Filed under: General Thoughts
Convocation is coming up in a very short time, and I’m pretty pumped about it. It marks the end of a long, long road, one that should have been shorter than it was. Better late than never is my motto at this point.
Mindless Self-Indulgence (a more fitting band name I cannot imagine) is playing this tuesday, and I’m gonna go see them with a whole horde of friends. I expect bruising, which will be fun.
France is coming closer. There might be some more news there, too, but I’m not 100% (98%?) sure of it.
Simon is kindly sending us to an opera! We’ll be seeing the Flying Dutchman, which is probably going to be really odd. I’ve never been to an opera, so I hope that they don’t have a dress code 
Filed under: General Thoughts
Wow, am I lazy.
I mean, I can chalk it up to being a bit hung over, what with Brady and Mel not leaving til 4 AM this morning, but waking up at noon and realizing that I really don’t have time to go out, jump, and get home…
Bleargh.
I wish I had been a bit wiser, that’s all.
Filed under: General Thoughts
Had a great time with Eric and company at his bachelor party last night. This one won’t win any awards for hardcore crazy times, but that’s more my speed anyway. The entertainments included political snarkery, literary pretensions, laser tag, and Dragonball on the Wii. All of these things are good fun, and really, what would life be like without them?
I did, however, oversleep a bit this morning. I blame the fact that I’ve not topped 6 hours of sleep in any night for around a month, which is probably not doing my body any good whatsoever.
In other news, Mother’s day is coming, and I’m pretty stoked: I remembered! 
Filed under: General Thoughts
Well, shit. Another week, another dry spell on the blog.
Actually, two weeks. My, how time flies…
So, I was in Omaha for a week doing some integration work for the team, taking the opportunity afforded by proximity to get some grotty little details hammered out and hopefully to sell my southern compatriots on the value of the tools we make up here. I think I was successful, but I haven’t heard a lot out of them this week (mainly because I’ve skipped the morning meetings, being disinclined to lean too heavily on the good graces of my carpooling coworker).
This past week…
Well, I’ve got a new respect for (and fear of) character set encodings. And, if you wonder what that means, there’s A) wikipedia and B) wikipedia.
Suffice to say it’s hellish, but I believe that the end is nigh. I think I’ve got the very worst of it nailed, and I hope to be on to something less nightmarish next week.
Filed under: General Thoughts
Zero
Nil
Zip
Nada
Null
Void
I’m done.
Filed under: General Thoughts
… days left in my degree.
This fills me with both apprehension and joy; the latter is for obvious reasons, the former is because the desire to get into school and the drive to finish it have been a major part of my life for the last decade. Who and/or what will I be, now that this goal has been achieved?
Time will tell.
Filed under: General Thoughts, Internet and Media
This is a bit of a catch-all posting; I’ve been entertained by a few of the things I’ve seen recently, enraged by others, and figured I would pass on a few tidbits.
Seen on thursday evening in a restaurant: A little boy, probably a bit over one year old, starts to do that high-pitched attention-getter crying bit, and after a token effort at calming him by his father, the mother pulls out a portable DVD player and sets it up on the table so that he can watch a TV show and shut the hell up.
Overheard this morning in a Starbucks: A couple having coffee together, both looking modern, professional, and stereotypically ‘starbucky’… Talking about playing online RPGs, power-leveling, and gold farming.
In the news: A film, Fitna, that is — as do so many things these days — enraging the religious of the eastern world to the point of sputtering threats. Please note, “The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”
Filed under: General Thoughts, Media and Science
Okay, that title bears little, if any, relation to the content of this post. This post consists mainly of a pointer to this wonderful critique of the underdog narrative in science journalism, found by way of Slashdot.
I’ve never given it the attention it deserves, obviously, but science reporting in the popular media — from the news outlets to the movies — is pretty bad. Cinema is especially guilty of portraying the scientific establishment as a repressive overmind bent on quashing any threat to some imagined orthodoxy, and popular science writing isn’t a lot better.
I hope you enjoy the article.
Filed under: General Thoughts
My turn, I guess.
For some reason, today, I’m just… irritable and tired.
Tomorrow I’m sure I’ll be fine, but only if my work laptop isn’t still being a bucket of cocks. It’s been that kind of day.
Filed under: General Thoughts
It’s rare that I see something that makes me feel like we technonerds are doing unqualifiedly good things for the world.
So, I’d like to thank Dean Kamen for just… doing good things.
Posted on May 31st, 2008 by Chris
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