Saturday, June 14, 2003

Nukes to Pluto

I don't know about nuking the moon, but Stryker has an excellent post about a new nuclear power unit for missions to the outer planets.

Music and Memories

Weekend Pundit joins the chorus and chimes in about music and the memory associations it triggers.

Gratuitous Niece Picture

This is my artistic niece and a cat she used to have.

Tiger Reviews

This is a cool thing to have done. Tiger reviewed in detail every entry in the Showcase for last week. Ah, and now I see he's done it again! Cool.

Poliblegger

Poliblogger needs our help! It's that 4 month blogiversary/get a certain number of hits/get mammalized thing going on. Sound familiar?

So consider linking to this purty, nifty blog, and visit there early and often in the next day. Only 103 visits to go, to make 10,000. Only something like 14 needed to make mammal, and this only needs to be temporary. You're free to stop linking and reading after the milestone has been achieved. Heh.

You want more convincing? Consider the benefits. You have posts like:
Venemous Kate is expecting. Yay Kate!
Commander of Iraqi Air Force Captured
Link to Frank J.'s tips for blogging and courting Courtney (okay, I made up that last part)
Free trade in the Americas
Amazing composite Earth picture, alone worth the visit
The whacky, confused economy and consumers who dis it
A diet post, on losing and regaining fat
Something else to blame on Ashcroft
A blogging farce
River-swimming rodents

And much more! So click on over. Link away. It's easy, and so good for you. Er, well, good for Poliblogger. You gain nothing except a few shining moments of fellow blogger gratitude.

Flag Day

Mapchic has an awesome Flag Day post over at Geographica. Chart a path on over there to read it.

Ballad of Paul Krugman

Viking Pundit, on June 13, has a song for Krugman. It's most amusing, quite well done.

Ads

I usually don't even look twice at ads on web sites, never mind click through.

However, in an example of how to be appealing, Dogpile had the cutest ad on Site Meter today, in the right column. It was their mascot dog, on top of a pile of assorted other dogs, with, if you looked, some funny looks on their faces. Very funny, appealing ad. Nice job, marketing people!

So I clicked through, did some searches, found the bone, and entered in their "win $13,000" contest. Not that I'll win, but it'd sure help. I could pay off the IRS with room to spare. Actually no; I could pay the IRS plus the taxes on the prize, and probably have nothing left. But I'd be better off.

I always liked Dogpile. Haven't really used it since Google came along though.

Spike

I missed the boat on this, as it was over a week ago, but this post on Spike is a riot.

And Another One Gone, And Another One Gone...

Dr. Frank has moved of of the evil BlogSplat.

Happy Birthday

It's Jim Treacher's birthday today!

Catching Up

Well, it doesn't always happen, but I seem to have caught up on sleep! Nine hours, with one quick break after the first six. I was having some of the most bizarre dreams ever, which if I remembered coherently and they made sense, I would describe. Imagine, though, visiting a union/mob office and taking all their Playboys, then having to get down to the floor and crawl out of the room to avoid gunfire coming in from outside. Imagine being on a yacht, zooming across the ocean in search of something indeterminate (or that I can't remember, but I think it was someone's brother, on an island), and with a couple of other guys on the trip, giving an interview in a large main room on the boat, then finding yourself imagining water spilling in the door and sinking the boat, making you feel kind of panicky. Later the yacht is riding on top of a tidal wave that's blasting down the street of a city, while you watch it from a distance. Basically it was that kind of series of things.

Now I don't really care if I do anything all day. There's a graduation party I'm supposed to attend, running from 1:00 to 5:00, for my biggest client's son. He's the one whose computer died, then I rebuilt it, then it kept refusing to work with video editing software without frame drops. It finally started working at the last minute before the video (for a philosophy class) was due, when he'd gone and finished it on a Mac.

I hate going to this sort of thing. At least, I don't like the anticipation, the nervousness at having to be social at the time and place of someone else's choosing, in large crowds of people I may or may not know. But I'll live. Most of them I actually will know, which is helpful. Plus I really like the people in question. It just makes me feel so pressured and nervous.

Which is strange, because I sometimes revel at being in a big group, or being the center of attention. And when I'm in a group situation, I have an automatic tendency to assume leadership, unless I pointedly avoid doing so. I mean, doing so is like breathing, and not doing so requires effort.

Oh well. If I keep blogging, I'll never make it there, and I also need to go to the office. Maybe I'll get more done than when I wasn't awake.

I Must Be Crazy

Those of you following along at home will recall that I woke up at 6:30 AM and spent pretty much the entire day marginally functional and needing sleep.

So here it is, 2:43 AM, and I haven't been to sleep yet. Instead I've been making my new blog look like the previously mentioned test page, only more so. I learn fast enough that from a day ago to now there's a night and day difference in my grasp of what the CSS and PHP files are doing.

The question is going to be whether to unveil and change over when it's all perfect, or while it's still under construction. Probably the latter. Sooner would appear to be better, seeing how Blogger won't speak with w.bloggar again, as happens periodically for no reason.

The main page is most of the way there. I have to decide if I want to try porting from Blogspot, and whether that's possible or practical. The main page needs tweaking; how archives are handled, decisions on what to show, links added, line up the top of the left column and the main column, etc. And the fonts are being stubborn. I thought I changed everywhere that might control the font color, but it is still the basic black pMachine defaults you to.

