~ the hordes of readers who writhe in frustration at every visit to this log should be informed of the ease of increasing the frequency with which the log is updated were they to donate a laptop to the angry red planet.

~ while passing by a couple who were failing in their confused attempts to operate a 44th street parking meter, we were able to overhear: “how dis bitch don’t take dollar bills?” we were left wondering, do people speak this way because they are trying to prove a point concerning the fluidity and proletarian authorship of communication or because they are idiots?

~ although we have had much success with flask/xmpeg, we have given dvd2avi and nandub a try. we are unsure that the necessity of dealing with four steps instead of two, eight hours instead of 4, and fifteen files instead of one, is worth the imperceptible increase in bitrate offered by sbc encoding.

~ we have received numerous emails concerning the possibility of an agent of the angry red planet having been spotted on broadway, weakly trying to force 70 pounds of sweeping compound back into the box from which it had just burst. if you noticed that this sad bastard was desperately weeping, then consider your sighting of an agent confirmed.

~ seems that napster use is currently 60% less, now that they began blocking the transfer of any song that the riaa demands them to block. there is an application called catnap [w] which scrambles your – otherwise banned – song titles and enables other catnap users to see them. in the likely event that napster puts an end to this, there is always audiogalaxy [w], audiognome [w], limewire [w], or one of the other gnutella clients [w]…

~ go ahead and honor the virulent spread of catholicism to ireland with your green beer, green rivers, and green bagels…we’ll be on hotline [w]

~ ‘puffy’ is still a punk; more so, because he can’t take the rap. weak.

~ after a 60 hour download, we find ourselves with a complete copy of the mandrake 7.2 iso. after wasting two discs – once burning the iso onto a disc and once burning an image disc with the iso – we managed to burn an image of the iso on the third attempt. from these errors, we learned the following: if you are burning an image with adaptec cd-creator, select ‘raw data’; if you are using nero, do not select ‘raw data’. so, we dropped the cd into angry and began the install. we have to wait only 3 hours for a installation, which is 4 times as long as redhat takes, but so far, we have none of the monitor configuration issues, so far….

~ the road to linux* has been retread. while searching the planet hard drive for errors, we figured we’d make use of its monitor to try another attempt at a usable linux configuration on angry. back in january, when we swapped out the hard drive in planet, we temporarily stored some files on angry. in order to do this quickly, we had reinstalled windows 95 on a partition. now, we reformatted and fdisk’ed angry, and ran another redhat 6.2 installation. we found they same monitor problems as always during the set-up; we thought a ‘server’ installation might be fun, but this apparent occurs with no gui, so instead of the previous fragmented window, we find the first few letters of text appearing on the right of the screen. before the rest appear on the left.

*’the road to linux’ copyrighted rasterweb [w]

~ this would be a lifetime easier if each machine had its own dedicated display…

~ red, of course is doing – whatever it does – as fine as it can.

~ ‘that burning keeps me alive…’

~ the work, part one: a trip to the local computer shop for a monitor for our linux machine ended in failure; the cheapest model – at $20 – was twice our budget. we compromised and instead purchased a macintosh, and returned it to the angry red offices, to compliment our pentium environment. to our surprise, we inadvertently picked up the macintosh se with 2 800k drives, instead of one of the remotely useful editions with one floppy drive and one hard disk. he have managed to find a few versions of mac os which will operate on one floppy; the latest with which we have had success is 6.0, which unfortunately does not support mosaic or netscape. so, even if there were a modem or a nic, we would be unable to access the web. the next step, then, is to acquire an external 20mb or 40mb scsi hard drive, and get os 7.0 or higher running. after this, we can throw an ethernet card up in there, network the se with the preuss workgroup, and start downloading macpaint. hardware donators, feel free to get in touch.

~ the third reason why the angry red planet discourages all from purchasing epson printers and products:

 epson: could i have your model number?
 the angry red planet: epson 777
 epson: that’s a good printer you have there
  the a.r.p.: that’s what i was told the last time i called for service
 epson: have you called about this issue before?
  the a.r.p.: yes, earlier today

 epson: what seems to be the problem now?
  the a.r.p.: well, earlier, i would get a warning every time i sent a job. i turned the printer off, and now i turn it on, but the lights never stop flashing.
 epson: there is fresh ink and paper installed?
  the a.r.p.: yes, i just added ink
 epson: could you hold, please?
  the a.r.p.: yes
  [holding until return]
 epson: ok, what we can do is send you a new model?
  the a.r.p.: a new model?

