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HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Woo, almost wrote January 1, 2000 up there. Gotta get used to this 1
thing.
Anywho, here's the rundown of my weekend....
Saturday went to Universal and rode Twister and Men in Black: Alien Attack. They were both pretty
good. Also of course played some DDR. I got about 5 hours of sleep, and got up at 5:30 AM to head off
to Disney. My dad went last year and said it was total chaos, so we left extra early.
Disney was freaken unbelievable! Got to Disney
by 7:30 and into Epcot. So while the "official" opening time of Epcot was 9 AM, they were letting in
people probaly by 7 AM. We bounced around probally for most of the day, and went to an ESPN sport bar
at 4 PM to try and see the Bucs game. Only stayed for half the game though, cause all the smoke and
beer was making me nauseous. Disney handed out hats and noise makers at 6, then the music started up
at 7. And lemme tell you, Disney knows how to put on music! They had about 4 different areas all
around Epcot playing dance music continously. I mainly stayed around the big ball with Scooter. They had a bunch of fireworks at Midnight, and the
park was open till 1 AM. I'll definitly be coming back next year. Oh, and it wasn't too cold
either, except in the morning. And dancing keeps you pretty warm too :)
Iron Chief marathon
is on today on the Food Channel, check it out.
Remember the Y2K hoopla? Well here's an
article on the guy who originally brought the major media attention to the Y2K problem, Peter de
Jager. The poor guy first tells the world about the Y2K problem, gets the major companies to fix
it, and then when nothing happens (because it was fixed) he gets called a scam artist and that the
Y2K bug was just a hoax. Of course, if nothing was done then we would have had all kinds of
problems. The poor guy just can't win.
My TI Graph-Link that I had ordered on Christmas Day finally came in today. So I've been downloading
some nifty games for it, like this Dance Dance Revolution game
for the TI-86.
Dotcom Guy has finalyl left his
house after one year of living on the internet. Shoot, I pretty much do that
already if not for school :)
Look for the Quadrantid meteor
showers happening on Wednesday night between midnight and 7 AM.
School started again today. It stinks getting up so early once again. But on the bright side, I
only have one more semester left of high school. Then it's off to college.
NASA is going to crash a satellite
into an asteroid in order to study it. They say there is a small chance it could actually land on the
asteroid, but that the odds are not too good.
CNN also has neat article on the
person who created the Darwin Awards. It never ceases to
amaze me how stupid some people can be.
The Linux 2.4.0
kernel was released last night! It was originally supposed to be released back in the Fall of
1999, but it's been delayed again and again. However it's finally out! This article will give you an idea about what is new
in 2.4, although it is sorta old so I'm not sure how correct it is.
On a more personal side of the OS story, I finally got around to totally formatting and
repartitioning my hard drives, and reinstalling Windows. So I know have Windows Me installed on my computer. And since I also
have this computer all to myself, I've finally been able to tweak Windows however I like. Right now
I'm just installing programs, but eventually I want to get Lightstep and the like up and running.
It looks like those big adult peoples in Washington might learn to play nice with
one another. I can only hope they can learn to get along, or else nothing will get done for the
next four years.
ZDNet has interviewed Linus
Torvald about the 2.4.0 release. Linus is a pretty funny guy :)
The price to mail a letter went up a penny to 34 cents today. I can't even
remember the last time I've ever sent a letter.
Sleep is a wonderful thing.
Yesterday was a hectic day with lots of homework. But today I have hardly no homework. It's weird
how it works out sometimes.
Mp3 list is updated.
Microsoft's entry into the console market, the X-Box, was officially unveiled over the weekend. It looks sorta
cool, though it heavily copied the Dreamcasts controllers. I still
wonder how well MS can do in the super heated console battle.
Microsoft is now calling Linux it's biggest threat. Yea... Anyways, expect
the FUD (Fear Uncertainly Doubt) factory at MS to be working overtime in order to spread as many
mistruths/half-lies/lies about Linux as possible; aka doing normal MS operations like they've done
to many competitors before.
Mozilla .7 was released yesterday, so download it and
check it out. For the people who don't know what Mozilla is, it's
basically the open source base of Netscape 6.
Two new planetary
systems were discovered, including one that has a "planet" that is over 17 times the size of
Jupiter. And to think we are only hitting the tip of the iceberg in space exploration. There are
still billions upon billions of stars and systems to explorer.
I had a dentist appointment today. I hate getting my teeth cleaned.
Today's date is binary! 011101 == 29 in decimal. Yea Binary Day!
