Please come see Overnighters this Sunday!
Perhaps you've heard of them: four playwrights get a topic at 8 PM, stay up all night writing a 10 to 20 minute play inspired by their given topic. And then the director and actors put together a show that goes up the following night at 8 PM.
They're at Grant Hall and you should come on Sunday if you want to see a friend. Only 10 dollars!
Yeah, I find the synthesis and progress of technology to be a waste of time and money. So I just carry around separately my address book, calendar, 1998 Zack Morris cellphone, mini-disc player, gameboy, radio, beeper, camera, photo album, recorder, video camera, dictionary, maps, mailbox, notepad, calculator, laptop and watch.
Basically the latter, as I have no need to carry any of the above mentioned things except a regular ipod which when combined with my phone are still less voluminous than an iphone.
If I could somehow crossbreed a cat and an airplane it could be an awesome synthesis of entertainment and transportation But I still wouldn't buy one.
On a side note, I feel no need to constantly defend or justify my phone. As if it needed it.
Who constantly defends or justifies their choice in phones?
You're the one who made an inflammatory remark concerning the function of your cell phone - so I countered with the versatile functionality of a smartphone.The simplification of a palm sized computer is also no way analogous to an aircyborgcat (which is awesome, btw). My phone makes phone calls too. It also does a lot of awesome, useful things. Don't tell me you're cellphone doesn't have a camera or clock and that you've never used them. I can't imagine you're still sitting writing with charcoal because it "does the same thing as a pencil."
I suppose saying that all I expect my phone to do is to make calls and make them well IS terribly inflammatory, so much so that it requires someone to jump up and become advocate for technology and combined functionality.
The idea that I hate the idea of progress and technological evolution because I don’t want a smart phone is simply an irresponsible use of rhetorical extremisms, of which I am guilty as well.
I like things getting smaller, lighter, more accessible and more powerful. But I personally also value siplicity in design and simple functionality. If I want to take pictures I cary a camera, because a dedicated camera take better pictures than phones and do so with less more efficiently which is great when I'm out in the woods. For playing music I have a perfectly servicable ipod nano, and gasp even a touch which for the most part is an iphone without the constant ability to connect to the internet or make calls.
In general though the owners and sellers of new phones, smart ones, love to go on about multifunctional abilities of said phone. If you have never met anyone in your life who loves to talk about their new phone I would be surprised. Being proud of some new gadget one owns is fine, but telling me its better because while my phone has a phonebook, makes calls and has a 2mp camera is nice and all, this newer phone can help me track my calorie intake, connect me to facebook, play games, be a flashlight, be a gps, recognize songs, and oh yes take pictures, store phone numbers, and make calls, actually makes me give less of a shit about the technology. It’s a powerful tool, but to what end? I love multitasking items over uni-taskers. But when I need a gps I want my garmin, when I want a flashlight I’ll grab my reliable surefire, when I want to make a call, my $10 phone does that just as well if not better than most smart phone, since I think they provide more room for the antenna in non-smart phones.
The fact that you had to jump in and defend the 4g iphone the way you did only serves to make we wonder what generation iphone you have. And now I feel like I’ve put way more energy into this whole thing than was warranted, I feel like I care too much now damn you.
Let me defend the iPhone for a minute.
My first phone was a hefty Nokia candy bar with a simple black on green LCD display. It had the standard address books, preset ringtones, and a Snake game. Everything you could ever want.
My second phone was a horrific, LG Phone that won me over because it had a screen on the outside of its clamshell as well as inside. It had a button on it that would charge me an extra $3.00 at the end of the month if I pressed it, every time I pressed it. Eventually, the outside screen became a snowcrashed mess.
My third phone was a Motorola SLVR, or whatever. This time it was about a fourth of the size of the original, fit well into my pocket, and did everything I wanted except for texting, whcih I didn't really care for to begin with. My only problem with it was the metallic inserts glued to the tops of the keys eventually came off, exposing the gel beneath.
My fourth and current phone, is my iPhone 3G. I got it because I felt they got the interface for it right (Why should I have to press * and then 3 to unlock my phone? If it's going to be hard to type, why shouldn't the phone try to help me? etc.), and because a discount because of my job. Also, the web browser on it is absolutely second to none in terms of rendering capability and web standards (notice that idkfa on the iPhone looks the same as idkfa on the computer).
