Aug. 30, 2003
I'm giving up on the Uberman schedule. There are too many distractions forcing me to skip naps, so I'm going back to an 8 hour sleep schedule.
Jul. 29, 2003
With the Uberman schedule, it's been one step forward, two steps back. When the time comes for the 4:00am nap, I end up taking a 6-8 hour nap instead of the NASA recommended 24 minute nap. I'm gonna try again tonight, this time sleeping next to my computer which is rigged with an alarm clock applet that will play something loud.
Jul. 29, 2003
Wow, it's been a long time since I've updated my little web site. Fortunately, doing so is easy when I have something to say. In my endless surfing of the web, I've stumbled upon a nifty sleep trick called polyphasic sleep, or the Uberman sleep schedule. Instead of getting eight hours of sleep all at once, you take short naps throughout the day - a twenty minute nap every four hours. It's totally insane, but for some people, it actually works. What happens is that the sleep cycles compress to the point where you enter REM sleep immediately, instead of going through the other stages. Thus a person can get by on only three hours of sleep a day. Kuro5hin has a decent article on the Uberman schedule.
Being mildly insane, I'm actually going to try this. I'm writing this at 4 in the morning, after taking a surprisingly refreshing half hour nap. Assuming I retain some semblence of conciousness, and remember to update my site more often than once a year, I'll keep you updated.
Nov. 11, 2002
I got a lot done in the past few days. My system now has a new video card - graphics are much better now. Also got a new NIC card since the old one smoked itself. The machine is now hooked to a broadband connection, so I'm able to get synced back up with Debian Unstable. Lots of other things are getting done as well.
Tomorrow, I need to go do more job searching. Preferably for something that leaves me with some hacking energy so I can pursue projects. Having a completed project is very good at job interviews.
Oct. 28, 2002
I ran into an old friend at a party the other day, now we're geeking out and talking about projects. It's something to do while unemployed, and maybe something cool will come of it. Stay tuned, sooner or later I'll have something to show.
Oct. 24, 2002
Got my first rant, What is wrong with our space program, and steps to fix it written. I do feel strongly that our space program is stalled by government bureaucracy and bullshit, and that it needs to change drastically if we are to get back in gear. The fact that we haven't had a manned visit to the moon since the Apollo program ended in the seventies is disgusting.
It's a good thing the Beltway Snipers have been caught. But it looks like the damage may have already been done to our gun rights. The Brady Bunch have been having a field day making .223 caliber rifles out to be evil baby killing carnage cannons. On my to-do list, write my Congressmen, advising them that their continued employment as my representatives in government is contingent on how they vote on gun control bills. Senators that vote against, or move to quietly kill in committee, gun control bills, get my vote for reelection. Anyone who votes for a gun control bill loses my vote.
Oct. 23, 2002
Changed the logo again, this one is the work of Guillaume Leclerc. It looks really sharp, thanks a bunch. I'm still working on my first rant, but it should show up in a day or two. My little spiel on DRM should also go into the rants section. I'm also going to have to learn PHP, or put together some sort of system for mass-production of web pages. I do have a template of sorts to work with, and my CSS style sheet takes a lot of work out of putting the HTML together, but still there's too much unnecessary work which I can eliminate with a little bit of geekery if I take the trouble to do it.
The job search goes slowly. Today, I've made some phone calls, to keep in touch with some local recruiters, but the pickings are still slim. Hopefully if I keep bugging them, they'll start sending my resume to the clients they do have.
Oct. 20, 2002
Well, I changed my code again, very slightly - changed the !DOCTYPE and fixed a couple errors. Now this site validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict. Other than this slight hack, nothing much has happened today. I went out and visited my sister's family, celebrated my brother-in-law's birthday. Got a lot of weird smells on myself from my sister's pets that made my dog very concerned.
Stay tuned, we may have a rant or two shortly.
Oct. 19, 2002
Now I have a logo for my page! Thanks to everyone that helped me out in the logo department. I also got this site to completely pass the W3C HTML Validator Service tests, using HTML 4.01 Strict. My CSS sheet also passed validation. Just looking around the web - at my older code (shudder), lots of other web sites - personal and professional, including some big corporate sites, its amazing how many of them use bad HTML, deprecated tags, ugly compatibility hacks, etc. Granted, a lot of older pages will never be fixed, but it's time for web developers to work within the standards when writing new pages. Trust me on this one. It will make your life a lot easier.
I was supposed to GM a role-playing game in a little mini-convention being held at Marshak's today. One problem, nobody showed up. It didn't take much investigation to find out that the mini-con was way under-publicized. The only publicity we had were a few fliers at Marshak's. Promoting a mini convention requires a lot more publicity than that! After leaving Marshak's, I stopped by the CSU Sci-Fi & Fantasy Club meeting, and found that nobody there had even heard of the convention. More publicity next time!!!
Oct. 18, 2002
Whoopee, this is the first writing from Meldroc's Den. So far, it isn't all that exciting since I'm still trying to put the site together. I still need a logo, but I'm most definitely not a graphic artist, so putting together one that isn't lame is a bit of a challenge for me.
This page was sort of a learning experience for me. The last time I did any sort of serious web coding was back in the days of HTML 3, tables, and multiple, incompatible browsers. Now we're in the days of HTML 4, XHTML, CSS, DOM, etc. and we still have multiple, incompatible browsers, though they claim to be more compatible now. This page is working great in Mozilla. I still have to test it out in IE, though it should look reasonably close to the way I want it to look. Since I'm using the <div> tag and a CSS layout (Look Ma, no tables!) compatibility with Netscape 4.x or earlier is a lost cause. If you're still using that buggy piece of crap, go get yourself a real browser.
I was thinking that the first thing I'd write about is Digital Rights Management (DRM). I'll probably expand on this rant a little later and move it into my Rants section, but right now I just need something semi-coherent to kick this site off.
So what is Digital Rights Management?
Digital Rights management is more colloquially known as "copy protection", where the creator of a particular work that may be recorded on a CD, DVD or some other medium, tries to prevent you from making unauthorized copies of that work.
Why would the creators of your beloved content do this? Because pirates steal it, depriving the creators of their well-deserved revenue. Stopping piracy is all well and good, except for this thing called Fair Use.
Now, fair use is a lot of things. When I rip the tracks from my music CDs, and make MP3s from them so I can use my computer as a jukebox, that's fair use. Do I put those files on the net or give them to my friends? No, that's copyright infringement. Recording TV programs so you can watch them later is also fair use. So is taking quotes from a book and using them (citing properly, giving credit to the authors) in a book report.
The problem with Digital Rights Management is that it prevents fair use. DRM takes away your freedom and puts you at the mercy of the content creators, who almost certainly do not have your interests at heart.
In short, it's a fancy way of saying "We will tell you what you can and can't do with your own computer, VCR, DVD player, etc."
Are you pissed off yet?
Good. Now what are you going to do about it?
First thing you will want to do is visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation I'm just ranting, but the EFF spends all of their energy trying to protect us from this crap. Visit their web site, read what they have to say, and send them money.