--
Not much going on. Job hunting can be dis-heartening.
--
Hmmm, apparently, I can move pretty much anywhere in the States if I agree to
be typecast as an embedded systems programmer. Not a horrible thing... Stuff will
continue to get smaller and that could be a quite lucrative specialization.... hmmm
--
"Resumes that Knock 'em Dead" by Martin Yate has helped me write my best
resume to date.
--
I'm hunting like mad for a job. The library had a book called "Resumes that Knock
'em Dead" by Martin Yate. It's gotten me over a writter's block or two already,
so I recommend it.
Job sites that I know about so far are:
JobsTU
Monster.com
GeekFinder User Friendly's
--
Turns out the old employer replaced me yesterday. I didn't think they could do
anything that fast or well timed.
--
oh, you can
file for Unemployment online now.
--
I can walk on my own again! Yippee!! Dem hospital folk know their stuff.
--
My server seems to be down. Probably lost that IP address. I still need to
figure out that autoupdate thing. *shrug* It's a low priority.
--
This
article
(which requires that you register for free with the New York Times) is really
interesting and discribes a new sound transmitting technology. It's called
HyperSonic Sound and it allows a discrete column of sound to be transmitted over
some distance (100 yards or more). The sound can only be heard within the column.
The article is worth a read for that, but it also talks about the inventor, Woody
Norris, who had a difficult start in life and has made some serious money. He
also learned technology in what I think is the best way. He took stuff apart
and thought about it and tinkered with it. Book learning and college can be
helpful, but it won't create amazing minds.
--
CDex is a fine program for
pulling music off CD's and encoding it in MP3 format.
"Cygwin is a UNIX environment for Windows."
It's basically a new command-line interface that gives you access to all the
cool Unix commands that you love, like 'less' (a text file viewer, it's better
then 'more') and 'tail' (which shows the last 10 lines of a file, great for watching
the log file on a web server.) Cygwin isn't particularly easy to use.
--
And I'm Sacked! Layed Off. Unemployed. Between jobs.
Today is offically different than yesterday! Take a look at my
resume. I haven't decided to take comments on it yet.
--
Crutch. crutch. crutch. sigh. Hot crutching tips: Make 'em longer when you're
outside, make 'em shorter when you're inside or trying to climb stairs.
--
I got
my Lindows machine running Apache
last night. I did end up buying a subscription to their
make-software-install-and-work service. I'm quite happy
with it so far.
I'll probably store most of my pics on my home machine and use verizon's server
for the new stuff. If you know me and need webspace, tell me and I'll hook ya up.
:) BTW: The numbers that address my machine may change. Or they may not. I'll
figure out a way to automatically post the current address on this site.
--
Still crutching around. My foot can take my weight, but it twinges a bit and then
hurts an hour or more afterwards.
--
I downloaded and played another
Half-Life (
$22 for the Platinum Collection? Sweet! Buy this from New-Egg
if you are going to get it at all. I trust them and this is a fine price, it's
still selling for $40.)
mod last night.
Day of Defeat is
a realistic game set in World War II. You can play as a foot soldier on either
side. Joe found me top view
maps for
it so I don't have to be so lost. (Sierra, the super cool folk who released
Half-Life, lose some serious points today because I can't look at their website
without downloading Flash 5. Sigh. When will corporations learn that there are
MANY ways to look at the web?)
--
Apparently ligaments, like those torn in a sprain, carry proprioceptive nerves
that tell your body what position it's in. So I get to train them back up after
I can walk again. weee.
Ankle Exercises
to do after you're healed up.
--
Probably not worth reading, but if you've got the broadband (or patience) take
a look at the pictures on this
Monowheel
page. (motor cycles built such that the rider is inside the large tire.) :)
--
I'm feeling like a bit of a sissy today. My horribly painful sprain feels fine
today. It feels just about like it did yesterday before I walked to lunch on it.
Today, I think I'll stay in the office for lunch.
--
We're still not at war. Yeay! I'm kinda worried that our leaders won't take
the Iraqi's seriously enough and our army will take more casualties then they
need to. Also kinda nervous about how the people of Iraq seem to be support Hussein
this time.
--
If you use GPS, it might get flaky during the war.
Slashdot,
the
article
they point to.
--
I got one of those super
cheap Linux computers from
Walmart.com. It comes with pretty much
nothing installed. Kind of a Windows machine without Office. For a hundred bucks
more I can subscribe to the Click-and-Run service which makes it Really easy to
install more stuff or I can try downloading and installing them all myself.
