| At times, I really despair about the human race. Today's case in point, from an article about the current status of cleanup in Galveston after Hurricane Ike:
[Person] said he had tried three different times in the last 24 hours to get on the island. He said he waited in line for three hours before his final rejection Wednesday. "I don't understand this. You see those other people," [Person] said, waiving at utility workers and contractors being let on to the island. "They don't even live here, I live in Galveston."
Now, I can understand being upset and concerned about the status your home is in, after something like Ike. But ye cats, people! The mayor and other city officials have been evacuating even the people who stayed on the island because the infrastructure in Galveston can't support them. The utility workers and contractors this person is complaining about are the very people needed to get things back into condition for people like him to return.
What about this is so hard to understand? | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment   |
| From Nine Characteristics of Free Software Users:
For the most part, the purely desktop user's sensibilities are not sapping the free software culture so much as being accommodated and isolated as a special case. Unless they are content to stay in their normal routines, within a year or two, desktop users will face some problem that they cannot solve without becoming either more adventurous or more in contact with the mainstream culture. When that happens, they will have taken the first steps away from being passive consumers and towards becoming the owners of their own machines.
Yes, all those poor deluded 'normal users' will soon find the True Path to understanding and mastering the machine. Uh-huh. I especially like the way he refers to a minority of computer gurus as 'the mainstream culture'.
I've been interested in computers since the late 70's. I lived vicariously through the pages of computer magazines of the time, until I could finally afford to buy my own. I watched as the 'business computer' shifted from custom-built S100 systems running CP/M to the IBM PC platform. And perhaps more to the point, I lived through the first great 'home computer' wave.
Back then, everyone involved with computers seemed to assume that the world was moving in the direction of understanding and working with the guts of the system. Magazine pages were filled with program listings in BASIC (with the occasional program in Pascal, Forth, LOGO, or other language). Everyone would learn to program - if this wasn't being stated explicitly, it was taken for granted. We were headed towards a Brave New Computing Culture.
Except that it didn't happen.
Some of those kids did learn to program their Atari 400s and Commodore 64's and TRS-80 CoCos and TI 99/4As. And some of that first generation of 'home computers' did become hobbyists' dream machines, and bridged into the wider world of computers. But an awful lot of them just got used to play games... and when people grew tired of them, they sat in the closet. The bubble burst. No true next generation. No legacy, beyond that minority of hobbyists that bloomed. The Dream of a great society, the general public, that learned to program - to get inside the machine to make it do what you wanted, to control it fully, to hack - was just that... a dream.
I believed in the Dream, back then. I don't any more. Computers didn't become widespread in society as a whole until they became usable without having to know how to program, or even learn much about the depths of the machine. Visicalc was the opening wedge, prepackaged business software for the IBM PC/MS-DOS platform the follow-on, and the GUI brought the flood.
So yes, I had to laugh when I read the conclusion I quoted above. Rather sadly, but I had to laugh. The public at large is not made of computer geeks, and it never will be. There are some good reasons for this; heck, I have to admit going that way myself. I don't have time to audition multiple competing very-similiar-but-tweaked-to-fit-[x] applications any more, or spend hours tweaking environment variables and pouring through preferences to get my system set up Just So. I don't have time to figure out badly-written man pages or interpret text-based config files. I don't mind being able to poke around when I have the leisure time, but when I want to use it I want to Just Use It, with no messing around. It's no fun having to open up and tinker under the hood when I want to be barreling down the interstate at 70 mph to see the Royal Gorge. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Garmin has been one of my top prospects for job hunting since I got let go from my old job. (For those who don't know them, Garmin is one of the top two or three makers of Global Positioning Satellite systems in the world - not just the consumer-level car navigation systems, but naval and aeronautical as well.) They're close - their world HQ is literally a couple of miles from my house. According to a friend who knows folks there, they're hurting for people right now. But perhaps most important for me, they look like a place where I could really make an impact - after years of basically ignoring the Mac, they've started moving towards full support, so it sounds like a situation where my 20+ years of Mac experience might be really valuable.
