Early Morning Deep Thought #1

For eight years, the congressional and executive parts of the Republican party united in spirit. They universally delighted in saying "fuck you" to anyone who opposed any of their policy goals. You don't like the idea of tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans? Fuck you. You don't like a doctrine of pre-emptive, endless war? Fuck you. You don't like energy policy made in secret by industry lobbyists? Fuck you. You don't like torture, spying, retribution, illegal politicking, gerrymandering, and favoritism? Fuck fuck fuck, fuck fuck fuck... you, you, you, you, you, and you.

President Obama finds himself in office atop an avalanche of mandate. Newly-elected Democrats find themselves in office riding said avalanche, along with our new President's coattails. The first and loudest appointment to his staff was DNC finger-breaker Rahm Emanuel.

So, I ask you, Democrats of Washington... what will be our "fuck you" moment? There must be at least one... right?

solving fglrx issues with EnvyNG

(355 days since last post. It's nice to be back.)

I run Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) on a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop, posessing an AMD Sempron processor and and ATI Express 1150 graphics card. ATI/NVIDIA's laptop graphics card driver set, "fglrx," is not my favorite piece of software, and has been the only sticking point in my otherwise-awesome Linux experience.

This article compelled me to install some additional updates to Ubuntu, hoping to protect my lappy's HD from total destruction due to over-parking. Unfortunately, the series of updates broke the tenuous bonds between fglrx and xorg.conf. I was left unable to uninstall fglrx through either traditional channels or X.

EnvyNG (or Envy Legacy for Gutsy and older versions of Linux) is a handy little script that will detect the proper NVIDIA/ATI driver for your laptop and install it. It can also scrub all traces of fglrx's unholy influence from your xorg.conf file and allow you to re-install it cleanly should the need arise, which neatly solved my problem.

Next demon: during boot, GRUB spits out "MP-BIOS error 8254: timer not connected to IO-AIPC." Solution shall be posted forthwith.

presidential

Never has a person called me to action like this. Never have I been, from any role model, peer, teacher, comrade, or fellow degenerate, never once have I been exhorted to put my energies to such immediate use. Not in two years, not when I'm on my feet, not when I can really focus on the little things... none of that. Today. Now.

hulu

hulu test post

obama for (democratic candidate for) president

A speech given by Barack Obama, thanking Iowa voters for their support a week before the caucus. I think it's pretty rare to read or hear of something this inspiring - when was the last time you heard a Republican say anything with this kind of conviction and oratorical finesse?

I never thought it was such a bad little tree

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

Luke 2:8-14

Web 3.0

Something crazy just happened.

I took my last turn at Facebook Scrabble aka 'Scrabulous,' and having finished my FB adventures for the day, was about to watch some internet cartoons on adultswim.com.

Lo and behold, atop my facebook page, was an ad for Adult Swim Video. Wanting to reward AS and FB for their advertising partnership, I clicked it, and was brought directly to the page. Until now, I had never seen an ad for the exact thing I wanted at the time. More importantly, I had never seen an ad where my expression of interest was enough to get me the desired product. A perfect harmony of content delivery and accurate demographic research.

Web 2.0 is clearly old and busted; Web 3.0 is the new, as-yet-undiscovered hotness. Web 3.0 can only be:

a) an internet that uses itself
b) an internet that already knows where you want to go

imo we're on our way

today in history

1192: King Richard the Lion-Hearted is captured in Austria on his way home from the Crusades.

1606: The Virginia Company sets sail from England to build the first permanent English settlements in America.

1803: The Louisiana Purchase is completed at a ceremony in New Orleans.

1835: First signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence at Goliad, Texas.

1860: South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States.

1945: Peter Criss, drummer for KISS, is born.

1996: Carl Sagan, author and astronomist, dies at the age of 62.

1981: Dustin O'Connell, pseudo-intellectual slacker, is born.

(Wikipedia)

I like embedding video, just because I can.

telecom immunity is illegal and ill-advised

long video, worth watching. Props to Sen. Reid for pulling the FISA bill from the floor after veto threats and half a million emails descended on the Senate when Americans found out that the President wanted to protect phone companies who have already broken the law, at the President's request:

arkansas 1, rest of USA 0

North Dakota senator Byron Dorgan recently co-sponsored an amendment to the farm bill currently being extruded from Congress making subsidies unavailable to farms with more than $250,000 in annual income. (There are fewer than 100 farms like that in America.)

It didn't work out. And Arkansas senator Blanche Lincoln shares the blame. It's a variation on a theme that Republicans have been using to jam up the Democratic legislative agenda. It works great, which is probably why Sen. Lincoln, a Democrat, used it on her Majority Leader.

There are other, less counterproductive ways to make the point that all politics are local. Certainly the state of Arkansas benefits, but it does so at the expense of a perfect opportunity to show genuine discipline and leadership.

ping

this is not an advertisement for GEICO, though they are my insurer of choice.

that is all, for now.

wait, no it's not.

I feel like I'm working on a tiny, insignificant part of the Drawball, and people keep coming over and erasing it or painting over it, sometimes on purpose, but sometimes just because they're painting their own stupid crap and it runs over mine and they don't notice. The problem is that I'm actually working on a piece of a large picture on the Drawball, and they're fucking it all up. (metaphorically.)

WTF? Knock it off. (seriously.)

And finally, can you blend hockey pucks?

i like rice, 'cause it's a grain

i like rice, so i'm not insane!

