I turn 24 today.
Amanda claims 24 to be ancient. She’s watched me write a few sentances and delete them.
“You’d think you had died and were writing your own memoirs.”
Lots of me is different than it was a year ago. Were I marketting myself, I’d proclaim me to be new, improved, and better than ever both in mind and body. That always sounds to me like an apology for previous versions and I’ll concede that sentiment.
<p>OK, I can’t take it anymore. I’m ordering a <a href="http://www.apple.com/powerbook/index15.html">15” powerbook</a> tonight.</p>
<p>The fans in my company-Dell Inspiron 4100 are louder than my old whitebox PIII-500. The 20 GB hard drive has me deleting MP3’s just to emerge packages in <a href="http://www.gentoo.org/">gentoo</a>. It doesn’t have a cd burner. The screen adds a pink glow to everything when first warming up. The cheap plastic makes flexing noises when I pick it up. It is nearly 90% replaced-under-warranty hardeware. Hate hate hate hate hate hate.</p>
<p>Linux has been my primary (only) operating system for the past two years or so and the 15” powerbook is not yet supported fully by Linux — strange times indeed, I’ll have to use shareware and non-free software occasionally. Gasp. </p>
<p>I’m still looking forward to it a lot. ;)</p>
<p>Groklaw is carrying a complete adaption of The Grinch Who Stole Chrismas relating <a href="http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20031106164630915">SCO</a>‘s story. Great stuff.<br />
SCO had been caught by this little GNU daughter
who’d got out of bed for a cup of cold water.
She stared at SCO and said, “SCO, why,
“Why are you taking our free Linux? WHY?”<p>But, you know, that <span class="caps">SCO</span> was so smart and so slick<br />They thought up a lie, and they thought it up quick!
“Why, my sweet little tot,” the two-faced leader lied,
“There’s code on this tree that won’t work on my side.
“So we’re taking it home to our workshop, my dear.
“We’ll fix it up there. Then we’ll bring it back here.”<p>And their fib fooled the child. Then they patted her head<br />And they got her a drink and they sent her to bed.
And when Cindy-Lou GNU went to bed with her cup,
They went to the chimney and stuffed the code up!
<p><a href="http://www.ninjatune.net/ninja/release.php?id=768">It has arrived</a>.</p>
<p>I do not have a verdict yet. I am leaning towards really liking it but have only heard a few tracks. Radio Nufonia gets a thumbs up if you can’t decide on which samples to give a listen…</p>
<p><a href="http://rss.com.com/2008-1014_3-5076942.html">good interview</a></p>
<p><blockquote><b>You’ve told reporters many times in the past that you’ve entered corporate networks without permission. Did you?</b></p>
Certainly not. (laughs) Yes, yes, I have.
<p><center><i>-/-snip-/-</i></center></p>
<p><b>You could have done some things differently to avoid being here today, no?</b></p>
I believe that everything that has brought me here has been in its own way part of the design for the world around me, and I have faith it’s going to work out for the best.
<p>—<br />
I wasn’t really interested in the guy before reading the interview — now i’m intrigued. Hrmmmm
<p>> cat .xinitrc | grep xmodmap
<ol>
<li>xmodmap to turn caps lock into another shift key</li>
</ol><br />
Xmodmap -e “remove Lock = Caps_Lock”
xmodmap -e “remove Shift = Shift_L”
xmodmap -e “keysym Shift_L = Caps_Lock”
xmodmap -e “keysym Caps_Lock = Shift_L”
xmodmap -e “add Lock = Caps_Lock”
xmodmap -e “add Shift = Shift_L”
<p>Why? Because this is damned annoying:</p>
<p>E492: Not an editor command: WQ</p>
<p>Unless of course, you’ve modded your computer to use an <a href="http://www.ahleman.com/ElectriClerk.html">Underwood</a> typewriter as a keyboard.</p>
<p>Similar to this snippet from my .bashrc ;)</p>
<p> <ol>
<li>Silly aliases that actually help</li>
</ol><br />
alias :q!=“exit”
alias :wq=“exit”
alias :q=“exit”
<p><a href="http://www.jeffnoon.com/">Jeff Noon</a> has a new <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385602960/qid=1063153503/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/202-4778942-3129423">novel</a> now but it is only for sale in the UK.</p>
<p>I am ordering a copy yesterday and suggest all do the same.</p>
<p>I first read vurt around 95’ or 96’ and have loaned my copy out to more people than I can count on one hand, named more web sites, quake aliases, and irc handles after his creations than any other as well as my high school rock band (w/ erk and dan) — yes, I’m looking forward to reading this first novel in a long time.</p>
<p>quick list of jeff noon references i’ve leeched: jokerbone, pixeljuice, hobart, scribble, beetle, curious yellow…</p>
“Wesley Willis, the energetic 6’5”, 300-pound Chicago street musician who parlayed whimsical, spartan keyboard odes to his favorite products and indie rock musicians into a cult following, died on Thursday night at a hospice in Illinois; he was forty.”