Comments open in their own window. I need to re-eliminate the location box. I need to make the comments page title show what post the comments are for if I can. I assume so, based on what I know of how things work.

Archive pages can wait for redesign. So perhaps the beginning of the week it'll be up and running. Last but not least, I have to make it respond to the URL of my choice, rather than www.blahblah/blah/pMachineFree2.2.1/wblog.php. Don't want to have some stupidly convoluted URL, especially only to change it later.

I may also decide to put a narrow right column. The thing is, I never used that on BlogSpot, and I don't think I'll need to here either.

Now, time to sleep! Naturally I am still rather coherently awake.

Inland Tsunami Anyone?

Conrad posts about the pending demise of the Three Gorges Dam. Yeah, that new one.

Friday, June 13, 2003

Important Sunday School Lesson

Read it right here, from an unexpected source, you might say.

Just Messing Around...

This is a quick, potential look I goofed around and came up with, for when the blog relocates. I set out first playing with colors for the text area. They ought to look familiar. Then I added the elephant. Then I started creating a "Jay Solo" graphic to go on the opposite side of the top of the page from the elephant. I ended up creating a good watermark graphic in the process, and ended up with what you see as a rough scheme.

I may decided tomorrow that I don't like it. Or you might all tell me it looks lousy or loads too slow. We'll see. What do you think?

Forking Up Big Time

Here is a pictorial at Midwest Pundits on something not to do with forklifts. I have driven forklifts in a couple of different jobs, even became quite good at it. I can't imagine trying this

Hulk Smash

Tony writes an anticipatory post regarding the big green dude, coming to theaters Real Soon Now.

I've always been a Hulk fan. I've even been known to have a Hulk-like temper, compared to my normally Bruce Banner-like amiability.

Good Stuff

Can be found in recent days over at Voice From the Commonwealth.

Fridge as Trademark Dilution

Using the word "fridge" in the previous post reminded me of when I used to subscribe to Writer's Digest years ago. The biggest source of ads in the magazine was companies reminding writers about their trademarks. There were some cool ads, strange as that may sound, and I thought it was a useful venue and means of getting the word out. For instance, tissues, unless you mean Kleenex brand, in which case it's Kleenex, not "kleenex." That kind of thing.

I recall Frigidaire having ads that said not to use the word "fridge," because that might confuse people.

My thought went something like "excuse me? It's fridge as in refrigerator. Re-fridge-uh-rator. Fridge." I never could understand how they thought the use of fridge, which has been used as a generic word for refrigerator for at least my entire life, could confuse people with, or dilute, Frigidaire.

All the other such ads made sense to me. That one was nuts. Am I wrong?

Apparently not! I just thought to check dictionary.com to see if it's officially a word, or if it makes any reference to a specific company. It is. It doesn't.

Then again, this was long enough ago that they could have been making a last ditch effort at that time, and since given up. We're talking 13-15 years ago.

Yawn

This lack of sleep thing (see several posts ago when I started a series of short posts first thing in the morning) is not good. I was barely functional to drive; as if I'd been up a whole day and then tried driving home exhausted. I stopped for coffee, but that doesn't seem to be helping. At least not yet, and in my condition one medium doesn't go far.

Well, the fridge is full of soda that contains caffeine. Maybe that'll save me! Code Red, Mountain Dew, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi Twist, Diet Coke... (plus a few flavors like Fresca and orange that lack stimulant).

Talking to Kids About Sex

This is a great read, an excerpt from a book, if for nothing more than the ultrasound part.

While I have no need of this kind of book myself, I am a big proponent of handling these things correctly, rather than some combination of wrong and minimally - almost not at all - as was the case with me.

Sepideh

Sepi has a good post about the Iran protests (and some other stuff).

She also models her new Miss Piggy underwear in a creative way.

Happy Birthday

It's Kate's birthday today. At least I didn't totally miss it as I did the other Kate's birthday.

This Sounds Yummy

Various Good Stuff

Can be found over at The Colorado Compound.

Advance Warning

I just love when they tell me a new person is starting... on that person's first day! But maybe it's just as well. Last time, I knew 3 weeks ahead of time and had network and mail accounts created a week ahead of time. Then the person quit after 2 1/2 days.

Meanwhile, I'm building a computer for someone who'll start Monday (almost a full months notice I got on that), but someone else who also will need one has already started. Heh.

So much for any thought of going back to sleep for a couple hours.

Scary Indeed

Jim S. posts about the economy, jobs and international competition. I agree, scary, but what to do but wait and try to work out doing what we do best and settling into a new normal?

Prather on Health Care Deregulation and Competition

Mog on Longhorn and Palladium

Let's Give Them Our Resolve

Iran's "burnt generation." Via this fine site.

Never Seen It Said Better

This is well worth reading. Via Accidental Jedi.

Argh

I hate waking up 3 1/2 hours after going to sleep, wide awake, unable to fall back to sleep, knowing full well that if I stay up now, I will sleepwalk through the day. It's already been over an hour. I finally stopped trying to sleep any more, and the longer I'm out of bed, the sleepier I'm getting. Perhaps in a few minutes...

Musical Memory

A couple posts down I wrote on the association of music and memories. Deb at The Accidental Jedi followed it up with a good post of her own on the same topic. And silly me. It looks like this is a good blog I had not yet linked.

