Ad Astra Per Aspera

Goodbye to Blogger

2006-04-26T08:06:00.000-04:00

This is my final post on shadowconflict.blogspot.com. I shall now be posting on my new wordpress blog, Ad Terras Per Aspera. I'll be setting this blog up as a redirect of some kind soon, so everyone, please change your URLs.

Ooh! Cheap SD Cards!

2006-04-07T19:52:00.000-04:00

J&R has 1GB Sandisk SD cards for $38.99 (with $11 rebate) and 512MB Sandisk SD cards for $22.95 (with $15 rebate). My Canon 350D uses CompactFlash but tons of other cameras, and a few computing platforms do.

The deal is only good until the 15th, so buy one now.

_{Tagged: J&R, Memory Card, Rebate, Sandisk, Secure Digital}

Switching Referral Programs

2006-04-04T09:15:00.000-04:00

For anyone that pays attention to the referral/affiliates community, you guys already know that Amazon's affiliates programs is now one of the worst paying programs out there. Seeing as all my links are Amazonian in nature, I'm now going to be supplementing or even removing links and switching them to other programs.

One of those programs is the Linkshare network. Several big companies do referral/affiliate work through Linkshare, including Apple (.Mac, iTunes, Apple Store), J&R Computers, Office Depot, and Walmart, and a bunch of others. Most of these companies also have 5-10% referral payments, which is a lot better than Amazon's 4% with $15 cap for electronics.

Update: I'm also doing stuff via Adorama's referral program. They pay a decent rate, have the lowest prices I know of, and I tend to order all my stuff from them due to great customer service. I've converted most of the applicable links to Adorama.

_{Tagged: Affiliate, Amazon, Blogging, Referral, Linkshare}

Quit Freenode Now!

2006-04-02T10:16:00.000-04:00

I've decided that I'm quitting the Freenode IRC network. The network is run by someone that is very inept at his job, Rob Levin (aka lilo), who constantly causes problems with the users of the network, and makes enemies of everyone.

He also makes everything a political issue, constantly censors users for exercising their free speech rights (very insulting for a network founded on such a concept), and also constantly bans people he disagrees with from the network. In addition to all of this, he also blames people he dislikes for random attacks against the network.

The worst thing of all: Yesterday, he crapflooded #oftc on the Open and Free Technology Community (OFTC) with a 300 user strong group as an "April Fool's Joke", wasting the network's resources, and dozens of users are already quitting Freenode forever along with me over this.

I suggest everyone move their channels to OFTC instead, a network devoted to free speech and free software.

_{Tagged: Freenode, IRC, Lilo, OFTC, Rob Levin}

Optimizing Title Tagging for SEO, Blogger Style

2006-04-02T07:17:00.000-04:00

I noticed a neat little article over at ProBlogger, about optimizing tags in your <title>for search engines, which also helps for tabs in Firefox due to lack of room to display long titles. In this article, Aaron Brazell says to use:

<MainPage>
  <title><$BlogDescription$></title>
</MainPage>
<ItemPage>
  <title><$BlogPageTitle$> &raquo; <$BlogDescription$></title>
</ItemPage>

But, he complains that it still puts the blog name first. Instead, I suggest:

<MainPage>
  <title><$BlogTitle$> - <$BlogDescription$></title>
</MainPage>
<ArchivePage>
  <title><$BlogPageTitle$> - <$BlogDescription$></title>
</ArchivePage>
<ItemPage>
  <Blogger><BlogItemTitle>
  <title><$BlogItemTitle$> &raquo; <$BlogTitle$> - <$BlogDescription$></title>
  </BlogItemTitle></Blogger>
</ItemPage>

My example adds two things, 1) The blog entry's name first on item pages, 2) archive page titles, which his version lacked. I'm now using my version on my blog, and it seems to be working fine.

Note: Formatting on blogs suck, line breaks are not what they seem.

_{Tagged: Blogger, Blogging, ProBlogger, SEO, Template}

CafePress Sucks Ass

2006-03-31T11:11:00.000-05:00

I've been toying with the idea of putting my art (the stuff I show no one) online for people to purchase as large prints and whatnot. Well, CafePress seems to be the most chosen store, and apparently, they suck ass.

As noted by this trio of flickrs, CafePress t-shirts suck ass: they severely fade after one wash; however, also noted apparently Zazzle is worth using. I'll have to check them as a possible printing company to do my art via.

_{Tagged: Art, CafePress, Flickr, Photography, Zazzle}

Review of Lego 6202 Star Wars TIE Interceptor

2006-03-30T23:55:00.000-05:00

Rrreeeeeoooowww!¹ The TIE Interceptor is a fearsome beast, and a complete improvement over the original death trap. Quad-linked laser canons on the tip of each wing, and a stronger hull, it gave the Rebellion's X-Wings a run for their money.

The 212 piece Lego kit, the 6202 TIE Interceptor, comes with one TIE pilot minifig, a dish with the TIE cockpit hatch art painted on it, a TIE cockpit canopy, and two 2x2 round tiles with the Imperial logo on it. No stickers.

This kit shares much of the design of the 7263 TIE Fighter, the cockpit builds exactly the same way with very little in difference. However, the wings are far more detailed than in 7263, making the TIE Interceptor look a lot more realistic, and less like a simple toy.

Build-wise, the instructions are easy to follow, and the produced model has no major quirks or other problems. The single real flaw in the build process is that the light grey 2x4 plates applied on each winglet (step 10 for the wings) should be attached before attaching the winglets to the center wing section, otherwise the winglets pop right off while you're trying to do it.

Compared to the A-Wing (which has a few minor flaws otherwise marring a good looking kit), I give the 6202 Tie Interceptor a 4.5 out of 5.

_{[1]: Yes, that's the sound of a TIE fighter flying by (well, at least as well as one can do in text). The memorable screetch of a TIE fighter's engines came from sound designer Ben Burtt mixing the sound of cars streaking by on a rain covered road and the trumpeting of an elephant.}

_{Tagged: Lego, Review, Star Wars, TIE Interceptor, Toys}

Review of Lego 6207 Star Wars A-Wing

2006-03-25T22:00:00.000-05:00

Well, for less than $20, I'm actually quite surprised at how well this kit builds. Lego's 6207 Star Wars A-Wing is 194 peices, comes with two minifigs, and a little military cargo hover-transport, and a sheet of four stickers.

It takes about 30-45 minutes to build, and easily stands up to playing with it (which not all the Star Wars models can, the ARC-170 Starfighter is on the other end of the specturm, and falls apart if you even look at it), and accurately looks like the A-Wing. The only flaws are completely minor ones.

Flaws

It uses stickers. I refuse to use stickers, as they peel back off the plastic, and stop being sticky shortly after, when they land on the floor and attach themselves to dust and fuzz.
Step 3 of the cargo transport doesn't clearly state what the three peices in the front actually are (two 1x1 slope bricks, one 1x2 plate). They look like one single peice, and I was off looking for such a peice for a couple minutes until I realized what it really was.
The additional large plates added by Step 3 of the A-Wing, attached to the construction in Step 4, don't stay on easily until around Step 7 or 8, and is actually quite annoying unless you're building on a flat surface and don't pick it up.
The tail-fins built in Step 24 look unfinished. They'd look a lot more finished if they simply had a 1x3 tile on top. Also, those three bricks on the top tend to "chip" off, and a 1x3 tile would easily keep them in place.

Other than that, it is still a great kit, and quite worth the money I paid for it. I give it 4 out of 5 death stars.

_{Tagged: A-Wing, Lego, Review, Star Wars, Toys}

Canon i9900 and Canon's GP 401 Glossy Photo Paper

2006-03-21T15:21:00.000-05:00

Canon has a series of products under the "Glossy Photo Paper" name, with the forumla identification number of GP 401. They used to make many different types of paper under this forumla, but now it seems they only make the credit card sized paper.

The paper is flawed in that it has a slightly reddish tinge, which makes pictures a tad warmer than they should be. Compared against Canon's PR 101 Photo Paper Pro (which is an almost neutral white, very slightly on the warm side), GP 401 can be described as pink.

This pink color shifts flesh tones and anything that uses magenta ink to print out to be shifted over to the pink side as well. Unfortunatley, the only way to get Canon branded credit card sized paper is to use this paper.

So, I just spent the last two hours slowly tweaking an existing ICC profile for a similar paper (Canon's Photo Paper Plus, which isn't nearly as red) to work correctly with this paper.

To get you close to the correct colors, set your "Media Type" to "Glossy Photo Paper", and use the manual color adjustment dialog (click "Color Adjustment: Manual", and click on "Set...") to increase cyan to 35, magenta to 10, yellow to 25, and decrease intensity to -10. These alone increase the quality of output on GP 401 a lot, and make it similar to Photo Paper Pro.

Also, if you're using Photoshop, or any similar professional printing application, disable ICM and use "Print Type" set to "None". In Photoshop, you typically use Photoshop's built in color management.

To use said color management, use "Print With Preview", and select "Color Handling: Let Photoshop Determine Colors", "Printer Profile: Canon i9900 SP1", "Rendering Intent: Preceptual", and turn "Black Point Compensation" on.

Now, this isn't as good as just having an ICC profile for the GP 401, but it is about the best you're going to get, it seems.

_{Tagged: Canon, i9900, Photography, Photoshop, Printing}

What would Neil Gaiman do?

2006-03-20T04:54:00.000-05:00

Well, this is quite interesting. Neil Gaiman has gotten a letter from lawyers representing the company behind Attack of the Killer Tomatoes¹, because he linked to them from a website he doesn't own and has never heard of, and obviously isn't registered to him.

However, they apparently link to one of his entries on his blog, and even include a picture of him. I wonder if Neil Gaiman can have his lawyer write nasty-gramms to them.

Update: Inspired by comment below, I'm now direct linking to the law firm as well: Branfman & Associates.

_{[1]: Link intentional. Oh, and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is a horrible movie, and tomatoes really are evil.}

_{Tagged: Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Bad Movies, Lawyers, Legal, Neil Gaiman}

How to take better pictures with your Rebel XT

2006-03-17T04:25:00.001-05:00

Inspired by a comment from someone reading my review of the Canon Rebel XT, I realized that a lot of people just don't know how to fully use the potential of their camera and Photoshop. In a four easy steps, you can improve the apparent quality of your shots without even needing to resort to Photoshop (yet):

Use ISO 1600 to reduce motion blurring.
Use the AdobeRGB colorspace to reduce munging of colors not in the sRGB colorspace.
Capture in Raw, do not use JPEG as it only increases noise.
Increase the auto-exposure feature's f-stop by 1/3rd or 1/2 to increase brightness of pictures. It is better to have over-bright pictures than under-bright, as brightening under-bright pictures increases noise, but darkening over-bright pictures only reduces noise.

These steps alone increase apparent picture quality boatloads. No more will you have noisy, dark, blurry pictures that look like they were taken with a bad webcam! Now, here is where Photoshop comes in:

Since you are using Raw pictures now, you have to use a special plugin to load these images, which can be downloaded off Adobe's website. This plugin allows you to load Raw pictures from tons of cameras. To get the best performance out of this plugin, under the Detail tab, set Sharpness to 0, and Color Noise Reduction to 0 (We'll do color noise reduction next). Also, under the Curve tab, select a Linear tone curve.
Pictures taken with a CMOS sensor (such as the Rebel XT's) are often described as "butter smooth", in as such as there is no obvious pixelation that CCDs cause. They are also low noise, and any noise that does show up (as such with high ISO speeds) looks a lot like film grain, and appears as color noise.

To clean up the little bit of noise that creeps in, use the Reduce noise plugin, using the settings shown to the right. Be careful, however, setting it too high, and you risk removing color detail, and setting it below 5 doesn't do anything that can be noticed without zooming in 500%+.
Now, many shots you take are probably very sharp. However, there is a neat trick that doesn't involve real sharpening at all, but (ab)uses the Unsharp Mask tool instead. Using the settings shown to the right, you can easily increase the apparent sharpness without increasing the actual sharpness at all.

Increasing Amount allows you to increase the effect, but decreases the subtly, and this should be a subtle effect at all costs. Increasing the Radius changes the effect itself; above 25 and you start changing the overall contrast of the picture instead of specific areas, but below 15 it pushes small details more and it becomes very hard to notice any change at all.

Now, here is a before and after showing what just using simple noise and sharpness management does using the three steps I outlined. Easily, you can tell the image is much clearer than before.


^{NR + UM 1:1}	^{Original 1:1}

^{NR + UM 1:3}	^{Original 1:3}

I'd like to thank the person who originally came up with the Unsharp Radius 20/20 trick. Unfortunately, I can not find where it came from, but whoever came across it originally found a real gem. Thanks you, whoever you are!

_{Tagged: Canon, Photography, Photoshop, Rebel XT, Tutorial}

Canon Rebel XT Review

2006-03-15T03:47:00.000-05:00

As promised, I'm going to finally review my Canon Rebel XT, aka Canon EOS 350D, aka Canon Kiss n Digital (of which, was advertised in Japan with a family painted like KISS, the band). This camera is Canon's entry level professional DSLR, in their long line of SLR cameras; replacing the original Canon Rebel/EOS 300D. I am not going to review any software that came with the camera, as I exclusively use Adobe Photoshop.

Caution: This review contains technical terms, and often gets off topic and rants a bit. It also gets into the merits of professional photography, which directly effects the usage of an advanced camera such as the Rebel XT.

Features:

8 megapixel CMOS sensor with near unparalleled quality. 3456x2304 of low noise pixels, I don't think I've seen a better quality image on any camera, short of stepping up to the 20D, a camera that costs at least $500 more with little other benefit.
Bright pop-up flash that almost negates the need for a secondary flash, even though it has the plug on top for it. The camera supports E-TTL 2 flashes, but from what I've been told, the pop-up flash is brighter than every single external flash Canon makes except for their highest end model, the Speedlite 580EX.
Multiple flash triggering so you can use an external flash in conjunction with the pop-up flash, for cases such as remote flash units, or just using the above mentioned 580EX and pop-up together for even brighter flashes.
CompactFlash slot that writes at around 4 megabytes/sec, and supports cards over 2 gigabytes in size. CompactFlash cards are also the cheapest for their storage size, and come in sizes bigger than competing standards. SecureDigital (SD) cards cost about 50% more, and the largest ones on the market are 1 gigabyte, where there are 2 and 4 gigabyte CF cards available, and even larger Microdrives in CF format.
Bright, high res, 1.8" LCD display that accurately reproduces colors and can be viewed in bright sunlight. It is high res enough to display lots of detail, and the camera features standard functionality to be able to zoom into pictures to see detail up close.
Decent kit lens, the EF-S 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 II, is a pretty good lens to start out with. It has 3x zoom, and is pretty sharp, and beats the pants off of even the best point and shoot's lens quality. It cannot be purchased separately, but I've figured out that its roughly $100 of the kit's purchase price.
Light weight and small size, this camera is not much bigger than most "full sized" point and shoots (without lens attached, of course); with lens, it weighs less than my previous camera, a Kodak DC215.
Adjustable everything, and I do mean almost everything. Every little bit of functionality in this camera can be configured to suite your tastes.
Multiple environment modes to optimize the camera for different environments, easily changed with the twist of a knob.

