Doing something well
You know you’re doing something well when an employee of your customer sends you an email with:
Hi Guys
Off home now, thanks for all the help, and have a good weekend!
Cheers
VMware Server 1.0.2 on Debian Etch
If you want to install VMware Server on Debian Etch, you need the following packages installed:
apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.18-4-amd64 psmisc libx11-6 libxtst6 libxt6 libxext6 libsm6 libxrender1 libxi6 ia32-libs make gcc libc-dev
DigiD
Om belastingaangifte te kunnen doen, hebben particulieren vanaf dit jaar een DigiD nodig. Voor mensen als jij en ik is dat niet zo’n probleem. Ik heb een beetje mijn twijfels over de veiligheid van het systeem, maar het is in ieder geval een stap in de goeie richting. Behalve voor mijn buurman.
Onze buurman is geboren in 1937 en heeft voor zover ik weet nog nooit achter een computer gezeten, laat staan achter internet. Maar hij wordt ook verplicht om een DigiD aan te vragen. Dat heb ik dus zojuist voor hem moeten doen.
Dat heeft me wel aan het denken gezet: Gaan we steeds meer naar een overheid waar je technische vaardigheden voor moet hebben om ermee te communiceren?
Romance in books written by females
Last week, I finished reading The Black Magician’s Trilogy by Trudi Canavan. Although I really liked the serie (a 9 on a scale of 10), I’m a bit troubled by a trend I see often with female writers. You’d expect that women would like it more when the romance within a story is honest and straight forward. Well, that’s how I like romance in a story. Very old-fashioned, probably, but I still believe in the whole one-love-for-life idea. Honesty towards oneself and specifically towards the other person in a relation I keep in high regard.
During the whole story, I can sympathise quite well with Sonea, the protagonist of the story. But near the end, when she chooses for another lover than the guy who she kind of started a relationship with. And not by telling him, but by simply making the decision. When her former lover finds her in the arms of her new lover, he’s obviously a bit upset about it. But how does she react?
“[Sonea] thought back to the days she had spent with [Dorrien] in the Guild. It seemed a long time ago. Had he hoped he would regain her interest one day? Though she had made no promises, she felt a pang of guilt. Her heart was Akkarin’s. She had never felt this strongly about Dorrien.”
I mean, WTF? That’s just mean. And they say it’s usually the guys who break a girl’s heart. Well, I’m not buying that anymore. When it comes to love and feelings, it’s usually the girl who reacts in the most unthoughtful manner. Who ever said you should spare a woman’s heart clearly was very, very confused.
The thing that gripes me the most about this, is that I’ve seen this so often before. The girl “follows her heart” and in the process, she really, really hurts someone else. I don’t know how it was in “the old days”, but lately, I’ve seen this more and more often. It bothers me. I’ve been treated myself that way often and the sting actually comes back in full force when I read something here. The way she so casually brushes over his feelings.
I’ve noted it more often in stories written by women than in stories written by men, I think. And by the way the hurted guy acts in the rest of the story, Trudi really expected him to be over it without too much trouble. Which for me busts a feeling of plausability within the story.
As I said, I liked the trilogy overall, but I’m not that appreciative about the turning around in the romance. Makes me feel bad. (But, considering how an author usually wants to touch you, good or bad, this could be what the writer intended.)
Huisje zoeken (5)
Afgelopen vrijdag naar een huisje wezen kijken wat op zich wel leuk was. Maar eigenlijk wilden we gaan voor het huisje wat we een paar weken geleden gezien hebben. Vrijdagmiddag dus meteen met onze accountant gebeld om te kijken of hij voor komende vrijdag wat tijd heeft om samen met ons naar dat huisje te gaan kijken. Geen probleem. Bel ik de makelaar op die dat huisje verkoopt, is het huisje al verkocht. :S Behoorlijk balen dus.
Maar driemaal is scheepsrecht. We gaan weer met frisse moed op zoek naar een geschikt huisje voor ons.
The Future of Broadcast/Entertainment/Television
A few days ago I watched a lecture by Mark Pesce at the Australian Film Television and Radio School about the future of TV distribution in the age of P2P networks and I really had the idea that the guy hit the mark right on the head. He talks about how the new Battlestar Galactica series announced the end of broadcasting television. He has some really good arguments. If you have the time and if you’re interested in that sort of thing, go have a watch!
And just today, I saw the first glimmer (or better yet, supernova!) of how mr. Pesce hit the nail right on his head. The first episode of Stranger Things. The series is apparantly created without funding whatsoever, except probably the stuff the creators themselves put into it. They’re using short stories of Scott Sigler, if you’re into books, podcasts and stories, you might know that guy from Earthcore, the podiobook. The first episode of Stranger Things is about 30 minutes long, 640×480, looks great maximized on my 17″ iMac and is a story in the line of the old Twilight Zone episodes. A bit less dark, in my opinion. And my god, it’s absolutely brilliant. Go watch it and taste the stuff of the future!
Xerox WorkCentre PE120i + CUPS
In case anyone needs to connect CUPS with a Xerox WorkCentre PE120i or PE120 (which is actually the same thing without ethernet, I believe): You want to use the foomatic gdi ppd. If you’re using Debian Etch, install foomatic-ppds and select the Samsung ML-200 (anything that uses the gdi driver is okay).
Took me three hours to find this. Adding it to the linuxprinting.org database gave me a whole lot of errors, so I’m simply adding it here. Announce it to others! (I hope you can find this through Google…)
