Ubuntucat

Apparently, a Local Prison [in Vacavilla is] To Provide Condoms To Inmates even though sex between inmates is supposedly illegal. Of course, everyone knows same-sex sex happens in prison all the time, and it is usually prison rape, not consensual sex.

So what’s the point exactly? Sure, HIV is spreading widely (five to seven times the rate the outside-of-prison population has, according to the article), but are prison rapists really going to say, “Yeah, I’m beating you up and raping you, but hold on a second—I want to get some lube and put on a condom to make sure I don’t infect you with HIV”? I highly doubt it.

The only way to stop prison rape is for prison administrations to really crack down on prison rape and punish severely those who rape other prisoners. If you stop prison rape, the only people who’ll be having sex in prison are the actual gay prisoners (a relatively small percentage of the prisoners currently having same-sex sex, since some men seem to believe that sticking their penises in another man’s ass or mouth is heterosexual but receiving by force another man’s penis is being homosexual).

Maybe some prison administrators and lawmakers should read the Human Rights Watch report on prison rape.

If you ever have forgotten your password for the only administrative account on Windows or know someone who has, you know the experience can be infuriating. All is not lost, though, if you have a live CD handy. This page is an adaption of Reset a Windows password with Knoppix for Ubuntu. It has also been tested for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

This tutorial assumes you know how to obtain and boot a Ubuntu CD. If you don’t, go here first.

Start off by booting the Ubuntu CD.

Select your language of choice and then Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer.

Once the live session has loaded, go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager.

Once Synaptic Package Manager is open, go to Settings > Repositories. This will open the Software Sources window.

Once the Software Sources windows appears, make sure you check (or tick) the box next to Software restricted by copyright or legal issues (multiverse). Then click Close. You should get a warning about how you’ll have to reload the repositories to have your changes take effect.

So click Reload in Synaptic Package Manager and wait for the new information on what’s available for installation be updated.

Click Search and search for chntpw.

Right-click on chntpw and mark it for installation.

Click Apply and in the Summary window, click Apply to confirm that you want to apply changes.

Wait for the changes to apply, then click Close and then quit Synaptic Package Manager.

That method for installing chntpw assumes you have a working internet connection on the computer in question. If you don’t (or regularly do, but not when you boot the Ubuntu CD), you can also download chntpw from one of these mirrors, transfer it to the computer in question (via USB stick), and then double-click the download file to install it.

To mount (or make available for use) your Windows drive, go to Places and select the appropriate drive. In this case, my drive is an 8.7 GB drive. Yours will probably be different.

Then, go to Applications > Accessories > Terminal to use the command-line.

In most cases, I think the first mounted drive will mount to the /media/disk directory, so pasting this command into the terminal should get you into the right directory.

If not, you can try the command df -h to see where your Windows drive mounted to and substitute that directory path for /media/disk in the above command.

Note for Windows 7: the word Windows is not in all capital letters, so it would actually be cd /media/disk/Windows/System32/config/

If you paste in the command ls, you’ll see a list of files in the directory, and one of them should be called SAM.

Paste in the command sudo chntpw SAM to change the Administrator account password.

If, instead, you want to change a particular username’s password, use this command instead:

Either way, you should see a whole bunch of cryptic terminal output:

At this point, you’ll be prompted to enter a new password, you should enter an asterisk to make it temporarily blank (you can always change the password to something else once you’re back in Windows.

Confirm the changes (with the letter y for yes) twice when prompted, and you should be done.

Now if you reboot into Windows XP, you can log into the Administrator account with an empty password.

It doesn’t really surprise me when I see this in Christian churches, but the phenomenon also spills out into secular society as well, and that does surprise me. I’ve seen a lot of bands with a woman lead singer who sings and plays no instrument (except maybe a tamborine) supported by men playing bass, guitar, and drums. This gender dynamic is odd.

