Hello! I've had to relocate in order to accomodate my use of blogger to publish this blog; so I decided to register my own domain and host my site here (on DotEasy), as opposed to choosing a more costly Geocities upgrade.
I've added some new pictures, updated the links page, and added a search applet for the archives. For those of you interested in patents and patent examination, I've created a summary page here.
Everything else should be the same. The biggest problem is likely to be broken links from previous posts, so if you come across old internal (GeoCities) links that you think need updating, just let me know. (News and other external links tend to break after a while, but that's out of my hands.)
As well, I was thinking of adding a commenting feature so you can add comments to my posts here. Seeing as I receive little email feedback from this site, I'm not sure if the necessary work would be justified. However, comments might be an interesting way for readers of this site to interact w/ one another. If you would make use of a commenting feature, let me know, and I'll look into it if there's enough interest.
Thanks for visiting :)
15:29 |
Lots of moving going on lately, virtual and otherwise: today I was moved into a new cube. It's bigger, and in a quieter location, and I have a window through my cube and into the real window of the cube behind; a pseudo-window, I guess you could say. What a phrase, "I guess you could say."
15:24 |
10:02 |
2002/03/26
12h43: just looked out the window, and it's snowing, only it's snowing horizontally instead of vertically . . . yikes!
16:08 |
You've heard Walter Melon, I.P. Freely, and others called out on a PA system, but these guys take the funny-name-over-the-PA thing one step further.
A study finds that drivers on cell phones may be more dangerous than those driving drunk:
In the study, drivers' reaction times were, on average, 30 percent slower when talking on a hand-held phone compared to being drunk and nearly 50 percent slower than under normal driving conditions.
(Actual report here.)
09:12 |
2002/03/22
Remember, Jesus is with you always . . . but is this a good thing?
16:22 |
2002/03/21
18:42 |
2002/03/20
16:23 |
So what's the new feature? Well, now the time above each post is a link to that post. Nothing exciting for day to day reading, but very handy when I want to refer back to something I've previously written. For instance, now I can refer back to that elevator entry I mentioned in this post. I also mentioned something in that latter post about a workaround for the link thing, but now that the links thing works, it'll do!
Back to the real world . . .
13:23 |
(Culture) jamming w/ Britney Spears.
ItsYourTurn.com was down for a couple of days. After fixing the problem, in a message to users, the admin alluded to something I'd be thinking about during the last few days while both IYT and blogger.com were/are down:
[Computers] are often unpredictable, and because we are always upgrading to newer and better hardware, it's certain that outages will happen again in the future. This applies to every web site, not just ours. As long as the hardware keeps changing, there's always the chance that it will fail.
If upgrading to newer and better hardware results in outages, what's the point? I've been thinking about how we have all this fancy software at our disposal -- Java, Perl, etc. -- to create dynamic websites, but it seems to creates unnecessary complexity so much of the time; and it doesn't really matter in the end how fancy or wonderful it all is if a harddrive or other physical device fails. As I write this, I can't actually publish it through blogger, so who knows when you'll read it. There's all this talk about virtual this, and virtual that, but all these virtual structures rely on the proper functioning of physcial systems. If the power goes out in the real world, so too is there a blackout in cyberspace (ignoring the use of uninterrupted power supplies). Bah!
Steve 'Cyber' Mann is sueing Air Canada over a strip search that painfully separated him from his cyber gear:
He says he was bleeding when he boarded the Air Canada flight -- after electrodes were removed from his chest -- and was riding in a wheelchair after collapsing during the strip search.
Cybog profiling, humph, what next!?
Mum's got the guns . . . r-i-g-h-t . . . That site reminds me of the time I got my car fixed by a guy named Pinky, and there was a picture behind the counter of the garage owner's wife w/ her Uzi at the firing range.
13:13 |
I've been taking the bus this week. It's only my second day, but on last night's ride home I realized that the bus is the least glamorous way to travel. Carpooling is great, when you have poolers; and driving alone as a commuter polluter is just wrong, as we all know who you're really driving with . . . Walking/cycling/scooting is great when the weather permits, so in the meantime, I'll be bussing it. Can't say it's all that fun, though. When I'm walking to and waiting at the stop, I feel a sense of "good commuter" karma, but once I'm actually on the bus, it's another story. In the morning it's giggling/cackling schoolgirls, and in the evening it's tonnes of defeated -- and often smelly -- people on their way home, and I'm one of them, battling the clock and bus schedule to make the next transfer. I much prefer trains . . .
Well, I'm a little late, but I just ran across the National Engineering Week site.
According to this article, the National Day of Mourning (9/14) on Parliament Hill was planned in the back of a rental van:
"We had found a rental van for the four of us plus a colleague from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs who hitched a ride with us." Over the next several hours, that van would serve as a moving office. Inside its confines, the four would put together a plan for what would become the largest and perhaps most impressive gathering ever seen on Parliament Hill.
TV is bad.
Talk about hand to mouth . . . and ear, and eye . . .
Have you experienced Peanut Butter Jelly Time?
13:07 |
2002/03/18
"We are selling a product. We need someone who can re-brand American foreign policy, re-brand diplomacy."
