heatxsink.com

I think i've come down with a sinus infection. Perhaps it all started at mammoth. Who knows. I'm okay though been in bed most of the day. Decided to finally get up and start screwing around with the same old things. I downloaded the Novell Linux Desktop, and are currently backing up my $HOME so I can move to the NLD! This ought to make things a whole lot easier for saturn development.

A9.com is Amazon's stab at doing search for e-commerce applications. So far they have some really impressive features. To me it seems far more personable than google does at the moment. A9 has made this cool version of doing Yellow Pages. They've also included a video of how they did it. I think this is an awesome User Interface, I think what makes it really shine is the interaction/feedback, when you mouse over an entry that came up in a search, it'll highlight the entry you are mousing over, and highlight the location on the MapQuest map. I still think that Google is going to blow people away when they get their mapping company all squared away, I also came across this way of doing mapping here. Looks a lot like Keyhole, but it's not Keyhole, cool thing is that it's entirely javascript based! Go figure.

So I went to Mammoth Mountain. Whoa I never knew there existed a place like this in California!

I can't believe how much of a pain it is to actually take a task of configuring stuff ot access the sources to Saturn, and document the entire process!!! It's taking forever, and of course I've decided to trade off sleep for documentation time.

What an awesome experience! Mammoth was _THE_ best time ever! Good times where had with the conditions, and of course with friends.

Okay so I always knew that the TSA people that do security at aiports were morons, but not I'm pissed. They inspected my snowboard case, and decided to not put this retaining pin that keeps the two halves together, back in when they finished inspecting my snowboard equipment. So then I decided to ask around for a zip tie which is like hell to try and get, but eventually I tracked down a police officer which of course had to have them somewhere. It worked out, but i'm still a little pissed off. I could blame the makers of my snowboard case for a such a horrible design, I could also blame myself for not attaching the retaining pin to the snowboard case. Oh well I'm figuring it out, oh well.

Woohoo, time to unplug!

I dunno, if it's becoming more mature or something but I totally used to not care about how I formatted my code. Now the amount of effort in which I put in formatting my code is almost as much effort I put into writing. It's crazy. And then when I come across some bozo's code that isn't well formed, I get really pissed. I'm thinking of devising coding standards, or perhaps I'll just write a Perl script to enforce syntactical form.

Started reading this particular translation of this book. Not too far off from the book on Tao that I read off and on. I found an e-book here.

Today was someone's birthday. And of course in tradition, okay more like in living memory of the motion picture, "Office Space." We really were trying to find a way so that he was locked out of his cubical, but we couldn't find the correct corner pieces to add the missing wall that acts as everyone's doorway. So instead we did the next best thing, we removed a cubical wall, then hid it at the further end of the building.Had Chinese food last night, and of course I got a fortune cookie! I collect these things, I have a bunch of them in my wallet that I've kept from college, when we finally got "Panda Express" added to Cal Poly's food court. Maybe I should write a php script that does something like....

I'm just plain tired, I can hardly keep my eyes open right now. I'm staring at the screen but my body is saying "Goto bed now dammit!" I want to listen, but that's no good. Can't sleep right now. This has to be one of the longest days.

I stole these from merc's website.

You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.- Billy WilderGreat minds have purposes, others have wishes.- Washington Irving

The obvious to get done in order of priority of course....

1. Reserve plane ticket.
2. Get to the laundromat.
3. Things to get from REI...

- snowboarding gloves
- spiderman thermal underwear
- skull cap like bini that will keep head warm under existing helmet?
- FRS Radio(s)


4. Things to get from Copelands...

- sleeping bag?
- a new helmet?
- a new goggles?


5. Setup SVN and check in my code to a code versioning system.
6. Start UI redesign for Saturn ^started...
7. Finish up preliminary UML diagrams for Saturn
8. Upgrade linux laptop to gnome-blog 0.8
9. Install Dropline Drivel
10. Edit the picture theme to include bullets and some new styling.
11. Upgrade to movable type 3.X

Some cool Episode III pictures I found. I think Darth Potato head is going in my cubicle. Right next to my talking yoda.

This is an amazing presentation given in 2002 at OSCON. The presenter makes some really good points about our copyright system, and how badly it's flawed.

So every now and then I read Nat Friedman's blog, cause not only is educational, but really really entertaining. This particular entry of course is hilarious, so much that I have posted part of it below. Hopefully one day the text below won't be presented like such awful crap either. But just read!

