Semi-geeky post ahead, mind the gap.
The weather has vastly improved as of late, and I’ve been feeling much better because of it. I’m able to get out and about for a walk after work now, something that before the time change required a huge amount of energy on my part. Now, it’s easy and rewarding. During my walk, I’ve replaced my standard “shuffle all music” with podcasts. In fact, I’ve whittled my enormous podcast list down so it’s slightly more manageable and includes more podcasts that I’m actually interested in listening to. Go figure. :)
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Riverside has been moving along well, however it’s at a slower pace than we’re used to. The site works very well, with the occasional hiccup here or there. The small bugs have been found and most of them squashed. One in particular made me laugh when I poked at the logs to figure out what was wrong. Apparently, our credit card company doesn’t like us passing the state variable as “NOT.” We set that as the winery state if they are located outside the US. I quickly modified the database to allow people from outside the US to choose other states like British Columbia, etc. and now the credit cards are processing nicely.
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Ever since NetRestore was retired, I’ve been looking for a solution to NetBoot our Mac’s to image them with our standard campus image. I first tried Apple’s method called, simply, NetInstall. While their solution works, it just wasn’t as scalable and flexible compared with NetRestore. Then I decided to try a program called Deploy Studio. I heard about it from Bombich’s site, but was a little hesitant to try it because it seemed like it needed a lot of configuration to get it working.
Figuring I had the time and resources to see what it had to offer, I decided to go for it. So, I’ve spent the last two weeks playing with Deploy Studio and having both some wonderful successes and spectacular failures along the way. I won’t go into the gory details, but yesterday I was able to finally get our OS X imaging server up and running with Deploy Studio. Today, I tweaked the crud out of it and finally have a working Mac image deployment solution. Woohoo!
One of the amazing things about this program is the ability to create an image from the network - previously I had to use an external drive. So, this setup mimics, almost exactly, our Ghosting server for our Windows PC’s.
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Hope this awesome weather continues! I can’t wait to go out camping, take the scope out for some gazing, and some long days out by the coast. Oh, I’ll be changing the color scheme on Zephire in the next few days to match Spring. :)
Happy Equinox everyone!
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
I walked into the store and immediately noticed a difference. It had been some time since I’d been around, but I never realized they would be into such changes. Their look and feel were the same, but their perspective had changed. Very typical of this company. All around me sleek futuristic glass was illuminated by only the necessary amount of light. Product was laid out essentially the same as last time, but due to the new look, the shelving made the equipment hover and glow. Again, very typical. What struck me the most was the lack of light and how it made everything really shine. Oxymoronic, I know.
I smiled and as I walked through to the rear of the store and into the back of house. I made my way to the managers office to see what my assignment was that day. I basically had complete freedom in my work schedule now that I had negotiated a deal with Apple. The manager reminded me that since I had the ability to come and go as I pleased, that things had changed since last I’d been in. I laughed and remarked how it still felt like Apple, yet it was a completely new look for them.
I was told to sit with a bunch of the other Geniuses at a meeting bar in the back of house. One of them was replacing a light panel that illuminated the work surface. My brother from SLO was in the bunch, visiting to help out I think.
Later, after work, I visited an ocean resort. This place had it all - beautiful ocean views, varying kinds of spa pools, and all matter of gardens in which to relax. However, there was some sort of storm rolling in and everyone had left. I stayed behind to watch the storm come in. I reveled in the waves and wind. But when it got to be too much, I decided that I would have to leave as well.
As I left, the waves continued to get stronger and kept flowing more and more inland. I watched as various boards were ripped from the boardwalk, places I had been were now completely under water. I loved watching the changes. I started to run, but I was not scared. It seemed like a challenge to me. Now, running at full speed through the main building, I noticed I wouldn’t touch the ground - I would use my arms to grab objects (like door knobs and the like) to propel me through the hallways. I remember a friend joining me at one point and even a little girl who was a child prodigy spouting random facts and figures while she followed us through the halls.
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Riverside programming is done! I’m sure I’ll be making tweaks until and during the competition in May, but the bulk of it is done! Woohoo! I took some sick days from work last week because I was feeling under the weather and needed rest, but during those days I got bored and so decided to pump out the rest of the code. So, the back-end is done for us to manage the competition. New features for the back-end:
1) Award status - allows us to quickly see the status of awards so we can choose a winery of the year, and other top awards of that nature.
