Hmm.

I’ve begun to notice a cyclical pattern in my internet usage. I’m not sure how to explain it, but I think an example might explain what I’ve noticed. During the last full week in July, I was keeping on top of all the things I do online: keeping track of news on Google Reader, blogging, twittering, etc. Then, during the following weekend, I stopped doing things that involved writing. During the early part of last week, I stopped keeping track of my feeds in Google Reader, and got behind on the news. During the late week, I got through all of the unread items, and now, at the end of this weekend, I am blogging again. Interesting.
Anyway, tomorrow, I am off to Pittsburgh to visit Carnegie-Mellon University on Tuesday.

Quick one.

Well, I’ve been not blogging much recently. Tuesday was my RPI visit, and Wednesday, my internet service was down in the morning, and in the afternoon, I was getting my drivers pre-licensing certification. Ugh. I think I have some strong thoughts on getting drivers’ licenses in New York state.
I’ve been working on various puzzles from my family’s collection of jigsaw puzzles. There is nothing quite like a good jigsaw puzzle. The way I approached the most recent puzzle was to: 1. sort pieces into color groups, and put edge pieces to the side, 2. assemble the border, 3. build clumps from color groups, 4. install clumps into area of puzzle. This has worked very well mainly because this puzzle has large color groups (ie many pieces of a certain color), making the sorting process an obvious way to work.
Also, the new delicious is here. I think it is awesome. Still waiting for the new iGoogle.

Electricity Generation

I want to start off a thread of blogging here on the subject of electricity: on generation, use, storage, transportation, etc. I would like to build a set of posts and links on these topics, and I will use what people send me. I hope that my coblogger, who is interested in this same subject, will also join in with what he knows.
To kick this off, I would like to talk about cars: electrical cars to be precise. To make electrical cars useful, there are, I believe, three things needed: lots of cheap power readily available, a motor that is powerful as necessary for the job (while also being as efficient as possible), and a better battery capable of driving that motor for many miles. What developments exist on these fronts?

Firefox and Tablets.

Ok. I have a tablet computer. A toshiba m400. It is a nice computer, and it has a tablet mode. I use firefox (firefox 3.0.1 I believe), and I want it easy to use in tablet mode. So here is what I did.
Set icons to be small.
Add a number of icons to to the upper bar.

From left to right. Top: NextPlease! buttons, Firebug, ScribeFire, Stealther, history, downloads, extensions, Open closed tab, new tab, new window, close tab. Bottom: search, adblockplus, read it later.

This gives an overall effect like this:

Useful for tablets

A nice day.

Finally, the storms have gone. They lasted from about 15:00 yesterday to about 11:00 today. I’ve been working on one of the jigsaw puzzles that my great-grandmother bought many years ago. I’m going to run today, which is good.
I installed FireGPG earlier so that I can have more secure emails if I need them. I use gmail, because I figure, email is insecure as it is, so why get stressed out if just one more group is looking at my boring emails? So there.

Storms = Exercise FAIL.

Yeah. Summer is either too hot, or storming. Gar. Second day in a row without getting to run.

Not running today.

My knee started hurting last night, so I’m not going to run today. I’ll do pushups and crunches before bed tonight instead. To admit the truth, I just can’t get motivated to run today. Oh well.

Screenshot of KDE 4.1

Like I promised:

A screenshot of my KDE 4.1 desktop

The view is of the plasma desktop shell. You can see the panel on the bottom, with plasmoids, and you can see several plasmoids on the desktop area, including the folder view plasmoids, which are awesome. Apparently, there will be a release of this for both Windows and Mac. If you want more details, ask.

Nutcases out there.

Ok. Here is a slightly amusing article that (not seriously) presents the argument that Obama is too young to be president (through a “loose” or “evolving” interpretation of the constitution, haha). Read the whole thing, it is a subtle humor. Then, if you dare, look at the comments. It seems that most commenters did not finish the article before moving straight into dashing off their fulminating vitriol. The rest seemed not to get the joke about “evolving interpretations” of the constitution.
I guess the moral is, if you are going to be funny on the internet, do it quickly. Or prepare for a swarm of nutcases.

Workout, Books, etc.

Ok, post-weekend etc. update.

The only day I did not run since last Wednesday was Sunday. The soreness has subsided, which is good, because I can run harder.

I’ve been rereading Cryptonomicon. My grandparents are going to get me some new books (thank you grandparents) including some books on Ruby.

I’ve begun using the prerelease version of KDE 4.1. It is really awesome. Maybe I’ll do some screenshots this week.

I helped install a sundial here yesterday. My grandfather designed it, we went out and purchased stone that was then cut to hold the metal pieces following the design, and then my dad and I cut a flat area into the side of the hill (dig a shallow hole, move dirt so that it is generally level, fill with pea gravel, level gravel that sundial will go on, put sundial on top, level it, align it. Not easy).

I bought some new boots over the weekend. They are black and steel toed. They go up higher on the leg than my old boots. They are awesome.

There you go.