So yeah, I'm bored today. Sitting at work with not much to do, so I figure I'll spill my random thoughts out here for a bit.
One site that not enough people know about is Project Gutenberg. It's an effort to publish books that are in the public domain online and make them available for free - an absolutely awesome goal! Now if only we could find a way to get around some of the difficulties of the past 30 years worth of copyright law "improvements".
A couple of my favorite books that are on there:
"The Problems of Philosophy," Bertrand Russell - A decent overview of some basic philosophical issues from my personal favorite philosopher. There's several other Russell books available, but I think this is the best of the bunch. Not my favorite work of his - need to find a way to get more of his stuff up on Gutenberg!
"The Ethics," Baruch Spinoza - This piece of philosophy has had a huge impact on my own thoughts and views on the world. It's a very challenging work to get through, one that truly emphasizes the work one must do to grasp the heart of any piece of philosophy, but the payoff is big.
Think this looks like a cool project? You can volunteer and take part in adding more books to the collection as part of Distributed Proofreaders. It's kind of like Seti@Home or the BOINC project, only it requires your eyeballs as well as your computer. Proofread some scanned pages to see that the OCR conversion of the text actually matches what was in the book. They've added more than 13,000 books to Gutenberg's library so far!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Gustav - waiting for the storm
Just though I'd toss this out there. About 24 hours before expected landfall, here's the latest map from NOAA on projected path (click to make it bigger). Looks like it's going to be a Cat 3 or Cat 4 storm when it lands. I really hope we don't see a repeat of Katrina, and it makes me glad to see that a lot of folks have gotten out of New Orleans already.
Busy couple of weeks
Well, I had planned to write again sooner, but it looks like every 2 weeks is about when I manage to get my blog on. So here I am.
It's been totally hectic lately. Kim's surgery went well. The back pain is totally gone; now she just has to heal and recover from the surgery itself. The only negative out of the whole thing was her wedding ring. She swelled up from all the IV fluid they pumped into her to the point that the ring was starting to cut off circulation in her finger. After trying to get it off, they asked her if they could cut it off. In the midst of her pre-surgery drugs, her response was, "Do whatever you need to do to my finger just don't cut my ring." Good thing they didn't listen to her! So, her ring ended up a casualty of the surgery. We'll have to see about getting it fixed, since they were decent enough to cut it on the plain metal spacer portion of the ring rather than in the middle of the Celtic design portion.
Kim's sister Tracy has been out here helping us for the last week, and that's been a huge thing. I took care of Kim and the kids myself for the first week after surgery and that was... a lot of work. I made it through ok, but there was a lot of frustration and very little sleep. Tracy's has helped out so much that it's more than made up for the extra work of taking care of four kids instead of two (since she brought her kids out as well). It's been nice meeting Tyler and Kaylee and getting to play at being Uncle for a while.
One thing it's certainly convinced me of: NO WAY IN HELL do I want more kids. One was challenging. Two has been hard. Four? A very trying experience, and that's with 3 adults to keep track of them all. How do people manage? I just don't see how you keep all those kids under control at the same time, especially those single moms with that many kids.
My dad got here today to help with the next phase of Kim's recovery. Tracy is leaving on Tuesday and Jasmine's birthday is tomorrow. I'm glad he'll be here for it. Both kids were so excited to see him today. I always love seeing the smiles on their faces when we open the door and *BAM* There's Grandpa!!
On the work front, things are both good and bad. We faced the first round of layoffs since I've been here, with minimal damage to the newsroom thankfully. What's nice for me is that led to my promotion-on-top-of-my-promotion. I'll be starting the new job around the 15th of this month, unless things get crazy again. As usual. So we'll see how that goes. I'm excited about diving in to some databases and getting my feet wet with some Computer Assisted Reporting.
Yeah, that's about it for now. I'll be keeping an eye on the news for what happens with all this Hurricane Gustav stuff. Looks like things may get ugly again down there. Blech.
