why do people write crap software? i have to assume it’s because they don’t know any better. it’s a problem that will never be solved.
beware! computer geek crap follows
i spent the day resizing and moving partitions around to install fedora core 5. what a waste. luckily, there were no problems and i can still boot into my ubuntu install. fc5 is a dissappointment. at least on this piece of junk dell inspiron 6000 boat anchor. i don’t really thing it’s all the machines fault. i’m not sure the day will ever come when hardware suspend works correctly. the dvd drive doesn’t use dma out of the box and no work arounds are readily apparent. so, no playing dvds with out skipping. they have a new package manager gui that still sucks compared to synaptic on debian and ubuntu. how long has synaptic been out now, five years? just copy it for crying out loud. the only reason for the change was that it included ruby 1.8.4 and i could try out the latest ruby on rails. i’m abandoning that path. with fedora’s annoyances and the fact that rails doesn’t work with 1.8.3 because ruby modified the api on a minor version (so i read somewhere) causing the rails breakage, i just don’t see it being satisfactory going forward. i didn’t really want to use ruby anyway. i guess i’ll have to spend tomorrow moving my partitions around again. it might not be as easy this time as stupidly i moved the “need to keep” partition into a situation where i can’t move it back. for obvious reasons, you can’t overlap the partition you’re moving. whoops! maybe i can come up with something. it’s a bit annoying because it takes for ever to move around the data.
red hat and fedora just continue to be disappointing. whoever’s in charge of the vision for the distribution needs to be fired. maybe there isn’t one and that’s the problem. i guess i’ll just wait for the next version of ubuntu in june. i’m still praying for the day when at least the linux kernel is in firmware and not included with the distributions. that way the kernel fully supports all the hardware in the machine (including suspend) and the distribution just worked to the linux kernel interface. that would probably make too much sense. in a way, that’s how the linux on ipaq works if i remember correctly. it would also require a hardware company caring about linux like apple cares about os x. they would only really need to make notebooks and up to quad servers. desktops are now deprecated for the vast majority of people. it’s too bad everyone makes the same crap machines. i suppose that’s mostly because they’re all made in the same factories in china, india, taiwan, etc.
on the plus side, i think i’m going to move forward with trying a python web framework named “django“. obviously, it’s named after the guitarist, plus 1. it uses python, plus 2. part of the design philosophy is “explicit is better than implicit”, plus 3. rails always sounded like it had a little too much magic happening. you know what also “happens”…shit. we’ll see how it goes tomorrow. someone did make a screencast. seems to be the in vogue thing these days. another spawn of rails. at least it was built by people who have been building and using it over the past 2.5 years in production. so they say. they say all the right things, but does it work for me…
maybe everything really is shit like the book said.
i suppose this blog will work out well for keeping track of why i think things suck for my personal reference.
I don’t really understand what that rant means but I am also frustrated with technology. Got a new DVR/HD box installed the other day. It was only recording when it was on the actual channel which is basically a glorified VCR without even the simple function of being able to watch another program. The new one lasted about 2-3 days and it is now doing the same thing. Sometimes it works(very rarely though). Most times it only records when it is on the “correct” channel. The tech told Hillary that he thinks it is a software problem but as far as I am aware, my neighbor does not have these problems and she has the exact same MOXI box. I am starting to wonder if there is some issue with my tv or my internal cable connection since it is happening with so many of the boxes. Surely not every MOXI box has these problems. I have had the HDTV since September I think and I am on MOXI box #4 I think.
this is a good example. the “tech” (glorified delivery boy) doesn’t know anything. the boxes are way to complicated. the configuration is way to complicated. in some respects, this also goes back to my complaint about u.s. digital television.
there’s really no way it’s your t.v. as it’s only acting as a monitor. it does seem unlikely that it’s the cable since your neighbor’s box works fine. it actually would seem unlikely that it’s the software since all boxes should end up downloading the latest. however, there are a lot of configuration options and i’m sure they didn’t test all combinations.
i don’t think the current situation can do anything but ultimately fail.
so what do you think the problem might be?
could it be that we changed the way he installed the cables? I’m guessing not since you said all we needed was DVI and red/white audio. We unhooked the ypbpr cables(or whatever that alpha series is called).
Well, django is an interesting looking new option. What the heck is this thing? Part data modeler. Seems philosophically good. Like they understand that writing code is not a bad thing – just give us good expressions and don’t assume anything. I’d like to hear more once you’ve fooled around with it some.
However, it would be best if you would just hurry up and run out of cash and get back to work! Either that or get us some really good blog entries. This half way thing is not good – either get back to work, or get to playing more seriously.