| trip report |
[Dec. 2nd, 2009|11:43 pm] |
I am in Hong Kong. Somehow, I have a place to stay. Now I have to figure out how to get to it. |
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| trip report |
[Dec. 2nd, 2009|05:32 pm] |
Korean Air is very nice. Good food, attentive (and attractive) flight attendants, electrical outlets under every seat, and some crazy entertainment system that I would've taken advantage of if I hadn't been trying to sleep.
I've seen people on some forums (probably feminazis) whining about people mentioning attractive flight attendants as a plus for an airline. If they would prefer ugly old bags that ignore you until you punch the call button repeatedly and then act like you've inconvenienced them, they can take all of them. |
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| Safari crashed again |
[Nov. 29th, 2009|11:57 pm] |
This time it wasn't the usual hang, it just straight up crashed without even a "...unexpectedly quit" dialog.
I've confirmed it's definitely history-based, because everything came back this time when I did "restore all windows from last session".
I wish I'd known about this prior to the previous two or three times. Lesson learned: first thing to do after reinstalling if you ever have to is set Safari to manually remove history items. Dumb. |
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| Deer ??, mdl 0 |
[Nov. 29th, 2009|10:31 pm] |
There's a windy stretch of road near my old house that snakes through a nature preserve which, in addition to shaving a few minutes off a certain route, is more fun to drive, and at night it's completely dark apart from possible moonshine and starlight. I was heading through at a decent clip, maybe ten miles over, pretty much what everyone who's not a grandsomething does along that road. Winding through a nature preserve, wildlife occasionally jumps out from either side at an inopportune moment, sometimes small, sometimes large.
This was one of the large times.
There was literally no time to brake as a buck leaped in front of my car. I saw a giant spray of headlight plastic and then a decided lack of deer. I wasn't sure whether to turn back or just to keep going--what could I do either way? I didn't feel particularly guilty because there was nothing I could've done to have avoided it short of driving well under the actual speed limit anyway.
I went back about twenty minutes later and the deer was gone, so as far as I'm concerned the deer won because I'm stuck with a slightly dented body (no paint scratches, though) and wheel well and a ton of deer fur stuck in various bizarre parts of the car one would never expect to find it in such an occasion. |
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| Facebook is kind of awful |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|07:36 am] |
I signed up on Facebook maybe a few months after it started when I was at Stanford's summer thing. It seemed like a neat idea then because it was MySpace except it didn't allow people to stab you in the eye with CSS.
Now, it just kind of creeps me out. It was exporting my LJ-imported "notes" to everybody--not just friends or friends of friends--because it buries the option to configure that under a privacy page that doesn't show up at all from the main privacy settings page and it defaults to everybody.
So, between that and the way it already attempts to use every other piece of personal information you volunteer to spin up obnoxious (describes all advertising) and tasteless (describes most advertising) "targeted" ads, I've killed the note importing. It's not even that I'm concerned about privacy--of course no human will ever look at whatever Facebook has collected on me--I just don't like the purpose for which they're doing it, and it bothers me that they started with certain defaults for what information random people could see and have since changed them to allowing people to see nearly everything unless you specify otherwise.
As a fun example that's not related to the notes functionality but could very well be if they were to start doing some sort of AdSense-like shit, one of my friends noticed that he suddenly started getting tons of dating ads when his relationship status changed back to single.
I don't think a clever comment is even necessary. |
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| gate out |
[Nov. 21st, 2009|09:07 pm] |
I'm going to Hong Kong for a few days, and then GLORIOUS NIPPON for two months. I guess I actually have to care about, like, employment or something after that.
(If anyone has any recommendations for stuff to see or do in either country, please comment. I've been to Japan once and visited Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe, and I'm certainly going to spend some time in Tokyo again, but I'm hoping to see as much of the country as I possibly can from bottom to top, so it doesn't matter where the things actually are.) |
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| My other favorite OS X bug |
[Nov. 8th, 2009|08:53 am] |
Hey man, I see you're trying to wake me out of the screen saver. Sorry, I don't fucking feel like it. I'll just completely freeze (except for the cursor, which will probably beachball) and you'll have to restart. Also, I won't let you ssh in so you can kill the screensaver, but I'll keep responding to ping just to fucking piss you off.
How is this even remotely acceptable? How has this not been fixed for years? And no, it's not a hardware problem, because it's happened on every Mac I've used for any length of time.
FUCK. THIS. OS. |
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| Safari, continuing Apple's proud tradition of not caring about your data |
[Nov. 7th, 2009|11:27 am] |
Safari crashed again, this time taking 95% of my tabs with it, restoring them as untitled. That's over a month (two months? I don't even know) of mental state gone. Thank god it remembers their count and which window they were in, that'll be very helpful in remembering what I had open.
