Kit's Blog

Getting Better? Part 2

Life Happens... WITH RANDOM JAPANESE PEOPLE!

     Well, happy belated easter to all you Christian people:

     Now onto more... not religious things. So from sunday at 4:30pm to today (tuesday) at 7:10am I hosted three Japanese exchange... people. I can't say students because they didn't come here as students, they're dancers. They apparently won some dance competition to come and dance at the opening of the Cherry Blossom festival in Washington D.C. So after we picked her up (we only started with one), they decided they wanted to go see the Ring 2 (for those of you who don't know me, I despise horror movies with a passion), and so they did... without me. That was rather dissapointing, but what could I do? So I let it slide. Anyway, they came back and the next day we decided that we'd take them to the mall. So I drove us all to the mall, which lead to some confusion about my age (they thought I was 18, because that's how old you have to be to drive in Japan), but we made it nonetheless. They kept saying "jyurokusaidesu?!" which means "16 years old?!"
     So once we were there they sort of wandered around with me trailing (all stores that were very awkward for a guy to be seen standing around in) and finally they just split off for 2 and a half hours on their own. In total we were there for FOUR HOURS (I hope to never be in the mall continuosly for that long ever again), but I got a copy of final fantasy tactics, and marveled at the enormous number parents with 5 year old kids who were willing to shell out the $150 for the nintendo DS. Especially the one who traded their used one in for a new one (for an additional $20) in order to get the manual. Sigh... Parents really need to learn to draw the line and tell their kids NO. Anyway, in the last 10 minutes of my expedition I ran into Alex Hill and his friend Tina, and we sat around and talked. Then I took this picture and went home:

From right to left: Mayuko Aota (17 years old), Kawakami Sachi (17 years old), and Kawakami Maki (12 years old) (yes, maki and Sachi are sisters)

     So then we went home, they took a nap, and when they woke up we ate dinner. After that we went and played video games, Sachi chatted for a while and then Aota checked her email. Here are some more random snapshots:

Maki and Aota playing tekken.

Sachi using the computer. Yup, now that they're gone I can relax... Oh wait! Shakespeare festival?! Oh no!

PS
For those of you who noticed: Yes, better camera.

Nothing since I'm not home

Just some Music today, sorry folks!

Today's music selection? The Pillows- Stalker Goes to babylon

Server Done, moving onto other two comps

     So, I set up the big server machine with Fedora Core 3 (which, as previously explained, was a pain in the ass), and got it configured to accept incomming SSH. I'm working on getting it to properly inform no-ip of its ip address, but I'm satisfied with the current stage of working order. During this whole process I actually learned something pretty interesting about the security of linux: To prevent people from producing root equivilent users, you cannot use the "useradd" function while under su, you have to be root. This also applies to things like the ifconfig command. It's a really clever feature, but it can be a bit of a nusience... In light of the fact that I'm still exaughsted from general just existing through this week, you get a song and a heartening article about the general agreement of the public that environmental laws are necessary and that we're willing to pay some extra taxes to do it.
Warning! Very High quality scan! Big file!
Green in gridlock?

And due to the fact that I really haven't been posting too much this week, here a song to make you all smile:

And yes, the line is: "You put the lime in the coconut" Don't believe the coke commercial! It is NOT "You put the lime in the coke you nut."

I've been saving this up for a rainy day...

Just so that you know, the dragon DOES NOT MOVE, BEND, or TWIST is any way! He just sits there, perfectly still...

Ow! I stubbed my toe!

I hurt my toe so badly I've been at the hospital all day... I need sleep...

More server news, and another batch of anime, straight from the oven.

     I know recently these entries have been getting to be a repetitive cycle of anime and computers, but that's the way it's been recently. I have a total of three computers that all needed SERIOUS work before being in up and running condition, and I have well over a hundred episodes of unwatched anime in my house. So until all of that is done, that's the kind of things you'll be hearing about.
     Right now I'm installing Fedora Core linux onto the Server computer I talked about a few days ago. It took a while to find all the BIOS flashes and get the machine up. It took even longer to get the second processor installed. The problem was that, for the most part, this server isn't supported well on the Dell website, and so the downloads for it were hard to find and badly documented. The second processor needed power for the fan on the heatsink, and so for now it is hack-rigged to the main fan power supply. The third problem was the driver for the RAID backbone on the server. Fedora Core 3 uses a new megaraid_mbox which doesn't support my PERC II board. So I had to scrounge around the net for a few days to find the proper driver. It was hidden on a linux site, but fortunately it was also very easy to use, and worked like a charm. Who knows how it'll turn out! The only part that will be public though will be the IRC server.
     The anime on the other hand, has been quite good. I watched Eppisode 11 of Air (made by one of my favorite studios), which has slowly gotten less and less followable, until now it's just plain madness. And by madness, I mean that the plot has become rather... bizzarre. The main character has gone from being a shy girl... to a girl who's "other self" is in the sky... to a 5 year old... Yes, it's insane... but a good insane... The other show I'm watching is FMA (Full Metal Alchemist for those of you who don't know it). The only thing that's bothered me about this series is that it is SO SICK AND SAD. There is practically no happincess in it whatsoever. All the plotlines have all involved alchemists bringing back horrible masses of flesh that they hoped would be human or killing other people. It's all very depressing and horribly violent. I think it's all meant to be some overarching lesson about the power of god and how humans aren't meant to interefere combined with the fact that humans are corrupted by power. It's all been very good despite it's horrible pain and suffering, and I find that I'm enjoying it immensly... Wow... that sounded bad...

