Random Non-Sequiters and Quiet Weekends

» Rainy days this weekend. They suit my mood.

Saturday I got a haircut. I had been letting my hair grow out a bit. It had been a few years since I'd let it go long for a couple months.

Presently at work, I've only been having to deal with a handful of people on any regular basis, so the clean cut office thing wasn't really an issue. Seemed like a good time to play around and do a more artist type thing. However, there are some changes going on at work, depending on how things work out, possibly even good, at the worst, probably no worse than ok. In anycase-- changes, so the return of office-hair me.

On that work change front, right now it's just org boxes on a page. The structure looks sound, but I've been in that building long enough to know that boxes on a page are only as good as the drive of the people that they fill them with and the backing of the people that live on the chart in the boxes above those people. In an organization of the size of the one that employs me, change has a way of being naturally countered no matter how positive it's direction. Like water, the organization will seek it's historical level unless the change agents are active and persistent. So we'll see in a few months how it sorts out.

» On non-work fronts. Still very impressed by Twitter. Although I've participated infrequently in Tweetups in the area, the whole Tweetup concept is fascinating to study. Twitter is managing to take the network effects of the internet into realspace in a way that although concentrated in the early adopters right now, may very well break through to the mainstream soon. The internet via Twitter seems poised to begin organizing real world activity in a meaningful way soon.

That might be a good thing too, in the personal if not theoretical sense. Very good friends of mine that hold a majority stake in my evening socialization may be moving out of the area soon. If that happens I may very well need to take more advantage of the internet's new found ease at organizing realspace interaction :)

» Really enjoyed the Caprica, pilot. There is a core concept at the center of the episode that deals with if something appears for all intents and purposes to be the thing it is, is that thing then in fact the thing it is. Or put differently, if it talks like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck, is it not in fact a duck. One character argues this point in the affirmative, the other in the negative, and I find it fascinating how it's made me look at people and their behavior from the Daniel Greystone (Eric Stoltz) point of view, when in fact I think I would be more closely aligned with Joseph Adams.

I do not believe things are what they are because of the way they appear or act. Those are important aspects, but there are other concepts much more ephemeral and based in words, interpretation, and an understanding of motive and drive that are just as important to a thing's definition than what can be gleaned from it's physical manifestations. Yet I still find Stoltz character's argument compelling and hope the series turns out to be just as probing as this first episode installment.

Here's a scene where the two lead character's discuss the authenticity of a computer recreation of one of their daughters.

But what if they could come back

There's an axiom in my business, "A difference that makes no difference, is no difference." She looks like Zoe, she talks like Zoe, she thinks like Zoe, remembers all the events of her childhood, has all the same likes, dislikes, flaws, strengths, all of it. Who's to say her soul wasn't copied, too?

>> >You can't copy a soul.

And you would know that how? Hmm? How can you prove or disprove that idea?

>>>Look, I know what I know, okay? And I know you can't copy a person.

I know that she's my daughter. I know that she is my daughter, and I know it in the only place that matters. Here. The only difference between her and the Zoe that lived in this house is just that. She lived in this house instead of a virtual world. I want to bring her here. Joseph, I want her to live in this world once more. I want to hold her in my arms, and I want to kiss her, and I want her to feel the sun shine on her face. I want her to see the flowers at the side of the road, Joseph.

» Ubuntu came out with version 9 of it's OS and it also came out with the netbook book edition of the same. The netbook edition will run from a flash drive there are some instructions on how to do that here. I have downloaded the image and I think I may run up to Meijer to get a 2Gb stick to install it on and test it out (you could do it on a 1GB stick but as I mentioned last week, those are harder to come by). I may get some gummy bears too, while I'm at it.

I want to hear your

Let's Go Surfing

» Neat looking idea for a laptop sleeve. Of course in this color it looks a little like a shamwow.

» Boostcam.com instant disposable two-way video conferencing.

» Make CSS corners.

» I need to stop liking shows, because apparently when I like a show, they get cancelled. dollhouse, Sarah Conner Chronicles In that spirit, let me say that I hate ;) Better Off Ted.