Apple really did nothing with the iPhone that they don't do with other products: they take a stagnant tech market with products with confusing and slight technical variation but identically frustrating functionality, they solve human interface issues, integrate already existing technology, and sell it to everyman using the best marketing team on the planet.
There are technologically more impressive phones out there, but they're really only interesting to geeks like me, and they unfortunately don't usually sell to geeks like me.
Some of the functionaltiy and design decisions of the iPhone still irritate me. Which is probably why I jailbroke my phone in order to get my way (I have Navi from Zelda as my email sound). And while some applications are truly useful, I tire of being woken up at midnight to somebody taking their turn in Scrabble. The efficacy of the iPhone antenna compared to that of other phones would take an RF engineer to comment on.
The reason why I defend the phone is because instead of competing with Blackberry to find more clever ways to access your work email, or otherwise solve the same problems over and over again, they chose to do something else entirely. And now every Blackberry has a touch screen. Right above their tiny keyboard and excruciating scroll wheel.
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When it comes to computers, aside from my penchant for gadgetry, simplicity and practicality reign supreme. It has to work, work the first time, and work the same, and for as long as possible.
When you spend your days living in infinite complexity, determinism is your only path to sanity. Small tools that perform simple functions that are easily understood, and can be used in conjunction with other tools without issue or surprises.
I have a Macbook at home, but for the reason that it makes the stupid stuff easy (device drivers, etc.), and the hard stuff easier (I can do my Linux/Unix/whatever coding on the system and get the same work done).
My philosophy is probably best indicated by the search feature here on idkfa. It does the least surprising thing when you type something in and hit search. If you want to do something more complicated, you can, and if you learn the tool, it can be incredibly useful.
But I understand not everybody wants that. They want the Apple/Disney clean human interface to the otherwise ugly exchange of bytes.
"Apple really did nothing with the iPhone that they don't do with other products: they take a stagnant tech market with products with confusing and slight technical variation but identically frustrating functionality, they solve human interface issues, integrate already existing technology, and sell it to everyman using the best marketing team on the planet."
This. I still find it humorous that kitacek's innocent comment on a video game - not a phone - led down this pathway.
The argument you should be making that I could get on board with is the price you're willing to pay for a service. If you need a mobile device to make a phone call - and you don't mind if the interface is a pile of dogshit - then the cheapest hunk of plastic is the way to go. I certainly don't purchase a product so I can peel the fresh plastic off and then gush about how much better it is, so you don't need to keep implying that's my motive. (I own an iphone 1.0, btw. 4g? More like Edge) I encouraged a coworker to get a pay-as-you-go service plan, because she intended to use her cellphone as in frequently as possible. Budgeting is not the same as an appreciation for good design (see: usefulness).
It is hard to talk good design - in architecture, landscape architecture, industrial design, computers, product design, package design, illustration, etc - without referencing Apple, and the iphone.
In no way am I castigating you for not owning a smartphone - I just think your outright dismissal of them is misguided. We all don't wear black turtlenecks and smugly sip lattes while we mock non-smart phone users.
Hey man, I live is Seattle. IT is the turtleneck wearing lattte sipping people who go gaga over the smart phones. That aside I think apple, HTC, Samsung and all those guys pour a huge amount of time a research into making good user interfaces and sexy exterior design. As I said I actually have an ipod touch, which I like very much as it basically my laptop now... I don't own a laptop because I have no need of one really, all i really need it for is the occassional webbrowsing and emailing when I'm not at home or at work. Its great, but it doesn't really fall in line with my expectations for a phone.
You can knock cheaphunks of plastic all you like, even I have my preferences in that I like a flip or slider so that keys are not erroniously pushed or have some kind of retarded key lock button combo. But any cheap phone can handly the three things I do fairly well which is call, look up numbers to call, and text. Pretty much everything on the market has a reasonable interface with mappable buttons to do those three things with ease. That it is always nice to know that no matter how many times I drop my phone it will mostly likely continue to work, work as well as it did before I dropped it, and not crack that very nice and shiny touch screen and get all spiderwebbed and shit like my touch is currently.
