Test

by Matt | Mar 16, 2003 | Imported Entry

Test of W.Blogger client. Again, pay no attention to things.

JIVE!

by Matt | Mar 16, 2003 | Imported Entry

Upgraded to MT 2.63 last night and decided to try out a new jive plugin or two.

This is all just random text… pay no attention to it…

Add/Remove Programs won’t work after XP SP 1 – Click HERE for Original Thread
DemiUrge
Hi,

I did a fresh install of Windows XP before installing the new service pack, and everything went smoothly until i ran the new shortcut that lets you edit whether you want to use IE or not, etc. (Sorry for the vagueness, I can’t completely remember what it was called.)

The shortcut didn’t work, saying something about a parser error message. Now when I try to open Add/Remove Programs, I get this:

quote:
——————————————————————————–
Parser Message
Value creation failed “” at line 472
——————————————————————————–

I’m not dying to reinstall XP again (i JUST got everything back to normal =), so I was wondering if anyone could give any advice.

Thanks in advance.

(Edited for spelling)

Phantasm66
Hey! Its your lucky day! (Or at least I hope it is, anyway….)

quote:
——————————————————————————–

1.) Go to your /WINDOWS/Resources/Themes directory, or wherever you may have your themes located.
2.) Go into the directory of the theme your currently using.
Example: Using ‘Semplice’ by KoL? Navigate to /WINDOWS/Resources/Themes/Semplice
3.) Go into the folder called ‘Shell” within the previous directory.
4.) Inside you’ll find a folder with a file called ‘shellstyle.dll’ inside. Now remember the name of the theme your using? (Example: Semplice). You need to rename this folder from Shell to the name of the theme your currently using. If you don’t know the exact name, go to Display Properties, and try to Display/Show the theme, the name you see in Display Properties is the name you need to change the ‘Shell’ folder to.
Example: Using Semplice as an example, the Shell folder for that theme is called ‘Shell’, in this situation you’ll need to rename the folder to ‘Semplice’. Easy enough, right?
Note that for multi-part themes, aka themes with more than one variation or color, you’ll need to rename each corresponding ‘Shell’ folder to what is displayed in Display Properties when you try to apply the theme.
5.) Now that you’ve changed the ‘Shell’ folder name to correspond with the visual styles name, reapply the theme.
6.) Go to Add/Remove Programs, and voila! “

Peer to Peer and Terror???

by Matt | Mar 15, 2003 | Imported Entry

I usually refrain from directly quoting web sites but in this case Tycho of Penny Arcade fame expresses his feelings in a much more eloquent way than I could possibly hope to. The comments are directed toward an article (here) which describes the Deputy Attorney General’s opinions about file sharing and what was discussed at a congressional subcommittee meeting. Now I will quote. Pay attention kids, this is how to write effectively.

I won’t afflict you with the entire litany because I don’t think that’s why people read the things I write, to be exposed to surreal political views which are completely unmoored from reality. I would, however, draw your attention to the following article, which details a congressional hearing on the links between terrorism and, um… peer-to-peer file sharing.

Statements of this kind gnaw at the sensible mind, they chew on it and try to eat it. I won’t even gauge the clumsiness with which these two incongruous concepts are lashed together. If you want to see triple-x, explicit evidence of corporations with their hands up your government’s ass, working the their jaws like some malevolent Howdy Doody with chilling ramifications for personal liberty, well, there you go. Peer-to-peer file sharing and Terror? Terror? Do they not have dictionaries there? There’s another T word you cocks might like, too – give it a try: it’s called “Tenuous.” The only people terrorized by peer-to-peer file sharing are vastly potent multinational businesses, gripped by the realization that they sell carriages in a world of bullet trains.

Now I have to add a few comments of my own. These require reading of the article because I’m going to be quoting (again).

“Organized crime, in my mind, includes well organized groups of people trying to control the cash flow of a given commodity or within a given region”

Ok… so that makes the RIAA and the MPAA “organized crime” as well? I would think so. They been price fixing Cd’s since 1985 and started out price fixing DVDs just a few years ago. The actual production cost of a CD is $1.50. Even with 100% profit going to the record label and 200% going to the artist, that still means that the CD should be under $10. Are they? Nope. You have the balls to suggest that cutting into your 1500% profit is horrific? Go fuck yourselves.

“If more American parents understood the connection between the pirating of intellectual property and organized crime, I think then there’d be a much more effective public relations response in our own country to better appreciate the disastrous ramifications.”

