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photo by Gary D. Brune copyright 2007
Shot from a B-Line bus Friday which had a flier posted about this Chico Transit Center dated May 14, 2007 that announced this project, this is the scene from Second and Normal. We will be changing our clocks next weekend, and this project is still not done
photo by Gary D. Brune copyright 2007
The strange thing about October 31, 2007 is that it will be an ironic holiday. Halloween is a time when we celebrate ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night, but in reality, this year is represented more by Casper, the friendly ghost than by any representation of the grim reaper. And that is just how society in Chico wants it.
As I walked through the Chico Mall today, I found myself behind some youngsters who had adorned themselves with obvious wigs. The girls wore unusual colors reminiscent of Mrs. Slocum from Are You Being Served?, while the boys sported Afros and fake long hair.
I had to muse on this exercise in fantasy because when I was their age, the long hair was real, the rebellion was serious, and for us guys, there was real jeopardy. In high school, I carried a draft card mandated by the government, and weekly in homeroom we would look at the newspaper to see where our draft number came up in the lottery. Mine was never very high, but the possibility still existed that Uncle Sam would draw my number and send me a letter that would send me to Vietnam.
Our music had an edge to it, as proved by the fact that I often hear it played on the intercom at the Chico State Bell Memorial Union. What I hear from this generation seems to be so insipid that it could put me to sleep. Perhaps it has put this generation to sleep.
I have noted that there is no special break for Halloween Week like there has been the last three years for the students at Chico State. That is a glaring indication of celebration by society – they finally have this generation pacified to the point where they no longer consider these young people any kind of threat.
I visited Chico Mall to ask permission to photograph the children that will come to the mall in costume on Halloween. That would be a wonderful exercise, reminiscent of when I dressed like a cowboy and had a fancy two gun cap gun rig. Those pistols had ivory handles and felt good in the hand.
To watch today's children parade around in their holiday finery will be a wonderful sight, and would make a wonderful story. The best thing about Halloween is its celebration of imagination, and the delight in the faces of all who participate..
Today however it is all about the safety. I walked into a store that implores its customers to remover their Halloween masks before entering. That way the security cameras can have an accurate record of who comes in, just in case.
General Growth Properties, Inc. manages Chico Mall, and Chris Cullen is the general manager. When I asked her for permission to take photographs of the celebrants for Halloween, she said no. Seems that every storefront in the mall is a trademark and they sign a lease protecting them from any form of trademark infringement.
Since any picture in the mall would encompass a storefront, their right do business must be protected. That of course also protects the customers from evil photographers out to ruin their holiday with ghoulish and blood curdling intentions.
Sometimes I feel like carrying this camera is like carrying those cap guns I grew up with. Our protectors choose to err on the side of safety rather than the side of reason. It is better that our ghosts and goblins be socially acceptable. Seems it is too hard today to think, to reason.
photo by Gary D. Brune copyright 2007
Resting in his wheelchair, Frank Smith, whose letter concerning bus problems was read into the record at this morning's Butte County Association of Governments (BCAG) Unmet Transit Needs meeting, listens as Chico bus rider Donna Cook addresses the board at Chico City Hall. She speaks to difficulties concerning bicycle riders on the B -Line buses as she also uses an electric bicycle.
The BCAG members took testimony from several bus riders during the meeting. Later in the meeting they discussed the issue of having bus shelters built with advertising funds. Jim Peplow of Butte Regional Transit, said that they have a budget to build four bus shelters without the aid of outside advertising.
but with those funds, he estimates that twenty shelters per year could be built throughout Butte County. The BCAG board agreed to table this issue for further discussion at a future meeting.
It is strange how times change. A quarter century back when I graduated from Chabot College with an Associate of Arts degree with Honors, I was under the impression that my courseload would fill the requirements for transfer into a state college.
In the next 25 years life happened and I wound up taking a circuitous route to my senior year at Chico State. In preparation for this education, the bureaucrats that determine eligibility qualifications changed tho rules. I wound up studying classes in critical thinking, reasoning, and procedures for verification of facts with the onset of the Internet Age.
That training, combined with a little experience in college journalism, taught me not to trust everything I read but to verify it whenever possible. Which brings me to today's debate in a class at Chico State. As one of the moderators for the issue, I asked both sides to verify their key claims.
The debaters were of the dominate age at Chico State presently. It was assumed they had no debate experience, but when they cited for verification websites, and sites that could not be verified, their arguments became suspect.
The problem with this is these students are not alone. A lot of people assume that everything published in today's library, the Internet, is factual, and they do not question the statements published within. What these students, and many people don't realize is just how easy it is to publish a website, without any way of finding out what group is responsible for and benefits by what argument.
