binary dreaming

Fuck Charter. Seriously. I moved this weekend, and my scheduled appointment to get my cable hooked up was from 3pm to 5pm today. Now, I understand that they can’t give me an exact time. Whatever. But I was very specific that I would like a phone call when they were on the way. I don’t think that’s too much to ask these days, especially from a company called Charter Communications. A company which is offering Goddamn phone service. Whatever. Fuck them. Anyway, the install techs show up. The first guy seems polite enough, even if he seems to be having some trouble figuring out why he’s there. Literal conversation:

Me: Hi.
Trainee Tech: Hi.
Me: (wondering how long he’s gonna stand there)
Trainee Tech: So what am I doing here?
Me: I need my cable hooked up.
Trainee Tech: (looking at clipboard, which is apparently just his shopping list) OK….
Me: I would like my TV to work.
Trainee Tech: OK…

At this point, Jackass Tech walks up, moves Trainee Tech out of the way, and walks directly in my house, without so much as acknowledging my presence. He then decides to get down to brass tacks:

Jackass Tech: So, what are we doing here?
Me: I want my TV to work.
Jackass Tech: (looking at TV) You want us to hook up the TV?
Me: I want my cable service hooked up.
Jackass Tech: But you already have a Moxi, and it’s hooked up.
Me: But it doesn’t work. I want it to work.
Jackass Tech: OK…

This went on for longer than I care to remember, and it’s pissing my shit off thinking about it, so I won’t regale the entire exchange. Needless to say, it never got much better. They did, at one point, get the TV to work, but then it stopped again. Their fix was to replace my Moxi, which took all of my recorded TV shows with it. I would have protested, but I don’t fucking care anymore. I’m getting U-Verse installed in three weeks anyway.

So the moral of the story is that the install guys were total dicks. Real fuckwads. And I don’t count the fact that they got my service working as a point in their favor. If something is your fucking job, you don’t get points for not completely fucking it up. And I really shouldn’t have to tell the guy what he’s there to do. What’s on the goddamn work order? Is the information I give the dispatcher recorded anywhere? And it’s not like there are that many options for him to choose from. Hooking up? Disconnecting? Repair? Fucking guess. You have a one in three chance of being right. I don’t even want television service now.

Fuck Charter.

So I finally found a thread about touchpad scrolling which lead me to explore the output of the `synclient -l` command on my Gutsy notebook, and lo and behold, the answer I’ve been looking for:

VertEdgeScroll = 1
HorizEdgeScroll = 1
VertTwoFingerScroll = 0
HorizTwoFingerScroll = 0


It turns out that two-fingered scrolling (like on the new Macs) is really easy to enable. Here’s how.

Make a backup of your X.org config file. Don’t blame me if you don’t do this and hose up your system.

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup

Use the editor of your choice to add the following lines to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file:


Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
add these lines >>>>
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
Option "VertEdgeScroll" "0"
Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "1"
Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
EndSection

Restart X, and that should do it. However, if you're like me, and have enough trouble as it is with touchpads, you may want to disable the horizontal scroll, as you end up flipping back and forth between web pages without a clue what's going on.

I just got my latest package from woot.com. It’s a battery operated train I got for five bucks to go around the Christmas tree. Here’s the box it came in:

As you can see, it’s The Universe of Classic Train, Handpick Playset. Here’s a little closer on the bottom left:

And in case you need help installing the batteries:

I’m not even sure what “Simulating the true styles and making carefully” is even supposed to mean. But, it does go, and it does have a flashlight, or headlight, possibly, just like the box says.

Happy Holidays.

It’s that time of year again, when we celebrate December 5th, 1933, when Congress ratified the 21st amendment, ending Prohibition. And thus we have Repeal Day, the day we celebrate our constitutional right to drink. So stop by a bar on your way home, or just pick up a six-pack, but pop open a bottle and celebrate!

It’s a Dog on a Log! We had to pass the time this Thanksgiving somehow, and canine acrobatics seemed like a good idea.

Looks like Verizon wireless finally released the 4.2 OS for the 8703e handhelds. It’s about time. You can get the software here:

SmithMicro download site

Ok, so this seems really unlikely to be true. But you never can tell with people. Check this out: the geekiest tattoo ever. Someone is going to have a lot of explaining to do. All the time. I mean, what percentage of the population actually knows HTML?

Like I said, I doubt this is real. If it is, though, props to this guy. And he should probably see a shrink. Or go on a date. Or both.

Let’s all celebrate Repeal Day this year, and commemorate the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, and the end of Prohibition. Have a drink because you can.

So I’ve decided to start updating this thing again. Random stuff, but it’s going to stay geek-related. So, for my triumphant return, I decided to post this while hurtling down I-74 in the middle of Indiana at 80 miles an hour while my sister uses the shared WiFi connection from my notebook to surf MySpace. Because I can.

I’m on a new bowling league this fall, and we’re chronicling our progress over at snakesonalane.com. We should have weekly postings of our scores and team stats. Also, other things like stupid bets between team members. It should prove to be a fun time. Now if only we could get Bob to get us a bad-ass website…