Sphaerula

These are my annotated tweets for the week of 16 November 2008. Follow my microblog on Twitter at http://twitter.com/conrad_halling, then come here for the expanded version.

Dictionary Evangelist

2008-11-16: I just watched a TED presentation on the dictionary by Erin McKean — http://dictionaryevangelist.com/ — I love reading the dictionary.

I have the American Heritage Dictionary With Thesaurus, Fourth Edition, installed on my laptop, along with the New Oxford American Dictionary, which comes with Mac OS X. I spend a lot of time browing these dictionaries.

Resuscitating a PowerBook G4 (2)

2008-11-16: I removed Debian 4.0r5 from my PowerBook G4 and installed Mac OS X 10.5. I’m very pleased with how fast the computer still is.

Yesterday, I installed Debian 4.0r5 for PowerPC on my 1.5-GHz PowerBook G4. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t connect to my Airport Extreme base station, and I didn’t have the patience to twiddle with the configuration files. I read the documentation for Mac OS X 10.5 and discovered I could install it on the PowerBook, so that’s what I did, and it runs great.

Working on the Weekend

2008-11-17: @pyyhkala My observation is that working four hours on the weekend is equivalent to eight hours on a weekday. There’s a problem here.

I usually work several hours every weekend in order to keep up with the demands of my job. I often put off until the weekend those tasks where I need several hours to concentrate.

Pandemonium Bookstore

2008-11-17: I went to Pandemonium in Central Square (Cambridge) tonight to buy a book for vacation. I bought A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge.

Pandemonium is a book store in Cambridge that specializes in gaming, science fiction, and fantasy. Their selection of science fiction is very good because they have a lot of used books.

Not a Smartphone

2008-11-18: My new cell phone will be delivered today. It’s so not a smartphone that it doesn’t even have a camera. It’s just a phone, nothing more.

I thought about buying a smartphone, and I looked into it carefully. But I’m on the Internet all day long at work, and then I’m on the Internet when I’m at home, so I don’t really need a smartphone. So I ordered a Samsung Knack (see the CNET review), which is a no-frills cell phone and nothing more.

If Verizon had the iPhone, I would buy one. But after billing problems I had with AT&T several years ago, I vowed never to do business with them again.

Charles Stross and Vernor Vinge

2008-11-18: @agbiotec Stross is on my list of authors to read. Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky is the best science fiction book I’ve read this year.

@agbiotec is the second person to recommend books by Charles Stross. I’ll get to Stross soon.

Testing PowerBook Batteries

2008-11-18: I’m testing three old batteries in my PowerBook G4 to see how long they last after charging. One battery has a cycle count of 753!

These batteries have seen hard use. None of the batteries lasts longer than one hour forty minutes. I need to buy a new battery.

Missouri No Longer a Bellwether State

2008-11-19: McCain is finally declared the winner in Missouri. We lived in Missouri for seven years; we’re much happier in Massachusetts.

Missouri is blue in St. Louis and Kansas City, red otherwise. My wife and I are very liberal, and we sometimes felt uncomfortable in the conservative Missouri culture. Obama did a great job challenging McCain in Missouri, and he almost pulled it off. This breaks Missouri’s string of casting its electoral votes for the winner of the presidential election.

Vacation Reading

2008-11-19: I’m on vacation, so I’ve been reading today: Hallelujah Junction, by John Adams; Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual, by David Pogue.

I’m reading David Pogue’s book using my Safari Books subscription, which has saved me a lot of money so far. I bought John Adams’s autobiography at Porter Square Books, one of my favorite local bookstores.

Trading in an iPod mini for an iPod touch

2008-11-20: I erased my three-and-a-half year old iPod mini this morning. I’m going to trade it in today for the 10% discount on a new iPod nano.

2008-11-20: I went to the Apple store on Boylston today to buy an iPod nano, but I came home with an iPod touch. I got 10% off for my old iPod mini.

