The new iMac G5 seems like a good value upgrade from the previous version iMac. In some ways the G5 processor is overkill for what most people will use an imac for, or at least what most of us imagine the normal iMac is used for. At the same time, the specifications are underwhelming for people who are concerned about Doom III. However, I think that it hits a nice spot for something fast enough for many tasks and it will remain useable for quite a while.
As someone who falls in that "budget production work" category of computer buying, the iMac G5 presents an interesting compromise. It offers much of the power of the low end Powermac for about $800 less ($500 in CPU price and about $300 in monitor price). In my mind, I am putting a La Cie Electron Blue 19 inch CRT with the Powermac G5 dual 1.8. The La Cie is one of the finer CRTs on the market and offers 1920 by 1440 pixels, as opposed to the iMac G5 17in's 1440 by 900. To compare apples to apples, pardon the pun, if you were to try and get a 17 inch LCD, it should cost you a little more.
If you have the cash, the new iMac doesn't hold a candle to the speed and expandability of the Powermac G5. However, the RAM and disk are easily upgraded and the processor power is ample. It will compare favorably to older Powermac G4's for folks without Firewire 800 devices.
As a design statement, the iMac G5 doesn't say much to me other than "put sticky notes on my chin!" It has the familial design hint of a wide rectangle in a tall rectangle that goes back to the original Macintosh. The base is certainly more sure-footed than it looks. However, it doesn't match the one unit lump simplicity of the original iMac nor the sunflower stalk functional grace of the iMac G4.
In terms of where it fits into the evolution of computers and Macintoshes, the iMac G5 seems the most grown up of the iMacs. It is an austere pizza box on a stand with regular components that look easy to upgrade. The cooling unit of the current Powermac G5 is as large as a Powermac G4 Cube. If they were able to cram all that into the back of a monitor at this point, a Powerbook G5 doesn't seems as far off. I'm a bit worried about the eMac ever getting a G5, because it would be a real squeeze.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
One hurdle cleared
the interview went well. The bottom line is that my name has been submitted for the next interview with the supervising surgeons/doctors. The field is being narrowed to three names. There has apparently been an overwhelming response to this position, which makes it truly a wonder that i've even made it this far.The other two have more photographic experience than i have (apparently), but luckily the position isn't really about the photography, in terms of who would be best to fill the position; the most challenging aspect of the position is the ability for the photographer quickly build confidence between themselves, the doctors, and most importantly, the patients, not to mention project such confidence when faced with a bleeding stinking tumor.
Obligatory iMac G5 Post!
As usual, the www.macitynet.it Expo Report has the best photos (even if they aren't all in focus...).
Monday, August 30, 2004
What if you placed 1108 PNG files on your desktop?
Your computer will come to a discouraging halt. You'll be able to launch apps, but you won't be able to doing anything with the finder: no menus, no dragging, no selecting, no nothing.So i launched my system preferences (luckily, i had a dock icon for that) and quickly created a profile for my wife. I didn't have any other profiles created and had my computer automatically luanch as 'me' so i never had to log in. Once i created her profile, i shut down the computer and logged in as my wife, got to 'killys desktop' and erased the files from there once i changed the permissions. Viola!
In other news:
I got THE CALL from HR. I have an 'official' interview for the med photographer position tomorrow at noon, during my lunch hour. If you pray, pray for me. If you belive in karma, send it my way. I'm trying my best to calm my excitment.
The Republicans Invade
So the Republican Convention is on the same street as my office, wouldntyaknowit, just 2 blocks away. I take the subway into Penn Station, which is connected to Madison Square Garden, where all the hoopla is. I'm surprised and amazed this morning that the subway actually stops at Penn Station, as the rumor about town last week was that all subways were being re-routed away from the area. So they decided to make things easy on us, after all. Hardly anyone on the subway ride in -- lots of people getting the heck out of town for the week ... but not me, nope, stubborn 8 mos.+ pregnant lady decides she's gonna work 'til she can't stand up no more.
So anyway, I get off the subway and climb up onto 34th street, where I see a fairly large percentage of the 10,000 cops that are in the area this week to secure the event. They're packed in little clusters on street corners here and there .. I try to walk up closer to the Garden but they're only letting people with "RNC" badges past, so I don't get to see anything interesting -- 8 a.m.'s probably too early for most protesters anyway.
I saw on the news last week that lots of bike riders were arrested for riding past the convention center in a pack, even though it's a weekly gathering and not an event targetting the RNC specifically -- a few of them had signs/banners/etc. but they do this every week, so what's the big deal?? Lots of bogus sounding charges -- overly amped cops eager to arrest someone, anyone, to justify their presence -- road obstruction charges, that kind of thing...
