Piano Man and other things

I took today off - a floating holiday from work. I'm sitting at home, and there's so many things I'm thinking of doing that I can't seem to focus on any one of them before my mind flits to something else. I've thought of my mind as a giant ferris wheel before, and it's really been like that for me today.
I have a new Yamaha YPG-525 keyboard. Have I mentioned this? It's an 88-key midi keyboard, with lightly weighted keys (the fully weighted keys are available on its big brother, the YPG-625, but it was $280 more - perhaps one day when I'm wealthy I'll splurge.) I've produced a midi file with it, and been playing with all of its functionality. A family member has borrowed my favorite fake book, though, so I'm stuck with the tunes I can remember, and a Christmas fake book, until they return. Learning the keyboard has been a wonderful experience over the past few years. I like fake books because I can only play in a simplistic style. (Full chorded left hand and simple right-handed melody) But, I enjoy playing, and I like the escape it brings. After two hours of playing, though, I have to get up and go do something else.
One of the songs I've taught myself is Piano Man by Billy Joel, and I've recorded it as a midi file which you can play (click on the song title). It sounds better on the Yamaha than it does in Windows because of the richness of the instruments. Of course, my piano playing won't win me any awards anytime soon.
On the other side of my brain is thoughts of new web sites that I want to create, should I get the right motivation. I'm thinking of starting up an incubator for web ideas and putting some irons in the fire to see if any of them get hot. You just never know what people will go for, and you'll never know just what will work unless you try it. I've convinced the wife that we may want to invest some cash into some of my more hair-brained schemes (or is it hare-brained, ala Bugs Bunny?)
Then, there's my stock investing. I've bought into some companies recently. And, like golf, there's always the one shot that keeps you coming back no matter HOW much the rest of your shots suck. I made $500 on a three day trade on a $2000 investment in my IRA trading into and out of a company named TRNS. It was a simple gimme - someone on the board was offloading a ton of stock and it depressed the price temporarily. Noting that the company itself was fine and actually undergoing growth, I bought up some stock and made a nice 25% profit, turning it around a few days later.
But, much like my golf game, the rest of my picks haven't been doing so hot, except perhaps my investment into gold (ETF: GLD). The dollar is sliding into oblivion with almost no end in sight (go Ron Paul for President - fiscal responsibility needed NOW).
If you're interested in a stock pick, though - now might be the right time to buy into Nautilus (NLS) - an investment group is trying to get rid of current board members, and the CEO has just been changed out to try to turn the company around. With the proxy fight and the past performance of the company, the stock price is pretty depressing. I bought some on the downslope, but certainly didn't hit the bottom. Once the proxy fight is over, though, the company should see some real turnaround. Nautilus owns some pretty big names in exercise equipment, and they won't be going out of business anytime soon.
Then, there's my website. Boy, does it need a makeover. I got rid of one component that added no value, but added plenty of UGLY, and I've changed the default stylesheet, but I'm not sure that's the best I can do. It's bugging me enough that I may take the time to do something about it this week.

13 days

Sigh - it's been 13 days, and no word from ISC^2 yet about the CISSP exam scores. I was already antsy about it, but I'm getting more so as time passes. I don't know when results will be back, but the website says to expect them in 4-6 weeks or possibly LONGER!! depending on when you took the test, when it was scheduled for others, etc. Looking on the Intra-webs, others claim to have received their notice from 7-10 days after taking the exam (the lucky *&@%s). I do know that I'd like my results back soon so that I can stop thinking about it.
Update: It appears that ISC^2 is undergoing some system changes, and have not graded exams even for tests taken in early October (2007). So, there are some who have been waiting even longer than I for their test results. I feel their pain. As someone mentioned on the CISSP study boards, it looks like ISC^2 forgot what the A stands for in the C.I.A. concept (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability).

Legislation

Gah - Bleagh!

I just took the CISSP exam. I have no clue if I passed. Seriously...no clue, whatsoever. There were easy questions....color in the circle exercises. There were hard questions....what? thingamijiggy who? Pick a random letter from A to D. There were questions that made me want to throttle the test writer, and then there were the questions that seemed completely subjective.
From my quick search of the Intra-webs, I am not alone. It took me 3 and a half hours to fill out the answer sheet with some semblance of what looks like someone taking the test might do. Now for the long wait....1 to 2 weeks by what the web says...
My mind is numb. I studied my ass off, and I still have no clue how I did...incredible.

Absolutely Wonderful!

