md in md

..and the world laughs with you

2010-05-05T06:01:00.002-04:00

First things first, the new FlyLo album, Cosmogramma is awesome. Second off, as usual, appypolly loggy for non-updates...we recently participated in the launch of a major new clinical system at work (end of November) and I personally have been very engaged working in that. Additionally, I was recently promoted from a role as system administrator on our team, to being the system engineering manager (or team lead for development and sysadmins), so that's been keeping me occupied also. Under the normal guise of insomnia, I felt compelled to share my latest thoughts with the world.

Phones (the end of the saga, I promise)

Looking back, I have a lot of angsty phone entries...probably most of my 2009 drivel was about them. I tweeted back in January, but I managed to squeeze my way out of the Sprint contract due to them upping some fees on me. A week later I was back on big red VZW rocking a newly supported BlackBerry Tour. Sadly, less than a month later I find out that the vaunted BES is going away (!) and being replaced by NES. Having had them recommend that I get a Tour weeks earlier (while knowing well in advance about the pending change to NES), I felt burned. Despite the best keyboard ever, there is no point in owning a BlackBerry w/o BES IMHO. If you are using NES, get a phone that doesn't suck w/ apps, WiFi, Webkit browser, etc. NES is not as good as BES (not real-time, but a 5-min push for email...no enterprise LDAP contact search, etc.) and it is actually a stand-alone app on Android (which is cool IMHO). With the pending release of the Incredible, I waited.

Finally last Tuesday, I got my Incredible, and so far I am loving it. Now that I've had a week, here are my thoughts on Android and the Incredible:

Love:

Lack of corporate email: means less interruptions at home
Apps are super

Android Marketplace: lots of great apps
3rd-party apps: able to install stuff outside of the Marketplace
Apps can hook DEEP into the OS to do crazy stuff like enable tethering, replace the on-screen keyboard, etc.

Deep Google Voice integration
Flash in my browser.
Speech-to-text for EVERY FIELD EVER...seriously, the Google implementation destroys Nuance Dragon ... ON MY PHONE (lol)
Pretend-multitasking that is good-enough, w/ user-controllable services

able to do crazy SSH tunnels, etc.
able to kill/control any process transparently

Device mounts as mass storage w/ 8GB of local storage AND separate mount point of microSD card...this is very convenient
Easy to type most goofy characters/symbols
Very intelligent/not painful keyboard autocorrect
Great camera, fast and adjustable
Expose-esque nature of Sense UI
HTC widgets destroy stock Androids widgets
Sense supports basic, global notification profiles (vibrate, silent, noisey)...this was a major fear I had, having looked at Nexus One and Droid, coming from the *extreme* power of BlackBerry profiles
Sense integration (but w/ nice, clean, logical filters) merges Facebook, Twitter, Google contacts, etc. into one giant pool.
Did I mention that Sense UI rocks?
The phone is damn fast: I can barely tell the difference between 3G and WiFi for most basic browsing tasks and downloads, plus the UI is super-responsive and web browser rarely chunks up.

Hate:

Lack of corporate email: totally disconnected during the day when not at my desk...very weird feeling of being out of the loop
Lack of corporate calendar: almost a deal-breaker, but I'll survive
Google Talk app irritates me a lot

idles me to orange...I prefer always being green or red...I don't like the information leak of "Mark hasn't used the app for >= 15 min"
can't read long status messages or click links from status messages
landscape mode consumes full screen w/ keyboard when typing, so you have to close keyboard before sending to make sure your messages makes sense if they chatted w/ you while you were typing

Twidroid widgets all suck (yes, also the "pro" ones), but it is the only Twitter app w/ name autocompletion, so I am running like 3x twitter apps at once (HTC FriendStream, HTC Twitter, Twidroid)
Inability to rotate in many apps and OS...and even when rotation works it only works in 2 modes: upright and -90°. This means if I want to chat in landscape mode (easier to type), I need to hold the phone goofy to avoid the volume rocker and it's not possible to set it on desk while charging to just observe the display
AMOLED doesn't work well outside

I really thought I would miss the physical BlackBerry keyboard, but so far, I am really loving the Android. Being able to do stuff all the cool iPhone kids could do for a while (barcode scanning w/ Google Products or Amazon, Augmented Reality browsers like Layar and Google Goggles, online banking w/ ability to photo-deposit checks in real-time) is really nice.

iPad Wi-Fi+3G

I originally was strongly opposed, labeling it the next Apple TV. However, after seeing my roommates joojoo IRL (yes, he was one of the "lucky" 60), I am pretty confident that the only possibilities for competition in this form factor have several not-yet-met requirements:

Display: aside from the Notion Ink Adam, no one has shown off anything as gorgeous as the IPS/LED unit Apple is rocking. This is fundamental, especially if they want to compete w/ the Kindle/Nook world
Battery: sorry, x86 can't hack it in low-power, so it will need to be an ARM-based machine that can handle >8 hours...netbook battery life w/ less functionality isn't a tenable position for a tablet. This also excludes Win7 (nothing of value lost), but just to be clear about Win7...
OS: aka UI + Apps...Android is the only possibility of competition w/ iPhone OS, so any of the custom Linux derivatives or Win7 devices aren't going to hack it. Multitouch needs to be a design foundation, not just an input method and a few demo apps. The Apple consistency is incredible and the wide array of apps is what pushes the iPad from niche toy to versatile necessity and netbook killer. Even stock Android sucks, only HTC's Sense has covered the gaps and only the Android Marketplace can compete here. I have high hopes for WebOS now that they have HP backing them, but the small app market is a major limitation at this exact moment.

What I hate:

Lack of multi-tasking (shocker)...also means no cool app co-operation (the way you can set up an SSH tunnel w/ Connectbot on Android, then use the web browser or VNC or RDP app).
Flash (sorry, not that I'm a fan, but some websites are useless w/o it).
Lack of hover capability on websites (unreasonable to expect people to update ancient designs and the hover meme for navigation/help is quite widely perpetuated).
Inconsistency in Safari behavior when switching windows (sometimes a page reloads, sometimes not...this can hose things like phpmyadmin).
Keyboard autocorrect is great when texting or emailing like a normal human, but trying to write SQL in phpmyadmin is an exercise in masochism.
Lack of number keys on default keyboard is bad, and lack of ease-to-get-to symbols make sentences like this one (with parens, dashes, /s) painful to type quickly
Sometimes on larger wifi-networks (e.g. at the hospital) it re-prompts for WEP key when you re-connect (presumably to a new physical AP sharing the same SSID, etc.)...for the hospital network I can remember the key, but for larger WPA or non-human-readable keys, this is INSANELY painful.
Transitional period for apps: Not every app is taking advantage of the ability to use the so-called "USB file sync" basic file management component of iTunes, so some apps want you to install a WiFi server on a PC to share files. This is lame. Also, apps can't share that pool of data (so if I want to test 3-4 comic readers, I need to upload my comics 3-4 times, once per app). Additionally, most music apps can't seem to access the iTunes library yet (even though some like SoundHound can). Also, not all apps have gone/plan-to-go universal, which just makes it annoying to manually uninstall the iPhone/iPod touch version from the iPad.
iTunes tethering for sync: this is a hellacious limitation...imagine if you had to do the same thing w/ a netbook...even on the ipod touch this is close to ridiculous (it makes marginal sense for the tiny-screened, fewer buttoned ipods), but for the iPad it is straight-up offensive. You can't even queue up file loads w/o the device plugged in. They should just switch to allocating some space for mass storage so apps can share and add a file manager app.
In line with that, I still can't believe I need to launch iCal, hit refresh, then plug-in my iPad, and click "sync" for it to update calendar event on a Google Calendar. That is actually more painful than using Google Calendar by launching the turd of a browser that the BlackBerry has and logging into the mobile app (which I did to avoid groupwise conflics when on BES).
My corporate IT group only supports NotifyLink on iPhone, WinMo, and BlackBerry...so no corporate hook-up...similarly, our webmail app (Groupwise 8) doesn't work in "full" mode (browser crash or unable to open messages) and the "light" mode is so gimped it isn't even worth using. Also, our VPN is not supported by iPhone OS (yet...I think it works in 4).
VGA dongle requires individual apps to be programmed to use it as a separate output, no OS-level mirroring option (LAME)...the lack of support is a big disappointment, and I don't expect lots of 3rd-party devs to add this feature...I think the VGA dongle will never take off as a result

What I love:

Apps...I will have a whole subsection on what I use it for, but suffice to say even the early apps leave mind=blown
Functionally infinite battery: I seriously started using it at 7:30am in a meeting and it lasted until I went to bed at 10:30pm (still at 8%)...this includes far heavier use than when I had a laptop (due to being easier to carry/quicker to fire up...yes even w/ my X25-M G2) and running the screen in torch mode and flipping on 3G a few times.
Typing in landscape mode is magical, like how I imagine Star Trek. Portrait mode is like texting, and my hands are barely big enough to do it uncomfortably...I would imagine people with smaller hands probably just hate it. I originally expected to haul a bluetooth keyboard everywhere, but this is not going to happen.
Rotation works in pretty much every 3rd party app and native app perfectly (finally!)
Ability to read comics: paper is inconvenient and expensive, and IrfanView on a PC (my previous solution) required a monitor reconfiguration and uncomfortable sitting at a desk to read for hours). I cranked through Scott Pilgrim over the weekend, and I loved it. Despite the BS regarding the best reader (Mobi Comic Reader was banned for violating dev agreement, screwing people like me who didn't buy apps before hardware and waited on 3G, and also existing customers who now can't get updates or re-download if their PC gets hosed), even mediocre readers like Comic Zeal or CloudReaders work well-enough.
Potential hardware greatness
Speaking of hardware, the GPS is the fastest/most accurate I've ever personally used, far faster than the Dash Express I had and more accurate than the BlackBerry Tour I gave up
AT&T 3G in Baltimore is totally acceptable. It is a bummer that YouTube defaults to 1997 RealVideo mode, but web browsing and maps are snappy. Cheap data ($30/mo, unlimited, no-contract) was one of my 3 reasons for buying (data, GPS, battery) and Verizon can't compete ($60/mo, 5GB/mo, 2-year contract): yes, The Network is faster, but not double-the-price-indentured-servitude faster.
Did I mention the apps? This thing can replace literally thousands of dollars of hardware.

Music Apps:

Beatwave (free): equivalent to the Yamaha Tenori-on ($1000)
TouchOSC ($5): an infinitely configurable OSC controller, equivalent to the JazzMutant Lemur ($2000). Able to replace any number of control surfaces like the Akai APC40 Ableton controller ($400), the Korg Kaoss Pad ($400), etc.

TouchOSC / Ableton Live

max Min

Vimeo

Hex OSC Full ($16): a harmonic table OSC keyboard, equivalent to the C-Thru AXiS-64 ($2000)
Korg iELECTRIBE ($10): drum machine, manufacturer-made software version of the Korg Electribe ($500), lacks MIDI

So yeah, for $31 in apps (and $700 in up front hardware cost), I get about $6300 of specialty-hardware functionality. Pretty sick, considering the $700 investment was likely worth it sans music apps, so this is just like icing on the cake.

Music apps in the wishlist:

AC-7 Pro ($10): mixing/automation/transport controller, equivalent to Mackie Control Universal Pro ($1300)
ELECTRIFY ($15): sample-based groovebox, equivalent to something like the Akai MPC500 ($600) or Roland SP-808.

bleepBOX! ($15) is similar
chipPad ($5): more of a tracker-like solution

Reforge ($5): wave editor, like a light-weight version of Audacity or SoundBooth

Studio Track ($40): more of a 4-track replacement than wave editor, but reviews say it crashes a lot

Sonorasaurus Rex ($15): DJ software, waiting for it to support iTunes library directly, but wondering how monitoring, stereo, etc work...

DiddyMidiDJ ($5): DJ control surface using OSC for Traktor

Sound Scope Space ($5): synth app, but it lacks MIDI/OSC AFAIK

I'll do another post w/o other apps later. Time for work.

hello world

2009-11-02T06:59:00.000-05:00

so much stuff has happened since I last blogged, but the usual excuses about work, etc. still apply.

here are my thoughts on some current things going on:

verizon droid

ffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!! don't get me wrong, the pre is still an awesome phone and it has gotten a lot better since my last post about it (Twee fixes twitter issues, linkedin now part of synergy, app store blowing up in quantity of apps), but droid has 5mp camera, layar, virtual keyboard, plus the sexy new maps implementation and more storage. and verizon. 20 months to go....

borderlands

a great game hidden under technical failure and consolitis. the menu system on PC is almost as bad as the inventory system for mass effect on 360... UI was designed by demon terrorists from hell. unskippable cutscenes and gimping all the menu config options (requiring some googling...and even then, console is gimped) is bad enough, but resetting config files after DST (why?) and non-functional private online games is beyond annoying. why hasn't steam gotten this patch yet? when playing a LAN game yesterday, none of us could set up the mics (protip: there is no in-game setting, so just disable it in config and use steam chat) and only the host had a name...so reading the messages in game was useless because two of us had blank names.