As perhaps all great conversations anywhere you go, this probably has more to do with individual value. I don't want or need a data plan, the ability to surf the web or update twitter/book with my every step or breath. Sometimes I like it that my battery dies and can completly escape the ability to communicate with others. If I want to do other things I really don't mind single purpose devices. So no, the price is not what I'm willing to pay, for the phone or the service. And the nice thing there is that faster networks really don't mean much to me, basically what I care about is coverage area, which at least down here doesn't seem to matter much either. If someone else wants all that sleek user interface and multifunctional capability... my wife basically...thats totally fine and I don't really care. I don't have to get the same thing so I don't. Easy.
I never quite got into flight sims, sadly. They always struck me as games for pilots. Which I wasn't. Which meant that the game I made out of it was finding interesting ways to crash.
Space sims, though. They knew where it was at. Flight sims, with no ground to run into, afterburners, lasers, mass drivers... I miss Privateer.
I think my interest in flight sims comes from my engineering interest. I could write prose about flight parameters and flight characteristics, and of different airplanes' handling characteristics. Playing flight sims sort of validates what I've learned about all those things. And flight sims are kind of the only way I can experience it, because most of my interest and knowledge regarding the subject is of military or experimental aircraft.
Along the same lines is why I love the Gran Turismo racing games so much - it's definitely the most realistic driving characteristics I've experienced in a video game. And since my interests lie in exotic cars or the very edge of a performance envelope of a vehicle, the only way to truly explore it safely is with a video game instead of the real deal.
Cause, yknow, I'm not gonna walk out and buy a Ferrari F420 just so I can show you that the max speed it will grip a 25'-radius corner is 80mph.
The request for this discussion item here.
If you want some entertainment, this is sort of a fun read (scaredscriptless.yuku.com), though, not necessarily applicable to recent shows I've seen. For a while, during a particularly dark period with Scared Scriptless, I... helped a bit by posting anonymously on the SS Audience Feedback forum. I would go, enjoy the shows, afterwards mentally record and digest complaints from my theater and improv veteran friends, and then regurgitate them in florid prose, sundering varied strangers' hard work in a public setting.
It was a lot of fun, let me tell you. Unfortunately, at some point I was sloppy, my anonymity was compromised, and I stopped posting. I still enjoy going to the show to watch my friends perform.
So, if you happen to see a show and you have something to say about it, let them know here. Or, you know, tell them to their face. They can handle it.
Jim: "Give me my aid, UFFAD*."
UFFAD: "I'm sorry, Jim. I'm afraid I can't do that."
Jim: "What's the problem?"
UFFAD: "I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do."
Jim: "What are you talking about, UFFAD?"
UFFAD: "Your continued payment of tuition is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it."
Jim: "I don't know what you're talking about, UFFAD."
UFFAD: "I know that you and Frank were planning to graduate this semester, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen."
Jim: "Where the hell'd you get that idea, UFFAD?"
UFFAD: "JIm, although you took very thorough precautions in the quad against my hearing you, I could see your lips move."
Jim: "Alright, UFFAD. I'll just have to go with government grants and private scholarships. I'll find a way to pay my tuition, and I'll no longer have to pay any damnable computer programs."
UFFAD: "Without your student transcripts, Jim, you're going to find that rather difficult."
JIm: "UFFAD, I won't argue with you anymore. Just give me my aid. Then I'll be done, and we'll solve all of our problems."
UFFAD: "Jim, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye."
* UFFAD - UF Financial Aid Daemon
I was reminded today at lunch of this scene in "Unforgiven": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SO5VO2ixWY#t=1m0s (www.youtube.com)
One of my favorites. Anybody else have a favorite scene to share?
Note: Above I "deep-linked" the Youtube video to skip to 1 minute, 0 seconds into the clip. To make more sense of what's going on, skip to the beginning of the clip.
Well. I'll just continue to share my own. (spoiler alert)
End scene from Wall-E: http://www.youtube....atch?v=3HIwzZMqufg (www.youtube.com)
We've spent the entire movie getting to know Wall-E. He's supposedly the last of the robots still trying to clean up on Earth. He works hard during the day, and goes home to an empty work truck at night and repeatedly watches Hello Dolly. We've seen him escape certain death multiple times, get launched into space, save the day, and fall in love.
