| (no subject) |
[Jul. 16th, 2009|10:26 pm] |
I did lots of little things today.
First I performed my "Thursday" routine for the job search. Each day of the week has a routine: web sites to visit, people to e-mail. No new prospects today.
I started reading Heinlein's Starship Troopers. This is the first time I have read it, so no spoilers, please! I'm five chapters in, and so far, enjoying it.
I'm also reading Dreaming in Code, which a review of the ill-fated "Chandler" PIM from Lotus. An excellent view of a software project, but sadly nothing really new for me. I guess I've seen too many software projects.
I used K3B to rip music from CDs to Ogg Vorbis format. It worked quite well, and now I have more music than fits on my little Samsung player. It has 256MB storage, which is puny for songs. I may want a player with more capacity. But that can wait.
I watched an episode of "From the Earth to the Moon", the old HBO series. Quite appropriate, as today was the launch date for Apollo 11 back in 1969. |
|
|
| DVD review: Chinatown |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|08:10 pm] |
Slow, plodding, and in need of guidance, "Chinatown" attempts to be a murder mystery with extra baggage. It succeeds at the extra baggage, but little else. Jack Nicholson is a fish out of water in this meandering story of corruption, infidelity, deception, and greed. Faye Dunaway is in over her head, and everyone else flops about like fish on the deck of a boat. The crew paid lots of attention to wardrobe, props, and sets; they should have gotten a story, an editor, and actors who were up to the roles.
I rate this movie three cans of spam out of a possible ten.
Alternates: "The Big Sleep", "The Maltese Falcon", "Fay Grim" |
|
|
| New books |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|10:07 pm] |
I visited the Book Thing today.
I picked up a copy of Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Guide and A Jefferson Profile.
The former is an O'Reilly book on HTML, CSS, DOM, and Javascript. (And I was just thinking that I should get a reference on Javascript.) This is one of O'Reilly's heavier books, weighing in at almost 1100 pages.
The latter is a collection of Jefferson's letters. They cover a broad scope of time, from his early years to after his presidency.
My trip to the Book Thing was by bus, as usual. That decision yielded a bonus: a Nikon Coolpix camera for a bargain price. The bus stop is about five blocks from the Book Thing, so I had to walk through the neighborhood. On my way, I came across some yard sales. I was thinking of simply passing them by, but I decided to look. One of them had the Nikon on the table with a price of $3.00, and I decided to try it. The person selling it explained that the battery lid did not stay on and needed a supplemental rubber band. Some tests at home show that the camera does work and yes the battery lid does not stay on. (The hinge is OK but the retainer clip has broken off.)
Also on my way home, I found some money! I found it as I picked a soda can out of the gutter. The grand sum was $0.03, which is not a lot. But it seems that I find some money every day.
Books: just finished Bioinformatics Computer Skills and Thinking for a Living
DVDs: "Chinatown" |
|
|
| DVD review: Strange Days |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|07:30 pm] |
"Strange Days", filmed in 1995, shows a then-future view of 2000, complete with riots in Los Angeles and technology that allows one to record and later play back experiences. (Kind of like "The Matrix", but one is merely a viewer and cannot effect changes.)
The story follows a dealer of "playback" vids. (The "playback" tech has been deemed illegal and is equivalent to addictive drugs.) He receives a recording of a murder, and becomes trapped in a maze of not only "whodunit" but "what-was-it".
In the end, "Strange Days" is a jumble of murder-mystery, mild dystopian future, romance, and social justice. At over two hours, the movie wanders from plot complication to plot complication, yet it is oddly predictable and as a result boring. It tries to do too many things; it does none of them well.
I rate this movie four cans of spam, out of a possible ten.
Alternate selections: "Dark City", "The Matrix", "The Last Mimsy" |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|07:18 am] |
Yesterday I was a geek and did computer-geeky things. The big geekiness was writing a web service, which turned out to be easier than I expected. I worked on both sides: the server side which provides the data (very easy) and the client side which reads and processes the data (not quite as easy).
The server side is easier because it is generating the data. Generating is always easier than parsing, just like exporting is easier than importing. (Now that I think of it, "export" is "generate" and "import" is "parse", so this is the same problem.)
For lunch I met my former co-workers Larry and Barbara for half-price hamburgers. Larry has an interesting idea for hand-held computers; we will have to talk more about it.
In the evening friends and I met for the weekly trivia contest. As usual, we answered some questions correctly and some incorrectly. The final question was: "How many counties are in the state of New York? (within 7)" We guessed 87; the answer was 62.
The best part of the evening was the little wind-up robot given to me by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) goddess10g! |
|
|
| Book Thing yields an old friend |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|09:06 pm] |
I visited the Book Thing today. I scored several books: Office 97 Annoyances, Practical C Programming, Time is the Simplest Thing, and The Norton Book of Science Fiction.
