WillWybrow.com

“So, Will,” I hear you ask. “What are you doing at home now you don’t have your dual-monitor arrangement for computing? How are you surviving without the convenience of dividing your activities into high- and low-priority screen time?”

The answer, of course, is that I don’t have to survive without that. You remember that old laptop I was telling you about? Well, I’ve got instant messaging on that one, using Pidgin, and I’ve got browsing at hand behind it. Then, because this old laptop doesn’t have USB 2.0, Umberto’s iPod is plugged into my other laptop (my “main” one), and I can watch the movies and TV shows that I copied to its hard drive on the other screen. It’s a really good set-up, I have the video screen tilted forward so that when I recline in my chair, I see it properly.

Just a quick update for you, I know you’re all interested in what’s going on.

I have realised something. For all my complaints about Linux actually being difficult to use and deliberately so, it is still usable to do home computer things that get done by regular people on regular Windows machines.

But here’s the thing - if a user finds it hard to do things that those growing up with Windows find second nature; things like browsing files, copying files, resizing images, playing music - if someone isn’t already bound in the Windows way of doing things, what’s become the default state of things, then they’re free to use whichever operating system is available to them, right?

What I’m saying is, if someone hasn’t grasped Windows-specific concepts or is just getting into computers, there’s no reason for them not to be introduced to a more open-source way of doing things.

There are also problems with silly browsing. Trojans and other viruses and adware and spyware all target Windows systems. My brother and father get an incredible amount of shit all in their computer. That wouldn’t happen with Linux. They’d be safe from their own idiocy.

Also, I recently threw Fedora 8 on an old P3 laptop I had lying around. It runs much faster than XP did. It also natively supported hardware I knew I’d have to find a driver for in XP.

The Plan

I’ll buy a new hard drive, slap Linux on my dad’s old computer and just see - just see - if my idiot brother or my old dad can get the hang of it to the same extent they have the limited grasp of Windows.

The next person I hear say “but the universe is fine-tuned for life” is going to get kicked in the balls. We don’t know (and I wouldn’t say that we’re reasonably certain, either) that under different universal constraints that something that has apparent ‘life’ (growth, replication, reaction and so on) would not begin, so fuck anyone who says that. Just because it’s not carbon-based… or just because its atoms aren’t composed in exactly the same way; hell, even if there were no such things as protons and electrons and neutrons, if we’re talking about the universe kicking off with a different palette of universal constants to work from, who would even dare predict the kinds of fundamental particles that might exist?

We’re obviously not looking at the correct use of the cosmological anthropic principle, which is to say that the universe must be such as it is to accommodate human life as we know it. That could even extend to other, less complex forms of life. But to say that present universal conditions are necessary for any form of life as it’s defined is something I’d expect, frankly, from a creationist.

And I’m not convinced by the ‘multiverse,’ either, but that’s another thing entirely.

Finally, Mac users have a leg to stand on when they make their defense of their shitty operating system. In spite of its notorious reputation for being the shiny white middle finger to Mac users who want to game, the OS has had arguably its biggest news ever.

That is: the Mac version of City of Heroes/Villains has finally come close to hitting shelves (currently in beta). Expect to see it being the only thing that doesn’t make you want to murder or sterilise Steve Jobs rocking its way to Apple stores near you this Autumn.

I remember first getting “MSN” as it was colloquially known (and still is, a bit) at the tender age of… I’d say twelve. My memory isn’t perfect, but it was twelve or thirteen.

Since then, it’s held its own as instant messenger of choice for me and the people I speak to most. But think about it… are you in any significant way similar to how you were at that age? Different hobbies, different friends, different institution of education, different level of education, different uses for instant messaging… Can one program really hold up for so long and through so much change in its users’ mindsets?

Well, apparently it can, since I’m still a user of it. Almost every day, too. Friends are still there, and I haven’t stopped adding new ones. But, I decided to ignore the fact that everyone still uses it and take a look at the actual program itself. Here are a few of the observations I have made:

So, from the top down, then…

First, this bar is mostly filled with crap: stuff like “Go to Windows Live Today” and “change the colour of your window” and the rightmost one - displaying the File, Contacts, Actions… menu that’s already at the top of the screen… This is all just unnecessary. I’ll grant the ‘e-mail’ button; people will want to check their mail if they use Windows Live for their e-mail.

