Cedega: Bah! (Linux)

I wanted to play a Windows game, Half-Life 2, so I grabbed the latest Cedega release, installed it, and then installed Half-Life. Steam under Cedega is slow, but it did install. Despite my best efforts, the game itself just froze at the "Loading..." screen. I gave it 15 minutes and then gave up. Perusing Transgaming's forums showed that other people had had similar issues, but the none of the suggested workarounds actually worked. So, after apt-get purge cedega-small, I installed Wine.

The Wine-based installation was smoother and faster, but when I started to install Half-Life, none of the screens had fonts, which made it rather difficult to know which buttons to press. Again, none of the workarounds suggested in the forums at WineHQ worked. I was disappointed, but not really surprised.

Equally unsurprising was the fact that installation and playing worked just fine under an actual Vista installation on my laptop.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 10:03 2007-12-31 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Book of Secrets (Movies and TV)

Saw National Treasure: The Book of Secrets today. I enjoyed it and think it's worth the price of admission, soda, and popcorn.

As a friend of mine opined, though, it certainly requires a significant suspension of disbelief. If it's that easy to kidnap the President of the United States, break into Buckingham Palace, and get into the Oval Office, the President and Britain's royal family are in serious trouble. Once you're past that, however, it's a grand treasure hunt and romp through some interesting places. Movies and books about conspiracy theories intrigue me, too. The movie also has plenty of action and adventure. Finally, I enjoy Nicolas Cage, Helen Mirren, and Ed Harris. I guess I'm shocked to see how Jon Voight has aged. He's done so gracefully, but he's aged nonetheless. I think it shocks me only because it reminds me that I have aged.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 22:37 2007-12-29 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Nanny State (Tirades)

The Nanny State strikes again, this time wearing its public health drag.

The San Jose Mercury News reported this morning that [A] new law would allow fines of up to $100 for anyone smoking cigarettes, cigars or pipes inside a motor vehicle when anyone younger than 18 is present. It goes into effect 1 January, 2008.

Not surprisingly, the anti-smoking groups are delighted: Fortunately California leads the world in creating healthier, smoke-free environments for its citizens, and we are pleased that California youth will benefit from this vital new health protection," said Paul Knepprath, vice-president of government relations for the American Lung Association of California.

I don't have children, so this legislation won't affect me. I might even agree with the concern for other people's health–I don't inflict my smoke on other people. The issue I have with this legislation is that it represents yet another intrusion by the state into my personal affairs and how I raise my family, wherein the state has no right to intrude. Of course, the health Nazis reply that the government has an interest in promoting public health and that second-hand smoke impacts the public health. It is far from a settled question that public health trumps parental rights and personal freedom in the general case.

That is the nexus of the dispute. No one is seriously arguing that they have a right to smoke or to harm the health of others. The question is where personal liberty ends. I object to interest groups pushing the nose of the government into my personal affairs, past my front door, or, in this case, inside my car.

I wish as much time, money, and effort was spent fighting obesity as is spent fighting smoking. Obesity affects a vastly larger proportion of the population than smoking. I'd love to see fat people have to pay the level of taxes that smokers (and alcohol consumers, I might add) pay; we'd wipe out the national debt in months. But that won't be happening anytime soon.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 16:38 2007-12-25 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Tedious Politics (Tirades)

Aaargh!

I downloaded the newly minted 1.0.0 release of mpg123 today. It is a console-based MPEG-1 and -2 player (think MP3 player). I cracked open the tarball, ran less on the included README file, and encountered this nonsense:

(This file has very long lines - die-hard terminal nostalgists can be satisfied by `fmt -s -w 75 < README | less`. I think it's better to let the reader's preference rule than to preformat the stuff to some arbitrary width.)

In a word, bollocks. What the writer of this disclaimer should have said is:

I can't be bothered to conform to the convention of making text files fit in 80-character windows despite the fact that this convention has existed since before I was born. It is much easier for me to ignore newlines and force everyone else to do what I was too lazy to do myself. Oh, and I'll make passing references to "the reader's preference" and "arbitrary" in a pathetically feeble attempt to provide moral justification for being an inconsiderate sod.

