So my Nokia n810 arrived last week and I am thoroughly enjoying it. This is all part of my plan to free myself ultimately from the accursed cell phone. Here’s how it works:

1. I already am a subscriber to Sprint’s Wireless Broadband (Unlimited EVDO Rev. A access). So I’m paying $62.00/mo for a ~1.1mbps (reliably) connection. I already use the Airlink AR360W3G (just plug the PCMCIA card into the side of the router) to share that connection over WPA2-secured wifi, so my desktop, my netbooks, friend’s laptops, etc. can have ‘basic’ high-speed internet anywhere I go (if there’s a power outlet).
2. I’m gonna give that Airlink router a beefy omni-directional antenna (15+dbm) and install a deep-cycle battery (or 2, or 3) in the trunk of my car with leads running to an inverter in the cab. The router plugs into the deep-cycles and bam! 200+ yard radius of wifi perpetually around my car. The deep cycles will be recharged either by the alternator or solar panels (undecided as yet).
3. I already have Skype Unlimited (~$35/YEAR). I get myself a SkypeIn number ($30/YEAR because of the Skype Unlimited plan). I have my cell provider (AT&T) forward all my calls to my new SkypeIn number for a month or two, as I get all family/friends to update my number to my new SkypeIn number.
4. I receive and make all calls on my n810 (with Bluetooth headset when I want). Just like that I have a high-speed internet connection that I can share with friends almost everywhere I go, and unlimited calling for how much? $68 a month + One-time costs of $200 for the badass n810 + $100 for deep-cycle battery rig.
5. …
6. Profit!! (When you consider my current status: $62/mo Sprint, $60/mo AT&T)

So much more that can be said about how sweet of setup this will be (oh, the plans I have for the ultimate CarPC). But I’ll leave off for now.

I know this may sound like crazy ‘out there’ ranting, but:

1. If, for some lame-ass reason, you don’t want to the OS to automatically add newly plugged in USB HDDs to be easily navigable, would it be so fucking hard to have a disk manager (I’m looking at you GParted) that actually fucking allows you to see to what degree the device is connected?!!
2. Firefox - retardedly slow at times for no reasons - despite hours spent finding tutorials for tweaking settings (mostly in about:config) that are supposed to fix this.
3. Mouse control - Frustrating-as-hell 1/4-second delay on every fucking mouse-click? Really? Really!!?
4. Do you really fucking expect mass migration when you can’t even get Photoshop/Dreamweaver to work bug-free?!! And don’t give me that ‘real men build websites with gedit’ or ‘GIMP works just fine once you get used to it’ bullshit. I can build a fully ’standards compliant’ custom designed HTML/CSS site with Dreamweaver that looks at least twice as good (the unit of measurement would be ‘awesomes’), in half the time, as some schmuck schlepping his way through it with notepad++, bluefish, NVU, or any other glorified text editor.
5. Can we at least try to put something together for answering questions like mine that is halfway as decent/organized as Microsoft KnowledgeBase (which is still inadequate).
6. Can the Linux fanbois get the fuck off their command-line high horse?! I don’t want to have to learn a whole command-line ‘language’ just so I can do basic operations on my fucking computer. Get it through your basement-dwelling skulls, 99+% of people do not want to be able to tweak/manage every possible fucking setting of their OS.
7. No true VMware console. Really? Really!? No, I do not want to deal with the overhead/bugs of running my Virtual machines/network through a fucking browser. Un-fucking-acceptable.

The frustrations of dealing with Ubuntu’s ‘idiosyncracies’ are fast catching-up-with/outweighing, the benefits-gained from switching from XP. Seriously. It’s starting to get to me…

Basically, you take some mediocre acting, combine with poor attempts at off-the-cuff dialogue, mix in the most contrived series of events dinosaurs on screen have ever been portrayed in, bake it halfway, and garnish with the worst pseudo-science since Indiana Jones Meets The Aliens. Voila! You just made yourself one serving of the new season of ‘Primeval’. Although, I do not have the testicular fortitude to confirm this through experience: I suspect that pretty much the same recipe has been used for the last 13 episodes the show has been in existence.

The fact that ITV (they’re the one that’s not BBC) claimed they had an average of 6.39 million viewers through the first season means that: the metric system does weird things when counting T.V. viewers; or television in the UK really does suck that bad.

Whatever the case may be, I’ll be spending no more time on it than writing this post to warn you all, lest you too find yourself suddenly, and achingly, wishing back the last 44 minutes of your life.