Unfortunately, the kind of position I'd want to be filling isn't something that typically appears, at least as such, in the kind of job descriptions they've posted; they're typically fairly specific 'Level 2 IT Support' rather than the 'help build a Mac department' that I'd want to do. Still, if I'm going to have a chance at this, I figure I have to get a foot in the door somehow - if not at the interview stage, then by finding a more traditional position there and working my way up.
First time I applied to Garmin, for a generic IT support position back in July, never even heard back from them - which is probably the most frustrating thing to deal with, as you're facing a black hole and you have no idea whether anyone even read it.
Then this weekend, I found a listing for them that looked a lot more promising fit, both of interest and of skills - a 'consumer product technical writer' position. Even better, when I went through the online application, their questionnaire asked for specific skills I could point to: Journalism degree, experienced in using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign in a professional setting.
I was hopeful... until today, when I got a thank you for your application, 'We have carefully reviewed your qualifications and experience and are unable to offer you employment at this time.' Oh well. At least this time, they not only responded, they responded quickly, so I'm not left hanging for weeks. Better luck next time, I guess. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Not Happy with AT&T at the moment.
A couple of weeks ago, I decided (what with all the time I've been spending out of town) that I would be better off switching my local phone service to cellular; I was tired of paying $80/month for the combo of local service, Long Distance, and DSL when I used the phone maybe a couple of hours a month - especially when at least a third of it was just 'dialtone' charges that I had to pay no matter how little I used the phone. When you combined that with the chance to snag an iPhone with little investment (bonus consulting job combined with price drop and special refurb unit) and spending a little less per month for greatly expanded capabilities, I couldn't resist.
Since everything was AT&T - my old phone service, my new wireless service, and the DSL service - I didn't think getting everything set up and working right would be a problem. Unfortunately, there was about a week's gap between when I put the order in (and the new phone started working for outgoing calls) and when the home number got switched to the new phone, and I had no idea when I'd need to do something about the DSL - and I didn't get any contact from AT&T on the DSL part of the service. So it just went off last Tuesday, while I was out of town. Fortunately, I found out fairly quickly, since I stopped being able to connect to hy home server, and went into a AT&T store in Wichita to see about getting it turned back on.
The local guy was pretty cool and did his best to help me, I think, but the earliest date he could confirm for me was October 1 - almost two weeks in the future - though he said he'd try to get it moved up, and would call me if he could. I called back Thursday to follow up, and again on Friday, and didn't get a call back either time. So today I tried calling the national AT&T number. @!#$!@#$!@#% After waiting on hold for 5-10 minutes, and explaining the situation three times, the rep finally said they couldn't help me and they'd have to transfer me to AT&T Wireless. Where I waited on hold for another five minutes and got disconnected. And the second person I talked to nearly made me burst a blood vessel when he said he couldn't find my order, and the order number I had checked out as a local phone service install here in Wichita. The third person I talked to finally was able to track down my order and my new account number, and while she couldn't speed up my order (still have to wait until next week to get service back) she did offer me a free month of service. So at least I'm no longer ready to kill someone, and with Mom coming down this weekend, I hopefully won't be missing it too much. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| My Wichita client has been dealing with a sick daughter and visiting family the last couple of days, so the consulting life has been... rather odd. He's been rather distracted; I've managed to get some work done, including the commissions section and a start on the main accounting reports, but the main issue of the last couple of weeks has continued to hang fire because we haven't been able to sit down for the few hours of focused discussion needed to get over the hump. (The issue itself is rather a messy one, with customer contracts handled in a varying and inconsistent fashion depending on how they were sold, what time of the year they were sold, and what the renewal date was, making it very hard to handle it in a clean, consistent fashion.)
One thing that did happen that was a lot of fun was related to the visiting family, who happened to be an old Cessna 195 enthusiast. Cessna's world HQ is here in Wichita, so a Cessna 195 enthusiast group holds an annual fly-in at a small airport north of town. (And the Cessna president was even up there for a little while.) My client knew I loved old airplanes, so he dragged me along to meet his cousin, and even got him to fly the both of us around for a little while.
