Tech

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

On This Day: Apr 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 20 posts previously published on April 11th

  • 2024
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • 🖖 #StarTrekDiscovery S02E13 So many questions; quite glad there’s still one more episode. Enjoying the Short Treks tie-ins (maybe even Calypso?). But…wow. The Enterprise bridge! That was an incredible modernization that still obviously respected the original. I was blown away. ➡
  • 2018
    • In an ideal universe, my personal aesthetic would be a blend of ‘80s goth (as can be seen in the photos posted to the NOWTHISISGOTHIC or Trad Goths blogs) and ‘70s sci-fi artwork (particularly the styles of John Berkey, Vincent di Fate, John Harris, and similar artists). #f ➡
    • Just about three weeks away from turning 45. Since my mental image of myself is still in my 20s, celebration plans include going out to a goth club and getting a new tattoo (not simultaneously). I’m getting older, but not old. #f ➡
    • More testing: Posting to Eclecticism on WordPress using the micro.blog iOS app. ➡
    • Another micro.blog test. Creating a title-less “aside” format post on eclecticism that should show up on my micro.blog and my Twitter. Also making sure that IFTTT will still pick up the #f hashtag for selective Facebook cross-posting. ➡
  • 2017
    • Book twenty-four of 2017: The Worst Werewolf, by Jacqueline Rohrbach. 🌟🌟🌟 ➡
  • 2016
    • Took this #StarTrekEMP shot with an old friend at the @empmuseum table at #nwc39, and totally forgot to post it then, so this is today’s shot. 🖖 #llap (102/366) ➡
    • What do I want to do when I grow up? I'm looking, and trying to figure out how to sell myself with the combination of degree and volunteer experience to get into a career very different from where my actual paid job experience sits. Not easy to do. ➡
  • 2014
    • Took a walk around the block earlier today. Gorgeous day, but crazy windy. Almost lost my hat a couple times! ➡
  • 2007
  • 2006
    • Mystery Flower Since I'm not babbling much at the moment, I figure I can at least (try to) post a picture a night before I go to bed. We'll see how long I manage to do this regularly. ;) ➡
  • 2005
    • But it’s funny because they’re gay! For the past three weeks, I've been using bittorrent to watch Grey's Anatomy. So far, it's struck me as fairly average-but-watchable television -- nothing groundbreaking or award winning, but not horrid. One thing about this week's episode really bothered me, though. ➡
    • It’s illegal to photograph Seattle bus stations? Looks like another Seattle-area shutterbug has run into more bogus 'no photography' harassment from heavy-handed officials. This time, Alex Williams had his digital film card confiscated after taking pictures at the Pioneer Square bus station. ➡
  • 2004
    • Happy Bunny Day (This is random…) You may just have to bear with me here. I'm at work today (boo — filling in for a co-worker who made plans for the day when we thought we'd be closed for Easter), stuck in a store with no customers and no work, looking out through the windows at the sun. ➡
  • 2003
    • The only way out is in In an effort to kick-start my brain back into gear, I think before I go to bed tonight, I'm going to have to watch something that actually has decent plot, interesting characters, and — most importantly — some semblance of scientific crediblity. ➡
    • Quote of the day If a vocal minority of colonists had protested the Revolution the way these disingenuous appeasers do today, we'd all be speaking English. ➡
  • 2002
    • Fire next door! Well, here's some early morning excitement. Apparently the apartment building next door to me is on fire. Sirens got my attention, and I just counted 6 fire engines, 2 Fire Dept. blazers, a FD van, and an ambulance all around here right now. ➡

On This Day: Apr 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 19 posts previously published on April 10th

  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2020
  • 2017
    • Linkdump for April 8th through April 10th An automatically generated list of links that caught my eye between April 8th and April 10th. • Weeping Angels and everything that sucks about Steven Moffat • Stylistic Differences in Traditional [Vulcan] Calligraphy • Hubble Contacts • IPA Phonetic Transcription of English Text • Y’all, You’uns, Yinz, Youse: How Regional Dialects Are Fixing Standard English ➡
  • 2016
    • Seems it was spa night at our house. Sparkly purple for Prairie, black for me. :) ➡
    • Weekends really need to be longer than two days. Let’s get that fixed, okay? (101/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • At Gig’s in ’97 or so. Probably around Halloween, as I didn’t do the full Goth whiteface and makeup very often. :) #throwbackthursday ➡
  • 2006
  • 2005
    • First Christian Church demolition I mentioned yesterday that the First Christian Church on Broadway was in the midst of being demolished. While wandering around today I stopped by the site, got some video of the work being done, and found out a little bit more about why the building's coming down. ➡
    • Interference When the lines on your screen / Make more lines in between / That's a moiré! ➡
    • Guess what? You’re not normal. Not a bad day at all today. Woke up at about 8am, looked outside, and realized that we were in for a gorgeous spring day -- mostly clear skies, bright sun, and just a hint of breeze. Perfect for going out wandering...so wander I did. ➡
  • 2004
  • 2003
    • What she said I can't say it better than Shelley did, so I won't try. Just go and read. ➡
    • To Tim Robbins, re: Bob Roberts The following letter was sent to Tim Robbins via his agent. I have no real idea if he will recieve it, or whether he will answer. No matter the outcome, I'm preserving the letter here. ➡
    • Stalker songs For no particular reason whatsoever, a list of 'stalker songs.' More when I can think of them. ➡
    • Questions regarding Saddam's statue Some questions regarding the widely publicised images of Saddam's statue getting toppled. This is more information that resides in that netherland of suspicion, rumor, and possible conspiracy theories, so keep that in mind. ➡
  • 2002
    • Site statistics are back It took a while, and I had to reset my server logs to do it, but the site statistics page is live again. Getting it running was a bit of an adventure, that's for sure. ➡

