I Assure You, That’s Me

I bought a new webcam today. Spontaneously I bought a cheap Creative Webcam Vista or whatever the heck it was called. It was dirt-cheap, I just couldn’t stop myself despite my official loathing for most everything from that hell-spawned corporation named Creative.

On the bus home I figured I’d be very surprised if it worked in Ubuntu, since the whole freakin’ package was smeared with “Vista Compatible” everywhere.

Turns out if works just fine in 8.10. In fact, it was easier to install in Ubuntu than in Windows XP.

Here’s the steps required to make it work automagically in Ubuntu 8.10:

* Plug the damn thing in.
* Wait four seconds. Or something, I wasn’t exactly using a stopwatch.
* Done!

Here’s the steps required when I decided I wanted to use it in my virtualized Windows XP-machine:

* Plug the damn thing in.
* Nothing happens except for Windows popping up it’s usual “What the hell is this? Give me drivers!”-box.
* Remember that you most likely have to install drivers before plugging it in. Stupid! Stupid!
* Unplug the damn thing.
* Download drivers and additional software from the maze that acts as Creatives website.
* Install drivers and additional software.
* Reboot.
* Plug the damn thing in again.
* Done!

Previous to buying this camera I’d been using an ancient Logitech QuickCam Web, made some time in 2001 I think. Worked fine for most purposes, except after upgrading to 8.10 it had stopped working in a majority of applications – most likely due to Video4Linux going through some heavy changes. It had never worked in Skype under Linux, and had enjoyed spotty support in general. For example, Cheese had never recognized it previously despite my many attempts at tickling it into service. No go.

This new one however, despite being Vista-branded up the wazoo, worked fine in all these applications. Skype? No problem. Cheese? Like a charm. Amsn? You betcha.

So I played around a bit with Cheese. Owners of gilded cages know what Photobooth is. Cheese is an open-source kind of clone of Photobooth. Cheese works in a similar way. You see yourself in the webcam, you push a button, it takes a photo. You can also apply cheesy effects. The effects are built-in and perform various oddities such as making you green and purple like the Hulk, or flipping you upside down, or making wobbly effects. Fun for about five seconds – until I discovered that it was possible to layer multiple effects. So after playing around with various combinations I activated ALL the effects, and here’s the result:

2009-03-19-233504

I assure you, that’s my face. Here’s one without any effects applied, just for comparison.

2009-03-19-233543

And just because I love uploading photos, here’s a screenshot of the interface:

cheese

The Meaning Behind “Poisonous Friend”

I gushed a bit about Seabound in an earlier posting, especially about their song “Poisonous Friend”. You might want to read that post again since what I’m going to write now reference the lyrics from that song. Or you can Google it, see if I care.

Anyway. For the last few days I’ve been casually trying to figure out what that song really is about. Just like Mr Pink deducing that Madonnas “Like A Virgin” is really about well-endowed members of the male species I have now figured out the true meaning of this song.

It’s about a man who has multiple personalities. Or in this case, dual personalities. He shares his head with the personality of a psychotic serial-killing woman. Mostly the main character is in control, but occasionally he loses control and the other personality takes over, perpetrating horrible crimes while he watches, unable to do anything.

This is evidenced in several lines, and once I realized this the rest was obvious.

You frighten me
You spy on me
You’re scaring me
You care for me

He’s scared of this other personality since it’s so violent. The other personality also protects him, knowing that they can only co-exist in the same body, thus she tries (unsuccessfully as it would seem) to shield him from the knowledge of her.

She’s living in the house

Of course, since they share the same body they also share the same house.

She knows my body inside out

Again, since it’s a body shared by two personalities she knows his body inside out and is familiar with all the quirks.

I don’t recall when this affair began
She was simply there

I would guess that maybe he developed this other personality due to some traumatic event in his life? Who knows. One day she simply appeared.

Sometimes I watch her kill
Cold eyes and no restraint
And I wonder how it feels
To annihilate a friend

When he loses control and she takes over he can still see through the eyes and watch her do her deeds. He sees the acts she performs, but don’t understand the emotion that drives it.

You frighten me
It’s getting harder to conceal
You spy on me
All my secrets are revealed

Since the two personalities are aware of each other it would seem that aspects of their existence bleed over onto each other, and they can watch each other “inside” the shared brain. So far he might have managed to keep his thoughts private, but it would seem she’s figuring out ways around it.

So, what do you think? Am I correct in deducing this or am I completely wrong here?

Posted in Electronic, Music. No Comments »

Gary Dourdan’s Abomination

I have a big interest in cars. Especially classic muscle-cars tickle my imagination quite a lot. My absolute favorite among muscle-cars is the 1968 Dodge Charger, which is easily one of the coolest cars ever produced in my opinion. The fabled Mustang can’t hold a candle to it as far as I’m concerned.

So the other night I was slacking off and zapping around the boob-tube and I came across a show called Street Customs. It features West Coast Customs, of “Pimp My Ride”-fame but in their new and much bigger locale. The tone is also much less wacky than Pimp My Ride, and focuses on the various customers and builds produced there.

(Now, before I launch into the tirade I have planned, I gotta say that I find that the more corporate a car-customizer company gets, the more bored I am. When I see shows about custom cars it’s usually the small garage-companies that I feel most akin with, not the huge, gaudy factories such as the one WCC has become)

The episode in question features Gary Dourdan. Gary plays (or used to, I think his character got killed off) Warrick Brown on CSI: Las Vegas. I can’t really comment on Gary as a person since I of course have never met him, but judging from the show he has as a taste in cars that is as tasteless as it is eccentric.

He came in and wanted a Dodge Charger – but with a twist. He wanted a brand-new Charger, but that they should chop off the entire body, keep the chassis, engine, various struts and stuff and plunk a 1968 B-body Charger on top of this thing.

