January 2006 Archives

I want a device that acts as an SMS/GSM node, sending messages directly to my users' cell-phones. It should either be something that I can talk to via ethernet and TCP/IP (using something like SNPP preferably, but any protocol I can decipher will do), or alternatively be something I connect to my Linux box with some software and it transmits whatever the USB/Serial/Parallel/whatever connection tells it to.

Solutions which include the phrase "... and it connects to our web server ...", "... and it will e-mail through your GSM provider's mail server..." or "... it connects to the provider via the Internet and delivers..." are not acceptable. *grin* The whole point of the exercise is "how do I alert the staff that the mail server, internet router, etc., etc., are down?"

Apparently, Jeremy has tagged me and now I have to go do one of these meme things:

Four Jobs I've Had

• The Original Yahoo Troublemaker (I bequeathed that title to Jeremy)


• Convenience Store Clerk


• Video Arcade Coin Lackey


• Grocery Store Cashier

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

• Free Enterprise


• Bull Durham


• Office Space


• Real Genius

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch

• Lost


• Battlestar Galactica


• Grey's Anatomy


• Boston Legal


• (The West Wing would have made the list, but I'm too sad over its cancellation at the end of this season)

Four places I've been on Vacation

• London


• Vegas, Baby!


• Timberlock in the Adirondacks


• Orlando, Florida

Four of my Favorite Dishes

• Chicken with Hot Garlic Sauce with Wonton Soup


• Pizza (homemade)


• Roast Beef


• Lasagna

Four websites I visit daily

• none... by and large it's either in my aggregator and I read content there, or I visit it randomly as needed

Four places I would rather be right now

• London


• Chicago


• Australia


• Wherever D is at the moment

Four bloggers who I am tagging as "it". (ugh, I hate doing this)

• Jay (so you'll have some content again)


• Russ (so you'll have some content again... sensing a pattern here? *grin*)


• Damion


• Jason

The parking lot I'm normally parked in was full. Overfull actually, so much so that even the "not-a-spot" I usually park in that doesn't get used because nobody thinks of it, had two cars squeezed into it.

Had to park up the hill way behind Blodgett. Coming down the hill towards the computer center, I was kicking the occasional ball of snow left behind by the plows. Until one of them completely failed to move, as it was frozen solid to the road. Newton was an asshole, because by his laws was I thrown forward landing face first -- well, actually knee-first -- on the pavement. My knee is gonna be hurting for fucking weeks. My hands for most of the rest of the day, I suspect.

Ugh.

I was reading a story on Jurist talking about how Louisiana's law about primary elections was ruled unconstitutional.

It led me to wonder something -- how in the world does a primary election fall under any sort of governmental jurisdiction? A primary election is part of how a political party -- a non-governmental agency -- determines who it will put up in a general election to run for a seat. Some political parties don't even have primary elections, they simply have a convention and choose a candidate, or maybe even the party elite simply decide who the candidate will be.

So, clearly there's no requirement for a primary election. Why is there any government involvement at all? Shouldn't it be the responsibility of, say, the DNC or the RNC to pay for their own primaries, and run them however they see fit?

The state shouldn't have any say in how the parties select their candidates. The federal government shouldn't be telling the state (or anyone else) how to run an election that doesn't actually elect a government official.

What's the legal justification for this? How can it be legal, other than by apathy and nobody fighting it?

Starting next Wednesday, I'll be returning to college life after a brief, two-semester hiatus. Now that I work at Vassar, I get to go to school and get my degree free of charge. (Well, technically not free... The class which would ordinarily cost $3,920 in tuition costs me a mere $25.00 fee, plus books)

Vassar, like a lot of liberal arts schools, has some really interesting classes on the schedule, and I decided to get myself into "the Vassar flow" by taking a class which would be near and dear to my heart, FILM215 - Genre (Science Fiction):

The course surveys the history of science fiction film from its beginnings in the silent period (culminating in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and The Woman in the Moon) to the advent of digital technologies. The “golden age� of the 50s, the emergence of a new kind of science-fiction film at the end of the 60s (Kubrick’s 2001, and the “resurgence/revival� of science-fiction film in the late 70s-early 80s (Star Wars, Blade Runner, Alien, The Terminator) are given special attention. Topics include subgenres (end of the world, time travel, space exploration/the “new� frontier, technology/robots/atomic energy), the relation of science-fiction films to their social context and their function in popular culture, the place of science in science-fiction, film’s relation to science-fiction literature (and issues of adaptation), the role of women and feminist criticism, and remakes. In addition to film history and criticism, a small amount of science fiction literature is read. While passing mention will be made to television science-fiction, the course focuses on film.