On This Day: Apr 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 30 posts previously published on April 9th

  • 2024
    • Year 50 Day 343 Hanging out at Green River College for most of the week for the spring DSSC and WAPED conferences. ➡
  • 2021
    • Quotebacks – Quote the web: “Quotebacks makes it easy to reference content and create dialogue with other sites by turning snippets of text into elegant, self-contained blockquote components.” ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Book thirty of 2019: Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues, by Diana Rowland. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 📚 Upping the stakes with conspiracies, some zombie virus science and military experiments, and a little undead romance. Definitely as enjoyable as the first in the series. ➡
  • 2017
    • Chucks of the day (53/53): grey with neon green lacing and inner lining, navy blue outside around the padded ankle, and a fold-down piece around the ankle with the Converse logo in green. These amused us, they’re almost Converse moon boots. :) #chucks #converse ➡
  • 2016
    • Took a nice walk this morning, and the Yakima River is running really high. That water behind us is normally part of the trail, but it’s currently flooded. (100/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Our apricot tree is starting to bloom! ➡
    • Another evening staying late on campus for a meeting. Always a joyful thing. ➡
  • 2009
    • Norwescon 32: My (Preliminary) Schedule While I'm not at all happy to be unemployed, I have to admit that it does make some things pretty convenient. This weekend, it means that for the first time, I'll be hitting _three_ days of Norwescon, adding a few hours today (Thursday) to my usual Friday/Saturday run. ➡
  • 2008
    • Lunchtime Flickr has video now! This is a silly little meme that's going around called Fridgets: short little videos with the camera inside the fridge. ➡
  • 2005
    • I need to follow up on this… Mostly, I'm tossing this up here to remind myself to do something about it, and _soon_... (Tracking down Poems for Laila albums from Germany). ➡
    • Voting at 16 in WA’s future? All stereotypes aside, not _all_ teenagers are solely interested in video games and bad music. Some of them are interested in video games, bad music -- and voting. Here in Washington, the local chapter of the NYRA is working on lowering the state's voting age to 16. ➡
    • Conventions…or the lack thereof I just found out about Cascadia Con, what looks to be a _major_ Science Fiction convention taking place here in Seattle later this year. The downside is that the convention is scheduled for the first four days in September, right when Prairie and I are planning to be busy moving into our new apartment. ➡
    • My most popular Flickr photos My most popular Flickr photos by number of views, number of favorites, and number of comments. ➡
  • 2004
    • Congratulations Dan Savage and Amy Jenniges! About a month ago, Dan Savage wrote a column for The Stranger explaining just how he, a gay man, was able to get a legal marriage license in the city of Seattle. It was pretty simple, actually. He applied for, and was granted, a license to marry his lesbian friend. ➡
    • Racism and broadband…what? There's a certain almost surreal incongruency in the combination of banner ads promoting wireless networking and DSL-based broadband and the blatant racism plastered across the top of Sonnet Networking's website. ➡
    • Very Good Friday I just wish I'd known about Very Good Friday earlier — I've only got two hours! ➡
    • Moving the library For someone who whines and complains every time I switch apartments, I'm fascinated by what it must take to move the Seattle Central Library to its new building. ➡
  • 2003
    • Could this be true? Is it possible? Well, of course it's possible. The question is whether it's an actual probability, or if it's just a well thought out conspiracy theory. Either way, we're not really likely to know unless someone high enough in the heirarchy turns whistleblower (not a very likely option). ➡
    • Pax Americana Sometimes I think the only thing really standing in the way of a truly Orwellian society is our ability to find other sources of news and information via the Internet and form our own opinions. If all I got was the official propaganda, I'd probably be fairly satisfied with the world right now. Heh. ➡
    • Water for the worthy A chaplain from Houston assigned to the Army V Corps support unit in Iraq is now the focus of an Army inquiry for his practice of offering soldiers a dip into his 500-gallon pool if they agree to be baptized. ➡
    • I've found religion! The Lord is my coder; I shall not crash. He maketh me to use Mac OS X; he leadeth me beside BSD and Linux. ➡
    • We're not done yet, folks Okay — so everyone on the 'net is linking to the pictures of Saddam's statue in the middle of Baghdad getting yanked down by Iraqi citizens, helped by U.S. Marines. Yes, it's wonderful. It's a high point for the campaign. Many Iraqis are thrilled. But this isn't the end. ➡
    • Springtime storms Spring has definitely hit Seattle. The past two days have been really warm, and today the clouds that we've been living under for the past few weeks finally broke, letting sunshine flood the world again. ➡
    • The fourth horseman A particularly ominous political cartoon. ➡
    • Theft is for the birds! The problem started when the new owner complained to Bill that he was losing significant amounts of money from his coin machines each week. He went as far as to accuse Bill's employees of having a key to the boxes and ripping him off. Bill just couldn't believe that his people would do that, so they set up a camera. ➡
  • 2002
    • Goth humor I was hanging out in the Yahoo! Chat Alaska room this morning, and ended up meeting Wytchmagick on there. After discovering we shared some interests, we started tossing some links at each other, which was quite entertaining. ➡
    • I’m employed again! Well, after a whole week and a half of being unemployed, I start work again tomorrow! I'll be working at the Xerox printshop on the Microsoft campus, the same place that I worked two days at last Friday and Saturday. I guess they liked me! ➡
  • 2001
  • 1995
    • [From Usenet: 4.9.95 2300] Thing is, this happens to me, too...and I'm on a IIvx. The 'main' voices work fine, but all the 'secondary' voices have the fan-stutter in them. Any other ideas? ➡

