Atheist Thinking Blog

I while ago I opened my Atheist Thinking Blog and it is getting some decent traffic on it now. Each article has a minimum of two reads and I get about 5 visitors per day on average. Of course, this is to be expected for a new blog and it needs some fore followers which is why I am posting it here.

If you are an atheist, this blog might be really helpful. It contains logical responses to common theist claims, insights into how to deal with theists in your life, and a small bit of cheesy humor. If this is the kind of thing you are looking for, check it out using the link above!

The AJ00200 Website

I would like to remind everyone that the real AJ00200 website is located at http://www.aj00200.org/. For some reason, my older websites are still showing up above aj00200.org in Google's search results, but this is the real website.

The New AJ00200 Blog

Well, I have moved my blog to my real hosting and you can find it here: The AJ00200 Blog. It is not likely that I will post here much anymore as the new blog is far superior to Google's Blogger/BlogSpot.

OpTunisia

Source: AnonOps Blog.

Happy New Year!

Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for a great year. That includes people who read my blog, my Twitter followers, my website readers, BBot users, Ubuntu programmers, and a wide variety of non-profit organizations which help make the world a better place. It is people like you who make the world a less-lonely place.

However, 2010 has been a year filled with success and failure.
Success

• WikiLeaks has started releasing 250,000 secret diplomatic cables which sparked a world-wide debate that was not only about our government, but also about net neutrality and freedom of information. Even many lawmakers are questioning the over-classification of documents.
• It is been decided in a court that hardware owners are allowed to use their hardware how they want (homebrew, jailbreaking, etc...).
• Facebook has finally done something about privacy options (although still not enough, it is a start).
• I have completed an HTML5 game which is advancing the use of open technologies on the Internet
• We have seen the foundation of the Dot-p2p project which hopes to provide a decentralized DNS system.

Failures

• Governments all over the world are losing sight of what free-speech is and switching to censored Internet models like those contained in China. Projects like Freenet might be our only hope. Although the United States hasn't gone this far yet, the the government has decided that it doesn't need permission to take down domain names.
• Hosting providers, credit card companies, and DNS providers alike have caved in to political pressure from the United States government had have cut services from WikiLeaks. Although it isn't illegal to ask private corporations to infringe upon your free-speech rights, this shows how the world will be going in the future with what is essentially legalized censorship.

I would just like to remind everyone that even on new years night/day, I do not rest, I keep fighting communistic control of speech (hence this blog post). Although I can't expect you to be this extreme, I sure hope you will send your congressmen an email asking them to support net neutrality and free-speech in this upcoming congressional term. Without speech, we are nothing, and I am not about to let that happen.

Happy New Year everyone!

Firefox 4!

I have been using Minefield, which is basically, the very, very latest code for Firefox (which can sometimes be buggy). By using Minefield, I have been introduced to a variety of new features that will be included in Firefox 4 when it will be released (scheduled for January 2011). With this release drawing dear, I have decided to get into the true HTML5 spirit by making a complete HTML5 game. So, I made a Snake Clone. To play, simply click start and use the arrow keys to collect the food blocks to help your snake grow. This snake game was made completely with HTML5 (HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and the canvas element) making it one of the most open games to date!

This silly little game has also been submitted to a HTML5 game competition (which I was not hoping to win). You can read more about the results on the new AJ00200 Blog.

By the way, I am accepting donations to fund the development of more open-technology HTML5 based games. You can send donations to the Bitcoin address 12pkhaGcZmoa9RkG11PQm1XNG9D6m62Q2U. Don't have Bitcoins? You can get 0.05 or 0.5 (if you are lucky) at http://freebitcoins.appspot.com/. Remember, any little bit helps.

My Thoughts
Overall, I thought that designing a game using HTML5 was great! Although my JavaScript skills were a bit rusty from under-use, I still managed to complete the game within a few hours. The process was very smooth the whole way through. I am glad to say that HTML5 will replace Flash eventually, but not without a good fight. Until then, making an HTML5 app rather than Flash is the best way to get my attention as I would choose anything over Flash.

Tweet

jHS
I have not yet announced the jHS project on my blog, but jHS stands for javascriptHackingSoftware. It is meant to be similar to MHS (Memory Hacking Software) or CheatEngine, except for HTML5/JavaScript games. This program is a long way off, so you don't have to worry about anyone hacking your HTML5 games just yet, but make sure to do the security right the first time.