2) Double sided lookups - wines are attached to wineries and vice versa, so we can quickly go back and forth between the wine, winery, wines, etc. We had something like this last year, but this year it’s much better.
3) Award results is more comprehensive with additional “non awards” like “Not poured” or “No show,” things that happened last year.
4) Warehouse pages to help receiving of wines.
Results pages are done, new features for this year:
1) For the “by company” and “by brand” printable award pages - they now are generated in PDF form rather than HTML. PDF’s allow for much greater control of header / footer / page breaks / etc. In fact, Out of the several printy things we generate, only one is HTML now - the shelftalker. Everything else is PDF. Wooha!
2) Generic / configuration file - This is to allow us to much more easily reuse the code year after year by simply specifying the variables that change, for example the year of the competition.
And because I’m a total nut, I dreamt up a new feature last week and implemented it for the front-end. It allows wineries to add their website to the wine which will then show up on the results pages for anyone to get more info.
Other than that, life continues to keep things interesting! I wish the weather were warmer and drier. I’m literally aching to go out hiking again. I’m sure I’ll be back on here sooner than later. Oh! How d’yall like the new Winter theme to Zephire? It will change March 21st to a spring theme, so keep an eye out. :P
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
Back in one piece, it would seem. It’s been nutty, as always, but wanted to stop in and write a few passages before heading off to explore some more. :)
The Riverside competition front end is complete, finally. I figured that since last year we’d have it all taken care of, hiring a professional developer, renting a colo box, setting up a new domain name, and all of the other stuff that goes along with getting Ruby on Rails on the web, we’d be all set for this year. However, we ran into a few bugs in the program last year - not really anything wrong with the program, it just didn’t have features we didn’t know we wanted. :) So, this year, we hired back Resolve Digital to handle the upgrade to version 2 of the front end. It took a little longer than planned, but the end result is very spiffy. I’m thoroughly enjoying the new features -
1) It will not give the wine a bottle ID until it’s been paid for, this is SUPER important because last year, bottle ID’s were being generated even on unpaid wines and when people didn’t pay, we had gaps in the bottle ID’s.
2) It also marks the appropriate fields like payment type and such.
3) The payment stuff has been completely reworked so that now wineries won’t be whisked away to another site for payment. Now, it’s all on our site, so it looks and operates quite professionally. Because of this, I had to spend an evening setting up our server to be secure. That was a very long evening as I’ve never done that before, but the people at InstantSSL were wonderful and really helped every step of the way. I recommend them if you need to get a secure certificate.
4) There is a new module for Ruby on Rails that allows it to run through Apache, so we migrated away from using Mongrel and Pound to Phusion Passenger. It took a while to configure and set up as well, but the end result: allowing both the front-end app (Ruby on Rails) and the back-end app (PHP) to coexist peacefully running on port 80 - the standard web port. Last year I had to run things on port 8000 and port 7000, and when the results came out I had to scramble to get it back to port 80 so that the businesses who blocked non-standard ports could see the results!
5) Wineries can change their contact info - couldn’t do that last year.
6) Returning wineries who used a paper entry form last year but who provided an email address are able to login to the site this year thanks to a new section that prompts them for additional login information. Very slick.
Props to David, the programmer I worked with at Resolve Digital. Thanks so much David!!
From now until the competition in May, I’ll be very slowly finalizing the back-end admin interface as well as the results pages for this new year. I don’t think it’ll take as long to put together as last year because most of my time last year was spent configuring the PDF creation modules, but I can reuse all of that code this year. Wooha!
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Because of the craziness, I decided to drop my physics class. :( It actually was getting to be too easy for me, if you can believe that! I was really surprised at how much I knew from 10 years ago taking the same class! But more importantly, I was stressing over the piles of homework that were continuing to back up. No worries about the education goal - SSU will still take that class I took 10 years ago towards a bachelors. I’ll just start back up again in the fall. To sweeten the goal of relaxing, I’m taking yoga for the first time. It’s rewarding in it’s own way, but will take me a few more classes to be fully used to it. :)
I’m 31! My birthday was on Friday and I did a bunch of things all over the map, so it was quite an enjoyable weekend. As a holiday gift, I got Joel tickets to see Henry Rollins, his personal hero. D joined us as well, and as both of them had seen him perform his spoken word act before, they helped to introduce me to his unique take on life and humanity. I was really blown away! What an incredible person this is. His stories about his world travels (to anyplace George Bush said was a bad place to go, he’d book a flight the next day), to humanity, to the critically thinking mind were all incredible. Joel was even able to get a wonderful picture with him after the show. :)
On Saturday I continued the celebration with friends at Sushi To Dai For. Quite good rolls they have there! For afters we headed over to Russian River to see Five A.M. in all their glory. It was a good show, though the place was PACKED so it was tough to dance with comfort. Hah! Still had a good time and got to catch up with some friends I’ve not seen in a while… well, as much as you can catch up in a place you have to yell to be heard. :P
Allrighty, off for the evening. I’m going to go relax with the kitties, an episode of Lost, and some hot tea! :)
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
My my, it’s been a while since I’ve updated! A little recap for everyone:
Right before the holidays I studied madly and took my final for calculus 1A - I got an A! According to the calculations, I must have aced the final. Wooha!