6 Month Review

So, as you can see, I do like this camera. Paired with my Canon i9900 photo printer, I've been printing out perfectly saturated, sharp, amazingly looking photos. Even at 13x19" (the printer's maximum size), photos look just as sharp as they do at 4x6".

During the past six months, I've taken 1562 pictures, and have seen everything it can possibly do. The camera, as much as I love it, is not perfect. It shouldn't be, either, otherwise how would Canon sell the 20D, a camera that costs almost $500 more; plus all the other higher end models. But any flaws can be easily corrected.

Typically, I shoot in IS0 1600 only. The camera has settings from 100 to 1600, and I've found that lower ISO settings, not just on this camera but on any camera, although increasing brightness in dark scenes, causes blurry photos. The only way to negate that, of course, is exclusively use ISO 1600 and use a brighter exposure level (I've been using +1/3rd). You get bright, sharp, low noise pictures; and any unwanted noise can be cleaned up in Photoshop.

Of course, being able to configure ISO, auto-exposure, and using a custom exposure level setting (cameras usually use a 1/2 f-stop scale, not 1/3rd, and the Rebel XT defaults to 1/2), is a testament to it's configurability. I also use raw picture output instead of the default standard JPEG compression, to get the full 12-bit precision out of the sensor, and to prevent typical JPEG artifacts. I also use the AdobeRGB colorspace instead of the default sRGB (which monitors use) because it closer reflects the sensor's output.

Typically, changing ISO, increasing auto-exposure, using raw output, and using a colorspace that better reflects the camera is what most professionals do automatically. They want the get the best picture out of the camera to begin with. I'm also using a post processing profile in the camera that disables any post processing (Parameters 2 in the parameters menu; its on the Camera 2 page).

"But Patrick, doesn't that mean you're basically using an entirely different camera than what's out of the box?"

No. The camera is setup by default to be easy to use, and to give users images that look good without any additional mucking with. And that it does. It has multiple settings, that all you do is twist the mode knob on the top of the camera, and get what you want. Want to take a picture of a mountain? Use the outdoors mode. Want to take a picture at night? Use the night mode. Want to take pictures of fast moving objects? Use the sports mode.

However, it has additional modes that disable automatic features. The least automatic mode (and the most advanced) is a photography enthusiast's wet dream, and allows you to do pretty much anything you can think of. If you want to be a professional photographer, you use one of the advanced modes, not one of the basic ones.

That said, being able to configure the camera to basically work totally different than what's out of the box is a good thing. The ability to configure this camera to fit my workflow instead of the one Canon set by default is one of the largest strengths. No point and shoot gives me this level of configurability.

However, if you want the camera to do everything for you, and take great pictures, it will. I was using basic modes for the first 500 pictures or so, and they're quite amazing looking; they still beat the pants of off higher end point and shoots, and still look sharp, low noise, and saturated with color.

Additional Notes

I recommend as your first purchases for anyone that owns a Rebel XT, or any Canon DSLR, is a clear UV lens filter, and a stable three axis tripod. The UV lens filter (I use a Sigma EX Multi-coated UV Filter, 58mm) will prevent scratches and dust on the lens. If you irreparably scratch the UV filter, just go buy another one. If you irreparably scratch the lens, you're out hundreds of dollars. The UV filter also increases the quality of "blue sky" shots, and also reduces haze in hazy environments.

As for the tripod, I suggest you get one that does all three axes¹ (rotation, pitch, and yaw), and is stable enough to hold your camera. Good ones for beginners cost $30 and up, but it is well worth the investment.

Also, to go with your tripod, I suggest a wired remote trigger. The Rebel XT has a little 2.5mm stereo plug on the side to plug a wired trigger in, that works exactly like the one on the camera itself: half-press to focus, fully press to take a picture. The one that goes with the Rebel XT is the Canon Remote Switch E3. I'd avoid the wireless ones because you have to be in front of the camera to use them.

Last, but not least, eventually you'll want a better lens. Sure, the kit lens is great, but you'll eventually out grow it. Buying a new lens is on my to-do list, and I've decided to replace it with Canon's EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM, a lens that is amazingly sharp, silent when focusing (due to the Ultra-sonic Motor (USM)), and increases sharpness when holding the camera due to Image Stabilization (IS). The zoom range is larger than the kit lens', and is overall well worth the $425 or so.

Of course, now I'm going to go have to buy a new UV filter... that lens uses 72 mm filters.

Summary

I have to say the Canon Rebel XT is well worth the $950 I paid for it, and this camera is probably going to stick around for the next four or five years because of how well made, and featureful it is.

Update (April 4th 2006): Adorama has the Rebel XT for $679.95, so rush out and buy one now. ;)

_{[1]: Axes is the plural of axis, pronounced "axe ease".}

_{Tagged: 350D, Canon, Photography, Rebel XT, SpeedFlash}

Apple 17" MacBook Pro Predictions

2006-03-13T00:09:00.000-05:00

Well, as everyone has heard by now, Apple is going to release a gigantic 17" MacBook Pro, news originally broken by websites like AppleInsider.

I predict that its going to ...

... be released in late July or early August (after a short delay in being mentioned at this year's World Wide Developers Conference).
... come defaultly with either a 2.16ghz Core Duo processor (an option in current 2ghz 15" Macbook Pros) with a faster one optionally; or a >=2.2ghz Core Duo by default, and an optional faster one.
... have a default hard drive will be atleast 120GB, more likely 150 or larger.
... stay with the current memory configurations of the 2ghz 15" MacBook Pro. I don't see the default of 1GB of memory changing any time soon, 1GB is more than enough for most people.
... have a brighter/higher contrast/overall better performing screen than the 15" models.
... not have an HDMI connector. I think UDI killed HDMI before HDMI ever took off, and Apple is apart of the UDI Special Interests Group.
... cause waiting time at the Apple Store to increase one or two more weeks (it seems to be down to 3 weeks at the moment), due to common parts being shared between the Core Duo iMac and the two 15" MacBook Pro models and the soon to be released 17" MacBook Pros.
... cost at least $2799 for the default model, with the two current model's prices going down $100 or $200.

We'll know in a few months if I'm right or not.

_{Tagged: Apple, Core Duo, HDMI, MacBook Pro, UDI}

Rebel XT review coming!

2006-03-12T02:26:00.000-05:00

Argh! I just realized I never reviewed my Canon Rebel XT camera of +5 picture quality! I'll do it sometime this week, I hope.

I'll give you the short of the review, though. I've had it for about 6 months, it takes perfect pictures, and it has threatened to turn me into a professional photographer; I haven't given in, though.

Update: And here is the review.

NASA found surface water on Enceladus

2006-03-09T15:32:00.000-05:00

NASA's Cassini spacecraft may have found evidence of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. The rare occurrence of liquid water so near the surface raises many new questions about the mysterious moon.

"We realize that this is a radical conclusion -- that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms."

Evangelion's Positron Rifle, and Future Japan

2006-03-04T19:58:00.000-05:00

Caution: This math may be wrong.

In episode 6 of Neon Genesis Evangelion, NERV borrows a positron cannon from a government research lab to deal with the latest threat. This cannon takes all of Japan's power output, for 37 seconds, to charge the rifle for one shot. According to the CIA World Factbook, Japan produced 1.017 trillion kWh for the whole year in 2003.

1.017 trillion kWh per year/365 days/24 hours = 116 million kWh per hour

So, Japan produces 116 million kWh per hour. However, Makoto Hyuga states that it will take atleast 180 million watts to pierce the AT field of the angel Ramiel. Seeing as it takes 37 seconds to charge the rifle*...

180 million kW per 37 seconds * (3600 seconds / 37 seconds) = 17460 million kWh per hour

So, if my calculations are correct, the rifle would need 17460 million kWh to charge for an hour; unfortunately, this is quite a lot higher than the 116 million kWh per hour Japan produces, infact, it is 150 times more. So, if Evangelion's Japan in the year 2015 is to be able to power the rifle, it needs to produce 150 times more power than 2003 Japan does.

_{* Counting from the ejection of the first shot's fuse, to the pulling of the trigger for the second shot.}

Amazon Pisses Off Everyone

2006-03-04T18:50:00.000-05:00

Well, news of the suit between Toys R Us and Amazon over their partnership isn't new. But this is getting a little extreme. They put up a picture of the Gundam Wing (and it looks like one of the toy ones too, not even a model) for the picture of the RX 78-2 Perfect Grade model.

Really smart. Gundam fandom DDOSing Amazon's complaint email server in 3... 2... 1...

George allows Starwars Lego until 2011

2006-03-04T15:36:00.000-05:00

Wow, I missed this important peice of news.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 11, 2006--The LEGO Group, world leaders in the construction toy business, today announced that it has reached agreement with Lucasfilm Ltd. to extend its Star Wars franchise license to 2011. Under the agreement, the LEGO Group will continue its construction toy rights to the entire Star Wars galaxy, including an all new Star Wars animated television series currently in development.

HLJ Order Has Arrived

2006-03-04T14:33:00.000-05:00

My first order from Hobbylink Japan has arrived. Three Gundam Markers for panel lining, and a spool of Tamiya masking tape. I ordered it Feburary 14th, and it took until today, March 4th. 19 fucking days. Next time I don't use SAL shipping.

Synfig Ubuntu Debs

2006-03-02T14:10:00.000-05:00

I've recompiled Paul Wise's Synfig Debian debs for Ubuntu, until Ubuntu Universe inherits them from Debian SID. Just add...

deb http://mjr.iki.fi/ubuntu/synfig/ ./
deb-src http://mjr.iki.fi/ubuntu/synfig/ ./

...to your /etc/apt/sources.list and run apt-get update and you'll be able to use them. Please note, the binary packages are for x86 only; you'll have to build from source to get these to work on other platforms. Also note, this version of etl is broken on x86-64, but has been fixed in CVS.

Thanks mjr, for hosting them!

R300 DRI on Radeon 9600 Pro

2006-02-24T00:25:00.000-05:00

Damnit, I know the R300 DRI driver is alpha code and all, but it doesn't work on my card at all! I've been slowly working with the dri-devel mailing list on how to get it working, but no one has been able to figure out whats wrong.

Windows works fine.
The ATI binary driver, fglrx, works fine.
Removing Load "DRI" from Xorg.conf and then starting Xorg with R300 DRI works fine.
Xorg.0.log doesn't give me any hints as to whats wrong.
dmesg gives me no hints as to whats wrong.
Running DRI, libDRM, and the DRM kernel modules from CVS doesn't fix it.
It isn't the agpart driver, because fglrx uses the agpart driver instead of it's internal one due to how Ubuntu Dapper works
Fast write is not on.
AGP speed is set to default, which seems to be 4x.
I use GDM, and the Ubuntu GDM drum sound doesn't play.
It does, however, play if I manually go to a text console, but trying to go back to X leaves me with a scrambled screen with a working mouse curosr, and input doesn't work; sysreq, however, does.
Starting X by itself without GDM doesn't fix it.

Anyone out there have an idea of how this can be fixed?

Backlog of Lego Kits

2006-02-15T15:30:00.000-05:00

Ugh, here is my backlog of Lego kits so far. I think I should get cracking on these soon.

Dreams

2006-02-06T01:57:00.000-05:00

I rarely remember my dreams, and when I do, they're usually pretty fucked up. So, this morning, I remembered a dream I had.

I was in some underground cavern, which was shaped like a valley, and was filled with a jungle, and rivers, and lakes, and at the far end was an atypical Chinese temple, but built with extreme dimensions.

I had a sword, and I was fighting Mongol warriors in metal armor, and there were many of them, and I managed to kill or sneak past most of them to get to the temple. In the temple were clerics performing a ritual in front of something that looked like an Egyptian sarcophagus, but painted bright red with gold highlights. Infront of it was an ornately designed katana, with a gold and black scabbard on a stand.

The warriors assembled outside of the temple, and the clerics finished their ritual, and the sarcophagus started glowing, and the lid faded away. An armored warrior sat up, and stood, and stepped out of the sarcophagus, and went into the courtyard, and the warriors cheered and chanted a single word, "Emperor! Emperor! Emperor!"

Then, the Emperor and I started fighting, and I eventually killed him, and he turned into a blackened and charred skeleton, and him and his armor fell over. His warrriors started charging the temple, and I took his sword and swung it at the warriors, and all the warriors were killed instantly, also turning into blackened and charred skeletons, and falling over.

And then these two American women show up and thank me for saving them, and then these British soldiers that look like they came from the 1940s show up and secure the place, even though I've pretty much killed everyone.

So, yeah, that made like no sense. I have weird dreams. And whats really weirder is I turn on Sci-Fi this afternoon, and they were airing The Shadow, featuring Genghis Khan and his Mongol warrior cronies in the 1940s.

Latest Lego Purchaces, Jedi Starfighter and B-Wing Fighter

2006-02-04T19:30:00.000-05:00

Yup, I've finally gotten the 6208 B-Wing Fighter. Mine, all mine! Wahahahaha! I also picked up the 7256 Jedi Starfighter.

In addition to all of that, I picked up one of Galoob's Micro Machine Star Wars series spacecraft, the Slave I.

Update: Well, this is interesting. According to the Cargo Bay, Galoob has redid the packaging, into a more stylish clam shell. Also, the paint job is different, and has Jango Fett's blue and yellow coloring instead of Boba Fett's brown and dark green coloring. Maybe a re-release for Episode 2/3?

Update 2: Ahh, some Star Wars fans have filled me in. It is, infact, a re-release for Episode 2/3. The Boba Fett Fan Club has a picture of the old one and the new one.

Update 3: Has anyone noticed the shadow of the yellow starfighter covers up the laser beam? A glowing laser beam?

Update: FinalGear has the Bugatti Veyron Top Gear episode!

2006-01-30T13:04:00.000-05:00

FinalGear has the Bugatti Veyron episode of Top Gear the one I mentioned earlier.

Man, now I want one again. Damn you, Interweb! Damn you all to hell!

Where no sim has ever gone before...

2006-01-25T11:36:00.000-05:00

The Interweb occationally reminds me I haven't seen everything before. In this case, someone used Star Trek: Next Generation sims, and had them make a music video to The Picard Song.

darcs-cia now available

2006-01-25T05:16:00.000-05:00

I've finally finished the darcs-cia script, and put it up for download. This script allows darcs users to finally use CIA to track their commits. The repo is at http://www.shadowconflict.com/darcs/darcs-cia/.

Konica Minolta Has Logged Off

2006-01-19T05:27:00.000-05:00

According to Engadget, Konica Minolta has quit the camera buisness, and are no longer producing cameras, digital cameras, film, or photo paper. Worse yet, they've sold their camera division to Sony. So, now, theres only two companies making higher end cameras... Canon and Nikon, and its obvious which side I'm on.

Finished Workstation

2006-01-16T21:42:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm finally done my workstation I think.

Before:

Intel Pentium 3 550
Asus P3B-F Motherboard
256MB of PC100
30GB IBM Deskstar
Sapphire Radeon 8500 128MB
ES1371
Lite-on 48/40/12x CD Burner

After:

AMD Sempron 2600+
MSI K8T800 Neo-V Motherboard
2GB of DDR400
250GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 SATA
Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB
Audigy 2 ZS
Plextor PX-716A

In little under $1,000, I transformed my ancient decently performing computer, into a more modern decently performing computer. Actually, now I can play Homeworld 2 with the Point Defense System 7.0 mod and not run into slow downs with large battles, I can also compile larger programs with gcc in shorter time, and I can also render stuff in offline photorealistic 3D renderers faster.

