"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"
- Barbara Bush, 3/18/03

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a few days ago, my laptop’s power cord started shooting out sparks. scary! after three years, the cord had been tripped over countless times, yanked out of the laptop dozens of times, and so on. it was not looking pretty, but i was not expecting the sparks – i’ve been so careful the last few months.

anyhow, went to the nearest apple store and i gotta say i’m not happy. not only do they not carry the old powercords, but there’s none to be found in all of l.a. county, they said. so, i went online to apple’s website to order one, and the soonest they can get it to me would be in 3-4 weeks. ridiculous! makes me very angry.

online again i went, and found this, for less than half the price of the apple version. with 2 day shipping, it’ll be here on wednesday at the latest. good reviews can be found as well, though i won’t be completely sure until it arrives, of course.

i’m really disappointed in apple, and looking at the 1,077 reviews for the old powercord, it seems there are many many of us out there. bad design, horrible shipping wait, not to mention expensive price equals a lot of unhappy people.

ok, end of rant. i’ll be back in a few days ~ ~ things have been miraculously good and real and all the things you hope for, but i’m cautious and trying to not jinx things or fall into complete dreams. hope your first day of october goes beautifully.

update: it arrived in record time and works like a dream. yay ;)

comment [4]

posted 1 October 06 & filed under cranky, techno-babble

horse-crazy

“Comanche is a 10 year old, 15 hand Appaloosa gelding. He is 15 hands. He spent a year trail riding through Will Rogers park before coming to Mill Creek in 2000.”

i kept smiling after today’s riding lesson – my first in over fourteen years(!), the first of six in the next two months – and just felt so serene and happy. it went great. i’m such an idiot for not having taken recreation classes at ucla this whole time, though now that i type that i realize, hello! i had an almost full time job. hm.

anyhow, that was very very fun. i have some theories about horsebackriding and life patterns and healing childhood hurts and all that, but it’ll wait. ;) next time, i gotta remember to break out the camera before the class is over. comanche looks a bit droopy here, but i think he’s just sad the little kid with the bucket full of apples went away.

interesting fact: my old riding boots from when i was fourteen still fit but my old riding hat does not, i.e. my feet have not grown, but my head has. ha!

~ priscilla gibson-roberts is coming out with a new spinning book! she, of knitting in the old way-fame, is such a great writer and i’m thinking this book will be of use to all who spin, on spindles or on wheels. i know her other spinning book is highly regarded by some very good spinners already. [via deb]

~ bolivia and knits: now that the new bolivian president is visiting other heads of state, is he changing the way he dresses? no way. yay bolivia. [via francesca]

~ in more dyeing education, here’s a treat: a step-by-step image-plentiful tutorial on painting rovings from a workshop taught by deb menz.. (also check out the fun online spinning game ;0 )

~ i’ve been going over wikpedia’s spinning entries, editing and adding stuff, and found this great link: spin me a yarn – spinning folklore from ballads, tales, myths and rhymes.
skype!

~ a while back, i signed up for skype but promptly lost my login info. so, second try, here it is: if you’ve got skype too, click on the image and give me a call. ;) the connection sounds even clearer than it did when i tried it a year ago, incredible. i helped my dad today set it up in maryland on his new laptop, and it felt great. voip should be the new w00t!

~ wanting to felt, needing to felt. isn’t this bag adorable? love the color choices, too.

~ i love the neckline on the latest knitting fog pattern!

~ and last but not least, pom it is! thanks.

ciao ~

comment [4]

posted 22 January 06 & filed under horsey, techno-babble

hey, it's monday!

in other words, some random thoughts:

i got raindrunk this weekend. never heard of that kind of drunk? well, it’s one that only afflicts ex-east coasters living in southern california. saturday night it rained, just twenty minutes of heavy rain, and i was all grinning and sighing. for those of you having days upon days of rain, i probably sound a tad bizarre, but really, you gotta experience at least five so. cal. summers and then you’ll get it ( i wasn’t like this last year.. but, no, i guess i’ve always been a bit of a rain freak. i used to love to swim in the rain. and i still always love jumping in puddles. hey, i’m a pisces, what can i say.)

