When I was at NCSoft, a bunch of those guys had multiple machines running using the same keyboard and mouse. They used this application called Synergy to do it. I took note in case I ever had multiple computers again. Today I set it up to control my pc and mac mini at work. Normally, you would do this with a KVM switch, but this does it without all that. Nice!
30
Mar 06
tex avery cartoon
I found a few old cartoon shorts on Google Video. Good stuff. They don’t make them like this anymore.
GoogleVideo: Tex Avery Cartoon – Bad Luck Blackie – 7min. Genius.
GoogleVideo: Merry Melodies: “A Day at the Zoo” (1939)
GoogleVideo: Tex Avery – Red Hot Riding Hood
27
Mar 06
Yupsters, grups, Peter Pans, etc.
There’s something in this article that rankles my humbug nature, Up With Grups. Maybe it’s the undignified me-tooism of 40-something music enthusiasts desperate to hold on to their cultural relevance in a world of youth fluff. Let it go. Embrace elderhood and maturity, and maybe even growth.
“All of the really good music right now has absolutely precise parallels to the best music of the eighties, from Franz Ferdinand to Interpol to Death Cab—anything you can name,†says Michael Hirschorn, the 42-year-old executive vice-president of original programming and production at VH1. “Plus, the 20-year-olds are all listening to the Cure and New Order anyway. It’s created a kind of mass confusion. I was at the Coachella festival last year, and the groups people were most stoked about were Gang of Four and New Order.†No wonder Grups like today’s indie music: It sounds exactly like the indie music of their youth. Which, as it happens, is what kids today like, too, which is why today’s new music all sounds like it’s twenty years old. And thus the culture grinds to a halt, in a screech of guitar feedback.
As a result, says Hirschorn, “some of the older parents I know who have teenagers claim that there’s no generation gap anymore. They say they get along perfectly with their kids. They listen to the same music. To me, that seems somewhat laughable. But I do remember when I was young, trying to explain the Beatles to my dad, and he didn’t even know who they were. I don’t think that’s possible today.â€
Something about that is sad, like an older woman who dresses in revealing outfits and belly button jewelry. It’s an attitude of denial. Being on the outside and wanting back in.
I think there is something essentially “youthful” about making and enjoying music. That’s an attractive aspect to it. Like many major artistic achievements, great music is most often produced by young people. When we’re young do we live in a mental world of greater artistic feeling? I have this theory that when you’re in that period of adolescence from puberty to your early twenties, your brain is elastic and emotional, having not been fully constructed into a more or less rigid framework of habits and processes. We do know that the adolescent brain is structurally different from adult brains. This accounts for much of the high risk behavior we associate with youth. Maybe this mental state makes music and art more personally impactful and significant than at any other time in your life. Why else do we feel a particular affinity for the music of our youth? I’m just thinking out loud here. Maybe there are no rigid boundaries between young and old, but should we differentiate somehow?
I’ve always appreciated the ceremonies in other cultures that attend the transition into adulthood. Then you have some cultural expectation of behavior. There are rules and guidelines as to what you need to do. In our culture, we no longer have a real concept of what is expected of the individual. It is too ad hoc, too amorphous… for me. At least in a world of rules you have the enjoyment of defying convention and expressing your individuality. But, what happens when expressing your individuality is something everyone does?
27
Mar 06
asides
Seven Career Killers: “Procrastination is an ingrained habit,” Nemko says, “but if you don’t kick it pretty quick, you’re going to find yourself on the corporate slow track.”
Click Fraud Gets Smarter: “One of Boser’s biggest challenges is putting a finger on exactly how widespread the practice is. Some search consultants say click fraud accounts for upwards of 20% of all traffic, and may generate more than $1 billion in dubious sales a year. Others say those stats vastly overstate the problem. “
24
Mar 06
James at the Guild Hall
My friend, James, is studying video game development at the Guild Hall Program at SMU. I went over to his house last night and he showed me a lot of the cool video game stuff he’s been working on including this cool planetary game. It’s awesome that he’s working toward something he really wants to do with his life. He’s learned a lot about programming and game development, and I was impressed with the stuff they’ve been teaching at the Guild Hall. He’s mixed up in all kinds of concepts related to game design: 3d animation, physics, graphics programming, etc. I’m confident that with an interview he could get a job tomorrow. He’s done some great stuff. After he graduates I’ll bug everyone I know who works in the game industry to help get interviews. He just needs an opening, and he’ll take off. His dream is to work for a couple years in the field then launch his own game.
