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New web site up on how to set up mandrake 9.1 to ease the configuration pains of the new linux user. Written and catered for the moderate computer user. It covers how to get and install mandrake and add in most of the needed applications. Covers most of the major software included in the distribution, other freely available applications, newbie command line tutorial, how to handle some common and annoying bugs peculiar to each application.

PART I
1. Introduction
2. Indispensable Tools for the Linux User
3. Useful links

PART II - Mandrake Installation
1. Getting Mandrake 9.1
2. Installing Mandrake 9.1
3. Going through the install sequence
4. Using Mandrake
5. Nice things to add easily
6. Configuration with Mandrake Control Center
7. Configuration with Gnome Control Center
8. Important Configuration of Menus and MIME Types
9. More Advanced Configuration

PART III - Linux Shell and Apps
1. Navigating around terminal
2. Shells -- bash, csh, rsh, sh
3. Environments and Paths
4. File Permissions
5. Editing files
6. Linking
7. Finding Files
8. Using grep
9. Basic bash scripts knowledge
10. Running Remote X applications
11. Mounting Remote File Systems
12. Language setup for man pages
13. Handling Print Jobs

PART IV - Software Packages
1. What are packages?
2. Specifying Sources For Online Downloading - Mandrake Mirrors, Texstar, PLF
3. Packages to be installed from Mandrake CDs - Mesa, mplayer, Timidity, pan, gaim, mozplugger
4. Packages to install from Texstar - Macromedia Flash, nano, Real Player
5. Mplayer and Codecs
6. Other essential packages- Open Office, Sun Java, Adobe Acrobat 5, BitTorrent
7. Setting up SMB share for Windows
8. Using vncserver for remote desktop applications
9. File Sharing - p2p networks - Limewire, edonkey, lmule
10. Running M$ Office under Linux.
11. Games - SNES, MAME, WineX

PART V - Advanced FAQ
1. How do I get DRI 3D acceleration to work?
2. Mandrake Fonts Deuglification and Anti-aliasing
3. Email Clients and Web Browsers (Handling mailto: and http:)
4. Full Mozilla Plugins Configuration (Quicktime, Java, Flash, Mplayer)
5. Konquerer Plugins Configuration
6. X Windows xmatrix screensaver
7. How to adjust the sound volume permanently

This HOWTO is my first contribution to the linux user community, and since I have found documentation sorely lacking for the total newbie, I have decided to write one myself. It is based on my experience in the past month trying to install everything from scratch. This HOWTO will be short, brief and to the point. Further information can be found in documentations on other websites, this one is just for the impatient, and users who want to reduce their startup time. Why Mandrake? Firstly, it is easy-to-install, and the first distribution that I've tried that has come very close to the ease-of-use of windows. If you can install and customize windows, you will not have much trouble with the Linux installation. Who is this HOWTO written for? This document is meant for the average user who is at least accustomed to tweaking and customizing their own OS. It will definitely not be a tutorial on how to point and click or use GUI interfaces.

New web site up on how to set up mandrake 9.1 to ease the configuration pains of the new linux user. Written and catered for the moderate computer user. It covers how to get and install mandrake and add in most of the needed applications. Covers most of the major software included in the distribution, other freely available applications, newbie command line tutorial, how to handle some common and annoying bugs peculiar to each application.

PART I
1. Introduction
2. Indispensable Tools for the Linux User
3. Useful links

PART II - Mandrake Installation
1. Getting Mandrake 9.1
2. Installing Mandrake 9.1
3. Going through the install sequence
4. Using Mandrake
5. Nice things to add easily
6. Configuration with Mandrake Control Center
7. Configuration with Gnome Control Center
8. Important Configuration of Menus and MIME Types
9. More Advanced Configuration

PART III - Linux Shell and Apps
1. Navigating around terminal
2. Shells -- bash, csh, rsh, sh
3. Environments and Paths
4. File Permissions
5. Editing files
6. Linking
7. Finding Files
8. Using grep
9. Basic bash scripts knowledge
10. Running Remote X applications
11. Mounting Remote File Systems
12. Language setup for man pages
13. Handling Print Jobs

