Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Disturbing Details in “Chimp Attack” Report

OK, so chimp goes wild, acts like a typical gangbanger (or illegal alien/Mexican drug dealer2, or “moderate” Muslim only tamer). Sad for the woman he attacked but otherwise, not all that significant.

What is really disturbing is this caption under a pic of the chimp:

A 200-pound chimpanzee named Travis attacked and critically injured a 55-year-old woman in Stamford, Conn., on Monday. This is an image of the monkey when it escaped in 2003.

Chimp=monkey? I don’t think so. Illiterate boob captioned the pic. That’s the quality of Hivemind reporting. Even when it has plain old ordinary news, it screws that up with dumbass stuff like “chimp=monkey”.

Ya just can’t make this stuff up, folks. These people are illiterate boobs, and it’s illiterate boobs like these who “inform” a vast majority of the other illiterate boobs who make up the electorate.

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“I do these silly things…

…so you don’t have to.” That may be Jerry Pournelle’s well-known comment from his days writing for Byte, but I’ve kinda adopted it here at twc.

Recent “silly things” @ twc central.

1. Lesson learned: attempting to install a peripheral/software combo intended for a Win98 environment in compatibility mode on a Win7 machine is… not recommended. That Win7 install is now well and truly FUBAR. Unbootable. Unrepairable. Dead. Toast. On the last train to its final reward. Gone. Kaput.

*heh* (“I love it when a plan comes together”)

Oh. Well. I’ll reinstall the OS later, but right now I need to screw things up on this Ubuntu intall. Now, how can I manage that….. Oh! I know!

2. Running alphas (alphas!?!) of Opera 10 on my “mission critical” Ubuntu install. Two of them. One is the Opera 10a build 4166 for Linux, and the other is Opera 10a build 1285 for Windows. Each of the builds is the latest for its OS. So, any “issues”?

Ya think?

On the Windows build, not such a biggie so far on this, my third Opera 10 alpha for Windows, build. Fired up quickly and… “*huh*?!? Can’t read the toolbars or menus! Need a microscope to see the teeny tiny print. OK, Tools>Preferences>Advanced>Fonts and change the font and font sizes. Now it’s readable. So far, that’s the only issue on this build of the Windows alpha (running under WINE). Why this “upgrade” of the previous alpha decided to change the fonts/sizes is beyond me. I’ll have to check the Desktop Team site later and see if others experienced this. Could be a regression that now has a fix.

On the Linux version. *sigh* I can reliably crash the thing by simply CLICKing in the compose field to write a post in WordPress. Every. Single. Time. That’s a non starter.

Oh, well. “I do these silly things… ” etc.

OTOH, doing something as silly as running Ubuntu 9.04 in a VM hosted on Ubuntu 8.10 hasn’t wreaked havoc on my machine. Yet. *heh* Still kinda silly, but no negative impact yet.

On the gripping hand, finally a FIrefox upgrade that didin’t force me to reinstall/reconfigure VMWare Server! Yipee! My need to join The Hairclub for Men is averted (just barely)! At least this time I’m not tearing my hair out by the roots over another Firefox/VMWare tiff. Now, if only installing VMWare’s VM Tools in an Ubuntu client would go as smoothly, but no. The open-vm-tools alternative is almost as good, but just not quite.

Oh, well. It’s a silly thing to do anyway–Ubuntu client hosted on Ubuntu. At least it’s not a Wubi install of Ubuntu on a Win2K or XP client hosted on Ubuntu… *heh* Now that was really silly.

Non-compgeeky silly: got some whole, raw milk at a Mennonite dairy near America’s Third World County (over the state line in America’s Third World State. No, not that one. The other one. ;-)) and had to freeze the stuff to get the cream to separate out. *sigh* Why separate the cream out? Silly. Want to make cottage cheese from the almost-skim that resulted. For my amusement. (And enjoyment–I like cottage cheese). Then, see how much ricotta I can make from the whey. Then make bread using what whey is left from that. (I really just wanted to hear “what whey” in my mind’s ear.) Shouldn’t take too much time away from brewing another batch of beer. I hope.

