What is in a name?

When I was around 13-14, I was playing a LAN game of "Quake" with a friend I used to write programs with.  At the time our in-game aliases were "Brandon" and "David".  At some point we came upon a mod for the game that caused blood to splatter on the walls when someone was shot.  After a particularly violent attack with a rocket launcher, all that was left of David was a particularly fancy splatter of blood on the wall.  I remarked that it looked like something of a Picasso.  I changed my alias then to "RedPicasso".

Fast forward to around the time of my 15th birthday.  Me, my brother, and our two friends from down the street formed a clan in a then-new game called "Counter-Strike".  Our theme was the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse…  Death, Famine, Pestilence, and War.  I was given War, though not for any particular reason, I just liked it.

Another few years pass, I’m in late high school and taking my fourth year of German.  War was so common a name on the internet, so I’d stuck with RedPicasso (still my AIM screen name) throughout.  At some point I got tired of people asking if I compared myself to Picasso artistically, as I really have no skill, so a change was in order.  I chose to combine the two names, trying on RedWar for size.  Well, it was neat and all, but didn’t have that feeling I wanted in a name.  Something definitively me.  I decided to use the german equivalent "RotKrieg".  Yeah, that lasted  until about 45 seconds after I told the first person and they said, "Like butt rot?"

So, I took the best aspects of each name, Red and Krieg and since about 5 years ago, RedKrieg has been my alter-ego of sorts.  Friends with whom I forged a relationship online before meeting them usually call me Red when we meet in person, and I’ve been RedKrieg so long its as natural as my real name.

A bit of sci-fi

I woke up this morning with a half-formed idea for something really cool, and in my dreamy state I tend to float in whilst I shower, I managed to form a halfway decent idea for a sci-fi universe.  Take for example the series Stargate…  The whole series revolves around the one little device that lets you travel huge distances instantly.  This morning’s shower formed my device…

The Yang.  A vessel of enormous proportions, maybe half the diameter of earth’s moon.  Big, but not impossible.  Not solid of course either, so it wouldn’t exert the same gravitational fields.  Before I can explain what Yang is, I must explain its creation.

Maybe some 400 or so years ago, scientists on a far off world with technology maybe 1000 years removed from our own had an idea for a vessel of nearly infinite power to take them between the stars and beyond.  They envisioned using a quantum link between our dimension and an alternate universe, where everything was similar, save for one important fact…  Every proton in our universe is an antiproton there, and every electron has an antielectron twin.  This antiuniverse was created at the exact instant the link was created between the two universes.  The link is a permanant facet of both universes and can be moved only with enormous gravitational force.

A side note about alternate dimensions should be added here to explain how a universe can be created, in order to head off questions you’ll have in a moment before they even arise.  When a universe unfolds, so does its history and its future.  Every event leading up to the unfolding of a universe has occured, even if in the first universe it seems as though there was no universe to be there earlier.  This allows for the alternate universe to have the exact same history as the source, with the exception of every charge being reversed.

The tunnel was deliberately made in the disc of matter around a forming star, scientists from our universe then used nanites created on their end of the tunnel to begin construction of a ship to surround it.  Powerful electromagnetic fields were used to build the first nanite on the other side of the link and it was made to self replicate, just as the nanites on our side.  Power was generated by sending atoms toward the tunnel, the nanites on the other side would send antiatoms and the collision in the center would convert all of their mass into energy, further fueling the construction efforts.  Two identical ships were built using this nanotechnology.  One here, the Yang.  One in the antiuniverse, the Yin.  It took many months for the two ships to be built, and once they were, the enormous gravitational pull they generated was enough to keep the quantum tunnel at their very centers.  The Yang was flown from its orbit about the infant star and the scientists entered to begin what would become their race’s greatest undertaking.  The nanites on the other side were instructed to build identical copies of everything on board the ships, but the scientists did not count on one important aspect:  Once they stepped foot upon the ship, the nanites replicated them on the other side as well.  The giant quantum computers at the heart of each ship were linked between the two realities, effectively doubling their already gargantuan processing power.  A power used by the sentient computer to give the same gift to its creators as they had given to it…  A quantum link between their two minds, joining them as one.  Two universes, one consciousness.  Now the scientists, with intellect vastly improved, set forth to learn and explore, to help and to save.  They are aboard both the Yin and the Yang, consciousness always aware of both realities, the computer keeping them in touch with themselves over limitless distances via quantum links.  Two universes, one crew.  What wonders will they find?

Now that I type it all out, it seems pretty cheesy, but I think I can make it work.

Spam Exasperation

I’ve finally gotten enough spam to get fed up with it.  I’ll be disabling comments on each post that spammers hit, as they hit them.  I think this gives a nice compromize between giving people a chance to weigh in and preventing undue stress for me.  It usually takes the spammers a week or two to pick up on my new posts, so this should work out well enough.  If you want to comment on an older post, let me know and I’ll turn on comments just for you.

OpenDNS part 2

I e-mailed the OpenDNS people (see last post) and got a really fast reply.  They provided some interesting (and vastly useful) info which I felt I should share:

> Hey guys, I love the service…  I’m going to switch my office network over on Monday and see if anyone notices ;D
>
> One thing though…  I think it would be good to have some sort of "view this page anyway" for the suspected phishing sites.  You never know when a site might change hands without your knowledge and if you make the link small enough, I’m sure the people that REALLY need your protection won’t notice it.

Brandon, glad to hear you like it, and thrilled to hear about your office.

