Tech

Tech-focused ramblings. Computers, blogs, and whatever else fits.

On This Day: May 17

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 24 posts previously published on May 17th

  • 2023
  • 2020
    • 📚 twenty-three of 2020: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1968 Hugo Best Novel A neat blending of western SF sensibilities with the Indian pantheon of gods; enjoyed this one more than I expected given that I didn’t much like Zelazny’s prior Hugo winner. ➡
    • Plague Puzzle Four Monday Friday Saturday Sunday Tuesday Thursday ➡
    • On This Day: May 17 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from May 17 ➡
  • 2018
    • “A Republican lawmaker on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee said Thursday that rocks from the White Cliffs of Dover and the California coastline, as well as silt from rivers tumbling into the ocean, are contributing to high sea levels globally.” No. No, no, no. ➡
    • Mystery fruit flavor! We’re thinking it’ll probably be durian. ➡
    • Sometimes people use 'respect' to mean 'treating someone like a person' and sometimes they use 'respect' to mean 'treating someone like an authority' ➡
  • 2017
    • First Full Star Trek: Discovery Trailer First thoughts (copied from a Facebook post, with minor edits): I'm looking forward to seeing more! ➡
    • Linkdump for April 27th through May 17th An automatically generated list of links that caught my eye between April 27th and May 17th. • The Case of the Stolen Source Code • JSON Feed: Announcing JSON Feed • Let's discuss the Linguistic & Pragmatic use of the ["N-word"] • The neural network writes the episode list for next season’s Dr. Who • What we really need is an adaptation of the original 1740 The Beauty and the Beast ➡
  • 2016
    • Staying out of the way while glass workers replace a large window on the second floor of our house. There’s no window in our window right now! (138/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Waiting for Prairie to pick me up after the final #nwc37 meeting. On to #nwc38! ➡
    • The second of two particularly nice roses from the #nwc37 post-con onions and roses boards. ➡
    • One of two particularly nice roses from the #nwc37 post-con onions and roses boards. ➡
  • 2007
  • 2006
  • 2005
    • AdSense for Feeds Looks like the inevitable intrusion of advertising into RSS feeds just gained a major player, as Google's Adsense for Feeds program has just been announced. ➡
  • 2004
    • Surf like it’s 1994! This may be the last CSS-related post for a while — though I'm considering a writeup of how I implemented the stylesheet switcher into my TypePad setup, so there may be more yet to come. We'll see. In the meantime… ➡
    • Shades of Gattaca More and more, I think that in the coming years, the movie Gattaca may be seen as far more prescient than it was recognized as at the time it came out. ➡
    • Nick Berg conspiracy? Those of you who've read this site for a while may know that I have something of a fascination for conspiracy theories. Sometimes they interest me because they're so patently ludicrous, sometimes because they're convincing enough to be nearly frightenting, and sometimes they end up somewhere in between. ➡
    • Powell on Meet the Press Here's something you don't see in today's political arena very often these days. Colin Powell was on Meet the Press Sunday night, when one of his staffers attempted to cut off the interview in the midst of one of Tim Russert's questions. Powell was not pleased, going so far as to rebuke the staffer on-air, and had the camera brought back in order to finish the interview. ➡
    • Manly Pink #2 There's now a second pink-toned stylesheet available for your viewing pleasure, courtesy of Shari Hes (who actually sent it to me last week, but it needed a few slight tweaks to get it to behave under Internet Explorer). ➡
  • 2003
    • Good Dean article Tough Guy, Howard Dean is the ultimate muscular Democrat. He's not afraid to take on George W. Bush, and in the process Dean is reminding Dems what it feels like to have a spine. But can he win? ➡
  • 2002

On This Day: May 16

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 20 posts previously published on May 16th