On This Day: Apr 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 23 posts previously published on April 8th

  • 2024
    • Year 50 Day 342 A word of thanks to those people I've seen sharing snarky comments and memes about Beyoncé's new album. ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Happy Rex Manning Day! ➡
  • 2017
    • Chucks of the day (52/53): Navy blue high tops with orange accents; reflective grey heel stripe and thread woven into the laces. #converse #chucks ➡
  • 2016
    • Happy Friday, all. Have a good weekend! (99/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • On Being a Good Person In general, I think we need to move away from the premise that being a good person is a fixed immutable characteristic and shift towards seeing being good as a practice. And it is a practice that we carry out by engaging with our imperfections. We need to shift towards thinking that being a good person is like being a clean person. Being a clean person is something you maintain and work on every day. ➡
  • 2014
    • My appointment was at 3:20. Got here 10 minutes early. Was shown to the exam room 25 minutes late. That was almost 15 minutes ago. Uuuuggggghhhhh… ➡
  • 2009
    • DIY Bicycle Camera Mount Yes, there are already a ton of posts on the 'net telling people how to do this, and I'm indebted to them all, as I read most of them when planning out my approach. Still -- this is how _I_ did it, so I'm going to add to the chatter. :) ➡
  • 2007
    • Happy Easter Or, if you don't happen to be an Easter person, just enjoy a nice spring day. Whichever works best for you. ➡
  • 2006
    • New Toy: Nikon D70s Thanks to some very kind assistance in the mysterious and tricky realms of credit and financing by the best girl in the world, I've got a new toy to play with for my birthday. ➡
  • 2004
    • Eats shoots and leaves Another book I need to add to my collection: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. ➡
    • Facts about Canada Lane should get a kick out of this. ;) Questions and answers about Canada from a tourism website (I'm not sure which one, I found this on dad's website)… ➡
    • Kurt Am I the only person in Seattle who doesn't give a flying fig that Kurt Cobain is (still) dead? ➡
    • First OS X exploit: Concept One of the (many) nice things about being a Mac user is our general invulnerability to the multitudes of viruses, trojan horses, and other exploits that threaten the 'net on a regular basis. So it's no wonder that the Mac world is all a-tizzy over anti-virus company Intego releasing news of what appears to be the first Mac OS X trojan horse, wrapped inside an apparent .mp3 file. ➡
    • Condi under oath CLAIM: There was 'nothing about the threat of attack in the U.S.' in the Presidential Daily Briefing the President received on August 6th. [responding to Ben Veniste] FACT: Rice herself confirmed that 'the title [of the PDB] was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'' [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04] ➡
  • 2003
    • Protest music links Continuing in the protest music theme I've been trying to keep up with lately, today brings us a MetaFilter discussion started by a post opining that, well, to be honest — most modern protest songs suck. ➡
    • The importance of dissent However, protestors of any ilk are certainly doing a very important thing for the continuation of democracy. We are exercising muscles that, if left unused, could very possibly atrophy, leaving our democracy damaged and ineffective. ➡
    • Random thought Was the phrase 'another day, another dollar' coined (no pun intended) at a time when that was actually the average payscale? ➡
    • Bomb the World This was mentioned in the Rolling Stone article I just posted, so I went searching it out to add to the growing list of anti-war tracks released to the Internet: Spearhead's Bomb the World (original and 'Armageddon' mix). ➡
    • Things are changing these days The mother of one of the members of politically conscious band Spearhead was recently questioned by Army officers about her son's 'un-American' activities. During the interview they displayed photos of her son at peace rallys, records of his travels, a list of people he worked with at the band's management office, and revealed that her daughter — currently serving in the military, and deployed in the Gulf — had had her CD's confiscated. ➡
    • By the numbers Snippets from the Toronto Star's Iraq War Index. ➡

