Monday, December 31, 2007

What will 2008 bring?

Last year, I wasn't able to go anwhere/do anything for New Year's Eve due to "family obligations." Basically, someone made a bad choice and I had to clean up the mess. This year, I'm under no such obligations . . . except I'm just done getting over a sinus infection, my energy levels are pathetically low, and I didn't exactly make any great/fantastic plans.

I know, not the most auspicious start to yet another year that I swear is going to be better and different than last year. Still, in comparison to the first two weeks of last year, it'd be a major surprise if this year isn't better.

I'm in year two of the "new job", so I guess I can't technically call it "new" anymore. I stated five professional goals in my first year evaluation, and with the research I completed last week while everyone else was on vaca, I was able to make major progress on one of them. If I can get this one piece automated like I want, it should free up about two work hours of my time every week-- that's 104 additional work hours per year I can apply to accomplishing the other four remaining professional goals.

Of course, there's more to life than your vocation. There's the "living" part, and that's the part I haven't exactly been very good at in the past few years. Part of the problem was that my previous job demanded so much of my time, it was nearly impossible for me to have a life "outside" of it. People would call me before work hours, after work hours-- their expectations were just insane. They'd send an email to my Blackbery, and then call me ten minutes later demanding to know why I hadn't responded to their email. Fortunately, the climate at the new job is an improvement-- they understand the difference between email and instant messaging.

The problem is, now that I've reclaimed the time, what exactly do I do with it? I don't exactly have fantastic hobbies, and few of my interests are socializing-oriented. One or two of my friends have been talking about trying to fix me up with someone. They mean well, but they can't possibly understand why I might find that sort of talk insulting or offensive. I've spent/lost too much time and energy in my life trying to make other people happy. Having a significant other isn't guaranteed to improve the quality of my life, and it's more than likely to prevent some opportunities to do new things. (Example: I'm toying with the idea of learning how to ski-- but being "stuck with" someone who's unwilling to consider learning something new would completely demotivate me.)

The real kicker, though, is going to be the home renovation. I've tried to do piecemeal home improvement projects in the past by financing them with my tax refunds. The gas fireplace was a fiasco that went way over time and budget; but it did have one bright side. It taught me that this piecemeal nonsense would never get me anywhere, and that I should pursue a line of credit to finance the rest of the improvements in a more compressed time line.

So, now I've got the money to make it happen- I just need to know exactly what I want to accomplish.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

The FOAF (Friend Of A Friend) phenom

(for those of you expecting a technological post on social networking as a metric of accurate merit, this ain't it.)

I must be in some bizarre contemplative mood this morning. I could go for the easy joke about Dita Von Teese being single again, and learning that I'm the same age as Marilyn Manson-- but instead, I find myself contemplating some bizarre human inter-relationship phenomenon that I can only call "Friend of a Friend."

Let's say you actually read this entire blog. You would wind up with a series of inferences, some of them right and some of them wrong. The point is, the inferences you walk away with are never going to be as complete and accurate as knowing me in real life. This is obvious, right? I mean, I'm not revealing any great mystery or surprise here by saying that. People manage their disclosures online to be more like the way they want to be perceived.

All right-- let's change the script a little bit by replacing "read this entire blog" with "hear stories about me from one of your friends." Over time, as you hear these different stories, you begin to build a series of inferences about me. Some of these inferences might be spot on, while others might be erroneous. Why would some be erroneous?

Because people are like prisms-- when they tell stories about something they've witnessed or experienced, they filter and bend the reality according to their worldview. I'm not even talking about "spin doctoring" or any of that cynical nonsense now, I'm talking about frames of reference. Ask a teenager to define what old is, and they might say "over 35 . . . "; ask someone who's 36 what their concept of old is, and they might say "over 50 . . ."; ask a 51 year old if they feel old, and they might ask you to arm wrestle. ;)

When people tell stories, they include the parts they think are interesting, or that drive home the point they want to make. They rarely tell the story in its entirety, and who can blame them? That would take too long and who has that kind of memory and attention to detail anyway?

But, wait-- there's more! ;)

I control my own information in my blog. I can choose what to post, or not to post, I can spell check my words so I look more literate/educated, I can go back and fix "bad" posts or remove them entirely. The resulting impression you get of me is directly related to the skill and care I put into cultivating my public persona.

