What isn’t Apple, audiobooks, or alcohol is probably cats.
My biggest requests for improvements to this weblog.
So after using this weblogging software for a few months now, I have a list of things I’d like to see added to it:
Are there things you (my many readers, ha) would like to see done differently on this weblog? Send me e-mail, at the address in the sidebar.
Don’t just say “post more,” either. I want that, too…
Contrary to popular opinion, reading the manual for a complex device like a digital camera is not hazardous to your health.
In the nearly three years since Rochelle and I got our first digital camera (for our wedding present to each other) the technology has gotten amazingly better. Between that and upgrading to a new Mac that doesn’t have a floppy drive (our Sony Mavica uses a floppy to store and transfer photos), we’ve been wanting to get a new one that would work better with how we take and share photos.
So, last week, after a couple weeks of trying to buy one, we finally managed to find a store with a Canon PowerShot S110 in stock, and bought it. We promptly went out to dinner and tested it out on our meal.
And then I couldn’t get the photos off the damn camera.
Theoretically it was supposed to be easy. Just plug it into my USB port, and iPhoto would open up and import them automatically. This is what we bought the new camera for! Except, after trying a whole lot of different ways to connect the camera, it just didn’t work.
Out of complete desperation, I actually resorted to reading the camera’s manual. And discovered that I needed to put the camera in Playback mode to have the computer see it as a camera.
Doh!
Um, follow the link to see our photos from Bloo…
So we got home from the after dinner party fairly early, about 2am, because Rochelle has having some digestive problems, probably from all the rich food we’d been eating. And we pretty much went straight to sleep, only to be woken up around 6am by the rest of our traveling circus returning from the same party.
Rochelle — a morning person — got up and joined the group, still highly-energetic and talky. I never really woke up, and slept a few more hours before being ready to face the day.
With so little time left before Dave and Joyce’s party, no one wanted to go to bed, except Damon, who’d not only been partying with the best of them, but had been cooking for 100 while the rest of us were part of the 100, sitting, drinking, and eating.
Then we went to Dave and Joyce’s, and you know the rest.
Yes, it’s already happened, my ass has been bitten.
Ha! Well, it happened already. (My one-line modification coming back to bite me in the ass, that is)
I just added the date information to the end of each story, and it’s not quite right. Close enough, though, I’ll just work around the corner cases…
I figured something out.
OK, I figured something out to get the sorting behavior to be what I want (this item should appear above the first sorting story).
It’s not truly correct behavior, but it’s close, and it was a one-line change, which was a lot better than doing it the “right” way.
Which, of course, means that this will come back to bite me in the ass.
Why this weblog sorts stories funny.
A couple weeks ago I complained that the weblog software I’m using is doing something funny when sorting stories. Each day is sorted correctly, from most recent to least. But when a day has multiple stories, the stories are ordered the opposite, from oldest to youngest.
When I complained, I also vowed to fix. Unfortunately, in digging into the code that runs the site, that’s kind of hard, because only the publication date is being stored, i.e., there’s no time information to sort on.
So now instead of modifying a simple SQL statement, I will actually have to go in and modify the database, and hack at the application logic to keep some time information.
Probably more trouble than it’s worth. I’ll look for a shortcut.
I got my third BeBox working today.
Tonight I went through two more BeBoxes. One is apparently dead, and one is definitely working.
So that makes three out of five.
Saw The Brotherhood of the Wolf today. Recommended!
I finally managed to go and see a movie this weekend! Le Pacte des Loups, or The Brotherhood of the Wolf. It took about 20 minutes to get used to the subtitles (as it always does), but then the dialog just flowed into my head without thinking too much about it.
I highly enjoyed the movie. An intriguing story, some really amazing action sequences (right up there with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix), and gorgeous photography. I’m not a movie reviewer, so I’ll skip trying to sound smart while critiquing the film. I enjoyed it, money well spent. Check out the trailers if you want more of a taste.