OH NO! More Anime?!

     Okay. I watched one series and am starting another. So far one was okay, and the other has been pretty awesome. One is called "kannazuki no miko" (or, on occasion, kannaduki no miko) and it was a very fast paced story about these two girls who had to... well... save the planet... sort of. The first half moved so fast it was like running headlong into a brick wall. And the second half had so many twists it felt like they kind of stopped caring about consistancy. Overall the story was a great heartbreaker, but it certainly wasn't as good as I had hoped. The love story had one big part where I felt a lot of it was very contrived and I thought it came off stupid just because the love felt fake. Then the second love story was just there to make you sad. I have no idea how I feel about this... I need a thirty-hour nap.

Forum Explosion

     Well scuzzstuff.org isn't really all that different from scuzzstuff.tk. The only reason scuzzstuff.tk is still there is to make sure that people who don't know about the switch will still make it there. But now that we've gotten scuzzstuff there's one big change: the forum. The forum I hope will start to grow and expand, but it can only do so with your help! Tell you friends and everyone to hop onboard and join the forum. Or, if you haven't already, tell them to use scuzzstuff as their games site! I'm sure they'll have fun!

Man... I'm way tired. And I need better linux distros...

     I'm still working on getting that server up to date, but it's a pain in the ass beyond belief. In the meantime I made the image in yesterday's post way more awesome. I was planning on letting it be an easter egg for those who really looked, but in the end I just thought: "What the hell, no one would notice if I didn't tell them anyway." So check it out. And keep your mouse over it for a second or two to get the subtitles, those are half the fun!

One year later...

     Well everyone, we've made it. One full year after I registered and started the kitkorp.com domain I am still here and building up a web community. Though of course I plan to continue to expand and grow, let's take a look back on the year, shall we?
     So it all started in March, but to be honest, NOTHING HAPPENED IN MARCH. In fact, there were only a total of 1900 hits (not visitors) and 1000 of those hits came from me updating my blog. That, was a bad month. Probably because the site was just getting started... Well I only managed to pick up 5,206 hits in April, and with double the amount of blog entries that was double the amount of hits from me. In other words only about 3000 hits, but hey, it's still only my first full month! As far as blogging went, it was decent: I wrote a fairly good story about my trip to Alaska, offered people blogs which no one accepted, and ranted about little things that annoyed me. Sure, it wasn't great yet, but it was good.
     This was kinda where my spirits plummeted. The month of May brought me FEWER HITS. I only 2536! That was almost as bad as my first half-month! And this time 1100 hits were from me! OH NO! The reason behind that one may be in combination with a lack of "fruitful" posts on my blog. There was an interesting factoid here or there, but overall, it BLEW. So that kind of turned people off. The hits started climbing back up the next month... and then went back down after that. There wasn't much happening due to the fact that I basically stopped posting over the summer. So no one bothered to visit.
     The next month seems a tad bit more promising, August! The month of my birthday! Well... It felt more promising at 5828 hits, but a full 3623 of said hits came from me again. This was because I was testing a CGI proxy, which now gets practically no hits, but was once very well used (or maybe abused) by its users. Blogging started back up again that month, and it reveled three things: I can't draw very well, I have a serious addiction to Anime, and that I may very well be mentally unstable.
     The hits from September were very similar to august: a lot of hits, a lot from me. But since the school year had just started back up again, there was a new crop of readers for my blog and I started writing more interesting articles and stories, as well as a sure sign that I've cracked. The next two months, things stayed very much like september: getting better at writing, and starting to experiment with javascript. It also gave way to my Bush Article. Pretty much after that it's been as it is today. I'd write more, but it's late, REAL LATE. So I have to get some sleep for school tommorow. Anyway, Happy Birthday Kitkorp! May you and scuzzstuff live on in harmony!

Yet more new computers

     Mitch and Aymon both gave up on a old Dell PowerEdge 4200 server which I am currently working on getting set up with Fedora core linux. I have to do some weird modding though, cause it takes dual cartridge processors, and I happened to have a matching 266MHz catridge processor sitting in my basement... go figure. Anyway, the issue is that the motherboard provides no power source for the built-in fan on the said catridge processor, so I'm forced to fuck up the cables to get them to connect properly to a different sized slot. Either way this looks like it promises to be a fun venture in Kit land: So stay tuned!

