In the meantime…

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I am so late doing this I’m practically ashamed.  E.G,   The house only holds about 40 people and , well you think hell 40 people that’s easy Probably so easy that telling everyone would lead to a lot of disappointed folks which I’m still aiming for:)

Marian Call delivers whimsical Alaskan folk funk for the Coffee Counter-Culture. She sounds a little like Joni Mitchell & Regina Spektor raising the child of Jason Mraz & Erin McKeown. Call’s sound is always soulful, honest, and clever, loved by all types — computer geeks, church ladies, teenage thugs, NPR listeners, and urban hipsters worldwide. Marian is currently touring all 50 states and hopes to play for you soon — find more information at http://mariancall.com.

If you like what you hear  then how about hearing it live, like two days from now?

When we originally requested a house concert it seemed plausible. laughably in hindsight, that we could accommodate this at our house.  Thankfully friend and  fellow fan Mandi stepped in to save the day and for this Phoenix and surrounding areas  all you have to do is leave your house on a Wednesday night and come out for live music. 

RSVP to

mandi  AT neuroticbynature.com

For details on where to go, what to bring and how much fun you are going to have.

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Having just made contact again with the folks back home in the UK as they come on line with Facebook et all and find that I am still alive, still haven’t changed my name  to , well they don’t even know me as, haltse it’s been obvious that I needed an update post on the things that are interesting in the USA that haven’t made it over to the UK. There are people that are into Zombies that actually don’t know who Jonathan Coulton is,  I know, mind blown.   

So here’s a quick list of what I’ve been up to since leaving Scotland back in 1997.  

Moved to GA  70 mile NW of Atlanta   worked for 2 seasons at tax software co helping cheap people achieve things with hardware that was pushing obsolescence into itself , seriously I edited modem strings, printer files and more CLI work than ever should be attempted with members of the public.

After GA moved to CA  on the eve of the millennium. Took 4 days to move  people in the UK , sorry it’s not a long way down to the chip chop,, that’s peanuts to America:)

Yep everyone has been there and I don’t mean on vacation. Not to give it away but Californication was a nice couple of years working for a dot com that turned  b2c b2b  and b2b2c so quickly that it had to fail. Actually it didn’t fail  , people were paid, had jobs for a couple of years and had a lot of fun with nice people while doing it.

Became permanent resident,Marriage failed,  company above was bought by AOL  and I moved to Arizona where I managed to lose the friend I came here to be near ( I’m good at this it’s a motif for my life apparently )  

Started working for GoDaddy.com , haven’t stopped working for them.  Privately owned , which I like, ok I only like it if I like the owner which in this case is a good match.  There’s little chance I could have achieved as much in the UK than I have here because ,well to be blunt it’s not a  wait till Friday to get  drunk and take Monday off kinda culture.

Met my wifelette, Erin,    spawned a Dobhran,  he’ll be five in September.  we’ll be 7 or 8  cos I never get the anniversary right.

All the links to my photo sites, blogs and the like can be found through the sidebar but  just in case.

http://friendfeed.com/haltse

http://flickr.com/photos/haltse

Besides I’m  haltse everywhere that matters   

That’s the precis.   And  just about all of it is contained somewhere in the posts to this blog.

New likes.

Ice Hockey. I’ve finally found a team sport that I appreciate.   I still like  watching tennis ( mainly the women’s:) )  but to coordinate a pass  of a small rubber disk,while travelling backward on a slippery surface while others are trying to hit you  + doing that for 80 games a season:  Anyone visiting during the season will be attending a game. 

Watches.   Watches that cost more than my first  few cars:)  They were cheap cars.  Aviator style watches do it for me oh yes:)

Hawaii (  only been once, not enough)

Really good food.  Thai Food, Mediterranean food, slow food and I’ve upped my  heat capacity to stupid levels. www.extremefoods.com is my best friend:)  How bad is it?  Well I collect hot sauces now. 

Really good cooking ( I do some things well, Erin does way more things well but )

Ghost in the Shell.  I want me some cyberisation:)

Lego games on the xbox..

Media, way too much. some highlights http://www.mariancall.com   a singer/songwriter that’s so good that I  donated monthly to  help pay for the recording of  the new album.

http://www.richardcheese.com seen him so many times live and it’s never gotten old  his band kicks ass too. , www.mynameischance.com  ,www.freezepop.com ,  http://www.amandapalmer.net/  white stripes and I started really liking the Proclaimers and  some weird www.slimcessnasautoclub.com 

Books.

R K Morgan : Sci-fi  Altered carbon especially.

Robert Rankin.

Grant Morrison ( Invisibles, The Filth and countless DC reinventions. )

Orson Scott Card’s  Ender series.

