Puppy Linux ver 5.2.5

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Brian

In December of 2006, I first used Puppy Linux and wrote about it in a prior blog entry. Back then, it was version 2.11.  You can download Puppy version 5.2.5 for free.  It’s only gotten better.  I also have a Puppy Linux wiki page with more static resources (including how to install and use rsnapshot, the most straightforward and capable backup and recover tool on the market).  Good things are coming from Barry Kauler in Australia. I hope he has a bit more in him.  Below are install and first impression notes from someone who has done MS-DOS from the beginning, all variants of Windows, Linux since 1997, and Mac OSX 10.6 since 2009.

The “intended” way to use Puppy is to boot off from a USB or a CDROM.  This provides security in the same way the Dept of Defense LPS distribution does: you always start with a fresh OS on every boot without any chance of virus or trojans.  Your customization and files are saved to read/write media.  Alternately, you can do a “frugal” install by putting all the customization files onto a hard drive with some other filesystem (FAT, NTFS, ext2, ext3, etc).

Puppy has forked into three sub-distributions:

  • Wary Puppy is intended for older computers. It runs fast without loss of capability.
  • Lucid Puppy is the flagship “normal” distribution.
  • Quirky Puppy is a front-line experimental distribution trying new ideas.

I did a “full install” of Lucid Puppy 5.2.5, which creates a more traditional Linux installation booting with GRUB from the hard drive.  This alllows the most expansion, up to the full 50 GB hard drive size that I had in my older laptop.

I have added a few programs to the out-of-the-box distribution.  Additions are trivial using the click-n-add package distribution system.

  1. Firefox 4.0 – web browser
  2. Kompozer 0.8b3 – web page authoring
  3. Xorg_High-1.1 – high performance graphics card driver
  4. Skype-2.1.0 – VOIP
  5. Google-talk-plugin – Gmail phone calls
  6. Gimp-2.6.10 – graphic editing
  7. Audacity-1.3.11 – audio editing
  8. VLC-1.1.7 – media viewer
  9. FileZilla-3.3.3 – remote file transfer
  10. Bibletime-2.7.2 – Bible reader with dozens of versions
  11. sshd-tightvnc – remote desktop
  12. Pdfedit-0.4.3 – edit pdf files
  13. Stellarium-0.10.6 – fantastic virtual viewer
  14. Boxee-0.9.22 – on-line media viewer

I added these because they’re what I’m familiar with. In most cases there are other similar programs already on the core distribution, which is currently 128 MB.  My installed size has now grown to 1.2 GB.  Still very light compared to Windows or my Mandriva Linux installations.

It’s an issue of trust. After days, Puppy is beginning to behave as I expect it. That makes me stay loyal to a distribution. What else makes me like this distribution?

  • Single click startup allows the opposite mouse menu to bring up the program menu.
  • This is perfect for my wife. Firewall is stable without popups or constant update requests.  No other updates pushing all the time. AbiWord is 87% compatible with Microsoft Word. Desktop behaves the way Windows should respond. Single click snappy responses always: FAST key clicks and mouse response.  3 second load for Word compatible editing. 2 second load for Firefox 4.0.
  • I like the way desktop icons are conceptual.  In other words, Browse, Email, Write, Plan are the types of names used.  Each of these can be mapped to the specific program you like.  There is a certain non-Windows humility I appreciate that the icons say what I value, not marketing trash.  Ever notice that every Microsoft icon is “Microsoft {product name}”?
  • USB drives come and go painlessly as I plug them in or out.  FAT32 is full read-writeable.
  • Servers are snappy and small.  Web browser, SSH, FTP, VNC, Blog, Wiki.  For now, I run them all through the firewall.
  • Windows file sharing can be done through the FTP server (“ftp://{ip address}” instead of C:/{pathname} in the Windows Explorer location toolbar.

[more as I continue to play…]

Gripes:

I haven’t played with the printer yet.  That was more difficult in the older versions.  I think everything funnels through a postscript printer driver, which now prints to a postscript printer, or other types of printers.

Both my wired and wireless network were trivial to configure, but kept going off line after about 20 minutes.  I finally found some utility that offered to “keep internet live”.  I ran it.  Now the networks both stay up.  I wonder what that’s about?

