transmissions from deep space

what I do

2009-03-25T13:45:00.003-04:00

Apple hacks #1

2008-12-22T10:24:00.005-05:00

Apple's World Clock dashboard widget doesn't have a GMT setting, which is a pain when you're working with partners' partners and you have no idea where they are.

An easy fix is to create a second clock on your dashboard and set the time to Africa/Dakar. The capital of Senegal is on GMT and, unlike London, does not observe DST.

creative correspondence in daily life: Can I borrow your hack saw?

2008-12-05T10:05:00.004-05:00

Dearest Ms. Lacasse,

It is with the Utmost Regret that I Respond to your recent Correspondence. Although I do Specialize in having a Wide Assortment of Fine and Generously Warranted Hand Tools available for Disbursement to Fine, Upstanding Young Ladies such as you must certainly be, I must nonetheless Refuse your Eloquent Request due to the fact that I simply do not have in my possession, nor do I expect to soon acquire, the Article you Desire; namely, a

Hack Saw.
An omission of this Magnitude bears Explanation, which I will happily furnish. A recent run on Fur Hats has necessitated a Substantial Increase in Pelt Exports, requiring the construction of many Artificial Beaver Habitats. Though one might surmise that this would simply be a matter of felling trees, the Unfortunate Fact is that the Beaver tends to behave in a Most Un-Neighborly Fashion towards its Companions, should they find themselves in Close Quarters; the resulting Injuries do not bear mentioning to someone of your Delicate Sensibilities, suffice it to say that their Natural Rodent Fecundity is Substantially Curtailed. Thus, all providers of Fur Hats have found themselves in need of Fine Carpentry in order to construct Individual Accommodations for Beavers, displaying Great Verisimilitude to a Genuine Lodge, yet still keeping the animals Humanely Separated. It is unlikely that any Furrier who is also a Distributor of Fine and Generously Warranted Hand Tools for the Discerning Individual has any Quality Hack Saws yet remaining in his possession, owing to their recent disposal in exchanges of Goods In Lieu of Payment for Fine Carpentry Services Rendered.

We have likewise been without a Fine Thesaurus since the Great Boll Weevil Migration of 1838, and since an Unfortunate Climbing Accident on Kilimanjaro I am unable to Recall Unaided, nor Retain for any Significant Interval, any synonym for "Fine" other than "Quality".

Should you, in your Future Endeavors, have further need of Quality Hardware and Hand Tools, I shall be sure to either have the item On Hand, or be sure to Commence my Response in a substantially more Modern Type Face to avoid Unseeming Delays while I solicit the proper Anachronistic Turns of Phrase and Capitalization, and Cockamamie Back Story, from my Exceedingly Disordered Mentality.

Yours faithfully,

J. M. Bowes
Outfitter, Furrier and Distributor of Fine and Generously Warranted Hand Tools for the Discerning Individual

An Original Thought

2008-10-09T08:51:00.002-04:00

Today, my friend said "they be full of shit."

I congratulated him on his "nice use of the pirate infinitive."

I wondered. I Googled.

Zero hits for "pirate infinitive."

Just sayin'.

CNN versus adequate web development knowledge

2008-05-05T14:18:00.006-04:00

As somebody who spends quite a bit of time thinking about the security and integrity of http parameters, and the consequences of various redirection schemes, I saw CNN's new T-Shirt service and thought, "I wonder..."

It sure looked good. Hash in, a date encoding to use as salt, and some kind of secret key on their end. But just to be sure, I replaced their headline with my own.

And though I was sure it wouldn't work, I saw a flash of something, just for a moment...

Actual screenshot. Go on, make your own!

This could probably be construed as reverse engineering and thus contrary to the DMCA if I lived in the US. I don't.

things done in Denver while dead

2008-04-07T16:30:00.004-04:00

Today I did the following:

Turned GEdit into TextMate using these great instructions. Note that when you're manually installing plugins, the folder structure can be a little inconsistent -- you want the .gedit-plugin file in .gnome2/gedit/plugins. Some plugins will have their own folder inside that. Some won't.
I edit code on one computer and run it on another. I used to edit this code using CIFS, i.e. a Windows-compatible share. Due to a nasty little bug in GEdit over CIFS, I can't do that anymore. I created a matching NFS share using these instructions (the last set is the best -- thanks man, and good job).
Modified the snapopen plugin, because it doesn't. This plugin is supposed to add a type-to-find dialog to GEdit, using regular expressions to show a list of files matching what you've typed. The problem is that my code repository is on the other end of the aforementioned NFS share, and snapopen is slow. Glacial, even. I modified _on_pattern_entry in __init__.py in the snapopen plugin folder so that it doesn't try a find until len(pattern) > 3. That helps a little. I'd like to make it use locate instead, but the database it uses will be forever out of date. I've spent too long on this and need to get some files open already.
Fixed more tests so I can keep using autotest. If your Rails test data isn't being torn down properly, create YAML fixtures for all tables involved in the test, including join tables, and specify that the test class uses those fixtures. I don't know if this is always necessary, because I'm fixing it as it comes up in a large production app.

on the condemnation reflex

2008-03-27T09:05:00.005-04:00

in case you thought any of it was ever going to be any different or that these cycles would presage some breakthrough, that self awareness would be the salvation of all involved or that my protests were any more than a child's cry to be on the winning team, for once
I fought the war but the war won.
when guys like me get their way for long enough, it usually ends with a city sacked. it's just as well.

ISO 9001 for n00bs

2008-03-25T15:46:00.004-04:00

As understood from a conversation with a friend

A:\> iso9001.bat

---------------------------------------------------------------
________ ____ _______ ______ _____ _____ ___
/___ __/ ' ___/ / ___ / / __ / / _ / / _ / /_ /
/ / \ \ / / / / |_ '/ / / // / / // / //
___/ /_ __\ \ / /__/ / _| / / // / / // / _//_
/______/ /____//______/ /___/ /____/ /____/ /___/

ASCII by l33tw4rr107
---------------------------------------------------------------

sorry it was cool on my friend computar but outloo kesprez messed it up, it says

iso9001!!!!!!!!!!!

welcomz to the isos 9 thousand & 1 cerfixx serticixxx awesome program

please enter your name: b1llg4t3s

hello!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111 b1llg4t3s pleease answer teh folliwing
questons:

1: does u have process's [yn] : ? > ?? yes
sorry dunt understand pleastype yn or n : ? > ?? y

2: doe=s u youse process's [yb] : ? > ?? y

3. do u promise x ur <3> too improve ur process' [yn] : ? > ?? y

________ ____ _______ ______ _____ _____ ___
/___ __/ ' ___/ / ___ / / __ / / _ / / _ / /_ /
/ / \ \ / / / / |_ '/ / / // / / // / //
___/ /_ __\ \ / /__/ / _| / / // / / // / _//_
/______/ /____//______/ /___/ /____/ /____/ /___/

C O N G R A D UL A S H UN S !!!!

ur now iso nine tousand and one sertify. use in good health!

PRESS BRTSC too print for posteriority!

Okay, maybe not really.

autotest: madness curtailed

2008-03-14T10:20:00.004-04:00

I previously mentioned that autotest was running endlessly.

I had a test that was failing because MySQL was causing an exception to be thrown due to a required, missing field in a new record (result: ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid).

If this is happening to you, don't worry about autotest too much. Fix the exception and it will settle down.

autotest: LocalJumpError

2008-03-14T09:44:00.006-04:00

We have some very specialized tests and a highly extended test platform for running them. Unfortunately, this isn't always the best code, since we're not writing tests for our tests (though maybe we should -- I have to remember to talk about assert :false sometime).

When I first fired up AutoTest it complained about a LocalJumpError. The last time I had seen this, it was because of an error in some block code in the application proper. This time, it was a simple fix and more easily found.

We had a test support library file that looked something like this:


return if this_file_is_not_relevant

class TestClass < ExtendedTestPlatformClass
  # def tests...
  ...
  #
end

Autotest doesn't like that at all. I don't even know what the return is supposed to be returning to, at file level like that. But in any case, this works just fine:


unless this_file_is_not_relevant

  class TestClass < ExtendedTestPlatformClass
    # def tests...
    ...
    #
  end

end

This plus the previous GNOME notification make Autotest integrate nicely into our project. Now I need to determine why it constantly re-runs failed tests.

autotesting with gnomes

2008-03-14T09:26:00.005-04:00

Autotest is pretty cool, but I'm on Ubuntu, not OSX. (...so far?) Therefore I get a bunch of console output and not much else.

The following code is stolen and modified and updated to work with Autotest as of ZenTest 3.9.1.

Blogger's formatting cuts off line ends and I apologize for that. Cut and paste should still be okay. Maybe I should learn to use pastie.


$ sudo apt-get install libnotify1

$ cat ~/.autotest
require 'autotest/gnomenotify'

$ cat /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ZenTest-3.9.1/lib/autotest/gnomenotify.rb 

# -*- ruby -*-
# by tonesmith (http://tonesmith.blogspot.com)
# Based on ZenTest growl.rb
# Begat by http://ph7spot.com/articles/getting_started_with_autotest
# and by DitoCujo (http://ditoinfo.wordpress.com)
module Autotest::GnomeNotify

  EXPIRATION_IN_SECONDS = 5
  ERROR_ICON = "gtk-dialog-error"
  INFO_ICON = "gtk-dialog-info"

  def self.notify(title, msg, icon)
    title += " in #{Dir.pwd}"
    options = "-t #{EXPIRATION_IN_SECONDS * 1000} -i #{icon}"
    system "notify-send #{options} '#{title}' '#{msg}'"
  end

  Autotest.add_hook :initialize do |at|
    notify 'autotest Running', 'Started', INFO_ICON
  end  

  Autotest.add_hook :red do |at|
    notify 'Tests Failed', "#{at.files_to_test.size} tests failed", ERROR_ICON
  end

  Autotest.add_hook :green do |at|
    notify 'Tests Passed', 'Tests passed', INFO_ICON if at.tainted
  end  

  Autotest.add_hook :all_good do |at|
    notify 'Tests Passed', 'All tests passed', INFO_ICON if at.tainted
  end
end

putting out

2008-03-14T09:17:00.002-04:00

As part of our new process initiative here at work, I'm trying to get autotest (a part of ZenTest) running well in my development environment.

Introducing autotest at this stage was obviously not going to be trivial -- our frankenproject has a lot of differences from a standard Rails webapp, and testing was not always a priority.

That said, I'm going to try to share what I've learned. If I start feeling especially clever, maybe we'll get beyond testing in later posts.

acts_as_shaggable

2008-02-11T08:49:00.000-05:00

My latest project is almost ready for the public eye.

It's mad sexy. I'm excited. I mean, really excited.

luser interface

2007-09-20T10:30:00.000-04:00

My good friend brought up the case of a UI designer who takes his job very seriously. He tries to "get into the mind of the user." He feels that UI design is best left to the professionals, because mere mortals will cock up the works. I have met this man, or someone just like him. He is the academic spirit in the world of mere practitioners.

(A defensively inflated ego seems to be a common feature of the job+personality archetypes that have to deal with software developers. I guess that's to be expected. Egoless programming is a myth even where it's supposedly institutionalized.)

Ah, the noble and slightly self-righteous heart of the scientist, or the man who thinks he is a scientist. It is partly true that most developers couldn't write a good UI for exiting a paper bag. Partial credit for you. But I also give partial credit to the man arguing about the best kind of wood for making wooden shoes, because he is a craftsman who cares, working within what he knows. But don't act like a scientist. UI design is not a science.

The scientist is the one envisioning the correct system. The matter of practicality is left to the guy over there with the cash, making do; an applied scientist: a technologist, or an engineer, or a developer, or the UI guy.

Current UIs can be good, as long as you have spent enough time in the existing UI paradigms. But what if the only computer you'd ever used was a game console, and the only game you'd ever played was a version of Halo with no menus? How would you expect to interact with anything? What deranged cyclops devised this awful prison of the flat? Who chose this awful arrow, like the end of a swizzle stick, to represent you in this horrible world, where even your desktop background is a reminder of your intellectual incarceration? "The picture of delightful rolling hills means you've reached the end and have to go back."

My guess would be that you'd keep looking for the weapon switch key long after you gave up looking for the joystick.

The current UI paradigm is so pervasive and so broken, that we will have to unlearn it. The two and a half (and climbing) generations that are comfortable with Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer will always have to speak a second language in trying to tell their computer what to do. Users who were shackled with unnatural actions like Properties and Key Accelerators will have some deranged, infantile part of their brain calling out for these "features" forever.

And to you UI guys: I really respect what you do, but none of us tech people should take what we do too seriously. Modern UIs (and especially the underlying overhyped window managers -- I'm looking at you, OSX) are supposed to be like some Glassy Griffin, allowing you to ride them to new heights of productivity.

Here is no griffin. Here is a dead rat. Do not ride the rat. Treat it suspiciously, and for God's sake don't get comfortable with it.

Finally, remember: Much like writing good code, beautifying the UI is just bronzing the rat. Nobody will touch it if you don't, but it is still a rat.

ZOMFG LAME

2007-09-18T08:33:00.000-04:00

My Honda has made scraping sounds intermittently in the left front for about 15,000 km after braking and cornering. At first I ignored it and it went away. Then it started to happen again, and I got upset.

I took it into the dealer. $47 for an inspection. No trouble found, but it was worth the peace of mind, I guess. And I didn't hear the sound for 72 hours.

This morning, it was back, so I got down on my knees in the parking lot at work and looked at the brakes. I have conclusively established that it is my fault.

The dust cover has been banged upwards by some forgotten incident and has wrapped itself around the bottom of the brake disc. That's it. Problem solved. I bent it back a bit with my key, and later I will either fix it myself or pay the stupid tax and move on.

You have to remove that piece of bent metal to inspect the brakes. So did they do that? Did it not seem possible that a piece of bent metal in the brakes was the cause of a loud sound after braking? Did I not mention the goddamned dust shield like five times when I brought it in? What was my $47 for? Why do I keep going back there? How much is it going to cost me to get the mechanic outside for five minutes so I can yell at him?

So many questions.

Here's a question: You suck. I guess I need to find a different mechanic.

how to use a time machine

2007-07-18T23:09:00.000-04:00

or, the best of all possible worlds

"The time machine has probably been invented hundreds of times," the Speaker told the assembled masses. "But the genius, the independent inspiration that I believe is mine alone, is the realization of how it works." Predictably, the throngs cheered.

"Why nobody realized the true power of the paradox is beyond me," he told the Fairest Of Them All. "But it was simple enough to implement." She swooned. A man of his power in another situation might doubt his concubine's sincerity, her interest or her intentions, but he knew that wasn't necessary.

"Once I realized I would do anything to have a time machine," he told his reflection in the shaving mirror, "I began to believe I would never have one. After all, would I not immediately have used it to improve my past?" The razor completely failed to nick his skin. "Why had I not met my future self?"

"It is," he told the assembled International Temporal Physics Symposium, "because the device is impossibly simple. Three-axis rotation causes precession in the fourth. Only, most accidental discoverers would never notice the effect, because causality holds. The future is impossibly broad. Literally anything could happen. In the past, though, the one certainty is that it is impossible to meet yourself."

"If you travel to the past, you will certainly influence yourself. From the traveller's perspective, as soon as you leave you will cease to exist." The Illuminati nodded, appreciatively.

The Speaker rose in summation, his diction perfect, his voice projecting beautifully. "I do not fear your knowledge of these facts. Were you each to find your own alternate, perfect timeline, mine would remain as it is..."

"But you must now forgive me," he told his weeping empress. "Before it is too late, there is but one thing I must amend."

the liberal media

2007-07-04T21:30:00.000-04:00

A quick thought crossed my mind...

