Geekiness

There are 88 posts filed in Geekiness (this is page 5 of 9).

U Has Sheep for Wheat?

The following image is one of the best products of internet geekdom so far, distilling three disparate geekinesses into one single hilarious image. Of the people that I know who read this blog, I can only think of three who might see all the connections: Will, Nikchick, and Michael Rawdon. Maybe more of you will — I don’t know. (Many of you will get two of three.)

Regardless, it’s hilarious.

Here are the three geek things taking place here, in order from most obvious to least obvious:

This image is actually just one from a larger LOLTrek series that retells the entire “The Trouble with Tribbles” episode in lolcat dialect. It’s funny stuff.

101 Things in 1001 Days

A couple of weeks ago at Get Rich Slowly, I wrote about the 101 things in 1001 days project (which I learned about from dienu.com).

The Mission: Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria: Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days? Many people have created lists in the past — frequently simple goals such as new year’s resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organizing and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

Basically, participants create a list of about 100 things they want to do do in roughly the next three years. I think this is an amazing idea, with lots of potential for self-fulfillment. I drafted my list on March 25th, my 38th birthday, but it’s taken me this long to convert it to HTML. Here are the things I aim to accomplish over the next 1001 days:

List updated 31 May 2007

Health and Fitness
14 goals
1. Give up sugar for a week in progress – 3/7 days
2. Eat only home-prepared food for one month
3. Eat vegetarian for one month
4. Get cholesterol to healthy levels
5. Have a colonoscopy
6. Complete a marathon
7. Complete a 100-mile bike ride
8. Play a team sport
9. Do 100 push-ups
10. Bench-press my body weight
11. Complete a one-mile swim
12. Maintain a weight of 170 or below for six months
13. Drink only water for one month 31 May 2007
14. Give up alcohol for three months in progress – 1/3 months

Financial
10 goals
1. Pay off all non-mortgage debt (and keep it off)
2. Fully fund Roth IRA (2006) 10 Apr 07
3. Fully fund Roth IRA (2007)
4. Fully fund Roth IRA (2008)
5. Fully fund Roth IRA (2009)
6. Establish a $5000 personal emergency fund
7. Open a high-yield online savings account
8. Automate bill payments insurance done
9. Automate IRA contributions
10. Get a safety deposit box

Home and Garden
19 goals
1. Get the birds out of the workshop ceiling
2. Repair ceiling upstairs in house
3. Clean all gutters and install gutter guards
4. Finish modernizing the electrical system
5. Build a patio
6. Prune the holly trees
7. Learn how to use the chainsaw properly
8. Finish building the horseshoe pit
9. Hire somebody to paint the house
10. Open all windows that are painted shut
11. Park my car in the garage (this entails a lot of sub-steps)
12. Remove debris file from beneath the cedar
13. Add new spigots outside
14. Get a rug or carpet for the library
15. Acquire some nice office furniture
16. Create home maintenance checklist (and follow it)
17. Erect a hammock
18. Aquire a chipper
19. Set up workshop for woodworking

Personal
11 goals
1. Purge wardrobe of anything I haven’t worn in the past two years in progress
2. Get a massage
3. Learn to shave with a safety razor 15 May 2007
4. Update my address book
5. Sell record collection
6. Get rid of computer books
7. Sell CDs, keeping only hard-to-find favorites
8. Sell comic books
9. Sell board games
10. Hold a gourmet potluck in progress – date scheduled
11. Create the Indispensable Comic Strip Reprint Library in progress

Self-Improvement
7 goals
1. Take a speech-com class (Dale Carnegie?)
2. Take a drawing class
3. Take a Spanish class
4. Take a yoga class
5. Take a cooking class
6. Give a good radio interview
7. Give a good television interview

Adventure
6 goals
1. Get tickets for World Cup South Africa
2. Skydive
3. Go on a trip by myself
4. Go white-water rafting
5. Ride in a hot-air balloon
6. Learn to shoot a gun Kris beat me to this and taunts me about it

Entertainment
3 goals
1. See all Oscar-winners for Best Picture 53/79, though I want to review some
2. See all Oscar-winners for Best Documentary 5/64
3. Bowl 300 on Wii Sports

Photography
3 goals
1. Sell/publish a second photo
2. Digitize all photos
3. Sell $100 of images at iStockPhoto

Reading
5 goals
1. Read all of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past 1/7
2. Read all of Shakespeare’s plays (no matter what Kris says) 13/37
3. Read all of Dickens 5/17
4. Read all Hugo & Nebula winners in progress
5. Read all Pulitzer winners (for fiction) 7/54