On This Day: Apr 7

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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 28 posts previously published on April 7th

  • 2024
  • 2021
    • sfadb : Philip K Dick Award: The PKD Award page at the SFADB, or Science Fiction Award Database, a reference site I just found. Linking to the PKD page because the CSS on the SFADB home page isn’t loading for me right now. ➡
  • 2020
    • Are we there yet? Just realized that as of today, I’ve been social distancing for a month: the last social thing I did was the final Norwescon Concom meeting on March 7th. And the only times I’ve gone any further out than our neighborhood was when Prairie and I went for our trail walks, before King County closed the ... Read more ➡
    • 2020 Hugo Nominees Congratulations to all the nominees, and I look forward to finding out which book will be added to my Hugo Best Novel reading project! ➡
    • On This Day: Apr 7 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from April 7 ➡
  • 2017
    • Linkdump for April 2nd through April 7th An automatically generated list of links that caught my eye between April 2nd and April 7th. • Custom Men's High Tops • Mastodon Is Like Twitter Without Nazis, So Why Are We Not Using It? • Joss Whedon's Greatest…hits? • How to Make the Electoral College Work for Everyone • UW professor: The information war is real, and we’re losing it ➡
  • 2016
    • Book sixteen of 2016: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos. 🌟🌟🌟 (98/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • A little squinty cause of the sun, but it was a gorgeous day today! The willow we planted in the front yard last summer is looking good, with lots of green buds showing. :) ➡
  • 2011
    • When Harry Met Sally 2 This was far funnier than I expected it to be. I only wish it didn't have the big "Funny or Die" banner and the intro, so that it was less immediately obvious that it was a joke. They should have saved that for the end, and started with a cold open. ➡
  • 2009
    • Links for April 6th through April 7th Sometime between April 6th and April 7th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • A Pirate's Code of Conduct for BitTorrent • How I Learned to Stop Being a Bitch and Love the Con • Bill Would End Civil Marriage, Create Domestic Partnerships • Giant 'Hand' Reaches Across Space • Alaska's Mount Redoubt - the Big Picture ➡
  • 2006
    • Clan Hamilton Maybe one of these days, I'll spring for a 'real' tartan kilt. For now, though, the Utilikilts will do me just fine. At least I know I _have_ a tartan in my background, even if it's pretty far back there. ➡
    • Only in Alaska… While the runner-up got a fairly respectable 41% of the vote, by not electing him, Anchorage, Alaska (the largest city in a state known primarily for the ice and snow of its winter months) has lost the opportunity to have Jack Frost as a mayor. ➡
  • 2005
    • Daylight Saving Time getting longer? Our brilliant government at work yet again. While debating amendments for an energy bill, two alternatives were proposed to help reduce US oil consumption. The result? No new regulations to actually reduce oil usage, but how about extending Daylight Saving time by two months instead? ➡
    • Limerick for a Swan When I dropped into the #flickr channel today on lunch, the denizens were tossing around limerics for the various regulars. Cygnoir hadn't been graced with one yet, so I managed to come up one. ➡
  • 2004
    • Sci-Fi museum to open in two months Paul Allen's new addition to the EMP, the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, is due to open in approximately two months, according to the Seattle P-I. ➡
    • That’s one kinky rabbit A church that put on an Easter show said it was trying to teach about Jesus Christ. But the people who saw the show say they were upset by performers who broke eggs and pretended to whip the Easter bunny. ➡
    • This one’s for mom… I mentioned briefly a few months ago that I was thinking about letting my hair grow out — at least until it got to a point where I get sick of fighting with the inevitable curls and shave it all off again. I figured today that as I've now made it through just over three months without a haircut, I might as well post a 'status update' on the experiment, and took this snapshot with my iSight. ➡
    • But is it a specific ‘here’, or an existential ‘here’? Finally, six months after coming up with the idea, I finally got around to getting my own 'I'm just here to get laid.' t-shirt and bookbag. ➡
    • TV got your brain The last car I owned had three bumper stickers on it, all dead-center on the rear end, one above the other — DIE MTV DIE, KILL YOUR TV, and TELEVISION IS DRUGS. It appears that my sentiments now have the backing of scientific research showing that television causes brain damage in young children. ➡
    • I am a grammar god! Bow before me! I am a GRAMMAR GOD! If my mission in life is not already to preserve the English tongue, it should be. ➡
    • The War President A photomosaic of George W. Bush made up of pictures of fallen American soldiers in Iraq. ➡
    • Rockypalooza This is more than a little tempting: This year's Rocky Horror Picture Show convention, Rockypalooza, will be here in Seattle next month. ➡
    • A minor mention This is progress, I think — references to my adventures with Microsoft are now little more than a throw away paragraph in the midst of another article. I really debated posting this, but I am trying to keep track of these things…feel free to just skip on by this one. ➡
  • 2003
    • I don't like Mondays Home, tired, grumpy. Pissy, actually. The worst thing is, I'm not entirely sure why. Guess it was just a 'Monday.' ➡
    • Happy birthday, mom! I'm a day late posting this, but happy birthday to mom! ➡
    • Top three Lots of interesting back and forth in the comments thread to that post, too. From the looks of it, the three top contenders right now are (in no particular order) Dean, Edwards, and Kerry. So far, between Dean and Kerry, I'd definitely go for Dean, but I really should take a closer look at Edwards to see what I think of him. ➡
  • 2002
    • Smileys! I found a fun little hack for MT over on So Very Posh today, and thought I'd give it a shot. So -- my site now has smileys! ➡
    • Happy birthday mom! I'm afraid that I'm a day late in posting this, but happy birthday mom! ➡

