Jackals and Arabs
by admin on Aug.28, 2008, under Gazelles, Politics
A European traveler from the North, accompanied by Arab guides, is camped in the desert. When night falls, and the Arabs are at a distance, the traveler is accosted by talking jackals. The jackals speak of an age-old hatred for Arabs, whom they associate with uncleanliness. They relate a belief passed down from their ancestors, that a man such as the protagonist would be the one to “end the quarrel which divides the world in two”. The jackals attempt to enlist the traveler’s assistance in destroying them, offering him old rusted scissors with which to slit the throats of the Arabs.
At this moment an Arab happens upon the discussion, and cracks his whip, “laughing cheerfully”. He declares the fondness of Arabs for jackals, and the Arabs bring out the carcass of a camel that had died in the night. The jackals begin to feast on it uncontrollably, and the Arab whips several of them as they tear at the flesh of the carcass, until the European interferes. The Arab agrees to stop, and the story ends: “We’ll leave them to their calling. Besides, it’s time to break camp. You’ve seen them. Wonderful creatures, aren’t they? And how they hate us!”
openSUSE 11 x86_64 Flash FireFox
by dervish on Aug.14, 2008, under Linux
If Adobe Flash is not working in FireFox, verify that the nspluginwrapper was installed.
nspluginwrapper
nspluginwrapper is an Open Source compatibility plugin for Netscape 4 (NPAPI) plugins. It enables you to use plugins on platforms they were not built for. For example, you can use the plugins compiled for i386 in Mozilla on Linux/x86_64 or other architectures.
Recover Vista Boot Record
by dervish on Aug.10, 2008, under Windows
Did GRUB get a little carried away and overwrite the Vista boot loader? Here’s the fix:
- Boot to Vista installation CD
- Enter system recovery > command prompt
- Run: Bootrec.exe /FixMbr
- Run: Bootrec.exe /FixBoot
GRUB is now gone, and the system should boot normally to the Vista login screen.
Dichotomy
by dervish on Aug.02, 2008, under Politics, Sundry, Windows
Fact: Application X crashes.
Reason #1: If OS is Windows XP, then application X sucks.
Reason #2: If OS is Vista… Vista Sucks.
The Nirvana Baby at 18
by dervish on Jul.24, 2008, under Music
Life in general isn’t quite as “cool” as it was when he jumped naked in the pool in the early ’90s, though, he says. These days, his peers are too stuck on the Internet and video games. Ironically, he yearns for the era that gave Kurt Cobain, the lead singer for Nirvana, so much angst.
These days, Elden says, his peers concentrate on “playing Rock Band on Xbox, like, that’s not a real band! That’s the difference between the ’90s and kids nowadays; kids in the ’90s would actually go out and make a [real] band!”
But overall, life is good, he says. When he’s not being repressed by video games and computers, Elden blasts music — mostly techno — and carries around a big bag of angst, mostly around the fact that he is “so over” high school.
