The Annual Breakdown

July 29, 2009


I'm weak. I tried so hard to wait to install my AC, perhaps to even go without it all summer. It was pretty warm today, but I didn't mind. Hell, I wasn't even sweating. But then my roommate (who already has her AC in) was cooking something in the oven so the kitchen was insanely hot, and she kept going in and out of her room commenting on how hot it was outside of her room every single time.

So I broke down and put my AC in.

AND I'M SOOOOOOO GLAD I DID! Not employed so far this summer, I had forgotten just how awesome air conditioning can be. Tonight, I will sleep awesomely, under my comforter.

Thank you, thermodynamics. I'm sorry for failing all my courses about you, a few times each.

posted by joem | 5 comments

It's always nice when music still holds up after 30 years.

July 28, 2009


Yeah, this is another post directly from PCL Linkdump. So?

posted by joem | 0 comments

Isn't it ironic?

July 25, 2009






Yes, it's so old and so lame, but I still love extreme ironing.

Also, I really wanted to show off this horrible misuse of "ironic" that just popped into my head.

posted by joem | 1 comments

workinonit

July 23, 2009

If you happen to check here and notice some changes going on during the next week or so, well, don't worry. I'm changing things around, trying things out. Hopefully you don't check too often, or else the final product won't be nearly as exciting and surprising.


And yes, I do hope it will be exciting and surprising.

posted by joem | 3 comments

RSS and the future

July 21, 2009

Lately, I've read multiple articles about how RSS isn't cutting it anymore. Some, like "Fever and the Future of Feed Readers" by Alex Payne, are what I would consider rational commentary. Others (which I refuse to link to) rabidly claim that Twitter bloodily murdered RSS (and Google!) in cold blood and that the world is a better place because of it.


Though, either way - rational or insane - I completely disagree.

RSS has not failed. Aggregators have not failed. We do not need a replacement for RSS. It's the readers who have failed.

I have yet to see any compelling arguments against RSS. Some frequent complaints and my dismissals/solutions follow:
  • too many feeds -- Unsubscribe from some! Or, better yet, don't subscribe to so many in the first place!
  • too much overlap across feeds -- Again, unsubscribe! Only keep the good, unique ones! If you notice that a lot of the overlap is just reblogged from one place, then unsubscribe from the rebloggers and subscribe to the source. (Or if you refuse to unsubscribe, then filter with something like Yahoo's Pipes.)
  • too many posts in each feed -- (you guessed it) UNSUBSCRIBE! Seek alternatives with less posts per day. Most high volume sites are not so unique that there aren't at least 30 alternatives.
  • not real-time enough -- Know this: it's not supposed to be! Do you seriously need it to be real-time anyway? Will the world (or your job, or your relationship, or... anything) end because you see a picture of a cute kitten as late as an hour or two after it was posted on the internet?
  • don't like Google Reader -- Well, you're on your own there. I've tried a lot and believe that Google Reader is the best, so it's kind of all I know. I've heard good things about Helvetireader (a "skin" for Google Reader), Fever (a web-based reader that you install on your own server that costs $30), Times (a slick non-web-based reader for OSX that costs $30), and NetNewsWire and FeedDemon (free, non-web-based readers for OSX and Windows, respectively). BUT I still think Google Reader is better than all of those. Depending on exactly what you don't like about Google Reader, this might be the only valid complaint. But this is a complaint about Google Reader, not RSS.
A lot of people (including Google) think that the future of RSS and the like lays in it becoming more "social." Maybe it does, but it should only be social by choice. Those who want to be anti-social should be allowed to be so. I personally read no RSS feeds which are chosen by popular vote (like Digg or Reddit). I would kill myself if I had to. I am not trying to be condescending (but merely truthful) when I state that my tastes typically do not match those of the general public. This isn't to say that they never match, but I'd rather a site like Buzzfeed or the random personal blogs I read to filter those popular vote sites for me.