It seems like most of my friends are doing really well. Many are getting married (six couples), working on great careers, starting businesses, going back to school, and just living the good life. It’s very satisfying to enjoy the success of people you care about. I have had this feeling lately of being blessed. It’s a spiritual feeling, but it’s also a feeling of luck and appreciation. I’m thankful that things are going as well as they are for others and myself. I have a great family, an awesome woman, and a few cherished friends. It’s important to appreciate what’s good in your life and work on what’s not good. It’s never perfect, but life is up to you and how you decide to live it. You will have mistakes and failures, but in the end all the matters is what you do with those experiences.
23
Mar 06
first blood, soul
first blood, soul … “if you step, to fb…”
PayPal Goes Mobile! Send money securely, anytime, from wherever you are. You don’t need cash or a check – just your phone.
22
Mar 06
refresh, dallas
Refresh Dallas Meeting Thursday, March 23, 2006 (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM) “Rails: Diving into the Rabbit Hole” “Refresh is a community of designers and developers working to refresh the creative, technical and professional aspects of new media endeavors in the Dallas area.”
22
Mar 06
More enumeration
I’ve been neglecting ye old blog, but there’s a lot going on. That’s life. It somehow manages to stay as full as you want or allow it to be. I keep thinking of all these cool things to talk about but by the time I get back to a computer my mind is onto something else.
The big thing that happened this week is that I finished the new website for my company, which is this nationwide medical startup based in the Dallas area. It’s been a two month process, but it’s quite satisfying to complete something you’ve worked on for that long. As the resident web designer, I was in charge of building everything and making sure all the various pieces work as expected. I am also responsible for managing all the little changes and suggestions every stakeholder wants to make. For example, whose opinion has more weight… the chairman of the board or the COO? Yeah. You spend time some time navigating things like that. Usually, if I get change requests for things like colors and fonts, I’ll just try it out and show them how it looks. A lot of times they’ll go with whatever was there to begin with. In this project, as in other projects I’ve done with my freelance clients, the client likes to make one or two changes to put their mark on the project. So, even if you spend several days implementing a design that was already agreed upon, expect a couple more days of final changes and requests. Don’t take it personally.
In other news, it rained like crazy this weekend for a total of about ten inches of rain. Dallas has some serious weather that Austin can’t touch. I looked out the balcony Saturday and it was raining sideways. The wind was howling. It gets windier here than anywhere else I’ve ever been I guess because it’s so flat. On Sunday while it was still raining, I braved the low water crossings to check out the Dallas central library, so I could get my library card and check it out. Nerd alert.
Up on the eighth floor I discovered a huge genealogy research center funded by the Dallas Genealogical Society. They have census records from 1920 and 1930 as well as ship manifests and other such documentation. I sat there for about an hour and worked on my family tree, which was fascinating. In viewing the 1930 census, I found the record for my grandfather’s family. It shows the street they lived on in Louisville, the neighbors, and the ages of his parents and brothers and sisters as well as all their names. I also found a 1910 directory entry for my great-great-great-grandfather who worked as a property assistant at the Masonic Temple on Center Street in Louisville, Kentucky. On my mom’s side I found the Thornton line that was traced back to the 13th century. It was weird to find the draft records for several men in my family. The draft records show their age, their weight, their height, and their occupation. It is very interesting.
Genealogy is humbling. You see how short the human life really is when compared to history. Eighty years is not a long period of time. Consider how quickly the past ten years have elapsed. You live, you procreate and before you know it, you’re an old-fashioned name listed in some family tree.