I’ve made some updates to my resume, it now looks like the paper one (more or less). Go have a look, and feel free to pass on any comments or suggestions.
{{ $image := .ResourceGetMatch “barackobama.png” }} followers. Still, I’d like to think that he was involved in the process somewhere, if only to give verbal approval that the message be sent.
Even so, it’s pretty cool to get a growl notification of a new tweet and have it be one from a Presidential candidate.
Today, Sibylle and I traveled to Manhattan KS to participate in and watch the 2008 Manhattan Area Music Teachers Association Concerto Competition. Students competed in four age categories by performing concertos accompanied on a second piano by their teacher, who played the piano reduction of the orchestral accompaniment for the various pieces.
The adjudicator has four award choices for each category: no award, Honorable Mention, Second Place, or First Place. She or he may also award a tie or, and this is the interesting part, they may choose not to reward any performance.
In America most contests or competitions are geared towards finding the winner. In today’s competition the students weren’t competing against each other, they were offering up their performance for evaluation against criteria such as: ensemble, note accuracy, rhythm, tempo, technique, style interpretation, poise, and choice of literature. Each performance is evaluated individually against these criteria, and not against the other performances. Therefore it is quite possible for a category to produce only Honorable Mentions and no placing at all.
Today there was a category that produced only Honorable Mentions, no First or Second place awarded. With so much focus in America culture on winning, or being the best, I think we some times lose sight critiquing against a standard and not just determining who was better. Was one of the performances in the category in question “better” than the other? Perhaps, but neither was up to the standard of a First or even a Second place performance.
In my experience I think the only place where I have been regularly critiqued against a standard and not against my peers is in job evaluations. With just a single source, then, of individual performance based evaluations, I am not as comfortable with this form of learning as I could be. And I suspect that my managers who, although they perform this activity for their direct reports on a regular basis, aren’t as comfortable with it either.
When I was competing in martial arts we had a saying, the gist of which was, “just because you won today doesn’t mean you would have won yesterday, or will win tomorrow.” In other words, winning, being first, is a temporal event. The winner was the winner on that day, under those conditions. It may or may not be a repeatable event. (The recent Superbowl loss of the New England Patriots comes to mind.) However, an objective evaluation of your performance against a standard gives you excellent chance to grow, particularly if the adjudicator is capable of writing lucid comments and suggestions for areas of improvement.
We need more standards based evaluations and less winner/loser evaluations, I think, in order to mature as a society. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with keeping score and deciding a winner, however I think we would all benefit from more emphasis on standards based critiques. As today’s performances demonstrated, just because one performance is “better” than the other doesn’t mean it was good enough to be first.
After a week of wearing trifocals I have come to some conclusions.
They are better than progressive lenses for me. The blurred, fun-house-mirror effect the progressive lenses had is not present at all with trifocals. This isn’t to say that there isn’t some adjustment required. When I got my first set of bifocals in May 2003, I experienced some adjustment. At that time I remarked,
The worst part, so far, is finding a new head position for things. It seems like the line between short and far is always getting in the way…. I would agree with that earlier incarnation of me, and add that having two lines in one’s field of view is even more distracting. That my posting from five years ago echos some of my thoughts today, comforts me. Especially in light of my memory of bifocals. I remembered them fondly (if one can think of glasses fondly). With some time and patience I think the lines on these lenses will disappear too.
Having three focal ranges is nice, extra lines notwithstanding. I can read the syringe markings for Nekko insulin clearly and easily for the first time. Reading in bed is enjoyable once more. I can print documents at work two-to-a-page, and read the result. The intermediate range works fairly well for my desktop workstation at work. I can see the text clearly again. The height of the intermediate range isn’t quite tall enough to see the entire screen without tilting my head a bit. This makes me aware of the lines above and below that portion of the lens. Hopefully my conscious awareness of those lines will fade over time. There is even some added sharpness at distance, although it is slight enough that I can get by without my glasses for activities like driving.
