Apr 2007
- Apr 1
- the slow diffusion of information across fields
Joanne brings up a disturbing story concerning [May Yuen]1, a Chinese American who joined the Army, who ended up killing herself.
· Read more… - Apr 1
- euphemisms and ridiculous tangents
None of my own inner demons have anything directly to do with Nic’s blog post about how nice guys finish last, but the opening quote reminded me of the dead-end lifestyle I’ve been leading for the last decade or so.
· Read more… - Apr 2
- windows: trapped in the 1970s
I stumbled upon this blog entry on The Old New Thing which discusses the 8.3 filename convention on MS-DOS and Windows up to and including XP, which limits a filename to 8 characters with a 3 character extension.
· Read more… - Apr 2
- the old dilemma: legacy support vs the bleeding edge
OK, so maybe I’m just a touch melodramatic when I say that Windows’ reliance on the 8.3 naming convention makes me sad. And, yes, I do subscribe to the ”worse is better” school of software design, so I agree that you shouldn’t futz around and break something that already works pretty well 95% of the time.
· Read more… - Apr 3
- great is the fall of gondolin
I’m still slowly working my way through
· Read more…The Lost Tales
by J.R.R. Tolkien and edited by his son Christopher. I found the story of the destruction of the great, hidden city of the Elves wonderfully moving—the story inThe Lost Tales
presents much more detail than the version inThe Silmarillion
and there are some interesting concepts that Tolkien later removed. - Apr 3
- the children of húrin and the curse of the golden flower
I just occurred to me the superficial similarities between the story of Túrin Turambar and the movie ”The Curse of the Golden Flower”. The most obvious similarity is the incest (Crown Prince Wan isn’t just porking his sister, he’s also doing his stepmother!) but the idea of curses and of gold also resonates. In the movie, the golden chrysanthemum becomes the doomed standard of Prince Jai, while in the story, the golden hoard of Glaurung becomes a curse to Thingol, king of Doriath.
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- Apr 4
- aac
On Slashdot, there is a post about Apple’s deal with EMI to release non-DRM’ed music in AAC format may change how music is distributed on-line. While the conclusions drawn by this article may be suspect, I think there are aspects that are worth considering.
· Read more… - Apr 5
- blogging code of conduct
In the wake of the debacle amongst the “A” listers in which a prominent female blogger is threatened with sexual abuse and death, I find that even the MSM (that’s mainstream media, not men having sex with men) ended up writing about it, specifically wondering whether or not we need a blogging code of conduct. Darleene muses about who would even enforce such a thing, but interestingly, we already have a code of conduct.
· Read more… - Apr 7
- erratum or mere sophistry
Randomly, I saw this diagram of a serotenergic neuron. Rageboy wonders about the similarities between LSD and SSRIs.
· Read more… - Apr 7
- we don't need no stinkin' crash cart
Uh, can you really be a hospital if you can’t perform a resuscitation? Or at least attempt one?
· Read more… - Apr 7
- empires don’t crumble, they just fade away
The big internet meme today seems to be that Microsoft is dead, and to claim that a multibillion dollar company that is still making enormous profits is dead is no mean feat.
· Read more… - Apr 7
- robot chicken: office fighter
Oh, I wasted my life.
· Read more… - Apr 9
- blogger’s code of conduct
Tim O’Reilly’s post about a blogger’s code of conduct has generated much discussion across the blogosphere and has actually been picked up by the MSM outlets such as the BBC and the New York Times.
· Read more… - Apr 9
- mika “happy ending”
This is one of the happiest songs I’ve ever heard about such a depressing topic:
· Read more… - Apr 9
- i don’t really like fava beans
from my cousin J™
· Read more… - Apr 10
- problems with sleep-onset
I stupidly drank some Vietnamese iced coffee about 3 hours ago, and I’m wired and jittery and all over the place. I have to wake up in less than 6 hours to get ready for work.
· Read more… - Apr 11
- versioning
The Old New Thing discusses the different macros you have to set in order to ensure library compatibility in Windows.
· Read more… - Apr 11
- blogger's code of conduct continued
Tim O’Reilly replies to his critics regarding his proposed blogger’s code of conduct.
· Read more… - Apr 13
- time machine for sale
(From my cousin <a href=http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=168884724&blogID=252744646&Mytoken=81CA045D-AC19-40AE-9094629B0A9D31E23647227" title="myspace">J™)
· Read more… - Apr 13
- no beats. no rhymes. just words.
There is a song in here somewhere
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caught in the convolutions of my heart
the tortuous paths, the cliffdrops, the lonely summits
the bitter abysses, this vast desert of ruin
This wasteland of decay -
- Apr 13
- the trap of world building
Despite the fact that I’ve been trapped in a world-building exercise for the past 18 years, I completely agree with M John Harrison’s assessment that world-building is unnecessary in order to tell a good story, and that world-building is the pinnacle of uselessness: you are creating a literal description of a world that doesn’t even exist.
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- Apr 14
- slide
It comes to nothing
· Read more…
in the first few trickling seconds of this new day
(cuz don’t you know that time is a river, you go with the flow) - Apr 17
- april is the cruelest month
I worry that my capacity to empathize with sadness and tragedy has been destroyed. Most the time at work, I’m forced to put on a mien of detachment and objectivity. If I took everything bad that happens at work to heart, I’m pretty sure I would’ve quit a long time ago. Or I’d have committed suicide.
· Read more… - Apr 19
- thoughts unbidden
Too late, I cry, remembering time past, running through shadows
· Read more…
echoes of ten thousand lives criss-crossing, folding, twisting, bending
In their wake, I am forsaken
Amidst the jetsam and flotsam of plans gone awry
(and still somehow I made it to land,
even now I make plans and grand schemes
to sail forth from this benighted isle - Apr 21
- weariness
It’s been a long while since I’ve had to work seven days in a row. In of itself, that kind of schedule makes me cranky. Add to it the fact that this included two overnight calls, and that’s approximately 120 hours of work. Fun times.
· Read more… - Apr 21
- even snoop dogg knows…
…that there is such a thing as context.
· Read more… - Apr 22
- the color of your skin
I am dismayed by this post about a brown-skinned professor who gets detained by the authorities simply because he leaves a bag full of discarded manuscripts to be recycled.
· Read more… - Apr 29
- my daemon
If you haven’t yet read His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, you should get cracking. The Golden Compass is coming out at the end of the year!
· Read more… - Apr 30
- he ruined it with midichlorians
Courtesy of my cousin J™
· Read more… - Apr 30
- “sometime” is “never”
I saw it for a second
· Read more…
caught glancingly in the corner of my eye
The four walls that enclose time
The four walls closing in
Behind the wheel
I pondered singularities
accepted my singularity
how you can be certain about certain things
though all of time is yet uncertain
This is my life
ending by hours, minutes, and seconds
this damnable ever-ticking clock
counting down through these years of loneliness
my fate, my doom
a curse upon my soul
unbroken, unbreakable