Maybe I’ve been in the dark or something for knowing how to align an absolutely positioned html element using CSS. This is not a trivial thing to do via CSS so that it is supported cross browsers… Luckily, I stumbled across this site and the quick tutorial for how to do it.
Yearly Archives: 2005
R.I.P. Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson died yesterday (2/20/05) of a fatal gunshot to the head. I learned of Hunter through the movies Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas and Where the Buffalo Roam. Since then, I have read his various articles on ESPN… I have yet to read his other books, but I’m sure I will in the future. In any case, rest in peace Hunter…
American MBAs are today’s assembly line workers…
I have thought about writing this post for about a week or two. Either I couldn’t find the words before, or I’ve been working hard on something 🙂 So, I’ll take my best shot and throw some words together to try to get this thought across.
I have been thinking about the trend in America that, in my mind, has been developing for the last 15 years or so. It has definitely been more prevalent in the last 5 years or so. It seems as though the trend of American businessmen/women is that rather than manage local workforce (local to the US), the new trend is to manage global workforce. If you’re running a rather large organization and you don’t acknowledge off-shoring, you might be behind the game. I do realize that there are disadvantages to off-shoring, but that is for other people to bark about in a different post.
It seems to me that the US has become quite a producer of MBAs… you could think of it as universities mass producing MBAs… with 2 year degree programs being similar to assembly lines. That many people looking to expand their skills, takes away from people who work in factories, etc. Thus the gap is filled by off-shoring to “smaller” countries where people are eager to work for their money. Now I realize that the US still produces quite a lot of products, so I’m not ignoring those. I’m just curious where all of these MBA grads think they can fit in.
On a totally unrelated note, I’m not quite sure how I feel about this. If I get charged for gasoline and for the number of miles that I drive, I will not be a happy camper. I already pay taxes for roads. I would gladly pay higher taxes if the people responsible for fixing the roads would use better materials/techniques. As I understand, there are technologies/techniques available today, to allow roads to last much longer. They just don’t use them because then what would they do in the summer? People would be forced to be happy and not have to drive through half finished construction projects, everywhere. On the other hand, there is a downside to only paying the miles that you drive. It discourages buying gas guzzling SUVs and related cars/trucks. The sooner that we can wean off of oil, the better, in my opinion.
Polar plunge ’05
Today, I proved how stupid I can be at times…
I convinced myself and my roommate to go do the Polar Plunge in Muskego, WI. It benefited Special Olympics of Wisconsin. The turnout was pretty impressive. We ended up getting caught up with a group from Matty’s Bar & Grill. They ended up raising over $10,000 for the event, which is pretty impressive. Heh, we even got to be part of the video that they were making for the bar…
So who knows… I might just do this again, next year. Also, if you’re looking for a good reuben sandwich around Muskego, go to Matty’s. It’s a fun bar and has good food… not to mention hot girls 😉
A new setup for my home machine
I placed an order for a new computer today. I spent a little more than I wanted, but what the hell… it provides me with some room for upgrades in the future.
I went with AMD for the first time. More specifically, I picked up an AMD 64 3500+ chip, at the recommendation of Jure. A side effect is that I subscribed to his blog 🙂
I only was able to go with 1gb of RAM, which sucks, but I’ll be able to improve on that in the future. The board has a 4gb limit for RAM. Specifically, this is the setup I chose to go with:
Motherboard: MSI K8T Neo2-FIR
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+
RAM: 1GB (2x512mb) Corsair DDR400 (PC3200) – Model: TWINX1024-3200XLPRO
HDD: Western Digital SATA 250GB w/ 8mb buffer – Model: WD2500JD
I ordered everything but the hdd from Monarch Computer Systems. I also included some rounded cables, for the hell of it. I got the hdd from Newegg.com. If Newegg offered a nice package deal like Monarch did, I would have gone with them for everything. It seems as though
Buying a new computer….
I have decided that I will upgrade my home machine. It is currently a 1ghz PIII w/ 512mb ram. I find this lagging. I am looking for a fairly new processor around the 3ghz range. I would like to have 1.5- 2gb of ram. I would also like support for a SATA drive.
