Saturday November 23, 2002

Goin' on a space trip

Hopefully, someday soon. ( Nov 23 2002, 10:56:54 AM ) Technology Permalink
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Friday November 22, 2002

Either my referrer log is broken or I've sunk to a new low of unpopularity. My referrer count hasn't budged all day. bummer

Later: I figured out that my DNS got screwed up somehow, so that's how come nobody was reading me, they couldn't find me! ( Nov 22 2002, 07:40:15 PM ) Entertainment Permalink
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Actual pages are blank

The reams of paper your buy in your office supply store often have pictures on their wrappers illustrating Things You Can Put on Paper: color business charts, pictures of a buff guy water-skiing, newsletters, pictures of colorful hot air balloons, more business charts. This is in case you weren't quite sure what paper is used for. I'm just surprised that they don't say in small print: "Serving suggestion. Actual pages are blank."[JoHo the Blog]

( Nov 22 2002, 02:37:33 PM ) Entertainment Permalink
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Programming Note

On the off chance that you notice and care, I've rearranged my bookmarks a bit. I moved all the FreeRollers down into More Reading, and put a link to the "most recently updated" on FreeRoller. Since I've yet to find an aggregator I like (haven't tried Flock yet), so I'm still blogrolling by hand... ( Nov 22 2002, 10:27:07 AM ) News Permalink
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Tuesday November 19, 2002

So what is all the fuss about?

dIon wonders Is this just a way for the people with an opinion to get a public forum? Well, that is certainly part of it, but it is also yet another way to be a part of a community (okay, an overused word). Since I've started blogging and working on Roller, I've "met" many interesting people from all over the world - the western hemisphere mostly.

Somehow blogs hadn't held much interest for me before, I hardly ever read them. Having one of my own allowed me a place to respond, since I don't always like leaving comments or want to expound to a greater length. And, as evidenced by my blog name, vanity certainly does play a part.

Why do you blog? Leave a comment. ( Nov 19 2002, 08:09:19 PM ) Entertainment Permalink
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Saturday November 16, 2002

1993?

What was I doing in 1993? Well, a month later I'm ready to answer that question. I'd finally gotten to grad school, after working while my wife finished college (we married 2 weeks before I graduated) for three years. I was in my first year of the Neuroscience program at the U of MN, and in February my first daughter was born.

Tell us the rest of the story, Grandpa!
That year was rough. While being a graduate student was great, we were sliding deeper and deeper into debt (even on a stipend!), and I found my infant daughter infinitely more interesting than lab work or homework. I was put on academic notice (shape up or ship out). Fall of '93 I got my grades back up, made up a few papers, and was off notice. My academic advisor, however, could tell my heart wasn't in it. She offered to let me take a sabbatical, I could come back anytime up to year. So after I finished the first quarter of the 93-94 year, I went on leave. And never went back. I still look back. I miss academics, and neuroscience in particular. I still track what goes on in science, New Scientist being a great periodical, but too damn expensive. Its a weekly, and they have to ship it from England. (Hey, if any of you guys over there subscribe, could you send me copies when you're done?)

But how did you get to be a Java nut?
Well, children, that is a long and winding road. If you really want to hear it, I'll tell you the story another night. Now, all of you off to bed! Did you brush your teeth? Scoot, off with you now. ( Nov 16 2002, 03:37:17 PM ) Entertainment Permalink Comments [1]
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Spam via Referer log Dave reports problems with nasty referer spam. I had it too this morning. I updated my ignoreHosts setting (which had the unintentional side-effect of wiping out my referer logs) with the two offending sites, and haven't had to worry about them since.

We do need to improve this though. It'd be nice to be able to change the "rules" and have them applied to referers already in the log. ( Nov 16 2002, 10:27:54 AM ) Roller Permalink
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Thursday November 14, 2002

S P E L L   C H E C K E R

Yep, I checked the code in a little while ago ;-)

It's still rough around the edges, I'm hoping Dave or Matt will sand it for me. I did my best, but making things all shiny and glossy... well, they usually come out looking odd. Anyway, I'll try and get the code deployed to Brainopolis this weekend and set up a test user so ya'll can try it out. ( Nov 14 2002, 08:56:44 PM ) Roller Permalink
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