34th street and all the streets around the center are closed to traffic but pedestrians can walk up and down the sidewalks. Cops everywhere, plain clothes policemen stepping out of cop cars, eyeing my black bag and fat belly suspiciously -- wish I had something more exciting to keep ya fellas busy, but all I got is a Garden Design magazine, my wallet, and a baby in my belly.
Lots of conservative types walking down the street in front of my office -- button-down shirts and ties, slicked back hair, polished shoes -- they would probably blend right in on Wall Street or Madison Ave, but down here in the fashion district the regulars are all much more casual and definitely less white-bread if you know what I mean ...
So not a lot of interest to report yet, but I'll keep ya'll posted if anything vivid happens ...
So anyway, I get off the subway and climb up onto 34th street, where I see a fairly large percentage of the 10,000 cops that are in the area this week to secure the event. They're packed in little clusters on street corners here and there .. I try to walk up closer to the Garden but they're only letting people with "RNC" badges past, so I don't get to see anything interesting -- 8 a.m.'s probably too early for most protesters anyway.
I saw on the news last week that lots of bike riders were arrested for riding past the convention center in a pack, even though it's a weekly gathering and not an event targetting the RNC specifically -- a few of them had signs/banners/etc. but they do this every week, so what's the big deal?? Lots of bogus sounding charges -- overly amped cops eager to arrest someone, anyone, to justify their presence -- road obstruction charges, that kind of thing...
34th street and all the streets around the center are closed to traffic but pedestrians can walk up and down the sidewalks. Cops everywhere, plain clothes policemen stepping out of cop cars, eyeing my black bag and fat belly suspiciously -- wish I had something more exciting to keep ya fellas busy, but all I got is a Garden Design magazine, my wallet, and a baby in my belly.
Lots of conservative types walking down the street in front of my office -- button-down shirts and ties, slicked back hair, polished shoes -- they would probably blend right in on Wall Street or Madison Ave, but down here in the fashion district the regulars are all much more casual and definitely less white-bread if you know what I mean ...
So not a lot of interest to report yet, but I'll keep ya'll posted if anything vivid happens ...
Todd and lungs
Hey Todd we are sending you much love over the cosmic intergalactic neurotransmitters of the collective unconcious. Hope that you are feeling well and that the sun is shining gently.
Happy belated to Killito, just put his face up to the computer screen and tell him it's a birthday hug from people he doesn't know from far away.
Happy belated to Killito, just put his face up to the computer screen and tell him it's a birthday hug from people he doesn't know from far away.
Sunday, August 29, 2004
so who's the wise guy...
Herman Miller Direct?
what, do we want to be browsed by fashion conscious yuppies? is this some kind of 'let's test google' thing?
to whomever i talked to while scared shitless about the prospect of having yet another tube coated steel rod plunged into my chest thanks for your patience and support. if i did not talk to you please do not take it personally and see the above 'scared shitless' bit. i am feeling much better having slept about 90% of this weekend and not worrying about shit the other 10%. the white wine currently making my stomach all warm and settled will soon help me be all warm and settled in my bed-on-the-floor and i shall sleep to wake as if none of this ever happened, only to be reminded that it did when i talk to a cardio-thoracic surgeon tomorrow. i believe that i shall take up the trombone as my father swears by it for making good strong lungs.
poor pablo.
P.S.ok, so i get it now. it's the chairs.
Neosporin does go bad
Welcome to Neosporin.com
Amber threw away my Neosporin this evening. She looked at the expiration date. It expired in August of 1999. "It expired five years ago," she said. I had no idea it expires. You should check the expiration dates of stuff. I mean you in the generic sense. "Stuff always expires at your house," she says, "that's why I always check." I've started checking things like yogurt, bread and eggs too as a result. Just today I almost bought bread that was fixing to expire on the 31st.
Amber threw away my Neosporin this evening. She looked at the expiration date. It expired in August of 1999. "It expired five years ago," she said. I had no idea it expires. You should check the expiration dates of stuff. I mean you in the generic sense. "Stuff always expires at your house," she says, "that's why I always check." I've started checking things like yogurt, bread and eggs too as a result. Just today I almost bought bread that was fixing to expire on the 31st.
Coldfusion: answering form input
Oftentimes, I put an if statement on a page to look for a form variable to be returned so that the page knows to do something if a form is being submitted, like this:
However, if you change the name of that form field, then this if statement gets messed up. My new way of detecting if a form has been submitted is to see if the form structure is not empty. There is always a form structure (or scope), however, if it is empty, then no form has been submitted:
I did this because I am working on a widget that will display a number of choices and allow the user to add an answer to the list, like this:
< ifdefined('form.submit')>However, if you change the name of that form field, then this if statement gets messed up. My new way of detecting if a form has been submitted is to see if the form structure is not empty. There is always a form structure (or scope), however, if it is empty, then no form has been submitted:
<cfif not StructIsEmpty(form)>
I did this because I am working on a widget that will display a number of choices and allow the user to add an answer to the list, like this:
What a Party...
