weblog dump

My Take on Pariah

Gaming at 12:20:24 AM MT (link) | My vote for the biggest game dissappointment of 2005 goes to Pariah. You can tell they rushed it. Really rushed it. They attempt to make a story (that would have been pretty decent) but completely botch it up; you move from level to level having no idea at all what is going on. The level design and upgradable weapons are extremely interesting but that doesn't make up for the rest of the game. The multiplayer demo they had out kept me playing for a while, but the single player doesn't hold a candle (probably due to the whole, 10 servers that are up?).

I think if they gave the game a few more months of work, it easily could have been a Halo killer.

Apple's Steve Jobs goes psycho (again)

Technology at 12:54:58 AM MT (link) | Everyone's most hated computer conglomerate Apple--well, at least my most hated computer conglomerate. After stuff like this Microsoft transgressions don't seem as bad (though their transgressions are much bigger and get more press).

First read over at Overclockers.com's iBaby article which pointed to the original story by SignOnSanDiego.com, it just demonstrates Apple's audacity.

Basically, Apple's CEO Steve Jobs did not like his portrayal in an unofficial biography, so he decides to pull all books from by that publisher from Apple's stores. Because the book is not out and I've not read it, I can't say how bad they portrayed him, but I have no doubt believing Overclockers.com's comment about making him look "merely human" isn't too far off.

Notice some tidbits in the articles. Things like removing all of the publisher's books from the shelves, even by authors that had nothing to do with this certain book. Why should other people other than Apple make money? They sued the ISPs of some reporters, trying to gain information on their sources. When I don't think the government should have access to that kind of information for finding terrorists, why should a corporation like Apple?

Remember kids: Think Different.

50-Cent's "BulletProof" video game trailer

Gaming at 09:11:16 PM MT (link) | I believe I've just seen the best video trailer for a game, ever. You should watch it!

That said, the game is probably going to suck. You can tell as the trailer features basically no in-game footage whatsoever, and, after how completely kickass the trailer was, it'd be HARD to make anything better.

Slashdot sucks

Technology at 09:00:50 PM MT (link) | I stopped reading Slashdot a couple years ago when I couldn't bear how retarded it had become. Someone gave me this link today, and it's just proof that Slashdot needs a new moderation for phenomenal idiot.

Server outage

Site at 08:06:54 PM MT (link) | Yes, my site (as well as the entire server it was hosted on) was down. Everything appears to be back up now. I'll writeup something for historical reference later.

Dealing with SSH agent forwarding and GNU screen problems

Linux at 10:03:58 PM MT (link) | New article on GNU screen and SSH agent forwarding, by yours truly. Yes this problem has already been solved (and my approach is basically a clone of someone else's solution), but one more page about the problem (for which there are few) can't hurt.

Handling e-mail overload

Technology at 04:30:49 AM MT (link) | Stever Robbins of the Harvard Business School has an interesting article Tips on Mastering E-mail Overload. Though I'm not really there yet and hopefully never am, these are some certainly nice tips.

RIP bitchmaster.hotnudiegirls.com

Site at 04:10:10 AM MT (link) | I'm killing the DNS record for bitchmaster.hotnudiegirls.com because I don't want it being used anymore. I doubt anyone is actually using it, other than search engines; if you're a search engine, stop using it, thanks.

I've never really announced the new domain, but this site is accessible by either:

• tamasrepus.hotnudiegirls.com
• tamasrepus.rhombic.net

The latter being the one I'd actually want to put on resumes and such where I don't want to give people weird thoughts, and the former for everywhere else where I feel like demonstrating my opinions on censorship and free speech and don't care what people think.

Dell 2405FP working with Linux and binary "nvidia" driver

Linux at 09:31:52 PM MT (link) | I have my new Dell 2405FP working with my older Geforce 4 Ti4400 on the analog port (on my main workstation, machina, with Slackware 10.1). With the binary nVidia driver (7197), the one everyone supposedly has been having problems with and this monitor... Other than haggling for 4 days trying to get a working modeline, it works great.

My X11 server configuration is in the "Linux" section if anyone wants to take a look at it.

Windows XP DEP

Technology at 01:27:37 PM MT (link) | Is the Data Execution Prevention technology in Microsoft Windows XP SP2 useful for anything if people have to turn it off to get things to work, especially with Microsoft Outlook, an application NOTORIOUS for security issues?

That said, I find Windows's XP DEP stuff to slow my machine down a lot; thus I turn it off on most machines that I use.

OpenSSH tips for the extremely paranoid

Linux at 09:04:58 PM MT (link) | I get called "paranoid" a lot about my insistence on using SSH key authentication to access all my Linux and UNIX servers. Then, I found this article titled Understanding OpenSSH. Sincerely, some of these tips are completely hardcore... Even I am not that paranoid.

However, some of these tips would be useful for an automated backup system (the one I have yet to write, but will one day).

On a side note, OpenSSH 4.0 has been released. mostly an evolutionary than a revolutionary release, it now has neat things like encryption of the known_hosts file, to prevent people from snooping at the hosts you last logged into. Neat.

Remember, you'd be paranoid too if everyone was out to get you!

China cracks SHA-1

Technology at 10:56:32 PM MT (link) | Sort of old news, but SHA1 has been cracked. As a tax-paying, law-abiding American citizen I'm not really comfortable with the current Chinese military build-up, along with them now breaking one of our premier hash algorithms...

That I said, I still use MD5 for almost everything.

Dr. Dre why oh why has thou forsaken me

Life at 09:47:09 PM MT (link) | I've been into "gangsta rap" lately. And one of my favorite artists has been Dr. Dre.

After hearing the album Dr. Dre vs World Class Wreckin' Cru's track Horney Computer, which now is in the ranks of the worst songs I've ever heard, I'm rethinking this.

What doesn't help is after I saw this picture. Yes, THAT is Dr. Dre. Shattered are my mental images of just another California nigga on the streets of LA with nothing in his pockets and wielding a large lead pipe.

I'll live.

Microsoft is dying?

Technology at 09:36:03 PM MT (link) | An article by ABC news by Michael Malone predicts that Microsoft is going to die soon. Even though the company has been able to completely dodge the flak of it's software's security flaws, there is the frank problem that Microsoft is not really putting any new, interesting products (or any new, amazing features in them). Windows XP was released in October 2001--Longhorn is slated for, 2006? Five years for an update for the world's most ubiquitous operating system is a very long time for a company that prides itself on shrink-wrapped software. It doesn't help that newer revisions Microsoft Office have so few interesting features, many people (including me) don't see a reason to upgrade past Office 97. Time will tell.

