The Flying Toaster

Closing the Doors

2007-10-13T14:15:00.000-07:00

To all 8 of you out there who're subscribed to my feedburner feed, thank you. It's been great. Okay, that's probably a lie....but seriously, thank you for keeping your RSS software pointed at my feed in the unlikely event that I'll post something.

You may have noticed that the frequency at which I've been posting to this place has dropped to less than a trickle. In fact, I've done almost nothing in any of the online spaces I supposedly inhabit for quite awhile now. It took some time, but I've slowly realized that some thinking needs to be done about this. After some stewing, simmering, and slow pressure-cooking on this subject, I've decided that the time has come to withdraw from this particular scene.

Some things of (possible) note:

I first launched into "this blogging thing" at the end of 2003. This was not long after I'd adjusted to college life, and had access to high-speed Internet access 24/7. I was a very different person back then. I cranked out 13 whole posts before the New Year rolled around.
I posted 265 times in 2004. It was never a consistent flow, and I was pretty much all over the map. That's what happens when you grow up and evolve, I guess. Man, I was a serious monster in February.
2005 was a bit more reasonable, and better spread out. Still no real coherent vision though. But hey, it can be somewhat liberating to just write one's thoughts.
Early 2006 showed some evolution and focus in this place. Somehow I drew the notice of GeeksAreSexy, and was brought on board as a contributor, and as a kind of co-editor after awhile. A lot of the techie musings and whatnot that had been emerging over here pretty much migrated over there. It was a good thing for [GAS], but probably not so hot for my flying kitchen appliance.
Right around the time I had two forums to post my thoughts, the frequency of thought and the energy to digest and render them in writing waned. It's a little ironic that this "height" corresponded with the beginnings of the end, though I didn't know this yet.
2006 also saw me purchase my own domain and web-hosting. I fully intended to move this blog to a new home over there, including all prior posts, but I never managed to make the time to do so.
This post is only the 6th one that's made it out for 2007. The last post prior to this one was in April. Since then, a number of noteworthy things have happened (passed orals, graduated from Whitman, got a full-time job in IT) that for whatever reason didn't make a blog post happen. Do you see the trend?

I've come to the realization that this just isn't my thing anymore. I'm a different person now, with different priorities, energies, and time constraints. As those of you who know me personally will attest, I love to share (and sometimes knowledge-vomit), but I can't make it happen here anymore. It takes too much time and energy to distill my swirling brain-waves into a semi-coherent, semi-polished blog post. There are too many other things that demand my attention, both on- and off-line.

I'm now refactoring how to push information out to the people I know care about listening. More signal, less noise. More two-way conversation, less shouting into a dark and echoing void. It's time to migrate and evolve.

Peace.

Bah. I don't like dead-ends either, so I'll leave you with a link to my ClaimID profile: http://claimid.com/mattpearson. How very meta of me. See you around the web.

Cake for Breakfast

2007-04-21T13:05:00.000-07:00

22 years ago today, I ceased being a parasitic organism, and began my existence as an independent human animal. As such, I find it entirely appropriate that my breakfast today consisted of cake.

While on most occasions this would be great cause for happiness and celebration, the best word to describe my feelings over the last 24 hours or so would be "complicated." This is mostly associated with Thesis.

Our show went up in the Sheehan Gallery over this past week. The gallery opening was last night. It was good....and very much a relief. All that's left now is to survive/pass orals (mine is on this coming Monday). This was unfortunately overshadowed by the blazing critiques that all of us were subjected to by the "visiting artist" that was brought in to judge our stuff (it's part of some traditional award-thing that we have to be a part of through no real choice of ours or our faculty's). Nothing like a bit of harsh criticism that, despite its relevance and validity was poorly and impersonally delivered with almost no tact whatsoever, to blast away any self-confidence we had left....right before we presented our work to the world. Needless to say, the evening was not the wash of relief it should have been.

Thankfully, the above uncoolness was heartily balanced by awesomeness and warm-&-fuzzies. Dinner was had with The Parents and The Girlfriend after the gallery opening, with some healthy venting to be had that didn't involve me punching my chair. Later last night, there was a "Yay, the Gallery Opening is Done" shindig at a fellow art-major's place, with some fellow artists and other close friends. Then, this morning (err, afternoonish), I made my way down to the local coffee shop to hang out and get some work done (which so far has amounted to writing this post). Another one of my fellow art-majors works at said coffee shop, and we had a delightful couple minutes of hangout time. The Girlfriend was also randomly lurking in the shop, getting some work done. Our chance encounter turned into hangout time when my coffeeShop-working colleague brought over two ginormous slices of cake.

Having cake with one's Special Someone, courtesy of a wonderful colleague, is a hard breakfast to beat.