  • 2024
  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 14 We’ve got summer weather, so I can break out some of my summer shirts. ➡
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • 📚 20/2021: You Died: An Anthology of the Afterlife ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A really strong collection of short comics about death, the afterlife, and how we cope with it – from either side of the experience. A few of these got me a little misty-eyed. Excellent selections all around. ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Book thirty-four of 2019: Sex Machine, edited by Amanda Lafrenais. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ The latest in the Smut Peddler series of erotic comic anthologies, which are always entertaining. If you’re into stories about getting it on with artificial beings, this is for you! ➡
  • 2018
    • Here’s an interesting looking project on Kickstarter: Unlocking the Magic: A Fantasy Anthology. “Mental illness isn’t magical. Back these stories that take an honest look at mental illness and portray it compassionately in fantasy.” ➡
    • I really wish it didn’t look like Twitter will be #breakingmytwitter. But I’d rather give up Twitter than be forced to use the their native iOS app or the website (since they don’t even have a native Mac app anymore. Third-party app ecosystem support is crucial. ➡
    • Ramadan Mubarak to my Muslim friends, acquaintances, and those of you I don’t know! For everyone else, CNN has a quick Ramadan etiquette guide for non-Muslims. ➡
  • 2017
    • Book thirty of 2017: StarCraft: Evolution, by Timothy Zahn. 🌟🌟🌟 ➡
  • 2016
    • Binge watching X Files is never a bad way to end a day. (137/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • Some of the local quail have added our backyard to their regular route. ➡
  • 2014
    • About an hour ago, waiting for Prairie for our weekly Friday lunch date. ➡
  • 2008
    • My Desk with my New Toy When Prairie asked me what I wanted for my birthday this year, I just couldn't come up with an answer. There really wasn't anything that was jumping to mind -- I've got tons of music, tons of books, a good selection of work and school clothing.... We batted ideas around for a while, until I mentioned that I'd occasionally dreamed about updating my little Wacom Graphire2 3.5x5 tablet. ➡
  • 2007
    • Overheard in Seattle I'm on my way to my brother's to pick up weed, and them I'm going to get a cat at the Humane Shelter. ➡
  • 2006
    • Wisteria Spirals Until I looked at them from this angle, I never realized that the flowers grew in a spiral around the central stem. ➡
  • 2005
    • Enterprise No More Tonight I finished Enterprise off, watching the end of the two-part arc following the derailment of the first effort at laying the foundation for the future United Federation of Planets, then following that up with the final episode of Enterprise. (SPOILERS in this entry...if you care....) ➡
    • Seattlest Something I meant to mention a bit ago, but spaced -- I've recently become one of the contributing authors to Seattlest, the Seattle-centric group weblog run by the Gothamist empire. ➡
  • 2004
  • 2003
    • Firing blanks? The rescue of Jessica Lynch is making the rounds again, only this time with more details — according to one of the doctors at the hospital, the troops entering the hospital were firing blanks. ➡

On This Day: May 15

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 24 posts previously published on May 15th

  • 2024
    • Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold 📚: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: An excellent exploration of the differing personalities of the Vorkosigan brothers in the midst of military adventure and political maneuvering. ➡
  • 2023
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Book thirty-three of 2019: A Case of Conscience, by James Blish. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1959 Hugo Best Novel Kept my interest, though I’ve read other SF dealing with the intersection of religion and SF that I enjoyed more. Almost two separate stories; the first section was the better. ➡
  • 2018
    • Signs I’m concentrating on work: iTunes makes it four full tracks into an album of Christmas music before I realize what I’m listening to and frantically lunge for the “next album” button. 🎄😲😂 ➡
    • Okay, this is a horrible clickbait-y headline, but: “Science news: Octopuses came to Earth from space as frozen eggs millions of years ago”. The journal article being sensationalized is here. I, for one, welcome our new alien cephalopod overlords! ➡
  • 2016
    • Ah, the joys of spring housecleaning, as I tackle the skylight that we’ve ignored since we bought the house. (136/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Goofing around on a walk through Seattle’s arboretum in 2005. I think I was pretending to be a moth. #throwbackthursday ➡
  • 2009
    • I Did Some Wonder Loaf I love Joe Cocker's version of 'With A Little Help From My Friends,' but in all honesty, I've _never_ been entirely sure just what he's singing. I know what the lyrics are, or at least what they should be...I just don't think Joe did. ➡
  • 2007
    • Photo Drop Photo Drop is a slick little Dashboard widget -- actually, one of the first that was slick and potentially useful enough for me to download and toss in to my Dashboard, which isn't exactly the most-used OS X feature on my system. ➡
  • 2006
    • First Time in Five Years Every few years I actually get up the nerve to see just how goofy I look without the beard. The last time was five years ago (and no photos exist of that round), so I figured it was finally time to give it another shot. ➡
    • Mother’s Day It's late in the day, so most won't read this until the day after, but...happy Mother's Day to all the various moms I know (and, for that matter, all those that I _don't_ know). ➡
  • 2005
    • Bittorrent trackers? Anybody know of any other good trackers out there? My Google-fu did me no good whatsoever, and as long as Season Four of Enterprise has been a bit more watchable than prior seasons, I'd kind of like to see how it all wraps up. ➡
    • Pop-Lock Is there any real difference between what's now called 'Pop-Lock' (or 'Pop-n-Lock', as I've generally heard it) and what used to be called 'The Robot' back in the 80's heyday of breakdancing? I can't really see much difference at all, if any. ➡
    • Uptime? What uptime? Prairie and I were in the midst of getting ready for dinner and a movie on Saturday evening when suddenly all the power in my apartment went out. Power outage? The building across the street still had power.... Crud, it's just me. ➡
  • 2004
    • Manly Pink: The photos I got my friend Jessica to wander around with me today and play photographer so that I could fulfill my earlier promise of posing in pink t-shirts, kilt, and boots in return for assistance with the redesign of my website. So, without further ado: me in pink! ➡
    • The Incredibles Is it just me, or does this guy (I'm assuming it's the Villain) look a lot like John Lithgow's character in the Sylvester Stallone movie Cliffhanger? ➡
    • Spam attack! I have no real idea if any of my readers (other than myself) subscribe to either my 'full posts with comments' feed or my 'comments only' RSS feeds, but if you do, my apologies for the spam dumps of the last few days. ➡
    • Metric vs. American paper size Slashdot recently posted a link to this fascinating (in a geeky sort of way) rundown of the Imperial (Metric) system and how it relates to paper sizing. Some of what followed in the discussion thread I knew, some I didn't, but it was one of the more interesting threads I've read on /. in a while. ➡
    • Protect the Baby Squirrels Technologically or politically, some people always feel the need to keep others from 'kicking the baby squirrels'. ➡
  • 2003
    • The Matrix: Reloaded In short, I'm _quite_ satisfied with what I was presented with. At the same time, I can certainly understand why so many middling to flat out bad reviews have been popping up in the last few days. ➡
    • Zero matches on Google Today's Foxtrot cracked me up. ➡
  • 2002
    • Avast, ye maytees! This should be a blast -- according to an article in the Seattle PI, this August there will be a fleet of sailing ships coming to Seattle, including a cannon duel on Lake Union! ➡

