DaveReed.ca

“So, please tell me your idea again” said Jane, the venture capitalist.

“Well, people use the internet to search for information; you know, like recipes and shit. Well, what if we created a web page that contained every single one of those search terms, and had computer generated text disguised as blog entries down the middle? This way, no matter what someone searched for, it would somehow link them to this page and they would be forced to read 3 paragraphs before realizing that they were reading gibberish!” replied Bill.

“So you’ve got their attention. Now what?” she asked.

“Well, if we inject a few links to ads in the articles that point to crap that no one wants to buy or see, we could make money from the advertising impressions!” exclaimed Bill.

“You’re an asshole”

I hope I’m not helping these people by posting this

I don’t quite know how to feel about this yet, but it’s certainly something you should know about.

CBC — Masked Protesters

With the price and data gouging we’ve come to expect from typical Canadian Internet Service Providers, it’s quite refreshing to see Tek Savvy on the scene with competitive bandwidth rates and caps. I switched over to Tek Savvy last Autumn, opting for their 25/7MBPS with 300GB cap profile. My first comment is that this profile is blazing fast, and I have never, ever gone over my cap; I don’t expect to.

My second comment is that the modem they provide is a piece of fuck.
Unfortunately, due to their arrangement with Bell, they have to provide the same modem used by Bell Fibe customers, the Lucent CellPipe 7130. This modem has a few issues, most notably:

This list is cringe-worthy for most techies. Fortunately, there is a workaround. For this, you will need your Tek Savvy connection PPPoE credentials, your Cellpipe modem, a router with PPPoE client.

First you will want to reset your Cellpipe to factory defaults. You can do this by logging in to the management UI, and finding this feature on the left side-bar. Once this is done, you will lose your connection, and the modem will change its IP address to 192.168.0.1. You will not need to connect to the modem after it has been reset. Instead, you will want to set the external interface of your router to PPPoE, along with your PPPoE credentials. For most Linksys/DLink routers, this should be relatively straight forward.

I use a Cisco ASA 5505, running the following config:

interface Vlan2
nameif outside
security-level 0
pppoe client vpdn group pppoe
ip address pppoe setroute

vpdn group pppoe request dialout pppoe
vpdn group pppoe localname davereed@teksavvy.com
vpdn group pppoe ppp authentication pap
vpdn username @teksavvy.com password *********
dhcpd auto_config outside

Be aware that if you have to call Tek Savvy for support, they will ask you to be running the PPPoE client on the modem, so you will have to log in to the modem, reset your PPPoE credentials, and lose the router. Be sure that you reset the modem again when you’re done troubleshooting, or else you’ll end up with two PPPoE clients fighting for the same connection.

As a gigging musician, I am asked quite often about what music I listen to; in casual conversation, or from that guy that lurks by the stage and starts firing questions at you while you’re packing up your gear. It’s not always easy to answer such a challenging question on the spot, especially while recovering from stage-high. But I’m sure my list would look something like this…

1) Dream Theater – Scenes from a Memory
This album ended up replacing DSOTM in my list. “Blasphemy!” you’re saying, I’m sure. Don’t get me wrong, I was a huge Pink Floyd fan and I would take their singing over LaBrie, but SFAM was such a visual trip for me. I find the phrasing and transitions to be quite tasteful, and the instrumental sections hold a high level of interest. I don’t care much for the vocal parts, and the production is compressed at the top threshold of my listening enjoyment, but you can’t find better musicianship than Petrucci, Rudess, Myung and Portnoy.

After 10 years, this album still kicks my ass.

2) Aphex Twin – Drukqs
I’m a massive Aphex fan, and have been for over a decade. To me, Drukqs is a great summary of his whole discography and captures every style and technique that he experimented with during his career. This album defined how I listen to, create, and critique electronic music. John Coltrane almost made this list, but Drukqs’ approach to atonal melody, dissonant harmony, polyrhythmic structures, and harsh timbres set this record above (I feel like I just made some new enemies with this statement).

3) Grateful Dead – Europe ’72
One of the defining moments of live music exists for me on this album, between China Cat Sunflower and I Know You Rider. The clear and constant transition with every player in perfect sync was very inspirational to my live playing, and I think I can attribute a lot of my abilities of live playing and feeling the onstage weather to this album.

4) Mr. Bungle – California
This album’s ability to fill every single musical second with some sort of idea, and to constantly change ideas throughout, from elements of jazz, to disco, to surf, to metal, to country, to lounge… While this album didn’t necessarily influence my instrument playing, it certainly opened up my abilities for production. After this album, I really started experimenting with how I recorded my sounds; run a drum machine into a guitar amp and mic it in the bathroom? Why not!? Close mic my mouth and flick my esophagus for the drum samples? Of course!

5) Garal Mahal – Live Vol I/II/III
I found a 3 volume live set of a band, that didn’t have an artist listed. I listened to this set for maybe 4 years, and had no idea who it was. Then I came across Garal Mahal’s Blueberry Cave and w00t. Finally, I had a name of the artist on that 3 volume set. By this time, my approach to both keyboards and guitars had completely changed thanks to these musical ninjas. Between Eric Levy’s eccentric and borderline chaotic solos, and Fareed Haque’s shifting approach to tonality, my playing took a turn from standard structure into a much more freeing direction. I had the chance to meet Eric, Fareed and Kai when they played here in Hamilton for 2 shows. I would have liked to pick their brains a bit more on compositional theory, but it’s hard to fit that into a conversation in less than 10 minutes.

A typical work day for most geeks and nerds most likely involves lengthy periods of sitting at a desk, calculating, coding, researching, IRC, etc.
A typical evening routine might involve similar activities such as online gaming, coding, researching, IRC, etc.

This sedentary lifestyle has become the norm for many of us who’ve spent more time online than off. Even as I type this, I assure you I’m not being very active. I refer you now to this list of preventable causes of death. Please note the words “preventable” and “death”; they’re pretty serious.

Get off your ass!
There are plenty of things you can do that involve physical activity, but perhaps the most common (and most feared among geeks) is a fitness gym membership. This is probably the easiest way to stay fit, and it’s almost exactly like everyone’s favourite MMO…

World of Warcraft!

If you’re unfamiliar with World of Warcraft (or WoW for short), it’s a subscription based multiplayer online game that involves building your character up through challenges and repetitive quests. To compare, a gym is a subscription based multiperson activity that involves building your person up through challenges and repetition.

I recall when I first started playing WoW, and the steep learning curve involved with getting the hang of the game dynamics. I had the same feeling when I walked into the gym for the first time; looking around at all these strange sets of equipment, not knowing where to start. In most gyms, they have exercise stations that have simple instructions posted. With WoW, you have the help of quest givers; computer controlled characters with the function of providing players with a challenge. They’re pretty easy to find, as they have a giant exclamation mark over their head.

Compare:
In Warcraft you obtain a quest from a quest giver. “Hello player! You must go to *location* and kill 12 *things* and return to me”
In the gym, you find a machine or set of weights. “Hello active one! You must lift *weight* 12 times and then drink water”

When starting WoW (or any other online game), everyone is masked by their avatar. Essentially, everyone is anonymous. This leads to a difficult time for new players, as comments fly around from more experienced players to discourage and demoralize. “NEWB! dont u no ur spell rotation yet?!” In the gym on the other hand, because people are there in the flesh, they are slightly more responsible for their actions and interactions. People are generally polite and keep to themselves.

After a while, WoW starts to make sense, and you find a groove with your character for levelling or progressing. You start to find your favourite “daily quests”; quests that are designed to allow for daily repetition with incremental growth rewards. You will find that after a few weeks attending the gym, you’ll have a routine that you like; say 20 minutes of cardio on this machine, then a round of weights followed by stretching. With both of these routines, you are able to mentally detach from your activity and simply zone out. This allows for a nice relaxing mental decompression period.

The day after a rather strenuous workout, many people wake up to find a stiff or static feeling in their muscles. A good stretch and a hot shower is really all it takes to remedy this. You might be surprised to learn that WoW can be quite exhausting, but if you’ve ever been part of a raid, you’d understand. I was class leader for warlocks in my raiding guild for 2 years. We were farming end game content from Sunday night to Thursday night. As class leader, I was responsible for organizing the other warlocks and preparing them for the run. This meant I had be online by 8:00pm, and have everyone ready to go by 9:00pm. Getting 25 or 40 different people into roles is no easy task, so it takes dedication and perseverance. On most nights, the run would extend far past midnight. There were some weeks where 3:00am was common, several nights in a row as we tried, failed, tried again to defeat a challenge. Going in to work after 3 or 4 nights of this rigorous gaming would lead to severe exhaustion by the weekend. Stretching was no help.

I would say that the one thing I do miss about playing WoW was the teamwork aspect. Getting 40 people together to willingly partake in a militaristic simulation requiring strict role adherence was no mean feat. This is not something you’d find at the gym, but it’s rather humourous to imagine a group of people all pitching in their strength to attempt to lift a large quantity of weight, too large for an individual person.

Don’t forget to loot your hound.