--
OUCH! The ER folk at Benidictine Hospital tell me that I sprained my foot today.
It Freakin HURTS. So I'm on crutches till this weekend. :(
A special thanks to Joe for driving me in to the hospital and suffering through
the pre-war news coverage in the waiting room for hours.
On the other hand, my left hip is going to have a new muscle by this weekend from
me only standing on my left foot.
--
Engrish: What happens when Japanese folk
use English as a marketing tool. (With Pictures)
--
Happy Saint Patrick's Day. Remember it's a Holy Day of Obligation in Ireland and
you aren't supposed to drink at all today. Okay, I'm too lazy to look up evidence
for this. I heard it once though. *shrug*)
--
I had an interesting weekend. For no good reason at all, I took and passed the
Technician class amatuer radio license exam. I only missed one question.
*faint cheering* In the near future, the FCC should mail me a license to transmit
to other "Ham" radio operators. The rules are kind of extreme. I won't be alowed
to transmit any music at all unless it's coming from a space craft (wtf? yeah really.).
I can't transmit things that would be interesting to the general public.
There are a couple of cool technologies available for radio communication, but they
are all over regulated. Auto-patch will let you make local calls from the station
running it. But still, you can't talk about business and it's frowned upon to use
it for avoiding long distance charges. Packet radio (I think) will allow you to
send messages between computers over radio. They regulate how fast you can send.
*shakes his head* I wonder how regulated the Internet will be in 50 years.
--
For Dad, someone made a
wooden Sherman tank
for their son. (If the page doesn't load, try again in a couple days or read through
the posts on the
Slashdot article looking for a mirror (backup host).)
--
After the Ham test, I was tech support for Joe's LAN party.
Natural Selection (
screenshots) was the game
of the day. We played late into the morning and had a ball. :D
--
Jenny and I hooked her mom up with a new Dell. Dell sells budget boxes for a
surprisingly small amount, with monitor. The case was excellent, but had no space
to add a hard drive, so we'll have to find a way to get her mom's files off the
old, mostly busted machine.
--
I'm pretty much at my quota for disk space on verizon's server. I gotta delete
some pics.
--
It's a pain to try to make things look neat on more then one browser. :(
--
You'd think that I wouldn't edit the wrong version and lose changes, since I'm
a programmer and version control is super important. Anyway, here are those
pictures of the protests back.
--
hmmm, lucky I made a copy of those mis-uses of the ready.gov icons.
Here it is
"if the building is falling down, hide under your desk and pretend nothing is
happening. go to your happy place." :)
--
Google updated again and I'm no longer the top rated site for me. :\ Their most recent
cache of my site is dated 1/31/3.
--
This is me playing with a new format. My site is visually BORING!
Ahh! I missed my Dad's birthday! D'OH!
Happy Birthday Dad!
--
Larry Niven fans:
Slashdot sent him some questions
and he
answered recently. (He's a Science Fiction author for those who aren't fans.)
--
Jenny started up a science fiction discussion group at Border's. :)
--
Slashdot also posted a link to an article called
The Tyranny of Email.
That server is being hit with too many requests to handle (it has been "slashdotted"),
so you'd do better to read the article where it is
mirrored on slashdot.
It's advice on how to remain productivity in a cube farm.
I have to agree that it takes a Long time to get into a groove and getting
intterrupted SUCKS! Juggling eggs is the best description I've heard for programming.
You either have all the eggs under your control or not. (And yes, I do spend a
goodly amount on headphones.)
--
And with those, I'll get back to work on a *bleep*. Sigh, I guess I really shouldn't
announce what we're developing. Not a big secret or anything, but the web is seen
by Lots of eyes.
Just my notes from the Blix's presentation to the UN security council.
I'm not a reporter and I know I got some of this wrong. Thanks WAMC.ORG for broadcasting it and streaming it on the net.
Blix:
Call for interviews outside Iraq.
Iraq stopped destroying their missles today. Blix hopes this is a temporary stop.
Iraq had/has VX and Anthrax?
res 1284 created unmovic (sp?) and charged with identifying unresolved disarmament issues
Cell phone rings 11:05am (EST)
Blix wants months more.
Outside pressures on Iraq have been helpful
Doctor ElBaradei:
Iraq's industrial capacity is deteriorating.
3000Km covered bt mobile radioactivity detector in like 3 months. Is this thing
mounted on a mule or what?
Interviews have been taped by Iraq.
