I wasn't going to do a Making Of JF tonight, but I read something that was very worth it. What was it, you ask? An article about Anarchists in Venezuela. If you've been too busy protesting the war on Iraq, Afghanistan, or otherwise, you might have missed the glaring conflict in Venezuela. If you keep your eyes on news, you've seen some very disturbing things coming from that neck of the woods. The basic facts are: Chavez is president, he is a socialist, and he has been ousted once or twice by opposition, but currently resides as technical president. Supporters of Chavez say that the counter-revolution was prompted by the CIA. While this is not confirmed by solid evidence, it makes good sense considering the CIA's history in Central America and especially with leftist governments like Chavez. And now I'm going to add my opinions. Unfortunately, I don't have much of an authority. What I know, I get from what I read: Drudge Report, Seattle Indymedia, and a few others. If I were in your situation, I'd look for better, more informed opinions than mine. Perhaps in a few years, my opinion may become much more informed on the topic. What I do have for you is a commentary on the correct way that an anarchist works. I applaud the true anarchists keeping it real in Venezuela (they are pictured in the center of my silly little pic).
I just watched all three games of the Kasparov/Deep Junior match after watching Cowboy Bebop Chessmaster Hex. It was pretty cool. Kasparov, Deep Junior, and all good chess players have one skill that I lack: giving up a piece for the win. I give up pieces, yes, but only if it's a choice between that one and one of higher value or one in my immediate plan. After watching Kasparov/Deep Junior, I decided to have a little Man vs. Machine game for myself: Javantea vs. gnuchessx. My gnuchessx is running on a 1.7 GHz Pentium 4 with 128 MB PC-133 RAM running a custom build of Linux 2.4.20, from Slackware 8.1, XFree86 4.2.1, and KDE 3.0. Why does any of that matter? The Pentium 4 makes gnuchessx extremely fast. How fast? It beat me using less than 5 minutes in all three games and I took 6 minutes going a bit faster than usual. The 128 MB of PC-133 RAM means that the processor is not limited by the hard drive speed. Everything used is on RAM, and only 4 MB is on my gigabyte swap partition. The Linux 2.4.20 means that the setup is free (as in speech) and since I downloaded Slackware 8.1, it was also free (as in lunch*). XFree86 4.2.1 means that I do minor updates on low level systems. KDE 3.0 means that I don't like spending 8 hours compiling a major update to high level systems like KDE and that Slackware is slacking on building binaries for KDE.
Making of JF three days in a row? Naw... I just wanted to say a few things. Download the Postscript document. There's a law that's coming into popularity that is going to limit Clear Channel. Most people would think that I would like this since I sincerely dislike Clear Channel. But this is not the case. While I love indy radio, especially internet radio, I support Clear Channel under one condition. ^_^ What is that condition? That the FCC not prosecute pirate radio stations that compete with Clear Channel. The fact that a person is required to buy the ability to transmit data around his/her house is ludicrious. If my machine can create a signal, then by gosh I'm going to transmit! But no, I need to pay the government money and I need to refrain from talking about certain things. Like what? Like: "FUCK YOU FCC! Lick my pirate radio boot, you mofo pigs!" If I said that on radio, I'd get a huge fine. But more, I have to pay to fire beams of light at a certain MegaHertz frequency. Absolute rot! Oh, we don't want to distort those others speech, no... We only want people who are making a lot of money saying things that we wouldn't mind our grandmothers to hear. You illegalize online radio, making it so expensive that anyone who wants to has to be Clear Channel or Yahoo?. So in order to offset your gross overbearing monopoly you caused by supressing free speech, you're going to stop a moneymaking business from making money? So you will only allow Clear Channel to broadcast, but you won't let them broadcast? Listen to me people, when the FCC catches my pirate signal and sues me, I'm going to pull a Fountainhead (read it to find out my solution).
"Do you think you can tell heaven from hell? Blue skies from pain? Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil. Do you think you can tell? Did they get you to trade, your heros for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees. Hot air for a cool breeze. Cold comfort for change? Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year. Running over the same old ground, how we found the same old fears, wish you were here." -- Pink Floyd, "Wish you were here"
