Author Archives: anachostic - Page 55

Four Letter Word

Posted by on February 13, 2014 No comments

Porn.  There, I said it.

It’s a weird thing, really.  Porn has been around probably forever, although mostly as a subculture.  It had a brief heyday in the 70’s where it was shown in legitimate movie theaters, then got buried until the Internet revival.  But the porn of today is nothing like the porn of yesteryear.  Porn has always been viewed by some as disgusting.  However, the modern flavor would make even an old-time connoisseur say it’s disgusting.  Hence its name: gonzo porn.

But I’m not going to delve into specifics of all that.  My interest is more in how the term is viewed and used.  For example, at a recent corporate meeting that included the entire building staff of obviously mixed company, someone was joking about putting up an online video about the new product we were launching.  Another person joked with him and asked why he didn’t have it done already.  The first person responded that he only did porn.  Awkward chuckles and silence.  The thought for him to even suggest a joke like that must mean it’s mainstream, although not readily accepted.

However, take a bunch of people who are geeking out over some new highly hyped product, like a new-model Corvette.  You would have no blowback from saying that an online photo gallery or demo video of the car was like “car porn.”  In this case, “porn” is used as a term for anything that is meant to stimulate, arouse, and excite.  And somehow, that is not dirty.

I originally got thinking about this post from a forum post made by an acquaintance about how a friend of his decided to become a porn actress.  She jumped into the business completely and has quite a catalog built in a short period of time.  Now, the forum this was posted on is male-dominated, so the responses were generally what you’d expect – pretty debased.  So then, as you would also expect, the question became, when would this guy get to have sex with her?  After all, she must like sex to do it for a living, and he’s a guy (apparently the only real requirement here), so when is it going to happen?  And if it doesn’t happen, well, that must mean the guy is beyond the lowest form of loser, to not even be able to have sex with a porn actress who is also a personal friend.

So here’s another odd standard.  The woman in the porn business is awesome on-screen, but worthless in-person.  I’ve definitely grown out of the “anything that moves” stage, so I’m probably just looking at this from an old-person’s viewpoint.  In fact, I’m looking at it from an intolerant, high-tolerance viewpoint, i.e. I have no problem that she does porn, but I take issue to people objectifying her.

What a problem to have.  A person meets someone and states he’s a doctor.  In response, he gets “Oh?  I have this problem, can you help me with it real quick?”  This woman meets someone and states she’s an “adult entertainer” and, in response, gets “Oh? I have this problem, can you help me with it real quick?”  Geez, I do computer stuff for a living and usually I don’t mind looking at someone’s computer problems, but it’s clearly still my choice whether to do it.

Some people even like to watch me work on their computers.  Voyeuristic weirdos.

Further Adventures In LinuxLand

Posted by on February 11, 2014 No comments

Well, as I previously noted, I didn’t give up on putting the incredible Linux on that older laptop.  I spent a bunch of time searching online for info and found someone who installed a  version of Mint on the same model laptop as I had.  So now I have a viable candidate.

It took me a couple attempts to discover that the laptop doesn’t support USB booting, so CD-R it has to be.  I install the new Mint version and on reboot, it doesn’t boot.  No GRUB recovery bullshit, just “Error 18,” which, amazingly, is a greater bunch of bullshit.

In researching the highly-specific error #18 of the boot up process, I find a discussion that answered all the boot problems I’d had up to this point.  The hard drive partition was too big.  Yup.  Linux, the most advanced OS ever, the OS that runs massive server farms, massive web servers, massive file servers, massive everything… has an issue with the 250GB drive in my laptop.  The answer is to make two partitions, one small one for /boot and the other for / (the root? I have no idea).  So, another install with some manual partitioning steps and holy shit!  I have a booting, running, complete Linux laptop.

This is hardly my first foray into Linux, so I somewhat understand a few of the quirks.  I mean, I am somewhat prepared to be disappointed.  However, this install had some new wonders in store for me.  First up, connect to the network and get on the Internet.  Wireless connects without any issue, although the prompts for a password for some keychain were unexpected.