NTFS USB drive doesn’t check-in properly to the ntfs-3g driver, so Puppy pops up a notice that drive mounts read-only using the kernel driver.  I need to put more attention to this because it did work yesterday when I used the gadmin-rsync utility to back up my Puppy installation to the 1TB NTFS external USB drive.  Maybe it’s because the NTFS partition is flagged “not closed properly” when I yanked the cable out yesterday by accident.  More later…

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If it’s not worth your time, change what you do

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Brian

I’ve worked a number of  contract jobs.  Once on contract, with open ended duty hours, each hour I work makes another hour of income.

It’s very hard to stop working and go home! After all, when I get home, I’ll probably just clean the garage, pay some bills, maybe enjoy some time with family. None of these activities seem worth the hourly rate my contract job would pay.  Why go home and “relax reading the paper” when I could stay on the job and make another chunk of change?

It’s not that I enjoy always working, but there’s a very real economic cost that if I go home and read the paper, I am paying my own hourly wage for that priviledge (by not earning what I could have).  Suddenly I realize I don’t want to read the paper if I have to pay that much to do so!  Similar employee feelings were posted in a previously blog entry called “Slave to the Round Dial”.

And then I realized, the problem is not that I have a propensity to work too much, but rather my homefront activities are not that valuable.  I need to change what I do at home!  I need to find activities that are worth my own hourly salary.  Let’s see how to apply that…

  • Maybe throw out the damaged tool and buy a new one, ’cause it’s not worth the time to fix it.
  • When I work to make something, realize its inherent value by virtue of the labor involved; don’t make items not worth this value.
  • When I go camping or recreating, costs seem high.  No they aren’t–compared to my own hourly rate for being there.

Instead of being tempted to work more making more, instead change what you do at home to make it worth while!

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Congress Can Redefine Reality

Posted on March 10, 2011 by Brian

Murphy v. IRS.

In August 2006, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled the IRS is not part of the United States.  “Insofar Congress has waived sovereign immunity with respect to suits for tax refunds under 28 USC 11346(a)(1), that provision specifically contemplates only actions against the ‘United States’, therefore we hold the IRS, unlike the United States, may not be sued in nomine in this case.”

An exception to the federal sovereign immunity is in the US Tax Court, where a tax payer may sue the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.  So, in December 2006, the original 3-panel agreed to hear the case.

On July 3, 2007 the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia wrote, “Although the Congress cannot make a thing income which is not so in fact … it can label a thing income and tax it, so long as it acts within its Constitutional authority, which includes not only the Sixteenth Ammendment, but also Article 1, Sections 8 and 9.”

Aril 21, 2008 the US Supreme Court declined to review the Court of Appeals decision.

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Dual Coverture vs. Hypothetical Method – Military Divorce Retirement Division

Posted on February 5, 2011 by Brian

This post is in the area of Family Law, addressing the situation when a military member earning a retirement becomes divorced and required by the court to divide their future retirement asset with a non-military spouse.

This post addresses details that you would think do not need explicit attention.  After all, how hard is it to give a spouse “50% of what was earned during a marriage”?   However, when $100,000 to $1,000,000 is on the table, a lot of time and money is spent arguing about that simple phrase.

Just to get you thinking about the strange nature of military retirements, consider that military retirement income is the only place where the same exact dollar has legal status as an asset (allowing an ex-spouse to have half of it) and simultaneously cash flow income (so the IRS can tax it). Stopping confusion, promoting knowledge, and providing a simple answer for members, attorneys, and courts is the point of this post.

In a prior blog post regarding division of reserve military retirement, and web pages specializing in any military or reserve military retirements, or promotion enhancements, you can download material suitable for learning, and mediation activities, court proceedings.  You can also learn about a 2011 New Jersey case study demonstrating how courts struggle with these issues.

The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) requires a court order either name a dollar amount to send to the spouse, or name a percentage to send to the spouse.  Contrary to what Mark Sullivan publishes, you do not have to pick one of the examples DFAS gives in their example document–those are just examples.  Any formula or method that allows them to calculate a percentage after retirement fits the “percentage category”.  This blog post considers two possible formulas necessary to calculate a percentage for DFAS based on “50% of what was earned during the marriage”.

method-tree

There are only two ways to create the DFAS percentage which properly divide enhancements for promotions, longevity, and duty during only the period of marriage: The Dual Coverture Value (DCV) method (or Dual Coverture method in simpler cases) and the Hypothetical Method.  Using a visual representation of an area diagram, DCV is a simple way of calculating coverture fraction discovered and published by Brian Mork, Ph.D.  The Hypothetical Method is a more complicated process (sequence of steps) published by DFAS.  The two methods yield identical mathematical percentages to send to DFAS if you stipulate that military pay raises equal Cost Of Living (COLA) annual raises.  This is shown with algebra symbolic formulas and examples in a pdf memorandum downloadable from a prior blog entry or a matching static web page.

