seryn: flowers (Default)
Gaack.

I'm pretty sure there's a clause in any relationship which dooms only one person to the hell that is doing your own networking setup. Right? Or any sort of understanding that means, "Seryn doesn't have to fucking know her computer's MAC address and it's completely okay for her not to know hexidecimal counting."

#00 The LAN password is written on a piece of paper from a non-sticky stickynote pad. It's under the salt shaker on the table. There are a couple dozen of these sheets there. All these pieces of paper are covered in cryptic alphanumeric vomit. Phone numbers, IP addresses, catalog numbers for ordering gadgets, map coordinates, MAC addresses for devices unspecified.... and once you find the right paper, it has the MAC address for the original device (TiVo) interleaved with the LAN password and they're both hexidecimal. And written in pencil.
#0 Knowing the LAN password doesn't make it go.
#0.5 oh yeah, we have restricted access to only specified MAC addresses.
#1 The MAC address is not printed on a handy sticker included with the laptop.
#1.5 Windows doesn't know its MAC address and if you open Help and ask about MAC address, it suggests you might want to configure a new printer. (WTF?)
#2 I had to be online to find out how to look up my MAC address so I could be online. I guess if you're buying your first computer, you'd better really really really know what you're doing because this would be extremely difficult to bootstrap.
#3 After logging into the router. Which, because I had to do my Kindle wifi setup too I actually left myself a clue about.... it says "routerlogin.net user admin password [clue]" (([clue] is not the password, it's indicating that I wrote a clue to the router's password ON THE ROUTER.)) So I was able to login to the router. I was able to find the part that explains the problem.
#4 I was able to add the MAC address to my new laptop but when I went back to the laptop and told it to try connecting again, it still fails. No explanation. Maybe I mistyped the LAN password?

The new powerstrip I bought, however, is excellent.
seryn: sad face sheep (sadmiro)
I am annoyed with Yahoo Mail.

They are forcing a change to a new system that is not entirely out of beta (all the help pages suggest it still is, although the official launch was this week) and the email I received today says in about a month they're going to turn the old one off.

Ready for the kicker? They're not supporting Opera. They're supporting Safari which is about a thousand times less compatible and has a whole percent more users. (The Opera percentage is probably artificially low since Opera has a setting built in and set by default which lies about which browser it is. You can pick anything you want. I leave mine on Opera to help boost their results, but a lot of the time when something says it only works in IE, I'll toggle it temporarily. It's easy to do on the fly.) I've been using Yahoo Mail in Opera for 8 years.

Part of the reason I'm still using Yahoo Mail at all is because Google has a hidden war against Opera and every time they release a new feature, gmail gets a little weird... it used to stop working entirely. The Opera people release patches the same day and there is detente for a while until the Google people come up with something else that will purposefully make it break in Opera.

I'm using Chrome, but damn that shit is scary-ass. The whole point of it is to store all your online activity in Google's tracking servers. So I try to only use it for things Google already knows about me.

I use Firefox for all my real-person stuff. And I have to say that the new Yahoo Mail feels a bit clunky and kludged for a non-beta. Of course it's better than Linked In, but I'm pretty sure divination by marmoset entrails is better than Linked In's interfaces. (It's beyond shocking that Linked In is talking IPO, although if I were them I'd IPO too so I could take the money and get the fuck out of Dodge before everyone realizes it's "sock puppets advertising pet food with free shipping" bad.)

But I'm really annoyed about Yahoo making a sudden forced change to an unsupported and mostly untested product. Sure, if they'd like, I can move all my stuff to gmail. I could see them wanting to migrate everyone but you don't announce the forced change DURING the week you've done the official launch. You wait and see if there are problems. You actually support all whoooo-boy-that's-hard FIVE browsers or if you're going to fuck over people, drop Safari since including that is about 90,000 times harder than allowing people to use unsupported browsers that don't happen to match the official listed ones. (I have the latest Opera, there is ZERO reason I couldn't just be warned and told I can take my chances. That's what happened with the last conversion and it was really hard to back out of the change since one of the things that didn't work was the revert button.)

It's a free service and they are under no obligation to continue providing it, but this was not the way to tell us all to go fuck ourselves.
seryn: water drop  (green drop)
You know what I really dislike? The perpetuation of the stereotype that all murderers are "loners".

