November 2004
Friday, Nov 26
Another Thanksgiving, the forty-fifth one for me.
As with nearly every year past, we spent the day at my mother's house, enjoying excellent food and drink, not in that order. This year was a little different, in that my sister took on a significant amount of the food preparation, due to my mom's temporarily limited capabilities caused by a soon-to-be-replaced hip joint. She was fully able to supervise the dinner creation, however, and thanks to them both, it was the usual success.
So we're supposed to Be Thankful, and take the day to observe and celebrate the objects of our gratitude, in addition to the traditional epicurean indulgences that can border on gluttony.
What am I thankful for? Well, tons of things. And I don't need any special holiday to prompt me into acknowledging them.
An abbreviated list:
» My physical entity. I have good hearing and eyesight, am naturally lean and generally fit, have no known genetic issues, and my brain works pretty well.
» I have a wife who is very supportive, and two children who are an outstanding asset to the human race. I have a mother and sister with whom I get along very well, and who are endlessly benevolent.
» I live in a good house, in a favorable area.
» I have resources available to continually educate myself in ways that enhance my earthly existence. (Although the price of broadband and cable TV should go down.)
» I'm glad the sky is clear, bright and blue today, and that the regional temperatures finally resemble late autumn. And that the heat works.
» I'm happy that I like the forms of music that I do. They help define my character, and give assurance and beauty to everyday life.
» I am thankful for my close friends. They're not numerous, but they're enormously important, and a few go back over thirty years.
» I'm grateful for the many tall, old trees in my yard, although I really must get out there today and rake their fallen leaves into a large pile at the back of the property.
» I'm thankful that I have the physical ability to do so - with a rake and a tarp, by god, not a damned noisy leaf blower.
» I'm glad there's good food available in the next room, and I'm going to go there now and eat some.
Wednesday, Nov 24
Here's a news article about the city of Topeka, Kansas, approving an ordinance prohibiting bias in city hiring or employment based on sexual orientation. A move viewed as social progress, to some degree.
I think that's well and good, and it got me to thinking about how, just maybe, some members of the gay community shot themselves in the foot over the last several months. Maybe if the rush for gay marriages and unions hadn't been so highly publicized, Karl (spawn of satan) Rove wouldn't have had such success in fabricating an election-winning wedge issue.
Here are some photos from a Nashville Gay Pride parade. Lots of fun, statements made, civil rights exercised. Well and good, and as yet, part of being American.
But I had a thought. How about, instead of the outlandish costumery and rave-up atmosphere, everybody dressed in the most everyday, non-descript clothing possible. Suits and ties, patent leather shoes, professional women's suits, casual wear with muted colors, school attire...anything that says "mainstream".
That, I think, would make a statement a thousand times stronger than scantily clad, flag-lofting fairies screaming through the streets, while the straight community looks on, bemused.
I have two friends, one dating back to nineteen eighty-one, the other back to nineteen seventy-seven. They are among my oldest and very best friends. I have learned many things from them over the years, count them among my strongest influences, and would trust them with my life. They're both gay males. And you'd never know it. I would defy anyone to be able to ascertain their sexual orientation upon meeting them. (By the way, it's NOT a "lifestyle", shit-for-brains.)
I don't deny the effectiveness of a proper public demonstration. But I think there's a fine line between asserting yourself in the name of your cause, and rubbing people's face in it. Maybe if the gay community would pull a sort of anti-stunt like that, they might foster the acceptance and perspective that they need.
Monday, Nov 22
I do love to start the day with a healthy serving of rational, logical optimism.
From Buzzflash's P. M. Carpenter: "As for the running-amok moral "majority" of 22 percent, just give them time as well...the finally exasperated true majority will send them packing."
- read the essay -
Thursday, Nov 18
I was asked to do some modifications to a web site.
Change one thing out for another, and implement a pop-up window (user-activated only!) that displayes an image, and rotates through several images in sequence each time the pop-up window is opened.
For many coders, the obvious solution is Javascript, which holds some advantages. The entire operation takes place on the visitor's computer, without having to interact with the server, and the new window can automatically resize to match the dimensions of each image. Javascript is implemented in millions of web pages, and can be used to do a plethora of useful and complex things.
One small problem. Beyond simple operations like opening new windows with particular dimensions or that resize themselves, and basic form validation, I am not well-versed in Javascript, at all. Sure, I've had plenty of opportunity to learn, and being an ECMAscript language, it ought to be requisite.
I sort of soured on Javascript a long time ago. What basically happened was, I started programming in Flash, then moved to Javascript. I immediately saw the similarity between Javascript and Flash's Actionscript, then began noticing the occasionally gargantuan Javascripts implemented in web pages to do something that Flash could do far more easily and elegantly. Flash's plug-in dependency seemed a small trade-off for pages that don't take forever to load due to ridiculously huge globs of complex Javascript in the page header.
So to Javascript, I said, "Bah. Boo. Hiss. There are far less complicated, cleaner and simpler ways to do these things. Piss on a bunch of Javascript."
A streak of close-mindedness, indeed. Still, I have used it periodically, to do the afore-mentioned simple things, like opening new windows of a certain dimension, or to make sure a visitor properly fills in a form. And it comes in very handy.