Writing
8 goals
1. Compile and print a Friends Cookbook
2. Sell a short story
3. Sell a poem
4. Sell a magazine article
5. Write a book
6. Publish a book
7. Participate in National Novel Writing Month
8. Digitize all of my creative writing

Work
15 goals
1. Implement GRS forums 15 Apr 07
2. Implement GRS book section
3. Implement GRS tools and calculators section
4. Start a GRS podcast in progress
5. Complete GRS redesign
6. Complete Animal Intelligence redesign in negotiations
7. Move all old foldedspace entries to the new database in progress
8. Launch Success Daily site created — building content
9. Launch Vintage Pop
10. Launch Too Much Cat domains purchased
11. Interview Robert Kiyosaki (or host guest post)
12. Interview Dave Ramsey (or host guest post)
13. Achieve $10,000 web income in one month
14. 1,000,000 visitors in one month to GRS
15. 100,000 RSS subscribers at GRS

I’ll be the first to admit that this is an ambitious list, but I look forward to tackling each item on here. I’ve already finished a couple since I drafted this, and several more are in progress. (I should have the podcast up-and-running in the next month or so.) Some of these will take all 1001 days. Reading Proust? As much as I love him, this is a tall order!

Can you guess which goals I think are going to be most difficult to meet?

25 Minutes

Most days it takes me 28, 29, 30 minutes to drive to work. I should know. I time the trip every day. It takes me roughly ten minutes to get from our house to the middle stoplight in Oregon City; it takes another ten minutes to get from there to the first stoplight in Canby; and then it takes ten more minutes to get to the office.

On days with bad traffic, or when I hit the lights wrong, it can take as much as 32 minutes to make the drive. A good day is 27 minutes. Sometimes, in the summer, if the roads are dry and maybe there’s a holiday, I can do it in 26 minutes, but that happens maybe five or six times a year.

I have never been able to make the drive in 25 minutes, though goodness knows I’ve tried.

This morning it hadn’t even occurred to me to try for this golden goal. I wasn’t late (the usual impetus for trying such a feat), and I didn’t feel especially in a hurry. I planned to be alone with my thoughts on the drive to work.

Still, I couldn’t help but notice that the clock on the dashboard flicked from 6:33 to 6:34 just as I was pulling out of the driveway. There’s always a greater chance of a good time when the clock flips as I’m starting. (It buys me an extra thirty seconds on average, you know.)

When I made it through the middle stoplight in Oregon City at just over seven minutes (I’ve never made it in seven), thoughts of a personal best began to flit through my head. Then I made the stoplight at the tracks and the one at the top of the hill. “Whoa,” I thought. “A clean run through O.C. Eight minutes. I have a real chance here.”

My chances improved when traffic between Oregon City and Canby was light, and I had two cutters in front of me. A “cutter” is any scofflaw willing to break the speed limit, clearing the path ahead of me of any possible law enforcement. If I’m in a hurry, I try to find a cutter and then linger a quarter-mile back while he takes all the risk. With two 65mph+ cutters in front of me, things were looking great.

I made it to the stoplight in Canby at 6:51, seventeen minutes after I’d started. This is a great time (I’ve never done it in sixteen minutes), but what made it better was that the light was green. And, in a sort of miracle, so was the next one! (On average, these two lights probably stop me 1.4 times per trip.)

I took the smugglers’ run, turning off the highway and onto the side street in order to bypass the next light, but this is standard operating procedure. I have to make a left-hand turn against the flow of traffic, so if I didn’t do this, I’d be stuck waiting for a minute or more. I turned onto Ivy and crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t encounter any obstacles. I was pleased to see that the car in front of me took the school zone at 40mph (which is something that I won’t do — I stick to 30mph max). No problem there. I was even more pleased when the final light was green.

I don’t think I’ve ever made the trip without hitting a light until today. It was perfect. What’s more, I was on target for 25 minutes. It was in my grasp. That coveted target would be mine.

There was a slight snag on the Marquam highway, though. Two cars ahead the driver was following the speed limit. That’s fine. On normal days, I follow the speed limit, too. But this wasn’t a normal day. I was chasing a goal! I wanted to be free, unfettered, able to lay into the accelerator. Because the driver was traveling the speed limit, it didn’t bother me much, but I confess to getting a little antsy.