Firefox is installed by default, so I kick it off to get online.  The first thing I notice is that things are actually pretty slow.  This is consistent with my previous attempts to enjoy Linux for its lightweight, incredibly speedy performance (that never materialized).  Because the Linux version is pretty much in line with the age of the laptop, I have an abhorrent version of Firefox – 3.03.  This could be why things seem so slow.  I launch the Mint software repository to get a new version of Firefox or at least a different browser.  It fails to load.  Ok, I go to Google and download the latest Chrome.  It won’t install because of some invalid dependency.  Ok.  I go to Mozilla and download the latest version of Firefox there.  It downloads an archive file.  Huh.

Let me step aside here and point out the two competing mindsets with software development.  One side is Microsoft’s, where backwards compatibility is paramount.  For this choice, you can use nearly every version of Windows on nearly every piece of hardware out there.  The obvious downside is that the code is more bloated than it needs to be and contains code that is obsolete or vulnerable to hacking.  On the other side is Linux, which includes Apple and Android.  Here, you have a specific version made for specific hardware.  Once the next version of hardware comes along, you’re left behind.  You get the benefit of having the best code of the day working on your current device, but you are forced to upgrade hardware to get the latest software.  Right now, as I install Linux on this old laptop, I am relegated to the past, with an unrefined UI and outdated tools.

Now, back to the present, I have this Firefox archive file that I don’t know what to do with.  I try the obvious action of extracting the files to the desktop and look inside the folder contents.  I can’t tell what I’m supposed to run.  There’s no setup, no install, no run-this-to-make-go anywhere.  So I click on a few things and nothing happens.  There’s also no installation instructions in the file.  So, I give up on that.

As I’m struggling with this, an issue that happened a few times during my install attempts bit me again.  I know from experience that Linux has some odd fascination with multiple desktops.  Somehow – I still don’t know how – I triggered a “change desktop” command through the touchpad.  All the shit I was working on is gone and I can find no way to get it to come back.  There is no icon anywhere to change desktops.  FUCK THIS.  THIS is why Linux is reserved for geeks and nerds and will never be mainstream.  I consider myself to be a geek, but this lack of usability offends even me.  I looked through the sparse help information provided and couldn’t find any answers there.  Eventually, I found some way to make windows from all desktops appear in the task bar, so I could switch to them regardless of where they were hiding.  By that time, I was pretty much done for the night.

However, now that I’ve discovered the key to making Linux boot on this laptop, I think I’m going to try out a version called Joli Cloud, which looks kind of like a tablet OS, with a greatly simplified UI.  Stay tuned for more anger.

A Small Light Bulb Moment

Posted by on February 10, 2014 No comments

Add to the list of soon-to-be-obsolete things: automotive high-beams.

A little over-dramatic, sure, but give it some consideration.  When is the last time you got to use your high beams?  Ok, that’s a loaded question.  Some people would say “all the time!” and some would say “never!”  It depends on how populated your area is.

I was driving home one evening and I was able to use my car’s high beams for the entirety of one span of roadway.  I never saw another car.  And that made me think back to my previous living location where you’d never get a chance to use your high beams because there were cars on every road at every hour of day.

As we become more overcrowded in this world, our high beam usage is going to become diminished, possibly to the point of being irrelevant.  Then again, we’ll probably have self-driving cars by then and we’ll all be shuttled around in cars having nothing more than marker lights on them.

Beating Myself Up

Posted by on February 8, 2014 No comments

Ok, so I must be masochistic.  I came into a old laptop that was being disposed and I thought I’d try to install Windows 8.1 on it.  Guess what?  It worked!  However, just the OS itself pushed the hardware to the point where the CPU fan was running non-stop.  So I gave up on that idea.

Then, buoyed by success, I went to the other extreme.  I brought out the big bag of idiocy that is Linux.  I’ve tried Mint before and I liked it.  So I burned a disc of the latest Mint.  The laptop froze during boot.  Hmm.  I do believe I’ve seen that before…  So I burned a disc of an older Mint.  Laptop boots, finds sound and network, we’re good to go.

I do the installation, and in the process, I wipe out all disk partitions and start from scratch.  Install proceeds well and I reboot.  As soon as I hit the button to restart, I started mocking the system, saying “Now we’re going to go to a black text screen that spews out a bunch of statuses.  See, this is why normal people don’t use Linux.  No one wants to see that shit.”

