return void;

A few weeks ago, I finally purchased a Pixel Blocks set. I wanted to start with a smaller set to make sure that this is something I am truely interested in. I’ve been having the urge to construct, lusting to build with my hands. I’m not very creative, I don’t have any wood working tools or metal working tools, and I am a sucker for old school games. I am also very fidgety and have a slight case of ADHD (my brother was diagnosed).

I wanted to start by making 2D representations of my favorite old school games. Then eventually, I want to move onto 3D versions of the same. I found sprite rips for many of my favorite games online and used those to make pixel perfect recreations. After making a handful of things, I quickly found that I was unable to make many things from the NES and very things from the SNES due to lack of colors. The set I bought has 8 colors: violet, red, blue, yellow, black, white, orange, and green. I was given the larger set of 12 colors for Valentine’s Day. I just received the set and have ventured into larger more complicated sprites.

Putting these things together can be very time consuming, especially if there are many colors. I can put together a 1up mushroom in about half an hour, but a full-sized Mario (Super Mario World) took over 2 hours. If I make something one night, that’s about all I will usually end up doing for the night.

I have been cataloging my creations so far and will post them as I am able to pull them off the camera and add them to this site. I have even added a new category for these creations: Pixel By Pixel.

So I just sync’d my portage on citadel (desktop) and ran into the first snag in a long time. Apparently, hal-0.5.5.1-r3 requires a kernel version of 2.6.13 or higher:

* Determining the location of the kernel source code
* Found kernel source directory:
* /usr/src/linux
* Found sources for kernel version:
* 2.6.11-gentoo-r4

!!! ERROR: sys-apps/hal-0.5.5.1-r3 failed.
!!! Function pkg_setup, Line 50, Exitcode 1
!!! You need a 2.6.13 or newer kernel to run this package
!!! If you need support, post the topmost build error, NOT this status message.

Blah, so I’m going to have to create a new .config for this kernel. I will need to check and see what settings I had previously set for the 2.6.11 kernel and make sure to enable them the same. I wouldn’t want my PSP or camera to stop working. I really don’t like having to switch kernel versions just because I always have to look up the hardware support that I need, and this is a very time consuming process.

One of the reasons why I decided to begin the monthly updates early was to prepare for a new version of Gnome. I read the preview of 2.16, in the fashion that the Gnome group has historically done several weeks before any major releases. I am thinking I might try switching back. XFCE4 development seems to have slowed to a crawl and there does not seem to be a huge amount of support. So until the new Evolution comes out, my choices are fairly limited. The thing I find most exciting about this new version of Gnome is the support for fast user switching. It’s about damn time. Then again, it took Windows and Mac ~20 years, so I can’t complain when Gnome does it in half that time. Keep your eyes peeled on this release, it will be interesting.

I was just browsing through the internet and was not suprised of what I found. The guy from the Verizon commercial “Can you hear me now? Good.” finally been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

The article said he “has a benign growth on the right side of his brain near the right ear” but Verizon said it was a coincidence. Yeah right!!! I don’t think I’ll trust Verizon after they said that. Even if it is a coincidence, they should be man enough to at least investigate into that issue instead of denying it. Well come on isn’t it obvious if you stick a cell phone on the side of your head for 24/7? Here’s a quote from an anonymous source:

“Well, what do you expect, he has that phone to his head 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Something like this was bound to happen. People think the whole ad campaign is some kind of setup, but he really does travel the country testing the connection 24/7.”

Read more into the story to find out. You will be suprised on how many people who talks on their cell phone all day. One time I was leaving for work minding my own business and all of the sudden a chick immediately left her lot, pulled out without stopping and looking both ways, and was talking on her cell simultaneously. Luckily if I didn’t stop we would’ve had an accident. Hey lady, I don’t mind you ruining your brain but please try not to take other innocent drivers with you.

I’ve never shopped on Overstock before for no particular reason. This is the chronicles of my first experience.

A while back, I spotted an amazing deal on Overstock for an item that would be perfect for sunshine as a gift. It sold out real quick, before I decided to buy it, so I signed up for the in-stock notice. Last night, I received a notice that the item was back in stock. Before I left for work, I bought the item thinking I had managed to get one before they ran out of stock again. I actually received an email confirmation of my order, which I had to promptly hide so sunshine wouldn’t accidentally see.

When I got home from work to find an email from Overstock:

Thank you for shopping with Overstock.com! We appreciate your business. I am sorry to informed you that we were unable to ship your ‘********************’ on order number 26605269. I am glad to assist you in this regard.

Please accept our apologies for not yet having shipped out the item on your order. I can understand any frustration you may feel and apologize for the inconvenience. I assure you that we go to great lengths to ship with accuracy and we take pride in our fulfillment.

Unfortunately, the ‘********************’ that you ordered is no longer in stock. Since we deal in the liquidation of merchandise, products featured on our site tend to sell out quickly. Still, we should not have taken an order for an item we are unable to ship. We use an inventory control database to prevent this from happening, but some error has apparently occurred in the process. I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience that this error on our part has caused you.