16:25 |
I've been keeping a small text file of English oddities like affect vs. effect, w/ plans for a webpage about such things, but it looks like I've been beaten to the punch by this page. Quite interesting if you're into words.
12:56 |
2002/03/15
I'm getting pretty sick of pointing and clicking. When are they going to come up w/ an interface that's not so hard on the ole index finger?
Newlands Technology and partner, Olympia, are due to release the Soundbug, a really neat gizmo that supposedly can turn any flat surface into a speaker. Neato!
13:25 |
2002/03/14
Here's a great on-line comic about a robot living amidst silly humans. It seemed dumb to me at first, but after I read about fifiteen frames, it started to get hilarious!
Coming into work this morning, I had to wait about a minute for the elevator . . . along w/ a handful of other people. A car (is that what you'd call it?) finally arrives and we pile in, and I couldn't believe this: one guy actually goes up just ONE floor! After that long wait (in terms of elevator time) he could have gone up AND down between floors on the stairs. This reminded me of my scheme to eliminate this problem that I've written about previously. Had I better archiving features, I'd put a link to that post here, but I don't; however, I have another idea that will make this easier in the future . . . coming soon . . . nothing fancy, but it may prove somewhat amusing.
09:27 |
2002/03/12
Now, if this isn't reason to join a car pool, I don't know what is!
16:15 |
2002/03/08
15:24 |
2002/03/07
Unexpected bonus at Timmy's the other day: I ordered a mocha, and they were out of whipping cream, so they gave me a donut "for my troubles." Mmmm . . .
This is pretty neat: a couple of students are working on a railgun (a device that uses the magnetic field from a single loop coil to propel a projectile at high speed).
16:21 |
2002/03/05
In other news, my office is pretty much falling apart. My voicemail hasn't been working for months it seems, and a call to the support line reveals my number's not even in the system anymore. As well, two of the overhead fluorescent lights have taken to blinking, so I'm sitting here working w/ a tres annoying flicker. Dumb, dumb, dumb . . .
From this article:
Microsoft Corp. plans to argue in court hearings next week that if antitrust sanctions sought by state prosecutors are granted, the company would be forced to pull its latestWindows computer operating systems off the market and be unable to develop new systems.
I say, good riddance! Yeah, Linux has a steeper learning curve, but most people I know who've actually learned to use it far prefer it. Plus, given how much I hate computers lately, I think it would be hilarious to watch the ensuing IT hell if Windows were to become obsolete! I just hope my bank, and other critical services, don't rely on Windows . . .
16:23 |
2002/03/04
16:37 |
Friday was fun w/ dinner and a movie (Behind the Sun: so-so plot, great visuals).
On Saturday, dEb and I ran errands, along w/ everyone else in the city. I think I'm going to make a note of not running errands on the weekend, as it pretty much sucks the day away.
Pacer buddy Rexy was in town this weekend, and we met up for a while and reminisce about the good ole days of interning for Nortel during the time of TGIF and taxi chits! Gone are the days, eh, Rex!? We must have a Pace reunion someday . . .
There was a train show on Sunday. A relatively small show with little to offer in my preferred scale of N, however one English couple had two admirable N scale layouts. There were some amazing feats of Mechano as well.
Took some time out to watch a couple movies, on the literary side of things: the original 'Lord of the Flies' and an animated rendition of Orwell's 'Animal Farm.' LOF was great, much faster paced than anticipated. AF was somewhat of a disappointment w/ it's weak recount of the strong themes found in the book; had I not previously read the book, I don't think I would have dug the movie at all.
Now it's Monday -- my least fave day of the week.
10:25 |
2002/03/01
What a bunch of bs, imo. A girl gets drunk during spring break, takes off her top in front of a large crowd, the scene is videotaped and used in a video whose tv advertisements feature said girl shakin' it up to a nation of late night viewers. She sues the video maker, and wins $5M! The moral: people who attend drunken festivals and make asses of themselves in public have recourse that rewards them w/ financial freedom for life. I really wish a statement made by one of the defending lawyers would have been taking into consideration for the decision:
A lawyer for the video producers told The Associated Press that privacy protection does not extend to people who take their clothes off in public and especially not at large events where many people have video cameras.
Maybe I should just go do something regrettable in public, get caught in the act on videotape, and pray the footage makes its way into video in hopes I can sue; I'd sure get rich a lot faster than by my current 9-to-5 route . . . Conversely, it is noteable that she managed to milk quite a sum of money from a corporation . . . Litigation seems a little farcical at times, though.
Hilarious! Apple's recently released iPod mp3 player functions just as well as a portable harddrive w/ no discern for what, or who's, computer it's hooked up to:
The iPod is perfect for virtual shoplifting. It is designed as a digital music player, but its roomy 5-GB hard drive can be used as portable storage for all kinds of files, even the Macintosh operating system. In fact, it can operate as an external drive, booting up a machine and running applications.
Check out MuffinFilms.com for some funny Flash. This one's my fave . . .
. . . and finally this l-o-n-g week is over . . .
15:42 |
