The Linear Canvas
This journal is about the wrongs and rights of the world, as I see them.

The Linear Canvas

My Recorded Cover Songs-“Ready For Love”

March 22nd, 2009 . by Alexander Fisher

Christine (Chris) Roby got me thinking about recording covers. I have recorded a couple of cover songs that didn’t turn out too bad. The one that immediately comes to mind is Ready For Love which was written by Mick Ralphs of Mott the Hoople and later of Bad Company. Both groups recorded the song, but the Mott the Hoople version was called Ready For Love / After Lights. This recording is a mashup of the two versions but I stick to the "it’s about sex" theme by including my own After The Lights ending. I’ve never seen the sheet music, so it’s as accurate as I can remember it to be.

Ready For Love

[audio:http://www.linearcanvas.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/03 Ready for Love _ After Lights.mp3]

Adobe Acrobat Anti-Zombie Solutions

March 11th, 2009 . by Alexander Fisher

An associate brought to my attention that there is an already exploited flaw in all versions of Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader (formerly known as Adobe Acrobat Reader). Not neccessaily dismissing his concerns, but wanting to verify for myself, I did a little investigating of my own.

I found that there is a problem with rigged Adobe Acrobat PDF’s files, but not PDF’s in general. The file has to be created by a person that knows the file is compromised. Just opening the e-mail will not activate the rigged PDF. You have to open the attached file to do that. There is always a danger opening files from people you don’t know and/or with messages that make no sense to you. If you are prone to do that for some reason, then that’s a dangerous practice, in any case.

The flaw allows the creator of the file to remotely access affected computers. Obviously that would allow the individual to steal personal information and/or create a Zombie computer that could spread the file by hijacking e-mail addresses and resending the infected file to others, usually without the computer owner’s knowledge.

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My Dad At War

March 2nd, 2009 . by Alexander Fisher

My father worked many different jobs in his life. He fought in a war and traveled all over the world and our country. All of this before I ever knew him. I talked to him many times about his life but in retrospect, I should have asked more about his experiences. Gerald D. Fisher

He would talk about his adventures in World War Two when the subject was brought up.  Many kids had fathers that had been in Korea or had missed both conflicts. His was a generation that sacrificed enormously for us all. Truly the greatest generation of our time. I was always very proud of his service to our country in World War Two.

My dad would tell me stories about the war but more often than not I was asking the questions. Many were inspired by the TV shows in the late sixties and early seventies that glorified American soldiers in Europe and Asia in the 1940’s. My dad’s all time favorite war themed TV program was called Bah Bah Blacksheep. It was based on a real WW2 fighter pilot, Pappy Boyington, in the South Pacific conflict. He would watch Combat!, which was about the American infantry in Europe , but being an Army Air Corps veteran, he preferred TV shows about fighter’s and bombers. There was a program on in the 1960’s about bombers called Twelve O’clock High that he liked. But he always complained that the featured B-17 bombers on the show, got all the publicity, but that B-24’s did all of the work.

America had been attacked and the U.S. government did a terrific job getting recruits for the war. My father was a little older at 28, than most recruits when he joined in the Army in 1942. He was trained in several parts of the country at being a soldier, repairing airplanes, and shooting large caliber machine guns. Because of that Army experience, when employed at a prison during the riots that followed the death of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, he was given a position on a large machine gun pointed at the prison door and told to kill anyone that came through it.

My dad was a right wing gunner on a B-24D Liberator and rose to the rank of Technical Sergeant in the Army Air Corps, which later became the Air Force. He was a tall man, so service in any of the confining turret spaces was right out. That was probably lucky for him. He was trained as an airplane mechanic. I know he had some mechanical experience from his jobs previous to joining the Army. I am not sure what help it was being a mechanic once you were on a bombing mission. He mentioned that the pilot allowed him to fly the B-24, but wouldn’t let him land it.

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