PART IV - Software Packages
1. What are packages?
2. Specifying Sources For Online Downloading - Mandrake Mirrors, Texstar, PLF
3. Packages to be installed from Mandrake CDs - Mesa, mplayer, Timidity, pan, gaim, mozplugger
4. Packages to install from Texstar - Macromedia Flash, nano, Real Player
5. Mplayer and Codecs
6. Other essential packages- Open Office, Sun Java, Adobe Acrobat 5, BitTorrent
7. Setting up SMB share for Windows
8. Using vncserver for remote desktop applications
9. File Sharing - p2p networks - Limewire, edonkey, lmule
10. Running M$ Office under Linux.
11. Games - SNES, MAME, WineX

PART V - Advanced FAQ
1. How do I get DRI 3D acceleration to work?
2. Mandrake Fonts Deuglification and Anti-aliasing
3. Email Clients and Web Browsers (Handling mailto: and http:)
4. Full Mozilla Plugins Configuration (Quicktime, Java, Flash, Mplayer)
5. Konquerer Plugins Configuration
6. X Windows xmatrix screensaver
7. How to adjust the sound volume permanently

This HOWTO is my first contribution to the linux user community, and since I have found documentation sorely lacking for the total newbie, I have decided to write one myself. It is based on my experience in the past month trying to install everything from scratch. This HOWTO will be short, brief and to the point. Further information can be found in documentations on other websites, this one is just for the impatient, and users who want to reduce their startup time. Why Mandrake? Firstly, it is easy-to-install, and the first distribution that I've tried that has come very close to the ease-of-use of windows. If you can install and customize windows, you will not have much trouble with the Linux installation. Who is this HOWTO written for? This document is meant for the average user who is at least accustomed to tweaking and customizing their own OS. It will definitely not be a tutorial on how to point and click or use GUI interfaces.

New web site up on how to set up mandrake 9.1 to ease the configuration pains of the new linux user. Written and catered for the moderate computer user. It covers how to get and install mandrake and add in most of the needed applications. Covers most of the major software included in the distribution, other freely available applications, newbie command line tutorial, how to handle some common and annoying bugs peculiar to each application.

PART I
1. Introduction
2. Indispensable Tools for the Linux User
3. Useful links

PART II - Mandrake Installation
1. Getting Mandrake 9.1
2. Installing Mandrake 9.1
3. Going through the install sequence
4. Using Mandrake
5. Nice things to add easily
6. Configuration with Mandrake Control Center
7. Configuration with Gnome Control Center
8. Important Configuration of Menus and MIME Types
9. More Advanced Configuration

PART III - Linux Shell and Apps
1. Navigating around terminal
2. Shells -- bash, csh, rsh, sh
3. Environments and Paths
4. File Permissions
5. Editing files
6. Linking
7. Finding Files
8. Using grep
9. Basic bash scripts knowledge
10. Running Remote X applications
11. Mounting Remote File Systems
12. Language setup for man pages
13. Handling Print Jobs

PART IV - Software Packages
1. What are packages?
2. Specifying Sources For Online Downloading - Mandrake Mirrors, Texstar, PLF
3. Packages to be installed from Mandrake CDs - Mesa, mplayer, Timidity, pan, gaim, mozplugger
4. Packages to install from Texstar - Macromedia Flash, nano, Real Player
5. Mplayer and Codecs
6. Other essential packages- Open Office, Sun Java, Adobe Acrobat 5, BitTorrent
7. Setting up SMB share for Windows
8. Using vncserver for remote desktop applications
9. File Sharing - p2p networks - Limewire, edonkey, lmule
10. Running M$ Office under Linux.
11. Games - SNES, MAME, WineX

PART V - Advanced FAQ
1. How do I get DRI 3D acceleration to work?
2. Mandrake Fonts Deuglification and Anti-aliasing
3. Email Clients and Web Browsers (Handling mailto: and http:)
4. Full Mozilla Plugins Configuration (Quicktime, Java, Flash, Mplayer)
5. Konquerer Plugins Configuration
6. X Windows xmatrix screensaver
7. How to adjust the sound volume permanently