Guestbook spammers strike!

Site at 01:03:32 AM MT (link) | I don't think I mentioned it recently, but my guestbook is back. Sign it!

So, the other day I noticed that I had been spammed, and that there were several spam entries.

Spam (unfortunely) isn't something you can not expect. I'm assuming that some bot program or script did this. Apparently this script was smart enough to figure out my self-written, custom-coded guestbook script and do it's dirty work. While targeting a mass-deployed guestbook script doesn't seem to much out of the range of possibilities, writing a smarter, more versatile script made to spam guestbooks like mine is just doesn't seem efficient. Either spammers are getting smarter or desperate (or both).

Oh well. There is now a "I am not a spammer" checkbox on the preview page that you must check for your entry to be posted. Let's see the spammers "smart" scripts get around that (and honestly, I bet they will).

Alive I am

Life at 12:53:55 AM MT (link) | Yes, I am still alive. Though I am not sure to what degree.

Winter break!

Life at 06:15:24 AM MT (link) | It's well into winter break--and I've basically accomplished nothing! Actually I have done a lot but in retrospect it does not seem like much--I should have gotten it all done faster. But it feels good to think I haven't done anything.

One more...

Life at 06:14:39 PM MT (link) | Just one more final exam (the difficult physical chemistry one). And one more project. And I will be freed from this semester!

hlds and ut2004 server admin mailing lists

Linux at 02:35:13 AM MT (link) | Just because this isn't documented on the internet very well, Valve has a mailing list for hlds_linux, the Half-Life dedicated server for Linux.

Epic also has a mailing list for Unreal Tournament 2004 server administrators. You can subscribe to it by sending an e-mail to majordomo@udn.epicgames.com with "subscribe UT2004servers" in the body.

Now presenting the all new samat.quasirhombicosidodecahedron.com!

Site at 11:58:30 PM MT (link) | And, in record time, behold my new site now located at samat.quasirhombicosidodecahedron.com! I will be making tamasrepus.hotnudiegirls.com and bitchmaster.hotnudiegirls.com point to this website soon.

I've decided to give up using plain HTML pages for the bulk of the content of the site: it's now powered by a WikiWikiWeb, merged in with my custom programming for my weblog, bookmarks, and administration systems. It's so far working pretty well.

The main downfall I see to using a WikiWikiWeb rather than formatting everything myself is that I lose XHTML compatibility and the rigid XML structure I had with the old site. But I realized, no one but me actually cared, and it'd probably be a good idea to start putting some actual content up.

There are some quirks in the design, but I am working them out. Let me know if you find anything.

Haitus...

Site at 09:12:22 PM MT (link) | I've been busy the past few weeks. A lot of things that would make good things to note... But anyway, I'm working on a new site. It'll be done one day.

Overheated Laptop Syndrome

Computer Hardware at 08:38:05 PM MT (link) | I was reading some advertisement-ridden magazine sitting on my dining room table today--some special crap by c|net, entitled College Buying Guide. So I'm paging through it wondering if it was possible to stuff any more advertisements into it, and there's this one by Antec, on O.L.S, overheated laptop syndrome, with an advertisement for some notepad cooler pad thing.

I thought it was pretty lame.

Then I go to use my notebook (gundar), which I had left upgrading to the latest packages from Debian Unstable... and it was off. Going over to the controlling terminal on my main machine, I see:

gundar kernel: Critical temperature reached (100 C), shutting down.

Yeah. That is a bit warm. Kudos to Linux catching it and shutting down my machine. That's the highest I've ever seen it go--I guess I should be glad that it wasn't on my lap.

Note to self: don't be stupid

Linux at 12:16:53 AM MT (link) | So, yah, I was messing around with the networking on bluebox while SSHed in, and I brought down it's network interface.

After everything froze, I realize that was really stupid. And then the wonderful thing about Linux--I hooked up a monitor sitting nearby and a USB keyboard, and fixed everything. So far, that machine has been running for approximately 120 days, through 3 distribution upgrades, without a hiccup.

Wiki wiki!

Site at 01:17:30 AM MT (link) | I've known about wikis for a long time but I've always wondered if they really had any use. After using daimyo.org's wiki, I'm hooked. It is just so easy to edit pages. I've set up my own ErfurtWiki so that I can have my own wiki for my own note-taking and jotting (since it is so much faster than writing HTML). Feel free to look around my wiki and see if you've any questions or comments.

One thing, though, I don't really believe in the whole anyone-should-be-able-to-edit-a-page ideal. With small wikis, it is just way to easy to cause so much trouble that it is a pain continually fix. So, my wiki so far is only editable by me (though I've set it up so others can be authenticated to edit it should the need arise).

News at 11: Windows sucks!

Technology at 08:30:33 PM MT (link) | Why Windows Security is a Nightmare. It is really sad that I am nodding my head after every paragraph after every single thing he says.

Site updates... weblog scripts updates galore

Site at 08:26:21 PM MT (link) | Tonight was get-off-my-ass and work on my weblog scripts night. I did a lot. Summarized:

• Redesign, recreate, and merge database schema for weblog entries to contain an `ID` field
• Fixed bugs in weblog posting scripts
• Begin adding WikiWikiWeb-style markup support to weblog postings and display scripts (it's much easier than writing HTML all the time)
• Do URL rewriting for weblog posts (see permalink on this post) so that Google can index them

No complaints from me.

Compressing pi

Linux at 05:59:47 PM MT (link) | Apparently, the universe's most delicious transcendental doesn't make a good compression test. I forgot where, but I had downloaded 1 billion digits of pi off the Internet. They were separated into 1 million digits segments in 1 thousand text files. I was thinking of a good way to test the compression of several different compression programs, mostly just to see if rzip was really as good as I thought, and compressing pi seemed like the perfect test candidate.

And in the end, they all compressed pi down to the same size. It's indicative of pi having few repeating patterns (doh, I knew that) that could be detected by any of today's compression algorithms.