Oh, did I mention that you can trade in an old iPod at the Apple store and get 10% off on a new iPod? I wasn’t sure I believed it, but it’s true. I had to fill in a form with my name, address, email address, and the serial number of the old iPod.

My initial plan was to buy an iPod nano, but the 8-GB iPod touch is only $80 more, and I wanted the larger screen to watch TED videos on, so I splurged.

The Long Now and Anathem

2008-11-21: The Long Now, a project to build a clock that will last 10,000 years, provided inspiration for Stephenson’s Anathem.

I learned about the Long Now project from a TED presentation by Steward Brand. Neal Stephenson’s connection to the Long Now project is described in this post. Anathem is a book that has remained in my head after I finished it; I will probably reread it in December.

iPod Touch 2.2

2008-11-21: iPod touch 2.2 update is 277.7 MB in size. I updated iTunes to 8.0.2 first, but I don’t know if that is a requirement. Downloading now….

2008-11-21: iPod touch 2.2 update was problem-free. I’m still in novelty mode in the App Store. Complete works of Shakespeare for free is awesome.

The 2.2 update for the iPhone provided Street View for Google Maps, but not on the iPod touch; no one really knows why.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on the App Store seeing what’s available. My choices so far:

• Google Earth
• Shakespeare
• Stanza

Unfortunately, there’s a real paucity of scientific applications.

Boston Drum Center

2008-11-22: I took my brother, who is visiting from Oregon, out to the Boston Drum Center in Acton, where he tried all the cymbals. Great store!

Harvard Square Book Shopping

2008-11-22: @02138now My brother and I bought presents for his kids at Curious George and the Coop. Both stores were packed with people who love books.

@02138now retweets Harvard Square activities; 02138 is the zip code that contains Harvard Square.

Touch Screens

2008-11-22: This afternoon, the touch screen of my cell phone wouldn’t respond. Then I remembered, it doesn’t have a touch screen.

This is iPod touch disease. I use my iPod touch so much more than my cell phone that I forget that I have to use the buttons on my cell phone.

These are my annotated tweets for the week of 9 November 2008. Follow my microblog on Twitter at http://twitter.com/conrad_halling, then come here for the expanded version.

Learning Microsoft Access

2008-11-09: My colleagues use Microsoft Access heavily, so I’ve spent the entire day using Vista + Access 2007 on my MacBook Pro.

2008-11-09: I highly recommend Access Data Analysis Cookbook, by Ken Bluttman and Wayne S. Freeze (O’Reilly). Good examples and code samples.

Vista and Office 2007 run very nicely on my 2.2-GHz MacBook Pro. I’m not very enthusiastic about most Microsoft products, but I think Access is a really great tool for managing data.

Michael Crichton

2008-11-09: This is Audible devoted a show to the recently deceased Michael Crichton, who didn’t think global warming is real. It is real.

I am not a fan of Michael Crichton.

Verizon Store Incompetence

2008-11-10: We went to the Verizon store to combine our accounts and buy new phones. Somehow, Verizon couldn’t get it together to help us out. No go.

We were told that we couldn’t combine our accounts to a family plan until we received and activated our new phones. We spent an hour looking at phones and picking out a model. Then we were told that the store was out of stock on that phone, so we would have to order it. And then it turned out that the phone wasn’t available at the warehouse, either, so we’d have to choose a different phone. These scenarios weren’t helpful, so we left. We plan to order our new phones online.

Paul Krugman: The Conscience of a Liberal

2008-11-10: I just finished listening to the audiobook The Conscience of a Liberal, by Paul Krugman, winner of the Noble Memorial Prize for Economics.

2008-11-10: Paul Krugman got interested in economics after reading Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. He writes for the New York Times.

Paul Krugman asserts that conservative Republicans want to destroy the protections created by the New Deal and later enhanced in the 1950’s and 1960’s, when Democrats and Republicans did a better job of working together to promote welfare. Fortunately, people have finally figured this out after the eight disastrous years of the Bush/Cheney administration, but there’s a lot of damage to repair.

