BunkBlog

In a sign that Microsoft is not as invulnerable in every market they enter as the anti-MS fanatics would like to claim, Nvidia has lost a lot of money on Xbox chips. The Register has a story about the seven million dollars the graphics chip manufacturer has lost on the chipsets sold to Microsoft. Since Nvidia’s chips are the largest piece of the Xbox, they must be thrilled at the contract they signed with MS on this one. 🙂
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current_mood: amused

I’ve put up a new tutorial for budding userpic designers – transparent layers.
This is the method used to make the following userpic:

I used Photoshop, but if you’re using Paint Shop Pro, you should be able to adapt the concepts to the different menus.

Let me know if there are other tutorials that may be helpful.
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current_mood: accomplished

I’ve recently been getting a lot of viruses sent to me. Since I’m not an idiot, I don’t open every attachment sent to me (which is a good reason to avoid Outlook Express since it does that all by itself), and I run my antivirus updater regularly so I’m relatively safe.

What is wrong with the rest of you morons? I know there are some LJ users that are infected with Klez, because you idiots have been sending it to me. What’s truly insidious about some of the newer virii is that you can’t tell who sent you the damned thing because they spoof the headers. All I know is what machine it came from (usually AOL – go figure).

For those of you that are unsure of your antivirus protection, go get Norton, pay the 30 bucks and run it religiously. You know what Klez will eventually do to your computer? Erase every single file. You know when Norton began protecting against it? November of 2001. Yet it’s the most common virus on the net right now. How can you be online in 2002 and not have an updated antivirus program running? How dim can you be?
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current_mood: annoyed

In 1994, the advertising agency Chiat/Day launched a program called the Virtual Office, where the employees didn’t get a desk and chair of their own, but had to find an open seat when they came to work and log on. The theory that Jay Chiat had was that this would encourage his ad execs to be on the move, and the office paradigm was outdated and useless. With cellular phones and portable computers, who really needed an office anyhow?

He was wrong. In 1998, the virtual office experiment was abandoned and Chiat/Day moved back into a normal office. Nobody liked the hunt for a desk, it became a big joke among the other ad agencies, and they finally gave up on making people do things that were unnatural.

Now, Scott McNealy of Sun has a similar idea, named iWork. Using smart terminals with server-based programs and data storage, McNealy expects to double the number of people per office. Wonder if he ever reads Wired or AdAge?
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current_mood: amused

According to this article, the recently uncovered SSL vulnerability in Internet Explorer is actually a bug in every Windows Operating system.

Microsoft officials said it makes sense for the operating system to provide cryptographic services to any application that needs it, instead of each application having to include its own cryptographic technology.

But Culp said that the SSL flaw doesn’t affect any other application outside Internet Explorer and that it’s a client-side issue only.

Sooooo, if the only program that uses the crypto functions is IE, why are the functions not part of the browser again? Please explain this to my poor confused brain…
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current_mood: amused

This is the kind of story that you hope couldn’t happen in North America…
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current_mood: scared

According to the Washington Post story about a study in Nature, scientists have narrowed down the gene that allows humans to speak instead of grunting like chimps.

Now, they’re going to put that gene into mice. Stuart Little?

I think they’ll have better luck putting the gene into something a bit brighter than a rodent, like a chimp or orangutan. What will they think of next?
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current_mood: impressed

Hey, check it out. Space Imaging has a picture of the week page, where they showcase a crisp piece of satellite imagery. This week’s photo is Toronto. Can you see your house? 🙂
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current_mood: happy

I’m going to be in Fairfax next week, for four days. The big problem with my business trips is the lack of daytime free time. Last week, I intended to go up to the city and hit the Smithsonian or one of the monuments. Didn’t happen. Closest I got to playing tourist was going to the Springfield Mall.

Any DC-area folks have ideas of what I can do in the evenings next week? It seems such a waste to spend four days in DC and not actually go to DC except to catch a plane.
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current_mood: curious

Played some more Sims this weekend, after avoiding it as if it were heroin. Maybe crack. Anyway, after much wasted time, I realized the logic behind the game is bizarre. The burglar has this magic bag, which he uses to hold his ill-gotten gains. This guy can throw a lamp, big-screen TV, and a damned chair in that thing and still toss it over his shoulder like Santa Claus. WTF?

And why don’t these morons get to have weekends off? What kind of life involves 7-day work weeks?
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current_mood: amused

Well, the orange shoes were just fun to play with, and the blue was added for an ugly contrast. This pair, though, I set out from the beginning to make UGLY. If you like this design, you have serious problems.

A geek with time on his hands is a dangerous thing. What do you think of my latest shoe design?

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current_mood: bored

People who use my server’s bandwidth without asking are just rude. Someone had linked to the (now departed) Lianna’s Nekkid XXXmas images, so I kept moving them around to foil their off-site linking. Now, someone has decided to use one of the LJ userpics I made as an avatar on some board named “Suddenlaunch” – that one JPEG image is now the most requested file on my site, and is adding noticeably to my bandwidth usage.

Whoever is using that image – it’s been renamed. If I find it being linked again, I’ll delete it. Stop doing things without asking. That’s rather presumptuous.
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current_mood: annoyed

After making userpics from the trailer, I had to go see the movie, right? Not really – I have no desire to watch “A Walk to Remember” for example. However, this movie was exactly as I expected: silly but fun. It was cotton candy and rollercoasters, not Bach and Ravel. But, still fun.
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current_mood: tired

The stupid evaporative cooler has two clogged pipes on the “spider” assembly, from scale buildup. When did the scale build up? When I was in DC of course. Argh! I hate this state some times…
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Back from DC, ready for the 10 days before I go back to the Coast again…

1. Do you have a car? What kind? Yes, 1995 Ford Contour. The crappy one.
2. Do you drive often? Well, I have to get to work somehow.
3. What’s your dream car? 1967 Corvette Stingray. Black, with chrome trim.
4. Have you ever gotten a ticket? Yes, but not since 1994.
5. Have you ever been in an accident? Yep. Some moron rear-ended me at a red light. I had an old piece of crap Mazda, and it dented the previously-dented bumper. The moron ended up with a puddle of antifreeze under the mangled front-end of his car. Gotta love morons.

I’m tired. Can I go lay down now?
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current_mood: sleepy

How is it possible for my hotel to have 45 channels, and not have the Comedy Channel? But, some Spanish-language channel has buxom women in tiny outfits (one is a mesh dress) on some silly game show. A guy is currently biting marshmallows off a woman’s dress. That’s my kind of game…might not stop with the marshmallows though. 😉

Home again tomorrow, thank goodness.
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current_mood: mischievous

I’m a patriot, a veteran, a sensitive person.

But, “America Remembers – Part One” is on CNN next week, and I’m just not going to watch it. We’ve watched memorials every week the past year, and we’ve lit a billion candles in remembrance. Of course America remembers – the media won’t shut the fuck up.

Seriously, let’s remember the events, but let’s also be interested in other news events, ok? Gaza Strip anyone?
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current_mood: annoyed

Flying sucks more with each passing year…

Not only does Reagan National have extra-special security measures that prohibit you from going to the lavatory the final 30 minutes of the flight, but they had an hour-long delay on my flight today. Where did we wait? On the tarmac, loaded into the plane like sardines…

Damn, I hate flying.
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current_mood: tired

Although seemingly on the brink of financial ruin, I still find cool stuff on Salon every week. The Dylan Thomas CD collection is up to the sixth disk now, so I’ll have plenty to listen to while I’m in DC next week. Woohoo!
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