Well, I must have offended it, because on bootup, I get a black screen that says:

GRUB loading.
Welcome to GRUB!

error: out of disk.
Entering rescue mode…
grub rescue>

Seriously, what the fuck?  I’m approaching this install as if I can give this laptop away as a basic Internet device.  GRUB?  “out of disk”?  What the fuck does that mean?  I then had the following conversation with GRUB:

grub rescue> help
Unknown command ‘help’
grub rescue> ?
Unknown command ‘?’
grub rescue> mount
Unknown command ‘mount’
grub rescue> diag
Unknown command ‘diag’
grub rescue> go
Unknown command ‘go’
grub rescue> exit
Unknown command ‘exit’
grub rescue> quit
Unknown command ‘quit’

You know what?  I fucking HATE Linux.  I did some searches on that error and I read all kinds of crap.  But mostly, no one knew how to fix it.  Someone made a wild suggestion that not only might the hard drive be bad, but the motherboard may be as well.  That’s insane.

But you know what else?  I’m going to keep fighting this issue for probably the rest of the day.  And if I succeed, all it will do is tell me what level you have to be at to make the supposed best OS in the world “just work”.

My New Child

Posted by on February 6, 2014 No comments

Yup, I have a kid.  I hate children, too.  Let me explain how this happened.

I do the finances for a non-profit organization.  It’s brand new and doesn’t have a ton of structure yet, so pretty much do-what-you-want.  So as part of my duties, I decided I’m going to start emailing members when their membership dues are due.

I have an email account for the org’s domain, but the email server doesn’t have any contact management.  No problem, I’ll create a Windows Live account for that email and use the People function to store the addresses.  Works fine, since Windows Live Mail uses People as the contacts.

So I start the process to create the Live account.  During creation, I am prompted for my date of birth.  I’m not going to use mine, duh.  I could make one up, but this should be something that anyone in the org can remember in case they need to reset a password or something after I’ve passed the reins.  So I use the date the org was formed: 10/1/2013.  I click Save.

Now, to my surprise, I am told that a minor cannot use the Live services without parental consent.  Damn it.  This account now belongs to a 4-month old.  So, without thinking much, I logged in as myself to authorize.  Congratulations to me, I’m a parent now.

It would be easy for anyone to create two accounts and authorize one from the other, so there has to be a way to prove that the “parent” account is really an adult.  How is this done?  By charging your credit card, of course!  A minor can’t possess a credit card, so that’s foolproof.  Or something.  Cost to have a kid: $.50.  Some of that gets donated to charity, which I suppose is great.

So I figure I totally own this little shit now.  After all, I paid for it.

I Guess I Won’t Bother

Posted by on January 29, 2014 No comments

One of my new fun things to do is find the source of images that are used in Facebook ads.  Copy the image URL, paste it into Google image search and see what comes up.

I had this ad:

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And I found the same picture used on Twitter, so I was like, I should let her know her Twitter profile picture is being used for a dating ad on FB.

This was the start of “her” Twitter feed:

image

The same post, over and over.

image

And over and over.  I gave up after I got back to posts from 2010.  I guess that face was made for spam.  Poor girl.

Facebook Ads

Posted by on January 26, 2014 No comments

Who even thought this was a good idea?

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You Matter

Posted by on January 14, 2014 No comments

Yesterday, I was driving home and nearing an intersection.  I saw an emergency vehicle approaching on the cross street with its lights on.  I stopped at the intersection, although my light was green.  I certainly could have made it through before the emergency vehicle, but when you see lights flashing, you stop.  That’s the proper thing to do.  The emergency vehicle safely went through the intersection and everyone got on with their drive.

Afterwards, I thought, I might have just saved someone’s life because I waited.  From there, my thoughts went further out.  The restaurant I was at for lunch was really empty, so I tipped a couple bucks more than usual.  I might have just helped someone finally pay off a nagging bill.  The hostess was happy to see me that day, so I gave her a pleasant smile.  Maybe that will convince her to make that needed change in her horrible relationship.  I waited an extra second or two at a green light.  Maybe that slowed traffic down a little and prevented an accident somewhere.

The point is, everything you do has an effect.  It may be positive, it may be negative, most likely it’s both.  You may not know the effects you have with every little choice you make in the day, but that is how everything works together.

Everything you do has an effect on everything else.  You are the most important person in the entire universe.  Without you, things would be… different.  Now go out there and don’t fuck this up.

Watch Out.

