The New Road

Boo Yah!

I did better than I have ever done with my Oscar picks. I rode Lord Of The Rings all the way, baby! Love it. I wiped out on the actors and actresses. The bet on the kid from Whale Rider was stupid. But I knew they were going to sweep LOTR. It didn't really deserve best picture but they were giving the award to the trilogy and not that film in particular.

I think Lori did as well, the few LOTR categories she didn't pick LOTR in were offset by her good picks in the actor and actress categories.

RSS

Is RSS the Internet de-spammed?

Vegas Pictures

As promised, pictures from my recent Vegas trip. Vegas was surprising to me in a lot of ways. I didn't expect it to be ringed by mountains. I didn't expect the Leaving Las Vegas sign to be at the exact end of the strip. I didn't expect the strip to be so short. I certainly didn't expect that downtown of Las Vegas to be as dumpy as it was. I didn't expect that the airport would be about three long blocks off the strip. So close, in fact, that some hotels on the strip are directly across from the tarmac. I was kinda expecting the low-rise urban sprawl but I didn't fully grasp that until I was there.

The hotels blew my mind. I knew they were going to be big, but I wasn't prepared for how big they really were. Ceasar's Palace goes on and on and on and on. Until you just can't imagine it. It's the biggest mall you can imagine, times two, with a casino and a sports book. And that's just one hotel.

Now that I think about it I understand why the airport needs to be so close. If it were further away people would be renting cars and the traffic along the strip would be deadly. As it was it was pretty bad. You just can't imagine how many people were there. These casino floors stretched further than the eye could see and I would say that 75% of the slot seats were occupied. The mass and the scale were not to be readily understood.

And yet it's as if there was a wall between the mega-hotels on the strip and the rest of Las Vegas. The affluence of the casino stopped at the street. Right next to the Bellagio is "Al's Hot Dog Stand" (or something like that). The prosperity is created in that one spot and stays right there or goes back to corporate coffers in some other place. So outside of the casinos Las Vegas itself is not a particularly pretty or well kept town.

Vegas

Vegas was great. The hotels were amazing. They were huge and really well done. What was even more amazing was that there were hookers in the casino as we were walking back to our rooms. The Vegas strip is like Disney except that it has gambling and hookers. :-)

Some pictures later.

Off to Vegas

I'm off to Vegas for two days to play with Mike Gill, an old friend. I'll be staying at the Bellagio, which should be cool. It looked really gorgeous in Ocean's Eleven. I'll take a bunch of pictures and put them up Saturday.

Automated Blogging

I've been working to automate the blogging process with Applescript. I've got it to the point where I can select some text, then hit a key sequence that will copy the text and prompt for a blog title then blog it. Pretty nifty.

Harry Shearer show

Check out this Real Audio link and go to 36:30.

Megan Pictures

Cute pictures of Megan from the last couple of days.

Greenspan response

Recently Greenspan defended outsourcing, or at least warned against protectionism. Some thoughts:

• 43's White House has always supported a strong shift towards the management class, the ivy league and skull and bones types. These people look at working class folks and expendable livestock.
• Management and VC actually believe that companies like Sun, IBM, Microsoft and Apple drove the Internet revolution and that innovation actually happens in the board room. So to them it doesn't matter where the grunts are.
• Historically blue collar jobs can be done anywhere.

That sets up why Greenspan is supporting outsourcing. He is basically clueless about what is actually driving the technical economy and he is using his understanding of historical trends and the influences of the management set to drive his decision making.

Unfortunately, it's all wrong. Once again the people at the top fail to understand that the roots of the technical economy is the engineers creating the innovation that these companies then productize. Even a lot of my friends within the industry fail to realize this.

What I don't understand is the message that Greenspan thinks he is sending to America's youth. I'd love to ask him which career path he would pick for his own kids. What would he call a secure bet for the future? The only two that I can think of are law or politics.

We have created an educational system in the United States that teaches two different paths, if you do well then you will get a nice white collar job, if you do badly, then you get a hard work blue collar job. The CEO jobs are reserved for those from private schools and old money. This social guarantee has worked since the 40s but now, with outsourcing, those jobs are going away. So now what do we tell our kids?

