Year: 2006


Long Load Time


I noticed that the load time of this website kind of sucks, and I need to do something about it… Regular, static pages load quickly, but for some reason, if you go to my site for the first time, it takes like 10 seconds to execute all the SQL queries. There’s something wrong with WordPress, PHP or MYSQL on my server. I have a feeling that my bloated, clunky WordPress theme I’m using is messing something up.

Portfolioso.com is due for a new layout. I’m not really impressed with it, its code doesn’t validate against W3’s XHTML standard, and it isn’t all that web 2.0 looking… We’ll see what happens, now that I have time over break.

Holiday Tree? Screw that, it’s a Christmas Tree


A Christmas tree is a Christmas Tree.
A Menorah is a Menorah.
I don’t know what the hell a holiday tree is…

You don’t hear Jews calling a Menorah a holiday lamp, do you? No, they don’t generalize Hanukkah.

I believe that saying happy holidays is fine, because it is a lazy way to generalize every person’s belief without studying what they are celebrating. However, this still does not justify replacing the word Christmas with holiday.

The fact that Christmas songs are banned in public schools is complete bull. If the choir at my high school could sing Hanukkah songs in Hebrew, why are we not allowed to hear Christmas songs? Everything should be equal.

So use the right name for things and stop generalizing everything that occurs in December to holiday.


Bad News: uTorrent Merges With BitTorrent


This is awful: The developer of uTorrent, Ludvig Strigeus has sold himself out to BitTorrent. uTorrent used to be the best torrent client ever.

Why is this bad? BitTorrent has a big deal with Warner Brothers and the MPAA. Therefore, this could mean that future versions of uTorrent could be slapped with tracking, DRM, ads, and corporate bloatware.

I hope the developer made a lot of money on this deal, because he pissed off the entire uTorrent community. He is a friggin’ sell out who is not interested in his project, but rather money. If I were the developer of this project, I would not sell out the best thing ever to the greedy corporations. I hate huge power hungry corporations that control the United States. According to a FAQ answered by Lude in an IRC chat, he will not be developing this program anymore and all future versions will be maintained by Bram Cohen of BitTorrent. The original BitTorrent client SUCKS and this will now cause uTorrent to suck. Supposedly, the client will remain the same (for a while – whatever that means) until it gets ruined. DO NOT update your versions of uTorrent and stick with what you have.

This is a great quote from a user on the uTorrent forums:

Fact: uTorrent became popular because it was an independently developed, light weight, feature-rich BT client.
Fact: The mainline BT client is none of these things. It sucks horribly.
Fact: uTorrent is now owned by the same folks who own BT.
Fact: uTorrent will be merged with BT, making it suck, too.
Fact: The folks who own BT are publicly allied with a group of greedy pirates, the MPAA.
Fact: The MPAA and its ilk are decidedly unfriendly toward the public at large, even though they engage in the same practices they legally prosecute.
Fact: uTorrent has been placed in the position where it will be altered to suit the needs of people who do not have the best interests of uTorrent’s primary user base at heart.

So what could we do? Well Azureus kind of sucks because it’s slow Java and they partnered with Zuego for legal video sharing… There’s really not much that could be done. So BitTorrent useres are screwed. I’m sticking with uTorrent 1.6, the last version developed by lude himself and will not be downloading any future releases.

Very sad day…

Borat Soundboard


I decided to take some clips from Borat’s movie and create a soundboard with many well known Borat expressions. Enjoy and send me your prank calls. Unfortunately I have no idea how to work with flash, so I made a program out of it. The only drawbacks are the huge file size (embedded wavs) and it only works on Windows.

Download (11.7MB)

This is an image and it will not work on the website. You’ll have to download it and run it. (Yes it’s an exe, but I promise it’s safe)

Edit: Version 2.0 released –> More sounds, smaller file size and I also fixed some distorted sounds. Have Fun.

 

 


Fake Virus Stupidity


I am sick and tired of deleting fake, annoying email rumors that stupid ignorant people blindly forward to others. Some moron with a big imagination writes some dumb email that makes no sense at all if read carefully. Other morons believe and chain-forward it to everyone. Save yourself some time – don’t forward me your crap. Also save me time from deleting it, getting enraged, raising my blood pressure and

FWD: ALERT

PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG ALL YOUR CONTACTS:

Be alert during the next few days: Don’t open any message with an attached file called “Invitation”, regardless of who sent it. It’s a virus that opens an Olympic Torch that “burns” the whole hard disk of your computer. This virus will come from someone who has your e-mail address; that’s why you should send this e-mail to all your contacts. It’s better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus

DON’T open it and shut down your computer immediately … This is the worst virus announced by CNN, it’s been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. The virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there’s no repair yet for this particular virus. It simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disk, where vital information is kept.

Also:- Emails with pictures of Osama Bin-Laden hanged are being sent and the moment you open these emails your computer will crash and you will not be able to fix it! This e-mail is being distributed through countries around the globe. Don’t be inconsiderate; send this warning to whomever you know. If you get an email along the lines of “Osama Bin Laden Captured” or “Osama Hanged” don’t open the attachment.

SEND THIS E-MAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW”

1) CNN doesn’t know anything about any virus

2) Does it literally “burn” your disk? What does it do, set it on fire or something?

3) Microsoft doesn’t classify viruses

4) it wasn’t discovered by McAffee yesterday because I have been getting this email for 3 weeks, and it’s been around since 2001.

5) “It’s better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus” No it’s better to shut the f*** up and stop spamming my inbox.

6) “Don’t open it and shut down your computer immediately” Oh no! I got an email. Looks like i have to turn my computer off now. because even if i didn’t open it, the email told me to shut down my computer. Go kill yourself.

7) What the hell is sector Zero? I’d say it’s…… Nothing! It’s made up bullshit.

8) “the moment you open these emails your computer will crash and you will not be able to fix it!” Simply opening an email will not suddenly crash your computer. An email is a text or html rendered message. If you download an attachment and run it, you could get a virus, but by opening an email, nothing will happen.

9) Anyone who believes this needs to have their computer smashed over their ignorant skull.

10) I’m even more disturbed that the Chief engineer for some company sent this out to all employees. Chief engineer of “spread fake nonsense around”

11) The message itself is a “social” virus, because it is spreading by ignorant people.

EDIT: I tagged this post as malware, because it represents a human social stupidity virus. It’s bad for me to read and enrages me. So it’s malware.
Please refer back to my other rand on the same thing: http://portfolioso.com/2005/08/31/ignorant-people-2/