The morning news had that Bugler image up this morning, and immediately the first two lines of the following poem popped into my head:

Blow, Bugler, Blow

Blow, Bugler, blow, let all hear you play,
The hope of our nation's enshrined in your lay.
The notes flow like tears poured out from your horn,
Splashing our souls and hearts, broken and torn.
Floating past candles held high in the sky,
Twinkling like stars who whisper "Good-bye."
Tonight there'll be pain, and tomorrow the same,
But during it all, we stand and proclaim:
"We are Hokies, America, as strong as they come,
From the siblings who visit to the oldest alum,
We know our potential, what we can become,
We'll always fight on, we'll never succumb!"
So blow, bugler, blow, let all hear you play,
The hope of our nation's enshrined in your lay.

ADMIN EDIT: Missed a line in there, had to add it.

Friends, Coders, Net Junkies, lend me your ears,
I come to praise Windows, not bury it!
The good of code like this is oft talked up;
The cost is buried in the legal crap.
So let it be with Windows. The noble Gates
Hath told you Windows quite cheap and good.
If it were so, it is a coding feat,
And Windows rightly spread across the Earth.
Here, under leave of Bill gates and the rest --
For Bill Gates is an honorable man,
So is Microsoft, honorable all --
Come I to speak 'bout Window's legal state.
I don't use it, it costs just too darn much.
But Bill Gates says it is quite cheap and good,
And Bill gates is an honorable man.
It crashed each day and disappointed me,
Then crashed my bank, 'cause good code don't come free.
Did this in Windows seem affordable?
I saw BSOD, but Windows didn't care.
Good code, I think, should always try() and catch().
Yet Bill Gates says it is good code, and cheap,
And Bill Gates is an Honorable man.
You saw they were accused, "Monopoly!"
Convicted guilty and then forced to change,
But they did not. Is this good business form?
Yet Bill Gates says it is quite cheap and good,
And sure, he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Bill Gates says,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all have used it 'cause "its all that's out".
Why then do you not cry "Monopoly!"
O Judgement, thou are fled to stupid beasts,
And men have lost all reason!
Bear with me.
My heart is buried with my lost choices,
And I pause til I afford Vista.
--Snarky's Life, Act 21, Scene 8
--(See the original here)

Where did this come from? Why the second Monopoly related suit against Microsoft (the first being the 2002 case brought by the Department of Justice... who actually say they're happy with the results), this time from Iowa. Microsoft lost, the charge was overpricing due to lack of competition, and they've been forced to pay $179 million to Iowans who get in on the class action lawsuit! Most of you know by now that I should be jumping for joy, mainly out of what's turned into blind hatred (for Microsoft does turn out good products on some occasion) due to bad business practices and the fact that I can get just as good an OS for free yet I see my friends having to shell out $200 to get an OS.

Of course, every silver lining has a dark cloud, and this just proves they're a monopoly even more. Whatever is left over from the payouts is going to be giving to the state of Iowa for their schools. Hmm... putting it like that makes them sound like a benevolent company, I'll also tell you they're giving the schools MS vouchers. That's right! They're "paying" the schools in money that will be turned right over to the company again! Sure, they'll end up losing a little money due to not being able to get money in from the outside, but they're not really losing that much money either. Nor are they giving the schools any choices in how to spend this money. The individual citizens get cash, they can spend that however, but all the money the schools are getting are supporting Microsoft products! And this from a suit that says Microsoft is a monopoly!

And finally, the reason I'm sure that there's going to be a LOT of money in those vouchers supporting Microsoft, the payoff is laughable:

• $16 per copy of Microsoft Windows or MS-DOS
• $29 per copy of Microsoft Excel
• $10 per copy of Microsoft Word, Works, and Home Essentials software

As of 2000, Iowa had a population of 2.9 million (according to the US census), and as of 2006 they have darn close to 3 million. Now, lets say every single inhabitant bought 1 copy of Windows (from the period 1994 to 2006), that's only $48 million and a gross overestimate since most users get their copy of Windows bundled with their computers. Add to that every member of the population buying a copy of Excel and Word (again, a gross over estimate) and the total pay off, assuming they ALL file for this lawsuit, would be $165 million. That still leaves $14 million of vouchers for schools. Sure, by those estimates its a small percentage, but this would buy 70,000 copies of Windows Vista Business (at $200 a copy). Of course, they'd have to upgrade their systems, if Iowa's school networks are as good as Fairfax County's (which they won't be as Fairfax recently was one of the best funded school systems in the country) they'll have to upgrade the RAM in every single system, at least. So more likely this money would end up causing the school systems to spend MORE money than they ordinarily would as that $14 million won't pay for any hardware upgrades.

But, of course, Microsoft is not a monopoly, and Bill Gates is an honorable man.

Some Haiku
Softly swirling bits
Bytes gusting between servers
Winter on the wire

And a (poorly written) Sonnet
Awake, sweet muse, and guide my finger's stroke,
That I may write the code I hear inside.
Instantiating offerings of Coke,
Mayhaps some Bawls, and Fritos warm and dried.

Ifs, fors, while loops, maybe gotos I'll type,
Controlling structure planned with care afore,
The loop invariant we'll have to load,
And make sure defaults always get a store.

