Doing better. It's amazing what 24 hours can do for you.

ICBC got back to me. Apparently they now have this new thing for minor-ish collision damage called "Express" where you take the car directly to a certified repair shop and they do the assessment. So I now have a courtesy car which they told me I could take to Victoria. So Nadia and I will be going tomorrow. It's not Tofino, but I'll take it.

Thanks to my friends who sent me e-mails of support. You guys are true blue. I think I'll be okay now.

Posted at 12:00 AM

Sometimes, I hate my life. This is one of those times.

I got in a car accident. I hurt my car, my precious Sidekick. It's my fault, which means that our friends at the Insurance Corporation of BC will again be sucking my monetary blood for the next several years. My car is drivable, but certainly not legally roadworthy. My vacation to Tofino? Ruined.

So after months of nearly constant stress, clinging to the idea that I'd be able to unwind a bit in the summer when my vacation time arrived, I've been disappointed. One would hope that I'd be able to plan a nicer, consolation vacation later in the summer; but after an insurance rate hike and the repair deductible who knows if I'll be able to afford it.

Posted at 12:00 AM

Success!!!

Everything you are looking at now is being served to you by a PowerMac G3/400, administrated by yours truly. It's phenomenal how easy to use and powerful Mac OS X is. But what I really owe this victory to is the good people who contribute their time to developing the following open-source software:

• Apache - Powerful and well-engineered, it's estimated that 2/3rds of the web servers on the Internet (which amounts to several million servers) run some variation of Apache. The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a non-profit corporation which develops the Apache Web Server and several other pieces of software. Apache Web Server has been in development since 1995.

 
• mySQL - A variant of the SQL database language, mySQL is the most popular open source database software. I use a web form to type my posts, which then end up in in a mySQL database, and are displayed on the main page in chronological order automatically.

 
• PHP - PHP is an amazing HTML processor which generates web site content on the fly. On this site, the creations page pulls entries from the mySQL database to generate each listing in the table. I don't have to go and edit the page every time I want to add an entry, I just add a record in the database, and the PHP script takes care of the rest. PHP just turned ten years old this month.

This list goes on: I still use a few CGI scripts written in PERL, an open-source scripting language; the Gallery software is open source too; even Mac OS X is based on a UNIX BSD variant called Darwin developed by the community. I wouldn't be able to bring you this site so easily without the outstanding efforts of non-profit organizations dedicated to building software that everyone can use, for FREE. I think the rest of the world could take a cue from this kind of knowledge sharing. It's great to hear about medicine research and development projects that are adopting the "open source" model: everyone contributes, everyone benefits.

So, umm... Go team.   :-)

Posted at 12:00 AM

I can't describe how cool it is to finally be able to move everything over to my brand-spanking new server. It's taken blood, sweat, and tears to get everything I want installed on the new server. I've learned a lot of things the hard way. Now all I have to do is wait for the DNS records to refresh. Sweetness...

Posted at 12:00 AM

Nothing much to report. I have a fairly boring life right now.

Going to Tofino with Nadia a week from now. One last reoad-trip before she disappears to Montreal to continue her education in the arts at Concordia. Should be fun.

I'm going to try to get that webserver online soon. Wish me luck.

Posted at 12:00 AM

This is not about me, not exactly. Well, clearly I am not a teenage girl. I'm really hoping that is fact is conspicuously evident in all of your minds, okay? Nor is it about someone else whom I know (and if it is, it was completely unintentional). However, if you mash two people's experiences together, utterly ignoring any incompatibilities, you create a new character; one with her own motivations and feelings. A person who takes on a life greater than the sum of her parts. We mortals can create life, the difference is merely that it exists in our minds.

So I present a poem entitled If Only, and if it breaks your heart, I'll know I've done a good job.

Posted at 12:00 AM

On Nadia's recommendation I am trying Friendster, an online service for meeting people. You enter your existing friends in there, and it can randomly show you other people connected to your little social network based on degrees of separation. It's an interesting concept. I figured I'd give it a try, since the number of actual friends I have in the city of Vancouver proper is abysmal. Will keep you posted.

