Jay Little

Persistence in the Face of Existential Crisis

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This year has been a painful one. I’ve also been pretty quiet… here anyway. It’s been over a year since I’ve posted here as most of my musings have been published on my new anonymous blog. Nevertheless, I felt like I owed whatever readers remain here at least some sort of update as to what’s been going on with me this year and where my head is at.

In truth my head isn’t in a good place. The world is going to shit. Regardless of which slice of the spectrum you are interested in, it is hard to maintain any kind of optimism about the direction things are moving in. Politics has finally turned into the complete and utter dumpster fire that I always knew it was capable of becoming. Be sure to thank Donald and his fascist enablers for this wonderful gift. Big Tech has finally begun its metamorphosis into what was probably always going to be its final form: an endless sea of the completely enshittified platforms dedicated to entrapping and enslaving unwitting prey (aka customers) by pushing an endless stream of lies and bullshit.

Surviving Helene

Sun, 06 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

On Friday morning September 27th 2024, Hurricane Helene introduced itself to the Southeastern United States. A few short hours later, nobody was sorry to see it go away but nearly everybody in it’s path had been effected in some significant way. It was a time that few of us will live long enough to forget.

First off let me just say, Annette and I got off relatively easy. While so many that we know have lost irreplaceable things and continue to suffer as a result of the storm, things here went rather well. We lost power and internet for only a day and a half and we happened to have a lot of items lying around like a camping propane stove, some propane tanks, lots of candles, battery powered flashlights and a battery powered AM/FM radio that really helped. We also had solar rechargeable power bank which proved helpful as our smartphones and their associated, not to mention overloaded, cellular networks were basically our only way to talk with others during the actual storm.

Pouring One Out for my Homie - RIP Presentation Engine

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Well after nearly 23 years of largely uninterrupted and admirable service, the time has come to officially retire the custom Content Management System that has powered it all: Presentation Engine. I originally created and deployed the first version of PEngine back in late 2001 when I first created this blog before I registered the domain name in October of 2001. Back then it was nothing more than a shoddily put together classic ASP application with an Access DB driving it that I threw together in a hurry. Until today, some variation upon that original codebase has been delivering content to my readers despite the fact it has advanced significantly over the years.

The Court of Fossalot - SouthEast LinuxFest 2024

Fri, 14 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

So it’s that time of year and I spent last weekend at SouthEast LinuxFest (SELF) 2024 in Charlotte, NC. This was my second year of attending and it absolutely lived up to the lofty expectations set by my first trip last year. This year was less about the sessions for me and more about the people. Which is interesting to say because if I’m being honest about my visit last year, it was also similar.

A Change in Direction

Sat, 06 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As some of you may have noticed, I have been rather quiet over the last few months. There are a lot of reasons for my silence. The more observant among you may have even noticed that content has disappeared and reappeared from this site several times over the same time period. Long story short: The nature of this site and how and when I use it to express myself is changing. This change is long overdue.

Tying Up Tech Loose Ends : 2023 Edition

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

So as most of you know, I tend to take the last few weeks of every year off. Primarily I use this time to celebrate the year and reflect on its events. I also use this time to tie up any tech loose ends that I have… and boy did I have a few this year.

My biggest piece of in-home tech debt was definitely my camera system. For years I have run a hodge podge front door camera which basically amounted to an indoor web cam mounted in my front window which was pointed at the foot door area of the porch. The web cam was hooked up a to Raspberry Pi 4 running an RPI distribution called MotionEyeOS. Sadly this software hasn’t been updated since mid 2020 as the maintainer had stepped away and nobody has stepped up to maintain it since.

The Joy Of Being Alive

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I almost died. At least I came as close to dying as I have ever come over the course of my life. I hadn’t been feeling well since Monday morning. I was experiencing quite a bit of abdominal pain and bloating. It only got worse as time progressed on Monday and that evening I just wasn’t able to sleep. No matter what position I got in, I just couldn’t get to sleep due to the aches and pains. Finally right before 3 am on Tuesday the 14th I woke Annette and she convinced me to let her take me to the emergency room.

Linux Laptop Letdown: When OEM Largesse Runs Dry

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Today’s post is about a subject near and dear to my heart: Laptops with Linux preinstalled. Sadly this is not a happy post, but rather one in which I share my recent angst about the state of Linux Laptop hardware and how I have maneuvered myself into a very neglected corner.

So as regular readers know, I have largely only purchased laptops with Linux preinstalled for quite a few years. This is because as a person living within a capitalistic society, I am ethically compelled to vote with my dollar as it is the only vote I have which actually seems to matter. To make a long story short: I do not wish to reward Microsoft for their ongoing objectionable behaviors relating to Windows and I really don’t much care for MacOS so Linux is my de-facto operating system of choice.

Penguin's Side Piece: How and Why I Became a Part Time Apple Fanboi

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

While most of my readers probably think of me as being some kind of massive die hard Linux loving Penguin, the reality is that outside of servers, laptops and desktops I don’t use Linux very much. The purpose of today’s post is to detail the reasons and the journey of how I have basically become an Apple Fanboi nearly everywhere else.

Let’s start with a disclaimer: If you want to email me or send me a message on Mastodon telling me how stupid I am for trusting Apple, well, okay. So be it. While I wholeheartedly agree that trusting any form of proprietary software in this day and age is a foolish choice that will eventually bite everybody in their ass, the flip side is that sometimes you just need convenient tech to rely upon in certain scenarios.

Unity Killed Modern Proprietary Gaming For Me

Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As some of you undoubtedly have heard Unity, the company behind one of the most prolific game engines of our time called Unity Engine, recently announced some changes to their pricing. On the surface this may sound like quite a big nothing burger if you aren’t familiar with the process of how software is made, let me assure you: This announcement is rocking the entire gaming world.

Note: This post is a follow-up to my 2019 post “My Modern Gaming Escape Plan”. If you haven’t read it or have gasp had the audacity to forget it over the last four years, I strongly advise you to read it (again) first.

Echo Chamber Exodus: Bye Bye Bluesky

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As regular readers know, I have long questioned the value of social media and I have struggled with the question of how involved I should be with it. This morning I decided to quit Bluesky permanently because the bulk of the community there seems hellbent on ostracizing and ejecting anybody who doesn’t fully subscribe to their specific brand of group think.

I wish there was a kinder way to put it. But there isn’t. When I first arrived on Bluesky back on June the 1st, I was pretty hopeful about it’s prospects. It was elite (due to being invite only), largely liberal and seemed like a relatively decent enough place at first glance. As is often the case in life, the first look was deceiving.

Tech Team Dead Weight a.k.a. Lutz

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If you’ve worked in tech and have any degree of actual talent, you have run into the following scenario: You are on a team and that team has at least one member that isn’t pulling their weight. The reasons why generally range from a lack of work ethic to a lack of talent. Regardless that person can’t seem to get themselves fired. Why is that?

UPDATE 8/9/2023: Lutz, in this particular case, has now been fired. Nobody misses him.

I am on the McNulty Spectrum

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

So over the last few weeks, I have been re-watching one of my favorite television shows of all time, The Wire. If you haven’t seen it, you should probably rectify that oversight. That being what it is, I’m currently making my way through Season 3 and I had a revelation of sorts: I might be a McNulty.

Yeah okay, so for those of you not familiar with the show, you have no idea what that means. To put it somewhat briefly, Jimmy McNulty is a police detective on the show, who is basically all about the case. He wants to see justice done, no matter what the cost. He is all about “the work”. Needless to say that his narrow minded quest tends to alienate virtually everybody he works with… on a long enough timeline anyway.

Developing Custom Software is Probably a Bad Idea

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This post is the culmination of years of accumulated professional frustration. It will not be well received by some. That’s okay. If you make it to the 25 year point of your dev career and you spent most of that time writing custom software for clients and you still disagree, feel free to write your own take and send it along to me. I will afford it my due consideration.

Developer Brethren, its Time to Embrace Boring!

Thu, 22 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

So this morning I was listening to one of the Linux related podcasts, Coder Radio and the hosts read feedback from a listener who claimed that he was “bored” with PHP and ready to try something else. Now to be fair, in this particular case, the writer outlined some circumstances that made me sympathize with him. Long story short is that parts of the PHP based stack he was relying on for some of his software had changed significantly. In order to update his software to a currently supported version of PHP, he basically now has to rewrite it from scratch. So yeah, that sucks.

My First Linux Conference - SouthEast LinuxFest 2023

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been a Linux fan for almost 30 years, yet in all of that time, I never actually attended a Linux event (ignoring a handful of local Linux User Group (LUG) events here and there). That is, until this past weekend when I attended SouthEast LinuxFest (SELF) 2023 in Charlotte, NC. So what took so long? Well frankly, traditionally I have avoided socializing with others. COVID and age have both helped to shift my position on this a bit.

Your Data, Their Profits, Our Loss: KTHXBAI Reddit, Twitch, StackOverflow, Twitter and how BlueSky Helped

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As of late it has become rather fashionable for established tech orgs running established platforms to attempt to make their platforms profitable. While the exact underlying reasons for this in each case varies, the end result is the same: Whatever the secret sauce was, the org manages to forever taint the platform with the changes they end up making. Who are we talking about? Today we’ll be discussing Reddit, Twitch, StackOverflow and Twitter.

Caveat Emptor - Nightdive Studios, System Shock and Crowdfunding Risk

Wed, 31 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Back in 2016, a younger and mildly more optimistic Jay heard about a Kickstarter Campaign for a remake of the classic title, System Shock. Young Jay had fond memories of the original and immediately pledged $30 to help turn the dream into reality. Expected delivery was in December of 2017. Actual delivery for some was yesterday: May 30th, 2023.

UPDATE 6/1/23: After logging onto the Discord server for Nightdive Studio and making a support request, I was able to finally exchange my PS4 version for an actual Steam key. The provided key seems to work so at least I have finally gotten what I paid for! Nevertheless, this post will remain as it serves as a word of warning when it comes to crowdfunding. Go into it expecting nothing but disappointment otherwise you will be let down ;)

So I Went a Little Viral and Survived

Fri, 21 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Everybody knows I got a big mouth. That’s why I have a domain for my name and I’ve been posting tripe to it for over two decades now. The surprising part is that every once in awhile I say something that resonates with other people. That happened last week and I’m happy to report that my website handled it wonderfully.

