The Livejournal of netdud

Doesn't work. Please stop

2009-10-20T00:02:41Z

Ads featuring many quick edits of many different people saying the same copy. I get that the concept is to show consensus of the idea across a diverse group. But dude, they are ALL shills, all fed the same lines. It's just annoying, and it makes people stop listening.

Testimonials by "average" people. "Look!" I am supposed to think "Those persons are EXACTLY LIKE ME!" But wait! I'm not an expert on this topic, and they obviously aren't either. So WTF am I listening to these slobs for? If I wanted to hear from an ignoramus, I'd read my own blog!

Running the same ad twice in a row, or twice in the same commercial break. I think the idea here is that people don't watch ads, so if you show them more, they will. Wait! That's stupid! How would that even work?

Documentation for a product that assumes that you already know what the product does, and what all the terms in the documentation mean. This is actually a subset of the term "Bad documentation" which is damn near becoming a superset of its own superset. Do you see what I mean? No? Then you should definitely buy it! Wait! That's stupid!

Product and feature descriptions which deftly give the impression that a product does something the average person would assume the product does, but which the product doesn't do. This practice trades on the fact that you are not lying if you don't actually answer a direct question. And if it didn't work, would millions of people try it?

Yes. Yes they would. Now answer the actual question.

Telling people that they "deserve" frivolous and crappy things. Nobody "deserves" more fries, heated seats, unlimited refills or more legroom. People CHOOSE these things, and they pay for them. Anyone telling you that you "deserve" something more expensive or luxurious is trying to make you sell it to yourself.

Even worse: Telling people they "deserve" things that should be included as a matter of course. Saying people "deserve" good service, a return policy, value for money, or basic respect is like saying "Hey, we assume you're expecting us to treat you badly, and the fact that we don't is a FEATURE!" If you buy a horse, you should assume that the horseshit you're going to end up with is free.

Cell phones. Seriously. They are terrible. By this time, they really should work. More money should be spent on making them sound good, work well, easier to dial, easier to hold, and not drop out. It's cool that people want them to do non-phone things, but if they are going to be called "phones," they should do that better than anything else. So maybe stop calling them phones until that part works as well as a landline does. They can be PDAs or cameras with phones in them or whatever.

Texting. Still super fun for the kids, I get that. But it's such a ridiculously half-assed technology. It's like fax, or Zip drives--an idea that's on the way to being useful, and so compelling that people are willing to overlook the innate half-assedness of its current implementation. Something needs to replace this. Right now it's kind of like the two girls in your junior high math class who could speak pig Latin to each other so fast that no-one else could understand it. Super cute happy fun but ultimately, not worth the extra effort required unless you find it fun.

Anti-bacterial hand soap. Do some reading, and cut it out. This is the opposite of what we need. It's not even a matter of "Well, if it helps even a bit, it's worth using." A bad idea.

Reality shows with crying, damaged obese people.

Reality shows with crying, damaged famous people.

Reality shows with platitude-spouting mental defectives.

I think that covers all reality shows.

Someone should start a channel that shows wings being pulled off flies, bags of kittens being thrown in rivers, and two guys with DTs going at each other wearing Socker Boppers 24 hours a day, interspersed with footage of babies laughing and clapping their hands with strings playing in the background and Girls Gone Wild commercials. This would basically be like crack for the reality show audience.

Spam sez "Pardon my ignorance"

You only like me for my quizzes

2009-10-15T21:05:14Z

1) I know that I am trying too hard to waste time when I find myself ___________.

2) I know that I have stayed up to late when ____________.

3) I'm doing this stupid quiz, but I really should be ___________.

4) I'm not a cynic or a conspiracy theorist, but I just can't help thinking that ___________.

5) Drinking water that is not cold makes me think that there might be something wrong with it yes/no

6) Washing my hands in water that is not warm makes me think that they might not be clean yes/no

7) I always know where my keys are yes/no

8) The one thing on which I always stay current is ___________.

9) Something I used to love to eat as a child, and would love to have right now is ___________.

10) The term that best describes someone who just moved a web site into a system that has the ability to create polls, but hasn't bothered to do anything more than the front page, so he keeps using Live Journal, even though no-one reads it is:

Lazy
Indolent
Idiotic
All of the above, plus narcissistic
netdud (All of the above, plus bacon-obsessed)

Spam sez "I tape underwear flashes"

How about this:

2009-10-05T20:01:28Z

VEGETABLES CONTAIN TRANS FATS AND TOXINS AND THEY ARE BAD FOR YOU AND SHOULD BE ILLEGAL OR AT LEAST, HIGHLY TAXED.

However, if you want to take a break from work and stand 10 feet outside the building and eat them, we will let you.

Spam sez "Share and receive ideas!"

Just serve up the links, flu-boy!

2009-09-30T09:26:38Z

Archive Team Deathwatch is where these folks keep track of web sites that are about to go under, and let you know what happened to web sites that have gone under. It's interesting. Seriously. And I am not just saying that because I have a stupid flu in my brain that has made me sleep all day and now it's late and I'm awake and probably insane. No. I'm sure I would think this is interesting no matter what.

Here is an Archive of autographs of famous Indian people. And yes, you can see HER autograph.

I am very interested in this here Amahi Home Server. It's a neat-o Web interface sitting on top of a whack of open-source apps, all of which makes it kind of easy to set up useful network services like a music or media server, central backup, and lots of swell apps. Kind of like having your own cloud, which is about the most asinine analogy I have yet managed in this blog. As soon as I catch up on the seven million other things I said I was going to do, I'll probably make one of these.

Holy moley! Do I ever love this online collection of seed catalogues from the Smithsonian Institution! That there is DEE-zine, people!