BTW, the writer obviously can't be bothered to spell-check his work, either.

Dear author of the README file:

Deliberately making your documents difficult to read by failing to preformat them to universally accepted conventions is retarded. It doesn't improve the world, increase people's happiness, contribute to world peace, or enhance the global serenity quotient. Neither does a feeble wave in the direction of personal preference. Indeed, obliging your readers to go through an additional step before being able to read your document just pisses them off. It doesn't increase your readership, doesn't motivate me to use your software, and certainly doesn't give me positive impressions about the quality of your work. Who knows what other "arbitrary" conventions you've chosen to ignore, like bounds-checking array accesses or checking the return values of malloc() calls?

In the first place, it is not an arbitrary width. Back in the day, you know, back when you were still shitting your pants, people's screens were limited to 80 characters, so formatting text files to accommodate that limitation was courteous and common sense. In the present, most applications that don't come from Redmond still assume on 80-character width. As a result, it is most assuredly not a "reader preference" but a well-founded convention, simple decency, and respect for others, like frequent bathing and not farting in your boss's office. But you probably don't bathe frequently and probably do fart in your boss's office because that's your "preference."

Great news! I prefer to use MAD, the MPEG Audio Decoder, because I can't be bothered to reformat your text files.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 23:24 2007-12-24 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Castle Rock State Park (Parks)

Today's park was Castle Rock State Park, southeast of Saratgoa. I only took a a few pictures because just as I started my hike, my blood sugar tanked. As a result, I headed back to the car, shoved some Ritz crackers in my mouth, then started back down the mountain to get real food. The moral of this story is to take something with me so I don't have to cut short my visit. Or maybe the moral of the story is not to to eat sugary oatmeal for breakfast… Regardless, I'll start taking water and snacks with me in a small backpack when I go on these hikes. I'll make a second attempt tomorrow.

One thing I don't care for is the park's proximity to a gun club and shooting range. I have no objections to firearms, it's just unfortunate that a shooting range is so close to the park. It's difficult to enjoy a peaceful nature walk with the sound of muzzle blasts echoing all around you.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 20:51 2007-12-23 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Coe State Park (Parks)

It should have been Pacheco State Park, but traffic on State 152 was backed up for miles, so I headed back north on the 101 about 10 miles and visited Henry W. Coe State Park instead. Pretty park. It was a little rough around the edges if you're one of those who likes all the modern camping conveniences, but I was happy with it. The staff was friendly and the park ranger did a great job describing the hike he recommended for the amount of time I had to spend. I'd like to go back and hike some of the other trails for which I didn't have time this visit. As I threatened yesterday, I took a few photographs.

I'm out of shape, but not horribly so. The hike down the Corral and Spring trails, while not strenuous, was more walking than I've done in a while. I'll feel the steep uphill from the spring itself back to the main Spring Trail in the morning. To work out the kinks, I might undertake visiting Pacheco tomorrow.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 21:32 2007-12-22 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

A Week Off (Parks)

Well, it's more like 11 days off if one counts the weekends. I count the weekends! I don't go back to work until 2 Jan, 2008.

NVIDIA, like a lot of tech companies, closes down for the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. I don't know what the business justification for shutting down is, but from a practical standpoint, it makes sense. So many people take time off during the holidays that work can be difficult to complete–some decisions can't be made, for example, or one person's progress is blocked because the upstream dependency is on vacation. Regardless of the business justification, I like to take the time off whenever I can. Shutting down completely makes taking a week off an easy sell to my boss.

