Monthly Archive for February, 2003

txt is the only way to fly.

Published
by
Benjy
on Thursday February 27, 2003
in Microsoft and Vocation
. 8 Comments

As April draws closer, I've been worrying more and more about finding a job. Accordingly, I've been working on my resume and sending out feelers, one of which resulted in this quote:

"I'm not sure if I want to work for someone who wants my resume as a .doc."
-- me

And here I was under the impression that Cyberdog jokes died with OS 9.

Published
by
Benjy
on Tuesday February 25, 2003
in Apple, Laugh and Link
. Closed

Dude, this page made a Cyberdog joke. (scroll to the bottom, and look for the " Now Supporting Four Browsers" line)

Worse, I laughed at it. I laughed at it more than a little bit. I'm such a dork.

I’m really at a loss for words on this one.

Published
by
Benjy
on Wednesday February 19, 2003
in Despair, Disappointment and Media
. Closed

Uh, US 'plans new nuclear weapons'? Why the hell is there no mention of that on the front page of any major US news site I can think to look at? Seriously, this is just as important as all the Iraq stuff to US citizens, but the media chooses to focus on Iraq. I suppose this is just a reminder that the media is not on the people's side.

It must be so frustrating being a cop…

Published
by
Benjy
on Monday February 17, 2003
in Cars, Quotes and Snowboarding
. Closed

One thing I forgot to mention about last weekend's snowboarding trip was that we had a ridiculous number of cop/sheriff/chp/etc sightings. On Saturday, we saw around 10 cops, starting with a pair of cops who ended up on each side of us on a two lane road, and from there things only got more ridiculous. On Sunday, we saw something like 14 cops, though I couldn't begin to document all of the sightings. While the shear number of cops was pretty comical, the real gem was this quote:

"It must be so frustrating being a cop. As soon as you pull up behind someone, you always want to shout, 'I wish everyone would stop slowing down!'"
-- vanwie (the driver)

Other people’s Game Boy Advance SP first impressions.

Published
by
Benjy
on Sunday February 16, 2003
in Nintendo: Game Boy and Size Matters
. 1 Comment

My initial reaction to the Game Boy Advance SP questioned how comfortable it would be, but now that I've read first impressions and seen all these pictures (including disassembly), I admit I'm warming up to the idea of getting one. I think I'd still like to play with one for a couple of hours before I commit, but both of those articles claim that it's still comfortable to play. We'll see.

I wish that the "Game Boy Advance Crash Test" (wherein they apparently set a GBASP on fire) this article referenced hadn't been pulled, but hopefully it'll be put back up soon.

The Windows build process, and sticky browsing metaphors

Published
by
Benjy
on Saturday February 15, 2003
in Metaphor, Microsoft, Microsoft: Windows, Programming, Software and Web
. 1 Comment

First up, I read this article about the Windows build process. As I read it, I was a good combination of horrified and fascinated. I can't even begin to comprehend the complexity involved in that thing... Five thousand programmers? That's almost as many residents as live in the UC Berkeley dorms, and I can't imagine all of them being organized towards one common goal, with the possibility that something someone does will impact someone else's system in some unpredictable way...

And yes, I was horrified by both the complexity being described, and horrified that I was fascinated by what I was reading. Proof once again that I am a geek.

As I read the article, I imagined that the programmers at the lowest levels didn't even know what they were working on -- that they were given a specification for a subroutine, and were just asked to make it do something based on the input. This image was fueled by Stephenson's description of Y.T.'s mom's job with the Feds in Snow Crash, where the programmers are "interchangeable parts" turning out tiny widgets, and the actual software engineering is done by people who aren't actually programming.

The quote that most caught my eye from the article was about the significance of a broken build, which boggled my mind almost as much as the complexity involved in the first place. And I

"We've sent out calls at 3 a.m. when the build is broken, find the developer that broke it, and get him into work right then and fix it immediately. The developers are on call 24 hours a day. There's definitely an escalation process. A broken build is considered a critical, severity-1 problem."

It also got me wondering how Mac OS X and Apple compares. Maybe I'll find out some day.

Second, this interview with Marc Andreessen (one of the co-founders of Netscape) was kind of short, but he did say one thing that I found very thought provoking:

"Things like the back and forward button, we never intended that to be a permanent part of the interface. But people get locked into metaphors. You have to be careful with the metaphors you put in front of people because once they click onto one, that's it.

Consider how pervasive the back and forward button have become these days -- to the point of being "basic" features of our file system browsers -- and you'll see how significant it really is.

Kirkwood, day 7 and 8

Published
by
Benjy
on Friday February 14, 2003
in Kirkwood, Snowboarding and Snowboarding 2003
. Closed

Heh, my mom called me to make sure I wasn't dead or in a coma or something after snowboarding last weekend. So no, I'm not dead, I've just been working late every night this week. Unfortunately, at this point I can't remember many details, but I remember highlights.

