Shad Sterling

Last Livejournal Post

2009-05-13T12:38:44Z

As of now I'm doing everything through Facebook. I might change my mind again later, but I have an easier time keeping everything in one place. (If I do move again later, I'll post about it on Facebook). I'm not sure if the feed links here will work, but they're the best I could find:

Profile:: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=508606449
Status Feed:: http://www.new.facebook.com/feeds/status.php?id=508606449&viewer=508606449&key=207dfae265&format=rss20
Notes Feed:: http://www.new.facebook.com/feeds/notes.php?id=508606449&viewer=508606449&key=207dfae265&format=rss20</dt>; Links Feed:
feed://www.new.facebook.com/feeds/share_posts.php?id=508606449&viewer=508606449&key=207dfae265&format=rss20

Christmas List (Hi Mom!)

2008-12-17T02:43:20Z

Stuff I want for Christmas:

An alarm clock that makes a bright light rather than a loud noise
Nice stereo headphones (so I can watch a movie on my laptop on an airplane)
Black macbook power adapter
Warm socks (yeah, I'm gettin' old)
One or two of those solar powered car window fans
Graphing calculator software for my windows mobile phone
Picturie things to hang on my walls

“Ordinary Election”

2008-08-03T20:31:53Z

Joe lieberman on Meet the Press this morning, said he crossed party lines to support John McCain because “this is not an ordinary election.”
I'm going to guess that by “ordinary” he means one where there is so little at stake that it doesn't matter who we vote for, and I don't think we ever have had or ever will have an election like that.

Really long post

2008-08-02T02:35:57Z

Last weekend I visited to Maryland, flying in and out through DC Reagan Airport. I had planned to play tourist in DC for a bit just before leaving, but got behind schedule and had to go straight to the airport. I've been to DC once before, when I was dancing in the ACDF finals at the Kennedy Center. That was in 1998, just a few months more than 10 years ago. This makes me want to get back to dancing for real again.

During the flight back there were some amazing clouds out the window. I'm sure it would have seemed less so if I lived up there, but it reminded me again that I still need to get a good camera. I also started wondering weather taking pictures of the sun from up there would damage a digital camera sensor. (With film I wouldn't worry – frying a few frames won't break the camera.) Google doesn't seem to have a clear answer, so that's one more thing I'll have to ask about when I finally go shopping.

The woman in the seat next to me was reading My Sisters Keeper, which I bought some time ago but have never read. I thought I'd bought it at the train station last time I was in DC, but that was 6 years before it was published. Now I think I bought it at another airport between the family reunion and QV in 2006. (I also thought I'd bought a Biography of Tesla [1,2,3], but that wasn't published until 3 years later. I may still have bought them together, but now I doubt it.) Anyway, I was going to read it now, but I just read the Wikipedia article, which spoiled the ending. Dangit.

My macbook, which I named “laconic”, is about a month old now. Having been using it for a month, my impression of OS X hasn't changed much from what it was from just reading and hearing about it. My overall impression of the way to choose a computing platform hasn't changed either – choose according to which set of problems you'd rather put up with.

The user interface is about as annoying as Windows, but in different ways. The dock and the taskbar make different mistakes, switching windows and switching apps have different problems, etc. One thing I miss is the “drop this window to the bottom” key. I think in general it would be better to not isolate windows within their app, but to consider all windows to be peers and do app switches as necessary when switching between windows. The different common keys are easy enogh to learn, but the inconsistency between apps really sucks – this might not be problem on a mac desktop, but it's definitely not a problem on a windows laptop. I think it's a good thing that filenames are UTF-8 strings (rather than arbitrary bytes), but the problems it causes with sharing files are quite annoying.

Overall, I really like my macbook. Partly just because it's a laptop, and I'm finally starting to change habits in ways that really aren't possible with desktops. I'm not ready to call it yet, but I think OS X is also winning on problems I'd rather put up with. The big win is that the startup/shutdown and sleep/wake transitions are much faster than either Windows or Linux. It beats Windows by being BSD, which means I can use most of the familiar Linux command line tools, and it beats Linux because there's only one OS X (having to choose a distro is a worse problem than most that OS X has). But it also loses big on having to buy expensive hardware that I don't get to choose myself. For laptops it's not that much worse than others, but for desktops I think it's still a dealbreaker.

… There's also the bad problem of Safari locking up while I'm composing a post. I'm so glad LJ saves drafts now. I'm also glad that MacPorts includes w3m, which made it easy to download Firefox.

The bag I bought to go with the new laptop is working out very well too. It's maybe a little big for day-to-day stuff, but it was just big enough to be the only bag I needed for both the trip to MI an the trip to MD. I'm hoping that trend continues.

