alex chiang: web 6.0

I spent Turkey Day this year out in Moab, UT for a few sweet days of mountain biking. Everything was fantastic: the weather, the people, and the riding.

I was a bit apprehensive at first, not being the best mountain biker in the world, and Moab’s tough reputation pinging around in the back of my mind was a bit worrisome. It turns out that even a punter like me can ride trails such as the famous Slickrock trail, as well as Porcupine Rim (a few cuts and bruises notwithstanding). Between those two trails and a bit of mucking around on the lower Monitor and Merrimac trail, we got about 45 miles over three days.

All in all, highly entertaining, and I’m already looking forward to the next visit. Check out more pics here: http://flickr.com/photos/chizang/tags/moabgiving2005/

I don’t understand the all the rage about podcasts. As far as I can tell, the selling point of podcasts is this: You get music on your ipod — like you already do — but someone else controls what you listen to and there’s stupid-ass DJ chatter between the tracks. And now Wired has an article about podcasters adding advertisements to their podcasts.

Pardon me if I think this is similar to getting a light saber, but it only works if you light it on fire… by repeatedly knocking two rocks together. And it doesn’t work when a cloud floats overhead. Who needs future technology when we can use past technology!

Psst, hey guys! YOU ARE DUMB!

In a perhaps not-unsurprising move, the Vatican has rejected intelligent design.

Why unsurprising? Consider that intelligent design is most heavily promoted by Protestant fundamentalists with whom the Vatican has long disagreed with. We see from the article, however, that the Vatican isn’t simply disagreeing just to be annoying. They are taking the view that I’ve argued all along:

[...] the real message in Genesis was that “the universe didn’t make itself and had a creator”. [...] the precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm - science.

Good job, Vatican.

(This post originally written 07-November-2005)

This essay by a doctor was posted in the NY Times a while ago, but I still feel compelled to post about it.

Here is one of the funniest things I have read, online or not, fiction or not, ever:

A few years ago, a young woman waited patiently to be seen in our office after hours. She was a patient of one of my colleagues, but she couldn’t wait for their scheduled appointment; she needed to see someone right away.

“I’m worried I have Lyme disease,” she said. “I have all the symptoms. I think I need to be treated.”

“But you have AIDS,” I said.

“I’m tired and weak and I have fevers and sweats. I’ve lost my appetite. I can’t think straight. I’m losing so much weight!”

She had seen a TV news report on Lyme disease, and then she had checked the Internet. All her symptoms were right there.

“But you have AIDS,” I said. “And you don’t want to take meds. That’s why you’re feeling so bad.”

“I’m really scared about Lyme disease,” she said. “I really need to get treated.”

“If you want to be scared, how about that untreated AIDS of yours?”

Hahahahahahahah! “How about that untreated AIDS of yours?”

Oh wait, there’s an epilogue too:

Eventually she coerced my colleague into testing her for Lyme disease and treating her despite negative tests. Then she decided her symptoms might actually be due to a brain tumor, instead. And so it went, until she died of AIDS.

Enough said.

(This post originally written 02-November-2005)

I know that some of y’all out there wonder “what the hell does Alex actually DO????” I mean, I can blab about software this and that until the cows come home, but for some reason, eyes continue to glaze over.

Well this leak came out last week, but I refrained from commenting. Now check this out: HP BL60p UNIX Blade solution. It’s something that I had a hand in, and it’s tangible. Look ma, a computer! (and for the geeks, here are the specs)

Oh yeah, and when you get a chance, please buy a grillion of them.

(This post originally written 02-November-2005)

Next time I’m in Pekin, IL, I’m gonna go to the store and get myself a t-shirt.

(This post originally written 01-November-2005)

I remember reading this article a while ago: iPod vs music snobs and being somewhat amused.

Well, now I’m That Guy who just liberated a Music Snob’s entire (23 GB, 4713 songs) library and gave just about nothing in return. Look at all these cool bands whose music I now own:

• Badly Drawn Boy
• The Beta Band
• Bright Eyes
• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
• Godspeed You Black Emperor!
• Jets to Brazil
• Kanye West
• The Mars Volta
• Minus the Bear

And that’s only a sampling of the bands up to “M”! I’m actually TWICE as cool as what I just listed because I didn’t even go into the 2nd half of the alphabet. I bet you’ve never even heard of these bands. Well, now I have their music, and I will listen to them (maybe) and lord my knowledge over you to prove my superiority. (Unfortunately, I have no explanation for the presence of bands such as Blind Melon and Counting Crows in Music Snob’s library. Maybe he went insane at one point and forgot to clean up afterwards.)

Just kidding. Music snobs are dumb. I should delete all that crap and listen to U2’s Joshua Tree on repeat. Forever.

(This post originally written 31-October-2005)

I’m not normally one to rave about Linux distributions, mostly because I picked one a long time ago (debian) and stuck with it. However, I am pleased to report that I’m now running Ubuntu on my Asus Pundit-R based system and have finally gotten the TV-Out to work thanks to a clue from this guy.

The key was to run fglrxconfig. However, instead of wiping out your existing xorg.conf, all you really need are these options in your “Device” Section:

 # === TV-out Management ===
Option "TVFormat"                   "NTSC-M"
Option "TVStandard"                 "VIDEO"
Option "TVHSizeAdj"                 "0"
Option "TVVSizeAdj"                 "0"
Option "TVHPosAdj"                  "0"
Option "TVVPosAdj"                  "0"
Option "TVHStartAdj"                "0"
Option "TVColorAdj"                 "0"
Option "GammaCorrectionI"           "0x00000000"
Option "GammaCorrectionII"          "0x00000000"

The other thing I did was to create a new “Monitor” and “Screen” section:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "TvMonitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier      "TvScreen"
Device          "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon 9100 A5 (R200 IGP)"
Monitor         "TvMonitor"
DefaultDepth    24

Subsection "Display"
Depth   24
Modes   "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection

EndSection

Obviously, you shouldn’t forget to update your “ServerLayout” to use the new Screen:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier      "Default Layout"
#Screen         "Default Screen"
Screen          "TvScreen"
InputDevice     "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice     "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

As they say, w00t!

(This post originally written 30-October-2005)