Monthly Archive for October, 2005

why are people reading this?

Published on October 31, 2005 in Whatever. 3 Comments

What the fuck? Who are you? And why?

That’s a general question. I have no idea who any of these hits are that seem to be reading the pages. Most of them I assume are search engine bots, but I figure between the spam bots and the porn spam bots (I classify those seperately thank you) someone seems to be reading this.

what

Years ago this site was opened to spew random shit about anything. There was no direction, there was no goal, there was no intended audience. We just talked about.. uh… well mostly this website and what we’re doing. Bottom line was, nobody cared. Today we carry on this tradition, except I think we actually rant about something useful. Slightly useful. Slightl..fuck it, shut up.

I got an e-mail the other day asking where I have been and why I am not ranting about whatever it is I rant about. The answer to that question is “none of your business, shut the fuck up.” I have made it a rule not to rant about my personal life on this website. Why? Because, I hate blogs, I hate livejournals, and I don’t think anyone cares that I woke up this morning with a backache because I was sleeping on an air mattress that was pumped inadequately.

The reason I hate them is because, well, you that last sentence right there? You skipped reading it. It rang bitchy.

In fact, that is a thing that should not exist. The term “blog”. Blog, in fact, is short for the term “weblog”, which usually seems to consist of things that have absolutely nothing to do with logging or the internet. In fact, most blogs seem to either describe in detail the terrible nature of the blogger’s life

“yiff yiff yiff yiff yiff”

or other equally useless and inane bullshit. And for the record, I don’t classify this website here as a blog. Blogs have this annoying tendancy to be completely serious. And while I do have a few serious posts, or a few responses to things I see in the news, nine times out of ten I’m completely non-serious. Hell, if I started screaming “KILL THE JEWS” and changed the template of the site to Nazi colors and had a Hitler banner, people would chuckle and say “hahaha, that Dan is a silly silly man.”

And to the Jews: my bad, you guys took it like a bitch.

(My) Things That Shouldn’t Exist

Published on October 30, 2005 in Blood, Sweat and Technology. 0 Comments

I want to add to the list of things that shouldn’t exist anymore. And to be fair, I’ll keep it in the forum of technology.

3. Beepers. I saw one the other day. What the fuck? Get a cellphone for christ’s sake. If you really want to emulate that beeper feel, set the cell to vibrate and make people fucking text message you. Beepers are one of those things that should’ve died in the 90s, like Green Day.

4. Geocities. Do I really need to speak on this? Angelfire, Tripod, Homestead — they all eventually stopped trying to proliferate. But geocities? They’re alive and kicking. They’re begging to survive. And they’ll forever be a sandbox for newbie HTML lameasses to play with their shitty javascripts they found on hotscripts.com.

5. Hi5.com. Just give up. Seriously. You lost.

To be fair, I’ll list one thing that technology gave us that I will forever appreciate:

Google image searching. How else would I be able to pull up a random picture of a fat burly man in a sailor moon outfit?

A couple of things

Published on October 21, 2005 in Whatever. 1 Comment

First off, I’m crispy.

Teh crispy: rabid-duck.com.. a blog
Teh crispy: why didn’t we do this earlier?
FLYINGHAT LOLOL: you know, I have no idea
FLYINGHAT LOLOL: and it makes perfect sense
Teh crispy: we rant all the time
Teh crispy: that’s what we were known for
FLYINGHAT LOLOL: exactly!
Teh crispy: it’s my homepage now
FLYINGHAT LOLOL: you can post too
FLYINGHAT LOLOL: you’re the fucking founder you have to be able to post >:|
Teh crispy: hahahaha
Teh crispy: Rabid duck is my illegitimate child
Teh crispy: I impregnated you with it
Teh crispy: and skipped town
FLYINGHAT LOLOL: I sitll haven’t lost the weight I put on from it :(
Teh crispy: but now I’ve come back, and I want to be it’s daddy
FLYINGHAT LOLOL: hi daddy <3

So yeah. I’m on here now. I don’t have much else pertinent to say, so Look! *points* There’s an ill-placed mildly amusing distraction for you to gawk at while I depart hastily for comedic effect!

