A View From My (Parent's) Window

GSM-Based Context-Aware Profile Switcher

CellProfileSwitcher is a cool freeware application for Windows Mobile 5 based Pocket PCs that can perform a set of tasks like changing profile, running an application, play a sound or turn on/off Bluetooth based on your GSM LAC (Location area code) and Cell Id location. A Today home screen plug-in is shows the current GSM cell, group and the according LAC and cell ID numbers.

Here are the tasks/actions it can perform based on your GSM location:

Change profile
Change Bluetooth status
Execute a program
Vibrate (short for entering the cell, long for leaving it)
Change the home screen
Show a message
Play a wave sound
Change the phone’s wave volume
Notify Automatic Keylock (which must be installed separately)
Switch Wifi (Wifi-enabled WM5 phones only)
Enable flight mode

from (link)

My Life in 19 Seconds

Mates of State

Buy this album, you will not be disappointed:

There are only so many ways to earn your own surprise

I know we're giving up too soon
There are only so many ways to float upon the sea
It makes no difference to me

- So Many Ways by Mates of State from Bring it Back

Easy Way To Remove Folder Structure in Windows

I'm in the process of switching from CVS to SVN. I wanted to remove all the underlying "CVS" directories for my projects--I first thought to write a recursive batch file that would search and destroy all CVS folders. Frankly, however, I did not really want to spend time looking up old DOS batch commands. J. Lester and T. Scott had the idea to use Windows Search functionality (yes, I know, hard to believe it's good for something). Basically, (1) open the folder that you want to recursively delete some files/folders in, (2) then open the Search box, enter your search criteria, (3) select files and delete. It's that easy; see below:

(1) Open folder of interest

(2) Search

(3) Select and delete

UW vs. Northern Iowa

I went to Tuesday night's Husky game vs. Northern Iowa. It was a close game (both teams shot absolutely horribly); Huskies pulled away at the end thanks to a 3-point bomb by Appleby and a steal/fastbreak layup by Dentmon. We eventually won by 9.

Local Washington boy Jon Brockman is accompanied by Ryan Appleby on the regional cover of Sports Illustrated this week (below). Interesting that SI chose not to put our 7-foot McDonald's All-American Freshman, Spencer Hawes, on there. Who, by the way, was very impressive vs. Northern Iowa. He has a soft touch, good free throw shooter, and likes to shoot both left and right handed hook shots.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

You - You look a bit like coffee

And you taste a little like me

-The Skin of my Yellow Country Teeth by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

(Pitchfork Media's review of their debut album)

Frat Boys Sue Borat

You knew this was coming, CNN reports that "humiliated frat boys sue over Borat portrayal":

Two fraternity boys want to make lawsuit against "Borat" over their drunken appearance in the hit movie.

The legal action filed Thursday on their behalf claims they were duped into appearing in the spoof documentary "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," in which they made racist and sexist comments on camera.

The young men "engaged in behavior that they otherwise would not have engaged in," the lawsuit says.

This was actually one of the most painful parts of the movie for me (and there were many). I was quite disappointed with the ease in which Americans got caught up in Borat's bigotry and racism (which unbeknownst to the Americans was a joke) and ended up mirroring his prejudices with their own statements of discrimination.

Tillman's Wish Granted?

In his poignant article on the state of America and the loss of his Ranger brother in Afghanistan, Kevin Tillman calls out Americans to take action against the current administration in the White House--to hold them accountable for their dubious conduct and policies.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action.

With the results of the recent midterm elections where both the House and Senate achieved democratic majority and the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, it seems the tides of power are changing. It is my hope that the now-former Secretary of Defense (and others) will be held accountable for the illegal methods employed while prosecuting the "war on terror." A war which, in my opinion, is more like a a "war of terror" as put so eloquently by Borat Sagdiyev. On Andrew Sullivan's weblog today,

We have news of the first attempted prosecution of the defense secretary for authorizing torture. You could see this coming. At least, I did, and Bush did. The case is coherent, as I pointed out last July. Rumsfeld had better not travel abroad for a very long while; or he could be arrested. Same goes for Gonzales and the other war criminals in this administration.

POLS in Computer World

Intel Corp. has attached a privacy license to its new location-aware software product, intended to protect cell phone users’ personal information as mobile devices increasingly rely on tracking technology to provide targeted services.

So, Intel has added a privacy addendum to the Eclipse Public License it uses for the software application called Privacy Observant Location System (POLS), according to a posting on Intel's Web site by John Miller, the privacy and security policy manager of Intel's corporate technology group.

(link)

Be Jubilant: Rumsfeld Resigns

Worse than Robert McNamara? Time will tell...

(link)

Music, Proof of God?

By the time reason took over we did not speak of that July.

And by the time you lost a Mother, I had no place in your receiving line. I had no place in your receiving line.

