All the employment suckage of late had me thinking of how many jobs we've (and by we I mean the corporate jackoffs) let go to foreign countries via outsourcing, NAFTA etc. In light of this I want to remind us of the "Buy American" movement of yesteryear. Yes it lost steam, but for the wrong reasons. We've got to remember quality of course! But buying products made in the U.S. and even better, locally (produce is a great example) will go a long way towards helping our economic recovery.

So, here are some products I have found are "made in America" that I like

• KIND PLUS nature bars - these are super-yummy nature bars
• More to come!

"LinuxFest Northwest is happening this Saturday in Bellingham Wa". I'll
be there (for my 6th year) with the BitPusher crew, helping run the
GameDen and even shmoozing a bit.

http://linuxfestnorthwest.org/

Interesting article from Ars Technica about certificates being used for man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. The quote "Certification revocation is basically useless" sure hits home.

http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2011/03/how-the-comodo-certificate-fraud-calls-ca-trust-into-question.ars/

 

More photography from my lunchtime stroll.

1st & jackson
Reminding me Valentine's day is soon.

Everyone seems to love apple ipod touch for their usability and design aesthetics. I'm not everyone.

Here are some details. Perhaps someone at Apple will see this and improve upon the flaws.

Texture

The swipe mechanism is discordant with the slick texture of the back. This means, when it is sitting flat on a desk or table, you cannot swipe (particular to unlock) without using a 2nd hand (or elbow, chin etc) to hold th device steady so that it does not rotate. The texture is also a bit slippery such that I've dropped my Touch on multiple occasions -- once even in the garbage can, how symbolic is that?

Shape

The biggest problem I find with the shape has an effect similar to above. If the device is laying flat and you press the home button (which is near the bottom) it "rocks" the device and the top comes up off the table, often careening to the side.  Apple could rectify this by making the back completely flat or at least below where the button lies.

Power

The battery life is really so-so. I have to plug it in all the time or suffer the dissapointment if having it die while listening to music or racking up a new high score in Skee Ball. Sheesh!

Anyway, for a bit of positiveness, here are my favorite apps ...

Skee Ball

Angry Birds

iScrob

 

After some failed attempts at getting Descent II installed using Wine
and running under a KVM guest (audio broken, meh) I turned to the
dxx-rebirth project, an open-source descendent of the Descent I/II series.

http://www.dxx-rebirth.com

This is how I was finally able to run Descent II on Linux.

I first compiled d2x-rebirth on Mint (Julia)

Satisfy pre-reqs.
mdf@sushi ~ $ sudo apt-get install scons
mdf@sushi ~ $ sudo aptitude install libsdl-dev
mdf@sushi ~ $ sudo aptitude install libphysfs-dev
mdf@sushi ~ $ sudo aptitude install nasm
mdf@sushi ~ $ sudo aptitude install libsdl-mixer1.2-dev

Download the source tarball and extract into /opt/games/dxx-rebirth/

Note the crucial flags to scons, without them it would not compile.
mdf@sushi /opt/games/dxx-rebirth/d2x-rebirth_v0.56-src $ scons use_ipx=0
sdlmixer=1
mdf@sushi /opt/games/dxx-rebirth/d2x-rebirth_v0.56-src $ sudo aptitude
install arj

From my Descent II CDROM, extract the files listed in INSTALL.txt to
/home/mdf/.d2x-rebirth/

Here we go!
mdf@sushi /opt/games/dxx-rebirth/d2x-rebirth_v0.56-src $ ./d2x-rebirth-gl

Sound worked great. I customized my keyboard controls and set mouse
sensitivity high. It's rolling good fun!

List of Bands I want to see live

• Underworld
• Crystal Method
• Fischerspooner
• Sigur Ros
• The Thermals
• Massive Attack

Other bands I would see if they were still around

• The White Stripes
• LCD Soundsystem
• Big Black
• Dead Kennedys
• Husker Du
• SPK
• The Doors
• Nirvana
• Rage Against the Machine
• Tool

Bands I Have Seen Live

• Antlers ... Arcade Fire
• B-52s ... Butthole Surfers
• Circle Jerks
• Dandy Warhols ... Damien Rice ... Dead Can Dance
• Foals ... Florence & the Machine ... Frightened Rabbit
• Godflesh
• Head of David ... Helmet
• Interpol
• Jane's Addiction ... Japandroids
• Laibach ... Liars
• Machines of Loving Grace ... Meat Puppets  ... Metric (x2) ... Ministry ... Mogwai
• Nine Inch Nails
• Phantogram ... Pixies (x2
• Radiohead ... Ra Ra Riot ... Robyn Hitchcock
• The Shins ... Silversun Pickups ... Skinny Puppy (x2) ... Sky Cries Mary (x3)
• Sound Garden ... Screaming Trees  ... Stars ... Surfer Blood... Salon Betty
• They Might Be Giants (x2)
• Unnatural Helpers ... Ursula Tree
• We Were Promised Jetpacks
• The Xx
• Zola Jesus ... Zoviet France