qpmarl blog

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The Public Library here has high speed internet and cd writers... what more could you ask for. To bad they have a 1 hour per day per person limit.

They also have word, excell, and powerpoint... pretty useless as far as I'm concerned... especially considering the 1 hour limit.

But the internet is not filtered (they ask that patrons do not visit obscene websites). There doesn't appear to be a limit on downloads (it's not specified). And it's fast. But they only have 2 internet access terminals at this location (Lakeland)

I rode by bike today for the first time in 2 years (or more). New crank arms, pedals, tires, seat, under-seat bag.

The biggest problem with it was the bend in the frame where the rear derailer attaches. I came home once about 2 or 3 years ago to find that someone had been using my bike and left it by the trampoline. When I picked it up and tried to ride it back to the garage, the chain wouldn't turn. When I looked closer, I could see that the little tab which the derailer connects to was bent about 90 deg. away from the frame... I took the derailer off then and straightened the frame, but the thread insert was damaged so I just Jerry-rigged it to get the derailer back on. I didn't trust it to stay on for any serious riding, so Matt and I decided to make it into a chainsaw powered bike - which required cutting the crank arm off of the front chain wheel.

We never did get the chainsaw attached, so my bike sat in the old house at the Grace's for a few years... The last time I was down there, I decided that I wanted to fix it up right so that I could ride it again. So I brought it with me to Minnesota, but didn't start looking for new parts until recently.

Now it's ready to ride and it works pretty well. I adjusted the derailers so that it shifts nicely with the new parts.

It needs a new paintjob though. And the rear wheel is a bit twisted, but usable.

Gotta go. I'm at the library and they want to close.

Apparently, many PC manufacturers aren't including Windows XP cd's or recovery cd's with the computers they sell which have Windows XP pre-installed. Is this some kind of conspiracy with Microsoft? Do they figure that people can't pirate winXP if they don't have a cd? How do they expect people to recover from a crash? Do they seriously think that WinXP is so stable that it'll never need to be re-installed or "recovered"?

I figure that it is some kind of conspiracy - they probably get some royalties from BestBuy (and other service centers) whey they charge people $65 to re-install it. You can get the OEM version with a fresh new CD and CD-Key for like $120 (still a rip-off) if you buy a harddrive.

My cousin Liz called me tonight because her computer refuses to boot into WinXP(not even safe mode), saying that some system file is missing or corrupted, then it gives a location that looks more like a registry key than a file location. She finally found a WinXP cd somewhere, but her only option short of re-installing the whole thing is to manually replace the file with the recovery console which she is not currently capable of doing by herself. BestBuy will reinstall it for her for $65, but that doesn't include backing up her data (which will undoubtedly be erased by their recovery process). They want another $80 some to do the backup and that only covers up to 7 Gb - Any more than that and she'll have to pay even more.

Windows XP may crash less than older versions (I doubt that), but it's much more of a headache when it does. And I think that it all has to do with Microsoft's paranoia about people pirating it. Of course people are going to pirate it... people will pirate it no matter what steps they take to prevent it... so why make it more of a pain for the rest of us (and legitimate users too).

Of course I don't use any MS products anymore myself, but I still hear plety of cries for help from people who do.

My advice is to learn to use any unix variant (linux, freeBSD, openBSD, netBSD, Mac OS X, etc) and avoid MS at any cost. I think that it would be possible to get linux setup (by a service tech) so that the home user doesn't ever have to worry about configuration, recovery, drivers or software installation.

I haven't been much into television, movies, games, or music lately. It's been kindof a passive thing - I just didn't have time for or interrest in them anymore. But now I think that I'm going to be actively "not into" movies, video games, television, and music (all forms of popular music) - which means that I'm going to intentionally avoid them all together. I still may occasionally watch a movie with some family or something, but I'm not going to go out specifically to watch, rent, or buy a movie. Same with Television. I'm not going to play any serious videogames anymore - just simple stupid ones like gnibbles and only to pass the time while I'm waiting for my computer to do something or I need to take a short break. I still plan to listen to Classical and Folk music; and to learn to play the guitar.

Well, this is my third post in the last half hour (I've been away from it for a while). But this should be the last one for today.

The following is adapted from an email I wrote to Thomas and has been edited for content:

I'm getting tired of the word Broadband... it's a stupid term, not very descriptive of High Speed Internet, and I think it was probably started by someone at AOL.

In fact the whole concept of being "on" the internet is pretty annoying... you're not on it, you're using it. Do you say "I'm gettin on the power grid" whenever you turn on a light bulb? I think that the internet will become more of a utility like electricity and water. People just won't think about it - it'll be natural.

