Category: Diary (Page 5 of 38)

It’s really better to be a pessimist than an optimist. I think pessimists get a bad rap. Sure, everyone likes the idea of being upbeat and happy. But it’s not a good survival perspective. Problems only get solved because people worry about them.

David Brin answered the critics of the pre-millennium Y2K disaster theorists by saying that it was a classic case of a self-defeating prophesy. I agree with him. If everyone had just said, “She’ll be right, mate” and done nothing at all about the problem, then almost certainly IT departments everywhere would have been extremely busy and stressed come Jan 1, 2000. (You just know that’s an understatement.)

Good programmers are pessimists. They have to be – they learn to be very early in their career.

“That will never work, you know.”

“Why not? I’ve debugged it, it runs fine. I’ve tested it. I’m a good programmer…”

“What about more than one user running that screen at a time? What about a user who stays in that screen overnight while your midnight triggers are running? What about machines with no audio card? No installed printer? You’re doomed.”

“Why, I’ll show you, you… you… big fat pessimist, you.”

In base 8,  it’s 50.
In base 12, it’s 34.
In base 40, it’s 10.
In base 10, it’s 40.
In base 16, it’s 28.
In base 2,  it’s 101000.
In anyone’s book, it’s a milestone. And although it may or may not be all downhill from here, currently the view is pretty nice.

We saw an awesome movie the other night at Brendan Palms. It was a “special advance preview” of a film coming out in September sometime. It’s called “Serenity” and it’s kind of a Sci-Fi Western. It’s almost perfect.

I don’t know if this film will apeal to those who weren’t fans of the original cancelled TV series “Firefly” on which it was based, but I hope so. There’s a chance.

I was doing this way before it got blog-trendy. I just hadn’t settled on a particular day.

Karma is on flex-time this week.

Our little blade coffee grinder burnt out the other week. Although we had a backup, I decided that it was time for a new coffee grinder. Many coffee addicts^H^H^H^H afficionados do not recommend the blade kind because they say it is hard to get a consistent grind with them, and they have a tendency to burn the coffee with heat.

I am, naturally, skeptical, but we went shopping for the recommended “burr” grinder and found one we liked in Bloomingdales: the Kitchenaid Coffee Mill, in fire-engine red. (The embarassing fact that the whole time we were in the shop we thought we were actually in Macys is beside the point, and will not be mentioned. Oops.)

The grinder fits under our kitchen cupboards perfectly, and so far I can say that I am coming around to the same opinion as the experts. We’ve set the grind to “fine” for our espresso machine, and so far three different varieties of coffee beans have been put through the machine and the grind has been very good each time, with no adjustment required. Also, I think I can detect the difference  with respect to the lack of “scorching”. It may be just a smell thing, rather than taste, but lets face it, that’s what 80% of coffee is about.

So – a burr grinder is recommended, and so far I have nothing bad to say about the KitchenAid Coffee Mill.

Update: Lisa pointed out that it looks almost exactly like Tom Servo:

Lemon pepper shrimp & asparagus pasta

The butter is evil but it makes a difference

It appears that our cat, Karma, is much improved health-wise since receiving the radiotherapy last month. We got a ticket in the mail from the San Diego Animal Imaging and Treatment Center saying that it was time for his “post-op” checkup, and our local vet says that he’s better on all counts, including some factors we weren’t very hopeful about, such as his heart murmur. Excellent!

Although it isn’t true, it appears to me as though Allan Holdsworth‘s talent sprung fully-formed from the forehead of the music god. I’ve been listening to Road Games and, man, that’s one of the best unreleased albums I’ve heard recently.

I’ve been attempting to channel A.H. for many years – not to be a total clone, just to try and expand my guitar skills a smidgeon. On the peice I’m currently working on – Painting Abstracts – I think I got close to something reminiscent of his inflection and tone. I told Lisa about it and she said she hadn’t heard enough of his music to know what to listen for.

So I made up a compilation CD of what I think are some of Holdsworth’s essential tracks, ostensibly for Lisa to listen to, but I’m enjoying it myself.

Saw a good headline under the fold of the LV Review Journal today. “Court Refuses to Hear Case of the Brain-Damaged Woman”.

I agree with them. There’s only so much Nancy Drew that one can take.