Bush wins 2nd term

Might as well call the show over if we can't convince democrat spoiler (closet Republican) Ralph Nader to get out of the race. He was solely responsible for creating the debacle in Florida that gave Reichsfeuhrer Bush the coronation. With four more years of the Shrub the conservatives are going to get another seat or two on the Supreme Court and then coronate their nominees without that messy voting process. As well as four more years of continuous war against, and federal over-spending on the military industrial complex while starving those pesky social programs.

I would say this is a repeat of the 2000 campaign but at least this time Bush isn't pretending to be a compassionate conservative, he is showing his true strong-right conservative self in all it's my way (God's way) is the right way for the Word glory.

DW and CGN

I'm still wondering how I left it until now to use Dreamweaver on the CGN site. I finally started using it and the results after just a couple of days are great, or at least, in my opinion they are great. I think the site is a lot tighter and more consistent than it was.

BTW, if you go and check it out with Safari you may need to refresh it a few times before the stylesheets kick in.

Bizarrre Ruby Book

I love that I am the author of a Ruby book. Only Ruby could inspire this book.

Cool Mac Gizmos

I'm not usually one to customize my desktop all that much. I like nice backgrounds, but I usually don't tweak the function of the machine all that much. That being said, there are some cool things I have bumped into recently that I have used:

• Virtual Desktop Pro is an amazing piece of work. You can have multiple desktops running simultaneously. That means that you can have one set of applications and windows running in one desktop and then another set in another. It's wonderful if you work with multiple applications simultaneously and you use sets of them for particular tasks.
• Key Xing allows you to assign global keys to launch applications, surf to particular URLs or to run AppleScript commands. On my machine I have set this up so that one set of keys will launch particular applications and make them the only window on the screen. Other keys will control iTunes in the background so that I can skip forward and back songs without leaving the application I am working in.
• LaunchBar is great if you have a better feel for the keyboard then you do for the trackpad. With it you can start emails, surf to websites, launch applications or take the finder to particular directories all with the keyboard at any time you choose. You just hit Apple-Space and then start typing enough of the key phrase to be unique. So for example, I have muttmansion listed in the service so all I need to do, from any application, is type Apple-Space, and then 'm' followed by a return, to bring up Safari and to go to muttmansion. To bring up mail I do the same thing but type 'ma' instead of 'm'. Sweet.

I suddenly feel a lot like Joe Block. Anyway, if you want copies of the scripts that I use to control iTunes just let me know and I can send them along.

iTunes complex

I think my iTunes has a complex. I have it randomly playing a playlist with about 150 items and it seems to pick The Doors song The End at least once every morning. Feeling blue, are we?

Cliff Yablonski

Hates me. Well, and you too.

Mr. Code Generation

Apparently I am Mr. Code Generation now. ;-)

Springsteen dream

NyQuil gives the best dreams. This morning I was dreaming about a Springsteen concert. It was just songs off Born to Run, but they were unchained from the album format and played in a much more lyrical and flowing style. Bruce's cadence, tone and emphasis was all different, connoting an almost operatic style to the performance of the piece:

In the tunnels of town, the rats own dream guns him down...

The last words coming as if the very bullets themselves.

The shots echo down the hallway in the night.

The words being extended carrying the very echo of the final flight of the soul vanquished by the gun.

No one watches as the ambulance pulls away.

Or as the girl shuts out the bedroom light.

I felt as if pulled back and watching in silence as the tears stream down her face.

It was all very dramatic and touching. The dream ended with me in a record store going through CDs in what looked like the classical section but was filled with old rock. It was then that the alarm went off.

Man was I clawing to get back to that dream. The beauty of the music. I had my own customized concert going on and it was unlike anything I've ever heard before. What I am writing now seems so silly in comparison.

