is a blog by Brendan
Dear gentle reader: this blog has been operating continuously since I was a teenager. The writing below is at least a decade old. In that time every molecule of my body has been replaced, along with many foolish ideas and flighty beliefs. I want to keep some of those things public out of an honesty and humility I owe the world. I trust you to carry that context with you.
Did you know that a knot is 15% faster than a mile per hour? That means that if you have one of those handy tip-calculator pocket cards, you can instantly convert a speed in knots to the more familiar mph. Just pretend your speed is your bill, calculate the tip and add it to your total.
(Obviously, you can do this in your head too, but that’s not as glamorous.)
Today’s episode has been brought to you by science!
My RSS aggregator is now officially aggregating 39 blogs. Granted, a lot of those are dormant, but that’s still not bad for something that started as an experiment while I was bored at work.
Things I want to change about it:
I know thirty-nine isn’t actually a particularly large field for an aggregator, but it works nicely for me. It was pretty boring when I started out, but now there’s a good chance that any hour I hit it will yield at least one new post.
“Also, in an attempt to re-energize myself, I sort of scotch-taped a quart of milk to my face.”
Sometimes I think the reason the faces in AZWP are so expressive is because they are all Stephen’s real face.
“Just imagine squeezing a monkey into a deflated balloon, and then inserting that balloon into another, much bigger balloon, and then filling the space between the two carcasses with strawberry jam. Even though you can’t see its shape anymore, there’s a monkey in there, and it still performs most of the normal monkey functions like picking up pencils and making fun of the teacher; it just has to do so through a load of blubber. That is what I sit by in class.”
Rejoice, ye people, for AUDREY HAS A BLOG!
Sumana recommended weeks ago that I read “In the Beginning was the Command Line,” a very long essay by Neal Stephenson about operating systems and Disney World and nuclear weapons. I’d heard of it before, and I like Stephenson a lot, although his direct-address form is so clear and dry that I spend a lot of time wondering if he’s making fun of me.
Anyway, today I got bored at work, and I read it (213k of plain text; I was very bored), and it got me all excited and I went home and dug out my reject iMac and now, a few hours of downloading later, I’m watching it brainwash itself with Yellow Dog Linux. This is way too easy. I want it to hit a snag now, so I won’t be won over.
You hear me? I won’t be won over!
I don’t know why I have such a grudge against Linux. Maybe it’s because my first experience with it was being thrown into the cold water of a bad implementation of Debian–a hacker’s imp, done by my hacker of a first professor, running chill and unfriendly in the basement that was the old Centre CS lab. (The new lab was still in the basement, it just ran Red Hat instead. I was shocked to realize Linux could do 24-bit color.)
Or maybe it’s just because I’ve been using Windows for such a long time, and I hate admitting I was wrong. Bleagh. Oh well.
The install’s 18% done, and I think I’m going to crash soon and let it run while I sleep. In the morning I should just about have a Linux box, as is only fitting for my first day of CS grad school.
The only problem now, really, is figuring out what I’m going to use it for. I’ve got my desktop publishing and image processing pretty well taken care of on this old warhorse (my PII), so I didn’t install any of that, but do I try to set up a friendly ftp server? Learn to write Xwindows apps? Run a MUD? Suggestions are welcome.
Pork-barrel entry-end tagalongs: I baked my first batch of chocolate chip cookies from scratch this evening, waiting for Yellow Dog to download. And they’re GOOD! I’ve been strutting around all night thanks to that. Also, The Devil’s Dictionary does in fact have an RSS feed, and its author, a Mr. Kn____, is apparently some kind of referral-log ninja. And I owe Maria big for letting me download and burn like a gig and a half of computer-geek stuff on her shiny new laptop, since my CD burner is still dead. Thanks, Maria! Get a blog!
The Devil’s Dictionary: Heh and double heh. As a blogger-hating blogger, I think that whole thing is great, actually. I want to keep up with it, and wish it had an RSS feed (unlikely). Thanks to Leonard for the tip-off.
Afer at least a dozen different samples, the Gender Genie firmly and consistently identifies me as a girl.
Yup.
Update 1947 hrs:
Well, don’t feel anxiety about this. I went to the site and typed in a Hamlet soliloquy and guess what — Shakespeare was a girl!
Deb
Weirdly, googling for sites related to the Tuesday comic gets this site as the top result (under Tuesday itself), and my favorite band as the next one. Maybe it just daisy-chains through links? But that can’t be right. Or maybe somebody posted about it on their message boards.
Either way, though, seeing those two sites bracketing mine is really kind of cool. Google’s generally pretty nice to me, which I like to think of as a measure of karma. I do kind of wish, though, that I weren’t the “feeling lucky” result for people trying to find lyrics to some Mudvayne song.
How many two-year-olds have their own weblogs? (Not enough!) If you don’t already read The Daily Zoe, you should, as it will consistently and significantly improve your outlook on life. It’s hard to feel bad about your day when you see the sheer amounts of attention and love surrounding that kid. Bonus: life-threatening cuteness!
Oh, and remind me to post something else about babies when I get home.