Specs:
Dual Pentium II 266MHz cartridge processors
512MB of RAM
Six 8gig scsi RAID hard drives, four of which are broken
A really loud annoying alarm on the scsi controller which goes off if one of the HDs are dead (note: I disabled it but GOD WAS IT ANNOYING)
Dual power supply
2 ethernet cards, a cdrom, and a floppy
Here some quick pics (this thing is a MONSTER! probably a foot wide, one and a half feet long, and a foot and a half tall):

     On an unrelated note scuzzstuff.org is up and running albiet without some of the more frivolous features up yet. All old links will now point to it (games.kitkorp.com, scuzzstuff.tk now auto-redirect you to scuzzstuff.org). Enjoy.

Sneakily attempts to post without providing any substance

Substance! I defy you to prove that this post contains no substance. It, in fact, contains much substance. Substance now to a factor of 4. Hooray!

Hooray! It's pi(e) day!

     Sorry everybody but I completely forgot to rmind you yesterday that today is PI(e) day! If you don't already get where this comes from it's because today is March fourteenth. 3/14 which if you make into a decimal is 3.14 and therefore today is PI(e) day. The reason I keep adding an e is because the proper way to celebrate PI day is to make a pie. I celebrated by making a pizza pie for dinner. Either way, in celebration of this momentos holiday I give you: A bunch of digits of PI!
3.1415926535897932384626433832795028
841971693993751058209749445923078164
062862089986280348253421170679821480
865132823066470938446095505822317253
594081284811174502841027019385211055
596446229489549303819644288109756659
334461284756482337867831652712019091
456485669234603486104543266482133936
072602491412737245870066063155881748
815209209628292540917153643678925903
600113305305488204665213841469519415
116094330572703657595919530921861173
819326117931051185480744623799627495
673518857527248912279381830119491298
336733624406566430860213949463952247
371907021798609437027705392171762931
767523846748184676694051320005681271
452635608277857713427577896091736371
787214684409012249534301465495853710
507922796892589235420199561121290219
608640344181598136297747713099605187
072113499999983729780499510597317328
160963185950244594553469083026425223
082533446850352619311881710100031378
387528865875332083814206171776691473
035982534904287554687311595628638823
537875937519577818577805321712268066
13001927876611195909 --It goes on like this forever (duh, IT'S PI!)

     On a side note I working with my current webhost to get scuzzstuff.org up and running, but they seem to have a $20 fee for "pointer domains" so I'm asking them why they charge $20 for what is only a few lines of code. So far the answer I've gotten seems to be: "Well most people don't know how little effort it takes and so they pay it gladly!" So what about the people who DO know how little effort it takes? Not really fair and just to charge them too is it? I mean it costs me four times as much to buy the "pointer domain" configuration from powweb then it does to buy the actual domain name! That's like someone selling you a bike for $50 and then saying that the wheels are $200 and don't come with the bike.

Probably the largest update is kitkorp since its creation

     As we hurtle towards this blog's one year birthday, I finally decided to move on up to bigger and better things. Felipe has been pestering me to advertise his forum, and I was thinking about starting my own. In a nutshell due to the fact that I didn't want to crush Felipe's hopes and dreams of maintaining a forum I made a proposition to him: Come and maintain your website on my host so that we don't have to compete. In a nutshell after I set up all the stuff he needed and making sure he had the kind of access he wanted we struck a deal that Felipe will be comming over to kitkorp. I plan on buying a new domain as well which, while still pointing to the same server, will be where I keep my non-work related crap. It's gonna be scuzzstuff.org: comming soon to an internet near you. Either way the site may be kinda funky for the next couple of days while we get all the logistics worked out with powweb. So wish me luck! And welcome felipe to scuzzstuff!

Not pr0n

Wow... this game is so addicting... It's not even close to being funny. It's called not pr0n, and it's really quite difficult. For me the problem is that I'll find the answer, but I'll over-think it and fail. I've made it to level 11 so far, but it's getting quite hard.

Absolutely under no circumstances is anyone to post any answers to this puzzel in the comments section. Don't use this blog as a resource for any of the answers. Just stick with what they gave you.

Just a tad bit more celebration, cause I'm piss tired

HOLY FUCK! 500 COMMENTS!

     Yep, so as of Mitch's comment on the last entry I've recieved 500 comments. As my fellow bloggers can affirm, that's a hell of a lot of comments. I hope that it's some sort of indication of the quality of my blog to get 500 comments in under a year. I really wanted to put a smiley there, but I abhor smilies in my own non-AIM related writing so I won't. Anyway, since this is such a big milestone for me, I'm gonna post a selection of songs so that you can pick and choose! Be picky with your music for a day my loyal blog readers! Today, YOU HAVE A CHOICE!