Also, anyone else notice that you never see guns (no matter how many) solve anything in mainstream British TV. I think the poor bastards have forgotten what it is a gun does, besides making loud noises. I pity those folk…

Well, it’s been a while, but here’s a rundown of what has been occuping my mind/time over the last couple months:

1. Migrating from Windows to Linux, specifically from XP Pro to Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) on my home desktop
2. Global Warming vs. The Recession
3. My Senior Thesis: Karl Popper’s epistemology (and consequent scientific method) vs. Francis Bacon’s epistemology and method
4. Getting Organized: Budgeting; Workspace organization; Planning for the future
5. “Quitting” Smoking using an eCigarette: What do I think of the idea of remaining addicted to nicotine but (potentially) removing all the major negative side-effects?
6. Finding the love of my life (without using eHarmony): SPOILER ALERT - I haven’t found her yet
7. Why I want a 1965 to 1972 Chevy El Camino as my “10-year Car”, and how I’m going to badassify it “beyond belief*”

* only true for the sufficiently unimaginative

There’s no way I’m going to spend the time to get my thoughts out on all of these in one go, so I’m going to take them one at a time, and hope that I finish my thoughts on all of them (over the next couple weeks) before I get struck by some sort of blogging malaise.

So to start:

Linux vs. Windows

There were a variety of factors that encouraged me to do the full switch from XP to Ubuntu. Here are the major ones (in no particular order):

1. Security: A lot of frustration has built up because of all the time I’ve spent over the years in finding, installing, and testing, freeware security software (anti-virus, firewalls, anti-rootkit, etc). An examination of all this time spent, plus the resource consumption of this software (I’m looking at you, and your feature-bloat, AVG) combined with the fact that no matter what configuration I ended up with I never felt that the machines were really all that secure. My paranoia was given boost by the Conficker worms that have been running rampant all over the place in the last 5 months. The idea of spending 1/20th the time, and having 1/100th the worry, by switching over to Ubuntu was very appealing.
2. Eye-Candy: As silly as it may sound, the awesomeness of the rotating-cube-with-multiple-desktop-workspaces, combined with the plethora of other visual effects possible with Beryl/CompizFusion was actually a major motivation for wanting to switch. The customizability of the eye-candy only makes it all the sweeter, but I address customization specifically later, so I just leave off with that.
3. Learning Curve: I knew after about 10-15 hours playing-around-with/troubleshooting Vista, that there was no way in hell I was going to go to the effort of learning all the ins-and-outs, shortcuts, and idiosyncrasies of a new Operating System that was essentially doomed (or just being repackaged with a Service Pack as ‘Windows 7′ depending on your view). Also, I realized even if I waited for Windows 7, I was still going to have to invest time in learning it. This isn’t to say that I believed there would be less of a learning curve with Linux/Ubuntu (I’ve spent too much time on Slashdot to be that naive), just that the I realized that there was no way I was going to escape spending a chunk of time learning a new operating system.
4. Customization: Although not the primary factor in deciding to make the switch to Ubuntu, the appeal of this level of control over all the different aspects/elements of the Operating System has quickly become the primary reason why I will NEVER go back to Windows. Although there is without a doubt a significant learning curve (is that the proper adjective to apply to learning curves?), the benefits of being able to choose every single component of the operating system, along with the detailed control one has over each component, far outweigh the time invested in learning - for me, at least. From the powerful scripting (although I’ve yet to really dive into it), to the wide variety of options built-in to all the popular Linux software packages, to the OS interface customization (being able to easily set tons of keyboard shortcuts, window behaviors, et al) means that I can configure my system to do exactly what I want, and nothing more. Also, I can easily (for most packages/components I’ve experienced so far) change their configurations/features at a later date should my needs/desires for that package/component change.
5. Free, as in, totally: I will NEVER have to pay for an operating system again, and I get to sell off the XP (Pro and Home) licenses/disks I’ve accrued over the years. Although I’ll keep one XP Pro license for setting up a Virtual Machine, I definitely like the idea of getting “paid” hundreds of dollars to switch to Ubuntu (minus the time and fees for eBaying the disks/licenses, of course). Also, the Open-Source-Software (OSS) thing is pretty cool. It’s pretty sweet that there are literally thousands upon thousands of top-notch (and not-so-top-notch) developers constantly working to improve almost every aspect of Linux. Although the fragmented (according to the different flavors/distributions of Linux) nature of the developer community means that there is always a concern that your particular flavor of Linux might not be developed (or fixed) as quickly as others, it seems that the transparency inherent in the definition of ‘Open Source’ does mean that potential exploits (especially in the kernel and most popular packages) will be responded to (and patched) much faster than can be expected with closed-source/proprietary software.
6. 4+ GB of RAM: This was actually one of, if not the, strongest factor in switching to Ubuntu. After reading up on the terrible hardware-support/bugginess of XP 64-bit (plus the fact that XP will eventually be phased-out/unsupported) and my experience-based distaste for Vista, I knew that I either had to wait until Windows 7 (and then pay an exorbitant price and hope that it didn’t have similar 64-bit bugginess) or move to Linux. Why do I need 4+GB of RAM (640K ought to be enough for anyone)? Virtual machines. Lots and lots of virtual machines. Like, 10-15 virtual machines (VMs) with various OSes, from DOS 6.2x, to XP Pro, to openSUSE, running simlutaneously on a virtual network. Why the hell do I need VMs running DOS?! Well, frankly, that’s none of your damn business (also, kindly disregard the ‘World Domination’ category for this post).

