RKNet Blog... Thing

I realize that everyone’s probably already sick to death of hearing about Chrome, but I thought I’d chime in anyway.

Here’s a memory usage shot of Chrome versus Opera.

Click the image to see the big picture

It’s not really a fair comparison, as the same things aren’t open, but I realized that with the way I have Opera configured, it couldn’t be a fair comparison anyway. I have around 50 RSS feeds, one mail account, and at least one IRC channel which all contribute to the overall memory load Opera exerts on my system. That said, this shot was taken with 3 actual web page tabs open in Opera, and 3 browser extra tabs open (IRC, details for one feed, and the transfers window), and only Gmail and the about:memory pages open in Chrome.

Opera in this instance is using less memory. (WHOOO VICTORY!) Hardly a scathing indictment of Chrome’s use of system resources, as if I had Gmail open in Opera the memory usage stats would undoubtedly be much in favor of Chrome. Which in my mind is simply a strong argument in support of the idea that browser speed is absolutely predicated by the way the browser is used. A new install of Firefox will always be faster than one with plugins added. A new install of Opera should be faster before all the extra features are configured. IE will be faster without toolbars. Etc, etc. The base speed tests and resource usage tests that browser superiority enthusiasts look to for support of their favorite browser (in theory) only indicates the speed or resource usage of the browser at its optimum settings, meaning regular users may never notice a difference between browser speeds or system burden.

The operating system certainly plays a factor as well. Having played with Opera on Ubuntu lately, I noticed that the Windows version of Opera (9.52/9.51) is more stable and less demanding than it is on Ubuntu (7.10, Gnome). If anyone has an advice on how to make Opera and Ubuntu (or more to the point, Flash, Opera and Ubuntu) play nicer together, I’m open to suggestion. I’m actually rather new to this “linux” thing.

Incidentally, I found out about the about:memory feature via Lifehacker. If you haven’t done it already, I strongly suggest using the about:internets (yes plural) feature. :D

• @bloggersblog hear hear, viva la literature! #
• Gah. I wake up to an internet fight over twitter. that’s like waking up & walking into a bar argument #
• pro baseball? overpaid children. for most people, the local bar owner is more personally important. #
• @chrisgarrett huh. we were just talking about ALICE yesterday. I heard she was a bitch. looks like it fits your theory #
• @chrisgarrett it goes back to at least the 19th http://tinyurl.com/3b2s96 #
• When I read about the internet being an instrument for social destruction I think "good, there’s a lot of cleaning up to do" #
• @chrisgarrett omg, no wonder you’re so up in arms, these strumpette people can kiss my ass. paranoids. #
• Riddle me this: how can you espouse your negative opinions about the internet on the internet, and expect any respect? #
• I’m not so sure that a luddite, pro-expert, pro-professional should be arguing on twitter. it screams hypocrite #
• @chrisgarrett you have to be published on dead trees or harass someone who’s been on tv to be pro, duh #

Editor’s note: man I was a twitter whore today. cut for length.
Read the rest of this entry »

One look at our vending machines will tell you that office-dwelling drones like Your Humble Narrator are always seeking out exotic drinkable liquids. Especially if said liquids are reputed to be imbued with energizing or stupefying properties. Maybe it’s the condition of our imprisonment, which in this office typically involves non-ergonomic, castoff cubicles, brutally punishing chairs, and cthonic food from the grim eateries which dot the surrounding wasteland (these bleak offerings might make Franz Kafka shrug resignedly and reach for a fork, but personally they make me bemoan the lack of a 24-hour Korean restaurant in the immediate vicinity). Maybe it’s the psychological/economic bondage of a modern business environment, wherein failure is not an option and the creature comforts are best described as “hit-or-miss”. Maybe it’s the high frustration level, combined with lack of sleep (due to work-related worries) which can make us rage like fearsome goetic demons forced to watch Legally Blonde 2.

In any case, even if one just examines the elaborate cultural rituals associated with (for instance) shotgunning sugar-free Red Bull (I’ll try to post about this in the future) or popping down to the local sports bar for a bottom-shelf Long Island iced tea (referred to by us cognoscenti as an “ether and sour mix” because of its unusual psychotogenic properties which cannot be individually ascribed to any of its constituent boozes)… it’s clear that there’s some kind of collective drinks-based coping behavior which spans the nerd-steppenwolf demographic and, unpredictably, inches insidiously into the repertoire of fairly respectable Liberal Arts majors. My personal theory is that these behaviors start out as pathological compulsions, until they are copied by at least one other person, whereby they attain official meme-hood, which in turn makes the progenitor feel justified, so he/she repeats the action, and then the cycle self-perpetuates until the meme gets old, the participants die/get fired, or until the required ingredients become exhausted.

Take for example, the practice of dropping a teabag into a hot cup of coffee.

