JerryKnight.com

This article sounds too absurd to be true, but if it is, it makes me really appreciate my job.

Anyone who has seen or heard about my crazy keyboard knows how fanatical I am about the technology. Imagine a touch-sensitive surface (or display) that can track more than one finger at a time and interpret their independent movements as gestures. This is multi-touch. My keyboard uses it over the entire keyboard surface, and it allows typing, mousing, scrolling, and other gesturing on the same surface. No reaching for a mouse. A while ago, the company (Fingerworks, Inc.) was bought by someone. Nobody knew exactly who bought them, but it smelled like Apple, the Fortress of Secrecy. (I had a few specific clues.) Everyone (who cared) was worried that Apple bought them to absorb them and keep them from competing, like some other west coast company.. I knew that if anyone was going to bring the multi-touch technology to the mainstream, it would be Apple. Apple just announced their iPhone (lawsuits possible from the holder of that copyrighted name, Cisco). The input for this phone is entirely multi-touch (with the exception of the one button on the front). They didn’t even change the name of the technology. I heard that Steve said that they own the patent to it, and they do, since they have obviously bought the company that started it and did a pretty good job developing it before being bought. Now if they would just come out with an input device similar to my keyboard, my mourning for the fate of Fingerworks would be completely healed.

So, for the first time ever, I’ve encountered a catastrophic failure in the Linux file system. Apparently, something went wonky (technical term) in the root partition (where all the important system files are kept) and nothing can run, not even the venerable fsck, which would be the only way to repair whatever damage was done. (As a side note, it amuses me that the spell check built-in to Firefox 2 finds no problems with “wonky.” That just made my day. Edit: That’s because it’s a real word.) So this means no TV until I rip the hard drive out of the MythTV computer and put it into my main computer to try to repair or rebuild the damaged file system. Doesn’t that sound like fun? I guess it’s good to go without TV for a while.

While still being worth it for obvious reasons, configuring X11 (X.org and XFree86 alike) has historically been a hair-pulling/head-banging task, though it is still lower than Apache 1.x on the HP/HB scale. Add to that the mysterious proprietary NVidia drivers. (I have no problem with the proprietary part, since it works, and it’s “free” with the NVidia card.) For my last X11 reconfig, probably over a year ago, I had to look up the ModeLine parameters (manually sets the resolution and refresh timings), but apparently X.org 6.8 has a wide range of built-in resolutions that it tries out. I probably could have even left out all of the options specifying the monitor resolution, since it may have magically found out the best resolution by asking the monitor. The only other glitch was the order of the two monitor outputs. I use the non-TwinView setup (can’t drag windows between monitors, but virtual desktops run independently), and when I swapped out the first monitor’s VGA cable for the new DVI-D cable, X11 swapped the monitor outputs. This caused the high-res monitor settings to go to the small monitor and the low-res settings to go to the big monitor. After a little HP/HB, I found an option that tells the NVidia driver which plug each display is supposed to use.

Section “Monitor”

… Option “ConnectedMonitor” “DFP-0″ # or CRT-0, CRT-1, etc. depending on what is hooked up

EndSection

I still use the small 15″ monitor, even though it’s quite dim and puny next to the 24″ monitor. I tried running MythTV on the 24″ and while the menus, etc. looked fantastic at 1920×1200, the video was fuzzy. (640×480 enlarged around 6x doesn’t look very good.) I may switch it back to the bigger monitor if I want to watch something from across the room (or across the street), but at my desk, my beloved 15″ Viewsonic does a good job. This leaves me with an extra 17″ widescreen LCD monitor (with TV/Video inputs). Unless I find a use for it, it could be available to go to a new home. Note: I realize that most people will only understand the “Posted in Computer” line below. Pretty much, the new monitor works great after a short, but valiant battle.

Thanks Mom & Dad!!

I’ve taken an unplanned vacation from my website, immediately after my actual vacation. I don’t know why, but I just didn’t feel inspired to write, but it’s about time to get back into the swing of things. The cruise was fun. It was crowded – like living in a decent-sized shopping mall for a week. The cabin was cozy (read: small) and the shower seemed like a modified phone booth, but the ocean was somehow profound. I guess every cruise-goer stares at the ocean the first time. Lots of pictures on my Flickr site, but I still don’t feel inspired enough to go through them and organize or prune back the boring ones and duplicates. The food was abundant and very good. Snorkeling and swimming with stingrays (I laugh in the face of danger – ha ha haah.***) was very interesting (and tiring). I’ll have to look through my parents’ pictures on Flickr and link there soon. In other news, almost as I was watching, my site went from #2 to #1 on Google’s result page for “Jerry Knight.” Take that, all you other people using my name. Want to find out about me? Easy – go to Google, type my name, and hit “I’m feeling lucky.” This causes a part of me (the nerdy part) to smile. Of course, this is all assuming that Google doesn’t mess with my placement, and that the weird “Personalized Search (Beta)” feature is not turned on. It’s interesting and sometimes handy to see what I’ve googled in the past months, but it apparently monkeys with the order of search results and who knows what else. This is all irrelevant to anyone already at my site.. Still looking for a buyer for my camera body. Let me know if you’re interested. *** – Cool points to anyone who knows what that quote is from.