So, onto the tests. I took all the text files containing the pi digits and put them all into one file using tar (pi.tar shown below). I used gzip, bzip2, rzip, 7-zip, and rar (just to have a popular proprietary solution in the mix). Results (in KiB if it isn't obvious):

• pi.tar: 987012
• pi.7z: 438332
• pi.rar: 434792
• pi.tar.bz2: 434012
• pi.tar.gz: 470208
• pi.tar.rz: 433976

So, basically, all compressed pi.tar down to the same size, approx 430 MiB. I suppose it's comforting that rzip did have the smallest filesize, though it isn't anything of consequence.

I used several different machines to carry out the compression. The 7-zip and rar was created on Microsoft Windows XP (on an Athlon 3000+), while the rest were done on Linux machines. An Athlon 2200+ for the rzip, and a Athlon 1.3 GHz for the gzip and bzip2. Though I don't have any numbers and considering the speed of the machines, it seemed as gzip was the fastest, followed by bzip2, rzip, and 7-zip (I can't place rar). 7-zip definitely did take the longest, I had started it first on the fastest machine I had and it was the last to finish.

So, what was the point of this? Absolutely nothing!

Now with titles!

Site at 07:19:32 PM MT (link) | Added an entry title field to my weblog system. I really didn't want to bother thinking up titles for every post, but since I post so rarely the thinking would be good for me.

rzip

Linux at 07:13:08 PM MT (link) | rzip is awesome. Basically, it's another compression program in the family of gzip and bzip2, except that the compression is absolutely excellent.

I haven't prepared any quantifiable numbers yet, but rzip is almost 3x faster than bzip2, and gets completely superior compression compared to gzip and bzip2. Compare:

545M files.tar
274M files.tar.bz2
287M files.tar.gz
85M files.tar.rz

These files aren't a good representation of files that are usually compressed, and obviously they compress REALLY well. I think I'm going to create another test that uses some better data with fewer repeats that is also larger--my billion digits of pi I have lying around looks like a good candidate.

Site at 04:52:58 PM MT (link) | After messing around with Drupal, I think I'm going to stick with my own weblogging system I wrote 2 yrs ago. It does what I want, the way I want to, and already works.

Of course, there are features and design changes I wanted to make, but at this point it seems easier (and more constructive) to add them in rather than to go with some pre-made software. I lose all the coolness factor using pre-made software, too. Stay tuned for things to randomly break and stop working!

Life at 03:17:25 PM MT (link) | One of my friends Alanna is coming home from her year-long overseas stay in Europe/wherever tomorrow. Probably a good time to make known that she has a countdown-till-she-gets-home timer at alanna.hotnudiegirls.com.

Site at 07:13:42 PM MT (link) | Removed the link to my guestbook from the sidebar. Honestly, this site gets MORE traffic than it did last year, but no one has signed it since last year. The guestbook scripts will remain online in case anyone does want to sign it.

Computer Hardware at 04:16:22 PM MT (link) | Stolen from Designtechnica's article on LCD displays, here's a nice list of LCD resolution acronyms and their respective resolutions:

So, I feel good that I have an WSXGA, UXGA, and SXGA displays lying around.

Technology at 09:09:51 PM MT (link) | I now have a nice USB key disk with a bunch of SSH keys on it, for OpenSSH and PuTTY/WinSCP. This way, I can login to my machine at home without having to send a password over any network. It's proven pretty convenient so far; I keep a copy of the latest PuTTY and WinSCP binaries on the disk as well.

For the record, create a key with OpenSSH with a command like:

The private key generated can then be loaded up into PuTTYgen and converted to a PuTTY PPK file.

Site at 07:17:19 PM MT (link) | Yes, I did a redesign! Sort of. Same color scheme, but everything looks smaller and more compact. I like it. The ideas for layout are borrowed from David Dorward, I fellow I used to know from #html on EFnet.

The old style, called "Classic Blue" (even though it's not really classic) is still available from the style sheet menu of your web browser.

Linux at 11:19:59 AM MT (link) | The way Fedora Linux works, if it were on IRC. Well I thought it was funny.

Site at 11:54:08 PM MT (link) | I've been having a lot of problem remembering sites across different computers lately. I've three separate bookmark collections across 3 different computers. It's been to get annoying, so I've made my own MySQL based bookmarks system, along with exporting to various formats used by web browsers, so I can keep the same bookmarks everywhere. Check it out.

The export to Mozilla works perfectly. I have however been having problem with the XBEL format. Galeon doesn't import them too well, and Konqueror has problems with my Javascript bookmarklets. For another day, I suppose.

Technology at 11:51:08 PM MT (link) | Know what a KiB is? A MiB, GiB, and TiB? Just in case anyone needs general education, these are the new SI prefixes for numbers that are based off the power of 2, rather than 10.

Classicly, KB has been used to refer to 1024, 2¹⁰, instead of what it should be, 1000, 10³. People in the technology industry use either depending on what benefits them best. For example, hard drive manufacturers report their drive sizes as true GB, meaning they are based off of powers of 10. When you look at your disk in your operating system, you see less space than you should have gotten, because the operating system is counting bytes by power of 2. When you buy a 10GB disk, you're getting 10x10⁹-many bytes. Your operating system reports this as how many bytes it is in powers of 2, which would be 10000000000 divided by 2³⁰, or 9.31 GiB.

What to do what to do? Invent new SI prefixes! See the NIST's page on binary prefixes for more information. KB, for example, will remain a power of 10 (as it has been for who knows how long), 10³, and KiB will be the corresponding power of 2 prefix, meaning 2¹⁰.

So, yeah, if everyone could be consistent from now on, the world would be a much happier place.

Linux at 01:31:13 AM MT (link) | I've gotten a Google GMail account. I wasn't really impressed at first, but after hearing other people's experiences, I'm thinking to try it out.

So comes the problem of how to keep getting e-mail on my main server but still be able to read it at GMail. Quite simply really, put in .forward:

It works pretty well so far. There is the problem if someone sends e-mail to the GMail address, and then I don't get it at my main address, but I'll just hope that doesn't happen for now.

Site at 01:44:26 PM MT (link) | If your web browser gets caught by the following:

You're not going to see the pretty stylesheet I use for this site. This is to help people who are using Internet Explorer (and derivatives) on Microsoft Windows read this page, without me having to do any stupid HTML or CSS workarounds. You'll also get a nice warning to switch web browsers or operating systems at the top of each page.