There's another shindig later tonight with most of my Close Friends and colleagues, probably involving more cake, a bit of booze (we're all actually of legal age now...scary), and a bad movie. Should provide enough happy-vibes to get me through Orals, after which there'll probably be yet another art-major shindig.

No matter how crappy things feel (or really are, or whatever), life is still good when one is surrounded by the Good Peoples I've somehow managed to find.

I love you all.

Why I "Need" a Giant Display(s)

2007-04-10T00:03:00.000-07:00

I posted a couple days ago about how I am becoming over-saturated with information. Realization just struck as to WHY this is the case, and a person much smarter than I has a number of good blurbs that explain this incredibly well. It also explains my need to surround myself with lots of screens, and to lust after deliciously large displays that make my bank account cry.

Basically, the explanation is as follows:

I have a strong case of N.A.D.D.
One of the symptoms of this is that I think a lot, and thinking is messy. Seriously, my brain's continual somersaulting sometimes gets in the way of sleeping. Rands' two "truths" (consequentially revealed by his N.A.D.D.), fit perfectly in my manifestation of the phenomenon.
My methodology for organizing the chaos has evolved to take advantage of increased screen sizes and resolutions. Giant swaths of screen real estate don't slow you down when you're a keyboard jockey.

If you've ever been curious about the peculiar habits of a nerd you know, the articles linked here should provide some useful insight. Fellow N.A.D.D.-ers will likely smile and nod. There's now a term to point to that might offer an explanation to those who don't manifest N.A.D.D.

Over-saturated

2007-04-06T10:44:00.000-07:00

The two weeks of vacation mentioned in the previous entry, and the subsequent weeks since then have been somewhat illuminating. When comparing the two blocks of time side-by-side, they couldn't be more different.

California time was spent relaxing, on the road, or wandering around. The majority of these two weeks was spent without Internet access. I zoned out. I was unplugged.

Since I've been back, my digital world has wrapped itself around me again, in all it's interesting and overwhelming glory. And of course there's school work and thesis junk that has required significant portions of my gray-matter resources.

In light of these two diverse bits of time butting up directly with one another, I've come to notice something that afflicts not only me, but all manner of other people (whether they realize it or not). I am over-saturated with information. It's everywhere, and in such densities that I'm having trouble absorbing it.

As a full-time student (for not much longer!), it's my job to absorb, parse, and replay as much of the information that's thrown at me as possible. As an information technologist (y'know, that whole web-design/tech-support/techie-manager thing I do), I spend most of my professional and "hobby" time either planning and building systems to manage information, or absorbing/parsing/moving information pertaining to this subject. As a self-professed technology geek, I am a hardcore information consumer. My feed list is rather massive (even after trimming it down), and the volume of audio and video netcasts I suck down and intake sometimes feels absurd. Oh, and I sometimes generate a bit of content as well. Unless an active effort is made to stem the tide, it's not hard to be inundated with this stuff during every waking moment...or risk "getting behind".

Usually it's fun, for the most part. The data I surround myself with is largely stuff I want to consume. I find it interesting, engaging, and potentially useful for me. But recently it's been too much. Unplugging for two weeks not only felt good, it was sorely needed. Further trimming is needed, and then some more quality unplugged-time.

Think about it. Maybe you need some unplugged-time too.

Still Alive Still

2007-04-02T12:46:00.000-07:00

Firstly, let me apologize to all seven of you who're subscribed to this thing. It's been a number of months since I've updated anything here, which is somewhat shameful. I feel like this is the longest lapse-in-posting I've had since I started this whatever-this-is a couple of years ago. But it's okay, because I feel like I've had little worthwhile to say.

Secondly, as is obvious by the fact that I'm writing this, I have not fallen off the edge of the earth. Yes, there is an edge, and it's rather sharp. Because the world is flat. Didn't you hear?

My current state of affairs is as follows:

Last semester of Whitman is close to being over. I have a thesis to do, orals to prepare for, and classes to finish. I am very much looking forward to taking a break from academia.
I'm still involved with IT stuff here at school (teaching a semester-long web design seminar with a buddy of mine, in addition to the usual stuff), and am occasionally putting up things over at [GAS].
I went on an absolutely wonderful trip through California with my house mates (two of whom are native Californians).Considering some of the places we saw, I would not at all be unhappy to end up living somewhere down there some day, though I wish it wasn't so prohibitively expensive in some of the spots that jived well with me. There are more pictures around somewhere, if you know the secret special handshake (or I gave you the address).
I got my paws on a Gorillapod and took some long-exposure night-time photos of down-town Walla Walla. It was an extremely therapeutic experience, and made me realize how much I like this "photography" thing.
The small cat has gotten significantly less-small. She's kind of round now. Cute.
I still have no real "website". I did, however, update the picture that graces the single useless page I do have. I seem to just be using my web space as a "server" for a bunch of stuff that doesn't really need public illumination.
I'm doing the first rewrite of my resume since I applied for my current job...which was 3 years ago. It's being done in HTML/CSS (I like writing rich documents) and is stored in Subversion (for easy branching and stuff). How nerdtastic is that?!

