Why We Write

on wednesday, i was linked an awesome blog; one particular post caught my eye.
for the first time since Opera 9.5 came out, i was happy that the internet was invented and that it has evolved towards user-generated content, rather than commercial fluff. there are some really excellent writers out there who wouldn't have had even the remotest chance of making it into my brain if it weren't for the internet.

of course, the internet is not all good and gravy. the gold is hidden in the dross and muck and refuse and detritus; it takes a good deal of work and luck to find a nugget worth holding on to. it's the same with life and love and work and everything else. there will be good times and bad times; sweet moments that you wish could last forever and painful moments that you wish would go away; days when the productivity is peaking and days when you just want to switch all the keys on the keyboard with someone else's.

what i really like about this example is that he writes the way i want to be writing 10 years from now. it's like looking into the future. i've found a few similar writers who have travelled down the same path i'm on now. they write down their memories, experiences and insights for their own reasons (like i'm doing now); somewhere down the road, it helps someone else understand his or her own world in a different perspective.

while most of my writings have been frivolous, whimsical or downright awkward, i do hope some of them turn out to be someone's gold one day.

the way things change

change is in the air. i can feel it.

the one big ability our mortality affords us is the ability and motivation to change*. changes come in all stripes: good, bad, positive, negative, reinforcing, deconstructing; what those stripes are depend on your interpretation. are zebras white equines with black stripes, or black equines with white swaths of hair**? someone go shave a zebra please.

apart from the subjective changes, there are also objective changes: categories of change that have no element of interpretation.

i have a pair of stereo headphones that came with a little radio i got back in the late 90s. i thought they were cool, because of the way they wrapped around my head and bent to fit into my ears. i've used them consistently as computer headphones for the past 2 years. a few weeks ago, i noticed that the sound from the left side was noticably missing. after doing a quick diagnosis (plug in different speakers/headphones while running the same video), i've concluded that this pair of headphones has changed, i.e. failed, just through the daily grind of being worn and translating electronic pulses into timpanic vibrations. this kind of change is what i would call an Environmental Change, like erosion or tectonic motion; it just happens.

Environmental Changes can be positive or negative; by positive, i mean additive, like how the Mississipi River deposits silt at the Gulf of Mexico to form a delta, and by negative, i mean subtractive, like winds of the Arctic carve away at boulders.

the other objective change is the Deliberate Change, where an agent or sentient force exacts a premeditated alteration to something that is not operating in the desired way. in psychological terms, this would probably be Operant Conditioning. when i first started to use my laptop, it would not connect to wireless networks automatically, requiring mouse movement to click on the network manager icon and selection of the desired network. you know how much i hate unnecessary mouse movement***. so in an effort to become more efficient, i exacted a change that allowed me to connect to networks automatically, but sacrificed a hardware button to turn off my wireless card. this resulted in further changes, whereby the wireless card was disabled through keyboard shortcut. the rest of the story is documented in its entirety in a previous post.

by nature, or by intervention, i am being positioned for something promising and interesting. old paradigms crumble in place of different, and hopefully better ones.

* yes, BSG viewers, i totally swiped that from Natalie-Six.
** polar bears have black skin and clear fur.
*** i know some people that still click the Enter button with their mice after entering something into a form field.

"what do you do at work?"

i make stuff like this:

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how to seduce a hoimin

if you've ever thought to yourself, "hoimin's so dense; how can i ever get him to notice me?" this post is here to help.

Primary Seduction Vectors

do you know the 5 Love Languages? well, now you do. if you're looking to seduce me, you have to speak to me in the langauges of love that i understand. the following are the angles of attack that are most effective against me. we're talking about a 74% success rate of getting me smitten if half of these methods are used -- even accidentally.

Proximity - if you're in my field of vision, or simply sitting near me consistently, i will notice you. the key is being consistent for a few times, and then playing hard-to-get, so that i'll wonder, "hey, i wonder why she doesn't sit nearby anymore." i am highly susceptible to psychological manipulation. this method appeals to my first love language: quality time.

Conversation - let's me get to know you. usually, the more i get to know someone, the easier it is for me to notice how awesome she is. i can't converse very well, so if you're looking to use conversation as a seduction vector, you'll have to do most of the talking. conversation will also allow you to show off how smart, clever and funny you can be. wordplay is an underrated point of attraction. this method appeals to my first love language.

Let Me Get That For You - you can make me feel really pleased with myself by walking around with something awkward-heavy and letting me carry it for you when i ask. same goes for door-opening, shoelace-tying and getting hair out of your eyes when you're up to your elbows in random muck. this method appeals to my second love language: acts of service.

Punching/Slapping/Shin-Kicking/Tripping - just like grade school. i'm sure you remember how. this appeals to my third love language: physical touch.

Secondary Seduction Vectors

the Observer Effect - start some rumours. if everyone starts talking about us even when i've never spoken to you before, it will cause me to start thinking about you.

Special Powers - i'm a big sucker for ladies that have special powers and know how to use them. examples of special powers include: crossword puzzle solving, singing, catching flying objects, making babies do funny things, laughing, eating and communicating with animals.

it is a great time to be a nerd

this past monday was Apple's WWDC (developers conference), where they announced a launched a plethora of promising items (iPhone 2.0 & 3G, OS X Snow Leopard, MobileMe). the upgraded iPhone garnered the greatest amount of attention from the intertubes. i'll admit that i was not interested in the first iPhone, but exposure to it has softened my stance over the months, and now the iPhone 3G's foray into Canada has piqued some interest.

what i was really pleased about was Snow Leopard, the next OS X. it is set to launch next year, which is exactly the time i plan on acquiring a new notebook (see The Plan). it will be light on new visible features, but high in refining processes and performance. its main focus will be utilizing the new hardware (multi-core processors) more efficiently and effectively. while some people find the name confusing, i, for one, think it is awesome. this is not simply because i heart snow leopards, but because the name speaks to the incremental nature of the improvements. essentially, OS X 10.6 will be the same as 10.5 Leopard, but with changes under the hood.

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on Tuesday, June 17, Mozilla will be releasing Firefox 3.0, the much awaited upgrade to the lacklustre Firefox 2.0. even though i'm not a regular Firefox user, i am still excited for this release. from what i've seen in the beta, 3.0 is vastly superior to 2.0 in terms of memory usage, speed and general usability. aside from the wonderful collection of extensions and add-ons, Firefox does a lot of the little things well -- like in-line spellchecking and update management. Mozilla is looking to break the Guiness World Record for number of downloads in one day with Firefox 3.0's release. here's your chance to become part of history, or, if you're like me, wait until the day after, when the servers are less stressed and shaft them out of one more download.

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Opera 9.5 (Kestrel) was finally released today to subdued fanfare (relative to the above news). Opera currently holds 0.7% of the world's marketshare of browsers used. this is reflected in North American usage, but not indicative of European statistics, where it is the browser of choice for a significant number of countries. i've been using Opera since 9.0, so i'm a newbie in comparison to the stalwart users from 1994, when the company first entered the browser market.

like Firefox 3.0, Opera 9.5 is a fairly significant improvement over 9.27. i've been using the alphas and betas upon their respective releases, so the speed increase and some of the features are not quite so novel. however, there have been a few changes made since the last build i used (beta 2). the most marked difference is the new default skin in Windows. i must say that i am not a fan of some aspects of the new look, but they are not too obtrustive. apart from those minor niggles, there is plenty to be pleased about. i will likely devote a separate post to Kestrel in the near future. for the uninitiated, Lifehacker has a short roundup of what's sexy in this latest release.