Pete’s Garage by Alexis D. Smolensk

product_thumbnailI can’t explain how happy I am that this book is finally available for sale and that I get to write about it on my blog. I don’t want to sound like a snotty hipster when I say that I got to read an advance proof two years ago, but I totally did. Ah, screw it, I totally want to sound like a snotty hipster when I say that because this guy, this Alexis Smolensk guy, has some chops.

For me, there are three things that make a book, and the first thing is the characters. I don’t like wishy-washy pansy-ass fairy tale characters. I like characters with meat and scar tissue. I like characters that are real. Real bastards, real clowns, real fuck-ups. Characters that have flaws, weaknesses, and honest-to-goodness, deep down, heart breaking insecurities that remind you of yourself in that deepest, darkest, most intimate hole you call a soul. For me, it’s those kinds of characters that I always remember, it’s those kinds of characters that I invest in, and it’s those kinds of characters that you really truly root for. In the two years since I read this book it’s still the characters that are the stand outs for me. If you’re a character reader like me, you have to read this book.

It’s now available on LuLu for $9 digital or $20 print and if you would like a very expensive, limited edition, autographed copy, just let me know. I’m pretty sure I can get your name on the waiting list.

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How to set up a COD4MW server on Ubuntu

Create a user account for the daemon

sudo adduser cod4user

Adding user `cod4user’ …
Adding new group `cod4user’ (1002) …
Adding new user `cod4user’ (1002) with group `cod4user’ …
Creating home directory `/home/cod4user’ …
Copying files from `/etc/skel’ …
Enter new UNIX password: *************

Sorry, passwords do not match
passwd: Authentication token manipulation error
passwd: password unchanged
Try again? [y/N] y
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Changing the user information for cod4user
Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default
Full Name []: [ZF]ServerBitch
Room Number []:
Work Phone []:
Home Phone []:
Other []:
Is the information correct? [Y/n]

cd /home/cod4user/

Get files.

unzip

set to

sudo chown -R cod4user Setup/
sudo chgrp -R www-data Setup/
sudo chmod -R 754 Setup/

su cod4user

password: **********

cd Setup

./cod4_lnxded

Couldn’t run Call of Duty 4 server (cod4_lnxded-bin). Is COD4_DATA_PATH set

probably corrupt files. transfer again with binary mode on.

or

chmod +x cod4_lnxded

chmod +x cod4_lnxded-bin

or

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

edit stratup script.

add to etc/init.d/cod4.conf

this contents

# ‘my-network-up.conf’ – My custom upstart events
#
# These are the scripts that run when a network appears.

description “My custom upstart events”

start on net-device-up # Start a daemon or run a script
#stop on net-device-down # (Optional) Stop a daemon, scripts already self-terminate.

script
# You can really put shell script in here, including if/then and tests.
SERVICE=”cod4_lnxded-bin”
RESULT=`ps -A | sed -n /${SERVICE}/p`

if [ "${RESULT:-null}" = null ]; then
exec “/home/cod4user/Setup/Data/cod4_launcher +exec server.cfg +map mp_crossfire &”
fi

end script

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B-Side Forever

When I was younger I would rush home with a new 45 and play the B-side first. I was pretty sure there was something wrong with me, but that B-side… that was new. It was fresh. It was something I had never heard before. It was mysterious and I had to – I absolutely had to – discover it. It was the mystery and the discovery that drove me to listen to everything I could turn an ear to.

Once a week we would visit the the city where I would race from record store to record store and headset to headset, ears perked up, like a horse listening for the jingle of his bit and bridle. I would listen to the newest singles on the old record players and tape players – B-side first. Always B-side first. My mom once pointed out that the rest of the kids were playing on the mechanical bull. I’m pretty sure she thought I was odd, but wasn’t worried because I was spending my allowance on music and not injecting heroin into my eyeballs like all the other kids she saw on the news.

When the record store opened in my home town I was thrilled. It was on the other side of town though. It was an hour walk, up hill, both ways, in the winter, in August… year round. If you live in Calgary you’ve seen snow in August and beach weather in December. Going to the Record store after school on Thursdays was always a challenge. Listening to the B-side was also a challenge. They didn’t have any listening stations. So I got job so I could afford to pay for a Walkman. The job? At the record store of course. I told the boss I would work for one dollar an hour. She gave me five times that, because she had to. I’m pretty sure she thought I was a freak, but I was the only one who scored 100% on her music test and under 18 meant she could pay an even more minimal minimum wage. It took me 3 months to afford my $199 Walkman, not because of the low wages, but  because I spent more than half my pay on new music. Oh wow, did I spend money.