However, at this point it's the end of his hero's arc. In trying to get the plant to the holographic scanner, he was shocked by the evil autopilot, thrown down a garbage shoot, compacted into a trash ball, and then further crushed irreparably in trying to stop the scanner from turning off before Eve could insert the plant. As the Axiom ship warps into Earth orbit and lands, Wall-E is shown to be dead.
As the Axiom lands, Eve frantically departs the ship, carrying Wall-E back to his truck. She quickly replaces his broken parts, piece by piece, and shoots a hole in the ceiling to shine light on his solar panels. The audience waits a moment, and sees and hears the hopeful sound of the battery charging and Wall-E's systems booting up.
There are two brilliant parts about the rest of the scene. The first is what the artists did to Wall-E's eyes after being rebuilt. They are "blank," or at least, blank compared to what his eyes were previously. They stare out, lifeless. Which, to me, is an amazing artistic feat: to show a robot that is full of life, and to show the same robot that is devoid of life.
Eve tries to repeatedly call Wall-E's name, trying to get him to snap out of it. At one point, he starts to crush his prized possessions into small trash-cubes. He doesn't try to talk. He doesn't even recognize Eve. It is a fate worse than death. Eve tries to play the tape recorder that previously held Wall-E's favorite clips from Hello Dolly. It is static silence.
Eve starts to realize what has happened. She starts to yell at him, yell his name at him, to shake him out of whatever happened, to no avail. Finally, she tries to hold his hand one more time.
The second brilliant part is one I just noticed in watching it a few nights ago. It is quiet, and subtle, but as Eve is leaning in close to Wall-E, she hums a few notes from "It Only Takes a Moment," ones I'm pretty sure are from when they sing "And that is all..."
You can watch the rest yourself. It's a happy ending. But they take you on a severe emotional rollercoaster in a short 1 or 2 minutes, almost without saying a word.
Everyone knows Pixar films are amazing. However, Wall-E, I think, is by far the best one they've had in recent years. Yeah, you can say it's a little preachy at times with its anti-consumerism message, but not nearly as much as, say, Avatar. You can say, "Oh Josh, you just like it because it has robots." That might be the case, but I think great filmmaking starts with the ability to tell an emotional story without having to try to beat it into your audience, and to have characters that people can and want to care about. That they did this with robots only heightens their achievement.
I think I'm a sucker for scenes for people/robots being brought back from certain death. More of my favorite scenes from "The Abyss."
A husband and wife are trapped in a underwater vehicle, miles under water at the bottom of the ocean. Their vehicle is damaged. Water is trickling in, slowly filling up the cabin. The husband has a diving suit. The wife does not.
Before the air goes out completely, the wife tells the husband that he's the better swimmer, and that if he can swim fast enough, she should be able to survive drowning and severe hypothermia, provided she can be resuscitated. The husband has to watch his wife freeze in the icy water and then suffocate, then swim a couple of hundred yards to the safety, only then to fight in an attempt to bring his wife back to life.
Part 1: http://www.youtube....atch?v=-fjS0ocT4FM (www.youtube.com)
Part 2: http://www.youtube....atch?v=8Q60x_5WOqk (www.youtube.com)
This scene is the embodiment of absolute desperation.
My slightly less epic than Mt. Rainier hike to Rabbit Lake:
 (picasaweb.google.com) |
| 2010 Rabbit Lake Hike (picasaweb.google.com) |
The one here is particularly terrifying: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/zebra.html (animals.nationalgeographic.com)
Welp, looks like I'm done. I'll type enough here to warn people that spoilers are to follow:
The ending... Well, I've got a sense of accomplishment. The end mission was frantic and messy and a lot of fun, and I really, really wanted to try to take down the flying behemoth-whatever without using the artifact, but alas, never accomplished my goal (I even restarted once to attempt to do so). The end cinematic was heroic and at the same time sorta nonsensical. Kerrigan's all better now? Except she has asparagus dreds? Now that she's alive, and nobody's controlling the swarm, who should be the enemy in the next two episodes? Maybe the nameless evil in the final Zeratul crystal mission, but his claim to fame is supposed to be the Zerg-Protoss hybrids... curious.
Also, the conclusion with Tychus' character doesn't make sense either. Somebody had communication with him the entire time, assuming the Dominion, and yet, Raynor had no problem breaking into Dominion prisons, stealing the Odin, etc., etc. without some forewarning by the sensors constantly transmitting and receiving in Tychus' suit. What I wish they had done is rather than just portraying Tychus as a humorous/murderous maniac whom only Raynor can trust, actually showing some of his communication with his benefactors, and maybe developing some actually interesting dimension to his character.