  • Date(s): Saturday February 8th and Sunday February 9th.
  • People: Tyler, Dave, Trisha, me.
  • Saturday
  • It was somewhat icy again all weekend, and it wasn't like I was expecting it to be any better than Thursday, but that lack of good snow pretty much defined how I spent my weekend.
  • I wasn't feeling very comfortable on my board on the first few runs, so I ended up having my edges sharpened. It helped a bit, and I felt like I was better able to hold an edge. They also gave me a free buff wax, which was cool.
  • After lunch, Trisha and I just went and played on Snowkirk (a green run) for awhile, playing with spinning or trying to ride switch. Moral of the story? I totally suck at riding goofy footed. Well, more particularly, I can't ride on my heel edge with my back foot forward.
  • Sunday
  • Sunday was even less interesting than Saturday, if that's possible. I spent the entire first half of the day before lunch playing with my stance. I tried different angles, different widths, and different centering, and after spending about three hours taking runs and readjusting, I eventually came up with something I liked pretty well. I'm more centered on my board, my front foot is at 21, and my back foot is at 6.
  • One time I went to the work bench, and I found a pair of skis sitting underneath. I kept tripping over the skis, so I moved them to one side. I was almost ready to place my second binding, when suddenly a skier putting on her skis pushed my board. Luckily I caught it before it slid off the workbench, and said "Hey, could you be careful?"
    She ignored me, but as she was waddling off, she turned and said, "I don't suppose it was you that kicked my skis out of the way."
    "Well don't put your fucking skis under the workbench," I shouted at her. She didn't reply. Now, 1, I didn't kick her skis, but rather, moved them. 2. She did not know it was me, because she didn't see me move her skis, so she was just taking aggression out on snowboarders. Fucking skiers.
  • On my repeated runs through the small terrain park while adjusting my board, I got good at going through the park non-stop, and pushing off of the small mounds, and jumping off the edges of other humps -- basically, I got to feeling much more comfortable with jumping, though I still have a long way to go.
  • After lunch, we took several runs under The Reut, and finished up with a run up Cornice. We actually tried to traverse past Sentinel Bowl, but just ended up going down through trees. It was occasionally fun, but it was significantly more work than it was worth, and it was even a little scary at times.

Basically, because the snow wasn't fantastic, I spent some time working on things that I needed to improve on. Understandably, I'm pretty bummed that it's been snowing the last couple of days, and I'm not only not going this weekend, but I'm also can't go next weekend, either.

Blah. If it were any other version of this weekend, I wouldn't mind missing out, but it's been snowing, and I can't go next weekend either, and so I'm a little disgruntled. But here, watch me try to make myself feel better: Our passes aren't good at Kirkwood because it's a holiday weekend, so I'd have to spend a bunch of money on lift tickets at Squaw or Alpine or wherever they end up (though I'd still like to go try out new resorts at this point. I'm getting a little bored of Kirkwoord...). And hey, wherever we went would be busy, because it's a holiday weekend. Oh, and I have work to do this weekend, anyway.

And I can't go next week, because I'm going to Bakersfield for my dad's birthday. Eh, maybe I'll get to go sometime during the week.

Kirkwood, day 6

Published
by
Benjy
on Saturday February 8, 2003
in Kirkwood, Snowboarding and Snowboarding 2003
. Closed

Okay, so I really should just go to sleep, but I want to try to write this tonight, because by Sunday I'm not going to remember any of yesterday. So here goes, bullet point version of yesterday at Kirkwood:

  • Date(s): Thursday February 6th.
  • People: Matt, Trisha, me.
  • We headed backside in search of sun-softened snow again pretty much right away, because it hadn't exactly snowed a lot since last time. I think they reported 2-6 inches from last weekend.
  • At one point while trying to mostly straightline down a run backside: I was rocking back and forth between my heel and toe edges, but not really edging, so I didn't have any grip on the mountain. Something happened and I pretty much just flew onto my back, and since I had a ton of speed I ended up sliding for a long way down the slope. "Did you see me fall?" I asked Trisha.
    "No, but I saw your cloud."
  • After lunch, I swapped boards with Trisha for awhile. Her board is shorter than mine, so I found that it was a lot easier to turn, but it was also less stable. She agreed with that assessment, but in reverse.
  • I'm feeling a lot more comfortable about jumps, and I was able to land 2 or 3 jumps per pass off the edges of some speed bumps in the small terrain park off of 7. I still haven't gone over the top of proper jump and caught any notable air, but mark that down as a goal for this weekend.
  • I also did some work just jumping while coasting on a flat, and Matt said I was able to jump a couple of feet. That sounds good to me. Maybe I'll try that on a slope this weekend.
  • I also learned a sort of trick: I can now ride in a counterclockwise spin. In other words, continually change edges back and forth such that I go around in a circle. I was able to do it long enough that it made me dizzy and I fell down. I noticed that I have problems with the heel edge of my normal front foot catching when that normal front foot is my back foot and I'm trying to transition from my heel edge to my toe edge. That was a confusing sentence: hopefully it will make sense to me later.

