Bettering the world, one ad-free blog at a time - plus, news!

I removed the ads from my blog today. I don't know why I put them there in the first place; I suppose it was for the same reason anyone puts ads on anything - money - but really it feels like I put them there because it looked like they were needed. I realize now that they were useless, especially since this spent a while as a private blog, but perhaps more to the point, they were wrong.

The peanut butter is standing by

One of my favourite little utilities is Tinnes' Timed Shutdown. Indeed, it's light, effective, and easy to use: programming at its finest. The only flaw is, it doesn't support standby. I don't know why. It supports hibernate. It can, instead of changing the power state, simply disconnect from the internet. It can even shut down the system when something else disconnects the system from the Internet. But no standby. And as my favourite power management feature, this irks me.

e.g. scooters

I feel like the most boring man alive. Absolutely nothing interesting has happened in the past month. This is likely due to being an engineering student, since I have little time to be interesting while spending as many as 7 hours in class in a given day. But it makes it awfully hard to write a blog entry, as much as I'd like to.

Maybe I'll just put this here and call it a day. OK? OK.

Dealing another blow to bad headlines

This article/blog on my Google News feed caught my eye today. Now, I should mention upfront that I generally dislike PC World, at least online (I've never read the print edition). Their articles and especially their headlines tend to have, to my eye, a disappointingly negative, skeptical, and argumentative tone. I can best describe it as having a sort of tabloid-y feel. Or maybe a FOX News feel. Like these headlines: "Windows 7: No Application Compatibility Woes ... Yet". Or "Lower PC Prices Pit Microsoft Against PC Makers". Or "Hey, Microsoft: Please Stop Trying So Hard". I admit, the tone issue may not be the rule, but it's certainly not the exception. I also frequently detect some pro-Apple bias, but that might just be me being sensitive. Still, I like to imagine that the Macworld editors were forced by some monkey-suit to come up with PC World and continue to be subversive about it.

Oh, shut up and go to bed already

There's something strangely and subtly poignant about being the only one awake; by yourself, the contact list empty, the conversation windows closed. I don't know why, but it seems like it is. Maybe because it doesn't happen very often.

By definition, it's a moment you can't really share, not while it happens anyways. And yet, I'm here, blogging, indulging, broadcasting on my legal pirate radio, wondering if anyone else will ever tune in and hear about it. I imagine that someday, someone might, perhaps while they themselves are alone late at night.

Boy, this just got a bit creepy, didn't it?

Never mind. I'm going to bed. Good night.

robotfindskitten finds Zune

So I don't know why this didn't occur to me sooner: I got my first piece of code published (or "published", anyways), and I have a blog; why not blog about it?

It actually started as a little project to amuse myself, but I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the results. Considering the original source code was essentially useless to me and I was basing the entire thing off of my memory of the Rockbox port. And I had no idea how to use XNA or C# when I started.

Anyways. If you haven't heard of robotfindskitten, I'll forgive you this time. It's a silly little game whose silly little homepage can be found at http://www.robotfindskitten.org; I happened to port (or rather, "port") it to Zune using C# and XNA. My port's homepage can be found at http://sites.google.com/site/doodlemewell/ (or possibly at http://www.doodlemewell.com, if I haven't decided to put that domain name to better use.)

222 updates later

This is what happens when you don't use your server for a year, and then decide that an update is a good idea. Especially when running Gentoo. And don't think it was a fast one, like 'oh I'll just get this update rolling and grab a cup of coffee with a friend. By the time I'm back from Timmie's it'll be done.' Oh no. This is a 'oh I'll go to sleep, and hopefully it'll be done by morning' update. Except it's even worse, because since it's a Gentoo system, it's a 'maybe I'll move to a cabin up north for the summer, and write a book, and by the time it's published maybe it'll be done' update. 222 updates, all compiled on 6-year-old hardware.

If you need me, I'll be in Kapuskasing, writing.