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djotaku's twitter feed
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- just started playing WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos. http://raptr.com/djotaku
- video did NOT kill the radio star. Radio is still around. MTV, on the other hand, no longer plays music videos. RIP TRL.
- Yay MD for the $170 electric bill credit!
- @harajukuroxy that stinks. My mom used to get a lot of migraines.
- My latest computer animation: http://server.ericsbinaryworld.com/dtbp/node/48
- My latest computer animation:
- Nearly done with my latest animation
- @minimoniotaku: the old momma joke was hilarious
- Using akmod-nvidia, built the latest drivers for nvidia and 3D works again! w00t w00t! Blender here I come!
- Dagnabbit. Nvidia doesn't support Xorg7.4pre so no Blender for me for a while
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Sep
27
Happy 25th Birthday Gnu!
Category: FSF, Geek Love, RMS | 
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The GNU Software Project to provide a wholly free operating system turns 25 today! Check out this great video showing British superstar Stephen Fry . Thanks to rms, Linus Torvalds, Aaron Siego, Miguel de Icaza and others who have worked hard to give us a free operating system that we can tweak and that no one can ever own and take away from us.
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Aug
24
Micro-blogging: One Month Later
Category: Geek Love, Internet | Leave a Comment
It’s been about a month since I signed up for a bunch of micro-blogging websites. So what do I think after about a month? Let me start off with Twitter.
In my first look at the micro-blogs I had some pretty good feelings about Twitter. That has basically carried over for the past few weeks. I added a Twitter plugin to my blog, using it for quick thoughts I don’t want to elaborate on with a blog post. I’m also using Twitux on my Linux computer for posting without having to load up the Twitter site. I haven’t really been using the Flock Twitter plugin because it doesn’t seem to update correctly or often enough. I’m enjoying using it for those quick thoughts. I’m definitely going to keep using Twitter for the foreseeable future. So I feel the way about Twitter as I did a month ago - I like it.
Now onto Pownce. I have barely used Pownce. I’ve made perhaps somewhere between 15 and 20 posts and that’s about it. I think part of the problem is that everyone I know is on Twitter or will be on Twitter in the near future, but no one I know or care about is on Pownce. I mean, even NPR’s Talk of the Nation is on Twitter. The reply feature is nice, but so far I haven’t been able to use it since no one is following me on Pownce. I haven’t had a chance to use the fileshare or calendar features I was excited about in my review a month ago since I don’t know anyone on this service. I may keep updating it for a little while, but if that account lapsed and they canceled my account, I wouldn’t care. I’m also using a Wordpress Plugin for Pownce and it looks exactly like the one for Twitter. Just like a month ago, I am not that fond of Pownce.
Finally, onto Plurk. I think Plurk was the Internet addiction I was quickest to get over. Previous addictions include Facebook and Flickr. I have met a lot of people on Plurk that seem to be pretty neat people to talk to. There’s also a huge knitting in the Plurk constituency. At least, everyone I click on from the “interesting plurkers” links appears to be into knitting. It’s a pointless fact, but a strange one. Plurk was a very interesting ride when compared to last month’s review. The action items in Plurk turned out not to bother me that much and I eventually came to like them and tried to always format my answer in the third person. And, there was the option to pick a blank option and just put whatever you wanted in there. So instead of annoying me, it ended up forcing me to be creative. I didn’t like that there was only a line for typing - but the line dynamically becomes a box if you type more in. I was also excited about the karma.
So, interesting, the karma did what it was supposed to do at first - get me to come back and do lots of commenting on other people’s plurks. It also got me to befriend a bunch of people. But then the karma ended up getting me more and more pissed off. Now I’m at the point where the karma is actually what is causing me to consider just getting rid of Plurk. I absolutely had the feeling that I’m being forced to Plurk. I’ve never liked people forcing me to do things and I’ve always left any organization where I had to be forced to do something. The most annoying part is they expect you to plurk from work instead of actually working. At a lot of jobs, like mine, this is against the computer policy and people have been fired over it. So every day when I got home, my karma had gone lowered. This was made even more annoying by the fact that you get more abilities on the site as you get more karma. Also, if the others are right, then by not using smilies and dancing bananas, I’m limiting my karmic growth. I don’t want to be forced to use smilies if I don’t feel like it.