On This Day: Apr 6

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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 April 6th

  • 2024
  • 2022
    • Star Trek Craptinuum I mean, sure, if that was a cheap plastic knockoff toy that I saw at a random roadside stop in the midst of an ill-conceived _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_-style roadtrip, yeah, I'd be amused and drop $5 or $10 on it to laugh at with my friends. ➡
  • 2021
    • Markdown Service Tools: “The Markdown Service Tools are a collection of OS X Services designed to make writing Markdown text that much easier.” ➡
  • 2020
    • 📚 award announcement: This year’s Philip K. Dick Award ceremony is moving online! Join us this Friday, April 10, at 7 p.m. to hear readings from the nominated works and find out who wins this year’s award and special citation for best original paperback SF publication. ➡
    • On This Day: Apr 6 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from April 6 ➡
  • 2016
    • Book fifteen of 2016: Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury, by Isaac Asimov. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (97/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Winding down at the end of the weekend. ➡
    • So…I spent part of this afternoon polishing my balls. What about you? ➡
  • 2011
  • 2010
    • Norwescon 33 Wrapup I'm home! Home, and recovering from another fun Norwescon. In something of a break from previous Norwescon wrapup posts, this one is going to be picture free. However, this is by no means due to a shortage of photos...in fact, just the opposite! ➡
    • Links for March 18th through April 6th Sometime between March 18th and April 6th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • Flickr: Teabonics • FINALLY: The Difference Between Nerd, Dork, and Geek Explained by a Venn Diagram • An Open Letter to Conservatives • Waterloo • How today’s college students use Wikipedia for course–related research ➡
    • Happy Birthday, Mom! It's my mom's birthday today -- happy birthday, mum! ➡
  • 2007
  • 2006
    • Boot Camp Boot Camp, on the off chance it hasn't crossed your radar yet (not likely, but possible), is Apple's just-released official methodology for setting your new Intel-based Mac up as a dual-boot Mac OS X/Windows XP system. ➡
    • Happy Birthday Mum! What a cute birthday girl! ➡
  • 2005
    • Just a hint, really So Assemblage 23 is playing at the Vogue tonight, and I've been tossing around whether or not I want to go -- balancing the desire to see a decent band with the fact that it's on a Wednesday night. So what's the first track that iTunes chooses at random when I turn it on after getting home from work? ➡
    • Happy Birthday, Mom! Today's my mum's birthday! And, of course, I'm _sure_ that she's 29. Again. ;) That's just the way it works, right? Happy b-day, mom! ➡
  • 2004
    • TRON 2.0 for OS X While I'm still bummed that the TRON 2.0 project ended up being a game instead of a new feature film, at least the game is being released for OS X next month. ➡
    • Happy birthday, mom! Today's mom's birthday! ➡
  • 2003
    • A nation of sheep A growing majority of Americans believe the war in Iraq is justified even if the United States does not find weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, public optimism about the progress of the fighting has surged as recent gains on the battlefield have eased fears that the allies will become bogged down in a long and costly war, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. ➡
  • 2002
    • I’m back online That was fast! Speakeasy gets lots of gold stars for this one -- a whopping one-week switchover time! ➡

