Slackware 12 upgrade – Samba

One of the challenges on any Linux upgrade is getting your Samba server to work again. I use Samba to network with my Windows computers. I have to keep a couple Windows machines around, just for quality control testing on website development, and for creating flash.

After the Slackware 12 upgrade, Samba didn’t work. I copied over my old smb.conf, but no dice.

Finally got around to doing some research today. Of course, it was simple. Just needed to re-add myself as an smb user:

smbpasswd -a username

Bacon

If you love Bacon as much as my sister does (and I know that you don’t – nobody does) you probably don’t need any help deciding when to eat Bacon, you eat it all the time.

For those of us who are only casual Bacon consumers, here is a nice flowchart showing us when the optimum time to eat Bacon is.

Music Pick of the Week: Rooney

It’s interesting to me what “Alternative” or “Modern Rock” has become these days. I don’t listen to “Pop” radio much these days, just can’t take the Fergie, Kanye West, or Taylor Swifts of the world. Interestingly the hip hop, R&B and other music types that have taken over the pop charts in the last decade or two has forced much of the “power pop” type acts to the “Modern Rock” genre.

I say all of that to introduce this week’s Music Pick, Rooney. Rooney’s single, “When Did Your Heart Go Missing?” is currently getting airplay on the local Denver “Modern Rock” radio station. While I appreciate the introduction, this California band is much more influenced by 80′s power pop than anything that has been in the alt music scene in the last 10 years.

“When Did Your Heart Go Missing?” sounds like it just fell off the sound track to a John Hughes movie, even down to the semi cheesey voice-over last verse:

Things were so good
We had a little dream
A little dream together
Buy a house, settle down, do our thing
But you disappeared on me
And your heart, your heart went missin’…

I suggest you just watch the video for yourself and let me know what you think.

Why we have Separation of Church and State

There is constantly a huge discussion about the Separation of Church and State here in the US. This discussion resolves around many issues ranging from major items like the removal of state sanctioned prayer by students in public schools, Roe v. Wade and the teaching of evolution in public schools to stupid issues like removal of the Ten Commandments in public buildings, removal of the cross on Mount Soledad and restricting Christmas decorations on public property.

The more devout among us seem to regard the idea of Separation of Church and State as an affront to our Creator. They consider a godless government as a sure-fire path to destruction. While that stance may have some validity, an article on the front page of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal really struck a chord – reminding me why the Freedom of Religion is a good thing.

Russian President Vladmir Putin, by all accounts, is a downright scary man. Some would consider him borderline evil. He has brought stability to a Russia that has been in chaos since the end of the cold war – but at what price. Putin has little regard for civil liberties, been accused of orchestrating assasinations on foriegn soil and is oddly remeniscent of his bolshevik predecessors.

One thing Putin knows, that escaped the Communists, was the power of the Church. Putin has embraced the Russian Orthodox Church with open arms, even receiving a public blessing for his heir-appearant First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Using one’s personal religious beliefs to bolster public support (a tactic President Bush has been accused of using), while suspect, is fairly common and accepted. Using the head of a country’s largest religous institution, in this case Patriarch Alexy II f the Russian Orthodox Church, to receive an endorsement from God himself is a step beyond.

Separation of Church and State may not be a perfect policy when it comes to the public morality, but it is much preferred to the alternative. Any time the heads of the Church and the heads of Government begin to collude and abuse their power over the public we are reminded of how great the American Constitution is. We may constantly fight over these issues… but at least we are free to fight.

Fred Thompson Campaign Ad

Maybe I will vote for Fred, if this ad is true…