All afternoon, gonna be @ Drupal Day! at the Science Museum!

From 10am to 5pm on January 27th, Open Circuit (http://tcopencircuit.org) will be hosting a day-long series of workshops on Drupal in the Learning Technologies Center at the Science Museum of Minnesota. We want to provide an opportunity for everyone from the bleary-eyed programmer to the wide-eyed novice to teach and learn about using Drupal to build websites.

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Hey everyone, sorry I haven't really been able to write much in the way of cool stuff. I have kind of been hiding out, and working through some complicated areas of my general situation.

There are either great opportunities, or else a colossal hassle. There are a lot of confidential matters happening, and also I am doing some more website design stuff.

I think i should be able to explain something about it publicly within a few days.

other than that, i am sorry that i have not been able to keep up a better website during January, for we've had a couple cool new people say hi, but without my efforts to give anything any direction (or content) then the whole thing is bunk.

Some people I know are winning right now, some people are feeling lost. I'm basically along quite a few seam lines... Ain't we all, Dow Jones?

Everyone seems to know the bets are huge right now. Internet poker is still killing our generation! Good thing we all got AAA muni bonds in our IRAs. Teh Lols.

...please stand by.... if there is some time tomorrow I will toss up fresh nuglets.

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Drupal Day is at the Science Museum tomorrow! Go get educated for $10 and find out how to make your own Drupal-powered site from scratch, or else more advanced awesome hacking.

brought to you by Twin Cities | groups.drupal.org and Open Circuit! Way to go!

Starring Ron Paul, Ben Bernanke, Ross Perot and a globe of dropping stock markets!!

It is a very wide chart so to see all the pixels you'll need to go here:

http://www.hongpong.com/files/blackmonday.jpg

Enjoy!

The pooping lawyer of Chicago: I have no idea what this blog is trying to say, but I approve!

McGovern calls for Bush impeachment. Huzzah i guess.

Lookie here: this news comes from Potomac Flacks, written by, for, about Beltway PR people. Not bad!

Potomac Flacks: Davis Named Communications Coordinator for 2008 Republican National Convention

James Davis has been hired as the Communications Coordinator for the 2008 Republican National Convention. Prior to joining the convention staff, Davis worked in strategic communications in the Public Affairs Office of the Secretary of Defense where he was involved in efforts related to the Global War on Terrorism and other critical issues. While in chilly Minnesota, Davis will be working under Matt Burns who is running the show as Director of Communications and Spokesman for the Committee on Arrangements for the 2008 Republican National Convention. (PF Tipster)

And also:

Minnesota Monitor:: Defense Department blog coordinator hired for RNC

by: Andy Birkey / Fri Jan 11, 2008
The 2008 Republican National Convention has hired James Davis as communications coordinator, a move that bodes well for bloggers, particularly those on the right.

Before the current move to the RNC, Davis' job was strategic communications in the Public Affairs Office of the Secretary of Defense where, according to Ken Silverstein of Harper's Magazine, he helped pass Iraq war and War on Terrorism talking points from the Department of Defense to hand-picked bloggers.

During almost daily conference calls, bloggers and online journalists, including prominent Minnesota bloggers Scott Johnson and John Hinderaker of Power Line and Ed Morrissey Captain's Quarters, are connected with military personnel during the Blogger's Roundtable.

"The list of bloggers who regularly participate in the conference calls is overwhelmingly conservative and friendly to the goals of the Bush Administration," wrote Silverstein. "The government is picking certain people as 'surrogates' to the exclusion of many others and feeding them news."

According to the Department of Defense, the program, once called the "Surrogates Operation," has as its mission providing "source material for stories in the blogosphere concerning the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Global War on Terrorism by bloggers and online journalists."

"A few moderates are invited to take part, but the list of participants skews far, far to the right. The Pentagon essentially feeds participants the talking points, bullet points, and stories it wants told," wrote Silverstein.

While it's not surprising that the RNC hired someone with such a close history of working with pro-Iraq war bloggers, it will certainly ensure access between convention officials and bloggers such as Powerline and Captain's Quarters.

I don't know if this is a spoof or what: Lawyer's Cache of Poop! [the site banner had a great rich dude with a monocle, but it won't load now...]

DFLers Bonoff, Madia raise sizable sums in MN CD3. Hm. Skrilla Billa...