 epson: yes
  the a.r.p.: just like that, because i called and told you the red light is on….you’re going to replace the whole printer?
 epson: yes
  the a.r.p.: there’s nothing you can tell me to try here? i kind of need this printer right away; there are some things i need to print out for this weekend.
 epson: well, it should ship out next business day, and you will have it the following day.
  the a.r.p.: this is cutting it pretty close; in 3 days, i have this thesis-
 epson: it is too late to ship out today. you should have the day after tomorrow.
  the a.r.p.: that is unfortunate; by then i will have printed out someplace else….on something other than a 777.
 epson: i’m sorry, this is as quickly as we can get it to you.

  the a.r.p.: maybe this would have been easier if i had bought an hp?

  conversation dwindles into threats that we need to return the unusable printer within seven days, or face a $100 penalty. this is exactly the type of disruption needed in thesis week; perhaps the lowest point has not been reached after all…

~ why is it that 6 hours of ‘working’ ends up with 30 minutes worth of work produced?

~ why does an application allow us to create a 3d model that the same application can not render, even on a dual-processor, 512mb g4? weak.

~ the thesis-victory viewing of a new dvd – ‘stargate’, ‘id4’, or ‘das boot: director’s’ cut’ – is in jeopardy due to the disproportionate ratio of available funds to the unrealistic prices of a used dvd. those who would like to contribute to the angry red planet dvd coffers are welcome to make a safe, secure donation via paypal….

~ as our hardware woes have been alleviated by the installation of two 40gb titan hard disks, we are, for the present, not in any dire need for new machinery. so, any macintosh hardware that has been slated for delivery to the angry red planet should be ‘donated’ instead to rasterboy enterprises [w] (please send only g4 or above).

~ we have not verified yet the authenticity of this piece of writing, forwarded to us by from the ground [w], but its lucid and inspiring beauty should be shared regardless.

the angry red planet wishes the best for sr. marquez:

“Gabriel Garcia Marquez has retired from public life due to health reasons: cancer of the lymph nodes. It seems that it is getting worse. He has sent this farewell letter to his friends. Please read and forward to any who might enjoy it. This is possibly, sadly, one of the last gifts to humanity from a true master. This short text, written by one of the most brilliant Latin Americans in recent times, is truly moving:”

“If for an instant God were to forget that I am a rag doll and gifted me with a piece of life, possibly I wouldn’t say all that I think, but rather I would think of all that I say. I would value things, not for their worth but for what they mean. I would sleep little, dream more, understanding that for each minute we close our eyes we lose sixty seconds of light.

“I would walk when others hold back, I would wake when others sleep. I would listen when others talk, and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream! If God were to give me a piece of life, I would dress simply, throw myself face first into the sun, baring not only my body but also my soul. My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show. Over the stars I would paint with a Van Gogh dream a Benedetti poem, and a Serrat song would be the serenade I’d offer to the moon. With my tears I would water roses, to feel the pain of their thorns, and the red kiss of their petals…

“My god, if I had a piece of life… I wouldn’t let a single day pass without telling the people I love that I love them. I would convince each woman and each man that they are my favorites, and I would live in love with love. I would show men how very wrong they are to think that they cease to be in love when they grow old, not knowing that they grow old when they cease to be in love! To a child I shall give wings, but I shall let him learn to fly on his own. I would teach the old that death does not come with old age, but with forgetting. So much have I learned from you, oh men…

“I have learned that everyone wants to live on the peak of the mountain, without knowing that real happiness is in how it is scaled. I have learned that when a newborn child squeezes for the first time with his tiny fist his father’s finger, he has him trapped forever. I have learned that a man has the right to look down on another only when he has to help the other get to his feet. From you I have learned so many things, but in truth they won’t be of much use, for when I keep them within this suitcase, unhappily shall I be dying.”

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

~ the angry red planet has jumped onto the permalink bandwagon, so you may now direct your friends and clients directly to a news, or, ‘log’ post…

~ we have also added a ‘fall 2000’ page to the folio section.

~ more netscape 6 unpleasantries:

   in the ‘orbit’ skin there is no ‘to:’ bar in mail
   new mail is not differentiated from old mail

   different ‘skins’ render websites differently
   it adds borders and toolbars to pages which ask for neither to appear
   none of these occur with the ‘modern theme’

   if for every skin that exists, there is a visitor seeing you don’t know what… why are they moving away from web standards even within their own browser?