My guess is that it pins tabs to history entries, so when it decides to clean them out, sorry, you're fucked, but this is just a guess; never mind how it'll fuck up in even weirder ways if you use private browsing ("so don't" being the only apparent solution).
It just crunched and ground away for a good ten minutes when I restored it as a nice added insult, probably furiously vacuuming sqlite so as to ensure I definitely will not be able to restore any of them.
I'm fucking done with OS X. The original plan was to just stick with it for music stuff, but I really hate dual booting, so I end up spending a lot of time in it anyway. Unfortunately Firefox continues to be sluggish, unstable, and feel non-native on OS X so I continued to abuse myself with Safari. I should just use bookmarks instead of opening untold numbers of windows and tabs, yes, but even more importantly the fucking piece of shit program should do its fucking job and restore its state after it inevitably shits the bed, which Firefox is capable of doing no problem. Firefox will even restore your goddamned form input and back/forward state for the tab. Safari can't even manage less than that. Perhaps different people work on WebKit as opposed to the browser itself, since that seems fairly competent. |
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| Why attempting systems programming on OS X is a waste of your time |
[Aug. 23rd, 2009|09:49 pm] |
Do you enjoy piles of unintelligible code written without any regard to consistent style? Do you like documentation that's worse than non-existent? Do you like worthless samples that you can't compile because Apple hasn't thrown all the headers and/or libraries and/or tools over the wall that are needed to actually build them? Do you like the idea of a second-system effect poster boy for interacting with hardware that manages to be even more hideous than ioctl? Do you like the idea of a decrepit kernel trailing both Windows and Linux in most regards based on technology proven to have failed in 1990 and kept around for mostly political reasons? Do you like having nobody from which to get help because most every other Mac developer is a clueless wanker writing insultingly simple applications and selling them for $25+? If so, you may enjoy OS X systems programming!
Stay tuned for "Why attempting applications programming on OS X is also a waste of your time," featuring yet more private APIs, lousy documentation, and a general experience that makes raw Win32 look like a good time. |
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| New York was safer than Peterborough |
[Aug. 18th, 2009|12:44 pm] |
At least, in New York, I never heard any gangs running around at night, screaming in Polish, then yelling "SMASH!" and throwing bottles. |
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| Wardriving considered harmful (to your health) |
[Aug. 17th, 2009|11:31 am] |
I'm currently in jolly old England trying to meet up with a friend for whom I have no mobile number. (This looks like it's not going to happen at this rate, which makes me sad, but is immaterial.) I do have a laptop, but there's no internet access at the place I'm staying, so I did what any dork would do in such a situation: wardrive (or in this case, warwalk). I'd briefly done it the night before this happened at the same location, so I didn't really think much of it, though I should've, because Peterborough is a shithole full of petty crime and assholes like the ones I'm about to describe.
I walk to where I'd found a signal previously (which is on the sidewalk, not on anyone's property), and this time there are some people out front. Most people don't care about when you borrow their internet, but this guy really, really does. "MOVE ALONG, NOW!" So, I move to the next house over. This meathead apparently has nothing better to do, so he walks out from his driveway and over to where I am, asks what I'm doing, and then proceeds to raise an enormous shitfit over how I'm a thief and I should be paying for internet access like everyone else. I explain that I'm 6000 miles from home, have no cash, no mobile, and no mobile number by which to call the person even if I had one. He then calls his neighbor over, who apparently thinks I'm now stealing his internet, who gets even more angry and asks how I'd like it if he walked into my house and started using my laptop. I tell him the situations aren't remotely comparable and add that they haven't bothered to put a password on the AP, which generally is an open invitation to use it (and I add that I do this myself at home). He doesn't care. The conversation pointlessly continues, and eventually he tells me he'll beat the shit out of me if I don't get going and calls me a "fucking twat" (this is how you know it happened in the UK).
I wouldn't care if he'd just told me to get going and left it at that, but turning me over to his moron neighbor who threatened physical violence was a bit much, so right before I leave, someone's router firmware is going to be flashed with garbage. |
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| Fuck bicycles |
[Aug. 7th, 2009|05:02 pm] |
Bicycles are a bullshit mode of transport for elementary school children that will throw their user off at the slightest provocation
that is all |
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| I just nearly lost my left eye |
[Jul. 29th, 2009|10:51 am] |
My friend's apartment is in something of a state of disrepair. It's temporary, as he needed a place quickly, and he doesn't plan on staying there long, so it's understandable. It was formerly owned by some crazy woman who never maintained a single part of it, and the structure is literally a hundred years old. The top floor is currently undergoing heavy construction, and his apartment is right below that. Every so often, they bang on the ceiling, and copious amounts of plaster fall. The ceiling in the bathroom is buckling from what looks like water damage, and the ceiling in the kitchen has holes where plaster is missing because whatever they were doing upstairs was being done very hard--there's boards going across that part, as the current owner was apparently going to send someone out to fix it, but never did beyond that band-aid--which is where I come in.
