bytex64.net

Signs you're a CS major:

• When prompted for your home address, you give the IP address of your cable/DSL modem.
• Your idea of a fun Friday night is getting drunk and explaining binary trees to your friends (bonus points for using handy props such as coat hangers).
• Your viewing habits consist mainly of Diggnation, Hak.5, and hentai.
• You grok "grok".
• It's been months since you've seen your best friends in person.
• ... but you talk to them online every day.
• In your classes, the women look like men, and the men wear ponytails.
• ... but the last time you saw a woman in one of your classes was freshman year.
• When people say "quad", you immediately think of railguns, rocket launchers, and the nearest health pickup.
• Lunch and dinner consist of pizza and Mountain Dew. Breakfast is the same, except the pizza is cold.
• The only time you've ever seen the sun rise was after pulling an all-nighter.

Ah, Computer Science. Where the men are men, and the women are nonexistent.

Erickson: soooo... if perl is required for sex with a woman, would grep be useful for masturbation?

It has just come to my attention that some 70,000 new blogs [WARNING: gratuitous use of the non-word "blogosphere"] come into existence every day. That's almost one per second. I've only got one thing to say to that:

SWEET MOTHER OF HOLY FREAKING CRAPBISCUITS.

Apparently, a lot of growth is coming from other countries, especially China. Furthermore, the number of blogs has been doubling consistently every 5 months. This means, in a bout 3.5 years, every person on earth will have a weblog. In a little over a century, every atom in the universe will have a weblog. (but where they're going to put all that data, I have no idea... Don't you just love outlandish extrapolations?) It's official. Blogging is an epidemic that must be stopped. I just don't know... how.

So this friday I went home to change my oil. Nothing complicated. It's a process that one man can do himself in half an hour for about $10, provided he knows someone with a jack and some jackstands. On my travels today, I saw that Illini Oil Change will do it for $22.50. Fuck. That. Shit. The point of this post is not to bore you with the proper way to change your oil, though. I have plenty of other things with which to bore you senseless.

For those who didn't know, I got a haircut from my sister. The orange dye has since washed out, leaving me as sort of a dark blonde. When my Dad greeted me at home, he said, "Hi, Chip. Or should I call you Rod Stewarthttp://entimg.msn.com/i/mu/r/RodStewart/RodStewart_150x200.jpg
?" "Whoa, hold on..." I replied. Not because I just got served a plate of humiliation by my Dad. I actually had to think for a couple of minutes about who Rod Stewart was. I don't look that much/pix/chip_as_rod_stewart.jpg
like him, do I?

The rest of the night involved the dual record breaking feats of fitting four people in my car and finding parking near Third and Springfield. As much as I'd like to be excited about that night, there wasn't anything to get excited about.

After the weekly Mobile Immersion meeting on Saturday, I went home and made my best fried rice, ever. It's all about the chipotle sauce. Then I went to Jen and Nancy's to finish a rigaramole involving borrowing Jen's iPod to transfer files to burn on Jen's laptop. This also meant that I had an iPod for two days. My suspicions have been confirmed... it's not the kind of device for me. Yes, it plays music. It does so simply and easily, just as advertised. But, I found that while listening with my headphones, I was constantly looking around nervously at my surroundings, since I could no longer hear them. Besides, if I made an iPod, it would come in a flat black magnesium composite shell. (Why do you not make a portable media player, IBM!?!?!)

DVDs finished, we wound up watching through Nancy's queue of pirated movies. We had to watch them so that they can be deleted... to free up room for more movies. First was Meet the Fockers, which was painful enough to watch without Ben Stiller's mediocre acting. Does anyone remember him in Heavyweights? (Hint: It was 99% the same character as he was in Dodgeball) Ben Stiller just isn't funny unless he's the villain. Second was Kicking and Screaming, which was actually much better than I thought it would be. Will Ferrel continues to surprise. Would it be a stretch to compare him to Steve Martin? Perhaps. Third was Sahara, which was a pretty standard action movie that was passable only because it had Salma Hayek in it.