I also found a VCR copy of "Charade", the 1957 movie with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. I have the DVD but snagged the tape with the idea that my tape collection may outlast my DVD collection. (This parallels the thought that my LP collection may outlast my CD collection.) I watched it tonight. |
|
|
| Thoughts for Independence Day |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|05:15 pm] |
On this day we celebrate our independence from Great Britain. In 1776, we started what Lincoln would call the "great experiment" of the United States.
We are not a democracy but a democratic republic. We elect those who govern us. Our government (president, senator, congressman, governor, mayor, city council, etc.) are accountable to us while they serve. We need no king, no church, no hereditary figure to rule over us. We have "grown up", or so we like to think.
Anyone who has reared a child (or who has been a child) knows that "independence" does not mean "no responsibilities". There are bills to pay. There is food to put on the table. Indeed, there is a table to be bought and a house, condo, or apartment to put it in to be acquired.
We are a free country in that we are free from tyranny. We are not free of duties and responsibilities; that is not freedom but dependency.
This great experiment succeeds not because we are free but because we are responsible. Our freedom is the result of our good behavior, our responsible actions, our discipline.
How can we be good Americans? Here's how I see it:
- Learn our history. What path did we take to get to our current position? What allies did we make? What enemies? What internal struggles have we faced, and which have we deferred to a future time?
- Learn our place in the world. At 233 years, we are younger than countries such as England and China. They have rich histories which can teach us. We are older than countries such as France, Canada, and India. Yet the areas that we today call France, Canada, and India all have histories that predate our country, just as the Thirteen Colonies predate the United States. They also have history that can teach.
- When called to serve on a jury, serve. Jury duty is perhaps not directly related to governance, yet it serves an important role. Our guilt is decided by our peers, not royally-appointed judges. This is part of our society, part of the price we pay for our society.
- Improve your city or town. Learn its history. Learn about its current problems, its strengths, its weaknesses. Elect people who are knowledgeable. Let them know your opinions, by attending council meetings or writing them.
- Learn the issues and vote with knowledge. Many issues are complex, even though candidates would reduce them to simple one-dimensional decisions. Read multiple sources, not just the newspaper that you like or the web site that echoes your sentiments. Read what "the other guy" writes.
- Have a degree of skepticism. Allot some mistrust to those that we elect to govern us. Not complete cynicism, but a measured amount. Remember that our governors are people, subject to the same temptations and faults as us.
Let us all celebrate our independence on this day! |
|
|
| Re-reading an old friend |
[Jul. 3rd, 2009|08:51 pm] |
I'm reading Glen Cook's All Darkness Met, the third book in the "Dread Empire" series. It's good to have the characters of Mocker, Bragi, Nepanthe, and Mist back again!
I'm also reading Thinking for a Living, which examines the US education and labor situation. Written in 1992, it focusses on the management/labor divide in US culture and how the K-12 education system has been designed to provide trained, obedient workers for an industrial-age economy. (And for assembly-line work, that's just what we needed. The system, built in the early Twentieth Century, drove our productivity.) It works, as long as we have no foreign competition that can provide lower-cost workers. If other countries can provide non-thinking workers for lower wages, we are fucked, since we chose to not compete with countries like Germany, Japan, and South Korea which have re-designed their education systems to provide critical thinking, creativity, and leadership to their students.
I watched the "Cyberwoman" episode of "Torchwood" tonight. Very entertaining! A nice follow-up to the Cybermen of Dr. Who. |
|
|
| What I'm reading and watching |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|08:46 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | And One - Aggressor | ] |
I finished Sheri S Tepper's The Search of Mavin Manyshaped, which is the fifth book of the "True Game" series. (Or the second book of the second trilogy, depending on how you look at it.) I was happy with this book. All of the "True Game" books are fairly short, running from 160 to 280 pages. This book was the shortest in my collection (I have eight of the nine books) yet it covers a lot of material and tells you much about Mavin.
I also read LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven, finally. It was slightly better than the TV movie that aired back in ... um ... 1979 I think. Written in 1971, it was probably cutting-edge at the time. Now it is forty years later, and the story is ... acceptable. This book goes back to the "Book Thing".
Tonight I watched the "Ghost Machine" episode of "Torchwood". I liked this one better than the first two episodes. Solid science fiction. |
|
|
| Technology is fighting me |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|10:02 pm] |
This past week (that is, the last seven days) has seen a number of technology failures, all of them related to my job search.
Failure 1: Recruiter company A e-mail server rejects my e-mail messages. (Not just mine apparently. Lots.) They can send to me, but all of my messages are bounced. Immediately. (Except for one, which seems to have been a fluke.)