I turned onto Gribble Road at 6:58. I had less than two minutes left to realize my dream. It was doable. To my delight, there was no traffic. Here I committed the gravest driving sin of the trip, flying down the center of this narrow country road at 80mph. The clock turned 6:59 just before the Kayas’ house. I knew my work was cut out for me.

I turned onto Oglesby and floored it. Again: no traffic. I flew past the chicken farm — 6:59. I flew past Mom’s house — 6:59. I flew past the Carlsons’ — 6:59. I had it! I had it! I was going to make the trip in 25 minutes! But then, seconds before I turned into the driveway, the clock flipped to 7:00.

Alas!

My goal of making my commute in 25 minutes remains unfulfilled. I came close. A couple of little things held me back. If only I’d realized at the start of the trip that a record was possible! I could have picked up my speed on River Road. I could have stayed closer to my cutters on the highway. I could have used my secret nuclear arsenal to destroy the cars in front of me coming out of Canby…

Ah well — maybe next time.

(Note for picky readers: Yes, I realize that what I’m actually describing is an attempt to make the drive in 25:59 or less. That’s fine. My definition of 25 minutes in this case is loose, and only makes use of the starting and ending times on the dashboard clock. It’s a small intellectual conceit I allow myself.)

Amazing Video of the Moon Transiting the Sun

I’m an astronomy geek. I’ve always been an astronomy geek. But never have I seen anything as amazing as NASA’s beautiful video of the moon transiting the sun. (A transit is, essentially, the same as eclipse, except that the forward body does not fully occlude the rear body.)

Here’s an image of the transit:

But an image cannot do this justice. Do yourself a favor and watch this on video. NASA has three video sizes: small, medium, and large. Watch the large version.

If this doesn’t blow your mind, you fail to comprehend the cosmic scale involved here. This is light-years (ha!) better than any movie special effect. This is real life! That is our sun. That is what allows all life on Earth. It’s awesome.

Here’s some info from the NASA web site:

“The images have an alien quality,” notes [NASA scientist Lika] Guhathakurta. “It’s not just the strange colors of the sun. Look at the size of the Moon; it’s very odd.” When we observe a lunar transit from Earth, the Moon appears to be the same size as the sun — a coincidence that produces intoxicatingly beautiful solar eclipses. The silhouette STEREO-B saw, on the other hand, was only a fraction of the sun’s diameter. “It’s like being in the wrong solar system.”

The Moon seems small because of STEREO-B’s location. The spacecraft circles the sun in an Earth-like orbit, but it lags behind Earth by one million miles. This means STEREO-B is 4.4 times further from the Moon than we are, and so the Moon looks 4.4 times smaller.

STEREO-B has a sister ship named STEREO-A. Both are on a mission to study the sun. While STEREO-B lags behind Earth, STEREO-A orbits one million miles ahead (“B” for behind, “A” for ahead). The gap is deliberate: it allows the two spacecraft to capture offset views of the sun. Researchers can then combine the images to produce 3D stereo movies of solar storms.

Of particular interest are coronal mass ejections (CMEs), billion ton clouds of electrified gas hurled into space by explosions on the sun. “STEREO’s ability to see these clouds in 3-dimensions will revolutionize our understanding of CMEs and improve our ability to predict when they will hit Earth,” she says.

The STEREO mission is still in its early stages. The two spacecraft were launched in Oct. 2006 and reached their stations on either side of Earth in January 2007. Now it’s time for check-out and calibration. The first 3D views of solar storms are expected in April.

I can watch this video again and again. If anything is going to make believe in a god, it’s going to be something like this. Amazing. Don’t you folks be lobbying to cut my space program!

[NASA: Stereo eclipse, via kottke]

Safari: A Love/Hate Relationship

The default Macintosh browser is Safari. It’s a lovely piece of work. It’s by far my favorite browser to work with on a daily browser. But it has a problem. It’s woefully unstable. It crashes all the time, on every Mac I own. (And I have four of them.) It’s been like this since day one. This is a Bad, Bad Thing.

Because of what I do — maintain an infinite number of weblogs — I keep approximately 10-20 browser tabs open at all times. These are things about which I am currently writing, or hope to write soon. When Safari crashes, it takes those tabs with it, and there’s little hope of recovering them. (In extreme cases, I do sort through the hundreds of pages of browser history in search of a particularly important page, but mostly I just give the sites up as lost.)

For a long time, I switched to Firefox. Firefox crashes, too. But when Firefox crashes, recovery is easy. Firefox saves your “session”. That is, it remembers which tabs you had opened at crash. There is no excuse for Safari not to incorporate saved sessions. This is an easy thing to program. I could program it. Seriously. It’s basic.