Hey! I'm trying out some content management stuff lately. I am enjoying the Concrete5 for basic site stuff. Simple, insanely easy to install, and very very easy to actually use (as long as you are not using Opera on a Mac. Ahhh! AJAX--the "J" is what makes it suck!). I'm probably going to drive myself insane trying to mess around with making themes for this. Joy!

For a nice simple blogging tool (present company excepted), I'm kinda messing around with Bloxsom. Tools really don't get much simpler than this, and I like the philosophy of making this thing as simple as possible. It also has a really nice bunch of plug-ins behind it. I have a crazy idea of actually using Bloxsom to create content in one place, and then using RSS to display it somewhere else. This might be insane. I have a pig in my head, you know.

Do you sometimes go to bed and then wonder if you left the garage door open? neither. Frankly, anyone who wants the massive heap of empty cat-litter boxes and or old tins of flammable liquids I store in my garage is welcome to them. If you do happen to be one of those fussybutts whom this kind of thing keeps awake at night, you could follow this handy Instructable and make your own little light that lets you know the garage door is open.

The rest of us could adapt this to let us know if we left the lid on the shark tank up. Or the basket with the lotion on it down. Or our mind dangerously open.

Spam sez " Don't suffer from pain kill it, and we know how."

More Inflammatory Statements

2009-09-26T22:46:09Z

1) Long-distance travel in North America is awful.
1a) The situation would probably improve if a major US airline went broke.
1b) The situation would definitely improve if the purpose of rail travel in North America was something other than quaint entertainment.

2) Any writing that makes it obvious that the writer is trying to be "artistic" or "writerly" sucks.
2a) If the topic is sports, this effect is multiplied a hundredfold.
2b) This fact does nothing to dissuade sports writers from trying to be artistic.
2c) Which is why pretty much all sports writing sucks.

3) There is always a limit on available bandwidth.
3a) There is more to any problem than simply how much raw bandwidth is available in a best-case scenario.
3b) Everyone wants more bandwidth, whether they will use it or not.
3c) It's easy to apply a quantitative metric to an isolated qualitative experience.
3d) It's a mistake to assume that simply making the numbers in that quantitative metric bigger will make the experience better.
3e) A lot of technology marketing is based on getting you to make that mistake.

4) Spam sez "Don't be bitch, answer"

You did some good stuff

2009-09-24T19:36:32Z

now please go away, you silly old thing.

Just to re-cap this for you: Flavio Briatore was found complicit in the to fixing of a Formula 1 race, which he facilitated by telling a driver to CRASH ON PURPOSE. He was the team principal at the time--the head dude. The point at which the buck ultimately stops. Flav then repeated lied about whether the action took place, and then about his involvement in it. Bernie Ecclestone pretty much owns the business side of Formula 1. Bernie was part of the council that brought down the punishment--a lifetime ban--on Flav. But that was DAYS ago. Now Bernie says that the punishment was "Too harsh."

Bernie also says that Flav brought it on himself by lying. Per Bernie, everything would be OK if Flav had just said:

"Yeah, I thought it was OK to tell someone to CRASH ON PURPOSE in a Formula 1 race--the first one EVER run at night, by the way. I came to this conclusion after a few decades of experience in the sport, in which the things that might make it a bad idea to tell someone to CRASH ON PURPOSE must have never come up, but boy, I sure know better now. I've really learned from this experience of telling someone to CRASH ON PURPOSE, and I think that, after a few months off, I'd probably never again do anything as patently asinine and dangerous as telling someone to CRASH ON PURPOSE. Or lie. Wouldn't do that either!"

The part about abusing his power in order to endanger a driver desperate to keep his job? No big deal.

What a silly old thing he's become.

Spam sez "Kidding me?"

Nothing but Formula 1

2009-09-17T18:50:28Z

Ferrari: Hooray for Fisi! I think it was nice of them to give Luca a shot, but it just goes to show the Scuderia's preparedness that they had a back-up Cinderella. Forza Fisi!

Oh yeah - dump Kimi while there is still value, keep Massa. On his day, Kimi can be faster, for sure. And I like him. But you shouldn't have to tell a Ferrari driver to try no matter what, I don't think the Kimster is going to be around for long, and there are going to be some nice options to replace him now which might not be available when he goes, given that there will be more seats out there.

Massa tries and tries, and now that he has his head together, could be a champion in a good car.

Excellent work by Force India. I hope that there was some plan for the season at work in there. To wit "Let's just make the car good enough in certain conditions to get some points. Then next year we'll have more loot to play with going for more points."

If they drop back down the grid for the rest of the season, they have still had a great year. I maligned Sutil for a long time. He's coming good now, and Liuzzi may be able to run with him. It's looking good.

Brawn: Keep on keeping on. This season is yours. It will be sad if Bunsen manages to fail this, but also happy if Ruby manages to win it. Constructors is yours to lose either way. Well done, gentlemen.

McLaren: You are bringing me down, man. Find a way to make it work without Ron. He's busy now.

Dump Heikki. He's good enough to be in F1, but not good enough to be in a competitive McLaren.

What's that? Yeah, I kinda figured. You're the only ones who can offer him what Ferrari can, and I think his beef was mostly with Ron anyway. I don't think he'll go to either of you for more than a year if he can't be absolutely number one though. And you'd be fools to tell him he could be.

Williams: I am worried about these guys. I don't think that more teams are going to bode well for them, as this is just going to exacerbate the ability of folks to ignore the history of the sport. Yes, I am saying that some teams should get special treatment, though not necessarily officially. Take off your red hat before you argue with me about this.

