Category Archives: Personal Life

Six Months Silent

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It has been almost exactly six months since I last posted on here. I don’t really have an excuses for the hiatus, and it’s not just been this blog: I’ve been largely silent from most of the net for a while. It’s been a really strange winter for me, mentally and emotionally, and it was consuming a lot of my energy and thoughts. Rather than complain about it, though, I opted to simply not post at all. In hindsight, this was a dumb idea: writing has been a catharsis for me in the past, and I can’t help but feel it would have been beneficial to be posting to get my mind off things; also, the longer I went without posting, the more daunting it became to start posting again.

I’ve finally updated the blog (like the new design? If you want a refresher on what it looked like before, Critical Games is still using that theme), and am now posting again. I’d been meaning to for a while, but what motivated me to actually do it is that someone asked me to. It’s a thing for me: if I feel something I do will be appreciated, I am infinitely more likely to do it.

I was having a conversation with Jessica last night, where she asked me what motivates me, what would motivate me on the various projects I have sitting on the back burner. What it came down to is that I need to feel like I am valued. I am hardly what you would call a workaholic — I think work for the sake of work is stupid (this is a longstanding philosophy, as anyone who has heard my rant about homework can attest), so for me to feel motivated on a project, I need to feel that the work is valued in some fashion. (This takes many forms: it could be personal appreciation, it could be feeling that I’ve contributed to a greater goal or dialogue, it could be a tangible reward, it could be getting to enjoy the end result…)

I’d hardly say it’s the best motivator, though: you have to DO before it can be valued, and the point of motivation is that it gets you to DO. So feeling appreciated or valued as a motivator basically relies on momentum, continuing to feel the drive to act based on the result of the last time you did so. And if you have an extended period where you feel like you’re not valued, or you feel unappreciated… well, you’re dead in the water. Which is where I’ve been for a while: feeling economically and creatively unvalued. (Where I have felt valued is socially, I’ve felt appreciated as a friend, and that’s where my energy has flowed as a result.)

I’m going to aim to post more often (more than once every six months shouldn’t be too hard), but in the meantime: what motivates you? It’d be interesting to hear others’ insight and suggestions for motivators.

The End of January

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The months do seem to fly by lately, various projects churning up my time but not getting done. Life has been a little nutty lately. A few weeks ago, my girlfriend decided she wanted me to teach her how to play World of Warcraft (she’s never played games of this type before), which I’ve been delighted to do. She started out with a character on my account, but now she has her own account so we can actually play together. It’s definitely made a shift in the home-life — I’ve always been a casual player (play for a few days, then leave it alone for a week or two), and now we’re playing at least a little nearly every day. (For the record, no, I still don’t have a 70, err, 80… highest I have is a 50 Druid on Kil’Jaeden, and now a 30 Draenei Hunter on Bloodhoof, both named Nadreck.)

A little over a week ago, Dad had a heart attack. I didn’t write about it publicly because I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about people knowing while it was happening, but now that he’s back home, I’m a bit more comfortable mentioning it. It was his first, and we didn’t know there was a likelihood (we do now), so it had us all a little spooked. Due to the surgery, he can’t lift anything heavy (anything over 10lbs) or overly exert himself for a little bit — given that the house renovations are nearly complete and they’re going to have to start unpacking everything back into the house, I may end up flying out for a few weeks to help out (cross-country tickets are pretty cheap at the moment if you’re flexible on flight dates — I’m seeing as low as $200 round trip). He should be back up to speed by the time I’d actually get out there, but an extra hand never hurts, and it’d be good to see Mom and Dad and Freya (it was also Mom’s birthday two days ago. Happy birthday, Mom!)

There are things in the works that will hopefully be done and in place soon, and I’ll be able to get into a more regular update routine. In the meantime, watch the kitties.

On Web Sites and Harumphs

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So, I’ve been largely radio silent for a while now, as I’ve been pondering where I want to write and about what, and trying to get some new projects up and running. This is currently leading me to designing a new wordpress theme for wanderlu.st, which in turn is leading me to researching HTML5 and CSS3. There are some great resources out there for each, but ultimately a lot of it is moot since no browser actually fully supports EITHER yet. They’re too new.

