So I’ve been tasked with making a calculator to calculate (obviously) how much you can get from the Saver’s Credit. Easy enough. If you know your Adjusted Gross Income and your Net Contributions for the year, as well as third-grade math, then you should have no problem figuring it out. To produce, it really only takes the basics of HTML and JavaScript.

So, I start it up from scratch. Very simple, only the basic functionality. Doesn’t work. JavaScript console keeps giving me errors like, “form not defined”, and “form has no properties”. Strange, so I do a little hunting. I find a couple resources that indicate I’m using forms and JavaScript all wrong. I completely understand the reasoning. However, what I don’t understand is the fact that I have a relatively huge calculator that does it the “wrong” way, but it works perfectly and in all browsers I’ve tested it on.

I understand that JavaScript needs to know how to use the form in the HTML section. It seems you either need to use:

document.forms[0].whatever

…if you have only one form to speak of, or you need to name the form and call it in the function, thusly:

myForm.whatever

However, I have the generic:

form.whatever

…but down in the HTML section, where I call the function to be used, instead of something like:

onClick="functionName(this)"

…I use:

onClick="functionName(this.form)"

…and it works perfectly.

So, is this something kinda new or something on it’s way to being deprecated?

Since I was going to reinstall anyways, I upgraded when the Release Candidate was ready as I’ve heard nothing but great things about the quality of their betas. Everyone seems to have had a good experience with the update, except for a couple tweaks here and there. I’ve noticed a handful of things go wrong, though.

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First, OpenOffice. Seems functional enough, but all the icons on the toolbars are invisible, except for the one I’m hovering over. Not exactly usable. I wonder if it has anything to do with installing the newest with Automatix over the one that was there since install.

Second, Kopete. Whenever I have a chat window focused, and then right-click an icon on my desktop, it freezes Kopete and any desktop functionality. I can use the windows that are already open, but everything else is stuck until I kill Kopete. It doesn’t happen everytime, but at seemingly random times.

Finally, Firefox. Every so often, I’ll click a link and it will load the page (shows the address in the address bar, shows the title, which means it’s reading from the heading in the source), but it doesn’t display a damn thing. If I click refresh like a maniac, I may get the background color. Occasionally after a few refreshes it will actually load the page, but have trouble with links on that page. This happens sparingly and seemingly at random.
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So, a couple hiccups, but nothing major. Even less concerned because I’ll be reinstalling fresh.

I remember the first time trying out an installed version of Gnome (as opposed to the Live CD) and thinking it was the fastest desktop I’d ever seen. I’ve only tried the new Gnome on a Live CD, but even KDE has gotten much swifter. I don’t mind when something like Azureus takes a couple seconds to open (has to load up clunky Java), but when it comes to terminals and file browsers, I want it NOW!

Live CD goes in, PC boots up, login… Opens to a standard looking Gnome desktop (with a link to keyboard shortcuts). I didn’t notice that link at first, so I struggled to figure out what I knew it could probably do.

I tried immediately to open a terminal to see the jelly-like “wobbly” windows and true transparency. (KDE currently has true transparency on menus, but still semi- for everything else [terminal background]). Gnome’s terminal crashed on startup (later learned this was a known bug). Alright, fair enough, it is an early beta. Opened up a file browser and tried to see how distorted I could get the window by shaking it really hard. Ahh, so easily amused. Fun to hit Ctrl to make it sticky and watch it stretch and squeeze against other windows.

The desktop shortcuts were (mostly) easy to figure out, intuitive in a Gnome environment. Fun to spin the cube around to other desktops, but it’s not as quick as I’d like. It looks damn cool, but the animation takes a bit too long. It’s like all those Hollywood movies whenever they send an email, it has the document “fold” and turn into an envelope and fly away. Looks cool, but if I had to watch that every time, I’d probably shut it off.

One feature I thought was really useful was the way the windows automatically arrange themselves when you hit F12. It’s just temporary for you to choose a window to give focus, but I think it’s great for when I have a lot of windows open and don’t want to dig through them.

I think it makes the desktop a little too distracting, but a couple features are very valuable. I was also impressed it worked so damn well on this machine. Especially with proprietary operating systems having similar features, but much higher recommended specs.

Xgl Demo (AVI, ~57MB)

See where I’ve been
Track where I go next!
www.wheresgeorge.com

Interesting. It’s an online project to track where currency notes end up. I submitted the bill that was stamped here. Even has a link to show the Google map between the points.

Here is the most-tracked bill. Almost 5,000 miles in over 3 years.

