Category: Things

Today, I was sending an email regarding my article proposal for O’Reilly’s Linux Developer Center, and that message included the word “Mono,”.

Gmail’s ad engine suggested I resolve my problem by using an herbal mononucleosis remedy of rather dubious distinction.

OK, there is some other guy out there with my name posting reviews of DVDs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I am now officially worried that someone will think his reviews are mine, and refuse to hire me based on his writing style.

It’s not even bad, per se. It’s just that it’s not me. Damn namespace collisions.

Special halloween technology: MS and the FTC fight zombies. Zombie computers.

I feel like a zombie myself, shuffling around. This weekend I’m stashing my scooter in a friend’s shed for the winter, and after that I plan to hibernate until Spring.

Or possibly I will migrate to Bolivia for a few months. Or maybe Austin, TX. I hear Austin’s a fun town for a few weeks.

Cats are cute, but Which cat is cuter? And would they be cuter if you piled random stuff on them while they were sleeping?

The world will never know.

Update, Thursday: I forgot Cats in Sinks. Now we have a complete collection of ridiculous cat pictures. Because no blog is complete without pictures of cats.

I already knew this country was being run by shitbirds, but this weekend I did learn something much closer to home. I found out why my cats didn’t like the catnip I had grown for them: it has tomatoes growing out of it. My cats are no more nippy than they were, but on the plus side, I will soon have some cherry tomatoes.

This afternoon I am doing tech-review on an introductory computer textbook. One of the pictures illustrates the word processing concept of “fonts” by showing Comic Sans. My comment for this section is going to be “you should not use Comic Sans. Ever.” If I can stop young students from abusing fonts, I have in some small way made the world a better place. Even if I can’t tell a catnip sprout from a tomato seedling.

Once, back in the day, Joe decided that he would name his variables after whatever song was on the radio. This was later determined to be a Bad Idea.

Also in the pantheon of bad ideas, monkeys with guns.

My grandmother, of all people, pointed this Wall Street Journal article out to me this week. The article suggests that Linux is in trouble, because people have liked it in minor roles and now are considering it for more difficult and important ones. In other words, it’s done fine in what the analysts call “edge computing” — file, print, the IT guy’s desktop, web servers — and now people are checking to see if it meets requirements for desktops and data centers.

The Journal implies that this second evaluation is a sign that Linux isn’t up to the task. I think it is up to the task, and that the ongoing evaluation is a sign that businesses tend to look before leaping when it comes to technology (Would you spend a million bucks on something without trying it out first? Didn’t think so). Still, even if people evaluate it for central roles and don’t like it, I disagree entirely with the idea that excellence at one level leading to consideration for another can really be called “growing pains.”

I would call it success.

Ages and ages ago, I thought, hey, mencal is way too simplistic, we need a complex algorithym for prediction of various portions of one’s menstrual cycle, available as a calendar plugin for Evolution or something. Sure enough, someone built a web app called CyclesPage to track cycles and fertility. They have a basic service where a lady puts in data about her periods and it guesses when she’s ovulating, and a premium service, where she puts in data about her periods and basal body temperature and all sorts of other stuff, and it gets more accurate, and it can also send her emails for ovulation season.

Along with BlogHer, the women’s blog conference, this is an encouraging sign that there are more and more women involved in technology– it’s hard to measure by, say, checking how many people sign up for gmail or something similar.

Discuss. And for homework, an essay on gender roles and technology in the workplace.

I went to the gym yesterday. It was good. I got my heart rate way the hell up– somewhere around 180. I think this was partly due to disgust at seeing the Alka-Seltzer World Championships of Competitive Eating on the TV. I saw this man whose claim to fame was eating 1.5 gallons of chili in fifteen minutes, and I thought, I must run faster.

Then Sports Illustrated came on with a football-themed commercial. The URL was SinflOffer.com. That’s almost as good as PooLife, the pool chemical company.

Over the years, my girlfriend has accumulated a variety of unwanted gifts. They can’t be gotten rid of, but they can’t be kept, either. The cut-glass figurine of a cat (“she has a cat, she must like cat statuettes!”). Inspirational books like “I can’t accept not trying” by Michael Jordan, and a book for college graduates with a picture of the last pope on it, apparently because every college graduate needs sentimental pope-paraphernalia. They live in the box of guilt under the bed, where they will not be spotted by friends, but where they can be found in case of an emergency visit by the relative of origin. This weekend we plan to bite the bullet and ebay the more saleable items.