Man, how cool does that sound? I know it's going to be more than just watching movies all week long, but still -- seriously, that sounds hellishly cool. It's fun to see something that a lot of people (*cough* D! *cough*) mock mercilessly get a serious treatment as a genre of film, with an understanding of its place in the world.

It's going to be a crazy semester -- between working full time, taking a class, trying to work on the Second Edition of "The Book", and trying to have a social life with fiancee and friends -- but I think in the end, it will be so very worth it.

Last night, I did something that I had actually had some significant doubts as to whether or not it was even possible, let alone whether or not I could do it.

I reached level 60 in World of Warcraft. That's not the amazing part. The servers are full of level 60 characters. The difference is that I did it by solo'ing almost the entire way. On a PvP server, to boot.

I think I may have grouped with one of my fellow guild members (Nagista, my party member in the screenshot, who was intentionally not doing much but wanted to be around for when I hit 60) like two or three times, that's it, and then he really only provided backup while I was taking on the monster itself. No groups, no instances, nothing. I may be the only 60 without a single piece of blue on him because of it, but it's true.

Now I just wish I hadn't accidentally fat-fingered F12 before I hit F13 for the screenshot, so everyone can see how freakin far away from having enough money for my epic mount I am. LOL.

This morning, while D slept, I watched a movie I'd heard a lot about, called "Primer". The basic gist of the story is that a couple of engineers working on something completely unrelated, accidentally create a device that is capable of taking a user back in time, with some perfectly non-fantastic requirements (the box must have existed and been operational at the "early" time, so that it could draw back whatever was inside it at the "later" time).

After they discover the capability, there follows a long, semi-technically sound set of criteria for "how they behave" when they go back in time, most of which they're doing so that they can profit from stock trades on high-volume/high-return stocks on a given day. (The theory that they'll make money, and since it's already high volume, their puny amount won't have any significant impact on causality). They respect causality, they limit their contact with the outside world so as not to have doppelganger issues (e.g., when you see one of the two people running through the day a second time), they seem to understand what it is they're messing with.

It does lead to some great quotes, though, like "Are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon."

It was shot on, literally, a $7,000 budget. There are no fancy special effects. The story is key here, in every sense of the word. I won't claim to have "gotten it all" the first time through. π was another movie that was like that, except that even on future viewings that didn't even begin to hold the appeal for me to figure it out. In this case, I'll probably watch it once or twice more before I send it back to Netflix.

With a movie like this it's tough to say a lot about it without spoiling the plot. They discover limited time travel. They exploit limited time travel. This much anyone could get from reading a basic plot summary. Figuring out what to do with it, both in terms of personal fulfillment as well as in terms of ethical and moral dilemmas, is what makes this film interesting.

This is "science fiction" in the truest, most pure sense of the phrase -- it is a fictional story about what science might conceivably permit, and uses that not as the centerpiece of the story, but as a means of touching on other allegorical issues.

I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys that sort of thing.

I got up this morning, only to find this on my desktop:

All Administrative Offices are closed today, Tuesday, January 3rd. This closing is for excused employees only.

Considering I haven't been in the office since December 20th, I was actually kind looking forward to going back and getting some of those new projects rolling. Instead it looks like it'll be delayed one more day.

Oh well, maybe I can get some World of Warcraft in. I'm halfway to level 58. With a good day of questing and crap, I might be able to hit 60 today, so I could stop the incessant "level grindage" and just concentrate on raid nights.

UPDATE: Argh, the Tuesday maintenance window. Damn it! And it's "extended by two hours" today as well, so no WoW until 2pm EST for me. Damn it!

Man, did anyone else watch the ABC "New Years Rockin Eve" thing last night? D and I had joked that we had to watch it because Disney/ABC was going to wheel out the animatronic Dick Clark robot again, and that's always got to be a hoot to watch.

Except this year, the robot was defective. It can't move, it slurs its speech, and only about one in three words it says were able to be deciphered. Whoever had the idea of "Let's let Dick host the show again" seriously should have their employment reconsidered.

And Ryan Seacrest, throwing it back to Dick for the final countdown? Dude, are you high? What were you thinking?

I'll be the first to acknowledge that Dick Clark has a huge place in Hollywood history. He started out with a small local dance show and parlayed that into a television empire. But, that said, you have to know when your ego is going to cost you viewers, and having Dick on TV last night just seems like one of those "what were you thinking?" moments.