Wayne and I played a LAN game w/ our friend Ted from Wisconsin, because the private online servers don't work without forwarding >9000 ports to a host. It was easier/faster/safer to just jack Ted into our OpenVPN solution (and even then, browsing doesn't work consistently and you still need to add an IP as an argument when you launch the game). We probably spent an hour dicking around before settling on this solution. How the hell do regular people do this kind of stuff? I bet they use shit like gameranger... the guy who runs the gameranger twitter account has been relentlessly spamming people talking about borderlands. people like me. he spammed me, then when I fired back, he made up some illogical argument about trust and safety... dude, if I am letting someone sign into my VPN, I think I trust them. definitely more than I trust some guy who charges for a service he spams me about, who allegedly blocks competing software and bans unruly users, and whose source isn't open to review by security experts like steve gibson. i replied a few more times, but at some point you need to stop feeding the trolls.

Back to the game, all that hassle and all those bugs are really sad because buried underneath is a really fun, co-op shooter. the kind of game i love: enough RPGness to make characters unique and worth building up, but not so much that you spend 50% of the game in menus...twitch-based combat...huge world to explore with vehicles and good enemy variety.

it will be interesting to see if Gearbox cleans this up or leaves it broken...so disappointing to see the modern trend of failed online gameplay at launch continuing. Looking forward to a PC-centric, massively single-player game next week.

Palm Pre: Day 3

2009-07-04T02:05:00.003-04:00

Keyboard:

Really, no keyboard in the world can compare with a blackberry
I've also noticed sometimes it flexes or makes bendy sounds when I'm typing fast (eek!)

Twitter:

The inability for twitter to pop up like email or IM's is beginning to irk me; as far as I know, neither Tweed nor Spaz use the alerting service the same way IM/SMS/email do
Lack of integration with TwitPic is another bummer; it's cool you can directly send to Facebook from the photo gallery, but I barely use Facebook
Speaking of Facebook, why is there no Facebook client ala iPhone/Blackberry? The iPhone Facebook app was lightyears beyond any other means of interacting with that site

Ringtones:

Haven't found a way to select SMS/IM sounds, or custom ring-tones for contacts (or contact-groups...if that concept even exists)
The default sounds are OK, but not loud enough to wake me up (which is the vital necessity)

Blackberry Factor:

All this playing around with another phone has had me re-evaluating why I wanted to switch away from my Blackberry...
Although the gesture-based UI is insanely slick and intuitive, oftentimes, I am sad that the trackball-looking button is only trackball in appearance; at some times, precise mouse-like control with a trackball would be much simpler (e.g. editing text fields, selecting text) and I start to miss the blackberry
Typing
For all that the Blackberry crashes, if it just had a Webkit browser and camera, I could probably survive quite happily with it (losing the capacitive touchscreen is a bummer, but survivable)

Decisions:

Although I have 30 days to decide, I am already feeling the burn -- it is very much a bummer I would need to purchase an IDENTICAL phone just to switch networks (operating on the 2-phones via Sprint plan)
I haven't yet rooted the phone, as I don't want to make things weird if I decide to bail -- and other than the cool-factor of being able to SSH into my phone, I don't see a lot of practical value yet, as I haven't encountered any cool-looking, unofficial apps
When contemplating simply returning to Verizon and upgrading the Blackberry to either a Tour or Curve, I realized that I would still be hosed on the WiFi front -- and a Tour would mean Notifylink at best
Notifylink would give me email, but I would lose the VPN access of being able to browse the internal network at work (a significant loss) -- so that means maybe just a curve would be the best.
If I get a Curve, do I just return the Pre and ditch Sprint? Or do I go full-on with the conversion and get my number ported and drop Verizon? How does the functionality/possible-non-crashing of the Curve (or at least a new phone) impact this decision?

At this point, I still have 26ish days to make a final decision...I am leaning toward a Curve + Pre on Sprint (and in my original calculations, I neglected to consider the employee discount of 15% ). This would put me at $110/mo (saving $25/mo off my Verizon plan) with 600 extra minutes.

Palm Pre impressions

2009-07-02T09:38:00.004-04:00

This time typed up from a PC...

I realized perhaps it not fair to insult the Palm Pre for not being able to copy/paste URLs into twitter, because that is not an expection I previously had on my Blackberry...but then again, my blackberry didn't have a modern-era browser and WiFi.

Also, the lack of ability to save files is kind of ridiculous. Plugging into a PC via USB gives you the option to just show up as a mass storage device, which is cool.

The lack of notification about twitter updates is also irking me. Perhaps Spaz is not the right client to use; but I find it odd that it can integrate my Twitter friends in the federated Synergy contact list but it doesn't come with a twitter client built-in.

Many of the bad/ugly bulletpoints were known issues going into the Pre, so it's not fair to act like I was suddenly surprised when they didn't work.

Complaints:

saving files from browser
copy/pasting non-email/IM content
lack of SSH client

Praise:

UI is really slick - I would say it is more consistent and intuitive (to me) than iPhone, and the downloading of attachments/apps is very nice. All the animations and window behavior are stunning -- it almost feels like OS X's expose at times
Federated contacts really are excellent
Data from Sprint is fast; WiFi is smoking -- compared to WiFi on my iPod Touch 2G the browser is light-years faster
Browser and Google Maps performance (manipulating already fetched data) smoke iPhone 3G / iPod Touch 2G (not sure about 3GS)

I think i just managed to get it to hard lock messing around with the pdf viewer lol

Pre first impressions

2009-07-02T07:59:00.006-04:00

Posted using the pre...

Good:

Fast data service
Amazing multitasking
Accurate GPS
Great mechanical design
Slick UI

Bad:

Can't save images with browser
Keyboard is sticky mush compared to blackberry
~~Not easy to edit text fields like an ipod/iphone~~
No street view
No latitude
Keypress-and-hold repeats instead of caps

Ugly:

Notifylink doesn't yet support the Pre
No official tethering method
No ssh clients
No linkedin synergy

(edited on a PC to look less ridiculous)

but who was phone?!

2009-07-01T07:22:00.004-04:00

The last few monthes, my 8830 world edition on Verizon has been flipping out and crashing every few days. The two failure modes are a spinning hourglass or simply a frozen display, frequently these happen when i am getting a phone call or sms or email message -- either way the resolution is pulling the battery and waiting 5 minutes for it to reboot. It's dificult to express the frustration of not being able to answer a phone call because of an hourglass or not reading an email whose subject you can see...

When you combine these faults with inability to properly buffer input (e.g. quickly typing "fucking server is angry; logs have nothing useful about error" translating to "fuck you" in gtalk), the phone gets "dropped" a lot. I love "the Network," but not being able to upgrade my phone is killing me.

"But the Tour is coming out!" Yes, and it has a nicer display, better guts, and a fancy camera... but the corporate IT group only supports enterprise activation on the 8830 and 8330; the last guy who went rogue with a Storm got shut down. They are the real barrier, not Verizon. No modern, 3G phone support kills flexibility.

So last night I came up with the following clever plan:

reduce verizon bill by $50 by dropping tethering tax and cutting minutes (i only use 3-400 peak mins/mo, but pay for 900) -- now paying $85/mo instead of $135 (but with reimbursements this is effectively $35/mo => $0/mo)
pick up a Palm Pre on sprint for $70/mo (450 mins) and see how the sprint network performs at work and home (now this changes from $0/mo to $70/mo)
assuming the sprint network performs as well as verizon (brilliance kicks in here...) drop verizon entirely and pick up an 8830 on sprint and move to a family plan for $130/mo (final pricing from $70/mo => $30)

According to this graph, sprint's network is compares favorably to verzion's in baltimore. Plus I would save $5/mo right off the top and nights move from 21:00 to 19:00. This is highly dependent on network performance, however; and I also will have to haul 2 phones around (however, i already usually have a MacBook Pro + iPod anyway, so an extra phone seems minimal)...the upsides to 2 phones would be a clean seperation between business/home use and no more google/groupwise collisions in calendars/address books. I think I would treat the work blackberry purely as an email/conf call device, and leave all other data services to the home Pre.

I struggled very long with G1 versus Pre, and this was what i thought about:

G1 has the advantage of video, latitude, SD card, and more mature apps
Pre has LED flash on camera, better multitasking, newer hardware, service-based approach to contact/messaging integration, and true multi-touch

The browsers are all the same (webkit), they both have wifi, and allegedly both will have flash 10 support before the end of the year. The G1 is certainly more developer friendly (compared to "Only a select few partners received the initial release of the Mojo SDK") on the face, but Pre still runs linux and has been rooted.

You might notice I entirely disregarded the populist iPhone. Both the G1 and Pre are a zillion times less draconian than apple, and both actually allow the end-user to multitask. I drive a lot and can't type well with a touchscreen in that scenario. Plus dealing with the hassle/terrible coverage of AT&T out here is not worth the pain. If I need any of the cool apps, I've still got my iPod touch 2G ready to rock. It's sad that I will end up carrying 3 devices around, but for now, convergence is elusive.

BGR has a thoughtful write-up on what's wrong with RIM; further evidence that it's about time to abandon the good ship blackberry.

So... geniuous? Madness? SPARTA?!

the simple things you see are all complicated

2009-03-01T18:33:00.000-05:00

been doing the groundwork for the upcoming watchmen premier. got the promo blu-ray materials all primed, read some internet reviews and checked out the latest trailers. this is where i started to get irked.

for the 2nd time in as many years, the Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack makes a stunning, if not irreverant, appearance in the mainstream (following up on Rockstar's arguably more reverant use in the first GTA IV trailer). although not as tight a fit as the wonderfully revived (from a different, horrible superhero movie lol) Smashing Pumpkins cut used on the first trailer, it worked thematically with the massive scope of watchmen. other promo materials have also used the now-played out "angel" by massive attack (pi, anti-trust, firewall, etc). my real problem was the subtle blend of glass into the abominable sounds of muse. even the concept that people could conflate the two songs to be related makes me rage. let me quote a great review of the womb they ripped the aborted fetus "take a bow" from

A celestial arpeggio opens the track "Baba O'Riley" style, while singer Matthew Bellamy yawns something indecipherable in his best and brittlest Yorke yowl. When, after a few false starts and nearly three minutes, the curtain finally lifts, there isn't much to see-- just an ominous two-note bassline and flares of upper register guitar occasionally harmonizing with Bellamy's wallpapery vocal.

i have some friends who like muse. i can't understand the appeal of music that "sounds like someone put a gun to Radiohead's, er, head and forced Thom and co. to rock—no dystopian arty shit, just rock—for 72 hours straight." i wonder why these friends don't return my messages anymore...

on the upside, i watched 300 today and it gives me confidence that at least snyder cares and is going to make a good effort (even if the music will be atrocious).

although i'd enjoy waxing poetic about the faults of muse, the potential for watchmen, etc. i think it's time to head over to new work space and clean out the first round of ice from the new fridge. now that we have networking, power, and a fridge at the new office location, work is going to be a lot nicer.

wow, updates

2009-02-02T00:48:00.000-05:00

i've added some twitter and netflix stuff to the side of the blog. i started listening to a lot of the who and they are awesome.

this /. post regarding python made me lol in sympathy. not that i write C++ anymore, but i certainly have written more C++ than anything else up until now.

i've been very busy with work stuff, so i've been pretty rubbish at maintaining this blog. my bad. aside from the brief vacation back to WI for a weekend and a few days for ACEN in 2008, i haven't really taken any time off. so far i think i've averaged exactly 3 sick days/year. a coworker recently made an interesting comment that if he lived as close to work as i do, that he wouldn't be able to separate his work life from his homelife.

i am starting to agree. i probably spent about 6-8 hours this weekend working. and not even the normal something-broke/providing-support kind of work, but like working on a development project. i really enjoy most all of what i do and i love my team, but many interactions with vendors and other teams in the hospital are extremely frustrating.

i am looking forward to a chance to get back to WI for obligatory, politically-motivated "training" about how to write SQL queries against an Oracle database (please don't ask). i'm feeling very burnt out and the prospect of beers and friends in wisconsin is about all that's keeping me going at this point. that and the who and bowie.

last night a dj saved my life

2008-09-03T23:50:00.004-04:00

(not from a broken heart.)

took a stealthy weekend sabatical to the brew city 2 weekends ago (preceeding labor day) and got a shitton of great music from michael. started digging into it:

stunt rock - been looking for an album by him on/off for a while...ever since finding the song sampling tom cruise's wang rant from born on the fourth of july in high school junior year..."BIG FUCKING ERECT PENIS!"
japancakes cover of my bloody valentine's landmark loveless
bersarin quartett - the kind of stuff you can play at work and no one can complain about, but is still interesting enough to amuse
general elektriks - french poppy hip hop that mashes and genre-bends so often you can't help but enjoy
mudy on the sakuban - J-mathrock...further evidence of japan's superiority
pivot - australian post-rock/electronic/wtf act worth downloading no matter what your approach...like most kids on warp, they will challenge and enrich you for listening
finally, an electro dance-rock group called "bad dudes" whose album "eat drugs" had me the moment i read the path on the fileserver...but then i listened and rocked out even harder....
reading a review of their album linked me to an awesome podcast of this dubstep/AWESOME duo called modeselektor (named after vintage roland gear), who i have been simply consuming...
and the peerless track "idiot" by james holden on a modeselektor mixcd got me into his shit too

anyway, i realized tonight that i only blog when i'm depressed, and that must mean the last 6 months (!) was awesome. and it was.

i am now quasi-officially (enough) a sysadmin instead of a pacs admin, but this is really code for the fact that i am doing development and projects most of the time (and now am tier-1 for escalation from the pacs team).