Unexpected

One thing I did not expect from blogging was the connectedness with fellow bloggers.

I have no less than 18 bloggers on my AIM buddy list. Some I have chatted with, in or out of the periodic chats you see mentioned. Some I haven't, but merely added them in case, if they were available. For instance, I can see that Sepi, Dean and Rob are all on right now. Maripat and Lori must have already gone to bed. Ith and Nin are away, so they haven't been on this week. Others include Melissa, Paul, Andrea, Mickey, Camille, Jaboobie, and others, including one or two I can't place. Oops.

Then there's e-mail. I have received e-mail from a veritable who's who of fine bloggers. That is, I have received at least one e-mail each from close to 60 other bloggers. Few of them were replies to e-mail I sent first. A handful were global, where I was included incidentally as part of a group. Mostly, however, they were directed specifically to me. It always surprises me, but it's cool. I also got e-mail from a guy at MSNBC when I submitted a heads up that The Command Post ought to be listed on a blog page they were doing.

Surprisingly few have been reciprocal link requests. The first was from Andrew, who seems to have disappeared after telling Michael Moore* to bite him. I can only hope that it's finals taking him away, and that he'll be back. Or perhaps he's having a normal teen life outside of blogging; that's okay too.

I was intending to list some of the bloggers from whom I've received e-mail, in the name of gratuitous linkage, but there are too many.

When I started, I figured I'd write, a few people might actually read, maybe when I had comments I'd get some of those. I wasn't expecting to make new friends or feel so much a part of a community. It's cool!


* Now wouldn't it be funny if we all link http://www.revoketheoscar.com whenever we type the words "Michael Moore", until a Google for Michael Moore brings that up as the first hit? Heh.

Memory Songs

Do you find, as I do, that you associate specific memories or people with specific songs?

I can't hear McArthur Park without remembering my 9th grade crush. I liked the song anyway, from the first time I heard it when I was younger, but she was in the color guard of a drum & bugle corps, and that was their theme song.

Or perhaps it's just a memory of the first time you heard the song. I associate the previously mentioned Radar Love with my brother and cousin, who were listening to it at my uncle's house the first time I heard it. I still vividly remember the first time I heard (or noticed) Won't Get Fooled Again. Of all places, it was at my grandmother's house, playing on a radio on the desk in the dining room. My brother was listening to the radio. I heard the words and my young imagination envisioned a rebel army marching by on my grandmother's street. More than imagined; it was like having a dream.

For me music has a profound mental effect. I am far more focused and productive if music is playing, as long is it's music I can at least stand enough not to be distracted rather than focused by it. It must do something to the brain in that regard, at least for some of us, which is probably related to the memory associations in its nature.

Thursday, June 12, 2003

RIP

I just got the news, in e-mail from my father, that my stepmother's mother, Rose, died this evening. This is her, sitting at the kitchen table at my father's old house in Vermont. Off in the distance, hidden by the wreath so you can't see it, is Jay Peak.

Anyway, this isn't unexpected. My father told me yesterday that it would happen in the next couple days almost beyond a doubt. She's been in rough shape for a few years now; rougher than she would have been if the doctors had figured out she had a blood disease before it did so much damage, rather than patting the elderly hypochondriac on the head and sending her home. (Being so convinced of that, they tried less hard than they might have to identify the real issue.)

Rose was a strong, feisty, sometimes bossy, independent, exceedingly Catholic woman. My stepcousin became a priest, ordained last year, in no small part through her influence.

Her husband died young, when my stepmother was I believe maybe 14, and was sickly more than not before that. So she always worked and had to support herself, and wore the pants in the family. That had a big influence on my stepmother. In addition to having to take care of her husband, ultimately she took care of her mother, who only spoke Italian and was kicking well into her nineties.

So it looks like there'll be a funeral next week in Plymouth to go to. Hell of a way to end up seeing everyone.

Meatloaf

I'm being adventurous, making meatloaf out of the second package of hamburger I bought a couple days ago. The first package was hamburgers two nights in a row.

I have attempted meatloaf exactly once before; a lame effort that I knew at the time was a lame effort. This is a more serious effort, but still, flying without a recipe. I've no idea how it will taste, besides mildly spiced.

I have no idea how long or at what heat I ought to bake it! It's in at 350° F right now, until such time as it appears done. Pyrex may be a goos thing in this case.

Anywho, I decided two nights in a row of burgers was enough. If it comes out okay, I'll recount what I did to make it. No measurements though, since everything was by feel. This has always made recipes from my sister tough to obtain, because it's how she cooks too.

I think I'll start water for rice... (I doubt meatloaf can take much longer than that to finish.)

I Love Saving the Day

A paralegal has a couple floppies with documents from a specific bank that are relevant to real estate closings generically.

That paralegal leaves. The floppies are around somewhere, presumably, but nobody knows where. Suddenly they have a dire need for the documents on them.

So it turns out that once upon a time I zipped the contents of each of the two floppies, because it needed to be e-mailed and people seem to have trouble grasping the concept of using Winzip, even if they grasp the concept of files and directories on disks.

The two zips, and therefore all the documents, were still on my computer. Now the docs are up on their network, unzipped, and I am a hero once again. Woohoo!

I meant to gripe about my parts supplier, but writing about positive things is nicer. And speaking of parts, time to go assemble them into a computer now, so I can be out of here in two hours...

