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A Still Verdictless Life
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Saturday, November 30, 2002 |
Strange weather in Kentucky today. Was 50 degrees (F) all day yesterday and again this morning, yet it's supposed to drop to 20 degrees by this evening. It should be interesting to watch a cold front move in that fast.
There's a *lot* of home maintenance I should be doing this trip, getting this place ready for the real winter. Having two residences is a pain in the butt. Some maintenance items are mandatory, but all the other ones are probably going to go undone. The approaching cold front has definitely brought a bad case of procrastination with it. Hard to get motivated today.
Yesterday's golf outing was pretty great. We had nice weather, at least warm enough to play. The greens were mostly frozen, which led to some interesting approach shots. I had many nicely struck wedge shots hit the green and bounce ten feet high, skittering off to who knows where. Just part of the game.
The best part of the day was the gathering of 24 forty-something guys from all walks of life, who now have only high school in common. Once again I got the distance award (most participants are local). But this is the 17th consecutive year this group has gathered on the Friday after Thanksgiving to reminisce and hack at balls, rain or shine (or snow). That's pretty cool. And yesterday was another good memory of the present day and the good old days. Here's to my high school friends. Salut.
6:20:53 AM 
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Friday, November 29, 2002 |
Today I play in the annual day-after-Thanksgiving golf outing with my high school buddies. It's cold, it's muddy, we're all suffering from turkey overdoses...it'll be great fun.
I enjoy traditions like this more as I get older. That's just natural - when you're young, you have no appreciation for the passing of time and its inherent risk. But it's more than that with me. I've had some big discontinuities in my life - death, divorce, multiple moves, big job changes. So traditions, trivial or not, provide a sense of permanence that is otherwise missing.
So if you're looking for me today, look here.
5:01:19 AM
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Absolutely great article about Google and their unique view into the world's online consciousness. It's been said that there's nothing new under the sun, but I think this qualifies - no one's ever had this view of mankind's interests before.
4:46:13 AM
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Thursday, November 28, 2002 |
As we drove to the Kentucky house this trip, we experienced the long, lonely road known in these parts as the AA Highway. It's 120 miles of mostly two lane road through wilderness, with one break in Maysville.
On a cloud-covered night, it gets as very dark on the AA. You can miss turns, and you can get mesmerized by the little sight tunnel created by your headlights. On those nights, thank God for the radio. There's a collection of NPR-style stations sprinkled along the way, courtesy of the small colleges in southern Ohio and northeastern Kentucky. My favorite is WMKY from Morehead State University, about 30 miles south of the AA's track.
This past Monday night we listened to an absolutely wonderful show, Americana Crossroads, subtitled "a mix of blues, bluegrass, and folk...". The playlist was great - every song was a pleasant surprise, from Alison Krause to Indigo Girls to nameless though timeless blues singers from Mississippi. That show needs to be on XM.
Maybe I'll buy the CD.
6:24:55 AM
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Only In My Hometown
From local news archives: "Man accidentally shoots himself in 'showdown' with a snowman"
WILLARD — A Carter County man accidentally shot himself Monday while practicing his quick-draw on a snowman, Kentucky State Police at Ashland said. Bob Bowling, 32, of Willard, suffered a gunshot wound to his right upper thigh, according to the KSP's Ashland post.
5:46:50 AM
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 It's Thanksgiving Day! Turkey, pie, mashed potatos, stuffing, cranberries...the works. It's a Weight Watchers nightmare, and one of my favorite days.
Google is my browser home page, and on holidays they do cool things with their home page logo. Today's is excellent, as usual. You've gotta love a company that pays attention to the small stuff.
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
5:31:39 AM
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Wednesday, November 27, 2002 |
IT project failure is rampant - KPMG. When will we ever learn? [The Register]
When will we ever learn, indeed? I've had the pleasure to spend my entire career in an industry that prides itself on precision (engineering), yet fails miserably to bring any precision to the actual production of systems.
Putting a better spin on it, perhaps IT is like baseball. One hit in three and you're a star; two of four and you're immortal. I've seen so many projects go awry, and almost always for reasons of poor communications and politics - the tech works (mostly), but the people issues can be intractable.