As I got out of that dreamy state I thought more about the music and wondered what it would be like if Born To Run had been done today, with the production values we have now. But mulit-track was out back then. It had been avaliable since Sgt. Pepper's. That reed thin, razor sharp sound was a hallmark of the seventies sound. As if to say, we are so good you could take any single track and it would be perfect, no need to mask or edit. Reminds me of Larry Carlton, who you would give three seconds to and he would give you three notes, played absolutely perfectly to fit the theme.

Mmm... NyQuil, now comes in a combo pack.

(I was clicking around this entry, doing a little editing and what not, and I stopped myself. It's got a hazy 6AM California feel to it. Whatever.)

Your own fighter

For only $8M this is a steal.

Update: The bidding is now up to $99M, which is almost four times what the plane is worth.

Short blogs

Sorry about the short blogs of late. Lori is getting on me about it. Lately all I can think about is, well, lots of things, but mainly two things. First is why people have kids when what they seem to give back is colds. ;-) Just kidding, I know what kids give back.

The second thing I have been jaw dropping is Bush. More so than ever. In the past couple of weeks we have discovered that the WMD thing was a total farce. And he allowed a man who truly proliferated nuclear arms (Pakistan) to rogue nations to go free with just a hand slap. Not to mention on the local front the job-less Wall Street recovery we are in. I agree with Kerry, we need to outsource this administration.

Seriously, what are you going to tell your kids about college? If this continues there will be no more mid-level white collar jobs left. I used to think that medicine was a safe bet and I read an article yesterday that said that there were Indian firms that would do that job as well. Do you really want a country where the only three jobs are politicians, managers and burger flippers? Let me be absolutely clear in saying that Bush has no concern whatsoever for the average citizen, he only cares about his pocketbook and those of hit fat cat friends. Period.

Four more years of economic destruction of the middle class, war and fear mongering is not what we need. Dump Bush.

Orca Slap

For those fans of Penguin/Yeti sports, here is the Orca Slap.

Throw rocks at boys!

(Stolen from Dave Barry.) You can throw rocks at boys!

Why I love my daughter

Happy Valentines day Meg!

Orkut

I was initially hesitant about Orkut because of the bad press, but now I think it's pretty cool. I don't know why I think it's cool. I just think it's cool.

Bluetooth Wireless Stuff

I've lived with a bluetooth wireless mouse and keyboard for a week now. Let me tell you about the experience.

First, the wireless keyboard from Apple. This thing is a dream. It runs for nine months on four AA batteries. Gotta love that. it's also a nice feeling keyboard. My only complaint is that it is a little heavy and that it is somewhat laggy when it comes to waking up.

The wireless mouse from Logitech (MX 900) is good but I have some complaints. First, it sucks battery. Which is ok because it comes with rechargeables, but if you forget to put it in the cradle overnight, forget it, you won't have your mouse the next day, for sure. This thing is worse than a cell phone. it's amazing to me how different the two devices are in terms of battery consumption, it's like night and day. The other problem is that often it has trouble connecting with the Laptop. I have found the best way to get it to wake up is to use the Browse Device menu item in the Bluetooth menu. It doesn't require setup of the device and it usually gets the mouse to wake up and play nice.

Overall I think the wireless thing is cool. Especially because I don't need a base station to attach to the machine. I'd get the keyboard again in a second. I'd have to think a little about the mouse. Overall I have never been happy with Logitech stuff. It's always felt and acted cheap to me, and for the price I wanted something that was solid like a rock. What I got was something less, but which might be alright. I'd like to try the Microsoft mouse to contrast and compare, but I don't get free hardware like I get free books.

Flower Backgounds

If this weren't the slowest site in the world it would be the best site in the world for backgrounds.

Battlestar Galactica picked up

13 new episodes! Schwing!

Mousse

Probably a watershed event last night. I got home, put my backpack (with my computer) in the office, and I never took it out until I got back to work this morning.