And I didn’t just buy things off the shelf, oh no. As soon as I discovered that I could “Special Order” things from Europe and Japan that $12 tape turned into a $24 limited edition or a $32 collectable or $100 on a box set. Oh, the box sets… fuck.

The radio I had was a clock radio with a headphone jack that I got for Christmas in 1986. The antenna was the ground wire and it got reception like no other radio I have ever owned in my life. I could regularly listen to the local University radio station and on cloudy nights I could tune in to radio stations as far as Seattle. And if you don’t know what was playing on alternative radio in 1988… I am so sad for you. My gods, the music! I used to race home when the clouds rolled in just so I could tune in, and tune in I would, most nights until 3, 4 sometimes 5 in the morning listening and recording everything I had never heard before. It was so amazing. You probably don’t even know, unless you’re a music mutant like me.

I mean, all the greatest grunge bands – ever, really- were on the radio (Nirvana, Gin Blossoms, etc…). The greatest post-punk bands were there, doing their thing too (Fugazi was new, Jane’s Addiction was new, REM just broke and the Pixies were everywhere). Some of the greatest music you could ever hope to hear was new and on the air, begging to be discovered. Some of my favourite bands of all time were either brand spanking new or new to me. The entire history and conversation that is Music was moving and it’s that conversation that I was listening to.

Then someone asked me if I could bring my music collection to a party and play some music. And you better believe that I did. And you can believe how much everyone at that party absolutely hated everything I played.

“Yeah, but do you have any Metallica?”

“No?”

“What the fuck is this? Can’t you just play Def Leppard? or Bon Jovi?”

“sure….” I said, “I have some Def Leppard and Bon Jovi here”. And I would play Def Leppard’s Switch 6 to 9, an instrumental with 2 movements that totally kicked ass. And I would play the flip side for the Bon Jovi stuff, but not the US flip, oh no, I had to play “Breakout” off the “Special Order” single from the UK.

To sum it up, I was the worst house party DJ ever. Though I’m pretty sure  nobody at that party or my old home town have ever even heard “Breakout” as a single on vinyl before or since. Hell, I’ll bet only my sister has heard that song in the last 20 years and she spent hundreds of dollars to see Bon Jovi play live just a month ago. I’m pretty sure they didn’t play Breakout or Love Lies or the A-side, Runaway that night. Too many people want to hear the same old shit over and over again and I just, don’t, get, that.

I’m sitting here listening to one of the greatest bands I’ve never heard before and every track that comes on makes the hair on my arm stand on end and I get a little shiver. That feeling will evaporate with 2, 3 or 12 listens. There are maybe 10 songs in the whole world that still do that for me today. Maybe.

And the internet is my new needle, my new bong, my hit, my source, my dealer. A random playlist on Grooveshark, lastFM or Rdio… How can you not be listening to random, B-sides 24/7? Screw sleep!

Come check out my playlists on Grooveshark. I would like to check out yours too. Thanks for reading.

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Installing Linux Mint 13 (Mate) on Asus G75VW

I too have the G75VW. I added a solid state in sda and removed the original HD.

I used the backup DVD’s (4 of them) to get the original Win7 installed and working. (You made those right?!)

I reinstalled the original HD in drive bay 2 (left)

I booted to the Linux Min 13 Mate DVD by overriding the boot device in the BIOS (UEFI).

I had to select the boot in compatibility mode to get the DVD to boot.

I clicked on the “Install Mint” CD Icon to start the process.

I selected “something else” for partitions

You will need a 1MB partition of type biosgrub aka “Reserved for BIOS boot area”

next to that create a 202MB partition of type EXT4 mounted at /boot

add your swap partition (I set it to the same size of my RAM, but I don’t know much about this question)

then your usual partitions (one single / partition or maybe you like to split / and /home whatever your preference here is fine)

Then the ‘usual’ install happens.

Then things go sideways….