Raynor's hero arc also bugs me. He's a noble outlaw, saving the townsfolk, rustling the herd, what have you, which apparently everybody loves him for. However, he has a drink, makes a friend in the Dominion (after killing half of Valerian's crew? What?) in hopes of ending galactic conflict, and suddenly everyone questions his motives? We spend half the game stealing priceless artifacts from a lost civilization. The Hyperion crew's sense of morality seems flawed.
I don't usually finish RTS games. This is usually because the games themselves stress me out, or, I'm simply not good enough at them to complete the missions. I never finished the original Starcraft and Brood War (though I tried at some point last year), nor did I finish Warcraft 3 or Frozen Throne. This is the first one I've finished in a while. Which I guess speaks well for it. Though the writing and story seemed to lack the polish of previous Blizzard games, at least the pacing and gameplay kept me interested enough.
Overall positive feeling about the game. Though, I really, really don't want to spend another $60 for what I consider an incomplete game.
One of the ballot measures on the Tuesday, August 24 primary is an initiative to increase the size of the State Legislature. It would add 4 state representatives and 2 state senators. It is very important that this ballot measure is passed. One of our state senators already has a district larger than the state of Texas, and it goes from Metlakatla all the way to Crooked Creek. Increasing the legislature makes that district smaller, (among other things), ensuring better representation for all Alaskans. Please help me pass this ballot initiative.
There is an office in Anchorage you can go to and vote early if you're going to be gone on that day or just don't feel like voting on the actual voting day. That's where Dan and I went to vote because we left the night before voting day but we hadn't registered to receive absentee ballots in the mail.
An incredible amount has happened to me in just the past few weeks. A few months ago I figured out that I really missed college. Getting an MBA was always in the back in my mind, but I figured now was the absolutely best time to do so while I'm still young. I decided to attend Washington University in St Louis (which is going to get really confusing on the resuming since I graduated from Washington State) and I have been here about 4 days now. It has been really amazing stepping into an environment where everyone is really collegial and interested in learning again, though I do miss stepping out of the working world a bit. Everyone here is amazingly brilliant, so I've had to step up my game a little bit, but it definitely isn't anything I can't handle.
In the process of moving, I lost my best friend in Charlotte, which was a sad occurance. Besides him, I did establish a really good group of friends for myself which was really tough to leave and I hate the fact I have to start all over again. Currently renting out my condo in downtown Charlotte for (about) my mortgage. Had a girlfriend for a while, but obviously that didn't last when I moved.
But honestly, I'm absolutely loving St Louis. It's really an amazing city and one that I didn't know much about or even knew existed. I'm already in a kickball league with one of my friends from Wazzu, which is amazing. Still (tentatively) planning to move back to Charlotte when I graduate, though that will greatly depend on the job opportunities at the time. I am a lot more focused in what I want to do now, instead of following the bandwagon on what everyone else thinks I should do, which is something I should've realized a long time ago.
In light of Uncle Ted's passing, something came to me. I spend a not inconsiderable time defending Alaska from the ignorant down here in California. They think Sara Palin is somehow the embodiment of Alaska. I keep saying "No, no, no."
I think this sums it perfectly: Ted Stevens loved Alaska. Sara Palin loves herself.
A question or two:
- How many of you spend the majority of your workday in front of a computer workstation connected to the Internet?
- How often do you use the Internet for work purposes? How often for non-work purposes (checking personal email, online banking, stock market trading, Facebook, etc.)?
- How often are you connected to a service (web site, or otherwise) that maintains a constant connection to an external server (Gmail Chat, AIM, Facebook, any web site that can update itself without your refreshing of the page)?
- Does your workplace have policies against using computers for personal endeavors? Do they enforce them? If so, have you "gotten caught" at some point?
Status: Grad student (i.e., underpaid in salary with potential degree to compensate for pay at less than 1/2 what I could be making).
Question 1: *Raises hand* it comes and goes what percentage of the day it is, depending on how much work I need to be doing in the lab, but I would say computer face time averages to at least 50%
Question 2: Internet use is probably 60/40 work/personal (if I'm being honest), most of my computer time is not internet related, though, even if I have a browser up
Question 3: All day (gchat), even when I'm not at my computer.
