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Day by Day: Seriously, wtf squiddy
Fri, 13 Jun 2008

Swiped from here

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Day by Day: A question for transvestites
Fri, 28 Mar 2008

So I was standing at the line in a shop at 7am this morning, and a few people up the queue I noticed a gentleman wearing a pretty nice, if effeminate fur coat. He stood out since of course fur coats are on the out, he had a kindly face sporting an enormous hillbilly beard, and had naked legs sticking out the bottom of the coat despite the -6 degree weather. I suppose its much like the Muscle Mary communities -- you could be gay and casually dressed, or you could be leather studded hardcore right ouf of D&D. You could be a transvestite dressed for the weather, or one with (hopefully) a skirt on under that dead bear.

But its the beard -- if you're trying so hard to dress like a woman, lose* the beard dude :)

* Not that I have anything against beards (or our dear tranny friends, in case you think I'm a bore). Just unibomber ones.

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Day by Day: Do we really need anti-virus applications?
Mon, 17 Mar 2008

Certainly, it has been a crazy month. We've been setting up to sell our house, meaning week after week of packing and moving to storage, repainting this or thats, posing like Stallone while using a caulking gun, and so on. All of these things take precisely 6.348 times longer with a toddler around. We set a date to receive offers on (obviously in the hopes of getting more than one and inducing fisticuffs in the front yard), so hopefully tonight we actually do get an offer and can stop living in a museum..

Oh, our little girl is more than one year old now, and her birthday party (out at a restaurant since our house is trying to be preserved) was awesome :)

Anyway, things will continue to be busy here for a few weeks I'm sure.

A question comes to mind as McAfee notifies me that it is time to renew. (And with them one must be very careful to check if it really is time .. they are highly predatory and nearly evil in their customer relation practices in my opinion. But thats another topic..) The question is -- do we really need to run an A-V application all the time? Obviously, kiddies (or parents of) heading to their favourite .ru pr0n site need many kinds of protection. Computer newbies.. yep. Corporate machines.. check and check. But I'm talking about myself -- I'm not eyeballing bukkake sites, and don't use a GUI mail reader that auto-explodes virii, and know enough about which files to open or not open.. and usually do that sort of thing on a unix box anyway. A-V applications tend to kick up and burn cpu/network at the most annoying times, and certainly blow away a lot of RAM all the time. I don't recall seeing McAfee pop up in the last 2-3 years and report that its intercepted anything bad on its way to my disks.

But of course with security its always advisable to post your guards, since the enemy only needs to attempt to get in once.. you need guards all the time. But.. really, in this environment of Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt that the retailers emit we should use our brains to evaluate our needs, rather than our gutt instincts. I'm naturally a little cautious and paranoid especially with all my source code and so on.. but still. I hate these extortionist A-V companies.

And its a Monday and I can't type for crap.

Oh, and for a great read about the origin of the Atari ST, hit this up

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Day by Day: Just a question..
Wed, 13 Feb 2008

How much paper is in a tree, anyway? And can we modify a Windows print driver so that it can thus calculate and display the tree 'body count' of a print job?

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Dayphil: Alright, so should it be law if no one understands it?
Thu, 31 Jan 2008

I'm sure we've all had the same thought -- people generally want to be honest and hard working, and part of that is doing the right and ethical thing within a society; but a society has laws (which may or may not be ethical in foundation). And laws are there partly to codify what the averageman believes in, partly to promote the party line for the future, and other trickery. But as we've all heard.. sometimes you do not know if you are breaking the law or not, until an action is tested.. in court. But that is a high stakes game since in losing, you could be fined or go to prison.

So how can a society have a legal system so convoluted and impenetrable, that specialists are needed to attempt to comprehend it and yet still not know the outcome of a series of actions? How can people live their lives in a system where they do not know the laws, nor how to interpret them. We just live, and as good and decent people assume the law is on our side.

But isn't that odd? Dieing to defend a society with laws and ethics we don't understand the implications of?

How the heck did that happen anyway?

I suppose back in the day, farmer logic was law and it surely didn't make a lot of sense. But at least it was the 'common sense' (or rule by might, which is well understood too.)

hmrf.

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Quote: This one stands on its own
Fri, 25 Jan 2008

The best thing to do when you're already in a deep hole is to stop digging.

