(Wed, Apr 01, 2009)
This is a stroke of brilliance. It's the classic Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice hacked into a zombie novel, such that:
Original: IT IS A TRUTH universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Hack: IT IS A TRUTH universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.
And so on. I love this idea. I'm now contemplating The Vampire Madame Bovary....
Original: IT IS A TRUTH universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Hack: IT IS A TRUTH universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.
And so on. I love this idea. I'm now contemplating The Vampire Madame Bovary....
(Wed, Apr 01, 2009)
Ah the days of beer and sweatpants! I spent this week with NCAA basketball buzzing in my background, patiently waiting for that set of conditions that make a game worth watching: a close score with less than 5 minutes remaining. When the alarm for that sounds I set down my e-book, adjust my posture, and root for the team indicated by the result of a coin toss. Sometimes I watched hockey instead.
This weekend included "Earth Hour", which I love because it provides a chance for grumpy malcontents like me to demonstrate their contempt for environmentalism and environmentalists merely by leaving the lights on. Take that, freakos!
I've been reading through the online-available texts nominated for the hugo and nebula awards, and I'm mostly unimpressed. I'm presently about a third into Gaiman's Graveyard Book and I'm thinking about dumping out of it. The Doctorow book, Little Brother, is pretty entertaining, despite some annoying left-liberal biases. None of the shorter form texts have been worth the read. Oh the state of the things!
I'm sure I've mentioned that the Kindle is great for online texts; in past years I didn't bother reading most of the Hugo or Nebula noms because I couldn't stand the e-format. (I was probably better off actually, given the sad quality of most of that stuff.) This week I wrote a little program that cleans up common text issues for Kindle; it replaces non ASCII characters, removes unwanted line breaks, etc. Amazon has a service that does something like this but I'm temperamental enough to want my e-texts exactly the way I want them.
Despite having spent so many thirsty years waiting for it, I still haven't seen the Watchmen movie. It's not the mixed reviews either; I just loathe movie theaters that much, the greedy swine. Still, I would like to see it in IMAX before it expires.
Some fun, huh?
This weekend included "Earth Hour", which I love because it provides a chance for grumpy malcontents like me to demonstrate their contempt for environmentalism and environmentalists merely by leaving the lights on. Take that, freakos!
I've been reading through the online-available texts nominated for the hugo and nebula awards, and I'm mostly unimpressed. I'm presently about a third into Gaiman's Graveyard Book and I'm thinking about dumping out of it. The Doctorow book, Little Brother, is pretty entertaining, despite some annoying left-liberal biases. None of the shorter form texts have been worth the read. Oh the state of the things!
I'm sure I've mentioned that the Kindle is great for online texts; in past years I didn't bother reading most of the Hugo or Nebula noms because I couldn't stand the e-format. (I was probably better off actually, given the sad quality of most of that stuff.) This week I wrote a little program that cleans up common text issues for Kindle; it replaces non ASCII characters, removes unwanted line breaks, etc. Amazon has a service that does something like this but I'm temperamental enough to want my e-texts exactly the way I want them.
Despite having spent so many thirsty years waiting for it, I still haven't seen the Watchmen movie. It's not the mixed reviews either; I just loathe movie theaters that much, the greedy swine. Still, I would like to see it in IMAX before it expires.
Some fun, huh?
(Thu, Apr 09, 2009)
I recently had the brilliant idea of moving my Eclipse workspace to a shared FAT32 volume. Months later I tried to package a war archive using Maven and found odd results: the webapp was being assembled with lower-case directory names (meta-inf and web-inf) and therefore not deploying correctly. When I moved the project to an Ext3 volume it assembled correctly. The problem was related to how the FAT32 filesystem was being mounted, and can be resolved by adding shortname=mixed to the array of mount options in fstab. When this option is omitted, it defaults to shortname=lower, which forces filenames less than 8 characters into lowercase.
(Sun, Apr 12, 2009)
Upon a late afternoon while lurking near or about the refuse dumpster at the foot of the upper parking lot, one will often chance upon a ghoul local to our community disposing of a small, tightly tied bag. On most days the ghoul, a scraggly-faced old woman who lives on the other side of the Complex, will drive her gold car to the foot of the upper parking lot and park next to the refuse dumpster, there to make her deposit. Day after day the minor spectacle is repeated, and day after day I grow ever more curious: what might the bag contain, and why should it be the same size every day disposed of in exactly the same way?
Yesterday, I could take no more; I must know her secret. So I lingered near or about the refuse dumpster at the foot of the upper parking lot, and feigned casual idleness as the scraggly-faced old woman arrived in her gold car, then produced the small, tightly tied bag and approached the dumpster. My pulse quickened, my anticipation soared. In just a few moments I would have the answer! But then the ghoul paused, and stood for a moment listening, glancing several times in my direction, as if aware that my idleness was feigned and some deeper motive compelled my lingering. Could she guess at my intentions? Would she dispose of today's bag in the usual manner or drive off to a different dumpster? Perhaps I had disrupted her routine forever, simply by observing her take part in it.
