Shopping August 30, 2004
Posted by BatWeasel in : Life , add a commentI don’t know how many girl-geeks read this blog, but a warning to y’all - if you spend a weekend with fashion-concious sisters, make sure you know the location of a good resale store. I’d recommend Plato’s Closet. I’m learning from experience that those sorts of weekends usually end in a wardrobe overhaul.
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | HK firm develops cyber girlfriend August 29, 2004
Posted by Aaron in : Links, This should not be happening , 1 comment so farBBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | HK firm develops cyber girlfriend
So which one of the two imaginary g/f links is most disturbing? Seriously, I’m curious which bugs people the most (Oh and I’m creating a new category of posts here at DF for this link & I suspect many more. I may even go back and recategorize a few old ones)
I wonder as I wander… August 25, 2004
Posted by Aaron in : Life, Play , 2commentsSo I find myself trying to apply logic to my life again, and actually trying to explain parts of that logic to another real human being. Documenting the roads that my logic has mapped of my tendancies & thoughts would likely involve the felling of a small forest. Worse still, studying oneself is an inherently inaccurate process. I don’t know about you folks, but I’m terrible at emotionally standing still, so it becomes an excercise of how many nails it takes to pin jello to a wall. The conclusions that I reach today may seem perfectly reasonable, and match all the available data (yes I’m a geek, I use the word data) today, but tomorrow it might not. Heck, tomorrow half of todays data may be invalid, such is the nature of life.
So here is the question, for my half-dozen semi-regular readers, is it worth it? How long should a person ask themselves ‘why did I do that’ or ‘how does this action/thought fit with this other one’ before simply writing it off as yet another divine mystery of consciousness? And if when you ask that question, you do get an answer, in your experience, what is the average half-life (sorry, I’m still a geek) on that apparent self-discovery?
Holographic DVDs? August 25, 2004
Posted by Aaron in : General , add a commentVery technical article, but basicly just about a proof-of-concept. Someone holographicly stored information on a cd-like media (”Holographic Versatile Disk” gee are they aiming at any competing media in particular?) The current theory on capacity puts these critters at about 1 terrabyte of data per dvd-sized disk (200x dvd capacity), with transfer speeds of about 1 GB/s (40x dvd speed). I don’t know about you folks, but I don’t know if I’ve ever worked anywhere that even has a terrabyte of data.
Imaginary Girlfriends - Find Your New Imaginary Girlfriend Today! August 20, 2004
Posted by Aaron in : Links , add a commentImaginary Girlfriends - Find Your New Imaginary Girlfriend Today!
Tired of your friends and family telling you to get a girlfriend?
Want to make that certain someone a little jealous?
Need a confidence boost? Just feeling lonely sometimes?
Sadly it is not a free service…
LEGO Shop: Themes: Saturn V Moon Mission (7468) August 20, 2004
Posted by Aaron in : Links, Play , 2commentsLEGO Shop: Themes: Saturn V Moon Mission (7468)
my new toy!
Raising Duncan August 18, 2004
Posted by Aaron in : Links , add a commentRaising Duncan
One can hope indeed.
News ‘O Aaron August 18, 2004
Posted by Aaron in : Life, News, Work , add a commentI guess it?s been a while since I posted, so I guess to keep the viewing audience entertained I should (also to jerk around yahoo?s search some more, that?s becoming a bit of sport in itself). For you regular readers especially those who routinely actually communicate with me, a lot of this is probably nothing new, but that isn?t to say this isn?t the first time it?s been recorded as such)
I guess I may as well start with what?s been going on at work, since that is the largest item around which my schedule revolves. Work is going well; it?s a lot of fun working at a small still fairly new company (though as of last February or March, Synthesys turned 1). It seems every other day I?m foraging into areas I (and often, the company) have never been in before. I get to shape & establish a lot of company policy simply because I?m the senior man on the scene when the sky starts falling. Thankfully, I?m not alone in this though as we?d likely end up with some wacky policies & standards. Between 2 bosses (if, on any given day, we can track down 1 of which quickly we begin to expect Armageddon, but that just makes things interesting), the other main tech here (fellow GC grad, Michael) and our summer intern (James) usually I can get enough feedback to shape a crazy idea into something at least worth tucking away for future reference (or just get told that on this or that, I actually *am* crazy, so I shouldn?t even write it down). I?m told the buzzword for what we have here is ?Synergy?. Who would have thought that in a dinky town like Greenville, I?d find myself project manager for one software project, and nomadic code-monkey for another large app & a few websites? Better yet, if it needs to look pretty, I can just point at James or Bethany (odd note here, James is digital media major who is mostly coding, Bethany is a comp-sci major who is mostly designing? they are both great at what they do though so in the end, who cares).