For starters, if you haven’t read my post “Low Code Software Development Is A Lie”, you should give it a go. The internet seemed to enjoy reading it for the most part. I generally don’t do any self-promotion of posts short of directly sending links to a few friends over Discord that I think might be interested in the topic. So at least one of my few dedicated readers (who presumably use the RSS feed to keep tabs on my content), posted it to Reddit and YCombinator. A riveting discussion was had by all. Note: I did not participate in any of the discussions as I had already spoken my piece on this topic. I just enjoyed reading what others had to say about it.

Low Code Software Development Is A Lie

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been writing custom software for a long time and one of the things that annoys me most is when a client adopts the position that there is a silver bullet which will reduce or remove the inherent complexity of this task. This happens more often than you’d think and guess what? They are almost always wrong.

Perhaps I’m getting a bit too old and loose lipped for my own good, but the truth is that creating software for other people is exceedingly difficult. Contrary to the opinions of non-practitioners (aka non-coders), this difficulty is not the fault of coding languages, tools and paradigms. It is actually the result of clients and developers not taking the time to understand the root causes of the problems they want to solve and not designing a solution around the conclusions you’d draw from that process.

Ship of Fools: The Race to Ban TikTok

Sat, 01 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Anybody even remotely invested in keeping up with current events here in America, knows that TikTok is on the verge of being banned. If you are a frequent reader, you already know that I am against that. Doubly so in this case as the US Government has yet to provide a single evidence based argument to support the move, much less addressed the fact that American tech companies engage in largely the same exact kind of behavior that TikTok does.

Code Monkey Mid-Life Crisis

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Compared to most coders I work with, I’ve been coding a long time. Specifically since my father and uncle gifted me and my siblings an Apple II in 1985 when I was six years old. We also received a book called “Computer Fun” which attempted to teach BASIC programming to children. So despite all that youthful enthusiasm why do I feel like this career may not be for me anymore?

ChatGPT: Far More Hype Than Substance

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Much text has been written in recent weeks on the topic of the ChatGPT chat bot, its forthcoming integration into Bing and how it will change the world as we know it. While the commentary has run the entire gamut of possible responses, most of it is definitely more hype based than anything else. Today the hype dies.

So lets start off with the most basic question. What is ChatGPT? Well as it so happens, ChatGPT is capable of furnishing us with a perfectly acceptable answer (LOG-TXT / LOG-PNG):

MacOS is the Worst Part of Apple Silicon

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I recently took a new job and my new employer gave me a choice between a Lenovo Thinkpad with Windows and an M1 Macbook Pro with MacOS. Even my least dedicated readers know that I have no love for Windows and have spent literal years trying to rid myself of it. So of course I chose the Macbook Pro.

Well dear readers, I’m going to be blunt: I wish I hadn’t. The reason why is simple: MacOS is a mess of bugs, half-baked features and is clearly only being maintained because Apple obviously feels like it has to. Over ten years ago when I last used MacOS on a regular basis at work, MacOS was perfectly serviceable by the standards of the day. It was competitive and Apple was clearly still excited for it’s future prospects. It wasn’t lacking in any noticeable way.

Pop Goes the Gaslighting Weasel

Wed, 28 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve spent a lot of time debating on whether or not I should even write this blog post. Truth is that I was this close to just letting the entire thing fade into oblivion but after searching out some reading material on the subject, I decided that I needed to write about this, if only to remind future Jay what he just escaped from. Future Jay has a tendency to forget important things like that.

A Farewell to Arms

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

There is no great way to put this without a certain segment of my readers recoiling in horror, so I’m just going to say it. I’m tired of fighting for things on the job. After over 20 years of professionally being combative when I thought the situation called for it, I have resolved to turn over a new leaf.

If you’ve worked with me, you know how it can be at times. When the company, the team or the boss decided to go down a road that I strongly disagreed with, I pulled every ethical tactic out of the bag to try and reverse things. Sometimes I was right and sometimes I was wrong on a technical level. But looking back I now realize that the level of technical correctness is not particularly relevant.

Two Jobs, One Life: Nothing Is Forever

Thu, 20 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

To those who don’t already know: I will be starting a new job next week. This is notable for one reason above all others: It marks my return to a much more normal situation. You see, for the last four and a half years I have actually had two jobs with two different employers. One of the conditions of the arrangement with one of my employers was that I had to largely keep this a secret from my coworkers there. So I mostly did (excluding those I worked very closely with who needed to fully understand my availability). For over four years. That included not discussing it on this blog.

The Siren Song of Set It and Forget It

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The point of today’s post, or diatribe if you prefer, is to push back against the notion that once you have a piece of tech integrated into a workflow, you are pretty much good to go barring any sort of critical failure. Sadly a lot of people believe this. However since the first rule of the “Set It and Forget It” club is that you don’t talk about said club, you rarely hear much about it.

All Hail the Tech Magicians and their Cantrips

Wed, 07 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Before I launch into this month’s diatribe I want to offer my readers a word of warning: I’ve been feeling very pessimistic about tech in general as of late and this piece will expose a large portion of that to my audience. If you are already depressed about tech, you might wanna skip this one.

In any event, I have been fond of occasionally awarding various industries / institutions with the label: The new “priesthood” of society. Whereas American society likes to bandy about the veneer of religious morality, the truth is that we moved past religion being an actual difference maker in how we conduct ourselves a very long time ago. For at least 15 years now (probably longer as that timeline really just represents the first time I consciously realized this myself), I have described the Wall Street Banks and their friends at the Federal Reserve as being our new priesthood. This country and its economy are built on idea that encouraging an ever growing amount of greed benefits everybody and those groups represent the standard bearers that drive and ultimately legitimize such a belief system.

Hasta La Vista Android

Wed, 03 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Well two and a half weeks ago I finally put on my big boy pants and took Annette down to the local Apple Store… and bought two iPhones. That decision came about because of years of accumulated frustration with Android, Google and Android OEMs.

If you want my overall opinion on the iPhone experience, here it is: It works like it should. Which is a back handed way of saying that the wide variety of Android phones I have used over the years haven’t worked that way. At some point as a consistent Android user you get so used to endless quirks and buggy behavior that it almost becomes some sort of meta game in and of itself.

Proof of Life: I Still Have Something to Say

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

So its been a few months since I have posted anything here and the reason why is simple: I just haven’t been feeling all that chatty lately. Now you might be thinking, “Has Jay finally run out of tech things to talk about?” and let me assure you: This is absolutely not the case.

It is the case however that despite all of the tech things that I’m embroiled in right now, real life is forcing that to mostly take a back seat at least when it comes to spending the time crafting some long winded diatribe about said tech things. Long story short: My father-in-law has lung cancer and my wife has been mostly living in Augusta for almost two months acting as his home healthcare nurse. I’m managing my father-in-law and step-mother-in-law’s finances for them and handling all of the household duties that Annette and I would typically split amongst us.

Pop! Goes the Distro And Fiber Internet For The Win

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Some weeks it sure seems like things are always changing, doesn’t it? Well these past few weeks have definitely felt that way for me. Just when I think things in my tech landscape are solidifying to the point where I won’t have any more material for tech related blog posts here, lo and behold the universe delivers some.

So last week I decided, in a huff mind you, to dump Pop! OS and replace it with Fedora. Now those of you who know my Linux history should be shocked by this as the last time I seriously used an RPM based distribution was back in the early 2000s before I got hitched. It has been a VERY long time.

Finally... some Peace and Quiet

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

So ya’ll have been following me on my hardware journey for awhile now and you have probably noticed that I keep focusing on different facets of the hardware experience. Well today I have some good news: I have finally found the exact combination of factors that are required to bring me joy on this front and I’m about to reveal the details of that secret sauce.

Once upon a time, I used to be your typical PC Gamer type: I valued performance at the cost of everything else. When I met my wife in 2003, I had just built a dual Xeon workstation with an ATI Radeon 9700 that was huge and exceptionally loud. I loved that machine. It was fast and it did everything I wanted. Sometime after getting married, I discovered that my wife didn’t much care for me spending hours on end in a separate room playing video games, so I transitioned to gaming laptops.

Scam Review: Big Tech Bullshit

Tue, 15 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This is a post that I will probably come to regret writing and publishing in the future. The reason for that is simple. This post is going to make a lot of former, current and potentially future co-workers feel like idiots. That’s because the topic for this post is scams being pushed by our friends in Big Tech.

So it gets somewhat awkward when you realize that I work in tech and plan to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. It gets way more awkward if you know that when it comes to tech scams / fads, nobody is more susceptible to falling for this stuff than people who work in tech. That’s where all this stuff starts and builds momentum after all. Without buy in from the tech community, almost none of this garbage would exist.

Fun, Franchises and ReMastered Classic Games

Wed, 06 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

So long time readers will remember that about four years back, I posted a diatribe entitled “Repeat after me: Games are supposed to be fun” that basically railed against the realization that a lot of the new games floating around weren’t actually all that fun to play. Well today we are going to revisit that topic, freshly inspired by the time I’ve been spending with both Diablo 2: Resurrected and Minecraft: Dungeons.

The Rise of Ryzen

Tue, 20 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

So anybody who is even remotely paying attention to processors knows that Intel is in some really deep shit. Back in 2014 they were essentially riding high above all of the competition and nobody could even come close to challenging their vice like grip on the market. My my how times have changed.

Fast forward to the present day, seven years later and you’ll find a situation that is almost unrecognizable. Intel is still pushing processors built on the same tech as they were in 2014. They just have more cores, generate more heat and suck down way more power. To be fair, their integrated GPU (Intel Xe) is actually a bit better nowadays. But only if you ignore the woeful state of the drivers.

Windows 11 Announced: A Legacy OS Gives Consumers The Middle Finger

Fri, 25 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

As some of you may have heard, yesterday Microsoft announced the upcoming release of Windows 11. As an early build had leaked last week and Microsoft had dropped a number of hints this did not shock anybody in particular. What was rather shocking was how little Microsoft seems to give a shit about the normal everyday average computer user.