Check out this article about the British banking system, the economic collapse and all. Cityphilia by John Lanchester in the London Review of Books. I really really double recommend this one.

The Raw Story | Report reveals Vietnam War hoaxes, faked attacks meanwhile there is fishy stuff in the notorious Strait of Hormuz. The big deal now is how the establishment trumped up some Iranian boats zipping around the carriers and some old school middle eastern radio pirate lunatic known as the "Filipino Monkey": You just can't make this shit up.

Yes this is fairly awesome. It just shows that 2008 is the kind of year where slackers with high-powered radios can flip out the chokepoints of all the damn oil in the Persian Gulf. Not bad for a jester?

I am posting the whole article because it appears the great Filipino Monkey audio was immediately seized upon by the PSYOPS guys! The military public relations people spliced the audio and video together and got it out to American TV. Everyone looks a bit dumb now...

‘Filipino Monkey’ behind threats? - Navy News - Navy Times

By Andrew Scutro and David Brown - Staff writers, Posted : Sunday Jan 13, 2008 15:38:29 EST

The threatening radio transmission heard at the end of a video showing harassing maneuvers by Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz may have come from a locally famous heckler known among ship drivers as the “Filipino Monkey.”

Since the Jan. 6 incident was announced to the public a day later, the U.S. Navy has said it’s unclear where the voice came from. In the videotape released by the Pentagon on Jan. 8, the screen goes black at the very end and the voice can be heard, distancing it from the scenes on the water.

“We don’t know for sure where they came from,” said Cmdr. Lydia Robertson, spokeswoman for 5th Fleet in Bahrain. “It could have been a shore station.”

While the threat — “I am coming to you. You will explode in a few minutes” — was picked up during the incident, further jacking up the tension, there’s no proof yet of its origin. And several Navy officials have said it’s difficult to figure out who’s talking.

SEE THE PENTAGON’S VERSION OF THE VIDEO

A LINK TO THE IRANIAN VERSION (CLICK THE CAMERA ICON)

“Based on my experience operating in that part of the world, where there is a lot of maritime activity, trying to discern [who is speaking on the radio channel] is very hard to do,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead told Navy Times during a brief telephone interview today.

So with Navy officials unsure and the Iranians accusing the U.S. of fabrications, whose voice was it? In recent years, American ships operating in the Middle East have had to contend with a mysterious but profane voice known by the ethnically insulting handle of “Filipino Monkey,” likely more than one person, who listens in on ship-to-ship radio traffic and then jumps on the net shouting insults and jabbering vile epithets.

Navy women — a helicopter pilot hailing a tanker, for example — who are overheard on the radio are said to suffer particularly degrading treatment.

Several Navy ship drivers interviewed by Navy Times are raising the possibility that the Monkey, or an imitator, was indeed featured in that video.

Rick Hoffman, a retired captain who commanded the cruiser Hue City and spent many of his 17 years at sea in the Gulf was subject to the renegade radio talker repeatedly, often without pause during the so-called “Tanker Wars” of the late 1980s.

“For 25 years there’s been this mythical guy out there who, hour after hour, shouts obscenities and threats,” he said. “He could be tied up pierside somewhere or he could be on the bridge of a merchant ship.”

And the Monkey has stamina.

“He used to go all night long. The guy is crazy,” he said. “But who knows how many Filipino Monkeys there are? Could it have been a spurious transmission? Absolutely.”

Furthermore, Hoffman said radio signals have a way of traveling long distances in that area. “Under certain weather conditions I could hear Bahrain from the Strait of Hormuz.”

Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon, could not say if the voice belonged to the heckler.

“It’s an international circuit and we’ve said all along there were other ships and shore stations in the area,” he said.

When asked if U.S. officials considered whether the threats came from someone besides the Iranians when releasing the video and audio, Roughead said: “The reason there is audio superimposed over the video is it gives you a better idea of what is happening.”

Similarly, Davis said the audio was part of the “totality” of the situation and helped show the “aggressive behavior.”

Another former cruiser skipper said he thought the Monkey might be behind the audio threats when he first heard them earlier this week.

“It wouldn’t have surprised me at all,” he said. “There’s all kinds of chatter on Channel 16. Anybody with a receiver and transmitter can hear something’s going on. It was entirely plausible and consistent with the radio environment to interject themselves and make a threatening comment and think they’re being funny.”

