Would you like to pin this .ini file?

The saddest part is that this would still be more meaningful than 98% of existing Facebook posts.

Microsoft recently released an updated configuration menu for my keyboard. It still doesn't let me change the function of the stupid zoom slider so I can use it to scroll. It does, however, include handy little buttons that, presumably, allow me to easily share my hotkey settings on Facebook and Twitter. Because, you know, my friends and family really need to know about such things. Hooray for progress!

I'm sure this is *exactly* what Stallman had in mind

From the "Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root." dept.

Launch Firefox? Are you sure you don't want to buy a Kindle Fire instead?
(Wallpaper source: Fuji Choko [alternate link])

So last weekend, I found myself having to upgrade my Linux box to the beta version of the upcoming Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" release. This release consists primarily of minor version bumps: new kernel version, newer X server, etc. There is one very noticeable difference, however: the search bar in the dash, in addition to locating programs and files, now recommends stuff to buy on Amazon based on what you're typing. Because if there was anything that was truly holding Linux back on the desktop, it was the lack of built-in functionality sending your every action to a random megacorporation for marketing purposes. This is something that not even Mac OS X or Windows have yet (although nobody really knows what the hell is going on in Windows 8), so it's really a nice jump that the Ubuntu folks have gotten on the competition here. Though they really need to hurry up and get this functionality added to the grep command.

Of course, none of this changes the fact that it still doesn't really work that well as an operating system. I mentioned that I "had" to upgrade to a beta. This is because the system would blow up in my face whenever I attempted to save large files to it from another machine on the network. Sometimes it would kernel panic, other times my Samba share would become inaccessible from other computers on my network until a reboot.

After weeks of constant reboots, messing around with Samba settings, tweaking registry settings on my Windows box, and just about anything else I could find, I finally thought I had located the culprit: a problem with the kernel drivers for my ethernet card. This was fixed in newer kernel versions, but despite the fact that the current stable version of Ubuntu is considered a "Long-term support" release, and the fact that this is a rather common gigabit ethernet chipset, there was no easy way to get the newer kernel version to fix this problem without having to do a lot of manual installation, which is something that never ends well.

So I had to upgrade. And it worked. For about a week. And then I had another kernel panic this morning.

So the machine that I have all my files saved on is still completely unusable as a file server, but at least it's much easier for me to dick away money on Amazon now, because that's all that's important, isn't it?

We have our priorities in order!

Number of days it took to fix the broken images on this blog: 2

Number of days it took to produce the stupid video in the previous "Technical Difficulties" post: 4

Of course, most of that time was spent just trying to find a free video editor that actually did what I needed it to, without having to resort to Windows Movie Maker.


...


And after going through about fifteen different Linux video editors that all crashed out the moment I tried to do anything at all, I ultimately had to resort to Windows Movie Maker. You stay classy, Linux!

In which I realize far too late that I have chosen the wrong university to attend

Man, it's amazing the kind of halftime show you can pull off when you don't have only ten poorly-funded band members trying to share the field with 412 vapid cheerleaders.

There are certain high schools around here that could possibly learn a lot from this, but then again, who needs silly things like funding for the arts, when you can have hundreds of teenage girls in miniskirts kicking their legs? It's not like the people demanding all the funding for the cheerleaders are just a bunch of perverted old men who like looking up the skirts of underage girls, nosiree! I'm sure they only go to Jitty Joe's for the ice cream, too.

Meanwhile at 'Da U, they have replaced all of the bench seats in the second floor cafeteria of the Guster center with new ones.

Approximately one month before said cafeteria closes.

For good.

As in, "the building is being demolished."

As if it wasn't bad enough that they had just spent a small fortune renovating said building two years ago.

(Maybe they're just upset that I found Yuki?)

Still a pain in the ass at 4 AM, though

It's kind of nice to see that I'm not the only one who has had to resort to the old "Bed or Chair System". In fact, it seems to be a time-honored tradition. Of course, the best solution seems to be to get a nice, big apartment and clear the local IKEA of shelving units, but A: I'm stuck in retail for at least another two months, and B: there's no IKEA around here, anyway.

I have begun collecting figures. My status as "that one eccentric unmarried uncle everybody has" is now permanently cemented.

Update: I have managed to work the "Bed or Chair System" into today's Japanese homework:

ねる前に、ベッドの上にあるDVDの山をいすに移動しなくちゃいけません。

Before I go to sleep, I must move the mountain of DVDs that is on my bed over to the chair.

I have no idea if this is entirely correct, but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough when the teacher docks me three letter grades for using にinstead of へ or something silly like that. Seriously, that's what we're dealing with this semester. We're already planning a sting operation to go to Japan and drag last year's instructor back, kicking and screaming if necessary.

Please do not drool on the 128k

One day, I hope to have a basement that looks like this. That is all.

