Posted by Daniel Lyons
Sat, 03 Jul 2004 13:10:00 GMT
So apparently Eric is trying to get people onto LiveJournal, which
is sort of like trying to get people to be on the Jerry Springer
show. And I wasn’t really interested in getting involved, but
Schlake’s been trying to piss Eric off on LiveJournal, and I’ve always
kind of wanted to take a few pot-shots at Schlake, so I’ve posted some
nasty stuff in the Eric-blog.
Right after I was about to give up on my boys, Jarrod and Bill
decided they would swing by on Labor Day or the Sunday before, just to
shoot the shit and maybe sleep on the floor. So I feel much better.
I’m sure I don’t wander into their thoughts as often as they wander
into mine, but that’s probably a function of how few friends I have
here. Not that I’m complaining…it’s nice to have such a simple
life. Then again, I don’t get much contact with people other than
Michael and Alex, and that’s probably going to get weird in the long
run, or else Alex will learn a lot about programming.
Alex and I were in Santa Fe today to go to the Women’s Health
Clinic, so we wound up eating at a nice New Mexican cuisine restaurant
with Hillary afterwards. The clinic appointment didn’t go as we had
expected—there are three questions which determine whether a
person is eligible or not, but apparently it wasn’t possible for the
woman to ask us all three over the phone before we showed up. So
there we were and she won’t be eligible for another month. I wanted
to just get the appointment done, but Alex doesn’t want to waste
(effectively) $135 on a doctor’s visit, because it would be $150 today
or $15 after she gets coverage. I guess this is reasonable, because
she is basically healthy though she seems to have mono, but mostly I
don’t want to fight about it anymore. I’m glad if she gets in and
does it at all.
Now, I’m not opposed to people in our state speaking Spanish at
home, or being bilingual. It’s never been an issue, living in
Albuquerque or Socorro. Apparently, and this makes no sense to
me whatsoever, there are more people who only speak Spanish in the
northern half of our state than in the southern half. I guess this
corroborates my statement to outsiders that, no, you fucks, New
Mexicans aren’t Mexican, because if that were true, it would be a
gradient towards Mexico rather than away from Mexico. But I’m also
sort of more generally offended by it because I don’t like it when I’m
standing in a Wal-Mart 500 miles from the border and they’re speaking
over the intercom in Spanish. I also don’t like that half the time
someone I don’t know speaks to me, they’re doing it in either broken
English or Spanish which I don’t really know.
Now, Matterform Media is located at the Johnson Controls building,
which used to be basically a small business complex but was purchased
by NNMU, so now we’re one of three rooms that aren’t classes. We also
are the room which heats up the most, so we have to have our door open
or we’ll bake. This combination leads to particularly amazing levels
of stupidity when we have random fucks walking in wanting information.
We’ve had about six people ask us what happened to their class, and
five fucks came in saying that someone told them to come to the office
and talk to the lady about the form. We say, we have no idea what
you’re talking about, we’re not part of the school or the government
we’re a small business. 95% of the time, they then reply with
something like “Yes, but could you help me? I need to talk to
the person about the thing, but I can’t express to you verbally who
they’re affiliated with, if they’re government or school, I just need
to do this thing that I don’t know what is or how or anything really,
and plus I don’t know English so if you try and help me I won’t know
what you’re trying to say, so basically I just want you to make it all
better so I can go home and blame it on the man at the office at the
building who said it was all better so goddamn it, it’s your fault now
not mine.” Sorry. We don’t speak your language. If we charged
a dollar per question, we’d have made at least $10 right now, and we
could afford to go out to lunch or something.
Alex and I watched a really cool movie today called Uzumaki. It’s
a Japanese horror flick; we’ve gotten really into Japanese horror
because it seems to be where all the atmospheric, good horror is these
days. We got this movie on Amazon on the strength of the review. It
was the first movie from the director of the fucking awesome Tomie:
Replay (though he apparently also did the original Tomie
movie, and it sucked so badly someone wrote a hilarious review of it
on Amazon that I’d link to if I weren’t on dialup and downloading
something right now). Great movie, very campy, almost no blood or
violence but still amazingly effective. Good Lovecraftian decrepit
ancient town with evil pagan history, too.