Or, how about, if more American parents found out what you were really doing they’d shut you down. The only reason you see file-sharing as a problem is because the number of people who “get it” are eventually going to outnumber the people who have no clue. Generation X parents are fully aware of price fixing, they lived through the 80’s. So did I. If CD’s still cost $20 when I have a kid and they want to download them instead of buying them I’m going to praise the kid for being sensible with his money.

People ask me all the time if I think stealing is wrong. I say “yes”. Then they try to give me some long involved argument about how file sharing is stealing and that if I think stealing is wrong I’m being hypocritical. Then I asked them how much they paid for their CD or their software. Then I ask how much they think it cost to produce. When I tell most people about the insane level of profit the recording industry is making off each CD usually they get more mad than anything else. Perhaps that’s just because I go to art school and these kids are more liberal minded. Yes, I think stealing is wrong. I wouldn’t walk into a store and steal something and here’s why. Because that is stealing, not from the company that produced that CD, but from the store you’re stealing it from. Retail works by a company or store BUYING a large number of (we’ll keep using our metaphor) CD’s from the record company. They in turn, mark it up a little and resell it to make their profit. If you steal from them you’re denying the store its profit, not the record label. They already made their money. I say that it IS wrong to steal, it’s wrong to steal 1500% profit when you don’t have to. The record stores have little to no control over the price of their CD’s. The get them for $15 and resell them for $18. When the record company makes then for $1 and resells them for $15, thats highway robbery. “But that’s just good business practices” someone might say. So is my downloading the CD instead of buying it. I’m not going to support an industry that does that to consumers. They want to sell me a CD? Then they can lower the price to less than $10. I want a brand new, top of the charts, Grammy Award winning CD for $7.99. That’s what I want. It’s never going to happen. Until that day comes I’m going to download my music. If you still think that makes me hypocritical, so be it.

“Representative John Carter, (R-Texas), suggested that college students would stop downloading if some were prosecuted and received sentences of 33 months or longer, like the defendants in the DOJ’s Operation Buccaneer. “I think it’d be a good idea to go out and actually bust a couple of these college kids,” Carter said. “If you want to see college kids duck and run, you let them read the papers and somebody’s got a 33-month sentence in the federal penitentiary for downloading copyrighted materials.”

Hi, I’m an asshole. What would posses someone to make a blatantly bias statement like that. We’re college students, we’re supposed to be subversive. We write ‘zines and politically charged school news papers. We go to rallies and demonstrations. We’re the ones chanting “peace not bombs” at the moment. The sick and sad part is that you did this during Viet Nam. If you didn’t then you’re kids did. We’re college students. We feel (whether we’re right or not) that we’re smarter than you. We fell that your system isn’t working and that these laws are just dogmatic bullshit that you think will be good for business. Of course we’re going to subvert the system. Of course we’re going to download music. You dumb fuck. Here’s a quote you can take to the bank: If you want to see asshole congressmen duck and run, let a few thousand college students protest outside his office for a few weeks. Fucko.

*steps off his soap box for the day*

Sorry, if you don’t agree with any of that, it’s fine, but when I see an article written so obviously with opinions from only one side it kind of pisses me off. Then to have two figures from our government basically call all college students terrorists and thieves makes me madder than hell.

Alright. I’m off to listen to my downloaded, terrorist supporting music. Later.

Spring Break

by Matt | Mar 15, 2003 | Imported Entry

Well, classes are over, everything went well and now I’ve got nothing to do for a week and a half. Lauren flew back home to TX last night and got in around 10pm. She gave me a call from Houston to tell me she made it and that she was going to get some food with her folks. Chip also called me from somewhere in VA to tell me he was stopping for the night. I looked up hotels for him and found him a Holiday Inn somewhere near Fredricksburg. He should be back on the road soon and should get here this evening, probably around dinner time. I know that the bottom of VA is 6 hours and that DC is about 8. He’s somewhere in between.

As for Jason and I, today we’re going to try and find a coffee table. We’ve been looking for one for weeks now and just can’t find anything decent (cheap) enough to buy. Jason also saw Nagle at the movies last night and he said he’d be up for doing something. So, who knows. I’m going to hit Walmart up for some random things and probably vacuum before Chip gets here but other than that it’s all about the computer games.