Alright, fine. I figured this was a wacky enough pursuit and since I like the ’68s I decided to watch it.

Well, the resulting car can only be called an abomination in my eyes. It’s a faux-charger, and it looks absolutely awful. First off, why would anyone want a candy-apple green Charger? Chargers should come in strong base-colors. Black, red, orange. Whatever. Not candy-apple Green.

Secondly, everything about it clashes with everything else. The dashboard and all of the interior such as seats are from the “new” Charger. This looks completely out of place with the old body. It’s just awful. To make it even worse, he asked for a confederate flag on the roof – but in african colors! This makes the whole car look even more hideous.

So, this is an abomination. This is a Frankencharger, and not in a good way. Just look at the photos. Anyone with any love for the ’68 Charger will absolutely loathe this creation. Just look at how the dash clashes with the line of the windshield, or how the wheels look completely out of place. Awful!

Posted in Cars. 6 Comments »

Peter Danowsky Är Ett Verktyg

Jag sitter och läser Christians utdrag ur Peter Danowskys slutplädering mot TPB. Jag vet tamefan inte om jag ska skratta eller gråta åt galenskaperna som denna karl kläcker ur sig.

Tool
One who lacks the mental capacity to know he is being used. A fool. A cretin. Characterized by low intelligence and/or self-esteem.
Example: That tool dosen’t even know she’s just using him.

(Källa: Urban Dictionary)

För det är vad Peter Danowsky är: ett verktyg. Han bryr sig mest troligt inte om att han är det, det finns säkert mycket pengar i att vara ett verktyg, förutsatt att man saknar kognitivt tänkande och/eller någon form av sinne för etik.

Låt mig därför kommentera några godbitar Danowsky kläckt ur sig. Dessa godbitar har jag skamlöst knyckt från Christian.

Danowsky refererar till ett hovrättsmål, och pratar om att även om man inte kan veta om en nedladdning motsvarar ett uteblivet köp, bör man ändå räkna det så.

Jo, men bara för att jag säger att Peter Danowsky är en usel imitation av en fungerande människa och i fortsättningen ska betala mig tretusen kronor i timmen resten av mitt liv, samt att man bör räkna det så betyder ju inte att det är sant eller att det kommer att hända. Att dra den jämförelsen är bara absurd, och enbart en advokat kan faktiskt säga såna bisarra påståenden utan att han spontant kräks för det är så orimligt.

Men det är faktiskt sant att Peter Danowsky är en usel imitation av en fungerande människa.

- Förutom att Neij, Swartholm, Sunde och Lundström har gjort så att sajten fanns, har de dessutom närmast uppmanat till illegal fildelning och uppvisat en “attityd”, säger Danowsky. Det bör leda till högre straff.

Åh nej, de har uppvisat attityd! De har vågat vara fräcka mot någon som har mer självutnämnd status! Att de vågar! Maken till fräckhet! Peter, det är inte olagligt att visa attityd, även om du vill få det till att bli det. Det är sånt jävla hyckleri att jag tror min tjocktarm kommer att slå knut på sig själv ju mer jag tänker på det. Jag ska börja polisanmäla mina grannar när de visar “attityd”, kommer du och slåss för min sak då?

- De tilltalade har åberopat Roger Wallis, vars 30%-iga gästprofessur närmast har tjänat att ge auktoritet åt vad som egentligen är att betrakta som debattartiklar, säger Danowsky. Företrädarna för branschen, som Ifpis president John Kennedy, vet däremot vad de talar om.

Skitsnack. Det enda de vet är vad de blivit tillsagda att säga. Jag tvivlar på att John Kennedy skulle kunna föra ett vettigt samtal om upphovsrätt, skivförsäljning eller ens vilket som är godare av Hallonsoda eller Fanta utan att ha fusklappar som någon annan skrivit åt honom. Hackern i mig störs enormt när man använder bogus-kriterier som ett mått på hur viktig någons åsikt är.

- Renforsutredningen, “Musik och film på internet – hot eller möjglighet?”, är en rik källa till inspiration, säger Danowsky. Kapitel 8 i utredningen ägnas helt åt användarundersökningar. Där ser vi att de som fildelar köper laglig musik i betydligt mindre omfattning.

Renfors-utredningen har debunkats i så många olika nivåer att den är generellt ansedd som mindre pålitlig objektiv informationskälla än Mein Kampf. Däremot har flertalet oberoende undersökningar visat att fildelare tvärtom köper mer musik än icke-fildelare gör.

- The Pirate Bay är tydligt kommersiel, säger Danowsky. Det ser man av annonsförsäljningen, kontraktsskrivandet och varumärkesbyggandet. De har till och med sålt t-shirts för att hjälpa till att bygga varumärket.

Det här är ett så tråkigt och betonggrått tänk i den här typen av människor. De kan inte förstå att saker har icke-kommersiella ursprung och att hackers (som jag räknar TPB-teamet till) mest ser pengar som ett irriterande och störande moment som hindrar dem från att göra det de vill. Du kan ju också prova driva en välbesökt site på bara luft och glada tankar. Jag vet själv hur dyrt det är ens att hålla en liten garderobsserver igång, och även om jag helst gjort det helt utan vinnings skull har jag några få text-annonser för att få lite inkomst som hjälper mig med min hiskeliga elräkning. Men jag antar att i ditt urblåsta ägg till huvud innebär det att jag är “kommersiell verksamhet”?

Varumärket? Tillåt mig att asgarva. The Pirate Bay är lika mycket ett varumärke som jag är rysk kosmonaut. Enda orsaken till den här vinkeln är att IFPI och övriga mediamafiosos vill få det till att vara en hemsk kommersiell konspiration mot små, oskyldiga bolag.