http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TerminallyIncoherent/~3/msbWUTPuA_8/

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=4115

Funny story: a coworker saw me using Clonezilla the other day. I was sitting in the frigid server room (did I say room, it’s more like a closet really) and cloning the shit out of some laptops. He seemed impressed by the concept and asked me how much did it cost.

I did some mental math and decided that it couldn’t be that much. Knowing our server d00dz they probably bought the Dell PowerEdge server second hand somewhere so the whole thing was probably the discounted price of the hardware + the TB drive. No clue really, because these guys descend here every once in a while, attach themselves to the server rack for few hours and then vanish as suddenly as they appeared.

It turned out that my visitor was asking about the software.

Software of course is free. This did not register well. How could a powerful tool like that be free?

Well, it’s open source – I explained. And you can see that very well, by how the cloning process requires me to go through about 15 steps and configure it using a slightly cryptic ncurses interface. If this was a proprietary solution it would probably look much different. It would probably have two buttons (one to clone, one to restore) detailed graphical dialogs and animated progress bars – sort of like Norton Ghost has.

That sunk in. Free because it is not easy to use – it made all the sense in the world to him. Now, I didn’t say this because I’m a hater. I love open source software. In fact, I am a long time Ubuntu user. I love Firefox, I wrote my Masters thesis using LaTex (fun fact: no one in my thesis comity actually knew how to use Tex) and most of the software I wrote in my spare time was released under GPL. So I’m the last person who would want to badmouth open source projects.

Still… The above is often true. A lot of open source projects do require certain skill or know-how to use. There are plenty of exceptions of course. But for each Ubuntu, Firefox, and Open Office there is a Clonezilla, sendmail and Apache. Some open source apps are just not user friendly. At least not very much.

Is that wrong though? Nope, its not. A proprietary application can’t really afford to have an arcane user interface. The more difficult it is to configure and/or use, the less likely it is to find customers. When people pay for software they do require some level of convenience. Open Source software is often written by hackers for hackers and offered as is – no warranty, no support, no guarantees it will work on your machine. And you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It usually works like this: Cheap, Powerful or Easy to Use – for each project you can pick any two. Open source software can afford to concentrate on power and flexibility forgoing ease of use. A lot of apps are a major pain in the ass to use, but once you figure them out, they offer vastly superior performance, and configurability than their user friendly counterparts. Prime example could be using LaTex vs. a WYSIWYG editor.

Back when I was writing my thesis I made a conscious choice to go with LaTex rather than word like all of my peers. This meant that I had to do extra work in order to embed figures and charts (such as converting jpg images into EPS files) but it was worth it. My thesis looked much better than most of those generated with word. The custom context aware kearning and word spacing meant I never had to worry about my paragraphs not being justified properly. I could change just about every aspect of my document (font, character and line spacing, margins, paragraph spacing, headings etc..) just by tweaking the settings in the preamble. And don’t even get me started on maintaining proper numbering of figures or bibliography.

Most of my friends thought that they were getting the better end of the deal. After all they just had to fight with the quirky WYSIWYG UI – while I had to actually comprehend the arcane LaTex syntax. I thought the exact opposite. I take a LaTex problem over an idiosyncratic UI bullshit any day. LaTex issues are usually logical – syntax errors, or faulty markup that can be isolated, debugged and corrected. Whenever my thesis got messed up, I knew it was my fault, and I could apply standard debugging strategies to resolve it.

Word on the other hand… Well, sometimes it just fucks up the document because of a stray keystroke, but there is no easy, logical way to debug it because you can’t see the markup. You have to guess, try different things, hit the undo button a lot and if everything else fails, revert to a previous save. Ugh…

The Clonezilla server we have at work is similarly pretty sweet. We attached a little switch to it, and all I need to do is to plug the machine to be cloned into that switch and perform a network boot. It loads up the OS, let’s me quickly configure it and then it just does its’ business. A proprietary solution would probably have much less flexibility for a much higher price.

So, easy to use does not always mean good and free does not always mean easy to use. Or something like that.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TerminallyIncoherent/~3/ZGfddDJT0Iw/

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=4134

Kevin Kelly’s Technium Blog is consistently mind blowing. If you are not reading it yet, you should. In one of his recent posts he linked to this amazing USA Today slide show that illustrates the evolution of the International Space Station:

Click to see the slide show

For one, it’s amazing to see how macro scale modular design really looks like. Modularity is a good thing – this sort of became an engineering mantra. In our daily lives we see it in much smaller scales – computer parts, automobile parts, etc… We don’t often see human habitats built this way.

