Snippets and factoids

I foresee a lot of little things being posted. Today is a scatterbrain day and most of my cycles are consumed by The Big Thing.

Nice article on how to spot and respond to political ads that are full of hot air: http://www.factcheck.org/99_fact-free.html
I'm trying to remember the formal name of the logical fallacy involved here, where a person declares himself to be in favor of something when nobody is proposing the (obviously absurd) opposite.

No lunch meet today due to suckful weather and my laziness and also The Big Thing.

I am again considering trying Twitter, in part due to a TidBits article by Adam Engst: http://db.tidbits.com/article/9228

Last night I had to reboot my Linux box and, due to a missing library link, GNOME wouldn't come up. Somehow that caused the box not to be able to reach the network (localhost worked for everything, but no access via any other interface - network unreachable errors). I can't wrap my brain around how a missing graphics library could cause this situation; at the very least it's unforgivably bad design. It reminds me of the old days of working on SGI machines where the graphics rendering pipeline was also the main OS loop so a trivial error in a user program could lock up the whole machine. Once again ariesd to the rescue.

I apologize in advance if I end up cluttering your friends page today.

Snippets and factoids

I foresee a lot of little things being posted. Today is a scatterbrain day and most of my cycles are consumed by The Big Thing.

Nice article on how to spot and respond to political ads that are full of hot air: http://www.factcheck.org/99_fact-free.html
I'm trying to remember the formal name of the logical fallacy involved here, where a person declares himself to be in favor of something when nobody is proposing the (obviously absurd) opposite.

No lunch meet today due to suckful weather and my laziness and also The Big Thing.

I am again considering trying Twitter, in part due to a TidBits article by Adam Engst: http://db.tidbits.com/article/9228

Last night I had to reboot my Linux box and, due to a missing library link, GNOME wouldn't come up. Somehow that caused the box not to be able to reach the network (localhost worked for everything, but no access via any other interface - network unreachable errors). I can't wrap my brain around how a missing graphics library could cause this situation; at the very least it's unforgivably bad design. It reminds me of the old days of working on SGI machines where the graphics rendering pipeline was also the main OS loop so a trivial error in a user program could lock up the whole machine. Once again ariesd to the rescue.

I apologize in advance if I end up cluttering your friends page today.

That Big Thing

Yesterday (Wednesday) I was informed that my company is eliminating the Human Factors/Usability position, which means I'm on the hunt for a new job. The terms were quite generous. The decision was made at the top level of the company and both my boss and grand-boss disagreed with it.

I've updated my resume and will send a copy if you leave me an email - I can also share it as a Google doc. I'm working on my portfolio site, which is woefully out of date, and will reactivate a formal search after that.

The rest, as they say, is details.

( My boss really likes me )

( One option is to try for a lateral move )

( Timing sucks )

As always, leads and pointers appreciated. I am not considering uprooting the family at this point, so I'm looking for local or commutable things.

That Big Thing

Yesterday (Wednesday) I was informed that my company is eliminating the Human Factors/Usability position, which means I'm on the hunt for a new job. The terms were quite generous. The decision was made at the top level of the company and both my boss and grand-boss disagreed with it.

I've updated my resume and will send a copy if you leave me an email - I can also share it as a Google doc. I'm working on my portfolio site, which is woefully out of date, and will reactivate a formal search after that.

The rest, as they say, is details.

( My boss really likes me )

( One option is to try for a lateral move )

( Timing sucks )

As always, leads and pointers appreciated. I am not considering uprooting the family at this point, so I'm looking for local or commutable things.