I name all of my computers from a word of the day. I try to go for something obscure enough that using it in a sentence won't be confusing, but with a meaning that's related to what I intend to use it for. I think I named this laconic just because it's small, but it may also have had to do with changes I'm trying to make with my habits, to unencumber myself from so much accumulated stuff. I grew up in a family of pack rats, and I've been trying to fight that tendency in myself since about when i first moved out. I'm not sure how much having the laptop is helping, but I am making some progress. It's going to be a while before the actual physical stuff starts going away, but I think it's going well.

As of this afternoon, I'm officially on vacation. I have two weeks off from school, and one off from work. I'm not sure what I'm going to spend the time doing, but I'm already enjoying not having any deadlines or appointments. My schedule next semester is going to be even crazier than this one, so I have this week of nothing, next week working uninterrupted, and then it's time to dive back in. I'm looking forward to it.

Progress

2008-06-30T07:49:14Z

Yesterday I noticed that I can't read the signature lines on my checks anymore. I suppose my vision is deteriorating just about on schedule. I should need reading glasses in another 20 years or so, or maybe there'll be something else by then.

I may be a little old for this, but I've essentially settled on what I want to do with my life. Of course, I can't stop dancing, so that's a part of it. I have a somewhat more specific plan for school, which is really a means to become able to do some neat computer/science stuff. It's been interesting discovering that over the past two years or so, going from thinking I should go back to school, to actually going part-time, to deciding what I want to do with that and with the rest of my time, to planning how to get from here to there.

It seems like a lifetime ago that I was a “real geek,” spending my spare time coding whatever i was interested in at the time. That largely faded away after I ran away with the circus, but hung around in the back of my head. Wanting to keep doing the circus arts never faded after the groups I was working with fell apart. For some years – roughly 2002 to 2007 – I dreamed of finding or creating a venue to do that again, to return to performing in the air, to the fun, and the physical challenge.

Last year, with no help from me, a new trapeze studio opened up, and while it isn't what I'd dreamed of, (not yet?,) it's great to be back in the air again. Since I'm working full time now, I could hardly commit myself to it as much as I'd need to for that old dream anyway. Even if I wasn't working as much, my plans that I'm going to school for might get in the way too. Still, a few days ago, when asked something about that, I somehow went back to the old dream, and spoke as though I still wished to go off to some grand thing apart from what I'm doing now, as though I weren't building the plans I'm building now. The performer part of my plan is still too vague, but I think it was more because after so long with that dream it had become a habit, and it will take some time to change.

The “geek” plan, being more specific, I could describe in more detail, but this post is long enough already. I'll elaborate later.

I bought a mac this week. The black macbook with default options. I haven't used a mac in any meaningful way since the LC-III was new, so this should be interesting. I've been vaguely wanting a new mac for years, especially since OS X, just to be in touch with what they're up to. Back then, I couldn't afford one, and more recently I haven't bought one mostly because I'd have to buy the whole thing all at once. (As opposed to PC's, which I upgrade in pieces.) I needed a new laptop, so I was going to have to buy a whole computer anyway, so I went ahead and bought a mac. Well, ordered one; it should arrive tomorrow.

I also ordered a bag to carry it in. I was aiming for a bag I could carry everything I need in all at once; the laptop, school stuff, rehearsal stuff, a change of clothes, etc… basically a bag I can live out of, at least for a couple days. I ordered one online, in spite of not being able to actually see it first, so here's hoping I choose well. The one thing I don't think this covers is water; I don't think I'll want to put a water bottle inside the bag, so I'll probably want to get one I can somehow attach to the outside.

Both of those should be here with just a little time to spare before I go up to Michigan for the 4^th of July. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to fit everything I need into my new bag, and I won't have to check anything. (Last time, my checked bag came on the next plane, a few hours later.) Wow, the 4^th of July already; it doesn't seem like this year should be half over so soon.

Emo

2008-05-21T22:42:22Z

Some thoughts inspired mostly by Why no child is safe from the sinister cult of emo

I'd be interested to see any numbers comparing the suicide rates of “emo kids” with other groups of adolescents. I wouldn't be too surprised if they are a little higher, but I doubt being emo is the cause. Rather I expect that adolescents already at high risk of becoming suicidal are also more likely to become emo. I doubt that adolescents who are not already at high risk of being suicidal have that risk significantly increased by being emo.

It seems to me that a big contributor – perhaps the biggest, in general – to adolescent unhappiness, is the sense of having a life that can't matter. I see two reasons for this: One is the inability to make their own decisions, which means that their own individual self doesn't really matter. The other is knowing that even with that ability the effect that one person can have on the vastness of history is completely insignificant. Seeing yourself as a tiny powerless spec of life in an eternity of others death in the past and your own death in the future, it seems to me, could fit very well with emo decorations.