To start things off right, carol broke her fourth toe (next to the pinky toe) on her left foot friday morning by stubbing her toe on adolfo iv's tennis shoes. Then she made some coffee, dropped the baby off at school, and drove me to work, came home, painted the half bathroom in our master bedroom, and cleaned the house.Friday, August 27, 2004
Well I just picked up Todd from the Hospital
but don't be alarmed- his gimp lung is only 15% collapsed and plenty of oxygen is in his blood so the doctor said that he should go home and play Age Of Empires all weekend. To be clear: Todd has stopped smoking; so any stop-smoking-you-dumbass type harangues, while entertaining, are unwarranted this time.Los Chavez: Hope the party goes well. Sorry that I will be missing the bbq and the finding of Nemo.
Liz: Congrats on the nursing job. We should celebrate. I suggest a bottle of Wiggy's finest Three Thieves and some popcorn.
Also:Watch this
drugs are good .... sometimes
Killy,
This is Liz, the nurse (officially) talking. I recommend going to a neurologist and tell him how bad it hurts and what not and he/she can give you some good drugs to Prevent, and/or treat the killer headaches. Seriously, sleep works for you, but in this case and many others, you don't have that luxury. So the next best thing....drugs. Use that health insurance for what it was meant for.
Happy birthday Killito! I don't think we'll be able to make it.
How did the Jones's fotos turn out? I'd love to see more!
I start my new oncology nursing job on Monday...it's so crazy to me to think of myself as a nurse, and someone who brings home an income too! Life is good. Taggart hasn't mentioned it, but he's super busy and I'm really proud of him. He's the example of sticking through the tough times and following your dreams. He's also the example of a really stubborn guy.
"the best of times, the worst of times"
I spoke to a military cop who is finishing his army service in 2 days b/c he got shrapnel in his leg. He showed me, it was cool.
But he said, after what he saw in Iraq, that he wouldn't vote for Bush. And that the Saddam statue event, there were only like 200 people there. Isn't it amazing what kind of images and ideas the media can depict?
Good hot days in Austin. Any people from Houston coming to visit??!!?
This is Liz, the nurse (officially) talking. I recommend going to a neurologist and tell him how bad it hurts and what not and he/she can give you some good drugs to Prevent, and/or treat the killer headaches. Seriously, sleep works for you, but in this case and many others, you don't have that luxury. So the next best thing....drugs. Use that health insurance for what it was meant for.
Happy birthday Killito! I don't think we'll be able to make it.
How did the Jones's fotos turn out? I'd love to see more!
I start my new oncology nursing job on Monday...it's so crazy to me to think of myself as a nurse, and someone who brings home an income too! Life is good. Taggart hasn't mentioned it, but he's super busy and I'm really proud of him. He's the example of sticking through the tough times and following your dreams. He's also the example of a really stubborn guy.
"the best of times, the worst of times"
I spoke to a military cop who is finishing his army service in 2 days b/c he got shrapnel in his leg. He showed me, it was cool.
But he said, after what he saw in Iraq, that he wouldn't vote for Bush. And that the Saddam statue event, there were only like 200 people there. Isn't it amazing what kind of images and ideas the media can depict?
Good hot days in Austin. Any people from Houston coming to visit??!!?
Headache
I came home with another headache yesterday; it sat in my head and kicked at the backs of my eyes. I tried to will it away. Carol is almost certain that they are caused by the change in pressure when it rains �?? well, it had been raining for two days and this is the first headache. If she were correct, i should have gotten a headache saturday morning. Instead, this time, the headache came once the rain left. Is there anything to carol's explanation? or do i have a brain tumor? or just mini-migraines left over from my childhood?i have to sleep, but instead i eat dinner and drive my sister's computer to sugarland. i hardly remember coming back. I had taken two ibuprofen at my mother's house and was near unconcious for the ride home.
Sleep.
It was a heavy and uneventful sleep. The kind you get when you are sick.
!!!! ANNOUNCEMENT !!!!
For those of you who do not know, this saturday is Adolfo Fidel Chavez IV's 2nd Birthday Party. It is from 2 p.m. to whenever. I plan on BBQ-ing. There will also be plenty of macaroni and cheese, pb&j snackwiches, and a mini-theater playing Finding Nemo.
is anyone from austin coming?
Thursday, August 26, 2004
paging adolph trudeau
i crave feedback.
Camera Olympics
This is a pretty interesting set of photos covering photojournalism at the Olympics. In the linked image, I was thinking that the doo-dad on the back of the camera was some sort of closed circuit tv that would allow the photographer to remotely take photos. However, the associated boxes on the side and hot-shoe are a radio trigger for lights. I guess the doo-dad is a prism to allow a photographer to frame a shot even when the camera is ,a href="http://www.pbase.com/image/33031090">very close to the ground.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
iTrip Antenna
This is an interesting photo gallery of taking apart an iTrip:"Hacking" the iTrip / DSC00844
I wonder if it would be possible to attach a connector to the end of the internal antenna, through a hole in the iTrip plastic that would accept a longer antenna.