In fact, I don't think we should even say "High Speed Internet", but just "Internet" and for any poor suckers still on dial-up we can call it "Slow Poke Internet"

I get annoyed with Microsoft every time I use someone else's computer (Mine's microsoft free now). Internet Explorer just suddenly decides that it doesn't want to display the Status bar and other stupid stuff like that (It's not the webpage either 'cause I hadn't loaded one yet.)

I don't think it'll be long before people get pissed off with crappy broken software and start looking for alternatives - eventually Microsoft will crash and burn.

Well, it looks like I might be spending at least part of the summer in Pennsylvania working with Dave on Faith and Pat's addition.

My fixed position menu doesn't display properly in Internet Explorer. It's Microsoft's fault for not making a W3C compliant browser. Mozilla will display the menu properly.

But it's still readable in Internet Explorer, so I'm not going to change it.

Nevermind the Dodge Viper, I want a Bugatti Veyron
W-16 engine producing 1,000 hp.
burning gas at 1.33 gallons/minute

This is the University of Kentucky's KASY0 Super computer build from desktop hardware (Athlon XP 2600's)

I've been here in Floodwood for a while helping uncle Dave fix up Grandma Rene's house.

The basement was a complete mess except for the two bedrooms that Dave had fixed up earlier. The bathroom was a disaster area. We completely rebuilt the bathroom, removing all the old rotting wall studs and floor. We reused the tub and shower surround, but cleaned them up real nice so they look brand new. The sink and toilet are new and the arrangement is different to give more room to the toilet (it was a little cramped before). The sink counter is also larger. We also build a finished hallway which runs past the bathroom and branches off into the laudry room to the right and the unfinished furnace room/storage room to the left. There's also a closet in the hallway. All the plumbing in the bathroom and laundry room is new. And we installed some new carpet and trim in one of the bedrooms.

When I got here, Dave had torn the old kitchen(and ground floor bathroom) flooring out. We installed a nice new floor with laminate floor tiles. The ground floor bathroom is also completely redone with a new sink and more room for the toilet. Grandma put wallpaper up in there.

We also replaced the old ceiling tiles in the living room which were falling apart and sagging. We reused the existing tracks, but straightened them. The ceiling installation was delayed because the old wiring to the ceiling lights was obviously a fire hazard and also had to be replaced.

I've also been helping Dave with work on the farm and at the duplex he owns in Duluth; and also with some window and door trim for Laurie and Sean.

I edited my template a bit from blogger.com's bluebird template. I made the menu position absolute so it stays in place while the page scrolls; I made the entry's right margin wider so it doesn't cover the menu; and I added some borders on the bottom and sides of the entries.

Now I gotta see if I can upload some images to blogspot.com to display on the blog.

Everybody start your own blog and email the address to me.

Take the link above and just go with the free blogspot option

Hey, I got a blog now so everyone(who cares) can keep updated with what's going on in my life. I'll try to update once a day - or every couple of days.

I'm in Floodwood, MN right now. I'll be leaving for Afton, MN on Monday. I'll be looking for a job there and will probably be there for a while.

I'm still using my old 800 MHz Athlon Computer with an 80gig HD. I upgraded the ram to 384 Mb, which is the max for my motherboard because it can't handle DIMMs larger than 128 Mb and only has 3 slots. It's quite outdated now with 3+ GHz machines available, but it's fast enough for me. I don't really care about state of the art videogames or pushing my system to it's limits anymore.

I do not use any Microsoft products at all now. I've removed Windows XP from my harddrive since I've hardly used it at all in the last few months. So I don't have any problem with worms like Blaster, Welchia, or Sasser. No more danger from Columbian vbs script viruses either.

I recommend Linux to everyone who knows what a harddrive is and how it is different from RAM. You don't need Windows with all of it's security holes and 4 hours-to-download updates. Linux does not need to be rebooted all the time to run correctly. I haven't shutdown or rebooted for 4 days and 10 hours and my system is running as smoothly as ever. I only reboot for power outages or when I decide to add some functionality to my kernel. Linux has a wider range of available eye candy as well. It's really not that hard to learn. If you've been around since the MS-DOS days or have learned to use the command line in windows, they you should have no problem learning linux's commands and options. You really don't need to use them much once you have things setup the way you want - if you find the right linux distribution with a nice graphical installation program, you might never need to use them at all if you are comfortable with the distributions default configurations. Most distros come with a ton of software including simple games, office applications, and graphics tools. I've seen a lot of people who are impressed with the linux screen savers (xscreensaver) and want to know if they can get a particular one for windows -- see http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/ for the anser. Oh, and Linux is truly free - You don't have to pirate it. I currently use the gentoo distribution www.gentoo.org.