So, with the addition of my Asus EEE, I now have a total of 5 operable computers, 4 of which I regularly use. One is my download computer/DVD player/media streamer for my television. One is a laptop that is no longer portable (bad power port) so it is permanently resigned to a dock for the rest of it’s life. Still pretty powerful, I use it for video editing (firewire port) and rendering sometimes. Then I have a computer I’ve personally built, fairly powerful but not as powerful as I’d wanted (limited funds) and composed of leftover hard disks and DVD drives. It’s my workhorse, where I do most of my sound production and 3d/2d work. The fourth is my EEE and the fifth is an ancient laptop I used for on-the-road web surfing before I bought the EEE. It’s packed up, but usable if needed.

I do occasionally web surf on all these computers. If I’m doing something on any one of them and need to look something up, I use the computer I’m on. while surfing, I very often find something I’d like to bookmark. Then I get into: which bookmark is where? I end up googling for the link anyway and defeating the purpose of bookmarking in the first place. It’s slowly dawning on me that something that syncs bookmarks, such as Google’s Browser Sync would be just what I need to keep my links in order.

Shows how out of touch I am. There is no more Google Browser Sync. It came, it was popular, it went, it is no more. All within my peripheral vision, but still out of my notice.

Anyway, I want with Foxmarks. works great, it’s easy, I love it. I wish it would weed out duplicate bookmarks, but then we get into which one to delete, what if one’s in a folder, etc. I’m happy and more organized than ever. Hooray!

As far as Einstein goes, I think people need to remember that his claim to fame is called the THEORY of Relativity, not the LAW of Relativity. That his little bit of theorizing has been around for decades and still hasn’t been proven makes me think Albert’s parents were being sarcastic when they put “Einstein” on his birth certificate.

The Theory of Relativity, for those of you who always seem to find yourselves out of the loop, is Einstein’s impossibly simple solution to a complex problem. Imagine that you and a friend are in a jumbo jet. You’re in the back, your friend is in the front. What would happen if you lit a firecracker while the plane was still waiting for takeoff? The sound would travel towards our friend at 340.29 meters per second. (the speed of sound)

Do this while the plane is in flight however, and the sound will take longer to reach him than the before. This is because your friend is now traveling away from the sound. If you were in the front of the plane and your friend were in the back, it would take less time for the sound to reach him, as he would be moving towards it.

This is not the case with light. Experiment after experiment has shown that light always appears to be moving at the same speed (three million miles per second) to everyone everywhere, no matter how the observer is moving in relation to the light’s source.

Most scientists would assume one of two things: 1) Perhaps light waves move in such a way that their speed seems constant, almost an opposite of the effect of a film recording of a spinning wheel. Vary the frame rate and the wheel seems to speed up, slow down, even spin in the opposite direction-yet the wheel is actually spinning at a constant speed. Is it not possible that photons move in such a frequency, speed, or pattern that they always seem to be moving at a constant rate?

2) Light waves are fun-loving energy particles (although not too smart) and thusly think they’re playing a game of tag. Photons don’t want to show you up so badly that you won’t play anymore, but they also don’t want to lose, so they always go 300 miles per second faster than you.

Einstein, however, decided to make up something ridiculous. He decided that the faster an object is traveling, the larger it gets. This theory has since convinced many adult novelty stores into dumping millions of dollars into finding a way to make a man’s penis travel millions of miles per second faster than the rest of his body. (Someone needs to tell them about the Fitzgerald Contraction)

The Theory of Relativity explains light’s constant speed like this: As we move, our representation of an inch or a mile changes along with us as we slowly grow. (as does everything else moving at our speed) That makes it seem like light is traveling constantly (relative to us). Yeah, and I’m a seven-year-old girl. (PS–I’m not)

If, due to the huge intellectual beating I’ve just given it, Einsteineans find they can no longer discuss the Theory of Relativity in their circles, they can always fall back on discussing his Unifying Theory. Oh, that’s right. He never quite finished that. Oops. Bad on you, mates.

I don’t know if any of you out there use Celtx for your script-writing/preproduction/planning needs, but I have a little tip for you if you do.

Celtx 1.0 just came out, by the way. From what I gather, unless you use it to write comic book scripts or use the Outliner, you won’t notice much difference. The biggest change I’ve noticed is that the right-click menu no longer allows you to create a folder or a writing template, which seems like a step backwards in usability to me, but it’s not really a big deal.

One thing I was hoping they’d do is let us turn off the annoying auto-complete feature for names/scene headings. You still can’t. Here’s the deal–when you type dialog, you type the name, then on the next line you type the dialog. Celtx tries to help you by bringing up a little box with all the names you’ve used that begin with the same letters you’re typing. Great if you’re a slow typist or have a character named Constantinople, but if you’re a fast typist it just slows things down.