But I think it is a mistake to think that your tiny spec of life is so powerless. It seems to me that most little things are part of a bigger trend, which does matter, and the bigger trend is what it is because of many individuals deciding independently how to behave. History is not controlled by the few individuals who stand out, but by the many who make the trend what it is.

The power that you have, without standing out, is that you affect the trends by your own behavior. When anyone decides to behave a certain way, they affect the trend, both in themselves and in those in direct contact, and it propagates out like a wave from a pebble. In order for the trend to be good, many individuals must intentionally make it so, and the fewer such people around you the more important your personal influence can be. The burden of shaping history is not merely on all of us, it is on each of us.

The other factor, not being able to make your own decisions, I think is often not as big a problem as it seems – because it will change later – but I think that because of how our brains develop it is more of a genuine problem. As I understand it, our brains change physically as we change how we think, and those changes happen slower as we get older. Adolescence is, in part, a big batch of neurological changes that happen relatively quickly, and part of that is the change in how we think from being dependent to being independent.

It's well known that adolescents who are mostly unable to make their own decisions tend to not like it that way, and I think it's for good reason. When adolescents are prevented from having authority over their own lives, the change in thinking to being independent is hampered. If that change doesn't go right during adolescence, making that change later is significantly more difficult.

So, I'm not worried about the “sinister cult of emo.” An already unhappy adolescent turning to emo might be a red flag, but the real problem is the cause of the unhappiness. I think we should do what we can to encourage adolescents to become independent safely, without either stifling their need for independence or overwhelming them with responsibility. We won't get it right, but I think we should try, and I think we should know that with that and everything else we do we are affecting the trends among the people around us, and thereby sending out our little ripple affecting the trends that write history.

AVG vs. Firefox

2008-05-04T21:23:39Z

Grisoft recently released version 8 of their AVG Free antivirus software for Windows, which includes some new features intended to protect against some threats you might encounter while using your web browser. Unfortunately, enabling those features makes Firefox 2 unusable – at least, it does for me, as of the first time I open a Google search results page.

Fortunately, the fix is relatively simple: In Firefox disable the add-on. Don't disable the feature in AVG. If you disable it in AVG, AVG will constantly complain about it; if you disable the add-on in Firefox, AVG doesn't seem to notice. That it doesn't notice disabling the add-on doesn't really inspire confidence, but other than that your increased risk is minimal. Unless you frequently visit questionable websites, you should be fine.

Another new feature is that the real-time file scanning now detects tracking cookies. I'm not convinced that these are a real threat, but the frequent warnings about them from AVG is an annoyance. The best thing to do about them would be to have the browser reject them, but AVG didn't change the browser settings to do that. (It does, however, seem to erase all of your cookies at install time.) The AVG add-on could hijack the Firefox cookie handling to reject cookies that AVG doesn't like, but that would only work if the plugin didn't make Firefox unusable – and I don't think it does do that even if you do leave it enabled. So, you can either tell AVG to ignore those “threats,” or you can change the Firefox cookie settings yourself.

There are many add-ons for Firefox that change cookie handling, so you might think there'd be one that would help with this. There isn't. Generally, you browse to some site you want to see, and don't mind having cookies from, and some embedded advertisement is loaded from another site, and that other site gives you a tracking cookie. So the add-ons that give you convenient control of cookie settings for the site you're looking at all completely miss the point. (Firefox itself doesn't have the option of disabling 3rd-party cookies; even if it did, using it would break things you most likely don't want to break*.) You can find add-ons that will reject all third-party cookies, but there are none that offer management of cookie exceptions according to third parties represented on the current page.

To block them by hand, you first have to figure out which domain the cookies are from. AVG identifies them with names of the form “Tracking cookie.#{ID}” – usually, they come from ID.com, or ID.net, but sometimes they're from something like ID.foo.com or foo.ID.com. To see which domain it's likely coming from, you have to look in Tools|Options|Privacy|Cookies|Show Cookies, then go to Tools|Options|Privacy|Cookies|Exceptions to block each one. That's right, each one, separately, one at a time, whenever the AVG warning comes up. Firefox doesn't delete existing cookies when you block a domain, so to stop AVG from warning you again you also have to delete the cookie(s) that it first warned you about.

But wait, there's more: Firefox doesn't have an “import cookie exceptions list” option, so I can't give you my list of exceptions for cookies AVG doesn't like. Neither can Grisoft. This, however, an add-on can help with. Specifically, CookieSafe. Unfortunately, I have to restart Firefox to finish installing it, so I can't export my list until after I finish this post. Bummer.