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Life: Must.Chill.
Thu, 24 Jan 2008

I'm a pretty laid back fella. It takes a lot to get a rise out of me.

I should make a New Years Resolution though -- it would be prudent to avoid writing emails or making decisions in the morning after a sleepless night. Those all-too frequent crazy nights damage ones calm.

I mean .. I think of late I have been snappy, and probably complain about sleep dep too much. Ah well. Shit happens :)

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Resolutions: New Years 2008
Fri, 11 Jan 2008

I overheard someone talking about their resolutions and it reminded me that I'd forgotten to set some new ones this year. I rather liked what I overheard though.. things like: Gain more weight, watch more movies, make fun of the man. Awesome!

My goal for the year is really just one thing -- gain some balance. This last year was of course wonderous but challenging. I'd like to get more sleep even if sleeping in is gone for the next decade (you listening Little G?), catch some TV and movies and relax. More gaming (woot!). Less reading -- I've been surviving the long nights by reading ebooks.. at least 1-2 a week. I'd really like to lose a bit of weight but not through silly diets .. just shaving off a little here or there, and eating better. Eating different. I've already - yes, truth be told I'm shocked too -- managed to give up cola (and I miss it so!)

Ultimately I want to amuse my young daughter, be a big part of her life and raise and educate her as best as I can. But you can't do it 100% of the time can you?

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Quotes: One from Blade Runner (the film)
Mon, 10 Dec 2007

Apparently another edition is coming out, this time the Real Final Directors Actual Cut, or something. Blade Runner: Final Cut. Of course, so many good lines but near the end one that cannot be missed:

"I don't know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life, anybody's life, my life. All he'd wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was sit there and watch him die."

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News: Ahright, so the US gov't thinks its constituents are stupid.
Sun, 28 Oct 2007

I mean, one can question the Bush administrations motives and efficiency and so-forth (though I don't doubt for a minute Dubyah is actually a bad person; I really do think he is sincere. And a fascist, but I digress.) But when a prominent wing of the government outright attempts to trick the public Orwellian-style, and furthermore actually believes they can get away with it.. the only conclusion one can draw is that they believe the American public is stupid enough to go for it. Or else this stunt was during the World Series so no one would notice. Pretty disgusting if you ask me. This is one administration that needs to facde jail time or serious fines .. anyone else tries to pull those stunts (*cough* Enron) and they're up a creek.

Riddle me this Batman -- why does the word Pacifist include Fist. And Passing one.

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Quotes: One from Black Mage
Thu, 04 Oct 2007

OKay, this is a little gamer-centric so I'll explain. Black Mage sees something stupid in the world, and then exclaims:

I'd cry, but there aren't enough tears.

That riff always makes me laugh. Just like Not yours in Fark or seeing lolkitty or Cliche Kitty.

Aside: Star Wars Lego (For PSP) really does rock. Screw you naysayers!

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Quotes: One from the willy
Mon, 24 Sep 2007

It came up today; it bears repeating:

Cut word lines
Cut music lines
Smash the control images
Smash the control machine.
- William S. Burroughs

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Day by Day: Drive-by machine coma
Thu, 06 Sep 2007

Permit my mind to wander, as it was another night with only a ocuple hours sleep and as all know.. blogging only occurs under sleep deprivation mixed with caffeine.

As distant as they come, every once in awhile a thought enters my head that might be credited to a book read for highschool. I mean, I was never forced to read Moonfleet like so many of my contemporaries, but I was cojolled (greatfully) into Day of the Triffids and Animal Farm and so forth. There was a short story we read in English class .. "The Machine Stops" or somesuch which I thoguht was very slick. Somehow it ties into Ellisons "I have no mouth yet I must scream", but thats just because I am compelled to bring it up. Anyway, as our little girl slowly (quickly!) grows, taking control of her motor functions and studying the amazing details in every day items, I wonder about her future and where its all going..

