Thursday, November 22, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Flock
I'm writing this post from inside Flock 1.0 beta. I'm not sure how I feel about the whole program yet I really do like my Safari and Vienna sorta works for me. But after Scott Kurt's twitter kept evangelizing Flock I thought I'd give it a shot. Here's my thoughts so far:
Hits-
+Facebook integration makes sense and has many useful features for my pokewars and messaging
+Automatically grabs log-in data, no need to fill out a separate plug-in form
Misses-
-The GUI takes up a lot of space, I'm on a 13 inch Macbook and value my screen space,
-I can't figure out how to manually refresh my RSS feeds: as a political science major I need to say on top of current events and if the RSS reader can't handle +100 feeds (Vienna can but with slowdown) then the reader is worthless to me
--Vienna reads some posts that I can't figure out how to get Flock to refresh and show,
-I can't get rid of the notifier of direct twitter messages, yes I know I have them and I read them on my phone months ago, I shouldn't need to waste my time removing them from my account so that the notice goes away,
-I can't pull up a list of my tags in the blog editor, that makes it hard to use the same tags for a topic and thus they lose any value they'd have,
Conclusion: Beta software for sure. Until I can get my feeds refreshing and my twitter icon to stop saying I have direct messages there's no chance that Flock can replace Vienna for my rss reader and there goes a lot of the draw of learning a new web browser. I'll give it a try again when it's out of beta maybe the issues I've outlined above will be fixed by then.
Try it for yourself and if you can get any of my issues solved maybe I'll go back to it.
Hits-
+Facebook integration makes sense and has many useful features for my pokewars and messaging
+Automatically grabs log-in data, no need to fill out a separate plug-in form
Misses-
-The GUI takes up a lot of space, I'm on a 13 inch Macbook and value my screen space,
-I can't figure out how to manually refresh my RSS feeds: as a political science major I need to say on top of current events and if the RSS reader can't handle +100 feeds (Vienna can but with slowdown) then the reader is worthless to me
--Vienna reads some posts that I can't figure out how to get Flock to refresh and show,
-I can't get rid of the notifier of direct twitter messages, yes I know I have them and I read them on my phone months ago, I shouldn't need to waste my time removing them from my account so that the notice goes away,
-I can't pull up a list of my tags in the blog editor, that makes it hard to use the same tags for a topic and thus they lose any value they'd have,
Conclusion: Beta software for sure. Until I can get my feeds refreshing and my twitter icon to stop saying I have direct messages there's no chance that Flock can replace Vienna for my rss reader and there goes a lot of the draw of learning a new web browser. I'll give it a try again when it's out of beta maybe the issues I've outlined above will be fixed by then.
Try it for yourself and if you can get any of my issues solved maybe I'll go back to it.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Confirmed Travel
Just going to briefly post an update. Obviously I've been busy lately. I have my travel plans confirmed for the next semester though. January I'll be in Japan for two weeks, in March I'll spend a week in Germany and Austria, and then I have a week of Mexico in June. Getting all this and moving sorted out has put me behind on my homework so I haven't had time to post updates to here. With a bit of luck I should be posting more frequently from now on though.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Urban Bunker
This is the basement of the UC. I took this while taking refuge from a storm yesterday. The funnel cloud didn't actually touch down but it was a pretty near thing. The result was everyone in the building being crammed into this hallway to hangout for a bit over an hour until the worst of the storm had passed. By the end of it I wanted nothing more than to simply get away from people for awhile.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
At First Ave.
I went to a show "tonight". When I bought tickets it was with my then girlfriend at the time. The tickets were for Cartel, with Nightmare of You slated to open with some other band; subject to change.
Well, it changed. Nightmare of You, the band I wanted to see since I first heard them over a year ago wasn't at First Ave for this show. Instead I was treated to some of the most horrible noise to ever pretend to be music. Then Cartel played.
Cartel live is like going through puberty, but without any of the fun parts. Awkward, unsteady, and full of vocal fluctuations. I left before they finished and I only regret that I stayed as long as I did. All in all, my first experience at First Avenue was a disappointment just by the music. The rude staff, and the fact I was there with my ex don't even need to factored in to say that my little bit of fun time was everything but that. Here's to hoping the next show I go to is substantially better.
Well, it changed. Nightmare of You, the band I wanted to see since I first heard them over a year ago wasn't at First Ave for this show. Instead I was treated to some of the most horrible noise to ever pretend to be music. Then Cartel played.