4:47:44 AM
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Spacey starts writers' site. Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey launches a website for new scriptwriters and film-makers to sell their work. [BBC News | TECHNOLOGY]
This may get me re-energized about writing screenplays. It's not like I need another excuse to sit in front of the computer, but...at least I could market what I've already written. Spacey's a pretty interesting guy.
4:38:32 AM
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Tuesday, November 26, 2002 |
Here's someone who cares about the issues of media, digital content, and intellectual property rights as much as me, and is more eloquent in his arguments. Go Jonathan!
6:35:45 AM
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 It's snowing in eastern KY. Big fluffy flakes. After three straight days of outdoor activities in Socal, this is quite a change.
Picture courtesy of Caltech's Snow Crystal site.
6:12:45 AM
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Monday, November 25, 2002 |
Things I like about Thanksgiving:
- Time spent with my daughter
- The relatively unpolluted, life-long tradition of the feast
- The possibility of snow
- Time to reflect
- Time to nap
- Seeing friends and family (though alas, since they're mostly geographically disjoint, we have to choose one category or the other)
- The Skins Game
- Cranberries
- Leftover plates of turkey and side dishes
Time to go.
7:35:06 AM
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It's launch day for the holidays. T minus 2 hours and counting. Today we leave the great weather of Socal and go to spend a week in Kentucky, warming up to fireplaces and family. Two people, two computers, books, clothes, and a dog - sounds like a modern wagon train. But instead of a Conestoga, we've got a 757.
7:08:58 AM
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Sunday, November 24, 2002 |
This is either a new high or a new low - I'm taking both laptops on the holiday trip. I really need to work on the integration of work/data across the Mac and the PC.
8:01:41 PM
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So much for that wishful theory. Dolphins 30, Chargers 3. At least it wasn't a blowout.
7:34:37 PM
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I predict the Chargers will win today. I won't be watching the game, so my consistent jinx on them will be inactive.
10:06:48 AM
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We saw the new Harry Potter movie last night. It was predictably excellent. Beyond the story and the quality production, I think I'm most encouraged by the strong morality lessons the movies (and I assume the books) promote. Courage. Honesty. Loyalty. A healthy disregard for silly rules. A sense of wonder.
It's all pretty great stuff. I find it hard to imagine that there's still a vocal faction of religious "fundamentalists" who think the story is evil, based on promotion of magic and witchcraft. Idiots.
9:55:37 AM
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I'm excited about getting to use Groove on my new project. Being a fan of Ray Ozzie (see the blogroll), I'm also a fan of his brainchild, Groove. More to learn, more complexity in the work environment, but...that's the job.
9:49:21 AM
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Blogging continues to take a back seat to the new project and holiday travel preparations. Need to reprioritize and find some more creative time. That's one thing the holidays are good for - reflection and reprogramming one's life.
9:44:17 AM
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Friday, November 22, 2002 |
How sad is this? The closest WiFi hot spot to my KY home is 2 hours away, in Lexington. And according to 802.11 Planet, there are zero WiFi public access points in WV. (I don't really believe that; I have to believe there are WLANs set up at Marshall or WVU).
8:42:09 AM
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Back from a week of client work in Palo Alto, and my head is full of new ideas. Not enough time, not enough energy to follow through with them all.
Worse, I'm looking at a week of dialup connection starting Monday. That will seriously degrade the daily surf. Suppose I'll focus more on output than input.
8:27:27 AM
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Venter gets go-ahead to build lifeform [New Scientist] Here we go. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
I'm the last guy in the world to be labelled a technophobe, but this strikes me as a really, really bad idea. Talk about Pandora's Box! There are so many ways this can go wrong, I don't know where to start.
The only place this should be done is on the moon or in an orbiting habitat. At least there if (when?) things go bad, the biosphere that's contaminated can be contained.
8:14:25 AM
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Wednesday, November 20, 2002 |
We leave for our Thanksgiving trip in only five days - the holidays are tooooo close. Starting to see Christmas decorations everywhere. Interesting story on one of the talk shows this AM touting Edinburgh Scotland as one of the top 10 Christmas destinations. Apparently they do it up right for the holidays.