overall this transition has been fantastic. i really enjoy most all of what i do and i'm still on call, just in a different way. our senior sysadmin jacked out for a month when his wife had twins (dude is serious about redundancy), and this has solidified my position and xp so he can be free/less stressed and i can mature as well.

plus i conned one of my best friends into moving out here and getting a job with us and our combined income allows us to live in a sky palace (pics coming soon).

so if i only blog when i'm depressed, why am i here when painting such a rosy picture of things since i last ranted? i've been forced into rails development...so onto my rails list of reasons its driving me insane:

wtf does the FixedNum type have date/time methods?! i realize its very cute to be able to say time = 2.months.ago, but seriously wtf is stuff like that doing in the default namespace?
the MVC religion (like OOP) is so dogmatic in forcing convention over common sense that it can be frustrating...i feel that having conditionals in display logic (e.g. don't show if null) is entirely kosher, but i am wrong...a hack non-existant helper class is clearly the right place to put things that don't square with M, V, or C
the whole dual symantecs of models versus the actual table they represent points out the flaws of the ORM philosophy...i am continually tempted to find_by_sql the whole damn set of things i need out of protest
i love the idea of writing MyTable.users(usr).window(datea,dateb).constraint(x) with named scopes, but other than messing around in the console, (which is verboten since testing and CI and agile philosophy are also bound into the RoR way) is this really cleaner or easier to maintain? tbd
as a python fan, its probably hypocritical to say i don't mind the whitespace restrictions it imposes but loathe ending blocks with end
the cute pluralization games with table names irks me forever...combining this gripe with the named scope thing and the terminology nonsense leads me to believe a lot of this test-driven development methodology and solipsistic naming "magic" is because the core users/developers make a lot of hip web 2.0 apps with rails, not integrating with business intelligence or legacy systems to visualize data (or do anything using data not generated by user input on a web page)
when i google docs for python (or C++ or javascript, i get lots of links from python.org and such...i get links to railscasts and screencasts with RoR. not even the pickaxe or rails api docs show up on page 1 of google. combining this with a weird dns/filtering problem on our network that delays google dns resolution by about a minute and you get a frustrated dude

i've done a lot of programming in college and in the last 2 years. i've gotten my SQL powers up past novice level and can write a mean python script, but i'm not a web developer. jumping into ruby for the first time while also learning the beast that is rails has been hellacious...especially with deadlines and the attitude that learning is best achieved through struggling instead of pair programming (due to limited resources with other developers).

anyway, like the AVGN, i'm back and i'm pissed.

ps - if you like the internet and shit, check out chrome and ubiquity.

anything can happen

2008-03-16T20:28:00.000-04:00

apologies in advance for another rambling, overdue post. work is a time-sink of epic proportions and i often find myself to lazy to come home and post more than a few words to a virtual punchlist of topics i want to discuss.

in reverse order, i ended up rebuilding my windows install today on my desktop because it had started acting all goofy (probably due to a timing issue introduced by the addition of new memory with mismatched timing) and was over a year old. its a ritual i've come to enjoy because it gives me a chance to check out new versions of software and such -- as such, i've discovered the embedded-google-sidebar chat-thing and foxytunes. both are totally awesome and highly enriching. being able to click a little button that launches a page containing lyrics, youtube videos, wikipedia info, etc is fantastic. frustrating at after going from 2GB to 4GB of physical memory, the 32bit garbage XP only can handle 3GB. however, w/o a DX10 video card, vista seems like an unnecessary exercise in frustration.

i've had the chance to use a tricked out dual quad-core Mac Pro at work recently and it was without doubt the fastest PC i've ever gotten to use. too bad its just a $4000 dongle for OS X.

heading back in time, ozmo got the best dvd release of any tv show i've ever seen. even crazier, the all-encompassing release cost $12USD and came direct from the producers. makes me upset that I repeatedly have to go to japan and pay hundreds of dollars to get tarantino films done correctly.

along the lines of spending money, i got to waste two hours of saturday morning getting my emissions tested, which was prefaced by a $1300 repair bill at the Saab place (again). i hate cars -- i can conlusively say that having not taken my car out here would have saved me like $5000 at this point. its almost as depressing as this foul dreamcast bait-and-switch.

penny arcade recently did an amusing podcast on the subject of EA's abominable shooter army of two. it was hilarious and awesome, focusing on a topic which they are fantastically passionate about, agency in gaming. will wright's incredible gdc talk was also tangentially related vis-à-vis generative behavior in worlds. what made the podcast fascinating was the large amount of it dedicated to hating on the phraseology of dude, man, and bro (and of course, the variant bra). as a dude who goes around referring to his bros as man and bra (whilst fist-pounding), it was disheartening, yet hilarious. whilst unimpeachably the most genuine, humble figures in the gaming community, one wonders if in certain social matters (such as the oft-requisite fist-pound) PA's authorship is not a bit too pretentious.

speaking of pretentiousness, i hate capitalization inconsistency. camelcase, etc drives me nuts in email. this blog entry, for example, is completely lowercase, aside from acronyms and a few proper names, but its a lot better than People Who Write Like This Because They Don't Know ANY rules about capitalization. the only thing worse is mixed capitalization in server/host names...e.g. referring to a server as WEBdatabase or even worse WebDb or something horrible like that. the camelcase involved in the WikiFormatting syntax that Trac uses is horrible, compared to the (IMHO) simple MediaWiki syntax i've come to know and love. it's my primary objection to trac as a software development tool.

finally, my last interesting topic is a question: who is the trent reznor of your industry? i would argue that i work for 2 in my industry, but its gotten me thinking. trent is held up as my example of someone who gets "it" from end-to-end (consumer - producer). he had an account on oink, understands the importance of remixing and reinterpreting with quality production material, and also quality/fidelity issues. the notion of a major artist giving me multitrack wav with a license that allows me to redistribute my own music using it is unprecedented. also, the idea of multiformat, high-quality digital/physical release is also new. his recent condemnation of radiohead as gimmicky is spot-on...i barely listened to rainbows until i got my cds and vinyl. its an interesting topic to debate ... will wright could be another example, but he works for the monolithic monster EA and doesn't seem to care about distribution, etc.

i can't hide from my mind

2008-03-01T22:23:00.001-05:00

this is going to be an erratic, verbose post, as it has been under construction since mid-january.

i started getting a tiny bit more into flixster today, added a new flashy thing under my last.fm tool. i wish they had a directors widget the way they have an actors one. i also wish it covered television, too. if anyone knows of a similar tool for keeping track of television and/or games, let me know. i'd love to keep track of that stuff more efficiently. i also added my release schedules calendar to the sidebar so you know what stupid stuff i'm wasting my time and money on.

i've really been digging led zeppelin lately. they are awesome. i've been into them so deeply that the man who pulls me out will be made the king of england. speaking of zeppelin, Amazon hosed my preorder and i sent them an angry message:

I preordered this blu-ray disc 09/27/07 and I now know it has shipped because reviews started showing up on the web. So I search Amazon only to discover why my disk hasn't shipped: the ASIN I ordered, B000UR9TPK is obsolete and has been replaced with the new ASIN B0012YYZYK -- WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?! This is not the first time I have preordered a game or film in advance and been totally screwed by Amazon changing the ASIN without updating me, thus leaving me in preorder limbo. VERY FRUSTRATING!!! I am a loyal customer and buy *everything* (except fresh food and import multimedia) from Amazon (via Prime). It hurts to be treated this way; I realize that I am in the minority and do not fit your target market, but having better tools to track preorders for games, music, and movies would vastly improve my Amazon experience. As it stands, I need to maintain a Google calendar with dates copied from press releases and manually synch that up to my wishlists because amazon doesn't place bogus ASINs until (what I presume is) your orders are secured with the manufacturers. At this point I've taken to waiting until shortly before release to preorder so situations this one stop happening, but then I'm not taking advantage of the preorder pricing guarantee and I lose my place in the queue for popular items (e.g. Patapon for PSP...I might as well run down to a brick'n'mortar if it doesn't ship by yesterday). I realize that whoever reads this has no control over any of Amazon's policies, but I would appreciate it if you could pass along my complaints and suggestions to whoever it is that will ignore them.

also in line with music news, i've been digging bobby conn. instead of leaving secret clues of his satanic origins like the john-mccrea-is-satan theory postulates, he blatantly advertises his evil intentions...his band has a cake-esque sound, but with more of a psychedelic, hard edge. very ironic and self-critical.

i've also finally committed to being awesome and experience the fantastic revelation of what life is like when you swap the control and caps lock keys, the way they were meant to be. pic related. using a sun keyboard all day at work ensures both physical security-through-obscurity as well as no broken pinky after lots of emacs. rms approves.

equivalently disturbing/internet-y is news like this. yes, there is a mass murderer named general butt naked. hilarious because it can't be true right? then you realize its not so funny when you read about him in the wikipedia.

additional evidence that america is both completely insane and completely freedom-hating. make security theater look rational.

finally, a weird story from a while back that made me think about the idea of a stand alone complex IRL. at the time i first watched GIST:SAC, i thought that while the premise was fascinating it was too obtuse to actually happen, but now i need to reconsider. coincidently i could get a chance to do so in high definition (at an insanely expensive price), as the brd box set is coming soon.

what is and what should never be

2008-03-01T18:21:00.006-05:00

sorry for the hiatus - you know how it goes. after numerous public and private requests to resume the words, i've finally caved. i've actually had a post i've been intermittently crafting for a few weeks, but i'm too lazy to carve it up right now. perhaps later when i get my apartment less disgusting (kitchen, trash, laundry, etc.)

instead i'll point out why i stopped reading LRC:

Don't mention 1984 or Brave New World, government schools outlawed them long ago. You know how they hate competition.

The snarky, absurd, inaccurate assessment is practically shilling for government by demonstrating how irrational libertarians appear when making sweeping, unsubstantiated observations. Similar to the 9/11 truth movement, modern libertarianism is being destroyed by absolutely insane shill (or shill-like) voices who make the rational folks appear ridiculous-by-association to the rest of the world.

I was personally exposed to both of those in public school and rationalized that it was similar to the current Bush administration. they aren't doing anything different than any other regime throughout history, with the exception of flaunting their ridiculous behavior through gestures like the Patriot Act, etc. just to show how unlimited their power is. similarly, Orwell and Huxley were included included in the curriculum so that the few kids who recognized they were being oppressed could enjoy the irony that everyone else was given a chance at freedom and didn't want to take it.

i can't face the evening straight

2008-01-04T20:47:00.000-05:00

i'm just getting off an 11 day stint of 24x7 on-call while i covered for my locals/familied/religioned compatriots at work. i actually got bailed out for the NYE, but i can guarantee that i'm about 10x more lit up now than i was then. i got home from work bummed out and cleaned the shit out of my apartment; been listening to lennon and radiohead and polishing off my last bottle of whiskey (currently at an eight out of an estimated 11 shots).

i'm missing my positive influence at work and my friends a lot. i've been trying to figure out what do outside of work since things are settled a bit and i've sorted out the last of my moving affairs. i'm really intersted in writing some erlang for a game, but i just have no idea where to start. i get home from work exhausted and depressed; i envy people who get satisfaction from their jobs because it feels like all i do is fight the trash compactor in a new hope. i fight the losing side in losing battles with predetermined outcomes instead of creating new stuff.

outside of work i have no idea where to begin socially; i've always relied on leaching off my friends to be fulfilled socially -- now i have a few friends, but its just not the same. they aren't the people i fought and bled with, the people i dreamed and cried and won and learned with. we may be intellectually and taste compatible, but they aren't the kids who call me when the cops show up or who let me pass out on their couch at 10am and sleep it off.

in the words of arrested development, i've made a huge mistake. i'm going to stick with it because i truly do find a few minutes a week priceless, but at least in my current position i won't be able to sustain much longer. all i want to do is create beautiful new toys and all i am allowed to do is fix broken old shit. all my work at obliterating financial burdens was annihilated by the car situation; an ironic counter -- i should have just driven it into the harbor, it probably would have been a net profit.

at this point, all i can look forward to is the fact that things can't get much worse and at despite being in a morally indefensible position, at least i'm not at risk of being killed because of my birth or geography. i wish i had a plan to get my shit together (like the fountains of wayne), but right now all i see is the empty bottom of another bottle.

true love lives on lollipops and crisps.

good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye

2007-12-17T18:38:00.000-05:00

its been a long, brutal >1 month since i last blogged it up. first came the visit of a sendes amigo, cut short by poor planning (on my part) and a professional conference i jetted off to in chicago. the con was a total waste as i only parroted trivia at a booth, shilling for a well-meaning open standards body that is insufficiently adopted. no time to network or learn; the only worthwhile activity was a brief, but glorious meeting with the mccraw clan. rockin'

upon my return, work went to hell - literally we are at day 十九 of degraded performance on our primary enterprise application: performance ranging from sluggish to 30 seconds before a single 512x512 image shows up (in a series of hundreds or even thousands of images). not to mention the downtime and data corruption (not permanent, but annoying and requiring multiple re-sends, wasting network and human resources on symptom-solving instead of problem-solving). our vendor has generally been arguably worse than useless, leading us off track, being argumentative and resistant. only a few members of their company seem to have any semblance of regard for our organizational well-being and patient care quality. it seems to be the generally-accepted idea now that we broke our storage system by messing with it continually trying to prove it wasn't our storage system's fault (since the predicating event was a reboot of some gateway servers that act as cache buffers for source data before being archived, as well as conduits for data distribution from short-term cache).

