| 2008-06-12 09:09:01 |
| Signing Off & On by: strixy
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I'll be shutting down the server for a couple of hours tomorrow as I am moving to a new place. A place my wife and bought together. A place some have described as the "suburbs". I think we'll be about a block away from the suburbs, personally, but what's a block away? Where do the suburbs start?
I'll be shutting down the server and bringing it back online in it's new home. The new home is far enough away from its old home that it will be on a new switch and router with the ISP. Hot damn, I can't wait!
Two things you should know about where I live currently. It is not the suburbs by any means. We have a population density here that is so great, Internet access becomes slow and unpredictable with even the lightest of usage. Right now, everyone is leaving for work. Right now, Internet access is so slow I can hardly send an email without 2 minutes elapsing. Population density, hard at it, checking their emails and reading the morning news.
The Suburbs, well... I hear the Internet isn't quite as affected at high use times because the population density is much lower.
Everyone fourth neighbor will have the same floor plan we do. Every fourth neighbor will have the same kitchen as us...
The Suburbs require a reliable vehicle as transit in this city only gets worse the further out from the core you get.
I've lived in the Beltline area, just outside of the core. for over a decade. When I was younger I lived in a small country town 30km outside of the city. I have never lived in the "Suburbs" before. I have lived in the same area of the city for 12 years. I know every nook and cranny shop there is. In the suburbs, they have big box stores and chain restaurants and and...
This is going to take some adjustment. And with that, I interrupt this broadcast to bring you my rendition of, "The Suburbs". (Which I have to stop and consciously think about before I can even spell it).
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| 2008-05-25 07:41:53 |
| New Definition for Deluded by: strixy
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I think it's now official. The dictionary has a new definition for 'Deluded'. Right beside that definition there is a picture of Steve Ballmer, who was recently quoted as saying Windows Vista is selling, "incredibly well".
As backup to his statement he said, "Vista sells on almost 100 per cent of all the new consumer PCs around the world". I'm sure it is. Most PC manufacturers are not allowed to sell XP on personal computers anymore and those that are can only do so until they run out of pre-purchased licenses. A strategy that Mr. Ballmer himself directed.
He goes on to say that, "45 percent of all new business PCs" are sold with Vista. This is the only market that hasn't had the choice stripped away by Microsoft.
Oh yes, Vista is selling really well. Just don't look behind the curtain.
Read the rest of the article by, PCAuthority.com
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| 2008-05-20 20:48:23 |
| Thank you Tracy! by: strixy
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"If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then give him only two of them."
-Phil Pastoret
"The average dog is a nicer person than the average person."
-Andy Rooney
"The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue."
-Anonymous
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| 2008-04-23 18:50:59 |
| Part Time Moon Lighter by: strixy
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It looks like I might be taking a part time job programming in PHP. If you don't see me for a month or two, that would be why.
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| 2008-04-03 22:17:27 |
| Bloody Trolls by: strixy
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I gave up on posting controversial things on my blog a long time ago. I couldn't handle the comment trolls. They suck. Be honest, they do.
I discovered a place that I can now post those controversial topics and not worry about trolls. 3freaks.com is a group for my friends and friends of friends. So there are my posts about sex, religion and politics.
You can read me there.
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| 2008-03-30 01:27:26 |
| Where Science Meets Art by: strixy
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I recall a time when, should you have asked, that I would give a plot synopsis in answer to what a movie was about. Take character A and add character B, put them in situation C and you have a plot. The scientist in me was busily calculating the number of mol's in a liter of saline. Why should a movie offer anything more than a simple equation?
Enter Breakfast at Tiffany's. It was a cloudy, miserable Sunday afternoon in October. I watched it because there was nothing else on TV. I was lazy that day. I had nothing better to do. My homework was finished.
I thought it was a feel good movie and passed it off for a video game. Nothing here. Nope.
I caught the movie again a few months later. I believe it was a Sunday afternoon again. And again, I had nothing better to do than recover from an self induced 24oz flu.
At that point it occured to me that Audry's character was a little bit of a trap. That Geroge's character was a spineless coward and the movie didn't really sit all that well with my already upset stomach.
Something about that experience led me to go out and rent it so I could watch it again. I don't know why. It wasn't a great piece of movie making so far as I was concerned. Yet, and I am trouble to say so, I thought there was something to be learned from it.