But no; she seemed to regain her composure and, per her usual routine, tossed the small, tightly tied bag into the refuse dumpster. She then returned to her gold car, and drove away from the foot of the parking lot, back to her own side of the Complex and whatever fetid hole she dwelled in by night. Now was my chance! Feigning casual idleness as fiercely as I was able, I leaned into the dumpster and rummaged about in there, searching through rancid food, soiled diapers, broken appliances, while beset upon by the foulest of odors. Finally I recognized my prize: the small, tightly tied bag of the old ghoul woman. With trembling hands I untied the knots, unwound the corners of the bag. Now the mystery would be revealed! When I opened the bag, nothing could contain my startlement. I stood gazing into it, shocked and appalled, filled with dread. The bag of the old ghoul woman contained human fingers! Nah, I'm kidding, it was catshit.
Yesterday, I could take no more; I must know her secret. So I lingered near or about the refuse dumpster at the foot of the upper parking lot, and feigned casual idleness as the scraggly-faced old woman arrived in her gold car, then produced the small, tightly tied bag and approached the dumpster. My pulse quickened, my anticipation soared. In just a few moments I would have the answer! But then the ghoul paused, and stood for a moment listening, glancing several times in my direction, as if aware that my idleness was feigned and some deeper motive compelled my lingering. Could she guess at my intentions? Would she dispose of today's bag in the usual manner or drive off to a different dumpster? Perhaps I had disrupted her routine forever, simply by observing her take part in it.
But no; she seemed to regain her composure and, per her usual routine, tossed the small, tightly tied bag into the refuse dumpster. She then returned to her gold car, and drove away from the foot of the parking lot, back to her own side of the Complex and whatever fetid hole she dwelled in by night. Now was my chance! Feigning casual idleness as fiercely as I was able, I leaned into the dumpster and rummaged about in there, searching through rancid food, soiled diapers, broken appliances, while beset upon by the foulest of odors. Finally I recognized my prize: the small, tightly tied bag of the old ghoul woman. With trembling hands I untied the knots, unwound the corners of the bag. Now the mystery would be revealed! When I opened the bag, nothing could contain my startlement. I stood gazing into it, shocked and appalled, filled with dread. The bag of the old ghoul woman contained human fingers! Nah, I'm kidding, it was catshit.
(Mon, Apr 20, 2009)
This weekend I watched the pilot for Caprica, the prequel (or sorts) to Battlestar Galactica, and while my loathing for Ron Moore lingers on, and collects like bile in all the inner nooks of my crannies, I must admit to being very favorably impressed with it. Caprica strikes me as a much better platform for exploring the kind of issues Ron & Company attempted in BSG. Leaving the finale aside, my essential gripe with BSG was that the writers persistently attempted to tell stories that the fundamental plot situation -- the final desperate fragment of humanity fleeing from a vast, inhuman killing machine -- was unable to support. Every attempt by the writers to explore some current-event story idea (politics, religion, class struggle, terrorism) that did not directly address and derive from that basic desperate situation would inevitably be undermined by its inherent implausibility. No so for Caprica. Caprica has much more potential for mirroring our own civilization, and for reproducing our own sets of conflicts in its fictional world (which was, I suspect, the reason for its invention). And as an added special bonus: we get to find out how Ron will eventually screw it up.
(Mon, Apr 20, 2009)
Holy Brunhilde! Valkyries with light sabers!?
(Sun, Apr 26, 2009)
Jaunty Jackass! I had some sound problems with Flash applets (silent YouTube videos, etc) after upgrading but they were resolved by reinstalling Flash. I like the new notification system, except that Pigeon now adds a new, unnecessary icon to my first desktop panel. I assume the two are related.
The main thing that irritates me about Jaunty is the decision to include Amarok 2.x in the repos instead of Amarok 1.4. Amarok 2 sucks. It sucks exactly as hard as Fruity Pebbles in a bowl of grapefruit juice. Also -- also! -- the new Amarok version has been named "Amarok" instead of "Amarok2" or "AmarokSuck", so you can't just pick one or the other in the repos; you have to jump through flaming hoops of burning fire in order to get the good one installed and the bad one banned. Here's the bug ticket (Won't Fix). Bah! KDE 4 strikes again!
The main thing that irritates me about Jaunty is the decision to include Amarok 2.x in the repos instead of Amarok 1.4. Amarok 2 sucks. It sucks exactly as hard as Fruity Pebbles in a bowl of grapefruit juice. Also -- also! -- the new Amarok version has been named "Amarok" instead of "Amarok2" or "AmarokSuck", so you can't just pick one or the other in the repos; you have to jump through flaming hoops of burning fire in order to get the good one installed and the bad one banned. Here's the bug ticket (Won't Fix). Bah! KDE 4 strikes again!