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Posted by Daniel Lyons
Sat, 03 Jul 2004 12:51:00 GMT
Last night, Alex, Faust, Hillary and I watched The Last Samurai. I
must admit, I didn’t manage to remain completely aware of what was happening
through the whole thing, because I was sort of tired from the day, but what I
did catch was quite good and I think I can safely recommend the movie.
The movie is a drama about the exploits of a former army captain under
Custer’s command. He’s an alcoholic who hates his life because of the things
he has done in the service of the government. He is hired by the Japanese
government to squash a rebellion on the strength of his record with this kind
of thing.
It seemed like a good movie for what I caught, and I definitely intend to
catch it again before giving it the buck rating. Definitely has some
heartstring tugging scenes, and it’s noteworthy for taking a character so
hatable and making him respectable, perhaps admirable. And of course, there
are so many nipponiphiles around that will love it nothing more need be
said.
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Posted by Daniel Lyons
Fri, 02 Jul 2004 12:53:00 GMT
Today was my first day at work. I signed some paperwork including
an NDA and a non-compete (which I was expecting I suppose) and all
that. Then I got to work on some websites, but no real code. We’re
still talking about what I’m going to implement first.
For lunch, Michael took me out to some place I think called
Joann’s, where I damn near burned my mouth and had a huge meal I
wasn’t able to finish. For dinner, Bill took me out to Bumble Bee’s
Baja Grill here in Santa Fe, where I am crashing until I get to move
into the new apartment. Both meals were awesome; I really enjoy
having good places to eat at, especially good new places.
Around 5pm, Michael got a call at work for some kind of mortgage
company. He put them on speakerphone and waited for a human to offer
to help him, then he offered them penis enlargement pills. They hung
up immediately. Apparently he hates spam. :)
I’m zonked, so I’m going to bed now even though it’s early. :)
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Posted by Daniel Lyons
Thu, 01 Jul 2004 11:11:00 GMT
Today we headed back up to Española to look for a place to
live again. To rehash the last one: Española is a dump, at
least with respect to housing, though ironically the best housing is
reserved for Section 8 folk on fixed or low income. We had made two
appointments with two separate women wanting $500 for their 2 bedroom
adobe abodes.
The first one, I remarked on the way out, was like the bastard
child of the other two houses we had seen. It had uneven floors, but
wasn’t a fishbowl; it had ratty furniture included, but no washer and
dryer; it had concrete steps which Alex loathed, but no the terrible
neighborhood. Alex would have been satisfied with it, but there isn’t
much I hate in this life more than uneven floor. I’m not the best on
my feet and I really dislike it when I have to think to maintain my
already feeble balance.
So we were at an impasse—Alex wouldn’t budge on her hatred of
the fishbowl, and I wouldn’t budge on my hatred of bad floor. We
stopped at Blake’s and got the phone book, ostensibly to locate a
T-Mobile authorized fuckz0r. On a whim we decided to check the
apartments section since it seemed to be a newer book, and found a
place called Butterfly Spings in Pojoaque. Alex called and though
they didn’t have a two bedroom available immediately, we decided to
head out there before seeing our 5 O’clock about whatever decrepit
adobe shanty she was blessing with the presumptous title of
“house.”
We got lost on the way in and wound up confused, on the wrong side
of the road, nervous because it is also a storage unit. We called the
old man back and he called our attention to the massively unmissable
apartment complex just a few rows of housing behind the main drag.
Sandwiched between two Route 66 gas stations, a Dairy Queen and a
casino, I wouldn’t think of it as a beautiful area, but it’s very
sparsely populated and there’s lots of undeveloped land in the area
which is very pleasing to the eye.
We came in and spoke to the man, who lives out of one of the units
where he does business; he is apparently the owner as well as manager
but was amicable to us and the other two people he dealt with. He has
a 2 bedroom 2 bath opening up either on the second or the tenth, and
our destiny lies there. We filled out the paperwork and we have a new
apartment. We also skipped out on our 5 O’clock (it was about 5:45
when we made it out of the complex). If you factor in the old man we
skipped out on on Monday, we have sort of a bad habit of calling
people and not showing up.
We also find it really annoying that nobody in Española is
willing to just give the damn directions to their place. Getting a
place in Española is sort of like this:
- Call bitches. They aren’t home. Wait until 7 to call.
- Bitches still don’t pick up. Leave a message.
- Bitches call you back, but don’t want to talk on the phone for
more than 2 minutes or give you their address. Make arrangements
to call bitches when 30 minutes from Española.