I wonder if it would be possible to attach a connector to the end of the internal antenna, through a hole in the iTrip plastic that would accept a longer antenna.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Monday, August 23, 2004
I was just thinking about
how cool it would be if the Supreme Court Justices could assemble themselves (or rather, get in vehicles that could assemble ) into a giant monster fighting robot, like Voltron. Maybe nobody would know that Justices were the actual pilots of the giant monster fighting robot until an intrepid reporter points out that every time a huge monster attacks the judges call a recess.As you can tell I am having a hard time concentrating at work today.
Monday morning.
Well, it is monday and I have a general feeling of hope for the week. Not because there are particular work related events that arouse this hope but more the fact that I have the option, on a regular basis to make choices in my life. This may sound assininly obvious, but for me it feels like a new realization.
So basically here I am to say in a clicity-clackity way, good morning/afternoon to ya'll.
Rain this morning, winter is tring to clear a space in the summertime, and me wearing sandals, waiting for the bus.
Now that I am wearing sandals all the time, I have reached maximum saturtation on tennis shoes, I find that birkenstocks, when wet, are not the choicest of footwear. The leather footbed gets all slimmy. Now I understand Paul's proclivity for Teva's.
Congrats on the scooter Taggart.
So basically here I am to say in a clicity-clackity way, good morning/afternoon to ya'll.
Rain this morning, winter is tring to clear a space in the summertime, and me wearing sandals, waiting for the bus.
Now that I am wearing sandals all the time, I have reached maximum saturtation on tennis shoes, I find that birkenstocks, when wet, are not the choicest of footwear. The leather footbed gets all slimmy. Now I understand Paul's proclivity for Teva's.
Congrats on the scooter Taggart.
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Democracy For Texas
I went to my first political rally this weekend. The rally was organized by democracyfortexas.org, and held at Huston-Tillotson College out in East Austin, in conjunction with a two-day grass roots organizational seminar. The idea was to get Texas Democrats fired up about some important local races, particularly Richard Morrison's bid to oust Tom Delay in District 22. The headliner for the event was none other than Dr. Howard Dean.It was neat to hear Tom Morrison and Howard Dean speak- they both put on pretty rousing performances. But it was even more thrilling to see a thousand active people, of all ages, ethnicities and shoe-sizes, get up out of their boxed up lives and come together. I was particularly pleased to see that quite a few families showed up. I mean, it seems that if anything would get your ass off the couch and active in politics it would be the realization that the leaders we elect today and the decisions those leaders make will profoundly affect the world that our children will inherit...
So I left the event pretty inspired, and a little fired up. It was not so much the oratory or the message or the personalities that did it. Rather, it was seeing a community in action. A community! What a rare sight these days!
Scooter Weekend 1
Friday Morning Liz and I drove down to S. Lamar and picked up our New/Used Honda Metropolitan II. Liz dropped me off and I rode it back to our apartment. For clarification purposes I have to give the specs. It is a 49cc Scooter/Moped. The 49cc distinction in some states means you don't need a license, in Texas it means you need a Moped license. It's top speed is 30 mph which isn't very fast when you are behind the wheel of a car but behind this 160 pound piece of plastic it is fast enough to instill a sense of caution but not intimidation. Since it tops out at 30 and averages about 25 I only deem it worthy of back roads and neighborhoods. Friday and Saturday I drove from out apartment off of 6th and headed North to 45th using only neighborhood roads. I can honestly say that was the first time I completed that small drive and was smiling when I reached my destination. Behind the wheel of a car the fastest I have made that route along Mopac is about 12 min. Orange Julius (Pablo christened it last night) took only five minutes more and I cant at this point conceive of it taking really any much more time than that, while taking the car can take up to thirty minutes depending on time of day construction on Lamar and traffic jams on Mopac.
Sometimes I think I could take the same roads with the car but it just wouldn't feel the same. Driving Moods. In a car most people desire long stretches of uninterrupted flow, frequent stops and starts are irritating. On the Orange Julius I don't really mind the starts and stops (for now). Small stretches seem desirable. In a bicycle starts and stops are hindered by physical exertion, cars by plain momentum, wear and tear, gas milage. In a scooter you top out around 30 and there is no exertion in stopping or starting, I found that my least favorite section of Lamar (between 15th and 5th) is the only part of it I would consider getting on with the scooter. Heading North on Lamar after 15th there are long stretches of road where cars can accelerate over 30 miles and hour and the scooter would just irritate everybody behind me. South of 15th there are stops every 50 Meters so I can merge without worrying about getting run down.
