Planet Zeta

I have just spent the last several hours attempting to connect to my own wireless network. Why?, you ask. Because.. I don’t actually know. :/

During Saturday early-evening, I set about making a few twiddly changes to the router settings; up-dating MAC addresses in the filter; the access key; typical networkie admin st00fs, and then I left for the weekend. No texts or calls about “the internet isn’t working”; or “the page won’t load”; or anything else, so I feel all is well.

That is, until I come home. For some un-explained reason, I was un-able to connect from my main desktop. That’s okay, not a problem. I’ll just ‘repair’. Nope; still red. Even if the internet is down, the router can still be accessed. So I turn off the router; and try a re-start. Nothing. Scratching my head leads me to turn another machine on, which connects perfectly fine.

Confused? Most certainly. After a brief look through the access list, I see nothing wrong; so end up pulling the dongle out of the desktop, and jabbing it back in. I guess it became angry at that point, as it just wouldn’t connect. Having re-arranged my room slightly some weeks before, I thought the change of ports may have caused a hiccup; as, after booting up, the device would scan for a few moments before connecting. Something it never performed whilst in the back of the machine. This thought led me on to stuffing the installation disk in; but I had forgotten how annoying the damn thing could be. After un-installing; re-installing; preventing boxes popping up; setting XP to manage the network; fixing the XP log-on; and re-starting the machine, the stupid little icon was still red.

I was not a happy kitteh. Looking through the router settings again, I decided to turn off access control; and see what happened. Nothing happened. The next step was to turn off the access key. That changed nothing either. So I growled a bit; well, a lot. I also up-dated Ubuntu at this point, as it asked nicely for me to do so; and since the machine was on and connected to the router, I thought “Why not.”.

Making myself a cup of tea, I stood, rather confused, wondering just why one machine wasn’t connecting; when it had been perfectly okay two days before. My next thought was location. Since I had moved the XP desktop further away from the router, I decided to move the router closer. This yielded little results, and led to further pulling out and plugging in of the dongle. It began to become frustrating, until life sprung into the little red icon.

Yes. We had a green icon! But don’t celebrate too early. The green soon became red again, after I re-activated the filter list; and the access key. .. At least this act narrowed down the issue; or so I thought. Another half hour or so was spent disabling the key, and prodding the dongle; which allowed the little red icon to sit in the tray, mocking me. It wasn’t fair. :’(

Thinking about my options, which consisted of either running a fifteen foot Ethernet cable from the router to the desktop; or from the router to the xbox, I started to trouble-shoot step by step. I knew distance and location where no longer an issue, as I was picking up networks perfectly fine. The dongle just wouldn’t connect. I turned off the filter; and still nothing. I checked the key; and it was the same on each device. I turned off the key; and still the red icon laughed in my face.

I was ready to give up at this point. The thought of it being one really small; in-significant change causing all of the grief entered my mind. After I moved the router back; tidied up; and re-booted the desktop, I pulled out the dongle; and sat for a moment. Not doing anything. Around seven minutes past by, and I lazily plugged the now hated stick back in. To my surprise, the not-so-funny red icon is replaced once again by a green one.

Well, “This is great!”, I thought. But me being me, I wouldn’t be satisfied until I had figured out what the issue was. And me being daft, that is what I set out to do. Knowing there was no security on the router, I set about turning pieces back on. This was where I noticed a change. A weird change. The channel which the router was using was some-how set to eight. Hmm. .. Poking it back to eleven, I saved the settings; and watched the little green icon dis-appear, and then come back again. .. So far so good. Moving on to the MAC filter list, I turned it on; and re-saved. Everything was working well. The little icon was still green; and we where rolling along.

At this point, I looked at the dongle; and shook my head slightly. It couldn’t possibly be. Placing the eleven back on to eight, I re-saved the settings once more. My nice little green icon vanishes; but comes back red! .. NEVAR!! So, it seams, after countless time and seemingly pointless actions, I had painfully deduced that my wireless dongle does not enjoy utilising channel eight of the router. At this point, I just felt like screaming at it.

Having switched back to channel eleven, I re-saved; and the icon became green. Success. Turning the key back on prompted another save, and rewarded me with yet another green icon. Everything was now working as it should. Fantastic!

So, from now on, if I am ever in a rush to head to the hospital again; I will never; ever; ever, manage my network before I leave. .. I need a stiff drink; and an hour of Glee. Woo!

