Older blog entries for eliot (starting at number 46)

Yay! Tests are done. I did really well on the Biblical Foundations test. Mostly because I'm really familiar with a lot of worldviews (naturalism [atheism, agnosticism, humanism, etc.], transcendentalism [new age, polytheism, pantheism, etc.] and theism [Judaism, Deism, Biblical Christianity, Islam, etc.]). The PE test on the other hand... I *hate* memorizing random facts about calories, carbohydrates and junk like that. It's so much harder because there's no main ideas to understand and digest (like Biblical Foundations), instead it's just lots of random bits of information from the chapters.

pphaneuf: Mozilla's 20001114 binary build is quite nice (using it right now). I'm sure today's build will be similar. It's been awhile since I've used Moz and I've been really happy with the speed, rendering, and general quality of this build. I haven't been able to get the Netscape 6 release yet (the installer stalls up everytime), but comparing to the PRs, I bet the Moz nightlies are still far superior.

NOW TO RELAX WITH NOTHING ON MY MIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I would still like to know about TinyCOBOL on Linux.. AND a WWW-based calendar/address book that syncs with my palm pilot in Linux.)

Have a great day folks.

Gah! I had a great diary entry done. Then I hit the menu option I've never used before: File -> Exit.

I'll keep this one short, considering I have two tests tomorrow morning and it is getting a bit late already.

Want to know how busy I've been? I've been so busy that I didn't know Netscape 6 was released. I missed the big party! Oh well.. today's Moz build is beautiful! I wish that Netscape's chrome's would install in Moz!! There's already some cool ones.

It's amazing that with all of these companies and portals and such that we don't have one simple thing: a portal/webcalendar/webaddressbook that can synchronise with your email program and especially your palm pilot. Why is this so hard? I'd love to use Netcenter's calendar and have it in my sidebar and such.. but what's the use of that when I need to keep another one on my palm pilot and another one in my school intranet and and and.. Not to mention all of the places I keep address books! This is just sillyness. Hmmm.. how much effort would it be to do this myself?

Hrmm.. speaking of sidebars. An advogato sidebar would be super. That'd be really cool actually.

I need some help.. I need to get a COBOL compilor installed on a Debian box here at school for a class to use next semester. We've been looking at using TinyCOBOL, but it doesn't compile on Debian! yacc/bison complains of many errors and continues on. If you didn't know better (like me at first), you'd think it worked fine. Too bad there are no COBOL compilors in Debian. The lack of COBOL compilors for Linux seems strange.

I need good search sidebar. One that has boxes for Freshmeat and Kuro5hin and Google and Price Watch and eBay.

Wow Moz is smooth. I'm in love.

Lava lamps are wonderful.

I don't want to be an American. To be associated with today's American culture is embarrasing. I wonder what the weather is like in Australia at this time of the year...

In other news, I had a great weekend. I'm glad last week is far behind me. I had a great date to the school's big banquet, she was gorgeous and we had a fun time. It's great going to formal events with good friends instead of finding a real date kind of thing.

Today is officially the start of Update-Gabber-Manual Day. I've got LOTS of catching up to do. julian and Dave have been busy the past month or so. Now it's my turn to be busy.

I LOVE MY CANON REBEL 2000. Oh, I'm having SO much fun with it! I can't wait until the book I ordered about it comes so I can have more fun with it. I'm going to develop three rolls today and I'll get them scanned in and on a web site for my family and friends to see. I'll post it here too if anyone wants to see the quality of the Rebel. It's a beautiful thing.

On to Gabber!

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. -- Gandhi

Today I slept. I believe this morning I also went to Student Senate to see my bill for campus recycling be debated on (someone put one bad phrase in the bill and it caused debating for 20 minutes). I think I also went to Fine Arts class after that. It all may have been a dream.

This evening I rounded up a crew to get a roll of film done for this weekend's Camera Capers. Basically, you find some funny or odd thing to do with your floor and take pictures of it. For lack of better ideas, we took pictures of us asleep all over campus. In the student center, in the chapel, in several classrooms, on a plane, in a truck bed, on a society fence, etc... It was pretty fun. I hope the pictures turn out well!

julian: Ah, how I love live Shakespeare!!! Even reading it aloud in a group setting is enjoyable. I have yet to make it to the Houston Shakespeare fest, but I have wanted to go quite badly for years.