after almost four years of carting around a soap-making kit, for some reason this morning i just put down the book i was reading, walked over to a clost, and pulled out that kit. two hours later, i had soap. or rather, something that promises to be soap but for now is highly caustic and poisonous(!). since it was my first batch of soap ever, i thought, what the heck, and added in some cornmeal (for exfoliating purposes) and attempted to add some color by marblizing the soap with some nutmeg-color. we’ll see what comes out – after saponification, the soap needs to cure for at least three weeks. (and then i got lost in soap window shopping ;) )

which is worse: talking to oneself on-and-off for hours or not talking for hours and then be totally startled to hear sound come out of your mouth?

i’ve been cooking a lot recently ~ i forgot how much i love trying out new recipes so it’s been really nice just going all into it again. i was in a very cheese mood yesterday so i made moosewood’s apple cheese gratin. it was good, but definitely would be better with some kind of bottom to it, like a cornmeal crust. still, gruyere and apples can never be anything but pretty delicious. ;) then, tonight i made some delicious cornmeal muffins. i also want to make some cookies tonight for a bake sale at school on tuesday, more cooking!

in spinning news, a fellow l.a. guild member is starting a knitty-for-spinners: Spindlicity! the first issue will be out in december, yay.

a few weeks ago, i installed tiger, the newest operating system from apple and i’m having a lot of fun with it. of course, the widgets, oh the widgets! here is my fav, a basic 5 day forecast. aren’t the images so pretty! and see what monday’s prediction is? (i love how as the weekend passed, the prediction got decidedly more rainy.) yay ~ bring out the umbrellas and moody music. excellent.

comment [7]

posted 16 October 05 & filed under lots of links, techno-babble

a big old favor

update: thank you so much! i got a dozen responses in less than 24 hours – i appreciate it so much. make sure those of you who responded get your addresses to me so i can send off a little thank you this weekend ;) i knew it before but now i know it even better: knitters rock.

hello there ~ first off, the favor request, and then a little catch up..

as it’s my last week of the quarter, i have final papers due and it’s been crazy. for one of my classes (“Archival Access & Description”), we had the option of writing a 20 page ‘literature review’ on archival theory (yikes) or conducting usability tests for some archive’s website and writing up recommendations on how to make it more accessible. of course i jumped at the usability test – i’m hopefully taking an information architecture class this summer (it looks so very excellent, i love that stuff) so this would be a perfect segue.

now here is where you come in. i only need about 5 to 10 people to participate in the test, and it’s online, and should take only five to ten minutes max. here’s the bait: the first ten people who do the test, leave me a comment here telling me you did it and i’ll send you some yarn. yes, i’m bribing you with yarn – will it work? (by the way, if you’re not a knitter, you should start right now! no, i’m kidding, really, just tell me and i’ll send something just as good, promise.) i need to get the paper in by this tuesday so i really need the usability tests to be completed by sunday, that’s four days. are you up for it, folks? i’ll be so grateful, thanks so much.

here’s the link: usability test. (p.s. you don’t have to use your real name, and of course, any info submitted is totally confidential and i’ll not share it with a soul, except for my teacher. there’s nothing super-secret there, but just so ya know.)

now some ketchup.. (groan). after my recent knitting mania, i haven’t done much in the past four days or so, just a lot of reading and sleeping and constant work-to-school-to-work commuting and hecticness. it’s slowing down but this is the final stretch, can’t wait till it’s over. orangina pics have been postponed till next week, which is frustrating but realistic. also, my beloved powerbook was sent off yesterday and already arrived today at apple headquarters – so yup, i’m offline at home. it sucks just like you would imagine and really, it feels surreal. i was reading a great book last night and i kept getting the urge to see what amanda was up to, had winnie posted any more fabulous knits, see lolly’s pretty wedding pics again, has bloglines updated (up to 111 feeds! must. stop.), oh i must respond to meowgirl’s incredibly sweet email, etc etc.. but then i’d remember ‘oh. no internet.’ and i’d feel all woozy and kinda silly.