Anyway, on to the important stuff. Here is the mousse recipe that I have been making for the office folk for the past two days:

7 oz Semi-sweet chocolate
1 tbs Espresso powder (optional)
1 cup Heavy cream
3 eggs separated yolks from whites

1. Grind the chocolate in a food processor until it's in granule form. Add the espresso powder.

2. On medium heat bring the heavy cream just to the point before it boils.

3. Pour the heavy cream into the food processor and blend until smooth.

4. Add in the egg yolks and blend again until integrated.

5. Let the chocolate mixture sit until cooled.

6. Whip the egg whites until they form soft peaks.

7. Fold in one quarter of the egg white to the chocolate mixture. Then fold in the rest.

8. Pour into whatever serving cups you want and then refrigerate for at least 12 hours.

Tastes great. Well, actually I haven't tasted any of it. But people tell me it tastes great. Just make sure you get the eggs yolks into the chocolate mixture while it is still hot. Otherwise you might give folks a nasty case of food poisoning.

There is something Freudian about the fact that I am serving my coworkers one of the only recipes I know that has a direct risk of food poisoning which is only matched by the likes of Steak Tartar. Note the caveat on this recipe; but do not leave unrefrigerated for more than a total of 2 hours. Yeah. Guess what, you are eating raw freaking beef! This is the European equivalent of Fugu. The beef part just adds the potential for BSE. A spicy new twist!

I'd give you the mousse recipe in Meal-master, Mastercook, and RecipeML format, but you know what? You aren't going to use that anyway and I'm really tired. I got into the office at 7AM and already the fronts of my eyes are itching. What I really want is a couch in my office. Or maybe just a futon that I can slip underneath the desk.

Crazy Funny Flash

There is some great stuff out there. Not safe for... anyone.

Amazing West Wing resouce

Vic pointed me to the footnote TV page for the West Wing. An amazing resource for people who are fans of the show to see where all of these political references come from.

Long days

The whole crew at work has been working seventy hour weeks for the last four and half weeks to finish off the latest version of the product. We have another week and a half at this rate to go. Which means I am in pretty strung out shape.

The amazing thing is that the code generation network seems to be going on without me. At least cgn-talk is averaging about three emails a day, which for a niche group is really good. Most of the niche groups I talk on average about three a month.

Megan at Stanford

On Sunday, my one day off last week, I took Megan to Stanford in the morning just to walk around and get some fresh air. She really likes walking, so I figured she would enjoy herself.

I get her out of the car and we walk down the pathway to where some folks are playing volleyball. She shows immediate interest and starts walking towards them. With her infectious smile she is an instant hit. But she isn't satisfied merely watching, she wants to play. That wasn't going to happen so I took her hand and on we went. She cried and when I let go it was straight back to the volleyball. Couldn't let that happen, so I took her cranky self in my arm and on we went.

Up to the steps of the central Stanford complex, where there were some Falung Dafa (related to Falun Gong, which shouldn't be confused with Aum Shinrikyo, the doomsday cult behind the 1995 Sarin nerve gas attack in Tokyo) believers who passed out fliers to both me and Megan. We thanked them and moved on. I set Megan down after a set of steps and off she went back to the Falun Dafa folks. So we hung out there for a bit until I wanted to leave. I tried to get her to move, and nope, she wanted to hang out Falun Dafa style. Not excited was she by the prospect we head on.

To the church area where she found a kid playing with a little red cart. They got on well but Megan got a little grabby on the cart. So I took her in and and crankily she went forward until I let go and she went back to the little red cart kid. Now I'm starting to get the feeling there was a theme here.

And we went on like that distracted by one thing and the next, each more fascinating and compelling than the last. It was annoying, though I don't know why, since all I really wanted was some fresh air and sun. And it was also very cool since this was the first time for me where she really expressed a positive interest in new experiences.

I took some pictures.

New office terminology

Here is my new term for the day; execuborg mark and sweep. This refers to when the executives sweep the halls after hours looking for people who fail to stay late. Those people are marked... and eventually swept. The mark and sweep portion refers to the software design of the same name for garbage collection.