So why not just blow it off and use CSS/CSS2 and XHTML, you might ask, and rightly so — if even the bleeding edge doesn’t support it, how long before the general public has it adopted? Well, I’ve noticed a little trick in how web browsers render things that (thus far) allows me to adopt HTML5 without breaking anything. Basically, when we talk about a browser understanding an HTML tag, what we’re really saying is that it’s been told how it should render that tag by default, which things it should inherit from, and so on and so forth. So, while it’s a bit of a kludge, you can TELL your browser how to render a given tag via CSS. You just have to tell it a LOT of things, instead of just the things you want to change (you can’t take for granted what things display inline and which things display as a block, or inline block, et cetera, you have to tell it what it should behave as).

Now, I’m sure this will all bite me in the ass as I continue, leading towards getting the design exactly how I want it, and then discovering some major browser doesn’t work like that. But so far, it’s been working like a charm in both Safari (Webkit engine) and in Camino (Gecko engine). Need to test against Firefox (Gecko engine again), Opera, and IE6, 7, and 8. Also need to make sure I’m not using the tags incorrectly compared to how they’re specified in the standard. Until proved otherwise, I’ve opted to be optimistic!

Huh, Who Knew?

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So, I was feeling a bit bummed that I didn’t fulfill my New Year’s Resolution of taking at least a DVD’s worth of photographs each month, but then while organizing and archiving the year’s images, I discovered that I did at least take over a thousand more pictures than I had in any given year to date. So, Woo! Little happy surprises.

Happy Holidays!

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It’s Christmas day, and I’m down in the Bay area (Palo Alto to be precise, at my cousin’s house). Jessica flew down with a friend, and convinced me to come down as well, and since Uri’d never been here before, he joined me on my drive down. We’ve done a few touristy things, but since our budget is fairly tight, mostly we’ve been just exploring the area. We spent a day in San Francisco, which was arguably the rainiest day we’ve had the entire time we’ve been here (alas!), but we still had fun and got to explore a bit (we’ve done both the Golden Gate and Bay bridges… also did the crooked road). We also took a day and drove down to Santa Cruz via Half Moon Bay and Route 1 — really gorgeous drive, and surprisingly light traffic.

I’ll write a more involved post later, but I did want to wish everyone some happy holidays, and that we’ll be back around the 29th!

LiveBlog: CyborgCamp

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9:43am: Currently in the Forum at Cubespace, waiting for opening remarks on CyborgCamp, Amber Case (@caseorganic appears to be MC’ing.

9:50am: there are several extras for following what’s happening with CyborgCamp (#cyborgcamp): CyborgCamp Backchan.nl, CyborgCamp LiveStream, Twitter Tracking.

Should definitely check out the sponsors at CyborgCamp.com.

10:00am: Still going through sponsors, each is getting a chance to get up and sort of give their spiel as to what they do. I’ve yet to see any that aren’t worth checking out.

Explanation of an unconference — a mixture of established presentations, and blocks of time where you can create breakout sessions — if you have something you want to discuss or present, just put it on a card, put it on the grid. The point is to make these conferences to work for you. There is no commitment as an attendee — go where you’re finding value; if something isn’t what you wanted, go somewhere else.

10:12am: Okay, starting to organize the unconferences and meeting back here in 30.
Continue reading →

The MacBook Update

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As I’m sure many are aware, Apple updated their laptop line today. There are some interesting technological advances going on, but (and their stock fluctuations today can attest) there seems to be a large backlash against several changes they made to their lineup — some justifiable, some spurious. Let’s look at the spurious complaints first:

  • “There’s no DVI port!” — and were you making the same complaint when DVI started to supersede VGA? Let’s be objective about this: DisplayPort is a VESA-certified industry standard meant specifically to address the needs of the computing market, in the same way that HDMI is meant to address the consumer electronics market. There are adapters already in existence to convert from DisplayPort to DVI (or even VGA) and back again. I know it’s hard when new standards come out, but you need to recognize that they’re coming out because what we have is no longer suitable for moving forward. HDMI is a marked improvement over Component. Well, DisplayPort is a marked improvement over DVI.
  • “There’s no button on the trackpad!” — anyone who has been paying attention could see this coming — look at the iPhone and iPod Touch and tell me you couldn’t foresee virtualized buttons coming. There are some complaints that they hate “tap-to-click,” and I can certainly concede that, but from looking at hands-on reports of the new setup, the system is designed in such a way that your muscle memory to hit the button with your thumb will still work in exactly the same fashion. The current button on the trackpads drops a millimeter, maybe two — you are in effect already “tapping” the button. The short of it is that by going to a virtualized solution, it becomes easier to adapt the trackpad to specific needs and solutions. I’m certain I can’t be the only who sees this.

