So, I got my OpenMoko Neo Freerunner in the mail a few days ago. At first I thought it was a nightmare. Tonight, when I first sat down and *truly* tinkered with it, I found it was actually a lot more stable and well-developed than I thought.
You see, the issue with it isn't that it suffers from lack of packages, it's that there's very little documentation, and most of the existent documentation is rather outdated.
The community, while it seems to love cranking out programs, isn't so much for advertising them. So, while I'm looking through all of Google trying to find the screen rotate program, it simply already exists in the opkg repository (much like Debian/Ubuntu's apt-get) and is quite simple to use.
Also, looking through it, though I'm not an uber programmer, I can certainly tell I'm going to have wonderful fun programming for this thing -- it's an embedded programmer's wet dream. No, really. Thousands of libraries, compilers on the phone itself... everything but EMACS. (have I found my first porting project? =-O )
P.S. I'm saying it's easy for me to use with a decade of Linux experience. I'm not saying you should run out and buy this to replace your iPhone. Unless you *really* know your way around a Linux command line, you'll be totally lost with this phone.
P.P.S. "opkg install omnewrotate" in case you were wondering. Click the rotate icon on the main menu. Turn it any direction you freaking wish and watch the rotation! (accelerometer-based, like the iPhone) A bit choppy, but not at all bad!!!
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
The Shrinks and the Pineal Gland
The following is a bit of fiction concerning a very boring event where I walked into the wrong class, turned around, and walked back out. I decided to make it better...
I write this from my battle-station. No place is safe. Yes, that's right, they're after me... I know it's true.
The trouble all started when I was on my way to school, to go to history class. I have a long history of taking history classes. My first semester, I took them with my faithful Canadian buddy, whose name I can't remember. The professor would dress up in outrageous costumes and try to tell us that the Ancient Egyptians didn't have Levi or Reebok. The year following, I took a history class with my friend Alex. This class was a bit different; it was much more serious. Gone were the pot-heads from this class. This class accepted only the finest. Scotch, bourbon, and opiates stronger than Vicodin were the standard fare among the House of Lords students. A much more calm experience, with occasional rumors of "Quite so, quite so, old bean!" from the back of the class room. The nobility of the community college.
Naturally looking to progress my status among this noble class of the community college, this semester I've taken yet another historical community college class. This one had something to do with movies. Harmless enough, it would seem. After a long day of painting, I set out into the usual House of Lords room, and sat down.
Something was wrong. Something was seriously wrong.
I looked around at the "nobility" of the class. They didn't seem quite nobby at all! Binders, books, and laptops were everywhere. But that wasn't what unsettled me. It was their eyes!
That's right, their eyes. You could see the whites clearly. The pupils were neither contracted nor dilated. No drunken slurs, no aroma of fine whiskeys. The monsters-in-training wore mostly brand names such as "Hollister" with few stains. They were quiet, but class had not started yet. No murmurs of "Oh old bean, you could think Regan was the best present, but surely you cannot believe he truly contests with Teddy Roosevelt?"
Where was I? Who were these monsters? I glanced at my phone to make sure the title wasn't something sickening like "Women in History", where the young hip female professor tried to tell us that women were more than just mattresses and baby-making tools for most of history*. No, it was still "History Goes to the Movies." In classroom... wait, I-Building? The House of Lords meets in N-building! What treachery is this!?
I carefully lean over to the kid next to me, ready for him to try to bite. His glasses said DKNY, some incomprehensible code. Probably a raver. His hair was expertly manicured, instead of 'just let grow until my girlfriend/mom makes me cut it.'
"Pssst!"
The monster looks at me strangely.
"Hey, over here!" I whisper
"Yes?" he responds in normal tone, obviously not afraid of waking the monsters from their pre-ritual meditation
"Quiet! You'll wake them! What class is this?" I whisper
"Um. Psychology." he said, backing away slowly.
Psychology! I had imagined the worst, but not this bad! I quickly grabbed my stuff and bolted to the door, just barely managing to roll out while shouting "YOU'LL NEVER GET MY PINEAL GLAND!!!"
Some time later I was able to locate the right class room. I was early, as is my nature**. Some of the students were already here, milling about aimlessly with confused looks. I walked up to the most-confused looking student, and said "History?" he looked at me briefly, giggled, then stared at the Pepsi machine, wiping his face with his palms as he was drawn to the blue light like a fly to a fly zapper. He proceeded to try to press the Mountain Dew button without remembering to insert cash.