Senator John Kerry:	No, that's not my bag. Mine is blue, and it's wrapped in cellophane.
Police Escort:	Senator, this one is blue and wrapped in cellophane.
Senator John Kerry:	I think it has someone else's name on it.
Nat:	Excuse me, Senator.
Police Escort:	You're right, it says "Property of Belinda someone."
Nat:	Excuse me, Senator, I just wanted to say hello.
Senator John Kerry:	>turning to greet the dapper young man< Hello.
Nat:	I am a big supporter, and it's a great honor to meet you, sir.
Senator John Kerry:	Good, good. It's good to meet you. >shaking hands<
Nat:	Yes, I contributed to your campaign, and —
Senator John Kerry:	Great! Keep up the fight.
Nat:	Anyway, I was wondering if you could possibly reimburse me for my contribution.
Senator John Kerry:	...
Nat:	So, if you want to just write me a check now, we can call ourselves square.
Police Escort:	I think this is your bag, Senator.

Woohoo looks like I'm going to Mammoth !!!! Time to operate heavy machinery while intoxicated. Map here!

So, I wake up today like all of the rest of the days this week, @ 7 am!! Woohoo! So right away I need to use the bathroom. I walk down the hall to the shared bathroom....I'm making my approach on the door, when what do I see? I see a note...I was thinking aww how nice a love note. The noted stated:

Toilet Overflowed, Do Not Use.

I was trying to keep my composure as the pressure began to build up like it normally does in the morning. You know, that feeling that your body goes through, like one is on approach, but right as the plane is about to touch down it is immediately denied landing!!! Quickly I think in my head where is the nearest..."clean" bathroom? First things first, I gotta go and throw on a sweatshirt and some pants, so I rush to my room, as I quickly grab clothes I think about any restaurants, cause they have decently clean bathrooms. I think I found the nearest one, so I grabbed some books, I figured it'll probably be a good idea to get some breakfast since I usually skip that meal! And off I go. I arrive back at the apartment expecting the bathroom situation to be fixed..it isn't! My roommate decided to "solve" the problem by just leaving a towel on the floor. Which obviously soaked up whatever the towel could there was now a nice puddle in the middle of the towel. What a crappy way to start off a day.

Todo List 01/11/05

Setup SVN and check in my code to a code versioning system.

Start UI redesign for Saturn

Finish up preliminary UML diagrams for Saturn

Upgrade linux laptop to gnome-blog 0.8

Install Dropline Drivel

Edit the picture theme to include bullets and some new styling.

Upgrade to movable type 3.X

This video is just wrong.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."-Aristotle

Note to self: When I start my own software operation, UML diagrams are a must. This one dude I use to work for, who for the record was a complete asshole, is now complaining about how he had all of these problems with his house! YES!! So funny he's bitching and complaing about how his furnace was all fucked up, cause of a roofing job that needed to be done. I guess some inspector came out to clear the roofing job, and essentially said that his vents for his furnance and something else weren't up to code and weren't big enough. So dumb ass decides to allow the ghetto contractor "fix" the problem. So when it came time to turn the furnance on, it would automatically shut off! Hahahahahaha. Turns out the ghetto contractor turned a 4 inch opening into a 5 inch opening by bending the existing 4 inch and then inserting a 5 inch. That bend was probably too sharp so anyways, dumb ass decides he's going to do it himself, bends it back and, so his response is like "well no one's dead and everything works, so I guess it's right." The sad part is that's the way this guy writes his software! HA! It's pretty sad, one can get extremely burned doing things through contractors, but I think that's if you try to penny pinch. I think this guy's wife penny pinched the contractor, and hence the quality of the work. Who knows. More reasons not to buy an old ass house, and to just make a killing.

Amazing. In this video, Ballmer preaches like a IT expert. It's amazing that this guy is talking about how they are attempting to plan for vulnerabilities. He then starts bashing Linux about security, and how it's not as secure as Windows!!!!!!!!! Using more scare tatics to make people choose Windows!!!! He then goes on to admit that most of china doesn't pay for windows but uses it. Lots of hand waving, so much that I thought he was going to fly away. After the blue screen of death at CES, Gates decided to then preach about so called standards for interoperability. What happened to the HTML, XHTML, CSS 1.0 and 2.0 w3c standards, and why does IE behave so badly at implementing those? Ugh, I hope Novell is ever so preparing for the battle. It's round 2.

About 4 months ago I posted an entry about the Microsoft announced keyboard with a built-in fingerprint scanner. Seems kinda cool to me. Finally it's been announced as being rolled out. This particular article looks like a review of the hardware/software.

I was in SF last night and completely floored. Throughout San Francisco there exists these phallic-like kiosks. They are everywhere. But the craziest thing is that while driving down "Market St." you can see them kinda all lined up if you look at it from the right angle. I know it's cause of MacWorld, BUT you have to admit it's pretty damn cool. Also I think there's much hype cause I think this year everyone is watching and waiting for good ol' Steve to get up there on stage dressed in his zen-like uniform of a black turtleneck and jeans and show us what we all should have next!! There's SO much more buzz for some reason this year. Perhaps I'm just finally listening to the buzz around the Mac community cause I am now finally a member of it? Anyways see the pic below!