8:20:09 AM
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A nice surprise from the world of business travel: I'm at a Marriot Residence Inn in Palo Alto. The rooms are big, the breakfast is free, the facilities are all new, and best of all, each room has Ethernet at no extra charge. Free broadband! What a great perk. These guys now have a loyal customer.
8:10:41 AM
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Monday, November 18, 2002 |
Secret U.S. court OKs electronic spying. A secretive federal court grants police broad authority to monitor Internet usage, record keystrokes and employ other surveillance methods against terror and espionage suspects. [CNET News.com]
I've got a really bad feeling about this. Too much unchecked power, particularly secretive power, is always, always a bad thing. It's all heppening too quickly - the hawks in our society are grabbing power in the name of patriotism. I fear for my daughter's future.
7:26:46 PM
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Observations one week after switching :
- The Jaguar UI is beautiful. No doubt about it, this is the best user experience in the industry.
- MS Office apps and documents work almost seamlessly with their Win2k cousins. Almost.
- Apple's Airport card and my home WLAN gateway (an HP gateway) don't work together. It's weird, but every time I fire up the Airport card, my WLAN access point locks up. Requires powering the access point down and restarting. Irritating.
- iCal could be great, but it's still too immature to work for me. And, I need tools for integrating iCal with Outlook calendars. Bring out new revs of it quickly, please....
- After following the instructions at both Apple and Netgear user support sites, my Powerbook still won't recognize the LAN-based print server. So I'm printing via USB, another pain ITA.
- The only pure fun software I bought for the Mac, Myst, doesn't work. It loads, but will not run on OSX. Nuts.
- Sherlock is amazing, great, cool - it's what network-aware apps should be. More, please.
- Networking with PCs isn't as seamless as advertised - though that's probably more the fault of Winblows (as my friend Matt calls it).
- When I work through most of this list, I'll probably bring a new blog up in Movable Type.
Looking at the list, it seems most of my problems or gripes are about integrating the Mac with already-existing PC and home LAN gear. All in all, I'm still glad I spent the cash on the new machine and new environment, but I'd hoped to be farther along creating a good working environment with it. Proves once again - personal computers still aren't easy enough for the masses. Nobody but a tweak would do what I'm doing to make things work.
3:30:15 PM
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I really hope that John Robb's take on Bush politics is wrong. I don't want to suffer through a decade of this; nor do I want America to become the singular policeman for the world. As much as I despised the Clinton presidency, I'm beginning to feel nostalgic about it.
1:56:31 PM
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Wow. Once again it's feast or famine in the solo consulting business. Between new project, old project, trying to keep a life and futzing around with both Mac and PC environments, my days are too full. Old project has to die before things get better. And, the holidays lurk out there, too close for comfort.
1:27:52 PM
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Saturday, November 16, 2002 |
I'm trying to finish one project and start another, so weblogging is taking a back seat. The ending project is mired in reviews and committees, and the entire process is frustrating. I find myself procrastinating on work that's needed to push it over the finish line.
5:33:58 PM
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Thursday, November 14, 2002 |
Why do people like the fortunes in fortune cookies?
Perhaps it's because we're wired to seek order in randomness. Our brains are first and foremost powerful pattern recognition engines, so when presented with pure random inputs (like fortunes), we unconsciously work to put some meaning (order) on the message, as if it were really meant for us.
Or maybe we just like the cookies.
11:48:55 AM
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Wednesday, November 13, 2002 |
Just finished a science fiction classic, Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep. I read it years ago, and had forgotten what a great story it is. With things like The Straumli Perversion, The Powers, The Slow Zone, and the whole notion of variable physical laws based on matter density - it's a big story with big ideas. And Vinge, in spite of being a real "hard SF writer", writes wonderful characters. Recommended.
6:20:44 PM
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In the midst of all the misery, inconvenience and pain of business travel, there is one outstanding benefit - room service. Thank God for room service.