After beating Splinter Cell last night and Command & Conquer: Generals the other day I figured I should find something new to occupy my time. I started playing Age of Mythology but it’s pretty much like every other “Age of Insert Something Here” game. It’s a typical RTS (real time strategy) and I’m not sure I’m in the mood for another one after finishing C&C just the other day. Then I gave Freelancer a try. Holy crap this game is good. Repetitive but good. Most (99%) of the missions are exactly the same and the game turns into a routine simply for money to make your ship better. Then I reinstalled Medal of Honor and added on the Spearhead expansion pack. Why did I ever stop playing this game? Medal of Honor won my personal “game of the year” status two years ago (? – or was it last year?) and this expansion pack is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time. Nothing, and I mean nothing is more fun than vanquishing wave after wave of Nazis. In between blasting Nazis and flying around space I’m also going to be cleaning out my hard drives. I’ve got two nearly full drives and nothing but crap on them. They haven’t been “cleaned” since last summer. Time to back some CDs up and wipe’em.

That’s about it. Spring break is here. Let the video game fun begin. 🙂

Political Climate

by Matt | Mar 12, 2003 | Imported Entry

Since politics is one of the things we’re encouraged not to talk about at parties and social gatherings I figured this might be a good time to voice my opinion since there are no parties or social gatherings to ruin with my blatant disregard for social graces.

I guess I’m not so much annoyed at as I am confused by politics. Surely President Bush has gotten the message that everyone except himself and his cronies wants to avoid war? He must know it. There have been bigger anti-war rallies than there were during the later years of the Vietnam War. I kind of feel bad for the guy. To not even be the real president and then to have support for your campaign crumble under your feet must be disheartening. There was even a US diplomat that’s resigned that I simply need to quote:

“Throughout the globe the United States is becoming associated with the unjustified use of force. The president’s disregard for views in other nations, borne out by his neglect of public diplomacy, is giving birth to an anti-American century.”

Jebus, this shit is going to go on for months. Let me tell you how I see it playing out, and it’s in two different scenarios. Hopefully what will happen is that the new UN resolution won’t pass this weekend and they’ll extend their deadline to vote until next week, then that won’t pass but by then even the British will have pulled out their support for military action. The president will be facing such global opposition to military conquest that he backs down and this saga is stretched out for decades in political spats with the middle east. That’s a hopeful scenario. If the thief-in-chief gets his way he’ll declare war on Monday, say “fuck off” to the UN on Tuesday and start bombing shit by the end of the week. We’ll flatten Iraq in about a day and a half but at a terrible price. Chemical weapons, nuclear weapons and more all have the possibility of being dropped either by factions in the middle east on our troops or after being smuggled into the country and detonated here. Either way the loss of life would be enormous. After that’s somewhat resolved we will have lost all relations with North Korea AND Iran, who both have nukes and that could destabilize most of the globe leading to WW3. Wouldn’t that be fun? That would start up a new draft and I’d have to put down “conscience objector” and move to Canada.

I hope that all that doesn’t happen because I just can’t see military action turning out well. It just won’t. The UN resolution won’t pass, France and Russia have already said that they would veto any vote that passes. My only question is this: if Bush is so completely and totally convinced about the “evilness” of Hussein and that he needs to be removed from power for everyone’s safety, where’s the proof? There must be something that Bush has seen but we haven’t. Aerial photos of nuke plants, video of Saddam killing civilians himself, an audio tape of him talking with Bin Laden, something! Apparently we’re too stupid or liberal minding for the administration to show it to us. OR they’ve got nothing and are simply using prior middle east tensions as a starting point and 9/11 as a shield and going after someone they simply haven’t liked since ’91. Yes, Saddam is a douche-bag, yes he has weapons, yes he’s a dictator and kills people randomly. Bush is also a douche-bag, Bush has bigger weapons and the only reason another country hasn’t invaded for “humanitarian reasons” is because the US government doesn’t randomly kill it’s civilians.

See, this would all be solved in about 20 minutes if I were president. I would invite Saddam to the white house and have a wrestling match on live TV for bragging rights. I win, you disarm. You win, I leave you alone. Then we’d both go out for a drink and talk about what morons our Secretaries of State are. That’s it. That would be my brand of diplomacy. I’d continue this policy in various forms until the world was a safer place. For example, I’d invite the Prime Minister of North Korea over for some ice-cream and talk about what happened last night on Fear Factor. Then I’d ASK HIM why he feels that he needs nuclear weapons. If he can’t give me a clear answer, I’d take his ice cream away. It’s really simple folks. If your world leaders are acting like a spoiled 12 year old, treat them like one.

Then again, if I were president, hockey would be the national sport and we’d all have Fridays off. But that’s just me. Anyway, those are my completely unfounded, non-fact-based opinions. Most of you probably disagree with them and that’s ok. I just want more justification for war and war as a complete last resort. I want to know exactly whats going on and WHY we think it’s necessary to start blowing shit up, other than to prove the size of our political wang to the world. Otherwise I don’t think war is justified. I also like hockey. But that too is my opinion. Take it or leave it.