We enjoy no such luxuries when our friends tell stories about us. They can choose to tell the private stories about us that we wouldn't tell ourselves (Thanks, C!) or not to tell stories that contradict how they like to think of us. The delta between reality and the stories told tends to be even greater.

It's sort of like when the public mistakes the actor in a television show for the character that he or she portrays, and then are all disappointed when reality shows they are nowhere near as ideal/cool/sexy/intelligent in real life.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Will cell phones make wrist watches obsolete?

Despite what web site polls at Gizmodo would have you believe, cell phones will not make wrist watches obsolete.

You've seen the polls. The latest one states that 2/3's of the respondents use a cell phone to tell time instead of wearing a wrist watch. First of all, it's not the most scientific survey in the world: they left off an option for people who use both their cell phones and their wrist watches to tell time. I think there is also an argument to be made that having the poll on a gadget-themed web site will get you skewed results-- much like having a survey of people leaving church will get you skewed results if you ask religious oriented questions.

Here's what the surveys don't tell you: wrist watches aren't about telling time. They are about making statements via fashion status symbols. When you go to a job interview/business meeting/cocktail party sporting an Omega or Tag Heuer on your wrist, you are sending a message to others about who you are in the economic pecking order. Yes, I know-- technical types tend to disparage this fashion statement business, but that doesn't mean it's any less real or valid. It just means that there are different modes of the same game. Look at the iPhone, for instance, which will cost you about as much as a man's luxury watch by the time you add in the data plan, etc. -- or the proliferation of personalized ring tones. It's the same game, but people play at the level they feel they can afford.

(For the record, I haven't worn a wristwatch on a regular basis for a few years now, and when my cell phone rings it sounds like Dr. Who's TARDIS.)

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Fortune Cookie Message

"It's nice to be remembered, but it's far cheaper to be forgotten."

~ Chinese fortune cookie

Sé un poco sobre un montón de cosas diferentes

El conocimiento puede ser "profundo" o "amplia."

"Profundo" significa usted sabe todo lo que posiblemente es saber sobre un tema específico. Gente considera que un documento de expertos sobre el vino, o haikus, o los Beatles. (Sugerencia de la pluma a B.)

"Amplia" significa que tiene triviales el bloc de notas de los conocimientos en las diferentes áreas, pero no la información completa de los expertos en una sola disciplina. Es posible saber la 54 elemento en la tabla periódica que pasa a ser de xenón, pero no tiene idea de cuántos elementos hay en toda la tabla periódica. En los viejos tiempos, hemos llamado a estas personas Renaissance hombres / mujeres.

Como estoy seguro de que ha de deducirse el título de esta entrada, mi conocimiento tiende a ser "amplia" en vez de "profunda". ¿Qué puedo decir -- Tengo una licenciatura en artes liberales de la tradición. Es curioso que algunas personas recordar mi testigo de una peculiar información tidbit (por ejemplo, utilizando HTML comentarios "encubrir" Javascript para que pueda pasar a través de un validador de éxito) y asumir soy un experto en ese tema. Es incluso más cuando alguien con la "amplia" del conocimiento (por error??) Cree que es un experto en un tema.

Tengo un amigo, el "Agoraphobe", que ella misma considera un experto Beatles. Un día, conoce a este chico, que también tiene un amor apasionado a los Beatles. Ella toma un pase de fantasía a la gente dice y las huelgas de una conversación. En el curso de la conversación, surge la cuestión "¿Cuál es tu Beatle favorito?" La gente responde: "Peter". Al punto que mi amigo dice gente asume que es un poser, y todos sabemos que los expertos y fanáticos no puede tolerar falsa aficionados -- por lo que desestimó dicho gente de la cola posiblemente interesante.

Más tarde, cuando ella está recordando su triunfal exposición de poser dijo a mí, y me deja de preguntar, "¿No era el baterista Ringo antes llamado Peter algo?!" "Sí, Peter Best," las respuestas y, a continuación, después de una larga pausa: "No creo que en realidad quería decir... Aw, [interjección], tienes que estar bromeando!"

¿Hay alguna lección que hay que aprender? No sé. Con terminología como "amplia" y "profunda", es tentador para terminar esta entrada con un ingenioso doble sentido. Salvo no puedo dejar de pensar, pero los expertos no están obteniendo algunas amistades / relaciones / oportunidades a causa de su elitismo -- y si renacimiento de personas podrían centrarse sólo un poco más sobre un tema que se podrían tomar un poco más en serio que "dilettantes" O "gatos / jills de todos los oficios."