I set a new record on downloading from Napster today: 316 KB/sec. It only took me about 10 seconds
to download a 3.5 MB song. Cable Rocks!
The Dreamcast broadband adapter
was released yesterday. It's sorta stinks though, since right now you can only buy it online and it
won't work with all the Dreamcast's games due to driver problems. So at the moment only like 3 games
work for it. But most of the newer games coming out will include support thank goodness.
In a sad sad day for consumer choice and a wonderful day for megacorps everywhere, the AOL/TW merger was approved by the FTC.
Some good is going to come out of it, AIM will have to be opened up to at least 3 competitors.
However I wonder if AOL will just decide that only those 3 companies can use AIM, and keep all the
open source stuff out like they are now. AOL will also have to allow competing companies to use
Time Warners cable systems, without going through AOL startup crap. But all in all, I really wish
thing thing could have been banned since now people will have even less choices in where they get
their news and information. Plus you just know AOL/TW will use their new power to mess with the
little people.
Today at school a kid in my economics class tried to drink a whole gallon of milk during lunch (30
minutes). And amazingly enough he did it, though he did throw up once in a nearby trash can. However
the Nazi prison guar....er uh Assistant Principals patrolling the lunchroom decided that he was
causing too much non-conformity, so he got called down to the office during Economics after
lunch. So he probably has like a week of in school suspension.
For the first time ever, there is direct evidence of black holes
thanks to the Hubble telescope. Too bad we can't send
something out closer to find out more information on this mystery of space.
I rented Bust-A-Groove today from Blockbuster, so
I'll be trying out that game over the long 3-day weekend. It seems like it's a fun game, but I've
hardly played it so far. Gonna put in some serious play time tonight.
3 day weekends rule!
I went to SeaWorld yesterday
for the whole day, and I must say it's quite a park. They have a lot of really good shows, and
SeaWorld and Journey To Atlantis are some awesome rides. It was pretty cool (temp wise) so I didn't
try to get wet at the Shamu show. However several brave souls
got totally soaked.
The MIR space station will be deorbited on March 6, 2001.
At least the ISS is up and running now, so that we still have a space station up in space.
I'm off to Islands of Adventure tomorrow, partly because of DDR and partly because I think it won't
be too crowded. We'll see though. And on the subject of DDR, Teamgwailo.com has posted two awesome videos of some
Japanese players at a competition. (Update: Unfortunatly they are no
longer on their server)
IOA/Universal was fun. I'm finally starting to pass Trick/Difficult songs on the USA Mix.
And now I'd like to take a moment to say this: Chris is . Now on with your regularly scheduled
text....
In a defeat of common sense everywhere, Altavista is going to pursue
it's
patents on search engines. Sometimes I wonder about the kinds of drugs they smoke down at the
patent office when they award these kinds of stupid patents. Patents are supposed to help
innovation, not destroy it.
I just discovered I've been putting 2000 on each date instead of 2001. And no one emailed me about
it! Instead you probally just laughed at me, hurting my feelings, and causing my self-esteem to go
down. I hope you're happy with yourself at the immense psychological pain you've caused me!
In a surprising move, Microsoft decided to release the source code to their Windows operating
system. Sorta confirms what we figured all along huh?
I've been getting several hits from the SETI@Home project since I just passed 500 work units, so I figure I'll talk about Seti@home for anyone who isn't familiar with what
it is. SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestial Intelligence)@home is a program you run as a screensaver
that analyzes radio signals received from telescopes. It is hoped that civilizations on other
planets would send out radio signals to try to communicate with other intelligent life, so SETI
looks for these signals. Instead of having one super computer analyze all the data, the researches
split up the data into chunks and let computer users all over the world analyze the data for them.
And it gets done a whole lot faster this way too. You can find out more info from the Seti@home website and they have clients for almost
every hardware and software platform imaginable.
Banana Nut Bread is very very good. MMMMMMMM
George W. Bush is going to be inaugurated as the 43rd president of
the United States tomorrow. I plan on watching it on TV at noon. And if you missed Clinton's speech
last night, CNN has the transcript. It also
sorta makes me glad to be an American in that we don't have wars and fighting over this type of
thing like they are right now in the Congo and Philippines
. Instead all we have are some protesters. It's nice to have a calm transfer of power.
Thinkgeek has released some new products recently, including a very cool tshirt and some awesome
modification equipment for your computer
case. I think I'll have to pick me up the reverse engineer shirt, along with some of those
caffinated penguin mints.