Why is it that critical thinking and analysis seems to be lacking with this Internet and Cell phone generation? They are going to inherit the future?
photo by Gary D. Brune copyright 2007
In the upcoming Butte County Association of Governments meeting for discussion of Unmet Transit Needs at the Chico City Hall Thursday, 9 am, among the items for discussion is the prospective purchase of seven Orion model VII buses similar to the bus pictured above. Orion is a subsidiary of Daimler North America
According to Ivan Garcia, the new 40 foot compressed natural gas powered buses will replace the final diesel buses that the B-Line presently has in service, including the venerable 714 that has worked the ridge for Butte County Transit for many years and the remaining holdovers from Chico Area Transit Service (CATS).
BCAG is also looking into the possibility of using software developed through Google Maps in order to run an operation called Google Buses. The program will help B-Line keep track of their fleet, make the routes more efficient, and assist in operations.
I just looked into Todd Bishop's unofficial poll which asks what computer operating system one would install on a new machine. With 435 votes taken, Vista gets 26 percent, with the Mac OS 10 Tiger coming in at 26.2. Ubuntu is the most voted for Linux distribution with -- 27.8 percent.
The url for this poll is http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/122824.asp.. And for those who have a problem waiting for gutsy Gibbon, we only have two more days to wait for the best computer operating system available in the land.
Vista, what a joke
photo by Gary D. Brune copyright 2007
Smokey the dog rides around Veteran's Hall with his owner during Johnny Appleseed Days in Paradise last Saturday.
photo by Gary D. Brune copyright 2007
American Legion Post 259 Commander Thor Sparre (seated right) met with a Paradise veteran last Saturday at the Johnny Appleseed Days celebration in Paradise. The Post and Auxiliary ran a table in the Veteran's Hall.
Post 259's next general meeting will be at the Paradise Veteran's Hall on Novermber7 at 7 pm. They will also participate in the Veteran's Day celebration at the hall that weekend.
photo by Gary D. Brune copyright 2007
Kristy Bonnifet and Ivan Garcia meet with bus users Friday at the Paradise Unmet Transit Needs meeting for Butte County Association of Governments. They present BCAG's future plans for transit and take testimony from the people who come to the meeting.
The next main meeting will be at the Chico City Hall at 9 am on October 25. This will be the monthly meeting for BCAG
photo by Gary D. Brune copyright 2007
It is about to rain, and I took this shot to illustrate where Butte County Association of Governments (BCAG) has told me, as a commuter on the B-Line 40 line, where they plan to park the county buses around the new Chico Transit Center at Second and Normal.
I've been told by Chico Capital Projects that the only provision they plan to make for county riders is a set of pre-fabricated benches, when this project is completed.
According to today's San Francisco Chronicle, a disturbing procedure will appear before all the justices of the California State Supreme Court. The report, written by Bob Egelko, said the court “agreed Wednesday to decide whether the San Francisco 49ers invade their fans' privacy by conducting pat-down searches at the stadium gates, a measure ordered by the National Football League to catch potential terrorists”.
This was first addressed this summer by a three judge panel of the court, and was brought by a 49er fan who was disturbed by the procedure handed down by the NFL. That panel ruled in favor of the NFL with the reasoning that by coming to the game, every person tacitly agrees to be searched because they elect to go to the game voluntarily.
The procedure which is similar to the searches that airline and other transit users undergo, has yet to go before the United States Supreme Court. It is good that the American Civil Liberties Union has brought this up the judicial ladder to get a ruling.
I posted this at SFGate earlier this morning because it is clear that these searches violate the probable cause rules of the US Constitution. Until the High Court rules on this, I will be ruled by the Constitution of the United States rather than by fear.
“There is a fundamental issue here involved with this procedure. This procedure is in conflict with the United States Constitution, where the general ethic is innocent until proven guilty. The Constitution decreed that a citizen shall be secure in their person and papers against unreasonable searches and seizures, and in order for the state to execute a search, their officials must go to a judge and indicate they have a justifiable belief concerning a crime.
“This procedure is the Napoleonic Code in practice, whereby a person is guilty until proven innocent. The state and its agents, and the National Football League, with this procedure, has assumed the role of an agent of the state, does not have the right to search me without a warrant. This procedure needs to go to the United States Supreme Court for a final ruling on its constitutionality.”
What we deal with here is one of the Constitutional conflicts brought about both by the events of September 11, 2001, and the progress of our silicon society. It is time that the courts use their supervisory responsibility and make sure these procedures pass constitutional muster. It isn't just the safety of our citizens at stake, but the safety of our Constitution.
Last weekend Ted Koppel, formerly of ABC's Nightline, broadcast a program on the Discovery Channel about the overcrowded California prison system. One of koppel's ironic segments followed a parolee from his prison cell to the community where he was released to – Oroville.