Several years ago I tried a pair of lenses that had anti-glare coating on both sides. At the time I cleaned my glasses rather haphazardly, usually with the pad of my finger to brush away the large bits of debris on the lens. This fingertip cleaning method caused huge smears and smudges on the glare coating. I took the glasses back and had the coating removed. I was offered glare coating again with these glasses and turned them down, remember my earlier experience.
Now that I’ve had the glasses for a week I wonder if the glare coating will help to minimize my awareness of the lines between the different focal areas. I have only touched the lenses once or twice so far, in an attempt to learn to use the little micro-fiber cloth instead. If I can learn this habit I will opt for the anti-glare coating on my next lenses.
To sum up my experience so far, if you can’t abide the blurry effects of progressive lenses, go for the trifocals. I think you like them.
If you are like me, you have at least once in your email usage history, accidentally sent a mail that you either didn’t mean to send, or immediately wanted to recall to edit or attach or otherwise massage before sending. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to hold your outbound emails for a short period of time?
As luck would have it, there is a way. At least if you are using Outlook.
Create a new rule using the “Start from a blank rule” option. In the Rules Wizard, under the “Step 1: Select when messages should be checked” option, pick “Check messages after sending.”
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Click next.
Unless you want to apply the delay rule to a specific subset of messages you send, click next on the “Which condition(s) do you want to check?” dialog. Outlook will confirm that you really want to apply this rule to every message you send. Click yes.
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On the “What do you want to do with the message?” dialog select the last option, “defer delivery by a number of minutes.” Once you’ve selected that, click on the underlined portion of the statement in the edit portion of the dialog and enter the delay you want. Originally I had 5 minutes but I find this is too long so I’ve cut that back to 3 recently.
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Click next again.
The “Are there any exceptions?” dialog gives you another chance to limit the scope of your new rule. Unless you want to add some exceptions, click next.
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The final step is to name your new rule. I called mine “Defer sending.”
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Click Finish to complete the rule. Outlook will popup a message warning you that this is a client-only rule, that will only run when Outlook is running. Click on OK.
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That’s it! You now have a built-in sending delay or 3 or 5 or whatever minutes. The next time you hit send without having attached the file, or just before realizing that you didn’t spell check the message, you now have a chance to visit the outbox and correct the mail before it is sent.
Last week, on Thursday, Sibylle and I pulled the trigger on a bookcase purchase from IKEA. As a full-time music teacher, Sibylle has a lot of music, and a lot of reference books that she’d like quick and easy access to. We also have lots and lots of books that we’d like to display.
Sibylle had researched many options and found one at IKEA that we both liked. The size, the color options, even optional glass doors, which we though we might add later. I filled out the online order forms and was informed that we’d get an email within 24-hours with the shipping information and a phone number to call to provide the billing information.
24 hours have become nearly 96 hours, as I only just got the promised email this afternoon - Monday. In that email we are informed that our order will be held for 48-hours and then canceled unless we call to confirm and provide a credit card for the purchase. (I wonder if that is truly 48-hours, or 192-hours, to use IKEA’s interpretation of the length of an hour.)
The email also includes the shipping cost. The bookcase itself is $79.99. The shipping cost is a whopping $265.00.
Two-hundred-and-sixty-five dollars to ship an eighty dollar bookcase?!
I’ve been buying things, large and small, online since the mid-1990s, and I have never had an experience like this. A part of me is tempted to call just to find out how they justify a shipping cost more than three times the original purchase price. I understand that the book case has some weight, and that this weight, and or large size will impact the shipping costs. Had IKEA posted even an estimated shipping cost with the order last week, I think we would have gone shopping locally this past weekend. I strongly suspect that we can get a very nice book case for less than the $345 combined price at IKEA, and probably avoid the 2-3 week wait for delivery.