This former skipper also noted how quiet and clean the radio “threat” was, especially when radio calls from small boats in the chop are noisy and cluttered.

“It’s a tough environment, you’re bouncing around, moving fast, lots of wind, noise. It’s not a serene environment,” he said. “That sounded like somebody on the beach or a large ship going by.”

He said he and others believe that the Filipino Monkey is comprised of several people, and whoever gets on Channel 16 to heckle instantly gets the monicker.

“It was just a gut feeling, something the merchants did. Guys would get bored, one guy hears it, comes back a year later and does it for himself,” he said. “I never thought it was one, rather it was part of the woodwork.”

The former skipper noted that he warned his crew about hecklers when preparing to transit Hormuz. “I tell them they’ll hear things on there that will be insulting,” he said. “You tell your people that you’ll hear things that are strange, insulting, aggravating, but you need to maintain a professional posture.”

A civilian mariner with experience in that region said the Filipino Monkey phenomenon is worldwide, and has been going on for years.

“They come on and say ‘Filipino Monkey’ in a strange voice. They might say it two or three times. You’re standing watch on bridge and you’re monitoring Channel 16 and all of a sudden it comes over the radio. It can happen anytime. It’s been a joke out there for years.”

While it happens all over the world, it’s more likely to occur around the Strait of Hormuz because there is so much shipping traffic, he said.

Speaking of those dem spooks making da spooky press releases: Double Agent Gadahn Threatens Bush In Neo-Con Stunt claiming that some random Jewish kid from California who's now the Al Qaeda spokesman du jour is really a fake. Either way he makes a pretty boring YouTube mastermind of doom etc. Lacks the chutzpah we expect from TV-based evildoers nowadays:

Fear Adam Gadahn!!!! Unless the TV never shows you, because you are not entertainingly scary enough!!

Another one of those attempted Ron Paul racism smear thingys: Vicious Ron Paul Hit Piece Scrapes The Barrel Of Yellow Journalism. On the other hand it confirms that Ron Paul is the kind of guy who showed up to random neo-confederate events in the old days. But what did you expect? The man was part of the great White fringe since forever... At least he's telling 'em to get against the Empire, i say... On the other hand NAACP: NAACP President: Ron Paul Is Not A Racist - "Linder says Paul being smeared because he is a threat to the establishment." Hmm....

As you may have heard, The Wire Season 5 is coming out and HBO is putting each episode on OnDemand a week early, so I am already up to episode 2. Season 5 is all about how the Baltimore Sun can't handle the disintegration of society around it.

Matt Yglesias is a liberal guy who blogs, and could perhaps be classed into the easygoing Washington Consensus crowd who don't want to get into the 'weird stuff' i love so well.

Yglesias attracted show creator David Simon's attention in a thread, as my boy awgrbr noticed on his twitter. Here's Simon lurking in web comments:
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Enjoying this.

Writing to affirm what people are saying about my faith in individuals to rebel against rigged systems and exert for dignity, while at the same time doubtful that the institutions of a capital-obsessed oligarchy will reform themselves short of outright economic depression (New Deal, the rise of collective bargaining) or systemic moral failure that actually threatens middle-class lives (Vietnam and the resulting, though brief commitment to rethinking our brutal foreign-policy footprints around the world). The Wire is dissent; it argues that our systems are no longer viable for the greater good of the most, that America is no longer operating as a utilitarian and democratic experiment. If you are not comfortable with that notion, you won't agree with some of the tonalities of the show. I would argue that people comfortable with the economic and political trends in the United States right now -- and thinking that the nation and its institutions are equipped to respond meaningfully to the problems depicted with some care and accuracy on The Wire (we reported each season fresh, we did not write solely from memory) -- well, perhaps they're playing with the tuning knobs when the back of the appliance is in flames.

Does that mean The Wire is without humanist affection for its characters? Or that it doesn't admire characters who act in a selfless or benign fashion? Camus rightly argues that to commit to a just cause against overwhelming odds is absurd. He further argues that not to commit is equally absurd. Only one choice, however, offers the slightest chance for dignity. And dignity matters.

