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[Feb. 1st, 2010|09:32 pm] |
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A joyous Imbolc to you all! |
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| Tablet posts forthcoming |
[Jan. 31st, 2010|01:12 pm] |
In the wake of the iPad announcement, I've been thinking a lot about various aspect of its design and functionality, and I'd like to record my thoughts here in a series of posts. I want them available to the open web, so I won't put them on a filter, but I recognize that this is not an interesting topic to most of the people on my friends list, so the text will be under cut tags, and you won't hurt my feelings if you don't read them. |
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| Tablet thoughts |
[Jan. 27th, 2010|04:06 pm] |
The Apple Tablet - excuse me, the iPad - release event is now over, so I'll take a break from the tech blogs, where everybody's shouting about how much it sucks, and register my opinion.
It's pretty, but we've come to expect that from Apple, right? It's thin, it's light-ish (1.5 lbs), it's reportedly amazingly fast, and it does pretty much everything I need a portable device to do. There's no Flash, but that's a known Apple quirk, and while I'll need to find an alternate way to get my Homestar Runner fix (YouTube, probably), I can probably live without it. Lack of multitasking is a bigger surprise, and a bigger disappointment - does Apple really think we'll never need to switch between web browsing and word processing without losing our places in either? This could conceivably be fixed in an OS upgrade, though, and I'm pretty firmly convinced (albeit with no hard evidence) that Apple will roll out an OS upgrade for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad this summer that provides multitasking. It runs all the iPhone/iPod Touch apps out of the box (well, except the ones that require missing hardware, like a camera or GPS), and the SDK was released today, so I expect a suite of device-specific apps to be available when the device ships in March.
Shockingly, I think Apple nailed the price point on this: $499/599/699 for 16/32/64 GB WiFi-only models (with a $130 premium for 3G on each level). That's well within my budget, even at the 64 GB level. The enTourage eDGe I've been considering is comparably priced ($530 to get it in black, and then I'd need to get a 16GB SD card for additional storage, so figure $570-600 total); it's also substantially heavier, and there are vastly more available apps in the Apple ecosystem than for Android. So it looks like I'll be buying an iPad. I'll let you know how that goes. (More info at Apple's iPad site.) |
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| Unnecessary alliteration: on |
[Jan. 18th, 2010|10:26 am] |
It was a weekend largely of intellectual pursuits for me, most notably the inaugural session of what ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) alfrecht and I are jokingly calling the "Crazy Celtic Cafe," wherein we hang out at a coffeeshop for a few hours and discuss Celtic studies and related issues (read: anything else we feel like talking about). I had a really good time: alfrecht shared some of the material he's been thinking about lately, and was very encouraging about the plausibility of one of my own potentially-wild-ass theories, and there was coffee and baked goods and general hanging-outness, which is not something I've done a whole lot since grad school.
Apart from that, the weekend was largely reading, writing, and a few chores (including inexplicable yogurt fail - the temperature was wrong, or I got a bad packet of starter, or something). MLK Day today means no classes, which means a refreshingly quiet campus and some time to plan my 100-level biology instruction session for Thursday. Onward! |
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| Weekend |
[Jan. 10th, 2010|04:47 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | The Divinyls - I Touch Myself (internal) | ] |
I've kept pretty busy this weekend, but it's been a good variety of busy. On Friday night otterkin and I went out with alfrecht; he and I have had some conversation in other LJ venues, and as he's teaching at the U this semester, I thought it would be fun to spend some time hanging out. Fortunately, I was right. =) We went out for dinner, and then dragged him across town to pick up some housewares for his apartment, and generally geeked out in various regards along the way. On Saturday I spent some time reading over coffee at Panera, ate the heavenly beef-and-noodles dish that otterkin prepared for dinner, and went out dancing with alfrecht at Plastic Passion, where we met a few other library folks and generally got our 80s rock on. I made sure to spend some time stretching afterward, so hopefully I won't suffer the same sort of unpleasantness as last time I went dancing, when I strained an iliotibial muscle and was pretty much inactive for a few weeks. Today I've been lounging around the house, rewriting an article on the Dagda for submission to Thorn, catching the last of the CES coverage on the tech blogs, and doing a little kitchen cleaning. otterkin is back from her tamale-making workshop, so we'll be making a pizza for dinner.
