Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Skull Pocket Watches
August 29, 2006

While Berta watched the kids milling around the Monroeville Mall playgound fashioned to look like Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, I took a brief trip through Hot Topic.

Hot Topic is a kind of counterculture apparel store. During my heyday as a counterculture wannabe, I have done enough crazy things to merit shopping in this popular chain store (ha, “chain”) on more than one occasion. As a matter of fact, Berta and I have bought enough stuff at Hot Topic that I have a couple of frequent buyer cards that are completely stamped full. Yes, I own a pair of leather pants and a bowling shirt with flaming skulls - so sue me.

It had been a while since I toured this black cloth, metal stud wonderland, and I was curious if the culture had changed any since the last time I had been in, walked around, and bought something.

The mens clothes looked all about the same as I remembered. Shirts usually classified into two categories: T-shirt with printed slogan and/or odd graphic design, or overly-heavy long-sleeved buton and chain-festooned livery that you might wear to a formal party or if you were feeling really, really emo. Pants usually have lots of buttons and extra straps like the kind used by carpenters to hold hammers, but serve no actual purpose. Or chains. Anything is fair game for chains, especially chains that are black.

The girls stuff is varied, but involves a lot of black and red lace, fishnet or nylon stocking sewn-in, black zippers, vinyl, silver buttons, more vinyl, and laces that tie up the back. Or something really stretchy and tight. Also, tall shiny boots are cool.

They carry albums of different sorts of music. I noticed CDs by bands with names like “Cattle Decapitation” and “One Dead Three Wounded”. There was also an album of songs based on the works of Neil Gaiman - my marijuana-like gateway drug to the crack-addled world of gothdom, father of The Sandman comic book and Stardust novel, possibly the soul of stores like Hot Topic born into human flesh.

What's Going On Here?
August 28, 2006

Perhaps it may shock some of you that I actually keep quite busy. In fact, over the weekend we took a trip to Pittsburgh to visit Berta’s sister and their new baby, Ethen. (“e”?) So I have not had time to fully unpack my office.

There are about 8 packing boxes of books that are going onto my office as soon as I finish hooking up the actual computer equipment. This will involve drilling some holes, since the cabinets have an outlet inside them (this is where the computers will go), but the shelves have no power nearby to accomodate the printer, scanner, mixer, synthesizer, etc.

Nevertheless, one might wonder what I’ve been up to development-wise for all this time, especially if I have had some little access to a PC. After all, I haven’t produced a line of WordPress code in ages, plugin or otherwise. Really, I’m not really sure what to do with WordPress these days. Sometimes I feel like I should do more with it, sometimes I feel like I want to have nothing to do with it, and sometimes I wonder what more really needs to be done with it. And so I put that off for another day.

Instead, I’ve been working a lot with MicroWiki. There hasn’t been a lot of noise on that front, either. And while the reports of things not working pile up in the support forums (yes, I read them, even if I don’t say anything), I’m still churning away.

What I’ve been doing lately with MicroWiki is moving non-essential functionality into plugins. The plugins will all be part of the package, but they won’t be essential to the system. I discovered that I was adding new functionality to accomodate certain needs, and that this functionality wasn’t necessarily of interest to the software’s primary audience. And so these features are pluggable.

But what are they? I’m glad you asked…

One of the first things I added was basic blogging capability. Why would I do this if I already use WordPress? Well, a few of my other sites use MicroWiki (and don’t already use WordPress), and I’d rather not dump 2MB of new code, a new admin system, and a new database on them just to add a little blog. So the blog plugin was born.

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
August 25, 2006

Steve is a primordial dragon-creature risen from the depths of the ocean by nuclear reactor leakage who calls his supper to him by using ESP to make them feel great.

Ken suggested I try out Steve’s story, another book by Christopher Moore. This story is a bit more smooth than Fluke. You can still feel the author’s familiarity with biology in his writing. I wonder if he has studied in that field. I digress.

A New Licensing Scheme
August 24, 2006

I was having an argument with the sales guy at the high-end TV store. Based on a discussion I had with Pat, I asked him if the TV he was trying to sell me supported HDCP. I told him I was warned against it, that I shouldn’t support technology that restricts a user’s rights. And that’s how the argument began that led to an intersting idea about licensing.

HDCP is a technology layer on top of HDMI that institutes copy-protection on top of the high-definition digital signal that travels from the TV tuning device to the monitor. In high-definition TVs (especially good ones) the tuner is a separate device from the actual display. The cable that connects the tuner to the display is called a HDMI cable. To keep people from plugging that cable into something that could directly record the digital signal (and prevent you from, say, recording pay-per-view movies in perfect digital quality) they have invented HDCP.

The basic idea of not buying a set equipped with HDCP is to send a message to manufacturers that consumers want the flexibility afforded them by fair use. We like to record shows for later. HDCP could help prevent that. Being an early adopter, it’s part of your job as an aware consumer not to buy products that encourage technologies prohibiting fair use. Otherwise, the unaware public could buy products that are more restrictive in their fair use capabilities than those we have now.

In any case, he started off with the argument that it’s only fair that if a studio spends money to make a movie and pay its workers, then it should get a return on that investment. And I agree with that. But I don’t think it’s fair that the studio should get to prompt me for a fee every time I watch their movie, nor that I should have my ability to watch the movie at my pleasure restricted. It was all about poor licensing. And that’s when I had my idea.