Most importantly though this suggests how space stations will be built in the future. They will start small, and then slowly grow over time as new modules are added and old ones are replaced. Kevin Kelly suggests that they will grow like modern cities – always expanding, changing and re-shaping their structures. Old, mature stations will be almost labyrinthine networks of new and old modules.

Compare that to the almost canonical monolithic rotating wheel station you can see in most science fiction works. These stations are vastly expensive mega-structures which have to be built in one piece. The wheel can’t really be modularized – once it’s complete you can’t really add to it. You could potentially add more wheels to the spoke, but each one of them would be ass expensive as the first.

The current model of modular, slowly evolving floating city is much more practical, and affordable. Of course without the wheel we can’t have artificial gravity. Still, we are talking about science fiction here. I would think that inhabitants of gigantic modular space hives will likely be geengeneered to survive in zero-g without the usual side effects that plague astronauts today.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TerminallyIncoherent/~3/W1XtIVyFC90/

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=4143

Ok ladies, fair folk and gentle people. Time to review my game queue. Yes, I do have a game queue. It gives a much needed direction to my life. This is how it looks right now. Crossed out entries are the ones that I already played and reviewed or decided not to play (hover the mouse over). Underlined items are new.

• Crysis
• Bioshock
• Mass Effect
• Overlord
• Assasins Creed
• Prince of Persia
• Farcry 2
• The Witcher
• Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
• Mount & Blade
• Mirror’s Edge
• GTA3
• Left 4 Dead
• Gothic 3
• Dragon Age: Origins
• Borderlands
• Torchlight

Again, there is no particular rhyme or reason to the order of the games here. Er… That would make it a non-queue, would it. It would be more like an un-ordered set of games. Hey Chris, this actually might be a real life example of an un-orderable set. Ie. I pick the games from this list on a whim, and I do not know ahead of time which one is going to be next. As it can be seen from the list above, the order of appearance does not impact the order in which it will be played. For example I played Cirisi, then Bioshock, then Farcry, then Assassin’s Creed and etc…

Oh, btw – I should probably comment on Assassin’s Creed here. I shelved the game. I didn’t un-install it from my system yet but I stopped playing it due to the fact it was repetitive and the save system was beyond fucked up. I’d play it more if it wasn’t for the checkpoint system. Each time I wanted to launch the game I had to ask myself: “Do I have enough time to actually do all the investigations and reach the office today?” Usually the answer was no.

You see, I’m a hit and run gamer – I like to launch the game, play for an hour or two and then go do something else. AC sort of insisted that I put in at least 2 hours each time I play and that just killed the game for me. Yeah, I know – it supposedly saves after each successful investigation, or each time you climb one of those big towers. I found that iffy – sometimes it saved, and other times it would boot me back to an earlier state.

I haven’t abandoned the game yet, but I had to put it away for a while. I will likely revisit it later.

In the meantime, I wanted to ask you for suggestions for games to be added to my que… I mean set. Note that I have a beast of a PC but no current gen consoles in the house. As you can probably see from the list above I’m mainly into RPG and FPS games but I’ll play anything that has an interesting story and/or is fun. I generally don’t digest strategy games that well – especially the RTS kind, though I do sometimes make exceptions for the SF based ones. Especially if they have a cool story.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TerminallyIncoherent/~3/ADqZWBtmf14/

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=4114

Recently a friend of mine approached me with a weird question: how to install Windows on a machine without a CD or Floppy drive. I was intrigued. The obvious question here was “why?” It turned out that he just ordered himself one of those Dell Mini notebooks. Naturally, like every living being on planet Earth my friend hates Windows Vista with a passion and as a result he didn’t really feel like paying a Vista tax. So he opted for the Ubuntu version with the intention of installing his copy of Windows XP on the machine. But while he was in the cost saving mode, he also decided not to purchase the optional external CD drive.

Oops… That CD drive was sort of there for a reason. He realized that after it was too late to do anything. So now he basically wanted to know if it’s possible to install XP from a USB thumb drive. Can it be done? Apparently, yes it can. All you need to do, is google for it.