When up last night voyaging around the quiet depths of semi-sleep I got to thinking about "The Machine Stops" (wherein a society is so utterly dependant upon a computing complex for all of lifes requirements, and it fails, they meet their fellow man face to face for the first time.) and it occurred to me again that our interface to news, to research - and more alarmingly - to friends and family - is through a one way non-social technology. Being the generation that I am, the Matrix generation, the Intertube application-building generation, means that life was so fascinated with the technology as it blew open so many years ago. We geeks lived and breathed this new domain, never questioning the very laconic nature of it all .. we were as gods to a new world, building applications and adopting this newfound openness assuring ourselves it was better, faster, more efficient, more open.. more human despite being electronic. Coding is cool, is power, and half the time.. humanity be damned. We were better. It hit right there .. if it enabled _more_ communication, how could it restrict it? We created the new systems, so how could we be limiting ourselves? We geeks had finally gotten ours -- we were cool, we wore a lot of black, and it was better than microwave ovens (we knew, since it was better than BBSes.) We'd all created communication systems whereby you chat in real time (IM and IRC), or at reader conveniance (email, usenet, websites), and could transcend language, culture or handicap. Technology was full of awesome again.

Naturally, we all figured this would save time. Be more efficient. Or cooler anyway, and that at least came to pass. Like flying cars and civilian jetpacks, efficient and technology will never really come to pass -- we all know that our laptops are faster than ten year old supercomputers, and yet loading up your latest email can take a few seconds. Anyway, all this so-called efficiency is also inbred -- we're better, we're faster, and we're doing more.

Really, humans are better at doing less. I mean, sitting around a fire, going fishing, all these things we tend to frown upon until we do them and remember how appealing they are.. heck, just taking a break to sit out in the sun feels gorramned great Doing more is taking a piece of our humanity away. We're social creatures, not machines. We should be making this technology work more for us and not making us work more. Youtube, flikr and so forth are very enabling and have created whole new aspects to our culture and exchange.. but its really an illusion at control, while we are born and registered, learning from TV and the net, going to school and being marked by technology, and peeing in cups for work. We've both created the illusion of freedom, and taken it away. Fine, its our generations fault, I can deal with it.

But once in awhile I think about my poor daughter who will be hooking into the Great Portal in the not too far off future. She'll be a wonderful and open creature, not yet formed in her minds pathways, ready to absorb so much information. And she'll have a tonne of it, all shovelled into her brain, performatted and predigested.. and unavailable to change. I suppose for children it has always been this way.. but with so much at her fingertips, will she be forced into its way of thinking? Given technology makes our food, provides our transportation, and is the basis for learning.. have all the alternatives simply vanished? I know in my life I've always admired from afar sitting around the campfire and singing. Its not my thing, but I know the option is there. But it is increasingly distant..

Anyway, I'm a tech guy. More than most people, for sure. So it is ironic as a PDA developer I don't trust PDAs; as a well read time management nerd I don't trust time management systems. And as a coder who taps away at a keyboard for every waking moment, to have ideas like this pop into his sleep deprived head at 5am .. is .. well, to be honest, its sleep dep talking :) I mean, we've created this system which in and of itself is not directly harmful, or even backwards .. but are we aware of the future outcome? Just as all this genetic hacking on our food won't prove good or bad for decades after we've all been consuming it. We optimize by statics.. we're all min-maxers now, forever cutting away at the profits and pushing the curve here or there. I've often lamented about the lack of gargoyles on buildings, by which I mean taking the more fun or humoured or human approach to a problem, and not just working the numbers. It is a tragedy of our own making where our society stopped having fun.

The technology costs more than it gives. We always knew this, but know those little blue eyes look up at me, while I type away on my keyboard. And I feal shame for my part that I have wrought.

Course, its not all bleak; we've created much that is cool, and tied people together in new and exciting ways. We've evolved a little as a society. Let us hope that despite my being another number in the great cog my daughter will be more, so much more.

Yeah, like I said, late night thoughts. No need to reply, I know its tripe :)

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Day by Day: Lunch challenge - the oldest restaurant in town?
Mon, 20 Aug 2007

And lets face it.. aren't we always up for a challenge regarding lunch?

The question for today (besides where to post this.. blog? LJ? Facecrack? THAC0.) is simply -- what is the oldest restaurant in your town? Have you eaten there yet?

I really have no answer for Toronto, but several around me suggest The Senator is a candidate. Their webpage suggests it is pretty old (going back to the 40s), but there being a restaurant in the same location going back to 1890's sometime. And I have eaten there as luck would have it.

But it does strike me as a topic worthy of industrious research. McDonalds will never be any good, but an establishment thats been around for 50 or dare-even 100 years.. must be delicious!

(This train of thought comes to mind because I like crusty old pubs, and my daughter is likely now teething out a second pair of biters. When she has 4 teeth, thats got to be enough for steak, right?)

