SuBBrilliant Blog

Part 7 of the novel Boiling Point, read on MP3.

You can purchase a print copy of Boiling Point at LuLu.com.

Part six of the novel Boiling Point, read aloud on MP3.

You can purchase a print copy of Boiling Point at LuLu.com.

A 20th Century Fox motion picture comes out with Mike Judge as the creative force anfd starring Luke Wilson.  Haven’t heard of it?  No surprise, in a reverse from Sankes on a Plane, the movie Idiocracy is getting absolutely no advertising or support from its own studio. No trailer.  No official movie poster even. Up until a week ago it wasn’t even going to be releaed.  Instead it has ben released in the unlikely cities of Atlanta, Toronto, Chicago and of course LA.  Inaddition, Mike Judge’s home state of Texas can watch if they liv ein Austin, Dallas or Houston.

The movie takes place in an America of the future where everyone has gotten stupid. Consumerism, violence and idiocy, as the title implies, now rule.  Luke Wilson plays an avarage guy form 2005 who enters a hibernation experiment and accidentally is kept asleep for 500 years.  When he wakes up in 2505, he finds he is now the smartest person in the world.

The premise is that dumb people keep having kids and smart people don’t leading to a world of idiots.  Granted it’s far-fetched form a genetic standpoint, but hey, what good scifi movie isn’t far-fetched. This is sort of similar to the plot of Futurama with stupidity being mor eemphasized. Terry Crews plays the President of the US, a giant dreadlocked pro wrestler.  Wrestlers and porn stars seem to reign in the future world which also sports a Costco that is it’s own city with a giant monorail.

I implore Fox to explain what the hell it’s doing with this movie.  Reviews are mixed to good, but if they hated it so much, why release it at all?  Why not go straight to DVD?

I implore you to see it if you can and report back.  I’m stuck in the apparently improper market of San Francisco, so I won;t be able to see it.

Part 5 of the book Boiling Point on MP3.

It started so innocently. I was going to record an episode of CNET.com’s The Real Deal about Ubuntu.  So I decided to install Ubuntu on the company ThinkPad as a dual boot with Windows.  Know going into this story, the laptop in question has a piece of screen capture software on it we use for making videos. Not that it couldn’t be reinstalled.

So the installation goes fine, and I intentionally let Ubuntu choose all the settings.  My point was to replicate how easy Ubuntu is to install for the average user.  I boot into Ubuntu, start surfing the web, all is well.

Then I reboot to check the Windows partition. Grub loads up several boot options including the Windows XP partition. I choose that and in the next moment my stomach falls to the floor. A file called hal.dll has been corrupted and needs to replaced. Oh that’s just dandy.  I reboot again and get the same result, so offf to the Web.

After a bit of searching I find that the Hal.dll problem comes up quite often when folks install dual boot systems on a pre-existing Windows machine.  Seems Windows does not like to be the second partition.  The solution however, is fairly simple.  Whew.  I just need to alter the boot.ini file to have a number 2 instead of a number 1, so that Windows can understand it is now on the second partition.  No problem right?  Wrong.

Turns out Linux has issues reading an NTFS partition.  I try messing with fstab and cannot get the Ubuntu to browse the files.  Finally I try cgoing to the command line.  Frankly, if I’d been too afraid of the comman dline I would have never got this fixed. I learn that to mount a drive one must create a folder for it either in the mnt or media directories. (I suppose you could make it anywhere, you’re just pointing to it). I create the directory and can mount the drive from the command line.  However, when I try to browse it from the GUI, I get nothing.  I’m told I do not have permission to do that.  Back to the command line and I whip out a sudo command.  A little something I picked up on awhile back. Sudo is what you need at the command line in order to run a command as root.  Apparently in Ubuntu they wisely keep you out of root as much as possible.  Good for them. I cd to the windows directory I created and find the boot.ini file. Then I throw down a sudo gedeit boot.ini.  Ah-ha, there’s the little sucker int he text editor now.  I just need to change those two (1)s into (2)s.  No problem.  Except the save button is greyed out.  I try to save as which lets me try but fails.