Resuscitating a PowerBook G4

2008-11-15: Tonight I installed Debian 4.0r5 on my old PowerBook G4, but I can’t get a wireless connection to my Airport Extreme base station.

My wife is a proud owner of a shiny, new MacBook Pro. I took her to the Apple store on Boylston Street in Boston to look at the new models, but she did not want a model with the glossy screen. We ordered the previous model with a matte screen from MacConnection, which has them for $400 off.

I got my old PowerBook G4 back when the new MacBook Pro arrived. It has been a solid machine with no problems, although the case has a lot of dents and dings. I thought I would install Linux on it for experimentation, since my only Linux computer is an old Toshiba laptop with only 1 GB of RAM.

@agbiotec had good luck with installing Debian on his PowerBook, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get a connection to my Airport base station using WPA. Another drawback to Debian was that Firefox 2.0.x was the latest version available, and I didn’t really want to have to compile Firefox 3.0.x.

These are my annotated tweets for the week of 2 November 2008. Follow my microblog on Twitter at http://twitter.com/conrad_halling, then come here for the expanded version.

The Election

2008-11-02: @feministchemist Bill Clinton was Arkansas attorney general for 2 yrs and Arkansas governor for 2 and 10 years, way more exp. than Palin.

2008-11-03: I’m sick to damn death of political ads that lie. Politicians will do anything to get into office. It’s no wonder no one respects them.

2008-11-04: @feministchemist I, too, was disappointed that Obama didn’t pick a woman for VP. Granholm, McCaskill, or Gregoire would have been good.

2008-11-04: I’m off to vote. We expect a record turnout in Massachusetts, which was ignored by presidential candidates because we’re solid blue.

2008-11-04: I waited in line for 20 minutes to vote this morning. For once, I have voted for the winner in every race and initiative.

2008-11-04: John McCain’s good side came out during his concession speech. Too little, too late, after his despicable behavior during the campaign.

2008-11-04: Congratulations, Barack Obama! I wish I were in Chicago to help celebrate. I’m feeling hopeful for the future of the United States.

2008-11-05 12:14 AM: What a great speech Obama is giving. This is such a wonderful change from the horrible Bush years. Counting the days to January 20th….

2008-11-08: “Yes we did!” crows moveon.org (of which I’m a member). But I think moveon is premature; the real work starts now.

That was a good election, even though the counting is dragging on and on. The Bush/Cheney administration caused real, lasting damage to the United States that will take years to heal.

Recreation

2008-11-02: We enjoyed a beautiful autumn day by taking the dogs to Revere Beach. That is the end of vacation; it’s back to work tomorrow morning.

Dogs are allowed on the beach after summer is over. The beach is so empty that we let our dogs off their leashes, and they have a good time sniffing seaweed and chasing their tennis ball.

SQL

2008-11-02: I feel like an idiot. I just learned that you can GROUP BY more than one field in an SQL statement, a solution I couldn’t figure out myself.

2008-11-03: @gotgenes In my opinion, SQL was not well designed. A language should be consistent in its syntax, and it should help, not hinder the user.

2008-11-04: I spent my afternoon taking doses of DayQuil and writing SQL queries. I will probably have to rewrite the drug-addled queries tomorrow.

2008-11-05: I wrote a lot of SQL commands again today. I feel like I’m becoming an SQL master.

I’m getting better at SQL by having to use it daily.

Phishing Example

2008-11-03: I posted a link to a phishing page as an example of what one looks like, but then deleted it because I might be violating the twitter TOS.

2008-11-03: The story about the phishing page is at http://tinyurl.com/6g5sgs. Firefox 3.0 blocks access to the page, but Safari does not.

I thought this was interesting, having never seen a phishing page before. It’s a pretty big giveaway when the page asks for your social security number. What I found interesting was that the phishing site got most of its content directly from the akamai.net servers that support Apple’s site. I made the following comments on the MacInTouch web site:

I examined the HTML source code for the phishing page. It is full of links to authentic apple.com material (style sheets, JavaScript code, and image files) hosted at https://a248.e.akamai.net/. If akamai.net checked the referring host for these requests, it could easily detect that the requesting page is not hosted by apple.com, and it could block the request. This would disable most of what makes the phishing page look authentic. I think akamai.net is making it too easy for the phishers.