On This Day: Apr 5

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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 23 posts previously published on April 5th

  • 2024
    • Year 50 Day 339 Hanging out in the very '70s/'80s institutional chic of our employee lounge/breakroom. ➡
  • 2021
    • My Norwescon Exec Story Arc As weird as all of this has been over the past couple years, I'm glad my term of service as Secretary is covering the four years that it is. ➡
  • 2020
    • Difficult Listening Hour 2020.04.04 Week eight of my unplanned, unrehearsed, seat-of-the-pants goofing around. ➡
    • On This Day: Apr 5 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from April 5 ➡
    • Plague Puzzle One Hey, we’ve got all those puzzles…maybe this is a good time to work on one? There’s the border! This is kinda fun! Hmmmm. So many pieces. Why did we want to do this? A little more progress. A few sections are starting to come together. Suddenly we hit the point of no return… …and violà! ... Read more ➡
  • 2016
    • Look! It’s the fourth Star Wars film! (Unless you’re my wife, for whom there are only three Star Wars films. Much like there are only three Indiana Jones films, only one Highlander film, and only eleven Star Trek films (that’s not counting STV:TFF or STID, but adding Galaxy Quest)). (96/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • Mmmm! We decided to have Easter breakfast for Easter dinner this year. :) ➡
    • Made it home from #nwc38 to find an Easter basket waiting for me! Apparently the Easter Bunny likes me! ➡
  • 2014
    • At the final #nwc37 ConCom meeting before the con – not even two weeks to go! ➡
  • 2013
    • Thor’s Day Night Dance This past weekend, I was the DJ for the Thor's Day Night Dance at a local convention. Here's my full DJ set from the night, recorded live as the night went on! The full track is huge, so I've also split the night into four sections of roughly an hour each for easier downloading. ➡
  • 2008
    • Penguins can fly! At least, according to the BBC and Monty Python's Terry Jones on April 1st, they can.... Easily the best April Fools bit I've seen in years. Dad's gonna love this one! ➡
  • 2007
  • 2006
    • Calico (AutoStitch for Mac OS X) I'm not sure when it first appeared, but Kekus Digital has produced a pseudo-port of AutoStitch for Mac OS X (licensing the AutoStitch technology in a Mac OS X package) called Calico. ➡
  • 2005
    • Memory Maps As far as memes go, this is one of the best I've seen yet. Jason Kottke took a screenshot of his childhood neighborhood and used Flickr's annotation feature to mark it up with memories of his growing years. This inspired the Memory Maps group -- and I've added four Memory Maps covering my younger years. ➡
    • Living in a Theocracy How in the world can people justify going to war to free people from religious oppression, and at the same time, condone and encourage religious oppression here at home? ➡
    • Google Maps plus Satellite photos Wow. Put your address into Google Maps. Zoom all the way in...then click the 'Satellite' link in the top right. Freaky cool. ➡
  • 2004
    • Any true Scot would cringe I saw a guy walking down the street outside of the club this weekend wearing a Utilikilt 'baggy style.' ➡
    • Goodbye Uncle Bud 'Uncle Bud', my great-uncle, passed away last week. ➡
    • Not sound medical advice I really think that going out dancing is one of the best things I can do for myself when getting over a bug. It doesn't sound like the usual cure, but it seems to work for me. I figure it's something along these lines: ➡
    • Attack of the Killer…Lemons? It's the little things that can make living in Seattle fun. While this didn't happen to me, I got a laugh out of reading about it. ➡
  • 2003
    • Terminators of Endearment This is wonderful — a few people in the rec.arts.sf.written newsgroup have hit upon the idea of a cross between the Terminator sci-fi series and the writings of Jane Austin… ➡
    • Proud to be an American Morans ➡
    • Bush and religion Looks like I'm not the only one concerned about the rapidly disappearing divide between church and state under Bush's regime. According to Reuters, a fair amount of Europe is finding this to be cause for concern. ➡

On This Day: Apr 4

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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 18 posts previously published on April 4th