Meanwhile, enjoying real cream in my coffee. Not going to waste the stuff making butter, although I do have fond childhood memories of “churning” the butter. (Didn’t use a churn. We made such small batches, my task, when I was assigned to the butter-making chore, was simply to shake the cream in a jar until I had some butter. Mom would salt it to her taste and we’d all enjoy.)

On second thought, maybe I will make some butter.

Notice no curmudgeonly griping about politics or society in this post? That’s cos I’m weighing whether to move to Norstrilia when the U.S. sinks under a load of political B.S. Sure, Norstrilia is a fictional place, but at least it makes some sort of sense.

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“Peaceful Islam” “Moderate Muslims” (yeh, MHWA)

So, a so-called “Moderate Muslim” who founded a television station to aid in spreading the “truth” about “the religion of peace”… beheaded his wife.

Yep. Ironic, eh? His intent to practice “holy deception” (al taqiyah), that is, blowing smoke up the skirts of stupid Americans, is shot to doll rags by his own faithful practice of Islamic traditions. So beheading is a tad messier than stoning. It’s still well within the traditions. After all, women–within Islamic tradition, closely following the life and work of Islam’s founder–aren’t really humans, just chattel.

And his wife–as countless others before her–discovered just how effective a “protective order” designed to keep him away from her could be. Yep. Worked just as well as “cease fire” agreements with Palestinian thugs works for Israel, that is to say, not at all. I just wonder how it might have turned out had she gotten a handgun, learned how to use it and had a carry permit, instead of relying on a piece of paper to shield her from a Muslim man intent on faithfully emulating the life and following the teachings of the Butcher of Medina…

(Do I have to “h.t.” Drudge? *heh*)

Trackposted to Nuke’s, The Virtuous Republic, The Pink Flamingo, , and The World According to Carl, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Would you believe…

(said in my best Don Adams/Get Smart voice)… 15 minutes to set up an OS? Less, actually.

New VM: Ubuntu 9.04 alpha. Yeh, not even beta. Alpha. The finished product is due out in April, but I had to get a foretaste, so…

Ubuntu 8.10 host.

VMWare Server 2.

Ubuntu 9.04 client (VM).

After designating the hardware setup for the new client OS, less than 15 minutes to a working desktop. About what it took me for my last physical install of PCBSD.

Nice.

Of course, it might have taken a tad longer had it had to actually sniff out my real hardware configs, but still.

Unfortunately, even though I chose the “alternate” (text) install process, the promised ext4 file system wasn’t an option, and it won’t appear as a default choice until 9.10 (in October 09).

Oh, well. Ext3 is still not bad at all, at all.

…

Later…

Well, so far, I don’t see a lot of difference from 8.10, but I suppose the differences will become apparent… or I’ll look up the changelog later. 😉

Works fine. Had 350+ “updates” waiting when desktop first booted but would not install all of them unless I first performed an “upgrade” using a subset of the waiting updates. No biggie. Just went on with other things in the host system. We’ll just have to see how things go.

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Betaware: MS’s HDView

More betaware from Microsoft, and I guess this is kind of cool, but something I simply cannot foresee as having any use for me. Photography buffs may see it differently.

HDView

HD View is a new viewer developed by Microsoft Research’s Interactive Visual Media group to aid in the display and interaction with very large images.

View some panoramas. There’s even a link to stitch some of your own together (stitching is visible, more or less). Funny thing: the MS website complained about my browser (Opera) and stated categorically that the HDView plugin would NOT work with it, that it was only compatible with some less-advanced browsers like Internet Exploder and Firefox. *heh*

Wrong. Stupid browser sniffer. I just told Opera to mask itself as Firefox in the “site preferences” tab and–bingo! The plugin downloaded, installed and all was well.

Stupid browser sniffer.

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Wal-Mart+Microsoft=Juggernaut of Doom?

Or a really interesting development?

Who knows?

The guy who will start–tomorrow!–as “Corporate Vice President of Retail Stores” for Microsoft spent 25 years in Wal-Mart management, the last big bunch in upper levels. Is this a signal that Me$$y$oft is getting serious about retail sales or will this be a cross between Microsoft Bob and low-end WallyWorld?