I've been sleeping underneath a chandelier. This has seemed to me like a very bad idea from the beginning, as I joked to myself, "I bet it'll come down and I'll never wake up to find out."
Ten minutes ago, that partly happened. By "partly," I mean not the entire chandelier (I would not be typing about this if the whole thing landed on my head, possibly due to permanent inability, or maybe just because I'd be on my way to MGH--oh, wouldn't that be fun without health insurance), but one of the glass drops hanging from the chandelier decided to jump off with me lying underneath. It hit me hard in the left eyebrow. It turns out those glass drops are very heavy. A few centimeters lower and I literally would not have that eye anymore. Fortunately, I simply bled profusely instead, and judging from how it feels right now it should leave a good bruise for a week or so.
How's your morning going? |
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| 2 BUSY 2 BLOG |
[Jul. 28th, 2009|11:56 am] |
Uh, I've gone to AX and Otakon, and they were fun and I have a ton of pictures to post and some small amusing stories to relate, and I just bought a 17" MacBook Pro and it's really nice (thanks New Hampshire for not having any sales tax and my old student ID), and I've been on the east coast since July 16 and will be until August 14 because it's more fun than staying at home and doing nothing. Also, I'm then going to England until the 26th.
I like this a lot better than work. |
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| GARBLE GARBLE |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|07:01 pm] |
I'm writing this from the Flying J on the Grapevine on the way back from AX 2009 (which I'll post about later). Flying J is, in case you don't know, the truckerest truck stop. We're talking a giant empty lot out in the back for resting, weigh stations, a billion gallons of diesel available, and CB radios being sold in the convenience store.
But this is about a piece of turkey. The most manly piece of turkey that just happens to be at the most manly establishment.
I regret to inform you that I did not have the prescience to take a photograph of this specimen, but I assure you it was no fewer than two pounds of pure dark meat. This was a pornographic amount of meat. It could have been used as a club. If you shot the bird that previously owned it with an anti-tank rifle, the round would get crushed without actually penetrating the skin. It was so intense that I kept my sunglasses on as I ate it as I was afraid of what might happen were it to look me in the eyes.
I just thought y'all would like to know. |
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| FO' TWENNY SMOEK DEADLY QUESADILLAS EVERY DAY |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|04:20 am] |
Remember those ancient tortillas? I just ate enough quesadillas to more than accurately determine whether or not they're going to kill me, so if I never post again, just know that I had a very delicious and very cheesy death. |
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| Gaijin get out |
[Jun. 18th, 2009|05:59 am] |
Every time I find another Japanese site that blocks US IPs or simply all foreign IPs, I'm briefly rendered speechless, regardless of how many times I've experienced it. Yeah, buddy, surely I'm not just going to go bounce through an open Japanese proxy. Go fuck yourself. What a bunch of immature bullshit.
You'd think that the doujin guys who do this would want more people to play their games or enjoy their art, but apparently being a petty douchebag takes priority. At least a blocked IP is a hell of a lot easier to get around than when they make some fucking riddle where the right answer will be the address of the page you're trying to access. |
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| Preservatives are delicious |
[Jun. 15th, 2009|03:55 am] |
Everything in my fridge is always fresh, but there's been one exception which has turned into a science experiment of sorts.
See, I bought a bag of tortillas with the assumption that I would use them for yummy quesadillas. I think I did this twice, and then did not feel like quesadillas for a while.
Like, for about a year and three months.
The tortillas are still there.
I have intentionally kept them there for my own amusement. You see, they have not grown a single spore of mold or otherwise become unappealing in any particular manner other than that they are a little tougher--really, only a little--than when they were originally purchased.
Now for some audience participation: Should I eat one? For science? |
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| ThinkPad, more like ChinkPad |
[Jun. 4th, 2009|02:21 pm] |
Here is just a small sampling of the problems I have experienced with the T61 that work has provided me:- Refusing to wake up from suspend
- Randomly coming out of suspend/hibernate of its own accord
- Clicking the right mouse button by itself
- Horrendous battery life (about 1h30m)
I particularly like the first one. This isn't even on some hippie operating system; it's fucking Windows. I had a Dell laptop nine years ago that was more reliable in every respect than this piece of shit.
I'm actually considering buying an MBP for myself. This is ridiculous. |
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