Thanks for reading! Keep on reading!


--Kit

Sigh... the pitiful fact about... Well... people...

     Brian (not D, he seems to have some sort of head on his shoulders) seems to have pointed out the view that most Americans take: "Well I don't see the problem with it, and there doesn't seem to be anything better out there, so I'll stick with this until someone rams the answer up my ass like I'm some prison inmate's bitch." People in America seem to have the same answer for everything: "I'll stick with what's easiest until something else becomes easier." This may not seem true, but when you think about it, it is. Most people proclaim that the cheapest will always prevail, but that's disproven right here. Linux is FREE (Doesn't get much cheaper than that), and yet people still avoid it. Why? Because it's not easy. What has happened is that Microsoft has such an extreme grip on the market that OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers (the people who make pre-built computers like Dell and Gateway)) are forced to sell computers with windows pre-installed. Microsoft has basically set the ground rules that if an OEM sells a computer with any other system on it (or with any software that Microsoft is trying to kill), that they will either lose their Windows license (the right to install Windows on the computers they sell), or will be forced to buy the license at significantly higher prices. Yes OEMs are bullied out of providing you with better options. The main reason Linux remains so user-unfriendly is because they can't get feedback from anyone who tries Linus except for those who don't care about user-unfriendly environments.
     But hey! What about those great guys at Mac? Don't they get any credit? Of course they are the second most popular system next to windows, but the truth is that it wasn't made for you either Brian. Don't act like you're some expert in the field of OSs because you've tried the two largest companies. Mac is made for those who need art applications and art applications alone. Any, and I mean ANY other use is purely for those who are arty but do other things as well. Indeed Mac is a superior system to windows, but it is NOT designed for the average consumer, and it never will be because it is a niche market product. Mac has found a huge audience who is willing to buy and they're going to build their product towards that market: END OF STORY. Therefore comparing Windows to Mac is a moot point. They are each two completely different systems each designed for a specific audience. Now I do want to point out that Windows is indeed for a targeted audience, not everyone.
     Windows is targeted towards three kinds of people: The businessmen, the young, and the lazy/stupid. The business man because his employees are more then likely already used to windows and because Microsoft will more then likely pressure you into it anyway, the young to get them hooked (yes, just like the tobacco industry), and the lazy/stupid because they understand that the computer market has its balls in Microsoft's vice so all they have to do is make sure that's all you can buy without putting some effort and thought into it.
     Now, this has all gotten kind of off track from the IE vs FireFox issue, so I'll get back to that. Now FireFox is free. No if ands or buts. There is no "hideen charge," no spyware, no credit card number needed. Now ask yourselves: "Is Internet Explorer free?" Why of course it is! You can download it straight from Microsoft.com! There's no strings attached to that one either! ...or is there?
     When you buy a copy of windows, what ALWAYS comes bundled with it? Internet Explorer, right? Well then what's the catch? Before Microsoft "integrated" internet explorer into computers, IE was sold separately for $35. So why does windows cost so much? It's estimated that a quarter of the cost of Windows is IE. So why offer IE for free? To make people BELIEVE that it's free. Basically since it is impossible to get a $35 discount on windows by getting a version of windows that doesn't include IE, you pay for it. Regardless of weather or not you got it for free off the net, simply by buying ANY copy of windows you BUY Internet Explorer. Don't believe me? Then ask yourselves this: Why did Microsoft's stock quadruple after adding this supposedly free product to their operating system? Shouldn't giving away a product for free do nothing for your company? (Note: yes I know that free inscentives attract new customers but they already control this market completely so any new customers would be a moot point to their profit)
     Besides all of that, the main reason you should switch over from IE to firefox is because of the things you can't see. I'm sure that (unless you're a complete putz) you've downloaded a "security update" for windows before (from windowsupdate, you know! that little earth with a microsoft logo platered on it that says "New updates are ready to install" on occasion?). Well if you haven't already noticed, it didn't seem to do much for your computer. You probably noticed, in fact, that NOTHING CHANGED after you installed it. And yet some fundemental feature in Windows was fixed that once allowed hackers to get near your personal information. When you compare FireFox to IE they seem very similar, but FireFox still remains a superior product to IE. It's because of all the things you don't see that make it better, and even some of the things you do see. For example a built in pop-up blocker and a plugin to elminate banner ads. The main reason though is because IE allows the silent installation of spyware, a leading cause of computer crashes. Certainly FireFox requires more matinence in some ways (you have to get the newer clients from their website when they come out and they won't have any real way of telling you something new is out), but the pros outweigh the cons. I'm glad to hear that you don't run your computer like a moron and experience few crashes, but unfortunately 86% of the country is less capable then you and experience frequent crashes. People can't maintain their computers with the software microsoft provides because it was designed to allow too much. They tried to think of every single way that a website might use their product and make exceptions and allowences that degrade security to such a point that there pratically is none. FireFox on the other hand allows about the same amount of leeway as far as websites are concerned except they provide pop-up alerts when a website tries to do something suspicious. Sigh, I hate this. I'm going to be stuck for at least a week fighting Brian about this aren't I? Sigh... This is why I don't like writing about Microsoft.