This HOWTO is my first contribution to the linux user community, and since I have found documentation sorely lacking for the total newbie, I have decided to write one myself. It is based on my experience in the past month trying to install everything from scratch. This HOWTO will be short, brief and to the point. Further information can be found in documentations on other websites, this one is just for the impatient, and users who want to reduce their startup time. Why Mandrake? Firstly, it is easy-to-install, and the first distribution that I've tried that has come very close to the ease-of-use of windows. If you can install and customize windows, you will not have much trouble with the Linux installation. Who is this HOWTO written for? This document is meant for the average user who is at least accustomed to tweaking and customizing their own OS. It will definitely not be a tutorial on how to point and click or use GUI interfaces.

"major" being: courier, sendmail, postfix, exim and qmail.

it looks like it's about a year old, and has some missing information, but it's a place to start for anyone looking to switch MTAs.

The only thing I might wish for that it doesn't have is some kind of a 9x virtual machine to run a legacy game or two I have.

An excellent program that I've had great success with for playing DOS games in Windows with sound is VDMSound. It hasn't been able to run everything (System Shock and Crusader: No Remorse are two that haven't worked for me), but for the most part, games play pretty much the way they were meant to.

I was watching tech tv the other day and they said they're testing out ip blockers to stop this BS. Anybody have any information on this?

http://www.suprnova.org/
http://www.zenith-net.co.uk/
btlinks.no-ip
http://sakstream.tk/
http://www.torrentialbits.tk/
http://www.digitaldistractions.org/torrents.php
http://kung.servehttp.com:8080/live/index.asp
http://absolutesega.bounceme.net:79/
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~crosses/eyesonly/
http://nx01.us/index.php?page=torrent
http://www.hawkie.org.uk/
http://www.sakstream.cjb.net/
http://www.downloadparadise.tk/
http://bittorrent.kicks-ass.net/dvdrtorrents/index .html

DynDNS
HammerNode
WhyI
No-IP
FreeDNS
CJB.net
DDT
DDNS
Continuum
dnsQ
dyn.ee
dyndsl

Just a few... There are lots more, both free and not.

Mandrake 9.1 is a really superb desktop, and I have placed a user guide up for new users migrating from Windows, or for new linux users wanting things up fast. Part I - Introduction Part II - Mandrake Installation Part III - Linux Shell and Apps Part IV - Software Packages Part V - Advanced FAQ http://mandrakeuser.cjb.net

Who hasn't?.

(Well, to be honest, I haven't. The most I can accomplish is 70 wpm. Oh well.)

I presume you're talking about DOS games. In this case, use VDMSound.

We are The Käuze. "If God made women to be lesbians, He would have given them wings."

This is just a major hoax perpetrated by The Käuze. I hope those sick secretive freaks laugh themselves into a heart attack. This crap isn't funny.

Everything single thing on this site except the name, email address and gimpoid photo is a straight rip-off of another person's work. wget for fun and profit. Moron. Feel free to consume some bandwidth.

• PolyKarbon tutorials - These are awesome
• How To Draw Manga
• BakaNeko tutorials

• Pixelation BBS
• Pixel Tutorial
• Animation-related tutorials
• Pixel-art bible

...a really funny flash-animation: The Real Hussein :)

Test your vocabulary: 20 questions

20/20. Kick ass.

154 secs, though. Seems slow - didn't think I took that long.

Is he the real Saddam? ;-)

hmmm, good question -- lessee

seem to remember Spock using it to detect just about anything (animal, vegetable or mineral)

this site, although very slow seems to have lots of details:

STANDARD TRICORDER

The standard tricorder is a portable sensing, computing, and data communications device developed by Starfleet R&D and issued to starship crew members. It incorporates miniaturized versions of those scientific instruments found to be most useful for both shipboard and away missions, and its capabilities may be augmented with mission-specific peripherals. Its many functions may be accessed by touch-sensitive controls or, if necessary, voice command.

