07.27.04

Haircutting time

Posted in General at 7 am

I finally took the plunge and went from long hair:

Before the haircut...

to fuzz ball on Sunday:

...after the haircut

The braided hair ended up over 20″ inches in length.

07.26.04

Research irreversibly damaged by Excel

Posted in General at 8 am

I have had this *exact* same problem over and over again in Excel: Genetic research irreversibly damaged by Excel autoformatting.

When you open a file in Excel, it automagically attempts to convert some numerical entries into Dates or Times. The Only way I’ve found to get around it is to open the file in a plain text editor, (if it is Tab delimited), Copy, open a new spreadsheet in Excel, select all of the cells in the sheet, tell them that they are all ‘text’ ahead of time using the formatting palette and then Paste the data into place.

Otherwise you get horrible horrible screwed up data. Another reason why I like I like Dumb software and hate software that tries to be ‘smart’.

07.24.04

Thermal Lockdown

Posted in General at 12 pm

WARNING: We are in Thermal lockdown. All windows are to be covered with non-conductive materials, backed with all drapes closed. To facilitate potential sleep patterns an air conditioner has been temporarily installed in the bedroom. As yesterday’s temperature exceeded 100° in Portland and other locations and today looks much the same, please restrict all CRT activity to the absolute minimum, use only fluorescent lights, and for for the sake of us all, don’t use the oven!

Clothing, however, is optional.

Walks to yard sales to purchase CD shelving units are allowed, before 1pm.

07.23.04

Cold, Dead Hands

Posted in General at 2 pm

From: Crazy Apple Rumors Site: Newton Users To Receive Intervention.

After Tuesday’s announcement that former Apple CEO John Sculley had been named Honorary President of the Worldwide Newton Association, concerned members of the Apple community have decided to conduct an intervention. Starting next week, Newton users will be targeted for some “tough love” by some familiar faces.

“We wanted to pick people they’d feel comfortable with,” said director of iPod marketing Stan Ng. “Clearly this announcement is a desperate cry for help and these are people we need to tread lightly with.”

All I can say is… “my cold, dead hands…”

07.22.04

Locks of Love Again

Posted in General at 10 pm

Yes, there’s a reason why I’m linking to this… Locks of Love – Donate Hair

Get your pictures before Sunday….

A litle Apple research

Posted in General at 10 am

Going back though Apple’s Press Release archive I put together this little chart for a friend. It lists the number of months since the latest refresh of each of the computer models from Apple.

PowerMac: 1.5 months ago
iMac: 7 mo
PowerBook: 3 mo
iBook: 3 mo

(Obviously the iPod was just updated this week.) But I’m sure I saw a web site out there that had this same information except it went back a few years. Has anyone else seen that? Please PingBack, Comment or send me a note if you have the URL for the site I’m talking about, as my Google-fu is failing me.

07.19.04

WebVisions Follow up links

Posted in General at 11 pm

I added these to a previous entry, but for those of you who don’t studiously track the edits of each one of my 800+ entries, I present them here. This list is being continuously updated as more links come in.

07.18.04

Why I watch the captions

Posted in General at 10 am

It’s a bit annoying for others in the room, but I enjoy watching TV with the closed captioning on.

First off, I do seem to have a bit of a problem hearing things clearly. It’s difficult for me to pick out spoken words when there’s a lot of background noise like the two box fans we’ve had on during the nights, plus I’m easily distrac- Ooh! Shiny thing over in the corner!…

[…]

As I was saying, I enjoy watching the captions because sometime you get more information that way. For instance just last night some commercial was on with captioning and it said “Techno Mix of the Saber Dance”. I had no idea what piece of music was called the Saber Dance, so I proceeded to hop on over to my Mac and brought up this work that is obviously famous enough to be referred to simply by it’s title.

Now of course, just after the first few bars of the piece it becomes very obvious what it is. But like many symphonic, non-vocal pieces that people may not know the name of: Flight of the Bumblebee, or Beethoven’s Ninth, or Rhapsody In Blue, it difficult to find out about these pieces on the Net unless you have a specific word or phrase you can use to hook into the piece’s digital net.trail.

07.17.04

Seven Gaffs

Posted in General at 8 pm

Out of 550+ people, 4 tracks with 15+ sessions, Exhibition Hall and 12 hours of on the floor duty we ended up with only seven miscues and problems for the whole day. (That I knew about anyways.)

  1. At 10:30am or so, the audio in the Executives Hall/137-138 went out. Oregon Convention Center (OCC) staff had to reset the room audio to bring it back.
  2. At 1:40 or so the lights in the Panels Hall/134 flickered and went out. OCC had to ‘reset’ the lights.
  3. At about 2:40 or so the lights in the Panels Hall/134 flickered and went out. OCC had to ‘reset’ the lights.
  4. One of our Speakers showed up 5 minutes late to a session. We had to get the laptop and mic together while the speaker was already on stage. (I nearly went ballistic on that one.)
  5. One of our panelists showed up late to their session… because they got lost… In The Convention Center.
  6. Another panelist was with the first one.
  7. At the last minute we tried to play an apology video from a panelist who missed their plane and didn’t make it. The video was supposed to play on the iBook (mine) that was running the interstitial screens. It was only just after the video began playing that I realized the audio was not hooked up to the sound system, therefore we saw a talking head and nothing else. Fortunately, Kevin Smokler, our primary host/MC provided and impromptu retelling of the apology.

Overall, not a bad day. If fact it was a very very good day.

(Later Edit: Thanks to Nick for the list of Weblog mentions:

That Morrocan Bus

Posted in General at 9 am

Ah the interesting mail you get on the IntarWeb…

On Jul 17, 2004, at 3:00 AM, chexxxxx3@xxxxxxx.usa.com wrote:

“URL: http://www.ordersomewherechaos.com/rosso/mode/bus/

Cheddad Abderrahmane
14 rue al benafsaj no. 3 Mers sultan
Casablanca – Maroc

Messieurs,
Ayant l’intention de prendre en exploitation des lignes de Bus dans certaines villes du royaumes du Maroc , j’ai l’honneur de vous prier de bien vouloir m’adresser par retour , les dépliants avec Prix de votre fabrication.

— French to English Via BabbelFish —

“Dear Sirs, Having l’intention to take in exploitation lines of Bus in certain cities of the kingdoms of Morocco, j’ai l honnor to ask you to want m’adresser by return well, the folders with Price of your manufacture.”

And my Reply. Notice my use of A) very short sentences, and B) words with the fewest meanings that would translate more specifically.

Messieurs,

You are asking a question. You want to know the cost. The cost of covering a bus. Covering a bus with graphics and pictures.

I do not provide this service. I am a fan of “Depeche Mode”. I am a connoisseur of the music of “Depeche Mode”.

I cannot paint a bus for you. I am sorry. My apologies.

— English to French —

Vous posez une question. Vous voulez savoir le coût. Le coût de couvrir un autobus. Couvert d’un autobus de graphiques et d’images.

Je ne fournis pas ce service. Je suis un ventilateur de “Depeche Mode”. Je suis un connaisseur de la musique du “Depeche Mode”.

Je ne peux pas peindre un autobus pour vous. Je suis désolé. Mes excuses.

…Ross…