Now if you are a frequent reader, you know that I wholeheartedly believe that Windows is a Legacy Operating System. The core of my reasoning can be understood by quoting a single part of the post:

Spock Was Wrong: In Tech it is Easier to Create than to Destroy

Mon, 05 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I assume most of you didn’t already know this, so I’m going to clarify it up front. One of my favorite sci-fi trilogies is comprised of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Obviously they weren’t meant to stand alone as a trilogy as they are three movies plucked out of a larger group of films, but I don’t care. They share a coherent story arc between them which begins with the second film and is resolved at the end of the fourth film. There are parts of these movies that inspire much debate among Trekkies, but as a whole, short of a few exceptions like the Matrix trilogy, they are my favorites.

Goodbye Small Server, Hello 150 Watt Office

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Anybody who has spent any amount of time reading my content over the past few years knows what my small server project is. For those of you not in the know, it was basically my attempt to stop using an old desktop as my home server and transition all of its duties to SBCs (Single Board Computers) which are smaller, quieter, cooler, less performant and most importantly, use way less power. That project was a success. I eventually ended up with four ODroid XU4Qs handling various tasks. After I finished that project I started to get more ambitious. Could I actually take this project to the next level and curtail the power usage of my home office?

To Ping Or Not To Ping, That Is The Question

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last few months, I have been having trouble with the stability of my home internet connection. This became evident to me while live streaming to Twitch as my stream would begin dropping a lot of frames in a really short amount of time. For a time, recycling the power on the cable modem would make a positive difference, but after a few months that stopped working reliably. This post is about my subsequent experience trying to write a scheduled cron job that would let me know whenever my internet connection was having issues.

Ding Dong: The Internet is Dead

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In today’s world with everything either burning or smoldering, it can be distressing to wake up each day and face the latest developments. Everything that is happening now is happening because, like the Empires of yesteryear, systems rise and they fall. The sad truth is that most people have developed a blind spot when it comes to issues of this sort. That’s primarily because getting there requires a bigger picture perspective most people seem to lack.

Knowing and Living With Your Boundaries

Sun, 02 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Whether we like to admit it or not, we all have boundaries. Part of growing older is being able to identify and knowing how to address our boundaries. Sometimes we find ways to transcend those boundaries and other times we discover, often as part of a painful journey, that these boundaries are in fact more permanent than we realized.

I’ve got a couple stories about my encounters with my own boundaries that I’m going to share you all today. While they both “end” differently in a sense, the reality is that neither tale has actually completed. Both are still ongoing and ever-present experiences for me in ways that I hope you’ll better understand by the end of this post.

Bah Humbug: Keeping it Real on Christmas

Tue, 24 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

So here I am sitting in an AirBnb on Christmas Eve in North Augusta on my laptop while Annette is watches Wheel of Fortune as she likes to do on weeknights. Inside I’m trying to mentally prepare myself for a full day of Christmas related events and visits with various in-laws tomorrow and thought to myself, “This would be a great time to spew out a new blog post.”

Dare I say that your opinion on that may clash with mine after you finish reading what I have to say. It’s Christmas related and as with most topics I’m going to make a lot of powerful statements which I may or may not choose to back up with any real degree of supporting information. Though in this case, I probably won’t be providing a lot of links and references as most of this post is likely going to consist of me preaching and I simply don’t have enough time to make this a proper essay. So if you like my typical content, you may want to just skip this one. Whatever you ultimately choose to do, consider yourself warned.

Why I Can't STFU And Just Code A Solution To Your Problems

Thu, 12 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

So over the years I’ve had a number of people tell me that I tend to focus on the negative aspects rather than the positive aspects of situations. This feedback has been relayed to me on both professional and personal levels. Let me tell you: That this is absolutely the case. However I don’t see it as a failing so much as an asset. The purpose of today’s post is to both delve into why I feel this way and why clients, co-workers and compatriots feel the way they do.

Paradise Reclaimed: Retro Gaming, FPGAs and the MiSTer

Sat, 16 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

So in light of the exceptionally serious posts that have graced the front page of this site over the last month I have decided to do something a little different today. Consider this my official attempt to remind you all that I am actually capable of doing something other than bitching about the behavior of corporations and people. The topic of conversation today will be the MiSTer and why I’m absolutely enthralled with it.

The Sad Saga of Purism and the Librem 5 : Part 3

Sat, 26 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This post marks the third in my series about the sad saga of Purism and the Librem 5. If you haven’t read the first or second posts yet, I highly recommend that you click here and then click here. Give them both at least a quick skim before reading this one as they contain important background information that is required to appreciate this one.

After mulling over everything I had seen along with what my source had shared with me, I decided that I had a moral duty to spread the word as far and as wide as possible while protecting the identity of my source as best as I could. I resolved that the best way to do this would be to create threads with specific questions directed towards Purism which would help to shed some light on some the questions I now had. I created two threads, one on the Purism forums and one in the Purism subreddit.

The Sad Saga of Purism and the Librem 5 : Part 2

Fri, 25 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This post marks the second in my series about the sad saga of Purism and the Librem 5. If you haven’t read the first post yet, I highly recommend that you click here. Give it at least a good skim before reading this one as it contains important background information that is required to appreciate this one.

Sometime in the midst of the Aspen shipping window I began to casually express skepticism on the Purism subreddit. In some of my comments I posited the theory that Purism had hit rough financial straits. I also further theorized that Purism was using PR to generate more revenue in the form of pre-orders for the device so that the project could continue. Within a day of posting this, I was contacted by an informed ex-employee of Purism. They gave me their credentials which I verified using information they provided and information I was able to dig up. My source has decided not to go public yet at the time of publication. This means that while I have verified their identity, I cannot share any information you would require to do so.

The Sad Saga of Purism and the Librem 5 : Part 1

Wed, 23 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Today I’m going to tell you a sad tale of a device called the Librem 5 and the company behind it, Purism. As of right now, this story does not have a happy ending. I am writing this series of articles as a protest against the behavior of Purism, a company which claims that transparency and openness are their core values. If they won’t tell the world the truth about the Librem 5, then I’m willing to at least give it a go.

The Modern Web Is A Quagmire, So I Embraced NoScript

Wed, 21 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

If you are a regular visitor, you know that I normally I update my site with new content on a monthly basis. However the events of the last 24 hours have compelled me to break with tradition and reach out to the wider world as soon as possible.

I already hear you asking, “What happened Jay?” Well the modern web happened, that’s what. Since I’m a web developer you are probably operating under the assumption that I’m acquainted with the modern web and it’s basic rules more-so than most. You aren’t wrong. However I am not infallible. That having been said, the events of the last 24 hours have forced me to take a long hard stare at one of my blind spots, produce a full accounting of the horrors that were subsequently revealed to me and react accordingly.

The Cloud, The Indoctrinated and Their Shared Folly

Thu, 15 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past few years, I’ve spent a lot of time speaking to the dangers of our current blind obsession with the cloud and all it has to offer. Professionally I’ve experienced life on both sides of the fence: I’ve seen this problem from the perspective of the cloud provider and from the perspective of the consumer. In both cases I have arrived at the same conclusion: We’ve got a rough road ahead of us.

My Modern Gaming Escape Plan

Tue, 16 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Most who know me have at some time or another heard me profess my love for Retro and Indie gaming. At the heart of this love however is a growing and increasingly cancerous disdain for modern gaming that I have finally decided to no longer ignore.

Now I realize this is going to shock some people, especially as I have a rather embarrassingly large Steam library (as of today it contains 943 games). Most of those people don’t know that I that I also have sizable GoG (407 games) and Playstation Store (around 350 games) libraries as well. So okay yeah I’m addicted. But in my defense these purchases have been made over the last decade. In addition a lot of those GoG library purchases are for older games that I played as a kid but never bought back then. So that has been my way of atoning for past sins as I firmly disagree with software piracy in every case where software is being actively sold. But yeah those are huge game libraries.

Why I Push Back

Thu, 20 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A number of people I know have asked me why I feel so strongly about particular tech issues that I feel compelled to take action. A number of those people have also informed me that my practice of maintaining a ban list of companies and products that I refuse to patron is objectionable to them. They don’t always say it directly, but once you get used to hearing it implied, it becomes easy enough to recognize it.

Google Finally Reveals Its Endgame with Chrome

Fri, 31 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year in January, Google publicly toyed with making some changes to its Extension WebRequest API that would effectively kill off reputable ad-blockers. This announcement was met with much sound and fury and Google appeared to fold after a few weeks of controversy and a bit of research on the part of the community. However all of this ultimately signified nothing as Google announced plans to move forward with nearly the exact same plan this week.

How Proprietary Tech Was Used to Summarily Execute Huawei

Tue, 21 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

So for this month’s blog post, I’ve decided to tackle a bit of tech drama that has been brewing for awhile. In case you didn’t know, the Chinese telecom/tech company Huawei has been repeatedly accused by the US government of spying on their customers at the behest of the Chinese government. No supporting evidence has been released to the public. Despite this lack of evidence, this week the Trump Administration has banned Huawei from doing business with any US based entity using an executive order.

Reality vs Idealism Equals Burnout

Wed, 10 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In today’s irregularly scheduled pontification, I’m going to be addressing a subject that I have been personally struggling with for the majority of my career. When it comes to expectations in software development, I have recently realized that holding oneself to insane standards is not only ill-advised but potentially career ending.

If you are a regular reader (which is impossible as I’m never going to be a regular poster) then you have likely already figured out that I am a software developer on the verge of burnout. I’ve been tip toeing along the edge of that chasm for the last five or six years now. In response I have been exploring a variety of possible solutions to the problem. For the most part these solutions have proven to be nothing more than temporary band-aids. Given enough time I always end up longingly gazing into that chasm of ill-repute where ex-software developers congregate.

Privacy is Dead and Nobody Cares

Tue, 19 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last few years I have chronicled my struggle to maintain my privacy while maintaining an effective online presence. If you are an avid reader, you know that I believe that I am fighting a losing battle. Today marks the beginning of a new chapter as I have finally realized that most people just don’t care and nothing that you or I can do will ever be enough to make them care.

Windows is a Legacy Operating System

Sun, 21 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

People who know me and talk with me, know I’ve been making this claim for years. That means that this post has been years in the making. That is true both in terms of the argument I’m about to make and in the actions Microsoft has taken to create the situation. The reality is that if I had made this argument ten years ago, most people would’ve laughed and stopped reading by the end of the first paragraph.