No hay antiguo gurú en la cima de la montaña que sabe todo. Él desapareció para dar lugar a las conveniencias modernas como la radio y las torres de antenas de teléfono celular. Somos nuestros propios expertos; somos nuestro propio renacimiento de los hombres. Todo el mundo tiene algo que ofrecer, y tenemos que despertar y darse cuenta de ello en breve.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

I know a little about a lot of different things

Knowledge can be "deep" or "wide."

"Deep" means you know everything there possibly is to know about a specific topic. People consider you an authoritative expert on wine, or haikus, or the Beatles. (Tip of the pen to B.)

"Wide" means you have trivial scraps of knowledge in many different areas, but not the comprehensive information of the expert in any single discipline. You might know the 54th element on the periodic table happens to be Xenon, but you have no idea how many elements there are in the entire periodic table. In the old days, we called these people Renaissance men/women.

As I'm sure you've deduced from the title of this entry, my knowledge tends to be "wide" rather than "deep." What can I say-- I have a degree in the liberal arts tradition. The funny thing is some people witness my recall of a peculiar info tidbit (e.g. using HTML comments to "cloak" Javascript so it can pass through a validator successfully) and assume I'm an expert at that topic. It's even funnier when someone with "wide" knowledge (mistakenly??) believes they are an expert on a topic.

I have a friend, the "Agoraphobe," who considers herself a Beatles expert. One day, she meets this guy who also has a passionate love for the Beatles. She takes a passing fancy to said gent and strikes up a conversation. During the course of the conversation, the question comes up "Who is your favorite Beatle?" The gent answers: "Peter." At which point my friend assumes that said gent is a poser, and we all know that experts and fanatics cannot possibly tolerate faux fans-- so she dismissed said gent from the possibly interesting queue.

Later, when she is recalling her triumphant exposure of said poser to me, I stop her and ask, "Wasn't the drummer before Ringo named Peter something?!" "Yes, Peter Best," she replies, and then after a long pause: "You don't think he really meant . . . aw, [expletive], you've got to be kidding me!"

Is there some lesson to be learned there? Beats me. With terminology like "wide" and "deep," it's tempting to finish this entry off with a witty double entendre. Except I can't help but think experts are missing out on some friendships/relationships/opportunities because of their elitism-- and if renaissance people could just focus a little longer on one subject they might be taken a little more seriously than "dilettantes" or "jacks/jills of all trades."

There is no ancient guru on the mountain top who knows everything. He vanished to make room for modern conveniences like radio towers and cell phone antennae. We are our own experts; we are our own renaissance men. Everyone has something to offer, and we need to wake up and realize it soon.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Worst Christmas EVAR!???

Possibly so.

Next year, I'm going to plan to be away for Christmas-- Colorado, Albuquerque, Montreal, I don't know yet-- but it will be far away from all the selfishness/hypocricy/insanity that this time of year seems to bring out in the people around me.

And-- No, I *really* don't want to talk about this.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Office Politics Article at Dumb Little Man

I'm re-reading the "How to improve your skill at office politics" entry for the third time now, trying to figure out why something here is bothering me. I think it is an outstanding article, I should mention. It's definitely more positive and helpful than the general commentary and advice on office politics that is currently out there.

And yet, when I think about trying to apply it to working with my situation-- it breaks down once it goes beyond my immediate office (i.e. specifically interacting with members from other departments).

I think the advice works when everyone is being honest. Unfortunately, the organizational structure of hierarchies frequently pits one department against another-- and discourages people to be honest and forthright about their concerns and needs.

I also disagree with the statement about incompetence being excusable if the person is likeable. True, being competent does NOT give you license to treat other people badly-- and if you think otherwise, you need to stop watching House MD reruns and get out in the real world more often. However, I've worked on teams where an incompetent staff member has pretty much single handedly destroyed the performance of that team. It's an absolute morale killer, period. Just ask anyone who's had to work over the weekend to fix the problems caused by another teammate's incompetence. If you cannot or won't learn to do the job correctly, you should admit it and move on to another job that you can do properly.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

The jigsaw puzzle that is Google

There's this hilarious scene in "Moscow on the Hudson," where Vladimir (Russian defector played by Robin Williams) goes to the grocey store to buy coffee . . . and begins to hyperventilate because he's overwhelmed by the staggering number of brands available to him.