Again, who know? But it will be instructive to watch as this unfolds.

“There are tremendous opportunities ahead for Microsoft to create a world-class shopping experience for our customers,” Porter [the former Wal-Mart guy] said. “I am excited about helping consumers make more informed decisions about their PC and software purchases, and we’ll share learnings from our stores with our existing retail and OEM partners that are critical to our success.”

*huh* “[M]ore informed choices”=”brainwash with hogwash”? Maybe, maybe not. Too soon to tell. If a Me$$y$oft store opens up within driving distance of America’s Third World County, I’ll report back in on my experience “shopping” in one (“shopping” because I’ll likely not be buying)

Anywho, Welcome, David Porter, to the wonderful world of Me$$y$oft retail!

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Win7/Ubuntu: Dual Boot Vs. VM

OK, dual booting just sucks swamp water. After just a few months of using VMs instead of dual booting, I had forgotten just how sucky dual booting really is.

Not for me, thank you.

Tried installing Ubuntu 8.10 with Wubi, but no joy. Installed just fine, apparently (or so it reported) but canNOT get it to show in the boot menu. Weird. Tried editing it manually and… no boot.

Well, Wubi installs Ubuntu in a different kind of dual/multi-boot, but it’s still, “Shut down current OS and reboot into different one” so not really all that useful.

Installing VMWare Server is easier in Win7 than in Ubuntu, but configuring VMWare Server and installing guest OSes is not. *sigh* But at least it works and doesn’t require stopping one OS to fire up another.

Now, installing VMWare Tools in the Ubuntu guest? Lots and LOTS of command line foo-foo. Oh. Well. At least it’s relatively easy command line foo-foo, just lotsa typing and retyping (cos my typing “skills”–such as they are… not–leads to lotsa typos and re-typing… and loads of pressing “Enter” to just go ahead and accept default configurations *heh*).

Oops. VMWare Tools doesn’t like the Ubuntu guest’s default location for the C headers, won’t accept it (even though version.h et al are all there). Oh. Well. Installing Open VM Tools instead. Automagic installation w/no command line foo-foo. Better for my typo-laden “Biblical typing method” (“seek and ye shall find” *heh*). VMWare needs to look into the Open VM Tools implementation.

Not bad, now. Ubuntu runs nicely, even screen configs, etc., w/o adding special, e.g. made-for-my-vidcard, drivers. With access to the external drive where my data from the Ubuntu drive is backed up, I’m pretty well set. Unfortunately, since the VM is bridging my hardware, it’s not an entirely fair comparison (no “update Ubuntu, reconfigure sound/video” issues, for example), but general usability should be pretty easy to compare. I’ll say this much just so far: when I switched to Ubuntu it was much easier finding ways to do quite a bit of the customizing I like to do with my machines than it has been with my toe-dipping in Vista machines or now in this Win7 Beta. I guess it’s a philosophy of “Hide things from users so they can’t easily break them,” but that annoys the s(p)it out of me. *heh*

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Playing Ostrich

I’ve been emulating the phony meme, “Ostrich Hiding Head in Sand,” this week, mostly avoiding news (it’s all bad) and just getting on with life. It occurred to me that one of the biggest problems in our society today is that we’ve placed far, far too much power in the hands of folks who are far, far removed from our lives, power to directly affect our lives that the “feddle gimmint” (“feddle” rhymes with “meddle” you notice) ought not have and was never meant–at least by the Founders–to have.

WE, the People, have ceded our rights to liberty–freedom from governmental meddling–to people who do not have our best interests at heart. Let me repeat that: anyone who says, “I’m from the government; I’m here to help,” is lying–to you at the very least, and, if they’re stupid enough to be sincere, to themselves as well. Our political masters do NOT sincerely want to solve the problems they’ve created (with our help–we elected these bastards, didn’t we?), because any problem genuinely solved equals less power for the politicians *spit* and bureaucraps *puke* to exercise over us.

