Information Appliance

Reso-phobic

2005-10-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

To catch us all up to speed, I've left the Jews, and am currently saving the world one virus at-a-time at McAfee.

Taking from an old skit:

Nate: My commute has change from an hour and fifteen minute train ride to an hour long car ride through evil evil traffic.

You: Oh, that's bad.

Nate: Not really. I've listened to The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Rings in the car, and am already starting The Two Towers.

You: Oh, that's good!

Nate: Actually, I've had to burn the Mp3s onto CDs every night. Two CD's per day for the last four weeks... it is starting to get annoying.

You: Oh, that's bad.

Nate: Again, not really. It has given me reason to give in and buy an iPod (yes, the latest Video one) and all the fun equipment to hook the iPod up to my car stereo.

You: Oh, that's good!

Nate: Heck yeah, that's good!

I digress. My real reason for posting, as alluded (sp?) to in the Title, is my recently acknowldedged fear: resolution.

Which is ironic, because I am a problem solver by nature and by trade. But from this same source comes the dichotemic problem: I want to solve problems, but I also DON'T want to solve problems, because then there will be no more problems to solve.

Case-in-point: I've spent the last three weeks trying to solve an absurd rendering problem for our site redesign (March 21, 2006... keep your eyes peeled). This is the last big problem of 30 or so. 30 minutes ago I solved it. After dancing a jig around the office, I sat down to implement it and... I couldn't. I found myself dawdling with other projects, writing this blog, checking my mail, etc.

I am reso-phobic.

What will come next? Smaller problems will be unsatisfying, like crumbs on the ground after a feast. Bigger problems will... will there be bigger problems? is this it? is this the peak of my architecture project? shouldn't I let it linger?! shouldn't I relish this moment for a while?!

Yosemite Revisited

2005-10-06T22:18:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I took a group of guys from JBU to Yosemite. We had a good time, and you really should ask them for stories rather then me, as they were at least 8 times more excited than I.

But I wanted to share some fun bits with you.

First, these guys sang. They sang in the car, sang at night, and sang in the morning.

Second, most of them had never been to the Pacific, let alone California, or Yosemite. It goes without saying that they were very excited.

Check out some of the pictures, and if these guys ever roll your way, be sure and invite them in for stories.

The Arctic

2005-07-05T21:19:00.000-07:00

An advertisement placed in London newspaper by Ernest Shackelton circa 1850.

Men wanted for hazardous journey.
Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness.
Constant danger, safe return doubtful.
Honour and recognition in case of success.

It attraced hundreds of volunteers.

What powerful things honour and recognition are. The desire to say "I did that. What nobody else had done before, I did." I think that's my problem.

Railsday

2005-06-03T16:12:00.000-07:00

So there were definately a few straggling comments on that last post. While I'm guessing that most of that is due to the unreliable flow of interesting content, I'm also going to guess that many of my readers have never heard of a new aggregator. The exception being Ben. Ben has trained his aggregator to follow him around the house. Anyway, get one. For those of you who consistently check friends blogs, you will be very, very happy.

And now for the main event...

Tomorrow, June 4th, will be the first ever Railsday. It will be an exposition of the forthcoming web application suite known as Ruby on Rails. (100% of my regular readers just found something better to do... seriously though, skip the nerd part and go down to the At Least Read This section). Participants have 24 hours to build the best, most complete, web based application from start to finish. Only sketches on napkins are permitted (of which I have dozens).

I'm going to start tonight at 10p.m. and work until I get tired, crash, and then proceed to spend all of Saturday programming. I'm excited. Not so much about the programming, but about being part of something new, an agile community of cutting-edge developers... oh, and the possibility of winning a PSP, iPod, and MacMini in one swoop.

I will be updating this post as I progress, like some day-long science experiment performed on myself and recorded for your enjoyment.

At Least Read This

The Ruby on Rails book has been prereleased due to incredibly high demand. I purchased a copy.

The neat thing is that by prereleasing it, they pretty much get hundreds of free editors to nit and pick and catch the mistakes for them. I think this is a splendid way to publish a book. Everyone wins.

Even more exciting, the author extended an invitation to illustrate his co-author for excerpts called "David says". I drew something up based on a photo. It looks like it is going to be published. Yippee!

Search Engine Visibility

2005-05-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, I recently redesigned the Jews for Jesus Website. It is a sweet little database driven web application that is easy to maintain, standards compliant, and (hopefully) easy to get around. We launched it in mid-march without much fanfare or ticker tape.

One of the goals for the site was search engine visibility. I wanted Google's army of robots to latch onto the site like little binary parasites. Using the mostly internet resources on how to do this (the book is still in my wishlist if anyone cares to randomly bless my library) it appears to have succeeded.

As of today I am quite proud to announce these rankings on google.