I've never bought the "liberal media" rants. Conservatives have radio, television talk shows, and yea verily, entire "news" channels.

The fundamental difference seems to be emotional. Conservative media is at its most effective in anger. Heated arguments between people interrupting each other serve a cause very well when that cause is characterized by arguments that revolve around not thinking for very long.

Liberal media seems most effective in comedy format. Granted, there's a lot of cutting off and glossing, but it is all so much more entertaining to me.

Perhaps the argument about liberal media comes down to the fact that its quality, effectiveness, and dare I say entertainment value, is so much higher.

It's funny 'cause it's true, right?

notoriety

2007-06-16T22:56:00.000-04:00

google:"transmissions from deep space" brings up
this post
on the first page of results, and I don't know why.

It scares me, just a little.

I guess it's better than Dear Mr. Robberstad.

a reminder, or a notice

2007-06-16T19:26:00.000-04:00

Lest you thought me stupid, lest you thought I didn't notice, didn't care, didn't have the capacity to understand, just in case there is any chance that it makes any difference at this point

I know I was stupid, again and again and again

and again

The justification reflex doesn't help. Indignant ranting doesn't help. Nothing helps; it is what it is. I couldn't make the best of it. I marshaled my ugliness and kicked my own ass into China, and no part of it was fair.

Why are you still here?

Big changes make me look back. I don't see much anymore. There is the wall, and the trinkets I pile there every day so that when the barbarians see them, they will pick them up and turn back.

My doubt that I can speak plainly to you, dear reader, is a function of my reluctance to talk about it and my desire to be private with the things that make my future look like a bunch of clauses awaiting a question mark. I don't know what it's worth to anybody who might get it, anybody who read and listened to hours of simpler thoughts that, despite their directness, were heavily rationalized and no more honest; but to this day I'd rather just accept that people stood by me rather than try to understand it.

I get mired in my own judgment, and I just don't get it. Is there an upper limit on colossal mistakes, beyond which they all cancel out? Did I just declare moral bankruptcy and move on?

Is it time to stop looking back, even in this limited fashion?

I get to live my life on the far side of that discontinuity. It's so weird, and it's so good. I am loved. I still have a history, even if I don't always see it. All the people I spent years waiting to meet are still here.

Thank you, always, for reading.

It's full of noobs

2007-06-09T10:24:00.000-04:00

Ubuntu Feisty has given me some problems lately. To recap, Ubuntu is "Linux for Human Beings," and my house has two Ubuntu Feisty-only systems, one dual XP-Ubuntu system, and one OSX, erm, holdout.

We had some friends coming over last night, so about ten minutes before they showed up, I decided to update the Mythbox, 'cause that's just how I roll.

The update included a minor kernel revision, which breaks the NVidia drivers every time. I expect this. I prepared by downloading a new driver to /home/mythtv, and rebooted to the new kernel, expecting the usual fallback to the console when the nvidia X.org driver failed to load.

Fine, until I got no login prompt.

Working TTYs for Human Beings

Some package upgrade -- and I'm not sure what, or when, because I wouldn't have seen it if the normal graphical GDM login was working -- broke all six of the text-mode consoles. While our guests waited on the couch for me to fix our glorified DVD player, I had to get the Ubuntu Feisty LiveCD from upstairs, wait ten minutes for the interminable boot to finish, and do the following in a terminal (YMMV):

sudo -s
cd /mnt
mkdir /sda1
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
cd /mnt/sda1/etc/event.d

nano tty1

Replace last two corrupted lines with

respawn
exec /sbin/getty 38400 tty1

Repeat with tty2, tty3, tty4, tty5, tty6.

Reboot. Text mode consoles should work now.

Estimated time to fix: 15 minutes.

On one hand, our guests saw me doing many hacky things and probably think highly of my skill with "Peenux." On the other hand, this isn't supposed to happen -- they're supposed to see the Mythbox as a kind of magical video appliance, and not go home feeling smug about their Powerbooks being so stable and easy to use.

Samba for Human Beings

Another thing that pissed me off was spending a week trying to work with Samba, trying to get basic file sharing working. You can create shares that are visible on the network, but on connecting to them, you get a message like

"the network path was not found"
"share does not exist"
"the Samba configuration file was created by gods; mere mortal detected; no share browsing for you"

The /etc/samba/smb.conf file included with Feisty is way too complicated for home user tasks. If your goal is just to share something, not sync with a domain server, create user accounts on every machine for every user, and ahem spend a week getting things set up, the following procedure might help:

sudo -s
cd /etc/samba
cp smb.conf smb.conf.backup

Copy the following into your smb.conf file (i.e. nano smb.conf), changing as appropriate in the last section for your first working share:

[global]
workgroup = MSHOME
security = share

socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
security = share
restrict anonymous = no
domain master = no
preferred master = no

[sharename]
case sensitive = no
guest ok = yes
path = /sharedpath/
read only = no

There you have it; simplicity itself. You can add other shares after [sharename] for most extreme justice.

Check your configuration and restart Samba, and you should be in business:
testparm
/etc/init.d/samba restart

It's pretty frustrating that Linux for Human Beings broke the fallback login consoles to the extent that human beings might decide that they have to reinstall their entire operating system.

It's pretty frustrating that Linux for Human Beings has graphical interfaces for sharing files, which do not work without a complete rewrite of the configuration of the best cross-platform file sharing package. There are "advanced options" in the file sharing interface, but it would be pretty hard to know what advanced options to use without knowing what arcanity is already in the smb.conf file, wouldn't it?

Perhaps they're aiming at Linux for Console Jockeys. Oh wait, they broke the console.

sad

2007-05-25T10:50:00.000-04:00

You know what's sad?

I haven't used another spreadsheet that has charting/graphing capabilities that were as good as Lotus 1-2-3.

That's a LONG time ago.

Microsoft Excel is about adequate. You select the range and click a button and you get a graph. Usually it makes a good guess about what axis goes where. Usually it puts the right titles on. If not, there is a dialog to override its guesses, and though you won't need it often, in terms of usability, it's not very good.

OpenOffice 2 is like Excel, only I haven't found the "guess override" dialog yet, and its guesses are more often wrong.

Both modern spreadsheets give you the choice of eleventeen different chart types, if only you could conveniently specify what data should be used how.

1-2-3 was simple. Pick from about five chart types. Line graph? What's your X-axis? What's Y1? Y2? Y3? Sorry, that's all you get, but it's done and it's what you asked for. Once you figure out how it works, it always works.

Clearly, this wasn't good enough, because people don't want to figure out how it works. But if you can't easily figure out how it works, you don't really understand the chart itself, and if you don't understand the relationships in your data, why the hell are you making a chart?!

I guess the use case for these things is:

Jimmy is making a ten page presentation and it has a bunch of numbers and he's two pages short. Jimmy drags a rectangle around some sales figures and tries the chart buttons. Eventually he stumbles upon the 3D Pie Chart. Jimmy makes two, finishes the presentation, gets a promotion, buys a Land Rover, and tells fifteen friends to use [product].

digression...

More and more often as I get older, I find myself somehow involved with a lame waste of time, and I realize that it was designed that way on purpose, because people are too stupid to do the things that they want to do.

Actually, though I'm a big fan of it, you can't always blame Stupid. Stupid is only one of the Mundanity Mob, along with Timid and Lazy. Stupid gets a lot of credit for things Timid wouldn't do and Lazy didn't bother to do. Go figure.

Still, some days I feel like wearing a particular non-existent t-shirt. It says "π = 3.14159..." with an arrow that points between the digits for thousandths and ten thousandths. Three decimal places, and something that might take you a half second to round properly, because you were not trying to stick your finger so far up your nose that you poke your brain and everybody turns plaid, during that particular math class. And below the arrow, it says, "you must be at least this smart to ride."

Then again, maybe everybody should be finding their transmedian counterpart to "ride." Or we should alternate -- same percentile, (100-your percentile). For example, Britney could now have two children with, say, the guy who makes the crosswords for one of the free daily papers. You know, someone who's a little bit smart.

And then, two more with Jimmy.

...end digression

Anyway, the short of it is that Jimmy has his stupid pie chart, and OpenOffice doesn't get it when I'm trying to draw a line graph with three data sets in approximately the same range over the same domain, and to avoid confusing regular users, the override is hidden where even a software developer can't find it, and this is yet another sign of the inexorable decline of terrestrial society.

I say terrestrial because I'm still down with the plan of packing all the well-adjusted geniuses off to another planet to breed like rabbits. And yes, I know I won't get to go. They'll use the Wayback Machine and disqualify me, and I agree that would probably be best for the colony. Some days, I carry far too much rage, and all I've got to show for it is an idea for a stupid t-shirt.

the audience is listening

2007-05-23T15:51:00.001-04:00

Apparently I have readers, and apparently I left you hanging in March. I apologize. New job and all that.

I'm fairly sure I'm not the guy who realizes he is no longer alone, and shuts up. Oddly, the presence of prying eyes makes my neurons vibrate and my fingers dance.

Anyway, I have to leave work. It's four o'clock, don't you know.

It's a hard knock life.

useful info on capture cards

2007-05-22T18:29:00.000-04:00

Though I do recommend their product based on my experience, Hauppauge has pulled some interesting moves with their hardware recently that I should mention.

Google reminded me about Snapstream, the company that publishes BeyondTV. I can't speak for the quality of their software; however, they host a very active user community on their website. When my PVR-500 wasn't working properly, I turned to their forums to get some frankly unbelievable improvised solutions, like popping the RF shields off the tuners on my card. The reception went from uniformly crappy to good on every channel but CBC (and awful there).

I eventually tracked down the real issue. With the right IVTV driver version, my card works just fine -- the problem was the connector cable that went to the PVR-500's auxiliary video ports. There are extra RCA and S-Video connectors on a separate connector plate, and by moving the cables about 5 mm backwards, I eliminated all the interference on the card.

That fixed my problem, but a lot of people have had more serious problems with the PVR-500, caused by an unannounced change in components on the card. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the new Samsung tuners when using the right drivers, but it was shaky for a while.

Another trick Hauppauge pulled was swapping HDR-1600 cards for PVR-150s. Affected users have bought the card, opened the box, and inside is a newer model with a note that they have received a free upgrade to a HD-capable capture card. That's fine if you're using their drivers, but I don't think IVTV supports the HDR-1600 yet, so Linux users then have to write to Hauppauge and get return authorization, to get a real PVR-150. Sucks, dude.

Anyway, if you're considering a capture card purchase, the Snapstream forums are a good place to get uncensored opinions on capture cards. Also, obviously check out IVTV support for your card if you're planning on using Myth or some other Linux-based application.

for your information

2007-05-13T00:00:00.001-04:00

This is the reason the word

chunder

entered my vocabulary.

Huge props to the Wayback Machine, that brings embarrassing moments of the web back to us even after we've { thought better of it | agreed to remove it in exchange for Best Man duties | been sued }.

Non-sequitur, I know.

absence/presence

2007-05-12T18:46:00.000-04:00

Last night, a family close to mine experienced a devastating loss.

It is good that they are so close. Together they will eventually know how to deal with this.

My memories of him mean a lot to me. He was the kind of dad that made me jealous sometimes. Maybe more than sometimes.

I'm not sure if that's entirely appropriate. I'm not sure what else there is to say.

MythTV

2007-05-12T13:26:00.000-04:00

Edit: Apparently Ubuntu has mythtv-backend-master and mythtv-backend packages that make the setup even easier. At this point, it's the graphical part of the setup that is the most time-consuming. You may wish to install mythtv-backend-master instead of mysql-server below, and it might do a better job of setting up the backend for remote access. Check out these docs for details.

I talk about how great MythTV is all the time. If you have a decent spare computer, you can turn it into a fully-featured PVR with features that make [your cable provider]'s rental PVR look limp.

Myth is seriously cool software. Following this procedure, I ended up with:

A master MythTV box for recording and playback

This is the heart of the system, creating and storing all recordings, and the system we use for watching TV most of the time.

A slave backend/frontend

TV tastes vary, so it's nice to be able to watch two recordings at once.

I figured that I should give a little back by documenting how I did it, since I also talk about what a pain in the ass it is to set up. Ultimately, if you run into trouble, check the official documentation. However, Ubuntu has automated a lot of things, and my guide, erm, should be sufficient for Ubuntu, and removes a lot of unnecessary complexity.

More preamble: At version 0.20.1, MythTV is a lot more stable than a lot of 1.0 programs, but it's a Linux thing, and so there is a lot of setup involved. I run Ubuntu systems at home, and thanks to their progressive attitude towards including the latest and greatest apps in their archives, Myth is a lot less hassle than it used to be.

Finally, I should disclose the following political points:

I love Linux for a lot of uses, and I think open-source software is a great thing.
That said, I want my computer to work well, and to take full advantage of whatever hardware I use.
My primary consideration is usability. I've wowed several people with the capabilities of modern Linux desktop systems by showing them the capabilities of the system. This means that I use closed-source drivers when they deliver the best functionality and performance. On the other hand, you won't catch me using HDMI. If your product assumes I'm a criminal, I won't buy it.
[My cable provider] tries to make me pay more for digital cable delivery and cable box rental, when digital cable delivery actually saves them money. These boxes run like crap, their "deluxe" PVR features are a joke, and they don't work well with Myth, as far as I know. Anyway, with Myth running, I have all the TV I can handle. This guide does not cover digital cable. I haven't looked into this at all.

1. Gather Hardware

I started with a decent PC. I needed a decent (but not state of the art) processor.

My master backend uses an ASUS M2NBP-VM CSM motherboard. This is a socket-AM2 board with the nForce 430B chipset. It has integrated nVidia video of some sort (the box says Quadro NVS210S, but I don't really believe that). nVidia Linux drivers are the best available and work great with MythTV. It also has onboard 6 channel sound, but of course stereo is the best you're going to get from analog TV. It is a micro-ATX board with only 2 PCI slots, but with the PVR-500 this means up to 4 tuners, so that's not really the limitation it seems.

Hardware MPEG-2 encoder cards leave more CPU available for transcoding and commercial skipping. Despite recent quality control problems, the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500 cards are still a really good choice. They connect to your analog cable, and have an internal cable splitter. This is connected to two tuners on a single card. You can record two programs at once, or watch live TV while recording another program.

I like this card so much, I eventually installed two. More on that later.

My intent was to record vast quantities of video. With a 250 GB hard drive, some back-of-envelope calculations say that this is enough for about 233 hours of video. Anyway, in almost a year, it has never been an issue. Obviously, a SATA drive will open up a potential bottleneck for a couple extra bucks.

A DVD recorder is a good idea too. Some sort of optical drive is a must to install the operating system, but you can cannibalize another computer temporarily if you really need to. Once Ubuntu is up and running, you will likely never need the CD again; all the software you need is on the internet. Plus, MythArchive records DVDs of your recorded TV (in theory...getting this working hasn't been a priority for me) and MythDVD plays back DVDs.

The last thing I decided on was the need for a special case. Priorities are effective cooling, near-silent operation, keeping dust out (cats: the silent killer) and having it not look totally ugly, since it's got to sit somewhere near the TV. I used an Antec case because I got really good customer support on a previous Antec case. It does the job well, but as long as the motherboard and the capture card fit in the case, it's mostly a matter of taste and cash.

I have broadband and a router. Securing the server is not really a priority, since it sits behind the router. I have little fear of the Myth box being hacked. Nothing is mapped from the router to Myth, and the other systems on the network are properly secured.

I assembled the case, installing the motherboard, hard drive and capture card. I connected the on-board network interface to my router. The PC was ready to go.