as a result, our team has been working 10-12 hours days 6 days a week, and the burn is starting to show. staff meetings have are grim affairs and tcons are verbal battlefields, with the more sane-at-the-moment jumping on the mute button to prevent further decay. its a terrible situation, feeling helpless, not having the sources, and fighting the only people with the resources you need. right now its hard to separate the trees/forest, but our fearless leader is braving the charge to get us what we need to bring things back online. at this point, determing root cause has a lower probability than finding out why wtc 7 collapsed and all we care about is restoring service. a return to the normal.

i took a comp day today to get my shit sorted at the MVA; even showing up 30 minutes early at 08:00 and getting place 2/50 in the frozen line, i didn't leave until after 11:00. at least i blend in with the pack now; only $708 to get the man off my back. at least i declined the voting registration. i realized it was probably a bad idea too, but i had seriously considered bringing a flask of JD to shotgun while in the line...good thing i don't have a drinking problem.

in the meanwhile, i've been enjoying life when i can. a drunken appearance at the dept. holiday party felt disastrous, but no pink slips have been received yet (in fact, i'm told my team was toasted by the chairman). since then, the personal liquor stash approaches collegiate levels, for use when not on-call. certainly not as healthy or safe as other stress-relief, but sadly effective.

i conquered mass effects lack of documentation by re-rolling a combat-focused character, which made the game much easier in early stages. the godawful inventory management system is a blight on an otherwise mostly fantastic game. certainly the best AAA title released since Deus Ex, lightyears ahead of Bioshock (perhaps portal had potential, but it was only a wet dream compared to owning the harem). i haven't adequately galaxied yet, and rock band is too depressing to solo...just a reminder of how all my friends are in WI. i did briefly hold the number 3 or 4 spot for vocals in one of the bowie DLC tracks a few hours after it came out and get a throne for the kit.

not much else cool, aside from that the discbox landed finally. vinyl sounds painfully good - a sad reminder of how CD mastering is part of the cancer killing modern music. the bonus disc is ripe with raw win.

back to jack, coke, and yorke, thanks to my friends at sony, yamaha, and klipsch, and BGE.

planet eath is blue and there's nothing i can do

2007-11-11T18:33:00.000-05:00

coming to terms with futile situations is difficult but important. this ability is a major stepping point for changing your attitude about life to be positive; hanging around with people who have great attitudes and espouse positive attitudes is the best way to get one yourself; you can be the crying-on-the-inside kind of clown, but if you can stick with good people you'll never find yourself in despair for too long. i think that's why i like working with the positive, upbeat coworkers at my current organization - even when the chips are down and you can't see the forest from the trees there is an attitude that we can conquer the world regardless of these petty obstacles. being able to apply these ideas to your personal life is even more rewarding; just add some whisky and you can meet any challenge.

moving out of philosophical whimsy, my car sounds effed up: brake pads, tires, air intake sensor, exhaust, broken headlight, and title/registration issues abound. i am considering just straight up trading it and starting with something newer.

i played through halo 3 co-op and all it brought a few points to mind:

gears of war is much more entertaining, but difficult
even a mediocre, pretentious game like halo 3 is awesome when playing co-op because the whole mechanic of co-operative first person shooters is so rewarding
i really want to realize my dream of a co-op fps that doesn't suck

i've been watching firefly, and not only has it been pumping me up for the upcoming season of BSG, it reminded me that similar to co-op fps, the serialized sci-fi genre is intrinsically made of win. i can plainly say that firefly is even better than bsg, and the fact that i'm already half-way done is a major bummer.

finally, a physics report that has already brought much lulz must be presented for long-term posterity. ancient by any standard, but timeless and rewarding when looking back on the shit i had to deal with in college.

electrosurfeit

2007-11-09T22:51:00.000-05:00

lots of cool new toys and games recently:

asus eee pc - it meets all expectations...keyboard is tiny, but the display is gorgeous
hellgate: london - diablo meets guild wars...mediocre, but entertaining
aqua teen hunger force zombie ninja pro-am - one of the best licensed games i've played...everything you could ever hope to have in a licensed game
guitar hero 3 - excellent improvements, mostly good songs. unfortunately, needing to complete cooperative to get all the songs is very lame
the dracula x chronicles - outstanding port of the legendary pc engine title, complete with lots of fun unlockables
metal gear solid: portable ops - haven't had much time to dig in, but it looks as promising as the home versions

more to come soon too; rock band, portal ops expansion, mass effect, mario galaxy, etc...

believe it

2007-11-07T00:18:00.000-05:00

first off, the Eee PC order from Amazon got canceled because they could not deliver (and when isearch for "asus eee pc" why is it that the exact match is result #12?!). As much as I love prime, i love Eee PC more. then i tried to order a black one from mwave.com, only to find it was also delayed. finally, i got them to convert to a white one which is now shipped. can't wait!

today was a day of epic frustration; one of our vendor's still doesn't know how to program. there has been an error which crashes the client that i've seen since i first showed up. if you export the data and exam it, its 100% legitimate, but every time you try to open it with the vendor's software, regardless of version, you get thrown the desktop with a super-vague error. luckily the logs capture the truth of the matter: someone was trying to dereference a null pointer! checking if a pointer is null before dereferencing is day-one stuff and it's frustrating to have our support personnel from vendor telling us (this is a quote heard from our weekly t-con), "long ago I gave up trying to understand the software."

with an attitude like that from the support team and code that behaves the way theirs does, its no wonder we are fighting fires all day. i would love to be able to either help their support organization get it together or be able to spend some quality time with their developers to try to teach them a few things (or both). right now, we have team members burning out with frustration and lots of anger built up. however, as rewarding as it may feel to bitch someone out or experience the schadenfreude of watching said bitching, the end result of such venting is counter-productive too (pissing in an ocean of piss); it doesn't change their organization, it just increases the disconnect and apathy.

i'm trolling for good ideas about how to solve this set of problems, so shoot me an email or drop a comment if you've figured out a productive way to help your vendor let you help them so you can help yourself (lol).

lastly, i'm really into this irish post-rock band; can't get enough. at least i've got their stunning music to help me through the days (and nights).

workin' hard

2007-11-06T00:12:00.000-05:00

if only all of our vendors delivered outstanding customer service, understood the basic principles of programming, and had a strong vision of the future. staying late and coming in early because of their lack of dedication to greatness upsets, especially when my friends and i all are battling various stages of seasonal colds.

eee pc is inbound this week (i hope).

and you put on your headphones, and you step into the zone...

2007-10-31T00:38:00.000-04:00

...but the world don't care if you are or are not there cus,

i am very disappointed with the last 60 seconds of californication; they blew the previous 100200 seconds for nothing :(

And you cause such a fuss
'Cause there's no one you can trust
...
And the best of your days
Will vanish in the haze

one day i will get past all my weird hangups and blend in with the herd, but for now the bitching and drinking shall continue. i'm really sick of rocking out solo, but simultaneously i'm resigned to that being the only reasonable destiny. also, fuck weezer for changing the lyrics; the amount of infinite gladness i have for possessing a copy of the better lyrics (what what? a judgement of art?!) in violation of article 1 section 8 cannot be expressed in unsigned 32-bit integers.

let it be known that i shall continue to rock you like a hurricane, until such time as i see fit that sufficient has rocking has occurred. in the meanwhile, listen to III.

the day the music died

2007-10-30T21:24:00.001-04:00

oink is deader than...dead. shitsux. i've got a pain in my gulliver. i'd been contemplating a lengthy post condemning fools and praising genius. turns out i just needed some time off the pager and fuel. i can't believe no one has done a cover of american pie related to the death of oink; i had some clever lyrics a bit ago, but lost them on the quest from the living room to the computer. i pulled a copy of maclean's masterpiece for reference and it blanked my slate completely. the energy and vitality trapped in the shoddy representation vibrating my hairs blew my mind, especially when compared with some of the rubbish covers that fill large parts of guitar hero 3. not to say that the game has no promise, but it won't compete with rock band on the same plane: it's d'n'd v yahtzee.

anyway, hopes at coherence are limited, but at least i finally posted and got those tabs off my browser. i'm astounded with the mediocrity of leopard. sure it's great (aside from breaking XLD), but it's no great leap forward.

my last point of order is a point i've made before in previous blogs or public houses: my generation has been rhetorically robbed of great men; we have no Lennon. anyone who had an opportunity to see Lennon and didn't engaged in criminal negligence. some days i feel like 20 seconds with Lennon could straighten me out for the rest of my existence. i can listen to his music, or that of any number of other contemporary wizards, but it will never be the same. when i was in high school, i had meager goals to complete before i died, such as:

~~see quake 3 running on a pc i own at >60fps @ 1600x1200~~
~~see paul oakenfold and/or max graham live in concert~~

having accomplished the majority of such goals, i now feel empty. i can add or replace a goal like >65" @ 24p, but i've seen kubrick functionally lossless already. there is little of substance left, beyond contributing to the gene pool and trying to help others. the people who really make a difference are already doing it, and the evil-doers are fighting them. there isn't much need for a guy like me; you only love me for my machine. all i do is consume, contribute to evil, and help in the most trivial way.

ironically on the upside, i see the light at the end of tunnel "projectville" at work; i've got a grasp and the team dynamic is mostly improved IMHO from where we've been in the past. i'm lucky to have such cool dudes to hang with. its like getting to hang out with your cool older brother who is never around. RSNA is coming up and that brings a chance to see clan mccraw, and maybe even a labelle.

"are you drunk?" "not drunk enough..."

file under: bosnian, composed while listening to a mix of choons, but ending in comfortably numb, which i am only a few more shots away from. finally, some international feel.

out on the tiles

2007-10-21T22:33:00.000-04:00

bullet point style, while waiting for the last 2/3 dexter s02e04 to propagate:

hueg week in blu-ray releases...5 kubrick films
still battling the mouse unsuccessfully; i've actually seen it run across the floor, it reminds me of the little soot sprites from 千と千尋の神隠し
while semi-successfully completing a major project, i am under the gun big-time to finish another one ASAP. been spending too much time micromanaging vendors and putting out fires :(
i also brought down a major system for the first time last week, through xkcd-esque incompetence :( at least i was~~n't~~ under the influence when the pager went off and people noticed...i'd been experimenting with alcohol to help me sleep because i'm so stressed about not completing my projects at a pace i'd like to.
got a copy of my birth certificate, so i can finally start the arduous journey to be legally allowed to drive my car
the other car-enabling factor is that i got reimbursed for my move, so i actually have money to get my car fixed at the only saab place around
128 hours of pager this week + trying to program while in the shop is just going to be major :(
the new venetian snares album is even better than his hungarian one, and despite the pretentious asses at pitchfork, i've decided that i like "house of cards" more than "videotape" (just barely). can't wait for that discbox. even ordered a new stylus for it. wasted a whole bunch of time after work one night just checking out faustian legend, goethe, etc. on the wiki.
finally...the best game for wii is my prediction. unless they open up to independent developers, my sad prediction is that no one will have a better vision during this systems lifetime. plus its being developed by ex-blizzard and GOAL dudes.

already done downloading by the time i finished this post. awesome.

soul education

2007-10-14T02:06:00.000-04:00

They stole an image of my son and just had to pay $4000

Or they didn't. You decided to publish (wonder if the root of public and publish are the same?) your family pictures online, an action which implies you wanted any number of unknown people to see these images. So along comes this designer who decides to steal your picture to sell crap and you get all bent out of shape (quite reasonably) because the photo you have is now gone and you can't show it to anyone else :(

Wait, that's not quite it...he didn't steal it, because its still sitting at the same URL for public viewing. You are unreasonably mad because he managed to monetize it without you getting a cut. If you really had intended to make money from your family photos, you could have decided to sell to/through a stock photography service. Even if you just wanted your pictures to be private, you could have shared them in a manner which would only allow your friends or family to view them. But you didn't; you never had intended to make money off this endeavor. And if you hadn't read the catalog, you would never have known how you weren't being harmed.

All the socialist/fascists at reddit who are commenting about the rule of ~~man~~ law being so awesome want not only the same outcome as the author (income without labor), they want it for everyone at the expensive of threatening or perpetrating violence on those who don't fund this noble cause. To me, the logic of everyone paying into a system that guarantees everyone will get paid seems circular...involuntary re-distribution of wealth, regardless of the labor involved in generating said wealth. Then again, with more votes up than down on this winner...

I would suggest that we vote for any presidential candidate who comes out in favor of nationalizing both.

In spite of this, I managed to find this gem on reddit. Finally, someone articulately stating my views on education!

"it's so delicious and moist"

2007-10-12T22:08:00.000-04:00

I periodically take Zogby's cryptochristofascist polls to try and skew his results and posit lulz, and I had the chance to give him a question to answer on his XM radio show:

When will politicians stop caring about the appearance of democracy and stop paying pollsters to advertise their results as an accurate reflection of the votes tallied during an election? It is clear that most elections in recorded history has been riddled with voting fraud, so why maintain the facade?

Similarly, enjoy some schadenfreude lulz.

Everyday Shooter is proving to be the best PS3 game to date. A post-rock rhythm/top-down shooter game with dynamic rules? It's the artsy/pretentious microbrew version of the forty that is Space Giraffe.