So right now, I'm trying to get some planning done for Saturn. This one guy i've been talking to in the #mono channel told me my ideas are great. But get them documented so when he and other people join in. My vision gets implemented. Makes sense right? Logically that totally makes sense. So thoughout everything I've been doing I've been strategically trying to think what should go in what version of Saturn. I'm sure a website for all of this would be perfect. Hrmm...this madness begins. I've also ACTUALLY started a new blog using blogger, although it's linked on my site here, I won't be using it for anything other than testing! And of course seeing how blogger works.

Cool article at the New York Times.

I think I want this watch... The company is called Vestal. The model is the G5 "Global Travler". I like the sleek design, and of course it's my favorite dark color. and it's electronic.

So Microsoft has released their "beta" version of some AntiSpyware application. I think they are explicitly copying Google in the their "Beta" labeling fashion. To say the least I'm pretty impressed by it, especially for being a "beta" version of a supposite microsoft product. So the entire history behind this application is that M$ bought out a AntiSpyware company a month ago, this is the result of the borg assimulation.

I cannot sleep! I really would like to know why I cannot sleep.

Yes so this is my screenshot of Saturn Bloggin Thin Client

Blah

Some evolutionary steps for my app that I'm writing/hacking up.Note: I know these images are rather small, so just click on them for the full sized pic.First there was light.... I decided on what to finally write, since Zempt is/was a good thin client for blogging, thus I decided to use it as a starting point.

And now I'm finally starting to put more of the XML-RPC pieces of the puzzle together...as you can see from the red circles....Finally today zbowling finally got gecko# working on win32, so now my app will definitely have a preview tab.

The battery life in my 3rd Generation iPod has been diminishing quite rapidly, I was getting something like 3-4 hours before the damned thing would die. I figured it was time to get a new battery and perform surgery. I ordered the battery online yesterday, and it arrived this morning. It took me a whole 5 minutes to install it. It is now charging and I'm anxiously awaiting to see how much more time I'll get out the 30% larger battery.

So moments after that entry, i decided to read some news, then looked at my bed. I looked at the time and said 30 minutes can't hurt. My head hit the pillow, I then would wake up to hit the snooze button on my cell phone alarm clock. Then suddenly, I wake up, and stare at my wall clock which read... 9:03. Terror raced through my head, as I rushed to throw any clothes on..the clock then read 9:05. I then bolted out the door. I arrived in my cube at 9:14 am.

There is this new "policy" that has been put into action at work. Software Developers need to be in to work by 9 am. Of course, to me this is the end of the world. Having a 10 am start time was awesome. But I guess I needed to get with the rest of the world and start at normal hours. I woke up at 7 am. I'm extremely groggy, and I want desperately for my head to hit the pillow.

So since leaving JPL I haven't really read up on how those two rovers are doing. I found a blog about a year ago and haven't really had the time to look at it much. So in the after hours of work I decided to take a look at old blog entries, and well I found the entry about a blog that was dedicated to the mars rovers. I found this blog with this cool animated gif. It's extremely wild what those guys have done with those machines. We are becomming more and more precise with machines, I can't wait to see what is in store for us in the future, and where we will be going.

So I couldn't upload any pictures and make thumbnails for a long time cause of a newly upgraded perl module that I couldn't get working. I've since fixed that FINALLY!

Good software developers test their software very very very carefully.

Wow 2005! I should have some kind of list of obligatory goals set for the new year (a.k.a. resolutions). Okay what sucks is I can't think of any really obligatory ones yet, but I have some etiquette tips...from this cool xmas present I recieved. Yup I know, that means there's going to be way more where this came from! Enjoy this excerpt on "Opening Doors" it's out of the "Relationships" section of the book.

Opening Doors Whether a man should open doors and hold chairs for a woman depends largely on whether the woman will appreciate these gestures. (It's fair to say that most younger women today are not inclined to sit in a car while a date walks around to open the door.) The man's best bet is to ask: "May I get the door for you?" or "Can I hold your chair?" By leaving the choice to her, he doesn't have to guess about her preference. The woman should respond politely ("Yes, thank you" or " No, but thank you. I can manage it"). Like so many matters of modern etiquette, a little communication between the people involved is the logical way to resolve the problem.Opening doors at a restaurant or cinema --- or entering revolving doors and turnstiles --- is generally a matter of who gets to the door first. If the man is encumbered or has a physical limitation, a thoughtful woman will hold the door, just as she would for anyone.