2. Get Software

I originally downloaded 32-bit Xubuntu Dapper. I would advise against this now. Get 64-bit Xubuntu Feisty Desktop for this platform. This will make the most of the platform, and Ubuntu's great 32-bit compatibility makes this pretty painless if you install non-64 bit apps.

Here's what happened originally. MythTV uses the IVTV drivers for video capture. I downloaded Ubuntu Edgy, which was the current version at the time. However, the IVTV drivers were being merged into the kernel when Edgy was being tested. The result of this was that the kernel IVTV drivers were too old for the card. Hauppauge had just changed the tuner on the card, so a driver update was required for good picture quality. However, with Edgy's built-in driver, I couldn't easily install newer ones. With Dapper, the drivers weren't yet in the kernel, so using an older kernel meant that I could use newer drivers.

With Feisty, however, the IVTV drivers are newer and seem to support the PVR-500 just fine.

3. Install software

Boot the computer with the Ubuntu live CD. Install the operating system. It's pretty straightforward. When asked to create a user, create a login for yourself (not mythtv).

I created a separate boot partition, a ~30GB ext3 root partition for the operating system, and a 220GB XFS partition on /video for recordings. XFS is great because deleting large files takes very little time. 30GB was probably excessive for the root partition, but what a pain it would be to resize! Plus, Myth now supports storage groups; in theory, I can add new storage later practically anywhere, and Myth will distribute new recordings to all available storage. And there's probably some sort of Linux magic to do the same.

Reboot to your installed OS. Log in.

If you get a notice that the X server failed to start, instead of the graphical desktop, don't worry about it too much. We'll fix it shortly.

I like the console. Fire one up.

Next, edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add the universe and multiverse repositories. Perhaps

sudo nano /etc/apt/soures.list

Now would be a good time to check dmesg | less and make sure IVTV is working right. When I installed the second PVR-500 into the only remaining PCI slot, it wasn't initializing properly, but swapping the cards into opposite slots fixed the problem.

MythTV keeps recording, schedule and preference data in a MySQL database. Install that first.

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

Changing the database root password used to mess up the MythTV backend installation. I'm not sure if this is the case any longer. In any case, I did it later.

Well, that was easy. In fact, mythtv probably has this package as a dependency anyway. Next, install MythTV, remembering the legions who went before you who had to build this from source:

sudo apt-get install mythtv mythtv-themes

The installer creates a mythtv user, but the user doesn't have sudo rights nor a known password, so take care of that.

sudo passwd mythtv
sudo nano /etc/group

Look for the admin group and add mythtv to it:

admin:x:111:mylogin,mythtv

At this point, you're probably not running OpenGL accelerated X.

If you have a graphical desktop, download the latest nVidia AMD64 video drivers to your home folder first. Then hit Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get a text mode console, log in as mythtv and kill the graphical environment.

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

If you aren't even in the graphical desktop, we'll sort that out now. Links is a text-mode browser you can use to get the video drivers you'll need.

sudo apt-get install links
links

Links doesn't look like much, but it's actually pretty decent for a text mode browser. Hit g to go to a URL, and enter nvidia.com. Now you can use the arrow keys to navigate. Under Download Drivers, I found 1.0.9631 for AMD64 near the bottom of the screen. Download it to your home folder, and when the download is complete, press q to exit links. Now you can install the drivers with

sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-1.0-9631-pkg2.run

Those filenames are a pain. You should just be able to type to NV in the line above and hit Tab to complete the filename.

The nVidia drivers may complain about having to guess at paths, but they guess well. It's probably a good idea to say Yes to installing 32-bit OpenGL compatibility.

Now you can switch over to the nVidia driver and have a properly fast desktop.

sudo nvidia-xconfig
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

At this point you should get the graphical login back, possibly with a glimpse of the nVidia logo first.

Fire up a browser and assign a static IP to your Myth computer. If you're going to use backends or frontends on other machines, this is a must. Take note of the IP.

MythTV can automatically download TV listings using XMLTV. In fact, it's pretty useless without. Luckily, there's a free service, and it's pretty easy to use in North America. First, you need a certificate code from this URL:

http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO.html#toc5.3

Now head over to

http://labs.zap2it.com

and create a new account using this certificate code. It's a pretty awesome service and it costs nothing, so some valid personal info would be nice. MythTV doesn't report back with your viewing habits or any such shenanigans. Obviously, note your zap2it login. Also, mark your calendar: Zap2it accounts expire every six months. You need to go back to the website every so often and click a button to extend your subscription. That's all it takes, but it's easy to forget and wonder what happened to your listings, six months hence.

Now start a console window again. It's time for our first taste of Myth.

mythtv-setup

Starting this up will take a second.

One of the nice features about the feisty packages is that the Myth utilities have wrappers that do nice things like shutting down the backend at appropriate times. You should say Yes to shutting down the backend for now, and in general unless you're only making tiny changes.

You need to go through each of the five steps. I'll help. MythTV is designed to be operated with something like a TV remote, so sometimes the configuration is a little awkward. Tab moves between options, and left and right adjusts values. The interface works a lot better for watching TV and recordings.

1. General

IP address for [hostname]: Use the external address that you configured earlier, usually 192.168.something.something.
Master Server IP address: Same address.
Directory to hold recordings: I created a special partition for this earlier, so: /video/recordings
If you used XFS, you don't need Delete files slowly. Otherwise, you might want to experiment.
TV format: NTSC for North America.
VBI format should be left at None unless you need closed captions.
Channel frequency table: us-cable or us-bcast. Don't go looking for canada-*. The channel frequencies are the same.
Time offset for XMLTV listings: Auto.
Master Backend Override: In this configuration it's not really important, but I think this should be on.
I don't use the EIT scanner. Zap2it provides better guide data.
On the next screen, Shutdown/Wakeup Options allows the Myth box to shut itself down when nothing is recording, and wake itself up before recordings. Hard drives tend to last longer when you're not constantly starting them up, so I don't use this feature, nor WakeOnLan.
You might consider going way overboard on the Job Queue. I suggest limiting maximum simultaneous jobs on this backend to the number of cores in your computer; 1 for an Athlon64 or 2 for an X2. Obviously, allow Commercial Detection and Transcoding on the master backend.
Start Auto-Commercial Flagging: This reaps the benefits of a good CPU and hardware encoder cards. With the configuration I suggest, this can be turned on.
Run Transcode Jobs before Auto-Commercial Flagging: Leaving this off gets you commercial skipping sooner, at the expense of a little bit of disk space.
User Jobs are a fascinating idea for which I have not yet found a use.

2. Capture cards

Pick (New capture card).
Card type: My PVR-500 is en MPEG-2 encoder card. The first tuner is on /dev/video0 and the second on /dev/video1. Probed info should display some basic info about your card. Default input should be Tuner 1, I think.

3. Video sources

Pick (New video source).
XMLTV listings grabber: North America (DataDirect) if you used zap2it.
Set the User ID and Password to the account you created and select Retrieve Lineups.
Pick the Data Direct lineup you created earlier.
EIT is generally not necessary if you have DataDirect set up.
Use the default Channel frequency table.

4. Input connections

Pick each Tuner entry from the list, and set Video Source to whatever you called your DataDirect video source.

5. Channel Editor

I lied about the 5 steps. I've never needed to use this. If any of the channels that are displayed aren't in your cable package, there is apparently a way to hide them. I find this screen is a little touchy, and Channel Scanner (in earlier versions, definitely) could throw the downloaded listings off the proper channel number. YMMV.

The backend should be automatically started back up by the wrapper script. In the console, tail /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log to check for obvious gaffes.

At this point, you should be able to fire up MythTV Frontend. There's still more configuration to go, though. You had to know that was coming. Choose Utilities / Setup, Setup from the menu.

General is all database-related, and you shouldn't have to modify this.

Under Appearance:

Pick a theme you like.
The OpenGL Paint Engine gets you more eye candy for less CPU. I had to turn it off on one machine, but in general it seems as stable as the Qt option.
The Qt Style option controls how desktop widgets look. If you don't like how the lists and buttons look, experiment with other options.
The Menu theme setting seems to remove options; DVR removes Watch TV and possibly other settings.
Set Monitor Aspect Ratio to match that of the monitor (4:3 for regular or 16:10 for widescreen) or television (4:3 or 16:9) that will be used for watching Myth.
Separate video modes for GUI and TV playback causes an annoying delay before switching to video playback. It is handy if you don't have a computer that can handle fullscreen video, but you took my advice on a video card so there's no point, right?
Guide Languages is an interesting idea, but mine were both set to Afar for a while, and it didn't seem to have any effect.
LCD device is not for monitors; it's for little status displays. I don't have one. YMMV.

Under TV Settings > General, I have a couple of recommendations.

LiveTV recordings Max Age should probably be set to something low, like 1 day. That's enough time to remember to turn off auto-expire on the recording if you want to hold onto something you just watched, and it keeps the All Programs section in the recordings tidy.
Commercial Flag New Recordings. Yes, yes! All Available Methods uses the most CPU, but gets the most valid results. Strict Commercial Detection helps the annoyance of skipping things that weren't really commercials. Lost is particularly bad for this, as is Final Jeopardy. Even with Strict on, I still tend to open the Options during playback and set Commercial Skip to Notify for these shows
The Autodetect Default Transcoder setting

Under TV Settings > Program Guide:

The Guide Shading Method doesn't seem to use as much CPU as it suggests. Maybe it's my choice of OpenGL painters.
Guide starts at channel default is 3. I'm not sure why. 2 is a more sensible default for my region.

Under TV Settings > Playback:

You get much better quality output with Deinterlace playback, but be careful. Some algorithms seem to bog down. I think the Bob algorithm was the culprit, but I'm not sure. For an AMD/nVidia combo, I use Kernel algorithm and libmpeg2 for the decoder. If playback gets really slow on fast forward or rewind, try different values here.
On a 16:9 TV, with standard definition recordings, you end up with a lot of "widescreen" programs with black bars on the top and bottom. You can fix this by pressing W three times during playback, or by specifying "4/3 Zoom" for Aspect Override.
Save position and exit for Action on playback exit is really nice.
Under Seeking, Smart Fast Forwarding is a pretty intuitive feature. Essentially, it makes the controls more precise momentarily after fast forwarding because you tend to overshoot the exact time you are skipping to.
Automatically Skip Commercials: It works pretty well. As I mentioned, there are only a couple of programs that tend to fool the auto-skip. I have this set to Automatically Skip.
The Overscan section is useful for fine tuning the position of the video on your analog TV-out. I use a DVI-D cable, so my settings are all zeros.

Under TV Settings > Recording Profiles: ***

With the PVR-500 card, you should set the cards to capture at their best quality. Some cards experience corrupted frames if you enabled Closed Captioning in mythtv-setup, unless this is set properly. Select MPEG-2 Encoders, which is essentially hardware configuration in the case of the PVR-500. For each profile -- Default, Live TV, High Quality, Low Quality -- make sure you Enable auto-transcode after recording to keep disk usage reasonable, and set the width of the capture to 720 (the maximum). This doesn't use more disk space -- it just prevents the capture card from having to scale the capture down, only for MythTV to have to scale it back up again for you to watch.
If you want to adjust the compression level of recordings after transcoding, the Transcoding settings here control that -- Autodetect from MPEG-2 controls the automatic transcode settings; the rest are for overridden settings. I find the defaults are about the minimum to avoid visible loss in quality.
Until you're familiar with how MythTV assigns priorities to different types of recordings, leave Recording Priorities alone. The default behaviour is very carefully designed.

Now you can escape to the main menu

and watch some teevee. I think you might be able to excuse a "woot."

Flip through the channels to see that the tuner works and the channels are clear.

Totally Optional Section

More tuners, da!

I bought a second PVR-500 card used and installed it into the Myth box. This was pretty easy, except as I noted above, I needed to swap the slots for the cards before the second one would initialize properly.

Then I simply ran mythtv-setup on the backend again, deleted all the capture cards and created four entries for the new set of tuners, and associated my Zap2it DataDirect sources with all the cards. Obviously, this would be more complicated if I wanted to use a different set of channels.

Remote Myth nodes

Myth frontends require direct access to the MySQL database for operation. One would think they might go through the backend as much as possible, but this isn't so. If you install a MySQL server on a computer with a frontend, apparently this will cock up the works, but it didn't happen to me when I moved the backend between two computers that both had MySQL servers.

There is an additional complication in that MySQL is sensibly configured to reject remote connections by default. You need to follow these directions to enable remote database access if you want remote frontends or slave backends.

Secondary frontends

Ensure your MySQL database is configured to allow remote connections (see above). After this was done, I ran

sudo apt-get install mythtv-frontend

to install the frontend on a different system. From there, it was only necessary to enter the IP address of the backend to get the frontend working.

Slave backends

Since I have a dual-processor desktop running Linux most of the time that is NOT the Myth box, I use it as a slave backend to transcode and commercial flag recordings in a hurry.

Caveat: Slave backends also require direct access to the MythTV file system for transcoding.

First, I made sure MySQL database remote access was enabled, as above. Then I installed the backend:

sudo apt-get install mythtv-backend

I had to share the master backend's recordings directory, and set the slave backend's recordings directory to a mounted NFS share, as shown here.

no, no I did not mean

2007-05-11T08:21:00.000-04:00

Google Search extravert

did you mean: extrovert

No, I didn't.

The original word is from Latin, extravertere; turned towards the outside. Then you chumps spelled it "extrovert" because you mispronounce the word when you talk.

Yeah. You heard me. Piecemeal linguistic simplification is for chumps.

If wē want tŭ simplifī spelŋ wē shud dŭ it proprlī; gō hōl hog, sō tŭ spēk. Aftr a pērēud uv transiħun, it wud rēsult in hīer literusē rāts, mōr ēfiħunt kumūnikāħun, and posiblē ŧ discuverē uv grātr kāpubilitē uv ŧot wen ŧ mīnd iz les enkumbrd wiŧ lŋgwistik kompleksitē.

Yah, right. Then we'd have NO record of history in the language at all -- so you'd miss the connections between concepts instead of occasionally mispronouncing words; it would be far more difficult to pick intuitive constructions for novel words; and (I love this one) spelling would change drastically from region to region.

Fuk ŧat.

The first time I saw phonetic English, it was "Mary Had a Little Lamb," apparently written by Scots. "Maeri haed u litul laem hus flis wes whyt es snu," etc.

*Edit* I found this page on "Re-Romanizing" English; i.e. representing all the imported words and sounds in English in a more Roman way. As usual with language reform, it goes way overboard, and...well, read Hamlet. I think the choice of dropping 'th' and using 'd' is pretty hilariously unfortunate...especially with Hamlet. Kinda gives it a New Jersey feel.

infinity ends here.

2007-05-09T10:02:00.000-04:00

I own a number!

D5 7D E9 F6 89 38 29 7D 2C 96 AB 43 D7 AE 83 55

For all you base-ten people, this is a very long number. But it's just a regular old number. And thanks to the US Government, it's mine.

It encrypts a copyrighted haiku. I assert that it's a potentially valuable haiku. I contend that it is the best number for haiku encryption. It rules! All those other numbers can suck it. I reserve the right to market my haiku encryption system, and rest assured, it has no other commercial application...and that's what counts!

I ain't in it for the haikus, baby.

As a result of the above, I am entitled to assert my rights to this number under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Any dissemination of this number in the context of the haiku is distribution of an encryption circumvention device, and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The DMCA is a set of rules that make it illegal to do things that might result in theft. We invented a new crime to prevent an old one; Homeland Security, take note.

If you "purchase the haiku", you are really purchasing a license to read the haiku. You may also purchase a program from me to display it. Whether you like the way my program displays it is not really my problem. You still have the right to enjoy the haiku any way you wish, even ways my program doesn't allow. You could have your computer read a haiku to you in your indoor Zen garden. That might be nice. However, my DMCA rights say that if you tell anybody else how you did it, you're going to jail. Nobody gets hurt but you.

