“The secret? Thermal-sensitive polymer.” Just the sound of that is cool. I could think of so many uses for this material. These people made vases.
Month: January 2006
Raggy! Roomba Rooba Roo!
I wish I could have had a video camera! Molly was resting on the floor and the Roomba whirs over and bounces off her nose. She doesn’t flinch! Since her long nose is obviously new territory for the Roomba, it immediately kicks into “outline the perimeter mode” where it moves a little bit then rotates back into the barrier and repeats over and over. So here’s poor Molly trying to get a nap and this robot is noisily tracing her snout!
After about the 5th bump she nonchalantly raised her head and let it pass. If you have pets and are concerned your pet and Roomba won’t be friends, I’d put your fears to rest.
A peek at your next Windows OS – Vista
Bent User highlights Windows Vista, Microsoft’s next major operating system release. Looks cool but hasn’t knocked me out of my chair yet.
Blogger comments now with your real name
Blogger, that horrible company which deleted my account without correspondence and which still refuses to answer my emails, doesn’t care about customer service but is very quick to cover their own butts. In answer to Mr. Bush’s further shredding of the Constitution, Blogger comments are now done with your display name instead of your Blogger alias.
National Delurking Week
I have turned off comment moderation to help encourage participation in National Delurking Week. So, let’s see how many readers were lost to the Blogger debacle in which my account and 2 years of drafts were deleted. I call out to you! Delurk! (comments from non-lurkers also encouraged)
Habits Meme
In two years of blogging, I think I’ve done one meme. Barry from the Inn of the Last Home has tagged me.
The “rules†indicate that I should add this portion of text so here you go; enjoy.
The first player of this game starts with the topic “five weird habits of yourself,†and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don’t forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says “You have been tagged†(assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.
My wife thought I may find this one rather challenging. She wondered how I could possibly choose only 5. I agree that I could list far more than 5 so I’m going to focus on the morning habits.
- I wake up chastising myself for sleeping [to long]. I used to wake by jolting from the bed to the center of the room into a fighting stance, often still not fully awake. My roommate in my first apartment found this quite amusing. I wake without an alarm clock usually within minutes of the time I told myself to wake up as I fell asleep. I can fall asleep within seconds of my head hitting the pillow.
- I blow my nose first thing after waking whether I need to or not.
- After blowing my nose, I wipe my right nostril twice; then my left nostril twice; then my right nostril once. Despite my wife mimicing me I can’t stop the habit.
- I drink a half a pot of coffee everyday even if I don’t want the coffee. It used to be two pots a day then I quit cold turkey for a while. I only brew half a pot so that I can’t drink more without concerted effort. I choose my coffee mugs very particularly based on mood and the activity I’ll be doing while drinking.
- I put my right shoe on first. When I was 10 or 11 living in New Orleans with voodoo and superstition, I became convinced that it was bad luck to put your left shoe on before your right. Since then I have laughed off the superstition but never kicked the habit. Occasionally I put the left shoe on first but it is very intentionally going against the grain and often with the inner dialog of “I’m putting on my left shoe first just to show that it doesn’t always have to be the right shoe first.”
Ah! Now comes the tagging. I see there is a “5 weird things about me” meme going around that is similar to this habits meme. So KristyK is absolved.
And I tag: Mackee at Appalachistan, James of Puerilis, Philip of The Blue Sloth, (going on a limb here) Amanda Congdon of RocketBoom, and Juliepatchoulie.
From the mouths of babes
Guess I haven’t cleaned up my act as much as I thought had. Lessons from Amy.
Databases are so much fun!
I really enjoy tweaking databases. Great tools like SQL Query Analyzer and its MySQL equivalent SQLyog really make a pleasure out of modifying the database structure, manipulating data, and generating reports. Database work is like having a riddle or puzzle in front of you that not only can you solve, you can prove!
WYSIWYG editor choices
Almost every web application I write has some form of content management piece. People have come to expect MS Word style functionality at no additional cost. Naturally it would cost a fortune to build an editor from scratch so thank goodness we have the open source community! For eons I used Ezedit but this eventually evolved into ActiveEdit with a pricetag. I switched to FCKEditor (those are the author’s initials you dirty minded people) but was disappointed with the difficulty I had integrating it with each new site plus I couldn’t get it to work well with FireFox. I changed to TinyMCE and have been thrilled but started searching around for the greener grass. I found this outstanding chart that every developer must bookmark which gives me the confidence that TinyMCE is the greener grass!
Yet another CF engine
Now this is a car commercial!
Watch this video for the Volkswagon Polo titled “German engineering vs Arab engineering.” Warning! Work safe but potentially offensive to people that have lost their minds in political correctness. To these folks, I ask that you lighten up. We don’t make our world a better place by ignoring reality, or re-writing history to be less offensive. We certainly don’t make a blind man see by calling him “visually impaired.” Frankly I find political correctness patronizing and that’s offensive.
Some followup:
A commercial accidently released on the Internet depicts a Miiddle Eastern suicide bomber blowing himself up in a VW Polo automobile. The advertisement – with a tagline of “Polo. Small but tough.” – was meant to show the sturdiness of the car, since it contained the explosion. The spot was produced by the British group “Lee and Dan” who claim Volkswagen did not request the ad.
January 20, 2005 — Volkswagen is planning to take legal action against the masterminds behind a hoax VW commercial depicting a suicide bomber.
From the mouths of babes
Amy (3): “I went to Texas this morning.” (note: It’s 7:42am and she is sitting in our house in Knoxville, TN)
Of Grasshoppers
Student: Sometimes I can’t focus.
Master: Have another coffee and let’s talk.
Free ColdFusion Script Engine
Many people view the price of Allaire’s Macromedia’s Adobe’s ColdFusion Server as a drawback. I view it as a plus since I feel strongly that you get what you pay for in this world. However, for those clients unwilling to pay the price, they now have a free option with IgniteFusion. I wonder if this developed from this scripting language of the same name released Oct 17, 2002?
Of course, NewAtlanta’s BlueDragon has been around awhile but their free version looks to be limited to a single ip developer edition now and their prices are approaching Adobe’s.
Of Grasshoppers
Student: I am torn between doing what I need to do and what I want to do.
Master: What I need to do and what I want to do are usually the same thing.