So I went to an interesting event at the Heart O’ [sic] Texas Fair & Rodeo – apparently the National Wiener Dog Race. It may be the international, but probably every dachsund in the area was there. Of course, it was sponsored by Wienerschnitzel. Many of the short-legged pooches ran their fastest, but some were more interested in their owner at the starting line than the one at the finish line. Some were more interested in other dogs, other owners, or even other places to do their “business.” A couple weren’t content to just run the race and had no intention of stopping at the finish line. There were many named “Tootsie Roll,” “Peanut,” and “Scooter,” but there was only one named “Oscar,” which I would have thought to be the most popular wiener dog name, with “Meyer” a close second. “Oscar” didn’t even show up to race. One of the owners couldn’t resist naming their pup “Low Rider” (how cruel). In the semi-finals, with the distracted dogs culled from the pack, the rest ran as fast as their short legs could carry them. “Rambo” did pretty well, but in the end it was “Daisy” who took home the big trophy.

What is one to do when they want to frame a 20×30 print and none of the local stores carry that size? They say it’s not a “standard” size, but it sure-as-heck is! It’s a big 4×6 or a small 24×36. Nobody seems to care that standard film and digital sensor sizes are 2:3 ratio. Any of the other aspect ratios are fine for posters, etc. but they’re stupid for non-croppable photographs. They even sell non-custom frames online for 20×30. Anyways, unless you order online, the only options are to either have a frame custom-made, or use a sectional framing kit and get glass and mounting cut the right size. It’s amazing how easy they’ve made the process of framing using the sectional framing parts. Step one: get the glass and backing cut. Depending on the type of glass and quality of the backing material, it runs anywhere from $15-20 to $30-40.
Step two: put the print between the glass and backing. (Careful, this is a long and complicated process… )
Step three: assemble the frame. It’s actually very easy, and they sell the frame parts in pairs of almost any length. Get one pair for the width, another for the height. The glass-print-backing sandwich slides in easily, and spring clips hold it in place.
Step four: hang picture and enjoy! Oh, and step five: get a papercut-like cut from either the freshly cut glass or the sharp metal frame parts. It’s inevitable. Reminds me of my old computer case – no upgrade or repair was complete without a few annoying shallow cuts. All said and done, it was under $50, and considering Michael’s wanted almost $80 for a similar frame, I consider that a decent price. It’s not something I’ll do with that many prints, but if the picture is worth it, this is a great way to display it (without getting an evil 16×20 print that crops out huge parts of the image).

Yes, I changed the theme of my website. No, I did not take the picture. It’s just part of the theme. The other theme I was using was starting to get a little old, so I looked around for other themes that look decent, and I found a few. Enjoy. Update: I changed the image to one of my own. Still looking for the best image to fit in that space.

Just a quick review of this brave motion picture effort.. Go.. See.. This.. Movie. Seriously, don’t expect phenomenal acting, but they’re still pretty darn good. The story is great and everyone does a good job of getting the story across without being cheezy. It’s written, directed, produced, and casted with mostly church staff. I think it’s better this way, rather than if a bunch of million-dollar actors had been casted. Warning: Don’t watch this if the idea of a coach sharing his faith in Jesus with his football team, school, and town offends you. It’s rated PG, “for some thematic elements” – what in the world does that mean? After all the contraversy of the MPAA giving a PG rating to a movie with no swearing or sexual content at all, the justification seems to be some of the intense moments where the coach leads his team – at the top of his lungs. It’s still hard to not think that they’re withholding the G rating because it repeatedly mentions “Jesus Christ” (not as an expletive) and plainly lays out some powerful fundamentals of Christian faith. Actually, conspiracy theories aside, it’s probably not too weird that a movie with football and coach-yelling-at-players scenes gets a PG rating. It’s really not that big of a deal, but it is remarkable that something like this even made it into the few theaters it’s in (for this weekend). Find one near you and go see it.