While cruising the alleys and neighborhoods I have discovered the second class thoroughfares. Little streets were I pass by other Mopeds, we pass each other while waving, usually smiling it geek camaraderie.
Sometimes I think I could take the same roads with the car but it just wouldn't feel the same. Driving Moods. In a car most people desire long stretches of uninterrupted flow, frequent stops and starts are irritating. On the Orange Julius I don't really mind the starts and stops (for now). Small stretches seem desirable. In a bicycle starts and stops are hindered by physical exertion, cars by plain momentum, wear and tear, gas milage. In a scooter you top out around 30 and there is no exertion in stopping or starting, I found that my least favorite section of Lamar (between 15th and 5th) is the only part of it I would consider getting on with the scooter. Heading North on Lamar after 15th there are long stretches of road where cars can accelerate over 30 miles and hour and the scooter would just irritate everybody behind me. South of 15th there are stops every 50 Meters so I can merge without worrying about getting run down.
While cruising the alleys and neighborhoods I have discovered the second class thoroughfares. Little streets were I pass by other Mopeds, we pass each other while waving, usually smiling it geek camaraderie.
Saturday, August 21, 2004
Here's a good one from Ed Gillespie:
I think the Democrats are going to have to be careful about not letting the protesters get out of hand. The line between the official Democratic Party and labor protesters, environmental protesters and antiwar protesters is fairly blurry, and I'm not sure they want to have Democrats engaging in violence in New York against our convention. It would seem disrespectful and antidemocratic.
Friday, August 20, 2004
word shape
If you take a paragraph, and create an outline around each word, it can even just be boxes that echo the shape of the letters, and fill them in. you can still read it.
kind of.
kind of.
THIS IS FOR ADOLPH
Gareetingz:
Spelling
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?
yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.
Spelling
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?
yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
De Population
We are all very familiar with the exponentional growth of the Earth's population, and we see in the the monthly extension of suburbs and strip malls a sprawling confirmation of the fact that this, our small world, is getting more and more crowded.And that is why it is so strange to read reports such as this about the de-population crisis faced by Industrialized nations.
As the article points out, the United States is alone among industrialized nations in that its population is expected to grow over the next few decades. This is seen as an incredible advantage over other industrialized nations, especially those of Western Europe, whose social programs are under increasing strain as the population ages, and the tax base shrinks.
When I was in France last year there was a considerable amount of debate of how to deal with this crisis. The government is faced with a complex problem that has no easy solution. It is clear to policy makers, for example, that the government managed pension program cannot continue in its present form- there simply will not be eneough people paying into the program to fund all the retirees who are supported by it. But proposed changes to the program spark widespread outrage by the increasingly large percentage of the population that is approaching retirement. Immigration reform is another necessity, but French society is already straining, as evidenced by the resurgence of extreme-right political groups, to cope with the assimiliation of Europe's largest immigrant population.
I think that this population crisis is an incredibly serious challenge to the stability of Europe and to the world. How will it play out? Will the societies of Europe be capable of coping with the challenges to their identity that the inevitable influx of immigrants will pose? Will folks be willing to give up social services and programs that their parents were provided? What is the ambien air-velocity of an unladen sparrow? Etc.
cURL is your buddy
Fetch and other FTP apps are sooo slow for downloading images. to download images fast, use cURL from the command line. Just open up Terminal.app, navigate to the directory you want the stuff to be downloaded into then type
curl -O http://yourwebsite.com/directory/image01.jpg. You can even get all 99 images by using brackets around a range of numbers, as in
curl -O http://yourwebsite.com/directory/image[01-99].jpg. Type
man curlfor the details. I think it comes preinstalled in Mac OS X 10.3.*.
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Monday, August 16, 2004
A Ghost is Born
For some reason I pick out the new Wilco on the old iPod this evening and I'm restruck by the beauty of the thing. Then I made a mix of it and the current Neil Young. Apparently there are a lot of other people who here the similarity too:
Google%20Search%3A%20wilco%20%22neil%20young%22%20
Google%20Search%3A%20wilco%20%22neil%20young%22%20
What's that smell?
Hi all,
Saturday early afternoon, we decided to get a bit out of town. Sick of being in the neighborhood with all of it's mowing and sawing and general neighborhoodness. Out came the map and we pointed, talked, pointed, nodded, and packed up the car. Packed just a bit, not the usual - prepare for all possible dissasters - style packing, and headed west.
If you get out a map and look at where Oregon and Washington meet, right on the coast there is a penninsula on the washington side, right above Astoria, that is where we ended up.
Along the way we passed the now "out of service" Trojan Nuclear reactor, a dead porcupine that we stopped and looked at for a bit, since none of us had ever seen one in the wild, and still have yet to see one that wasn't.....spread out. Did you know that the quills are like the quill part of a feather? We saw americas forrests piled high outside the paperbag and cardboard factories, and watched as tractor trailers pulled three trailers, kind-of a mini train.
