Aug 10 2010

T&L Episode 1: Show Notes

Attached to this post you will find two of the pictures I took that show how the movie windows look when Devil’s Pie is applied. Sorry that they are a little bit grainy as they were taken with my iPhone (no flash) in a darkened room.

You can find the Devil’s Pie application in many distributions. For Debian, Ubuntu and other .deb based distributions, you may install using:

apt-get install devilspie

For Red Hat, Fedora, OpenSuSE and other .rpm based distributions:

yum install devilspie

Find the source code and revision history for Devil’s Pie here:

  • http://burtonini.com/blog/computers/devilspie

Find the GTK GUI configuration tools here:

  • http://code.google.com/p/gdevilspie

You may run Devil’s Pie at the command line, but the recommended way is to put it as a startup application. In Ubuntu, use the System menu, go to Preferences and then Startup Applications. Use /usr/bin/devilspie as the application. Call it something meaningful.

Here is the s-expression code for my xmbc.ds file which is located on my system in /etc/devilspie. You can also use ~/.devilspie as a directory for your .ds files if you just want them to work for your specific login.

/etc/devilspie/xmbc.ds:
(if
  (contans (application_name) "xbmc")
     (geometry 1180x720+49+49)
     (undecorate)
  )
)

There are many other options you can specify in Devil’s Pie. You can have any number of combinations based on single applications, or you can use a globalized configuration if you have a .ds file which excludes (if) statements.

Other Devil’s Pie Options

  • (center) - Center a window in your desktop
  • (focus) - Give a window focus upon initial draw
  • (below) - Open a window below other windows
  • (fullscreen) - Make a window fullscreen
  • (opacity x) - Set opacity to x (0 - 100)
  • (pin) - Pin a window to all workspaces
  • (set_workspace x) - Open window on workspace x
  • (maximize) - Maximize
  • (minimize) - Minimize
  • (debug) - Enable debugging

Feb 10 2009

Sometimes Bad is Bad

And tonight, the weather is what’s bad. And a lot of times, that’s just the way I like it. We’re about to be hit with what looks like a very long line of strong thunderstorms. I can’t wait. In the meantime, the wind is up and it is literally howling. I like it when the wind howls and moans. If this were a horror movie, no additional mood setter would be necessary. Sometimes, it’s the simple things that make life grand.

Howling Wind MP3

Weather Loop

Feb 06 2009

Coraline (2009)

Coraline (2009){rating}

Review pending.

 

Nov 18 2008

Sleep Driving Encouraged

Congratulations to the makers of zolpidem tartrate, better known as AmBienCR, on aspiring to a whole new level of medical negligence. Reported side effects of this drug in clinical trials include depression, lack of coordination, behavioral changes, suicidal thoughts, hallucinations, sleep driving and severe anaphylaxis.

Sleep driving.

During most of the ads on television for a medicine, a company implores viewers to consult a doctor about conditions which may benefit from administration of their drug. The AmbienCR folks have dropped the term doctor in favor of prescriber, indicating that it’s not necessary to see a qualified physician, just someone with a prescription pad and bad penmanship.

Way to go, guys. Two thumbs way up. Excuse me while I hit up my prescriber for some Oxycontin and medically necessary weed.

Jun 16 2008

A Humble Request (and Joe Pesci, too)

I’m wondering why it seems that Christians, brand name doesn’t seem to matter, have a way of injecting their religious faith in everything they do. I get it ten times a day more: In e-mails, in passing conversation, overheard at the checkout line, and so on. While I have no problem with folks having faith in whatever they want to have faith in, I’m not sure that projecting it at every opportunity is conducive to effective communication. It’s done quite casually, as well: A “god willing” here and a “glory be” there. And when it’s written, bible passages and references to a favored deity abound and proliferate.

I rarely, if ever, hear members of other religions making mention of their faith in general conversation. No references to Vishnu or Pan, Allah or Buddha, Thor, Aphrodite or Zeus. There’s no injection of other random insights into our personal natures either: No comments about sexual orientation or position, political leanings, thoughts on capital punishment or favorite mixed drinks we might have recently overindulged in. Probably because these things are personal and could easily be offensive to others within earshot.

So while I believe everyone should have the right to believe in whatever they want to believe in, it would be better in practice to keep random religious zeal. and images of the virgin Mary on toast, close to the vest, only to be exposed when the topic of conversation truly warrants it.

Don’t make me pray to Joe Pesci and bring down his wrath. High gas prices would then be the least of our worries. Amen.