Renault: WEEEEELLLLLL! I never! If things are as they are being made to appear, and it was Symonds more than The Flav behind all this, then I am really shocked. Symonds appeared to be a real racer, and The Flav appeared to be, well, The Flav--to the point at which I tend to refer to anyone who is obviously shifty as heck, completely untrustable, and yet somehow charismatic as "A total Flav."

Nelson Jr. (I think, despite his protest, he proved himself a Junior) was not good enough at F1 to be in F1. That's sad. It is also no reason to for him to drive into a wall in order to keep the job. If these allegations are true, all three of them should be gone forever. NONE of them should be allowed to have anything to do with anything FIA-sanctioned.

Let Flav go off and be "colourful" (that's an F1 word that used to mean "actually a cool person." Now it means "acts like that shitbag that makes the "Girls Gone Wild" videos), Junior go off and run a company somewhere, and Pat Symonds, like the rest of us, wonder how such an excellent career ended like that.

Will any reasonable penalty be enough to make Renault decide to leave F1? As the sanctioning body, the FIA must not worry about that. They have to at least give the impression that they care about the sport itself, and not just the business of it.

Also, Alonso leaving should be about as surprising as that one guy moving to Madrid this year to fall down a lot for millions of dollars..

Sauber (which I hope they will be called). Nice move, BMW. When the bandages come off, you will probably have completely normal use of the foot, though the toes the bullet hit might ache a bit in the Spring and Fall.

I will say this now: Peter Sauber was the best of the last of the independent team principals. He was not loud, he was not "colourful," but he ran a competitive team, brought in a ridiculous amount of talent, and did not make a fool of anyone. I hope these guys can keep it together. I hope they can build a car that is not a huge disappointment. And I hope Dr. Theissen gets a job that allows him to have some success being the decent, capable guy he appears to be. And Mario, if you've fooled me on that, shame on me.

They should try to keep both drivers (though I don't think they will be able to keep Koob). They should figure out a way to keep Heidfeld thinking that his back is against the wall. He's really good when he's motivated. Otherwise, not so much.

If they lose Koob, they should put Fabian Cancellara in the other car. Seriously. He's Swiss, he's got the heart of a lion, and he's a nice fellow. And you KNOW he'll qualify well.

Red Bull: Keep everyone. Next year is going to be better.

Toro Rosso: Whatever.

Toyota: Get it the eff together dudes. It's been what--3.5 billion dollars and your drivers are STILL way too good for your car? You KNOW Honda is a smaller company than you, right?

I am really excited about the USGP team. Not because I think they have a hope, or because I even care how they do. I'm just really looking forward to only having Peter Windsor onscreen as much as say, Patrick Head, and not having Windsor's annoying and often completely off-base prattling interrupt the broadcast. The annoying part was that he was very occasionally insightful, which made it hard to completely ignore him. Now that he's trying to make an F1 team with all American drivers, it will be very easy to ignore him indeed.

Now if we could just get Sam Posey to do the same thing, or at least stop doing his "Open Mic at Campus Coffee" act, things would be great, and the mute button on my remote wouldn't wear out quite so fast.

I'm starting a pool on where Gascoyne will end up once he pisses off everyone at Lotus. Also, if you get the month in which he leaves the team right, your prize is doubled.

...and that's how you double your money. Aren't you glad you read all this?

Spam sez "Butt massage"

Black fly + Chardonnay = Crazy Delicious

2009-09-16T22:57:22Z

Belgian farmers dump milk in massive protest

World's hungry reach record 1 billion

St. John's flights disrupted by goodbye hug

Use of drug ecstasy way up: RCMP

Spam sez "Looked there?"

Guitar nerd topic of fun!

2009-09-06T06:39:42Z

I was just emailing a friend about my new guitar.

Of course, the whole thing is a lie. I didn't really buy a new guitar.

I think I did a good job of faking it though

"...I ordered the triple neck version--Mandolin, six string, ten string (top two strings are single, and the the fretboard underneath them is scalloped from the 12th to 27th frets).

PICKUPS
Mando just has my standard acoustic setup:

Bridge piezo
Center-mounted '44 or '46 Tele bridge pickup (potted with goose fat)
Internal IR system
Neumann CMV 563 mounted on the top bout via gooseneck

Six string and ten string necks both have the same pickup set up:

Piezos in the bridge, at the base of the neck, in the pocket of the case, and sunk in the concrete 15" below grade in the basement
Humbucker in the lead position is actually two narrow humbuckers which are each actually two vertically stacked humbuckers. That's a total of EIGHT magnets, or what we now called "Quad-humbucking." This eliminates all noise, that normal humbuckers do, plus any noise you might be thinking about. Plus more noise than that. These pickups are great for playing classical music, like Fibonnacci and shit.
Output of the Quad-buckers is intense. It can't be measured using digital meters--which is OK, because digital meters sound like shit and also were never used for blues. Basically though, these pickups are so loud that you don't really need an amp. Which is cool, because they don't make good amps anymore anyway. Not like that one kind that they only made for a few years. Those were the only good ones, and you can't get them anymore. I know I've never even HEARD of one.
Middle pickup is the same as the lead pickup, wired backwards to eliminate noise in the OTHER instruments on stage.
Neck pickup is another lead pickup, mounted lengthwise and upside-down. This eliminates SO MUCH noise that if you turn all three pickups on at once, you will literally forget what all brass wind instruments sound like. This setting works best during college football season. Also, on its own, this pickup always sounds EXACTLY LIKE HENDRIX!
Since the lead pickup alone can be split 64 possible ways, plus out of phase, pickup selection can't be done with switches. The guitar is equipped with a quad-core Xeon processor, running "WANXIX"--a purpose-built O/S for switching guitar pickups. It's addressed through a standard 104-key keyboard (Windows or COMMAND key is required in order to access some of the advanced pickup settings). You can bind keystrokes to specific pickup settings. For example, I simply use [SHIFT +CTRL+CAPS LOCK+TAB+;] for my lead sound. Of course, it will also send email and Twitter.