Oh, and as a side note, Linux has become almost as simple as Windows to install (with certain distributions), so try checking out some of the REALLY user friendly ones!

Mandrake Linux - One of my personal favorites. Has some really great and interesting desktop environments. If you feel like completely dumping the microsoft look download this, get a mouse with a mouse wheel, and use "Enlightenment" as your choice of desktop. A little disorienting at first, but once you get it down it's insanely fast. (Note: You can get Enlightenment on any Linux system, but Mandrake has the easiest installer)

Redhat Linux - Felipe says his favorite desktop is on the Fedora subsection of Redhat, but redhat overall normally tried to stay mildly user-friendly, but I haven't kept up with their recent installs.

Suse Linux - Getting into the user-unfrindly section of Linux. This one is what Mitch seems to prefer (or at least what he gets for free from his workplace), but others *cough* *cfeoulgihpe* seem to think that it's too "workstation-oriented" (that's business oriented for the non-computer lingo users out there). But also has great server software, especially network-boot software.

Debain Linux - The ultimate in user-unfriendly. But, on the other hand, by far the fastest and most portable system out there. It will take a while to configure, but once you get it set up your machine will be BEAST. This is also where 99% of linux spin-off projects come from. They'll modify the hell out of Debain and have a whole new OS to show for it.

Others:
Knoppix Live-Linux-On-CD - How could I resist adding my favorite version of linux up here? This is an operating which fits entirely on a single CD and you can simply pop this CD in and have linux on the current computer without installing a single thing. If you ever just want to see what linux is like without actually installing anything onto your computer you can try knoppix. The only thing that you need to know about it is that you will need quite a tad bit of RAM to run this on your computer. A minimum of 128megs is needed, but you will not be able to open any of the larger applications running on that amount.

--Side Note:
     For those of you who are looking for something that is pretty much windows without the suck you should be using KDE or GNOME desktop environments (KDE more so then GNOME). Sorry David, I didn't really think about those looking for something similar to windows, I thought you'd want to distance yourself. But the way you choose that is when you install make sure you select the packages labled KDE and GNOME and then set one of them as your default. Normally when you login though it will allow you to choose your desktop environment each time.

MSN Search

     Once again Microsoft felt threatened, and once again they've done what they know best: Invested money into another field of the world in an attempt to make more money. What this time? Why the search industry of course! With google's stock skyrocketing and being one of the most trusted (not including gmail) and blantantly favorite utility of millions if not billions of people, how could Microsoft refuse? Honestly?
     I'm not kidding, the truth is that to maintain the amount of explosive stock growth that Microsoft stock holders expect, Microsoft has taken to the policy of violently inserting itself into many new markets. The best example of this was when Microsoft politely requested that Netscape creators that they sell their revolutionary browser to good 'ol Bill, but they laughed in his face. They said that in a nutshell, since Netscape held 80% of the browser market, and while Microsoft held a sound 0%, the creators basically DARED Microsoft to try and match the numbers that Netscape had. And so Bill did the most simple thing possible: He fixed many of the underlying problems in Windows 95, and re-released it as Windows 98. How did this challenge Netscape? Well, bundled with every copy of Windows 98 came a copy of Microsoft's latest and greatest in technology: Internet Explorer!
     The simpler minded of the market (also known as the masses) latched to Microsoft's browser simply because they were too lazy to upgrade or didn't understand the benefits of upgrading. So suddenly Microsoft's stock boomed (quadrupled to be exact), while Netscape's stock (the first internet company to go public) crashed and burned until finally they were bought out for a fourth of the amount that Bill Gates had offered. So what did we learn? Well, most of you are more likely to subscribe to the moral being: "Don't challenge Microsoft, they'll kick your ass." Well if you believe that then you've basically just said that the software industry should become giant wings of Microsoft. And if you haven't already noticed most of the software Microsoft turns out is crappy, and if anything is normally practically still in its beta (testing phase) due to the fact that they have such a death-grip on the market already that they are forced to release their products before they are ready due to mass demand. But more frightening then that is that often their products are INTENTIONALLY faulty to make sure that you invest twice. Why would they release intentionally faulty products? Glad you asked!
     Because Microsoft now holds so many different software markets they have trouble finding new things to produce revenue. So what they've started to do is milk their current customers for every dollar they can. Mainly this includes forcing people running older versions of Windows to upgrade by making sure that newer products are incompatable. This is something that is not just because it would promote to much bloat in operating system size, it is simply to make sure that all of the people using microsoft products need to start using ALL new Microsoft products. They also promote writing excessive code and superfluous features in an effort to require greater system requirements to run their applications. Why do they do this? To make sure that in addition to getting all new Microsoft products you also upgrade that computer your on as well.
     Why would Microsoft care about upgrading your computers?! They don't make them, and they won't ever touch the industry or else risk being forced to break up for being a monopoly. What's the next best thing? Make sure that you have preferential treatment from the people who make the hardware that people using your computers use. What processor does your computer use? More then likely an Intel. You've all seen those "Intel inside" stickers, and the reason is that the #1 operating system on the planet offers preferntial treatment to the hardware manufacturers who use products from their best little friend Intel. In return for getting Intel billions by getting 80% of the computers on the planet to buy new computers Intel adds features that, while do work for all operating systems, often only benefit windows computers or help accelerate certain windows applications. All of course, in the name of pushing profits through the roof for our wonderful stockholders! Hooray!
     So what the hell does this have to do with MSN Search? Well, Google now has to compete with MSN Search and could either go the way of Netscape and die off, or start a new revolution pushing us away from the bloated, corrupt and worthless Microsoft. What unfortunately Google needs to do is be EVIL. It needs to start enforcing standards upon the web that microsoft will be unable to compete with. They already have to compete with MSN Search bar, which is now installed with 90% of Microsoft's web-based applications. Fortunately Microsoft's web-browser empire has crumbled and people are quickly switching to FireFox, despite the fact that Microsoft is going to release Internet Explorer v7 almost a full year before it's announced release. People are tired of Microsoft's bullshit, and to prove their not gonna use Microsoft's new browser. What people will slowly realize as they begin to shift away from Microsoft, is that computers aren't meant to crash daily! Despite what current computer use is like computers are meant to run weeks if not MONTHS without stopping once! That's right, computers are useful, no matter what windows has you believe!