<p><a href=http://www.rollingstone.com/news/newsarticle.asp?nid=18568>http://www.rollingstone.com/news/newsarticle.asp?nid=18568</a></p>
“I am a rock soloist..I am a rock singer on the Wesley Willis Fiasco”
<p>Radiohead<br />
Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD
Wed, Aug 20, 2003. 6:30pm
<p>Section Row Type Ticket Price Building Facility Charge Convenience Charge Description </p>
<p>LAWN23 <span class="caps">ADULT</span> $36.50 $3.50 $8.25
<span class="caps">PRICE</span> <span class="caps">LEVEL</span> 2<br />
GENERAL ADMISSION LAWN
LAWN23 ADULT $36.50 $3.50 $8.25
LAWN23 ADULT $36.50 $3.50 $8.25
LAWN23 ADULT $36.50 $3.50 $8.25
<p>Item Charge <br />
Tickets (Radiohead)
ADULT $36.50 × 4
Total Building Facility Charge(s) $14.00
Total Convenience Charge(s) $33.00
Total Taxes $0.00
Order Processing Charge(s) $3.90
Standard Mail $0.00
<p><span class="caps">TOTAL</span> <span class="caps">CHARGES</span> $196.90 </p>
<p>
Tickets still available people. The shows the 20th of this month. Be there!
<p><i>If the future had a slogan, what would it be?</i></p>
<p><a href="http://frontwheeldrive.com/philip_k_dick.html">PKD</a>: “God promises eternal life. We can deliver it.”</p>
<p>I really really really really enjoy reading <span class="caps">PKD</span> novels — the interview is neat. Even if you think you have no idea who <span class="caps">PKD</span> is, follow the link, the introduction will remind you.</p>
<p>Reading long passages of text in a browser is torture. This is only partly because of the screen. Also problematic is the number of words in a line which is often dynamic and when static intended for letter paper, lack of true page numbering and the innability to bookmark the currenlty <i>location</i> on a page in huge scrolling documents. Enter htmldoc — now I’m reading the same text in small trade paperback standard width, height and line-height with page numbering, headers and footers. Should I so desire, I can add a few more flags to my command and have a pdf ready to be printed and bound.</p>
<p>I don’t have many (any?) pics of how long my hair had gotten — found this at the gallery for Aaron and Kathy’s wedding. Now I want to grow it out again :)</p>
<p>Ring…<br />
Ring…
me: “Helpdesk, this is Grant…”
user: “i’m working from home on my laptop and it said it was going into hibernation and then it turned off.”
me: erm you battery died
<p><span class="imred">user</span>: Well, I need a new battery then.<br />
user: Order me a new battery.
me: Can’t you plug it in?
user: I don’t know my husband set all this up.
me: Is there no power outlet nearby?
user: I don’t know, can’t I just get another battery? How long would it take?
me: I could put a quote in for one… could take a week or two.
user: What do you mean ‘quote’?! A week? I’m going on vacation!
me: Is the power chord plugged into the back left corner of the laptop?
me: Can you follow that back to the black box?
user: hold on… ok… yes it is plugged in!.. and I see the black box, it says “Dell” on it…
me: Is the green light on?
user: What green light?
me: On the black box.
user: No, the green light is not on. What does that mean?
me: It means that it is not getting power.
me: Can you follow that back to the wall and verify that the other end is plugged into a power outlet?
user: Hold on, let me put the phone down.
noise
sounds of stuff moving around
user: Yes, it is plugged in! I need a new battery!
me: Is there a switch on that outlet that needs to be turned on for the outlet to be live?
user: What do you mean live, there is no switch.
me: Was it a power strip or a wall outlet.
user: uhmm… a power strip.
me: …
user: Oh wait, I plugged it into the wall now… ok the green light is on!!
user: What does that mean?
me: It means it is getting power.
user: So do you think I should get a battery?