» I'd love to see Pushing Daisies' Brian Fuller do a new Star Trek TV Series. I'm guessing they'll do a couple more movies before they pull the trigger on a new TV show though. I'm guessing that once the Live Action Star Wars show hits, they won't be able to resist fielding a Star Trek TV Show.

» do you use Google Calendar? You might find this Grminder Windows Task Tray App useful

» Another X-Men reboot? X-Men First Class. Hopefully not but Hollywood is starting to like rehashing the same property in quick succesion now.

» Winsplit Revolution is a great little utility that will make managing the placement of your multiple windows on your large monitor a breeze

» Youtube has Hulu-fied itself somewhat and thy now have a full tv show section. Most of it is pretty lame but there are some interesting picks like: The Tick.

» Pastehtml.com is a tinypaste type of site for publishing HTML real quick.

» Google Code University

» How to spot Quality Web Design. Most of these types of articles are a dime a dozen but this one's not bad.

» Fairly intricately photo-illustrated almost porn NSFW.

I want to hear your

Green Lantern Animated Trailer

» Green Lantern Trailer from a couple week's back.

Ok, here's where I go a little fanboy on this film.

White gloves. They should have kept the white gloves. Besides straying too far from the costume by ditching them, you also lose something in metaphor. I'm really bummed by the lack of white gloves.

Abin Sur looking more alien. A friend of mine suggested that making him look more alien helps distinguish him from Sinestro and makes it less confusing that they are not of the same species. Eh, I don't think it's a big deal really if someone gets a little confused by that.

Sinestro in the Yellow Lantern Corp Costume. Without seeing the movie, this and the other costume touches make it look like the film is borrowing heavily from current continuity. Not sure if that's going to work well in a stand alone film.

Sigh, I really liked New Frontier. Here's hoping that despite the overly contemporary visuals that this cartoon doesn't disappoint.

This DVD get's released on July 21, 2009.

I want to hear your

Let's Go Surfing

» LG has some really amazing television advancements. Give these a look.

» Saw on the internets.

» Very Cool >Outdoor Office Pod.

» Live Text to Speech web page reads your words as you type them. I do not see many uses for the average person for this. But it's neat.

» Boks is an Adobe Air app that makes creating CSS grid configurations easy. It seems a little confusing at first, but if you watch their demo videos it's really easy to use.

» Some really nice Nightwing as Batman costume designs over at Project Rooftop. I like the one below. But there are about a dozen others.

» Want to talk with someone? Omegle.com is a chat server for talking to completely random strangers. You go to the site, you hit a button, and you are talking with a completely random stranger. And odd idea really.

» I want one of these Chairs that turn into a messenger bag. It even has a drink holder. Nice.

» Bid Flyer is an interesting visual way to look at eBay listings. But not a terribly efficient way to shop the site.

» StripMail is a neat little stand alone no-install Windows application that can be used to strip out all those extra characters in forwarded emails.

» Liquid Rescaler Plugin for Gimp. Look at this article to understand how seam carving resizing works

» The Libgrary of Congress has a Youtube Channel

» Mark Waid post on the Triangle Rule Talent, personality, ability to hit a deadline.

» Bumptop is a really cool "replacement" for your Windows desktop (I put replacement in quotes because it doesn't really replace it so much as it runs ontop of it.) Take a look at the video on this Engadget article. Here's an article about it on Mashable too.

I've been using it for a week. and I like it. It's sort of a novelty, but it there are somethings about it that just make working with your files more natural too.

» I've been digging the new color filter feature of Google Image Search.

» Want to make long articles on the web easier to read? Try Readability. It is a bookmarklet that you save and when you are on a web page, you click it and it represents the page in a very clean stripped down simplified way. Also great to use before coping and pasting large chunks of a web page too.

I want to hear your

You get a twitter account and you get a twitter account and you get a twitter account...

#oprahday

I want to hear your

Size Matter

Yesterday I got a good deal on a 7” digital picture frame at Meijer.

