July 28, 2003
Unwell Australian Ratite (6)
I downloaded 39 CDs over the weekend. Legally. All paid for. From Charlie Parker to George Carlin, Motorbaby to Fairport Convention, Mozart to Thelonius Monk, They Might be Giants to, necessarily, The Pixies.
Some of it I'm not sure I like. But that's OK. If that's all I download this month (unlikely), it still works out to thirty-seven and a half cents per CD. Australian cents. EMusic: They don't suck. 'Scuse me while I listen to Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl again.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:34 PM | Comments (67) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
But they only have 17,000 albums, which isn't much on the scheme of things. A terabyte or so...Idiots with Web Sites
Stupid review of the day is up now at Game PC. They set out to discover whether Xeons - which are Pentium 4s with a couple of extra pins - can compete with Pentium 4s - which are Pentium 4s without the extra pins. They start by noting that Xeon based systems are more expensive because Xeons cost more, and follow this astute observation by pointing out that dual-Xeon systems cost more again because now you have to buy two Xeons.
Never would have guessed. They then proceed with the usual pointless benchmarks. Look, if five systems which differ only in the processor get the same score - plus or minus half a percent - then I'd lay odds that the limiting factor is somewhere else. Like - oh, say, the video card. (The benchmarks are games. But that's a given, I suppose, given the name of the web site.) Pixy's tip: Get an Athlon system - a 2500 or a 2800. Save yourself a thousand bucks, easy, which you can then send to me.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:24 PM | Comments (61) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Pixy's Lit'ry Review
Two books.
To the Nines by Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum's a Jersey Girl. That's New Jersey, in case you're confused. Retrenched from her job as a lingerie buyer (not nearly as glamorous as it sounds), she took the only job she could get: working for her cousin Vinny, a slimeweasel who runs a bail bond agency. So now Stephanie's a bail bond enforcement agent - a bounty hunter. Which isn't as glamorous as it sounds either. Particularly when you're no good at it, and she isn't. Stephanie gets by on luck, a little help from her friends, and extreme persistence. This is the nine-and-a-halfth Plum outing, and the series has gotten into a comfortable groove. Which is good - you know what you're getting - and bad - you know, well, you know what you're getting. And that's what you get. To the Nines is smart, funny, and well-written, and it advances its characters maybe an eighth of an inch. Still recommended. 4 out of 5.Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling Also the latest in a series of bestsellers. In this volume, Harry turns into an adolescent git, blah blah, someone dies, the end. This takes eight hundred pages. There are a couple of very effective scenes. In eight hundred pages. There's a good two-fifty or three hundred page novel in there, slowly suffocating. It's not the worst eight hundred page pile of excess verbiage I've ever read - Wizard's First Rule takes that laurel - but it needs the attention not so much of an editor's red pencil as a pair of electric hedge trimmers. Meh. I give it 2 out of 5.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:05 PM | Comments (70) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
July 27, 2003
I'm Not Dead
I've just been having a peaceful weekend, reading, listening to music, writing point-in-time aged creditors reports, and not blogging.
Back tomorrow.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:34 PM | Comments (70) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
July 26, 2003
Worm Redux
Susie's having a party in her comments. A big welcome to DJ Paul from Sanity's Edge.
Meanwhile, I have been rewormulated. I liked it better the first time 'round.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:29 AM | Comments (68) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Every Good Boy
Every good boy deserves fruit. What's the other one? Oh, F.A.C.E. Yeah.
I'll be spending the weekend downloading music. Not from Kazaa, 'cause that would be bad (and I wouldn't want to do anything bad). Not from the iTunes Music Store, because I don't have a Mac. Err... Except for the dual G4. And the G4 cube. Oh, and the iMac. Um, and the G3. Apart from those, no Macs. I still won't be using the iTunes Music Store because it's only available in the U.S., and I happen to live in the not-U.S. Somebody has to, or else the planet gets out of balance and tips over and the polar ice caps melt and all the penguins get sunburn and Miami sinks below the waves. Which would be great and all, but sunburnt penguins get grouchy and we can't have that. I won't be using BuyMusic.com because it's run by a bunch of wankers. The files are Windows-only, and I don't... Well, only two. The files are Windows only, the user interface is Windows only, everything is riddled with DRM ("Digital Rights Managament", as in, "You ain't got none"), and they charge too much. Instead, I'll be downloading from EMusic. (And, yes, I've made a Music directory on my E: drive.) $9.95 per month - though they do ask that you sign up for 12 months to get that price - and you can download as much as you want. Really. They don't have all the current Top 40 stuff, but I don't really see that as a downside. If there's something on the Top 40 that I like, I'll hear it somehow and I'll buy it. What they do have includes They Might Be Giants, a number of George Carlin comedy albums (as opposed to his tragedy albums, I guess), some selections from little-known artists like John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis... Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw... Bach, Mozart, some guy named "Vivaldi". In short, all the stuff that I'd really like to own but had never got around to forking over the cash for. And now, for the same price I paid for lunch on Thursday, I've got it all. Or at least I would have if my download speeds hadn't suddenly decided to suck. Since it was working fine earlier in the evening (during hideously expensive peak time) and only started sucking just now (during quote-free-unquote off-peak time), I'll tentatively lay the blame at my miserable excuse for an ISP, who shall be history any day now. Any day now... Taps fingers... Grrr.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:23 AM | Comments (74) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
July 25, 2003
Got You, Fox!