It's funny. You thought you were just paying for the haiku, didn't you? But you might not have realized that you also gave up your right to talk about certain things when you bought the haiku. In fact, you gave up your right to talk about certain things the moment you heard that the haiku was encrypted.

If you are a law-abiding citizen, I suggest you forget or do not learn about encryption. In fact, to be safe, avoid advanced mathematics altogether. Stop at multiplication.

Anyone who thinks art is undervalued, heed these words: The haiku is the only thing of value. The right to think and collaborate, and the right to enjoy the haiku however you wish, are worthless. The second is a technicality and the first is illegal. At last, art is protected.

...art distribution syndicates, anyway.

Arthur Clarke, a middling writer of science fiction but a man with an excellent long view, wrote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." The problem is that sufficiently advanced for one person is trivial for another. You play computer games and use cell phones and clamor for the latest and greatest products of advanced technology, yet you shun the knowledge of how these systems work. This is your undoing. They have realized that you are content to call it magic, and they have come to your centres of power with their profits, saying: "You need to protect this magic, or we will stop making it, and the artists will starve and die."

The truth is that, to a magician, most magic is mere parlour tricks. The magic that showed the path to the moon is weaker than the magic of playing cards with a mouse. We strive to be better magicians, while you bring the weight of rules down on anything that exceeds the capacity of your understanding, and restrict your thinking to the mundane.

Magic is not without risk, but you make it our risk, while your lust for stronger magic continues unabated.

Ultimately, you say, the magician is a necessary evil. We may only think when it suits you. The potential for further magic is nearly unlimited, but at each step you resist, listening to the people who would rather legislate all of us into slavery than continue to pay magicians for their craft.

One sleepy evening, you will be counting sheep, and you will find that it has gone so far that you must stop counting, because you have let them say that some numbers are not allowed. Eventually you will realize that it is not magic after all.

You are oppressed. Wake up.

interface heaven

2007-04-28T02:04:00.000-04:00

It's the early morning, and I should already be in bed. The problem is, I'm in interface heaven.

I work in Windows all day now, and I'm sick of it, but I tend to use my computer as an intermediate step between watching TV and doing something. Sick of Windows, sick of TV...boot Linux for temporary relief.

Now to find something to do.

Before I go any further, Linux may do some neat stuff, it may be nearly immune to viruses and spyware, it may run faster and never crash, but sometimes it takes some serious knowledge and/or patience to configure things properly. It is still true that a good portion of the enjoyment of using a computer with Linux on it, is that you, yourself got the damned thing working.

Anyway, my search for entertainment started with a game, Darwinia. I bought it through Steam, I love it, and I was messing around with my Linux desktop...yes, I can still boot to Windows. Steam will run in Linux, but Darwinia dies. The publisher has a Linux version that works with the Windows data files, which I tried out. It was a bitch to get running*, but I got it figured out.

This is probably a good time to remind you that I don't tend to bother with computers with less than two monitors.

Darwinia in Windows looks great in "fullscreen," meaning one monitor. Darwinia in Linux defaults to running on both of 'em. This is a good thing. This is a "wow, Windows never did this" thing. I tried to play, but I was too excited. Somehow, I felt productive.

It occurred to me that now, having a decent game to play, I might not boot to Windows for several weeks. But I have Beryl installed, so if I stay in Linux, I'm gradually going to turn on more and more eye candy until I kill my computer.

Didn't happen. I decided to go through Beryl's settings, turning on as many useless features as I could. Now, when I move a window, it makes waves wash across my desktop, from monitor to monitor, rebounding off the edges. When I close a window, it does one of perhaps fifteen different things in the process of disappearing, like catching fire, exploding, or being beamed up (quickly -- any effect that makes a window take more than a second to go away is an endangered effect). It's a similar story for when they appear.

The weird thing is, I have eleven programs running at once, including 20-odd tabs in my browser, and all this eye candy, and nothing is even starting to slow down.

Digging deeper, I find that there is a hotkey for inverting the colours of a single window, and one for the entire screen. I try it out and suddenly, everything is white on black, and the contrast in the dark room isn't hurting my eyes anymore.

Hey, could it be that this stuff is actually useful? There are so many new shortcut keys to learn that I had to make up a reference card. I eliminated all the stupid shortcuts, like "turn on windshield wipers," and there was still most of a page of stuff to learn. Key for "push this window to the side of the screen." Key for "I want to move this window without grabbing the title bar." Key for "I need to use this word processor, but make it slightly transparent so I can see the web browser underneath." Key for "zoom in on that for a second." Key for "show me all the windows I have open so I can pick one to switch to, or drop an icon on it."

That's the scary thing that I realized today, watching yet another stupid Beryl YouTube video. There's some useful stuff hidden in here, and once you get used to using it, and then turn all the eye candy on, you're going to be that much closer to having the computer keep up with your intentions, and it's going to look sexy.

Yeah, I said it.

(By the way, you should click that Beryl link. It's worth it just to hear Here Come the Hotstepper one last time. The guy goes crazy on the eye candy, but at least it puts Vista in its place.)

* My computer is 64-bit, dual core. Linux version was designed to run on 32-bit computer. This meant installing compatibility libraries that don't actually exist in my distribution. This kind of stuff is fairly rare, but if you don't have any clue what I'm talking about, this is exactly the kind of thing that never ceases to piss off people who like Windows.

glee!

2007-04-25T11:00:00.000-04:00

I just replaced one of my twin 19" CRTs at work with a 17" panel.

First, the panel is so much clearer than the CRT was, that it's actually usable from farther away at the same resolution.

Second, it's a little smaller, so I can effectively block it with my head, thus allowing me to share my glee with you in a little fit of morning blog delight.

Third, my monitors both have to fit on my desk. My work area is oriented into a corner. With the length of the picture tube, one monitor fits very well into the corner. Two, on the other hand, stick out so far that I barely have room to put my keyboard in front of them. This, combined with the aforementioned blurriness, and also taking into consideration the complete lack of ergonomics involved in positioning my keyboard, means that I used to spend my days looking like a myopic praying mantis. The only benefit was that I was starting to tan.

Now the little bitty LCD sits beside the CRT, which is pushed back to its correct position, which is the hell away from me.

Did I ever consider going back to one monitor? Do you ever consider cutting off a hand?

the trail is cold

2007-04-25T08:41:00.000-04:00

Squee bop sibs;
what's going on in the kitchen?
Doo widdley bop in some bones.
...
Sam aran and the quigicilicious squish.
Cauli-waulimon wit da broccoli woccoli woc and cheese sauce.

It doesn't do you justice, but it's the only one I remember.

You guys were wild, you always gave me stuff to publish, and you made me sound like I had rhythm. One of you went to Israel and one of you went to Guelph or some such nonsense; either way, you're practically lost to me now. I looked.

You were artists and musicians and poets and creative giants, and I miss following your trail of destruction and gold leaf.

I don't know what's gotten into me, but I miss you guys.

doesn't it make you feel better?

2007-04-22T03:33:00.000-04:00

I just banished a little ugliness from my life.

Lord knows I already have enough regrets. Keeping that verbal poison around for no good reason ranks low on my list of sensible risks.

lonesome no more!

2007-04-18T11:34:00.000-04:00

The more I work, the less people want me to write code, and the more people want me to be a businessman.

I can be a businessman if you really want me to. Hell, I can be good at it. I do a fine job of selling myself at work. Why not sell my work?

Problem is, I'm rather attached to the idea of knowledge being my #1 resource, because while schmooze may be on the list, it's a-way down there. I'd rather be paid to know what I'm doing.

As you like it, though. As you like it.

struggling

2007-04-13T11:57:00.000-04:00

I'm having a hard time right now.

As you can see, I'm taking refuge in my refuges -- psychological experiments, thoughts on the nature of things, trying to be expressive, trying to get it all out.

I don't really know what's going on. I seem more sensitive to coffee. I seem more sensitive in general. I get twitchy around noon, especially if my office is cold. I worry about everything and try to make it better, when trust would fix all my personal and professional problems in two shakes.

I didn't miss this, and I know that my tools for dealing with it are limited. The only refuge I have left is hedonism. Should make for interesting reading, anyway.

the promise (2)

2007-04-12T08:27:00.000-04:00

I will accept your mystery.
I will let your words to me have as much merit as your words to yourself.
I will accept locked doors.
I will focus on the proven.
I will give what you want to take and take only what you wish to give.
I will pass your tests unknowingly.
I will be myself.

You will see.

compulsion

2007-04-11T11:39:00.000-04:00

This dangerous, disturbing trend wherein I fixate on things, sometimes things I should leave alone, also makes me feel like I think better.

I gain capacity as I lose control.

I would like it to be something that I could turn on when I had something interesting to do.

As it is, all I can do is ride it out while I do boring things at work, read a lot of Wikipedia, Google things I shouldn't, and allocate money in the budget in case this turns the corner on me into anxiety.

Frankly, I thought I had the cause of this pinned down when I laid off the non-pharmaceutical psychoactives.

(pardon me; I'm at work.)

I am only an egg

2007-04-09T10:13:00.000-04:00

I have so much code I want to complain about right now, ostensibly written by a more experienced developer.

I can't.

I don't know if that makes it better or worse, but I guess the transition to "quietly confident" is underway.

lament

2007-04-09T09:49:00.000-04:00

with you
forty eight
seventy two
heartbeat
and time's up.

without you
six hours
thirty two
minutes
and counting.

Einstein, the lover
knew relativity well.

I am not a scientist.
I am a man with a clock.
This is no proof
but I am ill inclined to argue
that time slows down
until I am at rest
relative to you.

little boxes

2007-04-05T10:11:00.001-04:00

Run. It's an escaped post from some hypothetical secret blog.

People are flawed, and I like that.

If you know somebody's weaknesses, you know them pretty thoroughly. You can build a mental map of their choices from any starting point and pretty much preclude their ever surprising you.

That's not just cold. That's a ticket in. If I don't think I understand you well enough, you're dangerous and I'm not interested in getting close.

There are exceptions. If I get an understanding of a person accidentally, or through their persistence and no particular effort on my part, I can get a picture of their personality with no corresponding weakness map. I am then compelled to get to know them.

It's my weakness. In my desire to make people harmless, I get too close. There is usually a lot more to each relationship and friendship, but it's a pretty standard contributing factor. I can be honest about the facts. I can also be tricky about the execution -- a depressing proposition. Both the means and the ends are manipulative.

Selfish people are the easiest to read. They are the most naively expressive. Their wants, valid or not, are unaccustomed burdens that itch at them constantly. One could arrange for their wants to be fulfilled and see what crops up next. That would be instructive.

Artistic people can also be easy to read. Like selfish people, they assign considerable merit to their emotional impulses. The difficulty is that the sophisticated artist can subvert his or her impulses until they are barely recognizable. Without a deep understanding of this individual, trying to decode their artistic output is putting the cart before the horse. Luckily, artists tend to have more chaotic personal lives than non-artists, giving more opportunities for displays of genuine emotion. Unless you catch an actor in a crisis, you can be badly fooled. And I hate to reinforce the stereotype, but sometimes it's hard to know what is a real crisis.

To know the less sophisticated artist better, there is an 'in' if you are conversant in their art. By understanding the idiosyncracies of their methods, you have a window into their preoccupations. From my music, you would learn that I wish to be noticed and taken seriously. You would hear persistent, but often tentative, sexual undertones. You would conclude that I need intensity of experience, possibly at the expense of personal style, development or sophistication. The volume goes from barely audible to way too loud, overwhelming any nuance. You would hear discomfort with my voice and confidence in my idiosyncracies. You'd be pretty much spot-on.

It's easier to see this sort of thing in amateur music, which is most of the appeal to me. Strong production turns John Q. Performer into a particular audience's Everyman, and information is lost. But sometimes I'm glad to see it go. Watching Edwin (remember him?) on stage, I realized that he enjoys performing, but he mostly does it to get laid, and sometimes with amateur bands it's even more intense, and you can see their whole plan, where songwriting, performance, exposure and success are all cogs in the small machine driving their pelvises.

Bitter much, yo? I guess. You'd also learn from my music that I spend a lot of time in denial -- about past lovers and current ones, about who I am, what I'm capable of, and whether in the big scheme of things I mean anything to anybody.

Right. That brings me 'round to confidence.

Secure people are easier to read than insecure people. Givers are harder to read than takers. The more jealously you guard your identity, the more underhanded the means must be to expose it.

The hardest person of all to understand is the one who gives constantly out of fear that you will abandon them, and who acts constantly out of fear that you might not like who they really are. This person spends so much time subverting his or her inner wants out of fear of loss, that you might bump into the unafraid version of this person and not know them.

If you want to know a giver better, declare a giving holiday and press them to take. Start small. Work up. At the end of the day you will have a catalog of the person's inner wants, which will illuminate their inner fears. You can reassure them and make them happy.

...and slightly more dependent, and unlikely to leave.

And now you know my weakness.

the idiot

2007-03-29T14:01:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's post has been removed. If you know me well, you know the story. If you don't, why am I telling you?

Why indeed. I have one minor complain concerning my last employer. Nothing serious. I'm moving on.

absolutely awesome

2007-03-29T13:47:00.000-04:00

I realize this is going to make my blog take forever to load up.

Zoom in. Lots. You probably want to click the link below to pop a new window.

bigger!

P.S. Darwin rules.

my job

2007-01-02T13:43:00.000-05:00

adding Sample [...] Data..started (takes about a minute) finished in 2.30287599563599 seconds adding [...] to [...]...started (this couple of minutes!) finished in 12.7613999843597 seconds ... adding [...]...started (takes roughly a minute and a quarter) finished in 858.921142101288 seconds

self-sufficiency

2006-12-31T11:39:00.000-05:00

This year, my last particles of need flared and died. Sometimes even my wants are remote. Am I hungry? Am I cold? Magic 8-ball, what do you think?

I thought, a long time ago, that I would change the world. I only change myself.

When we consider other people, remember that. We are alone in universes of our own creation. It's not so bad, but it makes it really silly to rely on other people to help you think, or for reflection of self-worth. Extroverts, I'm looking at you here.

Even so, fuck SUVs. Now where did that come from?

programming a bittersweet symphony

2006-12-15T09:02:00.000-05:00

C++

You work with a talented orchestra. Each musician has the best fundamentals on the planet. They do exactly what you tell them to. Musicians explode when you do not remind them to breathe. After several weeks, you notice that some musicians are carrying five or six instruments because you did not tell them to put their instrument away after each performance.

Java

You work with a talented orchestra simulation. The players already know how to play, but they're pedantic and make you explain it excruciatingly slowly. The performance is beautiful, if a tiny bit slow, but people in the audience insist that it's only a simulation, because nobody exploded.

C

You work with a talented collection of cells, which you differentiate carefully into a set of musicians, and train to be in an orchestra. The oboe players occasionally explode, but think of what you started with!

COBOL

You are tone-deaf. The orchestra makes money.

BASIC

You work with a talented orchestra, but they only play Simon and Garfunkel. You have no wand, so they insist you count beats, loudly and by tens. People begin to suspect that loudly counting beats causes brain damage. You move to another city. Sometimes you find yourself humming "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

Assembly

You are firing lighting bolts into shallow pools. You expect to have an orchestra in 3.1 billion years.

Visual Basic

You work with a talented kindergarten class. They have kazoos. You draw a picture of an orchestra and hope they get the idea.

Pascal

You work with a talented orchestra. The musicians are under strict union rules as to what can be played, decided upon by a brilliant conductor 40 years ago. The only use you get out of them is in having them train another orchestra.