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I blame the New Math
Thu, 26 Jul 2007

I received this today. I know its nerdcore, but I'm posting it anyway.

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Day by Day: Skeequiz -- Prove you grew up in southern Ontario during the 80s!
Wed, 11 Jul 2007

If I had a tagging feature set up, this would be tagged to typed-on-phone-no-wonder-I-have-RSI. Or torture-Phronq.

A flock of crows is called a 'murder' I think, either by dictionairy or by convention I'm not sure which. A flock of seagulls is called a 'mullet' by those of us who remember the 80s. My question today - what is a flock of bills? A squire of bills? A flamming-wallet of bills? I had a witty answer, but in all the effort to type up a blog entry I've forgotten it. Such is the way of my mind. Nomatter, for there are many questions in this tired vessel and you cannot Google for a concept (not yet, my dear Brigadooner)..

I have a quiz for you; how many can you answer?

1) What was that morning cartoon where the characters were all just white line drawings upon a black background? Perhaps French TV Ontario? Does TV Ontario still make really strange little children shows? They were the stuff!

2) The Beachcombers scared us a little when we were young, but then as were turned to adolescence we appreciated the scenery and outdoorsiness. And we were still scared about insestuous river rat folk. Trivia - what was the name of the fellow that Lara Croft would admire? Who was the native.. uh, aboriginal?

3) There was a live action show; I believe the main character was a young boy named Zack. He found a large trunk, or perhaps a piece of luggage? When he climbed inside he found another world..

4) A cartoon featuring a train; living on the train was a girl with a star shaped haircut, and a cat. Name it!

5) There was a animated (puppets) show about Jeremy the (blank)

6) I'm sure many people, not just from southern Ontario will know; (blank) the Hampster. The show featured his pal Geepee the Guineapig inventor. (He invented gadgets, not guineapigs.)

7) Not a question.. I just want everyone to fondly remember Riptide and Boz. Or if you must.. what was the robots name?

8) Do you remember Vision On? Recall the logo that was Visionon in script, mirrored across the horizontal and bouncing away as an insect? Where did this show originate, as its not Canadian!

9) Which show kicked off Commander Mark? What did he draw on every episode? (This one is for Aphyd)

10) What show had a skeleton Mr. Bones, a boot, a girlie shoe? (blank)along!

11) (singing)Its the stories we read about all come to life!(/singing)

12) (blank)On! One episode had a 'vampire' who bit paper, leaving quotation marks.

13) Name the show: (blank) Patrol, where the main character went undercover wearing a kangaroo outfit. (This ones for Tuxedo)

14) Which show had Cosmic Cow? And Monroe, a male character who was raped by two obese women in a bathtub -- ahh, family comedy in the 80s!

Alright, thats enough for now :)

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Day by Day: On Captain America and Life
Thu, 05 Jul 2007

I'm still around, albeit in the mossy-coated way. Without going into details I must repeat it is truly amazing humanity has survived so well on such a flaky process as our reproductive system. The sheer variety of potential complications before, during and after are staggering.

Anyway, I do have a few blog entries written up quick on my phone but never polished and posted so I'll get them up in crap-form soon enough. Taking care of life is a busy thing of late!

One quickie comment though .. when I heard that They were going to kill off the comic superhero Captain America, my brain went through a few permutations and flip-flops until I ended up on - is this a comment on American culture? Are they trying to say that American Idle and its ilk are the top of what is left of a once prosperous and heroic people?

We had visitors from over-seas and a few times the topic of America came up, and I recall saying that despite their flaws Americans are good people. Sure they're stereotypically loud, but at the same time that loudness is often in show of greatness.. that Americans really are raised to want to do good and play Hero, and despite the governments attempts to lock everyone under a shadow of fear, its still a place of innovation where Joe Sixpack can make some goo dmoney.... without resorting to lawsuits. Well, maybe with the lawsuits.

Mind you, I flipped channels past American Inventor last night, a knock-off of the very good Canadian show Dragon's Den. In DD, folks pitch ideas to some rich lads, who bargain and shoot and usually toss the inventor out but sometimes take them under wing.. buy their idea out, buy shares, etc. It makes sense -- a sales pitch, and the rich lads are spending their own money, and actually make some intelligent commentary. Cool stuff. In American Inventor, its yet another 'Idol' type contest where the show can make a pile of money without having to reward but one person, and its really just a show to parade idiots around. They've distilled the slick out of Dragons Den, reducing it to a platform to play George Forman and The Hoff against each other.