For entertainment, without having filled in the form, click the Continue button. A very ugly graphic appears that pretends to process the submission, followed by forwarding to a real apple.com page. Firefox 3.0 blocks access to the phishing page, but Safari does not.

New MacBook Pro

2008-11-05: This morning I ordered a new MacBook Pro, the older matte screen model, which is still available for $400 off from macconnection.com.

This will be my wife’s new laptop, which she uses for her business. We went to the Apple store and looked at the new models, and she doesn’t like the glossy screen on the new model.

TED

2008-11-06: I just learned about TEDTalks. It’s like going to a conference but in the comfort of your own home at no expense.

The only drawback is that I have a backlog of about 70 talks I want to watch; this will take about 35 hours.

What Is That Song?

2008-11-06: I heard a song at Flat Top Johnny’s in Kendall Square this evening that is familiar, but I can’t remember the artist. I need music search!

@neilfws recommended that I try http://www.melodyhound.com/. Unfortunately, by the time I received his tweet, the tune had gone out of my head.

These are my annotated tweets for the week of 26 October 2008. Follow my microblog on Twitter at http://twitter.com/conrad_halling, then come here for the expanded version.

Vote by Mail

2008-10-28: I spent the weekend in Oregon, where they vote by mail. Everyone I talked to has already voted. The election is over, except for counting.

Apparently, many people around the country are voting early by absentee ballot or other early voting mechanisms. Vote by mail has been a huge success in Oregon, which is a state that does not tolerate corruption and fraud. I’d like to see voting by mail in Massachusetts.

Twitter Is Improving

2008-10-28: I spent the last four days without Internet access. I discovered today that Twitter now gives you 40 pages of tweets. I have twitter-glut.

When I visit my parents, I don’t have good access to the Internet. After a four-day visit, I’m pretty behind on Twitter, and it used to be that Twitter would provide access only to the ten most recent pages of tweets (which for me is about one day’s worth). Now Twitter provides at least forty pages of recent tweets, a huge improvement. Their efforts at stabilizing their service are paying off. (Now if they can only figure out how to make money off the service.)

The Beet Queen, by Louise Erdrich

2008-10-28: On the plane to Portland on Friday, I finally read The Beet Queen, by Louise Erdrich. That is a great book, but all the characters are crazy.

I have had this book on my bookshelf for nearly twenty years. It is beautifully written, with believable and truly human characters. But because the characters are human, they are all nut cases; I would not want to know any of these people.

Sarah Palin and John McCain

2008-10-28: Here’s a photo, from the Washington Post, in which Sarah Palin and John McCain are flashing gang signs.

My wife found this photo and pointed it out to me, making the comment about gang signs.

Dell Incompatible With Dell

2008-10-29: My stupid Dell laptop, running Windows XP SP2, has forgotten again how to set the correct resolution on my 1680 x 1050 Dell monitor.

This is an on-going battle between my Dell Latitude 610 laptop and my Dell 22-inch monitor. My Apple MacBook Pro never has a problem with this monitor.

The Silent War, by Ben Bova

2008-10-29: Yesterday, I read The Silent War, Book 3 of the Asteroid Wars, by Ben Bova. I like it that Bova doesn’t fall in love with his characters.

These books are not compelling or great literature, but they are intelligent and entertaining. Bova allows things to happen to his characters; some change because of events or stress, and sometimes a main character dies. Many threads in his books are left unresolved and are not picked up in the sequels.

I read somewhere (but I can’t find the reference now) that Bova uses ancient Greek tragedies as a guide to writing his books. I think that sometimes he reaches a point where he has to decide whether a character lives or dies, and he flips a coin.

