Older blog entries for dria (starting at number 80)

Apparently the crow who hangs out in the tree outside my window has a lot of friends. They were having a little crow party in the tree this morning...must have been two dozen of them, all caw-ing their little feathered butts off at 7:00am. I love animals and all, but, good lord. Two dozen crows can make a hella racket when they set their minds to it.

As a result, I stopped trying to sleep in, got up, and made some coffee. Naturally, the second I started drinking my first cup, they all flew off, laughing at me. Oh well. If prior experience tells me anything, that same group of loud-mouthed birds will be doing the same thing every morning for the rest of the spring/summer. So much for trying to get some extra sleep during my weeks off.

On the other hand, getting up early is not a bad thing. I do have about a thousand things on my TODO list, many of which have to be done during regular business hours. Today I get to go to the bank to order new cheques, call the movers about a moving date and final estimate, call the cable-modem people about getting service set up at my Montreal apt, go to the FIDO store to get an earpiece (blood/brain barrier and all that) and arrange for a Montreal-local phone number, call Quebec Hydro about ensuring I have electricity when I move, pay my current cell/power bills, and go find some nice person who can tell me if I can actually purchase appliances without ruining my life for the next 6 months.

Fun fun fun.

I should also really start gathering boxes so I can start packing.

In other news, I've decided that I'm actually happy I purchased a digital camera. For a while there I was thinking "good god, how could I have spent that much money on such a silly toy". But the digicam + the gimp is allowing me to play with photography again without having to spend a zillion dollars on photofinishing. I must have taken over 100 photos yesterday, which would have cost about $100 for processing. Overall, the camera has pretty much paid for itself in terms of processing costs already. And, since the only place I really display photos is on the web, I don't need to worry about resolutions and all that (although I do always take high-res shots in case I decide to print/frame something eventually). I've got to get a cd writer so I can start archiving some of these...my harddrive hates me at the moment.

Once upon a time I wanted to be a professional photographer. On the other hand, once upon a time I also wanted to be a geologist, an architect, an archaeologist, an ancient-history scholar, a linguist, a social theorist, a visual artist, a poet, and a novelist. I've stopped trying to actually plan my life, and tend to pretty much go with the flow these days. I've found that if I make plans, they never work out, so instead of subjecting myself to inevitable disappointment, I've succumbed to the Tao and just take things as they are.

Be the river. It's much less stressful.

I was messing around with the digicam and the gimp earlier today and came up with this.

That's me, if you were wondering. There are other pix in that directory if you're curious/nosy. All of me. I am so vain. (Actually, I need a highres photo of me for an upcoming magazine interview, so I have an excuse). La.

I protest dhd's use of the word "quaint" in reference to the gender debates that erupted earlier this week. I may not care about them personally, but it is a very serious point of contention for some people. The word "quaint" is brutally dismissive, and not really fair.

dhd is also getting seriously nerfed the next time I see him for his crack about social scientists.

Other than that, I have to agree that the whole certification thing is a bit odd. I find it amusing how many people take it seriously. Encouragingly, more and more people are being bumped up to "Master" on a daily basis, through sheer incestuousness of the certification web. The current scheme seems to be collapsing under its own weight (mostly due to the tight-knit nature of the open source community), and eventually we'll all be Masters. Then we'll get to start again.

Or maybe not. I could be completely wrong. From what I can tell, however, there are no negative weights to certifications, only positive. Once someone is Master, no matter how many people cert them as Apprentice or Dimwit, they shall remain Master. But, I could be wrong.

In other news: I don't have to go to work tomorrow. I have no work to go to, in fact. I am officially "between jobs", although I do have a new gig lined up for early May. Hooray for holidays! Boo for having to pack and move!

Off I go.

Today I have discovered the joys of online banking. My goodness, it's so handy.

It strikes me that the Internet is actually becoming useful for real-life stuff. I can do all my banking online, including paying bills and transferring funds. I can book all my travel online, including most hotels. I can schedule cable modem, phone, power, and other utility hookups via various companys' websites. I can get tv listings (which will become moot in the near future), check the weather, get my news-fix, and hunt for apartments.

It's all finally coming together, and it's making me pretty happy. No more having to trudge through the snow to the closest bank machine to get my account balances so I can do my budget, etc.

On the other hand...all my personal information is now online. I am databased in about a thousand ways. I am Profiled within an inch of my life, and my spam (both electronic and snail) is becoming remarkably personalized. That bit doesn't make me very happy. The more I think about it, the less I like it. I just checked my credit card transactions for the last 4 months through my PC banking system, and, well, gosh. It's not difficult to track me, my activities, and my personal shopping habits.

All the more reason to become an Internet Freedom Fighter.