Google Rankings for jewsforjesus.org
Query	Ranking	Thoughts
Jews for Jesus	1	Not to suprising. Of interest though would be the "Sponsored Link" on the right to an opposing organization. This means that they are paying google to place their ad there whenever someone searches for the phrase 'Jews for Jesus'. Silly rabbits.
Messianic Jews	9	Cool I guess. The word 'messianic' doesn't come into my vocabulary very often so I'm not to concerned.
Jews	1	Great Scott! If anyone googles 'jews' our site comes up first! Needless to say we are very happy about this.
Jesus	3	Another amazing ranking, although we are behind a rather disturbing "Jesus Dress Up" site.

So, to God be the glory for the great things He has been doing on the web.

Mystery

2005-04-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

Major points will be awarded to those who can correctly identify the male voice in this recording.

The "Hey, you! Lady with the apron!" sealed the deal for me.

A Cappella Nintendo Medley

2005-04-26T08:41:00.000-07:00

Can someone please tell me why we didn't sing these kinds of songs in my high school Madrigals group? Why?

Long-Overdue Pyrotechnics

2005-04-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

It was no summer night in particular when Douglas and I found ourselves weilding ten propane-filled party balloons and a lighter.

Most likely we had just finished playing ping-pong after a bar-b-que dinner with the families. The Dads probably pulled rank and booted us of the table. We found ourselves on the back porch reciting the lines from Kipling's Jungle Book:

me: 'What do you want to do?'
doug: 'I don't know. What do you want to do?'
me: 'I don't know. What do you want to do?'
doug: 'I don't know. What do you want to do?'
me: 'I don't know. What do you want to do?'
doug: 'Oh, be quiet.'
pause
me: 'So... What do you want to do?'
doug: 'C'mon now, don't start that again!'

My eyes rested on the gas grill, still out from the evening's cookout. And then it just came out, almost too easily, "Wanna fill some balloons with propane and see if we can get them to explode?" I asked it more as a probe to guage Doug's reaction. If he got excited, we could give it a go. If he freaked, the comment could easily pass as a joke.

He freaked. And we gave it a go anyway.

Filling balloons with propane is so ridiculously easy it should be illegal. I won't go into the details, but in a few short minutes we were each holding armfuls of balloons of explosive gas.

I can not emphasize this enough: We were very, very, very nervous.

Perfecting the method of actually exploding the balloons, however, took much longer. We did not know what to expect when and if the balloon exploded, so we handled them like they were nukes.

Our first iteration was tying the balloon to the middle of a 70 foot length of string, each of us holding an end, then dangling the balloon (safely away from our persons) over a candle. The candle melted the balloon, the gas rushed out, and blew out the candle.

For the second generation we poked holes in the fatty part of the balloon (thanks Mr. Wizard!) to allow a stream of gas to blow out of the balloon. This produced better results, as the gas would ignite when it drifted over the balloon, but the balloon would still not explode.

At this point in time we had been at this for about an hour. An hour of intense if-I-make-the-wrong-move-I'm-going-to-blow-up-the-neighborhood feelings coupled with extreme anticipation. We were getting worn out and we wanted to see some action! I foolishly recited "Go big or go home" and proceeded to phase 3.

We procured a metal bucket and placed the leaking balloon into the bucket. I sat behind the bucket and reached around with a lighter and waited. It worked perfectly. The bucket focused the explosion in one direction, and kept me relatively cool. (I just found out that LP gas (propane) burns at 2950°F in free air). We had done it. We were like the freaking Wright brothers.

We knew we had to document our monumentous discovery so we grabbed my video camera. The following video clip is the first take, un-edited footage from that night. Douglas is narrating.

As incredible as the explosion was, for me, the most memorable part of the night was when we showed the video to my dad. He enjoyed it, and wasn't as suprised at our stupidity as I thought he would be. But after the video we told him about all of our trials and errors to arrive at this conclusion. Being the engineer that he is he reached into his briefcase and pulled out his PDA with his Hazerdous Materials catalog and said:

Of course you had problems getting the propane to explode. The environment inside the balloon was oversaturated with LP gas. The Upper Explosive Limit (UEL) for LP is... (reading his PDA) 9.5%. There wasn't enough oxygen to burn to make an explosion. Next time try keeping the gas levels between 1.8% and 9.5%.

If you didn't know already: my dad is the greatest.

We spent the rest of the night driving around town showing the video to anyone who would watch it. It was the funniest thing we had ever seen or heard... until we heard it played backwards.

Endnote: Douglas, my deepest apologies for taking the better part of two years to get this posted on the internet. I can't wait til the next time we get to hang out. Love ya, man.

Pope Joe

2005-04-19T10:15:00.000-07:00

(AP Photo/ Andrew Medichini)

2005-04-18T22:14:00.000-07:00

The latest in laptop screen technology: the transparent monitor.

Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society

2005-04-11T12:13:00.000-07:00

A worthwhile read for those who work in the web world.

It is nice to know that I am personally targeting that whopping 2.4 percent of people that are looking for specific information.

lazy..no goods... stinking...

Sprout Design

2005-04-06T18:02:00.000-07:00

Sprout Design of Lawrence, KS.

Three friends from college working hard to get their foot in the webdesign door. If you are a small to medium sized business with design needs. Start here.

Of Love and Other Demons

2005-03-30T17:13:00.000-08:00

Thanks, mike.

Google Maps

2005-03-30T17:03:00.000-08:00

If you haven't seen google maps yet. Check it out.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

2005-03-22T13:30:00.000-08:00

Also off the reading list. In honor of Geiiga

In Other News

2005-03-22T13:19:00.000-08:00

An Open Letter To My Sister

2005-03-14T13:34:00.000-08:00

Catt,

You are the coolest.

Love ya,

Dogg

Bear Valley Ski Trip

2005-03-14T11:37:00.000-08:00

(Dorrington, CA) From left to right: Mike, Kevin, Alex, Laura, Allison, Laura (not pictured: Caryn, Kari, Lisa)

Configurations of light from East Africa

2005-03-11T11:48:00.000-08:00

(Kenya, Africa) Toby is an amazing guy, doing amazing things, in amazing places. He is a hero to me.

Of interest: I built his webpage in late 2003, before I had even heard of a blog. But that is exactly what his page is. Only this one is hewn out of a forum, a gallery, and a slew of messy PHP scripts to create the desired effect.

Morning Glory

2005-03-11T11:38:00.000-08:00

(Castro Valley, CA)

NYPL Digital Gallery

2005-03-10T17:04:00.000-08:00

Life of Pi

2005-03-10T13:18:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

One of the best (and only) books I have read in a while.

Naomi In Egypt

2005-03-04T08:11:00.000-08:00

(Giza, Egypt) Local Naomi says, 'What is that in her hand?'

Prayer Pager Project

2005-02-24T11:39:00.000-08:00

I have a distant cousin named Olivia, who is 4 years old and has a brain tumor.

She has been given a Prayer Pager, a simple concept with great results.

From her mom:

Nurses, doctors, child life specialist, other parents and families, patients,cafeteria workers, radiology team, lab team, maintenance and housekeeping have all asked and I've been able to share with them info on my prayer beeper and how it works and they ask about my church and all the visitors and where the church is, etc. They come in her room ( and some send friends in to see it) and comment " wow Olivia, you must have alot of people who love you!" We have tons of people every day come up to us and tell us that they have told all they know to pray and it has spread all over our state, country, Europe, Australia, and everywhere. Our kids have friends, of friends, of friends who don't know us ask about Olivia and they say "how do you know Olivia?" They respond: we heard about her at our church or our school and we all prayed for her.

Her pager number is 817-833-0964 and enter 777

Controversy

2005-02-24T09:39:00.000-08:00

We are working on getting our materials scanned/searchable by google. One of the hoops is providing a list of sites that we would not want to pop up in 'Google Ads'. I got this list this morning and have been checking out the sites.

This one perturbs me the most. There is a degree of truth in everything these people are saying.

Where is the line between 'dedicated ministry' and 'cult'?

Yikes.

Spring Break 2004.

2005-02-22T13:40:00.000-08:00

(Como, CO) Great trip! Props to sister catt who organized the whole thing.

Mark and Katy

2005-02-21T21:58:00.000-08:00

(Topeka, KS) Mark and Katy - April 1, 2005

They Don't Talk Back

2005-02-21T21:54:00.000-08:00

(San Francisco, CA) This man was vehemently address the bricks this morning. The dialogue sounded like a charismatic hymn, complete with clapping, stomping of feet, and raising of hands.

In general, people here talk to themselves. I have seen people deeply engaged with the object sitting across from them at the cafe: their backpack. Execs always look like their talking to themselves, then you see the little cell phone ear bud. Users start talking to you, but then keep talking to someone else. Unsound characters are always muttering to themselves, or an unseen friend.

It all makes very strong arguments for a parallel spiritual world. I wonder if the mentally unstable and the drug users are so completely disconnected to this world, that they gaze straight into the other.

I have caught myself talking to me. But it was just verbal processing... right?

2005-02-21T21:52:00.001-08:00

San Francisco Public Library as seen from the Civic Center BART station escalator.

2005-02-21T21:52:00.000-08:00

Whiskas in the Morning

Hello

2005-02-16T21:54:00.000-08:00

What a great relief it is to be able to share my life, without having to use words.

I've started using picasa's Hello software to post images. It is very easy to do, and I highly recommend it for anyone desiring to branch out beyond words.

