Category: Uncategorized

Praise the Roof

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

The Elz and myself went out to draft a baseball team in lovely Chicago. It’s an annual migration for myself and given the events of the last two years, an annual migration for Elz as well.

Observations about Chicago:

  1. Your lodging dollar goes a lot further in the suburbs than it will in downtown Chicago.
    1. Duh
    2. But, seriously, $99/night for the full business class traveler experience. I thought about loading up books from Project Gutenberg and printing them willy-nilly because free printing was an included room perk.
  2. Holding the season opener at Wrigley is a rather silly idea.
  3. The lynch pin of my draft strategy went for $8 more dollars than I had given myself as the strict upper limit for a player. This led to a messy draft that I don’t have sufficient preparation for to properly judge. It could either be a long year (most likely), a mediocre year (the best we can hope for), or the best team accidentally drafted (LOL).
  4. Getting out of Chicago always takes longer than anticipated even though the expected crapular traffic on the Ryan never really materialized. Instead it was the Eisenhower that screwed us out of 45 minutes of our life

We continued on to Elizabeth, Pennsylvania for a few days of family-oriented frivolity. I wish I could say it was the most incredible experience of my life, but I wasn’t expecting that anyway. Instead I met some really nice folks who took me in with bemused arms and I learned a great deal about my newest infatuation—ham radio. I will be adding this to the stack of pursuits I already juggle, but have always wanted to do so. Having someone take me by the hand and show me around the block was exactly what I needed to get me off my ass.

On the trip out things got a bit silly as we ended up two and a half hours later than expected. The anxiety level in the car was increasing with every mile until we called a truce. Then Elz did the “raise the roof” gesture and said “raise the roof” in respect to something. I, on the other hand, thought she said “praise the roof” which both of us found to be incredibly more humorous. We then spent the remainder of that dark night on the back roads of southwest Pennsylvania running through various ramifications related to substituting the current monotheist deity of choice with the simple, humble, all-protecting roof. More on that later…

Really, lots more later… My UTS is really acting up with the two straight days of poor posture and driving with my elbows propped on door handles and center consoles. Still, wanted to say that we’re home safely and had a great trip. The Picts might just muddle through another year and avoid the cellar (we’ve posted anywhere between 3rd and 7th so far this week) so I consider the trip a success.

Also, the puppies are racked out on the bed after a hard week at the kennel and if I expect to get any space of my own I’m going to have to force my way in soon before positions become established.

The Cycle Completes

120 minutes left in what is the last vestige of my previous life. The doors close at 5:00 p.m. and I will walk out of them for the last time as an employee of this institution. I can’t say as I’m totally happy about the situation. I can say that it will be nice to not have to fight for every inch of a project’s development—if for no other reason that I’ll no longer be working on my project. There was a lot I had planned and to see it go unimplemented is sad. Could I have done a better job selling it? Would it have mattered?

Alas and alackady…

The boxes are packed, the good-byes said, there’s just 115 minutes left between me and the rest of my life.

Uncomfortable Truths

So I asked this question on Ask Metafilter because I’ve been trying to figure out a sticky (to me) problem. I’m not sure how I want to model this using Java.

Among the answers provided (all seem top-notch so far) was a link to an article, Execution in the Kingdom of Nouns. Even though it was written well-neigh two years ago, I had not read it until now. Let me just say my life has been poorer for it.

But the weird thing is that it is a really uncomfortable essay for me to read. I really really like the rigid structure of Java. Code written in Java is so well organized because of the rules and syntax. It is elegant and it does permit me a small level of smugness knowing I write in such a demanding language. And, basically, this article is listing the ways this language is so difficult to work with and that things need not be so crapular. Also, my design problem is not so large a problem when attacked with a less-noun-centric language.

At any rate, I haven’t done much more than read the answers in the thread so far and then the linked article so I don’t know how helpful the help will prove to be. I did, however, have to share the excellent rant.

Lossy Verses Lossless Discussion

Having mostly read from the tech/algorithm point of view, it was cool to read something from the audiophile crowd. A co-worker who I’ve been talking digital radio with for a while sent this along. It’s a nice summation of the benefits and drawbacks of lossy audio file formats with just enough disdain tossed in to give off that nice glow of smug superiority that us audiophiles love to bask in. So, without further ado, here’s the link:

Stereophile: MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs CD

Oh, and for the record, I use Apple’s lossless compression for my archival digital files. The tagging and album art capabilities along with (more importantly) the seamless experience with iPod/iPhone outweigh the technical benefits of FLAC.

The Agenda

You can smell it in the air. You can hear it rumbling in the distance. You can see the dust cloud on the horizon…

So the commentary in this post seems to have struck a chord, or maybe a nerve, with the St. Johnny’s crew—especially the righteous Anthony Whorebath. A man who would not normally deign to address little old me, but who has decided to make an exception. A man who is so busy traveling as to not have net access enough to drop comment spam on this wayward [and heretofore little noticed] blog but yet clears enough time and magically finds an internet connection during his travels long enough to engage in a limp effort at a punch up.

It would appear that Righteous Tony is playing the Swift Boat card. By his reckoning there is no way I received a comment on this blog linking to his site from the same IP subnet that serves his site because he was “out of town” and “away from internet access during the time in question.” Never mind that I made no mention of when the comment was actually sent… But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, shall we?

His rant doesn’t stop there, though, because the Good Lord provides in mysterious ways. Never mind how spurious our crossed paths might be, little ol’ sinner me has presented Mr. Whorebath with an opening to attack his perceived enemies. In his world I am in league with Richard Carrier who was subject to a “blistering take down” at the hands of Big Tony over some internecine Battle Royale or other. In fact, Mr. Carrier is so demoralized by the extreme Logical Suplex thrown by Mr. Whorebath that he has now resorted to Gogglebombing.

Memo to Anthony Horvath:

Sometimes getting called out for comment spam is just getting out for comment spam. Spammers all make mistakes at some point. We accept your apology. Now lets just move on.

I would like to say, OTOH, that your quick thinking and opportunistic use of some random inbound linkage to further promote your swindle shows promise. You may just be able to keep a step ahead of your flock as you lead them to slaughter. Good luck, sir.