Category: Technology

Going where many, many men have gone before

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Two more sleeps, as my wife would say.

.:.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I don’t know how I booked travel before the internet. Actually, I suppose I didn’t really; by the time I started flying anywhere or paying for a hotel the internet was in full bloom. I think the last time I spoke (voluntarily) to a travel agent was in 1997, right after I moved here and needed to book a flight home for my brother’s wedding.

Now, with web 2.0 / social software / whatever geeky term you want to use, it’s gotten even better. TripAdvisor helped us pick hotels in Lake Louise (Moraine Lake, actually) and Jasper that we never would have heard of, though they were both ranked #1 and were far cheaper than the Fairmont options. We did book a stay at the Banff Springs, though; I dare say we’ll need some extravagance at the end of the trip. Flickr gave us an advance taste of places like Emerald Lake and Lake O’Hara, and Chowhound pointed us to to some interesting restaurants that we’d have never considered otherwise.

.:.

By the way, the title is a line from Almost Famous that has nothing whatsoever to do with travel research.

[tags]banff, lake louise, jasper, tripadvisor, flickr, chowhound, fairmont, emerald lake, lake o’hara[/tags]

Well hello there, Google Reader

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Colin told me about the new & improved Google news reader last night. I tried it out and after five minutes I was in lurve. I grabbed my OPML file and, one quick import later, I have a new home. I didn’t like the first incarnation of the Google reader, and kept going back to the FeedDemon/NewsGator combo. Recently, I had to ditch FeedDemon because of sync problems I couldn’t resolve, though I kept using NewsGator. However, NewsGator’s web reader is clunky and Google reader actually feels as fluid as a desktop app, so I’m sold.

For now.

.:.

It’s time to catch up on the random MP3s I’ve been throwing onto my Nomad in the last few months. Here’s today’s lineup:

  • be your own pet . “thresher’s flail”
  • be your own pet . “we will vacation, you can be my parasol”
  • belafea . “tara”
  • bob dylan . “someday baby”
  • bob dylan . “the levee’s gonna break”
  • bob dylan . “thunder on the mountain”
  • bonnie prince billy . “the seedling”
  • califone . “the orchids”
  • cold war kids . “hang me out to dry”
  • cold war kids . “hospital beds”
  • cold war kids . “saint john”
  • darker my love . “what’s a man’s paris”
  • dears . “ticket to immortality”
  • editors . “munich”
  • jennifer o’connor . “exeter”
  • jennifer o’connor . “exeter, rhode island”
  • jesu . “dead eyes”
  • jesu . “silver”
  • john frusciante . “communique”
  • john frusciante . “sphere”
  • john frusciante . “walls”
  • johnny cash . “god’s gonna cut you down”
  • ladyhawk . “long ’til the morning”
  • ladyhawk . “sad eyes, blue eyes”
  • ladyhawk . “the dugout”
  • ladyhawk . “war”
  • long winters . “ultimatum”
  • mendoza line . “catch a collapsing star”
  • mike doughty . “i hear the bells”
  • mike doughty . “tremendous brunettes”
  • mischa . “cubicle”
  • mission of burma . “2wice”
  • murder by death . “boy decide”
  • my latest novel . “sister sneaker sister soul”
  • ox . “1913”
  • polyphonic spree . “lithium”
  • primal scream . “country girl”
  • primal scream . “dolls”
  • primal scream . “the 99th floor”
  • richard buckner . “town”
  • sissy . “so long”
  • spangle call lilli line . “b”
  • spangle call lilli line . “piano”
  • spoon . “idiot driver”
  • spoon . “mountain to sound”
  • sunset rubdown . “stadiums and shrines ii”
  • swan lake . “all fires”
  • yo la tengo . “pass the hatchet”
  • yo la tengo . “the room got heavy”
  • zero 7 . “this fine social scene”

[tags]google reader, newsgator, newsgator[/tags]

IEdsel

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

OK, I had to remove the Google Map from the sidebar ’cause Internet Explorer is retarded.

.:.

My poor mother. She’ll have to keep up with both my brother and I as we traipse through Turkey and the Rockies respectively. And on dialup, no less…

[tags]internet explorer sucks, rockies, turkey[/tags]

Once again, an Onion headline becomes reality

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Of all the reprehensible things the Bush administration has done, this is one of the most terrifying: in an article titled Forget Nuremberg: How Bush’s new torture bill eviscerates the promise of Nuremberg, Slate explains how the President has granted himself the authority to “interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions.”

The court system is now emasculated regarding the issue of torture. The executive branch has subverted the judicial branch, and has the legislative branch by the throat. The checks and balances set out by the forefathers Republicans claim to hold so dear are being chipped away, bit by bit.

I fear America is sliding into a period which, not too many years hence, they’ll view as one of the darkest in their history.

.:.

On a lighter note, and in preparation for our trip, I’ve added a little Google Map to the sidebar. It’ll show you where we are, so long as I can get enough signal to update our location on the blackberry.

[tags]bush, torture, nuremberg, geneva conventions, google maps[/tags]

Feed me, see more.

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

If you know what RSS is — and use a news reader — you might be interested in the following feeds.

I’ve also added the links to the sidebar for future reference.