Six and ten string necks both have Floyd Rose trems, set up to float. They also feature the new Nut Trem(tm), which is the first trem designed to mount at the nut. This answers a question asked by every guitarist since Segovia: "How do I work the whammy WHILE I'm tapping?" If you set up the Nut Trem with the new Long Bar(TM), you can be assured of ALWAYS being in reach of a trem. And the Mouthguard Long Bar(TM) attachment lets me use the trem with my face, so I can tap on both necks at once!

And of course, the headstocks are all shaped like an effin' DAGGER!"

Spam sez "Arbeitsmoeglichkeit"

Today's inflammatory statement

2009-09-03T18:28:16Z

Two big reasons why newspapers are dying:

1) They aren't very good at what they do
2) Most of their audience wouldn't be able to tell the difference if newspapers were any better at what they do.

It's just a plea for attention. Don't fall for it.

Spam sez "You got 1 answer"

Another pointless netdud quiz

2009-09-02T23:13:20Z

This one came into my head because I was thinking of the "Words Which Will Make Me Leave The Party" thing that used to be on jwz.org back before all the kids got into the blogging and the twitting and whatnot. I had thought of other questions, but then I realised the whole thing was probably related to that idea, so I'm gonna go 2.0, make it the title of the quiz, and the first question. Then I'll register wordswhichwillmakemeleavetheparty.com, throw up a blog with an RSS feed and get some shirts printed.

1. Words, or combinations thereof, which will ACTUALLY make me leave a party.

[This means Actually Leave. Not just say I'm going to leave the party and then flounce off and steal someone else's beer from the fridge and then come back out and act butt-sore. If I hear this, I am gone with no big show and no long wait.]

2a. Music that will make me leave, or not enter, a store.
2b. The same, but for restaurants
2c. The same but for bars/clubs

[Again, I mean that I will walk away without buying anything. Not just get all ironic, but make a purchase decision. It is OK if there is no music that will make you do this. We are not here to judge you.]

3. Words, or combinations thereof, which immediately make me suspect that I am reading or listening to bullshit

[Yeah yeah--go ahead and say "netdud." Ha ha, Very clever. No-one thought of THAT!]

4. If I open the fridge and there is ________ in there, I am happier.

5. The same, but in the cupboard instead of the fridge.

6. Clean sheets: Make you feel better, or don't care?

7. If I do no other house work or cleaning, I HAVE to ___________.

8. I don't understand how anyone could like __________.

[Again, "netdud" is too obvious to be amusing]

9. I don't understand how anyone could NOT like _________.

["netdud" is a perfectly acceptable answer in this case]

10. If all my other basic needs are met, the one thing I have to have is _______.

Spam sez "Strong in psychology?"

netdud @ 2009-09-02T15:53:00

2009-09-02T20:55:04Z

I never seem to have time to post lately. I always prefer to use complete sentences and really think my nonsense through. Without careful consideration, it's hard for me to capture the true essence of my snarky, idiotic, self-obsessed nature. Though it's not like I think about that much.

But in order to stay in line with the Web 2.0 philosophy that posting frequency IS posting quality, here is a list of stories that anyone can read on the Internet, which have been imbued with 2.0 goodness because I read them. Or at least saw the headline. Or saw a blog that mentioned that someone had read it, or at least saw the headline, or went to a blog that read the original story, or at least saw the headline. Or however that works.

Online politics reserved for rich

Jail threat for donkey bloggers

Man accused of climbing into pit toilet – again

Boost Your Brain's Health with Loud Music

BeerTroller brewing control system

Starfish PBX goes public

Secret US spontaneous human combustion beam tested

Cisco's UCS needs a bra

Boffins fail to detect Moon's strangeness

Russian prez launches YouTube channel

Chocolate-eating dog, aged 147, dies as world's oldest

eBay reaches deal to sell Skype

UVic's feral bunnies up for adoption

Sask. to ban texting, cellphone use while driving

Andromeda galaxy devouring its neighbours: astronomers

Pakistani minister shot and wounded: police

Good News For Attorneys With Bulging Muscles, Pretty Dresses, And HDTVs

Another Sears.com Security Hole Discovered

Survey Shows Public Support For Ban on Text Messaging While Driving

Bank wants thumbprint from man with no hands

Spam sez "Magic berry that will make you look like a princes."

"Vintage" music gear?

2009-08-26T18:30:48Z

The word "vintage" just means you know what year it's from. It originally meant the AGE at which a wine was VINTED (made)

Like many other terms("Collectable," "classic,""legendary," "JUST LIKE AN LA2A," and others), folks apply the word "vintage" to things in order to make them seem better, more important, and worth more.

But all of the terms above are arbitrary. They may or may not reflect the opinions of someone who may or may not know something that may or may not have anything to do with what you want. If that last sentence sounds convoluted, then it makes my point.

And by the way, you're soaking in it.

Who cares if a guitar was made in 1992? LOTS of guitars were made in 1992. What's special about that? For that matter, what's so special about a Strat made in 1967? Or the one made immediately after it?

If you don't know the difference, then no-one can tell you. It's like describing the taste of an elephant to five blind oranges. Or something.

Sometimes--SOMETIMES--there's something that distinguishes things from other things. And if you know that what the "something" is, and it's what you want, then it's worth seeking out.

And in those cases, you want information that tells you EXACTLY what you are looking at. Like "This IS an LA2A," or "Here is what is different between this and an LA2A," or "Live completely nude dancers and all-you-can-eat potato skins."