WOO HOO! Clinton is gone and George W. Bush is officially the US President. Oh Happy Day!
Bush's acceptance speech can be read here
I'm finally got around to installing Litestep last night. I still
don't have it working the way I want however. I almost screwed it up trying to install a new theme,
but I'll figure it out eventually though.
Brand new Dance Dance Revolution news for the PSX
was announced yesterday. It will be only $30
for the game, or $60 for a game and one pad, which is a GREAT deal. It'll also include 27 songs, but
no Butterfly :(. It was also pushed back to March, so it'll be another 2 months or so before you can
pick it up in the store. The song list could have been a little better, but it's livable. I just
can't wait to start playing it at home.
I finally figured out how to configure Litestep, so know I have a very cool Windows desktop (98 KB). That shot also includes Windowblinds.
The Superbowl is coming to Tampa, so the newspapers, radio
stations, and TV newscasts are full of stories and
information about it. There are also a TON of famous people coming for the game, and a bunch of
concerts. The hype is in full swing starting today, and won't end till late Sunday night. And no, I
don't have tickets to the big game, I plan on watching it on TV for the
commmercials.
Just when you though corporations couldn't get any dumber, Pillsbury pulls this on
several Universties and companies. I think I'll go have a Coke now while I blow
my nose with some Kleenex and take some Asprin for the cut covered up by my
Band-Aid....
I saw Antitrust last night, and it was awesome! The
technical accuracy in the movie is incredible. They use Gnome desktops in all the comptuer
screenshots, the commands he uses in one part of the movie are real commands and they output real
responses. The code is quasi-real, as there are some problems with it, but at least it looks like
real code. I was trying to read the HTML in the title sequence in my head :). There is also a cameo
by Miquel, the guy who heads up Gnome. And best of all, it pushes
the open source philosophy and makes "Microsoft" look bad. Antitrust is definitly the newest geek
cult movie.
I ordered my Reverse Engineer shirt
and Penquin mints today. They should
come in sometime around Friday.
Just when you though Orlando couldn't get any more tacky tourist traps, along comes a Christian
themepark. Will wonders never cease?
Here's some wacky links for the terminally bored. I have what happens when Microsoft combines it's
OS products. And a gun that lets you Do The Dew (tm).
Radio turns 100
today. Guglielmo Marconi sent the first long-distance radio message on this date in 1901.
Now if only we got some decent trance stations here in Tampa.
Check out this
video of a building that just wouldn't collapse. That has got to be embarrising for the
crew who put up the explosives.
Clinton played one last joke in George Bush before he left office, taking
out the W's on the keyboards.
Microsoft did not have a good day, with their DNS service being down. DNS turns the letters
you type in (like yahoo.com) into the IP number that computers know (216.115.108.243). Without it
working for Microsoft, typign in microsoft.com does nothing for you. Perhaps Bill is getting his
just rewards?
I found a nifty Six Flags Magic Mountain
site today. SFMM is the best Six Flags park for roller coasters, and I got to go there two summers
ago for 3 glorious days. Now Ceder Point is next on my list.
Mp3 list is updated.
The Dreamcast is in a bit of a limbo right
now. There are tons of rumors about how Sega is getting out of the console business, which really
stinks cause then it scares people into not buying Dreamcasts, which means less support from
development houses, which means less games for me. But as according to that link up above, Sega is
still making a ton of DC games, and there are over a 100 expected titles for this year. But it
doesn't really comment on if Sega will continue making DC hardware. I can only hope they will. But
that press release also contains some good news in that they are trying to make games for the
Gameboy Advance. I can't wait to play Sonic on that thing.
I'm not sure about other places, but the local Papa Johns is
running a great anniversary sale; 2 large one toppings for $12. Just figured I'd let ya know.
WOO HOO! The Tampa Gameworks now has the
USA Mix of Dance Dance Revolution instead of the old 1.5 mix. Of course, that
makes it somewhat more crowded since now all the newbies can start to pass
songs, but overall I'll take the US mix over the old mix any day. I also got to
see the >Wazzup guys at Gameworks too, as there are a TON of celebrity's in town
for the Super Bowl.
Check out this satire piece on Despair Inc making
the :-) emoticon trademarked. I
especially liked the quote "Jeff
Bezos...congratulated him on his willingness to 'take a innovative stand
against innovation'". At least the Despair story is false.
It takes 2.
3 million dollars to have a 30 second ad during the Super Bowl. Just some
food for thought.