So, I’ve been hiding out this week. But that hasn’t stopped the little wheels from turning (be they ever so slowly turning). What if… what if just 10% of taxpayers said, “Enough! No more!” and simply… opted out. What if… just 100 people in every major city banded together and (after first purchasing body armor *heh*) simply drove V E R Y S L O W L Y on their city’s major arteries during rush hour. Every day for as long as they still had a car, in protest against civil governments doing everything possible to screw us blue. (Yeh, pay the tickets, but keep up the Good Work.) What if… people of good conscience (and at least half a brain–100% more than the average Mass Media Podperson) simply banded together and said, “No!” loudly, consistently, without fail, every time politicians lied to us, stole from us, lined their own pockets at our expense?

What if?

I suspect it’d look something like this.

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*d’oh!* Moments from America’s Third World County

So, for the past several days, the “nag bar” insisting that I upgrade WordPress to 2.7.1 has been a big yellow distraction. “Been busy,” I told myself. Truth? Been lazy. Spoiled by the “Automagic” Upgrade plugin I’ve used for the past year or so, and so, when automatic upgrade failed drmatically on the first two tries, I thought to myself, “Self, just upgrade whenever ya have the time and mental spizzerinktum (plenty of good, fresh COFFEE!) to do it,” knowing full well that what I meant was, “When is someone gonna fix the plugin?!?!” *heh*

This ayem, with plenty of coffee in me, I started the lil trek to backup twc and manually install the upgrade when… “Hey! Why not search on the error message?” *d’oh*

Oh. The plugin I’d used for the past year is incompatible with the built in WP Automatic Upgrade function in 2.7!

Disable plugin. Upgrade automagically. Done. Actually fewer clicks than with the plugin. Got an error message, but blog appears to be working fine, I see no weird anomalies. Go with it.

*sheesh!* Found another thing I Do Not Like about Win7. GREATLY disliked same thing in Vista. It’s a little thing, but one of those little things that make life easier for lil ole me. ALL toolbars seem to be ONLY “sprouted” from the taskbar. Now, from Win98 through WinXP it was easy-peasy to create a SEPARATE custom toolbar on ANY side of ones desktop, just by dragging content there and dropping it. In Ubuntu, it’s easy to move the placement of the two built-in toolbars (not as easy as in Win98-XP, but easy. Easy to specify a new toolbar on any (unused) side of the desktop, too.

Not so with Win7 or Vista. *d’oh* (I’d seen this already with Vista but hoped against hope for a different behavior in Win7) Want a separate toolbar completely unlinked to the taskbar? Go fish. For some add-on app to enable that.

*feh* Me$$y$oft ‘s not even channeling Apple well with this one.

Another negative check mark.

*sigh* And I so wanted to like this OS. Really. OK, so I still mostly like it. But it still has too much Vista in its bones n blood. Oh. *duh*

I don’t have full access to my Ubuntu drive from Win7. Funny. NTFS drives aren’t a problem to access from Ubuntu…

Another negative check mark, I suppose. Oh. Well.

Have I mentioned enough times how much I hate, hate, hate Windows’ DRM crap? No, I have not. Not enough times at all, at all.

Oh. Well. There are ways around it.

*d’oh!* Need some OS relief! VMs to the rescue?

Later today (or this evening), off to VMWare to pick up a copy of VMWare Server so I can install a few more OSes on this drive and see just how well Win7 works with VMWare Server hosting other OSes. Should be interesting. Let’s see… what do I want to install? WinXP-64, Win2K, Win98, Suse Linux, Ubuntu, PCBSD and maybe an on-disk Puppy Linux? Sounds about right. 10-15 GiB disk space (with room to grow if needed) each should make ’em happy enough. See how VMWare Tools work here.

Oh! Another *d’oh” moment: why haven’t I installed some “Will only work in Win98/95” apps in compatibility mode, already? Needed to be fully caffeinated, I guess.

Here comes the last version of Encore I was really happy with… sometime after the VMs are installed. One in the Win98 VM and another in compatibility mode in Win7. Let’s see which one really works, eh? (Now, where did I put my midi controller/keyboard when I was cleaning off my desk… )

[Addendum] Habañero peppers are pretty hot, my lunch is telling me… *d’oh* (But *yum* too.)

About time I got back outa here. Almost time for my Wonder Woman to drop in for her lunch (long weekend for her starts today). Booyin’ now. Buh-bye!