Things that should not exist

Published on October 19, 2005 in Blood, Sweat and Technology. 1 Comment

ok…well i’m going to start this off very Maddox style here by composing a list of things that i believe technology could get rid of entirely because either A, we wouldn’t notice them if they were gone, or B, they’d simply make our lives much easier if they had never been in our lives in the first place. This will be on on going list as the industry produces more shit everyday for our overpaid, American pocket books, or in retro spect, all the crap that places like Best Buy will convince you to buy with that “bargin” computer you just bought because you can’t afford anything decent since you’re job got shipped over seas because our leadership and economy in the country sucks ass.

anyway…finally…here’s just a short list i’m going to rant off the top of my head that should just fuckin’ go away in general:

1. The PCI Bus – the little bus we all have on our boards what was touted with pride in the late 90’s as your gateway to expanding your PC has developed into such a crock of absolute shit i’m ashamed i’m in an industry where we didn’t think of PCI-e sooner. Can anyone explain to me why it is that on a standard ATX motherboard there is generally 5 PCI slots and you can only feasibly use 3? I mean, c’mon, people in this industry are often looking for ways to cut the extras and exspeciallly the price. If it weren’t for PCI-e i’d be screaming at the industry, c’mon you sons of bitches, you have a money saving, process reduced, beautiful idea right in front of your fuckin’ face. Think about how many PC’s in the “budget,” or as marketing departments would prefer to call it “economical,” areas typically come with no AGP slots to “cut costs,” um…i’m not real sure what the costs are to the actual manufacturing of motherboards are, but wouldn’t it be a BETTER idea to get rid of the first PCI slot that you simply CAN NOT fuckin’ use? I mean, unless you want to use PCI slot 1 and receive a nice fat IRQ error because this ‘bus’ architecture that PCI is based on natively shares traces between many slots, including the AGP bus. FYI for everyone, PCI slot 1 and AGP ALWAYS share the same traces, hence why when you use a AGP card it is a terrible idea to use PCI slot 1. Forunately i can’t bitch for too much longer as PCI-e will replace both the problematic PCI/AGP bus. I really hope someone at Dell will read this and realize how many god damn Dell PC’s i fix everyday with IRQ errors due to thier incompetance of these commonly known facts. Hey Dell, i know this doesn’t matter now with PCI-e, but you stupid fuckers installed a hell of a lot of Sound Blasters in PCI slot 1 which not only causes IRQ conflicts out of the fuckin’ box, but also does little for your poor ass excuses for cooling which practically sufficates any referbished peice of shit video card you put in the AGP slot. Which brings me to my next point, which at this point i’m wish i put at number one on the list…

2. Dell – Dell = Hell. Hands down the worse fuckin’ company in America, and i’m speaking about ALL industries, or at least the ones i care to pay attention to. Dell can just die as far as i’m concerned. “Dude, you got a Dell.” D00D, did you enjoy that free headache you got with your $299 peice of shit? Okay, i suppose i should explain myself, well honestly this blog only has enough room to barily scratch the surface as to how many reasons and ways i hate Dell Computer. Yes, i hate dell because they can produce a product at a much lower cost than i ever could, and Yes I hate Dell because they have better marketing than i could ever afford, and Yes, i hate Dell because when it’s all said and done, they suck.

3…this list will continue

Blogging or modern day stalking?

Published on October 19, 2005 in Blood, Sweat and Technology and Whatever. 0 Comments

Ok…so this is a bit of an oxymoron here but is blogging the modern day way to stalk people on the internet? I, like many others, have been sucked into this habbit with Xanga, Myspace, and this site and originally it’s intent was to just broadcast things about myself to my friends and others. Well…ever wonder what happens when you burn a bridge with someone? you know, ex-gf, fight with a friend…etc? Well i’ve also been a victim to this (of course it was in part my fault as well) and now that i sit back in hindsight i realize how scary this really is. Take for instance me and my ex-gf…whom i haven’t talked to in almost a year. I have a tracking module on one my blogs (not this one!) and little does she know that i’m aware that she keeps up on me. i don’t really mind, but it still irks me enough to *occasionally* check her site too…and that is something that is very unhealthy for me…as i’m sure it might be for her too. I dunno…it’s just weird…being able to practically read someone’s inner thoughts (which is made publicly availible by choise) and somewhat keep up on people who wouldn’t normally appreciate it. It’s a painful habbit to break too…but oh well…i suppose that’s my own problem. But just imagine if that bridge was burned due to a rape or something. That would be terrible to think you couldn’t even block that person since it just blocks thier user name…not thier IP (which dynamically changes anyway), local host name, or even thier subnet. And for those on the other sides of the equation, although you’re obviously in need of help or something anyway, maybe it’s time you wake up and realize there’s measures that the person you’re keeping up on can take to track you down and if irked enough, can even find your relative physical location. I dunno…i’m addicted to blogging, but as a lot of addicted smokers might add, i’m not particularly proud of it and i think it may very well escalate into a much larger issue

It’s been like, a fucking week

Published on October 17, 2005 in Whatever. 0 Comments

Yep, 7 days. Whatever. I’m not going to drag my personal life into this blog (dammit I have a blog…), but we’ll leave it at “I’ve been busy, blow me sideways.”