<p>etc etc…</p>
<p>That was as close to a word-for-word transcription as memory would allow. Good times! We debated the usefulness of a new battery for a bit, and I explained exactly what “being plugged in” would do for the battery, then walked her through logging back into the machine which was “locked” but that’s boring…</p>
<p>William Gibson has posted a transcript of a recent talk he gave. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/archive/2003_05_01_archive.asp#200322370" >Good reading</a> if you have the time.</p>
<p>William Gibson is an SF author often credited as the ‘father of cyberpunk’. I read shitloads of SF but <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0425190455/qid=1053568075/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-2849343-4622421?v=glance&s=books&n=507846">Idoru</a> is the only Gibson novel I’ve finished… that was in high school and after reading the blog post I’m thinking I should re-examine his works.</p>
<p>Not because I completely buy his vision of the future but because I am now perhaps a bit more capable of digesting the format in which he depicts it. </p>
<p>I generally cringe, knowing I should not, when pundits describe the internet as an “unprecedented driver of change”. </p>
<p>I don’t know if it is exactly incorrect but it certainly reeks of “we are at the cusp of a new age” thinking which every generation has likely been guilty of in some way…</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>There are seven of us that should be meeting up at the <a href="http://www.funkymeters.com" title="The Funky Meters">Funky Meters</a> show at the <a href="http://www.930club.com" title="930 at 815 V">9:30 club</a> tonight. I’ll be metro’ing over with Amanda, Ben and Aaron. Erk, Jake and Sam will be meetings us there. </p>
<p>Ben isn’t talking to me right now becuase I refuse to say “Harrrr” over IM so if anyone has heard anything from him about a change of plans, let me know.</p>
<p><span class="imBlue">grant</span>: why do i have this strange notion that I need to write long e-mail messages thinking anyone will read it?<br />
Ben: i’ve absolutely no freaking idea
grant: does it kill people and make them put me in their spam filter rules?
Ben: i plead the fifth
—SNIP—
<p><span class="imBlue">grant</span>: about to send a stupid message<br />
grant: stop me
grant: now’s your chance
Ben: its lame dont bother
Ben: you just look like an opinionated hippie w/ that haircut and your proving it
grant: there ya go
Ben: going limp
grant: ARRRRRRRR
Ben: do you want everyone to think your a damn zealot? cmon man THINK
grant: so if i get a haircut I can start ranting again?
grant: i’ll just send it to you
Ben: no. because then your a hypocrit
grant: hrmm. how so?
Ben: your pretending to be someone you arent!
grant: this sounds like a total trap
Ben: hmm it could be
grant: when? now or if I got a haircut
Ben: hahaha your jedi mind tricks do not work on me
grant: I’m so confused
Ben: you know how jacks boss was pissed when jack kept sending lil hiaku’s to everyone in the company? SAME THING
Ben: (everything i’ve learned from life i’ve learned from hollywood)
Grant:
worker bees can leave
even drones can fly away
the queen is their slave
Ben is at my wed/thurs client. Justin is one of the people we support there.
Biehl is my boss.
Ben: justin just stopped by and asked for a mouse padThe ashtrays in front of the building I’m in on Wed/Thurs in downtown DC are no where to be seen today.
This is troubling - they only remove them in expectation of ‘something going down’.
Anyone have any word on any planned protests this morning in DC of an abnormal magnitude? Searching around is a trap because there are protests somewhere in DC nearly every day.
Yesterday I saw roughly 60 people picketting some building on Vermont Ave… all had posterboards on sticks saying something about healthcare and some were playing the bongo’s, because that’s what healthcare is all about.
The AP (on a few of the floors in the aforementioned downtown DC office building) has had foreign reporters in front of the building delivering ENG (Electronic News Gathering) head-shot reports with nice K St. backdrops every day for the past few months. Today a reporter I did not recognize appeared to be stopping willing passer-by’s to get man-on-the-street questions answered. You wouldn’t (ok you probably would) believe the nut-jobs stopping and trying to get in line to voice their opinion, people purposely standing in-frame behind the reporter, people walking by throwing / peace signs (ok it’s really brittish semaphor for ND, Nuclear Disarmament - hush up Stephen King fans) or just being silly.
What a show.