How? Well, sometimes you can type the name and hit “enter” before the suggestion box comes up. Great. That’s how I like it. Other times, you don’t quite beat the little box and you have to hit return twice–first to close the box (selecting the name it suggested, if you’ve typed it before in this script) and second for a line break. Just hit return once, and everything else you type goes on the same line, after the name. If you’re a touch typist and typing up a hard copy, you have to keep looking over to the the computer screen to see whether or not you need one return or two, which slows you down a lot. Even if you’re typing from memory and looking at the screen it’s an annoyance, and you kind of have to race the program. If you don’t beat the program you have to stop, move the text to the right line, etc.

“No shit,” says the guy who just stopped in from Google, hoping to find a workaround. “So how do I disable the autocomplete?” Simple. Celtx is open source, so all you have to do is alter the code and re-compile it for your system. Once you figure it out, tell me how.

Okay now, for real, I don’t know how to disable it, but I do know how to trick it. The first thing you do is type a period (it can be any character, as far as I know). Move the blinking cursor one space to the left, meaning move it so it’s directly IN FRONT of the period. Start typing. Push that period all over the place. Assuming that none of your names have a period in them, the little auto-complete feature won’t have any names to suggest, therefore no well-intentioned hindrances. TADA! You’ve just upped your productivity by 10,000% and I get a nice commission.

You’re welcome.

…when he pulled the mighty Excalibur from the stone.

For you see, that is exactly how I felt as I opened the package I got from NewEgg.com. Electricity crackled in the air. My knife found it’s way into my hands, slashing through the box’s tape as if it had a mind of it’s own. There was something drawing me into that box, something mystical.

I opened the box, and what did I find, but a brand new Black Asus EEEpc 4G Galaxy! Bow down! Tremble before the awesome might of the mighty and awesome EEEpc!!

900 mhz (capable) processor. 7″ screen. 1GB ram (upgraded). 250GB WD passport external drive. 8000 mah (theoretically 5 more hours) external battery. Touchscreen kit on it’s way. That’s right folks, I’m portable. And in a few months, when I upgrade my cell phone plan to include internet, there’s no stopping me. NO STOPPING ME!!! There will be no more boundaries. There will be no more sounds save the crying–my cries of joy, and your cries of unimaginable longing.

I’ve had it a little over two weeks now, and I can report as to it’s effectiveness:

I really can’t express how happy I am with this. This type of device is something I’ve been wanting, literally, for years, long before Asus even came out with it. As long as there have been PDAs, I’ve been saying, “Yes, that’s nice, but how about middling it out? Why not PDA guts in a super-small laptop form? That’s not what this is. This is 5-year old desktop guts in a super-small laptop form. Roll call:

Max Payne-Works great
Max Payne 2-Check
GTA Vice City-You better believe it.

Those are my games, the ones I had to have working. I’ll eventually get to installing Diablo 2 and Jedi Knight, (both reported to work) but that’s a ways off. The games are cool extras but this baby’s purpose is writing, web surfing, and video watching on the go.

As far as typing on this tiny keyboard, I just clocked myself in at 55 wpm, which I find shocking. The last time I tested myself on a full keyboard I kept bouncing around between 60 and 80. If I really pushed it, sat down at an actual desk and worked at it for 20-30 minutes, I’ll bet I could hit 80 wpm at least.

I have some notes after the fold on the accessories and OS’s I’m using, along with my success with them.

Read more »

I’m a week or so late on this, but Blender 2.46 is out.

If you wished the rendering order of strips in the sequence editor made more sense, you’ll like this release. if you wish you could do a lot more advanced grouping, you’ll like this release. If you desire a completely free power tool that can do modeling, rigging, animation, sculpting, particles, fluids, compositing, video editing, image editing, audio editing, audio mixing, and overall world domination, you’ll like this release.

Sorry, not much time. I could write a book right now about the movie Speed Racer, about the amazing direction, about the million different tones it juggled and moved back and forth between seamlessly. But it’s late and I start my first day of work at a new job tomorrow (later today, 7 hours from now), so instead I’ll say: Go see Speed Racer ASAP. You may love it as much as I did, or you may hate it, but the important thing is that they get your money so the Wachowski brothers keep getting opportunities to make movies this amazing.

RFID (Radio Frequency ID) chips emit a little radio signal that contains digital information, and this signal can also be used to track them. They’re versatile: perfect for warehouses to track cases, scary as hell when they talk about putting them in people. They’re stupid when in credit cards. Stupid and dangerous and NOBODY SHOULD USE THEM.

And now, here’s a video, about how right I am on the last bit.

Your welcome.

Hello all, my name is Divan Knockyard. You may know me from the blog you’re probably reading right now. Except, you don’t know me too well because I haven’t really written much. That’s partially my fault, but then again, you haven’t exactly been flooding my inbox with offers of blow jobs for blog posts, have you?

