Some people like to say that I'm tough to shop for but I always disagree, saying that when all else fails, books are welcome. And so, I receive my fair share of book store gift certificates for Christmas, birthdays, etc. This year was no different. The office is closed this week so I've had a little extra time. I've already used most of my certificates and this is what I've taken home.
Note that I'm too lazy to look up the Amazon link. Hmmm, perhaps I should add a little something to Jericho to look up a book and create the necessary link. But enough of my development plans, here are the books:
It would be very difficult not to see the type of books I enjoy. I really like reading essays and I'm not 100% sure why. Part of it, I think, is that they are self-contained and generally, not too long. For a husband, father of two, workaholic, that's something great.
I've created a new book category for this and I'm hoping to give little reviews of what I read this year. It's one of my resolutions.
I changed the title of the blog again. A few days ago, I made it The Xebec Life which has various meanings which I'm not going to go into now. Currently, the title is 106 Miles to Chicago. That's the start of a great quote from a great Chicago movie. I wonder if anyone will know it.
I can't say for sure whether this title will stay. All I know is that I'm tired of getting tons of Google searches for hacking.
The hour is late but I wanted to post before heading to bed. I won't be having any dreams of dancing sugar plums though hopefully the dreams will involve someone dancing but I digress. We spent the day at my parents and it was long and stressful and it took every ounce of my being not to bring a flash for some quick help.
Cathy isn't feeling well so we didn't go to church with them which overall was great except for the whole Cathy being sick part. The kids were crazy from the moment we got home. All they talked about was leaving cookies and milk for Santa. I was fixing myself a cocktail and Julia asked if that was for Santa and it truly was the best thing about today because I laughed and smiled. Julia didn't understand why but one day she will.
We watched A Christmas Story and listened to the rain. It won't be a white Christmas here in SoCal but it will be elsewhere in the world.
Savor the only peaceful day of the year. Merry Christmas.
Taking a break from the last-minute wrapping, I come across this Wired article about the Clark campaign creating TechCorps.
TechCorps will be creating open source applications for campaigns. From the projects page, it looks like most of the work will be done on aggregating and organzing the data collected via the campaign.
Dave doesn't like this idea and thinks that the Clark campaign is going after blogging and social networking companies, or the little guys. I honestly don't see where this is happening. I don't think I've seen any companies writing software specifically for campaigns. The whole tone of Dave's post seems way offbase to me because it doesn't match the information found in the article or on the Clark TechCorps site. It's not like they are mentioning specific applications they are trying to recreate via open source development.
John Robb gives some very good points as to possible reasons why the TechCorps is being put into place.
Adam tries to figure out what Dave is really talking about.
My final take is that writing this code and releasing it under a BSD license is a good thing. Perhaps it won't make a difference in this election but maybe it will foster better campaigns being run on the local level and that momentum going all the way to the national level.
I finished my Christmas shopping last night. After I finished up work, we went out to dinner then I dropped everyone off at home and I began my descent into the crowded wasteland with the others who haven't finished their shopping. I only had a few gifts to get and I knew where to get them. Unfortunately, the stores weren't close together.
I had to go to Duarte, back to Arcadia and finally into Monrovia to get everything done. The surprising thing to me was that I felt more in the Christmas spirit when I got home then when I left. Sure, the stores were crazy and the lines were long. I saw a few people begin to bicker at each other when one took a parking spot but these things didn't bother me. I can't explain why because in the past, going out this close to Christmas shopping would cause the opposite reaction and it would take at least a day to stabilize myself.
Today and tomorrow are going to be even crazier but hopefully this good feeling can continue.
Amazing interview with The NewYorker's film critic, Anthony Lane. Found via Bookslut.
"Bah, humbug!" No, that's too strong
'Cause it is my favorite holiday
But all this year's been a busy blur Don't think I have the energyTo add to my already mad rush
Just 'cause it's 'tis the season.
The perfect gift for me would be
Completions and connections left fromLast year, ski shop,
Encounter, most interesting.
Had his number but never the time
Most of '81 passed along those lines.So deck those halls, trim those trees
Raise up cups of Christmas cheer,
I just need to catch my breath,
Christmas by myself this year.Calendar picture, frozen landscape,
Chilled this room for twenty-four days,
Evergreens, sparkling snow
Get this winter over with!Flashback to springtime, saw him again,
Would've been good to go for lunch,
Couldn't agree when we were both free,
We tried, we said we'd keep in touch.Didn't, of course, 'til summertime,
Out to the beach to his boat could I join him?
No, this time it was me,
Sunburn in the third degree.Now the calendar's just one page
And, of course, I am excited
Tonight's the night, but I've set my mind
Not to do too much about it.Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
But I think I'll miss this one this year.
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
But I think I'll miss this one this year.
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
But I think I'll miss this one this year.