In summary: life is good, with expectation of more good to come. I'll take that. |
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| Tablet thoughts |
[Jan. 8th, 2010|02:49 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Dub Trio - Not For Nothing | ] |
As I said earlier this week, one of my to-do items this year is to buy a slate-form tablet computer. I've never owned a portable computer, and now that we have the MiFi, I'd like to have a device of my own for using in the living room and taking out of the house, rather than borrowing otterkin's laptop. I do far more content consumption than creation, and most of my content creation needs are fairly light, so a slate form factor makes sense to me: I can choose to carry a Bluetooth or USB keyboard if I think I might need one, but otherwise I'm free of the weight. (This is one reason not to buy a convertible tablet laptop; another is that I really dislike the design of the pivoting hinge that all of those devices seem to use.) I will admit that the "wow, that's cool!" factor of an all-touch computing device is also in play, but it's not the driving reason to purchase one. At least for me. I think.
With that in mind, what am I looking for? I have a few seemingly-simple requirements, but they're making it a bit challenging to select a device:
( Here's the list )
[EDIT: the Notion Ink Adam is also looking very tempting, and is slated for release sometime in Q2, with final design and pricing announced at Mobile World Congress in mid-February.] |
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| New year, new tasks |
[Jan. 5th, 2010|02:41 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Talking Heads - Psycho Killer (2005 remix) | ] |
2009 sucked ass. Between physical pain and emotional pain, things totally my fault and things completely out of my control, 2009 was the Year That Sucked. I am determined that 2010 will be a better year. Some things I'm planning to do in that period:
( List below the cut ) |
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| Gone but not forgotten |
[Jan. 5th, 2010|02:13 pm] |
Gerald Elmer Martin
Feb 7 1948 - Dec 12 2009
Thanks to everyone who expressed their sympathies, either directly or through otterkin's various communication channels. |
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| The LIBRARIAN is IN |
[Aug. 5th, 2009|09:13 am] |
I'm your answer man, that's what I am!
It's Reference Wednesday again! All questions considered! |
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| Mmmm |
[Aug. 4th, 2009|09:09 am] |
Coming in to work and putting on a pot of coffee: good.
Coming in to work and finding that the pot of coffee your boss made is finished brewing: better.
*coffeenoms* |
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| Moving on |
[Jul. 31st, 2009|03:16 pm] |
I quit capoeira on Tuesday. It was a difficult decision, and I spent a couple of weeks thinking about it and discussing it with otterkin. What it comes down to is that I can't continue to punish my body this intensely and *not* injure myself seriously; my left shoulder's been wonky for over a week - since my last training session - and the week before that I couldn't comfortably bend or twist for three days due to the tension in my lower back. Add to that my continued tendency to develop blisters on my feet every time I train, despite wearing pads, and the drawbacks of recovering from training sessions outweigh the enjoyment I get from them. I'll continue to do some light training at home as part of my daily workout - that's never been a problem - but I'm done training in any formal sense. |
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| Dad update |
[Jul. 31st, 2009|10:25 am] |
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I realized yesterday that it's been a while since I posted one of these. My dad moved out of M.D. Anderson in Houston yesterday, and into a physical rehab facility in Katy, which is substantially closer to their house in Sugar Land. (Yes, that's the name of the town. I've learned not to ask.) There were apparently a few hiccups related to different procedures at first - dinner is served at a set time and on a set menu rather than Anderson's order-what-you-want anytime-before-9:30 deal, and my dad's a picky eater, so that may be a bit of a challenge for him - but he's ready to give it a little time before he gets grumpy about it. He's been doing both physical and occupational therapy since he's been back in Texas, but it's slow going. He's getting frustrated with being in hospital. After nearly 4 months, I imagine I would as well. We're all hoping that he'll be back home in time for Christmas, and that doesn't seem like an unreasonable goal - which is pretty astounding, given that six weeks ago I was pretty certain he wouldn't be leaving the hospital with a pulse. |
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| The LIBRARIAN is IN |
[Jul. 29th, 2009|08:34 am] |
Reference questions. Bring 'em.