* I claimed that disabling 3rd party cookies would break things you most likely don't want to break. Given the number of sites that explain how to block 3rd party cookies, my assertation may be surprising. Here's the problem: if you go to a site that you want to see, and don't mind having cookies from, and it embeds something from another site that you want to see, and don't mind having cookies from, then disabling 3rd party cookies will prevent the embedded item from the second site from reflecting any other interaction you may have had with that second site – likely defeating the purpose of having the embedded item. Before installing AVG 8 I just didn't worry about it. I really don't mind having the ad banners I see be advertising things I'm more likely to buy, although if the degree to which that actually happens is any indication their tracking is all but worthless anyway. Since Installing AVG 8, I have considered each site it has warned me about, asking myself weather it's a site I've been to or which has conspicuously marked it's embeds, and blocked all that fail that test. So far, none have passed.

Stupid Award

2008-04-05T16:59:51Z

Sorry, no virtual ribbon, but here's a Stupid Award for Comcast, for their recent mishandling of my email account.

About a week ago they changed how I needed to connect to their outgoing mail server, without bothering to let me know in advance (stupid #1).
When I first asked about why I couldn't send any mail, their first response was that I must have a virus - apparently they didn't both to read my message (stupid #2).
After (finally) learning what they changed, and changing my settings to match, I noticed some odd non-fatal error messages in my mail logs, so I asked about them. This got the strangest response yet, including “With regard to your concern, this issue is very delicate and requires a security verification process” (stupid #3). As I said to them, “Huh? Being able to send email without incurring errors is a delicate issue?”

So for that, Comcast gets a Stupid Award.

In case anyone else has similar problems, here's some detail about my setup: I'm running all of my outgoing email through Exim 4, running on PLD Linux, routing all outgoing mail through smtp.comcast.net. The original change that broke my previous Exim configuration was Comcast switching to submit on port 587 with authentication (a good change, but they should have announced it). After changing my exim.conf for that, I was getting errors 421 Too many sessions opened. These seems to be Comcast's rules about sending email:

use smtp.comcast.net:587 with authentication (TLS is optional, at least for now)
don't send more than 1,000 messages per day
don't send more than 10 messages per connection
don't make multiple simultaneous connections

Having made everything work, these are the relevant parts of my exim.conf:

Routers:

send_to_gateway:
      driver = manualroute
      domains = !+local_domains
      headers_add = X-routed-by: send_to_gateway router on $primary_hostname ($local_part@$domain)
      transport = remote_smtp
      route_list = * smtp.comcast.net::587 byname
      cannot_route_message = Local Domain or Gateway Rejected ($local_part@$domain)

Gateways:

remote_smtp:
      driver = smtp
      hosts_require_auth = smtp.comcast.net
      serialize_hosts = smtp.comcast.net
      connection_max_messages = 10

Authenticators:

comcast:
      driver = plaintext
      public_name = LOGIN
      client_send = : $username : $password

Billion

2008-03-04T03:38:28Z

I was trying to think of a way to make a billion mean something tangible.

By my estimate, if you live for 100 years, your heart might beat somewhere around 4 billion times.

Also, I'm getting close to one billion seconds old.

Dear Roxio,

2008-01-18T19:59:58Z

Dear Roxio,

The interface on Easy Media Creator 10 is awful. I wasn’t particularly fond of the interfaces of previous versions, but this version is much worse. (It gets things done better, but it's more of a pain to tell it what to do.)

However, as bad as that is, refusing to copy a DVD-5 to a DVD±R DL without giving any indication that you’ve just arbitrarily decided not to allow that is much worse. Of course, what you should do is ask the user if they really meant to use a dual-layer disc when a single-layer disc will do, but at the very least you should say “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Just asking me to "“Please insert a blank or rewritable DVD into the drive” when a blank writable disc is already in the drive is Absolutely Stupid, but you've managed to do even worse than that. In the error message box, you add the line “Supported media: CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL, DVD RAM“ — that's right, you not only rejected the DVD+R DL, but you then included that format in the list of accepted formats. I nominate you for a Stupid Developer Award.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-02T02:58:31Z

Happy New Year!

Health Insurance

2007-08-22T20:27:58Z

I just re-read this old post, and I think think I've thought of a reasonable rule now: It should not be allowed to have an “insider” discount program which requires the involvement of a third party – in this case, the insurance company. That would mean that they must allow any customer to join the discount program without involving any third party. It does still reduce the right of a business negotiate prices with customers as it sees fit, but I think it's acceptable in the very common situation where no person the customer interacts with directly has the authority to negotiate a price. It could be explicitly restricted to that situation by allowing a choice between that and having every agent of the business who accepts payments also empowered to negotiate the price within the range allowed by all discount programs – in that case, the business should be required to make obvious to all customers which option it has chosen. Would that be an improvement on the current situation?