Posted by on December 14, 2013 No comments

I mentioned in a past post that I have a small watch collection.  I say it that way because recently, I considered collecting watches.  I thought I had a fair collection – isn’t more than one a collection?  I had one valuable watch handed down from my dad, four watches all of the same make, just slight variations, then two gifted watches that I didn’t care for.  My plan was to start collecting watches I like.

A little bit of research online showed that that’s not what “watch collecting” means.  Watch collectors are, put bluntly, fucking snobs.  There seems to be only a couple of ways to garner the respect of a watch collector.  Either already have a collection of high-end timepieces, or if you  are starting out, ask for advice and say your budget is something like $5,000.  So, my “collection” of sub-$100 watches is probably an insult to their art.

I had mused on collections in a really old post and came up with the decent conclusion that a collection really only has value to the owner, not to anyone else. (like hair, I said.  Crazy.)  I thought a bit more on it and considered the absurdity of the concept of collecting. Here I am buying $70-100 watches and there’s a whole lot of people out there that couldn’t (or wouldn’t dare) buy a single watch for more than $20.  In that regard, I am very fortunate for my situation, but I certainly don’t have the audacity to look down on someone because they don’t see some perceived value in watches that I see.

And that’s kind of the point.  Why do we collect things?  The high-end watch collectors must be smitten with the amazing craftwork in a watch, and I can understand that.  The issue is that the appreciation of the complexity of the watch is not what is conveyed to a potential fellow collector.  And someone that is buying a watch for a new collection (with a budget of $5k), clearly can’t appreciate the device at the same level.

Really, after all is said and done, a watch tells time.  A $20 Casio digital quartz watch is just as accurate as a Rolex, and doesn’t come with a regular maintenance schedule.  If you’ve never known about luxury watches, yes, they do need to be serviced regularly.  Pay a lot up front and keep paying on schedule.  So, the argument “That watch will last for your lifetime,” loses its charm a little when you have to effectively pay the cost of a new watch every few years.

Given all the thinking I’ve done on this now, I am going to go ahead with my “collection”, although it’s not going to be classified as a collection.  I’m not sure what else to call it.  It’s just a set of watches that I like looking at and wearing and that have the expected purpose of telling time.  As part of their purpose, they match my wardrobe and match the activity I have planned while wearing them.  That’s a balance of practicality and fashion. 

Maybe someday, I will have the desire to own a device with an amazing internal structure and will find the cost of owning it to be worth the reward.  But that day is not today.

Doing It Way Wrong

Posted by on November 20, 2013 No comments

http://www.ibtimes.com/kleargearcom-woman-hit-3500-fine-bad-credit-score-after-writing-negative-review-online-retailer

This story caught my attention, so I had to do a little looking into it.  I’m no uber-sleuth, but I can put some things together. I can put together enough to make some conclusions.

My first thought when going to KG’s site was, oh, they’re ripping off ThinkGeek.  Then I saw the copyright date of 2001, and thought, maybe they were first.  Turns out they’re not, ThinkGeek’s copyright goes back to 1999.  But in the course of figuring that out, I found that KG’s internet domain was first registered in 2004.  I’m not sure you can copyright a domain name before it’s even registered.  Scam flag #1.

Looking at the next level: the address.  A reputable company will display its address prominently to provide credibility.  However, the address is a Michigan address and there is no corporate record in Michigan for their company – no DBA record either.  Looking further, the address is simply a mail drop, not a physical location.  Scam flag #2.

So where is this company?  The BBB website says that KG’s legal department had an address in San Antonio, TX.  No corporate records found in Texas for them either.  A quick search in LinkedIn shows three members, the CEO and the CMO of KG (Rob Key) and a freelance writer who contracted with KG.  The CEO and CMO are both in Michigan.  Hmmm.  Rob Key also might have an address in San Antonio, TX according to internet searches.

So let’s just assume that’s a dead end.  The biggest red flag is their help page, which basically spells out how you’re going to do business with them.  in short, it’s the most unfriendly terms possible.  There isn’t any way to check the status of your order.  I couldn’t even find a login to check your profile.  When you have so many other options out there, why would you even buy from this site?

I’ve seen this business approach before.  It was in my Finally Fast review.  Companies like this need to die a quick death because they are doing no one any service.  The unfortunate thing is that the owners live on and create a brand new entity just like the last one.