I'm not sure what it is with my timing but once again a major announcement from work happens during my second month of being back. 5 years ago, it was the merger with Mindspring and now it is the creation of SK-EarthLink.
ATLANTA and SEOUL, January 26, 2005 — EarthLink, Inc. (NASDAQ: ELNK), the nation's next generation Internet service provider, and SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM), Korea's leading mobile communications company, today announced a definitive agreement to form a joint venture to market wireless voice and data services in the U.S.The new entity, to be called SK-EarthLink (www.SK-EarthLink.com) and capitalized with $440 million of partner investments over the next three years, will be a non-facilities-based nationwide mobile virtual network operator ("MVNO"). SK-EarthLink will combine the competitive advantages of its parent companies to deliver, for the first time, an innovative suite of wireless services and applications that meet the information, entertainment and communications needs of U.S. consumers.
I finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay last night. In fact, I stayed up until 1:30 this morning just to make it to the end. It was truly a great book.
I'm not quite sure what will be next. I have a couple of books in the queue so I might just have to flip a coin when I get home tonight.
I must be on the wrong mailing lists here at work since I didn't know about our Protection Blog which started up last week. Glad to see the syndication links and the quality of posts so far.
I finished two books over the weekend but neither one was my official #2. I figure that's ok though since generally that's how I'll read. I will have bookmarks in at least two books and the one I end up reading depends on the time and situation.
#2 was Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from The New York Times. I had picked this up at least a year ago, started it but never finished. We were moving some boxes around earlier in the week and found one with a few more books inside which just made The Wife extremely happy. Yes, that was sarcasm.
At any rate, I started the book over and enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm always a sucker to reader writers talking about writing. Sometimes I think I do this so I don't actually have to face the fact that I'm not writing even though it's something I feel the need to do. The book is a collection of essays written by various authors about pretty much whatever they felt like. Some very interesting stories and ideas.
#3 was The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby. After reading this interview in the LA Weekly, I decided I would pick it up next chance I had. The next chance was Saturday afternoon and I finished the book last night. It's not a big book but one that I liked.
Though I don't write about it much, I have always been a pretty big hockey fan. The lockout has just been very disappointing.
I think this Nike ad pretty much sums up my feelings.
Greg Wilson gives a couple of links to libraries which will test web interfaces.
After being given the hard sell about Ruby, Howard Ship, of Tapestry and HiveMind fame, wrote a simple little script that updates the copyright message of all his code. Fun stuff!
Brad is having problems with the slowness of the Tomcat JSP compilation. I've felt that pain and didn't really find a solution other than to stop using JSP's. Obviously, that is easier said than done on an existing app.
It seems that Neal Pollack is going to drop the various themes he has had for the past few years and instead just focus on being a Writer. It should be interesting to read.
One of the first things I do whenever I download a new project or start a new job is take a look at the build system. In Java, this is fairly easy whether it is using Ant or Maven but with C, I generally let it go since I don't have the autoconf-fu necessary to really understand all that is going on.
I've found that understanding the build system is the first step in understanding the code. You begin to see how pieces are put together. You can see if custom Ant tasks are being used and why they are needed.
I'm doing this now with the code here at work. One of the tough things about doing this is seeing all the places you'd like to adjust things but can't quite do it yet because you haven't been here enough to see if your changes cause a downstream problem.
As I'm making my way through book #2 of my 52 Books 52 weeks goal, I've come across a few articles over the Atlantic which look ahead to the books being published this year. By the way, my #2 book is The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. So far so good.
The Independent, The Guardian and The Herald put together lists of what is coming out. Definitely a few which I will hopefully be reading.
After being inspired by the Largehearted Boy and his 52 Books 52 Weeks plan, I've decided to do the same. We'll see how I do.
#1 on the list was Little Children by Tom Perrotta.
As a thirtyish father of two, I took many things from the book but mainly I was impressed that Perrotta didn't sugarcoat or sensationalize the stresses of parenthood. Definitely an enjoyable read.