C#

You work with a talented orchestra simulation. The players already know how to play. The performance is beautiful, if a bit slow. When nobody explodes, Microsoft asks you for money.

Lisp

You tell a musician to (tell a musician to (tell a musician to (tell a musician to (tell a musician to...))))

Scheme

; You could train an entire orchestra, if you could find a musician.

PHP

Somebody hands you a talented orchestra, and they come with songs. That's kind of cool.

Perl

You swear at an orchestra. They play. Somebody else swears at the orchestra. They play.

HQ9+

You work with a talented orchestra. You knock off early and go to the pub.

PROLOG

You work with a talented group of discrete mathematics professors. You struggle to describe the perfect performance. They play it perfectly, but they won't leave campus.

LOGO

You want music. You kick a turtle.

Ruby+Rails

You hire an orchestra. You tell them which songs to play. They ignore you and play the songs that you really ought to want them to play.

from Ruby with love

2006-12-14T08:08:00.000-05:00

Edit: This post shows all the symptoms of classical Java withdrawal. It's frustrating at first to have your productivity limited not by the amount you can type in a day, but the amount you can think in a day.

Also, seriously, documentation has gotten a lot better over the course of the year. N00bs can be sent to noobkit to gorge.

More technical posts. Maybe the one I'm pissing off is you, dear reader.

On a page called "To Ruby From Java", I found a comparison between Java and Ruby. The exposition style of a lot of Ruby documentation makes me angry. I like an author to consider his audience to be intelligent, to try to justify decisions, and to convince me of best practices. Evangelize me with the documentation. When they don't -- especially when they order me around and talk down to me -- I make fun of them in my head as I read.

With that in mind, here's my marked up version.

Similarities

As with Java, in Ruby,...

Memory is managed for you via a garbage collector.

This is good.

Objects are strongly typed.

Only, there's no practical way to tell during development what an object's type really is.

There are public, private, and protected methods.

Phew. Apple II BASIC always gives me anxiety attacks.

There are embedded doc tools (Ruby’s is called RDoc). The docs generated by rdoc look very similar to those generated by javadoc.

Problem is, rdoc breaks on Rails, and Rails is the only reason most people use Ruby.

Differences

Unlike Java, in Ruby,...

You don’t need to compile your code. You just run it directly.

This is called an "interpreted language." It's like getting a Russian mail-order bride and needing to keep her uncle around all the time to translate. Awkward.

There are different GUI toolkits. Ruby users can try WxRuby, FXRuby, Ruby-GNOME2, or the bundled-in Ruby Tk for example.

Every language has different GUI toolkits. Ruby has native UI capability in...around 0.5% of installed desktops? Feel free to correct me. A toolkit that looks pretty much like Windows 95 is great in Windows 95: it's not great in XP. It's a show-stopper in Vista.

You use the end keyword after defining things like classes, instead of having to put braces around blocks of code.

I love typing three characters where I used to get away with one.

You have require instead of import.

Ruby uses require instead of import, except where it uses include, except where people inject their methods into your classes long after the fact.

All member variables are private. From the outside, you access everything via methods.

The method created has the same name as the variable, so attr_accessor is a way of saying "public" without saying "public." I wonder how member variables are done in Java.

Parentheses in method calls are usually optional and often omitted.

And this is in no way confusing when method calls can have optional parameters. Today I read a gotcha on how Ruby can make an intelligent guess at whether a symbol refers to a method or a variable, and be wrong. I'm glad that the interpreter gives a warning about missing parentheses, and I hope that Ruby 2 clears this up.

Everything is an object, including numbers like 2 and 3.14159.

Every time I ask for a number, you give me a calculator with that number punched into it. I've usually got a calculator already, thanks.

There’s no static type checking.

if(firework.responds_to?(:explode))

firework.explode
firework

end
=> #<NuclearPowerPlant:0xb7ca2418>

Variable names are just labels. They don’t have a type associated with them.
There are no type declarations. You just assign to new variable names as-needed and they just “spring up” (i.e. a = [1,2,3] rather than int[] a = {1,2,3};).

Right, so you have to guess what kind of variable springs up...like if x=10 and y=3

x/y = z
z*y

=> 9
wtf?

oh
x.to_f / y = 3.333333333

That's intuitive. Thank you for not letting me specify what kind of math to do in advance, and then doing the wrong kind. Like C, only worse.

There’s no casting. Just call the methods. Your unit tests should tell you before you even run the code if you’re going to see an exception.

This is because unit tests cover 100% of your code, and because the language ought to dictate the development style. Right.

It’s foo = Foo.new("hi") instead of foo = new Foo("hi").

Except when I call new(), Ruby calls initialize().

The constructor is always named “initialize” instead of the name of the class.

Except I call it using new(). Whiskey tango foxtrot. Over.

You have “mixin’s” instead of interfaces.

...or multiple inheritance. This language was MADE for multiple inheritance. Mixins don't actually make things any easier! They just create an artificial distinction between inheritance sources and destinations. Here is where I see promise, and where my mail-order bride spits in my face. If modules are the right way to do this, then there's something available in classes that shouldn't be, and I'm alright with admitting that I lack the practical experience to see what...but why the distinction?

YAML tends to be favored over XML.

That makes sense, because it's sensitive to spacing like Python, and not defined with explicit close statements like Ruby or XML. RUBY LACKS CONSISTENCY, in the language itself. YAML is just another layer of arbitrary, domain-specific convention.

It’s nil instead of null.

When you get 'nil encountered' instead of 'NullPointerException', that makes all the difference.

Yes, I get many things done in a hell of a hurry with Ruby. That is because it has a terse syntax, but not as terse as Perl, because it is a dynamic language, but not as dynamic as Lisp, and because Ruby on Rails is almost a domain-specific language, but not as domain-specific as PHP. It does what it does, well. It's just a compromise, and somewhere in my coder's soul, I can at least imagine the concept of a toolkit that compromised a lot better.

Ruby might be the Next Big Thing. If so, it will be even more critical to hit CS students hard and early with Lisp, and actually use it for something, so that when they run into Ruby, they'll see where it's powerful, and where Matz's Principle of (Matz's) Least Surprise left us with a sad amalgam of Smalltalk, Python and C syntax, without getting the developer the consistent cognitive flow of a language that was designed with a clean slate.

mental blox

2006-12-13T09:56:00.000-05:00

Today, I was sitting at my desk, coding, thinking, and listening to a song I wrote and performed but have never played. I was trying to play along on an imaginary piano on my spiral notebook.

My fingers wouldn't behave. Index, ring, middle, pinky. That's the sequence, and my fingers wouldn't do it. I was getting pretty frustrated.

I realized I was sitting in front of a keyboard. "What the hell. I could type j, l, k, semicolon...no problem."

So I mentally mapped the home keys to a virtual piano, and suddenly my fingers were dancing.

A mental block is a funny thing. One cognitive trick can break it.

Though I usually take a very intuitive approach with problem-solving, I'm going to try the "where have I seen this before" approach more often.

Adventures in Ruby on Rails

2006-12-11T13:13:00.000-05:00

This post is going to be technical; even more so than my Daily WTF-style rants about coding style. I promise to piss somebody off next week.

My development environment is Kubuntu/Edgy Eft 6.10. With the exception of a Mac Mini for testing, every other PC in the shop runs Windows 2000 or XP.

I needed to set up Ruby on Rails in Eclipse with a MySQL connector, and everybody else was using Instant Rails, so I was on my own to get things working.

I already had Ruby 1.8.4 installed on my system. I use Amarok heavily (and enjoy it muchly), and it requires Ruby. The Rails developers suggest Ruby 1.8.5, but this is not in the Edgy repositories. If Rails breaks support for 1.8.5, watch this space for a post on compiling Ruby from source.

Here is what I did. You can do it, too, if you really really want to.

Rails on Ubuntu/Kubuntu

Many Ruby Gems build native libraries, so prepare for this by installing the required tools. I think it's silly not to include build-essential in Ubuntu by default -- Nvidia and ATI closed-source drivers fail without it, it's not going to be noticed or cared about by users who don't need it, and it might help to have it to get a network connection up. Seems like the philosophy of Ubuntu, "linux for human beings," overriding the utility.*

(Blogger is breaking my #target URLs. Scroll down and then back up for the asterisk. Apologies.)

Right, right. On with it:

Install build-essential.
sudo apt-get install build-essential

Make sure MySQL is installed.
sudo apt-get install mysql-server

Get Ruby and whatever packages its hard little heart desires.
sudo aptitude install irb libdbm-ruby1.8 libgdbm-ruby1.8 libmysql-ruby1.8 libmysqlclient14 libopenssl-ruby1.8 libruby1.8-dbg mysql-common ri ri1.8 ruby1.8-dev rdoc1.8 libyaml-ruby libzlib-ruby zlib1g-dev

RubyGems, being a package system, again falls in the category of things that are made more difficult by major differences in philosophy and minor details in implementation. But really, it Just Works once you have it set up, so I went ahead and tainted my Perens-pure system with it.

The snippet below is for RubyGems 0.9.0.
cd ~
wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/11289/ rubygems-0.9.0.tgz
tar xzfv rubygems-0.9.0.tgz
cd rubygems-0.9.0
sudo ruby setup.rb
sudo gem update --system (There's a space in the wget line so that the line will break properly. If you're pasting this, you'll need to reassemble the URL.)If all went well, gem will fire up and update its package list.

You can clean up your home folder if you wish, at this point. Use
cd .. && rm -rf ./rubygems-0.9.0

Now Rails.
sudo gem install rails --include-dependencies

WEBrick runs fine, but Mongrel can be installed now, quite easily:
sudo gem install mongrel --include-dependenciesI added more MySQL support at this point. The libmysqlclient14-dev library is required to build the native MySQL connector gem.
sudo aptitude install mysql-server-5.0 mysql-client-5.0 mysql-admin libmysqlclient14-dev Now you're ready to install the MySQL connector:
sudo gem install mysql

Rails in Eclipse on Kubuntu/Ubuntu

I assume for this section that you have Eclipse running and the Subclipse plugin installed. I would give you those instructions too, but it's been too long and I would have to dismantle my development environment and retrace my steps -- I installed it many moons ago, when the howling was about Java and not Ruby/Rails.

In Eclipse, pick Help > Software Updates > Find and Install...

Select (o) Search for new features to install and click [Next >].

Create two new remote update sites for Ruby/Rails features.

[New Remote Site...] > RDT: http://updatesite.rubypeople.org/release
[New Remote Site...] > RadRails: http://radrails.sourceforge.net/update

Click Finish and install the newest version of all components (for RDT, look under Other, not Rubyclipse.)

Open Window > Preferences, and set the following configuration options:

Rails > Configuration

Rails path: /usr/bin/rails
Rake path: /usr/bin/rake
Mongrel path: /usr/bin/mongrel_rails

Ruby > Installed Interpreters

[Add]

Interpreter name: Ruby 1.8.4
Location: /usr/bin/ruby

Ruby > Ri/rdoc

RDoc path: /usr/bin/rdoc
RI path: /usr/bin/irb

Before you go wild opening your new perspectives and views, know this: In the Ruby perspective, for me, the Ruby Navigator throws stack overflows until Eclipse crashes. Also, this happens for the RDoc view in the Rails perspective. Your mileage may vary, but I nuked my workspace several times being over-ambitious.

Perspective for Java developers
You are about to move from a language that is

verbose,
defined by standards,
explicitly typed, and
supported by some of the best development tools and documentation in the world

to one that is

terse,
defined by convention,
strongly but implicitly typed (quack, quack, quack), and
developed using very immature tools and documentation that ranges from excellent to condescending to non-existent.

Ruby is dangerous. She will tell you what to do and not why. Those who know her better will tell you why you do not need to ask the questions you ask; you will still not receive the answer.

You will curse this little beauty and laugh at her insistence that she is nothing like Python. You will sometimes wish she was a little more like Python, or a lot less. Sometimes, when you grow weary of saying end, you will wish you were using Python right now.

You will know how to construct a hash before you can remember how to write a for loop.

You will do wonderful, terrible, productive things with her. You will love her and you will hate her and you will leave her and you will come up with excuses to go back to her.

All the while, you will feel like Java and content completion had you up on Cripple Creek, but you will tell your accessors to write themselves.

100.times do cry end.

* Searching for "linux for human beings who" gives some interesting results:

Linux For Human Beings (Who Like To Waste Time)

This is true. I do enjoy wasting time.

Linux for Human Beings. Who have too much time on their hands.

If I have time for EVE Online, I have time to add PLF repositories for DVD support.

Linux For Human Beings who don't want to do much with there distro!

Actually, I find I do more because I can't do the things that distract me in Windows. See above.

Linux for Human Beings who have an extra computer on hand and can Google for help in the middle of an install.

So true. So true. Only, you can sudo apt-get install links && links in a second text console and browse the web in text-mode glory, so you don't really need a second computer.

Linux for Human beings who don't want common garden variety multimedia support.

Sure, but you know that if you live in the United States, and install that common garden variety multimedia support, you are a Criminal and will go to Prison, with the Dope Fiends and other Enemies of Freedom.

Linux for human beings who like browsing forums and typing sudo a lot

I do like sudo. Sometimes I can get my girlfriend to do things by saying sudo first...partly because it's funny; partly because, hey, it's sudo.

Answering machine greetings: generic introvert

2006-11-28T14:50:00.000-05:00

Hello; you have reached Generic Introvert.

If you're an introvert, what the hell are you doing? Hang up and contact me by instant messenger -- ignore my status mode, which I only change when I'm seeing somebody new and too timid to initiate conversation.

Ok, you're still here. I'm not here at the moment. Actually, I likely am, but it's nice to have a machine that lies to you so I don't have to.

I can't deal with you or anybody else right now, and "just getting out" is going to make you feel better, not me, but I'm used to the uncomprehending stare I get when I tell you that.

If you're truly valuable to me, I'll get back to you. If you're tolerable, try again later when I feel like apologizing for not taking this call. Otherwise, it would be best for both of us if you assume that something is wrong with me and don't bother trying again.

You are tiresome, and I secretly regard you as defective because you need people, but if I piss you off I'll likely have alienated my last friend, so I totally respect your ability to project your personal energy, or some shit.

Ask me how I am and don't wait for a response. Go on, because it's actually your lack of empathy that makes it easier for you to project the image you want in public. Be aware that if I meet somebody who actually pays attention when I say the words I have carefully chosen, you will never hear from me again.

Please leave the number of times you have called with no response.

beep

Answering machine greetings: generic extrovert

2006-11-28T14:46:00.000-05:00

Hi. You have reached Generic Extrovert.

If you're also an extravert, ask me how I am even though you don't expect an answer, and then jump into some plans; you know I love that shit. Assume I'll be there unless I call you to let you know I have something better to do. Press '1' to leave a message now, or call me on my cell phone, or page me, or just holla', yo.

Okay, that leaves you-know-who. If you should have called earlier, leave a distraction at the beep; otherwise your call will be returned along with a commentary on how little you value this friendship. I only put up with this shit because I consider it charitable work. If it wasn't for me, you would probably die of loneliness and sexual frustration.

If you are returning a call, I'm out doing something cool like the things that you never do, because you never do anything, and you could be doing it too if you had responded to any of my three attempts to reach you. Wherever I am, I'm trying to give all the energy I have to the right people, and not let it be stolen by black holes like you.

If you've reached my voicemail because you know I'm not here right now and that's easier for you, you should probably stop getting high, because it makes you even weirder. Be advised that I like you a lot better when you're drunk, except for that one time when you scared everybody.

Please leave a compliment.

beep

suck it X

2006-11-16T14:06:00.000-05:00

If you hate gays, it's because your own sexual repression hurts so much. That one's fun; it's like the rubber-glue game.