Just now, between 7 and 8PM this evening, I was on the phone with my state government senator. Not in a one on one conversation, but as part of a conference call on the issue of illegal immigration. I received the call, and it said if I was interested in participating in a live town hall meeting I could hold the line. I found myself listening to an interactive discussion about the issue, complete with opinion polls and the option to connect with my own questions on the subject.
For the record, I thought this was fabulous! I'll accept these calls any time that I have time to listen, and by the sounds of the numbers (600+ listeners out of 3000+ called I believe he mentioned at the end), others in my constituency agreed with me. I'm not completely familiar with all of the politics of this particular representative (Jay O'Brien, Virginia Senate), but as of tonight I know a lot more where he is taking us on this issue, and I now feel that the questions I have are being addressed.
So, let's hear it for more political conference calls from my local and federal representatives. Let's have one of these a week at least, with random participation amongst registered constituents (voters) to make it fair and balanced. The format was great - and with an online transcript, it would be even better. Kudos, Jay O'Brien!

Cingular/AT&T - Understanding your product is important

I just got off the phone with a supervisor at AT&T/(we used to be Cingular) customer service. As some of you know, I escaped AT&T Wireless customer service a few years ago when I switched to T-Mobile, and I escaped T-Mobile's complete lack of coverage by switching to Cingular. It appears that the gods hate me for being an atheist/agnostic, because AT&T bought Cingular just to spite me (I'm kidding - I know that if there are no god(s) they can't hate me).
Back to my point. Cingular's (now AT&T) data services are called Media*Net or Media Net (depending on where you look). AT&T re-branded them as AT&T Media, it would appear...although the new brand is only apparent only after you log in at this page. On this service, you can sign up for daily alerts, like stock quotes, news items, etc, etc. They're delivered via SMS to your phone. Fire and forget web services are great up until the forget part. That's my sin...I forgot.
Every day at 2:45, or abouts, I would get 4 stock quotes delivered to me. This was great, until I stopped caring about one of them. Then, looking at the SMS, there was no indication of where these alerts were coming from. I checked Yahoo alerts, Google alerts, MSN, everything I could think of...no dice...I could not remember who I signed up for these quotes from......time to call the mobile customer service for some help.
The first Customer Service Rep(CSR) I spoke with told me that she could not tell me who I was receiving the messages from. I explained that they were coming from 1110410000 and she said that meant the Media-Net service, but because that meant the data service for my phone, that it could be coming from anyone, and was probably coming from a 3rd party service. I explained that if she could tell me who that was I'd be on my way. No luck - seems that there is no way for her to trace the service down. She'd be happy to block all SMS's coming from that number, though. As this would destroy my ability to receive other desirable messages, I declined. She suggested that they could be coming from Yahoo. I thanked her and hung up.
The second CSR I called because I finally figured that the messages could indeed be coming from Media Net itself. I slightly recalled signing up for the alert service when I first got my Media Net service a year or so ago. I tried to explain this to her. She explained that I had no subscription services she could see and had no idea who the messages were coming from. I slowly repeated that they were coming from Media Net and that I needed to know how to access these subscriptions since my online account had no pointers whatsoever to the old Media Net configuration page. I asked for a CSR familiar with the Media Net service. At this point, she explained I wasn't paying for the messages anyways, so what did I care...........wait, what?
...I pulled up my bill - there the messages were - counting against my monthly limit. Excuse me, I do indeed pay for them, they count against my limit. If I go over x messages a month, I have to pay 5 cents each for them. That's $1.00 in value every month the now useless messages are taking up. But you're not paying for them, since you haven't reached my limit, she stakes her claim and holds on for dear life. Apparently this is a woman who will buy stuff because it's on sale and she's saving money by spending it. I am sooooooo glad I'm not her husband at this point.
Ok, options, she offers.....You could change your cell phone number, or disable SMS messages, she claims. Those aren't options - those are cop-outs because you can't seem to help me. If I were getting death threats by SMS, you'd be able to find the source, wouldn't you? No, sir, we could send you your bill.... I glanced at the useless 8 letters on my bill that indicated only INFODATA as the source. Maybe I could send the cops to go arrest someone named INFODATA if my life were in danger, but I seriously doubted it.
Ok, I changed tactics. What if I wanted to change the city which weather displays on my cellphone when I push the Media*Net button? Just a second, sir....(for the fifth time this call, at least).....20 seconds later....:click: The commercials you hear while on hold mercifully stop...but so does all sound. I have been hung up on...I have 5 bars - I checked. Full signal - dropped call - guess their commercials aren't all they're cracked up to be.
Google - found my answer in 2 minutes. The link is buried deep in AT&T's Cingular site. Manage Alerts - Delete. I've just saved myself 20 messages a month - a whole dollar's worth should I hit my SMS limit.
So, Rich - what's the point - why do you care? I'll tell you why. It's their service, their product. They're supposed to know it. If they claim that there is no separate support for Media Net, then they should know how to configure it, change it, manipulate it, cancel it, etc. The fact that they don't, is unfortunately part of what I've come to expect of AT&T Customer Service. Of course, these could be former Cingular employees, but AT&T Customer Service has been known to be bad for years. My favorite Lily Tomlin back in the 1970's made fun of them, and nothing has changed. They still don't take customer service seriously.
Maybe I'll get lucky and be able to escape them again.....I wonder how many bars Verizon has at my house and workplace....