Links

2007-08-12T02:01:08Z

Lateral Moves – “Life clearly evolved to store genetic information in a modular form, and to accept useful modules of genetic information from other species”
Gore’s legislative recommendations to the House – He gives 10 steps, and they seem reasonable, but they don't include the one critical step that would make a difference. If we're going to stop adding CO₂ to the atmospheric carbon cycle, the one step we need to take is to stop pulling carbon out of the ground.
It’s STILL The Oil &ndash Greg Plast: The goal of the war is to raise oil prices, and thereby to raise profits.
Phone Networks aren't Neutral – “We start with intricately structured regulation, leading companies to adopt business models shaped by regulation rather than the needs of customers. … This leads [to] a techno-legal battle between companies that would, in an ideal world, be spending their time and effort developing better, cheaper products.”
How I Became A Music Pirate – An account of how DRM contributes to media piracy.
An interactive map of the sky
San Francisco bans plastic shopping bags– or at least, replaces them with more expensive ones; what they don't do is move to reusable bags.
‘Getting dirty’ may help depressed – Apparently there's some sort of ‘happy bacteria’ pretty much everywhere, so all we need to do to be happy is play in the dirt more often.

Links

2007-07-05T07:22:11Z

Shortening the too-long list of things I found interesting…

The Inner Life of the Cell

Yep. Running away with the scientists. Maybe I'll even get a cool soundtrack.
Balancing Point

Another neat video
Justice vs. Mercy

This one’s pretty old, but worth it: “Love is the priority, always, and justice is the balancing of love for two conflicting viewpoints. It’s all about love. Which is where mercy fits in, of course: as part of justice, not the antithesis.” (Thanks, weatherwoman)
Edward R. Murrow at RTNDA, 1958:

Murrow^[1,2,3] is awesome.
I am frightened by the imbalance, the constant striving to reach the largest possible audience for everything; by the absence of a sustained study of the state of the nation. Heywood Broun once said, “No body politic is healthy until it begins to itch.” I would like television to produce some itching pills rather than this endless outpouring of tranquilizers. It can be done. Maybe it won't be, but it could. Let us not shoot the wrong piano player. Do not be deluded into believing that the titular heads of the networks control what appears on their networks. They all have better taste. All are responsible to stockholders, and in my experience all are honorable men. But they must schedule what they can sell in the public market.
…
Let us have a little competition. Not only in selling soap, cigarettes and automobiles, but in informing a troubled, apprehensive but receptive public. Why should not each of the 20 or 30 big corporations which dominate radio and television decide that they will give up one or two of their regularly scheduled programs each year, turn the time over to the networks and say in effect: “This is a tiny tithe, just a little bit of our profits. On this particular night we aren't going to try to sell cigarettes or automobiles; this is merely a gesture to indicate our belief in the importance of ideas.” The networks should, and I think would, pay for the cost of producing the program. The advertiser, the sponsor, would get name credit but would have nothing to do with the content of the program. Would this blemish the corporate image? Would the stockholders object? I think not. For if the premise upon which our pluralistic society rests, which as I understand it is that if the people are given sufficient undiluted information, they will then somehow, even after long, sober second thoughts, reach the right decision--if that premise is wrong, then not only the corporate image but the corporations are done for.
As much as I miss Jennings, Rather, and Brokaw, the problem with TV news isn't the lack of good, dedicated, competent journalists. It is, as Murrow said some 50 years ago, that the networks will not support it.
NILF Hunter

A more current, and more crude, criticism of TV news.
The Amish’s rational response

On October 2^nd 2006 five children were killed in the Amish school shooting. Contrary to the common reaction in the United States, the Amish community did not “express any desire for revenge or to hate the deranged person who killed their little ones before taking his own life.” The editors of ScienceBlogs' Effects Measure write that “it is a damning indictment of the rest of us, that we should see this perfectly rational act as so unusual. It was an act that kept the terrible harm done to the minimum possible. It is we who are the unusual and irrational ones.”
How to get my money

Peter Seebach on making a website not suck. (I think it's funny he forgot to set the <title>.)
George Washington and the Middle East

Glen Greenwald: “George Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address is an amazingly prescient warning to the U.S. to avoid certain dangers with regard to foreign policy.“ … “It almost seems as though we have purposely set out to violate every principle of foreign affairs which Washington articulated.”
I wonder, what advantage is there in the policies that Washington warned against? Is there nothing more than the short-term gains for today’s profiteers? Seeking personal gain is understandable, even reasonable, but I don’t see the good in doing so in a way which sets the stage for more violence among future generations.
Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls (PDF)

It is disturbing that the sexualization of preadolescent children has become so prevalent that the APA feels the need to report on it. It is sad that our society is so little concerned with creating and maintaining healthy individuals.
Quantum mechanics and Tomb Raider

When Lara Croft and Indiana Jones are entangled and resonating, they make special condensation.