So yeah, this will be my new workstation for the next two or three years, I think.

Adorama ProJet Elite Inkjet Paper and the Canon i9900

2006-01-14T05:43:00.000-05:00

I've heard a few good things about Adorama's ProJet Elite Inkjet Paper, a few people I know have started using it because it's supposably very high quality archival type inkjet paper that reproduces colors great, and is cheaper than other similar brands.

In turn, they attempted to convert me to the cult of ProJet Elite, and I've gotten nothing but horrible results with my Canon i9900, which I reviewed not too long ago.

So far, I have tested only ProJet Elite Picture Rag Warm Tone 190gsm¹. It does reproduce colors semi-accurately, but it looks very faded, and blacks are a dark grey. Also, dark areas appear splotchy, and sometimes very light areas end up appearing bright white.

Tested vs Canon Photo Paper Pro² (glossy, but reproduces colors amazingly), ProJet Elite Picture Rag fails horribly. If you're looking for a decent brand of thick matte paper, look elsewhere.

Please note, however, that this does not reflect on Adorama as a fine purveyor of photography goods in any way. I've never had problems with any of my orders with Adorama, and they often carry products cheaper than Amazon, and even carry products that Amazon doesn't. I still recommend Adorama as a good place to shop... I just don't recommend their paper.

_{[1]: In Photoshop CS2, with the printer set to Matte Photo Paper³, Quality 1, Auto halftoning, Print Type none, borderless printing on at the 2nd notch, and any options in the effects tab off; with Photoshop set to "Let Photoshop Decide" color handling, the "Canon i9900 elite warm tone" printer profile, and Perceptual rendering intent with black point compensation on.

[2]: In Photoshop CS2, with the printer set to Photo Paper Pro, Quality 1, Auto halftoning, Print type none, borderless printing on at the 2nd notch, and any options in the effects tab off; with Photoshop set to "Let Photoshop Decide" color handling, the "Canon i9900 PR1" printer profile, and Perceptual rendering intent with black point compensation on.

[3]: The Matte Photo Paper setting produces better results than Other Photo Paper and Plain Paper with ProJet Elite Picture Rag.}

Update, February 7th 2006: I've now tried every combination of setting the printer driver to every media type, color adjustments with ICM and print type; and I've also tried changing settings various settings in Photoshop (color handling, rendering intent, and black point compensation).

There is simply no way to print good results on this paper using the Canon i9990 inkjet printer. If I rated products on a 5 star scale, Adorama ProJet Elite inkjet paper would get 0 stars.

Battlecrack Galactica, Episode 212: "Resurrection Ship, Part 2"

2006-01-14T00:05:00.000-05:00

Spoilers abound.

Amazing, full of action, well written, and a great ending to, effectively, what was a two hour episode. Actually, I'm amazed at how part one flows into part two. It just fits perfectly.

I didn't see it coming either. I thought the XO of the Pegasus, Colonel Fisk, would be told to execute the order, and would refuse; while simutainously Starbuck would be asked to execute the order and would also refuse. And honestly, I fell for the bait. I totally fell for the bait they set up.

"But you can't rape a machine." But are Cylons machines? In any other situation, I could very well accept them as fellow humans. I mean, what makes us human? Our shape? Our makeup? Or our humanity? Cylons are a perfect emulation of our humanity... in essence, they are human. But they are our enemy as well... no, that's incorrect. The Cylons aren't truly our enemy, I believe that ultimately they are a test for humanity, for us to prove that we do in fact deserve to exist... or to prove we can co-exist with greater beings.

And Cylons are almost perfect beings. They aren't stronger, or faster, or smarter, or invulnerable... they lack a fear of death, because they will always return to a new body. They also are never alone. We humans are always alone, we never truly can connect with others because of the barriers we build to separate ourselves from others.

Humans hate other humans not because of the reasons we usually tell others and ourselves... we hate other people because we can't connect with them. Because we can't understand them, and they probably can't understand us either. We fear the invisible bonds that people make. We make war because we are alone... in turn, we make love because we don't want to be alone.

Baltar fell in love with a Cylon, as did Helo and Chief Tyrol. They did it because us humans are alone, and we seek to complete ourselves using others. The Cylons are similar, however, in such that a human/Cylon hybrid is of much importance to them. Maybe Helo and Sharon's child will be the perfect being that the Cylons strive to create?

Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. To hate someone, and want to totally destroy them requires the same amount of what makes us human as to love someone and always want to be with them. To have either denied to us is painful.

Cain was denied everyone she knew, everyone she cared about, and she exacted her revenge and made the Cylons fear us. She was in pain until the day she won against the Cylons, and then she was finally free. She was human. Boomer was beaten and almost raped, and she was denied her love towards Helo. She felt pain as well. Even though she is a Cylon, she is also human.

To be human is to be simutainously, and paradoxically: destructive, self-destructive, and creative. To emulate these three tenants of the human being is to be human.

USPS vs UPS! Fight!

2006-01-13T18:28:00.000-05:00

So, in a previous post, I wrote that I was buying three ink tanks for my Canon i9900 through Amazon, because it was cheaper than driving over to Walmart and buying them.

Well, I ordered them using the "FREE Super Saver Shipping", and Amazon decided to ship two of the tanks through USPS, and the remaining one through UPS (due to it being out of stock, but ended up getting into stock a day after they shipped the USPS box).

So, we all know USPS takes forever, right? Here's some empirical proof: the UPS package, even though shipped one day after the USPS package, got here one day before the UPS package.

UPS wins, fatality.

Rebel XT pilfers wallet, Sigma UV filter drives getaway car

2006-01-13T15:25:00.000-05:00

The problem with owning a $900 camera is the fact you always want to buy just one more thing for it. Just one more thing. Just one last thing. The newest one last thing at the moment is a Sigma EX Multi-coated UV Filter, 58mm.

Ultimately, unless you actually need a UV filter (ie, for outdoor shots with a lot of haze, wide open blue sky, or reflective water), you usually just buy one as a way to protect your lens by not having it open to the elements; it's easier (and cheaper) to buy a new $20 UV filter after you ruin it, than a new $150+ lens.

That said, this filter is optically clear, and doesn't effect the brightness, color hue, or color saturation of shots, and is made of a single piece of glass with a solid metal frame that screws right into the front of my lens, and my existing lens cap fits over that. So, now I don't have to worry about cleaning dust and other destructive substances off my lens, since the lens filter seals the front of the lens off from the outside; so I just have to clean the outside of the filter.

It weighs an ounce or two, so it does make the camera feel heavier; not that its a bad thing, I always thought my Rebel XT was a tad on the light side. Even though it weighs more, it doesn't effect the autofocus function in any way (including the rate at which it focuses), and isn't heavy enough to cause lens creep[1].

I paid $18.95 for mine from Adorama, and I'm quite happy with the performance. Since I've never owned a lens filter before, I was worried that it would alter the quality of the shots, but it hasn't in any way. If you own a professional-level camera, I highly recommending buying a Sigma EX Multi-coated UV Filter for your lens(es), too.

_{[1]: A problem with some lenses where the moving part of the zoom lens slowly moves outwards/inwards when tilting the camera forwards/backwards.}

_{Tagged: 350D, Photography, Rebel XT, Sigma}

Lego Packaging with 7263 Tie Fighter

2006-01-12T13:59:00.000-05:00

Has anyone noticed the box on the 7263 Tie Fighter how thick the cardboard is, and the fact it also has a thick cardboard inner frame as well? I've never seen a Lego box this well produced.

Compared to, say, the 7259 ARC-170 Starfighter (I couldn't help but buy two of these, they're so amazingly detailed, with real moving attack wings) or the 6205 V-Wing Fighter (which is sitting next to my ARC-170 now), they use normal boxes. Was the thicker boxing just for the 2005 Classic line of Star Wars kits or what?

Pictured: General grievous vs Obiwan Kenobi (from 7255 General Grievous Chase) in front of an ARC-170 Starfighter that happens to have landed on the January 2006 Lego Shop@Home Catalogue, taken with my Rebel XT.

Walmart Sucks!

2006-01-09T05:30:00.000-05:00

Update: Due to Amazon changing their Associates program so that website owners earn around half of what they used to (making other programs far more worthy), I've changed the links for the ink carts to point at Adorama instead, who has even better prices than either Amazon or Walmart.

Yup, you heard me, Walmart sucks. The Big W, Wally World, Wallzinski's Deparment Store, whatever you want to call it, it sucks. Actually, I've known this for awhile. They never have anything on the shelves, they're far overpriced, and their staff is 99.9% American Douchebag.

So what made me bother blogging about it today? Normally, for small items like, say, ink carts, it's usually cheaper to hit some local joint. Around here, no company sells the ink carts for my i9900 except Walmart... and they sell them for $11.99 a peice. Eleven dollars and 99 fucking cents. Compared to Amazon, which is known for their decent-but-other-places-have-them-cheaper prices, they sell the better sellers for $8.52 (example: BCI-6PM Photo Magenta) and the rest for for $9.19 (example: BCI-6PC Photo Cyan, BCI-6Y Yellow).

Lets add up the math. I currently want to buy a Photo Magenta, a Photo Cyan, and a Yellow. By going to the local Walmart...

Walmart 11.99 Photo Magenta Cart 11.99 Photo Cyan Cart 11.99 Yellow Cart 1.80 Maine State Sales Tax (5%) ----------- 37.77 Total

... I'd end up paying $37.77. With Amazon, qualifying for "FREE Super Saver Shipping", and the A9 discount, I pay...

Amazon with Super Saver Shipping and A9 discount 8.52 Photo Magenta Cart 9.19 Photo Cyan Cart 9.19 Yellow Cart 0.00 Shipping -0.42 A9 discount (π/2%) ----------- 26.48 Total

... a total of $26.48. That is a $9.48 difference. In fact lets up the ante. Lets say I wanted to get things sooner, and I didn't qualify for the A9 discount...

Amazon with Standard Shipping and no A9 discount 8.52 Photo Magenta Cart 9.19 Photo Cyan Cart 9.19 Yellow Cart 6.76 Shipping ----------- 33.66 Total

Still a $4.11 difference! "Always low prices" is a load of bullshit. That said, I'm going to go buy three ink carts at an even lower price from Amazon.

Top Gear: Bugatti Veyron Video

2006-01-07T02:08:00.000-05:00

Hoo boy. Top Gear decided to race a Bugatti Veyron, a car that has four turbo chargers, 1000 horsepower, does zero to sixty in a little over two seconds, goes over 250mph, costs 8.8 million USD to build the first prototype (costs about 1.1m USD to buy the commercial model), and has 12 separate radiators to shunt all the heat the car makes... vs... a Cessna 176, or as they call it, a flying toaster, in a race to bring truffles from the south of Italy to London.

I won't spoil the race, but its funny as hell, and is the full episode, all 60 minutes of it. Its quite worth watching, and possibly one of Top Gear's best.

Update: Nooo! Google took the video down!

Battlecrack Galactica

2006-01-07T00:14:00.000-05:00

So, I just watched the season opener for Battlestar Galactica. No spoilers, but I feel like running around in circles and banging my head on the wall for awhile until next Friday comes so I can watch the next episode.

Seriously, I swear they somehow use Wonkavision to lace my official BSG Snack with heavy drugs when I'm not looking. Its not only the best show on TV (verified by multiple scientific studies), but also the most addictive. It has the best plot, the best acting, the best CGI effects, and the best looking Cylons.

Er, wait, did I say that last one out loud?

At any rate, if you were watching the commercials, they've released the first half of Season 2 on DVD. I'm seriously considering buying it too. Actually, I need to get around to getting the Season 1 set as well, which includes the Miniseries.

Buy Gundam, Get Recommended Stir-Fry Pan?

2006-01-06T18:59:00.000-05:00

And now, here's your moment of Amazon.com zen: buy a Master Grade GP-02a Gundam Model from Bandai... get recommended a stir-fry pan perfect for doing Asian-style dishes. Who knew Amazon Recommendations were so useful!

Canon i9900 Review

2006-01-05T22:37:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned earlier, I'm now the proud owner of a Canon i9900 wide format printer, and I'd like to mention upfront that this printer rocks beyond all belief. Canon managed to do everything right with this printer, and it shows.

For a mere $350-400, you get a printer that is fast, quiet, produces great prints, good looking, and charismatic. If there is a printer you can pick up chicks with, this is that printer.

Speed: Doing borderless photos at the highest quality using Canon's Photo Paper Pro, I get a 4x6" in about 35 seconds, a 8x10" in about 50 seconds, and a 13x19" in about 3 minutes. Watching it do a 13x19" that fast is almost like a magic trick.

Noise: Ultimately none. The specifications in the manual say 37db maximum when printing, but the only thing I hear is the clunk-clunk sound of it feeding pages into itself, and the occational swish-swish as the head goes back and forth while printing. Its quieter than any printer I've ever owned.

Photo Quality: I've been printing out 8 megapixel images from my Canon Rebel XT, and the photo quality is amazing. Compared to, say, the Kodak digital printing booth at Walmart, for roughly the same price per picture[1], I get much better quality. And, of course, it beats any consumer or prosumer photo printer I've owned (including two Canons and a Lexmark[2].) I haven't found a good picture to push the envelope of this printer's 4800x2400 DPI output, but I find text to be crisp and sharp, as if it came out of a high end laser printer.

Size and weight: Well, I won't say the printer is small. It being a wide format printer, it has to be big enough to print 13" wide paper, plus enough room on each side for the print head to completely clear the paper. The specifications in the manual say it weighs 21 pounds, and has a WxHxD of 23x7x13", but that isn't really big at all. The volume is roughly four times that of a Canon consumer printer, and they pack a lot of features in such a tiny space.

Ink usage and price: You'd expect a printer like this to chew through ink like crazy, right? Wrong. I've printed over 75 4x6"s, a 8x10", a 13x19", and two pages of a PDF so far, and according to the ink level viewer in the driver, I haven't used much ink at all (see the screenshot to the left to see for yourself). Amazon is currently selling all the 8 seperate ink tanks for around $8 a peice, so the cost per unit of ink is lower than most professional printers, and lower than any consumer printer that uses the single all-in-one carts with the built-in print head.

Asthetic quality: I used to think all printers were ugly, and were far too ornate for their function; or on the other end of the spectrum, too boxy and plain. The Canon i9900 manages to perform well and look good doing it. As a review said (one I read before buying the printer) it looks like they "sliced a cylinder in half", and I have to agree. Also, the coloring is a tasteful blend of black and dark silver, and the front panel only has two buttons, a light, and a USB plug for plugging a camera directly into the printer.

Other things I like about this printer is how it folds up on itself to keep dust out: the front tray folds in and up to prevent stuff entering from the front, and the paper holder in the back folds down to prevent dust and small objects from simply falling inside. I can open the front panel with the tray and paper holder closed, so replacing ink carts is a breeze.

Honestly, I'd pay even more for this printer than what Canon sells this for. Canon's MSRP is $500, Adorama sells it for around $425, and I'd pay around $600-700 for it; its very hard to get printers that are supported by Linux that are any good.