By the way. if you don’t know what RSS is, or don’t use a feed reader (or My Yahoo, or some other web portal aggregator), read this: RSS explained the Oprah way.

[tags]rss feeds[/tags]

Key(?)words

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Perhaps the most puzzling keyword hit I’ve ever seen was registered this afternoon. Someone in Paris did a search for “memphis devil shit” and hit my blog. How, might you ask? Well, in a post this past May I talked about a film version of a book called Devil’s Knot about the West Memphis Three, and then talked about how we had to check my cat’s shit for the string he’d swallowed. Et voila.

It’s times like this I wish I had Google adwords, just to see the kind of hits I’d get for that.

[tags]memphis devil shit[/tags]

Catch a downloadable Star

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Very interesting idea by the Toronto Star (or maybe they copied it…I don’t pay much attention to the newspaper business) to offer a free PDF version of an afternoon paper for download, delivered to your inbox at 3:30 (or 4:15 if you want business news too). I like this idea for two reasons: 1) it shows the Star is thinking about…well, something new; 2) it might help to cut down on the unholy mess of free daily newspapers in our subway system. Each day, twice a day — after the morning and evening commutes — tens of thousands of those things are abandoned on subway seats and floors, stuffed into garbage cans, and left scattered about TTC stations. Of course, anybody who gets this daily email will likely just print the PDF, but since it’s not bound hopefully they’ll just print the pages they want; at the very least, it’s less paper consumed (and strewn about) than one of those daily rags.

Well done, Star.

[tags]toronto star, star p.m.[/tags]

The home stretch

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

The paper’s due in three days, and I’m almost done. Just a few more sections and then the clean-up. Hopefully I can get it done a little earlier than planned; I need a couple of days to prepare for the film festival. I’ve also been taking time away from the office (it’s my company’s custom MBA program, so they kindly give us a little time off when we really need it…until now I just hadn’t really needed any) and I’ve been neglecting some important work. I’ll be glad to get back into the normal swing of things. In October.

.:.

Need to move a giant statue of Ramses II? Google Earth can help you do it. And I thought it was just for showing me local pizza joints…

.:.

In what might possibly be the oddest headline I’ve read in a while, the CBC informs us of “New clues into identity of 19th-century legless, mute Maritimer“. Good, ’cause I was wondering about that.

.:.

Speaking of mute, Gilles Duceppe should really give it a try sometime.

“We have this ridiculous economic policy that when exports grow, the economy gets stronger and the value of our currency increases. Then exports decline and things get worse. It’s always like a yo-yo,” Mr. Duceppe said yesterday.

You know what else Gilles? When I turn my stove on, the water in my kettle boils. When I turn it off, it cools down again. It’s always like a yo-yo! Actually, that was giving him too much credit; what he’s saying is the boiling water in my kettle is causing my stove to switch on, and the cooling of the water switches the stove back off.

In theory — and only in theory — this man could be our Prime Minister. As much as I dislike Stephen Harper, at least he seems to grasp basic economics.

[tags]ramses ii, legless mute maritimer, gilles duceppe[/tags]

Sleaziness = ratings

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

The wall-to-wall JonBenet Ramsey coverage is as baffling as it is disgusting. Yes, it’s tragic that a little girl was killed; it always is. But would the news networks consider it as tragic if she weren’t a tiny white [shudder] “beauty queen”? Or if they hadn’t harangued the parents with insinuations of guilt?

Is this story more important than the cease-fire in Lebanon? Than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Than the looming problems of Iran or North Korea? On CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and CTV (all linked above) these stories were buried underneath such breaking news as a chocolate virgin mary and Justin Timberlake dissing the latest American Idol chum*.

I guess I’m not surprised; the networks are just giving the idiots what they want. I’m just disappointed that they all sink to the bottom of the cesspool, hand in hand with smiles on their faces.

* don’t even get me started on the irony.

.:.

Wired has some details about the Microsoft MP3 player (aka, the Zune). If that thing has 80+ GB of storage, I might be getting me one.

[tags]jonbenet ramsey, network coverage, chocolate virgin mary, justin timberlake vs. taylor hicks, zune[/tags]

"You'll need a snorkel to breathe underneath the pile of groupies that will sack you."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

My wife sent me this link titled How to totally fake being a geek (which I assume she found through some sort of google search that scours the web for any mention of Buffy The Vampire Slayer). I’m glad it’s tongue-in-cheek, ’cause I’d hate to think that knowing Assembler is the ne plus ultra of geekiness. Why? Because I know Assembler. At least, I knew it. At least, a I knew a little bit. When I first moved here my job was mainframe programming; don’t ask me why, ’cause I had no programming experience.

It was tough to learn, since writing Assembler is what I imagine it’s like to talk to a retarded robot, but from then on every other programming language seemed like a treat. The first time I tried COBOL I was ecstatic because it could do, you know, math like a human. It was like when my brothers and I learned to drive; we didn’t learn on a car, or on any automatic…we learned on the 2-ton stick-shift farm truck. Once you can work with that, a Ford Tempo’s a pussycat.

That said, it’s been so long since my foot’s touched a clutch, it’d probably be pretty comical to watch me try.

[tags]geekery, buffy, assembler, cobol[/tags]