I’m already signed up for this next semester. Classes begin tomorrow! My physics class has quite the schedule - a bunch of times during the middle of the day so I will be using PTO and vacation hours to cover the time I’ll be gone from work. Thankfully it’s all on the same campus! I can’t imagine how I’m going to deal when I begin at SSU in a few years.
We got a holiday tree, my first, and decorated it all up! It ended up being quite natural and not at all over the top. Pictures here! Look for the cats in a few of those pictures, once they got accustomed to it, they went into curious-mode! At some point, I should write a post about my feelings towards the holidays and the different kinds of things it represents and what I choose the celebrate during this time of year. When I’ve got more time. Heh!
We had a holiday party with tons of friends and family that all went quite well. There was so much food! I had leftovers for what seemed like weeks!
I hosted friends from Chicago who had their little one with them. It was such a joy to have them over and really wonderful to catch up with them and watch their lil one roam all over the house. Poly wasn’t quite sure what to think, so she watched from afar, her tail twitching. :) More delicious food was had by all.
I visited with friends from San Diego and Oxnard, as always it was great to catch up. We spent time playing board games, shopping, and of course ate more great food!
As a mini-vacation from the holidays, D and I went to see Teatro Zinzanni, a cabaret circ de soleil style show in the city. We got all dressed up for it and had a night on the town. :) It was incredible! It felt as if we were in Vegas. I would highly recommend it. I even bought a fedora for the occasion. I think I’m going to need to wear it more often. A tip of the hat (literally) to Joel for helping me figure out how to dress in the right style. You rock, Joel! :)
I saw Milk - it was wonderfully done. However, it saddened me that this was the first time that I’ve ever heard about him, his runs for office as the first openly gay candidate, and the trials and tribulations he and his followers had to go through. Additionally, it was also the first time I’d ever heard of California’s proposition 6 in 1978. Local historical moments like these should be taught to kids in high school! In fact, over the days after seeing the movie, I spoke with friends and family about a potential new curriculum for high school history classes. One that allowed a more open dialog that would allow students to bring up topics in current events and have the instructor expand on the history behind the events that affect us today.
Last week was the first week back to work after being off for two weeks. It certainly took mew a few days to get back into the groove. And for the new year, I decided to start a new project! It is a database based on the same program that I use for the Riverside database. It will be used for internal device tracking, and I’ve gotten a lot of wonderful input from one of my coworkers and it has been fun working with him on the project.
Speaking of Riverside, we’re hiring the programming company to come back in to change small parts of the front end. Work on that begins tomorrow. I’ve already been working on the back-end, fixing little things that we had issues with last year.
Not quite sure when I’ll be able to get back here to write updates. Once classes begin and the Riverside stuff starts taking off I’ll be just as busy as I’ve always been! Hey, you’ve got to keep things interesting, right? :)
Take care everyone, happy new year!!
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
This morning as I sat at my desk, sipping my coffee and still attempting to wake up, I happened across a movie trailer for a new Bollywood movie called Chandni Chowk to China. At first, I didn’t quite know what to think. Was it a serious movie? The first part of the trailer makes it look like it could be? But then it looked comedic? It was produced by Warner Brothers so could it be a spoof on Bollywood? Oh wait, no, this looks like one of those action movies where there is just a little bit of comedy… oh wait, no, he’s dancing Bollywood style and then slips on a banana peel, this most definitely isn’t serious.
But then there are scenes that look like James Bond, scenes reminiscent of the silliness that were in Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, really cool looking kung-fu action scenes, a chef on a journey out of his element, tons of Bollywood dancing and music, and then things you’d see in a Chinese artistic warrior movie: beautiful slow motion action and artistic-flowing-flying people.