On the Logistics of Kissing: Nadia and I had an interesting conversation yesterday (one which Nadia had shared with a friend earlier in the week) about the logistics of the first kiss. A lot of the time people say, "... and then we kissed," a dubious statement which Nadia questioned me on during our conversation. After all, it's a rare thing when two people decide at the exact same moment that they're going to kiss eachother. Usually one of the two people moves in first (the "kisser"), and the other person (the "kissee") says to themselves: "Oh! He/She is going to kiss me, that seems nice!" and moves in to meet in the middle. Or perhaps the kissee so surprised that they sit dumbstruck while the other person kisses them, simply accepting the kiss without moving from their original location. And of course, there's always the possibility that the kissee will push the kisser back and be like, "Woah, I don't think so". Thankfully I've never encountered that last situation. But then, I'm still young.

It's bound to happen eventually, because it seems that despite this veneer of "equality" in our society women are still consistently waiting for men to make the first move. And men (at least, the geekish ones) are consistently declining to make the move for various reasons of confidence and propriety. Geekmen, listen to me: kiss the girl. Chances are they'll sigh and kiss back, even in they snap out of it 30 seconds later and say, "Wow, what the heck was that?" Or perhaps they'll just keep kissing, which is always nice.

Posted at 12:00 AM

After submitting a portfolio of poetry and verse (most of which has appeared on this site) I've been accepted into a class being offered this fall at UBC. It's Creative Writing: Lyrics and Libretto. The class is being taught by Meryn Cadell, who apparently has some roots in the indie music scene. Which is cool. It's a once a week afternoon class so I'll only need a couple of hours off work. I'm looking forward to it.

Posted at 12:00 AM

A random person whose website I follow linked this picture on their blog, entitling the entry "Harry Potter and the Conflict of Gender". Frankly, I think he's got more of a John Lennon look happening now more than anything else. Then there's Hermione who, at the risk of sounding like a pedophile, is growing up quite nicely. I remember Nancy telling me that she thought the actress, Emma Watson, was "ugly" (but that was okay because Nancy was sure Emma would grow out of it eventually). I then quoted a recent study by York University that found women at the height of their fertility are much more likely to put down other women, in the interest of sexual competition. Unfortunately, I failed to get anywhere with that hypothesis.

Jeff's quitting. Apparently bartending at White Spot is more interesting than what I do for a living. Somehow, I can't blame him...

Posted at 12:00 AM

Apparently it's true: Apple is switching to X86 based Intel chips in it's computers. I'm crazy. Steve Jobs sucks. What else can I say?

Posted at 12:00 AM

So this week the technology community has been ridiculously abuzz with reports that Apple Computer shall announce tomorrow at the WWDC (the WorldWide Developers Conference) that they will be switching from PowerPC to Intel X86 chips in the Macintosh computer line. So far this is still just a rumor based on the observation of recent talks between Apple and Intel.

This would be a serious move: it would mean recompiling the entire Mac OS and redeveloping many applications to accommodate the change. Mac OS X on Intel PCs has been an oft-raised rumor, especially because the distribution of Unix that Mac OS X is based on, Free BSD, runs natively on the Intel X86 architecture. The move seems asinine at best, though, as it would likely frustrate Apple's user base, which has already had to live through the change from 680X0 to PowerPC processors, and the upgrade from original Mac OS to OS X.

My take? One of two things are going to happen. Scenario A involves Steve Jobs telling everyone that they're in the market for a new CPU for the iPod or some graphics chip and that everyone is very, very silly for thinking that they'll be putting X86 chips into Macs.

The second, much wilder scenario involves Apple announcing that Intel will be making it's own line of PowerPC chips which will appear in Macs. Apple has been frustrated recently with it's PowerPC chip developers. When Motorola's chip group (since spun off Freescale Semiconductor) stalled its PowerPC G4 development in the late 1990s, Apple recruited IBM as an alternate manufacturer. IBM developed the G5, but recently has frustrated Apple by not being able to deliver clock speeds as high as those in the Intel Pentium line. Apple still owns a lot of PowerPC intellectual property, but the original Apple-Motorola-IBM agreement has expired. By having Intel develop a PowerPC CPU, Apple could really give IBM a run for it's money. I don't doubt that Intel is more than capable of such a feat.

We'll see if I'm crazy, stupid, or genius tomorrow.

Posted at 12:00 AM