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Oh the woes of turning 20! No longer will I see the days of juice boxes, peanut butter sandwiches, grade school math, piggy backs, 24-hour video game tournaments, mud fights, or constantly nagging adults for the fun of it. Oh the pain! Okay. I’ll shut up. Turning 20 was no big deal, but it did make me realize something. I’m probably a fifth of the way into my life. That has certainly put things into a new perspective. A fifth doesn’t seem like such a long time. With modern medicine and taking organs from my clones I should live to see the turn of the next century. Granted, I will have to give up my stunt driving license and my heavy whiskey addiction… but, hey! According to a vibrantly coloured map on Wikipedia, Canadians are expected to live longer than their U.S. neighbors. Makes sense: The air is cleaner, people are less violent when it’s -40 degrees Celsius, Canadian beer keeps our blood nice and thin and bears, beavers and geese are our friends working together in harmony.

Taking all of that into consideration, I should live to see 2100. Or at least the beginning of December 2012. :r

Oh, also: For anyone keeping tabs on me and stalking my every waking moment (and sometimes my sleepy ones too) this is my first blog entry in about a year. Any wagers on how long I’ll last this time? Stay tuned!

As I mentioned in my “Dear Microsoft” rant-thing, I was planning on moving away from Windows.

The first thing I wanted to look into, was FreeBSD, and I did. After installing it and getting a wonderfull commandline, I started poking around. That was somewhat of a fail; I could get neither Wifi nor KDE to work properly. So maybe FreeBSD wasn’t just there yet, or maybe I just suck – either way I didn’t really have any preferences, so I decided to move on.

A while ago I read that OpenSuse is great. So I gave that a try. The installation went pretty smooth and most things worked. Except for one thing, the Wifi again. While it did technically work, there was some bug that led to there only being a default route going to the wifi card, if my wired-network was also connected. Obviously this could be fixed, and I found a bunch of work arounds. But since I still didn’t care much for what OS I was going to use, and I didn’t want an OS where I had to use work arounds to do basic things like connect to my wireless network, I ditched OpenSuse as well.

Next up was Fedora. The installation went very smooth and everything worked out of the box, except for things like Flash. (But thats the same for anything other then Windows and maybe OS X, so Fedora didn’t lose points for that.) I managed to install some of the basic stuff I wanted without issues and am now in the process of transfering everything from my Windows Vista disk to the brand new Fedora installation.

I still have a few things I need to install (IDE’s, a good torrent client (I love µTorrent), that sort of stuff) but it seems like with Fedora I have (finally) found a keeper.

Dear Microsoft,

for a while now, you have been promoting your new Windows 7 as the operating system everybody should use. Understandable, because Windows XP really does need to be replaced, and Windows Vista just isn’t what it should be.

As a Windows Vista user, I’ve been wanting to upgrade. Not just to Windows 7, but also to more RAM and a bigger harddrive. The logical thing to do, would be to combine these three upgrades. (Doing the HD upgrade and the OS upgrade at the same time also allows me to not destroy my Windows Vista installation – a big plus, because I don’t have to worry about forgetting to back something up.)

So, after buying two Corsair DDR2 2GB modules and a 500GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4, I downloaded Windows 7 Professional EN 64bit (from MSDNAA), burned the image, swapped harddrives and began the installation. Well, I got my laptop to boot from the DVD anyway. After the installer loaded the files and I picked my locale settings, it told me it was missing a “CD/DVD drive device driver”.  Obviously that message makes little to no sence, since the installer is on a DVD in said device, it there must be a driver available for it somewhere.

After searching the web a bit, it seems more people have this issue. Other people who also have a Dell Vostro 1500 seem to be able to solve the issue by installing completely unrelated drivers, reformatting the harddrive, or using an older image of the same installation DVD. I tried the first, can’t do the third and am to lazy for the second. Instead, I think I’ll just give something else a try. (I’m thinking of FreeBSD – I really like the idea behind that project and it seems to be making progress in the desktop area.)

With kind regard,

Jory Geerts

ps. I know you don’t care – its not like I’m even a paying customer. I just needed a reason to blog,

I meant to post this earlier, but somewhere along the way I forgot about it. Anyway.

At the end of October, the part of me that is absolutely, certifiably insane decided that I would be doing NaNoWriMo this November. This was two days before the start. I had no outline, only the inklings of a story idea, and I knew November was going to be busy in terms of both school and work.

“Oh, it’ll be fine,” Certifiably Insane Ben said to Rational Cautious Ben.

“This will all end in tears,” Rational Cautious Ben replied, then booked tickets for a far away island.

Well Rational Cautious Ben returned at the beginning of December to take a look at what Certifiably Insane Ben wrote in November. Suffice it to say I didn’t reach the goal of 50,000 words. I reached 27,145 words on November 19 and it stayed that way for the rest of the month. Now, I know that it isn’t about achieving the 50,000 mark (although that’s nice). I know that it’s about actually starting to write, actually doing something instead of just saying I’ll start to write. So in that respect, I accomplished something.