On an unrelated note, I wish our data center was this cool. NVIDIA is awesome.

Speaking of ~~NVIDIA~~ ATI, I beat Portal already. Brief, but fun and lots of re-playability/extras. Fantastic ending, probably the most rewarding conclusion to a game I've experienced in a long time.

And the science gets done
And you make a neat gun
For the people who are
Still alive.


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you know you are a pacs administrator when...

2007-10-06T07:10:00.000-04:00

...you see a serial number on a box of tissue paper and you think its an accession number :/

this post has been brewing for like two weeks, but i've been too lazy to write it out. now i'm all tweeked out caffeine waiting for house to finish downloading. bullet-points for brevity:

i've been into cinema featuring parkour and buildering recently: tekkonkinkreet and district b13 were both awesome. more detailed reviews on the facebook movies thing. tekkonkinkreet also had a bitchin' soundtrack by plaid.
i scrubbed into an operating room two weeks ago...probably the most intense thing i've done since poor decisions involving alcohol during college. i'm pretty sure i was doing it wrong.
the it crowd is over, and good riddance; richard ayoade is all that it ever had going for it and rumors place him in the destined-to-be-doomed american adaptation.
i finally got into the hellgate beta...despite pre-ordering from amazon months ago, the cartel of the big 3 (walmart, best buy, and eb/gamestop) managed to block out other pre-order bonuses for quite a while. sadly, i am unimpressed...guild wars in an FPS with a much cooler backstory/setting/universe.
continuing expectation reversal, blue dragon has proven to be most entertaining in the 8 hours i've squeezed out.
i finished the vengeance trilogy...conclusively i can place oldboy as the best, but sympathy for lady vengeance holds a close second, while revenge is mine in a mediocre, distant third. again, facebook/movies thing.
portal...valve, fuck you and the orange box. i don't give a shit about ~~the incredibles~~ team fortress 2 or episodic rip-offs...all i want is fucking narbacular drop 2.0
i've been drinking king cobra, and it's tasty.
i also am obsessively (re)watching tim and eric awesome show, great job! it's the best comedy i've seen in a live-action format since lucky louie. watch this video or this one and get your lulz on. try this one too, for your health! (dummy!). if robot chicken was more thematic and musically oriented, with a bent toward mocking marketing and horrible local television, this would be TAEASGJ!
finally, the psp-2000 is in the mail. perhaps the lazy people who i pay exorbitant rent too will actually be there when UPS shows up tomorrow.

H-week

2007-09-26T01:05:00.000-04:00

house and heroes fired up this week, as well as metalocalypse. adding in the existing 4 shows that are currently in new seasons (frisky dingo, the IT crowd, weeds, and californication), this brings me up to 7 downloads a week...and in 3 weeks when dexter catches up to the leak I will be at 8...almost makes you want to go through the hassle of cable, until you calculate the insane bill and lack of long-term storage and inclusion of commercials, as well as software scaling for 16:9 program material broadcast in SD (e.g. metalocalypse).

metalocalypse also had a soundtrack release last week, which was totally brutal. the new season had an intense opening and made me happy. heroes was back to ridiculous/predictable and house...well, i think that the season finale was a serious shark jumping event. everything they had built up over the past three years was swept away without concern - they could have arrived at the same end-game situation without being so brutally lucas-episode3-denouement about it. anyway, the new season is a good beginning, much like season 3's bold opening (which quickly devolved) -- let's hope it stays good.

anyway, the primary reason i didn't go to bed was that, i noticed a major part of the problem with contemporary thoughts about IP when reading the news before bed. as orwell tried to tell us nearly a century ago, controlling language is important. "The limits of my language mean the limits to my world." by mutilating any thoughts of sharing new ideas into "stealing" you get awful sentences like this:

"The GPU development cycle is still short enough that it's plausible that someone could steal AMD's technology and implement it before it is outdated; where someone doesn't have to be only NVIDIA."

not only is it not stealing if it is given, it DOESN'T DEPRIVE ANYONE OF PHYSICAL PROPERTY! stealing is when i take your car and you can't drive to work. copyright infringement is when i download your song and play it for my friends so we can all go to your concert and buy t-shirts. patent infringement is when i figure out how your product work and make a better one based on your flawed ideas and make enough money so you can sue me; or when i bring a product to market without spending millions on a legal team to notice you patented right-clicking in 1950. trademark infringement is when i charge $5 for a mickey mouse t-shirt and you charge $50 and the mark is so valueless or trivial that people don't care if it's legitimate so they buy more of mine then yours and you get men with guns to put me away for working harder than you did to maintain the value of your own brand. lumping all of these discrete ideas into a single category only works because of the underlying notion that in each circumstance you want to send men with guns to take my money and give it you instead of working to legitimately earn it by producing a good or service that people ware willing to pay for.

a company sharing information on how their product works so their customers can use it does not expose them to "theft" from people making compatible knock-offs. does ikea "expose themselves to theft" by including assembly instructions for furniture? give me a damn break.

the serious part of the problem is that this comes from anandtech, one of the leading industry information hubs for the denizens of the it world. CTOs and CIOs make strategic decisions based on drivel from authors who don't understand the simple legal and linguistic distinction between free sharing of information and criminal property deprivation. i'm surprised nvidia hasn't thrown up a big "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner.

sunday solipsism

2007-09-23T17:10:00.001-04:00

so i missed a screening of this gem, but luckily my bros from Sweden got my back. ectoplasmosis also hooked me up with a neuroscience blog that looks awesome. always fun to find new and exciting blogs that get updated all the time with original content...for instance, you may find this fascinating. i've also started getting into the movies tool of facebook a bit.

i also had crabs for the first time...as in eating them steamed out of a bag with a knife and my fingers as the only implements. it was pretty intense.

"This blows my weekend...

2007-09-22T12:17:00.000-04:00

...because naturally I'll have to go with you -- and we'll have to arm ourselves...to the teeth."

Sony botched the release. And I'm on call. I did get my 5 free HD DVDs from Toshiba, but this doesn't make the new firmware update suck less...24p with huge audio synch problems and although they feign full-range RGB ala PS3, it does not fix my elusive black-level problem.

all aboard the fail train

2007-09-18T18:37:00.000-04:00

lala.com got another ugly face lift recently...sometime between friday night and this afternoon they managed to push cd trading even further down their priority list. as many users in the entirely-ignored forums have pointed out, major cd trading-related issues since the 2 new web rollouts have been entirely ignored: multi-disc sets, direct-ship, and art protocols. now i can't even find my lists unless i log into the front page. aside from a brief burst of cd trading shortly after i moved, i am still owed 2 cds before i reach parity and can leave the site w/o losing money.

the shills are posting to the forums as fast as the legitimate complaints are coming in, claiming lala's cost-saving, garbage-quality cardboard sleeves provide faster transit for discs (false: they also provide less protection), and that trading isn't de-emphasize (false:
the entire page used to be filled with links, stats, numbers and info all about trading...now its a tiny link crushed in a sea of flash and advertisement). some shills are saying that complaining about the new, useless features (unless you have an ipod and/or massive upload speeds) is like complaining about amazon trying to sell you electronics and food, beside books. nonsense - amazon's goal is to be the worlds largest store. lala's goal (when I and most of the other now-bitching users signed on) was to be the world's premiere cd trading site, not a monstrous, flash-filled itunes front-end for a crappy cd store. they also claim the cd database has improved, but oddly enough i still can't list about 1/3rd of my collection...the same third i couldn't post in january when i joined.

i forgot, there is one cool new trading-related feature that has rolled-out with the new releases: digipaks are now not allowed to be shipped.

across 110th street

2007-09-17T20:26:00.000-04:00

i watched jackie brown for the first time over the weekend. i thought it was pretty good, but not up to the standards QT set with pulp fiction or res dogs. in fact, i would charge it as a mediocre, predictable heist film with a gross misuse of de niro. now i understand why it is not engraved onto the rest of the QT pantheon. still, an undeniable soundtrack and sense of tension/confusion.

more on the across the universe soundtrack - it got me to check out secret machines, whose first album was a really nice heavy-metal/noise pink floyd-esque sound. not so impressed with the sophmore release, but always fun to find new jams. speaking of sophmore albums, the new go! team album bangs hard, IMHO much more consistent than their first full length album. the first cut off the bonus disc (wtf is up with this bonus disc bs?) is possibly my favorite of the session.

apparently my august 4th amazon prime pre-order of hellgate: london is insufficient to score a beta key, since it isn't from the cartel of top game retailers.

i'm on night pager for the first time today. 128 hours of on-call fun. within the first 90 minutes i was pelted with 6 pages...although to be less dramatic, 4 of them were automated messages about a server bouncing itself for health. the other 2 were standard, run-of-the-mill, no-one-dying/nothing-exploding stuff. oh yeah, and speakeasy's network out here has been intermittent for the last hour...first time i ever truly need the internet and its the only non-trivial speakeasy outage i've ever experienced with them....damn you, murphy!

the pizza just arrived and i've got some new IT crowd and frisky dingo in the queue, and later tonight i can expect new Weeds and Californication to entertain me between saving lives (figuratively). at least, i tell myself that ... realistically, we support somewhere between 500-1000 workstations on-site and half-a-dozen remote locations directly (not counting the dozens we read images for) with a staff of less than a dozen. our boss says we are world-class and i can't disagree ;)

Have you ever stared into his eyes? It was like the first time I ever heard the Beatles.

2007-09-14T23:49:00.000-04:00

Bang bang, shoot shoot.

Seriously, I just had a near-drug experience (sadly sober). Eddie Izzard performing "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" was so intense that I could hardly believe I was straight. Maybe it's just because I'm and Izzard freak (ri¢hes!) and a Beatles freak, but this merging was complete (pylons, lol). Overall, the Across the Universe soundtrack is very high quality IMHO. A few clunkers, but the gems make it worthwhile. Can't wait for the non-limited release of the film next week. I suggest ~~stealing~~ buying the Best Buy "exclusive" (lol, internet fools) double edition, which has the aforementioned song on it (as well as all my other A-rank titles from the album). Also, Superbad was unbelievably hilarious. Makes me sad, just thinking about AD.

I've been feeling generally downtrodden about working so much and missing my friends recently, but this album has really upped my vibe. I am almost done with Bioshock and I am playing poker tomorrow. More importantly, I made some progress on my projects at work this week and some significant barriers that I had perceived impeding my success were dropped. To quote Ice Cube:

Today I didn't even have to use my AK,
I got to say it was a good day.

Nano-post

2007-09-07T02:43:00.000-04:00

Interesting in my line of work
The internet makes you stupid
Only two blocks from where I live...

I was at work past midnight trying to get compiz-fusion working, but i gave up and installed xfce4, then left the machine doing an emerge -ev world...

Been too tired/busy to post with the current situation of a server being down and trying to get it properly backed-up/recovered, as well as having the "day pager" this week. more on that later.

Midnight Wisdom

2007-08-29T03:54:00.001-04:00

Just finished this silly statistics script which should have taken an hour...it took 4 (not counting the hour I already spent on it at work today).

Anyway, I wanted to post a context-free bit of dialog from work, which made me lol upon further recollection:

Max: So was he like Lucy, pulling the football away from you right before you kick it?
Me: No, it was more like I was the football...
...
Wait, what?

Micro-review instead of sleeping (weird sleep schedule)

2007-08-28T01:57:00.000-04:00

The season premiere of The IT Crowd is neither funny nor IT, but it certainly contained crowd elements. Lame! A complete waste of time, and not up to the standards of the previous season. Only funny bit was with the goth, and it was about 15 seconds :/
The season premiere of Frisky Dingo was both Frisky and Dingo. They took an impossible position and flew to the stars with great success; this show is continually full of surprises, relevance to the now, and epic lulz. Further evidence of 70/30 Productions commitment to excellence.

Never Gonna Give You Up, Never Gonna Let You Down

2007-08-27T04:47:00.000-04:00

Bioshock's portrayal of the fictional Andrew Ryan, would-be pseudo-anarchocapitalist, makes him out to be a real blood-thirsty asshole. This is starting to piss me off, although I am glad to be at a point in the game where I am (allegedly) close to killing him.

Makes me glad that real-life hackers are kicking ass, freeing the iPhone. That dude is a superbad. Almost as bad-ass as Kojima dedicating Snatcher, "to all those cyberpunks who fight against injustice and corruption every day of their lives." Now, through the magic of Google, watch the best opening cinematic from any game in history, ever.

With A Little Help From My Friends

2007-08-26T18:06:00.000-04:00

an excellent essay about the ethics of an anarchist surviving in the world of big government
david is flying out to hang with me during the holiday weekend. awesome!

The New Afghanistan

2007-08-25T03:20:00.000-04:00

work has been kicking my ass, sorry for the lack of updates. although i think that all 4 people who read my blog probably don't care much anyway. i've been getting home after working 10 hours of break-fix firefighting on the day pager and basically eat something, maybe get an hour of bioshock in, then crash until i wake up in the middle of the night when the pager goes off or i bolt up at 8am and freak out that i'm going to be late (i don't even know if there is such a thing). i feel like a rolled up tube of toothpaste. i wish i could just sleep for more than four hours without bolting upright in bed and freaking out. i still haven't slept right since i got here. i feel like i'm never going to catch up on my administrative tasks for life (e.g. getting my car fixed, etc.)

speaking of bioshock, i dont understand the widescreen controversy. i can understand why people would be pissed about securom, but so far i have personally experienced zero issues (including activating within a few hours of launch on tuesday). at least wii > 360 (finally)...too bad my wii now totally locks up when i do anything involving Miis. i'll probably get that fixed when my car gets fixed and i ship my stuff back to WI (aka never). also, my ps3 can finally be a tivo (if I move to europe). apparently ATSC isn't standardized according to sony. weird how my tv has a tuner, though.