Yes I do hear your protest; ?Where are the cubicles, pressured schedules, and annoyed customers?? Well as for the last 2, we?ve got them, and as for the first, if you saw our office you?d realize we?ve not got room for cubicles. Jokes aside there is one major drawback. I?m not salaried; I get paid by the hour and only for work done for clients. This means that though I am in the office or at clients pretty close to 40 hrs a week, recently my average has been 12 paid hours a week. As I like to complain, I get penalized for being awesome, if I can find & fix a problem in code just from reading a description, I get paid less than if I had to painstakingly reproduce the problem, make a change, then try to reproduce it again. Just yesterday I had one of those where if I wasn?t intimately familiar with significant portions of Bid-Advantage (sort of my ?baby? as it is), it would have taken me at least 15 minutes; instead I was in and out of the design environment in about 2 minutes, and about a minute of that was waiting for things to load & shutdown (to be fair, it isn?t always that easy). That 12 hrs a week barely seems to cover anything, and if I weren?t making $15/hr I?d have already been forced to bail out. As it is, things get a little tight at times, and while I don?t really care that much about money, it?d be nice to be able to put some aside for some rainy day (did I mention I?m also without any sort of health insurance?) or, God forbid (he seems to be), I start a family someday. Because of that, and that I?ve not found any firm point to anchor to, I?m not sure that I?ll still be at Synthesys in another year. Great job or not, I cannot continue to barely scrape by each month, and after a 2 years of being frontier-geek-lawman, I think I could job hunt with much more success. Where will I end up? I?ve always thought that I?d stay in the Midwest, but these days I?m more inclined towards any state that I?ve never lived in before (and perhaps countries?)
Ok so I?m cheating & typing this draft up in word, and I just realized that I?m at about a page, which is far too long for any post let alone one of mine. So I?ll try to be less wordy on the rest of this, if you?d like I?ll wait here and let you get a drink or drive to the MotoMart for munchies??????????. Back? Ok, let?s continue.
So that?s work, what about the rest of my life. Well, um, yeah. I guess I eat, sleep, go pester Dan, watch TV, play whatever computer game I?m playing that month, and I?ve been trying to get back into running. I guess I?ll go into more details on the running bit. There is a GC alumni race on Oct 15th (if you?re bored & want to come, let me know). Basically it?d be a bunch of us dirty alumni (ok we?ve got jobs and are probably more clean cut than the current batch) descending upon a regular race & running un-attached (or just watching, who cares), and generally being a rowdy embarrassment to the coaches (ok, not so much rowdy by most standards, as just weird). Really I shouldn?t lump the other alumni in with myself, as of now I can average 8-min miles for 4 miles. Unfortunately I?ve got to go 5, and since I don?t want to slow down the meet, I need to add that extra mile, while not adding more than 4 minutes to the total. Not an easy proposition for 2 months, with one ankle that is isn?t 100% and a knee that occasionally hints at revolt.
At this point if you don?t know me, or haven?t been paying attention you might say ?Hey, Aaron, seeing anyone these days?? To which I would likely respond, ?Well all except those people who are invisible?, mostly just because simply saying ?have I ever been ?seeing anyone??? isn?t as funny. And, umm, yeah I?ve exhausted that one, next topic.
Its 11:30 now, and I?ve been writing for oh 45 minutes or so, and I can see the end of page 2 just a few inches below. There really isn?t a whole lot more to tell, so I?m just going to bail. If those who don?t live in the neighborhood, decide to visit our `hood (or I mysteriously end up on your doorstep), then there are plenty of strange little stories to be told about Dan?s customer support woes, and my erratic behavior at local eating establishments, though perhaps those who do live in our `hood will be allowed to hear them as well.
The Onion | Horoscopes August 17, 2004
Posted by Aaron in : Play , add a commentCancer: (June 22-July 22)
You’ve finally run up against a problem your trusty meat cleaver can’t solve, but that’s why they make big wooden mallets.
(From The Onion)
Checkbook modernization August 17, 2004
Posted by Aaron in : Links, News , add a commentMSN Money - Your checkbook just became obsolete - Better banking
This might be usefull reading if you have ever stopped a check or written a check for an amount expecting a deposit you just made to cover it….