Archive for April, 2010
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30 Apr 2010
"@Tigerbeard I fight you now"
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30 Apr 2010
"Watching two proprietary software companies deeply opposed to computer user freedom lob accusations back and forth about who is more opposed to freedom has been surreal, to say the least." -
30 Apr 2010
"Just bought a dozen tickets for Phillies at Yankees. Should I wear my Red Sox hat to the game?"
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30 Apr 2010
"Fellow libs: One exploded and leaky oil rig doesn't invalidate drilling for oil any more than one bad winter disproves climate change."
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29 Apr 2010
"@TheBestHuman I hope you sent that to DWTF's CSOD. PDQ. HAND."
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28 Apr 2010Underlayment done
Took an hour or so last night to cut the boards and about three today to lay and secure them. Tile probably won't arrive till next week, though.
Discuss -
28 Apr 2010
"Logan's kitchen freakout count is now 12. I think my wife is taking bets for the final number."
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28 Apr 2010
Teaser for an upcoming EP by Trent and Mrs. Reznor.
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28 Apr 2010
I wrote about the failings of The Diamond Age in a message to my brother a week ago. Now that I have actually finished the book, I can say that my problems with it are still valid. First, the good: I don’t think there’s anyone better than Neal Stephenson when it comes to creating a believable universe around a technologically advanced future. In both this and Snow Crash, his world is fully realized and–more importantly–socially complex.
But The Diamond Age clearly is affected by Stephenson’s ongoing scatterbraineditis in a way that Snow Crash was able to avoid. It’s actually a pretty clear progression from the great plot of Zodiac through to the spaghetti nonsense of Cryponomicon. He creates this nanotech-infused world, introduces us to a few characters and gets us to love them and root for them. Hackworth vanishes from the storyline, then Miranda, then Nell seems to be the central character. Then she disappears when Hackworth reappears and now we’re supposed to care about Fiona for a chapter or two. Then Carl Hollywood becomes a central character. And what ever happened to Dr. X? What’s up with the Fists? Oh, here comes the Mouse Army seemingly from nowhere (or more accurately 200 pages ago). The conflict that supposedly gets resolved doesn’t even begin to appear until three-quarters of the way through the book. And now that I think about it, I’m not sure what the conflict was or even if it was resolved.
I really wanted to love this one, especially since I liked the world so much more than the virtual reality world of Snow Crash. But at least in that book, there was more or less a single conflict, clear protagonists (one was even helpfully named Protagonist). When Stephenson writes sprawling epics, he forgets to put in a direction for the story to go.
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28 Apr 2010
Look at that, a released alpha build of Firefox for Android. Weave will be deadly on a cellphone. Too bad you need 2.0 to run it.
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28 Apr 2010
"Spent last night cutting HardieBacker in the rain. It's times like those I wish I had a garage."
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26 Apr 2010
"In 2004, ABC called on producer J.J. Abrams to create a prime-time drama that capitalized on the success of Survivor: something tropical, Cast Away-ish, and closer to Lord of the Flies than Gilligan’s Island. Oh, they asked, and could you make it a towering, mainstream megahit, please?"
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26 Apr 2010
""The world is not a place worthy of complete trust." Thanks for the existential philosophy at 7am, @MorningEdition."
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24 Apr 2010At the end of demo
Things went great. This is an accurate representation of how much effort I put in.
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24 Apr 2010
"Irony: The electrician can't email me an estimate because his power is out."