Prior to this year I’ve eschewed NaNoWriMo, mostly to avoid this sort of disappointment. Time management has always been a personal demon—not so much procrastination as a pathological avoidance of any sort of completion. I‘m sure most will agree: it’s easy to start new projects, but the trick is to finish them. I‘ve managed it once or twice, and the results were usually mediocre enough that the very achievement of finishing was better than the final product.

It’s clear that two days before NaNoWriMo began wasn’t the most practical time to make the decision to participate. I don’t write with a firm outline, but I always have a well-formed idea of how the beginning, middle, and especially the end. This time I came up with a plot synopsis in two days, and the end was … well, it just happened to be the end. It wasn’t the end that grows organically in my head over the course of several weeks as I meditate on my latest, greatest plot obsession.

I’ve had a taste of how the other side lives now, and I don’t think I’ll be doing NaNoWriMo next year. November just isn’t a good month in which to try and knock out 50,000 consecutive words. All the more power to those of my friends who managed to achieve or exceed their goal! Congratulations! As for me, I’m going to put aside the project I worked on in November and spend December trying to come up with a more fully-realized idea. And reading lots more books.

Picture, if you will, a minigame in a unreleased Penn & Teller video game. In this game, you are driving a bus from Tuscon, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada at 45 mph … in realtime. It takes eight hours to complete a full run, for a single point. You can’t pause the game, and you can’t just hold down a button, because the bus veers to the right, forcing you to occasionally make a correction. Even if this weren’t the most boringly realistic game ever made, how long would you play it?

Would you play it with three other people in four-hour shifts for 128 hours or more?

That’s exactly what the people behind LoadingReadyRun have been doing for three years now. On November 20, the 3rd annual Desert Bus for Hope marathon began. It’s in support of Child’s Play, a charity that provides toys and other improvements to children’s hospitals. They raised $70,423 last year, and as of this writing, they’re up to $83,688.38 with at least 21 more hours to go (the more people donate, the longer they’ll go).

This is reality television at its finest. Those who so desire can watch the live feed and interact with the “bussers” through a chat. The bussers will agree to do challenges in return for an appropriate donation. Many of those have proved hilarious—renditions of popular songs and musical numbers, funky dances, and in one case, having to go see New Moon several times over. Also, they‘ve been auctioning off some pretty wicked stuff to raise money: art prints, hand-made crafts, video games, signed props, etc. Desert Bus is an impressively entertaining and effective marathon, all for charity.

I don’t really get why some people find the packaged reality television on mainstream networks so fascinating. I suppose it’s the artificial element of drama amped up by the music producer of the show. But this is far more real, has an interactive element that trumps any call-in line, and the bussers aren’t seeing a cent from this. So they deserve major kudos and many, many donations.

Some big news in the Canadian tech industry this week was the advent of the Amazon Kindle in Canada. I’ve mentioned my mad love for the Kindle previously as well as my discomfort with Amazon’s approach to tethered appliances. So, now that the Kindle is finally available here, will I be getting one?

The short answer is no, not right now. Technologically, I think the Kindle is an amazing device that uses some pretty interesting physics to make reading easy and comfortable. It boggles my mind that we have the ability to store so many books in such a small, slim shell and take it anywhere with us! However, I still have reservations about whether an e-reader is necessary, and I’m still set against tethered appliances. So here’s the long answer.

One More Piece of Luggage

When you leave the house, what do you check to make sure you’ve got with you? Keys, mobile phone, ID, maybe money? What about your Kindle?

I’ve got this bizarre notion that, if I one day get a smartphone, I could use that device as my e-reader as well. It makes sense to combine them; we‘ve already rolled music players and cameras into our phones. It’s one less device to worry about forgetting at home—or worse, elsewhere.

Of course, the Kindle (and other e-readers) are superior technologically for reading books. Their screens are designed to make it easier to read, and their battery life will probably last longer if you‘re just flipping pages. I can see how an e-reader would be a sensible investment for someone who doesn’t want or have a smartphone. And I don’t deny that some part of me wants an Amazon Kindle.¹ I‘m just not convinced that it makes the most sense.

The Ol’ Ball and Chain

No matter how attractive or sensible the Kindle may be, it’s still tethered to the home office. Like the sleek and shiny iPhone, the Kindle is loyal to its manufacturer, not to you, the consumer. When you buy the Kindle, you’re just buying a device that’s a gateway to all the other content Amazon wants you to view but not own. The Kindle is a gateway drug.