But you, my invisible and nonexistent audience, will be pleased to know that quite a few things have been irking me over the past week, and I guess I’ll take the next few minutes to share my lovely observations with you.

To start, we’ll focus on Best Buy. A subject I’m incredibly familiar with, and one that I particularly loathe. As a little background, I worked on Best Buy’s technical service group “Geek Squad” for a year. Geek Squad was a rather sucessful company which Best Buy bought roughly five years ago, and has been slowly easing it into their corporate lifestyle. From what I saw it was a pretty innocent company. Sadly, the same could not be said today.

The Geek Squad is staffed with people who think that having an A+ certification makes them kings of right and wrong. Hell, I’ll backstep that a little bit, because most people on the Geek Squad don’t even have that. Nevertheless, this is an ongoing behavior I’ve seen at many a Best Buy store, including the one I happened to be working at. Geek Squad has absolutely no issue with completely bullshitting a customer if it will get them a few extra dollars. It goes without saying that such practices are completely goddamn sleazy. Not only do they not have a problem with it, but it’s encouraged behavior to do anything that is necessary to make and surpass their daily budget. But it really doesn’t end there.

I’ll break it down to one sentence: their work quality fucking sucks. And if you’ve ever taken your computer there, I’m betting money you know exactly what I mean. It’s half done. It probably took two weeks to get it back. You’re probably missing all sorts of software. They probably formatted your computer without really explaining what that entails, so you get your computer back with no data on it and you’re left wondering “why?” And you know, the only reason I bring any of this up is because I AM SICK OF CLEANING UP YOUR MESSES.

I work for a small two-man company now, which prides on quality work and getting the job done. And I’ve heard so many horror stories on the customer side of the tech bench (Best Buy’s, that is) that is’ really quite disturbing.

And you know what, I’ll finish this later, my lunch is on the damn table.

It’s nice being the editor here.

Firefox under fire?

Published on October 10, 2005 in Whatever. 1 Comment

I can’t tell you about how much I despise seeing people attack Firefox for their constant amount of security updates.

Really, I despise it.

The people at Mozilla created an amazing product. A web browser that ties in almost all the necessary web browser features you could ask for in a secure, stable package. It’s fast, it’s low on memory, it’s very secure, and it pretty much stops you (unless you are completely retarded) from getting spyware. Wow, sounds great right? Well apaprently you asshole security analyists think otherwise.

Okay, so the product has been relatively untouched as far as exploit goes for a number of months now. But its popularity grew, and naturally people prodding around for exploits also grew. Now here’s what pisses me off: there’s a fued going on and has been for some time over whether or not Firefox is any more secure than Internet Explorer, simply based on the fact that security patches are being released faster and more frequently these days than the Internet Explorer counterpart. In effect, you assholes are going after the guys at Mozilla simply because they’re doing their goddamn job?

See, IE has had years and years and years to slowly patch up their application. And the fact is, even though they are releasing patches at a slow rate surely doesn’t make it any more secure of a browser. In fact, it’s still an insecure peice of shit that simply by using it causes a rather sizeable amount of damage, may it be spyware or viruses.

And how fast does Microsoft react to a security flaw anyway? Overnight? Like hell they do. Look at the guys at Mozilla, they react almost instantaneously to their security issues. And this is coming from a company who is creating an entirely free, open source product which anyone could contribute to or modify. Can a multibillion dollar corporation like Microsoft say the same?

Now quit bitching you jerkoffs.

Symantec = A Cry baby sack of shit

Published on October 8, 2005 in Blood, Sweat and Technology, Internet and Software. 11 Comments

Preface: My friend Steve posted this back in… well, whenever this was posted. It’s actually quite out of date at this point, because Symantec actually did one hell of a job improving their Norton AntiVirus product with the latest 2009 release.I still believe they’re a cry baby sack of shit however. Since you’re here, you may wish to read the rest of the awful site, although most of it is me rambling on about how I hate people. Or Jews. Or blacks.

Okay the last few lines were jokes, don’t get your panties in a twist.