That's also a good representation of what I felt like when trying to figure out which APIs I should use in my first Google Mashup Editor experiment! Fortunately, I've been able to make some decisions to narrow that scope considerably. I decided to limit my first mashup experiment to only Google provided feeds/API's. I know, that seems kind of arbitrary, but when you think about it, the most likely feeds/API's to have problems with the Google Mashup Editor are the ones NOT created by Google. So by limiting it to Google products initially, I should have a better chance of succeeding.

So, I've been reading up on the various Google Data APIs-- and there are probably well over a dozen of those! You've got the Blogger Data API, which lets you read/create/update/delete entries in your Blogger powereed blog. You've got the Google Docs Data API, which allows you to list the various documents you have in your collection of online documents. You've got a Google Spreadsheet API which allows you to read data from a specific spreadsheet. It's still quite a lot to absorb.

But the one that blows my mind the most is Google Base and its associated APIs. Basically, Google lets you create a database (except its all in XML instead of tables, rows and columns) and then use that database as the backend for your web application. The data is public, so you wouldn't want to put any confidential info in it, but if you are building a web app, chances are you are trying to make that data as public as possible anyway, right? Otherwise you would be running it on an Intranet server or internal file server. (Yes, I know, some people have no damn sense, so I shouldn't assume that.)

The potential of Google Base is enormous. I just need time to wrap my brain around the whole new paradigm-- to stop thinking in terms of relational database tables, and start thinking in terms of XML items that can have one or more possible values for the same attribute built into each item.

So, assuming I can figure out Google Base-- what other APIs should I mash it up with? The obvious/too easy choice is Google Maps. Google Base features a "location" type, so I could use it in conjunction with Google Maps to track locations of some type or other. But, how incredibly lame and unimaginative is that? I mean, everyone and their brother has already done that-- so unless I decide to track something really offbeat, like Elvis sightings or crop circles, no one else is going to find it useful or interesting. And let's face it, Elvis and crop circles are novelty items at best.

The goal here is to come up with a-- an-- "alloy" of two services that no one has really considered combining, and winding up with something greater than just the sum of the two original parts. Like maybe Google Base with a bunch of data about the various incarnations of Linux distributions and their ancestor/decendent relationships, combined with Google Charts to provide some kind of visual "family tree."

Sigh. Yeah, I know-- no one besides hard core Linux geeks would care. And maybe not even most of them. But it's an example of the sort of ground breaking thought process that needs to go into a mashup.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Friday, December 21, 2007

When former co-workers resort to slander, nobody wins

I was invited to the retirement ceremony of a former colleague this week. Even though I was no longer a part of that organization, someone took the time to recognize that I had worked closely with this person on the web development team for our group, and decided I should be invited. I thought this was a pretty classy move, so I RSVP'ed that would I attend.

Turns out, it was a big mistake.

About twenty seconds after I step in the door, one of my former coworkers walks right up to me and says, "We don't allow traitors in here." At first, I think I must have misheard what he said with all the background noise in the room, so I ask him to repeat himself. He does, and I tell him to kiss my ass and walk right past him.

The sad part about all this is I could contact his supervisor and file a complaint about being publicly slandered like this, except I'm sure it would all be explained as "he was just joking . . . you shouldn't have taken him seriously, you need to get a sense of humour, etc." and then subsequently swept under the rug. Unfortunately, that double standard of discipline has become SOP for upper management in my former organization. It's one of the many reasons why I decided to leave.

So, here's the deal-- I know (thanks to Google Analytics) that at least one of you reads this blog. I've overlooked a lot of the stuff that was said about behind my back when I worked for you, but I don't work for you anymore and I don't have to put up with it now. Here's what's going to happen: the next time *anyone* from my former workplace contacts me and asks for assistance, my answer will be no. When I explain why I'm refusing to help them, I'm going to cite the comment that was made at this retirement ceremony and the name of the person that made it.

