Halffull.org

All I want is a simple database management program.

All I need is to create tables, rows, and fields, insert or edit data, things that aren’t always convenient on the mysql command line. (editing of data in particular.) The only decent program I’ve found is phpMyAdmin, which of course requires a web server and php. I’ve tried every native DB management tool in portage, and several not in portage, to avoid these requirements. They all bite ass. Even MySQL’s own management tool is buggy and missing features. Is this really so difficult a request?!

Anyway - phpmyadmin decided to die yesterday, after I hadn’t used it for a month or so. The strange voodoo that commenced haunts me to this day.

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It’s official - we are losing the war on terrorism. Thanks to the Democrats, the Patriot Act is set to expire on 12/31. Our government is losing their eyes and ears on terrorism, and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it. It appears that they value hypothetical rights over security. I’ve read time and again arguments that the Patriot Act is “eroding our rights”. Oh, really? Which ones? Please point them out, thank you very much. That’s what I thought, the only times rights that are “eroded” are in hypothetical situations. The reality is now terrorists can freely move about the country and our law enforcement cannot reliably track them. That’s just fucking great. Thanks, Senate!

Dear Credit Card Companies,

Thank you all for your generous offers this Christmas season. From one of you, I received a card informing me of all the savings I could have - if only I spent more with my credit card. From another of you, I received an offer for this miraculous checking account tied to my credit card where I get free money that is actually credit I will be charged interest on. Of the three of you I hear from most, the remaining member of your group sends me offers monthly for a card. I’ve also been offered travel insurance and even a sort of life-event insurance - if something bad happens to me, I get lots of money. All I have to do is pay now.

I must respectfully decline your offers of imaginary money. I must point to three things. First, the number of us in the country declaring bankruptcy has risen signficantly. Second, the laws for declaring bankruptcy have been changed to make it more likely that someone will have to pay their debts. Third, generalizations lead me to believe that there is simply too much stuff to buy today, and in order to sustain a lifestyle we neither can afford nor should try to, more of us are going into debt. For many of us, all it would take is the loss of our job, even for a short period of time, to drive us into four-to-five-figure debt with interest rates in the double digits. Finally, this is precisely where you want us to be.

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Blogging is on the rise and with big names the likes of Google and Yahoo supporting the growth, a backlash has begun. Professional news sources and politicians alike have been arguing that any individual who reports a news blog should follow the same laws and regulations that a “reputable” and “responsible” news source would. The question then becomes: What is “reporting” and what is “rehashing”? Most bloggers out in the intangible area that has been retardedly named the “blogsphere” aren’t really reporting any new news at all. Instead, they compile reports that they see from known, professional news sources and reinvent it on their own sites – pretty much like what we do here at Halffull. The argument against regulating this kind of news blog is that it is opinion and commentary based on other news sources, and not reporting. Regulating this kind of blog would then become a violation of first amendment rights.

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Dear Blue Midget,

Halffull usually has updates every day, but over the past week there have only been a couple of updates to the site. How come you haven’t put much up?

Sincerely,
A Reader

My Dearest Reader,

I write to you under the direst of circumstances. In this place where I have been trapped, the laws of time and space have no meaning. I am trapped in a state of limbo – a purgatory of sorts, if you will. There is little to sustain me in this place and I feel my mind slipping away, succumbing to the strange sound of bad 80’s music whispering so softly in the back of my mind. It is as if I am waiting in an eternal line-up of poor wretched souls, also trapped in the same damned fate:

I have been stuck in a check-out line at the grocery store since Thursday night.

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Considering how much I write about current television programs, you’d think that I watch a lot of it. I really don’t; it just gives me something to write about. And when I do watch TV, I’m an extreme channel changer so I don’t watch just one show – I am watching anywhere between three to five shows at one time. I like to drift in and out of different shows because even if you miss a couple minutes of something, you can generally figure out what happened. Well, unless it’s the Food Network’s Spooky Cake Competition, because you know my ass is glued to that action.

When it comes to television and ratings, for some reason the 20-something demographic is the highly coveted viewer for many stations. And I am not sure why, because a lot of them (or you or your peers – whomever I’m speaking to) really don’t know what the hell is so funny anymore. For some odd reason, television producers are bringing back things that were cool right around the time the now-20-somethings were born, and many of them are hanging on to the principle that these things used to be cool and funny, yet are no longer what they once were. Their prime has passed. Let them go. Aren’t sure which ones I’m talking about? Here are two for you:

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The writers of South Park are creative geniuses. Their new season started this week with an episode mocking “The Day After Tomorrow” by having people run back and forth trying to flee what seemed to be a very physical, if invisible, global warming. Of course the boys are walking around, completely fine, while the idiot adults cower in fear.

