BunkBlog

Windows XP wants to know what to do with every CD you put into the drive. Even if you select, “do nothing” and “always take the selected action” it still asks you if you’ve changed your mind. For crying out loud, you handholding annoyance of an OS, stop asking me stupid fucking questions!

Here’s another one: Windows ME and Office 2000 introduced the magical self-editing menus. I grew accustomed to these items. XP got rid of the personalized start menu. Oh, it says that it personalizes the menu, but it does it differently. I don’t want to be limited to the dozen or so applications that will fit in the first column. I want to be able to go to the programs menu and see the programs I use commonly. Why is that so hard? Why must Windows become less friendly to powerusers with every iteration?

We’re only a couple generations away from getting Windows BOB – the sequel.

I noticed I have an 85 cent credit on my Cafepress account for a referral sale. I can’t see who lists me as a referrer, but whoever you are, “Congratulations!” It’s a bit of a pipe dream for someone with a full-time job (and school and family) to think they’ll make any money on CP, so it’s especially gratifying that I got a sale myself in this time. Someone bought a clock. I think I’ll use my next batch of CafePress Bucks to buy myself a DPRK calendar. That’ll look nice in my cubicle…

Come on! One week after installing two critical updates which are required to keep crackers and malicious bastard code from invading my computer, I get an alert that four more critical updates are waiting. How many damned patches on top of patches does XP have by now, anyhow?

The latest copy-impairment technology, MediaMax CD3, is easily defeated by the expedient of holding the SHIFT key while inserting the disk in your computer. It is even easier if you use Linux. Just put the disk in the drive. That’s it.

The music industry claims they are unconcerned because they are only expecting to stop the casual copiers and have no hope of stopping the true technological wizards that can bypass their security at will. Yes, you too can be a computer geek. Just hold SHIFT and rip away.

Just came across this tutorial on integrating Gallery into Movable Type. The author has done a pretty neat job of making the look and feel of his MT main page flow into his gallery. Of course, since I have a bunch of different backgrounds for my Gallery, I’ll probably not do this. But, if anyone else wants to give it a whirl…

Oktoberfest pictures are up. Strangely enough, there is not a single picture from the Oktoberfest itself. You’d think we’d have found something to shoot, but apparently we didn’t.

If you are currently linking to any of the Thoughts on my site, you should look for the new URL. I’ve finished rearranging them all in a lot less time than I expected. Hooray for cut and paste!

If you read this blog via LJ syndication, you may notice a lot of excess posts in the coming days. These are due to my site rebuild. I’m moving the Random Meandering Thoughts archive into the main body of the weblog. There are two benefits to this. First, I no longer have to manually maintain the archive, as it will be merged into the SQL database with the rest of the entries. Second, visitors to the site will be able to find things in the Thoughts archive via the convenient little search tool on the main page (also due to it being in the SQL database).

Of course, there are many links to the Thoughts pages I have posted, so I’ll have to keep them up for a while and then start putting in server redirects to the most popular entries. Fun with geek stuff.

I don’t understand things like DragonCon – how do geeks that like comic books, RPGs and dressing up like Orcs get non-hideous women to get nekkid for them? I don’t understand. There is powerful magic there.

They look like they’re moving, but they’re not. Amuse your friends! Frighten your cat!

Entelein a bizarre post about encountering a convertible auto with a webcam above the mirror. Ya gotta wonder what this guy needs a webcam in his car for.

Star Wars tattoos are really cool. Some of the backpieces on this page look like they took many years to finish and lots of pain…

The Gender Genie claims to be able to identify the gender of an author with 80% accuracy. Based on 4 samples of my writing (both formal and informal pieces), I’d have to say it can identify my gender with 0% accuracy. I also pasted in a couple pieces from Buff’s Livejournal, and it got them wrong too. If it can’t even tell the bombastic prose of the self-proclaimed Thunder God is male, I doubt its accuracy in any situation.

OK, I figure I should restore my original Windows XP fonts, from the CDROM. Um, how do I do that? I could figure it out in Win98SE and ME, but XP seems to be set up to frustrate anyone who wants a straightforward answer to a simple question.

I’ve finally pinned down the problem with ugly fonts that I first noticed on BlooJanuary’s journal last year. I seem to have ugly Lucida fonts on my system. Check out the screenshot and tell me if anyone else has Lucida fonts that are ugly below 12 points or if there is something wrong with my fonts.
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Hypothetically, say you build a web page as a quick one-off. When you look at it and test it every which way, it works just fine. When others look at it, many of them tell you it doesn’t work completely and even tell you specifically what is broken and why.

Do you:
a. Believe that 5 different people getting the same result are a statistically valid sample and change your page to be bulletproof, or
b. Assume that since you can see it, everyone else is a fucking moron and begin to insult them for trying to help you fix your page.

Just thinking. Hypothetically.

The Price of ‘Man’ and ‘Woman’: A Hedonic Pricing Model of Avatar Attributes in a Synthethic World

This is a working paper for the CSU Fullerton Economics Department, detailing how pricing for avatars traded to use in EverQuest varies by gender. Too much time on his hands, maybe?

A Reuters story, Marriott Giving Free Web, Though Not at Top Hotels, says Marriott is planning to give away WiFi access in their mid-range hotels, but still charge extra for it in the expensive hotels. This reminds me of the strangeness in telecom I noticed while traveling on business the past few years.
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Lysa mentioned smilies, so here are smilies.

:angry

:biggrin and stuff

I modified my Movable Type setup to add category icons to my posts. I’m all Slashdot-looking and stuff now.