It's been totally hectic lately. Kim's surgery went well. The back pain is totally gone; now she just has to heal and recover from the surgery itself. The only negative out of the whole thing was her wedding ring. She swelled up from all the IV fluid they pumped into her to the point that the ring was starting to cut off circulation in her finger. After trying to get it off, they asked her if they could cut it off. In the midst of her pre-surgery drugs, her response was, "Do whatever you need to do to my finger just don't cut my ring." Good thing they didn't listen to her! So, her ring ended up a casualty of the surgery. We'll have to see about getting it fixed, since they were decent enough to cut it on the plain metal spacer portion of the ring rather than in the middle of the Celtic design portion.
Kim's sister Tracy has been out here helping us for the last week, and that's been a huge thing. I took care of Kim and the kids myself for the first week after surgery and that was... a lot of work. I made it through ok, but there was a lot of frustration and very little sleep. Tracy's has helped out so much that it's more than made up for the extra work of taking care of four kids instead of two (since she brought her kids out as well). It's been nice meeting Tyler and Kaylee and getting to play at being Uncle for a while.
One thing it's certainly convinced me of: NO WAY IN HELL do I want more kids. One was challenging. Two has been hard. Four? A very trying experience, and that's with 3 adults to keep track of them all. How do people manage? I just don't see how you keep all those kids under control at the same time, especially those single moms with that many kids.
My dad got here today to help with the next phase of Kim's recovery. Tracy is leaving on Tuesday and Jasmine's birthday is tomorrow. I'm glad he'll be here for it. Both kids were so excited to see him today. I always love seeing the smiles on their faces when we open the door and *BAM* There's Grandpa!!
On the work front, things are both good and bad. We faced the first round of layoffs since I've been here, with minimal damage to the newsroom thankfully. What's nice for me is that led to my promotion-on-top-of-my-promotion. I'll be starting the new job around the 15th of this month, unless things get crazy again. As usual. So we'll see how that goes. I'm excited about diving in to some databases and getting my feet wet with some Computer Assisted Reporting.
Yeah, that's about it for now. I'll be keeping an eye on the news for what happens with all this Hurricane Gustav stuff. Looks like things may get ugly again down there. Blech.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Keeping up the tradition
Well, just like my writings on Last.fm, it seems that I just can't manage to do this whole blogging thing on a regular basis. I was hoping to do it at least once a week, and I've already gone 2 weeks without posting now - yay me!
I hate stress. Have I mentioned that? Between work, Kim's back surgery and just life in general, it's just adding up. At least I get a "vacation" soon with the surgery. That seems to be a trend this year - all of my vacation time is going to be used up staying home and taking care of the kids. This time, I get to take care of three instead of just two, though. :)
I have been enjoying the Olympics, though. It's a nice change to watch sports that I pretty much never see outside of the Olympics. And it seems like every time they come around, I always feel like I'm not interested and that I'm not going to watch them at all. Then, before I know it, there I am in the middle of my 12th hour of Olympic coverage and wondering, "WTF just happened? I totally forgot how fun it is to watch!!"
I've gotta say, Michael Phelps is an absolute animal in the pool. The way he dominates is unlike anything I've seen in sports - beyond Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, even. The world record with goggles full of water? Absolutely incredible. I don't think anyone else would have even medaled in that situation - just imagine the time he could have turned in if he wasn't swimming blind!
Gaming
I picked up Madden '09 on release day. I've made it through a couple of games, and it's a huge improvement over last year. Graphics on the PS2 are a decent step up, but the game play is just superb. They made the same leap that NCAA did from last year to this year - except Madden actual improved the graphics instead of just keeping it 99% the same like NCAA did. Even better, both games have done away with the forced use of QB vision in Heisman/All-Madden difficulty. Yes, it made the game harder which was their intent, but I hated it so much that I would just stop playing. Now, maybe I can actually enjoy playing once All-Pro gets too easy to enjoy any more!
God of War has proven to me that I'm getting old in gaming years, for a couple of reasons. First, it showed me just how much I'm on Old Man Time. A game like this, I would have picked it up within a week or 2 of release and poured hours into it until I beat it. Now? It's already a "classic" that I picked up in the cheap bin... And second, it's HARD! Where have my skills gone? Granted, I've never been great at fighting games, but I find myself running into spots that take me 5-10 tries just to get past and that's never happened before. Who would have thought that 31 would be over the hill for console gaming?? I sure didn't...