Next, no thanks, Microsoft, I don’t want to enrol in your crappy Customer Experience bullshit programme. I don’t know how to get rid of this bar. Maybe it goes away if I click the link? Well, I’m not going to click the link.

Moving on, this is the worst bit. Pop-out Flash advertising. Not only are they unsightly, they are annoying when you mouseover them and they take up half your screen with flashing bright colours. And, of course, integrating the Flash plugin uses up a load of extra memory for no reason. Some of them even have sound…

Finally, there is a reason I don’t use Live Search to query the internet: it’s shit. Everyone who wants to find something uses Google. They own searching, it’s time to give up trying to take it away from them.

So, what I did was start cutting out all the bits of useless crap using a graphics program. I also removed some of the empty space that I put in myself (just to balance out the contact list to advert ratio), and look what happened:

I accidentally invented Google Talk.

A lot of people don’t have more than one computer. They rely on one machine to keep them connected with the wider world. When things happen, things like CJ’s laptop breaking through age, it makes me think of the following really good plan.

Courtesy computers! If I had a spare, reasonably powerful laptop handy, I would lend it out to people on a short term basis so they could use it for things like e-mail and Facebook and web browsing in the gap between breaking their computer and it being repaired or replaced. I’d lend it out to friends (and for free), and people would know me as the handy computer guy who helped them out when they needed it.

If it were suitably convenient, I could also carry it around with me when I go away. Chloë, an AHS trustee and their Publicity Officer, borrowed my laptop to check her e-mail when we were at the conference in Leeds the weekend before last. It occurred to me that maybe loads of people would want to do that, and so I could pass the communal laptop around for people to borrow.

I’d install Windows on it, and Office, and some web browsers and Messenger and some media players. All the essentials. I’d then image the hard drive to a DVD or removable HDD. Every time it came back to me I could wipe the hard drive and re-image it so that it was clean for the next person to use.

Hopefully I piss off a lot of Ubuntu fans today.

I can’t stand Ubuntu. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand that it has become the ‘face’ of Linux for people who haven’t heard of Linux before. From the very first time I tried a Ubuntu Live CD (at around version 5), I hated it. Ubuntu is a piece of poo.

The very point of Linux is that it’s meant to be a more high-tech operating system, for users who need to do important things on the technical side of computing. Things like programming and web development come first, and office and games come second. That’s why it’s Linux. If you want to just type Word documents, you put Windows on your computer. Like it or not, Microsoft Office holds the industry standard in a vice-like grip of advertising monopolies and corporate ignorance. If you want to play games (which, let’s face it, if you’re going to spend more than £200 on a desktop computer, it’s so that it’s capable of running games), you put Windows on your computer.

If you want to develop cross-platform applications, or you do a lot of things that require a powerful set of near-kernel binaries and tools for scripting, or you want to develop for the web, or run a web server, or run any server… if you need powerful, simultaneous multi-user functionality, or you want a completely customiseable, open-source operating system, you install Linux.

So what’s the point in installing a rigid “out of the box” “off the shelf” Linux distribution, which doesn’t even have something as fundamental as desktop environment as an option at installation? The very fact that Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu exist should serve as a BIG warning flag from the off that things are going to be a bit different for you. Ubuntu is the Linux for people who don’t want to use Linux. It’s the Linux that you put on the computer for your grandparents. It’s the Linux you use when you want to go objectivist-bashing as a “Linux for everyone” advocate. It’s the Linux you put on your sister’s laptop to show that Linux is accessible to everyone.

Well, fuck that. So many Linux users and developers are elitest cunts who appreciate that Linux isn’t for everyone, it’s just for people who know what they’re doing. Just like Windows is for people who don’t know what they’re doing. That’s why Vista has that User Access Control shit all inside it - it stops the whole system and shows one message in the middle of the screen asking if you’re sure you want to change any settings. Whereas with a good Linux application, you have to find and edit the .conf file by hand, and if you don’t get it right, it’s tough shit. It’s the reason that Windows asks you at every step if you’re sure of what you’re doing. “Really, you want me to copy that here? It’s going to overwrite these files, are you REALLY sure you want to?” YES I’M FUCKING SURE, WINDOWS, DO IT.

In conclusion, don’t install Ubuntu. Install something that’s not trying to be like Windows, something that’s comfortable in its own, elitest skin.