MAIN FEATURES

The standard tricorder measures 8.5 x 12 x 3 cm and masses 353 grams. The case is constructed of micromilled duranium foam, and is divided into two hinged sections for compact storage. The control surfaces consist of ruggedized positive-feedback buttons and a 2.4 x 3.6 cm display screen. While a full personal access display device-type multilayer control screen would have afforded the user with a wider range of preferences in organizing commands and visual information, the simplified button arrangement was chosen for greater ease of use in the field. The internal electronics, on the other hand, were designed to provide the greatest number of possible options in managing sensor data, visual images, and multichannel communications, in all incoming, outgoing, or recorded modes.

The major electronic components include the primary power loop, sensor assemblies, parallel processing block, control and display interface, subspace communication unit, and multiple memory storage units.
Power is provided to the total system through a rechargeable sarium crystal rated for eighteen hours of full instrument activity. True power usage rate and maximum useful time is, of course, dependent on which subsystems are active, and is continuously computed for call-up on the display. Typical power usage is 15.48 watts. The sensor assemblies incorporate a total of 235 mechanical, electromagnetic, and subspace devices mounted about the internal frame as well as imbedded in the casing material as conformal instruments. One hundred and fifteen of these are clustered in the forward end for directional readings, with a field-of-view (FOV) lower limit of 1/4 degree. The other 120 are omnidirectional devices, taking measurements of the surrounding space. The deployable hand sensor incorporates seventeen high-resolution devices for detailed readings down to an FOV of one minute of arc. Within these FOV limits, both active and passive scans can provide readings approaching the theoretical limits of the EM radiation of physical process under study. By combining readings from different sensors, the tricorder computer processors can synthesize images and numerical readouts to be acted upon by the crew member.

The computer capabilities of the standard tricorder are distributed throughout the device as preprocessors attached to the various sensors and twenty-seven polled main computing segments (PMCS). Each PMCS contains subsections dedicated to rapid management of the sensor assemblies, prioritizing of processing tasks, routing of processed data, and management of control and power systems. The PMCS chips supplied with the TR-580 and TR-595H(P) standard tricorders are rated at 150 GFP calculations per second.

The control and display interface (CDI) routes commands from both the panel buttons and display screen to the PMCS for execution of tricorder functions. Multiple functions can be run simultaneously, limited only by PMCS speed. In practice, crew members usually carry out no more than six separate scanning tasks.

Communications functions are carried out by tricorder through the subspace transceiver assembly (STA). Voice and data are uplink/downlinked along standard communicator frequencies. Transmission data rates are variable, with a maximum speed in Em

Me, I pay only Rs. 650 for a 24 hr connection (fibre optic, last mile copper cable; and yes, I'm from India). BW sucks, 64 kbps, download cap is 300 megs a month, but it's far better than dialup and sufficient for all my needs, and it lets me run a server, so I'm quite happy with it.

So this is a really good thing. I hope lots of people will use it. Quit whining.

No, they don't have to prove that. All they have to do is prove to the judge that the copyright violation was "willful" and the Copyright Act allows for the judge, at his or her discretion, to impose up to $150,000 in statutory, (not compensatory or punitive) damages per infringement.

I'm just curious, but at some point, doesn't it make sense just to leave the damn country for good? I mean at least we can still come and go sort of freely (for now)...why don't we all just go? No country can have power without a reasonably large populace underneath it. Clearly, this one is broken, and there is a lot of resistance to fixing it.

Speaking of which, whatever happened to John's Switch To Canada parody?

Have you tried VDMSound? It's a soundblaster emulator for Win2k.

Have you tried VDMS for sound?
Works pretty well if I remember correctly.

The idea goes as follows: If a self-aware "real AI" ever existed, one capable of self-understanding and self-modification (called the seed AI), it would be in a much better position to create AI than its original creators. So would begin a chain of self-refinement and the creation of progressively smarter intelligences with decreasing time gaps between stages. Eventually a point is reached, called the singularity: nothing about the future past the singularity can be predicted by humans who live in the pre-singularity world. A common interpretation is that the chain of AIs would become more intelligent without bound, leading to a verticality.