(Did you see the trick in that last example? It didn't say whether the dancers were male or female. See, what you don't know--what you might assume--that makes a big difference. Seriously. I have never eaten so $15 worth of potato skins so fast with my eyes closed.]

But whether you know what you want or not, none of these words like "vintage" make anything better, or worth more. If you haven't tried a '92 (or '59, or '62, or '67 or whatfriggingever) Strat, and you don't know what the difference is between it and a new Strat TO YOUR OWN PLAYING, then it really doesn't matter whether the guitar is a classic.

[Unless you're buying it to NOT play it, in which case, go fuck yourself.]

No matter what you are buying, it all comes down to:

- Do you like it
- Is it worth what the person is charging TO YOU?

Anything that tells you what other people may or may not think of it should be taken with an entire box of salt.

Finally, IMHO, if it's not older than me, it must not be referred to as "vintage" or "old." Such things are becoming scarcer by the hour.

Spam sez "Spread it among friends"

Help me lazyweb. Help me aggregate.

2009-08-19T22:14:31Z

I am finally sick of Bloglines' fail rate. They just don't seem to be able to get their database problems solved.

So I'm lookin' for a swingin' new way to aggregate. So what do all the kids recommend for a guy, a super-sonic guy like me to get his RSS on?

Feature-wise, I'm fine with what Bloglines does (folders, marks new stuff, lets me save or quickly send stories, choose how stories are displayed), except for the part where it falls over and lies there, making that sound.

I read about 55 feeds on a regular basis, and get about 1500-2000 stories from those a day, though a lot of those I dump without reading (e-commerce and deal sites). The interface has to deal with that without being assy.

I like the idea of an actual local client for this. but I liked being able to read my feeds anywhere, which a web aggregator offers.

If I could do client+web, I'd be tickled pink.

My desktop machine is a Mac, running 10.4. I'm mostly using Opera as a browser right now, though I also use Firefox. I'm not opposed to Chrome, just never had a reason to use it.

Make me happy, and I might send you a pen.

Spam sez "Take your chance to show off in bikini."

netdud @ 2009-08-05T15:16:00

2009-08-05T20:18:17Z

Hello!

In a few months, my lovely wife will need to start running about the continent, and possibly the globe, doing some research and writing and things.

To this end, she is going to need a simple but reliable portable computer. It only needs to do a few things, but it needs to do them in a bulletproof manner, and be butt-simple to interface with other things.

It looks like this machine will need to run Windows, in order to be compatible with a lot of the stuff it will deal with. There are Inescapable Reasons for this, which I can itemise below.

The machine needs to:
- Run good, no rust
- Travel well, IN HAND LUGGAGE.
- Browse the Weebs with great compatibility, security and robustitude
- Run Word for Windows, including extended keyboards and weird-ass fonts
- Show presentations, probably in PowerPointless
- Not suck to use. As much as that's possible with laptop/netbooks, anyway.
- Be as compatible as possible with presentation hardware
- Preferably, be pink in colour.

So you can see, it doesn't need much horsepower or that fancy-schmancy gaming power the kids are so into. It DOES need to show up for work every day, not require ANY jigging to get it to work, be easy to use/recover, and stuff. I'm assuming that kind of thing isn't real popular.

Oh yeah, and we don't want to spend much either.

So if you had to do this in say, the next quarter or so, what would you get, when, and why?

Thank you.

- netdud

PS Typical Snarky and Boring Netdud Details Which You May Ignore:

WORD? WTF?
A lot of the publishers she has to work with have to get things in particular formats (usually, Office for Win), using very particular fonts (usually, NON-unicode, completely unique, bodged-together Windows fonts. Yep. Wow.) This is very very important.

"BROWSER?"
Her main email at the university is Notes (seriously. They aren't even being ironic), available through the quite bad Notes client, or the even-worse Notes Web client. Getting this mail is ridiculously important. We do NOT want to do anything like forward her mail into the cloud. Nope.

The main application for academic stuff at the uni is Blackboard. And yes, it is exactly as not-very-good as they say. And on those fine occasions when Blackboard is actually working, the Blackboard web client ABSOLUTELY HAS to work in the browser on this machine, even if the keyboard has turmeric stains on it. I am so jealous of that, btw.

PRESENTATIONS?
She will probably also need to do some presenting with the machine. Last time she was in India, she didn't have a machine with her (she is actually able to speak without a computer!), but she noticed that there were about ZERO Macs where she was, and those who had brought them for presentations were completely unable to use them with the gear that was there.

What she does not want is a computer that can SOLVE that problem. What she wants is a computer that WILL NOT have that problem.

YOUR BROKE ASS IS SO SAD!
Oh yeah, and we don't want to spend much either.

Spam sez "The longer your instrument is the more power it has."

Windows 7, netdud zero

2009-07-23T20:27:46Z

I got asked by a nice person the following question:
What are your thoughts on Windows 7? I've read good things about it, but wanted to get your take.

Here's my short answer: I honestly know nothing about it.

So far, what I have heard from people who have fiddled with it is that Win7 is faster, better, more. That's a promising thing to hear about software that isn't done yet. If you NEED to do something that Win7 can do and what you have can't, then I guess it would be worth looking at. Once it's done. I don't have ANY need for a new operating system, so it's not really that interesting to me beyond that.

Let's start with a quote by Not-Me.

Why should someone have to retrain themselves to use a new application that does the same basic thing as the old application, just because something as trivial as the operating system changed out from under them?

Jamie Zawinski

I'm not in a position in which I use Windows--or need to-- very much at all. I really only run it when I have to use a piece of software that only runs on Windows. I've used Windows a lot, up to XP, which I thought was the best Desktop OS MS had managed to do so far. I've only used the Pro version though. Don't know about the other price points.

I swore I'd never run XP, as much for reasons that have nothing to do with software as those that do. Mostly, I really didn't want to waste yet more of my life "learning" an O/S instead of getting actual meaningful work done. Mostly, I don't want to be a sysadmin.

Well, that promise got broken, because I ended up needing to do stuff that used XP. So now I boot my iMac into XP when I have to run Windows-specific software.

I managed to--pretty much--keep that same promise about Vista though. I've actually spent less than 10 minutes total using computers running Vista, and I have managed to learn almost nothing about it that I didn't already know to do. I consider that a positive thing about it. I can explain why I think that if you want.

I'm sure all of this sounds anti-MS, and it's not meant to be at all. Fundamentally, I don't like using Windows, for reasons that are OVERWHELMINGLY related to the product itself. There's no need to even get into the company that makes it, or even into the software that runs on it.

[Briefly: I don't like how it looks, I don't like how it uses screen space, I don't like the Start Menu idea, I don't like the way they approach content, I don't like Windows Explorer (which I use a lot), I don't like Windows Media Player (which I use a lot), I don't like IE, I don't agree with what it decides it should inform you of (I've added new hardware!) and what it decides you don't need to know (I'm downloading things!), I don't like the lack of a meaningful command line, I don't like meaningless dialogue boxes, I don't like being told I can't do stuff if I'm the admin (root) user, I don't like having to learn the words MS makes up for terms that have had other names for decades, I don't like the colour scheme, I don't like having to modify pretty much everything in the GUI to get it to look or act like I want it to, I don't like that there are things in the GUI that I CAN'T modify to get them to look or act like I want them to, I don't like the spell-checker, I don't like using IE. I don't like how intrusive Windows Update is, I don't like the "I'm rebooting in five minutes whether you like it or not" stuff, I have probably-anachronistic-but-nonetheless-it-affects-my-work distrust of its stability, and I seem to find more things I don't like every time I use Windows. I am not the target market.]

Keep in mind however, that even WHILE disliking all that stuff, I have managed to do a lot of useful work using Windows. You don't have to love software to get work done with it. It's just a tool. I don't love my hammer, and I HATE my vacuum cleaner and my tape gun, and I've used all three to good effect in the last couple of days.

Right now, I use a Mac as my main desktop machine, and I usually recommend them to people. I like how they work, and I think they are easier for the average person to use. I get lots done on my computer.

I think Apple does some idiotic, asinine, and sometimes downright evil stuff, and the only products they make that I don't find silly are their desktop computers. If I liked Windows, I'd be in the same boat with MS, who I think do some idiotic, asinine and sometimes downright evil stuff. And yes, I think the Zune is silly too.

I'd like to use neither company's stuff, but then I couldn't get the stuff done I want or need to.

I have a little server running an older copy of Ubuntu Linux in the basement. It works just dandy for the little things I use it for. I've tried for over a decade to use Linux as my main desktop computer. It's close. SOoooooo close. And it has been close for most of that decade.

I COULD (and have) use Linux as my desktop. I'm terribly smart, patient, and I've already invested enough time to be able to find my way around. But honestly, the extra things I can do on my Mac, and the ease with which I can do them, are worth the price of admission for me.

And to be fair, sometimes folks who make open source software do some idiotic, asinine stuff. There's probably lots of evil going on in there too, but one of the good things about open source stuff so far is that you never HAVE to use anything if you don't want to.

So where does that leave me? It leaves me ONLY using Windows if it offers me compelling functionality. If it does something that I need to do that the operating systems I have just can't or won't do. And as I mentioned, I have an XP install for that.

If you NEED to do something that Win7 can do and what you have can't, then I guess it would be worth looking at. Once it's done.

Spam sez "Be a real man √ biggiesize your device."

The banker never wears a Machiavelli in the pouring rain. Very strange.

2009-07-23T17:25:16Z

There are rumblings that Microsoft's recent foray into open-source was merely a move to avoid nasty legal issues.

For the uninitiated, a gross oversimplificiation:

"Open source" is a term that means "the source code for this software is available to everyone though there may be restrictions on its use." SEEING code is not the same as USING code.

NOTE: "Open source" does NOT necessarily mean "free softwares for everyones!"

There are a few different licenses under which "open source" code and/or software may be used. Yes. I said "licenses." This is the same word you would use when you talk about commercial, closed source software as well.

Microsoft has, thus far, decried the whole idea of open source, for various reasons.

Microsoft just released some code under an open source license. This created great foo-fah, and was spun as a great embracing and beginning and love-in and there was cake and ice cream and face-painting for the kids!

It appears that the REAL reason that MS pulled this 180 and released that particular code as open source was that MS had actually broken the licensing agreement on the open source code that MS had based their own work on.

In other words, MS released the project to open source in order to avoid getting sued, not because they actually wanted to do so.

This looks like a panic move, and paints a much worse picture than if they had just paid the piper on this. I don't mean that MS in general is in a panic--it will take a lot more than the CONCEPT of open source to seriously bother MS (and that is another rant altogether). I mean that whoever made the decision to release this project back to open source AT ALL panicked.

Yes. I am saying that they should have just paid for breaking the license on the code. I'm not saying that MS should have broken the licensing in the first place, or that they should act like they knew what they were doing the whole time. I'm saying they should have paid it out, rather than trying this silly, unconvincing spin move. Here's why:

What this move says is "We say that open source is a bad idea, but we apparently don't understand how the licensing works and we think the code is good enough to use. Please let us prove that you can't believe what we say, good or bad."