I hate stress. Have I mentioned that? Between work, Kim's back surgery and just life in general, it's just adding up. At least I get a "vacation" soon with the surgery. That seems to be a trend this year - all of my vacation time is going to be used up staying home and taking care of the kids. This time, I get to take care of three instead of just two, though. :)
I have been enjoying the Olympics, though. It's a nice change to watch sports that I pretty much never see outside of the Olympics. And it seems like every time they come around, I always feel like I'm not interested and that I'm not going to watch them at all. Then, before I know it, there I am in the middle of my 12th hour of Olympic coverage and wondering, "WTF just happened? I totally forgot how fun it is to watch!!"
I've gotta say, Michael Phelps is an absolute animal in the pool. The way he dominates is unlike anything I've seen in sports - beyond Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, even. The world record with goggles full of water? Absolutely incredible. I don't think anyone else would have even medaled in that situation - just imagine the time he could have turned in if he wasn't swimming blind!
Gaming
I picked up Madden '09 on release day. I've made it through a couple of games, and it's a huge improvement over last year. Graphics on the PS2 are a decent step up, but the game play is just superb. They made the same leap that NCAA did from last year to this year - except Madden actual improved the graphics instead of just keeping it 99% the same like NCAA did. Even better, both games have done away with the forced use of QB vision in Heisman/All-Madden difficulty. Yes, it made the game harder which was their intent, but I hated it so much that I would just stop playing. Now, maybe I can actually enjoy playing once All-Pro gets too easy to enjoy any more!
God of War has proven to me that I'm getting old in gaming years, for a couple of reasons. First, it showed me just how much I'm on Old Man Time. A game like this, I would have picked it up within a week or 2 of release and poured hours into it until I beat it. Now? It's already a "classic" that I picked up in the cheap bin... And second, it's HARD! Where have my skills gone? Granted, I've never been great at fighting games, but I find myself running into spots that take me 5-10 tries just to get past and that's never happened before. Who would have thought that 31 would be over the hill for console gaming?? I sure didn't...
Friday, August 1, 2008
Hecticness abounds
Life has a funny way of ganging up on you and doing weird things. Recent events are such a illustration of the yin-yang principle that it makes me think.
See, I'm moving into a new position at work in a little over two weeks. I'll be doing stuff that I really want to do - working with databases and finding a way to actually do some hands-on journalism with all the computer skills floating around in my brain, rather than just making the journalism that others do look pretty when I put it on a page or proofread it. I don't regret having been a copy editor the last few years at all by any means. It's been fun and enjoyable for the most part (yes, I actually did enjoy most of my time at the Rumorang despite all the crap I dealt with there), but most of all, it's brought me to where I am now and helped me find a way to put all of my interests together. So now, I'm going to be kind of professionally multi-tasking, which is really what I've always wanted to do without knowing precisely how to define it. I've wanted to find a way to harness my computer geekery and combine it with my interest in history, politics, creativity - information, really. And now, here's my chance. So that's the yin.
Meanwhile, the yang is the downer side of life. We've found out in the last day or so that Kim is going to need back surgery to avoid possible paralysis from the spinal disc that is pushing and encroaching on her spine. So, I'll be taking some time off work to take care of her and the kids (until the cavalry shows up in the form of my dad and/or her sister to help out - thanks you guys if you happen to read this!!) right when I'm supposed to be starting my new position. We haven't been able to pin down a date with the doctor's office yet for the surgery, but hopefully Monday or Tuesday will have more answers.
Other than that, things have been good lately. The kiddos have been their own version of this yin-yang dichotomy of life. On one hand, they're some of the sweetest girls. It just makes me melt when the oldest comes up to me with a giant hug and says, "I love you Daddy", just out of the blue. On the other hand, finding they've pulled all the stuffing out of the pillows (again!!) or decided to take their filled potty seat into their room to play with just makes me want to pull my hair out. Kids bring a whole new perspective on "bittersweet".
Speaking of kids, part of why I wanted to do this was to start keeping track of stuff I want to remember about them and stuff they've been doing, so I'm going to start that now.
