Kid Radd

What happens when an 8-bit video-game character becomes self-aware? The wonderful web-comic, Kid Radd, answers this question.

While a little slow in the beginning, it quickly picks up pace and becomes quite funny and though-provoking. Highly recommended.

The Mothballing of the U.S.S. Clueless

I found out about blogs on September 11, 2001. I was watching the news on TV and quickly became disgusted with the major network news coverage. It seemed that the big 3 networks didn’t want to bring up Arab terrorism as a possibility and I didn’t have access to any of the cable news networks, as I have only basic cable service.

I went online to look for information but found out that most of the major news sites were inaccessible to due the demand. Fortunately, I stumbled on to some of the blogs which were covering events. I figure I must have hit at least 30 websites that day, but I can only recall two clearly: Instapundit and U.S.S. Clueless. I got addicted to reading weblogs from those two, and the U.S.S. Clueless has long been my favorite blog to read.

Recently, Steven den Beste, the Captain of the U.S.S. Clueless, has basically announced his decision to mothball the blog. This doesn’t surprise me, as he has been showing symptoms of blogger burnout for some time, but it is very saddening. Captain Steve provided what I think are some of the best written posts and essays I have ever seen. They were exhaustive in detail with almost Vulcan levels of logic.

I understand the Captain’s reasoning and wouldn’t dream of trying to talk him out of it. This post is just to say “thank you” for his effort and toil for all the years he kept up his blog. I am sure the blogosphere is the lesser without his presence – I definitelywill miss him.

Thank you, Captain. It has been a joy and priviledge to ride aboard the U.S.S. Clueless these past three years.

P.S. And I was just about to send him an e-mail on how to extract free energy from the Primal Mainstream using mayonnaise…. 😉

A Weird Computer Screen Problem

I had an unusual computer-problem Thursday night. The left 40% of my desktop was unusable – all of my desktop icons were shifted to the right. If I tried moving an icon left past a certain margin, it disappeared as if sliding off the left side of the screen. If I maximized windows they only took the right 60% of my screen, but some unmaximized windows could be enlarged over the left side of the screen (this wasn’t true for Windows Explorer, though). The strange thing was that my desktop background was just fine.

Here is a redacted screen shot I took of my computer. Notice the partly cut off My Computer icon

I spent an at least an hour and a half fighting with this:

• If I logged in as a different user, my screen would be normal. Apparently, it was just my main account that had this problem.
• I tried deleting the ShellIconCache file – no dice. After deleting the file and rebooting, everything seemed normal until the load process was complete. Then, whoomp, everything got shifted to the right.
• I used Iconoid to attempt to save icon positions. Didn’t work.
• I installed TweakUI 2000 and repaired the icon file. Still no luck.
• I changed my screen resolution. Problem still remained.
• I rebooted into safe mode. The problem didn’t exist then, but returned when I rebooted normally.
• I finally called my GE Service Contract. Turns out that they “only do hardware”. The gentleman I spoke to was very polite, but had no idea what the problem was.

Just after I got off the phone to the Service Center, totally frustrated, I realized that the left 40% of the screen looked like it had an invisible window docked to it. Realization hit me: I had accidentally docked Trillian to the left side of the screen in Wednesday night’s chat. This blank area was exactly the same size. I realized that Trillian must not have closed down properly and every time it restarted it was creating a hidden window docked to the left side of the screen.

I restored Trillian – it was docked on the left side – exactly over the area where I had been having the problem. I undocked it and I could then move all of my icons back to their normal positions. I shut off docking in Trillian and my computer is now back to what passes for normal.

Sometimes, I just love computers. 😉

The Search For Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

Sometime over the last few days, my SetiAtHome screensaver just completed its 2500th work unit. Still no luck in finding E.T.

Limited Posting

Posting will be extremely limited for me for a while…I am having unusual computer problems.

Update: My problem has been fixed. After fighting with the machine for over and hour and a half, I had a brainflash and fixed it in about 10 seconds.

I may or may not do a more complete post on it.

Update: More here.

Referrer Logs

I’ve been looking through my referrer logs for the past few months to see what is bringing people to LaunchPad Zero.

Some of the referrer strings (edited for length and clarity), followed by my comments:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=word+document+images+extract
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=alternate+background+shading+in+excel
I have gotten a lot hits from people who want to know how to extract images from word or highlight every other row in Excel.

http://www.google.com/search?q=John+Edwards+slash+fic
According to Google, my site is #13 “John Edwards slash fic”, to which I say “ewwwww…”.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=swahili+chats
When I first checked this, LaunchPad Zero was the number 6 or 7 result for “swahili chats”. Now it isn’t even in the top 30. Google is so fickle.