Magically, as soon as someone does something horrific, they retroactively become anti-social and friendless. People who were captains of football teams or head cheerleaders or debate club presidents or PTA volunteers or scout leaders or lay clergy or just social bimbos of either gender.... as soon as they kill someone, the news says, "The police have arrested ____, a [negative adjective] loner."

I'm not saying that loners and introverts do not ever snap under the demands of society to homogenize and be just like everyone else. However, I am really tired of the assumption that extroverted social people aren't ever tempted into nefarious acts; therefore someone who commits a nefarious act must have been a loner.
seryn: my own favorite hat (hat)
I have a headache.
headache litany )
seryn: flowers (Default)
This morning [personal profile] corrvin sent me a link to a Threads article wherein a woman had made itty bitty dolls of herself representing her annual self from birth on. It's a visual autobiography. The link was given with one of those *squee* type comments, but I was completely appalled. (Corr, don't take it personal-like, I'm not complaining about you. And I know you liked it for the sewing.)

WTF. It's a self-aggrandizing depiction of a woman no one would care about unless they knew her personally. She's not Thomas Jefferson or Hillary Clinton or LeBron James or Taylor Swift. There's really no reason this woman should have an autobiography. At least not while a single person bitches about how idiotic blogs and Twitter are because they talk about things no one cares about.

The fact that this project took the woman person-years of time to complete astounds me--- not that the amount of effort wasn't demonstrative, but that anyone would bother.

It's ugly.

I can spend 3 years of my life hand-dyeing macaroni pieces for a collage recreating my cat's best vomited upchucks, but it's not going to be worthwhile.

I know it's supposed to be art made from craft. But it's not elegant like a piece of handmade furniture. It's not useful like a dress or blanket.

All autobiographies are self-aggrandizing, inherently. But if I were to write one, there would be people asking who did I think I am? And that's how I feel about this.
seryn: frozen water drop (ice drop)
Wow. I managed to upset myself.

Watching some news-ish show shot at ComicCon. They were interviewing Nathan Fillion. Apparently he was the captain of the Firefly which was some show done by the Buffy people when Buffy started to suck (or maybe what caused Buffy to suck toward the end). He's also Rick Castle on the drama show called Castle.

He said that he was also in this movie where the guy thinks he's been given superpowers by the holy church and [blah plugging the movie.]

He said it's been 8 years since Firefly and the fans still love him. That the fans are so polite and nice. Then he turns to the audience and says, "God bless you all."

I am very upset. In a place picketed by the Kansan assholes, the ones claiming that they know what the common God prefers (hatred), there's this dude implying a cohesive message. Did he mean to do that? Should we all boycott Nathan Fillion for being an honorary member of the Kansan Asshole League (now with chapters in all 50 states)?
seryn: flowers (Default)
Recently I came across someone who claims to do a lot of programming and who was listing his favorite monospace fonts.

The first one listed is Courier. Pretty much this is the default monospace font everyone uses. It's okay. It has serifs. It's readily available.

All 9 other fonts listed were sans-serif. I loathe sans-serif. There is very little reason for its common existence since it decreases the differentiability of many letters.

In the 1970s, portable typewriters only had the numbers 2 through 9, because you were supposed to use the 'l' for 1 and the 'O' for 0. Now, today, in Courier (which is what the DW composition window defaults to using), those all look different to me. I can easily see the difference between a and o. (a, o) There is never the dreaded rn=m business that is the hallmark of Arial. Obviously monospace fonts have no kerning issues, which minimizes the run-together issue, but why not take advantage of the serifs which distinguish things more clearly?

I still have very little respect for someone who claims to be a coder who honestly believes a sans-serif font is a viable choice for coding, ever. When you are looking through 300,000 lines of code written by a decade's worth of crack-driven Russian and Chinese code-monkeys looking for the idiotic mistake that is making your employer lose millions every hour, there is no reason to use a font where "1" and "l" and "|" look the same. ( 1, l, | )
seryn: flowers (Default)
I really dislike the Fourth of July as it's celebrated in current times.
because you've all heard this before )
seryn: fountain pen nib (screed pen)
I am attempting to watch the DVD of the newish movie Sherlock Holmes. The one with that actor who's always getting arrested for something, Robert Downy something. He's not very British.