Cartel live is like going through puberty, but without any of the fun parts. Awkward, unsteady, and full of vocal fluctuations. I left before they finished and I only regret that I stayed as long as I did. All in all, my first experience at First Avenue was a disappointment just by the music. The rude staff, and the fact I was there with my ex don't even need to factored in to say that my little bit of fun time was everything but that. Here's to hoping the next show I go to is substantially better.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Peanut Gallery
The other day I came across an interesting opinion piece. Full text here.
One thing it didn't quit get right is that there is one other way for the auction to end; the "winner" must outbid the "loser" by a dollar and hope that the other side is rational enough to see that this way both sides go home to lick their wounds. In the grown-up word this is known as a compromise. Unfortunately, with the conflict in Iraq neither side will allow a compromise to expedite the ending of this vile affair.
At this point pulling out of Iraq would be disastrous for two groups of people; the people opposed to whichever force gains power in Iraq if it is indeed a violent force, and the Bush administration for losing their prize. So with the only sure losers being the ones that started this whole mess the chances of things ending cleanly are gone for good.
Also, the troop numbers from the "surge" in Iraq are now going to be reduced to pre-surge levels. The program wasn't effective according to officials in Iraq but the military claims it was; the administration gains from this ploy. By reducing the troop levels now there is effectively no nominal change in troop levels yet it looks like the administration is actually listening to reason and reducing the troops in a withdraw plan. The cynical part of me wonders if the surge was designed to never succeed at all but rather to allow a win to be claimed followed by a reduction in troops, filling both sides of the chart for voter approval.
Take your artificial win if you must Mr. President but grow up and stop throwing our soldiers into a cruel situation to die just to appease your stupidity.
One thing it didn't quit get right is that there is one other way for the auction to end; the "winner" must outbid the "loser" by a dollar and hope that the other side is rational enough to see that this way both sides go home to lick their wounds. In the grown-up word this is known as a compromise. Unfortunately, with the conflict in Iraq neither side will allow a compromise to expedite the ending of this vile affair.
At this point pulling out of Iraq would be disastrous for two groups of people; the people opposed to whichever force gains power in Iraq if it is indeed a violent force, and the Bush administration for losing their prize. So with the only sure losers being the ones that started this whole mess the chances of things ending cleanly are gone for good.
Also, the troop numbers from the "surge" in Iraq are now going to be reduced to pre-surge levels. The program wasn't effective according to officials in Iraq but the military claims it was; the administration gains from this ploy. By reducing the troop levels now there is effectively no nominal change in troop levels yet it looks like the administration is actually listening to reason and reducing the troops in a withdraw plan. The cynical part of me wonders if the surge was designed to never succeed at all but rather to allow a win to be claimed followed by a reduction in troops, filling both sides of the chart for voter approval.
Take your artificial win if you must Mr. President but grow up and stop throwing our soldiers into a cruel situation to die just to appease your stupidity.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Classes
My classes for the first "week" of the semester are over. Week is in quotes due to the half-week nature. Anyway, a few thoughts about my classes.
Japanese- it's different, I'm learning a whole new alphabet. At least I found this program to help me along. I'm really enjoying the class even if it is full of nerds and poor hygiene.
Karate- Also completely different. And as usual I few out of shape from a physical activity class.
Micro Econ- I think I'm the only senior in the class. The professor has an accent that is initially difficult to understand. However the class itself should be simplistic and an easy A.
World Econ- takes everything that was said in micro and says "Ok that's all going to be ignored" It's going to be more work than micro but it should also be more interesting.
20th century political philosophy- easy, easy, easy. I know the professor's style. Should also be interesting.
Senior Seminar- when every part of the grade for the class is based on one paper you know you'd better have one hell of a paper. However, I have no idea what I'm going to do mine on. It's going to be a beast and a lot of work but it should give me a chance to show off, I like that.
Japanese- it's different, I'm learning a whole new alphabet. At least I found this program to help me along. I'm really enjoying the class even if it is full of nerds and poor hygiene.
Karate- Also completely different. And as usual I few out of shape from a physical activity class.
Micro Econ- I think I'm the only senior in the class. The professor has an accent that is initially difficult to understand. However the class itself should be simplistic and an easy A.
World Econ- takes everything that was said in micro and says "Ok that's all going to be ignored" It's going to be more work than micro but it should also be more interesting.
20th century political philosophy- easy, easy, easy. I know the professor's style. Should also be interesting.
Senior Seminar- when every part of the grade for the class is based on one paper you know you'd better have one hell of a paper. However, I have no idea what I'm going to do mine on. It's going to be a beast and a lot of work but it should give me a chance to show off, I like that.
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