a friend shamed me for not adding this when i was bemoaning my mac problems last week: i’ve been using my powerbook for over two years and it has been nothing but sweet happiness for almost the entire two years. if not 100% sweet happiness, then 98%. really. and if applecare is as good as i think it is, i’ll go back to years of sweet happiness – and, more importantly, my days of fiddling with pcs is over (except at work, ah well) because macs rule .

comment [13]

posted 9 June 05 & filed under school, techno-babble

more like "half a skein wonder"

hey there on this lovely saturday. the sun’s shining, the wind’s blowing .. and me? i’m stuck on the phone with apple all morning. it’s all good though, or rather there’s good news and there’s bad news but the good ultimately prevails – or at least i hope so.

don’t feel too sorry for me though because movies? nah. talking to people? nah. the best best way to knit is while waiting on the phone – especially, waiting for an apple rep. you get groovy music, some muzak, some techno, and some moody obscure classic rock, plus every two minutes or so a manbot jollily tells you everyone’s busy and you just gotta wait some more. in all that waiting i started and finished a lovely new bit of knit. but first, some tech progress reports.

here’s how it went:

here’s the ultimate good news i promised: this morning, i call apple, chat for a bit, and just like that they’re sending me a pre-paid box and i’m going to send my computer to them and that’s it, they’ll send me back my laptop with a brand new hard drive and hopefully other new goodies. and it’s all for free – or rather, covered under the applecare warrenty, which i oh-so-highly recommend.

until the box arrives though, and i’m rendered laptopless (hee), my camera is being recognized by this otherwise cracked hard drive.. hence the photos. once again, cotton tots to the rescue – i love love this yarn. so soft, so cheap, so purty. and stefanie’s pattern? instant gratification at its best, perfect for a frustrating friday night and saturday morning. really, i wrote it took half a skein, but it might instead be more like a third of a skein, it’s amazing. and my first time knitting with my denises, they’re awesome.. overall, i’m loving this shrug, as do many others – and, i agree with erika, it’s like an all-day hug.

in the pics, the observant will notice: heidi’s gift on the wall, trouble sitting pretty, no pics of my head because my hair was a tad (read: a lot) frizzy and rat-nesty looking, the brand new free weights that are kicking my arms into shape (who knew three pound could be so heavy!) and my lovely new external hard drive (160 gigs, w00t!) that has my backupped stuff all safe. oh jeez. knock on wood for me, will ya?

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posted 4 June 05 & filed under knitting, techno-babble

you can take the girl out of the country, but..

hello there ~ it really sucks not to have my digital camera working right now – i finished orangina, but still have to block it, i recieved my backtack supplies, i messed up my itstybitsy bag, and my hair is now very very blonde. all of that you’re just going to have to believe me about for now.

really, it’s not my camera that’s giving me problems, it’s my beloved mac. (gasp!) it’s very sad really. i was told i have to backup all my stuff and do a clean install of the whole operating system. ay. i think it’s due to the incredible amounts of dvd “back ups” i’ve been doing lately as well as my torrent activities – that’s a whole lot of gigs just moving around constantly. ah well, i knew the smarter way was to have an external hard drive for that stuff, but did i listen to myself? no, of course not. (i have these types of arguments in my head all the time, sigh) in the meantime, my computer is slooooww as molassas and doesn’t recognize my camera in the least bit.

so, with no pics to post, i thought i’d finally get around to changing the background image – and i know, i know, i’m obviously all about trees, i can’t help it! i love them, and since moving to l.a. i see them so rarely like in these photos. more often i see them surrounded by pavement and, willfully, pushing it all aside and growing beyond and through the sidewalks. i love that but i love even more real wild trees like these here. this pic reminds me of my grandparent’s farm – in the back, off to one side, where the garden ended, they have trees like these and during easter this is where we’d hunt for eggs and chocolate bunnies. right now, the farm is in the midst of change – my grandmother passed away almost two years ago and this summer, for the first time in over fifty years, the house will be rented out and someone with a different last name than hull will be living there. i’m glad it will be used, it’s always been a working farm, but it’s sad to think of all my grandparent’s things and life and ah, all of that, just not being there, just gone.