I'm not sure when I'll be writing here next, considering everything else that is completely consuming my time...but I swear this thing isn't dead yet. Even if it's only in my head for right now, this blog (or whatever) is still evolving. Just keep me in your feed list, and you can safely ignore me until something new and shiny happens.

iNerdgasm

2007-01-09T15:28:00.000-08:00

I've been very much in "cave" mode for awhile now. For those who know how my brain works, you'll know that a lot of stuff happens upstairs when I'm in this mode, most of it not great. But, I'm still very much alive, and there are some things that simply don't change.

I adore beautifully-designed pieces of technology that somehow embody a paradigm shift in the way we interact with machines, manage our data, and (most importantly) interact with each other.

Something happened today that has brought me out of my cave enough to write a little. It's called the iPhone.

I've waited a long time for a device like this, and the Big Picture that this represents is largely a...well....awesome one. The nitpicks and technical nuances of this beast will be discussed later, when more is known about it, and more people have gotten their paws on it. For now, I'm just going to sit here in my puddle of drool and relish the beauty, even if it's a superficial thing.

Out of the Bubble, Into the Apple and Turkey

2006-11-23T22:21:00.000-08:00

I've finally once again managed to poke my head out of the Whitman Bubble. However brief it may be, it sure feels good to breathe the sweet sweet air of the Larger World.

It's been a few days since I got back to Washington after mucking around in New York. My fellow senior art majors and I had the opportunity to go on a partially-funded trip to The Big Apple, and see some fantastic artwork. My reactions to the whole experience can be described most simply as "complicated". This isn't to say that I didn't have a good time, I'm just able to recognize that it is nowhere near the simplicity of "fun". It was an excellent, eye-opening trip, and I wish that I had more time to wander around and experience the city.

I may write about these "complicated" thoughts here at some point, I may LJinate them, or I may just tuck them away in my scruffy head. Or, if you run into me, you may be able to coax them out with a little work/bribery.

Also, it's one of those odd American holidays again. So, since I've got my head sticking out of the Bubble at the moment, I might as well wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! Hope the feasting and the merriment went well, and that some serious thankfulness rattles around in your heads for at least a brief moment today. Peace!

The things I find...

2006-10-25T03:33:00.000-07:00

...when looking for graphics to use in a perfectly innocent blog post...

Interesting, to say the least.

Red and Blue

2006-10-25T03:02:00.000-07:00

I'm not dead, I'm just sick, tired, stressed, over-worked, unhappy-with-school, and generally haven't had time or energy to write anything. Neither here nor elsewhere.

However, a couple of recent software releases have brought a brief speck of happy light to Matt-land. I just so happened to have written about this elsewhere rather than here. I guess I could post a redundant picture or two, just in case you people don't feel the need to follow my links. I'll be back later, when my universe is has settled down a bit. Until then, "Rediscover the Web AGAIN!"

And say hello to a new and shinier penguin while you're at it...

Peace.

Molly-Flogged

2006-09-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

Flogging Molly went on tour pretty recently. Last night, they stopped at Whitman.

It was excellent.

There's something to be said about good concerts. The good bands have stage presence and energy that adds an almost undefinable quality to their music. If a band doesn't have "it", the concert is beyond lame. Flogging Molly has serious loads of "it".

It was also amusing to watch the crowd-surfers. Dudes, how did you not see all the signs? Getting to see your drunk/stoned butts tossed out of the concert brought amusement to me, but it must suck to be you. You idiots missed out on some serious awesomeness.

Regarding Facebook's Privacy

2006-09-11T17:33:00.000-07:00

A few minutes ago, I sent a "Facebook private-message" to a friend/ex-dorm-mate of mine. She started a (one of many) Facebook group/event-thing centered around some of the issues raised by Facebook's latest, greatest, most controversial releases, and had asked me to shed some light on it. By the time I'd finished my reply, it had kind of mutated from a correspondence-type note into a small brain-dump of information that I feel should be out in the open. So, here's the meat of the thing, for your consumption...

My impression of the Facebook Development thing is that it is almost an attachment to the Facebook API (Application Protocol Interface, I believe it stands for). Basically, the API is the published interface to the Facebook website software that allows other software programs to interact with it, and the "Facebook Development Platform" is the API in combination with all the information that can be accessed through it.

The Terms of Service does outline what people should and shouldn't do with the Development Platform, but it is only a legal agreement. It does nothing to actually prevent people from doing bad stuff with it.