Passing on the opportunity to listen to Quirks and Quarks on CBC radio, I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's for a third time.
I was looking for meaning. I was deconstructing a movie for the first time in my life. I was learning that Holly Golightly was a whore. I learned that Fred or Paul or whatever his name was - was a whore.
Given a little more thought, I came to the conclusion that Mickey Rooney was a whore, although for different reasons.
Given a little more thought, I discovered that everyone in the movie were little more than bastards, bitches or whores. The ending, when the whores discover that they're perfect for each other, seemed somehow cheap, demeaning and despite the moral of the story - little more than utterly degrading and demoralizing.
What an utter tragedy and waste of 2 hours of my life! Oh, but what a discovery!
What other movies had I been missing the point of all those years?
Being the scientist I fancied myself to be I sat down to watch the greatest movie of all time to see if there was something doin'.
Well, wouldn't you know it, but there was something else to a movie besides the characters and the plot. There was this thing called subtext.
Enter the BBC's version of Hamlet. Enter the most magnificent movie of all time, Citizen Cane.
And I could wax poetic about those movies, but whats to say that hasn't already been said? Citizen Cane is considered to be one of the most magnificent films of all time because of subtext.
Subtext is not something they teach you in science class. It's not something they taught me in English class - even though you would think that's the class they would teach it in. No. I failed English class repeatedly precisely because I had no understanding of subtext. I do not recall any moment in my education that spelled out the definition of subtext.
I don't know what it was, but in science it's sometimes referred to as the eureka moment. That moment when the light goes on, that moment when you understand the intimate details of a theory put to practice. Yes, that was what Breakfast at Tiffany's was for me. It was, and is, the moment I realized what subtext was all about.
I no longer failed English class. I no longer wrote a plot synopsis to describe what a book was about. I understood the subtext behind Hamlet. I got it. The light was on. The light had been turned on and frankly, I didn't look for the switch. It had everything to do with a movie about whores, a cynical conversation about pathetic losers who find each other in the end. Yes, I owe so much of who I am to this movie. And yes, I will claim it to be one of my favorite movies of all time.
Who can recall that moment when subtext became their air, their food their inspiration?
Who can claim that they understand it today?
And so I watched movie after movie, classic after classic... all in search of the subtext I had missed before. Years passed as I caught up on all of my movie experiences. My list of top ten movies changed, warped and renewed itself into something completely unidentifiable to what it once was.
My favorite music was changed. My favorite art had been forever erased and banished. My love of the theater changed. My entire perspective of the world had been forever changed because of one movie.
Enter Blade Runner.
Enter Seven Samurai.
Enter The Apartment.
Enter Casablanca, City of God, Dr Strangelove, Yojimbo.
Enter Gummo, Requiem for a Dream, Trainspotting.
Enter Fargo, The Red Violin, and Amadeus.
Enter Platoon, Full Matal Jacket and Goodfellas.
Subtext, context and art.
I understood art.
Anything less than art is a call back to the time when I didn't understand anything more than a fart joke.
Anything less than brilliance is nothing more than a fart joke.
Anything less than art is nothing more than a simple equation. As a scientist, I hate simple equations. I find them insulting.
Did you know that 3 of the top 10 movies of all time, world wide, are Harry Potter movies?
Maybe more people should watch Breakfast at Tiffany's.
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| 2008-03-29 13:07:12 |
| Why is Google Black? by: strixy
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I was using Google last night and wondered why Google had a black background instead of a white one. Had they been hacked by some black background loving l337?
I've always hated black backgrounds in web design. I have posted several times and written about this in many forum posts and essays on web design. Those were the days when I fancied myself a web designer. Those thoughts are still with me today, but I have to say that if Google blacks out their background then there must be something to it. I used Google to answer the question, "Why is Google black?".
Enter TreeHugger.com and a post by Mark Ontkush titled, 'Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year'.
As noted, an all white web page uses about 74 watts to
display, while an all black page uses only 59 watts. I thought I would
do a little math and see what could be saved by moving a high volume
site to the black format.
- EcoIron
It looks like someone at Google paid attention. Their background is black today.
Today is the day for Earth Hour, the day people around the world turn their lights out for one hour from 8pm to 9pm.
People who like this theory and would like to see it continue can use Google's alternate website, Blackle.com where not only the main page, but all of the results are available with a black background.
Interesting...
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