Saturday, April 29, 2006
post://114633074283843157/
I'm spending a very cool Saturday inside, it's wonderfully sunny and I'm doing Javascript, for fun. I found the
greatest Javascript tutorial ever and I've been reading and coding the examples. It's a little advanced, but I need that. I need large steps and a challenge to get from what they just showed by example to what they are proposing for self-learning. I used the examples they gave, but had to incorporate those with different variable and function names, and implement them into a demo page.
I've already learned a great deal. I'll probably be able to streamline a lot of my code, and separate HTML content, viewable on it's own, but enhanced by external Javascript and CSS where available. This should allow me to code for mobile with only a specific line included in the CSS.
The idea is to have the same data available to everyone, and modify the presentation based on how it's being viewed.
Oh web, how you've grown.
posted @ 13:05
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Friday, April 28, 2006
post://114624264443128833/
Why Ethanol Isn't Actually the AnswerLeave it to some
Professor to figure out that
it's not really efficient to use corn as a fuel.
Apparently factoring in farming costs, transportation, and related costs, it costs 70% more energy to produce Ethanol then it will produce.
Ethanol was originally established to make fuel burn cleaner, not replace it. People are getting confused (as usual) and are expecting this to be a gas substitute. Where it's true that the flex fuel vehicles can run on 85% Ethanol / 15% straight gas, it's really not efficient to do so.
The professor's main point is that we're using precious farm land to produce unefficient fuel. Food for 7 people for a
year can be grown in the space it takes to create 1 gallon of ethanol. Granted, I wouldn't want to eat just corn for an entire year, but dang.
I say -- make spoiled corn into ethanol. It's already rotting, and already going to waste. Use surplus to make ethanol, but don't go crazy. Again with the moderation, America. We don't know the
meaning of the word.
posted @ 12:42
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post://114622571630923832/
I love this chick's music:
Imogen HeapIt's by the same guy who produces Frou Frou, and it sounds similar, but it's also really good stuff.
Heard Matisyahu yet? Check it out.
I found this one by accident:
Tori Amos - Fade to Red: Video CollectionI adore Tori, and the videos are always so artsy :)
I also found this WinXP64 site:
WinXP64.Blogspot.comNot too much yet, but looks promising. He's got Win3.1 themed wallpaper, wha wha? throwback to the wizzie!
posted @ 08:00
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Thursday, April 27, 2006
post://114617133991626545/
posted @ 16:54
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Wednesday, April 26, 2006
post://114608206320707607/
****************
**RANDOMBLURBS**
****************I keep reading about the sectarian violence in Iraq. They want to disband militias and integrate them into the national forces. As they've proven on several occations, this only gives them access to sensitive areas.
They don't actually disband, they just appear to, they keep up with their "brothers", their meetings, and plan a greater attack. They're able to use their uniforms, or steal them for others, form a plan, and attack. That's how they pulled off the mosque bombing that started this whole doubleishious.
It's impossible for me to fathom having to be responsible for resolving this sort of enigma.
****
One year later, I have become the guy I replaced. I frowned the mess of his desk, the random pieces of phone equipment, the papers strewn with notes scrawled in any available area, and coffee stains covering otherwise important looking documents. I didn't think that could ever be me.
Well here I am, I just cleaned my desk though. It's not totally clean, but clear of papers. I enjoy my job, but I don't have time throughout the day.
Here's to the becomming!
****
Close your eyes
give me your hand.
Can you feel my heart beating
do you understand?
Do you feel a thing
or am I only dreaming?
Is this burning
an eternal flame?
no... I'm sorry it's Gonorrhoea.
posted @ 16:05
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Tuesday, April 25, 2006
post://114600730614341462/
The time has come, pick up your routers, run your cable, and point your dishes. We need to make this information independent of those who wish to control it.
Congress has voted to relinquish control of the freedom we've come to take for granted, information available at the push of a button. Just as the digital divide gets smaller and smaller, commercialism will elevate those who can afford it.
Quick paths, higher bandwidth, and priority to those who pay the premium is what lies ahead once AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner, Comcast, and what's left of the telecommunications industry take the reins. Many mergers later, there aren't many mom and pops left.
We need to leave this internet to the masses. Information isn't a location, information is everywhere, and creating another means to reach it can free us from many of the bonds that hold us today. A private network fueled by the raw passion of those who do it out of the love of their hearts -- for those that want something, but know that they need to give to get. That is where the future lies. A gated community for the data elite.
I'll gladly take a free pipe to my house to access the commercial net, the
commernet as I now dub thee! I won't try to preserve it, however. We can start with green screens and phone lines again. Text will suffice. The backbone will grow, expand, and data will flow like blood!