90 minute power outage last night, no good reason. pissed me off. i get like 1-2 hours during weeknights before i pass out, and i can't even get my game on :(

i've been hanging out 1-2x week with one of my fellow admins from work and it is cool to finally have made a friend out here now, but i miss the reliability and comfort of being able to basically crash at labelle's house anytime. i miss the intense drinking and gaming and cinema escapades of the grafton crew.

also, 2 seriously loud car accidents within view of my window the past 2 days. wtf.

You only lie to two people in your life, your girlfriend and the police. Everybody else you tell the truth to.

2007-08-16T22:22:00.000-04:00

My posting has been lackadaisical this week, sorry. Although Monday's orientation did feature a YouTube-esque video of a wrench J.K. Lee-ing some bricks stacked in front of an MR, it was mostly useless and boring. I'm slowly starting to get the hang of work; not yet all the way where I want to be, but at least I'm better than useless. I even broke my pager and got a replacement already, and I think I'll have my voicemail set up tomorrow. I'm working on a couple projects and have less trepidation going to investigate problems now, although I still need more logins and my own personal head-DNS...kind of like head-Six, but replace the sex with bind :\

I also took care of my WI DMV issues and some banking stuff, as well as some HR stuff. I still need to get HR to reimburse me for moving and also get my car fixed, but then I think all the moving nonsense will be completed.

Moving on to gaming, Bioshock hits next week, and luckily Steam is already awesome:

Also, the new DiRT demo for PS3 has, without doubt, the most gorgeous menu/loading screens I have ever seen. Too bad it plays like a 720P, wannabe-Gran Turismo. Apparently the 360 version has been out for a while, so this is not new data, but I really did enjoy the menus.

Finally, Penny Arcade has really dropped the ball with their latest shirt (scroll to the bottom); compare the design to the original:

WTF? I think the set of people offended by the word "fuck" includes the same set of people offended by the word "dick;" that is to say, I can't imagine people who wouldn't be offended by the word "dick" but would be offended by "fuck." The only marginal defense is the magic seven.

It really tied the room together.

2007-08-13T20:43:00.000-04:00

Couch pics:

Couch

What should I put behind it? I've still got some electronics gear (oscilloscope, power supplies, signal generator, DMM, etc.) I could deploy or I could attempt to put some audio gear back there (either production or DJing), or just rearrange everything. Any ideas are welcome for consideration.

This weekend I found an interesting interview with a former kernel developer who quit working on his project for various reasons. Most of the good stuff is on page 3.

Lastly, the demo for Bioshock is out on Live. I highly suggest playing it at any cost.

Littering and . . . littering and . . .

2007-08-12T03:27:00.000-04:00

Got the new couch (despite some complaints from another building resident about using the front door). It's sweet; expect pics tomorrow when it is light outside. Looking for suggestions about what to do with the remaining space in the room.

Caught up on some cinema, namely Solaris. Tarkovsky kicked my ass in. Very intense, like smoking an unfiltered cigarette and drinking warm vodka during an earthquake. The visual effects were stunning, as was the lengthy test of the Tokyo sequence. Reminded me of Koyaanisqatsi a bit, but the true genius was the way he used mirrors and slow pans to really show you the world. A planned attention to extreme details that modern directors rub your face in or ignore. Brilliant ambient audio and fantastic use of color. He managed to make a sci-fi film but dodged the time-waste of presenting all the technobabble/deus ex of experiments and space travel.

I additionally re-watched Super Troopers (PAL/Stereo, but DVD) and really appreciated/pick-up on more of the dialogue (see title).

Finally (for this posting), I'm beginning to the feel the east-coast stress burn heat up. I'm pseudo-in-charge (perhaps more of a point-man/tech consultant) of a project involving designing a high-tech conference room of the future. Not knowing what's going on in general, in terms of budgets and stakeholders, is tough, but its harder trying to balance working on that with learning/being an administrator. I'm still not 100% in terms of knowing what I should know, but I'm getting closer; right now I feel like I'm at the place I wish I was at on last week Friday. Additionally, I got a pager of my own. It showed up late Friday and hasn't been hooked into our system yet, but just putting it on my belt makes me wary. I also picked up a weekend bonus pager for a remote location we support. This pager is most definitely hooked in, not only to that location, but to any other high-priority issues from any system. Freaked me out a bit when it went off today, but luckily two of the other admins from work got on it. So far it's gone off six times today, and each time I freak out not know who to call or what to say (if it would actually be for me). Luckily this place is generally low-maintenance, but I'm still worried about sleeping through a page.

Plus there are lots of other issues I just don't have time to properly attend to during the day: calling WI DOT to get them not to cancel my license because I can't take the car in to Milwaukee for an emissions test, calling my bank to get checks, changing my phone number with everyone who has my credit card on file (Amazon, eBay, etc.), and other similar tasks. I'm working 9-6, getting up at 8 and barely making it in on time, and when I get home I barely can eat dinner and catch up on Kotaku and the days tech news before I crash. But when I crash, I can only sleep about 4 hours in a row before I wake up restless and listless. I usually just surf some more and then hit it again for a few hours. I'm definitely not making the transition as well as I'd like too, and it's also hard to eat properly: I'm surviving on delivery Chinese and Papa John's (plus the lunch venue du jour, chosen by group consensus).

Now that I've taken care of the couch and cell phone situations, I hope I can start buckling down and dealing with more long-term issues like getting my car fixed and the banking thing (I need a debit card that doesn't rape me $5-10/mo in fees).

Wii Crashes Post-Update in "Everybody Votes"

2007-08-10T19:55:00.000-04:00

Got home from work to find a blue glowy on the Wii. Lolled at the message, forwarded it, and moved on to catch up on my Wii voting. Turns out, Everybody Votes, but I just crash and burn:

"Everybody Votes" crashing after new Wii firmware update

The idea that we are just now entering some untracked new realm is worth its weight in LOL'd.

2007-08-08T18:07:00.000-04:00

So I finally got my awesome Japanese rice cooker, and it was simply further evidence of the superiority of Japan. Even the box was cooler than an American box. Reports on actual cooking coming up. Too bad BlackBerry's aren't made in Japan, maybe they would suck less.

My concise BlackBerry review:

Good:

Great thumpad and trackball, easy to use and good tactile feedback.
Google Apps are unbelievably awesome.
Verizon's network is fast, omnipresent.
Speakerphone is sufficiently loud and clear.
The capability to dial phone numbers from web sites/IMs is grand.

Bad:

The official AOL AIM BlackBerry client is blocked, requiring me to purchase JiveTalk. JT is great, but I don't like paying even more money for what is essentially a built-in feature on every other BB on every other carrier.
Google Mail and Opera, while fantastic apps, frequently crash/lock the OS. Especially if you just back out to the menu, instead of properly exiting.
Battery life is about one day.
Numpad doesn't stand out like the Motorola Q.

Ugly:

Verizon - difficult to engage in contract, won't unlock SIM immediately, doesn't enable features that competitors do (e.g. no GPS, difficult to get AIM, unlocked SIM).
Screen ~~brightness~~ dimness - it occasionally gets super-bright as a tease, but I've found no way to drain my battery, but retain high-visibility.
Ringtones - I know they are in there somewhere, but damned if I can find them/change them.
Synching is a disaster - I don't even want to go into the horrible details of trying to extract my carefully built vCard address book from GrandCentral, but let's just say it involved Apple iSync and my old phone, a fileserver, a Yahoo! mail account, and a 250MB download from RIM. I did more import/export business than a drug dealer. This is why I started using Plaxo, a disaster unto itself, worthy of it's own blog entry in the future (when I fully grasp the scope of its destructive powers). Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the lack of calendar synch, but that's related to Plaxo and Blackberry as well.

Google is getting better all the time; not only do they detect the UPS tracking number, they lookup the arrival date and offer to add it to your calendar. Rule 31:

Their acquisition of GrandCentral was brilliant. GrandCentral is like free-and-easy Asterisk for dummies. Verizon ~~wouldn't~~ couldn't get me a local number, but GC could. I even have a link on my sidebar now.

I finally got a chance to sit down and play Eternal Sonata today. Previously, I had considered Blue Dragon to be the high-water mark for JRPG/360 visuals, but Sonata changed my mind. It is unbelievably beautiful and the slightly-more-action-oriented combat is still done in a very Grandia III-style. Can't wait for the release; also on the beautiful-RPG front is Mass Effect. Finally watched the E3 video from Live. Holy crap, this thing is set to blow away Deus Ex, for real. And I consider DX the best game ever.

Lastly, you absolutely must watch the "redband" trailer for Superbad. The normal trailer gave me the impression that it would be neutered, PG-13 near-humor; but with quotes like, "The funny thing about my back is, " you have to believe.

BlackBerry 8830: BS edition

2007-08-08T02:17:00.000-04:00

Lots to say about the BB, but too tired to rant and rave. Let's just say that I spent a lot of time fighting with it tonight and its tendency to hard lock is not the most annoying ~~bug~~ feature.

new apple keyboard

2007-08-07T23:23:00.000-04:00

it's sweet. too bad the new imacs have rubbish AMD/ATI cards.

also, i think i did the Grand Central thing bass-ackwards...i sent out a "hey my info is all different" e-mail to everyone i knew polling for updates, then manually trudging through facebook/google to update what i could, in addition to pulling the vcard from address book on my mac. turns out i can announce via grand central...whoops!

fixing a hole

2007-08-07T20:27:00.000-04:00

I just spent an hour getting my wireless service fixed up: downgrade in overall minutes, but added unlimited messaging and got the employee discount hooked in. Also got my DSL upgraded from 1.5Mbps/384Kbps to 6Mbps/768Kbps. Finally got the Wii online and updated, added some missing friends (love that new firmware!).

The new DSL speed should go-live in a few hours. I'm stoked. In the mean time, I'm going to try to figure out how to get free incoming calls on my PC (for my mom) and maybe watch a movie.

UNLIMITED TOPPINGS (maximum 5 toppings)

2007-08-06T19:04:00.000-04:00

Verizon sucks. I got my Blackberry early, but in order to simplify the contractual paperwork on their end, they refuse to activate it until tomorrow, since that was the scheduled delivery date. I tried to fire it up w/ my AT&T SIM and I got an "Invalid SIM" message, indicating the locked status of the handset. So I let it charge.

DSL installer came at the tail end of this window, but was super-professional and highly efficient. Replaced the busted jack and I was online in less than an hour. Speeds are good, and potentially getting better. I asked to be upgraded from 1.5/384 to 6/768, so we'll see what happens (my distance from the CO jumped from > 11,000 down to < 6700).

Work started out weird because I missed the morning & lunch, and stayed pretty much weird. Got my physical key and some more logins, studied the architecture a bit, and got up to speed on the many unresolved issues. I expected to be able to "stealth close" old issues (turn off notification, set the issue to resolved), but it seems that they are really all legitimate (or at least the ones I sampled were).

Tomorrow should bring clarity, a vendor meeting, a weekly team meeting (sans 1/3 of the team), and new wireless service. In the mean time, check out the trailer for Across the Universe, a political/musical film featuring 100% Beatles music.

I'm catching up on downloading PS3 and 360 content (Wii is giving me the business), but I'll post later if the speed upgrade hits or something else catches my fancy.

Mini-update: I just heard someone fire up their Wii above me! Crazy! I think they are playing Zelda.

I have to return some videotapes

2007-08-06T01:37:00.000-04:00

So I'm doing the take-down on my previously-mentioned horrible network configuration and setting up the DSL bridge....check out what these crass fuckers did to the damn phone jack....

Phone Jacked

WP:COPYVIO

2007-08-05T18:02:00.001-04:00

I was reading the discussion about the recent mod chip raid over at the big K and got angry, so I decided it was blog time. The general consensus seemed to be:

Using ICE for the RAIDs was a waste of resources
Raiding modchippers was a waste of time
Piracy is bad
Modchips only exist for piracy, not running homebrew or imports
Since the primary function of modchip is to piracy, it is reasonable to conclude that people who have modchips use them pirate games, therefore it is reasonable for them to be punished for "stealing"

I will address these issues out of order. Let me start with Warren Spector's position:

I never minded piracy. Anyone who minds about piracy is full of shit. Anyone who pirates your game wasn’t going to buy it anyway!

For those unfamiliar with Spector, his list of credits reads like a Top-10 list of the best PC games made: the Wing Commander series, the Ultima Underworld series, Crusader: No Remorse, System Shock, Thief, Deus Ex...the list goes on. His position is exactly correct. I would have never imported Rez for PS2 if I hadn't pirated the Dreamcast version to test it out. I play dozens of rubbish games a year, games that last for about 15 minutes before I discard them, glad I hadn't wasted $50 just to get brutalized by a horrible design, interface, or performance.

