moving parts of the kasper clan

Just found this page. I don’t know how I got there… I think I followed a link from Kevin Fox’s site. Anyway, this is quite funny….

And not just any old digital toilet. Japan’s Toto, the world’s largest toilet maker, has taken a bidet and added an impressive array of high-tech wizardry to create the Jasmin Washlet, a remote-control, computerized toilet seat with more functions than your VCR. It is all intended to — how shall we say this? — cut down on paperwork.

Forget the reading material. Jasmin will keep you busy setting digital controls that allow you to adjust the temperature of the water, water pressure, and the gender-appropriate direction of the water.

…

But it’s the buttons indicating the gender of Jasmin’s user — crucial information for determining the direction of the water stream — that has been a real problem.

A small ponytail is added to one icon so users can let Jasmin know. Of course — particularly in the tech world, and in the Bay Area — the ponytail is no longer gender specific. And hitting the wrong button has its consequences.

“That can be quite a surprise,” Page noted.

lol. =:)

2 things I take from this…

1) It’s quite funny in its own regard, the thought of someone getting a shot of water in an unexpected place while sitting on a toilet because of a less-than-completely-intuitive user interface.

2) The more I read about Google (well, more specifically, the more I read the blogs of those employed at Google), the more I feel like I’m really missing out on something unique, fulfilling, and… well… other wistful adjectives.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

So, I’m using Opera again for a bit. =:) Actually, I’m using the just-released Opera 7.60 TP2 for Linux, and it is REEEHEEEEHEEEEALLY nice!! I have always been very impressed with the Opera team, but this release is the best one evar. It looks like they’ve finally improved (dare I say “fixed”?) the printing issues in Linux!!! And this release works with gmail now too!!

All I can say is… Opera guys, you are doing a FANTASTIC job! Please keep the great work up!!

Took Jason Jr. to the mall last night so he could spend his $20 gift certificate at the toy store (thanks Jenny and Elijah!!!!). On the way out of the mall, we saw the ubiquitous picture-taking booth, so we got our pictures done. =:) I think they look pretty good….. =:) Here’s the prints.

In other news, Jason Jr. and I are now entering serious training in preparation for the coming release of X-box Live-enabled Street Fighter in February.

Josh, you’d better get ready….

Woot, baybee!! It was a good weekend, this. And, to top it off, I played halo for an hour and 20 minutes tonight, and I feel absolutely fine!! I played upstairs, in the dining room this time, and I think that’s what made the difference. It’s in the middle of an open room, with a couple of flickering candles around the room, and lots to keep my brain from getting confused, I think.

But the coolest part is that I actually captured the flag a couple of times tonight!! =:) Came in second place even! =:) WOOT! I’m quite the newbie at this tho, so my “strategy” was limited to the smash-and-grab variety. It was quite the adrenaline rush, tho! =:)

I’m just stoked I’m not sick!! =:)

*we now return you to your regularly-scheduled program*

In other non-related-really news, I got an e-mail from the infamous jwz last night. He has patiently outlined all of the issues related to replacing the not-exactly-unugly xscreensaver unlock dialog. It was kind of funny–the e-mail that he sent had 18 recipients, of which I was one. The docu-page that jwz posted read VERY much like all of the questions and answers that I still have in my IMAP mailbox from when I was working on doing this bit of side-coding. =:) It was pretty funny reading it–just about all of the questions I asked jwz and all of the answers he so patiently gave me are on his explanatory page.

jwz, for those of you who have been living in a sub-oceanic cave for the last 20 years, is a legend in the Open Source community, having been a major reason that Netscape was successful, and as a result, one of the major reasons that we have such an incredible browser in the mozilla family today. I think he has a reputation for being a difficult guy to get along with–at least that was the perception I had after having read up on his previous posts on the ‘net regarding this topic. At any rate, he’s opinionated, very knowledgeable, not afraid to speak his mind, and stands up for what he believes in. All of the things you’d want in a good coder, then. =:) Anyway, he was VERY patient and thorough with me in the mini-barrage of e-mails that I sent at him on this subject.

But to get back to my point in all of this… well, other than the fact that jwz has posted a very useful and timely document on a sore subject that he’s constantly harassed about….

It made my day to get jwz’s e-mail, as it grouped me with 17 other people (most of which I immediately recognized as being huge in the open-source community), like Nat, Miguel, and JSpaleta.