A Quick Comparison of Operating Systems

From the "This Made Me Late for My Show" Department:

*I plug an ethernet cable into the computer:*

---

Linux:

Computer: Ah! An ethernet cable! *Prints a message in a log somewhere*

Me: *Fires up a shell and executes a command to start the ethernet interface.*

Computer: Roight-O! *Starts up ethernet adapter and connects to the network as configured, falling back on DHCP if there's no configuration*

---

Mac:

Computer: Ah! Ethernet cable! *Sets up connection the same way the Linux box does, but without requiring any user input whatsoever.*

---

Windows:

Computer: Dum de dum...

Me: Uhh... could you connect to the network I just plugged in? Please?

Computer: Hwuh? Wha? Oh, that. Well, you don't have the ethernet cable plugged in.

Me: What the hell are you talking about? I just plugged it in! Hell, your light's even blinking on the switch! Don't tell me there's no cable plugged in!

Computer: Nope. No cable. *Goes back to thrashing the hard drive*

Me: AAAAARRRRRGH! *I go through the entire Windows control panel, looking for any way possible to get this thing to recognize that yes, I did indeed plug in a network cable. When this fails, I fall back on the old Windows standby of rebooting the entire machine and hoping that knocks some sense into it.* Now can you connect to the network?

Computer: Huh? Oh, I've disabled that network interface.

Me: What? How the hell did the interface get disabled?

Computer: Well, you didn't have a cable plugged in the last time, so...

Me: AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH! *I once again go through every single network configuration option on the system, all the while cursing Bill Gates and wishing that I had sprung for the Powerbook instead.*

After about 25 minutes of this, I finally got it to recognize that yes, there is indeed a network there, and I managed to get my files transferred by 3:55. That left me a grand total of five minutes to pack my stuff into the car and make the seven-mile drive to the station.

Note that this was after I had already spent a half hour trying to get Windows to connect to the wireless network for longer than thirty seconds at a time. Also note that I end up having problems like this every single time I'm in a hurry and have to deal with Windows. And people wonder why I always seem so stressed out.

Blowing Rasperries at your Heaven

So XScreenSaver (an excellent collection of screensavers for UNIX-ish systems, including Mac OS X) has this saver called "FuzzyFlakes", created by Barry Dmytro, which features multicolored flakes wafting around your screen. Originally, these were pink flakes on a green background, to match the end credits of Azumanga Daioh, which were the inspiration for the screen saver. A few versions later, the ability to specify different or random color schemes was added. However, the new color selection scheme made it impossible to get the original Azumanga-inspired colors anymore. So about a year ago, I posted a patch at the end of this post that would re-enable these colors.



Anyway, the patch no longer works with the recently released XScreenSaver 5.00, so I've made a new patch to go along with it. I've also included a universal binary for Mac OS X, for those of you who are into that sort of thing. For the patch, you'll need the source code for version 5.07 of XScreenSaver, which is available here. Mac users need to have Mac OS 10.4 or higher. Windows users can go suck Mr. Tadakichi's tail.

• Source code patch
• Mac OS X binary

Ever Closer to the Dark Side

So I've been finding myself using the aforementioned Mac more and more lately, to the point where I can now almost consider it my main computer. Despite the fact that I have two much faster computers sitting here.

Is this because of OS X's power, usability, and all-around design? Ehh, maybe a little.

Does this have anything to do with the fact that my Windows box consistently suffers total lockups every time the temperature in my room rises above 70° Fahrenheit and now has to be mothballed until October? Or the fact that every time I run a software update on my Linux box, all of the 11,476 media players on it completely cease to function for at least two weeks until the people maintaining those packages get them fixed up? YES! YES! A THOUSAND TIMES YES! PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, GET ME OUT OF THIS HELL!

So yeah, it's pretty much either this or the laptop. And despite the fact that the laptop can theoretically run all three of the operating systems involved (albeit one of them with questionable legality and functionality), I kind of value my wrists, so the Mac it is. Heil Jobs, and all that.

Still, it is a pretty good system to work with, and I'd probably have no problem switching for good, except for one little annoying fact. You see, the model that I have now is an ancient PowerMac, which has been Apple's top-of-the-line. When this machine was manufactured in 1999, it would have cost $3500. As it is, I paid about $250 for this thing on eBay back in January, which is actually pretty low considering that slower systems with much less memory were going for about $250-300 at the time. If it weren't for the Buy It Now price, this one probably would have went for about $350-400.

The reason I mention this is because, for a couple hundred dollars more, I could have just gotten myself a brand now Mac Mini that would have been faster, had iLife and all that other good stuff installed, etc, etc, etc. There's just one little catch: If you ever, for any reason, want to do something silly like... ohh... add another hard drive, put in a better graphics card, or anything like that, you're SOL. As somebody who enjoys tinkering with hardware, and who is offended by the idea of a disposable computer (which is essentially all it is), this prospect irks me to no end.