I just dropped a paycheck on a new digital camera + bag + 128MB memmory stick + gamepad.
Ok, the gamepad is for playing snes on my laptop and was cheap but I bought it at the same time at the same place.
Anyway, here are two pictures that I got today playing with f-stops and the flash. The darts one shows the limitations of a flash placed behind the lense but otherwise they came out ok.
Yes, I will be dragging this to every party and getting candid shots. The memmory stick, I just learned, holds 51 pictures at extremely high quality and approximately 900 at 640×480. Prepare to have your picture taken drunkasses.
😃
Watching Mister Rogers was at one point in time the highlight of my day. I thought everyone came home, changed into their house slippers and put on a sweater. I thought anyone could just go up to a crayon factory or a firehouse and ‘ask for a tour’. I thought the mailman was wierd.
=/
It error’s like hell in the console - have to tweak that a bit…
First time I’ve ever done any actual editing of open source source code (or real code at all for that matter)…
Ok ok you got me, it wasn’t editing, it was just commenting lines out that looked like they were the culprits for shit I didn’t like. Namely the toolbars that gaim draws in the chat screen.
As if we all clickety-clack away typing in what we want to say to someone, then reach for the mouse and click “send”… I know what ctrl-b does, I know what ctrl-i does, I know what escape does…
Now to clean up the button state updates it’s trying to process every time i hit a letter key.
What kind of company would use ‘mal’, meaning bad or badly in their name? Mal, found in words like malformation, maladjusted, dismal, malady, malcontent, malfeasance, and maleficent does not really bring to mind the warmest feelings.
Just looking at this old Maltron keyboard I just snagged from the trash heap at a client’s makes my hands hurt! I can’t wait to plug it in and try it out in my cube.
I was out in front of a client’s office building on K street today having a cigarette…
Up pulls a bike messenger.
Messengers generally lock their bikes against poles and grates in front of the building. Said polls and grates are currently under a few feet of snow.
What was the replacement security device implemented by this particular bike messenger?
A pile of fake poop on the seat!
Best.
Security.
Ever.
Judging books by their covers is often the only effective way to find new authors - Jim Munroe’s Everyone in Silico is no expection.
I picked up a copy of the book at Border’s the other day and highly recommend it - I also think I’ve found a publishing company to start buying random books from: four walls eight windows - check out their current offerings.
Munroe has an interesting website called No Media Kings. Especially interesting is that he invoiced companies that recieved product placement in the novel.
Oh, and his writing isn’t bad either.
=/
well this sucks. From CNN:
NASA officials said they last had contact with the shuttle at about 9 a.m. EST, and it had been expected to touch down at about 9:16 a.m. EST.
The shuttle was at 200,700 feet, traveling at 12,500 mph, when contact was lost.
The space shuttle is old technology but every replacement has had it’s budget cut fyi.
=/
I was only six but I swear I remember it, and for the next few years today was an event in schools.
The UDP exploit currently thrashing many internet backbones isn’t really all that interesting, but it makes for interesting graphs…
Update: Microsoft is now using the common name for the vulnerability: Slammer.
If there was ever a better article, it probably used the word “fucktard” even more times than jwz.org’s video on linux rant.
It’s like reading my own rants!
I can’t get enough of this shit.
I wish they’d open a shop in DC (tips well rewarded if there is one). They don’t have the new Solid Steel release in the ninja shop =/
I snagged the last Solid Steel cd, Now Listen! at Borders in my huge post-christmas-gift-certificate-shopping-spree and really dig it.
Boing Boing "…will be wearing a black arm-band for the next day in mourning for our shared cultural heritage, as the Library of Alexandria burns anew."
My gut reaction is that this is a bit overreacting but at the same time - the powers of corporations to continually extend their patent / copyright lifetime with no regard for the interests of the public is certainly scary. Damn, I just sounded like Erk.
/me pinches himself.