There are other reasons to prefer Firefox, too, of course: extensibility, speed, etc. The thing is: Safari offers a better user experience. It’s more pleasant to use. Sites look much better in Safari. I prefer Safari to Firefox. Except…

At this point, I really have little choice but to move to Firefox. I simply cannot continue to work like this. It sucks to have a dozen prime page get flushed down the drain.

On Animals and Ego

Sparky called me tonight.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m playing Civ4,” I said. “It’s great. I’m addicted.”

“Your iChat says you’re ‘writing about money’,” he said.

“Well, I’m not. I’m procrastinating writing about money. I’ll write about money later. Right now I’m conquering the world.”

“I need you to read something I’ve written,” said Sparky. “Hang up and go to iChat.”

And so I did.

I don’t know about you, but I find this story amusing on many, many levels.

Meanwhile, upstairs Kris was watching The Music Man on videotape. Since we connected the VCR to the television, she’s used it several times to watch films we don’t have on DVD. This time, though, she wasn’t just watching — she was singing along, sometimes loudly.

Meanwhile Sparky and I chatted. We discussed socially responsible investing. And then, after an hour, our conversation evolved into something more philosophical:

5:27:50 PM radiofreewog: I can’t let my ego control my behavior
5:28:05 PM jdroth: ?
5:28:07 PM jdroth: Ego is all there is.
5:28:13 PM jdroth: :)
5:28:27 PM radiofreewog: hmmm
5:28:42 PM radiofreewog: getting beyond ego is all there is
5:29:40 PM jdroth: “getting beyond ego” is just ego.
5:29:51 PM radiofreewog: no
5:30:01 PM radiofreewog: beyond ego is selflessness
5:30:27 PM jdroth: Selflessness is just another form of selfishness.
5:30:52 PM radiofreewog: i don’t agree
5:31:03 PM jdroth: (I don’t really agree, either. I’m just stirring the pot.)
5:31:25 PM radiofreewog: there is not pot to stir, JDsan
5:31:27 PM jdroth: (But I think it’s impossible to act without ego. Minimize, maybe. But impossible to “go beyond ego”.)
5:31:38 PM radiofreewog: not impossible
5:31:42 PM radiofreewog: difficult
5:31:49 PM radiofreewog: very difficult

This is an interesting concept, and one on which Paul and I are not likely ever to agree. He has spent the last several years looking inward, striving for a sort of spiritual realize through selflessness. He and Susan spent a week (ten days?) at a silent retreat as part of this quest. It’s an admirable thing on many levels, but I’m not ready to agree that it’s possible for any human being to achieve selflessness. I really do believe that selfishness is at the core of our interest. (Though perhaps I’m defining selfishness in a way that most people would classify as “self-interest”.) The conversation continued:

5:33:44 PM radiofreewog: it is your reaction to the entry of ego that defines selflessness
5:33:57 PM radiofreewog: complete slavery to ego is the American way
5:34:32 PM radiofreewog: there are those that do not react to the ego entering the mind and control their actions rationally
5:34:49 PM jdroth: But what is “rationally”?
5:34:50 PM radiofreewog: they experience nirvana
5:34:56 PM jdroth: How is that defined?
5:35:01 PM jdroth: Who is to say what is rational?
5:35:07 PM jdroth: And why is acting egotistically bad?
5:35:26 PM jdroth: If we didn’t act in our own self-interest, we’d still be living in the trees.
[Note to weblog readers: this is a subtle joke for my own sake. In a book group years ago, some of us were decrying the role of religion in society. Jeremy, in a typical Jeremy moment, threw up his arms and cried, “Fine! Get rid of the Bible! Get rid of religion! We’ll all be living in the trees again!” This is shorthand to myself that I think of “getting rid of ego” in the same way that Jeremy tought of “getting rid of religion”.]
5:35:35 PM jdroth: ALL animals act in their own self-interest.
5:35:38 PM radiofreewog: ego keeps you from being successful
5:35:47 PM jdroth: Come to think of it, all living things of any sort do.
5:35:52 PM radiofreewog: we are not “animals”
5:35:57 PM jdroth: I’d argue that ego is the only thing that makes you succesful.
5:36:01 PM jdroth: We most certainly are!
5:36:18 PM radiofreewog: biologically true
5:36:28 PM jdroth: And rationally. :)
5:36:30 PM radiofreewog: psychologically
5:36:38 PM radiofreewog: not true
5:36:53 PM jdroth: What do you mean by psychologically not true?
5:37:16 PM radiofreewog: i am a different psychological animal than the dog

