Musings of a Webwolf

Medidtations on a certain Kung Fu Panda

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:56:19 GMT

Is it wrong that upon hearing the version of Kung Fu Fighting with the rewritten lyrics used for Kung Fu Panda, that I really like the new version despite the... well. Disney-esque santization it's gone through? I mean, it's probably in no small part because I really like Cee-Lo Green, (of Gnarls Barkley fame) but.

Go Sharks! Wooooo~

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:33:39 GMT

Linux is dead to me. Take your pick of the following:

*I killed my Linux install.
*I got rid of *ubuntu and moved to Gentoo.
*Windows XP3 finally is coming.
*I killed my Windows partition.
*All of the above.

So that's out of the way.

On the other hand, It's NHL playoffs time! =D

Sharks beat the Flames in seven, blah, blah, old news.

What I've been doing in the meantime, though, is looking over the teams that went to the golf courses for the summer, most notably, the LA Kings and the Phoenix Coyotes.

Especially the Coyotes.

While LA is on the decline, headed down the slippery slope to bottom-feeder-hood, (Which has just been one thing after another for them.) Phoenix was doing some very impressive things near the end of the regular season. Achievements that both teams might accomplish are diminished by the fact that they are playing in probably THE toughest division to play in, with three teams that consistently get to the playoffs, and one of The Great One's former teams.

But I'm fairly confident that if Phoenix can continue their steady growth from here until the beginning of next season, they won't be on the bottom anymore.

Actually, I think that if Phoenix were matched up into any other division, they'd be in the playoffs, easily. Each team plays every other team in their division eight times in a season, and having to play 24 TOUGH games isn't exactly conducive to winning.

But hey, That's Hockey.

But while LA has been slumping and was stuck at DEAD LAST in the Western Conference, Phoenix has pulled themselves up to break .500, moving up to 12th in the conference. It's not much, but it's significant. This next season promises to be tough for everyone in the Pacific Division. Can the Pacific Division support four playoff contenders? Maybe. The Atlantic Division this year had four.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to watching how teams deal with a Coyotes team that isn't so much of a pushover anymore.

The Linux Chronicles, pt 2.

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:58:58 GMT

Where was I? Oh, right. Things started to go downhill.

Now, Linux works differently from Linux. Windows has it's graphical interface integrated into the OS as one cohesive unit, whereas Linux primarily operates on a text-based medium, with the option for an external graphical interface to be installed on top of it. And naturally, with such a thing, there are choices.

I made the choice to go with KDE, arguably one of the most popular "desktop managers" as they are called. Why? Because I like to use a program called "Yakuake", which lets me bring down a Konsole window, much like how I would in, say, Counterstrike., by whacking the tilde key. (Konsole is roughly analagous to the DOS-lite command prompts in modern versions of Windows.)

Programs with a graphical interface, sadly, tend to be written for one particular desktop manager or another. And while they might not misbehave *too* badly when transplanted over to a desktop manager that it wasn't meant to run in, sometimes problems can occur. So a-KDE-ing I went.

....I have found, that Kicker is a pain in the ass.

Remember how I said desktop managers run on top of Linux, hooked into it, not integrated into it? Sadly, so are individual parts of the desktop manager itself. Kicker is the equivalent of that grey bar at the bottom of your desktop in Windows. And it would disappear. And never come back.

This combined with the problems that I had getting any sort of nvidia drivers to work with Kubuntu drove me batty.

Your Score: Nemesis

33% Extroversion, 66% Intuition, 100% Emotiveness, 42% Perceptiveness

You are a normally quiet person with very strong convictions and a marked activist streak. You have a clearly defined sense of right and wrong, and you like seeing people punished for their transgressions. You are Nemesis, goddess of punishment. You are a champion for the defenseless, you love poetic justice and, if karmic retribution doesn't have its say, then you'll have yours. You are astute, rarely fooled, and idealistic.

The Linux Chronicles, pt 1.

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 09:39:14 GMT

It's no secret that I, as well as millions of other people in this world, hate Vista, and hate it with a passion. It was a few weeks ago that I decided, by jove, that I wasn't going to take it anymore! And that I was going to head on over to Linux, before XP support ended.