My current dilemma is whether I should go AMD 64 or Intel… Intel is a little cheaper, but AMD 64 would allow me to experiment w/ 64bit development. If I could get a board that supports dual processors, then all the better…
My ideal price range for all of this would be around $500 or so… I don’t know if I can do that w/ the RAM requirement, but that is the price range I’m shooting for.
Does anyone have any recommendations about this?
I’m a panelist!
One down… one to go. I just got verification that mkeonline.com accepted me as a threeview. A threeview is one of three panelists that critic a specific restaurant’s food. The fourth person who goes to the restaurant is a writer for the magazine. Having dinner with three random unknown people should be fun
Now I just need to be accpeted as a model for the magazine and everything would be peachy… 🙂
Can I be a model and a panelist for food reviews?
I decided to sign up for a couple things tonight. I went to a local website and played around with their site. I stumbled across the option to model for the magazine and figured… what the hell… I could do that. So, I sent an application to do so. We’ll see how it goes…
After signing up to be a model, I decided that I should also sign up to be a panelist for the dining section. So after another email, the waiting game begins. I’ve been talking with someone who has done the panelist position before. She said that it’s a pretty cool situation… plus the free food is always nice. Time will tell if I have what it takes, though.
A shift towards language oriented programming?
If you’re curious about how the act of programming might change, go read Wesner’s post on coding graphically rather than texturally. He has some good links to backup his claims. I personally think that this would be a welcomed change to the programming world, but I do believe that text editing will not go away anytime soon. Personally, I don’t use the designer view because it doesn’t give me enough flexibility and control. Perhaps this will change with Whidbey or other IDEs…
btw, I had to challenge myself to post this and the previous post, today. I”m not quite sure why, but I have been sort of at a loss lately for posting. I guess a day passes without posting, and all of a sudden half a month passes. After two people commented on my lack of posting, though, I decided I’d throw this down.
Btw, the company I work for is looking for a software tester with automated testing experience. If you or anyone you know would be interested, drop me a line and I’ll make sure it gets funneled to the correct people.
Dream about a plane
I had a very strange dream about a plane towards the end of December. Specifically, it was the morning of December 31st. I don’t know why it took me so long to post this, but below is the excerpt of what I wrote right after waking up. The dream is pretty weird and involves different points of view.
I had a dream this morning…. it involved me as both an actor and the camera point of view.
It starts with a movie producer attempting to rent/lease a grassy field. The field had what looked to be a flat bulldozed path around the perimeter. There was a local (looked like he was from Deliverance) who owned the field. The local was reluctant to sell/rent the field, but the movie producer then offered him $5m in cash. The point behind the movie producer wanting the field is that it was apparently haunted.
All of a sudden, the time and place changed, and I was in a bedroom with a girl that must have been my sister. [Note, she doesn’t look like my sister.] We are pretty young, I’m guessing around 8-12 years old. Anyway, we were both in our own beds, but were up talking. All of a sudden, we heard a loud noise of a plane flying overhead.
Time flips again, and this is where I became the camera point of view. I witnessed a (rather large) flight attendant try to open the rear exit door. This is while the plane is still in mid air, btw… She screwed up the yellow slide and ended up falling out of the plane. Her body wrapped around the edge of a rear engine…. it wasn’t long, and her body split, causing her legs to go into the engine intake. It was pretty gruesome, but that seemed to be the last straw for the plane. It was headed down.
Time flips back again, and I was back at the house. This time, I was older and my sister was too. She grabbed her camera and headed outside for a picture of the plane. Apparently she wanted to take a picture of it as it passed over a church.
This is sort of weird… while I was dreaming this, I thought that I had had this dream before… Though in my other dream, a father figure drove off to where the plane was coming down. This was so that he could help with the rescue.
Strange though, but I was remembering this while still dreaming the current dream.
Anyway, back to the dream details. So now the time flipped again, and I was an overhead camera looking over the field. Apparently that is where the plane was going to come down. There was a collection of off-road trucks to assist. This is where the plane sort of left the picture, though… instead I focused on the trucks and how they were trying to see who could drive/park on the steepest grade.
Sort of a strange ending, but there you go..