QotD for 15 Dec., 2009

On the occasion of the birthday of the creator of Esperanto...

"I am profoundly convinced that every nationalism offers humanity only the greatest unhappiness... It is true that the nationalism of oppressed peoples -- as a natural self-defensive reaction -- is much more excusable than the nationalism of peoples who oppress; but, if the nationalism of the strong is ignoble, the nationalism of the weak is imprudent; both give birth to and support each other..." ---L. L. Zamenhof

QotD for 11 Dec., 2009

"XML is like violence - if it doesn’t solve your problems, you are not using enough of it." --- quote from the Nokogiri XML parser documentation

[tip o' the hat to Graham Glass]

QotD for 8 Dec., 2009

With all the furor from the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning the recent election of a certain suffragan bishop in the Dio. of Los Angeles fresh on our minds, I couldn't help but recall a famous quotation:

"I wouldn't go to Lambeth if Jesus himself was there handing out $1,000 bills. I went once before, and if assholes had wings Lambeth would be an airport!" --- the Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris, first female bishop in the Anglican Communion

Windows 7 and Sound Blaster Live! cards

Ran into my first problem with Windows 7 right after the initial install. No sound. Nada. Zippo. Silencio.

Turns out that Creative - the company that mfg. the soundcard - doesn't have drivers for the Sound Blaster Live! under Vista or Windows 7. Probably want you to spend money on a new soundcard instead :P

But a bit of Googling revealed the somewhat tedious workaround.

1. Goto Creative's support website and download the WinXP driver for the Sound Blaster Live! The filename is LiveDrvUni-Pack(ENG).exe


2. Before you run the file, right-click on it and choose "Troubleshoot compatibility." Then select "Troubleshoot program."


3. Select "Program worked in earlier versions of Windows..." and click "Next."


4. Select "Windows XP (SP2)" and click "Next."


5. Select "Start the program" and click "Next."


6. Select "Yes to save" and click "close."

Now the driver install program will successfully run, and when you restart - you should have sound. Yes, all that work because Creative got greedy and decided they'd try to force you to buy a new soundcard ;)

Update: There is also an independent project to write a WDM-type driver which supports the Live! and any, other EMU10K1 and EMU10K2-based soundcard - the kX Project. Word has it that this requires some tweaking once installed, but they do list Windows 7 as a supported OS.

QotD for 13 Nov., 2009

The megachurches are mall-like villages or gated communities with Wednesday nite karaoke and movies and Sunday 'prosperity gospel'. Faith is not between you and God, it's 'your team' and flag and get out of jail free card; virtue is a concept, not practice; sacrifice is for chumps and "I'm a special case, with extenuating circumstances, but I'm still a good person cuz I say the right things about God and Country and you don't." ---Mark Brady, in a comment on Bob Carlton's Facebook

Lord 'o mercy, but I do love a good, righteous rant. Amen.

Great Deal on a Macbook

If you know anyone in the market for Apple's least expensive Macbook, Microcenter is running a rebate deal until 11/15/09 that gets you $200 off list price ($799 after rebate - the form is in a link to a PDF file at the bottom of the page)

The rebate is a $200 Visa giftcard - usable anywhere that takes Visa, but can't be converted to cash at an ATM. I've got a slightly older version of this laptop and it's a perfectly pleasant, usable machine.

Pass the word around to anyone you know who might be interested...

QotD for 30 Oct., 2009

“I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.” ---Jesper Rønn-Jensen