But at the time we were having this conversation I gave him a benefit of the doubt and assumed he already did search it online, and came up empty. And since I didn’t know the solution of the top of my head, I got a crazy idea.

“Why don’t you just keep Ubuntu?” I asked him.

I mean, it’s a Dell Mini with a 16GB solid state drive and a tiny ass screen – he is definitely not going to use that machine for gaming, photoshop or other Windows centric stuff like that. The machine will likely be used as a hardware extension of a web browser. The OS is mostly an overhead on a machine like that.

Now, I’m not a linux evangelist. I don’t go around telling people to switch to Linux. I honestly can’t do that anymore because I know that my experience with the OS is irrelevant. I am a computer geek a software developer and linux enthusiast. This makes so far removed from the general population, that I can hardly relate to your average Windows user.

Nevertheless I did my best to give him a quick pitch on how the OS will be mostly irrelevant on that machine. And it will run most of his favorite apps – like firefox for example.

“Will it run Chrome?” he demanded.

Of course it will run chrome. Then again last time I used Linux version of Chrome Flash didn’t work yet, but they fucking update it daily. I quickly launched my copy of the browser to check, and lo – it was running flash quite flawlessly now.

My friend was not fully convinced yet. He started asking me about opening Word documents so I pulled up Open Office and illustrated how it works. Then I quickly downloaded and burned him a copy of the Gnome based Jaunty to show him what the OS that ships with his Mini will look like (I’m running Kubuntu on my laptop, and it looks quite different).

I booted it on his laptop, and he was blown away when he realized you can actually run a fully functional OS from the CD like that.

“But how can it do that?”

Well, because it’s really not that impressive. I mean, it doesn’t really matter whether your OS binaries are on the HD or on some other media. You have to load them into memory before they get executed anyway – so where they are originally is irrelevant. There is really no reason why Windows couldn’t have a Live CD version. In fact, you can easily make one with BartPE.

He was also enamored with virtual desktops. “It’s like tabs for your desktop” he said. I never thought about them like that, but yes – that’s a valid analogy. That’s technically how these things work.

He was also amazed on how many “features” were included in the OS itself. I had to explain that most of the applications he saw there were really stand alone open source projects – but by virtue of being free software they could be included in the free OS.

To make this long story short, my friend decided to keep Ubuntu on that machine – at least for now. In fact, he said he might replace it with the Notebook Remix version he found online so he can be running Jaunty (the Dell ships with Intrepid if I’m not mistaken). I told him that if he tries Ubuntu can’t deal with it, I’ll be happy to help him with the XP installation hack. He nodded, but I’ve seen that gleam in his eye that told me it won’t be needed. I think our little community might have a brand new member.

Now, I’m fairly sure my friend will continue using Windows. I didn’t “convert” him and made him into an exclusive Linux user. But he will give Ubuntu a try, and hopefully will like it becoming an OS agnostic nut bag like me. And that’s more than I could ever ask for.

We really don’t need to convert people, or try to ween them off of Windows. All we need to do is to show them the alternatives and find places in which they work well – like mini notebooks for example. This will have far reaching effects. For one, they will no longer automatically assume that OS == Windows. They will see that there are different operating systems that can be used for different purposes. Secondly, they will be now able to call MS on their bullshit as they will see that things can be done differently in the open source world. Thirdly… Well, they will be using linux. The more of us are there, the better. I don’t care if he still uses Windows on the other machine – he still counts as one of us.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TerminallyIncoherent/~3/Hv9pAxKfLFw/

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=4120

A wise man once told me that creating a wholly new and original work of art is nigh impossible these days. We have been creating art, music and told stories since the dawn of time. Over the years we have mostly exhausted the pool of original ideas out there. Most people find this out the hard way. I would be a rich man if I had a penny for each time someone come up with a “revolutionary” awesome idea, and then googled it to find out it was already done, cloned, copied and subverted. Then it died, was revived in the 60’s, went out of style in the 80’s and now it’s coming back.

Not only that, but we also have this thing called simultaneous invention. I wrote about this phenomenon before so you can check out that post if you missed it. TLDR version is that scientists and technologists who never met or even heard about each other can often come up with very similar ideas around the same time. For example there seem to have been at least six different inventors of the thermometer and no less than nine claimants of the invention of the telescope. Yes, I’m not shitting you – go click on that link, and read Kevin Kelly’s post I’m referencing. This is just how science works. Or rather, this is how human mind works.

