Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper

That Which Takes My Time

Sunday September 24, 2006

It’s a frustrating thing to not have enough time to do that which you want. Or rather, there are so many things that I do want to do and so many things that I do need to do that there are choices that must be made to be a responsible, loving husband, Daddy, employee, hacker, game-player, and Christian. My greatest passion as a by-nature-geek is Open Source software. Specifically, the Open Source desktop. Professionally, Open Source has SO much value to companies that I am constantly finding ways of showing those at work of how the various solutions Open Source provides are the best-fitting tool for the needs we have. Personally (or “speaking from a not-getting-paid-for-stuff perspective”), I have been Read more…

Movies

UltraViolet

Just finally had the chance to see this tonight and I was very pleasantly surprised! I wasn’t honestly sure what to expect from the commercials, but it was much better-done and much less focused on over-the-top gore and violence than I had thought. Bravo to Kurt Wimmer for that!! And honestly, bravo to Mr. Wimmer for an incredibly well-thought-out, well-crafted, well-shot, well-cast, and well-executed piece of film. Amazing. Milla Jovovich was perfect in this movie too, I might add. And I’m not referring just to her beauty. She completely sold the part of Violet; and her grace, timing, and athletic ability were such that I have a hard time imagining anyone else pulling it off as well. Hm. For that Read more…

Movies

V for Vendetta

Saturday September 23, 2006

Wow. Movies always affect me more than they probably should. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, necessarily, but it’s definitely a thing. I just tonight had the chance to watch V for Vendetta. I’ve never read the graphic novel, and as such I came to the movie with pretty much no expectations and no history with the story line. I did read something somewhere that made me think that the story hinged on Natalie Portman’s character being raped, though, and I’m quite happy to find that it did not and that she was not. I’ll leave the story’s synopsis for those who enjoy such things are are better equipped for this one. But wow. Read more…

Life in General

The Timeless Power of a Sunset

Sunday September 17, 2006

That, my friend, is pure joy. I enjoyed exactly that sort of pleasure just yesterday. We went down to Newport, the Kasper family, we did. Walked quite a distance around Fort Adams, which was really, really fun. We shall definitely have to go back at some point and take the tours. Drove then down to our favorite spot in Newport–Brenton Point State Park–and explored all around the tidepools, shoreline, rocks, and such. The water was pretty cold already, but it felt invigorating on one’s legs and feet. Made you feel good to just be alive and to be a part of the vastly larger-than-you ocean! My darling bride and I found a cozy little rock to sit on and hold Read more…

Life in General

Fenway Park, Here I Come

Thursday September 7, 2006

Fenway Park, Here I Come, originally uploaded by vanRijn. I know you’re jealous! =;)

Life in General

KDE-PIM Social Network

Wednesday September 6, 2006

It’s nice to see your name up in lights… =;)

KDE, Linux, Open Source

DANGIT it feels good to code!

Sunday August 20, 2006

FINALLY took a couple of hours late, late, late tonight and looked at the pesky little kpilot bug which caused a nasty little SIGSEGV with the vcal-conduitbase::slotProcess code during a “copy handheld to PC” sync. Turns out there was a single missing set for the fNextState in the case of ConduitAction::SyncMode::eCopyHHToPC, which as luck would have it, is exactly what I was trying to do. So, yay me on fixing that annoying buglet which was niggling at the back of my brain for the last couple of months. Secondarily, one of: gdb, PowerPC Linux, AAP sucks donkey elbows with regards to trying to debug this problem I was having. I could not for the life of me attach gdb to Read more…

Music

The W’s – Fourth From the Last

Thursday August 17, 2006

the w’s – fourth from the last, originally uploaded by vanRijn. If for no other reason than the amazingly cool, self-deprecating, ska/punk album cover, you have GOT to love this one!! =;)

Life in General

Things I Should Have Done 6 Months Ago

Sunday August 13, 2006

I need to start keeping track of these things more. Or rather, I need to just do them when I should instead of waiting for 6 months to realize the improvement. Top on my list today was finally drilling a hole through the pressure-reducing valve in the stupid, way-overpriced burst-proof washing machine hoses that I bought from Lowes 6 months ago, on the advice of our home inspector. Let me just put it this way… it was taking more than a half-hour to fill up the washing machine tub with water when we washed our clothes. For SIX months we lived like this. So, today, with the encouragement of a fellow house-hacker, I finally drilled through this more-intelligent-than-me contraption, hooked Read more…

Life in General

No time for anything

Tuesday August 8, 2006

I suck. I have 569 unread e-mails from the KDE mailing lists. I’ve actually found a new buglet today with kpilot’s copyPCtoHH functionality and I probably won’t even have time to look into it for who knows how long. I rented Splinter Cell Essentials for the PSP and I’ve had enough time to play it once, for about 10 minutes in the last 5 days. Blargh! =:(