Thoughts on the Subway

  When I'm waiting for the train I like to be close to the edge of the platform.  From there I get the the best vantage point for spying or hearing the oncoming transport.  However, as it approaches the station, I always modify my stance from parallel to perpendicular to the tracks.  It would be so easy for someone to come up from behind at the last second and transfer just enough energy onto my person as to propel me into a collision course with all the kinetic and momentus energy of the oncoming vehicles.
  Crazy, right?  While the modification of my lower limbs would slightly increase the prerequesite force to send me to my doom, it is by no means the best possible position to maintain to avoid such an occurance.  Yet, this small defence that I mount somehow makes me more secure in my up close preparation for boarding a crowded thorax segment on the millipede home.
  Upon entering the car, I look for a seat and something to do to detach myself from the reality and people around me.  On good days I write or read, depending on my mood; on bad days I try to stay awake.  Sometimes I do anything I can to distract mself from the intense desire to urinate on any light pole that I can see out the window flying in reverse as if it's heading back downtown.

Nexus One gets an OTA Update to Gingerbread Part 2

  My Google Nexus One finally got the long anticipated Gingerbread OTA release. Google announced the release in a tweet on Feb 22, 2011 and has been rolling it out since. The update applies to the new Nexus S as well.

  This new release of android focuses mostly on changes under the hood. While the interface has minor cosmetic differences, the big changes are underneath. SIP support built-in to the OS, new power-consumption analysis, and groundwork for more diverse hardware platforms.

  User interface wise, it looks like a new software keyboard, better copy and paste, and text input in general. Especially if your device doesn't have a trackball.

Nexus One gets an OTA Update to Gingerbread Part 1

Well, I was surprised early this afternoon with a notification about a new OTA update being available for my Google Nexus One. Gingerbread here we come!

Will followup with more screenshots...

TRITON SEE2 Xtreme UV200 in Linux, Works!

I'm trying to install the Triton Technologies See2 Xtreme (sic) UV200 USB 2.0 External DVI/VGA Video card on a Debian Squeeze Box.
(Buy it from Amazon: Tritton SEE2 Xtreme, USB to DVI or VGA External Video Card, 1920x1200 resolution )

$ sudo lsusb -s 2:3
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0711:0950 Magic Control Technology Corp. 

Forcing the kernel module to load and trying Xorg yields:

(II) Module sisusb: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.7.6.901, module version = 0.9.3
Module class: X.Org Video Driver
ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 6.0
(II) SISUSB: driver for SiSUSB chipsets: SIS315E/PRO USB
(WW) Falling back to old probe method for sisusb
(EE) No devices detected.


Using this kernel compile howto, I then compiled linux kernel 2.6.37.1 with this simple patch.
And it works!!

(II) Module sisusb: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.7.6.901, module version = 0.9.3
Module class: X.Org Video Driver
ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 6.0
(II) SISUSB: driver for SiSUSB chipsets: SIS315E/PRO USB
(WW) Falling back to old probe method for sisusb
(II) Found SiSUSB dongle (node /dev/sisusbvga0, minor 0)
(II) SISUSB(0): SiSUSB driver (2005/09/28-1, compiled for X.org 1.7.6.901)
(II) SISUSB(0): Copyright (C) 2001-2005 Thomas Winischhofer
(II) SISUSB(0): *** See http://www.winischhofer.at/linuxsisusbvga.shtml
(II) SISUSB(0): *** for documentation and updates.
(--) SISUSB(0): Found USB dongle (device /dev/sisusbvga0, kernel driver 0.0.8)


Thunder Snow '11

  In the yellow light diffused by the overwhelming snow falling in dense quantities from the heavens, we sat eagerly awaiting our impending doom.  The talk for days of sno-mageddon, or sno-pocalypse some preferred, had ratcheted our imaginations up to the point of intense expectation.

  I feel that, at least for me, there was a moment that lived up to the hype.  It was an amazing feeling that night, if you happened to hear the thunder and see the lightning as the peak of the freak snowstorm passed.  It was as if a door had been opened in your mind.  With all the fantasy of storytelling that we grow up with and are bombarded with in our media rich lives, we sometimes forget how amazing the world can be on it's own.

  Once, when I was a boy, I was outside playing in the yard.  All of the sudden it started raining across the street, but in our yard it was dry.  It was dry and the sun was out! It stayed like this for what seemed to be tens of minutes.  This was a mind widening experience for me. "Of course there had to be an edge to the rain", I had thought. I had just never experienced or thought about it so starkly and statically.

  In a similar way, when the computer voice read the weather report over the radio and uttered the phrase "thunder snow", my brain jumped a little inside my head.  Just because I had never experienced a thunderstorm that happened to be dropping snow on me didn't mean that it couldn't happen.

  I can't quite put my finger directly on what this changed inside of me, but I feel like it definitely changed something.