Gritty

One of my all-time favorite works (in any form of media) has just released an update. The online/print comic Platinum Grit now has issue/episode 18 "FOR A PAIR OF FINE CARROTS pt 1" up for your viewing pleasure. This is also the first issue to bear the ominous yet intriguing NSFW credentials. As always, the ever increasing size of the issues, the latest 208 pages, still seem entirely too small once finished. I am now eagerly awaiting the next installment... Damn you Trudy Cooper, I love you.

Well, a post a day

was good while it lasted. Just finished a tremendous meal of country fried cube steak, jasmine rice, green beans cooked with onions and bacon, poached baby carrots with butter and brown sugar, and a hot, crispy loaf of white mountain bread. Dear God that was good. I never can seem to time the gravy so it is ready with everything else though... oh well.

Someone who will not be named had to remind me of the release date for the seventh and final Harry Potter book... you macadamia nut... so it is unfortunately right at the forefront of my thoughts. It's so bad that I have even took a step into the world of fan fiction and read the remarkably satisfying "Harry Potter and the Seventh Horcrux" by Melindaleo, a 34 chapter novel which, while certainly not written to the standards of J.K.Rowling, attempts to maintain a level of consistency with the original works that surprised me. This book is in fact making the rounds on torrent sites, claiming to be a leak of Deathly Hollows.

I've installed the latest official Ubuntu release 7.04, Feisty Fawn, and must say I am quite pleased. The new Restricted Driver Manager made installing the proprietary ATI driver a snap, it seemed to have a problem replacing the original xorg.conf file when i disabled it. Simple enough to fix, however. After making my way past the error messages, I logged in to the text console, sudo'd to root, and replaced the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf with the backup copy: xorg.conf.original-0

For some unfortunate reason, the ati driver decides to max out my video's contrast settings about 5 minutes after booting up. Have to see about fixing that... At least the power management for this notebook seems to be far better supported in this release, and it's always a pleasure to see all of the extra polish in each new release.

1922-2007

I just can't believe Kilgore Trout is dead. Between this, and the death of Raul Duke, I have no heroes left.

Like a Rare Jewel

So, I've been looking at Ruby on Rails for developing a combination blog/wiki/forum/cms solution. Seeing as I am a poorly expereinced programmer, Ruby was an obvious choice. This is seriously a... well, for lack of a better word, Zen programming language. For anyone who interested in an incredibly easy to learn language that still has the power to take over the world, I recommend Ruby. It is well documented and portable enough that I will give you a personal money-back guarantee that it will work on your computer. There are many resources available for free, as I have come to expect from open source projects. I have included a quote from one that I am enjoying far too much for it to actually be programming "manual."

why’s (poignant) guide to ruby :: 2. Kon’nichi wa, Ruby

Pretend that you’ve opened this book (although you probably have opened this book), just to find a huge onion right in the middle crease of the book. (The manufacturer of the book has included the onion at my request.)

So you’re like, “Wow, this book comes with an onion!” (Even if you don’t particularly like onions, I’m sure you can appreciate the logistics of shipping any sort of produce discreetly inside of an alleged programming manual.)

Then you ask yourself, “Wait a minute. I thought this was a book on Ruby, the incredible new programming language from Japan. And although I can appreciate the logistics of shipping any sort of produce discreetly inside of an alleged programming manual: Why an onion? What am I supposed to do with it?”

No. Please don’t puzzle over it. You don’t need to do anything with the onion. Set the onion aside and let it do something with you.

I’ll be straight with you. I want you to cry. To weep. To whimper sweetly. This book is a poignant guide to Ruby. That means code so beautiful that tears are shed. That means gallant tales and somber truths that have you waking up the next morning in the arms of this book. Hugging it tightly to you all the day long. If necessary, fashion a makeshift hip holster for Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby, so you can always have this book’s tender companionship.

You really must sob once. Or at least sniffle. And if not, then the onion will make it all happen for you.

For more fun and games, I highly recommend why's blog as well.

In Loving Memory of Terry Jones.

Not that he's dead or anything. I have long been a fan of Terry Jones, though admittedly for his work with Monty Python. Like many of Python alums, I have noticed his name in many of my favorite movies as well (Labyrinth, Erik the Viking). I was not aware, however, that he had taken to writing politically oriented editorials. Some of these have even been collected and published as Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror (2005), ISBN 1-56025-653-2. I just ran across an article he authored in response to the Iranian treatment of British military prisoners. Or, perhaps more accurately, in response to the media's response to their treatment.

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's wrong with putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then it's perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can't be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.

You can find the full article here.