BunkBlog

After doing that LJ Analysis thing this weekend, I realized that I skim far too many people’s journals. Unlike many people on LJ, I don’t consider any of you friends if we haven’t shared some deep meaningful moment or some such. There are a few people on here that I’ve exchanged emails with regarding important life matters, some that I know (or at least have met) in real life, and so on. The majority of you, even if I enjoy reading your journals, are not my friends, no matter what the name of the page on the server. I use the “friends” page as a way to aggregate content to read at my leisure (A great example). When I find a feed that I am not overly interested in any longer, I stop reading it. This is in no way a comment on you as a person, nor on the interesting nature of your writing. If I am not commenting, and rarely even reading, your journal, I stop putting it on my friends page.

I rarely post things as “Friends Only” so you’re not missing anything if you are no longer my “friend” on LJ. If you remove me as a friend, I really don’t care (in fact I rarely even notice such things unless brought to my attention). Yes, I could do as does, and make filters for my reading convenience. I actually have filters enabled, and I use them for posting and occasionally filtering out posts so I only read RSS feeds, or only IRL friends, etc. But, I don’t choose to add an extra step to my life just to avoid offending people. If you’re that easily offended, get out more. 🙂
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Bend, Oregon has banned people who smell bad on their buses.

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I fixed the main spelling error from the source, but didn’t proofread the rest. Analasys? Is that supposed to be funny?
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I don’t know where Ernunnos got the list, but it seemed entertaining…

Where were you when?

1. When John F. Kennedy was shot (11/22/1963)
   I was born 7 years after that.
2. When Mt. St. Helens blew (5/18/1980)
   Not a clue. I was living in MN at the time, but c’mon, I was 9!
3. When the space shuttle Challenger exploded (1/28/1986)
   In school, 10th grade.
4. When the 7.1 earthquake hit San Francisco (10/7/1989)
   I was in Salinas, CA – about 45 miles from the epicenter in Los Gatos. Went back to the base and hung out in the electricity-free barracks for a few days, eating cold sandwiches and having class on the lawn.
5. When the Gulf War began (1/16/1991)
   I was in Korea, listening for reactions from the DPRK.
6. When OJ Simpson was chased in his White Bronco (6/17/1994)
   I was in class in Southern Arizona (strangely where I work now), and we sat around the dayroom laughing our asses off, knowing this moron was so guilty that he HAD to get convicted.
7. When the building in Oklahoma City was bombed (4/19/1995)
   I was outprocessing from Fort Lewis, getting ready to go to class in West Texas.
8. When Princess Di was killed (8/31/1997)
   Monterey, DLI, refresher course. Actually, the weekend before the class started, and I was lying in a barren barracks room, listening to a walkman.
9. When Bush was first announced President (11/7/2000)
   Must have been at work in Texas. Didn’t make much of an impression, after the big election night debacle.
10. When the 6.8 earthquake hit Nisqually, WA (2/28/2001)
    Didn’t know one had hit there.
11. When terrorists flew into the World Trade Center (9/11/2001)
    Reading LJ at home, noticed all the posts about strange doings in NYC. Turned on CNN and sat on the bed trying to make sense of a completely surreal event. For some reason I thought going to work would actually be possible that day. Of course, the base was closed.

I know I’ve made mention of this before, but I am really curious and very much wonder if it is possible to do some of LJ’s unique functions away from LJ. With little further ado, my query:

Is there a simple RSS/RDF aggregator I can put on my personal website that would be able to act as the LJ “friends” page does? I want to be able to continue to read all these journals as well as the RSS feeds that I have on my friends page, but avoid the central server problem that LJ has.

Just pondering the possibility of maybe someday moving my journal to Movable Type and still maintaining a “friends page” type thing to make weblog-reading easier.
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Anyone flown United lately? They’ve changed the layout of their planes to better serve their “premium” members, giving them more legroom. They did this without changing the number of seats on the plane, though. You know how? By pushing all the seats in the back half of the plane a couple inches closer together. Now, when they guy in the seat in front of you reclines the 3 degrees permissible, his seatback ends up bumping your forehead. If you’re over 5’7″, you will hate being past row 10 on these things. Ick.

Meanwhile, my coworker Paul has just returned from the most arduous flight I’ve heard of to take place on only one continent. He was traveling for over 20 hours yesterday, just to get from DC to Tucson. He spent 8 hours on tarmacs waiting for gates. Don’t you love air travel today?
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Friday Five is slacking off a bit this week…

1. Where are you right now? At work, bored.
2. What time is it? 9:45am
3. What are you wearing? Sounds like a bad chat… I’m wearing baggy jeans and a polo shirt.
4. Any people or animals around you? Describe them. None in sight. I hear Bill down the trailer. He’s a tall skinny guy, looks like the guy in the Curious George books.
5. What are your plans for the weekend? Hang out with The Boy, try to avoid strangling him when he asks, “What’s that?” for the 100th time in an hour.

current_music: 3 Doors Down – The Better Life
current_mood: tired

My mom gave me the Clie NX60 for Christmas (and my next birthday – it’s not cheap). We got to talking about its capabilities compared to my first computer, and compared to my first IBM-clone (which is what they were called 10 years ago).

For comparison purposes, the first computer I had was a Commodore VIC20 in 1981; the first PC I had was a 486 made by CompUSA in 1992.

