2008: Year in Review

Well, 2008 is on its way out, and it's time for a look back. This year saw me graduate from college, change vehicles, put almost 2000 miles on my motorcycle, and get a pretty cool job on the IT staff at a local bank. The economy's gone to shit, but don't worry, the government will save us. By paying for ridiculous bonuses for the executives of failed financial institutions. Apparently. We'll have a new president in a few weeks, and who knows, maybe a rich black guy will be different from the previous 43 rich white guys.

Since it's customary at this time of year to list some resolutions that you'll never get around to following, I guess I'll list some.

I need to pay more attention to my social life. That is, if I were to hypothetically have a social life, I would pay attention to it. Case in point: it's new years fucking eve, and I'm posting on my blog.

I need to read more, and watch less television. In my defense, I watch mostly Discovery, History and Science channels, but even those are starting to get invaded by mindless holy-shit-let's-watch-the-same-disaster-footage-20-times shows. I got a copy of The God Delusion for Christmas (irony much?) which I have been devouring. When I'm done with that I'm going back to my leather-bound copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy collection.

I need to lose me some weight. Still.

Well, it's almost midnight, and if I don't post this in time my wishes won't come true, or something like that. I don't know.

I'm out, see you noobs next year.


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Now playing: Greg Graffin - Back to Earth
via FoxyTunes

"Bring them back
Someone's gonna try and bring them back to land
And i'll be there
To catch them when they fall and send them up again"

Well, color me surprised!

I don't know how to say this, so I'll just come right out with it - I'm installing Vista.

I'm building a new machine, and I want to try it out. I want to be able to use DirectX 10, to get the most out of my new hardware. I've been doing a bit of research, and it seems that Service Pack 1 fixed a lot of the performance and stability issues that have plagued Vista's public image.

I didn't have a very high opinion of it either, even recently (as in, last week). Then something clicked. I've only used pre-installed versions of vista on HP's and Dells. Now, the basic operating system doesn't change between brands, but the extra shitware that the OEM's load their machines down with can have an enormous impact on the performance of a new system.

I'll give you a quick overview of the situation as it stands right now, starting with my shiny new hardware:

DFI LANParty DK "Dark" motherboard - Socket AM2+ with an AMD 790FX chipset
AMD Athlon64 X2 6000+ - the new 45nm chip at 3.1GHz
4GB of OCZ DDR2-800
500GB Western Digital Caviar Black 7200RPM SATA drive with 32MB cache
PC Power & Cooling 610 watt power supply
XFX GeForce 6800GT (temporary)

Last but not least, I've got a Zotac GeForce GTX260+ card on order.
This is the centerpiece of the build, as I found out a long time ago that the video card has the biggest impact on gaming performance. This card has the newer second iteration of the GTX260 core, with 216 stream processors instead of 192. Its core clock speed has also been increased from 575 to 650MHz.

All of this awesomeness is wrapped up in an Antec 300 ATX case with 4 120mm fans and 1 140mm fan to keep everything cool without creating a lot of noise. I've modified the case with a window to show off its powerful innards, and some UV lights to make the motherboard's UV-reactive plastics glow.

On the software side, I've got Vista Business 32-bit installed. I chose Business because, well, that's what they were offering as a "student edition" at the school bookstore the last time I wanted to buy an OS disc. It seems to have a good selection of features without being unnecessarily bloated.

It sees 3.25GB of my 4GB of DDR2 (a limitation of 32-bit operating systems) and it seems to be quite stable. I've made some preliminary performance tweaks, as follows:

Turned off system restore - it only serves to slow down the machine and take up extra hard drive space. If things ever get to the point where I have to use such a feature, I'm more inclined to re-install my OS. Your mileage may vary.

Turned off disk indexing - I've used system search on my machine maybe a dozen times in the last year. It's not worth it to me to deal with my hard disk constantly doing extra shit in the background, I'd much rather use it's snappy speed and ridiculous 32MB cache to load game levels.

Turned off the Windows Sidebar - The analog clock is kind of neat, the RSS reader handy and the CPU meter actually quite useful, but I'd rather have the extra bit of RAM and desktop responsiveness that comes with getting rid of all that crap.

