BenV's notes

Archive for July, 2009

Screenlets, retarded downloads, and python

by on Jul.31, 2009, under Boring, Morons, Software

Somewhere in my mailbox I found a link to Impulse. I’ve messed around with pulseaudio and have it running on my server together with mpd which allows for some network audio fun, but that’s not the story now. Back then I wondered if it would be possible to have a VU meter and stuff like that, but couldn’t find it. So when I ran into this I was curious (how implemented, is it any good, etc).

So what the fuck are screenlets? Looks cute, feels cute, and once you think about it for a bit you immediately realize that it’s cute for 10 minutes after which you’ll kill the thing because it slows down your PC and you never really look at it anyway, but regardless I feel like checking it out. (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment more...

Flash64

by on Jul.31, 2009, under Software

In case I forget it again, the !@#$()*@$%*#$ product called “flash” has a 64 bit plugin at http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

Works in opera, just trash it into /usr/lib/opera/plugins…. why is that /usr/lib and not lib64? It’ll also use it from the mozilla dir, /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins.

Leave a Comment :, more...

Emulators!

by on Jul.31, 2009, under Boring, Fun, Morons, Software

Since I quit playing World of Warcraft again a while ago (seriously Blizzard, what are you doing to that game?) I find myself enjoyed playing tons of other things. Funny thing is, most of the games I play are ancient. Games from the DOS era (which means DOSBOX, I love that product) like Master of Orion (and it’s sequel), Master of Magic, Paratrooper, One Must Fall: 2097 (which is freeware these days! Download it here), X-Com, System Shock, and the list goes on and on. Yeah, come to think of it…. the games they made back then were pretty brilliant, and it’s not just nostalgia. (continue reading…)

3 Comments :, , , , , more...

Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN

by on Jul.30, 2009, under Boring, Fun

So what do you do when you’re looking for something to do while eating your bread in front of your computer?
(or coffee in case of early days). You read the daily news (slashdot, local garbage, kernel.org, happypenguin, you know the drill).
Anyway, I ran into another time wasting online game with properties that I like (RPG like, leveling, items, upgrades) called Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN.

Give it a shot if you’re bored 🙂

Oh, and they have a nice list of why to play, including “It’s free!” and “This list goes to eleven” 😉

Also, don’t blame me if you find yourself still clicking around while your coffee mug is empty again. I won’t refill it for you.

Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN

Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN

Oh yeah, here’s my char:

Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!

Leave a Comment more...

Weird DNS log entries

by on Jul.29, 2009, under Boring

So I was messing around with some new domain registrations, and just because I’m curious I tailed my tinydns logfile.
…. WHAT THE !@(#*!#%(* is THAT?!…. I think, as my eye catches a glimp of this:


[Wed Jul 29 16:20:46 2009] 213.73.***.** port:64500 id:383b * PTR db._dns-sd._udp.winnipeg.nl
[Wed Jul 29 16:20:46 2009] 213.132.***.*** port:11328 id:300b * PTR r._dns-sd._udp.winnipeg.nl
[Wed Jul 29 16:20:46 2009] 213.132.***.*** port:45174 id:0255 * PTR dr._dns-sd._udp.winnipeg.nl
[Wed Jul 29 16:20:46 2009] 213.132.***.*** port:48779 id:9e01 * PTR lb._dns-sd._udp.winnipeg.nl

Now, these things immediately reminded me of the ZeroConf/Bonjour/Avahi garbage. However: first of all, I don’t run that on my machine since it’s a relatively new install that doesn’t have it yet.
Second, those IPs…. they’re not mine. Whois tells me it’s Quicknet/multikabel/ziggo… which some of our friends and relatives have.
That’s the weird part here, I can’t stop wondering why they’re requesting my domain while they’re back at home, so they should have a new dhcp entry and ditched their “search” line in resolv.conf. (ignoring windows as an option for now).

Google tells me it’s indeed Bonjour DNS based “service discovery” related, great, looks interesting, but I’m not in the mood to mess with DNS now… at least not until I have a machine that can actually use it. I wonder who it was though…. 🙂

Leave a Comment more...

Browser ad blocking

by on Jul.29, 2009, under Software

Not always I have to be negative about stuff…. ads for instance. They’re terribly kanker!

Take a reasonably fast site, tag in a few ads and *boom*. Your head explodes in anger when you accidentily mouseover some keyword/item that pops up a flash thingy… or maybe not flash but css mouseover crap… or whatever it is they do these days. Not only that, it takes 5 minutes to load the site  instead of 2 seconds, because the adservers are swamped and very slow. (continue reading…)

2 Comments more...

Gnome kankerbende

by on Jul.28, 2009, under Software

RAaaah, I’d be soo happy if everyone collectively decided to drop this piece of twine into a big fire…. blegh.

So I want gmpc…. so I build libmpd, no issues at all. Libsoup is next, which somehow wants gnome-common or something because of CVS requirements or whatever its problem is today. So I try configure –without-gnome and it breaks. Ok, that’s obviously the fault of libsoup, however, I decide to go through with the gnome garbage once more and make the fatal mistake of trying to build those things.

gnome-common goes without much issues. (oh, needless to say I always take the last version I find, 2.26 today I think). Next it seems to need libproxy, also no issues. Orbit(ch)-2  is next, also goes without hassle. So far so good 🙂

But then, GConf. That monstrosity requires 12837189347 other things, but worse: THEY NEED TO BE RECENT! (of course the simple solution would be to downgrade it, but that’s for later). So we start… ” No package ‘polkit-dbus’ found”. Great. So I get Policykit, 0.93. But nooo, that needs eggdbus. FINE! So eggdbus it is (0.5), but nooo, that needs a more recent version of $something. Version 0.4 it is! “Requested ‘glib-2.0 >= 2.19.0’ but version of GLib is 2.18.4” RAAAH!@#(!@#%*(@#.  (long live slackbuild, speeds things up a ton!)

Yeah, right now I’m getting pretty tired of gnome again… why was I building all this crap? And I’m not even halfway there. Probably a good thing to continue tomorrow on a fresh brain…. and I’ll be sure to take 3 year old versions then. Or maybe 1 year old, since the 3 year old garbage doesn’t build with recent compilers. *sigh* 😉

Leave a Comment : more...

Slackbuild.pl

by on Jul.27, 2009, under Slackbuild.pl, Software

Just wrote a page about my latest tool – slackbuild.pl

Go view it if you run slackware, or get bent if you run anything else.

3 Comments :, more...

France/germany terrorized by car stealing Zelda Wallmasters!

by on Jul.27, 2009, under Fun, Signs

As a hobby I make pictures of ‘funny’ signs whenever I have the chance. Ran into this one when we were on a camping trip in france (near the german border though, guess that explains the language of the sign). Apparently they steal cars there… wonder if they bring them to the start of the “level”… (country? ;))

zelda-hand

For comparison, here’s the original Wallmaster image from Zelda (stolen from a zelda wiki, thanks guys, feel free to steal this one back :-p):

LOZ_NES_Wallmaster

Wallmaster

Wallmaster

Leave a Comment :, , more...

DNS entries

by on Jul.27, 2009, under Morons

Stupid fscking @#$*$^(*@!%….

Why, oh why, do people leave out the A record for a domain without subdomains?
Mutt.org, I’m looking at you!

Leave a Comment more...

Archives

  • 2018 (1)
  • 2016 (1)
  • 2015 (7)
  • 2014 (4)
  • 2013 (11)
  • 2012 (27)
  • 2011 (26)
  • 2010 (25)
  • 2009 (68)