On This Day: May 14

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 25 posts previously published on May 14th

  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 12 Showing off a small portion of my Star Trek shelves. ➡
    • 📚 Interference by Sue Burke Really neat explorations of how cultures change and adapt, how those changes influence communication and understanding, the biology of plant life, and alien intelligences. ➡
  • 2022
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Sad to see the news that Tim Conway has died. He was always an incredibly funny man, and this has long been my favorite outtake from the Carol Burnett Show. If you’ve never seen this, you’re in for a treat; if you have seen it, it’s worth watching again. ➡
  • 2018
    • Today’s stupid humor. Blame an overly tired brain in the middle of the night. ➡
    • Book seventeen of 2018: Deadhouse Landing, by Ian C. Esslemont. ⭐️⭐️ ➡
    • I wish I knew where this image was sourced from (it was found on Facebook without any other information), because that’s a wonderful typo. Someone was in a bit of a hurry to get this edition out, I think. :) ETA: This came from the Star Democrat of Easton, MD, on page A10 of the ... Read more ➡
  • 2017
    • I think we need a new nozzle. ➡
  • 2016
    • A real collapsible/pop-up top hat that my friend Flower got me ages ago. Sadly, I have so few opportunities to wear it that it’s only ever lived in its box on a shelf, taken out every few years when I’m on a cleaning binge. One of these days…. (135/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • It is really nice to work at a place where kilts aren’t frowned on as work attire. Especially on 80 degree days! ➡
    • This is basically a test to see if I’ve found a way to mirror my Instagram shots to Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr simultaneously without double-posting anywhere. Good thing this guy was in a good mood and willing to pose for a portrait. ➡
  • 2009
    • Links for May 7th through May 14th Sometime between May 7th and May 14th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • Dell Launches 'Della,' a Women's PC Site • Star Trek Movie Annotations • Home Is Still Where My Eyes Are • A History of Klingon, the Language • With a Private MiFi Hot Spot, Be Online Wherever You Like ➡
  • 2008
    • Woody Allen interviews Billy Graham Y'know, it's really sad that this kind of polite, civil, and amusing discourse is so rarely seen these days. Two people on _very_ different sides of an issue who, rather than loudly proclaiming their absolute certainty that they are _right_ and the other is _wrong_, are able to amiably chat and joke with each other about the differences in their viewpoints. ➡
    • Where to Find Me in the Digital World It's been a while since I've done one of these posts, so I figured it was worth doing it again. With the number of online sites I'm part of, sometimes it's difficult to keep track of all the ways to find me. So here's a current rundown as of today. ➡
  • 2006
    • Tiny Yellows Yet more in the 'flowers-I-can't-identify' ongoing series. ➡
  • 2004
    • MovableType 3: License updates and clarifications Funny the difference a day or so can make — and never let it be said that people (or corporations) can't learn from their mistakes. Six Apart has posted updates and clarifications to their licensing options that make things look much more reasonable. ➡
  • 2003
    • Shaolin Soccer Thanks to Jimmy for pointing out Shaolin Soccer, a movie I'll definitely be seeing when it hits stateside (not until August, unfortunately)! Looks to be a lot of fun. ➡
    • My Big Fat Greek Wedding Thoroughly enjoyable! Not really a lot to it, all told (Greek-American girl meets American boy, boy has to cope with her very proudly Greek family), but a quite pleasant and silly movie. ➡
    • Speeding things up If all has gone well, I should have just sped up my site when processing new comments or trackback pings, thanks to Sean Willson's mt rebuild type modification. Technical details follow (Kirsten, you'll want to look at this one…) ➡
    • It's real! No, it's a hoax! Wait… Well, later on the 13th, Wired published an update to the story, where MS admitted the iLoo wasn't a hoax. ➡
  • 2001
    • No more home theater For years I've had three 'boy toy' areas that were important to me -- my music and DJ'ing equipment, my computers, and my home theater. It may not have been much of a home theater, but I was pretty proud of it, and considering the budget I'd put it together on, it was pretty decent. ➡
  • 1996
    • [From the archives: 5.14.96 1406] You know, I just do not pay enough attention to this fool page. (grin) Anyway, another Woody is up at Web Wide Woodys, and I've finally started updating my Club Events Schedule again. (shrug) I'll get back on the ball one of these days... ➡