Here's my plan. I want to make a few collections of photos and text to play in the frame. I figure the best way to do this is to Make my slides in Open Office Impress and export to JPEGS. Since the native resolution of the monitor is only 480x234. I also resized my JPEGs for that resolution. That gives me a JPEG of a file size between 15K and 25K. Tiny little files.

Today I went looking for a few SD cards for the frame. Figuring the best way to store my little shows would be on individual cards I could pop in and out as needed. By my math I should be able to fit 131,072 25K Jpegs on a 256 Meg card. That should be more than I need, but i figure I'm unlikely to find a card smaller than that so I hit a couple stores.

I was surprised to discover that 2Gb is the new bottom end in USB sticks and SD cards. (Sure a couple stores still had some 1Gb ones, but those were basically the same price as 2Gb) 2Gb is enough memory for 1,048,576 at the resolution of my picture frame. A million slides is just a little bit bigger than the number of slides I was planing on buying.

Basically in this case, a 2Gb card is like buying a Hummer to take your trash out to the curb. it's a little over kill. And while the 2Gb cards can be had for $8 or so on average. Even, 256 megs is overkill for my purposes.

If 2Gb=$8, can't I get a 256 meg card for $1 then? seems like I should be able too, but alas, 2 Gb appears to be the new small at $8, and it does not look like my search for a small trivial priced SD card I can buy a stack of will be accomplished (although I may try a dollar store next week.).

I want to hear your

Let's Go Surfing

» vattoz.com. Search for Music, add to playlist, shuffle or straight play!. Even share your playlist with others with a link. Crazy slick. Takes fizy.com to the next level and may become one of my new favorite services.

» Cardboard stand turns iPhone into a scanner I think I need to make the same thing for my camera. Slick.

I want to hear your

Let's Go Surfing

» I would buy one of these Clever vehicles if priced less than a car.

» Grant Morrison writing a Watchmen-esk Earth Four Book, featuring the Charlton characters the Watchmen were based off of. Normally Morrison DC doesn't work for me, but I could see this working.

» Won't be long now until we will be recording and streaming our lives 24/7.

» Wal-E/Watchmen Movie Trailer Mash-up.

» Astro Boy Trailer. Meh.

» Conference.io is an interesting real time, media sharing/group conference chatroom. Read about it in this Mashable Article.

» Hooray for tiny little computers. Mintpad

» Checkout this Shop Savy program for Android. Definetly the future of shopping.

» Google Docs got a drawing module added a week or so ago. It's pretty cool.

» Iron Man vs. Bruce Lee. View the video at the link.

» Iron Man Teen animated theme song. Lame on too many levels to even go into.

I want to hear your

On April 1st, I chronicled my very strange experience all day on Twitter. Here is the account. Times are approximate.

• Just arrived in Florida
about 6am

• Flickr: karathc posted a photo: Too Early

about 6am

• Weather is beautiful 73 deg and Clear
about 6am

• Flickr: karathc posted a photo:I'm here!

about 7am

• Flickr: karathc posted a photo: Decided just to have this today. I figure it's appropriate.

about 7am

• Flickr: karathc posted a photo:Very Cool!

about 7am

• Getting fitted into my flightsuit now. Don't care for the orange.
about 8am

• We're walking down the gantry now. I have Right Stuff soundtrack on my iPod. This would be so badass if it wasn't for the orange.
about 8am

• Strapped into my seat now!
about 8am

• Really regretting drinking all that tang awhile ago. Really regretting that.
about 9am

• Buzz says we're already in the pre-flight countdown and I can't leave my seat. I've explained the Tang. He's being a dick about this.
about 9am

• ahhhh.... feel better now. Also feel happier about and understand now why flightsuits are orange. (Buzz still a dick.)
about 9am

• Flickr: karathc posted a photo: Ready for Launch

about 9am

• Currently playing this on my iPod
Link to David bowie - Flight Control to Major Tom MP3
about 9am

• Buzz says my singing is making it too hard to hear Mission Control. Tom doesn't think song is funny says he's a Captain not a major.
about 9am

• Flight suit warm/damp. Just all around uncomfortable in here. (Buzz AND Cpt. TOM! - both being dicks.)
about 9am