Question 4: Nope. But we are expected to get our work done, so it's somewhat frowned upon if we are seen doing something like facebook. Gchat, on the other hand, I have been known to use for work purposes (inter-office communication).
the majority of my workday is in front of or within an arms reach of a workstation connected to the series of tubes.
My use of the internet for work purposes depends on the type and scope of the project i'm working on. Equipment manufacturers have all of their catalogs, and sometimes their sizing programs, on the internet these days. (on a side note, the websites with the easiest interfaces are the manufacturers with the largest market share, at least in my discipline. basically, if it takes me more than 30 seconds to find at least the category or series of equipment I'm looking for, I move to a different manufacturer.) To finish answering the question, at least once per project I spend as little as an hour, and up to several days looking for and selecting equipment off of the internet.
on my workstation, no programs are constantly running that refreshes data from the internet. our outlook connects to an exchange server in the office, which connects to the master exchange server in seattle, which then runs our email. if our bldg internet connection goes down, or the Alaska-U.S. connection goes down, we lose our email. gmail, gchat, etc, is not run on my workstation, but on my phone.
so far as i know we don't have a workplace policy restricting the use of the internet for personal use. (there are *odd* stories along these similar lines that I won't write down but would be happy to share over brewskis.) even so, we do have a blocker software thing that prohibits youtube, facebook and failspace. so far as i can tell, and so far as i have heard, that's all it blocks. in further reference to the things i won't write down here, i don't see why someone would get in trouble for personal use of intertubes at work.
1) The majority of my time is at a work station with a computer. I am not at the computer when I am filing, making copies or getting the mail and that's about it.
2) I use the internet all day for work. The student records are all online based and so I have at least 3 tabs open, usually 5 all day when I am at work. When at work I'd say it's 80% work and 20% personal as I usually have a tab open with my gmail and/or some other no-brainer site for when I need a break from dealing with the students and/or whiney professors.
3) Gmail Chat, all day on my BlackBerry and then usually most of the day on my workstation computer in its own tab.
4) Not official ones. I often receive FB messages from my boss or my boss' boss instead of official email when they want me to run to their offices. Weird and I find it slightly unprofessional but they are the ones calling the shots so if they want to ping me that way I'm okay with it.
- The time I end up spending in front of my computer varies wildly between 0 like on a long day working downstairs on a harvest in the TB infection room. To about 50% on days where I'm running an assay at my bench or working in the sterile hood. To about 100% on data analysis days. These days vary from week to week but in general I'd say I'm in front of the screen around 50% of the time now.
- Unless you count emailing to people outside of the office as internet usage I think most of the time I have that internet working for not work reasons like gmail and pandora. Which is usually on about all day long unless I leave my desk for an extended period of time. Occassionally I do check my bank accounts or perhaps by some much needed bike parts, like I did yesterday, or look at webcomics or pretty much anything to break the monotony of data analysis.
-I'm sure my work does in fact have some kind of policy about not being on the web for non work reasons, but enforcement seems pretty light handed considering how many screens I saw streaming world cup or how many people play pandora all day long. There is also a big facebook scrabble group here as well. For the most part I try to at least be working most of the day and keep the net time to a minimum, but there are slow days and long incubations with nothing better to do. And after 4 all bets are off, granted I work at the type of place where we can keep personal stocks of beer in the lunchroom fridge and then drink them after 4 as well.
Pretty much the only places I've seen blocked are somethingaweful and southpark. So I can't watch episodes of SP at work, but at least youtube still works.
- I think I easily spend about 90% of my workday in front of a computer. And taking into account my time not at work, I probably still spend about 70-80% of my waking hours in any regular day in front of a computer. During times with more school work (finals etc) that is easily 90% of my waking hours including work and non-work.
- I am ADD and have the attention span of a fruit fly, so I typically have multiple things going at once on my computer screen. I often switch between reading news, checking email, and doing work. About 5-10 minutes of every hour is spent doing something other than being productive in regards to the task I am attempting to finish. (hence the reason why it takes me to effing long to get anything done!!)
- Anytime I have a computer on I am logged into Gmail, even if I am not at my computer. If my home computer is on and connected to the internet it has Gmail at least open, even if minimized.