And here, of course, we reach a topic near and dear to my heart: animal intelligence. I find it curious that so many people elevate humans so far beyond other animals. I can understand when this is argued from a religious perspective. There’s a logic behind that. (Whether I agree with the logic is another matter, but at least I recognize that the belief has a source.) But if, as in Paul’s case, you’re essentially an atheist and an evolutionist, then I believe it’s quite clear that from fish to dog to human is simply a matter of degrees. If we don’t perceive the emotional needs of chickens or moose, it’s simply because we’re approaching them from a human-centered universe. (If you want selflessness, move beyond that viewpoint!)

5:38:27 PM radiofreewog: dog = maslows lowest level of needs
5:38:41 PM radiofreewog: no higher
5:38:44 PM jdroth: You don’t think a dog needs to be self-actualized?
5:38:53 PM jdroth: (Maslow.)
5:39:42 PM jdroth: I guarantee that most animals need love/belonging (level 3)
5:39:43 PM radiofreewog: a dog does not self actualize
5:39:53 PM radiofreewog: only for DNA purposes
5:39:55 PM jdroth: I know that some animals need esteem (level 4)
5:40:10 PM radiofreewog: how?
5:40:26 PM jdroth: You’re being remarkably anthro-centric, especially for Paul! (Who I don’t think of in this regard.)
5:40:32 PM radiofreewog: love and belonging are correlated with food and protection
5:40:57 PM jdroth: ?
5:41:17 PM jdroth: If you’re going to say that particular level doesn’t apply to animals, then why does it apply to humans?
5:41:36 PM radiofreewog: because we are different
5:41:40 PM radiofreewog: HA!
5:41:42 PM radiofreewog: I win

I’ll grant that I don’t have any immediate specific examples of a cat expressing creativity or confidence or desiring respect. (All of these would be examples of Maslow’s fourth level.) Or do I? Who is to say what Simon thinks and feels. Yes, I believe it’s a mistake to project our own attitudes onto animals. But as I wrote elsewhere recently, I think that’s a mistake that’s less likely to be made than to ignore the possible mental states of animals completely. Just because we don’t understand them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Subscriber Counts for All My Sites

I use — and love — a service called FeedBurner to manage the RSS feeds for my sites. FeedBurner allows me to control how my feeds are displayed, to insert ads in feeds, and to track how many subscribers I have. They offer a “chicklet” which displays how many readers a particular site has. I was opposed to this at first (I can’t remember why), but now I find it rather useful, and actually consider it a form of promotional advertising: “Look! GRS has 5000 subscribers — why don’t you subscribe, too?”

I thought it would be fun to link to the FeedBurner chicklet for my various sites. Since the numbers change daily (as subscribership rises and falls), I’ve noted the current counts in parentheses (as of 01 Feb 2007) . I’ve also jotted a few notes about each site. (By the way, you can subscribe to any of these sites by clicking on the appropriate chicklet.)

Get Rich Slowly (6784 readers) — Yes, GRS really is read by over 6000 daily subscribers right now. (And 600 people subscribe via e-mail.) I try not to think about it. It’s a little scary. GRS readership has hovered above 6500 for the past few days, but I expect it to drop to around 5000 before long. (The method FeedBurner uses to measure subscribers seems finicky, and is greatly influenced by “pick-ups” from large sites.)

foldedspace.org (330 readers) — Who are all you people? For a personal blog, this site enjoys a moderate readership. I attribute it to the wide variety of topics I discuss. But maybe people just like my cat pictures.

Money Hacks (93 readers) — The new GRS companion site already has about 100 subscribers. I just went public with the site on February 1st, though I haven’t made any sort of official “grand opening” announcement. I’m just test-driving it for now.

Four Color Comics (31 readers) — The Four Color Comics subscribers are wonderful, long-suffering folk. I’ve maybe posted ten entries there in the past six months. I do plan to post here more often, though, and to remodel the look, which I hate.

Animal Intelligence (23 readers) — This number is actually in the mid-30s on days that I post an entry. This brings up another point: the FeedBurner numbers rise and fall depending on how much is posted to a site, so I don’t think they truly reflect the number of “subscribers”, but possibly the number of feedreaders that ping a site in a day. Geeky talk, I know, but it’s stuff I think about.

