Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Close to madness

No, that's not really me, but I just didn't know what to write in the title.

Life is going alright here. Been really busy lately, with a lot of late nighters working on work-related things and on the program for the choir concert this Saturday. Me, as a "yes" guy decided to help out and suddenly I had just too much work to do. But it was done and not it's with the printer. I'm not sure if I'm excited about this concert or not. The music is quite interesting, but I guess I've been so tired lately that my feelings are simply numb. And, hey, I'm not complaining.

Now for a view of the world out there:

* Real-state in downtown Bellevue is going quite crazy! There is a new mall that just opened about 3 weeks ago, they have plans of another one in a couple of years and there are two new apartment complexes also being built right now. One of them in place of a half-finished structure that has been around here for many years (I can only attest for one year of these many).

* Christmas is coming and with it some terrible music. Worse is that I live 2 1/2 blocks from a mall and from time to time they blast the music so loud that I can hear it from my apartment with all windows and doors closed.

* This is a little old, but some people might have missed it: Kansas now allows schools to teach about "intelligent design". At the same time, the Vatican says that evolutions does not contradict the bible.

* This is also a little outdated, but there is this interesting note about Tamiflu: Suicides raise fears over Tamiflu. If they distribute Tamiflu for all US citizens... Well, I don't think it will change anything! :-) Actually this article reminds me how weird our brain really is - how some things might cause very strange reactions to the way we deal with the world.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

New services...

I've decided to start updating my blog with new services, and I found out about something quite intriguing: PheromoneTrail. Not that it really works right now, but the idea is to capture the path that people take around the internet. Because I am curious and would like to see what it actually will do when it's up and running, I decided to add to my blog. Right now the script seems to be down, but when it's up, the icon in the left side, under history, should have a popup iframe with information about how people get to my site and out of it.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Geek, me???

I've received a worisome email the other day suggesting that I was getting geekier and that this was a bad thing.

I first have to say that I do agree that it is mostly a bad thing. But being a geek has its advantages too: it keeps you busy and happy. But I won't say that I'm that much of a geek yet. I still go to choir, I still study music, even compose, go to concerts, cook, enjoy reading non-geeky novels (although I have to admit that most of the latest books I've read were very geeky), I go out do non-geeky stuff, like... Like... I don't know, what is there to do out there that you wouldn't consider geeky? Hiking is getting more difficult because of the weather, going out to restaurants is something I have been doing lately, but it's not non-geeky. I haven't been able to watch movies, because my free time does not match with anybody else's. Oh, well... I try.

But I think the major problem is that lately I have been quite busy with work. It has been invading my mind every minute. Just lots of things to do! Lots of interesting things to do, and that's the major problem. But I keep on being busy and trying not to be called a geek too often.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Digging and finding the list of geek novels

I've been looking around on digg, a news "aggregator" that is starting to rival the great slashdot, and found the following article:

Top 20 geek novels.

It's an interesting list. The sad thing of it is that I've read about half of them and I only haven't heard about 2:

10. Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland
14. Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks

My favorite out of the list? It's hard, but I think I'll go for:

18. The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson

Way down to the bottom of the list, but one of the most enjoyable read I've had.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Such a tiny world

There are a lot of things to post about, but I think I won't have enough time to get to them anytime soon. So, I'll just leave you with this very strange observation that I've made last week and has just been stressed even more today:

I was at the gym last week and suddenly, besides me, there was a guy with an OU t-shirt! OU meaning the University of Oklahoma, the other university in Oklahoma (the famous one, because they have a better football team, the Sooners). He was busy working out so I decided not no bother him with this coincidence.

So today I was opening my computer, trying to look at emails and work. Well, my internet wasn't working, so I decided to check if I was connected to the right wireless network. When I looked at the list of available wireless networks what do I see? A network named "OU_Sooners". As Robin would say: "Holy coincidence, Batman".

Hope everybody is having a good week there. Mine has been quite busy. Just having fun with JavaServer Faces and building something much bigger than I should be building. I probably should just give up right now and get some sleep.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Yay - time for nerdy stuff

Before I get back to writing web pages (oh, lots of fun), here is an article that I was reading the other day:

Fuel's paradise? Power source that turns physics on its head

It is about a scientist (our "scientist") that claims that he found a way to create more energy by, at the same time, breaking some laws of physics! Two in one, what a great discovery!

What do I think about this? Well, I think I'll just wait and see. I'm not all that hopeful because of the amount of hype that is around this, but, at the same time, it would be great to find a new clean and efficient energy source. We are in great need of that right now! So, good luck to you Mr. Randell Mills!

Saturday, November 05, 2005

ongoing · Wikipedia Notes

This is my first post trying to use ecto combined with NetNewsWire. ecto is a weblogging client that is actually paid. I'm using their 20 day trial right now. NetNewsWire is an RSS reader. What I can do is look at a news article and click on "Post to Weblog" and this is what I get:

ongoing · Wikipedia Notes:
Wikipedia Notes
Search
This week I had a pleasant, relaxed, sit-down conversation with Jimmy Wales, the main man behind the Wikipedia. The purpose of this note is to pass along some interesting facts about the project that I hadn’t previously known. This is timely in that there has been a recent flare-up of the usual Wikipedia controversies, with mostly the same old players flinging the same old slime; those who care might want to revisit my essay from last year, which takes a careful look at the project as contrasted to the world of conventional reference publishing. I stand by my conclusion: the Wikipedia dwarfs its critics. The rest of this piece is just a recitation of facts, but some of them are surprising. [Update: PHP@Yahoo!]

-----------

It is actually interesting as a concept, because it makes passing on links much easier. At the same time it is just forwarding information and not really helping you create something new (and don't talk to me about creating something new, because I always have hundreds of ideas inside my mind, some using weblogs, but I never get time to actually develop them... Who knows one day I might...).

Anyway, just logging technology accomplishments!

Weekends

It's been another while that I don't post. I'm sorry for it. Life has been just quite hectic for me! When I get home in time not to just go to bed, I am so tired that I can't really do any writing. At the same time, there isn't much to talk about in the personal front. Life has been quite the same. Today I had another round of volunteering for GambiaHELP, an interesting organization that helps some Gambia communities. We did book sorting, separating children's, middle school, high school and college books. I had flashbacks from when I worked at the Amazon fulfilment center, looking at the quality of the books that people have bought and donated.

This weekend Amy is in California for homecoming, so I'll be home having fun with my personal projects. I've worked a little too much last week (including Thursday to Friday when I pretty much was only able to sleep for two blocks of 2 hours to get everything done for an urgent change that was going live on Friday), so I decided that I won't work this weekend. At least not directly; I might do some studying for things that are related to work.

There are a couple of news that I found interesting and wanted to share and enrich people's life (as I can't do that by myself):

UK Female Sci-Fi Viewers Now Outnumber Males - This is a little depressing, actually, for two reasons: first the reason for it is the popularity of Buffy, Lara Croft and Xena. There are so many better things to watch! The second is that if these shows made the difference it means that the better things are watched very little! Quite sad.

'Splogs' Roil Web, and Some Blame Google - This article is not that interesting per se, but I liked it just because it continues to show how much Google influences the web. Its behavior (and misbehavior) define how professional web developers (spammers are pretty much the definition of it) deal with the web. Amazing power!

Alright, time to go and have some time for myself. I'll stay away from birds and enjoy it.