Bottom line: if someone's concerned about their privacy, they should uncheck the appropriate checkbox in the My Privacy > "Everyone" page. It makes their profile less useful to users of 3rd-party facebook software, but I for one don't care about that at all.

Now, about the feeds and stuff (which is also a concern). Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook's owner/founder) wrote a good blog entry in response to the massive amount of feedback on this subject.

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2208562130

They obviously handled the release of these features badly (any nay-sayers on that don't have a leg to stand on. They're simply wrong.) He acknowledges it, took the proper steps remedy the situation, and was even polite enough to let us know about it.

*Everyone* should take a moment to go through the My Privacy > "Feeds..." page. It lists very clearly what DOES and DOESN'T get published via the feeds, and allows you to configure exactly what is allowed to go out on the feed published by your account.

Finally, we all need to remember that ALL of Facebook is on the public Internet. It's something that almost nobody seems to think about, let alone understand. It doesn't matter how much "security" is built into the website itself. It is still hosted on publicly accessible machines that we have no real control over. Any and all information that we put on there should be considered completely public. It can go literally anywhere at literally any time. Who knows how many people have access to Facebook's backend databases? We have absolutely no control over where this information goes or how it is used. We can only trust that Zuckerberg & Co. actually do what they say they do, and that any future owners of Facebook can be similarly trusted. And this goes not only for Facebook, but also for every single website, web-service, and web-application anywhere.

Now, I don't want to sound like I'm completely bashing Facebook. I'm not. I actually somewhat like them. In fact, compared to, say, MySpace, it's pretty damn good. MySpace is an ugly, sketchy, bloated piece of crap. I admittedly have an account with them, but I refuse to use it for anything other than a location to point people to better places on the Internet.

Take note of the last quoted paragraph. It isn't meant to scare anyone, but if you cruise Teh IntarWebz and aren't at least aware of this, you're living in a clouded haze of faux comfort. Know where your information is going, what could happen to it, and act accordingly. It's as simple as that.

New Shiny Phone

2006-08-27T18:50:00.000-07:00

I got a new phone. I got a phone that's pretty much been my dream phone since the original model line was launched. But the phone I got my hands on is waaaay better than all those other sexy-looking phones with the same model name. V3? V3c? Sorry folks, your phones suck. Unlocked V3i is the way to go.

I wrote all about why exactly, this particular phone is cool, at ye olde Geeks Are Sexy. The real reasons probably aren't what you'd predict them to be, though the picture here (sucked directly off the phone onto my Linux box) might give you a clue.

I also throw down a little Matt-with-cellphone-history too.

And for those who knew me (and my ringtone) from freshman year, Super Mario is back, and way more awesome than before. Totally orchestral, baby!

It IS too early.

2006-08-10T23:58:00.000-07:00

I wrote a post, not terribly long ago, talking about the Hollywood response to the World Trade Center attacks of 2001. I questioned when (if ever) it is "okay" for Hollywood to take a tragic event and turn it into a blockbuster. The more I've pondered and talked about it, the more I've come to believe that these movies aren't true "tributes." They're simply shallow, wasteful attempts to exploit a tragic event for political or monetary gains. I'm not the only one who thinks so either.

On Creation Science...

2006-08-04T10:24:00.000-07:00

Creation science has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectual heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise? fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectual heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise?

written by Stephen Jay Gould:
10/02/05
03:51am
via chrisbeach.co.uk

! Important: Update Your Feeding !

2006-07-31T23:38:00.000-07:00

I made some tweaks as part of my attempted attempt at moving myself to a real website. Firstly, please update your RSS Feed settings (I know there are a few of you out there somewhere who subscribed to this silly blog). The blogger feeds will remain around as long as I live at Blogger (won't be forever) but my FeedBurner link will stay the same. There's a link in the sidebar of every page (I fixed the broken nature of that link), and I just now embedded the link in site's header region, so those with auto-discovering feedreaders will see it too. More info about this shizzle can be found at http://feeds.feedburner.com/FlyingToaster. This would be an especially great link to click on if you have no idea what RSS is.

PLEASE update your feed reader to point to my FeedBurner URL. Like I said, it will live on, the blogger ones won't.

I also added a link to my ClaimID profile. It basically connects several pieces of my presence on the IntarWebzs together in a central location. Sites that I have direct control over can get "verified" as mine, and anything out on there in the digital jungle that supposedly comes from me should be considered fake unless it's noted in my ClaimID list. There's also a little button in the sidebar for this linky-link as well.

As always, if I mucked something up, hit me with a comment (or email, if you know it). I'm tired, and funny stuff sometimes happens when I'm tired.