I must see this movie. :)
Check out the trailer at Apple’s site -
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/chandni
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
Exciting astronomy news that is all over the astronomy blogosphere today! Three extra-solar planets have been directly imaged! Before now, all we have been able to do was indirectly measure the effect a planet has around its parent star - mainly with light curves (as planets pass in front of us and the star) and gravitational star wobble (as planets orbit, the gravity of the system causes the parent star to shift). The techniques that allows us to actually see the planets for the first time use a combination of infra-red imaging (spotting very young systems that haven’t had time to cool yet), angular-differential-imaging (imaging by rotating the field of view about the star to pull out imperfections, i.e. planets) and blocking the extremely strong light from the star the plant is orbiting about.
What you see in the image above (click to embiggen) is the star Fomalhaut. The main star light is being blocked by a device inside Hubble. The ring is the leftover stuff from the formation of the star, this one is less than 300 million years old, just a toddler! Among the dust ring is the planet! It’s tiny in the image, but is most likely similar to Jupiter in terms of size and mass.
This is extremely exciting! Honestly history in the making right here! Recently I’ve been contacting graduate universities about what I need to apply for the graduate programs in a few years and I’ve been told that in addition to the bachelors degree, I will need to have some serious research under my belt. Until now, I didn’t really know exactly what I wanted to focus on, but I would love to do research on extra-solar planets and detection methods! Back in UCSC days, there was a class that I wanted to take but was graduate level called planetary geology. Perhaps as I continue my studies, I’ll finally be able to tackle these classes.
Information gathered from the following sources:
Story at ARS
Story at Bad Astronomy
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
While I do have a post about Prop 8 in the works, I did see this video from MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann. I really appreciated what he had to say. It was clear, succinct, and almost exactly what I had wanted to say in response to the banning of gay marriage. Most of the time I find it difficult to listen to Olbermann because he tends to use the same “in your face” style of reporting that some right-wing “journalists” use. However, there are moments like these where I can grant a nod and agree with what he has to say. Give it a watch.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/2
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
I’m still around and kicking folks! I’ve just been quite busy over the last several weeks. A few tidbits for the moment:
I’ve got a post in the works about prop 8, though oddly it seems “outdated” even though the election was only a week ago. Meh. I’ll post it soon when I’ve got more time to clean it up.
I’m in the middle of reading a fascinating 3 part article on ars technica about self-driving cars. Since I was a kid, I’ve dreamed about being able to live in a world where self-driving cars were the norm.
Five A.M. played at the Mystic a few night ago, it was wonderful to see them again after so many months, but they only played for about 45 minutes, there was little band-to-crowd and band-to-band banter, and their set was their typical “opener set” used to open for other bands. So now I’m _really_ wanting them to go back to Russian River Brewing Co. or someplace local where we can just sit and listen for hours. To both the banter and the music. :P
Cowboy Mouth was the group that came on after and I was seriously blown away. What a group! They have a unique rock sound that is quite energetic and the drummer IS the lead singer and was not only one of the more energetic drummers I’ve seen, but was also constantly active in getting the crowd involved. Clapping hands, telling us to scream at high-energy points in the songs, jumping up and down, and generally going totally nutty. :) I don’t think we knew exactly what to expect for this show, but what we experienced was really incredible!
Physics challenge - The physics class I want to take next semester is only offered during the day. So, I’ve had to tell my boss about this to see if I can rearrange my work schedule to make up the hours. I still want to work 40 hours if I can by coming in early and staying late. The problem is that this is just the beginning - most of the classes I’ll be taking for the next 5 years will be just like this in one form or another. Especially when I head off to SSU for the latter parts of the bachelors. I hope my director can see that my ultimate goal is to become a teacher that will benefit the college.
Making guest room - Since my brother left a few years ago, I’ve wanted to turn his room into a guest bedroom. Now that I’ve got some people visiting for the holidays, I’ve decided to finally tackle this project. There was no bed in there, so I bought myself a new futon and put my original futon in the guest room. The new futon mattress is quite comfy! In the guest room, ‘m going for an astronomy theme so I put up some posters and my collectibles. For both rooms I decided to rearrange the furniture around a bit, something I’ve not done since I moved in 4 years ago. So this is all very fun and exciting.
More laters! When I can get back to update, that is! :)
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
There is a live stream of the Shpongle concert in London! I’m watching it right now and am so excited to see the concert - it’s much more than I had thought it was going to be. There are all matter of dancers, live musical instruments mixed with the electronica and the whole stage is all done up. I really wish I was there to see them live! Incredible stuff.