Turned off "transparent glass" - once again, for a gaming machine speed and responsiveness trumps visual goodies on the desktop.

Set page file to a static size - This is mostly to prevent the pagefile from getting fragmented. I don't doubt Vista manages the dynamic pagefile better than XP did (it would be hard to do much worse, to be honest), but I'd just as soon set it and not have to worry about it later.

Turned off UAC - Yes, it's a shiny new security feature, but it's annoying as shit. A word of warning to OS developers: Do NOT make my screen flicker to black every three seconds. It gives me a headache. Also, don't throw up a warning every third time I click on something. Yes, I know Ubuntu does pretty much the same thing, but there are subtle differences that make ALL the difference: instead of the jarring black flicker, Ubuntu transitions to a grey overlay and presents you with a password prompt, rather than a simple "click okay to continue" dialog. This doesn't induce headaches, and it actually adds security rather than annoyance.

There were some surprises, both good and bad. First off, after the performance tweaking it actually seems very responsive and quick. The machine can reboot to a usable desktop in a bit under one minute, and there isn't much of the "windows pause" when opening a menu or starting a program. I'm curious to see how much it slows down as it ages.

The only really bad surprise is that, at idle on a fresh install it uses almost 900MB of system memory. The performance doesn't seem to suffer for it though, surprisingly enough. Just keep this in mind. 2GB is the bare minimum, no matter what it says on the box.

"You have always lived like this"
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Now playing: Greg Graffin - The elements
via FoxyTunes

Ubuntu 8.10 Beta Released

The beta version of Ubuntu 8.10 (codenamed Intrepid Ibex) is out. I grabbed a copy last night to install on my old Inspiron 4100, and so far it's looking pretty good. There are plenty of cool new features.

DRM, yet again

Penny Arcade did an excellent series on DRM, accompanied by three interesting posts on the topic. I find Chris Remo's post (from Part 2 of the series) quite interesting.

He suggests that the people raising a stink over SecuROM (which would include myself) are overreacting. This may well be the case, but this has been a long time coming. Yes, EA has increased Spore's activation ration from three to five (a single "activation" apparently means unlimited reinstallations on a single PC until the end of time. Or you upgrade your video card. Or you have to reinstall Windows because SecuROM fucked up your registry, in which case you'll use another activation). There is also apparently a deactivation tool that can revoke a previous activation so that it can be used again on a different/upgraded PC. This seems like a reasonable concession, but it still ignores the underlying problem - SecuROM itself. A lot of the fuss is because there is no mention of SecuROM or the activation limit - not on the box, not even in the license agreement.

Spore was available on torrent sites three days before its commercial release, and is well on its way to becoming the most-pirated game of all time. Why is EA still bothering with this shit? It didn't help them at all, and the trivial amount of "casual piracy" (i.e. lending your disc to a friend/family member) that it may prevent can't possibly compensate for the cost of running the activation servers. There is also no doubt that the inclusion of SecuROM cost EA sales. Yes, Spore has sold more than a million copies so far, but leaving SecuROM out from the beginning would have helped their sales, their reputation with customers, and their bottom line - which is all EA seems to care about.

Chris also points out that when the activation servers have been shut down at some point in the future, a viable solution would be to simply crack the game and play it anyways. That sounds like a perfectly valid solution to me, but the problem is that cracking the game's copy protection is still illegal. True, nobody's going to give a shit about cracking Spore ten years from now, but what's the advantage for the end user? When piracy is faster, cheaper, easier, and more convenient than the legal purchase, both in the short-term and in the long run, how does this business model make sense? I'm not advocating piracy at all here, but from a consumer's perspective it seems that, in this case, one has to compromise a lot more than one's hard-earned money to make the legitimate purchase.

So what is the solution? I'm a pretty big fan of Valve's Steam myself. Yes, Steam is a DRM solution, but it's one that's fair to gamers. It allows me to back up my game files to an external hard drive, and I can even dump them to another of my computers and have everything work. I can re-download any of the games I own, as many times as I want. The only restriction is that I can't be signed in to more than one computer at a time, which is definitely something I can live with, as there's only one of me. On top of that, it offers extra features to improve the user experience - a one-stop game store, a chat system that works in-game, automatic updates for any installed games, demos and trailers for new games - the list goes on and on. Yes, Steam games can be pirated, but the bottom line is that the paying customer gets a better experience than the pirate.

