SecuROM Strikes Back

Back in 2006, I bought Oblivion, oblivious to the fact that it used SecuROM DRM (that was my first encounter with it). Yes, Oblivion was a good game, and I played it through a few times, but alas, all things come to end, and today I decided to uninstall the game. Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs, Oblivion, what??? Disk? Oh I don't have the disk anymore - it was stolen. What? http://www.securom.com/message.asp?m=nodisc? Good! Let me see...

SecuROM™ has determined that there is no disc in a local physical drive.

Yes, I knew that.

(bunch of irrelevant stuff)

If the problem persists, or you need additional assistance, please use the SecuROM™ Diagnostic Tool for further support.

Hmm... Not that I trust SecuROM in the first place... But there's no other option. Okay.

"Unknown publisher". Very nice.
Fifty pages EULA. Brilliant.

No applications using SecuROM™ found. Click 'Close' to go back to main screen.

Just what I need.

OK, let me add it manually.

The selected file is not using SecuROM™!

You've gotta be kidding me.

Now I remember why I didn't uninstall Oblivion since 2006. What was supposed to be a no-brainer split second action turned to be into a time sink (I have a gut feeling that this was hot the first time). Reasonable solution didn't materialize in ten minutes.

I guess I won't be uninstalling it today, either. Or, maybe... I know where to get a hold of a copy of the original Oblivion disk. Just don't tell anyone. And don't tell me that DRM doesn't make me a pirate.

Netflix: The King Of Stupid

It looks like Netflix has joined the ranks of companies whose own stupidity has run them into the ground (Nokia and RIM being prominent examples).

Not only they've screwed up their user interface, pissed off a million of their subscribers by spilling their lattes (which is better than expected, though), and lost a good deal of movies I wanted to watch.

Now they're trying to erase the very memory of it.

To whom it may concern @Netflix: I spent my own precious time to hand pick those movies over years, you dumb<censored>. Those titles were important to me, because you're not the only game in town and I wanted to watch them regardless of wheter you had them or no. Now they're all gone.

Of course, as the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. My own fault.

I guess I'd be killing off my Netflix account completely pretty soon.

PS: Now that I've saved their queue page so they can't steal more of my time and looked at it thinking how to automate the title extraction, it is very clear *why* their new user interface is so inefficient. Just take a look at the page source and try not to laugh. Hint: they could save about 40% of it just by removing unnecessary spaces and endlines. Forty bleeping percent.

PPS: This one-liner works just fine:

cat instant.html|grep -A 4 "class=\"title"|grep -v "\-\-"|grep -v span|grep -v "class=\""|sed 's/^[ \t]*//'|grep -v ^$

PPPS: "netflix alternatives" on Search Insights, Search Trends - impressive, isn't it?

What Google+ Is Not

Is Not That Persistent

How long do your posts and comments live?

Is Not Suited For Long Term Use

As time goes on, it becomes more and more difficult to get to older posts. The only way to do that today is to keep clicking 'More' button and hope that the post will pop up. And God forbid you accidentally click on a wrong kind of a link, because if you use the 'back' button on the browser - well, guess what, back to square one.

Is Not Indexable

Whatever you post, goes to the black hole of your readership. Litmus test: try to find any of your public posts using any search engine. This demotivator comes to mind vividly.

Is Not Searchable

Now, *this* is a surprise, *the* search engine company being behind it. There is simply no way to search anything other than people on Google+.

Wonder if all of these are bugs or features.

UPDATE (2011/09/20): It seems that "not indexable" and "not searchable" complaints are now fixed.

Google Maps + Earth + Android = Mountain Biker's Delight

UPDATE

As of July 2013, Google Maps on Android is broken. Actually, Google started breaking it long time ago - first they removed ability to send your exact location to people (it could be only linked to an existing address), then that ability was removed altogether, then Latitude was gone, and finally MyPlaces fell victim to their "improvements". Users are furious - look a discussions at Google Maps forum. Google promised to bring MyPlaces back in release notes for the version that removed it, but time will tell if they will.

It was a pretty stupid thing to do, but alas, Maps is not the only victim.

Let the rest of the original article stay, just to remind us all how good it once was.

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Ever found yourself lost in the woods, with the route map being insufficiently detailed or just plain wrong? Here's how to fix the situation.

STEP 1: PLAN

Create a route draft with Google Maps.

View Bell Pass Draft in a larger map

STEP 2: CHECK

Save the map to a .kml file, open it with Google Earth, check elevation.

STEP 3: USE

You can see the map you created in step 1 in Maps on your phone. You can see it even if you are off the cell grid - just make sure you download the map area to your phone.

Enjoy.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

There are things you need to remember before relying on your route, though. I'm sure there'll be more for other people in other regions, but here's observations from Arizona desert and mountains:

• Careful with inclinations. When you're looking at routes in Google Earth, the surface seems much, much more flat than it is in reality.
• Watch for rocks. Even though the resolution is often good or excellent, a path that looks smooth may, in fact, be impassable on the bike.
• Watch for washes. What looks like a path may be a wash, full either of rocks or of fine sand.
• Watch for breaks. What looks flat on the map may turn into a 50ft fall if you're not careful.
• Look out for changes and have a Plan B. I once found myself looking at the road that was plowed along to prevent jeeps from coming through - well, it prevented me too. You can't bike through the raw desert, had to walk. Coincidentally, that happened in the middle of the heat wave with the temperature being over 130°F - even water doesn't help after a while. I was not amused.

Good luck.