And as a side note: I've always been anti-microsoft, I just hate writing about it because there are already so many fucking articles about it on the net. I've just been added to the cluster, but at least it doesn't suck.

In an attempt to cut down on front page media...

     Well, I would just post a tune for today and just be done with it, but I realized that my main page is really very media intensive right now. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does slow down load times quite a bit, especially for my 56k people. So today's entry is going to be rather hollow compared to other pointless days. Anyway, not much interesting to report has been up, and therefore I don't have much interesting to write about. I could write about avian flu and how I've been reading the essays from a researcher who's been studying it and how I saw this comming. But that'd take a really long time and it's getting late. So I'm just gonna leave you with this:
Bannana-cranberry muffins are delicious.

Go Aymon for finding this

     So, Aymon's blog is quite a tad bit more.... how shall I say.. risque then mine. He has a tendancy to talk about things that... lets just say "push the legal envelope." But what really impressed me was a great disclaimer he has. I'm assuming he found it on some web page offering viruses or telling you how to eat fire or something ridiculas like that, but the point is that it is a very good warning to put on any page where you offer certain information that you advertise as fact. The reason I'm putting this up is to cover my ass about the P2P article, because you never know if someone might get arrested for the information I provided there, and therefore I find myself in need...

OF A DISCLAIMER!

YOU MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS
     It is your responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, opinion, advice, statement, or other content available through this site. All material is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind and should be double-checked and verified through other sources. In no event will I, Kit Sczudlo be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, punitive, special or consequential damages arising out of the use of or inability to use the information provided. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the creator and submitter of such information. It is the responsibility of the individual reader to verify the legality of any actions described in these files. It is not recommended that any of the activities described actually be carried out. These files are provided FOR EDUCATION and INFORMATION ONLY. This disclaimer is subject to change without notice at any time and you are subject to that information at that time. Any actions taken based on any previous disclaimer or information taken from this site are subject to the new disclaimer.

Note: this disclaimer will be maintained here.