I’m at work and doing inventory and dancing in my seat like a madman… my coworkers are looking at me funny. Hehe.
Check it out if you can. :)
http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/live-events
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
http://www.zephire.net/2008/10/27/g
And if you don't want to go to Zephire, here's the link to the interview:
http://www.zephire.net/wordpress/wp-con
Z.
I’m starting to get a little tired of Apple’s Mac vs PC ads. Sure, the first time I see them I find them cute and sometimes funny, but their overall message has been getting long in the tooth.
Up front, I’m a Apple user and still highly recommend their products. Why? Because they are solid. Both Apple’s hardware and software are designed with usability from the ground up. Apple tends to buck the trend when it comes to UI and so things seem fresh and exciting, even for the most arduous of tasks. Take, for example, backups with Time Machine. Sure the UI is goofy, but it’s a fun goofy that works surprisingly well for the home user.
So why I am against the ads? Because I feel that Apple doesn’t need to stoop to the level of attacking Microsoft’s Vista or PC’s in general. They have such a strong OS and hardware base themselves that all they would need to do is advertise all the great things that OS X and their hardware have to offer. Instead, it seems that the ads focus on Vista’s downfalls, most of which are highly untrue. I use Vista at work. And while it’s not my main computer, I find that it’s intuitive, clean, and really not that bad. I think I prefer XP for simplicity, and of course I prefer OS X for usability. But the point is, Apple is barking up the wrong tree.
Instead, Apple could just as easily show off OS X as they do with the iPhone commercials. Have a clean background, show off how easy iPhoto creates an online gallery, or how easy it is to post a video to YouTube via iMovie. Show how Time Machine works, or that the dictionary and Google search are built into the underlying fabric of OS X. The possibilities to show off the greatness of OS X are practically endless.
By airing these negative ads, they somehow feel the need to appeal to their elite base, the people who have already switched, instead of airing ads of change and wonder. Humm, what an odd comparison to the presidential campaign, isn’t it? :) I certainly thought Apple was a more diverse company than this.
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
“And frankly, it was in the period leading up to the conventions, and then the decisions that came out of the conventions, and then just sort of watching the responses of the two individuals on the economic crisis. It gave me an opportunity to evaluate their judgment, to evaluate their way of approaching a problem, to evaluate the steadiness of their actions. And it was at that point that I realized that, to my mind, anyway, that Sen. Obama has demonstrated the kind of calm, patient, intellectual, steady approach to problem-solving that I think we need in this country.”
-Colin Powell comments on his recent endorsement of Barak Obama
Bravo, Mr. Powell. Bravo.
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
I have a request from those who read my blog and LiveJournal.
Sometime last year I posted a media quiz that I came up with. While a fun idea, one of the reasons behind the quiz was because I continue to flounder among the huge weight of things I want to keep up on over the course of my day. Take, for example, RSS feeds. I want to stay up to date with current events in the news, tech world, astronomy updates, my friends blogs, hiking blogs, my interest in the Myst community… the list goes on. While I’ve been able to hone my RSS feeds fairly well over the course of the last year, I still end up feeling that I don’t have enough time to read it all. I end up bookmarking things I hardly return to and then eventually delete.
My main issue is the Google News feed I subscribe to. While it gives me a wide range of news sites with different stories from around the globe, it consistently updates itself with over 100 articles every time I check the feed. There’s no way I can get to all of that.
So, my request is to see what you read for the news around the globe. Do you use several sites? Do you use a small select few? And are you happy with the coverage you are getting? And do you find that you get enough but not too much? Let me know your thoughts. :)
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In other news, I know I’ve not updated recently. Life has been quite busy. Fun, but busy! So, I’ll get back here one of these days.
Calculus has actually moved into a realm where I’m being challenged which is a very good thing. We’re currently working on related rates, differentials, and linear approximations. Fairly soon we’re going to finally dive into the world of integrals. Woo!
Five A.M. has been quiet recently - they are playing two shows up in Yreka and Oregon, but I’m not going to be able to make those. I can’t wait until they play down here again - it’s been hard not seeing them in so long! :)
Okie, gotta get back to work - I’m finalizing the last changes to our new XP image on Boot Camp for the Intel Mac’s. Woo!
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
“I got my masters degree before even hearing about the hyperbolic cosine function.”