Amazon demonstrated the draconian way it can manage Kindle content in July, when it deleted illegal copies of 1984 from people’s Kindles. To Amazon’s credit, apologies were made, and an Amazon spokesman assured us that it would never happen again—that, in fact, changes would be made so Amazon could no longer delete books remotely. It’s still a sobering reminder that, despite your physical possession of the Kindle, it isn’t really yours.

I‘m aware that the Kindle can read multiple formats, including yummy plain text files from Project Gutenberg. Yet the Kindle’s main goal is to persuade you to buy “Kindle editions” of books you want to read. These are proprietary files that only authorized devices can read, whereas a plain text file is readable by any number of devices. There are two problems with this. Firstly, it allows Amazon to control when and where you have access to the book you purchased. Secondly, it raises the spectre of data loss—since only Amazon-authorized devices can read the Kindle format, what happens if Amazon disappears? Unlikely, but still possible. Realistically, there are ways to cirumvent the DRM protection on the Kindle format and retrieve one’s data, but they aren’t legal, which leaves you in the interesting position of having to break the law to get at content you bought. An open format is safer when it comes to preserving and backing up.

I‘m using the Kindle as an example because of its release in Canada, but Amazon is not the only company doing this to its e-readers. Sony, whose Reader line has long been available in Canada, also has a DRM format. And when Barnes and Noble’s e-reader comes out, I‘m sure they’ll have a proprietary format as well. This isn’t the exception but the rule. And it’s up to us to change that.

Why? Well, Amazon, Sony, and B&N are doing what they think is best for their bottom line. They don’t want freely available, easily re-distributable books that will cut into the profit margins for themselves, for their publishers, and for their authors. I understand the desire to cut down on privacy, but we’ve been down this road before. There’s a reason that recording labels have finally agreed to drop DRM from iTunes. These bookstores, like the recording industry and the newspaper industry, are clinging to an outmoded idea of copyright and redistribution. Amazon, as a solely online venture, should know better. Clearly it doesn’t.

In Which I Return the Soapbox to Its Rightful Owners

So that’s why we, the consumers, need to show that this isn’t the model we want.² Or at least, that’s what I think. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel old and codgery. I‘m a technophile who refuses to get a smartphone because I’m holding out for something that runs Google Android, and I refuse to change to a carrier that does offer an Android device because the competing carriers in Thunder Bay have ludicrous service and pricing compared to TBayTel.

Maybe I should just get off my high horse and admit that yeah, the Kindle is pretty darn awesome and I‘d love to have one. But I can’t do it. I just can’t. I could probably surrender on the smartphone front, one day, if I so desired. This is different.

This is about knowledge. Books are one of the most precious resources of knowledge we have, and I will not be party to locking them away under the guise of “copyright protection” and “digital rights management.” I will not be complicit in the gradual erosion of the public domain, nor in the partitioning of content by format and fiat.³

If you‘re new to this debate and want to learn more, I’ll point you to the (somewhat biased) work of Cory Doctorow, Michael Geist, Lawrence Lessig, and Jonathan Zittrain, great advocates for a more open Internet.

I’m going to go read a non-DRMed book.

• [ 1 ] The three-year-old, “I want it! I want it! I want it!” part.
• [ 2 ] Yes, I‘m advocating that we let the free market decide. I’m not totally socialist!
• [ 3 ] Twenty years from now, assuming this blog hasn’t been locked away behind some proprietary wall, the cynical Future Ben will look back at Present-Day Ben and shake his head at Present-Day Ben’s naive idealism. But until that day comes, I’m allowed to be as naive and idealistic as I like!

Heh. I came across this video during my web crawling tonight:

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My copy of Windows 7 Home Premium arrived on Friday. On Sunday night, I began doing some housekeeping on my computer to prepare for the upgrade: I uninstalled programs I was no longer using, cleaned up unnecessary files, defragmented, etc. To finish it all off, I decided to finally delete that 10 GB recovery partition Dell put on my computer when I bought it. I‘ve never used it and probably will never need it, so I got rid of it.

That was a mistake. Or rather, I didn’t anticipate the problems it would cause, which was my mistake. When I rebooted the computer, rather than faced with the choice of booting Windows Vista or Kubuntu 9.04, I saw “Grub Error 22,” and my heart skipped a beat. I had killed my boot record!

The good news in this situation, of course, was that my filesystem was intact. I cast about for the Kubuntu 9.04 Live CD from which I had installed Jaunty back in April … and couldn’t find it. Fortunately, I did find the CD for Kubuntu 7.10—old, but perfectly usable. I booted into Gutsy Gibbon and verified that yes, my Windows installation was intact. I just couldn’t boot it, and that was the problem I tried to resolve. Alas, I couldn’t get to Grub’s configuration file—I couldn’t access any of my Kubuntu installation. Nor were attempts to reinstall Grub successful. In fact, everything I did seemed to make the situation worse.