Regarding men and hot girl-on-girl: Lesbians don't need you. They want you to go away.

suck it IX

2006-11-16T14:03:00.000-05:00

Hybrids still run on gasoline, so don't get smug. Your hybrid delays the price spike that will cause widespread transition to alternative fuels. (This is the one reason SUVs aren't so bad.)

Also, even with lower fuel consumption, you won't save the extra money you spent to buy it.

suck it VIII

2006-11-16T14:00:00.000-05:00

Since research has established that SUV drivers are assholes, when I'm in a bad mood, I go out of my way to impede you. Just doing my part.

suck it VII

2006-11-16T13:59:00.000-05:00

If you think accents are sexy, consider this scenario: You have a contagious STD, no conscience and some extra cash. You want to get laid. What's your move?

suck it VI

2006-11-16T13:57:00.000-05:00

Having two spoilers on the back of your car demonstrates to everybody, everywhere you go, your complete ignorance of the purpose of a spoiler. Also, they make your car slower. Just so you know.

suck it V

2006-11-16T13:50:00.000-05:00

If you have a sugar daddy, you are essentially a prostitute.

If your boyfriend likes dressing you up like a schoolgirl, he's probably thinking pedophilia is too risky.

suck it IV

2006-11-16T13:47:00.000-05:00

The fastest car is a Cavalier, because the driver doesn't give a shit. His fenders cost less than your vanity mirrors, so he can sneak through spaces that are technically smaller than his car. Your Audi is just to make you feel better about yourself, because you work too much and everyone else is having more sex than you.

suck it III

2006-11-16T13:45:00.000-05:00

McDonald's makes millions of dollars every year from people who wonder if McDonald's tastes the same in Exotic Locale X as it does at home. Yes, it does. Now give me three dollars, I'll punch you in the stomach and we'll call it even.

suck it II

2006-11-16T13:39:00.000-05:00

If you don't want your child learning about evolution, maybe you should let the rest of us have the children.

Corollary: If you think mutations and adaptations don't give rise to new species, try marrying your other cousin.

suck it: first in a series

2006-11-16T13:34:00.000-05:00

As part of my ongoing effort to care less what other people think, I'm going to offend some people and see how that goes. You might think that these people are easy targets and it's cool to be anti-them. In this case, I don't care what you think.

"Players" should be burned like other biohazardous waste.

See you next time.

my home, your wasteland

2006-11-16T11:40:00.000-05:00

How the hell did Larry O'Brien get elected? No tax increase, no panhandling, no graffiti?!

I realized after Nancy's post that I don't notice crime that much. I moved to Ottawa more than eight years ago, now, and violent crime around here seems to be a lot of the same drunken shivving that earned Peterborough's downtown the nickname, "beer 'n' fights".

Then again, due to the population density here, things happen a lot closer. Nobody's been murdered in my side alley (this isn't Vanier, after all) but once I got to thinking...

It's right there. I've lived in a few of the worst places in the city, and I've always felt safe, but why is that? One of the nightly hollerings I'm always hearing turned into a beating. If the apartment faced the other way, I might have heard my car window break. The police knew that debit customers' money was being stolen at the fast food place but didn't do anything about it (I've heard that a man was arrested, but the business is still operating). Some guy asked Jaime if we were "cool" when we stuck our heads out the window while they spray-painted the side of the building. Dude, that's my rent.

But stealing cable is theft. Software piracy is theft. People still get thrown in jail for marijuana. These are the criminal risks I've taken in my life, but they never really worried me much. I think it's a matter of perspective. I see people break the law and life goes on. I break the law and life goes on. I develop a list of laws that "count" and ones that don't. I don't hurt anybody I know. I'm a little hesitant to think of a multibillion dollar corporation as being composed of people.

I become tolerant of petty crime, because I know that at the low end of the scale, the system is self-adjusting. In my mind, somebody stole my laptop and cellphone for drug money because their life sucks. Mine, not so much. I called the police and expected them to do nothing, and that's what they did. Life goes on.

Right. Larry.

I think that sometimes, if you live out in Kanata somewhere, when you come into the core for a little shopping, you see panhandlers, and they make you angry, because they always want your money, and they just ask you and make you feel guilty, like they're entitled to it, like you didn't work for it, like they couldn't work hard for a lot less of it at first and maybe turn their life around, like they aren't just going to piss it away. (Now I'm so flustered, I've completely forgotten where Lush is.)

I think that sometimes, if you live out in Orleans somewhere, when you come into the core for your government job you see graffiti, which makes you think of gangs and drugs and guns, which makes you think about your kids in high school, who aren't old enough to be entirely legally responsible for themselves but are old enough to make it really difficult for you to chase after them, and you associate graffiti with bad things and want it to go away because it's disgusting and disrespectful, a waste of resources and an eyesore. (So is your SUV, but at least it makes you look rich.)

Is that my point? I guess it is. If you move away to suburbia, the things you leave behind seem alien and threatening. Life isn't that hard and city services are wasted on the undeserving.

People depend on homeless shelters to live. For comparison, it would take at minimum several months before no garbage collection might kill you. Therefore, the values of conservative suburbanites prove that in general, you are idiots. If you don't want to work on the hardest problems in a community first, get the hell out of my city.

"We have a spending problem," says O'Brien. No, we have a problem with spending. Ultimately, selfish, shallow people would rather do less with less.

I live in the city core, and the people who elected O'Brien don't, and his policies will affect my neighbourhood the most. Poor people don't scare me. What scares me is rich people who don't care.

release

2006-11-13T15:28:00.000-05:00

I often refer to my posts about an internal tightness, or some part of me spinning. Today I will describe the motor.

Most of my successes in life have come when I could talk myself out of being my own worst enemy on some limited set of terms. I make an internal agreement and the Voice Of Doubt shuts up.

The Voice Of Doubt has always left me alone on matters of intellect, except mathematics and music. The Voice Of Doubt knows I'm going to wreck my car, but won't tell me when. The Voice Of Doubt makes my jokes not funny halfway through so that my voice drops to inaudibility. The Voice of Doubt tells me that I have to pick very intelligent women to date so that they will respect me, and then outsmart them into not leaving. The Voice Of Doubt tells me that people don't like me for what I am, but rather what I make myself. The Voice Of Doubt pauses, briefly, in the face of contradictory evidence, and starts up again at the slightest provocation.

For an aspect of my personality obsessed with intellect, the VOD is undoubtedly the stupidest thing I have ever come up with.

Soothing the Voice Of Doubt is with contradictory experiences is a compulsion for me, and with a pessimist's memory and perception, the VOD warps my experiences, sometimes in real-time, so that I don't develop "excessive" (usually any) self-esteem from anything but knowing the right answer.

I am sick of the VOD, and I am onto him. I will find this lump, too, and cauterize it; after that, my ego and I may not fit in the same room.

But to all the people in my life, past and present, who have struggled to make me feel appreciated, attractive, likable, funny, or anything but smart, I apologize. I was fighting you all the way. I learned about 18 months ago that I'm not weak, and I'm tired of being my own critic. VOD is going down.

Don't reassure me. I'll remember what you said. I've had plenty of help with this already.

...and I'm...

2006-10-26T14:06:00.000-04:00

...apparently, the only one.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=%22i+hate+april+wine%22

here, Laertes

2006-09-19T11:19:00.000-04:00

Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!

touché

2006-09-13T16:08:00.000-04:00

How to Dissuade Yourself from Becoming a Blogger hits the nail pretty much on the head. The point about the Wayback Machine is well taken.

My blog output is inversely proportional to my musical output.

they're good for you

2006-09-11T20:56:00.000-04:00

Some of you found it funny last time I used my blog to tell a joke. Some thought it was lame and would rather I post something personally revealing or bizarre.

These two groups of people may find their thinking much more closely aligned by this new discovery. Unless I fail.

Awesome.

the unbearable lightness of being

2006-09-07T13:33:00.000-04:00

For the past week, I have been debugging code in a program that simulates a cable box. This box has only one channel, which plays, in a loop, the theme to Sex and the City and the first two seconds of an episode entitled "the agony and the 'ex'tasy."

I apologize for any glazed looks, rudeness, headaches, nausea, misdirected rage, software piracy, homicides, naval piracy, offshore funds transfers, burying of treasure, coups d'etat, unethical genetic engineering, underground nuclear testing, rainforest destruction, synthesis of antimatter, deglaciation, crashing the moon into the east coast, failure to wash hands, or any other ethical or legal affronts I may have (understandably) committed during this period.

I also apologize for this apology, which is being written as the theme song approaches one hundred repetitions today.

asuri sampad

2006-09-05T11:22:00.000-04:00

In August many things happened. In general, I dealt with them. I did not write about them. I garnered some criticism for this. Perhaps I make some kind of sense, sometimes.

There was a thing with my mother and her ex-boyfriend, that may or may not have involved a chimney, power tools being thrown off a roof, inappropriate contact with the new girlfriend, dangerous driving, screaming, and a temper tantrum involving roof tar. My mom tells me what she can. There are very few men in the world who could surprise me with their behaviour. After you know a man long enough, you either know them or you realize that you can't know them. My erstwhile stepfather falls into the latter category.

Women are different. There are two sets of characteristics, and it's like agreed terms. You are aware in advance that you will know one particular set of things, and another set you will never know. I'm not sure if that's better, but at least it's easier to plan a life around it. (Some men might add a third set, but some men are chickenshit.)

Sometimes I feel that my life has been primarily a struggle to avoid learning from anyone else. My mother doesn't completely deserve that, and of course I was fond of many teachers. But this man -- more like an estranged brother than a father -- I tried to make him "dad," and it just wasn't there.

When I met him, I was eight. I'm twenty six and I don't feel him. I gave up a long time ago...just going through the motions to keep my mother happy.

Abstractly, I wonder if it would have gone this long if I hadn't covered his ass.

I remember him yelling at me, in a rage; I had never experienced this before and have only let one person do it to me since. I had done some childish thing, and he told me that I thought I was so fucking smart, but I was stupid, stupid, stupid.

Just like the five year old bully down the street, the day after I told him where babies come from, the morning after he told his mother and she called mine to complain, the day before he would claim that he was born with his underwear on.

My stepdad, the bully.

My stepdad, the five year old.

Clearly, he feels it's okay to be bitter now. He is just beginning to cope with this loss. I'm over it. I understand my lack of place in his life and his in mine. We were children, both.

I threatened him, because I was his lover's son; a rival for her affection, or her attention. You lose, Jack.

The problem is, if I learned anything from him about relationships, then I lose, too.

things I have seen on my coworker's screen

2006-09-05T11:14:00.000-04:00

"fruit development"

That's it. I've got nothing else. But the guy was fired a couple of weeks later, and I found this in my drafts and laughed. What the hell is fruit development?

in vino veritas

2006-07-31T10:11:00.000-04:00

On a message thread about Mel Gibson's drunken anti-semitism:

Don't believe anyone who tells you they didn't mean what they said when they were drunk.

When someone is drunk they say exactly what they mean.

Exactly. That guy is so far up Shit Creek now.

If you still make a distinction between sloshed and sober sentiment, just be aware that you're giving points for style.

Dear Spamming Jackhole

2006-07-23T21:22:00.000-04:00

First of all, "Jackhole" is underused. Shout it at your favourite bad driver, pedophile or cheating ex-partner.

Secondly, the number of people looking for pr3scr1pt10n pharmz!!! on my blog is probably fairly low. Check out myspace. That would seem to be a better fit.

Finally, Spam is for Vikings. It goes fine with baked beans and eggs. I used to think it was an acronym for the parts of the animals incorporated into the "smeat" (use imagination here). Spam is not for blogs.

Wait. I just realized that I'm not done, but this is not to the spamming jackhole.

It's you! You, the schmuck clicking on these links. There are many fine ways to buy the pharmo-narcotics or sexual enhancements you apparently seek. Why, oh why, would you decide to finally these out after a visit to my blog? This wouldn't happen if it didn't work.

I think it's the people who make spamming worthwhile that really disappoint me. But what do they care. They can finally get it up.

Jackholes.

avast

2006-07-10T10:45:00.000-04:00

If ye've seen this before, I be sorry.

stuck on always trying this

2006-07-06T21:24:00.000-04:00

I decided to take down the "blonde joke" because somebody found it offensive.

However, you can still find it here.

> inventory

2006-07-04T16:23:00.000-04:00

Based on a true story.

> _

> inventory
You are carrying:
Key ring
Expedition watch
Worn, bulging black leather wallet

> remove watch
You remove the Expedition watch.

> put keys in drawer
You open the drawer.
You put the key ring in the drawer.
You close the drawer.

> look in wallet
Your worn, bulging black leather wallet contains:
Personal debit card
VISA card
Bridgehead Coffee gift card
Shoppers Drug Mart Optimum card
Class G driver's licence
Province of Ontario birth certificate
Printed (not stamped) SIN card, held together with tape
University of Ottawa student card with no visible expiry date
Business debit card
Health plan card
Chapters gift card
Business card of former employer
Chapters iRewards card
HMV gift card
SportChek gift card
Thai restaurant receipt
Parking ticket
$2 US
Royal Caribbean room receipt
ATM receipt from Cozumel, Mexico
Royal Caribbean Sky Bar receipt
Royal Caribbean Sky Bar receipt
Royal Caribbean Sky Bar receipt
Royal Caribbean Sky Bar receipt
Bridgehead Coffee rewards card
Pizza Pizza coupon
Royal Oak receipt
Music World gift card
W3C "Quick Tips to make Accessible Web Sites" card
$0.05 Canadian Tire 'Money'
"Star Wars Choose Your Destiny" winning label for free drink at BK
Sub Club card with 8 Subway Stamps
Subway stamp
Subway stamp
Subway stamp
Subway stamp
Bus ticket
Bus ticket
Winning label for $2 off any Quiznos sub
Honda radio reset code card
Nearly illegible ATM receipt from La Guardia Airport
MORE Organ donor card
University of Ottawa Reprography Service copy card
Health card (without photo), held together with tape
$15 Canadian

> throw away crap
You are not sure what "crap" is.

> throw away junk
You do not see the junk here.

> throw away junk in wallet.
You do not have the junk in worn, bulging black leather wallet.

> take junk from wallet
Junk is not in your worn, bulging black leather wallet.

> find junk
Find it yourself.

> take garbage from wallet.
You do not have the garbage in worn, bulging black leather wallet.

> this can't be good for my back
I don't understand what you're trying to say.

> remove business card from wallet
You are now carrying the business card.

> i was before, too.
I don't understand what you're trying to say.

> remove receipt from wallet
Which receipt? The Thai restaurant receipt, the Royal Caribbean room receipt, the ATM receipt from Cozumel, Mexico, the Royal Caribbean Sky Bar Receipt, the Royal Caribbean Sky Bar Receipt, the Royal Caribbean Sky Bar Receipt, the Royal Caribbean Sky Bar Receipt, or the Royal Oak receipt?

(take)> all
You take the Thai restaurant receipt, the Royal Caribbean room receipt, the ATM receipt from Cozumel, Mexico, the Royal Caribbean Sky Bar Receipt, and the Royal Caribbean Sky Bar Receipt.

Your hands are full.

You try to take the Royal Caribbean Sky Bar Receipt, but your hands are full.
You try to take the Royal Caribbean Sky Bar Receipt, but your hands are full.
You try to take the Royal Oak receipt, but your hands are full.

> throw receipts in garbage
You throw away the Thai restaurant receipt, the Royal Caribbean room receipt, the ATM receipt from Cozumel, Mexico, the Royal Caribbean Sky Bar Receipt, and the Royal Caribbean Sky Bar Receipt.