Happy Gravmas Everyone

Happy Gravmas (Gravmas is a non-Christian celebration of Isaac Newton who was born on December 25) everyone.

As my Gravmas gift to you, I would like to show everyone a little known piece of software called LMMS (Linux Multi-Media Studio). LMMS is a powerful program for both Linux and Windows which is used for creating music. It is similar to FruityLoops (and it can, in fact, import files from there) and possibly some of the trackers I have come across. Here is the summary from the LMMS website:

LMMS is a free cross-platform alternative to commercial programs like FL Studio®, which allow you to produce music with your computer. This includes the creation of melodies and beats, the synthesis and mixing of sounds, and arranging of samples. You can have fun with your MIDI-keyboard and much more; all in a user-friendly and modern interface.

At the current moment, I am working on a set of beats which will be released under the Creative Commons License for use in whatever you see fit, and of course, I am doing this in LMMS.

Want to share, join #beat-masters on irc.fossnet.info (port 6667; SSL 6670).

Universal Subtitles

I have just added the UniveralSubtitles JavaScript code to my blog so that many videos will either display subtitles or give you the option of subtitling them yourself.
Here is a quick demo of a video from YouTube which a subtitled (Wikileaks themed of course).



Subtitling videos in this manner greatly improve accessibility for your website and it is easy to do. You don't have to download any software, just use their website.

Wikileaks Documentary

This might possibly be the best Wikileaks documentary yet and I highly suggest you watch it. Show it to people against Wikileaks, show it in the classroom and so on.
Please Tweet this as well with the button to your right or the one at the bottom of this post.

A Great Wikileaks Documentary that EVERYONE should watch! It is even more shocking that one would expect.

Wikileaks live discussion

The live discussion is now over, but you can watch the recordings at: The LiveStream Website

Watch live streaming video from pdfleaks at livestream.com

Personal Democracy Forum presents: A Symposium on Wikileaks and Internet Freedom

Julian Assange Person of the Year

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Skip the article and vote for Julian Assange

Time Magazine is running their regular Person of the Year contest, and Julian Assange could seriously win! My vote, however, was not only to show support for Assange, but also to support the freedom of information worldwide.

Julian Assange currently (as I write this) has a 89/100 average approval rating which has put him in first place, just above Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has an average rating of 83/100. Another person of interest is Barack Obama who is at 60/100.

Please note, you rank these people on a scale of 1 to 100. It is not a "I support this person" or an "I don't support this person" vote. You show how much you support this person.

What if Julian Assange Won?
If Julian Assange happened to win, I think it would make politicians everywhere realize that we desire freedom of information, free speech, and that we don't want Internet censorship.

Vote for Julian Assange!

Join in the discussion in the comments here or by adding #wikileaks or #cablegate (or both) to your Twitter post.

What is Up with BBot

BBot 6 has been waiting to be released for a long time now and it is widely known that this release hopes to be much faster than previous versions which tended to be somewhat of a drag. I am happy to say that Bikcmp and I have worked together on this yesterday and we rewrote 90% of the bot making it more compatible with other backends (like Twisted) and improving the API.
But don't forget speed, speed is always important to us and I must say that it is functioning quite well so far.

BBot 6 is almost done and hopefully it will be out before Monday. If you would like to follow the progress in real time, join #spam on irc.fossnet.info (port 6667 or 6670 for SSL) for live commit reports.

The Probelms With Education

We all know that there are numerous problems with education, especially in the area of math, and here is a presentation summing up some ways to get students interested in math and help them understand the big picture better.

Math is not linear on Prezi

Normally I try to keep my blog accessible to most people, but this is a sad exception, Flash Player 9 required

Comments welcome!

How we agree to make our lives worse!

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I have just finished reading this shocking article about the various failings of airport securty. Think about it, millions of Americans and people all over the world take off their shoes and walk through metal detectors, x-ray scanners, and experience privacy-invasive pat-downs, but the entire system is broken! You owe it to yourself to read this article and you owe it to the world to do something about it:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/the-things-he-carried/7057/1/
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Hi Altnet, Nice to Meet You!

Recently, I had the joyous experience of removing the Altnet virus from a clients computer, and what a joy it was! Not only was the virus kind enough to stick around while in safe-mode, but it also disabled my clients anti-virus software. Lucky for me, no anti-virus software that I had my hands on could remove it so I had to go in and do it by hand.

I removed the Altnet key from HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Altnet in the registry as well as a few others related to the virus. I recommend just doing a search for "altnet" on your registry.