On This Day: May 13

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 19 posts previously published on May 13th

  • 2023
  • 2021
    • Wormhole – Simple, private file sharing: “Wormhole lets you share files with end-to-end encryption and a link that automatically expires. So you can keep what you share private and make sure your stuff doesn’t stay online forever.” ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Hear what a genderless AI voice sounds like—and consider why it matters. This is really neat, both in the science of how it was created, and in its potential for broader applicability if the companies behind voice assistants adopt it. ➡
  • 2016
    • Book twenty-one of 2016: Raiders of the Lost Ark, by Campbell Black. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (134/366) ➡
    • Found three more! Now we’re just missing Donald, Mr. Incredible, Buzz, and Peter Pan. ➡
  • 2015
    • It’s been raining almost nonstop since Monday evening. It’s like living on the Westside again! :) ➡
  • 2014
    • Our apricot tree has tons of little fruit growing! Hopefully the birds don’t discover them before they’re ready for us…. ➡
    • From lunch today. Blue skies, 70 degrees, and a light breeze – perfect for wandering over to the local park for lunch in the sun! ➡
  • 2007
  • 2005
    • Disneyland Memorial Orgy It was one of the most notorious images on the 'net when I first got online back in '91, one passed around in various low-resolution copies, found here and there in various directories of 'naughty' images -- a black-and-white drawing of many of the classic Disney characters involved in a mass orgy. ➡
    • Blog Definitions blog |bläg| / noun / a weblog : blogs run by twenty-something Americans with at least an unhealthy interest in computers. ➡
  • 2004
    • Why I won’t be upgrading to MT 3.0 This should come as no surprise to anyone who's been following today's firestorm, but it all boils down to this: it's too expensive. ➡
    • Mojo needed I'm not going to link to her out of respect for her privacy, but a good friend of mine could really use some good mojo and wishes sent her way right now. ➡
    • MovableType 3.0: Ouch So SixApart revealed the pricing structure for MovableType 3.0 today. One word. Ouch. ➡
    • Should’ve bought a new printer So now I've blown $70 on ink, and if I actually want to print anything at home, I need to buy a new printer. I really should have skipped the whole buying ink stage, and just treated it as a 'disposable.' ➡
  • 2003
    • Signs First and foremost — creepy. Extremely so. Shyamalan excels when it comes to creating unsettling moods, and he uses that to full effect throughout the movie. Unfortunately, after ninety minutes of buildup, the end is something of a letdown. ➡
    • Kevin's back! My little brother Kevin, who's been visiting his fiancee Emily in Africa for the past four months (she's finishing up a 2-year stint in the Peace Corps) got home recently. When he left, he had dreadlocks down to his butt — but since he shaved them off at some point during the trip, dad was kind enough to post a picture of the 'new look'! ➡
  • 2002
    • Got 5 minutes to kill? For me, the Holy Grail of Star Wars toys was the AT-AT. Kevin and I didn't have one. The Burns kids did. I can't entirely vouch for Kevin, but I can definitely say that I was jealous. ➡

