Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Coding is fun

We're entering the Build phase of our project here...I just wrote out a truth table on a scrap of paper. Finally, a little break from winword and back to devenv (and the new and improved sqlwb).

Monday, March 26, 2007

Sunday

On Sunday morning, I ran the Shamrock Shuffle, an 8k (5 mile) race through the streets of Chicago. It was the first "competitive" run I've done since track in high school, and I only ran freshman and sophomore years. My finishing time was 47:28, which I'm happy with, as I was targeting ten-minute miles. The girl who won, Tera Moody, I ran with in high school. Small world. I kind of wish I had stuck around for the awards so I could have said hi.

After the race, I went home and showered. It was so nice out, I decided I had to get out and about. Made a few phone calls, ended up meeting a friend at Rock Bottom for some beers and a burger. While I was waiting for him to arrive, I ran into some guys I knew from college on the rooftop beer garden.

After eating, we took a walk North on Michigan Avenue, then ended up hanging out at Oak Street Beach to read and people watch. Then I decided to walk home, another 3 miles along the lake.

Came home, got a phone call from another friend in my neighborhood and hung out on his friend's deck while the sun set with a few beers.

Came back home, finished up the Vista installation, got a text from a buddy who wanted to meet for a beer. I looked at the clock, thought it would be better to go to bed, so I went and had a pint instead. We went to Galway Arms and I had a few Guinnesses.

Man, what a great Sunday. I probably ran and walked a total of ten miles. And I got a nice afternoon beer buzz. Beautiful. I made up for going to bed so early on Friday and Saturday preparing for waking up early for the race on Sunday. Everything's coming up Millhouse :)

Vista Media Center

On Saturday, I ran the Vista Upgrade Advisor on my Media Center box/HTPC. It told me that there were drivers for my TV tuner card! Exciting, since I had been watching the manufacturer's web site, and it still says "coming soon." So I gathered any other drivers and performed a clean install of Vista x64, and, oops, no TV Tuner drivers. Looked more closely and noticed that the Upgrade Advisor was only for x86. Dang. Sunday, rinse and repeat, this time with Vista x86. It all worked. TV is working again, both standard def and HD. Oddly enough, x86 seems to run better than x64. I have a hunch that something was running in WOW and bogging down performance. Anyway, I didn't have time to really play with it, only to verify that it "works." And to schedule some of my favorite shows to record.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Electron God

I said to a friend at work today, "We've spent the last few weeks designing some really cool algorithms, and I'm excited to start breathing some life into them." And then I thought... does that make me a God? Breathe life into something. On some very basic level, a lot of what I do is just manipulating electrons (at least the programming part of my job... not so much the interacting with people part). Yes, I decided, I am an Electron God.

Voicemail

Voicemail is so inefficient. I hope the visual voicemail feature of the iPhone makes its way into the marketplace-at-large.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Cicadas

From Wikipedia:

Some species have much longer life cycles, e.g. the Magicicada goes through a 13- or even 17-year life cycle. These long life cycles are an adaptation to predators such as the cicada killer wasp and praying mantis, as a predator could not regularly fall into synchrony with the cicadas. 13 and 17 are prime numbers, so while a cicada with a 15-year life cycle could be preyed upon by a predator with a 3- or 5-year life cycle, the 13- and 17-year cycles allow them to stop the predators falling into step.

Nature is so cool. Go evolution!

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

"The manatee has become the mento!"

If you're not watching 30 Rock on NBC, you're missing out. It's smart, good comedy. Alec Baldwin is a brilliant straight man. Tracy Morgan is just plain hilarious. Tracy trying to say, "The mentee has become the mentor" came out as, "the manatee has become the mento!" Hilarious stuff, folks.