I also deleted "C:\Program Files (x86)\Altnet Music Plugin" which appears to be related to the Kaza music player. However, I did grab the file and move it to an external drive for future inspection (currently underway).

I ran the executable in conjunction with InCtrl5 and found a lot more things that were created, but I did just update IE as well, so I am still looking through it all. While searching the internet for more info about: {3DA165B6-CC41-11d2-BDC6-00C04F79EC6B} I found a whole ton of forum posts about people being unable to delete it. I suspect that this is part of the Altnet virus so I would advise seeing if you have any of the symptoms I described above. I also uncovered that HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/AMPMDM is also related and should be deleted as well.

I am currently working on writing a rule for Spybot Search and Destroy and I will post a download link when I finish. I am also working on my own anti-virus software, LitmusAV

Firefox Auido API

I just watched this awesome demo video about the Firefox Audio API.

More info about how this works can be found On the Mozilla Wiki. This feature will be included in Firefox 4, but it is already in the beta version you can download now.

We Haven't Lost Yet!

Common Democrats! We can still save America from slipping back into a recession! We need your vote. I'm looking at you, people on the West Coast. Republicans are sweeping up places in the House, we need to stop this! Get out there and vote.
The Senate is a close call. If we want to have control, the Senate is our best shot.
As I post this, its 44 Democrats to 37 Republicans. We are still in the lead, and we can do this! Just 6 more and we will have half. The Republicans still need 13 if they want to push us back into a recession. We can do this.

Remember, your vote counts.

Please make sure to read my post below.

America Needs Your Vote - Republicans are at it again

Well, another election day is upon us, and Republicans are using their dirty tricks to confuse voters at the polling place. More information can be found here: http://www.ourvotelive.org/report/12380 and an even worse one here: http://www.ourvotelive.org/report/12665.

Republicans have also been using scare tactics to try to keep minority parties away from the polls. Every citizen has the right to vote! This can not be stressed enough. We need your votes, so don't be scared. The website I linked to above along with various other groups are documenting abuse by the Republican party. They won't do it when they know we are watching. If you see someone being abused, report it! This can be done at http://www.ourvotelive.org/ or by calling 866-OUR-VOTE.

I would like to clear up one last misconception before you go. The Republicans have blamed job loss on Democrats and their Stimulus Package. This is WRONG! Democrats were handed the worst economy since the Great Depression and were told to clean it up. Now that thats finally happening, Republicans what to go right back in and mess it up again. They could have fixed this mess faster if Republicans didn't undo all their work once they got re-elected. Also, the Stimulus Package was an INVESTMENT and we MADE MONEY FROM IT! Don't be fooled, it didn't increase the National Debt, it was used to bail out businesses who have paid back their loan and more!

Cave People

Mentioned more recently on the new AJ00200 blog in an article titled Our Tax Dollars at Work

It amazes me that every 2 years people everywhere come out of their caves. What do they do? The watch TV and do exactly what it tells them. Sadly, event occurs right before the election of the new congress and these people have had no idea what has gone on in the political world the past 2 years. The come out and vote however the television ads tell them to.
It is because of this that America has set itself up to be mislead, to be confuse, and to fail. The people who can afford the most advertisement are the exact people we don't want in Washington. These are the corporate lobbyists, namely, the Republican Party, who favor big business and have made many promises to these corporation for tax cuts in order to get the money they used to fund their campaign.

This wouldn't be near as bad if the Republicans were running a fair campaign, but instead they have only pointed out things that have went wrong in the past 2 years and blamed it on the Democrats. How is this fair? Democrats have been cleaning up their mess. Democrats were handed the worst economy since the great depression walking in the door. The Republicans caused the mess, and when the Democrats are finally cleaning it up and the economy is recovering, they want to come back in to mess it up again!
I don't know why anyone would vote for the Republicans after what they did to us, but apparently all the Cave People who make up most of the eligible voters favor their corporate funded ad campaign.

The Democrats need all the help they can get if we are to continue to get the economy back on its feet. We've made it this far and I'm not backing down now! I urgently need your help. You need to vote for your Democratic candidate this election if you want to continue to live in an economy controlled by the people and not by corporate monopolists!

Ghostery

The Firefox Ghostery Addon is a must for anyone who values privacy. It allows you to be notified of and disable just about every tracking program used on the Internet. such as Google Analytics, Google Adsense, and 348 others! It does seem to have a problem on images.google.com, but using the classic version link at the bottom fixes this.