Ah, home. This is the expected response. The girls' skirts looked home-made... actually, a lot of the clothing did. I wasn't the only one here who owned a Phrygian cap. This group was not discouraged when people asked why they were dressed like yard gnomes.
Eventually I sunk into the opium-den like feeling of a good history class. People so far removed from reality, yet they all imagined they could point you in the right direction if you asked, as long as you gave them several meals to argue about which direction, exactly, that was.
I thought it was all over, until today. I didn't think the shrinks-in-training would follow me. But then I got this message:
Dammit... they're on to me! The monsters have had their taste of human Pineal gland, and they want MORE! I've had to flee to an undisclosed location. I think they're tracking me down as we speak. They could be here any minute... but I have plans if that happens.
I'll keep everyone posted as the story unfolds.
From my maximum security battle station somewhere in Michigan, this is Paul Reece XLII, signing off until next time.
________________
* I'm not saying this is a good thing, I'm just saying it's pretty close to the truth. And a lot of early feminists were freaking insane and liked to throw themselves in front of horses in Derbies. Or starve themselves. Or get knocked up every week so they couldn't be thrown in jail after they blew up post offices. Luckily, some of these insane feminazis had sisters who were sane... which lead to women's rights. By building a school and showing what women could accomplish. No, really. See Pankhurst family, etc.
** That's what she said! Amirite? Oh, fist pound!
I write this from my battle-station. No place is safe. Yes, that's right, they're after me... I know it's true.
The trouble all started when I was on my way to school, to go to history class. I have a long history of taking history classes. My first semester, I took them with my faithful Canadian buddy, whose name I can't remember. The professor would dress up in outrageous costumes and try to tell us that the Ancient Egyptians didn't have Levi or Reebok. The year following, I took a history class with my friend Alex. This class was a bit different; it was much more serious. Gone were the pot-heads from this class. This class accepted only the finest. Scotch, bourbon, and opiates stronger than Vicodin were the standard fare among the House of Lords students. A much more calm experience, with occasional rumors of "Quite so, quite so, old bean!" from the back of the class room. The nobility of the community college.
Naturally looking to progress my status among this noble class of the community college, this semester I've taken yet another historical community college class. This one had something to do with movies. Harmless enough, it would seem. After a long day of painting, I set out into the usual House of Lords room, and sat down.
Something was wrong. Something was seriously wrong.
I looked around at the "nobility" of the class. They didn't seem quite nobby at all! Binders, books, and laptops were everywhere. But that wasn't what unsettled me. It was their eyes!
That's right, their eyes. You could see the whites clearly. The pupils were neither contracted nor dilated. No drunken slurs, no aroma of fine whiskeys. The monsters-in-training wore mostly brand names such as "Hollister" with few stains. They were quiet, but class had not started yet. No murmurs of "Oh old bean, you could think Regan was the best present, but surely you cannot believe he truly contests with Teddy Roosevelt?"
Where was I? Who were these monsters? I glanced at my phone to make sure the title wasn't something sickening like "Women in History", where the young hip female professor tried to tell us that women were more than just mattresses and baby-making tools for most of history*. No, it was still "History Goes to the Movies." In classroom... wait, I-Building? The House of Lords meets in N-building! What treachery is this!?
I carefully lean over to the kid next to me, ready for him to try to bite. His glasses said DKNY, some incomprehensible code. Probably a raver. His hair was expertly manicured, instead of 'just let grow until my girlfriend/mom makes me cut it.'
"Pssst!"
The monster looks at me strangely.
"Hey, over here!" I whisper
"Yes?" he responds in normal tone, obviously not afraid of waking the monsters from their pre-ritual meditation
"Quiet! You'll wake them! What class is this?" I whisper
"Um. Psychology." he said, backing away slowly.
Psychology! I had imagined the worst, but not this bad! I quickly grabbed my stuff and bolted to the door, just barely managing to roll out while shouting "YOU'LL NEVER GET MY PINEAL GLAND!!!"
Some time later I was able to locate the right class room. I was early, as is my nature**. Some of the students were already here, milling about aimlessly with confused looks. I walked up to the most-confused looking student, and said "History?" he looked at me briefly, giggled, then stared at the Pepsi machine, wiping his face with his palms as he was drawn to the blue light like a fly to a fly zapper. He proceeded to try to press the Mountain Dew button without remembering to insert cash.