LOTR Score

I've been listening to the Lord of the Rings score. It's an amazing piece of work. Think of a score like Williams' Star Wars, there are three major themes. The LOTR score has a theme for each film, then a score for almost ever major character of group; Sauron, Sauramon, Gandalf, Frodo, Sam, the Ring, the Hobbits, the Uruk-Hai, the Orcs, and the list goes on and on.

The number of themes and how recognizable they are is amazing, but I don't think it is the most amazing part of the aspect of the score. What blows me away is the way that the story is told so clearly and in so many layers within the score.

Take the lighting of the signal fire in Return of the King. Originally I thought this sequence was gratuitous. I did like the music though and I initially accepted the sequence mainly as a gracious bow to the score because there were only images and sound for at least a minute. After some careful listening I have found that the score itself tells the story of the union of two cultures as a remarkable dance.

The sequence starts with the Gondor theme (regal trumpets when played passionately) played in a submissive and almost searching tone. Gandalf's choral theme then enters, followed by the a shadow of the furtive motion theme in strings. Here he is presenting that Gondor is listless, feeling alone against a sea of enemies. Reaching out in a small way towards it's old allies. It's been a long time. We are in trouble. Will you help us?

The Gondor theme played in bass to start starts to bring in some of it's Regal horns. Confidence starting to appear but the call becomes even stronger and more furtive. We have our act together. But we need you now of all times.

In the next segment the Gondor theme is brought to the full and the intense push of the strings complements. We may yet win but we need your help now.

In the final segment the regal Gondor theme is intermixed with the equine theme from the Rohirrim. This combines with the furtive tremolo strings of the request line. This amazing section which combines the three themes in a magnificently powerful statement tells the full story. You were never alone and never will be. We are on the way.

So even before the scene where Theoden says they will ride to Gondor the score has already told the story. Beautiful.

It all serves one of the main themes from the full set of films which is friendship. The friendship between Frodo and Sam, Gandalf and Bilbo, Legolas and Gimli, and even Rohan and Gondor.

Oh, yeah, did I mention that Lord of the Rings should win the Oscar for best score?

American Splendor

Lori, Mel and I watched American Splendor last night. I thought it was great. Lori liked it. Mel despised it (the movie reminded him of Woody Allen, a director we mutually despise.) The film reminded me a lot of myself in some ways and certainly reminded me of some of my friends.

It also drove me a to think more about something that I have been thinking a lot about lately, which is the western obsession with being special or the one. The premise of being the one is infused in all of our movies; Matrix, Top Gun, Real Genius, Revenge of the Nerds, whatever, it's all about being that guy.

At times I have been that guy and at other times not. Yeah, it's fun a little when you are there, it's tough too, and all in all, I'm no different because of those times. But I keep driving myself because I think that I'm something special, but I'm really not. I'm just like everyone else and that's ok. It's tough to come to grips with the notion that being a good husband, father, and friend is enough in this world, in fact, that it's great. I like movies that emphasize this practical and realistic approach to life.

It reminds me of the original Meatballs movie with Bill Murray. Bill and the kid are running around and the kid talks about being awkward and not fitting in. Bill tells him that if he makes one good friend the entire summer that he is coming out ahead. Good friends. Good family. Good times. That's what matters.

Perfect dog comment

There is a really great comment on my Perfect Dog blog from a couple of days ago about a dog named 'jack'. I would love to see a picture of that dog. Sounds a lot like Ripley.

New pictures of Megan

New pictures of Megan for the day.

Perfect Dog

I watched the Nova on Dogs a couple of days ago. It was excellent, as all Novas are. They left us with an interesting question, "Why don't we breed dogs to be good companions?" We mainly breed dogs on looks and breed purity, and what we get are funky poorly constructed dogs with genetic diseases. Why not breed dogs to do what we actually want them to do?

Here are my breed traits of the perfect dog:

• No inclination to ingest feces.
• Smells great when only bathed every two weeks.
• Short fur.
• Limited shedding.
• Weighs around ~40 pounds.
• Loves to cuddle and sleep.
• Has no problems be touched, tugged or pulled anywhere.
• Understands it's limit when it comes to kids, especially small ones.
• Has no inclination to protect it's territory.
• Not aggressive towards any animal (e.g. human, dog, cat, fish, etc.).
• Loves to play but isn't obsessive about it.
• Not vindictive.
• Eats almost anything, except feces.
• Happy to go to the vet or to the kennel.
• Is a solid genetic mix that plays nice with Darwin's evolutionary theory.
• Can sit and play nice at a restaurant or cafe for extended periods of time.