[EDIT: I ended up being busier than I expected today. I *will* get to the outstanding questions - thanks for your patience!] |
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| Play it again, and again, and again.... |
[Jul. 27th, 2009|07:41 am] |
During a comment thread on s00j's journal last week, I mentioned my continual brain-radio phenomenon, and that prompted me to go and do a little research on it. For those who haven't heard me say this in so many words before: I have a constant musical soundtrack in my head. It's clearly an "interior" phenomenon - I'd never mistake it for an actual radio playing in my environment - but it is more "like" hearing a radio than just thinking about a song. The choice of song varies: it's often what I was last listening to, or a piece that I've been listening to a lot lately, or something whose lyrics were suggested by something I heard or thought, but not infrequently I'm unable to determine what triggers a particular tune. (I had both Weird Al's "Lasagna" and Richard Marx's "Should've Known Better" while I was in the shower this morning, for no apparent reason.) I can consciously "change the channel" to a different song, but it doesn't always stay there. I can swamp it out with other auditory input, like listening to music for real, but otherwise it's always with me, and occasionally interferes with my ability to actually think.
The clinical term for this is apparently "musical hallucination" or "musical hallucinosis," although by some standards this is actually a pseudohallucination, since there's no confusion about its subjective nature (there's no agreement on terminology in this particular aspect of neurology). Oliver Sacks' new book Musicophilia has an entire chapter on the phenomenon, and I found some good recent clinical reviews by searching in PubMed. It's most common among older people who've had some degree of hearing loss, but it's by no means limited to that group - Sacks mentions one patient who was anecdotally presenting symptoms at age five. There's been some limited success at treatment with a variety of antipsychotics, but I'm very unlikely to go that route personally.
Why bother with this now? In my continuing quest to know myself in all my parts, it's comforting to me to have a name to put to this phenomenon, and more so to know that it is not *necessarily* associated with more serious psychoses. Knowing its name also allows me to quit beating myself up over my inability to banish it simply by mental effort - when I'm meditating, my mind is *never* going to be completely silent and still, and now I can stop viewing that as a failure on my part. |
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| *squint* |
[Jul. 23rd, 2009|02:45 pm] |
Hat tip to featherynscale: The eyeballing game
What's your best aggregate score? After 5 rounds or so, I came out at 4.54, which is pretty solidly in the center of the "bell" portion of the distribution (it's got a really long tail, so my estimate is that I'm better than 50th percentile, but not by a lot).
[EDIT: An additional round got my score down to 3.88. I can quit any time....] |
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| Reference Wednesday |
[Jul. 22nd, 2009|09:12 am] |
Back with a vengeance! You've got questions, I've got time to waste! |
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| Coming soon to a CD player or iPod near you! |
[Jul. 17th, 2009|09:19 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Placebo, as above | ] |
After picking up a few new tracks on iTunes yesterday, I think I may finally have enough songs for the widely-anticipated follow-up to my breakthrough compilation CD "Spawn of the 80s!" (OK, "widely-anticipated" in this case means "six people are probably interested" - but dammit, I'm not gonna let those six down!) The new acquisitions are something of a mixed bag. Seether's remake of "Careless Whisper" is entertaining, if only for the novelty of having a rugged male vocalist of the current "yeeeeaaaaah!" school of Southern-tinged alt-rock interpret a song originally recorded by George Michael. Ra does a decent job of keeping "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" peppy and upbeat while increasing the crunch factor a little. The big winner, though, is Placebo's minimalist version of Kate Bush's classic "Running Up That Hill" - vocals, bass, piano, sparse synth, and some skeletal guitar. It's nearly creepy, in that shivery spine-tingly awesome way. I'm tentatively calling this mix "Spawn of the 80s II: The Revenge!" We'll probably work up to "Roommate of Bride of Son of Spawn of the 80s!" eventually, but one thing at a time. (And I think I'm culturally obligated to make a 3D reference in the title of the third disc, or my membership in the 80s Alumni club will be revoked.) |
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