Now, Remo writes in his blog, "You can point to Blizzard and Valve all you want. Not every developer is, or can be, a Blizzard or a Valve. In the real world, that’s just how it is. Other companies can’t really afford to sit around and generate twelve years of goodwill while they hope that their games turn out to be some of the best-selling titles of all time." Fair enough, but what's EA's excuse? They're a publishing powerhouse, and they've been buying star development companies with amazing portfolios, like BioWare and Maxis - companies with credibility, that used to be known for their creativity. So not every company can make a Half-Life, or a Portal, or a Team Fortress 2, or even a Steam. What every company can do is take care not to screw over their paying customers.

Making the Switch

WARNING: Enormous, boring wall of text ahead!

A post recently appeared on Lifehacker asking the readers why they made the switch to Linux, and that got me thinking about my own gradual migration away from Windows - the reasons, the setbacks, and the three-year journey that's not over yet.

During the summer of 2005, I installed Ubuntu on an old P-II rig from a friend in exchange for some modding work. The install seemed to take forever on that old, ratty 4-gig hard drive, but when it finished everything worked, except the ancient SoundBlaster card. I was so used to pending about three hours with drivers and updates after a Windows install, having that much functionality out of the box was amazing. That was version 5.04, which was only the second release of Ubuntu (their version numbers are based on release dates - 5.04 means April 2005, and their first release was 4.10). Things have only gotten better with time.

I used that machine for about a year, mostly for running messenger clients and surfing the web while I used my beefy PC for gaming. Faced with the steep learning curve, I was reluctant to do anything complicated with it for fear of messing things up, but for day-to-day operations it was incredibly stable and maintenance-free. I retired it from service when I got my first laptop - a Dell Latitude that I ran Windows XP on, and for the next year or so I had several computers come and go from my life, all of which ran Windows.

Last summer, I got an unreliable Toshiba laptop from a friend who was moving out of her apartment. After replacing the dying hard drive and cleaning the heatsinks so its chunky P4 could get some fresh air, I decided to try Ubuntu again to see if they had made any progress on hardware support and usability. I didn't have very high expectations, I just wanted to see how it ran. The laptop reset itself during the install twice. After I opened the casing and cleaned the heatsinks very thoroughly, the install worked on the first try.

When it booted for the first time, I was a bit apprehensive. Everything worked, except the wireless card. Then I found the "Restricted Drivers" panel - not only did it know exactly what drivers were missing, but it knew where to get them! After plugging in an Ethernet cable, I told it to install the missing drivers for 3D video and wireless. One reboot later, and I had full functionality. About 150MB of downloads and one more reboot later, and my system was completely up to date. I screwed around with installing a few additional programs and tweaking some settings. I even got Compiz Fusion working.

Not a month after I got that machine put together, a new version of Ubuntu was released. The Update Manager prompted me to update, and since I didn't have any important data on that machine, I figured I'd give it a try. Astonishingly, it worked! Eventually I moved on to an older Dell Inspiron - yes, it was slower, but it also weighed less than ten pounds and lasted more than 40 minutes on a battery charge. This was the only computer that Ubuntu had a serious problem with. Apparently, the GeForce2 Go chip wasn't getting along with the provided drivers, and when 3D support was enabled the laptop would crash after running for about three minutes. With the 3D drivers disabled, it ran perfectly.

Now I've got a Latitude D400, and that had problems of its own. When I first installed Ubuntu, it had problems with the video. It would crash every time it went into suspend mode, and about 70% of the time when it was shutting down. Turns out I had to add a single line to /etc/X11/xorg.conf - it worked perfectly after that, but it's something a beginning user would have a tough time figuring out.

I've also got my brother's old gaming rig: an Athlon64 with 2GB of RAM and a GeForce 6800 that I've been using for day-to-day tasks. It's incredibly stable, and has so far required little maintenance besides the occasional update.