> take recasdffvbdlf
I don't understand what you're trying to say.

> screw it
You do not have screw.

> put wallet in drawer.
You open the drawer.
You put worn, bulging black leather wallet in the drawer.
With some effort, you manage to close the drawer.

> _

best blonde joke ever

2006-07-04T16:20:00.000-04:00

This article now links to this article due to unavoidable factors.

the ride's better when you scream

2006-06-15T11:17:00.000-04:00

The inaugural summer road trip is less than 36 hours away. It will be action packed and exciting.

Well, it will be Wonderland, anyway. I'm kind of a coaster junkie, so I hope the lineups are short. There's something wrong with Top Gun, though, and last time I rode it, I bruised my brain, so I'm not riding that again.

...maybe if the line up is really short.

I need to get out of this place. Jaime tells me about Europe and Japan and something inside me keens and climbs the inside of my ribcage. Let me out.

This obviously isn't the trip that my inner interloper is screaming for, but it will do for a few months.

in waves

2006-06-15T05:03:00.000-04:00

They wash over me: the cockiness, the fatigue, the conviction, the fear. Waves crash over each caravan of thought on its ill-conceived route, pulling what they can back with them as they recede. The stones of the road are buried beneath the sand.

Jaime works until 11:25 and I want to be able to see her after. I was supposed to nap in the evenings so that I could sustain this. So far I've managed to do it less than 10% of the time.

My mother and stepfather are separating, and my mother doesn't know how much that's affecting me. Nobody knows how my ex's delivery affected me. And my current relationship, so strong, so perfect, is making swooping passes at a familiar and unwelcome little spot.

the only way out was to give in

Everything is survival right now. I want to write about the great time I'm having, or not bother to write because I'm having too much fun, but my head is down and I am my task. I am Java code; I am a black Honda Civic.

I'm so glad that I'm an island

I've never been able to trust anybody else to help me solve my problems. I'd love to call that outdated thinking, but I'd hate to be wrong, so I'm compartmentalizing again. I've anchored everyone down, I'm in another room, and I'm phoning in my appearances. I think people won't notice.

I don't know if it's sleep that I need, but I do have the energy and the motivation to try to fix these things right now, and that's something that I have to seize. This feeling must not pass.

It's easier, certainly, to live a life devoid. Choose a job that leaves time for your life. Choose a life that is meaningless. Complain about the status quo and never lose out.

I don't work that way. I stopped fucking around a long time ago, and all my Fabergé eggs are wrapped in blankets in my backpack. The idea is for my body to be crushed before a single egg is damaged. It sounds insane, but it's what I want. It doesn't usually occur to me to keep my distance. I do my thing and I end up with another beautiful egg.

In my self-image, I am humble and accommodating, and I'd be happy to take new things on if that's alright with you. That self-image is not getting me through this. That guy is in sand up to his neck, and the real me is the rock beneath.

You cannot build a life from only beautiful parts. They are not load-bearing. Somewhere, behind the exquisite statues, columns that are tapered just so and the elaborate frieze, is a metre-thick wall.

I'm not complaining. I am very nearly the sum of my decisions. I just wonder what it would feel like to be the Adonis and not the wall; what would change and what would not.

clarification

2006-06-06T12:33:00.000-04:00

Ask and I receive.

My boss is trying to develop an idea that seems like he wants to take advantage of my recent experience in building a PVR.

I'm interested. I'm interested in the tech, and also the idea of having one boss or maybe two. I'm interested in having 8 hour days, and weekends and evenings in which I am able to do more than sleep and zombie impersonations. Last week I worked 8.9 standard work days.

My last post sounded like a thinly-veiled threat, but that's how it works. No threats. If I don't like things, I try to cause change myself; if that fails, I leave.

And that's not a veiled threat either. In fact, it's the reason my life is better than I ever expected it to be.

on|off

2006-06-06T10:15:00.000-04:00

My Big Project is done-esque.

I don't like how I act when I'm under a lot of stress, but there's some critical mass of stress that makes me get out of bed and go in to work. Less than that and I hardly care.

I guess this is where my boss steps in to make my job fun again, or I start hitting Monster in the evenings.

instability

2006-05-18T21:06:00.000-04:00

So tired.

This is probably a good time to post. I don't do it a lot and I sometimes rekindle a lot of my self-awareness to make things go just so, and I don't want that right now. I just want to vent. Sense will not be made.

There's a little flywheel inside me. There are things I do that run on energy -- not the kind that I generate on demand but the kind that I store up.

As an example, sometimes I seek out some fun, and then I do something that I know will make me uncomfortable. Between enjoyment and emotional self-injury is a lurch that winds up my flywheel. Then I go write some music, or something. I don't pretend to be transparent, but why would I do things that I know are going to bother me? Why go there? It used to be a lot worse.

haze

It's nine o'clock and I should be asleep.

This post is turning into cheese, cats and Montréal, again.

haze

Royal Caribbean sent me a letter telling me that they can't wait to have me back onboard the Whatever of the Seas. Unfortunately, I am a control freak and that vacation, in so many ways, was so far outside of my control that I needed another vacation when I got back.

haze

I asked for wisdom and I accepted it. I am letting the clock run down.

Today I had the bright idea of comparing my life now to a year ago. I chose cross-sections of my life and of course everything is better. I am on a tear. But it seems dishonest to ignore the reasons I haven't been sleeping much lately.

It is a distinct possibility that everything comes apart.

I learned recently that my stepfather is an extremely jealous man. I don't think it takes conscious understanding of a behaviour in order to learn it. I have to admit that I will be extremely disappointed if I have to take him back into my life on my mother's terms. She has told me that it's over, and I've come to terms with things that mean that even if she goes back, I can't.

I like the fact that I am aware and that I am my own invention. Keep the outcomes good and I will continue to like it.

haze

There is a man named Jesus in charge of fixing an intermittent network problem between our development offices at work and our network services across town.

Unfortunately, the problem goes away on its own, so diagnosis is difficult.

Jesus has some good ideas, but we never seem to reach him in time.

haze

I am going to lay on the floor on my workout mat and listen to Intermedia and/or Futuresounds tell me what I have been doing and feeling these past two years.

jolt

No, I am not. I'm going to drive across town and pick my girlfriend up from work.

haze

We have the cure.

MN Crash Investigation Continues

2006-04-24T11:10:00.000-04:00

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) As the investigation into the charred wreckage discovered near St. Paul continues, the National Transportation Safety Board has begun to quietly acknowledge that they are no longer investigating a plane crash, but rather a "nonspecific aviation incident".

Although the nature of the wreckage could not be determined by the NTSB, personnel have confirmed that the wreckage corresponds to "no known commercial aircraft configuration." Federal officials are mum on the significance of a large quantity of videotape found in the wreckage, though inside sources confirm that the tapes prove that the crash was of an "exo-atmospheric vessel of at least suborbital capability."

Lead Grant Auditor Jane Killjoy of the National Science Foundation, a frequent visitor to the site, repeated her claims on Thursday that "even at this initial stage, it is clear that this wreckage represents one of the largest misallocations of NSF grants in the history of the Foundation," and confirmed that the NSF received and approved grant requests relating to the craft's construction. The NSF is under significant pressure to investigate allegations that it misfiled or lost draft scientific papers relating to the incident, submitted by the Gizmonic Institute to a series of increasingly disreputable scientific journals.

Among the more bizarre claims surrounding this story, investigators will neither confirm nor deny rumours that the apparent space vessel was part of a bizarre endurance experiment involving humans, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and really bad movies. Furthermore, officials offered no comment on the apparent leak of electronic copies of the video found in the wreckage.

Currently, nearly 200 distinct recordings are available on the Internet, many of which close with an exhortation to "keep circulating the tapes." However, their content, which includes what one special effects expert called "a $200 set and some puppets," casts doubt on their veracity.

The NTSB has maintained that no remains, "human or otherwise," were found on site.

slightly damaged

2006-04-21T10:22:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of a relationship, things seem fresh and new. The world has qualities that sing to extra senses. My partner seems slightly superhuman, and so do I.

I am not superhuman, and when I remember that, things change.

I can't fix everything. I can't always, or even usually, be the most attractive guy in the room. I don't know everything. I can't tell the future or read minds. I can't make all my past fuckups go away. I can't be happy all the time. I can't be the best at everything. I can't forget the times I found my favourite path, kept my eye on where I was going and still lost my way.

Of course, it's not just me. We all carry the Kryptonite taint.

Life is weird and complicated, especially mine. I don't stop taking on new things until I'm overloaded, which means I usually drop one, which means I'm no longer overloaded. I often badly misjudge the carrying capacity I have left. Sometimes I drop friendships, when I'm carrying too much. But those are weird and complicated friendships.

The friends I don't have to worry about are the people who are with me, not carried. People even see through my no-big-deal demeanor sometimes and try to share the load. How amazing is that, when I don't even know how to ask?

The journey metaphor is overdone, and it's not a very good one. No matter what anybody thinks they're doing, they are in fact lost in the same woods as everybody else. There is no magical glade. There is no end to wondering where you're going.

I have seen some crazy things in my woods. Usually, I knew where my friends were and I wandered a long way off. Fought bears with my shirt tied around my waist. Walked with my eyes closed for a while.

I don't want sympathy and I don't want to make a big deal out of it. Nearly every scar I wear is from some injury when I went somewhere against my better judgement and against the advice of my friends. But I'm back in the fold now and I remember, and when I'm not imagining bears everything seems pretty easy. I am not alone. I have the luxury of being able to wear my heart on my sleeve. There are no goddamned bears.

Every adult girlfriend I've had has been shocked at how easy it is for me to pick her up and carry her. I don't look like I should be able to piggyback a grown woman down the stairs, out the doors, and run down the street with her. It makes me grin like a maniac, which adds to the overall effect of me being slightly crazy.

I am slightly damaged, but I am way stronger than anybody thinks. I just wish I didn't have to wrestle bears to prove it.

thematic

2006-04-18T20:45:00.000-04:00

In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D., there was a guy named Joel, not too different from you or me.

He worked at Gizmonic Institute, just another face in a red jumpsuit. He did a good job cleaning up the place, but his bosses didn't like him so they shot him into space.

"We'll send him cheesy movies...the worst we can find! He'll have to sit and watch them all, and we'll monitor his mind!"

Now keep in mind Joel can't control when the movies begin or end, because he used those special parts to make his robot friends.

(robot roll call --
Cambot, Gypsy, Tom Servo, Crow)

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts, then repeat to yourself: "It's just a show. I should really just relax for Mystery Science Theater 3000."

more broken pencils

2006-04-18T10:31:00.000-04:00

Often I come across code that is syntactically correct, but really aggravates me in another way. It's hard for me to change it, because I shouldn't really be making changes to code that works. Occasionally, I find an excuse to change the functionality in some other way so that I can sneak in a change to something like this while I'm at it:

boolean justRewinded=false;

The people I work with are capable developers, and their first languages are as likely as not to be something other than English. But you can't make me spell things incorrectly in my code:

boolean wasPrescribed = service.wasContentPerscribed(contentRef); // TODO: vomit

I seem to have eradicated all traces of "perscription" from the system, but that was a touchy one for a while too.

hypnosis

2006-04-17T10:11:00.000-04:00

I don't know whether hypnosis is in any way valid, and I am glad I'm writing for my own blog right now and not some forum in which people might think I was soliciting professional opinions.

I must admit that with most of the big crushes I had in high school, the thought occurred to me to hypnotize them so that they would love me forever (muhahaha). In the cases where no hypnotism proved necessary to get them to like me, I was ultimately glad that I was just as bad at getting a girl's attention as I would have been at hypnotizing her.

Still, though...SLEEP! You want to beeee with meeee. You want to tell all your friends how coooool I am. You want to staaaay after schoooool and maaake out in the aaaart claaassroooooom. You will forget how creeeeeepy I am beeeeeing right nowwww.

So far as I could tell, hypnotism's only value was in making girls laugh, and that's not insignificant.

Years later, I researched brain waves and sound therapy as a way of trying to reduce anxiety about school, and, finding that ineffective, tried self-hypnosis. Sounds like a bad idea, doesn't it? "When I snap my fingers, I will wake up. When I snap my fingers...when...I...snap...my..." Nothing worked, because nothing addressed the root problem, which is that I hated school and I hated not doing well at school.

Jaime and I have extended a Mystery Science Theater 3000 joke, from the movie The She Creature. Though explaining MST is beyond the scope of this entry, at appropriate(?) points in the movie, the hecklers insert everyday lines as uttered by the world famous hypnotist character, and it's a lot of fun to try to do the same thing in everyday conversation:

"Good morning. How did you SLEEP!!!"

Hm. Apparently you weren't finished yet.

Anyway, maybe I'm not suggestible enough. I like to please, but I can also be pretty stubborn. If you're interested, check out
How to Perform Self-Hypnosis
How to Use Sound for Therapy
and try it! You can't put yourself into a coma or anything. If you become skilled at self-hypnosis, I'd be interested in hearing how you did it. If you become skilled at hypnotizing others, perhaps you'd better keep that to yourself.

how do you like me now (2)

2006-04-12T14:24:00.000-04:00

I haven't been posting. I have an audience and I have things to post. In fact, hidden under this VNC window is the real desktop of my laptop, and all my pictures are there. I could do it right now. I don't want to.

I need to be liked. Some people say, "I'm a good person, and if you don't like me, screw you." I say, "...and if you don't like me, what did I do wrong?" I'm getting tired of it. I'm making decisions that I wouldn't otherwise, just to be liked...and there are more important things.

See People Pleaser.

It has only been three months since we began to look at each other and know, and as you and the person reading over your shoulder are my witness, I can't imagine her any place but near the centre of my life. Can't, but am forced to, sometimes.

There is another issue. My ex is pregnant with my child, for those of you who didn't already know, and essentially it's my own damned fault for letting myself be treated like crap in the name of love for that long. I would like to just stop thinking about this. If I could have gotten through a lifetime without having to remember exactly what it feels like to be used, not respected, isolated and lied to, I would have done it.

After safety and basic needs are considered, what's the right degree of involvement? There are two definitions of right here.

One is psychological and empowered. Nobody is ever going to treat me like that again. This old relationship, throwing spitballs from the third row of my past, deserves a decent burial. I remember what it was like to get most of my self-esteem from being good at keeping an extremely unstable person from getting mad at me. Nobody else was there (because that's the way she wanted it), nobody else knows what it was like, and I won't subjugate myself to a paranoid, bigoted self-victimizer for the rest of my life, out of moral obligation to "fix" something that she wanted all along anyway. If you feel differently, you can properly bite me.

How do you like me now?

The other right is a construction of conscience and empathy. I know I can forgive what happened in a bad relationship because I know where it came from -- repeated, nonsensical abandonment. If I'm there from the beginning and she drops things, I can recover them. And there is a child which, having nothing to do with this sordid tale, is bound to be hurt by it to some degree regardless. I can be a father without being in that relationship or subject to its worst parts. I can show this kid the unconditional love and support that neither of his parents received from their fathers.

That's the theory, but I think the theory is flawed. This is her choice and her child, she apparently has everything she needs and wants but me, and I won't let her have me back. She kicked me until I ran away. Now I'm supposed to guard the porch?

How do you like me now?

I would never have considered such a course of action before, but I went from considering marrying her to this. How well do you know me? How far did she push me? How bad must it have been?

Sometimes I still get love and pain confused. It was pretty goddamned bad.

It's a battle between my conscience and the feeling that if I ever have anything to do with this woman ever again, I will be knowingly choosing to destroy my life. Also, I think my conscience is overcompensating because my father took off. Also, when you're arguing with yourself, whenever one side is winning, the other can say you're rationalizing and force you to reason the whole thing out again, making your argument feel weaker.