I drove to Jen and Nancy's place ('cause I'm lazy, and I like to drive), and as I left my car, I heard a "Ssssssssssssssssss...". I checked the tires... My right front tire had picked up a sliver of glass, and was leaking before my eyes. There was nothing I could have done about it then, so I went on to Jen and Nancy's place, leaving it for today. I went back today, and with the help of some metal chair legs lying around, put on the space-saver spare. I was hoping that the puncture was small enough that it could be patched, but upon further inspection, it's too large. I'll have to buy new tires. If the puncture was small enough (say, a nail), I could get it plugged. For speed-rated tires, though, this introduces some safety issues, so it's probably better to get new tires, anyway. The question, now, is whether to get only the front two, or replace all four. It would be nice to be able to swap out the rear tires (good ones for racing, old ones for drifting), but I don't see myself doing that a lot, and I don't have the money for two extra rims, anyway.

Who knows, maybe this will be a good thing in the long run...

I read an article just now about newspapers experimenting with english language manga. The idea is interesting, but that's not what caught my eye. One of the series, Peach Fuzz, is drawn by Lindsay Cibos. "Lindsay Cibos," I thought to myself. "That name sounds familiar... but why?" After a little bit of googling, I found the answer:

She draws naughty pictures.

Ooooooooooooh... Eheheh heh... heh. :-/

So apparently a female barista is some sort of coffee shop ice goddess, created to simultaneously ensnare the hearts of coffee lovers and to crush their hearts beneath her boots. The topic seems to be rather popular, suggesting to me that webcomic artists have a special weakness for coffee shop girls. It's probably a good thing I don't like coffee, or I'd be on that list, too.

On a bizarre side note, for the longest time I thought "barista" was Colombian slang for someone who traffics drugs. Actually, now that I think about it, that definition isn't too far from the truth.

Trivia: While the word "barista" sounds feminine, it's actually refers to both genders; "baristi" is the masculine form, and "bariste" is feminine. The word is italian, and means "bartender".

So why are emo guys constantly falling for the bariste trap? Heck if I know. Perhaps the thought process goes something like this:

Holy Cow, there's a member of the opposite sex taking my order. And look! She smiled at me when she gave me my change. Y'know what? I like coffee, she likes coffee... what a wonderful premise for a relationship! Perhaps even one where I get to see her naked! He he...

I can't really blame guys for trying, though. I mean there *is* the off chance that she's not hewn from a solid block of ice-cold steel, scientifically designed to fire back razor-sharp rejections at your piddling advances, like an espresso-wielding T-1000.

<emo style="bitter, angry">Just like any other girl...</emo>

It's true. The desktop is in sad shape. Take a look at the state of the average Windows desktop (Apologies to TheZoolooMaster. Nothing personal.):

It's a mess. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. My room is a mess, but it's a system that works quite efficiently for me. My real gripes are numbered and color coded for further analysis below. :)

1. Desktop Icons. (red) The average desktop has a glommed mass of icons created by programs the user has installed. Most of the time the user has no idea where these icons have come from, and thus leave them alone. Instead of cleaning this mess, users instead memorize the locations of the few programs they use. Worse, this method of program launching is stymied by the fact that if you have any windows open, you can't freaking see the icons. Icons on the desktop is a stupid idea. Macintosh, I'm pointing the finger squarely at you.
2. Obnoxiously flashy media player. (blue) What desktop would be complete without something to play tunes? Unfortunately, most of them waste more memory on visuals than on decoding and playing sound -- y'know, the task for which the application was designed. I know this is a fashion argument, but if players spent less time looking good, and more time performing good, maybe things like 1GB DIMMs wouldn't be as popular as they are.
3. Holy shit, more icons! (yellow) Realizing the visual flaw of icons on the desktop, the quick launch bar was brought in. Unfortunately, it has suffered the same fate as the desktop, becoming a useless dump for programs icons. The SysTray is similarly cluttered, displaying icons for running programs that I'm sure *every* user cares about. I mean, you probably adjust your firewall settings two or three times a day, right? Better yet, let's just waste that vast, open space on the taskbar and put an icon for each program in the SysTray. I mean, finding a program in a mass of 16x16 pixel icons is so much easier than locating it in a large, visually navigable list, right?