ok, enough sadness. the whole point is i changed pics and i’m going to try and change them a little more often, maybe even once a month. the trick is finding clear crisp images like this one that are also enormous, like 1200 pixels wide. oh and they have to be free too. i tried to find more exciting pics, like ones underwater or of the galaxy and even ones with funny animals (but not too cutesy), but it’s amazingly hard. also, for some reason, i found lots and lots of great autumn and winter ones – maybe it’s the drama of the season that attracts photographers? – but summer time is a little harder if you’re looking for beauty and not hokeyness.

also, i changed the past page around a lot – it should be easier to navigate. and i resolved an annoying issue with dratted internet explorer in windows xp and so this page should finally be showing up correctly. but please, really folks, for the love of kittens, go and get firefox already!

p.s. thanks for all your very super nice comments about my tank, yay! however, i’m thinking of giving it to one of my sisters, or a cousin, because as much as i like it, when i wear it, i’m just not feelin’ it, you know? it’s all good though because i know whoever gets it will love it (or else!!)

comment [7]

posted 2 June 05 & filed under knitting, techno-babble

techie tuesday

i just read that microsoft plans to unveil internet explorer 7 sometime soon, which comes as a surprise to many as it was stated a while back that the next version would come packaged with the next operating system, right now snazzily called ‘longhorn’. internet explorer 6 was released in 2001, and due to so many bugs and limitations, as well as the explosion of other better browsers (go firefox!), has been losing an unprecedented number of users for months now, which is incredible. and long overdue. as a direct result of this loss, have no doubt, microsoft is bringing out ie7 wayyy earlier than originally planned.

also, rss is changing. bascially there are three different ways of syndicating web content: atom, rss 1.0, and rss 2.0. well, work is underway to get rss 1.0 updated to rss 1.1. what does this matter to you? at best, nothing – it will just affect users of rss 1.0 and, with a five years gap since 1.0 was set up, this update addresses many of the problems with 1.0 which is definitely good news for 1.0 users. at worst, however, this change will just create more confusion about which rss is the ‘right’ one (i.e. trying to figure out which feed is accepted by your aggregator and/or the most aggregators) and slow down the acceptance rate of rss in general, which is a darn shame.

if you’re at all interested in where blogs are going, check out this incredibly detailed and thoughtfully analyzed report on blogs.

and lastly, i’m loving my intro to IT class – today we learned about scripting languages, object-oriented programming and programming languages in general (systems librarianship, here i come! maybe.) and also a new/old way of doing multiplication – very cool! ha, such a nerd.

(i too am starting to run out of creative ways to title my posts—i’m leaning towards making the titles fairly random, with little to no relevance to actual content. it’ll probably be bizarre, but i like surrealism.)

comment [2]

posted 15 February 05 & filed under techno-babble

yikes

one thing about displaying more than a post at a time : it’s really easy to just give in to the urge to post more than once a day. before, i would think to myself ‘hold on to that idea for one day more because if not practically no one will ever see today’s earlier post’. now though, huh, i’m already thinking about extending the display to 5 posts at a time. woah, there, andrea.

anyhow, site re-design? more like site overhaul! check it out.. (and tell me if there’s any problems, once again, my nice web design guinea pigs!)

also, i did the sillyingly-unthinkable tonight: i deleted all my bloglines feeds. yup, the big d-word. i hadn’t even looked at my bloglines feeds in months and, as much as i enjoy some of those sites i subscribed to, i wasn’t in the mood to go through, in some cases, 200 posts for one site alone. so, delete delete i went. (it was fun.) and then, i added a bunch back in but decided that my number of feeds could not exceed the number of years i’ve been alive. (feels kinda similar to nancy pearl’s famous rule of 50.)

anyway, as a result, i’ve also come to three important conclusions regarding bloglines: i will mix up my feeds pretty regularly just so i don’t get stale on it all (once again) and i will use it primarily to see when new posts are, er, posted so that i can see the post in its own individualized and (usually) lovely design/colors/accompanying images/etc and i will try and find at least one blog covering my varying interests, including knitting, books, midwifery, web design & web standards, arts & crafts, children’s literature, and bolivia. so, with all that, here’s my list of feeds.

