Life Under the Cross
Sunday, September 11th, 2005
Old news, but the 49ers signed the #1 pick in the draft, Alex Smith. I don’t really care about how much the guy is making except in terms of how it effects the 49ers salary cap and thus who else they can acquire. I’ve heard people complain about athletes making too much money. I don’t see how what they make has any bearing on my life. If they made less, would I be any better off? Nope!
Sunday, September 11th, 2005
I think one of the biggest things I want to pass on to my daughter is an understanding that continuous learning is a key to happiness. If you are willing to put in the effort to learn something new, you can grow your way out of any problems you encounter. Continuous learning feeds on itself. The more you learn the easier it is to pickup the next thing. You see patterns and understand what works for you.
Sunday, September 11th, 2005
Whenever there’s a fly around the house or a spider on the wall, I get called to duty. Erin doesn’t like to mess with those icky bugs, but there’s a gadget called the bugzooka that can suck ‘em up without touching them. For you touchy-feely types, it doesn’t harm them it just puts them in a little container. I guess you can remove the container to release them. Personally, I’m hoping for a reverse setting so I can take them outside and shoot them into the street.
Sunday, September 11th, 2005
Erin’s away at a scrapbooking convention and Emi is with Baachan and Jiichan. I’m home alone blogging and rearranging furniture. I’m also working on some 3D programming, so all is not lost.
Sunday, September 11th, 2005
Robert X. Cringely is involved in a new TV show called NerdTV. Cringely will be interviewing various tech. personalities. I hope it gives the same kind of insights as Triumph of the Nerds! The interesting thing is that the shows will be available free for download and sharing, free and legally. What makes this possible is that the internet in general and broadband specifically have lowered the cost of distribution for video content. PBS is involved so it must be a least partially subsidized, but if this experiment is successful, maybe we’ll see more stuff that bypasses traditional broadcast television.
Sunday, September 11th, 2005
According to this story, “a man’s nipples are perfectly suited to soothing a crying baby…” Some report on fatherhood names the Aka Pygmies the best fathers in part because they offer their nipple to calm their babies. Sorry, Emi, I don’t have the moobs to pull that off.
Sunday, September 11th, 2005
Erin gets these “get to know your friends” emails and she always has me down as the “least likely to respond.” I thought I’d surprise her by answering the questions, but me being one to do it my way, I’ll put my answers here.
1. What is your occupation? Software Engineer
2. What color is your underwear? blue
3. What are you listening to right now? A/C fan noise
4. What was the last thing you ate? Kashi Go Lean cereal & blueberries
5. Do you wish on stars? No
6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Black
7. How is the weather right now? 65 and sunny
8. Last person you spoke to on the phone? My brother, Kevin
9. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yes
10. How old are you today? 35
11. Favorite drink? Caffeine-free Diet Coke
12. Favorite sport to watch? Basketball
13. Have you ever dyed your hair? No
14. Do you wear contacts or glasses? Yes, contacts
15. Pets? No
16. Favorite month? No favorite.
17. Favorite food? Japanese
18. What was the last movie you watched? Remember the Titans
19. Favorite day of the year? April 15 - Emi’s Birthday
20. What do you do to vent anger? Write a blog entry
21. What was your favorite toy as a child? Legos
22. Fall or Spring? Spring
23. Hugs or kisses? Hugs
24. Cherry or Blueberry? Cherry
25. Do you want your friends to email you back? If they want to
26. Who is most likely to respond? Erin
27. Who is least likely to respond? N/A
28. Living arrangements? Wife and Daughter in Campbell, CA
29. When was the last time you cried? Early this year when I figured out what my purpose in life was
30. What is on the floor of your closet? Laundry baskets
31. Who is the friend you have had the longest? That I still see regularly, Kent Livingston
32. What did you do yesterday? Work and Little Gym with Emi
33. What inspires you? My Wife and Daughter
34. What are you afraid of? Not being able to support my family
35. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers? Cheese
36. Favorite car? Carrera 4
37. Favorite dog breed? Golden Labrador
38. Number of keys on your key ring? 8
39. How many years at your current job? 0.33 (4 months)
40. Favorite day of the wth week? Saturday
41.How many states have you lived in? 2
42. How many cities have you lived in? 4
Sunday, September 11th, 2005
I was doing some deep thinking in the shower this morning (one of my better spots for thinking), and I was pondering Apple and the Macintosh’s future as the hardware transitions to the Intel platform. I don’t have any information other than what I read on the rumors sites and I don’t even follow things as closely as I did when I was a Mac developer. I see things more from a user perspective both as one who has always enjoyed using the Mac and a developer who just wants to build great software.
There is one thing I’m sure of, and that is that Apple will crush anyone who attempts to get OS X running on a non-Apple box. They will have the lawyers out in force, going after any company, open source project, or 8 year-old in her basement in Brazil. They have to, or they have no reason to build Macs. If you can throw OS X on any old beige box, then Apple looses the premiums it charges and I don’t think they have the supply chain management aptitude to compete with Dell. If Apple doesn’t stop these projects, it signals some shift in business model that I won’t even try to predict.
I’m also pretty sure that some company or open source project will get Windows apps to run seamlessly or nearly seamlessly. Microsoft won’t stop it because for everything to be on the up-and-up, you would need a real copy of a Microsoft OS. Apple won’t stop it because it will help Switchers. And there is the rub, to keep people switching, Apple must keep the perception that OS X provides a better user experience than Windows even though they will be perceived to be running on the same hardware. I know people who switched to Macs because they were just tired of all the viruses and spyware their Windows boxes collected, if that changes Apple is sunk.
One big boost this could give Apple is that games will be more accessible on the Mac. Games that got ported 18-24 months, if ever, will be available if this seamless integration is done or in the worst case with a reboot. This would remove one more objection to Switching. However, this brings up the big wildcard, software developers. Will software developers continue to build Mac applications? If they expect or even bundle the emulation layer, why would they continue to support writing to the OS X API’s? I’m sure there will be Mac only vendors who will continue to write OS X apps, but what about Adobe or Microsoft? Why would Microsoft continue to support an entire development team for Office? Just have a team for the emulation layer and just one Office team. If they bundle, something Microsoft is very good at, Office and the emulator everyone gets what they want and Microsoft gets to save on head count. Adobe could do the same, just license and bundle the emulator and just write to the Windows API’s. Developers can focus on the application and not worry about any cross-platform issues.
Hey, I don’t know how this will play out, but it is a very important point in the evolution of the Mac. Probably even a make-or-break moment for the platform. As for Apple, I think they will continue to try to make the Mac just a portion of their business.
Sunday, September 11th, 2005
The U.N. Security Council is expected to pass a resolution condemning the attacks in London. Resolution? Expected? WTF, this is wrong on so many levels.
1. These guys need a resolution to say they condemn the action? If you have to say your against these actions, does that mean someone might have thought you were for them? If a family member gets mugged, do you put out a resolution that you are against mugging?
2. They need to meet to do this? I guess they don’t want to use a form letter, but c’mon. If they have to have a meeting so they can word the resolution as to not offend people, what are they trying to say?
3. These resolutions are sooo effective. Similar ones were made after September 11 and the Madrid bombings. I’m sure this one will do just as much to stop terrorism.
Sunday, September 11th, 2005
I picked up a couple Rubbermaid Paint Buddys. I’ll see if they are as useful as I would expect. They let you store extra paint to use when you need to do touchups. They have a vacuum seal that keeps the paint fresh. Should be perfect for the times when I’m moving furniture and I crash it into walls. (via Gizmodo)
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