This idea of simultaneity applies to art, music and literature as well. Creative minds will often come up with similar stylistic approaches, styles and sensibilities independently.

So on one hand we can see that all artists are influenced by the things they have seen in the past, the works of their mentors and idols and the classical pieces they studied. Their minds are pre-loaded with existing templates upon which their draw. Every piece of creative work they produce somehow tainted by these experiences. On the other hand there is a tendency for independent artists to coverage onto similar ideas from different directions.

Everything we create as a species is by definition is redundant and derivative.

Creative process is less about originality, but about taking the existing building blocks and arranging them in interesting ways. Similarly, we judge art, music and literature not on how original it is but rather whether it conveys a poignant message, provokes a reaction or evokes an emotional response. No one really cares that the individual components are not original as long as the end product offers something more than merely the sum of it’s parts. Borrowing, referencing, adapting and outright emulation are all fair game. They have always been.

We currently live in a wonderful age of digital media where information can be copied, remixed and mashed up almost effortlessly by just about anyone. In the past, an artist who wanted to “borrow” from another work had to go through the process of re-creating that element. Today, he can simply copy and paste it. Now we have people who create original work that derivative – composed solely from bits and pieces “borrowed” elsewhere, edited and mashed up together. Let me show you an example – here is a video which was made by stitching together short clips from various movies and TV shows and arranging them to sync up with a background beat:

‘The Golden Age of Video’ by Ricardo Autobahn youtubed by spraynetdotcodotuk

You could argue whether or not something like this constitutes art. It is creative, entertaining and awesome though. I would also argue that it is good precisely because it steals and borrows content from elsewhere. It works, because each of the short clips used to create the video triggers a personal memory. It not only bombards us with nostalgia but also breathes a new life into these half forgotten, cherry picked moments of awesomeness. It is certainly more than merely the sum of it’s parts – and as such it is valuable, and worth seeing.

Sadly, under current copyright regime such remixes and mash-ups are un-poducts. Legally ambiguous at best, illegal at worst. It’s basically like this – these derivative works are relatively safe, because it would be too expensive for a copyright holder to sue it’s creator for using a 5 second clip somewhere in the video. Also, if they do sue they are not guaranteed to win. Depending on the context, the length of the clip used, and the intent the creator could sometimes successfully argue that his work is protected under the fair use clause. Maybe…

An obvious solution here would be to obtain the permission from the copyright holder. Have you ever tried to do it though? How do you get a permission to use a 5 second video or audio clip from a major motion picture or album? You don’t. You will be lucky if the copyright holders even acknowledge your existence by laughing in your face and showing you middle finger. They probably won’t even do that though – they will ignore you.

So while creating mashups is easy, legalizing them is not. What is worse, this type of creative expression is becoming more and more common as the music/video editing technology available to private consumers improves, and their internet bandwidth increases. On one hand we have masses who want to create and publish their own legally ambiguous mashups. On the other hand we have media industry lobbying the governments all over the world to tighten copyright law and crack down on the internet as a one big tool for piracy. These two movements are on a collision course and that worries me. How do we reconcile this?

I have said it before and I’ll say it again – our copyright law is obsolete and outdated. It is an archaic relic from an era that is long gone and will never return. It had an important role in the past, and parts of it still have use today. But right now it is more of a nuisance than anything else. Tomorrow it will become a hindrance instead – it will be our cultural ball and chain.

I tell you this – we are moving away from physical media. Our art, music, literature and cinema can now be accessed digitally. They are no longer tied to physical anchors that inhibit their distribution. Anything you digitize becomes a virtual commodity – an idea. It can be copied at the speed of thought. This will only become more ambiguous in the future when the line between man and the machine starts to fade, and when human consciousness will no longer become independent of the physical shell that contains it. Can virtual commodities consumed by virtual beings that exist in virtual worlds be controlled using laws that were written to control physical media? Can we police digital minds to make sure they are not using copyrighted thoughts?

