Gay Marriage Rant

In many of the United States, a bill promoting homosexual "civil unions" has made its way onto local ballots. The idea of this is that if a gay couple wishes to get married, then they can get a civil union which gives them all of the rights married people have without the marriage status. Everyone I have conversed with about this has said that it is a good step towards gay marriage. I HATE STEPS. We should not be taking steps towards gay marriage. We should be allowing it. It upsets me that the bill-writing-people would permit civil unions and all the rights that entails without actually allowing marriage - probably a move to earn the support of Christians and/or those who think being gay is unjust. I think that a bill such as this is a step in the wrong direction - instead of welcoming homosexuals into our culture, we single them out with a special status called "civil union," promising full marital status in the future. Not only could this turn out to be an empty promise, it's one we can fulfill. The bill that should be on millions of Americans' ballots is one permitting marriage. If nobody votes for it because they don't want to equate homo- and heterosexuals, then it proves that we're not ready - at least it was an honest vote. Basic point: Don't change your writing just so that people will vote for the bill. Get an honest opinion and grant full marital status, both in life and on paper. My rating of the gay rights bill is 5/620973 stars. It takes a seriously shitty idea to get a denominator like that.

LilyPond Rant

I love ranting. The other night, I was looking for some kind of free musical notation program, like Finale Notepad, but free. I googled it and came across LilyPond. It advertises itself with a warm (and false) slogan: "LilyPond...music notation for everyone." There are two things wrong it this statement. The first one is that it is music notation software. In reality, it is a program that allows one to print out sheet music which can be downloaded from their library. And by the way: "There are now 313 pieces of music avaliable!" In case you didn't catch it, that's nothing. That's only 28% of everything Bach ever wrote or half of all of Mozart's songs. But all that is naught compared to the true lie: "...music notation for everyone." After I downloaded it, it took well over 20 minutes just to install. This must be a nice application, or very graphically based, I think. So I open the folder I installed it to and I can't even find the app itself! I had to look online to find out that it was is ...usr\bin, buried amongst 50 or so .dll files. I open it up and...no GUI! The f***ing app that advertises itself as "...for everyone" has a command line interface! I promptly uninstalled it, a process which took 15-20 minutes. And even still, it didn't even delete anything. I deleted the folder myself, which took more like 15 or 20 seconds.

VLC Rant

I love VLC. It's the best cross-platform media player out there. Except, it sucks on Linux. If you don't have internet, then you can't get it. I know, duh. But what I'm saying is that you have to have internet on the computer you want to install it on. I want to put it on my pitiful laptop that doesn't get internet in order to play DVDs. Yes, it has a DVD drive. On the site, they have no downloadable versions, just how to tell the computer to go fetch it. Not even a URL. I'm in the forums (help if you can) but it could take a while.

Linux Rant 2 - What is the World Coming to?

Linux, as I've always thought, is very buggy. I'm trying Ubuntu because it's probably the most reliable, but just downloading it is impossible. I chose my mirror and it started doing 14 Kbps. Fourteen! It said something like 17 hours remaining. So I started over with a new, farther away mirror, and it's pushin' 160 Kbps. But either way, this is the second time I've had to complain about Linux. It's supposed to be awesome! Help!

How to Tell if You're Running Windows

Here are a few ways to tell if you are running Windows:

-Computer has many unpractical names for various applications and components. 

-Computer takes more than 15 minutes to start up.

-Computer uses strange metaphors like "Desktop" and "Menu".

-Computer's "Help and Support Center" has bookmarks.

I invite anyone else to contribute.

When Windows Meets Anything

Brace yourself for another Windows rant. Since we purchased a new, widescreen, 1680 by 1050, 19 inch monitor, everything in Windows has gone down. I'm not much of a gamer myself, although the 2 games I have, Microsoft Flight Simulator X and Sim City Societies, have both ceased to work. FSX died before this transition, but it's still worth mentioning. It worked fine, but now crashes whenever you start a mission. Naturally, I tried reinstalling it on the new monitor, but it just opens a black square. Then, it crashes. Sim City had some graphics related issue once we got this monitor, probably because it was configured for a fullscreen resolution. Reinstalled, and now I get the same "black square of death" from FSX.

I wish I could afford a Mac.

When Mac Meets Windows

Mac is a good operating system. Windows is a mediocre operating system. But if one tries to put a good operating system's programs (hint: iTunes, Quicktime, and Safari) on a mediocre operating system, stuff screws up. iTunes is alright, assuming your fine with RAM crowding, skippy cover flow, and slow syncing. Quicktime is great, provided you never try to play anything. Only Safari can keep its head above water, actually outstriping the speed of Firefox, IE (duh), Opera, and depending on the page contents, even Chrome. If you notice, the comparison tests on Chrome and Safari's sites both don't mention the other browser, because they run neck and neck. The pages I load have lots of images and minimal flash/java, and Safari seems the fastest. For some reason Chrome tends to crash with Youtube. But anyway, I'm straying off topic. These programs that Apple generously made for Windows are almost all pitiful as far as performance goes, except for Safari, a gem in a coal mine.

So, here's what I've decided: it's best to use the applications that are included with your operating system, as there are deigned by the programmers of that OS. The only exception is you web browser, because something went terribly wrong in the development of Internet Explorer, and your media player only, I repeat, only, if you must because you mistakenly bought an iPod, or you need a quick one that launches fast for just playing single audio and video clips (try VLC, it's pretty nice), and don't need to organize a library of music.

Ok, so Windows' problems are fixable with time and effort

I've found two ways of tackling my internet problems. One is to restart the computer and go through the whole ordeal described in my last post. The other is to get as far away from the router as possible, and that usually fixes it. That's what I'm doing now. I can't contemplate how hard it must be for the poor folks with Vista.

Windows Rant

I hate Windows. Not that I didn't always. But this computer has the worst everything in the world. It takes ten full minutes of the computer not appearing to do anything before it even starts to load Windows. That takes only two. It takes about thirty seconds to log on, but if I try to do anything in the two minutes following log-on the computer freezes. So, if the computer's off, it takes almost 15 minutes just to get ready to start doing things. And the internet is a whole other story. Plugged into the ethernet, with a cable, mind you, it says I have limited or no connectivity. It comes on and off totally spontaneously, so much that I have to have a ping utility running in the background. And if you're using a Dell (Microsoft's brand, the same company that makes Windows), then you can't update Windows XP to SP2 without crashing the thing.

I hate Windows.

What is Apple doing?

Apple, let me make this short and sweet [angry]:

YOUR PRODUCTS ARE TOO EXPENSIVE

Let me say that again. 

YOUR PRODUCTS ARE TOO EXPENSIVE

As much as I love them, I would really be interested in finding out how much it actually costs you to make a MacBook, or an iPod sock (click that first link). Emphasis on iPod sock.

Seriously, it's a sock. 

Let me say that again.

Seriously, it's a sock.

I made one of these in a few hours for a cost of 0 (I know, it's a Sansa, but humor me here). And even if I hadn't had a spare soccer sock lying around, it would still cost a hell of a lot less then $30. C'mon, people. We're in an economic crisis. this is not a neccessity.