Communicating without e-mail is inconvenient. We cannot exchange documents or detailed thoughts. The usual process is: they send me a job description and I respond with comments. This communication is usually done asynchronously; they send me an e-mail when it is convenient for them, and I send a response when it is convienient for me.
Without e-mail, we must talk on the phone. That means finding time when we are both available. And since I can't send an e-mail to say "let's chat at 2:00", I have to call at random times and hope that the recruiter is available.
Failure 2: Recruiter company B e-mail server rejects my e-mail messages. (Not sure if it is just mine or others.) Like company A, they can send to me but my messages are bounced. Unlike company A, the bounce takes 12 hours. (This has happened once. I sent another message after the bounce, but I have to wait another 10 hours.)
Failure 3: Recruiter company C can send and receive e-mails, but their telephone menu system sends me to the wrong people. I dial extension 109 and it sends me to extension 114. Or it tells me that it does not recognize my entry.
This may be a problem on my end. I had problems getting through to my voice-mail system; replacing the handset here solved that problem. (Although the handset can dial. Perhaps the central office is more tolerant of the DTMF signals than the company's PBX.)
OK, I feel better now that I have ranted. |
|
|
| I'm on strike |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|08:14 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | career, strike | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | determined | ] |
| [ | music |
| | NPR new age stuff | ] |
I'm on strike. Or something like that.
I've worked my tail off for the past 25 years. I started my first "real" job the Monday after graduating from college. (And I started college the day I graduated from high school.) That job lasted for about 6 years. After getting laid off, I spent three months scrambling to find another job. That one lasted 18.5 years. I walked away from it in January, so technically I have been unemployed for the past five months -- but I've been scrambling to update my resume and talk with recruiters and find a new situation. All the time it's been rush rush rush.
The old joke: It doesn't matter if you win the rat race --- because you're still a rat.
Enough.
I want to be irresponsible for a while. |
|
|
| Book: Ecstasia |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|08:25 pm] |
I finished Ecstasia this week. Wow, I am impressed.
It is an imaginative (and some might say warped) retelling of "Orpheus". The story bounces among the four members of the band "Ecstasia": Rafe, Calliope, Paulo, and Dionisio. They live in the city Elysia, the city for the young, a city of lights and entertainment and sweet things. The elder folks move to Underworld, a dark, gritty place. Rafe and Calliope (brother and sister) have lost their parents long ago (so it is the children who grieve, not the mother) and Rafe falls for Lily, a high-wire walker in the circus. But Lily goes to Underworld, Rafe follows, and the tale continues from there.
Tightly written. A thin book but it requires space between chapters.
This one goes on my shelf. |
|
|
| A day with the parents |
[Jun. 22nd, 2009|10:40 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | parents | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
I spent the day with my parents. They are visiting Washington, and I popped down to see them for the day.
We started with the Air and Space Museum. We saw the capsules for the Friendship 7, Gemini VI, and Apollo 11 missions; the Ford Trimotor and the Douglas DC-3; and the Spitfire, the Messerschmidt, and the Mitsubishi Zero fighters. And a bunch of other things.
We also saw the plaques for some of the planets. The museum has posted plaques for each of the planets, spaced to scale. (A very small scale, since they all fit within a couple city blocks.) We started with Pluto which was a planet when the plaques were erected; I see no reason to take it down. (The plaque or Pluto.)
In the afternoon we went through the National Portrait Gallery and the Museum of American Art. There is a lot in each and we kept things short. I found the portraits the more interesting of the two sets; people can tell stories with their eyes.
All in all a pretty good day. |
|
|
| The trip home |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|12:51 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | osb09, travel | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Imogen Heap - Speak for Yourself | ] |
I'm home from the Open Source Bridge conference. The entire day was spent travelling. (Well, there was some sleeping involved.)
My travel started at 9:00 PT, with the light rail to AIR::PDX.
The Southwest flight from PDX to BWI made two stops: Kansas City and St. Louis. No change in planes, though. We took off at about noon and landed at BWI at 10:00 PM ET. Apparently the normal tail wind was absent today, which cost us time.
Light rail from BWI to the local stop took an hour and a half. (Normally an hour, but I just missed the one train and had to wait thirty minutes.)
I'm still glad that I went. The conference had a number of good sessions and I met a number of good people.
Now for sleep! |
|
|
| Day 3 of Open Source Bridge |
[Jun. 20th, 2009|02:31 am] |
Today was the third and final day of the Open Source Bridge conference in Portland. I'm glad that I extended my stay. This day was worth the extra night at the hotel.
Today was the 'unconference' day, in which there are no pre-planned sessions. Instead, attendees volunteer to host (facilitate is a better word) of their choosing. I went to sessions on 'anticipatory anthropology' and 'how to run a conference', among others. All of the sessions were intended for audience participation, and they worked. In the sessions I attended, most people offered comments.