-Falbo
(This was after a whirlwind tour of a chapter on hyperbolic functions which totally blew our minds and at the end he basically said we really didn’t need to know any of this stuff. Ha)
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
Yis… it’s been too long. Let’s whirlwind, shall we? :) BTW, longer update than usual… sorry!
I went kayaking a few weeks ago! This would be the second time I’ve kayaked and, like the first time, completely solidified my love for this sport. :) I went with a few friends and while we were all inexperienced, it turned out quite well. With exceptions to a small pitfall and a low river, of course. :P The kayaks we used were sit inside short stubby ones so they weren’t as graceful as the ones I’d used the first time through the REI training. Those were touring kayaks, as I recall. If I ever buy one, I’ll have to get a touring - much nicer. Though, the stubby ones still worked. We went through Rivers Edge Kayak and Canoe, I highly recommend them. Very cool people. The other great thing about the day was the weather - the day before we went out to the river it was raining, and that day it was 72 and sunny. Perfect!
A few months ago, I was going to get a used kayak, but after careful thought, I decided against it for the time being. Living in a condo doesn’t leave too many options for storage of a huge behemoth of a kayak. I guess it could go in the living room… The cats would have a field day…
I saw Burn After Reading - Coehn brothers, you rock. I highly recommend it. :)
Saturday, I visited with Erika and Kristina to see the Walnut Creek art show. There were some really incredible pieces, and especially since I’m trying to get something for the bare walls in the living room, I was really gauging the pieces to see if they’d fit. Unfortunately, they were all soooo expensive. $600 and up, even one for $3800… eep. Well, at some point, right? Heh. My favorite at the moment - an artist who does abstract Africa inspired landscapes with a detailed compass someplace on the canvass.
Sunday, I went to the 1st annual Hand-Car Regatta! Think 20’s style steampunk, homemade hand-cars to be raced via human power on railroad tracks, live music, and the list goes on. It was a spectacular day, weather was perfect, the company even better, and the sights and sounds astounded. I’ve got some pretty good shots of the hand-cars on my gallery page. From the general feeling, it seems that they want to do this again next year and keep it going - I’m all for it! In fact, it’d be fun to dress up next time and, with all my free time (ha!), it would be cool to get a team of people together to build a hand-car to race!
I had a rant a few days ago about the debates and overused catchphrases… it both semi left my head and I’m sure others have talked about it too. My general rant was essentially - I’m tired of hearing the same old catchphrases from both sides. Main Street. Maverick. Fundamental Difference. Ugh… The presidential debate was actually quite good, though there were moments where I wanted the candidates to really push the boundaries of “normal political banter.” Ahh well, such is politics. Tonight is the vice-presidential debate… _that_ will be interesting. I am curious to hear what Palin will focus on… I still don’t think she’s a good pick for VP for several reasons, but, I want to keep an open mind.
Oh, I’m such a nerd - a few nights ago, I had a dream about Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer) asking me to attend some sort of large astronomy lecture he knew would be good for getting my foot in the door of astronomy and the like. Though, for some reason I had something else planned and didn’t know if I could make it. He was quickly packing up his car and almost late for the lecture himself, so he was rushing to convince me as he left.
Speaking about education for a second, I emailed a few places for more information about their programs: University of Hawaii, University of Cantbury (in New Zealand!), University of New Mexico, and University of Arizona. One of the questions was about their (potential) archaeoastronomy programs and/or instructors. Stupidly, I’ve forgotten this entire time that archaeoastronomy is more of an anthropology focus than an astronomy one! Oops! But, I still think I’d be better teaching an astronomy class and adding in archaeoastronomy than the other way around. UoH is at the top of my list at the moment. Tee hee!
And lastly, what post would be complete without something Five A.M. :) Trent made a beautiful post over on MorphineLife.com about looking beyond what is in front of you. It’s a great read. Plus, the picture he used for the post is an absolutely amazing photo of them at the House of Blues in LA. I’ve linked to that same photo.
(Southern Drawl) “Looks like the rain is a-comin’ in. Take shelter there lil darlin’.”
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
Nope, not the movie, Finding Nemo, I’m talking about my new Orange iPod Nano that I’ve nicknamed Nemo. :) I finally decided to get the Nano after I hemmed and hawed at getting an iPod Touch. I figured that ultimately I’d be using the iPod for music and while the WiFi features were awesome and I’m sure I’d love the Touch for all the apps and such, it simply wasn’t worth it at this time. So instead, I got a 16 GB Nano.
