In Memoriam
David Foster Wallace has passed away.
David Foster Wallace has passed away.
If you thought Vista was bad installed from DVD, take a look at a factory image from a major OEM like Sony.
It’s… horrifying.
At the point I was working on Sigma/C++ instead of Sigma/Python, I was using the simple-but-beautiful Lua as my scripting platform.
The Windows package now includes wxWindows with native bindings. This makes it into a dangerous competitor to Python for rapid-prototyped GUIs.
I wish Python’s packages (especially for Windows and probably for Mac) would at least provide the option to install wxWindows automatically in the right place with all the right symlinks and stuff.
There was an odd circumstance in which my iPod was playing one of the more forceful songs from The Fountain‘s soundtrack was lined up with the hold music for our teleconferencing system.
It was extremely intense.
If you get a chance, watch the video for Blues Traveler’s “Hook” sometime. It’s best accompanied by a listing of its lyrics… which is a poignant statement given the song’s theme.
According to Wikipedia, they actually used the “Canon” chord progression to emphasize the over-importance of catchiness and familiarity rather than meaning. Hence the “it doesn’t matter what I sing / as long as I sing with inflection.”
Good stuff.
This morning, I thought of a good pondering experiment: if you were approached by someone who had been listening to a “Party One-Oh-Whatever”-type radio station for their whole lives and have never appreciated or been exposed to substantive music (meaning beyond your Hanna Montana techno remixes, and the like), what band or artist would you recommend first?
Me? I’m thinking Ben Folds.
Google has apparently done it again with Chrome, which should be releasing somewhere around now, Eastern Standard Time. Gears integration sounds appetizing, and the tear-off tabs and isolated processes seem very awesome. Also the whole Google minimalist thing, which would be a welcome change. The choice of “Chrome” as a name is definitely a playful move.
Sigma has suffered my neglect recently due to the vast amounts of DIY home stuff I’ve had to do, including some painting, very gross outdoor ceiling scrubbing, and LAN wiring. Okay, the LAN wiring was at my option! But it’s all pretty much to get ready for the big move, whenever that may be. There may be some adds tonight or tomorrow night…
Chrome is definitely nice.
But it needs to warn you that your downloads will be cut off when the window closes…
Evenings recently have been essentially 100% occupied by cleaning, sorting, and throwing things away. This is the kingpin strategy for the big move: have less to reposition.
Not that we’re planning to haul much across the Atlantic, but also not that we know what we’ll be expected to haul. Still no paperwork. Typing the prior sentence prompted me to call HR, so there’s a follow-up e-mail being dispatched as we speak.
While ever the HR cynic, this whole process has left me somewhat jaded with what I had naively thought was the “mature adult work process.” I began to imagine this nonexistent phenomenon when we were apartment and furniture shopping, as everyone seemed stunned that we always tried to finalize things early and were ready to deal with heavy bureaucracy. I imagined things just ran smoother and more efficient.
Turns out those people just weren’t organized enough to deal with things ahead of time.
So, the ultimate conclusion is that the customers may always be right, but they are certainly expected to be the flexible ones. If they want it early, you show up early. If it’s late, they won’t deal until last-minute.
[The e-mail was delightfully forceful, by the bye.]
It just dawned on me how many essential aspects of the workings of the universe could be understood by the above-average high school student, had they been exposed to the laws of thermodynamics at a reasonable level of detail.