mountain biking

mike and i went mountain biking yesterday in cottonwood. it was a blast. the first 2 miles were kind of hairy, what with the gullys, the climbing, and the sand, but once we were past that the trail turned into some great hard pack single track, with fast banked curves, in other words a blast. by the end i was just about done, and my ass hurt a little, but both mike and i felt great.

then today i went to watch 'tears of the sun' at the sun coast, and because i was early i decided to kill some time by playing craps. that turned out to be a good decision as i won $64. i love it when the casino pays for my movie.

patriot finally works

so the patriot missle finally has a confirmed kill, unfortunately it's taget was a british airplane.

why don't people understand that it is possible to be against the war but still support the troops? it would seem to me that being against the war is the most support you could give the troops, since if there was no war they wouldn't be dying. i guess the flipside is that some people are unable to separate the government from the empolyees of the government and take out their disagreement with the policies of the government on the people who are paid to carry them out. they are unable to see that the fighting soldier has no option except to follow orders, and no alternative but to do so with passion or they increase their risk of death.

i think that the us has gotten a false since of ease to this war. i think there will be significant casualties in the coming days. i hope not, but i still can't see bagdad falling quitely.

and republicans still don't get the concept of conflict of interest.

employment and the art of couch surfing

so i have gotten the tv picture looking beautiful. actually if i use motv with the linear smoothing filter, it looks way better than in windows. i'd show you a screencap, except it only captures the blue color that is getting replaced. i still can't record, but i'll keep trying. i may try out mythtv, which is similar to freevo, and see what happens. mplayer has some annoying sync problems. motv has stutter problems, but it doesn't keeps sync except for during the actual stutter, where mplayer/freevo basically has continuously moving sync, where sometimes it matches up, but most of the time it's out of sync. and freevo won't utilize the de-interlacer filters. anyhow, on to the rest of my life.

so i worked my first day with holmans of nevada on friday. i'm not sure how it's going to turn out, but for right now it will have to do. we'll see how it goes, it could be a decent thing, i'm just having to adjust myself to it. there are a lot of good things that could come out of this job, i'm just gonna need more money very soon(oh in case you couldn't tell, that means i didn't get the additional $6000). i'll need to ask for a raise very soon, as i think that c&c are getting sick of me. after all i've been sponging off of them for over a year, i know i would be sick of someone who had been doing that for me for that long. it's really time for me to get my own apartment.

job update

well i have work, but it's for even less money than i was making at rim. now i have to go in tomorrow morning and ask them for $6000 more in salary and see what they say. unfortunately i will have to take it no matter what they say if i want to stay in vegas. anyhow, it's kind of weird to realize that i have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow to go to my new job. wish me luck.

war! uh maybe, well, we're waiting for comfirmation, eh, yeah war, sort of.

well, like todd i too feel like i should document my feelings, but for some reason i have few. i feel so removed from the us right now that i didn't even realize that the deadline had come and gone until afterwards. i was in a bar having a happy hour drink. maybe it's because i don't have a job and i've been stressing out about whether i'm gonna be here or in minneapolis at the end of next week, but except for thinking that it is a big mistake, i haven't really had any anxiety about the war.

i do agree with what chris rock said about america not having been in a war since the civil war. we really don't have any idea what a real war is. there is no national memory of what it's like to have your homes distroyed, your neighbors killed by a stray(or not stray) bomb, and fear for your life every second, because you never know when a bomb would hit. in london they talk about the increase in stress when the v2 came out because you had no chance to hide, they were supersonic, so if you heard one you were gonna live, but you also had no forewarning that one was gonna hit you. i wonder if our smart bombs are supersonic, or if they make noise at all.

so i watched a little mexican television coverage about the war and kept waiting to hear them say "booooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmbbb! bomb! bomb! bomb! booooommmmmmmmmmb!" but it didn't happen.

check out wil wheaton's site and the link to the cartoon that features him in a guest role.