While I'm at it, the average desktop environment relies too much on the mouse. Look at it this way: You have a device with over a hundred keys including alphanumeric, directional, navigation, and specialized function keys, and another with three buttons plus spatial navigation. Which one do you use to start up programs? Select menu items? Navigate bookmarks? It's the dinky one with three buttons, isn't it? Why? Because that's what your desktop environment expects. Does this seem wrong? It should. The keyboard is a much faster and more accurate way to input data for most computing tasks, so why do we delegate the most work to the rodent? Because it's simple. It gives more users the ability to quickly pick up computer skills at the expense of more advanced methods. Of course, this doesn't mean that some of those methods don't exist. Firefox, for example, has an excellent type-ahead find feature that a lot of other programs could stand to add to their feature set.

In fact, I think the whole idea of "the desktop" is flawed to begin with. The idea that "one interface fits all" works fine for things like cars and phones, but not for an advanced data processing device like a computer. Desktops today don't offer the choices and customizability that can make people truly productive. Things like OS X Tiger's Spotlight are a step in the right direction, but still lack the customizability to make them power tools. If anything, desktops today seem to restrict customization in order to provide a more uniform feel for users. This mistake confuses the ideas of "intuitive" and "uniform". A uniform interface is intuitive for people who have used it, but if you ask ten people what changes would make the interface intuitive for them, you would get ten different answers (if not more). Back in The Day™, all users were programmers. Not out of desire, but out of necessity. Systems simply didn't come with usable user interfaces, so they made their own. I like this idea... not because I'm a programmer, but because I know that if people had the tools, they could make better interfaces for themselves.

Furthermore, I've got a message for everyone opining about how Linux is not ready for the desktop: shut it. I've been using ION on my Linux desktop for over a year, and I've never been happier with a desktop environment. Linux is not ready for the idiots, and I'm just fine with that.

Linux? Ready for the desktop? Feh. It'll be ready when everyone else is.

Today Dillon had a party in honor of his 22nd birthday. It was pretty wild... for those drinking. Unfortunately, since I'm still a bit sick, I took it easy. Strictly vodka and grapefruit juice. }:-> Most of the partygoers played "Circle of Death" while us sober folk stuck to playing XBox. At this point, there were several things that I'll have to address out of order. First, the XBox...

I finally got to see a good range of games for XBox, including a few I'd been wanting to try. First up was Ninja Gaiden. All I have to say about it is that it's smooth as a pimp in purple silk. Next was X-Men: Legends, which was a top-view double dragon-style game that wants to be a RPG. Its multiplayer was sorely lacking, especially for the all-important first 15 minutes of the game. For some real multiplayer action, we loaded up Jet Set Radio Future, which was ten times more like Jet Grind Radio than I was expecting. (This is to say, I was extremely pleased with it) Four-player tag-battles are teh awesome. Later in the night I played some Sega GT 2002. It makes a reasonably good pass at being a Gran Turismo knock-off. It was a few years behind, but I found it enjoyable on the whole. I mean, any time you can out-fox a 350Z in a Renault 5 Turbo is a good time by my mark. :) One girl I played with was actually pretty good. She raced against me with a NSX versus my Miata, and only lost by two or three seconds. :)

Towards the end of the night I got to drive the van. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it or not, but Dillon is a part-owner and maintainer of a 1990 Plymouth Voyager. This van is a beater beyond all comprehension. The transmission leaks, the right turn signal doesn't blink, the suspension is completely shot, the thing is spraypainted blue for chrissakes. Dillon had wanted to see if his friend had made it home alright, and I was sober, so we trawled the streets for a few minutes and headed back to the party.

I just got done watching the Densha Otoko "Another Ending" special. Man, look OUT for those cute Korean chicks. They'll just blow you away with their innocence and complete inability to speak Japanese. (Apologies to BoA/pix/boa.jpg
, who I have been informed is actually a superhuman. I shall refer to her as Uta no Tatsujin BoA from now on.)

