chuma.org

Month: March 2005

  • That Axe Commercial

    If you live in Canada, and you watch television, you’ve probably seen a commercial for Axe Shower Gel. In this particular spot, there’s a naked man being chased by a pack of dogs through backyards, etc (ostensibly because he was cheating with the dog owner’s wife/girlfriend). In any case Sandy and I loved the music in the background, and as Meatwad would say “the beat is awesome.”

    So I e-mailed the people at Unilever (parent company) to find out what the song is. Unfortunately, this is what they wrote:

    From: Spcl-ConsumerCentre.CA-LP-Tor@unilever.com
Subject: RE: Home and Personal Care related enquiry
Date: 29/03/2005 09:27

Hi Victor,
Thanks for writing!
The song was created for the commercial by contracted composers, which is often
the case for advertising.  Unfortunately it is not available anywhere else.

    Crap.

  • notes to myself

    How to hack my cups install again to automatically turn on my printer:

    cups will send the output using /usr/lib/cups/backend/parallel

    symlink this file to a script that checks the printer status first, then runs the real CUPS parallel backend.

  • My GBA Movie Player

    A while ago I bought a GBA Movie Player from overseas. Read about it and it seemed like a good thing, plus it was only about $30.

    How it works is: there are some programs that you run on your PC to convert media files (images, music, and video) to a special format for the player. Then you copy the special files to a CF card, put the CF card into the player, put the player into the GBA, and then it will play them. And you can convert any video format that you can play back in Windows.

    When it works, it works well. The crappiest part of it though is the PC software. It has major issues with two formats:

    • MPEG2 files, such as DVD source. They provide a shareware version of the Elecard MPEG2 decoder but once it expires you’re boned. Commercial decoders won’t work with their software.
    • XviD files. They just make the converter crash.

    However, I just fixed both of these issues and I’m now happy as a clam. Here’s how I did it:

    • For MPEG2 I installed this free MPEG2 codec. Works great where ATI and PowerDVD’s codecs are locked down to their respective software.
    • For XviD, the trick is to NOT use XviD for all supported FourCCs, and also turn on compatibility mode via the decoder properties. Not sure if it ends up using DivX in this case (which I also have installed) but I don’t care because it’s working!

  • sometimes the lyrics just fit my mind perfectly.

    Guster – Come Downstairs and Say Hello from the album Keep It Together

    Dorothy moves to click her ruby shoes Right in tune with dark side of the moon Someone, someone could tell me Where I belong Be calm, be brave, it’ll be okay No more messing around and living underground And new year’s resolutions By this time next year I won’t be here I turn on MTV, the volume’s down Lips move, they say It’ll be okay To tell you the truth, I’ve said it before Tomorrow I start in a new direction One last time these words from me I’m never saying them again and I shut the light and listen as my watch unwinds To tell you the truth, I’ve said it before Tomorrow I start in a new direction I know I’ve been half-asleep I’m never doing that again I look straight at what’s coming ahead and soon its going to change in a new direction Every night as I’m falling asleep These words repeating in my head Voices calling from a yellow road To come downstairs and say hello Don’t be shy, just say hello To tell you the truth, I’ve said it before Tomorrow I start in a new direction I know I’ve been half-asleep I’m never doing that again I look straight at what’s coming ahead and soon its going to change in a new direction Every night as I’m falling asleep These words repeated in my head

  • The Who – I’m Free

    I’M FREE-I’m free, And freedom tastes of reality, I’m free-I’m free, AN’ I’m waiting for you to follow me.

    If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high, You’d laugh and say ‘nothing’s that simple’ But you’ve been told many times before Messiahs pointed to the door And no one had the guts to leave the temple!

    I’m free-I’m free And freedom tastes of reality I’m free-I’m free And I’m waiting for you to follow me.

  • People change, times change, interests change

    Who wants a file archive?

    I started this thing, which I called UNNA, back in September of 2000. At the time, there had been a great collection of Newton software called NewtonMAD – however, some of it was warez and so it needed to be ‘cleaned up’. Some Newties, including myself, started doing this, and out of it came UNNA, the goal of which was to compile, amass, and categorize as much Newton software and as many file archives as we possibly could, in one place.

    Back in 2000 I was still living in a dorm in University, and I was only a few weeks away from meeting my future wife. I was using an old DEC Alpha workstation ($50 surplus from the U of G CompSci department) running NetBSD as the server, and my residence internet connection for bandwidth.

    UNNA grew and grew and I kept on finding and mirroring files, tirelessly moving them around, extracting them, whatever whatever. I realized it would be a good think to store file information in a database. Paul and I came up with a database schema, and JB Hemlock wrote a PHP based management system for it, for free (which was frickin awesome). I kept adding files. I added the ability for people to submit files. I started a network of mirror sites. Redesigned the website a few times.

    Where the hell am I going with this? Basicially out of all of the things I’ve done, UNNA is the longest-running and probably the most successful. That said, I still have a love/hate relationship with it. Since about 2002 my time for all things Newton-related has been in decline. The past few months it has been quite close to zero. I feel like shit because of this, I feel like I’ve been letting the community down by not updating and not adding new files.

    I’ve false-started, dropped, or quit so many ideas and projects in the last 5 years I probably couldn’t remember them all. Now I’m going to be 25 and I’m finally starting to feel focused: I’m finally going to be working in my field, software development, I have a wife who loves me and a house to work on. I didn’t have any of these things when I was just a geek in my dorm room. Now I do and they’re more important than my geeky exploits.

    I’ve had tons of cool site ideas, code ideas, but I don’t have time to put them down on paper or in code. Little things I sometimes finish, like the time I figured out how to find a PICT image in a Newton package and convert it to a GIF, but by and large my Newton and my hard drive is full of half-finished code and stuff.

    I want to get rid of UNNA, but there’s no place to put it. I’ve let it stagnate and people have called me on it numerous times, but no one has offered to take it over. The maintainer would have to have an intimate knowledge of PHP, MySQL, Apache, and Linux, not to mention the Newton. I still love using my Newton and do so every day, but as far as accomplishing things in code, I have a feeling I’m going to be able to fulfill those aspirations at my job. I am really starting to like my company, warts and all, and since I walked in the door I knew that it was full of great code and smart people. I’m finally going to be developing code instead of support, and I am looking forward to working hard and focusing on it.

  • I miss Lloyd Axworthy.

    Lloyd Axworthy tells Condoleezza Rice what we’re really thinking – Axworthy was a great foreign minister IMHO. This is a great read.

  • Random smatterings.

    Our basement is painted! It “just” needs a ceiling and carpet now. Might be a while before those are done though.

    I made a really good lasagna yesterday. It was just… tasty. I wish I had made two but we ran out of noodles.

    I’ve been writing quite a lot of JavaScript lately, not a language which I’ve really ‘learned’ but it’s not hard to pick up. I keep forgetting somethings though, like when I do a replace, it RETURNS the new string instead of modifying it in place, as I’d expect since it’s a method of the object. It just took me way to long to remember that.

    Also, lots of XML and XSLT. XSLT has syntax that frankly makes my brain hurt, but I’ve actually got a working XSLT and it’s transforming XML into HTML. Within the browser. Well, FireFox at least. But it’s pretty cool.

    Sandy’s started her two week block placement yesterday. Two weeks of not having to go to spirit-crushing university are a good thing.

    I’m still sick of winter, usually I’m not, but when I get home there will be a foot of snow on my driveway…