broken quake damn kernel

so i had just fixed quake/nvidia drivers when the redhat network informed me that i needed to upgrade my kernel(and i really did need to, as it was a pretty big hole that would have let anyone sitting at my machine(i have my eye on you roommates) get complete control). well i did, and in the process broke my nvidia kernel specific drivers. i also broke my ntfs drivers and had to download the new version. so i don't have quake working at all, let alone locking up at the start of level 1. what this means is that for now i will have to boot into win2000 to play quake/urbanterror. oh well.

on to politics.

i just want to get one thing clear, this war is stupid. it will result in a large loss of iraqi lives, and probably not a small loss of us lives. anyone who thinks this will be a clean neat war is crazy. and after the war is over we will be in iraq for at least a decade doing nation building, or at least we had better be if we don't want iraq to become the biggest breeding ground for terrorism ever. we will be encouraging terrorism by starting this war, especially since we has so little backing by the rest of the world, which will give a sense of justification to the terrorists. it's much easier to convince someone to die fighting a country that most of the world is opposing than it is when the country has international support. bush likes to think he's a cowboy, so democrates show some backbone and run him out of town.

stop being carbon

freevo-linux update 3

i have dvd::rip up and running. it tooks some time as i didn't have all the deps for it, and had to spend some time finding them, and then discovering that i had versions that were too new for dvd::rip and having to downgrade to the earlier versions, and forgetting to install the divx5.02 codex and wondering why it wouldn't encode. anyhow, it's running and it looks very nice.

i upgraded to ximian evolution 1.2 trying to fix a problem with it not keeping my email account info, only to find out that it is a permissions thing, and being too lazy to fix it, i just authorized as root and set it up, saved it, and unauthorized. at least it works.

i think i may have fixed quake3 this afternoon, i haven't played it enough to really tell as i'm in the middle of a 5 hour encodiing process(i forgot to change it to 1 pass encoding) and don't want to crash x before it's done. i was able to play level 1 which i wasn't able to before, so things are looking up.

things i can think of right now that are left to install/setup(note this list doesn't include things that are already installed that aren't working the way i want them to yet):

everybuddy - multi im client
scribus - pagemaker type thingy
mixmagic - multi track recorder
shockwave for linux - oh wait there isn't one. get off your asses macromedia!

freevo update 2

ok, here is the status of things i would like freevo to do:

tv viewing: works, colors are washed out but watchable slight video stutter(looks like a mplayer problem)
tv recording: crashes with integer too long error
live tv pause: not implemented yet
dvd viewing: works, no dvd menus (mplayer problem)
dvd ripping: not implemented, going to set up dvd : rip for this
audio playing: plays both mp3 and ogg
cd ripping: not implemented. gnome has a tool that works though.
cd playing: not working, but it's a problem with my linux not freevo.
tv guide: works. need to set it up to download multiple days.
video files: works, i would like an autorepeat, or playlist for them.

so there you have it, mostly it is working, and the picture resolution is actually better in linux than in windows. i think it has to do with the ati drivers for windows being screwed(i read this somewhere, but it was more rumor than fact). i think i really need to upgrade to a ati all-in-wonder 9500, but i don't have the money right now. it would be really cool since it comes with a remote control, which i need.

all in all my switch to linux has been fun. i'm still working on getting software installed, but i haven't been back into windows for 15 hours. the problems i still have are quake3 crashes, and i have no replacement for adobe products(yes there is gimp, and movie gimp(what did they rename it to?) and scribus) or sonic foundry products(ok, there are people working on this making programs like audacity, but they aren't quite there yet).

screenshot/update

so i'm still having some configuration pains with this freevo thing. i finally got the new nvidia drivers installed so that quake would work(and it does kind of, it locks up pretty quick), and they broke mplayer so that it doesn't work in fullscreen mode, and stretches the image the wrong way, so instead of 16x9 it's 9x16. anyhow, i have a screenshot of my desktop so you can see the fonts. it's not like every person who has rh8 hasn't posted them, but i wanted to as well.