So, why did I make the switch?
At first, it was mostly curiosity, coupled with the geek cred that comes with Linux boxen.
I lost interest for a while due to frustration with the learning curve, and the lack of a good machine on which to use it.
When I did have a good machine to use, I found it to be very stable and reliable after the initial setup was complete.
Now, I see Linux as an alternative to Windows Vista which, for me, is the most compelling reason to switch.
The only thing I still use Windows for is gaming. For me, that's the only thing that Linux can't do better. Yet.

Yellowstone Trip

Last weekend, I went on a motorcycle trip to Yellowstone. I went to Butte on Friday, had a pint and a calzone with some good friends, and stayed the night. On Saturday I left Butte just before sunrise, and took the Interstate to Livingston. There I met up with one of my former classmates on his new Honda Shadow, and from there we headed down to the park. We spent most of the day sightseeing in the park, including a stop at the Old Faithful lodge for lunch, and to see the geyser erupt. It was a pretty good day, except that my clutch cable broke as we were heading out of the park. I managed to limp to West Yellowstone, where we spent a couple hours trying to find a new cable. I was eventually able to modify the linkage so I could work the clutch with my foot. Starting from a standstill was quite awkward, but my friend and I were able to get back to Butte. We stayed the night at a friend's place, then hung out for a while on Sunday morning before I headed to Missoula, where my folks met me with the pickup truck to haul me and my bike back home.

Even though my bike came home in the back of a truck, it was still an awesome weekend. I went just a bit more than 800 miles in the saddle in three days. When it was all said and done, I was exhausted, sore and baking in my leathers, and I can't wait to do it again.

Why I haven't upgraded to Vista

Let me count the reasons! Windows XP isn't really that impressive, but its vast user base has had the better part of a decade to learn how to deal with its shortcomings, and in its current state is one of the better operating systems Microsoft has produced.

1. Licensing and activation - XP was already a pain in the ass for this, and the process of calling some n00b in India to activate Windows after X installs/hardware changes could tax even the most patient person's sanity. At least corporate users don't have to put up with this bullshit.

2. Genuine Disadvantage - XP fell victim to Microsoft's lame attempt at reducing piracy, and unsuspecting customers with mass-licensed Windows installations (Dell, HP, etc) found themselves assaulted by little pop-ups with colorful logos accusing them of piracy. Vista's implementation would almost completely lock the user out of their computer. Apparently this "feature" has been recently scaled-back, but the bottom line is that Microsoft has the ability to revoke your right to use your computer at any time. No, thanks.

3. DRM - My feelings on Digital Rights Management are no big secret, and Vista bends over backwards to support invasive DRM schemes, to the point where these ridiculous schemes even affect your hardware.

4. System requirements - XP was considered to be horribly bloated and slow when it was released, and Vista is just more of the same. Sure, software is written to look good and perform well on modern hardware, but why can't it also scale well? Ubuntu looks amazing on my Athlon64 rig with 2 gigs of RAM, and runs butter-smooth with all the fancy effects turned on, but it also runs perfect on my old P-III laptop with no effects.

5. User interface - XP has a decent interface (except for the insane blue/green default color scheme), but all of the under-the-hood stuff is a bit inconvenient to access. With Vista, it feels a lot like they've just shuffled things around. Most things are no easier to access, just moved around. There is no advantage, just the pain in the ass of having to re-learn where everything is. Even something as simple as turning the PC off - the red "I/O" power icon doesn't bring up the shutdown dialog like it does in XP. Instead it suspends the OS, as if that would disguise the five-minute boot times. Once you get used to it, it's no more convenient - just different. Office 2007 pulled the same shit with their little pulsating uber-button in the upper left, that duplicated some of the functionality of the File menu it replaced.

I used to use Windows on all of my computers. Now, there are only three computers in this residence that have Windows (and all running XP at that) - my gaming rig, my brother's MacBook with Boot Camp, and my dad's PC. The only reason I still use Windows at all is for gaming. If Linux/WINE could run all of my games reliably, I would ditch XP tomorrow and forget about Vista forever. My dad's computing expertise goes as far as what button turns it on, how to use Firefox and how to read email, and I'm fairly certain that he could transition to Ubuntu much more easily than he could learn to use Vista. Not that his 5-year-old P4 rig could run Vista anyways.