- Call bitches from 30 minutes outside town. Bitches say
“thanks; call us from Qwik Stop” and give directions to
Qwik Stop.
- Make it to Qwik Stop; call bitches. Bitches say great, will be
there in 3 minutes.
- Fifteen minutes later, bitches show up. Drive 20 miles over
speed limit to shack with “To Be Condemned” sign over
top.
- Bitches explain how one heater is sufficient for entire house
in winter, how neighborhood is good in spite of massive crime, how
no A/C is necessary in spite of location in Sunny New Mexico, how
former residents jimmy open storage doors, etc.
- Pretend to look interested by opening cabinets, fridge doors,
asking inane questions, even though you made up your mind as soon
as you saw the chipped exterior, sloped floor, and general malaise
that goes hand-in-hand with this level of decay.
- Tell bitches you’ll call them after your next appointment if
you want to go with it and that you really like their place. It’s
a bald-faced lie, but they already lied to you when they called
their place livable.
So tomorrow I head up to Bill’s place with a change of clothes and
some food money, my keyboard and my laptop, and I start work at 9 AM.
I can’t wait but I am tired as hell from all the driving these past
two days. It will be an interesting commute from Santa Fe for these
next few weeks.
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Posted by Daniel Lyons
Tue, 29 Jun 2004 17:27:01 GMT
Yesterday, Alex, Nathan and I went up to Española to hunt
for an apartment. The results were pretty bad; we saw two houses and
one apartment complex. The first house was an utter dump: uneven
non-level floors, ratty furniture, and overall bad repair. The
second one was much nicer, a small 2-bedroom with little strange
heating and no A/C. I liked the landlady at the second one, a kind
blind old woman who was very honest with us about things. She did
manage to say that it was a nice neighborhood even though her shovels
and rakes disappear, which made Alex nervous. It wasn’t the property
she wanted, though I think I could have lived there.
The apartment we saw was a gorgeous, modern place only 3 years
old. It had three bedroom palaces with tons of space and a floorplan
that made it feel like a house on the inside. It also only accepts
section 8 housing, meaning we make too much money to live there.
Ironic, that the only place in Española that both Alex and I
wanted to live in, we couldn’t because it is reserved for lower-income
families. This must be what turns people Republican.
We stopped by Michael’s office and showed him the code. He was
surprised by the presence of 2 classes, apparently most of their code
is not particulary object-y. I get the feeling they have a limited
grasp of OO design, which is kind of my specialty. Michael
immediately found an off-by-one error in my code such that when you
open a story, you get the one after the one you click on. Apparently
I got my array numbering mixed up. I’m not sure if it was because I
am used to BASICs where arrays start at 1, or if it was because I am
used to C-like languages where arrays start at 0; I’ll track that down
a little later on.
All of this Mac action has re-sparked my interest in developing
Cocoa applications. I spent a few hours last night reading
documentation online to see what it’s going to take to make a proper
Slashdot viewer app in Cocoa. The Cocoa framework is heavily
dependent on delegation, I guess, as an alternative to inheritance.
Where in Python we would do something like inherit from ContentHandler
and hand that to the parser, in Cocoa, we instead make a class that
implements some of the methods in the so-called “informal
interface” for delegates of the NSXMLParser, then we instantiate
one and stick it in the NSXMLParser’s delegate attribute.
Or, to make a nice dock menu for your program, you make a class that
implements “applicationDockMenu” and set that to be your
delegate.
This design seems to minimize the amount of inheritance going on,
which is something you want to do in a single-inheritance language
like Objective-C. It will also imply the creation of a plethora of
little classes with names like “myApplicationDelegate”
which is where all the customization would take place, unless there
is a way to stack delegates, which would be cool and seems like the
kind of thing they would make (applying the “composite” or
“chain of responsibility” patterns).
The framework really is beautiful, and designed for maximum
reusability and minimum of changing your code to get at improvements.
The cost seems to be in terms of complexity: getting a URL in
REALbasic is simply creating a new HTTPServer and calling Get() with
the URL as a parameter. In Cocoa, we have NSURL, NSURLHandle,
NSURLConnection, NSURLDownload, NSURLCache, NSURLRequest,
NSURLResponse, and NSCachedURLResponse. To fetch something and have
it cached as I intend to will involve probably only about five lines
of code when all is said and done, but you see the complexity here can
be described as fairly vast.