Also, as more and more people did more and more plurking, it became harder to keep up if I took some time off to spend with my family or others in the real world. I would come back and find hundreds of plurks for me to look over. If I don’t look them over, it’s hard for me to find replies to my most recent plurks. So they need to somehow fix that - I can’t think of the best way to do it right now, but it certainly doesn’t work well. People are constantly claiming plurk bankruptcy. Also, when I’m skipping through these hundreds of plurks it makes me feel bad that I’m not reading what others are saying, but I expect them to read my plurks and respond so we can have a conversation.
So, in the end, I really enjoy Twitter - the original. Pownce is just there and I haven’t found a compelling reason to stay with it. Plurk has annoyed me so much with the karma and bad reply interface that I’m thinking of quitting it. I’ve been purposely boycotting it for the past 48+ hours and just spending time in the real world instead of the 20+ minutes it’s going to take me to get through all the replies. I may go back to Plurk, but I’d probably just end up ignoring the karma.
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Jul
14
I’ve known about micro-blogging for 1-2 years now - ever since I first started hearing about Twitter. Up until now I’ve been vehemently against the whole micro-blogging trend. To begin with, it requires anyone who wants to keep up with my writing to check yet another website! On top of that, I just can’t see a point to it. I even told my brother last weekend, why can’t I just have nice, short posts on my blog? But recently I’ve been hearing more and more about these micro-blogging services. It keeps being mentioned over and over on the net, in podcasts, pretty soon I’m sure CNN will be doing a piece on it. I know I’m late to the party when, according to Wikipedia, Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton have Twitter accounts. But, still, I hear all these complaints micro-blogging overload and people talking about ridiculously inane things such as what they just ate for lunch.
But a few little factors have led me to check out this whole micro-blogging thing.
1) I’ve recently been getting my blog syndicated in digg and LinuxToday and figured perhaps I should save my blog for longer posts so that people don’t have an uneven experience with the blog. In short, small posts look bad.
2) I resisted podcasts for a long time and regret it. I’ve been very entertained and learned a lot from the podcasts I’ve been listening to. I wish I started a long time ago.
3) I’ll try anything legal at least once.
4) I have this sense that perhaps I’m missing out on a form of communication that I may end up loving.
5) I’ve already been doing it with Facebook via the status updates. Ever since they changed my profile page so that it logs all of the past status updates, it’s basically become a micro-blog of sorts.
So I’ve decided to do a review of the main micro-blogging services: Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, and Plurk. I’ll sign up for all of them (if possible) and see which one works for me. In the end I’ll keep accounts on one or two of them and delete the others (or let them languish to be deleted when the service does its periodic purges). Here’s what I know and the preconceptions I come to to table with.
Twitter - All I know about Twitter is that it’s the most famous and the one that “everyone” is on. Also, it’s “always” down. At least, every single thing I read about Twitter on the net references how it’s always down. When I checked Wikipedia, it says that in 2007 it had a 97% uptime or 3 days offline. Of course, that could have been written in Wikipedia by a Twitter employee or Twitter enthusiast. It certainly doesn’t seem like a lot of downtime in a year consisting of 365 days. Either people on the Internet are engaging in hyperbole by saying that Twitter is “always” down (that would NEVER happen on the nets!) or the Wikipedia article is wrong. I guess I’ll find out during my review.
Jaiku - All I know about Jaiku is that it was created by some Finnish dudes and Google recently bought it.
Pownce - What I know about Pownce is that it was created by Kevin Rose of digg fame. Other than that all I know is that no one ever talks about Pownce. Is it under a Fight Club-like silence? Does this mean that no one uses it? Or are they just too new to the party? Everyone’s always talking about Twitter.
Plurk - I know absolutely nothing about Plurk. Well, I read an article about how “everyone” is deserting Twitter for Plurk. I think micro-blogging is still in an early phase and people are just afraid of being on the service that all their friends aren’t one.
I think I’ll go through the sign-up process and what the websites say about the services. Then I’ll blog my first experience making a post. After that I’ll probably do either another post that will focus on how I feel about them or I will do one post per service. Ok, so first up is the “original” - Twitter!
Twitter has the most bubbly, Web 2.0 vogue site of them all. See for yourself!
Let’s see what they say for the why:
Why? Because even basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues—especially when they’re timely.
- Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know.
- Running late to a meeting? Your co–workers might find that useful.
Partying? Your friends may want to join you.
