Sigmund Freud was a pathological wacko. He was also an unmitigated genius. Finding which bits of his theories were genius and which were insane is a difficult exercise for experts, which I am not. Therefore, this is a pop-psychology opinion of mine and nothing more, but I think that Thanatos has ruled my life for far, far too long, and it's time for Eros to take hold.
How do I accomplish this?
I don't know. But discovery is a journey, not a destination.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
bye bye AdSense
I was horrified to find out that there was a big Yes on Prop 8 banner on my blog. Turns out someone is paying google to put that on blogs with AdSense enabled. So.. I could configure AdSense to filter this from my blog, but since I get no money from them anyway, I just removed it.
Bye bye AdSense.
If you'd like to know how I really feel - go here or here or here.
Bye bye AdSense.
If you'd like to know how I really feel - go here or here or here.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
no sleep for you!
For once, I'm not talking about my own lack of sleep. I'm talking about my iPhone...
I am in the process of writing a native jabber client for the iPhone. I use jabber for work, and it's about the only thing that keeps me from using the iPhone instead of my MacBook Pro for walkaround communications.
It turns out the the iPhone SDK is pretty darned good. It didn't take a great deal of effort to get it installed, provision my iPhone as a development device, and load working code onto my own phone. But there is a problem.
The SDK doesn't allow me to background tasks.
This means that I can only use my iPhone as a jabber client if I'm actively using the client software. If the phone goes to sleep, or I get an SMS message, or a phone call, the jabber client turns off.
I find this limitation annoying, and it's probably the reason no one else has developed a native IM client to date.
I am in the process of writing a native jabber client for the iPhone. I use jabber for work, and it's about the only thing that keeps me from using the iPhone instead of my MacBook Pro for walkaround communications.
It turns out the the iPhone SDK is pretty darned good. It didn't take a great deal of effort to get it installed, provision my iPhone as a development device, and load working code onto my own phone. But there is a problem.
The SDK doesn't allow me to background tasks.
This means that I can only use my iPhone as a jabber client if I'm actively using the client software. If the phone goes to sleep, or I get an SMS message, or a phone call, the jabber client turns off.
I find this limitation annoying, and it's probably the reason no one else has developed a native IM client to date.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
developing for the iPhone
It's been awhile since I've written anything complicated. The last bit of real programming I did was to write a test tool for exercising windows applications through Win32 API calls rather than normal screen positioning and click events.. it was a pretty slick piece of work, but there are 3rd party apps available now that are much better than what I wrote, and I've finally reached the point in my career where it is generally more cost effective to buy rather than write.
That might be a topic for another article.. the progression of software aquiry practice along the career path of the technologist.
Anyway, I've had the iPhone 3G for a bit now, and the only thing that I find it lacking (other than cut & paste...) is a native jabber client.
My workplace uses jabber for internal communications. The jabber server is local to our LAN and inaccessible to the outside world. This is good practice for security. None of our data leak out accidentally this way. However, it means that I can't use a webapp for IM to get to my internal jabber server without some tricky tunneling, and those types of tunnels kinda defeat the purpose of securing the jabber box in the first place.
So, I decided I'd have to write something myself again.
The iPhone developer program is really pretty slick. There are hours of video intros and the tools look pretty easy to use. I suppose I'll see how easy in the coming weeks as I try to get this thing off the ground.
That might be a topic for another article.. the progression of software aquiry practice along the career path of the technologist.
Anyway, I've had the iPhone 3G for a bit now, and the only thing that I find it lacking (other than cut & paste...) is a native jabber client.
My workplace uses jabber for internal communications. The jabber server is local to our LAN and inaccessible to the outside world. This is good practice for security. None of our data leak out accidentally this way. However, it means that I can't use a webapp for IM to get to my internal jabber server without some tricky tunneling, and those types of tunnels kinda defeat the purpose of securing the jabber box in the first place.
So, I decided I'd have to write something myself again.
The iPhone developer program is really pretty slick. There are hours of video intros and the tools look pretty easy to use. I suppose I'll see how easy in the coming weeks as I try to get this thing off the ground.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
is your happiness threshold fixed?
I'm too busy to breathe lately, but I read a disturbing lead to a story off Google News last night while logging in to EVE to change skills being trained.
It seems someone just completed a study that says each individual has a certain default happiness level that doesn't change throughout his life. You can do some things to temporarily go above or below it, but in general it remains fixed for life.
Depressing, isn't it?
It seems someone just completed a study that says each individual has a certain default happiness level that doesn't change throughout his life. You can do some things to temporarily go above or below it, but in general it remains fixed for life.
Depressing, isn't it?
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
the importance of importance
I love to employ cyclical redundancy for effect. You have the redundant, wait for the cyclical..
While I've recently been hurled into a position of authority over not one, but TWO distinct groups of engineers, I've come to the grim determination that I'm not important enough to be important yet. This isn't the first time, or even the more interesting time this has happened, but it is _a_ time, and it will serve to illustrate my grievance as well as any other.
- late edit..
This is a post that I started months ago and never finished. It's been turned on its head a bit since then, but the gist remains. Reshaping your image from within a framework of familiarity is difficult at best. I'm making daily progress, but it's a long road. I had no idea how firmly entrenched I was.
While I've recently been hurled into a position of authority over not one, but TWO distinct groups of engineers, I've come to the grim determination that I'm not important enough to be important yet. This isn't the first time, or even the more interesting time this has happened, but it is _a_ time, and it will serve to illustrate my grievance as well as any other.
- late edit..
This is a post that I started months ago and never finished. It's been turned on its head a bit since then, but the gist remains. Reshaping your image from within a framework of familiarity is difficult at best. I'm making daily progress, but it's a long road. I had no idea how firmly entrenched I was.
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