In the World

Netflix is brilliant.

Every so often I get an e-mail, letting me know of a special surprise waiting for me in my mailbox. Checking the mail becomes something of an event.

I know what’s going to be in it, but it’s still exciting.

It’s nice to open the mailbox and find something other than a bill.

I watch lots of movies, a fair number of tv shows, and lots of anime. And Netflix has a great selection…better than any rental store. So Netflix works for me.

For those of you who are judgmental, there’s a link on the left with my Netflix queue. Judge away!

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A very long time ago I was a computer programmer.

Not a terribly good one, mind you, and I can provide references who will attest to that fact.

But at the height of my skill set I routinely authored programs in C, C++, Perl, and SQL. I also did a great deal of database administration using MySQL, MS-SQL, and Oracle (although the Oracle stuff was just for kicks and giggles…I never used it in a production environment).

I’ve lately tried my hand at Objecive-C and Cocoa (through the Mac development environment), and have been looking at Python.

But a while back I discovered Pipes. (This is related to Unix pipes, but it’s as far advanced from Unix pipe programming as Windows XP is from Dos.)

I remembered reading a paper about 18 months ago about the concept of pipes, and how there were some neat ideas about how to bring them into the 21st century, and introduce a new way of computer programming.

Then I found out about Yahoo doing a test environment with pipes. And I started playing with it over this past weekend.

And had a lot of fun.

Clicky here.

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One of the problems I’ve had since I started writing again is self-censorship.

Writing in a public forum is a bit different than the other writing I’ve done: Ad writing, short fiction, long fiction, short non-fiction, technical writing, and more. You always put some of yourself into any creative form, but doing so in such a public way, that can reflect on your company, can be daunting.

I think, however, that honesty is more than just telling the truth–it’s being who you are, even if that alienates some people.

So far, I’ve been pretty bland here. I haven’t really written anything particularly striking, abrasive, challenging, or self-reflective.

That’s is going to change.

You’re going to see some of the links on my pages starting to change up a bit as I shuffle things around and put in some more of the stuff that interests me in a purely selfish way. I will try to include descriptions, and categorize things properly, so as not to offend the weak-of-constitution.

But be warned: The censorship I’ve enforced on myself is over.

Shiny.

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A long time ago, practically in another life, I almost became an engineer.

That is, I had a scholarship offer to Drexel in Philadelphia to join their engineering program. Instead I went to a different university and got a different degree.

But I still look at how things are engineered, and I often ask why things are done the way they are done.

In the town Destiny Image is located, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, many of the storm drains are labelled “DRAINS TO SUSQUEHANNA”. For those not “in the know” (or who don’t want to bother looking it up on Google Maps, Mapquest, Google Earth, Terraserver, or anywhere esle) the Susquehanna River is about 45 miles east of Shippensburg.

Now, I don’t know how ordinary it is for cities and towns to pipe their storm water runoff to other places, but to me, this seems like a great waste. It seems like every other year Pennsylvania isn’t getting quite as much rainfall as we’d like, and the water table is getting low. At Destiny Image a few years ago we had to drop the geothermal pumps a few dozen more feet because of this.

To my mind, wouldn’t it make sense to run rain runoff in cities and towns into the ground so they can feed into the groundwater supply? In general, groundwater has already been filtered by the hundred or so feet of dirt and rock it has to get through, and when it’s forced back out through natural springs it’s the cleanest, most refreshing water there is. And allowing it to run into the water table helps to raise the level of the water table which helps farmers and rural citizens who depend on wells.

I’m thinking that things like draining rain runoff 50 miles (or more) to a major river (which feeds almost directly to the ocean) sounds a lot like a public works program developed to give someone’s nephew a job.

Am I wrong? Is there really a good reason for it?

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It’s always been something of a tradition for me to hang things on my office door at work. At least, during those times when I have more than a desk shoved into an unoccupied corner. When that happens, I have been known to cause quite the headache for the maintenance crew by poking the drywall full of thumbtacks.

Back on topic!

On Tuesday morning of last week the magical gnomes that make things appear on my desk brought this.

I had planned to take a picture of it once it was up, but life kinda interrupted.

But now, without further delay, is the door of my office:

Marvel at its amazingness. (Yes, I just made up a word. Shut up.)

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To get away for a couple days, my wife and I sent Munchkinhead to Grandma and Pap-Pap’s (which is even better, apparently, than playing with Daddy), and we went up to State College to Setsucon.

We weren’t planning to go, but we needed a couple days away from “life”.

In fact, I had completely forgotten about it. I remembered seeing an ad for it at Tekkoshocon in 2008 (I went with my youngest brother). But I hadn’t planned on going. State College is not really somewhere I want to be in January. But my wife and I needed to get away, and I was reminded about this convention when I saw on Applegeeks that Ananth was going to be there.

Ananth Panagariya and Yuko Ota are really nice people! If you ever meet them tell them how awesome they are! (They did a panel at Setsucon and sold me a t-shirt and a bookmark.) I love meeting artsy-type people…I envy people who can draw like that–rather than what I do–which is just help them tweak their work. Maybe I’ll add a “Favorite DeviantArt Accounts” link category on the left.

Overall, Setsucon was kinda small. If you plan on going in the future, make sure you plan on bringing some friends.

Not that we were there for the convention anyway.

And yes, we’re doing okay. It’s amazing what a couple of good night’s sleep can do. Not great, but okay.

Don’t say: We have come now to the end.
White shores are calling–you and I will meet again.
And you’ll be here in my arms, just sleeping.

Today my wife and I found out that we lost our unborn child. (S)he was still 6 months away from seeing the light of day, but we already loved her/him.

(Note: This version of the song is not me or my wife, I just liked this version.)

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Battlestar Galactica is back!

There’s 10 episodes left, and it is the only show that I don’t ignore until my  Tivo (yes, I have a magical recordificating divr) records it. When BSG is on, I am at home, on my couch, watching it. Commercials and all.

I’m not quite sure where the writers are taking the show. I’ve had theories, and they have yet to be proven wrong, but I’ve been surprised quite a number of times by the directions they’ve chosen to take the story.

At least there’s relatively little chance that Summer Glau isn’t the final Cylon. I mean, that’d be kinda funny, considering.

It’s pretty clear the writers are pretty hostile towards the human race. They seem to go out of their way sometimes to show why it might be a good idea if we were all killed off, and their discovery of “Earth” in the last episode before the long break was pretty dismal.

Personally, I was a fan of Gene Roddenberry’s “mankind rising above itself to try to make themselves–and the universe–better” utopian-like quest. The dystopian view of the future/past/present tends to depress me, as I like to think that maybe, just maybe, humans can achieve more.