That would be my perfect dog.

Many people buy dog insurance for just those kinds of situations where only dog insurance because unplanned events occur.

Ebay Scam

I've gotten the EBay scam mail twice now. This is the mail where you are asked to update your financial details on a server that gives you a page that looks exactly like EBay but comes off of an unidentified server. I wanted to see where the server was an I ended up using DNS Stuff, which is a pretty cool site. They think it came out of Malaysia. Doesn't matter, but it's fun to see.

It's funny to me that almost all of my spam comes in over night. I suspect this is because spam is a 9-5 full-time job for some folks in China, India and Malaysia. That's why I don't think the American ban on spam will have any effect.

Best Superbowl Ad

Lots of talk around the office (sort of) about the Superbowl ads. My favorite was the Alien Shipping Fed Ex ad. Far and away the best of the ads. Why don't we use Fed Ex? Love it.

Spam Update: The filter seems to be working well. Though somebody posted something stupid about Terry Tate to the right blog entry. But I set up a filter on the person anyway, because the comment was stupid. Hah! I'm the king of the world!

Stupid Flash Stuff: Another blatant steal from Dave Barry's blog. It still rocks though.

Levitra spam

I have to say I was offended by the push of Levitra and Viagra before. I don't think that there are as many sufferers as the bombarding of radio, tv and print ads justifies. But now that they have spammed every single entry on my blog, I think they really suck. Levitra, you suck! You suck because now I have to spend a couple of hours rewriting Moveable Type to get rid of blog spam. Jerks.

Update: I have added mt-blacklist to the blogs on this server; Doxie Digest, Visible Light and Driving Sideways. It was able to detect and remove all of the spam, so lets hope it keeps going.

Welcome Elizabeth!

Don't know why the page says Justin. This is the first shot of Mike and Missy's new daughter Elizabeth.

Fog of War

I saw Fog of War last night. It was an excellent movie. It's tough to imagine how a single interview with one man could be that interesting, but it really was. Particularly frightening was his recounting of a meeting with Castro in 1992 where he asked Castro what he said to Moscow about the crisis. Castro said, and I am paraphrasing, that he was prepare to go all the way. To total nuclear annihilation. And he said, that he was prepared to do it. That where we thought he had no warheads he in fact had 162 operational warheads. Scary stuff.

V.C. Morris Gift Shop

A couple of weeks ago I took Megan to the V. C. Morris Gift shop, now known as the Xanadu Gallery, up in the city.

This picture shows the entrance way to the interior of the building. The exterior is mainly a decorative brick face with a single engraved stone with the seal of the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright.

The signature feature of the interior building is this curving walkway that surrounds a large interior space. The floating plant is also a signature feature of this building and has been there since it opened.

This is a view onto the second floor of the building. The Xanadu Gallery is largely a collection of various trinkets from around the world. You can see some of the tapestries hanging on the far wall. The circle and half-circle designs cut into the concrete are Wright embellishments. Some have been filled with items, others not. They create some interest as you walk up the curving walkway.

This is another view on the second floor with the ceiling lights in full view. The structure of the ceiling evokes the famous lillipads of the Johnson Wax building.

Here is another view of the first floor looking back into the main circular area. Since the building is a square it is interesting to see how he embellished the edges of the square given the circular interior space.

Software Engineering is often compared to building architecture because we have co-opted terms like design patterns and architects. Perhaps they are equivalent on the surface but there are subtle nuances to building architecture for which there are no equivalents in software. For example, a building like this must be attractive from any viewing angle. In software we can get away with grungy stuff beneath the surface but a building must be built for viewing and maintenance from any angle. The hairy bits are much harder to hide.