6:09:19 PM
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Delta gets it. About six months ago, the passenger to my right informs me, Delta Airlines installed the new information system that I just experienced for the first time at La Guardia airport this morning. It's one of the most effective uses of information technology I have ever seen. Even if you don't usually fly Delta (as I don't), you might want to wander by one of their gates next time you're in an airport and check it out. Air travel still sucks, of course, but Delta earns my eternal gratitude for a brilliant application that makes it suck less. ... [Jon's Radio]
Jon Udell likes Delta. Me too. And unlike Jon, they're my go-to airline.
3:33:15 PM
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Just took a walk around the HP campus here in Boise. It's really nice. It brings back memories of when I started my career, and companies had parks, golf courses, lakes, etc., all for the employees and their family. Some people would call it paternalistic; I call it humanistic. People need more than PCs and coffee machines.
The campus here houses ~3500 people. Just outside the door, I walked into a 20 acre park with a lake, softball field, a parcourse, horseshoe pits, mature trees and flocks of geese. It's great to be able to take a break in a semi-natural environment after having my head glued to a PC screen all day.
This is one thing I *do* miss as a solo consultant - the few family/lifestyle perks offered by big companies.
3:27:56 PM
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Greeting card virus licensed to spread. If a computer user carelessly clicks an "I agree" button and downloads an infectious program, is that program a virus? That's the question raised by a sneaky new e-mail. [CNET News.com]
This is what got me last week. I saw it as it was happening, but too late. This kind of attack is only going to get better, so we need a "trusted space" for opening email - a walled garden. Otherwise, we'll never know if an email is really from a friend or if it's a similar worm.
7:45:53 AM
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Greetings from Boise. Working at a client site here, so very little time or energy to write. First impressions of Boise - flat. Very flat. The terrain looks more interesting in three directions, but Boise sits in a gigantic valley between two mountain ranges.
6:30:53 AM
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Monday, November 11, 2002 |
Qualcomm translates USB for phones. [CNET News.com]
Convergence, convergence, convergence - it's everywhere. Cell phones become cameras, PCs become radios and stereos, PCs become VCRs, watches become remote controls...It all adds up to pervasive computing. Nice.
4:50:39 PM
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I like radioio. Discovering new net radio stations is a lot more fun than expected.
4:07:00 PM
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My wife and I attended a wake on Friday night, my first. I have to admit a certain provincialism as to death-related events - my only experience had been the somber, quiet, dressed-in-black, politely sobbing Christian funeral. This was a real eye-opener.
The celebrant, Dana, had made it clear that he wanted a celebration after his passing, not a traditional funeral. He was stricken with pancreatic cancer at age 42, and died just over a year later. I didn't know Dana well (I know him and his circle of friends through my wife), but he was a free spirit. He packed a lot into 42 years. And he was clearly someone who inspired love and loyalty among his many friends.
We arrived to see approximately 100 people in Hawaiian shirts, shorts and sandals. There was a band, a slide show, picture albums on display, catered food, a hosted bar - the works. The people were laughing, dancing, talking, singing, and yes, a few were crying. It was altogether as civilized a way to commemorate a life as I can imagine. I was impressed and moved, and determined to do the same on my way out.
Here's to Dana, proof again that only the good die young. I wish I had known him better.
And proof again that every day's a bonus. Live it well.
3:48:47 PM
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Going back and forth between the new Mac and the Win2K PC is painful. I have to relearn everything, even simple things. There's a reason corporations don't want to support two compting environments - it's hard.
Today I've found the documentation that will allow me to move this website's management from the PC to the Mac, and the tools for posting to Radio via email. If I can get those done, I can start to partition my life appropriately.
Some comments and first impressions on the new Mac:
- Great UI. Beautiful, consistent, intuitive. I can't say enough about the UI embodied in OSX.
- iCal is elegant, but needs lots of work. Not surprising, as it is v1.0.
- I had to install Apple's 802.11b card, the Airport card. Should've been easy, but opening the PBG4 requires a #8 Torx driver. It was irritating to have to search around the neighborhood shops at 7pm for one, but Radio Shack came through. Once opened, installing was easy. Once installed, connection to the home WLAN was seamless and automatic. It just worked.
- I was really looking forward to Myst, but it isn't working. Something's not right - everything else works as advertises, so it's a Myst problem, not a PB problem.