also tech-related (though mostly greed-related), i’m setting up a powell’s wish list, in anticipation of secretpal 4 gearing up. don’t worry, secret pal, if you’re reading this, i’m mostly going to use this to daydream about money as well as occasionally send to my family hopefully just when they are feeling quilty about me being so all-alone-in-los-angeles.

oh, that tammy sweater? still drying (it’s been four days now!) and that class i skipped a few weeks ago? i ended up dropping it last week, so that means not only am i only (!) taking two classes this quarter, i also have friday mornings off. thank goodness, i could really use the sleep. ok, that’s it from me ~ hope your friday is a happy one!

update: i will try not to write so much in the future, such long posts are awfully demanding, i know, but had to add that waking up to a cat peeing on your comforter while you’re still sleeping in it can make your fridays just suck. especially when said comforter is brand new and just thinking about its fluffy softness while at work would make me grin like a fool. my normally sweet and beloved trouble is, needless to say, in the doghouse.

comment [2]

posted 28 January 05 & filed under cranky, techno-babble

phone home

hello and happy friday ~

in an attempt to save some money, i’ve been thinking about dropping my landline (so weird to call it that; i never even knew that term existed till cell phones came along) and getting a cell phone. i use the phone maybe six hours a month on a regular basis, tops. and all those phone calls are to maybe five or six different people. but i still pay over $25 a month for my landline ~ on top of that, my number used to belong to a scamming water heater business and a couple of very in debt people so i get lots of hang ups, creditors, and angry water heater customers calling at all hours of the day. very annoying. a prepaid cell phone, on the other hand, would cost like $60 for the phone itself and then roughly $20 every three months. much better.

one definite problem is that you usually can’t get dsl (much less dial-up) without a phone line (that idea will be ridiculous in a couple of years, i predict) ~ but speakeasy.net, an isp i’ve heard good things about, can somehow get me dsl without a phone line for about the same price i’m paying to earthlink now. excellent.

but then today, i find this: skype.com. get ready, this is pretty amazing stuff: it allows you to call people over your computer. for free. can’t believe i’m quoting michael powell, chairman of the fcc, but here it is: “I knew it was over when I downloaded Skype. When the inventors of KaZaA are distributing for free a little program that you can use to talk to anybody else, and the quality is fantastic, and it’s free – it’s over. The world will change now inevitably.” (fortune magazine, 2/16/04) check out this nytimes article about it (posted on slashdot).

first of all, the application itself is free. then, it’s a great example of p2p that is legal. using skype, i can only call those who have downloaded skype on their computers too, but since i only call a handfull of people, i think i can convince them to do that. besides, there’s also skypeout which allows me to call people on their regular landlines and cellphones from my computer. skypeout costs something, but it looks to be about 2 cents a minute. wait: 2 cents a minute!? and, according to their rates page, i can not only call anywone in the US for 2 cents a minute, but also anyone in Italy, Mexico, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and more at that same 2 cents a minute rate. hmm. sounds too good to be true, but i will test it out this very evening and report back, promise.

the only problem now is calling 911. i don’t think skype would work for that and though i’ve never called 911 (except that time when i was 10 and i called 911 from the bathroom at a chichi’s restaurant because i was bored ~ as soon as the operator picked up, i hung up, adrenalin racing. but then the 911 dispatcher person called back and once she realized there was no emergency, she gave me a long lecture about the evils that can be caused by crank calling 911. funny now, but i was pretty freaked out then.) ..anyhow, though i’ve never called 911, if i don’t have it if/when i do need it, i’ll be pretty pissed off (or dead. yikes). so, more thinking, more research.

(oh, note to savvy techie self: more p2p info here. and drm articles here and here.don’t forget web 2.0 bloging. also think about “In the future, peer-to-peer may be the norm, and we may look back at today’s client-server systems as some sort of weird, unreliable, transitory technology.”)