I say I am attempting to watch this, but it's a struggle. It's filmed in the fucking dark. We've turned the brightness up to max where the subtitles glow like they've been irradiated by several nuclear blasts and you still can't see shit of the details that Holmes (during that scene specifically) was saying are so very crucial.

There really is no excuse for this. I cannot imagine how watching this movie in a theater would be anything other than a snooze fest because I can't hear what they're saying (only understanding because of the subtitles) and I can't see anything that's going on. Movie theaters do not stop and turn up the brightness.

If the production company cannot afford decent lighting so things show up in the recording, then maybe they should hire cheaper actors or wait until they have appropriate financing.
seryn: flowers (Default)
Apparently TiVo has come up with something new. *yawn*
Read more... )
seryn: tea (virgin tea)
I went to Target and spent less than $100. Since I normally go every 3, 4, or 6 months, my total is usually significantly higher. I made a stranger laugh. Two women were arguing about whether they should buy pre-filled plastic Easter eggs or fill them themselves. I suggested that filling them myself meant all the remaining M&Ms were for me, so I had the incentive.

I want outside furniture. I sat in some at Target, but it was all terrible. And I think they build it for people who want stuff to put on their grass because I wouldn't want the sharp metal feet resting directly on concrete. I keep thinking I should have a cafe table and stools for the drinking of morning coffee. I would also really like a rocker or glider chair for outside.

Currently my outside space is shared with a bechilded family. Not only do I personally dislike children, but this particular family has no bloody clue how to raise a decent human being. I usually feel very Grinchly, especially on weekend mornings with all the noise, Noise, NoIsE, NOISE. It's strange how a child who screams loud enough to attract the Bogeyman when awakened on a weekday would be so different on weekends. He is willing to get up before dawn's alarm goes off and certainly before dawn's arrived at work and pushed the sun into the groove of day. Children really have no decent cartoons anymore. All the Saturday morning cartoons are puerile. I, unfortunately, have to listen to them through the wall, but its parents cannot detect its airhorn-esque screams of glee over the animated moron parade.

But ranting aside, I don't know that I want to buy nice outside furniture when the child who takes his mother's prize possessions from inside and throws them around until they break on the concrete balcony can touch my stuff. He's clearly demonstrated that he is sub-human and destructive, but my only recourse is not to leave my things where he can reach them. I find it too bad that these people felt like they had to keep the child they accidentally created (there's no way they could have wanted it if they let it act like that). Surely there's someone who would have liked to adopt it. Someone who doesn't live next door to me and who has a clue how to raise a child from the unceasing morass of infancy.

DST

Mar. 14th, 2010 12:28 pm
seryn: flowers (Eryngo)
I hate Daylight Stupid Time.

It makes no sense to me that they decided to move the change back another 6 weeks either. I cannot believe anyone thought this had anything to do with "saving energy". Š Oh, yes! If the time is changed one hour, no one will need their lights on in the evening! That will save so much power! š In reality, because I am getting up in the dark again, I turn the heat up in the morning. I turn the lights on. I make hot breakfast. I take a longer shower with hotter water. And it's not like adults go to bed at 7:30pm, so we're all going to need our lights on in the evening anyway.

Daylight Stupid Time was annoying enough when it happened just for the summer season so the sun was already up even with the extra hour subtracted. Now that we spend an extra 3 months a year getting up in the dark but still coming home after dark, I am even less whelmed.

If people really prefer the Daylight Stupid Time so much that they have to keep adding on to its interval in bits and drabs with the most transparent of excuses, then they should just go all out and say they want DST all year. Honesty. Admit to the truth.

Stop fucking around with the time. At least if they admitted they wanted Daylight Stupid Time all year, I could make arrangements and change my schedule. My SO could make arrangements with his employer for alternative hours if he needed to. I do not like getting up in the dark for 3 extra months per year just because some people are too damned selfish to admit they want DST all year.

I also cannot believe the ridiculousness of using "it will save energy" as a rationale for the change in the span of Daylight Stupid Time. Anyone who said that should have been recalled from office instantly on the grounds of being too retarded to be effective in any leadership role.

