I wanted to write that writing is hard. I typed out a lot of stuff, and you know what? All of it was crap. Utter crap. Am I a bad writer? Have I ever written about something well? Have you, personally, ever enjoyed something on this site that wasn’t implicit to some stolen content? I know I’ve linked to entertaining stuff. Have I ever written any? Because I think I’ve figured out what’s wrong. Practice doesn’t help if you don’t know when it’s working. Deaf people find it hard to talk, not because of some fault in their vocal systems, but because they can’t hear themselves. Well I can’t read myself. To avoid the danger of unwarranted reassurance, I would request that all responses be criticism. If you do feel an overwhelming urge to be complimentary then at least include a vote for worst post ever.
Drug-Induced Design
I guess the guys that built this roundabout imported the incomplete designs from France and just made up the rest as they went along, possibly under the influence of illegal substances.
Credit Where Credit is Due
I wanted to send a text message today. I know this is an unusual occurance; my usage patterns of mobile phones could be measured in geological timescales. When I thought of sending the message, I wanted to type it on my familiar and comfy keyboard instead of the hard and, more importantly, small number pad of my phone. First stop netsoc‘s free SMS message system. No dice. They only send to Vodafone and O2 (still mislabeled as 087 and 086 – why can’t people keep up?).
It seemed I’d have to brave the corporate registration process at O2.ie. I gritted my teeth and assured myself that it would pay for itself in the long run. So I started to fill out the forms, the usual stuff: name, six phone numbers, two email addresses, family history traced to the famine, internal rectal radius. Then a surprise.
Hello, registration worked (yes, on your browser). It seems we haven’t given you any free money in a while and you bought that credit back in January 2003. Have another €40. No, wait. €60.
At my current rate of phone spending, I’ll need to buy more credit in February.
Ten Four Good Buddy
Riding the radio-waves like it’s going out of fashion. Of course we all know that it’s just coming into fashion and it won’t be long before all of you slow-uptakers are copying me. Look mom, no wires!
So now I just have to copy everything I’ve done in the last two years onto this computer. And probably fix a dozen issues along the way. Yes, this has been a long, long struggle.
Woooooooo!
Sometimes I try to write as if I think anyone could be reading, so I don’t require fore-knowledge or use in-jokes. But right now I think I have to admit what I know all of my readers will understand. Ifrit doesn’t absorb Flare. Remember that.
Network Woes
It was sheer naivety – and I apologise for the horrible auto-interjection, but I have to quote Fowler’s The King’s English stating that "it is to be wished that [naïveté] might be disencumbered of its diaeresis, its accent, and its italics" because I genuinely had no clue how to spell that word – to expect to set up my home wireless (802.11G) network without difficulty. A considered soul would be left only to consider where the difficulty would lie.
Though I was quickly made aware of the existence of gaps in my knowledge – not wholy unexpected – and in my ability to fill said gaps, it took surprising time for me to discover the exact form of my network’s malady. Though I enjoy learning more than most any other of life’s fine persuits, I generally prefer my progress not to be stifled by learning’s absence. Sadly, in this case, it was.
By this point you may reasonably expect to be told the nature of my troubles, but you may yet be surprised to discover that I have not yet fully remedied them. I do posess something that at this point I value almost as highly as a complete solution, and that is the hope that one is forthcoming.
You see, in a most frustrating circumstance, my initial conception of the ultimate nature of the network was indeed accurate and workable. However my chosen means of manipulating the current state of the equipment into the desired final state was misinformed – or, more accurately, underinformed.
I have now recieved at least some relevant education relating to the issue – in the form of unexpectedly useful email technical support from Eircom – which has shown itself to alleviate at least one irritating symptom, and which I hope will indeed constitute the entirity of the ultimate solution. I therefore look forward to tomorrow with catious optimism. Fingers crossed.
Very Pathetic
I struggled long and hard to find a title that would sum up just how pathetic this ad for Microsoft Frontpage is. This is the best example of messing up a good idea since Windows itself. Note that I’m not crediting Microsoft with the good idea that they turned into Windows, just the ensuing cock-up.
In With the Old, In With the New
There’s some newness around here for you to enjoy, in the form of style changes, (accidental) partial bug fixes and features. Style changes include – indeed are – a new site icon (linked for those of you using last century’s browsing technology) and a background gradient. There’s not much to be said about the background except that I think it adds a whole lot for very little cost. The icon is a fusion of the backwards E used in mathematical shorthand to mean ‘there exists’, and the upside-down A meaning ‘for all’. You could interpret it as meaning SoylentRed.net exists for all.
The accidental bug fix – more accurately a workaround – is a result of the background gradient. Internet Explorer’s rendering bug isn’t as prominant as it was with the old matt background.
As for features – and the reason for the ‘In With the Old’ part of this entry’s title – I’ve added a nostalgia box to the main page, which lists all of the items that were on the front page this time last year. I was pondering the dilemma of producing lots of written work which is almost immediately confined to the archives, most likely never to be read again. This is the first part of my solution. It also means that the most prominant links on the front page are no longer those that give people directions on how to get away from here.
Finding MEmo
My latest todo list (yesterday) featured the item "Write todo list manager MEmo for new computer". This should read "write todo list manager MEmo", as it will ultimately run both on my home computer and on the host server of SoylentRed.net. Several times a day I want an easy way to send myself notices of the ‘do this later’ variety, and most of those times I’m stuck on a college computer, so putting the system in on a net-accessible machine is a necessity. Right now I use, in no particular order – and believe me it’s quite devoid of order – email, ftp, a little notebook and my memory (the personal kind that Dell didn’t double for free) to remind myself to do stuff. Stuff, invariably, does not get done.
Enter MEmo. The name, as with most things SoylentRed, is due to djinn. It’s a concise ‘memo to self’, pronounced ‘mee-moe’. It’ll keep items with various data, like description of task, required time of completion, catagor(y|ies), status etc. I have a complete list somewhere. Above all, it will be useful. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Scatterbrain it’s that I’ll only do something right if it’s useful. I didn’t finish my mp3 player. I didn’t finish my text editor. I didn’t finish my game. Scatterbrain is in constant development for longer than any of my other projects. MakeLink is more complete than I would ever have got before. MEmo will join them.
Current Todo List
Make listSetup scatterbrain on stephenbrophy.netUpdate scatterbrain on SoylentRed.net- Fix home wireless network
- Write todo list manager MEmo for new computer
- Finish college assignments
- Setup Red Hat Linux on new computer (fix graphics card)
- Find more interesting stuff than lists to write about on SoylentRed.net
- Fix bugs / code unprettiness / feature requests in CopyTitle Firefox extension (soon to be renamed MakeLink)
- Make project pages on Soylentred.net for such projects as MakeLink/CopyTitle
- Get MakeLink listed on Firefox extension lists
- Finish Final Fantasy X-2 (on its way from Play.com with free delivery)
- Catch up with my projected feature list for scatterbrain