Category: geekery

ems and ens and things. I had no idea.

So, if I get some time in the next week or so (that’s as long as I give myself to start a new project – no sense fooling myself), I’m going to work on an AOLserver/Tcl implementation of the Blogger API. I’ve never worked with XML-RPC, but it looks like it’s just POSTing XML to an url, and ta-da, you’ve got a cool buzzword to add to your resume. AOLserver makes this terribly easily by allowing you to construct responses and requests and has a very nice Tcl socket API. And just when I was getting bored…

Interesting Google tip: If you type in link:http://www.somesite.com, it will find pages that link to the url you enter. How cool is that? I remember AltaVista being able to do it too, but I can’t remember how. I wish we did that… Oh well, here’s how cool my sister is. She has 5 pages of sites that link to her, and I have 4 sites total, two of which are comments I’ve posted to other sites, one is a site I’m a member of, and one is real. She’s won awards, you know.

So, everything’s in disarray. Yup, you said it. I have no idea who I’m working with anymore outside of my own group. So, until that’s all settled you’ll be hearing a lot more from me. I plan on doing some playing, some upgrading, some code-writing on pet projects and taking it easy until everyone gets their collective act together.

You know, I wish I lived in an open source world where I could show you all the cool stuff I’m doing. But, alas, I can’t. Just imagine the application you’ve always wanted on the web… that’s how cool what I’m doing is. Yep, I’m a genius. No, really. You don’t believe me?

I think I’ll start an open-source project. I’ll call it Gnutz. No idea what it will do, but hey, it’s got a cool name, and that’s all that matters. Ok, I’ve been procrastinating long enough. Time to install PostgreSQL 7.1.3 on the intranet and see what I break.

I had no idea I had any influence over people. None at all. I was wrong! Isn’t that scary? Because we’ve been hanging around for three weeks with rumors of layoffs, and no word from management, I figured it was time for some civil disobedience. Nothing major like a “naked @ work day” or anything, just something small to show our chagrin. I decided to stop shaving. It lasted for about 10 days. On day six or seven, someone commented on my shaggy appearance, so I let them in on my idea. They apparently told some other people, and by the time the layoffs actually happened, there were six or seven of my fellow employees following in my footsteps. How freaky is that?

What is it about accomplishment that’s totally re-energizing? After my brilliance this week, I feel like working again. I don’t feel like doing nothing, and grudgingly doing my job. I feel like doing it in new and fantastic ways, with plastic spoons. No, really, I’m amped. I think this new “get cool results by getting idiots to learn just some html tags” is really cool. It should save me from having to do things all the time, and I’ll really only have to write the tags once, make sure they work, and then unleash them on an unsuspecting world. Sure, I may be writing myself out of a job, but I’m tired of doing the same thing every day anyway. Without giving away too much, I’ll try to keep y’all updated on my quest to replace myself with HTML. It’ll work, I swear on Tim Berners-Lee’s shiny bald spot.

So, I moved. I have a new bright pod with all my same old crap in it. Why can’t I work? I never thought I was such a creature of habit. I guess I am. If anything at all is different, it throws me off, and I have trouble concentrating or getting anything done. Good thing I don’t have anything I have to do, eh?

I’m still reading The Code Book, and am still marveling at all the wonderful info it contains. I can’t recommend it strongly enough.

I think I’m back!! The boredom is fading, and I’m back to writing code and playing around. And thank goodness. I was afraid it was a terminal case.

This morning I rewrote some old stuff, played with new stuff (building a polling tool so we can do silly polls on our intranet), then found out we don’t need the polling tool for a while. And that’s when I knew it was over. If I were still in a state of angry boredom, that would have pushed me over the edge. But, I’m OK with it. Maybe I’m just resigned the fact that noone tells me anything, even when I ask. It’s just the way it goes.

Not that it’s all rosy, mind you. I won’t go that far. I’m still not terribly challenged, and I’m running out of things to do by myself.

Maybe I’ll start an e-commerce site and suck at something that will cost me lots and lots of money. Mmmmm, now that’s a challenge. (just kidding, sweetie).

So, basically, the concept of the day is comparative advantage. I couldn’t find a good definition on the web, but, basically, it means “do what you do best, and leave the other crap to people who do it better than you do.” In my case, I know I’m not so hot at graphic design. I’ve resigned myself to that fact. At work, I don’t try to design products anymore. I’ve given it up to the people who do it. They, on the other hand, don’t know HTML or Tcl or how to put a site together from scratch. That’s what I do well. So, that’s what I do…

I’ve realized that there are two types of people in the world – target=_new people and who don’t mind if someone else comes in and talks for awhile. Unfortunately, I’m a target=_new person…