Life at 04:50:56 PM MT (link) | And let it be known my taxes were mailed in and postmarked on the holiest of hours, 9 AM, on the holiest of days, April 15.

Site at 10:23:22 PM MT (link) | Added a thin line in-between weblog posts. Easier to read individual posts now, I think.

School at 10:18:16 PM MT (link) | I have added some spreadsheets for standard deviation and linear regression calculation to my academia section. I made these for a class a few months ago, and I find myself using them again and again rather than relying on programs and machineswhose operation I don't trust. I'm sure they'd be useful to somebody.

Computer Hardware at 09:26:51 PM MT (link) | Cygwin and it's X server don't seem yet to be made to be run 24/7 on a Windows box. Weird, unreproducible problems (I can't say bug, because saying bug implies it's reproducible) just keep popping up and annoying me. Otherwise, I've been loving to use xterm (along with the nice, small, readable X bitmap fonts) to manage my Windows system and easily being able to run any X program from my UN*X machines.

So, forsaking the X server, I've moved to just using PuTTY along with Pageant for key management and WinSCP for file transfers. Since I don't run X apps that often anymore, this setup seems a lot less buggy, is just as secure, and uses much less memory.

Linux at 05:54:47 AM MT (link) | I finally figured out how to do multiple canonical names/common names in SSL certificates! See this nice article from the stunnel guys. The important link here is the Netscape SSL v2.0 certificate format specifications. Netscape's spec allows for globbing, so that I can add to my multihomed e-mail server SSL certificate:

I can check my e-mail from multiple places without any stupid security errors! Of course, this supposedly doesn't work for Microsoft Internet Explorer/Outlook/and friends. Oh well. Not as if you were concerned about security and privacy if you were using those anyway.

Gaming at 11:36:31 PM MT (link) | In case there was any doubt, Unreal Tournament 2004 is pretty kickass. The game modes are awesome, the game is stable, looks pretty, has decent AI, and is fun to play. I got my DVD SE version 3 days after it came out, and I have no second thoughts. And to top it off, there's a Linux version which works pretty well! I've yet to get the voice communication and recognition working yet either, but it's on my todo list...

My only complaint would have to be with the menus and the way the GUI is laid out. It's cluttered and confusing, a step backward from Unreal Tournament 2003. But other than that, I love it.

Coding at 11:29:53 PM MT (link) | I've changed all references of Firebird to Firefox in my Mozilla build script, as well as adding new configure options that will make binaries built with the script use a different location for profiles.

Site at 06:37:20 PM MT (link) | The removal of the headings looked so ugly I lost my will to even update, so the headings are back.

Site at 07:01:07 AM MT (link) | The day-headings on the main page took to much space, so they've been replaced with a more compact-looking format. This works for now.

Life at 11:01:16 AM MT (link) | We get to use Spec-20s in a fun spectrophotometry biochemistry lab! Oh joy! Someone remind me to make a Spec-20 hate page.

Computer Hardware at 08:54:34 PM MT (link) | DJB's advice for computer hardware. That's a pretty decent machine for it's price, regardless of lack of hard drive space, RAM, decent cooling, decent video, shipment via UPS...

OK, maybe it's not so decent. Better than crap most people buy, though.

Weblink at 06:39:30 PM MT (link) | This Orkut thing is sort of interesting. If I had to describe it... A private, invite-only people network (ala Friendster but better).

I don't really see the point. Regardless of how interesting and cool it is, it's a phenomenal waste of time, which is probably why I am messing with it so much. So, I need friends! Add me as your friend if you use it, or bug me if you'd like an invite.

Site at 05:55:20 PM MT (link) | So, I was thinking, maybe if I made this site to more web browsers than my copy of Mozilla I compiled last night, more people would visit.

Nah.

Linux at 09:00:13 AM MT (link) | I compiled Mozilla 1.6 with GTK2/XFT2 a few days ago, along with the latest Galeon, and I have to say, 1.6 seems a LOT faster than all previous Mozilla versions I've used so far. That is, running within Galeon, and when I don't use the Mozilla classic theme. For some reason the Mozilla classic theme just feels slow and clunky--not to mention it looks terrible. With the Mozilla suite being deprecated I hope they keep up the speed increases with Firebird as well.

Coding at 11:57:22 PM MT (link) | I've finally gotten Mozilla's CVS to build! And then the next day, I was able to build it again! To celebrate the event, I've made a rudimentary Mozilla CVS build script that simplifies setting required environment variables and flags. I've now working CVS copies of Mozilla, Firebird, and Thunderbird, that I can easily and quickly update.

Life at 08:58:27 AM MT (link) | I've finally gotten Gaim compiled with SSL support via gnutls (Mozilla's NSS sucks as I am always updating Mozilla and breaking things), and I set up all my IM accounts I've had over the years but never used. Including AOL Instant Messenger, MSN, Yahoo IM, and ICQ. I almost feel hip! You can see all the fun on my contact page.

Gaming at 08:47:40 AM MT (link) | Apparently, Epic/whoever published Unreal 2 XMP never felt like publically publishing what ports the game used for it's networking. So, here they are as they work for me:

28900
27900
7778
7777

These are all UDP; the game does not use any TCP networking as far as I can tell. If not familiar, the first two ports are Gamespy ports so that your server will show up in the in-game browser.

Site at 08:39:39 AM MT (link) | Website... Oh, yes, hahaha....

School at 02:21:54 PM MT (link) | My new mnemonic for the laws of thermodynamics:

• 0th: E: equilibrium
• 1st: E: energy
• 2nd: E: entropy
• 3rd: Z: zero

Yes, they're EEEZ! OK, anyway, Wikipedia has a nice overview if you don't happen to remember what any of those terms mean.

Life at 11:07:33 PM MT (link) | So, driving home from school today, I drove all the way from NMSU to home without having to stop for a single stoplight! Excitement! Seriously, a solid 3 or 4 miles through "urban" Las Cruces at 8 PM rush hour. I think it's cool.

Site at 03:58:38 PM MT (link) | Not that anyone visits, the site was down for about a week while I upgraded to Slackware 9.1. Why is it everytime I upgrade PHP or Apache httpd, I break something, and have to go mucking for things in my config? Blah! I'm going to make a larger rant when this happens again (which it most inevitably will).

Life at 10:20:50 PM MT (link) | Website!? What website?