About going to the phishing site… we’ve heard this a few times. It’s not, unfortunately, slam-dunk easy to do, given the way we block phishes, and our initial call is that it’s more important to block phishes. We’ll keep providing more meta-data about -why- it was blocked, for the curious. Also, our designation of a site as a phishing site will expire over time. We’re quite sensitive to false positives.

If you personally are curious, since you’re unlikely to be phished, you can turn off the phishing protection at http://www.opendns.com/prefs/ (prob better at home than at work).

Also, we hope that our reliability shines through at http://system.opendns.com/ — we want to give you more reasons to choose OpenDNS… and even be able to tell people about the switch. 😉

Cheers,

John Roberts
VP of Product
OpenDNS  http://www.opendns.com/

OpenDNS

Wow, just found out about OpenDNS and decided to try switching my home network over.  They resolve simple typos to TLD’s (like .cm and .co now resolve to .com), they’re faster than my ISP’s DNS servers (no shock there, I hate my ISP, but they’re the fastest around), and they block phishing domains at the DNS level.  How’s about them apples?  The one thing I’d like to see is the option to view the page anyway on the phishing domain thing, but I can live.

Ubuntu tips

I’ve been using Ubuntu linux for a nearly six months now…  As of last month, I’ve been using it exclusively while at home.  This is a small collection of the things I’ve learned.

Automatix
This one I kinda stayed away from for my first couple weeks…  I have a tendency to be stubborn and try to do everything myself.  Boy was that a mistake!  Automatix has been rapidly improving since the release of Dapper Drake (the latest version of Ubuntu) and it’s definitely the easiest way to get all those not-quite-free programs and other things that most people don’t know exist.  Get it here.  The instructions are fairly detailed and right on the front page.  One thing though…  don’t install everything unless you’re sure what it is.  Trust me.  ;D

Compiz
UPDATE: The methods listed here aren’t the best solution any more.  Check out this post for more details!

If you have a modern graphics card and you want your desktop to flow, you need XGL/Compiz.  There’s a great tutorial for setup here.  Compiz is NOT perfect.  Hell, it isn’t even close.  It’s alpha software in every sense of the word.  You will have video artifacting, you will have phantom windows, you will have issues out the wazoo if you try it now, but you know what?  I still had more problems with windows than I do with Compiz, and Compiz tells you it’s alpha software…  A little food for thought for you.  As a side note, I used Method B: Make Xgl Your Standard Display Server for my XGL and Method C: Toggle for my Compiz.  While there isn’t exactly an advantage to the Method B for Xgl (it’s just a bit simpler to use), there is a major advantage to using Method C for Compiz…  All you do is create the toggle-compiz.sh file, toss it in your /usr/bin folder, make it executable, and put toggle-compiz.sh in your System->Preferences->Sessions on the Startup tab.  Now any time you have some graphical issue that requires you to restart Compiz, just open a terminal and type toggle-compiz.sh twice.  Problem solved!  Plus, any user of the machine can execute the script and use Compiz!

Improve Performance
I’ve used a few of the tweaks on this page to speed things up a bit (not that it’s really necessary).  I’m afraid to try InitNG because it’s apparently not 100% stable yet.  Now, I’m all about screwing with my X server, because I know my way around a terminal…  Messing with the bootup options?  One mistake and the machine won’t boot!  I of course could just reinstall, but hey, better safe than sorry.  I reboot my machine maybe once every two weeks now?  Big deal.  The best tweak on this page is picking the right kernel.  If you’re running Ubuntu for 32 bit machines, pick k7 for AMD processors and i686 for Intels.  If you use the 64 bit version, you should already have the right kernel.

Keyboard Shortcuts
There are lots of keyboard shortcuts, but the ones I use most often are Alt+F2 to open a run dialog, and Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right to change desktops.  Of course many of the windows key commands work too, like Alt+Tab.  Try things til you figure out what you can do!  Doesn’t hurt to play around!

Automatic Login
If you’re the only one with physical access to your machine (or you just don’t care if other people get on), you can set up auto-login so you don’t have to type your password to get to the desktop.  This doesn’t exempt you from using a password to perform administrative tasks (like using sudo or gksudo), but it saves a hot second.  Go to System->Administration->Login Window and check the Security tab.  You’ll find it there.

Make AIM links work with GAIM
This one’s nice.  Make sure you didn’t install Gaim 2.0 Beta when you were using Automatix earlier, otherwise this tutorial won’t work for you.  If you didn’t, you’ll really enjoy the new functionality!

Setting up your MX1000 mouse
I have one of these and I was none too happy that the extra buttons didn’t work out of the box!  Luckily I found this entry that gave a very detailed account of how to get the mouse working perfectly.  Even sideways scrolling works!

No sound in Firefox?
I’ve heard of some people not having sound in Firefox.  No problem!  Check out this fix.

Using multiple sound cards
You might have more than one sound card.  Maybe one onboard and one pci or usb.  I often switch soundcards and it causes problems left and right.  I found that if you delete the .asoundrc file from your home directory, everything seems to resolve itself at the next login.  If you have issues, give it a shot.

Windows apps
If you absolutely need to play a game that’s only in windows, give wine a shot.  Use the info here to install and you should be fine.  Wine doesn’t always work, but you never know!  If you have sound issues in wine, try the audio fix above… it worked for me when I had no sound at all (multiple sound cards).

Using locate to find files
One thing I always have trouble with is trying to figure out where a certain config file is.  Next time you’re trying to find it…  try this:

sudo updatedb

locate filename

This is in no way secure (lets anyone see any filename, you might not want that), but its easy, and if you’re the only one with access to the machine?  Meh.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of right now.  If I remember any other problems I encountered while migrating, I’ll be sure to update this post or at least link to the new one.

Digg this!