update: the mplayer problem was because in my attempts to get quake running i had switched to 16bit color, and mplayer needs 24bit color to work in xwin mode.

linux, freevo, and the home computer

well, i have started my switch over to linux at home. i have installed redhat 8.0, downloaded freevo, and am currently watching fight club while i type this.

this whole thing is still in it's infancy, but it's looking good. i'm running x at 1600x1200, something i've never been able to do in windows, so we'll see how long it lasts. rh8.0 looks amazing though. kind of mac like, while still being linux. the fonts are spectacular. much better than you typically see in windows, approaching what you see on a mac.

it took me all day to get this set up, mostely because i didn't have the hard drives set up to the right mode, and so linux was crashing during the boot sequence right after 'kernel parameters [ok]'. i reinstalled 3 times, tried rh7.3, and had just about given up when i noticed that i couldn't even get into the bios with one of the drives unhooked. so i reset all the hard drives to auto and it worked. yeah!

i have ximian evolution set up, mozilla 1.3 (which allows you to set exceptions to the popup killer. handy if you have a web site that requires it, which i do.), and freevo as i mentioned earlier. i haven't gotten freevo working with my ati tv wonder yet, but i haven't really tried yet. i'm saving that for tomorrow. for now i think i will sit back and watch fight club and gloat.

the truth

republican presidents impair judgement, it's more dangerous than we thought.

the government makes about as much money from tobacco as the tobacco companies.

israeli shootings and soccer hooligans

now the israeli's are in such a hurry to kill palestinians that they are mistakenly killing themselves.

i went to a "friendly" soccer match yesterday between the colorado rapids and santos, and the friendly part of it got thrown out very early on. there were 5 yellow cards in the first half, and could have been another 5, plus 3 santos players could have been ejected for pushing the referee after the first rapids goal. things only got uglier in the second half, with a fan getting ejected for throwing a full beer bottle onto the field from close to the club level seating(which thanks to craig i was sitting in). it actually was quite a throw, but what an ass. play stopped for 5 minutes while they tracked him down and ejected him. he tried to say that it came from behind him, but the only people behind him were the club class people, and they were all 7 or 8 rows behind with an overhand above them that would have prevented them from getting the arc required to reach the field. even the latino dominated crowd was chanting for him to get kicked out. as a result of the bad blood and the beer bottle, the ref called the game at 90:13, even though there had certainly been 8 or 9 minutes of stopage time.

anyhow, it was pointed out to me that i have a very strong sense of obeying the rules when it comes to sports(and probably lots of other things), which seems strange to me considering that i believe that i'm a libertarian. i think it comes from playing games at family reunions, where to solve the problem of everyone having their own house rules for games like monopoly, we went by the strict rules printed in the box of the games. so you didn't get money for landing on free parking, you had to pay 10% when you unmortgaged properties, and you had to decide if you were going to pay 15% or $200 before you calculated how much 15% was going to be when you landed on income tax. i think my thoughts when it comes to rules in games are that you choose to obey the rules when you choose to play and when you violate the rules you have destroyed the game. where in society, while it's true that you have choosen to live within society(although what alternative do you really have?) you didn't get to choose the rules, they were developed and set up long before you were born, and there is plenty of debate about whether the rules really are neccessary for society to continue to function. just as in monopoly you can have a game where you have different rules, i think that society could be played by different rules, and as a person i strive to change the rules of our society to fit what i believe. the biggest difference is that players who cheat don't want the rules changed, they just want the rules changed for them, not for everybody.

survey about blogging

stupid people should die

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freedom toast my ass. crunch bird, the congress!

are we really this simple?