And, of course, Gnome sucks.

Peace.

Fucking lying medicine. It doesn’t help, it just lies to you in the hope that the “placebo effect” isn’t just another two meaningless words strung together like everything else.

I’ve already had more than double the maximum daily dosage of this delicious cough “medicine,” and guess what? I still have a cough. Shall I tell you why? Ok, this is why:

BECAUSE MEDICINE IS ALL PHONY.

In this “magical cure” are the following ingredients: HONEY, SUGAR, LEMON JUICE and ETHANOL.

WOW LIKE I COULDN’T HAVE JUST HAD A FEW SHOTS OF LIMONCELLO TO GET THE SAME FUCKING EFFECT, LEMSIP, YOU JIZZCOCKS.

It’s just a load of old bollocks. I reckon surgery is the same. I mean, you go under anaesthetic, wake up a few hours later with a “scar” and nothing but the word of a few faceless surgeons that they’ve been inside to fix the problem. Bollocks have they, it’s just a big old lie, and your recovery is a big old case of the placebo effect. Yep. All of modern medicine is one blanket after another pulled over your eyes.

Maybe I should just get prayed over?

An odd way to start, I suppose, but I haven’t written here in a long time, and I have two things to tell you. I will start with “faith”.

Atheist Bus Campaign

I’m sure many people must have heard about this already, so I’ll keep it short. The first atheist advertising campaign in the UK has received incredibly overwhelming support from everyone. And I mean everyone. London buses will, starting in January, sport the slogan “there’s probably no god, now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Damn fucking straight. None of this hellfire bullshit, just plain old humanism. Donate to them or just check out the official website.

Home Media Server

My dreams of creating a superpowered home server to do everything imaginable were shattered with my rejection letter from ASDA. Maybe they have enough staff… maybe not. I don’t see how they could possibly deny me, I’m hyperqualified for the job. In the interim, however, I am using the box I collected from Basingstoke last weekend (and carried all the way home from the station) to start things rolling.

My first attempts to install anything from Ubuntu 8.10 to OpenSUSE were painfully shot down by unspecified, random errors. After trying about six different distributions, I thought I’d give OpenSUSE’s “memory test” option on the installation disc a whirl. Lo and behold, my RAM was ruined. So, harvesting some from an old, broken machine I keep around hoping it will be of some use one day (and how right I was to do so), I slapped in Ubuntu 5.10 and fired her up.

The installation was successful, I suppose. But Ubuntu comes in two flavours these days, ’server’ and ‘desktop,’ and I know which edition I didn’t get. It was fun to play with, but two things irritated me: not enough applicable software included on the CD and too lovey-dovey with Gnome. To make matters worse, apt-get is a piece of dogshit. Or maybe it’s because of how old the distribution is.

Whatever the reason for this series of repeated failures, I finally sucked it up and took the 6-CD download of Fedora 9. Oh, pretty Fedora 9, you do make me smile. Everything I wanted was included on the discs and they all installed without a hitch. Seriously.

I had a bit of a struggle with SELinux’s overbearing, right-wing approach to things. It felt like living under the threat of thought-police, who would punish you even if you considered doing anything wrong. So I disabled that motherfucker. The firewall, too, was somewhat amusing. Apparently “disable” means “enable,” and “enable” also means “enable,” so I just had to do it the old-fashioned way and open up all the ports I wanted.

The media streaming program uShare also came on the Fedora CDs, which is pleasant because the PS3 is hooked up to the only TV in the house, and everyone’s movies are on different computers, so a centralised server with massive storage is the best option. When I tried installing uShare on Ubuntu, it gave me a big old one-fingered salute and bade me to walk right on.

But all of this is really irrelevant when you look at it, because it’s all running on an 800MHz Athlon with 256MB of RAM and 30GB of combined hard disk space. Fucking useless, all of it.

I dream of numerous cores, high-speed RAM and SATA disks joined in an unbreakable alliance to bring the power of streaming media to the house whilst also serving a bittorrent managing service and maybe even some other fun side projects, like a bit of webspace.

Writing about Red Alert 3 made me realise that there needs to be a cool word for the DRM crisis that EA have instigated. I wanted to make a play on the word “dictatorship,” but it didn’t pan out. So for now, we’ll have to call it DRMinism. It rhymes with ‘feminism,’ which is almost good enough. But, fuck DRM.