As usual, nothing much to say. Speedy died over a year ago and we just got two new cats, I'll put some pictures up soon. Also, updated pictures of our children.

I really should update this site more often, but I always have something else on my mind.

I now have two children. Jack is 3 1/2 years old, Alex is 8 months. I am finally a civilian again. The military paid for my Bachelor's degree, and I took it and ran to a civilian company that provides a more stable environment to raise my kids and have a family. We are buying our first house, and should close in two weeks. More on that later. Right now I need to upload more recent photos of my two sons.

Alex was born today at 12:35 PM CDT. He was 8 lbs 3 oz and 20 inches long. I took some pictures and put them up here.

So I'm going to be father tomorrow for the second time. Alexander James Gaughan should be born sometime in the afternoon. I'll post pictures up here in the evening after I get back from the hospital.

Yeah, I'm still around. I just haven't felt like talking much since my last update.

I hate those Goddamn fucktards. You know who I am talking about: the people in the media that shit their pants every time the video game industry sneezes. Oh shit, a teenager brought a gun to school, blame Doom! Not the parents that neglected him, no, they are not responsible. Morons.

Anyway, if you have not been living under a rock you might know about the recent controversy with Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The ESRB, the computer equivalent of the jerkoffs that assign ratings to movies, gave GTA:SA the rating of M for Mature. This sets the age limit at 17 to purchase the game. However, Rockstar had a mini-quest/side game that they left in the game code but disabled. Adventurous fans decided to look for hidden stuff in the game code, and unlocked this side game with a mod. These extras include hookers and sexual shit, which would earn the game a rating of AO for Adults Only. The difference? The age gets bumped a year to 18.

The shitfuckers in the media jumped all over this because Rockstar must be poisoning the minds of our youth. Rockstar, being the Dennis Rodman of the video game industry, is one of those companies that just makes you shake your head and wonder "what the fuck?" However, the real culprit here is the media that blew this all out of proportion. I guess 17 year olds cannot handle prostitutes and sex, but 18 year olds can.

My question is this: doesn't the media have more important things to report about? I think they already answered my question. Shitheads.

I am sick and tired of seeing news about this stupid fat chick all over the place. So some girl is fat, ugly and stupid, and has a stroke. She has been in a coma for over ten years with zero hope of coming out of it, and people would rather throw more money down the drain to keep her alive when she and her husband both want her to die?

Get over it. Everybody dies. Some of us choose to do it mercifully, like shooting a lame horse. That bitch has no hope. Hurry up and end her life so her husband can get back to dating again.

On my wife's recommendation, I bought The Day After Tomorrow on DVD. We did not see it in theaters because we figured it would be a waste of $12 and two hours of our lives, but after seeing it on DVD, Amber insisted I buy it. So I did, and spent two hours of my life trudging through it... I did not expect an Academy Award winning script and acting. I did not expect scientific accuracy. I expected good special effects, lots of people dying, and an unhappy ending. Sigh. When you set low goals, it is hard to be disappointed.

First of all, character development is almost nonexistent. I never cared when anyone died, never felt anxious when anyone was in danger. The plot was clichéd, full of holes, but the action was good enough that I could forgive it. Action... that is this film's strength and weakness. It is good, but there is not enough of it. There really are only two major scenes of destruction. First, Los Angeles is decimated by tornados. That was cool. Too bad that has not happened in real life. Anyway, next, New York has its turn. The water level increases, flooding the city, then a huge wave wipes out all the people left in the streets. Later it freezes into... snow? I thought standing water turned to ice. No matter, science need not be applicable to movies.

There are three major storms in the northern hemisphere, each is like a very large hurricane but instead of sucking moist water up from the ocean, it forms over land and sucks dry air down from the upper troposphere. This sounds ominous, until you realize that the troposphere is the lowest layer of the atmosphere. Still, -58 degrees Fahrenheit is a bit chilly. However, the movie exagerates this figure, showing buildings freezing almost instantly, helicopters falling out of the sky, and major death and destruction. Anyway, these storms demolish almost everything north of Texas in a matter of days. When they leave, the Earth has a major climate shift. While scientific evidence shows that rapid climate changes are possible, it is a stretch to say it could happen that quickly.

The first half of the movie builds up the conflict, e.g. between the Vice President and scientists, establishes the main characters, and shows some cool special effects with cities being destroyed. The second half of the movie is slow, stupid, and could have been compressed down into 15 minutes worth of sappy shit, and 45 more minutes of cities being destroyed. That would have been cool, even if it is still not Academy Award material.

There is an underlying environmental theme to the movie, as I figured there would be, but at times I feel like I am at a Green Party convention. Holy fucking shit. Yes, pollution is bad. I do not watch movies to be lectured about how we are destroying the environment. Stick to entertainment. We know the producers can entertain, so stick to more death, destruction and mayhem.

