Backbone

I enjoy reading stuff that is written in earnest, if not in earnest then in irony, if not in irony then in style.  David Foster Wallace's feast is he can achieve all of this, and more, at the same time.  Backbone published in the current New Yorker is an excerpt of his soon to be posthumously published The Pale King.  Backbone is such a weird story--a boy trying to kiss every inch of his own body since he's six, with even more weirder writing style.  Personally my favorite line is:

The written evaluations of his socialization described the boy not as withdrawn or aloof but as “calm,” “unusually poised,” and “self-containing” [sic].

I have seen grade school teacher confuse "every day" with "everyday."  So I can relate and do enjoy the humor and irony.  Backbone is peppered with anatomy vocabulary and interjected with historical anecdotes of which I find interesting.  Reading "Backbone" would have never prepared me what the Pale King is about, at least superficially.  According to Little, Brown, its publisher, as reported by The New York Times, The Pale King is about "a crew of entry-level processors and their attempts to do their job in the face of soul-crushing tedium."  Wow, that sounds interestingly boring to the max.

Indian

Derby Car

Best Costume

Oh Yeah. Some people like to wear costume or costome-like outfit every day because life is just a stage? I just want to say sure Black Swan and The King's Speech are worthy contenders, but The Social Network, the hoodie, the sandals and the unforgettable bathrobe are just well chosen, contemporary and relevant. It's just more subtle more nuanced, and for the untrained eye, it could be bland but for those who can appreciate the exqusite beauty of the mundane, can separate the noble from the gaudy, The Social Network is definitely, beyond a doubt, has one of the best costumes in modern cinema.

Homepage

For people who don't know much about HTML or anything and yet want to have a homepage, I would say a blog is the easiest way to go. Wordpress, Blogger, tumblr or whatever free tools you can get is the correct approach. And that's what I suggest if you were to ask me. But of course if you have the money and want to spend a few thousand dollars to jolt the ho hum economy, that's even better. But for cheap skates, I prefer free tools.

Blundstone

They're on their last leg. I need to find another pair. Or switch to something else. It's my third pair already.

Update:  There were made in Australia.  Not anymore.

Tuesday

I hate Tuesday because it's garbage day.  I have to search the whole house, collect all the garbage and take them out.  It's a chore I don't enjoy and but grudging do.  And worst, there is something called  recycling, the glass, the plastic and the newspaper.  I have yet to learn the perfect knot to tie the newspaper.  I miss the days when everything is just garbage.

School Winter Break

When your kids are on winter break that means you are not.  Even if you don't do any pre break arrangement like finding the cheapest after school programs or dumping your kids to your friends but at least you have to do some more driving around, I know I do.  Thanks for GPS, even a direction-less driver like myself manages to drive around in the cut throat morning commute.

Men At Work

Skiing

Lunch

Blue Mountain

D7000 NEF TO JPEG

There is a 40pixel wide band to the right of the image when NEF is converted to JPEG using UFRAW.  The image above has that band removed already.

Everybody Is Outside

Spring-like Weather

iOS 4.2.1 And Ubuntu 10.10

Despite whatever people say, iOS 4.2.1 (8C148) is not working on my Ubuntu 10.10 AMD64.  It's able to mount, to see everything that is there (i.e. read only) but I simply can't sync it.  No way no how.  This is the conclusive reference for me as of now.  Based on what I read, it's because of libgpod.

Fifth and 42nd

I For One Welcome Our New Computer Overlords

Ken Jennings provides us a much needed quote for the three-day man against machine Jeopardy! when he jokingly writes "I For One Welcome our New Computer Overlords" below his answer to the final jeopardy clue. With or without our welcome, Watson has arrived. It bested the best human players ever in Jeopardy! namely Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Watson is a harbinger of what's going to come from Big Blue: truly intelligent machine that can augment or replace human intelligence.

Off-Brand Lenses

Personally I just don't do that. If my camera says Nikon, I use Nikkor. Of course there are exceptions like if it's a Carl Zeiss or when I was 17 I bought a Tamron 70-210 for my Nikon FE.

iPhone is The Internet

Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images via nytimes.com

The iPhone comes to represent the Internet (or the ubiquitous device to the Internet)  in the mind of young Egyptians.  IBM is just giving up and instead gets into this game show business using Watson.