This page shows how to install and use boot-repair to finish a ‘normal’ dual-boot install of Ubuntu on a UEFI system (like the G75VW). NOTE about that: I used the Linux Mint DVD in live mode rather than the Ubuntu 12.10 CD (Which won’t boot anyway, black screen issue) https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

Tips:

The ‘recommended’ solution from boot-repair did detect UEFI on my G75VW.
Make sure you let the terminal commands finish before clicking on ‘Forward’
I chose ‘No’ to the question of removing Grub2, but it looks like it may have been removed anyway.

After a Reboot I was able to get the ‘usual’ boot menu. Mint loaded fine.

 

Linux Mint 14 also worked similarly to the above process, though I ran into an issue with the display not working properly. It sounded like it was loaded, and I could login (even though I couldn’t see anything) – the screen was scrambled.

Had to drop into restore mode.

Tried to reconfigure Xorg server. Nothing but issues. NO fix.

Tried to reconfigure packages.

That locked up, but it took me to a graphical log in screen. (very weird).

I ran into a number of issues surrounding the lack of Nvidia drivers. Threw everything I could find online at the problem and eventually got the drivers installed. That did the trick.

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Dear Ubuntu

I would like to tape this note to the fridge; I just don’t love you any more.

If I wanted to buy something on Amazon I would go to Amazon. If I wanted a desktop designed for an idiot, I would buy a Mac.

The thing that hurts is how much of a fan I was. How many machines I installed Ubuntu on for free. How many friends I’ve provide free technical support to. How many hours I’ve spent touting open source and Ubuntu specifically.

First Unity, now Amazon products in my search results. I don’t even care if Amazon pays for them or not. (apparantly they don’t) (but really they do) (yes, really they do) Apparently only Mark Shuttleworth, the head of Canonical, is the only one who doesn’t believe these are advertisements even though others on his staff seem to think they are.

Mr. Shuttleworth, there is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Likewise, there is the definition of a thing, of which you have done an.. given an effort at defining, and there is the spirit of a thing. I’m almost positive you’ve lost sight of the spirit of thing you started and that’s what hurts a true believer like me more than Amazon ads, more than Unity, more than anything.

You see Mr. Shuttleworth, we didn’t get into Linux because it was pretty, or because it was easy, or because it “just worked”. We got into Linux because it was built on a philosophy; not code, not API’s, not user experience, not targeted demographics, not advertising. We wanted to get things done in a very certain way using a very specific philosophy because that was the spirit of the thing. First you went after the way we did things (Unity) and then you went after the heart of the open source movement by tying our personal computers to corporate products.

I think I’ll cut this letter short. I have an even longer apology to write to my friends, family and co-workers for suggesting they use Ubuntu in the first place.

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On Copyright and Creativity

I would like you to compare and contrast these two videos.

This one featuring Harlan Ellison going on about Terminator.

And this one about Bob Dylan,

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How to spot an emotion based argument.

Appeal to emotion is a potential fallacy which uses the manipulation of the recipient’s emotions, rather than valid logic, to win an argument. – Wikipedia 4/2012

Any position in an argument that is based on, supported by or consists solely of a foundation not of facts, but rather emotional appeal, is a very dangerous position in any argument. Before you start or continue to argue you better first learn how to spot one. As soon as you can spot an emotion based argument, you can easily spot the fallacy. Once you can sport the fallacy, it’s easy to destroy it.

1) Inductive: An emotion based argument will almost always take the shape of an inductive argument. An inductive argument may try to hide behind flashy logic, but in the end the conclusion will appeal to the summation of the points. These points are considered to be a summation as the argument grows from specifics to support a generalization or, in the case of an emotion based argument, the specifics will build towards the desired emotional outcome. For example, in a recent incident in Canadian politics Vic Toews took the specifics of the “lawful access” legislation and built an emotional foundation as support for his position. He did this by using several types of fallacy in an inductive argument, once such fallacy quickly became widely published.

2) Fallacy: They type of inductive argument Vic Towes used led to a common fallacy known as the fallacy of consequences,  or an appeal to consequences. He based his argument on peoples fear. I like this fallacy because Conservative and Republican politicians have been favoring this particular fallacy a great deal since 2001. What Vic Towes did was take two very simple opinions and combine them to create one very large, over emotional position. His first fact was that of action in support of a bill that would give the police sweeping authority to intercept electronic communications. His second fact was that child pornography exists in electronic communications. He therefore inferred that intercepting said electronic communications would be intercepting child pornography. The conclusion to his position was logically incorrect and so was his position, but his application of the fallacy of consequences was absolutely brilliant.