Which is not to say that I have a lot of plans. I don't. I'm not heading back to Pittsburgh and Kelly isn't coming out here. I don't want to spend the money on plane tickets and dislike traveling during holidays. Kelly has to work Christmas day. I will clean up around here and intend to visit some of the California state parks that are close by. Current candidates for visits are, in no particular order:

I'll take pictures to post.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 10:23 2007-12-22 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Screw RIAA (Music)

Nah, I don't want to mess with the MAFIAA, formally known as RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America. I'd probably catch something… Besides, it's more fun to watch User Friendly do it. I haven't seen any of these RIAA kiosks at the mall this shopping season.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 19:11 2007-12-20 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Apocalypto (Movies and TV)

I suppose yesterday was movie day. After going to see I Am Legend yesterday afternoon, I watched my latest Netflix delivery, Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. It was stunning and I highly recommend it!

As with Gibson's previous move, The Passion of Christ, Apocalypto displayed no shortage of gore and explicit violence. Similarly, as with Passion, I did not feel like the blood and violence was gratuitous. Set, literally, in the few days before the arrival of the Spaniards and the destruction of the Mayan civilization, Apocalypto chronicles the capture and escape of a Mayan (actually, a village of Mayans) by a rival tribe. The gore and violence is not gratuitous because the movie endeavors to show (Gibson's interpretation or imagining of) the reality of Mayan life, which was violent and bloody. With apologies to Hobbes, I'm sure that Mayans' lives were violent, bloody, and short, albeit punctuated by moments, perhaps many of them, of beauty, love, and peace.

For a change, the antagonists weren't Westerners, Europeans, Spaniards, white people, or men. Rather, the antagonists were other Mayans. Gibson is clear about this, opening the movie with a Will Durant quote, "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."Perhaps the Mayan civilization would have been destroyed anyway by the arriving Spaniards conquistadorés, or by the diseases they carried, but I think I could make a credible argument that internal disunity and Mayans' victimization of each other made them weaker in the face of the Spanish arrival.

Apocalypto is visually appealing, the characters are engaging, and the story, a chase movie stripped down to the bare essentials of a man running for his life, is captivating.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 11:41 2007-12-16 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

I Am Legend (Movies and TV)

I went to see I Am Legend this afternoon. Good show! It was more than the standard cannibalistic-humans-pursue-the-last-normal-human story. Will Smith did a good job exploring the quirks of his character. The idea is engaging even if we have seen this plot before. It was worth the $7.25 plus popcorn and soda. I would have liked more explanation of why Smith's character and others like him were immune to the super-virus and wish more effort had been made to flesh out the social structure of the virus' victims, but these are minor blemishes. Overall, I consider it a fine afternoon's entertainment.

It sure make me wonder how I would hold up if I were the last or only person in, say, San Jose.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 20:14 2007-12-15 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Stargate (Movies and TV)

I've been using Netflix to catch up on episodes of television shows I missed. I spent several months, for example, watching all ten seasons of Stargate SG1 from beginning to end. I'd watch four or five episodes a week, with some breaks to wait for the next DVD. Between each season, I'd watch a movie (or two) that was in my queue. Currently, I'm catching up on back episodes of Stargate Atlantis.

Watching it sequentially gave me a chance to watch the characters and story lines develop in a way that wasn't possible when the show was being broadcast. Given my action-oriented viewing preferences, concentrated doses of Stargate SG1 gave me a good fix of shoot-em-up-and-blow-em-up. I also enjoyed watching characters mature and evolve, enter and exit the stage, and the way the SG1 universe morphed and transformed over the years also intrigued me. What were originally good-and-evil characterizations of the various races slowly developed into more nuanced shades of grey. It was really pleasurable.

To be sure, some races, such as the Replicators, remained firmly in the Evil™ camp. Others were simply more ambiguous, such as the Tokrah. Humans initially saw them as powerful allies, and they certainly were, but the Tokrah had their own agenda and their alliance with and support for the (humans) T'ari was a matter of convenience. They ultimately faded into the background of the SG1 universe. The Jaffah almost came full-circle. They started as the warriors and enforcers for the Goa'uld, revolted and allied with the T'ari to gain their freedom from the Goa'uld, and then, once free, pursued their own agenda that didn't always necessarily coincide with that of their T'ari allies.

