bytex64.net/blog

Today, the end of classes brought us the beginning Thanksgiving break. My buddy list sits mostly empty as many of my friends are either home or en route. *shrug*. Not that break means a whole lot to me. No classes for a week, but I only went to one this week. I'll get to hang out with my friends more this week. Maybe some VFS. Later, there will be massive amounts of turkey, pie, and explosions.

In the short term, I've got a decision to make about what tires to get for my car. I'm really leaning towards the Yokohama AVID H4s at the moment, since they're inexpensive and have great dry traction. The only thing that might compete right now is the Toyo Proxes TPT, which is similarly inexpensive, but trades a little dry traction for better wet performance. The deciding factor right now is that I can get the Yokohamas online for a great price without tax. Since they wouldn't ship 'till Monday, anyway, I'm going to think about it over the weekend. Why not go for the gold and get an "Ultra High Performance" tire? Well, one, I can't afford those, and two, it snows here. :)

I'm betting a lot of you have noticed a couple of freeloaders on your buddy list recently. AOL has figured you wouldn't be mad about having a couple of bot buddies (MovieFone and ShoppingBuddy) handy. Who knows, if they had simply told me about them and let me add them myself, I might have found them handy. But I don't appreciate the audacity of adding them for me. This is not the way to introduce a new feature. I would like to take this moment to suggest that you instead use Jabber, a free, open, standardized, and decentralized alternative to networks such as AIM, MSN, ICQ, and Yahoo!. I use it, and I will be constantly shaking my fist in your general direction until you do, too. *shakes fist*.

Right now I'm listening to the August EP by Tatsu (found on the excellent monotonik). It's what (I guess) you'd call "ambient techno," with a gently flowing sequences of sound that's easy to listen to while doing something else. I recommend it. In fact, everything on monotonik is really good for the techno-inclined. Best of all, it's all free. :)

See some of you in a week. As for the rest of you, I've got a tube of "Safe Start" fire starting gel and a lighter. Who's up for some fun?

"Travel back to Hogwarts as Harry learns of a new enemy... one he'll have to beat with his bare hands, again and again, until he's exhausted. Hidden within the Book of Endocrinological Secrets, Harry discovers that he was cursed from birth to undergo a hideous transformation upon becoming a teenager. Despite his best efforts, the transformation is well underway. He becomes plagued by hideous facial blemishes, unnatural growth spurts, and impure thoughts about Hermione. Harry will have to face his most devious enemy, yet. Will he have the courage to stand up to... Wet Dream?"

I was really trying hard not to put "Hairy Potter" up there. There's probably enough disturbing imagery and innuendo there to scare off what little readership I have, anyway. :-/ I don't really have anything against Harry Potter the story. I tried to read it once, and lost interest. I certainly can't fault anyone for enjoying a well-written book. I do take issue with the liberties J.K. Rowling takes with the english language, but I guess she's no worse than Lewis Carroll. My main gripe with Harry Potter is the ludicrous amount of merchandising that preys on kids' succeptibility to shiny objects. I mean, LEGO Harry Potter? What the fuck? I remember when LEGO used to do LEGO, and that was it. But that's another gripe.

Apparently there is a Harry Potter movie out today, and most of my friends are either watching it today, or soon. (Not uncoincidentally, most of these people also like Naruto.) I'm going to take this moment to make my official position clear: I don't give a shit. So nyah.

I don't know if I've mentioned Gokusen here or not... It's a show about a Yakuza princess who teaches a high school class full of bad apples. It's pretty good, and different enough from GTO to make it entertaining. I finished the first season lately, and am working on the second. So far, it seems to be a carbon copy of the first season, so I'm not sure if I'll continue.

Another show I've gotten on a whim is "Jigoku Shoujo." Literally, it means "Hell Girl." If you visit a certain website at midnight and type in someone's name, Jigoku Shoujo will take that person directly to Hell. In return, your soul also goes to Hell when you die. It's one of those slow-paced psychological shows that I don't really like... Something you'd find on Anime Unleashed at 4am. The animation is pretty, and it is suitably disturbing. Jigoku Shoujo herself is this little girl with a vacant stare and a black kimono with brightly-colored flowers on it. She sort of reminds me of Alice from the Sakura background animation on DDR.

Also, for any ITG fans out there, check out KaW's music over at ampcast.com. FYI: KaW is also Inspector K, ☺, KeeL, Banzai, and Symphonius. But not the same KeeL as this one, who, oddly enough, I knew about *before* discovering ITG. Small world, eh?

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. :)