RAM – VIC20 had 3.5k, PC had 4 megs (I splurged), and the Clie has 16 megs.
CPU Mhz – VIC20 had a 1.01MHz 6502A, PC was 33Mhz 80486, and Clie has a 200 Mhz ARM.
Resolution – VIC20 was 176×184 pixels with 16 colors (or 22×23 text blocks), the PC had VGA standard settings (640×480 at 256 colors and so on), the Clie has 320×480 and 16-bit (65,536 colors).
Storage – VIC20 had a tape drive (not even going to guess the capacity of that), PC had 120 MB hard drive (I had the upgraded model), Clie can handle a removable 128 MB memory stick.
Cost – VIC20 cost $300 without a monitor or tape drive; PC cost about $2000 with monitor and mouse and all, Clie costs $500 without any storage (add a 128 MB memory stick for 65 bucks from Amazon and it is still under $600).

In pretty much every way, the Clie is more powerful and more upgradeable than the PC ten years ago, and I think my watch is more powerful than the VIC20 from 20 years ago.

Is there any way to extrapolate and guess where things will be in another 10 years? I think we’re going to be surprised.
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Recent conversation:

• What program does your camera use to save the images?
  • I dunno. I’m a complete computer moron.

I was stunned into silence at that point. I mean, the NAME of the PROGRAM is too hard to figure out? Can’t you look at the damned title bar? You know, the thingie at the top of the TV-screen thing that has, like, words, in it? DUH!

Shamelessly stolen from , this bike looks like something from Akira. I think I’d hurt myself with that thing.
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CDNow has joined the Amazon megalith? Will wonders never cease…

More importantly, did my CDnow wishlist and preference migrate? Should have known Amazon would eat CDNow eventually.
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Anyone in the DC area want to get some dinner on my expense account Tuesday night? Gotta love these one-day meetings. I will spend more time on layovers in Denver than working next week. Your tax dollars at work.

But I am serious about getting dinner. Without a dining partner I end up eating BK Fish sandwiches all too often.
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Knowing that I had no travel scheduled for January (February I’m gone half the month or more), I planned a little gathering for friends on the 8th, to play silly games and talk, drink, watch TV, whatever.

After getting back from San Diego in December, I spent one day at home before beginning my vacation. I got back from that on the 1st, returned to work yesterday, and finished up the few tasks that were awaiting me. Past 3 in the afternoon, I was told that I need to make travel arrangements to go to DC on Monday. I’ll be attending a one-day meeting on Tuesday, flying back on Wednesday. Wednesday is what date, sports fans? That’s right – the 8th. So, I need to get things ready for the party this weekend, leave them in place while I fly to the frozen North, and then come back to entertain. Hope there are no plane delays on Wednesday. Oh, well – nobody has RSVPed that they’re coming anyhow.

Why is my house a mess if I’m never there, a reasonable person may ask. Well, when I get back from these trips, I drop my junk, do my laundry, pack my bags and leave. Straightening up a house that nobody will see for a week is not on my list of things to do. So, now I’ve got a month of dross to clean up. I did get all my bills paid, so that’s something anyway.

Anyone have a job in Tucson or Sierra Vista that doesn’t involve constant and unexpected travel?
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For anyone who has maybe missed a person on their Christmas list and needs to pick up a present, check out the store for ideas.

🙂
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When the message subject line reads, “Remind yourself feels and sences of childhood,” do they expect anyone to open the message? I mean, at least spell the spam SUBJECT right. If you’re going to be an annoying parasitic lifeform siphoning resources from the entire internet, at least have the good grace to have some class about it.

As others have said recently, why are we debating whether Iraq is a bad guy or not, when they keep shooting at us? It’s not rocket science – if they are shooting at our spy planes, which are flying in areas that are sanctioned by international accord and the peace treaty we forced them to sign at gunpoint, they are hiding shit. DUH!
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In response to this story about the culpability of using a web log to mention anything at all not completely personal, I have added a disclaimer to the bottom of my main web site, as well as on my journal page. I hope you understand. 🙂

Hey, the Friday Five is back!

1. What holiday(s) do you celebrate this time of year? Christmas.
2. What was the best gift you have ever received? At Christmas? Er…Drawing a blank. Gonna have to go with the skyscraper construction kit when I was a wee lad.
3. What was the worst gift you’ve ever given? I don’t give bad gifts. This is because I rarely remember to give anything at all.
4. Where will you be celebrating the holidays? Are you hosting or going away? I’ll spend Christmas Eve with my family in Arizona, spoiling the boy. Then, Christmas Day I fly to Minnesota and return on New Year’s
5. If you could spend the holidays with someone who isn’t around, who would it be and why? Not applicable.

current_music: Stevie Wonder – Someday at Christmas
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Anyone else ever daydream about what you’d do if you could be invisible? Just hang out and listen to what people say about you, sneak into the women’s locker room, make people think they’re haunted…

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For those watching Salon slowly disintegrate (or barely cling to existence, depending on your point of view), why not pick on MandrakeSoft for wacky business moves? They have gotten to the point of begging their customers to please buy a membership and to not just freely download their free product any more.

Brings to mind the entire Dot-Com concept:

1. Build something cool.
2. Give it away to gain “marketshare”
3. something
4. Profit!

The dot-commers never figured out that third step, and Mandrakesoft is following their footsteps to the quicksand, it seems. How does someone make money selling an operating system which is, by definition, free? Red Hat eked out a tiny profit this quarter, so there may be hope for the Services Model of software development, but how much money has RH actually lost over the years to get to this point? At the rate they “earned” money last quarter, will they ever pay off their old debt before the next century? Will Mandrake ever make money?

Tune in next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel!