Feeblemind

Apropos of nothing (yet again), but brought to mind due to my pending purchase of a new laptop, it turns out that I have yet to have a consistent naming convention for my computers. The closest I have come is with this webserver, and even that was broken at the last round of hardware upgrades (although, I guess, not officially, since I was too lazy to change the name in DNS…)

Regardless, and with nothing better to post, I give you my computers:

1. Frankenserver

   The first computer I owned was a mashup of discarded parts from other systems, and therefore named Frankenputer. This machine eventually morphed into my home fileserver, and although it has had a few upgrades since then, it is still mostly made up of cast-offs from other systems.

2. Gabriel

   The official name of the webserver; I have not updated it in DNS because it isn’t worth the chances of me screwing up access to the system. This machine was originally to be named after KMFDM songs. The first, when it was part of a business plan to provide secure webhosting, was “Trust”. After a hardware upgrade (and the failure of said business plan), it became “Godlilke”, and another hardware upgrade made it “Ultra”. “Gabriel”, now on it’s fourth hardware incarnation, is named for the Penny Arcade artist/character. It is intended to match “Tycho”, which is the name of the phantom machine that might eventually also be attached directly to the ‘nets. The new convention, therefore, is any machine connected directly to the internet will be named for a Penny Arcade character.

3. Annihilatrix

   My desktop. Named for the doomsday machine in the Adult Swim cartoon “Frisky Dingo”. It was either aptly named, or I should be more superstitious; like it’s namesake, it seems to have some sort of recurring power issue.

4. Epitaph

   My tablet computer. When I mentioned that I had not thought of a good name for it, a friend suggested I use my FPS handle, which works well since it’s, well, a tablet.

5. Idoru

   My notebook, named for the Gibson novel, which at the time of purchase was fairly powerful and a sort of “idol”.

6. Electronaut

   Acer Aspire One netbook, named for the song by VNV Nation, both because it is an awesome song, and as a play on the machine’s portability.

7. Interocitor

   A desktop using a TV as it’s monitor. Named for the machine in the movie “This Island Earth”, which was the basis of the MST3K movie. Hard to explain if you haven’t seen it…

8. Cobalt

   Palm Pilot. Named for it’s shiny blue finish.

9. ?

   I have yet to decide on the name of my new laptop. I could name it for another VNV Nation song (”Legion”, “Chrome”, “Nemesis”) but, as much as I really like those songs, it would break the meta-convention of not having a consistent naming convention (at least between machines). At the moment, the short list includes “Monolith” and… well, nothing, yet. I do like “Nemesis” though.

Because I don’t manage to post much else here… and I just built a new playlist.

1. VNV Nation – Perpetual
2. MC Hawking – All My Shootings Be Drivebys
3. T.A.T.U. – How Soon is Now?
4. Urge Overkill – Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon
5. Ian Van Dahl – Castles In The Sky
6. Dire Straights – Money For Nothing
7. MC Frontalot – Special Delivery
8. Mai Yamane with the Seatbelts (?) – The Real Folk Blues
9. VNV Nation – Chrome
10. Gwen Stefani – Danger Zone

Unobtainium? Really?

1. Praga Khan – The Power of the Flower
2. Goldfrapp – Strict Machine
3. DJ Earworm – The Night of Kittin’s Messy Dream (mashup)
4. Praga Khan – Keep the Dream Alive
5. Perpetuous Dreamer – The Sound Of Goodbye
6. KMFDM – Anarchy (Fusako Remix)
7. Evanescence – Call Me When You’re Sober
8. Lacuna Coil – Swamped
9. VNV Nation – Firstlight
10. Evanescence – Sweet Sacrifice

Overheard on a crazy right-wing radio call-in program, discussing the Health Care Reform bill:

We need to stop this socialist bill. We all know, that during World War II, socialism became communism under the Nazis…

We’re all doomed.

Why is it that two Republican governors being elected – one in a heavily Republican state – means that all Americans everywhere have rejected the Obama administration, but the election of two Democrats to the House of Representatives – you know, people who actually have an effect on our laws – apparently isn’t worth mentioning?

Seriously. State governors – who I’m sure are important to the states themselves – mean pretty much dick in national politics. Unless they are Sarah Palin, who means precisely dick to national politics but for some reason gets to pretend otherwise.

Even Democrats aren’t immune to this stupidity…

I probably could have stayed home today and logged in remotely. But I had a meeting scheduled this afternoon for a new program I am helping with. So I came in. And found an email from the program manager saying he was staying home. At that the meeting was rescheduled for tomorrow. At 9 in the morning. Meaning I get to come in tomorrow during the worst of the snow and traffic.

Not the end of the world. Still kinda pisses me off.

regarding D&D Tiny Adventures:

1. Most of the way through my second adventure. Found a great magic belt. Still no bow. Still using a “rusty dagger”.
2. What the fuck is an Armor Class Check?
3. What is the point of a Leaderboard in a game that is entirely random?
4. A wand is not a weapon outside of a MMORPG. Even there, it’s a bit silly.

It’s not impressing me all that much so far.

It’s a Facebook application. And as such, it really wants me to spam the fact that I am playing it to everyone on my friends list. Which I don’t really feel like doing. I guess it’s nice that it asks, at least.

Honestly, at first I considered not even playing the game, since I have a (well-known) hatred of Fourth Edition D&D. But then I realized – playing it as a computer game is what Fourth Edition was made for. I mean, it’s just a glorified pen-and-paper MMORPG. So a facebook app should be perfect, right? Well, it’s pretty much just reading and waiting. In fact, I am so bored with the game that I wound up writing a blog post about it. I had no idea that it was going to force me to wait 5-12 minutes between each phase of the “Adventure”, which so far has been descriptions printing out on the screen. Push a button, read two sentences, see a die roll, lose some HP. Rinse, repeat. Not much in the way of action, there. I can’t even conceive of the thought process behind the forced waiting between descriptions, at least not of the magnitude we are talking about. It’s like time sinks in the (old) online games – keep the players busy to keep them from running out of content.

I guess I was presented with one decision: what two (two!) potions to bring with me. Not that they make the choice very clear; I started with two potions, and was allowed to pick two potions, and the screen showed two potions. But I didn’t apparently pick any, cause I thought they were already selected. So I had no potions for the entire adventure. Suck.

Also, I’m a damn ranger. An elf ranger. With 400 gold. Would it kill them to let me buy a bow? Or even a sword? Starting with a “rusty dagger” and 400 gold is just… dumb.

So what did I learn? This game isn’t much of a game, and yeah, it is something I can play at work. Also, still waiting.

…at Micro Center.

I bought two LCD picture frames a couple of weeks ago because they were about 60% off for one day. When I got them home, I powered one up. Everything looked good except for the little triangle of bright red dots in one corner.

What the hell… I thought. Well, that’s a weird problem. Let’s try the other one.

Slightly different triangle of bright red dots, in the same general location.

Well, something must be weird in the software, I thought. Drawing a triangle out of pixels. I look online for an answer, maybe a BIOS update or something. I see a reference (from a different frame, same manufacturer) that states when a picture is selected to copy to a different folder, you will see a red triangle.

Hmm. Maybe that just got stuck. Fool around with the cut and paste buttons. Nothing.

Well, they have online tech support. The guy there seemed very nice, and said that his supervisor had heard of the problem but wasn’t aware of a solution. He suggested I return the frames. Now, of course, I wonder if he was just jerking me around.

All of this long-winded explanation is just an attempt to make the last part less embarrassing.

Yes, when I got to Micro Center and the nice lady at the returns desk, she opened the frame to take a look. Without even plugging it in, she says “You mean this red triangle?”. Sure enough, in the right light, you can see that the red triangle appears to be printed on to the screen. She then proceeds to peel off the protective plastic sheet that I hadn’t even noticed was attached. The protective sheet which has a triangle printed on it, presumably in order to alert the base and slow-witted user (that is, me) that there is, in fact, a protective sheet on the screen.

I feel dumb now. Little bastards sure looked like pixels, though.

Side note: Has anyone ever pondered the etymology of the word “embarrassed”? Did it come about from the idea that making someone uncomfortable was the equivalent of presenting their naked ass to the world? Inquiring minds want to know.