Finally, I just want to make this absolutely clear: Twitter will not replace RSS feeds. Also, Twitter searching will not replace Google searching. I'm not slagging Twitter when I make these statements. They can (and will) all coexist peacefully, because they all do different things. (This goes without saying, but I'll say it anyways just in case you've never tried typing more than 140 characters at a time on Twitter. Or just in case you've never tried finding something more than 3 weeks old on Twitter.)

posted by joem | 2 comments

I've Now Got A Supplemental Blog With A Silly Name

July 19, 2009

I wanted to wait a week or two before I posted about it, to make sure I stuck with it, since I have a bad habit of starting blogs and then giving up on them after 1 week or 5 posts, whichever comes first. But posting to this one has already become second nature (thank you, bookmarklets!), and serves a drastically needed function, so I think we're good.


Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my newest sillily named blog: exphostor

Exphostor, like noexteho before it, stands for something. In this case, it's less cryptic: external photo storage. And this is its function. Instead of downloading images, I can just post them to this tumblr blog. Over the years, I've adopted the policy of downloading any and every image that catches my eye. Nice, because I then have loads of awesome pics on my hard drive. Not so nice because then I need to organize loads of awesome pics, and because it takes up space, and because I rarely go back to them after I've downloaded them. So what if I could just quickly/easily put them online somewhere, like I do with my bookmarks (Delicious)?

After trying out a lot of different places, I finally settled on Tumblr for two reasons. First, when you post a pic via link to tumblr, they make a local copy of it, so it won't disappear when a link becomes broken. Second, as touched on before, they've got a sweet bookmarklet that lets me post exactly how I want. Third, I saw no explicit limit to how much stuff they'll host. (And, as an added bonus, they can handle animated GIFs, a guilty pleasure of mine.)

I want to point out that exphostor is not a blog, per se. Nor does it replace any aspect of this blog. There may be overlap, if I deem something I've posted there worthy of being posted here. It is just a raw feed for my personal use, which you can follow if you really want. I am not posting stuff there specifically for others to see. I am not commenting on the images, except to note the photographer, model, source, and how I heard of it, when applicable and possible. As such, I'm trying only to post things for which I have some sort of relevant information. (Tumblr is already too full of posts with gigantic reblog trees (uggg!) that never actually explain what something is or who's responsible.)

While not a blog, it is still personal. Like my Delicious stream, this is a mostly-unfiltered glance at my interests and my browsing habits. The content may vary wildly. It's not for everyone, and some may find some of the things I post offensive. I will state right now that there will be lots of pictures of "hot women" and occasional nudity. This is something that catches my eye. But, being that I only post what I would consider downloading, I try to make certain that I do not let my primal urges get the better of me. Most, if not all, of the images of "hot women" I post will be honestly good photos, or at least honestly interesting photos. I hope you, too, can appreciate the virtuous aspects of these "hot women" photos and see me for more than just a lecherous creep.

Now, in case you missed the link above, it's exphostor.tumblr.com.

posted by joem | 1 comments

July 16, 2009

Just the other day, I noted that I had Easter and Christmas hymns stuck in my head for no reason at all. So it seems appropriate that I share this slice of awesomeness. (If you have a way to TURN UP YOUR BASS, do it now.)

Who want's the rewind?

posted by joem | 0 comments

A Request To My Reader(s) In Germany

Keep your eyes peeled for vinyl by these guys:



posted by joem | 2 comments

Fuck it: Language Evolution

July 15, 2009

I was originally writing a very long, in-depth post about how language evolves and specific words tend to become de-contextualized over time. But bah. Whatever. Someone who uses/overuses awesome so liberally has no right to complain.


So instead, I'll just briefly (yes, this is brief compared to what I had going before) mention that sexy (when applied to software, cars, mp3 players, etc) really bothers me. I think it's because it's original connotation is so readily apparent. It seems as though the awe in awesome can get somewhat lost. And brilliant hasn't been used to describe light in what now, a few hundred years*? (Not to mention the fact that its French base is obscured by the fact that... it's French.) But the sex in sexy is right there, taking up 3/4 of the entire word. It's unavoidable and hard to overlook. And I've never found a car or mp3 player to be sexually attractive or arousing. Software, on the other hand, could be arousing (see Strip Poker video games), but these are not the pieces of software to which sexy is commonly applied. Grrrrrr.