We arrived at the coast and attempted to find a place to stay, but since there was a volleyball tournament in one beach town and a kite festival in the next, all accomadations were taken, and the one place that had a vaccancy was a best western that was charging $260 a night. So after a bit of looking and a bit of driving we finally found a good sam (samaritan) "camping ground."
This was more like a sardine lot for R.V.s seasoned with an occasional tent. When I say sardine can, I do not use the term as a cliche, I swear this place was packed to the hilt with the massive tour bus style R.V.s, the ones that have an SUV as a get-away car. All of them equipped with their own satelite dishes and the familiar blue flickering glow.
Since I was "camping" the presence of the mass media was a bit odd, at first, and it lent my mind the drifting thoughts of how years gone past people would congregate in new surroundings to celebrate their common bonds and delight in the discrepencies. I was passing a particular defunct r.v. and was accosted by the all to familiar sounds of pissed off people and their frustration at the inability to escape themselves with new surroundings, and was reminded why modern society has chosen prerecorded entertainment over chancy encounters with unknown elements.
This whole place was full of people that were there, for the most part, to go salmon fishing at the mouth of the columbia river. Not only were there R.V.s used to fill in the large spaces at the camp ground, and cars to take up the nooks-n-crannies, but also there were boats to take up all execess space and spill out into the roadways and generally add that odd clamp of visual dissonance that results from attempts at parking nonwheeled objects in unfamiliar places.
So what do you do with Hefty Salmon when you catch them? You put em in your cooler. What do you do with your cooler at the end of the day? You bring it back to camp. What do you do with the fish when you get back to camp? you clean 'em. Where do you clean 'em?
Well if you are ignorant to the ways of fishing, as am I, do not go and try to cook at the covered gazebo that resembles an outdoor bar-b-que kitchen. the one with the propane tanks and large pots and counters....and......garden hoses......wait a minute....that's no Bar-b-que gazebo. Oh......that is where you bring you fish to clean them. And that slowly spinning feeling that is simulteneously pinching from behind my eyes and rising from my acid stomache is the smell of the thousands of pounds of fish guts that are in the dumpsters. Those Hot and sun baked dumpsters. Those dumpsters that have been sitting on the reflective asphault all summer long. the dumpsters that are so covered in sloppy funk that the flies are stuck to the outside, wet ashtray style. So foul that the plastic shed lids have buckled and curled in the hot foul odor emmenating from their rotten guts.
So...Good Sam camp ground, warrenton oregon. Cross that ones off the travel destination list.
Saturday early afternoon, we decided to get a bit out of town. Sick of being in the neighborhood with all of it's mowing and sawing and general neighborhoodness. Out came the map and we pointed, talked, pointed, nodded, and packed up the car. Packed just a bit, not the usual - prepare for all possible dissasters - style packing, and headed west.
If you get out a map and look at where Oregon and Washington meet, right on the coast there is a penninsula on the washington side, right above Astoria, that is where we ended up.
Along the way we passed the now "out of service" Trojan Nuclear reactor, a dead porcupine that we stopped and looked at for a bit, since none of us had ever seen one in the wild, and still have yet to see one that wasn't.....spread out. Did you know that the quills are like the quill part of a feather? We saw americas forrests piled high outside the paperbag and cardboard factories, and watched as tractor trailers pulled three trailers, kind-of a mini train.
We arrived at the coast and attempted to find a place to stay, but since there was a volleyball tournament in one beach town and a kite festival in the next, all accomadations were taken, and the one place that had a vaccancy was a best western that was charging $260 a night. So after a bit of looking and a bit of driving we finally found a good sam (samaritan) "camping ground."
This was more like a sardine lot for R.V.s seasoned with an occasional tent. When I say sardine can, I do not use the term as a cliche, I swear this place was packed to the hilt with the massive tour bus style R.V.s, the ones that have an SUV as a get-away car. All of them equipped with their own satelite dishes and the familiar blue flickering glow.
Since I was "camping" the presence of the mass media was a bit odd, at first, and it lent my mind the drifting thoughts of how years gone past people would congregate in new surroundings to celebrate their common bonds and delight in the discrepencies. I was passing a particular defunct r.v. and was accosted by the all to familiar sounds of pissed off people and their frustration at the inability to escape themselves with new surroundings, and was reminded why modern society has chosen prerecorded entertainment over chancy encounters with unknown elements.
This whole place was full of people that were there, for the most part, to go salmon fishing at the mouth of the columbia river. Not only were there R.V.s used to fill in the large spaces at the camp ground, and cars to take up the nooks-n-crannies, but also there were boats to take up all execess space and spill out into the roadways and generally add that odd clamp of visual dissonance that results from attempts at parking nonwheeled objects in unfamiliar places.