Heinlein,  yeah I was late to that party but am now in attendance:)

So much non-fiction that it hurts.   Omnivore’s dilemma was good and am currently reading  Life, Inc.

Still Likes.

motorbikes,firearms , tori, NIN, red headed women Fish, Dick Dale , black pudding , cider  and

Things that are meh:)

No more buffets,  fast food is the last choice , always.  TV  stopped watching networks and use that time to xbox.

More in a bit:)

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here we are

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Otter,
originally uploaded by Ian Press Photography.

Today’s otter shot of the day is a tasteful reminder that the central question of existence is not who am I? or What am I? but where shall we have lunch.

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There seems to be a problem requiring people to adhere to the very thing that we immigrants have knowingly signed up for. Not a fan of it but it’s the price of admission I pay to play here.  It’s a nice conceit to think that you can wander around sans state or federal ID but seemingly the very thing I’ve had to live with doing for nearly a decade now, carry my card and have it available for inspection, is problematic because the police will somehow act like jerks in a way that’s different from their usual M.O:)  The funny part is that people are crying to the Fed Gov to protect them from the near word for word rendition a federal law that which they find  outlandish, racist and fascist to jackboot when AZ restated it.

“

“Permanent Resident Card
The Permanent Resident Card, Form I-551, is issued to all Permanent Residents as evidence of alien registration and their permanent status in the US. The card must be in your possession at all times. This requirement means that you are not only required to have a currently valid Form I-551 at all times, but also that you must carry your currently valid Form I-551 on your person at all times.”

The part of the law that is egregious I will get into later .

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There’s no sound , feel free to whistle along.

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Google’s mobile iPhone app gave me a restaurant in Rhode Island a couple of thousand miles away as my number one and two result. 

What the hell is the use in that? A geo-enabled device making a request from a mobile app gets results for places that are hours away by jet! 

Yes it’s rather cool that I can talk into my phone, have it get the right phrase, and see results within a few seconds but it would be nice if it could be done with more attention paid to the context of the search.

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The real story is that had this been sold from a classified in the newspaper’s owned by the TV station it would have gone unheralded. Just  about everything you see reported against CL is from the people that didn’t just have their lunch stolen but turned up at the grocery store to find a black smoking hole.

CL has it’s faults but were they are indistinguishable from say the same advert on a supermarket notice board or, and I know this would be a rare one ,from a paid classified ad in a newspaper it shouldn’t be the headline of the story.

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otter 5,
originally uploaded by sofidch.

What has this otter forgot?

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From the 500 hats blog comes a nice summation that matches many of my feelings with regards to how programs are pitched, created and go to 2 cups (He has a much better line but I’ll not steal it totally out of context.)  He brings up  login friction, e.g.,  how easy it is to actually use the service and creating infrequent use apps can cause problems by itself.

So listen up I’ll share a little secret with you — there is one very simple way to avoid forgotten passwords.Basically, it’s this:

Make a Frequent-Use Product.
That’s it, you say?

Yeah, that’s it Sherlock.Make a brain-dead simple, frequent-use product.If users login a lot, then they don’t forget their passwords

 While my favourite inner-Austrian applauds lines such as

Newsflash folks: The Internet does NOT want to be FREE… It wants to GET PAID on Fucking Friday, just like everybody else on the damn planet.

It’s kind of sad that this has to be restated that making a program that needs to be useful is another. 

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To let you know how much I dislike the affinity posts, re-posts, tweets and retweets about serious issues that run the risk of causing the appearance that something is actually being done.

Problem 1

I wanted to know what my friends were up to, their thoughts, accomplishments joys and sadness. Instead it’s a pile of app-generated crap intermixed with memes copied from others that often contradict how that person sees themselves.Challenging them has usually resulted in a defensive “I’m just sharing it” and  usually without a review of the original material ergo they really aren’t in any way responsible for the material.

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” 

Oscar Wilde’s above quote fits into a tweet by the way. Sad thing is I follow you because I am interested in what YOU have to say and not you by Proxy.

Problem 2

The Facebook child abuse cause has over 2 million members and has raised around $1600 dollars or eight hundredths of a cent per member.You’ll find the same disparity reflected over and over again within groups for domestic-violence,anti-torture, land mines and just about any other topic of human misery you care; sorry you –pretend- to care,about matters.

The actions don’t match up with the words. It may give someone the idea that it’s under control, I mean 2 million people wow, that’s an achievement that’s worth well it’s worth about $1600. Rather trivializes whatever the cause de jour is nes’t pas?

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Otter running,
originally uploaded by the longhairedgit.

Today’s otter of the day.

