Older blog entries for dria (starting at number 86)

Nothing exciting happened today. In fact, not a whole lot happened today. Which is a pretty ideal way for a vacation day to go, really.

Now I'm off to have dinner with phil, and then to a bit of a party. I'm suspecting I won't be out too late since shaver failed his time management roll and isn't actually going to be in town for the evening.

Technical stuff: I'm considering turning LinuxChix into a zope site. We'll see if/when that happens. Have neither fixed nor moved the OSWG site. I am such a slacker.

Other stuff: I think I need more cds. I'm also reconsidering the whole "tv-free lifestyle" thing. As someone pointed out to me, I might want to have something to at least watch movies on (not that I watch a lot of movies, but I do indulge every so often). We'll see. If nothing else, I doubt I'm going to find a buyer for my TV in the next 2 weeks, and I might as well take it as throw it away.

Right. Off I go.

Heehee. Advogato diaries are fun. *waves to argent*

If I hadn't been so deep in a "I hate the press" mode at the time, I would have actually been on the cover of the May issue of Upside (along with 13 or 14 other people, so it's not as cool as it sounds). Although I would have had to figure out how to get from here (Ottawa) to the photoshoot (San Francisco), on my own tab, which would have been highly unlikely.

I've decided to start talking more about technology in my diary entries. Right now my tech stuff consists largely of reading neat books about Information Architecture and Knowledge Management. Here's the list of related books that are currently in the pile beside my bed (which, as some may have noticed, serves as a home office...convenient for those afternoon siestas):

• Building Enterprise Information Architectures, Cook
• The Enterprise Data Warehouse, Sperley
• Quality Information and Knowledge, Huang, Lee, & Wang
• Data Warehousing and the Zachman Framework, Inmon,, Zachman, & Geiger

All in all, some pretty heady stuff. How I got from being an undergrad literary theorist to here, I'm at a loss to explain. I really groove on this sort of stuff, however, and I'm rather giddily excited by my upcoming post as an Information Architect. Mmm...information management systems design. Grooovy.

Other books in my bedside book pile:

• Interesting Times, Pratchett
• Mort, also Pratchett
• Home Design from the Inside Out (a highly touchy-feely, feng-shui, colour-therapy approach to home design), Lennon
• Use What You Have Decorating (a book for people who don't have a $71,000 interior design budget for their apartments), Ward
• Ikea Catalog, 2000 (spot the theme)
• Cluetrain Manifesto (which has yet to impress me, although I'm only 30 or so pages in)

Right. Sugar sources have been obtained. Back to Pratchett.

Someone asked "why would anyone want a March issue of Upside?" Well, it's the May issue I want, not March. I want it because apparently I'm mentioned in it, and I've started saving my press clippings. So nyah. (I have no idea if I'm actually mentioned or not, but they're sending me a crate of them for some reason and my curiousity has overpowered my patience.)

In other news, I had a nap. I've also run out of sugar-based products, so I'm off to go buy more. One of these days I'll stop being entirely random in my diary entries and start talking about technology again, but I'm on vacation, dammit. Besides, there's more to life than technology, and when you spend your days hip-deep in it, sometimes it's nice to talk about something else for a change.

Here's to hoping that the local shop has York Peppermint Patties in stock.

Warning: if you're going to be epicuriously adventurous and try cooking with Thai fish sauce, be very sure to use it sparingly. That's some nasty salty fish flavour happening, and it's quite easy to go a little overboard. Note: do not be curious and taste a drop of it right out of the bottle. Just trust me on that.

Earlier, before I decided to cook something unique for dinner (which included vermecelli, thai fish sauce, and fresh mint leaves), I went downtown. This seemed like such a good idea before I left the house, but I was psychologically unprepared for the consumer frenzy that is Downtown Ottawa Slightly After Noon On A Weekday. By the time I got to Chapters (where I completely failed to find the May issue of Upside Magazine), I really just wanted to go home.

Deftly wielding my bus transfer, I managed to fit four bus rides into an hour and a half. Nothing like saving $6.75 in bus fare on a single day. I did manage to talk with the Fido people, and they sold me a belt clip for my cellphone and upgraded the software in my handset. They did not include a changelog, and I'm at a loss as to what actually changed. I didn't ask about getting a Montreal-local cell account, tho', because the Fido people are very good at doing things quickly, and I really don't need it for a few weeks yet.

I think the Fido people scare me a little, actually. Can there be such thing as service that is too good?

Wending my way back home, I met the moving-company-sales-guy at my house, where he proceeded to give me a cost/weight estimate for my stuff. He also gave me a hefty discount and told me that I can have a bunch (like 30) of moving boxes for free. I think I made a very good choice in moving companies. They're treating me well, and my stuff will be insured for more than it's worth. If they get everything to me, intact and on time, I will sing their praises and recommend them to anyone who's moving in or from Canada. I'll keep you posted.

In a rare technological note, I think the Zope gang has already fixed the bug that has been causing my ZServer to crash at seemingly random times. So, now the question is: do I update the Zope stuff on the current host, or do I get my act in gear and migrate it to the new host? I should probably just migrate it, but I really don't want to right now. I learned my lesson in migrating LinuxChix...moving a site to a new host is about 100x more complicated than you think. Well, than I think, at least. Take a moment and go hug your sys.admin. Trust me, they deserve it.

Oh, I finally found a copy of Mort (another in the infinite series that is Discworld). I think I've collected the whole set (except for the two newest ones, one of which is still only in hardcover).

That Pratchett fella, I tell ya, is some prolific. I wish Robert Jordan would just get on with it already, and I hope that Jack Whyte gets better soon. Rumour has it that the next Dream of Eagles book will be published in 2000, which is a good indication that he's doing better now (yay!) Jack, if for some bizarre and unlikely reason you're reading this, thanks a million for the Dream of Eagles series.

Righto. Time to go read and goof off and do other things that people on vacation do.

Ryan mentioned that he would like feedback on his diary entries. I wouldn't mind seeing facilities within advogato that allow the following:

• to see who has read my diary entry
• to see who has linked to my diary entry
• to let people add comments to my diary entry
• to let me link to other people's specific diary entries (by date or whatever)

I'm sure there are other features I'd like that haven't popped to mind right now.

About wikiwikiweb: don't read it without first having ingested a sufficient amount of caffeine. It is not for someone with sluggish synaptic pathways. Certainly not this early in the morning, at least.

In other news, I managed to accomplish a huge number of things yesterday. It's amazing what you can do with a telephone, a web browser, and an email client when you set your mind to it. I later went out for dinner with a friend and picked up a hands-free headset for my cellphone, saving my blood/brain barrier from further meltdown. It's quite neat and gives me a bit of that "Secret Service Agent" edge, which is always good. Keep 'em on their toes, is what I always say. On the other hand, from certain angles it probably makes me look insane since some folks, without the visual clue of the "hand to ear with bit of molded plastic", will assume I'm just gibbering to myself whilst I wander around the mall or whatever.

I almost started rereading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas last night. Instead I continued reading Interesting Times (one of the apparently infinite number of Discworld novels).

My vanity site is beginning to be indescribably vain. Nothing in moderation, saith I.

Okay. Good morning. Time to go scrounge up more caffeine.

random thought

Has anyone else noticed that advogato diaries are beginning to blur together into a large, ongoing, collaborative narrative that is alarmingly similar to Microserfs in tone, content, and style?

As someone else noted, however, we haven't been reduced to word-association poetry yet, so it's probably okay.

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.