It's called "The Prisoner's Dilemma." You try to screw over someone that you have to interact with into the future, and you can expect retaliation. In this particular case, I'm taking a page out of Ghandi's book and using passive resistance. Just be glad I didn't pick a tactic from someone else's book-- like Hannibal.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

The Raw Ingredients of a Good Mashup

I got an email a few days ago confirming my new Google Mashup Editor account. I haven't had time to play with it very much, but it is basically a front-end/toolkit for creating web mashups.

I know-- what's a mashup, right?

A mashup is when you take features from two different web sites and blend them in such a way that it forms a new, and arguably, superior result. There are already hundreds of mashups in existence, but the most popular kind of mashup appears to involve GoogleMaps.

So, here I am, with the best toolset yet to create a mashup-- and I can't figure out which ingredients to use. I don't want to do a retread of the same stuff that's already been created, but my knowledge of all the APIs, RSS and Atom feeds, web services, etc. is so tiny that I can't even think of two elements that would be a logical choice to mesh together.

So, I found a web site called The Programmable Web that lists something like 20 million different APIs-- and now I'm drowning trying to figure out what each one does.

Google Analytics, cntd.

A few days ago, I wrote about how the new version of Google Analytics code broke valid HTML pages. I've noticed some people are using search keywords related to that topic and winding up at my site, so I figure I'm not the only one experiencing this problem.

I decided to contact the Google Analytics team with the suggestion of using "Javascript cloaking" in their new code so it can pass through a validator successfully. Who knows-- nothing may come of it, but then again, they might make the change.

Monday, December 17, 2007

My next car ;)

Get an old black El Camino . . . have this guy replace the engine with something light years ahead of GM's current output . . . trick out the doors . . . and, oh yeah, it's got to have a wicked paint job.

Bet that'll get you some looks the next time you need to get some stuff from Home Depot!

Sunday, December 16, 2007

New Google Analytics Code breaks valid HTML

Et tu, Google? ;)

When I get sick, I tend to do two things: sleep a lot and catch up on coding articles that I never get to read otherwise. So, when I learned that Google Analytics (the service I use to track visitor stats for this blog) had released new tracking code, I decided to remove the legacy code and drop in the new stuff.

And, because I'm gradually becoming OCD about web standards in my new job, I made sure to run the W3C's HTML Validator tool against it. Yup, you guessed it, the new code breaks valid HTML. Seven errors if you place it near the tail end of your document, like GA's documentation suggests, or 29 errors if I put it in the head portion of my blogger template.

After some experimenting, I think I found a way to include the code so that it doesn't throw errors in a validator. I need to make sure the code is working properly by checking my visitor data in the next day or two, but I think this should work. The trick is to use HTML comment tags after each opening script tag and before each closing script tag. Like so:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write("\<script src="'" type="'text/javascript'">\<\/script>" );
-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXXX-X");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
-->
</script>

Yeah, I know. Most people won't care. If you do, though, and this saves you time, you're welcome.

Cheryl Crow nails it in one lyric

I'm not much of a Cheryl Crow fan, but there's this one song-- I couldn't begin to even guess what the title is-- where she reveals a universal truth:

"It's not getting what you want/
It's wanting what you've got . . . "


Saturday, December 15, 2007

The Significance of Color (Biological?)

I take color for granted. Since I'm more of a web developer than a designer, that makes sense.

You know what I mean-- colors are supposed to have certain meaning and symbology attached to them. Red indicates passion, yellow and black represent danger. The only problem is, the symbology breaks down when you cross cultures. In the western world, white is the color of innocence and virginity and black is the color of death and mourning. In the eastern world, however, white is the color associated with death. You wind up needing a matrix of culture versus color just to "decode" any color symbology a designer might have intended.

Or-- maybe you don't!?

Everyone catches colds. When you have a cold, you tend to sneeze and blow your nose. If the mucus is clear, that's a good sign. But if the mucus comes out with a nasty green tinge that means you've got a sinus infection. Doesn't matter if you are white, asian, hispanic, or Lithuanian, nasty green snot is nasty green snot-- and a sinus infection is what you've got.

Let's say you've been sneezing and blowing your nose a lot, and the sinus cavity has gotten all raw-- you might possibly blow your nose and see hints of red in your Kleenex. Or, worst case scenario, you might get a full on nose bleed and see a lot of red. Again, doesn't matter what race you are, red is red, right? I'm beginning to think we can make an argument for color symbology that might transcend cultural norms, provided we all stick to the syntax of biology.