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Scroll wheel on desktop is a finger puzzle on netbooks that support it,banners that often leave your most important items below the fold, workflows that DON’T and just a complete lack of attention to the expected usage of the products make the netbooks look bad in the same way that most sites shrunk for mobile phones do.

Netbook sales 2009

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I’m selling a car,trying to,presently on Craigslist which leads to the kind of interactions with people I’d rather not have. People that are possibly worse to deal with than car sales types.

Apart from the usual people that want to buy the car for $1000 less than posted without even looking it over, those that want to come tell you why it’s crap and that they don’t like the brand, those that want to buy it for a college student and expect a six year old car to carry the kind of guarantee that a new one would etc  and  the most interesting?  A ,can I politely say, less than  mentally capable person that doesn’t –even- have a driving license showing up at the door at 2130 ( 9 30  at night for those of you that can’t add twelve) unannounced that we didn’t give the address out to which is kind of spooky. Not a fan of this guy to say the least.

I still have the car and some information on a new scheme/scam.  Person mails me, asks some info and to arrange to see car.I send it. They then say oh prior to me coming out can I get some idea of the auto insurance via this site.  Auto insurance tips dot com,but the link went to tamiesunshine144 .blogspot . com and then redirected with the affiliate ID to the insurance site.  E.G., trolling for affiliate commissions.

CL is turning in Ebay and it’s usefulness is only possible when using a third party to search it when you are looking for something specific though as a means of exposing yourself to jerks it’s first class.

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I’ve fallen in the Atlantic,in large rivers and streams in the past and have to say that one is certainly not manageable without assistance.Sure you get the life jacket that keeps your head above water as it flows around you but you can’t actually do much but sit back till someone pulls you out. 

To help pull me out from my info addiction the nice people at  lifeio.com streamy and threadsy.com have offerings which seek to provide a nice paddle with which to beat back the creek of crap we’re exposed to daily.

The one that apparently does the least, on the surface,is my current favorite.
Threadsy is in the lead with it being a constant presence on one monitor while I just dip into the other two. It’s interesting as Threadsy started out doing less than the other two offering but it does it so well.It also solves a very real problem that the mainstream users haven’t encountered yet, they probably won’t encounter it till more of them actually use FB and Twitter in their daily lives.   

Threadsy , pardon the sewing puns, seamlessly brings together the contents of tweets, Facebook updates and your mail account. I don’t have to chase many windows around to see, reply to tweets, post status updates, see incoming mail.   Nothing revolutionary that alt – tab or the amazing Firefox extension Foxtab couldn’t do for you but it’s the thread part  of the name that makes this so useful.

Most of the interesting stuff in twitter are links to images, videos or pages that obviously make no sense to a human when a URL shortener is used, no mind , i get a preview of each item, can play video in place,see the image, reply to or make a comment on the tweet/ update and go about my day without closing out a pile of windows each time curiosity gets the better of me,about 10-12 seconds.

When I open up a mail, tweet or update the author panel to the side shows me the services they use, their latest posts, tweets, images. Single click. Yum!

Plus it has Meebo chat built in accounting for just about any messenger service you’d care to use.  Aggregating the streams is one of those  emergent/ obvious things ( has to be I thought of the same damn thing way back) but execution is everything and so far these software tailors have provided this Emperor* with an impressive suit of  new clothes

*Much in the same way Joshua Norton was

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This is definitely my otter of the day maybe even the month.

Wow.

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Attempting to watch presentations live this weekend was the usual frustration of  presenter,unmiked,using a fixed microphone on the desk in the room.

The presenter’s moved and talked with people off screen and to the side that we couldn’t hear and after a few minutes in each case couldn’t follow.

If that’s not bad enough the presentations were on how to use technology to advance your cause, business or ego.

There’s a reason radio studios don’t place the mike 5 – 10 feet away from the host and allow them to walk around the studio. There oughta be a law?

  There is.

And I think I’ll use the kind of technology espoused,least I think it was, to bludgeon my point a bit further.

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This is my favorite otter shot of the day.

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They try to up sell you on nitrogen which has nominal to NO practical value when fitted to your average car. I had read anecdotally that Honda were not a fan of the practice and I send a tweet to see if I could get a reference for this. 

There you go.  I’ve been to this dealer twice and while the service was done quickly,the waiting area is clean, nice wifi,play area and coffee  It’s only been after the usual chat re, “service this to Honda’s requirements to keep the extended warranty valid”How they then want to add injector cleaning agents, N2 and suggest a transmission flush on a < 30k car, a 30k MANUAL car is beyond me. Despite declining the injector cleaning they billed me for it anyway and took money of the air filter instead. They must have some kind of weird  bonus structure going there but a 30k car that’s performing well does not need it. 

Needless to say I’ll be using another dealership  for future warranty work.

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