If you want more daylight in the evening, then go to work earlier. If you arrive at 6:30am, you can leave at 3:30pm. You could pick your kids up from school yourself and they wouldn't need daycare... you could be a parent for real instead of just borrowing an inconvenient doll and demanding that someone else pay for your child to be cared for by creche workers. If you have no children but still want time after work for lawn mowing and gardening, then you could still do this. There is no reason why we have to all work 8am to 5pm. In fact, traffic is significantly better if we have more personal choice or variability in schedules.

But just because your work is too conservative to allow you to have a flex schedule does not mean you should be able to inflict your preferences for sunlight on the rest of the country except Arizona. We should stop having Daylight Stupid Time entirely. The time should not change back and forth. Time should have a stable progression as it is measured by the clocks, it should not be disturbed by some people's selfish desires.

No more Daylight Stupid Time.
seryn: flowers (Default)
Whenever I am ready to write off The Daily Show as just fluff, there will be an interview with someone real, like the astronomer dude from "yesterday".

The show "today" had the guy who plays Edward on Twilight. I'm thinking it's just fluff.. but Jon Stewart had the guy sounding high (dopey like Toby "I'm Spiderman" Maguire) and assholish from the second question. Without that appearing to be caused by the question but an inherent quality of the guy. I know it would suck to be famous in a world where people mob celebrities, but if you're on a highly rated program saying that after a while you learn to ignore it and the fans are just background noise.... you don't deserve to have fans. No one has been saying that the acting in Twilight was stellar-quality. (I have not watched it; the first movie is in my Netflix queue, but even at one movie a week, I won't see it until 2012.)

I think it would suck a lot to be famous because you happened to be there while someone else's work shines. But to be the dress hanger in Christian Dior's workroom while acting like you're the dress that hung on it.... that makes you a jerk. To be that kind of jerk and not appreciate it, to blame other people for their adoration, that is beyond the pale.

I'm thinking I won't bother renting the Twilight movie at all now. It's got that asshole in it. My time would be better spent writing my own stuff than in something that gets Twilight boy any residuals.
seryn: flowers (Default)
We went out for the "weekend". We had a special occasion dinner. We've got so many of those "saved up" that I never feel any guilt for suggesting it when we're somewhere to splurge... but in this case it actually was the occasion itself.

1) If you're listed in the bed&breakfast guide, you either have to serve breakfast or there should be large warnings plastered on your website.
2) If you're listed as having an on-site restaurant, then it needs to be open for breakfast or large warnings plastered on your hotel website.
2a) If you're listed as having a restaurant, but it is closed 3 days per week, then you need to SAY SO. Preferably there should also be a listing of nearby food places and the distances if they are more than 5 miles away to the nearest one.

In case you cannot tell, the b&b we stayed at, which said it had a restaurant on site (and we ate dinner there) did not have breakfast and the restaurant was closed. It was about 15 miles to the nearest breakfast place but it took about 35 minutes to drive there because the road map was laid out by dropping cooked spaghetti onto it.

But mostly I want to know why all chocolate desserts are horrendous when eaten in restaurants? I have not had a chocolate cake out that was not dry and chalky and bitter.... even cakemix makes better chocolate cake. I can make fancy chocolate cake at home and get something a dozen times superior to cakemix. So what is the deal with professional cooks who just suck at chocolate desserts?

I slept really really really badly. The bed was topped with one of those memory foam mattress pads and everywhere my body touched it, it got hot. I was roasting hot, but the room itself was almost too cold. I tried removing my pajamas but that just put more skin heat into the foam. I didn't sleep at all the night before because my SO had put no effort into finding a place for our trip and no effort into finding anything to do or anywhere to eat. So now I feel worn to a nub.

I would also like to know why there is full cell coverage in the Swiss Alps but less than an hour from a major city there were zero bars for 2 major carriers. And it wasn't that there was a hill and coverage was spotty.

It was a good trip. A mostly nice drive except for the part right here... the first 5 miles on the freeway were the worst part of the whole drive and they took about 25 minutes.

I really like the wordpress.com future posting scheduler. I was able to set a bunch of pictures to post while I was gone. But I wasn't able to see comments until I got back into town because of the stupid cell coverage.
seryn: flowers (Default)
If your toddler has hit someone with the door to the dryer in a public laundry facility, DO NOT COO at it like that was a GOOD thing. Bitch.