_{[1]: Its about $0.50 per 4x6" at the local Kodak booth, and I pay about $0.60 cents per 4x6" in a 120 pack of Canon's Photo Paper Pro. Photo Paper Pro is thicker, brighter, and more resistant to mishandling than Kodak's paper in my opinion, so it's quite worth the extra ten cents.

[2]: I hate Lexmark's consumer printers. Lexmark refuses to release Linux drivers for them, and they have threatened to sue anyone who tries to. I would normally say "boycot Lexmark", but lets face it, Lexmark consumer printers are some of the lowest quality printers produced with some of the highest priced ink. Get a cheap Canon for a similar price, you'll be much happier.}

Update: I've blogged about using Adorama ProJet Elite inkjet paper with my i9900, and its worth a read if you want to know how well the i9900 interacts with this brand of paper.

Norelco 9160XL Shaver Review

2006-01-05T06:08:00.000-05:00

So, I got a Norelco 9160XL SmartTouch-XL shaver for Christmas from my Mom, to replace the Norelco shaver who was around five years old, and the battery was starting to go on it. And I'll have to tell you, I like it.

It's got the famous Norelco three headed design, except this one uses those new triple ring blades that are supposed to increase the shaver's ability to cut hairs efficiently; it also has the pivoting heads, allowing the shaver to follow the contours of my face. Also, the motor is both faster and nearly silent.

Between the new blade design, the pivoting heads, and faster motor, I have to admit I'm getting a better shaving experience out of this. But wait! There's more! (... Why do I suddenly feel like one of those TV salesmen? "Call now, and get a second widget for free! Act now!"...)

It has an LCD display on the front that tells me the current charge level, and two lights that tell me if I either need to clean it out, or replace the blades. Actually, the whole thing about cleaning this out is so much easier: I can rinse it out with tap water, and you know, not get electrocuted doing it.

Oh, and it has a charging base, where my old one just had a simple cable. You know what happens to shavers with simple cables? Cats knock them off tables, denting just one grill/blade out of three, causing you to have to buy a set of three, new, expensive replacement sets just after you got it. At least with the charging base, and the better fitting hard plastic cover over the head, this shouldn't happen again like it happened to me with my old shaver.

Also, the thing is made of high impact plastic. I accidentally dropped it in the bathroom sink, and did my impression of someone dying a horrible and painful death, thinking I destroyed my new shaver in less than a week. It survived! Not only that, I think it bounces.

As for battery life, it usually took my old shaver's entire charge to help me shave a beard off (between using a pair of sissors, the sideburn trimmer, and the shaving head), and in the end, it wasn't even finishing the job, and it took about 6-8 hours for it to fully charge. Now, with my new shaver, I shaved off my beard, and not only did it in half the time, but did it with less than fifth of the charge.

All and all, I give the shaver a 9/10: -1 being for, even though I got it as a gift, it was a tad overpriced, though I guess you have to pay more than you used to for get high quality.

Post 200

2006-01-05T04:49:00.000-05:00

Wow, in little over a year, I've posted 200 times on my own blog. Also, I've put up an Amazon Honor System box to the right... if you enjoy my reading, donating money to Ad Astra Per Aspra would definitely convince me to write more often.

Oh, and here's a great blond joke.

The Downfall of Sega, Part 2

2006-01-03T09:50:00.000-05:00

And now part 2 of my lengthy rant. Read part 1 here.

Oh Cassini, help us!
The mention of the Sega Saturn makes me cringe. I mean, Sega finally produced a new console, and everyone wanted to love it. Hell, I owned one, and I loved it; but Sega decided to kill it for me. In 1994, Sega released the Saturn, and in 1997 they quit production of it.

Internally, the Saturn reminds me a lot of the 32x: Dual 28MHz Hitachi SH2 processors and a pair of video processing units modeled after the video processing unit in Sega's System 24 and System 32 arcade systems. The memory included 1MB fast and 1MB slow system memory, two sets of 256KB for the framebuffer, two sets of 512KB for use of each of the video processing units, 512KB for sound sample caching, and a larger CD cache than what was in the SegaCD.

So, that doesn't sound like a bad system, right? Well, for one, the pair of SH2s is slower than what was in the 32x, though the faster memory and faster main bus more than makes up for it; the 32x was held back by the slow memory and main bus. Main system memory in the Saturn was eight times what it was in the 32x, and could be expanded using external expansion cards (which very few games used).

Also, the sound hardware is setup using a Motorola 68k paired with a Yamaha FH1 DSP. Compared to the Genesis, the 68k and FH1 pairing is far more powerful than the Genesis' Z80 and Yamaha YM2612, plus it can do anything the 32x and SegaCD sound hardware can do, including PCM sample playback and many channels of complex music synth and sound effects.

So, ultimately, the Saturn is sorta like if they took the 32x and SegaCD, the 3D hardware from their System32 arcade system, and a more powerful sound setup than anything seen before, and combined it all together to produce a new console.

Hardware wise, it beat the pants of Sony's Playstation and Nintendo's N64, but looking back at history, we know hardware does not make a successful platform. Sega failed with the Saturn in five major ways:

Sony gave the Software Development Kit (SDK) to all third party developers, but Sega only used it internally withholding it from all outsiders.
The Saturn 's opening day price was over US$400, vs the Playstation's US$300.
The Saturn suffered from development problems the same way the 32x did, few developers knew how to efficiently use dual processors in a Slave/Master configuration (unlike modern PCs which use a symmetric multi-processing (SMP) setup).
Sega promised that they'd port many Japanese games to English, especially all the popular titles.
The substandard construction and poor support of the SegaCD and 32x bred distrust in the Sega fandom, and many people converted to Nintendo and Sony, never to look back.

But that isn't what put the final nail in Saturn's coffin: The then CEO of Sega of America decided to not support the Saturn, and refuse to port games here. I mean, not just unpopular ones, but any. This violated Sega's promise to the few fans who were left that they'd bring many games here to America.

This prompted Sega of Japan to evict the CEO of SoA and install a new one that would actually follow the wishes of SoJ; however, this came too late, and the Saturn was quite dead in the American market by then, even though the Saturn was selling well in the Japanese market. At this point, Sega started work on the Sega Dreamcast, the most powerful and final console of Sega's empire.

As the American market fell apart, this caused the cancellation of the Saturn's installment of the Sonic series, Sonic X-treme, and they also decided not to bring Panzer Dragoon Saga to America, which is arguably one of the best games ever produced for the Saturn and one of the best games ever to hit a Sega console.

The Saturn died, and in it's place, Sega offered the Dreamcast.

ドリームキャスト: It's thinking
The American release of the Dreamcast was September 9th, 1999, or as the marketing put it, 9/9/99. Five years ago, in Janurary 2001, the Dreamcast marked the end of Sega as we knew it, Sega soon afterwards became just a software vendor and merged with Sammy, another well known vendor of games.

Even though the Dreamcast was Sega's last console to be produced, it cannot be blamed for the downfall of Sega. The Dreamcast is considered Sega's best effort to remain in the market, and a threat to Nintendo and the newcomer Sony. What really killed Sega was the failure of the 32x and the SegaCD, which in some sort of chain reaction, took the Saturn out as well.

That said, the Dreamcast did well in the market. On opening day in America, the Dreamcast sold over 225,000 machines, with 200,000 of them being pre-ordered, and over 500,000 of them being sold in the first week; Sega made $98.4 million in profit with the 9/9/99 launch. These records were held until Sony released the Playstation 2 in late 2000.

The Dreamcast was well received, and clearly was defeating it's competition, Nintendo's N64 and Sony's Playstation, but Sony in turn defeated the Dreamcast with the Playstation 2. Once again, Sega produced a superior platform (the only thing missing on the Dreamcast that the Playstation 2 did have was a DVD drive).

The Dreamcast was basically the Saturn done correctly. Powered by a 206Mhz Hitachi SH4 (which was far more powerful than the aggregate power of the Saturn's dual SH2) with a built-in special-use computational engine; a PowerVR2 CLX2 (ie, a real 3D engine) to handle all the 3D rendering work; and a 47MHz ARM7 with a customized Yamaha DSP to do sound, the Dreamcast was very powerful.

It also had a fair bit of system memory at a total of 16MB, eight times what the Saturn had. The Dreamcast's 8MB of video memory (2.5x of the Saturn) and 2MB of sound memory (4x of the the Saturn) wasn't something to sneeze at either.

Sega didn't repeat any mistakes on this one, it had a single processor that didn't require any special (read as: convoluted) programming, it could do modern 3D processing comparable to a PC (only the XBox, Gamecube, and Playstation 3 share that distinction with the Dreamcast), and it had Sonic Adventure ready for release day. Everything went perfectly.

Yup, you heard me, I can't say Sega did anything wrong with the Dreamcast. It even came with a built in Internet gameplay device, something no other platform before ever did, compared to the Playstation 2 that didn't even have useful online gameplay until 2002.

The Dreamcast isn't even really dead, even though Sega no longer produces or supports them; many third party publishers continue to produce and release games, some even sold in Japanese retail stores. Even now, Radilgy was just released for the Dreamcast (which Sega is now selling refurbished Dreamcasts for), and Under Defeat is being released real soon now.

The Dreamcast may be the most perfect console ever produced.

Conclusion
Ultimately, Sega failed because they tripped up on two add-on devices for the Genesis. The Genesis was a great console, the Saturn wasn't a bad console, and the Dreamcast is one of the best consoles ever produced.

This stands as a lesson to future game companies: if your target market doesn't trust you, or you've previously abused their trust, or simply if you confuse them by releasing multiple similar devices, they might find someone else to buy things from, and won't come back to you when you figure out you've done wrong.

However, the Sega of the old days will always be remembered as they left their mark on video game history, and even now they still continue to produce games, and the Sonic series of games has found itself a new home on Nintendo's Gamecube (with Sonic Riders soon to be released), Gameboy Advance (featuring the Sonic Advance series of games), and DS (with Sonic Rush).

The Downfall of Sega, Part 1

2006-01-03T05:40:00.000-05:00

I played, and finished, Sonic CD for the first time today. It wasn't that bad of a game; it was no Sonic 3 and Knuckles, but it was about on par with Sonic 2. Unfortunately, even though the CD audio background music and the small number of full motion video was cool, it did little to enhance the gameplay.

While playing it, I thought about how Sega failed not only itself, but all Sega fans everywhere. I've decided to compile my thoughts, so here's a warning, this entry is quite long, and may take awhile to read; it's also full of technical terms, and delves into the technical side of game platform development.

Also, I've decided to split this into two halves, part one is about the Genesis, SegaCD, 32x, and the Neptune; part two will be about the Saturn, and Dreamcast.

In the beginning...
In 1988, Sega released the famous sequel to their lackluster Sega Master System: the Sega Megadrive, or as we call it here in America, the Sega Genesis. This console was Sega's foray into the world of 16-bit game consoles, and they managed to make a successful platform out of it.

Between the Sonic the Hedgehog series of games, and smart marketing, it put Sega on the map. Sega continued to be widely recognized as a console manufacturer until they quit the console business with the utter and complete failure with the Saturn, and then the Dreamcast.

The hardware inside the console was very powerful; between the fast 8Mhz Motorola 68k, the giant helping of 64KB system and 64KB video memory, the well designed custom video processing unit, the Genesis was very powerful. (Remember, this was 1988, people were still using 386s and running DOS.)

The best selling game, Sonic 2, sold millions of copies via one of the best marketing schemes, Sega's famous 'Sonic 2uesday'. You can't hope for anything better than this. So, you, my faithful readers, are probably asking yourselves, "Wow, Sega rocks! What could possibly have gone wrong?" Everything.

The Genesis kept selling well, and both Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles also sold well. Sega knew that Nintendo's Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) managed to make up the gap in popularity, and was beating the Genesis in sales and popularity, so Sega decided to make something new; actually, they ended up making two new things, the SegaCD and Sega 32x add-ons to the Genesis.

"150KB/sec is enough for anyone!"
Oh boy, what the hell was Sega thinking. Its like after the creation of the Genesis they decided to turn off their brains, and just produce crap for the next ten years. The SegaCD was simply an add-on 1x CD drive for the Genesis, and the Genesis plugged into it. It was released in 1991.

Inside the SegaCD was a faster 12.5Mhz 68k, a second audio processor (with 64KB of RAM dedicated to it) to mix high quality stereo PCM and CD audio, which was combined with the Genesis's own audio processor to do traditional Genesis audio work as well as enhanced PCM sample playback, an additional 768KB of system memory, and another video processing unit that would add allow the Genesis to do effects similar to the SNES's Mode 7 (however, don't expect something like Mario Kart, it wasn't powerful enough) and to decode full motion video (which it wasn't very good at).

But as I said earlier, the CD drive itself was a mere 1x, and many games suffered from severe lag from loading data from the CD; unlike cart-based games where nothing needed loaded, and could be directly accessed/executed. Particularly, Mortal Kombat CD would pause for several seconds when doing complex moves, because it needed to load data off the CD.

Because the CD drive was so slow, most games decided just to have a few full motion video sequences, some CD audio background music, and fit everything else they needed in the 768KB of system RAM. In comparison, Genesis games couldn't do CD audio/PCM sample playback or full motion video, but they had up to 4096KB to store anything they needed in the cart itself, and in my opinion, the trade-off was worth it.

Between that, and the release day selling price of ¥49,800 (vs the Genesis' own release day selling price of ¥21,000), the add-on was a failure; and the first true killer app for it, Sonic CD was released three years after the release of the SegaCD, in 1994, right about the same time the 32x was released.

Now with thirty-two times the suck!
Okay, so the SegaCD was a failure, that shouldn't mean anything, right? Wrong. It only started a long standing tradition of Sega consoles sucking. The Sega 32x, released in 1994 for about ¥18,000 (at least they got the damn price right), was an add-on that plugged in as a cart slot, and allowed you to plug both normal Genesis and 32x games into it.

The 32x was almost like a completely different console. Where the Genesis was powered by a single 68k, the 32x was powered by twin 32Mhz Hitachi SH2 processors; Sega changed to a completely incompatible processing architecture, totally unlike the 68k, and developers had to learn the new processors from scratch; or rather, some did, a vast majority of others simply ignored the platform or incorrectly used it because of that..

In addition to the twin processors, it had a new linear framebuffer design with a simple graphics co-processor, allowing it to composite alpha-blended graphics, and also composite 32x and Genesis graphics in the same scene.

The 32x did all scaling, rotation, and 3D graphics in software instead of using some hardware accelerated method; this arguably made the 32x as powerful as a SNES doing Mode 7 with a SuperFX math co-processor. However, this did not bode well seeing as the SNES was released in 1991, and the first SuperFX game was released in 1993.

Rounding the 32x off, was 256KB of main system RAM; a third of what was added by the Sega CD. Also lacking from the SegaCD was the ability to play back and mix PCM samples, the 32x simply added another synth (which like the SegaCD) was paired with the Genesis's main one.

Unlike the the SegaCD, the 32x had no killer app. The Sonic title for the 32x didn't even have Sonic in it, just Team Chaotix in their self-titled game Knuckles' Chaotix, which had horrible and very annoying game play. I've played the game myself, and I can't stand it; I feel it was rushed, badly planned, and even though it was on the 32x, it was no more graphically intense than Sonic 3 was.