So I did what we all do when we hurt our computers: lowered my standards. No longer was “reinstall Grub” on the list; now I would be content to just restore the default Windows boot record. I planned to do a clean install of Kubuntu 9.10 anyway, so I decided that this was no large setback. The instructions for repairing the Windows boot record with my Kubuntu Live CD did not work. I tried the recovery CD I had received from Dell, but it only offered the option to re-install Vista from the factory defaults.

At this point, I remembered that I had a Windows 7 installation DVD sitting on top of my printer. If I had to do a clean install to fix the problem, I might as well install Windows 7. I had backed up all my important Windows data via Kubuntu already, so perhaps this would actually give me a “fresh start.” I booted from the Windows 7 DVD …

… and below the option to install was the option to “repair.” I was elated. Upon selecting this option, I sat back and watched as the DVD searched for a Windows installation, found Vista, detected that the boot record was bad, and asked if I wanted to fix it. After a frantic click of the “Yes!” button, I watched as Windows 7 saved me before I had even installed it.

So I might be a little biased when I agree with those who think Windows 7 is a great operating system.

I performed the actual upgrade on Tuesday night, and as soon as I had persuaded the DVD that my laptop was compatible (it kept on giving me silly error messages) the actual install was a snap. It took about four hours, and when it rebooted, all my data was intact (a plus) and everything worked like it should. So I delved into Windows 7 to discover what I liked and what I didn’t like.

I love the new Libraries feature. It’s a sensible way to collect disparate folders with similar roles. You can completely customize your libraries, and when you combine them with the “jump list” feature from the taskbar, you‘ve got near-instantaneous contextualized access to your files.

Speaking of which, I have mixed feelings about the taskbar. I’m not sure if I like the compacted icons for each active application (I am aware I can disable this layout and use the default, Vista-style one, but I haven’t done this yet). I do like that the Quick Launch bar is gone; you can just “pin” applications to the taskbar like you can do to the Start Menu. Windows 7 has done a lot to reduce redundancy.

I did end up disabling User Account Control. I know, I know, it’s not safe! But it annoyed me to no end only ten minutes into exploring Windows 7. I even tried turning it to the lowest notification setting, but all my attempts at diplomacy failed: UAC was out to get me. So I killed it. I confess. Take me away!

Some of the new icons are a bit ugly, but there’s probably a way to customize that if it’s a dealbreaker for you.

Recall that I actually liked Vista. If you didn’t like Vista, you might need to overcome that hurdle before you warm up to Windows 7, which is essentially Vista on steroids. Still, Windows 7 does address the major problems of Vista—it’s Vista without Vista’s annoying idiosyncrasies. It’s Vista after rehab.

I’m not even going to try to compare Windows 7 with other brands of operating systems. If you’re a steadfast Mac or Linux user, Windows 7 won’t make you change your tune, and I don’t mind. I still hold to the hope that one day I can use Kubuntu more than I use Windows, but until that day comes, it’s good to have a Windows installation that works with me more than it works against me.

Now if you excuse me, I need to go compulsively organize my documents into Libraries… .

Yes, I have used that word before.

Sunday night was a very interesting one for me. I had finally found a phone I was happy to purchase, satisfied with the small number of standard features and the ability to send and receive calls and texts. I am not one to buy the latest flashy model, but had settled upon the Tocco Lite touch screen from Samsung.

At least, I would have; if my order went through. I some-how managed to get caught up in my bank’s fraud protection when I attempted to use my card, three times.

Monday was spent on the phone during dinner time, having the usage block lifted. I spoke to Kay, from the fraud department, for all of three seconds. She was very sweet. The other idiot on customer services attempted to sell me things.

So as of today I have successfully ordered my shiny new phone. I’m hoping for it to arrive tomorrow, as it is my sisters parteh; and I wish to use it for photies, and random touch screenie-ness; and music when the disco is not so good.

I am working Thursday, all day, so I will likely miss the delivery if it isn’t here tomorrow.

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Over the past month or so I have had the latest release of Grand Theft Auto on pre-order. I decided to opt for this as I would be purchasing both of the downloadable content games on one disk. Something I prefer to do, as a hard copy on a frisbee like disk is better for me than a data file on a hard-disk.

I am still yet to complete GTA4, mostly due to work taking over my free time. I’m just not motivated to do anything when I sit down at eleven at night. Making myself a promise to gamernate just fails.

Paying £24.99 for the two mini-games is a reasonable price for me, especially as it dropped £3.

Well, this entry is short; and point-less. I’m not writing a review or anything. Dum de dum. Maybe I’ll edit later, after playing.