While I'm at it:
6. Forcing the upgrade issue - Microsoft has ended support for Windows XP, but many businesses are dragging their feet when it comes to upgrading to Vista. Partly because it's still relatively new and unproven, and partly because in most cases it would mean spending massive amounts of money upgrading large numbers of workstations.

In an industry that moves at such a fast pace, voluntarily staying off the upgrade bandwagon makes me feel like an old codger geek, going around muttering to himself about VAXen and "kids these days" and all that. Is it so much to ask for an operating system that's lightweight, stable, reliable, and free of overly-restrictive licensing/registration/activation schemes?

Rights, and the Digital Manifestations Thereof

WARNING - wall of text ahead!

So, Spore is coming out soon. I've been waiting somewhat impatiently for this game since I read about it in PC Gamer a couple years ago. It's Will Wright's latest masterpiece, and it looks like it just might eclipse many of his earlier works of genius.

There's just one problem - the game is being published by EA, who have decided to include a ridiculous "protection" software called SecuROM. The original scheme was for the game to re-authenticate every ten days to make sure you haven't turned into a filthy software pirate in the week since you installed the game. The 10-day interval has been dropped, but the game can still only be activated three times.

So, if I were to buy this game and install it, there's one activation gone. What if I reinstall my operating system, or my hard drive dies? That's two activations. What if I upgrade my video card, or processor, or add a wireless network adapter? That's another activation. Or is it? No-one but EA and the publisher of SecuROM know exactly what hardware changes will trigger a re-activation.

Restricting a customer's use of software in the name of preventing piracy is commonly referred to as "Digital Rights Management". One wonders about the origins of this term - specifically, the word "Management", and whose rights are being managed. It may be the rights of the copyright holder - to receive due credit for, and profit from, their creative work. This is a noble goal, and the publishers can hardly be blamed for pursuing it. But, the implementations of this "management" often conjure a very different connotation - that the end users' rights are being dealt with as one would "manage" a noxious weed or an outbreak of genital warts.

The idea is to make software piracy as difficult as possible. Unfortunately, even the most brutal, invasive copy-protection schemes rarely buy more than a few days before pirated works begin appearing on Bittorrent trackers and alleys in developing countries. The end result is that the software is pirated anyways, while paying customers are saddled with software that's a pain in the ass to use.

The worst part is that the pirated wares (or maybe warez?), with the copy-protection fooled, crippled or outright removed, may actually perform better than the commercial version that the customer paid his or her hard-earned money for. How bad is it when the pirate gets a better user experience than the paying customer?

I'm not convinced that piracy is as big of a problem as the software industry is claiming, but it's a problem nonetheless. It is obvious to me that something should be done to deter piracy, but it is also obvious that these ridiculous, customers-be-damned measures are not the way to go.

So, I'm faced with a problem - what to do about Spore? It is a game that I want - that I've wanted for a very long time - but now that release date is less than a month away, I'm not sure if I'll be making the purchase. I suppose I could purchase a copy so that I would have a valid license, put it on a shelf and install a copy that's more...convenient, but it's reasonable to assume that a fully-functional, valid copy would be necessary to access the online functionality and content.

Is Spore's online content and extended functionality worth jumping through a few hoops? From what I've seen and heard, yes. Is it worth the risk of stuffing up my operating system install, then dealing with EA's toll-based tech support just to reinstall the game if I've already used my three installs? I'm just a bit doubtful. What if a large portion of their customer base decides to boycott the game? My money would be on EA blaming piracy for lagging sales, and try to screw their customers even harder the next time they publish a game.

This presents me with quite a dilemma: if I (and large swaths of the PC gaming community) boycott games with DRM to make a statement, publishers will continue to use the piracy-is-killing-us excuse to keep screwing their customers, driving more of us away with each new release. They may eventually stop developing games for PC. I could give a shit if Halo 3 never came to the PC, but I would sorely miss being able to play games like Crysis and GTA 4. Then again, if we keep buying games with DRM, publishers will screw us anyways in the name of the bottom line.

One final note: the Spore Creature Creator (a demo with a small portion of the game's functionality) has the same protection, and pirated copies of it appeared on Bittorrent trackers a couple days after it was released. The significance of this? The protection has already failed. All the energy devoted to employing this "protection", and the coming backlash from legitimate customers, was all for nothing. They know damn well it's pointless, little more than posturing to appease the shareholders.