On the whole, self-preservation (and, let's face it, abandonment) is winning. Was it love? Was she really so poisonous? I was so sick to close my eyes and try to forget long enough to say, "I love you too." I did, and I did, and I can't be that sick again. People treat you the way you let them treat you.

You can't save anybody. You just have to do what you can. Sometimes you can help. Sometimes you have to think very carefully about helping.

Since my father was gone much of the time that he was officially "around," I do not suffer from the popular delusion that there is something magical about a two-parent household. It is likely the best of the popular alternatives. A loving marriage is ideal because the parents can model healthy relationships for the children. Two parents are ideal because the children get more attention and supervision.

From what happened after my dad left, I'm positive that seeing a bad relationship modelled is way, way, way more damaging than not seeing a good one modelled. Positive, because I went through both stages. Positive, because the things I'm unlearning, I learned from a man who learned from a man, and those men were all called "dad."

How will I know what my friends think and feel? I've received assurances of support, and I wonder if these are "you are my friend and I'm on your side no matter what" assurances...which are reassuring, yes, but I don't extend myself the same courtesy, and I think that the friends that I respect most would weigh completely cutting me out of their lives. In fact, the ones I respect most have given me at least some reason for their support. Some of these reasons are totally dismissive of my former partner, which makes me realize that I was likely the recipient of "no matter what" support while I was with her, and there really is something good and wonderful in her...something that has taken a lot of really awful hits, and something that (sometimes, still) makes me want to suffer from that popular delusion of relationships, that I Can Fix It.

I can't fix anyone, but I can break myself pretty badly. She was awful to me and she didn't even mean to be. If I give her an inch, an inch will be all I have.

I am a human slippery slope. I know that the keys of obligation open all my locks, and I won't do it.

Fuck you. I won't do it.

sigh

2006-04-09T11:28:00.000-04:00

a little inanity

2006-04-06T17:29:00.000-04:00

Who says you can't be happy all the time?
I know, but I'm still gonna try.
Who says you can't be happy all the time?
Say what you like, but I'm still gonna try.

The verses of this song sound like my friend Dave giving me a pep talk. The chorus, above, really hits me when I'm stressing.

I have a lot more to think about than I usually acknowledge, in all directions. The simpler life is gone. But, and this is a beautiful but, everything new seems to work out better than it used to.

rewards plan

2006-04-04T17:39:00.000-04:00

I said something flippantly, earlier today, but I'm realizing that it should maybe stick with me:

It takes a lot of planning to be this impulsive.

Keeping at it, I am.

hahaha, yes

2006-04-03T10:13:00.000-04:00

...and it is, too.

Your Stripper Song Is

Closer by Nine Inch Nails

"You let me violate you, you let me desecrate you
You let me penetrate you, you let me complicate you
Help me I broke apart my insides, help me I’ve got no
soul to tell"

When you dance, it's a little scary - and a lot sexy.

What Song Should You Strip To?

more words

2006-03-31T13:09:00.000-05:00

That last post was nearly incomprehensible.

When I write, rather than having a proper narrative, I like to establish a theme and then wander around that theme, sticking thoughts onto it at interesting points, and ultimately pointing out what I think is the most interesting bit.

Sounds great, but the end result sometimes goes like this.

I like cheese.

There are a lot of things I like, and cheese is definitely one of them.

New York reminded me of several interesting flavours of cheese, which I haven't since eaten except in Montréal -- a city which, ironically, does little to remind me of cheese.

Other things I like include music, sunshine and cats.

Cats don't like cheese. They prefer carrots. I prefer cheese, and my cat thanks me for it.

In New York, I didn't actually have any cheese. It was more like the entire city was made of cheese and then painted over.

I wonder if the fact that my cat hunts carrot sticks is reflective of a degradation of capability of all things abiding in civilization. If I were a cave-man, I would hunt warm meat, arguments would be solved with a club, and I wouldn't have to worry about weird things like not remembering what existentialism is no matter how many times I look it up. I could write poetry without metaphors, because for all I know, the sun could die every night and be reborn every morning. The world would be full of mystery, but it would be devoid of cheese.

People traded a short lifespan and problems with clear-cut solutions for more time to live in a city and eat food that smells like the city. It's no wonder I find myself questioning whether our minds have degraded.

I love my cat. If I move to Montréal, at least I'll have my cat with me, and cheese that reminds me of New York.

The preceding is only loosely based on reality, but is substantially more lucid than what I wrote this morning. I'm not sure who will get more out of what.

I could write about cheese forever.

how to fall apart and put yourself back together without even trying

2006-03-31T10:09:00.000-05:00

The Maginot line would have changed the course of the Great War, which is why they built it afterwards.

* * *

Yes, I am in love. It came far earlier than I expected, but I suppose I was as ready as I ever would have been. In this year of mad scrambling, it's easy to think that it's something I did, and possibly need to keep doing, that earned me love returned. It's easy to look at relationships that exploded and feel under the scars for shrapnel. It's incredibly easy to think that if it arrived so quickly, it can just steal away in the night. Yes, I have been worried.

It's not just love. Nor is it the prospect of managing people with way more experience than I have. It's not just scraping the bottom of the fiscal barrel, or my apartment not feeling like home, or two big changes coming in May.

I've been spoiling for a fight with the forces of evil.

* * *

The title of this post is misleading. I am not entirely responsible for putting myself back together. I had a great night last night, ultimately, but with nearly overwhelming emotional intensity much of the time. I felt each cluster go by, and thought:

What is wrong with me? I'm not myself.

Such thoughts are disturbing, but when you need them, they're absolutely priceless.

* * *

People may learn to love each other for what they do, but love persists on who you are. And it's who you are that gets you through each day, making the most of it for yourself and the people around you -- not who you would someday like to be.

Since I got back, I've been holding onto her so desperately, and I've been watching my core strengths spark and hum and otherwise behave very erratically. And the feeling that I am not myself has made things look strange and hostile, and I have destabilized.

* * *

Realistically, the forces of evil are unlikely to ruin my life. Apathy, jealousy, resentment and fear are not things you fight; they are things you understand. I can stop fighting now.

* * *

I managed to live a year free of expectation. Everything that happened was a bonus. Now, I have exactly what I want, and I am quite capable of being terrified of losing it.

That's a really negative way to look at it.

I made it. I went a week without sleep, I acted, I imposed, I made myself a pain in the ass, I worked very, very hard, I overcame, I covered up, I swallowed my pride, I adapted, I refined, I pushed, I learned, I waited, I chose, I opened up, I supported, I loved, I agonized, and I made it.

I did these things to put myself in a place where it is just enough to be myself.

It is not easy to say exactly what is irreversible, but it would be nearly impossible to lose it all.

My place in the world is not some construct, some physical thing. I have just managed to build a life rich in experiences that are important to me. No person possesses any other. No emotion keeps out the rain. I cannot lose what is impossible to have. Each day is beautiful, and that's my own fault for surrounding myself with beauty.

I am considering my audience, and whether I will make you sick. But you can wreck more than just love by being so busy worrying about life that you forget to feel it. Maybe there is value in that insight. I hope so.

zero surprise

2006-03-29T11:39:00.000-05:00

There is a certain Google search that returns a page partly about me, and when you add "-sucks" to the end of the search, it doesn't.

My mom reads my blog. I hope she doesn't also read that blog. She's dangerous when she's angry.

For the record, I suck when ...
long list excised.

Down that path, madness.

For the record, I suck after about eighteen months of you sucking.

Okay, I'm done.

NWA

2006-03-23T10:28:00.000-05:00

This is a placeholder post for Porto Maya, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, the trip back to Miami, the ride back to Sarasota, the awesome day I spent with my dad, and the further trials of getting home.

For now, this must suffice: By the time I walked through Canada Customs, Northwest had given me two more reasons not to fly Northwest, and Delta had fixed what wasn't their mistake one more time. I like Delta, but their relationship with NWA hurts them.

I will post when I am no longer sick, swamped and preoccupied. I have photos.

Selected Photos

2006-03-14T16:58:00.000-05:00

I'm going to delete this post later, and move the photos inline, but for the time being, these are a few photos from the first batch off my camera. I haven't had much luck with photos on the ship so far.

Whoop, looks like that flaked out. Guess it'll have to wait.

Belize City

2006-03-14T16:53:00.000-05:00

I am in the enveloping luxury of the ship's library. I have to record the Third World before I lose it.

People are people. Raw potential expresses so many different ways. I am privileged that I need not bend much of my energy to the task of survival.

My uncle caught the eye of an old lady, who asked him for a dollar. He asked her to tell him a story. She was just a lovely old lady with a long walk ahead of her; she used to work in a restaurant but now, her means of subsistence were a little more unclear. At 1 Belizian dollar = 0.50 cents US, my uncle ended up giving the lady three one-dollar round trips. I don't know how anybody lives to be seventy-seven in such poverty.

Random thought: Debt relief is a great idea, as long as it doesn't discourage more loans.

On the ship, I don't mind wearing the US Olympic Team hat and being mistaken for an American. The Canadian contingent is strong here, but of all the nationalities I am likely to encounter on this trip, we are least popular with our nearest neighbours. However, on the tender to Tourism Village, the Canada-branded Roots clothing was out in full force, and I wondered if appearing American was a good idea.

Sure enough, on the guided tour of the city (with Earl, a friendly traffic warden who drives taxi on his days off -- a peculiar mixture of knowledgeable and ignorant) he pointed out a bridge that had been built by the Canadian government, and several investments of the not-raping-the-populace sort, unlike most of the other foreign investment -- Turk and Arab and Chinese were bandied about, by our driver, as though the nationality itself were an epithet. American companies own the phone system and the water works. I wanted to ask more about Canadian contributions here, but my aunt is a US citizen and does not hide the fact that she wants the family to move to the United States, post-haste. I hesitated, and the moment passed.

The driver also pointed out a lot of schools, mostly run by convents. I wanted to ask more about the impact of the church on the country, but again, in the presence of a very religious family, I hesitated. They had no compunction about asking Earl, though. "What church do you go to?"

"I don't go to church."

Uncomfortable looks from my aunt and my cousin.

"I don't need to go to church to be a Christian. I do good and I read the Bible. That's all it takes."

Good on you, Earl.

Earl says that Belize is a foot above sea level. Earl says that Belize has a population of around 350 000. Earl says that their young country is at least $250 million in debt. Earl says that their prime minister has two years left in his term but is running out of things to privatize -- a bequeathed hospital, the city hall and the water works come most readily to mind. Earl says that the oldest church in Central America was built with slave labour, and that the slaves had to pray outside. Earl doesn't know when slavery ended in Belize. There wasn't any during his lifetime. He was born in 1977.

Two drops of something foul-smelling landed on the inside of the elbow of my long-sleeved shirt. Belize seems to have sanitation, so I don't know what it was.

Random thought: If first worlders could condescend to live en masse in prefabricated housing, we could ship homes no longer en vogue to places where a watertight roof goes a long way.

I left the ship with my camera, and left the camera behind in my room. My uncle took some video, but no photos. No single shot could have captured the transition between the north size of Belize City, where nice houses run $250 000 US, and the south side, where the concepts "nice" and "house" are both rare and never coincident.

I thought of people back home and looked through souvenirs. I eliminated coral jewellery due to potential ecosystem damage. I eliminated wood sculptures for the same reason. There remained nothing unique to Belize. The global economy provides all with crappy t-shirts, pirated CDs and knockoff shoes, at whatever price the local market will bear. The local economy seemed to be about 15% taxi drivers, and about 40% oriented to the cruise ships.

I have got a sunburn on my ankle that makes me very uncomfortable whenever I stop walking -- the skin tightens up and gives me grief until I get a good stride going. I keep moving through our tour, so that I don't seize. I probably look uncomfortable. "A lot of people," my uncle notes, "just stay on the boat."

If you are less sensitive to local concerns, you might choose not to leave the boat because Belize is dirty, smelly, poor and decidedly un-luxurious. If you are more sensitive, you might choose not to leave the boat because the sensitive passenger, returning to the cruise ship by tender, will have at least a vague idea that this isn't right, and likely no idea what to do about it.

Under Power

2006-03-13T16:01:00.000-05:00

For the trip to Belize, we are under "sail" for more than twenty-four hours. Looking out onto the water from the forward twelfth deck (running track, and a ton of chaise lounges), I can only tell that we're moving faster than I can run. This ship is too huge. The horizon is a flat circle. I have no sense of the size of the ship or the length of the journey.

I checked out a book, Light This Candle (a biography of the first American in space, Alan Shepard), put on sunscreen, went up and forward until I had enough sunshine, and drank a lot of Bass Ale. This immediately identified me as Canadian, incidentally.

A decent day.

Ken Sent Me

2006-03-12T19:24:00.000-05:00

To hell with *that*.

Dinner solo in the Windjammer. I watched fireworks. Whether from another boat or from a city on the horizon, I had no way of knowing.

The night is warm and feels like summer, and every firefly is filled with thousands of revellers.
This boat is filled with party groups and couples. Or, at least, they're the ones making the most noise on Night 1.

One glass of California Chardonnay. One meal slightly too large for the body supposed to contain it. I'm starting with the staff and working my way out. This is the blender. This is where I give people letters for names, draw dry-erase pictures on people's sunglasses, pull hard on a clique until something interesting comes out.

I know this place. I have a Frequent Visitor card.
Hmm: "Free Liquor Tasting."

Introspection: I am playing a game with myself at two levels. On the surface, I need to hit myself with maximum challenge, novelty, and social extension. Beneath the surface is the reason I just spent $21 in the internet lounge.

I am a float with no ice cream, but I bet you can still make a good stiff drink with the soda pop.
Seriously: If I hadn't left something so damned good to be here, this wouldn't be so damned hard.

Announcement Channel

2006-03-12T18:35:00.000-05:00

9346. Attention. 9346.

Your life is waiting. All of these moments belong to you. Be here. Be ready. Experience each one. 9346.

Read, plan, get ahead. Make the most of what they've given you. Don't get lost. Don't get down. Don't get confused. The Universe will explode later for your pleasure. 9346. Stand by.
This is it. This is all you get.

9346. Prescription. Two beers. Repeat. Call me in the early afternoon.

Would the man in cabin 9346 kindly come in off the balcony, sanitize his hands, remove his right shoe, and kick his own complacent, slightly melancholic ass.

9346. Thank you.

Interloper

2006-03-11T11:34:00.000-05:00

Father and son, playing tennis.

They razz each other, they wrestle, they drag each other into the surf, they compete.

Should I feel cheated? Should I look to my own life? Am I just another broken link?

No matter what happens, my first shot is damaged. I really want a second chance. I want to do this right at least once.

Driven Off

2006-03-11T10:11:00.000-05:00

I am kicking around by the public pool now, which lies unused because almost every house here has its own indoor pool, and because it's March, and the sweat on my thighs belies the fact that it is cold right now. Ask any resident.

I spent the day yesterday renewing ties with my grandfather and step-grandmother, kicking down the beach on Longboat Key -- many pictures taken -- and falling asleep suddenly. Today, after a decent night's sleep, I left the house in search of a little solitude, and a certain unsecured wireless hotspot.

I met a man not named Gene. Gene is an investment banker. Gene bragged about his credentials with national and local government. Gene made a clumsy pass at me. In another life I would know how to exploit these things.

Clearly I will be unable to "war-walk" until a lot later, and I will have to be careful. Gene says he saw me last night. I guess I'm pretty disturbed at that. I hope it was the point at which I was walking back; not the point at which I was sitting cross-legged on somebody's lawn typing furitively.

Of all the things I miss, I miss having the Internet to talk to the people I miss the most.