After a dozen thwacks with the dryer door, I held it while I finished loading my dryer. (I was there first and there is no need to open the door all the way.) Any adult would either have waited for me to step away (like 30 seconds) or would have been careful about how far the door was opened.

We need laws requiring parents to do their damned jobs or failing that which allow other people to press assault charges.
seryn: flowers (Default)
Oh. And the Sprint website and policies and phone people suck ass. Just for your information.
Read more... )
seryn: flowers (Default)
I saw a friend's review of Avatar. I'm not going to see that in the theater.

The main reason I'm not going to see it in the theater is because I went to see the last big thing in animation innovation, Titan A.E. That sucked so much!

If a movie touts its technique, then it probably is lacking in all the other aspects. Technique is supposed to be invisible to the viewer. Saying a movie created a ground-breaking technique is like hearing your blind date has a great personality... you don't bother saying that unless the date is ugly or the movie has bad acting and a lousy story.

I also don't go to see movies in theaters because it's $15 per ticket and that's more than the DVD cost for several recent releases. Plus the theater is so loud I can feel it in my bones and chest. It feels like it causes arrhythmia and it definitely causes migraines. I'm not masochistic. I don't pay to be tortured because I can't live without being in pain.

I have no idea whether Avatar is actually a good movie. The commercials didn't entice me to risk it. I'll probably watch it when it comes out on DVD, after the hoopla dies down and there's no Netflix waiting list.

I can say that the people who made Titan A.E. owe me an apology before I would even consider shelling out big bucks to see another "new techniques" movie. Hardly anyone else feels that way because there was a line around the block at the nearby theater.
seryn: sad face sheep (sadmiro)
[This is not an ad.]
A proto-friend is teaching a workshop between Solstice and Christmas. It's relatively expensive and targeted toward children. I was not surprised that there weren't a lot of takers, but she was.

Money is worth a lot less than it was when I was a kid. (I have to continually double my mental price expectations or I cannot buy anything.) But I cannot imagine my parents spending even $5/day for me to attend a workshop, let alone the $25 this would have cost in the old money. Certainly it would never ever happen in December.

My parents were annually surprised that Christmas and winter and the end of the year were all in December. I think some of the reason behind my break from my parents ne'er discussed beliefs is due to the fundamental understanding that buying presents might mean days without food if things don't come out right with the money. It certainly means putting on extra socks because heat is too expensive to use for comfort. The heat's only on to keep the pipes from freezing.

I hate this time of year. I see all the lights and decorations overlaid with memories of vicious arguments and blame and guilt and deprivation. If it looks good and plasticky on the outside, then no one will know it's all hollow on the inside.

I think we should ban Christmas entirely until people learn to be nice. Anyone who assaults someone else in order to grab a popular item should be forced to do community service weekly in a soup kitchen for a year, so they understand what it is they're supposedly celebrating. It's not about who can spend the most in electricity costs. It's not about whose child gets the most expensive toys. If putting up the tree causes a fight, don't have a tree. If you cannot afford tape and milk in the same week, then put presents inside t-shirts and let everyone have milk with Santa.

I'm really tired of everyone who claims to be Christian celebrating Christmas by living the intent of the innkeepers of Bethlehem and being proud of themselves for doing so. Christmas is supposed to be about the inside feelings, not the outside appearances.
seryn: fountain pen nib (screed pen)
On my LJ flist, there was a post saying there's going to be an evolution discussion in a church in Berkeley. The comments are all about hey look how tolerant churches really are but how scientists and academics are all bitchy and intolerant of religion!

Um. No.

Phelps. Heard anyone naysay him who actually goes to church? Nope. Never happens because Christians believe anyone who says they believe in Jesus is a Christian and it's not up to them to complain.

Heard about Texas and Kansas public schools?

Scopes Monkey Trial.

Teaching evolution is illegal in some places of 2009 America.

Evolution is a fact. There is molecular proof. We can watch evolution happen (in microscopic creatures). Want to know where antibiotic resistance comes from? It's fucking evolution. Scientists have hosed themselves by calling it a "theory". But GRAVITY is a theory and even the most god-ridden folks cannot fly. Theory is one of those words which means something different within the scientific community than it does in the vernacular and scientists really should choose another word that means "Our current best explanation as to why this demonstrable event happens." Evolution HAPPENS. All the time. It is not some sort of mythology.

