Author: cosmo

So Tom abandoned his blog after using it for years, moving over to Blogspot with the masses. I find that an interesting side effect of being a web developer is the subconscious need to “eat your own dog food”, meaning I feel like since I know how to write my own blog software, I should do that instead of falling back to some third-party toolset.

Of course I wrote this four or more years ago, when things like Blogspot didn’t even exist, and I’ve put so much stuff into it that it’s not really worth the effort to move everything to another (perhaps more capable) system. Ah well.

Mmm, dog food.

So the web development world is abuzz with news of Mozilla’s new Ubiquity plug-in. Apparently it allows you to type things like “define ubiquity”, which will open a web page on dictionary.com or something and display the definition. Or “map 653 Elm St. Hoboken NJ” and hop over to Google Maps.

What’s funny is Konqueror (my browser of choice) has been doing this for years. It has “web shortcuts” built in when you install it, and you can customize it with anything you want. As such I have all kinds of shortcuts– and in fact “define” and “map” are amongst them. Just tonight I typed “wp:transcendental number” to pull open the Wikipedia article about transcendental numbers.

I tell you, it’s hard being so far ahead of the curve.

It’s official. Cows generally point north.

A group of researchers who apparently had nothing better to do examined thousands of satellite images from Google Maps, looking at fields where cows were pictured. They found that most of the time, the cows are aligned along north-south magnetic field lines.

Just another factoid to add to my armory of party conversation starters.

“The Bush administration… has made fear the main driver of our foreign policy. It has turned a deadly serious but manageable threat– a small number of radical groups that hate America– into a ten-foot tall existential monster that dictates nearly every move we make.”

— Senator Joe Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee

Although I’m no fan of Obama, and Biden has a bit of a checkered past, his stance against the War on Terror is admirable and I’m hopeful that if he’s elected, we’ll see some changes in American policy– both at home and abroad.

Seen on Slashdot:

My friend Paul is on the docket for a security clearance, and he mentioned my name as someone who can vouch for his character. That means the Defense Investigative Service (or something like that) sends a guy over to my house to ask probing questions about Paul.

“Does Paul have any problems with drug or alcohol abuse?”

“Does Paul exhibit any signs of mental instability?”

“Did anything happen in Paul’s past that could potentially be used to blackmail him?”

And my favorite:

“Does Paul associate with any subversive organizations, terrorist groups, or people who want to do harm to the United States?”

My answer to that one was, “You mean like the Republicans?”

Of course these investigators have their sense of humor surgically removed when they first start their jobs, so he wasn’t amused by my answer. He sort of sat there waiting for me to give him a real answer, and after a moment I admitted that no, Paul probably doesn’t hang out with terrorist cells.

Boy, I don’t miss those days of having a security clearance.

“Both candidates in this election pledge to end this war and bring our troops home. The great difference, the great difference, is that I intend to win it first.”

— Senator John McCain

Wow, it must be kind of fun to live in the fantasy world inhabited by McCain. He’s going to win the war in Iraq! Win it! I suppose he’ll use elves riding magical flying unicorns powered by rainbow juice to do it or something, because I don’t know how else victory could be accomplished in the midst of that disaster.

Woo hoo, more free schwag from clients! Today’s loot came from Sweet Leaf Tea down in Texas, who sent me an obnoxious green shirt and a cool gang-member bandanna.

There was a block party in the neighborhood today, complete with catered food, a huge inflatable bouncy castle, and of course…

… face painting. Kyra makes a good tiger. (Or is the proper term “tigress”?)

Yesterday we had a little adventure with a mouse. I was down in my basement office clacking away at the computer and noticed something on the screen of the window beside my desk. I thought it was a bird, but upon closer inspection it turned out to be a mouse. The little guy was about the size of a half-dollar, and he had somehow fallen into the window well and was apparently trying to figure out a way back up to solid ground.

Of course the screen wouldn’t get him there, nor was there really any way for him to climb the window well itself, so I figured we’d have to rescue him. I called Alex downstairs (he was the only kid home at the time) and he immediately insisted that we catch the bugger. We opened the window, popped the screen, and I grabbed the mouse as he scurried around the rocks outside.

As I was about to drop him into the handy CD-R spindle container, he made a mighty leap and jumped down to the floor. And let me tell you, that little sucker was fast. He ran for cover underneath the printer, and we prodded him with a hiking pole (yes, I have lots of interesting things in my office) until he ran across the carpet for the door. Luckily Laralee slammed the door in time, or he would’ve had free reign of the house. After a few minutes of chasing him and cornering him with ingenious combinations of foam board and camping equipment, we managed to get him into the spindle case.

Then it was amazing to see him jump. Had we not put the little phone directory atop the container, he would’ve leaped right out of there. He kept hopping up and down, slapping the book at the top, until I guess he finally figured it that wasn’t going to work. Then, with nothing else to do, he pooped in the container.

Alex trotted him around the neighborhood, showing Kyra and Zack (who were at different friends’ houses), and eventually released him back into The Wild down by the creek.

We thought briefly about how fun it would’ve been to put the mouse in the cage with Pumpkin (Kyra’s gerbil) but considering his teeny size, I suspect Pumpkin would’ve just eaten him. Or maybe just accidentally sat on him, who knows.