On This Day: May 12

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 24 posts previously published on May 12th

  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 10 One definite benefit to working in academia is a more permissive dress code than many corporate jobs allow. ➡
  • 2021
    • 📚 19/2021: _Patience & Esther_ by S.W. Searle ⭐️⭐️⭐️ A sweet and nicely non-stressful (as in, no major drama or conflict) romance between two lower-class women in Edwardian England. Many nice historical details about the time…and oh, yeah, occasional explicit sex scenes. ➡
  • 2020
    • While there's never a good time to have an internet outage, in the midst of a pandemic when both people in the house work from home and depend on 'net access for both work and socializing is a really, _really_ bad time. ➡
    • On This Day: May 12 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from May 12 ➡
  • 2019
    • The rust upon / the roof of tin / shall see your heart / and know your sin. ➡
  • 2018
    • Gorgeous evening for dinner outside. ➡
    • Almost walked into this spider on our patio. ➡
    • Prairie’s prettying up our patio with impatiens! ➡
    • How romance novels are getting a makeover in the Trump era ➡
  • 2016
    • When was the last time you saw a real blackboard?!? ➡
    • Fun project today: photographing a collection of law enforcement badges and shields. ➡
  • 2014
    • Nothing like diving into a good book. ➡
  • 2010
    • Links for May 9th through May 12th Sometime between May 9th and May 12th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • The 7 Most Soul-Crushing Series Finales in TV History • The Blackboard Versus the Keyboard • 50th Anniversary of the Pill: Love, Sex, Freedom and Paradox • Why Roger Ebert Hates 3-D (And You Should Too) • The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook ➡
  • 2006
    • coComment Enabled coComment is a service that lets you track the comments you've made on other weblogs, keep track of when people have responded to them, and so on...basically, trying to make sure that those comments you leave don't just disappear into the great bit bucket of the 'net. ➡
  • 2005
    • Star Wars Tech Geeking It's no great surprise that I've just managed to loose three hours of my evening immersed in the Star Wars Technical Commentaries, a site devoted to extrapolating rather amazing amounts of data out of the Star Wars universe. ➡
    • Flickr’s on a roll Okay, so maybe this whole brouhaha about Flickr being purchased by Yahoo wasn't such a bad thing after all. They've been on a pretty good roll recently, as evidenced by their news page... ➡
  • 2004
    • Mac OS X Word 2004 Demo Trojan For the second time in just over a month, panicky news stories are alerting us about a trojan horse attack against Mac OS X. Last time the exploit was disguised as an .mp3 file, this month it's disguised as a Microsoft Word beta installer. ➡
    • Silly quiz time I've mentioned Something Positive a time or two in the past, but in case you've missed it, it's a great little web comic. Highly recommended. So when I stumbled across this quiz tonight, I had to take it… ➡
    • Why bother buying ink? Why even bother buying ink anymore? Seems to me that it's practically more cost effective to just buy a printer and use it until the ink runs out, junk it, and buy a new one. Go for a cheaper printer, and I'd be willing to bet that it is cheaper to treat them as a 'disposable' item. ➡
  • 2003
    • Secretary A fascinating portrayal of two people breaking out of their respective self-imposed psychological prisons to find support and love through a light S&M, D/s relationship. ➡
    • About a Boy Hugh Grant plays his 'charming slimeball' routine to a T, as the world's shallowest bachelor who finds acceptance, and hidden depths, after stumbling into becoming a surrogate father figure for the quirky son of a troubled single mom. Quite enjoyable, with a lot of cute lines. ➡
    • Today's vocabulary Why is it that one can busta rhyme or busta move anywhere but you must bust a cap in someone's ass? Is 'ho' always feminine, and 'muthafucka' always masculine, while 'bitch' can be either? How many peeps in a posse, how much booty before baby got back, do you have to be all that to be all up in that, and do I need to be dope and phat to be da bomb or can I just be 'stupid'? ➡
  • 2002
    • Music, books and other real-world fun Back in the summer of 1991, right after I graduated high school, I took a trip to Germany with the Bartlett High School German Club. While there, I was browsing through a music store and stumbled across a band that sounded interesting -- Poems for Laila. ➡
    • The Complete Chronicles of Narnia Well, I just finished all seven books of Narnia. I hadn't read these in many, many years, and at some point C.S. Lewis decided that he'd rather have the books presented in their chronological order rather than the order they were written in, so it was in many ways an almost entirely new experience for me. ➡