The programming language of choice for me is PHP. Not difficult to get into, a world of built-in functions, ubiquitous and COMPLETELY dependable. Like Javascript, it is easily interwoven with HTML, and has none of the browser issues that Javascript is known to have, user-deactivation notwithstanding. PHP is everywhere, used by Google, Yahoo, and other heavy hitters of the internet. I love the stuff. (And I still think it sounds like a recreational drug.)
So, about these web site modifications. I naturally pursued a method using PHP, in combination with Javascript. This can be a small minefield. Decisions of how the two languages should intertwine, or where one should take precedence over the other, can make for headaches and unpleasant pitfalls. Plan A, of course, was primarily PHP, and would generate the necessary Javascript. I got about ninety-eight percent there, then found a flaw. At this point, my mind took a wrong turn (which it has a maddeningly high propensity for doing), and I prepared for Plan B, to navigate the unfamiliar landscape of Javascript.
Well, I got nowhere. To make a stupid story short, it was two hours before I actually got the code to simply read a cookie. I never did get it to actually write a cookie, or modify an existing one. I never really got past step one. After an embarrassingly long period of time spent staring at an open book, online tutorials, and my hopelessly bogus code, I quit for the night. Depressed and dejected, I went to bed.
Then about 4:35 this morning, I suddenly realized how to make the original PHP solution complete. I was quite confident that it would work, having come so far with Plan A to begin with. And indeed, it did. My only regret is that I didn't think of it sooner. (Those mental wrong turns.)
It is a solid, clean, and efficient block of PHP, which performs the necessary maneuvers and generates the Javascript where required, and it all lives in one document. Hugely satisfying, and the client is happy.
Visit careymoore.com, and click on "links." Then do it again, and again.
Javascript is great, but PHP rules.
Well, sometimes.
Actually, most of the time. In my slightly biased opinion.
Tuesday, Nov 16
One curly brace.
Just one of these: }
That's what was missing from a search application I'm building for the media production studio's new web site. (It really will become a reality someday; the interminable delay is NOT my fault).
It's a case of two distinct blocks of code, combined in one script. I admit having some consternation over the numerous nested "if" statements, meaning, "if this condition is met, then if this other condition is met, then if this or that is true, do this...else if, blah blah blah." I guess that's okay; it all works, although it looks a bit hack to me. Whatever.
The issue arose when I wrote the code block to do a more exact type of search. it worked fine by itself, and I was very excited. Then I incorporated it into the existing script with the general search. The result wasn't even throwing an error. It was simply doing nothing. I'd get the nicely formatted page, with all the correct html and graphics...and no search response of ANY kind.
I ended up getting a pen and paper and slowly stepping through the code line by line, taking notes as I went, and finally I found the error.
A single curly brace to close one of the many "if" statements was missing. Why it gave me the nice, pretty, empty page and didn't throw a big ugly error I will never know, because that's what usually happens with an omission like that.
Okay, that's fixed...NOW I can bill for the actual productive time from that adventure, and continue on with the necessary steps resulting in EVEN MORE billable time. Yee-hah, and yippee skippee.
Wednesday evening, Nov 10
I don't often "surf" the net. Usually when I do, I'm in a time-killing mode, desiring idle diversion, or perhaps avoiding a more important matter, like why a particular block of code I've sweated and cursed over for an entire day still won't work.
Tonight, I was "surfing" the net, and along the way, I came across this:
"The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life.
The abolitionist project is hugely ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and morally urgent.
The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved because they served the fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment. They will be replaced by a different sort of neural architecture. States of sublime well-being are destined to
become the genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. It is predicted that the world's last unpleasant experience will be a precisely dateable event."
Found at Paradise Engineering: The Hedonistic Imperative.
Wednesday, Nov 10
Who is Brandi Williams? I mean, besides girlfriend to a member of the country band Trick Pony? I met this young lady a couple of days ago. She came to the media production studio to do a voiceover via ISDN.
She seemed a bit self-absorbed, and the boyfriend all too eager to please, like a young kid desperate to hold on to his prize. She was certainly hot, and would very likely be fun to spend time with, but could possibly get irritating after awhile.
How hot was she?
Tuesday, Nov 9
Today I rode my bicycle to work, for the first time in over two weeks. The devil disease is still working hard to resist defeat, but I actually felt half-alive in today's first waking hour. I do not handle sickness very well. It makes me angry and desperate, while entertaining thoughts of personal failure and helplessness. So I said (to myself), fuck this bullshit, I've got to come back to life.
The temperature was in the upper thirties Farenheit - not really cold, but definitely chilly, with clear skies, very low humidity and no wind...actually, prime cycling weather. I never was uncomfortable, although at one point I questioned the wisdom of leaving the leg tights at home.
My reflexes and sense of balance were quite dull, and my lungs and heart felt overworked. The auto traffic was backed up for a couple of miles, forcing me to maintain the slow speed I use in those circumstances, which is all I could have done anyway. I'm looking forward to a return to form.
Health rules - ILLNESS SUCKS.
Thursday, Nov 4
Okay, the election didn't go my way.
Around 1:10 Wednesday afternoon, I posted a vitriolic rant reflecting my feelings about our current political situation. And because I'm such a nice, diplomatic kind of guy (not that I've ever gained a damn thing from it), I've stashed the little rant away. Instead, I'm offering a link to someone else who can say it a lot better than I.
But, I'll retain my closing statement for the nation at large:
Is this REALLY the best we can do?
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