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posted 8 October 04 & filed under busy bee, techno-babble

odds & ends

update: ever since the debate last night, i’ve been getting hits from people looking for a bit torrent of the presidential debates, since this post here talks about both, though for different reasons. anyways, if you’re one of those people, here’s what you’re looking for: http://www.lokitorrent.com/torrents-details.php?id=31968 [from lessig blog; you need to login to lokitorrent, but it’s free]

hi there, it’s a sleepy morning on a computer with a squeaky space bar and dreams of cockroaches and unidentifiable long-legged insects. and last night, arriving late at my apartment and finding no legal parking spot after a good ten minute search, i parked in a not-very-good-spot definitely-in-the-red-but-it’ll-have-to-do and set my alarm clock for seven in the morning so that i could move the car before the meter people started working and could give me a ticket. so, after that very long sentence, you can guess this part: i got the ticket anyway, timestamped at 6:16 in the morning. argh! sixty-five bucks down the drain. .....ok, moving on. coming up: techie, library and then presidential stuff.

techie stuff first:

i installed this handy little program called shortstat on my site for better tracking capabilities, since lunarpages doesn’t believe in awstats, which i used to have and was thus spoiled to ever be able to use webalizer again and since textpattern’s logging pages, although satisfying on an individual basis, doesn’t give me an overall view of the month, much less week’s stats. i also tweaked the script a bit thanks to nomadig (here, too) and thewatchmakerproject , as well as hicks on using shortstat with textpattern. give it a gander. i especially like the country box, very fun.

oh, and i’m discovering the joys (and headaches) of bit torrent.

hopefully not related, i got my first mac virus this weekend. i was typing and all of a sudden the screen had a few lines of black at the top with all this gobbledy text and then haltingly my entire desktop started moving down off the screen leaving a black nothing at the top. freaked out, i flipped the laptop over, unplugged it from the power and popped out the battery. then i immediately installed norton’s systemworks while bemoaning my loss of mac-smugness. seems like nothing got deleted or messed with and now i have weekly updates, etc. with norton. eek.

library stuff:

i think this might be the quarter of Alluring Public Librarianship. not only will i be not taking a single informatics or archives class, but two out of three classes are strictly involving the (gasp) masses that use the library. not only that, but the calif. library assoc.’s annual conference is looking mighty spiffy, with not only the esteemable walt crawford of cites & insights fame but also the mysterious lemony snickett. so how can i not go?! and the workshops are deliciously not archives at all: ‘bilingual storytime? me?’, ‘setting up your library’s blog’ (they better mention blogwithoutalibrary.net or i will), ‘has the dmca left us any fair use issues? can libraries be liable for file sharing’, ‘dragons, deed, and daring deeds @ your library’, etc etc. the mad librarian has come up with a list of helpful hints for the newbie conference goes (well, it was created for ala, but i’m sure some of it applies to cla as well).

for my kid’s lit class (which i’m getting more and more excited about), we have to read harry potter. (book one, i believe). now, that’s exactly why being a librarian appealed to me when i was ten or so. and, it still does.

presidential stuff:

the presidential debate agreement (pdf) between bush and kerry states:

(*too funny: “each candidate must submit to the staff of the commission prior to the debate all such paper and any pens or pencils” – reminds me of taking the sat in high school, to make sure we weren’t cheating. ha.)

comment [1]

posted 29 September 04 & filed under cranky, techno-babble

super sunday

hi there ~ sunday night and all’s well. to sum up: today has been a good day, full of computer learning, library perusing and web browsing; i just ate a very good tamale with burnt cheese (the crispier the better, i say); and the air is beautifully crisp.

also, although i was curious about audio books, i ended up not getting any from the library: it was too hard to find the right book. i figured i didn’t want to get a book i knew i’d like, because i’d rather read it myself. but i didn’t want to get a book i wasn’t interested in, because .. well, that’s self-explanatory. so i had to choose a book that i was so-so interested in, that normally i would bypass but then think about somewhat regretfully later, trying to remember the name. but since it would have been my first audio book, i wanted to make sure it was a good experience, which means ideally a really good book. so silly, i know. afterwards, i was kinda relieved because i was also worried i wouldn’t like the reader’s voice, or the way they triumphantly/calmly/angrily/etc read a certain passage, or (the horror) maybe there would be really cheesy background music. so that was that, no audio book was chosen.

