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📚 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

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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! ➡

Difficult Listening Hour 2020.04.04

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Week eight of my unplanned, unrehearsed, seat-of-the-pants goofing around. As a way of getting back into practice and doing something regularly, I’ve started doing regular Twitch broadcasts, now on Saturday mid-mornings. These are the results. Anything goes.

Read more

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. ➡

Plague Puzzle One

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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! Success!

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. ➡
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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

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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

On This Day: Apr 2

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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 2nd

  • 2024
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • A thought I’ve had on occasion, and has resurfaced thanks to India’s anti-satellite test threatening the ISS: What if the reason we’ve never heard from an alien race is that they all ended up with so much orbital junk that they can’t safely leave their planet anymore? ➡
    • Book twenty-eight of 2019: My Life as a White Trash Zombie, by Diana Rowland. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 📚 An enjoyable bit of modern zombie fun. Superficial similarities to I, Zombie (recently dead 20-something woman works in a morgue for easy access to brains), but goes its own way. ➡
  • 2017
    • Got another good long (windy) walk in today. Just over four miles this time! ➡
    • Chucks of the day (51/53): specked tan hightops with brown laces. #chucks #converse ➡
    • Linkdump for March 31st through April 2nd An automatically generated list of links that caught my eye between March 31st and April 2nd. • Rosie’s Phenomenal Precision Insult Machine! • Joss Whedon's obsession is not feminism • Of dwarves and gender • On Wm. Golding's Lord of the Flies • What's Wrong With Using The Word 'Gypsy?' ➡
  • 2016
    • Book fourteen of 2016: The Liar, by Stephen Fry. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (93/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • I had to. At least once. :) #nwc38 ➡
  • 2014
    • I know what I’m reading next! 638 pages, all covering Season Two of TOS. I’m such a Star Trek nerd. :D ➡
    • Long day today; need to stay on campus for an evening meeting. We’ll get home…eventually…. ➡
  • 2011
    • Ellensburg Update So, the next few months are going to be a mix of some fun part-time work drawing on my geek tendencies and generally relaxing and exploring western Washington, with a jaunt over to Norwescon come Easter weekend. I think it's going to be a good spring and summer. ➡
  • 2009
    • Crazy Like A Fax Back in 1996, this fax came in at the job I was working. We saved it for a month, then were going to throw it away when I decided that it was too gloriously insane to lose. I laminated it for safekeeping, and have had it ever since then. Gotta love the crazy. ➡
    • Links for April 1st through April 2nd Sometime between April 1st and April 2nd, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • Easy Auto-Download of TV Programs From Usenet • Check Username Availability at Multiple Social Networking Sites • Family Guy == Unfunny • Where Gadgets Go to Die: Facility Strips, Rips and Recycles • Wrong Tomorrow ➡
  • 2005
    • Spring Forward Don't forget to set your clocks forward an hour before you go to bed tonight, everyone! (And thanks to Prairie for reminding me, otherwise I would have...) ➡
    • The War Prayer O Lord God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with pale forms of their patriotic dead... ➡
    • Bye Pope Pope John Paul II is dead. ➡
    • It’s all in the name… From an IRC conversation in #flickr this morning: how I first caught Prairie's eye, and some very abnormal psychology. ➡
  • 2004
    • PDA stylesheet tester? Is there an online resource that will display a webpage as if it were being viewed on a handheld PDA device? ➡
    • Sick Well, I survived my three days of long hours helping out at one of the other stores in the area. Unfortunately, pushing myself that hard seems to have resulted in my picking up a really nasty little bug. ➡
  • 2003
    • Coalition Members and Human Rights Flipping through these two very sobering documents, I was reminded of the hypocrisy behind members of the coalition that are so blatantly careless in regards to human rights. So, I give you the following — an introduction to the members of Bush's coalition against Iraq, as presented by their records for human rights. ➡
    • 80 days (Where were you, part 2) Time Magazine has a special issue out now where to celebrate their 80th anniversary, they pick eighty days that changed the world — their choice for the 80 most important days of the past 80 years. ➡
    • Coalition member nations? Quick question (though I doubt I'll get a quick answer) — is there a list of which nations are members of the U.S. coalition in the war against Iraq anywhere? ➡
    • Stay out of Photoshop An L.A. Times photographer has just been fired after it was discovered that the photo he submitted and ended up getting placed on the front page had been digitally manipulated. ➡
    • The news in type Here's an interesting ongoing art/design project: The news in type. Each day, the designer is taking one headline and finding a way to render it typographically. ➡
    • Seamless City San Francisco photographer Michael Koller is working on a project he calls Seamless City — a continously stitched together photograph of a thirty mile walk around San Francisco. ➡
  • 2002
    • A little money trickles in Well, I got some good news today. Not a job yet, but at least a little extra funds coming my way. ➡
    • New toy This is too cool. Yesterday evening I was talking with Melvin (my landlord), and he gave me a new toy to play with! ➡
  • 2001
    • Been a busy weekend I'm rapidly discovering just how amazingly long Fridays are going to be for me for the foreseeable future -- in essence, I've got a gauranteed minimum of 22 hours up every Friday. ➡