Now, you have to understand a few things here.

Granted, yes. I have used Linux before, but mostly in a GUI-based environment, (KDE is... *was* my preference. More on that later.) with minimal use of the command-line.

I've been saying over, and over, and over, and fucking over to people, the full extent of my Linux knowledge can be summed up by:

1) Insert Knoppix disc in drive.
2) Boot computer.
3) Use gpart.
4) ????
5) Profit.

Quite literally, too, since I was using it to recover thrashed partitions on hard drives, and the like, and make a few bucks on the side.

Don't get me wrong. I've been poking around with open source software and Linux for at least a year and a half, and was confident if I could get a GUI-based system up and running, I wouldn't miss Windows at all, expecially if I could get Cedega (Windows emulator for games) to work. After all, I'd already replaced Microsoft Office with OpenOffice, Photoshop with GIMP, and was already using a free firewall and AV to begin with. So off I went.

First thing I did was go through my computer and pruned. I wanted to bring down the amount of extraneous files I had. Between cleaning out my old downloads, remnants from old programs, duplicated documents, old archives, anime I no longer watched, music I didn't like, I wound up with an extra twenty gigs across two hard drives.

Next was the defrag. Yes, I know, neither of these steps have anything to do with an actual Linux installation, but they're still important anyways, mostly since 1) I was going to partition my drive, I wanted to have the largest contiguous amount of space possible to do it with, and 2) I later found out, that I was going to have to specify an actual swap drive, until such time that I could make Linux use a swap file. Ask your friendly neighborhood Linux Geek what these are!

And then downloaded Kubuntu. Now, you'd like me to start spewing horror stories here, wouldn't you? You want me to scare you away from Linux, further relegating it to the realm of They Who Know What Non-Geeks Were Not Meant To Know, wouldn't you?

I'm not. (K)ubuntu, I was pleasantly surprised to find, ran, looked, and felt very much like Windows, except... better. Ubuntu seemed to load faster, run better, and seemed as though I hadn't left Windows at all. I now see why Dell decided to go with Ubuntu as their distro of choice when beginning to offer PCs with Linux installed on them. I highly recommend Ubuntu in all of its flavors for anyone who is not intimately familiar with Linux, and wishes to migrate over to a system, without any special needs. (And by "special needs", I mean gaming, not accessibility.)

And that's where things started to go downhill.

Things Kai will shoot you for, #10:

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 05:06:28 GMT

#10) If you go "TL;DR".

I don't usually do things like this, but:

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 06:19:33 GMT

The Curse of IT, non-stupidity edition.

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 06:46:02 GMT

I hate technology.

Hybrid SLi

DDR3

I TOLD YOU SO!

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 06:33:32 GMT

Behold, Stalkerati.

It scans Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites for personally identifiable information, enabling you to investigate people based on who they say they are.

Don't say I didn't warn you, because I did.

Okay, enough stupid. For now.

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 02:44:18 GMT

For now though, I just *have* to ask.

Korean MMOs.

My god, they proliferate like hypersexual bunnies on..... on....... $drug.

(*facepalm* God I am such a nerd.)

Anyways. We all know about WoW, DDO, LotRO, EQs 1 and 2, ACs 1 and 2, EVE, AO, DAoC, and FFXI, which in itself is a mind-boggling array of games spanning the entire gamut of genres, but...

Have you people freaking *seen* the list of Korean-developed and/or published MMOs? And how pervasive they are? A large percentage of which are FREE?! They span from:

City of Heroes/Vilains. LineageI, II, and III. Ragnarok Online. FlyFF. Guild Wars, and it's iterations. Tabula Rasa(when it comes out), Auto Assault, MapleStory, Rakion, Gunbound, Gunz, Granado Espada(when it comes out stateside), Pangya, ArchLord, SpaceCowboy Online, Tales of Pirates....

....y'know what? Come back after you've grabbed a drink, this could take a while.

(In the meantime, is it just me or are the ONLY MMOs that are being actively developed these days the Korean ones?)

The Curse of IT, part 3

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 12:15:57 GMT

http://community.livejournal.com/techsupport/1254380.html

I don't need to explain this one.

The Curse of IT, pt. 2

Wed, 30 May 2007 04:51:46 GMT

Read this.