The Neptune
At that time, I remember thinking, why don't they just release a Genesis that has the 32x and SegaCD built in for little more than what it costs to buy a plain Genesis. About two years ago, I learned about Project Neptune, Sega's half-hearted answer to that way of thinking.

Originally, the 32x was supposed to be a self-standing platform, a sequal to the Genesis instead of an add-on, as requested by Hayao Nakayama, CEO of Sega of Japan. This original concept project was called Project Jupiter. A few engineers from SoJ and a Sega of America decided to split and create Project Mars, which became the 32x; other engineers joined Project Saturn, which ended up producing the Sega Saturn. Communication between the two projects was very poor, and the 32x and Saturn ultimately became competing products.

Joe Miller (head of Project Mars, from SoA) decided that no one would actually want a simply upgraded Genesis, and ordered that the 32x be built as an add-on instead. By the time Miller realized he was wrong, and build a few prototypes of Project Neptune, a combo Genesis and 32x, the Saturn was already shipping. Project Mars and Project Neptune were complete and utter failures: Project Saturn crushed them.

And this ends part 1. Read part 2 here.

Amazon Selling Cheap Gundams Again

2006-01-02T02:05:00.000-05:00

Last time Amazon sold Gundam models cheaply, look at what happened to my closet. So, yeah, I don't have any more room to buy more, but Amazon is selling the Master Grade Gundam GP-01fb and the Master Grade Kaempfer cheaply again.

I actually should start on my collection at some point, but I've been so busy with other things, that I haven't had time to. Between my new camera and printer (mentioned in the post preceding this one), and my vastly upgraded computer (which I plan on talking about in a later post), I haven't had much time for modeling.

That doesn't stop me from wanting a Perfect Grade RX 78-2 Gundam either... Though, if I ever get a PG mobile suit, I have no clue where I can put it; at least with this one, its almost a foot tall. Damn you Yoshiyuki Tomino!

Update: Oh noes! Amazon is finally out of the GP-01fb. They still have Kaempfer in stock, so if you want one, you better grab one now, or be stuck buying one from Hobby Link Japan for $35.

64 bytes from infinity: icmp_seq=196 ttl=64 time=2332913.065 ms

2005-12-30T06:08:00.000-05:00

Well, I haven't posted in awhile; I really haven't had much to talk, rant, or otherwise bitch about. I've recently gotten a new camera (a Canon Rebel XT), and a new printer (a Canon i9900) and I've been pretty happy with them.

The Rebel XT takes wonderful 8 megapixel low noise pictures, infact, a local neighbor convinced me take her kids' Christmas photos (something she does every year at either Sears or Walmart) using my new camera, and she said the quality beat anything she's ever seen. So, either I'm a good photographer, or that's a good camera.

And its not just the camera, the i9900 is an amazing printer, best printer I've owned. Its a wide format printer that can do 13x19" edge-to-edge prints, at a maximum of 4800x2400dpi, using 8 different color (supposably pretty fade-proof, but ask me in 20 years) inks.

Of course, I've been pairing it with Canon's line of Photo Paper Pro inkjet paper, and I haven't had any problems yet; I've printed one 13x19", a 8.5x11", and almost a whole box of 75 4x6"s and I don't think I'm even half way through on any of the ink carts.... all 8 of them. Those things are a bit expensive too, about $8-10 a piece; then again, its better than buying a $30 ink cart for some low end printer every 20 pages.

Though, the problem with a camera is you always want to buy stuff for it. So far I've bought another CompactFlash card (1 gig, enough to do about 135 pictures), I got a decent tripod for Christmas, and I've also bought a second lenscap because I keep misplacing mine.

I also got a $350 telescope for Christmas too and I'm getting the necessary parts to turn that into a giant lens for my camera to do astrophotagraphy with, which requires this EOS T-Ring and matching T-Adapter.

I've also upgraded my workstation, but I'll leave that for another post tommorow or so.

New Star Wars LEGO sets for 2006

2005-12-03T18:39:00.000-05:00

LEGO has their 2006 Star Wars sets out already: Slave I, V-wing Fighter, B-wing Fighter, A-wing Fighter, and the TIE Interceptor.

Mega Man Rock Opera CDs Available

2005-12-02T01:24:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned earlier, a group called the Protomen made a rock opera about Megaman... and it's finally available on CD!

Bootchart on Ubuntu LiveCDs?

2005-12-01T22:18:00.000-05:00

I was having a discussion in #ubuntu-devel about bootchart and in how well in detail it measures the boot up process, so I suggested that it should be added to LiveCDs as to measure a 'stock' setup more easier. The IO records wouldn't be valid against anything but other LiveCDs, but doing this could make testing random machine's performance a lot easier.

Jeff Schroeder wants this to be an option on the boot menu, and thinks that it should "have a little wizard to email the bootchart back to ubuntu.org" and Brandon Hale wants Oliver Grawert to add the ability to use bootcharts to hwdb.

Ubuntu Dapper Boots in 45 Seconds

2005-12-01T19:37:00.000-05:00

... well, on my machine at least. And the funny part is, thats slow; must be the apache2, mysql, openssh, and distcc adding ten seconds (from Dapper's default 35) to it.

I could switch from openssh to dropbear, but dropbear doesn't support fuse's sshfs correctly (to my much dismay, seeing as I can't openssh to my openwrt and use a real vi locally on my workstation because of that...), and seeing as I run a local copy of gallery2, I can't drop apache2 or mysql. Oh well.

Playing Metallica Backwards?

2005-11-30T18:52:00.000-05:00

Tuning Terms by Marc Jones.

Satanic comma: The difference between 665 fifths and 359 octaves, less than 1/10 of a cent, around 1/15878 of an octave. Marc sees this as a possible musical insight into the cryptic quote from the Book of Revelation, citing “the beast” as a man-made number which only someone with understanding could calculate: “It stands to reason that if the 665th turn of the cycle of fifths, modulo octave, is so close to unison as to be imperceptible, and deceive you as unity, then similarly the 666th turn would be able to deceive you as being a true fifth. (coined 1990, as a parody on the name of the syntonic comma.)

Blogger has missing API functionality?

2005-11-28T20:53:00.000-05:00

I just figured out why the counter for Backlinks don't work... there is no <$BlogItemBacklinkCount$>, even though there is a <$BlogItemCommentCount$>. Could someone over there at Blogger add this?

Mega Man Rock Opera

2005-11-28T20:47:00.000-05:00

You'd think "Mega Man" and "Rock Opera" would be completely and totally seperate concepts... The Protomen. Really great music, and really great lyrics, and I can't wait until they release their album.

1 Year

2005-11-21T05:24:00.000-05:00

Wow, time flies... I've been running this blog for one whole year now.

Updated Template

2005-11-20T09:24:00.000-05:00

Well, I've fixed all the long standing bugs with the template and the various themes, I think. I fixed that really nasty KHTML rendering bug, too. However, I seem to have broken comments in the process... I'll have to go fix that.

Update: I've added a favicon.ico as well, a minaturized version of the Jupiter photo I use for the (blue) Skyfather theme's background. Its not that great of an icon, but it seems to do the job, and its better than that generic orange B logo that Blogger uses.

Another Update: I've fixed comments, and now they look better than they did before. Now, lets see if I can switch from Haloscan trackback to Blogger's new backlink method.

Update-o-rama: I've switched to backlink, and re-enabled comment posting. Everything should be working better now.

Itano Circus Modeled

2005-11-19T15:18:00.000-05:00

I've been looking at plastic models for a long time, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone model an Itano Circus.

It looks like he took cotton balls and glued them on posable wire, but I'm not sure. Anyone out there have ideas?

Microsoft Insider Steals Gorm 1.0

2005-11-02T04:29:00.000-05:00

Mick Sorenson, from his blog Inside The dotNET, has admitted that Microsoft has been stealing Open Source Software.

Our lawyers have pretty much assured us that the GNU Public License (and other related viral licenses) are invalid due to them giving too many rights to the users; and by giving the code away, they are making the code public domain and giving up their copyright... or something like that. IANAL, but thats pretty much the gist of it.

(...)

Project Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform Apple (or, simply, STFU Apple) is the official name of the GNUstep intergration project. Right now, we're using Gorm 1.0 (which came out a few days ago) , an application like Apple's Interface Builder, but vastly improved and easier to use.

I'm not sure if this is real or not, but the screenshot looks pretty good (although easy to fix), and what he's saying rings true. Microsoft knows they have fallen behind Apple, and it's because Apple integrated NextSTEP into OSX when they bought them out. Though, stealing GNUstep isn't quite the answer... infact, its an illegal answer, the kind that allows the FSF to sue Microsoft into the ground, and then sue them some more. I'm willing to say that the FSF will sue Microsoft so hard, Bill Gates' great grandchildren will have an irrational fear of lawyers.

Anime and DSL and No Coding

2005-10-16T00:35:00.000-04:00

Well, now that I've gotten DSL, I code even less now, downloading the latest fansubs. Remember kids, don't DSL and Anime.

The More You Know ミ☆!

Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy is Out

2005-10-13T13:14:00.000-04:00

If you haven't noticed, Breezy has finally been released. In the first 8 hours, the mirror at mnet.net.uk uploaded almost 3500 CD ISOs, and the mirror at acc.umu.se uploaded almost 2225 ISOs. I wonder if this means 5725 potential new users...

Geek Porn

2005-10-12T19:41:00.000-04:00

You know, the Internet is a great place. Its a place where anyone interested in something can find other someones interested in anything. In this case, many geeks out there have remarked on how much porn sucks (no pun intended). Its all about ignorant morons wearing wife-beaters banging brainless, but living, sex dolls; and I find porn like that to be quite boring, and sometimes offensive, and very far from the erotic display it is supposed to be.

And I'm not the only one out there who thinks that, not by far. There are literally tens of thousands of my fellow geek brethren who think most, if not all, porn is complete shit. And just the subject matter isn't bad, there are students in film classes all over the world that don't make the mistakes that porn directors do: bad lighting, bad camera angles, static camera placement; and then the actors and actresses are horrid: their rendition of their lines (if any) are flat and lack emotion, they act like they don't want to be there, and they simply go through the motions.

What we need, folks, is porn for geeks.

Ernest Cline - Nerd Porn Auteur, (transcription).

Microsoft + E-Machines = Massive Stupidity

2005-10-12T10:24:00.000-04:00

Ed Foster tells a story about a tech and his adventures with E-Machines machines and Windows XP,

Because of the new motherboard, of course, Windows XP activation was triggered. "During the requisite call to Microsoft for an activation number, we were told that Microsoft could NOT give us the activation for this particular copy of XP since it was sold through a 'special licensing agreement' with E-Machines. Even though we had the 25-digit license number, Microsoft insisted we would have to contact the manufacturer for the activation number. Two separate calls to E-Machines elicited the same response. NO activation number would be given since we did not install an 'official' and expensive E-Machines motherboard. So the customer is forced into purchasing another copy of Windows XP even though they already paid for the original license when they first bought the computer and have all the required proof."

In other words, the reader's customer -- who has done nothing wrong other than have a motherboard fail on him -- has the choice of paying ransom to E-Machines or to Microsoft to have a functioning OS again. Which led the reader to wonder just what would constitute piracy in such a situation. "We all know there are plenty of copies of XP that work fine without the product activation scheme," the reader wrote. "Usually these are copies of corporate or academic versions of XP originally sold by Microsoft with broad licenses covering many computers. Is this customer justified in installing such a 'pirated' copy of XP on this system? Or should the customer have to buy yet another copy of XP, and presumably throw his old copy in the trash, just because his motherboard failed?"

There is only one proper way to respond to this: Fuck you, Microsoft. Why do you think people are pirating Windows; or worse, switching to alternative operating systems (such as the Ubuntu Linux distro?) Because they are tired of the shit you pull.

For those out there that want to startup a new commerical software buisness, here are three rules you should follow:

Do not treat your customer as your enemy, remember that they are ultimately your boss and decide if you get to eat this month.
Do not make it difficult to use your product, if they find it difficult to use they will just use something else.
Do not abuse the trust of your customers, remember the consumer industry runs on karma and everything you do will come back to you ten fold.

Microsoft has managed to break all three of those rules in just this one instance, and I seriously don't see Microsoft even lasting long enough to get Vista out the door (which is at least another 4 or 5 years away).

Sorry, Bill, but it seems to be time to look for another job.

OpenSolaris Gives FOSS Community Indigestion

2005-10-07T20:12:00.000-04:00

As seen on #gnustep:

<bheron> aurynn: OpenSolaris is a joke.
<bheron> No one is really going to use OpenSolaris for serious work.
<aurynn> Not until it gets some momentum
<aurynn> which it is doing
<Diablo-D3> bheron: thats what I've been saying
<Diablo-D3> it cant get any momentum
<Diablo-D3> all the clueful developers are too busy working on linux or fbsd
<bheron> I can't really back up that feeling with hard data, but it's just a feeling I have.
<bheron> It feels like too little too late.
<Diablo-D3> bheron: its called a gut feeling.
<Diablo-D3> and my gut is saying "too much fucking junkfood, ugh."
<bheron> Diablo-D3: Yes, that would be indigestion. ;)
<Diablo-D3> I cant help think its partially induced by Sun.

Humans are not good at three things: the first, and most obvious, is that we rarely agree on things and often decide to do things completely differently than someone else; the second, and just as obvious, is that our stomachs aren't good at dealing with junk food, and we often get indigestion; the third, and slightly less obvious, is we are over optimistic about certain things in our lives due to our ignorance of some things we should know better about.

We can extrapolate the second item into the fact a community digests ideas, thoughts, and techniques the same way our stomachs digest food. Communities, like our stomachs, have a bitter enemy: something that doesn't quite agree with them, but we keep trying to digest anyhow.

My stomach sometimes doesn't agree with those little microwavable Totinos Pizza Rolls, yet I eat them anyhow; I know better, I really do, but when has knowing better ever stopped someone? I down a few Tums, and I'm fine. However, the FOSS community has a similar need for Tums (due to knowing better and ignoring that, and we're probably suffering from a case of acid reflux as well): bad licenses.

We, the FOSS community, have been eating high-calorie meals made of Common Development and Distribution License burgers, IBM Public License fries, Apache Software License shakes, and those tasty little hot Apple Public Source License pies; and we've been getting indigestion from trying to integrate code from those licenses into our healthy GNU GPL fish diet.

Sure, we can always pick up eating strict vegetarian meals, but I neither run BSD, nor do I play monks in Nethack. However, OpenSolaris is a weird pairing of diets: you have the high-protein/high-cholesterol fad diet of Atkins, that is, CDDL code and you have the high-fiber diet of BSD code. In other words, you're going to die of cholesterol-induced massive heart failure while enjoying smooth bowel movements, that is, while producing a load of shit.

So, instead, I run Linux. I get the occasional BSD salad mixed in with my GPL fish diet, and the very rare high-calorie meal of non-GPL compatible licenses; due to this unique way out eating, I stay healthy and fit, and don't get indigestion.

John Hall Died

2005-09-19T13:42:00.000-04:00

John Reeves Hall died September 17th at 9:40 PM. I'll miss him.