A Clever Joke

2006-07-31T01:04:00.000-07:00

My good friend Ig recently sent me the following joke:

A Texan walks into a pub in Ireland and clears his voice to the crowd of drinkers. He says, "I hear you Irish are a bunch of hard drinkers. I'll give $500 American dollars to anybody in here who can drink 10 pints of Guinness back-to-back."

The room is quiet, and no one takes up the Texan's offer. One man even leaves.

Thirty minutes later the same gentleman who left shows back up and taps the Texan on the shoulder. "Is your bet still good?" asks the Irishman.

The Texan says yes and asks the bartender to line up 10 pints of Guinness. Immediately the Irishman tears into all 10 of the pint glasses, drinking them all back-to-back.

The other pub patrons cheer as the Texan sits in amazement. The Texan gives the Irishman the $500 and says, "If ya don't mind me askin', where did you go for that 30 minutes you were gone?"

The Irishman replies, "Oh... I had to go to the pub down the street to see if I could do it first."

He's qualified to generate such jokes too. Good Irish blood floweth in his veins. Thanks buddy!

Hi Wanda!

2006-07-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

The most excellent thing happened to me two seconds ago.

I was sitting on my bed, tapping away at my computer (doing a bit of late-night telecommuting, I'm ashamed to say), and my phone rang. I thought it might be one of my good friends who tends to call me late at night, so I flipped open my phone. But I didn't recognize the number. When I picked up, I didn't recognize the voice either. After a long series of "hello?" "hello...." "hello!" "....hello hello?" exchanges, we came to the realization that she had the wrong number. But the conversing continued. It turns out her name was Wanda, and she runs an escort service in Yakima. She had a nice voice, and I must say that the couple minutes of chit-chat was fun.

So I guess this is a blogosphere shout-out to Wanda, from that "really nice and polite" guy who "works in IT." Thanks for very nice and very entertaining wrong-number phone conversation!

People are Idiots

2006-07-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

In the wake of "Explodey Day`," as I refered to it in jest, I was not at all pleased. My parent's house was almost burned down. I'll get to that shortly.

I sincerely value my freedom. I am insanely thankful that I can blatantly say that President Bush is an asshole, that his right-wing fanatical "neo-conservative" cronies have the good-will of rabid sewer rats, and not have any worry that federal agents will make me disappear. Even better, there is no restriction to engaging in logical discourse about said asshole and sewer rats. This "freedom" thing is an important part of the American psyche. The problem is, with freedom comes power, and with power comes responsibility. All together too many people have proven that they don't deserve the responsibility. They don't have even half the common sense to weild the power they have. They wield their "freedoms" in such moronic and dangerous manners (to such an extent that they are a danger to others) such that they aren't even deserving of those freedoms. I have no problem with the setting off of fireworks in joyous celebration. I don't even have much of a problem with people being too stupid to realize they don't know what the hell they're doing, decide to play with explosives, and blow various limbs (or other things off). It's sad for family and/or loved ones, sucks for whoever has to pay the medical bills, but people are still free be idiots and pick up as many Darwin Awards as they like. They're just not allowed to hurt other people or things while they do it. That's not part of the "freedom" thing.

I'm ranting about this because the asshats who live at the base of the hill that my parent's house sits on decided to set off a mess of fireworks for Independence Day. They did this despite not knowing how to do it without getting the hillside caught on fire. They did this, knowing full well that everything around them was very flammible. And then, when they inevitably caught the hillside on fire, they continued to launch explosive projectiles into the air.

Allow me to repeat. The asshats incompetantly set off explosive projectiles in an environment that is almost impossible to catch on fire. Then, when it caught on fire, they didn't stop to put the fire out, the kept trying to light it on fire some more. I'm not making this up. My mom sent me a few pictures.

City fire truck in the driveway.

The toasted hillside the next day. The asshats live in the house right next to the charred area.

I found out that the hillside was on fire only a few minutes after I'd gotten back into Walla Walla. I'd been visiting my parents for the weekend. The only reason the house is still standing is because we saturated the brush immediately surrounding our property with water as a precautionary measure. We do it every year. The Granger Fire Department also responded to my mom's frantic 911 call impressively fast. Kudos to them. I didn't post this until now because I wanted to have a semi-clear head to write with. Plus I've been insanely busy at work.

This is an example of how complicated the issue of "freedom" can be. It is never as simple as "people should be able to do whatever they want." It should be obvious to even the dimmist of intellects that humans are not uniformly capable of being responsible. Sometimes people need to be protected from their own massive levels of idiocy because they are simply too stupid to not cause collateral damage. Law shouldn't unnecessarily restrict freedom, but nor should it be lax enough to allow the idiots to burn down hillsides. Think about that the next time you consider something like gun control, or campfire restrictions, or any other "freedom-restricting" legislation.

Sorry kids, there is no black or white....only shades of gray. Except the charred plant remains on the side of Cherry Hill. Those are mostly black.

