Binary Tuberculosis

The Shins are releasing a new album next year, January 23rd I believe. It shall be called Wincing The Night Away. I just started listening to a pre-release promo of it, so far it’s definitely The Shins, but like all their other albums, I have to let it grow on me, cause once that starts I pretty much get obsessed with them.

Remind me in a few days to let you guys know what it’s like and how it compares to their previous work.

The Decemberists - Picaresque
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

Released in 2005 and 2006, respectively, these albums are music without needing a gimmick other than just being good-music. No special instrument, no unique guitar player, no crazy front man with a one-of-a-kind voice/accent, nothing of the sort. Just. Good. Songs. Not many bands can pull this off (Arcade Fire comes to mind).

I’ve listened to Picaresque several times, it really does grow on you nicely and you’ll find yourself humming some of the songs later unknowingly, but The Crane Wife, I’m listening to it for the second time now and I was hooked on the first listen. Please give it a shot if possible.

It isn’t hard core, it isn’t mellow, it isn’t rap, it isn’t country, it isn’t trying to get a message across, but it will make you have faith in good music again.

It’s been a while since it showed up, guess it was bound to happen. Wonder how long it will last this time.

From Windows Vista’s EULA:

“The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the ‘licensed device.’”

This is total bull for us geeks who add and remove components from their PC like lice on a monkey. Wonder how many times I’ll be allowed to change hardware on my PC before I get screwed. Oh I added a new hard drive for $50…damn, now I need to buy Windows Vista for $499 because that’s one device too many.

I wish Linux was more user friendly and had more games, Windows is annoying the shit outta me.

Bill Murray attends student party, does dishes
[Local PDF; 26kB]

Damn, I wish I was Scandinavian…or Kryptonian.
(Hats off to Thomas1 for the heads up)

Saw this on Slashdot today, thought it was kinda funny:

by MobileTatsu-NJG (946591)

“what’s a linux?”
A very powerful form of birth control.

I use Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird almost religiously. They’re not perfect programs, but they’re worth using if you care about free software (free as in free speech and free beer) and don’t want to get locked-in to a vendor. Plus I credit these programs (along with OpenOffice.org and Gaim) to helping me use Linux. Cross platform compatibility, yet another perk.

Alas there are some very small, yet very important, annoyances about these Mozilla programs. There are two things I can do:

1. Download the source code, learn it, fix the problem.
Now this is amazing, try doing this with that annoying bug (or “feature”) in iTunes. Fix the problem, send in the patch, all new versions will have your fix. But this damn option requires TONS of time and if you don’t know programming, good freakin’ luck.

Then there is the lazy option:

2. Vote for the bug or request for enhancement on Mozilla’s Bug Tracker: Bugzilla
If it gets enough votes and some programmer in the world feels like tackling this problem (in case the developers are busy or don’t think it’s such an important thing to work on right now), then voila, problem resolved. But there are many a bug/feature that have been sitting around for years with tons of votes. This doesn’t cost anything, just a quick sign up and a click on “vote for this bug”.

Well now I need a favor from you guys, I need to you to sign up and vote for this feature request:
Ability for anyone to FUND (Sponsor, bounty) specific bugs (e.g., PayPal)

When/if this is implemented, Bugzilla will have integrated support for donations and bounties per bug. What better way to motivate a bored programmer than with cash? (Maybe pornography I guess). There are some bugs that I want fixed so bad, this feature would help out tons.