Jason, we have issued a credit of $42.94 to your card for the total amount of this item. Your credit was issued on 02/17/2006 to your credit card account. This credit has been issued from Overstock.com and should be on your next credit card statement. In addition, I have issued a $5.00 coupon to your account in hopes of compensating you for this inconvenience.

For your convenience, I have also looked through the available merchandise and found an item on our site that I consider to be similar and which may meet your needs. You can view the ‘********************’ by going to:

********************

We appreciate the opportunity to assist you. If you have any further questions, please click the following link and an Overstock Live Chat customer service agent will assist you.

I truly hope you will visit us again soon to see our great deals on brand-name products!

Sincerely,

Marita M.
Overstock.com

Five dollars is what I get for their mistake?! What nerve! It sounds like they need to seriously iron out the troubles with their site. I am on the fence as to whether I will continue shopping on Overstock.

Note: I hid the description and URL just in case sunshine stumbles across this post. There is a decent chance I will try again with the item, but only this item (due to price).

In posting my experience in getting the PSP connected to my Linux machine, I decided to get my Kodak EasyShare CX7530 to work as well. Bear in mind all of this could have probably have been simplified if I just shelled out for a simple card reader. I shouldn’t have to spend money to make things I currently own work.

So I emerged gphoto2 (including libgphoto2). This wonderful package apparently has support for so many cameras, it’s not even funny. I tried hooking up the camera straight up with the USB cable that came with the camera. No luck. The camera did that “I’m ready” indicator blinking but never showed up in my dmesg. You can see from below, this is me turning the camera on, waiting for a few minues and turning it back off. I did this several times to make sure this was not the correct method.

usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 10
usb 1-2: USB disconnect, address 10
usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 11
usb 1-2: USB disconnect, address 11
usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 12
usb 1-2: USB disconnect, address 12
usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 13
usb 1-2: USB disconnect, address 13
usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 14

I started reading the gphoto2 documentation. Finally I stumbled across this quote:

If you camera is a Kodak EasyShareâ„¢ and if you use the dock, then you need to press the button to have the camera be detected by the computer.

So I hooked the camera up to the dock, hooked the USB cable up into the dock, then hit the PC button (on the far right). Lo and behold:

hub 1-2:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-2:1.0: 4 ports detected
usb 1-2.2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 15
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 15 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x040A pid 0x4104
scsi6 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 15
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
Vendor: Kodak Model: printerdock plus Rev: 1.0
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi6, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi6, channel 0, id 0, lun 0, type 0
usb-storage: device scan complete
usb 1-2.1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 16
usb 1-2.1: USB disconnect, address 16

At this point, gphoto2′s auto-detect worked correctly. I decided to try and pull all of the images off the camera as I used to do with the crummy Kodak software. Following the instructions, I executed:

citadel kodak # gphoto2 --get-all-files

Sure enough, every image came off the camera exactly like with Kodak’s software. It’s a damn shame I can now reduce my dependency on one more Windows application, leaving only DVD Shrink. I never understood why dvd::rip never implemented this. Guess that project will eventually become obsoleted as dual layer DVD drives become the norm.

A few weeks back, I decided to hook my PSP up to my Gentoo box since the laptop was being used. I figured I’d try and see if I could get the deviced recognized for S&G. Here’s the dmesg output:

usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 8
scsi5 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 8
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
Vendor: Sony Model: PSP Rev: 1.00
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
SCSI device sda: 960512 512-byte hdwr sectors (492 MB)
sda: assuming Write Enabled
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 960512 512-byte hdwr sectors (492 MB)
sda: assuming Write Enabled
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
/dev/scsi/host5/bus0/target0/lun0: p1
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi5, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi5, channel 0, id 0, lun 0, type 0
usb-storage: device scan complete

Since I compile all of my kernel modules directly into my kernel, you will notice that the PSP is picked up as a USB device and attached to a SCSI device file. You can check out my .config file here. Note that this config is for 2.6.11-gentoo-r4. I am in the process of upgrading to 2.6.15-gentoo-r1 but I do not imagine the USB stuff has changed since.

In my case, I can then subsequently mount the PSP as a standard HDD:

citadel ~ # mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/psp

At this point, the PSP has become a HDD, much like in Windows. Enjoy.

I was buying some stuff off of ThinkGeek the other day when I ran across this gem.

Apparently, rainman has never heard of this character. His name is Fruit Fucker 2000 (complete with feed reamer and pulp ejector). He originally created by the fine geniuses over at Penny-Arcade a few years ago.

In case you haven’t seen or heard of this character, you can check out his saga here. Note that the first part of this saga is by far one of the funnier PA comics I’ve read (I’ve been reading since about 2000).

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

This lovable little guy has appeared in a few other comics, one of which may cause spontaneous laughter.