It's official. I'm not really a human being, I'm a measuring post against which people can calculate their own worth. I'm a piece in a game, the rules of which I am not permitted to know until after the scores are tallied. As the phrase goes, bugger this for a game of soldiers.
April 2002
Every time I look at that previous picture, I think "Oh shit. I put the layers in the wrong order".
cringer scares me.
We've been spending a lot of time watching Star Trek the last week or so (largely because there doesn't seem to be an hour in the day without at least some kind of Trek on TV). Candi has displayed an incredibly unsettling habit of being able to predict exactly what any character is going to say next.
Yes. She's memorized every single episode of all four series.
Allow me to nerd out for a moment. Links stolen from Hack the Planet.
Matthew Thomas, Mozilla's usability guru, on Why Free Software Usability Tends to Suck
Havoc Pennington: Free software and good user interfaces. "A traditional free software application is configurable so that it has the union of all features anyone's ever seen in any equivalent application on any other historical platform."
I am the calm, Zen centre of my world. Om.
Candi: I wouldn't trust a man with a hose. I must dominate the hose.
That's just way too Freudian for me.
I went to see A Beautiful Mind tonight with Davros from #afd. I've decided that in the future, all Hollywood "based on a true story" movies should come with a flashing "We Made This Bit Up" indicator for all the fictitious scenes. It's only fair.
*mystel* ooh that means your dead
*mystel* i can do bad things to you now:>
*mystel* i can do bad things to you now:>
Sick, sick, sick woman.
Numbness becomes me.
I'm in San Francisco. I've never been here before so I'm being really touristy - I wandered around downtown yesterday, and today I went up to Fisherman's Wharf. Tomorrow I'll try to get out of bed before midday so I can get on the tour to Alcatraz. cringer is jealous of me because she wants to go on the tour as well, but I suspect she only really wants to do it so she can be rescued by Sean Connery.
cringer is jealous of me because she wants to go on the tour as well, but I suspect she only really wants to do it so she can be rescued by Sean Connery.
Anyway. I have a problem. Aside from about an hour sitting in Dazd's dorm room writing Ant build scripts, I haven't done any programming since leaving Australia. Call me an addict, but damnit, I want to find a quiet corner and code. My brain really annoys me sometimes.
I am such a nerd.
The guy in the bunk above me snores like a fucking diesel engine.
Oh. And since I'm now not staying anywhere near dorms with available ethernet, I can't get to my pastiche.org email easily. Anyone wishing to contact me in the near future should probably use junk_fish@hotmail.com, except Candi who I will phone tomorrow.
Today was lots of fun.
It was the third night in a row sleeping on Anna's (Dragondazd's) dorm room floor, which basically had enough space for me to stretch out, but not quite enough to roll over. Sleeping on floors isn't really recommended either. I'd pretty much overstayed my welcome anyway, I think, I've not been very good company the past few days (for obvious reasons) and I must have bored her and Wy both to tears. Regardless, they were really good hosts, and I thank them both for rescuing me at such short notice.
We drove down to lunch in (I think, my knowledge of geography isn't particularly good) San Jose - Dim Sum with Aeto, Skandranon, Kyreeth and Worf from IRC. I'm not sure I said very much during lunch, it was a bit overwhelming to be at a lunch with six people who already knew each other and were talking about things I was entirely peripheral to, but I got a few laughs anyway.
After lunch, Skan, Kyreeth and Aeto went home, and Worf, Dazd, Wy and myself went down to the Monterey Aquarium, where we spent an inordinate amount of time looking at fish. And really cool octopuses. And jellyfish that blew your mind. It was funky. Danna: I didn't pick up anything for you at the gift shop because I'm probably not coming back through Santa Barbara, but I did spot an octopus bookmark that you'd have liked. We finally got kicked out of the aquarium at 6pm when it closed.
On the way back from Monterey, we dropped in on Athelind and Quelonzia, who are now entirely unable to move through their house because it is packed from floor to ceiling with dragon-related memorabilia. One day, I will see those two on a documentary. We had a very loud discussion about Star Trek. Apparently, Janeway can kick Kirk's ass, and Enterprise sucks because the scriptwriters are stupid.
We then drove back up to San Jose (again, I think I got that name right) for an Italian dinner. I was assured that this dinner was cheap, but the cost was exactly the same as I would have expected to pay in Australia, except in US currency, not Australian. I would say that I'm heammoraging money, but I can't spell the word.
By now, it was about 11:30pm. We drove up to drop in on Myopic_Dragon, who was at work trying to get a product out the door by tomorrow morning. We were distracting in the extreme. They had a rather crappy pool table and ping-pong table downstairs, and I discovered that it's been way, way too long since I played ping-pong. I have reverted to being crap. It was about 1:30am by the time we got out - Wy and Dazd went home, and Worf took me to see his office down the road.
