Depublishing.

Posted at 02:17 PM | Comments (2)

It was Bryn's bachelor party on Saturday. I've got some wonderful pics of him and Allen jumping off a bridge with an elastic tied to them. Did I do it too? No. Fuck no.

Still have to call people. Next weekend is already booked up. Weekend after that is pretty busy too.

Don't feel much like blogging now. Perhaps more later.

Posted at 09:57 AM | Comments (4)

Sunshower...

Posted at 07:45 PM | Comments (6)

So tired today. It's ridiculous deadline day (the sequel) here at work.

The next few weeks are going to be very busy, socially speaking. I see three birthdays, a bachelor party, and a wedding coming up. I'm also conscious of the growing list of people I'm supposed to remember to call.

Posted at 10:58 AM | Comments (1)

Best help menu ever:

I'm also pretty stoked about the new Instant Messaging client I've picked. It's called Adium. It's free, open-source, works with pretty much every IM service out there, and the interface is ridiculously customizable. It also has the most adorable icon ever: Adiumy the Duck.

Awwwww! What's more, you can choose what color the little duck icon will be. When the application is closed, the ducky looks like he's sleeping. His eyes are open when you're connected to a service. When someone messages you, he jumps up out of the dock holding a little sign with the name of the person sending you a message. So wretchedly adorable! If you use OS X and MSN, Yahoo, AIM, iChat, Jabber, GTalk, ICQ, or whatever, I suggest you check it out.

Posted at 10:43 PM | Comments (1)

I've got a minor beef with language and I'm not gonna take it anymore!

If you're like me, you stay informed by browsing around Google News. Doing so for a good couple of years has made me realize exactly how often news organizations are prone to using the verb "slam" to describe insult or severe criticism. See for yourself. "Bush Slams Democrats" "Protesters Slam Bush" "China Slams America" "Tennis Club Slams County Parks Board". Somebody find these people a thesaurus! It'll tell you that "Slam" as "criticism" is fairly informal slang. What I'd give for a little variety.

Anyway, it's important to recognize that language is fluid and evolves. As such, please be advised of the following definition reassignments:

Grand slam: A particularly big criticism, which simultaneously burns several people at once.

Slam dunk: Insulting someone just before you push them into a body of water.

Telephone slamming: Calling someone up to criticize/insult them over the phone.

Slam poetry session: A gathering where everyone in attendance talks about how whiny and equivocal poets are.

Posted at 09:53 AM | Comments (3)

The dry valleys of Antarctica

MRI Sex

Original Donkey Kong on a UCSC campus building using post-it notes

MadTV does Steve Jobs does George W. Bush

Posted at 01:05 PM | Comments (3)

Damn you Apple. Always tempting me with your shiny, shiny toys. Why must you torment me?

So by now you've probably heard about the Apple TV. It's Apple's new set-top box which connects to your TV. You stream video to it from iTunes and it stores it on it's hard disk and plays it back whenever you like. Very groovy on it's own.

But then, people started hacking it.

Now, with a little tweaking you can do all kinds of great stuff with it. You can install the full version of Mac OS X on it. You can enable SSH so you can log into it via the command line. You can make it into a compact, low-cost webserver. You can install additional codecs on it like DivX or Xvid or whatever else you can find for QuickTime. And once you do that, you can play pretty much whatever you want on it, legally purchased or otherwise. It becomes a versatile, sub-PC.

And that just makes me want it MORE.

Apple is a vile temptress. A vile, sexy temptress....

Posted at 07:18 PM | Comments (1)

Much less stress today. Feeling good.

Hung out with sleepy sleepy Nadia for a bit. When she came in the door, I hugged her and then exclaimed, "Nadia, you always smell so NICE!" It's true. Even when Nadia isn't trying to be fragrant she has a faint smell of tea around her. She spent much of her time here on the couch with her head on our cushion. Later on Jen (Iain's girlfriend Jen, if I haven't mentioned) was hugging the same cushion in front of her and remarked, "This cushion smells so nice." Iain jumped in with, "That's Nadia smell. She's got a wonderful stink about her." There we have it.

This book really made my life a lot easier. O'Reilly makes these marvelous comprehensive manuals/guides for all the software that should have a comprehensive manual/guide, but doesn't. This one is Postfix: the Definitive Guide. Postfix is the free mail server implementation which is used by many UNIX/Linux systems including Mac OS X Server. Learning about it in greater detail has enabled me to implement a robust e-mail service for AFS. I ordered this book off Indigo last week. It arrived today. I read through a few chapters and by 2PM I had resolved all the issues that have been dogging at me for several weeks now. Much happier, much less stress.

Posted at 09:44 PM

Over the years my dad has worked for a few different people in his trade. One of his (many) big frustrations is the tools situation. You have a boss who is chintzy with what his company spends on tools. I mean sure, it's nice that the company got that new vacuum former in the corner that's fully-automated, but it still doesn't help the fact that you have to work with a crappy band-saw and 40-year old hand tools.

Old tools isn't too much to complain about on it's own; after all, it's good to be frugal. What sucks is that this tool-stinginess is invariably coupled with an insistence of high quality and performance... which you somehow have to pull off with your crappy tools. To top it all off like a maraschino cherry that's been stewing in a bottle of olives, is the end result. That is, when with your herculean skillz you manage to pull of something resembling a decent result/product, it's either (a) Not good enough, or (b) Grudgingly accepted. It isn't exactly the kind of lifestyle that makes you feel appreciated or ambitious.

The rules are the same, whether you're talking about manufacturing tools or software/hardware technology.

And you can only be in that kind of situation for a certain amount of time before you realize it's not actually worth the effort.

Posted at 10:02 PM | Comments (1)