By the way, if anyone wants a cookie, they could read <a
href=”http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/URLLoadingSystem/index.html”>URL
Loading System Overview and see if it makes sense to them.
So, that’s about all for today. Tonight we’re eating with Hillary
and then going and saying goodbye to Salem and picking the remainder
of Alex’s stuff and my MD player. Tomorrow we’re heading back up to
Espanola to find somewhere to live, which hopefully will bear fruit
unlike Monday.
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Posted by Daniel Lyons
Mon, 28 Jun 2004 14:46:00 GMT
Tomorrow, Alex, my brother and I are all heading up to
Española to confirm the job and try to find a place for Alex
and me to live.
I am anxious and I guess I’m not sure why. Partly I suppose it is
because I liked being off. I also found it really frightening not
knowing if I would ever make money again, if I would ever find gainful
employment in my field. Partly it is because I am worried about
making ends meet. I think I will be able to but now I see why this is
something everyone worries about. I’m also anxious about the move
itself. This apartment is a good apartment, Alex and I felt safe here
behind the gate and up two flights of stairs. We might be able to
rent a house for the kind of money we’re paying here though, and that
would probably be better, healthier, though I am not sure I would feel
as safe.
What can I say, I am a prick about some things; I don’t want to
help Uncle Sam kill anybody. I am still an anarchist, I just can’t
think of anything to do to help the political situation we’re in.
Violent action clearly isn’t the answer, yet peaceful methods seem
ineffective as well. Revolution would be great, but not unless
regular people were coming to me and telling me it is a good idea
rather than the other way around. I wouldn’t say it weighs heavy on
my mind, but I talk to people about it and it bothers me somewhat.
My mind is transfixed on Española. I haven’t been able to
do anything without thinking about the job and how much I’d like to
have it. Dad said during dinner that you should always go for a job
you enjoy; it wasn’t long into his job with the school system that he
wanted out, and he’s happier now that he’s working at Adelante. I
don’t think it will be a hardship to live on the money I will be paid,
but I don’t know. I guess I got scared by the numbers. I have never
looked at my bank account and thought, “That pays for my food,
my internet, my car, and my hobbies.” I have never thought,
“if I don’t put money in there, I won’t eat.” I guess it
is a reality check. If I could go back and undo some of the spending
I’ve done, I would be doing really well right now. But I can’t, so I
am borrowing money from my brother, and I never thought I would say
that.
So I guess life is a mixed bag. Everything is going well, so the
money will be tight. Life has treated me well. I have no reason to
complain, my parents are swimming in debt and they have done so much
to help me get started without it. I feel I owe everyone so much, I
don’t want to take any more. Ah well… I have to be up in 5 hours,
so I had best get some sleep.
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Posted by Daniel Lyons
Mon, 28 Jun 2004 14:29:00 GMT
To learn REALbasic, the
software used at MatterForm
where I hopefully will be working, I downloaded the demo version and
implemented the famous Slashdot Story viewer. The result is available
here though you will need
REALbasic to use it, which means you either need a Mac or Windows copy
of the compiler. I may compile it and distribute a nicer version
of it later on as I’m getting to know REALbasic, we shall see.
Linguistically, there isn’t much special about REALbasic. It’s a
strongly-typed, single-inheritance OO language. It has both builtin
types and objects. The builtin types are Integer, String, Float,
Object, and Color, but I might be leaving out a few numeric types. I
think having color as a builtin is interesting, but only something a
GUI-oriented language would do. I find it strange to have to declare
all my variables in BASIC, too. Apart from that, the API seems
well-designed though I wish documentation came in a better format than
some kind of huge PDF. HTML would be nice. I have been spoiled by <a
href=”http://www.python.org”>Python’s nice <a
href=”http://www.python.org/doc”>documentation, particularly the
Library Reference. The
compiler apparently targets Windows, Mac OS 9/X and Linux though there
is no version of the software for Linux (leading me to believe it
isn’t self-hosting ;). Oh, and it has the g-d-forsaken
“New” operator.
I had intended to also write this program in Apple’s XCode IDE in
Objective-C, a sensible if disgusting language which should be
preferred over C++ by all right-thinking people. Unfortunately, I
simply didn’t have enough time this weekend to do them both; rest
assured it is also on the platter. So enjoy this version if you can,
I may provide a binary if I get to install REALbasic on my laptop
because of my job, we shall see.