This is not my first rant on DRM, nor is it likely to be my last.

New Layout

I've taken some time to re-design the layout of my blog, and add a couple new features: the "subscribe" links for quick access to my RSS feed, and the "blogroll" feature to display the most recent updates from each of the blogs I've linked.

Most of my page designs incorporate light text on a dark background, and that's a matter of personal preference. I may not know much about web design, but I know what doesn't give me a headache when I'm trying to read it. I prefer a darker color scheme, and I find that it greatly reduces eye strain, especially when there's less ambient light in the room. I also find that increasing font sizes and maximizing contrast helps readability.

Okay, that was weird

Disregard that, lol

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Now playing: Bad Religion - All There Is
via FoxyTunes
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And everything is dearly missed, blood relations and bricks.
My expression, my confession - add it up, extract a lesson.
More than this, once again, like a bullet, as a friend,
tell me: can that be all there is?

WTF Email #2

For the second exciting installment of WTF Email, I submit to you, loyal reader(s): One Nation "Under God"

As with the last one, excerpts from the email are in italics.

Even the title on this one is a WTF:

One Nation "Under God",

Obviously, this is a reference to the Pledge of Allegiance, and the fact that it contains a reference to the Christian deity. An oft-forgotten fact about the Pledge is that it was changed during the Red Scare, but I digress.

One day a 6 year old girl was sitting in a classroom. The teacher was going to explain evolution to the children.

OHNOEZ, NOT TEH EVILUTIONZ! This should be interesting. Let's watch:

The teacher asked a little boy: Tommy do you see the tree outside?

TOMMY: Yes.

TEACHER: Tommy, do you see the grass outside?

TOMMY: Yes.

TEACHER: Go outside and look up and see if you can see the sky.

TOMMY: Okay. (He returned a few minutes later) Yes, I saw the sky.

TEACHER: Did you see God up there?

TOMMY: No.

TEACHER: That's my point. We can't see God because he isn't there. Possibly he just doesn't exist.

Umm...what? No serious discussion about evolution would begin with "God doesn't exist" The two are completely unrelated, except in the minds of the devoutly religious (and even then it is mostly confined to the loonies who babble about "intelligent design"). True, there are many researchers, scientists, teachers and professors of evolution who are atheists, but there are also a great number of people who hold religious beliefs while also accepting the theory of evolution.

A little girl spoke up and wanted to ask the boy some questions.

Woohoo, here comes the hero. She's gonna set that heathen teacher straight!

The teacher agreed and the little girl asked the boy: Tommy, do you see the tree outside?

TOMMY: Yes.

LITTLE GIRL: Did you see the sky?

TOMMY: Yessssss!

LITTLE GIRL: Tommy, do you see the teacher?

TOMMY: Yes

LITTLE GIRL: Do you see her brain?

TOMMY: No

LITTLE GIRL: Then according to what we were taught today in school, she possibly may not even have one!

OMG PPL WHO DON'T BELIEVE LIKE ME ARE STOOPID LOL!

I will concede that the last argument is somewhat accurate given the context of the rest of the conversation, as long as we forget how ridiculous the rest of the conversation is. The idea that only observations made with the naked eye are valid is absurd. Forget the fact that the children could see her brain with an MRI scanner, but even then they still couldn't see any gods.

(You Go Girl!)

Yes, you go girl. Go with your self-righteous, holier-than-thou attitude. If you really stick with it and refuse to believe any of that "science" witchcraft, you might be able to get through your entire public education without questioning your faith. Of course, the downside is that you won't absorb any real knowledge, and you'll play your part in perpetuating the vast circle-jerk of failure that is American's public education system.

FOR WE WALK BY FAITH, NOT BY SIGHT" II CORINTHIANS 5:7

I wonder how many people who forward these crappy emails actually take these quotes literally. I'd wager it wouldn't take long for someone's faith to cause them to stumble into a highway with their eyes squinted shut.

Don't forget to pass this on! I love this one..

I'm sure you do.

Everyone should send this to everyone they know, especially today with prayer restricted in schools.