Pescetarian – Vegetarian ∪ seafood
The Phantom Time Hypothesis – Charlemagne a fictional character?
Dogs and Cats Can Sniff Out Cancer – Man’s best friend, indeed
Who Can Name the Bigger Number? – “My big number is bigger than your big number!”
Solar System Simulator – NASA has cool toys.
PaperBackSwap – The best thing since BookCrossing
The Human Rights Record in the United States in 2006 – China’s report on Human Rights Violations in America
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – The U.S. report on Human Rights Practices in China
A boy biofuels his Reed College dreams – Reedies are cool.
High-earning men blamed over climate changing emissions – Women, of course, have no emissions.
King Abdullah's Challenge to Congress – Peace in the middle east must begin with Palestine.
How the press can prevent another Iraq – A nice listing of stupid predictable mistakes.
“I'm a Mac.” “I'm a PC.” “I'm Linux.” Part 1, Part 2
Perfect snow doughnuts – if only there were more about them.

Update

2007-06-12T14:12:51Z

I'm trying to get to where I post one of these every month, near the beginning of the month. This one's a little short because it's been a bit less than a month.

My broken wrist is almost entirely better. The bone looks basically all healed (maybe just a little more to go) on the x-ray, so what's left is the surrounding soft tissue. I'm not wearing the brace at all now, and my range of motion is increasing. It still hurts occasionally, when I push too hard, or at certain funny angles. The doctor said it'd be ok to start trying to do things like pushups again, just avoiding pain, but I haven't tried that yet.
There is some bad news, I've been diagnosed with two degenerated discs in my lumbar spine. It's not severe, and really more or less normal, but usually doesn't happen as much until much older. I'm starting physical therapy for that, and the Doctor said that if I'm careful about it, there's no reason not to proceed with trying to get back into performing.
With my wrist being mostly better, I'm looking forward to going back to school in the fall. I'm about to start setting aside time to spend on school-related things, so I'm already in that habit when I start having homework to do. What I have in mind is to dig up that old unfinished calculator-with-units, and turn it into something that works.
Today is going to be my first day back in dance class. There aren't many classes nearby that start after I get off work, and most of what I've taken I haven't been impressed with. This class is at a studio I've performed with, which has had some classes I've liked, and I know the teacher is a good performer. I'm very much looking forward to it.
I still haven't gone and celebrated being out of debt by buying a big new TV or anything like that. I don't think I'm going to. I really like being able to notice something that would be helpful to me, and not worrying about weather I can afford to do it. I might still get a new TV some time this year, but it won't be something big and fancy, it'll just be nice. (OK, so it won't be small, but still.)
Of course, now that I have more than I need, one thing I want to do is give money to help everyone else. I've been compiling a list of places to donate to, and I have in mind to give to all of them at once, right around 6 months after tax day. I'm not sure how much I'm going to give away, but what I have in mind right now is 10% of what I added to my savings in 2006 - so I can do the same next year, and so on.

Compare this to the last one

UI

2007-06-07T05:19:54Z

I guess I was in a mood to complain today, so I went to file a bug report on Firefox, and it turns out that that particular bug has not only been reported before, it's been argued about for years. Nothing had been added to it for a while, and I didn't see anything which seemed to have a serious suggestion for what a fix would look like, so I posted my thoughts here.

The problem is that what happens when you press the "back" button in Firefox is inconsistent; sometimes it shows you a page, and sometimes it pops up a modal dialog box asking if you really want to resubmit a form. For various reasons, which are discussed in the comments on that bug, it is a bit tricky to provide a user interface that doesn't suck.

Verizon

2007-05-31T00:46:46Z

I've been having problems with my fancy computerphone, mostly relating to the battery. The trouble seems to be resolved now, but it took a good deal longer than it should have. Part of the problem was that FedEx failed to deliver a replacement battery as they should have, and I'm not sure how that happened. Most of the problem was with Verizon support.

It seemed as though every support agent I spoke with had a different answer to every question I asked. In some cases, it was obvious that a particular person had no idea what they were talking about. On the whole, I think they just failed to have their support staff familiar enough with my device to provide good support for it. Considering the dizzying array of devices they offer, I can imagine that having every support agent familiar enough with every device would be impossible. That being the case, trying to support that wide a selection looks to me like a mistake.

I bet the iPhone won't have this problem. There's only one model. Only one thing to be familiar with. Unless, of course, AT&T makes the mistake of lumping it in with the rest of the devices they support. I don't think they will, but I may be too optimistic.

Update

2007-05-27T00:43:48Z

I find it useful to check in with the big picture occasionally.