All in all I have been more happy than not with the switch to Ubuntu. This is not to say that it has been perfect. In fact, I am still working through quite a few peculiarities/difficulties in getting myself back to the level of efficiency and versatility that I had been at with XP Pro. However, I’d like to set aside a whole post for “Frustrations With Linux/Ubuntu”.

Until next time!

Just finished watching Wrath of Khan with Dad. What a fantastic movie! Sadly, though, Montalban’s fantastic performance only highlighted the complete dearth of acting talent in the entire cast of TOS - Nimoy excluded, of course.

Rest In Peace, Ricardo.

Although I’ve never actually tracked exactly how long it takes one of my better /. posts to max out at 5, it’s kinda cool when it happens in under an hour.

Man, this is three /. related posts in a row… time to break the cycle…or create a /. Category…

There I was sitting at my desk on my lunch break, wearing my “No, I will not fix your computer” T-shirt, while  eating Cup ‘o Noodles with my Titanium Spork and reading “Funny Tech Support Stories” on Slashdot.  I then think how funny/stereotypical this is and have to write about it on my blog.

I have reached geekdom. And I find it good. But it could definitely use more ladies.

Here’s a copy of a fantastic post from this article:

Just smoked that cigarette. Unfortunately it DID clear my mind, and now I am able to focus on all the other things going on in my life, including:
Organizing/cleaning my room
Writing my senior thesis (on Karl Popper and the scientific principle of Falsifiability)
Posting regularly to my blog (as is evident here)

Less than 2 full days of not smoking. It’s like I’m a gymnast at the Olympics, ok? And I’m speeding up, with my attention on the spring board and the horse (do guy gymnasts even do that event?) but something happens along the way, and instead of going into a triple-axle double-lutz followed by a three-point quadruple jacknife and then nailing the landing, I end up actually causing the genocide in Sudan. A sportscaster who saw that might say, “Man, he REALLY screwed up the approach on that one.”

When it comes to escaping my addiction/prison, well, I sorta screwed up the approach. Now I keep on blaming every slight distraction and fuzziness of vision on my lack of cigarettes. Every slight stress headache becomes overblown and insurmountable to me. I have this fantasy that when I was smoking I was SOOO efficient, and full of peace, carefree, etc etc. I have had this pack of cigarettes in my pocket, opened but untouched for over an hour, now. Including through a drive back to my place from my parents (but I avoided smoking then because I was worried that the light-headedness would affect my driving too much).

I KNOW that I have no REASON to smoke. But the urge is VERY strong. I feel like somehow, life can NOT be complete without cigarettes. I feel like, no matter what kinds of joy and happiness and fulfillment I experience, it will be empty without cigarettes. I KNOW this is not true, but there is a COMPLETE disconnect between my knowledge, however emphatic, and my motivations. So many things I was planning on doing tonight that I don’t feel I’m capable of without cigarettes by my side:

Clear out and organize my digital images
Buy Katie and Shane a wedding gift (wedding’s on Sun.)
Test out image mosaic software
Find prices for poster print
Maybe watch some basketball

So…*sigh* <—because I just did, not because it would be dramatic here>

I’m going to smoke. Then I’m going to do every single thing on that list. Unfortunately, this will just reinforce the absurd idea that I need cigarettes in order to be truly functional.

Fuck. Next time I’m getting a hypnotherapist. And that is going to be after the following has been accomplished financially, but no later than January 31st (the funny part is that even though I haven’t started smoking again, I’m still afraid to set a date to quit. Maybe because I know it’ll be for good this next time, and I, of course, still have tons of fear (I don’t normally do double parentheticals but I felt it important to note that ‘fear’ definitely needs to be addressed before I’ll be a happy non-smoker) about “Life Without Cigarettes”):
Car
$1000 cushion
Gigabyte m912