It's not just the color-- it's the syntax we see those colors in. When I give blood for a medical test, I'm not alarmed or surprised to see red blood filling the vial. And neither is anyone else. It's when we see green blood that people start getting antsy. So, as human beings who share the same fundamental biology, we have an understanding of when we should and when we should not be seeing certain colors. If anything, it seems like we shouldn't be taking exceptional notice of color until it appears in a context that we don't expect to see it.

Friday, December 14, 2007

So close, and yet . . .

Every winter, I get sick. I don't know if it's the mold from the leaves, or the dramatic change between hot and cold weather on a day by day basis, but I usually wind up with a cold and/or sinus infection. Since this usually happens for me around late October/early November, I was thinking I might have avoided that fate this year. If I could just get to Jan 2008, I've have made it one year without my usual winter illness.

I should be so lucky. ;)

I've been washing my hands, using the Purell, taking the Airborne/Vitamin C, etc. and yesterday afternoon I started getting that familiar feeling in the very back of my throat that always proceeds a sinus infection. Just in time for the weekend, naturally. :'(

I'm hoping the Airborne will kick in and give my immune system that extra little boost to fight this back, that this crud just sort of pooled in my sinus and throat while I was lying in bed, and that gravity will help clear things out and I'll feel better.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

iTunes, Smart Playlists and the iPod shuffle. WTF?!

I've wasted an hour of my life trying to trouble shoot a stupid problem. It's actually pretty stupid and pathetic. I have a "Smart Playlist" in iTunes that dynamically keeps track of all the podcasts I've downloaded, but not listened to yet.

Every morning, I drag and drop this "Smart Playlist" onto my iPod icon in iTunes and the contents of that list gets copied into my iPod. You'd think I'd be happy and leave well enough alone.

But, no. I "had" to get the Autofill feature working.

The idea behind Autofill is just like it sounds-- you're basically telling the iTunes software to automatically fill your iPod with content. That content can come from a static playlist, or one of the dynamically generated "Smart Playlists."

Except the Autofill feature is crap. Oh, it works great if you use one of the built in playlists that comes with iTunes, such as "Purchased" or "Music." But, the second you try to use a home-made Smart Playlist, it refuses to copy anything from that list. It doesn't matter that you can click on the Smart Playlist and SEE the darn podcasts in there . . . or that you can manually drag the Smart Playlist to the iPod icon and it will copy the podcasts just fine.

I've dug through multiple articles on the iPod Support forum, tried the suggestions, but nothing works. You think I'd just do the smart thing and give up on the stupid Autofill feature. I've got too much to do as it is without wasting my time/life on trouble shooting this nonsense, but here I am still bitching and complaining about it.

At least I was smart enough to take care of the more essential things on my "to do" list first . . . like putting out the recycling, mailing in that insurance info to the credit union. But, damn, this kind of nonsense really bothers the heck out of me. It's clearly a known issue, but there's apparently no fix for it. What's the point of having a smart playlist if its just going to be locked away on my laptop computer?

Did I mention I also downloaded the gOS Live CD and tried it out? Yup, you guessed it-- doesn't support the proprietary wireless network card on my Dell laptop. Pretty much useless without a network connection, although I have to admit the interface was user friendly without coming across as "too cute."

I'm sorry, but somehow I don't think God put me here to fix other people's mistakes for the rest of my life. Or, if he did, then I sure as hell better get paid good money for it.

Monday, December 10, 2007

The Paradox of Podiums and Messages

I think I've discovered a paradox.

When you are young, you have so much to say about how things are done in the world around-- except no one listens and you don't have anywhere that you can speak your piece. The message is pretty much, "No one cares what you think, so shut up."

Then, you finally get to the point where you have a platform to express yourself (a web page, rock band, paintings, whatever) and suddenly, you discover that you seem to have lost the ability to say anything worthwhile.

I'm sitting here in front of my computer, going over all the inane and stupid ideas I had for blog entries-- like how unreliable my Windows Handheld PC is versus how reliable my Nokia cell phone is, or how my 30 day trial of Filemaker Pro is going. The truth, though, is no one cares. Heck, *I* don't even care, and I'm the guy writing it!

There's got to be something worthwhile and meaningful to write about, think about, live your life about, but it's like there's just so much bullshit in our daily lives that it becomes impossible to keep your eyes and mind focused on what is important. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had children? It's an interesting thought experiment, I guess, but the simple reality is I don't have children and unless there's a sudden and drastic change in my life, it's not too likely to change.