- So far, MS Office on OSX looks like a winner. Time will tell about document compatibilities.
- Listening to London FM stations via iTunes and some serious addon speakers is just too cool. It reminds of when I was a kid, and discovered that I could hear the big Chicago FM station at night, so I'd stay up late and imagine what Chicago must be like.
More later, but I think I'm really going to like the new machine.
12:47:47 PM
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Gadget Overload Relief in Sight. Technology called software defined radio, or SDR, could herald the development of new wireless devices that combine multiple applications into a single appliance. By Paul Boutin. [Wired News]
This is a very cool idea. It makes sense - why not take advantage of Moore's Law as long as we can? This will also give Microsoft a new platform to conquer, new competitors to crush.
5:28:47 AM
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It's too early to be up, but here I am.
Haven't yet tried to move my Radio installation to the Mac, so I'm switching back and forth between machines. The UI differences are startling - the Mac is so superior in UI. It's not just the look - it's the logic in the UI.
There's a lot to write about: a wake, a fantasyland country club, Vernor Vinge books, birthdays and holidays... Alas, I should be writing for a client, and that's got to take precedence today.
5:24:40 AM
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Sunday, November 10, 2002 |
Not much time to post today. Spent last night getting the new PB G4 configured (!), and today is being spent with my friend Tracy doing birthday things. Could be worse.
1:54:53 PM
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Saturday, November 09, 2002 |
Local jobless rate 7.9%, worst since '83
SANTA CLARA COUNTY TOLL 80,000 IN OCTOBER AS LAYOFFS CONTINUE
From SJMN, by Margaret Steen
Yikes! Things are still really bad in tech Mecca. My consulting work is looking pretty sweet right about now.
8:24:13 AM
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Invasion
I feel violated. Something, some vile program, has invaded my laptop. I'm getting popup ads for a wide variety of products/services all the time now. They pop most often during a context switch - moving from one web page to another. I think it happened when I tried to read a message that was from an acquaintance of mine. I was using Outlook web access, clicked the message link, and got....nothing. Not unusual; sometimes it takes a while on the server side. Then I noticed that my main Outlook client was starting up. I shut down fast, but not fast enough. I think I got scammed (spammed?) by a fairly insidious program that:
- Stripped my address (and probably many others) from my acquaintance's address book
- Sent an email to me masquerading as my friend
- Went to work on my address book once I activated the message
- Left me the gift of "something" that drives/enables the popups.
I'm going to have to clean the machine. I wonder why my virus protection software didn't stop this?
7:34:56 AM
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The Radio commenting system is broken again this morning. I need to learn how it works.
<time passes...>
OK, that was simple. From the manual: "By default, Radio uses a Manila site hosted at UserLand to manage comments. Any Manila site can host comments for Radio weblogs, and it's possible that other comment services may also plug into Radio's simple comment interface."
So the Manila site that's managing my comments has some problems today.
7:20:00 AM
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Friday, November 08, 2002 |
Net It Out
- Friday afternoon. +
- Scut work: expenses, status reports, accounting. --
- Raining outside. -
- Going to a Hawaii-theme wake tonight. ?!
- Not being on the freeways. ++
4:04:38 PM
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Tough decision. This? Or this? 
9:44:07 AM
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Thursday, November 07, 2002 |
There's another idea brewing, but it'll take longer to write up. It's a pervasive computing architecture based on federated systems. More later.
8:27:03 PM
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One of the ideas that surfaced today is for a multimedia version of a news aggregator. Except, think "more than news", and think, "more than text or HTML". I'm imagining a content capture system that looks at web pages, MPEGs, JPEGs (at least the metadata for images), syndicated news feeds, network programming, transcribed radio...any parsable content object. This capture service will create a "channel" of aggregated content based on my search/filter criteria. I can then view the channel anytime, independent of source constraints. Think multimedia Tivo.
The idea needs some work - but fortunately, that's what one of the clients is paying for. Sweet.
8:20:00 PM
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Strange day today. I broke out of my "sit at the desk and read/write" rut. Took the day and went to San Jose to visit a client. In spite of the 5am-7pm travel day, I enjoyed the stimulation of some new people and places.