Of course, there’s nothing terrible about being the lead singer. I don’t want to make it sound as if that’s an example of gender oppression, to be in the spotlight, but why aren’t there more women guitarists, bassists, and drummers? I know they exist. I’ve seen them before—just not in great numbers.

When my wife and I saw Sara Bareilles in concert, the opening act was a band called Raining Jane. They weren’t bad. They weren’t amazing. But she and I both agreed that it was pretty cool to see an all-female band—vocals, sitar, guitars, drums, bass. I also saw only once an all-female worship team at a church in Cambridge, Massachusetts (don’t know if they’re still there). Doubt I’ll ever see that again.

I wonder what the sociological factors are that go into band gender dynamics. If women do play instruments, they’re far more likely, it seems, to play piano and rhythm guitar than solo guitar, bass, or drums. Is there something deemed by the women themselves (or by society discouraging women) supposedly unfeminine about these instruments?

A while ago, I went with two women to see the documentary Girls Rock, about a one-week rock camp for girls. The girls didn’t have to have any previous musical experience, but within the course of one week, they all formed bands, wrote songs, practiced, learned instruments, and gave final performances. Even though there is some musicianship involved in the camp, a one-week camp can’t really train you that much on playing instruments well. A lot of the camp has to do with self-confidence and self-expression. Both women I saw it with loved the film and found it empowering. Neither particularly wanted to follow up by forming a band or learning guitar (or bass or drums) themselves, though.

I’m curious as to what other people’s experiences have been around bands and gender. If you’re a man, do you feel any particular affinity toward guitars, drums, or basses? If you’re a woman, do you feel any particular affinity toward singing, piano, and guitar? What messages of encouragement or discouragement in the realm of instrument-learning and musicality have you experienced?

I’m a long-term (three-year) forum member at the Ubuntu Forums. I’m also a moderator there. I realize that in any online community, even one built around a common interest, there will be a diversity of members and a diversity of opinions. Nevertheless, there is a problem with mixed messages in the Linux community. I’ve seen this in blogs, other Linux forums, and, of course, in the Ubuntu Forums as well.

Here are some examples:

Is using Windows okay or not?
Many Linux users will make fun of Windows users for using Windows, say that Windows is garbage, say that Windows users are sheep for using Windows and not Linux. Then, I think it’s these same Linux users who, when a frustrated new migrant to Linux complains about her hardships in migrating, will reply with “Go back to Windows” or “Why don’t you just stick with Windows, then?”

Either Windows is a valid choice, or it’s not. Make up your mind.

If you’re okay with people using Windows, stop making fun of Windows or its users. If you’re not okay with people using Windows, don’t tell them to go back to Windows if they’re experiencing problems with Linux.

Providing alternatives
A lot of Linux users like to make it sound as if DRM and corporations are a bad thing and that people shouldn’t support the iTunes music store and should use services like eMusic or Jamendo or Magnatune. The problem here is that you can’t dictate people’s musical tastes. If people actually like pop music and not indie music or ambient/trance, then you have to give them some good pop music that isn’t from the major music labels or that isn’t DRM-laden. I’ve been able to track down a few pop songs on Jamendo, but most of the stuff labeled pop isn’t really pop at all.

Just today I saw a thread bashing the iPhone 3G and saying there are better alternatives like the FreeRunner. If you go to the FreeRunner Wiki, though, the FAQ indicates a lot of the functions on the OpenMoko are unstable.

When people have suggested on Brainstorm that Canonical open a Canonical store akin to the Apple store with Ubuntu preinstalled computers and Ubuntu-compatible peripherals, the ideas have all been voted down, and the down-voters have said they prefer to build their own computers and they would rather have Canonical focus on software development.

Well, where does that leave consumers? Why would I choose the OpenMoko, which I’ve never seen in use and which gets, frankly, less than flattering reviews, instead of the iPhone, which I have seen in use and which gets a lot of positive reviews (with a few downsides mentioned on the side)?