Small Servers, Shitty RAID, Twitch and Caves of Qud

Sat, 06 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post is really going to be just a random collection of random updates and thoughts. If you are looking for an overarching theme, I’m sorry to disappoint but there isn’t one. Nevertheless, this might be worth reading anyway. Your call.

So yesterday was a painful and stressful but ultimately fruitful day for me in terms of tech. You see I received the parts required to complete my small server project. By some miracle Fedex delivered the parts early in the morning rather than later, so I ended up spending a huge portion of my day on this. However since this final server was meant to act as my file/print server, I decided to deviate a bit and buy a CloudShell2 NAS case for the ODroid XU4Q SBC (Single Board Computer). What a mistake that turned out to be. As it’s first order of business the embedded RAID Controller decided to mirror my backup drive onto my live drive despite the fact I had configured the jumpers to turn off RAID in favor of presenting the two six terabyte drives as separate volumes.

Proprietary Software is a Plague

Sat, 01 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

So as I’m sure my readers have noticed, the rate at which I’ve been producing content here has slowed. The reason for that is simple: I don’t have as much to say as of late. However I have been saving up yet another classic rant and today I’m ready to unleash it upon you all. Proprietary Software is a plague and today I’m going to explain why.

Before I get going I want to address the elephant in the room. I’ve spent my entire career writing proprietary software, haven’t I? Yes I have. I am part of the problem. However because I’ve spent the vast majority of my career writing custom software for clients which is used internally, I am able to absolve myself of most of this. The reality is that when I write custom software for a client the ultimate choice of whether or not that software is distributed and under what license it’s distributed is up to them. For the most part these are internal tools, and distribution isn’t even a factor. In addition my clients retain full rights to the source code I produce. It belongs to them, not me. In that situation the client ultimately maintains the control and power that will benefit their business in the long run.

Android Fraking Sucks

Sat, 11 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

So I’ve taken a bit of a break from writing over the last few weeks. Honestly while I kind of needed one, the reality is that I also didn’t really have anything interesting to say. Nevertheless, I’m back and I’ve decided that I’d like to spend a few minutes convincing you that the world’s most popular operating system, Android, is a steaming pile of dung. I can already hear you saying, “Oh no here comes another pro Apple diatribe.” But let me put your fears to rest and tell you up front that I’m not planning on pushing iOS as an alternative as I believe that it is also a steaming pile of dung.

The Rubber Hits the Road: Principles versus Pragmatism

Sat, 21 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Late last year I reiterated some principles which I intended to keep in mind for the year of 2018. More than six months into the year, I thought it would be good to publicly reflect on how all of that has been going. If you’ll recall, there were three principles. I’m going to go through each of them one by one and enumerate my progress and setbacks. If you haven’t read it yet, you might want to take the time to read my original post “Notable Principles for 2018” before continuing.

Sadism, Masochism and HD Antennas

Sun, 15 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Way back when in 2012, I did what is commonly referred to now as “cutting the cord”. It was a bold move as all I had was a Roku device, a Tivo DVR and an HD antenna. If it had been solely up to me I probably wouldn’t have bothered with the Tivo and the antenna but Annette really wanted some form of live TV, so that was that. Six years down the road, I’ve finally decided to begin moving away from the Tivo/Antenna combo.

Why Bad Tech Doesn't Just Die Already

Sat, 07 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This week I’m going to delve into a question which occasionally rears its ugly head even for me: Why doesn’t bad tech ever seem to go away? It is worth noting up front that while this includes computer based tech, it covers all kinds of tech. For example, we still have people who insist on photocopying and faxing things.

Why do people still photocopy things? I really don’t understand it myself. But then again, printing things is already incredibly offensive and wasteful from my point of view so I’m willing to assume that the opportunity to photocopy things is less common for me largely as a consequence of that. A similar reasoning could be applied to faxing things, but in all honesty one can fax documents without relying upon actual paper. There are a variety of ways to fax things electronically nowadays.

Avoiding the Mines in a Field of Tech Fads

Fri, 29 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Chances are that if you’ve worked in tech long enough, you can probably rattle off a list of tech fads you were forced to suffer through. But you know what my secret is? I have yet to fall for the siren song of any tech fad. But rather than just laughing at a few older fads, I’d like to try and provide some instruction on how one can tell the difference between tech fads and legitimate tech trends.

Development Teams: Help or Hindrance?

Fri, 22 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This week I’ve decided to tackle a topic which has been in the back burner of my mind for awhile: Whether or not development teams are a help or a hindrance. Why now? I was asked some questions which revolved around this as part of a job interview I had this week and wanted to provide a more fleshed out answer here than I was able to there.

The reality is that when it comes to developers/engineers there are really only three kinds that matter in the context of this discussion:

Autocratic Internet: The Tyranny of Google reCAPTCHA

Sat, 16 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

So over the last year, something on the Internet has been really pissing me off. That thing is Google reCAPTCHA. This thing has been driving me bonkers for over a year and I’m pretty much at the end of my rope.

So let’s start with a bit of background. Over a year ago I began to fundamentally change the way that I accessed the Internet on a daily basis. Prior to this change, reCAPTCHA was just a minor annoyance. So what did I change? I started to browse the Internet through an always on VPN connection that I setup using some extra hardware, pfSense and PIA. This box is setup with an always on connection to PIA and acts a dedicated optional gateway on my network that I can point any of my devices at to enable them to access the Internet exclusively via a VPN connection.

Microsoft buys Github: Whhhhhattt?

Fri, 08 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably have already heard the big tech news of the week: Microsoft is buying GitHub for 7.5 billion dollars. Wow. That’s a lot of pennies.

Rumors of this began swirling on the Internet last weekend and the official announcement was made on Monday morning. As you may or may not know Github, despite the closed source nature of their software and services, actually provides a lot of free services to the FOSS community in the form of hosted git repositories and the associated web accessible functionality required to work with those repositories in a reasonably efficient manner. In addition you probably need to know that I myself am I paying user of Github as I host client source code in private repositories on the Github platform.

Dumb Homes For the Win

Sat, 02 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This morning a young man knocked on my door with the goal of selling me on a Vivint Smart Home System. Needless to say that if you know me at all, you know I put the kibosh on that in a hurry. My opposition to this idea springs from more than my fear of the cloud, though that is a factor to be sure. For starters I believe most of these mechanisms are over-engineered and consequently less reliable. In addition I just don’t trust these companies. Finally, I’m a cheap bastard.

Shattering 'Old Code' Rose Colored Glasses

Thu, 24 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Over the course of my career, while my standards may have changed, I have always prided myself on the idea that the code I wrote was “solid” when judged by the standards of the day. Due to a recent job change, I found myself with yet another opportunity to validate this particular belief. Sadly, in this particular case, it appears to be a mixed bag at best.

Now let’s be clear: This application works reasonably well. The bulk of the code was written about eight years ago. The application hasn’t received any updates in over five years when I started working on it again last week. Despite this, it was still in service and providing value to my employer. That is a victory which brings a smile to my face.

My Ode to Rogue-Likes

Tue, 15 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Everybody knows that I love to play RPGs (Role Playing Games). In fact I love them so much that over the last few years I mostly stopped playing games from every other genre. Despite that, my love for RPGs has begun to wane a bit in recent years. While I do still love getting immersed in wonderfully complex multi-layered lore and tweaking my stats and skills to best maximize my chances for victory, somewhere along the way the thrill of that began to fade. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve played hundreds or even thousands of these games and after awhile they all start to blur together. Or perhaps it’s the fact that the infamous RPG grind really can wear you down if you spend too much time grappling with it.

Unplanned Obsolescence

Sun, 06 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

For those of you who don’t know, I spent most of this past week at a conference in Chicago put on by my employer. This was a bit awkward as I was working out the second week of my three week notice with them. Nevertheless I went and a good time was had by all. During this trip I received a lot of unsolicited feedback from various co-workers most of which was positive and very much appreciated. Somewhere along the way, while discussing my impending departure for the umpteenth time, I reached an important conclusion: I am obsolete.

Tor Versus Zoom

Mon, 23 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

As I’m sure many of you know, an important part of being a remote worker is maintaining lines of communication with your co-workers. At work we use a variety of tools to accomplish that but one of the most important tools is one called Zoom. It is a screen sharing, audio and video conferencing tool that can accommodate hundreds of people at once and this tends to make it very useful.

Road to Acceptance: Anger Versus Apathy

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

So I’ve been spending a lot of time in the midst of a situation that leaves me feeling very angry. Today I got more angry than usual and since that is becoming a more common occurrence I thought it might behoove me to delve into why.

I’m going to start off explaining why I am angry. The core issue is that I am expected to accomplish a task that is by all rights impossible to accomplish. My roadblock isn’t a technological one but rather a cultural and organizational one. I want to change the world in which I live for the better. My mandate is to provide the tools that will enable us to do exactly that. But with each passing day it becomes clear that the tools aren’t enough. Tooling can’t combat apathy.

Check and Mate

Sun, 15 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

So in an effort to diversify my hobbies a bit I’ve recently decided to spend some time getting to know Chess a bit better. While I have casually played Chess all of my life, the reality is that outside of knowing how the pieces move and the conditions under which a game is completed, I didn’t know much else. While this might come as a shock since I was part of the Chess Club throughout high school, the harsh reality is that there were no clubs oriented towards my primary interest (any and all things computer related). Thankfully I was not the only person who joined Chess Club as a last resort. In that most of us had something in common.

Oh Green Fairy, Where Art Thou?

Fri, 06 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This week we are taking a break from our regularly scheduled tech related posts/rants to delve into a subject that is near and dear to my heart: Absinthe. Anybody who knows me, knows I like to indulge myself with a snort of liquor now and again. Though I tend to stick mostly to whiskey (all kinds, no whiskey is beneath me), I do enjoy other things as well. Chief among that group is a little thing known as absinthe.

When and Why I Leave

Thu, 29 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Anybody who has ever bothered to read my resume has probably thought to themselves: “This guy sure likes to switch jobs.” Well I can’t fault them for making that observation as it is at least half true.