Duh

I am running out of business checks. This is weird, as I thought I had an entire additional book of them. Oops.

Apparently I blew on past the reorder slip for two reasons. One is that I don't use checks that quickly, so it was several months too soon to order new ones (which is why I only vaguely remember; it was so long ago).

The other is cost and the desire to select a new vendor. Once upon a time, we selected Bank of Boston as our bank. We were quite explicit in not selecting Fleet, due to all the horror stories and bad experiences floating around about them as compared to B of B. But we chose a larger bank for the convenience of many branches, which is good, since had we picked a local bank in the town we originally were located in, as almost happened, I'd have to go way out of the way to get there.

Our first order of 400 checks cost $54, including an imprint of the company slogan. That seemed a little high, but hey, if they can't stick it to businesses, they'd have to screw individuals instead.

Then two things happened. We moved, which meant eventually getting new checks before the old ones ran out, to have the correct address. Fleet of Borg absorbed Bank of Boston, which had absolutely no antitrust implications and didn't leave a lopsided banking environment in this part of the country.

Bearing in mind that we pointedly avoided Fleet, you can imagine how happy we were. And yet, Fleet has been okay for our minimal needs. They didn't even raise the high monthly fee to something even higher until early this year. I laughed like hell, because they announced the increase within a month of the time I suggested it might be time to change banks to see if we could get a lower fee, since theirs was kind of high even though it remained unchanged. What timing!

There was precisely one thing I freaked about under Fleet. When I ordered replacement checks, they did not print the slogan on them, and they were $104; almost double.

I decided on the spot there was no way in hell we would ever order replacement checks through the bank again.

So when I reached the way too premature replacement order form, I naturally ignored it, knowing I needed to look into NEBS or somewhere instead when we actually got low on checks. Then I forgot all about it.

Duh.

At least I have an entire unused 400 checks that have the old address on them as emergency backup.

Comments

Well, they're down again. It almost seems to happen some of the time when I have made a new post and rejiggered things, then it needs time to come back. But probably just coincidence.

It just sucks when you hit refresh to see if there are any new comments, and the comments blow up.

HRC = RMN?

Fascinating comparison of Nixon and Clinton over at Chicago Boyz. What do you think?

Progress

Well, by the time I got into looking at pMachine stuff tonight, I got nothing done beyon finding out the comments I had working great no longer show anything except the text entry box for the new comment itself (and all details of existing comments). I had it so it showed name, e-mail and URL above the main text entry, but not the silly location box. And I have it showing in a new window as I prefer.

Tonight, nothing changed, it shows no personal info entry fields. All I can figure is it's using the "registration required" variant, even though registration is as turned off as I could determine to make it.

I also poked around in the pMachine control panel attempting to figure out if I could edit the heading of the blog to include a graphic. Not obnviously so. And why can't they just call the template that will be the main screen you see something like "main form"? I think I know which one affects that main screen the most, but it's not absolutely certain. I actually entered text into the templates via the control panel and saved changes, but the text displayed nowhere in any aspect of the blog. That's promising.

I should not try this when I am tired. I almost fell asleep waiting at the barber shop today, but a few hours after I woke up, and then at the office I almost pulled out the bed (have a love seat there that pulls out into a narrow but surprisingly comfortable bed) and napped. I managed to stay awake long enough to come home, make and devour a yummy burger and some steamed brocolli, and obviously do a little blogging and bog surfing.

I think it's time to hit the sack.

Everyone read and chime in on the comments to the next post down, on music that exhilarates you when driving. That ought to keep you until tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 11, 2003

Driving Songs

Some songs were just made for driving. They can make you lose yourself in the sensation of flying along the highway. They can produce a gravitational anomoly in the vicinity of your right foot; "sorry officer, but that song came on the radio and I couldn't help it."

Of course I speak of Radar Love, by Golden Earing, the inspiration for this post, as the classic one. Any others that do the same thing to you?

Mahwwiage

In comments at the Rottie's site, Frank J. expressed a strong need for a wife. I helpfully promoted Courtney as a fine option.

Meanwhile, over in Courtney's comments, I found her declaring marriage not to be for her. I countered that with the proposed union with Frank J. She has agreed that an arranged marriage with someone she's never met might be a good thing. If he's scum, it wouldn't break her heart. Unless he can win her heart...

That sounds like a challenge, and a potential opportunity for twue wuv.

What do you think?

Readability and Stuff

The Fire Ant Gazette has a superb commentary on things that make a blog more or less readable, though admittedly mileage varies on the details.

I would add that I don't like permalinks that are tied to an image. Why? Because I always right-click the permalink, click properties from the popup menu, highlight the URL, copy, cancel the properties dialog, and paste the URL where I want it. That way I don't have to click and open the post that I already read on the main page. I didn't set out to make this particular point until I noticed that the URL I just pasted was "http://www.ericsiegmund.com/images/fireant/icon_link.gif" rather than the real one, which is "http://www.ericsiegmund.com/fireant/2003_06_01_gazettearchive.html#200414326." But wait! I see by having clicked to open it that the real permalink is kaput. So I guess you just gotta go to the main page and look at "Blog Usability: We can do better, folks..." under June 11th.

Anyway, I pretty much couldn't agree more, axcept I don't mine a well done white on dark. Part of the success of that for Sully is a nice big font. Plus, for those who may not have noticed, there is a nifty link you can click for black on white. Voila, no more problem reading Andrew Sullivan.

