Google Transit
Google Transit – Google tackles rapid transit.
Slow Week
The site has been slow for the past few days for a few reasons – I decided, after much resistance, to move over to wordpress. After my initial fright at all the question marks (php) in the code, I kicked its ass, and I have a much more manageable site.
Adding to the time crunch was yet another work site launch along with the release of Halo3. Uncle Rob and I stood in line at midnight on Monday, with the most frightening collection of people ever assembled at a wal-mart. We couldn’t decide who we hated more – 400lb guy who hadn’t bathed in the past four days, or pink shirt guy who was way too excited about things.
Anyhow, the site is coming back on line, with new fanciness to come soon.
Clickable Geek Fun
In my continued efforts to not leave the site alone for more than a month at a time, I’ve created an unholy marriage of two javascripts – the random image puller, and the lightbox script – so that I now have random lightboxed images in the banner of the site.
Useful ? no. Cool ? Probably not. No Idea what the hell I’m talking about ? Me neither, just click the pretty picture at the top of the page, fun things should happen.
Searchability
Me: Guys this is really weird, but my computer slows down really
drastically around three-in-the afternoon each day.
Techsupport: That’s not possible. It just seems like that.
Me: Uh, well seriously, I try and open Photoshop and it takes like five minutes.
It’s been doing it ever since you guys installed that windows desktop search thing.
Techsupport: Well, the search tool has to index in the afternoon.
Try running lees applications at once.
Me: Couldn’t we just turn it off (Muffled rage, crushing phone)?
Techsupport: You need to be able to search your computer.
Me: Even If I can’t use my computer (setting Dell-tower on fire)?
TechSupport: You still need to be able to search your computer.
Me: What if we just got me a Mac instead (throwing flaming Dell down the stairs) ?
TechSupport: Macs would be too difficult for us to support.
Hippy Wade
We used to be known as hippie-wade. I don’t think its all the way justified, but I do recycle, buy organic peanut butter and vote a left-leaning ticket (the peanut butter in particular making me the pinko-commie of my particular crowd).
Recently though, hippie-wade has had a few blows to the self image. First I moved to Clarksville, leaving the mother-womb of all things hippy, south Austin. Then there was the Blackberry. Then I got the Wagon detailed. Then the 40″ HD-TV appeared in my living room. Then I amazed all my friends by not only eating meat, but being able to grill it with a marginal amount of skill.
Thus the image has suffered. So when I’m at the grocery store, presented with a plethora of options in the sanitary tissue (toilet paper) department, I see a brand offering naturally-whitened, no-bleach, fully recycled paper. Very eco-friendly. Very hippie wade. I throw it in the cart, thinking how bad could it be ?
If anyone is looking, you’ll find hippie-wade’s corpse in the dumpster out behind my apartment, along with 15.95 rolls of Eco-friendly toilet-paper.
Redbull Air Race
This could be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
The Air Race is not just about speed – precision is crucial to success because any mistakes incur penalty points which are then added to the pilot’s time. Flying low to the ground at speeds that can reach 400kph, while attempting difficult turning manoeuvres, requires immense skill that only a certain number of pilots in the world possess. That is why the pilots are hand selected based upon their expertise and experience. These pilots are at the top of their game. They have to be – the Air Race exerts huge demands on their flying abilities and they have to withstand forces of up to 10G. There is no room for error.
More badassedness available here, with additional YouTube fun here.
ACL 2007
Austin City Limits Festival fires up this weekend. Thousands of people stumbling around Zilker park in the heat, listening to music. There are many pleasant months of the year in Texas, but the folks at Capital Sports & Entertainment seems to insist on keeping this one right smack in one of the hottest sections of the calendar. Regardless, to all the incoming peoples let me offer you a piece of advice – when given the choice at the festival, drink Lonestar not Heineken. Its good cheap, beer and you’ll look less like a foreigner (no, not out-of-towner, foreigner – we used to be a country after all – show some respect).
Overheard While Moving
On the various felonies we would and would not commit, Tim offered…
Kidnapping – man think of all that added responsibly…”
In The Mountains
What’s better than drinking too much at high altitude and singing Robert Earl Keen Songs around a campfire ?
When it’s your family doing the drinking and the singing.