My only complaint would be that the resized images aren't as sharp as the original, especially the larger (1024) pictures. But why should I complain about something that is free?

And it is free... so what is their business model? How can this be making anybody any money? I'm guessing google has a hand in this somewhere and are using it in their plan to take over the world. I should get in on that action while I can.

2005-02-16T21:53:00.000-08:00

Yosemite

2005-02-16T21:51:00.000-08:00

The 'rents come to town

2005-02-16T21:50:00.000-08:00

Tucker D (Oxnard, CA)

2005-02-16T21:49:00.000-08:00

Milk Truck and Kalsbeak Deliver

2005-02-16T21:48:00.000-08:00

New Years with Naomi

2005-02-16T21:47:00.000-08:00

Josh and Molly

2005-02-16T21:46:00.000-08:00

McGuinness and Josylin at the Tractor Pull (Goodland, KS)

2005-02-16T21:44:00.000-08:00

Heather and Mason-May 30, 2005

2005-02-16T21:43:00.000-08:00

Camping at Monterey Bay with Mike and Miah

2005-02-16T21:40:00.000-08:00

Feel the love

2005-02-16T21:39:00.000-08:00

Seperation (Topeka, KS)

Iris

2005-02-16T21:38:00.000-08:00

(Ottawa, KS)

My Dad is a Wizard

2005-02-16T21:36:00.000-08:00

(Topeka, KS) Due process during the installation of the new garage door. The prepainted door matched the color of the house, now that was magic.

Hot Chocolate Hills

2005-02-14T11:14:00.000-08:00

The stains in my coffee cup portray chocolate hills rising above the mist.

David and Bathsheba

2005-02-08T13:04:00.000-08:00

I had not realized this before but Solomon is the son of David and Bathsheba.

David and Bathsheba: the classic adultry/sin story of a man after God's own heart (2 Samuel 11). Solomon: the wisest man who ever lived. Our world would say that those two things don't mix. Good cannot come from evil. And it can't, apart from God.

It gives me hope for my life, knowing that God is in control and able turn my sin into His glory.

And in a parallel universe: to the beautiful girl gardening on the roof on Gough street: need a hand?

Airspeed Velocity

2005-02-08T08:15:00.000-08:00

I would like to procure a pigeon and superglue a packing peanut to its head.

Forms:A New Approach

2004-07-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

Transition Coalition - Models of Success - Nomination Forms.

In an attempt to be more accessible, we have been using the <fieldset>, <legend>, and <label> tags. I love the way it structures the form, and affords presentation via css.

Separation: Content

2004-07-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

Web communication contains four key parts: content, structure, behaviour, and presentation.

Content

Content is the heart of information. Without content there is nothing to present, nothing to structure, and nothing to bahave(?). Content is the "what" of communication, while the other three parts are the "how". Content could answer the question, "What is on the radio?".

Wynton Marsalis

This does answer the question, but it does not answer the question in whole. Is this answer the artist, the song, the album? The content is not classified. A better response might be:

Artist: Wynton Marsalis
Song Title: Separation Blues
Album Title: Wyton Marsalis

Is this starting to look familiar? XML uses this kind of syntax to organize information. To help clear things up, XML marks the end of a class of information, in addition to the beginning.

<artist>Wynton Marsalis</artist>
<albumtitle>Wynton Marsalis</albumtitle>
<songtitle>Separation Blues</songtitle>

"Structure Alert, Will Robinson! Structure Alert!"

I intentionally used the word "organize" when I refered to XML syntax. XML organizes information in the same way that a file cabinet organizes all of your research. When it is time to give a presentation on your research you access only the relevant research and quickly assemble (structure) it for a powerpoint presentation. You don't need to use all of it, but it is all there, ready to be accessed in a way that you understand.

Back to our first example: "What is the title of this song on the radio?" is looking for a specific bit of information about what is on the radio. Using XML syntax we can filter out all the irrelevant information and produce the desired information:

<songtitle>Separation Blues</songtitle>

The organizational syntax of XML is the connectors of tinker toys. It allows 'sticks' of content to be structured.

A What?

2004-07-12T21:38:00.000-07:00

Me: Hey, sister, if you get bored this summer, I've got something different you might like.

Sister: What is it?

Me: A blog.

Sister: A what?

Me: A blog.

Sister: What is it?

Me: An online journal kind of thing.

Sister: I don't get it.

Finally

2004-07-12T21:23:00.000-07:00

One would think that after all the commotion I would have done this a long time ago.

I am not overflowing with conventional wisdom. Thanks to four years of college-preparatory school, I am disenchanted by writing.

So... This appliance is a relationship. This is our first date. Soon we well see if this is a two way street, or if it is a life-sucking giga pet that ought to be flushed.