The Curse of IT.

Wed, 23 May 2007 02:23:18 GMT

Being the IT guy in the family sucks.

Can I get an "A-MEN!?"

If you know even *anything* remotely about how to fix any form of electronics, people within your family will, invariable, seek your aid whenever things break. And when things break in this day and age of technology, it ain't pretty.

I'm not going to rehash the horror stories. You can go out to any disgruntled geek's blog and read their accounts there.

What *I* am about to hash out, on the other hand, is that high-school students need to have basic computer education, how to freaking use their goddamn computers.

Teenagers need to be taught that regular computer maintenance is not an option, but is a requirement. Just like an oil change.

Why the emphasis on teenagers? Well, in the back of my head, I'm hoping that the lessons taught to the kids will probably filter upwards a little bit, to the parents, but I'm not counting on it. My parents and I have never communicated well in terms of technology, (or anything else, for that matter) and never will, aside from, "This computer suits your needs. Buy it."

I'm just hoping for a future when every person knows how to put together and take apart a computer, do basic setup and maintenance, just as they would riding a bike.

The squealing of fanboys within.

Sun, 20 May 2007 18:59:31 GMT

It *CAN'T* be Duke! He's dead!

Don't Be Evil.

Fri, 18 May 2007 03:23:34 GMT

Google has revamped their front page.

I.... I'm not sure I like this at *all*. To fine my formerly spartan and snappy-loading home page with the categories moved up to the upper-left-hand corner, and a tastefully understated blue line delineating between the categories, email login, and the rest of the search functions? On *my* internet?

Blasphemy, I say.

(Edit: And the first one of you to finish the rest of that overused meme gets their ankles chewed on.)

On Security, part 2.

Mon, 14 May 2007 23:17:53 GMT

I found out the other day that a friend had been rejected for a job because the employer had found their MySpace page, and the photos on it.

....Yeah, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Keep no personally-identifiable information on the internet.

Least of all your *real names*, you damn MySpace pinheads!

I've related this story before. To demonstrate to a friend what they were doing with their Myspace, Using Google, and nothing *but* Google, I deconstructed a random Myspace member's identity, such that I now know their name, present, and two prior places of residence, a post-office box, and several phone numbers presently or previously associated with the name, and the last four digits of their Social Security number.

While I'm not about to advocate disconnecting your internet, curling up into a little ball, and hiding in the corner, it still stands to show that as search technology gets better and better, so increases the amount of relevant information in regards to search queries.

Fortunately for me, somebody else uses the username knalty, one Kurt Nalty, instructor at Austin Community College, in electronics engineering. Not to mention Kevin H. Nalty, whose birthday was two days ago, on May 12th. And Kathleen Nalty, professor at the University of Denver law school. And the list goes on.

Do yourself a favor. Google yourself, right now, using as many of your previous aliases as you can remember, find them, and strip out any and all personally identifiable information from it, *if you can*. By and large, the large majority of the masses on the internet do not need to reveal who they are, but there are a few, like my much-beloved Calc, f'rex, who needs to, in order to keep his business running.

But by Bob, not everyone needs to see what you were doing in Tijuana during Spring Break back in College.

Testing stuff.

Thu, 10 May 2007 19:23:28 GMT

I'm giving the ad-supported version of LJ for a while, just to see.

It is here that I will make my own advertisement:

Get Firefox.

On internet security.

Thu, 10 May 2007 08:21:20 GMT

It should be known that I'm a stickler for privacy and security when it comes to things that I do on the internet. If I do anything, I insist that people refer to me by username, rather than my real name, even if you're my best childhood friend from the town I grew up in.

There are legitimate reasons to keep one's identity a secret. It's bad enough that you have to expose your real name, address, and phone number to a publicly searchable directory when registering a domain, but to have my name thrown out and bandied like so many letters? Nuh-uh, son. Think again.

It's also one of the reasons why:

a) I am deathly allergic to Wi-Fi of any variety, and even more so in corporate or small-business environment. Not only is it murder to ensure perfect coverage over a given area, but still is suicide to secure, even the WAPs are on the outside, and you require users to VPN into the traditional, wired network. With a wired network, the only dang way you're going to get in is via the Internet, and that's a big enough security risk as it is.