So, it looks like they’re encouraging that inane babble that everyone complains about with their twitter accounts. Still, they have a sense of humor and that’s always a good thing in a company. What about the how…Nothing of substance there. Ok…. The following quote appears randomly on the home page:
If you aren’t familiar with Twitter, it is one of those things, like MySpace, that sounds totally ridiculous and stupid when you first hear about it. But once you start using it, you realize how much fun it is.
Eric Nuzum, Author of The Dead Travel Fast
That’s pretty much exactly how I feel about micro-blogging. But let’s see if I really do find it fun once I start. They have a video and I decide to watch it. Definitely watch the video. It really explains where they expect to fit in your online life. They want to fill in the space between blogs and emails. Good point. This is something I’m looking to do. Perhaps it’s a good match for me? At least the case for micro-blogging has been made, although I’m not sure if I want to do it on Twitter. Of course, I even if I like Twitter, if the Internets are to be believed and everyone had started the exodus, then the value goes way down. In fact, I’m a bit worried after I watched the video. My enjoyment of the site seems to be predicated on the fact that my friends are on. I don’t have that many technologically minded friends. Those that do follow technology, like my brother Dan, tend to eschew sites like Twitter. Oh well. I’ll sign up.
Well, djotaku, my preferred online nom de guerre, was available. In an interesting move, it asks for permission to search your email contacts to find out if your friends are already using it. Interestingly, my brother was listed as using it. When I mentioned to him that I didn’t get Twitter, he didn’t mention having an account. It then asked if I wanted to send invites to others. I picked few friends.
Well, here’s my Twitter page, or at least the page it dumped me to when the sign-up was over.
Well, Twitter’s up right now despite what the detractors say. It’s pretty easy to use. Flock also has some Twitter integration, but that’s a post for another day. Here’s my page after a few updates and my brother’s page:
Well, this micro-blogging thing is a bit fun! Also, it’s pretty darned easy. If I had a text messaging plan I might even update it more often. Wikipedia mentions a famous case where it saved someone’s life.
Next I decided to give Jaiku a shot.
Jaiku
Here’s the main page:
I decided to “take the tour”. Then I clicked on “explore”:
I can’t sign up for it now. I need to request an invite. You know what Google, this whole “invitation-only” BS is starting to get on my nerves. I think I’ll pass on Jaiku. So next up is Pownce.
Pownce
While Twitter seems to emphasize nice short messages about what you’re doing, Pownce appears to be attempting to be even more than that. Here’s the main page:
Pownce seems to really emphasize sharing stuff (vs updating people on your life). Twice on the site it has a variation on:
Pownce is a way to keep in touch with and share stuff with your friends. Send people files, links, events, and messages and then have real conversations with the recipients.
I like the idea of being able to send files and events. It takes a lot of the tedium out of having to email attachments and deal with all that. Plus the events part sounds useful. I get a weird vibe from Pownce. I like something about Twitter a lot more. Perhaps it’s the color scheme? I don’t know, but something about Pownce almost has a sinister feel to it. Maybe it’s the name Pownce? I keep thinking of Pownage and dominating people. It sounds really aggressive. Anyway, I’m going to sign-up.
It also has a friend import feature. Unfortunately, the site became incredibly slow and unresponsive at this stage. Pownce is also built into Flock, so if I like it, it will continue to be convenient for me to use. Here’s the main page for me to enter my posts:
Interestingly, they appear to think people will be willing to pay for Pownce. People are always talking about how to monetize the read/write web (Web 2.0) and how there are all these companies providing services that are nice, but people wouldn’t pay for them. I pay for flickr because it gives me value - I can post more pictures, have a higher upload limit, and have access to all my pictures. But paying for a microblogging service? Of all the reasons they list to go pro, only the 250 MB limit appears to be worth it. But it depends, if that’s per file, then who’s sending files that big? If it’s total, then maybe it’s worth the money. Well, let’s try out Pownce.
I tried to make a post and it keeps “freezing” on me. I click post and then it returns me to a completely blank - white - page. I finally get a post, and it expresses my frustration.
I’m also going to test adding a file and and event.
There’s one thing I like so far with Pownce - each post has a reply button. If the replies are kept with the original posts then I think Pownce has a one-up on Twitter. It means you can truly have a conversation with your buddies. So you’re combining micro-blogging with micro-commenting. Being able to share files sounds good, but I don’t know how often I’d use it. Alright, all that’s left is Plurk.