So what do you do with Hefty Salmon when you catch them? You put em in your cooler. What do you do with your cooler at the end of the day? You bring it back to camp. What do you do with the fish when you get back to camp? you clean 'em. Where do you clean 'em?
Well if you are ignorant to the ways of fishing, as am I, do not go and try to cook at the covered gazebo that resembles an outdoor bar-b-que kitchen. the one with the propane tanks and large pots and counters....and......garden hoses......wait a minute....that's no Bar-b-que gazebo. Oh......that is where you bring you fish to clean them. And that slowly spinning feeling that is simulteneously pinching from behind my eyes and rising from my acid stomache is the smell of the thousands of pounds of fish guts that are in the dumpsters. Those Hot and sun baked dumpsters. Those dumpsters that have been sitting on the reflective asphault all summer long. the dumpsters that are so covered in sloppy funk that the flies are stuck to the outside, wet ashtray style. So foul that the plastic shed lids have buckled and curled in the hot foul odor emmenating from their rotten guts.
So...Good Sam camp ground, warrenton oregon. Cross that ones off the travel destination list.
Miserable
I was unlucky eneogh to watch our miserable men's basketball team lose miserably to Puerto Rico by over a dozen points in the Olympics last night. It was miserable watching them play so miserably.But this headline cheered me up.
Also, saw Lance Armstrong on friday night at his Welcome Home parade on Congress. It was swell to see huge numbers of people line the street in support of a local hero. Later, the spectacularly avuncular Steve Miller played.
Friday, August 13, 2004
The Register sez: 'Euro filing reveals Apple 'handheld computer'
Hmm, this together with leaked iMac specs are going to make fall an interesting computer season.
Gay American
At first I was struck by soon to be former New Jersey Governor's carefully parsed language marked by the sentence, "I am a gay american." Maybe gay and american should be capitalized like, "I am a Gay American." Shouldn't it be hyphenated at the same time, like "I am a Gay-American," sort of like African-American or Mexican-American? But wait, when did being homosexual become something like ethnic or racial identification?
Regardless if Gay-American is something that exists enough for McGreevey to be, is he truely a Gay-American? He has a wife and kids and had an exta-marital affair. The contemporary term for this state of being is to be on the "down low." The situation doesn't sound one hundred percent gay, or homosexual. If anything it seems to represent a bi-curious streak in McGreevey. Would it be more accurate to describe him as a "Bi-Curious American?"
Regardless if Gay-American is something that exists enough for McGreevey to be, is he truely a Gay-American? He has a wife and kids and had an exta-marital affair. The contemporary term for this state of being is to be on the "down low." The situation doesn't sound one hundred percent gay, or homosexual. If anything it seems to represent a bi-curious streak in McGreevey. Would it be more accurate to describe him as a "Bi-Curious American?"
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
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iPods and Cameras
It would be nice if someone could make a direct interface between a camera and an iPod. Maybe it would look like a CF card on one end and the iPod dock connector on the other. The iPod would go into disk mode and the camera would write directly to the disk. Even better would be a connector that put the iPod into a mode that acted as a video recorder like the MCE Quickstream.
This report got me thinking about this: iPod (Part 27)
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Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Suggestions for todd
Does that mean, a cute rubberized fish that sings songs and flaps back-n-forth in rhythm and has a likable name like willie the walleye, that you will be having none of this?
Monday, August 9, 2004
the image uploader
to whom it may concern :
the Amazing Image Uploader can be accessed here :chairjockey.com/scratch/upload_image.php. a sorely needed site overhaul is in the planning stages, all input is welcome. well, most input is welcome, you can keep silly ideas to yourself.
where is the uploader?
I must not be that savy, for I never know how it is to put my pictures up into the blog, where is the uploader stored, or how is it accessed??????
killy
It's a good thing your boy looks nothing like you.
I especially like the picture of him in the car seat screaming.
I gonna make one of your pictures my desktop.
I especially like the picture of him in the car seat screaming.
I gonna make one of your pictures my desktop.
Sunday, August 8, 2004
Killy - A Visual Guide
I haven't posted in a million years either because what i've been doing is so banal that trying to put it into words is useless, or (more likely) what i've been experiencing lately has filled my life to the brim. Not necessarily with work, but with an abstract exertion of living.... but i have been taking snapshots. Even a few photos.
Friday, August 6, 2004
We have found a new slogan.
Screw "We have turned a corner."
A great campaign slogan if you ask me.
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," Bush said.
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
A great campaign slogan if you ask me.
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," Bush said.
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
Thursday, August 5, 2004
Why did I nearly throw my ibook out the window?
