Monthly Archives: June 2007


GeekStuff

Red vs Blue: The Final Episode

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Rooster Teeth just released hit their 100th and final episode of RedVsBlue today. Pre-sales of the Season 5 DVD have already started, which is good… even though I’ve already seen all of the episodes online, I know I’ll buy one. I’ve already got the other four seasons – in fact, I got Season 4 signed at PAX last year – and it’s interesting to watch the episodes flow into each other, when you don’t have to wait two weeks for the next installment.

I’m sorry to see it end, but after… five years? Six? I didn’t think about it before, but RvB is why I found out about Halo in the first place. I remember watching the first episode and thinking “what a riot – this is just like being caught in a game of Tribes! I wonder what they’re using for animation… what game is that?” A little while after that, Halo for the PC came out and I bought a copy. Then an Xbox Halo Special Edition. Then the launch night of Halo 2. Then I joined the MGS group, and later the XNA group, and worked with the people that made Halo 2 for Vista. Then there was the Halo 3 Beta… hell I’ve even talked with some people from Bungie about some tech as part of my job, as random tasks take you random places…

It’s not often that you can identify The Butterfly that started a butterfly effect in your life – thanks to all the people at RoosterTeeth for a great show (and for helping to seed my wardrobe with all the different t-shirts over the last few years!)

digital pity

Just One More

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I swear to God, if I read, hear, or see one more thing that mentions the iPhone in a way that is not related to something technical and newly discovered* I will wait in line at my local at&t store, get one, open the box, and piss all over it before they activate the service.

Beyond that, I can’t wait for the “I-Couldn’t-Place-A-Call-Cuz-I-Have-No-Battery-Having-Listened-To-10-Tracks” backlash that will eventually hit the street. Not to mention the general issues with first generation hardware, or have people forgotten the broken DS Lite hinge or cracked display nano while both were in it’s first generation of hardware? Or the irreplaceable battery. Or the lack of upgradable memory. Or the inability to thumb type with it. which a few reviewers have noticed already. Or the ongoing outrage at enterprise IT departments that won’t support it for a long, long while. Hell, even Safari for Windows has been patched twice in beta.

Does anyone honestly believe this will be a perfect launch with a problem-free product that “just works”, much less live up to the amount of hype that has been generated?
Continue reading Just One More →

digital pity

At A Loss

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The Levi’s Phone. YouTube on mobile devices. YouTube on AppleTV.

I don’t get any of this. A jeans company making a cell phone is just as useless as being able to view some random, grainy, came-from-a-VHS-tape 1982 Knight Rider episode on a 50″ TV or a 2.5″ phone. If YouTube had some regular content that wasn’t under constant threat of being pulled by copyright lawyers, it’d be a step in the right direction, but… I don’t know. I don’t get it.

Maybe people want to watch the Star Wars kid redux thrice over on the go and I’m missing it?

Rant

Her Is Lando

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This was a real subject line from a piece of SPAM that I noticed while cleaning out my Junk Mail folder. What a hoot.

In other news, Trixie tells me that if I persist in wearing on wearing denim shorts to work, that she would, well, um, lets just say that there was certain threats made that had nothing to do with kicking in a FIFA match or with the jewels in Bejeweled. Anyway, I now know that I’ll have to wonder what she’s looking at when I’m lomping around the cafe in a food coma. Wonder if I can get workman’s comp if I get jacked while waiting in the espresso line… huh.

Guess I should start wearing a cup to work. *g*

Rant

Was Her Price Right?

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YouTube: The Price is Right – Wardrobe Malfunction

This is something out of the late 70’s if I had to guess, considering the clothing, the hairstyles and that Bob Barker’s hair is naturally dark. And since Bob left the show this Friday – and the show came out the year I was born and all of my grandparents used to watch it everyday, meaning that I grew up with it – I thought I’d share this clip.

If anything, it shows the difference in our country between the mid-1970’s and the mid-2000’s… sad that we’re not as laid back in our attitudes as we were then!

Rant

Happy Medium

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Ken Levine: If THE SOPRANOS were on a major network The finale would be at least two hours. There would be a one hour clip show hosted by Bob Costas preceding it. There would be live coverage of the cast party on the network’s local 11:00 news. It would be the lead story even if Hurricane Katrina hit that day…

True, true, totally valid point… and a much better approach than the “high brow” response that I’ve been hearing of “wow, that was brilliant!”. Brilliantly filmed, yes. Cop out of an ending with a back door kick for a movie deal? Yes. My point is that there’s got to be some happy medium between that version and a version that makes you think your DVR shit the bed.

While I’m not as pissed over the ending as I was Sunday night, I still feel… unsatisfied.

Although now I’m half prepared for Harry Potter’s new book to have the last three chapters missing – if it’s “brilliant” for Chase it should be “brilliant” for Rowling, no?