Why did that make my day? Well for one, I think it’s another clue to the puzzle that is my future–many things are pointing out to me that working in and with the Open Source community is innate to my being. I don’t know what that means as far as my have-to-pay-the-bills future, but it does make one give pause, certainly. Novell, Sun, and Google immediately come to mind as seem-like-incredibly-cool places of have-to-pay-the-bills futures. =:)

Secondly, I am (per this e-mail) officially one of the folks who have tried to accomplish the replacing of xscreensaver’s Xlib-based unlock dialog with a Gtk/Gnome/Qt/KDE-based one, but have not succeeded.

I guess what I’m saying is that all 18 of us recipients to jwz’s e-mail are losers in a very loose sense of the word. None of us have yet succeeded in this lofty goal. And if I am to be grouped with a bunch of losers (which isn’t at all how I view my fellow recipients to this e-mail), these are the guys that I’d want to be grouped with–heroes of Open Source all of them. =:)

Look Ma, I am an Open Source loser. =:D

I’ve been hit again in another round of comment-spam, apparently. So, I’ve activated the auto-close-comments plugin that I found the other day. That and I turned off “e-mail me whenever anyone posts a comment” and only left “e-mail me whenever A comment is approved or declined” on. That combined with the Comment Authorization plugin, and I think I just might have this crap beat.

Oooh–also, WordPress’s comment moderation absolutely ROCKS!! This is a VERY well-thought-out interface and program!! =:) Awesome job, WordPress guys!! =:)

I read somewhere that one option people have chosen is to rename some WordPress files so that the comment-spammers can’t script their ilk, but I’ve decided that it’s not worth it to me to do this. I want WordPress upgrades to be as painless as possible, meaning that I don’t want to have to remember to rename the files again every time I upgrade. So I’ll not go this far, methinks….

W()()t!! This is progress, baybee!! =:)

*donning spam-retardant combat boots*

“End-users run applications, not operating systems.” A Gartner guy came into my place of business the other day and said that. It’s a pretty profound thing to say, honestly. I think that it accurately describes many/most of the corporate people in the business places that I’ve seen.

However,

I am not an end-user. Nor are MANY people that I know.

That is to say that there are MANY people that DO care about what their computer is doing without their permission. They DO care about things deeper than just what applications they are running. They DO care about having a choice and not having something forced down their throats because someone else decided it was best for them. They DO still think. They ARE willing to learn Scary New Things (TM).

They DO care about what operating system they are running.

And sometimes, they are willing to accept the difficulties along with the advantages of having taken this road.

If you look at the large numbers of people that don’t fall into this category, they are the vast majority, I believe, of those who use desktop/laptop computers. One should not be swayed by the numerical arguments that Microsoft would have one be bedazzled by.

Having started this thing off like that, then, I’ll say this: it is an exciting time to be running Linux these days. If I had the money to try such things, I would dare say the same about the Mac, though that’s hardly something even worth saying, because quite honestly, if you have the money to do so, the Mac path has always seemed far more interesting than anything coming out of Redmond or Helsinki even, really. But I digress…. =:)

I’ve been running ONLY Linux for the last 8+ years. And there have been rough spots, to say the least, in my insistence on running ONLY Linux on my machines, work and home. But now, things are advancing so rapidly, that other than silly decisions made by companies to cater ONLY to Microsoft Windoze, there are very few things functionally that Linux lacks compared with WinXP (other than the ability to easily and completely screw up your system beyond repair or recognition, I guess).

I’d been running debian as my desktop of choice for probably the last 6 years, but have just in the last year switched over to fedora, and am REALLY, REALLY impressed and pleased with it.

So, to wind this down…. If you’re among those of us who have not given our brains over to someone else for our decision-making, I suggest you check Linux or the Mac out.

Then again… maybe you’re just not ready yet….

Danged, stinking, stupid comment spammers. There are some induhviduals that are not worth the powder it would take to blow them up, honestly. Some knucklehead, let’s call him “Author : free texas holdem (IP: 193.237.254.13 , gardeenhc.demon.co.uk)”, for the lack of a better name, has decided to comment-spam me. So, a quick google search for “wordpress comment spam” turns up this page, which outlines several things one can do to combat this sort of stupidity.

So, I’ve added the Blacklist Comment Spam Plugin, and I think I’m going to add the Comment Moderation Plugin, and the Auto shutoff comments one too. Piece of carp….