"Aha", I cry, "I've found that drasted bug!"
That haunted Beta testers for so long,
Commit the changes, hope that I get Dugg,
A lifelong goal I'd rather not prolong.

Release the code under the GPL
And cry: "It gives the power to rebel!"
*Raises fist*

(I put that last line in in favor of a rip on Dell or Intel, man that was hard).

Some History
The domain was registered while taking one of my patented Long Thanksgiving Breaks. That was ThanksGaming 2005, and I grabbed the domain one night while talking to that coder I always mention, Malaprop of Cambrian House. Malaprop kindly put the domain on his site, installed WordPress, and away I went. My first actual post (I believe) was on the 20th of 2005, but it was accidentally deleted, so the first surviving post is from the 21st.

Some Stats
Over the past year, I've had (what I consider seeing as its just another random blog in the Internet where a new one opens every second) to be some pretty nice stats.

• Over 20,000 page hits
• Over 10,000 "users" you can figure out how Stattraq defines a user
• Two search engines that have over 100% of my website indexed! (Again, you can go figure out how they have more pages indexed than I have pages).
• Two pages selected by spambots for spam! They think I'm populart (I guess) and spam half-year old posts to sell viagra! An annoyance I took care of by using Akismet

Of course, the above ignores such fun ones as 100 posts means roughly one post every 3-4 days.

Big posts
I believe I created the blog to talk about the Sony BMG Fiasco. This was my first serious post, and it got some decent reads by a variety of people. Unfortunately for the world, this has pretty much blown over in a year. Heck, it had blown over within 6 months. What a shame a company got away with this when non-malicious citizens are thrown into court for downloading one song to the tune of $2,000. Had Sony gotten such treatment, it would be out of business (I refer to the fact that Sony included source code that was licensed. In addition they took it from a man whom the music industry tried to have thrown in jail.)

The next significant thing I talk about was my beliefs with regards to software, and the fact that I buy into a communist view of software. I tied this in with one of my favorite pieces of code, Linux.

I had a run in with the law last Spring that was kind of interesting. I'll leave it up to you to decide what to make of the encounter. The three ways I tried to write it here just... made Law Enforcement seem incompetent, and I don't want to say that.

While I may the only one laughing about it, I think I came up with a good argument in favor of single geeks on Inyragvarf Day.

Then we saw a public official fly off the handle when presented with a problem he didn't know. Great lesson to be learned about politicians and technical stuff. I rather dislike politicians so won't be going downt hat road, however.

One of my favorite posts was how to legally and ethically hack your GPA. This might also be the one I'm most torn about, as I get tons of hits from search engines with kids looking to actually hack their GPA. Meaning, maliciously break into a grade server, and screw with stuff they don't own. My idea is a lot more elegant, and completely legal. Which is why I enjoy it.

Wrap Up
It occurs to me this post is rambling and self serving... Plus I'm running out of time for posting right at midnight. So, I will end it now. You can browse back through my posts and see if there's anything decent. I'd like to wrap up b y reiterating my purpose of this blog. That is, simply put, to generate thoughtful discussion (or just thought on your own) and get people to thank more about the world around them. View everything from a different perspective, because that's how you find holes in a system. It may be that some of what I post is controversial. I may accidentally post something that's considered "illegal" by some form of law. Anything up here is not meant maliciously, and is purely for the sake of expanding the minds of my generation.

It's been a fun year for me, hopefully I've kept you (whomever my readers are... [Ok, i can see IPs... so I know who you are]) interested, and made you think a little more about some subject, I don't care what. See you next year.

/*Singleton*/

Like Char arrays without slash naught,
Binary Buddies malloc'd seperate,
Slash star comments, without star slash,
And svn without checkin,

My code mirrors the thoughts inside,
Which way deep down true feelings hide,
Like crypto tunnels through dark nets,
Data unknown 'less key is blown.

Poor Javac'd code, the warnings off,
Compiles? Yes, maintainers scoff,
Defined your vars global static,
Allowing only one to run.

For all in this, set state: alone.

Now, just because I like most types of peotry, not just Iambic meters, I also write Haiku:

/*Game Time*/
Autumn, Winter, Spring,
Seasons change over minutes,
Game time is faster.

/*BlackRock*/
Meeting on Blackrock,
Sunsets drenching Horde bodies,
Iron Forge defended.

/*FWOR*/
Practiced for keyboards,
Falling Water Over Rocks,
Owns all other Forms.

/*ID10T*/
The lurking admin,
Infuriated again,
I D ten T err'.

Some may remember my Valentine's Day post... I've taken a few from it as well.

/*The Day of Love*/

The Day of Love is fin'ly here,
The Day to keep your loved one near,
The Day of which meaning is clear.

Mayhaps to one who talks to girls,
And understands their want for pearls,
Not to us who give naught but perls.

Or sit at home and drink a Bawls.
Troll all the forums, posting our lols,
Then visit game stores in near malls.

For we speak a language not known,
Which makes us gods, power unknown,
And which no girl could ever pwn.

If Dollar var equals slash 0,
Then echo to std io,
Happy Valentine's Day to you.