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22John+Vasconcellos%22+AND+Nudity
I don’t want to know…

http://web.ask.com/redir?q=pics+of+michelle+trachtenberg+nose
http://web.ask.com/redir?q=michelle+trachtenberg+big+nose
Michelle Trachtenberg does not have a big nose. Her nose is appropriately sized for her face and is quite beautiful! So there! 😉

http://web.ask.com/redir?q=what+song+did+the+dozers+in+fraggle+rock+sing
Gads! How would I know – I never watched Fraggle Rock.

http://web.ask.com/q=Feed+My+Bearded+Dragon+Goldfish
Turns out that LaunchPad Zero is the #4 answer for Ask Jeeves – “Feed My Bearded Dragon Goldfish”. My life is now complete.

http://web.ask.com/web?q=Do+I+have+to+pay+off+a+credit+card+if+my+mom+dies%3F&o=0&qsrc=0
I don’t know…is it your credit card?

http://web.ask.com/web?q=Power+Rangers+Lesbian+Fanfiction&o
Not any here…although I admit I used to be a Power Rangers fan.

http://www.google.com.sg/search?q=nc-17+j.k.rowling+fanfic
Please tell me you weren’t looking for fanfiction about J.K. Rowling, as opposed to characters in her books.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22lucky+charms+marshmallows%22+calories
Turns out that LaunchPad Zero is number 2 for ‘ “lucky charms marshmallows” calories’ – who knew? Who cares? Certainly not I.

http://www.google.com/search?q=is+being+a+temp+an+excuse+to+get+off+of+Jury+Duty&btnG=Search
I can tell you from personal experience – not in California it isn’t.

http://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=xander+giles+enema+fanfic
Not going there…

Thus ends this excurision into the depths of LaunchPad Zero’s referrer logs. Hope you enjoyed the trip.

All Good Things Must Come To An End

Well, it has finally been announced. After five years of providing its loyal listeners the Buffy and Angel afterglow, The Succubus Club is coming to an end. The last episode of The Succubus Club will be broadcast live from KLBC on August 25, 2004 at the usual time of 6 PM – 8 PM Pacific Standard Time (9 PM – 11 PM Eastern).

I will personally miss the Succubus Club a great deal. I don’t know any Buffy or Angel fans personally. For me,The Succubus Club made up for that lack. Listening to Kitty and Candy rave (or bitch) about the latest episode of Buffy and/or Angel made me feel connected to other fans in a way that usenet and message boards didn’t. Special thanks to Kitty, Candy and Ethan for five years of a wonderful show. 🙂

Chat Room Details
The IRC chat room will be open during the final show, as it is every Wednesday at that time. I should mention that there are no plans to close the chat room at this time, or to my knowledge, the mailing list.

Time: Every Wednesday from 6 PM – 8 PM Pacific Standard Time
IRC Server: irc.fef.net for a random server or go to http://www.fef.net/servers.php to select a specific server.
Channel Name: #thesuccubusclub

To connect to the chat room you will need an IRC chat client program. The most popular one is the shareware program mIRC, but any IRC chat client program should do. A list of free chat clients may be found on Nonags.com. Note: The link for vIRC is wrong. It may be found here. I personally use the free version of Trillian as it connects to IRC networks, Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, MSN and ICQ.

A transcript of each chat will be posted on this site, generally within 1-2 days.

Last Night’s Chat Transcript

I have posted the transcript for last nights Succubus Club IRC Chat. Special Notice: There was a request by some chat room members that Kitty, Candy & Ethan not read this transcript.

“I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.”

I wonder if this gentleman was feeling a little Restless before he went out and got drunk. 😉

The Blogosphere Political Compass Project

Sandor at The Zoo is attempting to map the political affiliations of bloggers, using the 2 axis scale found at http://www.politicalcompass.org/. So far he has 56 entries.

While the sample is self-selected, i.e. bloggers take the test and e-mail their own results, the results so far are interesting:

• There are just 2 bloggers in the upper left quadrant (Authoritarian/Liberal) and they are barely off the centerpoint(0,0).
• Of the Conservative bloggers (Liberal/Conservative value>0), they seem to be fairly evenly distributed around the Libertarian/ Authoritarian axis, with a slight overall trend to Libertarian.
• Of the Liberal bloggers (Liberal/Conservative value<0), Libertarian values seem to predominate.

I doubt the results are actually representative of the blogosphere as a whole, but it is still kind of nifty.

My results: LaunchPad Zero is point 41 with a moderate Libertarian reading of -2.1 and a fairly Conservative reading of 6.4.

By the way, the Blogosphere Political Compass is not limited to just political bloggers. Any and all bloggers are encouraged to participate.