[update]

I’ve decided to use the blacklist comment spam plugin only for the time being. I installed the comment moderation plugin, which works pretty well, but I think I’ll take this one step at a time and see if just the blacklist will stop this thing. I did notice that the shmuck who comment-spammed me is in the blacklist already, so maybe there’s hope.

[update again]
Ahh, screw it. texas-holdem-0, you can kiss my hiney. Because of this loser, I’m turning the Comment Moderation Plugin back on. Also, I feel the need to halo tonight. =:)

phew. it’s all about learning…. wow. this is the sickest I think I’ve felt yet. I probably pushed myself too hard tonight. I played for 2 solid hours this evening, much to the delight of my kiddos. my little bride was tired and shagged out and spent the evening relaxing/snoozing. =:) *hi honey!* =:) I played online for a good hour, I think. I placed last (like the newb that I am) in the 2 CTF (capture the flag) games that I was in. And I placed 5th out of 7 in every man for himself (what is the proper name for this one?). yay for the newb!!! =:)

Erm, so anyway, now I feel quite ill.

BUT…

several things learned have I this evening.

[thing one] microsoft has placed some goofy copy protection on the halo CD that I just spent $27 for. it apparently uses SafeDisc 2.9, the existence of which I was not aware until this afternoon. oh–why is this important to me? because I want to make a backup copy of it. in fact, I want to use ONLY that backup copy–leaving my $27 CD at home, safely away from evil scratches, smudges, and breakages. so, I’ve discovered a nifty little program from Winblows called “Alcohol 120%”, which did a very nice job of ripping my offensive SafeDisc-laden halo CD to an ISO. I tried twice to use Alcohol to burn it to a CD-R, but no luck was mine, so I burned the ISO with Nero and it worked wonderfully! =:)

[thing two] based on some of the Army research I read (or was it the slashdot posts?), I tried a couple of different things today, playing halo. first, I played upstairs on the dining room table. it’s in the center of the room, as opposed to right next to the wall as my bedroom desk sits. I think this might have made a pretty big difference, as I think that my peripheral vision was able to look past the laptop screen and see the depth of the room, to balance my brain out. also, I think this room is brighter than the bedroom where I typically play. I think these factors helped me be able to play for as long as I did this time.

[thing three] (well, thing two, part 2) I also tried (this is going to sound silly, I know) playing with a towel draped over my head onto the top of the laptop screen. the post that I read (I think on slashdot) mentioned that someone who suffered from simulator sickness had tried this with some measure of success. much to the amusement of my eldest daughter, I tried this for 10 minute intervals here and there–either until the towel kept falling off my noodle, or until the towel sagged in the middle enough to annoy me. what I noticed, though, was 2 things…. first, doing this ridiculous maneuver kept my head still. it forced me to concentrate on holding my head in one spot and not reacting to the game by ducking/raising my head, lowering my eyes, etc. so maybe that helped. secondly, being a towel-head kept all of my vision focused solely on the laptop’s LCD screen, blocking out all peripheral (and possibly conflicting/confusing) vision. I suppose I shall have to test this towel procedure again, using tape or something to keep the towel from sagging. the kids will love this, I’m sure.

and finally…. a post on slashdot that give me a slight glimmer of hope…

You *can* train yourself out of this. The UK RAF does this for pilots over a matter of months: its worst for navigators because they do the reverse of what we’re speaking about: they look at a motionless screen while being subjected to motion. The USAF actually sends their vomiting pilots to the RAf to be debugged on this one…

of course… everyone knows that you can believe everything you read on slashdot….

as for me, I tried setting our 2 cheapo old computers at home up to run Halo–just to see if maybe using a different computer/hardware/CRT would help, but the one is a P3-600 (too slow, methinks) and uses an NVidia card, and the other one uses an embedded S3 cheapo card (and worse yet–that computer doesn’t even have an extra AGP slot!!). And after installing halo on each of them, they both come up and say something along the lines of “your computer has funky, horrible hardware, and we know that bad things will happen if we even let you try to play halo with it, so we won’t”.

well, something like that. and my only option at that point is “exit”.

so, the only computer I have to play halo on is my laptop… an IBM A31 with an ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500]. *shrug*

anyway, I finally got into a half-full room online and played capture the flag for the first time… and… let’s just say… I think I was killed at least twice a minute for the 10 minutes I was there. =:) it was pretty funny–and embarassing. heh.