While I'm complaining like an old man, let me also say that I. HATE. THE. USE. OF. FULL-STOPS. AS. DELIMITERS. FOR. DRAMATIC. EFFECT. Seriously, what's wrong with ellipses?

* I kid. But still...

posted by joem | 3 comments

Wine + Icy Tower = a diversion I didn't need

July 12, 2009

A while ago, I managed to get a free copy of CrossOver (legally). CrossOver lets one run (some) Windows programs on a Mac, without the need to install Windows. Sweet. But for some reason (I think I installed some incompatible version of X11) CrossOver stopped working for me. Not that big a deal, since I really barely used it. And I couldn't get most of the games I wanted to run to work with it anyhow.

For reasons I'm not going to get into right now, I decided to install Wine, the free (and open source) program on which CrossOver is based. I've been quickly trying out various Windows software on it, with some pleasant successes (SciTE, Notepad++, EnviroBear2000, Knytt) and some disappointing, if unsurprising, failures (Spelunky, You Found the Grappling Hook!, La-Mulana). That's the thing about Wine: in my experience, you've got to expect failures, especially from more complex programs... But still, it's free and it works sometimes, so it's cool. And maybe with a little effort, I could get some of the failures working.

My happiest success (so far) was Icy Tower. This is a game I've known of for years, and my love has never wavered... but it's never been ported to OS X, so sometimes I forget it exists. One could describe it as a platform game that distills the genre to its bare essentials: the platforms. A simple concept, but done so elegantly, and with just the right amount of flourishes, as to make this one of my favorite games ever. And they've released a new version since the last time I played it. The new version awesomely added loads of GTA-style achievements/stats. (The graphics might even be better too?) And it works in Wine, so I can easily play it again!


In case you're curious about using Wine on your Mac, I'll give you what advice I can:

(NOTE: Darwine and WineHelper, as described below, are no longer actively developed. Instead, there is just Wine. Still, Mike Kronenberg has released WineBottler, which includes a build of Wine (or maybe Darwine. I'm not sure, and it's not important) inside it, and does most of the same stuff I explain below, and some of it even better than his Darwine build. Soooooo, you might want to check that out instead. I haven't played around with it as much, so I'm not writing about it here. Yet.)

Although the best way to install it would be with a binary from the official site, I couldn't find one there. Instead, there are links to various pages about installing it from source code yourself, but this is rather complicated. So the easiest way it to use binaries that someone else has already compiled, like Mike Kronenberg's build of Darwine that I used. Go ahead, try it out... it's easy. Once it's installed, you just need to open Windows .exe files with WineHelper, and you're good to go.

Mind you, there's a chance you'll need to install X11. Easy enough, since it can be found on your OS X installation disc. (A worthwhile install, in my mind, as it'll also allow you to run the OS X version of The Gimp, a free image editor that is the closest free thing to Photoshop that exists.) There's also a chance that after you install X11, you might need to install XQuartz, a different version of X11, but that's easy enough, too.

Once you've got it running, you can, as I mentioned, open .exe files with WineHelper. Single executable programs (like Knytt) will just run, if they can. Installers (like Icy Tower's) will run, and you can just let them install to their default location. Feel free to let the installers add a link on the desktop, since it's one of the easiest ways to launch applications. You can always move the link into a different location afterwards.

Programs that don't have an installer can either be placed wherever you want, or, keeping it Windows-like, can be placed in the Program Files folder where the installers put stuff. With this build of Darwine, the default folder for this is ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/ or, more explicitly, /Users/[INSERT-YOUR-USERNAME-HERE]/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/ so you could create a directory and toss it in there, like I did for Knytt.exe. You're going to want to use either Terminal (type "cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/" and then to get a Finder window, type "open .") or Finder (use Go -> Go To Folder... and then type in the directory name) to get to that folder.

That's about it. Confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty simple.

posted by joem | 2 comments

Obama - Weathers

July 06, 2009


Apt?

posted by joem | 2 comments

July 03, 2009

No real grammar. No real reason. But whatever, this stuff's on my mind today:

1. Drumcorps (the artist) with a superb mix of jungle and hardcore or something like that

2. Venetian Snares doing a dubstep remix of Black Sabbath -- Come on, Chris. If nothing else warms you up to Mr. Snares, this should.