Kid notes
1. Anisa is growing up so fast. A few days ago, she started to discover the bad things in life all on her own. They love to play with the newspapers in the house, and one night she said she wanted to talk. "What happens when a house is on fire? I saw a picture of this burning house in the newspaper and it burned and then went boom. Why does that happen? Do the people get hurt and die?" It just floored me. What am I supposed to say to that? How am I supposed to tell a 3-year-old what it's like when a house burns down? So I did the best I could and talked about how sometimes bad things happen and we have police and firemen and medics that are there to help us and take care of us; that things like this are why Mom and Dad are always telling the kids to be careful and watch what they're doing because we don't want there to be any bad things like that which happen to them; that as parents we do everything we can to avoid that stuff. And I've been reading the paper with her since then, talking to her about the pictures and the stories in there and trying to be an interpreter to help explain the world until she can read and try to understand for herself what it's saying. But it's obviously had a big impact on her. Several times since then, she's asked me to talk to her about burning houses and people dying... and it's hard to know just what to say.
2. Jasmine is so cute. She's putting together sentences now and has gone from "Ni-ni" for Goodnight to "Goo night, daaad". She won't go to bed or a nap without asking for "Cheek!" so she can give us a kiss on the cheek before she sleeps. She's learning to be quite naughty from her sister - if you ask if she wants to get her butt spanked, she just grins and smacks her own butt and says "'Pank, 'Pank!" and then runs to her room giggling.
3. Anisa is adding her own sense of adventure to things. In the last few days, I've caught her standing on the windowsill in nothing but her underwear doing a full-body press against the window (yeah, both kids are such little nudists - have to almost duct tape clothes on them to keep them from taking them off!); stuck in the top bunk of her bunkbed, which does NOT have a ladder installed yet; standing on the kitchen counter; and standing on the back of the toilet. Not to mention her jumping off of everything imaginable and her "crazy foot things" where she contorts her body while lifting a foot off the ground in some way.
4. She's also starting to grasp the concept of reading. We've got one book/magazine where there's a story that has a few words that are replaced with pictures of the object instead of just the word. So we'll read it together and when I get to the picture, she'll say the word to complete the sentence. And she's always asking, "What's this word say? What's this page say?" One of these days, she's going to shock me and just read what it says.
Gaming notes
Call me weird, but I'm envisioning this blog more in the sense of a journal to look back on and capture my thoughts and experiences of the moment, rather than the repository for rants and raves that I see so many blogs becoming. I'm sure it will evolve and change as time goes by, but this is how I'm approaching it for now. In that interest, I'm going to keep track of my gaming habits on occasion as far as what I'm playing, what I want to play, what I thought of it.
Right now, Hot Shots Golf Fore! has captured my focus. I've kind of gravitated back to console games on the PS2 after spending the last long while playing games on the computer almost exclusively. It doesn't hurt that I'm trying out Gamefly right now, so I'm getting some variety in there for free/cheap instead of having to drop $$ on buying games. Plus, it gives me a chance to try some of the kid-focused games for the girls, since they've both wanted to play whatever Dad is playing. Someday I want to get a Wii so that they can game with me and do it in a way that's at least somewhat physically involved instead of couch potato gaming, as has been the norm throughout gaming history.
See, I'm moving into a new position at work in a little over two weeks. I'll be doing stuff that I really want to do - working with databases and finding a way to actually do some hands-on journalism with all the computer skills floating around in my brain, rather than just making the journalism that others do look pretty when I put it on a page or proofread it. I don't regret having been a copy editor the last few years at all by any means. It's been fun and enjoyable for the most part (yes, I actually did enjoy most of my time at the Rumorang despite all the crap I dealt with there), but most of all, it's brought me to where I am now and helped me find a way to put all of my interests together. So now, I'm going to be kind of professionally multi-tasking, which is really what I've always wanted to do without knowing precisely how to define it. I've wanted to find a way to harness my computer geekery and combine it with my interest in history, politics, creativity - information, really. And now, here's my chance. So that's the yin.
