Posted by Dick
on September 29, 2005
Go procrastination!
Didn’t buy a gumstix – found out yesterday they’re shipping new ones in ‘06 based on PXA27X chips (mini-itx speeds with integrated sdram and flash, usb host, speedstep, and so on) for the same price (american economy not yet collapsed, but was looking very shaky about a fortnight ago….)
Didn’t buy a nano – turns out the screens fall apart if you look at them too hard .
While I’m here, I’d like to draw your attention to further evidence of Rasputnik’s Law
I mentioned project C.H.E.E.S.E . Hilarious.
Guess who just moved in with NASA?
"Our planned partnership presents an
enormous range of potential benefits...
collaborations on bio-info-nano convergence"
bio-info-nano convergence???? a.k.a. ‘having things inserted into orifices’. And not in a good way
Posted by Dick
on September 26, 2005
Firefox just went batshit while using gmail. I clicked a link, firefox sat spinning with the status bar flashing.
I killed the tab, went in again and got a lovely error saying:
Lockdown in sector 4!
Our system indicates unusual usage of your account.
In order to protect Gmail users from potentially harmful use of
Gmail, this account has been disabled for up to 24 hours.
If you are using any third party software
that interacts with your Gmail account, please
disable it or adjust it so that its use complies
with the Gmail Terms of Use.
If you feel that you have been using your Gmail account according
to the Terms of Use or otherwise normally,
please contact us at gmail-lockdown@google.com to
report this problem.
Contact you? With what?
Posted by Dick
on September 25, 2005
I’ve used DVORAK layouts since I got RSI. I chose a layout in xorg.conf, and any other users of the laptop would just think the keys were broken. You can change the console keyboard map, but usually only if you’re root.
When I tried Ubuntu the other day, it came with GNOME it had really improved in the last 18 months, and came with a keyboard switcher applet, which was dead handy. Recently, slow start times made me look at alternatives – but none had keyboard switching.
I had a google for some X11 key switching commands (I feel no shame in not knowing X low level stuff like this, life is far too short). I wasn’t looking forward to the output, but this little gem popped out. I’m hereby freed up to look at other wms. Just add it to your .profile and marvel at a truly elegant hack:
alias aoeu="setxkbmap us"
alias asdf="setxkbmap dvorak"
(Typing break reminder would be nice, but that’s just another google). I know that says more about my laziness than anything else, but I wonder how many GUI users who swear they couldn’t do without some platform or app actually mean they need one tiny part of it’s feature set, and are just a google away from deliverance.
Posted by Dick
on September 21, 2005
Rubyland continues to expand at ludicrous speed. Today I found out:
I like apt and gems. I like beer and ice cream too. But mixing the two makes me queasy. I’ll wait for the dust to settle.
Now would probably be Haskell time, right?
Trouble is, I actually started my Rails book today – I’m enjoying picking through the typo source so it might be more useful.
This is the trouble with being a self-taught geek.
If only I didn’t have the attention span of a goldf – Cool! ’Incy Wincy Quincy, the Spider Detective’ is back on the radio!
Posted by Dick
on September 20, 2005
“Any crazy rumour about Google will turn out to be true within six months weeks”.
I heard Google were building their own Internet. (I also looked at GoogleWatch, who seem to think ’we might show that donkey porn email from Bin Laden to the feds’ is a) surprising or b) at all relevant when talking about messages sent by SMTP. The two were pretty indistinguishable on the CrankOMeter. )
Then today the Great Gate opens and out rolls skynet .
I love the cheerful image / terrifying resources of the GoogleTron Empire , almost as much as I like their webmail interface.
I am still hopeful this Law only holds within LEO. We’ll see .