Yeah, no. Repeat after me: there is no enormous conspiracy to persecute Christians. Student prayer is not really restricted in schools, aside from the requirement that such things do not interfere with the rest of the class. The only thing that is really frowned upon is prayer that is led by a teacher or organized by the school.

Forward if you believe in GOD!!!!

Yeah, I'll pass. There isn't anyone on my contacts list who would take this seriously. I, for one, find this mail vaguely offensive, the message behind it absurd, and the spirit in which it was written greatly insulting.


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Now playing: Bad Religion - Materialist
via FoxyTunes


The process of belief is an elixir when you're weak
I must confess, at times I indulge it on the sneak
But generally my outlook's not so bleak...

"Targeted" "Advertising"

A few months ago I created a Facebook account. This was my first, and probably will be my last, foray into social networking sites for me. I had my account for approximately one hour before becoming infuriated with the artificial constraints imposed on me, and I've since removed almost all of the "applications" that were installed - including some that were part of the original account. At least the standardized page layouts and color schemes have kept Facebook from becoming the appalling cesspool that is MySpace, at least from a design standpoint. Unfortunately the discussion board users frequently rival the YouTubers in terms of sheer idiocy.

But enough of that, that's not my biggest concern. By far the most infuriating thing about Facebook is their "targeted" advertising. The idea is that a page will be "crawled" and key words will be extracted and used to choose ads that will be displayed on the page.

For instance, the word "single" appeared on my Facebook profile, so I would constantly recieve ads in the form of:

"MEET SEXY SINGLES TODAY"
"WANT TO MEET SOME GIRLS?"
"BEST PICK UP LINES"
"VIEW PHOTOS OF SINGLES"

And despite the fact that the word "Atheist" also appears on my profile:
"HOT CHRISTIAN SINGLES"

They can't just leave it at that, they've got to rub it in:
"FEELING LONELY?"
"STILL SINGLE?"

YES, I AM FUCKING STILL SINGLE. I AM MADE PAINFULLY AWARE OF THIS FACT BY YOUR CRAPPY ADVERTISING. You know what kind of ad I want? How about one that says, "Click here for singles that aren't completely self-absorbed, abusive or clinically insane!"

So I remove "single" from my profile, and apparently it's now zeroed in on "Male" on the page, so the ads have changed:

"IT'S MILLER TIME"
"WANT A MACBOOK FOR FREE"

Seriously, guys, if scantily-clad coeds claiming to be from Walkerville couldn't tempt me into clicking your shitty ads, what makes you think a pyramid scheme promising overpriced computers is going to succeed? Unfortunately, things take a surprising turn at this point:

"MEN SEEKING MEN ONLINE"

I'm really not interested in that, either.

So, there you have it, my take on targeted advertising. I do NOT want "sexy" singles, homosexual men, pyramid schemes, shitty beer, the lowest prices on Crocs, or the same brand of tampons that Jessica Simpson uses.



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Now playing: Bad Religion - A Walk
via FoxyTunes

I'm going for a walk, not the after-dinner kind...

New Toy

I've finally bitten the bullet and upgraded from the Bronco.



It's a 2000 Toyota Tacoma with a 2.7L I-4, 5-speed and 75,000 miles on the clock.

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Now playing: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Hey
via FoxyTunes

BRB

Brb, graduation.

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Now playing: Red Hot Chili Peppers - On Mercury
via FoxyTunes

Light at the end of the tunnel

So, it's finally going to be over. One week from now, I'm going to graduate from college. It's been quite a ride, but I'm glad to be done with it. I've got some possible job prospects in Seattle, so if things go well I'll be on the West coast before long.

Also, I've been wasting quite a lot of my time on a new game I've found on Steam called Audiosurf. It's descriped as a "music-adapting puzzle racer" but I'd describe it as an interactive music visualization, and the best part is that it can use almost any audio file. I've gone through most of Bad Religion's discograpy with it already.

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Now playing: Bad Religion - The Dichotomy
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WTF Email #1

Every once in a while, I get dumb emails from people. Most of them are annoyances, like the "What does your choice of toothbrush say about you as a person?" quiz. Some piss me off, like the "send this to 40 people in the next ten seconds or you're going to DIE!" chain mail. Other than the waste of bandwidth, these emails are merely annoying, but every now and then I get one that's truely a WTF. Today's mail is one of those. I won't post the whole thing, just a summary.

