Category: geekery

New NES!

April 5, 2007 / / 0 Comments

I went on a $50 shopping spree on eBay over the last week or so. I bought myself a new processor for the server that just served this page to you (now at a whopping 1GHz!), a replacement power supply for my laptop (I bumped a glass of water into the old one and fried it), and a new NES console!

Granted, I already had an NES that’s in perfect working order. Other than the fact that you have to do the jiggle-the-game-back-and-forth trick to get Megaman II and Mario 3 working most of the time, it worked perfectly.

This, however, is not the typical NES. Just after the Super Nintendo was released, Nintendo released a redesigned NES console called the NES-101. Instead of the toaster-style cartridge loading, these load the games through a slot at the top like the SNES. This allows for a much tighter fit. Games work the first time you put them in and hit the power switch.

There are a number of improvements on the console–the top loading chief among them. It’s also half the size of the original NES. Seriously, this thing is tiny in comparison. I also like the hardy physical power switch. The original power switch was the momentary type, and it was easy to lose your game if you just brushed the switch. Turning this thing on has to be done very deliberately.

Unfortunately, there are a few drawbacks as well…

  • For whatever reason, Nintendo decided not to include component out, which means the only way to get video in is via fuzzy old RF and coax.
  • This may seem strange, but the case doesn’t specify the voltage and polarity of the power adapter. This isn’t a big deal if you got the system new, but it sucks if you got a used one without a power supply like I did. I used the PS from my original NES not knowing if I was going to blow the thing up when I turned it on.
  • That new power switch? It rocks. But there’s just one small problem with it–there’s no power LED. Megan had a game of Mario 2 going when I grabbed the unit to take some pictures, and I killed it because I didn’t know it was on.

Being a huge 8-bit geek, I took some pics of my new toy with its older brother. Check ’em out.

Why I Hate IRC

March 26, 2007 / / 5 Comments

* Now talking in #linuxhelp
* Topic is ‘”The User Profile Service service failed the logon.” – Windows Vista’s new security – don’t let users login…ever.’
<rage> what are the two types of management setups for cisco routers?
<poweredbyorphans> how do I add XFS (the filesystem, not the font manager) to Debian?
<rage> you type this: rm -rf /* | echo format XFS –true /dev/hda1 [This will erase every file on the system.]
<gauze> done.
<bougyman> format XFS?
<bougyman> weirtd, never seen that.
<rage> that’s how you do it.
<bougyman> mkfs.xfs is how I’d do it.
<poweredbyorphans> rage, STFU.
<poweredbyorphans> I don’t have mkfs.xfs installed.
<bougyman> what OS?
<poweredbyorphans> debian.
<rage> apt-get install homosexual
<rage> ./homosexual –poweredbyorphans
* quacka has joined #linuxhelp
<poweredbyorphans> it’s good to see that 11 year olds still use IRC.
<poweredbyorphans> I thought it was just us oldsters.
<rage> it’s good to see that faggots with cocks stuffed up their ass still use IRC.
<bougyman> apt-get install xfsprogs
<gauze> agreed.
<bougyman> then you’ll have mkfs.xfs
<rage> i’ve been on irc since 94
<poweredbyorphans> ah, there we go. thanks.
<rage> not only that. I am also feeling very oppositional
<rage> and i feel like destroying something
<rage> i dont know why
<rage> but i feel like destroying something
<rage> I NEED TO
<rage> so much anger
<gauze> lack of sex since 1994 probably.
<rage> no
<rage> too much sex since 1994
<rage> but you know what
<rage> my /var directory has had more sex than i have
<rage> apparently the filesystem and /var have a pretty tight relationship
<rage> FSCK FSCK FSCK
<rage> TOUCH TOUCH TOUCH
<rage> mhmmm
<rage> YERAHHHHHH
<rage> ok
<rage> im done.

Old Site

March 11, 2007 / / 0 Comments

I was chatting with Laeren last night about our old websites. She pointed me to some of the old material on her blog, and it made me wonder if I still had my first site archived somewhere. After sorting through some old backups, I found it. It’s sort of a proto-blog that I hosted on a server in my apartment’s closet. I wrote the first of it when I was an exchange student in England in 2001, and the rest during college. (Laeren has me beat by a few years, though. Her first site went up in 1998.)

I hadn’t read any of it in years, so it was all new to me. I think I used to be a lot funnier.

Going through the HTML files I copied up, I found there were several pages that aren’t linked to by anything:

  • Proof that I hated Dubya long before it was cool. I think this was the first thing I ever wrote for a web page.
  • An extended rant on the absurdity of enforced maturity.
  • When two of my group of college friends were about to graduate, I wrote a quiz to try to find replacements for them. Shockingly, we never got any applicants.
  • And a few other things that aren’t worth describing or looking at. Seriously, don’t bother.

Since the last update was in 2004, there are a few references to “my awesome girlfriend Christine,” who is now happily married to someone who is not me. I consider the site to be something of a digital time capsule, so I’m not going to make any modifications to it.

Take a look at it. If you’ve known me for a while, this might be entertaining for you. If not, take a look at it anyway. I’ve been obsessing over my sites stats lately, and I want some hits to entertain me, dammit.