  • 2024
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • 🖖 #StarTrekDiscovery S02E12 Klingons that didn’t annoy me (L’Rell’s dress was great)! The time crystals are a bit too magic-y (much like the dark matter that seems able to do whatever the plot needs), but okay. Pike’s vision was a pleasant surprise. And Control is a T-1000 now? ➡
    • Book twenty-nine of 2019: Double Star, by Robert Heinlein. ⭐️⭐️1/2 1956 Hugo Best Novel 📚 Still too much early-Heinlein manly men and weepy women characterizations, and I saw the end coming, but at least I didn’t roll my eyes through the entire thing. An improvement! ➡
  • 2016
    • I like my laugh lines. I may be gaining wrinkles as I age, but they’re friendly wrinkles. I’m okay with this. (95/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Paused for a bit of self(ie)-reflection after delivering some paperwork. ;) (2nd try, as this didn’t cross-post to Facebook for some reason.) ➡
  • 2007
  • 2006
    • Penguin Floozies The most bizarre aspect of penguin sexuality is the female's penchant for prostituting herself to acquire pebbles to line her nest. ➡
  • 2005
    • The House of the Rising Sun Nobody's sure yet -- and, in truth, we may never be -- but there's at least a good possibility that archaeologists in New Orleans may have found _the_ House of the Rising Sun. ➡
  • 2004
    • Back When Anchorage was Cool Believe it or not — and these days, many people likely wouldn't — Anchorage used to have a pretty active underground scene. I spent many, many years as part of it, both as a spectator and as a participant, and it went a long way to shaping the person I am today. I've got a lot of fond memories of those times. ➡
  • 2003
    • Excessive My lord. This website went overbudget and cost four million dollars. I need a web design job for the Australian government. ➡
    • Get involved! As cheesy as it sounds, I believe that if we all start actually paying attention and getting involved, we can make a difference. I'm making an attempt. How about the rest of you? ➡
    • You like pain? You like pain? [whack] Try wearing a corset! [whack] ➡
    • Regime change Sen. Kerry seems to be paying close attention to Howard Dean's speeches, moving away from his previously stated intent of stopping criticism of Bush in order to propose US 'regime change.' Unfortunately, where Dean says similar things and manages to both sound like he's speaking from the heart rather than a script and stand by those statments later on, Kerry, when pressed, starts to waffle. ➡
    • Sssssshhhhhh At this difficult time, President Bush needs my support. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld needs my support. General Tommy Franks needs my support. It is not my function as a citizen in a participatory democracy to question our leaders. And to exercise my constitutional right — nay, duty — to do so would be un-American. ➡
  • 2002
    • Yay for temp agencies! It's not a long term deal at all, but I'll at least have an assignment for the next couple days. Today's called with a slight emergency today -- a 2-day posting at Microsoft, working a swing shift from 2pm-10:30pm. ➡
  • 2001
    • I love finding things like this… It got to the point with Linux where I was saying, 'I'm so tired of constant sysadmin battles...I just want something that works.' You know what? Mac OS X just works. ➡
    • Wudicam down Ah, well. Y'all will just have to satisfy your voyeuristic urges somewhere else for now. ➡

Use Your Phone as a Webcam with EpocCam

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Need a webcam? Want to hook up a second webcam for multi-cam streaming? EpocCam from Kinoni lets you connect your phone to your computer as a second video input!

It works either wirelessly over WiFi or with a direct USB cable connection for lower latency.

I’ve only played with the iPhone version, but there looks to be an Android version as well, and they should both work with either Mac or PC computers. It’s slightly fiddly to set up, but I got it working:

  1. Install the EpocCam app on your phone.
  2. Install the driver from Kinoni’s website on your computer.
  3. Reboot.
  4. Launch the EpocCam app on your phone. It’ll show a “connecting” screen.
  5. Launch whatever app you want to use the video input.
  6. Go into the video settings and choose EpocCam as a source.
  7. Magic!

There’s a non-zero probability that I may be using this setup as part of my weekly DJ livestreaming on Twitch on Saturday mornings. Just saying. :)

DJ Wüdi on Twitch

On This Day: Apr 3

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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 31 posts previously published on April 3rd