( See pictures here. )
All in all, it's been a strange consulting gig at times, but a fun one, and my client is very good about not penalizing me when confusion and unplanned events on his end keep us from getting work done. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| For those who hadn't heard yet, I got let go by my old company about a month and a half ago. It was an emotional shock at first, but to be honest my main feeling is relief.
In the last year and a half, since my old boss left, I'd been under an increasing amount of stress at the office. I was having to take on duties that had nothing to do with computer work - like city deliveries - because no one else wanted to do them, and I looked like the one doing the least important work. The end result was that I spent the morning doing invoicing and other management-clerical work, the afternoon doing deliveries, and having to squeeze all my old job responsibilities into the cracks in between. (And if you think there's something funny in a computer specialist doing deliveries, you're not the only one.) It was a situation that had grown intolerable, and about the only thing keeping me there was a residual loyalty to some of the people there - and not wanting to throw away an investment of fourteen years of my life. I had finally started looking at alternatives when the hammer fell, so at least all they ended up doing is jumping the gun on me.
Right now, I'm in pretty good shape financially; I had three weeks of paid vacation that I hadn't taken and was paid for, and my consulting client in Wichita has me on a fairly extended gig working on a major project we never really had time to start when I was working full-time. It's paying about the same as I was making weekly at my old job, so I'm good until it's finished, with a three week cushion to go job-hunting. I'm tempted to see if I can make a go at database design full-time, either independently or with a temp agency; the last month and a half is the happiest I've been in years, from a work standpoint. I've done some preliminary looking and most of the openings I've seen so far have been the IT equivalent of menial labor, with little or no creativity involved. (And on a side note, warning sign for an IT job description: 'Must be able to lift 35-50 pounds.')
Hopefully I'll have more time/energy to post here, now that my energy's no longer being sucked away. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| And to get back into the swing of writing, here's a review I wrote for the final episode of the second season of the Doctor Who revival:
This was a pretty good episode. The problem is that last week's episode demanded a follow-up that was great, even epic; and while Doomsday tried, it wasn't able to make it. (I found it ironic watching the accompanying Confidential after writing this bit, and hearing the production staff use the same word - epic - without managing to achieve it.)
( All the involved and spoiler-ish stuff behind the cut... )
I think the key phrase for this episode, for me, is 'entertaining in spite of itself.' In the end, it was still fun to watch, but there were too many points where the plot took very sloppy shortcuts to get a particular scene or a particular resolution, and only some top-notch work in the actual direction/production/performance was able to save the moment. (Which is probably why the epilogue failed for me; the performance wasn't able to carry off a plot/character moment that I disagreed with.) That's why the episode was also ultimately disappointing; if the same talent had been applied to ideas and plot points that had some thought and depth to them, this could have been a truly great episode. As it is, it couldn't live up to the promise of the prior episode, and that's a shame. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Yeah, been a while. For a sample of what life's been like all too often lately - was sent out on city deliveries for work today, trying to get done and back in a hurry so I could do the normal Monday sales reporting today, so it didn't add to what's looking like a real busy Monday. I was thinking about the Wichita guy I do some consulting work for, figured that if he wanted to do some work this weekend he'd already have called, and called Dad and arranged to come up and visit him in Des Moines this weekend. Then at 4:16, Wichita guy called, needed to do some work yes after all, and would be out of town the next couple of weekends so couldn't do it then. Guess where I'm heading tomorrow morning? | | comments: Leave a comment |
| 
DOG - Your daemon may be a dog if you are loyal and
caring, and like to know what is expected of
you. You probably are very family oriented, and
have a small group of friends that you are very
close to, rather than a large group of
acquaintances. You dislike confrontation, but
you will stand up and fight for the people and
issues that you really care about. You may
prefer someone else to take the lead in a
situation, although you would rather take the
lead yourself than have the situation fall
apart. You probably enjoy routine and order,
but that doesn't mean you don't like to have
fun. If anything, your friends probably know
you for getting intense, child-like pleasure in
the small things in life.