 

There are definitely some very real gripes to be had, however:

  • “The black keyboard and black bezel are ugly.” — yes, I’m counting this as a real gripe. While from the exterior, the new laptops are sexy, when you open them up, the result a step backward; it is reminiscent of several offerings by Sony, Acer, even HP. Some are heralding it as a return to the Powerbook Titanium design philosophy, but I don’t really see that as a good thing. Why go back, when they clearly had so many options to move forward? Their external keyboards use a white on silver color scheme that would be markedly less jarring, let alone going with a silver-silver like they did with prior MacBook Pros. I consider this a valid complaint because part of what gets people to buy a Mac instead of a PC isn’t just the OS, it’s the hardware. The more it looks like everyone else’s offerings, the less reason there is to purchase the (more expensive) Mac option. Black on silver does not look good, I’m sorry. If they were going to go with the black bezel and black keyboard, in my opinion they should have gone with a black body. Either anodized or powder-coated black aluminum would still qualify for their EPEAT Gold rating, and yet would overall be more aesthetically unified.
  • “No firewire in the MacBooks!” — completely agreed. I don’t know what the hell Apple was thinking. Adding a FireWire 800 port would not have been difficult, even in the smaller enclosure, and yet by doing so, there would be a wealth of devices that would become available, including daisy chained hard drives and their own Target Disk Mode. Yes, that’s right, they’ve removed a technology that makes it easier to buy more of their products (by easing the process of migration). I understand the desire to further delineate between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro, but this is a grievous oversight.
  • “The dual graphics cards are neat, but can only use one or the other!” — I’m on the fence as to whether this is a valid or invalid complaint. My suspicion is that when 10.6 rolls out and OpenCL and Grand Central becomes more of a reality, we’ll start seeing the ability to prioritize processes and send some to one card, and others to another. If not Apple, then a third party developer. Given that nVidia has gone on record saying they’re supporting OpenCL, I think this is a reasonable prognostication. In the meantime, however, it’s just a “shiny-shiny” to give the marketers something to chew on. I really don’t care about the difference between a 4 hour and a 5 hour battery life — more often than not, if I’m in one place for that long, I’m able to plug in somewhere. So why not save the space in the laptop and just do the high end graphics card? (Of course, I consider this yet another reason to believe that there WILL be communication across the two cards in the future.)

 

I’m still very interested in getting a new MacBook Pro, as my current machine is starting to get long in the tooth and showing its age. Once I have a job that I can justify the expense, I imagine I’ll be getting one of the new machines, but if you’re in the generation immediately prior, I’d be hard pressed to encourage an upgrade. Honestly, a part of me (as lustful for a new machine as I am) wants to wait and see if they start offering a gun-metal-black iteration in 6 months.

NaNoWriMo 2008

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It’s coming up on November, which means it’s that time again… National Novel Writing Month! A ragtag marathon of writers trying to get 50,000 words written down inside of 30 days. I’ve participated a few times in the past, but never completed it, a fact I plan to change this year!

Of course, first I need to think of what the hell I plan to write about.

In the meantime, let me share some NaNoWriMo love for you all:

Our PDX Network has a great article up currently encouraging folks to particpate. Likewise, the lovely CamiKaos has an excellent piece about getting back in the writing saddle again after completing NaNoWriMo last year. So, come one come all, let us ride our keyboards and notebooks into the sunset next month!

On Seattle

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Thursday night, Jessica and I packed our bags and wandered up to Seattle. It’d been a while since we’d taken a trip, and we had a great excuse to go: Neil Gaiman was going to be doing a reading for his new book, The Graveyard Book up there, but wasn’t going to be visiting Portland at all for this tour. So we made a trip of it, and stayed with my friend Anna for two nights, which was good.

Friday was spent being tourists in Seattle — we ate at Julia’s on Wallingford, swung by the Apple Store and the University Bookstore (the folks hosting the reading, so as to pick up the vouchers for the reading), and then went and checked out the Anachrotechnofetishism exhibit at 826 National chapter, the Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co. Definitely a nifty little store with lots of stuff to play with and geek out over. Despite wanting my very own raygun, I went with a more practical option this time around and picked up a t-shirt. I am incredibly jealous that programs like this exist and wish they’d been around (and nearby!) when I was growing up.

After dropping off Anna (and playing with Gabe, who is Anna’s rockin’ jack russel/chihuahua puppy), we hung out with Jessica’s friend Ira for a little bit, and then wandered over to the reading.

