Atomictumor

Excellent.

Thanks to the link by Exiled to Canada, I was able to find another link here, and set up the theoretical xbox to my laptop.

Its kinda funny, because I just happened to buy a crossover cable like 6 years ago for some reason, and kept it in my little bag o’ junk for all this time, where it survived 4 or so throwaway purges because I figured ONE DAY, it might come in handy.

That day is today.

So, I have a sufficiently geeky hack around spending all that stupid money to M$, and didn’t have to set my router on fire to do it. Hells yes.

Actually, the laptop is a Media Center edition and (ahem) an actual legitimate copy, so I started the process to move all my music and crap to the thing. Problem is, the music and crap will swamp the hard drive on both the lappy and the xbox, so I need to figure out a sufficiently hacky way to watch my episode of Heroes that I’m downloading through the xbox on the bitchin HDMI connection.

I mean the theoretical xbox. Or whatever.

Woot.

Man, I’m riding the coffee buzz from hell.

I’m not even really sure whats up with it.  I don’t think I had more than 3 or so cups this morning.  Granted, I slept well, and had nothing to eat (yet), but damn.  Its right on top of me.  I’m buzzing like a vibra… like a broken ceiling fan.  Or something.

Or maybe like a controller from an xbox 360.  Not that I bought one of those yesterday.  Or that it looks DAMN good on my fancy TV, what with the HDMI connection, and the 1080i picture.  No, because that’d be an egregious waste of money.  Yes, egregious.  I had to look that one up.

However, the theoretical Xbox presents a theoretical problem, one that has been festering in the back end of my mind for some time, but one that demands a quick solution:

Hooking that bastard up to the home network…

Now, those of you in the know know that I had what I like to call the ATivo going on, whereas the computer can push data (usually in the form of TV shows) to either of my TVs.  I actually wrote a piece about it a while back, complete with a nice little picture, but the problem is that the whole things kinda been mothballed, because digital cable prevents the use of the RF modulator that was the key in the whole darn kitenkaboodle.

Not that the theoretical xbox has much to do with that.  I’m getting there.

Now, right now, I gots three computers, the big guy in the living room, the littler guy in MastaG’s room, and the lappy in my room.  They’re all kicking back on the mighty beams of my wifi network here, joined occasionally by my phone and whoever can break the encryption to wardrive on my little network (if they can break the 128 bitness, they’re welcome to it).

Thing is, the wifi connector for this theoretical xbox is like a hundred freakin dollars.  Bugger that.

I mean, I bought two little desktop wifi connectors for like 5 bucks apiece.  Its not like its space age technology, people.  Seriously.  100 bucks, so I can hook the dumb old thing up to the wifi.

Hell with that.

So, looks like I gotta run ethernet.  Thing is, if I’m going to get underneath the house, and run cables and crap, I might as well redo the whole darn works.

But I don’t think the coffee buzz can sustain all that.

These days, I’m just not as into home improvements in that way.  I mean, I recognize the use in doing that sorta stuff, but I can’t be arsed to do it.  Its bad enough keeping the house clean and the boys in fresh underwear, without trying to hop up in crawlspaces with wire in my teeth.  Sure, I can do it, and yes, I fully recognize the fact that I’m a lazy bastard (woot), but the needful just isn’t there as of yet.

So, I’m trying to find another solution.  However, that theoretical xbox just really wants to be able to connect to the other computers, and talk shop, and hang out, and maybe share some files.  Its all lonely in there (theoretically), and I gotta do something about it.

Just without spending a hundred freakin dollars.  Seriously, Microsoft, you suck.

Lets review some Google search terms that led the wayward here for the month of September, shall we?