What Is Your Daemon?
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| | Current Music: | Fire in the Hole-The Elders-The Best Crowd We've Ever Had | | Subject: | Memeage... | | Time: | 08:21 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/ditzy.gif) ditzy |
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| | Current Music: | Shot In The Dark/Peter Gunn (Under The Gunn Mix)-Chris Mancini & Lennart-Pink Panther's Penthouse Party | | Subject: | Halloween meme! | | Time: | 11:43 pm | | Current Mood: | ditzy |
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| | My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul |
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| tbutler goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as all teeth and curls!. | | arconius gives you 1 light blue grapefruit-flavoured pieces of chewing gum. | | frobozz tricks you! You get a block of wood. | | genchaos tricks you! You get a rock. | | rodney_m tricks you! You lose 1 pieces of candy! | | seangaffney gives you 7 light orange mint-flavoured gummy worms. | | shizukun gives you 13 brown coffee-flavoured pieces of bubblegum. | | wombatlord gives you 8 purple grape-flavoured nuggets. | | tbutler ends up with 28 pieces of candy, a block of wood, and a rock. | | Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern. |
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| ...as usual, I let things slide too long. And too tired to write anything long yet, so I'll just mention a few of the thoughts I had so far...
Overall, I like the show quite a bit, but it's definitely not a pure continuation of the old Who; while most of its defining characteristics have been found at times in prior eras of the old show, the combination of them is something that feels a lot more like a 'modern' SF TV show than the classic Dr. Who.
I loved the old show, cheesiness and all, for several reasons. The first time I ever saw the show was when the local PBS station ran it following their weekly broadcast of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and I started leaving the TV on after Hitchhiker's because the programs shared a certain 'British' feel to them. That feel is still hard for me to pin down, even now; the closest I can come is a certain 'droll'/'amiable' feel to the writing, a sense of gentility, and a quirky nature. Another aspect that I learned to love about Dr. Who was its sense of pacing and development. The show would spend time with the characters, both recurring and supporting for a particular story; time developing the setting, exploring it and bringing it to life; and time developing the plot, so that even if it was relatively simple, it was usually more eventful than a linear 'point A-to-B' story.
The pacing is the biggest difference between Classic Who and New Who. Classic Who's stories typically lasted between 3 and 6 episodes; while this sometimes led to over-padding, it also gave the room to develop that I praise above. The new show is composed of mostly single-episode stories; there are some character/plot arcs that run throughout the season, and the occasional two-parter, but overall I'm still feeling a 'rushed' atmosphere, with generally thin characterization of the non-repeating characters and simple, linear plots. A couple of examples:
- Dalek was a stunningly good episode; quite possibly one of the best Who episodes, new or old. But if you stop and look at the plot, not a lot actually happened; the Dalek escapes, fights its way through several floors of a bunker, attempts are made to stop it, until [spoiler happens]. I can't help wondering if the story couldn't have been even richer if given more time to develop, with additional threads and complications.
- The opening montage to the first episode has been praised by a number of reviewers; it uses a whirlwind of scenes from a day in Rose Tylor's life to set the scene and introduce her to us. I hated it; I plan on discussing it more in another post, but to sum up: I thought it was shallow, disjointed, rushed, and felt like an excuse by the director to show off his 'aren't-I-clever?' playing with camera angles and quick cuts. Worst of all, it actually told us very little about Rose; she works in a London department store and has a boyfriend she gets cutesy with, and that's about it. We never hear her talk, see her deal with a customer, or do anything else that shows us what she's like except at the most shallow, superficial level. Ultimately, I see it as a sloppy, lazy, failed attempt to show something through directorial tricks that would have been much better handled by just spending some real screen time with the character. Directorial tricks can be very effective - a favorite example of mine is the opening to the Cowboy Bebop episode Heavy Metal Queen - but they didn't work here.
I found the pacing to be an overall disappointment; as bad as the first two-parter (Aliens of London/World War Three) was overall, I found myself liking it a lot more than I should have during the first viewing, simply because it finally took some time to develop the story.