Anyway, I hate sites with poor contrast. I can stand light on dark, it's the contrast problems I hate, and those are exacerbated by small fonts.

On an unrelated note except it's over at the same blog, yeah, one of the moons I settled on using is also the king of the fairies, which I decided would be one of my "general blogs" categories. No special meaning to the association.

Humor E-Mail

This is a very old one I've seen a number of times, starting several years ago. It's still amusing, even though I think some things are obsolete or less definitive than they once were.

Bawston

"Getting around Boston"

Pay no attention to the street names.

There's no school on School Street, no court on Court Street, no dock on Dock Square, no water on Water Street.

Back Bay streets are in alphabetical odda: Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth,etc..

So are South Boston streets: A, B, C, D, etc..

If the streets are named after trees (e.g. Walnut, Chestnut, Cedar), you're on Beacon Hill.

If they're named after poets, you're in Wellesley.

Southie is South Boston.

The South End is the South End.

Eastie is East Boston.

The North End is east of the West End.

The West End and Scollay Square are no more, a guy named Rappaport got rid of them one night.

Definitions:

Frappes have ice cream, milkshakes don't.

If it is fizzy and flavored, it's tonic.

Soda is CLUB SODA.

Pop is Dad.

When we mean Tonic WATER, we will ask for Tonic WATER.

The smallest beer is a pint.

Scrod is whatever they tell you it is, usually fish.

If you paid more than $6/pound, you got scrod.

It's not a water fountain; it's a bubblah.

It's not a trashcan; it's a barrel.

It's not a shopping cart; it's a carriage.

It's not a purse; it's a pockabook.

They're not franks; they're haht dahgs. Franks are money in France.

Things not to do

Don't pahk your cah in Hahvid Yahd ... they'll tow it to Meffa (Medford) or Slumaville (Somerville).

Don't sleep in the Common.

Don't wear Orange in Southie on St. Patrick's Day

Things you should know:

There are two State Houses, two City Halls, two courthouses, two Hancock buildings (one old, one new).

Route 128 is also I-95. It's also I-93.

The underground train is not a subway. It's the "T" and it doesn't run all
night (fah chrysakes, this ain't Noo Yawk)

Bostonians...
think that it's their God-given right to cut off someone in traffic.

think that there are only 25 letters in the alphabet (no R's).

think that three straight days of 90+ temperatures is a heat wave.

refer to six inches of snow as a "dusting."

always "bang a left" as soon as the light turns green, and oncoming traffic always expects it.

say everything in town is "a five-minute walk."

believe that using your turn signal is a sign of weakness.

think that 63-degree ocean water is warm.


Enjoy BAWSTON !


Yes!

I finally got my hair chopped off! No more unruly mop. He did a good job, too. Second shortest haircut I've had.

Now that it's actually decided to be acceptably warm as many days as not, short hair is a good thing.

Unfortunately, it was a big day for kids getting haircuts. There was a cute year or so old who wanted to play with my cell phone. His mother gave him hers, which was identical to mine, so then he kept deciding the imaginary caller was asking for me, and handing me the phone. Then after the phone was put away, he still kept wanting to lean on me and be friendly.

Sometimes I'm a kid magnet like that. My older brother thinks the wrong one of us had kids. Fortunately I've gotten past the ticking urge to marry and have kids. Which is good, since it'll surely never happen.

For What It's Worth...

I posted to my Slutertarian page last night. I thought I might actually start posting education-related items there as I stumble upon them periodically.

Here's the overall Slutertarian page.

Here's my department page.

Dating Advice

Steve is looking for dating advice. Or dating avoidance advice, as the case may be.

I'm no help in that department, being an utterly hopeless non-dater, but maybe you have ideas for him? At least you can read all the amusing comments (and the amusing post), even if you have nothing to add.

I Have Strange Dreams

Out of the blue I was buying, or perhaps inheriting, a big, run down old house in a rural area. The area imaged looked like a combination of Plympton, MA and Holland, VT. The occupant had been one old woman. There were at least 11 rooms, but I knew the place was only about half usable, because it was filled with accumulated old stuff. How I was getting it was unclear, but it was both completely unexpected and welcome.

The house itself is a recurring one I have dreams about, seemingly an archetype based on various places I have seen. For instance, I once had a dream about the same house, different location, being on fire, but burning so slowly nobody was in much hurry to get out of it. I've also dreamed about moving onto a section of the second floor of the same house, and discovering unexpected rooms.

Anyway, I was rather preoccupied with mailing people my new address, especially a selected few people I was apparently irritated with. For some reason, I was going to mail each person a single old glove. I stood next to a stretch of road that had no houses on it, looking at the gloves I had collected to send. They were all my size, but some of them were so worn they had big holes in the palm. Then for some reason I realized I should limit the number of people I notified right away.

During part of this, I was actually talking with someone unidentified who was standing there, telling them about the house. I pictured some other, small, blocky house I lived in, and how much I wanted to move. I commented that it would take me all summer, maybe the whole rest of the year, to go through all the stuff in the house to identify what was good and dispose of what wasn't, then fix the place up. I thought it would make me too busy to blog, then realized I could still do some blogging, telling people about the cool things I found in the house.