While I do switch jobs fairly often, the painful truth is that I don’t like doing it. Interviewing as a developer is an intensely painful process rife with reciting answers obtained via rote memorization and concocting inventive answers to cute but ultimately pointless logic problems. Despite those misgivings, I still change it up every few years. Full disclosure: I’m thinking about what my next position will be as I write this. Ping me if you want to chat about that.

Agile is Good and Scrum is Dumb

Fri, 23 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

One of the most disturbing trends I have seen over the last few years is the interchangeability of the terms Agile and Scrum. Most people believe that Scrum is a form of Agile. A lot of employers will advertise that they use Agile when in fact they actually use Scrum. If this doesn’t infuriate you, it likely means that you have no idea what Agile actually is, so keep reading.

Fact: Every Tech Related Disaster Is Man-Made

Sat, 17 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday at work I was finishing off an extremely productive week. After spending the previous week on a spike, everything was really starting to come together for the feature I’m building. It was a good day. But then during a team demo somebody made a comment that turned things a bit sour for me. Later on I ranted about this during sprint planning. While the ultimate end result wasn’t a big deal, I mulled it over in an attempt to determine why any of this ticked me off to begin with.

Things I Don't Miss About Windows: Updates

Mon, 12 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

So I’m going to start off this post by being extremely blunt: I don’t like Windows. In fact when it comes to Operating Systems (aka OSes), I consider virtually any other OS a superior choice. The only exception is situations in which some piece of critically required and irreplacable software mandates that you must use Windows. Despite these feelings and the fact that my house contains only two Windows machines, only one of which belongs to me (the other belongs to my current employer), I spent quite a few hours mucking about in Windows this past weekend.

Veni, Vidi... not so much Vici

Mon, 05 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot thinking regarding the overall state of my trade. Of course that should be obvious to anybody who follows my posts. Much of it has been a deep dive into what can only be described as a creeping depression regarding the state of the trade from my viewpoint. Much of it is birthed by the sum of my experiences over the last two decades.

Some might even go so far as to speculate that this constitutes the beginning of a mid-life crisis. There is likely some truth to that. I’m close enough to 40 that my perception of what constitutes old age has already begun to radically shift. So much so, that I often wonder if I’m mentally equipped enough to continue doing this sort of work for the next twenty to thirty years. This is not something I would have actively found myself thinking about ten years or even five years ago.

Low Standards in Software tend to go Viral

Mon, 26 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

So here is something that has been on my mind as of late: The plague of shitty software. My goodness, there really is a lot of it floating around nowadays. That’s not what I’m really concerned about though. What concerns me is that our ability to accept shitty software leads us to create even more shitty software.

I am not talking about end users here. I am talking about software developers. Most software developers spend a huge portion of their lives suffering through shitty software just like non-developers do. Now in some cases, we suffer through different kinds of shitty software that is specific to our profession but in a lot of other cases we suffer through the same pieces of shitty software that you do. A couple of examples that come to mind are: Windows 10, Microsoft Office, Visual Studio (not Code) SQL Server, Eclipse and PHP. Those are just a few examples. Most of my examples are products produced by Microsoft. That’s mostly a reflection of the fact that I’m still stuck using a lot of proprietary Microsoft software as part of my day job despite the fact I stringently refuse to use it outside of work. While I’m going to pick on Microsoft for the majority of this post I want to be very clear: Microsoft isn’t the only company producing shitty software and feeding this beast. They just happen to be producing the vast majority of the tools that happen to drive me insane on a daily basis.

Code Mode: A True Developers Drug of Choice

Mon, 19 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This week I wanted to chat about a syndrome that I have experienced a few times over the years as both an amateur and a professional developer. What syndrome am I referring to? One of my favorites: The syndrome of “Code Mode”.

What is “Code Mode”? The term refers to the scenario in which you planned on accomplishing X number of things in a given coding session and end up accomplishing X^2 instead largely due to bursts of sustained inspiration and abnormally long periods of consistent lucidity. Why do I call it “Code Mode”? My father, who is also a professional developer, called it this for years. So for me this term has become synonymous with this state of mind. I should start off by saying that this is generally considered to be a good thing. For me this syndrome tends to manifest in response to particularly frustrating coding sessions in which I either did not meet all of the goals I had going into it or I literally had to fight tooth and nail for every win.

The Bigger They are, the Harder They Fall

Mon, 12 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

When it comes to the modern day world of software, one thing above all has become clear to me over the last 20 years: On a long enough time line, failure is virtually guaranteed. That being the case, how our software approaches, adjusts for and reconciles failure is clearly its most important characteristic.

That’s not to say that modern day software is all garbage, but in all the ways that actually matter, that largely appears to be the case. The cold hard reality is that as requirements and technology have advanced, software developers have struggled in earnest to keep up. Despite the rapid rate of advancement on the tooling side there is still a finite limit to the level of complication a single human being can grapple with on a mental level. The specific limit varies from developer to developer but regardless of how good anybody is there is no debate: We all have a limit.

Ethical Quandary: Is it ever responsible to irresponsibly disclose?

Wed, 07 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Today’s post is going to examine an ethical grey area that I currently find to be very relevant. Is it ever okay to ignore responsible disclosure standards for security related issues? Spoiler alert: I’m going to argue that there are cases in which ignoring these standards is not only permissible but the only real ethical course of action.

Okay so lets start with some sample code. The below code represents a simple .NET Core C# program that encrypts a piece of plaintext.

The Evolution of Tech: Roadkill

Mon, 29 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In a follow up to last weeks post, I’ve decided to examine some of the other side effects of increased technology accessibility. After spending some more time pondering my last post, I realized that the problem goes far beyond a loss of unrelated learning opportunities. In fact I would go so far as to say that easy to use tech may in fact be making us dumber while still making us more productive.

The Evolution of Tech: Amnesiac Highway

Mon, 22 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Something insidious has been lapping away at the innards of my mind for quite awhile. To be honest I wasn’t even consciously aware of it 48 hours ago. So why am I writing about it now? Yesterday at my nephew’s 9th birthday party, somebody posited the theory that video games act as a gateway drug for other more productive technology related pursuits. I immediately took offense to that although I didn’t fully understand why at the time. Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I decided to go ahead and write about why I feel that way.

The dream of FOSS Hardware: A whisper in the wind

Mon, 08 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

As everybody who reads this site on a regular basis knows, I’m a strong advocate for Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). What I don’t spent quite as much time talking about are my preferences regarding hardware. The reason for this is pretty simple. My hardware preferences are pretty fleeting. While I have been a dedicated user of Linux for years, I struggle when it comes to identifying an equivalent entity on the hardware side of the fence.

A Man Without a Web Browser

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

So those of you who know me personally know that I recently switched from Chromium to Firefox. I obviously haven’t commented on that change here. Why? Well there is actually a really good reason for my silence and I’m going to tell you why.

The long and short of it is that Firefox Quantum represents a huge performance and compatibility improvement. However the organization which manages and maintains it, Mozilla, has been making some really questionable moves as of late so I’m already looking for an alternative. The first symptom of this problem reared it’s ugly head with the Cliqz data slurping scandal. While this was a test pilot in which an addon was being pre-installed in a small percentage of Firefox downloads for users located in Germany (according to Mozilla), it still represented a step that chilled privacy advocates such as myself to the core. But hey, no big deal, right? That was a one time thing and everybody fucks up. Shit happens. Most people ended up giving them a pass here, myself included. The reality here is that this was a limited pilot and Firefox was still a better bet for privacy advocates than anything even remotely related to Google such as Chrome or Chromium.

Notable Principles for 2018

Tue, 26 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

With the new year right around the corner, it seems its the expected time to make a few resolutions. Though I have gone out of my way to largely ignore this practice, at the end of 2016 I made my first resolution in over a decade. That resolution was, “Don’t buy any video games” which I actually managed to stick to for about six months. This year I’ve decided to tweak my approach. Instead of specifying hard and fast rules, I’m going to specify principles and ideals which I will strive towards in the year to come.

Repeat after me: Games are supposed to be fun

Tue, 19 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

So over the last few weeks I’ve been dividing my time between Divinity: Original Sin and Horizon Zero Dawn. I stated playing Divinity first so I’ve plowed much more time into it, lets say 60 hours. Whereas I’ve put about 25 hours into Horizon. I love Horizon. So why am I telling you this? I have a confession. I hate Divinity. I hate nearly everything about it. I can already hear you asking, “Why do you hate it?” That’s the wrong question though. You should be asking me, “Why are you still playing it?”

Riding the Nostalgia Wave: How Old is too Old?

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Over my years as a software developer I have on occasion stopped and asked myself, “What exactly is the point?” I realize that on the surface that sounds a bit depressing, but you have to recognize that over the last forty years virtually every type of program you can think of has already been written. Sure there are a handful of exceptions, but generally most of us aren’t doing anything particularly new.

Net Neutrality: Deja Vu Edition

Sat, 25 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This morning I felt like writing a piece about a subject that is very near and dear to my heart: Net Neutrality. Though as I started I got a feeling of Deja Vu. Oh wait. I already wrote that post, didn’t I? After taking some time to reread it, I’m pretty satisfied with the position I outlined there with the exception of the last couple sentences.

So with that in mind, it’s only fair to start this post off with a correction. Tom Wheeler was probably the best thing to ever happen to the FCC. When Obama appointed him, it appeared that he was just going to play the role of yet another industry lobbyist traversing his way through the revolving door of public “service” and I assumed as much. I could not have been more wrong. In this case, that thrills me to no end. Wheeler came down on the right side of Net Neutrality and fought hard to give us all exactly what we needed. He did his job and he did it to the best of his ability.

Jack of One Trade

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I recently discovered that a virtual Windows server I was running had been hacked. I was being paid to run it as part of an arrangement with a long time client of mine. This server ran Windows Server 2008 R2 and though it was rarely used, it was configured to automatically update when required. The only service it exposed to the internet was RDP over TCP/IP port 3392 instead of the default 3389.

State of the Video Game Union

Wed, 15 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This morning I want to talk about something that isn’t quite so serious. I want to talk about the state of video gaming. For those of you who don’t know, I’m a pretty big gamer. I’ve been gaming for over thirty years. I started off on an Apple IIe, Atari 2600 and Colecovision. Yeah I definitely had a blessed childhood. Joking aside, I’m still gaming 32 years later. The platforms and economic drivers have changed but my addiction hobby remains largely intact. Today my primary gaming platforms are x86 Linux, RetroPie and the Playstation 4. Rather than playing twitchy arcade games and adventure games like I used to, I spend most of my time playing single player Role Playing Games, Retro games and Indie games.