Christianity, is, however, some sort of mythology. It's a currently popular mythology. But if anyone stands on a college campus and says they think we should sacrifice a bull to Zeus, they get laughed at and jeered and people think they're crazy. Belief in Jesus Christ as some sort of savior is the same thing. Christianity didn't start as a religion until after Jesus was dead and it's not about worshipping Jesus, it's about spreading hatred of people who don't worship Jesus. It's the Amway of religions.

So being in a place where study and investigation and experimentation has taught us how to find our place in the world and how to understand something that actually happens... that should treat someone who spouts off about mythology as fact as if they need help for their mental illness.

As for why a Berkeley church is hosting this evolution discussion, I think the functional part of that is the adjective. It's Berkeley, not church, and I think it's awesome that there are churches who remember the reason they get tax breaks is because they are supposed to be meeting places for the community. Churches which refuse to allow community groups to host respectful-of-property meetings should have their property tax bye stripped. The state can use the money.

Finally. I agree that scientists and academics are sometimes disrespectful of religion, but I think 95% of the country being overtly religious needs an active sort of rebellion in order not to swamp everyone in its tide of unthinking hate-mongering. I do think it would have been a lot more polite if the evolution discussion did not take place in a church because churches are supposed to be safe places for religious people to feed their delusions. As much as I appreciate the irony, I do think it's mean.

I would much much much rather the country be that everywhere is safe to discuss evolution, schools, workplaces, stores, parks, restaurants, beaches; and the only safe places to discuss Christianity are in secret enclaves hidden from the public view. But in practice, knowing several people who have been beaten by Christians for their belief in evolution, having seen people's cars demolished for footed-fish logos, and never having seen a school actually ban Christian-focused events (until the courts step in) despite the amended Constitution of the country, having watched the courts say that public schoolchildren can be required to pray (Pledge of Allegiance's "Under God")... I don't think Christianity needs any defense. I think it is the defacto and dejure standard by which all Americans are judged and I think it should not be any surprise that there is violence between citizens since the scriptures require it.
seryn: sad face sheep (sadmiro)
I was asked how there could be story without heap-big plot elements:


A lot of the non-genre fiction I've read has nothing that happens beyond the everyday normal stuff. People grow up, they do kid things, they grow up more and do adult things, other characters cycle in and out... but there's not a big war, no big tragedy, no gigantic crisis that defines the whole of that character's life. It's [supposedly] interesting in its banality.

It's like reading first person historical drama set in a time before all the people are dead.

I will be the first to admit that I cannot find a decent non-genre fiction book to save my sanity, but really, all of them have been like that.

I don't get the point. If I wanted to read about everyday things happening to everyday people, I'd, you know, make actual friends and have actual conversations with real live people.

But when I'm reading a science fiction book or a fantasy book, the author has invested so much effort into creating the "everyday" aspect, I just think it's a waste that there's always a war on. Or some danger of mass imminent deaths.

It seems like we could spend whole books having a tour and meeting the people who have banal lives in a world where the gods walk among the people and there are talking animals and the sun sets in a purple sky with 3 moons overhead.

And it seems like there's no point in reading yet another Garrison Keillor book where not only is everything banal, you could go there (or somewhere so incredibly similar as to be indistinguishable) yourself and live an equally trite existence.

Stuff doesn't need to change in order for it to be interesting, but it does need to be different. Tons and tons of non-genre fiction proves that all the time. And I think it's backward. Books about the now starring regular people should have to have plot to justify their existence because otherwise there's nothing different there.

I know it's almost impossible for authors to imagine how to show what's different without a plot framework to stretch the world around. But I'm tired of reading about people who have much much bigger problems than I do. My problems are sufficiently insoluble for me and when I can find an hour to relax, I'd rather have a family of talking animals wondering if it's going to rain on their picnic or shapeshifters seducing mundane women where they're given a handbook on how to fit in to the new culture because everyone wants them to feel welcome.

Everything I read is so violent or so tragic or so damned hard for the characters in the stories, it's just exhausting.
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