In the two days since I picked up my trifocals I have been thoroughly pleased with the improvement in my vision. I have sharp focus at all three ranges of sight: near, intermediate, and distance. Having owned a pair of bifocals before my laser surgery mistake, I knew there would be an adjustment period regarding the lines and not needed to tip my head but rather just drop my eyes.
The third band of correction in these lenses, the intermediate zone, is working out fantastically. When I sit and read a book or document I use the near portion of the lens, which is at the bottom. My laptops both fall into this range when I am typing at them. Perfect. My computer workstation at work, however, falls into the middle distance between “up close” and “far away.” The intermediate range portion on my new lenses is nicely tall, allowing me to see roughly half the screen without moving my head up or down. As my eyes track down the screen I naturally incline my head, which keeps everything in focus.
The only place my glasses aren’t any use is going down stairs. Looking through either the intermediate or near correction produces a blurry view of the treads. Fortunately I can quite easily see under my lenses and focus on the stairs that way.
The most unusual thing about these new glasses is that things, particularly my cell phone or laptop screen, seem brighter than before. Certainly there is a noticeable difference in focus, but I was surprised by the apparent increase in brightness. I guess the slight magnification effect of the lenses adds to the amount of light my eyes perceive.
I’m sure that some people can and do adjust to progressive lenses, but I for one an very pleased to have switched to lined trifocals. And I am very pleased with how accommodating and helpful the fine folks at my local vision center have been throughout this process.
Until I generated a graph of my site, I never knew it contained a sunflower.
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(Click on the image to generate one of your own.)
As a student in American classrooms in the 1960s and 1970s I was introduced to the metric system in a failed attempt to join the world standard. (That the United States is one of but three countries on the planet that doesn’t use the metric system speaks volumes.) Personally, I think the reason the metric system failed was making it about converting and not adopting. Countless hours were spent in classrooms adding 32 and dividing by 5 before subtracting 32 and multiplying by 9 to know that 1 centimeter was a 100th of a meter regardless of whether it was freezing in Fahrenheit or Celsius.
So it should come as no surprise that this evening, while working out at our new gym, Sibylle and I discovered something interesting about the weights we’d been using. About 18 months ago I joined another gym and was trained on a set of weight machines. Being a nerd I carefully noted the seat position settings for each machine and the weight I was lifting for each. I made a little card to carry with me so I wouldn’t have to rely on memory. Eventually I was able to remember the numbers without my cheatsheet.
On each of our three visits to the new gym this past week, I have done a few repetitions on the same set of weight machines the other club had. And each time I was somewhat stunned by how heavy the weights were. Could I really have lost that much strength in just a year and a half?
After straining to lift roughly half my prior weight again tonight, I remarked to Sibylle, “These weights are really heavy, I don’t understand it.” Half joking she replied, “You don’t suppose they are kilograms instead of pounds, do you?”
Suddenly a light bulb went off in my head. The little “kilogram to pounds” conversion charts taped to some of the machines took on a whole new meaning. 100 didn’t mean pounds, it meant 100 kilograms or 224 pounds.
Thanks to Sibylle’s remark we now know that our new machines are in fact more than twice as heavy as the ones I’d used before. And that a centimeter is still 100th of a meter, and that -40 F equals -40 C, and both are too cold for me.
Most technology reviews happen shortly after the hardware or software is released, and the reviewer has had only a limited time to tinker with the product. Publishing is not without a sense of one-upsmanship, and getting your review to press first is the only way to win that game.
Here at Zanshin.net World Headquarters, I’ve been using the same Titanium skinned Powerbook for over five years now, and I think it’s time for a recap of this excellent machine.
My Powerbook began life in November 2001 and was purchased in January 2002 at the Apple Store in Des Peres, outside of St. Louis Missouri. Out of the box it had a 867 MHz PPC processor, 256 MB of RAM, a 40 GB hard drive, and a Combo-drive (CD-RW/DVD).
