> Home of the Old School Geek http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com > Shall we play a game? Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:11:04 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Doctor Who Christmas Special trailer is released by BBC http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/doctor-who-christmas-special-trailer-is-released-by-bbc/ http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/doctor-who-christmas-special-trailer-is-released-by-bbc/#comments Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:11:04 +0000 John http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/?p=411 This ain’t no Brady Bunch Christmas Variety Show either! Can’t wait!

]]> http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/doctor-who-christmas-special-trailer-is-released-by-bbc/feed/ 0 Review of a review of The Walking Dead http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/review-of-a-review-of-the-walking-dead/ http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/review-of-a-review-of-the-walking-dead/#comments Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:08:33 +0000 John http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/?p=403  < SPOILER ALERT, move along if you have not yet watched TWD season 2, part 1 and intend to>

I just read this review of The Walking Dead, Season 2, part 1 on Den of Geek and had to blog my thoughts. IMO this guy just doesn’t get it and is unable to cope with entertainment structure out of the norm. He criticizes  the lack of direction – I think the whole point of the show is to live in an environment where you are struggling to find direction. Real life does not have a clear plot  and maybe some of us appreciate shows that do not resolve themselves in a 60 minute arcs.

The writer criticizes that there is no clear antagonist. Good. I hate when American TV needs to dumb things down to simple “bad guy” pure evil. I’m semi-intelligent and I like complicated characters. When the bad guy has redeeming qualities and the good guys have flaws (ala Stephen King), I’m in. That’s how most people are in the real world.

He thinks they should have found the girl alive?  Let me tell you that if they did find her alive in the back of a mini-mart eating a stash of  ho ho’s I would have cried” BS” and turned the show off for good. I think the show is going for a more realistic approach to a post-apocalyptic world rather than wrapping it up into easy-to-chew entertainment gruel.

I agree that the budget cuts have become visible, but I enjoy the characters and the writing. My only regret? That I did not start collecting the comics from the beginning…..

I would like to see more shows like this. And more movies like Kevin Smith’s Red State. Where the accepted arcs and structures are tossed out the crapper window.

]]> http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/review-of-a-review-of-the-walking-dead/feed/ 0 the Oneiric Ocelot killed my Natty Narwhal http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/the-oneiric-ocelot-killed-my-natty-narwhal/ http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/the-oneiric-ocelot-killed-my-natty-narwhal/#comments Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:09:00 +0000 John http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/?p=391 Today, I performed the Ubuntu 11.04 to 11.10 upgrade and ran into a couple of issues.  The first issue was fairly serious, so I figured that others might run into it as well. Once the 11.10 upgrade was complete, my PC froze on boot (reboot) with a message saying “Waiting for network“. It turns out that some of the files / filesystems are not in the locations that the network services are expecting them. Seems like a pretty gross error. Thanks to The Node for all of the help!

To fix this, run these steps:

When the boot freezes, do CTRL-ALT-F1  to open a terminal window

Log in (duh) and run these commands. You may have to sudo them if you do not use root

  • mv /var/run/* /run
  • rmdir /var/run
  • ln -s /run /var/run
  • ln -s /run/lock /var/lock
  • reboot

The next boot should be successful

]]> http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/the-oneiric-ocelot-killed-my-natty-narwhal/feed/ 1 Blog Theme available for download http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/blog-theme-available-for-download/ http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/blog-theme-available-for-download/#comments Sun, 16 Oct 2011 11:42:45 +0000 John http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/?p=386 If you like the theme of this blog and are running WordPress 3.2.x (other versions may work too), you are welcome to download it. If you have any suggestions, I am open to making chages to the theme for you. I’m bored…..

Simple Geek WP Theme – V 1.0

Download

 

 

]]> http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/blog-theme-available-for-download/feed/ 0 Ressurecting the Commodore 64 BBS! http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/ressurecting-the-commodore-64-bbs/ http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/ressurecting-the-commodore-64-bbs/#comments Sat, 03 Sep 2011 21:36:58 +0000 John http://www.theoldschoolgeek.com/?p=264 Soooo,  some discussions about “these kids today” and “remember what life was like before Al Gore invented the internet ?” led to talk of the good old days of Commodore 64 dial-up BBS systems. I remember spending hours with my best bud Don dialing  BBS’s over and over. Ahh, the sound of 300 Baud handshakes and chattering disk drives.

 I’ve been inspired to get a BBS running again on the trusty old Commodore 64.  For those of you not familiar with a BBS, back in the day of 8 bit graphics and parachute pants, the online social experience was enjoyed via dial-up terminal type Bulletin Board Systems.  One would use a terminal emulator program on a Commodore 64 (or similar technology) to dial another Commodore 64 that is hosting the BBS and post messages or share files.

Since most of us do not have a telephone line modem any longer, I decided to get my C=64 hooked up to the interwebz and to be able to host the BBS via telnet over TCP/IP.  Leif Bloomquist first accomplished this be routing incoming telnet session requests through a dedicated PC and then to the Commodore 64 via serial connection. His project is documented here

I’ve copied the mechanics of his process and will try to take it a bit further. The project page is here. You can find information about how to connect to this BBS on this page, as well as see the completed and remaining tasks.

Why? I’m bored… and don’t cost nuttin…

 

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