3. Pro tip: Season 4 of Doctor Who is awesome when drunk. Just so long as it's a good drunk. If I were totally lonely and/or heartbroken right now, I'd probably be crying every time he has to make a hard decision.

4. Fourth of July rooftop mini-golf. FUCK YES.

5. I can't believe I'm excited for an HTML specification. HTML/XHTML 5 FTW!

6. SERIOUSLY. Cake-in-a-mug will be the end of me.


and

posted by joem | 0 comments

A Meditation On Hair

July 02, 2009






Oops, I did it again:

posted by joem | 0 comments

My poor nose

Yesterday, my room was full of the smell of gasoline (so much so that I couldn't sleep!). Today, it is full of the smell of deep fryer (so much so that I feel sick!). And even though the gasoline fumes gave me a headache and could have killed me, I prefer them.

Well, Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (formerly the most beautiful woman I've ever seen*) have a message for you, deep fryer smell:


(Damnit. This was kind of a rant, wasn't it? Well, I guess I lied, then, in my previous post.)

* Don't get me wrong - she's still incredibly beautiful.

posted by joem | 0 comments

I love Ruby but...

July 01, 2009

...but I can't stand all the terminology. I've bitched about it before, yes, but I will bitch about it again.


[NOTE: This is a niche rant. My next post will not be a rant. I promise.]

Granted, some of the terminology that trips me up when reading about Ruby is due to the fact that I barely took any computer science classes in college. Also, some phrases, like "continuous integration server" are possibly industry-wide buzzwords, and not necessarily Ruby specific*. This is not really what I'm complaining about today.

What I'm complaining about today is the tendency for a lot of Ruby things to A) have stupid names and B) be based upon other Ruby things with stupid names and in turn be named with even stupider names. First and foremost we have RubyGems (commonly just referred to as gems). RubyGems is a package manager for Ruby that can distribute and manage libraries and programs. OK, fine. Package managers typically have dumb names (see Yum et al), but at least they all call the things they distribute packages. RubyGems (and the Ruby community on a whole) calls them gems. Gah.

Now, allow me to list what some of these gems are named: bishop, hpricot, cucumber, rails, paperclip, webrat, sass, capistrano, sinatra, moonshine, hanna, scruffy, nokogiri, prawn... And the list goes on. Now, I get not wanting to name your gem johns-html-parser or jacks-deployment-utility, but must everything be so whimsical? Must everything be some obscure reference or in-joke? Must everything sound so... Web 2.0?

Alas, it seems as though Ruby's close association with the whole Web 2.0 thing is probably (mostly) to blame. This worries me. I hope that this association does not drag Ruby down once the Web 2.0 trend fades. Ruby is a wonderfully fun language. It brings me back to my childhood when I would hand-enter BASIC programs from magazine articles (remember kids, this was before the world wide web had anything on it), and then subsequently mess around with that code. It brings me back to the days of modifying GORILLA.BAS with a friend to speed it up and make the explosions fill half the screen. It makes me feel like a wide-eyed kid again.

That, too, I suppose, is to blame for the whimsical names.

Finally, I will admit that the computer world has always had a high quantity of confusing and/or stupid names. I personally have typed ls and grep and sudo often enough that I occasionally forget these terms are not common terms that my roommates know. Fortunately, I have not actually completely replaced words in my vocabulary with such computer terms -- like "grep" for "search" -- as some programmers have. Then again, I firmly believe that google can be a verb. In fact, I believe that verb can be a verb. According to the Joe English Dictionary, to verb means making a non-verb into a verb (a process I love).

Perhaps I am simply yelling "Get off my lawn!" while standing upon someone else's lawn?

* Perhaps this silly naming trend is not Ruby specific at all. Do let me know. I guess I mostly read about Ruby, so I wouldn't know. But, thinking back to times when I did read in depth about other languages, I don't recall being so annoyed with the library names.

posted by joem | 2 comments

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