My Fire Alarms Went Crazy

11:20PM - All of my fire alarms in the house just went off. Starting at the bottom floor, I go to each in turn, sniffing the air, searching for any signs of smoke or fire. I reach the top floor within the minute, and everyone is up except the wife, who seems to be sleeping through the piercing. She groggily asks me what's going on. The alarms suddenly stop. It's now 11:31. By now, everyone has gone back to bed, and I've googled to see what the f--- is going on with my fire alarms. Is it a hack, is it an indication that someone is playing games with the electrical system? Well, not that I've found. It's as simple as one of my alarms likely malfunctioning. They're 8 years old, so it may be time to replace them. I only hope they stay asleep tonight so that I can....if I can even close my eyes now.

The Next Y2K is coming.

Ok, everyone who's been in IT for more than 7 years should remember the mass scramble to patch all of your systems by Jan 1, 2000. Dates stored with two-digit years prior to 2000 had a rollover effect as the years went from '99' to '00', possibly affecting math operations. History tells us that this created a few small problems in 2000, but for the most part, IT folks got ready for it and did a bang-up job making sure code was compliant and in working order by the millenium.
Only one problem - not all date/time is stored in plaintext in our systems. Nope, in fact, one heavily used storage mechanism for storing dates and times is storing the information in a rather larger unsigned integer that counts the number of seconds since January 1, 1970. Anyone who programs for Unix/Linux or other variants should instantly recognize this marker. Well, the timer is ticking, folks. That integer won't last forever. We're going to have some rollover in 2038 (early AM on January 19th). And that's only 21 years away.
Sure, you may not be a programmer 21 years from now, but you have a duty to save yourself from this coming catastrophe for your code. And if you're reading this, consider yourself warned.
If you're coding for a 64-bit system, perhaps the solution will be to write some helper methods that use a 64-bit counter that can be recoded once libraries are available for the date methods. This will save the maintenance time of looking through all of your code for the smaller integers later. Of course, using proper typing for your code is important too; using int when you meant to use time_t for example.
If you code, or support code that uses time functions based on the January date, take a look at your code now to ensure that it is ready to switch over to new methods or new sizes. 21 years may sound like a lot now, but the years will tick off sooner than you think.

Natural Rights - Who? What?

What is a 'natural right'? It's interesting that we, as Americans, have lost the self-image of ourselves as a free people, and instead think of ourselves as a free nation. The difference is that we see ourselves as part of a greater being, a group rather than individuals. The danger in this thinking is that we do not pay attention to the fact that what we should be protecting is our individual, God(?)-given rights, rather than our concept of proper politics or form of government.
When you look at the Declaration of Independence, which separated this great country of ours from the Oppression of the King of England, and I quote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Notice where the rights come from...not from any form of governing body, not from the rule of the iron fist, but from our Creator. These are natural rights. As human beings, we have the natural right to live life as we see fit. A government can not take these rights away from us. A government should only help us protect each other from the exercise of these rights by others when it will interfere with our own rights.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

Government derives its power from the governed, to secure the rights of the individual. Government is a tool meant to protect our natural rights. Look to your candidate for the upcoming elections. Ask yourself whether this basic premise is the premise for the platform upon which they stand. If it is, vote for them. If not, find yourself another candidate. It's your natural right to be governed by someone who has YOUR best interest(s) at heart. And if you can't find yourself another candidate, may I suggest looking at Ron Paul, the only candidate I've heard mention our natural rights as the basis of his beliefs.

An Honest Conservative Politician is Running for President.

Why am I backing an underdog in the 2008 election? Ron Paul spoke with Tucker Carlson today on MSNBC. Tucker asked him about some of his decentralized economic policy, asking him outright if he sounded callous or mean. Dr. Paul's response was fantastic. He spoke about how Federal programs aren't working out, how FEMA seems to make more of a mess than local efforts would have provided.
The more I think about what he said, the more it makes sense to me. He used the term 'bread crumbs promised' by the federal government. Is it good to depend upon the freebies that the government provides us rather than depending on ourselves and our localities to provide? When you give someone a helping hand, isn't the common problem that the person you've helped will only look to you for a handout each and every time they get into trouble and end up depending on you instead of themselves? For the freebies, don't we also have to give up something in return, part of our freedom? Is that loss worth the price?
And what is the cost of a government handout? If the government gives you $1, but it costs the country $10, then what is the benefit to the country in the end? Aren't we just subsidizing a huge inefficient bureaucracy whose primary purpose is to shuffle an ever-devaluing dollar?
These are all just thinking points for me right now, and I welcome debate, but this man makes a lot of sense to me when I hear him speak. Hopefully his campaign takes off. Perhaps the Republicans will realize that to win in 2008 they will have to offer up a candidate that is very different from the current regime. Swing voters, fence-sitters and true conservatives aren't going to vote for Rudy - he's just more of what we already have.