I love Bittorrent

     What more need I say? Bittorrent is probably one of the most amazingly clever pieces of software to ever come out. There is a lot of good things about bittorrent, and also several dowsides, but overall it just plain kicks ass. So what is bittorrent you ask? Well, allow me to enlighten you:
     Bittorrent is another one of those scary-sounding P2P (peer to peer) apps you keep hearing about on the news and from your friends. But this one is different. Normally, the way a P2P application works is that there is a centralized network or node that keeps track of everyone on the application. When you search for a file, you connect to everyone (or as many people as your application allows) and see if they have a file that matches your search criteria. If anyone has it, your application logs their ip address and the name, size, etc. Then when you download it you connect directly to that person and download it. Though the downloading process was basically the same as it is for downloading files from a website. The only difference is that you connect to multiple people and download from all of them at the same time, but it is still linear downloading (you can only download the each part one after the other, like counting! 1, 2, 3., etc). This is where bittorrent is really different.
     Bittorrent is different in a lot of ways from this general structure of P2P apps. The first difference is the centralized node: Bittorrent has none. The way that bittorrent works is that people have the ability to make their own node called a "tracker." A tracker is just a place that stores all the information about a file. So let's say I wanted to download a new episode of an anime I was keeping up with, here's the general process:
1) I go to an anime torrent website like animesuki.com
2) I find the particular anime I'm looking for.
3) I download the file known as a "torrent"
4) I open the torrent and choose where to save it.
5) This is where the process gets to the tracker! It tells the tracker some information about who I am and what I'm doing. This information is something along the lines of: My IP address, the port that bittorrent uses (where the people connect to you), and the file I'm downloading.
6) The file starts downloading, but not linearly (it's something akin to me telling you to count to 10 and you doing this: 3, 6, 7, 1, 5, 10, 2, 4, 9, 8. While you can see that all the numbers between 1 and 10 are there, I didn't do what you expected me to). In fact, what it does is it downloads the least common part, and starts offering it to other people. Wow... that all sounded very confusing, let me try and explain it a little better.
So, person A wants to give a file to a bunch of people. So he takes his file, and puts it on a tracker. And thus we begin.

Person A: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Person B: , , , , , , , , ,
Person C: , , , , , , , , ,
So both person B and C want person A's file.

Person A: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Person B: 1, , , , , , , , , Downloaded part 1 from A
Person C: , , , , 5, , , , , Downloaded part 5 from A
So since person A was the only person with any piece of the file, both person B and C downloaded from person A

Person A: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Person B: 1, , , , 5, , 7, , , Downloaded part 7 from A and part 5 from C
Person C: 1, 2, , , 5, , , , , Downloaded part 2 from A and part 1 from B
Since both person A and B had a part that the other one needed, they downloaded the parts from each other, as well as additional parts from A.

Person A: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Person B: 1, 2, , 4, 5, , 7, , , Downloaded part 4 from A and part 2 from C
Person C: 1, 2, , , 5, , 7, , , 10 Downloaded part 10 from A and part 7 from B
Person D: , , , , , , , , ,
Same process as the last time, but now we add person D to the equation, he has a whole bunch of options from where to dowload from!

Person A: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Person B: 1, 2, , 4, 5, , 7, 8, , 10 Downloaded part 8 from A and part 10 from C
Person C: 1, 2, , 4, 5, 6, 7, , , 10 Downloaded part 6 from A and part 4 from B
Person D: , , 3, , , , , , 9, Downloaded part 3 from A and part 9 from A
Now the web is expanding, and download options increase, the load on each machine decreases.

Person A: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Person B: 1, 2, , 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Downloaded part 6 from C and part 9 from D
Person C: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, , 10 Downloaded part 8 from B and part 3 from D
Person D: 1, , 3, , , 6, 7, , 9, Downloaded part 6 from C and part 7 from A
If you don't get the general idea by now I don't know how else to convey it. It makes a web where people transfer parts in non-linear downloads, allowing for fast, reliable downloads of large to enormous files.
7) The final step! The person finishes downloading the file, but because they are kind and wonderful people they leave bittorrent open. The reason this makes them kind and wonderful people is because this means that anyone can download ANY PART from that person, at no real benefit to that person.

     So that's the way bittorrent works and why I love it. If you want bittorrent I'd suggest downloading azureus. The one challenge that makes bittorrent hard to install is that you have to open up a port on your router to the computer you are using. This isn't nessecary for everyone, but for most people who have a router in their house it may be. I'm not gonna put up instructions because if you messed up somehow while trying to follw them and ruined your computer you'd blame me and get all pissy. So if you want it you can get it, but I'm not gonna help!

BAH! I'll be late if I feel like it!