“He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers” (Vic Toews, National Post Feb 14, 2012).

3) Value proposition: It’s at this point that I would like to remind you that these two issues of inductive arguments and types of fallacy are not in anyway my own original thoughts or positions. These have been around for a very long time. So long, in fact, that one must wonder if our politicians have studied them and if so, why would they? Because they work to support value statements where facts can no longer support the value statement.

For example, in the case of “lawful access” legislation in Canada or the SOPA bill in the United States, two very strong value positions were being pitted against one another. In an effort to remain neutral with respect to the specifics I will refrain from describing either side or the value positions they were supporting. I will recommend that you try to define the value positions and that you do so in a fair and equal manner.

It’s not easy is it? It doesn’t matter what side you take on this issue you are facing a value proposition that you don’t support. The only way to present a value proposition is by using an inductive argument and a logical fallacy of one type or another.

When it comes to spotting an emotion based argument it’s very easy to spot the value proposition, somewhat harder to spot the logical fallacy and a lot of the time the speaker will actually try very hard to hide the inductive argument. Why is it important to be able to spot an emotional argument?

Because emotional arguments make great headlines and 99% of the news you are being exposed to today is nothing more than really bad logical fallacy. It’s so bad, in fact, that when someone does such an amazing job of it, the fallacy becomes the headline instead.

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Check check, is this thing on?

Wow, I’m still here and it smells pretty musty in here.

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Poker House Rules

I thought it might be beneficial to write up our house rules for Poker and provide a little insight as to why these rules exist. In our house, this is how we play. In your house, you decide. That’s why they’re called “House Rules”. I’m not going to provide the full rules of Poker, hand rank, etc. I’ll expect the gentle reader to familiarize themselves with those.

No Extra Buy In’s

A “buy in” occurs only once at the beginning of each game. The reason for this is simple. I would prefer to play in a number of shorter games that start with all opponents at equal footing than loose a number of times in one longer game. Once you are on a loosing streak in a no-limit, multiple buy in game the same big stack player can continually force others off the pot – all – night – long. That’s just annoying, it’ s boring and if you’re going to play for fun, this house rule helps immensely. On occasion, a small stack player may double up off of the big stack, but how often does that happen?

Out Dealer Motivation

One of my favorite house rules is called, “Out Dealer Motivation”. This came about for two reasons. If you’re playing a number of shorter games then what do you do with those players who bust out early and can’t buy in again? In our house we let them play the role of dealer. If more than one player busts out early, the two can rotate the role. The motivation for the out dealer(s) is simple too. In the event of a split pot, the player dealing will receive an equal share of the split pot and get back in the game.

This also keeps the out players focused on the game and at the table. Otherwise they might just wander away and then you have to go and track them down before you can get the next game started.

30 Chip Limit/No Limit

All players, in all games, start with 30 chips… regardless if it’s a $1.00 or $20 buy-in. This is a time thing. In the years we’ve been playing it’s been discovered that 30 chips divided by 5 players will take an average of 1 hour to play a full game. Aside from that, it’s no limit.

Raising Blinds on the Out

I hate it when the blinds go up right when I hit the big blind. It happens with stunningly weird regularity. So, to avoid this, I introduced the rule that the blinds will double when a player goes out. If the game only lasts about an hour and you set a time to blind up, you’ll be raising the blinds every 10 minutes and that’s a pain. Now I just have to figure out why players always bust out right before I’m to play big blind ;) it didn’t solve the issue, but everyone seems to like the rule.

No Side Betting

When someone calls all in, you can call or fold. If you’re already in for more than that player bet then take your chips back. There is no side betting for two reasons. The first is simply because it’s complicated, it’s tricky to keep everyone focused on what they’re actually betting and frankly, secondly, it’s the side betting that causes issues, arguments and in one instance – fist fights. I rule out side betting because it turns gentlemen and ladies into monsters and it seriously slows down the game.

New Silly Deck

Every game should start with a brand new, still wrapped in a sealed box, deck of good playing cards. I think the deck of cards should have some kind of silly factor to help set the tone that this is a friendly game. The deck of cards should be unwrapped and opened in front of all players as a sign of respect.

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