Some new themes available. Like the cleaner fonts on this one, and not having to read them against a stark white background.

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I use an XP machine at work to produce their website and I commonly use [Notepad] for copy/paste scratch or to quickly edit a little JavaScript. I liked that it was just small and light, but it’s absolutely feature-less. So, I looked around to see if there was a Windows equivalent to gedit or Kate, and found Notepad++. It has more features than I would ever possibly use, but it’s nice to have the language highlighting.

But anyway, so I walk into a local EB Games (local to where I work anyhow) to pick up the new Ghost Recon. While I was waiting for a couple knuckleheads to get their orders sorted out, I stood by to watch a guy playing the 360 version of GR:AW on a lovely LCD monitor. Simply amazing.

The counter’s clear, so I take my game to be rung up. As the clerk goes to get the game he adds, “whew, servers will be full tonight.”

I’m sighing on the inside. He places on the counter the 360 version, when I handed him the purchase box for the regular ol’ Xbox version. So now I have to say, “um, the regular one.”

“Oh, I’m so used to handing out the one for 360. You’re the oddball.”

Like kicking a wounded animal.

Has it helped anybody? I installed Ubuntu 5.10 clean from disc and only did minor tweaks here and there. A lot of looky-no-touchy, so I can’t think of anything that makes my situation unique. Yet, it didn’t work the way I saw it everywhere on the web. I would have posted it in a forum or slipped it into a wiki, but it really didn’t seem like anybody was having the same problem.

So, helped? Tried it and still didn’t work? Don’t want to leave comments? It makes you put it an email address, but just to make sure you’re a human being. I have access to it, but I promise I won’t sign you up for random newsletters like I do to friends and family. Or lie, I don’t really care. I just want to know if it’s helped at all.

First off, I want to say I agree that freedom of speech is being greatly limited by the American government. It is not the FCC’s duty to regulate what goes over the airwaves, nor is it one they deserve. It is a power they have given themselves. Democracy in action, right? That’s what our founding fathers had in mind? A small, vocal minority controlling this nation?

Anyway, America’s complacence aside, why satellite radio? Let’s stop pretending he’s a champion of free speech. He gave up the fight when he left terrestrial radio. Interestingly enough, there’s talk about Sirius executives trying to set some boundaries for Stern. There is fear that congress will decide that government regulation of satellite radio is necessary. Personally, I think they just have it out for him.

Why didn’t Stern take his show to the Internet? Free speech is still relatively safe here (in America, at least, can’t say the same for all countries). He would have a wider audience. Maybe he didn’t like the idea of people pirating the show and getting his dose of free speech for (gasp) free. Maybe there were moral issues. Maybe it was the $700 million he received for signing to Sirius. Just maybe.

I did a search, looking for articles pertaining to the FCC trying to regulate satellite radio, but came upon various articles generally about the move to Sirius. Actually, they weren’t all that varied. Some were just factual articles, but many were people who were offended by Stern. I would liked to have seen some from the other side of the argument, but Stern fans are rarely articulate.

His words don’t offend me. They’re just words. His actions don’t offend me. What offends me is that the show is so horrendously bad. I like talk radio. I particularly like shows with discussions of social concerns. His show bores me to death.

I’m obviously not a fan, but I’ve listened to my fair share. I haven’t heard much in the way of constructive social criticisms. It’s usually just him saying how great a job he would do if he were in a position of power. Not actually any real ideas. They read the headlines from the news (yeah, the same ones you get from reading the morning paper or taking a couple minutes to browse around the Internet). All the guests are celebrities (it’s amazing anyone actually cares about these people). The co-hosts are horrible. They play “drops” in the show (little sound clips), which are either fart noises or sexual sounds, but they are all of poor quality. Other guests include porn stars (zero intelligence), or other young women who don’t mind being degraded for the chance to make a bit of money. I love the aesthetics of a physically beautiful woman, but what does that mean to me, listening to the radio?

When he was on FM radio, the amount of commercials was just ridiculous. I assume he made a good amount of money, but was it just not enough? Hold on, it gets better: on satellite radio, you know, the one you need to pay to listen to, there’s still advertisements.

He’s not a pioneer. He’s not a revolutionary. In the move to satellite, he’s no longer even a footnote in the history of free speech. It’s hard to take him seriously on the subject when he’s limited himself to the numb-skulls willing to pay $13 a month to listen to him.

When I started this, I told myself I wouldn’t post under certain conditions. I want to continue this. I think, you know, I kind of need to. I don’t have many outlets. I don’t take advantage of many outlets.

I have a few days left to work through a metric ton of things that are piling up against me.