I’m very impressed with the new interface and new features. In my opinion, the interface is much better designed than the 6Gen / 6.5Gen Classic and 3Gen Nano and seems snappier too. The album artwork takes up the full screen when playing, like the Zune, something I’d really wanted to see on the iPod line. Holding the center button allows direct access to not only the new Genius feature, but also browse by album and artist, an iPhone / iPod Touch feature. Additionally, there is direct access to shuffle by album or by song, something absent on the Touch.
Other things that struck me as amazing - The new Nano includes crossfading! And playlists folders are synced! Both of these features are absent on all other iPods and the iPhone! (Update: I went into the Apple store and played with the Classic and in fact it does do the playlist folders, but still no crossfading. Heh!)
It’s got an accelerometer like the Touch and iPhone so you can switch landscape / portrait with photos just by turning it sideways. An included game works like labyrinth, you tilt the iPod to play. And of course the silly, but fun, shake the shuffle to the next song.
The new iPod Classic 6.5 Gen doesn’t do half of these things. It’s got the Genius and browsing features, but lacks many of the interface tweaks and features the new Nano has. Of course with the exception of storage space!
The Nano tops out at 16 GB while the Classic goes all the way through the roof at 120 GB. Me being a music and podcast enthusiast, the Classic would have been my first choice, so with the Nano, I had to spend some time honing my playlists down to fit what I wanted onto the Nano. I’m sure I’ll get by for now, but if and when Apple releases this interface and feature-set for the Classic or a Nano with more storage, it’ll be tough to say no! Overall, I’m quite impressed.
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
Microsoft’s recent ad campaign has gone through three stages so far:
While I am a “Mac guy” and don’t see myself changing back to using Windows as my main OS anytime soon, I do appreciate and enjoy this latest ad campaign by Microsoft. What puzzles me is the negative reaction to these ads by the tech community and more fervently, the Mac fanboys.
When Vista first arrived, I was pretty much on the same page as everyone else - it seemed to be more hype and gloss than actual product. But, as I’ve used it over the past year, I’ve noticed the subtitles and nuances about the OS that have made me think twice. Ask me a few months ago what to buy for home for a PC and I’d say XP. But ask me now, I’d tell you Vista. Why? Because I honestly think this is the future of Windows - things may not be the way I personally like them (as compared to OS X which I love), but I can see how the changes will help people use their computers (and Windows for that matter) more efficiently. So, the first part of Microsoft’s campaign, The Mojave experiment, in which they showed people “The new MS OS” and how they reacted when they found out it was Vista, is appropriate in my opinion.
The second set of ads seemed to gear themselves to the humor of not only Jerry Seinfeld’s act, but also in the style of the “leaked” internal-only Microsoft employee videos featuring Bill Gates doing silly things. (Da Da Da, Bill’s last day) Again, I must say I really liked these! They are funny, cute, and entertaining! Yes they seem to be off-topic of selling Windows, but I don’t think that is what they wanted with these ads. I think they wanted to sell the brand and the idea behind the company. It’s like Nike selling us on “Just Do It,” or, obviously, Apple selling their brand with their Think Different campaign many years ago. Apple didn’t get criticized when they aired that campaign, why is Microsoft getting hammered now? (three links provided here)
In their third installment, Microsoft has actually gone directly head-to-head with the Apple “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads by taking the idea of “I’m a PC” and running with it. Full force. I say - good for them! Take that torch and use it! Again, it bothers me that they are getting so much flak for this new ad scheme. I think healthy competition is just fine, and to promote the brand rather than the product can be a very good thing. For one, I think Microsoft, while still dominant in the PC world, has gotten to a point where everyone uses it and the ads are just there to reinforce that idea. Secondly, I think it helps to attract the idea that they are interested in protecting their integrity. Take the Mojave experiment - Vista had, unfortunately, earned a bad rap early on after introduction and Apple’s ads only helped to solidify that. I think it’s important for Microsoft to take the playing field back and show off why Vista is a good OS and where things can go in the future.
All of that being said, while I work with both platforms at work and do appreciate some of what Microsoft has to offer in terms of an OS, I still highly prefer OS X and the Mac platform. The reason why I lean this way is really is a discussion for another time, but I wanted to get my thought out on the ads.