This loathsome act is a true last-ditch effort. The participants are so jaded in their exhaustion, this is the final frontier, the nadir, the Last Judgment. Whether our nights are spent boozing it up or writing code until the wee hours, the effect is astonishingly similar. Once-human organisms are now reduced to soulless husks, caricatures of our former selves. In this degraded condition, we crave stimulus, which, at this advanced stage, can only be brought about by a handful of questionable exercise stimulants, washed down with an overpriced canister of phenylalanine-rich chemical ooze.

Such was our Monday mindset when, today, my staunch acolyte and I devised a new and gruesome sacrament. By steeping a teabag in a cup of infernally steaming coffee, our desire was to harness the clarity and energy of the strong black tea, tempered with the anxiety and panic of the coffee. The result was a murky liquid, which looked a lot like that black stuff which engulfed James Brolin toward the end of The Amityville Horror. Perhaps most singular was the aftertaste, a bitter, lingering tang of tannins. It is testament to my own slow, sad deterioration that I found the mixture to be not wholly unpleasant. Perhaps most disturbing is the understanding that I might voluntarily drink this again.

Below is a transcript of our findings:
(02:13:57 PM) me: dude this actually isn’t as awful as I thought it would be
(02:14:16 PM) XXXXX: its almost good
(02:14:25 PM) me: for real
(02:14:32 PM) me: I already feel more jacked up
(02:15:08 PM) XXXXX: then we should call it jack bauer’s tea bag
(02:15:28 PM) me: hahahahahah
(02:15:58 PM) me: I was going to suggest we could call it “Nightside of Eden” - I like yours better
(02:16:27 PM) XXXXX: well yours is for sure more poetic
(02:17:34 PM) me: “chai-flavored roundhouse kick to the taint”
(02:18:07 PM) XXXXX: thats it!
(02:18:16 PM) XXXXX: thats the taste in my mouth exactly!
(02:18:32 PM) me: “the sweat from Charles Bronson’s brow”
(02:18:57 PM) me: “Paul Schaeffer’s smarm in a cup”
(02:18:57 PM) XXXXX: strained through kurt russels pubes
(02:19:02 PM) me: hahahah

gawkermedia - like crack
I ate a hot pocket earlier
it collapsed part of my soul
cult leadership is tough with so many alternatives to be had.
I’m contemplating talking about a serious subject
that came to mind through a dubious link
conspiracy theory is weird, the truth is usually weirder.
Hey how many five year olds can you beat up? No really.
oh and don’t bother with the booze test. broke every time I tried it.

Please ignore the utterly cheese-tastic music, gentle readers. New Scientist has provided a brief, kaleidoscopic, fascinating, play-this-at-your-next-acid-party video about A. Garrett Lisi’s “Theory of Everything”.

And if that isn’t enough for you to get your scientific fix, here’s Powers of Ten, a short film about the effects of adding a zero to one’s level of magnification or distance from the typical human vantage point. For each magnification, or distance moved out, a single zero is added to the end, effectively multiplying the amount of magnification/distance by ten. Thus the title, Powers of Ten. It’s a short but fascinating comparison of the macrocosm to the microcosm.

And The Telegraph is hung up on the fact that he surfs. Well okay, perhaps hung up on it is going a bit far. Still, as headlines go, it’s pretty misleading.

A. Garrett Lisi seems like a really interesting person. I mean, just check out his resume! He’s got:

• a PhD in Physics
• he’s been a Hiking Guide and a Physics Lecturer
• he’s a *nix user and occasional programmer
• he was a script consultant for “Rendezvous with Rama” (!!!)
• he’s been published multiple times
• and he’s toooooootally been to Burning Man

For those interested, his “Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything” is available at the UCDavis Math department’s library of documents (maintained by Cornell).

Happy Monday! :D It finally snowed here in a way that stuck to the ground. I can’t say I’m thrilled but I’m not disappointed either. It means it’s nice and quiet in the office here today, and it gives me plenty of time to share these tidbits with you and still get a ton of work done!

http://shaelriley.com/toybox/
Thirteen songs about the internet, video games, and generally being a badass motherfucker (or obnoxious, depending on one’s personal impression).
I thought it was worth sharing.

The one I’m most familiar with is “Bit Pop”, and I highly recommend it to anybody not sure where to start listening.

And now for something completely different: A non-english (although the site is in the UK) Flash game called Chaos Theory. The object, as far as I can tell, is to start an explosion near one of the blue dots as they get thrown up the screen, and cause a chain reaction to blow up as many as possible before they fall back down. It’s pretty fun!

Here’s a screenshot of my last score. ;) Trust me, it’s definitely an easily beaten score.