There, we played more ping-pong (I won, mainly due to the fact I serve well), and I met tale, God of Usenet. Well, I didn't so much meet him, as be introduced and have him grunt in my general direction. I've never met a Usenet God before. I really should have looked up Fluffy (whose real name I forget, but he used to be on one of the aol-sucks social mailing lists years ago) before I came over too, but I never really planned this as a "meet lots of people" holiday. It was supposed to be a "meet two people" holiday, but it was rather exploded by circumstances.
After that, Worf drove me back into San Francisco, where I had booked myself into a Youth Hostel. He gave me a great deal of good advice about what I should be seeing while I'm here as we drove in, but it being way late at night, it passed entirely through my head without taking any root at all. Except for the bit about the all-garlic restaurant.
It's now past 3am. My goals for the next few days include finally getting in touch with my travel agent (since as of tomorrow afternoon, it's Not Weekend in Australia) and changing my flight out so I don't have to train back to LA, finding out where JWZ's club is so I can say I've been there, wandering around doing touristy things, and stuff. Mucho stuff.
If I keep busy, I don't think about things. Not thinking is very good right now. Just keep moving and leave all the nasty things chasing behind me.
From Daily Zen
Heaven is calm and clear,
Earth is stable and peaceful.
Beings who lose these
Qualities die,
While those who
Emulate them live.
Calm spaciousness is the
House of spiritual light;
Open selflessness is the
Abode of the Way.- Huai-nan-tzu
Bloody hippies
Anna (Dragondazd) drags me along to her "Ecosystemology" class today. It turns out to be a bunch of students in a room on the other side of Berkeley putting on little plays based on bits of "Godel, Escher, Bach", and having discussions about the nature of the Universe.
I spent the latter half of the class wanting to stand up and insult everyone by calling them a bunch of stupid hippies. It had turned into this annoying game of "profounder than thou", where everyone was trying to score profundity points by expressing the way a sticky-tape dispenser fit into the scheme of living things, and how sometimes, rocks can be more alive than people.
Get a grip.
Charles' five day plan for Getting Over It.
- Day one: Be way too fucking tired to feel anything. Don't lose it while she tactlessly plays all "our songs" on the CD player.
- Day two: Lose it completely. Sob. Accuse. Keep her up way too late while you tell her just how hurt you are. Wish you could just go home.
- Day three: Be perky. Hey, you've said what you have to say, you may as well enjoy yourself right? Have a really fun day, Enjoy yourself. Have the world's most incredibly cool game of scrabble. Score 36 points playing "sex" on a triple word score.
- Day four: Have fun. Lose at scrabble this time. Buy dinner. Generally enjoy life. Realise that you're getting over it, although "and" still applies far too strongly for comfort.
- Day five: leave.
Quote of the evening (from me):
There are few better places to get sex than on a triple word score
(The game was a draw. 258 points each)
Spam subject line of the day: "I cant I female ejaculated my brains out remember"
I'm alive.
Every moment feels like I'm walking on broken glass, but I'm hoping that eventually there won't be any more blood to drain.
Irony.
I just walked out of the newsagents with one copy of Adbusters and one of Wired.
I was trying to explain something rather complicated to someone at work, involving the way a lot of objects call each other in a particular order, and why. A cow orker walked up behind us and asked "Would it be OK for me to interrupt and ask a quick question?"
Immersed many stack-frames deep in code, where precise questions have precise answers, I forgot that it's impolite at that point to say "no", and continue explaining.
I think perhaps he was a trifle taken aback. Sorry Neville. :)
C-Net gives Radio a pretty glowing review. It only talks about Radio as a blogging tool, but it's full of "I love" and "This is great" comments.
One comment. (italics mine)
The bad: No spelling checker; downloading software slows the setup; unattractive predesigned templates.
If you're using OS X, this is another good reason to use Omniweb with Radio. Omniweb supports spell-checking on all text-boxes, including progressive "underline the words I don't recognise" checks.
I read binary from right to left. I must therefore be little-endian.
On shared code, to a colleague. "Well, that's certainly not one of my test-cases, because I'd have called him something silly to do with fish."
Bottom - Tool
My compassion is broken now. My will is eroded,
and my desire stolen and it makes me feel ugly.
I'm on my knees and burning.
My piss and moans are the fuel that set my head on fire.
So smell my soul burning.
I'm broken, looking up to see the enemy.
I have swallowed the poison you feed me ...
but I survive on it,
and it leaves me guilt fed, hatred fed, weakness fed..
and I feel ugly, and dead inside.Shit adds up at the bottom.
You've left me no choice but to go inside and rebuild
what's broken.
Too much, too far, too late to lie down now.
I must arm myself to fight you
by making weapons out of my imperfections.