*(ahem)* anyhow, yeah, I'm not so sure this is good news that I'm
seeing here. I don't have faith that they'll really be able to make a difference. Let's start building now, get an alternative before we need it.
posted @ 19:09
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post://114600651593539883/
Bush is going to put a "temporary hold" on the emergency oil reserve. I originally noted this a while back.
I'll get that search script working soon enough so you can actually see these things when I say them, instead of just taking my word for it. For though I know I said it, and you can probably find it, having it right there leaves no doubt.Anyhow, he's going to decrease demand by not hoarding. I believe this is what has driven our prices up. It's just a theory, but they already know it controls us all... the price of gas works better then inflation. It's so volatile lately, there must be other factors. All of a sudden these millions and millions of gallons can fly off the handle at mere speculation of the possibility of there being difficulty in getting as much tomorrow.
It's so touchy, something has got to be to blame. Why not blame the government? There are several special factors - like ethanol, and of course
the war. I wonder though: since when do we not have enough corn? They recently passed law stating that they had to use ethanol to refine their gas, instead of other chemicals. Ethanol causes gas to burn cleaner, I think there's something about the hydrocarbons and getting attached to the ethanol molecules so they don't fly into the air... I'd really like to know more about it, but not enough to go research right now and lose my train of thought.
(note to self: research ethanol & gasoline)Of course the war will make gas more expensive, but we don't get all our oil from Iraq, so it should have a fractional impact at best. What if they stored more oil. Maybe not necessarily to manipulate the market economy, but just cause they were worried. Supply would go down, demand would go up, price would go up as it has.
It's hit me as I was writing it. With all the conniving these politicians have done over the past 6 years I wouldn't be surprised.
posted @ 18:55
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Friday, April 21, 2006
post://114562164547866626/
Today is friday.
See the date? See the time? It's the beginning of a Friday. I just got to work, ate my breakfast, and read that the unemployment rate (nationally) is the lowest it's been in 4.5 years.
From that I'm making an inference that about September 2002 the economy started gonig down. It was about then that RCN went under. I was no longer working a year after the terrorist attacks, almost exactly a year.
I know it had a big impact on the economy, not right away, but after... and it bothers me that I can't remember accurately. I'd like to think it was apparent at the time, but I believe it's only in hindsight.
So when did things start looking down, and when can we say we've bounced back?
posted @ 08:14
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Sunday, April 16, 2006
post://114520986630172664/
You've got to check out this
aspiring artist.
posted @ 13:48
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Wednesday, April 12, 2006
post://114488937627342814/
As I wait for Oblivion to reinstall:
[
screenshot 1 ]
[
screenshot 2 ]
[
screenshot 3 ]
[
screenshot 4 ]
(apparently my save files got damaged, this is a last ditch attempt to not have to start another game)
posted @ 20:46
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post://114488912846055175/
They just found the
missing chain of evolution, screw the missing link -- we gots da chain!
posted @ 20:44
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Monday, April 10, 2006
post://114471696122891574/
wow, I'm boring. I haven't gone outside much, all I can rant about it what I've bought, or what game I'm playing, or in the case of games -- both.
I don't talk about people much. There's not much to talk about people, I don't see many people. I see people at work, and people that I know sometimes on the weekends. I see Jay, but he's doing well, I'm doing well -- there's not much there.
Where does the interesting come in, maybe it doesn't. Maybe our lives quest is to be mediocre, be enthralling and timid. We all want our lives to be uneventful, because then we're comfortable.
I think I want to be comfortable. I'm tired of things being exciting. I'm sure something will come up, but I'll just revel in the everyday right now.
posted @ 20:53
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post://114471677251807909/
I don't know what is more frustrating... not being able to get a game to work because the save games are seemingly damaged, or not being able to get a console working because the hardware is faulty. I know the first case, not so sure about the seccond, but I've heard of it happening with the XBox 360. I keep comparing because they're comparable. They're about the same quality, but there's more oomph in the 360, they just haven't been able to take advantage of it yet. Once they do it ought to take off, once they fix the issues they're having in manufacturing. I'm saying that because I know that my buddy knows what he's doing and he's on his 4th. He doesn't lock it up in a cabinet, or restrict airflow in anyway. It just keeps quitting. It dies, quits in the middle of a game, and then freezes and restarts with higher frequency if he keeps playing. Then he returns it, and gets another. Since the damn thing has come out he's had 3.
If I'm in WinXP it restarts, WinXP64 it seems to freeze. I'll blame it on Auto Assualt. It never happened before that, at any rate it is making things very frustrating. I just tried the last 3 saves, esencially everything I've done this evening. I'll have to go back to a day or two ago, and I'm still not confident that will rectify the problem.
