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Silly Wall Street
I knew these folks didn't understand technology.
Here's a great quote:
Google Inc. said in a surprise move on Thursday that it would raise a $4 billion war chest with a new stock offering. The announcement stirred widespread speculation and anxiety in Silicon Valley that Google, the premier online search site, would move aggressively into businesses well beyond search and search-based advertising.
- The New York Times (via the Star Tribune)
Really?? Google does more than search and search-based ads? Oh wait, that's right, all their other offerings are in "beta" and don't contribute to the bottom line. Plus, if they're doing R&D on anything, it has to be search and advertising, duh!
Sometimes I wonder if people think about what they're saying before they say it. Oh well, if G4 ever came up with a comic news show, it would give them plenty of stuff to make fun of.
Get Out!
Last night while talking with a few friends we talked about what the Enemy has been doing in our life. We're starting to read a series of talks about the Devil and how to recognize him. It's interesting. (Yeah, you can call him V-v-You-Know-Who if you like.)
I was thinking about how much of my problems I attribute to the interference of Satan. I don't think I do very often. Sometimes I just say it's a bad day, sometimes I just think I'm stupid. But rarely do I think, "it's the devl interfering."
I thought about how the Enemy may be working in my life, and I've decided it's in the area of lazyness. For the past year, I've been working on stuff in my home, and it's gone kinda slow. After I got up, read my e-mail, and did a couple other things, there was only a couple minutes left in the day. It took me months to get the sites done, but none of them were that hard. It wasn't bad stuff that I was doing, but I realized that I have to be more productive with my time. Instead of spending an hour reading the latest technology news, I should be playing with the technology or doing something else more productive. So is that the devil or just me being lazy? I dunno, but I gotta do something about it now. Let's see if I can get some website work finished up this afternoon.
Brother Roger Killed
I don't know if most news sources have been picking this up, but I learned from Jon's blog that the current leader of Taizé was stabbed to death. For those who do not know, Taizé is a community in France that focuses on prayer and meditation. During my years in the St. Thomas choir, we took part in a number of prayers and songs that were based on the Taizé way, and they were great. My friends who were in choir this past year spent a couple days with the Taizé community and they also said it was amazing. It's sad that somebody would jiust come up and stab a 90-year-old man who has done so much for the worldwide church.
The Jungles of Life
Last night I watched The MIssion for the second time (the last time was at least six years ago). It's an amazing, powerful movie that nobody should miss.
One of the most amazing things for me was the powerful influence and work that the Jesuit order did in those days. It's amazing to think that the religious leaders could have such an influence on everyone. It makes me long for the day when we can join with the poorest of the neighborhoods in our cities and create vibrant life with them.
The "Christian" Problem
If you're in the Christian music business or are interested in it at all, I reccomend you look at yesterday's post by Andrew Osenga. He may ramble on a bit, but he has some great thoughts for us in the industry to ponder. And, at cMusicWeb.com, some of his points are why we believe it's not a bad thing to look at music outside of the industry sometimes. Out ther, at least, artists write about what they're really thinking and feeling. Well, I mean, if that sells albums or gets them a hit on the radio, of course.
Hmmm...
I'm having trouble thinking of stuff to talk about. I want to blog something, but nothing much is going on.
One thin it looks like I'll be doing this week is updating softwares on websites. Because of this huge XML-RPC vulnerability (and a couple other things), every piece of software is updating. I've got updates to WordPress that I installed, plus I need to update my versions of phpBB and Drupal. It's a pain, especially since almost all of those are customized in some way.
My favorite upgrade, though, was upgrading my WordPress blog administration interface to the Tiger Admin. Apple afficandos will claim it's cool because it looks like Mac OS X Tiger, But the really cool part is that it looks much cooler than the default administration area of WordPress. Plus, if you're using a less-than-capable browser (like IE), it still runs the old admin interface.
This cool interface makes me want to design something cool in CSS for my blog. It could be amazing... if I get a chance to do it.
The Major-Label Surprise Is Here!
OK, so maybe it wasn't the big surprise. But announced yeterday was The Elms announcement of being signed to Nashville-based Universal South. Also, the band will go into the studio and co-produce their album with David Bianco (Tom Petty, Rage Against The Machine, AC/DC, Black Crowes, Primal Scream). Sounds like a great position for my favorite rock 'n' roll band to be in. Let's just hope Universal doesn't keep the album in limbo for too many months. These guys are ready to dominate and I can't wait too long for new music.
Never heard of The Elms? Need to hear a couple new tunes? Check out their MySpace page.
Back In The Old Days
I've been reading up on stuff and found that, in the old days, they didn't have computers. And therefore, the mathematicians and physicists of the world needed some help. So, until the computers were easy to get, they used a slide rule. It's like those tables we used in Stats class except they're printed really small on plastic instead of in the back of a big book.
If you want to learn how to do it the hard way, you can invest in a slide rule too! Apparently these things are the real deal because they were put in their boxes almost 50 years ago. Now that's an antique!
I remember one year that Mr. Jehring and Mr. Hall were offering the relic "Slide Rule of Antioch" if you won the chess tournament, but I sure as heck didn't win.
A Crazy Fall
This fall is shaping up to be a crazy one for me. As of today, not only am I moving into a house by the University that will probably have 20 other guys in it, but I'm also starting a new job in a couple weeks.
"Wait, Dan, I thought you just got a job," you're probably saying. Yeah, you're right, I did just start a job six and a half weeks ago. But this new job is exactly what I want at this point in my life. Doing phone helpdesk stuff is still a good occupation, but what I want to do is something that closely complements my work at cMusicWeb.com.
At this new job, I will learn most if not all of the skills I need to create the next version of cMusicWeb, which will probably be called inReview. I've been trying to work on that for years, but it's been very slow in coming because of other projects and my lack of knowledge of the stuff I need to know.
Figuring it out as I go has helped me with a great many projects in the last couple years, but getting paid hourly to figure this stuff out as I go (and get some help from people who know better than me) is even better. And for the geeks, it's great to see how well this company is adhering to standards and still making amazing-looking product. I can't wait to get in there and look at the code.
So am I excited? Heck yeah. Do I feel a bit guilty of leaving my old job barely even before I got settled in? Yeah, a bit, but when an offer like this comes up, you don't just say "No, I don't want to have a great career now."
Idiot Politicians!
According to news sources such as this one, President Bush is supposed to sign an "energy" bill that makes Daylight Savings Time longer. The argument is that if there's more daylight during the evening then we won't use as much electricity. Of course, nobody's talking about the fact that we won't want to get out of bed becasue it's still dark out at 8:30.
Cany anybody stop these insane politicians? As the story claims, it's going to mean as much temp work for programmers as Y2K was, just because nobody was expecting to have to change the daylight savings settings. (And, I might add, I don't think programmers want to do it even if it gives them a chunk of money.) In my mind, changing daylight savings time so that it's a month longer is just a waste. It's fine how it is, darn it!
EDIT: Darn them, I just knew they'd do it! And the word is they have, sadly.