Call for interviews outside Iraq.
uranium- enrichment through centrifuge.
aluminun tubes - no evidence that iraq was going to do anything beside make rockets
through reverse engineering. unlikely that iraq was using them for making centrifuges.
high strength magnets- Iraq has magnets, many are for ligitimate use. Iraq probably has
the expertise to make the magnets.
Acquisition or uranium- Nigeria? (NizZAR)(thick accent) denies
in the area of nuclear weapons, inspections in iraq are moving forward. We've made important progress.
no indications of resumed nuclear activities in inspected sites.
no indication that iraq attempted to import uranium
no indication that iraq attempted to import aluminum
can't make centrifuge (?)
No evidence of a revival of a nuclear program
Outside pressures on Iraq have been helpful
Wants more time
Mistakes we can stop making about the internet
"Those who would censor ideas might realize that the Internet couldn't tell a
good bit from a bad bit if it bit it on its naughty bits." :)
Two Towers posters
Neck exercises
I think I slept with a pillow last night. My neck is killing me today. grrr.
There's something wrong with our/my life style if I have to make a special point
to turn my head all the way to each side as a special exercise for pain.
|
3/5/3 |
Officially a busy day |
Jenny found an article on this: A 61 year old man was arrested at the mall (Crossgates)
when he didn't leave the mall property when asked. He was asked to leave because
he was wearing a shirt which read "Give peace a chance".
TimesUnion.com filed
it under "Strange News". They don't think it's important. (Update) A day later,
it's a front page news:
Marchers protest arrest ...
I'm still trying to find out if the PATRIOT 2 act is really a bill yet. Anyone
know? It's supposed to rape our rights some more, but I haven't found it on a
trusted news source yet.
The Department of Homeland Security will need a logo, so someone is sponsoring a
contest.
Logo-Contest.com has the
entries. I like number 18,
the eyeball. They don't seem to have any jackboots pressing a turban clad head
into the pavement at gunpoint. Oh well, I'm sure I can trust the government.
Mom sent me a link to
Smock Material Handling Company.
They had a
tornado
hit
their
building.
On their
Returnable container handling page
they have lots of pictures of the industrial equipment they make. The
insides
look similiar to the insides of SDC's equipment. (The short, wide grey box is
the Programmable Logic Controller. This one looks like maybe a GE Fanuc controller.
Anyway, that's basically what I program for a living.) Here's a picture of
their touchscreen
interface.
(I think SDC makes the enclosure look much better, but again, I make the PLC talk
to the touchscreen on the systems at work.)
In related news, SDC's website
is a GREAT place for pictures of handshakes! Wonder if I can talk someone into
putting some content up there too.
Woke up this morning to the chant of "NO MORE WAR". I'd guess that three hundred
students from the high school on the block marched up one side of the street and back the other.
They marched in front of the naval reserve center across the street. One police
man was visible and looking protective. Sigh, left my camera in the car. no pictures.
(11am)I got some pictures from the car, I'll see if any of them are any good tonight.
Saw one reporter with TV camera. Haven't found a mention on the news yet. It's
WEIRD to report on stuff before the professionals. Really, Really Weird.
(11:38pm)"Down With War"
WTEN reported on the
student march
on the five o'clock news apparently.
Saugerties had it's own little protest."No Iraq War"
Got this comic by Chuck Asay from
page 10 of PoliticalCartoons.com. It illustrates why I'm torn on most issues today.
Tom Del Vecchio at work made this for me several months ago. "The cyber gods
have their fun with Tom."
Hi Noah!
Two license plates found in the Albany area this part week. :)
Febuary is here, I gotta send my rent check before my wonderful landlord has to
start being mean. Oops.
Kinda wish I could talk about work here, but it's just not the right place for it.
Master of Orion 3 is finally out and I've only tried it so far. It has AI for everything!
The Oppressometer is my favorite name so far ( 0=free, 10=catch lots of spies).
So far I'm not sure what the player is for in this game, but MoO2 was great so
I'll play some more.
Natural Selection continues to eat up my time. :) *CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP* (I generally
play as the aliens and run around biting the humans. The point of view of the
game for the alien team is from inside the mouth. It's not 'realistic' but it
makes eating marines very immersive. *CHOMP CHOMP*
National Center for Policy Analysis. Dunno
how reliable they are, Jamie had a link to them. I'll check them out when I get
a chance.
Drop me a line if part of my site was useful. Or write a note in
the guestbook.
If you are linking to my site and you have more then 50 readers per
day, please mirror my page and direct your readers to your mirror.
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Tom.Cerul@NOPE.gmail.com (remove a word and a period)
Copyright Tom Cerul 2003-2006