My broken wrist is much better, but still has a long way to go. I've been spending more time without the brace, and that's been good. It still seems a little swollen most of the time, and I can't do anything particularly strenuous, but simple things like opening a door and lifting a plate are no problem. The range of motion is still limited, but clearly less so than a few weeks ago. Probably the next big thing will be writing; I can write small amounts now, but if I write half a page or so at once it starts to hurt. I can't tell if the physical therapy is helping.
I'm not trying to do any school for the summer. I'll pick back up one class for the fall. I've started thinking it would be nice to get a Ph.D. before I'm 40, so I need a plan. To do that I'll have to essentially quit my job, which I can't do now, but I think I can make it work in time to have 4 years to go from bachelors to Ph.D. I still need to put in for that hardship withdrawal.
I've recently returned to working full time, and the work doesn't bother my wrist at all now. Things are going well there, it's still not quite my dream job but it's moving in a good direction. I've got more interesting things to do, and some bigger tasks; it's taking a while to figure out how to organize my time well for the bigger tasks, but now that I'm back to full time I think it will get easier.
I plan to start taking dance classes again in about 3 weeks. I won't have full use of my hand, but I'll be plenty able to run around without worrying about inadvertent things causing problems. I hope to start taking class every day again, if I can make a deal on the prices. I don't think it will happen as soon, but I also want to start teaching again. Not with kids this time, I want to work with performers, or at least with people who have some aptitude. I'm not sure how to do that, but if I can find just one or two people to get started with I think I'll be able to build from there. Time will probably be the limit on that.
I've got a new set of people in the house for the summer, and they're pretty good. They're not very tidy, but I still haven't actually hired a cleaning service, so I'm not too bothered by it. They are paying higher rent, which is helpful, although I think I am still loosing money. I'll find out for sure early next month.
Being out of debt is good, but I haven't actually bought a fancy TV or anything. I'm actually thinking of buying a condo after my lease is up here. I could afford it now. I'm not entirely sure I want to, since I don't like living alone and don't have anyone to share it with. But, I do have a year and a half, so we'll see what happens. In the meantime, I'm saving almost as much as I was spending on getting out of debt, I've switched one piece of that from PayPal to my work 401k, and I've got more spending money than I know what to do with. I'm sure I'll start finding things soon enough.

Compare this to the last one

Gas

2007-05-24T13:32:07Z

I'm catching up with my receipts this morning. I bought gas on May 19^th, 9.687 gallons for $31.96 – the first time I've paid over $30 for a tank. The last time I bought gas was April 20^th, 8.510 gallons for $24.67. I didn't quite make it one month without buying gas.

I'm thinking of going back and calculating my gas mileage. List time I did that I was driving on the freeway a lot, nearly 30 minutes each way to and from work, and getting about 33 mpg. Now I drive much less, but almost entirely on surface streets, so I expect my mileage isn't as good.

EDIT: That's odd… my credit card was charged 11.58% less than the receipt says: $28.26. That changes the price per gallon from $3.299 to $2.917.

Health Insurance

2007-05-11T00:34:41Z

I recently had a CT scan of my wrist, which showed the break had started healing but wasn't very far along yet. Today, I got the insurance statement showing what was paid for it:

Sticker Price:	$1,697	100.00%
I Paid:	$300	17.68%
Insurance Paid:	$223	13.14%
Total Actually Paid:	$523	30.82%
“Provider Discount”:	$1,174	69.18%

The mind boggles.

This is just completely insane. Some sort of discount for large numbers of referrals is reasonable, but 69% is far too much.

The $300 I paid counted toward a deductible, so it's possible that the insurance company could pay the entire $523 under slightly different circumstances. Still, if I didn't have insurance, I'd've had to pay well over 3 times the apparent actual value of the service.

Just the fact that they can routinely give a nearly 70% discount leads me to believe that the sticker price is abusively high. This, like every other form of abuse, should be illegal.

But I am at a loss as to what it is that the law should prohibit. Anyone else have an idea?

Update

2007-04-15T02:00:11Z

I've been mostly posting friends-only, so here's what's goin’ on with me, for everyone.

