Chuggnutt!

Month: June 2004

  • Friendster goes PHP

    An item I saw yesterday but forgot to blog about: Friendster goes PHP. Pretty cool.

    Finally on Friday we launched a platform rearchitecture based on loose-coupling, web standards, and a move from JSP (via Tomcat) to PHP. The website doesn’t look much different, but hopefully we can now stop being a byword for unacceptably poky site performance.

    I haven’t had much of a chance yet to use Friendster to see if it truly is faster, so I can’t personally comment on that aspect. And predictably, this is going to bring all sorts of people out of the woodwork arguing over the relative merits of Java/JSP (which was old Friendster) versus PHP… just look at the comments on the link above to see it already happening. And while debate and disagreement can be healthy and productive, how about a quick reality check to everyone:

    PHP is good. Java is good. Both have their merits and disadvantages. Loudly complaining that [Java|PHP] is the only true way and the other is crap is boring and uninformed.

  • Oregon Trail Diaries

    Here’s a site containing links to the texts of diaries from the Oregon Trail. Interesting stuff; it would be worth collecting it and turning it into a Palm Reader ebook. (If I can find the time.)

  • Finding Invisible Men

    Totally wacky article on Kuro5hin: Using Quantum Cryptography to Find Invisible Men:

    But is it truly a myth, or do invisible men walk among us? And if an invisible man were to be created, how would we detect him and track his movements?
    …
    Invisible man detection has gone a long way, from the clumsy mob actions of a hundred years ago to the sophisticated mob actions of today. The time has come to step into the 21st century with a quantum solution to a threat you’ll never see coming.

  • Greyhound quits Bend

    As reported on Bend.com, Greyhound is leaving Central Oregon:

    It is eliminating 260 stops, leaving 99 in the 13-state region.

    In Oregon, the list of 35 communities losing Greyhound service ranges (alphabetically) from Albany to Zigzag, with Bend, Klamath Falls, La Pine, Madras, Redmond and Warm Springs among those in the middle.

    Too bad. I suppose it’s a bit odd to lament the loss of a transportation service that’s in decline and is (let’s face it) mediocre at best, but I have some fond memories of Greyhound. For instance, growing up, every year my grandparents in Portland would ship our Christmas presents in a big package via Greyhound. And they were the best presents; they always got us the cool toys and video games.

    (Strange in this day and age of UPS and FedEx everywhere that people would send packages via Greyhound, of all things, but there it is.)

    Or the time my brother, when he was still living in Portland, made a surprise trip to visit the family on his birthday. I was in on it; he made an evening call and had us pick him up at the bus station around 10:30 that same night, and then surprised everyone the next day. That was a helluva lot of fun.

    I even remember when the Greyhound station was downtown on the corner of Greenwood and Wall—when they had an actual station instead of sharing a gas station somewhere (as they’d been doing the last few years).

    Ah, well. It’s a shame.

  • Shed

    Costco Apex ShedSo I put together a Costco shed today, with help from my dad. Part of our grand plan to outfit the new house with all the bling bling, you know. It’s a nice shed, but it was a pain in the ass to get set up. Actually, the shed itself wasn’t that bad, it’s all plastic and rubbermaid-type material. The worst part was setting up a “foundation” for the thing on a slightly-sloped part of the yard that backs up to the fenceline. We found some sturdy pallets in the dumpster across the street that fit the bill, after levelling them off with cinder bricks, flat stone and two-by-four shims.

    Yeah, we did some dumpster diving. But it’s the big construction dumpster for the development we’re in, filled with lots of usable scrap wood and stuff! That makes it okay. :)

  • I’m still here!

    Yeah, I’m still here. Just haven’t found the time or energy to post much lately. So, quick one-off tonight with an interesting site: Lulu.com. Free self-publishing of books, which they will print on demand and ship to the purchaser. Sort of the CafePress of publishing.

  • Stuff

    Still continuing to settle in to the new house. This weekend we cleared out the storage unit, and it never ceases to amaze me just how much stuff we’ve managed to accumulate over the years. Of course, it doesn’t help that I’ve got a packrat personality and it’s actually hard for me to get rid of stuff. But—wow. How does this happen? You’re puttering around in your daily life, happily oblivious, then one day you turn around and BAM!—where did all this stuff come from? And yes, you remember getting that, and yes, those have a story, and then you realize the true culprit:

    Time.

    Time: you lose track of it for even a moment, and it will sneak up on you. Your kids will grow a few more inches and start school, everyone you know is suddenly older, the music you spent formative years of your life listening to is on oldies radio stations, and stuff accumulates.

    And yeah, that packrat personality I mentioned, I have that. But not too badly though, not apeshit crazy like you see on TV or read about, where the old hermit guy has 30 years of newspapers tied up in his living room, or the wacko lady has 8,000 unopened boxes of toothpicks, or anything like that. No, I’ve got it just enough to annoy my wife. Could it ever get more serious? I doubt it.

    But you know… time will tell.

  • Comic book references at the Post Office

    Since we’ve moved into a brand-new development, we don’t even have a mailbox yet so we have to go to the Post Office to pick up our mail. The location for this is their warehouse in the industrial part of town, and when you go in, there’s simply a tiny lobby and a doorway that leads to the rest of the warehouse.

    While waiting for the postal lady to retrieve my mail, I noticed a whiteboard leaning up against the wall inside the warehouse. It was a chart, and the heading at the top was, “DCU FLASH (PERFORMANCE)”. It seemed to mark down delivery times/speeds.

    Of course, any self-respecting comics geek would recognize that “DCU FLASH” refers, of course, to DC Comics‘ Flash, and is entirely appropriate for a chart about delivery speeds.

    Well, at least I thought it was kinda funny.

  • Spolsky on the Windows API

    Joel Spolsky on How Microsoft Lost the API War:

    Outside developers, who were never particularly happy with the complexity of Windows development, have defected from the Microsoft platform en-masse and are now developing for the web….

     

    Much as I hate to say it, a huge chunk of developers have long since moved to the web and refuse to move back.

    Good article. I recommend reading all of it, not just my highly selective snippets here.

  • The Move Reloaded

    Well, we’re all moved in and (relatively) comfortable. Still not feeling like blogging much—after 3 days of moving and cleaning and unpacking, and the ongoing process of more unpacking and arranging and tweaking (things like hanging curtains, and towel racks), I’m just beat. So, some quick thoughts on the moving process:

    • Smartest thing we did: hiring movers. Totally worth it. If/when we move again, it’s the only way to go.
    • Taking a day off from work was also smart.
    • Going back to work feels like a vacation.

    Ugh. More later.