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GRAFFITI -- December 31, 2007 thru January 06, 2008>> Link to the Current Week <<Last Week << Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun >> Next Week Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable. About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message. |
 
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December 31, 2007
1928 - Good evening. The beat goes on. But first, Joseph Mark, born this morning early ... welcome to the world. I'm doing my normal Monday evening routine, which means I'm covered up in chores. I've got the column formatted and waiting, the mailbag is due shortly - both are going up before midnight EST, to make the self-imposed (aka Jerry's self-imposed) deadline. I fervently hope it's not really that late, as I wasn't planning on seeing Dick Clark slur his way through another countdown.
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January 1, 2008
1715 - Happy New Year! I've been building a playlist to plunk a decent selection of music onto the iPod Touch. That's done. What's weirdest is that a couple of days ago, when I just plunked a few handfuls of albums onto the player, I stopped to check how big the playlist was, and there were 666 songs in the list. Hmmm. I kept going until the 8G was nearly full, but that was an interesting stopping point. This morning, I blew all the music off the player, and started building a new playlist, selecting individual tracks and the occasional full album. After a while, I stopped to check again, how big the playlist was. 666 songs. Urk.
"seeing Dick Clark slur his way through another countdown" — When I posted that last night, I later realized that might have offended someone. Because of his stroke, Dick Clark speech is slurred, unclear and without enough fine motor control for decent enunciation. If I wanted the other kind of slur for New Year's Eve, of course I would have been talking about that comedian who racially slurred his way right out of the stand-up comic business last year, yeah?
We had a fair amount of fireworks set off last night, against the law here, of course. It started up about 7 last night, and continued until a while past midnight. I don't really mind so much - unlike in East San Jose, where those noises were often gunfire, not firecrackers. But the dogs mind quite a lot, not having been trained to go a-hunting for free range Lawyers with the Vice President.
I have no resolutions for the new year. Just a honey-do list. There are four remodels of varied difficulty, and the fence to mend. That's all on the big list. More when progress is...
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January 2, 2008
2030 - Good evening. No news is no news. I worked on computers, I ate, I relaxed. Oh, and I've been playing working with Tracks, a Ruby on Rails application for the GTD methodology. I'm so far pretty pleased. I can access from work or home, so stay organized all the time, at least that's the plan. And tonight I also spent some more time organizing storage. I've got to make a deep backup, and then stage out the remodelling jobs, or it'll be spring. Then the gardens take up too much time. So, plenty to do. Ciao!
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January 3, 2008
No Post....
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January 4, 2008
1925 - Good evening. I've been wading through a battle of the titans. Back and forth, back and forth the words fly. The Law! Freedom! Thief! DRM is Evil! Blah, blah, blah. It makes me mindful of evil Willow: "Bored now. Buh-bye." I wrote this....
A couple of points for consideration:
First, everyone's already convinced of the rightness of their position. So continued bleating is just ... boring.
Things that no one's mentioned:
Most music today is crap. CRAP. The record companies rarely factor that into their equations. Just because they try to *sell* crap to a demographic that mostly doesn't earn a living wage, and pays what they can afford (which is ~ nil). There are some artists that I respect and admire - I buy their work. Side-note - I *love* Magnatune - great model for a new type of record label. (http://www.magnatune.com) That which I don't like, I wouldn't "steal" because I don't listen to it.
If I were going to be worried about something as an author, I'd be much more worried about the continuing decline of literacy in this country and around the world. We've got a generation of non-readers on our hands. I learned to love books partly because my parents loved books, and read voraciously, as I do today. But too many don't read now, and they won't be setting any example for their spawn except how to txt their vote for Britney to the People.com esite.
On the other hand, I don't worry so much about eReaders, because in my opinion, they suck for reading for pleasure. Nothing beats a book. But that's just me. Devil's advocate version: What may kill the dead tree book is the desire by publishers to not maintain inventory. An ebook has no inventory tax burden (shhhhhh, don't tell Congress).
There's good news, too. Naw, "It's Friday!" is good, but not precisely news. However, Marcia did finally land the gig she was hoping for, and only a few moments too soon. Her prior position at $LARGE_SOFTWARE_COMPANY was toast as of the 15th of this month, as the assimilation of the company that was acquired continues. She's pleased as punch not only about the continued employment, but also at the opportunity to broaden her skills. Last, but not least, the end of quarter won't be such a big deal anymore, and we may be able to go hang with family on the other coast for the holidays next year. Huzzah!
Bob manages year-end transitions with odd numbering sequences, like Monday's 0 January, 2008. Some might consider it equally odd to count this week as the last week of 2007 (as I do). But I count the week as being in the year that contains the first day of that week. So the first page of 2008 is going to go up next Monday, 'round here. There's some setup I've got to do for that, and it's nothing that I've automated. Mayhap I should start setting up those directories and whatnot sooner rather than later. The weekend's likely to go fast, since I'm working tomorrow for a few hours, and getting more stuff aligned for projects on Sunday. Ciao!
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January 5, 2008
1525 - Good afternoon. I slept in until 0730 this morning. What luxury! After coffee and dog breakfast and a bite for me, too, I hared off to the office. I spent a few hours working on implementing some extra backup processes that have been in the planning since before the holidays. Once home, both dogs deserved (nay, needed) baths. So they got them. Now they're shiny and clean and I'm the sweatball. Did I mention that along with all the other ongoing projects, I'm just not busy enough? So I've applied to UMUC, and with a fair bit of brain-strain, expect to have a degree one of these years. Okay, back to the honey-do list.
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January 6, 2008
1535 - Good afternoon. Well, I broke something yesteday. While I was able to identify it late last night and worry over it overnight, our stellar DBA managed to pull my bacon from the fire this morning.. Yay! So that plus shopping ate the morning. An extra round of backups, followed by washing both cars ate the early afternoon. Yeah, washing the cars — it is over 50 out, and likely to get to the mid 60's before dropping again later in the week. Weird for January, but I'm sure we'll pay for it, one way or another.
Another Sunday, another opportunity to regard with sadness and pride the names of our soldiers taken by war from us. My condolences to the families and units of the fallen.
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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.
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