The singulaity was first popularized by Vernor Vinge.

I've been doing a lot of reading on the singularity lately, and I've become more and more convinced that it is certain to happen.

More singularity links:
The singularity institute - A nonprofit working to hasten the singularity
Extensive writings by Eliezer Yudkowsky.
I've myself written a bit on singularity and AI related topics.

I bought a "copy-protected" CD recently, well aware of the fact that is had protection, not just because I wanted the music but because I had to check out how this stuff worked.

The CD had two sessions, the first contained audio tracks, the second data withcrappy 48kbit WMA-encoded tracks. It was easy to rip the tracks though.

1. Read the CD with CloneCD
2. Extract the audio-tracks from session 1 with CDmage

This method only works in Windows though. If there is a way to dump raw data from a CD in Linux, or even better, select which session you should see, there shouldn't be any problems extracting the tracks.

Their criticisms of linux would make a MS asstroturfing troll cringe. You can read it here.

Anyhow, management liked their ideas, I objected and found myself rightsized 2 weeks later. 3 Months later, they called me to ask if I was available, but my own consulting businesss was starting to take off. they were listed on fuckedcompany a couple months later :)

--Jerry.

Or you could run VDMSound under XP..

I have yet to find an old DOS game that doesn't work under VDMSound. I loaded up Ween: The Prophecy and had a blast. Along with Conquest of Camelot.

Is anyone actually forced to memorize the periodic table these days? Talk about a pointless rote memorization task...

I thought "learning" like this went the way of the dinosaurs in the 80's (of course, I teach on the university level, so I'm a bit removed from elementary education). Can any education types confirm that this kind of thing still goes on?

I was forced to memorize the periodic table when I was in high school.

Not only that, no calculators allowed until you are in university. Every time someone tries to change it, the luddites start screaming that use of calculators harms the students' powers of mental arithmetic and so on.

In the case of the periodic table, though, I'm actually not sure it is completely pointless: the properties of the elements are to a great extent dependent on their position in the table. If you involuntarily "see" an element in its position in the table whenever it is talked about, then you get to correlate its properties to its position much better, and you understand it better.

At least, that's the idea. The question is whether the purported gains are worth the effort.

I subscribe to the penguin theory of learning. After a certain point, your brain only holds so many recallable facts, just like an iceberg can hold only so many penguins. After that, for each new one you add, an old one must be shoved off (or at least relegated to subconscious long-term storage). I know memory is theoretically infinite, and that everything we learn is supposedly deep down in there somewhere, waiting for the right moment to be dredged up... but this kind of memorization is a waste of space on the iceberg.

BTW, some people might _want_ to memorize completely pointless things by rote for whatever reason. For instance, I memorized 1000 digits of pi :-)

More importantly, in terms of realism regarding UK broadband connectivity:

ADSL-For-Ipswich | Barnt Green, Birmingham | Edenbridge, Kent | Brinscall, Lancashire | Chafford Hundred, Grays | Broxburn/Uphall, Scotland | New Mills, Stockport | Bradford-on-Avon | Antrim, Northern Ireland | Paddock Wood, Kent | Mossley, Greater Manchester | Maltby, Rotherham | Cudworth, South Yorkshire | Pembury, Kent | Telford, Shropshire | Totnes, Devon | Caister on Sea, Great Yarmouth | Broadband in the East of England | Wargrave, Berkshire | Alton, Hampshire #1 | Alton, Hampshire #2 | Frodsham, Cheshire | Atherstone, Warwickshire | Sleaford, Lincolnshire | Neston, South Wirral | Blackpool/Fleetwood, Lancashire | Colwyn Bay, Wales | Whitby, Yorkshire | Saltcoats/Ardossan/Stevenston, Strathclyde | Thornbury, South Gloucestershire | Dinnington, Sheffield | Irby, Wirral | Colwyn Bay/Old Colwyn/Rhos-On-Sea, North Wales | Hednesford, Staffs | Connahs Quay/Flint/Mold/Sealand/Queensferry, North Wales | Eastham/Wirrall, Cheshire | Worle, North Somerset | Dereham, Norfolk | Leicester Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire | Bolton Westhoughton, Lancashire | Leek, Staffordshire | Ivybridge, Devon | Attleborough, Norfolk | Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire | Montrose, Angus, Scotland | Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex | Worcester/St Johns/Fernhill Heath, Worcester | Allerton, Liverpool (and surrounding exchanges) | Buntingford, North Hertfordshire | Glastonbury, Somerset | St Budeaux, Devon | Fenland towns of Ramsey, Yaxley, Whittlesey, Chatteris, Ely and Soham | Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire | Pershore, Worcs | Yarmouth, Norfolk | Great Oakley, Corby, Northants | South Woodham Ferrers, Essex | Goring & South Stoke, South Oxfordshire and Streatley & Lower Basildon, West Berkshire | Kinross & Milnathort, Perthshire | Bolsover, Derbyshire | Elton, Ince and Helsby in Cheshire | Hanwell/Horley/Wroxton/Balscote/North Newington/Drayton, Oxfordshire | Tonyrefail/Gilfach Goch and surrounding area, Mid Glamorgan | Rotherfield Greys/Rotherfield Peppard/Shepherds Green, Oxfordshire | Heath Hayes, Staffordshire | Hednesford, Staffordshire | Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire | Adderbury (Nr. Banbury), Oxfordshire | Lydney, Gloucestershire | Knaresborough, North Yorkshire | Saltburn-By-The-Sea, Cleveland | Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire | Churchdown, Gloucestershire

I'm not going to watch this trash, attempting to pass off as BSG. It's just trash television, no more. I've signed the petition to boycott this production (bsgboycot.cjb.net) and I urge you to do the same. I want to see a continuation with Richard Hatch, not this remake which is something like Sex and the city.

Kind of like how a speed bump on the road can sometimes have a positive effect for traffic on the whole. Consider the current state of (desktop) software: its rarely written with efficiency as an important consideration. Often, there is not much incentive to do so: as long as it runs comfortably on decently new hardware, its fine. As a result, people who are forced to use bottom-of-the-line hardware are screwed. (Like me. I'm running my webserver on stone-age hardware, simply because I can't afford anything more). In fact, Microsoft even goes to the extent of deliberately makign its new releases require the latest hardware to force users into an upgrade cycle. This is a Bad Thing.

Now consider the effect that the 32-bit speedbreaker will have. Applications like gaming will be affected first. Since they have to add more features without getting more memory expensive, there will be incentive to do more efficient coding. In turn there will be pressure on underlying libraries to be more efficient. Other apps using these libs will start benefitting. There will also be more programmers catching those memory leaks which eat tons of memory rather than postponing them to a future release. More emphasis on software engg in general.

The bottom line: more headaches for programmers for a couple of years, but smaller, faster, better software for a long time.

Anything that leads to a more distributed internet is a Good Thing, IMHO. Lack of centralization is the biggest reason why the net has been successful, but recent trends are disturbing (eg: ICANN). OTOH, the US-centeredness of the internet has decreased greatly since the early days, which is good. Another thing: with the growth of permanent connections worldwide as against dialup, more and more of the average Joes will host their webpages on their own machine (like me :)), as against uploading it to some free server, which would typically be in the US. So maybe things are going to get better.

My younger sister is an AVA, or Amateur Voice Actress online. There's quite a community of voice actors, who frequently produce original radio plays, and those based on books, movies, anime or TV.
Fanfiction is perhaps the most popular form of online voice acting, as the producers and actors are able to take more liberties. Fandubs (generally the fan-dubbing of anime) are quite popular, as are rewriting books into script-format and recording them.
These generally turn out fairly well, sometimes better than professional dubs, and the actors record their lines in their own homes, without ever having met the rest of the cast.

The most popular site for AVA's is FLAVA (Fun Lovin' Aspiring Voice Actors).