Regardless of mathematical similarity, there are reasons why the Dual Coverture Method is better than the Hypothetical Method:

  1. DCV is simpler for lawyers and judges to understand because it’s based on the same coverture method that has been used for civilian pensions for decades.  It can be easily visualized as areas of a rectangular diagram, as shown in the white paper “Division of Military Retirement Promotion Enhancements Earned After Divorce” available from the Reference section of the web page “Division of Military Retirement Pay – Promotion Enhancements.”
  2. Dual Coverture much more simply accommodates military members who joined the service after 9/8/80 (see below).  The Hypothetical Method requires extra hand-calculations by the attorneys, prone to dispute, litigation, and error.
  3. Dual Coverture equitably  adjusts payments to both spouses with the same time value of money, using military pay charts.  Specifically, while both parties wait until retirement to receive monies, the Hypothetical method gives “time value of money” to the military members in the form of military pay increases, while the ex-spouse gets “time value of money” in the form of national COLA rates. Unless you’re trying to be inequitable, there is no reason to treat the parties differently.
  4. For military members who began Sept 8, 1980 or after,  the increases for the first year are reduced 1%.  It would be inequitable to base the military member’s retirement this way, but use the hypothetical calculation for the ex-spouse base without the 1% reduction.  Whether it comes to “time value of money” or 1-time Federally mandated reductions, why not treat both people the same?
  5. The Dual Coverture Value method is capable of dividing duty and promotion enhancements during the precise marriage window, setting aside duty, promotion, and longevitiy enhancements earned both after and before the marriage. The Hypothetical Method can only set aside duty and promotions earned after the marriage.
  6. The Dual Coverture Value method can do division when there is more than one ex-spouse.  Hypothetical cannot.
  7. The Hypothetical method uses a complex sequential step calculation method that scares the best attorney.  DCV makes a coverture fraction by simply dividing one area of the diagram (marital portion) by another area of the diagram (total retirement).  Areas are calculated with high-school math, just like calculating area of rugs or tiles in a room

2d-retirement-valueRegarding #2 above, for service members who began before Sept 8, 1980, their retirement is based on the final highest monthly salary level, and the pay chart lookup is easy.  However for military members who began Sept 8, 1980 or after, retirement is based on the average of 36-months’ salary level (see 10 USC 1407 vs. 10 USC 1406).  DFAS will not calculate the “high 36” value for a Hypothetical Method award, and requires this number be submitted for a valid asset division order to be accepted by DFAS (DFAS Instructions to Attorneys (or local copy), pg 9, top paragraph – this was updated in 2012, see References section). Individual parties are left with the task if they choose to do the Hypothetical Method.

With the Dual Coverture Value method there is no need to name the 36-month average in the order. DFAS already does the 36-month average at the time of payment as part of the normal retirement calculation, and simply applies the fraction submitted with the order. COLA and 36-month averaging are “automatically built in” for both spouses.

Whether you are a client or an attorney, feel free to contact me if I can help you.  I will help you with your personal numbers if you wish.  If you pursue simplicity and equity and all parties understand the military pay system before approaching the court, you’ll find that your legal work is a lot less painful.

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Reservist Military Retirement Division

Posted on January 30, 2011 by Brian

[Complete text is at a new location: http://www.increa.com/articles/division-military-retirement-dual-coverture]

When dividing the marriage asset of military retirement pay due to divorce, the issues are superbly different than any other type of retirement. When dealing with normal civilian retirements, a coverture fraction method typically allocates what portion of a retirement was earned during the marriage, and then that portion is divided. Non-military retirements use time as proration measure individuals work contiguous days. Legally, this manifests as a “coverture fraction” that you are probably familiar with. An Active Duty military retirement is different because it is 2-dimensional. The retirement benefit is looked up in a 2-dimensional based pay table, using time of service and rank. These two factors are independent, and cannot be captured in one fraction. The coverture fraction is the result of two mathematical fractions multiplied together.

For military with a Reserve retirement (not an Active Duty retirement), duty points are used in the place of calendar time in the first coverture fraction because any period of calendar time may include a lot of duty or not very much duty. Like Active Duty, the coverture needs a second fraction based on rank.

…remainder of this blog entry moved to a new location: http://www.increa.com/articles/division-military-retirement-dual-coverture

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