You see, here’s how I work. I write something, probably something hilarious, then I sit on it for months, even years. This is because, generally speaking, some things I write turn out shitty. Sometimes I can properly judge my work the minute it’s entered into the computer, sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes, I never realize it sucks and I die still thinking it’s awesomer than gossamer (this happens a lot). As you may guess, this method doesn’t work too well with the whole blogging paradigm.

So what do I do? I wake up one morning, completely broke but still fairly optimistic. I look at all these things I’ve written, dozens of articles, months and even years old, that I have ultimately deemed “funny.” I think, I should get a job as a writer, or submit these somewhere, or get a book published.

Oh wait, I then think, I’m a college dropout. I have a website with practically no regular readers and even less posts. Submit the articles where? Try to get a job somewhere? Make a living writing? Wouldn’t that require me to possess some minuscule amount of worth or appeal?

Then, understandably, I crawl into bed, assume the fetal position and bawl like a little baby. But not for long. I realize that I have many highly sought after skills. For instance, I can tell whether or not someone’s gay just by trying to have sex with them.

So maybe I should stop hoarding all my articles. Isn’t that why I have a blog in the first place? Didn’t I work my ass off on this site–designing, planning, naming–(okay, maybe Pierce did all that, but I sort of helped a little) because I wanted to give away all my hard work for free to millions of little ungrateful pissants who wouldn’t give me the time of day much less a following or a worthwhile career? Didn’t I? Fuck no.

I started a blog because I have things I’ve written that I want people to read. A book, tv, or movie deal would also be nice someday, but I’m not holding my breath. I want to make people to laugh, and then I want to use pending civil laws to force said people to pay me for services rendered, regardless of the lack of any existing contract between we parties. I want someday to end up in the same league as more famous online humorists, such as Maddox, those nameless, faceless Onion writers, and the dudes on Superdeluxe (the ones that get paid to submit, not the commoners). And once I’m in the same league as them, I’ll throw a big party and they’re all invited. And you’re all invited too! And we’ll salute the Statue of Liberty and the American Flag, and we’ll sing Christmas carols and make s’mores. It’ll be the best party ever, the crowning achievement of which will be me pulling out my shotgun and spraying my brains all over you shitheels, because I hate parties and I hate all of you. Get the picture?

Now go freeload off someone else’s blog.

You know what, “nerd” may not be the proper term. Maybe it is for me, I build computers, I drool over new technology, I am a nerd, but I’m referring to my being a fan of Buffy and Angel. I suppose this doesn’t make someone a nerd in the traditional sense. Anyway, I was a big fan of Buffy and Angel, the tv shows, and now additionally I’m a big fan of the comic books, Buffy Season Eight and Angel: After the Fall. And here’s my problem:

We only get one issue a month. We used to get one episode of the television show a week, at least for a few months straight, and now we only get 1 issue a month. Again:

Episodes were 42 minutes +/-. I can read through an issue of Angel: After the Fall in 10 minutes tops. And one issue a month. This really, really, really frustrates me.

I realize that a lot of work goes into a tv show, and probably more money than goes into the comics. But spread out over a year, 22 episodes is one about every 2.4 weeks. Shouldn’t we at least get bi-weekly comics?

I shouldn’t have started reading them. Especially Angel, because they brought Wesley back and he’s by far my favorite character. Now they have this big battle going on and they’re interrupting it with a 3-issue story arc explaining how they got to where they are now. Which is okay, I’m sure the issues will be just as good as the ones I’m reading now, and I’ll all have forgotten the battle by the end of the next issue, but still, they couldn’t do bi-weekly? You can produce episodes of a tv show faster than issues of a comic book?

Just wanted to get that off my chest.

You know, I was thinking about how having a blog is kind of like having a pet, in that you have to be responsible or it will get neglected. But then I realized, having a blog is nothing like a pet. You can’t ignore a pet, it will bug the shit out of you until it gets what it wants. Having a blog is like having a plant. If you’re at all like me, you’ll eventually forget to water it, until it dies a slow and agonizing death.

So here’s the deal. For a bit I was trying to post once a day. And that worked well, until I got lazy, and decided it really didn’t matter if I missed one day, then another, and so on until I next thing you know it’s weeks later and no updates.

I’ve had good excuses. I was working on some more videos, I’m messing with a lot of complex animation with Blender at the moment, but really I’m focusing on finding a new job. Finding a new job takes most of my time. About 1% searching and 99% worrying.

The time not spent on videos, animation or job-hunting is spent drooling over the Asus EEE, even moreso now that I’ve heard it can run Max Payne 2 (on WinXP) practically out of the box. I love Max Payne 2. It’s the game I pull out every few months and play start to finish, sometimes one sitting. Not to mention the potential with emulators and ROMs.

I’m going to try to blog more. I really am. I have dozens of things to write, I just need to devote the time. I’ll be visiting my parents for a week or so starting this weekend, that usually means lots of spare time, so expect a lot more blogging then. (especially blogging about the Asus EEE)

ta ta for now,

Michael Pierce