in other news, i got a gmail invite (yay) but i have to choose a name. of course, andrea at gmail is gone (lucky girl whoever you are). so i’ve been racking my brain trying to find something clever. or adult without being boring. i already have lots of email accounts, as i’m sure do most people using the internet on any kind of regular basis. in fact, i have five: one for ucla, one for work, one at this site, and two from hotmail. then i also have the forever-forwarding from my old college account. i hate having to keep track of all of them and i’ve been trying to get rid of the hotmail accounts but weaning my family in particular has been difficult. so, a sixth email account? but it’s gmail.. yes, i’ve bought the hype. (btw, a big problem with gmail, as i understand it, is that there isn’t POP3 or IMAP capabilities so i won’t be able to use mail.app or thunderbird to check, but there is the very handy gmail extension for firefox that tells me what i get new mail.)

so that’s all for now ~ awfully self-involved, huh? .. as you can see, i’ve been faced with some serious dilemmas today. all i can say is.. thank goodness! i don’t want to be a drama queen or a moping perpetually-sad wallflower. so, yay to the little controversies and quandries, i much prefer them.

p.s. i’ve been thinking about just being openly bloggy and listing more than one post at a time on this index page but when i did i realized immediately it was a no go. why? because it was embarrassingly obvious when viewing post after post after post that i write too much. my posts are tremendously long, especially when compared to most other blogs. so, thank you, dear reader, you are (literally) one in a billion.

comment [2]

posted 26 September 04 & filed under books, techno-babble

linkin' log

another reason to love wikipedia: its current events page. it lists month-by-month events that happened around the world (though largely concerning the u.s.) with tons of links to entries in wikipedia and elsewhere. also, there’s a column on the right that lists deaths that month, ongoing events, ongoing armed conflicts, upcoming events, upcoming elections, upcoming trials, and more. and for those who care, there’s even a current sports events page.

getting in the spirit of things (that is, things mlis-related): here’s two three library blogs i just stumbled across and like.. technobiblio and creative librarian, & library dust. then there’s these sites i always want to get into but are so techno-intimidating, i haven’t yet: /usr/lib/info and oss4lib. also, i want to get back in the habit of reading the library autonomous zone, library juice and copyfight. of course, you’re right, summertime would have been the perfect time to do all the reading this list implies. sigh.

the save betamax call-in day of action was tuesday and today’s friday, so i’m a bit late, but the issue is still important and the site is still crammed full of info. the induce act would “hold technology companies liable for manufacturing products that encourage people to infringe copyright” (from wired). this would include technologies like mp3 players and tivo, and possibly also weirder stuff like player pianos, individualized photo stamps (man! i know some folks that will flip about this little product, ahem daniella), and ringtone remixers. (from hatch’s hit list). here’s how libraries enter into the fight against the induce act.

i just got apple’s airtune express, so i’ll be wireless in my apartment soon, yay! just found out about this hack which makes it possible to stream music using software that is not made by apple. it’s brought to you by the same guy that famouly broke the dvd encryption a while back, jon johanson.

i have big plans for my apartment, once i get the cashage (as my sisters call it) up and running (when oh when?!): after setting up a wireless network, i plan to get isight so i can see my loved ones as i talk with them over instant messaging. i’d love to get voice over ip, but i don’t know if i can justify it since i don’t talk on the phone that much anymore (but if i did, i’d go with vonage.com) . also, i’d like to get rid of my stereo (right now, for sale on craiglist.org), my tv (and watch tv instead on my computer), and almost all of my cds. of course, i’ll keep the records and record player just cause they’re fun to break out with once in a while. plus i think my cats like to watch the records going round and round. ideally, i’d also get rid of my dsl account with earthlink and switch to one that doesn’t require a landline (like speakeasy’s onelink). and then i’d get a prepaid cellphone for home use only (i.e. do not give out at work and do not take out of apartment). ah. that would all be so nice. also, a scanner would be handy.

i can’t decide which font size is right for the posts. on my mac, this 12 font size is very clean and legible looking but on my dinky old pc at work it’s teeny and fuzzy looking. and the underlines under the links annoyingly crowd the words in the lines below. anyhow, it’s bothering me so expect some tinkering. other than that, i must say, over a month into this whole cms experiment, i am loving textpattern. i have lots of design control, plus all these plugins and a very pretty admin interface.

