Stone Monkey

I have rather a penchant for doing goofy things. Like running a full GNOME install on a laptop with 256 megs of RAM. One day, in a fit of lunatic excess brought on by a combination of constant disk-thrashing and recent blogging about lightweight desktop options, I ordered some RAM from NewEgg, and moved to Fluxbox in the interim. The shocking thing is, now that the RAM is installed, and my hard drive has ceased doing an imitation of a manic organ grinder, I cannot for the life of me find a good reason to switch back to GNOME.

Now, this is uncanny considering that I’ve always used GNOME, and find it a pleasant and esthetically pleasing environment, not to mention the fact that I tend to develop withdrawal symptoms whenever I force myself to try something else. So why, then, do I find within myself a curious indifference to the idea of switching back to GNOME?

Probably the best way to start out is to explain what I find so spiffy about Flux, as it is affectionately abbreviated by it’s partisans.

To start with, all Flux’s configuration files lie within the ~/.fluxbox directory. They are quite well-formed, singularly uncluttered text files, in the grand old Unix tradition. I find them a pleasure to edit. This must be compared rather favorably to GNOME’s GConf, which, while better than a certain abomination from Redmond, cannot hold a candle to the simple beauty of the flat text file. Keybindings? Text. Menu files? Text. Init files? Text. And it’s not just that the files are a joy to work with, they also allow you to modify virtually every aspect of Flux. I cannot tell you how many times I thought “It would be nice if this were possible”, and finding upon perusal of Flux’s concise yet comprehensive man page that it was indeed easily done.

Fluxbox also looks quite pleasingly clean and simple. That is, when you notice it. Actually, there’s usually not much of it on screen. That’s a good thing, as a certain female head of a a major commercial conglomerate is wont to say. Flux is remarkably themeable, allowing the use of color gradients and blending, or pixmaps, all yet again defined in a simple text file. Googling for screenshots will pleasantly surprise you, I am sure.

At first I thought that I would miss GNOME’s menu bar. Then I realized that I never used it for launching applications anyway, preferring instead to use launchers and the run dialog. I do somewhat miss the auto-addition of apps to the menu via desktop files, but if you keep track of what’s going on, you can add them to the menu file yourself. There are several “generate menu” script for Fluxbox, but all that I tried missed a good chunk of apps. But, as I say, if a good run dialog and launchers are available, I don’t use the menu anyway.

Fluxbox includes a taskbar with a window list, a notification area, a desktop switcher, a clock, in short most of the useful necessities. Not to mention a delightful feature known as window tabs. Think Firefox, people. And if you don’t need these things, or want them somewhere else, the only thing standing between you and your desires is a text editor.

Oh, and of course, Fluxbox’s demands on your system’s resources is next to negligible. Plus, it’s remarkably stable and is backed by a pretty vibrant community. Now there are a handful of other apps that make up my new desktop, and I may talk about them later, but Fluxbox is at the core. The fundamental attractiveness of Fluxbox is that it just works like I want it to. I almost forget it’s there sometimes, it works so seamlessly.

This is based on info gathered from here and here. This info is tailored for wireless cards using the madwifi driver, and will allow you to use wireless access points that use browser portals with the DS, without having to buy the DS browser.

1. Install macchanger. On Gentoo just “emerge macchanger”

2. Turn on your DS, and find your unique mac address. It’s in the DS’s wireless setup menu.

3. Open a terminal and gain root access

4. Exec these commands, in order:

wlanconfig <name of ath fake device> destroy

ifconfig <real wifi device node> down

macchanger –mac=<your DS mac addr here> <real wifi device node>

ifconfig <real wifi device node> up

wlanconfig <name of ath fake device> create wlandev <real wifi device node> wlanmode sta

On my system, the fake ath device is ath0, and the real node is wifi0.

5. Open your web browser and sign on to the portal. Since your PC now has the same mac address as your DS, the portal thinks that your PC is the DS.

6. Turn on your DS and access the wireless network normally.

7. Generate a new random mac address for your PC, so there’s no conflicts with the DS:

wlanconfig <name of ath fake device> destroy

ifconfig <real wifi device node> down

macchanger -r <real wifi device node>

ifconfig <real wifi device node> up

wlanconfig <name of ath fake device> create wlandev <real wifi device node> wlanmode sta

8. Done. Exact details may depends on how the particular portal works, and how long it keeps you logged in.

This is certainly hacky, but is does work, and can be helpful in some situations. Not being well versed in network stuff, I don’t know if this would make you popular with the network administrator, but whatever.