At this point I decide to track down a Windows XP boot disk and try to launch off that and edit from within Windows. Not a single boot disk off the Interent works for me.  So I get one fromt eh CNET labs. It works but I need the admin password.  Turns out I don’t have the admin password.  Even though I’m the admin.  See, this is a work computer so there’s  a super secret admin password only IT knows about. That kinda sucks because I don’t want to go to IT and explain all this.  Besides, they won’t fix it, they’ll just blwo out the hard drive and reinstall Windows.  At least that’s what I’d o in their situation.  So back to Ubuntu.

I’ve given up on fstab by the way as I’ve gotten enamoured with trying different command switches on the mount command.  That leads me to learn the umount command of course as I need to unmount every time I want to try a new combination of mount switches.  No luck.  I cannot get the darn thing to write to NTFS.

Most of what I’ve read implies that you can write to NTFS as long as you have the 2.4 kernel or later. But there’s also ntfsprogs.  This little package of utilities promises to let you read and write to an NTFS partition with mroe success.  Not COMPLETE success mind you, but more. SO I download the tar and unpackage it but it cannot run.  ./ configure does not work. Well I realize I’m running ubuntu so that didn’t work.  I need to use Synaptics right?  But when I look in Synaptics I don’t see ntfsprogs available.  So I surf around some more and find a .deb of 1.12.1 of ntfsprogs.  Not the most current package but it’s a deb right?  But I still can’t see how to install it with synaptics. So I try installing it the Windows way by double clicking on it.  It opens and give me an install dialogue, but no it’s run into a FUSE library that doesn’t have a satisfactory dependency.  Well darn.  I download that lib and when I install it, it says it’s unsatisfied with the libc dependency.  When I install THAT it says a later version is already installed.  Damn.  I obviously am not doing this right.

So back to the drawing board.  I prowl around on the Ubuntu site and discover ntfsprogs should be available in the universe area.  Hmm.  I eventually go back to synaptics and look at the repositories.  I ran into the term repositories somewhere on the web.  Turns out not all the repositories are turned on by default.  I turn on all the binary repositories and voila!  What do I find but ntfsprogs 1.12.1? Gloriousness. Synaptics installs it and all is looking fabulous.

I happily launch terminal and try the ntfsmount command.  Doesn’t work. Says the drive is dirty.  Happily there is a force switch I can turn on at the command line.  I do and it forces itself to try to mount the Windows partition.  Alas it still fails.  It needs fusemount or something and it just can’t find it.  Taking what I’ve learned I turn to synaptics again.  I search for fuse and find a package of fuse utilities that among other things, appears to contain fusermount.  It installs in beautiful synaptic fashion.

I go back to the command line and try out ntfsmount again.  Hurrah!  I CD over to the windows partition and sudo gedit boot.ini.  Hurray! The save buttonis NOT I repeat NOT greyed out. I let out a yelp.  I change those (1)s to (2)s and save. The text editor warns me that it can’t save a backup of that file and am I really sure I want to do this.  I say caution to the wind text editor, do your worst.  t saves and I reopen in gedit and it looks to have taken just fine.

Now comes the real test.  Restart. I choose Windows XP at the Grub screen and I get the most beautiful site since I left my wife this morning.  A Windows logo.  never thought I’d think that but I did.

Then the sky blue screen of death says it’s checking the drive for integrity.  I can understand that.  It goes about its checking and I turn to my other laptop to check mail.  At one point I turn back to see it’s checking the indecx and is 92 percent done.  However when I turn back I see it’s booting into Ubuntu.  My heart skips a beat!  Just the autoboot, it must have restarted itself.  I power down and reboot, and choose Windows XP.  I get the nice slightly darker than sky blue screen of login and life.  I login and there’s the desktop.  I run the screen capture program.  It works!  I surf the Web.  It works!  It’s amazing.

I immediately search for how to change boot order in grub, reboot into Ubuntu and change a default number to the Windows partition.  Now I can safely give this laptop to otheres int he department to do screen captures on.  And nobody will have to worry that Ubuntu is bootable.  And we now have a dual boot laptop ofr other videos that may require it.  Huzzah!