I'm very anxious to wrap up the project for The Firm and get started on the intranet project. I like the project's goals and subject matter, and I think I'll like the client. The current project is simply boring me to death, and dealing with the people and processes from The Firm is bringing back lots of memories - not good ones. In the immortal words of Monty Python, "Run away.....!".
The airplane time was actually good. I got some thinking done - there's something about that setting that brings out the creative impulse. I suppose after all these years I've learned to think happy thoughts while hemmed in by sweaty fellow travelers. Good survival skill.
8:01:13 PM
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Wednesday, November 06, 2002 |
This will be huge. Foolproof authentication is going to happen, and it looks like it's being beta tested in the third world. There are many troubling aspects of this, but...the genie's out of the bottle. Get ready to have your eyes scanned, everywhere, soon.
9:18:13 AM
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That being said, here's some gear I do want. Cool and practical. If they'll just make one for the v60i. CashnCarrion has to be one of the best names for an online store - I really like The Register.
8:18:42 AM
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Gartner slams 3G navel gazing. It's the consumers, stupid [The Register]
One more reason why WiFi will grow much faster than cellular 3G the next 2 years. I for one am not willing to pay big $ to bring Internet "pages" to my 1"x2" cell phone screen. Finally, gear I can resist!
8:12:41 AM
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It seems that the GOP won almost everything worth winning in last night's elections. Not surprising, as I imagine there's a post-911 effect in play, swinging just a few Democrats due to worries about security and terrorism.
But now the real worry is a President who is way too eager to go to war, aligned with a GOP-controlled Senate and House. I'm a big believer in constructive conflict, creative tension - and we've just lost that for at least two years. How will the minority voice get heard?
In better election news, my friend Matt has a good geek story about online election results. And yes, I do have a TN3270 emulator on my laptop (though I haven't had occasion to use it for a while).
7:11:24 AM
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Tuesday, November 05, 2002 |
If rumors about the new iBooks are true, there's probably one in my future. I've got to buy a new laptop for my business, as the current one belongs to a client. Time to Switch.
7:13:36 PM
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I love playing golf and walking, as opposed to riding a cart. Golf was meant for walking, but too many Socal courses make it very tough. Some even ban walking.
Walking provides a nice pace to the game, and is great exercise. Today I got the chance to enjoy a perfect afternoon, including a spectacular sunset, all while walking 18 holes.
6:50:54 PM
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I've finally found something I don't like about my Moto v60i. The charger plug doesn't mate well with the tiny socket on the phone. It sometimes takes 4-5 tries before I get a confirmed "Charging" message, and even that is no guarantee. The connection is so delicate that just laying the phone down after plugging it in can break the connection. It's a fairly basic flaw in the design.
We *really* need connector standards for battery charging on small devices. Having device-specific chargers and plugs is dumb.
11:20:26 AM
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Spent some time looking at Boise, Idaho this morning. Getting ready for my next project, which will involve some travel to visit the client in Boise. Nice! The area looks wonderful - reasonable housing, low population (by Socal standards), just enough golf courses, and lots of outdoors activities. Nampa, a small town close to Boise, looked especially nice.
11:15:52 AM
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What are the odds? We've got a house full of complex electronics, more gear than NASA in 1969. So what won't work this morning? The coffee pot. All it's gotta do is turn on a warmer and pump water through a filter, but it's dead as a doornail. No coffee + poor sleep last night = a bad start. May have to drive to Starbucks...
7:57:14 AM
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Monday, November 04, 2002 |
Procrastination
I've meant to write about this for a while, but never seem to get around to it. Seriously, this is probably my Achilles' Heel (as an aside, check out the first use of the term Achilles' Heel in 1693. Pretty creepy.)
Procrastination has stopped me from doing so many good things - that book and screenplay that just never makes it to the top of the to-do list; the business idea that needs a plan; the thank you cards from 2 years ago; the daily exercise I need; the wedding gift I need to send...the list goes on. Not to mention the paid work assignment I have for today.
