I have decided that I hate sites that require javascript and do not offer a “lo-fi” version. When I surf, I have javascript turned off except for the sites I like to frequent. No, it’s not about security because I’m confident in the security of my system/browser. It’s more that I don’t want to watch tons of “cool, flying gizmos” at some sites; I want information and only information. What’s really tacky, in my opinion, are school websites that use javascript for navigation. Most of the time, they don’t even mention that they require javascript! C’mon, even though we’re in “Web 2.x” crap, that doesn’t mean you leave behind everyone who doesn’t have the latest technologies enabled. It’s even worse if a site uses IE-only features because in this day and age, there are many non-IE browsers that are used. It’s about the equivalent of shooting oneself in the foot.
No TagsArchive for the 'Rants' Category
Alright, here it is, another rant! The Telegraph reports that a man was arrested after “accidentally sending a friend request on Facebook to his estranged wife”: link. He claims that the login procedure confused him. OK, let’s look at the login screen:
And now, at the screen immediately after that, the “home” screen (names have been erased to protect the innocent):
Here are my questions: where is the “automatic friend request”? In fact, one has to go out of one’s way to send a friend request (either by going to someone’s friend list and clicking on the “Add to Friends” link or searching by name).
How could one not know whom one is requesting as a friend? Facebook quite blatantly uses people’s names as identification. Anyone’s profile is easily identified by their reported real name. There is no “coolprncss32″ or “Want to meet me tomorrow?” display names. It is only reported real names (of course, this can be tricked, but most of the people I’ve seen on Facebook haven’t done so).
What is so confusing about that login screen? Iit has a very noticeable location for login information and a basic ad for registering with Facebook. Nothing else. In fact, it is much simpler than MySpace’s login screen.
Well, my MythBox, which has been running Ubuntu Feisty has failed me. It seems to have been a bug in the 2.16.20 kernel. The main thrust of the bug was that it screwed with the I/O (read/write) to the hard disk. The first noticeable problem was at three weeks after the upgrade from Edgy because my /home partition (JFS for the very large video files) crashed. I was able to recover the log, but I thought the problem was in the JFS package. After ten days of research, I discovered that it wasn’t JFS (which hasn’t had any major upgrades for quite a while) but the kernel package. So, I contemplated my two options: upgrade to the 2.16.21 kernel (which was in gutsy) or downgrade back to Edgy. It’s nearly impossible to manually downgrade Ubuntu without having a lot of headache, so I chose the upgrade path (after all, my main computer runs Debian unstable with a few experimental packages). During the upgrade, apt-get choked on a disk I/O and the system is no longer bootable. Joy.
Since I now have to reinstall the system (and hopefully recover the pertinent data from my /var and /home partitions), I did some more research. My first priority was remain in the Debian-based system. Second was having a very stable system with less frequent updates (this was, for all intents and purposes, a server environment in which cutting edge is unnecessary). Some things I would need on this box: MySQL server, Apache, PHP, MythTV (of course), Subversion, an FTP daemon, and a SSH daemon. Right off, most MythTV-specific distros were out because they make it somewhat difficult to install other programs/packages. Ubuntu was out because this was the second time I’ve had some major problems with it. So, I settled on Debian stable. It has all the packages I want/need, and it’s super-stable. I’ve not have a bad experience with Debian stable (Debian testing, on the other hand…). SO, during whatever free time I may have this week, I will be re-installing old faithful.
Technorati Tags: debian, Feisty, kernel, UbuntuIf you’re in Germany and a Flickr user, you should know that Flickr has made it so that “sensitive” content is not accessible by users in Germany. This is so that Flickr complies with German censorship law (which requires age verification for the content in question). Now, here’s the ironic part: German users of Flickr are campaigning against Flickr! They’ve set up a group against censorship (link). But, their main target of criticism is Flickr, not the German law. It seems that the more proper thing to do would be to criticize the law that Flickr is adhering to (so that they, nor their owner Yahoo, gets fined in Germany). This seems to be yet another reactionary movement that isn’t thinking critically on the issue.
No TagsFirst, look at this clip from a conference last year with Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion:
Now, does anything strike you as odd about Dawkins’s response? Let me point it out: he did not answer the question at all. In fact, Dawkins deflected the question back to the questioner. Why is it so difficult for Dawkins to answer a relatively simple question. What if Dawkins is wrong? Sure, he does have a point that the faith practices of parents are typically passed along to their children, but that doesn’t make the question invalid, especially since his project is an attack on all religious traditions, not just American Christianity. Dr. Dawkins, if he is seriously engaging in anything to do with religious faith, especially from a “scientific” standpoint should know that one should be trying to disprove one’s own theory. In this case, honestly evaluating the question “what if you’re wrong?” is a prerequisite to the dialog in question. Deflecting that question is more a sign of fundamentalism than it is of academic study.