Then there's the iMac, which not only commits the cardinal sin of integrating the computer with the monitor (Keeripes! A few dead pixels and the whole thing's useless!), but also requires that you be a qualified brain surgeon just to get the case open. Thanks, but no thanks.

So that leaves the Pro line, which, when new, is always way out of my price range, and more computer than I could ever justify buying for myself. Hell, even the refurbished models bottom out at $2000 for just the tower. The only option left for people like me is to buy older machines secondhand, and forget any hope of warranty coverage, packaged software, support for newer features (802.11g... oh, sorry, *ahem*... "AirPort Express™"), and so on. Not to mention that they've been around the block a few times, and have their share of wear, tear, and annoying little problems (Mine wouldn't sleep until I yanked some SCSI cards, for example).

It would be nice if they offered us a lower-end tower that's easy to upgrade as one's needs grow. Judging from the amount of people trying to coax OS X onto non-Apple hardware, there certainly seems to be a market for such a system out there. That prospect even got me interested in the project for a while last year. Of course, Apple, being a hardware company (depending on who you ask), doesn't seem too likely to introduce anything with a lower margin and a longer life span, but a nerd can dream, can't he?

Feh. If anybody needs me, I'll be over here teetering at the edge of the Dark Side, looking fearfully over the ledge. But now, a picture:

...Why Mayor Quimby?
(graffiti from a train car parked on the bridge over Spruce St. in downtown Scranton)

Finally, because I've somehow managed to go an entire page of blog posts without a gratuitous reference to them, here are some actual, 100% true facts about CLAMP:

• In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. After that, he was stumped, and had to ask Ageha Ohkawa for advice.
• Mokona can draw over 150 pages in the course of an hour. She can draw over 500 after she wakes up.
• CLAMP are such accomplished manga artists, that they can miss a deadline three weeks before it even occurs.
• The ending of Cardcaptor Sakura is the only thing that has ever made Chuck Norris cry. Ever.

Alright, that's it for tonight. Be sure to tune in next time, when we'll have John Goodman, Amy Sedaris, and that guy who won the latest American Idol series. Does anybody remember what his name was? Better yet, does anybody still care?

(Fun Fact: The word "blog" is not in the Blogger spell checker.)

I Wish to Register a Complaint

So last night, a customer walked up to my register to return a tub full of dead fish. That left me with 9 defective slips, which I filled out as follows:

Slip 1: Dead.
Slip 2: Ceased to Be
Slip 3: No More
Slip 4: It's a stiff.
Slip 5: Bereft of life.
Slip 6: It rests in peace.
Slip 7: If it hadn't been nailed to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies.
Slip 8: It's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.
Slip 9: THIS IS AN EX-FISH!!!

I fully expect to be called into the office for a talk any time now.

And what would Brian Carpenter say?

It all started with an iPod...

Well, it seems like it's finally happened. After all these years of managing to successfully avoid it, I now appear to be succumbing to the Dark Side. It all began in November, when I used my "holiday bonus" at work (20% off one item instead of 10%! Aren't faceless megacorporaconglomerates wonderful?) to buy myself a video iPod. It was fine at first, but then I suddenly found myself being overwhelmed by this inexplicable, uncontrollable urge. I didn't know what to make of it at first. As the urge escalated, I found myself doing things that I have never done before. I begain checking Apple rumor sites almost daily. Steve Jobs' MacWorld keynote? Watched the whole thing. All the while, the urge was getting worse and worse. Finally, last week, after a blurry few days of which I remember little besides the eBay logo and lots of cursing at snipers, I awoke to find this sharing a desk with my Linux box:

Just the thing I need. How nice.

So, yeah, as you can see there peeking out from behind the monitor and under the architecturally-dubious Leaning Tower of Kiseki™ (a Moosic landmark since 2005!), I am now the proud owner of an aging Mac.

Actually, I'm pretty much using this as sort of a training exercise. Now that Apple's switching to Intel (and thus opening the door for things like VMware and WINE, for when I acutally need a Windows program), I'm considering making the switch when my Windows box gets too old to be useable. Seeing how I like to run these things into the ground (I had a 486 Linux box running 24/7 until just last year, for chrissakes), this probably won't be happening for at least a few years. In the meantime, I grabbed myself this G4, seemingly plucked straight out of the hallowed halls of a forgotten University computer lab, judging by the number of labels that were stuck to it at some point or another. It also posesses the strangest CD loading mechanism that I have ever seen:

I'm your mighty, CD-gripping Jaws of Love, baby!

It's actually a DVD-RAM drive, where the recordable discs would come in their own cartridges. Do we remember DVD-RAM, kids? No? Neither do I. So anyway, there's what I'm going to spend the next few months playing with when I should be doing something productive. Like making timely updates to this blog. With that in mind, here's one last look at Christmas Mokona before I pack the lights up for another year:

En fuego!