What I bought at the Be liquidation auction
So I went to the Be liquidation auction last week, and was the high bidder on a lot of “BeBox chassis.” It was a giant pile of BeBox carcasses, piled high up outside Baron’s old cube.
When I went back the next day to pick up my winnings, in that pile there were 20 computer boxes, 19 BeBoxes and one random PC (a dual-Pentium II system, gutted), plus three miscellaneous 17″ monitors, and some keyboards, and some other junk.
I managed to squeeze 15 BeBoxes and the PC into my Integra hatchback, which was a lot more than I’d expected. I wish I’d managed to fit the other four, though, because when I returned to pick up the rest of the lot, the 4 remaining BeBox carcasses had been swiped. Oh, well, the auctioneers refunded me $55, and 15 carcasses is more than my wife wants in our living room anyway.
Tonight I processed three of the 15. I got two working, and set one aside as probably dead. Of the rest, at least three look like they might be salvageable. My biggest problem is going to be finding RAM for the machines, which use totally obsolete SIMMs.
The individual BeBoxes went for $175 at the auction, and I heard that not all of them worked. After the refund my lot cost $400 + sales tax + auction fees, or around $475. So if I get one more working, I’m ahead.
Not that that makes Rochelle any happier to have them on the floor of the living room.
You would think, after more than three years together, I would know how to avoid the traps Rochelle sets for me. I don’t…
Here’s how it goes. Rochelle digs a hole. She gets on the other side of it from me. Then she says “Come here, honey!”
You would think, after nearly four years together, I would know enough to walk around or step over. But no, she’s smarter than I am, and I keep falling into the holes.
Q: “Honey, what time today should we work on X?”
Right Answer: “Why are we working on X today?”
Right Answer: “Did I commit to X?”
Right Answer: “I don’t want to do X today.”
Right Answer: “I’m working on Y today.”
Right Answer: “Maybe you could do X without me?”
Michael’s Answer: “Uh…2pm?”
A terrific sushi party hosted by a retired sushi chef, a family tradition for New Year’s Day.
Edith and Damon’s neighbors, Dave and Joyce, are a retired Japanese couple who host an annual New Year’s Day party with their friends and relatives. Dave is a former sushi chef, and wonderful Japanese food is the cuisine (we will put the photos up soon, promise).
We managed to make it across the street around 1pm, with the goal of hanging out before we headed to get the airport to fly home. But the real tradition for this party is for Dave to push sake on the guests. “Kampi!” means “to the bottom,” and is the traditional toast. We heard it a lot at this party, so our plans to be mellow were for naught.
Even more fun, the hosts delighted in giving the women larger Japanese tea cups, while the men got the traditional smaller sake cups — all of which were continuously kept filled. So by the end, in spite of eating a large amount of sashimi and other delights, we were both, uh, very happy, but Rochelle was waaaaay more drunk than I was.
Somehow Damon managed to drive us to the airport (did I mention that Damon is superhuman?), where we were on to our next adventure.
Today’s auction of Be Incorporated’s assets is the opportunity to purchase computing history. Unfortunately, the market said they were mostly evolutionary dead-ends.
This morning I’m headed down to Menlo Park, where I worked for three years at Be Incorporated.
It’s been over two years since I left Be, and in the time that’s passed, so has Be. Today they’re just another victim of the economic downturn, and their assets are being auctioned off.
I was at Be during some of the most exciting times, including the first public release of the BeOS, being invested in by Intel, and the public offering.
Be was a special place to work, and BeOS is still unmatched by any other operating system in some areas of functionality and technology. Be, the BeBox, and BeOS have a place in computing history, and it’s a tragedy that it will be as curiosities, evolutionary dead ends, rather than as an important turning point in the computer industry.
I’m headed down to Menlo Park to collect my piece of that history. Some momento of what it was like to work there, what it meant to me, what the company accomplished.
I’m taking the credit card. Don’t tell my wife.