  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2020
    • Book eighteen of 2020: Fantastic Voyage by Isaac Asimov ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Sure, the miniaturization process is basically magic, and the only woman in the story is treated abysmally, even for Asimov. But if you can cope with those, the concept and adventure is still a lot of fun. ➡
    • Use Your Phone as a Webcam with EpocCam There's a non-zero probability that I may be using this setup as part of my weekly DJ livestreaming on Twitch on Saturday mornings. ➡
    • On This Day: Apr 3 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from April 3 ➡
  • 2019
  • 2017
    • Book twenty-three of 2017: The Fearful Summons, by Denny Martin Flinn. ⭐️ #startrek #tos ➡
  • 2016
    • From earlier today: Reading and munching on a home made cinnamon butterscotch cookie as big as my head. (94/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • May 1996, so I’d be 23 here, at the Pit (my apartment). The speakers were Casey’s, the rest of the stuff on the shelves (videotapes!) a jumble of all the roommates’ stuff. Sadly, the classic Pearl Jam shirt is long gone. #throwbackthursday ➡
  • 2011
    • My first computer: The Osborne 1 This Sunday marks the 20th anniversary of the introduction of one of the first 'portable' computers, which also happens to be the first home computer that my family had. This was the machine that first got me into much of the geekery I've been into for years. ➡
  • 2009
    • Ritz Cameras Closing 11 Washington Stores My former employer, Ritz Cameras, has just announced that they're closing more than 300 stores across the country. Of those, eleven are based here in Washington. I'd actually heard a little bit about this through a former coworker whose store is one of the eleven, but I had no idea it was going to be this widespread. ➡
  • 2007
    • BlueJ to Xcode translation? Might there be anyone out there with Java development under Xcode experience who has a few minutes to spare helping me figure out how to translate this page into something useable on my computer? I've gotten as far as getting Xcode installed, but...well, after that, I'm kind of stuck. ➡
    • Random Updates Quick updates: Last quarter's grades, spring break in Long Beach, Confessional, Utilikilts, this quarter at school, and Norwescon. ➡
  • 2006
    • 5,000 photos I just realized that I've recently passed the 5,000 photo mark in my Flickr account. If I'd thought about it ahead of time, I would probably have chosen something else for my five thousandth photo. ➡
    • Fresh Hare / All This and Rabbit Stew A couple of nights ago, we popped in a collection of Bugs Bunny cartoons and settled back for a fun evening of cartoon silliness. What we didn't expect to discover was that two of the cartoons on the disc are shorts that have been either edited or outright banned for many years due to racist content. ➡
    • Nullifidian Nullifidian: Of no faith; also, not trusting to faith for salvation; — opposed to solifidian. Feltham. ➡
  • 2005
    • Countdown… ...one month 'till my birthday. May 3rd, I hit 32. ➡
    • Cyperpunk update About a year and a half ago, I put up a post about Billy Idol's Cyberpunk album and included an OS X disc image of the floppy that came with the special edition package. Thanks to Kinko's keeping floppy drives attached to their rental Macs, there's now a new, freshly-created disc image available for download. ➡
    • Slut! Doesn’t sex just kick ass? You love it and your friends love it and your playmates love it. Sex is that overflowing bowl of ice cream you just have to share with the world. Because maybe, just maybe, if we can get more happy good sex out into the world, we can make it a happier place for everyone in it. You know how to communicate about what you want and how to listen to your partner’s desires. You even use your turn signals. You’re just an all around good person. You are one of the beautiful people. ➡
    • Snapshots from an evening A few short scenes from an evening out ➡
  • 2004
    • The chef’s special I know this is juvenile, and I know that it's a real food item…but I really have to think that classy restaurants should avoid naming a $22 dish 'The Captain's Pupu Tower.' ➡
    • Upcoming movies Every so often, Prairie and I will go through Apple's movie trailer page, checking out what's coming up in the next few months and seeing what interests us. Here's today's batch of possibilities (in no particular order)… ➡
    • Symphony #2 for Dot Matrix Printers Each of the printers plays from a different 'part' comprised of rhythms and pitches made up of letters of the alphabet, punctuation marks and other characters. ➡
    • iChat just went bye-bye When I switched iChat into text and names mode, everything in the chat window went blank. I could see what I was typing in the text input field, and hear when messages came through by the 'bloop' sound…but I couldn't see anything! ➡
    • Gmail and Safari So I got curious about Gmail, Google's new e-mail service, and thought I'd stop by to take a look. Somehow, I'm not very impressed so far. ➡
    • Kinja So all the buzz over the past few days (aside from whether or not Google's e-mail service is an April Fool's Joke or not) has been Kinja. Essentially, Kinja is yet another web-based news aggregator, this time with the stated goal of exposing more weblogs to people who aren't already sucked into the weblog world. ➡
    • The Heirophant’s Proselytizer Questionnaire Ellenoir pointed out a fascinating page that I'd not seen before: The Heirophant's Proselytizer Questionnaire, one person's response to being constantly harassed by missionaries of one faith or another trying to 'save' or 'convert' him. ➡
    • T minus one month and counting The first few days in May were usually busy days in my family. My birthday is May 3rd (I'll be 31 this year), my little brother Kevin's is the next day (we're three years and one day apart — he'll be 28), and my best friend from fourth grade on, Royce, has his birthday on the 5th (he'll be 31 also). ➡
  • 2003
    • Memo/Assemblage 23 Got back a bit ago from seeing Memo and Assemblage 23 at The Vogue. Good show, but I'm exhausted. Going to be kind of an early bedtime for me tonight. ➡
  • 2001
    • Renee…yum… It was, however, something of a Renee Zellweger day for me -- picked up two movies with her in it. Not really setting out to do that, just that they both got released today. ➡
  • 1996