reading material

i have been reading a lot of techie type books recently, and as a result finding out lots of interesting things about my beloved appliance, such as that the first word processor i ever used(easy writer) was written by john 'captain crunch' draper. and that steve wozniak insisted that apple be an open system, because of his hacker background, and participation in the people's computer club. it's kind of strange that apple has gone from of being one of the most open computer companies to being one of the most closed computer companies to kind of starting to open up again. i've also found out that the two people responsible for ENIAC and UNIVAC(eckert and mauchly) have been basically denied their due credit for developing digital computers. the college where they developed and built ENIAC has a placard telling people that the computer was invented there, but doesn't mention either of the inventors. they have had their patent for ENIAC taken away from them, and another person is credited with inventing the electronic digital computer, even though his "adding machine" was an electric mechanical unit that required physical motion to work.

anyhow, i have been enjoying my reading lately(which was sparked by watching revolution os) and wanted to list the books i've been reading for ya'll to see if anyone gets sparked by me:

just for fun by linux torvalds (thanks todd)
hackers by steve levy
eniac by scott mccartney
the cathedral and the bazaar by eric raymond

you tell em jimmy

jimmy carter talks about iraq and the current administration's head-up-ass policy towards iraq in the nyt.

shrub continues to believe that if he says saddam and 911 in the sam breath that he will convince americans that saddam was responsible for 911. he wasn't, if shrub wants to go after the people and countries that were responsible let's do that. let's invade pakistan, and saudi arabia. instead he has chosen to try to finish an aborted war of his daddy's. is that any way for a supposedly developed nation to make international policy?

one more time for those people who have their heads up their asses, saddam was not involved with 911.

fuck dick cheney, fuck his ugly wife

first you can't wear a peace t-shirt, now you can't run a parody web site. when will somebody shoot this administration? i think the mall should have asked what the father did before arresting him, because he's a lawyer, and they will probably end up being sued for millions.

why is it that people take on the ideas of the nazi party whenever it looks like we are going to invade a country without good cause? at least the dems were able to block the appointment of mister "i don't have to tell you how i feel about the issues" . evidently were just supposed to trust that this administration will do what's right (like threatening websites who make fun of them, or tearing down the wall between church and state). well, we don't, and never will. the arrogance of the bush white house is out of control. the lilyliveredness of the dems is appalling, and the apparent acceptence of the whole situation by america is frightening.

this administration truly believes that we should repeal the freedom of information act, and allow them to do everything without any checks and balances. they want to be able to silence people who disagree with them, and apparently think that no one will say anything if they do. well they are wrong.

parents -n- stuff

so i have gotten confirmation that my parents read this site. i guess it's time to go back through all the postings and remove the stuff i don't want them to read. it seems strange that at my age(32) i still have these feelings of wanting to hide the things i do from my parents. i know enough to not change what i do because of what they might think of me, but it still makes me uneasy knowing that everything i write here could be read by my parents. anyhow, fuck(oops, backspacebackspacebackspacebackspace eff-oh-are-gee-ee-tea) it, i can't change what i do.

if you haven't gone there yet, go to homestarrunner a look around. in paticular go to everybody to the limit and have a good laugh.

i'm busy working(as you can tell) on the presentatin for this court case i've been doing contract work for. i don't know if it's going to be well received, or if the lawyers are going to hate it. i should find out tonight, as we are supposed to rehearse it. wish me luck. just a comment about powerpoint, i had forgotten how much it sucks. does anyone know of a better presentation program? preferably one that handles in-slide video better. i can't get open office to work any better than powerpoint. oh well, i'll just use a hyperlink to open the video in wmplayer.

ultimate captain

i'm considering being a captain for league this spring. i don't really have any experience doing it, but i have a good team name, stfu. it sort of depends on if i'm in vegas or not during league. as most of you know i've been looking for a job for 2 months, and if i don't get one soon i may end up back at my parents in mn. hopefully not though.

i have no idea what type of offense i would try to run, but i think i might concentrate on second cuts. i guess i'll need to hit ultylife for ideas on offense. if i end up doing it, i'm going to concentrate on having fun when we play, which i know it sounds trite, but it's important. i want league night to be a party with exercise, which means lots of beer consumption(it's important to counteract any benefit the exercise brings).

so if anyone who reads this is in vegas, and would like to play ultimate let me know and i'd love to have you on stfu.