Fisher Times-Post-Dispatch-Courier

This post was written inside Firefox while running the Ubuntu operating system.

Don’t get too excited, I still lack wireless connectivity, but with access to the internet at the least (at school) things are looking very promising. 

Went to my first professional hockey game tonight, and saw the Blues beat the Nashville Predators 1-0, breaking a 14-game losing streak to the Preds.  It was lots of fun, and even from the cheap seats, seeing the NHL beats watching it on TV by a ratio of at least 10-1 (I was commenting on how much better in-person hockey was within the first 20 seconds of the game).

Also, I now have my computer set up for Linux and Ubuntu fully installed.  I just need to work out some kinks (a lot of kinks), but I expected that, what with Linux not being the top dog in OSes, and a lot of hardware not supporting it, but with emulators and some time and patience, the rough stuff should soon be behind me.  All I really need is the internet, and we’ll be cooking with fire. 

Yes, we have snow. Yes, it’s a lot. No, it’s not problematic (or any more so than past winter weather).

"It’s Division 1 Football!"

I’ve been sick.  I’m (mostly) better now, it wasn’t anything serious.  Just a little cold.

"It’s the Big 12!"

I read some disturbing reports about the new Vista operating system.  The worst is that Mike Rowe Soft has implemented some copy-protection features that will cause people who have legitimately purchased High Definition content (HD-DVD or Blu-Ray) not to be able to play their discs through Vista or with intentionally downgraded (non-HD) signal if they don’t have the "perfect" hardward setup.  Not that the hardware is unable to play the content, or that Vista is unable to play the content, or that the person with the computer hasn’t obtained the content legitimately or doesn’t have the right to view his content, but that Vista wastes system resources monitoring what is played, looking for high-def content, checking the hardware setup, and deliberately choosing to degrade the signal or not play the signal if everything isn’t perfect.

To the Evil Empire: yes, you have every right to bow to the pressures of the Hollywood, and to write your code any way you want.  But as a result of this and other concerns (see: over-protective licensing agreements, agressive activation requirements, general "bloatiness" of the coding, lack or slowness of response to genuine security threats [while responding literally over night when someone breaks the encryption code on Vista high-def protections],  and your general "we own the market and can do anything we want for way too much money"), no computer I own will ever run Vista.  As of this week, I am migrating to Ubuntu Linux, which has support for everything I want and need: OpenOffice Suite to replace M$ Office, Media players, photo viewing and editing programs, and even Windows emulators to allow me to play games written for Windows.  Hopefully this will allow me to completely uninstall Windows in the near future.

If you run an older version of Windows and it works for you, I encourage you NOT to migrate to Vista.  It will be many years before XP is no longer supported, and even without support will probably continue to run new programs for quite a while.  By that time, hopefully we will have made enough of an impact on MS that they will be forced to respond to our concerns.

"It ain’t intramurals!"

Way to go Dan Hawkins.  You’re now on the list of all-time greatest rants, along with Denny Green ("They are who we thought they were!"), Jim Mora ("Playoffs?  Are you kidding me?  Don’t talk to me about playoffs!  Playoffs?"), and of course Howard Dean ("AAAAAaaaaaaaaaah").

"Go play intramurals, brother."

Keep an eye on Flickr.  There are some new additions already up, and several more on the way.  Spent some quality time with my favorite local landmark, and am happy to report that it’s still there and I managed to get home without a severe case of frostbite.  It’s been cold around here!

Update: a postscript note about this round of photos: some of them are low-contrast and dark, and it is recommended that you view the largest size available, otherwise you’ll lose out on the details (especially the Fire Arch, where the large size reveals crinkling on the surface of the Arch’s skin).