-"Receiving Line" by Halloween, Alaska

ELM's First Birthday

Pumpkin Patch on Friday

Party on Saturday/Sunday


Como Zoo Trip on Monday

Please Vote in November

It's our only hope.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

- from After Pat's Birthday by Kevin Tillman

Radiohead, a Saving Grace

Purchased Thom Yorke's new album, The Eraser, as a musical backdrop to thesis proposal writing (iTunes Music Store was tempting me for weeks). In high school, I was a huge Radiohead fan (e.g., Pablo Honey, The Bends). OK Computer came out my sophomore year of college but I didn't really start listening to it until graduate school. Now, I'm much more into the sound they introduced in OK Computer and perfected on Kid A and Amnesiac than those rock precursors. Like the last 3 minutes of Paranoid Android, Idioteque, Like Spinning Plates, Kid A, I Might Be Wrong, Packt like Sardines in a Crushed Tin Box, create a cacophany of sounds that somehow work together to form a wonderful, haunting, ambient melody. Motion Picture Soundtrack is, I think, one of the saddest songs ever written.

PS Not a huge fan of Hail to the Theif, but hey, they can't all be the White Album.

Thesis Proposal: Status Update

In rewriting the primary "thesis" of my thesis proposal for the, ahem, third time this week, I believe I've finally struck upon something that may stick and, in the process, coined a new term.

phetadata (phe.TA.da.ta, alternate pronunciation: phay.ta.day.ta) n. The digital metadata that is generated by our everyday, physical interactions with the world. [Blend of physical and metadata.]

Thesis Proposal: Status Update

I've completed one page of goodness, two pages of mediocrity and two half-done pages of crap. Reminder: writing is an iterative process.

Hiking Mt. Dickerman (Fall Colors)

[Photo credits go to Danyel Fisher, fellow hiker and confidant]

This Life

You want the truth on this? I think he was somebody who desperately wanted to be popular and, because of that desperation, he wasn't.

-Paul, a high school friend of Jon Ronson

This American Life
6/23, Episode 314

The Office, Season 3

[weeping] Jim is gone. I miss him so much. I cry myself to sleep, oh Jim.

FALSE.

-Dwight Schrute

Google's "Add a Tab" Disappeared

I use Google Personalized homepage to keep track of some of my most read RSS feeds. They added a "tabs" feature a few weeks ago. However, now the "Add a tab" link has disappeared.

Before:
After:
Update 9/22/2006 @ 10:22AM: Aha. It turns out that Google instituted a max tab limit of 6. Someone found a hack around this limit however.

Where'd The Whiz Kids Go?

In fact, right now a UW student with a bachelor's degree in computer science can expect to make $75,000 in his or her first year. Top students are also being routinely lured with $20,000 signing bonuses — something not seen since the late 1990s. (link)

Web 2.0 (that I find useful)

• Wikispaces : free wiki hosting
• Backpack : free file, image, calendaring, todo list hosting (pages can be marked private)
  
• Farecast : airline fare predictor
  
• Zillow : real estate pricing predictor
  
• Digg : social bookmarking/linking site
  
• Google Calendar : online calendaring
• Del.icio.us : social bookmarking
  

Hiking Mount Washington, New Hampshire

Hiking Up Mount Washington








Hiking Down Mount Washington

More Free Icons

I use the Tango Icon Project in my work. I also ran across the famfamfam icon set called silk, which is a collection of 700+ free 16x16 icons.

Cognition in the Wild

"... name calling is a way of asserting one's own identity" -Edwin Hutchins

My copy of Cognition in the Wild arrived in the mail yesterday (thanks Amazon). I was struck, first, by its strange proportions. I have the paperback version and its height dimension seems abnormally long--almost textbooky. I've only read until page 17 (and skipped the introduction) but have been impressed so far. I didn't expect the narrative to be so novel-like, particulary with the suspense driven opening. The academic speak has been fairly limited to asides/digressions. At this point, Hutchins is still detailing his first impressions of the Navy as an institution and social organization, which is where I found the quote above.

Hiking Mount Pilchuck

Natural Tendency of Writing

The following strikes me as profoundly true:

It's like a law of nature, a law of aerodynamics, that anything that's written or anything that's created wants to be mediocre. The natural state of all writing is mediocrity. It's all tending toward mediocrity in the same way that all atoms are sort of dissipating out toward the expanse of the universe. - Ira Glass (host/producer of This American Life)

(link)

Waterborne Spinner Dolphins

To accompany a previous post and to highlight the beautiful aqua-green water of Hawaii.

Gates Apparently on Circumcision Promotion Tour

Google News aggregation makes for some interesting combinations of headlines. I saw this one last night and couldn't help but take a screenshot. The primary headline, "Circumcision promoted," actually has no accompanying graphic. The Bill Gates shot, shown just to the right of the "Circumcision promoted" text, is actually related to the third headline link: "AIDS Funding: Gates Steps Up as Rich Countries Step Back." However, given the proximity/layout of the Gates graphics and the Circumcision headline, it's easy to interpret that they are related.

Airborne Spinner Dolphin

Victoria, BC (Vancouver Island)