This was recently posted on Slashdot and, I’m sorry, am I the only one noticing how much Symantec has been whining lately? This article in addition to their latest annual Security report does nothing but make me laugh as Symantec is simply furthering, in my belief, that their products just simply suck and I do not see them in the future. Their annual report claims to have found Mozilla’s Firefox browser to be more vulnerable than Microsoft’s Internet Exploder…I mean Explorer web browser. Perhaps these findings are true, I’m in no position to disprove them, but I do find it somewhat interesting to note that as Symantec’s security software, including their popular Norton Anti-Virus, continues to decrease in popularity, the adoption of open source software is increasing, but most notably Firefox. Symantec, although never publicly admitting it, had to have been pissed when they realized that the open source community was coming up with innovative products which were not only appealing due to aesthetics and being offered completely free but most importantly because they have addressed a large number of “issues” which were otherwise dominated by Symantec’s security products with little competition with rivaling software company McAfee. McAfee…thanks for keeping your mouth shut and realizing you suck a long time ago. This is a lesson I think Symantec should learn. Although I’m huge on security, hell it’s one of my major’s in college, does Symantec really live in this fairy tale dream that operating systems, much less the internet is going to be this terrible dilapidated mess forever? C’mon, there’s innovation in technology daily, yes, it might be a very long time before improvement, but face it, at this rate if we don’t address these issues at a higher level than using a memory hogging, ineffective, “middle man” product to protect us, computers will become virtually unbearable in a network environment. So boo-friggin’-hoo Symantec. You know, I’m not the biggest MS fan either by any means, but maybe they’re just finally taking responsibility for the flaws you’ve based nearly your entire product line on. Sorry for your stupidity. Maybe if your product worked as your legacy touts you wouldn’t be sitting in this hot water, but you are. And on somewhat of a tangent, I also find it strangely “timely” for them to claim that Apple’s OS X operating system, a market of users it never had a strong stance with, is particularly flawed and that “Mac users are under a false umbrella” of security. Whatever, yeah, OS X isn’t perfect, neither is XP, or Linux for that matter…what makes Symantec’s opinion on software mean anything when their software can hardly even function, let alone protect.

So in conclusion…fuck Symantec

(*note* I still like Ghost 2003…it’s the ONLY exception)

Big Mamma vs the RIAA

Published on October 5, 2005 in News. 0 Comments

Thought you’d like to see this
Trial by jury, the RIAA is going to get owned. These people make bullying and beating up little children a sport. Sounds like they’re going to get some of their own.

A startling discovery and a crappy rant

Published on October 4, 2005 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

After reading and rereading and rereading and rereading my little Blu-Ray rant, I came to a wonderful conclusion: I don’t fucking care about Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. At all.

Current technology news is completely boring. I’m tired of hearing about the next shit-fest that one of the technology giants has to offer. Frankly the next DVD standard doesn’t mean a damn thing to me, the whole thing is completly irrelevent in the grand scheme of things. I can see it turning into the next dual-standard, where the most popular company (or more popular standard?) demolishes the competition.

Bottom line is it doesn’t matter. It’s all marketing.

Does anyone remember the day when innovation was brought on by necessity? When truly amazing things were invented not because someone will make a huge profit off it, but actually gain something they needed? Well shit, those were simpler times, things actually had a pinch of quality backing it. The first example of this that comes to mind is Dell—any intelligent IT guru’s (I am not an IT guru, fuck you) technological pariah.

A decade ago, owning a Dell was owning the king of prebuilt OEM machines. Today, owning a Dell is owning a refurbished peice of shit you bought for $399. Aren’t you proud of your lavish investment? Go suck a railroad spike, you ass.

I despise people who own Dells today, because they have the same attitude as someone who owned a Dell a decade ago—they falsely believe they own the king of PC’s, and they make every effort to rub it in your face. Every time someone calls me with a computer question and I come back saying it’s likely the hardware, the response I get EVERY TIME is “oh, well it’s a Dell.” Oh, really? It’s a Dell? Really?

THAT’S THE GODDAMN PROBLEM.

You have a Dell, your hard drive failed not because the drive was subjected to conditions that would cause it to fail, but because there is a very small label on it that says “factory reconditioned.” Know what that means? It means Dell is willingly putting shit in your computer to cut costs. That’s how it works, you know. How do you think PC companies can offer computers at such low prices? You’re paying for some asshole sitting in a cubicle at Dell or HP or Gateway saying “okay, well, company A can offer us 10,000 refurbished motherboards at a 3 dollar discount.”

Haha, tools.