Schnellll!

This is hilarious: when you go to VW's site, make sure you build your car with the leather option. You'll see.

nostalgia

Every once in a while, something strikes my heart in just the right way to remind me of the Motherland...

This time around, it was the weather. The frigid, cold-as-hell-if-it-was-frozen-over kind of weather. The kind of weather that makes you want to jump off a tall building, if it wasn't too cold to actually have the will to go outside and do so.

I will never forget going to school when it was dark and windy, and leaving in the afternoon when it was even darker and more windy. On days like that, I wasn't quite sure that the sun ever bothered to rise.

Oh, and there was the snow. Never enough to actually matter, but often welcome as ground cover. New snow painted the landscape with a thin coat of fresh paint. However, it would soon fade, and turn depressing gray. It did hide what was on the ground, though... let me just give you a clue - in the good ol' country, people don't pick up after their dogs. Actually, I'm not quite sure it was always the dogs. But I digress.

And there was the spring. One day, the sun would all of the sudden remember how to shine, and would not stop for hours. It didn't matter that the sunshine made no difference in the weather at all, reflected back by the crappy snow. It mattered to me, for I always thought, as a kid, that the sun waited until my birthday.

Then, in due time, the snow would melt, revealing everything that had accumulated on the ground during the winter. The stench was noticeable for days, but it didn't matter - I knew that the morning was close when I would step outside, and all of the sudden notice that every plant, every tree has exploded in green. Nature knew that it was only given a short time to celebrate, and it took advantage of every second, blissfully dismissing the fact that the winter would come again.

Maybe it's the weather that gets engrained in the psyche of the people... for every Russian knows that endless crap can be followed with even more crap right when you think you're through, but it all doesn't matter, because a day will come to make it all worth waiting for.

cheers, Mr. President!

The mass hysteria around the whole port control thing is not only amuzing but also tremendously satisfying. It is amuzing how worked up the ignorant masses can become when they hear the words "Arab" and "security" in one sentence. Of course, there isn't even a remote threat to the US here... or, rather, no additional threats to the porous memberane we call the US border. Of course the US is going to retain control over anything that even remotely touches security, and everything else was under foreign (British) control to begin with.

It wouldn't even surprise me that some shady stuff happened in this deal - I would, however, be surprised if Haliburton did not find a way to profit.

What is satisfying in this whole thing is how much flak Bush is getting for making the right decision. Part of me wants to say, "C'mon, lay off the poor Georgy, when is the next time we'll see him get something right?" Then again, another part of me just wants to sit back and enjoy the fireworks ;)

first of all, they stole our name

NetVista was the coolest name we could come up with for our browser project in SI622. The concept was cool too, but that's a whole other subject. This was in the fall of 2003.

Now, in 2006, here comes Microsoft, touting their new OS, Vista. Great.

But, surely I am not the only one who feels ripped off. Take a look at the Vist User Experience Guide. The Apple guys must be ripping their hair out and paying their lawyers overtime.

M-S-GGGG

After some random browsing, I came across this posting that would be of interest to the many fans of Notorious MSG out there. Ah, the wonderous wonders of the internet!

D-D-R

Yes, the rumors are true - and the worst fears of our neighbors from the floor below have been realized: I gave Susan DDR as a post-Valentine gift.

After the first playing session, I felt Jesus who delivered his own cross to the crucifixion. Ohhh. Some people were not meant to do anything that involves rhythm.

I'll just stick to cars and beer.

v-day

If you want to be romantic, take lessons from the best: what you need to do is attempt something that your mate can definitely do better than you, just to say "As you can see, I've tried, and I'm totally sucking at this; I really need you!"

In our case, I didn't have to look far. All I had to do was to try my hand at cooking. Here's my recipe for eggplant sandwiches:

1. Decide that you're a big boy, and don't need your mommy's help in preparing her staple dish. Look for cooking hints on the internet.


