09.28.09
Posted in Renting with friends at 4:58 pm by kyrias
Because I feel that a public service announcement might be in order…
On arriving home on Sunday evening:
I note that there’s two pots in the sink is sitting somewhere in the middle of the entrance hall.
Me: ” X, do one of the pots belong to you?”
X: “Yeah, but Y left a pot in the sink also.”
Me: “Why is the recycling bin in the middle of the hallway?”
X: *gives some ridiculous gibberish in response and doesn’t move to put it where it belongs*
*inconsequential jabber that I frankly don’t remember the entirety of because I was seething at that point*
X: “The sink was full when I got home on Saturday night.”
Me: …speechless…
Alright. Looking at Exhibit A above, we can see that there’s a couple of problems:
- When someone points out that you did something wrong or undesirable, it is not appropriate or useful or constructive to point out that someone screwed up the same way you did. It doesn’t matter if the rest of the whole damn world did it too. When someone points out that you did something wrong, the correct thing to do is to either apologize and fix it or come up with a reasonably plausible excuse.
- The correct response to someone asking why something is wrong is not to give some facetious answer and then proceed to leave it in a state of wrong.
- When someone points out that you did something wrong or undesirable, it is extremely inappropriate to sidestep the point by pointing out something that they did wrong in turn. Whatever they did wrong — even if they killed your pet kitten, that is not the issue at hand.
- Further more, choosing to compound the issue by neglecting to fix the problem afterwards is just in poor taste.
So, kiddos, take a good hard look at Exhibit A and try not to do the same, mmkay?
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09.22.09
Posted in life at 9:58 pm by kyrias
“You do it to yourself, you do — and that’s what really hurts…”
– Radiohead — Just
In my infinite brilliance, I missed an entire two weeks of classes because I mis-remembered class as starting on the 16th of September instead of the 2nd.
At least I didn’t didn’t saunter into class on the 16th and received that rude shock then.
I woke up on the 14th and whilst lolling around in bed and enjoying the sensation of being awake but not needing to get up just yet, it suddenly struck me that it didn’t really make sense for classes to start on the 16th instead of the 14th. Not many schools choose to start their classes in the middle of the week, after all.
So I jumped out of bed and went online to look at the academic calendar. At this point, I was already wondering how to explain to the teacher about missing the first day of classes and grimacing about having to explain about how I mis-remembered.
When I saw Sept 2 on the calendar, I actually blinked a couple of times to make sure I was looking at it correctly.
I felt my hands go cold and the tingle on my face as all the blood vacated my head. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so horrified.
Even worse, one of the classes focuses pretty heavily on the biology and chemistry aspects of psychology and so far I think I’m floundering quite a bit in that class. It’s not even that I don’t understand what’s going on — everything makes sense when it’s coming out of the prof’s mouth, but I have a really hard time trying to make it all make sense in my head. Much less being able to remember all those complicated bits about receptor subunits and so such.
Right now, the only thing stopping me from quitting the class is a questionably healthy amount of arrogance and the fact that I think I actually need the information the prof is trying to impart. I’ve never really failed at anything I set my mind to, although I have to say that art class way back when was a fluke. Hopefully my arrogance is just that and not hubris. I’d hate to fail this class.
I’m also applying to graduate school this winter, with deadlines ranging from Dec 15 to May 15th. This means trying to wrap my brain around brain chemistry, writing a research paper for the other class I’m taking, and studying for the GRE.
Oddly enough, although I’m justifiably worried about the math section, what is really kicking my ass is the analogy section. I’ll probably post some real mind benders as I encounter them and see how everyone else does on them. All I can say is that they kick me around like a sick puppy.
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09.11.09
Posted in I.T tagged DRM, hacking at 3:43 am by kyrias
I recently received a Kindle as a gift.
I’m rather pleased with it, insofar as now I have something to read on long trips without having to lug a couple dozen books and worry about charging my laptop. It’s certainly a very nice device — it does simulate paper and ink rather well and the lack of having the back-lit screen is rather soothing.
However, I find that because the “Home” button is in a rather poor position, I often hit that button instead of the page back button. Also, I found it rather hard to adjust to having the screen flash black before changing pages, on top of feeling that the pages didn’t refresh quite as fast as I’d like. But those are rather minor quibbles, really.
What I really liked was that you can bind multiple Kindles to the same Amazon account and share books amongst those Kindles. Five, I think the maximum was. There is a catch, of course — I’ll have to secretly download my erotica separately because otherwise my little brother and father will have all too clear an idea of what kind of fluff I’m reading.
What I really disliked was that unless you pay an extra $200+ for the Kindle DX, the Kindle 2 does not support .pdf files. Also, it doesn’t support any of the other popular formats such as .lit, .pdb, etc.
This is rather frustrating in that I have a thousand or so titles on Fictionwise.com and there’s no easy way to get those ebooks onto my Kindle, which is theoretically what I would like to be reading off of. I’m not even going to go into how I feel that if you’ve purchased a print book via Amazon before, you should perhaps be given the option to buy the Kindle version at a discounted price. No matter.