• Stewardess says I have to turn off all electronic devices and stop tweeting now.
about 9am

• Excuuuuuussssseeee Me. Not Stewardess... "Science Mission Specialist" Lisa Nowack. Everyone so touchy about their titles here.
about 9am

• karathc has posted a video: Here We Go!!!!!!

about 10am

• Arrrrrrrhgggggggghhhhhhgggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!
about 10am

• "Science Mission Spc" Lisa informs me that even though we are in space... yes in fact they can hear that. Buzz and Cpt. Tom more pissed.
about 10am

• @suckahpunch I've been informed by Cpt. Tom that my hotel will also have a docking station.
about 10am (in reply to suckahpunch tweet about their being an iPod dock in her Hotel Room)

• @kuteykat Science Mission Spc Lisa is only 5'8" & is very imposing esp when I was tweets during liftoff 5' 9" isn't short for a girl at all
about 10am

• @kuteykat Oh, misread that... it's the no gravity... it makes you lightheaded.
about 11am

• Flickr: karathc posted a photo: Suck it Sara Palin, I can see Russia too!

about 11am

• Lunch. This is what we are having for dessert. EXCITED!

about 11am

• I've been told we should arrive at the moon base at 1pm
about 11am

• there are several buttons in this cabin explicitly marked "Chris do not push" Feeling condescended too.
about 12pm

• @PackardGoose Completely different Buzz. Oddly though this Buzz's voice sounds exactly like Tim Allen.
about 12pm

• Flickr: karathc posted a photo: Hooray! the Moon Station!

about 12pm

• Sooo happy I entered that Gemini Croquette Contest and won this trip. I think it's going to be fun. I hope there is a pool!
about 12pm

• Stewar... er, uh Mission Specialist Lisa says we are beginning our descent now. No Tweeting. More later.
about 1pm

• Flickr: karathc posted a photo: This place does not look like what I thought it would. I was hoping mor..

about 2pm

• They gave me a little communicator-like cellphone. Note to self: Buzz gets pissed when you talk into it and call him Scotty.
about 2pm

• There are some strange "pods" here. there's movement, seems to be alive. Cpt. Tom seems concerned. Meh, I'm going to go find the pool.
about 3pm

• @TheUniques I kindof miss my apt right now, this moon station is sort of a dump. there are exhaust vents every 10 feet. bleh.
about 3pm

• Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
about 3pm

• No pool. So upset. Dropping my luggage off at my room. Better have cable.
about 3pm

• Cpt. Tom called me and then all I heard was gasping and screeching noises. Cell reception sucks here.
about 3pm

• Tried calling Lisa and Buzz, neithr picking up. Keep hearing clawing & scratching noises in ceiling. I think this station might have rats.
about 4pm

• @chadvw Mission Specialist Lisa is only Woman up here. She's all business, And she's only 5'8". Buzz and Tom are former AF, I'm probably ok.
about 4pm (This was in reference to chadvw suggesting that I was likely to get "face raped")

• been getting fail whale alot up here, might miss messages.
about 4pm

• Flickr: karathc posted a photo: Oh Fu-- Fu-- Fu-- that was not a rat, what the Fu-- WAS that!

about 4pm

• running thru hallways... all look to same... got to get back to ship... that was not a rat. I'm never eating Gemini Croquettes again!
about 4pm

• oh my god, I just passed Cpt Tom, Buzz & Lisa, or what's left of them, I think I'm going to hurl. the aliens r in the ceiling gaining on me
about 4pm

• oh kay oh kay At the ship now
about 4pm

• oh god-- I can hear them at the hatch
about 4:30pm

• trying the autopilot computer. Boot damn it boot
about 4:30pm

• YES!!! Heuristic Automated Logistics online! "Computer launch! take-off! blast-off.! Whatever!!!!!!"
about 4:30pm

• Computr keeps saying: "Sorry Dave I can't do that?" Who is Dave? Im Chris, who the hell is Dave? Oh God.- they've broken through the hatch--
about 4:30pm

--END TRANSMISSION--
about 4:40pm

I want to hear your