When I was in college, a group of my friends got in a ridiculously overblown pissing contest about a production of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. That same semester, in a totally unrelated set of events, two fellow students decided to take their own lives. I know that seems like a weird, random thing to mention, and it is-- but at the time, it seemed very important to me to tell people that they were being impossibly stupid about a damn theatre production when people around them were feeling urges to end their very lives. Of course, I had no venue to express this, and no one would have cared or listened if I had.

Now, almost two decades later, I have a web site that receives visitors (albeit in a paltry number) from foreign countries . . . and I can't find a single thing I feel is worth saying.

Please tell me that isn't completely messed up.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia | The Register

Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia | The Register:

"Meanwhile, Durova continued to insist that she had some sort of secret evidence that could only be viewed by the Arbitration Committee. 'I am very confident my research will stand up to scrutiny,' she said. 'I am equally confident that anything I say here will be parsed rather closely by some disruptive banned sockpuppeteers. If I open the door a little bit it'll become a wedge issue as people ask for more information, and then some rather deep research techniques would be in jeopardy.'" (emphasis mine)

Wikipedia's editorial elite have a secret email distribution channel to help them go after members they don't like. They invoke sanctions against those people, and then try to avoid justifying their actions with wording that sounds like it was taken verbatim from a White House press conference.

Is anyone actually surprised by this? This problem isn't unique to Wikipedia. It happens every day in thousands of so-called web communities. It also happens in lots of places that aren't on the Internet-- like workplaces, courts of law, churches, and let's not forget school playgrounds. That's right-- some adults never grew up beyond the petty and childish paradigm of making themselves feel more significant or important by singling other people out for harrassment.

Durova is just one example of someone who publicly professes one philosophy (i.e. the egalitarian tenets of Wikipedia) and then indulge in their true beliefs privately. Maybe she should run for political office-- I have a hunch that she'd fit right in.

Friday, December 7, 2007

T-Shirt folding video

I'm scanning through Lifehacker's RSS feed when I stumble across this gem:

Fold a t-shirt in 2 seconds!

It's actually a pretty handy little trick. If I wore t-shirts more often, it might speed up laundry day considerably. It took me about three viewings and five minutes to get it right. The camera vantage point makes step #3 a little more difficult to follow (i.e. pulling over and through).

Which got me to thinking-- is video a good instructional tool? What makes one video a "better" educational video than another? Is there a set of "best practices" that you can use to consistently achieve better quality in such video clips?

Thursday, December 6, 2007

No phishing in my pond, asshat

I killed my first phishing site today.

It's not my job to do that, but when criminals try defrauding my clients and the people who are supposed to protect them aren't doing their job, don't expect me to sit by and do nothing.

This particular scam was a typical PayPal spoofed email, claiming that such and such charges had been authorized on a person's account-- won't you please click here and log in to dispute the charge? Sadly, some of my clients are naive enough to fall for that trick. They're not computer people-- they just see a page that looks exactly like the PayPal screen they have seen before, and assume it is genuine.

It never occurs to them to study the URL carefully. Or to look the IP address up with a WHOIS service and find the organization that owns that particular range of IP addresses. They wouldn't know about contacting the abuse address and reporting a "Terms of Service" violation.

But I do, and I will.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Sudoku - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Henry might not want to read this . . . .

Sudoku - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "In the 'what-if' approach (also called 'guess-and-check', 'bifurcation', 'backtracking' and 'Ariadne's thread'), a cell with two candidate numerals is selected, and a guess is made." (emphasis mine)

Lousy performance from expensive sheets

Yes, the bed sheet saga continues . . .

I was able to take my original bedsheets back to Bed, Bath & Beyond and exchange them for a new set. They were very decent about it, no hassle or paperwork. Just show the receipt, hand over the old set, and take a new set off the shelf. I didn't even have to wait in line again.

Naturally, it was all part of the plot. ;)

You guessed it. This time the stitching came apart on the first run through the washer/dryer cycle. And since I didn't get a new receipt when I made the exchange, I can't prove that I've had this set for less than 30 days.