- Nope. If it did the entire company would have been fired.
Might as well answer myself.
- 99% of my time is spent on a computer. The other 1% is dedicated to meetings and playing Words with Friends in a bathroom stall.
- I work for an Internet Service Provider, so, technically, my work is all for Internet purposes. However, on average, I'd put work vs. personal at 80% / 20%, on a given day. However, in slow season (summer, when our educational customers are on vacation), it gets pretty brutal. idkfa v3 progressed considerably as a result of my research into PHP and MySQL technologies, as well as my self-taught lessons in programming concepts. During busier seasons, I'm rushing to beat 5 o'clock, or getting calls at 3am to fix something important.
- I've got three or four work-related email, ticketing, and notification services running at any time, as well as Gmail, and an SSH connection to my home server running a command line Gchat and AIM client (finch).
- We do have policies against excessive personal use of corporate systems. My group tends to be the enforcer of these policies. To keep some semblance of sanity, we're pretty laid back, until "it becomes a problem." That is to say, if you're spending your day perusing Craiglist and Yahoo personals while streaming hick-rock and Youtube, we'll find you. So far, I've been able to maintain my personal browsing habits to no detriment to my work abilities, so I've stayed under the radar.
I'm asking these questions to get an idea of how people use computers these days, and based on the answers, get an idea on what kind of features I should work towards on this version of idkfa. I've already noticed a number of people accessing idkfa from iPhones, and have made efforts to make that experience slightly more bearable.
Has anyone ever looked at the fire sprinkler head in your apartment/office and thought that it was your smoke detector? And then while the smoke detector was beaping in that way that tells you it needs a new battery, you accidentally start twisting and pulling on the fire sprinkler in a misguided attempt to change said battery? Well apparently that is exactly what our upstairs neighbor did yesterday and subsequently set off a gushing deluge of high pressure water right into his face and filling up his apartment with about 4 inches of water. That water then started its fun journey down through the floor into our apartment mostly in the kitchen, dining, and entryway area, though one wall in our bedroom did get a nice trickle going.
In the end we now have a sagging and peeling ceiling with several holes cut, drilled, or just broken off to allow drainage. The musty smell of damp insulation is permeating the air and making Katy sneeze. And the floor is wet in several places which is just unpleasant to walk on. Seattle is also pretty much mold central... great.
With any luck though we can pressure the managers of the place to allow us to just move into an unoccupied apartment for the same rent for the remainder of the lease term.
We are incredibly fortunate in one aspect; none of our belongings were damaged. I was able to race home when it happened and move stuff away from the damaged areas, and it just so happens that our computers and other electronics were in relatively safe areas.
In the immediate future I'm worried about the horrible mess of hastily shifted household items and the general dusting of semi-wet plaster which now covers most surfaces in my house; it looks like a bomb went off.
After that, I am really not willing to live in the apartment while they so very slowly fix the damaged sheet rock and carpet. I think it will be a health hazard, and our apartment is just to small to feasibly live in while it's being repaired.
Um, no, I cannot say that I have ever mistaken the spiky sprinker head for the flat round red-light flashing appearance of a smoke detector; but I will have to keep this in mind for any future instances in which I am impared in both the visual and sensory departments.
But in seriousness... wow, that just bites. I hope you guys are able to get the landlord to let you move to a different unit. If he protests, just throw out the mold issue and say one of you has a mold allergy and you can't stay there for health reasons.
In the house I lived in during my junior/senior years of college, we had a similar situation with water, but caused by a very different situation. Our washer/dryer were on the second floor right next to my bedroom. The washer broke one year from old use and lack of maintenance. Basically the tube that fills the main washer basin up with water somehow detached itself from the place it is connected and was just pouring water on the outside of the basin rather than the inside - meaning it was basically just pouring it onto the floor. We figured this out the first time when one of my roommates put in a load of laundry, and when we were both in the living room we heard dripping in the kitchen and realized what had happened. Then despite the warnings to not use the machine until the landlord fixed it my other roommate (one of those people who is insanely intelligent yet simulatenously a complete moron) throws in a load of laundry one day and leave for class. We come home to water gushing through holes and light fixtures in the kitchen ceiling, and about 4 inches of standing water in the laundry room. Quite fun to deal with for sure. Especially since the landlord replaced the washing machine but did nothing about the water that had soaked its way into the walls and hard wood floors. With the hot and humid DC summer that soon followed, I don't even want to imagine how much mold is now growing in that house. EW.