oh i’m so technology-oriented today, i like that. i like knitting a bunch, and we all know i like to complain and write about sad things, but i also like geeky things like computers and the information superhighway and all. so i’m glad to see this post. (as well as yesterday’s, though upon reflection it might not be the smarted post i’ve ever written. for now, it stands.)

p.s. and just to throw this whole post into confusion, i literally lust after every single one of seeds-of-reverie’s knitted items. they are gorgeous eye candy.

comment

posted 17 September 04 & filed under lots of links, techno-babble

so tired

hello~

tomorrow i’m going to a computer-geek meeting so early for a saturday morning but it should be fun anyhow, all about php. and then vacya and i are going to get out some movies, including/at least american splendor. also, since my vaccuum died out on me (it hadn’t been working ok since i lived on scott ave…. sigh), i think i’ll buy a little hand-held one for the nooks and crannies in my floorboards. thanks goodness no carpets!

today was a good day. but i’m so tired! it’s been a really nice night, just watching some tv and laughing with vacya. and then i finished reading this good book while vacya played this great list of music from our itunes/acquisition stash. so nice!

the other day i put up on the index page a preview for an upcoming documentary, the corporation. i don’t like having proprietary stuff (i.e. quicktime) on this site but it’s hard to find open-source movie-viewing programs. or am i wrong? if you have a dial-up connection or don’t have quicktime, then ok. but if neither of those two apply to you, then please check out
this incredible preview to a new documentary called ‘the corporation’.

last night i was trying to find an old picture book that vacya loved when he was little. after a good 30 minutes of frustrated trying, i decided to give the los angeles public library’s ‘ask a librarian’ thing a chance. wow! i was so impressed! and at the same time really stoked and proud to be joining this cool profession. although i got cut off from the librarian before she could find it for me (due to my opening other tabs in my browser, i think, while i was waiting for her to find it), it was so cool to watch as she took over my browser and made it go to different sties and search for different items. really cool and highly recommended.

one thing she showed me that i kinda already knew about was the site lii.org, which is a librarian-recommended directory of good research tools. she took me to this one site called the international children’s digital library. not only do they have books from all around the world (though only a few in number..) but the books are totally scanned in and are, for the most apart, visually beautiful. the picture on this page is from the fairy tale “east o’ the sun, west o’ the moon”.

oh i love the weekend!

~andrea

speak

posted 20 February 04 & filed under techno-babble

new laptop!

hello!

got my new laptop today- yay! it’s an apple and so i was little wary at first since i’ve been using pcs since my mac se ten years ago… but it’s fabulous and the ipod-thing is just too good to be true.

work is going good- i’m going down to 30 hours starting monday but with a significant raise at the same time so i shouldn’t be losing any money, just working less hours (maybe even making more money)!

today was the first day of grad school—of course i had to be late to class, only by 3 or 4 minutes, but class was fully underway when i walked in. oh and packed! i think the room capacity is about 45 people and that’s how many are in the class. also the format was a bit of a shock- though i understand in the future it won’t be 3 1/2 hours of solid lecture. ay! however, the prof seems interested and serious in us really learning, so that’s cool.

i feel a little overwhelmed right now – school, work, new gadgets, and of course there’s always more. there’s still my car alarm that needs fixing, i need a bed asap, i need to cull my clothing collection, need to put up bookshelves, oh and more more. ... i’m really excited about school but just feeling like i need time and space to think and adjust. my last semester at bryn mawr was hellish, except for dancing & pubbing with katie!, and i’m a tad worried that that whole ‘time management’-thing won’t work this time either. but! i think i can do this. i just need no major drama and long-term thinking.

i’ve been feeling pretty nostalgic recently- missing everyone, especially family. the holidays are coming up but it’s hard to go home with work in the way. .. i need to eat more fruit. i need to do some exercising. i need to do a lot of reading..!

october 21st i’m going to see lawrence lessig debate at usc with a former riaa executive. should be cool. and hopefully with such an excellent computer and connection (dsl! yay) this page should be moving along much much faster..

bye, andrea

speak

posted 25 September 03 & filed under school, techno-babble

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