space in track 1 (Music) for a bass player, but I really haven't had experience with that.
Track 4 (Youth and community teams) is available, but I didn't feel like that's what God wanted me to do.
Okay. Let's see if I can organise my feelings, and sum up what my last post was about.
Basically, I feel very strongly that God wants me to enter into Optimum for the year. I'm certain of it, actually.
This, quite frankly, scares me. Make no mistake, this is not a decision you just make. Especially in a situation like mine.
Optimum is a year-long opportunity to work alongside Viz-A-Viz, as I mentioned before, in one of 6 different tracks - Music, Theatre, Technical Solutions, Youth and Community Teams, School's Work, or working with one of three organisations such as Bar'N'Bus.
I feel like track 2 - Theatre - is the one God wants me to do.
Now, consider the facts from my situation. I have been out of work for over a year. My bank account - my readily-accessible money - is dwindling, and the rest is all in difficult-to-access places which is meant for things like buying a house, having a pension, and basically securities like that. All of which has been carefully saved up, with help from my parents (read: My parents did most of this work, really.)
The year costs £3000-odd, but it's not needed to pay it all in one go, and it's pretty much normal that the church will help fund it, from what I've seen of the two other people I know of who have done it.
My parents aren't Christian. They are, however, well-versed in the ways of money. That's a good thing from the point of view of having a secure future, which pretty much everybody wants, right? Note that I'm not pooh-poohing the idea of saving up money; that would be silly.
All of the above scares me. A lot.
And what have I got for me?
God.
Yeah, my parents didn't think much of that either. I've explained to them both separately now about this conviction I have, and Mum rose up all the above points and more - like the fact that this may not be helping to get a job; if I wanted to go to university I would need to pay that too; and things like that. I'll be talking to them together later today. I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but at the same time, this could well be a big step.
Okay, I've done with my share of pessimism. Let's get on to what I believe this would do for me positively.
Firstly, it's going to teach me a ton of valuable lessons. This first one is probably the biggest of them all, and that's to trust in God completely. I believe God can really work through me if I just let him. To do that, though, I need to throw myself out. I need to put my trust in Him alone, and not on anything this world can offer.
Taking part in this year-long programme is going to make me grow in a lot of ways; in my skills as well as spiritually. It's going to boost my independence from my parents. I'll get hands-on work with drama, one of my favourite things, which may help to get a job elsewhere, or at least to get a university position. I'm going to grow closer to God. I'll be helping to evangelise to other people and telling them what God's doing in my life.
God's giving me the opportunity to let him really shine through me, and for me to grow in Him.
Of course, this is hard to understand for my parents. On an initial talk, my Mum was pretty upset about all this. My Dad said I was living in a world divorced from reality. Presumably both of them were thinking, "Who in their right mind would want to give up security in life for something that they have no idea how it's going to work out, except through faith in this 'God'?"
It's a very good question.
I would really, really appreciate prayers right about now, if you haven't already been praying. If you have, thank you very much, but please keep doing so.
As Christians, we're called on all the time from the pulpit to get out of our comfort zone and work with God. I just didn't think I'd be one to take those words to heart.
If you read this far, thank you.
[edit: I'm making all my posts on this subject public, with the exception of the last post (containing the chat log) until I receive permission (or not, as the case may be) to do so from Selah.]
Had a very nice chat with selahstar just now. Mostly about the last post, with some heavy Christian thoughts in between (and during, actually). I can't be bothered right now to organise it into a post, and in fact, I think the log speaks for itself, so I'll just post it as is. There was talk before this, but I'm only starting from the relevant bit. :) Names have been changed to their LJ names for privacy.
I've been thinking a lot lately about my blessings.
God's blessed me so much, especially in the area of creativity. A lot of people have told me that something I did or said was amazing. And I'm conscious of the fact that I'm different from other people. (The devil's trying to make me think I'm better than others, but I'm trying to resist that.)
I've been finding myself wondering why God chose to give me all these gifts that I have. He obviously wants me to do something with them. I've been praying a bit about this, and I think He's trying to nudge me to an organisation in the UK called Viz-A-Viz, which is a Christian outreach organisation, basically. They offer "year out" plans with them called Optimum, which is what I think God wants me to do. I personally know two people who've been on that themselves.
So now that I've said the above, let me explain why I'm scared to death of this:
The first and most obvious problem is money. As in, I don't have it. (Or at least, I do, but most of it is tucked away somewhere for things like buying a house, car, etc, which is what my parents want me to save up for.) This should probably be combined with the neext point:
My parents aren't Christians. In other words, they're going to believe I'm absolutely barmy for doing this because of the money and job situation. (I've been looking for a job for over a year now.) I do believe that God's wanting me to do this, though.
What happens afterwards? I could go to uni, but doing what? Although thinking about that, that question may be better answered during the year itself.
And probably the biggest thing... I've never done anything like this before. I have no freaking clue what happens, and it scares me to death to think that I'll be relying solely on God for the money situation and other things. Nothing will be familiar to me. To be quite honest, though, to be able to do that would be a big step in my spiritual growth. A freaking huge step, even; I need to know what it feels like to trust solely in God and not keep myself tucked away in my secure world. I need to say, "Lord, I'm Yours. Do what you will with me. Really." and mean it.
So, there you have it. If you pray, I would really appreciate prayer on this. Pray that He would grant me the wisdom to know (or not, as the case may be) that this is actually what He wants me to do, and that if it is, I may have the courage and boldness to take the first steps. After all, the first steps are always the hardest.
[comments screened and IP logging off] [2005-08-14: IP logging is back on for anonymous users. I still wouldn't really use it though.]
Reply if you have, or have had at any time, a crush on me. All entries are screened. Then post this in YOUR journal and see how many have secretly lusted for you. Also, I would like to know WHY, please, because I'm interested in things like that. No pressure, though. (Anonymous comments are fine too.)
(I don't think anybody apart from maybe a couple of people I already know will reply to this, but hey, I could be surprised... :D)
[Edit: Just noticed that anonymous comments aren't possible in a friend-only post, so this post is now public. Fear not, the comments will still be screened, so feel free to say whatever you want as no one else will see it. And if you want to be anonymous, you can do that now.]
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