I enjoyed Stargate SG1 and was sorry to see it end. I look forward to the feature-length movies, at least one of which is in production.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 10:35 2007-12-15 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Worst Buy (Tirades)

Hey, Best Buy! Cease and desist this! And especially this!

The gang over at Improv Everywhere did a parody of Best Buy's signature (I was going to say "trademark") look: blue polo bearing a yellow price tag containing the text "Improv Everywhere" on the price tag. The humor-challenged dolts in Best Buy's legal department sent IE (and the outfit selling the shirt, Neighborhoodies) a cease-and-desist letter claiming trademark infringement. Stutter! These pea-brains wouldn't recognize parody and protected speech if it fell on their heads.

Neighborhoodies took down the polo shirt they were selling, not being willing to risk their entire Web site coming down during the busiest selling season of the year. It's unfortunate, but I understand their position. This has the look of a SLAPP suit, Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Mattel tried that against a parody of Barbie and it cost them $2 million dollars when it was all said and done. Meanwhile, bloggers are scandalized, and rightfully so, and Best Buy are earning yet another PR black eye.

One such blogger, Scott Beale at Laughing Squid, got a C&D of his own for covering the C&D sent to IE and Neighborhoodies. Beale called them, asked WTF was up with that, after which the bozos at Best Buy sent a retraction. I wouldn't call it an apology because they didn't apologize. Rather, they expressed "regret" for sending the letter, likely because of all the bad press it's earned them. An apology would be something like, "We apologize," or "We're sorry." But "we regret sending you the demand letter" just means "In hindsight, we realize we can't make this stick (but we'd do so if we thought we could get away with it)."


Posted by Kurt Wall at 20:59 2007-12-12 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Movies I Gotta See (Movies and TV)

This is largely a list of movies I want to remember to see when they become available. If you're into psychoanalysis based on someone's movie preferences, I'll save you the trouble: these are escapist, shoot-em-up, blow-it-up, fantasy, or science-fiction titles. They have little or no redemptive value. I'm interested in being entertained. I go to Mass for meaning, morality, redemption, and relevance,

Or perhaps I'm merely cinematically philistine. Whatever.

Yes, my taste in movies is monotonic. Live with it.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 19:32 2007-12-08 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Silly ISPs (Linux)

They're silly because most of the obstacles they put in your way you can work around.

Tonight's challenge was to figure out why I couldn't send outbound email. After a little trial and error, it become clear that my ISP, AT&T (pacbell.net), blocks traffic on port 25 that isn't destined for one of their servers. So, working with the guy who hosts KurtWerks, I configured Postfix to use a different port, 465 (the ssmtp port).

The configuration proved to be pretty simple:

  1. Don't use relayhost = mail.example.com.
  2. Create or edit /etc/postfix/transport, adding the line * smtp:[mail.example.com]:465. This tells Postfix to send all outbound mail through the SMTP server listening on port 465 at mail.example.com. The square brackets around mail.example.com disable DNS lookups, which makes the actual delivery process much faster.
  3. Third, add the entry transport_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/transport to /etc/postfix/main.cf. This tell Postfix to use the map you created in the previous step.
  4. Run the command postmap /etc/postfix/transport to create a hash table (/etc/postfix/transport.db) from the text file you edited.
  5. Restart Postfix so it will pick up your changes.

Voila! Outbound email is flowing once again.

Granted, Joe Sixpack wouldn't have the knowledge (or need or desire, I suspect) to work this out, so the ISP gets what it wants, "control." The technically savvy user can find a way around it. It's also true that the technically savvy user probably won't have his or her machine turned into a zombie controlled by some spammer in Russia.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 21:39 2007-12-07 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Banks and New Accounts Redux (San Jose)

…in which I discover the gotchas.