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
But I think I'll miss this one this year.Hardly dashing through the snow
Cause I bundled up too tight
Last minute have-to-do's
A few cards a few calls
'Cause it's r-s-v-p
No thanks, no party lights
It's Christmas Eve, gonna relax
Turned down all of my invites.Last fall I had a night to myself,
Same guy called, halloween party,
Waited all night for him to show,
This time his car wouldn't go,Forget it, it's cold, it's getting late,
Trudge on home to celebrate
In a quiet way, unwind
Doing Christmas right this time.A&P has provided me
With the world's smallest turkey
Already in the oven, nice and hot
Oh damn! Guess what I forgot?So on with the boots, back out in the snow
To the only all-night grocery,
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
In the line is that guy I've been chasing all year!"I'm spending this one alone," he said.
"Need a break; this year's been crazy."
I said, "Me too, but why are you?
You mean you forgot cranberries too?"Then suddenly we laughed and laughed
Caught on to what was happening
That Christmas magic's brought this tale
To a very happy ending! "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
Couldn't miss this one this year!
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
Couldn't miss this one this year!
Ned Batchelder points to MIT's latest hack, a replica of the Wright Brothers' airplane atop the dome.
I remember walking to work back in '99 and seeing R2D2.
A cool, little app which allows you to keep track of your iCal to-do's. I'm thinking about getting this and put it alongside TigerLaunch.
Though it does seem silly that you download a zip file.
BoingBoing points to a cool site which lets you create your own bobblehead doll. I should have sent in pictures of the kids and had ones created for them. That would have been great Christmas gifts even though they probably wouldn't get how cool it was for a few years.
The latest RDF for the AtomAPI is up. The main change I can see is the deletion of the introspection file and instead putting the various URI's into link elements.
Leonard gives a great overview of the dining situation he is facing in Little Rock. My co-worker, Kevin, and I have this crazy idea to drive Leonard's car to him at some point next year. A road trip to Little Rock would definitely be something to remember but I'm not sure how the famiy would like it.
Eric Gradman has coined a new TLA, Distributed Social Software or DSS. He wrote a paper on it and it looks really good.
ATAC looks very cool with some amazing people able to post.
Our mission is to provide current and accurate information about technology that oversteps its bounds.
The Disseminary has posted their first theology cards. What a great idea!
When I went to Moody, one of my biggest frustrations was the fact that most students didn't care about Church history nor any theologians older than their fathers.
I look foward to seeing more of these. Maybe I'll have to print them out for the kids. Heh.
Matt points to JabberWookie, a new Java Jabber library.
I'll need to check it out in all my free time.
I've been thinking of doing some things with the iCalendar spec and I've been looking for a parser in Java. This is the only one I could find so far. I haven't tested it out yet but I guess I can write one if needed.
BoingBoing points to a cool-looking conference coming to LA next year, LayerOne. It reminds me a bit of CodeCon except for the necessity of working code.
The Call for Papers has also been posted. The dates are June 12-13, 2004 and it will be located at the Westin near LAX.
Let me start off by saying that I hate USC. I am not a fan nor will I ever be a fan of that program. That being said, I really think they got screwed out of a national title shot because of the wackiness of the BCS.
I agree with Mark on pretty much all of his points, that OU didn't even win their conference, that SC is currently ranked #1 in both polls and that the way LSU slid by USC in the final standings was because of a Boise St. / Hawaii game. Put all of those together and you can see why not many people are smiling today.
Actually I do disagree with one point that Mark made. He said that USC did their job but in reality they didn't. Sure they've been tearing up the field the past weeks but all of this silliness could have been avoided if they would have taken care of business against Cal. They lost their focus for a night and now they have to face the consequences.
If you want to be safe from a BCS nightmare scenario, here's the way to do it: Win all of your games. Do that and you'll be playing for the title. Lose one or two and then you'll be at the mercy of a goofy system.
I wasn't jealous when I first read about Paul Ford's work on the redesign of the Harpers site. Instead, I thought it was amazingly cool. Unfortunately, my brain didn't stay there long.
Soon, I began to feel the familiar pangs of jealousy. I'm not jealous of Paul's work but of the reality of him actually doing something. I doubt that makes sense to most people but to me, I get jealous when people are actually accomplishing things when I am not. Sure, I have some grandiose plans and interesting ideas but I never seem to actually do anything about them. I might write a bit of test code here and jots down some thoughts there but I don't force myself to sit down and crank things out.
If I did begin to finish things, would I still be jealous? I'm sure that I would but hopefully it would be because I'm jealous that I didn't think of the idea as opposed to jealous of someone getting something done.
I'm a sucker for Christmas music, especially when it has a sort of lounge feel. Over the long weekend, I picked up Christmas with the Rat Pack and it's really good.
Tonight, I picked up Martinis and Mistletoe. I mean, how in the world could I pass up a CD put out by the Yuletide Lounge Band?