Plurk
As I said before, all I know about Plurk is that it’s supposedly eating Twitter’s lunch. (Drinking their milkshake, if you will) Here’s the main page:
Honestly, based on the front page, I’m least excited about trying out Plurk. The front page screens out - “I’m trying too hard”. I don’t know. I just don’t think it’s as inviting as Twitter or Pownce. Well, let’s sign up and see if my opinion changes. This also had a friend finding/recruiting phase. I guess they all recognize how these services aren’t any fun without friends on them. Here’s the page it dumped me into.
The page is interesting, but it feels a bit cluttered.
The timeline idea is interesting and different, but also a bit unnecessary. After all, all the post on your page in Pownce and Twitter are listed in reverse chronological order anyway. Also, I’m used to seeing lists in reverse chronological order, but not timelines. It took me a few seconds to realize that my post had appeared on the left and not the right. Before I keep going, let me say they have a weird and disturbing mascot/logo:
It looks like a little puppy with its head cut off!
Anyway, another thing I don’t like about Plurk is that the posting interface is like facebook where it’s in the form of “username” action “something”. I find this to be more limiting than Twitter and Pownce where I can just type freeform. Here’s the items you can pick for your action:
But what do I like about Plurk? I like that it says it’s (time) and blah. I also think the karma points could be an interesting concept. Going back to stuff I don’t like, I don’t like that it’s a line for me to type in. Even though I only get 140 characters like in Twiter, I feel like I can’t say that much because it’s a text line instead of a text box and the font is so huge. I know I can keep typing, but I feel like I need to end by the time I get to the end of the text box.
Ok, so - conclusions? I’m willing to try these suckers out for a few weeks and see how I like them. I’m already semi-addicted to changing my Facebook status and today I couldn’t wait to get out of bed to make a Twitter post (known as a Tweet). So I may end up liking micro-blogging. The only part of the micro-blogging culture that doesn’t call to me is the whole updated from your cell phone. Not only do I not have a text messaging plan, but (to borrow a term from the intel guys) it’s bad OPSEC. In other words, if you’re Twittering how much fun you’re having at a concert, then people know you’re not at home. They can rob you, kidnap your kids, rape your wife, etc. That’s why I never blog about my vacations until I get back.
Anyway, stay tuned and see how this experiment goes and which service I end up favoring.
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Jul
10
Twitter-like Post: State of the Web - Summer 2008
Category: Geek Love, Internet, News | Leave a Comment
Someone with a bit of artistic creativity has decided to create an illustrated view of all the big news of the year. I like it so much, I can’t wait to see his work no Fall 2008 and so on.
Check it out, here.
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Jun
29
On LinuxToday a few days ago
Category: Geek Love, Internet, Linux | Leave a Comment
Once again I was pretty excited to find that I had been aggregated onto LinuxToday for this blog post. The funny thing is that I almost didn’t make that blog post as I was contemplating it for over a week and usually if I wait that long, the blog post doesn’t get written.
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Jun
20
As I’ve mentioned before, although I think it was on It’s A Binary World 1.0, a Cornell education does something strange to you. Like seeing vectors when speeding up and slowing down your car. Or in the way in which you explain why Dan will be escorting two bride’s maids at Phil’s wedding:
(09:00:29 PM) Danny: and here’s what this one guy had to say about it
(09:00:38 PM) Danny: Also, I would like to concur with Dan’s sentiments. Given Dan’s unique
relationship status amongst our fraternity of groomsmen, it would be
logical and just to assign him the surplus of bridesmaids. However, giving
him three would stretch the bounds of the reasonable. It would be awkward
and contrived. Naturally, six bridesmaids would be pigeonholed amongst
four groomsmen in the currently arranged manner: 2 would have 1 each, 2
would have 2 each. Perhaps Margot would appreciate the subsequent
metaphor. Since the current combinatorial arrangement is the natural
consequence of an application of the Pigeonhole Principle, we can liken
the current circumstance to that of the most stable or lowest-energy
state. Although I am sure Mr. Mesa’s propensity for being an attractive
nucleus for members of the opposite sex is considerable, keeping three
bridesmaids in an orbital around his personage would undoubtedly require a
good deal of energy on his behalf. Also, let us consider another physical
fact. As Margot has indicated we may likely be in “arm-in-arm” contact
with our respective bridesmaids. Based off my prior observation of Mr.
Mesa, his anatomy appears nominal in that he possess, as do most members
of our species, two arms.