Ah, home. This is the expected response. The girls' skirts looked home-made... actually, a lot of the clothing did. I wasn't the only one here who owned a Phrygian cap. This group was not discouraged when people asked why they were dressed like yard gnomes.
Eventually I sunk into the opium-den like feeling of a good history class. People so far removed from reality, yet they all imagined they could point you in the right direction if you asked, as long as you gave them several meals to argue about which direction, exactly, that was.
I thought it was all over, until today. I didn't think the shrinks-in-training would follow me. But then I got this message:
Michelle: u walked into my class then left
Michelle: it was weird lol
Dammit... they're on to me! The monsters have had their taste of human Pineal gland, and they want MORE! I've had to flee to an undisclosed location. I think they're tracking me down as we speak. They could be here any minute... but I have plans if that happens.
I'll keep everyone posted as the story unfolds.
From my maximum security battle station somewhere in Michigan, this is Paul Reece XLII, signing off until next time.
________________
* I'm not saying this is a good thing, I'm just saying it's pretty close to the truth. And a lot of early feminists were freaking insane and liked to throw themselves in front of horses in Derbies. Or starve themselves. Or get knocked up every week so they couldn't be thrown in jail after they blew up post offices. Luckily, some of these insane feminazis had sisters who were sane... which lead to women's rights. By building a school and showing what women could accomplish. No, really. See Pankhurst family, etc.
** That's what she said! Amirite? Oh, fist pound!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Connoisseur = Drunk?
It happened again. I had another French teacher tell me "The French, and Europeans in general, don't drink to get drunk." She, of course, forgot the second part of that statement - "...it just happens sometime between the second and third fifth of whatever liquor they so happen to be drinking. Amazing coincidence!"
Why do I say this? Easy. I've gone out drinking with French people. A French exchange student I know named Alexandre could quite easily drink almost anyone I know into a drunken pile of shame, despite his weighing only about 140lbs!
I'm not saying all French people are alcoholics! I have no doubt that there are serious cognac and champagne and wine drinkers who do not drink to get drunk, even though by amazing coincidence it often happens. All I'm saying is maybe we should modify what we're teaching in schools so if students go to these countries, they aren't surprised. What I would say is:
"Some French people don't drink at all. A lot of them will have a glass of wine with their meals. Some of them, especially younger ones in college, will do more shots than you knew was humanly possible. So, uh, it's not that different from here or probably anywhere else in the world. Refer to the excellent travel show Three Sheets for more information."
I'm something of a tobacco "connoisseur". That doesn't mean I don't use tobacco to feed my nicotine cravings - *of course* that's why I use it! I'm just saying that in addition to that, I also love the flavor of a cigar or a good snus. Maybe some nice snuff every now and then, too. And pipe tobacco can't hurt on occasion, except when it causes cancer. But see, the two meanings for me are equal - feeding nicotine addiction, *and* enjoying the experience.
Maybe I'm just a strange fiend, but I think the same thing is often the case with many connoisseurs of alcohol or coffee, heck, even tea. They may not drink *exclusively* to get buzzed or caffeinated; it's just a bonus!
Why do I say this? Easy. I've gone out drinking with French people. A French exchange student I know named Alexandre could quite easily drink almost anyone I know into a drunken pile of shame, despite his weighing only about 140lbs!
I'm not saying all French people are alcoholics! I have no doubt that there are serious cognac and champagne and wine drinkers who do not drink to get drunk, even though by amazing coincidence it often happens. All I'm saying is maybe we should modify what we're teaching in schools so if students go to these countries, they aren't surprised. What I would say is:
"Some French people don't drink at all. A lot of them will have a glass of wine with their meals. Some of them, especially younger ones in college, will do more shots than you knew was humanly possible. So, uh, it's not that different from here or probably anywhere else in the world. Refer to the excellent travel show Three Sheets for more information."
I'm something of a tobacco "connoisseur". That doesn't mean I don't use tobacco to feed my nicotine cravings - *of course* that's why I use it! I'm just saying that in addition to that, I also love the flavor of a cigar or a good snus. Maybe some nice snuff every now and then, too. And pipe tobacco can't hurt on occasion, except when it causes cancer. But see, the two meanings for me are equal - feeding nicotine addiction, *and* enjoying the experience.