In the previous episode, I recounted the saga of trying to deposit and use my paycheck. It went off more or less as as I was told. Mr. Manager verified the funds behind my paycheck (give me a break—I don't think NVIDIA is going to bounce payroll checks) and released the hold on the funds. Bills I paid with a check on Saturday were paid in Monday's business. Life was (mostly) good.

What wasn't clear was that although the hold was released, the check still had to be processed, meaning the funds didn't actually post to my account until Monday night. Grmph. I suppose that would be an obvious detail to bankers and their kin, but to a gear head, it isn't immediately apparent. As it was, my bills got paid, so I won't gripe any further on the subject.

Mr. Manager also said to call him before noon on Monday. Which I did. At least four times. Let's just say he's lousy at returning phone calls (granted, I only left one message). I finally went to the branch to see him. He came out of his office almost immediately, told me his counterpart at the issuing bank was out to lunch, and asked me to call back in thirty minutes. I did. There was no answer, so I left voice mail and got busy with work. I called again about 3:30 p.m., got to a receptionist, who started to transfer me then said Mr. Manager had just come out and told her that he was in my account releasing the hold at that very moment. End of story.

The lesson I learned was not, as one might suspect, never trust what a banker tells you. Rather, the principle with which I came away was that if I tell someone I'm going to do something, be darn sure not only to do it but to do it when I say I'm going to do so. And, return phone calls! For the most frustrating part of the whole situation was not knowing what the status was, something a two-minute phone call would have done.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 18:44 2007-12-06 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Beowulf (Movies and TV)

I went to see Beowulf tonight to break the monotony. I enjoyed it. I don't want to spoil the show for anyone, so I'll just observe that the plot following Beowulf's fight with Grendel's mother Grendel's mother doesn't match my recollection of the 9th century original.

The CGI seemed weak. Having seen 300 recently, it doesn't compare favorably in terms of CGI, but the story is just as good, IMNSHO. If Beowulf had been filmed as an admittedly more expensive live action film and used CGI to fill in gaps and enhance parts of the action and effects, I think the move would have been visually more appealing. Nonetheless, it was worth the $10 plus popcorn and soda. When it makes it to Netflix, I'll probably stick in my queue.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 23:01 2007-12-01 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)

Banks and New Accounts (Work)

Ugh!

I got my first paycheck yesterday from my new job. It was real, honest-to-goodness paycheck, not a directly deposited electronic marvel. You remember paper paychecks? I do. I also remember what a PITA they can be. Case in point…

I took my freshly issued paycheck to my bank, where I opened checking and savings accounts last week so I would have the ability to conduct my financial affairs, endorsed the check, scribbled an amount on the Cash Back, Pretty Please line, and approached the teller. No love on the cash-back-pretty-please operation because my account is new and a they place a seven-day hold on checks deposited into new accounts. Aargh!

I explain that this won't do because I have bills to pay (rent, house payment, car insurance, a credit card bill to this bank, "child" support, and so forth). Teller fetches a manager. Mr. Manager says my options are to cash the check at the issuing bank and deposit cash or they can process the deposit, make a photocopy of the check, and contact the issuing bank Monday to verify funds, and then release the hold.

I considered cashing the check but wasn't sure where I'd find a branch of the issuing bank (Wells Fargo) and if the one I found would still be open this late in the day (it was approaching 6:00 p.m.). So, I opted to process the deposit and let Mr. Manager verify the funds. It was frustrating, to say the least, but I handled it well (which means I didn't curse or raise my voice or impugn anyone's parentage).

I've been writing "Mr. Manager" so I should be clear I'm not ridiculing him—he was working within the boundaries of his responsibilities. He gave me his card and emphasized that I call him before noon on Monday. He can count on that.

Meanwhile, I wrote bills this morning and mailed them. I still had cash in the account, so I used my ATM card and life was good. My ex-wife will not enjoy having to wait until Tuesday to get her "child" support check, but I didn't have a lot of options. Everything else should be copacetic.

It was still nice to get paid. I could have done without the bureaucratic hassle.


Posted by Kurt Wall at 17:54 2007-12-01 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)