A third bridesmaid would have to reside in some outer orbital and would
have a greatly increased probability of being snatched by another
groomsmen to fill his inner orbital. As such, this arrangement is
unstable.
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Jun
13
The Neuros OSD
Category: Geek Love, Linux, Technology | 1 Comment
The Neuros OSD is a device created by Neuros Technology. This is a device I am REALLY excited about buying. I first heard about it in the latest issue of Linux Format Magazine, which gave it a rating of 9/10. What’s so awesome about this device? It runs Linux! “So what?” You may say, “So does the TiVo.” That’s true, but unlike the TiVo, the Neuros engineers encourage their users to hack the machine! That’s right, while TiVo has some checksums to prevent users from tampering with them, a trait so onerous that the GPL version 3 specifically targeted them, the Neuros has a vibrant community dedicated to transforming the Neuros OSD into whatever is most useful for the consumer. What’s that? A company that actually wants the best for its consumers? That’s right!
You see, they are the early birds to the new revolution where manufacturers begin to realize that the best thing they can do is empower their users to change the devices they OWN as they wish. Not only does that satisfy the geek urge to tinker (and tech companies should try and please geeks as their main consumer base), but it gives Neuros Technology FREE R&D. They are taking the model behind the Linux kernel and bringing it to the hardware world. With Linux, if you want to get it to run on a watch and no one else cares about that, you can add in the parts you need to make that work.
For example, Linus Torvalds, BDFL of the Linux kernel, has stated that some of the parts getting the most work nowadays are in parts of the technology world that he cares little about. If he were the only one who could code Linux, some of these technologies would never be implemented. In the same way, Neuros Technology has primarily designed the OSD to be a device for archiving VHS tapes, a rudimentary personal video recorder (think TiVo or MythTV), and DVD backup solution. That’s what they’re working on with their R&D dollars. However, tons of consumers have already started hacking the box to do other things they really want to do. For example, projects have started to port a web browser, add support for streaming a last.fm radio station, and supporting the free Ogg Theora video codec. This code doesn’t cost Neuros Technology any money or risk, but it increases the value of the product. Now someone else can buy it and use it to view the web on their TV.
What attracts me to the project is that I can use it as a really, really cheap MythTV frontend. This is not at all one of the intended uses of the product as conceived by Neuros Technology, but they will get a sale from me just because of that. And right now its MythTV support comes down to the fact that MythTV and the Neuros OSD both speak uPNP. But if I wanted to, I could write code and load it onto the OSD that would access my MythTV recordings as seamlessly as if it had been designed for just that purpose. Then I can put this code online and even more people might buy an OSD just for that purpose. Afterall, the Neuros OSD is selling for $179 and it would cost me >$400 to create a suitable MythTV front end.
I look forward to more and more manufacturers working towards this type of system where they empower the consumer rather than enslaving them. Sony is slowly moving in that direction with the ability to install Linux onto the Playstation 3. There are now tons of people using the Playstation for Folding at Home where they are helping to find cures for horrible diseases by running the FaH project when they aren’t using the Playstation. Also, many research teams have been stringing Playstation 3s together to make super computers. Neither of these were envisioned by Sony, but they add value to product without costing Sony one dime of R&D money.
Neuros has a blog for getting out the message to consumers, a Wiki page for developers, and a discussion group for questions. Check out their Google Summer of Code 2008 page to see what’s coming thanks to the open model. Neuros is definitely serious about your digital rights.
I’ll definitely be buying a Neuros OSD as my next big purchase.
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May
29
Code Monkey
Category: Computers, Geek Love, Music, Video Games, programming | Leave a Comment
This song is awesome and, best of all, it’s been released under a Creative Commons license, so I can share it with you all without fear of the RIAA breathing down my neck!
I first heard Code Monkey on a recent episode of Linux Outlaws. It’s a song about a code monkey who is having a hard time with his boss and with unrequited office love. It’s a tale any code monkeys will find familiar. You can either download it at this post or, if that takes too long, off of Jonathan Coulton’s blog. His last.fm page says he came out with a new song a year for a whole year, so check that out. There may be some other really awesome ones.
I’m sure that if you’re a programmer or into geek culture that this will be on your playlist for a long time. It’ll probably be my top scrobbled song this year.
And here’s the neatest part, if you still haven’t downloaded it yet - Jonathan Coulton is the guy who came up with the “Still Alive” song from Portal!!! That song rocks!
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