Programming, Poker, and Politics. Just Another voice in the electronic wilderness
September 30, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I really hate days where one thing after another goes wrong. It’s hard to maintain a decent attitude under an onslaught of annoying tiny problems when you really want to work on the big projects on your plate.
Today was one of those days and it really got to me. I don’t like not liking my job and career but that’s where I ended up today. Blargh.
Some days are just bad days. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.
Categories: Personal
September 25, 2009 at 12:22 pm
I just updated the carrier file in my iPhone and now have MMS turned on. Now I need to find someone I know who has MMS as well to try it out. 
Categories: Personal
September 21, 2009 at 10:13 am
Don’t point two different versions of Drupal at the same database. Bad, confusing things happen that take hours to track down.
Categories: Computing
September 19, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I’ve been using dual-monitor setups for something 6 or 7 years now. I got my first set at NIEHS when I worked there. I thought it would suck since I was moving from a single 21″ CRT to dual 19″ LCDs, but I quickly got used to it and really liked the additional real estate. One of the first things I did when I moved to Duke was get permission to buy a dual monitor setup for my office. I even bought a cheap used 12080×1024 17″ LCD to attach to my laptop at home.
I never expected to find myself feeling monitor envy at my dad, of all people. I’m the computer geek in the family, dangit! He’s training to do stock trading and decided he needed more screen to get all the information he wants at his fingertips. About a month ago, he went out and bought the equipment he needed and this is the result:
He’s using a Matrox TripleHead2Go device to drive the three extra monitors and built the stand holding the monitors himself. I think he used 1″ square steel tubing.
I now officially have monitor envy for my dad!
September 16, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Every time I see one of these videos I end up staring slackjawed at the screen. I can’t imagine myself ever holding an equivalently outrageous sign up in protest to a Republican president. These images stun me every time I see them.
Even worse, I’m becoming cynical about whether any kind of real conversation can happen between people like me and people like the folks in this video. The conversations I’ve had with folks like this I know personally have not gone well. I think I need to spend more time studying Sen. Al Franken’s techniques for communicating.
EDIT: Removed portion of text regarding the title that I can remove. (5:02pm)
Categories: Politics
September 13, 2009 at 2:07 am
I’ve had an iPhone for a few weeks now and am really enjoying it. Tonite I discovered an app for letting me post to my blog from my phone and couldn’t resist trying it out.
Categories: Computing
August 23, 2009 at 6:22 pm
You know you’re behind the times when Mexico does something in the “Drug War” before you do.
Mexico enacted a controversial law Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging free government treatment for drug dependency.
The law sets out maximum “personal use” amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution when the law goes into effect Friday.
The U.S. needs to follow Mexco’s lead on this. The “Drug War” is a failure that has helped corrupt our police forces, filled our prisons with non-violent offenders, and created a self-sustaining prison industrial complex that now lobbies to maintain and increase their “industry” at any cost.
Categories: Politics
July 17, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Sometime recently I noticed a change int he way the ‘Mark all as read’ button works in Google Reader. I used to be able to press it, have all the articles in the listing marked as read, and then go back and hit ‘m’ to set one or a few of them back to ‘unread’ mode so I could catch them later.
Yesterday, I tried to do that only to find that the ‘m’ key stopped working on all those articles and the ‘keep unread’ check box was gone from the bottom of each article so there is no way to make a ‘Mark all as read’ article ‘unread’ anymore. How frustrating.
I don’t know why Google added this behaviour, but it sure is annoying and I’d like them to fix it.
Categories: Computing, Miscellaneous
July 12, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Yesterday, in a speech in Ghana, President Obama said (emphasis mine):
America has a responsibility to work with you as a partner to advance this vision, not just with words, but with support that strengthens African capacity. When there’s a genocide in Darfur or terrorists in Somalia, these are not simply African problems — they are global security challenges, and they demand a global response.
And that’s why we stand ready to partner through diplomacy and technical assistance and logistical support, and we will stand behind efforts to hold war criminals accountable. And let me be clear: Our Africa Command is focused not on establishing a foothold in the continent, but on confronting these common challenges to advance the security of America, Africa and the world.
In Moscow, I spoke of the need for an international system where the universal rights of human beings are respected, and violations of those rights are opposed. And that must include a commitment to support those who resolve conflicts peacefully, to sanction and stop those who don’t, and to help those who have suffered. But ultimately, it will be vibrant democracies like Botswana and Ghana which roll back the causes of conflict and advance the frontiers of peace and prosperity.
President Obama, you say America stands ready to help African nations hold their war criminals accountable, but you aren’t willing to investigate the war criminals we have here in the United States. I speak of former President Bush and former Vice President Cheney. Pres. Obama, your administration has shamefully pursued the same extravegant powers of detention and surveillance that Pres. Bush and V.P. Cheney instituted during their administration and continues to obstruct all attempts in our courts and in Congresss to investigate these illegal programs and bring them into the light. You’ve failed to uphold your promises for increased transparency in and bring changes to the Federal government.
Now, we’ve learned there are more secret programs under operation by the CIA. What will you do with these? Will you bring them into the light and help reform them, or will you let them stay in the dark?
I was so hopeful whenyou took office that we would see a real change in our government. I’m deeply saddened and frustrated by your continued support of Bush-era policies and government positions. I believed you were a better man than you’ve shown yourself to be.
Edit: Updated spelling in title
Categories: Politics
June 27, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Well, I have a few minutes downtime when I’m not totally exhausted so I can write something here, finally. I had plans to do a daily post sharing my impressions of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into delivering all the GA website reporting and video streaming. That plan crumbled upon contact with GA. I actually did write an outline draft for the first day, but haven’t gone back to it and haven’t jotted anything down since.
GA, as usual, has been a wonderful, energizing, stressful, joyful, fun, event. I need to fine a way to do my job and have enough time/energy left over to write about it.
I’m very pleased with how the live streaming is going. We are getting lots of comments back about it and most are good. Some folks are having problems and we are trying to fix things for them. The file capture for later on-demand viewing is having some problems and we are working through them as well. My team of videographers are doing a bang up job of taping workshops and other events, ripping the tapes, and getting them ready for upload. I’m very proud of them.
More later!
Categories: Miscellaneous
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