What was ironic about this report is that, unless Butte county District Attorney Mike Ramsey successfully negotiates a plea from Greg Wright which means that he will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole, after an extensive prison sentence, the 17 year old boy that allegedly raised hell at Las Plumas High School will be paroled – to Oroville.
Since it is more likely that Wright will get paroled than he will spend a life term in California prisons, unless he gets a General Education Degree in prison, he will be one of those uneducated prisoners on merry-go-round with one end in society and the other inprison. He might be one of the lucky individuals who will get a college degree in prison, but more likely he will be released with $200, a bus ticket, maybe some money earned from prison employment, no training, into one of the poorest communities in California.
Once he has been released, he will be expected to find a job, and make a go of a society that already has him branded with at least one strike. His step-father was quoted in the Enterprise-Record as saying "Well, they got him. Everybody's safe and he's safe" . The only problem is – is he?
If you substitute Greg Wright for the individual that Ted Koppel highlighted, likely he won't be. It appears his family doesn't care about him, so there won't be any support from these lost individuals. It will be next to impossible for him to find a job in Butte County without personal transportation or real training. Likely the photograph of him in a sheriff's car will follow him everywhere he goes. The result will be that he will be violated during his parole, and sent back to prison.
He could be enlisted in a gang in prison in order to survive. Next year the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has plans to integrate the prison populations which are already at over 180 percent of capacity, where ethnic background is the only way most prisoners have of staying alive and relatively undamaged. That integration will cause more stress in an already overstressed system.
Wright will wind up in that system. While there is no way to predict how he will survive in that system, it stands to reason that Greg Wright will be worse off when he is released from prison than he is now. That is all Mike Ramsey and his fellow authorities are prepared to offer us. The question thus is Robert Roberts right when he says "Well, they got him. Everybody's safe and he's safe”? The corollary question is, does anybody care?
I would like to thank all the people who, so far, have taken the time to post comments to An Internet Globetrotter. Here are a few posts:
On October 5, Ben Doney said, "Thanks for the post, Ubuntu is a great O/S and everyone should at least check out the LiveCD version to see what the hype is about.
"I would also add the visual effects in Gutsy are fantastic, and built-in with this version. In Feisty(7.04) you had to download Compiz and/or Beryl to configure special effects like Desktop Cube, Water, FlipSwitch and Ring Switch. With the latest version this is built in.
"Another big improvement is that Broadcom wireless drivers (like Dell laptops use) are available by default. I could never get my Dell d800 to work under 7.04, but this works great in Gutsy."
On October 4, Anthony Watts noted, "I use Ubuntu on three machines, 2 are servers. It's a great product. Still some learning curve, but not bad if you don't want to delve into command line vagaries. Linux can do some cool things, such as this product I now offer: http://www.viziframe.com
"I upgraded my Vista laptop back to WinXP, since many apps would not run on Vista, I just gave up on it.
Vista, the "New Coke" of operating systems."
Concerning my posting on the latest action in Congress in regards to veterans being allowed to hand salute the American Flag, on October 3, SGM Ronald E. Biggs USA Ret. said “I and all of my vet friends are 100% in favor “
Meanwhile, Pete Fanning reported, “I have also emailed Jim Sensenbrenner, who sits on the House Judiciary committee, on this as well...that is supposedly where the legislation landed, along with a identical bill, HR 3380.”
I just received a letter from Representative Wally Herger concerning this. He said that when these bill come up for vote on the House floor, he will support them. More on this letter later.
Finally, Tracy wrote an observation about the bulletproof backpack I reported on in August. On October 2, this was etched in silicon; “I think this is a great idea, there have been 3 school shootings in the last three weeks. This world is getting crazy, why not give have something to help.”
Again, I thank everyone for their comments so far, and appreciate the time and care they took to write these comments.
According to the Paradise Post article written by Elizabeth Stevens and published Thursday, if Greg Wright receives the maximum sentence for the eight felony charges filed against him by Butte county District Attorney Mike Ramsey, he will spend from 40 years to life in prison for the actions he took last week at Las Plumas High School.
Wright is all of 17 years old, and as Stevens pointed out twice; “is facing an attempted murder charge for his reported intent to hunt down and kill his romantic rival.” While it is perfectly fine for country singers like Garth Brooks to record ballads about adults doing this same thing and make millions of dollars, Ramsey's action is following along my exact prediction.
Ramsey is using Wright as an object lesson. In general, there are now three immutable laws; death, taxes, and no member of the opposite gender is worth life in prison.
Putting this simply, no woman is ever worth screwing up the rest of one's life for. Wright is now gone forever because of an immature decision he made without the guidance of good parents. I hope everybody else is happy, especially the couple that triggered this in the first place.
