[r a n d o m h u m a n] » Computers

Life

Mon, 15 Nov 2004 21:46:36 +0000

Probably nobody remembers, but sometime last year I said I was going to write an implementation of Conway’s life algorithm. Well, I got lazy and distracted then, but I finally got around to it a few days ago. It’s fun! But of course, it’s not finished yet, and probably won’t be much to look at when it is (although there are flashy colours…).

Other fun algorithms include the Gravity Algorithm (or something) which I used a few weeks ago to write a simulation of the solar system. It was going well until graphics got involved, then it turned into an unmanagable mess. No matter, it was only an experiment really.

No energy

Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:12:59 +0000

For the moment, I don’t like wordpress. When I tried to log in from mozilla it crashed my browser. On top of that, I have to redo all the work I did on the look of my blog. Right now, that just seems way to much like effort, seeing as how I lack an internet connection at my new gaf (for the moment).

However, when I do eventually get around to a redesign, and get an internet connection, and can use firefox, I’m sure it’ll be fine. The interface does look pretty good, after all.

Distro woes

Thu, 26 Aug 2004 02:06:42 +0000

5 weeks I waited for these distributions to be delivered, and what do I get? One distro crippled by lack of software, and another crippled by lack of a GUI!

Debian (woody). Crude (but functional) installer, old kernels, but I thought at least I’d have something familiar to work with straight away, even if it was a little outdated. I had all the questions answered, all the software installed, and ready to land with my feet firmly in the K desktop, when I was greeted by the dreaded “3-flickers” (I had the same problem with my laptop until I got Ben Herrenschmidt’s ibook kernel. Ben, you’re a legend). I thought maybe the radeon drivers were too old for my brand-spanking-new (I guess?) radeon 9800SE (agpgart wouldn’t install either…), so I added a testing apt source and got the highest 2.4 kernel available (2.4.27). But I think that made it worse.

SuSE (9.1 personal), on the other hand, has an entirely graphical installer where more or less everything is autodetected. And a 2.6 kernel. I was exploring KDE and YaST in 20 minutes, tops. This is how things should work, I thought, despite all the puke-green splash screens in place of the usual, sleek, scrolling white text on a black background during the boot process. That is, until I decided I’d quite like to use Mozilla Thunderbird as my email-client, and discovered that it wasn’t included, nor was there any way to download a binary package. apt-rpm seemed like a fine solution, but while there was a binary rpm available for that, one of its dependencies needed to be compiled from source. No problem. Except that SuSE9.1 Personal doesn’t include gcc…

Stuff works

Wed, 11 Aug 2004 03:02:09 +0000

Got the pics off my digital camera The quality isn’t great, but I didn’t really expect it to be. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do well in the dark, or in artificial light. Which really sucks, but hey. I guess I’ll just stick to the daytime, outdoor photography.

Err-or

Sat, 07 Aug 2004 21:00:46 +0000

Microsoft VBScript runtime error ’800a005e’

Invalid use of Null: ‘CCur’

/k/account.asp, line 582

I don’t think Komplett want to take back the ram I bought off them (turns out mac and pc ram is different). If I try filling out the return form a second time, it babbles at me in Norwegian. Or is it Swedish?

Ah well, great website otherwise, and the computer they delivered yesterday seems to be working well, although I have yet to install anything on it. First will be Windows (don’t give me that look!), then Suse (sounds like it’ll be easy to install and use) and finally, Debian (fingers crossed it’s a smoother ride on an x86).

Things I’m looking forward to:

Installing, configuring, blah blah blah. That stuff’s great

Games!! Hopefully wine is as good as it’s been made out to be.

The Gimp, on a big screen. Resolution doesn’t seem great though.

DVD playing, ripping and burning. Downside: Just recently I figured out how to record a DVD to a VHS tape, but now I may never get to try it for real Oh sure, I could do it anyway, but it just wouldn’t be the same.

Getting the damn photos off my damn digital camera. That was a damn stupid purchase on my part. I seem to do that a lot…

Having a computer that I can leave on all the time without the hard drive melting.

Hook, line and sinker

Sat, 03 Jul 2004 21:18:57 +0000

I don’t think randomhuman2.tk is really working out. It’s too static, and there’s really no reason for people to return. I know if I came across a site like it, I’d probably browse around idly for a minute, and move on to something more interesting.

I’m not sure what to do with it though. Make it less inclusive? More thematic?

What I’d really like to do is incorporate it into the blog as sort of an aside, so people could visit repeatedly for the blog, and the rest would be there to flick through whenever people are in the mood.

Donnacha! Help!

zion.net

Thu, 24 Jun 2004 20:01:04 +0000

My home network is finally starting to resemble something useful. Previously, all my computers only had one network card each, so I could only network two at a time, and things never settled into a reasonable order. Now I have two network cards in my powermac 7300, so I’m using it as a server/router. It took a couple of frustrating nights (I forgot to turn on ip forwarding the second night, did it accidentally the first. Doh!), but now I’m sharing an internet connection across all 3, and I don’t even have to become root to turn on masquerading anymore (something I should have done years ago).

Three cheers for me.

Next comes file sharing. I think I’ll try samba this time. We’ll see what happens from there.

EV Nova

Tue, 04 May 2004 23:03:39 +0000

Ow, my head.

Instead of studying last night I stayed up until 5am playing computer games. And then again after my exam today. Turns out that if I want to get past a certain point in the missions, I must register. Fair enough says I, tis well worth it for the hours of entertainment it’ll provide. But of course, now I have to go about getting a money order, posting it off, waiting for a reply…

Quite convenient really. Now I might actually get some work done.

Bored yet?

Mon, 01 Mar 2004 11:45:29 +0000

I went war-walking in Galway this weekend. The great southern hotel on Eyre square appears to have at least 4 Eircom access points. I found two other networks, one generic, the other belonging to galwaywan.org. I didn’t even know there was a wireless WAN in Galway, but they have an access point in the middle of town!

More wireless card promiscuity

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 22:55:01 +0000

I went shopping for my moms birthday present today, and as I went I once again had my laptop sniffing for wireless networks. I passed the two I found the last day. One of them is on patricks st, around roches and Brown thomas, the other is definitely just at macd’s on winthrop street. I still don’t know exactly where they are though.

I also found a new network: Caseys ground floor. I don’t know what Casey’s is, but it’s on Oliver Plunkett street near an Brog, or in the Grafton Mall. I’m regretting not sitting down in the Grafton mall and seeing what I could learn, but there you go. I’m shy about using technology in public