This gem is about the virtues of honey and cinnamon. Apparently the two combined are a miracle cure of epic proportions. Everything from cancer, to heart disease, to high cholesterol. Portions quoted from the email are in italics.

Cinnamon & Honey

Bet the drug companies won't like this one getting around. Facts on honey and cinnamon: It is found that a mixture of honey and cinnamon cures most diseases. Honey is produced in most of the countries of the world. Scientists of today also accept honey as a "Ram Ban" (very effective) medicine for all kinds of diseases. Honey can be used without any side effects for any kind of diseases.

Today's science says that even though honey is sweet, if taken in the right dosage as a medicine, it does not harm diabetic patients. Weekly World News, a magazine in Canada, on its issue dated 17 January, 1995 has given the following list of diseases

that can be cured by honey and cinnamon as researched by western scientists:

It is here that I need to stop and point out the source of this article: Weekly World News. While it is true that the WWN is, in fact a "magazine", and it was circulated in a place called "Canada", this is not really an accurate description of the publication. I have provided an example of a WWN cover:



Normally I'd just stop at this point, as that image says more about the accuracy of this information than I ever could. I will, however, provide a bit of commentary about the content of the email.

HEART DISEASES: "honey and cinnamon revitalize the arteries and veins"
This portion cites "studies" done by "nursing homes in America and Canada"

ARTHRITIS: out of the 200 people so treated, practically 73 patients were totally relieved of pain
So "practically" 73 of them were successfully treated? Wow!

CHOLESTEROL: By the way. if you're taking cholesterol medicine STOP! They all contain STATIN which weaken your muscles...including YOUR HEART and none has been shown to stop heart attacks or strokes!!!!
This makes me want to strangle someone. It's bad enough to spread misinformation, this "advice" could put someone's health at serious risk.

UPSET STOMACH: clears stomach ulcers from the root

INDIGESTION: digests the heaviest of meals

WEIGHT LOSS: does not allow the fat to accumulate in the body even though the person may eat a high calorie diet
Weight-loss miracle? This one was old hat in 1995 when this bullshit was first published.

CANCER: Japan and Australia - "cancer of the stomach and bones have been cured successfully"
Cure for cancer? Now it's really getting ridiculous (and that's saying something!)

HEARING LOSS: Remember when we were kids? We had toast with real butter and cinnamon sprinkled on it!
I eat that all the time, and it's still not enough to counteract all the Bad Religion.

To sum up: it's a load of bullshit, but it was worth a good laugh, both reading the email and doing the research. Stay tuned, there will likely be more where this came from.

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Now playing: Bad Religion - Lose As Directed
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Insanity

So, I haven't updated my blog in like a month. To make up for it, here's something to completely rock your face off.

I bought a copy of New Maps of Hell last summer when it came out, and I didn't care too much for it at first. The more I hear it, though, the more I like it.

So anyways, classes have been going alright, and between that and work I've been a bit overwhelmed. No matter, just a few more months. I would also like to state for the record that Debian Etch is pretty awesome. I've been working with it quite a bit in my Advanced Linux class, and I'm working on putting together my own server.

I feel like I've kind of let my skillset stagnate for the past couple of years. I keep finding out about all this awesome shit that's been going on in the world of technology, and it seems to me like there's never been a more exciting time to be in this field I've chosen.

I realize that nothing has happened to my website in a couple months, I'll work on that when I get some free time (not likely any time in the near future).

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Now playing: Bad Religion - Atheist Peace
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Back in the saddle

I've been back in Butte for more than a week. The best word to describe my experience so far: insanity. My work load has increased significantly, but I've been able to keep up with it. Last weekend I built up a Windows server from scratch, and I'm feeling a lot more confident with that OS. Now I've just got to master GNU/Linux, and I'm also considering getting into programming. I learned a bit about VB.Net last semester. My goal is to keep picking up skills like this, maybe I'll become some sort of L33T renaissance man.

Classes start next Monday, and I'm signed up for: Physical Geology, Cisco (CCNP 4), IP Telephony and Advanced Linux.



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Now playing: Bad Religion - Honest Goodbye
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