I seem to have spilled ramen soup on my keyboard, and it's acting funny. I'm wondering if I can just run it through the dishwasher... Oh, well. Good thing I keep a spare. :)

No, wait, it's just me. *groan*. It seems I've been ransacked by some sort of infection. I spent most of yesterday drinking grapefruit juice and sleeping. 46 ounces and 15 hours, respectively. Woke up feeling better today, but didn't go to work. I've spent most of the day sitting in my chair watching Gundam X, which I have to say is so-so. On a whim, I also downloaded Battletech. Yes, that Battletech. There was a short-lived cartoon series about the invasion of the Clans back in the early 90's. I never saw it back then, but watching it now, it's...

awful.

I suppose I shouldn't expect too much from it, but especially in the area of representing the Draconis Combine, they've make about every mistake you can make about Japanese language and culture. Example: a DC jumpship is being hailed by another ship requesting emergency docking. The DC officer says, in the most broken Japanese you can imagine, "shi ka ta ga nai!" The pronunciation notwithstanding, the actual words are something only a complete n00b would piece together. An actual Japanese person would say something like "shi kata nai," or "shi kata nai ze." They also use "ohayo" as a general greeting. *groan*.

I did get to work on the beatmania sim a bit. Obligatory screenshot/pix/km_screenshot3.jpg
. I'm currently calling it keymania, but such a thing already exists. My other idea is "Pop'n Dance Key Groove Freaks Mania Revolution It Up 11DX Extreme COMPLETE MIX MAX 2". Jen thinks I should call it "Spork it up", and James likes "kBeats". That last one sounds too much like a KDE application...

Anyway, I've got to get to sleep. Must... get... well...

Since every other one of my Xangavirus-infected friends has been doing this Rate My Life Self-Help Quiz, I figured I'd give it a try. Why they call it a "Self-Help" quiz, I have no idea. Am I supposed to better myself with the useless bar graphs it spits out? This isn't self-help. It's a time-waster at best.

I was going with the flow until this question: "Is there pollution in the air, water, or soil where you live?" What? How the fuck am I supposed to know that? "Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I detected larger than normal levels of cadmium in my drinking water this morning." No, nobody knows that off the top of their head. Furthermore, anywhere you go, there's some level of pollution in the air, water, or soil, so the question is useless. Other useless questions:

• "Do you eat fruits and vegetables every day?" (No, you don't.)
• "Are there one or more people who currently find you romantically desirable?" (If there aren't, consider the fact that you're taking an online quiz to make yourself feel better...)
• "Check off any pets that you have:" (Huh?)

Recently, ICANN has approved a .mobi TLD for sites catering to mobile devices with limited memory, screens, and bandwidth. Somehow, they hope to enforce standards on sites using .mobi so that they are usable on these limited devices. I therefore propose a set of standards to be enforced on our own, plain, vanilla Intarweb.

<MADDOX ANGER="APOPLECTIC" OMG="WTFBBQ">

First, I'll get rid of all the worthless blogs out there. You know the ones. Updated nine times a day with trite gibberish and webquizzes. Blogs are the fastest growing part of the web right now, and all of it is crap. I could print out the text of a random blog entry, wipe my ass with it, and it would actually leave my ass less clean than before.

Second, get rid of the freaking <marquee> tag. If there's one thing I love when visiting a website, it's waiting to read the text that's so important that the website designer thought it necessary to have the text scroll across the screen at freaking one character per second. It's almost annoying as the <blink> tag. If it's possible, sites like this one will get banned twice.

Third, I will nuke every site that has more ads, sidebars, and navigation tools than actual content. I mean, seriously, shit like this has to go. If I have to send out the dogs to find your content, you've failed as a web designer. As a handy side effect, this also means that most shitty web boards will be nuked as well.

Of course, violators will be summarily BANNED FROM THE INTERNET.

</MADDOX>

I'm sure there's more, but I don't currently have the kind of stamina needed to rant for ten pages about it, so I'll leave it at that. Of course, he probably says it better than me, anyway. I'd like to be as angry-sounding as maddox, but I just can't get used to using the word "asshole" every other sentence. (Oh, BURNSAUCE!)

5728374928739874 people have given up in disgust while reading this blog.