Why I'm not happy with wordpress.com

Ok, I love open source stuff. It's awesome! Wordpress.org is fantastic. wordpress.com, not so much.

Wordpress is like the love-child of Drupal and Blogger. It's got features of a blog, and it's got features of a content management system. This, in theory, is great! I love the concept. You've got a really nice simple interface with a lot of power under the hood.

In theory.


In practice, wordpress.com is a steaming pile of whatsit. (If you don't know what whatsit is, you should watch more homestarrunner.com cartoons.)

Since they stopped letting users add iframes and javascript, it's really just become an overly complex jumble of things that don't seem to work right. There is no benefit to run wordpress over blogger, if you want to just have a simple blog. Blogger will get you up and running faster, and easily integrates all the things you might want! (I have a google analytics account following this blog. Why? I don't know, morbid curiosity... I love knowing that 3 people on average visit this site for <30 seconds a day.)

If you want a multi-page blog with more power, use weebly! (Granted, not open source, but a really nice tool none the less.) If you want to stay open source, just find someone who will give you a little drupal loving.

Wordpress tries to do too much with a blog and ends up being either A: not enough or B: way too much.

Holy Cow!

People read my Blog. I can't believe it! I get page-hits and everything... I think I'll start posting more meaningful things here. I think what I will do is post some more open-source related things here. I am looking into open-source games for a research project that I'm planning to do, so I think I'll start posting some reviews on here about those games.

For now, thanks for the comments!

Dumbledore and the PhD.

I have been thinking about Dumbledore at the end of Half-Blood Prince for a little while now. And let me preface this with two things: 1)I hesitate to post this because I think someone will misunderstand it, and 2) If you're planning to read book 6, and don't want to read any spoilers, read no further, because I've got some spoilers here.

Anyway, Dumbledore, in the novel, The Half-Blood Prince, ends up drinking some potion that is really painful and really debilitating for Dumbledore. Before he starts drinking, he tells Harry to force him to continue drinking, no matter what happens. Harry is forced to promise that he'll make Dumbledore drink, and the story goes on from there.

I feel, doing my PhD, like Albus Dumbledore. No, I'm not saying that getting my degree is a bad thing, I'm saying that it's painful. From what I understand, it is supposed to be painful to a certain extent. The Graduate Students prayer goes something like, "Dear Lord, Please help me to complete this impossible and self imposed task." This is how I feel. I feel like I need to stop, but someone, or something, is pushing me forward.

I feel like a Zombie.

Sometimes I think I cannot go further, but then I find myself on the other side of a task, moving forward again.

Here, hand me that chalice, I think I can take another drink now. Maybe I'm not yet too far gone, I only hope that R.A.B has not nabbed the prize at the bottom of the punch-bowl of death.

Ok, I'm officially evil.

I bought a Mac. This is worse than buying a windows machine. Why? Because if I buy a windows machine, I pay my M$ tax, then blow it away and return to Linux. Now, I have bought a mac. Granted, I could setup a dual-boot setup and run all those great Linux apps in a separate partition. I don't want to.

I am very very happy with my MacBook, and it is treating me very well. I have not hit a single dependency problem. I have not had any hardware conflicts. I've been able to install most of my favorite GNU programs, and I'll be installing a few more today.

Beyond being able to install the open source programs I love, I am able to do what I want without having to worry about it. Granted, one of the first things I've done was to get rid of Safari and install Firefox, but I still love this computer.

Ok, So I'm a Mac Fanboy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go download some back editions of Mac podcasts.

Pet Peeve

One of my biggest pet peeves is the scrolly button on the mouse. Ok, so it's not one of my biggest, but it is my newest peeve.

When I'm working in windows, I expect the scrolly button to just work. I expect that, if I spin the scrolly button, something should scroll (if it is indeed scrollable). This does not always happen. It makes me grumpy.

Open Letter to Apple

Ok Apple, Listen up, because I think you need to hear this.

I love the iPhone. My brother loves the iPhone. My wife and sister-in-law both love the iPhone. I would have purchased an iPhone long ago, but for one simple reason: AT&T is crap.

I cannot begin to understand the reasons for the decisions that AT&T has restricted some of the basic functionality of the iPhone. I am sure that there is some big-and-corporate reason for their decisions, but I really do not care. I don't want to have to worry about what I can and cannot do with my phone because of crazy restrictions and goofy protocols.

It is more and more clear to me that AT&T is like an elderly person who needs to be put in a home for her own good. You know, like when Grandma left the oven on for three days and almost burned down the neighborhood? AT&T is like that. They are trying to push the FCC to restrict more and push more regulation onto the Internet. Let us say that the *do* manage to accomplish this absurd goal. The only thing that I think will happen is more Google functionality will be restricted in the US, and the rest of the planet will get the gooey goodness.

In the worst case scenario, Google will say, "Fine, you want to side with AT&T on this and restrict us? We'll move out of the country. Bye!" I'm sure that this will not happen instantly, but why would a company not move out of an expensive, high-restriction country, to a country with fewer restrictions? It's the eternal problem of the Internet -- how do you restrict something you have no jurisdiction over?

Apple, dump your elderly grandmother in the retirement home. Please.

why I hate World of Warcraft.

There are two reasons I can see that one would play World of Warcraft. First, it's a game that puts you into natural surroundings where trees still have some value. Second, it's an RPG. I value both of these things, but I hate World of Warcraft.

Hate might not be the right word, but it will do.

If you want to participate in nature, the fix is easy. Go outside. Please.

If you want to play an RPG, get some friends, get together and Play an RPG. They're better when you play pen-and-paper. Trust me.

Go outside.