flower, originally uploaded by imarealgeek.

…we get springtime. I was supposed to be on the lookout for shots for the latest Slacker topic (a weekly photo group started by some friends at work), but had to do some research first on how well the E410 would deal with the reverse-lens macro trick, since my current photo idea requires it.

Unfortunately, this was a bit of a backfire, as I was trying to convince Mindy that we should head out to watch the sunset. Upon seeing this she commented, “See, you don’t even need to leave your own backyard!”

Well, there’s always tomorrow’s sunrise.

Dunes 4, originally uploaded by imarealgeek.

I said I’d go back to Rhyolite, and go back I did. This time we grabbed a hotel room in Beatty, NV, about 20 miles outside of the park (and just a few from Rhyolite). I hit Rhyolite for the sunrise (disappointing at best, due to the mountains surrounding the ghost town), and then headed out to the dunes. Afterwards, we made our way Southward through the park before heading home. Sometimes I really love living in the Southwest.

So I just recently downloaded something via bittorrent. We won’t go into exactly what, but let’s just say that Firefox’s JavaScript brilliance caused it randomly consume ~100% CPU for long periods of time, which then caused my scheduled recordings to become corrupt (not really sure why, because all they have to do is write a compressed MPEG stream to disk, but it happened). The download consisted of a single .rar file, which I unrared. It expanded into two files: another rar and a “read me first.txt”. Like any good member of the male gender, I opened the documentation before continuing.

Thanks for downloading the torrent file file
To get the pw to extract the file is simple
1)go to www.Xboxfreebie.com
2)input any email address it doesnt have to be yours and click submit
3) You will see green writing on the next page.
The first word in green with the exclamation point is the password
you have to use it with the exclaimation point
Simple huh
Enjoy the file

My first instinct was to search for a new version that didn’t require me to help someone win a free XBox (or whatever — I didn’t look). But then I began to think… What would a site like XBoxFreebie.com display after you’d given them your email address? Knowing that it was a one word phrase that ended in an exclamation point narrowed my choices immensely. Congratulations! You guessed the password.

My dad sent me a link today to a new photo gallery he’d posted (he uses phanfare). It had a few videos in it, too, so I put my headphones on. Then I noticed that there was music playing. Vivaldi. Four Seasons. Download, listen. Excellent.

I’ve finally been introduced to the madness that is HDTV. I guess I’ve been “HD-ready” for a while now — the 50-something inch projection TV downstairs supposedly supports 720p and 1080i, while the 37 inch LCD I have in my office area supports up to 1080p — but I haven’t had much high-def content. Sure, I could play Counter-Strike at 1900×1080, but that was about it.

This weekend, however, I bought a combined ATSC/NTSC tuner card for my PC. By the time I got it setup, there was about two minutes left in the football game that was on — and that two minutes completely sold me. I’m not really sure why (I should have expected it, being digital), but, more than anything, I was impressed by the fact that there was nothing lost in the “TV”->PC conversion. Because, well, there isn’t any.

Now I’m obsessed with finding shows that are available in HD. In fact, for the first time, I’m considering upgrading to digital cable to get more HD channels. Even the rabbit ears precariously balancing on top of my lap aren’t deterring me.

Tomorrow my wife is being induced, and, theoretically, our third child will be born. A girl (or so we’ve been told).

When a coworker called a few days ago to let us know that his wife would be induced later that evening, one my teammates inquired as to the proper response in such a situation.

“Is ‘Good luck!’ acceptable?” he wondered. “How does that come across? There’d be nothing quite like saying, ‘Hope she doesn’t die!‘”

If you’re wanting to install Exaile on your Gentoo box AND have it play MP3s (and perhaps this goes for all multimedia applications), you’ll want to enable the mad USE flag.

Oh, and so far I’d recommend Exaile if you’re looking for a player that doesn’t come with a lot of baggage — like Gnome/KDE libraries. It’s fitting into my XFCE4 desktop very nicely and has all of the features you’d (or at least, I’d) expect from a player.

www.iphonegay.com Coming Soon!

(No, that’s not my domain.)

The compulsory 4th of July post: hope everyone’s having a great holiday.

America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

America the Beautiful, Katharine Lee Bates

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the hottest thing in the Linux world was XGL and Compiz. Together, they brought things into our desktop world the likes of which we’d never seen before. They were the messiahs, coming to lead us into the promised land named desktop dominance.

Support for the revolution mounted quickly, as the open source community threw it’s entire weight into the cogwheel. Unfortunately, this movement, like so many others, was beset with internal strife.

It began with doctrine, as it so often does. The members of the AIGLX tribe argued that the underpinnings of XGL did not hold true to open source philosophies, and denied their siblings heritage and legitimacy. To make matters worse, others, such as nVidians, claimed to have the same answers, yet needed neither XGL or AIGLX.

Meanwhile, Compiz was growing organically, particularly an underground movement following one known as Quinnstorm. This faction soon became frustrated with the mainstream’s inability to accept their fanaticism and decided to secede. Soon Beryl was born.

With all the dissension, newcomers were understandably confused. Should they use Compiz with XGL? Compiz with AIGLX? Beryl with just the nVidia drivers?

But perhaps that’s all at an end. After weeks of deliberation, it appears that the Beryl and Compiz camps have decided to once again unite under the name Compiz Fusion.

You can find out more at http://www.opencompositing.org/.