And speaking of shameless endorsements

A message from the National Chicken Tenders Bureau.

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?

It's a brand new record for 1990...

They Might Be Giants' brand new album, Join Us Flood!

The local stations' 24-hour flood coverage has been nothing short of magical, in the "college radio show when the CD player breaks down" sense.

The anchors on 16 are currently showing Facebook photos in order to kill time until something, anything, new comes in, and as I'm typing this have forgotten the meteorologist currently on duty, who I think has used at least three different pronunciations of "Katia" so far. Earlier, they had Tom Clark introduce the newest member of their weather team, with whom he has absolutely no on-air chemistry (there's a shock), in what seemed like the most awkward weather segment EVER.

They also keep repeating a series of helicopter reports that all devolve into Marisa Burke having a conversation about the damage with the pilot and/or camera operator, who are, of course, inaudible. They also repeat a segment in which a guy says that he's going to stay in his house, and if the water reaches the second floor, he's just going to "skip" out. I don't think he quite understands how these "flood" things work.

Meanwhile, 28/22 seems to be broadcasting from a temporary studio, lit with flashlights, interspersed with footage from a series of security cameras, and the anchors have actually been *describing* Facebook photos because they can't get the photos themselves on the air. They've also instructed viewers to call schools and such about closures, because they apparently can't get that information on the air either. I'm surprised they haven't gone off the air due to hamster exhaustion by this point.

Great news!

From the "No, not the Dacia Sandero" Dept.

Since we last checked in on the progress of Scranton's luxury condominiums in 2006, they've finally managed to tear down the other half of that building in the back of the lot, as well as another to the side! Well, most of the one to the side:

Still, this sucker's gonna be ready to open any day now!

We now conclude "Things that tick Peter Hocking off" week on this blog with an HDR image of downtown Scranton.

Unfortunately, we were unable to find any middle-aged women in foofy pink dresses and curly blonde wigs who were willing to pose for the photo while holding the aforementioned iPad.

This is why I still read anime blogs

Series reviews such as this:

The phrase "Train wreck" comes to mind, but it’s really not accurate. Trains have momentum and direction. This does not. A better analogy would be a pack of feral chihuauas in heat. With grenades taped to their backs. Entertaining and destructive, maybe even cute and tragic at times, but ultimately a waste of explosives and snake food.

from Aroduc's post on the final episode of Angel Beats!

Couldn't have said it better if I still went through the trouble it takes to actually watch this stuff.