Linux at 01:10:11 AM MT (link) | I've finally removed Gentoo Linux from bluebox and installed Slackware 9.0. Gentoo was beginning to get to me and was an impediment to actually doing anything useful with that machine.

Rather than using the installation ISOs, I took the FTP tree and made my own DVD. Using mkisofs:

mkisofs -J -r -udf -L -V "slackware-9.0" -hide-rr-moved -v -d -N -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 32 -boot-info-table -sort isolinux/iso.sort -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/isolinux.boot -o /somewhere/slackware-9.0.iso ./

are the almost simple parameters I used to create a bootable disc.

Of course, since all of Slackware 9.0's binary packages fit on a normal CD anyway, there wasn't much point to all of this.

Technology at 03:19:13 AM MT (link) | I've had OpenNIC's nameservers set up to resolve on my home network for a while. OpenNIC has their own TLDs, so to resolve their sites you need a DNS server with these records. Since most ISP nameservers don't have them yet, you'd have to add them yourself. Here's a list of what I added to my nameserver:

I've yet to register my own domain, though.

Site at 02:05:47 AM MT (link) | Dumped the index page. The disclaimer wasn't funny, at least not as much as it should have been, and it was just annoying.

Linux at 09:47:26 PM MT (link) | Redhat has announced their new beta, Severn. Along with it, they seem to be announcing a bunch of development policy changes, such as moving more discussions to publically-viewable mailing lists.

If they actually do it, Redhat may become a commercial Debian, which is good. Hopefully they'll move towards a good mixture of bleeding edge and conservative that they look as if they attempt to do with most their releases. Things like new kernels, so that the latest hardware works, the latest desktop software, so that we're not stuck with copies of 2 yr-old software paradigms, and being a lot more conservative with big, crucial library changes (I don't need to say anything about the horrid landing of glibc 2.3 and NPTL support).

However, with the crap I had to put up with Redhat 8 and 9, I don't see myself switching from Slackware anytime soon.

Cars at 02:03:15 AM MT (link) | Jesse James has his own signature wheels/rims collection now. Call me cheap, but look at the prices. You'd have to be Jesse James to charge that. Some of the styles look great, but I wish I had the justification to dump money on wheels like that.

Life at 01:59:57 AM MT (link) | I need to update more.

Site at 11:49:44 PM MT (link) | I've added some code I stole and hacked together from the W3C's DOM website for collapsing headings. It's cool, try it out. I've only tested it working on Mozilla, and there are still a bunch of bugs on the site with it.

Site at 10:22:57 PM MT (link) | In an effort to help organize my CD and DVD collection, I've created a media list, which is (or at least, will be) a list of all media I own. I'm going to writeup something about the system I've devised for organization.

Life at 10:17:28 PM MT (link) | Procrastination is a wonderful thing. I say that I will do things which probably will benefit me later, and then I don't do them. Blagh. It is an extremely bad habit. Now, watch me procrastinate trying to train myself to not do it.

Linux at 12:54:17 AM MT (link) | I am now a Slackware Linux pimp!

Redhat 9.0 really started to piss me off with the extremely annoying application compatibility problems (mostly stuff with glibc 2.3.2 and NPTL). Redhat 9.0 is extremely polished with respect to the software that comes with the distribution; software outside of the distribution, it's a complete jagged rock considering things like application compatibility. I don't see how Redhat 8.0 got so much flack, especially since I never had any major troubles with it. Though, 9.0 is a x.0 release, and Redhat is known for miserable x.0 releases (::cough:: 7 ::cough::).

I needed GTK 2.2, and since adding it to Redhat 8.0 or the last 'stable' Redhat (the one from some previous century) was a non-trivial amount of work, I decided to change distributions.

I'm now running Slackware 9.0, after about... three distribution changes. I'm going to write up another entry in a day or two detailing everything that happened and everything that I did. Though Slackware is nowhere near as polished as Redhat, I at least get to do things my way and have a much better understanding and control over my system.

Life at 12:32:38 AM MT (link) | I've been... Not as busy as usual. I find it interesting that when I have things I should be doing, I waste time doing things I shouldn't, and when I have nothing to do, instead of doing things I end up doing totally nothing.

So, yeah, that means that since I've not been as busy I've been slacking off this entire website. I really need to redesign it or something but I don't have any inspiration.

Oh, yeah, my webserver was down for a couple days while I worked on some administration things. I don't think anyone really noticed.

Site at 01:45:41 PM MT (link) | Started to add what will become my coding and programming section.

Site at 01:03:34 PM MT (link) | I've removed those images for headings in the right sidebar, mostly because people with low-contrast monitors (apparently, everyone that isn't me) don't notice the slight shadow around the text on the already dark background. Since no one could notice it, and it just made the page load slower, I removed them.

Also finally fixed the weirdness with the background image at the top of the page. Looks nicer now.

Linux at 09:34:39 PM MT (link) | I have Debian working on my laptop finally, after much hard work. Most all the hardware works so far, except ACPI power management. Going to post a nice page describing everything that I had done to get it working one day.

Site at 09:26:45 PM MT (link) | I've actually had complaints about the domain name and e-mail address associated with "bitchmaster." It seems that there are a lot of closed-minded ultra-conservative pro-censorship Nazis who make to make blanket generalizations against things that they do not understand.

Yes, that itself was a blanket generalization, if you were too slow to catch it.

For anyone who hasn't caught it, "bitchmaster" was a pun off "postmaster" and "webmaster" usernames which are suggested by several Internet RFCs (I don't feel like finding out which ones) to exist for domains. Outside of me, there were only two other people I know who actually caught it.

Henceforth, my website has been moved to http://tamasrepus.hotnudiegirls.com . The e-mail address change should be obvious, and if not, you should check my contact page.

I'm still working out bugs; if you find any, please let me know.

Life at 09:15:08 PM MT (link) | It's the end of the academic semester! I am ridiculously busy trying to finish everything for all my classes! It's so much fun!

Linux at 10:38:41 PM MT (link) | I finally got my DVD recorder! And... It was somewhat of a pain to get working. My Sony DRX500ULX does not work with dvdrtools or cdrecord-ProDVD, but it does work with dvd+rwtools. It works quite well, actually. My pre-mastered DVD images burn great on both the DVD+RW and DVD-R media that I've had time to test it with.