Bibliophilic (11 readers) — My new book site actually has some readers already! This is going to be an odd one to gauge. Bibliophilic is going to be rather schizophrenic, home to all my various book reviews (comic book, personal finance, and otherwise), as well as thoughts on book news. The target reader is basically me, which I’m sure you’ll agree is a pretty narrow audience.

Vintage Pop (3 readers) — Who are the people subscribing to Vintage Pop? It’s not even a real weblog yet! I currently use it as a workspace to post guest entries for other sites, entries for which I need the author to approve my edits. Three subscribers? Why?

Believe it or not, I’m done adding weblogs to my little internet empire. This is about all that I can handle. Now I’d like to shepherd the ones I have and see if I can’t get them to grow.

Cannonballs and Splinters

After reading even a little nautical fiction one is impressed by the brutish qualities of life aboard ship. This is especially true during the battles at sea, during which heavy lead balls were flung across the water, hurtling into air, into ship, into rigging, and into men. One of the most memorable passages in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series occurs during just such an engagement. Captain Aubrey is on deck, giving orders, and he turns to speak to one of his men, only to find that the man’s head has just been taken off by a cannonball. Not pretty.

But one gets the impression from these tales that even more deadly than cannonballs was the shrapnel they created. These “splinters” of wood (it seems odd to call a large hunk of jagged wood a splinter, yet such is the case) were reportedly a common source of injuries.

Apparently the show Mythbusters recently attempted to answer the question, “What hurt more people, cannonballs or the splinters they made?” From what I can gather, they weren’t able to produce satisfactory splinters, which led the hosts to conclude the splinters weren’t as dangerous as many people think. (This paragraph is all based on third-hand accounts, but I think I have the gist of things correct.)

This led to a fascinating AskMetafilter question regarding cannonballs, splinters, and the Mythbuster methodology. (The thread features a response from one of the show’s hosts, Adam Savage.)

All of this is prologue, however. What this entry is really about is showing Dave and Joel and Andrew (and all my other pirate buddies) the keen Fighting Sail Exhibit page. It’s awesome, particularly for the video of cannons being fired into a reconstructed mid-section. I’ve mirrored the video here in case the original page goes away. Watch and enjoy!

[I wouldn’t have found this without Matt pointing it out]

HTML That Makes Me Proud

I know this sounds crazy, but out of all the many web pages I’ve constructed over the years, the one of which I’m most proud is the foldedspace splash page. It’s a thing of beauty: elegant, simple, and to-the-point. (I like it so much that I re-used the design to create a new Get Rich Slowly splash page.)

The site of which I’m most proud is Money Hacks, which is sort of silly since it simply uses a standard WordPress template modified to my needs. And yet there it is: that’s my favorite site that I’ve constructed.

The fact is I’m not particularly adept at HTML or CSS. I know enough to get into trouble. I’m able to work with blog templates, and to create rudimentary sites from scratch, but the last time my skills were anything close to cutting-edge was 1996. I really haven’t learned much new since 1999. (Thus my frequent claim that my HTML skills are “oh-so-very 1999”.)

But I get by.

Late Adopter

For all that I am an early adopter, I can sometimes be a little slow on the uptake.

Take instant messaging, for example. I know that this has been around for nearly a decade, and that all the young folk (heh) have been using it as a preferred mode of communication, but I’ve mostly let it pass me by. It’s only my recent exposure to the current state of video chat that has led me to even consider IM as something that might be useful.

One problem is that there are a zillion different IM protocols. Each major web player seems to have its own: Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo!, Google, Apple, etc. Some of these play nicely together. Most don’t. People tend to just choose whichever IM client is handy. They don’t base their decision on what their friends use. So, I’m learning that my friends all use different IM protocols. Fortunately I’ve found a tool for the Mac called Adium. It’s very handy in that it “talks” to all of these at once.

So, I’m experimenting with instant messaging.

Then there’s LinkedIn. Jeremy sent me an invite to this service back in Septemeber. I ignored it. Since then, I’ve received a couple more invites. I ignored them, too. But in the past couple weeks, I’ve been reading more about the site, and everyone raves about it. So I signed up.

LinkedIn looks like “MySpace for grown-ups”. It’s a social networking site in which you link with your friends and colleagues. Ostensibly, this gives everyone access to each other’s social networks in order to facilitate business and social introductions. In reality, I’m worried that it’s just a massive spam source. (Though, to be honest, I’ve received zero spam from LinkedIn since I signed up.) It’s certainly a massive advertising venue. There are Google ads on every page. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

Anyhow — I’m playing with both IM and LinkedIn. If you’re hooked up to either and want to exchange info, let me know.