FEMA Sucks

2005-09-12T01:23:00.000-04:00

I just found this post by a AboveTopSecret Forum administrator detailing how FEMA detention camps are no different than what the Nazi's used in World War 2.

I'm extremely depressed to report that things seem to only be getting sadder concerning the people so devastatingly affected by Katrina last week. Two car loads of us headed over to Falls Creek, a youth camp for Southern Baptist churches in Oklahoma that agreed to have its facilities used to house Louisiana refugees. I'm afraid the camp is not going to be used as the kind people of the churches who own the cabins believe it was going to be used.

Jesse Jackson was right when he said "refugees" was not the appropriate word for the poor souls dislocated due to Katrina. But he was wrong about why it is not appropriate. It's not appropriate because they are detainees, not refugees.

This is bullshit, and it needs to stop. These are people, not prisoners.

What's wrong with SF.Net, Itemized

2005-09-02T21:05:00.000-04:00

Kris Chapman over at the SF.Net Engineering Blog is asking what the community thinks works and doesn't work. This is what I think.

What doesn't work:

The lack of a clean CSS layout means it is hard for users to use the website in diverse environments. Many users who have special needs (such as using audio readers who depend on clean website layout), or simply users who want to access the website from a low resolution device (640x480 screens, cell phones, PSP, etc) cannot deal with the lack of a clean layout.
The lack of good XHTML. The current SF.Net tag soup is the equivalent of a 14 year old script kiddy hopping on an AOL chatroom, and saying, "Y0 m4ng!1, w4ts upz0r!!!lolone!!eleven!" Welcome to the year 2005, where people use validating XHTML, and quit making poor Firefox use quirks mode.
God forsaken <iframe> ads. I don't really minds ads, people have to pay for their website somehow, but please! Drop those iframes! If you really need to support HTML layouts for ads, do something cool like dynamically insert the HTML using AJAX.
The really backwards setup of SF.Net tracker. As much as people hate Bugzilla, and bitch about it's usability bugs, its still lightyears ahead of the tracker. The tracker needs to match Bugzilla feature for feature, and I wouldn't be against the cloning of the Bugzilla interface.
Doodad Box bloat in the layout. I agree that Most Active and Top Downloads are useful, but they do not belong on most pages. IMHO, they belong two places, the front page, and My SF; nowhere else, its a waste of space.
Lack of bandwidth/server power. Its not related to the design itself (actually, it is, if the layout would use half the images, I'd use half the bandwidth, because no client is properly caching the images anyhow), but the site is also slow because too many users are hitting the servers.
Lack of forum/mailing list/whatever else integration. Too many projects have a huge disconnect between the 'web user' and the 'clueful user' groups. Web users typically use forums, the actual users we care about use mailing lists and/or news groups. For projects that have both enabled (which most do), the two groups have a hard time communicating with each other. What we really need is to get rid of forums, mailing lists, and the previously existing news groups, and fold them all into a single system. Someone can post from an email client, a news client, or a web client, and it all goes to the same place and talks to the same users.
Get rid of comments on news items for both SF.Net news items and project news items. This is another case of communication method overload. Whatever users want to say using the comment system, it needs to be said somewhere else, commenting on the news entries is not the way. No one is using them anyhow.
Get rid of project news items altogether. You know what? Quite a few projects aren't even using them, or are using them improperly, or just aren't keeping them up to date. The only place a project has to report news is their website space given to them by SF.Net.
Project's DB sucks. Yes, another thing not related to the SF.Net website itself, but it still reflects on the user experience. I don't personally use the server myself, but I've been told its often slow, crash happy, unresponsive, and way overloaded. This should be the next thing to get loving from Santa. (CVS has been a naughty child, and it got two or three new overpowered boxen, how sad.)
The download system.

What does work:

Anything I haven't bitched about. If I don't bitch about it, I probably haven't even noticed it. The more transparent a service is, the better designed it is. The perfect sf.net setup would involve a system that could accommodate any user's work flow. And I really mean any, not most, and not half. Any.
The new stats system. It works quite well, its a little glitchy, but its a clear step up from what we had before.
The donation system. This is another useful service. Its always been hard to properly recognize our generous friends in the audience, mainly because we could not automate the system, but now we can. However, a lot of projects are not using the system, and giving users their Paypal address directly to avoid paying the "SF.Net tax". Now, I agree with SF.Net's assessment of the situation ("If you make money, so should we, especially since we are effectively hosting your stuff for free, and this costs a lot of money"), but for projects to do this, they are not helping their users, their generous donators, themselves, SF.Net, or the whole FOSS community. So, please, keep the Eeny-Weeny Wrenches and Gears.

Now, I understand you wanted us (the community) to nitpick things, but we can't even nitpick things until the biggest issues are fixed yet. Sure, dark green is easier to read than light green, but whats the point if the whole system is designed wrong? Kris, come by #sourceforge on irc.slashnet.org sometime, and talk to the people there. You'll find out what you need to know.

Trackback is Not Dead

2005-08-28T18:30:00.000-04:00

Jeremy Zawodny decided today to declare trackbacks dead. Excuse me while I stifle a giggle. With all the services that support trackback now (including Yahoo! News), and third party services to add trackback easily (such as Haloscan, like I use), trackback is far from dead.

Though, theres a few people who agree with Jeremy: "Trackbacks are a good distributed system similar to fallout shelters of the 50's. At the time, we really needed them, but now with the rise of Technorati, Feedster and PubSub, we have something much better than trackback." says Steve Kirks.

For those that aren't versed in the ways of Blog-fu, a trackback is, according to Wikipedia, "a mechanism used in a blog that shows a list of entries in other blogs that refer to a post on the first blog." In other words, its a method to reply to blogs by using your own blog.

Trackbacks are not without problem, of course. There is the vicious scourge of trackback spam, where spammers send a trackback back to your blog, and try to convince your readers to buy their product. See this entry Alden Bates' Weblog for an example of what people have to do to stop spamming, its quite simple.

If trackback dead, why would Haloscan have more than 100,000 users*? Or why would Yahoo!, C|Net, and other big name sites support trackback? And I certainly wouldn't have added trackback to my own blog if I didn't think it was useful.

Supporters of alternate systems often say Technorati, PubSub, or other systems are the answer. They are simply part of the answer. Technorati simply tracks links mentioned from blogs, as to be able to see who is linking to who/what; problem is, you can't display how many links are linked to your blog entry itself, unlike comments or trackbacks.

PubSub, on the other hand, is sorta like a Google for information sources, and you get all your results in an RSS feed. Amazingly useful, yes, but its only part of the answer. Neither PubSub nor Technorati allow your readers to be informed of further information contained on other blogs; said further information is written by your readers. In other words, your readers communicate with each other and form a community.

"Why is a community important?", you ask. Communities are what power blogs, or really, all websites. Comments, trackbacks, forums, and message boards all allow users to communicate with each other. Then you also have websites and blogs about communication forms themselves, such as IRC channels and Usenet groups, or mailing lists, or just stuff for people who know each other in real life.

Just to prove trackback isn't dead, I'm going to trackback to Jeremy's article.

_{* 100,000 is quite a lot when you realise Movable Type and WordPress both natively support trackback, and a vast majority of active blogs use MT or WP.}

Update: The Net Is Dead has a few good comments on why trackback isn't dead, and Temple of the Screaming Penguin explains why Pingback, an alternative to Trackback, doesn't work either.

Idiot Steals Phone

2005-08-28T05:04:00.000-04:00

Every day, cell phones get stolen. Well, apparently this one moron didn't get away with it, and was stupid enough to take pictures of himself using the cell phone, and the owner setup the phone to log all pictures taken. Said owner emails crook:

Like to steal cell phones and use them to take pics of yourself and make videos.... HA! guess what pal... i have every pic you took and the videos.... I will be plastering the town with pics of your face, that %!$#*& face and the childs face.... wow thieves really are dumb.... good day pal

oh yeah by the way.... the phone is now just a paperweight and can never be used again...

Fucktard replies:

yOoOo pimp tell sabrina i said hi ima b bangin her like i did my gurl n save on ur phone n dont b madd my dick betta den urz

Good bye, fucktard. Have a nice time in federal bang-you-in-the-ass prison.

Play Hunt the Wumpus on Google Talk

2005-08-24T00:02:00.000-04:00

Add wumpus.game@gmail.com to your Google Talk account, and message play to him. It plays a game of Hunt The Wumpus, the classic UNIX game, with you.

The Internet Is a Strange Place, 08/17/05

2005-08-17T17:22:00.000-04:00

I often come across links that don't deserve an entire article writing about them, but still deserve to be mentioned. So, I decided to have a not-so-regularly running feature on my blog, where I simply mention these links and briefly describe them.

Christopher Walken for President: Yeah, I can actually see this happening, but it needs more cowbell.

Kotaku: 50 cent doing voice acting for Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: So, let me get this straight, a washed up rap artist who the MTV crowd adores is doing voice acting for a Nintendo title? And so is Richard Simmons? Oh, have the mighty fallen. Next up, Michael Jackson doing the voice of Pikachu in the next Pokemon movie.

BBC News: Confused lions 'hunt' small cars: Wow, talk about bad taste. Who would ever want to drive a Mini Cooper, let alone chase after one? Now, only if we could convince the lions to chase after SUVs and eat their owners...

SF.Net Engineering Blog: A Ponderance on PHP Morality: A hilarious read for anyone who knows PHP, Nate Oostendorp details why writing bad unmaintainable code for website backends is probably a very bad idea.

Japan Today: Anime dealing with war themes hit the big screen: The Japanese culture will probably always remember World War II. For the past 60 years, Japanese film-makers and animators have been nearly obsessed with the concepts of war, from Godzilla's post-war look at the Westernization of their culture, to the near-genocidal acts of the Zeon Newtype Char Aznable in Gundam paralleling the acts of Nazi Germany's army of ubermensch-obsessed sturmabteilung.

Gamepark GPX2: Imminent Threat To Sony

2005-07-31T20:29:00.000-04:00

Whoorah. Gamepark, the crazy whacky Korean handheld platform manufacturer, has come out with their next platform to replace the ageing Gamepark GP32: The Gamepark GPX2.

The GPX2 has dual ARM9 processors (one used for the main CPU, the other dedicated for video/graphics calculations). It has 32 megs of RAM, 64 megs of flash memory, a USB 2.0 port, a backlit 3.5" TFT LCD, a SD card reader, runs embedded Linux, and has either a 320x240 or 480x272 resolution for the LCD (the offical GPX2 site is saying 320x240, but Kotaku is saying 480x272).

So, you're asking, whats better than the original GP32? More memory (8 vs 32), a faster CPU (both ARM9s, but the GPX2 main CPU is faster and the GPX2 has a video co-processor, where as the GP32 does everything on the main CPU), GPX2 has built in flash memory, USB2.0 vs 1.0, backlit screen (only the 2nd generation GP32s had a backlit screen), better speakers, two more buttons, and most of all: it is cheaper than what the GP32 is now. Plus, if Kotaku is right, a higher res screen.

So what else can it do? It can play MP3, Vorbis Ogg, and WMA audio files; MPEG4 and WMV videos plus various image formats; and they will be supporting the Simple Directmedia Layer (SDL) toolkit natively.

9 out of 10 geniuses prefer GNUstep!

2005-07-18T09:56:00.000-04:00

So, I didn't feel like coding today, so I whipped out gimp and messed around with a famous Einstein photo instead, and did something the GNUstep project might like.

So, what do my millions... thousands... hundreds... dozen... two readers think?

Terrorist Bombing in London to Protest G8 Summit

2005-07-07T14:02:00.000-04:00

Well, if you haven't heard this on the news yet, where have you been?

Europhobia: London Tube Explosion Timeline
BBC News: London bombings toll rises to 37
BCC News: London blasts: At a glance
CNN: Blair blames Islamic terrorists
Wikinews: Coordinated terrorist attack in London
Wikipedia: 7 July 2005 London bombings

LEGO Temporary Post

2005-07-01T23:43:00.000-04:00

I'll write a real post tommorow, but I'm just going to link to my first LEGO sets when I was a kid: here, and here.

Corporate America Fucks Up Again

2005-06-30T23:36:00.000-04:00

Chip Salzenberg has been screwed by the wheels of justice (read more about it here). Chip is a well known FOSS hacker, and well respected in the Perl community; he was the release manager behind Perl 5.4, and is playing the Architect for the Parrot Virtual Machine project (which is the VM behind Perl 6).

So, basically, he was going to rat out his employer for doing horrible things (such as criminally hammering web servers), and they accused him of stealing trade secrets, and got the cops to steal all his computer equipment. Thankfully, the criminal charges against him were dropped; but his former employer decided to use the law to their own advantage and steal his computers.

Not only that, but everything on them. Personal information. Website logins, PGP keys, personal photos, unreleased code, credit card information, etc. Everything. Between that, and the surmounting legal fees, he is quite screwed.

So, the infamous Anonymous Coward rears his/her/its head on the Slashdot article about this (and I quote):

I've been in a very similar situation recently, and also ran into huge legal bills, from a contracting client who made outrageous claims. It was the worst experience of my adult life. I can't go into any details, but it was terrible, and the case turned on the same kind of criminal trade secret laws. These trade secret laws are so prone to abuse because they take what are effectively civil issues (ie, business disputes) and get the criminal justice system involved. Let me tell you, all this thing about "innocent until proven guilty" is nonsense. Yes, you are "innocent until proven guilty" when you actually get to trial... but by the time you get to trial you've already gone through hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills. Where does the average guy come up with that kind of money? I'll give you the answer: he sells all of his assets (house, everything) and he still doesn't have that kind of money, so he ends up getting a public defender, and public defender = plea bargain = no trial.

Basically these trade secret laws let big guys with resources or connection punish small guys (us) without any legal process. We're out tens of thousands of dollars just from the moment the process begins, without a court or a judge even having seen the issue.

There's also the emotional factor. It's terrifying. If I got a criminal trade secret conviction, I would never be able to work in the programming field again. What else could I do? My life would be ruined even if I got probation only. The fear is incapacitating. It's like someone telling you "you have cancer." Even if the cancer is treatable, it is terrifying.

Anyone in the programming field needs to be aware of these risks. You don't think about it because a) these things usually do not result in convictions (in TFA's case, if his telling is accurate, there is no evidence of any wrong-doing) and b) when they go away without a conviction, we're all scared to talk about them (like I am posting as AC right now). But even if the case goes nowhere, running into a $40k legal bill is disastrous. That's a down payment on a house. That's 100% of your after-tax income for more than a year (probably). That's your new-car and vacation fund for several years. That could cause so much financial stress as to lead to divorce, family estrangement, etc. That's "liquidate all of your assets right now and borrow from all of your relatives" disastrous. That's a penalty this guy is suffering without any trial or judicial overview. That's (possibly) without even having a grand-jury rubber-stamp the police side of the story.

I'm afraid to even post this lest it have some bearing on my situation, but I'm posting because I want all of us Slashdot crowd to be aware of it.

I don't really have a solution, but one thing that seems to help is to put up a very aggressive and determined defence from the very beginning. Let everyone involved know, "there will be no plea bargain. There will be a vigorous defence. Trying to bring a civil matter into the criminal system will not work and I'm not going to beg for mercy. If it gets to a trial, we're fighting all the way and there will be an acquittal."