    I need to work on going around clockwise next, and I should probably also practice riding switch some. When riding backwards, I have a problem doing heel to toe transitions AT ALL. I just can't do it. Actually, I can't ride on my toe edge while goofy at all. Something else to work on.
  • On the last few runs of the day, the clip on the front strap of my back binding deteriorated from being a little broken into being a lot broken. First the teeth on the ratchet got sufficiently bent out of shape that they wouldn't grip to tighten for the last few clicks. It was still usable, but I could no longer ratchet it shut and had to try to push/pull it those last few clicks. Then, the spring that held it shut got bent out of shape, too, making it finally unusable.
  • Trisha and Rick took it to Destination 1440 today and they fixed it for free, so that makes me a happy camper, and more importantly, enables me to go snowboarding this weekend. This will be my first twi day trip in awhile, and between that and snowboarding 3 out of 4 days, I'm probably going to be really sore by the time Sunday night rolls around.

And now, bedtime.

Mac software development dreams.

Published
by
Benjy
on Wednesday February 5, 2003
in Apple, Programming, Safari, Web and iTunes
. Closed

I just came across these Save and Restore Safari URLs AppleScripts, and it made me kind of cranky, because this was totally something I was planning on doing.

My original version of the idea sometime last year was to write a script that would back up my open OmniWeb windows to an OmniOutliner document. I gave up on that idea when it became apparent how much OmniOutliner's URL handling doesn't just suck, but is completely non-existant. I could have written a "restore from OmniOutliner" script, but then there would have been no point of storing it in an OmniOutliner document in the first place: The reason I wanted to store it there was because I wanted to be able to use the checking and grouping features of OmniOutliner. Then I forgot about the idea for awhile.

When Safari came out, lots of people started posting Safari AppleScripts, and I remembered my earlier idea. But this time, I came up with a new storage mechanism: Wouldn't it be neat if I could just make a "sessions" bookmark folder with subfolders for each "backup?" There were a few other details I don't really feel like explaining, but it was pretty cool in my head.

Well, that idea too was dashed to a halt when I actually started writing the scripts, only to discover that bookmarks in Safari aren't (yet?) scriptable. Blah.

So I left the skeletons of the scripts I'd written sitting there in my home directory until such a time as bookmarks in Safari were scriptable, or until I got motivated to use a file... until I saw those scripts today, and now I'm just kinda bummed. It's not like I could have charged for the scripts or anything, but I'm just kind of put out that I just didn't bite the bullet and use a file in the first place. I wanted the practice, and I guess I kind of wanted some sort of recognition... I wish I could just get motivated to develop something as some sort of first step to developing more full featured Mac software.

Sure there were my headless iTunes scripts, but I didn't exactly keep them up to date or even package them in any reasonable way, and really, PTHiTunesNotifier is exactly what I wish I'd written. It has most of the features I couldn't implement in AppleScript, though it doesn't have all of the features of my scripts. Oh well. I'm thinking about writing them and seeing if they'll give me a pointer (in particular, I'd like to know what mechanism they're using to know when a song changes, and what mechanism they're using to display the transpent overlay), but I'm kind of pessimistic about the chances of that happening. Then again, I should just write some simple useless apps before I worry about the details of how the transparencies are implemented.

The girl’s got potential.

Published
by
Benjy
on Tuesday February 4, 2003
in Buffy, Ideas and Metaphor
. Closed

So at the end of the last new Buffy episode -- the one where Dawn thinks she's a potential slayer for awhile -- Xander and Dawn have a heartwarming little talk about how you can still be important without having any superpowers. Xander talked for awhile how he'd been helping Buffy for 7 years, and at the end Dawn said "Maybe that's your power... Seeing, Knowing."

And I sat up straight and were anyone else in the room, I would have commented on Xander's stint as a bartender back in season 4. But since I didn't have anyone to talk to, I wrote down this sentence on my laptop instead: "Xander was a bartender, and bartenders are romanticized as seers and knowers! Xander's stint as a bartender was a metaphor for his role in the group!"

Which, rereading the script for Beer Bad is pretty obvious, but that sort of thing is one of the reasons I like the show: various themes continually reoccur in different ways throughout the show, and sometimes subtle references to other episodes happen all the time.

And, woohoo, new Buffy tonight. Pity I already accidentally saw a preview, which spoiled the surprise for me.