Goodbye Windows 10 : Viva La Linux!

Mon, 31 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday was a red letter day for me. Two decades after using Linux for the first time, I have finally managed to fully convert all of daily driver devices to boot Linux. Any of you who know me, know that for years now I’ve been running Linux natively and in a single boot configuration on whatever primary personal laptop I happened to be using at the time. You might also know that just over a year ago I managed to get my wife using it on her laptop. But I never fully converted to Linux. My dirty little secret was that for years I have run a desktop as my so-called server and that desktop has always run Windows. Once upon a time I even went so far as to run some version of Windows Server on there, but in the last few years it was dialed back to just running client versions of Windows.

The Manifesto of a Productive Business Software Developer

Tue, 03 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The other day I got asked by my boss’ boss to share the “secret sauce” behind my productivity at work. This was an odd moment for me as over the last 17 years of my of professional life, nobody has ever asked me to do that. But it did get me thinking about it and that has led to me making a few notes on the subject that I’ve decided to share with the world.

The Day Facebook and American Cloud Computing Died

Wed, 28 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The day has finally come. Today I have been forced to dissolve my relationship with Facebook. Why? In a single word: CISA. In a nutshell CISA is a piece of legislation that allows companies like Facebook to more freely share customer data with the government. All data shared with the government (DHS) under the auspices of this law is automatically shared with the FBI and the NSA. Even more importantly, customers have no recourse against this data sharing as the corporations in question will be immune to lawsuits which touch upon activities covered by it and the process itself is specifically exempted from the Freedom of Information Act.

Ode to GoldBox RPGs

Mon, 18 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

As many of you know, I self identify as a retro and an indie gamer. That pretty much means that for the most part, I don’t play many of the modern AAA games out there. Of course as a retro gamer, one must avoid going full hipster (otherwise known as asshole) by at least acknowledging that the retro games of today were once the AAA games of yesterday.

As I revealed in my Kryoflux article awhile back, I began collecting physical versions of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Goldbox games from SSI. Today that quest has finally come to an end as I have finally acquired the final game and completed my collection. Prior to obtaining a Kryoflux unit, I wasn’t into collecting physical games with the exception of the original boxed edition of Planescape Torment that I acquired at one point. However once I started acquiring Goldbox games, I really wanted to complete the set. It didn’t take too long to get most of them, though acquiring the final one not only took some time, but it also cost me more than all of the others combined.

The Problem with Internet Explorer and Spartan

Tue, 31 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Anybody who knows me professionally, knows that I despise Microsofts Internet Explorer web browser. What they probably don’t know is why I despise it. Most people likely assume that because I’m a Penguin, I’m also an Internet Explorer hater. The two do tend to go hand in hand. However nothing could be further from the truth. I use Linux a great deal on my own time, but professionally I tend to spend most of my time with Windows. I have a healthy respect for Microsoft products and techs such as Windows Server, IIS and .NET. This respect does not extend to Internet Explorer. The purpose of this post is to explain why that is.

Lenovo X1 Carbon: My New Ultrabook

Thu, 12 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So as some of you know, I tend to get a new laptop every 12 to 18 months. Over the years my preferences for laptops have changed drastically however and this has been reflected by my latest purchase, a third generation Lenovo X1 Carbon ultrabook. Long gone are the days where power is king and I’d tolerate any inconvenience to get it. There are a number of reasons for this, the most prominent of which I hope to address as part of this post.

Accountability: The Missing Ingredient

Thu, 04 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last few weeks, the public has been subjected to an array of Grand Juries deciding not to indict cops accused of homicide. Keep in mind that we aren’t talking about the verdicts of trials here. We are talking about indictments. An indictment is given when a Grand Jury decides that there is enough evidence present to actually have a trial. The prosecutors typically select their strongest evidence and present it to the Grand Jury in an effort to get an indictment. Because of the way this system works it is incredibly rare for prosecutors to fail to get an indictment. It doesn’t take much evidence to make it worth having an actual trial. Not only that, but since the prosecutor has full discretion over what information gets presented to the Grand Jury, non-indictments are incredibly rare.

The Anatomy of an Epic Fail

Wed, 22 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I just finished reading an article detailing an idea for modernizing the US Postal System and I have some thoughts that I’d like to share. Before I begin, I’d like to take a moment to explain why the following critique is so important to me. The long and short of it is that as a software developer, my career essentially consists of solving problems. Software is just the tool I tend to rely upon for getting the job done. Throughout the course of my career I’ve run into many people who were terrible problem solvers and the people who birthed the idea I’m about to shred exhibit all of the qualifications necessary to join that particular group.

JPL Coding, Independence and Ethics Redux

Mon, 29 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

As any of my readers know, ethics is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart when it comes to software development. When you run your own shop, there comes a time when your ethics are going to be tested. I thought I understood what that test would entail only to recently discover that I had absolutely no idea at all. To protect the innocent as well as the guilty names have been changed, but the story that follows is quite true. I hope it will serve as an example to the rest of you out there attempting to sling code for a living. Note: You would be well advised to read this and this before continuing.

The Dilemma of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Thu, 21 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

So if you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed that over the last few weeks the internet has been awash with people jumping on the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” train. Over the same period of time, I’ve made a number of comments in various online venues which have indicated my distaste for this trend. A number of people have asked me to explain why I feel this way. So be it.

Why I believe in Net Neutrality

Thu, 15 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s face the facts, most of the people coming to this site either already support Net Neutrality or they have no idea what that term means and are now supremely annoyed that accessing my resume is such a pain in the ass. I apologize to the first group for wasting your time by telling you something that you already know and to the second for well… actually I don’t apologize. As a fellow internet denizen, you are probably not new here. You’ve probably been using the internet for years now and even though we likely don’t frequent the same places our internet experiences both have something in common: Net Neutrality makes it all work. That’s right and please don’t try to look so surprised.

Archaeology and Computing

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Those of you who know me reasonably well, know that I enjoy tinkering with old software. As a developer I’ve always been fascinated with the evolution of software throughout the years. As a result I tend to collect old pieces of software. However 95% of this collection is electronic as I have tended to shy away from physical media. However not even this strong preference has been able to keep me wondering throughout the years, “What is happening to all of that old media?”

JPL Coding, Independence and Ethics

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

So as some of you undoubtedly know, last January I decided to start working for myself. Fast forward to today and I am closing in on the end of my first year as an independent software developer. It has been quite a ride. This past year has been most educational and interesting. I hear you asking, “In what way?” Well for starters I got to take my “ivory tower” ethics through a trial by fire of sorts this year. Anybody who has worked with me in the past knows that I have a system of ethics that I judge actions taken in a professional context against. If you want to better understand this system, start here with my “Code Monkey Manifesto”.

The Feds + Health Insurance + CGI Federal + Experian == A Fucking Nightmare

Thu, 10 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

So as most of you know, the health insurance exchanges for ACA (Affordable Care Act) went live on October 1st, 2013. Well at least in theory they did. When it comes to the exchanges states had two choices: Either implement their own exchange so that residents of that state could buy health insurance or let the federal government do it for you. At the end of the day, only 16 states decided to implement their own exchanges. At this point I think it is safe to say that they were the smart ones.

Benefitfocus has gone public!

Wed, 18 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Well this has certainly been a long time coming. It seems that Benefitfocus has finally gone public and the share price is skyrocketing. To my friends still there, I would like to say congratulations. Though I’m not sure why. Unless you are getting stock options, it doesn’t really mean all that much from a compensation standpoint. It does of course mean that your company has now begun the long infamous transition from a stable independent entity to a marionette whose strings are randomly tugged by hordes of idiotic investors.

The Case for Disbanding the NSA

Fri, 06 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Within the last 24 hours, we have learned that NSA has successfully circumvented the most popular forms of encryption in use on the Internet today. This revelation not only undermines the career of people like myself, who essentially work exclusively with web facing technologies within our applications and solutions, but it also undermines the future of the American public.

How does this undermine the future of the American Public? Well that’s simple. It’s undermining the future of the industry in which I work. The Information Technology industry is one of the few industries in America that is experiencing upward mobility nowadays. If you undermine that industry, you unavoidably undermine the future of this country. Moreover, the technology that the NSA has undermined is relied upon by every other industry on the planet. You may not personally care about SSL encryption, but it is one of the few things that stand between your purchase on Amazon and somebody being able to snatch your credit card information out of thin air. If that doesn’t strike you as a problem, then perhaps it’s time for you to switch over to something that is more your speed.

Benefitfocus, IPOs and Offshoring

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

As anybody who has read my resume knows, I used to work at a company called Benefitfocus. At some point I decided to move on. Now if you spend some time looking at Benefitfocus’ website you will probably come away quizzically as according to the culture page there, I would be a great fit as an employee. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth. Don’t get me wrong. Working at BF was a great experience. One that I would not hesitate to do over again if I had a time machine. However this was primarily because of the people I worked in close proximity with, not the company we worked for. Of course the company has to receive some credit for that. Somehow they managed to attract all of this talent. On the flip side, keeping the talent there is becoming a more prominent issue with each passing month and year. It is an issue that BF seems reluctant to take on.

My Windows 8 Review

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Well for what it’s worth here is my own personal Windows 8 experience. I finally took the time to install Windows 8 on my System76 panp9 (Core I7, HD4000, Ivy Bridge) laptop. I have an MS Action Pack subscription so I’ve had access to the RTM bits for awhile, but just couldn’t be bothered until now. I installed Windows 8 (after using Clonezilla to backup my Arch Linux install of course).

Code Monkey Manifesto

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

For those of you not familiar with my resume, let me sum it up for you: I’ve been designing, developing, deploying and supporting software for 13 years. I’ve seen my fair share of failures but on the flip side, I’ve also seen more than my fair share of successes. I’d say when it comes right down to it, developing great software isn’t really that difficult. Above all else it has been my experience that the primary requirement one must fulfill in order to develop great software is that you have to care. Now that may sound stupid. Hell it probably sounds pompous and arrogant depending upon your perspective. But over the course of my career I have worked with all kinds of people. A few of those people truly cared about what it is they were doing while most of them showed up for eight hours a day in order to collect their paycheck.