Finally, forgetting about science for a minute, this movie was very unrealistic for one reason: at the end, the President of the USA admits to being wrong and apologizes to all the little countries we have been stepping on for so long. What the fuck? A politician apoligizing for something? Admitting to being wrong? Not only is this movie unrealistic, I think it violates the USA PATRIOT Act.

I just read over at Slashdot about several open source software authors supporting the No Software Patents project. This is one of many topics that is important to those of us in the software industry, but has little or no perceived impact to the general public. Of course the key word is "perceived," but just what is the impact?

A patent is a limited monopoly granted by a government on an invention. It costs a few thousand dollars to get one, but the potential monetary benefit is huge. For example, assume Ford Motor Company owns a patent on a cool new engine design that costs the same to produce, but is more fuel efficient. It uses less fuel, pollutes less, and outputs the same amount of horsepower. As a consumer you might think this is all corporate bureaucratic bullshit, and it is, but you will feel it when you buy a new car. What? It costs the same to produce, I thought the car would not go up in price! Oh, but that is the clincher -- patent royalties. Ford will charge more because they have a monopoly. Now let us assume GM does not like this, so they license the patent from Ford for $500 per car. To compensate, Ford raises prices $400. They still make more money, but charge less than GM for a comparable car. The auto makers win, the consumer loses.

The previous example talks about something tangible. The framers of the Constitution meant patents to cover inventions and discoveries. Patent law, including judicial review, restricted this to tangible objects for over two hundred years. Now intangibles are patentable. For example, business methods are patentable. If you own a small business and manage it the wrong way, you may be sued out of existance for violating a patent. If you write software and develop a module using an innovative method, you might be sued out of existance. This affects all of us indirectly.

When your software is no longer developed due to patents, it will affect you. When your software doubles in price due to patents, it will affect you. When your software restricts what you can do because of patents, it will affect you. Software is far more pervasive than it was even a decade ago. Computers, cell phones, cable boxes, DVD players, home theaters, automobiles, cash registers, everything we take for granted uses software in some form or another. Think about the implications. With software patents, this can harm you every time you buy a new gadget, or with subscription services such as cable boxes or cell phones, it could hurt you at any time.

My solution is to check up on my Congressmen's voting records, be an informed voter, give feedback, and put my vote where my mouth is. You can do the same: U.S. Congress on the Internet. Every American needs to have this web site bookmarked. It is your window to Congress, updated daily and full of vital information on what your government does for you.

As you all know, the big W was reelected. This truly is a hallmark of a dark four years ahead. It also forebodes another scary Presidential election in 2008. If the United States voters are stupid enough to elect a Christian fundamentalist millionaire who cares more about removing Arabs from the land where our oil is located than helping the working man and defending our borders, well, what stupid mistake will they make next time?

President Bush is responsible for the poorly named USA PATRIOT Act, an act no true patriot would ever vote for. In fact I voted against my Senator because he voted for it. I voted against Bush because he signed it into law. I voted for my Representative because he voted against it. See a pattern? Fuck with my rights, I will do what I can to remove you from office. Anyway, Bush is responsible for the human rights and Geneva Conventions abuses going on at Guantanamo. He put Arabs there specifically so he could argue they have no legal rights under the Constitution, so he could use them for military intelligence then leave them there to rot with no judicial accountability. Bush was at the helm when the Abu Ghraib scandal occured. While he is not personally responsible for the reprehensible human rights abuses happened, he did encourage an atmosphere of "get the information at all costs" when interrogating prisoners.

Donald Rumsfeld will hopefully be fired. Old, senile, incompetent, and he disrespects the collective centuries of military experience of his General officers. Who in their right mind would second guess the Chief of Staff of the Army on how many troops it takes to take and occupy a country? Then fire him under the table for daring to make him look bad by disagreeing? Saddam had advisors hacked to pieces for disagreeing. Rumsfeld might be more humane, but the attitude is the same: disagree with me, you are fired.

Asscroft's goons are directly responsible for the USA PATRIOT Act. He covered a statue with a woman's naked breasts because that is immoral. His wife is so old she probably has wrinkly prune breasts, maybe he was just jealous? Anyway, he basically stopped prosecuting the Microsoft monopoly because hey, big businessmen have to stick together, right? Fuck Ashcroft and fuck the fucking horse he fucking rode in on.

Finally, Dick Cheney. Haliburton. Enough said. He does not talk much or do much that we can see, because his most egregious offenses involve getting other people to do his dirty work for him. He orders the CIA to tell Bush what he wants to hear, instead of the truth. Fucking asshole.

Four more years of hell. Goddamn it.