Stuff from July, 2005
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on July, 2005.
Mustang Badge
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on July, 2005.
I am unsure how much more of this I can take: dial-up internet is the worst thing to happen to this decade, and I am stuck on what seems to be the last copper-line connection to the internet out of anyone I know. I recently read that over one half of the people who use the internet are not using dial-up. And don’t get me wrong - the internet is something I rely on to do my job - I’m not complaining because I can’t watch streaming video on MTV’s website when I spend hours mindlessly surfing. In fact, dial-up works quite well for the surfing I do - generally reading longer articles, allowing things to load in the background.
Idaho honors Napoleon Dynamite - Best wording for a resolution. Ever.
I took 40+ pictures of fireworks, all bad. Fortunately, this picture of the crowd turned out really cool: the glowsticks people were carrying blurred through in a really neat way.
Why did I join the facebook? (For a quick definition of facebook: it’s like an interactive yearbook spanning your high school and college careers). Anyhow, the above question sprang into my mind today as I looked at my “confirm friends” page and realized that the two people listed on it are not people I would call friends and are either (a) insecure folk who simply are trying to increase the number of people listed under their “is friends with” column; or are (b) random celebrities listed by people too bored to do something constructive and original with their spare time. I joined facebook because everyone else did, I admit it. Sometimes I wish there were bandwagons for reading good books or learning to paint or something. Just think of the thousands of hours wasted by people clicking around on facebook when they could have been learning something. People are crazy.
A huge fire consumed this building the night before.
Experimenting with the external flash.
In a glorious attempt to destroy any remaining shred of privacy I may have on this online journal, it is time to trace my running route. First, I had to trace it myself, trying to figure out how far it was. So, I bought a replacement battery for my bike distance tracker attachement. Adding an extra ‘e’ to that word gives it more authority. Anyhow, I went to the specialty battery store, which, at a sterile 66 degrees, was completely devoid of people except myself and the sales clerk. He asked me what I needed and I handed him the button battery from my bike attachement. He glanced at it for about two seconds, and walked around the counter to a shelf directly behind me, plucking a small battery from the shelf. I began to question to legitimacy of this man’s job. A battery store would be the ultimate application of the ‘self-serve’ check-out ideal: walk up to a store front about the size of an ATM, hand the machine your battery (or type in the words on the front of it), and you are able to select from the available batteries. It grabs them from an automatic stockroom, you pay, and it hands you a battery. The man in the battery store probably would not like this idea.
Church and State in the US - The New York times supplies an impressivley even-handed description of the current church/state debate in the US. If you read an article about politics this month, read this one.
F-Train: On Insurance - If I could choose a way to write, this would be it. They say every great writer has a deep pain, an inner unrest; I don’t know if that is true of Paul Ford, but if inner pain is correlated to quality of writing, his must be very great.
The best picture yet.
A wonderful anniversary dinner (live music Thursdays through Saturday nights!). Lovely summer evening.
This is awesome.
This had to be somebody’s worst day ever.
Atari Video Music - This would be a perfect compliment to music at parties: “these AVM patterns were not a subtle blend of colors and shapes morphing together that you’d have playing in the background of your mellow 70’s cocktail party. Instead, the AVM produced an onslaught of spastic pulsing patterns that gyrated at an eye-numbing speed across the TV. The patterns are comparable to the seizure-inducing anime from the 90’s that sent a whole nation of Japanese kids into an upchucking frenzy.”
iPod 4G Battery Replacement - Because I will be Googling my website for this in a couple of years when my iPod’s battery is dead.
Keyboard with tiny screens for each key - The Optimus keyboard is an incredibly useful keyboard evolution - but 200-300 as the projected price? That better be lower. As a a commentor points out:
Pop lock - This is a small combination lock to protect your 20 ounce beverage, soft drink, or anything else. Genius.
I don’t know why, but this picture make me laugh.
Library of Congress Sound Recording - Saving sounds for the posterity - fantastic idea, well executed. Great website.
Never knew how large those things were compared to a person.
I have not died. Rather, I am spending every free moment of my time recoding tumbledry to better serve everyone’s needs. What does recode mean?
Well.
Everything is brand new from top to bottom. New database, new front end (the part you see), spanking new page design, new back end (the part I see), every line of code revised or rewritten. I’ve gone through so many iterations of the design it makes my head spin, and have written about 3500 lines of code.
This makes no sense to me. On the way to Orchestra Hall for Radiohead by Chris O’Riley.