This guy is brave to even be talking about this publicly. I'm sure his lawyer advised him not to (mine did). Most of us who are victims of this are silent victims like me.

Thats basically the situation Chip is in. Oh, yeah, hes looking for donations too, go give him some money.

A Friend of Mine Has Cancer

2005-06-24T00:32:00.000-04:00

John Hall, the author of Programming Linux Games, and someone who I consider a friend, was diagnosed with Stage IV Melanoma (which is very life threatening). He's asking the public to help donate to the American Cancer Society, he's trying to raise $1,000 for melanoma research. All money donated goes straight to the American Cancer Society.

Update 12:03am, June 25th: Wow, John has raised $925 so far, and has advanced his goal to $2,000.

Update 04:20pm, July 7th: Up to $3,100.00 out of a $4,000 goal. Rock on.

Microsoft Spams Spanish IRC Network

2005-06-20T20:15:00.000-04:00

Apparently Microsoft has a bot running on the IRC-Hispano IRC Network that 'informs' users that Linux is inferior to Windows when they join a Unix related channel, and gives them a url that forwards to a page at Microsoft.

/join #unix
<ms_hechos> http://globals.irc-hispano.org/mshechos <ms_hechos> Las principales empresas y analistas independientes lo confirman: <ms_hechos> Windows tiene un coste total de propiedad inferior al de Linux y ofrece mejores resultados. <ms_hechos> Aquí están los hechos que necesita conocer para elegir entre Windows y Linux.

What the hell, Microsoft? You can't get enough money off of the English speaking population that don't know any better, now you have to go after Spanish speaking people that don't know any better? Quit spamming IRC you losers.

Ormgas Fixes Voting Script

2005-06-18T05:46:00.000-04:00

Ravon over at Ormgas has finally fixed the song voting script, after I spent months reminding him to do so. If you're coming here from the news entry Ravon put up thanking me, be sure to add a comment to this blog entry to say, "Hi."

Its a traaaaaaap!

2005-06-16T01:40:00.000-04:00

Carrie Fisher is my hero...

At the ceremony for George Lucas’ AFI lifetime achievement award, Carrie Fisher properly thanks the director for over two decades’ worth of Star Wars nerds masturbating to an image of her in a slave-girl bikini.

... thus deserves a photoshop in her honor (see article for original photo).

Yes, I know. I have no life.

What will Google buy next?

2005-06-15T22:07:00.000-04:00

Andrevan over at Kuro5hin (the not-so-underground for the underground) has an article up about Google's past acquisitions and possible future acquisitions.

Technorati - If Google is the average person's homepage, Technorati is the homepage of the underground, tech-savvy web user. Technorati is a blog portal whose average visitor enjoys podcasts, Wikipedia, and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Providing more cutting edge results than a normal search engine, Technorati would integrate well with Google News and/or Blogger, and could perhaps feature blogs on the Google Personalized Homepage. Technorati is somewhat similar to Bloglines, which was purchased by Ask Jeeves recently.

I agree here, Technorati would be a great purchase. I currently use Technorati services to allow people to see who's linking to my blog, and I would love to use the Tags system, except there is no clean way to intergrate this into my layout without help from the Blogger software itself.

Ultimately, I'd like to put it where the "Posted at: whenever | Comments | Trackback" stuff is, and thats very hard to do without embedding tons of HTML right into the blog posts themselves, which defeats the entire purpose of having templates and automagic in the first place. Anyone at Blogger wanna take a crack at this?

Another great service that he talks about is Koders...

Koders - Koders is a search engine for open source code that works remarkably well. With the recent push for plugins for Google Desktop search, Koders would be an interesting addition to Google's software initiatives. It would make sense to combine with Google Code and Google Linux Search in some way.

Wow... just wow. I've never heard of this service before, and it looks great. I've been playing around with it for the past 10 minutes, and it has been giving me useful results; I'll definitely be using this more often when I need to find code and don't want to reinvent the wheel.

Brains... Brraaaaiinnnsss...

2005-06-15T20:10:00.000-04:00

30,000 years ago our brains started getting smaller (but more complex). Today, we can grow brain cells in a Petri dish. Tomorrow, we will realize wetware in meatspace sucks and transfer our consciousness into a computer.

Zelda and Mario TV Shows Coming to DVD

2005-06-15T07:53:00.000-04:00

Hey Pisanos, its the Super Mario Bros. Super Show!

The Legend of Zelda and The Super Mario Bros. Super Show are finally coming to DVD. This represents a chunk of my childhood that I still fondly remember: I used to watch these before I went to school in the morning, and then again when I came home from school. Wow. Now all we need is Captain N, the Game Master and my set will be complete.

DirecTV Conspiracy Theory

2005-06-13T21:29:00.000-04:00

Really, my blog posts write themselves.

The conspiratorially minded think that this update is just an effort on DirecTV's part to get them to buy receivers with PVRs built in. A DirecTV representative responds "I can absolutely say this is not a tactic to get people to switch over to another receiver," which is just the sort of thing you'd expect them to say if there were a conspiracy.

Yup, and its all apart of the Trilateral Commission's plot involving Girl Scout Cookies and stolen nuclear weapons from Russia.

$370 Billion and Counting

2005-06-12T03:57:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about the war lately. So far, we've spent $370 billion on the war (including both Afghanistan and Iraq). Enough for one bullet for every man, woman, and child in the Middle East. Enough to pave Iraq into a giant parking lot for Walmart. Enough to screw over the entire world.

You know what we could have done with $370 billion dollars? We could have fed everyone in the world, and given them the medical care they need. We currently spend only $5 billion a year on cancer research, and we could have cured cancer with that money. We could have cured AIDS, which killed 3.1 million people in 2004, and 23 million since 1981.

We could have converted every car in the United States to a fuel efficient engine that doesn't burn gasoline, and made it easy for all diesel users to switch to biodiesel. We could have finally researched to see if cold fusion exists or not. We could have setup a mining facility on the Moon to mine Helium 3 for a clean power production method. We could have finally stepped foot on Mars, and even made a permanent settlement there.

We could have improved the lives of everyone on Earth, and we didn't.

I ♥ Apple

2005-06-10T20:50:00.000-04:00

Emily Hambidge mentions on her blog what its like to date an Apple developer. Its a pretty interesting read, and I bet there is a lot of geeks out there wishing they had someone like that.

For those that don't have those m4d sk1llz to pick up ch1xx0rz, there is always ESR's Sex Tips For Geeks.

Apple Hate

2005-06-10T02:54:00.000-04:00

Apple has been a popular subject lately, and the fall out of the Intel switch has been flooding the Net with tons of crap. So, I'm here in my yellow rubber dingy, floating down an overflowing river of Apple Hate™. And I quote, "I didn't waste six years writing code for a dead-end platform."

And Kennedye (the poster of that comment) has got a point: hand tuned PPC and Altivec may have not been the best idea, the compiler should be smart enough to auto-vectorize my code and get some decent performance out of it. Hell, GCC should learn to just read my mind; or maybe not, it'd explode from my semi-sarcastic realistic outlook on life.

Now, everyone is thinking Steve Jobs made a mistake, but I'm thinking this may be a brilliant move. See, Steve has something called the Reality Distortion Field™. This field is a documented phenomenon of quantum physics that causes Steve to just think about something, and make it a reality. He can convince anyone of anything, and if he can't, he can just take your side of the argument up as if that was his side all along, and you'd never know otherwise. This field is so powerful, that even if you know about it ahead of time, you're still affected.

So, I think Steve watched X-Men (the movie), and saw Magneto's Spinning Mutant Generator, and thought to himself, "Hmm, wouldn't it be nice if I could build something like that to project my Reality Distortion Field™ all over the world and convince everyone that my new Mactel machines really are something awesome."

Although I may be under the effects of his hideous yet elegant and wonderful machine, I think he may be partially right. Due to his reliance on Altivec to close the gap between G4 processors and x86, he got screwed. An ounce of garden variety speed is worth a pound of special case optimization, and the PPC was far overweight in this respect.

Sure, I may have gotten a 25-500% improvement in code that was SIMD-friendly; but using a (at that time) fast Pentium 4 vs the (at that time) new G4, I could easily see a 25-100% improvement in programs that weren't SIMD-friendly. And seeing as the overwhelmingly vast majority of code isn't SIMD-able, I'd gladly trade Altivec for raw speed.

Take into the fact that the Athlon was beating the pants off the Pentium 4, the G4 was a really bad deal for Apple users. Sure, it was elegant (and Apple thrives on elegance), but you paid for that by having slower processors.

Of course, if you actually had said special case, PPC was the winner. Take a look at the Cell processor in the Playstation 3. Cell* is a derivative of the PPC meant for machines that need high performance and repetitive (but complex) calculations, such as games, or certain scientific applications. It simply performs better than x86 would in that situation, and Sony knows it.

So, Apple now has effectively traded the rarely used Altivec for lots of generic speed, and got cheaper and more readily available CPUs to boot. So, Steve, what is your next move? A mouse with zero buttons?

_{* I'm not factoring in Cell's 8 special use vector units. With those included, it unfairly destroys any competition. Without the vector units, its still a high performance 3.2 GHz PPC-like core.}

Apple and Intel Merging?

2005-06-09T20:59:00.000-04:00

Apple and Intel seems to be the hot subject at the moment. Cringley is saying that Apple and Intel could be merging to take out Microsoft and rule the known universe.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

Seriously, I didn't even consider this as a possibility. It vaguely makes sense... you know, if you're a crack fiend with delusions of grandeur. As much as I want to see Microsoft's head on a pike outside on the lawn of One Infinite Loop, merging with Intel isn't going to do this.

However, this does give Intel a leg up on nearly everyone. Dell is one of the largest PC manufacturers, and even though Intel sells CPUs and other parts to Dell, Intel gets the shit end of the deal. Intel manufactures CPUs, motherboards, northbridge and southbridge chips, video chips, sound chips, everything you need to actually build a computer short of mass storage drives and memory; merging with Apple would give them a well known desktop/workstation manufacturing plant to be able to put all these parts together and sell them cheaply en masse.

Intel and Apple would be, ultimately, a vertical integration model. Intel could use its own hardware cheaply (no need to sell to a third party), and the consumer could pay for hardware what 3rd party vendors pay. Seeing as 3rd party vendors mark up stuff like 500% to make a huge profit, and Intel is already marking stuff up that much, both Intel and the consumer would win; Dell goes off into a corner and shoots itself, and Microsoft's Wintel platform goes down the tubes.

All Apple needs now is it's own distribution of Wine to bring in ABI compatibility with Win32 apps, and Apple has basically crushed the resistance. Via la Apple!

Really Small Must Be Even Bigger

2005-06-09T17:16:00.000-04:00

Seth Godin talks about how smaller buisnesses are trumping larger ones by not being unwieldy beasts and giant conflicts of egos. I've been saying this for awhile, that smaller companies have been producing better products cheaper for awhile now. Take a look at the software industry, id Software's Doom was written and designed by around a dozen people, and ended up being an incredibly huge seller and kick-started the next PC gaming revolution.

However, this rule applies to FOSS development as well. The smaller projects are producing the better software, and the larger projects are doing all the wrong things. GNOME has literally a hundred developers, and its one of the worst products (or, really, a group of products 'sold' under one suite) I've seen FOSS produce in a long time.

But the Apache HTTP Server, on the other hand, has less than a dozen active developers and is ran on the majority of web servers on the Internet. KDE has issues due to size as well (but has a smaller number of active developers than GNOME and has more users to boot), but the Simple DirectMedia Layer is widely used, and has only one official developer.

In FOSS, if small really is bigger, then really small is ginormous.

WWDC, Jobs, and Missing Posts

2005-06-08T06:45:00.000-04:00

Well, I wrote something about Steve Jobs mentioning the switch to x86 during his keynote speech at WWDC, and it seems to have disapeared. Gone. Poof. So lets try this again.

It was an hour after he finished his keynote speech, and I wasn't sure what to write here. And then I wrote something which didn't give the back-stab from Steve justice. And I still don't know what to write, two days after the event.

Apple switching to x86 is a serious WTF moment. I mean, sure, Darwin always has ran on x86 (not that it in itself is a good idea), but it doesn't mean you'd want to. The PowerPC archetecture is amazing; 64-bit PPC models such as the PPC970 are next to perfection. The XBox 360 is using it, the next Nintendo platform is using it, and the Playstation 3 is using it. IBM is using it in various applications where POWER is overkill.

I'm not even sure why Apple would do such a thing; Apple has always been about building better machines, and x86 doesn't give you that better machine. Though, in a way, Apple has already gone down this route before, several times.

Way back when (1977), Apple put the 8-bit MOS 6502 in the Apple II to bring down the price of home personal computers, then switched to the 65816 for the Apple IIgs (in 1986) to provide 16-bit home computing while remaining compatible with 8-bit software written for earlier 6502 powered Apple II. Due to be a bit of stupidity at Apple, they killed their most successful product ever (The Apple II line was even more successful than the iPod), and the Apple IIgs became an evolutionary dead end.

The Apple III (1980), which was supposed to be Apple's Next Big Thing™ flopped. Hard. It had an Apple II emulation mode that didn't work right most of the time, and it was way overpriced, and no one wanted it. Apple junked it, and then produced the Apple IIc (smaller, more compact version of the Apple IIe), and then the Apple IIgs.

They then tried the Apple Lisa (1983), which in my opinion looked like a proto-Macintosh that was designed like the Apple III was. It was overpriced and overpowered, but instead of using a 6502 like the Apple II and III did, it used a Motorola 68000 CPU instead. It couldn't emulate Apple II programs either. It failed.

Now, to recap, they knew that backwards compatibility was king. The Apple IIgs was compatible with older Apple II software, even though it used a 16-bit processor. The Apple III's emulation mode was broken and the Lisa had no emulation ability so both died off quickly because they didn't have access to the giant library of Apple II software.

The Macintosh (1984) was, essentially, a Lisa done right; it used the 68k processor and it was also 'compatible' with the Apple II via the Apple IIe Emulation Card (released 1990), which allowed it to run Apple II software (but not IIgs stuff, sadly) and get the Macintosh's foot in the door at places that had a lot of Apple II software they wanted to run.

The Macintosh converted to PowerPC in 1994, yet kept compatibility with 68k Macintosh software via a fully functioning emulation layer. In 2003, Macintosh converted to 64-bit PPC, yet kept compatibility with older 32-bit PPC software.

So for several generations of products, being able to take your software with you was the most important thing, and Apple knows this. And you, the reader, is probably wondering where I'm going with this: You can't take your software with you to the Macintosh x86 machines.

Update 9:05 pm, June 9th 2005: Well, I goofed. Apparently Apple does have emulation software to run PPC code on x86, its called Rosetta. My entire argument just went down in flames. D'oh.

Apple, Intel, and Microsoft

2005-06-04T10:00:00.000-04:00

So, everyone has noticed the CNET rumor mill bullshitting about Apple ditching IBM for Intel.

You can all stop laughing now; and for those that didn't get the joke: Apple and IBM are an item. Apple has been using IBM processors since the switch to PowerPC all those years ago, and Apple will continue to be making Macs with PPCs in them until the end of the universe.