On This Day: May 11

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 21 posts previously published on May 11th

  • 2023
  • 2020
  • 2017
    • Got my new and improved #glif from @studioneat today! (Handy-dandy phone stand/holder/tripod mount for photo/videography.) ➡
  • 2016
    • Book twenty of 2016: Anatomy of Melancholy, by Joey Comeau and Emily Horne. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 (132/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • We didn’t have time for our usual pre-show treat last night, so we’re making up for that this afternoon. ➡
  • 2011
  • 2009
    • Spockstradamus So, with a little digging around on Memory Alpha, I present a (likely _very_ incomplete) list of things that Spock Prime _could_ warn the Federation about, as they should still exist to pose future threats to the Federation. ➡
    • Thoughts on Star Trek In the many long months leading up to the release of the film, I'd wanted it to be good, I'd hoped it would be good, and as we got closer, the many outstanding reviews gave me hope -- and for once, I wasn't let down. ➡
  • 2008
    • Justification (and oh yeah, Happy Mother’s Day) See? My year-after-year failure to do anything big for Mother's Day wasn't being inconsiderate, absentminded or forgetful -- I was just respecting the wishes of the woman who started the whole thing in the first place! ➡
  • 2006
  • 2005
    • Finally! I got home after work, popped in the disk, and hit the fateful "Erase and Install" button. A few minutes later (probably about 15 or so...I didn't time it, but it went faster than I expected) I was prompted to reboot, and Tiger was up and running. ➡
  • 2004
    • A visual I didn’t need… While I'm sure that a benefit run to support the Seattle Animal Shelter is a very good cause, when we're living in an era with some rather well-known odd kinks, maybe naming it the "Furry 5K" wasn't the best choice in the world… ➡
    • U-District Street Fair This could be an entertaining way to spend some time this weekend — the annual U-District Street Fair. ➡
    • Google bits: redactions and spam I got a piece of comment spam earlier that, when I looked at it, made me laugh, simply because in an effort to make it look almost like a real comment, the spammer had mixed links in with a paragraph of real text. It just so happens that the paragraph they chose was one from Google's website, discussing how pages are indexed after being submitted to Google. ➡
    • Manly Pink #1 Mere hours after I put up my silly little challenge, Matt responded with a ready-to-go stylesheet that's very pink! ➡
    • We need pink! Manly pink! Anybody want to redesign my site for me? It's gonna need pink. Lots of pink. And big, hard, nippleless breasts. ➡
  • 2003
    • Mayday! My life, May 10th, 2003 Here we are — one day of my life, my entry into the Mayday Project. ➡
    • Mayday preparations Had a good day wandering around Seattle yesterday taking pictures for the Mayday Project. Unfortunately, putting pictures up is currently on hold, as Rick accidentally walked off with my camera when he left the Vogue last night. ➡
  • 2002
    • Why blog? Some days I sit back and wonder just why I do this. My site doesn't get a whole lot of traffic -- primarily just my folks and a few friends who stop by from time to time when they remember. ➡
    • Ack Oops -- I just upgraded my blog software to the newest version, and in the process nuked the hack I had that inserted smileys into posts. ➡
    • Spider-Man I told you I'd get around to this. ;) In brief -- it rocked. There are a select few movies that were a successful translation from the comic book medium to the silver screen, and Spider-Man just rocketed straight to the top of that list. ➡

On This Day: May 10

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 16 posts previously published on May 10th