Gotta love 'em: the Foxiest news around:
As many sound and revealing theories as have been proposed over the past year to explain France's confounding geopolitical behavior, they've all missed something fundamental.(Fox News via Merde in France) (Is there anyone else in the world who remembers the Ventura Amiga User Exchange and their Killer Demo Contest? No, probably not.)
The country's less than Western, less than ally-like stances would have seemed less baffling if we hadn't started from a wrong premise: Namely, that France is a member of the civilized world.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:31 AM | Comments (68) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Need Brains...
Feeling zombificated. Need brains. Read Lileks... No Lileks?
Ug. Food. Need food. Light bulb in microwave gone. How me find dinner now? Update: Lileks! Sleep now.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:12 AM | Comments (65) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
July 24, 2003
Collinization
John of Collinization is the latest to make the leap from the fireswamp Blogspot. Why not stop in and say hello?
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:05 PM | Comments (63) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Living Colour
Holy standard copier paper, Batman! My local computer store is selling colour laser printers for $1299! (Australian dollars, that is.)
It's only 1200x600 dpi - and I was holding out for 1200x1200. It's Windows only - and I want Postscript. But with a bit of scripting, I can automate Postscript to PDF conversion and have that print, so I can pretend it's a real printer. Watch Pixy Misa struggle with temptation...Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:57 AM | Comments (65) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Desktop, Meet Linux
About two years ago, I said that Linux wasn't ready yet for the average desktop user. It was at least a year, more likely two, from reaching that point.
This review of Lindows suggests that the day has finally arrived:It's hard to find something bad to say about such a polished product. The email client on the Mozilla-based "Lindows Internet Suite" browser is configured by default to "check spelling before sending", which is great for my aunt, but I found highly annoying. It can be turned off, hopefully. The notebook's internal Lucent LT-WinModem wasn't recognized. But then that piece of crap is not recognized by any other non-Windows operating system, not even by those that have a winmodem driver. Creating and establishing a dial-up connection worked well when using a PCMCIA modem.It's all there. It all works. And if it's not on the install CD, the Click 'n' Run feature provides nearly two thousand applications that you can download and install with a single mouse-click. This includes Nethack, the ultimate adventure game, which is still missing from RedHat as of version 8.0. (I have yet to install 9. Sue me.) It's not a Linux for the hard-core geek like me. I'll continue to build my own kernels and compile my own applications. But for those looking for a good, cheap desktop OS with some Windows compatibility, this is it. I'll get a copy myself and take a further look. I'm sure one of the computers around here needs a quick scrub and reinstall.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:34 AM | Comments (69) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Big Time
Congratulations to Tim Blair, Australian media watchdog watchdog. You know you've made it big when your hate site has a hate site of its own.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:06 AM | Comments (62) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
July 23, 2003
Good News
Ambient Irony is now the number one Google site for the search Squirrel Goes WEEEEEEEEEE!!!.
Also, Frank says:RARR!But he linked to me anyway.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:29 AM | Comments (66) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Never Send To Know
Never send to know for whom the kitty mews, for I have no idea.
Though really it's more of a meep than a mew. Twas brillig and the meeping catsDid go out to a restaurant
All mimsy were the hypno fish
And the tarepanda outsplats. The rhyming scheme is wrong, but that's the least of your worries:
On first sight, it is just a standard kitty. But Nyanko is good with "mimic" something (especially food) Remember it's not edible.Remember, it's not edible! But then, neither were Bill's penguins. (San-X via some random comment on Fark)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:52 AM | Comments (74) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Pull Back On The Stick!
Eeee!
Whew. I thought I was a goner for a minute there.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:39 AM | Comments (64) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
July 22, 2003
A Platter of Penguins
Over at Bloviating Inanities:
It's Penguin, it's PenguinThey're so cute! Strawberry jello and spam: it's what's for breakfast!
I shouldn't have made it but could
It's Penguin, it's Penguin
It's better than bad it's good
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:38 PM | Comments (64) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Problem With Popplers Readers
The problem with having people actually reading your blog is that when you screw up, they notice.
Sorry Tiger, I forgot to close the quotes in a link. Plooie! All fixed now.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:40 PM | Comments (64) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Must Read
Tiger pointed me to the latest post at Collinization, which I must admit I hadn't read for a few days.
It's not his usual funny stuff, but it's even more worthy of your attention. Go. Go now, and read.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:24 PM | Comments (63) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Ars Technica
Geek site of the day is Ars Technica.
This isn't your average geek website. For one thing, the writers have some grasp of the English language: they can spell, they can use apostrophes without making me wince, and their grammar at least resembles what I remember learning at school. Though their use of the word who're as a contraction of who are raised eyebrows both with me and with dictionary.com. (Side note: a search for w$h%o!r'e finds... What you'd expect.) For another, they can talk intelligently about the relative efficiency of the issue queues in the vector units of the PowerPC G4e and 970 processors. With pictures and everything. I wandered into their web forum - and then backed out fast. There are over 5 million posts in the database, and more than 800 users online right now. I just don't have the time.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:53 PM | Comments (66) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Internet's Down!
Or maybe it's just my ISP again. For 15 minutes I couldn't establish a TCP connection of any sort, though existing connections still worked. Traceroute worked. Ping didn't. (!)
If they keep this up, I may decide to switch to another company. Oh, wait...Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:41 PM | Comments (63) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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