All that said, I am the product of a C-average GPA and a general studies degree from a state university and thirteen years of careful reporting about one rustbelt city. Hell do I know. Maybe my head is up my ass.

If The Wire is too pessimistic about the future of the American empire -- and I've read my Toynbee and Chomsky, so I actually think a darker vision could be credibly argued -- no one will be more pleased than me as I am, well, American. Right now, though, I'm just proud to see serious people arguing about a television drama; there's some pride in that. Thanks.

D. Simon
Baltimore, Md.

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Ahh Chomsky. really he writes like any other Macalester joker i know. Hehehe...

Somewhat disconcerting. The website at my day job got garbled up, at roughly the same time as hongpong.com, both running the same version of Drupal (but with different modules & such).

Also Drupal 5.6 came out at the same time. It is a bugfix/security update, and the security patches seem to be mostly theoretical stuff. (famous last words). One hole only happens if you have PHP register_globals turned on, which is a very bad security risk from the start.

The other involves yet another weird Internet Explorer 6 security hole, wherein an odd sequence of illegal bytes allows overflows into executing JavaScript from supposedly safely scrubbed areas. Yet another IE buffer overflow-like thing.

And something about malformed RSS feeds doing a XSS cross scripting site attack.

More importantly, the newest Drupal 5.6 fixes a weird little bug that I am sure has been a problem for me. I can set a 'filter' which restricts the legal HTML tags. However, this filter gets stored in the cache_filter table of the database, and does not reset itself when you change it. Thus, all kinds of horrible and unexplained things happen (especially involving embedded image galleries / Lightbox / anything using brackets to trigger).

The solution then was to clear (truncate) the cache_ tables. This will still be the go-to Drupal solution, along with 'turn off as many modules as possible.'

In an eerie and unexplained coincidence, numerous Drupal sites I work with had memory limit errors yesterday. I fear we all got hacked and/or backdoored. Yikes.

NEW RULE: NEW YEAR: NEW PASSWORDS.

OLD RULE: Always run yr security updates, guys!

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Also I should put in a good word for Miro, (once known as Democracy Player), a VLC-like video player project. However it also has fantastic Bittorrent support and good RSS-video pushing abilities. Miro is the kind of tool you want to get cool video podcasting type stuff off the ground, and it is ok for OSX, Windows and Linux/BSD. Here is the announcement on that:

I am very pleased to announce Miro 1.1
http://www.getmiro.com/download/

....First, we have dramatically improved performance for torrent downloading and we offer more settings and control (thanks to libtorrent).

Torrents are still a difficult and mysterious technology for many users; however Miro makes downloading torrents easy enough for everyone. More experienced users will still get all the power of a modern torrent client; this one just happens to be elegantly packaged. Everyone wins!

On the other side of the camera, video producers have more control when they publish with bittorrent. They can push video in higher quality, to more people, using fewer resources; it puts the smaller publishers in the same game as those with corporate funding.

A second new feature is a combined search that lets you get results from all 5 search engines at once. You can still choose a specific site to search if you prefer but this will give you broader results.

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Finally a note from Digg that should be helpful for all:

Wee. Just in time for the Daily Show coming back. http://tinyurl.com/26dktt

This site has practically every TV show in RSS, specially formatted for Miro. You can even put the whole list inside the app. http://tvfreedom.wordpress.com/

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And darth_tater added this cool bit:

for those looking for a good IPTV software solution, this really is worth checking out.

i have this running on my *nix file server and in combination with RSS and torrents, i have the perfect whole-house TiVO. i can watch any TV show or listen to any podcast streamed over my LAN to any PC or via xbmc.

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Ok that should be enough for the hobbyists and video monsters to enjoy!

e taped the Iowa Caucuses and their tragic losers: Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden and (according to the Captain) Ron Paul. (Sam Donaldson too) We taped them all as they came inside the press convention center, on the walk of shame, mere minutes before their pointless campaigns for president crumbled. Richardson, Dodd, Clinton, Mena Arkansas, the Monkey, COCAINE! they're all here, people. Watch the damn video. It's only 1:20! come on

Part of our continuing series, CAUCUSTIME 2008: Deez MoineZ!!
Yes!!!

It took longer than expected, but the final version of the first short video from our Iowa Caucus trip is done and is getting spit outta the computer right now in Quicktime format.