  • 2023
  • 2021
    • The Basement is Back If you're ever tempted, I do _not_ recommend chopping out 1/3 of your living space for three months in the midst of a pandemic when you're not leaving the house. Just so's you know. ➡
  • 2020
  • 2017
    • Book twenty-nine of 2017: Back to the Future, by George Gipe. 🌟🌟 ➡
  • 2016
    • Kilroy was here. (131/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Out to see Les Mis. My second time seeing this on stage; the first was the touring company when they came to Anchorage many years ago. Quite impressed that CWU is doing this. ➡
  • 2011
  • 2007
  • 2004
    • Seattle’s first female cab drivers There's a very cool article about WWII-era Seattle in the P-I today, when about thirty women were 'drafted' into becoming cab drivers when many of the city's men went off to fight for their country. One of those many little tidbits of history that tend to fascinate me. ➡
    • Dull isn’t always bad Look: a gift that doesn't annoy or make noise or anything! How dull. Mom. ➡
    • Kilts, not skirts! Actor Brad Pitt said Sunday that fashion-conscious men may be wearing Greek-style skirts soon after his big-budget film about the Trojan War opens this week. ➡
    • Kill Bill Prairie and I watched Kill Bill this weekend — the whole thing, renting Volume One Saturday night and going out to see Volume Two on Sunday. I've got to say that I think that Kill Bill is easily the best work I've seen from Quentin Tarrantino. ➡
  • 2003
    • The family walk The other day at work, I'd wandered up to the 7-11 up the block to grab something more than what our vending machines can offer us for food. On the way back, I passed a family walking down the street that had two of the cutest kids, and so I grabbed a quick picture for the site. ➡
  • 2001
    • Sister Machine Gun ‘This Metal Sky’ They are mechanical, maniacal, derived, you couldn't drown in their gene pool if you tried, but they're all made up in brilliant disguise selling the very thing they most want but cannot possess -- you. ➡

On This Day: May 9

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 22 posts previously published on May 9th

  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 7 It's nice to finally have the kind of weather that really lets me appreciate the balcony outside my office at work. ➡
    • 📚 Cast No Shadow by James Swallow Does a good job of fleshing out Valeris and exploring the motivations and rationale behind her actions. ➡
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • Difficult Listening Hour 2021.05.08 Unrehearsed, seat-of-the-pants, let's-see-what-happens mixing. You never know what might fall into one of these! ➡
    • 📚 18/2021: _Shadows on the Sun_ by Michael Jan Friedman ⭐️⭐️ #startrek 🖖 Didn’t really care for a McCoy still blindly obsessed over his ex after decades, or the markedly somber tone of the crew’s return to Earth following the events of STVI:TUC. Very much a downer of a story. ➡
  • 2020
    • On This Day: May 9 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from May 9 ➡
    • The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months: When a group of schoolboys were marooned on an island in 1965, it turned out very differently from William Golding’s bestseller, writes Rutger Bregman. ➡
  • 2018
    • Best comment I’ve seen yet on Ollie North becoming the head of the NRA: “Russian-backed terror group selects noted international arms smuggler as its new President”. ➡
  • 2016
    • Book nineteen of 2016: Tinseltown, by William J. Mann. 🌟🌟🌟 (130/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • The pre-show froyo is a very important tradition. ➡
    • First time at Rodeo City BBQ for our weekly date night. Quite amused by my boot mug. ➡
  • 2014
    • This has been a week for kicking ass, and I was on the wrong side of that equation. Very glad it’s Friday and the weekend has very little planned. ➡
  • 2005
    • UPS, they did it again! Because I'm paranoid after all the issues I've been having so far, I just logged into UPS's tracking site to check on the current state of my shipment. What. The. Fuck?!? ➡
    • Why ‘UPS’ is pronounced ‘Oops!’ All in all, an incredibly frustrating experience. A mysterious 9:10pm call on Friday to hold the package for pickup that I didn't make, and some twit this morning who didn't tell me what was actually happening. ➡
    • Clutter But...nothing I or my family has ever managed to come up with even comes close to comparing to this house. Amazing...and a little disturbing. ➡
  • 2004
  • 2003
    • NORAD? Um, nope! Looking at another page on the site, a more straightforward timeline of Sept. 11th, imagine my surprise when I saw a picture captioned 'Norad's war room in Cheyenne, Wyoming,' that, rather than being a picture of the Norad control room, is actually a screen shot from the 1983 adventure/suspense film Wargames! ➡
    • Two Dave Winer grumbles I don't have as many issues with Dave Winer as many other people seem to, but he does occasionally come up with something that I'm tempted to comment on. Today, I gave into the temptation… ➡
    • I'm (still) Gambit Through physical contact, Gambit can charge inanimate objects with kinetic energy, which is released on contact with explosive results. Gambit also has slightly enhanced agility and speed. ➡
  • 2001
    • Ugh…now what? Dammit -- no matter how well things are going, something always seems to come along to trip things up. ➡
    • TV time…kinda As always, there have been a couple additions to my movie collection over the past few days. Rather than actual movies, though, I'm catching up on some of the watchable shows that I miss due to the fact that I don't watch television. ➡
    • Told ya I’d get more in here Anyway, so that's it for the past few days. Nothing too earth shattering, but there's very little of that in my life these days anyway. Right now it's mostly a matter of counting the days until I visit Fairbanks in a couple weeks (weekend of May 18th), and until I finally leave this state to see how things are living in the lower 48 (sometime in mid-August). Can't happen soon enough for me. ➡