So yeah, in this era of Teh Bush, Captain America really has to die.

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Quotes: One from ol' Berty
Sun, 06 May 2007

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

Bertrand Russell

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War: How do you win?
Fri, 20 Apr 2007

They were going on about Iraq on 680 News Radio, and in words upon the CBC and CNN websites so I was stirred to wonder. Apparently another US senator has declared the war in Iraq a loss. Aside from anything else you can say (for or against, and is it a 'war' when it is not nation versus nation, and all that hubbub), it brings up some interesting questions about winning. I mean - How does one, in fact, win a war? Or lose one? What are the criterion? Do the Americans every have a victory condition? (I know in Civilization the game doesn't even begin until I've checked off sed details. Amateurs.)

At first impulse I would say 'taking land over' (since I played Risk a lot as a kid), but obviously that isn't true in the presence of a grass-roots resistance. France lost a lot of land up front in the last great war, but the war itself was on-going. The US "won" the Iraqi ground in a matter of days but akin to Vietnam (I think) and Afghan for the Russians in the past .. winning that battle doesn't end the conflict. The resistance will keep it going. Nation to nation if you grab the land and keep up a presence maybe you've got something, but even then .. the war could last decades so it is difficult to say exactly when the 'win' occurs.

I suppose when the major conflicts are over the military role is nearly complete .. thereafter things are a policing and reorganization matter. Politics. Hopefully people not killing each other. So the US certainly won militarily, but not yet politicly, and not yet socially (surely some natives support the US presence, while many are neutral or against it.) - not yet the war. When you think of war you think of military, but as we all noted years ago at the beginning of this mess, its not really about major battles anymore.

So then, this is what occurred to me when they mentioned all this futz on the radio -- It must be a tough place for the army, to be charged with 'winning the war' when it turns out war really isn't about the military. After all.. if it was it would be easy -- the military could just eliminate the population, and they win. An empty victory. Thankfully we include minimizing destruction and loss of life in the tally. So maybe the senator is correct -- the US is good at winning battles, but a skirmish here or there does not a war make. Is this what happened back in Nam? Did they not learn this crucial element, that knocking over a government doesn't make you the winner?

So how is war against a resistance 'won'?

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Day by Day: Uncooler by the second, and happy about it.
Thu, 28 Dec 2006

Its been a little while and so many things have gone unsaid, but let me at least hope everyone had a very fyyyyne Christmas and look forward to good times to come. A quick post today as I consider getting back into the blog-swing of things.

We've spent a lot of time cleaning up around the house, moving things around and depopulating the future baby-room so I can attempt the very epic adventure: The Painting of The Room. I know this is a mundane event to many, but having to rediscover 'spackle' and polyfil and Alexa-goo for filling cracks and picture-hanging-holes: all things I've not done in quite some time. Yet, as I arm the gun-goo-dispenser and pretend to be manly I sometimes get this feeling of uncoolness.

Now - as so many would jump to point out - a guy who hosts barbecues featuring steaks and arcade machines or who asks Santa for a Sid Meier's game cannot climb much lower on the coolness ladder - but the feeling cannot help but present itself all the same - when you have a kid, you are by definition a square, forever to be texted '[]' by your nephew. Like, you could be a night-time DJ after your accounting job and still keep some hip but once the kid comes, I dunno, you've lost it :)

Now, this isn't a bad thing -- as I look at painting the room and dream about taking the future child running in a park, playing soccor, and showing him or her how to snort paint out their nose onto construction paper like a real punk, it just reminds me that deep inside all of us are the same. I mean, I was out looking at camcorders with a half dozen other dads-to-be during a Boxing Day sale, and sorting through boxes of hand-me-down baby clothes from my family. Weeeeird stuff. But once you have a kid, you remember the real priorities in life, and you think back to all those people back in the office who went on about their kids all day and you think -- yeah, hell yeah, thats the life for me.

We had 4 or 5 days of Christmas activities in a row, seeing lots of family and some friends and such. Ten years ago that would have driven me nuts, but now it seemed over all too fast, and I miss my family ... after having moved an hour or so away from then, it seems too far. Thats what I'm talking about.

Uncooler, but changed for the better. Creepy :)

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