Because of this bug in Flash MX 2004:The Array class has a serious bug. If one instantiates an Array as a member of a class it is not created as an instance of the class, rather as a static. If you create more than one instance of a class that creates the Array member and push items onto the Array from both instances of the class, they are actually being pushed onto the single static Array
From flash mx 2004 livedocs
Wednesday, August 4, 2004
Adventures in backing up
Over the last few days, I've had an adventure backing up and restoring my little sister's iBook. It is a computer that I gave to her but didn't completely clean up before I gave it to her. As a result, it had two disk partitions. A 30 gig standard Macintosh partition that was the boot disk and one 10 gig Unix File System (UFS) partition, which she didn't and couldn't really use. As an additional complication, her Firewire port quit, meaning that I had to back up everything over the network, which took a really long time.
This is written as a starter guide for us to all get on a backup schedule and to understand what to do if you ever have to restore.
First off, you have to identify some storage device that can hold all of your stuff. I picked an external hard drive because it was a cheap and flexible. There are caveats to backing up to a hard drive but it is better than nothing.
Second, you need software that will do the backup. I selected Carbon Copy Cloner for the backup because it is widely used and free (donation-ware). Carbon Copy Cloner makes a clone of your hard drive to a disk image. Apple's Disk Utility can use the resulting disk image file to restore the back up onto the disk where you want it.
However, the hitch is that you have to be able to start your computer from a drive other than the one you are restoring to. Unlike with older Macintosh operating systems, you cannot use the Mac OS X installation disk as a boot disk to do a software restore. To get around this, I used BootCD to create a CD that the computer can start up from and restore the hard drive from the backup disk image created by Carbon Copy Cloner.
Gibraltar and other contested territories
Bloomberg.com::
"In a 2002 referendum, 99 percent of Gibraltar's 20,683 registered voters chose to reject any plan of shared sovereignty of the territory between Spain and the U.K. The Spanish and British governments said the referendum had no legal merit.
Spanish exports to Gibraltar last year totaled 420.3 million euros ($505 million), and imports from the territory amounted to 1.7 million euros, according to Spain's chamber of commerce."
By those numbers, it looks like Gibraltar is a cash cow for Spain, and that nobody there wants to live in Spain. I wonder how many other national territory disputes are there out there: Gibraltar, Taiwan, Guantanamo, Belize (Guatamala claims it), Falkland Islands, Spratley Islands, Cyprus, Kuril Islands, Kashmir, Kuwait, Chafarinas Islands, ... I think the more interesting ones are between countries where the territory is obviously noncontiguous to the current de-facto owner.
Interesting Links:
The Mind of a Supercriminal
So I was thinking this morning: criminals often get caught because their hair or some other DNA-laden material is found in the crime scene. (At least on TV.) What if a criminal purposefully loaded the scene with lots of other people's genetic material? Hair from the barbershop, boogers from under chairs, flakes of skin from old razors--the ultimate criminal wouldn't be an ultra-clean person wearing surgical gloves; they would be a mess of material incriminating anyone but themselves.
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
Be it ever so humble...
there's no place like the home office.
i have been slowly moving in, accumulating things and creating an environment where i can work efficiently and effectively. now i just need efficient, effective work habits.
witness the evolution of my space, kindly supported by the benevolent Paul Mercado, here.
Keystone Kops
Yahoo! News - Pre-9/11 Acts Led To Alerts: "More than half a dozen government officials interviewed yesterday, who declined to be identified because classified information is involved, said that most, if not all, of the information about the buildings seized by authorities in a raid in Pakistan last week was about three years old, and possibly older."
"It's serious business," Bush said. "I mean, we wouldn't be, you know, contacting authorities at the local level unless something was real."
Sunday, August 1, 2004
Don't Know how I managed to wake up this morning
given that I finally fell asleep around 4:30 or so. But I am glad that I did because I managed to catch This American Life. What a great program! This particular edition was the one where they try to interview everyone at the The Golden Apple in Chicago. I really enjoyed the texture of everyone's voices. I also liked the fact that the doors of the Golden Apple have no locks because the restaurant is always open. I also liked the impression that Donna, the night waitress, gave of how the diner changes as morning comes- how the morning crowd arrives like morning sunlight- slowly, with all freshness and hope of a new day.But mostly I liked the voices. I am amazed at how powerful a force of touch sound, in general, and the human voice, in particular, is. It seems to me that as we lay in the relatively static enviroment of the womb, sound was our first introduction to the variety of physical sensation and to touch. I often think how amazing it is that I can reach out an touch someone by making the air vibrate between us in a way that is particular to me. I am amazed out how comforting, how physically comforting a familiar voice is. I like to think that birds, for example, with their constant chirping are really maintaining constant network of touch; I like to think of whales somewhere in the deep- alone, speaking and hearing the long slow words of whales.
This thinking explains the power of music. A group is bound together by a song because the group is literally embraced by the singing. This thinking helps me understand why a song, rather than an image, seems to to penetrate deeply into our us. It seems that The Hearing within us is far more ancient- for we heard long before we saw.
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