I did end up getting an Eee PC preinstalled with Linux, but it was mostly on faith. I never saw it in use in person. I still don’t know in person anyone else who has it. I didn’t have an opportunity to try it out. All I could do was watch a few blurry YouTube videos and read hundreds of reviews and then take the plunge.

Do you care about marketshare or not?
A lot of Linux users claim not to care if Linux gets more users on desktops and laptops. Of course, these same users celebrate every time they find out more schools and governments have switched to Linux, or every time they see a Linux computer in a TV or movie, or every time Linux is given a good review in a relatively mainstream publication.

Do you care or not? If you don’t care about marketshare, then really don’t care. Don’t say you don’t care.

Stop overhyping desktop Linux
Along with the first point, people will blame frustrated users for not researching hardware compatibility or knowing about the limitations of Linux, but then they’ll keep linking to and posting blogs and articles that make it sound as if Ubuntu is the cure-all for Windows problems and that Ubuntu has no problems at all or migration difficulties.

Well, you can’t hype it on the front end and then say “Buyer beware” on the other end. If you’re going to say “I told you so” later, you actually have to tell someone so beforehand.

Free has to be worth something or nothing – make up your mind
I see a lot of Linux users say that there is a popular misconception that free means lesser in quality. The basic idea is that people are skeptical of free products, but we know free products can be of very high quality.

But if someone complains about Linux, then all of a sudden Linux users say “Why don’t you ask for refund?” or “It’s free. How can you complain about something that’s free?”

Where to go from here
Personally, I have non-mixed message stands on all of these issues, and, being as self-centered as I am, I think the Linux community should take similar stands and be consistent about the messages they send.

• Windows is a legitimate choice. I don’t make that choice personally. I prefer Ubuntu to Windows. But if people are using Windows, it’s not necessarily a bad thing, and they are not necessarily sheep. They may use Windows-only programs, may actually prefer Windows, or may not have the inclination to try something new that may give them migration difficulties.
• We do need real alternatives. Especially if you’re going to criticize people for using proprietary software, your open source software alternative has to be as good, as fun to use, and as polished as the proprietary software alternative. If it doesn’t provide the exact same functionality or better, don’t criticize others for not choosing your open source alternative.
• Marketshare does matter. People who claim not to care about marketshare still benefit from increases in marketshare. If Linux gets used by more home users, more companies will support Linux, which means you have more software and hardware choices available to you.
• Linux shouldn’t be overhyped. If you lower people’s expectations, they’ll most likely be pleasantly surprised. If you raise people’s expectations, they’ll most likely be disappointed and never want to try Linux again.
• Never tell people to ask for a refund. Free software can be and often is the same quality or better than commercial alternatives. People can criticize free software just as much as they criticize nonfree or paid-for software. We do not want people to believe free software necessarily means lesser-quality software.

When I was growing up, I was used to (being an American) having cashiers bag groceries for me. I wait in line, wait for the cashier to scan my groceries, and then wait for the cashier to bag my groceries, and then pay for my groceries.

Then I studied a semester in England and found none of the grocery stores had cashiers who bagged groceries for customers (at least not on a regular basis—there were some exceptions). At first, I thought this was outrageous. I want customer service. I’m paying for these groceries. You bag them for me.

Now I don’t know if things are different in England now (it’s been a few years since the last time I was there), but recently I’ve been bagging my own groceries and the cashiers all thank me (“Thanks for bagging”). They always act surprised and a little relieved. The line moves faster. They have a little less stress, and it didn’t really take that much effort on my part.

Now, I guess, I have a little different perspective. Instead of feeling entitled to having people bag my groceries for me, I think it’s ridiculous when I see people stand around doing nothing while their groceries are being rung up and then standing around even longer while their groceries are being bagged. I always appreciate a good thank-you, naturally, but they are my groceries, after all. If anything, I should be thanking them when they bag my groceries for me.