Technorati Tags: Richard Dawkins, The God DelusionSo, I got an email last night from my universities Vice Chancellor for Technology saying that students who run Windows should not get Vista yet because it is incompatible with:
- Symantec Antivirus
- The Wireless VPN
- Blackboard
- Webmail
- Pharos public printer system
OK, I can see it not being compatible with actual software on the computer (Symantec and the VPN client), but Blackboard? Webmail? Bull. These are web apps that run off of old technology that any modern browser can handle: HTML and javascript. That’s it. I’ve gotten these things to run in lynx, a text-only browser that is run from the command line. I don’t think Microsoft screwed up IE that much in Vista that these no longer work. The university says that in Vista, both of these services have “limited” functionality. I’m sorry DU, but that’s a lie. BOTH of these sites will work as well in IE7 on Windows XP and IE7 on Vista. Users may need to allow content from these sites (i.e. change a setting), but that’s it. I have found that the techs at my university are rather ignorant of operating systems. Case in point: I run Iceweasel in Debian. When I go to the university login, I get a message saying that my browser isn’t supported. Why? It’s because the script reads my User Agent as Netscape 1.8 instead of Iceweasel 2.0. My first response was to fake the User Agent as Firefox 2.0 (which is “supported” by my university). Well, even as FF 2.0, the script still reads it incorrectly. So what did I do? Sent an email to the tech guys saying that the script isn’t reading my User Agent correctly. Their response?
At this time the Helpdesk only supports Windows XP sp2 and Apple’s OSX. The warning message you see is because your browser is not one supported in WebCentral.
Sorry, but User Agents have nothing to do with Operating Systems. If a web app gets a User Agent as Firefox 2.0–a “supported” browser–it should treat like FF 2.0 There shouldn’t be a “well, it only works for FF 2.0 in Windows XP.” FF2.0 is FF 2.0, regardless of what system it is installed on. After reiterating this fact to the “tech support,” they said they’d forward the info to the script developer. Thank you, that’s all I asked for. And one last thing, I’m not going to install Windows XP SP2 on my computer so that I can use the school’s “preferred software.” I can do everything I need to on my computer without needing the crap they give out. I already have a SSH client, so I don’t need the crap one provided by them. I don’t need a “secured wireless VPN” because my system is secure. I don’t need Symantec AV because ClamAV works better. Yeah, it’s a pain living in a Microsoft world, but I survive rather nicely. And, unlike their computers, mine’s been running for 19 days straight. The only thing I can’t do is print directly to their networked printers because it goes through Pharos and I haven’t researched how to make it work (I don’t print much at school). Nevermind…thanks to the Princeton Unix Group, I have enough info to print to the Pharos server through CUPS.
So, in summary: “tech support” at my university is a joke. Vista isn’t worth the upgrade. Try Linux.
Well, it’s way old now, but the Rational Response Squad wants people to “blaspheme” — “deny the holy spirit” and/or commit the “unforgivable sin.” Since I don’t have a webcam to do this via video, I have to settle for text. God is dead…and we have killed him. That’s what Nietzsche’s madman declared long ago. Well, even so, I still “believe in God.” It’s just that I don’t believe in a semi-physical being that’s “out there” who needs some kind of consolation because some don’t believe in “him.” Here’s a problem with the RRS’s reasoning: first, this “unforgivable sin” has still been forgiven. Sorry, but the Christian faith I hold to says that God dies for all sins–not some or a few or all for those who believe. It’s “unforgivable” in that a “normal, rational” wouldn’t forgive it, but that doesn’t change the text that says that it was. I see it as a friend betraying another and the first–who shouldn’t forgive the second–still forgives him anyway (think of that arc in the series Angel where Wesley betrays Angel). Secondly, I want to clarify my first response in that “God is dead.” It’s not that God was some being with a lifespan who died of old age…or even some kind of being that can be killed. What Nietzsche meant is that what was the prevalent conception of God (which is still prevalent today) has been killed….AND that we did it (with our increasing individualism and subjectivism)…AND that he was a bit early (advice: go grab a copy of The Gay Science and re-read that passage…I think it was section 129, but I can be off by a few and I’m too lazy to check). Thirdly, doing this around a church building is just plain stupid. Nobody at Mardi Gras (which is 20 Feb this year) likes the over-zealous “evangelists” running about proclaiming how everyone there is going to hell. Let’s not stoop to that same level if we wish to be called “rational.” I’m sorry, but so far, it doesn’t look like the RRS is rationally responding to anything. It’s all emotional.
No TagsSince today marks the advent of Microsoft’s latest scheme, Vista, i thought i would post a short opinion on one of its latest “technologies.” Vista now has a feature called “Readyboost.” When your Vista system is low on memory (which seems easier now than ever), you can plug in a USB drive to use as additional cache. Yes, if the 1-2Gb of cache Windows has already allocated isn’t enough, you can add more. Now, that seems nifty at first glance, but when other systems (such as Linux) manage their resources well enough that this is never a problem, why would it be considered a “good” thing?