...and was going to write more about the occasionally graphic nature of the new Who, and the occasionally 'trashier' worldview, but I'm tired; will save that for next time. Night, all! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Crimson And Clover-Tommy James & The Shondells-Classic Rock: 1968 | | Subject: | More quiz-memes... | | Time: | 11:12 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/weird.gif) weird |
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| ...I'm either Yoda, Darth Vader, or Obi-Wan. o.O Much bemusement, there is.
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| | Current Music: | Up Up And Away-The Fifth Dimension-Super Hits 1967 | | Subject: | Oh, yes, one more bit... | | Time: | 12:51 am | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/contemplative.gif) contemplative |
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| | Some good news on the family front: my mother's condition is continuing to improve, after her auto accident a couple of years back. She seems to be moving more easily, her hands are gripping better, with less shaking. I'm relieved. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| 
You Are The Key Character
"It's what I was meant to do."
You are the true enigma. No one knows much about you, you do not understand much of yourself, and your life seems to carry no purpose. Yet regardless of everything around you - everyone knows that you are here for some reason, even if no one yet knows what that is. Things seem to simply fall into place for you. Almost as though some force is working either through you, for you, or around you. No matter your troubles, ou have been sent here to unlock something. This is your destiny.
Which Classic Story Role Do You Play?
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(Yeah, I know I've been skimpy on the updates. Again. Been working on lots of home-cleaning projects, travelling, trying to do critique on a friend's fic that he writes faster than I can line-edit, etc. etc.
Hm, something to put in, a new 'toy' I picked up: the PAL/iPAL from Tivoli Audio. [Same product, but they redid the case in white and silver and bundled an audio patch cord to cash in on iPod mania. I don't care particularly; it sounds just as good!] It's a monophonic AM/FM radio with an external audio input and a built-in rechargeable battery, but don't let the 'mono' part fool you; this is easily one of the best-sounding portable units I've heard. Audio is crisp and very clear; bass is incredible for something this small; and the mono is a non-issue at anything more than a few feet away, when compared to other portable units [the stereo separation on a typical boombox vanishes quickly, since the speakers aren't separated very far]. It's something I probably never would have bought at regular price, since the audio doesn't really start to shine until you can get it outside the store environment; however, at 40% off in the local Ultimate Electronics store closing sale...
And finally, something I really plan on doing when I get a spare hour or two, talking about the new Doctor Who series. Oooh.) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| ...Gah, I was pretty down when I wrote last, wasn't I?
Anyway, things are rather more mellow now. Tired enough to sleep most of the day this weekend, and been fighting allergies the last week, but I feel mostly recovered now. :)
A bit of meme-spreading:
You're a slightly tarnished metal key, and you
unlock the wardrobe. At first glance, you seem
to present only simple, everyday things, but
anyone who looks deeper will find much more.
Just don't expect everyone to believe in you,
and those who don't may not grasp your worth.
What sort of key are you and what do you unlock?
brought to you by Quizilla
I'm not really sure what this means. o.O | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Feeling a lot better tonight after last week's string of depressions.
Tonight was the memorial/viewing for my co-worker's mother; I went to support her, and she seemed genuinely glad to see me and her assistant Barbara, who'd also come. We both left after a little while, as it seemed to be a mostly-family event and we didn't really know anyone else there, but it was still a very good feeling to see her glad to have us there.
I also had good news on my friends in Indiana. I'd been making semi-serious plans to try driving out there this weekend and visit them in Terra Haute, and mentioned it to Barbara; she said that the St. Louis person was having some serious back pain and really needed to take time off for a doctor's appointment... The upshot is that I'm now headed out to St. Louis Thursday and Friday to hold down the office, and am going to be halfway to Terra Haute when I get off Friday and can go out and spend the weekend with them. And they seemed very happy to have me come by when I talked with them on the phone tonight, after having another week of really crappy happenings, so that's one more situation where I feel like I'm doing some good by visiting.
