:: Omnia Mutantur ::

:: Thursday, June 27, 2002 ::

Fasttrack 100 and Mandrake

Several people have come here looking for a Fasttrack 100 driver for Mandrake Linux. To make it short: there isn't any yet. Fasttrack is releasing drivers only for some distributions of Linux, and Mandarke isn't one yet - and since they're not releasing the sources but only static-linked binaries nobody else can hack them and make them work with other distributions.

I'm using Red Hat 7.2 while Promise deigns support Mandrake or release the sources.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 8:46 PM [+] ::
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Hard facts vs. biased opinions

A couple of week ago, a paper pointing out that Open-Source was the source of all evils, the basis for overweight in people and the cause of the middle-east problems appeared from a Microsoft-funded think-tank. (Not that this was in any way an answer to the Peruvian issue, no sirree). The paper had several holes and non-sequiturs, some of which are pointed out in a column by Russell Pavlicek.

While you're there, take a look at From Peru With Love.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 12:44 PM [+] ::
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Yeah, I liked Dune, so what?

I don't know what is it with movie critics nowadays, but they seem to go bonkers at the sight of a boring, incomprehensible movie. Granted, Mulholland Drive is unlike Lost Highway in that it gives you the feeling that with two or three more viewings you'll be able to get it, but it is still a far cry from the wonderfully sick Blue Velvet or the gritty Wild at Heart. It is gratuitously obtuse in the same way that Dead Alive is over-the-top gory, with scenes that add nothing to the plot whatsoever - like the silly shooting at the office.

I still don't know why both viewers and critics rave about David Lynch over David Cronenberg. Maybe they feel that incoherent + mostly boring = art. I can't deny it has a good lesbian sex scene, but that a movie does not make.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 10:12 PM [+] ::
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You know you're in trouble when the best thing about a movie is 40 seconds of Bruce Campbell

Hey, I'm as happy as the next guy to see Jim Carrey starring in more movies that don't involve making his ass talk, but The Majestic is nothing more than a string of loosely connected clichés (well executed, sure, but manipulative clichés nonetheless).

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 11:11 AM [+] ::
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The Gimp, The Gimp, I'm in love with The Gimp

If you have never used The Gimp and are still considering paying up for a Photoshop upgrade (even though you mostly use it just for editing), I suggest you hop over to that site, download it, and start loving it. For those people complaining that there is no easy way to learn how to use it, I'd suggest the book Grokking The Gimp, available both as a free set of HTML pages and printed and bound at Amazon.com.

Don't be afraid of The Gimp. If I, a software developer with almost no graphic editing training and little talent can use it, most certainly someone with more experience will be able to jump right in.

Newsflash: Gimp-print on Linux with Open Source drivers prints photographs orders of magnitude better on my Epson Stylus Color 850 than programs I've tried using Epson-provided drivers for Windows.

If you're using Windows, don't despair: there's a Windows version as well. While it's a bit behind the Linux version (only the stable version gets released on Windows, not the developer version) it's just as functional and stable - or a stable as Windows allows.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 7:41 PM [+] ::
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Several quickies

I just had the RPG page updated and uploaded several new photos to my Photo.net workspace. I also laughed with/at Salon's Holding out for a Hero satire - it's so silly some of it might end up becoming true.

Oh, by the way, I finally received Dave McKean's huge opus Cages, which is both written and illustrated by the intimidatingly bright McKean himself. It will be a while before I finish reading it (I intend to savor each one of its nearly 500 pages) but I'll drop another note about it here.

PS: Ann Benson's The Plague Tales is a good idea with a boring, pointless and heavy-handed execution.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 10:18 PM [+] ::
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