We talked about the fact it was so huge, and what I might be able to do with it, like running a business out of the house. The last thing suggested before I woke up was a candy business.

Space Commercialization

Yet Another Weird SF Fan posts about space commercialization, which is always a topic dear to my heart, and proves my impulse to put this blog in the "Prometheans" category made sense. That is where it will go when I continue sorting.

Moxie Vote

Rob Sama has a poll on which Moxie you prefer, complete with pictures.

8000

For what it's worth, my 8000th hit was someone on Comcast in the eastern time zone, running XP and IE6, with no referrer. Subsequently I've been mini-bloggerlanched.

That's one thing about Blogger. They display a small number of recently updated Blogger blogs on their main page. It's not actually reliable or continuously update (so the "most recent" might sit there for a few hours before the list changes). Once in a while I get on the list if I make a few back to back posts, and people actually do click and show up as brand new visitors (Welcome!) One of the things that made my traffic increase dramatically was one weekend when I stayed on blogger.com as a recently updated blog link for as much as 12 hours. At least half my (record number of) visitors that weekend came from there. It was as significant as a Gut Rumbles link that stays near the top for a while, or as a link from Blogs of War like the one I got when I was almost brand new.

And Another...

Viking Pundit says that Between The Coasts has fled Blogspot. I hope I didn't already know this and post it, because I am not scrolling back to see. I need to update 5-6 links at this point, just from the past couple days or so.

Another Refugee

Hell In A Handbasket has moved!

Saw the news on Natalie Solent.

Subversive Monkeywrenching

What made me go read this amusing page was the discussion of grocery store discount cards, which I have been extremely resistant to.

I don't shop at Stop & Shop because of them, except maybe in a pinch to run in and buy something that's not on sale anyway. I always liked Shaw's in part because they weren't Stop & Shop, but it seems their business objective is to become more like Stop & Shop every year until there is no difference. So of course they adopted the discount card scheme, which is why I was boycotting them and going to Victory, until I got sick of Victory selling meat that was either already spoiled or would spoil far more quickly than that from other stores. That left Trucchi's and Market Basket, both a little less convenient than any of the others. Or the Hilltop Steakhouse market, which is relatively convenient but a little limited. And weirdly, the meat there isn't necessarily spectacular, at least for what I'd buy most. I can buy hamburger from Trucchi's or Market Basket, and after sitting in the refrigerator for two days, it is approximately at the freshness level Victory's is the day you buy it.

Anyway, my brother had an extra Shaw's card, so I go there again. I also started going to Victory again if I need things other than meat and it's the convenient option.

That subversive link was via Wendy McElroy.


Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Looking for some good stuff?

Well, over here is one place to start.

Silly Dell Tricks

Okay, so you order a computer. After ordering you verify with your computer guy that it ought have been XP Pro, not Home, so within a day of placing the order, you call Dell to see if you can change the OS spec. They have already shipped the computer, being efficient, but they agree to send you XP Pro and you send them back the copy of XP Home.

So you get the copy of XP Pro, computer guy starts the setup, and it asks for the CD key...

As many of you know, an OEM computer builder is supposed to remove the shiny sticker with the CD key from the shrinkwrapped package containing the CD and manual, and stick it to the computer. This proves you are legal, and Microsoft did in fact receive their tithing obeisance on the transaction. If you have to reinstall and need the CD key, that is where it is located, unless you have written it elsewhere for your records. The package with the software has no indication of the CD key anywhere.

Okay, all well and good. Except the replacement software, the copy of XP Pro swapped for XP Home, arrived with no shiny sticker, as if it had been removed and placed on the computer. But obviously it could not have been. But hey, Dell, huge vendor, special arrangements with Microsoft... maybe the CD key on the sticker on the computer was somehow generic and would work.

Nope.

So now they have to call Dell and try to get a CD key that works with the otherwise useless copy of XP Pro. Fortunately, I need to go back there anyway, to replace their hub with a more reliable one.

How foolish is that, sending out a copy of Window that can't be installed? They ought to be better than that. Then again, special circumstance; they function efficiently through rote and routine. We had to go and be different on them.

How Sad Is It

That I have never heard of, or at least heard, half of these songs.

Happy Blogiversary

It's Jim's 1 year blogiversary. Congratulations!

Progress

Minor progress, anyway. I have comments almost the way I want them, apart from making them load in a new window. However, there's a default "location" textbox that I have never seen anyone use. I commented all references to it, as far as I could see, but it's still there. Silly thing. Maripat ditched it, so there has to be a way.

I also ditched a lot of the crap that's on the main page by default, and have a good idea how things flow in the various PHP and CSS files.

So now that I'm a couple hours late getting to other things, enough of this for now.

So Far So Good

Well, I have the absolute default pMachine weblog established in a ridiculously convoluted path. Obviously that's going to have to change or be virtualized.

The default example blog is so not remotely how I will want it to be. Getting it established to this point is clearly the least of the work. Now that I know what I'm doing, I'd probably have done some of it a little differently, but oh well. I could also do it again in far less time.

This should be interesting.

This is Annoying

It's midnight.

I got to the office at 9:30 AM and just got home maybe an hour ago. One of my partners decided he wanted to pop in at "6:30 or 7 o'clock" to show me where his code stood and get some input. I don't think it was too much past 8:00 when he arrived, and I did accomplish some cleaning in the meantime. Also talked with the client in Fall River, with whom I'd arranged to visit "sometime early this week" but not made specific plans. So that's tomorrow.