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TerminallyIncoherent/~3/WOO6RwXOHsU/

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=4066

Long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I posted the infamous article titled “What does your browser say about you?”. It got like 400 comments, got me on Digg, Reddit and crashed my server at least twice. Every once in a while I still get comments on it but these days they are mostly among the lines of:

“Dude, Firefox 2.0 is ancient! What about Chrome and IE8?”

Well, the point is that it was not ancient when I wrote that post. Back then it was cutting edge. But we came a long way since then and so I decided to post a short update to that post.

Of course there is really no point for me to update the entry for Lynx or Dillo because not much has changed for those apps. In fact, a lot of the browsers on that old list sort of faded into obscurity. For example IE overlays such as Maxthon became obsolete around the time IE7 introduced tabbed browsing. Others such as Netscape or AOL browser are hardly even around anymore. So in this post I will mainly concentrate on the leading browsers. You know, the ones that actually support modern standards and have large user bases. Oh, and Lynx.

	Firefox</p> You are not sure why people complain about Internet Explorer so much. It is a perfectly serviceable tool for downloading Firefox on a new windows machine. You have tried different browsers but you feel they are all vastly inferior to FF. Flock does too much, Chrome does too little, Safari is to fancy and etc… Its not like these browsers have better features anyway. At least not for long. Any cool, worthwhile and innovative feature will be either added in the next Firefox release, or has already been replicated in the form of an extension. Every time you switch browsers you are amazed at how different the web looks. Your favorite websites are covered with banners, useful AJAX based features are gone… Then you realize that other browsers don’t actually have Adblock, Greasemonkey and Stylish extensions that you rely on. You also get annoyed when you try to test your websites in other browsers since they don’t have access to the full version of Firebug. Seeing how there is an extension for everything out there, you can’t imagine ever needing another browser.
	IE5 Kill yourself.
	Google Chrome You love Google Chrome because as everything made by the big G it is fast, sleek and stable. Now you can check your Gmail and Google Reader feeds and Google calendar in style as you edit your Google Docs in a separate tab, chat in Google Talk, get your directions from Google Maps and build applications for Google App Engine. You are not really concerned that Google probably knows more about your personal interests, hopes, dreams and desires than your own mother. After all, their motto is “don’t be evil” right? Also, the tear-off tabs were awesome killer feature until Firefox totally copied them. Still, your browser runs every tab as a separate instance so there is really no way for one website to crash the whole browser… Until one does, that is – but that happens rarely.
	IE6 There are two possibilities here: You are using a locked down company computer – in which case, WTF are you doing reading this? Go back to work you lazy bum! Also, your sysadmin is either lazy or stupid. Or both. You are to stupid to live and/or you enjoy ruining the internet for all of us. In addition your machine belongs to at least 17 botnets and you pick up new trojans daily. You often wonder why your internet is so slow but you are definitely not going to install some shady “Fox Fire” or “Intranet Explore 8″ whatever that is. It’s probably a virus or something. I hope you fall into a ditch, break your ass and die all alone as punishment.
	IE7 As a rule you don’t use Windows Update. You are probably running Vista in it’s original, pre-SP1 shape and form. Your computer it is infected by 5 billion viruses and trojans making it barely usable. You heard that there is a newer version of Internet Explorer out there but you don’t care. You don’t like change. Finally, you assume that your computer is so slow because someone told you that Vista sucks. I mean, yes – it does, but it doesn’t suck that much. Your computer is slow because you are running outdated browser on an un-patched OS. And I’m not going to help you with that because you are ruining internet for everybody.
	IE8 You are one of the few windows users who do know how to use Windows Update. Hell, you might have even went out of your way and downloaded IE8 yourself though I doubt it. No, seriously – most people clever enough to know what a browser is know better than to use IE. But you might just be a loyal Microsoft customer who simply likes the new browser for all of it’s “innovative” features. Someone told you that IE8 is actually pretty standards compliant, but of course you don’t know what that is. You would probably be pretty proud that your browser of choice passes the ACID2 test but you don’t know what that is. Also, I might actually consider helping you to remove all these nasty trojans from your machine since for once you are not actually ruining the internet for us.
	Opera You really don’t give a fuck that both IE8 and Firefox 3 can pass ACID 2 test nowadays. ACID 2 test is like so 3 years ago. Now it’s all about ACID 3 and non of these upstart browsers can render that one properly. Yeah, Google Chrome sort of took over the “fastest browser” niche these days but Opera still kicks ass. It’s fast, sleek and has lot’s of unique features. Besides, all of those other browsers have their keyboard shortcuts ass-backwards.
	Safari You are a mac user… Or you are one of those sad Windows people who suffer from a Mac envy. You know who I’m talking about – folks who buy a discount Dell and then use Window Blinds or other styling tool to make their Vista look just like OSX. Does anyone else use that browser? I don’t know. Not that it’s a bad browser. It was the first one to successfully pass ACID 3 test. Not only that, but it’s Webkit engine is used by myriad of other browsers – namely Konquerror and Google Chrome. And these other browsers tend to stick out like a sore thumb on a Mac.
	Flock You keep telling people that Flock is not just a fork of Firefox with some web 2.0 and social networking extensions grafted in, but they won’t listen. Screw them then. You know damn well that your browser is better – perfectly engineered to integrate itself with the myriad of social media and content generation platforms.
	Lynx, Links, etc… Graphics are overrated. Who needs them. You browse the web for content, not for flashy designs and lolcat pictures. You use Mutt for email, Midnight Commander to manage your files, vim as your text editor. If a website contains a captcha you download it using feh, and display it in the framebuffer. Hell, you don’t even have X installed on your primary machine – you are that awesome. Of course X is installed on your backup laptop which you use to go on youtube and to download pr0n but no one has to know that.
	Chromium You are essentially like the average Chromium user but lazy. In a good way. You are to lazy to actually deal with the Windows bullshit so you run Linux. To lazy to compile stuff or fuck with RPM’s so you run Debian. To lazy to download Chrome so you run Chromium that’s available via apt.
	Konquerror You firmly believe that carpet should match the drapes and that the browser should match the desktop environment. Also, for some reason you like browsers that double up as file managers – you know, like IE did back in the day. Then again Konquerror is webkit based so it has to be fairly decent. All that hard work done by Google and Apple trickles down to your browser slowly but surely.
	Epiphany You firmly believe that carpet should match the drapes and that the browser should match the desktop environment. Besides, Ephiphany is gecko based so it has to be fairly decent. All that hard work done by Mozilla foundation trickles down to your browser slowly but surely.
	Seamonkey You fondly remember the days when a web browser used to have a built in calendar, email client, HTML editor and some other useful tools. Those were the good days. You don’t care for the newfangled fast loading browsers the youngsters use these days. Also, you don’t like when kids are anywhere near your lawn.
	Kazehakase You don’t tell people about your browser of choice in person. You have learned a long time ago that they will ask you to spell the name, and that’s just not possible. You just send them a link. In casual conversations you refer to your browser as “that browser” or kazehe-something-or-other. But hey! It’s Gecko based, lean, mean, infrequently updated and seemingly abandoned. Um… That last part is not so good, but it’s still a decent browser.