The rela moral of this story however, is that, while obviously not a Linux master by any stretch, even with my knowledge I found it quite frustrating to learn how to install programs in Ubuntu.  And most people won’t find the command line as exhilerating as I did.  Judgement?  UBuntu’s good.  very fgood.  In fact if you get it set up right, it may be good enough for people who don’t need to intsall programs much.  Or at least not install odd programs.  Liek Linux has been for years, it’s getting better on the desktop, but is not quite all the way there.

Part 4 of the novel Boiling Point read out loud by the author.

In response to some confusion on Wikipedia about what happened to Western League franchises, as that league was converted to the American League, I did some research. Here’s what I found about the franchise transfers between the end of the 1900 American League “minor” season and the first season the AL played as a major league in 1901.

In the Chicago Tribune, January 29, 1901, it is reported that the American League voted to drop Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and Buffalo, and award new franchises to new backers in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston. The article goes on to report that “Manning’s Kansas City franchise having been transferred to Washington at a previous meeting.” (Seeks to snare Duffy of Boston, Chicago Daily Tribue, Jan. 29, 1901, pg. 9. )

Minneapolis owner C. H. Saulpaugh, Indianapolis owner W. H. Watkins and Kansas City owner James Manning opposed the move of the American Legaue into eastern cities. Only Manning appears to have been eventually swayed, and agreed to move his franchise. (Manning to put club here, The Washington Post, Nov. 12, 1900, pg. 8 ) The Indianapolis club jumped to the 1901 incarnation of the American Association that the National League formed but never got off the ground. (Teams at league park, The Washington Post, Jan. 6, 1901, pg. 8 )

Saulpaugh sold his Minneapolis club, the lease on its ballpark Nicollet Park, and the American League players, to A. B. Beal. The Jan. 16 Chicago Daily Tribune calls them “the Western league franchise.” (Watkins shows his hand, Chicago Daily Tribune, Jan. 16, 1901, pg. 8 ) This likely alludes to them joing a new minor league that was planned to play in cities left behind by the American League. (Johnson returns in pacific mood, Chicago Daily, Dec. 23, 1900, pg. 17 )

As late as November 23, 1900 Buffalo was to be given a one-year contract to remain a memeber of the AL. (Baseballfor Baltimore, New York Times, Nov. 23, 1900, pg. 8 ) By January, enthusiasm for a Boston club meant the AL would either go to 10 teams or have to drop one. (Circuit of ten clubs, Chicago Daily Tribune, Jan. 13, 1901, pg. 18 ) Buffalo lost out but President Franklin of Buffalo was satisfied with the “agreement that the American leaguers would permit him to keep his team intact so far as they were concerned. They promised not sign any of his players if he went into another league.” (Seeks to snare Duffy of Boston, Chicago Daily Tribue, Jan. 29, 1901, pg. 9. )

The player rosters from opening day 1900 compared to the rosters of 1901 seem to bear this scenario out. Washington in 1901 had several players from Kansas City of 1900. The rosters of Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia do not seem to share any similarity to the rosters of 1900 Minneapolis, Buffalo, and Indianapolis.(New baseball faces, Chicago Daily, Apr. 8, 1900, pg. 18 ) A preseason analysis by the Chicago Daily acknowledges the Washington Club is built around a nucleus from Manning’s old Kansas City club, but treats Baltimore, Boston and Philadelphia as new teams. (Lineup of the rival leagues, Chicago Daily, Mar. 31, 1901, pg. 17 )

This research indicates that Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Cleveland, held their clubs steady from 1900 to 1901. Kansas City moved to Washington under the same ownership by Manning. Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston seem to have been created anew with new ownership.

Newspaper articles found at ProQuest Historical Newspapers (www.proquest.com)

Supposedly this new free blogging software from Windows will work with almost any blogging service and be as easy to use as a word processor.

It set up with Word Press very easily and seems fairly intuitive though I was confused at first where the body of the text was supposed to go. It was TOO easy in that sense.

You can try it out at Winbdows Live Spaces site.

This part added in WordPress – I didn’t see how to make a category so I came into WordPress and gave it one. Maybe it’s there. I didn’t look that hard.

Update:

Categories were in the dropdown menu to the upper right.  But I didn’t see how to add one.

The third MP3 in the series of the novel Boiling Point read aloud.

I scanned and uploaded an old health pamphlet called “Your body and how it works.” I put it up on Flickr. The best part is the illustrations.

Link