Happy Explodey Day

2006-07-04T13:36:00.000-07:00

So today is Independence Day here in the U.S. A friend of mine wrote today about how stupid it is that we all call it "the 4th of July" instead of a meaningful name that actually describes this particular holiday. I must say that I completely agree with her. This falls right in line with the arguments for writing semantic markup, though that's a whole other can-o-worms that many people smarter than me have already argued at-length. Short explanation: It's really dumb to take a meaningful thing (like a holiday or a header) and encase it in a meaningless container (like the day of the month, or a named). There is no legitimate argument against this. We're all just idiots with this "4th of July" thing.

Speaking of idiots, I get sick and tired of all of the faux-patriotism wafting around this country. Maybe I'll talk about it later when I'm more coherent and I'm not on a laptop whose battery is rapidly depleting. I'm sorry, but lots of flag-waving, song singing, and Bush-supporting only hurts your case for being American Patriots. You people are special idiots, whose idiocy far exceeds the rest of us. Stop obsessing over who-diddled-who and how we're "spreading Democracy with the War on Terror" (that entire phrase is actually bullshit), and take the time and effort to learn about (and then worry about) the important things. Like the function of government in our society, the stinking idiocy of religious extremism (all forms!) that contrasts with the value of rationalThought and ethics inspired by religious texts in guiding how we live our lives, and what the word "freedom" means in all manner of different contexts and languages.

I'm probably sounding rather bitter about this holiday now. But you know what? I'm not bitter. I am very fully aware of how awesome it is that I can say this stuff. It is my right as an American to make my voice heard in a public medium. And as long as certain right-wing (and probably some left-wing) nutJobs don't get their way, there isn't anything anybody can do to shut me up. It is a truly awsome thing. Exercising my rights to openly criticize the assholes in Government, to fairly support the less-assholes, to contribute to the electoral process in this country, and to engage in thoughtful intellectual discourse for the preservation and betterment of this nation (and humanity as a whole) is so much more patriotic than the combined flag-waving and sing-songing of all faux-patriots put together, it's almost not funny. But that doesn't stop me from occasionally chuckling. It's my friggin' right to do that too.

So, in true American spirit, I wish you all a Happy Independence Day. And though this day celebrates an event which effectively "flipped the bird" at all of England, I have this to say to all you wonderful British folks out there: Everything changes, and you who were enemies a few hundred years ago are now friends. Know that my middle finger waving your way waves with nothing but love and friendship. To the rest of the world: America is not the center of the universe, despite what some of the Assholes make people believe. There are a good number of us in this country who realize that. The idiots just tend to be the people everyone sees because they're like the angry drunks thrashing around that most folks are a little afraid to laugh at. We're celebrating our holidays, you celebrate yours. The world is flattening (everyone: if you don't know what that really means, do yourself a favor and go read a book), so maybe one day we can all meaningfully share all of our holidays. And to the assholes (and Assholes) and idiots: you're American, so this is your holiday too. Go, celebrate! Seriously! This country wouldn't be the wonderfully exciting (yet depressing?) place it is without you. Feel free to blow your hands off with your crappily-made, sadly-expensive, illegally-used fireworks to your hearts content. This is a free country! Just don't light my house on fire with your stupidity, or heads will roll and asses will be kicked.

Party Hardy Everyone!

Tornado over the Rainbow

2006-07-02T18:37:00.000-07:00

In my previous post, I mentioned the rather large number of site feeds that I'm subscribed to. Some of them honestly aren't updated very often while others tend to be updated daily. Some of the updates take awhile to get through and digest. Others are quick and easy. All of them are great, so don't even think about suggesting I drop some of them.

Anyways, one of the best daily-updated feeds I've subscribed to recently posted an amazing photograph today. If you've never heard of APOD, check it out. Definitely onw of the for-sure-cool parts of my day. Every day!

I'm not dead, I'm buying stuff.

2006-07-02T02:49:00.000-07:00

Earlier today, I wrote the first blog entry that my myspace profile has seen. It was mostly a rant. I don't like myspace. I do have some legitimate reasons, and I have my unjustifiable personal opinions as well. Anyways, the rant I posted was a response to the few "Are you dead? Why aren't you updating?" comments that a couple of my close friends attached to my profile. I've decided to repost that rant here, seeing as how I consider my myspace profile, and the site worthless and not worthy of my time.

Right. So, to the whole....what, two people that keep track of this myspace thing? I'm not dead. I just spend what "free time online" that I have doing other things than worrying about myspace.