It's all I have left.
There's no other choice.
I'm shameless, nameless, nothing, and noone now.
But my soul must be iron for my fear is naked.
I'm naked and fearless.
But I'm dead inside.
You see.. shit adds up, now I'm dead inside.
Hatred, weakness, and guilt keep me alive
at the bottom.
Winamp can read minds.
If you're hanging out for news on the Java RCS, I'm sorry. This personal thing is dragging on, and one of the nastier side-effects is a case of coder's block. When I can get down to it, I'm really enjoying coding, but it's very difficult to get into the flow when your brain keeps firing off in random directions.
The good news is that I'm going on holiday on Saturday. I have a 14 hour flight, a fully packed iPod, and a spare battery for my TiBook, so I should get some pretty decent work done. I've got a month away, and while I'll be touristying a lot, I'm sure I'll be able to spare time coding as well. I'm not sure I could go a week without coding - something in me would snap.
Anyway, to prove I'm doing at least something, here's at least some proof I'm coding, even if nothing visible has emerged yet :)
Inspired by Leslie Harpold.
Things I will not admit, even when pressed
I play air-guitar. Very badly.
I sometimes wear the same socks two days running because I'm too lazy to find a matching pair.
I've been drunk six out of the last ten nights, and it hasn't helped numb me any.
I really don't care if Linux is better than Windows.
Just how much my father leaving screwed me up emotionally
That the shoes I'm wearing have never fit me properly, and are probably doing permanent harm to my feet, but I'm far too lazy to go out and buy another pair until these finish falling apart.
When I hold a grudge (as rare as that is)
I used to imagine tragedies in my past, just so I could feel more justified at being depressed.
The most embarrassing moment of my life - the ridicule I received after the first time I ever went to a party, when I was still in school, and spent half of it following some girl around like a puppy-dog.
How much I resent my brother
Things I Will Admit When Pressed
I am addicted to the Internet
That I am really bad at remembering names, and too scared of making a fool of myself, so even when I've got a pretty good idea what your name is, I'll avoid using it unless I'm 150% sure.
I need to eat less, and exercise more.
How much I love my brother.
That I own a copy of The Phantom Menace on DVD, even though I thought the movie sucked when I saw it in the cinema.
That I own the CD Definately Maybe by Oasis. It was a gift from my mother and I've never listened to it.
That I have very little will-power.
That one significant reason I'm the hermit I am today is because I hung around with people from school who I disliked for the first year of University. It was more convenient than having to find friends of my own, and more socially acceptable than joining the computer club.
Who I happen to be in love with, if it's not you. (if it's you, you'll know already)
I'm far more of a materialist than I admit to myself.
Just how upset I am.
That I would have taken far more illegal drugs when I was a student if I'd had the faintest idea how to get hold of them.
That I have a bad habit of trying to manipulate my friends.
That I am plagued with an inability to complete software projects.
True Things I Will Admit to Divert Attention from the Previous Two Categories
I enjoy watching Temptation Island, and Big Brother, but not Survivor.
I was once sitting in a pub talking to two very attractive girls, and a guy came up and hit on me.
I drink far too much coke, and eat too much takeaway food.
I dropped out of university twice, because I was too lazy to do any of the work or show up to lectures. They sent me a letter asking me not to come back, but I lost it.
My collection of amusing "why I was dumped by girlfriend X" stories.
I am plagued by a constant belief that I am not good enough, and that sooner or later someone is going to discover my fraud and fire me/dump me/laugh at me.
When there's the slightest possibility that something may be my fault.
That both Libertarianism and Communism are examples of someone taking good ideas (personal and social responsibility) to their logical extreme, and thus making them completely nonsensical.
That I find Willow more attractive than Buffy, although not so much now that she's a lesbian.
I'm not nearly as good at pool as I say I am.
That I'm no longer ashamed of being a computer nerd.
That I need to read more good, literary books.
Charles' rules of web design #1215: Link colours
Jakob Nielsen tells us that when designing a webpage, we should always keep the browser default link-style: blue underlined text. Of course, nobody does this because in the context of a lot of pages, blue underlined text is pretty ugly. Anyway, here's my rules of thumb for links.
- Use a contrasting colour.
The closer your link colour is to the colour of the text around it, the more the links will look like emphasis. The more colour your page uses, the more the link colour should stand out from the rest.
- If you don't underline, provide some kind of mouse-over effect.
Underlining links is good, but underlined text can be ugly, and the more links your text contains, the more it'll break the flow of the text to have them underlined (this is often a problem in weblogs). In the absence of underlining, the defacto standard is to have the underlines appear when the mouse is hovered over the link.
On my journal homepage the links have a grey highlighting on hover instead, but this doesn't show up on the navigation side-bar because the background is already grey. This isn't really a problem because the sidebar is already obviously a list of links.