Yes, yes. I know I ignored your favorite browser. Chances are it is irrelevant, and/or it hasn’t really changed much since the last post. And if I totally miss-characterized a group of users and made you mad, please remember that posting “fag” in the comments does not count as constructive criticism. Other than that, feel free add suggestions and/or your own descriptions for users of other browsers.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TerminallyIncoherent/~3/qusf_2FNqgQ/

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=4107

Since I’m not going to be posting on Saturday, I just wanted to wish everyone Happy Halloween. Remember that tomorrow is technically Xmas because Oct 31 == Dec 25 so you should probably watch out for Robot Santa as you are partying. Cause you know – the little bastard can claim technicality and carry out some of his holiday assassinations early in the season.

So yeah. Have fun. Also, in this thread we post funny Halloween stories. Since I don’t have any funny ones mine is just a story of sorts:

I have never been Trick or Treating in my life. The whole idea of Halloween has always been a foreign to me seeing how it is an old Galeic festival. I grew up in Poland which is a Slavic country. You see, ancient Gaels and Brits had their Samhain which was a sort of a multipurpose festival that commemorated the end of summer. It also happened to be the day when the veil that separates this world and the next grew thin, and allowed spirits both malicious and benevolent to pass through – so the feast was also held to honor the dead and appease the otherworldly beings while they roamed the earth. Wearing of masks was a form of deception – dressing up as an evil spirit was supposed to confuse the malicious entities and have them assume you were one of their own. This tradition sort of memetically mutated into what we now know as Halloween.