Later there was a little party at a local company's offices, and a short interview by the local television station - but not at the party, in the Pioneer Square' park.
Looking back, I can say that this conference was a success, both for the organizers and myself. This was their first big conference, and they pulled it off. For me, I talked with a lot of people and got some good ideas. And possibly some contacts.
Enough for now. It's late, I'm tired, and I'm fed up with theNokia N800's virtual keyboard ans styles. |
|
|
| Day two at Open Source Bridge |
[Jun. 19th, 2009|11:29 am] |
Yesterday was the second day of the conference and it roccked! It started with some breif announcements and then keynotes by the mayor of Portland and Ward Cunningham, the inventor of the wiki. Other sessions covered the Scala language, social change with information from ubiquitous sensors, profiling and tuning PHP, configuration management tools, paoer prototypes, JRuby, and testing web apps with Windmill. And I've left some out.
Lunch was much-needed break. A bunch of us took the light rail downtown and got lunch at the ethnic food carts. I had galubki and perogies. Too many calories for a lunch!
Today is the 'unconference' day. Not pre-planned sessions, but informal roundtable discussions. Given the personalities and talents of the attendees, these should be interesting. |
|
|
| Open Source Bridge - day 1 |
[Jun. 18th, 2009|01:56 am] |
The conference started well. I attended several sessions today, covering topis including Drupal, Drizzle, consulting fotr open source tech, cluster analysis, and Symfony. I also chatted with a number of people. While it is not the O'Reilly OSCON, it is a good conference.
So good that I changed my flight plans and will be staying for the third day, the "unconference" day. This is a day reserved for informal meetings and discussions. My iniitial idea was to leave early and skip the unconference day. After talking with attendees and seeing the people here, I think that the extra day is worth the expense. |
|
|
| RIP DVD player 2 |
[Jun. 13th, 2009|11:56 am] |
DVD player 2 has decided that it does not like to read DVD discs. I stick in a disc, and after about 90 seconds, the player reports "no disc".
DVD 2 is the cheap DVD player I bought some years ago to solve the problem of DVD 1. (That player has inconsistent sound for some movies, and won't play some home-burned DVDs of French music videos, "Daria" TV episodes, and the original Star Wars movies.) It was an Aspire Video brand.
I still have the VHS tapes of the French music videos and "Daria", and a working VHS player, so I can watch them. Star Wars is probably lost to me. (This was the original theatrical release, the one in which Greedo does not get off a shot.)
DVD 1 is still working, albeit with the same sound inconsistencies. (It drops from surround-sound 5.1 to stereo for a few seconds, and then flips back. Not frequent but enough to be annoying.) DVD 1 also has problems with heat dissapation on gold discs (but not silver discs).
Apparently it was "Wait Until Dark" that killed DVD 2. I was watching it last week and the player froze right in the middle of chapter 25. I switched to DVD 1 and finished the movie, thinking the problem was with the disc. But DVD 2 refuses to read all of the discs that I feed it, including discs that I have played before.
I opened it and looked inside. I saw nothing obviously wrong. So out it went.
This might be a good time to start viewing DVDs on a computer. |
|
|
| No more TV for me! |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|09:55 pm] |
Today is TV Independence Day!
No more TV inflicted upon me! (It was all a government plot, you know. Or maybe a communist plot.)
With the switch from analog to digital TV transmission signals, my old TV stopped working. I have no new TV and no converter box. (OK, technically, my 'old TV' is a VCR and a computer monitor. But it serves as a television.)
I watched the local PBS station. At 12:30, they made a brief announcement, listed the names of the people who worked on the transition to digital, showed the old indian bull's-eye picture, and then switched off the transmitter. They had a camera on the technician performing the shut-down. The camera focussed on his hand and showed him pushing a button. The button was a square light-up button that is either in or out. It popped out, turned off, and then the signal stopped!
Now all of the other TV stations have shut down their analog transmitters.
I detached my rabbit ear antenna; I won't need them anymore.
I will keep the TV to watch VHS tapes and DVDs. That was all I used it for anyway.
I think the MPT (that's the local PBS network) did a rather nice job at their shut-down. Recognition for those involved, a little bit of nostalgia, and a small one-time ritual shown to their viewers. |
|
|
| I'm visiting Portland |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|10:36 pm] |
An e-mail arrived, surprising me with the news of a software conference. A conference on open source software. This is the exact market that I want to be in, so I did some quick calculations and I registered for the con. It's in Portland, OR, a city that I have visited and found nice.
With luck, I will meet people and make connections, one which will lead me to a job! (Maybe in Portland, but I'm really aiming for open source.)
I have a good feeling about this conference. |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
lazy
morose
irritated