Linux at 11:31:47 PM MT (link) | Added a few more configs to my Linux section.

Linux at 11:23:57 PM MT (link) | I'm finally doing it! I'm turning into a Linux zealot (TM), formatting my notebook with Debian GNU/Linux. With the way my notebook is (the whole boots-only-from-USB-floppy-drive thing), it is really difficult, and I intend to document everything that I do.

Life at 11:16:53 PM MT (link) | It's spring break. To start my spring break off, I am going to do nothing and do absolutely nothing! Working great so far.

Linux at 04:53:52 PM MT (link) | I've been using pico as my UNIX text editor for the past 3 or 4 yrs. It really sucks.

So, I'm trying to learn vim as a replacement. I'm in love; it's amazing how much I've been missing out on, especially the technological wonders of the 20th century like syntax highlighting! Whoa!

vim isn't exactly user friendly. For example, it doesn't automatically generate a configuration for you the first time you run the program. You need to copy the example config, named vimrc_example.vim, to ~/.vimrc. Otherwise, you get stuck in some vi-compatibility mode, and with none of vim's redeeming features turned on. I've posted the vim configuration I am using. It's a work in progress, there are several neat plugins I am looking at adding.

Linux at 08:03:25 PM MT (link) | Hooked two computers via IEEE-1394/Firewire and used the Linux eth1394 driver today. Performance was horrible.. it maxed out at 7MB/sec, when it should be doing 48MB/sec. 7MB/sec is also pretty sad compared to the 11MB/sec (out of 12MB/sec theoretical) I get with plain old 100Mbps ethernet. Going to look into trying some performance tweaks.

Linux at 10:42:56 PM MT (link) | I figured out how to rip and image DVDs in Linux this weekend. It's ridiculously easy compared to when I last looked at this stuff...

I got vobcopy and installed all it's dependencies (there were several of them). Mount your DVD, and go to a directory with lots of space. Run vobcopy -i /mnt/cdrom/ -m, where /mnt/cdrom/ is where you mounted your DVD. Wait a while... Once done, it'll create a new directory inside your current with the DVD's title name, with that containing the decrypted VOBs. You can then copy any other extra DVD content that was unencrypted from your mount point into this directory.

To create an image, get a post-1.11a version of mkisofs, usually contained within cdrtools. Run the command mkisofs -dvd-video -o /some/path/some.img /some/path/NAME_OF_DVD_TITLE/. The resulting file doesn't need to be named .img, it could be named anything such as .iso. You can then easily mount this image via loopback, with a command such as mount -t auto -o loop /some/path/some.img /some/mountpoint. The resulting image then burns in dvdrtools as well as Stomp RecordNow on Windows.

Site at 10:15:16 PM MT (link) | Whoa!? I have a website!? I've been busy and keep putting off updates...

Linux at 06:37:36 PM MT (link) | GCC Myths and Facts, from Freshmeat.net. I know this stuff already but I wish I had it when I was learning.

Technology at 10:31:22 PM MT (link) | So, I finally got my ethernet address of my notebook registered at school. I can now waste time on my very own computer at school, rather than having to wait for a lab computer to free up.

I don't really understand the security of Ethernet MAC address registration. I can see a little security-through-obscurity factor playing in, but with it being so easy to forge and change a machine's address, I don't see what's supposed to be so secure.

Life at 04:37:20 PM MT (link) | Valentine's day sucks.

Computer Hardware at 08:38:42 PM MT (link) | Been going around in the techie circles today, an article from the IEEE Spectrum about how leaking capacitators muck up motherboards. While it hasn't happened to me, even with the hell I had with my components, I do know of 3 or 4 people who've had their entire system blow up in their faces because of their capacitators leaking. Reading the article, it's just seems to be a blame game. It looks as if manufacturers have no idea where all the parts of their products come from, and just want to pass the blame along when something nasty like this happens.

Computer Hardware at 08:27:59 PM MT (link) | My DVD burner has been backordered for the last month. This is beginning to get ridiculous. Food for thought, the Sony DRU500AX is a DRU500A drive with a firmware update, and the Sony DW-U10A is simply the OEM version of the Sony DRU-500A/AX. A lot of websites and forums out there are getting all these model names mixed up.

Life at 06:54:43 PM MT (link) | And a post at the end of the week. I need to start building a portfolio of personal projects and accomplishments and some sort of resume. Beginning to be important.

Life at 09:00:53 PM MT (link) | A good way to start a Monday, again staying past 6 PM at school!

I'm noticing that every laboratory class I take, I end up making an enemy with some inanimate piece of laboratory hardware crap.

In my computer science classes, it's those Microsoft Natural keyboards whose keys always got stuck, that being on top of me not liking to type on those type of keyboards anyway. I am not really a conventional 'touch typist'. I type the way I want to, typing fast because I know where the keys are by memory.

In my organic chemistry lab, it was those centrifuge tubes that always broke when I washed them. I only broke two and got them replaced for free, but it was annoying.

In my general chemistry III lab, it was the wash bottle that leaked and sprayed water all over you. When you sat it down, it would continue to leak, one time all over my lab results (yes, I wrote in ink that day). The spectrophotometers in that lab never worked either. Supposed to get nice-looking bell curves when the data is graphed, instead I get half-assed looking roller coasters.

For the analytical chemistry lab I am taking this semester, it's the ring stand from hell. Yes, it is from hell. Today it almost smashed a $70 buret into my desk when it felt like not holding it up anymore.

Bleh.

Life at 09:40:27 PM MT (link) | Busy, busy, BUSY. Last few posts have been nothing about me complaining about how I don't have time, and this and that. I haven't written any actual content or anything for this site. Blah.

Whenever I do get the time, I wanted to do some HOWTO-type documents for things like djbdns on Redhat Linux (this took me a while, and there aren't good documents on it already), and an Idiots Guide to IPv6.

Life at 12:33:42 AM MT (link) | I've stayed at the University past 6 PM every day this week. Most days starting at 8-10 AM, and me staying for the duration of the day. I'm very tired.

On a side note, my IPv6 tunnel provided via Freenet6 is down. Apparently some router in Canada is acting up and dropping all the packets of me and several others on Efnet/#ipv6. I need to complain to my ISP, or switch tunnel providers or something.