Learning SQL

2008-10-30: I find SQL hard and counterintuitive. I’m attempting to improve my SQL skills by reading SQL Cookbook and SQL Hacks, two O’Reilly books.

Hallowe’en

2008-11-01: We spent Hallowe’en in New York City at a combined wedding reception and costume party. We went as Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man).

2008-11-01: Did anyone dress as an avout last night, wearing a bolt and chord and carrying a sphere?

The first tweet is a reference to The Thin Man series of movies, which star William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles. The movies are based on The Thin Man, written by Dashiell Hammett. The “thin man” is actually one of the characters in the book and the first movie who is missing and is suspected of murder. Nick Charles wears a pencil-thin mustache, so I let my mustache grow for two months. Since it was grey, I dyed it and then shaved it down to a pencil-thin mustache for the party. As soon as we got back to our hotel room, I shaved the damn thing off, because it made me look old.

The second tweet is a reference to Anathem, by Neal Stephenson. One comment I received was that I am the only one who has actually finished this book. A common complaint has been that you have to read 250 pages before you can really get into the book. I had the same experience, but having read many very long books, I have learned to persist. My experience reading Anathem was the same as reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke. Both books were slow going at first, both books were extremely long, but the effort was worth it to reach the end.

These are my annotated tweets for the week of 19 October 2008. Follow my microblog on Twitter at http://twitter.com/conrad_halling, then come here for the expanded version.

Anathem, by Neal Stephenson

2008-10-19: I finished Anathem after a marathon reading session. Stephenson kept me guessing to the end. It was a very good book.

As I wrote last week, Neal Stephenson did a good job of creating a new world, although I don’t think the result was as complete as Dune, by Frank Herbert. There is a twist near the end of Anathem, where Stephenson goes off in a new direction, that I didn’t find entirely convincing. I’m going to have to reread this book soon.

Database Development Using MySQL and Perl

2008-10-20: I spent the day designing a new database and writing Perl code to fill it. I’m applying Perl Best Practices, by Damian Conway.

2008-10-22: 8 solid hours of coding today. By the end of the day, all test data was loading correctly into my new database. Big data load is tomorrow.

2008-10-22: I stayed up late experimenting with creating an ERD of my MySQL database using Visio Pro 2007. The MySQL 5.1 ODBC driver is necessary.

2008-10-22: Microsoft tools such as Visio Pro are the wrong tools to use with MySQL. Tomorrow, I will experiment with MySQL Workbench.

I’ve been doing what I’m good at, creating a database and getting data into it and out of it.

Republican Party Obtuseness

2008-10-23: The Republican Party thought $150,000 in new clothing would fool us into thinking Sarah Palin is qualified for VP. Nope, still not.

I don’t understand why the Republican Party would destroy the image of an “ordinary hockey mom” by buying her $150,000 of clothes. Of course, Sarah Palin and her husband already have an estimated net worth of $1 million, so they aren’t ordinary people. Sarah Palin is dangerously unqualified for vice president; McCain made a mistake choosing her.

These are my annotated tweets for the week of 12 October 2008. Follow my microblog on Twitter at http://twitter.com/conrad_halling, then come here for the expanded version.

HONK! Festival

2008-10-12: HONK! festival was a huge success yesterday. Today’s parade from Davis Square to Harvard Square starts at noon. http://www.honkfest.org/

2008-10-12: The HONK! Festival parade today reclaimed the streets for horns, bikes, and feet. A good crowd followed the parade down Mass. Ave.

I wish I knew how to play a musical instrument, so I could participate.

The Rock Rats, by Ben Bova

2008-10-12: Another audio book from audible.com finished: The Rock Rats (The Asteroid Wars, Part 2), by Ben Bova. Excellent production, good story.

Ben Bova’s novels contain lots of interesting ideas and pretty good characters. The audio books make them even better, because they use multiple readers. This gives the listener a better sense of the different characters.

Columbus Day

2008-10-13: Today is Columbus Day in the United States — probably our most stupid holiday — celebrating a man who didn’t know what he’d found.