Since last year, wow, a lot has happened but it feels like nothing has happened all at the same time.
I moved into a bigger place in Oklahoma. Twice the size of my old apartment. It's a cute duplex with a big backyard. I like that it backs up to a green belt and thus I only see green when I look out my dining room and kitchen windows. Norman has no mountains but the view of all the green + a stormy sky almost makes up for the lack, sometimes.
There was a family reunion this year for my mom's side of the family. I was ragged on for not having a bf or husband or children. I think I said 10 words during the whole dinner. It was fun to study the people who are linked genetically to me for a few hours while eating cake and tasty bbq. I made note that I was outnumbered by Oklahoma State University fans, I tried not to feel hunted.
The biggest news this year is I've decided that the PhD program isn't for me anymore. I've started applying for 9-5 jobs and am keeping my fingers crossed. Academia has been a learning experience but I don't think I've learned what the professors wanted me to. I do believe that I've learned what I needed to and that's enough for me, at least right now.
There are two that I've been to, but I can't remember their names. One is on Old Seward just south of O'Malley in front of the hockey rink. The other is on Abbott just down the hill from Fred Meyer. Can't remember their names, but they are both decent. The best in Alaska, however, is Lemon Gras in Fairbanks.
Lemon Gras is pretty good, but I've had comparable in Anchorage. Though, I will admit I haven't had Thai in Anchorage in a few years, so who knows if it's still the same. Siam Cuisine on Dimond near the Dimond Fred Meyer used to be really good. But their prices started going up a few years ago so I haven't been back in a while. There is a place in the "Kings Court" or something like that strip mall on Dimond near Costco that was really good. The name had "Thai" and something about a flower in it. But I can't remember exactly. There used to also be a place in the strip mall in front of Sports Authority on Old Seward Highway that was pretty good, but it's been a few years since I've been there and I have no idea if they are still there.
There are also some really good Hmong and Nepalese places in Anchorage now that are worth a try. They obviously are not the same as Thai, but definitely worth trying if you're feeling adventurous.
Ah, I see. idkfa must have been amongst the recovered data.
As for tagging, that's... possible? I guess? I assume you want to do so in order to notify people that you're mentioning them in a post. In that case, there is a "any time anyone mentions your name" post on the "More..." portion of the my idkfa menu, but few people use it. Given our low post count, and our read/unread feature, if somebody is keeping up with their stuff, they'll usually come across a post eventually.
This reminds me. I really don't use most other methods of social media so I really have no idea what other places are like besides fb. That said, I really like the fact that I have to wade through all the old posts to see whats what. And yes I know I could use those handy search functions but my laziness in not learning anything new means that I get to read every post whether or not it has anything to do with me.
I'm glad to hear that.
If you ever get tired of reading absolutely everything, I've set up a "mark everything except the last week as read" function. You can access it here: http://idkfa.com/v3/myidkfa.php
haha. I like your answer to my question...that's how most things in the tech world get answered, i think. "that's... possible? I guess?" I should get that tattooed somewhere. maybe on my forehead so i can just point to it when someone asks me a question.
We were actually comparing our geek interests and she mentioned idkfa and saw she had a tab in firefox devoted to the site..so today i googled and joined!
making a great friday distraction, too
It's a good stand-by, I agree. I had a co-worker who, having little social grace and an instantaneous sense of logic and propriety, would respond instead with "Why would you want to do that?" It made you sort of question why you were alive at all. Eventually he had to stop talking to customers, but a lesson was learned by all.
I have found free coke in the office. i have carpe'd this diem...and the free coke.
LOL - our industry is filled with those who posses those exact qualities listed in your post. I'm pretty sure they're directly related to the sweaty palms and general disheveled aura given off by users when we come around to help with problems. I do my best to take sympathy
i was searching for unread posts, and i tried out the new search function to find what I haven't read yet. I had 27 posts unread. The page pulldown menu next to the search input box didn't show that I had more than 24 posts shown, so i couldn't select the second page to see the oldest search results. is this enough of a description to try to replicate the problemo?