Ancient Poles on the other hand had a slightly different idea of dealing with the same entities. They have celebrated Dziady (or Forefathers Eve) which was a ritual libation and/or feast held in the honor of the lost souls wandering the earth. It was held several times a year, and wasn’t really an all out party as Samhain. No, it was supposed to be scary, mysterious and cathartic. The pagans would actually seek to summon the pissed off, violent wraiths who for some reason could not cross over to the other world and tried to appease them with offerings, listen to their stories and try not to shit their pants. It was serious business.

Of course when Catholic Church moved in, it did not approve of this whole spirit summoning business. Stamping out such traditions was difficult because the freshly baptized pagans didn’t really take the whole monotheism idea all that seriously. So Polish Catholics did the only thing they could do: they canonized Dziady and turned them into All Soul’s Day which falls on November 2^nd. It was basically the same thing but you replaced pagan invocations with prayers. Also in a brilliant move they slowly de-emphasized the mystery behind the holiday and made it rather uninteresting.

Fast forward to the twentieth century and All Souls Day evolved into a rather somber and quite bland holiday during which Poles go to church and then visit graves of their close relatives, tidy up a bit, light a candle in their memory, offer a token prayer and then go home.

Dziady are mostly remembered because Adam Mickiewicz one of Polands greatest poets of the Romanticism period used it in his encyclopedia sized epic poem that is so densely packed with historical, religious and literary allusions, symbolism, and complex metaphors that you actually need cliff notes to decipher it’s cliff notes version.

Halloween was never part of my cultural heritage. It was never really celebrated in Poland when I was a kid. I of course knew about it, because like just about every other child on this planet I grew up watching Disney movies, Loony Tunes and Hollywood super productions. I just never got to participate in it – it just wasn’t something you did back then. And this kids, is why I never got cheap candy from strangers or egged anyone’s house in my life.

But yeah – we will have some candy for the neighborhood ghosts and goblins tomorrow and will be giving it out. Thankfully my street doesn’t have that many kids (usually it’s only 3-4 families/groups each year) so we will probably close up shop early.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TerminallyIncoherent/~3/5cFVie5tZW0/

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=4065

Why do people keep asking me about Windows 7. I don’t care about it. I really don’t! And yet, somehow everyone I meed somehow assumes that the term software developer means no more and no less than guy who knows stuff about Windows 7. I have no clue how people come at this conclusion especially since I usually code in Java, PHP, Perl and Python. How do you get Windows out of that equation is a mystery to me.

Not only that, but I am clearly not an early adopter. I am a late adopter if there is such a thing. I’m the guy who was still running Wordpress 2.0.5 in April 2009. Remember that? Yes, that’s how bad I am.

In fact, I would still be running Windows XP on my main gaming box if the hardware did not become so obsolete that it spontaneously fossilized under my desk. My current gaming box has Vista on it, but only because I came with the hardware and I was to lazy to do anything about it.

You want to ask me about upgrading anything? You’ve got a wrong guy.

Unfortunately most people don’t get this. In fact, most people who ask me about Windows 7 can’t possibly comprehend that spiel above because they simply don’t understand terms such as early adopter, wordpress or fossilization. I figured I might as well use this entry to answer the most frequently asked questions I get in my inbox and IRL.

Maybe this will answer some of your burning Windows 7 questions. Or maybe you can emails this to some of your clueless friends/relatives who keep bothering you with these questions every day.

When is Windows 7 coming out?

Do I look like I care? Do you know how to google? Let me google that for you. How hard was that? For your information, it came out last week. You missed it! You know why you missed it? Because it is not something note worthy. Now piss off.

Is Windows 7 Better than Vista?

Probably. I mean, Windows XP is better than Vista. Hell, Windows 2000 is better than Vista. Sitting on an angry porcupine while being hit in the face with a putrid piece of shit spiked with sharpened nails that was shot out of a cannon and is flying at Mach 3 is better than Vista. I can’t imagine Microsoft actually being able to top Vista when it comes to how badly it sucks. Then again, I have been wrong about them in the past. In fact, every time I gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed that they will do something right, they went ahead and did the exact opposite.

