White Wizard

8 Bits O’ Fun

8 Bit Songs – Christmas Style

Listen to “Gloria” (flash required).  The others are okay but that one seemed the best to me.

Please stop spending so much

I know some people think Glenn Beck is out there, but I do think he brings up some good points:

(link)

Specifically, our government is spending too much.  We can’t afford a full re-write of Healthcare or offer a government option that competes with private insurance.  We can afford some reform to make healthcare more accessible but not a full rewrite.

Why?  Well, here’s what I’m thinking: if the government creates a government sponsored option, they will be competing with current healthcare providers.  We know the government option is going to cost less.  So, what will your employer do when faced with the choice every year: continue to offer the more expensive plan (private insurance) or switch all their employees to the lower-cost government one?

If your employer sticks with their private plan, great, right?  Well, what about the employer down the street?  What about a large corporation?  What if ExxonMobil switches?  Or GE? Or Wal-Mart?  If other companies switch but yours doesn’t, private insurance costs are going to go up.

Now fast forward another year or two.  The cost differential between government insruance and private insurance continues to widen.  How long do you think it will be before we have a single payer system (government run healthcare)?  How much is that single payer system going to cost?  Who pays for government programs?  How good do you think the coverage of the single payer system will be in comparison to how it is now? [1]

We already how Obama feels about single payer: (I’m not sure why this is “SHOCKING”, here’s a WSJ Article where he talks about it)

(link)

—

So, I want the government to stop spending so much money.  I DO think that healthcare can be better and we can make simple changes to help things along (make it so there is a reward cap on malpractice cases so malpractice insurance doesn’t cost so much, do other simple things that people smarter would come up with but still don’t cost $1 trillion).

I DON’T think we should spend $1+ trillion to fundamentally change how the whole system will work.  I don’t even think we should spend $1+ trillion.  Let’s come up with something better.

—

[1] I know other countries have government sponsored healthcare.  Do you want that type of healthcare?  What about scarcity: when we have to choose who gets a surgery because there are too many people and not enough doctors?  Who gets to have the surgery?  Are specialists going to want to spend 15+ years of their life becoming the absolute expert in their specialty and do it to get paid less money?

Let’s make small changes, let’s make things better through evolution, not revolution.

15 Reasons Why I Love My Wife.

1. She is kind
2. She is my best friend
3. She is cute
4. She loves our kids
5. She loves the  gospel
6. She reads the scriptures
7. She prays
8. She makes excellent food
9. She wakes up with our youngest son in the night to feed him
10. She listens to me
11. She means it when she tells me she loves me
12. She smiles
13. She knows what database normalization is
14. She is computer savvy
15. She loves me

Why Linux is still a pain

So, I’m trying to install OpenVPN on Debian, right?

apt-get install openvpn


Well, it looks like it installs, but upon further inspection, it seems that it didn’t install the TAP/TUN adapter:

ifconfig -a

Argh!

So, I thought I’d download it and compile it from source:

wget http://openvpn.net/release/openvpn-2.0.9.tar.gz
tar -xzvf openvpn-2.0.9.tar.gz
cd openvpn-2.0.9.tar.gz
./configure

But that gives a painful error:

checking for ifconfig... /sbin/ifconfig
checking for ip... /sbin/ip
checking for route... /sbin/route
checking build system type... i686-pc-linuxlibc1
checking host system type... i686-pc-linuxlibc1
checking target system type... i686-pc-linuxlibc1
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... no
checking for mawk... mawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details.

Hmmm, upon inspection of config.log, I see:

/usr/bin/ld: crt1.o: No such file: No such file or directory

A google search of the above text reveals this, with a solution:

apt-get install libc6-dev


Problem solved. I’m starting to remember why I stopped using linux

Update, problem not solved. It turns out I needed the LZO compression:

wget http://www.oberhumer.com/opensource/lzo/download/lzo-2.02.tar.gz


But that needs the g++ compiler:

apt-get install g++


When does it stop?!?

Update: it doesn’t stop:

configure: error: OpenSSL Crypto headers not found.

Google reveals:

apt-get install libssl-dev

Wow, all of that just for ./configure. Hopefully make exits okay…

Update: this is like the post that never dies. LOL.

So, I was able to figure out that the TAP/TUN adapter installed:

limybox:~# lsmod | grep tun
tun 10336 0

I’m not sure if it was my doing (I did run a few commands that openVPN requested I run):

(1) make device node: mknod /dev/net/tun c 10 200
(2a) add to /etc/modules.conf: alias char-major-10-200 tun
(2b) load driver: modprobe tun
(3) enable routing: echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

Note that either of steps (2a) or (2b) is sufficient. While (2a)
only needs to be done once per install, (2b) needs to be done once
per reboot.

Anywho, it turns out that with a windows client, the VPN server can push gateway and IP information to the client and windows will change the route table (route print). But with Linux as a client, it ignores the messages from the VPN server, SO, you have to set the route stuff yourself either on startup of openvpn (–ifconfig 192.168.1.160 255.255.255.0), or put that in a config file, or try a script (see http://openvpn.net/howto.html#dhcp).

For those that care, here is my client side config:

remote my.ipaddress.com

route-gateway 192.168.1.1
redirect-gateway


It happened again!

So, I tried to log in to my blog today to write about something, but I couldn’t remember my password! Arghh! I think I need to blog more.

Mac App: Mozilla Firefox

I think Mozilla Firefox is a must. I know, I know, Safari is a great browser. In fact, safari is my default browser. But there are some pages still that safari chokes on AND safari doesn’t handle more than 5-6 tabs very well.

So head on over to mozilla.com and get firefox today!  (Besides, you can download a gazillion extensions).

Mac App: Adium X (chat client)

App: Multi-service Chat Client for Mac

URL: http://www.adiumx.com/

This is a great app for talking to ALL your friends.  It connects with MSN, AIM, Google Talk, etc., etc.  It doesn’t have talking capabilities (that I am aware of), but nonetheless, it is still pretty cool.

Mac App: Remote Desktop Client

App: Remote Desktop Client for Mac

URL: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherproducts.aspx?pid=remotedesktopclient

You’ll want to pick this one up if you have to connect to windows boxes.

Mac App: Stuffit Expander

App: Stuffit Expander

URL: http://www.stuffit.com/mac/expander/

What it does: stuff it will extract .bin and .hqx files. You’ll need this if you want to install windows media player.

Mac App: How to Install Stuff

Okay, on a mac there are usually two ways to install something:

1. Double click the executable/installer
2. Drag and drop the executable into your Applications folder (or some other folder of your choosing)

How do you tell which is which? Well, read the readme file that came with the app. If it doesn’t have a readme file, you can always try to double click the file. If it opens and starts running, you know that you need to perform Option 2 (the drag and drop method). If it starts installing and asks for a place to install, you know that you are using an installer.