Maybe I'm just a strange fiend, but I think the same thing is often the case with many connoisseurs of alcohol or coffee, heck, even tea. They may not drink *exclusively* to get buzzed or caffeinated; it's just a bonus!
Monday, January 25, 2010
OpenMoko Phone and Grov Snus
Exciting developments today!
First of all, my roll of Grov snus from SnusCentral.com arrived (Not to be confused with SnusCentral.org, an excellent community site and counterpart to their on-line store)
What is snus? In short, snus is a smokeless, spitless tobacco you use. Put it under your upper lip and forget about it. You'll be pumped full of nicotine in no time. Yeah, nicotine is evilbadscary, but it doesn't kill many people -- that's the tar (actually plant resin, but called tar) from the cigarettes full of carcinogenic nitrosamines that cause cancer.
But snus must cause oral cancer! Well, no, not really. It is true that there are trace levels of tobacco-specific carcinogenic nitrosamines (TSNAs) in snus, and much higher levels in American chewing tobacco/dip, but even with dip, your chances of getting oral cancer are about 8 times higher with cigarettes than with any kind of chewing tobacco. SnusCentral.org has way more information.
In short, it's not perfect. It's just way less deadly.
In other news, I ordered the OpenMoko Neo Freerunner phone! Yeah! This nifty little gadget does whatever I want it to do. Except make phone calls, probably. You see, Verizon (my carrier) is CDMA, OpenMoko only supports GSM (AT&T, T-Mobile, the rest of the world, etc). Did I know this when I bought it? Yes. I plan on using it as a PDA mostly.
If I really want to, I can just use prepaid T-Mobile on it. I talk on the phone about 20 minutes a month, and that's a *lot* for me. Link it up with my Google Voice account to handle text messaging. Done.
I can also use it as a wireless VoIP phone. I do have an Asterisk server chilling out in my kitchen after all. It's mostly just a PDA/dev toy for me. Those of you interested in being geeks should totally check it out; it's awesome!
First of all, my roll of Grov snus from SnusCentral.com arrived (Not to be confused with SnusCentral.org, an excellent community site and counterpart to their on-line store)
What is snus? In short, snus is a smokeless, spitless tobacco you use. Put it under your upper lip and forget about it. You'll be pumped full of nicotine in no time. Yeah, nicotine is evilbadscary, but it doesn't kill many people -- that's the tar (actually plant resin, but called tar) from the cigarettes full of carcinogenic nitrosamines that cause cancer.
But snus must cause oral cancer! Well, no, not really. It is true that there are trace levels of tobacco-specific carcinogenic nitrosamines (TSNAs) in snus, and much higher levels in American chewing tobacco/dip, but even with dip, your chances of getting oral cancer are about 8 times higher with cigarettes than with any kind of chewing tobacco. SnusCentral.org has way more information.
In short, it's not perfect. It's just way less deadly.
In other news, I ordered the OpenMoko Neo Freerunner phone! Yeah! This nifty little gadget does whatever I want it to do. Except make phone calls, probably. You see, Verizon (my carrier) is CDMA, OpenMoko only supports GSM (AT&T, T-Mobile, the rest of the world, etc). Did I know this when I bought it? Yes. I plan on using it as a PDA mostly.
If I really want to, I can just use prepaid T-Mobile on it. I talk on the phone about 20 minutes a month, and that's a *lot* for me. Link it up with my Google Voice account to handle text messaging. Done.
I can also use it as a wireless VoIP phone. I do have an Asterisk server chilling out in my kitchen after all. It's mostly just a PDA/dev toy for me. Those of you interested in being geeks should totally check it out; it's awesome!
Forgot to say Hello
Oh yeah, in case you didn't notice, I have a blog again.
Some of you are probably asking "what happened to the old one you hand-made and hosted yourself?"
I didn't like it. So, I trashed it. It probably still exists somewhere as a SQL dump, but -to be completely honest-, it was simply too dangerous to have around. I would often blog about controversial issues, call certain software companies colorful names, etc.
One thing I'm learning about the Internet as I get older is that there's a reason everyone runs around anonymous. You say something as a joke, people get allbutthurt offended and threaten to call the police on you for simply discussing something that is no more than a gray area, legally.
This poses problems when you're using your real name. Yes, the court will throw these cases out. And yes, this has never happened to me. But why go through all the trouble in the first place? So, this blog is the new and improvedfreaking boring "politically correct" version of the last one.
Please try to enjoy.
Some of you are probably asking "what happened to the old one you hand-made and hosted yourself?"