I don't want to trade convenience for privacy. There is a better way.

In other news: Ottawa is solidly back within the grips of an icy winter. Bloody hell. Just a few weeks ago we were wearing tshirts and trying to find space on any of the dozens of patios that opened when Spring hit. There's about 5-10cm of snow on the ground again. Hateful stuff. I was really looking forward to having 3 weeks of slack where I could enjoy the nice weather. It's really not working out so far.

Okay, so I can get a cable modem in Montreal. That whole idea of "only having dialup in order to lead a more balanced lifestyle" thing lasted exactly as long as it took me to find out that I could get highbandwidth.

I am so weak.

It's still *&%^ing snowing here. I mean, I really love Canada and all, but enough is enough already. In case you didn't know, I don't care for snow very much.

Started cleaning up my home dir in a fit of utter boredom this evening. I cannot believe how much detrius accumulates there. It's going to take several attempts to actually finish the cleanup (I get distracted easily, you see). I've cleaned backwards through "m", but I appear to have a lot of stuff under "l" (linuxchix, linuxcare, linuxmag, etc etc).

Why are you reading this? More to the point: why am I writing this? What sort of twisted exhibitionism is evinced in these diaries? What the heck are we doing? Why (in god's name) do we think people care? Or do we? The advogato diaries are such an odd little phenomenon. I have no idea how many people will read this, but here I am, blithering away somewhat randomly, sharing the oddest little bits of my life with you. What the hell is with that?

Weirdness. It's all just so unrepentantly bizarre sometimes. Whatever you do, don't sit back and take a good long look at it. I do sometimes, and it scares me. The world is just so nuts.

Okay. All that said: I appear to have a pet crow. He sits in the tree outside my window almost all the time. My window is on the 3rd floor, so "in the tree" is actually about "eye level" when I'm sitting on my bed here. He's a pretty crow...big for his kind, all black and shiny. I don't know if he's really there all the time, but he's been hanging out in the tree pretty much every time I've looked for the past week or so. He was pretty grumpy about the weather today, too.

In other news: I might go to Montreal for the Linux Expo this week. On the other hand, I might not. I have to decide (soon) whether I can afford it or not (probably not). Hum.

Saturday morning. Slightly hungover from last evening's martini-based shenanigans. Much to my delight, zab surprised us by coming to visit. Yay!

It's raining, and looks like it's likely to rain for the rest of the weekend. This is annoying, because I have to start fetching boxes so I can pack and move and stuff. Rain + cardboard = suckage.

I have a large number of random things to do, most of which are somehow related to me moving to Montreal in 3 weeks. I have discovered (much to my distress) that ASDL is not available in the part of Montreal where my new apartment is located. This is going to severely cramp my style. Hopefully the cable people are a bit more on the ball, but I'm not sure if I can get cable internet without also getting cable tv. Since I won't have a tv, this would seem like rather a waste, assuming that cable internet is actually available at all.

I was also idly wondering whether I could get ADSL without getting regular telephone service. I was thinking that just having a cell phone would be cool, but then I remembered about that whole blood/brain-barrier thing. I must get one of those way neato earpiece/microphone gadgets.

On the other hand, not having high-speed 'net access in my home might be a good thing, at least in terms of my current attempts to start living a more balanced lifestyle. Here's a quick rundown on my current net-usage/daily routine, just so you can get a taste of how unbalanced my life actually is at the moment:

• 7:00 or 7:30a -- get up, fire up the laptop, make coffee, log in, check email, check news sites, chatter on IRC.
• 9:00a -- start getting ready for work, catch the 10:00a bus.
• 10:20a -- get to work, log in, stay logged in all day
• 6:00p -- log out, head home, maybe stop at the grocery store on the way to pick up something to eat
• 7:00p -- home, log in, email, surf, IRC, etc
• 11:30p -- log out, sleep
• rinse and repeat. weekends are similar except for the actual "going to the office" part

Obviously, this schedule (which is actually a pretty typical day for me) isn't conducive to a "balanced and healthy lifestyle". I've realized that my burnout rate (I get a little burnt out about once every 3-4 months) is largely because of this silliness. Maybe having a dialup account rather than a high bandwidth pipe will help get me out of this high-speed high-tech rut I'm in.

It's a pretty wacky industry we're in, all things considered.

In other news: chaos. I should go find something for breakfast. A cheddar and mushroom omlette will make everything good again.

Whoop! I love the web. One google search on "environmental wood stain" and 2 clicks brought me to a page about water-based wood stains.