I have been invited by a professor/friend from Houston to prepare a paper on CS Lewis to present at Baylor University in January. I'm contemplating it a bit.. It sounds intriguing, but I'm not sure if I have the time to do research or pull together a good thesis.

I believe my Canon is waiting for me in the mail center. Now to actually go there when they are open.

Schweet.. I just got an email from someone in regards to my article being published in the December 2000 issue of Web Techniques magazine about Jabber. I haven't even gotten a copy yet. Be sure to pick up a copy!!

I'm tired. Sleep will come very quickly tonight. Unfortunatly, morning will come much quicker.

Iain: Ah, I believe you're right. I do not have Pablo Honey, so I wasn't familiar with the songs on it. The MP3 I have of Blowout says "RADIOHEAD - Blowout (Pixies cover)" and the lady at the end of the song says "Thom Yorke of Radiohead joined with Hosy's John Ower on Drums and Ken Stringfeld on guitar." I probably totally screwed up the last two people as I've never heard of them.

.. waiting in patience for my new Canon Rebel 2000 ..

I want a blender so I can make yummy fruit drinks any time I want. I think if I did that instead of one of the cafeteria's meals once a day I'd feel much better. Some good bread along with it.. mmm.. sounding better already.

Breath, keep breathing. Don't lose your nerve. Breath, keep breathing.

Argh. I'm pretty bad at studying. A test this morning proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. I suppose it's OK to take some time in the first semester of college to figure these things out, but dangit, I'm getting graded!

So far, this hasn't been a very happy week. Exit Music seems pretty fitting -- depressing and emotional.

How is it November? What happened to the last three months of my life? I remember just yesterday being at LinuxWorld and enjoying AP Stumps over in San Jose.

How come my Concepts of Lifetime Fitness class stresses eating so well and I'm not able to get any good food at the cafeteria? Sure, things taste good most of the time, but it is nearly impossible for me to eat in a healthy-lifestyle manner. Throwing some crappy carrots and bell peppers on the side doesn't help the dripping-with-oil fajitas or fat loaded beef.

Ok, I'm in a bad mood. I'm gonna blow some steam before I blow.

I can't do this alone.

I like this new <person> feature.

Today was nuts. I still haven't gotten a chance to start reworking the Gabber manual for a task-oriented approach. I should have more time now that I'm dropping Calculus I. 12 hours isn't much.

raph's comments in today's diary about free software and such. Although it doesn't quite seem to be all there, he's hitting on something that's been silently bugging me. Something just seemed a bit wrong with the current community and I hadn't been able to pin it down quite right. Certainly a bit of food for thought..

This semester is literally flying by. It's so disgusting. All I do is sleep, eat, homework and go to class. How dull. Yes, julian, that is college. The only thing that makes it worthwhile is the fantastic people I'm around all the time. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Radiohead's cover of Blowout by Pixies is cool.

Fade out again. Fade out.

I'm back.

Ok, so I doubt anyone here remembers me, so I won't go into the gorey details of the latter half of 2000 in the life of Eliot Landrum. Suffice it to say, I'm working full time for Jabber.com, Inc. on Jabber.org documents and going to school full time at LeTourneau University. Besides Calculus, I love my life. :)

At any rate.. I got my password back for Advogato (thanks raph!) and I'm ready to roll again.

/me waves

Come back lilo!! I wasn't really following the whole discussion, but I wouldn't want *anyone* who takes time to write meaningful diary entries to suddenly stop because of anyone else's reasons! Even if lilo were writing completely against everything I am (which he wasn't), I would still want lilo to continue if he wants! Please come back!

Woopie! A new week! Here's to hoping that this will be a succesful and satisfying week.

I really like this article on oreilly.linux.com. The author makes a really good comparison with the Israelites in the desert and the Open Source community... very clever. :)

Got my first envelope with the webb logo on it today! I think I'll keep that one for awhile. :) Came with lots of duplicates of the same info I already had. Hmmm...