I was back in Ybor last night, not only to play some more
DDR but to check out what was happening down there. It's not everyday that a Super bowl comes to your
town you know. Anyways, it's amazing what people will do for some 50 cent beads, or fight and claw
there way for a dollar dropped from a the balcony of a building. It was definitely an interesting
experience, that would have been better if I was over 18 so I could get into some of the clubs (and
they won't kick me out of Gameworks at 10). Just 4 more months, just 4 more months.
Some are calling Pluto just a lump of ice and not a
planet. However most astronomers are still considering Pluto to be one of the 9 planet in our Solar
System. It's also interesting to note that Pluto is smaller than our moon at only 1,413 miles
wide.
I wish I was this guy. He's going to have the opportunity to be the first tourist in
space. Of course, he is paying $20 million dollars for that privilege, but if I was that rich
I'd think it'd be worth it. I've always wanted to go up into space, and maybe before I die there
might be regular flights up there. Well, there probably won't be, but I can dream can't I?
It's Super Bowl Sunday, and Tampa is going crazy. Remember, it starts at 6 PM Eastern and you can
view all the commercials in the game at Adcritic.com after the
game.
It's amazing what you can send through the US mail system, as these guys found out. They
sent bricks, roses, teeth, and a ski among other things, and surprisingly most of them got
delivered.
And there was some rioting in Washington last night by Linux users. The police said that they "...know
about their leader....This 'Colonel' guy will be
tracked down, and he WILL be brought to justice..." Sounds pretty serious to me :) Don't
mess with the geeks!
In an effort to comply with good web site practices, I have created a Binaryfusion.net Privacy Policy. And because I'm unoriginal, I just took
Amazon.com's privacy policy and changed a few of the words to what Amazon really means. I
hope you enjoy it.
My favorite commercials this past Super Bowl were the "What Are You Doing"
Budweiser one, and E-Trade's
Monkey one. The pets.com sock monkey sold me on the E-Trade one. Pepsi gets the
3rd spot with Bob
Dole. Worst commercials go to Accenture who should
change their slogan to "Accenture: Even we don't know what we're selling!" Volkswagon suffers the
same fate, as I have no clue what the heck they were trying to get across in those commercials. I
liked last year's commercials better overall.
In what comes as no surprise, Napster has announced
plans to start charging for access to Napster starting in June or July. I have no qualms about
paying $5 a month for all the music I can download, but I fear that once Napster starts charging,
the number of songs available will go way down, and then it won't be worth that $5. At least there
is always Opennap.
The 2.4.1 kernel was released today. I'm compiling it as I'm
writing this, so hopefully it'll work for me. Get it while it's hot.
Freshmeat unveiled their new design and features today with "Freshmeat II". I always love
showing Freshmeat to people who say that there isn't any software for Linux, and see there eyes grow
wide as they view the thousands of programs available. It's like I always say, the only
things I really miss from Windows is Windows Media Player, Quicktime, and Shockwave, and
that's only because those 3 propriatary programs do not have a Linux version.
Today is a sad, sad day. The Dreamcast has officially died. Sega will no longer be making
any more Dreamcasts, and they are lowering the price of them to $100 in an effort to get rid of
inventory. Sega was losing too much money to continue making the hardware, so they are going to have
to call it quits on that front. However, on the bright side, the Dreamcast will still be well
supported for the rest of the year with some awesome software titles from Sega. And Sega will
also continue to make games, so expect a Sonic game on the Gameboy Advance and Space Channel 5 on the PS2. Sega is also in
talks with Nintendo and Microsoft about bringing software to the Gamecube and X-Box respectively.
It's unfortunate that the Dreamcast has not done too well, it really is a great little machine with
a ton of good original games on it.
We're doing poetry in English now, and boy do I hate it. Some poetry is decent at least, but most of
it, including almost everything we have to read in school, is terrible. It makes no sense to me for
some reason. And then since I'm in AP English, I have to analyze these poems to death, so that's no
fun either since how am I supposed to analyze what I don't understand? Thank goodness this is the
last year I'll ever have to take an English course.
I found a cool video of this guy playing Para Para Paradise (Update: Which is
no longer on the server). PPP (for short) is a music game where you break
sensors located to the left, right, front-right, front-left, and front of you
with your hands or feet (or anything else for that matter). Unfortunatly this
game is even harder than DDR to find, so needless to say I won't be playing it
anytime soon. But it's popular over in Asia. Why oh why do Americans have to not
like beat-mania games?
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