Meanwhile, the yang is the downer side of life. We've found out in the last day or so that Kim is going to need back surgery to avoid possible paralysis from the spinal disc that is pushing and encroaching on her spine. So, I'll be taking some time off work to take care of her and the kids (until the cavalry shows up in the form of my dad and/or her sister to help out - thanks you guys if you happen to read this!!) right when I'm supposed to be starting my new position. We haven't been able to pin down a date with the doctor's office yet for the surgery, but hopefully Monday or Tuesday will have more answers.
Other than that, things have been good lately. The kiddos have been their own version of this yin-yang dichotomy of life. On one hand, they're some of the sweetest girls. It just makes me melt when the oldest comes up to me with a giant hug and says, "I love you Daddy", just out of the blue. On the other hand, finding they've pulled all the stuffing out of the pillows (again!!) or decided to take their filled potty seat into their room to play with just makes me want to pull my hair out. Kids bring a whole new perspective on "bittersweet".
Speaking of kids, part of why I wanted to do this was to start keeping track of stuff I want to remember about them and stuff they've been doing, so I'm going to start that now.
Kid notes
1. Anisa is growing up so fast. A few days ago, she started to discover the bad things in life all on her own. They love to play with the newspapers in the house, and one night she said she wanted to talk. "What happens when a house is on fire? I saw a picture of this burning house in the newspaper and it burned and then went boom. Why does that happen? Do the people get hurt and die?" It just floored me. What am I supposed to say to that? How am I supposed to tell a 3-year-old what it's like when a house burns down? So I did the best I could and talked about how sometimes bad things happen and we have police and firemen and medics that are there to help us and take care of us; that things like this are why Mom and Dad are always telling the kids to be careful and watch what they're doing because we don't want there to be any bad things like that which happen to them; that as parents we do everything we can to avoid that stuff. And I've been reading the paper with her since then, talking to her about the pictures and the stories in there and trying to be an interpreter to help explain the world until she can read and try to understand for herself what it's saying. But it's obviously had a big impact on her. Several times since then, she's asked me to talk to her about burning houses and people dying... and it's hard to know just what to say.
2. Jasmine is so cute. She's putting together sentences now and has gone from "Ni-ni" for Goodnight to "Goo night, daaad". She won't go to bed or a nap without asking for "Cheek!" so she can give us a kiss on the cheek before she sleeps. She's learning to be quite naughty from her sister - if you ask if she wants to get her butt spanked, she just grins and smacks her own butt and says "'Pank, 'Pank!" and then runs to her room giggling.
3. Anisa is adding her own sense of adventure to things. In the last few days, I've caught her standing on the windowsill in nothing but her underwear doing a full-body press against the window (yeah, both kids are such little nudists - have to almost duct tape clothes on them to keep them from taking them off!); stuck in the top bunk of her bunkbed, which does NOT have a ladder installed yet; standing on the kitchen counter; and standing on the back of the toilet. Not to mention her jumping off of everything imaginable and her "crazy foot things" where she contorts her body while lifting a foot off the ground in some way.
4. She's also starting to grasp the concept of reading. We've got one book/magazine where there's a story that has a few words that are replaced with pictures of the object instead of just the word. So we'll read it together and when I get to the picture, she'll say the word to complete the sentence. And she's always asking, "What's this word say? What's this page say?" One of these days, she's going to shock me and just read what it says.
Gaming notes
Call me weird, but I'm envisioning this blog more in the sense of a journal to look back on and capture my thoughts and experiences of the moment, rather than the repository for rants and raves that I see so many blogs becoming. I'm sure it will evolve and change as time goes by, but this is how I'm approaching it for now. In that interest, I'm going to keep track of my gaming habits on occasion as far as what I'm playing, what I want to play, what I thought of it.
Right now, Hot Shots Golf Fore! has captured my focus. I've kind of gravitated back to console games on the PS2 after spending the last long while playing games on the computer almost exclusively. It doesn't hurt that I'm trying out Gamefly right now, so I'm getting some variety in there for free/cheap instead of having to drop $$ on buying games. Plus, it gives me a chance to try some of the kid-focused games for the girls, since they've both wanted to play whatever Dad is playing. Someday I want to get a Wii so that they can game with me and do it in a way that's at least somewhat physically involved instead of couch potato gaming, as has been the norm throughout gaming history.
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