Ice Cavern Studios

Had an interesting discussion with Yorke today about how far Linux hasn’t come over the better part of a decade. Now, before I go any further, I would like to point out that I’m currently typing this up on my Linux box, so no accusing me of merely being a Microsoft shill.

The basis of the discussion was the fact that, due to a bit of instability in Ubuntu, my machine had gotten itself into a rather nasty state after a failed attempt at applying some system updates. Clearly, I was able to get the system back, but what isn’t so clear was how I had to do it. For the sake of brevity, let’s just say that a lot of command line work was required to get everything going gain.

Now, for me, this isn’t such a big deal. I prefer using the command line; I find it to be faster to get things done. Mind you, I’m also a software engineer, so what I think of in terms of an optimal user experience are a we bit different. I also look at the command line as a choice.

What is kind of sad about Linux given that it’s now been over a decade since it hit the “big time” is that it feels like it hasn’t changed in say…six years? Sure, the windows now fade in and out, but copying OS X (or God forbid Vista) shouldn’t really be seen as an improvement. I still need to use the command line to reliably do anything. The window manager just stops redrawing app windows for no good reason. (This has been a major issue for me with Ubuntu) And package management…well, there still needs to be “package management.”

Everything about this set-up feels exactly as it did when I was in college and futzing with this crap on a regular basis. All of the modularity that makes this awesome for geeks/powerusers/sysadmins really is kind of stupid when you just want to have a PC that runs. I installed a pretty basic version of Ubuntu and the update (it had been a week or two since I had done it previously) needed to change 100+ packages. And this wasn’t even for the complete distro upgrade.

I had heard how much better Linux had gotten since I had last looked at it seriously. Honestly, I don’t see it. Sure, they’ve put some graphical front ends onto the command line stuff, but given how often they’ve failed on me, they might as well not be there. It’s been about ten years since I started futzing with Linux and beyond some higher res art, it’s pretty much the same thing I was using before.

Technology

http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/landing/thank-an-engineer/index.htm?DCMP=thank_an_engineer&HQS=NotApplicable+OT+thanks

You’re all very welcome. ^_^

Life and Times

So this youtube clip popped up in my Google Reader aggrigate today:

And it really got me to thinking about how far technology has come over twenty years. Hell, even since I started college in 2000 things have rapidly changed.

I remarked to my friend, Amanda, about how crazy it was for me to be chatting with her from a mini laptop while I was in my bed. Ten years ago, just having a laptop was kind of crazy. Most people had desktops at school, and I didn’t get my first till my senior year when i bought my roommate’s old crappy one for a couple hundred bucks.

And I’m not going to get started on my iPhone. Seriously, if you had told me ten years ago I’d be carrying around a phone that does what my iPhone does, I’d be kind of impressed. I probably wouldn’t believe you because the thought of having that kind of internet speed mobile all around would be too much. Mind you, when I first started college, Wireless technology was still in it’s infancy.

But yeah, 20 years of technology and we’ve come quite a ways.

Life and Times

So I have a bunch I want to write about with regards to the convention, but for now, I just want to talk about this weekend. (Don’t worry, I’ve got a word doc that has the events I want to chronicle from the convention so nothing will be lost)

Anyway, THIS weekend has been awesome. Why? Because for the first time in months, I didn’t have to be anywhere for anything. I could just…be. No homework, no travel and best of all, no having to be at the shed. All I had to do was figure out what would help me relax the most and do that.

So what did I do? Well, Saturday, I slept till about 11:30 which was fantastic. I honestly can’t remember the last time I could sleep in that late and get up knowing I didn’t have to be anywhere. I forgot how cool sleeping in could be, I’ve gotten into such a habit of getting up and doing things that the thought of sleeping in just seems foreign. Once I woke up, I lounged around and watched some Genshiken (anime) I picked up while Pat was here. I then grabbed some delicious, delicious noodles and proceeded to play video games. Strike that, video game. That’s right, I sat down and played Lost Odesesy for about…six hours. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the time, let alone the energy, to play a video game for that long. Needless to say, I was very happy. After that, I drove downtown and grabbed some food with my friends Joe and Sabrina.

Today started sometime around 10:50 and it was pretty chill. At 11;45, H picked up Justin and me and the three of us met up with our friend Theresa at the Mariners’ game. Yorke got tickets through Bungie so all we had to do was show up. While the game itself wasn’t all that great (the M’s lost 8-2 to Detroit) the company was good and we had a pretty good time. After the game, we came home and I passed out for about an hour. Once I was back to the world of the living, I decided to work on cleaning up the house; which is something I had been looking forward to for a while.

So yeah, it’s been a really great weekend. It wasn’t super chock full of activities, but I didn’t want it to be. I just wanted…chill. And that’s what I got. Hopefully the next couple of weekends will be the same. But yes, I think I’m ready for a couple of months of chill. ^_^

Life and Times

For the first time in 4.5 years, I am writing a blog post on a new personal computer. Yeah, that’s right, 4.5 years since I last purchased a computer for my own personal use. What’s even crazier is that I have decided to forgo purchasing the most powerful machine around, and instead, I have purchased a little netbook computer.

So why did I go with this instead of say… this?

Well, it’s actually quite simple. I just don’t NEED all of that power. At least now while I’m at home. Many of the things I used to do on the computer I just don’t do anymore. I haven’t seriously used photoshop in a couple of years. And I honestly haven’t been serious about a PC game since I quite playing WoW years ago. When I’m at home, I’m pretty much a fairly typical computer user. I chat, surf the web, occasionally edit documents and that’s really it. So a netbook is perfect for me.

Now, mind you, I’m still a geek at heart, so I’ve already hacked this Wind pretty seriously. Within an hour of getting home with this baby, I’d already opened it up and doubled it’s ram. Then I threw OS X and Windows 7 on it. Now, I’m waiting for the wireless card I ordered to arrive so I can install that. (The built in one isn’t fully compatible with OS X, and the one I’m getting is, plus it’s more powerful)

But yeah, I’m pretty happy with this bad boy. It may not be the most powerful PC on the planet, but it’s definitely the right tool for the job.

Life and Times