Experimenting with a new look
No doubt you were shocked just now if you are one of my regular visitors. Yes, the site looks weird at the moment: I'm experimenting with a different WordPress theme,…
I am twittering…for now
I have had a hard time wrapping my head around the Facebook/Twitter phenomenon. Does anyone really have a thousand “friends”? Do I really care when someone, even a close friend, drinks a coffee, eats a bagel, or scratches their armpits? Not really…
And yet I have been curious. I poked around MySpace back when it was “the new thing”, and created a Facebook account (which I’ve since forgotten) when they still had only a couple million subscribers. I’ve never really touched Twitter, though- I think mostly because the short-form, incredibly “noisy” form of communication to be difficult to imagine being useful. I haven’t really changed my opinion but, as with MySpace and Facebook before, I feel I should give the latest social network “it” thing a chance. Maybe “microblogging” can live alongside my “macroblogging”?
Something for rich Pen and Paper gamers…
I remember back in the foggy vastness of the past how valuable having a decent gaming surface was when playing Dungeons and Dragons. My friend Chris and I eventually hacked…
The big question: iPhone or Blackberry
Recently I’ve started to feel the limitations of my long-term cellphone, a Motorola Razr. I’ve had it now for five years, which means it is “ancient” by cell phone standards. Yet it has served me very well for most purposes. However, a couple of years ago I started configuring various server monitors at work to send me email messages when they ran into trouble. These messages are generally too long for the SMS service provided with my Razr, and my latest round of updates has resulted in these messages becoming largely unreadable: the emails are too long and complex.
And so I begin to consider an upgrade…
CSI Cloverdale: Nutkin is down
Case Number: 20090504.23734.19
CSI ID: 4393 (Adams K)
Case open date: 2009-05-04 14 AM Pacific
Location: Geek house, Cloverdale, B.C.
Victim particulars
- Complexion: black, wearing fur coat
- Gender: indeterminate
- Size: approximately 15 cm excluding 10-12 cm tail
- Weight: less than 250 gm
- Gang membership: Sciurus carolinensis (non-native; see also 1914 Stanley Park transplantation)
- Rigor fixed
- Lividity indeterminate due to affixed fur coat
- Liver temp indeterminate due to absence of test equipment re: recent budget cutbacks
If the study is from Nemertes, it is Telco astroturf
Once again the media is full of reports of the impending collapse of the internet. Apparently we users are to blame, as we are using too much bandwidth watching movies and so forth- thus says yet another study by “respected” think tank, Nemertes Research. They tried to push this line of bull on us in 2007, again in 2008, and now in 2009. Only the dates of the “impending” collapse have changed: always a year or two in the future. But anyone who knows much of about the internet and infrastructure behind it knows this “impending doom” is a fallacy. So why is Nemertes repeating it over and over and over?
eBay…
I had never placed a bid on eBay (or listed anything for that matter) up until a couple of weeks ago. My first bid was on a mantle clock made in the 19th century. I like old-style mechanical clocks, particularly ones that are somewhat ornate, and this one appealed to me. But why did I go to eBay in the first place after years of basically ignoring the service?
Spirit photos…
I was cleaning through some old CDs and came across a batch of photos of Irene's horse Spirit that a friend of Irene's had taken. I had forgotten how much…
Clean Air = Reduced sulfates = Arctic warming?
Recent NASA research suggests that warming trends in the Arctic during the past 40 years aren’t due to CO2 emission increases. Instead, the spike in Arctic temperatures during the past forty years appears to be due to reduced aerosol particulates, specifically to reduced sulfates in the atmosphere. The sulfate reduction is believed to be the result of improved emission standards that were implemented to, ironically, improve the environment through reductions in acid rain. Aerosol sulfates reflect heat back into space, reducing temperatures, whereas different aerosols, termed “black carbon aerosols” and produced largely by burning coal, have the opposite effect: holding heat in.
Office Reno 2009- Update #2 (finished)
The reconstruction of my home office is essentially complete. I still have a computer or two to move in, some wiring to re-organize, and a few other bits and pieces. But the flooring is done and all the new furniture is in place. Here is how it looks now:
Click the above photo to see more images from the reno