The upside of this is that this time, the stitch that broke was the top part of the sheet-- so there's nothing exposed to unravel. I'm hoping I can take this by my drycleaners and pay them to add a stronger thread/stitch to all four edges. I like the feel of the material. It's a shame that the quality of the workmanship that keeps it all together is so abysmal.

Sudoku Solver, revisited

I put aside the "killer sudoku solver" project for a few days. It was a nice diversion during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, but it consumed far too many hours and mental energy.

But, now that I've got some more time on my hands, I find my thoughts returning to it again. I did some reading up on regular expressions, and I've come away more convinced than ever that a dictionary-attach approach to Sudoku puzzles is still the best way to handle it. There are a finite number of possible valid Sudoku puzzles. If I can capture them all in a simple text file, then it's just a matter of running a tool like grep with a regular expression against the text file, and voila!

Since my original file of 362880 lines with nine characters per line comes in at about 3.5 MB, I assumed a full "Sudoku dictionary" of 81 characters per line would come in at well over 30 MB. Since I haven't figured out a way to reliably generate only valid combinations, I can only begin to guess at the size of the final product. The overall length of each line is increasing to nine times its original size, but I'm not sure that some lines won't be eliminated entirely by the logistics of the puzzle structure itself.

Blogger, Web Standards, and "An Error Occurred . . . "

Yes, I know. Adding the "links to this post" feature has caused some pages on this site to fail W3C validation. The front page and archive summary pages still validate, but the individual permalink blog entries are now broken thanks to the unencoded ampersands in the "Create a Link" code auto-generated by Blogger. I can't fix the ampersands because they don't actually appear in the template code window that end users see. My options are basically:
  1. to remove that backlink feature entirely and run 100% standard compliant
  2. keep the feature and live with the shame of a site that fails to adhere to standards
  3. cajole/wheedle/nag/bribe the Blogger Team to fix their unencoded ampersands
  4. move to a new site and blogging tool entirely.

Geekhaus: To Blog or Not To Blog?

For the past few years, I've been trying to improve my house in a piecemeal process by using my tax refunds to finance the various projects. Looking back, I feel this approach hasn't worked for me. Contractors and home improvement folks just don't take your job very seriously when it's "only" got four digits. It bothers me, but I've got to be realistic about it-- if I had to pick between a small job that would earn me maybe 3 thousand dollars, or a big job that will let me earn five times as much money, I'd be lying if I said I'd treat both jobs with equal degrees of care and diligence.

So, I've applied for and received a home equity line of credit. I've already got several ideas on how I should improve my house (e.g. replacement windows, get rid of the carpets and go for wood floors or laminates, increase my storage space, etc.), but I know I haven't thought of everything. It's tempting to put a lot of the details about what I've got in mind up online in a blog and let people comment on them, or make new suggestions-- but at the same time, I've got some trepidation about putting out that kind of info. It's not so much that I'm expecting someone will figure out where I live from the blog info and do me like Sean Taylor, but there are some aspects of the home improvement project that just isn't anyone else's business.

For example, last December my house was burglarized. Although I have no way to know or prove who did it, more than one person I've spoken to about it indicated that there were some peculiarities about it that suggested the person(s) responsible knew things about my house that a complete stranger would not have known. I've taken several steps to improve the security of my house. I'm not going to list them here, because-- let's think about it-- one part of security is not to run around and divulge details about what precautions you've taken!

I mean, if I told people that forcing entry of the front door triggered a series of tear gas cannisters embedded in the door frame, they might bring gas masks. Then they'd only have to worry about my blood thirsty, guard ferret, Grendel.

( Bugger! Did I just say all that out loud?
) O o . ;)

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Google Maps and Google Docs

This may be a case of the technology progressing faster than I can learn it, but I read a blog entry months ago about creating customized Google Maps without having a web host or database. The idea is that you can use a Google Docs spreadsheet to "power" the mapping engine.

I have to admit, I couldn't get it to work when I tried it several months ago-- but now that I have taken a class on Ajax and "made peace" with Javascript, I thought I'd come back and take another stab at it. This time, I was able to get it up and running in less than an hour.

The intriguing part is that you can share out Google Docs with others and allow them to collaborate on the spreadsheet document . . . which means other people can add/delete/update locations on your map without even having to know any code. Pretty cool concept, don't you think?

Of course, now that it is possible to collaborate directly in Google Maps, it's all sort of a moot point-- but at least I know I was able to figure it out.