Why is the debate on global warming so heated? Why, back in college, was my class asked to give presentations on global warming, only to see those who disagreed that it was occuring literally silenced and told they’re idiots by my professor? Why are we told that there is a complete consensus of scientists that global warming is occuring and that any dissension is foolish and solely motivated by corporations?

I’m thinking there’s some kind of white guilt/self hatred behind it. Primarily this is driven by a need to correct our world and to feel as if we’ve been doing things wrong and that we can and must take corrective action. We see our social ills and need someone to blame. Global warming is caused by humans because if we can’t blame ourselves, we can’t fix it. My problem with global warming is that much of it is junk science. Oh sure, some of the observations are solid. I’m not going to argue with localized observations of certain effects, or even satellite imagery. I’m not obnoxious enough to believe that the scientists involved are idiots. I do believe them when they say that they truly believe that CO2 levels are causing global warming.

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A couple months ago, I embarked on the mission of finding myself a used car. This was my first time searching for a car of any sort, so I had no idea where to start. I looked at dealerships, I looked through newspapers, and eventually took the techie path and looked online.

Eventually I found a dealership that had a car I was interested in. The dealership happened to be about an hour and a half away from my house. So, I make the trip up to look at this car. We look it over, listen to the salesman’s spiel, then take it for a test drive. The car drove great, no noticeable problems. When we get back to the dealership, we start looking through the car to find problems with it, etc. We find out that the back seat which folds down is completely missing any kind of bolt to hold it in. A problem like this should have been my first inclination to walk away. If a dealer doesn’t notice that the back seat moves freely, what else didn’t he check, right? Also, we discovered the jack and tire iron for the spare were missing.

Unfortunately for me I have recently made an effort to become an optimist with certain aspects of my life. So we told the dealer about it, and he said he would fix it and give a call when the parts came in. I continued to look for other cars in the process. I didn’t hear from the dealer for a couple days, so I decided to give him a call. He gives me the, “Oh yeah, it’s ready, when do you want me to drop it off?” First of all, I live an hour and a half away, so I know there’s no way this guy is going to drop a car off at my house. So I say, “Do you even know who this is?” This was followed by silence. He had completely forgotten what vehicle I was interested in and who I was. This should have been sign number two to just walk away.

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Ok, here’s how I understand the Valerie Plame thing. Oh wait, no. I’m gonna diverge for a while.

So about three years ago, I was an intern with a German chemical company. I worked in a small lab with some trailer trash and my Chinese boss. I call this woman trailer trash because she literally was trash. Ragged clothes and hair and way too much makeup, and all she could do is tell stories all day, either about how her third truck (literally) had broken down, or how her husband can’t get a job. Then she’d make up stuff once in a while. She spent most of the day talking, even when I tried to show her I was more interested in getting work done. I was a freaking intern and I got through a hell of a lot more work than she did, even though she was a slightly higher position than me.

She was also horrible with instructions, and screwed up constantly. Now, some screw-ups are expected on a regular basis in a chemical job. But not on the same machine every time you go to use it. And not huge screw-ups either, like running a ton of samples and not labeling anything so the data is all useless. Anyway. Finally one day she decides to make it worse by getting political. We all know politics should be mentioned sparingly in the office. Especially, never say “Those damn Asians keep moving into my neighborhood and ruining it with their high-pitched jabbering” when your boss is Chinese and standing right there. Now my boss had too much class to say anything. She just failed to renew her temp contract when it came up. Then she told me (almost conspiratorially) later, and I told her how thankful I was that she got rid of the trailer trash.

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Since the passing of the previous Pope and the appointment of Pope Benedict, I have been giving the institution of the Catholic Church a great deal of thought. More so than I usually do, that is. This, of course, I attribute to all of the media that has been surrounding the Catholic Church as of late. When I normally see something strange and topical regarding Catholicism, I usually nod with that bland look on my face and say, “Ah,” as if I were entertaining the notions of a child, or a traveler who went in search of the truth and somehow lost sight of the goal.

As the centuries pass, evolution and transition of management can push an institution farther and farther from the reason they were established in the first place. And the Catholic Church is taking a lot of poor, lost souls with them. This makes me furious, as the Catholic Church has demanded that members of this sect put their trust and faith completely into the institution and Catholic leaders – those in robes and pointy hats – to guide them to… Heaven? Goodness? Brownie points with Jesus? Get out of hell free cards? I wonder if followers even know anymore.

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