For reference, here’s the shell scripts I use for this process. Obviously, I don’t recommend using them without taking a look at them first.

dswifion:

#!/bin/sh

wlanconfig ath0 destroy &&
ifconfig wifi0 down &&
macchanger –mac=<my mac>
ifconfig wifi0 up &&
wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode sta

dswifioff:

#!/bin/sh

wlanconfig ath1 destroy &&
ifconfig wifi0 down &&
macchanger -r wifi0 &&
ifconfig wifi0 up &&
wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode sta

I’m a big review junkie. I rarely buy a game that I haven’t read at least 5-6 reviews on.

I’ve used GameSpot for reviews for quite some time, due to the fact that their reviews tended to be less, well, laudatory than most. That I consider a positive. A site that’s not afraid to go against hype and fanboys and call bad games bad, yet call really good games good, gets kudos from me. That’s why this recent controversy is such a shame. I think this justifies my general dislike of ad-saturated sites; every ad you put up puts you a little more in someone else’s pocket.

I think this is also a reflection on gamers. Why are publishers more concerned about maintaining hype and good press than they are about creating quality games? (And make no mistake, they are.) Because way too many gamers buy crap. Apparently there are even people who buy games based on their advertisements. This is even more of a problem in the movie industry, but they’ve found yes-critics who will lavish praises on even the lousiest movies. Look at the movie ads in the paper, you’ll see what I mean.

So my message is: If you (and me) want the industry to focus less on hype and more on quality, stop giving in to hype and take games seriously. Accept and cultivate only the best, do not settle for anything less. This applies to much more than games. Just because it’s “entertainment” doesn’t mean you shouldn’t demand greatness. Look at many reviews, both positive and negative, before you make a decision. Don’t buy crap.

(Plug: And for a site with honest reviews and less ads, try GameRevolution. They don’t usually get the reviews out as fast, but when they do, they’re good.)

Most of what I’ve been playing on my DS recently has been touchscreen only,
or has used only a limited subset of the buttons. I think that’s why this crept up on me…

After my recent discovery of the Nintendo DS’s WiFi capabilities (I’ll explain in a later post), I was playing some online Mario Kart, and lo and behold, my left shoulder button didn’t respond when I tried to use an item. After repeated attempts and a lost match made this ugly fact sink in, I tried other game carts, in the vain hope that ’twas a passing glitch. Still no luck. I then realized that my DS was broke. Brisé, as the French say.

O agony! O horror! O the depths of the yawning black pit of despair!!

My heart sank as I realized that I had purchased my DS in January, and so very probably any meager warranty that I might have been entitled to had surely lapsed. You know, those cheezy “90 Day Guarantee” thingies that usually come with outrageously expensive and fragile electronic devices.

In a state of aimless despair, I listlessly surfed to the Nintendo repair site. Eh? What’s this!?
A rather generous 12-Month warranty on all systems! Egad! Faith ‘n Begorrah! Great Slavering Zebrankys!!

O Frabjous Day! Callooh, Callay!

I quickly filled out the requisite forms, was given a confirmation number, and was informed that a
prepaid shipping label was on the way along with instructions on how to ship the device back to Nintendo.

The story ends happily here, you say? All is resolved, you say? General rejoicing in the streets, eh?

Nope.

A few days later, all of a sudden, without warning, the cheeky faulty button started working perfectly again. No reason, no rhyme. It’s still working, and it hasn’t even hinted at a malfunction after several prolonged gaming sessions.

Now I don’t know what to do. I can’t very well send it in now, since it works fine. I suppose all I can do is wait, and hope against hope that if it breaks, it’ll break before my warranty runs out at the end of the year.

Now this is in contrast to my Sega Nomad which I banged upon for four years and which never once complained. Sigh. I guess they just don’t make ‘em like they used to.

To be fair, though, Nintendo’s warranty and general reputation for reliability are far, far better than their competitors(*hack*Microsoft*hack*). You wouldn’t believe the unspeakable tortures my kid brothers subjected my old GBA SP to when it passed to them. I can’t even think of it without sweating profusely. And it still works. And before you ask, no, they don’t come anywhere near my DS. On pain of death, or something.

The other day I was doing some “language grazing”, whereby I look at some programming languages I don’t know anything about. I’m more of an ideologue when it comes to languages. Conceptually uniform, elegant, with a clean syntax. I don’t require C-like style, paradigms, or symbols to make myself feel at home, and I have a soft spot for unusual stuff.

For this particular session I had picked Perl, Pascal, and Scheme. Perl, because it’s supposed to be a useful Unix sysadmin’s tool, Pascal, because it’s obscure(nowadays, anyhow), and Scheme, because I vaguely recall someone mentioning it to me untold months ago.

I grabbed one of the “animal” Perl books from the local library, and nabbed online tutorials for Pascal and Scheme.