Goodnight, everybody.

What's wrong with this picture?

From this weeks Best Buy ad:



Yes, I know it's pointless, and it's probably happened thousands of times before, but I have a 10-page paper that I need to get done for Tuesday, so there you go. Luckily, some graphic designer was so excited about getting a picture of his kid into a circular for a national electronics chain that he got his operating systems crossed up. Otherwise, I would have had to bring out the Internet Landfill Dancers for this week's update, and believe me, nobody wants to see that.

In other news: my car, the infamous Screaming Kiwi of the Apocolypse™, lost a hubcap the other day. I was driving along aimlessly, as usual, when suddenly I heard this "Whump! Whump! Whump! BANG!" noise. I looked in the mirror, and saw my hubcap literally flying over the street. I went back and, after a little searching, managed to find about three fourths of it. I still have no idea how the hell that happened. Anybody out there have any ideas? Oh, wait, that's right, nobody reads this. But just in case a few people happen to stumble upon this page, go post your theories about what happened to my hubcap in the comments. The best one wins a FREE copy of the University of Scranton Mission Statement! Operators are standing by, so act now!

Next week: John Goodman, Eric Estrada, and the music of Dido. Okay, maybe not, although I may be able to get Dido. She's on Kilborn practically every other day, so why not?

Oh yeah, we're really grasping for updates now.

Well, it's finally happened. I've gotten so bored, so desperate for something, anything to do, that I'm actually going to write a post listing the contents of my desk. I frankly never thought that it would ever really come to this, but here it is, so you might as well enjoy. Just be thankful that this hasn't degraded into Ben Schumin's site yet. That will probably be the next update. Anyway, first off, we have my main computer desk:

Oh yeah, it's a mess. As you can see, the fire marshall is going to run in here any day now and shut down this whole operation. Anyway, starting from the left, you have the ever-present Far Side calendar, an empty Pepsi can, then a huge pile of junk, including:

• A microphone
  
• Two McDonald's coupon books
  
• A TV/VCR remote
  
• A DVD remote
  
• Napkins, napkins, napkins
  
• Several thousand manuals and driver disks strewn about randomly.
  
• A bunch of junk mail envelopes from such fine institutions as the University of Scranton, various credit card companies, and Suncoast, the official overpriced video store of the Internet Landfill
  
• About $20 in rolled change that keeps rolling off the desk onto the keyboard while I'm trying to typjhkj7uyku
  
• Battery pot luck
  
• And finally, somewhere behind that pile is a Zip drive, as well as the key to everlasting youth.
  

In front of that, I have a pair of headphones hooked directly into the soundcard, because my computer's speakers absolutely suck. To the right of that, there's a cheap souvenir thermometer from Florida that's about 20 degrees off at all times. Then there's a stack of CD-R discs that I can't use because my burner is dead. On top of that, we have a bunch of Zip and floppy disks. Next to that we have a couple storage boxes, containing even more Zip disks, and an ethernet hub. Other things to note:

• That yellow box of Pepto-Bismol tablets above the microphone. Expiration date: September 1996.
  
• Yes, that is the floating, disembodied head of David Byrne, and no, he's not happy to see you.
  
• One of the CD's in that shelf on the left is the soundtrack to the first Flintstones movie. I believe I'm the last person in the world who actually owns a copy of that.
  
• I'm not going to even get started on that huge mass of papertude in between the CD's there, so don't even ask.
  
• Why do I have two mice? The one on the right is for my other computer. And look, here's that other computer now! (Yow! Somebody give me an award for that segue!)
  

Uhh... yeah. Well, there's a dollar bill on top of the computer there, I think that's been there since 1997, and... uhh... a keyboard. Yeah, that's it, a keyboard. Oh, and napkins, lots and lots of napkins. Napkins napkins napkins...


*BLAM!*

Question for the Digital Ages

Why is it that scanners absolutely, positively never work? Really? Every single time I've ever needed to scan something, I can't find a single one that works. They manage to throw error messages up the wazoo, completely lock up the system, fill the room with smoke, destroy major cities in Japan, even sing Fine Young Cannibals songs, but I have yet to actually see one successfully scan anything. Why is this? Is this some kind of evil scheme created by scanner manufacturers to drive everybody else insane so that they can take over the world and make us their slaves? Is this part of some MPAA "anti-piracy" scheme to prevent us from taking a photo of each individual frame in a movie, scanning them in, re-animating them, and sending the movies out over the Internet? ...

uhh... yeah. Anyway, I was planning to have something semi-entertaining up here, but obviously, that plan kind of fell through, so instead, please enjoy this picture of University of Scranton president Fr. Joseph McShane, S.J, singing the Meow Mix jingle: