:: Omnia Mutantur ::

:: Saturday, March 23, 2002 ::

Ginger Snaps

After being bored out of my skull with the phony Swedish movie Trollöse (which I won't dignify with an URL) I needed something different. So desperate was I, that I went the very next day to see Ginger Snaps, expecting it to be one of those silly post-Scream's-success movies with thirty-somethings as fake teenagers being chased by some CGI beasty.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

This is, flat out, the best werewolf movie since The Howling - heck, it's probably even better - and a lot closer to David Cronenberg's brilliant The Fly than to anything about werewolves you might have seen recently.

First, it doesn't treat lycanthropy as some sort of kewl curse where the afflicted character turns back into his original shape at the next day, only naked (of course) and partly covered in blood. Instead, lycanthropy is portrayed as a degenerative disease corroding the body of a person in her prime.

Second, all characters are human beings and not some overdone stereotypes that we all see coming a mile away: even the straight-out-of-Carrie popular girl who torments the Fitzgerald sisters has a background and a reason for behaving the way she does.

But more importantly, the script has the courage to be pessimistic throughout, lending the film an air of inevitability that thrillers can't achieve. This is that rarest of beasts, a honest-to-Cronenberg horror movie, the likes of which we haven't seen in almost twenty years.

It's also nice that teenagers behave as such and that they went not CGI effects but a glue-slime-and-hair creature that Rob Bottin would be proud of; but those are secondary pluses. The main issue here is that it's a good movie with a great script and clear vision of what it wants to be - and that it realizes from the start that with hope there can be no true horror.

Lovecraft would be proud.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 2:00 PM [+] ::
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Now, this is weird

There I am, just calmly testing my Microtek Scanmaker 3700 under Linux and xsane, and scanning some black and white photos to see if I got the same issues as on the one in color, when I scan this image from my trip to an abandoned asylum for tuberculosis patients in high resolution and suddenly I notice something on the top left corner I hadn't seen.

I didn't put that ghostly girl there.

I'm still expecting to read an explanation in Photo.net of how the heck that got into the photo. Feel free to jump in.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 12:04 PM [+] ::
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Mandrake in trouble

It turns out Mandrake Linux is in financial trouble. Don't look at me that way, I just found out today. What can one do? First of all, read their letter - they explain the situation better than I can. But there are certainly things one can do to help:

• Register for their online community, something you should do anyway if you want to have support.
  
• Go ahead and order one of their packaged distributions - you're using it, so you might as well have the manuals and help Mandrake on the way.
  
• If your company is using Linux, convince them that Mandrake is the way to go for end-users: it's quite friendlier than Red Hat (believe me, I've installed them both several times), it's included applications are more extensive, and on the whole it feels better integrated. Even better, convince your company to join the Mandrake community - cough up some money for all the cash and headaches they're saving from not having to run Windows.
  
• Spread the word. If you can't help economically, you might know someone who can. I'm a Red Hat user myself (driver issues, I love Mandrake but I can't run my RAID with them) but I'll keep evangelizing for Mandrake every change I get.
  

Now, will Mandrake go broke and dissapear?

It's hard to say. With such a great, user-friendly distribution, Mandrake would be an excellent acquisition for a company with deep pockets and a need for an OS distribution of their own. America On-Line, for example, had been rumored to be interested in buying Red Hat - maybe they'll wait and go for Mandrake instead. The most interesting thing, however, would be if another company bought them.

Who?

I'd say Apple.

You, on the back. Yes, you. I can hear you laughing. Stop it.

Now, seriously, it has been said several times that Apple should get on the PC business with a version of their georgeous MacOs X. It has also been said, however - and with plenty of reason - that Apple's OS and its hardware go hand in hand, so a port would be a monumental task.

But what would happen if Apple acquired Mandrake?

They would suddenly have a Linux distribution in their hands, the easiest, more user-friendly distribution at that. With some cross-polinization from Apple's brilliant user interface and marketing departments, Mandrake could position itself as the Linux desktop distribution of choice, not to mention acquire some nifty gadgets from OS X (which is also Unix based).

Not only that, but Apple would have a grip on the PC market, and not with an OS that only they support (MacOS X) but with an open-source Operating System that people all over the world are continually improving (you might want to read my thesis on Open Source development). Instead of having to compete both against Windows and Linux, Apple would benefit from any improvements from the Linux community and, at the same time, would have thousands of partners in keeping the Microsoft darkness at bay.

Hell, the Linux branch of the company wouldn't even have to make a profit over what Mandrake costs them, if it helps reinforce the idea that Windows isn't the best operating system around - not even on the PC. This would help weaken Microsoft's position on the desktop, which can only help Apple in the long run.

Then again, these are only conjectures. Time will tell how right or wrong I am. One can only hope that Steve Jobs' snobbish (however correct) views to his beloved OS doesn't blind him to the possibilities.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 7:08 PM [+] ::
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I was Wrong! And that's Good!

I'm damned glad to say I spoke before I should have: I have finally managed to get Red Hat Linux running on my RAID array, using the GA-7ZXR - and it smokes (probably some sort of diety was waiting until I dissed the set-up here to make it work, so that I would have to take it back).

Truth be told, it wasn't just my own perspiration: the people at Gigabyte have helped a lot lately - kudos to them once more.

The only thing missing right now is the ability to boot from the RAID, but I'm happy enough that it's working that I don't mind having to boot from a diskette for now.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 9:20 AM [+] ::
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Forget about that RAID

I might be being pessimistic, but I'm giving up hopes on getting support for the on-board Fasttrack 100 Lite controller of the GA-7ZXR. After having my chain yanked around for several months with the promise of an upcoming driver, I received an e-mail from Promise (the makers of the Fasttrack controller) telling me this:

Promise does not provide support for integrated ASICs. The manufacturer of the motherboard needs to provide support for the motherboard and all integrated devices.

Gigabyte hasn't answered my messages on the issue, so I'm giving up. If anybody else has better luck, let me know.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 2:38 PM [+] ::
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