The big deal is about this recent supreme court ruling…
A few months ago I sent an e-mail to our Maryland representatives. The letter was pre-composed for me by a digital rights organization - all I had to do was fill in my e-mail address street address. Right now I’m too busy working on client issues to dreg up the link - hopefully I’ll find it later and update this post so that those of you interested can petition your sentators…
Read on from the response I got from Senator Mikulski…
January 13, 2003
Thank you for getting in touch with me. I appreciate hearing from you. I understand your concern that copyright laws have become too stringent. As you know, the Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002 (H.R. 5522) was introduced last year to provide increased safeguards for consumers who lawfully obtain digital entertainment. This legislation was not passed before Congress adjourned, and has yet to be reintroduced in the current session of Congress. You can be sure that I will consider your thoughts should the Senate debate this or other legislation dealing with copyright laws in the future. Again, thank you for contacting me. Please let me know if I can be of assistance to you in the future. Sincerely, Barbara A. Mikulski United States Senator
P.S. If I can be of any further assistance in the future, please visit my website at http://mikulski.senate.gov or call my Washington office at 202-224-4654.
The RIAA website front page has been “replaced” without permission. 😉 Because the site is currently down, check the below screenshot for what was done:
The last time they got hacked, it was becuase the admin stupidly treated their robots.txt file like a security device.
No word on the method used for the current defacement but I would garauntee that it has something to to do with this. Look at all those reboots!
For more info, check fark.com’s discussion and, the article on The Register.
For my non-geek friends: the riaa is the industry association responsible for the (admittedly understandable) demise of Napster. The RIAA is responsible for ridiculous prices on compact discs. They are headed by fools that can’t or refuse to comprehend how technology is driving their business model to fail.
I’ve been putting off joining the EFF for too long. =/
Brent introduced Eric and I to Dan some time around '95 or '96. The lineup was generally a three-piece of myself on guitars, Dan on drums and Eric playing bass with occasional contributions from Brent on keys, Travis on guitar, and Kevin vocals.
I was reading a lot of SF at the time and was on a kick of using objects and characters from Jeff Noon’s novels in everything from Quake and IRC aliases to song titles to computer names - which hasn’t exactly stopped, 8 years later my 15" powerbook’s DNS name is scribble. Oh, and ‘jokerbone’. At some point after a jam at Kevin’s house, I suggested naming the group Curious Yellow after an object in Vurt. Noon got the name from an infamous swedish film, over which the Supreme Court overturned anti-obscenity laws that regulated motion pictures. High school kids eat up that kind of name and I thought it sounded pretty hip.
Curious Yellow’s only real gigs were at battle-of-the-bands events. One was at our high school, another at the community pool. We placed second of the four at the pool show, for whatever that’s worth. We also made the local gazette’s front page with a large color photo thanks to our spot at first in the line-up. I think the photographer wanted to get in and out quickly. The reporter dubbed our sound revved-up blues rock. We played some sappy song that we’d written specifically for the gig and never ever ever played again, covered Zeppelin’s arrangement of The Lemon Song and probably something else, as a trio with no vocals. All of our parents have this newspaper clipping, I’ll update this with a copy at some point. The high school auditorium setlist was I believe a two or three track medley including me playing a 12 string acoustic on a stand with a violin bow before switching to my strapped-on electric. I don’t have recordings of either event.
Eric got a four track at some point and we began recording our practices. I only have a mix-cassette tape of various things that emerged from these weekend jams from which I’ve converted a few tracks. Brent and Travis were both around to contribute to a cover of The Funky Meter’s Cissy Strut, a song we played just about every time we got together in the style that was bootlegged into Pastorius’ Live in NYC, Vol. 2 with Hiram Bullock. Another song around this time with Travis on guitar was a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Ezy Rider. We did have a handful of originals but the only two I have recorded are Eric’s Krista’s Eyes and a rhythmic experiment Dan directed called simply, Himeola.
Eric’s parents were generous enough to pay for studio time to record a three song demo at The Studio, a basement operation in Frederick from which was tracked two originals - English Voodoo and Sirens, as well as a cover of Pink Floyd’s Interstellar Overdrive. Not appreciating that studio time is an hourly arrangement, I was able to go back the next day and run through guitar overdubs on every track.
When we spread out to attend college, practices grew farther and farther apart and I gradually lost interest in playing guitar. Eric went on to play in a handful of other bands ranging from accoustic folk to metal.
Around 2001 we briefly toyed with jamming at UMBC by sneaking into an equipment room after hours in the fine arts building and setting up. From the second night of this, the simple but fun Drowning was snagged to Dan’s mini-disc recorder. This was one of the last times my guitar was out of its case for a few more years but I’m pretty proud of what we put together on almost no practice or planning. Dan and Eric formed a group with another guitarist closer to them that was in the wings at the recording of Drowning and living with Dan at the time which has since disbanded but recorded some really neat stuff.
MP3’s