What they tried to make is say is "We say that open source is a terribly bad idea. The big crazy bald guy who runs the company yells about that all the time. BTW--here's some of ours."

What they could have is "Good code is good code, but open source is a bad idea. We'll bring our customers the best product we can, including doing the improvements we need to on open source projects. If we have to take the hit in court and at the bank, we'll do it, because THAT'S WHY [WE BELIEVE] WHAT WE DO IS BETTER THAN OPEN SOURCE!"

Most people will have glazed over by the second line of this post. This works in MS' favour. All most folks would have seen is "Some little people got mad at MS, so MS gave them money and the little people went away."

Everybody happy. Life goes on as normal.

Spam sez "Any hot news?

Right. This is for Rob.

2009-07-22T16:42:53Z

I'll get to fixing the sites in a sec. Promise! Really! Today is the day!

Hey! You know that one person in the office who calls frequent, interminable meetings that waste a buttload of productive time? I think that the idea of this clever meeting cost ticker is to let that person know just how much time and money those meetings waste. In my experience though, about 75% of the folks who have those kinds of meetings do so in order to feel more important. That means that this ticker would just make them MORE annoying, as they would realise how much power they have.

Replacing the muffin basket with pickled eggs, raw veggies, warm beer and coffee, on the other hand, ALWAYS keeps the meeting short.

This list of disturbing advertising images of yesteryear is perfectly great!

AWESOME MOM!

I'm a nerd about wrapping audio cables when I'm not using them. They still end up in a mess, but at least it's MY mess. All those other annoying little cables--headphones, USB, power, the Latest Standard Gadget--are a pain though. Here's a neat idea for keeping overlong cables--or rope or string--tidy in a way that looks cool. Things to keep in mind:

Headphone cables are made of wire thinner than my hairline. And like my head, they HATE being wrapped too tight. Always wrap thin wires very loosely, or they will not work for very long.
Keep wires that carry audio INPUT separate from wires that carry power. For example, if you use say, a wire to connect your MP3 player to your speakers, don't wrap it up with the speakers' power cable. This is probably not dangerous, but you will probably hear a bunch of noise through your speakers.
Don't make a big loop of wire that's carrying a whole bunch of current. And don't hang wires that carry power from your monitor or computer. Again, it's probably not dangerous, but it could cause problems.
No matter how neatly you wrap cables, over time, you will be visited by the cable elves, who will gradually make the cables into a mass of knots. They work faster in the dark, so if you wrap cables and put them in a box, they will end up knotted in a matter of hours.
For annoying short cables, the best solution I have found is wrapping them loosely and storing them in an empty blank CD spindle. It's clear, so you can see what's in there, it's easy to put in a drawer, and lets in enough light that the cable elves seem are pretty shy about getting in it.

Super fun happy pictures of nails!

Spam sez "Every man would give up his brain for a decent size."

Canada Day! More Canada Musics Thread!

2009-07-01T20:15:13Z

Doug and the Slugs!

See more vids by clicking on "comments"...

Canada Day! Canada Musics Thread!

2009-07-01T19:32:50Z

The Gandharvas - First Day of Spring.
Their name literally means "The Odour Eaters" but I think they didn't quite read that far. I like this song.

See more vids by clicking on "comments" link.

Still In Vancouver. More Links.

2009-06-15T09:41:30Z

Leg looks like it caught on fire and someone put it out by calling it names. So that's an improvement.

Had time to post some fresh (and some refurbished) links

Spam sez "We have medicine for everybody and from any disease."

In Vancouver. Terse post

2009-06-14T09:16:57Z

Beset by allergies, hindered by a walking cast, aghast at the lack of air-conditioning, and now containing steroids, I have nonetheless managed to have a great trip so far.

Hope you are the same.

New linkies here

Spam sez "Something about yoru IP"

All I wanted was a Pepsi!

2009-05-07T18:46:59Z

This is about how Windows hides file extensions by default.
Below are two recent F-secure posts written in the context of Windows 7 which discuss MS' continuation of this dangerous practice (I think simply for aesthetic reasons), but it applies to every version of Windows since NT.

In a nutshell--Windows, by default, hides file extensions from you. That means that a file called "foo.txt" (the extension in this case is ".txt" and indicates that the file is a text file) will appear in Windows Explorer as "foo." This means you can't tell by looking at the file name what kind of file it is.

It's also not hard for someone to fiddle with a file so that its icon looks like whatever icon you want. So I could make a file called "foo.exe" (which would be an EXEcutable file, which means it's a program that runs all by itself), but cleverly make it appear to you as "foo.txt" in Windows Explorer--even the icon would look like the icon for a text file. You would click on it, thinking it was a nice safe text file, and it would run on your computer as something else.

That's all bad, because it makes it much easier to send a Windows user a file, say that file is one thing (a picture of a puppy), and have it be another thing (a virus).

But please read this nice simple article, and the nice simple article it was based on.

Good stuff to know. Of course, none of this would be as effective to a Windows user who doesn't know what an .exe file is, or a .pif file, and so on.

Last I checked, there aren't any warnings or automatic training about such things on the outside of a computer, nor does any important information or warning screens pop up when you start up a new machine.

And yet pop machines have big stickers on them warning you not to tip them machine over on yourself.

You'd think some things would be obvious, wouldn't you?

Spam sez "The stars use this"

Reboot!

2009-04-28T19:03:47Z

So many things to share with the seven of you!

Nexuiz is a free, open-source first person 3D shooter, in the style of the Quake and the Unreal and whatnot. It's based on an engine that was based on Quake 1 engine. Runs on Mac, Linux, and Windows. You can blow stuff up and not go to jail!