Due to increasing government regulations and increasing environmental concerns, The Woodworking Shop will now offer a line of water-based finishes. All Hyrocote finishes are non-flammable, non-toxic and environmently safe. Hydrocote's (non-grain raising) penetrating wood stain is a quick drying, interior stain that offers excellent grain penetration, clarity and color retention.

I just called the local hardware store and, yay, they carry it. Now I have to find a non-lethal/environmentally happy finishing product, but that should be significantly easier. Lemon oil or beeswax-based stuff is available all over the place.

I'm sure you're all fascinated ;)

Thursday. 2 days to go, then 3 weeks holiday. Well. "Holiday". During those 3 weeks I have to do a bunch of stuff related to picking up my entire life and moving 200km East.

Not a lot happened yesterday. Cleaned out my desk at the office, bringing home my collection of O'Reilly books, stuffed animals, nerf weaponry, and other random geek-office-crap. Left my company-purchased gadgetry in its place. I still have to sync and reset my palm, but I'll do that by the end of the week.

Read the warning labels on the wood stain and wood preparation cans last night. Got scared. Put them in tins outside on the porch before I went to bed last night. If they are half as scary as the warning labels indicate, it's a wonder they're allowed to be sold all willy-nilly to an otherwise unsuspecting public. According to the labels, wood stain is basically guaranteed to kill you, your family, all your pets and houseplants, and then burn your house down.

I think I'll see if I can find a less scary, more environmentally sane alternative. Time to visit the hippies at the environmentalists shop. Maybe something made with beeswax and squid ink or something. Anything, so long as it doesn't have to be "disposed of immediately in a sealed, water-filled, metal container" and "handled only wearing rubber gloves and properly rated respiratory gear". All I want to do is make my unfinished pine furniture not unfinished anymore. Geez.

I think it snowed again, but I have yummy coffee, so it's okay.

Today: more boxes, I think. I wish it weren't so damned cold out.

Wednesday. It's snowing. I haven't reset all my clocks from the Daylight Saving time, so on this side of the room it's 7:02am, and over there it's 6;02. I need to find the instruction manual for my new stereo again.

I've been thinking a bit about Advogato (since the rampant dimwittification of phk in response to his article posting). It's becoming increasingly clear that the Open Source community is mind-bendingly complex -- not just in terms of creating technology, but also in terms of social interaction and community and all the other squishy stuff that goes along with it.

It's almost making me itch to dive back into academia. I specialized in social theory in my undergrad, and were I to start a Master's degree at this point, it would definitely focus on the open source subculture. And it is a subculture. There is something here that is definable and unique, I think, something that sets the "open source community" apart from the cultural subsections that surround it.

I just don't know what that "something" is, which is why I wouldn't mind spending a handful of years sitting on my butt thinking about it.

Open Source, obviously, is not just about technology. The community also involves politics, economics, philosophy, and history. If someone ever takes the time to figure it out and write it all down, I think it would be a very interesting read. And I don't mean "write it down" like ESR wrote "CatB". It needs to be seriously researched, with all presuppositions about Open Source stripped away. Someone with a fresh set of eyes should be doing the writing, someone who can sort through the apparent chaos and find the patterns that lie beneath.

Erf. As I said...it's making me half-wish I could head back to school for a few years.

Along these same lines, I've been pondering Advogato's certification system. While raph has sketched out descriptions of the various certs, it's obvious that the advogato community has long since expanded upon them. Like Open Source itself, the certs are about more than just technology -- the "trust" part of the "trust metric" isn't based solely upon technical contributions, it's based on a more undefinable and wholistic evaluation of a person's contributions to the community. A "Master" need not necessarily be a kick ass coder (or a coder at all) -- the certification is granted (from what I've seen) based on a combination of a person's technical ability, interpersonal skills, communication skills, philosophical/political stance, etc.

Here's a question for the group: What, in your mind, makes a 'Master' a Master?. I'm just curious to know whether it can be rigidly defined, or whether it's actually a squishy, almost 'intuitive', thing.

Hmm. Maybe I should think about all of this some more and write an article. This "discussing through diary entries" is a pain in the butt :>

Alrighty. Enough of that deep shit. In other news: I have boxes. I will be getting more boxes (cardboard ones, for packing, rather than computer ones, for hacking). I also bought wood stain and wood protector. Since I've got 3 weeks off, I figured I might finally finish some of that unfinished pine furniture I've got. Hopefully the last 3 years of random abuse haven't ruined it yet.

Random notes:

Major appliances are called "major" because of their price, not because of their size.

I still don't care about Microsoft.

Moving to another city is generally scary in an undefinable "background process" sort of way.

No matter how much money you have socked away for a rainy day, you end up being short by about $1000.

Lease-to-own anything is a bad idea.

Rocks are cool.

Bananas are funny.