This is Super Odd

Posted on August 21st, 2008 in Tech by Justin

One of my home machines (Ubuntu AMD64 8.04 Desktop) can’t get to this website anymore.

The name resolves.
I don’t have an override in /etc/hosts.
I can ping it.
But I can’t access it through any browser or FTP to it. Firefox, Konqueror, and lynx all fail. So do ‘ftp’ and ‘netcat’ clients from the command line.

This is annoying, and I’ve run out of ideas. I already killed my ‘tor’ server on it, thinking that maybe it was trying to proxy all my requests for me, as a stab in the dark, but that didn’t work. Obviously.

Anybody have any ideas? I’m kinda stumped.

What d-bag screwed up freestyle wrestling?

Posted on August 21st, 2008 in 2008 Olympics by Justin

So, I tuned into freestyle wrestling tonight, not having seen any since the 2004 games, and immediately had a WTF moment.

Somebody went and fucked this sport up!

The winner is now the best of 3 periods, scores are cleared out at the end of every period, there’s overtime on a period-by-period basis, and well here’s an article on this fucking disaster.

Here’s the kicker: I knew why they did it as soon as I figured out the rule changes. FILA thinks it’ll make the sport more whiz-bangy and actiony and people will start tuning in. You know, the same reason they’ve made every other rule change in the last 20 years. Sure enough, right from the linked article

Wrestling’s world governing body made the changes because it wants to stimulate action. In this Olympic age of beach volleyball and BMX racing, it wants to hold its own as entertainment.

Women’s beach volleyball gets viewers because it’s women with tight bodies in tight outfits. We don’t have much to work with on that front:


Rulon Gardner

And yes, I know Rulon wrestled Greco-Roman and I’m talking about freestyle here. Deal.

You want to attract viewers? Stop fucking with the sport! I honestly don’t think there’s been a single 6 year period in the last 30 years where FILA didn’t jack with the rules.

Knock it off.

Oh, and if they are going to change them again: Just start rolling back the changes. Don’t get creative.

The Olympics

Posted on August 21st, 2008 in 2008 Olympics by Justin

I’d hoped to post regular stuff on the Olympics but haven’t found time thus far. So, here’s a quick update on what I’m paying attention to.

There’s no way that the entire Chinese gymnastics team was actually of age to compete. A blogger has now dug up official state documents on official state websites confirming that. Personally I don’t think there should be any age limits, but they’re there, and the competing nations should adhere to it.

I watched a bit of the swimming events. Michael Phelps is off the fucking chain! There’s not much I can add to what’s already been said.

Track & Field has finally started, so I’ll be paying more attention from here on out. The excitement so far has come from Usain Bolt, setting a world record in both the 100M and 200M, and doing them easily. Absolutely amazing. This guy is going to be chipping away at his own world records for a few years.

NRA-ILA TAG Survey

Posted on August 21st, 2008 in Guns by Justin

I got mine in the mail the other day.

Six of ten questions mention Barack Obama, one mentions Charles Schumer, and none mention John McCain.

Here’s the last question, the only one that asks a general question:

Would you knowingly vote for any candidate who supports any portion of the gun-ban lobby’s anti-Second Amendment agenda?

The possible responses are:

  • I would never knowingly vote for a gun-ban candidate.
  • I might vote for a gun-ban candidate
  • I’m not sure

What they really need there is a 4th option: “I’d never knowingly vote for a gun-ban candidate unless he was only concerned with eliminating the private sales of firearms between citizens. That’s the only way this survey could honestly come out as showing NRA members are pro-McCain instead of just anti-Obama. Given their original 3 choices, and knowing how NRA folks feel, the responses to question #10 would totally eliminate John McCain as a choice for president.

Every time I open up my mail from the NRA, NRA-ILA, or NRA-PVF, I get the feeling that they think we’re all a bunch of knuckle dragging morons. Do they honestly think that we don’t know of John McCain’s feelings on the “gun show loophole?” Hell, he mentioned in his speech at the NRA convention this year. It’s not exactly a secret he’s trying to keep from us.

Why don’t they ask us how we feel about that particular issue? You can then send the results back to the McCain camp and let him know that he needs to fix this to get the NRA behind him 100% in this election. What’s wrong with that?