However, lets say Apple does get in bed with Intel, we have two choices. (I'm doubting this will happen, but lets humor the idea)

Behind door number one: Apple is secretly working on a new Newton handheld PDA, and wants to use Intel's half-way decent XScale embedded CPU series, but continuing to use PPC on their desktops, workstations, servers, and laptops.

Behind door number two: Apple is secretly working on reviving Yellow Box (OpenStep for Windows), and wants to produce really cheap Yellow Box+Windows machines, and wants to use Intel x86 on the equivalent of an x86 Mac.

Now, I doubt number two will ever happen. Yellow Box/Windows is a very bad idea, and runs in the opposite direction OSX is going in; however, if Apple were to get their tendrils into Microsoft, Longhorn (often quoted as being Microsoft's clone of OSX) might actually get released in my lifetime, and actually rock to boot. And if Windows would quit sucking, and inherit Yellow Box functionality, I'd quit hating Windows.

This, however, brings up GNUstep for Windows. If Windows ends up getting an up-to-date version of Yellow Box from Apple, GNUstep for Windows would not be required anymore as we would have OpenStep on Windows provided by the company who bought out NeXT; but it would also become a threat to Yellow Box.

Of course, being able to build OpenStep apps as native Windows ones is not something GNUstep can do, but Yellow Box will be able to do (and will have to do to avoid rejection and failure); this said, I'd even switch to Yellow Box (for building OpenStep apps on Windows) due to its superior integration efforts by the alternate reality Apple (led by Steve Jobs in a beard).

... So, wait, would that mean the alternate reality me runs Windows, because Linux is under a draconian license, and the Overlords Torvald and Stallman are trying to sue Microsoft (the last bastion of freedom in the world) into the ground?

Ubuntu Switch

2005-05-29T01:52:00.000-04:00

So, two weeks ago I switched to Ubuntu from Debian Sid. Did the whole format thing and everything. I have to say I like Ubuntu, even though I usually hate 'user friendly' distros; Ubuntu may be userfriendly, but underneath it still has the whole Debian framework, so its still easy to use (instead of being forced to use badly thought out 'user friendly' GUI tools).

Nice part is, it boots about 10-15 seconds faster on my P3 550 workstation (at least some of that is attributed to my 5 year old Debian install). The KDE distro is well packaged too, and Ubuntu comes with X.org by default (instead of the old method I was using by stealing X.org from Ubuntu, and replacing Sid's XF86 with it.)

All in all, its now the best distro on the planet, kicking Debian from that title.

Tod zu allen Spammer Nazi

2005-05-15T23:46:00.000-04:00

Justin Mason mentioned on his blog the Nazi spam flooding FOSS mailing lists. I'm subscribed to the gcc mailing list, and its been flooded with Nazi propaganda, still in it's original German. Well, I have something to say to those spammers: Fäule in der Hölle.

Metropolis

2005-05-15T05:32:00.000-04:00

So, I watched Metropolis, the critically acclaimed movie and brainchild of Rintarô and Katsuhiro Ôtomo, based on Osamu Tezuka's comic. I liked it. It wasn't groundbreaking in animation, story concepts, or execution; but it still was executed quite well. It is on the level that Akira is.

The concept of a robot that thinks its human being the key/core component of a doomsday weapon is not original, but its one that resonates well within the human consciousness; the even idea that humans trying to play God to create a human would in turn bring destruction of the human race is enlightening, if not a little scary.

In my attempts to write science fiction, I've played with the idea, and its one of the more fun ideas to play with; except I never knew quite how to deal with it, but I never knew that I wasn't far off from what others have done.

I wanted a doomsday weapon, two young children (one boy, one girl, both being robots) and have them devoid of emotions in the beginning of the story, and (in sort of a Trigun-like fashion) have them learn opposite emotions.

One (the boy) would learn hate, fear, self-loathing, and the concepts of death, destruction, and murder through a series of unfortunate events; the girl, on the other hand, would learn caring, inner peace, the trust others, and selfless love of others. Complete polar opposites, one would lean towards violence, and the other would do anything to prevent violence. One would serve to destroy human life, the other would serve to preserve it. Death, life. Misery, joy. Black, white.

Except, both are really different sides of the same thing, aren't they?

Bad RSS Feeds! Bad!

2005-05-07T18:07:00.000-04:00

I have about 100 feeds in my RSS reader, and I realized something: I am sick and tired of broken feeds. Here is a list of feeds I am no longer subscribing to because they are either missing titles for the individual articles, the individual articles are clipped to a specific length requiring you to visit the website to read more, or are missing content altogether (clumped by issue):

Missing full article text, only contains short blurb:
Apple Insider
Ars Technica (feed also has ads)
Blues News
Curmudgeon Gamer
Daring Fireball
Drunken Blog
Latte
FredArt
GameGrene
LiveScience
Mac OSX Hints
Mozilla.org
Mozillazine
OSNews
Red Assed Baboon
Space.com
Library of Babel
Uncertain Principles
Talking Points Memo (also misses proper titles on the articles)
eToyChest

Missing full article text, missing even a short blurb:
Bureau 42 (also includes the number of comments in the feed name, which fubars most RSS readers: the readers don't know that the different titles are all the same article)
EuroGamer
LinuxGames
Sci-Fi Storm

Other:
LXer (links for articles do not go to LXer, but to the remote sites' articles instead)

I am dropping these feeds until their admins acquire enough clue to fix them.

amaroK is Complex

2005-04-30T20:17:00.000-04:00

Max Howell recently wrote in his blog asking if amaroK (the popular KDE music player) was complex. It is.

I come from the school of Winamp-type players, which includes XMMS. amaroK started it's life as the same thing, except then it added on an iTunes-type interface for library. The problem is, the two different schools of thoughts don't mix. Either you have a minimalistic user interface, with an optional straight playlist panel; or you have a complex UI that allows you to manage your library, and puts actual playing of music second.

amaroK, sadly, tries to do both, and becomes a usability nightmare in the process. Winamp-style players are out, and iTunes-style players are in. amaroK infact already beats iTunes at it's own game and does it far better; all it needs to do is get rid of the XMMS-esk window and the playlist.

Instead, I should be able to play by individual song, album, entire library, artist, or genre just by using a well thought out UI. I should be able to list similar songs, even those that aren't in my library (amaroK can already do this, but the way it lists the information is funky). The library management functionality should be put first.

Also, amaroK currently has "Your Favorite Tracks", "Your Newest Tracks", and "Least Played Tracks" all on one tab, in a scrollable field. This is very hard to use, you have to scroll instead of just going to it. Instead, this should be a set of tabs, (and now that we have more room thanks to getting rid of the playlist) we can move stuff about this song into that space, and have tabs for "Current" and "Lyrics" there instead of cluttering the left side.

The left side, of course, is reserved for managing your entire library. So, the left side has dedicated tabs for "Favorite", "Newest", and "Least Played", and it would also have the "Collection" tab, and the "Files" tab. Since I'm suggesting dropping the playlist altogether, the "Playlists" tab needs to be transformed into something more useful, maybe something just called "Radio".

And that's my thoughts on it.

TrollTech, Qt, and Dual-licensing

2005-04-25T00:25:00.000-04:00

I just had an hour discussion with some KDE developers on #kde-devel about TrollTech's dual-licensing of Qt on Windows (see the press release) and for Qtopia (press release). This means it uses the GNU Public License (GPL) for free apps, and Pay-for-it Commercial for closed source-apps.

My personal view is that TrollTech did the right thing. It promotes Free and Open Source (FOSS) applications on Windows and PDAs, but it also allows TT to make money. This money in turn allows TT to hire more coders, and generally produce better code. TT serves as an inroad for money in the FOSS community, and it also serves as inroad for commercial developers on Linux (because Qt is a multi-platform framework and UI toolkit).

Now, the GNOME camp is the competitor to the Qt/K Desktop Environment (KDE) camp. GNOME, and the UI toolkit it uses, GTK use the Lesser GNU Public License (LGPL). According to the Free Software Foundation, the GPL is considered "more free" than the LGPL.

The GNOME camp's biggest gripe against KDE is that it depended on a non-free library, Qt. But thanks to TrollTech, the GNOME camp's biggest gripe against KDE now is that KDE uses an "even more free" library. (Which puts GNOME in a weird position, since GNOME is the FSF's poster boy for a free desktop).

Continuing on with my personal view, dual-licensing is the correct way to do things if you're a business. On one hand, it protects the FOSS community because it is GPL; on the other hand it protects the business model by using the GPL to turn into free source of public relations material and it forces people who actually have money to buy up Qt licenses.

During this discussion, we figured out (within our own opinions, at least), what the most important aspects of the commercial half of the dual-license should be. For our example, lets say Company XYZ owns TheProduct, and Company ABC wants to buy TheProduct. Company ABC is building a closed-source application. Those important aspects go something like this:

1) ABC will have to be restricted from reselling TheProduct, otherwise XYZ doesn't make money.

2a) ABC will have to be restricted from shipping modified version of TheProduct (seeing as they have the source, they could do this, we just have to license them into a corner so they don't); restricting them from that prevents them from shipping a botched version of the library, which reflects badly on XYZ. It also prevents ABC from shooting themselves in the foot, which makes them happy, and turns them into a repeat customer.

2b) ABC will be allowed to ship a modified version if they release modifications under the GPL and revert ownership of said changes to XYZ, but also clearly mark said changes to have originated from ABC and not XYZ. XYZ reserves the right to merge said changes, but also reserves the right to not merge said changes.

3) XYZ will provide cryptographically signed binaries of the libraries to ship with the product. Failure to ship product with said binaries is considered a breach of the license. In the event of 2b, XYZ will build and sign new binaries on request.

4) Its probably a good idea to charge ABC by the number of shipped copies.

Now, the reason number 4 is so important is because it prevents large companies (such as Microsoft) from abusing the spirit of the dual-licensing scheme. The more money they stand to make, the more money we stand to make, simple as that.

Lets say Microsoft gets their foot in the door with the FOSS community by releasing Microsoft Word on the Linux desktop. And in this warped reality, they sell millions of copies. That is millions of licenses we've sold in addition to Word on Windows and Word on OSX (because TheProduct, as you probably have noticed, is really just a thinly veiled stand-in for Qt). TheProduct would not only be raking in the money, but thanks to Microsoft, it would be used by millions on multiple platforms. Instant inroad for cash into the FOSS community.

Microsoft could, in turn, make a whole desktop out of Qt-based components just from this one application. Your first instinct tells you that this couldn't happen, but as Bobby Rockers said, "Why not, GNOME made a whole desktop based on an image manipulation program."

Adium X mentioned on Blogger's Blogs of Note

2005-04-19T05:25:00.000-04:00

Adium X, a popular IM client for MacOS X, uses Blogger to manage the news for their website; they have been featured on Blogger's Blogs of Note, which I informed them about, and which they are now mentioning on their blog.

So, I'm posting on my blog about Adium X blogging about their blog being listed on Blogger's Blogs of Note. Say that ten times fast.

Area 51 at Google Maps vs Space Imaging

2005-04-15T21:27:00.000-04:00

Someone passed me this blog entry about someone trying to use Google Maps to view Area 51. The quality ultimately sucks (as shown here) because Google Maps doesn't have high resolution shots of this area.

Now, Space Imaging has high quality shots of the area using 1 meter imagery, but they aren't in color. So, I whipped out Gimp, and rotated, skewed, and stretched the Google Map data so it would fit over the Space Imaging data to show the difference in resolution visually.

Click for full resolution versions.

Giant Mecha

2005-04-14T02:12:00.000-04:00

The name in this blog's url, shadowconflict is named after a mostly failed RTS I tried doing. Shadow Conflict was supposed to be an RTS that requires the user to think, and one that allows the most tactically minded to dominate, instead of the caffeine-addled Koreans of Starcraft.

It never went anywhere.

So, every once in a while I go back at it, thinking may be I can get it going this time (and for the past 4.5 years, this has failed horribly). This happens roughly every six months for about a week, and this is the week for this six month block.

The most important units of the game are giant mecha. In the SC universe, they are called Offensive Robotic Bipedal Tanks, or ORBiTs. Every time I envision them, they always follow the look of whatever my favorite giant mecha at the time is. Sometimes, they take on a Gerbera Tetrety look. Other times, they take on the look of the Hi-Nu, or the Sazabi. The Double Edge Shrike from Blue Gender has influenced my thoughts, as is the various mecha from Jovian Chronicals. Eva also makes an appearance in my thoughts.

So, I ask my readership, what's your favorite mecha and why?

Craigorian Chant: When is a terrorist not a terrorist?

2005-04-13T14:11:00.000-04:00

Craig Baracco over at Craigorian Chant has an article up about the NPR story covering the guilty plea of serial bomber Eric Rudolph in front of the federal court. He brings up an important point,

What struck me about this when listening to an NPR story about Rudolph this weekend is the fact that the coverage of this story does not include the word "terrorist".

My question for the readers of The Chant, is when should a criminal be described a terrorist? Obviously the term is appropriately applied to members of Al-qaeda, but what about the insurgent forces within Iraq? What about the insurgent forces within Ireland? Do radical Christians deserve the same label as radical Muslims? What about eco-terrorists and drug dealers?

I personally think they all should be considered terrorists. Anyone who kills to instills fear in people who oppose him/her or his/her views is a terrorist. Rudolph clearly did this, and he is correctly labeled as a terrorist. Back during the Atlanta Olympics bombing incident, I clearly remember the media labeling him as a terrorist, and the only reason they aren't now is because the US government doesn't want our current image of terrorists (IE, the stereotypical Al-qaeda camel-riding rag-head) diluted.

The White House has spent the last 5 years trying to convince America (and whoever else will listen) that there is only one kind of terrorist, and they all look like the rejects in the Team America movie; they don't want us to remember that sometimes terrorists are also our fellow Americans, and come in many forms such as the Rudolphs of the world, and CEOs of major corporations, or are elected President.

OS X: 31337

2005-04-12T18:03:00.000-04:00

To quote Apple's OS X website (specifically, the yellow "New in Tiger" box on the right): "Remappable Modifier Keys: Remap modifiers such as control and caps lock to be super elite." And one of the screenshots has a transparent terminal.

I'm waiting for the eventual announcement: "New for 10.5: We've ported Enlightenment, and are using this as our window manager! Ooh shiney!" Crackrock ahoy!

‘Your failed business model is not my problem’

2005-04-12T12:32:00.000-04:00

The New York Times is running an article about the public discussion between Lawrence Lessig (the Stanford University professor who is so against criminalized file sharing it hurts) and Jeff Tweedy (the leader of the band Wilco).

They both agree that people have a right to culture, and I agree with them. I'm always on the look out for something new. Something that is actually new, and isn't the same rap or pop rehash you find on MTV or VH1, something that isn't complete shit. The only way to do this is to download it: I'm not buying a CD if I don't know what it sounds like first. If I did that, I would be potentionally rewarding them for producing shit.

I also think that by attempting to shut out people who want to distribute your music over the Internet (who ultimately are your fans) is an unbelievably stupid thing. Free bandwidth to distribute things is hard to come by, so is free publicity. If you want to make an honest living, then let your fans do the right thing. By charging $25 a CD for shitty music, and try to sue your fans for doing the right thing only means you're stealing money from your fans.