The Combo-drive started refusing to access compact disks about a month after purchase, and I was able, under warranty, to get it replaced at no charge to me. The replacement has worked flawlessly every since.
I replaced the 40 GB drive with a 100 GB about three years ago, and created a 40 GB portable drive using a USB/Firewire enclosure from Other World Software. Both drives are still working with no errors or issues.
One of the first upgrades was additional memory; I added 512 MB soon after getting the Powerbook, and it has had 768 MB of RAM ever since.
Apple-History.com has a complete rundown of the original specifications.
Originally my Powerbook came with Jaguar. After upgrading through all the iterations of that OS, it has also iterated through all the Panther dot releases, and finally all the Tiger releases. I haven’t upgraded to Leopard yet for two reasons: performance and cost. More on that in a bit.
The case has held up surprising well, considering this machine travels with me to work every day, and has right from the beginning. The screen has no dead pixels and, while some of the key caps are shiny from use, the keyboard is still tactilely satisfying.
The only blemish on the case is some missing paint on the hinge edge of the lid. This was caused by carrying the laptop while wearing a ring on one finger. Speaking of the hinge, I did have to replace the factory installed rubber stops with ones from an after market kit. Initially I set out to loosen the hinge as opening the machine took two hands, but the directions were just daunting enough that I’ve never completed the exercise.
The clearance between the LCD screen and the key caps is tight enough that I almost immediately developed faint smudges on the screen, caused by oil from my fingertips on the keys and trackpad. A micro-fiber cloth from RAD Tech now rests on the keyboard when the Powerbook is closed, and has eliminated the marks for the most part.
Just in the last few days the sleep light has started being flaky. Normally when the machine is asleep the light breathes (surprisingly bright in a dark room at night); it still does that when the machine is asleep on the desk. Closing the lid and picking it up however, interrupts the light, but doesn’t wake the machine. If one glowing LED is the only malfunction in five plus years of daily use, I’m happy.
In addition to the plethora of applications for Macs that I have used, there are several lesser know, more utility oriented programs that I couldn’t live without.
Growl - system wide notification framework. I get my Twitter tweets via growl, along with new mail and NetNewWire notifications. iTunes announces the next song here and Adium events are also routed through growl. Sidetrack - My Mac is old enough that it doesn’t support the newer scrolling gestures on the trackpad. However, with Sidetrack I have hot spots (primarily for right- and center-button clicks, as well as Exposé) and vertical and horizontal scrolling.
GeekTool - GeekTool is a bit harder to explain. It allows you to embed just about any log or process output, into your desktop. I have the uptime command output tucked away in the upper left corner of my screen via this tool.
Quicksilver - From Blacktree, every ones favorite “act without doing” interface.
Even though my machine is older and slower than today’s machines, I am still quite pleased with its overall performance. My other laptop, a two-year-old IBM ThinkPad Z60m, has a 1.83 GHz CPU and 2 GB of RAM, and even with all the startup processes disabled, the Powerbook smokes the ThinkPad in cold or warm boot situations.
I rarely, if ever, turn the Powerbook off, preferring instead to just shut the lid to sleep the machine and open it again when I am ready to work once more. There are some applications I use on a regular basis that tax the now aging specifications. Eclipse Europa with the MyEclipse IDE installed being the primary example. That particular software platform is rather doggy on the XP ThinkPad as well.
Having read that Leopard wasn’t designed for the G4 PPC chip, I have been reluctant to upgrade my OS. If I had a second 100GB hard drive I would use SuperDuper! to clone my 10.4.11 startup drive, and upgrade. If the performance was unacceptable, I could then easily revert. Until that drive happens, I’ll happily say, “mine goes to eleven.”
My Powerbook G4 is simply the best computer I have ever owned or used. The form factor, the operating system, the performance, …; everything about it, is perfect for me. That I have a much newer and seemingly more powerful laptop in the Z60m and still choose to carry the Powerbook nearly everywhere I go, says it all.