Just blabbing
Well, you can all breathe a sigh of relief — I’ve sucessfully migrated my backup script (bash shell script) from Linux to Cygwin under Windows. Actually, there wasn’t too much that had to be changed, mostly just path adjustments. Unfortunately, I was unable to move over a *tiny* Perl script I had written to output, in real-time, the status of my wireless card’s connection to my router.
One might ask, “Justin, why in Linus’s name are you in Windows?”. Well, as is usually the case, school has kind of forced me into it, at least for the next two semesters. After that, I’m sure to be back in some *nix distro — Mac OS X if I win the lottery (PowerBook G4 baby!).
One might also ask, “Justin, why don’t you just use some multi-OS program?” The fact is, I’ve used most of them (Windows on top of Linux, Linux on top of Windows), with VMWare being my personal favorite, but I just don’t like running concurrent OS’s, and dual-booting is out of the question (unlike this guy, who can boot any one of the 37 OS’s on his machine).
In related news, I’ve found Vim for win32 to be quite faithful to the *nix version.
Counting Crows - Hard Candy
While sitting in my AI class this morning it occurred to me that I’ve made no mention of the Counting Crows’ latest installment to their ever-better discography. As most of you know, and have known for years, Counting Crows is one of my favorite bands of all time (arguably, album-for-album, the best band to come out of my generation). How many bands of the 90’s can say that each subsequent album got significantly better? I’m obviously not talking about August and Everything After, their debut album, which has been in my top ten list since 1993 when it was released. I don’t think they could ever top that, but they’ve come very close with Hard Candy.
I must admit, the first time I listened to the album I wasn’t all that impressed (which is usually the case for albums I end up loving). After listening to it A LOT these past few months, I have to say that it is easily their second best album (probably their BEST album if you were to ask anyone else familiar with their music, but as I mentioned earlier, August just has a hold on me). There are a few absolute gems on this record. The song that immediately stood out was the last one, Holiday in Spain. Gorgeous. So sad and desperate and perfect. My other favorites include Hard Candy (classic Counting Crows), Miami (just a brilliant rock song, wow), and Black and Blue. The only song I really don’t care too much for is Butterfly in Reverse, but I won’t elaborate as I already feel somewhat heretical in saying what I have.
In short, listen to this album.
Toshiba e740
Well, it’s about that time of the month again, that’s right — a new gadget. I purchased the Toshiba e740 Pocket PC a few hours ago and just got back from returning it. The device is incredible, but had a few flaws I couldn’t accept. Let’s start with the pros:
- 400MHz Intel XScale processor (yes, 400MHz :P)
- Integrated 802.11 wireless (first handheld ever with this feature; had it working fairly quickly on the wireless network in my apartment)
- Great form factor
- All of the usual bells and whistles expected of current Pocket PC devices (240×320 resolution, 65K LCD TFT-reflective screen, 64MB RAM, 32MB ROM, etc)
Now for the cons:
- There is NO backup battery. I had read about this in reviews and just decided I could live without it, BUT, as was mentioned in a few of those reviews, the removable lithium-polymer battery came loose from routine handling of the device (there is a latch on the side that is supposed to keep the battery in place; this came undone), which resulted in complete data loss. This is obviously unacceptable. What a ridiculous oversight by Toshiba. I mean, really.
- Another major drawback was that though the 802.11 was surprisingly easy to setup (using Toshiba’s installed application), the antenna strength was rather weak — even just like 30-40 feet from my wireless router. Overall though, not a bad attempt for a 1st-gen feature.
So, there you have it. As much as I want to put this one on my gadgets page, I digress, I only owned it for 3 hours. :P
Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
I can’t get over how good this album is — been listening to it for a solid month now. So much better (much tighter vocally and musically) than their first album, Parachutes. The album as a whole just works effortlessly and reminds me a lot of Radiohead’s sophomore effort, The Bends. My favorites on this one are easily Amsterdam and The Scientist.
City By The Sea
This movie started out rather slow and never really picked up. I wouldn’t say City By The Sea was a bad film, but it was certainly far from great. The movie evoked no real emotion from me (which is very rare) due to the fact that it was hard to place any real relation between the son and the ‘estranged’ father, about which the story pivots. All of the relationships in this movie were too disconnected and/or strained; to this end, the film as a whole just didn’t tie together too well and too many things were left wide open at the end. I’m going to have to add this to the ever-growing list of slight disappointments this year (Insomnia, s1m0ne, etc).
Mailing list
As everyone who visits this page already knows, I’m a computer/technology/pop-culture *nut* and read daily any and everything that has to do with said topics (an obsessive habit I’ve kept up for ~8 years now). When I find something especially interesting (IMHO), I tend to want to share it. A lot of you are already on my ‘mailing list,’ but if you aren’t and would like to be, just e-mail me saying as much.