Dear PBS Nightly News...

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Subject: In regards to your “Computer Hacking” story

To whom it does concern,

To start I would like to say: I’ve been a fan of PBS for years and for the most part I appreciate the dedication and the impartiality of the PBS News Hour staff. In addition I make my living working in IT and have a sizable level of experience in regards to Computer Security. However on a less congratulatory note, I just finished watching your “Computer Hacking” discussion that was broadcast on the PBS Nightly News on 2011/06/01 @ 6 PM EST and I was appalled. I’ve seen very few pieces on the “Nightly News” that I would characterize as lacking and/or shoddy. However this discussion was appalling in the unchallenged slant that was presented.

Local Boredom brought to you by me

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

So apparently there is an election where I live in Greer today. And I don’t care. However when the father of one of the candidates came stumping through my neighborhood this weekend and handed me a brochure advertising his daughter’s candidacy, I couldn’t help but be struck by the level of nonsense it contained. For instance his daughters political party membership, views on important topics and stances and on issues relevant to Greer as a community were not included in this pamphlet. However it did mention the church she was a member of, the fact that she was a small business owner along with where she went to high school. Apparently fixing that pothole that I hit every morning crossing Highway 29 via Arlington is not a platform issue. Which is a shame because without a commitment on that particular issue, I’ll be forced to ignore the election as a whole.

TiVO == Gestapo

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Wow. So today I finally signed up with DirectTV and their HD DVR service. Little did I know that my biggest source of drama here would be with TiVo. Back in Jan of 2009, I had canceled TiVo after my original 2 year commitment was up and tried out the Cable company’s DVR option. After about a month of suffering, we decided to move back to our low def TiVo (having already tried the TiVo HD and found that neither TiVo nor our cable company could/would get the CableCARD solution to work). Well apparently when I signed up for TiVo’s special reduced rate of $12.95, they nailed me with a yearly commitment. Or so they say. My original documentation and emails on the matter indicate no such commitment. I do keep all of these things on hand for future reference.

Windows 7 is out

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Well, the day has finally come. Or it came a few days ago. Well technically it came on July 13th, but wasn’t announced until this Wednesday July 22nd. Windows 7 is done! And not only that, but the untouched RTM build straight from Microsoft is floating around out there in the wild. I can’t wait to get my keys via my Action Pack subscription next month. Though until then I’ve installed it with no key.

Knick Knacks

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Hmmmm… it’s been awhile hasn’t it? Well not only am I posting something to the site, I’ve also uploaded a slightly improved build of it along with adding a new default theme into the mix. I’ve been toying with the idea of a decent all black theme for awhile now and finally got around to throwing together something that works. Of course I’d be lying if I said that I came up with it all by myself. But hey, I never claimed to be a graphic artist, did I? Oh and the application has now been moved to the .NET 3.5 framework and consequently is being compiled/developed with Visual Studio 2008.

RIP Free Market

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

So this weekend brings news that our wonderful government is planning on bailing out yet another bank. Really? I guess the fact that this tactic failed the first half dozen times or so doesn’t mean it won’t work this time around, right? Oh but wait despite what it sounds like there are some fresh tactics, only it’s not what we need but rather what the people who stand to lose the most actually want:

Rack em, Stack em, Watch em fall

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today the US Congress rejected the Financial Bailout Plan as put forward by the Bush Administration. While they are vowing to restructure the bill and get another vote going when they return from recess later in the week, I believe the idea has summarily died. The concept of bailing out the financial wizards who claimed that effectively turning debt into a form of currency via securities was risk-free is a disheartening concept to most. This is understandable. However others seem to believe that regardless of who directly benefits, this bailout was required in order to save our economy.

You Suck at Photoshop

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

So ever since Tuesday, I’ve had some rough stomach problems. I’ll spare you the sloppy details, suffice to say that I’ve been spending most of this week at home trying to work my way through it all. Sometime in the last few days, I found a wonderful video series on YouTube called, “You Suck at PhotoShop”. This series of ten videos are essentially at their core, tutorials for how to use PhotoShop for advanced image manipulation. However this rich content is encased in the author’s hopefully fictional drama, his hatred for you and the rest of humanity in general and a biting rhetoric that surprises even assholes like myself.

Get Flash You Stupid Hippie

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

So I was doing a bit of surfing from my new server (see my previous post) and I happened to check out South Park Studios for an list of current South Park episodes, and I got this tasteful tidbit for my trouble:

Now that is some funny shit. It’s good to see that South Park Studios really is designed in the same spirit as the show it showcases. That gave me a good laugh for the day. I figure it will either piss you off or make you laugh and if it is the former, get over it already hippie.

So long and thanks for all the processor cycles!

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

So it has finally happened. What you say? My old server that I was using for everything here at home, has finally been replaced. No it didn’t break or fail in some way. After 5 years of good dedicated service (4.5 of which were trouble free), it was just time to move on to another box. Of course this had nothing to do with the fact that for this old Dual P4-Class Xeon box, upgrading the RAM from one gig to at least two gigs would cost me at least a thousand dollars. RDRAM ain’t cheap nowadays. Can’t say I’m surprised given how bad it bombed in the long run.

Tivo HD + Charter Cable = Suckage

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s start this post with a bit of background information: For starters, in late 2006, I purchased a Tivo Series 2 DVR and replaced my Cable Company’s PVR with it. Since it was a Series 2 DVR, I was no longer able to receive digital or HD cable stations, but that was okay because at the time having a PVR that actually worked correctly consistently (yes Moxi I am looking at you) was more important than high definition.

An unexpected cache of stimpacks

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

So it seems that I’m not the only retro-gamer out there wishing for more of the good old days of gaming. One of my all time favorite RPG series, Fallout is typically revered as a pinnacle of the CRPG experience. That having been said, it appears that an enterprising soul has taken it upon himself to add missing content that the devs cut and make a number of other mods to Fallout 2 and release them for public consumption:

Gaming

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

So of course I’m still gaming. Pretty decently too. Over the last year I managed to snag a Wii. The Wii is a pretty cool piece of equipment. However my mainline gaming interest has stayed with RPG gaming. Over the course of the last year I’ve played and beaten a number of games (some not for the first time either) such as all three Gothic games, Baldur’s Gate 1 (still working up to actually playing through 2), Neverwinter Nights 1 (almost finished but dropped at the end), Oblivion (Morrowind was better), KOTOR 2 (which was great until the last 4th of the game) as well as a number of other classics like Chrono Trigger.

Here today, a forgotten Vista’ tomorrow

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah it’s been awhile. I’ve been busy.

I just finished spending a full month with the newly released Windows Vista and boy do I have quite a bit to say about it. To put a long story short, I’m now using Windows XP once again. As most of you imaginary readers know, Vista is in and of itself a culmination of over five years of effort on the part of Microsoft to follow up on their previous consumer OS release, Windows XP. Though controversial, due to its newfound copy protection, Windows XP is widely considered to be the latest success in the line of ever evolving operating systems produced by the software giant of Redmond, Washington.

Dead but not dying, Gone but not leaving.

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

That title pretty much sums up the state of my website, does it not? I still keep an eye on it and obviously I have secured some form of hosting for it since moving into my first home, though I have yet to actually do anything with it. I guess it takes two ingredients to keep a site going: Hosting and somebody producing some sort of content.

As you can imagine, I have been quite busy. Not only with the house but with work as well. The house has become a pretty accepted part of life. I have gotten into the habit of mowing the lawn once a week, tending to the hedges as they outgrow my perception of the volume that should be occupying, whacking weeds and taking potshots at the neighbors noisy dog(s) with the hose whenever the opportunity presents itself. Work has been hectic. There seems to be a stream of work and less and less time in which to do it. Our company seems to have slipped into the terrible habit of overselling software so to speak. While this tends to work to our advantage more often than not when it comes to time and material projects, it becomes a real burden on flat rate projects. I am working on at least one project that has ballooned to occupy a large chunk of my time over the last two years despite the fact that it was originally supposed to last less than a year.

Various bits and bytes

Wed, 24 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I finally bought a house. Yeah I did it. Well I am going to do it. We will close on the house a week from today and begin moving in the following day. To say that my wife and I are excited is an understatement at best.

That having been said, I have decided that I will likely close down this site for awhile. My life has become cluttered and as a result, many portions of it remain unkept like an old closet that is never opened. That being the case, this website currently ranks high on the list of things that “I wish I could spend more time with but I can’t”.

A moment of comtemplation regarding my experience as an Apple ibook owner

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I have finally decided that I will no longer purchase any Apple products from this point forward due to the continuing issues that I have experienced with my iBook over the last three years. I sent this email out earlier today to the address that is rumored to be monitored by a merry band of assistants working to seperate the garbage from the garbage for Mr. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc.

A Door to Door Con Gone Wrong

Sat, 13 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

The wife and I went through a scary yet thought provoking experience earlier this evening. This email I sent to the perpetrator’s company, Chapel Sales Inc ought to explain it:

To whom it does concern,

I am writing this email in an effort to relay an experience I had with one of your representatives earlier this evening. Earlier this evening at around 7:30 PM EST, one of your representatives who identified himself as Clemson Cockfield knocked on the door of our residence. After explaining his purpose and showing us a list of magazine subscriptions, we decided that we were not interested. However Clemson had told us that he was trying to raise money to purchase the books he needed for his college education so we decided to provide him with a ten dollar donation in the form of a check. After asking for a glass of water, Clemson left the premises.

Honeymoons and all that stuff.

Thu, 02 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000

As some of you may know… Annette and I never actually got to go on a honeymoon when we got married. However one of our larger wedding presents was the promise of funding for such a venture should we ever find the time to do it. Well… okay maybe finding the time is the wrong way to put it. You see both Annette and I were “unemployed” when we got married and as such we didn’t want to take the chance that we might spend additional money that we didn’t have on something that seemed purely optional at the time.

Jay Little the world's #1 stud got hitched.