Here is the deal – the crazy people who actually got this OS this early seem to think it is an improvement over Vista. Then again these people are likely Microsoft fanboys (why else would they get the new OS so close to the release date) so their opinions should be taken with a grain barrel of salt.

Should I upgrade?

No you should not. Wait till Microsoft releases Service Pack 1, then buy a new computer. Windows 7 will be included. If you don’t like this answer go ask someone else. I don’t care how good this new OS is. It can be printing hundred dollar bills for all I care. My position still stands. Don’t. There will be bugs, there will be driver issues, and there will be upgrade hiccups to worry about. The fact you are asking me about this tells me you are not a computer whiz, so if something goes wrong, you will be fucked cause I sure as hell am not helping you out.

Not reason enough for you? How about this – it’s a waste of money. You see, Microsoft is an evil bastard company that forces computer manufacturers to install their OS on every single piece of hardware they sell. This means that a year or two from now, when you are buying a new computer you will have to buy Windows 7 again.

No, I’m not shitting you. Remember that time I was ranting about the “Windows Tax” and you thought I’m just being a retarded open source loon? Yeah, that’s what Windows tax is. It means that Dell (for example) won’t give a flying fuck that you already have a copy of Windows 7 at home. Windows is part of their bundle, and they won’t take it out. Unless of course you can find the tiny hidden link to their Linux based model – but that narrows down your choices quite a bit.

Also, if you buy an OEM version bundled with the computer you will be paying much, much less. Microsoft basically discounts their OS down to fraction of the retail price to make sure that it ends up on every single piece of fucking hardware sold in the world. Don’t waste your money.

But I hate Vista! Should I Upgrade?

No. You should suck it up, and listen to me next time you are buying a computer. What did I tell you about Vista last time around? It’s a piece of shit. What did you do? You went and bought it. This is your punishment for not listening to me.

Actually, I don’t care. Go ahead and upgrade. Just make sure you back up all your data befo… Oh, what? You don’t want to upgrade anymore? You are scared now? All I said was to backup your data. If you want to upgrade your OS, you should be prepared to have your system hosed. I’m not saying it will get hosed – I’m saying shit happens.

And don’t come running to me when you fuck shit up. You know what I’m going to do if you come to me crying that Window 7 ate your hard drive? I’m going to hire Verne Troyer to Shoryuken you straight in the dick. And no, I’m not joking.

Will Windows 7 run on my computer?

It won’t even if it will. Let me put it this way – if you are asking me about this, it means you are to dumb to look up your system specs, google up Windows 7 requirements and do a quick comparison. If you can’t perform a simple task like that, you should not even be considering an upgrade. You should go and buy a computer with Windows 7 already installed whenever it’s time for you to get a new machine.

If you can check this information, then why the fuck are you bothering me with this shit?

Ok, here is the real answer: if you are running Windows XP right now, then no, it won’t run. If you are running Vista and it is sluggish as hell, then Windows 7 will also be sluggish as hell. The new OS is allegedly faster but it still has Vista guts under the hood so it won’t make your machine into a speed daemon.

If your current box is an evil beast from hell that can actually run Vista reasonably fast hen yes, Windows 7 will run on your system and you will probably see some performance gains (assuming the reports about the speed are true). Still, you will be wasting a lot of money due to the Windows tax.

Will you install Windows 7 on my computer?

Absolutely, categorically no. Hell no, fuck no, no to the tenth power. No infinity. Fuck you! Fuck your dog! Fuck the horse you rode in on. No. I have better shit to do than this.

Unless… Unless you are a girl and when you use the voice when asking me. I will then invariably assume that you are somehow inexplicably into me, and that upgrading your OS is my ticket into your good graces. Now you know my weakness so don’t abuse it.

Keep this in mind though: if you give your computer to your girlfriend, and attempt to have her sex me into installing Windows 7 for you and I figure you out then its Verne Troyer + Shoryuken + your testicles – when you least expect it.

That’s all I have for today. If you want to add to this FAQ please post your questions and answers in the comments. If you are a Microsoft fanboy who found this whole post incredibly offensive, and who is planning to call me a fag in the comments, please note hat a) I moderate this shit, b) you should look into obtaining a sense of humor and c) your post will have your IP attached to it. You know what that means right? I can use that IP to find out where you live. And then… Verne Troyer, Shoryuken, etc.. So keep it civil.