The paradigm is changing, and the personal computing gestalt that I've known for 20 years is about to be supplanted by shiny, cheap hardware and free, powerful software. The result is a future more students can use and afford, not tied to what we know today.
In the beginning there was DOS, and that begat Microsoft, and that begat Windows. At the same time International Business Machines, which decided in the beginning to clone the personal computer, spread the new trinity of plastic, silicon, and magnetic media around the world. With Microsoft and IBM efforts, we have machines people both swear at and swear by, often at the same time.
The first part of this new paradigm is simple; a USB jump drive. With this I can plug into any networked computer here at Chico State. The latest models have up to four gigabytes of space, and larger units are in the pipeline. I paid $50 dollars for my jump drive, and expect to use it all year, if not longer.
That comes as a result of the free software I have installed on it. By going to PartableApps.com, I have downloaded a suite of legal programs that are the equal of anything Microsoft produces. Bundled in the initial suite is Open Office, from Sun Microsystems, a cross-platform set of programs that include Writer, Math and Calc for spreadsheets and Impress, to do presentations. In addition, this comes with Firefox for web-browsing and Thunderbird for e-mail. In Firefox, I can save any site I visit, and come back to same as frequently as necessary.
This suite first downloads to my jump drive, installs and runs from it. After plugging in the drive, Microsoft usually sees it and asks if I want to launch PortableApps.. By clicking on that option, I launch a menu that normally hides by the clock until I click on it and call up a program.
In addition to the suite, PortableApps.com had several easy to install and use programs including Clamwin Portable, a powerful anti-virus program, Screamer Radio, which pulls in Internet radio streams from all over the world, Virtual Magnifying Glass Portable, which highlights and magnifies any part of the screen (good for presentations) and VLC Media Player Portable, which allows me to play most mp3 and dvd media on the fly.
However, there is another part of this operation which makes for a solid computing experience. Released three months after Microsoft rolled out Vista, Ubuntu 7.04, conenamed Feisty Fawn, is also free, and can be installed on any personal computer. It is the first distribution of Linux that is ready for the average user.
It installs as a dual boot to any PC, which means when the computer first starts up, I have the option of using Windows or Ubuntu. It also comes with complete versions of most of the programs described above, which install with Ubuntu. The wonderful thing about Ubuntu is, once started, I don't know it is there. I can do my work and get on with my life. The same skills I acquired using Microsoft programs applies here, and so I don't have to learn anything new.
There is another thing I love about these programs. PortableApps can run off an external hard drive. With today's technology, I advise my clients never to save data to their C;\ drive, but always have an external hard drive, that can be turned off, connected to their USB ports. Not only is data safe when one flips the switch, but with the PortableApps suite, it is accessible at any time regardless of what happens to C:\, or what computer it's hooked up to.
Jump drives are a lot cheaper than laptops. External hard drives aren't that far behind. With this hardware, and the free and legal software I've described, anyone can have powerful and useful applications at their fingertips. Using the save-as function in Open Office allows me to make any of my files readable by Microsoft, and all of its files are readable to me. Without a doubt, I have the best of all possible worlds.
I posted this comment yesterday at the Seattle Post Intelligencer at 10/2/07 5:29 p.m. While there I noted a poll being run by PI reporter and weblogger Todd Bishop about which new operating system would people be willing to have installed in their new computer. While this morning Ubuntu is at third place with over 26 percent, last night, with 315 votes, Microsoft's Vista placed third with 24.8 percent, Apple's OS X, Tiger, placed in second with 27.6, and in first place, with 28.3 was -- Ubuntu Linux with 28.3 percent.
Hurray for a decent operating system.
The clock is running, something Microsoft users should be familiar with by now. However in 16 days the latest version of the best operating system in the world will launch its latest free release.
Ubuntu 7.10, codenamed Gutsy Gibbon, is in the wings, and in 16 days we'll be able to order it from www.ubuntu.com. It has the usual assortment of improvements, such as improved graphic control and capability, and automatic printer configuration for any usb printer.
One of the frustrations I've had with Feisty Fawn is its inability to write to NTFS files and directories. They've worked on that, and Gutsy Gibbon will do so effortlessly. With hard drives of much larger size, NTFS makes sense as a good way to protect the larger drives.
They have improvements for their default browser, Firefox, and there is a new edition for Open Office which will download right after installation.
One other important point is that the new kernel allows the processor to use less power, and thus run cooler. With improved graphics capabilities from ATI, Intel, and nVidia, that will allow the computer to be more efficient.
Unlike all the supposed hype around Vista, I can't wait for Gutsy Gibbon, and will order it from its website the moment it becomes available. This is fun to use an operating system that works.
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