Archives for November 2005
I finally understand my music “tastes”
23 November 2005 | Random | No Responses
In the USA, I listened to nothing but classical, Chinese folk and rock or pop from all over Asia.
In China, I listen to to American classic rock, medieval folk and chamber music from all over Europe.
Now I understand–I listen to the exact opposite of whatever everyone around me is listening to.
XFce4 runs great in VMware
12 November 2005 | Random | No Responses
It took a few hours, but I finally have VMware running beautifully on XP. The speed is perfect, it’s honestly the same speed as running nothing but XFce.
I was amazed how easily TurboLinux 10 installed. Well, not really. TurboLinux is the best Linux distribution I’ve seen in terms of compatability and ease of use. Last time I tried to install Mandriva on VMware, it took several days and the screen still never looked right. With TurboLinux, I have a 960×600 windowed mode and can go to 1280×800 fullscreen.
It’s so much fun being able to ALT+TAB between Windows XP and Linux.
A lot of catching up to do …
12 November 2005 | Random | 1 Response
My Saturday was updating this Web site.
I’ve finally brought my curriculum vitae up to date, added a colophon explaining the strange domain name, and added a slew of new documents.
All my new documents explain file formats I’ve encountered over years of translating PC games. Looking at just how many files that is … I’m only half-way done.
My old Fastfile document has been drastically revised and added to the Web site. I’d be interested in adding my InterChannel Package document, but I’ve discovered errors in my former explanation. I need access to another InterChannel Package file to make any revisions, but sadly, my Sentimental Graffiti discs are in a box 8,000 miles away.
If you have the game and can e-mail me an 800KB file, let me know. I think the file I need is SCRIPT.PAK.
Pirates of Somalia?
11 November 2005 | Pirates | No Responses
A special thank you to John Pas who caught this most excellent CNN story while I was swamped with grading papers.
The pirates who attacked the Seabourn Spirit grinned as they aimed grenade-launchers and machine guns at the deck and staterooms, some passengers said Monday, recounting the ordeal after safely docking in this Indian Ocean archipelago.
Sadly, the pirates were defeated by high-power, military-grade sonar weapons, but not before putting a few holes in the ship with a few RPGs–rocket propelled grenades to those who aren’t down with the military jargon.
This certainly makes one wonder … what is a cruise ship doing sporting military class weapons that were developed only five years ago?
I’m finally unbanned in China!
10 November 2005 | Rants | No Responses
In case you were curious why there have been almost no updates since August, 80 percent of Chinese ISPs chose to ban cinnamonpirate.com.
I think this deserves more explanation.
They did not ban the domain or the IP; you can tell if a page is banned at the national or the ISP level based on whether you can access other IPs on the network. Moreover, you could still access byuu.cinnamonpirate.com and vstech.net, the Web site of my web space provider. However, if you opened cinnamonpirate.com, all of these domains would be banned for the next 20 minutes, and only on port 80 connections.
Meanwhile, Internet café users across the street seem to have no difficulty accessing all-night transsexual erotica web-cams. “What you say?”