OMG! A LOSSLESS MP3 FORMAT! THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING!. Oh wait! It's actually two files bundled into one. And one is just a 320 mp3. And the "lossless" one is really big. And you have to carry both around. And you need a proprietary player to make sense of it.

So really, I guess it should say "Clever use of semantics allows fundamentally pointless proprietary audio format to be touted as 'Lossless MP3'"

As you were.

In a completely unrelated story, here are some folks trying to sell an operating system based on the idea that it only loads what you need, so it starts faster and runs cleaner.

This of course, would be of huge advantage to people like you, who don't need as much hardware and software as you are using right now, and certainly don't need all those services and drivers you have running--you probably won't even use a lot of them at all in this session. Why can I say that with such certainty? Because statistically, the folks about whom that statement is inaccurate barely exist. And they can get a smug sense of satisfaction from knowing that they actually bought something that suited their requirements.

Anyway, this idea of only loading the stuff you need when you need it would seem to make a lot more sense than say, loading a floppy driver on a computer with no floppy drive, or bundling a bunch of services under the name "telephony" and starting them all at boot time. We're kinda way past the point at which a big, monolithic operating system that covers all possible bases at boot time, that doesn't check to see what hardware it's on when it boots, that loads a bunch of crap for no reason whatsoever, that patches problems that it doesn't have, that runs unrequested services all the time, should be anything but a quaint anachronism.

And by the way, you're soaking in it. So am I, for that matter.

In a much more interesting story, OMG BUY ME THIS!

Spam sez "A Clearly Good Marketing Plan"

You are never online any more.

2009-03-30T09:46:47Z

Oh, I've been online--I've just been hanging around with my NEW friends, who I like much better than my OLD friends!

I don't want to get all meta here, but while I don't think that this is the best thing ever, the fact that it EXISTS may be the best thing ever!

A lot of people (PEOPLE? SHEESH!) say dumb stuff like "these days..." or "...in today's world..." or "...times being what they are..." when they are talking about their problems. This kind of thing gets right up my nose and then starts singing "Snowbird." Why are those are dumb things to say? Well, they imply that things were actually DIFFERENT at some point, or that things are not normal now, but they do so with NO actual context. Was there a time in the life of the person making these statements in which whatever they are talking about wasn't a problem? Was it ever so much better? More important: DOES THAT EVEN MATTER?

Does the fact that it's "These days" make ANY difference to the problem? Can we somehow solve the problem by changing the days? Or are these people just trying to make a point by comparing something they noticed to nothing at all?

It's bitching without representation. That's what it is. And that, my friends, is not just idiotic, it is also illegal.

I think it's important to keep in mind that, regardless of what the answers to those questions are, tomorrow enough people will use those very words to fill the Titanic twice over. Sadly however, the chances of them actually sinking in the icy waters of the Atlantic are very slim. I mean, with the level of shipboard security these days it's no wonder so few annoying people sink any more.

Now, I'm no dummy (though I often portray one in person), but I think I have some insight into what inspires this criminal vapidity. See, the world DOES change, and it does so pretty quickly. And here is proof: A mere 70 years ago, you could sell perfume called "Golden Cock."

Of course, that was it's name in French. My understanding is that those folks are just all over things like that...

I think that last point went very well.

NERD ALERT! I just had to build a web site for someone in a heckuva hurry. I did it like you're s'posed to now--all Cascading Style Sheets, and the only place I used tables was for ACTUAL TABLES of ACTUAL figures. I can honestly say that, despite my best efforts to whine my way out of it, I'm pretty conversant with this CSS stuff now. At least, I am very comfortable with the concept, and have no real problems working with it in practice at all.

That having been said, it's still, uh, surprisingly NOT GOOD, or more accurately, absolutely nowhere near close to approaching how good it should be by now. It shows the same promise it did ten years ago, but then again, so do I--and I haven't grown up much since then either.

But I understand that it's important to have consistency--that's why the people who make Web browsers can make a big deal about how THIS new version is finally going to be standards-compliant, and people who talk about Web browsers can say how exciting it is to finally have that, just like both of them have said for as long as there have been Web browsers. And not done.

To be fair, I probably had to do the least amount of BS hacking about in order to have this site work in all the browsers I tested with than I have before. But this site is about the simplest thing I have done since we still thought centering was kinda fresh.

And I shouldn't have to do that stuff at all. Not with today's high-stress lifestyle and times being what they are!

But how can I stay mad at the Web when it shows me the super cool ramp house?

The Sound Advice Project is kind of a groovy idea. You record yourself saying something, and then they make a bracelet out of beads that looks like the waveform of what you said, and then you give it to someone to wear.

Now, this project is actually aimed at parents, so that they can record an anti-drug message, get it made into a bracelet, and give it to their kids. Then the kids are reminded that they shouldn't do drugs.

That's all just fine, but I don't do drugs, and if I ever find out that I have kids that are doing drugs, I will be really upset. I mean REALLY upset. Way too upset to take the paternity test, that's for sure!

So I don't need an anti-drug waveform bracelet. But I'd love to have a bracelet of the sound of me screaming "MONKEY!" or "BACON!" or "More Goooooouuulash?" or just the first three notes Entwistle plays at 1:26 of this:

Are these wooden bikes super-ginchy and German, or are these German bikes wooden and super-ginchy, or are these super-ginchy German bikes wooden, or what? Please vote now.

uncensored interview has over 1000 video interview clips with musicians of many genres that you can view and use for free under the Creative Commons license. Just thought I'd throw that out there for you. Personally, I think the world would be a much more interesting place if fewer musicians and athletes were interviewed.

I have nothing bad to say about this clever and delightful Flickr photoset. It's spectaculistic.

Spam sez "Hi my new friend."