I'm doing a defrag, and a checkdisk on the other drives in the system. We'll see what that does. Unfortunately it's cutting into my gaming time. I have to go to bed soon. Not want to go to bed, have to. I woke up at 4 this morning, and just can't stay up any longer, I need to be able to sleep a good 8 or 9 hours, and it's fast approaching that level.
I should have never stopped playing, I was doing fine until I stopped. I think I shut down this time too, not even hibernate. Anyhow, shit's fucked up and I'm mad that I can't play right now. Instead, I have to watch the little bar go from left to right, and still not know if my newest games are lost.
I hate computers sometimes, and I don't know if I'd hate the console more or less because I can't do anything about it with a console. It might be refreshing knowing that I don't have to tweak. I'd need a better way to display it anyhow. I could hook it up to the monitor I suppose, but it would just be weird. It really needs a big TV and audio setup to do it justice (the 360). I've got everything I need for the computer... I do... and I keep telling myself that.
posted @ 20:43
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post://114470816991137120/
I'm so ticked off with Auto Assault.
But first... ummm... damn, forgot what else I was going to rant about. In any case!
I bought the beta, $1 at Target to get in a week and a half before hand and I only get a week. I've played probobly 3 days worth.
I can't figure it out, and it's due to good old RTFM...
World of Warcraft ruined me. Here was an MMORPG that didn't take any skill at all, it didn't take any thinking, it didn't take any reading of the manual to get me going in the right direction. Once things got going I couldn't be stupid, but we're talking Mad Max style here, Auto Assualt. It's not rocket science, and I think it's going to be more then the average gamer can handle. I would have attempted it, but I'm quitting.
It made my computer restart. I'm all set with that. Need for Speed: Most Wanted does that in WinXP, XP64 is fine, it runs solid. I believe it's because I'm overclocked, but I'm not going to clock down to run 1 game out of 10 that I've run without a problem. I just normally play in WinXP64, but Auto Assualt won't even launch. I wanted to give Auto Assualt the bennefit of the doubt, I wanted to let them know that I was having a problem. I registered for the board, it says use my game login, and I did... and it won't let me in, I ask for a password, it says I don't have an email, I go to register again and the page cannot be displayed.
Get your shit together guys. If you're going live, and having this much problem in the week previous -- I'm not even going to waste my money. $1 is all you're getting from me. I don't even care if I ever play again. Offer me 6 months and I don't think I'd do it. Too much time away from games I enjoy playing.
It certainly was tantalizing about a month ago when I knew I could be part of it, but I couldn't find a beta anywhere. I couldn't get in unless I subscribed to File Planet - no thanks. I think I can find a mirror, or there's always the good ol fashioned "wait all night" for things to download. I don't care, it's not worth any ammount of money to me to get patches that are FREE!
In any case I coudln't get it, found it at Target and was like "yeah!" and installed it, couldn't get on, couldn't register, oops, beta over! Then it's pre-release time, and I can get on, I can register a character, know which race and class and all that sounds good to me... but it sucks.
It's a wasteland. It's no fun to destroy a wasteland. It's no contest to defeat other users, all I do is drive around, with no penalty for dying, no penalty for ammo, no penalty for gas. I just drive around, click who I want to target, and hope they're at the wrong angle to hit me, and I hit them quicker.
It's so the wrong idea. It's twisted metal if they tried to make a random chance that you wouldn't hit when aiming right at someone. It's a really bad attempt, and I feel bad that they'll fail.
I withdraw my support of this candidate. I'm sorry, it's not that you didn't wow me, it's that you didn't seem to even "bring it to the table".
NC Soft and Netdevil, you have let me down.
May you not loose millions with your little playpen.
Does anyone want my copy? It's free, just email me, I'll give you everything you need to be up and running with my account after an 800mb download.
posted @ 18:16
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Thursday, April 06, 2006
post://114520262194508665/
I read today that Hitachi(?) shipped their first vertical laptop HD. Not vertical so much as they put it on it's end, but they put the bits on the end. Normally bits lay down flat, bit to bit to bit, all around a hard drive platter.
Jay sent me a musical "get vertical" cartoon about it a while back. I think it's probably around in my archive somewhere .:takes a quick look:.
[that sidetrack took 4 days, or maybe it was last weekend?]
posted @ 21:25
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post://114436184766270779/
I wonder if these
3D Glasses have evolved at all. I had a pair way back with my ASUS GeForce 3 card, and they worked, but the performance wasn't there. Now I wonder how they'll look with some of these new games - like Oblivion. Might even get me to play Doom again.