I didn't like it. So, I trashed it. It probably still exists somewhere as a SQL dump, but -to be completely honest-, it was simply too dangerous to have around. I would often blog about controversial issues, call certain software companies colorful names, etc.
One thing I'm learning about the Internet as I get older is that there's a reason everyone runs around anonymous. You say something as a joke, people get all
This poses problems when you're using your real name. Yes, the court will throw these cases out. And yes, this has never happened to me. But why go through all the trouble in the first place? So, this blog is the new and improved
Please try to enjoy.
The Problem with Geeks
So, I'm sitting on my computer, staring at the UbuntuOne icon. I Googled it. Turns out it allows you to back up 2GB of your stuff to the cloud so you can recover it, for free!
I run off to use it right away - I've been using Ubuntu Karmic Koala for months now, and I'm amazed I just noticed it!
I select the data I need to back up...
the data I need to back up... ahh...
Well. There isn't any, is there?
Sure, I spend hours and hours a week on the computer, reading Digg and Slashdot, building and compiling my system, ordering the OpenMoko phone, but when you get down to it, I, like many geeks, don't actually use my computer *for* anything. I do use Twitter a lot, but that's mostly from my cell phone. If I do write anything, it's usually on the "cloud" already, so to speak - I use Google Docs to type my papers, Gmail for my email... if I have any pictures they're on TwitPic, and if I ever had more I'd just get a Flikr. My videos are on Hulu or YouTube. My music comes in via Internet radio.
I've even moved my programming projects to Google Wave.
As I sit here looking at my nearly empty home folder, filled only with desktop backgrounds of past and present, technical PDF files I've downloaded like the Smoothwall documentation to be printed out, and random files that were only ever used once, I can't help but feel a bit creeped out.
I've worked on hundreds of people's computers. They usually have them full of pictures. Gigabytes and gigabytes of pictures of everything, a record of their whole life since they got their computers, until their computers fail and they forgot to back the pictures up. Then they cry about it. I've never cried over my own lost data. The only pictures on my computer are stock photography from istockphoto.com that I use in web development.
It's not that I don't have *any* important data. I have lots of important data. Mostly images of people's hard drives kept as back-ups. Back-ups of websites and SQL dumps. A SQL dump of every possibly tripcode up to six characters long (a sort of 0phcrack-type approach) Nearly half a terabyte of that sort of thing. Nothing that I could use 2GB of storage for. Or even 50GB.
That's all, really. Just a strange commentary on how the power-users and inventors of computers, and the applications you use on them... have no real use for any of that crap.
I run off to use it right away - I've been using Ubuntu Karmic Koala for months now, and I'm amazed I just noticed it!
I select the data I need to back up...
the data I need to back up... ahh...
Well. There isn't any, is there?
Sure, I spend hours and hours a week on the computer, reading Digg and Slashdot, building and compiling my system, ordering the OpenMoko phone, but when you get down to it, I, like many geeks, don't actually use my computer *for* anything. I do use Twitter a lot, but that's mostly from my cell phone. If I do write anything, it's usually on the "cloud" already, so to speak - I use Google Docs to type my papers, Gmail for my email... if I have any pictures they're on TwitPic, and if I ever had more I'd just get a Flikr. My videos are on Hulu or YouTube. My music comes in via Internet radio.
I've even moved my programming projects to Google Wave.
As I sit here looking at my nearly empty home folder, filled only with desktop backgrounds of past and present, technical PDF files I've downloaded like the Smoothwall documentation to be printed out, and random files that were only ever used once, I can't help but feel a bit creeped out.
I've worked on hundreds of people's computers. They usually have them full of pictures. Gigabytes and gigabytes of pictures of everything, a record of their whole life since they got their computers, until their computers fail and they forgot to back the pictures up. Then they cry about it. I've never cried over my own lost data. The only pictures on my computer are stock photography from istockphoto.com that I use in web development.
It's not that I don't have *any* important data. I have lots of important data. Mostly images of people's hard drives kept as back-ups. Back-ups of websites and SQL dumps. A SQL dump of every possibly tripcode up to six characters long (a sort of 0phcrack-type approach) Nearly half a terabyte of that sort of thing. Nothing that I could use 2GB of storage for. Or even 50GB.
That's all, really. Just a strange commentary on how the power-users and inventors of computers, and the applications you use on them... have no real use for any of that crap.
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