- Never, ever, ever put text in the status-bar.
This is my oldest, A-1 pet web peeve. When I hover over a link, I want to see the destination URL in the status bar. What Netscape were thinking when they allowed webpage authors to hijack the user-interface, I'll never know.
If you want text to pop up when someone hovers over a link, browsers come with link tool-tips built in - use link titles like this one.
An especial dislike is on the otherwise nifty Daypop Top 40. You click on a link, it takes you to a script that records you clicked on that link, and then redirects you to where you wanted to go in the first place. This would be mostly OK, except that they hijack the status bar to make it look like you're going directly to the destination website. I hate it when software deliberately lies to me.
- Make the "already visited" link colour similar to the "unvisited" colour.
Preferably, it should be the same family as the link colour, but duller. My journal homepage isn't a very good example of this, since I just use an almost indistinguishably lighter shade of blue.
- Consider just using the defaults. Everyone knows them, and they're not that ugly.
(Hmmm. Why is there a preview option for commenting, but not for posting?)
I like certainty. I feel a lot more focused right now than I have for the last three weeks. I could see what was coming, I was balancing on the knife-edge, but it's only when you fall off that you can see which way you have to run.
It's one of the things that makes me a good worker. Sure, I can be pretty slack. But when there's a crisis, when I get that fight-or-flight adrenaline rush, I focus. I get single-minded. I see the possibilities arrayed in front of me, and more often than not, I make the right decisions. This is how it's going to play out. This is how we can make it work out the best for everyone involved. Trust me on that one.
Yahoo! Rips! Up! Privacy! Policy! (The Register)
Yahoo! changed its privacy policy last week, contemptuously exposing all of its registered users to third-party spam, marketing offers and cold calls that they'd previously said they didn't want.
As from now, Yahoo! mail users are exposed to a dozen unwanted "Special Offers and Marketing Communications", and users who've left their phone numbers with the portal will discover that they've been "agreed" to cold calling and junk snail mail, for good measure.
You can delete your Yahoo! account here if you want.
Once upon a time, I worked in an airport. This story has a moral, so pay attention.
I worked for a duty-free shop. Our job was to staff (or man, if you're feeling sexist), the arrivals shop, which was a little place full of alcohol, cigarettes and perfume (interesting mixture really) that you could visit if you were on your way in to Perth. When I started working there, we were pretty much the cheapest store in the southern hemisphere. A year later we were somewhat less so.
One day, a man rushed into the shop. He was the first out, so he was probably from First Class, at the front of the plane. He was really in a hurry. Unfortunately, he ran into a problem with the technology that delayed him a few minutes. This wasn't something he enjoyed at all. He decided to take this out on the poor, completely blameless girl behind the checkout. It involved a lot of shouting, and remonstrating that He Was In A Hurry.
The night-supervisor watched this. Calmed the man and sent him on his way. Consoled the poor girl behind the till, who was almost in tears after the abuse. Picked up the airport intercom, and phoned customs.
Abusive customer was subjected to every search possible that didn't involve him having him take his clothes off. He was the very last person from his flight to make it out onto the arrivals concourse.
The moral of this story is: "Never, never, NEVER piss off anyone who works in an airport. The moment you walk through that door, assume that everyone you meet is best friends with somebody who has the perfectly legal authority to book you in on a date with a rubber glove."
Have a nice day.
I just noticed there's three different pictures of me on my journal front-page (although this post might push one off the bottom). I might be becoming vain.
Oh, and while I'm on a posting spree, this is my epiphany, my laptop. I call her "epi" for short.
Referer log of the day
206.230.123.23 - - [01/Apr/2002:16:35:20 -0800] "GET /wiki/KyreTakesAFuckloadOfSurveys HTTP/1.1" 200 41628 "http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=britney+spears+in+a+bath+tub+filled+with+chocolate+milk&hc=0&hs=0" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows 95)"
According to the Death Clock, I'm going to die on Tuesday, September 14, 2049.
I was a little bored this afternoon, wandering around the web, and I ended up on the list of "proposed updates" for Ultima Online. I used to play UO, but gave up when I realised that I didn't have nearly enough free time to get involved. And I've never really been good at online RPGs anyway. I was dragged onto MUDs once or twice and never got into them either.
Anyway, one of the updates that I found was Character Weddings. You find the role-played love of your life, double-click on them, and you each get a ring, with the inscription of your choice. Amusingly enough, there's no way to divorce which I'm sure will cause no end of troubles.
The list of possible inscriptions for the ring was pretty predictable: fifty or so aphorisms along the lines of "All My Love", "Eternally Yours", "My Heart is Yours Forever" and, second-last on the list...
er...
"You Roxxorz My Heart"
I'm tracking the Brazilian Grand Prix in my instant outliner.