Tuesday, May 27, 2003

While archiving old e-mail at work, I came across this poem I wrote last year. It's a filk of my favorite poem, High Flight.

Ode to Sun
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Bill
And danced the wires on UNIX-silvered wings;
SUNward I've climbed, and joined the whirling mill
Of SPARC-filled rooms--and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of--multitasked and served with RAID
High in the 64-bit silence. Secure in my abode
I've chased the shouting users along, and made
My eager CLI grep footless lines of code.
Up, up in the long, delirious kernel stack
I've done a billion MIPS with easy grace,
Where never Jobs, or even Groves could hack--
And while with silent lifting mind, I've sought
The high untresspassed sanctity of the datacenter,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of Scott.

Posted by Keeper @ 10:08 AM CST [Link]

Monday, May 19, 2003

I overheard the following conversation coming from two rows over:

Guy's voice: "Hey--I wanted to talk to you about a user installing Oracle Server on their computer."

Heavily accented asian lady's voice: "WHAT?! HE DO WHAT?!"

Guy: "Yeah, apparently he's installed it and he's doing his own database stuff."

Heavily accented asian lady: "WHAT?! HOW HE DO IT?! HOW HE GET THE ORACLE?!"

Guy: "I'm not sure."

Heavily accented asian lady: "OH MY GOD! HOW HE GET THE ORACLE?! HOW HE GET THE ORACLE?!"

She got more and more frantic, and then they both went, presumably to find out how they got the Oracle. I was giggling with barely-suppressed mirth. There's just something so cool about listening to a heavily accented asian lady's voice, shrieking about HOW HE GET THE ORACLE?!?!

Posted by Keeper @ 03:45 PM CST [Link]

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

Blog, blog, blog. I've just been informed in e-mail that there is at least one person who reads this silly thing, so I suppose I had better go about updating it or something.

The Mustang has been sold to Carmax, and I am now in my brother's silver 1998 Accord. It's nice and all, but I do miss those extra four cylinders. However, as a sort of consolation prize, the Accord has a pair of twelve inch kickers in the trunk in some kind of enclosure-box thingy. I couldn't quote you any specifications about the amps or the gigs or whatever, but I can tell you that the stereo is actually capable of moving the car in lieu of the engine. When I crank the music up, every hair on my body vibrates with the music. At certain frequencies of bass, it's impossible to speak because the air vibrates on the same frequency as your voice, or something. It's pretty cool. I could probably induce a heart attack if a weak-chested individual were to sit in the back seat.

I got another 80GB drive a few weeks back, bringing my total HDD space up to 160GB, and my crap has immediately ballooned to fill most of the available space. Pathetic, but true. One hundred and sixty gigabytes in a home computer is a terrifying number--even two years ago, I would not have been able to conceive of having so much space. Turning the wheel a bit further back, I remember when I was in eleventh grade and I got "Wing Commander III", which came on four CDs, and I was totally blown away that I was able to hold almost THREE GIGABYTES of data in my hand.

Ha. Three gigabytes is nothing. I have .ini files bigger than that!

Lately, I have been overtaken with an obsession for Strongbad & Pals. I can occasionally be heard walking down the hallways at work singing the Trogdor song. Fortunately, my wife shares this obsession, so we can throw strange quotes at each other and then break up into fits of uncontrollable laughter.

Oh, speaking of my brother--even though that was like four paragraphs ago--he managed to call home last week with a status update, and he was even able to tell us where he is! His group (101st Airborne, 2nd Batallion) is currently hanging out in Mosul. They'd participated in several combat operations involving the taking of a series of bridges to the south of Bagdhad, although he said that he has not had to kill anyone or even fire his weapon at a person, which is comforting. I had been worried about what might have happened to him if he had actually had to harm or kill anyone, but it looks as if he might get out without having to do so. That's good. My mother was understandably relieved.

Speaking of my mother, I took my mommy out for sushi yesterday, and much fun was had by all. She and my father are working like crazy on the house, which is now on the market to be sold because my dad has a new job in Phoenix. They've already bought a new house out there and they'll probably be moving in October or so. They've lived in Houston for longer than I've been alive, so it's a sad thing, but you gotta go where your job takes you.

Posted by Keeper @ 02:49 PM CST [Link]

Wednesday, May 7, 2003

So I've started using Mozilla as my primary browser. Apart from rebellious feelings of rebellion at not using the Browser of Evil (never mind the fact that I'm still using the Operating System of Evil), there really hasn't been too much of an improvement. Still, it's the thought that counts.

Tabbed browsing zealots would have you believe that tabbed browsing is cooler than a Lion Voltron/Spaceship Voltron crossover episode, but do not believe their lies. Tabbed browsing is neat and all, but speaking as someone who basically opens every new link in a new window anyway, it's not the end-all-be-all of my existence. It makes for a more organized browsing experience, but I still get annoyed when I shift-click on something and instead of opening it a new window, Mozilla pops up the "Save as..." dialog box.

I am annoyed that the switch tab keyboard shortcuts are on the other bloody side of the keyboard from where my left hand usually rests. I can alt-tab, ctrl-tab, and cut/copy/paste without really moving my left hand, but having to swing it all the way the hell over the keyboard to ctrl-pgup and ctrl-pgdn is a ctrl-painintheass. I end up clicking on the tabs to navigate, and that's very non-1337. The fact that the tabs to not behave like windows in their focus-order (i.e., closing one tab brings the tab immediately below it into view, instead of the last-clicked tab) wouldn't be so bad if there were a way to rearrange the tabs, but there's not. Feh.

Mouse gestures are bloody useless. It's nearly impossible to execute them with enough speed to compete with a quick keyboard shortcut. I can smack "backspace" quicker than I can mouse-gesture the "back" motion. I can even drag my left hand the hell across the keyboard and ctrl-pgup/dn faster than I can switch tabs with mouse gestures.

Perhaps my problem is that I've become so close to the human interface guidelines violations of Windows that I depend on those violations. In any case, Mozilla is an annoying adjustment.

I am going to James Coney Island for lunch. My intestines are already trembling in fear.

Posted by Keeper @ 10:46 AM CST [Link]

Friday, May 2, 2003

I was standing in Massurah's cubicle a few minutes ago and we were discussing that most weighty and important of matters--where to go for lunch. The conversation was meandering and I mentioned that I sometimes wish that I had a pet; I grew up with pets and I sometimes miss having them. I mentioned this to Massurah, and he said that having pets is fun, but you have to take care of them--clean up poop, take them outside and to the vet, feed them, and a whole bunch of other crap. I nodded, remembering how awful emptying a litterbox can be and how much I hated taking a dog outside on a bombing run.

I then suggested that it would be awesome if I could have some kind of robot pet--one that would be just as wonderful and cuddly as a real pet, but not have any actual needs of its own. That way, it would be playful and happy 100% of the time and would never need to be fed or treated for anything, or whatever. Massurah said that would be a great idea, right up to the point where the robot pet goes insane and tries to kill me. I responded that my robot pet would have a hardwired kill-switch on it that I would toggle, and then I would throw its lifeless robot body in the dumpster. Then Massurah instructed me to envision the body of my fluffy robot dog buried in the dumpster later that night, as its eyes begin glowing red and it switches over to backup emergency power, and it heaves itself up out of the trash and begins shambling toward my front door, intent on my destruction.

Maybe a robot pet wouldn't be such a good idea. Why do robots always have to go insane?!

Posted by Keeper @ 10:12 AM CST [Link]