In other news, I now hold in my hand the three Studio Ghibli spring releases from Buena Vista: Nausicaa, The Cat Returns, and at long last, Porco Rosso (by far my favorite Ghibli/Miyazaki film). Hadn't really intended on buying all three at once, but a) BestBuy had 'em on sale for $18 each (when I'd been expecting to spend $30), and b) if you buy all three you get one of last year's releases for free - Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, or Castle in the Sky (Laputa). Niiice. Present time! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| So.
I just... really don't know what to say.
Some of you may remember back in September, when I mentioned the death of the father-in-law of one of my best friends. I called him tonight to see about getting together so I can pass over the old computer from work that I fixed up for his mother. I got his wife - who said he had been in DC all week... and her second grandmother had just passed away. She was holding it together pretty well, but occasionally the pain slipped out, and I was cursing the fact that I couldn't be out there for them. What makes it worse, they're coming to Missouri this weekend for the visitation - but they're probably about 5-6 hours' drive from me, and I'd already committed to volunteering for the local public radio station Saturday night, so I can't even meet them when they're this close. Augh.
This comes on top of the death Sunday of my co-worker's mother, when the co-worker herself had been laid up at home with a broken leg for the last few weeks and couldn't spend much time with her. And the death of one of my online friends' co-workers, someone that everyone there respected and cared about, and it's hit him pretty hard.
I really don't know what to say. Or to do. And it's driving me crazy, hurting for people I like and care about and can't do a friggin' thing to help. GHUVERDAMNIT! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I admit it. I'm addicted to mildly-quality writing implements.
I'm not sure when this started. I can remember loving the feel of the Cross pen I was given for some occasion or another, in my teen years - the heft and weight of it in my hand, the solid feeling and precision of the mechanism. I can remember liking similar pens that came my way over the years, after I lost the original Cross somewhere along the way.
However, I do know when I realized I was taking it to extremes. See, last year around this time I was visiting my friend ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) genchaos in Peoria, we swung by Office Depot for something, and I happened to find a pen in one of the cheap racks set up by the cash registers. I loved that pen: made of solid metal, so it had a good heft to it; short, which meant it fit well in both pants and shallow shirt pockets; and the thing that made it mostly unique in my experience, a 'grip-barrel' made out of textured metal instead of rubber or foam. And on top of all that, it was only $6. So naturally, when I lost it a few months ago, I started looking hard for a replacement - and found out that not only did neither Office Depot nor OfficeMax (I couldn't remember exactly where I got it) have it, neither store even recognized it. The best anyone could suggest was that it was stock they got in for the holiday shopping season, and closed out when the season was over.
This was not when I realized I was addicted. I found the pen again after a couple of days, and things got back to normal.
When the holiday season wrapped around this year, I was worried enough about losing the pen that I went ahead and checked both stores out. I didn't find that specific pen, but I did find a couple of pen/pencil sets that were close enough to satisfy. So I picked up one of them - in fact, I picked up a couple of copies, to guard against losing one after they went away this holiday season. This is still not when I realized I was addicted; after all, having a backup is sensible, right? Right?
I realized I was addicted after the original pen was ruined while I was visiting DC a couple of weeks ago. (As far as I could tell, it was caught in one of the security machines at the Library of Congress, while it was sitting in a flap pocket of my bag; the barrel was bent at a 15-degree angle.) I went by OfficeMax and picked up another couple of sets of the replacement I found. I also picked up a couple of different sets. And when I visited genchaos again, asked to go by the specific store (which turned out to be Office Depot), and actually found more copies of that specific pen - well, I not only bought five or six copies of that one, I bought a couple of different sets from the same company (the replacements I'd found were from a different company). And when I liked one of those different sets, and passed by a different Office Depot visiting my sister in Bloomington, I bought three or four copies of that pen, and a couple more of the original pen.
Thank ghu these pens were in the $5-$6 range, or I'd be bankrupt. Yes, I'm addicted. ^^;; | | comments: Leave a comment |
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artistic![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/blah.gif){kind=small}
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tired
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