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For, I think, the past two months; I have been driving around with another dead head-light bulb. Not web-log worthy, but I’m here to semi-rant at the annoying clips used to lock and hold the bulbs into place.

Firstly, a new bulb cost me £4. I need an e-bay account.

Having opened the hood of my car, I set to work un-screwing the cap and removing the rubber seal around the bulb and the socket it was connected to. Easy. The first bulb I replaced had blew, but this one simply rattled.

I can only guess the rattle was due to the forcefulness of my step-dad fitting it. One of the pins had snapped, which I had to pull out of the socket with pliers. With everything out; un-screwed; hanging; e.t.c. I re-positioned the rubber seal, which had been put back wrong the previous time.

After plugging in the new bulb, the issues with the clip began. The theory behind it is to let it hang loose; place the bulb into the light case; push the clip into the case, tightening around the bulb; and locking the clip into holes either side. The theory is nice. The practical is not. After a lot of time and swearing and moaning and prodding and pulling and finger pain, I took everything apart to try and figure it out. This is the moment I under-stood the theory.

Round two. I managed to half lock the left side of the clip into the hole. However, the right side wasn’t playing fairly. The bulb still jiggled about, and I managed to remove it. Not good. Sighing heavily for a moment, I tried again. After many more moments, and pulling and prodding and finger pain, I had finally managed to position the clip relevant to the bulb. With one big push, I locked the left side of the clip into position. Success!

Partially. I still had the right side to lock. Pushing against the clip yielded little results. So after several attempts I have left it as is. The left side locked, the right side un-locked.

Damage it your-self job complete, I topped up my washer fluid. Two litres. The reservoir took two litres of fluid. I know I wash the wind-screen on occasion, but that is ridiculous.

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A bunch of things changed in my life recently. Some big changes, other small. The first of these, is the half year internship at GeoTax I started on september first. At GeoTax, they develop software to help municipalities execute a bunch of Dutch laws. My job there is that of software developer. They use a pretty cool enviroment with a lot of new toys for me to play with. (Or one, Oracle. Another is JBoss Application Server.) I’m really enjoying it there – lots of nice and really smart people, a great project to work on. The money is nice too, and I really don’t mind working from 8.30 to 5. What does suck, is that in order to be there at 8.30 I have to leave my house at 7.15, and I’m normally home around 6.10.

Another thing that changed, is that for a few months now, I’v been doing squash. Its a pretty fun game and I’m really feeling better, healthier then I did back when I didn’t do any sports. (Even though since I started at GeoTax I’ve been less active when you look at the total picture – I go there by train, while I used to go to school on my bike, which is a 45 minute drive.) Its strange how two 45 minute sessions a week (which is my goal) can make you feel like you have way more energy.

Between the internship and squashing, I have way less time then I used to. As a result of that, I’m making much less hours at work these days (not that big an issue, as the internship also pays pretty good), I’ve had to cut back on the TV shows I follow (all good shows got cancelled anyway) and I’m reading far less (as in, from a few chapters a day, to one or two a week). I’m also spending much less time online. I don’t read half the articles I would have read if I had the time, and my activity at Zetaboards Support has dropped to an all time low.

Oh, and I have a girlfriend these days. I try to spend what little free time I have with her.

Tonight Stargate Universe premiered, and I wanted to share my thoughts on it. However, I feel guilty blogging about a television show when I haven’t blogged about arguably more important matters, such as life.

With a month behind me, I feel good about the school year so far. I only have four courses this year: Introductory Analysis, Partial Differential Equations (PDEs), Introduction to Mathematical Probability, and Speculative Fiction. Three math courses and an English course. All of my math courses are interesting, and I was excited to take the English course the moment I saw it offered. I’ll discuss it first, since the rest of the post will be about math.

My Speculative Fiction course is covering only science fiction this section—which is fine. Although I love literature in general and would gladly have taken something like Victorian Literature if this course hadn’t been offered, the chance to read and discuss science fiction for credit is not something I was going to overlook! We’re reading The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, The Left Hand of Darkness, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Neuromancer, Dawn, and Singularity Sky. We also have to watch Blade Runner (a film based on Do Androids Dream).

Of my math courses, Introductory Analysis is my favourite because it comprises my favourite aspect of math: proofs. Specifically, I love algebraic proofs—the more abstract the better. I love math but don’t like numbers so much. PDEs are fascinating and challenging as well; the course is very much oriented toward application, however, whereas I‘m more interested in theory. Unfortunately, my ardour doesn’t quite extend to probability, but I think I’ll survive—so far it hasn’t tripped me up too much.

