Monday, December 11, 22:47 CST
Ars Technica: The Complete System Building
Guide. Looks like a good place to start.
It seems quite likely that I won't be updating this page for the rest of the
week, with finals and all. I'm debating hauling the ancient and venerable
computer home over Christmas break, since we're not allowed in the dorms (!)
'til classes start again.
Guess it depends on whether or not I decide to dive in and start
building the new system I've been dreaming about for, oh, 4 years or so...
2000
December
11
:: write in the margins
Sunday, December 10, 15:02 CST
NASA
Contacts Oldest Spacecraft on 35th Anniversary. Something about this story
just warms the cockles of my geeky heart. I think Space.com needs to go on the
list of sites I check semi-regularly.
Did little of anything much this weekend. Watched
X-Men with the parents
and one sister last night. Went to church, and then decorated the Christmas
tree. Sometimes, a general lack of eventfulness is not a bad thing.
Finals week is here at last, which probably means I should be studying right
now instead of typing this and arguing with Eric about interface design...
2000
December
10
:: write in the margins
Saturday, December 9, 14:14 CST
A rather awful (though nowhere near as awful as I'd intended)
piece of fiction written for a lit
class.
Saturday, December 9, 1:42 CST
Just got done watching Pitch Black, which was good - a little better
than I'd remembered, even - and Rules of Engagement, which was, well,
iffy at best.
I think maybe I'll sleep now.
2000
December
9
:: write in the margins
Wednesday, December 6, 19:27 CST
Well, the third and final installment of the
Dune miniseries was last night.
Some day, someone will create the definitive film rendition of
Dune, a production that will, somehow, encompass the sheer coolness
that is the novel, and do so with a visual power that is awe inspiring.
This, pretty obviously, was not that production... But still, all in all...
Not bad. It veered between Really Cheesy and Genuinely Cool from time to time,
and there were some questionable decisions made, but in the end I'm far happier
with this version than I ever expected to be. And the last half hour or so was
carried off about as well as I could've hoped for.
(There's a bit of
Dune commentary over on Lake Effect,
along with a link to piece about an earlier
failed movie attempt that would probably
have been as bizarre as any film ever made.)
Wow. Opera's
going to an advertising driven model - use the software no charge, and put up
with ads, or register and get rid of them. I'm torn on how practically workable
an idea this is - as far as I can tell, banner ads *just don't work* - but
regardless, it does seem to indicate that they're having a hard time making
money with their current shareware model. Not surprising - how many people are
really willing to pay for a better browser? And of course they're sort of
shooting themselves in the foot, expecting people who've registered once to pay
again for major upgrades... There's a good chance I'll wind up paying for the
Linux port, simply because it's good software I use a *lot*, but I've got to be
in the minority here.
The way I see it, of course, the best revenue model would be one that opened
up the code and somehow generated profit, but I'm not sure what that would be.
How much money can you possibly make doing support for a web browser?
The one complaint I most often see levelled against free software (which,
in point of fact is very nearly all the software I ever use, and the only kind
I can ever see creating) is that you can't make money doing it. This is
pretty obviously false (well, it seems obvious from where I sit), but it is
a vast oversimplification / restatement of the simple fact that it's harder to
make money on something that people don't have to pay for (something which, in
point of fact, discourages people from paying for it in the traditional
sense). Of course, since it's also pretty obvious from where I sit that
commercial software costs too damn much and that the vast bulk of the consumer
software industry is built upon an artificial, self perpetuating scarcity, this
isn't really a *bad* thing. It's just that people creating (good, useful)
software need and deserve compensation for what they're doing ("The spice
must flow!"), and it's not always easy to see how to make that happen.
Not like I have a clue what to do about it. Here's hoping that a lot of
people smarter than I am figure things out sooner or later...
2000
December
6
:: write in the margins
Monday, December 4, 15:22 CST
Ahhhhh, finally. My natural ability to ignore every deadline, obligation,
requirement and mutually exclusive demand upon my finite time and limited
mental capacity until I'm trapped in a collapsing series of miniature crisis
points for weeks on end has reasserted itself... The suspense was killing
me.
Old habits die hard, it seems.
So, what's happened lately?
Went to a Lorie
Line Christmas concert in Omaha with my family last Thursday. Not the kind
of music I usually listen to, but it was good. An amazing amount of talent
there.
Definitely time to expand my musical horizons.
Music Plug of the Day: Ever seen High Fidelity? If not, you should. At any
rate, the soundtrack contains some excellent stuff. Been listening to the Beta
Band obsessively for the past couple of days - search your filesharing service
of choice for "Dry the Rain" or "Needles in my Eyes".
Definitely on the Actually Going to Buy This Music list.
(There's a URL scheme we could use. Some standardized way to link
to searches for media files...)
Also managed to hit a bookstore Thursday, and picked up a copy of Philip K.
Dick's The Man in the High Castle. It was excellent, in that weird and
not at all what I'm used to way. Need to read more PKD... Do Androids
Dream of Electric Sheep was good, and "Second Variety" is one of
the most effectively creepy things I've ever read.
I watched (of course) the first installment of Sci-Fi's
Dune miniseries last night. And here's the amazing thing: It
Didn't Suck.
It was far from perfect, and of course they've still got 2/3 of their
alotted time left with which to botch the whole thing, but so far... Not bad.
Not bad at all. More on that later, I'm sure...
2000
December
4
:: write in the margins
Friday, December 1, 16:19 CST
Day Without
Weblogs.
All original content on p1k3, unless otherwise noted, is
released to the public domain.