Monday, May 22, 2006

ERROR: cannot find -ldb1

Caught the error above running 'make check' to install Glitter, a GTK+/Gnome news reader.

After some to-ing and fro-ing, I searched and found that this error referred to a missing libdb1.so "file" which in fact is a link file pointing to /usr/lib/libdb-1.##.so. This file is installed with Berkeley Database. What I found was that I had the "DB1" package installed, but not the "DB1-devel" package.

As I run SUSE 10.0, I ran my trusty dusty YaST2 Software Manager, installed the "devel" file (and the other DB packages - DB4, DB41, etc... for good measure). I made clean with "make clean" reran "configure", and "make check". Both worked smoothly. After that, "make install" installed Glitter to my system smooth as ever.

Hope this helps you if you ran into the same problem. Leave a note in the comments section if this helped your particular problem. Note what you were doing (e.g. installing program X) in case anyone else doing the same thing runs into this problem. Thx!

Monday, May 08, 2006

SavetheInternet.com

Save The Internet, Now!!!

Are our troops in Iraq getting wounded maimed and killed to protect our Democracy or a Kleptocracy? The cable and phone companies seem to subscribe to the latter. There are bills up for consideration in both houses of congress which will allow the big Internet service providers (the keepers of the trunk lines) to charge a premium for full bandwidth access to domains. Meaning?

The speed with which you get your websites, your email, browse your newsgroups, listen to iTunes, and watch YouTube videos? Forget it. Unless the hosts of the websites, email, newsgroups, etc. are willing to pay the premium, they will get a smaller bandwidth, therefore SLOWER access to the Internet. If you own a website. Guess what? Pay up or slow down.

We enjoy net neutrality. On the Internet, Fox News and Democracy Now! are at the same level as Grandmas-boring-home-movies-someone-please-shoot-me.com. It's the last bastion of democracy. Not simply national democracy, but GLOBAL democracy* (*offer invalid in China, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Utah).

Please go to savetheinternet.com, sign the petition, get the details, contact your representatives and senators, and tell Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) to go suck an egg. Don't let Bush and his whoring-family-values-gestapo-cronies louse up yet another democracy, PLEASE!!!

Save The Internet, Now!!!

If You Wouldn't Hire a Fox to Guard Your Henhouse...

...would you hire a rat to inspect your cheese? I think no. But apparently that's exactly what we've done.

Consider reports that since 2001 President Bush has made signing statements on over 750 bills passed by congress, including language that effectively nullifies the very intent of said laws. Check out these reports and share my blistering outrage:

Examples of the president's signing statements - Boston Globe, April 30, 2006

Executive Authority: How Bush redefines the intent of the law... - San Francisco Chronicle, May 6, 2006

Slate's Jurisprudence: Presidential Signing Statements - NPR's Day to Day, January 24, 2006

Expanding Executive Power via Signing Statements - NPR's All Things Considered, January 11, 2006

P.S. For all you smart asses out there, it's only my outrage that's blistering. All else is tip top. You freaks!

Saturday, May 06, 2006

"The sleep of reason produces monsters"

~Francisco de Goya

But the ongoing life story chronicled at kddallam.com shows a rare instance where the monsters brought on by the sleep of reason (and very wakeful greed and neglect) failed to completely triumph.

Katie Dallam is a remarkable woman for whom tragedy struck in the boxing ring in her debut match. Through the utter callousness and neglect of the referee, fight doctor, and fight organizers that fateful night, Katie faced a much more experienced fighter who doled out punishment over 4 and a half brutal rounds (which included 141 blows to the head) that could easily have sent her to a much too early grave but for the grace of God. Though the ruptured cerebral artery that the beating and slow response of the ring doctor and staff on the scene left her with did not take her life, it certainly shattered it.

A born fighter, having fought all her life from troubled childhood until that fateful night, she fought through what was certain death, and awoke from her coma thus beginning a much tougher fight for recovery. From the resultant traumatic brain injury she had to relearn all aspects of her life, from who she was, to how to take care of herself. Her frustrating war with words and recovering her verbal expression turned her towards artistic expression, which prolific during her recovery and rehab eloquently describe her inner world.

I found Katie's site and her story completely by accident (started looking up information about an upcoming fight, and eventually ended up here) and it couldn't have been a happier one. I stumbled across this site from simply looking up the date and card information of a women's boxing match taking place in Providence later this month. Drawn by the sexy allure of tough women, brutal yet feminine tomboys, I kicked around Google and the pages of wban.org until I quite inadvertently stumbled across Katie's website and her story.

Thus what started as idle post-workday browsing the web for titillation in the end brought me to one of the most incredible stories I've ever read. It brought me tremendous inspiration and hope. Read her story, look through her tremendous artwork and be inspired yourselves.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Missed Appropriation

Note to Bravo Network:

It's not strong BLACK woman. It's strong black WOman.

Nuance and subtlety, my dears. Without it, what was elegant and clever becomes clumsy and just plain amateur.

In the latter, strong and black are peers. They accentuate the woman, the subject of the show, thereby driving home the irony and humor. In the former, the way your announcer says it, the woman, thus the person, is rendered moot. Black is now the subject. The show might as well have been titled Look at Me, I'm BLACK...no not really.

Let me say right now, it takes a brave comic, especially one who's not a Black Woman, to title her show Strong Black Woman. Complements to Kathy Griffin. I hope the special is as good as its title.

Bravo? Coach your announcer. Or better still, hire a strong Black woman...in fact, hire two. Then maybe you'd have understood the subtle genius in the setup and not flubbed it in the delivery.

Edgy humor done well is genius. Edgy humor done poorly is just fucking annoying.

In a word...

truthtastic! Thank you Mr. Colbert.