• atomictumor
  Well, I guess that makes a certain amount of sense.
• don t tase me bro
  been getting a LOT of these lately…
• jigglygirls
  I was trying to write a post, and thinking of some kinda generic pornish name, and came up with jigglygirls. I haven’t researched to see if there is in fact a jigglygirls.com, but damn, if there isn’t, somebody might wanna go ahead and register it…
• computers internet blog
  Well, I guess that’s technically correct…
• itunes has detected a problem with your audio configuration
  Lots of people look for this one too. I think Bos had some trouble with it.
  My solution:
  Delete iTunes.
• posted
  Posted? Posted what? This one confuses me.
• naked high schoolers
  Where???
• getting around blocks
  Sounds like the name of a good children’s book.
• grocery store bugs
  Yeesh.
• don t tase me bor
  Bor, from Tolkien? Or did they mean Boris?
  

  I don’t think he’s going to be tasing anybody…

• april
  Actually, like 7 out of the 12 months of the year are represented on this list.  Odd.  How would somebody searching for a month end up here?  The mind boggles.
• david beckham sucks
  Damn right.
• useless
  See, I’m entirely proud that somebody searched for the word “useless” and ended up here.
• inventor of the computer motherboard
  Right here.
• burning hallucinogenic mushroons
  Duuuuude.
• goats pee on themselves
  …

  ooooookay.

• be warned! the nature of your oppression is the aesthetic of our anger
  Ahhh, Crass, with your big words, and your angry, late 70’s, anarchopacifism.
  “They sell us love as divinity, when its only a social obscenity… underneath we’re all lovable!”
  To be 16 again…
• those who survived the san francisco earthquake said thank god i m still alive. but of course those who died their lives will never be the same again.
  Somebody doesn’t seem to understand how Google works.
• where is my cervix
  Somebody doesn’t understand how something else works.
• im gonna do your mom
  Wow.  That’s rather blunt.
• what did the doormouse say?
  Dude, don’t leave me hanging…

Those of you who are fans of some olde skool tumor action may be happy with whats popping up at the bottom of the page, but I’m warning you, drop down boxes can be dangerous things…

So, lets say you have a job.

Its in front of a computer, doing, oh, lets say, local government work. For a county. And your employer, well, they’re dicks about what websites you go to. Sure, you don’t need to be going to jigglygirls.com, or poopchute.net, but lets say you, in the interests of fair discourse, want to go to a local forum, or the website of a local government official.

But man, damned if those rat bastards, those pig fornicating administrative assistants and IT goons aren’t trying to keep you down. Sure, they want you to go to some websites, like the personal ‘news’ website of one of the head honchos, where the news is conveniently pre-filtered and pre-slanted, or maybe to a forum on a local newspaper, where, well, there are other issues, but they’re keeping you down, and not letting you get to where the ACTION is.

Lets just assume that they’re using a content filtering system. Like, say, Sonicwall. Yes, they’re used for filtering bad out of the school websites, so its just natural that you, the grown up working for the .gov, is going to end up being on the business end of the filter stick. Why? Because dammit, these local people just KNOW that they know better than you, they’re doing you a favor and keeping you from going places where you’ll see DISSIDENT opinions.

Hell, if we’re lucky, we might even get into seeing some of these Beijing internet cops that have been in the media lately, looking all cute and cuddly, but all set to handcuff you to a pipe and beat you in the kidneys with FAH Q sticks if you wander down the wrong internet corridor.

Well, don’t say I never did you no favors.

Because circumventing dumbassery is a hobby of mine, and IT is a profession, and dammit freedom is a GOD GIVEN RIGHT, particuarly freedom from political bullshit, I offer you the linked suggestion for a fix.

Now, I preface this by saying there are two fixes here. This is essentially a proxy, and the use of it will surely be viewed as a transgression on IT policy, so they might strap you to the table for it if they catch you, but truth is, they probably won’t. Because the IT guys think the administrative assistant and the political stuff, as we do, is a load of crap, they’re probably not going to bend over backwards to bust you.

Still, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.

Now, if they block that first little linky thing, theres another link with instructions on creating your own proxy on your home (non-work) computer. I neither suggest nor, uh, don’t suggest that you follow instructions and modify computers around, and will under no circumstances fix problems caused by this or comfort you when your computer explodes.

However, I will say “Welcome, pilgrim, to the promised land. The land where the geeks rule, and the good old boys with their power craving weird goat sucking fetishes don’t even realize it”.

Or, I might just say “give me a beer.”