Piracy is not stealing. Stealing deprives you something tangible: for instance, if I stole your car, you couldn't drive to work. If I copied a recipe you used to make chicken soup, you still have the ability to make chicken soup. If I walk into Best Buy and steal a CD, Best Buy loses the money they paid for that CD and the ability to sell it to someone to earn a profit because they no longer have it; if I download that CD off the internet, no one loses anything because I wouldn't have bought the CD if it was unavailable for download. In fact, if I like a CD I download, I may actually buy it; if the download is in a lossy format and I even remotely like the CD, I will always end up buying it eventually because I'm an audiophile. Marketing people will tell you that getting people to try your product, experience a demo, or sample something is far more effective than any other kind of advertising or endorsements.

The other major issue is false notion that modchips are exclusively devices for piracy. Nonsense! I've imported dozens of foreign DVDs and video games for a variety of platforms because of modchips - region restrictions prevent me from consuming foreign goods and I don't think I should need to buy unique DVD players from Japan, China, and Korea, in addition to my US model, just so I can watch movies that American studios are too afraid to import. They refuse to acknowledge the long tail, so I need to consume outside of their markets to be satisfied. Oftentimes, films or games will eventually come over, but be sold in a way that makes them difficult/impossible to get or get horribly mangled in translation/Westernization. The flip side to this horror of importing is that foreign markets sometimes get superior versions. Either way, you want one from somewhere else instead of the local version.

The bottom line is that IP is a flawed concept[pdf] designed to remove liberty (prevent me from doing things with my own property) and use violence force to maintain monopolies and cartels.

Systems like Netflix appear great on the surface, but their throttling of power consumers (to prevent piracy) and limited, Region 1-only catalog make them more expensive than alternatives. Plus if you truly subscribe the the notion that buying a product enables more good stuff from the same people and rewards their hard work, you would end up needing to buy stuff you already got from Netflix anyway. This is why Lala is a superior system; you actually end up owning everything you get and sending is completely voluntary.

I own more DVDs than anyone I know (~225), with the exception of one friend whose collection eclipses mine by over 1000 more discs; the reason I buy so many movies is that I have/can now/will "steal" as a means of vetting and finding new content. This is not a crime, but an activity that should be rewarded by the companies seeking to prevent me from doing it.

They don't realize it, but by attacking the minority of people like me, they attack the trend-setters and influential customers who steer the majority of the rest of the customers. I am a leading indicator - as of today, three of my friends have bought the identical HDTV I bought because they trust my knowledge, judgment and expertise. I am a similar first-source for new music, movies and games with my crowd of friends. I bought Guild Wars and four more copies were purchased within weeks. This kind of shit happens every day. Don't penalize me for helping you sell your wares. Copy/pasta isn't a crime, and neither is COPYVIO.

black car red lights on a black place

2007-08-05T16:13:00.000-04:00

I updated the page theme to match my color sensibilities, and added a tweaked version of the image I had used on a past-life blog. The image features:

a rare screen-cap of the film from which the band Godspeed You! Black Emperor takes their name
McCartney and Jackson when they were still friends
a screen-cap from the original version of THX 1138
modern art masterpiece Mr. T (aka the Jewelry-man) showing his patriotism

I additionally added links to other web profiles, gaming info, and a sweet flash applet for my last.fm profile.

weekend news round-up, lala update

2007-08-05T14:55:00.000-04:00

In other news, my Lala account has now reached sent/received parity: meaning I could theoretically back out of it (now that their emphasis has switched from trading to buying crappy mp3s and selling iPods). Is this a good idea? [Y/n]

it's getting better, a little better all the time

2007-08-05T02:21:00.000-04:00

The new position is mostly what I expected. I've already got two PCs (weak, stock hospital box running XP and hefty desktop for Gentoo) and some basic access, but I still lack keys, logins, and a functional badge. I'm worried that I'm not picking up the architecture fast enough; some co-workers have told me that I'm doing great, but I have high expectations of myself. My biggest concern is that since the scope of the network is hueg (especially considering the large number of applications and remote locations that we support which aren't products from the vendor of our core system). I still don't have the DNS in my head yet (mental mapping of IPs to names), but worse I still don't fully have the mental graph of the data flow from patient scheduling through to billing and image archiving down. I've received much flack for running silent the last week, but this damn job keeps getting in the way of sleeping and posting daily. This whole week I've felt like something wasn't right:

Right, kick ass. Well, don't want to sound like a dick or nothin', but, ah... it says on your chart that you're fucked up. Ah, you talk like a fag, and your shit's all retarded.

Today I got to sleep in and feel better. Back on topic, part of the reason I don't have everything memorized yet is that some data is duplicated, cached, shared, backed up, etc. multiple times and multiple ways and the core system is implemented (from a server standpoint) much differently (but better) than before. Upgrades to a blade architecture, network load-balancing, simplified single-sign-on, etc. make things much more elegant than the previous system and the new administrative tools are better than what I had seen in the past. Automated tools like Nagios have been deployed and system uptime is much higher (it was still good before).

Lots of things still suck, though, including that Novell/Groupwise is still around and a massive reliance upon Internet Explorer for everything from admin tools to VPN access. Usage of the issue-based support request tool (Radtracker) is still not up to par: people will often duplicate issues/be out of contact so effort ends up being duplicated or users fall out of the loop. Also, it's more difficult to get an accurate picture of how people are spending their time and what systems are the most/least reliable when the system is not used consistently. Additionally, using the knowledge gained from resolved issues seems to be minimal; an automated system should exist to pull data from relevant priors (see, I'm already getting into the scene).

The department already has some good policies: no major changes on Fridays to any system, unless it's an emergency; optional casual Fridays (so optional, in fact, that telling new employees is also optional); weekly meetings to discuss change management, scheduling, major issues that were fixed and new issues that aren't. Hopefully we can implement some new policies that tighten-up the Radtracker gaps I mentioned above.

We already have an excellent Wiki (an idea which CT came up with independently, but simultaneously to my own deployment of Wikis for senior design and game design documentation; thus validating each of our respective geniuses), which would be wonderful to have categorized, updated, and linked in to Radtracker. Max has also built some excellent reporting tools for Radtracker and other systems. I think that the Wiki should become the central hub that connects our monitoring and performance data, as well as our troubleshooting/Radtracker data; a one-stop shop that lets an admin jump to any critical data/interface they need from a single screen.

Somehow Ruby has become the preferred language for writing tools...and I still don't know what is has to offer over Python or Lua. Rails? That better be it...because the book I'm reading right now (preemptively stolen from CT) is showing off cool one-liners to pull a word out of file...yeah, that or I could use grep. Tough call (not). Æ says the following about Ruby:

If you thought it was impossible to segfault just by viewing a page on a web server, well, RoR will defintely change your perspective.

My goal is to spread the love of Erlang and git (and yes, those are both awesome videos...no boring words!)

I added like a dozen people from MSOE and work to my LinkedIn profile, hopefully they expand my connections graph so I can get more LinkedIn XP and get to the next level. I even updated my profile on Facebook and supported Ron Paul. Although I find it unethical to vote (stamping my approval upon a corrupt and unethical social system), I think it is is my own best interests for Ron Paul to have a good showing (although maybe it will just bring the iron fists down sooner).

Speaking of iron fists, my credit report has been "flagged" according to Verizon. Based on a more realistic survey of co-workers, I decided to get service with a company that offers signals even the basement elevator; every other service dies once you cross the threshold of the hospital doors. I ended up going with a similar phone, but this one kicks ass because it has CDMA, as well as GSM. I additionally get a sweet employee discount on service. Similarly, I found out that I get reimbursed (in cash nonetheless) for my home internet access. This stipend may allow me to get a TiVo HD after all, now that I can afford basic cable.

Finally, this is the first update from the new desktop configuration. I've got my Macbook (lid-closed) on my half-height, mobile audio rack jacked into my LCD and using an external Apple keyboard and mouse. I don't know why I didn't do this before, it's fabulous! Makes me really wish I had an Apple desktop (or new Macbook Pro). The impetus for this new setup was beta-testing the new version of Reason. NDA violation, O SHI-!

pics are finally up

2007-07-29T22:14:00.000-04:00

enjoy.

unpacked apartment

downloading lulz (is a corruption of LOL)

2007-07-29T00:38:00.000-04:00

music i need to ~~download~~ buy more of:

rush (get a core collection started...i've only got YYZ in ape right now...i at least need to get the rest of Moving Pictures)
styx (determine what albums i am missing...should only be a couple between vinyl and digital lossless)
electric light orchestra (determine what albums i am missing...should only be a couple between vinyl and digital lossless)
led zepplin (blu-ray of 1973 concert coming out nov 13, only missing a few core albums afaik)

television to ~~download~~ watch legally on comcast cable:

battlestar galactica (season 4 expected early 2008)
house (season 4 starts sept 25)
weeds (first 4 episodes of season 3 released from dvd screener on net, starting aug 13)
dexter (similar to weeds (only 2 episodes of season 2), starting sept 30)
the riches (season 2 tbd)
the it crowd (season 2 expected late 2007)
heroes (season 2 starts sept 24)
aqua teen hunger force (season 5 expected late 2007 - early 2008)
frisky dingo (season 2 starts aug 26)
metalocalypse (season 2 starts sept 1)
moral orel (season 3 tbd)
robot chicken (season 3 starts aug 12)
the boondocks (season 2 expected october)
sarah silverman program (season 2 tbd)
nip/tuck (it seriously jumped the shark though - season 5 starts oct 23)

as i was unpacking my CD collection tonight (while blasting Face the Music), i sorted it based on what was ripped properly into FLAC and what was ripped into vorbis or mp3 or not-at-all ripped...i've got about a 3:4 ratio of done:not done, and with several hundred CDs, this is going to be a pain in the ass :\ conversely, at least i now have a proper sorting done and i can get that monkey off my back. my lala ratio is almost at parity (only 1 disc away!), in terms of finally getting as many discs received as i have sent, so i am thinking of resuming using the service (despite its recent ipod/buying new focus).

internet haet machine . . .

2007-07-28T17:40:00.000-04:00

is being fueled by a lack of jimmy john's nearby. the closest one is > 15 miles away. i think that means no delivery :\ better buy a dog, just in case.

also, check out a mono mix of the sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band. it's the only way to listen, trust me.

new attempt at couch delivery scheduled for august 11th. (so soon!?)

off to find and atm to pay for food for the week.

mobile voice

2007-07-27T23:24:00.000-04:00

after reading this most informative post about voice, and getting nailed hard with a massive ~~nsa~~ at&t wireless bill from going over minutes, i've been more interested in getting a new phone. i became addicted to phone-based e-mail (much like the japanese) during the move, so the prospect of a mobile gmail app with a better interface and more screen real estate is highly appealing. most smartphones have such a larger screen and better UI than my meager w600i, so i started to check out service plans and phones.

after much science was done, i concluded that the best bang for my buck would be a blackberry 8820. t-mobile has a service which allows you automagically switch between wifi/voip and gsm without dropping your call. even good old ted "tubes" stevens wants it. the wifi/voip service doesn't rack up your minutes and costs a minimal extra monthly fee, as well as allowing you to get data at high speeds/no cost when you are on a wifi network. plus my understanding is that blackberry devices get an extra-special-awesomer version of the gmail app, in addition to supporting gtalk, and an extra-special-awesomer version of mobile google maps (w/ optional GPS support as well!).

apparently the 8820 has already touched down in the UK, with at&t and t-mobile versions showing up soon as well. ideally, i'd love to pick up an unlocked unit on ebay and then be able to float between providers, but i'm not sure if that is affordable, necessary, or timely; t-mobile is the only US provider offering the UMA support necessary. iphone be damned!

demo madness

2007-07-27T14:47:00.000-04:00

this years E3 and related media/demo bonanza got me pumped for a lot of games:

eternal sonata (360) - an excellent cell-shaded, music-themed jrpg by tri-Crescendo.
blue dragon (360) - gorgeous traditional j-rpg by sakaguchi, toriyama, and uematsu. they are already 70% done with a new unreal 3.0 powered game from a similar crew, but swapping toriyama for inoue.
haze (ps3) - an FPS with an ethical message and gimmicks that will surpass max payne?! by the guys who did timesplitters...we'll see how it turns out.
mass effect (360) - knights of the old republic - star wars + unreal 3.0 = epic win.
lair (ps3) - an anne-mccaffrey-esque version of panzer dragoon sans rail, made by Factor 5 of gamecube fame.
folklore (ps3) - japanese action/adventure rpg with an alice-in-wonderland setting.
assassin's creed (ps3/360) - unique controls, MGS-esque sneaking (but in crowds!), and a return to a puzzle-platformer ala prince of persia: sands of time.
rock band (ps3/360) - new harmonix game. period. in case that's not enough, allegedly you will be able to use your own midi instruments, perform your own music. downloadable new songs will be albums instead of singles...the first of which being who's next by the who...an epic album in and of itself.
guitar hero 3 (ps3/360) - after seeing reviews of the 80's "expansion", i'm less inclined, but the tracklisting seems good.
super mario galaxy (wii) - more flying and less watering should mean a return to the good days of mario 64. not new super mario bros-quality, but good for a 3d platformer.
wii fit (wii) - i may lose weight yet.
metal gear solid 4 (ps3) - have you seen the videos? go download some in HD.
call of duty 4 (ps3/360/pc) - looks like flashpoint (even has a similarly ridiculous backstory), but with better graphics. not sure about the realism, but i'd hope for a nice, even balance between statistically accurate gun jams and playing quake.