On This Day: May 8

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 25 posts previously published on May 8th

  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 6 Getting a full night's sleep helped. As did not having to file a police incident report. ➡
  • 2022
    • 🎥 The Green Knight It’s been a long time since I reached the end of a movie and just wanted to sit for a few minutes to let it sink in. ➡
    • 🎥 Scream A very fun and enjoyable “requel” (reboot + sequel) of the Scream franchise. ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Science Fiction/Fantasy readers, writers, and editors: Which do you consider to be the top SF/F awards? Mike Glyer of File 770 would like to know and is running a poll; you can vote for up to six. My (unordered) picks: Hugo, Locus, Nebula, PK Dick, World Fantasy, Bram Stoker. 5/13/19 Update: Here’s the results. ➡
    • It seems it came out a few months ago, but I just found out that Affinity Designer, Serif’s alternative to Adobe InDesign, is now in free beta status. I’m already a fan of Affinity Photo and Designer (alternatives to Photoshop and Illlustrator), so this is a nice find. ➡
  • 2018
    • Nice! Making it ever easier to vote is a good, good thing. “The King County Council today approved a measure to offer prepaid postage on ballots for this year’s primary and general elections.” ➡
  • 2016
    • Warp speed, helm! And someone find out what happened to my uniform. (129/366) ➡
    • As long as we had to go back to the store, we couldn’t resist trying another six Lego Disney figures…and got no duplicates! Ariel, Genie, Daisy, Ursula, Syndrome, and Alice! ➡
    • Our local Fred Meyers finally put out the current Disney Lego blind bags! We got Mickey, Minnie, Stitch, Hook, and Maleficent — not bad for our first batch! ➡
  • 2014
    • For #throwbackthursday, me in 1993. No clue what I was heading out to, but I’m all decked out in full tux and top hat, with black-and-white polka dot bow tie and cummerbund. Snazzy! No explanation for the wall blanket, goofy expression, or weird claw hand. ➡
  • 2007
    • Press the Little Doohickey This weekend, we got Prairie her own camera, a Pentax Optio M20. It's perfect for her -- a cute, compact little point and shoot that takes pictures of what she points it at. ➡
  • 2006
    • Hairy Tulips A form of tulip...I think. I'm not really sure. ➡
    • Dangerous Playgrounds Still Exist! A jungle gym with lots of climbing bits, ropes, and various ways to clamber around on (and fall off of) it, including a marvelous slide with no rails that tips to one side. A...spinny thing...that had me so dizzy I could barely stand up. It was marvelous! ➡
    • NyQuil Jello? One dessert trick Prairie and I have been playing with for the past few months is using soda instead of water to make Jello. Different combinations of flavors are possible, and the carbonation makes the Jello 'fizz' on your tongue when you eat it. ➡
    • Wind Vane Sculpture, Corvallis, OR A sculpture in Corvallis, OR. ➡
  • 2005
  • 2004
    • Semacode Here's a fun little tech toy that I discovered thanks to Jonas: Semacode, a two-dimensional barcode that encodes a URL in the matrix. With the newer breed of camera phones and the right software installed, the phone can read the barcode and automatically open the URL in the camera's embedded web browser. ➡
    • It’s not just Abu Ghraib Don't understand how conditions in Abu Ghraib could have gotten as bad as they did? Maybe it's time to take a closer look at our own prison systems. ➡
  • 2003
    • Effects of Bush's tax cut I'm having problems diving back into political areas at the moment, but this chart is well worth looking at. ➡
    • My Netflix queue After severely decimating my movie collection, I got to talking with one of the guys at work, and he gave Netflix a glowing recommendation. So, I figured what the heck, and signed up. If anyone's really morbidly curious, I'll keep track of what's in my queue here. Feel free to suggest some, too! ➡
    • You all rock! I just wanted to say to Erik, Kirsten, Prairie, Dad, Tim, and Sharon how much I'm enjoying the back-and-forth of the last few days regarding evolution, social standing, and everything else. This is a blast, and a fun way to kick my brain into gear! You all rock. ➡
  • 2002
    • Ugh In brief -- I saw Spiderman, it rocked. More later. I'm currently battling off a really nasty flu bug...hence why not updates for a few days, and only this really short note right now before I curl up in bed. ➡