Site at 12:59:48 AM MT (link) | I've decided to be even more paranoid: I'm removing e-mail addresses completely from display on my guestbook. You will still be required to enter it, but it won't be shown on the page, waiting for a spam harvester to come along. If you want to e-mail someone from it, e-mail me and I will provide you with their e-mail address.

Weblink at 03:21:01 AM MT (link) | I think I've seen yet another nirvana in XHTML/CSS design. Clagnut. All I can say is, damn. A lot of techniques I thought I thought up myself are used on his site. It's just so freakishly well engineered and well done, wow. I'm going to start collecting this in a section of my quicklinks sidebar until I can get a bookmarks system or a links page up.

Life at 11:32:25 PM MT (link) | There is something sad about throwing flowers away.

Site at 08:54:10 PM MT (link) | Added a page about my car.

Linux at 06:31:34 PM MT (link) | Whatever I previously said about the lag problem when doing disk IO with my kernel being gone, forget it. It's still here, and just as bad. But much, much less pronounced. I need to figure out what's causing this.

Site at 05:25:51 PM MT (link) | I have complete artists' block trying to think of a new design. So, blah, I just fixed this one. I removed all the background-fixed: images so that this page doesn't scroll as badly. Added some borders and stuff so it all looks nice or something like that.

I really need to rewrite the backend of this site to something nicer. Need a themes system and all that cool stuff.

And yes, this site still looks like crap in Internet Explorer. Live with it.

Politics at 01:01:44 AM MT (link) | Was at the NMSU Prehealth Organization's meeting tonight, and we had a guest speaker Dr. Clark from the student health center.

When asked what was the most frustrating thing he'd encountered, he basically replied red tape. The medical industry, but really, all business in America, has shifted from cutting costs to maximizing profits. I just thought that was artfully said.

Site at 12:58:00 AM MT (link) | Yes, I've slacked off doing anything. I don't have any kind of creative wonderful design thought up either. I've moved to my subdomain, so please update any links to this site to bitchmaster.hotnudiegirls.com.

Site at 05:49:21 PM MT (link) | I'm changing a lot of stuff around. Please link to http://bitchmaster.hotnudiegirls.com from now on if you're linking to my personal webpage. It's not working yet as of this post, but it will be. I've a simple filler page thing for the main hotnudiegirls.com domain that features actual hot girls, though they are not nude. While I have bad taste as it is, there is a lot of stuff that disgusts me anyway.

Linux at 02:04:46 AM MT (link) | Got my new Linux 2.4.20 kernel, with all my patches. So far, no weirdness that I was previously having with my 2.4.19 kernel that lasted me a month and a half. Including that "lag," if I had to use a word to describe it, that happened anytime anyone did any heavy disk I/O. I think the read-latency patch and the -aa VM updates killed it. I've made a page with all the Linux kernel patches that I use.

Linux at 02:21:04 AM MT (link) | I lost my longest uptime I've had in Linux, sometime around 46 days and 3 hrs. System just froze. I'm going to blame the NVIDIA Linux binary drivers because it's convenient.

I guess it is for the better. The night it crashed, New Years Day morning, I come home to find some nasty XFS filesystem error on one of my drives. Good oppurtunity to update all my patches. I'm going to put up a kernel patch page at some point.

Life at 02:12:32 AM MT (link) | Bah! So far 2003 is starting out pretty lame for me.

No new political bungle-ups or people to laugh at, no wars, no interesting news, no... Well, nothing. I think I am just going to start bitching about random things that set me off so that I have something to put up on here.

Computer Hardware at 02:08:11 AM MT (link) | So, I ordered my DVD recorder. And, apparently, absolutely no one has the Sony DRX500UL drive in stock.

Despite the drive being able to burn to both DVD-R/-RW and DVD+R/+RW formats, it is still finicky about brand of media you use. Both the forums at vcdhelp.com and cdrlabs.com have their own media compatibility lists, linked here and here.

After reading several posts, I think the media that is best for this drive is Ritek's DVD-R General media. Supposedly Rima.com has the best prices and support on these discs, coming in at 79 cents/disc when bought in 100-packs. Probably also going to use Verbatim's DVD+R media, which is available locally at Sams Club in 12-packs for $24. I haven't gotten my drive yet so I have no actual idea whether either of these discs work. Probably going to stick to both of these and people's worth of mouth rather than try out DVD-R demo packs.

Linux at 02:10:38 AM MT (link) | Alright, I give up! I can't take being subscribed to linux-kernel via Dell's linux-kernel digests. It is just too many messages, my e-mail Inbox is getting clobbered.

I am probably going to keep up via the newsgroup fa.linux.kernel; it'll be much easier to read only what I am interested in rather than everyone's cry-for-help messages.

Site at 07:38:27 PM MT (link) | Finally, I have this site up and viewable by the public! I've made a new index page (the disclaimer) as well as a guestbook (please sign it). Enjoy! Give me comments.

Technology at 04:04:01 PM MT (link) | Sudhian Media is running an article on why Microsoft is their own worst enemy.

I switched to Linux because it let me do what I want to do. Most of the software is written by developers who want to do some things as their users, rather than trying to hook them into buyng continuous upgrades for features that aren't in their interests.

He makes a threat at the end that users are going to leave in drones if this keeps up. Well, they're not. He admits he himself still uses Windows. Empty threats against companies who want to lock you in don't mean a thing if you continue to use their products.

Site at 03:04:19 AM MT (link) | Finally, I got off my ass and wrote the web log system for this website. It's simple, it works, and I made it. I have no complaints.

Next up I am going to fix the guestbook script, which a lot of people have tried to use only to find out that it doesn't work. Got to love surprises.

Everyone is bitching that this is hotnudiegirls.com, and that there are no actual hot nudiee girls (or guys for that matter). No one likes my naked bust I use for my sidebar. So, I am planning out some ideas to actually get hot nudie girls here. I am paranoid about it because most pictures are copyrighted and I'm frankly afraid of getting sued.

One idea I had to get pictures was to make something like Jamie Zawinksi's web collage scripts, which randomly probe the internet for pictures and assembles a collage of them. I could do this, except with hot nudie and hot semi-nudie girls, which we all know have LOTS of pictures on the Web. These images could be updated every hour or something. This is a good idea because since no image will hopefully stick around, I can't get sued for using them because no one will remember them. It's the author's fault if they left hot nudie girl pictures lying around.