2. Cut two eggplants into 1" slices.


3. Check the recipe again. Figure out that it calls for 1/2" slices. Cut each slice that you have in two.


4. Pour some oil into a pan, and start frying eggplant slices.


5. Observe, in amazement, a previously undiscovered physical phenomenon, where oil disappears from the pan.


6. Pour more oil. Flip the slices when they start smoking, burning a finger in the process.


7. Decide that you may be a big boy, but mommy can still help with the recipe. Call her to find out that the recipe calls for garlic paste and tomatoes.


8. Assess the ingredients at hand. Decide to substitute garlic paste with garlic powder, and tomatoes with nothing.


9. Finish the first batch of eggplant, dry the slices, put them on bread with American cheese, stick them into the toaster oven, start frying the next batch.


10. Realize that you are terrible at multitasking.


11. Realize why you suck at cooking.

After I finished, I totally expected them to taste like cardboard, but the sandwiches actually turned out decent. There was still no way I could have matched the mastery of the chefs in "Tu y Yo", this Mexican place where we went later on at night. After a full meal and a pitcher of white sangria, we just wanted to go home... good thing we didn't have to drive!

working with wood

Did you wake up today and thought to yourself, "I really need to find somebody to make a wood carving for me..." Well, if you did, I know somebody who could help you out in that department. My family knows a semi-retired guy who is supplementing his income with wood carving. He's a great person, very talented, too.

infrastructure changes

The wiring inside our apartment is undergoing some major changes. This is what it looked like before:

- a cable comes out of a jack in the bedroom and is split to go to the cable modem and to the long cable that snakes to the DVR
- the cable modem is connected to a wireless router that connects my desktop, work laptop, and Sue's computer to the internet
- the DVR is connected to the TV with RCA cables

This is what it will be:
- a cable comes out of a jack in the bedroom, and feeds a cable modem that feeds the wireless router that feeds my desktop, work laptop, Sue's computer, and, get this, the neighbor's computer
- the neighbors, in return, send their cable to us wirelessly... the receiver connects to the TV through RCA
- the as-of-yet unknown source connects to the desktop's TV-in, the desktop functions as a DVR, and the signal is sent over coax to the TV

Anyhoo, I've learned two things:
#1: You can send an RCA signal wirelessly, but not the full cable
#2: Number one kinda sucks if you wanted to hook the wireless receiver right up to the DVR

This stuff ain't easy... wish I had a degree in AV, not CS!

rethinking the death penalty

Sometimes you read something in the news and wish to yourself that the law had an instant death penalty provision, where the sentence could be carried out on the spot by any law-abiding citizen with an ounce of brain. Well, this article tells of members of a small Baptist church picketing at the funerals of US servicemen, arguing, and I quote, that "Americans are dying for a country that harbors homosexuals".

I am blown away by the perversity of this action, and by the extent of Christian close-mindedness and self-righteousness. Radical Islam does not seem so radical in comparison.

news

Yay, Susan has not one but two job offers to pick from! Now that's an exciting dilemma ;)

In other news, Sue gave me a haircut, making me look like Matt Lauer. My beard is longer than my hair now.

heh

Wow, Muslims really can't take a joke...

usability jokes

Recently came across a site that had some good usability jokes:

Q: How many usability people does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They’re too busy complaining about the door knob.

Q: How many usability people does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They only make recommendations about how you should change the light bulb.

Q: How many usability people does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Maybe if we go in as a group, we can get the discounted rate of $279 and download the PDF of Jakob Nielsen’s report on light bulbs. I don’t think we should do anything until then.

Q: How many usability people does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. We’ve never needed them before and things have turned out OK.

My addition:

Q: How many usability people does it take to change a light bulb at the company I work for?
A: Eight. One to get the developers to tell us where the light socket is, one to schedule enough people to form a good cross-sectional group that would show us how bulbs are changed in our company, one to make the bulb out of sand and wire because "we prefer in-house solutions over COTS... but we have no cycles to help you guys", one to attend twenty meetings that discuss whether the bulbs should be changed in the first place, one to wait for the secuirty office while it makes sure that changing the bulb is safe, one to explain to four higher-ups why the project is taking so long, one to hand the bulb to the Bulb Changing Team, and one to discover that electricity has been turned off in the room because the Department Head didn't feel the room was needed any more.