The Pascal thing just didn’t jive. You know when you get that feeling of  “This is just a cool language”?  Pascal didn’t do that for me.

Perl. Well, the knock against Perl is that it’s ugly. Some say that’s just because there are too many Perl coders who write ugly code, but whatever. It seems like a good scripting language with traditional procedural syntax that puts usage over concept. But I prefer a language that has sold itself to an all-encompassing, elegant idea.

I tried the Scheme tutorial. I hadn’t really considered Scheme before this, but upon examination, I was blown away by it. A simple, but robust syntax that can be combined in any number of ways.  Unlike other languages (like Java) that simply invent a syntactic construct when a new problem appears, Scheme’s core idea is so robust that it can handle a surprising amount of tasks as-is.  It’s simple elegance has won me over to the idea of functional programming. It’s like Lisp with a simple syntax. And no, the parentheses don’t bother me. I actually like them.

Alright, a new favorite language. There are still more out there, though. Smalltalk sounds interesting…

I just found out today from perusing her page on imdb.com that my favorite living composer says that her main musical influences were Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. I didn’t know that.

This is interesting because Ravel has been my other favorite composer for years. It’s interesting and slightly uncanny that I developed a liking for Kanno without ever knowing or suspecting that she regards my other favorite musician as one of her main influences.

Neato et maximus.

In case you haven’t already, take a swing by the Linux.com article titled, provocatively enough,

“Stallman survives Peruvian quake“

After noting that “It was strong enough to shake my body in an interesting way” and that

“it was an exhilarating experience” he goes on a tangent about religion.

So yeah, it’s pretty much run of the mill RMS stuff I guess.

Go read. I won’t spoil the rest for you.

I’ve just started reading book three in the Death Gate cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

This is unusual for me, because I have a major dislike of “high” fantasy. This, of course, calls my geek credentials into question, as it seems that fantasy is a cornerstone of nerd-dom. I just don’t like fantasy. I just can’t get excited about dwarves and elves and dragons and wizards and spells and all that jazz. I don’t even care for games in the fantasy genre as a general rule. Of course I’m also cursed with a love of RPG’s, so that tends to be a bit of a quandary.

Good, hard, non-pulpy sci-fi, yeah, just not fantasy.

I got pulled into the Death Gate cycle because of a marvellous adventure game based on the series called, ah, Death Gate. Created by the now-defunct but fondly-remembered Legend Entertainment, I found the game to be so well made and entertaining (as are most all Legend adventure games), that I was intrigued enough to check the books out from my local library.

I found a series that, while not a brilliant literary masterwork, is still an engrossing read. I’m a rather prolific reader, and I’ve read many timeless and finely-crafted works.
The Death Gate cycle is, essentially, a fun read. It’s prose isn’t brilliant or memorable, but the environments are highly imaginative, and it’s characters and plot are presented well enough to make you want to keep reading.

I still don’t like fantasy literature, but I fully intend to finish the cycle, and I’ll enjoy doing it.

I’ve been playing with homebrew software on the DS for some months now, and I thought I’d share my experiences.

Some people may not have even realized that there WAS such a thing as DS homebrew.

Well let me tell you, there is.

And it
(a. Doesn’t require firmware downgrades

(b. Doesn’t rely on odd hacks like buffer overflows in certain games.

This is how it works: You basically buy an adaptor that fits in the cartridge slot.
You plug an SD card into the adaptor. And any homebrew you want goes on the SD card. No muss, no fuss, no warranty invalidation or permanent alteration.

There’s quite a diverse selection of homebrew out there, too.
I can play MP3/OGG files, read text and view PNG’s and JPEG’s with Moonshell, and I can read my email with NDSMail.

There are ports for DOOM, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Descent, Heretic, Hexen and Flashback.

Scummvm has been ported, so you can play Monkey Island or Day Of The Tentacle.

Cave Story, the famous freeware PC game, is being ported.

There are working NES, SMS/GG, Sega Genesis and SNES emulators.

There’s a port of Mini VMac, a GEOS port,
and of course, most dear to my heart, a Linux port

There’s also many other homebrew games, some of which are of surprising quality.

So far, I’ve really been thrilled with DS homebrew. My DS is now my official portable OGG player/game system/classics machine.

And it’s also a blast to see the heroic efforts of the homebrew community in writing software for a undocumented embedded device.

This has already been blogged about, but I thought it warranted a post.

It’s a five page article called “Ambition and Compulsory Design in Animal Crossing”

Yeah. A five page article discussing the philosopy and meaning of a video game. Perks your interest, doesn’t it? It’s actually pretty interesting. Really.

Warning: It’s text-heavy, so hardcore types only.