Here’s a nice little write-up about problems of marxian economics. Maybe someday I’ll waste a few days reading Das Kapital, but until then I am tempted to believe that the above is not a gross caricature.

Today, I finally shed my ipv6 virginity. I did not act alone: friends encouragement, work provided impetus, and private charities provided the connectivity. But now, elastic.org has a proper IPv6 address in addition to its IPv4 one. So someday in 2050, when IPv4 is finally deprecated, this humble web site will remain accessible. Rejoice!

Some minor complications came up.

For the style of IPv6 tunnel being used, we got assigned both a /128 address for the tunnel endpoint, and a /64 network to be routed across the tunnel. That means that the server had two global-scope IPv6 addresses (the tunnel endpoint and another one on the /64 network). That in turn means that the IPv6 source addresses of outgoing connections become decided by coin tosses. But some lucky googling showed a working hack, involving labeling the tunnel address as “deprecated”.

Another issue is the choice of destination addresses for foreign servers that speak both IPv4 and IPv6. While RFC3484 defaults prefer IPv6, this is not appropriate if IPv6 is merely tunneled (thus lower performance than native IPv4). A hack to /etc/gai.conf fixed that mostly, except for some apps that do dns resolution on their own

Getting sendmail to listen on both IPv4 and IPv6 was obstructed at first by what seems like a sendmail bug. There were “cannot bind” errors. The following sendmail.mc bits got it working:

DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Name=MTA-v6, Family=inet6’)

DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtps, Name=TLSMTA, M=s, Family=inet6’)dnl

dnl commented out:

dnl DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtp, Name=MTA, Family=inet6’)dnl

Firewalling IPv6 was made easier by the near-substitutability of the iptables and ip6tables command lines.

Other stuff found so far was even simpler to reconfigure.

6-year-old Eric has been a veritable factory of idioms. Some of them are weird & overcomplicated; some of them are kind of neat. Here’s a list-in-progress, just in case you happen to hear the boy.

using something not for its main use. n. The use of an object for an unusual purpose. Example: arts & crafts with macaroni, turn snow shovels into lawn chairs, road sign furniture

saying “if” to make you feel better. v. Talking hypothetically and/or rhetorically about some unfortunate event.

intuition trick. n. The use of misleading words or imagery to fool the recipients into some sort of opinion. Examples: “everlast” branded batteries, forest-themed street named for stripped subdivision streets, happy faces on product logos.

safety dad. n. Yours truly, made safe by virtue of a giant soft belly.

permaclose. n. A brief, one-time opportunity.

For several years, I’ve been trying to find a replacement for an old teeny computer, what we used to call “PDA”, a Garmin iQue3600a running PalmOS. It’s an amazing little widget, considering that it was made in 2004. Or maybe not even considering that.

The thing has on-board well-integrated PIM software, GPS navigation, multitasking OS, pen/finger touch-screen, open-source software development kit. It incrementally synchronizes data with a normal computer with open data formats across a usb connection or an occasional network link.

On the minus side, it lacks cell-phone hardware (though there exist cell-phone PalmOS devices), wifi (likewise), video media, and the OS is not open-source.

It is network-poor, and I am starting to love that. The machine is self-sufficient for so many tasks, without paid data carrier subscriptions, and without reliance on someone’s “cloud” service in which to bigbrother (is that a verb yet?) one’s personal data. Why is it that there exists so little FOSS networked+offline PIM data management software? Why isn’t there a single modern gadget that can do a strict superset of what that seven-year-old doodad can do?

Regarding my new Notion Ink Adam, what he said. Plus a nascent GPL violation, not cool.

Here is some fine satire: what it might look like if a dictatorship were to disseminate its media censorship instructions over the internet. I mean, it must be parody, mustn’t it?

From the State Council Information Office: All websites, particularly those with video and audio channels, are to look for and delete the song Meat Pancake […]

From the Central Propaganda Department: Media are not to hype questions about housing rationing in […] Village […]. Related information should use information from […] authorities as the standard. Do not give independent interviews or commentary.

From the Central Propaganda Department: Do not report on the case of tax evasion by […] in […].

From the State Council Information Office: Regarding reports on the trial over the case of […] “crime leak”, only repost copy from the […] News Agency. Strengthen surveillance of news comment posts, on-line forums, blogs, microblogs, and other interactive spaces. Delete harmful information in a timely manner.

From the State Council Information Office: Websites are not to report or hype the story At […] Petrol, Alcohol purchased at sky-high prices. Reports that have already been posted must be deleted immediately. On-line forums, blogs, micro-blogs, and other interactive spaces are not to circulate the story. Delete harmful information meant to attack the Party, government, and social system.

Line: Flying a ski-jump is not duck soup.

In other words: What the …. ?

I’ve been recently referred to an inspiring organization, dedicated to the noble and novel cause of increasing taxation on rich people. Its members are self-declared rich people, who thusly argue for more wealth extraction from themselves – and purely coincidentally, from their peers. With a charming web site and all, how can one disagree?

But wait. What is that little bit at the top?

DONATE TODAY? These millionaires are so wealthy that they wish (to force others) to pay more taxes, but such paupers that they solicit donations for their activism?

Now that is rich.