Mon, 12 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Okay well maybe I wasn’t rated number one - but I was pretty darn close - let me tell you. Anyway as most of you likely already know, Annette and I got married yesterday on April 11th, 2004. I’ve written a little piece on the wedding and provided some photographs for the enjoyment of my audience. I’ve also uploaded a copy of the vows Annette and I wrote for ourselves in case anybody is interested. Click here for the pictures of the big event. Here is a sneak peek:

I'm getting married today - w00t!

Sun, 11 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Thats right. Today is my wedding day. Annette and I decided to get married earlier this week and thanks in a large part to my family we have a nice little ceremony planned for today. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me - so hopefully this is the beginning of an upswing for me (and my site of course). Anyway we aren’t really going on a honeymoon per se due to money related issues. We were originally planning on eloping somewhere nice and getting a ceremony done with just the two of us - but do to our job situations that has been an impossibility for now.

Lots of times on my hands to play with.... CDE?!?!

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

A friend of mine Bruce who works at Cornell University in New York - just gave me one of their own DEC Alphastation 250 4/266 boxes to play with. This machine was originally built in 1993 and believe it or not it still manages to work after 11 years. After futzing around for a bit - I finally got the thing to boot. Hell I even managed to login into it (only after cracking the root password though). After logging in through xdm a singular thought has begun to grace my mind:

A sign of a true geek: Major Uptime

Mon, 20 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000

There is a lot of stuff that geeks care about that don’t really interest the rest of the populace. Somewhere within that laundry list of topics is one entitled, “Major Uptime”. Most people turn off their computers every night. Most geeks do not. Why? Simply put - there is some sort of odd geek pride associated with being able to operate a computer stably for a long a period of time. (Note: this especially counts for those of us who make a living administering would-be stable machines)

Feline Diabetes for one please. Ching! Ching!

Thu, 26 Jun 2003 00:00:00 +0000

I recently became aware of a rather startling fact that most people are likely not aware of. Felines (Cats for the laymen fools among you) can get diabetes. How did I find this out you ask….

Well I came home from work about two weeks ago to find my fav cat Tommy hiding behind the couch. He wouldn’t even crawl out for this food call (which if you’ve seen the size of this cat - isn’t normal). So I reach back and pull him out only to find that he is bleeding from an area I would rather not mention.

Dual Xeon Goodness

Tue, 18 Feb 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Well after months of planning and years of dreaming it has finally happened… I have built the dream machine. It cost $3000+ dollars but it is finally here. Yes it is an SMP box and as you may have guessed based on the title - it uses Xeon processors. Here are the raw specs:

2x 2.6ghz Xeons
1024mb PC800 RDRAM
70 gigs harddrive capacity
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
Memorex DVD+RW 2.4x
Soundblaster Live 5.1+ (Audigy 2 had SMP compatibility issues)

Yes the machine is truly a pleasure to use. As you may have also guessed - I built it on my own and purchased the parts from various online retailers. So the real question is of course, what OS is this monster sporting? For right now and the forseeable future its running Windows XP. I’ve spent some time attempting to work with Linux on this machine and while it does run like a dream, the drivers for the 9700 series video card are a bit immature as of now. Currently the ATI drivers do not allow me to drive both of my monitors off the same video card like I am able to in windows. So for now - this is a Windows only workstation.

The March of Gentoo continues...

Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000

As some of my loyal readers (whom I could probably count on a single hand) may remember - I switched my Linux box over to Gentoo a few months back. I was so enthralled over Gentoo that I decided to actually make a post on my site here about how it was literally the “second coming of christ”. Well okay maybe I am exaggerating…

Anyway like grains of sand through the hourglass the saga of Gentoo continues. The win2k server my roommate and I built from spare parts nearly two years ago finally crapped out. It started throwing blue screens once every 30 minutes and would only remain stable longer than that if it was booted into safe mode. I decided to replace that box with my Gentoo Linux machine (which was sitting in the corner of my room just serving out files).

Gentoo Linux is da Bomb

Sun, 27 Oct 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Well I’ve finally concluded my latest round of Linux upgrades. I originally planned on migrating my Linux box to RH Linux 8 but apparent kernel related incompatibilities prevented me from doing so. So in my desperation I decided to give good ole Gentoo Linux a shot. For those of you who don’t know - Gentoo is a highly customizable version of Linux that (1) requires you to install the system manually and (2) requires you to compile the system software and libraries from scratch.

Erik's New Face - Is it really all that new?

Sat, 03 Aug 2002 00:00:00 +0000

In true journalistic style I have gone to great lengths to acquire further photographic evidence regarding the appearance of Erik Jeffries in his youth. In a world wide exclusive here are the fake and real photographs being placed on display side by side for your viewing pleasure. Now lets be honest - can you tell the difference between these two hunks? I sure cant.

Are you getting hot and bothered yet?

Anybody Remember Erik?

Wed, 17 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

So does anybody remember Erik Jeffries, the lucky guy who got to post a story on my site because of some stupid superbowl bet that he won? His Story

Anyway it seems that some member of his family managed to obtain a picture which resembles what he looked like in his early twenties. Since I’m such a “good friend” of the family I thought I would share it with the world:

TrueType Fonts and Linux

Mon, 10 Jun 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Well I just finished spending the last hour getting decent font support set up on my Linux box. Having been recently inspired by a thread on Arstechnica detailing how to set up nice looking fonts in Linux (Redhat 7.3 uses the crappiest ones by default) - I decided to waste a little time and go at it.

Needless to say, I was successful :-) The irony is that I’m unable to see the effects on my own site because the default neowin theme uses Helvetica and that font doesn’t appear to have been “upgraded” in its appearance. Oh well….

Into the depths of Linux

Wed, 24 Apr 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Well over the last few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to install and really attempt to get in depth with Linux. Though I’ve been using it on and off for years - I’ve never dedicated an entire machine to it. I must say its been quite an interesting adventure thus far. While Linux can be difficult to configure and requires a major time investment - it has quickly become clear that its amazing what you can download for free.

The Patriots win the Superbowl - By Erik Jeffreys

Mon, 04 Feb 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Yes the patriots have won the superbowl despite everybody thinking otherwise. In fact I was so sure that this wouldn’t happen - I made a bet with a work friend of mine. The bet was that if the Patriots won - we could post something to my site. Well it appears that something quite hot froze over and that they did - so here is Erik’s message to the world:

Linux Bugs

Tue, 30 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

So last night I made a decision regarding the future of Linux on my new computer. It wasnt an easy decision but it was one that had to be made considering the circumstances.

I’m done playing with Linux for the time being. None of the latest distributions seems to feature full support for my exotic i850 P4/RDRAM system configuration even though its getting to be about a year old now. (The Config - not the machine)

The Mozilla MSN Mystery

Fri, 26 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Well well well… on the day that Microsoft releases XP it seems that they have also released the ‘updated’ version of MSN. It seems that this new version of MSN refuses to function correctly with non Microsoft browsers.

After playing with this problem for a bit - I finally figured out how to modify the user agent in mozilla so that it would look as Internet Explorer to MSN. You can see the comparison between MSN on Mozilla 9.5 and MSN on IE 6.0 in this screenshot.

Digital Cable

Thu, 18 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

So my roommate Lewis and I got our new Digital Cable service hooked up yesterday. For $100/month we get the cable modem service along with the expanded Digital Cable service. Its really a great deal. There are hundreds of channels and loads of stuff to watch. In fact if you are not careful you’ll spend more time looking for stuff to watch than actually watching it.

There are lots of movie channels too. There are about 5 HBO channels, 5 Showtime Channels, and I think 5 Cinemax channnels. Theres about 45 music only channels and lots of On Demand Pay-Per-View stuff available.

Email Address Changeover

Wed, 17 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Alright - I’ve finally begun to undertake the “enormous” task of changing my email address from darkgamorck@home.com to jaylittle@jaylittle.com

Needless to say - I’ve only just begun to realize just how much of a hassle this will be. But hopefully I can make things a little easier on myself by asking anybody who reads this item to change my email address to the jaylittle.com (assuming anybody actually cares :-)

Thanks alot,

www.jaylittle.com

Thu, 11 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Thats right guys! My favorite domain just opened up for registration and I snagged it right up! No more stupid @home IP address, no more weird port numbers, and no more slow upload speed caps imposed by my friends on at @home!

This will also help my resume to look a little better of course. Now that my site looks somewhat professional because I have a domain name instead of some half baked scheme using a crappy old computer, an unstable IP address, and an alternate port :-)

GE and Pentium 4s

Thu, 04 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Yeppo - everything with GE worked out fine. My contract has been renewed (with the other Agency) and things are looking good in that respect.

I built a new Pentium 4 based box a few weeks ago. The specs of it are 1.7 ghz P4/640 MB RDRAM/70 gigs/Geforce3. Its definitely a sweet little box. Surprisingly some of the biggest performance increase came through the Seti@Home program. On the P3 1ghz box, it would normally take me 8 to 9 nine hours to complete a given work unit. On the new box it only takes around 4 hours.

WilL WRiTe COdE fOR fOod

Mon, 10 Sep 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Well it looks like things are coming to a head with my job situation. As some of you probably know, I currently work as a contractor for GE Power Systems doing web development work. My contract was originally for a time period of six months - needless to say I will have been working there a year come September 20th.

The problem is that GE has a 1 year limitation when it comes to contractors under their “employ”. Therefore I will be out of a job come September 20th. A few months ago I was assured by my boss that this wouldn’t be an issue - however as I get closer to the deadline - it has become more and more apparent that this is not the case.

Windows XP Pre-Order

Mon, 03 Sep 2001 00:00:00 +0000

You can preorder your copy of Windows XP today from CompUSA today. I went ahead and picked up my full version of XP Pro tonight for about $315.00 (including tax and shipping charges).

Some of you probably thought I was joking when I said I was planning on buying XP. After all why would an “unofficial” beta tester bother paying for a piece of software?

Because its damn good - period. Also its tough to make a living as a software developer if you spend your free time stealing other peoples software. Think about the irony.

Windows XP Build 2600 (Pre RTM)

Tue, 21 Aug 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Thats right kiddies. Windows XP RTM has almost hit in the form of Pre RTM build 2600. While its likely that the RTM build will in fact be the same (with the 180 day evaluation restrictions removed) - it should be signed off later this week - as early as tommorrow.

I just got it installed and so far so good. It seems just as good as RC2 (which seemed to alleviate most of my major issues with XP).

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