I have a LiveJournal account which gets updated sometimes. I dislike LJ, but nowhere near as much as myspace. I have a personal blog (which I created and write in because I want to) hosted by Blogger...though once I get around to building my website, I"ll be hosting it there instead. In the time that's left over, I do what I can to contribute to a technology news blog. Hell, I even have a facebook account that people expect me to use. I also actively keep track of almost 70 RSS feeds, about 30% of which are updated very regularly, sometimes with more than a few new postings. Eight of these feeds deliver multimedia content that doesn't get downloaded and viewed in a couple of minutes.

The vast majority of this stuff happens AFTER I'm finished spending eight hours of my day already staring at computer screens. You see, I'm one of those IT people who does the thing where I make services happen that people take for granted, or fix their computers because they don't know (or don't care to learn) how, or building websites and web applications.

I don't know where a lot of people find the time expose so much of themselves (or their fake selves) to the world on this not-so-great site, but it's time that I don't have. I instead prefer to generate less, but higher quality (and much better-presented) content in more professional, better-looking, less ad-filled, less-sketchy venues.

There may or may not be future posts here. There may or may not be any more information/pictures posted here. I may eventually take advantage of myspace allowing html customization, and become one of the very few bright specs of "not-butt-ugly"ness on this site....but only if I feel like it after my actual worthwhile projects are done.

If people wish to contact me, there is always email. I actually check my email, as it is a critical tool for my work. I don't check myspace messages, and all myspace spam gets slaughtered by my spam filters. Oh yeah, I happen to use IM all of the time as well. In fact, I have a screen name with all four "big players" in the IM protocol world. And amazingly, I happen to have decent 'net etiquette, and actually know how to use an away message to tell you whether or not I'm actually there.

I'm not mad at any of you. I'm mad at this system, and this society. The only reason I have this account is because of peer pressure, and some idle curiosity. There's also the little bit of me that wants to know how it works so I can help people if they break their own myspace thing. I don't like this place, and I never have. It doesn't help that I know details about this site that most people don't, or have ignored. It also doesn't help that I know how a lot of this technology works, what it can do, and what people are using it for.

This is dead. I am not dead. I am very much alive and kicking. Just not here.

[ End Rant ]

And if you managed to get to the end of this post, you deserve something special. How 'bout this? Today (or, more accurately, at 2am this morning,) I purchased my first top-level-domain. Until now, any web presence I've had has either been a profile on some service, a blog of some kind hosted who knows where, or various free ad-driven web hosts plugged into a make-believe "is trying really hard to be" wannabe top-level domain.

Now that I've actually invested some of my (relatively scarce) cash in this, maybe I'll actually do something with it. I'm also setting up an hCard for myself that's powered by an independent ID management service that will help tie a bunch of stuff together. Possibly more on this later.

Movie Trailer Quckie

2006-06-28T01:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know what the title phrase of this post could mean. Shame on you for letting your mind go to the gutter like that. Shame.

I'm going to bed in a few minutes, but I decided it was important to point you to a couple of movie trailers.

There's a trailer for Spider-Man 3. Venom. Sandman. More dude-flying-around-on-jet-glider-thing action. And Venom. Did I mention Venom? I can't wait.

And then there's Lady in the Water. I saw a trailer for it on TV tonight, and I must say, it's looking very creepy. I'm not seeing this one alone in a dark room. BUT, I still like the original teaser the best. It's not creepy, but it's has so much more impact on me than the other ones. The music is beautiful, and it reveals almost nothing, which is arguably one of Shymalan's most powerful techniques. And again, the music! I know I'm repeating myself again, but I can't help it. I'm tired. But there's no cheesey voice-over. There are no "whoa! looky at the shiny FX on teh screen thar!" shots. And the way the music builds and then falls away at the end of Trailer 1 gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. Without fail.

The trailers for Superman Returns, in contrast to Lady in the Water, are catching my interest more and more. I must say that I was skeptical when I first heard of the project, but as the release date grows closer, I'll admit that I'm getting excited.

I'm going to sleep now. I have work tomorrow.

The Quandry of Multi-Monitoring

2006-06-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

So after a couple of weeks of the "lots of monitors" situation on my desk at work, I decided it was a little much. Not in terms of the number of screens, nor the number of computers. I have a number of legitimate uses for both an iMac and a Windows box, as most web developers will attest. Curse you, IE6. And hey, who doesn't want a sexy little linux lappy on their desk as well? Besides, it's my personal machine, with all of my current address books etc. No, the problem had to do with horizontal space. My desk is more than large enough for four screens, and could probably handle a fifth if I got a little creative, but more than three screens is a bit tough to deal with stacked horizontally. There's just too much horizontal mouse movement, and head-turning. As cool as the "wrap-around" feeling is, it just doesn't suite me. So what to do? This is what to do:

I made use of the "grapefuit" iMac's most awesome feature, and elevated my OS X environment above the penguin. I honestly believe Apple's decision to no longer use that iMac arm was one of the stupidest decisions they've made (WAY more stupid than making the iPod shuffle). If they made a similarly fluid, clean, and shiny VESA-compliant monitor mounting arm, I'd buy one without thinking.