But first I must get a haircut. So I need to be up at a reasonable time, get out of here, go to the barber and make a retail stop or two. Then stop at the office for a little while, make sure nobody is too frantic, put in an order for the parts and OS to build a new computer, tweak some old code and distribute a replacement EXE, try to remember to e-mail Westlaw support a question I have, and finally go on down to Fall River, where things should not get as out of hand as last time. I believe I neglected to rant about goofy network cabling people.

If you run a cable through the wall and install a female jack for a computer to plug into, and the closet the cables go to has a hub in it, and obviously no patch panel, what do you do? You put a male end on such that the end in the closet can plug into the hub, right? Oh no. You survey the situation, have no idea what's going on, leave the cable raw, and have to be called back in to put the male end on while the computer guy - who could have run the cable at least as competently as you - waits, and is horrified hearing your confusion as to how exactly to connect the male end to the raw cable. Which the computer guy would have done had he known there was the slightest reason to bring the handy toolbag, which includes a handful of male connectors and the crimping tool. But hey, let's leave cabling to the people who pretend to do it for a living! (Actually, that's exactly right... when it's people like my amazingly competent brother.)

I'd love to plow into working with pMachine, but I am going to have to limit myself. After all, sleep is good. The earlier I can get to the barber, the less of a wait there will be. Anyway, let's see how much I can accomplish in, say, the next half hour or so...

Elhide.com

If you go to www.elhide.com, you should automatically be redirected to whatever blog is currently the operational one. Currently that means this one on Blogspot; that's just a preliminary. In case anyone is interested.

Monday, June 09, 2003

Comments Disabled

Since I would rather have no comments than have to click an error about 50 times as my blog loads (which translates into slooooooow loading if you are set not to see the script errors), and since it didn't simply go away promptly as it usually does, I have disabled comments. I have to assume Enetation is broken for an extended time, and presumably I will have an alternative once I have moved.

Pathetic Earthlings

Another one bites the dust. Pathetic Earthlings has left Blogspot. This should remind me to fix my links.

If you haven't checked out this site in the past, it's worth keeping an eye on. As the subtitle says, "space, politics, and single malt whisky."

Nigerian Spam: It's Not Just for Nigeria Any more

Kind of like cannibalism being good enough for Congo, so it's good enough for North Korea too.

Here's the latest opportunity for wealth that I'm about to pass up:

Urgent Business Proposal

It is with respect and confidence that I decided to contact you for a confidential transaction,which requires your assistance for our mutual beneficial relationship.

My name is Mr. Dialo Muktar,a close friend of Late General Guei Robert and the director viga assistant security company in Cote D'Ivoire.There is this sum of $12,000.000.00 that the former military head of state in Cote D'Ivoire General Guei Robert deposited in our custody last two years,which he wanted to use to contest for the next presidential election in Cote D'Ivoire.

But during this crisis in Cote D'Ivoire, he was killed; his wife and children were also killed leaving nobody as next of kin . So I am seeking for your assistance to transfer this money out of the country immediately.The process that I wanted to use to transfer this money is to push the money to our affiliate company in Europe through diplomatic means, and then I will delegate my son to meet with you for the clearance and sharing.

Meanwhile, if you are interested, for your assistance, 30% of the money will be for you and I will forward to you more details of this transaction and every document that regards to this transaction immediately I receive your positive response to my proposal.You can send me your reply at my mail addresse:dialo@infodesi.com or dialo@omaninfo.com

Remember that this business is risk free because I am the only person that is aware of this transaction. Your telephone number will be highly needed for easy communication.

Best Regards,

Mr Dialo Muktar



I know, I know... how could I pass up such a great opportunity!

Moving Report

I've had the domain since 1999. I'll probably explain why on the 2.0 blog, because the domain will make no sense otherwise.

I have the hosting, and the name servers have been changed. I can access my hosting via IP now. (And I haven't even mailed the check to pay for it yet, having just ordered last night.)

At home I have a download of pMachine, and think it appears easy based on the documentation. Jen says it's super easy. Maripat says it's harder than she'd expected. Mileage obviously varies.

I will obviously need to find out how to access MySQL and stuff like that on the new host.

So if I am preoccupied or run into trouble, my move could be a whole week or so away. If I hurry, it could be a few days. Stay tuned...

The State Is Funny

One quarter I file sales taxes a couple days late, compute the penalty, send the whole thing off, and get a refund because I overpaid the penalty.

Another quarter I file almost a month late, compute the penalty and interest carefully, and they send a bill for $6 more. All I can figure is they added an extra month. No biggie, but I figured I was saving them the trouble of sending me a bill. I used the same formula to compute it both times. The one they say to use. Go figure.

At least they don't get too excited when you're late. I was busy and low on cash flow, and the small penalty isn't too much to pay for a little flexibility.

Spam

115 Spam e-mails in three days. Yay.

Symposium

RWN has an excellent and entertaining symposium on the 2004 election. Long, but fun reading.

Note to Self

Return again to this site. I wasn't setting out to do a Dungeon Tour, but the name intrigued me, and it's one I am sure I'd include.

I also noticed this one hosted under Dean's domain. I love the design and colors, yet it remains readable in contrast and text size. Often that gets sacrificed to being pretty.