Procrastination is why I always functioned better with a coach. With a coach yelling at me, I get things done. I need someone shaming me into doing things on time, right now, in proper order - otherwise, it's easy to drift around and use the excuse "maybe tomorrow".
Maybe later this week I'll find a coach...
7:59:18 AM
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Full speed ahead for IBM transistor. Big Blue on Monday will debut a 350GHz transistor for wireless chips that promises enough power to build future networks to change how people use PCs and electronics. [CNET News.com]
More wireless progress. This is going to be the biggest thing in tech for years to come. This enables all the cool things we'd like to do with WLANs today, but can't. Imagine TVs, stereos, storage appliances, laptops...all connected with a truly broadband link, 100s of megabits per second. No wires, so home theater installation is as simple as moving a few small boxes around. High end audio, with mono-block style speaker amps become common. I can't wait.
7:05:59 AM
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Wi-Fi That Follows You Around. A new type of Wi-Fi system connects existing laptops and other computers by directing beams of coverage through hundreds of tiny antennas. Paul Boutin reports from San Francisco. [Wired News]
This is GREAT! WiFi, already a disruptive user technology, gets an upgrade. I love the elegance of the design - using 30 milliwatts of power to connect users up to 4 Km away. Whoa. This could be bad news for some of the WLAN tech companies (Mesh Networks, for example), but anything that expands the use of WiFi is OK by me.
6:53:34 AM
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Sunday, November 03, 2002 |
Had a nice dinner and wine tasting for some friends last night. The blind tasting revealed a really fine wine, a 2000 Biale Zin. The Biale whipped several other good bottles - it was the unamimous choice both before and with dinner. Recommended.
9:45:00 AM
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It's November in San Diego. The only real clues that it's actually November are (1) it gets dark at 5pm, and (2) we start to see holiday decorations and advertising. This is the time of year when the rest of the country feels and sees a dramatic shift in the weather and the foliage, but we're stuck in the eternal temperate zone. Could be worse.
Though the weather hasn't changed, something has shifted for me internally. October brought on a growing malaise, a dissatisfaction with things. My guess is that it's all related to a lack of challenge in my work. The project that survived the fall is/was steady income, but bor-r-r-ing. It's devolved into an endless set of committee meetings that, thankfully, will end in a week or two. I cringe every time I think of how much potentially productive time is wasted by meetings.
The good news is my next project has appeared, and has the chance to be both steady and stimulating. The project goal is to set the course for a *very* large client's intranet - to do a redesign of the infrastructure, set a course, and then work to get dozens or hundreds of "stakeholders to buy the plan. It's that last bit that will make or break the project (and probably me). In previous similar projects, it took months and months of evangelism, whining, wheedling and threats to bring about the needed change.
Whether the project is a boom or a bust, I'm ready for a change. Bring it on.
9:34:11 AM
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Saturday, November 02, 2002 |
All Aboard! (But No PCs Allowed). Most weekends, multimillionaire tech executive Doug Humphrey takes to the seas in his ex-British Royal Navy patrol ship. As a security measure, the only computers he uses -- or allows -- on board are Macs. By Leander Kahney. [Wired News]
This is the most extreme case of "boys and their toys..." ever. Sounds like a good friend to have.
7:21:22 AM
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Someone should be punished for creating red light cameras. This study supposedly shows that they save lives. Maybe, but anyone who believes that saving lives is the reason these things are imposed on us is just stupid. Government is invasive enough without worry that you're going to get a $250 ticket in the mail for miscalulating the yellow light's duration, with no recourse but to pay, else the City/County/Burg will ruin your credit report. And as the cost of tech drops, next we'll have stop sign cameras, lane changing cameras, full-blown speed detection radar everywhere....Arrrrrg!
7:03:28 AM
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Friday, November 01, 2002 |
It's 130pm and I'm already tired. Eighteen holes of golf at 0-dark-30, then two separate business negotiations. I hate those - I have way too much empathy for the other guy's position to feel OK about taking a hard line. Call it a character flaw. I'm ready to call it a day, and I haven't made any progress on my writing projects.
1:30:02 PM
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© Copyright 2002 Jeff Nichols.
Last update: 11/30/2002; 6:21:05 AM.
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