My involvement in math at the university extends far beyond courses! Last term I marked assignments for a first-year calculus course; this fall I‘m marking a second-year linear algebra course. Moreover, I’m tutoring in the new Lakehead Math Assistance Centre (LUMAC for short). Both of these jobs are paid positions, which is a nice income in addition to my gallery job while also providing me with relevant experience for my future career.

Having spent a few sessions tutoring, I can already say that I enjoy it. We’ll see if it stays that way once the flood of people arrives the week before midterms! For now, however, it’s fulfilling. Plus, it gives me a nice review of first-year courses, like basic calculus, that contain skills I’ll always be needing but don’t always practise as I should.

So I have a very math-filled term, it appears. I like to use the phrase “inundated by math—and I love it.”

As I receive a few emails regarding the up-dating of the All Woollie Sheep skin for Windows Live Messenger, I have decided to make a little post.

First of all, I thank each of you for your emails; and for using the skin. It means a lot.

As I now work full time as a Chef, my activity on the web has drastically decreased; which has meant a rather saddening halt in any projects I may have been working on during the time I was un-employed. This covers the WLM skins; forums skins; and the websites themselves.

On a lighter note, I have recently up-dated to the latest messenger version myself; and have made a start on up-dating the skin for it. (I actually managed to crash it trying to open a conversation window, yay!). However, I do not have an actual date for when it may be finished.

There will not be a beta version at this time, since I have not modified any layout files; so you won’t see anything different, other than an icon or two. I have to re-learn the layout files slightly, since bits have most possibly changed between versions.

I do have the intention of up-dating though, but it just won’t be now. Paid employment is a little more important for me at this point in my life, so everything related to the internet has been pushed to the side. I’m also heading back to college next week, so I no longer have a day off to relax.

I hope you can all understand, and thank you again for your support.

Pop over and post a comment.

Reading through the GAME website as I sometimes do, I came across WET. For most games, I mostly read the description first; and then move on, but with this I decided to look at the website for it; and spent some time watching the videos.

The visual action reminds me slightly of Stranglehold, with the slow motion; points for kills; reticule targeting; and acrobatic type dives. Although a martial arts master isn’t all that acrobatic.

The last three videos on the site where trailers for the game, which I am yet to see on television. Out of the three, the final one is the funniest; and worth a silly YouTube embedment:

I have since added the game to my wish list, and will keep an eye on it after release. It might be slightly enjoyable.

Pop over and post a comment.

The war drums are sounding once again, and another election looms. The Liberals, led by the accomplished but detached Michael Ignatieff, are channelling Twisted Sister and are calling Prime Minister Harper out. But Harper says that Canadians don’t want an election.

So what?

I don’t want to take yucky-tasting medicine, but I do it anyway so I get better. I don’t want to pay more than $1 per litre of gas, but I do it anyway so my car will run. I don’t want an election, but we should have one anyway so Parliament will actually do something. The whining electorate complaining about our frequent elections miss one important fact: we’re part of the problem. We may not want another election, but at this point, we need one.

Do Not Pass Go; Do Not Collect $200

Much of the resistance to another election is purely about timing: there’s a sentiment that we just had an election, and it’s “too soon” for another. At first glance, this reasoning seems sound: the parties have not changed much in a year, and aside from one new leader—who, let’s face it, really isn’t that different from the old leader so far—it’s the same old faces and names. Why would an election this fall have a very different result from last fall? We’d just waste more time and money only to end up in the exact some spot.

The apparent futility of an election does not negate the necessity for one. Parliament will dissolve when it shows it has lost confidence in the government. Elections are a mechanism whereby Canadians voice their confidence in those parties; as the past few years have shown, confidence about all the major parties is low. Only 59.1% of the electorate voted; coupled with their shaky minority government, this barely gives the Conservatives a mandate to govern. The repetitive generation of a minority government doesn’t mean we should give up on holding elections—that’s absurd. It means that the political parties have to change the way they campaign and govern. If Harper wants to stop going to the polls every year, he has to either win a majority or govern well enough to keep the confidence of Parliament. The onus is on him to perform well.

Post and Propter, Meet Ergo and Hoc

Minister of Transport and Infrastructure John Baird says that “Ignatieff is just asking for an election for reasons of political opportunism,” and that’s probably true. It’s also beside the point.

What Baird’s misdirection obscures is the simple fact that this election has been coming ever since the Governor General prorogued Parliament last December deflated the Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition juggernaught. The Liberal party has always intended to topple the current government, even before Ignatieff became the leader. As much as Ignatieff may want power for himself, he’s carrying out a party strategy that’s a year or more in the making. None of this is news.