2) I never drink. There is a history of alcoholism in my family, and I don't intend to ever start. Never ye mind that it's a whole lot harder to keep your behaviour and private information secure when you're drunk.

C) I am going to kill ignitedcrisis.

Hmm de hmm hmm hmm.....

Tue, 08 May 2007 21:18:34 GMT

So. It's Tuesday. Do you know where your Webwolf is?

Presumably not. I would hate to think that any of you *actually* worry that much about me. o.o;

And I'd find it just a little creepy to boot. o.0;;;;;

Regardless, I must share to you one of the most awesome things I have encountered in many a year: The Megaman story, retold in ROCK OPERA form, in a dystopian future, ruled over by the evil dictator, Wily. Hell, just the Big Brother-esque "We Will Keep You Safe" posters with Met-themed stormtroopers ALONE is worth it. =D

!

!!

!!!!!!!!

<3

I feel oh-so-dirty to link you to their myspace, but it *is* tastefully done (as tastefully as myspaces can be, which ain't sayin' much, dontchaknow), and their band page is undergoing a redesign, so:

Link to myspace. Unrest In The House of Light, which I'm presently listening to, and Will Of One are must-listens. =D

Link to band page: At the moment, all you can access are the merch, the forums, myspace, and email, accessibly by very, very dark buttons next to the red "The Protomen" logo. Also, a countdown, revealing something new come the next month.

Additionally. I'm tinkering with the layout a bit. Still going to be grey, of course, but seeing as how I likes me my fixed-width fonts....

....Anyone know how many userpics we free users can use these days?

Thu, 03 May 2007 19:53:51 GMT

I live.

I really have to quit practicing my LJ necromancy, damnit. I'm a NG Cleric, not a LE Necromancer!

Anyways.

Lest I forget.

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:39:38 GMT

Because someone wanted me to put up a birthday gift-list:

* Bluetooth headset.
* Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President, complete set
* House M.D., seasons 1 and 2
* Stargate SG-1, complete set
* CamelBak H.A.W.G., or Havok. >.< Bought MINE just BEFORE they came out with these for 2006.
* Monopoly board game: Nintendo version
* Sandisk Sansa e280 MP3 player
* A flash cart for my DS

Edit: Stuff added.

Yeargh, zombie, live, etc.

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 05:06:33 GMT

Blandishments. Indication of apathy. Statement of fact.

Whiny statement. Expression of emo-ness. Stumping one's bard-hood. Complaints at life.

Exclaimations regarding the, hm, aural nirvana that is Fort Minor.

Stuff.

Mon, 04 Apr 2005 17:53:23 GMT

*whimpers*

I want my mommy...... x.x

Yeah. The past week has been rough. In between working eight hour days for six of the seven days, I also spent hours getting my taxes done, and fixing up my car. The result: More money that gets flushed to taxes, incomplete taxes, and my car now doesn't look like it was in an accident anymore. (Unless you look directly at the hood.)

It also explains my absence in these parts.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have new classes to get raped by. >.

Fri, 18 Mar 2005 05:20:29 GMT

*glances at the calender*

Well crap. I missed yesterday. My readers would be lynching me right now, if I had any. ^o^

I jest, of course. I know you're all out there, wondering where your ever faithful Webwolf has gone.

It's somewhat of a mixed bag, really. Some things here, some things there, and a few things in between.

I've taken the liberty of taking off Thursday and Friday from work. Regrettable, since I need the pay, but I do have a little brother to look after. Who, coincidentally, has become a hell of a lot less annoying, now that I'm not living in the same city as him. As it turns out, some relatives who moved to Oklahoma (Oklahoma? Why the heck would anyone want to move to Oklahoma?) owe us money. Something on the scale of a hundred thou, or something. In any case, mom's flown over to go and get her money back. Now, I don't know the complete details, but from what I've heard, their plans to move to OK and set up a hair salon there, (I know. What the heck?) have ended in colossal failure, also affectionately referred to as: BANKRUPTCY.

So yeah. Just a little bit of business that I'm trying to work through. Expect a not-so-half-assed entry tomorrow.