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
This past weekend I went up to Boonville with John and Tara and family. I’ve been once before a few years ago and always have a great time up there relaxing and enjoying the rural surroundings. This year we went to the Boonville fair, something I’ve never done before. While I enjoy the Sonoma County fair, I actually agree with John that it’s more enjoyable up in Boonville because everything is smaller, more integrated, the animals are located all over the fair instead of being pushed to the back wall, and everything feels like the down-home-small-town-goodness that it is. :)
The fair had a rodeo, and it was my first live rodeo! I was impressed with the cultural differences. I love experiencing that kind of thing which only typically happens outside the country. It seems a rough and tough sport, but after my initial thoughts on how they treated the animals, I had to relinquish and be open to what other people around the world do for entertainment. Overall, I think they are actually more humane than other animal based sports around the world. I chuckled at how the rural country is more right-wing than I’m used to, but I can understand it and respect it to a certain degree. While I don’t lean that way, there is a certain cultural charm to it.
I initially wanted to bring my scope up with us as we’d be camping overnight and the viewing up there is normally spectacular, but at the last minute I noticed it was going to be a full moon so I didn’t bring it. :( There’s always next time! Though Brent had a lil scope up there which we used to see Jupiter and its moons, so that was awesome. BTW, The picture in the front of the post is of the (near) full moon near the ferris wheel at the fair. :)
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To iPod or not to iPod?
Apple’s recent iPod event had me all excited because I’d been wanting to get an iPod Touch since the original launch last year but thought it a good idea to wait for the second generation. Really, I don’t _need_ the Touch, it would essentially be a fun gadget to have and play with. But of course, with my job at the JC, it could also be used practically for testing of web, wireless, and Exchange uses that would relate to the JC.
Now that there is a new generation of the Touch at a lower price, I thought I’d check it out and see if this would work for me. However, there are a few things it doesn’t do that my current iPod does that is making me think twice before buying. It doesn’t do shuffle by album, something I use a lot. It also doesn’t have an alarm clock that wakes to music in a playlist, however it will wake to system sounds. I use my iPod as an alarm clock with music, but perhaps the third-party iPod alarm clocks would provide this functionality? I don’t know yet. I’ll know more in a week or so. :)
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School revelations
During the Boonville trip, John offhandedly mentioned Hawaii as a potential place for me to get my Masters degree, what with the endless amount of scopes they’ve got there. So, I did a little research and it turns out that the University of Hawaii at Manoa has a Masters in Astronomy program AND a class in archaeoastronomy! And how cool would it to live in Hawaii for a few years?! :) So, that is on my list of places to check out. SFSU, oddly, doesn’t have an astronomy masters program, but I could do Physics… though, the way things are going, it’s looking as if SFSU isn’t as right for me as I had once hoped. There are some east coast schools that have archaeoastronomy programs, and of course there’s always New Zealand or Australia… :) I’ve got a few years to plan though, I did meet with a SSU transfer counselor a few days ago and things may happen sooner than I once thought. I’ll keep you updated!
BTW, Calc is going quite well. I’m now actually understanding exactly what a derivative is! Last time I did this class, I had a very weak understanding and basically just did the equations to get by. Now, I’m able to actually understand what I’m doing. This is a good feeling!
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Five A.M. and Sister Hazel
Saw Five A.M. open for Sister Hazel last week at the Independent! That show was seriously awesome! It was a great venue and to see huge swaths of Sister Hazel fans get into Five A.M.’s rhythms put smiles on all our faces. The guys have two new songs they are playing (not sure the names yet - but the songs are stuck in my head!) but they put one at the front of the set-list and the other close to the beginning as well. Also, the whole set was their new album, Raise the Sun, so the show sounded clean, upbeat, and really a lot of fun. Of course I love their other songs, but it was different and fresh to hear the set they played that night. Jed has added playing a set of bells during “Just Say Anything” which is a great addition! Sister Hazel was quite good, I enjoy their sound, but, as we all agreed (it could be bias) we enjoyed Five A.M. more. Hah. SH is a bit more generic rock, though, and I think Five A.M. seems to put a new layer on top of that to create a unique sound. Or, I could be just another fanboy. :)
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Due to that U2 in 3D movie that I saw a few weeks ago, I spent far too much money on practically buying U2’s entire catalog. I didn’t get everything, but ended up getting almost all the major albums. Heh! I love it! I’m totally hooked on their sound and am listening to them every day now. :)
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This weekend, if the weather holds, a bunch of us are going kayaking! Woohoo!
Z.
Originally published at Zephire. You can comment here or there.
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