Heather's Blogpile

Jammin' Java, Vienna, Virginia Nov. 10, 2004   Photo Credit: Hideyo Moriya

CGT Roadcam Archives (link)

What a great night!

Last week Emma noticed that the California Guitar Trio were scheduled to play at Jammin' Java, a local coffeehouse (in Vienna, VA) on Nov 10th. We don't usually do weeknight concerts as I get up for work at 5am, but with the Veterans Day holiday on Nov 11th, it was very possible. I bought tickets online, and we were in a short line at 7PM.

The show started around 7:40 with Bert Lam playing a number of classical pieces (I believe Bach - but I ccouldn't tell you the names). Gorgeous stuff beautifully played.

Next up was Tom Griesgraber, an amazing artist, playing a 12 string Chapman Stick. Follow the link for more info about Tom and his music, or about the Chapman stick in general. Tom put on a fine show, moving the hammered string style of the stick with a number of live loopings a la Frippertronics - great stuff! We bought his CD afterwards

But the real joy was the CGT. I've been a fan of their stuff since I heard "Train from Lamy Suite" on a DGM sampler in the 90s ... but I've missed them for one reason or another everytime they've been in town. But we had great seats, and they played fantastic! Some old stuff (even "Lamy Suite"!), and some new stuff off their new Whitewater CD. They played for 2 hours without a break, even an accoutic number, then came back for a 2 song encore including Bohemian Rhapsody with the audience doing a sing-a-long as they played.

At the end, Hideyo took pictures of the audience for the "RoadCam" part of his diary. Emma and I are center of the picture (with Mark and JD) at the table 1 row back from the front. A real fun night!

Posted by Heather at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After the final debate last week, Gina writes of the 1049 Rights afforded to straight married couples that are denied to Gay and lesbian couples who would seek to marry, if only it were "allowed".

http://scribbling.net/1049-federal-rights-depend-on-marital-status

She mentions the Government Accounting Office Jan 1997 Letter from Henry Hyde listing the specific rights that marriage brings. http://www.gao.gov/archive/1997/og97016.pdf

Her story is so close to home! Emma and I moved in together over the Thanksgiving weekend, 8 years ago. We bought a home together August 1, 2000. We would share insurance, car registrations and all the rest, if it wasn't denied to us. We have gotten our wills done, had all kinds of external legal documents done, just in case one of us has an accident or dies. Yet we still won't be able to share social security benefits and many of the other "priviledges" granted to couples that are "approved by the state".

Posted by Heather at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here is a state-by-state list of irregularities http://www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp?offset=0&catid=&showall=&sort=

PST! There is more than just a few stories digging into the rumours of Election Fraud. Here is a huge list of Election Vote Irregularities courtesy of Shaula Evans She says: I just fell into a goldmine. Here are more links for whoever wants them:

• CIA-style hacking rigs election for Bush
• Black Box Voting calls it Fraud
• Surprising Pattern of Florida's Election Results
• The Greg Palast classic: An Election Spoiled
• Washington Dispatch: Vote Fraud in Ohio?
• Presidential votes mis-cast on machines across the country
• Reconciling voting machine and exit poll discrepancies
• Ohio Whitewash
• Institute for Public Accuracy on Ohio Elections
• software flaw found in Florida vote machines
• Florida numbers analysis (chart)
• exit poll chart via BOP reader alyosha (thanks, man)
• Stolen Election 2004
• Open Voting Consortium
• 4000 votes missing in Pennsylvania County
• Palm Beach county logs 88,000 more votes than voters

are you getting the picture yet...

• outrage in ohio
• Broward County Florida voting machines count backwards
• Diebold Pres Odell's 2003 promise to "deliver Ohio for Bush"
• Greg Palast: Kerry Won
• Diebold Machines yield fishy results
• Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Votes in Ohio
• More evidence of possible fraud in Darke County, Ohio
• Election Theft Bombshell: Major Security Breach

And finally, from the "We told you so" files, A technical look at how they can steal it

Posted by Heather at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Evidence mounts that the recent US Presidential Election was hacked (Thanks, Grant!)

All the time the Diebold machines were being moved into position for the eVote initiative - to "help" avoid the issues of the 2000 Presidential election, and these machines have no internal printer, there is no paper trail, no way to check if the vote you think you entered was actually recorded that way. Check the " eVoting Fraud" link in the links sidebar for more info.

Now another source arises with specifics on questionable number from the 2004 voting ... see http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4175 Also see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/ 2004/11/05/politics1149EST0515.DTL

Here are some charts that compare voter registrations with votes received in Florida.

There are ways to have accountability. You can have voting machines that when you vote they printout a receipt card that is human and machine readable - you can read it visually to confirm it recorded what you voted, then you slip it into a scanner device that reads it and does the tallying. The receipt cards never leave the poll, so they are there if a recount is needed.

Posted by Heather at 8:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Freaking unbelievable. All the folks that came out to vote, all the education about the corruption of Cheney and Bush's crazy ways - and the totals show a Bush win? I don't believe it.

John Perry Barlow has a great post, dealing with the realities of moving on through the aftermath a the election

Posted by Heather at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got Emma a 12 inch iBook for a birthday/Ordination present. To make it more enjoyable, I set it up with another 512meg of memory, and an Airport Extreme network card, so she can use it anywhere in the house. I also got a refurbed Airport Extreme base station (the one w/out the modem), and connected that to our Cable Modem through our existing home router. With all of this, I loaded Mac Stumbler on the notebook, logged in and got a solid 69 or 70 units (?) at my desk next to the base station.

This also has the benefit of raising the signal at the Airport Express downstairs that feeds the stereo - so now the iTunes feed from my old powerMac is rocksolid downstairs.

I took Emma's iBook downstairs to the easy chair in the living room and had a solid 55 units. Emma came and sat down in her Ikea chair - with the skylights and all the plants its her favorite seat (got great light during the day and evening and I handed her the iBook and she did some surfing and it was very quick and painless ...

Next test - out back by the pond! And that too works great now! (Course it probably helps that the Airport Extreme is on the back wall of our office, 20+ feet above ground level)

See the notes at this site - Alan Karl's Blog - The Digital Tavern
He set up a 2000 vintage G4 Cube as a music server for his 1200+ CD collection using NetTunes - an under $25 shareware app that lets you starts and run iTunes on one machine from another machine!

Googling found this great site with - Airport Extreme Dissected - Great disassembly images - and a lot of other related info!

Another source of info is BSR Tech, LLC thats short for Base Station Repairs ... they have a Link to a Airport Base support forum

Posted by Heather at 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)