I'm currently waiting for Auto Assault beta to patch. You can get it here:
I'm not sure if you need to set up an account to do it, I had to buy a preorder from Target (for $1) but it's well worth it to give it a shot. I'm very doubtful they'll pull off a vehicle MMORPG, but we'll see, I'd much rather give a $1 then buy the whole game down the road. Give it a shot, you'll probably still have to buy the preorder but
here's the downloader to get the beta. You're much better off doing that then downloading the file in one huge chunk. I downloaded the big file and it still didn't work, said it got corrupted, but used the utility and had no problem.
I found a site with a few tips and tricks for Oblivion. I didn't pay attention to the bit about "god mode" as I don't want to ruin it, but they did have an FPS toggle via the console, and they noted where to enable screenshots in the INI files. I'll put some up if I find anything cool ;)
posted @ 18:12
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Monday, April 03, 2006
post://114407961458910943/
A note for those who don't care about video games...
why the hell are you here? Go see if you can find the archive page, there's enough interesting tidbits from when my life was exciting to keep you occupied while everyone else reads about video games.I am going game crazy lately, I picked up a copy of Oblivion over the weekend. Jay had gotten it for XBOX360 on Saturday when Nicole and I stopped by. It had just come out, and it looked and sounded amazing. It was really made for the console and the optimization shines on the 360. At that point I didn't even know they made it for PC, but when we stopped at Target later in the day I saw it. The special edition (that someone had opened) for less then the normal version.
I was all for it with a little prodding from Nicole - apparently she wants to play too =)
Check out the
review and notice the difference between the
XBOX screenshots and the
PC screenshots. There's a lot more smoothing in the XBOX, and it's almost shinier. The PC does HDI lighting (and I'm assuming the 360 does as well), which makes everything glow with life. I've seen HDI lighting in nVidia demos, but not in an actual game yet. I'm very impressed with the effect, but the game won't let you enable both - I just have to figure out if the card really isn't capable, or if that's to prevent people from crashing their system if they don't have SLi. Since I do, I'm going to give the system settings a shot - make it do antialiasing via the drivers in addition to the HDI. It needs a little smoothing to look as good as the XBox, and it could possibly bennefit from a higher resolution.
They keep making the games more and more complex, and other then adding another gig of RAM I haven't done anything to the same computer from a year ago. I'm amazed at how well the FX can handle stuff. It's always running at 100% usage, but hardly see a stutter even when looking at these huge landscapes. I look forward to turning up the shadows and draw distance on the grass and trees. Looking out over a mountain, watching the grass move in unison with the wind is an extraordinary sight. I've never seen such beatiful scenery in an actual game. My thoughts go back to the 3D Mark benchmark "Nature" which shows a very detailed scene with waving leaves... this leaves them all behind.
I could rant on how it looks forever, but the big item here is how it plays. It's like no role playing game. I don't think I've ever used a sword in first person, and it's awesome. You have a real block, and choose to play it however you'd like. You can dodge by jumping back, to the sides, or hold up your shield (if you have one) otherwise it results in a parry. You get a sense of what is too much for you right away. More then one person, or a skilled magician is often a handfull at first, and that's as far as I've gotten, so can't get into how it progresses.
The first hour or so walks you through the game, a quick tutuorial piece here and there, shoot arrows, pick locks, and loot bodies. At the end of it all it suggests a class depending on how you've played the game so far. You can also create your own class with a combination of 2 skills, and 7 abilities to choose what you want to specialize in. Every class can you every skill, but the class really defines what you're best at. It's so well done, I'm quite engrossed thus far and hardily recommend it.
I was talking to Matt (swears by WOW, and can't go back to non MMORPG) and he brought up the interesting point that though you could get all this gold and treasure and such, what's the point? Who's there to see it?
I really couldn't think of a good retort at the time, but maybe it's just that "back in the day" when there was no online, you played for the sake of having fun, exploring, discovering new creatures, items, and talking to people. The NPCs are for information only, and many will often offer quests. It's just fun, and I don't feel the pressure of online, neither by peer or wallet. It's a one time fee, and from the looks of it there are many plugins created by users - new armour, new weapons, quests, and lands as well. Where you can't really compare apples to apples against Warcraft, it's probably one of the best standalone experiences you can have.
New content is the major difference. WOW is a constantly changing world, but it takes so much time to be better then everyone else. In standalone, you start a hero, you end a king. Play it how you want, and experience the different aspects of each class.
I've never been one to play a game over and over. I don't play it again in hard mode after beating it, and I've never had a real role playing game. I used to play MUDs, I played Bard's Tale (original VGA version), but they never held my attention until the end.
This is the RPG to sway those that don't like RPGs.
posted @ 11:48
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