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Posted by Daniel Lyons
Sat, 26 Jun 2004 12:35:00 GMT
Today I had my interview with <a
href=”http//www.matterform.com”>Matterform Media. It went really
well! The day was fraught with good omens: Michael uses the same
keyboard setup I do, with the <a
href=”http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/contoured.htm”>Kinesis Contoured
keyboard and the Dvorak
layout. They are really happy with me and seem to really want me to
work for them. We spent three hours chatting about various things, it
was about the most laid back interview I have ever experienced.
There are many reasons why I really like this job. It is using a
pretty good language, <a
href=”http://www.realsoftware.com/realbasic/”>REALbasic, a BASIC
derivative with objects. The similarity to VB seems to be somewhat
limited but I’m looking forward to getting a chance to play with it at
greater length. I also like the small town, small business, laid-back
setting. I even think I like the locale because it is very green. :)
The pay could be higher, but I understand it’s an introductory rate
with a raise after 6 months, and I know Alex and I could make ends
meet on the wages.
I can’t remember ever salivating over a job quite like this
before. I wish I could have taken home some code or something to
refactor right now, or be writing some PHP for them as we speak. I
have never been so ready to code in my life. It feels like this week
was a refresher with all the code I’ve released. I can’t stop
giggling about how much I want this job, I’ve been a real pest to Alex
all night.
Still, I told the folks I was going to hold off until Tuesday when
I talk to the people in Socorro. I am decidedly less interested in
this job now than a few weeks ago. Everything else just seems right
at MatterForm, I don’t see how I could settle for anything else.
While I was interviewing, they asked me why someone so
overqualified as myself was interested in the job. I explained that
all my friends were busy getting security clearances to work at labs
and it just didn’t appeal to me. “I don’t really want to
create—” Michael interjected “Weapons of mass
destruction!” I said “Exactly!” and we were both
laughing about it. Then he showed me the software they’ve got in the
works and I’m just rock hard over it. This is a company making some
truly innovative software for tying the Mac together. I really want
to participate in this company! I have an urge to call them tomorrow
and tell them my heart is set on them, but it probably still isn’t a
good idea. We shall see.
Eric is stopping by for a brief chat on his way home, so I need to
go and sit next to the phone. More on this, perhaps, later. :)
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Posted by Daniel Lyons
Fri, 25 Jun 2004 16:09:00 GMT
When I woke up this morning, there were a couple nice email in my Inbox. One was from Webcreators (whose website is particularly bad), saying:
We received your resume (among around 100 others) in
response to the advertised Developer position, and yours is in the
final group of applicants that we are interested in.
It looked like a form letter, so I replied and filled in the blanks. We’ll see what happens, it could be quite a good job.
I had another email from Matter
Form which sounded much more promising. One reply and now I have
an interview with them tomorrow! It sounds like a really cool company.
I had a short talk with Navdeep
Bains, the lead developer at Matter Form. He sounds like a great
guy, I hope I stay in touch with him. They’re located in
Española, but on the website they put Santa Fe, which I find
curious. Anyway, Navdeep is very talented as you can see by the
link.
We did laundry today. At some point during the process, a kid came
up and tried to elbow in the door, which we had just watched the
maintenance guys fix, so I let him in. He said “Nice shirt.
Will you give it to me?” I said thanks but no. Alex suggested I
say yes, take my shirt off, rub it on his face, whip him with it and
say “Of course not!” but I did not relent. :)
I created an account for the Random 5 bot, so that I could host <a
href=”http://www.clanspum.net/~random5”>the band list and have a
stable account for email to be coming from. I wrote the mod_ruby, but
I haven’t had time to deal with the cron job for the email yet though.
That’s a tomorrow kind of task.
Well, I have to get some rest before my interview tomorrow, so I’m
signing off.
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Posted by Daniel Lyons
Wed, 23 Jun 2004 18:33:09 GMT
I’ve added three more recipes and reworked the
recipe index. I added a recipe for <a
href=”../recipes/alfredochicken.html”>Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo
which I quite like, and also two of my Mom’s recipes: <a
href=”../recipes/cabbagesoup.html”>Sweet & Sour Cabbage Soup
and Roast Duck with Orange Molasses
Sauce which we are all quite fond of.
I’ve been having such a good time doing this I think I may add some
kind of search functionality to the index page. We’ll see. :)
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