February 2008 – Kasperian Moving Parts

In-Ear Headphones and Puking Yer Guts Out?

Monday February 25, 2008

I bought $180 of in-ear headphones to try out (the Shure SE210’s and the Sennheiser CX300’s) and both of them, I think, made me feel dizzy to the point of falling over and feeling like I was going to hurl my guts out the next morning. I’ve blogged previously about motion sickness, but this is just frightening and frustrating and badness. Does this make any sense to anyone? Is it possible to be predisposed to dizziness and room-spinning-ness? Are in-ear, noise-isolating headphones known for making you feel dizzy, causing the room to spin on you, and not take effect until the next morning? I felt fine while I was listening to them. But after I took them off, went to Read more…

Life in General

Prep Your PSP for Armageddon

Tuesday February 19, 2008

The Hori screen protector that I have on my PSP has managed to become poked and has subsequently created a bubble on my PSP’s screen. So I was looking at getting an InvisibleShield screen protector, being that they’re all but bullet-proof. And then I saw a couple of crazy nuts that talked about just buying some 3m Scotchgard sheets (you know… the stuff they put on the fronts of cars now to protect them from rocks, dirt, and small farm animals) and cutting it to size and saving vast amounts of coin. Wellsir, that’s just crazy enough that it simply has to work! So I scoured around a bit and came across this little gem to help you Prep Your Read more…

Movies, Music

Following The Ninth

Sunday February 17, 2008

I was going to update my previous post about the amazing movie, Copying Beethoven, with this, but I am sufficiently taken to generate a new post. Kerry Candaele commented on my last post with a link to his forthcoming movie called Following The Ninth, so I visited his site and I am very, very impressed. The short, 7-minute preview of his work in progress fully echoes my thoughts and feelings about Beethoven and his amazing Ninth Symphony. Even better, it shows the impact that the Ninth is still having in our generation today. One of my favorite quotes from the clip: “This piece enters your bloodstream and then changes who you are. The entire blueprint of everything… of society, of Read more…

Movies, Music

Beethoven: Still Imminently Magical

I just watched one of the most amazing movies that I have ever seen: the excellent Copying Beethoven. I have always been deeply fascinated with the genius that is Ludwig van Beethoven. I grew up listening to my mom playing his pieces on our piano, and have enjoyed the complexity and overwhelming emotion found both in the observation and participation of his immense talent. In particular, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has something that resonates in my soul like nothing else ever has. The second movement (Molto vivace – Presto) has such passion and raw power and ferocity and strength and beauty and peace!!! It is everything that life should have in it, and I am amazed at Beethoven’s ability to make Read more…

Life in General

Eclipse versus Netbeans

Thursday February 14, 2008

Now, this one I’m really speaking out of the side of my head on… This is totally based on first impressions of NetBeans, albeit after 3<x<5 hours have been invested in said first impressions… I’ve been using Eclipse and CDT for a while for my day job at VMware (which, by the by, totally rocks!!!). And for the most part, Eclipse+CDT really does a nice job at helping me maneuver around our very large code base and lowering the learning curve after I’ve figured out how to teach it about include paths that it can’t figure out on its own. As a C++ IDE, it’s very nice, responsive, stable, and it definitely helps in learning the code base via being Read more…

Linux

Zypper versus Smart

Wednesday February 13, 2008

sudo zypper update: 2 Problems:Problem: No valid solution found with just resolvables of best architecture.Problem: Cannot install java-1_5_0-sun-plugin, because it is conflicting with java-1_6_0-sun-plugin Problem: No valid solution found with just resolvables of best architecture. With this run only resolvables with the best architecture have been regarded.Regarding all possible resolvables takes time, but can come to a valid result. Solution 1: Make a solver run with ALL possibilities. Regarding all resolvables with a compatible architecture.number, (r)etry or (c)ancel> 1Applying solution 1 Problem: Cannot install java-1_5_0-sun-plugin, because it is conflicting with java-1_6_0-sun-plugin A conflict over java-1.5.0-plugin == 1.5.0_update14 (java-1.5.0-plugin) requires the removal of java-1_5_0-sun-plugin-1.5.0_update14-0.1.i586[opensuse-updates] which is scheduled for installation=== java-1_5_0-sun-plugin-1.5.0_update14-0.1.i586[opensuse-updates] === java-1_5_0-sun-plugin-1.5.0_update14-0.1.i586[opensuse-updates] is needed by atom:java-1_5_0-sun-plugin-1.5.0_update14-0.1.i586[opensuse-updates] (java-1_5_0-sun-plugin >= 1.5.0_update14-0.1) findutils-4.2.31-24.i586 is Read more…

Life in General

Wanted: VIM in Eclipse

Tuesday February 12, 2008

I’ve been looking for a way to have VIM functionality inside Eclipse for a long time. SlickEdit has it, sort of, but it’s prohibitively expensive and ugly. And then I saw this nifty little vimplugin sourceforge project and got my hopes all up. Sadly, it’s not quite there yet. After figuring out how to associate *.cc files to the Vim plugin (note to vimplugin guys: Maybe stick a README or some docs on how to use the plugin in the tarball?), I saw that I was unable to open more than one VIM tab in Eclipse at a time. In addition, there is no contextual/outline view associated to the code once you’re in the VIM editor as there is with Read more…

Books

The Demise of a Moleskine (Binding)

Monday February 11, 2008

Oh No’s! My beloved Moleskine has torn itself asunder! Behold, the ripped binding. For $15, you’d think they’d be a little more resilient than this! And no, my deluxe custom black duct tape pen holder is not to blame (I don’t think?). Oh, intrepid fellow Moleskine users: is this kind of senseless violence unprecedented? [ Update (2008-03-19: ] Moleskine has come through for me and send me a replacement!!

Life in General

Openbox 3.4.6 and ObConf 2.0.3 released

Monday February 4, 2008

I ran across this on Planet Gnome… Openbox 3.4.6 and ObConf 2.0.3 released Feb 02, 2008 – 12:53 pm EST Openbox 3.4.6 and ObConf 2.0.3 have been released for mass consumption! This Openbox release introduces a new look! The Clearlooks theme has been updated to match the latest GTK Clearlooks engine. As well Openbox and ObConf are both sporting shiny new icons. Wow! That takes me back a ways!! Openbox was a fork started by the supremely-talented Ben Jansens (oh x0r, where have you gone?) and a couple of other talented guys who used to be hardcore blackbox dudes. I had no idea Openbox was still being developed! Rock on, guys! =:)

Life in General

Okay, I watched the SuperBowl

It actually felt pretty good to “unplug”, as it was put in The Matrix, and allow my brain to focus on nothing other than family, video games, and good old-fashioned American football today. I just realized today that I’ve not had an truly restful weekend in about 3 months, what with new job, travelling, trying to sell a house, realtor-ish stuff, miscellaneous stress, etc. So it was a nice break from overwhelming life today. Since I’ve not watched football (or much of TV at all) since last year’s Charger’s game, we didn’t even know who (other than the Patriots) were playing today. But we decided to root for the underdogs (The Giants), and it was a very exciting game! I Read more…