The VAA (Voice Acting Alliance) is a very good place to learn more about how these productions are made.

One of the most popular original online radio plays, which is beautifully mixed, is Legacy of a Hero, and definitely sets the standard for amateur producing and acting. LoaH is highly recommended listening.

My sister's AVA resume will give an example of the range of productions.

In short, online voice acting, in people's homes, mixed with lines of other cast members whom they've never met, can work out incredibly well, and have been doing so for several years.

Just because I have an old machine doesn't mean I can't make productive use of it. All right, I can't do gaming, but my Pentium 333 machine suffices for everything else. Just make sure you have enough memory to run everything comfortably without swapping. Heck, I'm even running a webserver on it.

Where do you want to go today?

But what if I want to switch to Canada? Will they still put me in an ad?

so am posting as AC. I have a list of all the google servers I could find. You can see it here.

You could Switch to Canada :)

Switch to Canada.

Allright Mr. Mccarthy

Sorry, but Japan apparently passed a DMCA-like law even before the US did.

Might I recommend Canada? We're still DMCA-free up here, and from the looks of things our government is actually aware of the controversy over these issues and is unlikely to move in as one-sided a direction as others have so far.

you can disable gif animation with opera or proxomitron

Or is the rest of the world looking better and better each day in comparison to the USA? You know, 2 years ago I would have never even imagined living anywhere else. But after all the issues that have popped up since 9/11, the steady erosion of civil liberties, the destruction of fair use, the bullying of giant corporations, it's getting harder and harder to love the USA.

Last weekend my fiancee and I were randomly surfing the web after an evening of playing 'Hunter' on our GC (the couple that kills zombies together stays together, we say!), and we ran across the John's Switch to Canada parody of the Apple Switch ads. 2 years ago, it would have been good for a laugh and nothing more. But last weekend, after having ourselves a good laugh, we both found ourselves going "Hmmm... Canada...". I think this is the first time I've ever seriously considered living somewhere, anywhere else than the USA.. and it was even more surprising to me to see my girlfriend, who is not nearly as politcally active/concerned as I've become lately, giving the whole idea of leaving the country some serious consideration as well.

My slightly OT point here is, the more rights that are taken away from us, the less freedom we are given, the more control that is handed over to corporation after corporation.. the harder it gets to love this country. This is just another nail in the coffin. The USA has long stopped being the 'Land of the Free'.

I liked Snood so much, I convinced my teacher to let me use it for my term project in Java. Maybe he gave me an 'A' because he couldn't stop playing it ;).

I'll risk the life of my server to post a link here:
http://facehat.cjb.net/~wade/java/javood/

Entries for the invitation competition are already available, featuring intros/videos, music/posters/flyers/pictures, text files and even a feast recipe invitation!

The intros have wide variety of entries, some working on Win32, some made with Perl, a 4k intro, invitation for GBA and Vic-20 and more.

Some stuff from Alternative Party III held in January 2002 is also archived and available.

Here is a pouet-link to one demo from the party, "Partaitiö" by tAAt (Platform: 386SX, works in Win2k box with VDMsound). (tAAt ry is also helping in organizing the party this year)
Check out also pictures from the overhead projector compo called "Valoköysiviljelijä".

On Windows you can use Proxomitron
On most OS's (including Linux, Windows, and OS X) you can use Privoxy.

Both act as a proxy and filter web pages and headers. They come with many useful built-in filters for getting a rid of ads including one to change the referer.

http://ghotli.cjb.net/cj/musiclog/

It's nice because it only gives you one song a day to listen to instead of a gargantuan amount of songs linked on a main page. What's also cool is it covers a wide variety of music and isn't genre-centric.

This is in fact an excellent site. It also allows the members to vote on the best songs, which used to get put onto a compleation CD, now I believe that thee winners just get money prizes. Check my band out there: http://www.garageband.com/artist/slow_children or the personal site: Slow Children

-Ted

Frankly I hope they continute with initiatives like these.

I really like Indian food, and I've been waiting for a good excuse to leave the US. I guess it's a toss-up between India and Canada.