But anyways, that's that. This new environment is similar to what one of my minions/fellow-interns is doing as well (see right). It's a little limiting when we're left with only 15-inch displays, but between multiple displays and multiple "virtual desktops", there's more than enough space for all of the windows involved in our work (and other stuff).

So why did I post all these pictures? To show off? Sure, why not. Because I like to post pictures? Totally! Who doesn't? But that's not all of it. I'm always trying to expose people to the cool (and useful) stuff that technology can accomplish. Way too many people are still stuck in the "one user on one computer using one screen" workstation model. Even using current technology, it's very simple to go much further. And like it or not, the idea of "using a computer" is well on the way to being blown wide open.

I'm writing a somewhat lengthy post for [GAS] that deals with this mess, in response to a previous post I wrote. I'll probably make a note here when that post is done and online.

My Desk(s)

2006-06-17T23:32:00.000-07:00

So I made mention in my last post that I might possibly post pictures of my absolutely ridiculous desk at work. I did indeed take a few pictures of said desk, and I have finally had time (and remembered to) pull them onto my computer. I also took a picture of the desk in my room, my cave as I affectionately call it, for posting to a special photo album on facebook dedicated to showing what a huge geek I am by only showing the various incarnations of my desk. The album (and pretty much everything on my facebook account) isn't viewable to the world-at-large, so I've posted that one too. Maybe I'll mirror this sequence of pictures on my website....whenever I end up making it. I swear, one day it'll actually happen. Honest!

My Cave. I do get some natural light through the window, thankfully.

My Office.

Despite the abundance of windows (we call this office the "fishbowl"), it still gets pretty dark with the lights off. Bask in that healthy glow!

For the record, I primarily use the middle two monitors. I have a nifty program installed that allows me to have multiple "virtual desktops" on one machine, so I'm terribly hurting for desktop real estate...despite having only 15" displays to work with. The iMac on the left is my testing machine, and handles my IM and calendaring. Because Adium and iCal are just that awesome, that's why.

Summer and Work

2006-06-16T01:38:00.000-07:00

I've now been at work for a couple of weeks. It's good. It's pretty exciting. I'm learning stuff, and I'm also teaching my "loyal minions" quite a bit too. I haven't quite adjusted to the 8-5 workday yet, but I'm getting there. I honestly haven't spent much time in front of a computer in the last several weeks that hasn't involved either work, or some serious spacing-out, which would explain this most recent lull in posting (here and elsewhere). For those interested, here's a brief run-through of what I've been up to (mostly at work).

Set up and customized my personal workstation at work. I took over the Consultant office in the computer lab we interns get to work in (which makes sense, considering it's also one of the labs I directly manage during the school year). A relatively speedy Dell PC and an older "grapefruit" iMac gives me three screens on two machines with one keyboard and mouse (Synergy connection tunnelled over Hamachi) to work with. Might post pictures later. I went through my usual bout of "install all of my usual extra productivity-enhancers" and "configure email and IM clients" craziness. And then there was setting up the web development environment. Apache2, ColdFusion, PostgreSQL, Subversion, Eclipse. Definitely not at all an easy or straightforward task to do on a Windows box....mostly the ColdFusion-connect-to-Postgres part. I think I'll be writing some internal documentation on this too. Fun.
Mapped out some overarching changes that need to be made to the department's public documentation site. Handed that off to a fellow intern for more granular work and oversite of the newbies for the grunt work.
Trained a couple of the newbies for the above documentation work, which will largely be done in a nice crazy-big CMS. Farcry'd!
Trained one of the above newbies for work at the helpdesk, and mentored through the first week or so of helpdesk duty.
Met with our lead web developer, our "emerging technology dude" and a senior member of the faculty to discuss details for the big project (writing a web application to facilitate the organization of a rather complicated yearly campus activity) that I'll be taking part in developing.
Worked on mapping out a "big picture" plan for the summer, spanning both the development work and my lab management duties. Not much headway there.
Decided to get my butt in gear with regard to my finances. Became familiar with Gnucash, and input transactions from my bank statements that date back to late 2004. Still working on organizing that bloody mess.
Freelance web design work for another department on campus, done through one of my professors.

Strangely, despite the above list, it doesn't feel like I've accomplished much. Besides the CF/Postgres thing at least. And in all honesty, there hasn't really been anything going on outside the above mess other than eating, sleeping, and generally zoning out with some friends while my brain decompresses. Hopefully the "settling into a routine" thing will happen soon, and work will generate more tangible results. Then I'll finish that article for that other site I write for that I'm working on, and some other nifty things I've been itching to write about. Stay tuned.