I just got done reading one of today’s Table of Malcontents blog entries in regards to a YouTube-related challenge in which people can obtain a free copy of the DVD called The God Who Wasn’t There, which is naturally about atheism. The goal of the challenge is to submit a recording of you “damning yourself to Hell”, primarily by including somewhere in your recording a distinct denial of the Holy Spirit.

This meatspace trolling crusade reminded me that I was recently asked as to whether or not I believed in the supernatural. A quick Wiki search pulled up a brief definition of “supernatural” as:

The supernatural (Latin: super- “above” + nature) refers to forces and phenomena which are not observable in nature, and therefore beyond verifiable measurement. Though supernatural refers chiefly to the cause of phenomena (an interpretation), if a phenomenon can be demonstrated, it is typically no longer considered to be supernatural.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural
I was told that there was only a binary way in which I could answer this: yes or no. The lack of admitting to a grey area has gotten me in trouble on a lot of subjects, and I dislike dealing with subjects as important as belief lightly. However, in binary I must answer no. If it cannot be proven then how can I really “believe” that such a thing exists? There isn’t enough time in the day to invest too much thought in something like that.

I suppose my more general answer is: I believe that things which are considered “supernatural”, which have not yet to date been verified, are subject to two possibilities:

• 1 - further investigation resulting in a way to move supernatural, unverified ideas into the realm of the natural

[or]

• 2 - further investigation resulting in a better understanding as to why this force or phenomena is a part of human culture.

Realistically there are many things which up until recent history fall into the realm of the supernatural which at this point are scientifically verifiable. Also, using the definition above, what becomes of theory? Especially in the areas of things like Quantum Physics and Mathematics. (Am I applying the definition incorrectly here?)

Best as I can figure, germs were supernatural until we figured out what they really were. We knew people got sick. There were any number of theoretical reasons why. For a long time we had no way to observe the actual force at work, the way it really works, just the body’s reaction. Eventually we got to the bottom of that particular mystery. It is now understood and is officially natural instead of supernatural. (And people definitely gave any number of highly superstitious reasons why people got sick, and still do.) Note the article on The Germ Theory of Disease. It took quite a lot of testing and hanging onto what were at the time unverifiable beliefs to get this idea to finally take hold until anything could be proven.

There are a number of things that are classified as supernatural in this day and age, and I do especially like the quote from that same Wiki page: “Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.” –Galileo

There is always a way to justify what we encounter in this world. Sometimes it is only on a purely psychological level. Speaking of psychology, I’m pretty sure we still don’t understand emotions all that well. That would make feelings an unmeasurable, unverifiable force or phenomena. Does that mean happiness is also supernatural?

I am definitely not one to counter the power of human belief, faith, and/or conviction in general. It is the source of our greatest power and our greatest weakness. While there are many things I do not believe because I cannot justify expending my faith on such things, I will never doubt the power a particular belief holds over another person, or how that belief ultimately effects me and my life. And while a thing may not actually exist in a measurable fashion, man is very attached to his symbols, and I think understanding humankind’s memes is a great way to help one’s self understand humankind itself.

There is no reason to scoff or discount what is not understood, there is only understanding or the lack there of and nothing more.

Challenge: iPods are pretty famous for taking the liberty of wiping themselves out when you plug them into a computer other than the one you set it up on in the first place. It’s got a bad case of “are you my mommy?” that makes it hostile to other PCs but you really want to be able to manage the music on more than one PC using your iPod. What to do? Read the rest of this entry »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(shopping)

For any of you who have worked retail, I’m sure the term “Black Friday” is already in your vocabulary. It is likely said with a great deal of dread for those still in retail, and pity or disgust for those who have moved out of retail.

Seeing as Thanksgiving is as good a time as any to pause and think about the things we’re grateful for, I think this is one term that fits. I am very thankful that I am not working in the mall during this upcoming Black Friday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_convention
Much like the recent console launches and their ensuing horror stories, something about major commercial events really seems to bring out the worst in people. My heart goes out to the people patient enough to work during what will undoubtedly be another grueling holiday season without snapping. The endless christmas music alone was nearly enough to break me. Didn’t they come up with something in the Geneva Conventions against torture?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_price
Speaking of torture, the other thing to keep in mind when you’re out there scrambling to get “something for the guy/gal who has everything”, is that you’re invariably going to be played more artfully than a Stradivarius.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradavarius

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
Just remember that in the end, the holiday shopping season is basically a hunter-gatherer game. As a rule, it’s better to be a player than it is to be one of the played. “Savvy” isn’t just a five letter word afterall, it’s a mindset.

If you’re running monitarily tight this year, you may want to add this blog to your reading list: http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/
You might also want to check out: http://www.makezine.com/
and the undoubtedly related: http://www.craftzine.com/

Once again, good luck to all who brave the horrors of Black Friday, and have a great Thanksgiving.