Windows

Vista Tip: Getting Access to C$

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Ever since Windows… erg. I think NT, but certainly 2000, Windows has always created a few shares administrative purposes, the most useful one being \\machinename\c$ because it’s an easy way to get access to an entire drive, if you have permissions to be there. As a default, only Administrators have access to it – the fact that there’s a trailing $ means that it won’t show up in the Network browser.

Vista has it as well, but for some reason my work machines allowed access to this share – my home machine didn’t. It would give me a log in prompt, I’d log in, it’d say “invalid account” and I’d look at the screw going ‘Lies!’. Some digging on the interwebs gave me a registry tweak to get around it… I could have just set up a new share for \\machinename\c but what’s the fun in that?
Continue reading Vista Tip: Getting Access to C$ →

Rant

Rudy On The Move

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Rudy: Rudy’s 12 Commitments To America

Ambitious, I’ll say that. What I like about it more is that here’s an itemized list of “what I plan to do, if you elect me” which is something that I don’t remember seeing from the last three mamone’s that ran for the office.

Very easy to hold someone accountable to their ideals if they’re written out in a to-do list – hopefully we’ll be checking to see how the guy does come 2012.

Rant

The Sopranos: 1999 – 2007

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During high school, did you ever date a chick for a while and never get her into the sack? Come close, have some good times, but ya never get her into bed? And then one night, she hops out of the car, leaving you with a raging hard and says, “Hey it was fun and all, but I’m leaving tonight for another country, so you’ll never see me again – KTHXBYE!” leaving you in the driver’s seat with a pitched tent, a particular body part that’s so blue it almost looks like a Smurf mooning you, and a general feeling of un-satisfaction?

Yeah, well, the analogy holds for the series finale… in fact, after 8 years of watching, I’m so underwhelmed that I expect a new episode next week. And believe me – the finale of Cheers, where Sam closes the bar for the night at the end of a regular day, implying that he’ll be back at work tomorrow, is one of my more favorite endings. There doesn’t always have to be a spectacle, but there does have to be some form of closure. Looks like Six Feet Under stays in the #1 position for series finales.

No, no, I’m not over reacting, honest! I watched the east coast feed and when I was done, I called my sister to see if my DVR ate the ending.

It didn’t.

digital pity

To IDE Or AHCI My SATA Drive?

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Dear LazyWeb: should I be running my 500GB SATA-II drive in IDE or AHCI mode?

FWIW, I installed with IDE. Found a registry setting that allows you to switch to AHCI mode after installing (HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\msachi\Start needs to be 0 for AHCI to be active, it seems) and I already tried that out… I still have my SATA DVD drive showing up there (some people lost theirs when they tried this) so that’s a non-issue.

My reason for asking is that I’ve read that AHCI mode is supposed to be better yet I think IDE mode was faster – or at least I’m seeing AHCI take longer on boot and then hiccup a little bit while booting…

Just curious…

GeekStuff

Bounty

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In what was supposed to be a “small” upgrade, I decided to bump up my home machine.

It has been almost five years since my last upgrade. Been jones’n for some more oomph. Finally said “why not?” Steve said get a Mac. I said “when they have a relatively cheap PC with some power and no monitor, I’d consider it.” Right now, you can’t turn off the monitor of an iMac and still use it remotely: that’s a deal breaker. Also, I don’t know that I want to drop $1500 on a machine that isn’t meant to run the OS I plan to run. The Power Mac would be good, but that’s way over priced at $2500.

I wanted Core 2 Duo, 2GB, decent video card, under $500 – the image over there is the “before” picture.
Continue reading Bounty →

Rant

AHAHAHAHA Faith!

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CNN.com: In a rare public discussion of her husband’s infidelity, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that she probably could not have gotten through her marital troubles without relying on her faith in God.

Translation: “I want to seem more balanced for any Republicans that are religious but not like what their party has done, so let me throw this out there and see if I can’t get more votes”.

I mean honestly: you’re talking your husband’s 10-year old marital affair now??? Besides, lemme call you on it Mz. Clinton: it wasn’t faith that got you through your husbands infidelity – it was the fact that your political party had way too much bad press with Bill at the time and needed damage control, you wanted and still needed their support for your Senate run , and you were afraid what people would think of you – politically – if you enabled the first US President to be divorced in office… which makes me wonder if that’s why we’ve seen your last name changes, depending on the audience you’re speaking to. Do you think Americans are so dumb that we won’t notice how the Rodham appears when speaking to or about women issues and disappears for other male focused interests? Not all of us are that dumb and gullible. And truth be told, I’m fine with all of that stuff. It shows that you are a very smart business person. I mean, it’s not because you’re a woman – you’ve already proven that you can be just a savvy and sneaky as a male. And that’s what I’m not fine with: that fact that you’re going to wrap this issue up in biblical wrapping paper and play the “woe is me, my faith my faith!” woman for press…

That’s a bit too much for me to swallow – too much like my other favorite Media Whore.