some games that i am pumped up about didn't even have a major show presence (afaik in terms of media coverage):

bioshock (pc/360) - more like system shock 3, amirite?
hellgate: london (pc) - developed by the ex-blizzard staff behind diablo, hellgate is looking to be an FPS guild wars that i'm trying to rope everyone i know into playing.
super smash bros. brawl (wii) - snake and other newcomers join my 2nd favorite fighting franchise (under soul calibur and above DOA).
penny arcade: on the rain-slick precipice of darkness (pc) - episodic adventure/turn-based rpg with art by gabe and writing by tycho. done and done!

the problem is that as games approach $60/hit for modern systems (and borrowing isn't yet an option or is dangerous due to internet functionality), demo's become more important. we've all seen countless titles that look great in previews or are developed by fantastic companies, but between that fabulous preview and (eventually) awful release, something happens. when the rubber finally hits the road and you find yourself holding an expensive coaster, feeling burned and bored.

with rare exceptions of fool-proof series (like zelda or castlevania), i rarely buy a game before i've played it. that said, the news of the latest demo to hit the playstation network (a rarity unto itself) clocks in at under 7 minutes of game time. no problems, aside from the fact that its over a 1GB download. at least with the neutered blue dragon demo you get one-hour slices of a two massive levels. granted, heavenly sword is just a rubbish beat-em-up (a poor man's HD god of war), but the principle is the same. at least in the gundam-flavored dynasty warriors demo i got to play for a full field (in 日本語　nonetheless!).

bottom line: demand more content for hueg demos. otherwise, don't buy the game.

couched rage

2007-07-27T11:39:00.000-04:00

my apartment building has 2 elevators - a big one which goes down to the basement, and a standard passenger-sized elevator that goes only between 1-7. in the back of the building is a horrendous half-height set of doors that swing open barn-style in the alley and open to a small, electric lift that is about 4 feet lower than the street at floor-level in the basement.

when the couch guys arrived i received a call while waiting for the big elevator to take some trash down to the basement. i left my trash in the foyer and took the small elevator down to meet them in the street, only to discover to my dismay that they had already gotten the couch off the truck and they didn't seem too motivated to put it back on the truck and go in the alley behind the building. i accepted this, worried about being yelled at by the facilities staff who was doing something outside the building, and held the door. they expertly maneuvered the massive couch into the lobby by the 2 elevators and when i was holding the door of them at the big elevator, one of the guys asked if the elevator was working because it had a big "out of order" sign hanging in it that i didn't notice....

they tried to fit the couch in the small elevator, but it was too large. then they tried to fit it in the stairwell to take it up stairs, but it couldn't get past the doorway there either. the people from the store called me and told me i need to either get a refund on the couch or choose a smaller couch. this is the third time in the eight days i've lived here that the big elevator has been out of order. now for sure i'm out at least the $80 for delivery, not to mention the inconvenience of still not having a couch. and trying to get another couch delivered is going to be another pain-in-the-ass.

ha! (phil ken sebben-style)

2007-07-27T00:40:00.000-04:00

no pics - i've been lazy about using the camera. and i'm waiting for my couch to show up tomorrow morning, so i can just do a single photo tour of the place.

had lunch w/ max & ct today at a place reminiscent of county clare, then got a preview of my cube, a detailed tour of the data center, and picked up my badge. spent the afternoon unloading dvds and video games and re-organizing the living room. also swapped out a faulty component video cable w/ an amazon replacement, tweaked the broken video switch to reveal all colors by propping up the output cable against the back of the case (much easier than re-re-soldering the outputs), and found the last missing item (fan power cable).

this evening i tried to move stuff around to clear a path for the couch to enter and sort through more of the assorted electronics. tomorrow (post-couch), i'm going to try and finish unloading all my cds and books...then the only thing left to do will be to figure out what im going to do w/ my music production gear and where i'm going to hang pictures.

good god its slow

2007-07-25T23:32:00.000-04:00

after 2 days of messing around, i finally got my we800g working, so i have bridged the wired/wireless and can now use my linux box as such. unfortunately, because the open ap i'm using uses the same address space i used for my private network (and i'm lazy as hell), i need to throw a terrible 3com router in between, which slows things down immensely. the moral: don't use 192.168.0.x - it will bite you in the ass one day.

i'm just glad to be typing this on a full-sized keyboard, though. i've re-arranged my bedroom (real-life tetris w/ a bed sucks), built a bunch of shelves, and generally gotten a lot done today. also ordered some american-chinese via delivery.com ... not a bad first experience w/ them.

pics tomorrow.

coming soon: updates

2007-07-24T01:17:00.000-04:00

seriously this time. my mom is leaving tomorrow afternoon so i should have much more time to get things together and put up a proper post w/ pics. i plan to linkify the previous post, as well as write an update on my plans for mobile voice service. i'm still borrowing internet access from an open AP, but i hope to have a more comprehensive update on internet access capabilities soon also. just posting to let you know i still exist and stuff is still being unpacked.

so far the only thing unaccounted for item is a 50-foot spool of 12-gauge, twisted-pair, speaker cable...something more likely packed in a strange place than lost/stolen/left behind. i also realized that the way i have my bedroom configured is more than mildly stupid, but i don't have any good alternative plans yet.

update: links made, spool found.

lack up updates

2007-07-22T20:45:00.000-04:00

my bad. my mom showed up thurs. night around midnight. spent friday looking for a couch (found a sweet one, i'd pull up a link, but the store doesn't have the same model online) and laying in various supplies.

movers were supposed to show up @ 3pm on saturday, ended up arriving between 6:15 and 6:30. didn't start unloading stuff for another hour and didn't finish until around 10:15. the worst part was seeing my allen & heath at the bottom of a stack of 6 book boxes full of books. or the virus being used as a fancy doorstop for the elevator. overall, though, the movers themselves were incredibly careful and gentle handling stuff (it's not their fault they don't recognize the electronics), and really nice to work with.

spent today buying some cleaning supplies (the apartment was kind of dirty) and unpacking. updates re: the ridiculous lift system the movers had to use and the current state of the apartment coming.

contact

2007-07-19T17:12:00.000-04:00

so my fears about the blog being a "bad" thing (as opposed to a "good" thing) have been allayed. just got a call from 2 of my superiors telling me they enjoyed reading the blog and are looking forward to seeing me. this is excellent news and confirms my deep-rooted belief that honesty is the best policy. it also encourages and re-affirms my belief that the people i am going to work with are awesome; and by awesome, I mean totally sweet.

this is a delicious strategy

2007-07-19T14:25:00.000-04:00

the movers have completed loading my stuff. apparently they were really good, but a different crew will be doing the unload :/ too bad to be missing a good team, but perhaps the other guys will be equally good :) also, i secured renter's insurance on my stuff, just in case anything bad happens (e.g. fire, theft, etc.).

i finally got to eat solid food. went to subway, got a sweeeet footlong veggie: lettuce, tomato, black olives, green peppers, oil/vinegar dressing. couldn't even eat more than half. here's to hoping it stays down.

also, my dsl order got booted back from tomorrow to aug 6th, which is a major bummer. hopefully my man (ssid) "glenn" keeps his WAP open until then. otherwise, i might consider giving comcast a shot, if they weren't a bunch of timewarner-esque clowns about disallowing http/ssh services.

movin on up, deluxe apartment, sky, etc.

2007-07-19T11:00:00.000-04:00

got a call from my mom just now, apparently the movers are in the process of loading my stuff onto the truck. the eta for the goods is saturday morning. i'm a bit nervous about the weird elevator/lift thing involved, but they are pros and i'm sure it will all work out fine. i've also decided not to let fear of being loud dominate my thoughts about the new apartment. i basically lived in terror during the time leading up to and the day after my drug screen and it was totally unnecessary and debilitating; i shouldn't let the same type of irrational fear ruin my enjoyment of what is otherwise a totally sweet pad. fear is the mind-killer, etc.

today i need to look for a furniture store and a find local convenience/grocery stores. i've also decided i can eat solid food again, so after a shower, it's time to hit up subway for a delicious, healthy, toasted sub. mmmmm, solid foods.....

to whom it may concern

2007-07-18T21:58:00.000-04:00

just in case you've already stumbled onto this new blog, don't think i'm down on my new job just because i object to the hoops i needed to jump through to get it. the people i will be working with are all exceptionally bright and fun to be around. the work we do (although speciously funded) is important and helpful, and by joining their team i hope to contribute to better health care through technology. if i had to pick the top 3 pressing issues in the world right now, besides energy and war, i'd choose health care. my work in game design and MMOs was inspired by my desire to illustrate a pragmatic simulation of a proper anarchist economy and society, but i never manged to manifest these goals in the time i worked on them. at least with the radiology work, i will be making concrete steps forward and have a large, funded team to work with.

shout shout (let it all out)

2007-07-18T17:30:00.000-04:00

this first post will be lengthy, but my goal is to retain chronological accuracy. jklolz.

the drive out:

the saab decided to die on I90/I94E in the heart of chicago.
luckily i got out of the express lane and into an emergency shoulder just before it died.
allegedly the hottest day of the year in chicago.
the lying tow company said 45 minutes for pick-up, despite sending a truck from schaumburg, IL which would take about that time under ideal circumstances, but this was rush-hour construction BS.
the illinois sheriffs were none to pleased about my car being stuck for 2.5 hours; however, a cool illinois DOT working let me hang out in his truck w/ AC and kept the cops at bay talking shop re: the impending state government shutdown.
my car got towed to a ghetto lot and was kept there overnight, until it was towed again to a local saab dealership.
saab dealership fixed the car - the problem was that the turbo hose wasn't connected...perhaps because when the car had broken down earlier in the week and the crank sensor was replaced, the mechanics forgot to re-attach the hose?

the new drive out:

a front headlight died hours before planned departure...luckily the cool guy at the Car-X installed it for free...interestingly, the saab has always eaten headlights like candy and when this Car-X guy replaced it he noted that the bulbs were all put in backwards, which he claimed cuts the life down like 25% of the norm...i really wonder about the other guys who worked on the car in the past now...
stopped overnight in holiday city, OH.
things were going fine on the drive out, until a huge stretch of no exits/construction on I70E in PA...i needed to use facilities that were unavailable. i thought i could hold it, but then it started to rain. i managed to successfully fill a 0.5L water bottle w/o minimal leakage; however, i had more than 0.5L to give, and there was much wetness and anger for the next 30 miles until the travel plaza (which was coincidentally packed with people wanting dinner)

every holiday inn express i've ever stayed at has been awesome in that they give you free wi-fi and don't check ID. the inner harbor holiday inn i stayed at was not as good. in fact, i will boldly say it is the worst hotel i've ever stayed at. a short list of complaints:

the front desk clerk required photo ID, was totally rude, and refused to get a manager
same clerk did not inform me of my room number, or that it was in a separate building
same clerk kept me on hold for ~5 minutes while using house phone to get directions to room (which were still vague)
upon finally finding my room, the lock was broken, the toilet was filthy, one of two phones did not work, the bed lamp flickered, and it was missing the "data port"
the room did not have a tv channel listing and the reception quality was so poor that it was basically unwatchable anyway
the same clerk hung up on me after setting up wakeup call, despite me wanting to ask more questions about parking, food, etc.
i got food poisoning from the hotel restaurant - 24 hours of 102 degree fever, 15 episodes of liquid diarrhea, 10 episodes of vomiting. i've lost >10 lbs, hallucinated, and have only been able to drink ginger-based fluids. it also required me to push back moving into my apartment by a day and stay another day (at regular rates) at the hotel.
when i re-checked into the hotel, i was told my room had been cleaned - it had not been.

selling out all personal ethics for money:

all the documents i've filled out have been keyed off my SSN, for maximum security
"Congratulations! Your background report is now in process." Kroll is doing a background check on me...they've already contacted my previous employer.
in addition to a urine drug screen, i also gave a comprehensive medical history covering everything from my broken arm in 1991 up to the present
i signed an agreement which makes me personally liable for unauthorized network access using my account
i've signed a document indicated i will rat out people who use recreational drugs and will refrain from using them myself, upon penalty of termination.
i've taken a needless tuberculosis skin test, despite the fact that i will not be dealing with patients.
my employment is at will, meaning i can be fired on the spot, for any reason at any time, without recourse (although, i also don't have to give notice to resign, which is actually kind of cool)
i've already edited this blog about a dozen times to remove specific references, ideas, and pronouns to indemnify myself. self-censorship is a goal of the state, and they've already got me worried about what i publish :(

miscellany:

the best way to avoid being harassed by the indigent population is to blend in so they think you are one of them. wandering around the streets in day-old clothes, unwashed, sweating, carrying a plastic bag of laundry and a blanket; they dont even get near you.
new apartment has paper-thin walls...i can hear everything my neighbors do (as others have reported). this is OK with me, but i am afraid that i will get in trouble for being loud. then again, maybe loudness is expected. to be determined (with much anxiety until resolved)
the parking garage is 100 light years away. not really, but it's a long walk if you want to carry something, and crossing the streets is all ridiculous because of construction.
having "soiled" two pairs of boxers (thanks, holiday inn express!), as well as having sweat like a wild beast, i find myself out of clean clothing to wear.
is this blog (tied to my real google account) even a safe idea? not in the personal security sense, but in the "get fired if discovered" sense? it's been quite cathartic to vent with, but we'll see how it proceeds.

the new apartment:

empty new apartment