I might actually make this site work in something other than Mozilla and Konquerer. I'll think about it. I hate Internet Exploiter--err Explorer.

Oh. And I finally fixed the dates on the bottom of the pages. It's apparently some bug in either Apache 2.0 or PHP 4. The workaround is in the PHP online annotated manual.

Life at 02:47:08 AM MT (link) | Today is my birthday. Born at Bombay General Hospital, in Bombay, India, at some time I don't remember in the morning. I'm going to take the stance of an ex-girlfriend; there isn't any really special about the day you were born. It's just another meaningless day. And yes, she was almost depressing as me.

No Topic at 12:00:00 AM MT (link) | Meh, updates within 2 weeks. I really ought to get some automation or something.

The end of the current semester is coming, and I'm mostly getting stressed on finishing things.

I am sick of boiling things. I swore I have had to boil something 5 times every week at school. In that nice smooth glassware that inherently prevents boiling and takes forever. Boiling chips only help so much.

No Topic at 12:00:00 AM MT (link) | Portrait of a Blogger. Funny stuff. I think I am some split between Techie, War, Goth, and Link web logger, though I haven't really started doing anything yet. For the record, I hate the word blog.

No Topic at 12:00:00 AM MT (link) | I'm in love with those Mozilla Xft2/Fontconfig/GTK2 patches. I mean, look at this!. So, yes I am cheating and using the precompiled binaries rather than making my own. I will build my own copy soon.

Found a lot of nice political and good commentary weblogs and personal websites lately. Most of which are worth coming back to read again. Need to set up a nice links section at some point.

No Topic at 12:00:00 AM MT (link) | I've discovered the two most annoying, painful things about chemistry labs. Filtering things, whether they be something simple like a vacuum filtration, or use of an ion exchange column, and boiling. Water, or whatever. Either will always take FOREVER and also be boring to watch. I hear the next level of hell is when analytical equipment stops working.

No Topic at 12:00:00 AM MT (link) | Apparently, there ARE people who didn't just blow their nice 4-day weekend. I suppose I should feel bad now because I did nothing useful.

And no I still haven't figured out why the dates at the bottom of the page say December 31, 1969.

No Topic at 12:00:00 AM MT (link) | OK. So I've finally moved all of the old pages from my old FAT32 partition onto nice new Linux ones. I just need to get the news system and guestbook and other database stuff up, and I'll be on a roll. I can maybe even add content in the meantime.

I'm wondering why universities give breaks. As if most students actually use them to do anything productive like spending time doing projects and schoolwork. I'm sure professors and students who know better probably get a lot done with the extra time, but probably a lot more get absolutely nothing done. I feel bad saying that I did absolutely nothing with my break.

I think my computer's finally sort of stable. For the record, so I don't forget it, it's stable at 166x11.5 with core voltage 1.675v and memory voltage 2.6v. I'm running now at 170x11.5 with a core voltage of 1.75v and memory at 2.7v. So far I can't tell I've had any overclocking related crashes (yes, I've ascended to the point where I can actually tell).

Oh, yea, if not obvious, the design of this page has slightly changed. I tried to make it look less boring. It does look less boring... but I'm not sure. I need to add some funkiness to the right sidebar. I looked at this site in Internet Explorer this morning, and it looks horrible. Oh well.

So, the last-edited dates being messed up has nothing to do with the files being on a FAT32 filesystem. They're still messed up, and I have no idea why.

No Topic at 12:00:00 AM MT (link) | Just felt like updating this, in case anyone cared.

I haven't had much time lately with school, but my midterms are finishing and I will have reasonable time to actually do something with this site. The major thing I have been lazy with, is moving all those old files off my old Windows-data partitions onto Linux ones. Doing this, I can weed out all this old crap that I have lying around. Particularly, all these old websites that I will probably never read or look at again. I can't count how many different versions of "Samat's World" I have, it is annoying.

For the record, my car turned 10 000 miles around 8:45 PM on Saturday, Sept 21 somewhere along south Telshor going towards the hospital. Yay.

I'm still trying to get all my damn new computer garbage to work. It's been 2 months, and I cannot still say from where all these little stability issues are coming from. Blagh. By the time I do get all this to work, the new Athlon Thoroughbred revision Bs as well as the new Pentium 4s will be out and I will be slow again. Technology sucks, really.

Hrmm, I'm still listening to the same band after 2 or 3 months, Nine Inch Nails. Various albums... The Downward Spiral, Further Down the Spiral, and The Fragile. I need to get the other NIN albums someday, this stuff is pretty good.

No Topic at 12:00:00 AM MT (link) | I don't have anyway to remember what changes I've made, so I'm documenting them here.

Using Apache 2.0's Input Filters to let the .nudie file extension be parsed as normal HTML and PHP, since I could not find any elegant or easier way to do it using some kind of address writing. Many of the links on the pages are now broken, due to them still linking to the old .htm files instead of the new .nudie files. I need to write some kind of script to do parse through and change all these references rather than going through each file and changing them like an idiot.

Need to fix the database server. It's offline right now because it's a major security risk to run until I do fix it. Once fixed, create old guestbook tables as well as the new weblog/news systems tables.

Nuke the comments system. I don't want comments being viewed publically, especially with some of the ass-for-friends I have.

Changed the default color scheme to blue. The green was unreadable on everyone else's crappy monitor setup, including my VAIO... Oh well. The green is still changable in web browsers with selectable stylesheets. Need to abstract both the blue and the green stylesheets so they only contain color information.

Move the whole site off my old Windows drives onto a regular Linux partition. FAT32 is doing some weird things, and I would like to use some symlinks in some places. I'm wondering whether FAT32 is making all the last changed dates on the bottom of the pages say December 1969.

Add some fresh content to these pages. Most of this stuff is really old. I've more humor pages to add, as well I want to create a resource for widescreen/custom resolutions gaming, an RPM tips and tricks page, as well as some FAQs for some of the IRC channels I frequent. I swear I have repeated how to install a Creative Audigy sound card in RHL at least 5 times in the past 3 days, and I don't even own the card!

The indexed page directory lister is disabled. It's going to go into my home directory so the junk there can be viewed. I've disabled the index page that is there now because I don't want people messing with the other pages, like all the people adding their own quotes to my quotes database. I removed the picture of my now ex-girlfriend.