It should appear right here once it is done:

The high quality quicktime video can be downloaded at this link by about 7:15 PM or so: (it may not be finished uploading until then, so wait!) http://www.hongpong.com/files/CaucusTime-Teaser.mov

Coming Soon: CaucusTime: DEEZ MOINEZ! The Video spectacular!

First we will release a teaser, then several fuller videos. Including The General Narrative, a Ron Paul special, and a Hillary special. Yea!

Seven albino alligators were "stolen" from a zoo in Brazil. I want to know how anyone could get seven albino alligators without some sort of serious injury or going unnoticed. Alligators are fairly large animals. And they are albino, not easily camouflaged..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7170946.stm

I bought a journal today in hopes to actually start journaling. I hope it works. I also want to extend a hello to my good pal Dan... this is Angie. But I'm salmon to everybody else. Except for now everyone else knows that I'm actually Angie and not salmon. I really liked salmon as an alias. Maybe it'll take off..

We have just gotten back to Mpls in the wee hours. The Iowa trip was an interesting one.... the situation strange. The people, cold. The media, not coming back soon.

Massive rallies, cold scenes, media people. Pols. Really eager staffers. Security theater from Clinton's henchmen.

The plan to send out videos from the road fell apart. We got one out from the cafe, but we've had problems with the video formats and want to clean them up first.

We have seen all of the Dem candidates except Gravel and Kucinich and i think we have some level of video of each.

We used the latest in underpowered pocket video systems to record everything insane we could. This really freed up creative opportunities to place visual artifacts over everything and everyone.

After we sleep off the driving, there will be much furious video productions for the Interwebs! Our Ron Paul War on Drugs video has already passed 1200 viewers in 12 hours!!

We went demanding nothing (some of us). We achieved everything!

A kind of Zen.

Mission accomplished today. More video coming probably tomorrow.

Yes people i am in a hotel room in west des moines right now. We have been going around to all the events. Got up close to edwards at the Mellencamp thing. Hillary and Bill popped out in an SUV. Came down from mpls to see the scene.

I have been recording chunky videos on my phone the whole time. It is very postmodern.

Got a photo with Ron Paul. my friend The Captain is a big Paul fan. I am not big on anyone. Neither is Andy the renegade philosopher.

Already a priceless viral video was ruined. Ron Paul was shaking everyone's hand and getting photos with all. I asked him if he would 'reform the war on drugs' and pointed at my phone/camera. He looks right into it and says 'oh yes thats one i forgot to mention tonight. i'm not going to reform the war on drugs, i'm going to END the war on drugs!"

then of course we had to be on our way. And i discover, the phone/camera STOPPED RUNNING just seconds before. A priceless moment. The captain just wanted to hear the truth. I wanted a viral video. I didn't get it. THAT is 2008 people. The viral video that slipped thru yr fingers!

That's all right. Gotta let it go. The photos turned out really well. I can't get videos to upload from the camera. But within 6 hours we had netted BillClinton and three candidates.

Romney's people are all over this hotel. There are two secret service guys on every floor of every hotel in the chain, we were told.

a man who can't pay for his propane biked by at 1 AM. the captain's vehicle has ron paul stickers. he shouted over to use and said he supported a constitutionalist angle. we gave him some leftover sushi and propane money.

Give us a call @ 651-338-7661 or 6513387661@myhelio.com .

If anyone has any ideas about... um guerrilla ontology or such, send em along. We have no good agenda. there are a lot of weird factors. Joe Klein drifted by at the Edwards event looking pissed off. It's like your TV is exploding at you and its really cold.

A big adventure is at hand: I and two friends are going down to Iowa right now. We are going down there to see what is going on and wander around. I just figured out to upload videos directly from my phone, and we will have other tech items to capture the Iowa Caucus scene.

Videos will be posted to YouTube consistently under the username HongPong unless we get bored/and/or thrown out @ http://www.youtube.com/hongpong . We will also have some updates posted on http://www.hongpong.com .

My friend Bobby "the Captain" is a strong Ron Paul supporter. I, Dan Feidt, am suspicious of the whole scene, and Andy French is a renegade philosopher. With one Ron Paul and two agnostics in the mix, what will happen?

Anyone on the scene or having a tip for us, can send us a buzz at 6513387661@myhelio.com or 651-338 7661.

Thanks for your interest!