So. Suppose one were to wish to break copyright law to transfer previously purchased, DRMed books onto the Kindle…
I suppose one would search for a Python code named eReader2html.py on BitTorrent. Then one would use that to de-DRM .pdb files and convert them to .html files. If one were to wish to convert .lit files, then there’s the LitConverter.exe, also available through BitTorrent. That program supposedly has the ability to de-DRM .lit files and convert them to .html.
I hear that sometimes the formatting and punctuation can get really messed up with one takes the .html file generated by said rippers and uses Mobipocket Creator to create a file that can be read by Kindle. Some horror story about how it seemed like someone just decided to wildcard punctuation every single time punctuation was used so that the book was essentially near impossible to read. I heard someone mention somewhere that if you CTRL+A, then CTRL+C everything on the .html file and then CTRL+V to a word file, save as a .rtf, then save that as a .html and then use that with Mobipocket Creator this problem might be able to be bypassed. Sounds like quite a bit of work, doesn’t it?
The above is simply intended to illustrate just how difficult these companies are making it for us, the average consumer, to read a book that we have already purchased.
At any rate, that’s the illegal aspect of things. Which, frankly, since I don’t even know how to operate BitTorrent, is slightly beyond my reach anyhow. So I might as well talk about what is within my reach — namely the ethics of doing so.
Personally, I find that DRMs on books is a singularly silly idea.
The thing is: I’ve met my share of Luddites who despise the idea of ebooks already and I’m sure there’s a significant portion of the population who shares their opinion. I myself prefer a paper copy of books when I’m not traveling, because there’s nothing quite like the tactile sensation of a real book, and so far no one has managed to make a ebook that one can easily riffle through.
DRM, in my opinon, are just making it harder for people to get used to the idea of ebooks.
With the “secure” format of ebooks, sometimes it’s an additional hoop to jump through just to be able to read the book in the first place. Secure MS Reader for example, doesn’t allow me to download the files from Fictionwise with my Mozilla browser. Instead, I must needs open up IE under administrative mode, and normal mode would not do either, and download the files that way. Palm eReader requires that I type in my credit card number to unlock my books.
Then there’s the problem of having my e-library scattered across several different reading programs because sometimes a book is just not available in certain formats. The stupidity of that goes without saying. The fact that none of these formats are compatible with other reading programs is another peak of idiocy.
Not least amongst these problems is the fact that if Fictionwise or the company they’re purchasing the book rights from goes offline, there goes a couple thou of my hard-earned money — with nothing to show for it. In fact, it’s already happened once — Fictionwise had a little falling-out with one of their aggregators and a dozen or so of my books were lost. Then there’s the Amazon ebooks that I had purchased in the past — also gone without even so much as a whimper.
I don’t think that’s acceptable.
Also, I feel that if I purchased an ebook, then I should be allowed to modify the file so I can read it on other reading devices without breaking the law. I find it ludicrous that I would have to be stuck reading certain books on certain devices or programs simply because the powers that be said I had to.
No matter that I have no intention or purchasing power to re-purchase the thousand or so titles that I already bought on Fictionwise so that I can read them on the Kindle. No matter that even if some of those titles aren’t available via Amazon.com.
No matter at all.
I think the author of XKCD has it right in this case:
Note: The title of the comic said to steal it. So I did. If there’s any objection, I’ll be more than happy to take down the picture.
Caesura points out that DRM is stupid in any case. Even if the companies managed to find a way to make their DRMed media backwards and forwards compatible with technology, compatible with all the different reading programs and devices out there, and to guarantee that the customer wouldn’t lose their collection simply because the company went offline — it’d still be stupid.
I agree with him.
He pointed out that because he bought a copy of ThouShaltNot’s album and then shared it with a couple of friends who had never even heard of them before — one friend went out and bought their next album. The fact that said friend then hated the album he bought is simply a nice touch of irony icing. Caesura’s sharing the files resulted in a sale they never would have gotten otherwise.
The key point is that they’re under-estimating the human need and desire to own things. Not to mention the more than easy concept that if you introduce something to someone else, then if they like the author/singer/ whathaveyou, then you have potentially expanded their market base.
But then we know all this. I’m just waiting for them to wake up and realize this.
Or barring a sudden ephiphany on their part — Fictionwise should just consider having .prc formats for download so I can upload my books onto the Kindle. That way I don’t have to flirt with the idea of breaking the law.
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09.10.09
Posted in life at 2:11 am by kyrias
For those who care, no sarcasm intended:
Cousin is doing quite well. Red spot in eye turned out to be benign in nature, according to the biopsy.
I’m rather glad that I didn’t descend to the depths of hysteria the rest of the women in the family seemed to succumb to. I’d have felt rather silly.
I do hope that the darn doctor is right, however.
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09.04.09
Posted in life at 10:42 pm by kyrias
My eldest cousin on my mother’s side has a red spot in his eye and it’s been spreading. The doctors say it might be cancerous.
Inappropriate jokes spring to mind. Ones involving Kushiel’s dart, particularly.
Everyone is quite, quite upset.
I just feel so detached from it all. I can’t believe this is happening.
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