     So my uncle sent me two new computers in the mail a while ago, and they finally got here. To say the least, they're messed up BAD. But considering the fact that one of them had a 512 stick of ram in it (making it officially the best computer in my house), I'm willing to futz around with them and get them back into working condition. The downside to the whole thing is the now immense proliferation of computer equipment throughout the basement here. This turned into my Mom's dream situation where she was fina;;y able to just say "Kit, throw away some of your old computers, you have enough already." Hence the RIP for the pile of old crappy servers. Anyway, onto some general specs and information about what I've been doing to these monstrosities.
     Well, the first step was to sift through all the crap he gave me with them. There was a huge pile of cables (IDE), a bunch of covers for other computers (yes, you read right, covers for computers besides these computers), and, of course, two new comps. Just so that you know, these computers are is WAY better shape right now then they were 24 hours ago. When they first came basically all the parts (including the heatsink, fans, and cables) were just sitting inside the box and I had to re-attach them. I went ahead and flashed the BIOS on one (one is still just sitting there RAMless), and started trying to get it back into working order. What did that entail? Well, glad you asked!
     It started where I put all the jumpers into the right places, and making sure everyone was happy with their master/slave positions. I actually ended up wrestling with them because it was not happy about having the ZIP disk drive as an IDE secondary master, so it had to unplug it. Not sure weather or not I'll be able to install it later, but for now it's just plain dead. So then I wrote zeros to the drive (to assure myself of a clean install) and started to get to "the good stuff." By "the good stuff" I mean the OS and software and all the things I actually plan on using. So I pop in my WinXP pro disk...
     It starts up fine, and scans my hardware. Suddenly, in mid scan, it dies! Odd... I try it again, again it dies. All during the loading of SCSi drivers. This is rather disturbing, and I've seen the same thing happen while trying to load knoppix onto it. Errors during SCSI probing. Hmmm... I check my cables and whatnot and check a few jumpers, I watch the BIOS boot up closely. Well, nothing seems to be wrong (still) but third times a charm and for no apparent reason, WinXP starts installing. It gets as far as the partitioning and I notice something else odd: It's not letting me use all of the hard drive! 8mbs remain untouchable despite all my efforts. Well so be it, I wasn't gonna let 8mbs kill me in a 40gig drive, so I proceeded with the install. It partitioned the drive fine, then immediately told me that the partition was unusable. It told me to run CHKDISK, which of couse is impossible unless you already have windows installed. So I tried a few more times to re-partition it, and even re-flashed the BIOS and still nothing. I was exasperated and decided to try something completely different: Just go for a Windows 98 install because it'd work fine no matter what.
Dinner break
     Sure enough, Windows 98 installed flawlessly, and I think I'm gonna run diagnostics on the hard drives from here. Anyway, that's what's been up on my end. I would post more, but I need sleep. Tommorow I'm seeing a movie pretty early on in the day, followed by poker. So no more update. And if you REALLY NEED the description of the other four pics...
Leftover computer equipment from the old comps I threw out and a bag of new stuff
Detail on the floppy disk stack and zip drive
two of the four HDs that came with the comps and the two floppies that I use to flash the bios

Compies PC CHIP DDR266... etc...

I have a shitload to talk about today, but the shitload I have to talk about took so long, that I ran out of time to write about it. There'll be a BIG post tommorow. As a little preview?

R.I.P.
The pile of crappy servers
1992-2005

(Note: no, that pile of crappy computers has not been sitting there since 1992, the oldest computer in that pile is from 1992... pre-1992 actually, I just couldn't find a date of production on the oldest one)

I got nothin

Yup, one of those I-don't-have-much-to-say-so-I-won't-say-anything days.

Note to those having issues in Firefox with music playing continually:
To fix this problem I would suggest following the next few steps:
1) Download the latest version of quicktime here.
2) At one point during the installation process, you'll see a screen like this:

(note: make sure the drop-down menu reads "Browser plugin")
Make sure that "Play movies automatically" is unchecked.
3) Then click on the button labled "MIME Settings." You should see a screen like this:

I would recommend checking off the entire audio box, but this is up to you. A side note to the concerned: this will NOT affect the file associations on your computer. If an MP3 was played by windows media player before clicking that switch then windows media player will continue to play MP3's after hitting that switch. What this changes is the player for embedded sound files in you browser. This will effect ALL OF YOUR BROWSERS though.
4) Complete the installation and you're done. That's it! For those of you who already have qucktime installed and want to fix this problem or if you're looking to make quicktime your default media player read on...

How to change this setting AFTER QUICKTIME IS INSTALLED:
1) open up quicktime
2) go to edit > prefrences > QuickTime prefrences
3) (People setting quicktime as their default media player skip to step 4) On the drop-down menu select Browser plugin and follow the steps for installers.
4) For those of you looking to make quicktime your default media player select "File Type associations" on the drop-down menu.
5) Select the "File types..." button
6) Select all the files you want associated with quicktime. For the average user, I would recommend just check the "audio," "video," and "mpeg" check boxes.

Wow. Go Javascript!

     So while I was updating Mystery of Time and Space I noticed an interesting bit of javascript. They made a call on location.search and spliced it down and used it to define several of their variables. For example the way they change music from level to level is by changing the search string. So on level one it calls sound.htm?mystery1.mid, on level two sound.htm?mystery2.mid, etc. For those of you who work with html, php, or cgi, you may note this as well.... VERY ODD. Most people pay big bucks to get servers that have dynamic content (or find places like freenukehosting and mindintentions), so how in the world did they get HTML files to work like that? Well... It's actually a huge pain in the ass to splice the search strings, and in no way is it nearly as convienient as php or cgi. But for my purposes (making a website with absolutely no dynamic content outside of javascript), this method came in handy and worked out well. You can check out the error page on scuzzstuff. Either visit a page that doesn't exist, or click on the link under "Awesome things." Anyway, that's about all I've got for today. I got the next two episodes of Air though, and that makes me happy.

--UPDATE--
Added support for non-javascript-enabled browsers to the error page, the main page, and several game pages.