What I do find interesting are the actions of NDP leader Jack Layton, who has announced his willingness to prostitute his party to Harper. This is the same Jack Layton who said he was going to work with the Liberals last year in a coalition government, the same Jack Layton who likes to give speeches about how the Conservatives have failed Canadians and we need a “third option.” And now, even as Ignatieff switches from sabre-rattling to sabre-sharpening, Layton’s trying to the brakes on this election and give Harper one more chance. That’s political opportunism. Despite any misgivings about Ignatieff’s suitability as a leader, at least he’s firm in his resolve to put an end to our playground Parliament.

You Are Our Only Hope

Yes, you, the eligible Canadian voter. Last year we went to the polls—well, 59 per cent of us did—and collectively decided to elect a minority Conservative government. Again. Yes, if we do have a fall election, it means that the Conservatives have failed twice to promote a working Parliament—regardless of their lofty goals or attempts to stabilize the economy.

This is our chance to change that. And if you don’t want to be back here in October 2010, once again trying to decide among Mikey, Jackie, Stevie, or even Lizzie, then you have a responsibility to yourself and to Canada to actually do something.

I‘m not telling you for whom to vote. As my attitude suggests, I won’t be voting for my Conservative candidate, and it wouldn’t be my first choice for the rest of you. But at this point, even a Conservative majority would be give our Parliament a chance to actually pass legislation and make policy for awhile. It may not be the legislation and policy that I want, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take—that’s the compromise of living in a democracy. Nevertheless, it is important that you do vote, that you cast off your apathy this once. Regardless of whether you vote or not, if you pay taxes, you pay for these elections and you pay the salaries of our MPs. Isn’t it about time they actually earn their keep?

We got us into this mess. And let’s face it: our politicians aren’t doing much in the way of getting us out of it, so it’s up to us to put a working government in power.

Or somewhat.

Over the past five weeks I have been in full time employment at a hotel / restaurant / bar; where I am working as a Chef.

The time has been enjoyable; but it has impacted on my already lack of sleep. So much so the past three days have held very little hours of shut eye. This has caused me to stress out a little; with the added fact that on Fridays I have to peel and quarter three large bins of potatoes and one bin of carrots for Sundays. This is repetitive; tedious; and takes four hours.

For some un-known reason tonight; I have realised every single one of my issues relate to my on-line activities. I no longer have issues in my life, other than being single I suppose. Because I’ve already mentioned it three times to three separate people, I’ll just paste it:

I have a large number of projects that I will just never finish, yet I don’t want to ditch. I was happier giving support as a member, but if I leave the bl00s, I will leave for good. I only visit two sites frequently (support and hnz). Having to put up with the odd argument, or Nicola’s “oh, I have a job so I can’t do this” posts every three days is getting to me. There is little to no communication from the three reds I volunteer my time for; and have done for the past four years. It basically holds no significance anymore. I feel the internet is just not important.

Re-reading that, I’m tempted to correct the icky grammar. But I won’t. It’s authentic; un-edited; and what I said originally.

All of the issues I had with Zathyus Support shortly after the promotion still stand now. And I’m still disappointed.

Since I am now working, any projects I have started will be on hold, and I likely won’t finish them any time soon. Thank you to those of you who have emailed me, but I have to apologise again. The website and weblog won’t be up-dated either. And the community forums will just continue to die. My newest foodie board won’t be going anywhere I would like it to .. basically everything will stop. If it’s linked from here, or my profiles, don’t expect any changes.

Pop over and post a comment.

Computers are complicated, I understand that. Getting that stupid software to do what you want it to do can be a huge problem. Thank god anybody who does anything related in any way to computers (or anything technical, really) will know how to do it. Right?

More Reasons to Love the Guild

I‘ve already preached my love for The Guild, a webseries by talented comedians and actors, including Felicia Day. Well, even as they work on a third season, they’ve released a fantastic music video:

Who Said Math Can’t Be Fun?

Well you were wrong, whoever you were. Mathematicians from Carleton University and the University of Ottawa modelled different responses to a zombie apocalypse and concluded that the best way to survive a short-term zombie apocalypse is to impulsively eradicate all zombies. Ladies and gentlemen, load your engines and start your shotguns.

I’m an Uncle

In July, my sister, Tara, gave birth to a very little boy named Clark! So I’ve got a nephew, which makes me an uncle, and that is sublime. I got to meet Clark today for the first time, which called for the typical point-and-shoot photos that wind up on Flickr somehow.¹ If I‘m short on words about Clark, it’s only because I don’t really know him yet—he doesn’t know himself yet, since he’s only a month old and still new to the world. I will report back in four or five years!

• [ 1 ] I blame the gnomes, if only because they haven’t unionized yet like the orcs did.