Give some free rice to hungry people by playing this word-definition game. I'm at level 43 and I've only had two incorrect answers so far...

but I've had more than two lucky guesses.

happy thanksgiving

Like many others, I'm going home for the holiday. I'm grateful it's a ten-minute drive. Without further ado, brought to you by YouTube for the holiday, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving in three acts:

failure

I wrote a great post describing in detail Obama's health-care plan and comparing it to the plans of all the other Democratic candidates for president. Between research and typing, it took me almost two hours.

Despite a little bubble that pops up every five seconds saying, "Now Blogger saves your drafts automatically!" Blogger ate the post while I was trying to preview it and fix links. The introduction was still there, but all the actual work I did had disappeared.

I'm not spending four hours a day to write a long post twice. Fuck you, readers.

Mostly, fuck you, Blogger. I hate you.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

the only poker post

from my favorite poker IRC channel:

rockshock: i got Rizen on my table
rockshock: to my right
rockshock: ;(
mrace7: who cares
mrace7: rizen ain't great or anything
rockshock: hah
mrace7: he's alright
rockshock: hes good
mrace7: if i were u
mrace7: i'd fear people like lilholdem, imperium, or bgizzel
mrace7: u know rizen and them won't mess around without a certain range
rockshock: but they aint on my table
mrace7: fear people with no ranges
mrace7: who are also good

indeed.

happy to serve you

Greetings! It's been 15 months since my last post. Here's to continuity.

YA RLY (poker brag)

recoculous is being massively updated, upgraded, and graduated to its own site. your patience is appreciated, and your eyes are welcomed, wherever my rants may be seen. updates are forthcoming.

Results from July 10th-31st:



I pwn.

bigger and better things

recoculous is being massively updated, upgraded, and graduated to its own site. your patience is appreciated, and your eyes are welcomed, wherever my rants may be seen. updates are forthcoming.

i figured out why it hadn't rained for two months in GF: I never washed my car. Here it is, not two days past the latest wash, and the pitter-patter of raindrops can be heard on the shiny white exterior of Carter, the little white Saturn. (yes, i finally found a name.)

Here is a link to the weblog I wish recoculous could be. It can't, though, because this site is called Neatorama. (and it is. neat-o-rama.)

Here's the obligatory political link. This one's about why it's so important for the Democrats to take control of the Senate this fall. Ted "The Internet is Not a Truck" Stevens would get the boot, Kent Conrad would move up to a chairmanship and the chair of a subcommittee or two, Dorgan would get a chairmanship, Leahy would take over Intelligence, and a bunch of other awesome stuff. It's all right here; read it, and vote for Kent Conrad in November. More on that later. Also, if you live in District 43 in Grand Forks (near the library and Red River HS), vote for Jamie Selzler for ND House. Anyone who coaches high-school debate, claims to be a Republican, and then gets sick of the party's mendacity and switches to Dem-NPL is A-OK by me.

bbv post (poker post, sorry paul)

so, internet poker has turned me into depressed, angry dusty today.

38 $16 turbo games today.
10 finishes in the money, for a net profit of... -200 or so.

1 first place.
8 2nd places.
1 3rd place.

Among the highlights are five busts when a worse pocket pair makes trips to beat my better pocket pair, and three 2nd place finishes where I had a 3.5:1 chip lead going into heads-up play. I know I took way too many coinflips and 55/45s for my whole stack, and I lost most of them.

this makes it 3 times in a row that I've tried to move up to the 16s and had my bankroll crushed by loose calls, horrible cards, and too many coinflips brought on by the resulting tiltiness. so it's back to the 6.50s yet again, for an hourly rate only slightly better than minimum wage (unless i'm running hot). shit happens, i suppose.

i really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really want to get drunk or smoke a joint or something, just to get out of my head for a little while. but... if I do that, I'll go to prison. that's a whole other side of depressed, angry dusty that we don't need to get into here.

i am helpless in the face of ill fortune's wrath.

/delete

f**k yeah

pure energy
Information Society is back.

Producer Paul Robb picked up the rights to the InSoc name from lead singer/producer Kurt Harland, who had since 1997 been mostly being goth and producing video-game music. Robb found Jim Cassidy, another original band member, and added two more people (and a variety of featured artists) to bring back MY FAVORITE GODDAMN BAND EVER.

YEAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!

FUUUUUUUCK YEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

PSA
For the love of all that is good in the world, if you're using Internet Explorer right now.... stop. If you're at a public terminal, and they force you to use IE, show them this post.

Internet Explorer may be the worst piece of software in existence. Its unbreakable attachment to pretty much every program in Windows makes it the perfect vector to unleash all sorts of nasty viruses, hack attacks, trojans, and malware. Windows Update runs on my PC about once a week, and there is nearly always a security update for a vulnerability in Internet Explorer, usually having to do with its unquenchable desire to launch embedded Word/Outlook/Excel/whatever documents. Plus, it's slow.

Using IE is exactly like taking a razor blade, slicing open the end of your penis, and then having unprotected intercourse with every crack whore in New York. If you're not already terminally ill, you will be soon, and it's only a (very short) matter of time. "Oh, dusty, you're just being alarmist. Microsoft would never release software that was so dangerous!!!" No I'm not, and yes they would. They did. You're using it, and you're trying to make excuses why you shouldn't switch. No more excuses.

Click here to download Mozilla Firefox. Firefox is fast, supports tabbed browsing, has an excellent pop-up blocker, and is free. I use Firefox on my PC, but I'm considering switching to Opera.

Click here to download Opera. Opera 9 is brand-new, REALLY fast, and has BitTorrent support built right in. Plus, it masquerades as Internet Explorer if the website you're visiting is tracking the browser you use. (So? So, when we become the United Colonies of Microsoft, you won't be purged.)

You're welcome. That is all.