Another Refugee

Even as I am here changing the DNS for the domain I will use when I move, I get notice of another fine refugee from BlogSplat.*

damnum absque injuria, also known as Xrlq, has moved. Woohoo! Make all the requisite blogroll changes.

Enetation Is Becoming A Reason To Migrate

Mostly Enetation has been great for comments. And after all, it's free. But I have been noticing, with debugging turned on in IE options, that when the comments choose not to appear, I have to click an error message for each post where comments should appear. That's a lot of clicks. It seems to happen to other people as well, and if debugging is off, seems merely to make for extra slow loading.

I see less of this in pMachine and Movable Type sites that have their own comment systems.

Today, for me, Enetation has been especially bad. I refresh my site, eager to see what new comments may have been left, and instead I have to click "no" about 40 times and comments don't exist. Then I refresh a few minutes later and they're back. It's bizarre.

Argh

InterNIC and then Network Solutions used to be so easy. What a pain. It used to be that I'd go fill out the text form and mail it in, using the "send from" method. I have not yet found if that's even an available method any more. They assigned me a user ID for logging in a while back, for which I just had to create a password, but that appears only to be connected to one domain. I am the admin for about 10 domains.

Obviously I don't make changes very often! Last time I dealt with NSI, it was within several weeks of renewal time and I had trouble making any changes because they lock things tight so you can't move to another registrar until you've bribed them. I plan to move for that reason as much as to save money. There were no alternatives originally.

Indeed, I see the street address for the account is invalid, because they never changed it when I corrected it last time, so they have it flagged for me to correct now. Stupid twits.

Okay, I found the ID number I needed, in an e-mail they sent me in November 2001. Sheesh. Of course, I have to reset the password, because their never was a password in the first place.

It's probably too soon to change the name servers anyway, since my hosting won't be setup until at least sometime tomorrow, but hey. Figured while I was thinking about it.

Narrowing It Down To Three

Yet Another Weird SF Fan

Random Acts of Kindness

Technically Speaking

Too many good entries! I hate choosing, but I guess I'll go with these three. Good luck guys!

Sunday, June 08, 2003

Almost Forgot Voting!

I had previously voted for the entries at:
Technically Speaking
RantDude's Ravings
FreeSpeech
BusinessPundit
Tiger
Mudville Gazette
Yet Another Weird SF Fan (at least, I'd meant to)
Sanity's Edge
Random Acts of Kindness

I thought I probably ought to narrow it down and pick, oh, maybe three. So these are my choices, and I'll ponder and vote three in the next post.

Another Defector

Justene at Calblog has moved of BlogSplat. Woohoo!

Lego Logic

This is a cool article about positive things happening in Iraq. Via Virgina Postrel.

SF That's Not Timeless

I'm currently reading The Genesis Machine by James P. Hogan. Copyright date is 1978, meaning it's one of his earlier books.

As sometimes happens, it's clearly a product of its time (and the author's background of course). Thus you see a reference to things being controlled by a PDP64.

They have no Internet, but something called an "Infonet." It's a lot like the Internet, but heavily controlled, and doubling as a videophone system. Computing power is largely centralized and costly, with terminals that tie into central computers.

All that said, it's an excellent read. SF reflecting the life and times is nothing new. Look at the failure way back to predict microcomputers by, well, about everyone, yet as the same time the predictions of robots at a level we have not seen yet... despite the microcomputing power that implies and requires. It's finally coming, in the next 10-20 years, in a big way.

Giant mechanical devices for navigational math. That never happened, and Libby wasn't needed when they failed.

This kind of thing makes SF an intriguing study in its own right.

They Sound Serious!

There's more on that crazy Oregon mileage tax idea here.

Mickey's Musings

Not to self to update link, as she's moving from here over to a new home.

Which also applies to Paul, from All Agitprop, All The Time, aka Frozen In Montreal, the resident North Korea watcher.

Those dragon's wing's are getting pretty weighed down.

More On Cannibalism

Here's another article on cannibalism in North Korea, via Gweilo.

Well this sucks

I can't even post a quick "not going to blog much today because I have stuff to do"! w.bloggar returns "appkey is invalid or inactive," which apparently as an RPC/API error meaning "I can't seeeeeee you." Blogger.com is plain dead, which would certainly explain the w.bloggar error.

How annoying.

So here's some stuff I am seeing as I look at other sites:

Acidman is truly back in good form. "Cats are terrorists." What a great line! Then there's the mind-blowing company memo. Get on over there are check out the tall dogs and shoulda sent it posts.

We're still moving up. Dunno how. Right We Are! is at 167 links in the Ecosystem, which is 119th on the list, between the gratuitous gun picture dude and Blogs of War. I'm at 160, which is 125th, between Blogs of War and Jay Caruso. Go us!

Dean has a couple good items so far today. One is on Democratic Primary Analyses. The other is on why the whole WMD blame game issue is ridiculous, and is far and away the most cohesive, comprehensive discussion of that I have seen. I'm surprised Glenn Reynolds hadn't linked it in his efforts on the WMD issue today.

If I see more, it'll be another post.

Hooray, It's Back!

Updated

Not done yet, but I made some significant updates to the template in the form of linkage reorganization. If you have an idea, or a different idea, on where you belong listed, let me know so I can torment you by ignoring your opinion.

I also watched The Princess Bride tonight, due to the evil influence of Lori.