In January I broke my right wrist. I was auditioning for a musical, and at some point I jumped a little too high and turned a little too slow and came down hard and crooked on my hands. I didn't stop dancing, I finished the routine, and then the audition, and didn't feel too bad about it. I didn't get the part, but at the time noone knew my wrist was worse than badly bruised, so I don't think it was that. I think it was mostly that my schedule sucks, and partly 'cause I don't tap. By that night I knew it was worse than just bruised, and after wiggiling it around poking at it I figured I'd sprained it. After six weeks of being gentile, wearing a brace, ice, etc, it was much much better, but clearly something significant was still wrong, so that's when I went to a doctor. The first doctor said, yep, it probably was sprained, and that did heal, but the x-rays showed a non-displaced fracture of the scaphoid. So I was wearing a cast until this past monday, and now I'm wearing a brace, and next month I'll probably be doing some physical therapy.
I “dropped out” of school again, because a broken wrist makes it very difficult to write, and thus to do homework. I missed the friendly withdrawal date, so this counts as an F. GSU doesn't forgive low grades if you take the class again and get a better one, but they do have a “hardship withdrawal,” which I will apply for.
Before I had the cast on I was working full time, and icing my wrist a few times a day. After getting the cast, I couldn't really ice it, and it started hurting more, so I dropped back to working a little less than half time. Now with the brace I'm going to work a little more every week until I'm back to full time. It's nice to have more time, but it sucks to be so limited in what I can do with it. I was watching a lot of TV, and now I'm watching slightly less TV and doing some spring cleaning.
I also had to stop teaching at The Conservetory. As you might well imagine, if writing is problematic, then handstands are right out. I'm also not trying to do any performing, or take any classes, etc. At first I was trying to keep exercising, but it was too frustrating. I think I'm about ready to start that up again… just as soon as I finish cleaning my house…
For a few years now I've had a lease on this 4-bedroom house, and been subletting the other three rooms. I've been getting by with that, but generally loosing money. And the place has generally been a mess. So now I've made the place pretty clean (I so should have taken some “before” pictures), and raised the rent to include cleaning service and a buffer to cover my ass for when rooms stay empty for awhile – like two of the are now. Here's hoping having a nicer place brings in people who are both willing to pay a little more, and who are more willing to help keep it clean.
I'm out of debt now! My plan was to celebrate that and my nice tax refund by buying a projector so I effectively have an 8' TV. Well, realistically, maybe just a flat HDTV that's alittle bigger than any other TV I've ever owned. But it seems like prices of both projectors and flat TV's have gone up by almost half in the last two or three months. (It could just be that I didn't look quite as hard then.) So, now it's not only going to wait until after I get new housemates, but a good while after that as well. Maybe I'll get a big SDTV in the meantime.

… so if you've actually read all the way through that, and aren't on my friends list, please leave a comment.

Well Fed

2007-04-02T04:23:19Z

At some point I started trying to organize everything I want to read regularly into a feed reader. First I looked for a good free windows reader, and couldn't find any. One sticking point was that i wanted to be able to tell the program where to keep the feed list, so I wouldn't have to change my backup procedure have it included. After struggling with that for awhile, I decided to try web-based readers. This time I went ahead and spent a little money on a subscription to FeedLounge. On the whole, FeedLounge is better than any of the free windows readers, but it lacks one critical feature. One of the main things I want to read is my friends LiveJournals, and to read the “friends only” entries you need a reader that does HTTP-Digest authentication. FeedLounge doesn't do that. Google Reader doesn't do that. I just couldn't find a web-based reader that did, until I gave up and stopped looking. Now, I've moved everything into a NewsGator account, and I can read everything in one place. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good, and it does everything I really care about. I'm quite happy with it.

Links

2007-03-26T03:25:25Z

Shortening the too-long list of things I found interesting…

Diabetes breakthrough

And the cure for diabetes is… red hot chili peppers? For mice with good healthcare, this is tremendous. For humans, well, we'll know more in about a year.
My Personal Dna Report

Generous Analyst
ULTIMATE Lego Chaingun

Wow.
AT&T Broadband TV

TV in your web browser, $20/month for 28 channels. It's not the big internet video revolution I'm waiting for, but it's a step in the right direction. (Note: “NBC 24|7 Video” has some shows available for free.)
Cancer Assassins

Viruses may be tamed for use as weapons against cancer. More good news for those mice, but in this case it'll be more than one year before it's a real treatment for humans.
“Restore your sanity and our planet”

Save trees, water, and landfill space, by paying someone else to reduce your junk mail. They also plant trees for you, but that costs extra. If you're too cheap or too poor, you can pay just a dollar to get on the “leave me alone” list.
Oral sex can cause cancer

… Well, technically, it's HPV, which we already knew caused cancer, and is transmitted by oral sex. There's been some argument against the wide distribution of a vaccine for HPV, on the basis that it might encourage sex. But if HPV also causes throat or tonsil cancer, wouldn't kissing be a risk? Or, touching your mouth too soon after shaking hands with an infected person who touched their mouth too recently? I don't imagine that's a very high risk, but cancer is a very terrible disease, and unless the vaccine is expensive I'd think it good to go ahead and all but eliminate that risk entirely. Unless, of course, we want to discourage people from even shaking hands.
Bank issues credit card to cat

Why bother with identity theft? Just get credit cards for your neighbors cats.
‘Lucy’s baby’ found in Ethiopia

The “Dikika girl” belongs to the same species as “Lucy.” For more than than 20 years, Lucy, discovered in Hadar, Ethiopia, in 1974, was the oldest human ancestor known to science.

Aww, Nuts.

2007-03-22T22:23:57Z

In addition to being the initials of Network UPS Tools, and a good source of protien, “NUT” can also mean the UK National Union of Teachers, a nutritional analysis software package, or the Egyptian goddess of the sky.