Code Documentation

2008-10-13: I struggled all day with badly-documented code. I just cannot figure out how some things are done. It might be faster to rewrite the code.

It’s a dilemma whether to use the existing code or write new code. Sometimes there is no good answer, but there is always pain.

New MacBook Pro Models

2008-10-14: I’m disappointed by the new MacBook Pros. I consider the new keyboard and the glossy screen two steps backward. I have no urge to buy.

2008-10-16: We’re going to the Apple store on Boylston tomorrow evening to test the new MacBook Pro. If we don’t like it, we’ll order the old model.

2008-10-17: We’re back from looking at the new MacBook Pros. The keyboard is better than I thought, but we dislike the glossy screen.

The glossy screen becomes an ergonomics issue when the user has to cope with bright reflections. It is disappointing how sometimes Apple makes a bad decision based solely on design and Steve Jobs’s whims.

Group Meeting

2008-10-17: I stayed up until 1:00 am last night working on a presentation I gave at group meeting today. Presentation provoked lots of discussion.

2008-10-17: I was so tired, I fell asleep on the sofa at 8:30 pm while reading Anathem. It wasn’t the book that made me sleepy, it was lack of sleep.

It’s disappointing that sometimes I have to work so hard that I don’t have time for my personal life.

Ringo Starr

2008-10-17: I dreamed last night that Ringo Starr was playing drums brilliantly, dynamically, in a live show. When I woke up, I burst out laughing.

My father plays drums and my brother plays drums, so I know what good drumming sounds like. Ringo plays adequate drums on many early Beatles tunes, but his later work is abysmal.

Anathem, by Neal Stephenson

2008-10-18: I’ve devoted my day to reading Anathem. Stephenson has created a new world — not as rich and complex as, say, Dune, but very good.

I’m really enjoying this book, and I’m so emotionally involved that it brought me to tears in a couple of places.

These are my annotated tweets for the week of 5 October 2008. Follow my microblog on Twitter at http://twitter.com/conrad_halling, then come here for the expanded version.

Current Bioinformatics Projects

2008-10-05: I spent the morning applying graphical residual analysis to my data. My model isn’t as good as I thought.

2008-10-05: I analyzed some different data this evening. My model is the best of the three I’m testing — w00t!

2008-10-06: I wrote some good Perl code today, but I’m in a hurry and haven’t written the tests yet. I will pay for this later.

2008-10-08: I’m close to finishing another project, but only by working long hours. I won’t be completely caught up by vacation the last week of Oct.

I’ve been working hard and (sometimes) having fun.

The Election

2008-10-07: John McCain, one of the few Republicans I have respected, has lost my respect by making stupid decisions (Palin), lying, going negative.

2008-10-10: Palin’s chief qualification for office: She has experience abusing authority. She is just another conservative hypocrite.

I’m not a Republican.

I’m an Apple Fanboy

2008-10-07: I’m working at home early this morning using my year-old MacBook Pro, which is still an outstanding laptop.

FireFox Doesn’t Support the <nobr> Tag

2008-10-08: A web page at work loaded fine in IE6 but not in Firefox; programmer had used the <nobr> tag, which is not standard HTML. I asked for a fix.

This is what happens when you test only with Internet Explorer 6.

Nobel Prizes

2008-10-08: @easternblot I agree about Nobel prizes. Physics was the premier science of the 20th century; biology is the premier science of the 21st.

In my opinion, the biggest challenges of the 21st century will be solved with biology.

HONK! Festival

2008-10-09: HONK! is coming to Davis Square and Harvard Square this weekend — so fun last year, I watched the parade twice. http://www.honkfest.org/.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

2008-10-11: I finished an audio book today from audible.com: The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, read by Edward Petherbridge. It was excellent.

Listening to audio books has greatly increased my ability to “read”, since I can listen while walking to and from work, 90 minutes a day. I picked the version read by Edward Petherbridge because I have enjoyed him in various television series and audiobooks.