Nerd Test

If I ever think I am nerdy, I can come online and get proven wrong. The internet is full of nerds and geeks, and how wonderful it is. Finally, a place where the nerd/geek can dominate.

my Google group!!

I have been browsing the Usenet boards as of recent. You can kind of tell that the old timers are the ones who post there. There's almost no l33t speak, and the English language is remarkably intact. It's quite refreshing, actually.

My Google Group is a group for people who like funny pictures. For those of us who appreciate graphical humour. If you like graphical humour, I wish for you to join.

Maybe my next goal will be to go spam Facebook. I hate Facebook, I have to use my real name on it, so spamming isn't quite as much fun.

(social) network updates

Well, since there's so much stuff on this internet of ours, I have a zillion accounts of various types throughout the web. Most of them I probably have forgotten about. <deleted> The only problem I have with Mugshot is that it is not very inclusive. There is only an extremely limited amount of websites which are included. They have the idea right, though. Another contention I have is the erratic updating of the "Stacker" (the Mugshot equivalent of a feed). Also, the kinds of updates. I don't know if anyone really cares that I have a new message on Facebook. I think they would more care about my status changes and other such things. Also, with Last.fm, it tries to update every song. This is in absolutely no way practical with the extreme slowness of the updates, considering most people listen to a huge amount of songs at a time. It should just mass update every hour, saying " listened to <#> songs" or something like that.

Sorry, I am going off on a tangent. Anyway, here is a list of several sites I am a member of. For the most part, these are sites I participate in quite regularly. Except for Amazon, that was one of those random things that Mugshot asked for for some reason. Anyway, here you go:

<deleted>

The thing I use the most is my Xbox Live gamertag. I play games much more than I use these other sites. Except Facebook, which isn't up there, because I can't link directly to it. Not that I would link strangers to my Facebook profile. I like my internet anonymity, thank you very much.

Axe marketing campaign stupidity

Someone seriously needs to shoot/kick/throat punch/lynch the Axe marketing team. I just saw the newest "cottage" ad for Axe and they're getting stupider and stupider. I think they're paying monkeys to come up with and design marketing campaigns. What makes it worse is that Axe is an absolutely vile, overpriced product. You can buy five of the competitor's product for the price of one bottle of Axe, and the competitor's product actually works. It should be marketed as an emetic medication. More evidence this world is going to hell in a handbasket. Fuck capitalism.

iCoke; what the fuck?

What the fuck is our world coming to? Apparently the existing words in the English language are changing. I always thought the word "free" meant that you could receive something without paying for it. Below is an excerpt from the iCoke website:

"FREE Coke with every 10th PIN!

Starting May 1st, every 10th PIN you enter gets you an offer for a FREE Coke. However, if you choose not to accept the offer when prompted, the opportunity won't come again until you've entered another 10 more PINs."

The gist of iCoke is that you can collect PIN numbers under caps of Coke. Each PIN gives you like 500 points (no matter what the size of the bottle, which is another point of contention for me, but that's another argument). You can collect points and redeem them for things. Most of the prizes is shit I will never want or need, but the only reason I collect is because one of the prizes is movie tickets (although they pretty much never have them in stock, which is yet another annoyance from Coke).

Coke, in one of their streaks of wisdom, decided to implement the above promotion. When I saw it I thought "hey, something else I might find useful for once". So, I entered my PIN numbers (I generally get quite a few at a time because my significant other and me both collect and share PINS, because we use the movie tickets together) and got up to 10 PIN numbers pretty quickly. I then got the following message:

"You have received this exclusive offer because you've entered 10 iCoke PINS*. All you have to do is redeem 5,000 iCoke Coins and you'll receive a coupon† for a FREE Coke. Be careful, if you close this page the offer will be gone for good!"

What the fuck? So, if I take the offer, the points I just entered were pretty much a waste of time and effort? (10 x 500 = 5000, nullifying the addition to my points balance) I got lied to once again? I thought that when I entered 10 PINS Coke would grace me with a small blessing of their thanks by giving me a free Coke (after consuming 10 of them to get the fucking points). But no, that's far too much to ask for. "Here is a free Coke... that will be 5000 points please". Does anyone else see this as being as stupid as I do?

stupid wireless in Ubuntu, plus Hardy Heron

As I have said before, I have been having problems with wireless in Ubuntu. I gave up with my old crappy SMC thing, and went on eBay and bought a D-Link DWL-G122 wireless adapter ($30, you can't go wrong). It's pretty much just a USB dongle, so it's about one quarter the size of my old one. It also doesn't have the connectivity problems (in Windows) that the old one had. With the SMC, every couple hours or so it would randomly disconnect for no apparent reason. It would just lose sight of our wireless network, even though the wireless network is always on. The only time it's ever gone off is during a power outage, or if I reset the router. Anyway, I've been suggested a few links to instructions on how to install this thing. I know it's compatible because it says so on the official Ubuntu site. But I got stuck at one part because the computer needed an internet connection (which I do not have without either wireless or a huge ass ethernet cable, and obviously wireless is not an option). I plugged the computer in to the ethernet cable, and a few updates pop up, including the distribution update (new version, Hardy Heron). So I am installing that, and it says now it's going to take like an hour or so. So, we're on a break from the wireless installation. The funny thing about this is that my brother has been using the ethernet cable for his internet, and right now I am borrowing it. When I borrowed it, I told him I would be about 10 minutes.

I have not used Hardy yet, obviously, but I am definitely looking forward to doing so. There are many new features it seems. Some of the changes listed include Firefox 3 Beta 4, which could be interesting. I've noticed that Firefox doesn't seem to get updated very often, but Mozilla favours Linux users... which is good. There is also things like a new BitTorrent client, and a CD burning program that looks pretty good. I'm also quite intrigued by the new feature that allows the display of different times for different time zones. I can easily keep track of what time it is where gaming opponents might be (eg. Japan, England). Please note that the link above is to the Hardy Heron Beta page. I am sure there have been more things added even since then. Since the point of beta is to test and change things. See this link for information on the alpha release.

There is also an important sound driver update that's coming out. Maybe it will fix my sound problems! Maybe it will fix the sound in Pidgin. I won't know until I get Hardy Heron (8.04) installed.

I know I am kind of rambling, but I am waiting for Hardy to install, which is another 1 hour and 8 minutes apparently. I guess I can leave and play Xbox or something...