Chips & Dips

News for Nerds on the stuff worth caring about.

This my personal soapbox- if I wanna say something, I do it here. News, Facts, Fiction, URLs, Opinions, Fabulous Get Rich Quick Schemes Guaranteed with No Risk To You, Whatever hits me on a ffbgiven day. Got some cool news? Drop me a line!

Wed, July 29

Enlightening News
From the Isn't-it-Exciting? Dept
So I've basically finished my first E theme. Check out My Enlightenment Page for a screenshot. This bad boy uses all the cool stuff that the rest of you will see when DR11 comes out (Soon! Stop asking!). Check it out, and feel free to Drool... E really is the ultimate WM... with each release, it gets closer to being fully featured. Many people already use it as there primary interface.

And if you put in the work, it sure it pretty.

Tues, July 28

Air Force One
From the buy-now-at-harrison-ford Dept
So last night I saw the movie that last weekend set the record for highest opening weekend net for a rated R movie.

I've read a lot of pretty good reviews, and seen very few negative comments, so let me throw out a few: Harrison Ford was good (Duh! The guys movies have collectively made like a billion dollars) and he was fairly believable. That said, Glen Close was Annoying & Cheesy (Aren't we all glad she stuck with the pres?) Oldman was kinda cool, but how many buddies did he have with him? What was with the evil Secret Service Agent? I never did figure out what was going on with him.

Serious Problems: AF1 has an escape pod? Sheesh. Oh, and Parachutes, enough weapons to destroy most third world nations, the ability to dodge missles on auto pilot, about 600 rooms, enough nooks and crannies to hide Jimmy Hoffa.

Nerd NoteThe CGI crash at the end was crap. Witha budget like this films, it shouldn't have been that crappy. The SFX were great, the sound fx were cool (Althoughd deafening at the theatre I saw it at- Decibels do NOT = Clarity!). Note to the animators: Splashes are not perfect, mathamatically exact parabola's. Ouch.

Anyway, See it if you've got a few bucks and a couple hours, but suspend your sense of reason. A lot.

Mon, July 27

Fun with Internet Naming
From the NICd-myself-shaving Dept
NSI is sueing AlterNIC for hacking in and redirecting DNS to their servers. Eugene Kashpureff admits he redirected .com, .net and .org a few weeks back- some think he's a hero, and NSI thinks he's a criminal.

This wasn't the right way to get people to use AlterNIC, but don't we all want to be rid of NSI? If AlterNIC was a real time mirror of NSI's TLD's, and then sold there own for 1/2 the cost NSI charges, I'd switch. After a year AlterNIC would probably take over.

Read more at www.news.com

Sun, July 27

Enlightenment Screenshot
From the e-gads Dept
Ok so my Enlightenment page is now up. It's sparse- but it does have my most recent DR11 screenshot of my soon-to-be-released-theme Flaunt!

The screenshot shows off my iconbox, new root menus, and cool pager. I am down to creating new a new icon bar, and it is ready... Next time I have a few hours, I'll wrap it up, and hopefully by the time DR11 rolls out, ya'll can get your grubby mits on it!

Comment if you'd like...

Linux T-Shirt Tidbits
From the unix-you-can-wear Dept
For those who don't know, I'm planning on printing T-Shirts with the Logo from my Linux Page. The cost is going to be ~$15... Mail me if you haven't already.

Here is the scoop- I've had over 150 e-mails, so we're gonna print 200 (That's the delay- I planned on only printing 20). A friend of mine is handling it all, and he is going to put up a page with the details (Where to mail checks etc).

This should all come down the pipe this week- so don't worry guys, it's gonna happen! And if you want more shirts, feel free to mail, we can still print more!

Sat, July 26

Trio of Titilating Linux Tidbits
From lame-alliteration-for-linux Dept
First of, I spent some time last night working on Enlighenment. I actually submitted a tiny patch, on got about 50% of the way through my new theme. This is an exciting Window Manager kids... DR11 (Not Out Yet!) Is finally usable (Keyboard shortcuts, Virtual Desktops etc..

Second, a fellow Gimp-head put up a great new tutorial... Jens has released a great Displacement Tutorial that explains how he made His really cool Gimp logo... You owe it to yourself to check it out.

And Finally I finally updated my system to run with the 2.1.* kernels. It was fairly painless by starting with a Redhat v4.2 system, and following the changes log available at Linux HQ. I also updated my LibC & GCC to the new Pentium Optmized Versions. I figured I should do something to speed up my system, to counteract the drains that E causes .

Fri, July 25

Tamagotchi Terror
From that-is-so-not-normal Dept
I got an interesting note to check out Anchordesk for more info on Tamagotchi style programs for PC's. For those of you who are new to my site, I wrote a Short Story on the subject. (The story has recieved 1,000's of hits!) Anyway, the article has links to several Windows (Ick!) based programs that simplify the toy. None of these apps get even close to the disturbing depths that my story predicted, but you still may be interested enough to check it out.

Kevin Smith & X-Files Scoops
From movies-we-want-to-come-out-tomorrow Dept
Harry Knowles has a cool scoop on the X-Files movie that is currently filming. Even more interesting is a short interview with Kevin Smith (The Writer/Director of Clerks). Seems that the dude who played "Randall" will be back in Dogma... there also is a exciting bit on what is coming after Dogma... You must visit Harry for the whole scoop!.

Thurs, July 24

Netscape 4.0b7 for Unix?
From the Its-still-beta? Dept
Despite what we all wanted to see (4.0 final) Netscape has decided to put out another beta. The rumour is from Browserwatch where we hear of an SGI version thats about. All who miss the good old days when the Unix versions came first, raise your hand now...

Wed, July 23

Prequel Yoda Pictures!
From the Aren't-you-a-bit-early? Dept
Once again Harry Knowles catches the scoop on time with some great pictures of the clay sculpture that will be digitized and used for the CGI Yoda in the Prequels. Check it out at Aint-it-cool-News.

Definition: Windows 95: n.
From the Microsoft Bashing Dept.
From: [email protected]

32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that can't stand 1 bit of competition.

Highly recommended humour mailing list... get more information at blackdown.org. Not only do they house this list, but they also host the Linux JDK Port pages!

Tuesday, July 22

Mutton Honey!
From the Odd-But-Legal Dept
Ready for scary experience? Check out www.muttonbone.com for a chance to purchase the 'Love Ewe'- your own personal inflatable sheep.

Isn't it wonderful that this is legal? I suggest everyone purchase one and place it somewhere where there parents can see it.

Monday, July 21

The Enlightened Binding
From the Xuality Dept
Our good friend Mandrake from #LinuxOS has got keyboard support working in DR11 of Enlightenment (Not out yet). We should all kneel before him as we can shave hours worth of wasted time off our days by not having to reach for the friggin mouse every time you want to focus a different window!