I’ve got to say, Neil is a hell of a charming guy. He read chapter four of The Graveyard Book to the audience (around 850 people all told), shifting his voice appropriately for different characters in all the right ways and spots to make it a really engaging reading — it’s like the entire audience was 5 again, and he was reading to us before bed. Afterward, we had a brief intermission to get up and stretch, and then he showed us footage from the upcoming Coraline movie (comes out this February), though he did make us promise not to put any video of the footage up til at least after the tour is over next week, as a favor to him (did I mention that he’s a hell of a charming guy?). It’s looking fantastic, and the folks at Laika should be damned proud of the project.

After the preview footage, there was a Q&A session with Neil that ran for about 45 minutes to an hour, so the reading in total took about 2.5 hours. One of the questions actually was about the “new” format compared to the old autograph lines… the short answer is that the old system involved maybe thirty minutes to an hour reading AND Q&A, followed by 3-6 hours of standing in line to shuffle past Neil and get a signature. It is a bit more impersonal, perhaps, to not get that individual face to face time, but in the end it makes for a happier overall experience to do it in this new format. Neil’s also got a great excuse, since his finger is broken and this way he could do all the signing at his own pace. Definitely well worth the time and effort to head up to Seattle for. (As an aside, it’s sort of telling that when I looked around the audience of folks who would ostensibly be “my kind of people”, I didn’t recognize a single person, despite having lived in Seattle for three years, whereas I’ve been in Portland for 6 months and already often randomly run into people all over the place. Portland FTW!)

After the talk, we grabbed Anna and headed over to 13 Coins, which is a local chain of 5 star 24 hour restaurants… huge, tall leather bound booths, and one of the best filet mignon’s I’ve had — it just sort of dissolved upon hitting my tongue. SO good.

Got up this morning, whereupon Anna made us breakfast, we played with Gabe a bit more, and then we took off for parts south — it would have been nice to make it a longer trip, but Jessica is volunteering for Fright Town, and had to get back for that. Definitely a nice trip, and for those of you in Seattle that I didn’t get to see, hopefully I’ll make it back up sometime soon!

WordCamPDX Wrap-Up

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Skipped the after-party to wander home (I don’t drink, and today was long enough as it stands, otherwise would have joined the crew at the Green Dragon). Hoping to collect my thoughts on the day while they’re still fresh.

The short of it: it was a REALLY fantastic event, and I’m very glad I went (it would have been worth coming down from Seattle for were I still in Seattle, let me put it that way). As can be gathered from my previous post, there was a virtual wealth of information regarding blogging, and thats not even getting into the deluge of tweets on Twitter regarding it — at several points in the day, we were anywhere from the number one to the number three item in Twitter Trends, even beating out the political stuff the day after the debates. And the attendance was just 150 people(ish), so that should be saying something on just how much everyone was tweeting. I about doubled my Twitter Follows/Followers.

On the quibbles side of things, I’d say it’d be nice if it was broken into two shorter days rather than one PACKED day. More chance to socialize and network between peers, and it would also give the opportunity to provide a bit more tracking options for sessions (as it was, there were a few that ran opposite each other that a lot of people wanted to go to both of). That said, the price was unbeatable, the presenters and topics were interesting, and the location was excellent. Overall, if you’re going to have issues, having too many neat things packed into the time is a pretty nice problem to have.

A few mental notes to myself:

  • I promised to look into more effective ways to migrate or batch edit categories in MediaWiki (the wiki software the Codex uses)
  • The WordPress Codex needs more volunteers to help write tutorials and document features, especially with 2.7 right around the corner! This is something that is worth at least a portion of my time, even if it’s just taking a few hours a week to fix typos and grammar.
  • Unrelated to WordPress, worth looking into the Information School at Berkeley, as their graduate program sounds like potentially a good fit. Thanks for the tip about goes to the lovely @snelson, one of the numerous awesome people I got to meet today.

I feel like the event made me excited about being a blogger again, which is a great feeling. I’m excited to put some of what I learned about into practice to make my blogs better and more effective. Some of these include the plugins that got listed, and implementing OpenID support and finding other ways to foster communication on the blog. I’m excited to update to 2.7, and plan to pull a nightly for local testing to make sure my theme development doesn’t break. I’d like to finish my new theme and get it implemented on the site, and maybe (shock of shocks!) share it with the community in case someone else likes what I did! Which, I think, is the biggest takeaway from this event: it’s not about the tool you’re using, it’s about the community that uses it.