Take, for instance, my system. i decided to quickly take a snapshot of my desktop with a resource meter running (ksysguard). Like normal, i have multiple things running: a local Subversion repository, apache2 web server, MySQL database, KDE, gAIM (sorta like Trillian in that it accesses most, if not all, IM networks), Quanta+ (sorta like Dreamweaver), kdesvn (a graphical Subversion program to track changes in real-time to what i’m working on in Quanta), Iceweasel (a rebranded Firefox), Icedove (a rebranded Thunderbird), Amarok (a better-than-iTunes audio player), knotes (a sticky pad notes program), knewsticker (a scrolling RSS reader), akregator (a normal RSS reader), Liquid Weather++ (a weather widget on the desktop), Riding with Robots (another widget that gets an image from one of the various space exploration robots daily), conky (a desktop widget that reports system info). With all of that running, my simple 1 Gb of RAM is used up 70% (700Mb*), and 8 Mb of cache is used (out of 2 Gb). And just to be fair, i have a “start” menu application running that is more graphical (KBFX Spinx) as well as a taskbar that takes a snapshot of every program running and gives me a popup of the screen when i hover over the application (Taskbar v2, picture below). Oh, and to add one more thing: my uptime is currently 8 and a half days…and that was because i had a power outage last week.
So, why should someone fork out $200+ to run a system that hogs resources, wants you to add more cache space by using up your USB drive? Is it because of Office? That’s the only reason i can think of. Except that OpenOffice and KOffice both read and write in MS Office formats….as well as PDF. Internet browser? Try Firefox/Iceweasel/Flock (if you haven’t already), Konqueror, Galeon, or Opera. They all run in Linux. Oh, and you can also get Internet Explorer to work in Linux if you really want it. Instant messaging? AOL’s AIM has a Linux package, but there’s also gAIM and Kopete for Linux that handle all the platforms (i’m currently on MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Jabber, GoogleTalk, and ICQ). Email (Outlook)? Thunderbird/Icedove and Evolution both run in Linux and do as much–if not more–than Outlook. iTunes? Amarok, XMMS, JuK, kaboodle all run in Linux. Amarok syncs with iPods without a problem**. Video games? OK, you got me there…except that Doom3, Quake4, and others run in Linux. Oh, i get it, you really like Microsoft’s Age of Empires III. The interface? Well, both KDE and Gnome can be customized to look and feel just like Windows (i think the Ubuntu versions default to that). DVDs? xine plays DVDs without a problem. Burning CDs/DVDs? K3B does it better than Nero or Roxio. Photoshop? theGIMP does everything Photoshop can do (with a few exception in reading PSD layers). Your digital camera? Try digiKam or any of the Gphoto2 programs…they not only access your digital camera without a problem, but they can organize your photos in any way you want. Quicken? Look at GnuCash. Wireless card? Well, some cards are hard to get working, but the majority of them are now working fine from the kernel (i.e., they “just work”). Need help getting yours working? Most Linux geeks can walk you through ndiswrapper and getting it to work (including me). There is really no excuse for a normal desktop user. Heck, chances are, if there isn’t a Linux equivalent, you can still use your Windows version through Wine.
Photos:
(1) 
(2) 
*: While the photo shows on 35Mb free, that is counting the programs actively running, which is not always the case. The difference is in the “overhead” allowed for the change between a “sleep” state and an active state. While in a “sleep” state, that overhead memory can be used by any program, including a new one.
**: The only problem is that you can’t access the iTunes Music Store in Linux because there isn’t a legal interface for it. There are some programs that still access it, though…
OK, so recently (last month or so), John Piper spoke at a Passion07 conference and said (gasp!) that God “kicks our ass” (link). Soon afterwards, he apologized for it. Man, why did you have to do that, John? Is it really a “bad” word? If you meant “donkey” instead of “butt,” would you have apologized? It’s not about being “hip or cool,” John but about being real. If you really meant “ass,” then say it. God’s not going to kick you or anyone else out of heaven for saying “ass.” Stop trying to bend over backwards for the ultraconservative and take it like a man. Don’t take it up the ass just because some people (probably those not there) got offended. There’s nothing wrong with offending people, especially others who call themselves “Christian.” It keeps them humble.
No TagsThis WTF goes out to all the snobbish customers in the world (or at least America). When somebody is using a cheaper rental computer, it is rude to ask them to switch with you because you’re going to be there longer. Period. It doesn’t matter if they’re paying for it or not, work there or not, or have five hands growing out of their waist or not. It is rude and selfish to ask someone to do something that benefits you just because it will benefit you. If there is a reason other than “it helps me,” ask away. If there isn’t, then either wait your turn or take another computer, even if it winds up being 10 cents more per minute. If you’re really going to spend another ten hours on those computers (at $120 a pop), you might want to consider (amazing here) buying a laptop. Has consumer America really become that selfish that it now lacks knowledge of simple etiquette. And no, saying “thank you” afterward doesn’t make it better.
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Talk
thainamu
Chris Martin
Wilson, Rick, brad, christopher, brad, christopher, brad, christopher, brad
christopher, Jeffrey Rodriguez
pfunked, christopher, pfunked
Jasen