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 04:03:04 GMT

I've come to the conclusion that I have entered a time warp, and am now undergoing the same situations that have plagued the previous generation of my clan. My mom is still a conniving, scheming, stuck-up bitch, my grandmother is still a lying sneak, and now, instead of my aunt being the victim of things, now *I* am.

Which means I'm moving out. Again.

This time, hopefully, for good.

I'm probably not going to take classes this next quarter. Or maybe take them this quarter, and quit school the next. Regardless, I'm moving out to where nobody from my family will ever find me. This time, I'm not moving in with relatives, and I'm not moving in with family friends. It's time I started severing any and all connections to this family, because by god, I swear that the women here are descended straight from the goddamn devil himself.

This leads me to a bit of a conundrum.

Fortunately for me, I've got a job. A rather well paying job, with a good chance for growth. I could, theoretically, reverse engineer my way back into a degree in engineering from a machinist. I get paid ten bucks an hour, that will go up as I learn how to operate more machines. I can start by going full time, and starting to work six days a week, instead of my current four. At bare minimum, I would earn just under 20K a year, IF I didn't learn anything new. That's enough for me to move out and sublet from one of my friends, unconnected to the rest of my family.

I am taking this very seriously, and I might either make it big, or blow it all.

Thinking.....

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 22:28:59 GMT

[It's not evident, but I'm trying to find a pattern to updating. Last week was M-F, I was *trying* for MWF this week. I think I'm going to try one more week of MWF, and maybe stick with that. And now, on with the journal!]

You know, I've been rather miserable these past few days.

Out here in my neck of the woods, the days are beautiful, the sun is out, there's fresh air, and heck, the plants and trees are starting to grow back!

Take special note of that last comment.

It's allergy season, people. >.o

I know, I know, what's a wolf to do if he's allergic to pollen?

Suffer miserably, mostly.

I'm violently allergic to dust, and to a much lesser extent, pollens and to an even LESSER extent, dander. Wouldn't do for me to be allergic to myself now, would it? ^n.n^

Throughout winter, everybody's cooped up inside. Dust builds up in the ventilation systems, and my allergies kick in then. At least then, I can step outside, let my symptoms pass, and then head back in. With spring, however, my already highly irritated nose can't take much more irritation. Stepping outside just exposes me to more allergens, keeping me runny-nosed (Well, not like wolves aren't SUPPOSED to have wet, cold noses) sniffling, and sneezing. Hence, I've pretty much kept myself cooped up in my room, aided by my handy-dandy little Sharper Image Ionic Breeze air filter. AND IT WORKS.

And lest I forget, allergy medication doesn't work much on me either. Most people know that I have some rather bad acne. Eastern medicine attributes this to a "hot liver", or overworked liver, is probably correct. Western medical science confirms this in me. My liver tends to metabolize ANY and EVERY chemical in me, usually halving the effectiveness or duration of medicine prescribed to me. It was no wonder that doctors were puzzled why they kept having to prescribe me stronger and stronger medication for my various ailments. (A bit sickly, as a child.)

A pair of stories, before I scamper off.

When I had my wisdom teeth popped out a year or so ago, I made the decision to stay awake. Ever since I'd had my tonsils taken out, which I was put under for, I have always declined the option of anasthesia. Partly because I prefer to know what's happening to me, thanks to some rather incompetant dental procedures performed on me in the past, and partly because after I woke up, I didn't think it was possible to feel any more like crap without having the entire Earth implode on itself. As such, I think I may have driven that dental surgeon out of business with the sheer amount of Novacaine I needed to stay numb. Three large, metal needles, being reinjected every two to three minutes, because it kept wearing off prematurely. VERY prematurely.

Which leads into the next story. After such an operation, my entire mouth was in a blinding sort of pain. Of course, the good thing was that I was still lucid, so I could still reason things out. You can understand how pleased I was when they wrote me a prescription for codeine. Now, I do *NOT* advocate drug abuse of any kind, which was probably what led me to nearly going insane that following week. In keeping with the prescription, it said to take one pill every four hours, not exceeding four pills a day.

I was aching with pain again in two.

Which leads to one last reflection:

I should *NEVER* get hooked on drugs. @.@